I’d be surprised if the arbitrage opportunities are that broad, but yeah, it would be dominated by automated trading. It would be the same as trading stocks. Every piece of content would effectively have a bid/ask spread for its licenses, and people would have bots that are constantly speculating on them. I suppose when trade volume is low and prices vary, the swings could be quite wide trade-to-trade.

But this is what NFTs are, just with a decentralized exchange so that no single company can take a cut of every trade, and we already know how people felt about that.

the right of first sale in the digital space just need to be created to fix this mess

That sounds nice at first, but if you think about it, the logical conclusion is that: rather than an artist making a sale per person who wants to experience their work, they would make sales proportional to the maximum number of simultaneous viewers. With digital ownership, it would be trivial to instantly transfer ownership, so the moment someone is done playing a game or watching a movie, they’ll sell it instantly to someone else.

The only content that could benefit in such an economy is low production value slop that seeks to go instantly viral and issue licenses while there’s still demand. Then by the time it dies down they’re on to their next slop hit. That and live-service titles that try to keep people holding their licenses. Short single-player experiences, and games from small creators who rely on passive income from a few new people finding their game over time would sell a few copies at first, and then the licenses out there would just always undercut the purchase of any new license.

Also the exchanges would make a bunch of money by taking a cut of each sale. Which is arguably better than just Sony or Valve taking their cut.

I don’t like it either, but we can’t act like right of first sale for digital licenses would solve all problems and not create any new ones.

To publishers, if there’s no piracy happening, then they’re leaving money on the table. They’re offering too good of a deal to people. Piracy was at an all time low probably around 2010-2015 because there was a lot of disruption happening in the digital media space. But as the dust has settled, Netflix et. al. are now scooping up their spoils, and exploiting their advantage for profitability. Piracy rising is an inevitability. It’s a measure of how effectively they’re capitalizing on their content.

I don’t know what his point is. That we can mass produce slop for the lowest common denominator without needing to pay anyone? I legitimately don’t understand who he thinks he’s talking to! None of the players who would be fine with slop are listening (by definition), and he can talk to his rich buddies without the bad PR. And those are the only two groups who could possibly stand to benefit from what he’s suggesting.

You know the people being laid off are not the ones making those kinds of decisions, right?

That sounds like you’re describing someone who is only making a lemmy account because they see potential customers they want to advertise to.

That’s the exact reason I don’t want someone to make a lemmy account.

I was looking to buy a PC version for longevity/future proofing

For the record, physical PC titles are probably the worst way to preserve old games. Unless you’re ok with having to rely on a crack. Modern Windows and drivers often break support for old titles. Also there were a lot of games that relied on a key auth server that is no longer running.

Here’s a video from a couple of years ago on the subject.

Ironically, buying a physical console and copy of the game is the most dependable way of preserving old game libraries. Why do you say your 360 is on borrowed time? It should hold up fine.

I also just recently finished Forbidden West a couple of months ago! Just prior to that I had finished Silksong, and just afterwards I returned to Baldur’s Gate 3 and finally finished that!

I’m now playing Expedition 33 and Fez.

Yeah, it’s definitely not a drop-in replacement. But the Witcher 3 side quests are excellent, made the world feel alive in a way Elder Scrolls never did (to me). I think Skyrim is just so ambitious that the NPCs feel robotic in their inability to act appropriately, and it kills my immersion.

But I agree, idc about Yennifer or most of the main storyline. Basically the same for Skyrim too.

When I played Witcher 3 I remember immediately thinking Skyrim felt extremely dated. I would play any quest in W3 again before any quest in Skyrim.

But yeah, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is recent and supposed to be for Skyrim fans. Haven’t played it yet.

According to their recent feedback hub, what gamers really want is exclusives.

Why do consumers want so badly to be abused?

At first I was going to say, the 3 2 1 Backup rule won’t stop the planet from being destroyed by a meteor. But then I remembered the data on Voyager1.

Don’t worry, trump controls the fed now. He’ll make sure the dollar becomes worthless, and everyone will be billionaires!

A Low Budget Alan Wake would have been better than one that doesn’t sell

I don’t follow. As a fan, I get to play the game either way. Why would a lower budget version that more people buy be “better” for me? It might be better for the companies involved, it might even make future installments easier to sell to investors which means I get more games. But at the end of the day, as a player I end up with a worse AW2. Why would I want that?

I do wonder how the crowdfunding route would have gone for them. I don’t know that they could have raised the full $50M though. The original had a cult following, and Control did really well, but it would be very risky. If they failed to hit their goal in a crowdfunding round, then they could be guaranteed going forward that no one, not even Epic would have seen it as worth funding. It would have been forever dead.

Yes, it’s an unfortunate reality that EGS was the only option. But still, my hope is that someone can crunch the stats and prove to future publishers that the revenue delta can be attributed to EGS exclusivity.

Everything is like that. You buy a CD, DVD, record album, painting, concert ticket, movie ticket, whatever it is, you don’t own the artwork, the creator retains the rights to the artwork, you just own a limited license to view it. You can’t go put on your own concert or show using that license without consulting the owner. You can’t create derivative works without consulting the owner. You can’t make copies without consulting the owner.

It’s not just video games, that’s just how copyright works.

Edit: did you know that a tattoo artist retains the rights to the artwork on your body? If you’re an actor with a tattoo, anyone who hires you needs to either get permission from the artist to show the tattoos in their work, or cover your tattoos.

Curious what went wrong with your Reolink run. That’s what I’ve got. Doesn’t require an app or account, and works with home assistant.

It’s not a matter of privacy vs UX. I actually think Plex has ruined their UX. But if you have friends and family, some are tech-illiterate, some have their own media servers, and you all want to share with each other quickly and easily, Plex is the only viable option. Same if it’s just you, but you travel a lot, and want to watch something from your home server without lugging around a device that has access to your VPN and a screen/hdmi-out.

Jellyfin is really only viable if it’s just you on your own network.

To add on to the top post: with Plex you only need 1 account and can exchange access to multiple servers. I can browse all the media my account has access to with ease.

Jellyfin needs an account per server. If the client multiplexed between them seamlessly, that would probably be fine enough. But it would be nice if they supported some method of federation.

And Jellyfin has a list of CVEs that they haven’t addressed in years, which makes not want to make it visible outside my network.

I want to ditch Plex, but this is the primary sticking point for me. No criticism to the Jellyfin devs btw, they’re doing the lord’s work, I have nothing but respect for them.

Another minor one is that the Plex app works with a controller on my bazzite HTPC, but the Jellyfin one was hit or miss. I could get it to work once, and then the next day the controller would do nothing and the UI would be acting weird. I will go back and try it periodically to see if it’s ready, but last time I checked it wasn’t.