Jul 7, 03:39 AM

DRM in games

While the music and software industry has only recently met some controversy over DRM, I just realized that it has existed in video games for many years in the form of cartridges and game platforms.

Think about it. If you buy a PS2 game, you can’t play it on an Xbox. If you buy a DS game, you can’t play it on a PSP. The software you buy is tied to a certain platform. We accept this as a given, because that’s how it’s always been.

And yet, France seems to think that any media you buy shouldn’t be tied to any proprietary method of playback. Yes, video games are a much different type of media than music, not that much. Shouldn’t they apply this to games as well? I’m not expert on French copyright law, but philosophically they should be treated the same.

Do you feel that any game you buy should be playable on any capable system?

iPod law [IHT]

-Jon
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