That's what I'm saying. Amazon sells books. Lots of books, used and new...I buy lots of books from Amazon. News of the death of books at the hands of the DRM'd Kindle has been greatly exaggerated.
as was the death of music at the hands of itunes and others. But its happening and will continue to happen. The kindle is what a year old ? Its already making great strides. Itunes has been around for a decade now and still hasn't displaced cds. But what do you expect. Cds didn't over take tapes over night and tapes didn't over take 8 track. Dvds didn't over take vhs either. Things take time. But make no mistake it will happen. Even if as I said its 30 years into the future still.
The recorded music industry has been dying for as long as it's been around? That's one heck of a long time scale! Here's a hint: If something has recently changed, look to something that happened recently as the cause. Used record sales have been around for as long as there have been records, i.e. ~75 years. The decline of the music industry began...oh, maybe 10 years ago? Hey, you know what else has been around for thirty years? Used game sales. The reason for the music industry's decline is the same as the reason for the game industry's decline: The product sucks. 30 years ago, you bought an album from a top band, and it was a solid 45 minutes of quality, whether you liked Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, the Who, Marvin Gaye, or Led Zeppelin. Now, you buy an album from a top band, and it's two good songs with eight tracks of pure, repetitive, uncreative filler, a cynical ploy to give you crap in exchange for cash.
I'm talking of course of when DD was invented. The music industry has been in decline since then. More so cd sales. People no longer place importance on music. Its worse than it was in the 90s because in the 90s you had more diverse airplay on radio. now more than half the stations play hiphop and rap. In NYC there are only 3 rock/ lite listening channels left.
Lots of people don't even want to buy movies in the first place, which is why rental is such a huge business. But DD is perfect for rental, since that's exactly what DD is. Recorded media will only go away if the MPAA gets greedy, and they'll see their sales drop as a result. After all, it's not just DVD sales that are down--ticket sales are down, too. That's because modern movies are, for the most part, terrible and derivative, and the actors and actresses are largely forgettable. 50 years ago, people would go to a movie just to see Elizabeth Taylor own the screen. No one has that kind of star power anymore.
Ticket sales are down but there is still enough people willing ot pay more for 3d , imax and regular tickets so box office is up. That is not whats happening in music.
DD isn't just good for rental. Its great for owning also. You can buy and keep all your movies on your pc and transfer them to your portable devices.
Music's attempt to move to DD as a way of screwing customers failed miserably. Apple introduced DD as a way to make customers' lives more convenient--only buy the songs you want, buy them cheaply, and carry them around wherever you want. And now they're removing DRM from itunes due to competition from Amazon (thus busting your theory that DRM is what makes DD music successful). In other words, rather than viewing DD as a way to punish customers and screw them out of more money, Apple actually approached DD from the standpoint of not screwing customers out of $15 just to get one song on a CD.
When did I claim DRM is what makes DD sucessfull ?
The game industry can't imagine removing DRM from DD games, since for them, DRM is the whole point of DD.
You can gift games on steam. IE get tired of them ? Sell them to a friend.
Almost like DRM'd DD subtracts value from movie purchases. But you know what is successful with DD? Netflix. That's because for renting movies, physical media has literally zero positives and all negatives.
Current DD for buying is over priced. Its still new and like music has to find a sweet spot of what people are willing to pay.
No one from Gamestop is holding a gun to Gabe Newell's head and preventing brand-new games from being sold for $30 on Steam.
Because gamestop doesn't care about pc gaming and haven't for years. PC gaming retail space at gamestop continues to shrink nad has been since i stoped working there in early 2000s. But if yo uread dev comments you would know that gamestop was hugely against the gta 4 DD content and required it to be sold in stores also. They try doing this at every turn with all content.
Currently DD on the consoles is not big enough to piss gamestop off and worry about them not carrying your title or not pushing your title.
Instead of asking, "What would benefit the industry?" ask "What would benefit the customer?" The only reason any industry exists* is to serve customers. DD won't take off unless it's done in a customer-centric manner instead of an industry-centric manner. The problem is that most publishers despise their customers.
if you've ever used steam you'd know how well it serves customers.
NO more scratched discs not playing. No more lossing discs. Download anywhere and use on any computer you own (only can log one in at once to play but you can play other games off line on multiple ocmputers at once) No longer having to wait for a new release shipping to you or go to a store at midnight. Everyone gets the game at the same time.
The only negative is no longer being able to trade your game in. But with steam you can gift your game to someone and there is no reason yo ucan't gift it to a friend and have the friend pay you. You'd get a better rate than what gamestop gives you .
Whats even better is a properly set up DD system can allow you to buy a game and have it stay in your account forever. Letting you download it again when it becomes avalible on a newer system.
