RPG News - Piracy & PC Viability

[Dhruin]

Yes, it's "end of the world" time again. A GDC panel on the PC's viability as a AAA gaming platform (featuring Chris Avellone) and another on Piracy have covered some common ground.
First, here's a snip from Extremetech's (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2102189,00.asp) coverage:
Capps, who has worked on Unreal Tournament titles as well as Gears of War, was bleak: "PC Gaming is really falling apart. It killed us to make Unreal Tournament 3 cross-platform, but Epic had to do it to [recap its investment in the production costs]."
Part of the problem is piracy. Big titles get stolen by cyber thieves, and it hurts revenue. "The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works."
...and a bit from Next-Gen (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4911&Itemid=2):
The effects of piracy are staggering, Hollenshead said during his GDC speech titled “The Videogame Piracy Problem: Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest.” In 2004, the industry’s economic loss from piracy was estimated at $3 billion—and Hollenshead said that figure does not include piracy that takes place on the Internet.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=4163)

[r3dshift]

I know this has been debated countless times over and over again, but this particular comment couldn't let me rest:

"The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works."

This is utter bull. If developers weren't so lazy and made their games compatible with old hardware AND produced quality games (unlike the crap that makes up about 95% of today's titles), then people would spend their money not on hi-tech but on quality titles. So, in a way, devs have brought this upon themselves, actually.

[Corwin]

Not really. The main reason people pirate, is economic. Sure some do it just because they can, but I think that number is small. The other reason could be 'delay'. Nothing annoys me more than having to wait several months after N/A release or even European release for something to be released here (if at all)!! I can afford to order overseas and pay the shipping, many can't.
The only things I BT are TV shows which won't be seen here for at least 6 months after airing elsewhere. That annoys me!! I don't support pirating, it damages the industry, but when you have to wait 3-6 months for a game to be released here after it's released elsewhere, and it costs $90-100, I can understand why some people do it!!!!

[Ionstormsucks]

It's as always, the industry says one thing, and does the other. On the one hand they are telling us that PC gaming is dead, and on the other hand they try to develop gaming consoles that have the functions of a PC. Do they really believe that there will be less piracy on gaming consoles that can access the internet and burn DVDs? I seriously doubt that.
I mean it is like Capps says - pc gamers seem to have better knowledge about software in general (guess a great deal of people do not use their pc just for gaming) - They know how torrents work, they know where to find the games on the internet, where to find the necessary cracked .exe file, and they have the knowledge to burn isos, etc. But consoles are on their way to actually become PCs. They are already using technology that is very similar to that of PCs. It is illusory to believe that future console gamers will only use the online capability of their consoles to patch their games (which will undoubtly become as crappy as PC games when it comes to bugs, etc. once patching on consoles will be a common thing).

When it comes to piracy the gaming industry is just not honest. I firmly believe that there is a pc gaming market. And I'm not only talking about WoW, Everquest, etc. I'm also talking about single player games. But look at the PC gaming sector - it's a mess.
Corwin mentioned one thing. Why isn't it possible to release a game worldwide at the same time? You would think that this can't be much of a problem nowadays. Look at how underdeveloped the digital download sector is. It's slowly getting better, but I still cannot get every game on the day of release via digital download - why is the gaming industry not working on it?
Look at the quality of games. There is a tremendous difference between console games and PC games when it comes to technical quality. Console games are fairly bug free (because hard to patch), PC games are often one big patch orgy. And, no, I do not mean bugs that are technology-based, I mean bugs, that are solely based on shoddy programming (like broken quests, etc.). But there are also technology-based problems. No doubt, programming for consoles is easier, since every player has the same type of console, so no big problems here. But consoles also limit the possibilities, which isn't a bad thing in itself, because programmers usually have work with a certain efficiency. You know, we have that kind of "men's club" going on every now and then. Just us men meet up at a friend, no girl friends or wives allowed. We watch a movie or something, and then we play a bit of playstation. I do not own a playstation 2 myself, but I'm always surprised what you can do on such an old console - despite of its age. Now, I don't want to judge the type of games that seems to be predominant on consoles, but the games are usually well programmed. On the PC on the other hand there seems to be an inclination to programm very inefficiently. Requirements for games are often so high that it makes no fun to play them on a somewhat older PC. Even though it should be obvious that great GFX alone make no great game. Instead of programming for an elite with superior PCs, game companies should concentrate more on the mass of players that have an average PC.

That's at least my 2 cents...

PS: I'm not an expert on the gaming industry, but these are at least my impressions

[The Watchman]

When shitbox users starts to be able to pirate, this moneytrain will hit the dirt. Meaby then we can get some devs. that actually care about gaming quality and not just mainstreaming everything into nobrain kiddie mode. Screw "big" titles, they are pure junk anyway, im happy to support indie devs though, out of the 12 games i bought last year, the only ones really used are the "small" titles.

[bjon045]

I see the anti-piracy guys are still pulling numbers out of their backsides, that's all that 3 billion is. The industry doesn't even have a clue of how many units are pirated let alone how much lost revenue that equates to (lost revenue is significantly lower that the value of units pirated).

If I got to the pirate shop down the road more than 50% of the pirate games are for PS2 and XBOX even....

[Dyne]

I really should invest in a tin hat, what with the regularity with which I'm told the sky is falling.

I like how the industry continues to focus on piracy on the PC, because of its crazy internets. "Oh, can't bother with the PC because piracy! Lost revenue!".
Meanwhile, betting on a company's console that's sold at a huge loss, paying a big ol' licence to the company for the privilege of developing on it; plus the same prospect of pirated games anyway.
For example, isn't eBay a no-go for GameBoy Advance/DS games now, because there's a 90% chance you're buying a fake/pirated game from Hong Kong or somesuch?

I'm touched, really I am, that Capps thinks of we PC users as highly intelligent consumers who can seek out pirate stuff if we want. I think the reality though, is he's just doing his new console customers a disservice. Some of them are certainly smart enough to buy a console game for £5, on a blank DVD from a car boot sale. There won't be any download logs or statistics to prove it, and unless there's a copper watching in the bushes, no-one will ever know.

But no, the PC is pirate city. No-one has ever cracked a PS2 disc, nor will anyone crack the security of the mighty Blu-Ray/HD-DVD. Mmm, uh-huh.

And as Corwin said, this coming from an industry that still can't be bothered to serve its customers in a timely manner. Why the hell are we still waiting on proper global release dates? You don't serve your customers in good time, some of them are going to realise "hey, I could get this NOW, for nothing".

I'm not defending piracy of course. If I see a game that's worthy of my interest, then it's worthy of my hard-earned; but I can see practices from the industry that don't exactly help the problem or foster affection from the customer.

[dteowner]

I'd have to say the consolidation of major development companies has allowed the big boys to think a little too highly of themselves. Like the US automakers of the 80's, these developers will sell us what they want, when they want, in whatever condition they want. It's not too hard to see how well that attitude worked for the big 3. I wouldn't be surprised to see similar erosion in the gaming industry (particularly if consoles get buggy like several here have predicted). And that's all assuming the do-gooders in Washington don't come up with some hair-brained idea to protect us from ourselves in the name of national health.

[curious]

the arguments about global distribution are pure folly. a developer, who is the creative force and puts the most amount of time and passion into a game, has the least control over getting it to their audience, especially on a global scale. the publishers are the ones who have all of the control, etc. pirating a game because its 'easier' than waiting may take away profits from the publisher who didn't care about getting it to you timely but where do you think their 'business model' dictates they recoup the costs from--the developers. if developers held more power the market would be a different and far better place. digital distribution may become more evolved but i almost always want a hard copy which i usually pay less for anyhow than a digital version.

virtues are hold to uphold in a world with so many 'grander' problems so the justifications people use for stealing games, aren't really any different than other commercial markets, and why these actions can be understandable they to me still aren't acceptable.

[magerette]

So PC Gaming is doomed...again. This time it's piracy, but the logic escapes me. It's a strange argument that uses popularity to account for the downfall of a product.

If the pc is such a dead platform, why would anyone want to steal games for it?

I guess the luxury car market is doomed, then, since that's all that car theives steal. Art, jewelry--forget that--and you better get rid of your identity, too, before someone steals it.

If -and it's the usual Very Big If--pc gaming is doomed, it's much more likely that the cause lies in the product rather than the supposed dishonesty of the consumer.

And I agree with bjon045. Those numbers remind me of the math tables used for the so-called 'street value" of drugs. :) As Mark Twain said, There's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics."

[Arma]

One point they are not making out is that people that pirate games do this for 2 reasons mainly - not being able to buy the game in the first place (either for economical or distribution reasons) or do so in order to see the game before buying. So those estimated 3 billion in losses are not losses as there would not have occured in the first place.

What I don't agree is that piracy on consoles is non-existant - there are mod chips, isos of console games, etc. It's not as easy as PC piracy, but it exists. On the other hand, with all the "next gen" consoles and the Wii with their online connectivity, I expect that buggy releases to start hitting them very soon, if that has not happened already.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Nothing annoys me more than having to wait several months after N/A release or even European release for something to be released here (if at all)!!

Europeans have similar problems, don't worry. ;)

[Squeek]

IMO, there would be a lot less software piracy if the companies producing it made better products. I honestly feel that software is the lowest-quality product sold in America today.

The software business has always been disingenuous. In the early days of mainframe computing, IBM had a firm policy not to reveal or discuss anything with its customers "further than six months out." Think about that. That was Big Blue, and those products cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Those customers were being kept in the dark "for their own good."

Today even the most reputable software companies routinely sell garbage products. For instance, I bought Norton AntiVirus a few years ago for my backup computer, running Windows 98. It wasn't working, so I checked the Symantec Web site. Among their top-5 issues was this one: "NAV won't open after being installed under Windows 98." In other words, one of their top issues was their product not working at all.

That's so unethical that it's actually against the law where I live, in California. But good luck getting that law enforced when it comes to software. It's just too complex. So software companies have their own brand of ethics.

I'm not at all surprised that its customers have become increasingly unethical.

[Corwin]

The fines here for doing something like that, means that you'd get a full refund with no questions asked!! At least from the reputable suppliers!!

[doctor_kaz]

PC gaming is, indeed, in a very serious state of decline, and nowadays I don't see it recovering soon at all. Most developers have pretty much abandoned the platform for anything except mediocre ports. I count count on one hand the games that are actually worth buying Vista for. Actually I can count that one one finger -- Crysis. "Games for Windows" is a joke. For being such a great technical leap forward, DirectX10 is the biggest flop ever. Developers are almost completely ignoring it.

Don't agree with me? If not, then somebody name for me an upcoming game other than Conan and Crysis that's actually a DirectX 10 game. I'm not talking about a game that is merely compatible with DirectX 10. I'm talking about a game that actually takes advantage of it so that you need it to enjoy the game fully.

When Microsoft decided to produce a gaming PC in a box as a console, they effectively doomed PC gaming as a separate platform. They probably didn't know this at the time, and, sadly, they still don't seem to have figured it out. It really is a shame that such a fantastic hobby is on life support but it is. The library of first person shooters on the PS3 right now is more impressive than what has come out for on the PC in the past year and a half. If that doesn't show you how sorry PC gaming is nowadays, I don't know what will. While the hobby will never completely die off, it will more likely limp along in a feeble state like a perpetually bedridden cancer patient. It might already be there.

I don't buy the piracy argument though. Not only because people can pirate console games, but also because piracy has been around forever, so talking about it like it's some recent phenomenon is just wrong. That $3 billion per year number probably just assumes that every single game on bit torrent is a loss of $50 and that's not true. That's bordering on outright dishonesty. Probably most people who pirate games wouldn't be buying them anyways.

[Chekote]

Regardless of all the negativity towards PC gaming in these comments, I still play my games almost exclusively on my PC.

I have a PS2, XBox, GameCube and a Wii, and they are lucky if they get 2% of my gaming time to share between them. PC games are in a league of their own, even today when everyone is touting the quality of console games, I still just don't get it.

I've played most of these AAA games for consoles that everyone harps about, and I just get bored instantly. I'll stick with Gothic 3, X3, Company of Heroes, STALKER, BioShock etc etc.

I know I am in a minority, but consoles just don't do much for me. The only reason I even have consoles is for Platform games and Eastern style RPG's, since that's about the only games that they do better than PC.

If developers want to abandon the PC as a gaming platform, that's fine. Just don't expect me to buy their games for consoles. I'll just find something else to do with my PC to keep myself entertained.

[bjon045]

Even if they did abandon the PC platform completely at least we would have emulators for all the various consoles :)

[Corwin]

DX10!! Remember development cycles!! Most current games began their cycle before DX10 was available. Wait for games that are just at the start of their cycle now before judging the worth of DX 10. PC games will never die; it's just that consoles in general make more money right now. This too is a cycle!! :)

[Moriendor]

For being such a great technical leap forward, DirectX10 is the biggest flop ever. Developers are almost completely ignoring it.

Who says that DirectX 10 is a "great technical leap forward" (other than Microsoft's PR department when they are trying to impress uninformed consumers or financial analysts :) )?
Everyone knows that DirectX 10 is not really bringing anything new to gaming other than optimizations. Microsoft could have and would have added a lot more to DirectX 10 if they would have really wanted to but they had to keep the backwards compatibility with DirectX 9 in mind from the moment they decided to make DirectX 10 Vista-exclusive. That's why DirectX 10 ended up being just a slightly pimped version of DirectX 9.
Microsoft knows that, developers and publishers know that and every semi-informed consumer should also know that by now. No one other than MS' marketing department is claiming that it is a "great technical leap forward".

Don't agree with me? If not, then somebody name for me an upcoming game other than Conan and Crysis that's actually a DirectX 10 game. I'm not talking about a game that is merely compatible with DirectX 10. I'm talking about a game that actually takes advantage of it so that you need it to enjoy the game fully.

Regarding Crysis, I see absolutely no reason (yet) why anyone would want to buy Vista for Crysis. Crysis is not a DirectX 10 exclusive. It will supposedly be "optimized" for DirectX 10 but we will have to wait and see whatever that means. Maybe you'll get 3fps more than when playing it on an XP rig. Wow.

No one really knows for sure right now which games will take advantage of DirectX 10 to an extent that the visual enjoyment of the game is going to surpass DirectX 9 significantly. We'll have to wait for Crysis to actually get released first and then we need to compare the features and performance between Vista and XP or DirectX 9 and 10. Same goes for all the other "optimized for DirectX 10" games.
On paper, there's no real reason why a DirectX 10 game should be looking much better than a DirectX 9 game since DirectX 10 doesn't introduce any significant new features. It's just about optimization. Same goes for shader model 4.0. It's just making things easier for developers but it doesn't introduce any fancy new stuff.

We might see indirect visual improvements though, i.e. maybe developers will be able to push more graphical data with DirectX 10 without the performance hit that would occur with DirectX 9 but it remains to be seen how any such indirect advantages will be utilized.

[JemyM]

None of my friends buy consoles before they can chip them. Im not sure they have bought any original games to them at all.

The primary reason PC is a lesser gaming platform today, is:
1. Microsoft. Their push on the XBox platform instead of their Windows platform have heavily managed to ruin the interest of producing games for the windows platform and also ruined the interest in Vista. Games always pushed the PC market before XBox.
2. Superexpensive graphic boards, not everyone can afford to spend $600-1200 on graphicboards alone

[BurlyBill]

I know this is kinda tangental to the subject but . . .

As consoles become more like PCs in terms of components, why couldn't PCs take advantage of the OS that are used on consoles?

The Xbox 360 uses a version of Windows 2000, though with a much smaller footprint than the full version because it doesn't need to do anything other than gaming. The console has only 512 megs of RAM and two 3.2 ghz processing cores.

I can now duel boot my PC with Windows and Linux, why couldn't we have the general purpose OS and a specific gaming one, without having 30+ processes running in the background that I don't need.

Would this really be so bad? My computer components are generally better made than those found in the 360 and if something breaks, I can swap out rather than deal with an integrated mess. As it is I emulate Playstation games on my PC and prefer to play them on my PC than on the console. Gaming OS would have to be tailored to the general specs of the PC but we already do that with Linux distros.

[Moriendor]

The primary reason PC is a lesser gaming platform today, is:
1. Microsoft. Their push on the XBox platform instead of their Windows platform have heavily managed to ruin the interest of producing games for the windows platform and also ruined the interest in Vista. Games always pushed the PC market before XBox.

I disagree with that. The market that is currently taken by the Xbox would be occupied by another company if Microsoft wouldn't have taken it. Maybe Nintendo or Sony would be bigger than they are now. Or maybe Sega would still be around (as a console manufacturer). No one knows. But someone would be in Microsoft's place for sure if they wouldn't have taken that place.
However, for the PC, I believe it's much better that MS owns that piece of the market than some other company because Xbox games can relatively easily be ported to the PC while Nintendo and Sony games require a little more effort (and thus cost). If Nintendo or Sony and/or any 3rd party other than MS would dominate the console market then there's a good chance that the PC would be doing even worse if the porting would be more difficult.
It's not Microsoft's fault that people generally seem to enjoy console gaming from their living room couches more than PC gaming. It's just the way that the market has swayed in recent years as gaming has become more mainstream.

[Ionstormsucks]

That's so unethical that it's actually against the law where I live, in California. But good luck getting that law enforced when it comes to software. It's just too complex. So software companies have their own brand of ethics.

I'm not at all surprised that its customers have become increasingly unethical.

I very much agree on this one. Some people might see it as a justification for piracy, but it think it is a valid point. Quality sells, tell me what you want. At least it helps to sell stuff. I would really like to see that gaming magazines emphasise more in reviews if a game is bug free.
But I think there is also another point that is important - not only the technical quality of games on the pc seems to decline, but also the overall quality. Maybe it is only my personal impression, but I have the feeling that there are just less games worth buying nowadays. The last game I bought was NWN2 because I knew I would have fun with it for a loooong time thanks to the included toolset. Unfortunately many games nowadays are mere fastfood. They are either very short, full of bugs, or they are just an uninspired reincarnation of another game. If i buy a game nowadays, I buy a standard EU DVD jewelcase that contains one or two DVDs, and if I'm very lucky a thin manual of 10 sites. 5 or 8 years ago, I got a brilliant package, a manual that was as thick as Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and a clothmap. If I want something similar nowadays, I need to buy the collector's edition that costs 30 bucks more. And even then, in most of all cases, you only get a cheap ass poster, some useless ingame pet that noone wants, and a broken plastic miniature (value about 0.5$).

[[Jez]]

"In 2004, the industry’s economic loss from piracy was estimated at $3 billion"
Impressive number... but how do they know that? Door to survey? "Excuse me, do you pirate warez?" Did they pirate the 3 billion themselves? As it stands there is more proof in God than in this.

"Part of the problem is piracy. Big titles get stolen by cyber thieves, and it hurts revenue. "The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works.""
Then dont make your game require a fucking $600 video card and people might have spare cash to buy it!

"the abandonment of PC development and focus on console games, where piracy is not as prevalent."
Wii=Chiped, 360=Firmware Hack, PS3=Loader being worked on....

"better physical protection for games"
Because StarForce was so well received....

"and a change in consumer attitudes will help combat piracy"
No a change in developer attitudes will help combat piracy, NWN2 would have been worth the money if I didnt have to restart my char twice, Gothic 3 would have been worth it if it didnt give me a headache the very first time i played it, DMoM&M would have been worth the money if I could load it up anymore... Its doesnt feel like I've bought games here, it feels like I've bought potential games that may become games and it makes me less willing to chance buying other might-be-games. I'll do you a deal right here and now Mr. Hollenshead you do your job and finish the goddamn game and I will buy it, until then you cant complain about people not paying you for the work you haven't completed.
/rant

[Alrik Fassbauer]

No-one asks or does a study about users having "economic loss" because of using bad software (software that does not work as it should, has lots of bugs etc.) ...

Everything is so economized these days ! Even humans are merely called "human resources" !

his "economization" is of course in favour of the industry. No-one does *really* strong security software for home users, because it wouldn't sell. They rather take a possible loss of a user's data as granted, because "he doesn't need strong security" (read : as strong as companies need it).

Last year I was talking with an guy about encryption. In his arrogance, he told me that home users don't need that. Well, maybbe he's right, but what makes me actually angry is the path where this thought-pattern leads to : Home users don't need no strong security, because they don't own anything that deserves it.

Same goes for bnuggy siftware. The home version of norton is - I heard - completely different code than the enterprise version !

So - Norton is willing to sell low-level software to home users because they know they wouldn't sue them - or even if they wanted to, they maybe couldn't because home users just don't have the money for that.

But big, big companies could do this very well ! So, companies like Symantec have to fear big companies they sell software to, because these big companies could very effectively sue them ! So, their Enterprise version is - I expect this - much, much more bug-.free, than a home-user's version ...

Same goes for games. Home users just don't sue. And the companies know that.

[Dhruin]

In my opinion, those of you who think piracy is price or quality related are way off the truth in most cases. I believe most people pirate, simply because they can. End of story.

It's relatively easy and maybe just a little bit exciting to know you are getting something for free while doing something illicit. Stickin' it to the man, baby!

I don't know if the $3B is accurate, nor do I know if those people would actually buy the games if they had to - the argument that people pirate games they wouldn't necessarily otherwise buy holds some merit for me.

...And just proves people pirate because they can. There's no reason to pirate a game you aren't even really all that interested in other than you can. Can't afford it (but can afford the Geforce 8800 to run it), quality isn't good enough (but yet it's good enough to spend your time playing it) are all bullshit justifications.

Sure, the industry could reduce piracy a little with simultaneous worldwide releases (which is an issue) better quality, accessibility in some countries and so on but that's just around the fringes.

[abbaon]

Law-abiding people are so cute when they try to explain criminal behaviour. Not directed to you in particular, Dhruin.
In my opinion, those of you who think piracy is price or quality related are way off the truth in most cases. I believe most people pirate, simply because they can.
I don't. Not many people have more money than they know how to spend. Piracy allows the rest of the population to divert some of their finite entertainment dollars elsewhere. I mean, pirates are clearly videogame fans. They've invested in the hobby, and if they had no alternative they'd buy a subset of the games they currently steal. As it is, Jemy's friends can buy the hardware, steal the software, and still afford, you know, whatever else the kids are spending their money on these days.

Edit: Make that illegal rather than criminal. I don't think the sort of piracy we're discussing is a criminal offense in any country.
Edit Edit: Actually not. Apparently, and this is not a subject of interest, end-user piracy is covered by the same copyright infringement laws as commercial IP crime, but is typically only pursued through civil courts. Fascinating stuff.

[Moriendor]

Edit: Make that illegal rather than criminal. I don't think the sort of piracy we're discussing is a criminal offense in any country.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this but in Germany you'll usually be dragged to court twice. Once to a criminal court where you will probably get away with a small fine if you are a first time offender and then a second time to a civil court if the publisher of the games you pirated decides to sue you. Depending on the number of games you pirated, this [the civil thing] can get very expensive. Not crazy expensive but you'll most likely be out of a few thousand Euro if you have a "respectable" collection of isos.
The only way to escape a trial is if the offender is under the age of 13 or if the amount of pirated games is completely negligible.

Also, I think that Dhruin and you are both right. The "just because they can" argument does kind of include every single other argument that you can think of in regards to why people pirate games. Most people who pirate on a regular basis probably don't really think about it consciously anymore. It might have started out with being short on money and then it turned into a habit. Those people will habitually visit their favorite warez site on a regular basis and just download whatever interests them. They are no longer consciously applying a thought process like "Hmmm... shit, I got $50 for the rest of the month. I can't buy that game. Let's see if I can find a free copy." - No, instead pirating has become like visiting their favorite porn or news site to them. They just check if there's something new and cool to be downloaded so effectively they pirate games just because they can.
Typical male hunter and gatherer behavior. It's been a successful concept for over 100K years and some people obviously have more difficulty to adapt to civilization than others... *burp* :biggrin: ;) .

[zakhal]

Would this really be so bad? My computer components are generally better made than those found in the 360 and if something breaks, I can swap out rather than deal with an integrated mess.

Yeah but for game dev its a nightmare because if the new component is not exactly the same as the old one then theres a chance that the game will have issues with it. Its much easier to dev for consoles because you dont have to worry about the burden of hardware compability.

The really neat new thing about DX10 (apart from the new shiny) is that it forces - by gunpoint - graphics cards to apply a much more stricter set of rules than DX9. This will greatly lessen the compability burden for the part of the graphics cards because all dx10 cards work much more the sameway than dx9 ones. In future it will mean less bugs and faster development for PC games.

[curious]

fans are not equal to supporters.
in fact fans are often the antithesis of supporters as their fanatacism doesn't lead to sound decision making. plenty of the best/fashionablely creative dressed teens theive a good majority of their wardrobe. maybe the reason why older people pirate games is different and could partially have to do with the other reasons but the people downloading the games are a majority of people under 25 who like all youngsters must have some level of rebellion and downloading things of the internet whether music, games, or movies gives them a lot with rarely any consequences.

even if piracy is driving my game prices up and the games are riddled with more protection software, and i must suffer through a splash of consolitis i still will feel at ease and that the pc world loves me when compared to when i have to take my car to the gas station and proceed as follows: drop my pants, empty my wallet, and watch the blue disappear from the sky...

[abbaon]

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this but in Germany you'll usually be dragged to court twice.
Screwy. If they turn out to be Killerspiele, does everyone involved get the same fine? :)

[Moriendor]

Screwy. If they turn out to be Killerspiele, does everyone involved get the same fine? :)

No. The death penalty :biggrin: .

[Dhruin]

Most people who pirate on a regular basis probably don't really think about it consciously anymore. It might have started out with being short on money and then it turned into a habit. Those people will habitually visit their favorite warez site on a regular basis and just download whatever interests them. They are no longer consciously applying a thought process like "Hmmm... shit, I got $50 for the rest of the month. I can't buy that game. Let's see if I can find a free copy." - No, instead pirating has become like visiting their favorite porn or news site to them. They just check if there's something new and cool to be downloaded so effectively they pirate games just because they can.

Spot on.

This sentence brought to you by the need to reach 10 chars.

[doctor_kaz]

I disagree with that. The market that is currently taken by the Xbox would be occupied by another company if Microsoft wouldn't have taken it. Maybe Nintendo or Sony would be bigger than they are now. Or maybe Sega would still be around (as a console manufacturer). No one knows. But someone would be in Microsoft's place for sure if they wouldn't have taken that place.

I have seen this argument many times, but I think that it's totally false. Both Nintentdo and Sony have shown utter cluelessness when it comes to online play, something that has separated the X-Box and X-Box 360 from their competitors. The Gamecube, PS2, PS3, and Wii never have and never will invite lots of PC developers. Most developers that are shitting on the PC aren't putting their games on every platform. They are putting them just on the X-Box or X-Box 360 (e.g. Bungie, Ion Storm, Funcom, Ascaron, Bioware). To make a long story short, consoles never were in danger of intruding on the PC market before the X-Box came along, and they never would have been. PC gaming is basically nonexistent in Japan, so you would have never seen a PC-like console come from Japan, and very few Western companies (if any) could have made it work besides Microsoft.

PC gaming thrived through numerous generations of consoles before this one. The original NES and the Playstation 1 had far greater installed base than the X-Box or X-Box 360, but you never saw PC developers jumping en masse onto those platforms. Console gaming has always been far more mainstream and popular than PC gaming. There's absolutely nothing new about this. What's new is that now there's a major company encouraging developers to abandon it. And that's Microsoft.

[GhanBuriGhan]

Piracy may be a problem, but the numbers given by the industry are illusory. You can't take the numbers of pirated copies, slap the retail price on it and claim that that's the loss you are suffering. At best you could take the sales volume at market prices for pirated copies for hardcopied console and PC DVD's and the value of internet time and DVD-R's for internet piracy. I mean when I was a teenager and pirated, I copied 300 games from my friends. Of these I played only maybe 30 any significant amount of time. My allowance would have allowed to buy maybe 3. So what was the loss to the industry: 300 x $50, 30 x $50 or 3 x $50? Or no loss at all, because playing these games hooked me to PC games, of which I have now bought roughly 100 x $50?

[txa1265]

I am extremely anti-piracy in all areas, but that doesn't mean I support the companies either! I think that in all of the industries (game, music, software) they inflate these huge numbers to make it scary, then go after a few little guys to make it seem that no one is safe.

In terms of support for Dhruin's 'because they can', here is a great example: for my older son's 6th birthday (4 years ago now), he got a CD-R with the PC game "Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone". I really didn't appreciate that to begin with, and spoke to my son and the father of the boy who gave it. He pretty much said "I don't buy any games for the kids, just download them" ... and apparently spread the joy. Here is a guy making a very solid living with money to spend on what he wants, pirating all of this stuff - and he taught his son well, as that same year the son crashed the family computer with viruses, etc from all the stuff that *he* was downloading (their kids have almost no limits, that is a tale for a different thread).

[Alrik Fassbauer]

In my opinion, those of you who think piracy is price or quality related are way off the truth in most cases. I believe most people pirate, simply because they can. End of story.

Okay. I just take this argument and turn it the other way round :


I buy games in shops, because I can. End of story.

Am I too lazy to actually crack a game or "patch" it so that it runs without copy protection ?

There is something deep in me that tells me that it is dishonest towards developers working so long for a game with which they want to earn some money and appeal to people.

That's the other side.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

PC gaming thrived through numerous generations of consoles before this one.

"Jein", as we say in German (it's a mixture between "Ja" and "Nein",effectuively meaning a miuxture between "Yes" and "No").

At the same time as numerous consoles were marching past the PCs, numerousd PC operating systems actually did the same. And with the operating systems the ways of programming games changed.
Without emulators, you often can't run DOS games nowadays anymore on PCs ... and they are still PCs, although their hardware has evolved, too ...

[lilithn]

Hm, I don't know about you, but in my country a brand newly released game costs around 1/10 of my salary. Considering that half of my salary goes to electricity and such, I have to eat too, I really can't afford to buy more than 1 game in a month and even that seems much. And the average salary is around mine or even less.
So piracy here is purely economical. Eat or Buy Original Games.
I tend to wait for budget verisons or at least a bit cheaper price which in most cases means a year. Sometimes I could buy these games much cheaper from UK VG shops, but it almost the same amount considering postage.
And don't forgate those games which aren't even released here. Or Oh Goddamnit, translated to Hungarian! Cheap, horrible translations. (Playing Fall: Last days of Gaia, loving it but climbing on wall because of the translation)

[MudsAnimalFriend]

Piracy is theft, plain and simple. However most games published today would not qualify as “fit for purpose” under any reasonable trade description legislation. In selling shoddy, bug-ridden, “unfit for purpose” merchandise the games industry is committing larceny on a grand scale.

Ironically, in their greed, publishers actually encourage piracy by penalising legitimate users with blocking and performance degrading copy-protection software. Is there any other industry where the pirate version of a product is actually better than the original?

[cutterjohn]

Not really. The main reason people pirate, is economic. Sure some do it just because they can, but I think that number is small. The other reason could be 'delay'. Nothing annoys me more than having to wait several months after N/A release or even European release for something to be released here (if at all)!! I can afford to order overseas and pay the shipping, many can't.
The only things I BT are TV shows which won't be seen here for at least 6 months after airing elsewhere. That annoys me!! I don't support pirating, it damages the industry, but when you have to wait 3-6 months for a game to be released here after it's released elsewhere, and it costs $90-100, I can understand why some people do it!!!!While I don't pirate games, I DO utilize the fruits of the pirating, namely the no-CD/DVD executables that allow me to a) remove the onerous copy protection and probably security holes and incompatibilities that they bring with them as well as not insignificant performance degradation caused by their utilization, b) protection of my original media(try getting replacement media and one at a reasonable cost, I gave up LONG ago), c) freedom from the inconvenience of having to maintain a pile of CD/DVDs just to play a game or use some piece of software, etc.

This whole argument goes the same way as MPAA and RIAA arguments, and there have been several arguments pointing out that losses aren't really losses as 99.9999% of those people pirating wouldn't or couldn't buy the software in the first place, ancillary pirating(if you for example, consider my common utilization of cracked executables even though I own the game as pirating which is generally implied), etc.

All of that said, I've only ever had one single game that ever was totally broken out of the box such that it wouldn't install and that was Red Alert. This game failed to install in a very poor fashion as well, as the installer would appear to start up and then do absolutely nothing, no error message, no dialog box, just a white box drawn on the screen with absolutely zero support coming from the publisher and/or developer(win2k was up-to-date at the time, so a pirated version would've likely worked if I had bothered to look for one). As it turns out in this case it was likely an installer bug with win2k as when I remembered it, and tried installing it several years later, voila the installer suddenly worked fine IF the win2k install was updated to SP4 plus fixes(never tried anything less than an original win2k release).

Every other game/app has worked unless my machine didn't meet the specs, in which case I avoided the problem by simply not purchasing the software. In other cases it's very likely that the end users machine is not updated. OTOH we have draconian copy protection software/libs that refuse to play nicely with other software, especially those which allow virtual devices, e.g. Alcohol 120% which is a perfectly legal piece of software(potentially).

Console software is eventually just as readily piratable as PC software, esp. in certain countries where legitimate fully protected media is just copied and released, along with movies, PC software, music, etc.

I just don't buy many games myself as most of them are uninteresting or in genres that I'm not enough of a fan of to bother with, e.g. FPS, strategy games, adventure games, etc. I do like SOME games from those categories, but RPGs are pretty much the only genre that I buy most of what comes out for. These other genres just have very few games which I find interesting enough to bother and most of those I find because friends, etc. have convinced me to try them out, e.g. Half Life. Add to that I generally abhor real time, so in another case, strategy games, I used to buy quite a bit of but now that most games have to be RTS I just find the compromises made to make RTS workable just have ruined the genre for me, e.g. general dumbing down, poor AI, etc.

Bottom line here is: Whining about pirates doesn't excuse crappy games and poorly marketed or buggy games that justifiably fail in the market place, which is exactly what it comes down to.


Almost forgot:
This also doesn't include the fact that most games come out in almost identical form on multiple platforms, e.g. PC & Console, so in a sense by multi-platforming they are immediately cannibalizing potential PC sales.

[Gorath]

I think Mo and Dhruin got it right, at least for first world countries with decent income. People pirate games "because they can". The developers are faceless and the pirates "are not stealing anything". Software is "copied" after all. The original is still there.

[narpet]

Okay... let's hear it (indirectly) from the mouths of several pirates.

This is a true story, the names have been changed to protect the guilty (actually no names are given) :)

When I was in my early 20's (around 20 years ago) the world wasn't dominated by the internet (*gasp*). There were no "high speed" connections, no internet kiosks, no l33t speak (well there was, but it was in its infancy), nothing... well not quite.

If you wanted to get online with other people you used your 2400 baud modem (as time went by you got a 9600 and then a 14400 baud modem - smokin'), and you called a BBS. What is this strange thing you say... A bulletin board system. That's right, you remember (or maybe you don't if you weren't alive yet).

I used to run a fairly popular BBS in Ohio back then. There were basically two different types of BBS's... those with pirated software, and those without. Back then if you had access to a BBS where you could download cracked games (as they were called then) your status was called "elite". If you didn't have access to the illegal games you basically didn't have a status.

Well, my BBS was a legal one (I even paid the insane amount for the licensed BBS software, called CNET)... I had chat rooms, online games (absolutely nothing like what you think an online game is today), and file areas where people could share free and shareware software. However, since I ran my BBS for quite some time I had the opportunity to get to know those who ran other BBS's...

I became friends with several sysops (system operators) from several of the biggest pirate boards in Ohio. They were good guys and they became good friends. They didn't mind that I paid for all my games, and I never really thought much about how they supported piracy... but I never understood it (why they did it, that is).

The one thing I learned from hanging out with these people is the truth that several have stated already. People pirate games just for the sheer satisfaction of doing it. There were two sysops in particular that I remember. You would walk into the room where they had their computers and there were thousands of disks (yes 3.5 inch floppies) of pirated games and software. But guess what... I never saw either one of them play even one of those games. These guys never even talked about games, unless they were telling you how they just got the cracked version of the new hottest title. They were excited to get the game, but probably never spent more than 30 minutes playing it.

And even though they did it just for the satisfaction of doing it, they always had excuses for their illegal hobby (justifications)... prices were too high, nobody was getting hurt by their actions, etc.

Anyway, I learned a little about myself as a gamer then. I bought all my games (as you may know from other posts I still have them all), and I played them all. I'm excited when I get that new game, in the box, in my hand. I enjoy the box, the manual, the extras (if any), and finally the game itself. I think that buying it makes it more important to you. You actually want to play something that you've purchased. But the pirates I've known don't have that feeling. They never feel ownership of something that they've stolen, so it doesn't really interest them that much.

I don't know those guys any more... they've moved away, I've moved away, etc. But I would bet that to this day they can count on one hand the games they've played and finished, while I have fond memories of hundreds of games that I've purchased (and still cherish to this day).

[Corwin]

You know Narpet, after reading your post, I almost feel sorry for those guys. They missed out on what you and I enjoy the most; the pleasure and excitement of a 'new' game!! I fondly remember my BBS days as well. Inter-bbs games of BRE were a daily highlite and LORD was classic fun!!

[abbaon]

The one thing I learned from hanging out with these people is the truth that several have stated already. People pirate games just for the sheer satisfaction of doing it. There were two sysops in particular that I remember.
There's a pretty big difference in the effort of running a pirate BBS and that of visiting a torrent site. The satisfaction you get from the latter activity is proportionately less. Your friends' experience describes the rewards of being a member of -=|DEViANCE|=-, not leaving Azureus running in the background.

I really don't see the need to overcomplicate the issue by pretending that most pirates are protesting against the shoddy state of today's games, or that they don't even enjoy games, or that they have any motive beyond the obvious one: they want something, and they don't want to pay for it. Why can't that be enough?

[Squeek]

And even though they did it just for the satisfaction of doing it, they always had excuses for their illegal hobby (justifications)... prices were too high, nobody was getting hurt by their actions, etc.
That's a neat point of view, Narpet. You're certainly a true on-line veteran, and I enjoyed reading your post, even though I have quite a different viewpoint.

Software companies have a unique problem, because their products aren't just stolen. It goes beyond that. Thieves then offer them to everyone else as well. In a sense, their products are set out on the curb where everyone can help themselves to it.

That puts everyone in the position of having to do the right thing instead of simply avoiding doing the wrong thing. You have to ignore it, sitting there. You have to just walk on by. If it were their neighbors' stuff, sitting out on the curb, I bet most people would do the right thing. But it's the software company's stuff and that's, well....

Software is a hardball business, apparently. For instance, every year games get rushed out the door in time for Christmas that disappoint a whole bunch of kids when they don't work. That's not very nice. Remember when Microsoft assured its customers that their old games would run on Windows XP? They said they would run "even better," remember? That wasn't very nice, either. How about Oblivion? Not nice. X2 when it first shipped? Not nice. TOEE v1.0? Not nice.

I think a lot more people would be able to resist temptation and just walk on by if software companies were a little bit nicer. That's not an excuse for theft. Theft is wrong. But I honestly feel there would be less “piracy” if folks had warmer feelings about the companies being victimized.

[magerette]

Squeek wrote:
That puts everyone in the position of having to do the right thing instead of simply avoiding doing the wrong thing.... But it's the software company's stuff and that's, well...

Yes, you've hit on a universal truth there, I think. It's not just pirating software, it's shoplifting, it's 'working the system', it's all the petty and not-so-petty dishonesties that we see every day on the news.Doing it seems to give a certain kind of person the enhanced self-esteem that normal people get from an actual accomplishment.

I'll share an eye-opening experience I had with a relative's child, about thirteen at the time, and what is usually called 'at risk'--(i.e., he'd been in a lot of trouble, and would end up in more, but that's another story)

We were driving around my neighborhood and I, being into plants and flowers, was exclaiming at various yards--"Oh, what a beautiful rose bush!" The young man promptly said "I can get it for you. Want me to get it?" I told him I didn't know what variety it was so how could he find it at the store--and he gave me a funny look as if I were totally retarded; "No, I meant now. Like dig it up."

I explained that the people who owned the rose bush had worked hard to pay for their landscape, had spent not just money but time and care on it, and that it would not be fair to steal it. I might as well have been speaking in a foreign language. The rights and feelings of others just didn't exist for him. And to impress me, a comparative stranger, he was happy to violate them.

It's a morals thing. Either you have respect and empathy for others or you don't. If a lack of empathy is coupled with a disregard of consequence, then you see no real division between what belongs to others and what could so easily belong to you.

I agree that it's hard to have empathy for huge capitol conglomerates that are often operating in the grey areas of the law themselves, and that the big holding companies that publish games today seem to feel no responsibility to provide their customers with a solid product. But if it isn't worth buying, it sure isn't worth stealing. :)

[narpet]

It's a morals thing. Either you have respect and empathy for others or you don't. If a lack of empathy is coupled with a disregard of consequence, then you see no real division between what belongs to others and what could so easily belong to you.

Magarette - that is very well put... and I agree completely. Even my story of the BBS pirates that I used to know shows that point (I may not have stated it well, or at all, but it's what I felt at the time - they had no respect, empathy, or moral feeling toward the developers/owners of the games that they stole).

[magerette]

Yes, narpet. Before that incident I don't think I ever really understood that about people who steal--just thought they were wrong, evil, whatever. It's a big mistake in life asuming that everybody thinks the same way or shares the same point of view. :)

[Corwin]

Perhaps the fact that much of modern society exists and operates in a moral vacuum has a lot to do with this, but really that should be discussed in the Rel and Pol Forum!!

[txa1265]

Perhaps the fact that much of modern society exists and operates in a moral vacuum has a lot to do with this, but really that should be discussed in the Rel and Pol Forum!!

Do it ... DO IT!!! :D

[aries100]

I bought NWN2 Collector's Edition last year (in November 2006), I think. I then
wanted to play the game, so I installed it. But it wouldn't install - for some odd reason. I then installed it on my laptop. And the game installed just fine.

The difference, you might ask ??

Well, the desktop had NERO installed, the laptop didn't. Sadly, the laptop hasn't got the power to play the game :( . I was then forced by NWN2 to un-install NERO, which, btw, is a totally legit software. And one that I use from time to time to take backups of my most important documents. (but NERO could maybe be used to copy NWN2).

And boy, was I mad. Really, Really Mad!!! (sorry, for the exclamation marks, but this goes to show how mad I was --- really !!!).

The thing is this: Why should NWN2's publisher (atari) decide whether or not I'm allowed to have NERO installed on my computer or not ?? Just because someone out there might try to copy NWN2. I, personally, would never do this.

I would rather play the game....

This goes to support the view that people who play the games are not the
same people that copy the games. And that the industry simply can't say
the lost xx amount of money due to yy numbers of people who copy games.

[Ionstormsucks]

I'm not quite sure if just reducing the above topic to a question of what is morally wrong or right is not a bit too easy. No doubt, software piracy is illegal - people should not do it - but they do it. But this is not a problem that is limited to the games sector, you can find it on nearly all markets nowadays (think about illicit employment for example, everyone knows it's illegal - still quite a few people are doing it). A discussion about piracy always seems to focus on the delinquents. But that approach is erroneous - on other markets people have realized that a loooong time ago. Just the software and the music industry are quite reluctant (it's getting slowly better in the music industry I guess). For the software industry the question "why people pirate their software" is fairly uninteresting (well, it does play a role, but not to a dominant extent). They question that they should ask is:"Why should people buy our products." I have the feeling that the gaming industry is still coming to the conclusion, "because copying them is illegal."
No matter what market you're looking at nowadays - most of them have problems to sell their products at some point. They all have to find ways to raise the attractiveness of their products. But obviously not the gaming industry. Games are still sold in ways they were sold 15 years ago. There are no customer rights, there are no alternative forms of distribution, there are value-added services, etc. All these things are well established in other industrial branches nowadays. The fact that a lot of gamers are online offers tremendous possibilities, but the gaming industry just ignores them (apart from a few exceptions).
Innovation is what drives markets nowdays, but the gaming industry is only innovative when it comes to their products (and even there innovation seems to have its limits), but not when it comes internal structures.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

But this is not a problem that is limited to the games sector, you can find it on nearly all markets nowadays

JUst to give an example on how wide this spans :

Chinese companies are said to have build busses abnd cars and many other items that look EXACTLY like their counterparts here in Germany and elsewhere !

They just invide German companies into an joint-venture, and seemingly copy plans. And then they build their own things - which look astonishing similar to their original designs.

To me, this is just a continuation of the piracy system into business. Not the things themselves are cipied this time, but entire plans ! It's as if I would steal the code of Baldur's Gate and sell it somewhere in South America, Asia or Africa with a completely different name (and content). But never in the country where it originates.

And this goes clearly into politics/philosophy : Is the thought-system to blame for such an behaviour ? The philosophy that everything should be available for everyone ?


From my own experience, I can say that I've learned to know "Raubkopierer" (the German term of people illegally copying software) in a similar way than Narpet did - but never in such a big scale. Some people I once knew said that they actually buy games they believe are something special, something extraordinary, good games. The waste is just copied.
And there is far too much waste, from their point of view.

[Corwin]

Aries, while I sympathise and agree with you about Nero (I have it), using exclamation marks, is MINE!!!! :)

[Dhruin]

I have Nero on all of my machines and have never had a problem with any game not installing (NWN2 included on two PCs), so I'm not sure it's as simple as pointing to the copy protection software.

[KasperFauerby]

It always pisses me off a little when people try to justify their piracy - because it's my hard work, my overtime, my love and passion towards a title that they are stealing! But notice that I said that it pisses me off a *little* - I can see how it can be very hard to be able to buy all games legally when they cost you 1/10 of a months salary (in comparison, where I live it's more like 1/50 of a months salary, after tax, for a full-price game which I generally find quite reasonable!)

But what pisses me off *a lot* are the reasons some people tend to come up with for why it should be justified to pirate games. The devs are lazy, the devs are incompetent (if only they would listen to me, then their games would be MUCH better, because *I* know exactly how to make a cool game, even if I never tried it, and bla, bla, bla!! PLEASE, it makes me sick!). Let me tell you guys one thing - I'm not getting very rich from making games! In fact I could easily go out and get a higher salary in another area of the IT industry. I also work long hours. I'm not complaining though, because I love what I do - but it's important for me to get rid of that ridiculous notion that all game devs are lazy bastards that just sit on their fat arses and milk a golden cash-cow. We generally love what we do, and we do our best to make the best games possible for you guys. We love it when the fans are happy about our products, and it hurts us when people are not happy and complain. I'm not saying that we do not have a responsibility to put out quality products - but when people starts complaining about products such as, for example, NWN2 then I think they have very unrealistic expectations about games. I've played NWN2 and I never encountered a bug that I notices - in my eyes NWN2 is a completely fine and well polished game (and if you took off your rose colored glasses you would notice that the old games you seems to always praise were often in a much worse state when released). Always demanding more, and even justifying theft, is just not the way to go!

Financially PC-only games are just becomming near impossible to do - and if you pirate games it is certainly not helping! Neither is your denial of the problem!

I suspect not many here will agree with this post, but this is how I see it...

[Alrik Fassbauer]

(if only they would listen to me, then their games would be MUCH better, because *I* know exactly how to make a cool game, even if I never tried it, and bla, bla, bla!! PLEASE, it makes me sick!).

These are the calls of people who don't know a single bit of programming at all.

Originally, I'm a trained programmer, so I think I can at least imagine how hard these things might be (although I never made bigger applications so far).

So - don't listen to the kids knowing everything better than you, but don't get caught by demanding publishers who are not interested in a bug-free game either. Only money, it seems to me.

In my opionion, most of the blame goes to the publishers, not the programmers themselves. I personally believe that these are rushing development too much. But that's just my personal, subjective opinion, based on what I've learned. I wouldn't say I'm all-knowing.

[txa1265]

I suspect not many here will agree with this post, but this is how I see it...

Actually this is probably the most sympathetic audience I've seen - on many game forums, piracy is seen as the delivery vehicle of a god given right. If they make too little or games cost too much, than it is equivalent to stealing a loaf of bread so their baby doesn't starve to death. Whatever ... :rolleyes:

[GhanBuriGhan]

It always pisses me off a little when people try to justify their piracy - because it's my hard work, my overtime, my love and passion towards a title that they are stealing! But notice that I said that it pisses me off a *little* - I can see how it can be very hard to be able to buy all games legally when they cost you 1/10 of a months salary (in comparison, where I live it's more like 1/50 of a months salary, after tax, for a full-price game which I generally find quite reasonable!)



I agree that piracy is inherently bad, and that many justifications are very self-serving. I don't pirate anymore except, strictly speaking, for some legacy games ("abandonware") that I can't get anywhere else with reasonable effort, which technically is still pirating. At the same time I do not feel overly bad for the games I pirated as a kid - as per my post above I don't feel I have defrauded the industry of any money by it, because the alternative would simply have been to not play games at all.
So while I agree that pirating is bad at an individual level, at the same time I don't think the games industry (just as the movie and music industry) is doing itself a favour by focusing on combating piracy. It's a waste of money and energy for the most part. It should instead concentrate on making it easy and attractive to buy games legally. Bring back shareware. Finally develop decent models of online distribution. Develop serial content games. Online and online-supported offline games (e.g. single player RPG's with dynamic, online content and events). Even do the god damn ad-enabled product placement thing (pay to get rid of them). Just spare us any more copy protection desasters like StarForce.

[fatBastard()]

It always pisses me off a little when people try to justify their piracy ... *snip* ... I suspect not many here will agree with this post, but this is how I see it...
*stands up and applauses*

Excellent post. I totally agree with everything you said.

I've always "loved" the argument: "But I wouldn't have bought it anyway" ... be that as it may buddy but you just played it anyway didn't you? Try to get away with that train of logic with the local hooker and I'm sure you'll find her pimp just as understanding as the software industry :rolleyes:

I mean, I can understand the whole: "I'm not going to spend x amount on a game without checking it out properly first" when there is no demo available but nobody needs to play through the entire game to find out if it is worth playing or not. If you do anyway then it was apparently good enough for you to play and thus you SHOULD be paying for it. No amount of bad excuses can change that fact: You play, you pay. End of story.

NB! I am of course only speaking of those who CAN afford to buy the games but CHOOSES not to.

[aries100]

I always pay for my games because I know I'm helping the store that sells the game, the publishers and not least the developers who develop the games.

I also know that I'm not paying for my copy of the game, but instead paying for the next copy of the game (to be made, that is).

However, I do feel that thw hole pirate thing has gone a bit too far, not least what the industry will do the get people not to pirathe their games. My main concern is that the industry sets a target point saying that we need to sell xxx amount of games and when game then (only) sell maybe zzz amount of games (well under the target point) the industry goes like: "OMG! --- we didn't sell enough games!
We needed to sell xxx games, but we only sold zzz", and then they subtract the zzz games from the xxx games, and then they came up with a number, let's call it yyy, and then this yyy figure is the pirated games, at least for the industry.

The point is to to say that maybe, just maybe did game P sell xxx amount of games because it was a very bad game or a game that simply wasn't good enough or well done enough (or something like that). On a similar note, today I saw Dreamfall in the bargain bin for about $14,99 or so in one of my local gaming stores. To met his says some about the quality of Dreamfall, that only a year (if it has been a year ??)
after its first release, this game hits the bargain bin. Maybe the game simply wasn't good enough, and maybe that's the reason behind as to why many people didn't buy game - as least not as many as as certain mr. Ragnar wanted.

Good games, like good music, always find an audience.

[Ionstormsucks]

It always pisses me off a little when people try to justify their piracy - because it's my hard work, my overtime, my love and passion towards a title that they are stealing! But notice that I said that it pisses me off a *little* - I can see how it can be very hard to be able to buy all games legally when they cost you 1/10 of a months salary (in comparison, where I live it's more like 1/50 of a months salary, after tax, for a full-price game which I generally find quite reasonable!)

Fair enough... guess I can understand that you are a little pissed. Guess I would be as well if I were a game developer.


But what pisses me off *a lot* are the reasons some people tend to come up with for why it should be justified to pirate games. The devs are lazy, the devs are incompetent (if only they would listen to me, then their games would be MUCH better, because *I* know exactly how to make a cool game, even if I never tried it, and bla, bla, bla!! PLEASE, it makes me sick!). Let me tell you guys one thing - I'm not getting very rich from making games! In fact I could easily go out and get a higher salary in another area of the IT industry. I also work long hours. I'm not complaining though, because I love what I do - but it's important for me to get rid of that ridiculous notion that all game devs are lazy bastards that just sit on their fat arses and milk a golden cash-cow. We generally love what we do, and we do our best to make the best games possible for you guys. We love it when the fans are happy about our products, and it hurts us when people are not happy and complain. I'm not saying that we do not have a responsibility to put out quality products - but when people starts complaining about products such as, for example, NWN2 then I think they have very unrealistic expectations about games.

I think very few people would claim that game developer are lazy bastards. I think they are in fact hard working people. But that does not change the facts. Look at console gaming. Games for consoles hardly have any bugs (if so they are usually minor ones), because you cannot patch these games afterwards (or better could not, seems like this is about to change with next generation consoles). Now look at PC games, most of them are released in a state where they contain serious bugs. I can't even remember when I bought the last game that I did not have to patch. You can tell me what you want, but this has become a bad habit. It might not always be the fault of game developers (but that of publishers that force game developers to rush the release of a game), but for the customer it makes absolutely NO difference.


I've played NWN2 and I never encountered a bug that I notices - in my eyes NWN2 is a completely fine and well polished game (and if you took off your rose colored glasses you would notice that the old games you seems to always praise were often in a much worse state when released). Always demanding more, and even justifying theft, is just not the way to go!

Mate, what the hell are you smoking? You know, that quite some people were not even able to patch NWN2, even several weeks after the release because the patcher wasn't working properly and Obsidian was not able to deliver a patch version that could be applied manually and not via the patcher? You think that is ok? Do you honestly want to tell me that I have unrealistic expectations if I expect that I'm able to patch a game I just bought?
Have you had a look at the toolset? Hakpacks were not working in the beginning... hakpacks!!! The 2da files have limits that are beyond reasoning, and there were several other problems as well - you think that is a quality product? Mate, just because a game is working for you it doesn't mean it's working for everyone. If not even you, as a game developer are aware of that, then I'm not very surprised that so many crappy PC games are released nowadays.


Financially PC-only games are just becomming near impossible to do - and if you pirate games it is certainly not helping! Neither is your denial of the problem!

I suspect not many here will agree with this post, but this is how I see it...
Mate, have you even read what people here were posting? Most people in this thread, including myself, are against software piracy. You know what's not going to help? Painting black and white pictures, where the software developers are the benevolent human beings that create games just for fun and fans, but not for the money, and rejecting any kind of responsibility for the current crisis concerning pc gaming. I'm sorry to say it, but you have the typical arrogant attitude that seems to be dominant among game developers today. We're delivering quality products, players that say something else are all stupid, and don't know what they are talking about. We do not have to improve our products just because the average player demands it.
Yep, exactely. That's of course an approach that is very helpful. You still seem to think that the player is depending on you, but not vice versa.

[fatBastard()]

Look at console gaming. Games for consoles hardly have any bugs (if so they are usually minor ones), because you cannot patch these games afterwards (or better could not, seems like this is about to change with next generation consoles).

This reasoning is not exactly true. The main, and I do mean MAIN reason that console games have far fewer bugs than PC games is the unified hardware configuration of consoles. When you test your program on the [insert console of choice] in your office it has the EXACT same hardware configuration as every other console of the same model in the world, so if it works on your console, it will work on all of them. This is NOT the case for PC hardware configurations.

Now look at PC games, most of them are released in a state where they contain serious bugs. I can't even remember when I bought the last game that I did not have to patch. You can tell me what you want, but this has become a bad habit. It might not always be the fault of game developers (but that of publishers that force game developers to rush the release of a game), but for the customer it makes absolutely NO difference.

I too haven't had a single problem with NWN2. Not a single crash and not a single problem updating. However, for some reason singleplayer, not multiplayer mind you, games on the Source engine (HL2 and Dark Messiah and possibly Vampire) crashes within the first 2 minutes of playing with my new memory, a memory that causes no problems in other games whatsoever and have passed several 12 hour runs of Memtest without a single error. Does this suck? Absolutely, but that is the name of the game when it comes to PC games. If you want the freedom to install whatever motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, storage devices, sound cards and peripherals you want in your PC then you have to accept that it is virtually impossible to cover every hardware combination the first time (and I haven't even mentioned drivers and other software running in the background). Hence the need for patches. I'm not trying to make excuses for games like Dungeon Lords but to expect a totally bugfree release is downright unfair.

Mate, just because a game is working for you it doesn't mean it's working for everyone.
And of course, this train of logic can also be put into reverse: Just because a game doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean that isn't working for everyone else.

[KasperFauerby]

Look at console gaming. Games for consoles hardly have any bugs (if so they are usually minor ones), because you cannot patch these games afterwards (or better could not, seems like this is about to change with next generation consoles). Now look at PC games, most of them are released in a state where they contain serious bugs. You can tell me what you want, but this has become a bad habit. It might not always be the fault of game developers, but for the customer it makes absolutely NO difference.

......

I'm sorry to say it, but you have the typical arrogant attitude that seems to be dominant among game developers today. We're delivering quality products, players that say something else are all stupid, and don't know what they are talking about. We do not have to improve our products just because the average player demands it.

Ok, fair enough. You have a number of very valid points. Also please remember that my rant were not directed at you specifically - it's aimed at certain people with much more extreme opinions (and much less argumentation) than you. I'll also agree that I'm probably also a bit biased, although in the oposite direction :) I guess I'm more forgiving when it comes to game releases than I should be because I can understand why the bug/problem can occurs. But you are completely right - we, the industry, are here to serve you guys because you are the customers who are buying the products that we sell. I mentioned NWN2 in my first post - not because I think that is a *perfect* release (in fact, despite not having encounted any bugs I was quite disappointed with its performance) but because I think it is a very decent release. If some people has encounted as serious bugs as the ones you describe that is of course not ok, but from a content point of view, when the game is running, I think it's a fun and quite polished game. In any case, I'm sorry if I appeared arrogant in my post - that was not my intention ;)

Regarding the quality of console games - there is a simple explanation. We cannot patch previous gen console games, and Sony and Microsoft each has a set of very strict rules regarding quality and stability that must be satisfied before a game is even allowed to be released for these platforms. They can be a pain in the neck for us developers (because they are indeed *really really* strict!) and it costs a lot of money to take a game to that level of polish. With PC releases this extra cost is sadly often skipped (as you say, probably from a bad habit of thinking that a game can always be patched later) but with console releases there really are no choice. A consequence of this though is that the PC titles that are also released for consoles will often have benefitted from this extended development and test phase, so those game often have much fewer bugs. In these cases it is not that rare to see a PC game where no patches are ever released...

[Ionstormsucks]

This reasoning is not exactly true. The main, and I do mean MAIN reason that console games have far fewer bugs than PC games is the unified hardware configuration of consoles. When you test your program on the [insert console of choice] in your office it has the EXACT same hardware configuration as every other console of the same model in the world, so if it works on your console, it will work on all of them. This is NOT the case for PC hardware configurations.

True, but hardly an excuse for bugs. If you sell a product it's your responsibility that it works, not that of the buyer. There is no sticker on PC games that says something like "the game MAY work depending on your configuration."


I too haven't had a single problem with NWN2. Not a single crash and not a single problem updating. However, for some reason singleplayer, not multiplayer mind you, games on the Source engine (HL2 and Dark Messiah and possibly Vampire) crashes within the first 2 minutes of playing with my new memory, a memory that causes no problems in other games whatsoever and have passed several 12 hour runs of Memtest without a single error. Does this suck? Absolutely, but that is the name of the game when it comes to PC games. If you want the freedom to install whatever motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM, storage devices, sound cards and peripherals you want in your PC then you have to accept that it is virtually impossible to cover every hardware combination the first time (and I haven't even mentioned drivers and other software running in the background). Hence the need for patches. I'm not trying to make excuses for games like Dungeon Lords but to expect a totally bugfree release is downright unfair.

I never said something about a 100% bugfree game. I have a fairly high tolerance when it comes to bugs if the game is worth playing it. I also would never complain about a bug that only concerns me, but I know very few cases where that was actually the case.
We're not talking about a game containing one or two bugs here. We're talking about the fact that many players seem to have the impression that the overall quality of pc games is slowly declining. That is also my impression. And you cannot blame all this on different system configurations, because 10 years ago, people also had different system configurations, and bugs were not such a big topic. No doubt, different system configurations play a role, but you greatly overestimate it. If the different system configurations would play a dominant role when it comes to bugs, then every game would have more or less the same amount of bugs. And that's just not true. There are games that are nearly bug free (not many... I admit that), and there are games that are full of them. Message boards are usually a very good indicator of the quality of a game.

I agree however, that programming a game that is 100% bug free, and that runs on all pcs is probably impossible. But that is certainly not what players demand...


About NWN2: I wasn't the only one who could not patch the game. I wasn't the big exception who had such an unusual system configuration that the patcher could not handle it. There were a lot of people who had the same problem. Check the boards if you like, it was a fairly common problem. It's also safe to say that quite a few people bought NWN2 because of the toolset, and not because of the OC. The bugs in connection with the toolset had absolutely nothing to do with system configuration because they concerned EVERYONE. That is shitty programming and rushed release - nothing else. It's ironic honestly. Obsidian, like so many other game companies, had message boards running looooooong before the release of the game. The developers knew exactely what the community expected from them. They knew that a lot of people were interested in the toolset and its capabilities. Still they decided to release it in a state where it could not fulfill these expectations...


And of course, this train of logic can also be put into reverse: Just because a game doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean that isn't working for everyone else.
Nice bit of logic, but erroneous. The fact that it does work for some players does not make a game a quality product. From my point of view a game should work for significant majority of all customers.
If you buy a car, and the salesman tells you, "Oh, that thing easily overheats, but it works fine in winter!," would you consider that acceptable?

[Ionstormsucks]

Ok, fair enough. You have a number of very valid points. Also please remember that my rant were not directed at you specifically - it's aimed at certain people with much more extreme opinions (and much less argumentation) than you. I'll also agree that I'm probably also a bit biased, although in the oposite direction :) I guess I'm more forgiving when it comes to game releases than I should be because I can understand why the bug/problem can occurs. But you are completely right - we, the industry, are here to serve you guys because you are the customers who are buying the products that we sell. I mentioned NWN2 in my first post - not because I think that is a *perfect* release (in fact, despite not having encounted any bugs I was quite disappointed with its performance) but because I think it is a very decent release. If some people has encounted as serious bugs as the ones you describe that is of course not ok, but from a content point of view, when the game is running, I think it's a fun and quite polished game. In any case, I'm sorry if I appeared arrogant in my post - that was not my intention ;)

Ok, maybe I was a bit short-tempred too. Mea culpa. I hope no offense was taken.
Don't get me wrong, I can imagine that it isn't easy to create games. I'm also quite sure that a lot of things have to do with publishers putting pressure on game developers (to rush the release of thier game, etc.). But for the customer that hardly changes anything. He cannot say whose fault it is that a game is buggy - even if he could, what difference would it make? He would probably use the same channels to complain that he is using now.

And I'm certainly not defending software piracy. I'm studying information science and property rights (no matter if digital property, print property, etc.) is always a very controverse topic. For me it is obvious that the justification "That game is buggy, therefore I download it illegaly from the internet" does NOT work. But from my point of view it is also quite clear that piracy will always be a problem (or at least until someone comes up with a really good idea). Honestly, I think in 3 or 4 years consoles will be facing exactely the same problem. The average console gamer will open a browser on his console, download the ímage of a console game, and burn it on the console in-build dvd-burner. A PC won't be necessary anymore. Also, the crowd of people that is able to work with computers, and complex programs is growing. Therefore I would guess that we'll see a rise in software piracy, not a decline.
Condemning software pirates is perfectly understandable, but it does not pose a solution to the problem. In my opinion the only solution is to find ways so that buying a game has clear advantages over pirating one.

[Squeek]

We love it when the fans are happy about our products, and it hurts us when people are not happy and complain.
I didn't like much of your post, KasperFauerby, and had a hard time choosing what to quote. I selected this, because it seemed sincere, and I did like that.

I spent a lot of years working in high-technology product marketing and development, and you'll pardon me if I don't consider everyone I worked with to be some kind of a saint for doing their jobs. New technology is new, and that makes the work challenging, but not so much that people can't be expected to do their jobs well. Customers should expect reasonable quality. They should expect advertised features to be in the products they buy. They should expect reasonable product support.

Can you imagine if car manufacturers sold cars that didn't include all the advertised features? What if they were un-drivable? What if the customers complained, and the manufacturers responded by saying they were trying their very best and that their feelings were being hurt by the complaints?

There's nothing ambiguous about this. Vice presidents of marketing consider it their job to decide when a product gets shipped. So do vice presidents of product development. So do their product managers (titles vary, of course). It's a decision, and it's made like a lot of other decisions.

I remember the early days, attending a meeting of The Software Council of Southern California, where one VP of marketing stood up, looked his peers in the eye, and challenged them to stop shipping software early. He argued that it was unethical and bad for the PC software business as a whole. Not everyone liked that, but he was right.

That's not to say software piracy is justified. It's not. But I think there would be a lot less piracy if there were less antagonism between software makers and their customers.

[abbaon]

The devs are lazy, the devs are incompetent (if only they would listen to me, then their games would be MUCH better, because *I* know exactly how to make a cool game, even if I never tried it, and bla, bla, bla!! PLEASE, it makes me sick!). Let me tell you guys one thing - I'm not getting very rich from making games! In fact I could easily go out and get a higher salary in another area of the IT industry. I also work long hours.
And Kasper's glass ego strikes again. No, Kasper, we know you're not lazy. We know game development is hard work. But if it makes you sick to see customers criticise the products they purchase, then you're probably in the wrong forum. Discussing our likes and dislikes is a good part of the reason we're here, and no matter how nastily you belittle the opinions of non-developers ("bla, bla, bla!!"), you're not going to change that. Please stop using your insider status as a cudgel against the people you disagree with.

[KasperFauerby]

And Kasper's glass ego strikes again ... no matter how nastily you belittle the opinions of non-developers ("bla, bla, bla!!"), you're not going to change that. Please stop using your insider status as a cudgel against the people you disagree with.

Ok, I think it's time to clarify my views with some examples. Random quotes from this thread - and if these are not "bla, bla, bla!", then I don't know what they are and yes, then I'm probably in the wrong forum. These quotes are what made me annoyed, not you people discussing the finer details of the problem or those of you with serious opinions on how to solve the problem. End of topic for me ;)

"This is utter bull. If developers weren't so lazy and made their games compatible with old hardware AND produced quality games (unlike the crap that makes up about 95% of today's titles), then people would spend their money..."

"When shitbox users starts to be able to pirate, this moneytrain will hit the dirt. Meaby then we can get some devs. that actually care about gaming quality and not just mainstreaming everything into nobrain kiddie mode."

"Then dont make your game require a fucking $600 video card and people might have spare cash to buy it!"

"No a change in developer attitudes will help combat piracy, NWN2 would have been worth the money if I didnt have to restart my char twice, Gothic 3 would have been worth it if it didnt give me a headache the very first time i played it.... I'll do you a deal right here and now Mr. Hollenshead you do your job and finish the goddamn game and I will buy it, until then you cant complain about people not paying you for the work you haven't completed."

[bjon045]

I think the problem is they have economists in the gaming industry who decide the pricing based on supply vs demand. Well guess what? If you have unsatisfied demand people turn to "black markets" to get what they "need". You can't price at a certain point and then bitch and moan about piracy when it is you who created it in the first place. They are already getting their optimal profit after all.

A cd costs less than 50 cents to press. A digital download costs even less provided the game is not an overbloated P.O.S. Maybe if they sold games (and software in general) at a fair price there wouldn't be less piracy. This is especially true in developing countries where software can literally cost more than a months earning for a single CD. For example Windows Vista Home Starter (the absolute worse version that only supports 1.5gig ram I believe) costs 4200 baht which is equivalent to 1/3 of the average monthly salary. A game can cost up to 1000 baht with is about 1/10 of the average salary. Doesn't take a genius to figure out why piracy is so rampant.

I recall reading a quote from some minister(could have been a prime minister) of a Baltic state who said that the software industry of the entire country was built using pirated software.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I still stand by my theory that mostly the publishers are to blame for buggy and - in extreme cases - "unfinished" games. They just don't understand how developing works. They seem only to understand how money works, imho.

There is a safe way, at least here, if you "wouldn't buy a game anyway" at full price : The budget versions. These are fairly cheap, and if I'm not too much convinced of a game, I just wait for the low-price version of it.

On the other hand, I tend to buy full-price games rather when they were made by small studios, because I'm more empathic with them. It's like supporting Ray Wilson (ex singer of Genesis) instead of, let's say, the Rolling Stones or Genesis themselves to me.
(You should read the interviews with Ray Wilson. He is an surely independend artist and tries to get everything made himself as good as possible ! - But that also means that ne actually needs all of the money he can get - because he has almost no great financial back-up. He pays everything himself, if possible, CDs, travels to concerts etc. ...)

This leads me to an interesting point ... Empathy ? Can Empathy play a role in pirating games ?

A robber most certainly doesn't empathise with his or her victim. A person who copies games might do the same, I suspect.

[txa1265]

If you have unsatisfied demand people turn to "black markets" to get what they "need". You can't price at a certain point and then bitch and moan about piracy when it is you who created it in the first place.

So you are saying that the game makers are the ones to blame and the people STEALING LUXURY ITEMS are the victims? Nice moral compass ...

Oh, on pricing, I don't debate that games are expensive, but I remember paying $60US for Sega Genesis sports games I got for my brother-in-law nearly 20 years ago, the same price as is paid for 'next gen' games now!

[Elwro]

I think piracy is wrong, but the only argument I'd have for this would be just that the creators of commercial software don't want anyone to use it without paying. And that's enough for me.
I have never seen an argument that piracy is theft succeed. Also, I have never seen an argument that a pirated copy means any financial loss on part of the publisher succeed. So, in short: it's one thing to say that piracy is wrong, and that I agree with, but it's a completely different thing to say that publishers are suffering from piracy; that if there was no piracy, they'd earn more.

[Dhruin]

Reality check: console development is expensive and requires permission of the license holder to develop in the first place, dev kits to do the development, certification before shipping the product and per-unit-sold fees when the title gets sold. That automatically skews development toward bigger funded projects, which in turn increases the likelihood of more polish, which requires a bigger market to pay for all this. You (generally) get a nice, bug-free polished product made with a nice, safe franchise or gameplay model.

The completely open PC market means smaller projects, niche projects, Eastern European and Russian projects get made that otherwise wouldn't be viable for console development. A small developer making a niche project with limited funding is often taking a leap of faith - the polish and QA isn't as tight as desirable but it simply may not have been made in the first place if the QA costs were higher.

Does that describe everything? Nope. Plenty of developments simply screw up or publishers screw the buyer but the PC gaming industry is inherently less QA-driven than the console market. It's a shame but it's inherent in this model and won't really change.

Bugs weren't a problem 10 years ago? Please. Who played Daggerfall or countless other titles? I might even argue the increased complexity of today's games (multi-gigabytes vs a few Mb) shows a lower bug ratio than old games. We just didn't have as many boards where we could all complain about these things and we sortt of just accepted it back then. You were so thrilled to be playing Daggerfall or Wizards & Warriors that you put up with all sorts of crap.

But none of this is relevant.

If quality was really the issue, players could simply read reviews and message boards before leaping in. If quality was the reason people pirated, you wouldn't find thousands of people torrenting a critically-acclaimed major movie: you know the DVD is going to work on your DVD player, you know the movie is "complete" and you can easily get a good idea of the artistic quality. It's hogwash. People pirate because they can - why pay when it's easily available for free?

Car analogies are spurious and inaccurate, by the way. Not only is the process completely different but car manufacturers have plenty of bugs and unfulfilled promises. Ever seen a recall? Ever taken your brand-new car in for service because something broke? Ever had your mechanic say "these models all do that"? Ever heard of a car with a known safety issue but the manufacturer has calculated that the small risk means settling lawsuits is cheaper than fixing the design?

People pirate because they can.

[fatBastard()]

I was going to comment on the ever appearing semantics BS about copyright infringement vs. theft and how if I hit you in the head with a wooden stick with flat piece of metal on the end, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't really care whether I called it a shovel or a spade ... but reading Dhruin's excellent comment put me in a much better mood so I'm going to let it go. :rolleyes:

Well done Dhruin.

[Ionstormsucks]

Bugs weren't a problem 10 years ago? Please. Who played Daggerfall or countless other titles? I might even argue the increased complexity of today's games (multi-gigabytes vs a few Mb) shows a lower bug ratio than old games. We just didn't have as many boards where we could all complain about these things and we sortt of just accepted it back then. You were so thrilled to be playing Daggerfall or Wizards & Warriors that you put up with all sorts of crap.

Dhruin, no one ever said that games wer not buggy 10 years ago. Games always had bugs. But you cannot ignore that many players have the impression that it's getting worse. I would also imagine that bugs have nothing to do with the amount of gigabytes a game has - or do you honestly believe that it is the program code that is blowing up the size of games? Even if we assume that games are becoming more complex that hardly justifies more bugs in an end-product, it is only an explanation. And honestly, if I look at my shelf and have a look at games that were developed in the beginning of pc gaming I see very few games that had serious bugs.


But none of this is relevant.

If quality was really the issue, players could simply read reviews and message boards before leaping in. If quality was the reason people pirated, you wouldn't find thousands of people torrenting a critically-acclaimed major movie: you know the DVD is going to work on your DVD player, you know the movie is "complete" and you can easily get a good idea of the artistic quality. It's hogwash. People pirate because they can - why pay when it's easily available for free?

Still the movie industry is spending millions of dollars to advertise the fact that original DVDs and movies on the big screen are of better quality than pirated copies.
But well, I agree it is illusory to believe that every single pirate will give up his illegal business just because the quality of games is getting better. But some might. Apart from that it would be nice if those people that actually spend money on a product would get a quality product.


Car analogies are spurious and inaccurate, by the way. Not only is the process completely different but car manufacturers have plenty of bugs and unfulfilled promises. Ever seen a recall? Ever taken your brand-new car in for service because something broke? Ever had your mechanic say "these models all do that"? Ever heard of a car with a known safety issue but the manufacturer has calculated that the small risk means settling lawsuits is cheaper than fixing the design?

All true what you are saying, but then again you shouldn't continue an anology that you describe as erroneous. I would also think that customers have way more rights when it comes to buying a car than buying a game. Also (and here I'm doing the same mistake as you did), if I compare Vanguards state of release with a car, then that would have been a car without tires, and with a motor that stops working every half an hour. I would think that you don't see that all too often with new cars...


People pirate because they can.
I don't see software pirates as one big homogeneous group of people. That seems to be a harsh generalization to me. I'm sure quite a lot of people do as you say - they pirate because they can. But I also think there are people who would be willing to buy more games if they saw their gaming needs and wishes fulfilled. Some might also pirate software because they cannot afford the product.
Also if you think about it - your approach to the topic is fairly pessimistic. It means that there is no solution to the problem (apart from a copy protection that cannot be cracked). I mean, what do you want to do? Dragging every single software pirate to court will most likely not work out.
You mentioned the movie industry. This is an industry that does not have the possibility to just go over to a new field of production (same as the music industry), and they also have to cope with the problem. They also have to try and find ways to sell their product because they have realized that just lamenting the situation won't solve the problem. Of course they know that not everyone will stop pirating movies and songs just because they begin to lower their prices, offer additional services, movie and music flatrates, etc., but their goal is to lower the number of pirated copies.

[abbaon]

If quality was the reason people pirated, you wouldn't find thousands of people torrenting a critically-acclaimed major movie: you know the DVD is going to work on your DVD player, you know the movie is "complete" and you can easily get a good idea of the artistic quality.
Don't be ridiculous. Pirates don't watch the DVDs they download. So do they hate the music they steal. Food turns to ash in their mouths. The drink will not satisfy.

I think I've identified the problem: half the participants in this thread believe we're discussing the Pirates of the Caribbean.

[Corwin]

You mean we're not!! :) The only issue not discussed in any great depth is the one dealing with delayed releases in many countries. I wonder if there's any research been done on what impact this has. For many, there are 3 choices: wait 3-6 months for local release, order from overseas and pay international shipping and possibly customs charges, or download a pirate copy!! I order from OS, but anyone want to guess what the most popular choice likely is??!!

[bjon045]

So you are saying that the game makers are the ones to blame and the people STEALING LUXURY ITEMS are the victims? Nice moral compass ...


The publishers are to blame indirectly, and the people getting pirate copies are not victims of course. It is similar in concept to prohibition in the US when a man couldn't get a drink and organised crime had to step in, the government was clearly to blame.

Another local example for me is fake rolex watches, the difference here is that the companies selling genuine rolex watches don't care about they people selling counterfeit copies because they know people buying the fakes would never even dream of being able to buy a genuine one. Why waste money going after them?

Black markets go hand in hand with free markets it is unavoidable.

[Dhruin]

Dhruin, no one ever said that games wer not buggy 10 years ago. Games always had bugs. But you cannot ignore that many players have the impression that it's getting worse. I would also imagine that bugs have nothing to do with the amount of gigabytes a game has - or do you honestly believe that it is the program code that is blowing up the size of games?

I can easily ignore it because I think they are wrong. ;) I would imagine art assets eat up the most data but I feel pretty confident the latest shaders, physics etc produce far more complex programs that also rely heavily on drivers from other people.

All true what you are saying, but then again you shouldn't continue an anology that you describe as erroneous. I would also think that customers have way more rights when it comes to buying a car than buying a game. Also (and here I'm doing the same mistake as you did), if I compare Vanguards state of release with a car, then that would have been a car without tires, and with a motor that stops working every half an hour. I would think that you don't see that all too often with new cars...

Guilty, I did continue the analogy. Customers buying a car need more protection because of the larger value and safety concerns. I think Vanguard is more likely a car that's very unreliable and with poor mileage than one that doesn't go anywhere (a car without tires is useless) - but I think we agree it's a dodgy analogy so I'll leave it at that.

I don't see software pirates as one big homogeneous group of people. That seems to be a harsh generalization to me. I'm sure quite a lot of people do as you say - they pirate because they can. But I also think there are people who would be willing to buy more games if they saw their gaming needs and wishes fulfilled. Some might also pirate software because they cannot afford the product.
Also if you think about it - your approach to the topic is fairly pessimistic. It means that there is no solution to the problem (apart from a copy protection that cannot be cracked). I mean, what do you want to do? Dragging every single software pirate to court will most likely not work out.


No, they aren't homogenous and there are some difficult areas around the edges, but is that really central to the debate? It has little bearing on Western pirates and is still an excuse for many, many others. I still see it the same if a game is 1/10 of your income -- if you can afford the hardware to play Oblivion, you can afford the game. It may take a while to save up, or maybe you need to buy a 6600GT instead of an 8800, but at the end of the day, you know you can get the games for free.

Bjon045 is right that these markets will always exist but the reason is still an excuse and comes down to "because you can". If they couldn't pirate games, they'd budget differently or perhaps move into other hobbies. I'd love to learn how to fly a plane but I can't justify the costs, so I have other hobbies that are within reach. Since you can pirate gsmes that makes it nice and convenient: I can spend on hardware because the software cost is always zero.

As for being cynical, I think it's just realistic. ;) And I'm not offering a solution - I don't know there is one. Why should a seller lose money discounting or giving stuff away to make the value appear better? You can't beat free. At the end of the day, the beancounters will do a cost/benefit analysis and if reducing the price gets enough additional buyers, they'll do it. If not, they won't.

[Elwro]

I was going to comment on the ever appearing semantics BS about copyright infringement vs. theft and how if I hit you in the head with a wooden stick with flat piece of metal on the end, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't really care whether I called it a shovel or a spade ... but reading Dhruin's excellent comment put me in a much better mood so I'm going to let it go. :rolleyes:

Well done Dhruin.
I was going to comment about posts the sole purpose of which seem to be the use of :rolleyes: and false analogy, but OK, I'll let it go too.

[Ionstormsucks]

As for being cynical, I think it's just realistic. ;) And I'm not offering a solution - I don't know there is one. Why should a seller lose money discounting or giving stuff away to make the value appear better? You can't beat free. At the end of the day, the beancounters will do a cost/benefit analysis and if reducing the price gets enough additional buyers, they'll do it. If not, they won't.

Ahh, I think we will not find common ground here. I my opinion your approach to the problem is just too simple. I mean, we always reduce the whole topic to piracy, but I doubt that's covers it all. Take quality for example. Will better quality keep people from pirating? In my opinion it might keep some people from pirating, but certainly not the majority. But if you're asking me if quality helps to sell the product to those people that are willing to buy it, then I'll have to give you a definite - yes! If you release a high quality game then it will still be pirated, no doubt about it, but it will probably also sell more copies.

You're saying, "you can't beat free." That depends. Some people will always choose the cheap alternative, sure. But I'm fairly sure that quite some people are willing to pay for a product if the offer is good.
And if you look at given realities you'll see that these offers exist, there are just too few of them. Just to give you a few examples. Look at games like Half-Life/HL 2 and Neverwinter Nights/NWN2.
These franchises sold quite some copies. And, surprise, surprise, both products are/were supported over a very long time span. Both companies offer additional services to keep up the attractivity of their products (there are other examples - think about Blizzard and their games). Have a look at Valve's Steam. When Steam was announced everyone said that customers would not accept it. Well, obviously they did, since from what you read on the internet about 25% of all copies sold were sold via Steam. And Steam dstribution is significantly more profitable than retail.
Of course these games were also pirated. But they still sold a nice bunch of copies.

I'm not saying the market isn't changing. But as markets are changing the ones that act on these markets have to change. That concerns players as much as developers, and publishers alike. Online play becomes more and more popular, so why not use that? I'm thinking of... let's say account-based single player games, that need a permanent internet connection. I know, a lot of people would cry out "never!!!" in the beginning, and would later on buy the game anyway. It all depends on the offer that is made. You could for example let the player choose between a version of the game that runs offline and one that needs to have permanent internet access to work. If the customer takes the one with permanent internet access, he will get new episodic content once in a while (Bioware's permium models were a bit like that, I guess). Something like that.
I'm sure these games would still be pirated, but to a lower degree.

As players become more demanding, developers and publishers can demand more from them. We deliver you improved service, but therefore you have to be online - for example. That is why the quality argument DOES play a role, not because it keeps people from pirating, but because it gives credibility to game developers, and publishers.

And if you look at other markets this is a well established, everyday thing. Companies demand from their customers much more than they did 30 years ago. Customers usually have to know alot more about products in general, but on the other hand the industry offers highly customized products. True, quite a few industrial branches do not have the problem of piracy, but they have other problems, like that of customer retention, which is very similar to what we're talking about here.

[fatBastard()]

Another local example for me is fake rolex watches, the difference here is that the companies selling genuine rolex watches don't care about they people selling counterfeit copies because they know people buying the fakes would never even dream of being able to buy a genuine one.
The thing is, even Rolex makers would start to