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Comment by drharris | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one that doesn't care about this? We geeks love to wax romantically about how the legacy distribution models are insane, but aren't willing to compromise with any less than free (as in piracy) digital distribution. It seems to me a paradox to claim that A) Distribution should be all digital, and B) We should allow sharing, sharing for everybody, all the things! In the end, people need to get paid, and until somebody comes up with a breakthrough on rights management, we're left with this model. Simple as that.

So, either stop complaining about physical distribution, or else stop complaining about being able to share freely, or get off your couch and figure out a way to get both and sell it to these companies.

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Simple:

* Customer purchase a licence to download and play a game, linked to an account

* Licences can be given or traded with other account holders (subject to a reasonable time-limit)

* Machine has to phone home in order to complete trade.

That would be a completely fair system for all parties involved. But publishers don't want a system that is completely fair for all parties involved.

The Kindle eBook Lending program works like this.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

> Kindle books can be loaned to another reader for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle -- Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. Not all books are lendable -- it is up to the publisher or rights holder to determine which titles are eligible for lending. The lender will not be able to read the book during the loan period. Books can only be loaned once, and subscription content is not currently available for lending

You need to understands that we don't share a single opinion. Personally I care about physical distribution. I have nearly 400 dvd/bluray and often I share them with my friends/family.

I prefer physical products because you "own" it. You can share it, you can watch it when/where/how you want and you can resale it. The day Microsoft will decide that theirs servers for the Xbox One are too expansive (like all the old Halo multiplayer server), you will lose all your right on theses games.

I only use digital distribution when they are cheap enough (Steam and Netflix).

Agreed, and I still buy blu-rays for this purpose. But, I think the strategy MS is doing is to gradually centralize (like Apple) the distribution model for games on their platform. It would be difficult to go straight to a download-only option (especially in this age of bandwidth caps), but this provides a hybrid that gets people used to the idea of digital rights and learn to accept the ramifications. The disc is just a way to distribute a digital copy without forcing a download. Once people settle in, Microsoft can shift to digital-only in a matter of years without upsetting things. Once digital, we'll see less discounting (no effect from warehousing physical goods), and Microsoft makes more in the long run.

I don't deny the use case you provide (certainly, I'm a fan; I don't care much about digital), but the point is that Microsoft stands to gain a lot from this. The 1% backlash won't make a dent in the potential profit upside.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the Netflix of gaming.

I'd pay a relatively hefty monthly subscription fee to have unlimited access to an entire library of games.

You mean like this? http://www.gamefly.com/

No, not really.

I just just realized that I've actually forgotten Netflix is something other than a streaming service.

What I'm actually thinking of is effectively subscription-based Steam. One price, access to the whole catalog. The provider could create tiers with a limited "check-out" system ala O'Reilly Safari if the unlimited idea is too scary.

I haven't used the DVD-by-mail side of Netflix in years and I did try Gamefly at one point.

The instant gratification of streaming/downloading is pretty important to me these days. I don't know exactly when I'm going to have time to play a game or watch a movie and I can't be totally sure which genre I'll be in the mood for.

OnLive and Gaikai (now part of Sony) are going in this direction. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually the Playstation Plus subscription includes game streaming.

I would prefer the "Netflix streaming" of gaming, actually.

That was Gametap and they did not succeed. Maybe someone else will come along and do it better.

It's a long jump from "This has all the hassles of traditional physical distribution and then some new hassles you just invented" to "You should just let us pirate this."

When people talk about wanting to revolutionize distribution, they mean take advantage of all the efficiency and convenience technology enables. Some would just like to pirate everything, but not everyone. No one means they want to find ways to tweak traditional distribution models to make them even worse.

Open lending == piracy. Closed lending? Well, I've yet to see a secure and easy way to accomplish this, so I'll reserve judgment. But given how Amazon has treated the eBook distribution model, I would expect all digital goods to go down a similar route (no transfer of rights, lending is more of a trial period than anything, and no two copies running at once). All existing models are confusing for both end customers and rights stakeholders, and there is no way to do it in an open manner.

Let's say MS figures out how to let us share games, but it requires a central licensing authority (MS) to negotiate the transactions. Would you not agree the same geeks arguing the lack of sharing now will be the same ones to pick at that system too? It's a moving target, and doesn't do a bit of good for the stakeholders. I'd expect to not see this sort of system to play out.

> Open lending == piracy.

So when I lent my buddy my copy of Double Dragon, that was piracy? I think you're taking your stance a bit far. (Remember, we're talking about physical media here, not downloads.)

I subscribe to Netflix so I don't have to pirate as many movies. I would love to see someone implement a subscriber model where I can have N games out of a wide selection installed at any given time for $10/month or so, play them as long as I want, and swap them out for other games with no extra charge as long as I am a subscriber. I don't even buy/play video games that often anymore but I would probably subscribe to a service like that and they'd get more money out of me than I usually spend on games. I wouldn't care about owning a copy of the game or limitations on swapping games with friends because they could all play the same games if they were also subscribers. Publishers would get a cut depending on how many of their games are installed, console creators would get a cut since they'd probably be the ones to set up this system, and I'd be happy since I don't have draconian limits on the ability to share things I physically own.

OnLive?

Unless the income or size of Xbox's audience increases, I would not expect this to be a great boon for developers.

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