How would you go about fighting/reducing File shearing/piracy

[Kalahee]

More demos, I am not appealed to buy a game I do not know about and screenshots doesn't give any idea of the gameplay. Of course, there is some nice benevolent peoples or companies who record gameplay videos and post them on YouTube... doesn't give me much about my own impression how it plays.

Better pricing, I don't mind paying 40$ for a game I know I would enjoy, because it has made a name and I had good experience with other titles from the developper. I may pay 30$ for a game that has some attributes that I am a sucker for (Character Creation/Cooperative Multiplayer/Active RPG),I won't pay more than 20$ for a game that never had a prequel or title from the company itself. 10$ is all I'd give for indie and experimental games. It's not that I wouldn't want to support them, but if i'd do so, I'll send them a donation. Problem is also price that don't age well. Some games stay at high price for too long.

But I have to agree that all attempts by companies to shoot piracy is just a hole in their own shoes, throught the head of honest buyers.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I don't like how we refuse to recognise that the pricing is crap.

Prices are almost uniform, quality most certainly isn't. I don't even buy all of the top rated games, I'm definitly not laying £40 down on a 7/10 title...even if the premise is intriguing. I might pick it up for a tenner 2nd hand though.

It's worth noting that whilst steam sales are on, steam run out of "tickets" constantly, it appears that people are very willing to pay a price that seems fairer to them.

Discs and boxes cost sod all, printing more copies and selling them for less will almost definitly mean more sales and may well mean more revenue too. I'm perfectly willing to accept that this is wrong, if someone in a more knowledgable position can tell me why.

How did we decide that £40 was the optimal RRP for a game?

Because they're producing incredibly expensive products for a not particularly sizable audience?

The only way those prices are going down is if the price of making them goes down. See: The Indie industry.

OT: Flood the pirating sites with HUNDREDS of dud copies of each game that appear good at first, but have terrifying viruses in them/hilarious DRM that kicks in and ruins the game a third of the way in.

MW2 has reportedly sold more than 20 million copies, even after the proposed boycotts due to lack of dedicated servers, price gouging...and piracy to boot.

It's a potentially big market. COD may be a special case, but I bet it has alot to do with the fact that you know what you're getting with COD. There's little gamble, if you like the formula you'll get your moneys worth.

Can you say that for the vast majority of games? Hell no. £40 for a 7 hour game that may or may not have pleasing game mechanics, and is unlikely to hold any replay value...are the makers of such games really expecting to make money? You can find such games used a couple of days after release, at which point it makes no sense to buy new.

Are they priced highly because they're a luxury item, or a luxury item because of how they're priced? Has anyone actually experimented with the standard RRP? I mean beyond activisions price-gouging, and a few obviously inferior games turning up for a few quid less?

 

[Wolfram23]

I think a good start would be price cuts on the final product, and probably on development too. I mean sure if AAA titles want to poor millions and millions into a game then that's their business, and charge $60. But there's a reason indie games are so cheap and yet SO GOOD. And yet we see "big name" games coming out with maybe 10 hours of content, often buggy or whatever.

I don't like "Day 1 DLC" but that depends on the implementation. I do like "bought new" DLC, or even "valid copy DLC", since most hacks go around the CD Key (although many use key generators, which I don't understand completely since it should have to authenticate it).

I wonder if companies did download-only so no retail copies, they could potentially supply exactly 1 cd key for each copy to go out. Then key-gens wouldn't work (shouldn't, anyway).

Hm well anyway, not sure what else. Usually if I'm looking forward to a game I wait to read some reviews on it because there's rarely any actually useful info about the game on the game's own website. Then if it's good I buy it and if it's not good, I don't buy it. Basically just comes down to whether it appears to be worth the price of admission.

 

[Dirkie]

To prevent piracy i'd go for the option to create something so good and awesome that people are willing to pay for it no matter what.
Or try to put piracy no longer in an acceptable view, but more into something like alcoholism or smoking.
"Be cool, get the real thing"

 

[Mortons4ck]

My plan in a nutshell:

Spoiler

Sometimes, the old ways are the best.

 

[Ddgafd]

Make everything free. No reason to pirate anything anymore.

Oh wait, that's stupid. But it would be the most effective way.

 

[Dexiro]

Probably been said already, but reward paying customers rather than punishing them.

DRM just makes it harder for paying customers and easier for pirates in so many ways, I don't understand why some developers are still trying it.

Giving out codes that unlock bonus content or things like online play seem like an effective way of dealing with it. For online play the game could easily check with the game servers for evidence that it's a pirated copy.
As for bonus content just pile the game up with things like alternate costumes, or an in-game strategy guide, I'm sure that'll convince some people to pay up.

 

[fletch_talon]

Internet 2.0
When you sign up with an ISP you are required to provide your details along with prove of identity. Essentially giving you an internet license.
All activity online could then be traced to you, no absolute anonymity (your ID is held by the ISP and is not visible to the general public, you would still have anonymity on the escapist for example. But if you threatened to blow up a school, police could get a warrant to trace that post back to you.)

The pros would be it would help catch child predators/pornographers and assholes who use the internet as way to abuse/harass/bully others.

The con which unfortunately outweighs the pros, is that even with a completely new set up (hence internet 2.0) hacking would be inevitable. People would be even more vulnerable to identity theft and they would lose all semblance of privacy at the whim of any asshole who can hack.

What I think needs to be done is force torrent sites to monitor their content. Porn sites are responsible for ensuring their actors are legal age, torrent sites should have the same responsibility to ensure all files uploaded are legal.
I've always felt that piracy should be stopped at the source rather than punishing those who give in to temptation.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Give all programs a random serial code that is randomly generated each time the disk installs it on a system; the program enters the code its self and any attempt to tamper with the data results in the rest of the programs on the disk not working.

 

[darth.pixie]

Give all programs a random serial code that is randomly generated each time the disk installs it on a system; the program enters the code its self and any attempt to tamper with the data results in the rest of the programs on the disk not working.

Actually, if you make the program believe it's the same computer with a fixed date, it would be easily by-passed.

What would work is make hackers and crackers make the protection. They know what works and what doesn't.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Actually, if you make the program believe it's the same computer with a fixed date, it would be easily by-passed.

What would work is make hackers and crackers make the protection. They know what works and what doesn't.

I meant on the disk; all of the random key-gen data stays on the disk and you never know the numbers.

 

[darth.pixie]

You can read the disk. Even if it's hidden.

And of course, if you make a random serial for each install, how do you keep track of which one is genuine and which one is pirated? There could be no blacklisting, thus easy way for cracks to come. You could just buy a disk and make a copy for everyone (which reminds me of people selling these types of CD's at a street corner like drugs but for gamers)

You need an algorithm. Which again, can be cracked.

Hackers/crackers are programmers. That's what they do. If a disk has a program with a random generating code, it's still easy to find (harder if the code is obscure but still).

Everything and anything can be cracked. It's mostly a matter of delaying it.

 

[Booze Zombie]

You can read the disk. Even if it's hidden.

And of course, if you make a random serial for each install, how do you keep track of which one is genuine and which one is pirated? There could be no blacklisting, thus easy way for cracks to come. You could just buy a disk and make a copy for everyone (which reminds me of people selling these types of CD's at a street corner like drugs but for gamers)

You need an algorithm. Which again, can be cracked.

Hackers/crackers are programmers. That's what they do. If a disk has a program with a random generating code, it's still easy to find (harder if the code is obscure but still).

Everything and anything can be cracked. It's mostly a matter of delaying it.

If the serial code hasn't got a unique code linking it to the CD it was generated on, it won't work.

In case you hadn't guessed, I'm not a programmer... just an idea man.

 

[darth.pixie]

I am or at least...go to school for it and had them drilled into the brain. I've often nitpicked on the codes of the games I bought, hence the "anything can be cracked".

Best protection I've seen was starforce which I believe was Russian and Tages. And even those bit the dust.

Basically, it all comes down to code which can be decrypted and broken. It's what EA will never understand with its DRM and stupid "protection".

Best way to make people buy is to make a great game.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Best way to make people buy is to make a great game.

I agree fully, but having a bit of protection never hurts (someone will take that out of context I bet).

 

[darth.pixie]

StarCraft 2 is a great example - you buy, you get online. If you pirate, you don't.

Sorry to spoil it, but you can still crack the multiplayer. It's way harder and sometimes even impossible (Starcraft 2 is indeed a good example: there are no dedicated servers, the central server (blizzard one) finds an opponent so with a crack it won't and you can't play) but there are single player games with which multiplayer makes no sense.

Also, the free DLC can be distributed, though if any company would do that, pirating would be a real jerk move.

 

[squid5580]

1. Make a kick ass game with no drms, codes or any real protection. plug and play

2. put out demo of said kick ass game before launch day

3. include some physical object that cannot be pirated with every new copy (figurine, art book, some sort of swag). No DLC or anything like that

4. Profit

 

[Zipa]

Better protection for it. There was a game (forgot which, it's on the tip of my tongue) that was only cracked about 2~3 years after being launched.

Better prices and better quality for those who only want to see if the game is good, before buying. Having good and long demos.

Edit: Spliter cell: chaos theory with starforce protection, Bioshock with securom pa 7, riddick: dark athena (tages + solid shield) were all very hard to crack. I think a better protection than that could be done. And then pirates wouldn't have a choice.

Dear god no. Starforge is renowned for epically screwing up PCs.

 

[darth.pixie]

Dear god no. Starforge is renowned for epically screwing up PCs.

Hence the PC working better with a crack. It's the installing driver that just hijacks everything. I cracked my own bought game for this reason. In fact, I think the only reason I still buy games is because there are companies that I want to support and because I like having them physically, on a shelf.

 

[Zipa]

Dear god no. Starforge is renowned for epically screwing up PCs.

Hence the PC working better with a crack. It's the installing driver that just hijacks everything. I cracked my own bought game for this reason. In fact, I think the only reason I still buy games is because there are companies that I want to support and because I like having them physically, on a shelf.

Its also why a lot of people gravitate towards steam or piracy. If buying a genuine copy of a game is too much hassle and screws your computer people are going to pirate and crack games because no way are they going to put up with the kind of shit that starforce does. And rightly so.