Which is the bigger problem? Piracy or DRM?

[Piorn]

I don't know why people hate Steam, I love having an account for my games, so I can download them again.
The problem is, there are so many accounts to ceep track of. I use Steam frequently, and I'm feeling lucky remembering my Bioware password, but don't get me started about my Ubisoft, EA or whatever account I need to play a game.

 

[Mr. In-between]

I really don't give a shit about either. I'm poor. I have to choose between gas for a car I don't own and the cheapest game a platform has, most of which I wouldn't waste my time playing. This means I have to carefully read reviews and save money for games... If I can even justify buying any.

As of right now, I have Rogue Galaxy, Radiata Stories, Okami, and ToSoTNW on my plate alongside finishing my file on SMG. Developers that waste a lot of energy on DRM/pay2play/etc don't even hit my radar because their games lack appeal to me for reasons that I can't really explain. Piracy doesn't matter to me either because I have so much bullshit on my plate that I don't have the time to play anymore.

Skyword Sword: Yeah, I'm interested in Skyward Sword but since it's Nintendo it isn't coming out until fuckeverwhen, so I'll figure it out once they do.

Kirby's Epic Yarn: Whenever I get the money, but it does look cool.

The fucking Donkey Kong game: I haven't played DCK2 in a while, I'll check it out.

Kid Icarus Uprising: I'm reserving a 3DS.

Other M: Hopefully for xmas.

SMG2: eventually

Virtual console: as soon as all of this goddamn internet shit is settled.

 

[Fenring]

Seeing how for some games are pirated more than they sell, and DRM would not exist if it were not for piracy, piracy is the problem. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a pirate, wrong, lying, or an idiot.

...And claiming anyone who would argue against you is wrong makes you a fool, and an imbecile. Everyone has an opinion and the right to express it.

Indeed they do, but that does not make them right. I could say it is my opinion that France is not a country, but that does not make my opinion correct or really worth anything. It's just an opinion.

piracy apparently does not cause too much damage to companies on average or we would have seen this kind of action long ago.

We have. Like this. Until recently, infrastructure had not progressed to a point where it was economically viable to assume customers would have a continuous internet connection which allows Ubisoft's anti-pirating measure. And it worked, for a very long time compared to other piracy solutions.

and to be honest if prices were not so high on games it is unlikely we would see as much pirating.

I seriously doubt that. Having more than a few friends who pirate media, they do it because they can, not because a legal copy costs too much. Lowering the prices would just necessitate more copies sold to break even. There may be a slight reduction in piracy, but I'm pretty damn sure the vast majority would still go about pirating as much as they do. Take music for example, it costs $.99 to buy a song on most services, yet music piracy is quite frequent.

there is simply no real need to charge $60 a copy..that more than recoops the production cost in the short term.

Since you mention a $60 price point, I'm going to assume you primarily play on a console. PC games do not cost $60 per title on average. The vast majority is actually $50, or less as in Dead Rising 2's case. You seem like the kind of person who assumes all $60 of your money for a new game goes to the publisher and developer, and that's just wrong. Publishers (who would be the "big suits" here) get very little off of one sale of a game. Here's a breakdown.

but DRM is making piracy worse.

May I please partake in some of what you are burning and subsequently inhaling? How is DRM making piracy worse? Piracy would be more prevalent without DRM, and DRM does not encourage piracy.

For all future reference, an ellipses (three periods in a row) does not substitute to for an actual, single period.

 

[chaos order]

sort of a silly excuse though. i mean by that logic i should steal a car so that i dont blow thousands on a car that could break down.

Car dealers don't do test drives in your country, I take it?

so pirating a game is taking out for a test drive? i mean demos work too

that is assuming the developers release a demo....
of course i am also going to restate what i said earlier in that odds are if someone pirates the game they still are not likely to go pay for it because they already have it.

and so therefore they r entitled to a free copy?

not what i said...
i did argue that not all games release demos...but i was also pointing out that just because some one pirates it claiming to be "trying it out" it doesnt make it right...it is a theory that makes sense, but it cannot work because it requires people to have moral judgement. once someone has something for free...why would they go pay for it

Oh, so money is the problem?

Why not just steal a car instead of paying for it?

Piracy - excuses for it are pathetic.

Such a tired and erroneous analogy. The big difference between a car and a pirated copy of a game is that the car is a physical product where the game is a digital product. If a physical product is taken then the car is just gone; meanwhile the digital product could be copied endlessly. In short, the car dealer actually loses something, the game publisher doesn't. A better comparison would be to say that I'm going to build my own Mustang rather than buying one from Ford.

Also, what makes you think that I'm in favor of piracy?

the mustang analogy doesnt really work either. i mean ya that person got his own car by making from the design of a company but its unlikely he'll have the means to mass produce that car and give it away for free to other people. With games one has the means to easily produce multiple copies so that a lot of ppl can get it for free.

 

[PeePantz]

Oh, so money is the problem?

Why not just steal a car instead of paying for it?

Piracy - excuses for it are pathetic.

Such a tired and erroneous analogy. The big difference between a car and a pirated copy of a game is that the car is a physical product where the game is a digital product. If a physical product is taken then the car is just gone; meanwhile the digital product could be copied endlessly. In short, the car dealer actually loses something, the game publisher doesn't. A better comparison would be to say that I'm going to build my own Mustang rather than buying one from Ford.

Also, what makes you think that I'm in favor of piracy?

Your statement implies that the value of the game is the cd itself and not the information on the cd, which is absurd.

Your comparison would be if you made your own game yourself rather than buying one.

I believe pirate kitty has the more accurate comparison.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

the mustang analogy doesnt really work either. i mean ya that person got his own car by making from the design of a company but its unlikely he'll have the means to mass produce that car and give it away for free to other people. With games one has the means to easily produce multiple copies so that a lot of ppl can get it for free.

My analogy being flawed doesn't make yours more apt. We're still comparing apples and oranges, here. The point is; you can't compare the theft of a physical object to making copies of a digital product.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Also, what makes you think that I'm in favor of piracy?

beacuse you are fighting for it like the thief you are.

I'm not fighting for piracy, I'm fighting against (intrusive) DRM. There's a difference. Don't believe me? Have a nice chat with my Steam profile [http://steamcommunity.com/id/whitetigershiro]. Yeah, I pirated the heck out of those 80 games that I bought.

 

[Flying Pilgrim]

If they really thought something like DRM was a good idea then I guess piracy really is a big issue; Yet again most of these companies are controlled by greedy bastards who really want that extra penny...

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

The only time that piracy is not a really stupid idea is when the dev no longer gets money from it. AKA system shock 2, fallout, other greats like that.

So if I pirate a copy of System Shock 2 now it's okay, but if I pirated it 10 years ago it wouldn't have been? What's the difference? Either way I haven't bought the game. Oh, and you can still buy Fallout [http://store.steampowered.com/sub/2008/], wouldn't be shocked if there was a way to buy System Shock 2. So really now, how do you determine what's "okay" to pirate?

 

[chaos order]

the mustang analogy doesnt really work either. i mean ya that person got his own car by making from the design of a company but its unlikely he'll have the means to mass produce that car and give it away for free to other people. With games one has the means to easily produce multiple copies so that a lot of ppl can get it for free.

My analogy being flawed doesn't make yours more apt. We're still comparing apples and oranges, here. The point is; you can't compare the theft of a physical object to making copies of a digital product.

but its not simply "making copies" its the production of copies in order to allow ppl to get something so that they dont need to pay for it

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

If they really thought something like DRM was a good idea then I guess piracy really is a big issue; Yet again most of these companies are controlled by greedy bastards who really want that extra penny...

Just because they're greedy penny-pinchers doesn't mean that they're smart. The kind of logic they use to determine that DRM nets higher profit is the same kind of research you could use to prove that drinking milk leads to violence. That is to say, they do Thing A and Thing B happens, therefore they assume that A was the cause when B was going to happen anyway.

 

[Lacsapix]

Drm
no matter how well protected a game is (AC2.....), pirates can still crack it.

 

[Wormthong]

i see a lot of posts saying that piracy created DRM but then why would a DRM only offer a limited number of installs instead of just verifying that the game has been bought.
DRM is not just about piracy its actually not about piracy as much as the industry says in reality its all about second hand games because those account for much more lost purchases then piracy because those people have already shown to be able and willing to buy the game however they wish to do so without paying full price (which means the industry gets nothing from the resale except for the original sale).

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Piracy is obviously the bigger problem. Piracy caused DRM to come about.

If I had to make a wish that would benefit the world of games, I would wish that piracy would be impossible. The minute a pirate thinks of making copies of a game, their mind goes blank and they forget about what they were doing.

Now the more damaging way of wishing the stopping of piracy, I would wish that whenever a person tries to pirate a game, an unstoppable virus is released onto the offender's computer and all memory on it is erased. It is a virus that only effects computers of pirates.

-------

The one thing I just can't understand and it seems to be getting more prevalent with each generation, people with the mentality that they have the right to play a game. There is no such right.

They complain about how expensive games are, that they don't get to play them, so they say that they have to pirate.

No, pirates, you don't have to pirate. You just have to pay like everybody else, if you buy a game and find out it is bad, tough, that is life. If you didn't do the research on a game before buying it, then it is your fault.

Pirates, you don't deserve to play a game. You want to play it, you pay for it. Playing games is a privilege, not a right.

 

[Mordwyl]

Piracy always was here. It's the DRM that scares away potential customers.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Your statement implies that the value of the game is the cd itself and not the information on the cd, which is absurd.

Oh ho! Someone on the Pro-DRM side actually brings-up a valid point. The value of the purchase is indeed the data contained within the CD (or DVD, these days, let's just say disc and keep it easy), however this still sidesteps the point that when someone downloads a copy of a game from a torrent, the physical copy is still there to be sold. The company hasn't actually lost anything. You might argue that the company lost the sale, but then we get back to my question about the man with $0 downloading 3 games.

Here's another analogy; currently I am reading through The Walking Dead [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Walking-Dead-Volume-1/Robert-Kirkman/e/9781582406725/?itm=27&USRI=walking+dead]. I have not purchased a single issue, volume, book, or compendium of the series. Rather, I am borrowing them from my brother, reading them, and then giving them back to him. Am I a thief? If not, then how is what I am doing any different from what a video game pirate does? Here's another thought. I have beaten Limbo [http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/LIMBO/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802584109d1] a couple of times and gotten 11 of 12 achievements. I have not purchased the game, but rather I played it at my friend's house. Same questions apply.

 

[Trull]

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Which means DRM is (in the eyes of people like obi wan in the original trilogy) piracy.
But to us brained people, it means that DRM is the same amount of ass searing pain as piracy.

 

[Murray Whitwell]

Piracy isn't an issue as long as the developers go about managing it the RIGHT way.
I was watching an interview with Gabe Newell and the issue of piracy came up. He noted that people are willing to spend large amounts of money on a computer and an internet connection, so piracy clearly doesn't come down to money and an unwillingness to spend on games.
He also said that piracy is rarely considered a major issue due to the fact that they don't go to any extreme lengths to fight it, and Steam allows games to be so accessible in the first place that people have far less reason to steal. For example, there is always a risk with some DRM that, if I were to change my OS or buy a new computer, my game might not work as it should, if at all. Steam allows me the peace of mind of knowing whatever machine I am on at any place in the world, my games will work. There is no risk in managing a games library on Steam, and games are, for the most part, cheap and quick to download.
TL;DR, it's not about money. People just don't want to, as the OP said, jump through hoops to play their games. Bad strategies in the DRM field are a major issue that many publishers are bringing on themselves

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

It doesn't matter how tangible the product is. Theft is theft. Period.

This is true, but remember that you're explaining how the company is losing something; as to validate comparing it to the theft of a car.

I'm not sticking up for DRM - I hate it. However, DRM isn't illegal and piracy is. It's very obvious which one is harming the industry more.

Perhaps you haven't heard of a guy called Robin Hood. Just because something is legal doesn't mean that it's justified. The opposite is valid as well; just because something is illegal doesn't mean that it is wrong. See, that's the biggest problem I see with society today. People seldom think for themselves. They see a law and decide that it must be right because we were raised to think that way. People see someone breaking a law and instantly demonize him without even pausing to consider; "Why is he breaking this law? Is the law perhaps too much? Maybe he was actually in the right for doing what he did." No, instead they just see him breaking a law and instantly side with it. The truly humorous thing is when those same people talk about how much they love the story of Robin Hood. >.>

Build your own Mustang?...

...

Really?

So people don't steal a copy of the game, they make it?

Terrible analogy.

That's pretty much exactly what you're doing when you download something. Your computer reads the file and re-writes it; and thus makes it. Granted that you aren't programming the game from the ground-up, but you're still making a duplicate. And why not build your own Mustang? Plenty of mechanics have taken a pile of scrap and made a functional car out of it. Heck, I think there's even a few TV shows based around that very idea.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Piracy isn't an issue as long as the developers go about managing it the RIGHT way.
I was watching an interview with Gabe Newell and the issue of piracy came up. He noted that people are willing to spend large amounts of money on a computer and an internet connection, so piracy clearly doesn't come down to money and an unwillingness to spend on games.
He also said that piracy is rarely considered a major issue due to the fact that they don't go to any extreme lengths to fight it, and Steam allows games to be so accessible in the first place that people have far less reason to steal. For example, there is always a risk with some DRM that, if I were to change my OS or buy a new computer, my game might not work as it should, if at all. Steam allows me the peace of mind of knowing whatever machine I am on at any place in the world, my games will work. There is no risk in managing a games library on Steam, and games are, for the most part, cheap and quick to download.
TL;DR, it's not about money. People just don't want to, as the OP said, jump through hoops to play their games. Bad strategies in the DRM field are a major issue that many publishers are bringing on themselves

Can... can I have your children?