Economics of Game Prices

[The Damned]

Damn it, Luke! You've ruined a highly detailed and complex plan that involves asking him the same thing over and over until he gives up and goes home, taking his toys with him.

Thanks a lot. Now we have to use animated gifs and demotivational posters.

Fuck, it was going so well, too.

Also, air is a naturally occurring material. It's also a requirement for all living things on the planet. Video games are manufactured by people, and while they primarily exist as electronic data, are not required by any living thing on this planet.

I fail to see how this is supposed to be a logical argument.

[Tables]

So... what exactly? Are you blaming me for doing exactly what you guys are doing (save maybe a few people)?

Well dude if I were you I'd at least want to look like I'm the better person. It's really not going to make you look better if you don't go 'a step beyond', especially since you're the minority in this argument.

Also Jack you're really starting to lose it here. That potato example? I know someone else called you out on it but seriously, how can you compare that to video game prices? THAT'S the apples v. oranges. At least you're doing better at not sounding too 'incendiary', people need to lay off you for that.

Also, I do see the logic in your 'for the consumers good' general idea, not entirely sure why everyone here is totally with the companies either. 'Why they shouldn't want lower prices', yeah go for it. I dont think WoW should be $3 a month, of course Blizzard needs excess profit for everything else it does, but even decreasing it to $9.99 a month would be more fair and wouldn't hurt the company that much. I think you might even get more profit with more people willing to subscribe (who knows, not gonna lie I have less of an idea of how the economy works then most of you here so feel free to disregard). You make some pretty good points from time to time, I think. You're just not doing the most terrific job at staying on topic, using sensible examples, not using those silly fallacies.... It's really hard to stay on your side man.

I don't even know where I'm going with this, I'm kind of in the middle for this whole debate. Ramble ramble. But again this is one of the most entertaining (and for me, educational) threads here so keep going. popcorn65.gif

[zircon]

EDIT@Zircon: I think that's just one of my disagreements with capitalism in general (it doesn't account for consumer protection inherently, which I think should be a given; I think that consumer protection is as important as human rights protections, if we want to give corporations as much legal power as we do), but especially with copyright law. Right now, if I want to buy ME, I have to go to EA; no one else can produce ME discs at a lower cost than EA and thus there is no competition to lower prices. There is in a larger sense (game v game) but not in a product by product sense. That's why copyright is so destructive; two people selling potatoes are selling a directly comparable product. How do I compare two games and their relative worth? They are works of art; the HAVE no real value. It's apples v oranges.

Again I think there is a fundamental disagreement here. As Darkesword said, creators have rights. When we talk about NECESSITIES like food, shelter and healthcare, that's a different story. But all forms of entertainment are luxuries, and as such, regulation should be minimal at best.

But you're also wrong about copyright being so restrictive. Here are some examples.

1. Game concepts cannot be trademarked, patented or copyrighted. If you like the gameplay of, say, Mario, you can make a Mario clone yourself.

2. There are fair use exceptions to copyright. While these definitely don't cover commercial uses, this is how OCReMix can exist, among other things.

3. Copyrighted music has something called "compulsory mechanical licensing". If you like a song I wrote, you have, by law, the right to take my song and record it yourself. You can even sell it and make lots of money, as long as I get a small statutory royalty.

These are just a few examples. The point is that you are NOT, by default, entitled to the artistic work of any given creator, be this games, music, sculpture or other forms of expression. Nor should you be. These things are luxuries, and as intellectual property is not a scarce resource (by your own admission) there is nothing preventing anyone from making their own art to enjoy. But even with these things considered, there are legal ways you can utilize or derive from existing art that you like.

[thephoenix]

I dont think WoW should be $3 a month, of course Blizzard needs excess profit for everything else it does, but even decreasing it to $9.99 a month would be more fair and wouldn't hurt the company that much.

While it may not sound much on the small side, keep in mind that a $5 decrease in subscriptions is equal to 1/3rd of the income being lost. It may not be much to the consumer, but that means billions lost for the company.

[The Damned]

BUT BUT BUT BUT they don't NEEEEED to make all that money!

[thephoenix]

BUT BUT BUT BUT they don't NEEEEED to make all that money!

Hah, that's right, companies should only shoot to break even, and any company looking to make profit is greedy and is boning their consumers, and the consumers should be mad about this!

[The Author]

While it may not sound much on the small side, keep in mind that a $5 decrease in subscriptions is equal to 1/3rd of the income being lost. It may not be much to the consumer, but that means billions lost for the company.

Problem with that is: If they decrease subscription by 5$ it will have exactly the projected effect you claim: More players.

Is that a good thing?

Yes and no, yay more players also means yay more data in our server banks, more processing power needed, yay more bandwidth needed, yay more accounts to manage, and yay, the incom to expenditure ration is gonna be off kilter.

Less profit also means less money re-invested in the game, which means less important patches and updates, less content change, longer dev times for expansions, and so forth.

Which in the long term could mean faster death of the game.

But Yay! more players is all that matters, right?

Also, 15$ US per month is the defacto price for a subscription based MMORPG. It's been like that for years. It might just be one of these marketing things where people expect to pay that price and if you charge less, they'll wonder what the catch is.

In fact, that it remains 15$ per month after so many years is also a good deal, since they don't adjust it with inflation.

But yeah, it should be 10$ because then you would play it...

For god's sake, if 5$ is preventing you from playing a game you want to play, you have some issues. When I feel like playing a MMO, I simply adjust my finances accordingly. It's easy, and it isn't nearly as whiny as your method.

[thephoenix]

Problem with that is: If they decrease subscription by 5$ it will have exactly the projected effect you claim: More players.

It seems like we agree on all other points, so I'll just comment on this...yes, more players may be a good thing in the number of those paying, but it may not be enough to make up for the lost profit. That's something that people don't seem to get...more people at less cost may sound good, but it will take millions of new players to make up for lost profit, and I highly doubt a $5 decrease will bring the increase to that level, especially considering the things you mentioned that would be caused by a large increase of the MMO's population.

[JackKieser]

Again I think there is a fundamental disagreement here. As Darkesword said, creators have rights. When we talk about NECESSITIES like food, shelter and healthcare, that's a different story. But all forms of entertainment are luxuries, and as such, regulation should be minimal at best.

What I'm trying to inform you guys about is that, HISTORICALLY, this isn't true; you are mistaken, possibly because you don't know the history of the subject. Again, according simply to the Constitution, without all of that Disney interference crap, anything that ISN'T built or invented for the advancement of the sciences ISN'T covered under copyright, which means that the creators have only one fundamental right: the right to make art. Not the right to sell it, or the right to make a profit. Those aren't rights, they are privileges. The only reason that those are RIGHTS is because copyright law was butchered so that a company that was going to lose its copyright, fairly and by the rules, could extend it and continue profiting past the allotted time, which was already against original law.

TL;DR: Your bias as an artist is blinding you to the HISTORY of copyright law. This isn't debatable; this is fact. Copyright has a history, and for thousands of years, art wasn't copyrighted, and wasn't copyrighted when the Constitution was written because the Founders / philosophers back then realized that what we NOW call "piracy" was essential for artistic creation (the ability to use and expand on someone else's work, without restriction).

Need v. luxury has NOTHING to do with it.

But you're also wrong about copyright being so restrictive. Here are some examples.

1. Game concepts cannot be trademarked, patented or copyrighted. If you like the gameplay of, say, Mario, you can make a Mario clone yourself.

According to original copyright law, I'd have the right to use MARIO, not his "concept", but the character, in any way I'd want, including remaking the game, but with better programming so it'd run better.

2. There are fair use exceptions to copyright. While these definitely don't cover commercial uses, this is how OCReMix can exist, among other things.

"Fair use" came into being in 1976, almost 200 years AFTER copyright law was created in the States. That's because, for nearly 200 years, anything that wasn't scientific in nature could be reproduced at will.

3. Copyrighted music has something called "compulsory mechanical licensing". If you like a song I wrote, you have, by law, the right to take my song and record it yourself. You can even sell it and make lots of money, as long as I get a small statutory royalty.

But, that doctrine hasn't been formally applied to games. I can't remake WoW, but with more efficient programming and better graphics, yet the same game design / art STYLE / characters. That'd be breaking copyright, and yet it is logically equivalent to "re-recording" a song.

These are just a few examples. The point is that you are NOT, by default, entitled to the artistic work of any given creator, be this games, music, sculpture or other forms of expression. Nor should you be. These things are luxuries, and as intellectual property is not a scarce resource (by your own admission) there is nothing preventing anyone from making their own art to enjoy. But even with these things considered, there are legal ways you can utilize or derive from existing art that you like.

(Emphasis added)

You actually have it backwards. Again, legally speaking, the content creators had NO RIGHTS to sell their work exclusively (full rights to sell, just not exclusively), nor should they, because it's art. Because intellectual property is not a scarce resource, that doesn't mean I ONLY have to right to make my own; it means I should also have to right to reproduce existing works as I see fit, which was how the law ORIGINALLY was written.

I swear, did no one read the thread I posted? I understand it's long, but seriously: important historical information here.

Also, there's a big lie going around the forums that digital distribution costs content creators money; that's not true. Using Steam costs money. Digital distribution, in and of itself, doesn't. Proof: read the thread I linked. It has a seminar given at, IIRC, the TED talks about how BitTorrent can be used for free by content creators to distribute their work AND still make a profit, even though they aren't selling anything to consumers; television companies in Australia have been doing this for years.

Please, please read that link. It's so informative.

EDIT@Below post: I haven't read it yet (whew, 61 pages), but I did a document search for the term "art" and didn't come up with any matches... so I just want to make sure, are you submitting it as evidence that things (products, goods, services) should be sold? Or that artists have a right to get paid when someone copies / reproduces / creates a derivative of their art?

[Nobinsor]

From the pages of a somewhat marxist (and now outdated or built upon) school of 1960's history comes!!!!

Some history...about eekernomicz...not so much copyright law...

http://past.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/1/76.full.pdf

[Ferret]

To be honest, Jack? I think people are just plain fed up with you.

Is it too much to ask that you make cogent points without turning every post that you write into a novel-sized rant against perceived misconceptions? Is it beyond reason to request that you take everything said with a grain of salt and not act like we're insulting you with the things we say?

I last posted in this thread roughly a day ago and I must say that I'm quite perturbed to see that it has grown by 8 or 9 pages and half of the content of those pages is you arguing with people instead of accepting the fact that maybe THEY CAN BE RIGHT, TOO.

That said I'm not going to get involved in this thread anymore, it's just too tiresome.

[DarkeSword]

Except you know, we're not talking about HISTORY. We're talking about NOW. We're talking about the way things work TODAY.

I'm well aware of the history of copyright law and what Disney did. I have my own opinions about that, which are irrelevant to the matter at hand, but suffice it to say, it's a good thing that artists are afforded copyrights for their work. It's a good thing that they're given the protection to own, license, and profit from their own work. It doesn't matter if that's life of the author plus x years or not. Artists deserve to be compensated for what they do, and it's their right to charge as much as they want.

And seriously, what are you talking about with this "digital distribution doesn't cost content creators money?" And remember, we're are talking about video games here, not distribution TV shows over BitTorrent. How can I, as a game development studio, SELL my games for PROFIT through DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION without SPENDING MONEY? BitTorrent? How do I manage licenses? I still need storefront software and pay credit card transaction fees, I still need to provide tech support for people having trouble getting my product, I still need to provide a dedicated seed and download alternatives for people who can't use BitTorrent, I still need to be able to track and analyze download statistics, I still need hardware for all this to run on, and I still need to pay the electrical bill for that hardware. So how is that free?

Nothing in life is free. It's trite and cliché but it's also very, very true.

[JackKieser]

To be honest, Jack? I think people are just plain fed up with you.

Is it too much to ask that you make cogent points without turning every post that you write into a novel-sized rant against perceived misconceptions?

Well, I make long posts. I try to be thorough. Sorry. *shrug* In my defense, that's at least the second time I've used that source, and it seems that the same people are just ignoring it; that's why I'm driving it home so much. Oh, and on the more esoteric points of this discussion, I concede that my points still have to be proven... but the thread I linked to has HISTORY in it, and that's what I'm citing; if you make a claim counter to history and can't back it up, you're just wrong, no matter how you cut it.

Is it beyond reason to request that you take everything said with a grain of salt and not act like we're insulting you with the things we say?

I am? I haven't taken anything personally, have I? If it seems that way (and your name isn't the Damned), I apologize for misrepresenting; as I've said before, at the bare minimum I respect Zircon and Gario for being reasonable and counterpointing me.

I last posted in this thread roughly a day ago and I must say that I'm quite perturbed to see that it has grown by 8 or 9 pages and half of the content of those pages is you arguing with people instead of accepting the fact that maybe THEY CAN BE RIGHT, TOO.

That said I'm not going to get involved in this thread anymore, it's just too tiresome.

So... another off-topic post? Sorry if that seems callous, I just don't see the point of that, unless you thought you'd somehow strike to my core and give me to give up in a fit of indignant rage or something. As far as I'm concerned, good discourse is still going on, so I'm fine with continuing if the people giving me counter-points are.

[JackKieser]

Except you know, we're not talking about HISTORY. We're talking about NOW. We're talking about the way things work TODAY.

I'm well aware of the history of copyright law and what Disney did. I have my own opinions about that, which are irrelevant to the matter at hand, but suffice it to say, it's a good thing that artists are afforded copyrights for their work. It's a good thing that they're given the protection to own, license, and profit from their own work. It doesn't matter if that's life of the author plus x years or not. Artists deserve to be compensated for what they do, and it's their right to charge as much as they want.

Except, it was never PROVEN that artists deserve payment for their work, not in the modern context of "payment" (meaning absolute control and exclusivity of sale / production). Even so, before artists had draconian protections written into the law, they WERE getting paid for their art. They just weren't getting paid for someone ELSE'S art, which was fairly derived from theirs. Da Vinci got paid plenty, just by his patrons. Artists made money in the past, of that there is no doubt. They just didn't have absolute control of their work once it left their hands, which was totally justified.

You can make songs / books / games without copyright and still make money. You just can't make as much of it and you have to do it in different ways.

And seriously, what are you talking about with this "digital distribution doesn't cost content creators money?" And remember, we're are talking about video games here, not distribution TV shows over BitTorrent. How can I, as a game development studio, SELL my games for PROFIT through DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION without SPENDING MONEY? BitTorrent? How do I manage licenses? I still need storefront software and pay credit card transaction fees, I still need to provide tech support for people having trouble getting my product, I still need to provide a dedicated seed and download alternatives for people who can't use BitTorrent, I still need to be able to track and analyze download statistics, I still need hardware for all this to run on, and I still need to pay the electrical bill for that hardware. So how is that free?

Nothing in life is free. It's trite and cliché but it's also very, very true.

You didn't even READ my article, did you? No, you didn't, because if you did, I wouldn't have to answer that. Be honest, DS: did you read it? At all? There are ways, 21st century ways, ways that have proven results, to make money off of a product that you aren't selling to consumers. Do some research on your own, if you're so insistent on ignoring my sources. Suffice it to say, you CAN make money with BitTorrent, even without making direct sales.

Now, I think THAT is disrespectful: "I haven't read your source or your proof, but you're OBVIOUSLY just wrong". Deplorable; at least I'm reading and responding to links posted at me.

EDIT: Crap, sorry for the double post, guys.

[Hawkwing]

Rabble Rabble Rabble Rabble

Yeah, I think I summed it up. Carry on if you need to, but I think that should end it.

[Charlie's Angel]

Rabble Rabble Rabble Rabble

Yeah, I think I summed it up. Carry on if you need to, but I think that should end it.

If it could, we wouldn't be here. I;d love to offer more than these small little snide comments to the general conversation - but that hasn't really worked out for anyone in here. It's still admittingly kind of fun to watch though

[thephoenix]

You actually have it backwards. Again, legally speaking, the content creators had NO RIGHTS to sell their work exclusively (full rights to sell, just not exclusively), nor should they, because it's art. Because intellectual property is not a scarce resource, that doesn't mean I ONLY have to right to make my own; it means I should also have to right to reproduce existing works as I see fit, which was how the law ORIGINALLY was written.

This is all I needed to see. You have no idea how copyright law works, are so far away from economics it's almost insulting, and that right there? That's enough for me to either say that you're a troll, or you just can't see how things really are with your head that far up your ass.

Content creators don't have the right to sell exclusively what THEY create? You have the right to reproduce someone else's work as you see fit? Tell you what, show me where this exists. Show me any proof where this is true. If not, I'd call for a mod to lock this just because that right there screams trolling.

[JackKieser]

I already did, dude! Jesus, read!

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

I didn't say that content creators DON'T have exclusive rights now, I said that the historically never did until the law was butchered for private interests! This is history; I'm not trolling you. This isn't some elaborate lie; it's the fucking Constitution of the United States of America in its original, unedited glory.

And, you call me the troll? You're not even reading.

[thephoenix]

I already did, dude! Jesus, read!

I didn't say that content creators DON'T have exclusive rights now, I said that the historically never did until the law was butchered for private interests! This is history; I'm not trolling you. This isn't some elaborate lie; it's the fucking Constitution of the United States of America in its original, unedited glory.

And, you call me the troll? You're not even reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause

I think you need to actually read what that entire clause states. I don't think it means what you think it means. The law was never written for works to not be protected, this was created to protect those works through legality. Butchered for private interest? It was created so that people who craft something "artistically" can retain ownership of that creation. By the way, that "limited time" thing can be renewed. Again, just read. Educate yourself instead of acting like you know what you're talking about, maybe you won't be mocked as much. It's a long shot, but who knows?

[DarkeSword]

You didn't even READ my article, did you? No, you didn't, because if you did, I wouldn't have to answer that. Be honest, DS: did you read it? At all? There are ways, 21st century ways, ways that have proven results, to make money off of a product that you aren't selling to consumers. Do some research on your own, if you're so insistent on ignoring my sources. Suffice it to say, you CAN make money with BitTorrent, even without making direct sales.

Now, I think THAT is disrespectful: "I haven't read your source or your proof, but you're OBVIOUSLY just wrong". Deplorable; at least I'm reading and responding to links posted at me.

EDIT: Crap, sorry for the double post, guys.

I did read it! There is nothing there that answers my questions in my post. Explain to me how I can digitally distribute a game that I want to sell for free. I'm not talking about television, advertising, and publicity. I am talking about a digital distribution solution for video games that is free. If someone buys my game, how do I get it to them without spending money?

[JackKieser]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause

I think you need to actually read what that entire clause states. I don't think it means what you think it means. The law was never written for works to not be protected, this was created to protect those works through legality.

Try again, my friend; it was written "to Promote the Science and useful Arts". Again, I already explained that the usage of the word "arts" in the Constitution is an outdated term not used today; it does NOT mean "arts" as in music or dance, it means "arts" as in "ARTISANS", people who craft. The copyright law is meant to promote innovation through education; an inventor has a limited period with which to perfect his invention, discovery, or creation, and after that copyright period the theory is that he would have perfected it enough and taught others how to duplicate it properly, so that the rest of the world could reproduce his work at will for the benefit of "the Sciences and useful Arts".

An even CURSORY glance supports this. Whatever we added to copyright law since then is totally irrelevant, since (in my opinion) it should have required a Constitutional amendment to change copyright law, something that has (obviously) not happened. Current copyright law is BLATANTLY unconstitutional, but we overlook it in the interests of business, because companies like Disney have strong-armed the American government into editing the law past its original designs.

Butchered for private interest? It was created so that people who craft something "artistically" can retain ownership of that creation.

THAT'S NOT WHY IT WAS CREATED.

By the way, that "limited time" thing can be renewed. Again, just read.

Yes, it can be renewed because we added that functionality into the law later; it originally COULDN'T be renewed because the point of the law wasn't to make people money, but to protect innovation by not allowing cheap imitation knockoffs to be produced before the world knew how to properly recreate a product. Again, this is not debatable; this is historical fact. Fact that I linked to earlier.

Educate yourself instead of acting like you know what you're talking about, maybe you won't be mocked as much. It's a long shot, but who knows?

Copyright law and digital media is probably the single largest passion I have; I've studied and read up on the subject for years. It's not MY fault that you can't critically read / never read the Constitution's original text / don't know the history of the changes to the law. Don't tell me what I do and do not know when I have been the ONLY person citing sources on the issue; you just cited Wikipedia, WHICH DOESN'T EVEN DISAGREE WITH ME:

Some terms in the clause are used in archaic meanings, potentially confusing modern readers. For example, "useful Arts" does not refer to artistic endeavors, but rather to the work of artisans, people skilled in a manufacturing craft; "Science" is not limited to fields of modern scientific inquiry, but to all knowledge, including philosophy and literature.

See? You didn't even read your own source, dude. What the hell?

EDIT:

I did read it! There is nothing there that answers my questions in my post. Explain to me how I can digitally distribute a game that I want to sell for free. I'm not talking about television, advertising, and publicity. I am talking about a digital distribution solution for video games that is free. If someone buys my game, how do I get it to them without spending money?

You know, maybe your business model isn't that good, just like the record companies are finding out with CDs. Did you ever consider that? Instead of writing laws like the DMCA or strong-arming people with EULAs, maybe you should innovate like the creators of BitTorrent and the Australian media companies did.

You assume that you deserve money for your work, but like I said, that's an assumption, one not even upheld by the highest law in our country (the Constitution). But, you refuse to listen to an opposing viewpoint at all and just barrel on through with this concept that you DESERVE your money. Maybe you're selling a product that is becoming less and less marketable as people realize that there are ways to get it without paying and ways to distribute it for free. Maybe you're selling something that is only marketable because we wrote special laws to not make your market obsolete. Just like the button makers guild wanted.

Just like Vaudeville wanted when the phonograph came out.

Just like Recording companies wanted when radio came out.

Just like producers wanted when CABLE TV came out.

Just like Hollywood wanted when VCRs came out (Hollywood; ironically, the pirate city created by thieves who stole Edison's original recording technology!).

And we all know how THOSE endeavors turned out. The only reason Hollywood has such a vice-grip is because of the changes Disney forced into the copyright law so that they could claim Mickey Mouse for longer than they were supposed to.

Whenever a new content distribution schema comes out that makes previous business models obsolete, there is a HISTORICAL TREND that old business models try to outlaw the new technology to save them from obsolescence; again, this is historical fact that companies / businesses do this.

Maybe you shouldn't repeat the mistakes of the past.

[Kenogu Labz]

Sounds like constitutional misinterpretation to me, Jack. Just because a term is old does not make it outdated, or place it in a different context. It's an enormous misconception in modern America. You can't skew the constitution to what you want it to mean. Leave such interpretation for the Supreme Court.

[JackKieser]

Kenogu, name me a single person who, today, uses the term "arts" to mean "artisan skills". "Arts" now means creative endeavors. This was not the case when the Constitution was drafted; any etymologist will tell you that, including this one. It's only made worse by the fact that they specifically included the word "useful" to denote a separation in context between "arts" as an artisan term and "art" as in artwork. It's not "misrepresentation" if you use the original historical context when discerning meaning... which is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do when they deliberate, BTW.

*sigh* I'm starting to lose my cool because people are refusing outright to read. It's not like I'm even making a logical claim anymore; this is all history stuff. This is all documented.

[thephoenix]

Kenogu, name me a single person who, today, uses the term "arts" to mean "artisan skills". "Arts" now means creative endeavors. This was not the case when the Constitution was drafted; any etymologist will tell you that, including this one. It's only made worse by the fact that they specifically included the word "useful" to denote a separation in context between "arts" as an artisan term and "art" as in artwork. It's not "misrepresentation" if you use the original historical context when discerning meaning... which is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do when they deliberate, BTW.

*sigh* I'm starting to lose my cool because people are refusing outright to read. It's not like I'm even making a logical claim anymore; this is all history stuff. This is all documented.

You may want to take the time and read through the widespread number of cases that went to the supreme court over the definition of this passage. While the original may be "outdated", the courts have ruled on updated meanings to it. So yes, "artisan skills" does, in fact, refer to anything created artistically, be it writings, movies, books, and in this case, games.

I'm just waiting for you to change subjects again once everyone else in this entire thread tells you how wrong you are.

[zircon]

At this point it's difficult to tell what you are even arguing, Jack. Your points are incoherent and change from post to post. Are you trying to argue what IS, or what OUGHT to be? Are you trying to argue against the idea of copyright at all? Are you trying to argue constitutional law? Are What is your central argument, summarized in 2-3 sentences? It's so muddled that it's no wonder you're having an impossible time communicating with anyone. I've been only dipping my toes in here to respond to specific inaccuracies but you change your point and position so often that I can't tell what's going on here overall.

So for the benefit of everyone, please state in 2-3 sentences what is at the ROOT of your argument. We started at game prices, went to piracy, then economics, then bartering and now constitutional law. What is it that you are trying to say?