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Videogame Piracy - Is a Stricter Approach Necessary?
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial focusing on recent attitudes to videogame piracy, in which a change in approach is argued for: "The [ESA] should be less focused on the ratings system... and more focused on educating consumers that downloading games is theft, plain and simple.... Consumers only understand one thing, the game is available freely on the Internet with a minimum of work and that means they don't have to pay for it." The writer continues: "I can't bring myself to download games, even the things at a place like The Underdogs which specializes in supposedly 'out of print' games to download. Out of print used to mean something was rare and worth something. In the digital media world it apparently now means 'Ok to steal.'" He concludes by suggesting ways to make games more attractive again: "One great way to do that is including good stuff in the box. Give me a color manual or include a poster. Maybe a CD with all the music from the game? How about liner notes with each game describing some part of development?"
It may be wrong, it may be illegal, but It's not theft. Plain, simple, or otherwise. It's copyright infringement.
Games (especially 0-day warez) are only easy to download if you're in the know. You need to know what site to go to, or a friend with an FTP server or you need to have a very reliable USENET hook up or something along those lines. Otherwise, pirating games online is a nightmare minefield of porn pop ups, links to other sites with more porn pop ups, viruses and mislabelled 600 MB downloads.
The 'consumer' does not find this easy or fun. The 'consumer' probably doesn't even know that they could be trying to do this. People who are downloading complete games illegally are fairly sophisticated users. I would guess that they all know full well that they're doing something illegal. I just think that they don't care.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
What annoys me is that its often easier to get a download a pirated game than buying it in a shop.
:)
Pirate game:
1. Game was released today!
2. Download for an hour
3. Play
Instant gratification.
Legit game:
1. Find online shop with game.
2. Wait for shop to have it in stock.
3. Agonize that other people are playing this cool game while ytou wait.
4. Wait for the package
5. Open package, rip CD, toss rest of crappy cardboard away.
6. Play!
Now what if the developer had a Steam like download avaliable? Preferably before the game was in the store? Then it would be as easyer to download a legit game than downloading a pirate game...
Those "out of print" games are not supposed to dwindle away into obscurity and only be owned by those elise few who had the money to buy them at the time.
:P
This is copyright protection, after the authors don't exist anymore (companies died) the copyright is not protecting anyone anymore... kinda like artists' right to make money on their creations?
Perhaps read something Orson Scott Card wrote on this subject once and you would change your mind.
A collector will still strive to own the game... but I'm more interested in the art of it, than in it's physical manifestation.
I'm still interested in buying it if I can... but not on e-bay or in a way that will not benifit the original authors.
The author is just plain silly...
Then again... this is from someone who has 3 legal copies of NWN and Quake 3....
-grin-
Anyone remember the "evidence" that came with Deadline, including two "pills" that were actually Smarties candy (yeah, I ate 'em)? Maps, booklets, and other details like that really helped set the stage for those text adventures.
I personally won't download games from "warez" sites, but I'd bet that if more care went in to the final product, people might value them more.
>> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"
This is a problem that has been and always will be. I remember being thirteen and playing Leisure Suit Larry. Did my parents but it for me? No. I had it copied from a friends computer. At the time the game came on 2 3.5 floppys.
Here is the problem, it is the way the games and programs are marketed for the most part. Who do most of the games market to in the PC world? Males age 14-28. This group is heavily marketed since they are about to turn the corner to being males 29-36 and are known as the most economically secure in America.
Meaning, we need a way to just make games cheaper or free and put more marketing in them to lead the soon to be older audience. You can't stop them, so market them.
I know what the thought to that is... Then game quality sucks. Or ends up looking like a NasCar add.
Whole movie production have been paid for with product placements. We even got to see Hallie Berry's chacha's for seeing a product for 25 seconds in movie.
Now I wouldn't product place to sell the product to the people playing the game today, but product place for the people who will be stronger consumers tomorrow.
Mc Donalds did this in the early years and still does it today. They lose money on the playground, happy meals, and birthday parties, but make customers for life.
For these reasons we need to see a paradigm shift and let the entertainment be free, and the quality can be the same.
In my opinion, there's no great secret or mystery to reducing piracy. Rather, it could be achieved quite simply through a few steps (and no, these don't include "make games cheaper").
1) Get rid of region encoding. This also applies, to an even greater extent, to DVDs. Restricting products to certain markets alienates customers who can't buy them and encourages a "if they don't want to sell it to me, just take it" mentality. I'm not sympathetic to piracy in the slightest, but if there was perhaps one argument which would convince me to soften my attitude towards it, it would be this one.
2) If your game is online, use CD-keys. They work. Seriously. Admittedly, this doesn't help much with offline games.
3) Get rid of this cheapo DVD-style packaging for games. In the old days, when you bought a game, you'd usually get a hefty and well-produced manual, which would frequently do a lot more than just tell you how to navigate the menus and play the game. Anybody remember the manuals that came with Lucasarts classics like Their Finest Hour and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe?
I honestly don't know exactly how it would work, but I believe that all or nearly all copyrighted material (books, music, software) should be "sell it or lose it": if the copyright owner doesn't care to sell copies of it, for instance because it is not deemed profitable, the copyright lapses.
Clearly, if it's not worth selling, the copyright holder doesn't lose much if the copyright lapses early, 5Nth anniversary precious metal editions notwithstanding. Of course, companies who are in the business of selling the same pile of tripe every few years with a different name would suffer. (Quicken 2005? No thanks, I like Quicken 2000 just fine and don't want to learn anything new. What, you mean I can't buy Quicken 2000? I think some music labels and book publishers would find themselves in the same bind)
This belief is what makes me feel not at all bad when downloading abandonware games to play on my Commodore 64 emulator, for instance.
Failing "Sell It or Lose It Copyright", I'd love to see a non-profit corporation in the business of buying the copyright to abandoned software, particularly games, and releasing it to the public domain. In my mind this would involve finding out what copyrighted items people were most interested in, reaching a deal with the owner, and then raising the money online. I have no idea whether it would work, but I'd love to see it tried. I'd put up a few bucks to see EA's 8-bit software collection enter the public domain, and surely a lot of geeks would do the same. Would it add up to the piles of cash Electronic Arts would demand? Well, I don't know.