Out of Pod Experience

Don't turn this thread into a debate on Piracy, there's no ******* need to start opening that endless debate here.

Indeed, why complain that companies refuse to sell, I mean, it's evil to make business and all those pesky people trying to buy their stuff, geez...

That reminds me of when I was 8 and the sewer pipe had a leak. We used to get our water from a well because we lived country side and too far from the town by a few miles to be connected to water delivery system, unlike our neighbor. The water smelled really funny with that leak, but not as funny as the loo after my parents and my younger sister drank the water.
We knew our neighbor had clean water because they were on vacation and asked us to water his garden so I told my dad we could take some water from the tap we connected the garden hose to, but my dad told me "No son, that would be thievery".
The only other beverages we had at the time was whiskey and being holiday, we couldn't buy any water since the store was closed. So I don't remember all the details of that first day of water shortage, because after a glass whiskey it all went fuzzy, but I slept really well.
The next morning, I woke up with the worst headache I'd ever had at the time, and while eating my breakfast I saw my dad carry our dog to the truck with a shovel, I didn't see my dog again and dad told me later that dogs can't handle whiskey very well.
The cramps were really strong and we all felt a bit weak, the house had this funny smell and sewer company could only send a team to repair the pipe on the next day, so I asked my dad if we shouldn't get some water from the neighbor's tap, but he remained firm and again told me this would be thievery.
I didn't drink much of the whiskey and my head was already starting to feel fuzzy when I noticed my sister was alseep, she had had another bad diarhea and I remember it made me giggle to see her lips blue. The details are, again, sparse, but I remember my mother yelling at my father, trying to wake my sister up but she was like a rag doll in her arms and it made me laugh, or maybe it was the whiskey. After a while, my mother stormed out of the house and returned a few minutes later with a few bottle of water. Meanwhile, my dad carried my little sister to the truck with a shovel and I never saw her again. We both drank water from our neighbor's tap the remaining days until the sewer pipe got repaired, my dad only drank whiskey.

Piracy is wrong
BUT sometimes its only way of getting your stuff.

This is new age and in this age there is no longer "company doesn't want to sell in that country". Many countries come together and makes unions so that it helps them improve marketing, security, military ett. and they must be respected as such.

EU just made it clear with this decision.
I believe that if special customer WANTS to buy something, no one have right to deny it. They might ask additional fee for the hassle thought.

The times when markets could tell theyre customers "**** off, we don't want you to buy here!!!" are LONG GONE.
Period.

I completely agree with this decision.

Fine, got the point...

I'm just trying not to think about what those companies might or might not do, specially since i cant change that either.

Piracy is ok if you use it as a free review system and purchase the product at a later date.

Game companies have traded the media for online services and delivery.
The manufacturing and supplying costs have switched from physical to digital and there's more and more games you can't play without an internet connection, be it only for copy validation when you launch the game.
Before that, if you had a game but the company closed you could still play the game. Now, if Bioware shuts down their servers, no more Dragon Age, no more Mass Effect 2 and onwards (simple example).
A company like Microsoft, is very likely to still be around in 10 years or so, but if they decide to close the online validation of a game because it isn't popular enough to justify the costs of keeping its associated services up, you're screwed, just like you're screwed if the company hosting the online services for a game closes.

The main issue isn't about trading game licenses, but relying on a provider to maintain an online service for the game you bought. The convenience of digital game stores made people accept this reliability and the fact that they no longer own the game. This judge's decision is somehow meaningless, even if you could trade licenses, you would still need the online service associated with it for the license to have any value.

Simply put, the big companies like EA/Microsoft/Valve/etc. own the market and will probably continue to do so now they've secured it. Whether they provide an online license bazaar or not, won't cause a major change for them, it's just another online service to build that will provide them benefits, through sales taxes or something. In a way, it can contribute to keep them going and ensure you can still play your games after a few years, but I find it annoying how it evolved, because the game prices are still the same while it's only a rental now, you don't pay the same price when renting a DVD as you would when buying it.

A monthly fee for a package? maybe, if it's priced decently and allows easy opt-out when you don't play games from that company for a couple months or more. Maybe it would become an indicator of their game's popularity, but with the current online services, I'm sure they already have such monitoring, just don't think they give a f*** about it as long as the game sells, even if the owners didn't like the game and only played it a couple times, they got the money.

thats just a matter of time.

so is sticking to a outdated business model and burying your head in the sand refusing point blank to adapt and evolve your business model, the days of region control and a monopily on content where you can rip the artists off by forcing them to sign the rights to their work over to you (a label) and only paying them a pittence along with being able to charge whatever the hell you feel like are dead, business and business models adapt and evolve or they die simple as.
A LOT of us were around for the change over from LP to CD and remember the prices going throught the roof "new technology" we were told as the reason for concerts suddenly costing a arm and a leg, etc etc.

with EVERY technical inovation the content industrys screamed blue murder saying how abc xyz tech is going to kill the industry, from the introduction of "canned" music in cinemas from live, the radio, audio cassets, VHS/beta max and demanded further laws to "protect" them.

also why should people have to pay for content they have already paid for but due to a new format they then are expected to go buy the same stuff all over again? think vhs-dvd for example.