Codemasters CEO: Beat Piracy With Unfinished Games

[Kajaho]

10/10

would rage again.

 

[DeleteMe1112311]

I will never buy a game released like this. This strategy solves nothing (way to continue to underestimate the ingenuity of pirates) and seems to me to be directed more at increasing profit by continuing to nickle and dime gamers. I can understand releasing some DLC with the game to encourage buying it new - they make 0 profit off of used games - but this is ridiculous. When I buy a game, I want to get an entire game. Not some half-assed incomplete piece of crap. And this strategy leaves gamers completely at the mercy of the developers and companies - after we buy the game on promises of "micro-payments" to unlock parts of the game that should have come with it, we have no guarantee that the content will ever be released or that it will be released at an appropriate price.

 

[tikian12]

The most creative way is to just scrap it. Piracy was less rampant when they weren't worried about it. Or be sneaky about it like with earthbound, have the game do micro-check to see if it is a real copy or a fake, if they come back wrong, then fuck up the game with crazy hoards of monsters or make it so they cant win ever. That's good anti-piracy.

 

[Dana22]

Or you could use uncrackable drm

 

[the monopoly guy]

Rod Cousens: How to Make Money and Make Money Doing it.

This is the exact opposite of what needs to be done. I hate it when developers release a game and then instantly release DLC for it. After just buying a 60 dollar game I don't want to keep paying for it, especially for things you could have easily put into the retail version. Basically what this guy is saying is that he wants to stop piracy, so he can make more money, and then make you keep paying for a game after you bought it, so he can make more money. And chances are, the games would still be full priced.

 

[SubEngy]

That's like buying a book and only getting half the pages. If these words get to Cory Doctorow, he's going to go insane.

 

[Kiithid]

I think people are misunderstanding - or rather, I *hope* they are.

If he's talking about selling unfinished games at $60 and then charging more, then the guy's out of his rocker. But it seems to me that he's saying, "Let's sell a half-complete game for $30" (or whatever) "and then finish it in DLC." In other words, it's just ... episodic content?

Common knowledge these days dictate everyone's a Kotick unless proven otherwise. Lowering the price tag would do wonders if this strategy were to be aplied, or at least games wouldn't be so unbought-able down here.

 

[sweetdude]

I've got an idea. Instead of spending millions on development and publishing costs, then selling the games at unaffordable high rates which fewer and fewer people are willing to pay for, why not spread the cost of making the games over a wide variety of developers and sell the games at low rates on services such as Xbox Live and Steam? That way the games will improve, instead of the majority being shit, or shitter than they would've been had the developers been given a little more creative freedom, and people will be more than happy to buy the games they want at the right prices. Stop blaming pirates, stop blaming used-game sales, and start blaming yourselves you wasteful money-grubbing scum.

 

[Jared]

Its not going to work...I applaud him for trying to think of new ways to fight it other than through DRM, and, thats good...but, unfortunatly this idea isnt much better

 

[Deadlock Radium]

I like Codemasters, but this idea is simply impossible to get a positive result out of. It will end up punishing legitimate customers and also, pirates will find a way to eyepatch that.

 

[unacomn]

Every publisher who has ever released DLC beat him to it.

But he could take it to the next level, like releasing games that literary aren't finished, bugged to hell, unplayable. Wait, there already are publishers doing that.

 

[fozzy360]

I think people are misunderstanding - or rather, I *hope* they are.

If he's talking about selling unfinished games at $60 and then charging more, then the guy's out of his rocker. But it seems to me that he's saying, "Let's sell a half-complete game for $30" (or whatever) "and then finish it in DLC." In other words, it's just ... episodic content?

I don't like the idea of paying for half of the full experience, and then going through multiple transactions to complete that experience. It's different when you can get DLC that was made after the fact and meant to enhance your experience. Now, I can't look at Codemaster's games without thinking that the games they're selling are half of what was meant to be.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Didn't Batman AA make it so that pirates couldn't jump? Did that work, because if it did then why the hell is this still an issue, just don't let pirates shoot!

EDIT: Or play this constantly:

 

[Megacherv]

As long as the games are sold at a lower price, and the DLC brings it up to NO MORE than what would be expected of a full game, then that's fine with me.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

What. A. Dick.

Seriously, he can't actually think that. I refuse, for sanity's sake, that there are actually people like that out there.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

I was gonna post that very same story. Holy shit is this stupid. This is a two-pronged attack that's gonna hit the following:

a) Used games market [intentional]
b) Legitimate consumers

This won't faze pirates, and we know the Bobby Koticks of this industry won't reduce the prices of games if they come out blatantly unfinished. This makes the crap Ubisoft pulled off look honest, because by comparison, they were trying to protect their intellectual property, but went about it the wrong way. Like piracy, this idea is thievery at best.

 

[Gizmo]

Sounds like a waste of time to buy the game in separate pieces, maybe if stores like Gamestop would sell the whole thing in a package, still I think its a stupid idea either way.

 

[Zhukov]

"My answer is for us as publishers is to actually sell unfinished games - and to offer the consumer multiple micro-payments to buy elements of the full experience. That would create an offering that is affordable at retail - but over a period of time may also generate more revenue for the publishers to reinvest in our games."

Allow me to translate:

"We are going to beat the pirates by making our product even worse when compared to the pirated version."

Christ, and here was I thinking that online reigstration was annoying. Now they want to make what basically amounts to essential DLC. Someone slap this man.

Hey mate, how about I give you an unfinished payment for your unfinished game?

 

[John Funk]

I think people are misunderstanding - or rather, I *hope* they are.

If he's talking about selling unfinished games at $60 and then charging more, then the guy's out of his rocker. But it seems to me that he's saying, "Let's sell a half-complete game for $30" (or whatever) "and then finish it in DLC." In other words, it's just ... episodic content?

I don't like the idea of paying for half of the full experience, and then going through multiple transactions to complete that experience. It's different when you can get DLC that was made after the fact and meant to enhance your experience. Now, I can't look at Codemaster's games without thinking that the games they're selling are half of what was meant to be.

It makes sense, to some degree. Think about it - if you're buying a game on impulse and you don't know if it'll be good, which would you be more likely to pick up? A $30 game which you can then make into a $60 game with DLC, or a $60 game? If both games suck, you lose much less with the cheaper one since nobody's forcing you to buy the rest of it.