An ill-advised raving rant on PC piracy
A quick note: Most of my posts are not this inflammatory! If you’ve found this piece by way of Penny Arcade or a link by somebody who found it by way of Penny Arcade, welcome! Glad you stopped by. Consider checking out the rest of my blog, where I make plenty of other posts that aren’t so polemical.
No, not everyone who pirates a game would have bought it. But when you can go to any torrent site at any given moment and see thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people downloading a game, even weeks after it came out, how can any reasonable person not accept that there were lost sales?
Sure, we don’t know what percentage of those pirated copies are lost sales, but just because we don’t have that figure, does anyone truly believe that means the potential sales are negligible?
We know from firsthand statements that Ritual, just as one example, saw considerably more technical support requests from pirates than from legitimate customers on Sin Episodes. Does it matter if you thought that game wasn’t good? No. Those pirates must have thought it was good enough to try to get it to work properly.
And that is clearly not an isolated example. Because every time anyone brings this up—be they a top-shelf developer, or a less prominent one—people think of a million reasons why that particular game or that particular developer just don’t deserve the support of the discerning PC gamers. It happens every time, with the excuses tuned for each game. At that point, they stop being isolated examples, and they become part of a very clear trend.
Even developers who have done amazing things for the PC community have been ridiculed for daring to point out the obvious, that piracy is a problem on the platform. In their particular cases, often their games are pinned as being too old and tired, or not innovative enough, or too targeted and demanding. It isn’t that such criticisms cannot be true—but non-innovative games sell well all the time in this industry, and if people do in fact want to play them, developers have a right to take issue with piracy.
Some arguments are more general—”Nobody wants to play this on PC” or “PC software is buggy and not worth the money” are common. If people genuinely didn’t want to play it or already played it on consoles, they wouldn’t need to pirate it. If they feel PC software is too buggy across the board, they shouldn’t be playing PC games.
The really sad and frustrating part is, the only effect this has is that more and more developers and publishers are just going to stop bringing their games to the PC. Why even bother, if the system is already such a pain in the ass, and the community is full of so many stubborn idealogues?
I’m don’t even accuse the apologists of being pirates, although doubtless some are. But many PC gamers do have an incredibly quick-tempered reaction as soon as piracy comes up, citing numberous potential factors, always the same ones: it’s too buggy, the game sucks, it’s not right for the PC platform, etc. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, if lots of people are still pirating it, those arguments are basically meaningless, because they see something there worthwhile enough.
There is also the oft-made observation that PC piracy is just something of a culture—many people pirate dozens of games and don’t even play them. I would argue that this is a fairly depressing culture if so, and that huge base of potential pirates, whether players or not, only makes it easier and more likely pirated games will be available and accessible for people who actually plan on pirating the game rather than buying it.
Sure, console piracy exists. But I would bet real actual dollars it’s not remotely as much of a problem on home consoles as it is on PC. Look at the PSP—there’s a system where piracy is known to be considerably more widespread, and unlike the home consoles it’s pretty easy to see the effect, even as the hardware itself sells as well as it ever has. Maybe it’s because it’s harder on home consoles (I haven’t tried on either, so I wouldn’t know), or maybe it’s just a psychological thing where people don’t associate those systems with piracy.
When it comes down to it, regardless of those factors, if PC software is consistently pirated more than console software, and it obviously is, it’s going to continue to be a disincentive for full-scale game developers to put their games on the system.
You can point to Blizzard and Valve all you want. Not every developer is, or can be, a Blizzard or a Valve. In the real world, that’s just how it is. Other companies can’t really afford to sit around and generate twelve years of goodwill while they hope that their games turn out to be some of the best-selling titles of all time.
Not all studios are necessarily capable of that, and they shouldn’t have to be stacked up against two of the top few companies in the entire industry every time this topic comes up. It’s completely unrealistic. If, every time I wrote some music, I was told, “Well, this sure sucks compared to Beethoven or The Who,” I don’t know if I’d find that very constructive.
PC gamers can be self-righteous and smug about PC games until the cows come home, but it’s not going to be doing anything good for the platform long-term.
I love the smaller, more niche, lower-budget PC titles, the ones like Stardock’s that are less affected by this type of thing. Those are great games, and it’s proper that their developers be praised for them. But I ALSO like the bigger-budget ones that just by virtue of how the world works need to sell more to make it worthwhile to put them on PC.
I like being able to use my PC for a wide range of gaming. I like that companies are starting to take more chances on the PC again these days. I don’t like that when they do, and they run into the sad reality of rampant piracy, they’re met with nonstop snarkiness.
I’m not even going to get into arguing against people who defend the piracy itself (rather than just attacking the developers who cite piracy), because those arguments seem self-evident. I am sure I can trust my readers to fill in those blanks.
The PC is currently going through a great period of support, with a number of high-quality exclusives and multiplatform games coming to the system. But in many cases, those games are the result of companies seeing bigger market opportunities on the PC than they had previously thought. If those opportunities are nullified by unchecked piracy—with salt poured on the wound by the jeers of PC gamers—those companies will see little reason to stick around, and PC gamers (myself included) won’t have much to feel superior about.
Tags: developers, gamers, pc gaming, piracy, publishers
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
What I’d like to know is what Capcom expected would happen. I’d like someone to ask them how many copies they’d hoped to sell, how copies they did sell and if they’d known how many copies they sold would they have still released it and if so what level of sales would they have considered acceptable.
Of course no one will and Capcom probably wouldn’t answer but I can dream.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:07 am
Hey Capcom, how many of those thousands of pirates already bought/played the game on a console? There’s not enough new stuff in the PC version to warrant a second purchase at $39.99 but since the opportunity is there to experience it without a purchase then yeah, it get’s pirated but it’s not lost sales it’s not even that they wouldn’t have bought it they already did buy the game just on a different system.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Great post, there Chris. Loved it on Shacknews and I love it here; just got yourself a subscriber.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
“Hey Capcom, how many of those thousands of pirates already bought/played the game on a console? There’s not enough new stuff in the PC version to warrant a second purchase at $39.99 but since the opportunity is there to experience it without a purchase then yeah, it get’s pirated but it’s not lost sales it’s not even that they wouldn’t have bought it they already did buy the game just on a different system.”
This is exactly the kind of sentiment that makes me want to do bodily harm. “There is not enough new stuff on the PC version to warrant a purchase, but there is an opportunity to experience it without purchase, but that’s not lost sales because they wouldn’t have bought it anyway.”
You experience game X on 360. then game X comes out with minor changes to PC. To experience that game, you have to pay to play, why? Because it TOOK TIME AND EFFORT to make that game for the PC.
You may call it a port and poo-poo the game based on that fact. You may say that because the game is a “port” that it is shovelware, or crappy, or whatever, but in reality, good ports are not actually just grabbing code and transferring it to a different system. It takes quite a bit of work to make that switch. And people, who need to be paid. And extra content, or a redone interface, and testing, is CONSIDERABLE WORK.
So yes, when you go and pirate that game because you deem that new experience or content unworthy, all you are doing is justifying theft. Because there are people out there — developers, actual people designing and coding and testing — who made that new experience that you want enough to steal it. They created that completely apart from the first version you bought. The one you are stealing is NOT the one you bought. They are separate, which is why, in fact, they are separate products. But perhaps because you don’t understand the way things are made, or simply because you just don’t value that work, you find a way to make yourself believe your theft is justified and say that this new product is “not new enough” for you to pay money.
Developers spend months creating PC ports. There are actual live human beings making that happen — it isn’t an automatic and easy transition. here is no legitimate reason to ever pirate a game. If a game exists, you pay for it, because it took work to create it, and if you value and want that work enough, you buy it, just like any other good or service.
Your attitude, sir, is the epitome of the problem.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
You are not justifying theft, Elizabeth, you are justifying copyright infringement. Say what you will about copyright infringement, but it is not theft. Two separate actions. If I steal something, the person I took it from does not have it anymore. If I infringe on a copyright, the only loss in a possibility of a potential sale.
Remo, you say, “how can any reasonable person not accept that there were lost sales?” I say, how can any reasonable person accept that there were not gained sales? I know plenty of people who download games to try them out, and later purchase them if they enjoyed it. I’m not sure of the case for this game, but plenty are released without demos, or with insubstantial demos, and some people do not want to risk spending money on something they hate.
I can also imagine that there are people out there who don’t want to spend full price on a game that is in the consoles bargain bins, and was not designed with the PC in mind. I’ve seen DMC4 going for under $20 bucks for the PS3 and 360, and it is more then twice that on the PC.
Sure fire method for preventing (although you can never totally eliminate) illegal downloading? Release it on Steam, with a substantial demo. As it stands, there are many benefits to downloading it illegally over buying a box copy, even ignoring the price. It can be played without a disk in the drive, you do not need to go through the hassle of entering an activation key, you can get it from the comfort of your own home. Let people have those benefits, and I am sure more people will buy it.
August 16th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Above poster named David is slightly crazy and lies. People download games to try them out and then purchase them… unrealistic.
I read two things off of digg today that are related:
http://www.gamesradar.com/f/do-the-right-thing/a-20080811155433366083 (extremely basic thoughts, still ring true though)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080814-you-want-to-know-why-pirates-give-indie-game-dev-an-earful.html (I like this one, as it does point out the annoyance that is DRM, and that can be avoided by downloading cracked copies over purchased ones, as though the people actually buying the game are being hassled over the people who don’t buy)
September 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I bought a copy of COD4 and I could not make it run on my system. After 5 WEEKS of tech support not resolving the issue, I got a no-cd crack and the game player fine. Months later, I found a forum entry that said that the copy protection on COD4 did not like SATA drives. As I have two drives, my old CD and my new SATA DVD I disconnected my old CD and the game ran fine. It turns out that if COD4 sees an ATA and a SATA drive, it assumes that one is a virtual drive and won’t run.
Yeah, I download a crack. So I could get a game a bought that I can’t return, to run. After this waste of time, I have stopped impulse buying games. It’s not just $40 or $50 anymore, it’s the money plus the time I might have to waste to get it to run.
For me to buy a DRM’d game now, it has to be absolutely great. It has to be worth the money and the risk that DRM will not let it run. In the past, I’d buy a couple of games a month. Aside from Steam games, the last game I bought was Supreme Commander: Forged Alliances. DRM has cost game developers hundreds of dollars from me alone. How many millions of gamers have cut back on there buying due to the risks caused by DRM?
Developers are going to lose sales with or without DRM to pirates. I know of no independent study that quantifies the amount in both cases. Developers who use DRM also lose sells from impulse shopping, so that is a double whammy.
If companies insist on using DRM, the rules need to be changed to force companies to give refunds on software. After all, if it has DRM, it can’t be copied. Right? :)
Note to editor: I have the emails for COD tech support. I’d be happy to show you. B
September 26th, 2008 at 1:19 am
First problem with DRM: Pirates will always exist.
Second problem: They will always crack your game.
These aren’t opinions, they are facts that have been proven TIME and TIME again. People ANGST a lot about the gaming industry, but how much crying do you see software developers doing? Are you going to suggest they somehow aren’t pirated as often? Instead, they focus on treating their customers as just that - CUSTOMERS. They focus on the groups that ARE buying the game, instead of ignoring them to try and target people who don’t buy it.
“Pirates” have become a VERY easy scapegoat to point at when things go wrong, and yet pirates have always been around, and these problem are just now cropping up. Can you honestly say it’s the pirates causing the problems? Where were these problems when everyone and their dad was passing around a copy of Civilization 2? I don’t recall a big outrage and cryfest over pirates then.
Guys, piracy isn’t going to go away, no matter how much DRM you put on the games. The SecureROM bull does one thing and *only* one thing - it harms the people who want to buy your game in the first place. Hell, Spore was cracked before it was even RELEASED! If PC gaming needs to be brought back to life, then the last thing you want to do is try and make people feel guilty about piracy, because, hey, it won’t work. Nor can you target pirates and try to “make them pay,” because that also won’t work.
if you want to revive PC gaming, make some damn PC games. Sure, not every company can be the next Blizzard or Valve, but how will ANYONE do that if they make games for consoles first, PCs as leftovers? How will they do that when, even when making the PC game, they still stick to the mindset used to create a console game instead of a PC game? We’ve seen games that should have been good turn out to be complete crap, and nine out of ten times, it came from the game being ADAPTED to the PC instead of being made for it.
But hey, PC exclusives don’t sell, right? I’m sure Blizzard finds that HILARIOUS.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:37 am
David: “If I steal something, the person I took it from does not have it anymore. If I infringe on a copyright, the only loss in a possibility of a potential sale.”
Absurd semantic myths. Many forms of (legally defined) theft occur without the transfer (or loss) of a physical item.
Even if that were not the case, welcome to the evolving world. It’s amusing that anyone tech savvy enough to argue the particulars of digital piracy yet still clings to (their misinterpretations of) archaic definitions of theft designed before said technologies came into existence.
And even then: Copyright infringement holds higher penalties than garden variety theft.
“The possibility of a potential sale”? It doesn’t matter how many convoluted and redundant weasel words you wrap around it. It’s simply not yours to take for free.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:50 am
When the day comes that DRM means it’s easier to use the authentic copy of the game than the pirated one, and I come across a PC title that is made by someone who views their craft as an art form. I don’t think that anything could stop me from buying it.
Pirates are mostly just unserved customers — we need a way to download a game without drawbacks and a way to back them up on physical media so that we can keep playing them in 10 years. And we need privacy. I don’t like even the *idea* of SecuROM checking in with the master server when I play a game.
Cherio.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Amun,
To be fair, the people who would even be the ones seeing their craft as an art form would be the actual developers, and they aren’t the ones who tend to have anything to do with DRM solutions. There are certainly plenty of PC devs who fall into that category but have no control over that.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Memyself: Not necessarily a semantic myth, keep in mind that different legal systems have slightly different definitions of theft. For example here in Sweden the definition is (my own translation from the law, BrB 8:1 if you need to know that:P) “Taking without permission from someone else with intent to keep and if that causes damage (to someone)” In this context, according to the current interpretation, damage means economic damage, and that in turn only means that the person being taken from should have less money than before, loss of a future profit doesn’t count. Also “taking” means that there has to be a change of possession which doesn’t occur when a copy is made (again, in the Swedish system) On a side note the first point means that here you can’t steal illegal drugs since they have no legal value, same for passports. Of course that, as well as piracy, is made illegal in different laws, but the fact remains, piracy isn’t technically stealing in all legal systems even if criminalized.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Memyself: “Absurd semantic myths. Many forms of (legally defined) theft occur without the transfer (or loss) of a physical item.”
Yes, they do; but software piracy is not one of them. In 1985 the US Supreme Court ruled that copyright infringement is not stealing. Given your self-righteous assurance it’s amusing that you’re completely wrong. Bootleg recordings aren’t all that different to bootleg games.
“It’s amusing that anyone tech savvy enough to argue the particulars of digital piracy yet still clings to (their misinterpretations of) archaic definitions of theft designed before said technologies came into existence.”
The internet doesn’t change the fundamental differences between copyright infringement vs theft; it just alters the methods and scale of distribution.
You can educate yourself further here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_(1985)
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/175
‘ So “copying” is not “stealing” but can be “infringing.” ‘
September 26th, 2008 at 4:27 am
I think the biggest thing against these companies that have all this DRM is that they violate the First Sale rule, meaning you have the right to RE-SELL the game to whomever you want used.
Not only that they are taking away your ownership of the game. You have to play “mother may I” with the company to get a new code to play something you dropped $60 on.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:40 am
i’m sorry, i’m symapthetic to game publishers, especially those with the balls to make a game designed for the pc, but drm is just wrong, not morally, not ethically, but economically. there is a system in place where people can, for little work, download games for free. and there is a system in place where people can by those games. those are competing systems. believe it or not, it is possible to compete with free, by giving greater value. cloth maps of the worlds you are exploring, posters, a cdkey that lets you get onto a forum if you want to, exclusively for buyers of the game. drm, and a later release date does the opposite of that, it makes the free version better.
You can’t compete with free if the free version is a superior product. and it is. they need to start looking at pirates not as lawbreakers, but as competition. you can’t ever stop hackers from getting copies of your games after they release(but seriously, how hard is it to protect the source code until it ships?), and hacking them and the copy protection. so you need to offer a superior product.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:47 am
The big problem with DRM: It doesn’t stop Piracy.
Its often easier to queue a game up with utorrent and download it, crack it and save the original exe (for patching after a crack is released).
then ordering it on amazon/going to the store and then dealing with the DRM, especially since HD space is cheaper than shelf space, CDs get scratched, and internet connections go down. (sometimes frequently).
I have a pile of game boxes still sealed in plastic because the pirated version was simply more convenient. Only reason to break the plastic is for multiplayer. (unique CD-key).
To truly combat piracy, they need to provide product outside the game to make you want to buy it. Something they can control more. See for example Stardock and Gal Civ 2. Game is easy to pirate, patches ARE available on bit torrent, but theres still plenty of encouragement to buy the game.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:47 am
“Absurd semantic myths. Many forms of (legally defined) theft occur without the transfer (or loss) of a physical item. ”
I didn’t find them absurd.
I find it absurd when someone presents any attack against piracy that could just as easily condemn the public library system.
Why do we share books in a library? Because the more widely we share ideas and culture and content, the more intelligent and interconnected our society becomes, and the benefits are reaped by all. There are positive externalities to getting those around you to think more deeply about the world. And before someone tries to draw a distinction between books and games, visit the trashy romance novel aisle of your local library, and tell me where we should start drawing lines.
The reason libraries are so accepting of different works is because ALL creative works have the potential to shake the foundations of your understanding about the world. Chaplin’s slapstick can end up making a plea to rise up against fascism, a skinny white kid’s folk music can tip off a firestorm of political rock that culminates in social revolution.
Just because we haven’t seen games change the world in an explicit way doesn’t mean we should kick them out of the party.
Now, sure, we hope a lot of people buy books and support the creation of that culture explicitly, but we know some people won’t, so we say, “ok, you can have them for free.”
And if someone who might buy a book anyway checks it out from the library? Turns out we don’t hassle them.
Why not? Why aren’t there cops in our libraries checking your income level? Because sharing culture is something we value so profoundly, we’re willing to let the occasional lost sale slide.
What’s really absurd is the notion that an industry will die because it competes with free. HBO competes with free network television. Music publishers compete with free radio. Book publishers compete with free libraries. Industries compete with free all the time, but they only whine about it when there’s a huge slump in sales.
And that brings us to the author’s initial point: “There must be some lost sales that are non-negligible, there simply must be!” I’m not the sort of person to think we can divine all matters of a complex industry a priori, I just don’t feel we have that far reaching of an intuition.
I’d like someone to look into it.
Guess what? Someone has.
Strumpf and Oberholzer-Gee looked at the decline in sales cited by the RIAA due to piracy during 1999-2001, and they found it to be a myth. They actually did research on the topic, they broke out stats and looked at the data, rather than just scratching their heads and thinking “surely there were lost sales, I mean, right?”
Sometimes the world’s a counterintuitive place, so please, use science.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Well, my father in law was an avid PC gamer. Now he owns a 360. Why?
He bought several games in a row that all refused to work due to DRM. He’s not computer savvy enough to be able to figure out why things don’t work (like the ATA/SATA thing mentioned above). He isn’t doing anything terribly odd on his computer that would make this expected. In Canada, no store will give you a refund on open software (they claim its by law). So he’s stuck with several games that don’t work due entirely to DRM.
DRM flat out breaks games. It doesn’t do anything to stop piracy (Spore is the #1 pirated game this year, and it was cracked before release). Few other industries on the planet come up with nonsense that breaks their product for their paying customers and actually manage to stay in business.
So, if he goes out and grabs one of the pirate copies of a game that he already bought which is completely broken, is he doing something wrong? If he abandons the platform entirely (which he did), who is to blame? I can tell you: its not the pirates. They’re the only ones who make it possible for him to actually use his paid for software.
After trying to help him with his problems, I simply refuse to buy any game that has SecuROM on it, because I don’t want to deal with that nonsense myself. You can call that what ever you want, but its capitalism in action. These companies are not providing what I (the customer) demand. If they want to look at why they’re having problems with sales, they should start by looking in a mirror.
I’m giving you money. You should not punish me for doing the right thing by giving me an inferior version of the game then the one the pirates are getting. You don’t have to be Blizzard (or even Stardock) to figure that out.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:41 am
It just seems to me that the “piracy” issue has no end. Publishers will continue adding DRM to PC games to combat piracy, DRM will continue to be broken extremely quickly before/after a game has been released. There is simply no way to compete, as a company, with an army of 15-19 year old kids who crack copy protection for fun.
I also laugh at the notion that making a game available on steam will curb potential pirates. In my experience the most voracious pirates are minors without credit cards. How would adding a game to an online service that requires a bank account/credit card do anything to dissuade these people?
In my opinion, piracy has always been around with digital media, and will not go away any time soon. DRM needs to be there in some form, but it should be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible. Making paying customers jump through hoops and installing rootkits on their systems will not win any company fans.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:59 am
I personally think that if gaming companies put out games with the only protection being good ol’ CD keys, everyone would be much better off.
EA lost money from me on the PC version of Mass Effect, Spore, and will be losing their money from me over Crysis: Warhead.
I didn’t pirate the games, because I don’t think that is “right”…I just didn’t buy it. I played them at a friend’s house. Had they NOT included the DRM, that’s $150 more that EA would have earned.
I doubt that I am the only person like this out there.
http://longshotpolitics.wordpress.com
September 26th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Just wanted to rectify a line:
[quote]regardless of those factors, if PC software is consistently pirated more than console software, and it obviously is[/quote]
This is not true. The amount of downloads on Xbox360 torrents compared to PC torrents is ridiculously more. I actually download all demos on my Xbox360 to test the game out before going out and buying it. (Perhaps the PC industry should consider doing the same).
To give you an idea, a site where I go to on a regular basis to download backups of my bought copies has the current numbers listed as top downloaded games
[b]Xbox 360[/b]
Bioshock: 7432
Assassin’s Creed: 6422
Call of Duty 4: 6040
And there’s at least 10 more games above the 3000+ mark
[b]PC[/b]
Bioshock: 4000
Assassin’s Creed: 2740
Call of Duty 4: 6589
There’s only 2 games above 3000+ downloads.
Now of course, the PC exclusives (Crysis, Spore, Stalkers, for exemple) have a ton of downloads on them, mainly due to the fact that it’s PC exclusive. However, all Xbox 360 games who score a decent review (7+/10) are all usualy downloaded 3k+ times everytime.
To say that the PC industry is “consistently pirated more than consoles” is silly. Considering how wide the PC industry is in comparision to Xboxes (And that’s only Xboxes, if I pulled the Wii numbers out, it’d make it even worse), perhaps companies would think twice about putting their games on consoles before PC.
No matter where you release your games, no matter on which consoles, no matter what anti-crack softwares you add with games, people will keep pirating and you will only make honest customers even more displeased.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Memyself: How can you consider what David said to be wrapped in weasel words? It’s a perfectly valid statement. IP is not physical property. There is a big difference here.
Let’s say you make a game and you show me a screenshot. I say “That looks decent, I’ll think about buying that from you.” As in, you know, I might, if I think your work is worth how much you want for it. This is is maybe-kinda chance for the to be money in your pocket in the future.
But instead, my buddy Tim gives me his copy, for whatever reason; as it turns out, I end up liking the game enough that I would’ve bought it. Did I walk up, take $50 out of your pocket, and walk off? No, that would be theft.
I didn’t take anything away from you except a chance that you will make money. If I like your game, I may buy another copy of it from you anyway. I’ve personally bought Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, and Halo (one and two!) two to three times each, so don’t think this doesn’t ever happen.
To put this in other terms, trying so hard to persecute* pirates would be sort of like suing people who make advertisements warning people against gambling. You’re taking away part of the casino’s chance to make money, but you’re not directly taking anything from them, and the difference is not vague, nor is it unimportant.
*And prosecute. Both.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Cirno has won this argument, completely so please shut your holes you have no other way to discuss this
September 26th, 2008 at 7:09 am
I for one, have no problem purchasing PC games. I usually don’t purchase many single player only games (last one I think was Oblivion) and stick mostly to multiplayer games. I personally find all this nonsense about anti piracy software laughable. All anti piracy software does is annoy the people that actually intend to buy the game. It doesn’t actually stop anyone from pirating these games. If you think it does, I have a copy of SPORE and BIOSHOCK you might be interested in. Pirates will always be able to circumvent even the most anal retentive protection these people can think up. So I ask you, what good is it? You’re wasting time, money, and resources developing and maintaining these programs for no reason what so ever. The only way to stop people from pirating a game is to make it good enough that people are willing to pay for it, or make it multiplayer. I know pirating of multiplayer games exists, but it is far less common.
Anti Piracy software hurts the gaming industry, it doesn’t help it in anyway.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:09 am
I will pirate games I’ve heard seriously mixed reviews about.
If it’s garbage I delete it.
If it’s good I delete it but keep my saves. And then I buy it.
A-typical, I know, but I’d really like it if the industry gave more substantial trial downloads. Enough to get the feel of the game, but not, y’know, more than an hour or two of play. I’d like to play about 5% of a game before buying it, honestly.
Not that industry or game-pirates are going to like that solution.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:13 am
If there are people who download the game that might have otherwise bought it (which I agree is likely), then the question needs to be asked about why they choose to steal it instead. If they steal it because they don’t want to buy it at all, then I don’t think that’s a lost sale because they probably would not buy it if they couldn’t steal it. If there is another reason, like DRM is too awful, they don’t sell it in a certain region or the price is too high (that last reason which is different than not buying it at all). If the case is the latter, then there may be other areas that businesses can look into that would stem the tide of pirating.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:20 am
It’s the PC Game industry’s own fault. At the beginning, copy protections were weak. The target audience got used to freely exchanging the product between friends/family, and the industry had no real knowledge of lost sales. New PC gamers got introduced into the “piracy” lifestyle, as their friends wanted to share with them the games they loved. There were no real restrictions or repercussions in place. Music was the same.
It is only now that technology has moved far enough communication-wise that the companies can try to capture these second-hand consumers that market resistance is being seen. It probably doesn’t help that the industry can see the secondary market they created, and the potential revenue that resides there.
I understand the reasons why the industry is annoyed that pirates are stealing their art and product. I just can’t see any method security wise that can be done that won’t alienate the buying market. Beyond the obvious MMO, heavy infrastructure solution. Which doesn’t really care about piracy anyways. What’s $20 bucks before distributor markup when you are charging $15 a month. You only have to hunt them down if they make their own infrastructure, and then you have them over a legal barrel.
The solution to piracy is rather obvious. One way is to accept the possible loss of sales and allow the piracy. They can’t be pirates if the company won’t pursue them. You might actually lose a good portion of the “thrill” pirates that way. The other solution is to find or grow a new market, as you can pretty much write off this one. The median PC gamer knows how to use the internet, what a torrent is, and what a key-gen/cd-crack is. Every security system that isn’t annoying to the buying consumer can be bypassed, and all the ones that are secure yet aggravating alienates the buying consumer that tiny bit. The second-hand consumer isn’t going to buy your game at full price…ever. Simple as that. Should have had the game developers/producers two decades ago training their market the right way.
The last time I played a computer game that wasn’t heavy infrastructure based (ie subscription) the CD wouldn’t let me install it on my laptop as I had already installed it on my desktop. The general PC industry lost me as a consumer that day to consoles and MMOs. Stardock might bring me back with Demigod, but that is really iffy. Same with Diablo III, iffy.
Though at least with Blizz I know they won’t pull what EA is pulling. If they did, they would find some way to make me like it. That is why they are the most successful PC gaming company period. The rest of the industry better copy them fast, rather than doing this stupid differentiation service strategy everyone seems to be trying. The industry needs to wake the hell up. The market cares about the game, and that is it. All these frills detract from game or remove a portion of the market from even accessing the game.
Either sell your game to the market, create your own market that will buy the game happily, or shut the hell up and lose quietly. Because the consumers are getting fed up with the production companies whining and they are finding substitutes.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:23 am
First of all, a very interesting rant on piracy. ;) Thank you.
Second, users Amun, Cirno and Bernie have some very good points. Copy protection software, as it currently is, only targets the LEGAL CUSTOMERS. They are the ones having problems with installing and running their purchased product. They are the ones having to circumvent hardware conflictions with DRM and lose time and effort trying to play the game they bought. These annoyances do not touch the pirates, who simply download a cracked copy and run it. This is not how it should be; if you want people to buy your game, make it EASIER to purchase and install a legal version, than a bootleg version. Currently, in most cases, installing the legal one is more difficult.
Games will get cracked, no matter what security measures you put on the disc. If the content is there, it can be extracted and released as a pirate version with the DRM removed. No need for online registration, CD-keys or limited installs. The only effect of more sophisticated DRM methods is, that it might take a week longer to crack the game. It will get cracked nevertheless.
PacoDG said:
“Above poster named David is slightly crazy and lies. People download games to try them out and then purchase them… unrealistic.”
I find this statement hilarious, seeing as I personally have purchased many games after trying out a warez version of them first. :) Some of the titles are still sealed in their plastic wraps on my shelf. If I find the game worth my money after trying a cracked version, I buy it to support the developers for making an enjoyable title. I think this method is justifiable, as I’m in no way contributing to the “lost sales”.
An opposite example is the hyped Spore. I downloaded a cracked version (no problem there whatsoever, I wonder what the DRM was supposed to do), played it once, then never touched it. Didn’t end up buying it. Someone might think this is wrong, but I don’t feel like paying 60€ for two hours play versus 60€ for 100 hours play with some other game. As I experienced very little of the game content, I feel it’s unfair for me to have to pay the full price.
An online game rental system would possibly be a good solution. Download a full game, play it, and pay based on the time it spends on your hard drive. If you don’t like the game, you can uninstall it instantly. The problems with cheating the system would of course be inherent with this kind of a service, but let’s face it; we’re not going to beat piracy by making more efficient copy protection. We will have to make the service so appealing that people pay for the games voluntarily. Some people, like myself, already do pay voluntarily, even after installing a pirate copy. If a legal tryout version was available as easily, I personally would no doubt be using that instead, thus reducing piracy.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:27 am
It’s come to the point where my stance on the whole thing is: Game developers, stop bothering. There are better paid jobs with shorter hours out there, tell the gaming market you’ve had enough and just leave. When they’re finished whining over the semantics of how you define theft, maybe they’ll notice they don’t have anything to play any more.
On the subject of “theft”: I am a developer available for subcontracting through my work. Pay me, and I’ll deliver code & source code, the whole works, with rights to do whatever the heck you like with it. Copy it, keep it, fold bend and spindle it, I don’t care. However, you don’t want to pay the $50/hour that is a developer plus overheads (admin staff, building, desk, computer, heating, light, insurance, pension scheme), so you don’t get the full rights to the work, you get rights to a single copy of the work.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:56 am
To me, it’s simple. If I purchase a game, it’s a PURCHASE. Not a lease, not a rental, I want to own it. I want to be able to play that game for as long as it interests me. I want to be able to replay that game 10, 20 years from now when I get another bout of nostalgia. Many types of DRM prevent that. Time and time again companies have proven that they are more than willing to shut down DRM servers or stop doing any sort of DRM authentication, making peoples purchases null and void. If those companies want to charge pirates with theft, then those companies should themselves be charged with theft. I can’t legally make backups, I can’t archive, I can’t do anything with some of the games I’ve purchased. I’ve lost several games because of those policies.
So I don’t buy games much anymore. Nor do I pirate them, I’m just not buying new games. Fighting the DRM has become too time consuming. From Sony’s rootkit to SecureROM, they show utter contempt for the consumer. Why then, if the company is showing such utter contempt for its potential clients, do they expect anyone to show respect for their company and their product?
DRM is insulting to the customer, it is theft from the public domain (since a DRM version of a game can’t become part of that public domain if and when the time comes), and it is provably ineffective against the very people they want to protect the game from. Online DRM is even worse, since it actively penalises those who purchase the game when they shut the authentication servers down, while rewarding those who pirate the games. Why companies persist, I don’t know, other than thinking that they have “RIAA vision” and count everyone who doesn’t buy their game as a “pirate”.
Me, I refuse to be scammed by buying a product only to find that the company can then take my right to use that product away at any time. I refuse to deal with broken DRM schemes that screw up my system. I refuse to deal with companies that hold me, as a paying customer, in such contempt. I used to spend a couple hundred pounds (at 2.5 US$ per pound) on games each year. Having been burned by a couple DRM schemes, I now refuse to buy ANY games, because I know that companies are not being up-front and honest about the DRM they are placing on their products. I have enough games I can keep playing to keep me happy.
All I can say now is “let them all go to hell”, because I’m having real trouble these days telling the real, moral difference between the scumbag thieving pirates and the lying, scumbag, thieving companies they are pirating from.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:03 am
“First problem with DRM: Pirates will always exist.
Second problem: They will always crack your game.”
That’s clearly a logical fallacy. So far, games (maybe even all games) have been cracked, but that doesn’t mean that that can continue.
“when everyone and their dad was passing around a copy of Civilization 2″
I do remember that - the software industry was a lot smaller and had much smaller costs, but pre-internet-based piracy, there were geographical and social limitations. It’s different, and without the numbers it’s pointless to argue that back then it was ok so nowadays developers need to just suck it up.
“But hey, PC exclusives don’t sell, right? I’m sure Blizzard finds that HILARIOUS.”
Blizzard is the obvious exception. Blizzard isn’t enough to sustain the entire industry.
David: Copyright infringement illegitimately takes away sources of income. The person infringed will likely make less money; you are, effectively, taking money away from them.
(@Bernie especially, but also in general:) No matter how crappy it is to buy games compared to pirating them, and it often is, that does not change the fact that it makes game development a less viable industry by the effective theft of their income and that it is legally and morally questionable or wrong.
It seems to me to be the same as theft (by the income-loss argument as earlier); it really sucks to have to work for my money. It’s much more convenient for me to just take someone else’s. Do you object to the police force?
September 26th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Copyright infringement, theft, piracy. None of these are positive things. How could anyone seriously say otherwise?
September 26th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I will tell you honestly that I pirated Rome: Total War because I thought the first Medieval was one of the greatest games I’d ever played. After 3 hours of playing Rome, I bought the game for full retail (around $50 or $60). I did the same with Dawn of War and Civilization. If I don’t end up buying the game, I delete it within a few days. Without exception.
With the way that PC games have been abused by publishers up to this point, it’s hard to justify shelling out money for any game at all. Neverwinter Nights 2 came out so buggy it was unplayable, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For me, pirating a game is a defensive move, something to keep me from losing $50 on something that’s unplayable and unreturnable. If they made it so that unplayable or just downright awful games could be returned, then I wouldn’t pirate.
I believe that Stardock’s example emphasize this point rather well. Good games will make money, no matter what. Their games are consistently in the top ten for a long time in spite of the fact that they have no copy protection.
Say what you will about pirates, and I can tell you that there are a lot of people out there that will pirate games and feel no remorse, but they’re not stealing money from good games, and piracy itself can help the better games get sales they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Stardock’s games fight piracy with excellence, while the bigger publishers want to fight piracy with draconian rules that ruin the experience and make the legitimate copy worth less than the pirated one. Which strategy sounds more likely to work to you?
September 26th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I don’t oppose DRM because piracy isn’t a problem or because games aren’t good enough to warrant it, but because it limits the functionality of something that you have bought with your own money. Sure, solutions will exist (and, as Chris Remo pointed out, crackers will support the game long after the DRM servers go down), but why support DRM on the basis that it’s incomplete and can be bypassed if you really, really want to?
I’m sure piracy costs sales in the long run; popular titles and popular artists will always lose money from piracy - only up-and-comers stand to gain from it and how many of those are in the gaming industry? But I oppose DRM on principle. It’s just another aspect of the completing corporate control over our private lives and it’s damn near immoral.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:24 am
There’s another point operating as a sort of implicit assumption among pirates. Pirates think that they /deserve/ to play the game, that it is their right to experience the game. Thus if anyone makes it less convenient for them to exercise their “right”, then they are fully justified in going to any lengths and employing any means to rectify the situation. Oddly enough, this includes not having to pay for the games you want to play. Funny, that.
I find Cirno’s contention that piracy isn’t a problem to be absurd, frankly. The advent of internet as a widespread (nigh ubiquitous, at this point) medium coupled with increased hard drive space and technologies like BitTorrent have made pirating any game you desire a matter of a broadband connection and a few mouse clicks. If you think this convenience hasn’t increased the number of pirates exponentially, you are dreaming. And as to your points on PC games being afterthoughts, if anything, people are using their newfound “second class citizen of the gaming world” status to justify their piracy.
That said, the hackers and crackers are actually providing a service to the community, to both legitimate buyers and pirates. I can’t remember the number of games I’ve had that required the CD to be in the slot. An annoyance at best, and god forbid you lose the CD. A quick trip to a cracking site and you can now play your legally purchased game without the CD in the drive. Rejoice! Hackers are actually improving the quality and convenience of your game for free, Game Company X!
Not to mention that crack sites are hands-down more reliable when you are trying to find patches for old games. Even companies still in business rarely host files for games more than five years old, and if the company went out of business there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of actually finding the files you want.
The problems PC companies need to address aren’t DRM related, but customer satisfaction related. When most companies publishing games actually appear more reliable and trustworthy than xx1337HAXXOR42, we’ll be making progress.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I am a pirate. I download probably 4 games a week. I also play each one for about 10 minutes. If i find a game I like, i buy it so I can play it online, and get patches for it. Its that simple. Its easier to download a game and try it than it is even to read a review these days. But i still buy MORE games today that I have in the past, just no shitty ones. And I do not buy games with DRM ever since Battlefield2142 would not work under Vista64. There is no excuse to sell a product that might not work, and not accept refunds or replacements or EVEN SUPPORT YOUR CUSTOMER.
There is a problem with DRM, and that is that the developers pay for it. DRM has never stopped one single instance of piracy i would imagine, as the only times it has ever given me, or anyone i know, grief is with a product that they own. Thats a ridiculous situation, and one that does not make any fiscal sense.
And to those that think copyright infringement is theft, it is not. Denying someone a sale of their product through whatever means is not theft. Copy something is not theft. We have been brainwashed to view this as theft, but in reality it is simply the sharing of information. The industry likes to compare Copyright infringement to stealing a DVD, or a game. But if you steal a DVD or Game, then the establishment in which you stole that from has lost something that they paid money for, and will now be unable to recoup. But copyright infringement does not deny the owner the ability to sell or make money with the original. It simply doesnt. Copyright infringement is more in line with hearing a joke that a professional comedian has told and repeating it to your friends (a practice everyone does, and is not “wrong”). The comedian has created a bit of information with his very valuable time and money, and uses it to fund his lifestyle. That joke might even be copywritten. Is retelling that joke illegal? No. And it is exactly the same situation. If you tell that joke to a million people does that harm his career? Not in the slightest, he will be more popular than ever. No one has lost anything, but you have “stolen” his joke, and retold it to your own benefit. Should you be fined $225,000 for this? No you should not. And that is the same thing, because underlying this entire argument is the fact that these games are nothing more than information. And when the government beguns punishing people for passing information around, that is a trend that does not stop without bloodshed.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:58 am
There are several people on here who think they’re arguing, but are really not even having the same conversation. Half the people are talking about “what piracy costs a publisher”, and then they get rebutted by people who talk about “what pirates are getting, unjustly.”.
Is game piracy theft? Doesn’t really matter! Legally, it’s copyright infringement, morally it’s getting something for nothing. Pirates may argue that they deserve to get something for nothing, or something for “less than $50″, because it’s crippleware, or because the PC version has very little added content, or because information “wants to be free.” Fine, whatever.
Does game piracy really hurt publishers? A hell of a lot less than all you apologists whine. Look at those thousands of thousands of pirates leeching a torrent and ask yourself, what ratio of those people are unemployed? Seriously, most people I know who pirate games would not have bought them, and most people I know who have both money and games, don’t pirate.
Yes, I’m sure there are some lost sales. (but quit pretending that a statistically significant fraction would have bought it anyway. Their crime is in getting something for nothing, NOT in depriving a publisher of money he would have otherwise received.) I’m sure a few people use piracy as an “extended free trial” before they decide to buy (but they’re statistically insignificant and you know it. Quit pretending otherwise.)
September 26th, 2008 at 9:03 am
A reply from a true hardcore gamer:
Those people who would b*tch about PC games and use that as an excuse for piracy aren’t gamers, they’re idiots. What a real gamer does to titles that suck in his mind is quite simple: He ignores them. It’s really as simple as that. Whoever doesn’t handle it this way and calls himself “gamer” isn’t a gamer but an idiot. Period.
On the other hand a true gamer must sometimes be thankful that the “scene” actually exists. Because in recent days it happens more often than not that one actually goes and buys a title to find out that he simply can’t play it due to a copyprot mechanism messing with the system.
During the last 9 months I’ve bought two titles that I literally had to crack for them to work on my machine. When that happens you really start to question a publishers number of actually intelligent employees. You can’t help but think that the average IQ in those companies must be pretty damn low.
DRM is useless. The people who want to buy your stuff will. The rest won’t. If you put DRM systems on your media what will happen is the scene will develop cracks and put them on the web. They are better than you, more nerd than you’ll ever be, they will simply pwn whatever copyprot you’ll put on your stuff. So just let it go. You will sell more and pay less.
So in the end it’s all really freaking simple: If you like a game, buy it. If you don’t, ignore it. This is *only* way you can have fun playing PC games. Trust someone who’s been playing since he was a little kid. I grew up on Double Dragon and Monkey Island. I know what the hell I’m talking about.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Part of the problem is that individuals pirate for widely different reasons. From the 12 year old whose allowance doesn’t quite cover the cost, or parent supervision prevents the purchase of a game deemed violent, to the definitive pirate downloading and making cracks as part of the subculture, the scope of people this covers varies greatly. My own demographic here has been essentially overlooked by both developers and DRM haters alike.
I pirate games for the sake of convenience. Arriving home from work, I may get the urge for an RPG or a shooter the same way one might crave the delicious vestibule that is the Chipotle burrito. Consequently, my options here are limited. My work generally keeps me at the office to the mid 7s at night if not later, and following the adventure that is big city traffic, I rarely make the hours at my local Game Stop. The game selection at Wal-Mart is laughable, so I simply hop on a torrent site and within an hour have the game to squelch my fix. The game is permanently on my harddrive, it is there without jumbling of CD keys and the dodging of DRM tools. If I don’t enjoy the game, I can have another just as easily.
If developers want my money, its as simple as creating a service like Steam for their game. I want a fast download and a spot to put my debit card number so I can have the game at 2am on a Thursday morning when I can’t sleep, or Sunday afternoon when I’m too tired from the gym to go to the store.
And finally, compounding all of this, is simply put, most developers today can’t be trusted to make a good game. Gaming to me is not a premeditated act. I don’t research, pre-order, or anticipate. I don’t scour GameSpy or IGN and see what rating my potential purchase has scored with single white women between the ages of 37 and 45. So when a shiny box and a nifty title catches my eye, I cannot trust the game to be worth the effort to leave work early enough to catch GameSpot when its open.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I never buy anything with that copy protection bullshit. When you deliberately make it less convenient for me to buy it than pirate it, I don’t even consider buying it. If you want me to pay for it, make that the easiest option.
I’m lazy. I’ll pay money if it makes things more convenient. But if it’s a choice between convenient and free and annoying and costly, there’s no contest, I’ll go straight for the free one.
And it’s not just the convenience. When you start out by assuming I’m going to try to steal it, it doesn’t make me think “Hey these guys are cool and I should support them.” It makes me think “These guys are a pack of wankers.”
In short, for me at least, they’re doing this to themselves. Every aspect of the way they try to do business makes me less likely to pay them.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:26 am
What abut your wallet? What if you’re dirt poor when your requirements are met and need the exact cost of the game to pay your rent or you’re out? What will you do? Didn’t think of that, which is why you didn’t make your comment with total conviction and belief in what you were telling us.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Here is the problem with the DRM,
As has already been pointed out, pirating happens, no matter what, no matter what form or version of DRM is used, people find a way around it. DRM doesn’t stop pirating, it hurts legitimate customers. Why am I being slapped with secureRom when I install Spore? I’m not the one who pirated the game, yet the people who actually do pirate the game aren’t bogged down by any of the restrictions or problems with DRM, and they get it for free! So for less money, they get fewer restrictions and no problems with DRM. Pirates pirate regardless of the DRM, it only affects legit consumers, and we shouldn’t be treated like pirates.
Granted I probably won’t install Spore on 5 different computers, but I don’t like the idea that I can’t use a game that I PURCHASED, not RENTED, as much as I want to. I also don’t like the idea that this DRM installs itself in the background on my system without prompting me, again treating a legitimate customer like some untrustworthy software peddler.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I think one should also look at the economic pricing of video games. Any economist can tell you that each consumer is willing to pay a certain price(there demand) compared to the supply of a video game (The supply). Not all pirates are the evil monsters they are made out to be, some individuals are simply unhappy with the economically arbitrary (don’t even go off on this unless you understand an economic supply and demand graph, which if you anything about would show that not every game should cost 50$) price tag, which is not necessarily a proper price. A look at Xbox live games shows a healthy supply and demand market, as the games are usually reasonable priced when brought into perspective of a consumers wants and what they are willing to pay.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:05 am
If every game is going to be cracked and available for piracy as soon as it is available to the actual legitimate customer then there is absolutely no reason for the DRM to be there in the first place. It will only slow down or hurt an *actual paying customer* rather than anyone who pirates it. The only person who has to get around the drm is the original pirater and they are usually people or groups who do this all the time and view each one as a fun little puzzle to solve.
DRM does not stop piracy and never will. The only games able to get around this are things like WOW and that already has plenty of hacking tools available for while you’re playing, although the sale/subscription fee is still being collected.
The solution is to make a good game, help the customer by providing easy stress free install and support, and relax and forget about the sector of gamers who weren’t going to pay for your stuff anyways.
I understand your anger and piracy may lose you some sales (and gain you a few as well, PacoDG can go shove it, David was right, I know many people who pirate to test games and buy the ones that they actually enjoy, so as not to lose a bunch of money on something that might or might not be good) but it’s not going anywhere and to lose sleep over it is just plain retarded.
@Memyself: “Absurd semantic myths”? I won’t go into your own weaseling of the english language, but theft is an actual concept, not just a legal definition so your argument falls flat. In the real world, theft is when you take something which then deprives the original owner of *that particular thing you took*. With “piracy” you are leaving that person in the same exact shape they were before, same assets, everything. You have not actually stolen anything, you’ve got a copy. Yes, you have not paid the creators for their hard work and dedication but you’ve not deprived them of anything. A lost sale is only a lost sale when someone was going to buy it in the first place, and just because someone creates something does not mean they even deserve a sale (this point is not indicating that they don’t deserve to be paid for someone using their work, they do, i mean that they shouldn’t be expecting sales just because of pirating).
“It’s simply not yours to take for free.” Sure it is, isn’t that what this discussion is all about? It’s right there on the interwebs.
I’m trying not to be “snarky” and I’m not an “apologist”. I’m just saying deal with it. As they say all the time on /. “Your business model is not my problem”
September 26th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I forgot to say great article here and on pa :)
September 26th, 2008 at 10:14 am
This is a pretty amusing argument going on in this here comments section.
I gotta be fair, I have pirated before, but I can only think of one game that I’ve pirated that I didn’t go out and buy. That being the case, you can call me a hypocrite all you like, but I have ANSWERS. Real answers, not excuses.
To all pirates out there: REJOICE! By rejoice I of course mean cry, because aside from the obvious laws being broken by the tens of thousands of you out there, there are perfectly legitimate ways to get games without pirating them.
NUMBAH ONE: have people forgotten what it’s like to maybe go back to depending on demos? I mean seriously. That’s what they’re for. The excuse ‘they’re just trying it out before they buy it’ isn’t rolling with me. There’s absolutely no reason to do that if a game has a demo available. Regardless, you’re STILL breaking the law.
Nuuuumbah TWO: I know this solution wouldn’t work for PCs BECAUSE of pirates, and the general dishonesty of the entire human race, but what about, oh I dunno, going to a store and renting games? I mean that’s what I still do all the time, with consoles anyway. Gamefly, the Blockbuster near my house, ET-CETERA.
On either console or PC, there’s absolutely no excuse. None at all. There are various different ways to play a game before you buy it. Also, as I said, regardless of YOUR reasons, you’re still breaking the set laws, so don’t bring that infringement vs. stealing argument to my table. But, gasp, if you can’t rent the game or find a demo for it, what do you do? Oh man, I know this is hard to wrap your head around, but uh, try waiting. I’ve heard it’s healthy for everyone involved in making the game you want.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Their efforts to stop pirating seem to actually make pirates out of frustrated (previous) customers.
.. all the legal blah blah etc won’t change people .. customers who feel mistreated or ripped off will act up whatever the media
music is a simple example. you can:
-pay for itunes album download.. you get dmr (annoying)
-go to HMV it’s 20$+taxes for a cd (ripoff)
-dowload from torrent or a blog (fast and free)
Everyone has a limit of how annoyed or ripped off they can be…
September 26th, 2008 at 10:51 am
“Copyright infringement, theft, piracy. None of these are positive things. How could anyone seriously say otherwise?”
People will perform amazing mental gymnastics to justify their immoral behavior.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am
“-go to HMV it’s 20$+taxes for a cd (ripoff)”
This argument has consistently been put forth as an argument for pirating music… “CDs cost $20 - it’s too expensive!!!11″
I have bought dozens of *new* CDs this year, and I seriously do not recall paying more than $10-11 for a disc. Outside of the rare import, I have *never*, in my 20+ years of buying CDs, paid anything approaching $20 for a single CD. Unless you are a pathetically lousy shopper, that argument holds no water.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:02 am
death magnetic 16$ plus tax
http://www.hmv.ca/hmvcaweb/en_CA/displayProductDetails.do?sku=1247092
September 26th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The Fake Steve Jobs already said it: “Yea, I know DRM sucks, but the record companies are assholes.”
Replace ‘record companies’ with ‘publishers who see every game house as a way to make money.’
No one who cares about DRM (read: protecting their investment) cares about your experience as a gamer. It’s a disconnect. Developers make games because they want to shock/inspire/tell a story to - the world. They get _PAID_ by people who invest in them and want MONEY. They dont want a huge fan base (Guild Wars = free to play!). They want MONEY (selling millions of copies of Guild Wars). They dont want the game of the year. They want the best _SELLING_ game of the year. They have PR reps who ‘care’ about that other (useless) stuff.
Recent restructuring of EA: Diversifying the investment portfolio.
Protecting your investments is standard operating procedure.
—-
What happens when an unstoppable force (hacking teams who compete in a world-wide game of release-to-crack coding triathlons) meets an immovable object (people who will try anything to wring every cent they can out of the process) ?
The DRM (or a variation) and cracks continue.
What it can lead to should scare you:
College students across America are getting sued for downloading mp3s. Maybe next time you download a No-CD crack for COD4 you’ll get hit for a $3000 settlement.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Amen brother. You took the words right out of my mouth. Think it’s time to give you a new subscriber.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Ah, piracy, another issue that brings out the extremes. The “deserving” versus the “oppressive”. Me, personally, I like to take a neutral stance and shrug my shoulders. Mainly because I don’t see it as a major probelm that some publishers claim it to be. Oh, of course money in potential sales is likely lost but money is still made and perhaps if companies were a little more efficient and understanding of what gamers want then this certainly wouldn’t be a problem.
Pretty graphics are nice and everything but gamers need to be able to run it and want substance. Story is cool but if it’s ugly as sin, it’s hard to play through. Functionality and game mechanics are great but if there’s little point and nothing to look at you can only go so far. Right now it’s not the piracy that is the huge problem, it’s the lack of quality in many titles. Bring that up in an efficient manner and you’ll convince the true believers to buy instead of pirate.
But back to the pirate issue itself. As far as I know, Sins of a Solar Empire has no DRM or anything like that. All you need is a CD code which you don’t even need to play (just patch and play online). It’s a game easy to pirate, I’m sure, and I bet they do but they’ve already sold a substantial amount and made generous amounts of money! Why is that? It is a good game, after all. Because they are efficient and because their theories are sound. They appear to avoid distributing games in areas widely known for gaming piracy and they count on the people who do care enough to purchase, doing things to please and entice them. Among other things.
This isn’t the first time that Stardock basically said “pirates? so what” and carried on with successful business. The industry is for the fan, not the pirate so don’t worry about the pirate.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:54 am
And while I agree that pirating can be annoying (like gold farmers and other ‘nuisances’), I find even more annoying the people who look down on them from their magical high horses of morality and justice. You can get off it now; no one cares that you pirate a game but then go out and buy it (you’re still pirating). No one cares about your scolding and won’t stop doing it because you said “it was wrong”. You don’t have to understand why people are doing it unless you plan to try and stop it.
Should that be your decision in life, let me warn you that the road is confusing as hell and very bumpy. There aren’t any one specific reason why people break the law. There are all different factors that lead a person to that conclusion and some are better than others. Maybe it is because they can’t afford even paying $10 dollars or $20 dollars or however much it is to pay for something these days (I wouldn’t be surprised considering how the economy is doing) or maybe it really is just because they don’t care.
And in all honesty, I don’t care. I don’t care what my neighbor does (good for him if he pirates and great if he doesn’t). I’ll buy what I want to buy and I’ll get what I want to get through alternative means if that’s what I’m really feeling. I’m not going to step onto a soap box and kiss the ass of publishers while at the same time condemning my fellow gamers after forcing my ideals and morality on them.
It’s my firm belief that piracy cannot be stopped but if the necessary steps are taken, it can be minimized. Like I said, Stardock and Sins of a Solar Empire have no real copyright protection programs and is easy as sin to pirate but it still has sold thousands and has made thousands more. Its profits have already passed the cost it made to make the game (it was in the millions, I think).
September 26th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
@Higashi:
I’m speaking of US laws, of course. You are certainly correct that the legal definitions vary.
Rollin: “Given your self-righteous assurance it’s amusing that you’re completely wrong. Bootleg recordings aren’t all that different to bootleg games.”
Incorrect. Court Justice Stephen Breyer: “Deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft.” Furthermore, the illegal downloading of material, in excess of a specific amount (around 250 gigs, as I recall) over 6 months time, is legally held as a form of theft in the US. Take heed of alterations in the law, and don’t cling to archaic interpretations that are considered legally out of date.
Rollin: “The internet doesn’t change the fundamental differences between copyright infringement vs theft; it just alters the methods and scale of distribution.”
Incorrect. The existence of intangible media alters the definition of what can and cannot constitute property. If the law is written at a time before cheese existed, should the theft of cheese not be protected by the law?
William: “IP is not physical property.”
It does not matter. Tell me, before the existence of intangible media, what did you buy a record or a book for? The tangible properties? The value has ALWAYS been in the intangible aspects of any given media. That is fact. So if you acquire a book without the paper or music without the CD, you’ve acquired the aspect that had value. And regardless of whether you would decide to buy it or not, it’s not yours to take without offering compensation.
Andrew: “but theft is an actual concept, not just a legal definition so your argument falls flat.”
No it isn’t. Theft is a legal term, enforced by law.
Andrew: “and just because someone creates something does not mean they even deserve a sale”
And just because it’s on “the interwebs” doesn’t mean you can take it for free without it being theft. It’s stealing, whether you take it from a store or download it. You are taking the aspect that has monetary value without offering the legally required compensation.
And please see the interpretation of Court Justice Stephen Breyer. His legal opinion certainly trumps yours.
This apologist nonsense is ridiculous. That people struggle to define the illegal taking of something as other than theft is absurd. I know people want something to rail against and I know people want everything for free. But the mass attempts to justify theft with such absurd nonsense has become sickening.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
It’s a pretty simple problem to me. The DRM was meant to stop the game from being pirated. It was pirated and on torrent sites 5 days before release. What EA and other companies don’t realize is that NOTHING they come up with will stop some pirate from cracking the game. In this day and age it takes one cracked copy and after that everyone has it. I’ve heard the “we want to make it harder for pirates to…” yada yada yada. They have failed. And miserably at that. Making a game harder to crack implies that each individual has to crack their game, which is wrong. Pirates often crack games just to show that they can. Pretty much the only system that works is Steam, and I only use that for multi-player games.
This is the digital age, so when one person cracks the game we all cracked the game. EA will never stop that one person, EVER (don’t argue, they never will), so why try?
Oh, and since I just saw someone mention CD sales, I have this comment. CD technology is coming up on 30 years old. In the 80’s, I bought a CD for about $16-20, now that it’s 2008, I still buy one for between $12-16. No technology has EVER stayed at nearly the same price for so long, especially since it costs about 1 cent to make a CD. In fact, factoring in inflation, CD prices have probably gone up. Plus, since hardly a cent of CD sales goes to the band, the musics creators, where is the moral disincentive to download for free? And when people say downloading cuts into their sales, I call shenanigans. The amount of good music coming out has just gone down. I can’t even remember the last time I heard a song on the radio that was good enough for me to put out the effort to download the album for free let alone paying for it.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
I would like to point out that not all pirates pirate because a game “sucks” or is “too buggy” or whatever. I will willingly admit that I downloaded Mass Effect and pirated it. Why did I do that? Because of the very fact that EA and Bioware put SecuROM in it. I was 100% ready to run down to the game shop and buy it the day it was released on PC, but when I heard it had SecuROM in it, I quashed that idea and downloaded it instead. I will not support a company that treats it’s customers like criminals.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
>Tell me, before the existence of intangible media, what did you buy a record or a book for? The tangible properties? The value has ALWAYS been in the intangible aspects of any given media. That is fact. So if you acquire a book without the paper or music without the CD, you’ve acquired the aspect that had value.
I disagree on this point. Books are available at the library for free, music is available on the radio. When you pick up these media sources at these locations, you are receiving the intellectual essence of the material, but not receiving the portion with perceived value.
People buy cds, not just because they want the music, but because they want the physical property of the cd: they want the cd art, the liner notes, they want to be able to look at it sitting on their cd shelf. When you buy a book, you want to be able to hold the book itself, not just be able to access the words.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
If you are making a game, are you making it for the buyer or for the pirate? If you are making it for the buyer, you shouldn’t really bother with the pirate, because that isn’t your target demographic. Trying to make pirates buy games is like trying to make football players all buy pink dresses. It’s really not that hard to understand.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
All piracy really comes down to for me is the fact that games simply aren’t a necessity. They obviously aren’t food, water, or shelter, and you can argue up and down a million ways about how it’s okay, but the fact remains that you don’t even need to be doing it in the first place.
If you’re that bored, play an old game, get a book from a library, or visit your local gamestore bargain bin.
There’s no excuse, really. Game piracy is stealing to a degree. No matter how slight you think that degree might be, it’s there. And there’s no reason to do it.
Could I mention, though, as one reason why people are quite righteously fuming about Spore’s DRM and one thing that DOES affect thousands of consumers who don’t even know what DRM is? One of Spore’s “limitations” is that a registered copy can only be played with one individual Sporepedia online account. I’ve heard quite a lot of everyday parents and couples posting about how their children or spouse or whatever are plain disenfranchised with the game because they simply can’t play it the way it was meant to be played (with your own little database of things you’ve made and a simple account to manage/communication with the community,) because somebody else registered their account first.
It’s not an MMO, and it is the type of game families want to play together, so frankly, there’s no excuse why people should have to buy multiple copies just to have their own accounts.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
“If people genuinely didn’t want to play it or already played it on consoles, they wouldn’t need to pirate it. If they feel PC software is too buggy across the board, they shouldn’t be playing PC games.”
I think you’re making it too black and white - in my own case, there’s a scale of worth I apply to games, lets say 0 - 2: the amount that I’d be willing to pay is the default price multiplied by where it falls on that scale. So some games (like half life 2, or braid) fall above 1, in which case I’d be willing to buy them for even more then their normal price. Others (like fable, or lego star wars) I don’t think are worth (were worth) their going price. This doesn’t mean I’m not willing to play them - not willing to play and not willing to pay are two very different things. There are plenty of bad games I’d try if they cost a couple dollars - and I’d try almost anything if it were free. But I’d only pay for things that I feel confident are going to be worth my money.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Amazing.
Simply amazing, really.
As I sit here reading through reams of text trying to formulate an argument that will show the folks who advocate piracy as legitimate, neccesary, or god forbid, a blow against “the man”. I’ve come to realize the futility of the exercise.
It’s not so much your debate of the judicial terms of theft vs. copyright infringement, testing before buying, or even the inevitable verbal lashing of DRM. I can live with that.
What makes the bile creep up my throat is the underlying theme of all your defending and protestation. It is in a nutshell:
Your incredibly well developed sense of entitlement.
Your sensitivity to YOUR needs, YOUR wants, how the industry should try to help YOU, the hardcore gamer. After all, you just want a game worthy of all that is YOU.
In order to reach that goal you can legitimize just about anything. I know, I can hear the recoil coming from this post a mile off, the hautiness, the “what you fail to grasp…”, the “DRM is the reason…”, and my favorite “the industry exagerates piracy to such a huge degree… (thereby making it ok for you to steal. Love that logic)”
Hide behind the words, semantics and indifference (feigned or real).
At the end of the day, no abstract logic, no turn of phrase, no vigilante mentality will change one thing.
You are a thief.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
What some people here and in corporate towers really need to see is that piracy is a war that is fought in the hearts and mind of everyone involved be they pirates, developers or legitimate consumers. To say simply that they should in some way “leave the pirates alone, they wouldn’t have payed for it anyways” is to say that they should fire themselves now and file for bankruptcy while they can still settle their debts.
That being said, I do not believe DRM is a good thing. I would go as far as to say that it is worse then useless for the developers and publishers because it has been creating contempt among legitimate consumers. It is unlikely that a copy protection method that is truly uncrackable will be invented so the best alternatives are to win over the hearts and minds of the consumers at the same time you as someone else mentioned add value to their product. Case in point being Blizzard’s world of Warcraft (wow). I do not care if you hate It or love it its an excellent example of added value. Anyone who steals this game to play it on a private server is either 1) doing so as a technical project for the enjoyment of setting up said server or 2) Not getting anything close to the full value of the game.
To those of you who have player wow, can you imagine stealing it? I could but I do not see how long it would last, I would eventually buckle and pay for it out of convenience. In return I see that the dollars I spend each month are at east on some level put back into the game. Added value.
As people become less afraid of the Pay-to-Play model (which in my mind has many superior qualities for both the consumer and the developer) perhaps a resolution can be found for some of these problems.
Some games however do not have the liberties of being able to store peoples data on their servers and constantly add content (though maybe they could anc chose NOT TO). I would not have stole starcraft, I spent 90% of the time I spent playing that game playing it online. Same with Diablo II.
They are all 1’s and 0’s get used to it publishers. Your only hope it to realize this and that the traditional form of make the game as a one off, release it and wash your hands of it cannot last. If you alienate your consumers, frustrate them and treat them like criminals you will reap what you sow.
Selling things for reasonable prices would also go a far way here. Video game prices have risen way faster than inflation. When I saw how much spore was selling for I laughed. I remember how much I used to buy games for, it is ridicules. Overpricing also has create contempt in consumers.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
My friend and I both wanted to play half life 2 on launch day. Both of us started at home, he went to best buy ~20 minutes away from his house, I went to pirate bay.
He got home about the same time I finished downloading. He installed, tried to authenticate….oh know, steam was down!
Guess who was playing the game first?
————–
I downloaded stalker to test it out, loved it so much I bought it and convinced two other friends to buy it. If I couldn’t test the FULL game first I wouldn’t have bothered. I guess “piracy” caused three sales that wouldn’t otherwise have happened.
—————
I downloaded doom3 and played a couple of levels, realized it was 10 (or whatever) levels of of monsters jumping out of closets in dark rooms. I didn’t buy it.
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I downloaded aliens vs predator from some warez site in ‘99. Fell in love with it and bought 3 copies just to have lan mutiplayer with my friends. Bought AVP Gold later when it came out. Bought another bargain bin copy a few years ago just to play it again on my new computer.
I’m a real gamer and I want the developers to know, you make a good game I will support you whether or not it is on pirate bay. If you make a crap game I won’t.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Someone mentioned X game on 360 then getting X game for free on PC having cost that person money. The closer PCs get to being mainly gaming rigs and the more powerful Consoles get the more they move into each other and the easier it is to develop for both a console and a PC. 360 and PC are the prime example since the 360 and PCs around the world are both running on a Microsoft OS…there’s very little issue with developing a game for both PC and 360 (more so I imagine for PC an PS3 or Wii but if it’s just on one or the other of those they don’t typically move to PC anyway). In fact I’ve tested games that were in development for 360 and PC at the same time…you know what they did to test the 360 version? They had PC users plug in a USB 360 controller :p. That’s it. There’s almost no additional cost associated with developing 360 vs PC games. If anything having a 360 copy or vice-versa should allow you to link up with your PC while the disc is in the console/PC and unlock the ability to D/L the version you don’t own (be it PC or 360) to that location.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I think we’ve learned a lot of things from this discussion:
1) There are stupid people on both sides of the fence, as well as smart ones.
2) DRM doesn’t work? So far no one has said it does work…
3) A good way to keep/gain customers is with excellent customer support, exclusive content sold with the game (I can’t download a Spartan Helmet, but I CAN download an artbook–food for thought), free demos, and also if you’re selling an awesome game, that really helps. I love the coin sold with the collector’s edition of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I can’t download that! If you can show me a pirate that has downloaded his own copy of that Imperial coin, I’ll change my religion and gender!
4) Valve and Blizzard have a pretty good system. The Good Lord knows that I would gladly pay a 20 dollar WoW membership fee if I could live without Tuesday maintenance….(10 million amens follow). But Blizzard is comprised of mortals, not Demigods, therefore I expect and lament not upon their imperfection.
5) Maybe they ARE Demigods over at Blizzard…
6) “Piracy” is wrong, no matter how you cut that cake. But due to the structure of the industry, the lack of demos, all the bugs, and the $&#%ing c o n v e n i e n c e of piracy, I think I would hang that word up there with “politicians” and “donuts” under the “necessary evils” category.
7) Honest customers exist.
8) Said honest customers should not be punished by making them pay for “legal spyware” (DRM).
9) The Videogame Industry is not decreasing its profits no matter how piracy may seem to be increasing. When a company sells a game…is there some kind of projected number of sales that isn’t reached due to piracy? Is this failure repeated over and over as the company pushes games out over several years? Is there documented proof showing the demise of the gaming industry due to piracy? Well, no, Gamestop is still up and running…there’s more games released in a week than I have time to play them all that week…somehow, somewhere, people are making grade C games and somehow, somewhere there are enough yokels buying those games to keep those publishers afloat.
10) A real man would ninja a good game before he would ever pirate it. (Pre-ordering a game and paying for it in full like I did with Silent Hill: Homecoming is ninjaing a game)
September 26th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I’ve quite a few experiences similar to Bernie’s (problems with games I PAID for working properly, and having to download CRACKS for those games to work). I too have stopped impulse buying. I was a “regular” at the EB in my town - and then GameStop after they bought EB.
Eventually I grew sick and tired of games that wouldn’t install or run properly. It became normal to wait four days for a response from a “ticket” based tech support system. I was tired of “no open PC software” policy if the damn game wouldn’t run on my system - not due to lacking hardware, but due to wanting to buy games when they come out, not AFTER they’ve been patched, four times in the first month after release.
I’m sick of companies putting out rubbish and calling it a “quality product that we worked hard on”, and charging good money for it. I’m tired of games being rushed out the door with the thought of “we can patch it later”.
I’m going to be dead honest - I’m one of those people you hear about that I will download the FULL version of a game from a torrent, plays it a bit, and if it works, actually buys the game.
Oh, this is impossible, right Memyself? “Absurd semantic myths”, to quote you more exactly.
I won’t pay for a game unless I’ve tried the full version. If it installs on my system cleanly and plays fine, I’ll buy the retail version without hesitation.
I’m sick of flushing my money into this goddamn toilet called the gaming industry and getting nothing in return. This is the only industry which can get away with this kind of crap.
Imagine a book which slams it self shut any time you read five pages. That’s the kind of book the PC game industry would publish, hoping to “patch” it later.
Better yet - how great would it be if the movie in the theater shut off at the forty minute mark? What if the movie never came back on. If you tried to talk to someone who works at the theater, what if they put you in a queue with other frustrated buyers. Imagine that you’d be forced to wait four days, and you then get a response which doesn’t resolve the situation, and you have to start at the back of the line again to ask a question. Each time the answer they give you is a copy-and-paste from a training manual, with painfully obvious solutions which still don’t get things going again. A few times through the line - each time describing the problem exactly, and you MIGHT get to finish your movie that you paid to see. PERHAPS.
Oh, and this is a $50 movie.
That, sir, would surely be a product of the video game industry.
I have absolutely no problems with piracy, I sleep well at night. Make a good game, I will buy it. Make crap, and I will find out before having paid for it.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Piracy can be justified, in certain circumstances.
When Half Life 2 was released in South Africa, I bought it on launch day. I took it home, giddy with excitement. Only to realise that the game was completely unplayable, since I did not have an internet connection (in SA only about six percent of the population has an internet connection, the great majority at the time was still using dail up). I drove all the way to pretoria (100 +kms) to my cousin’s house, and hooked my pc up to his internet connection. But seeing the size of the download from steam, we realised that it would cost more to activate the game than it did to buy it. Unacceptable.
So I took the game back to the shop, stood in the que of people that was also returning it, got my money back, walked across the road to the flea-market, and bought the pirated version (the first pirate I ever bought). it worked first time, no hassles. Was this wrong of me?
In the USA everybody and their grandmothers apparently has a broadband connection. So I guess it makes sense for valve to use that fact when planning their DRM strategy. Obviously they can’t be bothered with the brute realities of technological limitations in darkest Africa, since this demographic must surely be at most only one percent of total sales. I understand and respect this.
But Half-life 2 at the time was billed as the future of gaming, a fantastic spectacle that must be experienced if you are to call yourself a gamer. there was no way I was missing out on it. And if Valve thought so little of my money that they couldn’t provide a working solution, then obviously they can’t complain if I pirate their game. They didn’t expect to make money of me, and they didn’t.
The anger I felt at being force to become a pirate is still with me today. I have broadband now, and don’t buy pirates at all. Except for Valve games. I will buy pirated Valve games till the day I die, just to make my point.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:00 am
First and foremost, I’m not celebrating piracy or claiming that it’s right. You can dislike DRM without running your own private server for torrents, so, sorry, it’s not that simple. I’m a PC gamer first and foremost, and I want what’s good for PC games. And that means you stop with the retarded DRMs that HURT the PC gaming industry and community.
You can say “Sure, DRMs can’t stop the pirates yet, but they could in the future!” And I could just as easily say “In the future, pirates will invade our virtual reality internet as actual pirates and go around plundering the hillside.” That’s the wonderful thing about random guess statements about the future - they can be ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING!
The funny thing is, not all games give two craps about pirates. The Witcher sold very well, and CD Project’s statement regarding pirates has been “Hahaha, you Americans think you have piracy bad? Good lord!” And yet I don’t recall the big invasive DRM on The Witcher. Gee, maybe it was because they realized that piracy, quite frankly, cannot be stopped? And I don’t just refer to game pirates. Hell, real life pirates recently stole TANKS, and you think you’re going to stop internet ones?
When cds first came out, we were told the entire music industry was going to collapse. And it didn’t. When music sharing first got into full swing, we were told that, no, really, THIS time, the music industry was TOTALLY going to collapse. And look at that - it didn’t. I’m sorry, but now you’re telling me that the video game industry is going to collapse from piracy? Forgive me if I don’t run around and scream in a panic.
I’ll close with me stressing this once again - I’m not gung-ho pro-piracy, “TAKE IT TO THE MAN!” I’m a PC gamer. I want PC games to be awesome. I want the industry to support awesome PC games, but quite frankly, it’s not happening, and it’s not going to happen so long as we keep trying to put all the blame on piracy. And while I’m not a pirate, and while I don’t support them, I can easily understand why people WOULD choose to pirate games. How many poor saps bought Hellgate: London? How many others bought countless numbers of games that they realized shortly after buying them sucked? We don’t have demos anymore to gauge these things. All we have is endless, ENDLESS hype, not just from the companies, but from the magazines and reviewers too. An 8 out of 10 is considered a bad score these days - what the hell is that?
PC games have declined, and sharply. And PC gamers have NO WAY to see which games are going to rock, and which are going to blow. You can’t trust the reviewers, and you can’t play the game before hand, so in a situation where you know many games aren’t going to be good, you have two options - close your eyes and hope for the best, or grab it online first. But wait, with DRMs, it gets even worse - now, not only can you not trust reviews, not only can you not play it before hand, but you don’t even know if the game will work in the first place once it’s on your machine. You can’t even be a casual PC gamer, because god help you if your machine isn’t built correctly to play the game. Is it really any wonder people turn to downloading the game instead of buying it?
if you want piracy to go away, then you have to stop making shovelware games that are mediocre console ports, and you have to start treating the customers as just that - customers! Haven’t you worked BASIC retail? If you sneer and look down on and treat all your customers as thieves, you’re going to run out of customers very fast.
September 27th, 2008 at 5:57 am
This discussion will go on for ever. And i am suprised that if it is correct that games on the X360 get hacked as much as PC-games.
But in the end numbers of times a game gets illegally downloaded does not matter.
What matters is the number of sales. And we see console-games outselling PC-games to an extent it becomes harder and harder to come up with valid reasons why that is besides piracy(personnaly i think it is piracy)
But in the end we the gaming community must listen to facts and reality.
Luckily the PC-industry will have 3 new games out to test our theories.
1 Battlefield Heroes: A first change since Mythos got canned to give us information if a micro-payment system is w