Mistakes of the past…

It often surprises me when you read about someone doing a mistake that someone else has done in the past.  I’m not talking about small silly mistakes… no I’m talking about things that alter the courses of entire industries, or nations, or events of that caliber.  Certain events seem like they would be common and something that were easy to spot.  However even in these modern times we have them occurring.

For example look at what has happened to the music industry.  Let me break this down for you so you know where I’m focusing.  First the music industry allows the use of blank cassette tapes to be used to record music.  The music industry booms, times are good everyone is happy.  Next they hear about this thing called “the internet” and “MP3s” which people are sharing.  The FIRST thing we as the public see them do is attempt to stop and ban the sharing of MP3s because by sharing they are cutting into their sales, not looking at the fact (or perhaps ignoring the fact) that MP3s replaced the cassette tape.

Now this is fine.  I would probably react a little wildly too and be upset if my numbers people were telling me the same thing as what I am sure theirs were.  However once they started threatening people, suing people, and getting bills like the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) passed by the logic they seemed to demonstrate to the public, this means that their sales should have reverted back to where they were, profits should have soared, and everything would be happy again.

Did that actually pan out?  In a word: No.  What has happened is that people have instead stopped buying CDs and are now buying single tracks from sites like iTunes and Amazon.  Why?  Well if sharing your CD is illegal and you only want to hear that one song that you heard on the radio, why buy the whole disk for $15?  Amazon and iTunes are regularly around a dollar per song, so its $1 for one song from them, or $15 for one song buying the CD from the store.  Yeah you might find other songs that you like, but why take that risk?

There are two other things that have happened as a result of this as well.  The first is that people aren’t exposed to their friends mix tapes of songs, they aren’t getting the experience of a friend saying “You got to listen to this tape, here let me make you a copy” and so they are LOSEING those sales.  The second thing that is happening is that new artists are putting out their music on their own… they aren’t going to the big labels as much because they can have their own website, and sell songs though Amazon or iTunes or even on their own site and make more money.

So all in all what has happened is that the music industry put a chill effect into place with its customers, the customers found other outlets rather then working directly with the music industry, and now the music industry has had its profits cut (or so they claim).  You might be asking why am I talking about this, I normally don’t go in to music as such.  Well in this case we have the big names playing the same song according to rumors, only this time it’s the video game industry playing the instruments.

What am I talking about?  Check out this article on Kotaku, or any of the others that I’m sure you can Google.  Go ahead I’ll gladly wait.  Done?  Good.  Now this talk about blocking users from buying, selling, and using used games may seem like a good idea to some.  Alright more games, better products, more variety right?

Take a moment and look at what the music industry did.  You prevent people from sharing and they stop looking at your products.  IT’S THE SAME MISTAKE just to a different drummer. 

Used games don’t kill innovation, they do (I admit) ding sales some, but they also encourage them.  Unless you are seriously weird or mental, the thought of “Of my god some kid is going to buy this game used so I can’t put anything new or unique in my game!” probably hasn’t and won’t cross your mind when building a game.  Yes there are people who will wait to buy a game they want until they can find it used. 

However by and large that is the minority of players.  I know personally I have borrowed games from family and been blown away by a game and had to have a copy of it.  I personally prefer to buy new when I can that way I don’t have to worry about disk damage or anything (plus I get points with Nintendo… for example).  Because of this type of phenomenon and because of casting I personally now want to pick up the entire Assassin’s Creed series as well as Uncharted Series and a few others. Talk about a industry repeating the mistakes of the past…