Piracy ratio is about 20:1 ?!?

That is what I also want to know!

I am still seeing the only way to be online SP games.

But I would love to know any other suggestions you guys might have!
 
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But how do we change people into buying things that are good and that deserve to bought instead of copying them ?

Do you have any idea on that ?

Well, I already named quite a few within this thread. Just to give you another one - I think it's always great to add something to a game that you cannot copy so easily, for example, a big printed manual, a comic book, or even a novel. Of course you could say that all these are things that actually CAN be copied since it's not problem to transfer these analogue pieces of media into a digital form. Nonetheless, we know that most people don't like to read printed material on their screen and we know that special editions, which usually contain that kind of stuff, sell fairly well. And now look at what the games industry did over the last years - just the opposite. Ten, fifteen years ago every game had a big manual, if you were lucky it had a cloth map, sometimes a manual, and other stuff - think about the Ultima series which is really famous for that. Nowadays only special editions have such things, and they usually cost a lot more. The normal editions have a bunch of advertisement in it, and if you're lucky a very thin manual. So we should go back to more physical content.
The best method however is to forge a name for yourself - just like Blizzard did. You know, a lot of people are saying things like, "Blizzard has no problem with piracy because all their games have a multiplayer component," and that's true. But it's also true that Blizzard managed to become so popular with their games that they can sell stuff like card games, board games, t-shirts, coffee cups, you name it. People are willing to buy for all this kind of stuff that you cannot copy. Blizzard managed to build a community and now they are greatly profiting from this loyalty component. Or look at Bioware/Obsidian. When NWN2 was released it was a mixed bag. On the one hand it was anticipated by the fans, but on the other the engine was a bit crappy, because requirements were too high, the story really wasn't the best, lots of problems with the toolset, etc. It got ok scores, but if you looked at the player base then you had the impression that everyone had expected more from NWN2. Now, Obsidian could have said, "let's not support the game, let's do something else, this is a lost battle". But they didn't do it, and I think in the end it paid out for them. If you had asked me after its release if this game will see two official expansions I'd have said, "no way," but as you can see, in the end that’s what happened. I really think the loyalty bonus and the image gain that developers get from long term support of their games should not be underestimated. It might not be something that kicks in instantly, but sooner or later it will.
Of course you can say, that games from such developers will still see piracy, and I'm sure they will, but let's face it - if you sell three million copies or more you can just say, "screw piracy!"

The question is also if we really should or can stop all piracy... if that really makes sense or is even possible. In the end it all comes down to the impact that piracy has on sales and if that impact weighs heavier than the "advantages" that piracy has. I mean, in this thread we already talked a lot about the impact. Some people said it's really big and destroys the market, others said it hurts the market, but PC gaming won't die because of it. Personally I'm very sceptical about the "piracy is killing the market" argument. If you look at the statistics that the ESA releases each year you'll see that this trend to produce more games for consoles and less for the PC has begun long before the next generation consoles like PS3 or Xbox 360 which have very low piracy rates due to high DRMS. And if you look at statements like the one from Microsoft that they basically have no interest to turn Windows into a major gaming platform because they'd like to sell more Xboxes it's becoming fairly clear that there are factors at work here that do not necessarily have something with piracy. I recently read an interview with Erik Simons, a member of the German game developer Thalion. They made really great games for the Amiga like Amberstar and Ambermoon (which I think are even today some of the best RPGs ever made). Well, anyway... in that Interview Simons says that one of the main reasons why Thalion failed was the widespread piracy on the Amiga. At the end of the interview he admits they might have survived if they had been better businessmen, but nonetheless he thinks, that people were simply no longer willing to buy high quality games for the Amiga. What Simons does not mention is that at some point the Amiga had to face a big competitor: the PC. Ambermoon was the last game I bought for the Amiga, after that I bought an Intel 486, and I was one of the people who got their PC really late. I think this is a striking example that even developers sometimes fail to recognize that there might be factors that have a way greater impact than piracy.
If we look at our society, we see one that's deeply rooted in piracy. Look at cameras, look at tape recorders, look at video recorders, look at mp3 players... in all these cases the industry cried that it would violate their copyright and in the end kill the market. In fact however, it helped the market to grow, although the core idea behind all these things IS piracy. If we look at file sharing and see only the rampart piracy that comes along with it, then we're missing an important point. P2P, just like the tape recorder or mp3 player is a new form of distribution, a new technology. Innovation is almost always a bit piracy, because hardly anyone comes up with something truly new. We really shouldn’t block innovation just for the sake of giving an already rich industry even more money.
The problem that the PC gaming market is facing is certainly special, there are a lot of factors involved that make piracy particularly bad for PC game developers. But honestly, if I hear Crytek saying, “Sorry guys, piracy is so widespread on the PC – we HAVE to go multiplatform,” I have to smile a bit. Who keeps them from doing exactly that? They’re pretending as if they are forced to develop exclusively for the PC. But who does that? Today you can port almost every game to a console and vice versa. I also think that PC gamers are a bit strange when it comes to this particular point. Many have a deep antipathy against consoles and console games, but I think that the times in which a console port necessarily meant a decrease in quality, are over. I don’t own a console myself, but I’m often playing with friends and what I’ve seen so far comes pretty close to what you can sell for the PC nowadays. There are certainly fewer traditional RPGs, I admit that, but there are few traditional RPGs anyway and often they are developed exclusively for the PC. I’m pretty sure they’d sell on consoles as well. We really shouldn’t cry, “This is the end,” if there is no reason to do so.
 
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Good points IS, I read it carefully two times. You do bring a good idea, to sell accessoir for games, and bring more into the package. The problem with bringing more into the package is that it costs more, that is why the special editions are more exspensive. I think most of us prefer to pay less, since we want the game! If we really love this game and want other stuffs we buy the special edition which is more exspensive.

The idea to sell T-shirt, cups action figures etc, is very good to give an optional income ( even if they are sure to be pirated too :p ). But I think only the larger developers can afford to make such a setup. Imagine a small developer making such a thing, and their game is not a hit? how much did they spend to produce all that, just to lose more.

A smaller developer to try something new ussually goes out of business in PC gaming. Which prevents innovation and new innovative games for the PC just like Alrik said. Especially since the cost to make PC games are so high these days, you cannot risk trying something new, and you never get a second chance. Before even if your game was not the best you might sell enough for a second chance, but if that everyone would pirate it play it and enjoy, but think it is not good enough to buy.

Imagine a game like transport tycoon, it was something new and unique and what a brillian game it was! I never see such a surprises popup for PC anymore.

They are going to consoles instead.

Some games are also much more suitable for PC's every deep and challanging great RPG I ever know that was released was on PC, and exclusively for PC.

Look at the elderscrolls series? what happend when they went mainstream and console to sell more? I think it will happen to fallout too.

For people who do not love deep RPG experiances. I think consoles are very fine.
 
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The idea to sell T-shirt, cups action figures etc, is very good to give an optional income ( even if they are sure to be pirated too :p ).

They already give such items away.

But only to reviewers, editors and gaming magazine journalists, though.

And this thing hardly ever is told to the public.
 
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Interesting : http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=stats&cc=US&l=german

The "View Steam Players per game" link shows that the amount of people playing action-based games are significantly high - much, much higher than other genres.

I think this has an implication on the way people regard buying and playing games online.

To be specific, I don't believe that people who don't like to play action games are too much interested in buying - and playing - games online.

This could mean that these people are rather conservative - which would make them rather customers than pirates, I think.

I'm not sure, though.
 
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Indeed a very good discussion. I think he failed to see one major point in all he is saying though. A lot of people pirating games, wants an excuse to do it, this excuse if often secuROM , the game quality is too poor, the price is too high, etc etc. However even with a lower price, no secuROM, and a higher quality game, they'd never considering buying it. But they use these excuses to justify themselves in their own mind.
 
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That is true to a large extent, but the underlying points probably have some merit as well.

It is pretty basic economics that an increased cost (which DRM hassle or lack of distribution in your area) will lower sales. The question is of course whether it at all is possible to sell software so cheap and convenient that it goes below a threshold where people will consider it. The pirated alternative after all has a zero pricetag and might in some sense be more user friendly than the legal option.
 
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Indeed a very good discussion. I think he failed to see one major point in all he is saying though. A lot of people pirating games, wants an excuse to do it, this excuse if often secuROM , the game quality is too poor, the price is too high, etc etc. However even with a lower price, no secuROM, and a higher quality game, they'd never considering buying it. But they use these excuses to justify themselves in their own mind.

I think the line between justification and explanation are blurry in this particular discussion. It might be both really. You simply have to acknowledge that SecuROM does in fact cause trouble and there are a lot of poor quality products out there - people do not make that up. So if you once bought a game that was protected with SecuROM or which was full of bugs you might be more careful next time you buy a game, especially because software, contrary to many physical products, cannot be given back once it has been opened. So barriers like SecuROM and shabby quality certainly raise the temptation to simply pirate a game.
Look at online music stores. For several years the four big music companies desperately tried to protect their music with DRMS. Today nearly all new music that is sold over the internet is sold DRM free. So now you tell me why the industry that suffers the most from piracy suddenly can afford to sell their music without any kind of protection. The answer is quite simple: A product that costs something and comes with a DRM is less attractive to the customer than a product that costs something but which comes without a DRM, especially if you take into account that this product is supposed to compete with the pirated version of the product which comes without costs and completely DRM free.

Certainly there are people out there who use this as some kind of justification, I agree with you there, but what you don't want to accept is that the warez scene is not one homogenous group of people. You only see this very small group of people who pirate because they can, who pirate a game inspite of the fact that they have the money to buy it. But honestly, this is a rather small group. Really this isn't a question of opinion, it's a question of logic, of numbers and if these numbers are realistic. Take Crytek for example, they are saying the pirate ratio is 1:20. So, if I regard the warez scene as a homogenous group of people who just pirate the game because they can, but would otherwise buy it, that would mean that if you could develop the uncrackable copy protection you could sell 20 times the amount of games you sell now. With all due respect but such assumptions border on the grotesque and not even the industry claims that it would work like that. Look at new consoles where piracy rates are supposedly low - where are the console games that sell 30 million copies... I don't see them. So yes, there are people who pirate because they can, but there also seem to be a lot more people who pirate for very different reasons.
 
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