Natural Selection 2 - Already on Piracy Sites

Kenny83

So is there/will there be anything that can be done against piracy for UWE's game? Pirates tend to find ways around most counter-measures in the first place, but it'd be a shame to know that I'm playing with a bunch of thieves.

ctd

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the fact that it is steam and multiplayer only mean piracy rate will be ###### all?

TwiStEr

yes all they could do is run their own game, they wouldnt be able to play on steam servers ...

Yuuki

That's an excellent sign. Sharing usually increases sales.

But doesn't steam prevent you to connect on official servers?

Mango

pirate games are only good if it doesn't involve multiplayer. So many factors from Steam server checking your CD key to NS2 Server verify making it impossible to play online. Only pirate games are single player without the need of servers. Steam also bans users accounts when they found out a invalid CDkey trying to connect to a steam server. So, I wouldn't worry about it all.

Industry

<!--quoteo(post=2000865:date=Oct 30 2012, 07:38 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Oct 30 2012, 07:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2000865"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's an excellent sign. Sharing usually increases sales.

But doesn't steam prevent you to connect on official servers?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Correct.


Honestly, there is no real way to stop piracy. In my opinion it is best to accept that it happens and embrace it as a marketing tool to turn those pirates into potential customers. (See: Hotline Miami and McPixel). I've been writing a paper on the whole piracy/DRM debate for college and it fascinates me.

bERt0r

Look at Half-Life 1, with a CD-Key something like 1234 you could play single and Lan multiplayer. Probably the most pirated game ever. Statistics dont count how many illegal copies were distributed on lan parties since on each and every big lan party i was in my youth, 90% were playing CS :D.

[C.H.U.D.]

This isn't an issue for a multiplayer only game. Pirates will just have to play with other pirates.

Kenny83

I do agree that it's a good sign in general, but it still bothers me. Probably because I'm a bit defensive on the subject of UWE and Natural Selection as an IP. However, I know from some of these sites that there are ways that people play the source engine games *online* without paying, I couldn't tell you how they do it - I haven't personally tried it - but if the comments are any suggestion, then nothing is sacred to ONLY paying customers anymore when it comes to steam-secure games.

Skyforger2

Im a Pirate (not NS2) i pirate only games i won't buy otherwise anyways.
I Pirated Batlefield 3 did a Single player campaign and latter when had money bought the game.
I started playing ns1 on cracked client and servers, at that time i was 16 and even a 1£ was a big money for me.
So yeah i think it could actually only help to sell it.

Vitdom

A quick DHT search yielded 1 possible pirated result, allegedly first seen 10 days ago, with ~>5 peers participating in the swarms if the search engine's tracker interface is up to date and synchronized.

Not really widely spread, and it seems to be a version ~3 beta builds back as well by the looks of the date. Even though piracy might help sales, this specific one won't, it's an unstable old beta build...

Also, I don't think pirated copies of NS2 can play multiplayer without cracked servers. So it's pirates vs pirates and nothing else. They're hardly going to get a real game going if you ask me...

Kouji_San

The only way to successfully counter piracy is to provide a better service, Steam is that service :)