I mean, think about how much money gamestop would make selling used games due to jackassery.


Person A: Buys game New on launch for 60 bucks, buys it... installs it, uses No-crack CD. Goes to game stop the second day after release... sells it to game stop for 40.

Gamestop sells it day 3 for 55 dollars to someone who takes it home, cracks it, brings it back, sells it for 35... etc.

Rather rinse repeat... and yes people would do that rather then just pirate it... just to make sure they were getting a legit copy with no viruses.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly why PC games fell out of the used market.

Between that and the subsequent attempts to prevent this from happening, the used PC game market was essentially buried.

Steam really only continues that established trend, barring wacky cases of people selling reg codes online.

Personally, I kind of liked it when disk checks were the standard in PC DRM, but clearly it was abused by too many for it to remain effective.

Since then, used PC games more or less have no resale value.

Yes Steam is preferable to buying a retail copy that you are forced to register online anyway. I didn't say otherwise. What I am saying though is that Steam doesn't get a free pass just because it's less evil than the status quo. Believe it or not, there are still DRM-free games out there without even a disc check. And EA has went back to using the old standard disc check DRM instead of the install limit crap after they got all that shit from Spore (disc checks I can live with. I could live with that even without a NO CD crack. I live with the disc checks all the time when playing on my 360 since that isn't modded. But when there's a NO-CD crack available for a game on PC, I'll download it to convenience myself and so I can just keep the disc stored away). If you want to do things legit, Steam is preferable to this install limit and online registration crap. But gamers have other options than that: Piracy. And if the torrents stats are any indication, many PC gamers are going with that option and telling the PC game publishers to go fuck themselves for treating gamers like shit (and rightfully so).

Personally I like the idea of having actual property that I can sell if needed. Even if doing so many be illegal according to the EULA, people are openly doing it on ebay and amazon marketplace. It's not an issue. Game publishers seem to bitch a lot more about the used console game market than they do the used PC game market (I never hear any bitching about the latter).

The whole discs getting wrecked thing, it's not an issue with me. I've never once had a game disc wrecked under my care. A friend of mine who borrowed one of my games wrecked the game but that's because he's an idiot. Maybe if I had small children in the house that would be a concern. And you don't have to worry about the disc wearing down if you play off the hard drive. If you install a game fully to the hard drive, the disc is only required to check to see that you are indeed playing a legitimate copy. Everything else is run off the hard drive.

My hope is that console gaming doesn't turn towards the business models implemented in PC gaming these days. I have faith that console gamers will reject full-blown DD though. The console gaming culture is different from PC gaming culture. There will be riots if used games and rentals were phased out on consoles.

I'm just saying... your defending the ability to do something illegal.

This is the case, becuase companies know people like you will just take the illegal routes while most people won't... nobody will complain and they can keep expanding.

Steam isn't any worse then any game out their by now more or less... in fact it's better as you've recently admitted.

It's not even JUST EULAs that make selling used PC games illegal.  It's just the easiest one you can point to.

Your like someone who smokes pot even though it's illegal.  It's not as bad as beer, probably shouldn' be illegal, but it can stay illegal because the 5 million or so people who regularly use the drug have easy access to the illegal product, rather then actually fighting for their rights.

I didn't say that Steam isn't any worse than any game out there by now. It's less worse than the status quo. But believe it or not, you do have DRM-free games (disc check free too even) getting released. In fact the whole DRM-free thing seems to be making a resurgence. There seems to be more disc check-free games now than say 10 years ago. And like I said, EA backpeddaled on their DRM (getting rid of install activations and going back to the old disc check methods). Steam is far from the best solution out there.

Good analogy with the pot. Yeah sure what I'm doing is illegal. But I don't give a shit. My government doesn't give two shits about me. So I don't give a shit about their laws. Fair deal. If a person wants to take a bong hit, they'll take a bong hit. If I don't want to put up with shitty DRM, I'm gonna crack or pirate it if possible. And just like how pot smokers preach marijuana legalization, I preach for the defense of consumer rights. Why are you so obsessed about illegalities? You've never done anything illegal in your life? Almost everyone regularly commits illegal acts. That's just the reality.