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Mac Version Of Halo Exemplifies Piracy Problem?
An anonymous reader writes "MacSoft takes popular games and ports them to the Macintosh for all the Mac users to enjoy, but according to a TwinCities.com article, apparently there are far more users pirating Mac Halo than actually buying it A MacSoft spokesman 'didn't release sales figures [for Halo] but said illegal downloads number at least in the hundreds of thousands.'" The article uses this specific game to discuss how PC and Mac publishers are "...making gamers enter special codes, authenticate themselves online and jump through more hoops." It ends by describing the pain of the developer in seeing their title pirated: "It was a dagger in the hearts of guys who worked 12 to 14 hours a day [on Halo]... We're on an emotional high, and it all comes crashing down."
but said illegal downloads number at least in the hundreds of thousands.
:)
There are over a hundred thousand mac gamers?!?
(disclamer: this is a joke, i own a mac
I have not downloaded Halo (mostly because there's not a snowballs chance in hell it'll run on my iBook 700), but my friend did. He has a TiBook 1Ghz, and it runs EXTREMELY slow. He had to put it on the lowest resolution possible to even make it playable. But even then the game slows to a halt when there's any kind of action going on... Needless to say he quickly deleted it.
Now come on, this computer is less than a year old and yet it wont play a game that was made a few years ago. I wonder if it'll even run on the latest G4 desktops (I'm sure it flies on the G5). This is pretty unacceptable in my opinion.
I'm willing to bet that a lot of people were in the same boat as my friend: pirated it to try it and found out it ran as slow as molasses - then quickly deleted it.
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
I have to admit I will never buy Halo on the Mac. Why? Well, I own it on the PC already. My Wintendo will always be my main computer box, since it does games better then my Powerbook. But, I personally enjoy a game of Warcraft 3 every once in a while on the road, so I pop in the same copy of the game I only had to buy once to play it on either my Powerbook or Wintendo desktop.
Use this same argument for Linux too. Many gamers see no reason to buy a Linux only version of a game over a Windows version. But a ton enjoy the fact that the Windows Quake disk also allows Linux play.
Macsoft also has the problem of not ensuring they keep up with patches. By what I understand, no Mac user could play online with a PC user for a while after release. Thats a bad thing for sure.
After all of these years, isn't Halo for the Mac public domain now? :-)
http://www.tomandemily.com
There's another type of very very widespread copyright infringement that takes place entirely offline. As soon as 1 person in the dormitory gets the halo CD or what have you, they share it with everyone else on their floor and set up huge lan games.. all from 1 CD. I estimate about 10 people on my floor got Call of Duty from 1 guy's CD and we can all play multiplayer online at the same time :)
Repeal the DMCA!
I get a pirated copy of every game first (with the exception of Bioware titles). There is no way in hell I'm buying a $50 game that won't run and cannot be returned. I'll waste the $0.25 on a blank and then see if it's worth buying.
Maybe if MacSoft worked closer with the development studios to get the titles out within a month or so of the PC release they'd sell more. When you have to wait 1-2 years for a game that is in the PC bargin bin for $9.99, most people will just pirate it since the perceived value isn't there.
For example, Neverwinter Nights. It was supposedly getting released for Linux, PC and Mac in the same packaging at the same time. Reality: 1+ years later, no expansion packs and it doesn't have the Aurora Toolkit and it's $50. The PC version is $30 with the first expansion (gold version) and toolkit included.
If you want to play games get a PC. Until Mac releases are timely I won't buy any.
Bungie was the Great Hero of Mac gaming with titles like Myth and Marathon. Fabulous games that didn't require a supercomputer to get interesting graphics and great game play. Scenario editors that spawned communities.
Steve Jobs was using Halo to demonstrate 400 MHz G4 Power Macs. Halo was being voted the Game of the Year before release. We were going to have it for Christmas 1998.
What did we get? Shafted. Bungie Sold Out to the Great Satan. Sure, when the sellout occurred there were still promises that Bungie would release for the Mac at the same time as the XBox. Never Happened. When Halo finally became available what did we get? Bug ridden trash with insane hardware demands and a non-functional scenario editor. Myth sold off, and the result - a well documented failure.
If Mac Halo is being pirated in great numbers as a result, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Bungie/Microsoft. They broke faith with their users.
So, it is alright for a company to abandon their users and sell out to MS.
It is alright for their premiere platform to be the last one they port it to, years later.
It is alright for them to make the buyers unable to play with their PC friends who got the game years earlier.
It is alright for the game to run like complete ass showing it was quick port.
Is that all right?
Sleep is for the weak.
So the appropriate answer to Mac Halo's problems is a free and open beta test and/or "shareware" release, ala Doom, Quake, etc. Give people the engine and a couple of levels, and maybe multiplayer play and see what happens?
Now that I think about it, I wonder if id will do that for Doom III.
<MINIRANT>
Also, I wouldn't have expected any laptop made a year ago to support games released recently. That's the nature of the machine, unfortunately, as far as laptops go, unless they're one of those hacked-together beasts that use desktop components.
</MINIRANT>
Michael C. Hollinger
I, on the other hand, have all kinds of ill feelings towards developers and publishers who are stupid enough to think that piracy will be stopped by adding copy protection.
I've not copied a game since I gor my first full time job a few years ago. However, I've had to visit crack sites time and time again because of the stupid copy protection mechanisms malfunctionin on my perfectly legit copies of the games. I am so tired of ackward copy protection mechanisms that I've almost stopped buying computer games. Now, my console game purchases outnumber my PC game purchases by over 20 to 1. IMO, any company that puts copy protection in front of the user convenience deserves exactly what they are getting: lowers sales, and thus, more pirate copies, probably becasue in many cases the original, uncracked game is inferior to a pirated one you could pick up from kazaa.
Protecting your livelihood by lowering the qaulity of your product and making it less attractive is a recipee for disaster. Just like the RIAA is just shooting themselves in the foot by protecting their business model by copy protecting CDs in an ineffective way that hurts many of their customers, the PC software industry is just asking for decreased sales by releasing the unisable crap they've been releasing lately. Most software developers I know agree that the copy protection mechanism that the publisher adds to their games are just making their games less attractive, and forcing them to make patches that 'fix' broken copy protection mechanisms that make some costumer return their games because they are unplayable on their computer due to an 'incompatible' CDROM drive.
If developers and publishers want to stop piracy, they could start by either releasing their games at a lower price tag, or by going after the groups that are releasing their cracked games to the internet, as opposed to giving money to the makers of copy protection mechanisms.
How have these guys measured this? downlading stuff off bit torrent you rarely get more than 20 seeds. How many files have you grabbed from kazaa that have more than 10 other clients they are downloading from? Seeing as there are loads of p2p networks, how have Macsoft come to the conculustion that "hundreds of thousands" of illegal downloads have occurred.
lots of comments here mention how the Mac version is buggy, slow and people resent buying the game after bungie sold out to Microsoft. Perhaps (in true RIAA style), Macsoft are blaming poor sales on p2p networks as opposed to poor product.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
And if these people had not pirated the game, how many of them would have bought copies? Only I small percentage, I'll bet. So how much money was lost due to piracy is an open question. In fact, how many copies of Halo will be sold due to this piracy (which is advertising, if unintentional)? Perhaps this will eventually be money in the pocket of developers rather than a dagger in the heart. There is no way to tell without hard numbers, and those are probably unknowable.
...is when no one bothers to even pirate your game. I worked on a little game for Gameboy Advance called Monster Force for a little more than a year. While the game itself is fun, the story behind it is so lame and unmarketable that no one ever touched it. I think the publishers just kinda DOA'd it. I know it made it to stores, but I've never seen it. I would LOVE to hear that it was the golden child of the ROM scene. All I want is for people to enjoy my games.
If Mac Halo is being pirated in great numbers as a result, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Bungie/Microsoft. They broke faith with their users.
.well, it was special for that moment. I mean calling Bungie's new girlfriend the Great Satan; that's just too far. Microsoft's not too bad of a girl, once you get to know her. I know it hurt deeply when it happened, and Bungie probably used the whole let's be friends line. But just because Bungie decided to just be friends and are hanging out all the time with Microsoft now doesn't mean that you can sneak into Bungie's house and take all his stuff. That's just too far, you know? Honestly, Macuser, I'm surprised that Bungie hasn't applied for a restraining order. Don't get me wrong, you're really good looking, I'd even say you're pretty hot. You've really got some curves on you, that's for sure. This breaking into the house thing though and taking their stuff, that's just...strange. I mean stuff like this, it's just...freaky is all. I think everyone's been trying to be real nice to you, but someone should tell you straight up. Sometimes you can act a little weird, you know? Just...off, a little. Maybe that's why Bungie left you in the first place? And you've still got Blizzard right? He's cool, right?
"Look, um, Macuser. I know what you and Bungie had was something special. But I think, and don't hate me for saying this, I think you just need to move on, you know. That something special. .
Just trying to talk, ok, sort things out with you? Call me later?"
Where is the demo? I go to Macsoft's Halo page and see a nice collection of screenshots, but is there a downloadable demo? Perhaps that link to "Preview" is it. Nope, that just goes to a review article on Apple's site. Well, maybe they're just really trying to sell it. Maybe it's really under the Game Demos & Updates page. Sorry, not there either.
The real reason why people are downloading the pirate version is because that's all that's available for them to download if they want to try it out on their system. And let's face it -- this isn't the early 1990's anymore where you have to trust some biased Mac magazine who gives a favorable review because Macsoft spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a multi-page ad campaign. Everyone checks the review sites to see how it fares instead of just rushing out to buy it. And guess what... they're finding out it's junk.
Macsoft, some of your products are great (Neverwinter!!) but you're not going to sell a whole lot of games with your "Trust Us" approach. Put out a demo and let people give it a spin. If it's good, there's a good chance they'll buy it. If they don't buy it after trying it out, then it's your own damned fault for putting out such a lousy product. But don't blame the p2p networks for spoiling sales of the stinker called Halo.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Get real. Nobody pirates software (or other media for that matter) because they are trying to make a statement against company/group XYZ -- they do it because they are greedy. Anything else is an absolute lie, it's somebody with a guilty conscience trying to justify their criminal activity. Try to feel noble. You can claim that you're sticking it to Microsoft, but you know that's not the truth.
The game runs like hell and half of the features don't even work. The gamepad support is "coming", the multiplayer crashes my machine and the game with all the details turned down at 640x480 resolution runs on my 933MHz iBook like I'd expect Half-Life 2 to run on a 286 with all the features turned on.
I've played better looking games on my iBook that ran a lot smoother. If the game started out on a Mac, why did macsoft have to port it anyway?
From the perspective of someone who creates and sells small games for a living, I'd pooh-pooh most arguments legitimizing the act of piracy.
1. If the game "isn't worth buying," don't pirate it, spend 30 hours playing through the whole thing, and claim that you "wouldn't have bought it, anyway."
2. If you want to try the game out before buying, don't pirate it; play the demo.
3. If there's no demo, and you don't trust the developer enough to buy the game, sight-unseen, don't buy it. The developer doesn't deserve your money, but neither do you deserve to own a copy of their game.
4. Copy protection schemes that prevent you from playing the game you paid for are inexcusable. If the copy protection detracts from the game, tell the developer why you're not going to buy from them again. Don't pirate the game; piracy will only make future copy protection schemes worse for legitimate users.
Recently, a young man from the UK e-mailed us, requesting a free copy of one of our games, citing that he could not possibly buy it. Later, he e-mailed us asking for tech support on the full version. Is this audacious, or simply stupid?
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
So fuck to game companies that insist on adding copy protections that only harass the paying public. Why should I pay for a crippled product when I can get the uncrippled version free? OFP is a case in point I own it and all the extensions legally but had to download it because I lost the key. FUCK YOU codemasters.
Next time I will just save myself the bother okay? Don't believe the copy protection is crippled? Look at the size difference between the official game.exe and the nocd.exe.
As for the hardworking developers.
Hidden & Dangerous, are we ever going to get a working patch? Should I just consider downloading the sequel for free as the patch perhaps?
Mafia, what on earth possesed them to take a year to release a patch to fix a lot of issues including in a driving game not supporting logitech force feedback wheels properly.
Keep screwing us with badly tested games and idiotic copy protection and we will revolt.
Imagine if you went into a supermarket and at the checkout they stripsearched everybody. People who just walk out without paying go through unhindered. Idiotic? That is what copy protection is doing. Games are ripped before they are in the shops.
Only mmorpgs seem somewhat safe although there of the more popular ones "illegal" servers where you can play free.
Worse yet are game companies that release a game months later in some parts of the world. I seen games available on the net months before they appear in the shop (no not halflife2). Even the movie industry is learning that staggered releases are a stupid thing. In computer game land it borders on suicide.
I used to buy my games but I have felt increasinly that I was being treated like an idiot and a criminal. Well now I am a criminal. Happy?
Oh and anyone else notice that while CD's are cheaper then floppies and game manuals are a thing of the past and the market for games has increased the price of games has gone up? I also seem to remmeber being able to finish most games without having to patch them. Must be old age messing with my mind.
Oh and for a really old poor copy protection. One of the sequels to elite stopped the game every so often and required you to find a word on a page. The catch? If was a lot easier to use a cheat sheet then to use your manual to find the word. Of course pirates had a hacked exe and were never bothered at all. SMART MOVE.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Bugs and delays aside, let's give Bungie a little credit. Afterall, when Microsoft bought them and announced Halo for XBox, I was sure that PC or Mac Halo would never see the light of day. And I'm sure that the suits were all against anything but an XBox only title. Doing it on Mac and PC simply doesn't make economic sense given the numbers they have sold on the XBox. With that in mind, the only reason Bungie would release Mac and PC versions would be to keep their word to their customers. That's an honorable thing in these days of the bottom line rules everything.
Unfortunately this piracy problem is a double edged knife in the back. Bungie developers are rightly pissed off, and now the suits will make sure that Halo 2 never sees anything but the XBox. Any experienced developer will tell you that supporting more than one platform is a lot of work which publishers are less and less willing to pay for. So we won't be seeing any more multiplatform Halo.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
They say "gamers need a way to download games legally." Well guess what, people don't download games cause they like downloading, they download cause the games cost $50+! And then you have expansion packs, etc, that are another $40-50, sequels, etc etc etc. And then even at that, only 10% of the games you buy will be worthwhile. I know Halo is an excellent game, but I can safely say that Mac users hold something against Microsoft because they basically stole Bungie, and Halo, and since Halo was debuted over 3 years ago - on a mac - that grudge will never go away.
,and I always say to myself "if that game was $20 cheaper, I would be buying it right now."
All they have to do is start charging LESS for their games and they will make up profits in the numbers of games sold. Look at Avril Lavigne - she sold over a million albums in the US cause they were only $8.99 or something like that, not $20 like most artists. I see games in the store every day
But don't even get me started on Sims games - they have made SO much money out of those expansions (Which are basically collections of the stuff you can get for free on the net, legally) it's not even funny.
You are, in fact, wrong.
I purchase a number of games. And not just games -- I have purchased *more expensive equivalents* and simply postponed purchasing a non-game product to avoid purchasing Microsoft products. I use Linux for things that it would be easier to use a pirated copy of Windows for. I use a MacAlly Q-BALL (and waited years to buy one) because the functional alternative was a Microsoft product.
You may be right that the majority of pirates do not feel this way. However, I do. I consider it an ethical mandate to avoid giving my money to Microsoft, and if I want something and there is no alternative to and the software cannot be pirated, I simply go without. This does not apply to any other company, but my wallet my own small way of expressing my unhappiness with Microsoft.
I even build systems in a day and age when OEM computers are price-competitive with home-built machines to avoid giving money to Microsoft.
May we never see th
First, I'd like to re-iterate some of the things expressed in a previous "Developer's perspective" post: The fact that there is no demo isn't an excuse to pirate. It means that if you don't trust the developer, you just don't bother yourself with it.
Moving on, from my own personal experience, I can refute some of the claims that I see a lot of people make about "how it could be". The game that my company recently released was an online multiplayer only title, with the only form of copy protection being a unique key that could only have X active instances at any given time. No CD checks whatsoever. We made it that way because, as gamers ourselves, we hate stupid copy protection schemes. Also, the game was available for purchase on the web, as both an installation package and an ISO, for both win32 and Linux. The retail CD included both versions as well. We released a demo that included two maps, and one of the two playable races in it's entirety.
Initially, the number of instances of a key that we allowed play simultaneously was rather forgiving. After the game had been out for a while though, we noticed that many keys were often in use up to their maximum number of instances. Obviously people were doing a whole lot of sharing, so we tightened down the number and saw a moderate spike in sales follow immediately, without a noticeable decline in player base.
I guess the real point I'd like to make is this: it's completely debatable how much harm is being done by piracey, but the fact remains that it's not doing anybody any good.