Is renting Lego:RB just to import unethical?

[Crownjo]

I just wonder if the two queen songs will be one song as we will rock you / we are the champions

HMX does combine songs sometimes so it makes sense right?

I'm hoping they are combined.

[DELTAsnake]

I hope it's not a code in the manual. There are a lot of people that buy a game from EB, enter the codes for Marketplace DLC and then return the game using the 7 day return policy, then EB puts the game back on the shelf and sells it as new.

[jimbury]

Troy Powers (PSN: TroyPowers) @ Apr 21st 2009 12:49PM:

I'm so sick of these corny games. All of you people should just learn to play with REAL Legos.

says it all for me.

[Crownjo]

or you can ignore me and let me rot. D:

[newmanator]

It is.

But that didn't stop me from doing it with Guitar Hero Smash Hits.

I believe that GH SH was $59.99 for pretty much the same amount of songs so I suppose Lego RB will be a lot cheaper to buy and export in total.

[DMBillies]

I used to think this way as well, but HMX is not doing a service to the fans by allowing exports, they are making their product more attractive to the fans to increase sales and profits.

They are not increasing sales and profits if people are taking advantage of a cheap export code to basically rip them off. The renting and ripping of RB1 I am not entirely against because they leveraged that as a means to increase sales of RB2 at the end of RB1's lifecycle ("hey, buy RB2, rent RB1, and you get a huge library of songs right off the bat).

That said, 1) there is no reason to think that L:RB's export will not be a one-time code, and 2) the code will be put out at the beginning of the games lifecycle. This means that HMX is taking a significant risk of losing sales to rent-and-rip "exporting" by giving its customers a much-requested feature. The fact that you may pay a small fee in order to do it (I actually don't expect there will be one) does not entitle you to an entire game of songs for $5. I'm sorry, but I don't think it is ethical, in the least, to export these songs if you do not intend to ever own the game. Besides, why stiff a company that puts out a good product and that works hard to incorporate a consumer-friendly feature?

if it's set up like RB1 where you can pay a nominal fee and download the content from the internet, then I see no reason why people who are uninterested in RB:Lego should be blasted for renting the game, paying the fee, and downloading content from HMX.

They would be extraordinarily dumb to set it up like RB1... but, the reason it is not ok is that the price of the export is not NEARLY sufficiently high enough to pay HMX for the amount of work they have done in charting those songs. DLC is $2 per track. If the export is $5, then HMX is seeing < $.09 per song. If the export is a free, one-time deal, then the person is getting them for free. In both cases, a person is getting an entire games worth of content for an absolute pittance that clearly screws HMX out of a LOT of money.

So, the solution is that HMX stops exporting or increases the price for an export to a level that makes it unattractive for the people that actually buy the disk. Should I have to pay $70 or $80 for a game + export just because some wankers want to get something for nothing.

If that sends the signal to HMX that RB:Lego is not a money maker, but people will pay for even more DLC/Track Packs, then that is a good thing, because that is what we want.

So "stealing" from the company is supposed to send them a message to give you more DLC for the same game (at a higher price/song then just buying L:RB) and is supposed to get them to release track packs (which export too, and can therefore be ripped off the same way)? What exactly is the advantage for us or them.

[ant423]

For RB1, I borrowed it from my cousin, bought the export key online, and gave the game back to him once the songs were exported. It was no big deal.

If Lego uses an export key, then by all means rent it. If it uses a code, then that's a different story.

[dalcyte]

How about you just read the threads on the same topic regarding RB1 and save us another 100 threads for this game.

How bout you stop throwing a hissy fit over one thread that really isn't doing much to you?

Sorry. People in this forum can really let their snide-y sides show.

Well, I would say its not entirely unethical, but I would get the game just because i feel bad. But of course i have a Wii...