Haha nice one - I retweeted it too
) and have certainly had my share of frustrations over the years (hi vita-hating-gaf!) but I've also seen this board come together to do absolutely amazing things. There's no website that gets news faster than this forum. There is no better spot for inside information, for talking directly with devs and for getting a feel for how the hardcore feel about gaming issues.Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't do a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Amazing posts. It has been a please to be part of this.Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't do a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't do a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Thank you, everyone
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't do a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't do a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
Thank you, everyone
I would like to start this by saying that as of 9pm eastern the #PS4NoDRM campaign, as has been organized from this forum, is coming to a close. This movement was never just about this thread or following 'a leader' so if any of you want to continue tweeting every minute between now and the end of time - more power to you. I do hope that the passion keeps going but I had to make a tactical decision to shut down this part of it until E3. I'll explain why in a bit.
But first I want to thank NeoGAF. This board is absolutely incredible. Like everyone else, I became a member here after a long time of lurking (and a longer time of waiting for approval
When I made this thread it was based off of a leak that I heard that the flack that Microsoft was getting for their Used Game DRM was making Sony lean towards dropping theirs, which was supposedly something that hadn't decided on yet anyway. This was further backed up by another respected leaker, OMGWTFBBQ, saying that the reason that EA was on stage and giving exclusives to EA and not at Sony's event was because MS agreed to do DRM and Sony wouldn't commit. So I decided to make this thread with the idea that with twitter we could talk to Sony execs personally and give them a nudge in the direction it sounds like they were headed anyway.
There have been a large amount of criticisms about the movement and what has exploded since then and I actually agree with some of them. "A hashtag has never changed anything!" I agree, it's a pretty lazy way to get your message out there. But I do want to clarify that the point of this movement wasn't the hashtag... the hashtag was for exactly what hashtags are designed for... a search tool so we could look up and keep track of tweets on the subject. The point of this movement wasn't about having a giant number of tweets (though we did) or just spamming the hashtag (though some did...). The point was to talk to the people making decisions in a polite way and explain why we didn't want DRM put on physical media. It was about making connections... not spamming something for numbers.
What it did accomplish, that we know for certain, is grabbing the attention of the media about the issue. Us Gaffers sometimes unfairly feel like the media is out of touch, and this is an issue where it makes sense to be out of touch... the games media typically doesn't have to buy games and nor do they have to sell games to buy new games - so this isn't an issue that affects them in any meaningful way. This story has been reported on over 225 times in over 20 languages in a bit over a week. That is very powerful stuff. We talked to Sony (and later Microsoft and third party publishers) directly and then the media grabbed a bullhorn and made sure they were listening. A special shoutout to Jason Schreier, a gaffer and writer for Kotaku for the coverage he gave. We can't control what MS and Sony eventually decide, but I don't know what more we could do than that. I am incredibly proud of the people here who stepped up.
Baller, PhD came out of nowhere and created the websites www.ps4nodrm.com and www.xboxonenodrm.com which was huge. GoFreak has written much of our philosophical policies and helped with easier ways for people new to twitter to get things out there. ThoughtsofSpeaking made an incredible tumblr page which was the very essence of this movement - a place for people to tell their own stories/reasons as to why used games/sharing games with friends and family/etc are important to them. M0dus came in with amazing image work and help herding cats in the thread. About 20 people stepped up and started scouring the web for articles about what was going on. One guy, on twitter, told me he put up fliers around his town about this. I didn't ask any of these people to do any of these things... they did it because this was an issue that they felt passionately about. They did it because they felt like it was the right thing to do.
This is a story about how NeoGAF, despite being quite cynical and having a mean streak, is actually a force for good in this industry. People actually care. Many people pointed out, perhaps correctly, that we were 'wasting our time.' Maybe. But we give a shit and we wanted to atleast try.
So after a strong start and today, with phase 2, a strong finish - I feel like it's time to sit back and wait for E3. The point was to talk to these companies directly: we did that. The point was to expand awareness of the issue: we did that with the help of the media. The point today was just one last "hey guys we're still here and we still know what we want!": we did that.
We succeeded. We accomplished every single goal that we set out to do. I feel like it's time to hang up the gloves and wait to see if it makes a difference.
On monday Sony and Microsoft (hopefully? No Q+A? REALLY?!?) will either deliver good news or bad news. In the 15 or so interviews I've done over the last week the one question each of them has asked is "What are you going to do if they go through with the DRM?" My answer is still that I don't know. If it looks like a brick wall that we can't move, maybe we give up. If there are things that we can affect maybe we go on. Like, for instance, if Sony does do a "it's up to the publisher" type of thing I could see a group of us going on and making a website designed to promote publishers and developers that don't use DRM and shine our spotlight on those that do. I'm not sure. This has been an amazing experience and I would be lying if I didn't say that I haven't enjoyed it on a personal level... I mean I did an interview with a mexican newspaper. A MEXICAN NEWSPAPER!?!? And I've also learned that contrary to everything I've ever thought about myself, I'm actually pretty good at PR. I think i may know what I want to do when I grow up. This shit has been bananas. But we also all have fulltime jobs and would like nothing more than for MS and Sony to say "We heard you guys, no DRM on physical media!" and have that end this entire thing. Put us out of business, please!
So, again, thank you NeoGAF. Thank you people who were in that thread helping every step of the way. Thank you to the lurkers who joined in and spread it to other sites like Reddit and Facebook and other major videogame boards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe we just saved consumer rights... maybe we didn't do a damn thing. Either way I'm sitting here extremely proud of this community and I'm proud of how this all was conducted. You guys are amazing.
-pete 'famousmortimer' dodd
No, Mr. Dodd. Thank you.
Wow, fuck this guy!
He's Activision's goddamn community manager. WTF is the point of his job if not to act as the liaison between the parent corporation and the end consumer?
If I forgot anybody, not intentional! Still tweet though.....
