There are, it seems, no longer any rules in the entertainment world. There is no recourse.

I recently purchased Fallout: New Vegas from a local Gamestop the day it was released, October 19th, and installed it that night. It's been a month, and the game still does not work (PC with nVidia card). I've followed Fallout since the first in the series (Fallout: a Post-apocalyptic Role-playing Game, not Wasteland), and loved it deeply. I even got Fallout Tactics the day it came out, though I didn't bother with Brotherhood of Steel. When I heard Bethesda was going to take over the franchise, I was really excited, being a huge fan of Morrowind and Oblivion. All of this happened when downloading games wasn't so prevalent.

By the time Fallout 3 hit, it wasn't perfect, but it was good, and I didn't have any regrets about slapping 50 bucks on the table.

That feels like a million years ago. Paying $50 for something you really wanted. The waiting, getting excited, playing it for every pennies-worth. Now, not so much. Games, movies, music, it all comes out every week, and less than half of the people enjoying it are paying for it. And the PC game-makers are rightly upset by the state of things. It takes a lot of work to put those things together, and even more love to make one worth remembering.

Fallout: New Vegas was shipped incomplete. I'm not excited about playing it. I got the feeling just before the glitches hit. I was so ready to love it the way I was ready to love every other iteration. But I don't. It's not worth the frustration it gives me, or the time I put into it. The game is all about immersion, and that's not possible with this thing. Even after a month.

Now what? If I contact Bethesda are they going to give me my money back? No, of course not. Will Gamestop? No, they haven't accepted returns of PC titles since Warcraft 2. There's no consequences for either party. Nobody's got any laws to protect either party. Maybe it's just me, but it feels like the end of entertainment as we know it.

I've been a musician and an artist my whole life. I've toured the country with my band numerous times, released records and even with a record label, but I still don't earn a living on it. In fact, I lose money doing it. The label I'm on has been around for more than 20 years, and even with the money they make off of their larger releases, they're still tanking. I'm about to go into the studio and make a second full-length when I still haven't sold more than 200 of the first one since it's release in May. But that's not the worst of it. The worst is, I know groups who tour 10 months out of the year, sell out nearly every show, and have a record that's been in magazines and reviewed on Pitchfork, and they tell me they're only breaking even. No gain, just what it costs to drive themselves from one end of the country to the other.

It's like a dream, as if some genie asked a guy, "Would you rather have all the free music, movies and games in the world, or would you rather artists were paid for their work?" and the guy said, "Duh! I'll take the free stuff, I'm not an artist, what do I care?"

So what's next? Where's the money? Who will pay the artists? Who will uphold the law? Who will stop us from stealing? Probably nobody.

Here's my music, and a video I shot, edited and am promoting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmHTk5QquTo

No one's going to pay for it, but maybe some of you will watch it.

Thanks,

jj