From here: https://plus.google.com/+BrandonSergent/posts/H2bXafPq6qt
Recouping cost of production does NOT justify any future price, that’s a logical fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy
Yet thanks to coders we have an entire market sector and “intellectual property” concept based on it. IP in itself interestingly being a contradiction in terms, reminiscent (in that it is also a religious insanity) of so called “intelligent design.”
Because if we didn’t have a whole generation of aggressively acquiescent tryhard hall monitor tie-licking gamers, so used to kissing Gabe and EA ass, that they literally no longer can detect exploitative contractual terms, to the point they they argue in favor of having their legal recourse forcibly removed (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2848908) we might have some meaningful local opposition to this bullshit, but instead we have a legion of COD players screaming rape and racial slurs into bluetooth headsets only pausing to open another redbull, pay another 50$ for what should have been free or fanmade DLC, or dogpiling in the community any voice of dissent with a warped and sexist work ethic so toxic and backwards even the tea party hasn’t yet gone that far.
Screw IPL and anyone who defends any facet of it. You should all go make meat helmets and try to patent the question mark, because you’re obviously not equipped to be making public policy decisions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTJj4wbmAhk
See also: http://torrentfreak.com/how-shall-the-artists-get-paid-isnt-a-question-its-an-insult-130818/
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From: http://steamcommunity.com/app/49520/discussions/0/618456760265591662/
TLDR: I agree with the OP.
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Do not confuse agenda with incompetence. As game theory teaches us, appearing irrational is often a strategic aid, so to in this case is appearing incompetent.
I already own bl2 and I get no reward for buying the dlc. In fact it’s not even possible to buy the dlc all in one go. It seems all future updates and content will be monetized as paid DLC anyway, so essentially I’m punished twice.
Firstly for having the game already as described above. Secondly for getting into a game that is apparently always going to want more money. Maybe in 20 years when finally they are done milking this cow and all the dlc is done and packed and included in a bundle. Or (god willing) we get IPL reform that guts this entire model.
Anyway, this is intentional. They are quite clearly trying to drive off potential customers that would complain or resist being continuously exploited, because economically, one monied mark is worth at least a dozen savvy/ethical buyers. (Thanks Blizzard/Jobs.)
It’s all about low hanging fruit and exploiting addicts.
So many monied people in the western economy are essentially spending other people’s money anyway by way of having exploitative jobs, so even though they are buying with wages they ostensibly earned they still have a detached quasi third person perspective with regard to the ethics of spending.
OP and others assume that getting a foot in the door is a market benefit to them but it isn’t. It’s not so much about foot in the door as it is finding the right door.
As others and OP have said, this is all essentially squeezing money out of work already done. It’s a bit like a carpenter making a chair and then plugging the chair into a chair scanner and selling plans for the chair at the same price rate he would sell whole new chairs.
Our machines build the chair, we pay for the materials and the machines and the logistics of delivering the plans, but we are prohibited from gifting the chair we just made, or modifying it, or selling it, etc etc. This is a cultural logic error. We have copyright law for data authorship, and we have property law for objects and they are different, but then we craft this weird exploitative hybrid and call it intellectual property, as if once a number gets large enough it stops being a number and starts being an object.
That’s insane really when you think about it. Take the number 5 + X for example. In the previous equation, how must the value of X be to make an apple fall out of my computer? Apparently the answer is somewhere equivalent to the check sum of the borderlands game directory. We have concluded that the number, which is borderlands, is an object that it’s fair to sell. And that it is further ethical to hit control v and send, and sell it again, and again, forever.
That is ultimately our thinking because all arguments about labor are fallacious because they represent a sunk cost fallacy. Work being hard doesn’t entitle one to anything. Just ask a career waitress or garbage man if she or he really get paid what they’re worth.
I could dig a football field deep hole in my yard with a spoon and then charge you all for pictures of it. That doesn’t mean I’m entitled to 45$ an hour for that project over and over. And it gets even more shady when you realize they essentially used a backhoe in the form of a whole culture of programming tools and development technologies to make the job easier or even possible.
They didn’t write the game from scratch in machine code, they no doubt used tons of previous technology and software. Essentially I’m saying that stuff like this is a collective public good, and that mercenary intentions aren’t the only ones. Yeah maybe if there wasn’t a profit motive this EXACT game might not exist, but I think we’d have other better things in it’s place if it were simply not legal to behave this way as a publicly operating corporation.
Principled opposition to this entire line of thinking is dog-piled off steam, at best. I expect this thread to be no different. I won’t be subscribing to this thread. I’m essentially just going on record and then leaving. Kinda like the modern version of pamphleteering. Take it or leave it.
Essentially inside the steam community at least, if not culture generally, is it not possible to engage in any behavior as a dev or publisher or distributor that would be universally considered shady.
2K and other such outfits are in fact lauded as being social Darwinist victors when they find new and clever ways to exploit and punish its customer base for profit.
Basically what I’m saying is these suggestions about what they should do, are completely pointless and missing said point. They (devs etc) know the solutions. They have rejected them by even being in this market sector. They don’t share your principles.
They know what the “right” thing to do is, but that’s not their objective. The objective is money, by any means necessary. That in some contexts means cultivating the illusion of incompetence, such that we give benefit of the doubt and open our wallets while making a suggestion while they nod, smile, take your money and say “you might have a point, I never thought of that” when in point of fact they heard it 5 minutes ago.
It’s kinda like how even the super geniuses in movies latch on to the idiot ball from time to time to make the audience feel equal to greatness. It’s a mind hack. That’s what all these sales are. It’s all essentially free money for them.
It’s like a kid selling rocks off the street for 75% off some arbitrary value. It’s pure profit objectively. We don’t owe him anything for his time spent giving it a try or learning how to pitch stone soup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy
“How Should Artists Get Paid?” Isn’t a Question, it’s an Insult
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup
