Seeing as piracy and DRM are a hot topic on these boards, i thought this might spark an interesting conversation.
Mr. Kouroush Ghazi, the owner of the Tweak Guides website, has published an extensive article on PC game piracy, it's reasons, scale, and effects.
Give it a read, it's a well thought out, unbiased article.
There needs to be independent empirical studies regarding whether there is a casual correlation between DRM and Piracy, as well as DRM and sales figure for games. Maybe such a study will put to rest once and for all whether DRM is an effective mechanism in dampening the effect of piracy on sales of games.
I think DRM is a waste of time, personally.
There's ALWAYS a crack out for games whatever they come up with, the only people annoyed are the legit customers.
Where's the evidence that a game without DRM get pirated more than one with? The one and *only* thing DRM has ever done is delay the piracy for a few days and cause problems on some computers.
Did you miss the part of the article where various game developers state that delaying piracy by even a few days is worthwhile? Or how about the benefit of suppressing the secondary market, which from the developer's perspective is effectively the same as piracy? The developer gets just as much from a used game sale as they do from a pirated copy (that is, nothing), so knocking back the used market is a valid purpose of DRM on its own.
Did you miss the part where every example he gave had a console port released either simultaneously or in advance? Simple CD-Key means that opened games can't be resold on PC anyway. I couldn't sell on FA or Sins or Demigod.
The delay of a crack is such an incredibly small impact that I cannot possibly fathom why anyone would care enough to go buy it, if they intended to pirate it to begin with. While it rings true for the truly fanboyesque ("I -must- have this game TODAY!"), the same people also tend to be the ones that make it a point to buy said developer's games.
The vast majority of people don't even keep track of releases, and wheter they have the game 24 hours after release, or 48, matters very little. (Alright, so there's been cases where it's taken over 48 hours, but they're in the minority. The vast minority).
DRM like locks and alarms keep honest people honest, IMHO.
This is probably true for the simple DRM types (such as CD checks). But what about the DRM used on spore? That's way above and beyond what's necessary to keep honest people honest. In fact, there's a small percentage that are driven to piracy because they couldn't get their legal copy to work.
If locks in real life were like DRM, all you'd have were a bunch of people that couldn't get into their houses, while cloaked burglars snuck into their homes and.. I dunno.. photographed everything.
It's a question of statistics and correlation. If you have some statistics available that proves or disproves a correlation, I'd be interested in seeing those statistics.
Do you have statistics proving it is? If I am to be deemed guilty by the industry without proof, why is it then my burden to prove I'm not?
I have never seen a proven correlation between so called casual piracy and lost sales. As far as I know, such a study has never been done. If it has, the industry that sponsored it apparently didn't like the results or they'd have been hammering us with it in congressional hearings.
What I have seen are small scale studies done by individual publishers that say nothing of any kind. The Ricochet guy that checked pirated copies in use against sales numbers as he was disabling various methods of using them probably gave us the most useful information. He was only getting around one sale for a thousand copies. Would you feel safe betting that of those thousand pirated copies, less than one person bought the game after pirating it? I don't know enough pirates to have my own statistical base to work off, but of the ones I do know, one for a thousand is somewhere between low and preposterously low.
Guys like that asshat from Crytek are just spouting nonsense. OMG!!! We only sold a million copies and a million people pirated it! We should have sold eight million!!! Damn that piracy, I'm not selling PC games anymore! Waahhh.... You can't compare pirated copies to legal copies and pull a conclusion out of your ass like that. It's like saying trees grow because the moon has a gravitational effect on the earth. The two do happen to coincide with each other, but that doesn't make them a causal relationship.
This is exactly the mentality that is getting them in so much trouble. We don't know jack shit, but since they can't prove otherwise we'll keep pretending that piracy is killing our sales despite their continual increase. They've never even attempted to offer proof, it's all pure conjecture. They don't even bother trying to survey their customers on it. How many times have you seen one of them stupid surveys on what made you purchase the product, was piracy ever listed? I even bother to fill the stupid fuckers out when they're not from a company that has pissed me off one too many times, I've never seen piracy listed.
That expression is nonsensical - I have never liked it. One is either honest or they are not. To think honesty is a situational variable is pure bullshit and shows a lack of understanding of basic human nature despite what many would have you believe.
Honesty shouldn't be forced, it should come naturally from those that want to protect the community they are a part of.
You made a claim, I merely asked for evidence.
Whining does not prove your case.
Yes, given enough data, you can use statistice to test whether or not there is a correlation between the various factors affecting piracy.
What is your understanding of human nature?
What should happen and what does happen are often very different things. It would be great if everybody tried to be honest, and even better if everybody was honest, but the truth is human nature does not always align with the ideals we set for ourselves.
My precise views on human nature are somewhat religious, but I will say this: From everything I have seen and experienced, honesty is something that is learned rather than something that comes naturally.
We need a society where honest people can teach honesty through example. We need to continously and conciously change how people percieve the world and act in their local habitats. Call it fascism if you want, but morals are useless without a higher instance of guidance (be it god, religion, overreaching philosophy, or the goverment(s).
I really dislike when people say they download software to try it before they buy it; however, I think it is something a developer can remedy as well.
Let me address the people who try before they buy: If a demo is not available, please read reviews both professional and user. If professional and user reviews are not available along with no demo then you have a somewhat valid excuse to try the game before you buy it.
Now to the developers: If the "try before you buy" pirates actually are really that, and make up a large portion of pirates, then it would behoove you to release a demo of the game. That way the would-be pirates can try before they buy legitimately. Some developers release demos, some don't. At least if you have a pirate downloading a full game that has a demo and stating that he wants to "try before he buys" then you know he is full of shit.
Can piracy be legitimate? No.
Can there be cases in which controlled pirating can be harmless to the business if the person is pirating after a certain set of conditions and following his/her set of well defined rules in a "try before you buy" scenario? Yes.
The latter does not make piracy legitimate if the right conditions occur; however, I cannot see it as harmful in that case.
Wrong, I refuted a claim. With no proof, or at least no disclosed proof of anything even resembling their claims, certain developers and producers have stated quite clearly that those pirated copies are lost sales, either in whole or to a substantial degree far beyond what evidence they've given. They make the claims. As you regularly post in these threads, you've already seen them.
Well, if they are making the claims, then the burden of proof rests on them. Okay, you are cleared.
But don't confuse refuting a claim with not having enough evidence. A refutation is a type of proof (a proof that something is wrong or erroneous), and therefore needs some type of evidence. Having no evidence at all is not a type of refutation.
Very good article with the many facets aborded. Still some guys are pretentious enough (psychoak) to assume they know more than the companies together ("They just don't understand their market") that hold all sorts of data and have researchers and more extensive knowledgement of game industry. Couldn't you see the basic research the article writer did about PC's and Consoles capable of playing the last games? Nvidia and ATI are not in bad shapes.
Some just can't admit when they had wrong thoughts before, or just envy the fact that they couldn't write a good article like that one. Many of the aborded issues are certainly close to the truth.
Like he suggested at the end, the biggest issue I see with DRM, is when companies wouldn't explicit show what would be installed and that it could corrupt such programs has emulators or DVD burners. They have the right to do that, but only when it's cleary informed and also any collateral risks even if that mean lost sales. Support to it and remotion tools too.
Also true that many of the gamers that begin to shout against DRM are hardcore pirates that want to protect their 'interests' and create the angry sentiment and use it has an excuse for themselves for what they do and usually always did. Like he said, not to say DRM was perfect. It is bad and so it is the loss due to game piracy(financial and motivational), but it should be discussed in more peaceful manner to balance it out, because it's important for everybody to reduce it. DRM usage and potential effects it may cause, should be cleary informed to customers in all cases, if companies want it to be valid or seem with better eyes.
Has he pointed too, many would just cry at a company because of the protection it uses and induce others to not buy it, and not complain at all when someone is bragging to be a pirate. Like say anything to that person or report him. Game Pirates are causing much more of a complex problem than a DRM do, not to mention they are the ones that made of it a necessity. Games, companies and their services (indie companies to come to form too) and the PC plataform would be evolving faster if there wasn't for so much piracy of their games and even yet the piracy sentiment created in the buzzyness. Also very important to mention, it's just not about now but companies do must envision the future before it comes, any avarage company must think of the future of their buzzyness ahead, and piracy in mass like its ocurring most on PC, shows not a good one to motivate them to invest has they could or invest at all if there are alternatives.
What about the decision to make a game today for the PC that takes 5 years to finish? How much to invest? Without any break to the PC piracy has it is now, how will it be by then? Shouldn't they begin to make themselves a name on consoles instead and move their knowledments to make games that adapt to consoles? PC gamming will not die, but lost and is loosing.
Some people are stupid enough to think companies will wait a threat, like piracy is right now (big, popular and easy), till they get bankrupt or very low profits to make necessary changes. Customers should be trying to get with the companies (much especially the ones that can be comprehensive and not abusive) for a good solution, not be asking for no protection and saying that "loves them for the lack of protection". Thats egoism, some don't have any because there isn't a very effective model (especially that wouldn't cause any harazzment to the cry out loud mass that formed regarding the issue) but they are still loosing profits for their products and feeding a non-contributive party that is significative.
The Article covers some good valid points, Funny about that comment about games with no DRM still scoring high number of downloads. I went for a look on the major torrent sites I found barely any torrents for SoaSE a few galactic civ II with meager number of seeds and leaches. Stardock does pretty well compared to the DRM favoring publishers.
I am an aspiring game programmer, one idea myself and a few people I study with came up with a possible solution to reduce piracy is to hardwire a stealthed anti-piracy system into every facet of the game engine. It might not be the most efficient way but would seem more difficult to crack than "tacking on" secROM to a game .exe and thats it.
Comppanies have tried that, the problem is that it gets false positives, and f's up the game for legitimate users. It has also other ill effcts, see Titan Quest for example, people who downloaded the pirate version reported a whole lot of bugs and poor performance (due to the DRM) which lowered the interest of the game among people who might have bought it othervise. The sales bunked, and the developer, Iron Lore, went bankcrupt (IIRC). They blamed it on piracy, which isn't all BS.
There was also a lengthy NES RPG (NES was FamiCom in the other side of the pond, i think) that erased all save games and crashed at the beginning of the final boss fight, if it thought the cartridge was an illegal copy. I saw a YouTube video on that but can't remeber the games name unfortunately.
But realistically: if there was no piracy, there would be no DRM.
I agree with the premise; That this kind of DRM isn't beneficial. But the conclusion that "blaming it on piracy isn't all bollocks" is just wrong in my eyes. Blaming the trainwreck that was Titan Quest and the closure of Iron Lore on piracy is bollocks.
Quick! Everyone! Burn your money and shoot yourselves!
But i have no money nor a gun! What do i do!?!
Seriously, DRM was created to combat piracy, money was not created to combat poverty (it was created to make transactions easier), and death was not created to combat life (it exists because nothing is eternal)
when it comes to the gaming marketing, word of mouth is king.
This is what i tried, and apparently failed, to imply.
Titan Quest's DRM was a simple disc check if I remember the game correctly, if you want to stuff people up don't name your variables for what they are used for an example instead of naming ID3DDevice9 Device name it ID3DDevice9 _______.
Underscores do work as a variable name I wrote a basic particle system using variable names only as underscores it was a pain to debug but it worked in the end.
I disagree with the supposition that "many of the gamers which began to shout against DRM are hardcore pirates". As many of the people on this forum already know I'm one of the biggest shouters about DRM and I can easily spend hundreds of dollars every month on titles if so motivated. There are also other hardcore complainers like myself that could do the same that I know of on different forums. Moreover most if not all hardcore pirates could care less about DRM. It is the casual none technical oriented ones that complain and they are simply not real customers as far as I'm concerned.
Whereas people like me are and good ones at that and DRM is stepping on our rights and we will not accept it like a sheep lead to the slaughter. If developers and publishers want to use a stick on me for wanting to give them money then I will use a stick on them and protest when and wherever possible. After all turnabout is fair play - yes?
That's great, or at least it would be if you were a game developer. You're missing the point somewhat though; it doesn't matter if the publishers erroneously believe allowing people to purchase coloured cheddar results in lost sales of their games. Fact is that perception is causing them to move away from the PC as a platform. We can stand all smug, point and tell them how wrong they are, but you can't force them to release games on the PC. Sales figures speak louder than words, and when publishers see figures that show the number of illegal downloads is almost equal to the number of legal sales then they're going to draw the obvious conclusion. Doesn't matter if these figures are drawn from their own, internal research such as the number of idiots calling tech support and asking how to run crack.exe or if it's a Sony employee with a vested interest in making the PC piracy problem look massive. As long as the figures can be produced, manipulated or pulled out of a marketing exec's backside it's going to put publishers off producing games for the PC. Unless you happen to be a marketing exec or publisher then the only recourse you have is by action - don't pirate games, don't tolerate those who pirate games. At least then you're not part of the problem.
And if piracy drops to zero overnight and the PC is still showing horrible sales then they might look at the actual reasons games aren't being sold. Heck, it might even be down to poor quality/value etc and you could be right all alone, but personally I tend to get more enjoyment out of playing games than being right.
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