Nice quote

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."-George Washington

Excellent quote from George Washington.   Across the globe those that defend freedom are being fought by the enemies of freedom, the enemies of mankind.  We must hope that freedom prevails over the tyranny of the few.

comment on censorship | free speech

I do not support the notion that fiction and freedom needs to be restricted on the basis some rare individuals might be slightly influenced to commit crime. Fiction involving serial killers might inspire some to become such, fiction about drug dealing and gang life may inspire such, violent video games and movies may motivate a small fraction to act violently or commit crime.

For starters you have to abandon the foundation of the abrahamic faiths, free will, to even entertain such notions. If an individual has free will or moral agency you can never say a work of fiction CAUSED x crime.

And again even if it caused x crime, an innocent activity that harms no one shouldn't be censored because of the actions of another, an individual could go with Jewish religious attire out into the streets, and this could provoke a neo Nazi to commit a crime against them.   Should wearing Jewish religious attires be banned because it may cause a small fraction to become violent or criminal in some rare cases?  Of course not.

Comment on someone's Comment on DRM | thread | feb 2017

"I'm sure there are some people who are willing to buy a game if they can't pirate it but I doubt it's a huge number. Most people probably either fall into piracy only or buy only but we'll never get to know for sure."-Bluth54, neogaf http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1339781&page=2

Indeed, here's the thing. Unless someone has cash around and gamer friends pushing heavily for that particular title. There's plenty of legally free games of equal or superior quality. The complexity and graphics of low cost and even free games is increasing over time. You're competing against free and often superior products.

DRM cannot stop copying of digital data, it can only impede you playing a copy for a while. And as automated intelligent means of cracking are developed, systems that might be able to analyze at faster than human speed and see more complex patterns than humans can catch, expect any drm to be cracked within hours perhaps even minutes of release in the future.

I often buy a title on multiple platforms, even at full price. But if it has draconian drm, that can easily be up to half a dozen sales lost from me. I'll only buy one copy if that, and when it's sold at peanuts heavy discount, or I'll play something else.

Resident Evil 7, I was probably buying for xbox one, ps4, steam(and eventually on likely future android and ios), but now it'll be highly discounted on a single platform if that.   If I can't find a disc, I might buy it again, but now that won't be the case either, I'll buy digital where it's linked to a platform at heavy discount on a single platform, if that.