Indie RPG Veteran: "Being Nice" Prevents Piracy Better Than Draconian DRM
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
You say that as if the numbers mean anything and even that they did, that it is somehow implicit proof that DRM is better. Neither makes sense, so it is hardly 'all you need to know'. So we have a game that was heavily pirated without DRM and one without that was not. You conclude that the one that was not is wrong because the other one was pirated heavily. right...Katana314 said:
This guy speaks the truth. Don't be a douche to the people wanting to pay for your product simply to ensure your game won't be hacked. When you get all draconian, it's lose/lose.
I personally have been driven away from purchasing certain games due to what i've been told about it's DRM arrangement, and i've never once pirated a game in my life (genuinely). So the simpler the barrier and not being automatically treat like a criminal definitely works.
I personally have been driven away from purchasing certain games due to what i've been told about it's DRM arrangement, and i've never once pirated a game in my life (genuinely). So the simpler the barrier and not being automatically treat like a criminal definitely works.
the voice of reason :O
its too bad he doesn't have the influence to take some of that sense to the bigger fish in the pond.
its too bad he doesn't have the influence to take some of that sense to the bigger fish in the pond.
Remind me, what was the piracy rate for the Humble Indie Bundle 2, or indeed the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle?Aeshi said:
Firstly, it was 25%. Secondly, it was an exploit. Note the piracy figures of the Humble Bundle 2 and the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle, or lack thereof.OutrageousEmu said:
Spiderweb is still around?! Holy...
And they're still making awesome games and making the professional industry look like a bunch of untrained monkeys when it comes to DRM?
Knew that Vogel kid was awesome...
And they're still making awesome games and making the professional industry look like a bunch of untrained monkeys when it comes to DRM?
Knew that Vogel kid was awesome...
I think this man has the right idea, DRM has been a failure, and always will be since it is entirely reactionary. I remember games with such strict protection I decided it just wasn't worth the hassle of buying the game, especially with many games today seming like more effort was put in to stop me from playing the game than letting me enjoy it.
Groups like the RIAA are so completely out of touch with the market (And possibly reality at this point, there is some pretty heavy handed denial) CD sales are down 7 or so percent each year, is that pirates? Or the fact that CDs have reached the end of their useful lifetime? (I can fit 50 HD movies or a thousand songs on a drive the size of my Thumbnail RIAA, why do I want CDs or DVDs anymore?)
Groups like the RIAA are so completely out of touch with the market (And possibly reality at this point, there is some pretty heavy handed denial) CD sales are down 7 or so percent each year, is that pirates? Or the fact that CDs have reached the end of their useful lifetime? (I can fit 50 HD movies or a thousand songs on a drive the size of my Thumbnail RIAA, why do I want CDs or DVDs anymore?)
I've always thought this was the case as well.
If you just make a really good product that people think is worth the price you are charging for it, and make it very accessible, then you are going to sell well and don't need to worry about piracy. Imposing harsh DRM is just going to fuel anger and paranoia and resentment and make people want to pirate the game more. Especially since many examples of harsh DRM end up screwing over legitimately paying customers, whereas hackers easily find workarounds for it.
Music piracy shot up because people wanted to get single songs that they liked, but they didn't want to pay almost $20 for an entire album worth of crap they didn't like.
Once music services went up that allowed you to buy single songs for reasonable prices and were highly accessible, music piracy has gone way down.
If you just make a really good product that people think is worth the price you are charging for it, and make it very accessible, then you are going to sell well and don't need to worry about piracy. Imposing harsh DRM is just going to fuel anger and paranoia and resentment and make people want to pirate the game more. Especially since many examples of harsh DRM end up screwing over legitimately paying customers, whereas hackers easily find workarounds for it.
Music piracy shot up because people wanted to get single songs that they liked, but they didn't want to pay almost $20 for an entire album worth of crap they didn't like.
Once music services went up that allowed you to buy single songs for reasonable prices and were highly accessible, music piracy has gone way down.
Honestly? This isn't an excuse for piracy. You bought a game, so you have the right to play the game. If it doesn't work then the correct course of action is to contact the publisher or developer to work out the issue. Perhaps you've stumbled across a broader issue with their system... don't keep it to yourself.infinity_turtles said:
Take this scenario: Lots of people see the issue, then pirate the game. They tell their friends not to buy the game because of an issue. The pirated version spreads. Bad press for the developer. Lost sales for the developer.
Especially in the case of Indie games where there is no structure in place for distribution QA... Help them catch stuff like this.
World of Goo blah blah. Last I checked they made money. Vogel is right and he's been doing this longer than some of you even knew that the indie industry exists, so listen to him.
(Reinstalls the Exile games)
(Reinstalls the Exile games)
Obligatory:Phlakes said:
One that was pirated without DRM and one without that was not...? I don't even understand what you're saying in this sentence. Seriously, please proofread it...kingmob said:
And if companies aren't going to believe numbers, what can they believe? They prefer facts and data, not opinions of the vocal forum-goers.
Wow, that's impressive man :|... Nowadays I've got enough money to play all the videogames I really want, so, no problem with paying the full price for all of them. When I was younger and the Internet wasn't full of reviewers helping me with tough decision about which games are worth paying for... I know I pirated a lot of them...Griffolion said:
Seriously, though, I cannot, for the love of god, understand whom would buy the PC version of Assassin's Creed II with it's current DRM ! That thing is a monstrosity !
Oooh, new Spiderweb game !
Are you serious ? In the mean time they answer his pleas, correct his problem he will not be able to play is brand new game :S... I understand the necessity of telling the company about the problem, but I would not condemn someone for playing a game he paid ! It's in the same branch of gray area as when you play on emulator a SNES game you already own. It's legal.stuhacking said:
Ugh, I remember Black and Whites cd protection would result in protection errors if you had the wrong cd-drive, I bought the damn game but the only way I COULD use it was to crack it. Did they learn? no, just tried to move on to even more complex systems... DRM is a waste of time.
Everyone bringing up World of Goo and the first Humble Indie Bundle need to remember a couple of things: firstly, that the statistics you're quoting are merely percentages of the total, and say nothing about actual sales figures; and second, that a pirated copy does not directly equate to a lost sale. People pirate games for all sorts of reasons, but one of the big ones is just that they either do not have the money in the first place, or they are not willing to spend it on the game in question. These are not people that would have bought the game had piracy been impossible, and this is especially true of indie hits like World of Goo, which deviated sufficiently from mainstream gaming clichés to put a lot of people off if they had found they had to risk their cash on it before knowing if they were going to enjoy playing it or not.
The same goes for music, film and every other media that's suffering piracy troubles at the moment - I know plenty of people with music collections that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to build legitimately, but the music in question is not stolen for any sort of commercial profit; it's stolen for the love of the music itself, based on the simple fact that enjoying it legitimately is prohibitively expensive and the missed sales would never happen anyway. It's a balance every company has to try to strike on its own terms, but at the end of the day, commercial entities are not interested in piracy figures as a percentage of sales, they're just interested in sales. World of Goo sold well, but if it had been riddled with DRM it would in all likelihood have sold fewer copies than it did, because the pirates would have still cracked it, the people who wanted to steal it would have done so anyway, but the legitimate buyers would have been less enthused about it. Maybe piracy would have been lower, maybe it wouldn't, but based on the evidence of the last decade there's precious little reason for companies to keep making things tougher on the legit consumer. How many potentially great games have suffered commercially because they've been blasted by the gaming community for their obnoxious DRM? How many more sales would Assassin's Creed II have made if it hadn't had all the bad press it got pre-release? We can't know for sure, but we all know people who have refused to buy games based purely on their DRM. Those are the lost sales that the big developers should be chasing.
I'll never advocate piracy, for the simple reason that people deserve to be paid for their work - but at the same time, I reserve the right to choose only to play games from developers that treat their paying customers with a modicum of respect.
The same goes for music, film and every other media that's suffering piracy troubles at the moment - I know plenty of people with music collections that would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to build legitimately, but the music in question is not stolen for any sort of commercial profit; it's stolen for the love of the music itself, based on the simple fact that enjoying it legitimately is prohibitively expensive and the missed sales would never happen anyway. It's a balance every company has to try to strike on its own terms, but at the end of the day, commercial entities are not interested in piracy figures as a percentage of sales, they're just interested in sales. World of Goo sold well, but if it had been riddled with DRM it would in all likelihood have sold fewer copies than it did, because the pirates would have still cracked it, the people who wanted to steal it would have done so anyway, but the legitimate buyers would have been less enthused about it. Maybe piracy would have been lower, maybe it wouldn't, but based on the evidence of the last decade there's precious little reason for companies to keep making things tougher on the legit consumer. How many potentially great games have suffered commercially because they've been blasted by the gaming community for their obnoxious DRM? How many more sales would Assassin's Creed II have made if it hadn't had all the bad press it got pre-release? We can't know for sure, but we all know people who have refused to buy games based purely on their DRM. Those are the lost sales that the big developers should be chasing.
I'll never advocate piracy, for the simple reason that people deserve to be paid for their work - but at the same time, I reserve the right to choose only to play games from developers that treat their paying customers with a modicum of respect.
Now see, I've always loved destroying this argument. A pirated game is ALMOST ALWAYS a lost sale. Yes, I'm saying it directly. There are exceptions for when the game is pirated outside of its selling countries, when someone is pirating to replace scratched discs, and possibly a few other minor cases, but in the general scenario: All pirates WOULD pay something for that software.Longsight said:
The logic I'm going off is that there is SOME price, some value they would associate with that entertainment. Even if that value is "5 cents", it is value; it is an actual, monetary amount, hell, even if it's half a penny. If there were no value, they would not bother pirating it. I don't ever see people pirating "My Fifth-Grade Action Game in QBASIC". Why? Because that game is worthless to them - it has NO value. Even a really disliked game like Modern Warfare is pirated because pirates want it to some degree.
If that value is less than the associated price, that's a different issue; it simply means that the game's price is too high, not that there could never possibly be a sale. I think it obvious that if Modern Warfare were brought to a price point of $0.01, there would be plenty of sales, especially from people who normally couldn't afford it. Right? This very directly means that most (as I said, a few exceptions) downloads from any peer to peer network ARE lost sales.
Besides which, I'm tired of people pirating games for being low on cash. Do some searching, and I'm pretty dang sure you can find 5 months of continuous playtime from really good, entirely free games.