Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

[Losrase]

Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos, illustrates the idea vividly -- Engadget

For those who can't make the jump the illustration is below:

Want more evidence of the patent degradation of modern society? Well, here's Sony with its latest idea for selling games. The feature-eroding demo concept gives the user the full game to start off with, but then grows increasingly more limited the more you play it. In racing games, that means the number of tracks you can race on gradually dwindles, whereas in classically themed smack-em-ups like God of War your sword, erm... well, it also dwindles. We're kind of on the fence about this -- on the one hand, it's hilariously insulting to the user as it perpetually nags him about what a cheapskate he is for not purchasing the entire game, and yet on the other it does at least let you taste the full breadth of the game, albeit for a limited time. However you may feel, this is still at the application stage, but given the patent office's recent track record, there's no reason why Sony should be denied the rights over this supposed innovation

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

Sony should patent the #3 slot for themselves, then.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

They would.

[Ziero]

Re: Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

So basically they want to give you a free demo of the full game, but have it slowly disappear so that you can have just enough taste of the full thing to actually go out and buy it?

...that's twisted in it's genius. It's like something a crazy, evil super villain would come up with.

Personally, I hate super short demos, especially when they only highlight a small portion of the game and don't give you a full view of what it'll be about (hi2uBrutalLegenddemo). So just being given the full game, with only a limited time to experience it could be a great change of pace. It would be like FFXI's 14 day trial...only instead of completely ending after 14 days, it makes you fight with an onion knife and no armor.

[DakAttack]

Re: Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

The easiest way to get somebody to buy something is to give them a portion of the full game then alert them to what achievements they're missing out on by not buying the full game.

[Feba]

Re: Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

Actually, this could be pretty cool in some genres. It would be pretty stupid to give you the full version of, say, adventure games, since you could play them once and never touch them again. But for sports, racing, fighting? Play a character once and it locks out? That seems just fine.

It does worry me that this could undermine the market for other games-- if you can play a new, fresh, full game for free, why buy any games? However, the genres this would be useful for (sports, racing, etc.) are ones that are already hugely undercut by the used market-- you can go out and buy for a dollar a sports game that plays mostly the same as whatever they're charging $60 for right now.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Sony wants to patent 'feature erosion' in game demos

I think it will just bring more of what Sony doesn't want - piracy.

The more you treat your customers like criminals, the more they're going to act like them. Plus if you start given a whole, degradable version of a game away for free, people are going to find out a way to subvert the degradation and they'll expect to keep getting the stuff for free.

They could have could have found more logical ways to combat digital piracy, but now people are so well-versed in computers that the likes of Sony is trying to keep up with consumers and piracy rather than the other way around. They rested on their laurels back during the whole MP3 scare and throught they could beat technology through litigation and legal threats.

They failed to win the war. They got Napster in the end, but its successors live on in legion even though Napster has only been tamed for legit commercial use. It plays second fiddle to iTunes.

There might be something to what Dak said, though. There's this MMO-like obsession with trophies and achievements these days. This is seems to get to gamers psychologically now. Take away the promise of online standings and they could just fall in-line that way.

Of course, if you're not conditioned for that stuff, you'd just go "LOLAchievments" and "LOLtitles," then perhaps not so much.

In the end, this is something that needs to be fought on a psychological level.

Remember how SE dealt with RMT and diminished them? Yeah, they're still around, but they're not quite as influential as they once were. They've been reduced to pursuing smaller score, discouraged. Sony, Ubisoft and others are insulting and condescending to consumers and pirates alike, they're not really doing something that psychologically discourages us, they're just doing things that piss us off.