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> There's no obvious optimum

There is. Same as music distribution or the calculator profession. It's unpopular, but inevitable.

We can recognize that sale of copyrighted digital goods (sans any dependent services) is not practically protected by copyright. It's as impractical as trying to track down and sue the person in my family who took the hi-res picture of a mona lisa picture in France. It might take a couple generations, but it will happen.



How is that an optimum? I think most all of us can agree that we want people to continue making games.

You may think it's inevitable, that's fine (though you'll find plenty of people who disagree), but that doesn't make it optimal.


The people who want to "solve" the problem of virtually free distribution of digital goods would have to build all the tools needed to build 1984 and wrest all control and ownership of devices that serve as the gateway to all communication and culture in order to do so effectively.

This cure is so much worse than the disease that it would be infinitely preferable to lose the entire gaming industry which is ultimately a triviality of little societal value.

I think people will adapt and keep making worthwhile works even with just crowd funding and if not oh well.




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