Just for the record, I would only advocate very light anti-piracy measures for store sales, the sort that would only stop very casual piracy such as CD/DVD burning (without repackaging the game with edited files) and unique CD keys. I find that digital sales and distribution portals that offer you additional services, such as Steam, are a reasonable tradeoff between DRM and service.
I think the biggest way to combat piracy is to educate people about how piracy could be affecting the makers of their favourite games, definitely to provide decent-length demos, and to refrain from heavy-handed DRM. If a game always has a demo available before launch that provides a decent amount of gameplay (i.e. not a tutorial level, not a single short level, something more than just 10 minutes of original gameplay) and that can be downloaded quickly, the whole argument of 'try before you buy' is thrown out of the window.
Remove intrusive DRM and you remove most of the "I want a DRM-free version" argument. After doing these two things, the only figures left for piracy will be those who are doing it out of laziness, who "can't afford games" (a flimsy argument at best and essentially the same category as the first) or those who subscribe to some sort of 'free-market' ideal.
Once you get to this point you can get a much more accurate figure of the effects of piracy on the industry in terms of potential lost sales and you can actually start to educate people on how piracy is harming the industry with some accurate figures. Right now there are too many arguments to hide behind that are symptoms of poor publihsing. Increase the service you can provide and then you can go on the attack against piracy, but while you are a contributing factor it's very hard to convince anyone they might be doing wrong.
LikuI, am the Somberlain.Join Date: 2003-01-10Member: 12128Members
<!--quoteo(post=1705316:date=Apr 20 2009, 07:15 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 20 2009, 07:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705316"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the biggest way to combat piracy is to educate people about how piracy could be affecting the makers of their favourite games,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
While not as blunt as Liku I'd be inclined to agree with his point :p
It's a little <i>niave</i> to assume that people will suddenly start caring about something they've been ignoring previously because you can prove it causes harm. Heck knows, cigarette packets have big signs saying "THIS WILL KILL YOU" taking up half the packet and people still do it, the idea that the pirates will suddenly stop their pirating activities because, for the theory of this example, you could prove that 'the man' is losing % sales seems a bit flawed. My course was a games-oriented course and the vast majority of those who completed it (myself included) went on to work in the games industry, yet it was an absolute hotbed of piracy because it had those who had the knowledge of where to get copies or how to make them :p I even know a good few people currently in the industry who still indulge in less than legal matters when it comes to games... I know a few R4 owners who use it ROM the latest games, Hacked PSPs gallore playing old ROMs of games people never owned and the like. How can you expect to convince people it's harming the industry when the people in it are indulging in such activity themselves? :o
As people have discussed before, it's hard to prove or disprove if DRM works but until I see proof otherwise I'm highly inclined to believe that the larger part of piracy has little effect on a games full earnings. It just means there's more players on it than those who bought it. This said, I have no issues with things like steam as they're not inconvienent and provide a service in addition to a 'game protection' system.
With cloud computing and things like MMOs becoming more common I'm rather curious what the future holds in regards to this stuff though. It won't affect the music/film industry stuff but it may change how some games work :3
The whole piracy argument reminds me of another issue often brought up by the games industry and that's the matter of Used sales. I find these more interesting as stores are often eager to sell used and will try and convince buyers who show willingness to buy the fully priced product to purchase a used copy instead, which the devs get no cut of. Again, there's people who buy used who wouldn't have bought the game at full price, but it shows they're willing to spend that much and perhaps they would buy it after it's been out a while and the price has dropped.
<!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Anyone who thinks Pirate Bay isn't a profiteering business out to make money through very little effort of their own and from behind a veil of selflessness is living in a dream world.
They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
They deserve everything they get coming to them, but the sad truth is the measures probably won't go far enough or create enough of an impact.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them. ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... they ... have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them. ...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...hacking culture...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...<b>hacking culture</b>...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1705372:date=Apr 21 2009, 05:40 AM:name=Liku)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Liku @ Apr 21 2009, 05:40 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705372"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm pretty sure most wouldn't give a sh*t.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--><b>If you can show that games aren't being made on PCs because of a perceived effect of piracy, people might care. (This already happens)
If you can show that games aren't getting sequels at all because the first one was pirated to ######, people might care. (This already happens)
If you can show that companies are going out of business because of the impacts of piracy on their games, people might care. (This already happens)
If you can show that in order to keep the price of a game the same, the development cycle (and in most cases, the quality) of games must be reduced to reduce the effect of piracy, people might care.</b> (This already happens)
The only reason people wouldn't give a damn is if they are ignorant or stupid, or are 'fighting' for some sort of idealised free market system where market forces don't affect price, or where you are not charged for 'art' but somehow artists are able to dedicate themselves to their craft without making money from it to support them. I don't think all casual pirates are in the last categories, I think most are in the first, I think most are just ignoring the ramifications of their actions because 'everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay, yeah?'.
Like I said, all of the above already happens, there's just not enough clearcut evidence to convince people that piracy is wrong. Once some of the more acceptable arguments for piracy are removed (demos are crap, DRM sucks) you can actually point to these examples and say what you are part of has done this.
Piracy surely does affect the industry: how can you budget development for 1000 sales and then only sell 100 while 900 are obtained for free? What happens when you make your next game, do you spend less time and money on it, or do you charge more for it? Or do you put adverts in it? Or do you sell it to a bunch of people who aren't as in touch with piracy methods? Or do you try to protect yourself with DRM? Or do you forget about that genre altogether and make a subscription-based MMO? Or do you sell it via an online store that requires you to be connected to play the game? All of this is happening because people don't want to deal with piracy, they can't deal with piracy. If they ignored its effects, like the pirates do, the industry would be in chaos, there would be no forward movement. Even now most progress is dependant on a very few innovative titles, which is crap because there are many hurdles that could stop those titles from making it.
Piracy isn't a new thing, it's just a bigger thing now that more people buy games and the methods of piracy are more wide-reaching and accessible. Therefore the effects are much more substantial. Those numbers above are just an example, scale up those numbers by 1,000 or 10,000 and you've got a lot of money being spent on making a game and a very difficult way of predicting reliable sales figures: the sort that keep your company in business or dictate how much you can spend on your next game. We're starting to see the <i>Hollywoodisation</i> model, where you depend on 1 out of every 10 games being a blockbuster, and your churn out formulaic trash just to play the numbers.
I don't want to be the sort of hypocrite that complains about the scarcity of good games while taking money out of the development pool. So if I can't afford a game, I don't buy it, or I buy it and play it on passable graphics without spending money on an upgrade, but I certainly don't steal it. And if I don't know if a game's good enough, I read some reliable (and FREE!!1) online reviews from dependable journalists. I do this because I know if I pirate that game 'just to take a peek', or 'until I have the cash to buy it', I will end up convincing myself later that I still don't have the money to buy it, but it's okay because if I don't have the money to buy it then I haven't stolen anything, right? And then I'll recommend it to my friend and tell them they could buy it for this price, but I just torrented it, and they'll torrent it, and so on.
So I don't do that because it's a vicious cycle. Even if you would never have been able to buy the game, somewhere along the line you are endorsing lost sales. And I choose not to do this because I do have a choice, and every choice I make has an effect on the world around me. I just don't see the point in pretending my actions don't have any effect, that's just ignorant.
P.S. Hacking culture is effectively the 'Warez Scene' or '<a href="http://www.aboutthescene.com/thescene/index.html" target="_blank">The Scene</a>'. While it's very difficult to pin down who 'The Scene' is and what it believes anymore, from my understanding it was all about sharing its work without making a profit from it. It was open to its members, but private to anyone else who may have wanted to make a profit from it. So files within the scene were usually distributed from secure file servers. The 'culture' was mainly about technological prowess and sharing of information. A lot of hacker groups now, as in the people who actually hack the originals, still distribute their work with messages asking that if you like what you've seen, you still go out and buy the game.
P.P.S. <a href="http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/07/25/on-open-source-and-piracy/" target="_blank">Piracy hurts Open Source?</a>
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
For paperjack: The scene/hacking culture refers to the 'good old days' of hacking where everything was lollipops and BBSes. It was considered back then to be some how honorable, and people where in it for the challenge more than anything else. TPB obviously are simply a bunch of profiteering jerks who have exploited the clean and innocent Scene in favor of money at no real risk or challenge to themselves.
Also, crispy, the flaw in your argument of education is this: Those majority of people who would care about those facts you placed out would have already stopped pirating because all of the companies suddenly grew a set and started releasing decent demos (I am still convinced that demos don't get released because they have no confidence in their product), and they have removed horribly intrusive DRM. All that are left are the people that have the "me me me" mentality, and that isn't going to be stopped by a little bit of knowledge (all of this knowledge is already out there and very available to just about any one who wants it).
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that games aren't being made on PCs because of a perceived effect of copyright infringement, people might care. (This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's your speculation. My speculation is that fewer triple A titles are being made on the PC because it doesn't have as large an audience as any given console. This isn't really new. <!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that games aren't getting sequels at all because the first one was copyright infringed to ######, people might care. (This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is just nonsensical. Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Halflife 2 and Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Command and Conquer whatever, The Sims whatever, Spore expansion whatever. And that's just off the top of my head from 3 major gaming companies. Also NS2. <!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that companies are going out of business because of the impacts of copyright infringement on their games, people might care. (This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I haven't seen any more companies going out of business recently. Considering the vg market continues to show significant growth each year I'd say the money is there for makers of good games. <!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that in order to keep the price of a game the same, the development cycle (and in most cases, the quality) of games must be reduced to reduce the effect of copyright infringement, people might care.(This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I haven't seen this either. I suppose you could argue the "requirement" of implementing DRM could be an extra part of the development cycle, but most of that work is contracted out to starforce etc. The cost of other parts of development far outweighs this anyway. I agree that if software were to go to a freer copyright protection model you might see this, but only temporarily.
<!--quoteo(post=1705392:date=Apr 21 2009, 11:37 AM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Apr 21 2009, 11:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705392"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's your speculation. My speculation is that fewer triple A titles are being made on the PC because it doesn't have as large an audience as any given console. This isn't really new.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> PC having a smaller buying audience is the word. With more people buying we've got more audience that matters to the publishers.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is just nonsensical. Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Halflife 2 and Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Command and Conquer whatever, The Sims whatever, Spore expansion whatever. And that's just off the top of my head from 3 major gaming companies. Also NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Surprisingly enough the top selling titles get the sequels. However, with more sales we could actually get some sequels outside Blizzard, Valve and EA top 5 sellers. Those companies make some good games, but apart from Valve they're in no way pioneers in the game content.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't seen any more companies going out of business recently. Considering the vg market continues to show significant growth each year I'd say the money is there for makers of good games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Some games sell extremely well, but it gets more and more focused into the few mainstream titles. Half Life, WoW, EA Sports, Spore and Sims. Also note that the VG market != PC games. A lot of attention goes to consoles, because there isn't as much piracy.
Many absolutely brilliant games don't sell that good. If selling few more copies means difference in some smaller studios surviving, I'm more than willing to buy all the games they've got. For example The Looking Glass studios went down because not enough games were sold. Potentially losing studios of that calibre partitially because of piracy scares me.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
edited April 2009
<!--quoteo(post=1705404:date=Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705404"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Surprisingly enough the top selling titles get the sequels. However, with more sales we could actually get some sequels outside Blizzard, Valve and EA top 5 sellers. Those companies make some good games, but apart from Valve they're in no way pioneers in the game content.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's if you assume the people who copyright infringed the game would have bought it otherwise. I don't think this is the case for the majority of copyright infringers. <!--quoteo(post=1705404:date=Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705404"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Some games sell extremely well, but it gets more and more focused into the few mainstream titles. Half Life, WoW, EA Sports, Spore and Sims. Also note that the VG market != PC games. A lot of attention goes to consoles, because there isn't as much piracy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's hard to find any good statistics for pc sales alone because they don't measure digital distribution.
You're not going to find a triple A title from a non mainstream producer. You can find games with arguably as good if not better gameplay(which are often posted and reposted here), but the scope and graphic intensive nature of those games require a large sum of money to produce. And there are sequels to non-triple A titles as well. Penny-Arcade's game, Sins of a Solar Empire(and its upcoming expansion), geneforge, etc. It's all a question of how good the game is compared to the money spent on it. <!--quoteo(post=1705404:date=Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705404"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Many absolutely brilliant games don't sell that good. If selling few more copies means difference in some smaller studios surviving, I'm more than willing to buy all the games they've got. For example The Looking Glass studios went down because not enough games were sold. Potentially losing studios of that calibre partitially because of piracy scares me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is true, but that's been happening for ages and blaming it on copyright infringement is just using a scape goat. Most games that don't sell well aren't infringed upon either.
<!--quoteo(post=1705409:date=Apr 21 2009, 03:57 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Apr 21 2009, 03:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705409"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is true, but that's been happening for ages and blaming it on copyright infringement is just using scape goat. Most games that don't sell well aren't infringed upon either.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I've got the picture that there's quite a bit of copyright infringements on the smaller names too. I'll post sources if I come across to any. The point is that those smaller studios are struggling even without the piracy taking a share of their income. That share can mean the difference between brilliant games getting published or studios being driven down.
Of course this brings us back to the lack of statistics to prove anyone right about the effects of piracy.
I'm a pirate and a damn proud one. However, I do buy for the games I judge good enought, like the Orange Box,Warcraft 3:TFT or Fallout 3.
Games must impress me to make me buy them. I must think "Wow, the game makers <i>deserve</i> money". If NS2 will be really as moddable as they say, I'd be more glad than ever to buy it. I'm going to wait a discount week before, though.
Aniways, most of the games, however don't give me that impression: the developers don't show that they apreciate customers, for example by making the game not moddable or simply dumbing down the game to a retarded level (see Spore).
This last error occurs quite a lot, the developers of a game make the game much simple "to make it more appealing to random-gamers". That's a very big marketing error, and every manager who believes it's a right procedure should be shot in the moment.
Let's compare random-gamers and pro-gamers with 7-years-old and 11 years-old kids. The 7-years-old base their concept of "coolness" on what their older brothers/friends think, and so trying to make something appeal specifically to 7-years-old is very hard. Instead, it would be much better to make it appeal to older kids: the younger ones will see their friends with the cool toys and probably they will want them too out of envy.
The concept is similar with random-gamers and pro-gamers: the random-gamers will see the pro-gamers play and they will want to look like them. However, if the game is mainly for the random-gamers, when they will buy it, they will start to understand how retarded the game is and it will lose appeal quickly. A game has to be easy, yet with a lot of potential, like chess. Chess is a good example: it can be easy or extremely difficult, it all depends on your skills.
In the end, I believe it's wrong marketing strategies and game concepts that are ruining the industry, not the piracy.
Oh yeah, I forgot: <b>GOOD GRAPHICS DO NOT FRIGGIN AUTOMATICALLY CREATE UP A GOOD GAME</b>
<!--quoteo(post=1705392:date=Apr 21 2009, 12:37 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Apr 21 2009, 12:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705392"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's your speculation. My speculation is that fewer triple A titles are being made on the PC because it doesn't have as large an audience as any given console. This isn't really new.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's very difficult to compare audiences on the PC because the PC isn't static like a console. Things like the Steam Hardware Survey give you a bit of an idea of how many people can run the latest games, but it's not representative of overall numbers.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is just nonsensical. Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Halflife 2 and Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Command and Conquer whatever, The Sims whatever, Spore expansion whatever. And that's just off the top of my head from 3 major gaming companies. Also NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Who publishes those games, and what other games do they make? The reason I ask this is because if you look at the publishers they usually do a lot of tat as well as those big games. Blizzard is joined with Activision, C&C and Spore are published by EA. I don't think you'de argue that Activision. Also Blizzard is a slightly special case as it has made one of the biggest grossing games/series of all time (WoW) and uses a different business model that protects that game from piracy. Valve still takes part in the publishing process via Steam distribution, and there's a lot of tat on Steam as well as the good stuff. Also Valve is mostly protected from piracy via DRM.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't seen any more companies going out of business recently. Considering the vg market continues to show significant growth each year I'd say the money is there for makers of good games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Where did UWE's Max used to work? What happened to Iron Lore? It went out of business. Why? One of their developers <a href="http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=42663" target="_blank">cites piracy</a> for bad publicity and poor sales, a major contributing factor to the studio's death. It couldn't be closer to home and this was in the past two years. We know Max is a talented developer, he's luckily made it through, but what happened to all his colleagues at Iron Lore?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't seen this either. I suppose you could argue the "requirement" of implementing DRM could be an extra part of the development cycle, but most of that work is contracted out to starforce etc. The cost of other parts of development far outweighs this anyway. I agree that if software were to go to a freer copyright protection model you might see this, but only temporarily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Again, I point to publishers. They do the umpteenth sports licence, the movie tie-ins, the sub-par sequels. Piracy undermines the big titles so badly that they feel the need to
Also <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=129" target="_blank">this article</a>, also linked from the TweakGuides article, shows one of the impacts of piracy on development costs: customer support. There is absolutely no doubt that piracy is to blame here, just read the article and the guy is explaining that 1 out of every 6 calls he was getting for Sin:Emergence is from someone who has pirated the game, calls that are basically <i>wasting his time</i>, because they are for problems that were already fixed in Steam patches. There's even another guy that was giving him false information because he didn't want him to find out he had a pirated copy, so he was just leading him on a wild goose chase for 7 hours.
Some interesting links there. Good job bringing new views to the thread <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Edit: Hmm, followed link to another and ect.
This quote just struct my mind:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Below are the results of Reflexive.com sales and downloads immediately following each update:
Fix 1 – Existing Exploits & Keygens made obsolete – <b>Sales up 70%</b>, Downloads down 33%
Fix 2 – Existing Keygens made obsolete – Sales down slightly, Downloads flat
Fix 4 – Keygens made game-specific – Sales up 13%, Downloads down 16% (note: fix made after the release of Ricochet Infinity)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If that's even halfway valid information... Doesn't look like those people were not going to buy that game anyway. And we are not even talking about a major title there. I've got no idea how valid that info for anything, but I'll sure look more into it tomorrow.
To quote the key part of the pieces bacillus was looking at (and the inevitable conclusion of the research) rather than misinterpretating the numbers:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As we believe that we are decreasing the number of pirates downloading the game with our DRM fixes, combining the increased sales number together with the decreased downloads, we find 1 additional sale for every 1,000 less pirated downloads. Put another way, for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.
Though many of the pirates may be simply shifting to another source of games for their illegal activities, the number is nonetheless striking and poignant. The sales to download ratio found on Reflexive implies that a pirated copy is more similar to the loss of a download (a poorly converting one!) than the loss of a sale.
Though that doesn’t make a 92% piracy rate of one of our banner products any less distressing, knowing that eliminating 50,000 pirated copies might only produce 50 additional legal copies does help put things in perspective.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> and <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Conclusion
The 1000:1 ratio is really, I think, the key takeaway of the article. Several people have grasped that and started applying it to different numbers in the industry, and the results are very disappointing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
taken from the article and it's companion piece follow up: <a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinion_casual_games_and_pirac.php" target="_blank">http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinio...s_and_pirac.php</a> <a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinion_piracy_casual_games_-.php" target="_blank">http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinio...ual_games_-.php</a>
:3
<b>edit:</b> It might be worth me pointing this out: I don't condone piracy, nor do I pirate games myself (anime on the other hand...) I <b>do</b> however believe that anti-piracy isn't the big pay-off that many anti-pirate campaigners think it will be. You'll never get the money out of the 92%, heck you'll probably never even get the 1% you were after :/
I don't really understand how those numbers have been worked out. It might show the percentage of new downloads decreasing, but what about the supporting info. E.g. they could have shown their web traffic against when they did the fixes to show the traffic was not just dropping off naturally. I don't know when the fixes were done, but Alexa doesn't seem to show a significant drop off in traffic anywhere. I'm not sure what hypothesis that supports though.
Also this is only an example of casual games. Hardcore games have hardcore gamers, who would likely look to the hardcore sources of free product: the cracks. None of the fixes they mentioned were making them crackproof (which is basically impossible).
Basically I think there is just as little info for this as when 2D Boy announced a 90% piracy rate. I want to see trends, web traffic, download page traffic, whether certain search terms (e.g. richochet infinity crack) became less popular, if marketing for that game was reduced around the same time, if the game 'fell onto the second page'. Stuff like that also affects the amount of people that will get to see the game before making that decision.
That certainly puts the "if it's good, I'll buy it" argument in perspective as well though. I mean, it seems like those numbers indicate that the people who pirate games will never buy them, even if that's the only way to play them.
Well yeh, I eyeballed that article quickly through and went to sleep that night, looks like I misinterpreted heavily.
Nevertheless that 90% rate is ridiculous. A lot of people aren't willing to buy the game because the can just pick another 'free' game if one gets secured.
Think about a concert where 90% of the audience sneaked in through a hole in the fence.
I think another potential issue with the research is that the pirates may have been downloading from untracked sources as well and, depending on the game, some may also have avoided contacting their server as part of the cracking process. So in essence, there could be an unknown number more pirates :o
the 90% or whatnot numbers that pop up for this stuff are 'impressive' but the simple issue is that I doubt that the DRM route employed in most cases makes a significant dent in it. Worse still, things like Titan Quest got a rep for being buggy due to word of mouth from pirates caused by anti-piracy DRM that was indistinguishable from a crash: the DRM actually cost them sales in the end.
Things like steam which offer the user advantages and convenience are a step in a better direction in my mind (it also acts as a non-intrusive DRM). MMO games still suffer from pirate servers but again, the numbers are probably reduced (total hypothesis though, I have no numbers to back up that belief). In places like asia, where piracy rates are considerably higher, free to play with in-game cash shops has become quite common as a method to circumvent piracy; the game itself is free so there's no initial cost for pirates to get around.
Essentially, I think if you want to release a game with the retail payment and delivery method you're going to have to face the fact that you're going to get pirated to heck and back and the DRM won't do much about it. If you want to circumvent this 'brave new world' of digital copy then you're going to have to try something a little different :p
So, the way it seems to me is that 'most' piracy seems to be the equivalent of going into a video store where everything is free. They don't necessarily have an idea of what they want, they'll just try out what they like the sound of from whatever selection of free goods they have in front of them.
Then there's the more selective pirates: the 'connaisseurs' who actively look for pirated versions of particular games because they know a little more about which games are good and which are not. But the emphasis is still on 'free' rather than 'pirated' software because that is the mindset at work.
P.S. The dates of the fixes in Gem's second link aren't covered by the Alexa traffic data, it doesn't go back to 2007. So you'd need traffic data from the owners of the site to show how many people were coming to the website versus how many people were downloading.
LikuI, am the Somberlain.Join Date: 2003-01-10Member: 12128Members
<!--quoteo(post=1705493:date=Apr 22 2009, 07:09 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 22 2009, 07:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705493"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Then there's the more selective pirates: the 'connaisseurs' who actively look for pirated versions of particular games because they know a little more about which games are good and which are not. But the emphasis is still on 'free' rather than 'pirated' software because that is the mindset at work.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And if they think "pirated" they're going to have a change of heart? No, doesn't work that way. People just don't care, they do what's most convenient for them. Not paying is a pretty sweet plus though.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A lawyer representing one of the men convicted in the Pirate Bay trial has called for a retrial after reports that the judge was a member of the same copyright protection organisations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I really hope so. Apparently the facts are not in dispute: He really is a member of both SFU, SFIR and .SE (though I'm not sure why the last one matters). He should never have taken this case, and his verdict, fair or not, is untrustworthy. I'd say a retrial is in order.
<!--quoteo(post=1705565:date=Apr 23 2009, 05:29 AM:name=Liku)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Liku @ Apr 23 2009, 05:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705565"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And if they think "pirated" they're going to have a change of heart? No, doesn't work that way. People just don't care, they do what's most convenient for them. Not paying is a pretty sweet plus though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It's, on the whole, socially acceptable. If there is ever a time where 'pirates' are treated like lepers or paedophiles, then not as many people would pirate. Only socially reclusive people would pirate or else they would hide their behaviour.
Now obviously leprousy and paedophilia are exaggerations and don't fit the example, but if piracy were ever regarded as bad as stealing from beggars less people would do it. Both are very 'easy' crimes where you get something for free. The difference is how they are perceived. If someone saw you steal the cap/cup from someone on the streets begging, they would be morally outraged. But nobody sees you steal from the pocket of the programmer who's finally coming home from a 12 hour crunch, so it's deemed by some to be morally acceptable simply because it isn't visible.
If you had to go out in the streets to take your game copies from the shops or off the back of lorries most wouldn't do it, because they would be more socially aware of their crime. They be thinking 'What if someone sees me?' - nobody sees you click a button at home, so you feel a lot safer doing it.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1705654:date=Apr 24 2009, 07:20 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 24 2009, 07:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705654"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's, on the whole, socially acceptable. If there is ever a time where 'pirates' are treated like lepers or paedophiles, then not as many people would pirate. Only socially reclusive people would pirate or else they would hide their behaviour.
Now obviously leprousy and paedophilia are exaggerations and don't fit the example, but if piracy were ever regarded as bad as stealing from beggars less people would do it. Both are very 'easy' crimes where you get something for free. The difference is how they are perceived. If someone saw you steal the cap/cup from someone on the streets begging, they would be morally outraged. But nobody sees you steal from the pocket of the programmer who's finally coming home from a 12 hour crunch, so it's deemed by some to be morally acceptable simply because it isn't visible.
If you had to go out in the streets to take your game copies from the shops or off the back of lorries most wouldn't do it, because they would be more socially aware of their crime. They be thinking 'What if someone sees me?' - nobody sees you click a button at home, so you feel a lot safer doing it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Except it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement.
Comments
I think the biggest way to combat piracy is to educate people about how piracy could be affecting the makers of their favourite games, definitely to provide decent-length demos, and to refrain from heavy-handed DRM. If a game always has a demo available before launch that provides a decent amount of gameplay (i.e. not a tutorial level, not a single short level, something more than just 10 minutes of original gameplay) and that can be downloaded quickly, the whole argument of 'try before you buy' is thrown out of the window.
Remove intrusive DRM and you remove most of the "I want a DRM-free version" argument. After doing these two things, the only figures left for piracy will be those who are doing it out of laziness, who "can't afford games" (a flimsy argument at best and essentially the same category as the first) or those who subscribe to some sort of 'free-market' ideal.
Once you get to this point you can get a much more accurate figure of the effects of piracy on the industry in terms of potential lost sales and you can actually start to educate people on how piracy is harming the industry with some accurate figures. Right now there are too many arguments to hide behind that are symptoms of poor publihsing. Increase the service you can provide and then you can go on the attack against piracy, but while you are a contributing factor it's very hard to convince anyone they might be doing wrong.
I'm pretty sure most wouldn't give a sh*t.
It's a little <i>niave</i> to assume that people will suddenly start caring about something they've been ignoring previously because you can prove it causes harm. Heck knows, cigarette packets have big signs saying "THIS WILL KILL YOU" taking up half the packet and people still do it, the idea that the pirates will suddenly stop their pirating activities because, for the theory of this example, you could prove that 'the man' is losing % sales seems a bit flawed.
My course was a games-oriented course and the vast majority of those who completed it (myself included) went on to work in the games industry, yet it was an absolute hotbed of piracy because it had those who had the knowledge of where to get copies or how to make them :p
I even know a good few people currently in the industry who still indulge in less than legal matters when it comes to games... I know a few R4 owners who use it ROM the latest games, Hacked PSPs gallore playing old ROMs of games people never owned and the like. How can you expect to convince people it's harming the industry when the people in it are indulging in such activity themselves? :o
As people have discussed before, it's hard to prove or disprove if DRM works but until I see proof otherwise I'm highly inclined to believe that the larger part of piracy has little effect on a games full earnings. It just means there's more players on it than those who bought it.
This said, I have no issues with things like steam as they're not inconvienent and provide a service in addition to a 'game protection' system.
With cloud computing and things like MMOs becoming more common I'm rather curious what the future holds in regards to this stuff though. It won't affect the music/film industry stuff but it may change how some games work :3
The whole piracy argument reminds me of another issue often brought up by the games industry and that's the matter of Used sales. I find these more interesting as stores are often eager to sell used and will try and convince buyers who show willingness to buy the fully priced product to purchase a used copy instead, which the devs get no cut of. Again, there's people who buy used who wouldn't have bought the game at full price, but it shows they're willing to spend that much and perhaps they would buy it after it's been out a while and the price has dropped.
They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
They deserve everything they get coming to them, but the sad truth is the measures probably won't go far enough or create enough of an impact.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...
They aren't The Scene, they're a whole different kettle of fish who have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... they ... have monetised hacking culture and made it work for them.
...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...hacking culture...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1705131:date=Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 17 2009, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705131"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...<b>hacking culture</b>...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
what
If you can show that games aren't getting sequels at all because the first one was pirated to ######, people might care. (This already happens)
If you can show that companies are going out of business because of the impacts of piracy on their games, people might care. (This already happens)
If you can show that in order to keep the price of a game the same, the development cycle (and in most cases, the quality) of games must be reduced to reduce the effect of piracy, people might care.</b> (This already happens)
The only reason people wouldn't give a damn is if they are ignorant or stupid, or are 'fighting' for some sort of idealised free market system where market forces don't affect price, or where you are not charged for 'art' but somehow artists are able to dedicate themselves to their craft without making money from it to support them. I don't think all casual pirates are in the last categories, I think most are in the first, I think most are just ignoring the ramifications of their actions because 'everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay, yeah?'.
Like I said, all of the above already happens, there's just not enough clearcut evidence to convince people that piracy is wrong. Once some of the more acceptable arguments for piracy are removed (demos are crap, DRM sucks) you can actually point to these examples and say what you are part of has done this.
Piracy surely does affect the industry: how can you budget development for 1000 sales and then only sell 100 while 900 are obtained for free? What happens when you make your next game, do you spend less time and money on it, or do you charge more for it? Or do you put adverts in it? Or do you sell it to a bunch of people who aren't as in touch with piracy methods? Or do you try to protect yourself with DRM? Or do you forget about that genre altogether and make a subscription-based MMO? Or do you sell it via an online store that requires you to be connected to play the game? All of this is happening because people don't want to deal with piracy, they can't deal with piracy. If they ignored its effects, like the pirates do, the industry would be in chaos, there would be no forward movement. Even now most progress is dependant on a very few innovative titles, which is crap because there are many hurdles that could stop those titles from making it.
Piracy isn't a new thing, it's just a bigger thing now that more people buy games and the methods of piracy are more wide-reaching and accessible. Therefore the effects are much more substantial. Those numbers above are just an example, scale up those numbers by 1,000 or 10,000 and you've got a lot of money being spent on making a game and a very difficult way of predicting reliable sales figures: the sort that keep your company in business or dictate how much you can spend on your next game. We're starting to see the <i>Hollywoodisation</i> model, where you depend on 1 out of every 10 games being a blockbuster, and your churn out formulaic trash just to play the numbers.
I don't want to be the sort of hypocrite that complains about the scarcity of good games while taking money out of the development pool. So if I can't afford a game, I don't buy it, or I buy it and play it on passable graphics without spending money on an upgrade, but I certainly don't steal it. And if I don't know if a game's good enough, I read some reliable (and FREE!!1) online reviews from dependable journalists. I do this because I know if I pirate that game 'just to take a peek', or 'until I have the cash to buy it', I will end up convincing myself later that I still don't have the money to buy it, but it's okay because if I don't have the money to buy it then I haven't stolen anything, right? And then I'll recommend it to my friend and tell them they could buy it for this price, but I just torrented it, and they'll torrent it, and so on.
So I don't do that because it's a vicious cycle. Even if you would never have been able to buy the game, somewhere along the line you are endorsing lost sales. And I choose not to do this because I do have a choice, and every choice I make has an effect on the world around me. I just don't see the point in pretending my actions don't have any effect, that's just ignorant.
P.S. Hacking culture is effectively the 'Warez Scene' or '<a href="http://www.aboutthescene.com/thescene/index.html" target="_blank">The Scene</a>'. While it's very difficult to pin down who 'The Scene' is and what it believes anymore, from my understanding it was all about sharing its work without making a profit from it. It was open to its members, but private to anyone else who may have wanted to make a profit from it. So files within the scene were usually distributed from secure file servers. The 'culture' was mainly about technological prowess and sharing of information. A lot of hacker groups now, as in the people who actually hack the originals, still distribute their work with messages asking that if you like what you've seen, you still go out and buy the game.
P.P.S. <a href="http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/07/25/on-open-source-and-piracy/" target="_blank">Piracy hurts Open Source?</a>
Naive! It's spelled naive! GRAH! I can't take it anymore!
The scene/hacking culture refers to the 'good old days' of hacking where everything was lollipops and BBSes. It was considered back then to be some how honorable, and people where in it for the challenge more than anything else. TPB obviously are simply a bunch of profiteering jerks who have exploited the clean and innocent Scene in favor of money at no real risk or challenge to themselves.
Also, crispy, the flaw in your argument of education is this:
Those majority of people who would care about those facts you placed out would have already stopped pirating because all of the companies suddenly grew a set and started releasing decent demos (I am still convinced that demos don't get released because they have no confidence in their product), and they have removed horribly intrusive DRM. All that are left are the people that have the "me me me" mentality, and that isn't going to be stopped by a little bit of knowledge (all of this knowledge is already out there and very available to just about any one who wants it).
That's your speculation. My speculation is that fewer triple A titles are being made on the PC because it doesn't have as large an audience as any given console. This isn't really new.
<!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that games aren't getting sequels at all because the first one was copyright infringed to ######, people might care. (This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is just nonsensical. Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Halflife 2 and Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Command and Conquer whatever, The Sims whatever, Spore expansion whatever. And that's just off the top of my head from 3 major gaming companies. Also NS2.
<!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that companies are going out of business because of the impacts of copyright infringement on their games, people might care. (This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't seen any more companies going out of business recently. Considering the vg market continues to show significant growth each year I'd say the money is there for makers of good games.
<!--quoteo(post=1705385:date=Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Apr 21 2009, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705385"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can show that in order to keep the price of a game the same, the development cycle (and in most cases, the quality) of games must be reduced to reduce the effect of copyright infringement, people might care.(This already happens)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't seen this either. I suppose you could argue the "requirement" of implementing DRM could be an extra part of the development cycle, but most of that work is contracted out to starforce etc. The cost of other parts of development far outweighs this anyway. I agree that if software were to go to a freer copyright protection model you might see this, but only temporarily.
PC having a smaller buying audience is the word. With more people buying we've got more audience that matters to the publishers.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is just nonsensical. Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Halflife 2 and Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Command and Conquer whatever, The Sims whatever, Spore expansion whatever. And that's just off the top of my head from 3 major gaming companies. Also NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Surprisingly enough the top selling titles get the sequels. However, with more sales we could actually get some sequels outside Blizzard, Valve and EA top 5 sellers. Those companies make some good games, but apart from Valve they're in no way pioneers in the game content.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't seen any more companies going out of business recently. Considering the vg market continues to show significant growth each year I'd say the money is there for makers of good games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some games sell extremely well, but it gets more and more focused into the few mainstream titles. Half Life, WoW, EA Sports, Spore and Sims. Also note that the VG market != PC games. A lot of attention goes to consoles, because there isn't as much piracy.
Many absolutely brilliant games don't sell that good. If selling few more copies means difference in some smaller studios surviving, I'm more than willing to buy all the games they've got. For example The Looking Glass studios went down because not enough games were sold. Potentially losing studios of that calibre partitially because of piracy scares me.
That's if you assume the people who copyright infringed the game would have bought it otherwise. I don't think this is the case for the majority of copyright infringers.
<!--quoteo(post=1705404:date=Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705404"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Some games sell extremely well, but it gets more and more focused into the few mainstream titles. Half Life, WoW, EA Sports, Spore and Sims. Also note that the VG market != PC games. A lot of attention goes to consoles, because there isn't as much piracy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's hard to find any good statistics for pc sales alone because they don't measure digital distribution.
You're not going to find a triple A title from a non mainstream producer. You can find games with arguably as good if not better gameplay(which are often posted and reposted here), but the scope and graphic intensive nature of those games require a large sum of money to produce. And there are sequels to non-triple A titles as well. Penny-Arcade's game, Sins of a Solar Empire(and its upcoming expansion), geneforge, etc. It's all a question of how good the game is compared to the money spent on it.
<!--quoteo(post=1705404:date=Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 21 2009, 09:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705404"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Many absolutely brilliant games don't sell that good. If selling few more copies means difference in some smaller studios surviving, I'm more than willing to buy all the games they've got. For example The Looking Glass studios went down because not enough games were sold. Potentially losing studios of that calibre partitially because of piracy scares me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is true, but that's been happening for ages and blaming it on copyright infringement is just using a scape goat. Most games that don't sell well aren't infringed upon either.
I've got the picture that there's quite a bit of copyright infringements on the smaller names too. I'll post sources if I come across to any. The point is that those smaller studios are struggling even without the piracy taking a share of their income. That share can mean the difference between brilliant games getting published or studios being driven down.
Of course this brings us back to the lack of statistics to prove anyone right about the effects of piracy.
However, I do buy for the games I judge good enought, like the Orange Box,Warcraft 3:TFT or Fallout 3.
Games must impress me to make me buy them. I must think "Wow, the game makers <i>deserve</i> money".
If NS2 will be really as moddable as they say, I'd be more glad than ever to buy it.
I'm going to wait a discount week before, though.
Aniways, most of the games, however don't give me that impression: the developers don't show that they apreciate customers, for example by making the game not moddable or simply dumbing down the game to a retarded level (see Spore).
This last error occurs quite a lot, the developers of a game make the game much simple "to make it more appealing to random-gamers". That's a very big marketing error, and every manager who believes it's a right procedure should be shot in the moment.
Let's compare random-gamers and pro-gamers with 7-years-old and 11 years-old kids.
The 7-years-old base their concept of "coolness" on what their older brothers/friends think, and so trying to make something appeal specifically to 7-years-old is very hard. Instead, it would be much better to make it appeal to older kids: the younger ones will see their friends with the cool toys and probably they will want them too out of envy.
The concept is similar with random-gamers and pro-gamers: the random-gamers will see the pro-gamers play and they will want to look like them. However, if the game is mainly for the random-gamers, when they will buy it, they will start to understand how retarded the game is and it will lose appeal quickly.
A game has to be easy, yet with a lot of potential, like chess. Chess is a good example: it can be easy or extremely difficult, it all depends on your skills.
In the end, I believe it's wrong marketing strategies and game concepts that are ruining the industry, not the piracy.
Oh yeah, I forgot:
<b>GOOD GRAPHICS DO NOT FRIGGIN AUTOMATICALLY CREATE UP A GOOD GAME</b>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is just nonsensical. Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Halflife 2 and Episode 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, Command and Conquer whatever, The Sims whatever, Spore expansion whatever. And that's just off the top of my head from 3 major gaming companies. Also NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Who publishes those games, and what other games do they make? The reason I ask this is because if you look at the publishers they usually do a lot of tat as well as those big games. Blizzard is joined with Activision, C&C and Spore are published by EA. I don't think you'de argue that Activision. Also Blizzard is a slightly special case as it has made one of the biggest grossing games/series of all time (WoW) and uses a different business model that protects that game from piracy. Valve still takes part in the publishing process via Steam distribution, and there's a lot of tat on Steam as well as the good stuff. Also Valve is mostly protected from piracy via DRM.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't seen any more companies going out of business recently. Considering the vg market continues to show significant growth each year I'd say the money is there for makers of good games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Where did UWE's Max used to work? What happened to Iron Lore? It went out of business. Why? One of their developers <a href="http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=42663" target="_blank">cites piracy</a> for bad publicity and poor sales, a major contributing factor to the studio's death. It couldn't be closer to home and this was in the past two years. We know Max is a talented developer, he's luckily made it through, but what happened to all his colleagues at Iron Lore?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't seen this either. I suppose you could argue the "requirement" of implementing DRM could be an extra part of the development cycle, but most of that work is contracted out to starforce etc. The cost of other parts of development far outweighs this anyway. I agree that if software were to go to a freer copyright protection model you might see this, but only temporarily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Again, I point to publishers. They do the umpteenth sports licence, the movie tie-ins, the sub-par sequels. Piracy undermines the big titles so badly that they feel the need to
Also <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=129" target="_blank">this article</a>, also linked from the TweakGuides article, shows one of the impacts of piracy on development costs: customer support. There is absolutely no doubt that piracy is to blame here, just read the article and the guy is explaining that 1 out of every 6 calls he was getting for Sin:Emergence is from someone who has pirated the game, calls that are basically <i>wasting his time</i>, because they are for problems that were already fixed in Steam patches. There's even another guy that was giving him false information because he didn't want him to find out he had a pirated copy, so he was just leading him on a wild goose chase for 7 hours.
Edit: Hmm, followed link to another and ect.
This quote just struct my mind:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Below are the results of Reflexive.com sales and downloads immediately following each update:
Fix 1 – Existing Exploits & Keygens made obsolete – <b>Sales up 70%</b>, Downloads down 33%
Fix 2 – Existing Keygens made obsolete – Sales down slightly, Downloads flat
Fix 3 – Existing Cracks made obsolete – Sales flat, Downloads flat
Fix 4 – Keygens made game-specific – Sales up 13%, Downloads down 16% (note: fix made after the release of Ricochet Infinity)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Source: <a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinion_casual_games_and_pirac.php" target="_blank">http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinio...s_and_pirac.php</a>
If that's even halfway valid information... Doesn't look like those people were not going to buy that game anyway. And we are not even talking about a major title there. I've got no idea how valid that info for anything, but I'll sure look more into it tomorrow.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As we believe that we are decreasing the number of pirates downloading the game with our DRM fixes, combining the increased sales number together with the decreased downloads, we find 1 additional sale for every 1,000 less pirated downloads. Put another way, for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.
Though many of the pirates may be simply shifting to another source of games for their illegal activities, the number is nonetheless striking and poignant. The sales to download ratio found on Reflexive implies that a pirated copy is more similar to the loss of a download (a poorly converting one!) than the loss of a sale.
Though that doesn’t make a 92% piracy rate of one of our banner products any less distressing, knowing that eliminating 50,000 pirated copies might only produce 50 additional legal copies does help put things in perspective.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Conclusion
The 1000:1 ratio is really, I think, the key takeaway of the article. Several people have grasped that and started applying it to different numbers in the industry, and the results are very disappointing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
taken from the article and it's companion piece follow up:
<a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinion_casual_games_and_pirac.php" target="_blank">http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinio...s_and_pirac.php</a>
<a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinion_piracy_casual_games_-.php" target="_blank">http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/02/opinio...ual_games_-.php</a>
:3
<b>edit:</b> It might be worth me pointing this out: I don't condone piracy, nor do I pirate games myself (anime on the other hand...) I <b>do</b> however believe that anti-piracy isn't the big pay-off that many anti-pirate campaigners think it will be. You'll never get the money out of the 92%, heck you'll probably never even get the 1% you were after :/
<a href="http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ricochetinfinity.com%2F" target="_blank">http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http%3A%2F%2...infinity.com%2F</a>
Also this is only an example of casual games. Hardcore games have hardcore gamers, who would likely look to the hardcore sources of free product: the cracks. None of the fixes they mentioned were making them crackproof (which is basically impossible).
Basically I think there is just as little info for this as when 2D Boy announced a 90% piracy rate. I want to see trends, web traffic, download page traffic, whether certain search terms (e.g. richochet infinity crack) became less popular, if marketing for that game was reduced around the same time, if the game 'fell onto the second page'. Stuff like that also affects the amount of people that will get to see the game before making that decision.
Nevertheless that 90% rate is ridiculous. A lot of people aren't willing to buy the game because the can just pick another 'free' game if one gets secured.
Think about a concert where 90% of the audience sneaked in through a hole in the fence.
the 90% or whatnot numbers that pop up for this stuff are 'impressive' but the simple issue is that I doubt that the DRM route employed in most cases makes a significant dent in it. Worse still, things like Titan Quest got a rep for being buggy due to word of mouth from pirates caused by anti-piracy DRM that was indistinguishable from a crash: the DRM actually cost them sales in the end.
Things like steam which offer the user advantages and convenience are a step in a better direction in my mind (it also acts as a non-intrusive DRM). MMO games still suffer from pirate servers but again, the numbers are probably reduced (total hypothesis though, I have no numbers to back up that belief).
In places like asia, where piracy rates are considerably higher, free to play with in-game cash shops has become quite common as a method to circumvent piracy; the game itself is free so there's no initial cost for pirates to get around.
Essentially, I think if you want to release a game with the retail payment and delivery method you're going to have to face the fact that you're going to get pirated to heck and back and the DRM won't do much about it. If you want to circumvent this 'brave new world' of digital copy then you're going to have to try something a little different :p
Then there's the more selective pirates: the 'connaisseurs' who actively look for pirated versions of particular games because they know a little more about which games are good and which are not. But the emphasis is still on 'free' rather than 'pirated' software because that is the mindset at work.
P.S. The dates of the fixes in Gem's second link aren't covered by the Alexa traffic data, it doesn't go back to 2007. So you'd need traffic data from the owners of the site to show how many people were coming to the website versus how many people were downloading.
And if they think "pirated" they're going to have a change of heart? No, doesn't work that way. People just don't care, they do what's most convenient for them. Not paying is a pretty sweet plus though.
<a href="http://www.thelocal.se/19028.html" target="_blank">http://www.thelocal.se/19028.html</a>
edit: I accidentally the link >.>
If there's any substance to those claims, that's a pretty giant miscarriage of justice there.
haha, round 2 coming up
Now obviously leprousy and paedophilia are exaggerations and don't fit the example, but if piracy were ever regarded as bad as stealing from beggars less people would do it. Both are very 'easy' crimes where you get something for free. The difference is how they are perceived. If someone saw you steal the cap/cup from someone on the streets begging, they would be morally outraged. But nobody sees you steal from the pocket of the programmer who's finally coming home from a 12 hour crunch, so it's deemed by some to be morally acceptable simply because it isn't visible.
If you had to go out in the streets to take your game copies from the shops or off the back of lorries most wouldn't do it, because they would be more socially aware of their crime. They be thinking 'What if someone sees me?' - nobody sees you click a button at home, so you feel a lot safer doing it.
Now obviously leprousy and paedophilia are exaggerations and don't fit the example, but if piracy were ever regarded as bad as stealing from beggars less people would do it. Both are very 'easy' crimes where you get something for free. The difference is how they are perceived. If someone saw you steal the cap/cup from someone on the streets begging, they would be morally outraged. But nobody sees you steal from the pocket of the programmer who's finally coming home from a 12 hour crunch, so it's deemed by some to be morally acceptable simply because it isn't visible.
If you had to go out in the streets to take your game copies from the shops or off the back of lorries most wouldn't do it, because they would be more socially aware of their crime. They be thinking 'What if someone sees me?' - nobody sees you click a button at home, so you feel a lot safer doing it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement.