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.
Good article. The only real argument that pirates can come up with is that piracy is fun and free. That doesn't stop it from being a crime. And what they all seem to forget is that the less they support the game developers, the less games we will have to play in the end.
I have high hopes for Impulse as a competitor to Steam but I do recognize that Steam is a viable model as well. Steam is a phone home internet activation system, but it bundles that with convenience. Sure it requires an internet connection, but its not like I will be able to play Team Fortress 2 without an internet connection anyway.
Sure we will lose all our games if Stardock and Valve go out of business. But really the only thing that could cause such a thing to happen is, you guessed it, piracy.
Good article, I emailed him on a few points where I don't think he accounted for all the variables, but I agree with the premise.
The problem is I think Steam may have acheived critical mass to the point where they're an 800-lb gorilla, and Stardock will have to be 10 times better to compete 10%. That may be impossible.
If Stardock/Valve go out of business, you'll be still able to play the pirated versions. I'm not too worried about that for that reason.
Steam can't run in the DMZ... By 800lb gorilla, do you mean bloated software that doesn't work well?
If Valve and or Stardock ever does go out of business I'm sure they would make the effort to remove the copy protection and not leave the legitimate gamers hanging. Its likely that piracy would still be an issue if the properties are bought by another company however.
I really don't get what people mean when they say that steam slows down thier computer. It uses 1% of my ram and none of my cpu power unless I ask it to do something. People complaining probably have older computers or just computers packed to the gills with viruses.
Tamren, something doesn't need to slow down your computer to be a bloated piece of crap. If FF used ten times the resources and took twice as long to load pages, it would still only be using a couple hundred megs of ram and utilizing one of my cpu's to a negligible degree.
It's bloated because it's a game launcher that's filled with crap. When you're forcing me run something in the background just to play, it needs to be as streamlined and efficient as it can be. Steam isn't. It's the saving grace in Impulse, it's just as bloated as Steam, takes just as long to load, all that wonderful stuff, but I don't have to run it every time I want to play something. It's optional.
I read the article. A more honest piece than usual, but still not particularly well thought out.
Yet again, people are missing the obvious. Games don't sell like they used to because the pc gaming industry is making far more games than it used to. Half-life had two or three real competitors when it came out, that was it. How many major first person shooters were competing with it's sequel? Ten? Twenty? Where's the surprise in the original having better sales than it's sequel? Never mind that sequels do worse than the originals almost without fail in every else along with games.
Piracy isn't killing PC game sales, stupid people are assuming their market is vastly larger than it actually is. The piracy figures back this up, because even if you added them on flatout, console sales of the listed games would still dwarf the PC sales. They just don't understand their market.
Complaining that Steam is bloated is like complaining that your locked house door is bloated because you have to put the key in the lock every single time. You could leave the door unlocked or remove it entirely, but why would you? You house would become cold and raccoons would come in and steal your cake! The man down the street with his fancy smancy keycard lock also has to swipe the key in every time to unlock his door, but he probably wouldn't refer to the experience as bloat.
Its not fair to say that Steam is "bloated" and slows down computers. My PC can run Left 4 Dead butter smooth at max detail with Steam in the background. And I do mean max detail, 1600x1200, 16x antialiasing, the whole works. I don't know about your PC but all Steam does for me is to add a 2 second delay between my clicking on the shortcut and the program starting. 4 seconds if Steam isn't already on. I don't have to run Impulse to play Sins, but I do log in constantly to check out the game store and news listings. I could argue that Impulse is actually more bloated for me because it takes a good 10 seconds for the system to log me in.
Its all relative, and it is not fair to brand either program as good or bad.
wrong... if they make crapy games they will go under.
Correction, if they make crap games and don't fix them. I have enough faith in both companies that they would never put out something that is beyond hope.
An excellent article.
I'm one of those apparently rare people who had never had any problems running games with Securerom and Starforce copy-protection, although I've used both... I don't know if it's because I don't steal games, or am just an idiotic complete imbecile, or what. Personally, I'm all for seamless online registration required for your game, and online-only checks for patches and so forth. Simply put, I'm willing to put up with copy-protection as long as there are several times as many people stealing games on day one rather than buying them.
I don't use steam for several reasons, mostly because I've never bought or stole a recent Valve release, from the orange box, TF2, either half-life, etcetera.. I may not like it, but if I wanted the game badly enough, I'd use it rather than steal the game.
This article is absolutely right about the main goals of copy-protection, which is to prevent day 1 and day 0 cracks, which definately kill sales, as there are people who want it now, and will buy it if no crack is available.
Where can I sign up for more effective copy protection? Online distribution only would be a damn fine way to enforce it, but maybe the sales aren't there. I'd also be very happy to see fewer torrents and torrent sites, but sadly, most people would rather support ad-driven piracy clearinghouses rather than the people who make games. I guess if there are millions of people willing to download full games for free, there are few people willing to pay for the same kind of direct-downloads.
The greatest game you've never played is Microsoft's Allegiance. That went mostly under because of yahoos who would rather have nobody play the game than follow the rules themselves, and Microsoft essentually saying 'Screw this, We're going home, and we're taking our servers with us.' Quality of product doesn't come into it.
A group called FreeAllegiance is still alive and kicking however. I had a look but the game is a bit too detailed for me to get into.
I rarely have problems with Starforce games too, but my father in law does. I helped set up his machine. It's not abnormal. He doesn't pirate stuff. But it just doesn't work with his drive for some reason. I can take the same disk in my computer and it works fine.
Cases like that really do exist, and they're a real problem. It drove him away from PC gaming entirely in the end, now he has an Xbox 360. When he puts a disk in that, it plays. That should not be too much to ask.
Anyway, found it to be an interesting if not perfect article. Assassins Creed actually did have DRM related problems, namely that it constantly tried to connect to a server to authenticate over and over again while the game was running, and if it couldn't for some reason it would drive performance into the ground trying.
I swear, piracy-related topics on indie game forums like Stardock's are the absolute fucking dregs of the internet.
420chan > these topics
Bareback exchange > these topics
Stormfront > these topics
The topic of discussion is DRM and piracy. We are however discussing a perfectly legitimate article. Bringing down the hammer at this point would only break the anvil.
I was less and less impressed with that article the more of it I read. The author stopped even trying to hide the fact that his thumb was on the scales as he went along.
He ignored several of the most obvious problems with copy protection and DRM, such as the inability to make backups (like him, I, too, owned Amigas; and I am painfully aware of how several of my favorite games became unplayable to me because of the gradual deterioration of their uncopyable master disks; to this day, there are several games that I would play on any of the several Amigas I still own if I could); or the infeasability of disk-check systems on multi-use devices like personal computers; or the very real examples that already exist of people screwed by DRM authentication systems whose authenticators have gone out of business (admitedly, this is most prevalent with DRm-infested music, rather than software, but it has happened with software as well).
He constantly dismissed out of hand any anecdotal data which contradicted his thesis (when he even bothered to mention it at all), while treating equally anecdotal data supporting his point of view as though it were Holy Writ.
He pretended that people were irrational to be concerned about rootkit-like DRM such as StarForce without ever mentioning the Sony rootkit fiasco, which clearly demonstrated, in well-documented, unambiguous terms, what problems can be caused by that type of DRM: Even if some given iteration of SecuROM or StarForce doesn't cause rampant problems, it is far from irrational, in the wake of Sony, to wish to avoid unseen, unannounced, and undesired system drivers being installed on your computer. Similarly, he portrayed the uproar over Microsoft's Windows product activation schemes as being the result of paranoid hysteria, without bothering to mention the hundreds of well-known, fully documented cases of it causing various serious problems for people all over the world (indeed, he handwaved them away as being "debunked" and "completely false," which is quite simply a goddamned lie); and he also strongly implied that the activation schemes have been successful in combating Windows piracy, which is quite simply laughable, as the various versions of Windows remain to this day the most pirated software in the world.
And then he also spent an antire article talking about DRM and copy protection in games, without once mentioning Stardock, even when he mentioned StarForce idiotically linking to a pirate torrent of Galactic Civilizations II. That's like spending an entire article talking about the effects of e-book piracy without once mentioning the Baen Free Library.
I mean, I'm no fan of piracy: I've got software coming out of my ears from my 23 years of personal computer ownership, and every last bit of it is legitimate; but his article was nowhere near as balanced and thoughtful as he pretends it is.
An interesting article, well written and reasonably well researched.
He did kinda leave out the rather obvious fact that not every person who pirates a game would have bought it... as a kid I pirated games left right and centre... and with no income whatsoever I would never have bought any of them. My parents paid for a few here and there (one or two a year) but _never_ would have paid for anything like the numbers I played (spoiling kids wasn't in fashion yet). Modern game companies and distribution companies would have counted each of those as a lost sale, and they would be wrong.
He also under-represented, I felt, the negative effects of DRM and copy protection in general. It's _always_ punished legitimate users (my parents bought me the original Pirates! in the late 1980's, and eventually these 'uncopiable' floppy disks stopped working. Luckily I'd taken several copies...) DRM and copy protection generally punish legitimate users and they do so far more than they punish pirates. In fact pirates with a cracked version generally get a better end-user experience than legitimate users. There's three groups of users who get to click, click wait 20 minutes then play modern games... steam users, impulse users, and pirates.
I personally have cracked two games in recent times that I legitimately bought in order to get them to work. I did not distribute them subsequently or anything like that, I cracked them to play them myself, having paid for them. I think the DMCA may actually make that illegal... which is interesting when you think about it. Was it really designed to protect a games distributor's right to waste my time?
Best of all he left any criticism for the industry itself right until the end, and left out the rather nasty fact about digitial distribution - it means the end of the line for many companies and jobs built on the "Cardboard boxes on shelves" distribution model. It's these "distribution" companies for games, movies and music that are fighting "piracy" tooth and nail, and holding back all three industries. The fact is that just as most people are stupid, short sighted and greedy, so are most companies. Currently distribution companies would rather have their customers arrested for refusing to use them than change their business model. Anyone who's read a one-page summary on how Capitalism works will be able to tell them this wont work, but they seem hell bent on it.
I would love to see what Stardock's actual piracy vs. sales figures are. Personally I've got to the point where I pre-pay for stardock stuff because I can be absolutely 100% assured that the product will be quality, will work when it arrives and be available for download globally the day it's released. By contrast, I don't and in fact can't buy most of the TV I would like to watch. It literally is not available for sale in my country usually for months after its been distributed illegally on the internet. The month the BBC puts it entire documentary archive up for download at one pound per episode or whatever will be a very, very good month for BBC online sales and a fairly sickening month for my own cashflow. I've been waiting for years for legitimate digital distribution of their content, but they would much rather I wait 6-24 months and then buy it on a DVD from a shop whereby they'll get a tiny faction of the money. Hmm.
I think the "truth" is somewhere in between the rabid-anti-DRM crowd and the "distribution industry" morons, and this guy's not quite got the right balance between them.
pretty double really... people who buy their stuf and act legally or speak on behaf of the legal people are heard, "they can't be saying things that aren't true /(lieing) they talk on behaf of the legal people!!!
most intervieuws therefore state that piracy = devil and gaming industry and it's solutions = go(o)d
everyone with common sense and the experiene of games not working for them (even tough they should) knows how much DRM etc screws gaming, they resort to piracy simply becuase support takes 3 days to reply, and the message received is something like "your computer sucks" and in some rare occasions the message "your computer sucks, buy our companies 500$ hardware thingy and u can play" (to a customer!!!!???wtf!!?? "happend to me ")
piracy realy helps there.... just a simple crack to solve the problem and u can play, ofcourse, the problem will eventually be fixed by dev's cuase the continous complains of their stuff not working makes them lose customers and money....
then the so called fact that piracy reduces profit, pff... well yeah ofocurse it does, but first think about how much they earn i recall GTA IV coming out not so long ago the papers said something like... erm oh yeah 3.6 milion copies were sold THE FIRST DAY making around $310 milion in sales and now some angry people probably wishing i'd explode or something react, huuuu but developing the game costs to!!! they didnt got the whole $310 milion!!!
well yeah ofcourse they don't but anyone even considering the fact that producing a game advertising etc will get you even near the 310$ milion, is totally out of his mind, and even if it somehow did THE FIRST DAY brought up 310 milion what happens the day after? and after that? and after that? rlly, people pirating the game barely stings them, so what do they do they insert drm into the game, wich in a few clicks of the mouse button is removed by a pirate but forever stings a legal buyer (i'm still waiting for the smart idea behind it if any one here who supports DRM has the answer plz mail me, i'd like to put up a sarcastic slogan about that)
Spore: did u know u can only instal that game 3x? i didnt when i bought it, made me think, wtf are they doing? in order to get online u have to buy it anyways i wouldnt bother someone playing the game all alone with standard creations, if he enyos playing then apparently the guy doesnt have any money anyways, so give him some fun
so, what happens now is people who have purchased the game and want to instal it more then 3x either contact techincal support and wait a few days or download spore without install restriction
so, back to the original point, who's the devil? and who's go(o)d? i'd give it a 180 and turn it around, rlly...
pirates havent hurt me, game companies did
I never said game-companies can't do it the righ way tough.... sooow
(GOGO stardock i DRM free, i bought a Collector's edition retail box and all sorts of goodies!! i all your stuff!!
Of course pirates hurt me, they increased the amount of DRM and decreased the average quality of the games.
I wondered too why he didn't mention DRM free games, and compare their sales figures to games with DRM. Maybe there's not enough data to draw conclusions?
I've heard many people say that they bought sins only because it doesn't have DRM, and i've heard similar comments on the new Prince of Persia game (even heard few people say they may not buy it, but won't pirate it either). Evidently sins has sold very good, but what if Sins was a mainstream title? Do you think it would sold as many copies as it has?
Also on DRM, he makes the note that DRM is considered a success if it can delay the cracking for a few weeks (for example, the BioShock DRM was considered to be a major success) because thats when the most sales happen, but i wonder how much of that piracy would be cancelled if there was demo available on release. One good thing that can be said about EA is that they publish demos for almost all of their games, but unfortunately they are available after a month or so after release. For a small comppany like Ironclad, it is understandable that they have limited resources, but i doubt thats as big of a problem for a giant like EA.
And you did read the page with the pirate bay logo with the $ sign on it, right? They aren't doing it for the goodnes of their hearts, or to fight the power, you know? There's money at stake, on both sides of the equation.
I must admit that personally I'm a legit-pirate, one of the rare ones. I obtained a pirated copy of sins, enjoyed it and bought it. The same with many games, such as halflifde 2, cod4, cnc3, ra3 and many others back in history. The best thing software developers have done is limit the multiplayer capability of games with validation, not copy protection. You cant stop piracy, but too many times people have bought games that turned out the be absolute s***. Sins was a breath of fresh air for me, and it's not stupidly priced. Multiplayer is where the fun is at, followed closely by modding, and all in all stardock got impulse right imo. I hate starforce with a passion, securom followed closely behind. I crack every game I buy as I totally dislike the idea of destroying the media it comes on. I categorically will not use steam for purchasing as it's a pile of bantha poodoo. Some might say my approach to pc gaming makes me a software pirate, but when it comes to games like Turning point, fall of liberty, I'm glad I didnt rish out and fork out 35 quid for what was honestly the worst fps I've played since hexxen. At least hexxen played properly with a mouse and didnt feel like a second-rate clone of an xbox title.
-Standing by to be flamed to death
Very comprehensive article.
Another article that says some of the same things in a more succinct manner can be found here:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1558
From page 8:
"The argument that removing DRM will result in a net increase in sales has no basis in fact based on the evidence at hand. Not only does gaming history show that unprotected games simply lead to more piracy, recent history also demonstrates clearly that simply removing DRM is not the answer to piracy. As we saw in the Scale of Piracy section, many popular games which have no intrusive DRM, such as Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and World of Goo, also have some of the highest piracy rates in 2008. Indeed as I write this, the new Prince of Persia game was released yesterday for PC (December 10, 2008) with absolutely no DRM protection, and a quick look at torrents shows that the cracked version is available, and on two popular torrent links alone there are over 23,000 people downloading the game within the first 24 hours. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear: DRM does not cause piracy, piracy results in DRM."
Admittedly, it's mostly comparing intrusive DRM to less offensive measures, but the Prince of Persia bit is pretty indicative, don't you think? Of course, if there is no DRM on it at all, why did he point out the cracked version is available?
Must've missed that part, but that is exactly what i was supecting. DRM doesn't increase pirating, it just gives a "justification" to do it. Also those numbers pretty much say that boycotting DRM'd games is useless, most comppanies propably rather lose few customer to protests, than let their games be subjected to large scale piracy.
Using Price of Persia as an argument is bullcrap. There will always be a percentage of people who would not have paid for PoP drm or no, and there is also a percentage who would never consider buying it unless they get to play the full thing. I have seen people declare that they bought it just to support the switch away from DRM. Hell I bought Sins myself just to support Stardock and when I actually had time to play it I found I liked the game.
Not once have I seen someone say that they would not buy PoP and rip it instead just because the DRM pissed them off. I could probably google up 100 or more examples in 5 minutes if the game we were talking about was Spore.
Great article.
Long though, but worth the read.
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