Yes, because people only steal games from big companies. How about the little video game shop that is just trying to get by, particularly the one trying to get by without having to sell out to one of the video game giants.
Then we have the Japanese Anime industry here in the US, which has been collapsing for some time under the weight of theft. Several large companies have already folded, companies that almost certainly could have kept going strong if people had actually paid for stuff instead of just downloading it. The industry has never publicized horribly inaccurate numbers like the MAFIAA has, but it has become apparent that downloading is hitting them very hard
Design an open system without copy protection, raised the price of the console slightly and drop the price of the games to $20.
Wait....what? Are you serious? So developers are no longer allowed to recoup the millions of $ they are spending developing games? Either the company that made it, the company that published it, or the company that sold it are going to make no money if you try and sell the game for that cheap, or at least not enough to justify it.
As an IT person who has moved to the "boonies", married to someone who has lived here her entire life, I think you guys have a bit of an outdated idea of what life is like out in the country.
Perhaps it is different in the bible belt, but here in Iowa pretty much every girl in a small town goes on birth control as soon as she enters high school. Girls who are already on birth control bring any of their friends who they find out isn't to a place like planned parenthood so they can get it. They are also not as stupid about STDs as you people seem to think.
WO showed no signs that it was ever going to be ready. It had gone way over budget and way past the deadline that Mythic itself set...then past the new deadline...then past the new deadline. EA Louse even admitted that they kept slipping. So EA should keep shoveling money into a project that showed extremely bad mis-management and was just becoming a huge money sink?
It was time to cut their losses and just get something out the door to try and recoup what little they could out of the cluster-**** that the project had become
Unfortunately the inability to play games you have paid for from backups is a casualty of the war against video game theft(I refuse to call it piracy, because it is outright theft in this case). Of course, being able to make backups of your own games has been a capability that has never existed on consoles.
I normally don't care whether people call it theft or piracy but since you're making the distinction I feel the need to as well. When you "buy" a game you're buying permission to use a copy of it. You're not stealing a game by having an unauthorized copy, you're using it without permission. Theft is depriving someone of physical property against their will; the only way you can steal a game is to take it off the shelf or take it from someone's house without permission.
Does piracy cost developer money? Yes, but no one knows how much. Does piracy cause some people to buy content they wouldn't otherwise? Yes, but no one knows how much. Do I, as a legitimate consumer, care about that pissing match? No.
If someone is able to come up with a way that would somehow allow legitimate customers to play backups of legally purchased games but not allow people to download games without paying for them, great. I'm all for that, as long as it isn't too intrusive. Until then, backups are a casualty of the war to prevent video game theft.
I have no interest in being a casualty of the war on (insert item here). If I have to resort to unauthorized methods to make perfectly legal backups I will continue to do so.
So if I get hold of your bank information it is alright if I drain your accounts, right? After all, I'm not depriving you of physical property, so it isn't theft.
And it is disingenuous itself to not point out that those same hackers jailbreaking the other OS is why it got removed. Make no mistake, this is a war, and legitimate users are the collateral damage. Neither side is blameless, Sony nor the hackers.
This is exactly the point I wanted to make.
Unfortunately the inability to play games you have paid for from backups is a casualty of the war against video game theft(I refuse to call it piracy, because it is outright theft in this case). Of course, being able to make backups of your own games has been a capability that has never existed on consoles.
If someone is able to come up with a way that would somehow allow legitimate customers to play backups of legally purchased games but not allow people to download games without paying for them, great. I'm all for that, as long as it isn't too intrusive. Until then, backups are a casualty of the war to prevent video game theft.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss