The PC's piracy and DRM debate has been consolised, no better way of putting it. As with all such draconian policy, overwritten suffocating rules that cannot effectively be applied to an open system (see also the complete inability of companies like Ubisoft to mitigate piracy over the past several years; RE: Splinter Cell: Conviction, the Assassin's Creed series, etc) will inevitably then be forced into a prexisting closed system or one will be designed to accomodate the purposes of the company's interests. The open system in this case is of course the PC and the closed ones, ready-made for control and abuse of power, are the consoles of the day. This is a very interesting debate, and an interesting shift in its venue, and I have a few thoughts on it that I think might expand it a little bit or at least make me look clever.
I. Console developers are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to restrict used games sales. Console audiences are, by a plurality, willing to purchase their games legally and often at full retail. This is, I say, while maybe loading my argument a little, a far cry from the wasteland of piracy and disregard for developers feelings purportedly established by gamers on PC. Console developers, then, are sh*tting where they eat by imposing restrictions upon console gamers far beyond what PC gamers would ever accept. This is, to cite another perception, the audience that generally eats whatever major developers sh*t out. Why in the world would you ruin that wet dream?
II. Steam only seems to be draconian on paper. For certain wild scenarios it might actually be so, but in the majority of cases it does, in my experience, adequately serve the desires of the PC gamer. I say 'desires' rather than needs because it ought to be emphasised that PC distribution networks are, if it were to come down to the war of attrition companies like Ubisoft tend to think they're already engaged in, finally at the mercy of their users and not the other way around. The PC gaming audience can be a cruel mistress. The console gaming audience has yet to display any such bitter mercy.
III. It is precisely that rancorous display that consoles gamers must make an attempt at if they wish to preserve a single one of their supposed rights, or even maintain the basic principles of ownership as related to physical, disc-based games. PC gamers have been fighting this war for years and continue to, but is one that must be fought actively and with the recognition that companies like Ubisoft and EA and Activision-Blizzard are not simply trying to make ends-meet, but rather to shape an entire industry to their financial ends. The distinction is enormous, and those supporting the changing of the console DRM world (that is, towards greater control) ought to sit down and really consider whether that world is one they want to live in on paper or in fact.
IV. Piracy will continue, period, on all platforms. This is a fact. There will always be a means to subvert DRM, and those who are interested in doing so will find those means with alarming speed in all scenarios. Therefore, with an unchanging boogeyman at the center of this debate, who cannot be caught, and who will remain in the allegorical forest of the Bad Intranets from here unto whenever, the proper consideration then becomes what to do with all the good people living in the village who actually pay for their things. What exactly? I don't know. Probably not f*ck them in the ass.
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