Friday, September 16, 2011

a staggeringly dumb series of stupid events

Returning to my blog, right where I left it.

I have an old n busted Xbox360 that I bought used because somebody's kid got it banned from XBLA. Big whup, since I couldn't care less about the online aspect. I wanted a device to let me play a few older titles I'd decided I liked. First time a recent game came out that I cared about was Portal 2.

I hate how much new games cost, how stupid the difference between two titles at the ludicrous $59.99 price point can be, in that some will have replay value that lasts years, others are rental-oriented titles that may take 4 hours max.

How could it be that these things are priced the same? When the teenagers, young and ignorant adults with more disposable income than brains are the market. There is no other reason than greed on one side and stupid on the other.

So when it comes to my pocket, my money, I back up every game I buy. I then modify whatever hardware I purchased and own to play the backups, and leave the original in the case so it doesn't get messed up. At $60 for a piece of mass-produced plastic with dyes and binding agents that could be the cheapest possible source material? Not bloody likely I'm gonna pay for it again.

This pattern with previous consoles has led me to a kind of "sample it first" mentality when there are abundant sources for what many will call "pee-rated" games. If I like what I sample, same as music and movies, teevee and books, I'm gonna BUY the official version eventually, even if I find it in a bargain bin, a thrift store, or a pawn shop.

The big difference between me and the early-adopter, mad-spending lunatic: I'm not in any hurry. I'm not 16 anymore. Bulletstorm and Dead Island will still be as l33t, c00l and interesting six months from now as they are today, for me!

I grabbed a relatively new release from the usual sources, loaded the backup dvd+r-DL. The backup tried to run an update and I let it run like a total chump.

It's just that, being a backup, once the update had turncoated and reflashed my dvdrom drive with its asinine Official Firmware, it couldn't read the copy to finish the update, and went into what can only be called "Flake Mode."

Reading around Ye Olde Internette I found a metric ton of other people having similar issues with the most recent games - a sword I barely ducked back several months with the most recent game I'd cared to bother with, something the kiddies call Bulletstorm.

A common theme on forums, torrent sites, elsewhere: "my little brother/ignorant friend put the backup into an older flashed console, it ran the update and now it's just a white screen with an error code on it. My xbox is fux0red, aside from beating my brother/friend senseless, wat do I do?"

I just kept sponging up whatever I could read about the latest issues with m$ "anti-piracy" efforts. I just can't help but laugh deep inside. M$ can't employ the entire internet. They have finite limits to their resources in the "keep ahead of the hax0rz" game. There are simply more of Us than there are of them. And we'll always be one step ahead. They have to keep selling the idea that they're not a slowly sinking ship, leaking blood into the water, but we know what's true.

Capitalism's days are numbered. It doesn't take much imagination to see it. The internet leveled the playing field, and I'll miss all the mom & pop, independent stores that sold groceries, books, records and tapes and music. But I won't miss the relentless pursuit of profit above all else.

The simple truth? After the download temporarily b0rked my xbox, I read about it. I found a solution to return my b0rked box to retail functionality for a hair over $2.

Since I'd already sent for the sata bracket that lets me reflash the drive, making something I already own have more functionality for me, and not less, all that remains to solve this brief interruption in my equilibrium is to take apart my xbox one last time, fashion some external connectivity for the sata port, ensuring that I won't have to disassemble the box the next time it needs a reflash.

Simple truth? I'd rather do it my way, one step ahead of the spider, cheap and cautious, than the gross amounts of ridiculously overpriced spending most people consider worth paying for these experiences. I prefer to pay for my recreation not in gold or dollars, but in effort and knowledge and skills.

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