What can Developers & Publishers do to combat Piracy?

[RubyT]

At some point, even single player campaigns will be played on publishers' servers - "in the cloud".

You will then be perhaps billed by the hour. 1$ per hour of a game played. Great rate for Skyrim, bad rate for Portal.

No pirating this.

 

[Monkey lord]

if all games where digitali distributed through programs like steam.
you would have to have an account and they could see what games you are playing.

this is not a solution but it might help lowering piracy.

 

[Henrik Moeller]

Demos and online only games

 

[targren]

if all games where digitali distributed through programs like steam.
you would have to have an account and they could see what games you are playing.

this is not a solution but it might help lowering piracy.

Except it wouldn't. Steam games are already widely spread over the various torrent sites.

 

[Utrechet]

Make a not-so-portable machine that is placed at specific stores around the world. This machine is similar to a vending machine, and once you put money in, a game comes out.

However, it's not the physical game. You put in a CD, put in your money, and the game is downloaded onto the CD. You then take it home and enjoy.

"Oh what if someone steals the machine, they get all the games!"
Wrong. If the machine is reported stolen, there can be a fail safe to erase the data inside.

"But what about those who like to download it off the internet and not have a shitton of CDs lying around?"
Make a portable home-edition. Just make sure it's safe because those will be more likely to be stolen. This would also lead to a data-storage of your games, allowing for any-time access with proper verification.

"Won't this just allow one person to buy the game and share it with a whole bunch of friends?"
My guess is that there would be a series of verification methods to prevent this. 1) Probably one IP address can be registered at one time. 2) You'd need the Credit Card number more than likely. 3) Finger-print scanner? :3

"Why not--"
No more questions shall be answered at this time.

 

[DeleteThisAcc]

What can Developers & Publishers do to combat Piracy?

Give games big fat manuals with pictures and put game with manual in nice box with breathtaking box art, and put that game box in some nice carton box with nice pictures on it (like WoW did just nicer). And don't put BIG "GAMES FOR WINDOWS" on front of box (I know most gamers are too stupid to find small letters on big game box but still).

example: I will buy skyrim because I like it's box, then I will buy DeusEx Human something because that box is also nice, next in my list was BF3 physical ed but I think that was preorder only :/





Please ignore what I just wrote - I just learned about Digital Distribution.... I will pirate game box art and print it

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh look, a 500gb disc. [http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/ge-unveils-500gb-disc-that-can-hold-20-blu-rays-982843]

Yes, and those are on the market right now, right? I mean, I can just pop one in my game system....

Oh, right.

But they'll be out soon, and feasible for gaming, because they will be cheap and freely available, right?

Oh, wait.

But they won't cost the devs an arm and a leg to use, making games ridiculously expensive and infeasible for consumers at least, right?

No? Damn.

so while you score points for being technically right, you lose them for it being ridiculously unfeasible.

Then again, their claim of "piracy is evil" is watered down a lot since they silently acquiesced to said act, choosing profits over piracy prevention.

Dear Lord, did you just use the "she was asking for it" excuse? And for NOT crashing the market by making things completely impractical for the consumer as well as the developer and publisher?

I thought you said you were being serious.

One of the real problems we have is that by the time holographic storage is actually being used (assuming it ever become commercially mainstream) or BDs reach 500 GB of storage (feasible, thanks to multi-layer processes) AND we have players/drives that can read them (Most drives can't read the required layers), HDDs will have grown to the point that pirating a large disc will be relatively minor.

You seriously want them to throw bad money after good simply to avoid condemnation in your eyes?

 

[Robert Ewing]

Well... Given the increase in the gaming industry in the third quarter by 1%, which is the first increase in the industry for 5 years.

Does anybody know what came out 6 years ago? Lots of really good games. Do you know what came out this quarter? Lots of really good games. And that is just up to October... November and December are sure to blow October away in sales... Especially with titles like Skyrim, and CoD, and saints row.



This just in, good games sell. Flood the piracy with a torrent of of genuinely good games. The number of people buying it will dwarf the pirate population that is inevitable in every media.

 

[Something Amyss]

Make a not-so-portable machine that is placed at specific stores around the world. This machine is similar to a vending machine, and once you put money in, a game comes out.

However, it's not the physical game. You put in a CD, put in your money, and the game is downloaded onto the CD. You then take it home and enjoy.

"Oh what if someone steals the machine, they get all the games!"
Wrong. If the machine is reported stolen, there can be a fail safe to erase the data inside.

"But what about those who like to download it off the internet and not have a shitton of CDs lying around?"
Make a portable home-edition. Just make sure it's safe because those will be more likely to be stolen. This would also lead to a data-storage of your games, allowing for any-time access with proper verification.

"Won't this just allow one person to buy the game and share it with a whole bunch of friends?"
My guess is that there would be a series of verification methods to prevent this. 1) Probably one IP address can be registered at one time. 2) You'd need the Credit Card number more than likely. 3) Finger-print scanner? :3

"Why not--"
No more questions shall be answered at this time.

So it's digital distribution without the convenience of digital distribution?

 

[viking97]

remove DRM (which is probably a lot if not most people's reason for pirating, ironically), make games cheaper (serially. sixty is to fucking much, and that's just here in the states. i really don't blame anyone in australia who pirates) and if you don't want people buying used as much either, why not give some rewards for people who buy new and not punish people who buy used? i realize there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two, sometimes its just the way the same thing is presented will make all the difference.

i know this has all been said by people on this site, but what do you want? they're good answers.

 

[Vivi22]

Check the top pirated games list.
They are all popular/good AAA titles. Batman, Call of Duty, Starcraft, Assassin's Creed, all of these are massively pirated, and all of them are good.

This is true. Those games also happen to be very big sellers. Developers and Publishers are always treating piracy as lost sales (which I don't agree with personally; some pirates are simply never going to buy them). So if you view every pirated copy as a lost sale, then what's the first step in making more sales? Making a game that doesn't suck.

Beyond that? Not treating your customers like criminals is a nice start. The only people who suffer with intrusive DRM are paying customers. Why any company thinks it's a good idea to let the pirated copy be objectively better than the legit copy is beyond me.

I'm also a proponent of companies giving out bonuses with their games. I love buying Atlus titles because I can often get things like art books and soundtracks at the minimum from them. There's already a manual in the box, why not break from the trend of most of them being useless black and white placeholder and print some full colour concept art in it as well? Or give out soundtrack discs in the case as well? It's not that expensive to do, and it immediately makes it seem like you're getting more value for your money. Sure, you could still download scans of the former and MP3's of the latter, but that's not the point. You're never going to stop piracy, but you may get more sales if you give customers more for their money. Even simple things like posters can be a nice added touch.

The irony of all of this, of course, is that we used to get most of this 15-20 years ago. When I bought Final Fantasy VI on the SNES way back in 1994, it had a poster, a world map, and a thick instruction manual filled with Amano's concept art. I read that thing cover to cover so many times you'd swear it was the greatest book ever written.

 

[Laxman9292]

'It's too expensive' is another fun one, because apparently having some patience and waiting for a sale or just, you know, living without it because it's just a damned game isn't an option.

This confuses me. You're suggesting that people who can't afford something (therefore will never buy it) can get it for free, and you condemn them. Why? It's no lost sale, if they can't afford it, they can't afford it, and as someone in Australia where games are marked up to a stupid degree, I can understand. You say "Hur, why can't you just live without it", but why would they?

If someone offered to give you a Ferrari for free, would you just say "No" because you can live without it?

No, but you should[/i[ say no because taking things that don't belong to you for free is wrong. The definition of stealing. Just because it's easier to do and get away with doesn't mean it isn't stealing. Even though it's no lost sale basic morality should tell you you don't have the right to play the game.

If someone who was allowed to give me a Ferrari (like a dealership) offered to do so I'd take it. But the Pirate Bay doesn't have the legality to offer games for free. For example, Bethesda offering free downloads of Arena and Daggerfall is fine because it's their shit. Pirating is more like a crackhead who just stole a car "giving" you the car.

 

[ElPatron]

Other than adding intrusive DRM what can Developers & Publishers do?

I like what they did with Arkham Asylum and they took away the ability to glide which made it impossible to progress through the first part of the game but it was fixed by pirates and they got their way.

GTA IV had that "shaky cam" measure, and Michael Jackson's game had vuvuzelas playing, disrupting the songs. Trolling success.

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

Check the top pirated games list.
They are all popular/good AAA titles. (...), Call of Duty, (...), Assassin's Creed, all of these are massively pirated, and all of them are good.

Are they?

I have no idea why would someone pirate Batman or Starcraft, but those games are games that I don't find "good" nor would I pay for them. Why would I pirate them if I don't want to play? Can't really find an answer, but I can understand why many players don't want to pay for those franchises.


Funny story, the year BlOps was released the piracy statistics were made by checking the number of torrent file downloads. I downloaded the torrent file but never downloaded BlOps. It wasn't about playing it for free, it was about sending a message to the publisher.

As someone who loved CoD2 and BF2, I don't enjoy the fact that both franchises have been disgraced and whored out. I have better things to do than waste my time pirating rubbish games.

 

[lord.jeff]

Why would we want to combat file sharing? Copying files costs next to nothing and benefits the society as a whole ? we should embrace it. If we can agree that games benefit the society as a whole, like science does, then we should finance it like science, using public funding and peer review. The system has been tested by centuries and we know it works.

It's a funny game we play. It costs nothing to copy something which publishers believe has a value of $60 and yet we accept it and pay what they ask. If I offered to sell you a tomato for $1 and you could easily walk a few feet and get your own for free, would you pay me $1?

I would assuming your the one who grow the tomato or you're giving money to the farmer because that dollar goes to pay for the water, land, fertilizer, equipment, and time the farmer put in to get you that tomato. Same can be said for games sure distribution costs very little by a team of animators, voice actors, programers, writers, an office to put them all in and computers for them all to use, do cost money.

Really, you aren't much of a consumer are you? Do you think about manufacturing and distribution costs when you buy something on sale or clearance?

The role of the consumer is to get the best deal so ask yourself, is that DVD with Skyrim on it and the plastic case really worth $60? We are told that the real product isn't the disc at all, it's the data and that's why it costs the same to buy it from Steam. Well, data can be duplicated an infinite number of times for next to nothing. You pay for the electricity and the media that you will copy it to but that's pennies. So is it really worth $60?

I understand that we have to buy games else there will be no more but it is true that anything that can be duplicated an infinite number of times for pennies is truly worth more than that.

There's a difference between being a smart consumer and being a thief.

Of course there is but if you could duplicate couches for next to nothing and infinitely, wouldn't that have an effect on the value of couches?

What I am saying is that software is a product that has no value except that which publishers put on it and consumers are becoming increasingly aware of that. Look at how Napster changed the way we buy music. CD's were no longer worth $20 when you could copy and distribute them for free.

And steam is providing us with a cheaper alternative right now, games are commonly going on there for less then $20 and I think that's a pretty fair price for most games.

Skyrim is $60 retail and $60 on Steam. Steam has great sales but the MSRP of a game is the same and that was my point.

Whats your point? That your to cheap to pay the MSRP, or that your for some reason your unable to look at the indie alternatives. How about this if you can give me a legitimate way to pay for man hours and equipment, don't forget steam, gamestop, and truckers also have to get payed as well, at cost then I'll take your side of your argument seriously.

My point is that publishers price retail copies and digital copies the same because they say the real value is in the data, not the disc or the packaging. That Steam costs the same as a retail copy (aside from sales) just backs up that point.

So the question becomes, if that data can be so easily duplicated, what makes it worth $60? That is what publishers are fighting in my opinion because they don't have the $60 answer. It's like selling bottled water, you can get it for free and most people do but there are millions made from people who prefer to buy it. Sooner or later everyone will realize what a rip off it is to pay for that which can be obtained for free.

Your first paragraph had it right it is the data that your paying for or the creation of that data. It doesn't matter if that data can be duplicated you still need to pay for it's creation, so I'll ask you again; how do you pay for hundred of man hours and equipment with a free product?

I am not paying for the creation of that data, I am paying for the use of the data. People who pay for the creation of the data are publishers. They pay you to make a game. It's semantics really and it doesn't matter because in the end data can be duplicated an infinite number of times and for almost free.

The production cost is irrelevant to price, what people are willing to pay is what matters. You could build a game and lose money or you could make millions off of very little investment (think Minecraft).

What people are willing to pay is somewhat based on rarity. Can I ONLY get the game from you at your price? Well no, because there is no rarity where data is concerned. It can be copied infinite times.

Did you ever stop and think "if we had replicators like they do in Star Trek, wouldn't everything be free"?

Do you have a job? Because if you do then your pay check is coming for raising the price on a good/service. Man hours is very relevant to price.

 

[DSK-]

Make the game as solid and robust as humanly possible BEFORE launch, so it isn't bugged up to the eyeballs and needs a launch patch just to play it. If it has multiplayer then run a beta test and try to balance it as best as possible and find bugs in the game. This will give the potential playerbase the chance to try the MP and see whether they like it.

And finally I'd say lower the price.

Personally I have no problems paying £39.99 for a game, so long as it isn't a rush job and full of fucking BUGS. It's become such a trend that I'm disappointed by 90% of the games I buy new nowadays. Regardless of whether it's 'good' or 'bad' to pirate games, I'm not in the least bit surprised that there are individuals who would download the game instead of buying it and being disappointed.

Even more so when reviews seem to be biased in someway. You buy the game and it turns out to be a load of shit.

 

[Laxman9292]

'It's too expensive' is another fun one, because apparently having some patience and waiting for a sale or just, you know, living without it because it's just a damned game isn't an option.

This confuses me. You're suggesting that people who can't afford something (therefore will never buy it) can get it for free, and you condemn them. Why? It's no lost sale, if they can't afford it, they can't afford it, and as someone in Australia where games are marked up to a stupid degree, I can understand. You say "Hur, why can't you just live without it", but why would they?

If someone offered to give you a Ferrari for free, would you just say "No" because you can live without it?

No, but you should[/i[ say no because taking things that don't belong to you for free is wrong. The definition of stealing. Just because it's easier to do and get away with doesn't mean it isn't stealing. Even though it's no lost sale basic morality should tell you you don't have the right to play the game.

If someone who was allowed to give me a Ferrari (like a dealership) offered to do so I'd take it. But the Pirate Bay doesn't have the legality to offer games for free. For example, Bethesda offering free downloads of Arena and Daggerfall is fine because it's their shit. Pirating is more like a crackhead who just stole a car "giving" you the car.

Please can we not go down the whole "piracy is stealing" route. From a legal point of view it is not stealing and technically it's copyright infringement, not piracy.

You can if you want to get hung up on technicalities and shit but the point is that you now have a game that you didn't have before that should have cost money, but didn't... clearly immoral no matter what technicality you want to call it, or how much you want to ***** about it not being a lost sale, or that the companies are greedy (hint: wanting something for free is greedy too...). When it comes down to it it's getting something free that you should have paid for = wrong.