Stardock CEO: Demigod Beats Piracy

oliveira8

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Feb 2, 2009
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Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
I disagree that Internet should be required to play a LAN game - though using a day0 patch to turn LAN on is perfectly fine. I love the no-DRM policy of Stardock, but I do wish they would be less hostile against piracy. Piracy is here to stay, so embrace it and you'll make even more money.
I don't think Companies that make games then those same games are pirate's bait, thus making low profit is something they want to embrace.

No company in its right mind is going to say "Piracy is okay". Cause its not
If Hollywood had it's way, we'd never be able to record anything from the TV - cause they'd "lose sales."
Your logic IS MASSIVELY FLAWED! Hollywood and the movie industry makes money by airing movies on cinemas, selling the rights to TV networks, DvD sales and other crap.

Gaming developers make money from selling games!

The movie industry has many places were to pick up money and I'm not counting merchandising and publicity.

The gaming industry only has one main place.
Just because the gaming industry hasn't been smart enough to expand their source of revenue doesn't that we should all cater to that.

But in any case, that's not the point. This is about evolution, both cultural and technological. When an advancement like that comes, you can't stop it. You can try to stop peoples will, but that won't change anything beyond getting people pissed off.

Humans adapt to stuff all the time. Even though we try to deny change. My logic says go with the flow, or die. Simply put. I don't pirate stuff, but will back those who do. Cause I don't see anything wrong with it. Everything isn't about money in this world.
Money makes the world go round, round, round, round...

But the gaming industry doesnt have much areas to branch. Apart from selling games, Lan houses and game tournaments and the last two dont make that much revenue to a gaming company.

They cant go with the flow as simple as that. If piracy gets out of hand they make no profit. With no profit they close. If they close you wont have anything to pirate.
 

Lord_Jaroh

Ad-Free Finally!
Apr 24, 2007
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chronobreak said:
Ragdrazi said:
Oh good lord. There isn't a building big enough to contain your ego, is there. Son, I'll respond to you in what ever way I deem fit. For next time you quote me, please get the fuck on up over yourself.


You seem confused as to the definition of the word "apathy." On one hand you're saying the pirates don't care one way or the other, and then on the other hand you go ahead and say they do care and are easily motivated by spite. You're not right either way, but please, please do enlighten the class. Which one do you actually think, chronobreak?
First of all, I take offense to you calling me "son". The way you respond to things, such as "What?" and "Um... no?" make you seem very petty, and any validity of your argument may be ignored because of your attitude. Yes, I have a big ego, admittedly, because I have done and continue to do many great things, and have built a fine reputation on these forums. Also, I may have come off as big headed due to my posting style, but please don't get into an e-pissing contest with me, because I'll turn the damn world into an ocean.

That being said.

I may have confused you a bit, but I choose to not change a thing I said, as they are both right, as not all things have absolutes, friend. Yes, pirates don't care if the devs of a game get any money, because they're stealing in the first place. Explain how that isn't right if you will. I've never met someone who pirates games and then goes out and buys them.

Also, I did not say anything about being motivated by spite, however I was saying they would be motivated by the challenge presented by a man saying he beat them. This is the same for all revolutions, big or small, and the pirate community have very large ego's, in thinking they can't be stopped. I've witnessed it firsthand. Some pirates like to wave around the fact that they steal, and practically dare people to do anything about it. Sound familiar? Look at the Pirate Bay. So are you saying these people just... don't exist?

I'm sorry for derailing this thread, as well. I harbor no ill will towards you, "Ragdrazi", and wish you pleasant posting. I've said all I need to say, for fear of further derailing the thread, but feel free to respond! Goodnight!
I will admit to trying before I buy, even though I haven't done that with this game in particular. I do not understand why I as a consumer have to suffer for a companies' greed. If a game comes out and is a shoddy game, why do I have to first shell out $60+ dollars of my money in order to find this out, and not have any sort of protection. My only recourse is that of try before you buy, which means pirating.

I have almost 30 legitimate PC games that I have liked plus expansions, many of which I tried via pirating first, and purchased second (Oblivion and KOTOR jump to mind, as well as Titan Quest for another). I have also pirated many games only to discover that they are poor games, quality wise, or I dislike them, thus I delete them and do not purchase.

Demos do not work, as very few are accurate representations of games. Trade-ins aren't allowed, as PC games are from the devil or some such. Pricing is so out-of-wack on games that I can't afford to blindly purchase expensive games, and thus I pirate in order to see if it is indeed worth my money. I don't believe in developers/publishers gaining money off consumer's ignorance, which is the way the game market is these days.
 

Mromson

New member
Jun 24, 2007
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oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
I disagree that Internet should be required to play a LAN game - though using a day0 patch to turn LAN on is perfectly fine. I love the no-DRM policy of Stardock, but I do wish they would be less hostile against piracy. Piracy is here to stay, so embrace it and you'll make even more money.
I don't think Companies that make games then those same games are pirate's bait, thus making low profit is something they want to embrace.

No company in its right mind is going to say "Piracy is okay". Cause its not
If Hollywood had it's way, we'd never be able to record anything from the TV - cause they'd "lose sales."
Your logic IS MASSIVELY FLAWED! Hollywood and the movie industry makes money by airing movies on cinemas, selling the rights to TV networks, DvD sales and other crap.

Gaming developers make money from selling games!

The movie industry has many places were to pick up money and I'm not counting merchandising and publicity.

The gaming industry only has one main place.
Just because the gaming industry hasn't been smart enough to expand their source of revenue doesn't that we should all cater to that.

But in any case, that's not the point. This is about evolution, both cultural and technological. When an advancement like that comes, you can't stop it. You can try to stop peoples will, but that won't change anything beyond getting people pissed off.

Humans adapt to stuff all the time. Even though we try to deny change. My logic says go with the flow, or die. Simply put. I don't pirate stuff, but will back those who do. Cause I don't see anything wrong with it. Everything isn't about money in this world.
Money makes the world go round, round, round, round...

But the gaming industry doesnt have much areas to branch. Apart from selling games, Lan houses and game tournaments and the last two dont make that much revenue to a gaming company.

They cant go with the flow as simple as that. If piracy gets out of hand they make no profit. With no profit they close. If they close you wont have anything to pirate.
Piracy won't kill gaming because loads people still pay for stuff they can LEGALLY get for free. There's loads of money to made with commercials (not talking about in-game commercials) and physical extensions. There are loads of areas where money could be made. Just because no one does it doesn't mean it's not there.

People want games, people want new games, people want to play games. As long as that is true, nothing will change. Companies may have to rethink their strategies, yes - but there will never be a death of gaming. Never. All piracy does is expand it's audience.
 

oliveira8

New member
Feb 2, 2009
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Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
I disagree that Internet should be required to play a LAN game - though using a day0 patch to turn LAN on is perfectly fine. I love the no-DRM policy of Stardock, but I do wish they would be less hostile against piracy. Piracy is here to stay, so embrace it and you'll make even more money.
I don't think Companies that make games then those same games are pirate's bait, thus making low profit is something they want to embrace.

No company in its right mind is going to say "Piracy is okay". Cause its not
If Hollywood had it's way, we'd never be able to record anything from the TV - cause they'd "lose sales."
Your logic IS MASSIVELY FLAWED! Hollywood and the movie industry makes money by airing movies on cinemas, selling the rights to TV networks, DvD sales and other crap.

Gaming developers make money from selling games!

The movie industry has many places were to pick up money and I'm not counting merchandising and publicity.

The gaming industry only has one main place.
Just because the gaming industry hasn't been smart enough to expand their source of revenue doesn't that we should all cater to that.

But in any case, that's not the point. This is about evolution, both cultural and technological. When an advancement like that comes, you can't stop it. You can try to stop peoples will, but that won't change anything beyond getting people pissed off.

Humans adapt to stuff all the time. Even though we try to deny change. My logic says go with the flow, or die. Simply put. I don't pirate stuff, but will back those who do. Cause I don't see anything wrong with it. Everything isn't about money in this world.
Money makes the world go round, round, round, round...

But the gaming industry doesnt have much areas to branch. Apart from selling games, Lan houses and game tournaments and the last two dont make that much revenue to a gaming company.

They cant go with the flow as simple as that. If piracy gets out of hand they make no profit. With no profit they close. If they close you wont have anything to pirate.
Piracy won't kill gaming because loads people still pay for stuff they can LEGALLY get for free. There's loads of money to made with commercials (not talking about in-game commercials) and physical extensions. There are loads of areas where money could be made. Just because no one does it doesn't mean it's not there.

People want games, people want new games, people want to play games. As long as that is true, nothing will change. Companies may have to rethink their strategies, yes - but there will never be a death of gaming. Never. All piracy does is expand it's audience.
But some companies do publicity. But you forget that the Gaming industry doesnt have the same money funds to crap out money to make publicity like the movie industry has.

Valve spat out over 1 million dollars just in publicity for L4D, publicity that didnt even air worldwide. Most companies dont have the luxury to spat out that kind of money.

Sure theres nothing wrong with piracy. Till the day you put yourself in a developers shoes and watch your game being downloaded for millions of people on some Bittorrent site and you start to notice that your paycheck used to be bigger.

Sure it wont kill gaming industry. The big companies would survive. The little ones would just disappear and you had less indie games around.

Cause I bet its so awesome you develop a game and see on the news "80% of players of X game pirated it.".
 

Andy_Panthro

Man of Science
May 3, 2009
514
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Do more popular games get pirated more?
Does a popular game get good legal sales?
Do more people pirate in regions of the world where they cannot purchase?
Why do companies continue with regional restrictions?
Does DRM stop piracy?
Does piracy show the futility of DRM?
Do games companies compete against piracy, or against each other?
 

chronobreak

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Sep 6, 2008
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Lord_Jaroh said:
why do I have to first shell out $60+ dollars of my money in order to find this out, and not have any sort of protection. My only recourse is that of try before you buy, which means pirating.

I understand where you are coming from. Game developers need to step up and start treating their customers right, and especially with the way the economy in the US is right now, I don't see how they can be charging 60 dollars for a game, period.

On the flip side though, the reason I quoted that particular section of what you wrote is that you don't *have* to shell out anything. It's your choice to buy it or not. If they don't give you ample resources to find out if the game will run, if it's any good, or things like that, it doesn't give you excuse to pirate the game. Instead, what you should do, and this goes for all people who pirate, is do nothing. Don't give the devs any reason to complain that their games don't sell besides the fact that they didn't give people a demo or whatever other reason. It's the only way they will learn to start treating us better.
 

Doug

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Apr 23, 2008
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Anachronism said:
I don't know whether to be happy about this or not.

On the one hand, I think it's brilliant that the game's been successful in the face of piracy; and it's proved that everyone who claims they pirate games in protest of DRM is a massive liar.

Brad Wardell said:
If you're playing a pirated copy right now, if you're one of those people on GameRanger [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi] playing a pirated copy and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you're a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way
Couldn't have been put any better.

But, on the other hand, the fact that it was pirated to hell and back is likely only going to convince other developers to continue putting heavy-handed and ineffective DRM in their games.
Excellent point - but I think the fact that the piracy was handled and beaten, and the fact that Gamestop are likely to be sued to hell and back for the damage they did might make the other developers/publishers take notice. We can only hope!

Still, I think they need to work on another patch for Demigod - still abit flaky on match-making, but its a hell of alot better than it was before....

Btw, anyone thinking of getting it? Yes, its fun, whilst still being RTS - its RTS minus the duller bits.
 

Doug

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Apr 23, 2008
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Malygris said:
But he added that as much as he personally dislikes piracy, fighting it isn't what he's here for. "My job, as CEO of Stardock, is not to fight worldwide piracy no matter how much it aggravates me personally. My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary - our customers," he continued. He attributed Demigod's performance to its overall quality and Stardock's reputation for standing behind its products, although admitted that there are still "many lessons" to be learned from its launch.

"For example, if I had to do it over again, I would be inclined to require a valid user account to play LAN even if it only has to be validated one time. That way, we could also make it a lot easier for a legal user to have a LAN party with a single license," he wrote. "When the focus of energy is put on customers rather than fighting pirates, you end up with more sales. It seems common sense to me but then again, I'm just an engineer."
THIS - This is why I love the Stardock publishers! Ok, I don't like all there games (Although I do have Galactica Civs 2, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Demigod - their big 3 titles), but the CEO 'gets it'. His post on the Stardock forums about piracy is STILL the best summary of what publishers like EA have wrong with there approach.
 

insanelich

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Sep 3, 2008
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oliveira8 said:
Sure theres nothing wrong with piracy. Till the day you put yourself in a developers shoes and watch your game being downloaded for millions of people on some Bittorrent site and you start to notice that your paycheck used to be bigger.

Sure it wont kill gaming industry. The big companies would survive. The little ones would just disappear and you had less indie games around.

Cause I bet its so awesome you develop a game and see on the news "80% of players of X game pirated it.".
Never have I seen a better argument for piracy. Bravo!
 

Lord_Jaroh

Ad-Free Finally!
Apr 24, 2007
569
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chronobreak said:
Lord_Jaroh said:
why do I have to first shell out $60+ dollars of my money in order to find this out, and not have any sort of protection. My only recourse is that of try before you buy, which means pirating.
I understand where you are coming from. Game developers need to step up and start treating their customers right, and especially with the way the economy in the US is right now, I don't see how they can be charging 60 dollars for a game, period.

On the flip side though, the reason I quoted that particular section of what you wrote is that you don't *have* to shell out anything. It's your choice to buy it or not. If they don't give you ample resources to find out if the game will run, if it's any good, or things like that, it doesn't give you excuse to pirate the game. Instead, what you should do, and this goes for all people who pirate, is do nothing. Don't give the devs any reason to complain that their games don't sell besides the fact that they didn't give people a demo or whatever other reason. It's the only way they will learn to start treating us better.
Certainly doing nothing is a stand as well. However, I also believe there are too many stupid people in this world that won't take that stand. Why do you think they still make crappy movies (or games for that matter)? It's because there are enough stupid people that will buy them, despite the quality. So nothing will change, and the only way we can adequately protect ourselves as consumers is through piracy. Until something changes, and be assured it will, since piracy is not theft, despite what the developers may like to think.

Digital rights needs to change, as it is archaic, and has no place in our society as it stands. Hopefully, the law will change soon to support this, as society drives the law. But I do not believe that what I am, and countless other people are, doing is wrong. It's just not completely legal...yet.
 

antibonk

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Apr 10, 2008
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First time I have even heard of this game, even though I do own a couple of Stardock's other games. Thanks to this post, I bought a copy for my Impulse account and I am downloading it now. Looks like a pretty sweet game. :D
 

Mromson

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Jun 24, 2007
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oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
oliveira8 said:
Mromson said:
I disagree that Internet should be required to play a LAN game - though using a day0 patch to turn LAN on is perfectly fine. I love the no-DRM policy of Stardock, but I do wish they would be less hostile against piracy. Piracy is here to stay, so embrace it and you'll make even more money.
I don't think Companies that make games then those same games are pirate's bait, thus making low profit is something they want to embrace.

No company in its right mind is going to say "Piracy is okay". Cause its not
If Hollywood had it's way, we'd never be able to record anything from the TV - cause they'd "lose sales."
Your logic IS MASSIVELY FLAWED! Hollywood and the movie industry makes money by airing movies on cinemas, selling the rights to TV networks, DvD sales and other crap.

Gaming developers make money from selling games!

The movie industry has many places were to pick up money and I'm not counting merchandising and publicity.

The gaming industry only has one main place.
Just because the gaming industry hasn't been smart enough to expand their source of revenue doesn't that we should all cater to that.

But in any case, that's not the point. This is about evolution, both cultural and technological. When an advancement like that comes, you can't stop it. You can try to stop peoples will, but that won't change anything beyond getting people pissed off.

Humans adapt to stuff all the time. Even though we try to deny change. My logic says go with the flow, or die. Simply put. I don't pirate stuff, but will back those who do. Cause I don't see anything wrong with it. Everything isn't about money in this world.
Money makes the world go round, round, round, round...

But the gaming industry doesnt have much areas to branch. Apart from selling games, Lan houses and game tournaments and the last two dont make that much revenue to a gaming company.

They cant go with the flow as simple as that. If piracy gets out of hand they make no profit. With no profit they close. If they close you wont have anything to pirate.
Piracy won't kill gaming because loads people still pay for stuff they can LEGALLY get for free. There's loads of money to made with commercials (not talking about in-game commercials) and physical extensions. There are loads of areas where money could be made. Just because no one does it doesn't mean it's not there.

People want games, people want new games, people want to play games. As long as that is true, nothing will change. Companies may have to rethink their strategies, yes - but there will never be a death of gaming. Never. All piracy does is expand it's audience.
But some companies do publicity. But you forget that the Gaming industry doesnt have the same money funds to crap out money to make publicity like the movie industry has.

Valve spat out over 1 million dollars just in publicity for L4D, publicity that didnt even air worldwide. Most companies dont have the luxury to spat out that kind of money.

Sure theres nothing wrong with piracy. Till the day you put yourself in a developers shoes and watch your game being downloaded for millions of people on some Bittorrent site and you start to notice that your paycheck used to be bigger.

Sure it wont kill gaming industry. The big companies would survive. The little ones would just disappear and you had less indie games around.

Cause I bet its so awesome you develop a game and see on the news "80% of players of X game pirated it.".
Now I'm not a Game Developer, so it would maybe be hard to put me in ones shoes. But if I developed a game, I would simply be happy that so many people bothered to play my game. Word to mouth is worth way more than actual sales. If loads of people like my game, it's all good.

And I'm not talking about the wishy washy crap journalists say about "innovative" games such as Mirror's Edge. It's about the consumers liking the game or not. As loads of people find Mirror's Edge "innovative", but that doesn't make it a good game.