NJ5 said:
wfz said:
NJ5 said:
wfz said:
This is...worrisome news. At first it sounds amazing for consumers, but I'm sure there are going to be serious reprimands from publishers who do not appreciate this ruling.
I'm not sure of the exact legal differences between holding a digital license and a physical copy, but one thing I do know is that digital licenses never wear down or expire. You could have the same copy sold 200 years from now if someone wanted it, and it'd be just like brand new. That kind of destroys the sales of digital goods, don't you think?
Does this apply to games only, or would someone be able to sell their iTunes music? |
You have that quite backwards. The fact that digital copies don't wear out is a plus for their value, and therefore is a plus for the publishers who sell them.
Now the publishers that sell titles which lose their replay value after a few hours of play, they should worry, because people might realize quicker that those titles don't have much monetary value. But that's the way it should be, and those publishers should not be protected from this reality...
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How is that positive for publishers? What they care about is money. If their product never loses value, then the only positive gain for them would be being able to sell that product at a higher price point since it doesn't lose value.
But publishers probably can't get away with pricing their games much higher than they are now. Considering many gamers will set up huge systems of trading games to share amongst each other rather than buying new copies, I fail to see how this is positive at all for publishers. Please enlighten me. :P
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I'm going to make an analogy...
Imagine a car maker invented a car that doesn't need maintenance and lasts forever (and which you can resell). Wouldn't you pay more for this car than for a car that degrades with time or a car you can't resell?
Why wouldn't this be the case for games? Steam / PSN / etc. games are not always sold for 60 € btw...
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Not everyone can pay that larger upfront price, even if they wanted to buy the game and keep it forever. This simple reason is why we have month payment options for expensive devices such as phones and now video game consoles (360). Are they going to start offering monthly payment options for consumers who can't put up that higher cost up front?
Those consumers simply will not buy the product and instead will buy it cheaper second-hand (as there is absolutely NO detriment to buying second-hand, you don't have to worry about defects/bumps/scratches/wearing parts/etc). This is destroying your consumer base for profitability...
