Alternative to Piracy

[Kagim]

Alternative to piracy? Makes brand new games not cost fifty bloody pounds

...How?

Shelling out a few hundred pounds for a console then paying quite a sizeable fraction of what you paid for the console for every game you buy after that. If people want to buy a game but they cant afford 50 pounds which is alot of money so dont even say its not they can either

A) Wait a few weeks and divert money from other places to buy the game
B) Go on a torrent website that very night and download the game for free

You can say what you want about piracy being wrong but people are quick to throw away moral choices when it means an empty wallet.

If you made the games say 25 or 30 pounds then it would be far easier for a person to buy and people would be less likely to pirate something as they cant justify doing so(to themselves) which at the minute they can because of the high price

So you want the shiny graphics that come with owning a brand new current gen console but don't want to pay for the games? You realize that this doesn't make the slightest bit of sense right?

This is what I hate about this forum. When did I ever say I dont want to pay for games but I wanted shiny graphics? Thats right I didnt

If you read it again you will see that I was saying I would pirate a lot less if the games were reduced in cost from the high price of 50 pounds to 25-30 pounds. Not for free. Ill just say that again. Reduced cost for games, not no cost entirely

The problem is that might not be altogether possible. While yes pressing a CD is rather cheap there is still cost of actually distributing the game, followed with the store owners cut as well.

(I don't know pounds so I'm going to speak in CAD)

While a 40-45 dollar game would still bring in money to a company trading direct across to you you must take into account it costs a significant amount of money to distribute games. As well your game store is likely marking up there product for about 15-20%. So while your game store may purchase the product for about $25 a unit, you have to tack on cost of shipping the game in the first place accompanied with any taxes or extra costs for shipping over the border. then the store needs to mark up the product so they can make a profit. Since games have to launch street dates buying large amount of games in bulk is not always an options and anyone who owns a small business will tell you if you can't buy large you'll be paying large.

So while yes we would all like to say the price of games fall 10-20 dollars, and honestly they could drop a good 5-10, any significant drops in price maybe be very hard to imagine with the cost of production. You suggest a price cut in half, while you might buy more games this would involve game stores themselves taking a major hit in profits, which can mean lost jobs and lower wages. As well games are expensive on launch because that's when companies try to make back the money they spent producing the game itself and its easier to make money while the hype is strong. Over time the price will go down once companies are no longer in the negatives.

Take Fallout 3. The GOTY edition sells for ten bucks less then when i bought it AND comes with all the expansion packs.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

-Time trial versions. You get to play for an hour/2 hours/ect ect, and once the time is up the game locks up. If you liked what you saw you can follow a link to buy it, at which time the game unlocks, and since it's already on your computer, no lengthy installations or DRM bullshit to go through.

The only way that would work is with some kind of DRM lockdown mechanism. Otherwise you flip a bit in a registry file, like pirates would do back in the shareware days.

 

[DividedUnity]

*snip*

If games are too expensive for you to buy, wait a little, (it's not going to kill you), and buy the games when they come on sale on Steam or what have you. That way the developers and publishers (who distribute and market the game) get their money and you get the game.

See the simple fact is if im going to have to wait a little while. Ill just buy the game preowned and alot cheaper. It may seem a bit childish but if a game is priced too highly on release then its no skin off my nose to buy it preowned so the devs dont get a single penny of my money. I know what youre saying but if things stay the way they are then piracy will stay as it is or more likely get worse. If you have to wait to get a game then by the time youve got the money people will have sold it to the shop and you pick the exact same game you get for full price for a good bit off the price tag. The developers lose out just as they would with piracy

 

[The Austin]

Include video games in cereal boxes. That's all I can think of.

BRILLIANT!

Or we could just make them cheaper.....?

 

[clipse15]

*snip*

If games are too expensive for you to buy, wait a little, (it's not going to kill you), and buy the games when they come on sale on Steam or what have you. That way the developers and publishers (who distribute and market the game) get their money and you get the game.

See the simple fact is if im going to have to wait a little while. Ill just buy the game preowned and alot cheaper. It may seem a bit childish but if a game is priced too highly on release then its no skin off my nose to buy it preowned so the devs dont get a single penny of my money. I know what youre saying but if things stay the way they are then piracy will stay as it is or more likely get worse. If you have to wait to get a game then by the time youve got the money people will have sold it to the shop and you pick the exact same game you get for full price for a good bit off the price tag. The developers lose out just as they would with piracy

That's why I like EA's new strategy to include big incentives to purchase game's new. The gamer gets rewarded for buying the game new and the publisher/developers take money away from used game sales and pirates.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

*snip*

If games are too expensive for you to buy, wait a little, (it's not going to kill you), and buy the games when they come on sale on Steam or what have you. That way the developers and publishers (who distribute and market the game) get their money and you get the game.

See the simple fact is if im going to have to wait a little while. Ill just buy the game preowned and alot cheaper. It may seem a bit childish but if a game is priced too highly on release then its no skin off my nose to buy it preowned so the devs dont get a single penny of my money. I know what youre saying but if things stay the way they are then piracy will stay as it is or more likely get worse. If you have to wait to get a game then by the time youve got the money people will have sold it to the shop and you pick the exact same game you get for full price for a good bit off the price tag. The developers lose out just as they would with piracy

I think it's more likely that you'll pirate the game no matter what publishers do.

I get Steam's North American page and, as I've said in an edit that you've missed, most new releases on Steam are in the $30-50 range. If they're giving you conversion prices, that should be within the range of thirty pounds. Somehow, I don't think you're going to rush over to steam and buy those reasonably priced games, though.

 

[Kagim]

Well alternatives that could work would be programs that allow for both full purchase and single purchase songs for cheap and DRM free. As well as allow buyers to view entire movies for a small fee, make it on demand to. We could also incorporate these two ideas into one smooth program that accepts both credit card and pre-paid cards you can buy pretty much everywhere.

Itunes doesn't just give you the song for free, no DRM attached. They watermark the files with your email and creditcard information.

That would be a problem if it wasn't for the fact you don't need a credit card to buy from itunes.

As well the fact even if it did i don't give everyone and my dog files i download.

That's not destructive DRM. If you don't mind people knowing your personal info you can give it to anyone.

 

[Baneat]

A great alternative to me is a decent online multiplayer option. Pirates haven't nailed it. They can't tap into the official servers, and support for non-legit servers is crap. Therefore, the user wants more. They'll buy the game so they can get into the multiplayer.

 

[DividedUnity]

Alternative to piracy? Makes brand new games not cost fifty bloody pounds

...How?

Shelling out a few hundred pounds for a console then paying quite a sizeable fraction of what you paid for the console for every game you buy after that. If people want to buy a game but they cant afford 50 pounds which is alot of money so dont even say its not they can either

A) Wait a few weeks and divert money from other places to buy the game
B) Go on a torrent website that very night and download the game for free

You can say what you want about piracy being wrong but people are quick to throw away moral choices when it means an empty wallet.

If you made the games say 25 or 30 pounds then it would be far easier for a person to buy and people would be less likely to pirate something as they cant justify doing so(to themselves) which at the minute they can because of the high price

So you want the shiny graphics that come with owning a brand new current gen console but don't want to pay for the games? You realize that this doesn't make the slightest bit of sense right?

This is what I hate about this forum. When did I ever say I dont want to pay for games but I wanted shiny graphics? Thats right I didnt

If you read it again you will see that I was saying I would pirate a lot less if the games were reduced in cost from the high price of 50 pounds to 25-30 pounds. Not for free. Ill just say that again. Reduced cost for games, not no cost entirely

The problem is that might not be altogether possible. While yes pressing a CD is rather cheap there is still cost of actually distributing the game, followed with the store owners cut as well.

(I don't know pounds so I'm going to speak in CAD)

While a 40-45 dollar game would still bring in money to a company trading direct across to you you must take into account it costs a significant amount of money to distribute games. As well your game store is likely marking up there product for about 15-20%. So while your game store may purchase the product for about $25 a unit, you have to tack on cost of shipping the game in the first place accompanied with any taxes or extra costs for shipping over the border. then the store needs to mark up the product so they can make a profit. Since games have to launch street dates buying large amount of games in bulk is not always an options and anyone who owns a small business will tell you if you can't buy large you'll be paying large.

So while yes we would all like to say the price of games fall 10-20 dollars, and honestly they could drop a good 5-10, any significant drops in price maybe be very hard to imagine with the cost of production. You suggest a price cut in half, while you might buy more games this would involve game stores themselves taking a major hit in profits, which can mean lost jobs and lower wages. As well games are expensive on launch because that's when companies try to make back the money they spent producing the game itself and its easier to make money while the hype is strong. Over time the price will go down once companies are no longer in the negatives.

Take Fallout 3. The GOTY edition sells for ten bucks less then when i bought it AND comes with all the expansion packs.

Ok perhaps the price cut i suggest was tad optimistic. But with even a 10/15 pound drop to say 35-40 id find reasonable. Im aware of the great costs of getting a product to the consumer but the simple fact is they give no incentive for us to not pirate the games. That was the point i was trying to bring across with the price cut.

Im stating that I find the high price tag of new games gives people an incentive to pirate games whilst giving no incentive to actually buy the game other than feeling morally just. You get the same product both ways and one of them doesnt cost you quite a bit of money. If you dont give people an incentive to do otherwise then of course they are going to choose piracy every time.

A price cut was simply an example of an incentive but perhaps there would be more effective ones such as perhaps extra goodies included with the retail version that people who pirate it could never get. Ever something as silly as poster included with the game or a nice thick manual/guide book included in every game would give me an incentive to actually pay for a new game. That way I can tell myself ive made a good choice. Sure I might be out of pocket but ive got the game and something else I can enjoy that I wouldnt have got if i had pirated it.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Well alternatives that could work would be programs that allow for both full purchase and single purchase songs for cheap and DRM free. As well as allow buyers to view entire movies for a small fee, make it on demand to. We could also incorporate these two ideas into one smooth program that accepts both credit card and pre-paid cards you can buy pretty much everywhere.

Itunes doesn't just give you the song for free, no DRM attached. They watermark the files with your email and creditcard information.

That would be a problem if it wasn't for the fact you don't need a credit card to buy from itunes.

As well the fact even if it did i don't give everyone and my dog files i download.

That's not destructive DRM. If you don't mind people knowing your personal info you can give it to anyone.

It doesn't matter what you pay with. You need a credit card to get an iTunes account in the first place. Now, you can sign up for iTunes with a prepaid gift credit card, but I'd be pretty sure you didn't.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

Alternative to piracy? Makes brand new games not cost fifty bloody pounds

Make a game out of a good idea and mechanics and not unessecary high end tech nic nac's, bam a reason to buy plus less costs.

 

[Biosophilogical]

They could try having a 'pirating website'[footnote]Not actually a pirating website, but it allows you to download games without DRM or anything[/footnote] so to speak, with advertising on every page, so that the advertising could be the revenue for the developer and the consumer would pay less or none. I admit that the advertising probably wouldn't cover the cost, but if you did include in-game advertising aswell (as was mentioned on Page 1 of this thread), then you could probably still make money off the 'not as good games/cheaper games/etc' and charge a small amount for the big popular games (like MW2, or Halo stuff or what-have-you)

 

[hclarke15]

delete the internet

People get confused enough into thinking piracy is right. They can't be reasoned with because they are not open to other opinions. Eventually the PC industry will die except for steam because so many people download the games illegally.

 

[DividedUnity]

*snip*

If games are too expensive for you to buy, wait a little, (it's not going to kill you), and buy the games when they come on sale on Steam or what have you. That way the developers and publishers (who distribute and market the game) get their money and you get the game.

See the simple fact is if im going to have to wait a little while. Ill just buy the game preowned and alot cheaper. It may seem a bit childish but if a game is priced too highly on release then its no skin off my nose to buy it preowned so the devs dont get a single penny of my money. I know what youre saying but if things stay the way they are then piracy will stay as it is or more likely get worse. If you have to wait to get a game then by the time youve got the money people will have sold it to the shop and you pick the exact same game you get for full price for a good bit off the price tag. The developers lose out just as they would with piracy

I think it's more likely that you'll pirate the game no matter what publishers do.

I get Steam's North American page and, as I've said in an edit that you've missed, most new releases on Steam are in the $30-50 range. If they're giving you conversion prices, that should be within the range of thirty pounds. Somehow, I don't think you're going to rush over to steam and buy those reasonably priced games, though.

Oh so youre accusing me of simply being a cheap thief who is making excuses for his pirating. Someones seems a bit butthurt.

Ill just quote a post i made you might have missed

"A price cut was simply an example of an incentive but perhaps there would be more effective ones such as perhaps extra goodies included with the retail version that people who pirate it could never get. Ever something as silly as poster included with the game or a nice thick manual/guide book included in every game would give me an incentive to actually pay for a new game. That way I can tell myself ive made a good choice. Sure I might be out of pocket but ive got the game and something else I can enjoy that I wouldnt have got if i had pirated it."

Also, using steam is not an option for me. You know because not everyone can access internet with sufficient bandwidth to download games. I would if I could but excuse me if im not rushing over to steam to watch as my connection explodes.

 

[lonercs]

Do what Rocksteady did with Batman Arkham Asylum and put glitches within the code that alter gameplay if you pirate it.

Yes, that will work...in till someone good at modding and a "fuck you" attitude make a patch for it. If there is a "glitch", there will be a "patch".

 

[mikecoulter]

Making the digital distribution version of games 2/3's of the price would be good. I mean, they don't even need to package, ship, shelve and employ people to sell them to you. They save bucket loads, why not pass the savings on a tad...

 

[DividedUnity]

*snip*

If games are too expensive for you to buy, wait a little, (it's not going to kill you), and buy the games when they come on sale on Steam or what have you. That way the developers and publishers (who distribute and market the game) get their money and you get the game.

See the simple fact is if im going to have to wait a little while. Ill just buy the game preowned and alot cheaper. It may seem a bit childish but if a game is priced too highly on release then its no skin off my nose to buy it preowned so the devs dont get a single penny of my money. I know what youre saying but if things stay the way they are then piracy will stay as it is or more likely get worse. If you have to wait to get a game then by the time youve got the money people will have sold it to the shop and you pick the exact same game you get for full price for a good bit off the price tag. The developers lose out just as they would with piracy

That's why I like EA's new strategy to include big incentives to purchase game's new. The gamer gets rewarded for buying the game new and the publisher/developers take money away from used game sales and pirates.

Yes. Project ten dollar is a great idea. It is an example of the way forward unlike ubi and everyone elses DRM

 

[Xanadu84]

Project $10 is a good basis, as it also confronts used game sales, which is FAR more damaging to the industry. Also, Steam is excellent, but it is more of a 200% consumer-friendly DRM then a piracy alternative. Actually, the idea of a piracy alternative is somewhat nonsensical: If it costs money, its not an alternative to piracy, and if its free, it is just plain old piracy. What you're likely looking for is an alternative to DRM. In this case, developers must see that positive reinforcement is far more effective then punishment. Make it so legitimate purchasers have access to something that pirates don't. Could be robust online service, could be regular content updates which are easy for legit purchasers, but require a separate hack for every example of updated content (Like Mass Effect 2), other useful online support, multiplayer, even the ease of use of something like Steam is a pretty good deterrent.

 

[THAC0]

Actually buy the game?

this should really end the thread.

 

[Darknacht]

The solution is gog.com .
Lots of really good games all for under $10(USD).