Games have an "use-by-date".
Books don't.
Therefore books are superior.
Take a game for example that has copy-protection enabled.
The game always needs the CD-OM for starting.
Doing so over the years makes more & more scratches on the CD.
Of course, in some countries, backup copies are allowed.
That the industry behaves as if it wouldn't allow it or only with gnashing their teeth, is a different story right now.
But in fact the industry won't tell anyone how to make legally allowed backup copies from games - or software in general - because this would mean revealing the process of how a game was made copy-protected.
So, now, I can ask thecompany which made or distributed the game (often these are two different companies) for a replacement copy.
How will they react ?
Will I have to buy a new game for that ?
The "use-by-date" comes then into bearing when the company has no more replacement CDs in stock - assumed they would send one out.
Of course, this os *so* far into the future that barely any one might be affected by this out-of-stock.
In fact, I assume that the stock of replacement CDs is so calculated that it lies so far into the future thast it might be used up to the point hardly anyone remembers the game.
Maybe this point is reached with the advent of a new operating system which renders the game incompatible.
With that, I assume that the calculators try to project people's behaviour - and in this case, demand - so into the future that the amount of replacement CDs is so calculated that it will last until no-one ... might ... need it.
Note the word "might" : This is just a calculation. It is based on assumed behaviour - demand - of gamers into a certain, fixed point into the future.
Maybe there's a study out there, I mean statistics, which say that according to a "nomal distribution" line of some sort (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution ) the demand will be near zero at a certain point in the future. In marketing, I think this is called a Decline in a product life cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle_management .
What I'm writing this for is not statistics or economy, but human behaviour.
The development of a product life cycle is a direct projecting of human behaviour. Human behaviour becomes something predictible: A sort of science in itself.
No, I'm not explicitely meaning Psychology (implicitely maybe), but rather a "science" in its own right which has no name yet: "The Art On How To Predict Human Behaviour", to express in a rather ... theatralical way.
The economy buddies in a company try to predict human behaviour of gamers so that they can say "well, at this point we don't need any replacement CDs anymore, so we can safely say that the company can safe money by no more producing them at that point and instead relying on the secondary market".
This puts me to the point that MONEY has become an omnipotient factor in defining human behaviour : We as gamers are measures against how much money we consume or a company (money spent for replacement CDs).
This is in fact kind of an elaborate version of Nazi thinking: People were meaured against how much they produce costs for he state - nd handicapped people or those who are elderly shall be wiped out - according to this thinking - because they produce hardly more than costs.
Okay, now I've come to a point I couldn't forsee when I began writing this text and didn't want to,
but in fact I tend to express that the Nazi thinking has finally arrived in the World of Economy : Measuring people against MONEY.
This is non-human.
Back to the point I wanted to go to : Companies are trying to project and foresee human behaviour regarding replacement CDs.
The WAY of how they project human behaviour says imho much about how or even who projects this. It says imho quite a lot of how we are considered.
To put it into a rather bitter and rather cynical tone, companies don't act out of mercy ( having more replacement CDs in stock
even after the point of no return ) , but rather out of economy.
Of course, everyone assumes that thinking economally (right spelled ?) is right, and that there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, we do it in our local supermarkets every day.
But ... - wouldn't it be wiser to just release a final patch that removes the copy protection after let's say 10 or 20 years ? I think this wuld reduce the costs of manufacturing enough replacement CDs altogether (plus the costs needed for employees or accountants doing the actual "projecting work").
And at this point the companies seem to react irrational. They just sit on what we call "intellectual property" even long after anyone can possibly remember this game - just in case. Just in case it could be helpful.
And the developers - are soon forgoten, even by the distributing companies., They produced the cash for the distributing company, the shareholder value, apart from that they're of no use, cyncally said.
And so, the makers of the games never get the order to produce a patch which officially removes the copy protection.
Because the Projecting says: "the people won't hardly ever remember this game, so we don't need to produce a patch that ends the copy-protection because this would mean more money spent that could be saved instead".
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
So, we games lose in any case. The companies will spare their money for the time beyond this projected - predicted "point of no return" - and they will most probably save the money for the copy-protection-removing patch as well, because they assume - through predicting human behaviour - that no-one will need EITHER of them.
When I apply this to myself, I just feel like cattle.
Cattle that is milked for money.
So, the fact, that books are superior over software (games) is because books have a far longer livespan - no scratches, mainly, because people tend to use books more carefully.
Maybe this whole industry suffers from the short attention lifespan it has all of the time - with software, with hardware, with gaming.
To them - the producers - it seems to be quite okay & normal to assume that gamers might not want to play a game over a longer period of time.
They just assume a so shortened (game-) attention lifespan, that they think what they assume as mormal actually
IS normal.
So, to conclude this writing, there are always schemes, thought-patterns, belief-systems, thought-structures, that are developed and evolved in predicting something -
us.
The demanding question is: On what ere they based ?
Because WE don't have any influence on HOW we are ... analysed. Our behaviour. Predicted, projected by ... people responsible for these tasks.
We don't have - in the end - no influence in how we are considered, how we are ... assumed to act.
Because there is danger in this predicting: WE can't say, after which rules or formulae OUR behaviour is predicted ... - of course I'm sure there are economy rules and formulae for that and that
someone has developed them ... But I can't say.
It's like saying that all people living in a Ghetto are criminals. This is a prediction as well, although a false one.
What I see personally as a danger is that the people trying to project - predict - our behaviour do this out of .. their personal experience which micht be "misled", like in this example.
And what I also don't like in this pojnt if that I#m measured and analysed as cattle - that the principle that EVERYTHING can be predicted, reduced humans to something inhuman.
And that is not human.
I conclude at this point, because my ideas have run out. Good night.