I was over at Slashdot and noticed the following statement from Epic Games' president, Michael Capps, where he said that they are looking into ways to squash the secondary games market (i.e. getting your games used from GameStop, Amazon, etc.). He claims that "way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it." He says that they don't make any money when people rent their games. Well, obviously. I feel for these guys. Seriously. Who doesn't want to get paid for their hard work? I know I do.

The real problem emerges when he starts coming up with potentials ways to remedy what he perceives as a sleight to Epic. " [...] (Y)ou're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code. I've talked to some developers who are saying 'If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free.'"

This is the stuff that kills me. It reminds me of the great point that one of the members of Podtoid, I can't remember who, made. What happens when authentication/content servers go down because they aren't financially viable anymore? Sure, the odds of you picking up a game that you can't go online in a few years and "pay to complete" are low, but what would happen? Look at the classic games you might own. I have several games from systems gone by. Would I be able to play Ikargua on my Dreamcast if I had to buy the ending from Sega, only to discover that their servers no longer carry the content I need to enjoy it?

All in all, it's stuff like this that really pisses me off. Sure, I understand your desire to get the money your company worked so hard to make. It's understandable. A great philosopher, Andrew Ryan, once said that a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but the point remains. However, when you are selling something like software, and there is no guarantee that people will be able to enjoy your game in the future, I call shenanigans. This would place us entirely at the mercy of developers; something I can do without. So how about it? Does this worry anyone else?

The article can be found here.