UK Devs: Piracy Is a Problem, Doesn't Threaten Survival

[John Funk]

UK Devs: Piracy Is a Problem, Doesn't Threaten Survival

Developers across the pond in the UK agree that while piracy is a problem - and one that is worsening - it isn't one that threatens their very survival just yet.

Regardless of our gaming platform of choice, I'd hope that we can all agree this: Developers have bills to pay and families to feed, and piracy is a problem [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91813-Worldwide-PC-Software-Piracy-Grows-to-41-Percent] that the industry is going to have to deal with one way or another. This isn't to say that the efforts to tackle the problem so far have been the best way to go about it, but piracy is the elephant in the room for game development (only in this case, it's the elephant that has to be addressed at some point or another).

According to GI.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/developers-piracy-a-problem-but-not-threat-to-survival], developers in the UK are acutely aware of this, judging by the most recent survey of TIGA (The Independent Games Developers Association) members. 60 percent of the developers surveyed agreed that piracy was a problem - a surprisingly low statistic, actually - but even the respondents who didn't think it was a "problem" yet believed the situation was going downhill, with 90 percent of those surveyed saying that piracy was getting worse.

Piracy might be getting worse, but the majority of those surveyed weren't too concerned: 60 percent of the TIGA members felt that piracy was "a low threat to the viability of their company," and only 10 percent called it a significant threat. When asked if they felt that the government should step in to address piracy directly by cutting or slowing broadband access to the internet, the respondents were split down the middle 50/50, which is also a bit surprising.

To be honest, I'm a bit flabbergasted that 50 percent of the developers surveyed would be for the throttling of broadband, considering its increasing importance as online gaming and digital distribution become more popular. That reads to me very much like cutting off your nose to spite your face, and would hurt developers in the long run as much as it might help to curtail piracy. Given how surprisingly resourceful those dastardly bastards are, though, I don't think a cap on broadband would deter them for long.



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[DayDark]

If this keeps going, something tells me gaming aren't looking at that long of a life time. Games don't have theaters or concerts, to make the entertainment physical, it's all digital, and as such, it will be the first to go.

 

[_Nocturnal]

50/50 on slowing down access to the internet, really? Seems like just another case of everyone going mad as soon as the word "piracy" gets thrown into a conversation. Sad thing is, I recently read a news article right here, whose author was foaming at the mouth too. His name escapes me, but good job on covering the topic sensibly, John.

 

[xscoot]

Why, it's simple. The devs simply need to release a version of their game on all the illegal piracy sites. However, the version they leak has a deadly virus. Three months after the game has been officially released, the virus will spring into action. Everyone's computer, or console, gets completely destroyed, and the screen continually shows disgusting videos, such as a picture of a dead baby, or gay bondage.

This will destroy both the computer, and the mind of the pirate. For financial reasons, and out of fear, they will never pirate again.

 

[Amnestic]

Why, it's simple. The devs simply need to release a version of their game on all the illegal piracy sites. However, the version they leak has a deadly virus. Three months after the game has been officially released, the virus will spring into action. Everyone's computer, or console, gets completely destroyed, and the screen continually shows disgusting videos, such as a picture of a dead baby, or gay bondage.

On a scale of 1 to Really Illegal, how bad do you think such an idea would be?

[sub]Hint: Quite a lot.[/sub]

Enjoy going to jail and/or getting sued into the ground.

 

[Zac_Dai]

I think piracy is all too often used as a scape goat for why shitty games don't sell well.

While there is huge amount of piracy it isn't money lost as those people wouldn't ever pay anyway.

In fact you get a lot of people who use piracy to rate a games worth then pay for a full version if its deemed good quality.

All the people who I know pirate work on this model and if Stardock can have a best selling game like SoaSE be completely DRM free, then whats the problem?

Even then its the progress of technology at odds with old world capitalism. How can you put value on something that can be infinitely copied at zero cost?

 

[Woodsey]

The best piracy protection is the type they used in Batman: Arkham Asylum, where they take away key gameplay elements so you can't proceed past a certain point.

This DRM thing (whilst not a problem for me) really gets on people's tits - and it only gets in the way of people that buy the thing legally.

 

[samsonguy920]

Piracy has been a problem since the only thing people did online was talk on bulletin board services, and it will always be a problem. The idea of fighting a problem is staying one step ahead, and kneejerk reactions like 'let's throttle broadband' is not staying ahead. You only piss off Everyone and kill most if not all support for the product that you create. It's the same with DRM. You only punish everybody for the sins of a few, and kill your marketbase. You want to fight piracy? Hire the pirates and hackers who most likely can use a good job anyway, and use their tools to deal with the problem. Stop being so uppity and think that pirates are lowlife scum. And asking the government for help will only make things worse, when the government decides that in order to help, they should also regulate more of what you put out. God helps those who help themselves, the government helps those who are too lazy to help themselves.

Why, it's simple......

Ya, bright idea there, skippy. Never mind that such an act would get you sued two steps from Sunday by the very pirates who would be acting in the right by suing you. Not to mention there's no guarantee that such a viral code wouldn't end up on legitimately purchased versions. So far the best and legal idea has been from Rocksteady and Eidos with what they did with Batman Arkham Asylum, by leaving a gimped game available to the pirates. Nothing viral, nothing illegal. It did no harm to their system, just to their egos as they only got to play with a Batman who didn't train himself to superior ability to fight crime.

 

[Asehujiko]

Why, it's simple. The devs simply need to release a version of their game on all the illegal piracy sites. However, the version they leak has a deadly virus. Three months after the game has been officially released, the virus will spring into action. Everyone's computer, or console, gets completely destroyed, and the screen continually shows disgusting videos, such as a picture of a dead baby, or gay bondage.

This will destroy both the computer, and the mind of the pirate. For financial reasons, and out of fear, they will never pirate again.

That or they make a whole lot of enemies. To quote myself from another thread:

Destroying several days - correction - months in work hours along with tons of personal data because they couldn't live with me trying the game before buying is a good way to end up with a molotov through a window at their their office and find me waiting with a baseball bat on their way home. If they think they can be utterly unthinkingly destructive out of spite over what may or may not be a lost sale of which about $0.05 was going to get past their publisher then i reserve the right to react with similar force.

Besides that, pirates are smarter then your average gamer and unexplained uploads not by any scene group are met with utmost scrutiny and trying to pose as a scene group will result in being denounced as fake by said scene group within hours or even minutes. You'd be more successful in getting people to buy viruses/porn by putting it on an x360 disk, dumping it in various stores and hosting a bunch of fake reviews giving it a 9/10.

 

[Treblaine]

As much as I don't want to have them go crazy in futile attempts to stop DRM (that 99.999% of the time ONLY harm the loyal consumer and have ZERO affect on piracy) I can't tell you how much it pisses me off hearing from people I meet so often say shit like:

"Well I pirate all my games, fuck the developers they have enough money"

...As if they are all little children who don't know that meat comes from animals. I mean when I press them on how they expect these expensive games to be paid for they just say "I dunno, some chumps will always pay... like you"

 

[scotth266]

I wonder how big the publishers that didn't consider it a threat were... because the bigger devs probably have less of a problem. They can rely on their mega-hits to rake in the dough from parents buying their kids games, and from people too honest to pirate.

Smaller devs, on the other hand...

 

[shannon.archer]

I think that the UK governments (thankfully defeated) plan to force ISP's to throw pirates off the net were the wrong way to do it. I think what you need to do is get rid of DRM and make the games much more attractive when bought.

Definitely. That is the best solution to the piracy problem. They can't force them as slowing/capping broadband is a ridiculous idea to begin with. Grrr... This just makes me lose faith in governments

 

[Veylon]

Throttle broadband? I can just see the headlines:
"U.K. to Become Internet 'Black Hole'"
"English Suffer YouTube Deprivation"
"Welshman Sentenced for Parallel Internet Connections"

 

[xscoot]

Why, it's simple. The devs simply need to release a version of their game on all the illegal piracy sites. However, the version they leak has a deadly virus. Three months after the game has been officially released, the virus will spring into action. Everyone's computer, or console, gets completely destroyed, and the screen continually shows disgusting videos, such as a picture of a dead baby, or gay bondage.

On a scale of 1 to Really Illegal, how bad do you think such an idea would be?

[sub]Hint: Quite a lot.[/sub]

Enjoy going to jail and/or getting sued into the ground.

Eh, what can I say? I'm a theatrical person. I'm sure there are much better ways of stopping pirates, but this way was the most extravagant and out there I could think of.

How about this. Instead of a horrible virus that messes you and your computer, after three months it just secretly uploads your IP to the devs site so they know who stole their game?

 

[Amnestic]

Eh, what can I say? I'm a theatrical person. I'm sure there are much better ways of stopping pirates, but this way was the most extravagant and out there I could think of.

How about this. Instead of a horrible virus that messes you and your computer, after three months it just secretly uploads your IP to the devs site so they know who stole their game?

Stole? The act of torrenting something is not illegal, it's merely a method of data transfer. The Devs uploaded the game onto the internet themselves. Are you so sure it's still 'stealing' if the creators themselves are giving it away?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

the indutry would focus on getting stuff to consumers better made and at lower prices(set world price of new games to around 40$ and stop with the gouging already) and focus on people and sites that sell software without a license(you can not touch hardware mods,don't even try it fools) you will practically cripple piracy.

 

[squid5580]

Why, it's simple. The devs simply need to release a version of their game on all the illegal piracy sites. However, the version they leak has a deadly virus. Three months after the game has been officially released, the virus will spring into action. Everyone's computer, or console, gets completely destroyed, and the screen continually shows disgusting videos, such as a picture of a dead baby, or gay bondage.

On a scale of 1 to Really Illegal, how bad do you think such an idea would be?

[sub]Hint: Quite a lot.[/sub]

Enjoy going to jail and/or getting sued into the ground.

Eh, what can I say? I'm a theatrical person. I'm sure there are much better ways of stopping pirates, but this way was the most extravagant and out there I could think of.

How about this. Instead of a horrible virus that messes you and your computer, after three months it just secretly uploads your IP to the devs site so they know who stole their game?

Anything they can do to identify a user, without their prior consent, and using that to punish them is in essence entrapment, and thus cannot be used in a court of law. It's why police can't, for example, run a fake child porn site and prosecute everyone who subscribes.

It's even more difficult, criminally they cannot even use evidence collected without authorisation, as at that point it's here say and can't be proven either way, and thus is only used in civil courts, which is why most caught infringing copyright are sued.

So what if instead of the devs uploading it themselves they release the game and pull a Batman on the pirates that does the exact thing xscoot is saying? Just one nasty little line of code hidden somewhere in there that if you are using a cracked version it fries your PC/console or puts a box in the middle of your screen that plays porn or a message or something? No entrapment. And you got what you paid for. WIN/WIN.