RF Generation Message Board

Normally I don't go for this sort of thing, but I really wanted to learn the perspective of the peanut gallery on this hot button topic.

Ahem.

As some of you no doubt know, recently Sony has filed a patent that, paired with the miracle of an online console with attached profile, would restrict games to the console that they were first played on.  Didn't enjoy Metal Gear Skylanders 9?  So sorry, Charlie, you are out $59.99 Sony space-bucks, because no one will ever be capable of playing that disc but you on your Sony Playstatia 9000.  Suck, huh?

I would now like to quote the abstract of the patent itself (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0007892.html).  Ahem.  "A game playing system includes a use permission tag provided for use in a game disk for a user of a game, a disk drive, and a reproduction device for reproducing the game. The disk drive reads out a disk ID from the game disk. When the game is to be played, the reproduction device conveys the disk ID and a player ID to the use permission tag. The use permission tag stores the terms of use of the game and determines whether a combination of the disk ID and the player ID conveyed from the reproduction device fulfills the terms of use or not."

Seems pretty clear to me (though the person doesn't know the difference between "disc" and "disk", which makes e twitch a little).  While this is merely a patent, and does not actually represent technology that will ever be used is a system, we all know the gaming industry has been gunning for the second-hand gaming market for a while now.  Utilizing the technology described in the patent one could then draw a line on the sand where there would be no future second hand games available for that system.

Sure, given the massive backlash over this story it may come to nothing, but the threat lingers.  It could literally be several console generations away before anything like this is implemented (remember Sony's grand plan for an all digital PS3?).  But something to remember is that unlike before, there is now a delivery system that does not threaten retailers (which the console manufacturers still need) while still protecting their first and second party software sales.

That is all, I think.  Likely some of you will rejoice that the value of your collections will skyrocket as later generations, deprived of the secondhand goodness of their childhoods, are forced to deal in $60 copies of Total Recall for NES (I'm looking at you, Crab).  Me, I feel sorry for the Future Collector.

Wait...what you're talking about basically already exists on the PlayStation 3. There's already an ownership tag for digital content, and the IDs are already existing (BLUS-##### and your profile ID). How does this change things?

The patent in question was filed on 9/12/12, a few months short of six years prior to the release of the Playstation 3, ergo it is different.  The difference is in the media itself.  As you clearly stated, it is for digital content, while the patent covers content with a tag placed on a disc.

Yeah, this time they've patented a way for the disc to basically marry itself to the first system it is put inside, not with digital content. Its been all over the news outlets.

Here's a link to it: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0007892.html

Sony said they were going to do this with the PS3 anyways.
They also said game prices were going to be 79.99 or something and the consumer would have to deal with it.

Maybe Sony is just filing a patent to prevent someone else from doing so?
It has happened before. Maybe not in the gaming world (or at least no instances i can think of) but it has certainly happened.

I of course could be wrong but i don't think Sony is looking to further limit themselves in the market by doing something like that.

Because this certainly has not come to fruition:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/itfacts/sony-can-get-53-market-share-with-playstation-3/8313

Instead the market has more or less stayed a 3 way tie for system sales:
    Wii – 97.18 million as of 30 September 2012[8]
    PlayStation 3 – 70.2 million as of 30 September 2012[53][54]
    Xbox 360 – 70.0 million as of 30 September 2012[55]

Okay, just read it a bit more closely this time with physical in mind. It's essentially a patent to turn your disc into a key disc, much like PC gaming enjoyed during the late 90s and early 2000s before going mostly digital.

I'm honestly not that surprised - it's the next logical step for Sony. Also, the ownership tag wasn't implemented until Sony patched it in with an SDK update some time last year. I'm not talking about the DRM licensing - it's something entirely different.

Ubis DRM? That worked wonderfully.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/05/ubisoft-drm-piracy-interview/

This doesn't really come as a surprise to me considering that the used game market has been taken shots from developers. Sony is basically saying, "We don't want the consumer to go buy the used game and let the store get 100% profit, that money should be coming to us."

By linking a game to a player ID and console ID they're trying to put an end to the sale of previously played games. Although, I bet a scenario like this will happen: a person buys a used game, puts the disc in their system and gets a message saying, "You are playing a used game. To access the complete game $5 will be charged to your account."

I don't know if this will hurt the retro collecting scene, but it definitely targets the current generation used game market. This will certainly make collecting for current games expensive.

I personally think it would be a foolish move unless their competitors follow suit. If Sony was the only one to do this I would think used game resellers like Game Stop would respond by relegating their games to the back of the store and having their sales associates push the system and games from their competitors that they could profit from. Sony is already in poor financial shape and this wouldn't help them in the next gen race.

As a collector, I fully understand that there will be a point when something like this happens, or we have all digital consoles. I've already decided that that will probably be the exit point for me. Far too many older games out there to still play and collect. I'm certainly the minority here.

You're saying that, should something like this happen, you'll start playing and collecting only "retro" games? As I read the original post I figured I'd do the same.

Yes sir.

Me too, brother!  I would still play all the indie, demake, and "new retro" style games, but since most of those games are free, I would end up turning my resources towards digging through the massive amount of computer games from the past.  Imagine the finances that could be diverted to pure retro gaming and collecting...

Frankly if this ever did go into effect, I think it would be disatrous for the company implementing it.  The way they see it is "Hey, we only sold 1 million copies of our game, but there are 1.5 million people playing it online.  We missed out on 500,000 sales!  We have to stop used game sales".  The thing they aren't taking into account is how many of the initial 1 million units sold were due to people trading in old games to Gamestop and using the trade in money to buy their game.  That's not even taking into account the number of people that would just not buy the game if they couldn't get it used.  I know my cheap ass wouldn't just say "Aw shucks, guess I better buy a new copy then".

A final thing is if the used game market would suddenly disappear, I'm pretty confident that the total number of units sold would decrease rather than increase.  Granted, with the extra money they would be making they might be able to offset the reduction in total sales, but they would essentially be in the same spot monetarily as they are in now, best case scenario.

This just seems like a completely terrible idea.  I really would be shocked if it was ever implemented.

It could work if a new AAA game at retail was 30$s tops.
And budget releases were moved from the 30$ range to the 10$ range.

As it is many people will buy a used copy of a still brand new game and save 5-10$s and think it is a steal.

This kinda talk went  around before PS3 was launched as was 100$ PS3 games and GT5 coting 900$ to get every car in DLC. Pre launch hype and worries. Listen most patents never come to be real things

I'd join Duke's minority too ;)

I doubt this would happen this next gen though.

I can live without current generation games should this happen.

I'm more into classic games than modern games. I'm on the same boat, if this were real I'd say goodbye to modern games. Classic games always have a charm to me.

I actually wouldnt be to sad if something were to drive me away from modern consoles. While there are some games I absolutely love on modern systems, it seems like there are less and less games made that appeal to me with each new generation. There are still so many games for older consoles that I have yet to experience that I'd be set for years to come, probably decades.

i feel exactly the same, as much as i love some modern series and specific games, there are so many thousands and tens of thousands of old games to play that it would take more than one lifetime to get to them all. it's hardly limiting yourself to not jump into the newest generation.

I've come to similar conclusions for my own gaming.  I just don't get into many modern video game conventions (i.e. F2P, P2P, MMO, mobile, DLC, digital only, always online, etc.)

There have certainly been exceptions to these and will be in the future, but most of the time these types of games are not my preference for a variety of personal reasons.  I will say that I find it silly to become so resistant and jaded as to never play anything outside of my preference scope, and I'll always try something different or even try something I didn't like again.  But modern gaming trends have often made me very glad to have our collection, where the majority of games I can play without concern of patches, downloads, achievements, trophies, disconnected multiplayer, monthly service payments, DRM, online passes, and the list goes on.

I assume we'll always have at least something in the modern era to play and keep up with the industry, but collecting?  This post/current generation of 360, PS3, and Wii is probably the dividing line on what we collect.  Outside of a few (alright, quite a few) collector's editions and rarities, as of last year we're just picking up some nifty new stuff here and there, and focusing on the holes in our retro shelves.  

One of the turning points came when my beloved and I just did some fun math off the top of our heads, and roughly calculated how long it would take to get through only the RPGs in our current collection.  If we only averaged about 25 hours per game, and did not get any more games, and played them forty hours a week starting last year, we would not finish them all before our average life expectancy.  Just the RPGs.

Getting more realistic about what we expect to play, how much weekly time we give the hobby, and how we want the collection to serve our purposes as opposed to the other way around, made me far less frustrated with the direction of modern gaming, and able to more easily treat it as a fun blessing alongside other things in our lives.

Just what my thought about it has been lately.

*Goes back to the Dust 514 Beta*  ::)

Same here, but I doubt that any company would implement any anti-used game policy stateside.

Originally I'd have thought the same, until the online pass system and always-on DRM were implemented on some games.  While there has been a vocal backlash in the gamer community, we have to be realistic in how few voices we are next to the overall sales figures in question.  Online passes have been considered a successful measure, and more games and companies are adopting them even for single player.  And despite the near comical 'told you so' problems with the 'always online' necessity for Diablo III (not to mention its other problems) it has also been very commercially successful.  As these two features are more fully embraced by publishers, and I really don't see the industry moving away from them soon, our restricted-use used game market is pretty much arriving.  We do get the occasional backlash such as Ubisoft's PC nonsense, but it seems more and more we'll see 'always online' and/or online passes become the norm.

Sheesh, I already cannot play my XBLA titles without being online because they get swapped across LAN systems so much, and MS locks them into trial only mode if I'm not online, just to make sure they are legitimately purchased.  The 'future' is here already, it just sneaks in a few components at a time.

Actually when i was playing Deadliest Warrior i managed to get 1 license to work on 3 consoles(while online). Not sure if it was game specific coding error or if i could potentially do it with other games. Haven't tried since i haven't had reason to. Nor have i had all 3 systems hooked up at once since...

This. 

But, i feel for future gamers who might not get the same opportunity to collect as we do.

Most of the current generation games I buy are usually new (and cheap), so this won't affect me too much.  But I (want to) seriously doubt that this will be implemented in the next generation of consoles.

While this does sadden me, gamers who are also collectors are very much the minority.  A very vocal and important minority, but not one that will have the money or power to change the digital tide. 

As much as I don't like to admit it, we are also likely a shrinking minority; your average collector born after the 90's nowadays is more likely to collect PS2 or Gamecube rather than Atari and Coleco, and as that subset ages, we are getting further removed from 8/16 bit nostalgia and tolerance for Intellivision controllers.  There is a new wave of retro appreciation, to be sure, but now it is more about retro art styles and simplified game design and less about the old games themselves.  We will always be introducing more people to 'our' classics, but there will be fewer and fewer teenagers for whom Frogger has as much staying power as Call of Halo Fantasy 7.

And that's if they don't all get run over by Google RoboCars as they're VR texting.

Now get off my lawn.  ;)

You bring up a good point Slakur. The 8/16 bit collector will likely fade into obscurity eventually as younger people discover the hobby and seek out consoles and games from their childhood. This will probably the point in time when the Nintendo bubble pops and a collecting focus will shift towards PS1, definitely PS2, and Xbox. It's a matter of people wanting to go down memory lane and re-experiencing those games from they were kids; and as the average collector becomes younger those nostalgic games will come from more recent generations.

I can already seen that "retro" has now become a term to describe the aesthetics of the game. I also see a good number of people in their late teens and early twenties scouring the flea markets for games because it's the "cool trend." But these people are usually hipsters and will drop vintage gaming once the next fad comes along. Even though I am talking about people from my age group I'm a bit of an outlier. My reason for collecting is because there are so many great games out there waiting to be enjoyed, I could care less for the cool factor or being trendy.

To get the discussion more in-line with the original post I think this move by Sony will hurt these younger collectors.

You can also add in the Arcade/Pinball boom of the early 2000s to that.  Everybody had to have an arcade or Pinball machine in their house.

This would have bothered me more if it were a system that I buy more games for.  I don't play very much on the PS3 and I usually buy new.

I don't need to be playing "the latest hotness" the day if comes out for $50-60.  Anything that I am interested in playing can be bought new for less than $20 less than a year from when the game comes out.

I understand that this is an issue for a bunch of people who purchase or trade for pre played games on a regular basis and I feel for them.  

At the end of the day, you don't own the software that you buy, you are purchasing a license to use the software.  It's just that there has been no real way to enforce that so companies have introduced things like online passes and additional "one time use" code content to discourage used purchases.  The best way that you can let a company know how you feel about something like this is to simply not spend your money on their products.

Companies look at user feedback, forums, customer service conversations, but at the end of the day, it's about dollars.  If Sony hears a LOT of complaining about this practice and they keep selling as many games as they had previously, this will become the status quo instead of a failed attempt to limit the software license that they have sold you.

Agreed.  At the end of the day, the publisher follows the money, as is the way of any business.  If there is more money to be had by establishing more user limitations and the pushback is minimal compared to the increase in profit, it is only logical that is the direction a company will go.  I certainly don't personally like the direction our industry has been going this generation and the next, but I can follow the lines about how we got here and how things will likely be in the near future.  Ours is still an entertainment industry not far out of infancy, and the future rules will be written by dollar signs.

If that comes across as fatalistic, we cannot ignore that despite our frustration with such developments, the medium will survive and our treasured hobby is resilient.  It is impossible not to imagine that from here on out, there will always be new video games to play.

i'm in my early 20s too :P and though my biggest collections are n64 and ps2, i do still appreciate the older generations. i grew up on nes at my grandparents vacation property every summer, and have as much nostalgia for that as i do for the n64 and gamecube. i also had a pong console, turbo grafx-16, and atari all at a young age. so even though i was born later than these systems' lifespans, i still feel attached to them as much as anything more modern. you don't have to have been around during the lifespan of a system to enjoy it :P.

anyway back to the topic, i would be surprised if this took hold. the vast majority of average gamers, and parents especially, rely on reselling their old games to be able to afford new ones. this would probably have a much higher effect on profits for the worse than the better.

Oh, no offense my good man. :)  I'm very grateful for folks who enjoy the games that came before them, so to speak.  If anything, I certainly wish you represented the majority of gamers out there who aren't biased when it comes to video games.

Communities such as RFGen are vital to keeping the legacy of our hobby alive.

The future of gaming is going to be 100% digital sooner than later. As such, I don't see how this matters from a collectors sense.

There are though going to be these attempts to curb piracy and they will continue to provide annoyance. We can only hope the game devs can realize that the problem is the price of their games and not people's unwillingness to buy them. It's here they will either go the way of the music industry (screaming, on fire, and off the cliff) or get their act together and follow the Steam and Netflix example of offering a good browser and the products we want at more accessible prices.

While price is a common reason given for piracy, I think people who pirate just do it because they want to and need no motive. I mean even the humble indie bundle wasn't safe.

A Netflix for games will certainly be something interesting. I see how it could possibly be the way of the future. When looking at Steam as an example I can very well picture console developers offering entire libraries for digital download. It's only a matter of time really. Video game retailers are just the middle men, and Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, can easily cut them out by selling games through their respective consoles via the Internet. We might just see the demise of physical copies of games.

You guys are bumming me out. What a depressing thread :(

Aw, Crabby, are you kidding?  This may be the greatest time ever to be both a gamer and a collector!  We've got thousands of classic games and hardware that are able to be hunted down and found reasonably cheap.  We have hundreds of compilations and legitimate downloads on modern and post modern systems to replay ones we missed or never experienced.  We have big budget AAA games with crazy summer movie production values, and arthouse indie randomness.  There are more people enjoying more available games on more platforms than ever before, and the vast majority are cheap, some even free.  Creative teams and individuals are finally getting more recognition and are easier to follow up on.  For crying out loud, I just got a portable Neo Geo AES with twenty games preloaded on it.  If I showed that to my 14 year old self in 92, I'd have never lived it down!  Gaming may be going in directions that conflict with my preferences, but I can't imagine a future where I won't have anything I want to play, even if the modern gaming scene doesn't have anything for me at times.

If anything, this discussion proves just how valuable communities like RFGeneration really are.  This site's database, the collections, and the discussions are part of an important vanguard against the industry losing touch with its history.  With sites like Digitpress, Racketboy, Gamefaqs, the VGCL, and RFGeneration, we keep the candle lit for games and game experiences others may have otherwise missed out upon.  Not to overstate our own importance, but realistically there aren't many sites out there like this, that do as good a job as the crew here, and are as welcoming and (imho) important to keep building. 

I, for one, am perhaps more excited about gaming's present than its future, but I intend to bring that excitement with me there. :)

Well said, sir.  For such a well thought out and written capstone (far more fitting than I could have possibly thought would happen), I bestow upon you the highest honor I am authorized too:


You should be on a podcast or something  ;)

:) Thanks. *sigh* I do really miss that.

Well said, and I mostly agree. Just a bit sad imagining the future I guess.

Funny you should mention that.

Methinks this would make a great subject to tackle in a future CollectorCast.

Or at least a segue into a discussion on retro collecting in a future CollectorCast.

As for myself: I'm pretty much part of the consensus about letting future generations of gaming go if such restrictive policies are put in place. There's plenty of older stuff out there to take advantage of, and it's not like I'm keeping up that much on the new stuff anyway. Well, save for the occasional release on Nintendo platforms.

And I am sure it misses you too.  Maybe you should do a guest spot on another podcast sometime...

Funny to think that one day, in this bleak and war torn imagined-future, there might not be anything as retro game collecting.  Just game collecting.