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February 2017
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T-Mobile Backs Off Added Fee For HD Streaming As Unlimited Data Wars Heat Up

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While the U.S. wireless industry isn't quite as competitive as it's portrayed as (non-price competition is generally the law of the land), T-Mobile has still managed to disrupt the sector with a crazy idea: giving users what they want. That was again made evident this week when Verizon was forced to bring back sort-of unlimited data after spending the last several years telling consumers they didn't really want such simple, straightforward plans. Verizon's long-standing belief that it can tell consumers what they're supposed to want took a notable blow this week by any measure.Shortly after Verizon announced it was returning to unlimited data, T-Mobile once again upped the ante, announcing it would no longer be charging an extra fee to stream HD video over the company's LTE Network. According to the announcement, T-Mobile not only stopped charging a premium for HD quality (the de-prioritization of which you may recall T-Mobile lied was happening at several points), but also eased up on the restrictions surrounding tethering (using your phone as a modem).In a statement, T-Mobile CEO John Legere hinted at studies showing that Verizon has nearly lost its network size and speed edge over T-Mobile, which the company had long been using to justify its refusal to more seriously compete:

"I don't blame Verizon for caving. They just lost their network advantage, and they know it and more importantly, more and more customers know it. Their back's against the wall, said John Legere, president and CEO at T-Mobile. This is what the Un-carrier doesdrag the carriers kicking and screaming into the future. Next up, we're going to force them to include monthly taxes and fees. Mark my words."
Granted the term "unlimited" is still being abused here, since you may find your connection throttled (technically "de-prioritized") after 28 gigabytes of consumption on T-Mobile's network, or 22 gigabytes of consumption on Verizon Wireless. And U.S. residents will still probably wind up paying significantly more money at slower speeds than most developed nations. Meanwhile, T-Mobile tells Ars Technica that video on the T-Mobile network is still throttled to 1.5 Mbps by default, with the onus placed on customers to remember to enable HD video manually or it reverts to the default, de-prioritized state:
"T-Mobile responded to our question about HD video day passes by saying, "All customers have to do to get HD is go into the app or online to turn on. It's very easy." Customers still have to enable HD video every 24 hours or it reverts to 480p, a T-Mobile spokesperson told Ars via e-mail. However, the company's Twitter support account says it only will have to be enabled once per month. T-Mobile's press release doesn't clear things up."
Even with caveats, this is at least providing a vague resemblance of what wireless competition is supposed to look like. Given the number of customers T-Mobile is now hoovering up from AT&T, it may also force AT&T to revisit its own opposition to unlimited data plans (currently only available if you subscribe to both AT&T wireless and DirecTV). So even though the industry still struggles with the dictionary definition of unlimited, the fact T-Mobile is pushing AT&T and Verizon to actually try to compete is certainly a good thing.The problem is that competition in the wireless space is viciously fickle, and by and large most of AT&T and Verizon's promotions remain somewhat theatrical in nature when it comes to actually lowering your overall price once various fees are factored in. And should the rumored T-Mobile and Sprint merger be approved by regulators, you can be fairly sure that even this level of more superficial competition may not be around for long.

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Counterpoint: As Denuvo Lauds Its Weeks-Long Control, 20 Year Old Game Still Selling Due To Its Modding Community

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I've covered the saga of Denuvo DRM regularly as of late. The once-vaunted anti-piracy tool, thought to be the end of video game piracy altogether, has instead had its protection window reduced to somewhere between a week and some weeks. Despite the headwinds of reality, the folks behind Denuvo have bravely soldiered on, proclaiming the tool still useful for protecting the ever-important early-release window of new video games.And that's where I think a counterpoint needs to be made. The idea that the most important time in the sales cycle for a new video game is its initial release is almost gospel within the industry. And it's not without its logic, I suppose. Many, many games experience the vast majority of their sales upon initial release. But what if that wasn't the case? And what if by simply embracing the gaming community and releasing control over the product, instead of trying to cling to it with tactics like DRM, the sales cycle for a game became so long that it changed the math?What if more games were like Quake, in other words. And I mean the original Quake, released by id Software some twenty years ago. The game has continued to sell throughout these past two decades, but is going through something of a comeback recently. Why? Well, it's because the modding community that has developed around the game has kept it fresh and relevant.

Quake mapping is consistent, organized and unrelenting. Quake’s community has mostly rallied around a singular download hub for nearly every level, and there’s even a handy launcher that downloads, installs and runs them all for you. Quake map packs tend to be once-a-month events, and they’re of indisputable quality, unshackled by the hardware and engine limits of the 90s.You can pick Quake up from GOG or Steam, but the GOG version works out slightly cheaper since it includes both official expansions—Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution Of Eternity—which are sold separately on the Steam release.
Keep in mind that it's been twenty years since the game's first release and the modding community has stepped in to make sure that it's still being sold today. Interest is running high as fans have reinvigorated the game through their own creativity, updated the graphics to drag it into modernity, and generated interest through sharing levels and graphic designs. All of this happening outside of the control of id Software, which instead gets to sit back and simply cash the checks all this interest is writing for them. Exactly how valuable was the early release window of Quake to id Software?Still valuable, I am sure, but the math simply can't be the same as the likes of Denuvo claim, what with a cycle alive and well after two decades. Giving up control made that possible, whereas the use of control tools like DRM, especially DRM that relies on 3rd party check-in servers that won't be around forever, actively work against that possibility. It seems to me that any game developer looking to make money should be clear on which of these business philosophies it ought to embrace.

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