Four months ago, Sony filed a patent that would essentially make used games for a new system (read: the PS4) non-existent. Two weeks ago, the internet found out, and of course lost its collective shit.
So what’s everyone worried about?
The basic idea of the patent, US Patent 20130007892, is this:
A game playing system includes a use permission tag provided for use in a game disk for a user of a game, a disk drive, and a reproduction device for reproducing the game. The disk drive reads out a disk ID from the game disk. When the game is to be played, the reproduction device conveys the disk ID and a player ID to the use permission tag. The use permission tag stores the terms of use of the game and determines whether a combination of the disk ID and the player ID conveyed from the reproduction device fulfills the terms of use or not.
…right. In English, what’s happening is that a tag is generated that will lock a copy of a game to one specific system, rendering used games, borrowing games, and passing games down to friends completely useless.
Boy, that sounds awesome right?
But I get it, Game Industry. You don’t like the used game market. (And let’s be real, that means Gamestop.) You want the sale – any sale – of your games to allow you to see money. After all, it’s your game being sold, right? And because of the trade-in shenanigans happening out there, companies have created this whole market that you simply can’t get your hands into. Irritating, I’m sure.
Let me first make this very clear. I support game developers. I have never pirated a game. (Seriously.) I don’t mod systems. I buy new games. I buy supplemental products to support developers I love. I buy downloadable content to continuing playing games by said developers.
But I’m the same girl that still buys cds to support the traditional music industry that is slowly going the way of the buffalo. The majority of people don’t care about having a physical copy of a cd; they don’t care about the art and design, and they don’t care about the pleasure of having a real, tangible collection of every album by an artist. (Well, maybe my fellow NIN fans understand this…but we’re certainly a dying breed.) With music moving almost exclusively to a digital format, the big record companies are suffering, but bands are now able to be in total control over how and where they distribute their music without depending on their big record deal to get their name out there. They’re just cutting out the middleman (and using the internet instead).
And the game industry is going that way. If the success of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead and That Game Company’s Journey are any indication, we’re going to end up in a download-only environment relatively quickly. And while Journey was published by Sony, Telltale Games not only developed but also published The Walking Dead, obviously to great success. So if digital distribution can decrease the cost of publishing, why wouldn’t developers want to start self-publishing more of their games? I know there are other costs publishers cover outside of just manufacturing; there’s advertising, distribution, market research, licensing, and you know…the whole funding of development in the first place.
But my point is, if you remove manufacturing, that’s one less thing a developer has to rely on a publisher for. Same as the band not relying on the record label, it’s making it more possible to just do it on their own. Game developers no longer need publishers; they have a choice. And if they choose to do things themselves…well, the less money a publisher makes.
If the choices to combat both piracy and used games are moving to an all-digital model or figuring out a way to lock content on disks, well suddenly it makes more sense why publishers may want things to stay on-disk just a bit longer.
So publishers have worked themselves into a funny little corner. They want to keep disks around, but they don’t want people to copy them. Or resell them. Or share them in any way because that means someone’s getting money when they’re not. So what to do? Lock them down so they’re one-time use, obviously. It works for the PC right? (Except not really…because I think we all know how absurdly easy it is to torrent almost any PC game out there.) Valve found an amazing DRM model through Steam that I support, and you know why?
Because it doesn’t make you feel like you’re forced to use their system because you can’t be trusted to not steal their precious games. It lets you buy things easily, install them whenever and wherever you need to, and not worry about losing the physical cd and key. It’s not perfect but it’s sure as hell a pretty solid model, and it makes you feel like they’ve put this system in place to make things easier for you. And even though I’ve (legally) lost the ability to pass a game on to my friend when I’m done with it, Valve’s not immediately treating me like I can’t handle the responsibility of having a freaking game.
If the reason to move to a digital platform is due to ease of distribution, convenience for the user, or the ability to speed up the development process by bypassing the manufacturing phase in order to get games into the players’ hands quicker…then that’s totally acceptable to me. If the reason we’re doing it is to destroy the used games market, I’ve got more of a problem with that.
Here’s the thing. If I buy a new game from Gamestop, that publisher and developer have gotten their money. Say I pass that game onto my buddy. Sure, they didn’t get more money, but what did they get? A new fan, potentially. Someone who will play a story and then purchase DLC, pre-order a sequel, participate in online discussion about the title, spreading the word and getting the game more publicity. And that’s ok, right? I don’t know of any devs that have complained about fans passing their games onto their friends.
Now say instead of just passing on that game to a friend, I go back to Gamestop and trade it in. I take my credit and put it towards a new game, and my old copy gets resold to another gamer. That gamer gets a bit of a deal, and that extra money in their pockets may mean that they may be more likely to go home and grab that DLC if they like the game. So the dev doesn’t get any money from that used game sale, but where does the money for DLC purchases go? Not to Gamestop, that’s for sure.
When a car is resold by a used car dealer, does the manufacturer expect to make money off of that? No. At the risk of sounding entitled and ignorant, why should they? They made their money on the first purchase. Now I’m not crazy; I know that a $60 game does not equal a $30,000 vehicle, and the car has deteriorated over time while the game has not, but it’s the principle of the matter. Why should games be so different? What other industry gets a profit from secondhand sales?
And in all of this, while the industry is vilifying Gamestop for making a profit on their used products while they make relatively little on new product, where do services like Gamefly come into play? Gamefly, the service that purchases games with an additional license in order to allow subscribers to play games totally risk free for a marginal fee, and send them back when they’re done with zero chance of buying DLC unless they decide to buy that now used game from Gamefly or they (heaven forbid) want to play the multiplayer content that’s been locked onto the disk unless you pay $10 for an access pass. Somehow that’s less of an offense than Gamestop?
Doesn’t that just scream, “We don’t give a shit about the consumer” to anyone else? Aren’t all these access keys and multiplayer codes à la Gears of War 3 and Dead or Alive 5 kind of ruining things? If the only way for a publisher to make sure their game is useless to its second owner is to put multiplayer on it in some way, regardless of need or quality (I’m looking at you, Ninja Gaiden), it’s going to kill single player gaming. Time, money, and effort that could be spent on really fleshing out an awesome campaign is going to be split in order to get some kind of stupid multiplayer mode onto every freaking game.
I don’t get it.
This is just me scratching the surface of the used game discussion, but when it comes down to it, this new Sony patent may not matter in the least. Hundreds of thousands of patents are filed that never actually see production; they’re just good ideas that companies want to make sure they have rights to in case they want them in the future…or to keep it out of the hands of their competitors. So while I think it’s unlikely we’ll see this in the PS4, it doesn’t mean we’ll never see it.
But I do think we’re gonna see some kind of push in attitude from publishers to kill the used games market. Time will tell if it’ll also kill the experience for the gamer community, too.
Ah-a woman after my own heart, love cd’s. Don’t get the soulless MP3 crowd. There is no sense of discovery, the artwork, the lyrics printed within. ( I use MP3 for archive purposes (well OGG to be precise)). I appreciate digital has some great features-the biggest being space saving. No boxes to shelve, comics to keep in good condition etc and it is all rather convenient.
What worries me is having no control over what you have bought. The corporations (I’m looking at you Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Amazon (kindle)). want to “rent” you these purchases under dubious terms and conditions nobody ever reads and can effectively take those purchases away from you and stop you doing what YOU want with your purchases. What happens to your games if Steam goes bust or Sony or Microsoft? You are not getting your money back and you have nothing to show-you’ll have to start again.
People are sleep walking into giving these companies too much control and would urge anyone to choose DRM free as much as is practicable.
Another cd lover! I knew there were more of us out there. (: (And I feel the same way about MP3s, btw – they’re certainly more convenient than lugging around hundreds of cds, but there’s zero emotional attachment there.)
That’s an amazing point that honestly hadn’t crossed my mind, and it’s pretty terrifying. During the HDDVD/Blu-ray thing, I (foolishly) picked HDDVD first…mostly so I could use them on my 360. So here I sit with a stack of movies I won’t be watching – but since I DO still have the player, I technically could if I felt like it. If those had all been digital copies, I could be screwed more than I am now. Wow. Yea. Not cool. Thanks for pointing that out!
A well-written article for sure, but I’m not sure this is a huge concern if you believe that physical games are pretty much done for anyway (not this generation, but the next, more likely).
What’s more oddball to me is that you see these executive types churning out the same fearful ideas for maintaining control of their product/profits in all types of media. Music did it, the movie industry just went through it when, all of a sudden one day people just stopped buying dvds/blu rays. You’d think the gaming industry would have a little more foresight. But that’s stupid of me to say. I’m sure they have analytics that show they can still squeeze a teensy bit out of old models.
Also, regarding GameFly or similar services – Redbox, I guess – the publisher would more likely issue those companies “rental versions”, yeah? Discs without the restrictions you mentioned, or a whole different set of limited functions.
Again, I’m not sure this will even need to be a debate for much longer. Physical disks fed into gaming boxes were all I knew and loved. Playing a friend’s copy of some new, great game was a welcome part of that. But even though I may be in a pro-PC/smart phone, anti-console country right now, buying that copy of Hotline Miami off of Steam with one easy click felt oh so right. Come to think of it – no – I was gifted that game from a friend who let me sit down and play it at his house when I visited. No need to haul his laptop back to my house. I was allowed an entire hour of play. What a nice dude~
I totally hear you. But it’s like the gaming industry DOESN’T have foresight. It’s like they’re totally refusing to learn from the industries that have dealt with this already.
As for Gamefly, if you rent a game like Dead or Alive 5 that has an online pass to be able to play, you get a 2-day free pass…and that’s it. So sure, keep the game as long as you want. But choose your online days wisely.
I don’t know. I just don’t like the whole idea. I know Steam’s great for a lot of reasons, but it’s also shitty for a lot of reasons. I just really take issue with taking away a core part of gaming that most of us really loved – bringing a game over to a buddy’s house and playing – for no reason other than greed.
…I mean, I know it’s more than that. I could write a whole other article on the opposite side of this debate, but that’s not really where my allegiance lies. It’s the intentions of the publishers that I’m questioning here, and this whole attitude where “Kill Used Games” is really equal to “Kill Gamestop.” It’s a total disregard for the benefits of used games just to kill a company that’s making a profit off of secondhand sales. Bugs the shit out of me…
(Eep – sorry for not responding sooner!)
You’re the best angry person ever. Also you should scope out my collection of Garbage albums both CDs and on various Vinyl releases. I also pick up CDs of all artists I’m pretty into, though I’m running out of room for the ever growing stack of CDs.
I first caught wind of this sometime ago and I can’t imagine them actually going ahead with it, I feel like the backlash would be awful and alienate consumers from your system unless its implemented across the board by all the major players. I feel like if that were the case it’d piss me off enough that I’d be buying far fewer games. I hope the collective nerd anger from the internet stops this from ever happening.
I am preeeeeeeetty good and being angry. It’s true. (:
Really, patents like this pop up all the time. And while I know they don’t generally get implemented, it’s the attitude from the publishers that really irritates me. The fact that they continue to spend time figuring out how to remove the so-called threat of used games instead of focusing on how to deliver a better product to their consumers doesn’t sit right with me. Nerd anger goooooooooo!
Here’s the thing you need to understand about the gaming platform companies.
They make little if anything on console itself. In some case they LOSE money.
They start making the money when they sell you the games. The printer market
is a similar example of this. So, to maximize their profits, they do stupid stuff like
DRM controls that simply do not work. And, they push laws like the DMCA to help
further lock down the consumer.
Note to the big companies: If you make it a pain in the butt, the consumer does not come.
This is one of the reasons why the download only version of the PSP, the PSP GO was such a
huge failure.
I don’t buy download music, I only buy CDs. Why? Because then I have the l legal right to
transfer it to whoever I wish if I want to. I can borrow/lend/loan/resell/give it away as I choose.
My rights with the MP3 are non-existent. Same problem with DVD vs download and the ebooks.
The second they allow legal transfers is when I will buy them, till then, if I get an ereader, I will
limit myself to borrowing from the library (with the self destructing books after a set time) and
with public domain material.
I completely agree with this. But then there is also the factor of the gamers on a limited income. We can’t afford the prices of new games. I absolutely love gamestop, the place is practically my best friend, it gives me the chance to great games that I can actually AFFORD. I just got a used copy of BORDERLANDS: GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION, the one that includes all the dlc’s and a map of Pandora, for 20 bucks. Did the developers get that money..NO. I find it pathetic that companies are just that greedy nowadays. Wanting to take from the poor and give to the rich, just like the rest of the economy. What happened to people wanting others to have fun and not just being in it for the money?
And dear God yes, do know how I get when I order a CD and it finally arrives? Complete fangirl response, that’s what happens….literally.
I’m so sorry for ranting these things are my only way to vent.
Rant away – that’s what I’m always doing here! I totally agree with you though. It can be hard for some people to understand how $60 can be a reasonable price for a game, and sometimes even if you understand it, you still can’t afford it. In most circumstances, I feel like it’s fair, particularly when you get into those GotY editions – so much content! But then (since you brought up Borderlands and I’m a huge fan of that series) you have something like Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel. As much as I love that universe, that game was not worth the price of its predecessors. Not by a long shot. At $40 I could have defended it, and I get that companies have to pay their employees and people have to make money and blah blah blah…..but I felt cheated there, by a company that I’ve defended and supported and loved for a long time.
I digress. The point is, a game like the Pre-Sequel, reduced to a used price suddenly becomes more fair and allows people that couldn’t make that $60 investment to still be able to enjoy that world. And who knows, maybe since they were able to save some money on the original game, they’ll be able to then afford DLC down the line.
It’s difficult for developers, I’m sure. They have to know that without the fans of the game eating up everything they’re dishing out, they won’t exist. So they try to make good games, regardless of how much profit they’re going to see from that game sale. The publishers though, the people more removed from the actual creation of the game so that have very little (if any) emotional connection to it or its fans…I think more often than not, they’re the problem. But maybe that’s just me.