Video Games Companies Look for a Bigger Piece of the Pie

    Gamespot reported back in September that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made a decisions that could hurt many video game owner and retailers. 
    The article stated:

    The court overturned a May 2008 decision by the US District Court for the Western District of Washington in the case of Vernor v. Autodesk. The original decision stated that Washington resident Timothy Vernor was within his rights to sell a sealed copy of Autodesk's AutoCAD design software he got at a garage sale on eBay.
    Though the copy of the software was sealed, Autodesk's EULA--which was not visible externally on the retail box--said that the software is only licensed to purchasers, not actually sold. It also said that the license cannot be transferred, so after purchase, the software had to be destroyed if not used.

   The article goes on to say:

    Tech blog Ars Technica pointed out that the EULAs used by Electronic Arts and many other publishers have similar language in their games. "This software is licensed to you, not sold," reads EA's EULA. "Access to the software requires software registration with the serial code enclosed with the software. Software registration is limited to one EA Account per serial code and is non-transferable."
   The EA EULA is for a PC game, which typically requires acceptance of such terms to play. However, comparable wording can also be found in console game manuals, such as that of Take-Two Interactive's recent hit Red Dead Redemption.
    "THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD," reads the license agreement on Red Dead Redemption. (Capital letters in original.) "You agree not to: (a) Commercially exploit the software; (b) Distribute, lease, sell, rent or otherwise transfer the software, or any copies of the software, without the express consent of the licensor." (Emphasis added.)

Fourth Circle of Hell - Greed from Dante's Inferno

    This decision will put a big crimp in the used video game business.  Selling used video games is a several billion dollar a year industry.  The video game companies have always been unhappy about this loss in revenue.  After all why pay $50 for a new game when you can wait and buy the same game for $20 used?  This is just a move for video games companies who are making money hand over fist as it is.  (For example, the latest installment of the Halo series, Halo: Reach, made $200 million on launch day.)  These people don’t need the money.  They are basically squeezing out retailers that sell used games, like GameStop.  Even Best Buy and Target jumped on the used game bandwagon by giving in-store credit for bringing in used games.  I won't be buying video games anytime soon.  I want the freedom to sell my property.  After all, there are many free games and flash games to fulfill my gaming needs.

Downloadable Media – the Future?

    In the video above, long-time Microsoft enemy Larry Ellison rants about how he hates Windows.  He made this statement back in 1996.  In effect, he was talking about our current transfer to downloadable media.  While this change is inevitable, I have my own thoughts on it.
    I am very reluctant to buy a game or movie that is download only.  The reason?  If I don’t like the game or movie, I want to be able to get rid of it.  I do this in one of two ways.  I sell it or trade it.  When the item is downloadable, it is impossible for me to get rid of it or at least get some of my money back.  I have only bought two download only games so far.  One of them was only $5, so what the heck.
    I’m more than a little bit gun shy about buying download only software for a very good reason: I’ve been burned.  Several years ago, I downloaded and tried a very good download acceleration program.  I liked it so much I paid $30 or so when the trial period ran out.  The paid-for program worked for several weeks and then it told me that if I wanted to continue using it, I would have to buy it.  After waiting some time trying to contact, I gave it up for lost.
    The video game companies do not want you to buy used games.  They are losing income because of used game sales, especially in the last few months of this year.  In this economy, gamers are thinking, “Why should I spend $50 on a new games when I can get it for half price if I wait a little bit.”
    Another thing about downloadable media, it has to be stored on your hard drive.  There is no way I could have I have all my DVDs and games on my hard drive.  Then again, the prices of external hard drives are falling at a pretty fast rate.  You can get a 1 terabyte drive for about $100.  This could store quite a few games and movies
    Think economical.  Buy used games and DVDs.
    Comment below if you have had similar trouble with download-only media.

Great Deal from Seagate

Seagate has a great dealing going.  They are offering an 500GB external drive for $99.99, free shipping included.  That might not seem like a such a big deal, until I tell you that the drive with come with 20 films preloaded, including: GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Shooter, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and The Italian Job.
Now it really sounds like a deal.  $100/20 films = $5 per film.  If you are interested, you can find the link here: http://bit.ly/ahIqGF.  You’d better hurry, because the sale ends 5/10/10.

Dave Ramsey and Me

    I want to say right off the bat that I respect Dave Ramsey for what he has down and how he has helped many people get out of debt.  However, I have a bone to pick with him.  Dave Ramsey and I do not see eye to eye on the subject of gold.

     Dave Ramsey counsels people to invest in mutual funds.  He tells them to avoid investing in gold.  According to Ramsey, gold does not have a good track record.  In fact, Ramsey is even in several radio ads telling people to sell all the “extra” gold they have laying around.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any “extra” gold laying around.

    In my opinion, gold is the smartest investment you can make, especially today.  Today, gold reach an all-time high of $1,038.65 an ounce.  That is a lot of money, especially in this economy.  The dollar could go away tomorrow and gold would still be this valuable.

     Gold has long been seen as a standard of value.  Gold has been used all through history as money and has always been a solid investment.  Why should now be any different today?  Should you invest in an instrument that can fluctuate drastically over time (mutual funds), especially if an economy goes south; or should you invest in a precious metal that you will always own and that will always stay valuable because supply is so limited?

    Please comment.

Book trading and the web

I hate selling books online because I'm never sure what to set the price at so someone will buy it. Otherwise, the book sits there and never sells.

I have found a great alternative, it's called book swapping. There are many different book-swapping sites, but the one that I found and like is BookMooch. It is totally free to sign up and use. Other book-swapping sites are free, but leaning towards charging a fee. John Buckman, the founder, promises that they there will be no fee because there is not need for the site to make money.

The site works on a point system. Within the US, one book costs one point. If you order a book from a foreign country, it costs you two points and Bookmooch give the person a bonus point.

In order to get points, you need to add books to you inventory. Each book is work a 1/10 th of a point. Once you get a point, you can start mooching.

But a word of caution. Your account will be suspended after you mooch several books. The suspension will be lifted once you send out several books and the moochers acknowledge that they received your books.

Here are some statistics on BookMooch. Membership, which has grown to around 74,000 in over 90 countries, is open to anyone and is free. There is heavy community participation in its running and organisation. About 500,000 book titles are available and about 2000 books are swapped per day.

Again, it's great. Check it out.

Homepage

Wikipedia page

My Bookmooch page

AOL Cuts the Fat

AOL recently released the news that they will be closing down several of their web properties to help them become more profitable. Among the AOL sites being closed are: Bluestring, a site for sharing videos, music, and photos; Xdrive, an online hard drive; and AOL Pictures. AOL is planing to sell Xdrive to another company, but the other sites appear to be down for the count. AOL has also closed their MyMobile service with the idea of repackaging it with other AOL mobile services.

AOL executives said that they will puch other products to help thier finances. These new "money making" products include their browser toolbar, desktop software, e-mail service, and the Truveo video search site.

It also is worth noting that there are also plans in the works to discontinue dial up, the service that made AOL important so many years ago. The reason for this change is that fact that broadband is becoming cheaper and more popular.