I honesty fail to see why used game sales are such a problem for the industry, other than that they see it as lost sales; and thus it's a question of greed. You don't hear the auto industry inventing solutions so that the car key is coded to work only with the original purchaser, do you? It seems that software is somewhere pushed to exist in a state where you never actually buy it, and instead, even if they call it "buying it", is in fact considered "renting it". You basically pay a sum for the license to use it, not for the product itself, only the right to use the product.
It's a development that I find most troubling, and I shudder to think if other markets would start acting in this way. I mean imagine a world where when you only own things until you don't want it anymore - then you have to give it back to the creator or stuff it away, never to be used again. Where we have no option other than to buy new goods, be it games, cars, or books. Where you can't lend a good book (or game) to a friend, because it only works for you and no one else. So he/she will have to get his own copy, because otherwise it's a lost sale. Where a friend can't driver your car, because someone else using their (the company's) product without paying them (the company) is considered a lost sale. Where you needs to pay twice for your car so that both you and your wife will both be able to drive it?
It's greed in a disgusting manner, pure and simple. And if all other markets would act like this we can all just kill our children now instead of leaving them to suffer a slow death on the ruined resource depleted planet we'd leave them...
The sad fact though, is that they'll likely be able to push through with making used games unplayable on new consoles. And it won't hurt their sales, it'll just reduce the amount of players in multiplayer, drastically reduce the average life length of games (meaning the time it's being played, not the actual length of the games) and raise the prices of new games, since that'll be the only option we have left (because it's a snowballs chance in hell that prices would drop in such a scenario).
All this makes me want to slap the ones responsible, and make them pay for the right to wear shoes. 2 licenses for each pair, preferably on a monthly or weekly basis (regardless of if they're being used or not). And an extra fee once they're worn out, so I can charge to dispose of them. Let them have a taste of the market they're trying to build. End rant :)
I can only speak for myself and my own experience of how playing violent games has affected my own tendencies for violence, and too me the connection is clear. When I stared playing videogames regularly I got into fights almost a few times a week. Then, once I moved on from Mario and such, to more violent games, I just stopped fighting. I think I was maybe 13 or 14 years old then. I remember my last fistfight well, because it was a real reality check for me. I had wrestled my opponent to the ground, and was sitting over his chest. Thus I could have easily beaten him in the face with both hands, had I wished to. But there, suddenly, I realised that while I was very angry at him I didn’t actually want to hurt him, because this was a person just like me, not some inanimate object to vent my anger on. Thus, I just couldn’t do it and ended up trying to pin him down and hold him of, until some adults stepped in and pulled us away from each other. It’s a moment that I’ve carried with me since then and to this day, now being close to 26 years old, I have never again struck another person in anger. I just don’t have it in me anymore. But I do play a lot more violent videogames. Now if this can be attributed to violent games, or just a sudden jump in maturity on my part, isn’t something I can objectively judge. But what I do know is that around the time I started playing violent games, the anger that was there just faded away - a most remarkable coincidence. Isn't it?
Kerethos' comments