[ColinDabritz]

This is a wonderfully complicated mix of in game rewards, but they aren't DLC, some have exclusive in game rewards you can't get elsewhere. You can buy some Amiibo retail, but others which unlock exclusives in a brand new game are locked behind owning collectibles which aren't retail-available any more (and expensive from third party resellers). Some of the items are cosmetic, nice callbacks to older games and similar. Others provide in game advantages.

That makes the ethical questions very challenging to address. Personally I feel more 'ok' with hackery for the items that aren't available retail, but I hate 'pay to win' in games as well. It's hard to articulate how I feel about the situation. I think the article is spot-on that making these available in DLC packs or something as well would clarify the situation a lot.

[leggomylibro]

Yeah. As soon as a digital good becomes artificially limited solely by physical 'keys,' it's kind of game over as far as my ethics are concerned. This stuff is absolutely fair game, especially after a year or two when the original stock is run down and the retailer no longer financially benefits.

And these kinds of problems are great opportunities for learning, anyways; bonus points if you look at how other people do it and solder up your own amiibo spoofer with your new understanding.

[simcop2387]

> Yeah. As soon as a digital good becomes artificially limited solely by physical 'keys,' it's kind of game over as far as my ethics are concerned. This stuff is absolutely fair game, especially after a year or two when the original stock is run down and the retailer no longer financially benefits.

I'm of the same opinion, especially in cases like this where the benefits are all in a single player game. Doing this cannot impact someone else from enjoying their copy of the game in anyway.

[christoph]

Nintendo are clever with how they limit the availability of some Amiibos. The real value of the Amiibo is really in the actual collectability/rarity of the figurine. You can then make the figure more collectable as time goes on my linking it to specific, valuable in game rewards. All giving more value to brand Nintendo as time goes on.

What's a real stroke of genius though is that they make the packaging in a way so that you can't scan the Amiibo without unboxing it - therefore reducing it's monetary value. You end up with the real Nintendo fans feeling very compelled to purchase two of each - 1 for keeping boxed and 1 for actually using in games.

[pdkl95]

> Nintendo are clever with how they limit the availability

Creating a market for scalpers is "clever"? This is one of the most efficient ways to create (even more) toxicity in the gaming community. Add premium items and severely limiting their availability means they are trying to create "have"/"have-not" classes that resent each other. A brand isn't going to increase in value if everyone starts associating the brand with community infighting and toxicity.

--

Incidentally, HN readers may like Jim Sterling's episode about amiibos from a couple years ago. Warning: very strong language and rude gestures. Second Warning: the bit after the credits is very loud... and some might consider it designed to be as annoying as possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE-orx_HTfE

[stordoff]

> All giving more value to brand Nintendo as time goes on.

Does it? Personally I find it extremely off-putting - pieces of content are getting locked behind expensive figures that I have no interest in owning, and that frequently aren't even purchasable from Nintendo anymore. Making your content difficult and expensive to acquire puts me off the brand as a whole.

Take Toon Link in the UK for instance. I can pay £16.78[1] to import it from the US, from a seller who has no reviews, or pay a ridiculous mark-up (£39.99 upwards[2]) and still end up having to use a third-party seller. Neither of those is a particularly attractive option.

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00Q6A57C4/ref=dp_... [2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B01M031XEJ/ref=dp_...

[eridius]

Why must "real Nintendo fans" keep a boxed copy?

[christoph]

I didn't phrase that well with the use of the word "real". I know some die hard Nintendo fans who purchase two of each Amiibo specifically for this reason. I don't know why, I don't have that same collecting mentality.

I guess it's for the same reason people buy all sorts of stuff and keep it boxed & unused - whether it's star wars figures or Nike trainers.

[khedoros1]

Collectors' items are often considered higher value when they're kept new-in-box. Someone who buys them as much for the collectibility as for the in-game use might buy two so that they can have their cake and eat it too (by buying two cakes).

[eridius]

Yes, but someone who buys items and holds onto them in mint condition for resale value is no more a "real" fan than someone who buys them for personal enjoyment.

[khedoros1]

Agreed, but I was answering as if you meant your question literally, rather than as if you were just nitpicking the other commenter's phrasing. Your implied meaning was just "I disagree with the way you're defining 'real fan'", but that's a pretty boring comment to respond to, so I took what I judged as the more interesting interpretation.

[ballenf]

Agree that this is a very difficult question that will take some years to really even understand the question.

Here are a few claims that I would make:

* The answer shouldn't turn on general availability or rarity of the required artifact. If I choose to create a painting and not make copies, that shouldn't grant a license to others to mass produce. There are a lot of ways to frame this aspect, but if you believe rarity changes the dynamic, then you are defacto granting the large entity with sufficient capital greater rights than the small creator who may not be able to mass produce a unique item in high demand. Granted these scenarios don't apply to Nintendo, but they are accurate, imo.

* Whether the software is already on-disc (or in the main download package). This is a harder question. It's not hard to understand that even a small extra download increases the seller's server costs. If it is a separate download, a strong (arguably) argument could made for computer hacking charges for downloading software for which one doesn't have a valid license. It's a much harder argument to make that one shouldn't be allowed to access software already in possession. It's also pretty analogous to any other software if the add-on download is freely available but only functions with the code. That just looks like plain software piracy. So I'd argue it does matter, and like opening the hood of your car you should be able to tinker with any code legitimately in your possession.

* The hacking difficulty. That is, where on the spectrum of plaintext "cheat code" to cryptographically secure+ does the mechanism lie? One thread made the claim that these devices are just fancy cheat codes that should be passed around without consequence. Even more extreme on the spectrum would be an honor system where the software asks you whether you "cross-my-heart" have the corresponding Amiibo in your possession (check a box for ownership). Is it ok to lie to such a system since they made it so easy to do so?

(+ for the sake of argument, I'm defining "secure" as really hard to break and needing special tools and know-how and not possible on a large scale, not automatable, etc.)

* The seller's purpose behind the collectibles / relative value of the code vs. collectible itself. Should it matter whether the code is almost an afterthought and the seller is really just creating cool tchotchke's? The reverse could also be true -- they could sell small identical tokens solely as the means to monetize the features. Clearly, I don't think the answer can turn on such an arbitrary and difficult define metric. Just because it was cheaply made or an exquisite piece of artwork in and of itself is just irrelevant, that is the relative value of the code vs. object itself.

* Impact on others. If the NFC codes were each unique and a central server tracked check ins (not the case here, evidently), forging your own codes would adversely affect a 3rd party trying to 'legitimately' use the same token. This is an objectively bad outcome, although an argument could me made that this is Nintendo's problem for selling an item whose value they couldn't guarantee, not the problem of the guy who generated someone else's code. But, if you were to buy an Amiibo, clone it, and then resell then clearly you'd be defrauding the buyer. Lots of intricacies here. This is one of the hardest aspects in theory in my opinion.

By the way, this last impact on others argument is a variation of the situation Apple recently had to address with regard to iPhone unlockers. They would desolder the hard drive from a locked (either stolen or from a device that was inadvertently not unlocked before being sold, thrown out or broken and then repaired by a 3rd party) iDevice, change the serial number by a digit or two until they found one that wasn't locked. Re-solder the drive and re-sell. Problem was that new serial was often in-use by someone else. Either of those users could effectively prevent (re-)activation of each other's device, although this wouldn't be immediately obvious to either. There were a lot of complaints from legitimate buyers of brand new devices that their device was locked with an email address they didn't recognize. Apple's response was to turn off the system where one could verify whether a serial number was unlocked, making it harder to find legitimate serial numbers. (Please let me know if I got any of these details wrong, but I followed the issue pretty closely and believe them accurate.)