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The problem with this is that a) retailers are a big avenue of sales for publishers/developers, so attacking their main source of profit could have detrimental effects
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Replace 'big' with 'rapidly declining'. Digital sales are skyrocketing. Shop sales are plummeting. Even while continuing resales and diversifying out into more profitable stock (DVDs, Angry Birds merchandise), the Game Group in the UK has been struggling to stay alive. There's plenty of reason to not bother defending retailers.
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and b) publishers’ solutions are usually expensive, frustrating or irritating to consumers and ultimately don’t help (DRM, day-one DLC, online passes).
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I don't disagree one jot. The popular methods of suppressing resale and piracy are awful. Whatever solutions we settle on, they're going to have to not involve treating paying customers like sacks of shit.
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I think distribution rights and resale rights should be considered differently. In one, you’re keeping your own copy and allowing someone else access, which is a violation of your license agreement or whatever. In the other, you are transferring your license to another person and giving up your own license, which should be fine.
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Why should it be fine? Surely it should be up the copyright holders to determine if that's acceptable. I'm not convinced either that it should be universally possible, selectively possible or outright banned. I just don't know. Sure it's beneficial for the consumer; but it's not (directly) beneficial to the developer.
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I think a big worry with digital distribution is how that transfer of license is impossible, and how restrictive the license agreement is. You buy a digital game, it gets tied to one account, one platform, one player.
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It depends how it's done. I know of at least one game that users will be able to purchase once and be able to play on both PS3 and PS Vita. I get asked if we're doing that for Stranger HD. The answer is no. We're putting development into Stranger HD for Vita, and it would be really nice if we were in a position to distribute the product of that development sort-of freely, but we're not.
Converesly, I'm put off getting into OnLive. As much as it appeals to me, there's no way to integrate Steam and OnLive accounts. I don't expect to pay for the Steam service and get OnLive service for free; I would pay extra to support the OnLive devs. However, I'm not paying for that. I'm paying for two separate, largely identical copies of the same game.