I don't understand how blockchain would solve this problem. How much would it cost in gas fees to download a 100GB game? That aside how would you handle licensing, revocation, etc?
OK, but where do you download the game? Even with licensing, you couldn't play offline? If so, what's stopping someone from just keeping the state of the blockchain such that the offline client thinks you own the games but you actually don't.
Doesn't seem like it'd work to me without a central authority.
Disclaimer : I don’t believe that licence tokenization is a solution to the issue of game ownership. But what I’ll said also applies to DRM-free games.
> OK, but where do you download the game?
You download it once you buy it. After that it’s your responsibility to backup it like it would be with a physical medium. Of course, sellers would probably allow you to download it again if you have an account.
On your other points, I just don’t believe (and don’t want either) that good anti-piracy protection will exist as long as the game can be run on a platform you control.
I just hope that someday the industry finally gives up on this shit.
Platforms like GOG already sell DRM-Free backupable games. It just works. They are not on the edge of bankruptcy because of the piracy. All their games are available on Steam with the Steam DRM and still, the universe is not collapsing.
Games like The Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 are available on GOG without DRM and are still hugely profitable. It’s a win-win situation. As long as you backup your games and keep a compatible computer somewhere, Cyberpunk 2077 will be playable in 2077 without a hack.
> You set up a server and allow any wallet with the license in it to sign a valid request to download and launch the game.
Who will pay and maintain the servers? Blockchain here is not a solution but added overhead.
Also. What prevents me from leaking my license so anyone on Earth can download and play it for free? Note that this is the same issue that any DRM-free model faces but with incurring costs. Can licenses be revoked?
You haven't explained where the game is stored, though. Where would the game be downloaded from? How much would it cost to do this. If you setup a server that's centralized the defeats the entire purpose of this.
You would download the game from the same place you’d get updates if you bought a physical copy off a friend. The purpose isn’t decentralized downloads. It’s retaining the ability to virtually press the eject button and put the disc in a different console.
You're being very vague. If the game is centrally located there's absolutely no point of using a distributed ledger to begin with. The same place the game is stored can store your license.
The OP thread is about the centralized entity revoking your digital ownership over these licenses at their will. The parent you are replying to is imagining a hypothetical future where licenses around digital ownership are not merely private records on centrally owned and mutable ledgers, but rather, public records on decentrally owned and immutable ledgers. This has nothing to do with files/media and of course it is all hypothetical and legally untested, as no publisher is using public blockchain tokens to issue licensing rights.
so you have a license. The data you license is still centralized.The owner of that server rejects your license or simply shuts down the server. How does your blockchain help you? Note that downloading your data elsewehere is still infringement and hacking the DRM is still circumvention.
The idea would be that these tokens-as-licenses would not be revocable. If you hold the token, you hold the license and rights to download and play. This would need to be defined and enforced by the publishers own ToS and/or some hypothetical regulatory body that acts in users best interests - if they break this, such as blocking a specific license holder from access to the game, there would be grounds for a dispute, and clear records for it given the ledger is public.
Highly unlikely any of this will happen as it is more profitable and easier for game publishers just to stick with their current closed ledger, that allows them the ability to revoke any license as they see fit.
So in order to actually enforce your distributed blockchain license you need two centralized groups (download provider/regulator) to acknowledge it? Still don't see what blockchain adds.
The token would have to be fungible such that an individual license can only be authenticated and not identified (“this is a real copy of the game” vs. “this is the copy we individually banned”)
