Forbes magazine's tech section just published a rather detailed primer on fighting digital piracy by Mary Jane Irwin. It also has a somewhat tongue and cheek oriented visual media overview of the eight prominent ways publishers currently implement their antipiracy plans.
A token quote from the article:
"Instead of trying to block or punish pirates who might never pay money for a game, Brad Wardell, chief executive of Stardock, rewards players who buy."
I disagree with a couple notions covered in the article but otherwise it is pretty good. Would you like to know more? If so follow the link.
Nice find Spartan Thanks for the post.
Cool. Sadly I cant take credit for discovering it. I missed it - a timing zone thing methinks. Someone else on the BW forum found it first and posted it to the DRM thread we have going with the BW staff regarding DA:O and EAs SUckROM policy.
Nice post!
I just finished reading the article. Brad is so right.
No doubt. If only more people would take the time to read such articles. Hell I'm amazed SD does not have this article featured on the SD news page yet. I guess they missed it...
I'm not old, I'm only 16 . But I am honest, I don't steal and I spend my money where it is worth. My friends for the most part only play WoW and console games. While the pirates in my Computer Science class, have gone from PC pirates to Xbox 360 pirates (Which I have to laugh at Crytek's thinking, that they are safe from pirating in the console market)
shutting down any copies that show up simultaneously or in drastically different geographies on the same day.
So is this, if 2 or more people try to register a serial code on different accounts on the same day, it gets shutdown?
Anyways, Stardock really needs to paste this article on the front page of the news section, like Spartan has said.
I'm not sure anyone from SD has read this yet to be honest.
Only one person can register the code, but if the same code gets used to download teh game twice in one day to vastly different locations, that raises a red flag.
The number is then blacklisted and becomes invalid.
Wait, what? All of Crytek's games have been released for the PC only. Sorry if I'm missing something here, and I probably am. Are there console ports of Crysis or something?
Anyway, it's nice to see Stardock getting more and more attention in the media. It's odd that this hasn't made it to the front page.
Yay for stardock!
Well I know Frogboy has read it (gave me karma). Maybe Forbes is simply not worthy...
Interesting the Crytek is still blaming pirates for low Crysis sales.
Nothing to do with the fact that you needed an uber machine running Vista (which I like before anyone objects) to get DX10 graphics, and the fact that the game was too short according to many people....
No doubt. Lots of good scapegoating going around. As I said in another thread on the BW site the piracy argument is a great safety net for execs. A win-win situation for them and their compensation packages.
Crytek said they would drop PC exclusives because of the so called "low sales" which they blamed on PC pirating. The only reason why Crysis has not ended up on the console yet, is because consoles can't handle the graphics of Crysis. So future games in development are going to be put on to consoles (Well once they nerf the graphics enough) and PC (Which I hope they don't end up to be multiplatform .
Crysis is a good game, I just hate the whining. I also have no problem with developers and publishers sell games on the console, but blaming "PC" pirating for all your problems does not make sense. Seriously the reason why people have not bought Crysis yet, is because their computers can't run it on good settings. Crytek just needs to have some patiences, to allow mainstream technology to catch up. Take me for example, I'm getting my first computer (That is actually mine to own), only because technology that can run Crysis decently has gotten to a price, which a 16 year old can afford. Sure if I was older with a good paying job, I'd buy a gaming computer, but the thing is the money is coming from my parents.
I'm getting a computer with a 9800 gt, sure its not the best, it won't max out Crysis but it'll still look much better than games out on consoles and I am happy.
I just wish more developers and publishers would share the thinking of Stardock and Ironclad, which is to be happy with the sales they get, as long as they know they've done their best. Don't look for someone to blame, but look to see how you can improve sales, by having better marketing(Valve and Stardock), better games, revolutionary games (Like Sins) or simply by rewarding paying customers (What Stardock is all about) instead of stabbing them in the back(You know who I'm talking about).
Go Brad and everyone at Stardock!
Spartan . .what didn't you agree with?
The primary thing I firmly disagree with it the often quoted "multibillion dollar loss" and its derivative arguments. The position is purely illogical and simply untenable. I also disagree with the tacit support for "protection" methods that would make it acceptable to release unfinished games forever tied remote content.
Update: The article in question has made it on the Canadian Money site. You can see it here.
It's always the fault of the Pirates.
Strange that some companies are able to sell a lot of their product, and the big companies that don't sell so much... IT'S THE PIRATES!!!!!!!
Anyway they can try and go on consoles, I think they can install chips on all consoles now. Which means pirates can steal it there too. I wonder what the developpers will say then when their prioduct don't sell so well. ALIENS!!!!!
Give me a break, make a good game and people will buy it. Make something only a handful of people can buy or play and you will get only a handful of sales.
And please somebody tell me how can they evaluate how much sales they lost to pirates when pirates would not buy the game anyway. is therwe a counter somewhere that says a pirate came by and got a copy. Please. Estimates are only that estimates and I'll bet they are inflated like crazy.
Well, in the spirit of the idea at hand, i had a very frustrating night dealing with Steam. I figured I would post my email to them here to clearly illustrate why some people infringe on copyright.
I have spent over three (3) hours on the phone with my bank and paypal since your website keeps telling me the transaction has been declined by my bank. My bank tells me it is not them so I contact paypal they tell me it is the bank. I then had a conference call with both of them. Now they both say it is you folks. Yet I cant call your support department and your email response time leaves much to be desired. I'm a US citizen living in Japan and I'm not on a military base anymore and that should not matter one bit frankly. I KNOW it is your back end security system killing the transactions. I'm using a US bank with a verified US paypal account attached to a .us domain email. Your company is the only uncontrolled element to this equation. I have now spent well over $100 in phone calls to purchase your games for $100. Oddly enough you folks dont offer a phone number for your customers to call - why is that? I wanted to get all four of us in a single conference call.I'm getting really, really fed up with the situation. Game developers blame poor sales on piracy yet people like me bend over backwards to purchase titles and YOU folks keep screwing us around. Many people live in more then one country, more importantly that should not matter at all. I decide what market I'm a part of not you folks. I'm in a country where I dont read, write or speak the local language at all so by virtue of my physical presence I'm in a different market all of a sudden - bull shit. I have valid VERIFIED accounts and that is all I should need to give you money. You know the price you set using the tools you want me to in order to protect you. The whole IP checking thing is pure bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I expect to hear back from your company very soon. It is now 4:300AM here and I have been on the phone since 1:00AM and last week when I tried to purchase things the first time it took over an hour before I decided to give up and wait for your company to contact me. So here I sit several days later and no contact. If you dont think I'm part of the your US market then I guess the DRM free Internet version is the order of the day since my money is not good enough for you I'm not a lost sale right? Just dont blame things like this on on piracy. I have put fourth a herculean effort to purchase your products and incurred an amazing collateral expense to date. Please blame it on arsine security and artificial geopolitical market boundaries. Moreover a copy of this email, the prior one and my emails to the bank and paypal as well as summaries of my phone discussions will be organized and posted to various gaming sites and communities. I first signed up for Steam because I wanted to purchase the CoD series which I had but could not purchase because of lame geopolitical restrictions. I posted about it on the official forums and received a 30 day ban for talking about it - WTF? I was trying to give them money and they refused to take it because of my IP address. Then someone sent me an email and told me you folks take paypal and I could buy them that way. So I signed up and did so. Afterwards I went back to the official forums and posted about things and Damn if I was not banned again for telling them I was able to finally get legit copies of the games. Most of which I have not played since. It was simply the principle of the matter for me but I digress... Anyway I will need your paypal account email to send you the money for L4D & CoD5 since I assume you wont turn off the IP checking "feature".
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
