Les of Stupid Evil Bastard dares to question, on Twitter, the Unutterable Rectitude and Gaming Industry Business Model Wisdom of David Jaffe, and hilarity ensues.
Les: @djaffe What you say is a possibility. If it comes to pass then I may stop being a game consumer.
Les: If enough others do the same then Devs still lose.
Jaffe: if the main reason you game is to own a cd, then you prob should stop gaming, yes?
Les: That’s a helluva assumption to make. There are select few games I’ve bought digital. Only things I know I’ll play continuously.
Les: Most games do not fall into that category, God of War was one of them. I played it once, it was great, I’ve not touched it since.
Les: Luckily, I can sell it. Can’t do that with digital so if that was only format it was in you’d be out a sale.
Jaffe: Ah well, c’est la vie. If not being able to sell games keeps you from playing, don’t let door hit u on way out….
And it goes downhill from there.
Now, Les can certainly suffer fools ungladly, but in this encounter he speaks reasonably, with consideration — and, to be frank, I agree with his position: the ability to resell a (tangible) used game asset is something that gamers want, and efforts by the gaming industry to drive companies like GameSpot out of existence for daring to sell used games are either futile or else counter-productive to the health of the industry.
David Jaffe, on the other hand (along with Robin Clarke, who tag teams for him), comes across as an arrogant jerk. He’s the Stupid Bastard, if the Evil of his position is worth some civil conversation.
Amusing (and informative) to read.
Why is Les bothering to have a discussion with somebody who resorts to logical fallacies with every argument (based on the snippet you provided)?
Frankly I’m fairly certain that within the decade we’ll only have digital purchases available. I can see the real advantage of this to the industry, but it means that they’ll have to make robust test-drive versions available for free. This is what will let you have that one day of play with a game like God of War without being out the $40+ for the game.
Of course, eliminating the need to do the boxes and disks means that games should cost a LOT less, too.
Yeah, let me know when the prices drop because it’s all-electronic delivery …
I agree that we’ll probably be looking at all (or mostly) digital delivery in that time frame. But, yes, without a robust test drive (and that’s more than a day), folks simply are unlikely to risk as many game purchases. Expect more franchises, more big-label games. Sort of like the publishing industry.