You’re just making me wanna play this game lol

But all games have a rate of refunds, including refunds due to rage quitting. Our null hypothesis should be that the refund rate should be the same as any other game (controlling for difficulty).

I don’t know what a normal rate of refunds is, that is probably data that is out there. But if the refund rate for this game is significantly higher than normal, then we can say that SOMETHING about this game is different.

If we control for every factor besides hltb, and it’s still higher, only then could we say with high confidence that the difference is due to people finishing and refunding. But we technically can’t ever say that with 100% certainty unless we go to every person’s house and watch them do it.

We’re overloading the term “ownership”.

• When a company says “ownership” they mean over the property itself. Copyright. Only the rights holders “own” the game, only they can make a sequel to the game.
• When a player says “ownership” they’re referring to their copy of their game, i.e. their license. No copyright. They do not own the game, they just own a license to experience it, they cannot make a sequel.

People then try to say “well the issue isn’t ownership, it’s DRM”. No. DRM that makes the experience worse for paying customers is annoying, but it’s not the issue at hand. Virtually all your games for all your consoles have some form of DRM, and yet you consider them “owned” in your collection.

What we need to demand is: ownership of a license that grants perpetual access.

• We don’t want the license to expire.
• We don’t want it to change what it grants us access to after we’ve purchased it.
• We don’t want them to stop making the content available because they don’t want to host their servers anymore.
• We want the ability to play without needing an internet connection.

If all of that can be guaranteed, then the license is on par with a physical copy.

But until we have legislation forcing it to be the case, we have to assume they fully intend to take your money and one day not be willing to provide what you paid for.

only 7% users have actually beat the game of the people who kept it. the people who refunded shouldnt be that different than the average

You would need data to show this hypothesis to be true, you can’t assume it, the variables are not independent, that’s the whole point being made.

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.

Is this running in your rc (i.e. every single time you open a terminal)? Even if it’s safe, I’d be annoyed by any delay.