What can Developers & Publishers do to combat Piracy?

[Pyro Paul]

Best way to combat piracy?
Pirate your own game.

 

[Laxman9292]

I'm just saying that in terms of flat out morality it's wrong. It shouldn't matter to degrees because you shouldn't be breaking the law in the first place, is the point I'm going for. Not trying to call pirating murder, nice straw man. I'm just saying in terms of flat out ethics, you shouldn't be pirating nor murdering.

Calling it copyright infringement doesn't suddenly mean that you think it's ok. The point I'm going for is they're two separate things so label them accordingly, degrees doesn't come into it, just call it what it is.

Ok, I'll give you that. But the way some people use it to defend pirating along with the other ways just irks me because no matter what you think of it or how you justify it, on the most basic level it is wrong. Hell if people would just admit that I'd be less mad at them. But most still try to maintain an image that they are fighting against injustice and shit like that but really the law does not fall on the side of the pirates because at the fundamental level, getting something for nothing is wrong.

 

[esperandote]

Give each game a unique id and register the key with a code that uses the machines mac.

 

[Shru1kan]

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

Because only bad games get pirated? I point you towards the Arkham Asylum example above.

It must be nice having opinions. Because I totally hated Arkham Asylum with it's simplistic QTE-esque combat.

There will always be piracy, people will always want things for free. So instead of wasting money on DRM, why don't the developers simply use that to make an even better experience?

 

[goldendriger]

Simple. Make it cheaper.

Id gladly spend cash im on the fence about if it wasnt £40 but rather £25.

Im not weighted down with money, so i cant afford to buy every game i want brand new, so i buy pre owned. Which makes me a spawn of satan apparently.

 

[esperandote]

Give each game a unique id and register the key with a code that uses the machines mac.

A MAC address can be spoofed or the check could be disabled. Also, what happens if you change your motherboard / NIC card or just want to install it onto another computer you own? You're screwed or have to faff around with customer support which, like all DRM schemes, makes the pirated version better.

I don't know about spoofing the MAC but they could give each disc 2 keys for those cases. Extra keys could be 10$ like project 10.

 

[Bobic]

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

Because only bad games get pirated? I point you towards the Arkham Asylum example above.

It must be nice having opinions. Because I totally hated Arkham Asylum with it's simplistic QTE-esque combat.

There will always be piracy, people will always want things for free. So instead of wasting money on DRM, why don't the developers simply use that to make an even better experience?

Yes, but while you didn't like it, surely you can accept that it can be judged as a good game as it was generally well received (it even made the usually hate filled, unpleasable Yahtzee name it GOTY and has a metacritic score of 91 on PC)? Or even if you choose to disagree about that there must be some games you've liked that have been heavily pirated, because, you know, pretty much every game gets pirated.

 

[esperandote]

Give each game a unique id and register the key with a code that uses the machines mac.

A MAC address can be spoofed or the check could be disabled. Also, what happens if you change your motherboard / NIC card or just want to install it onto another computer you own? You're screwed or have to faff around with customer support which, like all DRM schemes, makes the pirated version better.

I don't know about spoofing the MAC but they could give each disc 2 keys for those cases. Extra keys could be 10$ like project 10.

I see where you're going, but for me, that kind of scheme would just make me want to fire up uTorrent and head over to the nearest private torrent tracker. Say I install the game on my main rig and on my laptop, I've now used up my quota of keys. Now if I upgrade the motherboard the MAC address will have changed and now I need to spend $10 on new keys for EVERY game that uses that DRM scheme. Plus, it would also prevent me from doing what I do now, which is going to friends houses and signing in to my steam account on their spare computers rather than bringing my own computer.

I really think the best policy is to ditch DRM completely, you'll never design a scheme that is uncrackable so it's best to live with that and stop inconveniencing paying customers.

Wouldn't that make pirating even easier?

That scheme could be used for retail copies, on line services could use othere methods like checking that accounts are logged only once at a time.

 

[Something Amyss]

in the 6 months i have owned darkspore it had around a week and a half of being retarded, and that was due to the bf3 beta, which is a good enough uptime rating for me.

And "I haven't had a problem; it's a good system" is utterly stupid. If AC2 had not had a failure, the problem would have been there. However, you would likely be championing it.

That's basically all I need to say to address your specious arguments.

The flaws in the system are still there even when not readily apparent. That a drunk driver can drive home safely on any given night doesn't mean it's a good idea to give drunks their keys.

 

[JohnHunter]

Best thing they can do is just give up. It's pointless to try, because there's always SOMEONE who can 'hack and crack' any game.

(I cried a bit when I read that Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 on the PC was delayed because they found a 'problem' with it's DRM.)

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Make great games.

Replace current discussions of theft (even if you feel they're warranted, they're not doing anything) with discussions of compensation. Rather than stressing what a terrible person you are for not paying, suggest that it would be nice to pay for games you enjoy.

Alternative pricing schemes (see discussions by Gabe Newell for instance).

Trying to "stop" piracy is, at least currently, an unreasonable goal. A more realistic goal is to mitigate its effects. Currently, people are assuming that the best way to do that is to try to stop it, even if that effort is doomed. People are probably wrong.

 

[veloper]

A smart publisher will market it's studios in such a way to create fans.

Fans buy new, during the first weeks of release. They don't pirate, don't buy used, don't trade for them, etc. so fan's where most of the money is.

You put forward a likeable geek on the dev team, capable of getting a good message across in interviews. You put them on gametrailers and let them spend some time on official forums.

Eventhough I think Bioware are only so-so, this is something Bioware/EA do very well. Bioware have hordes of rabid fans who will buy all their games.

 

[Something Amyss]

Make great games.

Replace current discussions of theft (even if you feel they're warranted, they're not doing anything) with discussions of compensation. Rather than stressing what a terrible person you are for not paying, suggest that it would be nice to pay for games you enjoy.

Alternative pricing schemes (see discussions by Gabe Newell for instance).

Trying to "stop" piracy is, at least currently, an unreasonable goal. A more realistic goal is to mitigate its effects. Currently, people are assuming that the best way to do that is to try to stop it, even if that effort is doomed. People are probably wrong.

Barring borderline impractical policing methods, piracy will always exist and stopping it is not only unreasonable but implausible.

But we are a stupid, slow society. Corporations, who are otherwise profit driven, would spend a billion dollars to stop a thousand in piracy. We have such a vengeance fetish that this is the one case where it's okay to actually lose money on a venture. Developers can't even product a "pretty good" game with "pretty good" profits without facing the ax, but we can piss away millions on stopping people and get little to no success and that's okay. Money, I might add, that could go into development and make more "pretty good" games.

 

[Radeonx]

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.

Okay. You might not have found them good, but tons of people did. A huge portion doesn't pirate games to send a message, because that is fucking stupid. They just pirate games because they are free. And when you can get something good for free, there isn't that much incentive to pay for it.

 

[Radeonx]

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. Batman, Call of Duty, Starcraft, Assassin's Creed, all of these are massively pirated, and all of them are good.

Now check out the top sales lists. Oh, they're all on that too... What is this? Some sort of paradox?!?! While they are massively pirated, they also sell massively too. There was an article a while back about how music pirates actually spend more on music than non-pirates because they have more choice and can try the product so they know what they like. I don't see why the same couldn't apply to games too.

I don't really understand the point you're making...I completely agree with you (Well, it is a fact, so I can't disagree with you) on the top selling list, I was just listing stuff off the top of my head to prove that the good games get pirated the most.

 

[Dastardly]

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?

The problem is that "I can't afford it" usually just means "I can't afford it at this moment."

On one end, the person could save up over time. And on the other end, they can wait for the price to come down. And a lot of people do this (and many more would if not for the ease of piracy). Piracy simply interrupts this process by offering a shortcut, but it's foolish to assume that such pirates would never have bought the game just because they used the phrase, "I can't afford it." They may not have bought it right now or for full price, but they may have eventually been a paying customer. That's a lost sale.

And if someone offers you a Ferrari for free, it's probably a stolen Ferrari. Better to "live without it."

 

[JonnWood]

I have a great idea! It's unconventional, but it'll work. Trust me.

Okay, so you know how, like, making a game means it'll eventually get pirated? Well, my idea is simple: Stop making games. It'll work. No more pirating can be done on new products, because, you know, there won't be any new products to pirate!
...
...
I got nothing.

The sad thing is, it's entirely accurate. Pirates often refuse to acknowledge even the possibility that thousands upon thousands of people playing a game they didn't pay for is a bad thing. I've actually read several arguing that it was actually beneficial to gaming, because it leads people to buy things they wouldn't have otherwise. The logic is like saying that if I sneak into a movie showing I didn't pay for, and I decided to see it again and pay for it based on that, then it's actually benefiting the theatre. I've also heard the argument that the pirate goes and recommend it to their friends, that makes it okay, which ignores the fact that a)they did not obtain the product legitimately in the first place, b)you can't pay the rent with recommendations, and c)the people pirates are most likely going to recommend things to are other pirates. If I joyride a car while the owner's out of town, then recommend it to my friends, that doesn't justify the joyride.

Both arguments ignore the fact that the people who buy the game after their "test drive" or recommend it to friends are in the vast minority of pirates.

/RAEG

 

[JonnWood]

The point is that whilst they get pirated the most, they also sell the most too, which shows that if you make a good game people will buy it. Yes, people will pirate it, but people will always pirate it. Concentrate on the people who are paying, not trying to punish the ones who aren't.

The Witcher 2: No DRM. In fact, the publisher bent over forward to accommodate PC gamers. It was still one of the most pirated games when it was released. AAA games are pirated in proportion to their popularity. Possibly more than lesser-known games.

So if a game with no DRM whatsoever gets pirated at a level comparable with games that don't, that indicates that DRM makes a lot less difference than people think.

DRM doesn't "punish" legit customers, it inconveniences them. Sometimes greatly, but it's still an inconvenience and/or frustration, not a punitive measure.

 

[Ytinasni]

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.

This.

Making better games and lowering the price WILL reduce piracy rates, by how much? I can't say. But I do know people who pirate games because they don't want to spend 60 bucks on a game with a 10 dollar day1 dlc.

The dlc model as we have adapted it is junk, I should not have to pay to see the ending to my game(prince of persia anyone?), DLC should work like an expansion pack (as many developers do do, namely the fallout games did a pretty good job with it) it should not sell me overpowered weapons it should not only expand on half of the game when 10 years ago I could have downloaded the toolkit and made all of the multiplayer maps I wanted.

You can't stop piracy, but you can increase sales.

 

[veloper]

The point is that whilst they get pirated the most, they also sell the most too, which shows that if you make a good game people will buy it. Yes, people will pirate it, but people will always pirate it. Concentrate on the people who are paying, not trying to punish the ones who aren't.

The Witcher 2: No DRM. In fact, the publisher bent over forward to accommodate PC gamers. It was still one of the most pirated games when it was released.

So if a game with no DRM whatsoever gets pirated at a level comparable with games that don't, that indicates that DRM makes a lot less difference than people think.

DRM doesn't "punish" legit customers, it inconveniences them. Sometimes greatly, but it's still an inconvenience and/or frustration, not a punitive measure.

Or maybe pirates just really like TW2.

Pirates never deal with DRM anyhow, because they simply DL cracks, so they don't even have to notice any difference between DRM and non-DRM software.