RoseLegion: Games for for enjoyment, people and companies who make them need to stop trying to force burdensome practices and limits (I'm looking at you DRM, but don't worry, you're not alone) on people who buy their products (products, not "services" not "licenses" not
rentals) to relax and have a good time between all the responsibilities of day to day life.
hummer010: Your point of view.
The point of view of the people and companies who make the games is that the games are an avenue to generate revenue.
The trick, of course, is to find a happy medium between the two points of view.
Far from just my point of view, though yes it is certainly my point of view which is why I said it. Now that we've established those facts, I'll move on.
The point of view of the people and companies who make games is not a single monolithic thing, for starters developers aren't publishers and those two groups don't always agree on everything. Not only that but not every company, be it in development or publishing, has the same business model or point of view. And beyond that there's the fact that the stance of the company (whatever company we're talking about) is not 100% equivalent to the views of the actual array of people who make it up.
As just one example Alexis Kennedy is not Failbetter Games, there are decisions the company has made that he would not have made on his own (he's outlined this himself in blog posts) and that's a relatively small company that is much more directly personal than a mega corp like say EA or Valve.
The fundamental presumption that one needs to exploit in order to make a living is simply false, there are people and companies who are not exploiting - within the gaming industry - and are still making a living. Richard Cobbett for example, or the team for TW3 as just a couple examples.
Even if one were to accept that unnecessary burdens such as DRM are somehow required for revenue, that still wouldn't make locking mods behind a pay wall (as Valve/Bethesda talked about doing, and as I was referencing) would be legit because the people who are actually making the mods aren't the same ones who are making money off of them in most of those situations, and they wouldn't be allowed to make money off of their work if they didn't cut the company in, plus they're often then not allowed to make their work available to the community any longer.
As far as I can tell, the trick is to spend my money with companies who don't deliver an inferior experience by damaging their products with anti-consumer practices such as DRM et al, there are still many thousands of games which can be purchased and played without compromising that idea, and while it may just be my point of view, it seems to me that if thousands of games can be made and sold, supporting even larger numbers of people, then there's no reason to do anything else, and no reason for trying to balance fun vs exploitative means revenue generation (and just to be clear I'm in no way talking about getting everything for free, I'd be on an entirely different web site if that were my attitude or goal). I'm just talking about basic human respect flowing both ways when engaging in gaming commerce. Seems fundamental to me, not optional.
