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Wrex Ruckus posted:Holy poo poo, I had no idea Wegmans did rentals. I remember a lot of places you wouldn't think of doing rentals now had a video rental section. Off the top of my head in my area my local Meijers and a major pharmacy chain had them.
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Apr 7, 2019 14:45
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ryonguy posted:I remember a lot of places you wouldn't think of doing rentals now had a video rental section. Off the top of my head in my area my local Meijers and a major pharmacy chain had them. Small mountain towns still have that, or did until relatively recently, like the last five years. Edit in think even in those places they been replaced by redbox style machines. Think places where they say that they just got "a four lane". Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Apr 7, 2019 |
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Apr 7, 2019 14:55
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JustJeff88 posted:
Stuff like that is weird, If the game is really good just don't call it mario and get someone to draw new sprites where everything is horses and bees or something and call it a spiritual sequel. If they can't because "no, it being mario is the important part, if it's not mario it's not as good" then that kinda justifies why nintendo has to be super harsh on people using mario in their games.
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Apr 7, 2019 14:56
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ryonguy posted:I remember a lot of places you wouldn't think of doing rentals now had a video rental section. Off the top of my head in my area my local Meijers and a major pharmacy chain had them. If anyone remembers Phar-Mor they had exactly one shelf with video games on it in the 90s. Phar-Mor sucked though so it was only ever NES games well after the SNES was out. zetamind2000 fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Apr 7, 2019 |
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Apr 7, 2019 14:57
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Wrex Ruckus posted:Holy poo poo, I had no idea Wegmans did rentals. It was ridiculously cheap too. If I remember right they would have specials where it was a 5 day rental for 1 or 2 dollars. When they sold off their nintendo and super nintendo games, I bought a bunch for a couple dollars a piece.
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Apr 7, 2019 15:51
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I used to remember the Hannaford grocery stores, common around Maine and New Hampshire, used to rent video games back in the PS1 era. That is how I first played Tomb Raider.
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Apr 7, 2019 16:44
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I would rent NES games from a place called Erol's, which closed around the time Blockbuster started showing up everywhere. Then they got into the ISP business and we had them as our first ISP before they got bought out/absorbed by some bigger company.
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Apr 7, 2019 17:00
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I think people who are just a few years younger than me (so that they grew up with PSX & PS2 vs. NES & SNES) don't have as much of an idea how big the game rental market in the US was. Lots of people never bought many games for their (S)NES, since you could often rent a game for a weekend for $2-3, which mean you could rent it for close to half a year for the cost of buying it new. It was even more relevant with the expensive chipset games like Dragon Warrior 2-4 or Chrono Trigger, where the game cost $60 or 70 instead of 45 or 50. Games were specifically made harder for the US market because of game rentals-- if you could beat a game on a single weekend it would really negatively effect game sales. There was also way less of a first week effect at the time, since there weren't strict dates for things coming out so much as they rolled out when they actually got to a store. That all kind of died with disc games, because it is way easier to damage them beyond repair and the price of new games dropped in half almost overnight. And to bring it back to the thread topic, I'm expecting a huge up shift in pricing once Gamestop dies in the next year or two. It's already way worse than it used to be (games stay at close to $60 for over a year) because of the weakness of the secondary market. When most of it implodes in a single moment, I expect we'll be stuck paying max price on back catalogue stuff forever.
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Apr 8, 2019 14:38
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Stuff like that is weird, If the game is really good just don't call it mario and get someone to draw new sprites where everything is horses and bees or something and call it a spiritual sequel. If they can't because "no, it being mario is the important part, if it's not mario it's not as good" then that kinda justifies why nintendo has to be super harsh on people using mario in their games. Exactly. And then you can actually sell it too like "Definitely not Twilight", 50 Shades
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Apr 8, 2019 15:15
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rkajdi posted:And to bring it back to the thread topic, I'm expecting a huge up shift in pricing once Gamestop dies in the next year or two. It's already way worse than it used to be (games stay at close to $60 for over a year) because of the weakness of the secondary market. When most of it implodes in a single moment, I expect we'll be stuck paying max price on back catalogue stuff forever. GoG is great because you can get games that you thought you'd never be able to play again, but it also sucks because eventually companies are going to realize they can still get people to pay decent money for 30 year old games.
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Apr 8, 2019 15:58
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Abandonware is basically going away. That makes me sad.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:16
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BrandorKP posted:Abandonware is basically going away. That makes me sad. Hail Disney, murderers of the public domain.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:23
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ryonguy posted:GoG is great because you can get games that you thought you'd never be able to play again, but it also sucks because eventually companies are going to realize they can still get people to pay decent money for 30 year old games. GoG at least has you paying $10 for an old game. The filthy part is when say DQ11 PS4 is still stuck at $60 digital. For a six month old game that like usual didn't sell well. Once the secondary market is killed along with Gamestop, the digital price will never come down because there's no used copies to force prices down. I get that people hate Gamestop for reasons I can't figure out (only answer I've gotten is "used = theft" stuff from a friend trying to break into the industry) but when they go away all of us are going to paying more for less w/r/t video games. I know I'm a big shopper of value bin used games, because $60 worth of old used stuff gives you a lot better a chance at getting a decent game versus buying a single new one.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:24
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rkajdi posted:GoG at least has you paying $10 for an old game. The filthy part is when say DQ11 PS4 is still stuck at $60 digital. For a six month old game that like usual didn't sell well. Once the secondary market is killed along with Gamestop, the digital price will never come down because there's no used copies to force prices down. People don't like them because they offer extremely lovely value for trade ins and turn around and inflate their used prices on anything that isn't like three years old or older. That said if you keep an eye on their trade promotions you can occasionally do well. I think I got RDR2 and an Xbox One X for like 150 bucks by trading in my Xbox One S.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:33
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BrandorKP posted:Abandonware is basically going away. That makes me sad. I'm fine with paying a few bucks so the creators/rights-holders get some revenue for older games I lost the discs to. The only part of abandonware I miss is the low price that forced down the value of old games. I wonder if in 10 years we won't be watching people try to push the costs of these games closer to new prices, because why not? Nintendo killing old ROM sites is probably worse IMO, since there are absolute gems that are never going to be re-released and are astronomic on the legit market-- Little Samson is the best example, but even say the old DW/DQ games or Chrono Trigger are priced higher than they were as new releases decades ago. DS stuff in particular I expect to spike, since we haven't gotten to the point where storage of a complete library is trivial like it is currently for NES & SNES stuff.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:34
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BrandorKP posted:Abandonware is basically going away. That makes me sad. Is it? Piracy is easier than ever.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:44
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DrNutt posted:People don't like them because they offer extremely lovely value for trade ins and turn around and inflate their used prices on anything that isn't like three years old or older. I sort of get that. Selling to Gamestop is for thieves/idiot kids who need cash for games, but buying is how you can take advantage of them. It's basically a pawn shop, so caters to the same crowd that sells there. They also seems to help crater the prices for recent old games (like say 3-5 years old) which is hugely beneficial if you are interested in playing newer but not new games. If you think the prices on used stuff is high right now, just imagine what it's going to be like when 75% of the used market goes away overnight.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:45
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Is it? Piracy is easier than ever. No? A lot of the abandonware stuff that was available a decade ago is now gone because there's a legit site to buy from.
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Apr 8, 2019 16:47
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We need a healthy public domain tbh but lol Disney
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Apr 8, 2019 16:57
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rkajdi posted:I get that people hate Gamestop for reasons I can't figure out (only answer I've gotten is "used = theft" stuff from a friend trying to break into the industry) Anyone who hates second hand markets by calling it "theft from creators" is basically a Harry Potter goblin and part of the reason why our IP laws are so hosed up.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:00
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Kerning Chameleon posted:Anyone who hates second hand markets by calling it "theft from creators" is basically a Harry Potter goblin and part of the reason why our IP laws are so hosed up. I feel very odd about agree with KC about well anything, but they're actually right on this. I mocked the poo poo out of the guy making the argument, because he was angry I would buy a game used specifically because one of the big names involved in it is a literal fascist (Sugiyama on DQ11) and not giving him money is a good thing.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:05
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BrandorKP posted:Abandonware is basically going away. That makes me sad. Abandonware was always a fake title we used to pretend some piracy was justified and some piracy wasn't. In reality it's always morally fine to pirate, and always legally not fine to pirate. rkajdi posted:No? A lot of the abandonware stuff that was available a decade ago is now gone because there's a legit site to buy from. This is complete nonsense. Pirating old games is still easily available.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:20
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Not every potential pirate has the right equipment or knowhow to make them work, though. Some people probably just want to play a game and not gently caress around with building a 486 or screwing with emulators.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:25
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ReidRansom posted:Not every potential pirate has the right equipment or knowhow to make them work, though. Some people probably just want to play a game and not gently caress around with building a 486 or screw with emulators. That also hasn't changed though? Downloading "Abandonware" has always required you to be able to mash things together to get those old titles working, since nobody was going to provide official patches or support to adapt the old game to wherever you were running it. For that matter, it's the same for people who chose to purchase those games legitimately instead of pirating.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:29
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fishmech posted:In reality it's always morally fine to pirate, and always legally not fine to pirate. No it's not. Unless this is just some "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:31
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HootTheOwl posted:No it's not. Unless this is just some "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing. Would you care to make a valid statement in defense of Bobby Kotick's next yacht?
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Apr 8, 2019 17:35
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fishmech posted:Would you care to make a valid statement in defense of Bobby Kotick's next yacht? I would like to make the argument that when I write something that I have the right to sell it, and that you can only sell the singular copy you bought from me.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:37
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fishmech posted:That also hasn't changed though? Downloading "Abandonware" has always required you to be able to mash things together to get those old titles working, since nobody was going to provide official patches or support to adapt the old game to wherever you were running it. For that matter, it's the same for people who chose to purchase those games legitimately instead of pirating. I admit I'm making a lot of assumptions. I haven't played any game in a long time and any old dos game even longer still. So I'm probably not super qualified beyond speaking to what I'd do personally if on the off chance I wanted to play some old game.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:38
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HootTheOwl posted:I would like to make the argument that when I write something that I have the right to sell it, and that you can only sell the singular copy you bought from me. Who "wrote" Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and who is actually getting paid for the tiny fraction of sales it's currently generating? Why should anyone be subsidizing Bobby Kotick's sex dungeons?
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Apr 8, 2019 17:43
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ReidRansom posted:I admit I'm making a lot of assumptions. I haven't played any game in a long time and any old dos game even longer still. So I'm probably not super qualified beyond speaking to what I'd do personally if on the off chance I wanted to play some old game. Among other things, the last time you did that you were likely running on an older OS that could run some or all of the titles natively with no fuss. With things like the major changes in OS infrastructure and especially most Windows users moving forward to 64 bit Windows, this has greatly reduced the compatibility with the older titles. It's more complicated for the same games, but solely because of humdrum technical issues. You can still get the files as easily as ever. HootTheOwl posted:I would like to make the argument that when I write something that I have the right to sell it, and that you can only sell the singular copy you bought from me. What's the relevance to piracy there? Few people are foolish enough to pay for "Abandonware".
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Apr 8, 2019 17:47
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DrNutt posted:Who "wrote" Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and who is actually getting paid for the tiny fraction of sales it's currently generating? Why should anyone be subsidizing Bobby Kotick's sex dungeons? Labor has value, unless you have a boss?
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Apr 8, 2019 17:49
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fishmech posted:What's the relevance to piracy there? Few people are foolish enough to pay for "Abandonware".
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Apr 8, 2019 17:50
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HootTheOwl posted:Labor has value, unless you have a boss? It's amazing that you basically nailed it in two posts man, good job. HootTheOwl posted:No it's not. Unless this is just some "no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:51
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Don’t defend big companies, IP law is designed to help big companies, not indie devs.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:55
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HootTheOwl posted:Not all piracy is from abandonware? If you're just talking about abandonware then your complaints make more sense. But that's not the take away I got from what you said. Abandonware is a fake term people made up to justify piracy though? Like for real its almost all fully copyrighted games, with knowable rights holders, and much of it was/is stuff trivial to purchase if you were interested.
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Apr 8, 2019 17:55
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fishmech posted:What's the relevance to piracy there? Few people are foolish enough to pay for "Abandonware". Isn't the point of GOG that the people do pay for it? At least if you take the effort to include a PDF manual and bespoke DOSBOX settings. DrNutt posted:Who "wrote" Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and who is actually getting paid for the tiny fraction of sales it's currently generating? Why should anyone be subsidizing Bobby Kotick's sex dungeons? If you're making the point that nobody should give a poo poo about taking cash away from the next EA or ActiBlizzard, I get you and agree. But your argument covers any group endeavor. Every game of any substance, even the most indie darling you can think of, comes from a team of people. Hell so does every modern book, unless we're going to act like editing is an optional step. I also fully understand the line between big and small is 100% arbitrary, so it's functionally different for everyone.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:00
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One, if you're relying on "but the creators need to eat!", you're better off making a case for UBI and M4A and other such basic needs social safety net programs. Second, the laws of supply and demand completely break down when you can make a copy of the digital files perfectly to theoretically every single storage medium on earth that is of sufficient size to hold them. Multiple, even. When I "buy" a song off your bandcamp page, you argue I'm entitled to only sell or give that singular copy to another person... but that's utterly nonsensical since P2P networks arose when people realized they could effectively endlessly copy that one file and give theoretically every person on earth a copy for free, and it was basically resource and labor free to do so. Artificial scarcity imposed by laws and lawsuits are the only way traditional capitalism can work with purely digital products.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:01
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fishmech posted:Abandonware is a fake term people made up to justify piracy though? Like for real its almost all fully copyrighted games, with knowable rights holders, and much of it was/is stuff trivial to purchase if you were interested. If you don't see the difference between pirating the latest game some guy just put out and some DBF reader microsoft stopped supporting a decade ago I don't know what to tell you.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:04
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rkajdi posted:Isn't the point of GOG that the people do pay for it? At least if you take the effort to include a PDF manual and bespoke DOSBOX settings. GOG isn't abandonware. It's games that are being sold on behalf of the current rightsholders, with all proper due diligence as to who those holders are, and refusing to sell anything where there's serious doubt as to who owns the IP in question. HootTheOwl posted:If you don't see the difference between pirating the latest game some guy just put out and some DBF reader microsoft stopped supporting a decade ago I don't know what to tell you. There is legally and morally absolutely no difference between them. Both are fully in violation of copyright law, both are not immoral in the least.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:05
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Invalid Validation posted:Don’t defend big companies, IP law is designed to help big companies, not indie devs. The fact that big companies abuse laws isn't an argument against the ethics the laws were based around. It's an argument to have better laws that better enforce the ethical behaviors we want. Specifically the one here that labor has value and until we live in the world where no one pays for anything you should have to pay for labor.
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Apr 8, 2019 18:07
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