The average user has already decided that he/she will use such systems provided there's a nice carrot that hides the issues such systems have.
Speaking of Steam/Blizzard vs Bushnell ... how come people are willing to trust Valve/Blizzard and they don't trust Bushnell ?
Both are doing exactly the same thing (enforcing complete and total control over the use of their software on your system).
Yet everyone appears to be thanking Valve for introducing a system with the exact same results as the TPM-based system that Bushnell wants.
The only difference is that Steam is pure software at the moment and for some reason gamers trust Valve to provide an 'unlock' (despite the fact that they did not do so when they replaced their previous DRM-mechanism with Steam).
I predict that once Valve decides to kill Steam it will not offer an unlock/crack for their existing games.
Instead you will be forced to upgrade to their new system if you want to play any of the games you've bought from them in the past ...
Yeah thats a point for sure, I do hope if steam ends so to speak valve will unlock it just as I hope bioshock and mass effect recieve unlocks eventually. I dont want to be paying again for something Ive already paid for, it'll become like yearly licensing like big named programs which will suck. It wont even be worth owning anything then you might as well lease your PC for the duration of your gaming licenses.
I dont trust steam 100% but I can close steam down, with TPM it'll always be active so I guess thats the main difference. Although they would both have to be active while playing games (steam does have offline mode though).
There will be alot more of this forcing though as you put it and I think it'll keep hurting the industry as it has been. You push expect a push back, I think thats the big thing here, hows that saying go "laws are made to be broken?" wether its the speed of sound cant be reached or something else.
I dunno hey, obviously something needs to change within the industry (or maybe we need to rollback to a previous version) but one of the big topics for the PC gaming association was piracy for whatever reason. Personally I think the issue shouldnt be how do we stop piracy but how do we get more people to buy our games, thats not limited to people who are known pirates and can extend to potential gamers, not pirates who are already gamers. Sure gaming is getting bigger in terms of $ sales as I said but they really need to be looking at expanding width wise not height.
Think about movies for a second, people buy those, pass em round to friends, friends watch em when they are around your house or you can take it around theres. The install base for things like dvd's are big enough that you can do that, theres no internet or other type of activation required. Piracy is certainly an issue for movies also but gaming is much more limited because of things like steam where they expect everyone, their brother and dog to pay for a game. Whats wrong with a license extending to immediate family members, I know the movies and such on bus' have a license to say oh you can play this to crowds legally. So are developers charging extra for people playing their games in tourneys? I think that would be a good way to make some money back lost to piracy.
Its virtually impossible to rent PC games with cdkeys, activation and the likes. If a demo is really short or doesnt show the true potential of a title you just lost yourself alot of customers! See if someone pirates the game they might go meh Im not buying it cause I have what I want, if they rent it they get charged late fee's so they take it back and might go out and buy it (there is always the odd chance they will pirate it at that point) but I do feel theres a better chance of purchase first or second hand at that point.
Put it out in the front with big flashing neon signs, make people well aware of what they can and cant do with their PC specs, make it fun!
Dont make it like going into a library where some obscure librarian goes right down the back and pulls out a dusty tome, then gives you an evil eye like youre gonna ruin it.
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