The Future (Follow-Up)
Here's an e-mail I received from UK reader Phil Davies:Are US consumer protection laws that bad? In the UK I can take any game back to the shop within 30 days for a money back guarantee, no questions asked. They check you haven't used any 'one use codes' and take your name and address just in case you are lying but the standard consumer law allows for this return.
Yes, our consumer protection laws are absolutely that bad. And they never seem to get better, unfortunately.
Matt Perrin sent in an interesting link to a VideoGamerTV video titled What the hell happened to Aliens: Colonial Marines? They do an extensive comparison of "demo footage" shown last year with the final product. The difference is remarkable, certainly--I don't think I've ever seen a game regress so much from alleged demo footage to the final version.
I strongly believe that in the next ten months, even if Microsoft and Sony don't lock out used games, that some individual publishers will. There's a kind of group insanity in the "big" gaming industry right now, and someone is going to be force the issue.
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