Author Topic: Stopping Video Game Piracy  (Read 8750 times)

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Offline Nuke

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
i just stick to games from developers that usually produce good ****.
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Offline FireSpawn

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
Due to the fact that I don't download games from the net (and rarely buy any), I've been abusing the hell out of a majority of the Megadrive and Snes releases. So far I have made Megaman X (1-3), Chrono, Ryu & Co, all the Gundams from 'Wing' and Andross my *****es in the last six months.  Why settle for expensive (or illegal) mediocrity, when I have all the great classics at my fingertips?
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Offline Klaustrophobia

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
Dude, GameStop.  It may not be the best deal, but it's better than no deal.

last i checked they don't take PC games.  granted i haven't checked in a long time because they are such a ripoff.  is blockbuster even still around?  if so, probably won't be for much longer.  there haven't been any near me for a LONG time.  even so, renting is only for consoles.

 
i just stick to games from developers that usually produce good ****.

even that doesn't work anymore.  even a lot of the traditionally great developers are starting to put out unimaginative or wasted potential crap.  why waste time making a masterpiece of a game when CoD clones and console ports sell better anyway?
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Offline TrashMan

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
I'm type 2.
And I do 90% of my game shopping from GamersGate.
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Offline FlamingCobra

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
Dude, GameStop.  It may not be the best deal, but it's better than no deal.

last i checked they don't take PC games.  granted i haven't checked in a long time because they are such a ripoff.  is blockbuster even still around?  if so, probably won't be for much longer.  there haven't been any near me for a LONG time.  even so, renting is only for consoles.

 
i just stick to games from developers that usually produce good ****.

even that doesn't work anymore.  even a lot of the traditionally great developers are starting to put out unimaginative or wasted potential crap.  why waste time making a masterpiece of a game when CoD clones and console ports sell better anyway?

Is it just me, or did some of the most creative (and sequel-less) games come out for the nintendo 64/ps1 and then creativity started to decline with every subsequent console because developers figured out what sells?

 

Offline Ghostavo

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
It's just you.

Any old timer would tell you either about the SNES/Mega Drive, Amiga, Spectrum, stone tablets, whatever...

It's a similar phenomenon to "ARGH... those damned kids!"
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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
It's just you.

Any old timer would tell you either about the SNES/Mega Drive, Amiga, Spectrum, stone tablets, whatever...

It's a similar phenomenon to "ARGH... those damned kids!"

I'll grant there's a nostalgia component at play, but the late 1990's and early 2000's represented a bit of a golden-era for gaming.  I argue that this is the case because there was enough money in the industry that the technology available to developers was taking big leaps forward, but not so much that the financial risk would scare publishers away from taking any kind of chance on niche products.  In the years preceeding, slow computers and consoles limited what developers could do, and in the years following, so much money had to get pumped into a project that any risk that didn't pay off could sink a studio.  That's not to say that nothing good came out before or after that late-'90's/early-'00's timeframe, but there was a better concentration of quality and classic titles during that period.

Where I'll break from the "Those damned kids!" bunch is in that I think we're approaching or already in the beginning of another such golden era.  With the emergence of the XBox Live Marketplace, Steam, and other widely-used digital distribution platforms, smaller developers have the ability to both make a game that takes some chances and get it out to an audience that will enjoy it.  When one of these independent titles does manage to hit it big, the talent gets absorbed into larger studios, and elements of the gameplay find their way into more mainstream games.  It's the best of both worlds coming together again, albeit in a slightly different manner than before.  Instead of mainstream games being able to evolve new gameplay forms and drive technology forward at the same time, larger studios drive the technology forward, while smaller studios drive the evolution of gameplay mechanics.

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
even that doesn't work anymore.  even a lot of the traditionally great developers are starting to put out unimaginative or wasted potential crap.  why waste time making a masterpiece of a game when CoD clones and console ports sell better anyway?

entertainment in general has gone down the ****ter. tv sucks, movies suck, mainstream music is ****. they mass produce drivel and use marketing to pass it off as top notch content, and people in general are too dumb to realize that they are feeding parasites. in contrast games have actually fared quite well. we had a little bit of a slow time there with pc gaming but i think its kinda picking up the pace. lets just hope that they wont also go down the high profit low quality **** tube like the other forms of entertainment.
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Offline headdie

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
even that doesn't work anymore.  even a lot of the traditionally great developers are starting to put out unimaginative or wasted potential crap.  why waste time making a masterpiece of a game when CoD clones and console ports sell better anyway?

entertainment in general has gone down the ****ter. tv sucks, movies suck, mainstream music is ****. they mass produce drivel and use marketing to pass it off as top notch content, and people in general are too dumb to realize that they are feeding parasites. in contrast games have actually fared quite well. we had a little bit of a slow time there with pc gaming but i think its kinda picking up the pace. lets just hope that they wont also go down the high profit low quality **** tube like the other forms of entertainment.

Possibly because in part of the strong indi scene in pc gaming there is still room for passion in game developing and it's allowedto shine because that is where the quality ideas come from.  The big game devs have to compete to some degree with the little guys producing games and selling them in the £0-£20 bracket thanks to the internet.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
I think anyone who unequivocally states "TV sucks today" hasn't been keeping their eyes open much.  Yes, there are mountains of drek, but there are probably more top-tier high-class series airing right now than there have been in a very long time.  Hell, when a movie-replaying cable network like AMC can produce such masterpieces as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, you know at least something is going right.

 

Offline Fury

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
While indie games tend to be rather good entertainment for the buck, they really can't compete with professional studios when it comes to visuals and audio. And let's face it, those are what drives the masses towards your game because in the end, it is really hard to capture gameplay in screenshots and trailers. In trailers you can show off what happens on the screen, but not necessarily how player interacts with the game. Worst of all, trailers usually have HUD and other elements disabled to provide a cinematic trailer, in those cases we won't see quick-time events and whatever else. So we cannot distinguish scripted events from quick-time events and dynamic events.

But regardless, back to the topic. There's no stopping piracy, but it is possible to reduce it if those publishers would get a clue.

The first is DRM. The harder you make it to buyers of legit copy of the game to play it, the more likely it is that they will resort to piracy. Now I am ready to come half-way and recognize the need to identify each copy of the game. Here's where I am willing to accept cd-keys and online authentication at install time. I however may not accept the need for online access while playing. Individual copies can be said to be necessary to make it fair game and encourage people to buy their own copies. Copy-protection like SecuROM, StarForce and any other copy-protection that may potentially do harmful changes to your system and in some cases, prevent you from playing the game definitely drives people to piracy.  Requiring CD or DVD to be in the drive while playing is also stupid.

The second is delivery platform. Providing games right off the internet is really convenient, some delivery platforms are better than others. Steam of course is bigger than the rest combined, but it also does most things right. The games you've bought are locked to your own account, but in turn many of the games do not have any other form of DRM. So this is definitely step to the right direction. People who would normally download a pirated copy for the convenience of it can now turn to a delivery platform like Steam and do it roughly as conveniently, but legally.

Publishers still stick to their old traditions of region locked launches even with delivery platforms, there is absolutely no need for this stupid region locking anymore these days. But the bigger failure of delivery platforms are the myriad of problems that tend to occur on launch day. A lot of games have had problems when they've become available on delivery platform like Steam. There seems definitely be a lack of QA from both publisher/developer and delivery platform to ensure that the game is ready to be launched when it does.

And of course price. Why are online copies as expensive as retail copies when you should be able to reduce producing of the game medias, storage and shipping expenses from the price? There was this one indie game that was being sold for mobile phones. At first the price was about 10$, it didn't sell well. But when the price was reduced to 5$, it started selling albeit still at lowish numbers. At last resort the price was reduced to 3$ and it started selling like hotcakes, easily trumping expectations the developer had for 10$ price bracket. In the end the developer earned a lot more from selling the game at 3$ than 5$ or 10$. There's a lesson to be learned from here folks.


TLDR version.
1) Don't **** with your customers. They're the ones who provide food on your dinner table.
2) Adapt to the times and needs/wishes of your customers. If you don't, they'll look elsewhere.
3) Be reasonable in pricing. Selling more at lower price can earn you more than selling less at higher price.

 

Offline deathfun

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
I really like the "try now, buy later" approach. That should be taken more often.

its called shareware, i see your too young to possibly remember that.

winrar says hello.

No console games are shareware. I meant for this topic to be about console games.

If I recall correctly, HD DVD was the antithesis to Bluray

Actually, HD DVD and Bluray operated on the same basic principle. They competed with each other but used the same technology.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hd-dvd.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/blu-ray.htm
*cough*

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Offline Polpolion

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
Is there a game whose DRM hasn't been compromised?

 

Offline The E

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
There may be one or two.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
3) Be reasonable in pricing. Selling more at lower price can earn you more than selling less at higher price.

The real irony here is the number of people who don't realise this. If your game isn't a MMO or somesuch where you are required to provide servers in order to play the game selling 1,000,000 copies costs you no more money than 100,000. The only difference is going to be bandwidth used downloading the game and you're on someone else's content delivery system that's not even your problem. :p

I think anyone who unequivocally states "TV sucks today" hasn't been keeping their eyes open much.  Yes, there are mountains of drek, but there are probably more top-tier high-class series airing right now than there have been in a very long time.  Hell, when a movie-replaying cable network like AMC can produce such masterpieces as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, you know at least something is going right.

There always have been mountains of drek. People forget this. How many truly world class films can you name from 1950, 1970 or 1990? Is that really so much more than the number of truly awesome films from this year?
« Last Edit: November 29, 2011, 09:24:06 am by karajorma »
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Offline The E

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
I think anyone who unequivocally states "TV sucks today" hasn't been keeping their eyes open much.  Yes, there are mountains of drek, but there are probably more top-tier high-class series airing right now than there have been in a very long time.  Hell, when a movie-replaying cable network like AMC can produce such masterpieces as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, you know at least something is going right.

There always have been mountains of drek. People forget this. How many truly world class films can you name from 1950, 1970 or 1990? Is that really so much more than the number of truly awesome films from this year?

The problem is, we only remember the stuff coming out of those decades that people think are worth remembering. The 90% of stuff produced then that was crap has long since been forgotten. Because we do not have this benefit of hindsight regarding stuff that has come out recently, the perception that old stuff is better is hard to shake.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
Is there a game whose DRM hasn't been compromised?
If there is, it's because the game wasn't good enough for anyone to bother.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
English version of Wing of Prey seems to be one such game, I still didn't managed to find a proper non-russian crack (russian version has different DRM than English one).  :)
It's not a very good game though, I heard that IL-2 Sturmovik is much better when it comes to WWII simulators. Exactly the reason why I didn't just bought it on Steam. If they start selling it for one or two euros (which happens with amazing frequency on Steam), then I might get it.
Quote
TLDR version.
1) Don't **** with your customers. They're the ones who provide food on your dinner table.
2) Adapt to the times and needs/wishes of your customers. If you don't, they'll look elsewhere.
3) Be reasonable in pricing. Selling more at lower price can earn you more than selling less at higher price.
If you take a look at Steam, it's great precisely because it addresses all three points. It provides it's own, non-intrusive DRM system, is easy to use and flexible and, thanks to having a big sale every time something significant happens (and sometimes just out of the blue), makes games really cheap if you know how to use it. Making an item overpriced, then cutting the price to more acceptable level is an old and proven strategy (and you can gouge die-hard fans of a franchise by doing that, as they're the ones most likely to get a game as soon as it comes out).
Not to mention it also advertises other games, trying to fit them into what you bought (I've got a few games that way, almost symbolic price+a recommendation. I don't regret.).

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
I think anyone who unequivocally states "TV sucks today" hasn't been keeping their eyes open much.  Yes, there are mountains of drek, but there are probably more top-tier high-class series airing right now than there have been in a very long time.  Hell, when a movie-replaying cable network like AMC can produce such masterpieces as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, you know at least something is going right.

there are a lot of exceptions to the rule, i really like what amc is doing. but the utter collapse of former stalwarts like sci-fi, history, and discovery have essentially made tv unwatchable. music, movies and games still all have their indie scenes and there's a lot of good work there. i admire the work of those who do more with less.

3) Be reasonable in pricing. Selling more at lower price can earn you more than selling less at higher price.

this! i would buy more games if they were cheaper. right now i can afford (at your typical price of $50-$70) about 2 a year, and there are many that i want that are out or near release. right now im going to have to wait for a lot of those to hit the bargain bin before i can buy them.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2011, 01:16:16 pm by Nuke »
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Offline deathfun

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Re: Stopping Video Game Piracy
Quote
this! i would buy more games if they were cheaper. right now i can afford (at your typical price of $50-$70) about 2 a year, and there are many that i want that are out or near release. right now im going to have to wait for a lot of those to hit the bargain bin before i can buy them.

Good thing maybe two really worthy games come out a year
I mean, there are times where there's a sudden influx of great stuff, but two a year is pretty well standard as far as games worth buying at 60$ go.
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