Lawsuit

[Quinlan]

Actually for professional software (SAP for example) what Lair said is commenly used. You pay the license fee per user based on his estimated activity. You can pay less for a license for a simple user then compared to the sys admin

[<ankh>]

Actually for professional software (SAP for example) what Lair said is commenly used. You pay the license fee per user based on his estimated activity. You can pay less for a license for a simple user then compared to the sys admin

Yes, but I doubt it works for the majority of the people. Also, there are quite a few programs that cost less than £10 atm. Would you rather have to pay per usage or just pay those small sums?

/Ankh

[Ovi]

Yes, but I doubt it works for the majority of the people. Also, there are quite a few programs that cost less than £10 atm. Would you rather have to pay per usage or just pay those small sums?

/Ankh

At the end of the day what we would rather do has very little to do with it, the real question is which way can the corporations make the most money from us?

A small program which costs less than £10 I think it will still be easy for the seller to make a one-off sale, but the more expensive applications, which are currently pirated the most, it will probably make more money for the corporations by having the software on a monthly basis, remember if it needs to "phone home" to work then it makes it much harder for pirates too.

[<ankh>]

Tbh there is no difference in amount of software being pirated on how expensive they are. There are just as many cheap programs as there are expensive ones.

Buying software with steam and similar programs will proberbly get more and more common - but I doubt they will start to charge us the way Gandelf suggested.

/Ankh

[Ovi]

But they already do for some of things gandelf mentioned, and there are already plans for a lot of other programs.

I should have clarified what I meant by "Pirated the most", I actually meant that they are the programs where the most effort goes into pirating.

[<ankh>]

But they already do for some of things gandelf mentioned, and there are already plans for a lot of other programs.

I should have clarified what I meant by "Pirated the most", I actually meant that they are the programs where the most effort goes into pirating.

There are, but that doesnt mean its the future for software selling.

/Ankh

[Xest]

If you're like me, you'll probably have drawers and shelves full of old PC games that you no longer play. You don't want to throw them in the bin and if you're going to give them away or sell them at a car boot sale they will more than likely be a bit out of date by then. They just create clutter. If you could pay to play a game through your set-top box, then when you have had enough of it, you just stop playing it and you won't have the game sitting on a shelf gathering dust.

X-Boxes and Playstations plug directly into your TV. Why not simply pay to use the latest games directly through the set-top box, rather than having to own an X-Box?

Casual PC users may prefer to pay just for a one-off use, rather than have to buy an expensive computer.

When the technology is at the right stage it will happen I believe. Look at TVs... many people thought that they would never catch on, or replace the need to go to see a play at a theatre, or a film at the cinema, but TVs have taken over and are seen as an essential household appliance. It's difficult to imagine the way things will be, because we are still very much into judging things by the way technology is at this moment. Who knows what future technologies will have the same impact as TV did, or as the internal combustion engine did? Only time will tell.

What happens when the software provider goes bankrupt? What if the manufacturer has connectivity issues? Suddenly you can't access something you've paid for.

Even the episodic content model which is kind of a half way house between software rental and the classic method has shown it's faults before it's even begun. Valve with their Half-Life 2 episode 1 was great, we all expected episode 2 6months later, delays have pushed it back further. Even worse, SiN Episodes release episode 1 and they have been unfortunate to lose 5 main members of their team leaving the series cancelled, people paid episode 1 got into the story only to find 8months+ later they aren't ever going to see the rest of the game.

If I have an Office package I want it on my PC, and I want to be able to access it at any point, if I have to write an urgent letter, print out my CV for a last minute job application or so forth the last thing I need is to find the application providers servers down or even my internet connection not working.

Ignoring all that however, the biggest issue for me is that every attempt so far at this kind of thing has already demonstrated that application providers simply can't be trusted - you buy one thing from them and before you know it they've changed it so that you get a raw deal. If you have to rebuild your machine they make it so tough to get the application/content you purchased back that you may well end up having to repurchase it (iirc Ovi had a problem with iTunes DRM some time ago - this is a decent example). If application/content providers could be trusted, if there was some kind of contract guaranteeing that you'll be able to use the product you purchased when you want and as you want for all eternity with no negative change in the product or the way the product is accessed then great, but that'll never happen. Even McAfee anti-virus, I paid for a legit license and it's been great for the last few years, suddenly McAfee have re-written their entire virus engine and front end and it's buggy as hell, it crashes all the time, emproxy.exe ends up running at 99% CPU time making my machine useless until I kill it and disable virus scan and there's no way I can use the old version because they've scrapped it, this shortly after renewing for another 12 months - frankly the product I've purchased has become unuseable shortly after paying for it.

[<ankh>]

I agree Xest - personally I dont like STEAM as I don't want to be forced to have Internet to install my games.

/Ankh

[Arcsalin]

I agree Xest - personally I dont like STEAM as I don't want to be forced to have Internet to install my games.

/Ankh

which is currently my problem atm, I have installshield problems and am unable to resolve them without the internet online at my home. I cannot resolve this issue without the internet - blows tbh.

[<ankh>]

Thats exactly why I don't belive in the system Gandelf suggested!

/Ankh