Garak73 said:
Wolfenbarg said:
Garak73 said:
Wolfenbarg said:
Owyn_Merrilin said:
Wolfenbarg said:
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.
There absolutely are many ways to "beat" pirates. As long as you don't have an absolutist definition of "beat," that is.
Beating piracy doesn't mean eradicating every pirate, or every instance of piracy, or every possible means of piracy. Beating piracy just means
delaying it long enough for the on-the-fence folks to choose to buy the game, to ensure the profitability of the game. And that's a hard thing to do, especially when the wannabe-activist pirates thrown dollar signs around like they understand math.
"This game sold 5 million copies!" - Okay. For how much--say $60. That's a total of $300 million. Wow--sure sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Okay... but it likely cost around $100 million to make, as is the case with Starcraft 2. So, that number is already reduced to $200 million. Next up: the point of sale (be it store or digital distributor) gets some money, too. For the sale itself, let's say they make about $10 per game--a tight margin, but pretty plausible. There's $50 million right there. We're at $150 million.
They also have to pay for other things as they go. If it's a large release, they may have to rent shelving at the stores. Continuing to run ads costs money, too. They have to pay to keep the game up and running, and to squash bugs and exploits as they arise, which means continuing to pay the staff. So that's going to steal a few million in no time at all.
So let's say we've still got $150 million left. What's that money for? Pure profit? Not quite. Some of that is going to be needed to reinvest in the next project. The publisher just shelled out $100 million to make this game, and they've gotten back $150 million. That's a profit of .50 per dollar, which isn't bad, but there are plenty of folks that expect them to be happy just making their money back... how would that make their shareholders feel? Would they be likely to reinvest in the next couple of projects?
Also, how many other projects does that publisher have going on? How many of them are having shortfalls that this $150 million helps to cover? How many
people do you have to spread that $150 million out to--which is already not $150 million, due to the factors listed above? Oh, and taxes.