perhaps this is a more a political thing or is it business? I'm a would be, trying to be - games developer - I hope to get paid - hope is a good thing - and the fear in the current environment is the issue of piracy - which is rampant and easy and much practiced. personally I dont care how I get paid as long as I do - but in the current political-economic environment we all hate piracy. because it hurts any profits we might make. I suggest something more ideal: The internet and the massive piracy that is occuring ought to be embraced. It is so widely practiced, that you have to ask ourselves is it right to impose a law that bans a mass activity? Instead ways should be found to operate with the grain of society not to clamp down against it: so this is what I would like to see- but what may never happen: an end to crime of piracy. and a tax-spend system for entertainment. All entertainment would be funded by the tax payer. downloads should be free but clocked. The greater the number of downloads, the greater the reward. Such a model would decriminise a common activity, democratise entertainment from developer to user - without middlemen and would be cheaper for all. And would reward the developer fairly. I imagine a tax entertainment pool - payment is then based on the pool - so a flooded market doesnt drain the treasury. There may be issues with how to implement these systems and division of genres. what do you think?

Entertainment is non-essential
Entertainment is by personal choice
Why should tax payers who don't want or like game pay to fund games just because the people who do like games are too dishonest to pay for them?

how would you manage the tax? People that don't play games will complain about it. Entertainment is optional and a big business and don't you think some people would try to create a fraud just to make money? Taxes wouldn't really help.

Maybe there should be a membership thing for games. Pay $25 a month and you can download the games whenever they come out. Even then though a lot of companies wouldn't go on it because they want more money than the others.

Piracy is going to be around prolly forever.

i think entertainment is essential.

if there is no entertainment then it is a life of drugery.

once the system is in place, electorates would then be influential in the allocation of these resources.

it is a quite socialistic approach - yet leaves it open to the individual in what is created.

In britain we have the BBC which well, u can opt out by not having a television - but that would be just stupid - weather you watch it or not you pay the fee.

the BBC remains popular, its contribution ot society is recognised by the vast majority - its privitisation would be unpopular - so people accept tax and spend with regards to entertainment.

but people would be unhappy at being thrown in jail for piracy.

piracy is in effect a mass movement - unfortunately a mass movement with unhappy consequences - I see it only logical that the solution be a system solution to this changed environment.

I'm a middle aged school teacher in boonyville, nebraska. My tax money is already paying for lazy people to stay on welfare. Now it's going to pay people to make... what are these? Moving things on the tv?

I'm the lead designer at the biggest game company in America. My game is full of zombies and giant lumbering demons who spount gallons of blood. The FCC demands I replace the BFG with a super soaker 2000 and the demons with bunnies, or it won't pay for my game.

I'm a grunt programmer at a large interactive entertainment production house. We used to sell our games at $50 a piece. Some got pirated, but the numbers going on the shelves made up for it. I got paid pretty good. Now, the government pays us. The executives still make just as much, but I had to move into a box.

I forgot one.

I'm a republican. I'm against communism.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking, Deyja ;)

Quote: Original post by SumDude
how would you manage the tax? People that don't play games will complain about it. Entertainment is optional and a big business and don't you think some people would try to create a fraud just to make money? Taxes wouldn't really help.

Maybe there should be a membership thing for games. Pay $25 a month and you can download the games whenever they come out. Even then though a lot of companies wouldn't go on it because they want more money than the others.

Piracy is going to be around prolly forever.

well people who dont watch the BBC sometimes complain about it - but the fact remains on the whole the BBC is accepted and is popular.

the would be potential problems with distribution. false downloads. I had imagined the state would operate a central download server garenteed to be fast - monitoring could be based on that. perhaps IP address logged and such.

the use of P2P either by passing your friend a CD or using emule or whatever - this issue could possibly just be ignored.

The centralised server would be fast and bandwidth might be payable upfront in someway by the developer.


I would imagine that all technical problems with the system could be mostly counterable.

I believe the system would work and would be popular.

consider the issue of music: its not very democratic. you have elitist publisher who are just guessing what people want, and pushing through hype what people want and were the freedom in that?

embracing the internet for distribution of digital goods in this way would liberate developers of such content from the shackles of publisher control.

the creator is then rewarded more easily. It seems much more democratic because any old band can set up a song, place on the states server play in a club and point and people could download that and the state would pay from the pool.

developer heaven this is - and more democratic.

Quote: Original post by Deyja
I forgot one.

I'm a republican. I'm against communism.

I feel sorry for you.

Copyright infringement is not a criminal offense. Nobody's going to jail for it [though certain things associated with it are now criminal].

The gaming industry makes *boatloads* of cash, even with "massive" piracy.

And as someone who would also like to make a living doing game dev work, I'd be thrilled if my first game was a wildly pirated success. That means my second is almost guaranteed funding.