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Yanngc33

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Renting games is illegal in my country.


I live in France. A beautiful country with good food, good wine and fine women. Sounds great right ? Not when your a gamer. 
France has some really weird, dumb laws. For example, a certain number of french songs must play on the radio every hour, because American music is so dominant that the french music industry couldn't survive without the government forcing us to listen to dumb french rap (trust me it's awful). France also has another law, one that's clearly written on the back of every game box: in no case can this game be rented. 
 
Why does this suck so hard ? First of all, renting is like a prolonged demo. Reviews can only tell you so much about a game, you still need to play it to find out if you like it. If I had only rented Naughty Bear, I could've known that It wasn't all that great. 
Second reason why no renting sucks is the price of the games. We pay about 10 to 20 dollars more than americains do. This means, like in most cases, buying a game is an investment. And when I finish a game in less than 5 hours, that's what I call a rip off. Now if I had rented it, I'd feel a hell of a lot less cheated and wouldn't cry everynight thinking of my empty wallet. 
My final reason is a much more personal one. I'm fluent in booth French and English and I like my games in Shakespear's tongue. "Remember... No Russian" sounds alot cooler in English than in French and since the language isn't written anywhere on the box, you can only hope for the best. My favorite example of this weird trend is Halo: Reach. The menus are in English but the game is dubbed in French with English subtitles.   
 
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Yanngc33

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Edited By Yanngc33

I live in France. A beautiful country with good food, good wine and fine women. Sounds great right ? Not when your a gamer. 
France has some really weird, dumb laws. For example, a certain number of french songs must play on the radio every hour, because American music is so dominant that the french music industry couldn't survive without the government forcing us to listen to dumb french rap (trust me it's awful). France also has another law, one that's clearly written on the back of every game box: in no case can this game be rented. 
 
Why does this suck so hard ? First of all, renting is like a prolonged demo. Reviews can only tell you so much about a game, you still need to play it to find out if you like it. If I had only rented Naughty Bear, I could've known that It wasn't all that great. 
Second reason why no renting sucks is the price of the games. We pay about 10 to 20 dollars more than americains do. This means, like in most cases, buying a game is an investment. And when I finish a game in less than 5 hours, that's what I call a rip off. Now if I had rented it, I'd feel a hell of a lot less cheated and wouldn't cry everynight thinking of my empty wallet. 
My final reason is a much more personal one. I'm fluent in booth French and English and I like my games in Shakespear's tongue. "Remember... No Russian" sounds alot cooler in English than in French and since the language isn't written anywhere on the box, you can only hope for the best. My favorite example of this weird trend is Halo: Reach. The menus are in English but the game is dubbed in French with English subtitles.   
 
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Colin

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Edited By Colin

Silly country is silly.

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illmatic19

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mazik765

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@Yanngc33 said:
"For example, a certain number of french songs must play on the radio every hour, because American music is so dominant that the french music industry couldn't survive without the government forcing us to listen to dumb french rap (trust me it's awful). "
We have the exact same law in Canada, except for Canadian music. I think it's a good thing, since it allows Canadian artists a chance to be heard on a larger scale rather than being totally smothered out by American mainstream music. Of course that is in theory. In reality the stations just play a few Nickleback, Shania Twain and Justin Bieber songs an hour and call it a day.
 
Oh, and the rental thing sucks too.
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Godwind

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Edited By Godwind

You should create a video game communism business.  $100 a year membership, people can access your store and "borrow" products from there.  They can use the game for as long as they want, and return it for a new one.

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Aaron_G

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I live in the United States and hardly ever rent games. I think it is a dying trend here, I barely know anyone anymore rents games before they buy them. This is just my observation.  

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coolfurby

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Edited By coolfurby

I don't know much about French rap but that song WU TANG did with a bunch of french raps was off the hook.
 
edit: this one   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZPjgjkSv9g 

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mosdl

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Edited By mosdl
@Yanngc33 said:
"My favorite example of this weird trend is Halo: Reach. The menus are in English but the game is dubbed in French with English subtitles.     "
I used to live in Austria and german dubbing of games/movies/etc used to vary a lot in quality.
 
Of course English dubbing of foreign movies suffer from the same quality issues :)
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penguindust

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Edited By penguindust

According to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it's probably illegal to rent games (no first sale) in the United States, too.  LGJ: Are game resales at risk? [Joystiq]  The article is about resales, but could probably also be applied to game rentals.  The ruling will likely be overturned again by a higher court (Supreme?) since it is too restrictive in its consumer options.  Interesting read, though.   

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Branthog

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@mazik765 said:
" @Yanngc33 said:
"For example, a certain number of french songs must play on the radio every hour, because American music is so dominant that the french music industry couldn't survive without the government forcing us to listen to dumb french rap (trust me it's awful). "
We have the exact same law in Canada, except for Canadian music. I think it's a good thing, since it allows Canadian artists a chance to be heard on a larger scale rather than being totally smothered out by American mainstream music. Of course that is in theory. In reality the stations just play a few Nickleback, Shania Twain and Justin Bieber songs an hour and call it a day.  Oh, and the rental thing sucks too. "
I think that sounds like a terrible thing. If you can't thrive on your own merits, why should you have special exceptions made for you? Imagine if that were applied to other consumer items. Sorry, you aren't allowed to buy the care you want, because we need to help this other automotive manufacturer bolster their lagging sales. 
 
As for renting - that is a shame. Once you own something, you should be allowed to do what you like with it. That includes renting (event hough movie and game publishers hate it). 
 
If they did this in America, it would be called "protectionism" and probably accused of being racist and xenophobic (a lot like the idea of saying "everything has to be printed in English and no other language!" is).
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HandsomeDead

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Edited By HandsomeDead

France is awesome. I wish I'd taken the time to learn the language.

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Jams

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Edited By Jams

When people say "we pay X amount more in our country than america" do they take into account the taxes and shipping their country makes you pay? They don't charge you more just because you're French. 

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mosdl

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Edited By mosdl
@jams said:
" When people say "we pay X amount more in our country than america" do they take into account the taxes and shipping their country makes you pay? They don't charge you more just because you're French.  "
Games are probably made in China and shipped from there...
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mazik765

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Edited By mazik765
@Branthog:  It's to preserve our musical culture against the overwhelming influence of corporately manufactured music, most of which comes from the states. 
 
Also saying that if a musician can't make it big on his own merits they shouldn't have any assistance is absolutely absurd. Do you honestly think the main stream music that is played on the radio, the music we are talking about that drowns out all other music that might come out of our respective cultures, is being played because those artists are the best at what they do? You think that Lady Gaga's career succeeded because she is an apporpriately skilled musician and she is more talented then every other musician that gets less coverage than her? This is very, very, very rarely the case. 
 
I would totally agree with you if the world was a perfect place. Unfortunately how it works in reality is corporations find someone, reduce their music to the lowest common denominator, and market it to hell. And since these corporations have already got to the top, they are in a position to prevent anyone who doesn't play by their rules from having a chance. 
 
Also I don't understand why printing something only in English would be considered racist. In Canada we only print things in English and French because those are our official languages. If you're only official language is English, why would you by responsible to print all road signs in German or Cantonese? That doesn't make any sense.
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bravetoaster

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Sucks for you. I love Gamefly!

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bravetoaster

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@illmatic19 said:
"     
"
Sexy ladies in that video.
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armaan8014

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@Kaveman said:
" I don't know much about French rap but that song WU TANG did with a bunch of french raps was off the hook.
 
edit: this one   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZPjgjkSv9g 
"
That's not ... WUTANG. Where's Ryan?
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crusader8463

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Edited By crusader8463

I'm a PC gamer so I haven't been able to rent games since the early 90's before people smartened up. Sucks I guess if you like that kind of thing.