Jimquisition: Piracy - Trying To Kill It Makes It Stronger

Jimothy Sterling

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Piracy - Trying To Kill It Makes It Stronger

Piracy will never be destroyed entirely. It's a fact of life that some people just like to help themselves to freebies. However, not all pirates are in it for the discount, and some are actively driven to piracy by the very companies attempting to kill it. When you make your product harder to obtain and enjoy, all you do is breed an environment where pirates can thrive.

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Lost In The Void

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Aug 27, 2008
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An Excellent episode; its something that does need to change in the industry, I feel as if Origin was a step in the right direction until they shot themselves in the foot with it. If EA can now work on cleaning the infection before it causes them to chop their foot off, that being Origin, they can actually save the service and make a healthy competition. Maybe then they can fuck off about the Online Pass and work on improving origin services so people want to use that.
 

getoffmycloud

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The simple reason they don't do more stuff like steam is look what happened with origin as soon as it was announced everyone came out and said they hated it and would never use it and just pirate EA games so I can see why publishers would be put off this kind of service.
 

Jimothy Sterling

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getoffmycloud said:
The simple reason they don't do more stuff like steam is look what happened with origin as soon as it was announced everyone came out and said they hated it and would never use it and just pirate EA games so I can see why publishers would be put off this kind of service.
The difference is, Origin didn't need to exist. Steam exists already.
 

kurupt87

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Mar 17, 2010
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The actual fuck. You're from Bexleyheath? They shut the Rat and Parrot, it's a Chinese now. So that's good.

As to the topic, amen brother.
 

GeorgW

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Aug 27, 2010
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I wonder what would happen if a game were to be released, and you had the choice of paying extra for a DRM free version. Say, a $10 convenience fee. No codes no nothing, just the game ready to play. Sure it'd be easier to pirate, but it's already easy. I'd love for them to just remove the DRM, everyone hates it anyway, and for good reason. But we all know that won't happen, so why not this idea?

Kwil said:
Generally agree, but you fail in the same way that most of these rants against "the man" fail.. you forget that the reason we're getting this crap DRM stuff imposed on us in the first place is because of the pirates.

That's why I get really annoyed whenever somebody gets up on their righteous horse and says, "It's the companies' fault!"

NO. IT. ISN'T.
It is, and will remain, the pirates fault. You want to fight piracy? Here's a good way, tell everybody you know who's a pirate that they're a prick for forcing companies to put all this crap on their games to try to slow them down.

There are ways to lessen piracy, yes. And yes, the companies can take steps toward it as Steam has done, but let's be honest, unless everybody released on Steam, your next rant would be about how it's so inconvenient to remember which service your game is signed up with and so people pirate because they don't want to be bothered going through any service.

On the other hand, *we* can take steps toward stopping piracy and crappy products at the same time, simply by refusing to give pirates any succor or rationalization. You hear that somebody pirated a game, just go, "Man, that's not cool," and no matter what half-ass rationalization they give you, repeat, "Whatever, it's still a shitty thing to do."
You know, I do that. I have loads of friends that pirate, I'm Swedish, there's a damned religion for it here, but I always tell them off. The thing is, that doesn't help anything. Some people will just pirate, there's nothing that can be done about that. I do encourage them to at least buy the game afterwards if they like it, which they'll often do.

However, you can't put all the blame on the pirates. Sure they started it, but the way publishers are handling things are just making it worse. Yes, pirates suck, but you know what, so do publishers and DRM. While the individual should discourage piracy in whatever way they can, that will never really solve anything because people are just lazy jerks sometimes. If companies won't accept that, and instead drive people towards other options, then they have to share some of the blame.

I guess I both agree and disagree with you, but it's an interesting discussion to be had nonetheless.
 

MonkeyPunch

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I am really of the opinion that services like Steam and GOG help lessen piracy. They're just so convenient.

Also to the bloke mentioning Origin: Origin approached the whole thing totally wrong though. I think Jim listed a bunch of reasons why. Origin just seems like it's taking the publisher bullshit a la DRM and trying to make it online functional.
I've got both platforms and Origin is just a chore compared to Steam.
It's environment seems unfriendly and unrewarding. The opposite of Steam to some extent.

Also for the fun of it, I read the EULA for Origin one night. Not that it's all that transparent but it just seems like just by using Origin my balls belong to EA if they so desire and I waive all rights to anything and EA on the other hand can sue me for just about anything and stop any games services when ever they please for what ever reason whilst they leech all information of my PC and do as they please with it.
 

kurupt87

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Mar 17, 2010
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GeorgW said:
I wonder what would happen if a game were to be released, and you had the choice of paying extra for a DRM free version. Say, a $10 convenience fee. No codes no nothing, just the game ready to play. Sure it'd be easier to pirate, but it's already easy. I'd love for them to just remove the DRM, everyone hates it anyway, and for good reason. But we all know that won't happen, so why not this idea?
Because why the fuck should we have to pay more? That's like charging £2 for a sandwich and a knee in the balls or £10 for just a sandwich.

Fucking commercial Stockholm Syndrome.
 

MatParker116

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Gabe Newell said something similar:

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

The proof is in the proverbial pudding. "Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe," Newell said.

The purpose of Steam is to provide as much value not only to the customer but also to other game publishers. "Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners (e.g. Activision, Take 2, Ubisoft...) feel like they get a lot of value from those services, and that they can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them."
 

Wintermoot

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getoffmycloud said:
The simple reason they don't do more stuff like steam is look what happened with origin as soon as it was announced everyone came out and said they hated it and would never use it and just pirate EA games so I can see why publishers would be put off this kind of service.
he already explained the Origin problem in another episode.
OT
I think Jim just explained the entire piracy problem and how to solve it.
if only dev,s where to listen.....
 

Callate

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Preach, brother! Testify, testify!

I also appreciate the concise explanation of why Steam prospers despite the shallow cries of "it's more DRM, why is Valve's DRM okay and EA's and Ubisoft's get's everyone up in arms..." We're still probably going to have to have that argument about a million times, of course.

One way or another, we keep getting expected to pay more. Whether it's the poorly integrated day-one DRM or the online play codes or the in-game advertisements or the multiple unskippable logo pages at the beginning of the game or the data mining or the elimination of the ability to seek legal redress (hello, Origin!)... Rather than setting themselves up as our friendly game providers, our publishers are increasingly portraying themselves as our antagonists. They don't like us, they don't respect us, they don't trust us, and they're going to take out everything that's going wrong with their world on us. When you feel like that's the attitude you're coming up against, I don't doubt for some people piracy almost does become a matter of retaliation against mistreatment.

And, yeah, I get that game companies are in a bind as well. But they've got to come up with ways to address their problems that don't amount to punishing their legitimate customers with a product that's inferior to what the pirates offer.
 

Voltano

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Kwil said:
It is, and will remain, the pirates fault. You want to fight piracy? Here's a good way, tell everybody you know who's a pirate that they're a prick for forcing companies to put all this crap on their games to try to slow them down.
In a way, your right that some of this is the pirates fault. But just telling the person that uploaded the software/movie/music/whatever to the Internet for everyone to download that they are a 'bad person'--is just as effective as telling bullies in school they are scum. Bullying will always exist because there are just some kids out there that want to do something horrible to a person with no care of what others think of his/her character--and pirates are no different.

I believe Jim nailed it here in stating that piracy is not a stealing issue, but a service issue. Suppose John Doe downloads "Kingdoms of Amalur" for free from some torrent site, only to find out the 'game' he downloaded was a virus and/or "Amy". John got poor service right there from pirates because he didn't get what he wanted, either a crappy game, or a trip to Best Buy to fix his computer. But if John goes and buys the game, he needs to jump through a bunch of hoops and ladders (Online Pass, third-party DRM if bought digitally on PC, etc.) so he could get into the game.

Now if John bought a digital copy of "Kingdoms of Amalur" for $30 in a Steam holiday sale with no Online pass being involved, then that is more convenient for him. He gets the game he wants at a reasonable price, and he doesn't have to 'prove his worth' by copy/pasting something into the game to tell it he bought it legally.
 

GeorgW

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kurupt87 said:
GeorgW said:
I wonder what would happen if a game were to be released, and you had the choice of paying extra for a DRM free version. Say, a $10 convenience fee. No codes no nothing, just the game ready to play. Sure it'd be easier to pirate, but it's already easy. I'd love for them to just remove the DRM, everyone hates it anyway, and for good reason. But we all know that won't happen, so why not this idea?
Because why the fuck should we have to pay more? That's like charging £2 for a sandwich and a knee in the balls or £10 for just a sandwich.

Fucking commercial Stockholm Syndrome.
But you don't have to pay more. If you want the codes and hassle, you're free to get the cheaper game. I agree that it's not the best way to handle it, but since publishers are ignoring the very simple option of not being assholes, they might like this one better.

To use your own analogy, the only option now is to take the knee in the balls. That way, if I don't want a knee in the balls, I won't get my sandwich at all. Wouldn't this be a much better, albeit a completely unnecessary solution?
 

Staskala

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Sep 28, 2010
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Kwil said:
Generally agree, but you fail in the same way that most of these rants against "the man" fail.. you forget that the reason we're getting this crap DRM stuff imposed on us in the first place is because of the pirates.

That's why I get really annoyed whenever somebody gets up on their righteous horse and says, "It's the companies' fault!"

NO. IT. ISN'T.
Why? What exactly forces a company to introduce DRM instead of taking other measures against piracy that don't hurt their consumer base?
In no other industry could you get away with this. If a store introduced mandatory, full-on body scans because they had a problem with thievery, who in their right mind would argue in their favor? Crimes happen, yes, but it doesn't give you the right to do whatever you fucking want at the expense of the people who give you their money - without having to face the consequences, that is.
Publishers are free to do all they want against piracy as long as it doesn't inconvenience me, the consumer. The second it does it is their - and only their - fault, plain and simple. Service is part of the product, and if your service sucks I stop buying your product, no matter what bogeyman you dig out in a weak attempt of justification. The pirate is not part of the consumer-publisher relationship and whatever he does should not affect me.

Now, I don't know you, but if you're already typing "self-ent" - beat it. If demanding an appropriate equivalent for my money, if demanding the very same consumer rights I am also granted in every single other industry, then yes, I'll proudly call myself self-entitled. Because I have every right to be.
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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Jim Sterling said:
Piracy - Trying To Kill It Makes It Stronger

Piracy will never be destroyed entirely. It's a fact of life that some people just like to help themselves to freebies. However, not all pirates are in it for the discount, and some are actively driven to piracy by the very companies attempting to kill it. When you make your product harder to obtain and enjoy, all you do is breed an environment where pirates can thrive.

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I'm really enjoying this take on piracy, because it's a demonstration of how to do it right (talk about piracy, that is).

Is there anger? Sure! And it's right to be angry! The difference here is that the anger is directed to the appropriate place and for the appropriate reasons. Publishers are not adopting new business models, because they're too comfortable in the "old ways." They're not following the example of Steam... unless you count Origin, which is "Steam 2 (Late)."

You don't earn customer loyalty by having them sign up for a proprietary account and enter their e-mail addresses twice. You earn customer loyalty by being better than the alternatives.

So yeah, there's plenty to be angry about. But what I appreciate the most is that this series is not simultaneously excusing piracy. Piracy is understandable, but it is not excusable. I would rather someone ignore the pirates completely than try to defend the practice.

Piracy is like acne. It's part of growing up, and the more you pick at it, the worse it gets. But no one likes acne. We learn to deal with it, to work around it, and most of us eventually grow out of it. But no one is walking around saying, "Acne really has a point, you know. It's just trying to help..."

The discussion is also not about companies completely giving up the fight, and I appreciate that. That's the clarion-call of the wannabe pirate: "Just stop doing anything to prevent piracy (so I can pirate more easily)!" Thankfully, that's not what I've been hearing from Jim's take on things.

I'm 100% alright with confining the discussion to what publishers can do to make piracy less appealing by making legitimate purchase MORE appealing. And I'm alright not trying to talk pirates out of it, too, because they're not listening. I'm just glad to hear a view on piracy that is distinctly anti-publisher without also feeling the need to be pro-pirate.
 

Rednog

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I'm a bit confused as to the argument here, the whole convenience criticism seems a bit flawed.
Comparing it to something like iTunes where you can get a song damn near instantaneously is a problem because you're talking about something that is a small amount of data for machines to download and process in comparison to something that is a huge amount of data like a game.

I mean you really can't get around the whole install/update that's just the nature of the technology that is available, why can't we just pop it in like the old days and play it out of the gate? Well that is because the technology on consoles works.

Oh but what about the netflix example, with the push of a button you can watch things instantly, why can't you do that with games...well we sort of can now, it's called OnLive.

Even then I don't see how pirates provide a better service for games. For a legit game you obtain it retail or digital, download if digital, then install, and patch it.
Pirated games, you have to find it, download it, install it, and patch it, and run a crack.

It is pretty much the same damn thing.

I don't think you can really blame companies for not offering instant playability like music or movies because the technology just isn't up to speed yet. Is it their fault broadband isn't at a blazing speed to accommodate such a huge file? Is it the fault of game companies that harddrives can't write much faster?

The only reason iTunes worked is because it answered the problem of people wanting to buy individual songs instead of whole albums, I don't think the same can be done with games, hell I would think that it would be more of a hassle to chop up games into individual levels and force people to buy each one to continue the game.