Possible solution to pc piracy.

As alot of us have probably noticed by now,pc gaming is getting shafted for two reasons,no need for extensive support and modifications for various systems,resulting in less cost for the developer,and piracy.Piracy is a big pain in the ass for most developers that cant sustain themselves as easily as say for example,EA.So im just thinking about the potential of blue ray,and how it can effect games.

For example : my alienware pc has about 2 TB of hard drive space,1 tb from my old pc and an external one too,a blue ray disc has a maximum disc capacity of 45-50 gigs and only one game has ever maxed the limit (MGS4 if i recall) so installation isn't much of a problem.0Ok...headshot,what's your point?Well hypothetical questioner my point is that piracy occurs can we can download games,with a 24 meg connection downloading a game like world in conflict wouldn't be a hassle for me,it's only about 3 gigs compressed i think,but try downloading 50 gigs with a 24 meg connection and you're not going to be willing to put the time into it,even at barely above minimum wage you can afford the game faster than you could download it.So basically the solution to piracy is possibly the replacement of dvds with blue ray discs,thus increasing the game size limit and motivating pc developers to return to the pc knowing that piracy will be at a very small rate.What do you think?

PS*this would happen in approximately 2-3 years.

They should release games on locked thumbdrives. You will need the drive in the USB port in order to play the game. You will also need to install a driver for each game, which allows the game to be played from the thumb-drive.

That's my idea.

As games become larger internet connections become faster. Games won't become 50 gigs only because the discs they're on are that large, even if a game is that large it's probably due to not being compressed in which case pirates could just compress it and then upload it.

I don't think piracy is something that can be defeated with technology.

This is actually something i've been thinking about for a while now and its a good point. A lot of illegal software sharing is done through Bittorent in this day and age, and I would think with its pure P2P functionality, its not gonna provide high triple-figure download speeds unless there is an absolute abundance on peers connected to you. In addition, i've read stories of ISPs being suspected of throttling P2P traffic which presumably would further constrain the speeds.

Given that, and with sizes of game ROMs ever increasing to 20+ GBs, it indeed looks to become increasingly impractical try downloading them.

While on this subject, though, I have to wonder about experienes with (legal) digital distribution. I'd expect higher download speeds that are bottlenecked by the servers if not your connection, but its still a lot to download and will take some time.

They should release games on locked thumbdrives. You will need the drive in the USB port in order to play the game. You will also need to install a driver for each game, which allows the game to be played from the thumb-drive.

That's my idea.

Boba_Fett_3710

Flash memory is too expensive per GB of storage right now. If/when, it does become practical, I hope it will replace optical media and HDs.

solution to piracy is just make game cheap enough that incentive to copy not much. also good package, manual, goodies include.

charge lots money for sheet of paper and disc in cheap dvd case? lol no. no reason no to just get online.

bang for bucks.

solution to piracy is just make game cheap enough that incentive to copy not much. also good package, manual, goodies include.

charge lots money for sheet of paper and disc in cheap dvd case? lol no. no reason no to just get online.

bang for bucks.

qazwsxedcrfvtbg

You are missing the point. You should be paying for the software, not the actual media it is presented in. When you buy a book, you aren't paying for a pile of paper stuck together on one side, you are paying for the words inside of it.

solution to piracy is just make game cheap enough that incentive to copy not much. also good package, manual, goodies include.

charge lots money for sheet of paper and disc in cheap dvd case? lol no. no reason no to just get online.

bang for bucks.

qazwsxedcrfvtbg

Thats how i used to feel but you have to remember that companies like rockstar for example may release a game once every 2 years.all the employees have to get paid for those 2 years,and that's where the 60 $ price comes in.

I guess this would work, atleast in areas were piracy means downloading instead of going down the block and buying a disc.glacies_diaboli

To be honest piracy is insanely easy if you dont want multiplayer,you can easily rent a game and then crack the install,but no multiplayer really kills it.

I do like the thumb drive idea.

The game itself wouldn't necessarily need to be on the drive though, just a portion of it. So a 16meg thumb drive, which would probably cost less than a three page color manual now a days, could hold a little key program with its own driver that needs to be present to run the game. Then again, pirates could probably find a way to emulate the usb drive, just like they've done with the cd drive, or cut out that code entirely. Then again, I'm neither a hardware buff, nor a hacker...

The game itself wouldn't necessarily need to be on the drive though, just a portion of it. So a 16meg thumb drive, which would probably cost less than a three page color manual now a days, could hold a little key program with its own driver that needs to be present to run the game. Then again, pirates could probably find a way to emulate the usb drive, just like they've done with the cd drive, or cut out that code entirely. Then again, I'm neither a hardware buff, nor a hacker...

KillOBKilled

I like this idea. If they take random elements from of the game, or even parts of files, and encrypt them on a USB flash drive it might slow the pirates down. I've seen 1 GB flash drives for as low as $10. Any distributor should be able to get a good deal for buying flash drives in bulk which would lower the price even further.

This whole thing is based heavily on the assumption that the Nintendo cartridges (Game Boy, DS) are harder to crack due to their hardware oriented nature. If this assumption is acurate then including a hardware aspect to PC game copy protection should help alot. Maybe it would even let them get rid of all of the current software oriented copy proctection that we all know and despise.

If any disrtibutors happen to read this and agree I have an example of what NOT to do. Maya's copy protection incorporates the NIC address into a licence file. This thing is a royal pain the rear to get it reset when I replace my computer. Please DON'T do this.

Making people want to buy your game is what you want to do, not treating them like potential criminals while they are paying money for your product.
foxhound_fox

Boy I love that comment.

BTW, I just finished the painful process of resolving DRM issues with my XBLA games with Microsoft. Wow, what a horrid system. Thank goodness it seems like they're trying to fix it with the new dashboard update.

[QUOTE="foxhound_fox"] Making people want to buy your game is what you want to do, not treating them like potential criminals while they are paying money for your product.
VMan

Boy I love that comment.

BTW, I just finished the painful process of resolving DRM issues with my XBLA games with Microsoft. Wow, what a horrid system. Thank goodness it seems like they're trying to fix it with the new dashboard update.

Could you elaborate a little? I got a new Xbox 360 after my old one broke. I called them up to try to get all my stuff to work offline, but the thing they told me to do did nothing. How did you get that fixed?

[QUOTE="VMan"]

[QUOTE="foxhound_fox"] Making people want to buy your game is what you want to do, not treating them like potential criminals while they are paying money for your product.
AtomicTangerine

Boy I love that comment.

BTW, I just finished the painful process of resolving DRM issues with my XBLA games with Microsoft. Wow, what a horrid system. Thank goodness it seems like they're trying to fix it with the new dashboard update.

Could you elaborate a little? I got a new Xbox 360 after my old one broke. I called them up to try to get all my stuff to work offline, but the thing they told me to do did nothing. How did you get that fixed?

I'm guessing you were advised to simply "redownload" the games? Thats what I was told at first. Unfortunately, the XBLA games you bought are digitally licensed to the actual hardware you bought them with. Your current 360 lacks that license, so Microsoft forces to you login to Xbox Live first to verify you're the user that bought the games before you can play them.

How do you resolve this? You're gonna have to call them back, and your issue is gonna have to be elevated litterally all the way up to a supervisor who has the ability to transfer the license. They are most likely gonna require some sort of verification that you bought a new 360 or exchanged for a new one (I had to fax them a copy of my reciept), and it litterally them over 4 weeks to get back to me.

This is all not to mention the amount of time I spent over the phone explaining my situation, put on hold, etc. I was seriously ticked off at Microsoft for having to go through all that. That had to be one of the most annoying, garbage, piece of crap systems to resolve DRM issues i've ever experienced. It really just made me dislike the idea of digital distribution even more. I paid for those games, and then when your poorly engineered hardware fails on me, you put me through a process that takes over a month just so that my 360 doesn't have to be connected to Live whenever I wanna play them?!?

Screw you! That really ticked me off.

bandwidth is just going to keep expanding.OneWingedAngeI

Even if that happens, that won't necessarily help things (in terms of pro piracy). Like I said earlier, ISPs are beginning to throttle certain types of traffic.

There is no "solution" to piracy. PC, console or handheld. It affects all platforms equally and is terrible for the gaming industry. Unfortunately it is an unstoppable menace that is not halted by copy protection, hoop-jumping DRM or any other anti-piracy method. Pirates just go around the wall instead of being forced to go over it like legal owners.

You want to know how to stop piracy, especially that on the PC? Do what some companies like VALVe, Blizzard and Stardock are, finding another way to bring customers to the door without making them jump through hoops on the way there. One very successful tactic as used by Stardock was giving people who play the game a reason to pay for it, free updates and more community access.

What game developers and publishers need to learn just like the music and movie industries did is that piracy "protection" is impossible, pirates will only circumvent your protection and you will just make the lives of legal owners worse. Making people want to buy your game is what you want to do, not treating them like potential criminals while they are paying money for your product.
foxhound_fox

Valve, Stardock, and Blizzard haven't done anything to stop people from pirating their games. Their stuff is all over torrent sites just the same as everything else. The difference between those companies and others like Crytek is that they are satisfied with their success in the PC market.

Valve, Stardock, and Blizzard haven't done anything to stop people from pirating their games. Their stuff is all over torrent sites just the same as everything else. The difference between those companies and others like Crytek is that they are satisfied with their success in the PC market. H3LLRaiseR

[QUOTE="H3LLRaiseR"]Valve, Stardock, and Blizzard haven't done anything to stop people from pirating their games. Their stuff is all over torrent sites just the same as everything else. The difference between those companies and others like Crytek is that they are satisfied with their success in the PC market. foxhound_fox

WOW is not comparable to other games. MMOs aren't comparable to other games. There would be blood in the streets if anyone tried to sell a singleplayer game that had to be connected to a server at all times.

To my knowledge, pirates can't play on any official servers and you get the same updates whether you buy the game or not.

As I said, they aren't doing anything differently.

What game developers and publishers need to learn just like the music and movie industries did is that piracy "protection" is impossible, pirates will only circumvent your protection and you will just make the lives of legal owners worse. Making people want to buy your game is what you want to do, not treating them like potential criminals while they are paying money for your product.foxhound_fox

That's really all there is to it. Game companies need to stop needlessly obsessing over piracy - especially if their games are successful as it is (looking at you, Infinity Ward and Crytek). Try to make the best game you can and know your audience, get your game out there and present it well, make people think they need to play it.

Blu-Ray isn't going to do anything just like DVD didn't do anything. Games increase in size, but so do Internet connections. Digital distribution is the future of gaming anyway, hell it's very much already a reality for PC gaming. HDD's are the future for game storage devices, not optical discs.

[QUOTE="OneWingedAngeI"]bandwidth is just going to keep expanding.VMan

Even if that happens, that won't necessarily help things (in terms of pro piracy). Like I said earlier, ISPs are beginning to throttle certain types of traffic.

My ISP throttles bandwidth, but it's set at like so many GB in a 24 hour period and so much overall per month. Unless the pirate is downloading hundreds of GB of data a month, I really don't see it affecting them. I know at $40 a month, I'd be pissed if I was throttled for my digital downloads of games and music. Not to mention streaming video, web surfing, and other basics that add to the total downloaded.