What can Developers & Publishers do to combat Piracy?

[zehydra]

Make a great game so that consumers will pay the developer to make more great games.

you know this doesn't work, right?

 

[Matthew Geskey]

Is it really that difficult?

Code in, inside the exe and very sneakily, something that's just slightly annoying, like a little thing that pops up every time you pass a milestone or complete a quest "Hey, we know you pirated, but now you've gotten this far, so if you really like it, would you mind buying it?" as an error message after it ctds. The annoying inventory limit made me buy some stuff from tf2.

Or you could release a demo on release day that, when you reach a certain point, stops you from progressing. You can play all you want before that point, or even replay it or go backwards and explore. But be sure to make it substantial and to make the player want to continue with his character or pursue the plot.

Make a great game so that consumers will pay the developer to make more great games.

you know this doesn't work, right?

Yeah it does. I bought all the Elder Scrolls, Bioshock, and Bastion after pirating them.

 

[Don Reba]

Is it really that difficult?

Code in, inside the exe and very sneakily, something that's just slightly annoying, like a little thing that pops up every time you pass a milestone or complete a quest "Hey, we know you pirated, but now you've gotten this far, so if you really like it, would you mind buying it?" as an error message after it ctds. The annoying inventory limit made me buy some stuff from tf2.

Or you could release a demo on release day that, when you reach a certain point, stops you from progressing. You can play all you want before that point, or even replay it or go backwards and explore. But be sure to make it substantial and to make the player want to continue with his character or pursue the plot.

Is it really that difficult - yes. You code in a call to an annoying program, and a hacker will pause the program at that point and replace the call with a NOP. Of course, he won't take your demo, he will take exactly the full game you sell in retail.

 

[Gmans uncle]

The horrible sad truth...

NOTHING!
literally, there is no way to stop piracy, anywhere, ever.
No one polices the internet, there is no way to stop people from pirating, there is pretty much no way to prosecute piracy. It doesn't matter what you try, it doesn't matter how perfect and un-crack-able you think your DRM is, the hackers will find a way. There's no way out, there's no way to stop it, it's a losing battle.

You cant stop it, but you can work around it.
Think about WHY people pirate...
Your games are too expensive, your DRM is too constrictive, these are things you can fix; SO FIX THEM! lower your prices, remove your DRM (the hackers 'll just crack it anyway), make some nice pre-order bonuses, maybe some free DLC to intice people into buying your game instead of pirating it.
This is called logic people, use it.

 

[Johann610]

Reward legitimate players. Don't make them feel like they might BREAK and STEAL at any moment. Give them Feelies, or something...or instruction manuals that are FUN to read!

 

[Matthew Geskey]

Is it really that difficult?

Code in, inside the exe and very sneakily, something that's just slightly annoying, like a little thing that pops up every time you pass a milestone or complete a quest "Hey, we know you pirated, but now you've gotten this far, so if you really like it, would you mind buying it?" as an error message after it ctds. The annoying inventory limit made me buy some stuff from tf2.

Or you could release a demo on release day that, when you reach a certain point, stops you from progressing. You can play all you want before that point, or even replay it or go backwards and explore. But be sure to make it substantial and to make the player want to continue with his character or pursue the plot.

Is it really that difficult - yes. You code in a call to an annoying program, and a hacker will replace it with NOP. Of course, he won't take your demo, he will take exactly the full game you sell in retail.

That's why you hire a very sneaky coder to make it.

A demo is an alternative to many people who pirate the game to see if they like it, or to see if it will run fine, or but then don't bother to buy the whole game because they already have it. There are games that I regret buying that a simple demo would have fixed.

They could even (through steam) have it download a portion of the game for free, then after playing up to certain point, it would give you a choice to buy it, where, if you did, it would download the rest.

EDIT: They could even require you to play the demo, and if you bought it as a gift, you wouldn't be charged until the person played it.

 

[Don Reba]

Is it really that difficult?

Code in, inside the exe and very sneakily, something that's just slightly annoying, like a little thing that pops up every time you pass a milestone or complete a quest "Hey, we know you pirated, but now you've gotten this far, so if you really like it, would you mind buying it?" as an error message after it ctds. The annoying inventory limit made me buy some stuff from tf2.

Is it really that difficult - yes. You code in a call to an annoying program, and a hacker will replace it with NOP. Of course, he won't take your demo, he will take exactly the full game you sell in retail.

That's why you hire a very sneaky coder to make it.

It doesn't matter how sneaky you are. The hacker won't look for the call in dead code, he will just wait until you make it, and that will give everything away immediately. You can add layers of checks making sure that your other checks are not modified, but all it will do is slow down the attacker. He has the advantage, because you have to prepare all your defenses in advance.

 

[The Madman]

Your games are too expensive, your DRM is too constrictive, these are things you can fix; SO FIX THEM! lower your prices, remove your DRM (the hackers 'll just crack it anyway), make some nice pre-order bonuses, maybe some free DLC to intice people into buying your game instead of pirating it.
This is called logic people, use it.

People in this topic keep saying that but it's not true.

World of Goo, a small indie project completely independent from any major publishers, low price, amazing little game. Averages a metacritic score of 90 with reviewers and 88 on PC with fans. All around great game, amazing soundtrack to boot.

82% of the people who played the game pirated it.

How about The Witcher 2? Amazing packaging, what little DRM was on the packaged version stripped with the very first patch and avoidable entirely if you bought it from GOG. Damned solid game, lots of post-release support, developed by a small studio and obvious a labour of love.

Game has been pirated over a million times according to torrent trackers. RIGHT NOW on Pirate Bay alone there are hundreds of people seeding the game and hundreds more downloading.

Face it, the game could be the best game ever created. An absolute pinnacle in the creative interactive medium, something that would reduce even the most hardened soul to tears and even the most bitter anti-games critic to break down and confess their love for the medium... and it would probably be the most pirated game ever made. Some people genuinely don't care, they really and truly don't and the only way to stop them from pirating a game is not to give them that option.

 

[Matthew Geskey]

They could even (through steam) have it download a portion of the game for free, then after playing up to certain point, it would give you a choice to buy it, where, if you did, it would download the rest.

Smaller, cheaper games that you didnt have to wait as long for was the entire idea behind the Episodic games, though we can all see how well THAT attempt turned out.

I don't think that was inherent to the episodic formula. No one knows why they only made 2. Except for maybe the fact that they can't count to 3.

 

[Gmans uncle]

Face it, the game could be the best game ever created. An absolute pinnacle in the creative interactive medium, something that would reduce even the most hardened soul to tears and even the most bitter anti-games critic to break down and confess their love for the medium... and it would probably be the most pirated game ever made. Some people genuinely don't care, they really and truly don't and the only way to stop them from pirating a game is not to give them that option.

Weirdly enough, I pretty much agree with you.

That's kind of what I was trying to say, it's a losing battle, you can never stop piracy, but you CAN make an attempt to make the concept of buying your game more enticing, like the ways I mentioned.

But I do agree that some people will pirate no matter what, and thinking you can stop it entirely is just not happening. Piracy will never stop, it's a pit the industry is never getting out of, I guess we just need to live with it.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Lower. The. Price.

Honestly, having to pay 50 bucks for a game, THEN add 25 bucks for the DLCs that pop up over the following year simply is too much. Why on Earth would anyone want to pay that much money for a game they don't even know whether they'll like? Of course that ends up with them not paying at all - if possible.

ninja'd

Damn.


But yeah, this will cut a huge chunk out of the piracy market. Why pay for expensive console mods that could result in it breaking or bing disabled, or why torrent files that take ages that may infect your computer when the games are cheap in the first place?

Yeah, it would be a cut in profits initially, but you'd make a killing in the long run because you'll sell more new copies.

The people that are going to pirate the games then are gonna pirate them no matter what, and DRM doesn't have any effect on the pirate after a week.

 

[Tenky]

How to make more money, combat piracy and such?

Stop caring for pirates, use that DRM butget for marketing and increase awareness... and profits!

Pirates are not your consumers, they will not sudenly pay for it... so wasting less money to "fix the unfixable" is pointless... increase revenue and stop punishing the legit consumers!

 

[Rems]

I don't get people who justify piracy by saying the games are too expensive. If you can afford a rig to play the latest triple A games on then you can afford the games too.

It's a different matter though if it's an old vapour ware game that can't be purchased by any available means (n64 roms or very, very old games for example that gog doesn't have).

 

[Cr33dl0rd]

You´d think they could just add more security measures to their games, but anyone who ever tried to correctly install and register Spore knows that that won´t work either...

 

[MikeFrost]

The answer is simple: Services.

Gaming more and more is becoming a continuous endeavour. Games with persistent support and free add-ons will likely draw people to buy the thing so that they get the service and don't have to care about pirating the latest version of said thing continuously.

Case in point: Steam and Valve's games. I know they still get pirated (piracy isn't 100% avoidable, just reduceable) but they've been getting more and more customers with everything that they did with TF2, for example.

Free to play model is also a good way to ensure that you don't get pirated. Afterall, you only buy small ingame content, which is alot harder to pirate because of it's nature.

 

[Slayer_2]

Drastic stuff: Reduce prices, remove DRM (it's like building a sand wall to stop the tide).

Less-drastic stuff: Release demos (so we can try before buying)

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

As mentioned above, lower the price. A game in Steam costs 50 euro! Why do I have to pay MORE for a DIGITAL copy of the game? Wouldn't it make more sense to cost less, since it doesn't have to ship and have a deal with the store?

And stop it with the DRM (Uplay, Origins, Steamworks). It's not fun for anyone!

 

[Phoenixlight]

Incorporate a deadly virus into every game through DRM and make it so that if any of the DRM files are changed/deleted/by-passed the virus is released onto the computer/console which will cause it to cause irreversible system damage. Of course the virus would need to be undetectable to modern anti-virus software.

 

[Racecarlock]

I know of no convenient or realistic solution to combat piracy from a Developer and Publisher standpoint. Barring them actively hiring teams that continually sue every person who file shares to the point where the average person fears taking the chance.

All companies can do is provide incentive to buy new at the cost of their own profits in hope that they'll gain the lost revenue back from pirates. Some general ideas for this could be:
- lower the cost of the video game
- provide a coupon that grants a percentage discount on future products of that developer/publisher with purchase
- give free non-game additives with all purchases at no extra cost. In other words, make all games like collector editions providing physical objects that someone who pirates would not obtain otherwise.
- Provide free DLC and patches to the game frequently to purchasers throughout the games lifespan. A pirate would constantly have to look for the newest and best version of the game, thus putting more effort into the act itself and possibly justifying a purchase for convenience.

This would be a good place to start.

Another idea would be to provide 50 cent (or 40 microsoft points) 7 day downloadable rentals. This would not only combat the "Piracy for demonstrational purposes" crowd, but as a bonus people would also be more willing to try out titles they're not sure about, and while bad innovations still won't make money, innovations we do like will rise to the top, thus circumventing sturgeon's law (90% of everything is crap). This would lead to a rise in quality and innovation while also combating piracy. Nobody would lose here.

Beyond all of that? Nothing. You can't stop pirates. If people want a game for free and are willing to pirate it, there's nothing you can do, and everything that the game publishers and developers have tried has not only failed, but pushed people towards cracks and piracy because the DRM is so intrusive. Piracy is just something they're going to have to live with, no matter how much we and they hate it. It's not going away, and the only thing the industry can do to fight it is make things in general more easy and convenient for the consumer and provide more bonuses to the consumer so that pirating is no longer worth the trouble.

 

[saucecode]

Accept piracy. It will just happen. Publishers will need to think up ways to get the game out to more people. Mainly by making cheaper games. As in, it won't cost $120 (NZD) for every new release title. Another thing that I think is contributing to pircay (but that publishers can't do anything about) is the age restrictions. I still go to high school, Almost everyone I know has a xbox, playstation or high powered PC, and it is very difficult to get hands on killer titles. I know this personally, but this simply won't sit well with the rating boards, who are afraid of little todlers double air assassinating eachother.

Really, developers are missing out on a huge market. It just so happens to consist of teenagers and 10 year olds.