Has gaming hit a wall due to piracy?

[Wolfenbarg]

It's hit a pretty big PR wall

That right there is what this boils down to; PR. I'm not denying that piracy is a problem,but it's way overblown by the industry. I'm pretty sure the music industry is just using it as an excuse to sue customers for millions at this point, and the game industry isn't being much more intelligent about it. The example of splitscreen gaming disappearing is perfect for what I'm talking about; make every player buy their own copy to play multiplayer, and then find some roundabout way to blame it on piracy. It's foolproof!

That I can agree with. Blizzard removing LAN from Starcraft 2 was endlessly infuriating, but due to the fact that the pirate servers that run through LAN have better attendance than the official ones, it sadly made some sense. Removing split screen is just ridiculous though. Playing co-op when you're in the same room on the same TV is piracy now? Okay. Don't tell the 90's though, they'll freak the hell out.

When games are made with piracy in mind and features are removed, they are making the game for the wrong crowd.

This unfortunately has been the issue and will continue to be the issue. Developers have to find a way to beat pirates without damaging their relations with gamers. It is a slippery slope indeed... I as a gamer don't want features removed, but I also don't want games to flop just because people refuse to go to the store and buy games.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

It's hit a pretty big PR wall

That right there is what this boils down to; PR. I'm not denying that piracy is a problem,but it's way overblown by the industry. I'm pretty sure the music industry is just using it as an excuse to sue customers for millions at this point, and the game industry isn't being much more intelligent about it. The example of splitscreen gaming disappearing is perfect for what I'm talking about; make every player buy their own copy to play multiplayer, and then find some roundabout way to blame it on piracy. It's foolproof!

That I can agree with. Blizzard removing LAN from Starcraft 2 was endlessly infuriating, but due to the fact that the pirate servers that run through LAN have better attendance than the official ones, it sadly made some sense. Removing split screen is just ridiculous though. Playing co-op when you're in the same room on the same TV is piracy now? Okay. Don't tell the 90's though, they'll freak the hell out.

When games are made with piracy in mind and features are removed, they are making the game for the wrong crowd.

This unfortunately has been the issue and will continue to be the issue. Developers have to find a way to beat pirates without damaging their relations with gamers. It is a slippery slope indeed... I as a gamer don't want features removed, but I also don't want games to flop just because people refuse to go to the store and buy games.

There is no way to "beat" pirates. As long as they are going to extremes they will push people towards piracy. They might be better off ignoring pirates as ignoring them atleast doesn't send people towards piracy in frustration.

People don't pirate out of some kind of nobility. While anti-piracy measures do force many to pirate, there are plenty of games that ignore piracy and still get pirated like mad. There was an article up recently that showed the top pirated games of I think 2008. While two EA games were on top, the next game was Crysis, which doesn't have draconian DRM to protect it.

 

[Altorin]

(that was the issue with piracy before, hardcopies)

Leading to the BEST anti-piracy PSA video

 

[Estocavio]

Piracy affects nothing
Heres what affects things:
The Publicity of Piracy
And the sales - This is probably just an excuse for lower-than-expected ratios

 

[Direwolf750]

As i was reading the topic about lack of splitscreen in many modern games, i started to wonder.

With games costing more and more to make, and 'greedy' developers losing sales to piracy and preowned, if they were indeed omitting it to recoup lost revenue, is that any wonder? I've never pirated, and buy new when i can, since i prefer to support the industry i love. But when so many leech through piracy (less with preowned, since it's still legit) would it be any wonder losses need to be redressed?

It is really a lot less then they would have you believe. Although some do pirate, and I can't vouch for them, a lot of times anti-piracy measures just inconvenience gamers. Online validation services for instance.

You commit a huge fallacy in the very beginning of your point. You immediately equate lack of split screen to piracy. It doesn't mean that piracy is the reason. It could just be that they want more money out of their games. It could be the company decided to not put it in for other reasons. Maybe their code just couldn't handle it. There are tons of reasons it could be missing.

Arguably, you could say that any company would lose money if someone gave their good to a friend, payed or not. It isn't just about games, nor do I see it as wrong. With anti-copying measures already in place, giving someone else your copy of something does not rob the company of money. They have allowed one use of a product, and only one person is still able to use said product. The problem is that gamestop and the like are making money off of these deals, and not giving publishers a cut, used games aren't the problem, and most of the ideas I've seen to counter it are atrocious.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

It's hit a pretty big PR wall

That right there is what this boils down to; PR. I'm not denying that piracy is a problem,but it's way overblown by the industry. I'm pretty sure the music industry is just using it as an excuse to sue customers for millions at this point, and the game industry isn't being much more intelligent about it. The example of splitscreen gaming disappearing is perfect for what I'm talking about; make every player buy their own copy to play multiplayer, and then find some roundabout way to blame it on piracy. It's foolproof!

That I can agree with. Blizzard removing LAN from Starcraft 2 was endlessly infuriating, but due to the fact that the pirate servers that run through LAN have better attendance than the official ones, it sadly made some sense. Removing split screen is just ridiculous though. Playing co-op when you're in the same room on the same TV is piracy now? Okay. Don't tell the 90's though, they'll freak the hell out.

When games are made with piracy in mind and features are removed, they are making the game for the wrong crowd.

This unfortunately has been the issue and will continue to be the issue. Developers have to find a way to beat pirates without damaging their relations with gamers. It is a slippery slope indeed... I as a gamer don't want features removed, but I also don't want games to flop just because people refuse to go to the store and buy games.

There is no way to "beat" pirates. As long as they are going to extremes they will push people towards piracy. They might be better off ignoring pirates as ignoring them atleast doesn't send people towards piracy in frustration.

People don't pirate out of some kind of nobility. While anti-piracy measures do force many to pirate, there are plenty of games that ignore piracy and still get pirated like mad. There was an article up recently that showed the top pirated games of I think 2008. While two EA games were on top, the next game was Crysis, which doesn't have draconian DRM to protect it.

Ignoring piracy won't stop piracy. I never implied that. All I am saying is that DRM is pushing people to piracy when they can't get their legit copy to work. However, DRM is not pushing pirates to be legit so more ground is lost concentrating on pirates than would be if they were ignored.

I wonder if pirated copies of SC2 have LAN yet?

My mistake then. Harsh DRM like Securom does alienate gamers, but then if they leave the door wide open then the greedy will leap to the advantage. Spore pretty much proved the point you made with alienating gamers, but it's still a very delicate situation when it comes to figuring out what can be done to keep gamers happy but keep pirates... well not pirating. P2P networks are only getting more popular and easier to use to download games, so something has to be done... but what that is is the question.

I doubt they have it yet. But I have no doubts that it's being developed and Blizzard will soon come down with a copyright infringement case if the last few months is anything to go by.

 

[aPod]

(that was the issue with piracy before, hardcopies)

Leading to the BEST anti-piracy PSA video

Best part about that is the MC's name. Oh boy. Thanks for sharing that, it always makes me smile.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

No. Piracy makes an exceptionally minimal impact on game revenue compared to used games sales.

 

[Gindil]

As i was reading the topic about lack of splitscreen in many modern games, i started to wonder.

With games costing more and more to make, and 'greedy' developers losing sales to piracy and preowned, if they were indeed omitting it to recoup lost revenue, is that any wonder? I've never pirated, and buy new when i can, since i prefer to support the industry i love. But when so many leech through piracy (less with preowned, since it's still legit) would it be any wonder losses need to be redressed?

Something to cconsider, the industry isn't really losing money if there is competition for your time. This includes Free to Play games such as Vindictus which looks pretty damn good.

 

[veloper]

No, gaming isn't hitting a wall and is on the rise.
Always a growing market and higher profits. Always has been.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

Modern Warfare 2 is the fastest selling product in the history of capitalism. New Vegas sold 5 million copies. World of Warcraft has a reported 15 million people paying $15 a month to play it.

I find it silly when developers claim that piracy is what caused their bad game to not sell very well. It reminds me of when Metallica started making shitty generic metal and blamed the decreased sales on Napster.

Then again, I can't blame publishers for putting in incentive based DRM to help prevent. I don't mind project $10, I like benefits to registration, Steam is bloated but functional, and the only DRM that's ever bothered me is Ubisoft's. I also stopped shopping at glorified pawn shops for my games.

 

[AcacianLeaves]

No, gaming isn't hitting a wall and is on the rise.
Always a growing market and higher profits. Always has been.

That's not really true. For the first part of the Great Recession it was, but now the industry has really been hit. People are buying less games, publishers are consolidating companies, studios are closing and firing people left and right, etc.

I don't think that necessarily has anything to do with piracy, it's more a symptom of a global economic downturn, but gaming isn't always growing.

 

[2fish]

(that was the issue with piracy before, hardcopies)

Leading to the BEST anti-piracy PSA video

It takes 20 to 30 people to make a game wow. I will buy one disk for every computer I use it on, thank you little man in the computer. I would feel bad if I hurt those 30 people.

I don't think we have hit a wall yet we have just gotten more brown/grey realism in our ads unlike how happy the old copyright ads were. The whole game industry seems gloomy compared to that ad.

 

[veloper]

No, gaming isn't hitting a wall and is on the rise.
Always a growing market and higher profits. Always has been.

That's not really true. For the first part of the Great Recession it was, but now the industry has really been hit. People are buying less games, publishers are consolidating companies, studios are closing and firing people left and right, etc.

I don't think that necessarily has anything to do with piracy, it's more a symptom of a global economic downturn, but gaming isn't always growing.

It wasn't a "great" recession. There's always smaller ups and downs and while the general trend is one of growth.
People are buying more games now in this little dip than 5 years ago.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I think people forget the fact that the games industry as a whole posts record profits year upon year and is now as big if not bigger than the film industry and the music industry in a lot of cases. This does not sound like the cries of an industry being strangled by rampant piracy.

Piracy will be a problem for as long as people are producing things that can be pirated, back before there were films and games people were making unauthorized copies of books for god's sake. So it's not a new detrimental phenomenon that the industry is faced with at all, and it wont spell the end of games as some would like you to think. Piracy is as consequence of having a product that can be duplicated easily. Ohh and DRM? Nope not going to work, some one had to program the DRM and some one else out there who is just as clever and has some free time on there hands will always be able to find a way round it, and lets not forget that if you make your DRM too draconian then you are hurting your legitimate customers more than the pirates.

The only way to beat the pirates is it make your retail product something that a customer will want to own over a pirated copy. There will always be more people who will pay for a quality, reasonably priced, official product than a pirated one. Give us something good, something that we will not feel wallet raped over when we had over our cash to you the industry and we will continue to support you.

 

[Kenko]

If anything, the bigger brands should lower their fucking prices by the bucketload. Buying a game from steam or most Buy'n'Download mediums you pay FULL PRICE. For a copy that they havent lost any money producing, shipping and transporting. I pirate alot of games. I also buy the ones that are good. But too many studios poop out shitty generic games way to often. (Im looking at you EA, Activision, Treyarch).

 

[spartan231490]

New Vegas sells 5 million copies, OP claims they are losing money.

A couple of points, from what i've seen, NV seems to be relatively un-pirated. Also, it's not exactly relatable to the splitscreen sacrifice i raised. i really don't hold with the '5mil copies is like free money!' idea, since that's hundreds of jobs and countless hours getting that game from brain to 'box. So yes, i stand by my claim that any lost sale is a detriment.

They're still making a profit overall, so I won't be crying any rivers for them. I don't pirate, because it's illegal and wrong, but I won't condemn those who do. Speeding is also illegal, yet most everyone does it. There are a lot worse things you could do. As for not having split screen. Modern warfare 2 had no splitscreen, but black ops does. So I'm going to say that this is more of a myth.