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| [Feb 11, 2011, 10:12 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
A story on Rock, Paper, Shotgun that's been picked up in many other places, states that a near-final build of Crysis 2 has been leaked onto torrent sites, saying this also includes a "master key for the online authentication" of the game.
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| 79. |
Re: Crysis 2 Crisis: Game and Key Leaked? |
Feb 12, 2011, 14:08 |
Beamer |
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This is why music has gone to "downloading / selling single songs" instead of ramming a crappy album down your throat that has 2-3 good songs and 7+ crap songs.
You think that's why?
Really? You think this was done for consumer benefit?
Hardly. It was done because it makes people spend more. At $9.99-$16.99 albums aren't exactly an impulse purchase. At $.99 they are. So people are spending more money, much more in fact, but spending it in smaller chunks. Absolutely no part of this pricing decision was "oh, consumers prefer this" it was instead "oh, we get more money from people this way!"
Why is software non-returnable? Because it gets installed. There's no way to tell who installed it and brought it back to get a free version. Contrary to popular belief developers aren't hugely concerned by this. B&M places are. It's a huge hassle for them. Steam may some day fix this, as not only is it not much of a hassle, they can also track your usage. As the other fear is that someone buys a game, plays the shit out of it and returns it when they finish Steam can prevent this. It tracks how long you play, so if you use it for more than, say, an hour, you can't return it.
Of course, this gets into the whole hassle of when someone should be able to return. Let's say I buy Mass Effect 2 and play the whole thing but hate it. Sure, I put 40 hours into it, but it didn't meet my satisfaction level. Maybe I expected it to be longer, maybe I just didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. Should I be able to return it still? I totally consumed it already. What if it was MW2 and I totally consumed it in 6 hours and I'm annoyed. Should I still be able to return it even though I played the whole thing? How long do I have to return? If I buy it today can I return it 2 weeks from now? 2 months from now? A year from now? What if the price has fallen in that time, as software tends to very rapidly?
Have you ever worked at a restaurant? If someone didn't like their meal, what did you do? What if they didn't mention not liking it until they'd finished? Does it matter that, with a restaurant, you can tell if they finish but can't with a video game?
And why do people think this is exclusive to the video game industry? Most industries don't let you return something opened. Cut the tags off your clothing? You're going to have trouble returning it. Got some wear on the bottom of your shoes? They're not going back anymore. Opened that DVD? It's yours now. Opened that digital camera? Well, it may go back, but only with a 20% restocking fee as it now needs to be sold as an opened box. Opened the shrink wrap of your game? More or less the same. Only difference is at least stores have a better idea of whether you're returning in good faith when a physical product comes back to them.
As you can see, there are a lot of questions about returns, and each question involves a subjective judgment call and opens itself up very well to a lot of people gaming the system. The policy would also result in prices going up to compensate for this. |
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