I am going to stray away from game design for a moment. I should start with, I am big fan of audiobooks. I have listened to hundreds of them, over the years, maybe a 1000 or more. I like them as a thing to have in my ear as I do other things. I listen to them while I do housework, walks, exercise in general, and long drives. Anytime there is empty time when I am doing something more or less mindless, I have my headphones in. This may make me anti social but between podcasts and audiobooks, I take in a lot of stories and information all the time.
So a friend shared the Boing Boing post about Googles new DRM free audiobook options. Cory Doctorow has banged the drum for a DRM free option on audiobooks for a while. In general, I tend to agree with him. Audible keeping the DRM format in place on the audiobooks is galling. There is no real argument for keeping it that make sense. The people who want to pirate can with little effort. It is only inconvenient to legal purchasers. They absolutely should have removed it years ago. So, we have reached the DRM free utopia with Google Play store. Huzzah!
Well….not so much.
I decided to try the Google audiobook offerings and see how they operate. I have had an Audible subscription for a very long time now and I have something to compare it to. Google offering a discount on your first audio-book is also a fine inducement. Let compare.