Let me start off by saying that this is not a thread for discussing the morality of software piracy. There are already a ton of threads about that elsewhere, here and in the rest of the Internet.
This is a thread to discuss what to do about the Demigod piracy issue. Not about whether it's right or wrong to pirate it.
For my part, I think that all these users are useful - they spread word about the game and get others interested in it. The only question I'm asking myself (if I were Brad) is, how do I best squeeze money out of these users? I already got them playing, how do I get them paying?
This falls into the question of, why is it that pirates copy games anyway? I can come up with at least one reason.
1. Convenience
P2P games don't require logging on or doing a bunch of other things that Demigod currently requires. If you're adding a $40 cost to the deal, then you have to add some other significant somethings to that or else make it significantly less inconvenient to just buy the game. This is the iTunes model. None of the songs on iTunes are actually unique to iTunes - all of them can be downloaded for free. iTunes allows you to DL them hassle-free, however, and most people are willing to pay a buck apiece for that convenience.
I think that until Stardock and GPG make back the initial investment they incurred making the game, they cannot offer Demigod at a price that will induce nearly all pirates to buy the game, just for the sake of convenience. Of course, that also says that they should make it convenient for pirates to become nonpirates.
Brad makes a good case for saying that he only caters to paying customers, but I think he makes a mistake when he says that pirates do not count. They should. They are potential customers - he just needs to find out how to turn them into paying customers.
So how about you? What do you think motivates pirates to copy games and how do you think Stardock can monetize their behavior?
Lessee, off the top of my head, my first thought is that this is the wrong forum. My second thought is that this is about a thousand times more likely to be the result or possibly product of trolling than anything else.
Sorry. If you can direct me to the right forum, I'll move the post.
This is part of Demigod Ideas because I'm thinking about how to change the game to make it more proftiable for the publishers. Is that not part of Demigod Ideas?
Personally, I think piracy really isn't that much of a problem for multiplayer games like this. If someone wants to pirate the game, and simply play against bots, they're probably not going to be playing for very long anyways. If they really want to get into it, they'll buy the game so they can play online. Secondary communities (Hamachi, etc) don't survive long after the initial release. The people out there who currently have a pirated copy of the game are probably the ones that wouldn't have bought the game anyways.
Single player games, however, have a much more difficult time. In this case, the pirates literally can have everything for nothing. The gaming companies must then rely on things like patches and content additions to make it worthwhile for the paying customers.
Actually, in Demigod's case the word of mouth of pirates is going to hurt the game due to the fact that the pirates are unable to patch their game and are currently running the release net code. Their experience with the game isn't going to reflect the current state of the game, even over the Lan simulation programs like Hamachi and GameRanger.
That's great, Zehdon, but I'm certain that pirate communities have their own tech support - patching from Stardock's patches isn't too far from possible.
That said, this thread isn't supposed to talk about pirates like they are a problem - that is for other threads. This thread considers pirates an opportunity. These guys already like the game or they wouldn't keep playing it. The question is, how can Stardock get money from them?
Well, you created a topic based the concept that piracy could be used to generate additional revenue, while the very concept of piracy is to avoid just that, so you should be prepared for a little counter-argument.
Anyway, in it's currrent state piracy can only be used as a form of advertising if the game, at release and thus as available to pirates, was flawless. Although the tech community on several of these sites pirates produces patches for their cracked versions based on offical releases, if the original release of a game was disappointing most people, who download to try the game or simply because they're cheap, ditch the game althogether. Stardock have the right mentality when it comes to the game's copyright protection - they simply don't bother because of the pirates seemingly endless resources to crack games. However, Valve have the right mentality when it comes to trialing their multiplayer titles - they feature free weekends where the player can preload the game so that when the free weekend hits, they're able to play and experience the game in full. The demo for Demigod, when it's released, will do wonders I feel, and should greatly increase the revenue Demigod will generate. However, the possibility of a free weekend or so shouldn't be ruled out as this system successfully managed to sell me on Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead. At the very least, this kind of system removes the "download and try before you buy" people from the pirate community.
Most people I know that pirate games do it because of the cost and quality of games lately.
Demigod is actually a good example of this. I paid 40$ for a game that was not ready for release. I saw it at gamestop, liked the box, the fact it was 40$ (Most new are 50$) and thought it was unique. Now, a month or so later, the game is finally patched to a mostly working version, and only needs a few tweaks. Now, most game companies would have left the game in the mess it was. Atari did that with Act of War, and Axis and Allies. EA did it with both CC3 and RA3, and I'm sure a few others. Why would I trust them with a 50$ purchase that isnt returnable, and I have no fallback plan. Its the same as Hollywood. I saw the new Terminator movie, and it was horrible. I wasted 10$ that I cant get back. Next time, I'll download the movie, if its worth seeing, I'll head to a theatre. a PC game is an investment 5x as much, so downloading the game, seeing if its good and all, and then buyingit if it is good, is a common practice with my friends. Unfortunately, most games arent good.
I used to buy games, then if they sucked Ebay them. I still do that with 360 games a lot. I usually took a 10$ loss, but with a little research and deal shopping, I could test/rent a game for a week or 2, then sell it if it doesnt fit my style or if its just crap. I cant do this anymore with systems like Steam and Impulse, since even my disc copy has to be tied to my account. Empire Total War is a good example of this. I loved medival 2. ETW was just not as good, nor my style. It may be the games fault, or my own. Either way, it required it to tie to my steam account.
The point of this wall of text, is "average joe" pirates dont crack the game distribute it. They download it because its a small investment of time and effort. A smaller investment then the 50$ that most companies charge for piles of crap they call games. A few companies stand out as good (Relic, Stardock, etc), willing to support their product, fix their mistakes, and enhance the game over time. Too many companies overshadow these with bad games, or outright broken games they dont support.
Overall, I think Stardock tries. They provide a decent product, good support, and their view on limiting pirates from playing online is a solid one. The only real complaint I have is impulse doesnt allow you to transfer a CD key to someone else. That should be allowed by all digital distributors, for free.
ZehDon and AntiCommie:
Those are very good points. I think more pirates could be convinced not to pirate the game if they could have a quality-product guarantee or a play-before-pay scheme, especially for long-lived games like Demigod.
If you could "partially" pay $5 for a 1 week usage of the game, towards the final retail, should you decide to buy it, would that be a better scheme, do you think?
Ah, sort of "renting" the game? That's actually a very good idea that takes advantages of the unique 'pros' of digital distribution as it would allow people to trial the game at any time in it's complete form. I'd still like to see the free weekends, part of the reason why I played L4D to begin with was that it was free, however I see no reason why the two can't co-exist.
i kinda like the idea of "renting" the game, but maybe it should come with condition a condition which many other companies use and that is that if you dont cancel your purchase yourself after so many days then you automatically buy the game. which seem entirely possible with impulse and steam selling games through there sites.
omnicus:
I don't believe that is necessary. It's a bit of a sales push, I think, and it could annoy some players. If you could pay $5 for a 5-day week of sanctioned play from Stardock, then have a 2-day "Free Weekend Bonus" from the "preplay option," then you could have the game ask the player if he or she would like to continue playing the game for, say, an additional $25 forever. If the player liked the game, paying an additional month or so of "preplay" to play the game essentially forever would seem eminently desirable and cheap.
By then Stardock would have been able to garner $30 from the gamer. Additional support in the form of patches and basic function upgrades would continute to be free, of course, but then Stardock could design additional Demigods and sell them for $5 apiece. They could initially appear as online AI-only opponents, but if each gamer bought 2 such Demigods in the course of 2 months of play, Stardock would have its $40 per game, with infrastructure for selling more content for the game, particularly content gamers can request!
Do you think it's cool if Regulus could have an alternative graphic representation (like a bow or *gasp* a gun instead of a crossbow?)? If you could drum up enough pledges for it, maybe SD can then consider whether it's profitable to develop it or not.
The main drive here is to connect Stardock with its customers better - even its pirate customers. If they can't afford to pay $40 up front, surely they can pay $5 for a week of play? This would be especially attractive if such content has additional value apart from assurance of play and being assuredly free of malware.
So - where Stardock got no cash from the majority of the 120 000 users who signed up for play at once - they COULD have gotten $500 000+, which asking only a pittance for try-out play.
There's a ton of gamers out there who would pay for such a service. Stardock could stand to make a lot of money from such demand.
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