mtu9356 said:
The price of song and books are significantly cheaper than a new game. Also, you have the option to go out and buy a physical disc or book then lend/sell it as you please. Last time I checked you don't have to go online to ask Apple permission to listen to a song or read a book. People don't mind Steam because of the sales it offers (why would you need to resell a game you can get for less than 10$?). Also, there are dozens if not hundreds of other sources you can buy digital games. And many games don't come with drm. |
You're absolutely right that you can buy physical discs or books that you can lend and sell freely, and I while I don't have a problem with the X1 requiring an internet connection, I would certainly like to see its online restrictions relaxed (for example, I'd like to see a renting system put in place so that Gamefly can stock X1 games. Also, I'd like the time allowed between verifications extended to several days, if not a whole week). As for the price of books and songs, it certainly does make restrictions on Kindle or iTunes more palatable for people, but it isn't really relevant to the discussion of consumer rights. If Apple and Kindle get a pass on not allowing you to sell or trade digital books and songs as freely as you can with physical versions just because they don't cost much, then by that logic Microsoft should get a pass on its restrictions if they start offering huge sales on Xbox One games (and for the record, there ARE already some great deals to be had on Xbox Live; just recently I picked up a digital copy of Alan Wake off of the Marketplace for $5, when the standard price is $30!).
The same logic applies to Steam sales. You're right that the great sales on Steam help make the DRM more palatable for customers, and I'm hoping that Microsoft and publishers will take advantage of the Xbox Live as a digital platform to introduce plenty of sales for Xbox One. But using Steam sales as a justification passes by the concerns surrounding consumer rights. Steam gets a pass on allegedly violating consumer rights and on implementing awful, no good, must be defeated DRM because it allows games to be cheaper. By that logic, if Microsoft offers lots of huge deals on Xbox One games, they should be given a pass on DRM as well.
My point in bringing up Steam, iTunes, and Kindle is that none of these services allow you to own the products you get licences for, all of them have various restrictions, and yet despite the fact that there are other places to get the same products with less restrictions, these services still thrive and are not considered by most people to be a grave threat to their respective industries. The best we can tell, Sony will not mandate online requirements for all games or restrictions on selling, loaning, or giving away your games like Microsoft has (though the latest rumor we heard about the PS4 was that Sony would let publishers do exactly that with their own, individual games if they want), which means that you WILL be able to find digital and physical versions of console games without any DRM, just as you can find digital and physical versions of PC games (which includes most console games) without DRM. Xbox and Playstation and Nintendo and and Steam and GOG: all are platforms that offer games with varying amounts of DRM, or no DRM at all (some of them just have dedicated hardware which can only access their own platform; interestingly enough, the Steambox is likely to be just that for Valve, though of course you will still probably be able to just use a PC). All of them can coexist, just as bookstores and CD stores coexist with Kindle and iTunes.
Well, they can coexist until the all-digital age arrives, anyway. My hope is that by the time that arrives, publishers and platform-holders will have learned enough through processes like what Steam has gone through (and now Microsoft) to figure out how to implement all-digital in a way that offers as much freedom and as many luxuries to the consumer as possible while still avoiding piracy.
