There's a war going on all around you, but you probably don't even realize it. Your a combatant. No, you didn't enlist in it but it's still being waged against you and it's slowly becoming a losing battle for you. The battlefield is your home, your pocket, your car, your free time. To me it's more important then whatever is going on in the Middle east. I'm American and frankly, we'll never actually 'know' what is indeed going on, therefore I don't care. Muslims on a whole are not evil or even our enemy, no more so then Buddhists, taoists, pagans, or jewish individuals. Religion on a whole is a destructive topic to discuss however and an entire subject better reserved for another post.
It bothers me that reviewers are apparently bought and paid for these days, no longer even pretending to be helpful or useful, they all seem to be shills. Worse then that, they are shilling for the enemy of you and I! I'm talking about online services. Laugh if you'd like, your probably thinking that's nuts, this dude is paranoid or a nutjob. Hear me out, it costs nothing to listen but a little time and you might see my point.
First an example. http://www.onlive.com/ Onlive is quite the potentially awesome prospect. It's a company that streams, via their servers, games, high end games! At that, in real time and you can play then, no matter what type of computer hardware you have. Now, that's pretty epic! Just look at some of these titles 
it's mouth wateringly tempting. But here's the catch, the first year is free subscription, so you buy your little titles, so you can play them. you don't actually get a disk, you get access to the game as it's stored on their server, so they in effect act like your gaming system. There's no mess, no wires, nothing for you to do but log in and play. You do need a high speed connection, but that's not that bad a deal is it?
Yes, actually it sucks. The service itself seems to work without a hitch but don't be lulled into this sterilized bliss. Your not getting a game! On top of that, your subscribing to a service to play a game you bought! This means you HAVE to have internet to play and you HOPE their servers arent down for maintenance, or for repair or overloaded. Hell, twitter cant keep their servers up and you only write 140 character messages. Your supposed to be cool with this why? Oh, because it's 'The Future'. Man, let me tell you, I'm sooooo over hearing that crap. The 'Future' is you being forced to spend money on a sbscription just to use something you 'bought' and did I mention if you let your subscription lapse, then well, you lose your games you paid for after a period of time. See, so you pay for a 1.) computer, 2. Internet... broadband at that, 3.) this service after the year free subscription, and 4.) the games you want to play. Well hell, that seems like a nice racket to get into to me, you funnel money to the ISP, then this game company...twice! Once for the honor of playing the game and second to actually 'buy' a game you don't get.
But you aren't the only victim, this little double dip is also aimed at screwing over the game resellers like the oft evil Gamestop. Now, I'm not a fan of Gamestop persay, but, they do buy back games. Yes it's at a ridiculously low.. I would go as far as to say loansharkian price, but something for a game I dont want anymore is better then nothing. Not to mention the money can be applied to a used game you buy at a significantly reduced price. So, it's cheaper then new and the game gets re-sold as used and everyone is happy... well, except the game makers. See, they want to make more money off of you, it's not enough they sold the games to the original owners. They should get a cut of everytime it's sold because ... well, just because. So, to give you a ludicrous example, you buy a shirt, you wear it til your bored with it, you want to sell it at a yardsale, well... that's not fair to the manufacturer! They should be the only one selling that shirt. In fact, you should be leasing that shirt monthly and if you discontinue your subscription, they should just keep the shirt. That's the state gaming is moving towards. It's not just gaming though, music has fought this battle and lost. People use Netflix (myself included) but we still like to own physical media. So the corporations decided the best way to get around our reluctance to give up buying physical media is to push the new buzzword 'online services' and spin it as a good thing. "You don't have to worry about updates!", "It just works", "Let us do all the heavy lifting", but really... why should it be THAT simple? I mean really? Are you THAT lazy? Is it THAT hard to take some initiative and not just give up all your rights to property? What if you don't like the new version? What if you don't need some of the features? What if you need more features?? What if you dont want to be 'connected'?
But it's an invisible battle because most consumers hear 'Cloud' (another buzzword) and thinks it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's not, that's why server computing failed as a platform in the 70's. Not to mention, bandwidth. Slowly over the course of the next 3 to 5 years you'll see a guerilla campaign to assassinate unlimited broadband. Now all these 'Cloud services' start looking a bit pricier because your using YOUR bandwidth and there are caps, no more doing what you want online, no more watching what you want, when you want, downloading what you want. it's a clever ruse. You can't go back once the final onslaught begins. Want to cut costs? Tough, you pay and your going to keep paying because 'they' have all your information, all your stuff, and you gave it to them for the sake of convenience. And now, like extortionists, your beholden to someone else, nothing more then an indentured servant.
And then, it's too late. Yes, it's possible that I'm just paranoid but just look around you. Streaming games, streaming music, Google docs, all in the cloud, somewhere....
I like my stuff. I like putting a cartridge or a disk in a system and playing a game when I want, how long I want, and with no additional costs unless I buy an optional addon. I like using the programs I buy without worrying about having an internet connection or paying additional costs. I like having CD's and DVD's or music players/multi media devices. I can go where i want, when I want, and watch/listen to what I want. In the end it's all about choice. Either you don't care or don't want it or you do...
And you fight for it.
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