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Pirates Vs. Publishers
1up is running a piece looking at the fight between pirates and publishers in the games industry. They use StarForce, and their frustrating copy protection scheme, as a basis for their discussion of both sides of the issue. From the article: "The goal isn't to encourage people to be honest, or to drive innovation in the hacker community, or to be an irritant because you've lost your CD and want to play. The goal of a publisher in picking a copy protection service is to make more money by selling more copies. The logic is that if it's impossible to pirate the game, then people have to buy it if they want it. Why doesn't that work? If your copy protection is StarForce, then it doesn't work because people are boycotting your copy protection. StarForce, which installs a hard-to-remove driver onto your computer, has an unproven but generally accepted track record of causing computers to slow down -- at best. Some reports have complained of permanently damaged physical drives or hard drives."
Perhaps if they want people to stop stealing their software, they should stop calling software-stealers such a cool nickname. Arrrr!
First off, I pay for my games. However I don't install the games I buy. I chuck the disks in the trash, download the ripped copy, and then install a no-cd crack on it. I've got a rather impressive collection of games and I do it with every single one. Quite frankly, I completely see why people pirate games. The pirate copy is much more user friendly, installation goes quicker when it's from a HDD, and there's usually no DRM infection to potentially damage my machine. I truly think publishers are also going overboard and irking honest people, if I purchase DOOM III it tells me that I cannot have a legitimately purchased copy of clone cd running, when your video game tells me what software I can and cannot own it's trying to step WAY above it's station. While I still continue to support the industry, their tactics are not thwarting pirates, and they are pissing me off in a royal way. I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep buying their cd's to make landfill fodder and parting with my hard earned money.
I have bought a vast amount more software thanks to trying it out via pirate-distrobution first. Simple as that. Goes the same for music, movies, etc.
If they want to bitch about lost sales to me, I'll call them on their lying marketting and slanted, paid-off reviews. It's all about publishers wanting control when it comes down to it, and pointing fingers when a shitty game doesn't sell.
If they could spin it they'd have people buying the most terrible crap out there for $60 a pop (haha), as every magazine review and media outlet hails it as a hallmark of interactivity. No thanks. I'll continue to bittorrent and decide for myself who gets my money.
Don't bitch out people who pirate games and buy them. Bitch about people who don't pay. This isn't a judge dredd comic book. Civil disobediance against stupid laws like the DMCA that don't let me put a no-cd crack on the games I own is entirely appropriate and necessary. If everyone simply goes "oh it's the law lets always obey" society would be in a rather sorry state. Publishers are being paid for their work, there is abit of piracy, bringing down the hammer on it will only make it stronger, infecting users systmes with malware for corporate penny pinching is wrong.
Oblivion, one of the best selling games of the year, shipped with no protection at all. To listen to the copy protection companies you would think that they would have only been able to sell a handful of copies since anyone could rip and copy it in minutes. Instead, within a month over 1.7 million copies were sold (counting the 360 version as well).
There is not a major game that isn't cracked within days of release, if not hours. Protections may stop the casual copier, but they are not even slowing down anyone else. All the protection is doing is inconveniencing the consumer who is unable to easily back up their purchase.
There are always going to be those that won't pay for a product no matter what, but I believe that the majority of people will pay for something that's worth paying for. With the hours I spent playing Oblivion, it was well worth the purchase price, and by not putting invasive DRM on it I am much more inclined to purchase Bethesda software in the future.