There is no longer any point shopping for a game in a physical store. Every game you can get in a physical store's first requirement is "an internet connection". If your very lucky the internet connection is "just for authentication" but if your buying a steam game, this is not true. Every Steam games default first action is to download the game online. You can't proceed until you have downloaded the latest version and this is pretty routinely a 2 to 3gb download for most games.
What modern games companies do, is give us as little as possible whilst hoovering money out of our pockets as much as possible. Microsoft, in their live program, don't even grant you rights to the software, they grant you a licence to load the software into memory, under the licence terms to use the software for a particular period post paying for the game. So, in the very worst cases (Microsoft win) your literally paying for your own time spent playing the game.
Imagine if you bought a house and you never owned it, but it evaluated out to an less expensive rental. This is what's happening with modern commercial game software. We are paying, over and over and over for the right to interact with them.
Imagine you want to mow your lawn, and you don't want to pay for a gardener so you buy the tools necessary. If these tools where software, they would have a 'property of BOSH' stamped on them and some 'this tool may only be used in these conditions', the tool would come with a watcher and the tool might be taken away at any moment by the real 'owner' when they deemed fit. Maybe we where spoiled in the past with property and ownership, but I feel more the case we have sold our rights to own things for a pittance and the immediate need to play.
We are paying for nothing (possibly the plastic the DVD/CD is burned on, but that's useless because we don't own the specific pattern burned any longer). With software, it used to be (I am old yes) that you paid for the right to own the piece of code in question to use as you saw fit (or as required). It did come with the condition that you could not re-sell it, and that is only fair on the software vendor who needed to make a reasonable amount for their work so needed this control (not make money continually for nothing after the initial effort, from, and here's the key thing profiting again from people who have already paid for the game).
Now, when you "buy" a game, you have very little in the way of rights. We sold our rights a long time ago because children where the ones buying the games and all they care about or understand is "now". It used to be adults would be the ones buying games for children and they would think about "what am I buying". Though even most adults have implicitly accepted this software slavery system.
Well, I won't rant here about the wrongs without saying what is right to balance it:
What paying for software should be:
- You should get the right to own the original binary code for the game and be able to use it for yourself in an unrestricted manor as long as you own the software, in any way you choose (excepting the reasonable restriction that its only used by one person per purchase)
- You should have the right to customise the software in any way chosen (unless the customisation of the software affects other customers use / enjoyment of the software also)
- You should be unrestricted in the use of the software (you should not be forced to consult another party [such as make an internet connection] to be able to use the software, *excepting and only for the legitimate control of the proliferation of the software)
- You should be encouraging friends and neighbours who enjoy or play the game with you to buy their own copy (not be giving away your copy, for whilst it should indeed be your right to choose to do that, its just wrong to defraud the maker of a sale).
- You should never, ever, have to re-pay for software you already bought. This must include when a system is a true 'upgrade', that is the system contains binary recognisable components of existing software. It should be illegal, to tack a small feature onto a product and resell the whole product at full value to existing users. The new feature could cost as much as the original product, this would not be at issue, what is at issue is any way in which someone re-pays for binary images they already paid for once.
I myself sell software, and software that I create. I stick to the above because its what is right and fair. It allows me to make a small profit from my efforts but also means other receive proper value for what they pay for.
There is a tiny edge case here, in the form of when software if bought would be so prohibitively expensive for an individual to buy (for the creator to necessarily recoup their expenditure) that vending the software does indeed warrant selling access to the software in the initial case.
This is why I don't strictly object to a 'pay for access' solution all together. Sometimes it can be justified, but very infrequently. Even when its justified, there should be laws insisting that once the creating company can prove they have made the target profit amount (which should never be more than 3 times its cost to make) that they must then by law move to a vending mode (where it applies the above rules).
The problem of course, is that, the current ability to rip people off blind under law is attracting big companies to the table, this is creating a lot of work for ordinary people (as well as astronomic profits for companies) so there is a definite economic incentive for the current trend to continue *sigh*.
I just hate the way so much of humanity is about 'getting mine' over 'doing what's right'. I don't mind and even wish for people to get what they will and wish for, but just not at the expense of others rights or abilities to get their own. Repaying for what should be owned is one way I hate.
