Follow-up to EA rage; Dipping a little into game ownership, re-sale, etc.

There's so much more I could bitch about, but let's look back to all the shitty stuff I  previously predicted Activision and EA would phase in to the gaming industry. I thought for sure Activision would do it first, but it turns out EA has been doing a great job of providing the precedence for them with all the bullshit anti-piracy/DRM measures and the online accounts for additional revenues and killing the market for anything other than buying the game new (meaning EA gets the money instead of the 3rd-party or original owner)... as if EA really needed any more criticisms, they are basically setting themselves up to be scapegoated by Activision in a "uh, well... they did it first!" bullet-point after they follow EA's trail in killing the gaming industry as we knew it.

Because all you cuntrags out there continued to support EA by purchasing its digital "bonus"/"extra" contents, they are now whipping out the game-changer. You thought it was bad before? This is what EA just announced:

“ Our strategies could be defined as fundamentally 'defensive'. Today, we are announcing a big shift to 'offense.' ” - EA CEO John Riccitiello

Holy fuck, all this hasn't been a "defensive" EA? Jesus Christ. Riccitiello went on to say that EA, which became an industry leader thanks to it's physical 'packaged goods' business model, will now completely adopt the "games as a service" model. "Over the coming years, we will transform EA from a packaged goods company to a fully integrated digital entertainment company". That means focusing on three aggressive core strategies as they move forward he explained.

1. Pushing the popular intellectual property of titles like, FIFA, Madden, Battlefield, Need for Speed, The Sims, Tetris, Dragon Age, Dead Space, and other titles. The company will also leverage the popularity of labels like EA Sports and its casual Pogo brand. "We fully intend to make these properties into year-round businesses that lead their sectors across a range of platforms." Now, while not everything about this could potentially be a bad thing, you must take into account the fact that it's EA. It will be a bad thing. It will cost gamers in more ways than just financially.
   
2. The exec also said EA will view itself as "a software platform every bit as much as we see ourselves as a content maker for other companies' platforms." He added EA already has seen major growth in its online "core registration system," which has grown to 112 million customers, up from 61 million a year prior. You stupid fucking assholes. This is your fault. "While we will continue to be a great partner to our best retail customers and first party partners, you will see the beginnings of a consumer game platform emerge at EA that complements and extends the console ecosystem and addresses the wider opportunity on other devices," he said.
   
3. The third part of Riccitiello and EA's "offensive" stance is a focus on talent acquisition. He said the publisher is integrating its development teams with marketing and monetization. That's "a big change," he said. "As an investor, you can see this as a way to better manage our IP, and drive up the ARPU for our core properties. As a developer, you can see this as the reason EA will be the most interesting and satisfying place to work in the game industry." Yeah, like Infinity Ward and Activision. That's exactly what we need, right? Merging development talent with monetization and marketing....

*deep sigh*

Now, I want to go back to the EA Online Pass stuff. Again, this is something you'll notice in any newer EA game -- e.g., Bulletstorm, Dead Space 2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, et cetera.  -- where you will find out that if you aren't the original owner of the game, rented it, or for whatever reason didn't get first dibs on the activation code for the EA Online Pass that came with the game originally, you must pay an additional $10 to buy a new one or you will not have access to all of the game's content and multiplayer/online capacity. This was marketed and masked as, of course, an anti-piracy measure so people who just pirate the game and download it will, theoretically, not be able to access the game's online content. However, the real major factor was the fact that it would absolutely cripple re-sale markets like GameStop's used game inventory, eBay, Blockbuster, Gamefly, etc. etc. Why? Because EA doesn't receive the cash from those transactions as it does when places sell the game brand new. Ok, technically speaking in terms of our current backasswards intellectual property laws, that is completely fair use of their rights. BUT IT'S ALL BULLSHIT.

For years now "Copyright Infringement"/"Anti-Piracy" has been used as a buzzword similar to "Communism"/"Terrorism"/"War on Drugs"/etc. to let companies basically do whatever the fuck they want to regardless of end-user rights as the US government has often done. The main difference being that the defined rights of the end-user in the digital reality hasn't been clearly defined to keep up with the ever-changing pace of technological evolution and resulting factors. It's not just software companies, though. It's not just IP companies that abuse the system obviously. Look at the current situation with New Zealand. The US helped them fund the operations to let rights-holders govern the Internet over there basically. Internet monitoring, logging, and copyright infringement accusations are ridiculously rampant. Just being accused results in loss of Internet access to start.

But right now I'm focusing on EA's current affairs. So when you buy something, don't you gain rights to it? Well, as we all know that is hardly true anymore when it comes to games. We aren't purchasing a copy of the game anymore - we're purchasing the license to use the game under their 'Terms of Service' and 'End-User License Agreement' which is basically meta-pseudo-law-or-something, but it wasn't always like that was it? How did it happen? I get asked this often, but I'm not a very law-savvy dude. Who is? Lawyers? Judges? I don't know. Is it really possible to be aware and understand EVERY US law in existence? We're expected to. We are held responsible even during a claim of ignorance. (Ignorantia juris non excusat)  Still, even I could write a plethora of paragraphs detailing the inquisition and history that led to this corrupt and poorly-constructed state. But to answer that question is a bit easier. Cliffsnotes:

• First-Sale Doctrine was codified in the Copyright Act during the 70s; limitation that gives owners rights to resell copyrighted properties, or lawful copies of the work as long as the transfer is all legal.
• CONTU results in US Copyright Act § 117 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs; Owners have rights to make lawful, non-infringing copies of copyrighted materials for purposes of archiving, utilization, repair, etc.; Congress makes one change before ratifying: uses term "owner" instead of "possessor". (Another section also makes it legal to reverse engineer.)
• Software companies, et al. exploit the term used by claiming they are licensing their software and not selling copies for ownership. 
• Shrink-wrap and click-wrap license agreements/terms are abused for legally-binding contractual relations between the end-user and the company.
• Companies use this exploit to selectively transcend or preclude parts of the Copyright Act/First-Sale Doctrine/etc.
• Breaking EULA/ToS becomes Copyright Infringement, breach of contract, etc.; Courts still split between judgement on related situations.
• Companies like Blizzard go so far as to claim that the virtualized copy of the software client in the end-users' memory is a copy, modifying/reversing this copy becomes infringing according to EULA/ToS.
• etc. etc.

But is EA asking for $10 for full access to the game from resale really that bad? Reselling art in California or France can sometimes yield to paying royalties. Is it so different? I say it's bad, but only because it sets the path for further exploitation fueled by greed. It could be much worse, and something like this is a preceding PHASE to a state that will be much worse, and companies like EA and Activision always seem hungry. Remember, the next big phase after digital distribution will be completely streamed content, and the hardware is catching up.