🚀 go-pugleaf

"L. Ross Raszewski" <lrasz...@loyola.edu> wrote in message 
news:MagJh.1994$vV3.1407@trndny09...
| On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:23:57 +0000, pc games <pcgame...@yahoo.com> 
wrote:
| >We know PIRATES are extremely damaging for PC Games cause they steal
| >PC Games and by doing that reduce the so needed income developers need
| >to stay in business and create more games.
| >But are pirates the only ones that reduce sales and reduce income of
| >developers?
| >
| >Let me give you 3 example of "fictional" PC Gamers called "John",
| >"James" and "Jim"
| >
| >"John" story
| >John enjoys very much PC Games, he buys them all, one day a friend of
| >his asked him to lend him a game he has cause he enjoyed very much the
| >demo and he accepted it.
| >By lending his game to a friend "John" reduced that games sale by one
| >unit cause his friend should have instead bought his own unit
| >
| >"James" story
| >James enjoys very much PC Games, he buys them all, but one day he
| >decided to try out the 2nd hand market in one of his games in which he
| >already made a backup for himself, so he sold one of his games in the
| >used 2nd hand market to another PC Gamer
| >By selling in the used 2nd hand "James" reduced that games sale by one
| >unit cause the buyer should have instead bought it new
|
|
| "should have"?  What does that even mean?  What sort of moral
| imperative does *the buyer* (not James -- he didn't destroy his
| backup, so he has almost certainly violated the licensing agreement)
| have to buy it new?
|
| If I buy a used car, am I depriving the car company of sales because I
| didn't buy it new?  Of course I am, but would anyone in their right
| mind say that I "should have" bought new, that I have vbiolated some
| ethical or legal code?
|
| In fact, you hurt the gaming industry whenever you fail to buy a game
| because you don't think you'll like it, or when you only buy one copy
| of a game because you only need one.
|
| Scenario 4:
|
| Jules wants a copy of PC Game, but he's a little short on cash.  So he
| waits 6 months until he finds a copy of the game in the Bargain Bin
| for a fraction of the original cost.  The gaming industry is hurt
| because he was able to get full enjhoyment out of the game at a
| fraction of the cost. He should have bought it at full price.
|
|
| In no other field (I mean ,except music and movies) is what one
| "ought" to ponly up so speciously linked to unquantifyable notions
| like usage and enjoyment.  There's a prevailing attitude that "You
| should not get the enjoyment of the game unless you pay for it".  It
| would be insane to make that sort of claim in the same way about other
| things -- I'm depriving the sofa industry of its profits if I let
| other people sit on my Incredibly Comby Sofa?
|
| There is clearly a difference in the (egregiously misnamed)
| "intellectual property" from the other sort -- the nonexclusivity
| changes how the models have to work.  But linking it to some sort of
| moralistic "You should pay for the pleasure you get" *undermines that
| very point*.  If "intellectual property" is property, then I as the
| buyer can *do with it as I wish*  The seller has NO RIGHTS TO IT AT
| ALL once the money has changed hands.  I can copy it, resell it, play
| frisbee with it, take it apart to see how it works ,whatever.  That's
| fine by me.
|
| If Intellectual Property *isn't* property, if it's something like a
| service, that's fine by me too.  It behaves according to a different,
| but still valid set of rules.It's nonexclusive, which means that my
| having it doesn't mean others can't have it at the same time.  I may
| have to buy the same service more than once.  I have certain rights of
| recompense if I don't like how the service as performed.  And you can
| not steal a service that hasn't been performed. I don't rob my barber
| if I cut my own hair.  I don't rob my mechanic when I change my own oil.
|
|
| This is not an issue about "Who's hurting the gaming industry".  We
| don't have any responsibility to take care of the gaming industry.
| We're not robbing them of sales -- THOSE SALES DO NOT EXIST TO BE
| STOLEN.  If they're not selling, it is because *they have failed* to
| compell people to buy.
|
| In none of these examples has the person involved "hurt the game
| industry" in a way fundamentally different than I hurt the game
| industry because I decide I do not want to buy a particular game (or
| because I decide to boycott it altogether).  SO sure, everyone hurts
| the industry, because no one buys every game.  But when you try to
| make up examples singling out particular classes of the industry
| failed to profit based on this whole idea of "The game industry didn't
| make any money off you, but you had fun anyway", you're trying to say
| that the industry is in the business of selling *fun* -- that's a
| service.  And taking it without permission is not unlike sneaking into
| an amusement park (I don't think anyone would call that stealing,
| though they also wouldn't say it's legal).  So fine, it's a service.
| It's not a product. Services can't be copyrighted.

Very valid points there, but I have to point out something that bugs the 
crap out of me...  Time and time again I see people falling into a 
comparison betwen the 2nd hand software market and buying a used car, and it 
really needs to stop.  There is very little logical comparison between the 
2...

A car costs a LOT of money...  Part of the reason for that cost?  It is a 
known fact that it will be resold later, so some of the "lost revenue" from 
the used car market is recouped in the initial sale.  A car has a 
substantial lifespan of years, not just hours.  A car requires ongoing costs 
for maintenance and repairs.  And you can't just go and copy a car to give 
to your friend, while keeping the original in your driveway...  The list 
goes on and on.  Completely apples & oranges.

Second-hand and bargain sales for software is fine in my book.  If nothing 
else, it will likely expose new people to gaming experiences that can lead 
to future sales (sequels, new titles by that publisher, etc).  And let's 
face it, we've probably all had that game that was not a "must-have" but 
looked interesting - then later it was there in the bargain bin, and 
couldn't be passed up...  Let's face it, when a title is in the bargain bin, 
it was either a complete dog, or it has been on the shelves a while, which 
means it is less than new technology/performance/etc.  At that point in the 
life of a software title, any sales are better than stagnation.  A whole 
bunch of bargain copies of a game still constitute revenue for the 
publisher, as well as ticks in the units sold column, so everybody wins... 
Just not as big, in the case of the publisher.

CoinSpin