StarCraft 2 Sets New Mark for Piracy

[Jursa]

This really does show why blizzard had to make the strict battlenet system, but I don't really think it's hurting blizzard so much, Starcraft 2 isn't worth it for the singleplayer alone, the multiplayer aspect is what keeps players coming back again and again. A portion of those people who played the pirated version are likely to buy the full game.

 

[kahlzun]

"Blizzard's own BitTorrent system"

Wait, Blizzard owns BitTorrent?? Something doesn't sound right here..

what?

 

[Atmos Duality]

There are sure a lot of excuses being made here for people being thieves and douchbags.

Yes, people should stop making excuses for Blizzard, $60 for a PC RTS game without LAN is too expensive. Especially considering the great deal I got today on 2 new copies of Age of Empires III (GFWL was selling it for 10 cents).

How does that give one the right to steal it?

You mean infringe on copyrights?

The workings of one evil does not excuse the other.
To assume otherwise is being petty, at best.

DRM and Piracy are two problems with no probable foreseeable solution (no, "lower prices" won't change shit. Consider the price the pirate is getting, and it will ALWAYS be better. 100% of the time. This is a mathematical fact).

Also, discrediting one does not automatically mean you favor the other.

Though at least we now have some better scope of the issue.

 

[Cryo84R]

There are sure a lot of excuses being made here for people being thieves and douchbags.

Yes, people should stop making excuses for Blizzard, $60 for a PC RTS game without LAN is too expensive. Especially considering the great deal I got today on 2 new copies of Age of Empires III (GFWL was selling it for 10 cents).

How does that give one the right to steal it?

You mean infringe on copyrights? It doesn't.

Theft is theft, no matter how you try to justify or excuse it. It's dishonest and should shame the person doing it.

 

[Gindil]

The workings of one evil does not excuse the other.
To assume otherwise is being petty, at best.

DRM and Piracy are two problems with no probable foreseeable solution (no, "lower prices" won't change shit. Consider the price the pirate is getting, and it will ALWAYS be better. 100% of the time. This is a mathematical fact).

Also, discrediting one does not automatically mean you favor the other.

Though at least we now have some better scope of the issue.

There's a helluva lot more to a game than the price point. Customer service, brand loyalty, hell even laggy gameplay can hurt a title. The thing is, Blizzard piles on with the polish. The detriment is that you get crap for extras on the technical side and they pnzers yer ass.

Personally, that's not something I agree with, so I personally don't pirate it. Regardless, people have different reasons for the torrents and such. Try before you buy still works, along with getting to the other side of the world that has little to no access to games.

Quite frankly, I think DRM does everything wrong IMO. Otherwise Minecraft would have been out of business years ago [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/02172611272/minecraft-s-developer-making-350-000-100-000-per-day-updated.shtml].

 

[Atmos Duality]

There's a helluva lot more to a game than the price point. Customer service, brand loyalty, hell even laggy gameplay can hurt a title. The thing is, Blizzard piles on with the polish. The detriment is that you get crap for extras on the technical side and they pnzers yer ass.

There is more than price...but price matters most. By far.

Customer Service and general online quality...ok. You lose Customer Service if you pirate.
Everything else can be worked around in time, and I think most pirates have been quite content not getting Customer Service as long as the price was free.

Spoiler: Mini-Rant on Brand-Loyalty

(ASIDE: I find brand-loyalty to be a crock of shit. Those companies are very much *not* loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them? Do not be fooled by their kind and inviting words; those are words spoken from a PR firm who was paid to get you to say 'Yes'. The only sensible method is to judge their products on their own merits. When we start buying products blindly, the quality will inevitably drop because these companies know they won't have to put in nearly as much effort. Why do you think almost every major AAA title released this year was/is a sequel? Brand-Loyalty. "Sheep with fleece of gold.")

Personally, that's not something I agree with, so I personally don't pirate it. Regardless, people have different reasons for the torrents and such. Try before you buy still works, along with getting to the other side of the world that has little to no access to games.

"Try before you buy" is far too easy to turn into "Nah. It's already installed. Why bother paying at this point."
I'm not saying it's impossible, but in reality I seriously doubt that's what even 1% of the pirates do.

 

[Gindil]

There's a helluva lot more to a game than the price point. Customer service, brand loyalty, hell even laggy gameplay can hurt a title. The thing is, Blizzard piles on with the polish. The detriment is that you get crap for extras on the technical side and they pnzers yer ass.

There is more than price...but price matters most. By far.

Customer Service and general online quality...ok. You lose Customer Service if you pirate.
Everything else can be worked around in time, and I think most pirates have been quite content not getting Customer Service as long as the price was free.

That's... not necessarily accurate. The evidence of Blizzard being highly pirated AND producing a crapton of revenue for Blizzard. Also, a lot of people could just play the campaign or even watch it online if that were accurate. While I don't think it's worth the $60 personally, it seems to have done quite well.

Spoiler: Mini-Rant on Brand-Loyalty

(ASIDE: I find brand-loyalty to be a crock of shit. Those companies are very much *not* loyal to you, so why should you be loyal to them? Do not be fooled by their kind and inviting words; those are words spoken from a PR firm who was paid to get you to say 'Yes'. The only sensible method is to judge their products on their own merits. When we start buying products blindly, the quality will inevitably drop because these companies know they won't have to put in nearly as much effort. Why do you think almost every major AAA title released this year was/is a sequel? Brand-Loyalty. "Sheep with fleece of gold.")

Personally, that's not something I agree with, so I personally don't pirate it. Regardless, people have different reasons for the torrents and such. Try before you buy still works, along with getting to the other side of the world that has little to no access to games.

"Try before you buy" is far too easy to turn into "Nah. It's already installed. Why bother paying at this point."
I'm not saying it's impossible, but in reality I seriously doubt that's what even 1% of the pirates do.[/quote]

That's mainly an example. Thing is, a lot of people have found ways to make the digital cloud work without resorting to litigation. If more companies found ways to make it more enticing to play their games, it'd be a lot better than using copyright law as a crutch in the world of digital freedom.

 

[Canid117]

Yup, piracy is definitely an industry-killer.

Not necessarily. Don't get me wrong, this level of piracy is nothing short of horrifying, but the quality of the game ensured that Blizzard got an immense number of legit sales and that number continues to grow.

I think he was making a joke about how Blizzard made a shitton of money even with record piracy numbers.

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Yeah and no LAN and no Battle.net/ Achievements......
Its pretty much fucked up for pirates from the get go

 

[LightOfDarkness]

So, do I go and beat the crap out of him?

Slip a Zergling under his bed...

But then stimmed MMM.
Or you could force him to buy 2 copies of Starcraft 2, and a year of WoW game time.
And Diablo 2. And Diablo 3.

 

[Agrael]

Unlike many game developers - Blizzard actually deserves extra sales. They take care of the problems.

Also, about the ''Pirate it now, and then go buy original'' - I have done it.

 

[Hexdaemon]

OK, so think about this a second, why is SC1 still so popular in korea... duh! hardware costs for SC2

You really dont understand at all. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the cost of hardware or the cost of the game. See the below quote from an article here on the escapist about a week or two ago. People were making money off starcraft 1 tournaments in Korea. Blizzard wasnt seeing any profit at all from this and with the new changes in starcraft 2 people would have to actually pay blizzard to have a proper tournament. Its far easier to say fuck you blizzard and continue to play sc1 then to have to deal with all their new bullshit.

According to Geek.com, the reason for StarCraft II's failure in the country is because of Blizzard's mandatory Battle.net: "Starcraft is a multi-million dollar industry and e-sport in South Korea, sure, but Blizzard never saw a dime of that, so they introduced mandatory online Battle.net into Starcraft II, as well as a provison making sure that any events and tournaments are authorized by Blizzard themselves."

I see what you're saying, but you can't say for sure hardware costs did not attribute to people playing the game, look at the average GDP per person between S. Korea and different western contries (tried to rephrase that, but couldn't) we generally spend more as gamers, on our machines in the west than in the east. Also Broadband cost in relevant contries is also an issue. We have it lucky in the UK and the US.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

Remember that part of this arises form the fact that its the "best selling PC exclusive of the year" whereas most of the big budget games we get either have shitty PC ports or are smaller indie works who don't interest very many. So the piracy may just be because PC is the only way to get it, thus the number of people pirating it is similarly inflated. Also remember that SC2 IMO is one of the few big budget releases this year with a single player that can stand up on its own.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Blizzard can take a hit but it deserves more for their hard work they put into this game.

Needless to say just go buy SC2 since a pirated one will not be able to go online. (Unless you want to go through a lot of trouble instead of just buying it)

 

[Bigsmith]

Yes but these people wont be able to play via battle net on-line im guessing?

That's correct.

Which, frankly, I'm perfectly okay with. You don't pay, you shouldn't get to play online with everyone else.

I agree!

Now, to find a way to make the pirated games blow up their computer...

Quite simply my friend, did you not hear about the original release of SC2 actually breaking peoples graphics cards and processors due to not having a frame rate cap. It seams blizzard have already starting blowing up people computers!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.221096-Blizzard-Offers-Fix-for-StarCraft-Computer-Melting-Bug?page=1

 

[Xanthious]

There are sure a lot of excuses being made here for people being thieves and douchbags.

Your right, people should really stop trying to defend these big game publishers. . . . .

 

[Sneaklemming]

the fact that Blizzard can afford to absorb the loss

Pirated copies =/= lost sales.

 

[Cryo84R]

There are sure a lot of excuses being made here for people being thieves and douchbags.

Your right, people should really stop trying to defend these big game publishers. . . . .

Yeah because publishers and developers charging for a product to make a living is totally theft. Get past yourself, you are not entitled to game. It's not a right, its a luxury.

Stop stealing other peoples work and passing your behavior off as some kind of good fight against big evil companies. Its pathetic.

 

[Zukhramm]

Of course the best selling game is also the most pirated. A popular game is popular with everyone, buyes and pirates.