Poll of the Day > Super Geek Odyssey

(+) Yeah! (+)

Picture of Whiskey, circa Autumn of 1975:

The caption on that pic is pretty harsh man.

:(
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Yup. Getting that double-burn in. That'll teach ya.

;)

Raganork posted...

Yup. Getting that double-burn in. That'll teach ya.

;)

I think you already got enough burn in there when you opened that window.

:P
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Tis a flesh wound. Got an aloe vera plant growing in my backyard; sliced one open, smothered myself with its succulent jelly, and was all set.

I did accidentally graze my leg against my car door and got singed pretty badly. Aloe didn't help with that :(

Aloe is certainly an amazing plant.
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Some of you guys need to move out of the damn desert.

Granted I have racism, backwards ideology, forced religion, and hurricanes, but it's not a desert and the food is fantastic.

I guess there are problems everywhere.
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Well, HE actually lives in a desert. The climate around most of NM is actually arid-steppe, since the Rocky Mountains run down the middle of the state. It only break 100 a few times the year and, unlike the South, there's 0% humidity unless it rains. I'm actually surprised how little tolerance I have for humidity anymore. We pretty much have no natural disasters- tornados are quite rare, and no blizzards, etc. Really bad earthquakes basically never happen. Wildfires are the common bad thing.

It IS very bright here, which I hate. And the we can experience every season of weather in 1 week from time to time. Otherwise, it's usually just sunny and bright.

I DO love food from the South, especially real Cajun, but our green/red chile is world famous, so there's that.
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Zeus posted...

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

It wasn't against piracy per se, rather those you do it and try to claim it's NOT piracy/theft/wrong. I only now this because we have the same views on it. I don't give a good god damn if you pirate, but it comes off as suuupperr childish to pretend it's actually a totally OK thing to do.

Pretty sure we were the only two in that argument saying that it was theft but less bad than physical theft (unless I'm thinking of somebody else). Everybody else seemed to suggest it was as bad as physical theft. But now a can of worms is just being re-opened =p

I wouldn't argue that piracy is literally exactly as bad as physical theft, but I do (and always have) absolutely support the position that you ARE, in theory, costing the creator of whatever you're pirating money.

And that "No I'm not, because I was never going to pay for it anyway!" is not a valid argument, because there is literally no scenario in which you "deserve" to be able to experience a paid product for free simply because you feel overly entitled. If you were never going to pay for it, then you shouldn't be experiencing it, period.

And again, all of that being said, I retain all of those beliefs in spite of engaging in piracy. At no point have I ever attempted to justify my own actions as anything other than what they are - taking the moral and legal low-ground for convenience and to satisfy my own self-important interests.

There are reasons why I tend to see myself more through the lens of super-villainy than through pretensions of being a "good" person - I'm more than capable of knowing what I'm doing is immoral and still not giving a fuck.


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CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Well, HE actually lives in a desert. The climate around most of NM is actually arid-steppe, since the Rocky Mountains run down the middle of the state. It only break 100 a few times the year and, unlike the South, there's 0% humidity unless it rains. I'm actually surprised how little tolerance I have for humidity anymore. We pretty much have no natural disasters- tornados are quite rare, and no blizzards, etc. Really bad earthquakes basically never happen. Wildfires are the common bad thing.

It IS very bright here, which I hate. And the we can experience every season of weather in 1 week from time to time. Otherwise, it's usually just sunny and bright.

I DO love food from the South, especially real Cajun, but our green/red chile is world famous, so there's that.

That sounds like Georgia, to me.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

There are reasons why I tend to see myself more through the lens of super-villainy than through pretensions of being a "good" person - I'm more than capable of knowing what I'm doing is immoral and still not giving a fuck.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to put "downloading a 20 year old video game to play on an emulator during my lunch breaks" on the list of reasons I may eventually succumb to cartoonish supervilliany, but I could certainly see how trying to platform with touch controls might push someone over the edge.

That being said, I'm not even sure if the depriving content creators of income argument holds for older titles and consoles since even if you're going to pay for an older system or title used or new in box, you're only paying a third party seller that hoarded it.

You may as well make the same argument for buying used games at GameStop since the creator isn't seeing a dime from that purchase either. You might have a marginal case with VC releases and the like, but those are a small percentage of the titles out there where the rights could even be worked out. Who are you ripping off when the developer went under a decade ago? I get the argument for current media, but it's a pretty paper thin argument for retro gaming when all you're left with is a specious issue of morality at best.
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WhiskeyDisk posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

There are reasons why I tend to see myself more through the lens of super-villainy than through pretensions of being a "good" person - I'm more than capable of knowing what I'm doing is immoral and still not giving a fuck.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to put "downloading a 20 year old video game to play on an emulator during my lunch breaks" on the list of reasons I may eventually succumb to cartoonish supervilliany, but I could certainly see how trying to platform with touch controls might push someone over the edge.

That being said, I'm not even sure if the depriving content creators of income argument holds for older titles and consoles since even if you're going to pay for an older system or title used or new in box, you're only paying a third party seller that hoarded it.

You may as well make the same argument for buying used games at GameStop since the creator isn't seeing a dime from that purchase either. You might have a marginal case with VC releases and the like, but those are a small percentage of the titles out there where the rights could even be worked out. Who are you ripping off when the developer went under a decade ago? I get the argument for current media, but it's a pretty paper thin argument for retro gaming when all you're left with is a specious issue of morality at best.

But then you can't give money to a corporation!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I wouldn't argue that piracy is literally exactly as bad as physical theft, but I do (and always have) absolutely support the position that you ARE, in theory, costing the creator of whatever you're pirating money.

And that "No I'm not, because I was never going to pay for it anyway!" is not a valid argument, because there is literally no scenario in which you "deserve" to be able to experience a paid product for free simply because you feel overly entitled. If you were never going to pay for it, then you shouldn't be experiencing it, period.

Except you're overlooking that somebody who doesn't care enough to pay for a product wouldn't necessarily buy it in lieu of piracy, which is why the 1:1 piracy=lost sale argument is completely wrong. And that also overlooks the fact that rentals, libraries, and borrowing from friends similarly gut sales since people who were willing to pay money (for rentals, anyway) aren't giving their money to the company. Granted, I'm sure that corporations will someday figure out a way to stop libraries from carrying their product and ban rental services and, of course, stop used-DVD/CD/book/games sales.

A perfect example is any of the random stuff I find on Youtube, almost none of which has resulted in a sale when I couldn't find the full thing on YT, NFI, Hulu, etc. And, in the case of the John Adams miniseries, I watched what clips I could then wound up going to my local library. (Otherwise I would have borrowed somebody's HBO online info.)

While piracy is legally and morally wrong (bolded to emphasize my feelings), the creators don't always suffer a direct harm from it. And, at times, piracy later results in a sale. I pirated Chrono Trigger before eventually buying it on the DS which I might not have done otherwise. And piracy sites like Youtube have made me aware of series, films, etc, which I've watched on other services. (Which, while not a sale, is a legal service which results in creator-compensation unlike borrowing something, buying secondhand, etc.)
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WhiskeyDisk posted...

I'm not sure if I'm ready to put "downloading a 20 year old video game to play on an emulator during my lunch breaks" on the list of reasons I may eventually succumb to cartoonish supervilliany.

The journey of a thousand miles down the slippery slope begins with a single step! And once you start down that dark road, forever will it dominate your destiny!



WhiskeyDisk posted...

That being said, I'm not even sure if the depriving content creators of income argument holds for older titles and consoles since even if you're going to pay for an older system or title used or new in box, you're only paying a third party seller that hoarded it.

To be fair, that's when you're getting into things like abandonware, where the inability to acquire the product in any other way starts to erode the idea of intellectual property ownership a bit, but even there there's a case to be made that, if the rights own actively doesn't WANT the product on the market (as opposed to merely allowing it to languish due to a passive lack of action), that they have the right to keep their product off the market, and no one else is justified in making it available because they feel the public is entitled to have access to it.



WhiskeyDisk posted...

You may as well make the same argument for buying used games at GameStop since the creator isn't seeing a dime from that purchase either.

And developers have made that exact argument. They also invented things like special feature download codes or needing special codes to access multiplayer specifically to combat that entire market.

That being said, it's another grey area, because a used copy is STILL a copy that originally generated revenue for the creator, and which is merely being passed along in the secondary market, which is different from multiple people accessing content with absolutely no direct or indirect financial connection to the original creator (especially when piracy can essentially involve one person buying a single copy and then duplicating it into thousands of copies).


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Zeus posted...

Except you're overlooking that somebody who doesn't care enough to pay for a product wouldn't necessarily buy it in lieu of piracy, which is why the 1:1 piracy=lost sale argument is completely wrong.

Except I am not overlooking that at all, because as I specifically pointed out, ""No I'm not, because I was never going to pay for it anyway!" is not a valid argument, because there is literally no scenario in which you "deserve" to be able to experience a paid product for free simply because you feel overly entitled. If you were never going to pay for it, then you shouldn't be experiencing it, period."

That being said...



Zeus posted...

And that also overlooks the fact that rentals, libraries, and borrowing from friends similarly gut sales since people who were willing to pay money (for rentals, anyway) aren't giving their money to the company.

Libraries have always been a relatively accepted grey area (originally for books, and slowly becoming so for other media), but even there they're still limited in how widespread their influence is - they're still buying the book/CD/DVD/game/etc first, then can only really loan it out on a 1:1 basis (ie, they're not buying a game, copying it 1000 times, and then giving it permanently away to anyone who asks). In functional terms, a library basically IS the friend loaning you their game for a week (and not being able to play it themselves while you have it). The direct/indirect financial link is still maintained - and while loans of this nature may certainly discourage purchase (for example, I never bought a single Assassin's Creed game for years, but still played every single one), it can also encourage some purchases (I eventually bought Rogue and Syndicate more or less entirely because of having played the first six games via my library).

It's an extremely fuzzy issue, though, because technically speaking, a lot of things which are accepted are technically illegal. It's one of the issues that cropped up for years with VCRs and TV rights (and part of why the NFL became notorious for their disclaimers that you're not allowed to tape or show any of their games without express permission from the NFL), with taping music off the radio (or making digital copies of CDs), and so on. By some of the stricter interpretations of the law, me loaning my CD to a friend isn't illegal, but me copying that CD for a friend is.

It's also the reason why people became skittish when they became aware that the Xbox One Kinect would theoretically be able to detect the number of people in a room, and potentially lock out certain movies if you were watching it with too many people present. Content creators would absolutely love to find ways to shut down "unauthorized" experience of their product without a direct exchange of pay.



Zeus posted...

Granted, I'm sure that corporations will someday figure out a way to stop libraries from carrying their product and ban rental services and, of course, stop used-DVD/CD/book/games sales.

That's more or less the entire point of the digital distribution future, and one of the many things I dislike about it.

We are absolutely entering into a world where the consumer doesn't actually own anything, but is effectively renting the right to experience a product for a limited time, and entirely dependent on whether or not the creator (or distributor) wishes to continue providing that service. While On Demand services and digital game libraries can be super-convenient, those same services (along with things like server-side processing and server-based confirmation) are going to be used as the means of taking those services and products away from us at any time.


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As is, I already own games released in the last 5 years which are (or soon will be) functionally useless as anything other than coasters, while I also own games from 20 years ago which play in exactly the same way they always did.

Plenty of people honestly don't care that things are going that way (ie, convenience outweighs ownership for a lot of people, especially in an era with far more media than any one person can consume anyway), but it's definitely a thing.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, that's when you're getting into things like abandonware, where the inability to acquire the product in any other way starts to erode the idea of intellectual property ownership a bit, but even there there's a case to be made that, if the rights own actively doesn't WANT the product on the market (as opposed to merely allowing it to languish due to a passive lack of action), that they have the right to keep their product off the market, and no one else is justified in making it available because they feel the public is entitled to have access to it.

Which is reminiscent of authors who adamantly oppose their works ever being published again, such as SK's opposition to Rage. (Unrelated to artists being complete dicks, such as Bruce Campbell refusing to sign a comic book because it legally used his character but didn't pay him a royalty he thought he deserved.)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Except I am not overlooking that at all, because as I specifically pointed out, ""No I'm not, because I was never going to pay for it anyway!" is not a valid argument, because there is literally no scenario in which you "deserve" to be able to experience a paid product for free simply because you feel overly entitled. If you were never going to pay for it, then you shouldn't be experiencing it, period."

But the two things are completely unrelated. You're trying to justify an unsubstantiated material harm argument with a moral argument that has no bearing on said harm.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Libraries have always been a relatively accepted grey area (originally for books, and slowly becoming so for other media), but even there they're still limited in how widespread their influence is - they're still buying the book/CD/DVD/game/etc first, then can only really loan it out on a 1:1 basis (ie, they're not buying a game, copying it 1000 times, and then giving it permanently away to anyone who asks).

Given the one-time consumption nature of a lot of entertainment products, that influence cannot be understated.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's an extremely fuzzy issue, though, because technically speaking, a lot of things which are accepted are technically illegal. It's one of the issues that cropped up for years with VCRs and TV rights (and part of why the NFL became notorious for their disclaimers that you're not allowed to tape or show any of their games without express permission from the NFL), with taping music off the radio (or making digital copies of CDs), and so on. By some of the stricter interpretations of the law, me loaning my CD to a friend isn't illegal, but me copying that CD for a friend is.

Well, that's not so much "accepted" as it is completely unenforceable. While a lot of piracy results from friends copying borrowed CDs, etc, -- which at least one study had claimed was more prevalent than digital piracy, although I have no idea how they reached that conclusion -- there's no way to distinguish an owned CD from a borrowed CD. Likewise, there's no mechanism for destroying files on your computer after you sell your CD.

Somewhat in the same vein, I should mention that some time ago I bought Bring It On: The Musical off Amazon which includes the digital files with the purchase. I burned the digital files onto a CD before my shipment arrived and have never actually even opened the physical CD itself. In theory, I could even sell it new. Of course, given the nature of Amazon's arrangements, I'm not even sure if that'd technically be piracy since they might pay a small fee for digital to the copyright holders in addition to selling the CDs. However, it'd clearly be underhanded.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's also the reason why people became skittish when they became aware that the Xbox One Kinect would theoretically be able to detect the number of people in a room, and potentially lock out certain movies if you were watching it with too many people present.

I hadn't heard that allegation, but that's unbelievably fucked up. Microsoft in general is absurdly sketchy.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

We are absolutely entering into a world where the consumer doesn't actually own anything, but is effectively renting the right to experience a product for a limited time, and entirely dependent on whether or not the creator (or distributor) wishes to continue providing that service. While On Demand services and digital game libraries can be super-convenient, those same services (along with things like server-side processing and server-based confirmation) are going to be used as the means of taking those services and products away from us at any time.

Yes, I absolutely hate the model (especially because if you get hacked or get into a dispute, they can deny you hundreds or thousands of dollars in already purchased products) and it kept me from doing anything with digital for a long time. However, because companies are choosing to eschew physical releases in many cases (particularly gaming), I've been forced into digital purchases in many instances. (Granted, in the case of MvC2's port, I'm still kicking myself for not buying through Gamestop so I'd at least have the case even if they just did it via code since I wound up just buying it digitally anyway for -- iirc -- the same price).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

As is, I already own games released in the last 5 years which are (or soon will be) functionally useless as anything other than coasters,

I don't get that? If it's a physical item, how could it be shut down?
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Online-only games get shut down all the time. I presume PO's talking about Destiny, which will most likely be shut down when Destiny 2 launches. Once those serves are gone, that disc is about as useful as a frisbee.

Raganork posted...

Online-only games get shut down all the time. I presume PO's talking about Destiny, which will most likely be shut down when Destiny 2 launches. Once those serves are gone, that disc is about as useful as a frisbee.

Just like the discs I still have for City of Heroes/Villains. If NCSoft at least allowed for private servers of that game, that would be different, but no dice.
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Zeus posted...

I should mention that some time ago I bought Bring It On: The Musical off Amazon

I am learning so much.

shadowsword87 posted...

Zeus posted...

I should mention that some time ago I bought Bring It On: The Musical off Amazon

I am learning so much.

Given how many random shoutouts I've given to the musical, it can't be surprising. I've also posted songs and clips, in addition to making references and quotes to the musical that literally nobody but me would understand. Then again, a lot of my references go unappreciated. I don't think Mead picked up on a King of the Hill quote the other day.
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It's kind of the uproar people had when Diablo 3 needed a constant internet connection.

I suppose we are lucky that Blizzard has supported the game, as they just released a new patch and a new Necromancer character, but that doesn't actually resolve the long term issue.

With the game needing a steady always online internet connection what happens if Blizzard decides to cut the server and stop supporting it one day? So, in 20 years you might not be able to play Diablo 3 ever again.

Then you have to ask yourself if you actually truly paid for the game, or have you just purchased the rights to play the game as long as the developer decides. And is that even legal pr fair.
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Technically, we are just paying for licenses to play games. That's part of the reason why I haven't switched to digital-only libraries. Developers are fully within their rights to completely drop servers, and even stopping consumers from downloading games they've already "purchased."

Terris was on the extreme end of this line of thinking, lambasting Valve and anyone that used Steam. I'm not that paranoid or critical of digital downloads, but it has been something I've thought a lot about.

Questions such as "do I want to spend $150 a year to play FFXIV, only to have nothing to show for it in a decade once the servers are gone?" are things I've been contemplating.

Raganork posted...

Questions such as "do I want to spend $150 a year to play FFXIV, only to have nothing to show for it in a decade once the servers are gone?" are things I've been contemplating.

Also something that always bothered me about MMOs but, in fairness, a lot of them have been running over a decade now. However, it's a shame that a lot discontinued MMOs don't even have a single-player mode since quite a few had a lot of interesting content.
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Zeus posted...

Raganork posted...

Questions such as "do I want to spend $150 a year to play FFXIV, only to have nothing to show for it in a decade once the servers are gone?" are things I've been contemplating.

Also something that always bothered me about MMOs but, in fairness, a lot of them have been running over a decade now. However, it's a shame that a lot discontinued MMOs don't even have a single-player mode since quite a few had a lot of interesting content.

Indeed. Though, in my case, I've at least acquired more than enough inspiration from CoX to come up with what is now a 13 book series (that I still need to finish writing and editing). I have some FFXIV videos I want to make so I can at least entertain some people regardless of whether they play the game or not. I met my boyfriend through ffxiv, and yes we met, we screwed, and we're still quite together and probably will be after the game is gone.

I cannot say the same for Ultima Online, Guild Wars, WoW, DCUO, or Champions Online. Those games I've spent the least amount of time and money on, and for good reason (aside from GW being FTP). I still get plenty of play time and enjoyment out of ffxiv despite its faults, so I feel like, on an "in the moment" capacity I'm at least getting my money's worth.
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TIL: Boris Grishenko (the "I AM INVINCIBLE!" hacker in Goldeneye) is played by Alan Cumming. Googled a clip to use as a response and was like, 'holy shit, how did I not notice the last time I watched the movie?'

Granted, at the time he came out, the next major movie I may have seen him star in at the time was X-2 and he was under a *ton* of makeup as Nightcrawler. Otherwise, I know him best for his role in Reefer Madness.

Entity13 posted...

Indeed. Though, in my case, I've at least acquired more than enough inspiration from CoX to come up with what is now a 13 book series (that I still need to finish writing and editing). I have some FFXIV videos I want to make so I can at least entertain some people regardless of whether they play the game or not.

CoX? I don't recognize the abbreviation. Also, how far along are you on the books?
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No matter HOW long I have to wait in line, I WILL get my Amazing Spider-Man #252 signed by Stan Lee at DragonCon this year!
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Zeus posted...

CoX? I don't recognize the abbreviation. Also, how far along are you on the books?

City of Heroes/Villains. The X resembles the crossing between the two halves of the one game.

As far as the books--at least as far as the one series, because I have other projects--go, I'm about 4/5 done with the second draft of book 1, and various distances of the way into books 2, 3, 4, and 9. There's also all of the notes I have in place for the other eight books of the series.

Edit: Also, I still have a sample on Google Docs of the first nine chapters. I can post it any time if someone wants to take a look. =)
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Metalsonic66 posted...

No matter HOW long I have to wait in line, I WILL get my Amazing Spider-Man #252 signed by Stan Lee at DragonCon this year!

If he lives that long...
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Entity13 posted...

Edit: Also, I still have a sample on Google Docs of the first nine chapters. I can post it any time if someone wants to take a look.

I would be interested.

WhiskeyDisk posted...

Metalsonic66 posted...

No matter HOW long I have to wait in line, I WILL get my Amazing Spider-Man #252 signed by Stan Lee at DragonCon this year!

If he lives that long...

He's going to live forever!

tbh, I'm still bummed about Adam West dying before I could meet him. I hadn't been terribly interested in meeting celebs before that. Now I just need to figure out some other celebs I might want to meet. I guess Barbara Eden -- although she's super-old and I kinda prefer to remember her as she was -- and Hulk Hogan would be on that list. Maybe Kanye West as well, although that's more for the novelty.
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Zeus posted...

Hulk Hogan

Growing up in Stamford, CT (home of WWE WHQ) back in the 80s it was not unusual to run into Hogan, Rowdy Roddy, and Macho man grocery shopping at the Grade A on Shippan Ave back when many of the wrestlers had homes down on Shippan point. Hell, we egged Undertaker's house on Halloween one year for giving out candy corn...
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WhiskeyDisk posted...

Zeus posted...

Hulk Hogan

Growing up in Stamford, CT (home of WWE WHQ) back in the 80s it was not unusual to run into Hogan, Rowdy Roddy, and Macho man grocery shopping at the Grade A on Shippan Ave back when many of the wrestlers had homes down on Shippan point. Hell, we egged Undertaker's house on Halloween one year for giving out candy corn...

I had the bad fortune of working in Stamford during the late 2000s/early 2010s when, afaik, most of them had already moved (Hogan, iirc, had already been living in Florida for a long while). One of my co-workers was a big Roddy Piper fan.
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don't get me started on how much Stamford sucks now. the city has basically spent the past decade doing everything in its power to squeeze the lower and middle class right out of the town and the surrounding towns do everything they can to push them clean out of Fairfield County.
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Well, Dan Malloy *did* run the city for a decade before moving up to fuck over the entire state.
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Zeus posted...

I would be interested.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g-C40tA9Uh31UeW7Pd52R_pdLS7FPExAe2H9w8rKI5k/edit?usp=sharing

There you go.
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Responding in NMB's topic reminded me of how much I miss trading cards.



As a kid at the time, it was also one of the few ways to learn about a lot of characters. Nowadays wikipedia, etc, exists for that.

Entity13 posted...

There you go.

Coolio, will be sure to check it out over the weekend.
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Zeus posted...

Well, Dan Malloy *did* run the city for a decade before moving up to fuck over the entire state.

Don't even get me started on that idiot or his idiot kids.
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I am looking forward to some Castlevania this upcoming Friday.

I'm going to finally be home from the rehab hospital, and a binge of this hopefully good show will be just what I need to wash the hospital blues out of my non existent hair.
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Zeus posted...

Which is reminiscent of authors who adamantly oppose their works ever being published again, such as SK's opposition to Rage.

Which, to be fair, is their right.

Even when I objected to Lucas constantly re-editing his films or vowing to never re-release the original trilogy again, I still acknowledged that he was entirely within his rights to do so. I just also suggested he was a douche-nozzle for doing so.

There's no moral imperative that obligates any work of art or profit to continue to exist after the creator decides otherwise. Which is usually the point where people will point out the various writers who demanded their unpublished writing be burned or otherwise destroyed after they died, only to have their executor renege and release the writing anyway, in some cases leading to famous classics that would otherwise never have been known to the public. But the executor was still a shit for doing it.



Zeus posted...

But the two things are completely unrelated. You're trying to justify an unsubstantiated material harm argument with a moral argument that has no bearing on said harm.

Except the two things are absolutely related. And I'm not simply justifying a material harm argument as much as I'm elaborating on it.

To wit, the obligations of contractual transaction are essentially that, if someone creates a product intended to accrue profit, then the obligation of the end user is to meet that requirement. If you want to experience the product, you are expected to pay for it. If you are experiencing it without paying for it, then you have subverted your social obligation. You are reaping the benefit without fulfilling your end of the bargain. You do not DESERVE to be able to experience the product for free, simply because you want to really really badly (and are otherwise unable/unwilling to pay).

Again, things like listening to a friend's CD or renting a movie from the library are a grey area, but ultimately, every single one of those products is a tangible physical item that HAS been paid for (even radio airplay involves licensing fees - nothing is entirely "free"), and which can only exist in one place at one time. Once you get into digital copies of games (or books, or music, or movies, etc), you are now bypassing the crucial step that allowed that grey area to exist with mimimum fuss in the first place.

To continue the metaphor, pirated digital games are less the rental copy of a game you're getting from your friend or a library, and more the bootleg home-burned copy you're buying off the back of a truck from a street vendor who won't be there tomorrow.

And honestly, "You can't say a creator lost money because there's no guarantee that a pirate would have paid for it anyway" is a weak argument, because there are absolutely cases where people WOULD have bought it otherwise if not for piracy. So even if it isn't a 100% loss, it's still a greater-than-zero loss.


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Zeus posted...

Given the one-time consumption nature of a lot of entertainment products, that influence cannot be understated.

The degree to which you're going to use a product doesn't really matter, though. I'm still paying the same price for a DVD whether I'm eventually going to watch that movie 1 time or 100 times.

There is also the argument that, for many games, a "taste" experience can indeed lead to further purchase. As I mentioned, I've played the first five Assassin's Creed games "for free", but that the experience of doing so ultimately led me to buy two others. Playing Witcher 3 "for free" is what directly led to me buying the game for myself. Getting the first half of the first Tales from the Borderlands game via Games for Gold is what led me to buy the entire season on PS4 (tough luck, Microsoft!).

That's a large part of the logic behind Games for Gold or PS Plus games being released for free (eventually) - if you enjoy the free experience, you may be willing to pay for similar games from the same publisher, or in some cases spend more money in your "free" game (like getting Borderlands 2 for free via Games for Gold, then buying character skins in-game, or any other microtransaction-related deals).

If anything, the idea of microtransactions, season passes, DLC add-ons, and the like are at least partly spawned from the desire to bypass direct purchase as a means of profit (cutting rentals and used game sales out of the loop).



Zeus posted...

Well, that's not so much "accepted" as it is completely unenforceable.

Which was my point. Those practices are generally considered acceptable by a majority of people mainly because they ARE unenforceable (and in some cases, the law has changed to legalize certain things mostly just because they're unenforceable).

Much like speeding while driving, which nearly everyone does because they know the odds of them specifically getting caught (especially if they're only a few MPH over the speed limit) - the ease of getting away with it and the benefits of doing so tend to outweigh the potential fear of punishment.

(Which is the formula for a lot of human behavior - likelihood of getting caught and the severity of punishment balanced against the advantages of committing the crime/breaking the social taboo. Or, as some people boil it down even further, most choices in life become a cost/benefit or pain versus pleasure calculation.)



Zeus posted...

Somewhat in the same vein, I should mention that some time ago I bought Bring It On: The Musical off Amazon which includes the digital files with the purchase. I burned the digital files onto a CD before my shipment arrived and have never actually even opened the physical CD itself. In theory, I could even sell it new. Of course, given the nature of Amazon's arrangements, I'm not even sure if that'd technically be piracy since they might pay a small fee for digital to the copyright holders in addition to selling the CDs. However, it'd clearly be underhanded.

It would be underhanded if the person buying the CD expected to gain the digital files themselves, much less so if they merely assumed they were buying the physical copy.

Because as you say, Amazon has absolutely paid a licensing fee for the rights to digital distribution, and they were essentially offering you the digital copy in exchange for the initial transaction, which you completed.

People who buy a book with a CD/DVD/etc in it, then take the disc out and try to resell the book as new are shitheels, though. As are people who buy a DVD/Digital combo-pack, use the digital code, then resell the DVD (unless the new buyer is fully aware of the lack of digital copy).


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Raganork posted...

Zeus posted...

I don't get that? If it's a physical item, how could it be shut down?

Online-only games get shut down all the time. I presume PO's talking about Destiny, which will most likely be shut down when Destiny 2 launches. Once those serves are gone, that disc is about as useful as a frisbee.

Destiny was the one I was thinking about when I said "soon will be", but if I recall I think Spartan Ops for Halo 4 has also shut down permanently at this point (and honestly, without an Internet connection, about 70% of the Halo 4 disc is useless regardless). And I think the servers for NBA Jam have been down for a while. I might own other games that can't access online requirements (and I know that if/when BioWare/EA stop supporting Dragon Age Keep I'll lose my ability to import games saves into DA:I forever), but I can't rattle them all off at whim.

This is going to become more and more of a problem as games become more and more online-focused, though. GTAO and ESO are stone-cold fucked the moment the servers go down, games like Saints Row III and IV lost minor functionality when THQ went out of business and their servers went away, and every multiplayer game that sacrificed local couch co-op in favor of online-only play basically becomes a drink coaster the moment the servers go down.

We are slowly entering a future where we don't own media at all, we merely rent it. Games, music, movies, even books - digital streaming services are driving physical media away, and we don't really own streaming media as much as we rent the right to use it.



Raganork posted...

Questions such as "do I want to spend $150 a year to play FFXIV, only to have nothing to show for it in a decade once the servers are gone?" are things I've been contemplating.

I've thought the same about GTA and ESO, but in my case my absolute unwillingness to pay a subscription fee for any game helps salve that particular wound. And my usual answer for it is that, if I'm given enough time in advance before the game shuts down, I'll probably just take in-game screen shots of all my stuff and anything I'm proud off so I can at least look at it later.

Then again, my account in KoL (which I haven't played in years at this point) has a metric shit-ton of items that are probably worth thousands of dollars worth of real-world money if I ever sold them (not to mention the hundreds of hours worth of time I sunk into it), and that's just been sitting around and I barely ever think about it, so I've at least got practice at cutting the cord.



Zeus posted...

Given how many random shoutouts I've given to the musical, it can't be surprising.

The problem with making constant references is that, in order for any of us to understand them, we ALSO would have to have watched it. Which I am guessing most of us have not. Or that the ones who have didn't memorize it enough to immediate recognize lines of dialogue or lyrics


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Zeus posted...

TIL: Boris Grishenko (the "I AM INVINCIBLE!" hacker in Goldeneye) is played by Alan Cumming. Googled a clip to use as a response and was like, 'holy shit, how did I not notice the last time I watched the movie?'

I'm not sure how you didn't, since literally the very next thing I saw him in, I basically went "Hey, that's Boris!"

Of course, the very next thing I saw him in was Spice World, and the movie after that was Josie and the Pussycats, so now Shadow has learned even more dark and terrible things about people in this topic.


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My mother is trying so desperately to get into Twin Peaks so she can watch the new season with her friend at work, but she just can't stand it. I told her it was a terrible show. I watched the first three episodes years ago and have never been so bored watching a mystery show before, and I kinda like Kyle MacLachlan, but my god was the show just infuriatingly slow. It also has that thing where it constantly plays the same song over and over throughout the episodes until your ears bleed from the pain. I remember that Arnold movie Commando doing the same thing with repeating the same single song.

(Also, Deadly Premonition was an abomination; had to throw that in here)

So I suggested she watch American Gods instead. She hated it. I can see how someone who hasn't read the books would think that the show was incredibly weird and borderline nonsensical.

I haven't watched any of this season of Doctor Who, but it just seems like it was a mess from the reviews and summaries I read over the course of the season.

I think Moffat has a lot of brilliant ideas, but does not know how to put then in a logical or strategic order, and he ultimately lacks an ability to put a solid coherent plot together.

Personally I think he is a better staff writer than show runner. It's why Sherlock has Mark Gatis as a show runner; too to help Moffat reign in his Moffatisms. Plus Sherlock has a few books for him to follow as an outline and he ca. just adapt the stories for modern times.

Yet, with Doctor Who he has to come up with wholly original ideas and he just falls flat 80% of the time. Either way after Christmas his tenure is over, and maybe the show will get better, or it couldn't worse.
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New to the topic, never even clicked on one before, but may I ask why did you have to have an amputation?

My ankle collapsed from a bone disease, and it got progressively worse. I went to three different doctors, and they all said that the best decision was to get it cut off and just get a prosthetic in a few months.

So, here I am in rehab. And doing physical therapy. The staples and stitches are still in and will come out this week.

Well enough about me. New Ricky and Morty July 30th.
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The Wave Master posted...

I haven't watched any of this season of Doctor Who, but it just seems like it was a mess from the reviews and summaries I read over the course of the season.

I think Moffat has a lot of brilliant ideas, but does not know how to put then in a logical or strategic order, and he ultimately lacks an ability to put a solid coherent plot together.

Personally I think he is a better staff writer than show runner. It's why Sherlock has Mark Gatis as a show runner; too to help Moffat reign in his Moffatisms. Plus Sherlock has a few books for him to follow as an outline and he ca. just adapt the stories for modern times.

Yet, with Doctor Who he has to come up with wholly original ideas and he just falls flat 80% of the time. Either way after Christmas his tenure is over, and maybe the show will get better, or it couldn't worse.

Moffat's isms still clearly show in "Sherlock," though it's tolerable for the first two seasons plus some of the first 2/3 of season 3. From that point onward it all spiraled into pure Moffat where there's an idea given a ton of hype or light only to become worth nothing, and all sorts of bad ideas come in to destroy the source material simply because Moffat doesn't think it's clever enough.

Therein lies the real problem. Moffat thinks he's more special and clever than he actually is. I would have loved to see Capaldi's Twelve and Gomez's Missy under a different showrunner, but neither will happen. Oh and another companion--a surprisingly good one--is given the umpteenth fakeout death or exit in Moffat's run with the series. I'm at the point now where I'm liking the character Adric more than the showrunner Moffat; fuck that guy.
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FLCL season 2 and a season 3 trailer. It's a small teaser, and a year away, but it's a start.

Personally I liked FLCL A lot back in the day. Good god 2000 was a long time ago. Hell, I was still in college then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhW81Ekacf4
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I forgot to mention SGDQ (Summer Games Done Quick) the week long Speed Running marathon that is going on this week. It's fun and for a great cause.

Also, Mass Effect: Andromeda is down to 20 bucks today on Amazon. Not a terrible price for an average game. If you jave any interest.
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