If companies want less pirated PC games...
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Meh! People have been pirating games since the BBS/Apple ][ days. Computer gaming has always been dying... :roll:CellAnimationNo, you're wrong. PC gaming is not dying, and in fact is only growing. Consoles are in much better position to die away than PC gaming is. Nice try though.
[QUOTE="CellAnimation"]Meh! People have been pirating games since the BBS/Apple ][ days. Computer gaming has always been dying... :roll:krazyorangeNo, you're wrong. PC gaming is not dying, and in fact is only growing. Consoles are in much better position to die away than PC gaming is. Nice try though. First he was joking. Second how exactly consoles are dying when gamedevelopers lower their attention and product quality for the pc and focus on consoles!! So how the hell consoles are dying but pc does not? That seemed pretty biased to me (No offence;)) unless you can provide a logical explanation!!
$40 is nothing. They are pirated because they are DRM and crap like that.
I think the main reason people pirate a game in my country is because: pc games = $60 and console games = $130
Better yet, base PC games off of the cloud. With requiring internet connectivity, pirates will have a very hard time, if not impossible, cracking the game to play without authorization from the cloud. And by this point, if your internet condition isnt good enough for such games, then that is too bad, because by now, the majority of people have access to stable, decently fast internet. It is time to take this one step further. k0r3aN_pR1d3
You expect us to stream video games, or what? *Does not compute...*
[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]If games were all released at 20$ I'd buy a lot more of them. Killing Floor for instance was.tony2077caif that happened the industry would die Why would it die? They are selling at a lower price but the amount of games they would sell would go way up. Wouldnt that help multiplayer games? Wouldnt that help get the word out on their games? I dont see why it would be a bad thing to lower prices at launch. I mean $40 or $30 as launch prices are way better than $50 and $60. I would like $40 myself. This way prices can float at affordable before dropping to 2-3 year old game price of $20. Also sales (As in OMG 50% off!!) are easier that way. You dont get prices like $33.67 or some other odd number that makes you want to second guess. They can go down easy and rope in more people.
[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"][QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"] I don't think so, look at the iphone app store.farrell2k
those apps takes days to weeks to develop the majority of time. They dont have the millions of dollars and years of effort, not to mention staffs of dozens to hundreds of people, behind them.
Profit margins in software gaming are extremely narrow, even for successful developers with large publishers.
Days and weeks? Right... For iPhone apps? Yes, weeks (under a month)
A pirate is a pirate. Yeah there are things that could be done to help lesson the amount of stuff pirated, but in my opinion that's only going to be a small percentage anyway. Live and learn that there's always "a good reason" that something deserves to be pirated. It cost to much, copy protection, bugs, lame game, no dedecated server support, consumer opinion on the direction they think a game should have taken, to short, future additional content not included in the original game, the publisher sucks.. I could go on forever.
If the industry really wanted to stop piracy they'd simply need to enforce the laws a whole lot more often than they do. It's unpopular on this site i'm sure, but being someone who doesn't pirate stuff I'd have no problem with it. Enforcing the laws might not put an end to it, but it sure would put a big dent in it. Before anyone goes on a rant about sharing a cd with friends or have I ever recorded a tv show to a vhs tape.. please see paragraph one.
I'm all for bending any law (in moderation) as they aren't often fair, but pirates have a blatent disregard for them all together which I find very wrong. Maybe if pirates didn't brag about being dishonest so much it wouldn't bother me as much as it does. But, I guess when you put yourself out there as a dishonest person you reap what you sow.
prices are even stepper is Australia new games are noramly $80 and PS3 games can get up to $120 that is ridiculous for a new realese game if prices came down then there would be much less piracy and more PS3s would be sold becasue games are no longer overpriced.
I doubt that lowering all prices would increase game sales by a huge amount. In regards to piracy I doubt it would make any significant difference. $50, $40 or $25. It's still a lot more than nothing. With modern broadband, piracy is almost as simple and easy as buying a game legally. That's the real problem.
Rather than the overall price cuts, I think what *is* working really well are the sales we're starting to see more and more off. I believe it's proving to be a great way for developers to get a second and third round of profits out of their game.
You launch at full price. The early adopters and big fans buy the game for the full $50. 6 months later (or however much makes sense), put the game on sale for $20 for a weekend. Normally a game would sell next to nothing after half a year so the cut in price doesn't really hurt. However you manage to hit a new market group, the people who thought the game 'might be good' but who wasn't interested enough to pay the full $50 suddently start buying.
Now wait another 3-6 months and put it on sale again for $5-10. Sure it's not going to make a huge profit at that price. but at this point you're not going to be selling the title anyways, so even at the low price it's all extra money. At $5-10 you reach the group of players who normally wouldn't bother with the game.
this is probably one of the more important rsults of the growth in Digital Sales. Since it's all virtual and done online it's possible for STEAM / Direct2Drive / impusle, to keep selling older games. They don't have to worry about shelf space or storage for games that only sell a few units now and then. This means that you can keep games on the market, pretty much forever, instead of 1-2 months. Not only does it offer a very obvious advantage due to the multiple rounds of sales, but it also plays into the PC's traditional sales pattern. Where the consoles normally sell more when the game is launched, the PC tend to sell less i the initial sales burst but continue to sell for a longer period of time. This never worked well at retail since you'd need to reserve the shelf space for so much longer, it does however fit perfectly with online shopping.
The trick for the dev's and publishers is to maintain the balance where the lowered sales prices are still seen as good deals as opposed to being perceived as 'the norm'.
I doubt that lowering all prices would increase game sales by a huge amount. In regards to piracy I doubt it would make any significant difference. $50, $40 or $25. It's still a lot more than nothing. With modern broadband, piracy is almost as simple and easy as buying a game legally. That's the real problem.
Rather than the overall price cuts, I think what *is* working really well are the sales we're starting to see more and more off. I believe it's proving to be a great way for developers to get a second and third round of profits out of their game.
You launch at full price. The early adopters and big fans buy the game for the full $50. 6 months later (or however much makes sense), put the game on sale for $20 for a weekend. Normally a game would sell next to nothing after half a year so the cut in price doesn't really hurt. However you manage to hit a new market group, the people who thought the game 'might be good' but who wasn't interested enough to pay the full $50 suddently start buying.
Now wait another 3-6 months and put it on sale again for $5-10. Sure it's not going to make a huge profit at that price. but at this point you're not going to be selling the title anyways, so even at the low price it's all extra money. At $5-10 you reach the group of players who normally wouldn't bother with the game.
this is probably one of the more important rsults of the growth in Digital Sales. Since it's all virtual and done online it's possible for STEAM / Direct2Drive / impusle, to keep selling older games. They don't have to worry about shelf space or storage for games that only sell a few units now and then. This means that you can keep games on the market, pretty much forever, instead of 1-2 months. Not only does it offer a very obvious advantage due to the multiple rounds of sales, but it also plays into the PC's traditional sales pattern. Where the consoles normally sell more when the game is launched, the PC tend to sell less i the initial sales burst but continue to sell for a longer period of time. This never worked well at retail since you'd need to reserve the shelf space for so much longer, it does however fit perfectly with online shopping.
The trick for the dev's and publishers is to maintain the balance where the lowered sales prices are still seen as good deals as opposed to being perceived as 'the norm'.
Mazoch
You have silenced me.
I shall now go to the room of shame.
:(
Here is what I think about this. Please comment on what I write as I want to know your feelings on it.
Well, the first reason we started pirating was because not everyone could afford to buy a game for $40 or $50 for each game they buy, and the companies still make millions of dollars in profits... So we decided to show them up, and there came the idea of pirating, getting the game for free, while giving no money to the devs. This was a virtual protest agaisnt these insane prices for a CD (yes I know its not just a CD). So we showed them, the prices tend to drop here and there and some piraters tend to come out and buy the game, while others just still stick to pirating.
WHY?
Simple, because we as a society have become too used to pirating games, TOO used to the convenience of getting a game for free, and we are caught up in our own greed, and forgot WHY we started pirating in the first place. Which was to lower the prices of games, we have successfully done (for the most part), and we still acting greedy, and pirating.
Simple question, simple response, we are caught up in our own greed.
[QUOTE="True_Sounds"]Calling others ignorant yet you don't seem to know what the forum rules say about insulting others. There are better ways to make a point than calling me ignorant and a fool.Again, ignorance is bliss for fools like you.
RK-Mara
Way to cut out my entire counterpoint. That, and reporting me, just proves my point.
Calling others ignorant yet you don't seem to know what the forum rules say about insulting others. There are better ways to make a point than calling me ignorant and a fool.[QUOTE="RK-Mara"][QUOTE="True_Sounds"]
Again, ignorance is bliss for fools like you.
True_Sounds
Way to cut out my entire counterpoint. That, and reporting me, just proves my point.
There wasn't much of a counterpoint. Piracy has definitely increased exponentially along with our methods of acquiring media digitally. Our wonderful fat internet pipes ensure that. The bar has consistently been lowered as far as what it takes to be able to get stuff for free. Also kind of odd are the price arguments, to a point - Australia and Europe pay much higher prices than we do in NA, but last I'd heard they purchase far more copies of PC titles than they pirate, just going by straight ratios and not raw numbers. I'd acknowledge that a lot of regions are kind of a lost cause at this point, where it'd be like trying to open a Bentley dealership in a neighborhood where nobody makes over $1000 a year. Ditto for the DRM arguments - along with price, pretty much every indie dev has reported the same piracy ratios or higher as the big guys whether or not they went DRM-free. The indie guys are just better equipped to deal with it, given that their budgets aren't bigger than the GNP of some countries. It's a big factor, there's just not much practical anybody can do about it yet. When DD continues to grow, maybe we'll see more changes in the future....They need to lower the prices. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that people who download for free will keep doing so until the prices drop. Because, when a person considers his options, they are:
1. Go and pay $40 for a brand new game
2. Get it absolutely free and play.
I'm pretty sure that the person would go fro option 2, because $40 dollars is pretty steep, I'm not saying it's not worth it, but it's much "cheaper" to just download.
I'm not saying that i actually do it, I'm just stating the facts.
Opinions anyone?
Resistance_Kid
1. "I'm not saying that I actually do it" is basically saying you do it. I know I think you do.
2. $40 is not expensive AT ALL. When you consider what other forms of entertainment cost, it's extremely cheap especially for the amount of enjoyment you can get out of it.
Now, this is my opinion, it won't ever happen but it's still my opinion....I wish they'd shut all file sharing sites down. If one illegal file is available, that should be reason enough to shut it down. It won't ever happen, but I wish it would.
[QUOTE="krazyorange"][QUOTE="CellAnimation"]Meh! People have been pirating games since the BBS/Apple ][ days. Computer gaming has always been dying... :roll:dakan45No, you're wrong. PC gaming is not dying, and in fact is only growing. Consoles are in much better position to die away than PC gaming is. Nice try though. First he was joking. Second how exactly consoles are dying when gamedevelopers lower their attention and product quality for the pc and focus on consoles!! So how the hell consoles are dying but pc does not? That seemed pretty biased to me (No offence;)) unless you can provide a logical explanation!!
You misunderstood him, which is understandable given the grammer.
He said consoles are in a better position to die off, which is true. He didn't say they are actually dying.
The financial model for consoles is extremely risky. Billions are sunk into a consoles development before they ever make it to the public. Once they do, they're sold at a loss....that's an extremely risky financial model to follow.
PC gaming has very little risks involved and that's why virtually every single developer out there gets their start on the PC.
Well, they should stop with the DRM and stop trying to fight piracy like that. You can't stop anything on the Internet, and restricting consumers isn't helping either. Why are they acting like piracy is a recent epidemic? It's been going on for many, many years now.
While there has always been piracy, the problem is that it's become so huge with the growth of the internet and broadband. Where piracy was largely restricted to people exchanging Disks in the past, or, for the very tech savy, using dial up modems to connect to BBS server, you can now find and download a pirated game about as fast as you can buy it. You can get a get an illegal copy of the game from someone in china or Russia instead of just from your local friends. That's why it's becoming such a big issue.Well, they should stop with the DRM and stop trying to fight piracy like that. You can't stop anything on the Internet, and restricting consumers isn't helping either. Why are they acting like piracy is a recent epidemic? It's been going on for many, many years now.
harjyotbanwait
[QUOTE="harjyotbanwait"]While there has always been piracy, the problem is that it's become so huge with the growth of the internet and broadband. Where piracy was largely restricted to people exchanging Disks in the past, or, for the very tech savy, using dial up modems to connect to BBS server, you can now find and download a pirated game about as fast as you can buy it. You can get a get an illegal copy of the game from someone in china or Russia instead of just from your local friends. That's why it's becoming such a big issue.Well, they should stop with the DRM and stop trying to fight piracy like that. You can't stop anything on the Internet, and restricting consumers isn't helping either. Why are they acting like piracy is a recent epidemic? It's been going on for many, many years now.
Mazoch
First, they are not going to stop DRM and for those who think its a violation of your "principles" just shut up. If you owned a store and people came in and started stealing all your crap you would put some type of security in. More than likely it wouldnt work all that well, a minor deterent, but you would still do it. After you installed your security and people said, "well we are not going to shop here anymore." you would say...??? Im guessing too bad so sad. I am not saying you dont by games with DRM, but that argument is the same for those who are against DRM or any other type of game security.
Right now the game companies are trying to find a simple minor "intrusive" way to combat piracy and nothing has worked thus far. Sadly, the only way they are going to be able to stop it is lobbying for ridiculous penalties if you get caught.. Im talking prison time for people who pirate along with ridiculous fines. Additionally, they need to have a system similiar to what Autodesk has for their software. With the invention of .Net software it would be really easy to require and internet connection to validate the game, and yes that would solve most of the piracy problems. Try and find a copy of Autocad 2007-2010 and being able to ever plug your computer into the internet again... I dare you. Actually don't, cause people who do their machines get JACKED.
Anyways, my whole point is that the DRM that we know today is going away to something completely different. Its just that no one wants to be the first to pull the trigger for fear of a "boycott". But its getting to the point now where thy pretty much have to... HAVE TO. For people that dont understand how bad piracy has gotten... 4.1 million copies of MW 2 were pirated. 4.1 MILLION. Pirates are screwing it up for all of us... and I hate you for it. Get a job and pay for it.
Calling others ignorant yet you don't seem to know what the forum rules say about insulting others. There are better ways to make a point than calling me ignorant and a fool.[QUOTE="RK-Mara"][QUOTE="True_Sounds"]
Again, ignorance is bliss for fools like you.
True_Sounds
Way to cut out my entire counterpoint. That, and reporting me, just proves my point.
I did not report you, that was someone else. I somehow managed to miss your point when you start your post with insults. If you want an intelligent discussion, you are doing it wrong - way wrong. Let's say that game prices were significantly lowered and more people were willing to buy games. Naturally lower prices would mean that you need more buyers for the same profits. But the userbase can't grow indefinitely. PC hardware would still be expensive and a casual gamer isn't willing to invest in a PC, especially when they'd first have to research what is a good PC. Games like Crysis don't have a big market. Both Avatar and Modern Warfare 2 have made over a billion dollars in sales. In Finland a ticket to see Avatar costs around 10 euros, MW2 costs 60 euros for PC and 70 for consoles at major retailers. You don't need to spend your salary on hardware to see Avatar, that's why a lot more people have seen it than played CoD. Publishers have found a good balance to keep developing profitable and we shouldn't try to change it if it works. And it seems to work, otherwise we wouldn't be getting any new games.look at games like starcraft....its been out for over a decade and people still buy it and play it faithfully. sure it gets pirated, but people still buy it. if the games being produced now were worthy of having a strong following, they would SELL more and would be PIRATED more, but if you give the game something that every gamer wants, they'll end up buying it. if you have to activate the game to play online, and the online was actually good enough to justify the 60usd pricetag, then developers wouldnt have any problems. whats happening is that the games are not living up to their predecessors, and people are less willing to buy them, and more and more games are built for consoles and poorly ported to pc. i know that crysis got pirated alot, but why not, there was nothing to it, all single player with no multiplayer draw, i thnk a month after it hit selves there were only 20 people on crysis wars....pretty poor. look at games like damnation, ive heard on ign that the developers were blaming piracy as to why the sales were bad for that game......had nothing to do with how horrible the game was.
lpjazzman220
this. except paragraphs would be nice.
While there has always been piracy, the problem is that it's become so huge with the growth of the internet and broadband. Where piracy was largely restricted to people exchanging Disks in the past, or, for the very tech savy, using dial up modems to connect to BBS server, you can now find and download a pirated game about as fast as you can buy it. You can get a get an illegal copy of the game from someone in china or Russia instead of just from your local friends. That's why it's becoming such a big issue.[QUOTE="Mazoch"][QUOTE="harjyotbanwait"]
Well, they should stop with the DRM and stop trying to fight piracy like that. You can't stop anything on the Internet, and restricting consumers isn't helping either. Why are they acting like piracy is a recent epidemic? It's been going on for many, many years now.
Chrypt22
First, they are not going to stop DRM and for those who think its a violation of your "principles" just shut up. If you owned a store and people came in and started stealing all your crap you would put some type of security in. More than likely it wouldnt work all that well, a minor deterent, but you would still do it. After you installed your security and people said, "well we are not going to shop here anymore." you would say...??? Im guessing too bad so sad. I am not saying you dont by games with DRM, but that argument is the same for those who are against DRM or any other type of game security.
Right now the game companies are trying to find a simple minor "intrusive" way to combat piracy and nothing has worked thus far. Sadly, the only way they are going to be able to stop it is lobbying for ridiculous penalties if you get caught.. Im talking prison time for people who pirate along with ridiculous fines. Additionally, they need to have a system similiar to what Autodesk has for their software. With the invention of .Net software it would be really easy to require and internet connection to validate the game, and yes that would solve most of the piracy problems. Try and find a copy of Autocad 2007-2010 and being able to ever plug your computer into the internet again... I dare you. Actually don't, cause people who do their machines get JACKED.
Anyways, my whole point is that the DRM that we know today is going away to something completely different. Its just that no one wants to be the first to pull the trigger for fear of a "boycott". But its getting to the point now where thy pretty much have to... HAVE TO. For people that dont understand how bad piracy has gotten... 4.1 million copies of MW 2 were pirated. 4.1 MILLION. Pirates are screwing it up for all of us... and I hate you for it. Get a job and pay for it.
lol... Did you know DRM dont do a **** towards pirates? Did you know i have to download cracks and so on to get the stupid game i paid 60$ for to work? Its less problems being a pirate because then they either code so that the game ignore the DRM or they delete it. Also you know that games that require a online check are not that hard for them to crack either? You know they have a copy (original) when they crack the game and they can just simlulate the server or add a line of code that basicly say "hey there here you go with the top secret key!"...Anyway there is no proof that pirates are reducing the sales... for all you know they would never have even bothered with the game. Or maybe they decided to buy the game once they downloaded it... Some people in some countries cant even buy games because a game cost 2/3 of their month money? But tbh i dont think the devs want pirates to be gone... After all they need someone to blame low sales on if the game sucks...
checklist to reduce piracy:
1.have an attractive package. have some collectibles (posters etc..) to force consumers purchase the item. if the package sucks no need to add it in your collection.
2. create high quality games. dark void was released. the game was looking promising and then reviews kill it. this is an example because people like to try games but do not affort to buy them if they suck. so what they do is just simply download them.
3. have strong multiplayer components. so people can purchase the games to play online with an original cd key.
4. dont rush and deliver poor games. this is for movie tie in games which all suck. ALL KNOWS THAT REPETITION = BAD GAME. take your time to design games because when reviews kill a game, also they kill the possibility of purchasing the game.
5. Availability. i am suprised to hear that some really good games are not available to some countries. Are you people serious? its like saying to your customers download the game. Recently i heard rumors that blazblue for pc will be released only in france which is the worst move ever. OMG!! Think about what you are doing.
6. Have reasonable prices according to the game and if its really worth it. example is rogue warrior. the game should be $5 not for example $60.you want to charge more then WORK on your games.
7. have games that can be played easily on pc's. When crysis released everyone was warried about game requirements instead of Cod4 was a good looking game and had low requirements. what is going on here. warhead was running more smooth than the original.
8. have patches to fix broken stuff and glitches on the games. some companies dont even bother. so why purchasing their product when there is 0 service.
9. THINK OF THE CONSUMERS NEEDS NOT THEIR POCKETS. SOME GAMES ARE UNACCEPTABLE FOR RELEASING IN 2010. So people are scaredto purchase
10.Have demos available. trying the game might influence purchase.
You can add onmy list if you want
Peace out.
Amen... Coming from a third world country I would know all this... There is nothing impossible to pirates. Hundreds of people here play WoW on pirate servers, so not even MMOs can escape piracy (although the arguments regarding "better quality games, more sales, less piracy" apply here, since MANY people that would have never bought an original game before actually DID after a while to have a taste of blizzard servers and continue to pay their monthly fee up to this day...) In the end there's nothing you can do to "erradicate" piracy. They should just remove DRM because it doesn't do **** to solve the problem, it only annoys the people that actually want to play the game they payed for. Mariokata and others have some really good ideas to reduce it though. I hope devs actually read these forums...lol... Did you know DRM dont do a **** towards pirates? Did you know i have to download cracks and so on to get the stupid game i paid 60$ for to work? Its less problems being a pirate because then they either code so that the game ignore the DRM or they delete it. Also you know that games that require a online check are not that hard for them to crack either? You know they have a copy (original) when they crack the game and they can just simlulate the server or add a line of code that basicly say "hey there here you go with the top secret key!"...
Anyway there is no proof that pirates are reducing the sales... for all you know they would never have even bothered with the game. Or maybe they decided to buy the game once they downloaded it... Some people in some countries cant even buy games because a game cost 2/3 of their month money? But tbh i dont think the devs want pirates to be gone... After all they need someone to blame low sales on if the game sucks...
KalDurenik
checklist to reduce piracy: 1.have an attractive package. have some collectibles (posters etc..) to force consumers purchase the item. if the package sucks no need to add it in your collection. 2. create high quality games. dark void was released. the game was looking promising and then reviews kill it. this is an example because people like to try games but do not affort to buy them if they suck. so what they do is just simply download them. 3. have strong multiplayer components. so people can purchase the games to play online with an original cd key. 4. dont rush and deliver poor games. this is for movie tie in games which all suck. ALL KNOWS THAT REPETITION = BAD GAME. take your time to design games because when reviews kill a game, also they kill the possibility of purchasing the game. 5. Availability. i am suprised to hear that some really good games are not available to some countries. Are you people serious? its like saying to your customers download the game. Recently i heard rumors that blazblue for pc will be released only in france which is the worst move ever. OMG!! Think about what you are doing. 6. Have reasonable prices according to the game and if its really worth it. example is rogue warrior. the game should be $5 not for example $60.you want to charge more then WORK on your games. 7. have games that can be played easily on pc's. When crysis released everyone was warried about game requirements instead of Cod4 was a good looking game and had low requirements. what is going on here. warhead was running more smooth than the original. 8. have patches to fix broken stuff and glitches on the games. some companies dont even bother. so why purchasing their product when there is 0 service. 9. THINK OF THE CONSUMERS NEEDS NOT THEIR POCKETS. SOME GAMES ARE UNACCEPTABLE FOR RELEASING IN 2010. So people are scaredto purchase 10.Have demos available. trying the game might influence purchase. You can add onmy list if you want Peace out.
mariokata
Piracy isn't a lost sale, the person downloading the game probably wouldn't buy it anyway. I know a few people who pirate games, their stated reasons are usually that games are too short and too expensive. Console games are £40-50 over here, and aren't as long as you'd expect for paying that premium price. The way this generation's development cycles have ran is really dangerous, escalating costs due to the obsession over graphics (which is a) unsustainable with a recession and b) pointless due to less-than-amazing HDTV adoption rates) and less *playable* content due to the poly-syllabic rendering technologies taking up all of the budget.
All of this bundled with high retail prices will result in underwhelming sales, unless you are Bobby Kotick and can spend crazymoney on advertising and force every other game into the next fiscal quarter due to your monolith of a game, will result in more people pirating, or not playing games atall. Hell, I've bought more PS2 games this generation than I did last generation.
Look at Valve and TF2, they didn't spend all of their budget to make a brand new engine, they only did a few tweaks and have been delivering free content, treating a customer like a customer rather than a pirate. I asked the people I know who pirate about DRM, and the inclusion of software that treats you like a pirate when you actually bought the game, and pirates don't get any repercussions is a real deal-breaker, so they either thought "i'm not buying this game", or "if they think i'm a pirate, maybe I am" both of which can be seen as immature, but you can kind of understand the point they convey.
As for piracy on the pc "increasing", I would be willing to bet that the RATE of piracy has stayed pretty constant over generations, only that with the market/amount of PC gamers increasing, naturally the piracy numbers go higher but the RATE is the same. That, and with more people with internet access since last generation, awareness has increased tenfold too, leading to misconceptions that everyone steals games on the PC, along with PC sales cycles being over a number of years with fairly consistant numbers, compared to consoles who sell alot initially, then die off forever.
Steps to reduce piracy
DD games and reduce prices since you are reducing packaging as well.
Stop making crappy games eg cod mw2. Sad excuse for a port
This topic and this discussion have been repeated here so many times by now. However it does strike me that almost all the supposed fixes for piracy here all involves the developers doing more for less to benefit the person making the suggestion.
- They should charge less! I'm sure that pirates would suddenly flock out to buy the game.. never mind that they are already getting it for free.
- They should not make bad games! Yeah I'm sure they are generally doing this on purpose but alas, I haven't seen anything to support the idea that this would reduce piracy. Pirates have shown no hesitation pirating good games.
- There should be no DRM in games! I agree that some forms of DRM are very problematic. But at the same time, I can't blame people for trying to protect their work. If someone broke into your house you'd probably try to install a bigger lock on the front door in the future. Sure it's annoying to have to carry your keys around with you but seriously, I cant recall the last time I heard anyone complain about how he had to have a lock installed in his house.
I'm not saying DRM is the solution. And I can see the argument that it's even hurting more than it's helping. But the idea that people would magically stop pirating stuff if the devs would just bend over backwards and give up their profit really doesn't sound very plausible.. it sounds a lot more like people trying to argue for what they personally want.
[QUOTE="Chrypt22"]
[QUOTE="Mazoch"] While there has always been piracy, the problem is that it's become so huge with the growth of the internet and broadband. Where piracy was largely restricted to people exchanging Disks in the past, or, for the very tech savy, using dial up modems to connect to BBS server, you can now find and download a pirated game about as fast as you can buy it. You can get a get an illegal copy of the game from someone in china or Russia instead of just from your local friends. That's why it's becoming such a big issue.KalDurenik
First, they are not going to stop DRM and for those who think its a violation of your "principles" just shut up. If you owned a store and people came in and started stealing all your crap you would put some type of security in. More than likely it wouldnt work all that well, a minor deterent, but you would still do it. After you installed your security and people said, "well we are not going to shop here anymore." you would say...??? Im guessing too bad so sad. I am not saying you dont by games with DRM, but that argument is the same for those who are against DRM or any other type of game security.
Right now the game companies are trying to find a simple minor "intrusive" way to combat piracy and nothing has worked thus far. Sadly, the only way they are going to be able to stop it is lobbying for ridiculous penalties if you get caught.. Im talking prison time for people who pirate along with ridiculous fines. Additionally, they need to have a system similiar to what Autodesk has for their software. With the invention of .Net software it would be really easy to require and internet connection to validate the game, and yes that would solve most of the piracy problems. Try and find a copy of Autocad 2007-2010 and being able to ever plug your computer into the internet again... I dare you. Actually don't, cause people who do their machines get JACKED.
Anyways, my whole point is that the DRM that we know today is going away to something completely different. Its just that no one wants to be the first to pull the trigger for fear of a "boycott". But its getting to the point now where thy pretty much have to... HAVE TO. For people that dont understand how bad piracy has gotten... 4.1 million copies of MW 2 were pirated. 4.1 MILLION. Pirates are screwing it up for all of us... and I hate you for it. Get a job and pay for it.
lol... Did you know DRM dont do a **** towards pirates? Did you know i have to download cracks and so on to get the stupid game i paid 60$ for to work? Its less problems being a pirate because then they either code so that the game ignore the DRM or they delete it. Also you know that games that require a online check are not that hard for them to crack either? You know they have a copy (original) when they crack the game and they can just simlulate the server or add a line of code that basicly say "hey there here you go with the top secret key!"...Anyway there is no proof that pirates are reducing the sales... for all you know they would never have even bothered with the game. Or maybe they decided to buy the game once they downloaded it... Some people in some countries cant even buy games because a game cost 2/3 of their month money? But tbh i dont think the devs want pirates to be gone... After all they need someone to blame low sales on if the game sucks...
I do know that DRM is more or less useless, and yeah a simple online check may be easy to bypass if its just looking for a valid code. But if they were to do it like Autodesk and a couple others do it.. No it wont work. If you dont believe me go and try to crack any recent Autocad software. Its easy to put that type of security into a game, all they need to do is incorporate .net software. Though people cant stop others in corrupt third world countries, if it could be slowed to a point in the US and Europe it may have an affect on people in other places.
I agree completely. And its 10x more annoying when the game actually sucks ass....They need to lower the prices. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that people who download for free will keep doing so until the prices drop. Because, when a person considers his options, they are:
1. Go and pay $40 for a brand new game
2. Get it absolutely free and play.
I'm pretty sure that the person would go fro option 2, because $40 dollars is pretty steep, I'm not saying it's not worth it, but it's much "cheaper" to just download.
I'm not saying that i actually do it, I'm just stating the facts.
Opinions anyone?
Resistance_Kid
You can never stop piracy completly there will always be the few who pirate anything regardless if it was 10 or 40$. However there are those who pirate ocassionally or not as frequently, lower prices will sway their votes. I will admit I was a PC pirater, this was before i discovered steam and their great deals and now I just buy from them. However new release games are still to expensive, despite steam where there are no packaging and distribution fees, so why are the savings not being passed on?
Piracy will never stop. It's not so much about people getting games for free, it's people selling the copies. There are areas outside the US that thrive on selling bootleg material. No matter how hard they try to protect the games, there will always be some geek in Singapore ready to rip them off.
Don't know if any one has mentioned this yet but...
...Bioshock 2's system specs were just revealed and they include a whole bunch of DRM, such as Windows Live activation and a five install limit.
Read for yourself.
Don't know why you are all arguing. The prices are set at what they should be because these companies spend millions of dollars on marketing to figure out the best prices to set their games at to make the most profit.
Consoles games come out at $60 to get everyone that wants it and makes enough money to get it at that price. If you can't afford it or don't feel it's worth that price then the game will drop in price after a few months after they squeeze as much money out of the people willing to pay the full price. This keeps going on until they get everyone that was planning on getting the game.
It's pretty obvious that we the gamers are the ones that are setting the current prices. No point in arguing if it should be lower or higher.
The only way to stop piracy is to include secure server and account based functionality in all games. How many MMO's do you see pirated? (hacked, sure, but not pirated).Michael-Smithdurrr... wrong... Unless you "connect" to the server that contain the game... wait omg sims 3 tried that and got their ass handed to them on a epic scale... And tbh if they make it like mmo's but the mmo is a singleplayer... IT WONT MATHER! because then they can still make their own "server" and host the game the same way they host private mmo's. (except it will require less because its a single player)... No they need to stop Q.Q and blaming low sales on pirates because i would not be shocked if they sold even less if it wasent for pirates. Also someone said (not sure in what topic) that pirates are stupid if they pirate a "bad" game... Well duh who is the stupid one? The one trying out a "bad" game for "free" or the one buying the **** game? We now days want high quality with lots of content. Yet the devs seem to have their head stuck up in their ass and go "shinnnyyyyyyy issssss goooooodddddd" and then someone ask them... but what about content?... And they go like "but they will have great shiny graphics.... and because we dont have money to make more gameplay they will have to live with the 5-10hours..." Oh well... I dont have anything against pirates that download it to see how the game is, if they will like it or something. However i hate people that download them and sell them...
I think the only way to stop pirating is to shut down all file sharing sites, and deny access to files on your computer, both of which will not happenFrenzyd109
Horrible idea. The last thing I need is to be dependent on the publisher/developer keeping an expensive server up for the lifetime of the game. I have games over a decade old that I still play, do you really think they are going to keep the servers up that long? Hell, EA is bringing down some of the game servers they have for games that are a year old, much less a decade. This might work for the piracy, but I don't want every game to be an MMO, who could afford that?
The publishers just need to get it through their heads... the DRM is going to be cracked, they are only ever going to stop the honest. And the honest don't need anything more than an disk check or a CD key number to stop them from copying. Stop spending millions on these complicated DRM schemes that don't work, and only serve to piss off your customer base. If they are mostly worried about zero day piracy, they need to ramp up their physical security on their pre-release copies, as that is where most of your zero day downloads come from, not from a retail copy.
Personally, I still think the best way to encourage buying over stealing is to add collectibles and cool stuff to the packaging. It wouldn't have to be anything elaborate or complicated or expensive, just cool. A small collectible trinket like the coin Bethsoft put in the collectible edition of Oblivion or a cloth map will attract a lot of people who just like that sort of thing. Yes, it will add a bit to the cost of the game production, but I doubt it would cost any more than these DRM schemes and activation servers. And it would pay huge dividends in the realm of customer satisfaction.
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