mm

TOTALLY AGREE apart from the fact that rentals take away from sales game quality takes away from its sales renting simply lets me see if i like it, my rule anyway is if it hasnt got online i dont buy it, no matter how good, even if i cant rent it i always rent games, and if it has a good online, then i buy it (i was able to do this with cod4, took a risk and it paid of) anyway developers improve games, get online in when possible (obviously dont force it, MGS anyone)

Meanwhile... demos flourish

This isn't about what the "Belgian entertainment industry" believes, this is about what the guys with money want. These game publishers against 'rentals' are the same ones giving you free 360 and PS3 demos. Most people who rent a game don't get much if at all further than when they play a demo - the difference is that they get to see if the game sucks overall instead of having blinders on except to the part upon which publishers want you to make your purchasing decisions; they get to see if the $60 game can be beat in six hours. SCREW THAT NOISE.

hah

So if I buy a house, and want rent it out, do I owe money to the guy who built the house? Of course not, it's my house and I can do with it as I please. If my store owns a copy of a game, it's my copy to rent out as I please. The developer has already gotten his money for that copy.

for the record

this isn't happening in America... their laws are different then here

sucks for belgian

Yeah and why shouldn't this affect movie rentals at that I do agree sometimes putting a 60 dollar price tag on a 6 hour game is wrong and all it should get is a rent and nothing more but im usually pretty good when it comes to buying the games that are actually worth the price tag and with many different sources for reviews so should everyone else with a internet connection

try to see the whole picture

First of all you should think as adults and try to understand where this is coming from. What they are trying to do is the same as what already implies for the music industry. When someone makes a song then they own that song, not all the copies that are sold of it, but the rights to publish it. To insure that the artist gets its share of the popularity of its song he will get a few cents for every time his song is played in public (like radio or tv) and every hard copy that is published with his song on it. To go even further the artist is even payed for every MP3 of his song that is legally downloaded. The same system is used for Movies as well. that's why consumer DVD's have a message saying that the DVD isn't for rental. The DVD's for rental are a lot more expensive because the store who rents them earns money with copyright material that isn't his. That way he contributes part of his income to the publishers. What the Belgian government is trying to do here is again the same system for the game industry. Legally this was already the case, but in real life stores often rented out cheaper copies. To come back to the point, I agree with the idea that the game companies should get there share... but this is a too sudden change. This is a lose lose situation, we won't be able to rent games and the gaming companies won't get there money. As if any decent game rental store can afford it to replace all his copies with legal ones. Although I'm from Belgium myself, I don't have the details of what this change will bring us. I don't have the time to watch the news these days. But to me it seems... as always... the Belgian government has a good point, but are too stupid to fix it right. Instead they get the first solution that they can think of, so they won't miss there soccer game on TV. PS, sorry for the long reply

WTF!?!?!?!?!

You've always been able to rent games. So have games always sucked? You're not making any sense. Game rentals have nothing to do with game quality/sales.

WTF!?!?!?!?!

@Cydonos - While I agree that devs need to ZIP IT regarding rentals and trade-ins, you've lost me on your housing example. Houses aren't sold with the same market in mind. How much did a DVD player cost when it was first put on the consumer market? How much is a BD Player today? The technology and complexity went UP UP UP yet the price came DOWN DOWN DOWN. Yet game costs continue to go UP UP UP. $60 for a game now? That's insane! Sure some of that is because the console was sold at a loss however make no mistake about it, they are also charging a premium because of rentals and trade-ins. Selling a house versus a VIDEO GAME is a worthless comparison.