My Addendum To “Why Everyone Is A Fucking Short-Sighted Dumbass”
(thanks for the fuel, Cynic)
I recently found out that there exists an illegal mod-chip that one can have inserted into one’s XBox (I own an XBox, incidentally), so that one can get the disc for a video game, say at the video rental store, and the mod-chip will then enable one to upload the game onto the system’s hard-drive. Therefore, you can “own” the video game at the rental price. I’ll first say that it does not surprise me that such a mod-chip exists. Being an individual who believes in paying for services rendered, this very much infuriates me.
The first reason for this is that the video game manufacturers set a production budget for said game based on projected sales (and they base this projection on market studies and polls revealing popular interest in said video game). The problem is, when people “own” the game without paying for it, the manufacturer must recoup their losses by increasing the retail price on the next game – so people who acquire the game honestly, are punished for their dishonest brothers and sisters.
Now, the critical reader will say: “That’s ridiculous, there is only so much that the manufacturers can increase the price before people will simply stop buying video games and either resort to dishonest means themselves, or just stop playing video games all together”, and the critical reader would be right. So, the game manufacturer must therefore resort to additional means of recouping losses to keep the retail price down.
The first scenario is to introduce product placement advertisements within the game. I have heard many people complain about “those damn greedy, corrupt” video game manufacturers who just want more money, and this is the real reason ads are being placed in video games. If this is the case, then why is it that the insurgence of ads appearing in video games is only a recent phenomenon (ie. after the existence of things like Kazaa – which incidentally, since Kazaa and its contemporaries are spy-ware, they further fuel the insurgence of ads by doing cheap market research, that is, monitoring your web activity – it’s all one big tapestry), meanwhile there have been video games with the graphical capability of supporting product placement ads for at least 15 years? I’ll tell you why, because we are starting to see the response to lost revenue.
The second scenario (and these two scenarios will likely not be mutually exclusive) is that the cost of a rental license for video games will be increased such that either a) the video rental stores will no longer rent video games, or b) the cost to the consumer to rent the video game will be so high, that the few who are renting the game with legitimate intentions will decide that the cost to rent will not be worth the service, and therefore the video store will be losing money by offering video game rental.
In the end, we will not be able to rent video games, and the ones that some of us pay for will be rampant with product placement ads. That is when many people will bitch that the manufacturers of the games are simply being corrupt and greedy. Far be it for the individuals to even consider the fact that maybe they themselves are responsible for the unavailability of rental games and the prevalence of ads in the games. And I would say, what the fuck did you expect? Did you expect the Project Lead for Bioware to walk into a meeting with his programmers and say: “Well ladies and gentlemen, looks like the people don’t really think they should have to pay for our video games. You don’t mind working for free do you?”
Unfortunately, the “real reason” for the advertisements and why the video rental stores won’t carry games, to many people, will be that the video game manufacturers (like all corporations for that matter) are corrupt and greedy.
It seems to me, that anyone who takes and uses a service without giving required compensation is also corrupt and greedy.
And that’s another thing, why is it that the default assumption of many non-upper class (and for those of you who don’t know me, I am by no means upper class) individuals is that anyone who is involved in the upper echelons of government or corporation (whom I’ll simply refer to herein as “the upper echelon”) is corrupt? I’ll tell you why – because it’s easier to deal with. It is easy to say that someone got to the upper echelon because they are corrupt, and to blame society for not being smart enough to stop it.
It is not easy to admit to one’s self that another individual got to the upper echelon because they worked 80 hour weeks and had many sleepless nights – because so many of us know deep down inside that there is no fucking way that we would have had the dedication to mirror that feat. This is exactly along the same lines of what Cynic was saying when he said that it is blasphemous in our society to take responsibility for our actions (or in this case, lack thereof). I am not saying that all upper echelons are not corrupt. What I will say is that there are probably some that are. I will also say that these types are almost certainly not the norm. I will also say that some non-upper echelons are just as corrupt. I will also say that those of you who take and use services without paying for them have no fucking right to accuse others of being corrupt or greedy.