Is it fair for companies to charge exorbitant prices for products where their customers have no opportunity to make an informed choice?
Let's hear it for loaded questions!
24.95 exorbitant? I don't want to drag up the old "When I was young" thing, but in the late eighties I paid 200 - 400 SEK for computer games. Check against historic Big Mac index of your choice.
Informed choice? You've got lots of information available, that's what reviews are for. There are loads of magazines and websites that do their best to make you able to make an informed choice.
Fair? What's that got to do with it? This is capitalism, fairness doesn't come into it. You know about advertising hype, about laughable "minimum system requirements", and Sturgeon's Law. Caveat emptor.
Game publishers could produce demos relatively cheaply, and offer them for download, even if no magazines wanted them for the cover discs (at least for PC games, but since the latest-generation consoles have internet access, too, that's not unfeasible). That they don't is a commercial decision, and it's theirs to make. If you don't like it, well, tough titties to you.
Okay, so you give them the money they're owed if you like a game. That only makes it theft during your evaluation period, right? (By the way, the "piracy isn't theft" argument is bullshit, as you still take someone elses property without paying for it.) That's laudable. But you don't pay for the games you don't like. Why? You've still used their intellectual property.
Do you also download films, in order to decide whether you should buy them? Or before deciding whether you want to pay the door price at the cinema? Do you steal books at WHSmiths, and pulp them if you don't like them, and go back and pay for them if you do? (The manufacturing cost of a paperback book is a small part of the cover price, and book shops are reluctant to accept returns, too.)
It's entertainment. Don't compare games to cars or computers. Compare to other forms of entertainment. Movies, books, cinemas, theatres, concerts and so on. You check the reviews, you judge them on your opinion of the producers, authors and performers, and you take your chances. Films and books are just as hyped as games.
I'd agree that your method might be morally and ethically correct if you had a need for games, or some fundamental right to them, but you don't. It's entertainment.
What you are saying is that anyone who produces something you don't like has no right to get paid by you for their efforts. Sorry, but that's ass-backwards. You are not obliged to pay them anything if you don't use their property, but if you want to use their property, you've got to follow their rules. If those rules are unacceptable to you, the ethical thing to do is to leave their property alone.
no subject
Let's hear it for loaded questions!
24.95 exorbitant? I don't want to drag up the old "When I was young" thing, but in the late eighties I paid 200 - 400 SEK for computer games. Check against historic Big Mac index of your choice.
Informed choice? You've got lots of information available, that's what reviews are for. There are loads of magazines and websites that do their best to make you able to make an informed choice.
Fair? What's that got to do with it? This is capitalism, fairness doesn't come into it. You know about advertising hype, about laughable "minimum system requirements", and Sturgeon's Law. Caveat emptor.
Game publishers could produce demos relatively cheaply, and offer them for download, even if no magazines wanted them for the cover discs (at least for PC games, but since the latest-generation consoles have internet access, too, that's not unfeasible). That they don't is a commercial decision, and it's theirs to make. If you don't like it, well, tough titties to you.
Okay, so you give them the money they're owed if you like a game. That only makes it theft during your evaluation period, right? (By the way, the "piracy isn't theft" argument is bullshit, as you still take someone elses property without paying for it.) That's laudable. But you don't pay for the games you don't like. Why? You've still used their intellectual property.
Do you also download films, in order to decide whether you should buy them? Or before deciding whether you want to pay the door price at the cinema? Do you steal books at WHSmiths, and pulp them if you don't like them, and go back and pay for them if you do? (The manufacturing cost of a paperback book is a small part of the cover price, and book shops are reluctant to accept returns, too.)
It's entertainment. Don't compare games to cars or computers. Compare to other forms of entertainment. Movies, books, cinemas, theatres, concerts and so on. You check the reviews, you judge them on your opinion of the producers, authors and performers, and you take your chances. Films and books are just as hyped as games.
I'd agree that your method might be morally and ethically correct if you had a need for games, or some fundamental right to them, but you don't. It's entertainment.
What you are saying is that anyone who produces something you don't like has no right to get paid by you for their efforts. Sorry, but that's ass-backwards. You are not obliged to pay them anything if you don't use their property, but if you want to use their property, you've got to follow their rules. If those rules are unacceptable to you, the ethical thing to do is to leave their property alone.