Piracy Numbers
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
With one big exception. Pirates had a hard time breaking through StarForce. Their response, a whispering campaign against it on the internet that still paints StarForce as the Anti-Christ of gaming. (It wasn't a perfect DRM, but it did actually stop them, and it was a hell of a lot less invasive then SecurRom's 1 activation ever limit.)Wicky_42 said:
Pretty much a given. And, as Shamus admitted, DRMs can actually motivate piracy, ex: Spore.
Not likely. This is a fact. SecurRom, TAGES and the rest are all produced by third party security companies. These companies license their security software the same way Epic Games licenses the Unreal engine, for money. So, yeah, DRM systems cost money to implement.
What EA is doing does seem like a good solution, not a perfect one, mind you, but a good one. Steam being another good option, where you have a lot of service options added in via the distribution system. As for getting the companies to ditch the DRMs? That's a tougher sale. Consider it in this way, you own a shop in a shitty neighborhood, no matter what you do, your store will be broken into every night. Now, you can either put expensive locks on the doors, which will be broken every night, or no locks. As an economic choice it seems like the expensive locks don't make sense, but, could you really walk out every evening without locking the door? The publishers are kind of in that situation. They know it doesn't make a difference, but they want to believe that it does.
Put it this way, if you don't pirate, you're victimized by the DRMs that are designed to slow down or inhibit them. If they didn't exist there'd be no need for such things, hence, Jerks. By definition they are taking someone elses work without paying for it, ergo, Jerks. Piracy rates have lead to the destruction of the PC gaming market and forced numerous gamers to move over to consoles, forcing us to give up our prefered gaming format, hence, Jerks. And finally, I've yet to meet a pirate online who is appologetic for their actions, they're always very quick to paint themselves as goddamn Robin Hoods stealing from the evil rich corporations and giving to themselves... what... wait a minute... hence, Jerks.llafnwod said:
Please stop with the piracy articles. I am really sorry but you keep saying the same thing over and over again. I want your views on something that hasnt been beaten to a fine paste put on the burnt toast known as society and digested by our multi-tasking computer like brains.
Like maybe what would happen if brain eating aliens came to earth during the zombie apocalypse?
Like maybe what would happen if brain eating aliens came to earth during the zombie apocalypse?
Every game I've pirated has been bought, or is now bought. All the games I've pirated are old.Starke said:
Wow, that edit made your post a lot more vicious. I'm still not quite convinced my post makes me a jerk, as responding to what you feel to be a ill-made statement in a deprecating fashion isn't really uncommonly cruel. I did, in fact post a brief articulation of my stance on the matter, and I'd be very interested in hearing your view on it.Starke said:
llafnwod said:
That's a grey area. If the game is not supported anymore, I'd say it's fair game. Sure, with the virtual console and GOG.com some old games are getting new support but then again, 6$ for some good classic games like Gabriel Knight and all, pretty good deal.Premonition said:
Question: does loaning out one of my games or borrowing someone else's game count as piracy? Because I've been doing that since I was a wee lad. Lending out Syphon Filter, borrowing Red Alert 2, lending out Worms: Armageddon, borrowing Disgaea: Hour of Darkness... I called it sharing and back then it was not only okay, it was encouraged! Was that wrong?
Note: I haven't done it in a while.
Note: I haven't done it in a while.
I understand the logic here, why pay for something if you can get it off the internet for free. Lots of people on the internet, especially the hardcore internet folk who are often gamers, have no moral backbone what-so-ever. Anonymity turns people into assholes but it also makes them moral-less. Anonymity revels the despicable beast in the heart of man afterall. What we need to do to stop piracy is fix people so they they will fell the moral pangs of "IT IS WRONG, YOU ASS!" over the economic pangs of "It costs 50 dollars, unless I download it then its free." Of course this is, so far, not possible (without big brother). Which leaves us wonder what can we do to try and alleviate what we have and really there isn't much. The asshole of the internet laughs at your pain and your only end is either to struggle and cause them to laugh louder or not make games. Reminds me of my days being bullied.
If it makes you feel any better, I remember the jackass who ran the forums on Superdickery.com once comming down on me hard. I had bitched him out for pirating everything he plays and then never paying for it, and he claimed I was doing less to support the industry than he was. He said this almost in the same breath as bitching out the developers for not releasing any good PC exclusives anymore.ZZoMBiE13 said:
What it isn't is a red hering. Piracy has been an issue for nearly every console or computer system ever. With the advent of high speed internet it's become something more. A veritable armegedeon. The music industry today is half the size it was in 1998. That's not a soft economy, that's the result of piracy. You're right in part though, piracy has become the justification in killing off the used game market, but it isn't a conspiracy in so far as "I know we'll invent this thing called piracy." It is a response to slipping game sales as a result of piracy, and the publishers saying, "where can we cut our losses? We can't go to every door of every pirate, kick them in the testicles and move on, the music industry got royally fucked over by doing that... I know, we fuck over the used game market."Hopeless Bastard said:
But, Piracy isn't a red hering. Nintendo spent an entire cycle using cartridges after everyone else had gone to disks because of fears of piracy. Cartridges cost more to produce than a CD by a substantial margin. They cost more to ship, and they cost more shelf space giving retailers a solid reason not to pick them up at all. You don't do something like that if it's not a real and genuine threat.
I was under the impression that the branded disks issue was dropped because there were problems with the disks not imprinting propperly and dangers of a massive class action suit as a result. Though more expensive hardware costs for the consoles themselves come to mind. When the most reliable consoles in the current market have a 2% or 3% failure rate, those could be some pretty large suits. And EULAs in software just do not hold up in court.
As a guy who downloads pirated games and buys legit games heres my take on the whole issue I think for most people who do it. If anyone can program a DRM another programer or team of equal skill can program around it and people who download pirated game will wait anyways for someone to hack it. I had to "pirate" some of my older legit games because they no longer functioned after some poorly programmed update made it unable to function normally. As for the actually pirated games, I do it because I dont have a huge cashflow so I download games im less than sure of and if its great or Im pretty psyched about it before hand Ill buy it. Some games i pirated Ill never buy, like Spore, because halfway through what seemed like a fun game became pure shite for me.
DLC I think is a better way to stop piracy since it rewards those who go the legit route instead of irritating them, Im looking at you securerom, and a bit of an incentive to go legit. Digital distribution isnt hack proof either but since it cuts the cost of producing and distributing the disc entirely companies like Steam can sell you a game at ultra low prices and still make huge profits for all involved by the AMOUNT they sale since there is no actual money being lost to extra overhead. This is why Steam is growing in popularity especially friends of mine who pirate games.
SO my advice, stop punishing people for actually buying the games, make them higher quality, more quality DLC, and if your game is being digitally distributed make it cheaper because we know its a crapload cheaper for you.
Long live pirate bay
DLC I think is a better way to stop piracy since it rewards those who go the legit route instead of irritating them, Im looking at you securerom, and a bit of an incentive to go legit. Digital distribution isnt hack proof either but since it cuts the cost of producing and distributing the disc entirely companies like Steam can sell you a game at ultra low prices and still make huge profits for all involved by the AMOUNT they sale since there is no actual money being lost to extra overhead. This is why Steam is growing in popularity especially friends of mine who pirate games.
SO my advice, stop punishing people for actually buying the games, make them higher quality, more quality DLC, and if your game is being digitally distributed make it cheaper because we know its a crapload cheaper for you.
Long live pirate bay
and in the end all the self righteous people that claim pirates are jerks for acquiring games without paying for them pirate songs and or movies themselves all the time and dont count it because its such a small price tag in comparison to games.
hypocrisy on a global scale.
sometimes piracy is also a way to remind the developers that some games are a rip off like MW2 with its big budget it still had nothing new in it beside updated graphics 60$ for a 6 hour game that is a mere copy paste of its successful predecessor.
hypocrisy on a global scale.
sometimes piracy is also a way to remind the developers that some games are a rip off like MW2 with its big budget it still had nothing new in it beside updated graphics 60$ for a 6 hour game that is a mere copy paste of its successful predecessor.
I'm going to have to question this entire point.Shamus Young said:
Notice how nobody but 2D Boy ever mentioned how they got their numbers? Some of them even mentioned 2D Boy's data first... How convenient that theirs would match, especially in cases like Demigod's where it conveniently justifies and otherwise developer faux pas. I'm NOT saying their data is forged, I'm saying it's extremely unreliable at best.
Even 2D Boy never mentions HOW they identify pirates. If they have a reliable way to "flag" pirates, surely they would also disable their games, no?
Oh wait, they can't.
Demigod's developers admit that isolating legitimate users would be seven kinds of hell... Which leads me to believe they haven't done it to begin with (or they would have them removed already), because it's next to impossible... Which in turn leads me to believe they pulled their numbers straight out of the anal sphincter.
Then there's the funny issue that if those numbers were true, then most games AAA titles should sell what? 30 million copies? What's the average sales number for triple-A titles these days? 3 million? 4 million? I'm seriously going to question that 30 to 40 million individuals play most AAA titles these days... What about Modern Warfare 2? It sold what? 8 million? Should have should what? 80? Are there even those many people with a computer that care about first person shooters? Hell modern warfare only saw around 4.7 million torrent downloads... Even if we don't discount people downloading multiple versions (including bad versions, corrupt versions, etc) that's not even half of the people that bought it apparently... Most AAA games are surprised, nay, alarmed, if they have 2-3 million torrent downloads... Which isn't even 50-50...
Pardon me for questioning the veracity of these numbers...
That said, I agree that at the end of the day, a good non-intrusive DRM is the best thing you can do for a game, and that intrusive DRM won't affect the pirates, but might affect the legitimate costumer.