Xbox One

Why do you think it's fair, that's the issue at hand. If you own something, truly own it, you have all rights (within legality) associated with owning something. You can destroy it, resell it, do whatever the heck you want with it. If you don't own something but are instead just given the "privilege" of using it you as a customer have less rights. How is having less rights "perfectly fair". I'm not saying that when you license something the punch you in the face. It's not an extreme violation of human rights or anything like that but in a basic sense consumers have less rights for licensed things. What exactly is the tradeoff in your mind for less rights? What advantage to you see in not actually owning something versus just being able to use it?

And, "because that's how it is", it isn't. That's what this argument is about. We aren't talking about steam games or software in general. We're talking about physical games. And even if I was talking about software in general, even though it isn't the case, I still believe digital property should count as property. Why is a software program any different than a toaster in a sense of ownership? I own the toaster and it serves some function, just because the program is digital doesn't mean I shouldn't have rights to use the program how I want to use it (this is the whole argument behind modding by the way, something I'm sure you're behind.)

Lastly, "I'm ignoring all the arguments that aren't directed at me"...what the hell is that? Just because something doesn't personally apply to you the argument isn't valid? Well I don't have cancer so all those people that do are just a bunch of whiners. (overly dramatic hyperbole of your statement).

...yeah glossing over a detailed argument because you "sort of" mentioned it but didn't explain the ramifications of it doesn't count as a defense. "Well I said a couple keywords, guess we don't need to go into that topic". This isn't a localized issue. The idea of licensing software so the consumer only has whatever rights their licensing agreement gives them is global. As I said before, what's the difference between any physical property someone has ever sold you (and I'm assuming at some point in your life you bought something used from somebody) and a piece of software that you use on a computer other than the nature of one being digital and the other not. Does Hoover deserve a % of every used vacuum sale? Does [insert book publisher] deserve a % of the sale of some book you sold to a friend or through eBay? If you think the answers to these two questions are yes then we have a fundamental stalemate as you think the concept of licensing should be applied to everything.

Not many modern games don't have DLC, at least xbox or playstation games (which, again is what this is mostly about. I have a suspicion you keep thinking this is about steam or PC games, and even if it was, it doesn't change the fundamental issue).

What's a "good dilemma"? Again you haven't exactly stated the positives of licensing that you couldn't also get if you just owned the property. I'm naming specific examples that hurt your case such is the way arguments go. If there exists any bad dilemmas than that is obviously worse than something that does not have them, correct? And please, if you weren't referring to GameStop then what exactly are you referring to. Used games can be sold at yardsales, over ebay, etc. Do you have an issue with anyone selling back a game and buying that game?

Why is it not a right, because you (the company) say it isn't? Ok, now wearing a red shirt is illegal. You no longer have the right to wear a red shirt. Guess any argument asking why we can't wear a red shirt is moot because "we don't have the right". That's what it sounds like when you say "we don't have the right". Itunes enforces DRM on all its music and they are universally disliked for that policy. Amazon, Rhapsody, any service that allows you to buy normal mp3 allows you to do what you want with the music you buy (again, within copyright legal limits). So Itunes isn't exactly the best example to use when comparing policies. Their policy is bad and a lot of people think so, so saying we should be more like iTunes would not be a popular idea.

Copyright law stops them dread. It is illegal to make an exact copy of anything and try to resell it, the same goes for a shoe, chair, etc. People go to jail over trying to sell knock of products. Do people break copyright law and do it anyway, sure but that isn't the point. We aren't arguing over illegal practices, we're arguing over customer rights of ownership and what objects should or should not be given those rights. I won't argue that digital media isn't easier to reproduce and then resell because it is, but just because it is easier doesn't make the policy any less right. It creates a tradeoff between the people making the software and the people using it.

See, I brought this up before and you flat out ignored it. Do you think all objects deserve this same philosophy. Do you think Maytag deserves a % of the money from a used dish washer sale? Why is it just publishers who deserve money a second time. And that last bit is completely speculative, you don't know that the person buying a used game will spend any less time with it than the original owner.

That first part is your opinion, I feel it is wrong but whatever, if you think third party people (and that includes literally anyone, not just large retailers) don't deserve any money from resale of games, fine.

Why shouldn't I consider something to be a customer unfriendly policy "simply because it does not provide a certain convenience for customers"...I'm pretty sure that's the definition of such. Offering a warranty for something you buy in case of it breaking isn't a mandatory thing the retailer has to do. They do it because it is a friendly consumer policy. It considers the needs of the consumer and understands that sometimes things happen out of their control. The warranty is often not the same price as a new version of whatever that product is so the store (and by extension the company who made the product) makes a loss every time the warranty is actually used (they make it up in offering the warranty to everyone so more people pay that extra cost who don't end up breaking it).

So yes, customer convenience counts in a discussion about consumer friendly policies. If I'm selling software that has so many restrictions to when you can use it than I've made a consumer unfriendly product.

Your counter example is just stupid. A "friendly" consumer policy isn't an unreasonable demand for service the company cannot offer. I don't demand a gold brick with the sale of every video game and to not get one would be bad customer relations. Friendly simply means it gives the consumer more power over the object they own with less restriction from the one selling it or creating it. That's all it means. A rebate is another example of a good consumer policy. Rebates are not mandatory things, companies do them because the people who decide to use them might be happier with that product maker and use their services in the future (since they got what they wanted but for less money), and the people who don't use them still get the product they wanted and the company made more money out of it.

That last bit made no sense at all and you keep making this argument from the stance of "well customers have no rights to begin with". Why do you think that's ok or beyond arguing?

 

No one's saying anything should be universal. Games like WoW which are subscription based are different than games like BioShock Infinity. But games that enforce a DRM policy where it isn't required are generally disliked (or at least the policy is). There's a reason why SimCity, StarCraft 2, and Diablo III got so much negative feedback for their policies and it isn't "gamer entitlement" (I hate that phrase so much because it assumes an unreasonable demand of service).

Why isn't it up for us to decide? Are consumers sheep in your mind? Who must follow whatever provisions the company stipulates? What if the publishers decided to charge $100 all of a sudden with no warning. It's their product right? Consumer opinion matters and it is what drives us to buy some products over others. A company that offers less restrictions over its products will get more favorable business than companies that put up more restrictions. The only time this isn't so is when the company that puts up more restrictions has some major tradeoff going for it. Such as Verizon having the most coverage in the United States yet have a terrible record with consumer policies (hidden fees, data limits, expansive plans and maze like support). People put up with all that because companies that have less restrictions also have lesser service.

As far as Gamestop goes, again, I don't support their policy of giving store credit or a tiny amount of money for resale of games. Having said that, I support them much more than the publisher who doesn't realize charging $60 for your game well after it shouldn't cost that anymore is wrong. Why is selling a game for 50%-90% less, more greedy? Gamestop only makes 2 dollars off the sale of a new game (plus tax). And as I said before, Gamestop is not the only used game market. Ebay, Craigslist, your friends, anyone who sells a game is an avenue for used games and none of them will be "participating retailers".

As a person who rarely buys $60 games, being able to buy it digitally is a meh for me. I realize the convenience of that is good, and I support that, I think it's a correct move to make, but since I don't buy new games very often it doesn't personally affect me all that much.

 

I don't need to respond to counter points to points I never made. That is why I have ignored a large amount of your post. If they were actual points, I would consider them, but they aren't, they're all counter points. Hence you aren't arguing against me, you're arguing against someone else who supports a similar view.

And as I said before. You don't own the game. The developer owns the game. You own a copy which acts as a license for the game.
What do don't seem to understand is that people weren't given these rights with digital media to begin with. They aren't people's rights, people are just taking them as if they are.


And if you're talking about "oh we can gloss over a subject because you mentioned a key word" what the hell do you think mentioning a random article for one sentence is?
If you really want a counter that badly, you don't actually buy the game. You buy a license to the game in the form of a copy of it.

It is obvious that you don't buy every right of the game. The game is someone else's content. Physical products like hoovers are functional and perform utilities. Entertainment such as music or videogames are not entirely based in their physicality - a hoover, to anyone who knows how to use it, is a hoover. It may be slightly better than other hoovers, or a different colour or shape, but there is nothing else to it. A game, book or music has different meanings to different people. These types of products are, for the lack of a better word, 'art forms'. The reason I don't believe you should be entitled to resale is because it is a potential for the artist to profit. In the case of physical products, the companies that use to own products shut down, there are often large areas with no retail coverage, etc. It's my opinion that with this kind of situation where both a first hand and a second hand seller are available, the first hand sale should be made and it should be at least preferred for the money to go to the developer.
Hoovers also get damaged, and break. You don't buy a ten year old heavily used broken-looking hoover because it's probably broken. You're far more likely to buy it first hand anyway.

A bad dilemma, also known as a false dilemma, is when you assume the things you have thought of are the only possibilities. In this case, you assumed I meant something I didn't because it was the only possible conclusion that you thought of.
E.g.
"He mentioned gamestop and no other companies" > "He must hate gamestop"

As for you complaining that I said it isn't a right, you said "It hasn't been like that before it shouldn't be now"
Alright, if red shirts had always been illegal, I guess you couldn't argue it because it's always been like that.

I flat out ignored what? When?

And that was mostly exaggeration - but my point is that there are rights of the game that start with the company, and it is the company's right to redistribute.
I don't see any problem with a developer limiting a game for second hand. If they wanted, they could restrict the entire game, which would obviously harm their sales. What a publisher or developer tries to do when they restrict multiplayer (for example) is discourage used sales.

 

I don't support the resale of digital goods that are available from a first hand source.
I think where possible, the initial developer should profit.

I think that it is the right of the developer to profit from their game's sales.

It's a grey area at the point that you stop being able to play the album, but at a point it will be considered copyright infringement. An example is how buying an album doesn't give you the ability to play it over the radio.
The similarity is that the physical copy is simply a medium for the digital copy.
A used game disk has no little to no loss in quality (in terms of gradual degradation - it doesn't get laggier or lower definition as people use it, it can break but that's not a gradual degradation, once the game breaks it is broken and you do not resell it), unlike physical products, and so a cheaper sale of a used game usually means the consumer buys it second hand. This is much more likely the case than a purely physical product, whereby the product actually loses quality as it is used.

I agree with the majority of this but I do not agree that customers inherently have the right to sell their license.

 

What does it matter and what points are you referring to? Everything I said is relevant to the case you're making, whether you choose to ignore certain bits of it or not doesn't make what I said any less valid as an argument. If you agree with things I'm saying, say so. Ignoring them gives the impression you either don't have a response to them or disagree.

You keep saying that. We do own the game. People own their games right now. We aren't talking about PC games for the billionth time. I own every single 360 game I've bought. This whole argument is about a change in policy. You can't argue from the standpoint of "people don't have rights to begin with" when we did. You keep trivializing every point I'm making by going back to this lazy cop out of an argument. Yes, some software requires a license and the fact that it does, in my opinion is wrong. So then comparing that wrong policy to a new one doesn't make the new one better. You keep saying the same thing without any better reasoning for it.

It's like talking to a wall only capable of responding to every argument with the same "you have no rights" response. Why can't I argue why that's wrong? Why must that be just "how it is"? As I've stated numerous times now, at what point in just "accepting it" do you draw the line as a consumer? Never? Because by your logic the publisher has every right to with their product what they want whether that is selling it for 200% of the old price, cutting off features for it, etc and the consumer has no recourse of action because "they have no rights".

That was a very flimsy explanation of the difference between mediums. A program has a "function and performs utilities" as well and a physical product is "someone else's content". Someone invented that vacuum cleaner to be used by other people the same way a game developer made their product to be used by others. The only difference is the distribution method, digital versus physical. And even that isn't true all the time. A printer has a digital aspect to it as well as you can get drivers and software plugins for a printer online yet you bought the physical printer at store, the same way you can buy physical games a store. Even within your comparison of entertainment, books, albums, cds, movies, all can be resold. Different countries might throw up rules to that resale but it's not universal to just say all entertainment works through licenses. As far as your interpretation of "art" goes, anything and everything can be considered art to someone. That's not an excuse to limit consumer rights because you think the developers deserve every single penny and like I said before THEY DON'T DIRECTLY GET THE MONEY FROM EVERY COPY SOLD. The publisher does. There are not many retail indie games where a developer self published. The same way the artist doesn't get 100% of the money from every CD sold, the music label does. Whether the game sells no copies or a billion copies the developers make the same salary regardless. You aren't supporting them more or less by buying more or less used games. Indirectly, if the game sells well the publisher might give the developer a bonus if it reaches certain milestones or they might be inclined to give that developer more work but those aren't guarantees and more often than not the publisher will fire employees or close down studios after heavy development to cut costs. This is who your money is going to.

I assumed a scenario based on a very common belief people express whenever they have a problem with used games. It's usually because they have a problem with GameStop. Nothing I've said is a "false dilemma" they are all valid points regardless if they personally have to do with what you believe. This goes back to you ignoring things I'm saying just because they might not have been directly brought up by you. Who cares if you brought it up or not, I'm still bringing it up in the argument and ignoring it means you either have no response to it or disagree.

What? "I guess you couldn't argue it because it's always been like that"? My point was they weren't always like that, neither is the thing we're arguing about now. I made up an arbitrary rule that by your logic everyone should be just fine with because that was the rule that was created. It completely ignores the morality of the rule or whether or not that rule is justified. Anyone can make a rule, saying people aren't allowed to argue it because "that is how it is" is a cop out of an argument. It ignores any points anyone can give if you refuse the premise from the beginning.

Every time I asked you a question on whether you think other companies deserve a % of the sale of any used object you ignored it. You sort of gave a response toward it when you said hoovers are different than entertainment a few paragraphs up here but multiple times throughout my statements I have directly asked you if you would be fine if everything you owned was licensed to you. Or how much money it would take before you wouldn't find the deal "perfectly fair". If games were now $100 would you be fine with that just because the consumer has no right to argue whether that's a fair price or not?

You also just ignored my points about copyright law and your comparison with the unpopular iTunes DRM, and a whole lot of things, but I guess you don't have to respond point by point like I am doing but then you can't claim you aren't ignoring things I'm saying if you don't respond to them.

Again, it's not the developer, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT CONSOLE GAMES. I think you're so used to steam's unpopular system (people only tolerate this because of the sheer amount of cheap games available on steam, if console games weren't $60 there would be less of an issue as well) that it's affected your viewpoint on this. Very very very few developers self publish console games. Every time you say developer I want to smack you because it gives the impression that you think your money goes to the people making the game when you buy a game. It doesn't. The game could have sold 0 copies and the developers would have made the same amount of money.

I mean...are any of my examples of "friendly consumer policies" sinking in with you? Do you think warranties, rebates and their ilk are entitlements that harm the company in some way?

 

Great, guess I'm not catching up on this thread ever again.

 

Xbox One needs to connect once a day to confirm that you own your games (or once an hour if you're playing on a different Xbox). If you can't make that connection your Xbox won't be able to play games until it does make a connection.

Microsoft's used game policy is essentially a license agreement (what dread and I have been arguing about). You can only trade/resell your game to "participating retailers" who have agreed to Microsoft's system. Once you go to one, the license is removed from your Xbox and put back into the system as an unbought game. From this point, Microsoft gave the keys to the publishers snd they have full power to do what they want with that game. Charge a fee, refuse to even offer it once it was bought the first time, etc. This means no more buying games off of friends, eBay, Craigslist, garage/yard sale, or expo. Anywhere where it is impossible to go through Microsoft licensing system.

Microsofts lending policy is you can only give a friend a game once, and only if they have been on your friends list for at least 30 days. It isn't clear yet if that person can give the game back or if this is basically the same as "gifting" the game to someone, in which case borrowing/lending games is gone.

Services like redbox or gamefly will not work with the Xbox One at launch.

Good news: You don't need a disc to play any of your games once downloaded (and it's not a choice, games must install themselves once put into the console)

Up to 10 "family" members can play any of your "shared library" of games

You can throw a towel around the kinect if its always on-ness bothers you

There, you're all caught up.

 

The kinect can actually be turned off completely while the system is off, if you wish.

 

is pacmonster vehemently defending microsoft again?
im not up for reading allllll that nonsense.

xbox one doesnt attract me. its big and ugly and they havent added anything to justify xbox live being a paid service, also **** having to have a kinect, i dont want any more peripherals.
they havent dropped all the details on the ps4, so ill wait until then to see which i'll get, if any.

 

I don't think that is what he means. You've written a big part just there, and went in discussion with Draco. It happens all the time, a discussion between 2 or 3 persons, and the rest just wanders off. Still, QKT, Pacmonster "defends" his opinion. There is nothing wrong with that, you might have another opinion about Microsoft.. Doesn't mean you are right though.

 

Actually the opposite and screw you. No one's forcing you to read ****. Also what does again mean? I defended halo 4's developers months before halo 4 came out, not Microsoft.

And to SP, this is a discussion thread, this isn't twitter. I can go into as little or more depth in my posts as I want. I was having an argument with dread that no one else has to spend the time reading if they don't want to but since its all relative to this thread it deserves to be here.

Since all the announced Microsoft policies take longer than 10 words to explain I explained it all as concisely as I could and I realize zombie was being sarcastic.

 

I'd make another thread for it AnotherClaymore. Separate Xbox One specific banter from what is revealed at E3 regarding games, xbox live specific announcements, etc.


@Furry, concise means using as few words as possible to explain something without changing the meaning. Since Microsoft's announced policies are several paragraphs long each on the site they posted them on and in tech articles and I summed them up in a paragraph or sentence each, which is concise. If I said any less I wouldn't have covered everything or given it proper context. People want to get off my back yet?

Do a helpful thing to get people who don't want to read the large argument posts caught up on the discussion and get **** for it.

 

well, all I can draw from this is that Halo (or any other "Xbox one" exclusive) is not worth this new shitfest policy with the Xbox one

I'm not going to pay money for something so purposely limited.

 

There's a difference between being concise and talking in circles. You're not the only one guilty of it though.

 

So the final price is $499 in the US? Guess that's about what I expected. Can't say purchasing this is either financially feasible or rationally necessary, so I'll probably wait a good 2 years before I even think about it. Sucks that I'll probably miss the new Halo/maybe the new battlefront, but so it goes. Not a huge loss so far considering the 360 will probably still be strong for at least another two years, would be my guess.

Q: Is there anyone here who's preordering/buying it as soon as it comes out?

 

No way.

 

...I didn't do that. Did you read the post you're critisizing or just assuming I went in circles because of its length? Talking about my recap of Microsoft's policies not the arguments with dread. There was a lot of talking in circles in those posts because dread kept using the same one argument to counter each different one of mine.

@erico, no, I won't be buying the Xbox one any time soon

 

It will be a cold day in hell before I buy the Xbone. I'm either getting a PS4 (if they don't piss me off any time soon) or just making the full shift to pc gaming.