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Game Developer's Response To Pirates
cliffski writes "A few days ago, indie PC games developer Positech publicly called for people pirating their games to explain why, in an open and honest attempt to see what the causes of gaming piracy were. Hundreds of blog posts, hundreds more emails and several server-reboots later, the developer's reply is up on their site. The pirates had a lot to say, on subjects such as price, DRM, demos and the overall quality of PC games, and Positech owner Cliffski explains how this developer at least will be changing their approach to selling PC games as a result. Is this the start of a change for the wider industry? Or is this the only developer actively listening to the pirates point of view?"
I used to find it amusing that people are willing to live with Steam's DRM, but complain about DRM in general. I've personally resisted Steam for years and years before I finally decided that Steam's DRM is actually palatable compared to some of the shit that's out there (securom).
What's disappointing is how badly the large shops are butchering the PC gaming market with DRM that absolutely sucks. Bioshock, Mass Effect and Spore are all games I wanted to play but at this point I will not dump the money down for them. Even the Steam version of Bioshock contains securom. How screwed up is that?
I'm at the point now where I'm slowly turning towards indie developers for most of my gaming neads (Stardock) and I'm really really glad that Positech has made it to slashdot or I'd never have heard of this company. I'll have to look at their games more closely.
Surprisingly, people who successfully circumvent DRM are not forced to buy games, and instead pirate them. They find DRM annoying.
There is an obvious sample bias problem, as people not able to circumvent DRM (including downloading the work of other people), aren't pirates and wouldn't have respondeded.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
This developer needs to be modded up. I wrote and told them that I used to pirate games after I bought them because the pirate editions were generally easier to use and I didn't have to have a disk laying around to play it. I then explained that due to my limited time as a father messing around with any of it was crap and that I pretty much quit playing PC games in general. If this whole asking our customers what they want thing catches on maybe I'll finally be able to get what I want, when I want it, and the way I want it. Perhaps I could get back into video games on the PC again.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Same for me... I would honestly love to see more developers like 'id' to take on linux. EVE Online was cool to do it, and Blizzard is working hard with cedega at least to get WoW working as much as it can in a emulated run on linux.
1. Lose the damn copy protection. 2. Use Steam or develop a system where people aren't chained to a CD or Jewel case with a cryptic serial number on it. 3. Release honest demos. 4. Don't get bought by EA, they have no honor.
Agreed. :
And I would add to that
5. Can't trust review sites/magazines to give an honest opinion of the game.
It's simple as that. If you just make games where you have the biggest player audience instead of making games for those that are most likely to pay for their games, you're prone to having a lot of copies. If your market demographics consist mainly of people with little money and/or a low chance of getting caught, you will be copied.
There are simply people who buy and there are people who copy. And no copyprotection, no DRM, no law will get the latter to buy your games. If anything, DRM will drive those that would buy them (like me) away.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My main complaint about this is that you're installing executables from people of, at best, questionable morality. At least half the time somebody at school asks me to clean malware off their machine, it got there through a NoCD-type executable they downloaded off DC++.
Valve does seem to "get it" pretty well. Blizzard is moving this way as well, with legit NoCD patches, the ability to store your CD key online behind a username/password, and free binary downloads. They still have the keys, of course, and unlike back in StarCraft's day I can't memorize their newer ones, but it's still major progress.
As for copy protection, you're talking to the wrong people. Copy protection costs the developers - both in money for the software and public perception of the game. It wouldn't be there if it wasn't economically beneficial to include. Want to get rid of copy protection (which has been in use since the days of floppy discs)? Get the gamer community to STOP PIRATING. Once copy protection is no longer economically beneficial, it will vanish on its own. Developers are NOT *trying* to annoy their customers, merely to make a profit.
To rephrase that, anti-copy is not the disease, it is the symptom. Like a fever, it is the unpleasant effect of a battle against a much deeper problem. (Sorry for a biological rather than automotive analogy.)
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I like that guy's attitude.
Instead of corporate PR bullshit, he's honest, open and willing to discuss with his potential clients.
My answer to his question would most likely have been : I just fucking hate big games companies who are run by corporate idiots.
I'll probably give one of his games a try, just to encourage this kind of behavior.
You'll note that none of those developers are in business anymore. Many games that are distributed as abandonware, developers endorse the practice because they want their game to be played by people. Yet big companies bought out the old development houses and go after abandonware sites.
EA never produced the old Ultima games, yet go afte people distributing 20 year old games. Vivendi didn't make the old Sierra adventure games, but they've prosecuted people over them.
I think 5-10 years after someone stops selling software, people should be able to redistribute it as abandonware for software preservation.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Kudos to Valve's Steam letting me dow...
What are you talking about?!? Steam sucks! It *IS* DRM! It insists on being installed even when I bought the damned discs, it demands a network connection, it phones home, and it's flaky and crashes my machine repeatedly. HL2 was the last Valve game I'll ever buy. My wife thought I was over the top and bought Bioshock, and came to hate Valve even more than I did. She doesn't take kindly to hearing "I told you so", so I never said it.
I think 5-10 years after someone stops selling software, people should be able to redistribute it as abandonware for software preservation.
I completely agree. There needs to be laws in place to support this because right now if someone is filesharing Karateka for the Apple II, they are breaking the law.
Also, I agree with the term "preservation". We've already begun an age of IT archeology where people are trying to dig up games and word processors from years back to see how they worked in order to improve society today.
Another thing he failed to take into account is that people rationalise their "evil" choices to make it sound righteous. So people tell themselves and others its because of DRM or its because of the price or whatnot when in reality its just that they don't want to fork over money for it.
Now I know there are some cases where this really is the case but my point is that its bound to be overrepresented. Psychological studies take this into account when using self-reporting on behaviour as a source of data.
My other point is while, it might turn some people off, DRM also forces some people to buy the game, when they would have pirated it if they could (this is often more the case with indie games where there is not enough interest to develop a crack, than with major games) and this needs to be taken into consideration when making a decision.
Finally not all DRM is the same - a balance between security and ease of use might perhaps be best rather than a binary decision.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I have to agree - I really hate a game or software I brought, require some other control software being installed. Especially if it requires an internet connection to work.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I can't speak for the OP, but my interpretation was that people who are more likely to find DRM annoying are those who have to circumvent it - rather than for people who brought the game legit.
While DRM does cause issues in legit copies sometimes, the "anti DRM" group would be over-represented by the former rather than the latter.
When you say Cracked copies have no drm - what you mean is they have no drm because it was disabled, which importantly needs to be updated for each patch, causing more inconvenience for the pirate then for the legit owner. (I'm speaking here out of experience on both sides)
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I don't understand why so many people are proclaiming the greatness of what this single developer is doing by collecting opinions from his current and/or potential players.
He's not doing this because he actually cares about the "right vs wrong" way of going about things. He doesn't really care that you dislike DRM. The only reason he's removing DRM is because he thinks it will generate more revenue. If he starts making less money now that he's removed DRM, he's not going to keep it off because "that's what the gamers want". If adding DRM means more money, then he's going to add it right back on.
This whole thing just stinks of the usual "small shop's only marketing ploy is to cater to those who are sick of the corporates". And that kind of ploy only lasts until the small shop morphs into yet another corporate suck hole.
In his article on his site, he is even more transparent, stating...
"There was a point to all this, and it was partly to sell more (I have bills to pay!) as well as hopefully get more people to legitimately play my games."
Which I see nothing wrong with.
Being native to Linux is the answer for many Linux users, but certainly not all. I was using Nero + keygen for quite a while until two things coincided: 1) the quality of the product had risen making the product worth the money they were asking and 2) my income had risen to the point that I could afford the money they were asking.
But the same goes for other software that I have actually contributed my money to support. (I choose those words intentionally because I don't truly believe that software is a product in the sense that other products are.) I pay for software as a form of expression of my appreciation. I have even been known to donate to various free software projects because I appreciated what they did. This perspective, of course, is likely to be shared by a rather small portion of people and I recognize that.
But ultimately, there's a combination of what something is worth and what people can afford and when those two things intersect, you will find people more willing to buy or pay for something. I don't think it's all that mysterious and really doesn't need some sort of grand gesture like "ask the pirates." Hell, most of the coders and other software people have likely used software without paying for it at some point -- why did they do it? They should ask themselves and accept the answer is likely true for others as well. "Can't afford" is quite likely to be the most common reason closely followed by "not worth the price."
The presence of DRM or other software locking/security mechanisms are the result of greedy software makers knowing that not everyone is willing to pay their prices and are attempting to punish those who want to use their software anyway. Make no mistake about it, software protection measures are punitive in nature and design. And people are right to be offended by it. Some people think of it as no different from locking your home up when you are away, but it's quite different in that you're locking your neighbor's door to keep him form stealing from you when you go visiting. Software publishers fail to appreciate that their software is an add-on to an operating system and collection of existing software and data and should try to coexist and cooperate within that environment as a guest should behave himself in your home. Coming to your home and behaving with paranoia, fear and distrust is likely to result in negative feelings and impressions. Worse, attempts of software writers to include destructive anti-piracy measures goes well beyond the concept of the well-behaved guest principle that software publishers should observe.
People are willing to buy when it's worth buying... that's true of the majority of all people everywhere. There will ALWAYS be the element who will prefer something for nothing. Nothing will change their minds or influence their preferences on the matter. These software publishers generally need to come to terms with this aspect of human nature and factor it into their pricing models and business models. There will always be a certain amount of this, but when you price something properly, the people who behave badly are a small enough minority that they would be insignificant when compared to the people who pay.
You might notice, that since the days of floppies copy protection IS NOT STOPPING PIRACY.
If, and when Steam goes down that would not mean that you are unable to play your games. There are at least two present day work-a-rounds, not even counting the possibility that Valve releases a no-cd.exe before they croak.
When Valve croaks, they will not release a no-cd crack. If bankrupt they will be obligated by their creditors not to devalue assets by giving them away for free. If bought out, same thing.
1. When the Steam servers go down and your client fails to connect just throw it into offline mode. Then burn a back-up DVD of your game collect for future use.
And pray you never buy a new computer? Good plan.
2. Head over to TPB and grab a no-steam cracked copy of the game.
So your solution to failed copyprotection is use utilitilies that violate the DMCA and expose creators and users to liability? I'd think a real solution would protect the owners of software from defunct companies, not criminalize them.
When I wanted to check out "The Sims 2" I went out of my way to pirate it. EA's managed to alienate me (a customer who's spent thousands of dollars on their products) to the point where I'll actually spend more than $50 worth of my time to get a torrent.
Do the opposite of what they do, like George Costanza.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
Copy protection IS NOT economically beneficial to include (unless your a company who provides it), this must have been covered a hundred times already in comments on /.
Copy protection works like this;
Pirates like me who want to do what we want when we want with the shit we bought quickly bypass it and get on with our lives hassle free, no phone homes, no activations, no nothing. Its a program its mine. (be it an OS or a game)
So called 'legitimate' customers suffer under the burden of restrictive software and product activations, making their user experience miserable, and generating excessive amounts of frustration as a punishment for being 'honest'.
So wheres the economic benefit in this? The people who pirate your work become the good guys because they can take some of the hassle out of others lives (even the most complex hacks are usually easier to apply than the hoops DRM makes you jump through.) with their hacks. Said pirates are not affected by the DRM measures and the most important customer group you have (the ones who are paying you for the programs) are being hassled and treated like criminals.
Tell me please where the benefit is in there? Don't make the same stupid mistake all the developers do and assume DRM is actually effective at its stated purpose, it's not.
Your analogy falls short here because of this, DRM isn't a symptom, its a malpractice suit waiting to happen, its the wrong treatment and the wrong mindset.
When someone pirates your game the question is not 'How do I force them to buy a copy'. The question is 'What is there about the product I'm selling that makes the pirated version more appealing.' After all something about your product is making people decide its preferred to break the law and risk malware infections from third party executables.
The suits all yell about cash, but to me thats the Lowest consideration. If its a good game and I feel I've got my moneys worth I'm happy to pay (voting with your wallet works both ways after all).
Piracy is not the symptom, its the cure. DRM is the disease.
DRM doesn't necessarily force someone to buy the game. It very often forces people to say "This is more trouble than it is worth. I'm going to buy a Wii, where the DRM is transparent, and won't annoy me". Note that people who say *that* have no need to rationalize anything.
It's the side of the DRM equation that is generally ignored. Developers are so fixating in using DRM to force pirates to buy their games that they ignore the number of paying customers who don't buy their games *because* of the DRM. If the second outweighs the first, they lose money even though they've "stopped the nasty pirates".
It's like getting upset about shoplifting, hiring an uzi carrying security guard for every aisle and then wondering why your sales go down.
The cake is a pie
When Valve croaks, they will not release a no-cd crack. If bankrupt they will be obligated by their creditors not to devalue assets by giving them away for free. If bought out, same thing.
What makes you so sure they won't? Its not like they haven't already done this before, The last update for Half Life one released in around 03' striped the CD check.
And pray you never buy a new computer? Good plan.
I suggest you read the last sentence.
So your solution to failed copyprotection is use utilitilies that violate the DMCA and expose creators and users to liability? I'd think a real solution would protect the owners of software from defunct companies, not criminalize them.
Step one does protect the rights of software owners. Step two is just a back-up.
Oooh, ya! -- as a developer I was just thinking: "for <1% of the desktop market, I absolutely want to go through the nightmare of developing my software across multiple (and entirely different!) OS's!" -- That miniscule portion of the marketplace that is so anti-establishment and/or poor that they won't pay for any other software (i.e. *nux, OO.o etc.) will absolutely fill my coffers with their ducats if I only spend an extra thousand or so hours porting my perfectly good game to a hundred or so distros and learning the assorted niche technorati required in order to support it on them...
Sure, that sounds like a great idea...
-AC
I pirate games 'cause pirates are so cool dude!
Or I do it because I don't make enough to afford rent, food, gas, electricity, water (the basics) and internet, movies, music, WoW, etc. fun stuff.
Plus I have a relatively short attention span for most games, but longer than a demo version. If I truly like the game, I will spend money on it, so that I can own it. Though I usually wait for the game to come down in price.
The last great game that I... "Evaluated the full version" of was Call of Duty 4. I want to buy this game, I enjoyed it, and though I wouldn't play it daily, I'd still pay for it. But it's out of my price range (how long has it been out and it's still $50 "on sale" locally to me?). Once it drops in price a little, I'll gladly pay for the good game.
Basically I pirate, cause I'm poor, and cheap, and have the attention span of a coked out squirrel. Make a game fun, and affordable, and I'll throw money at you.
If your DRM will EVER prevent a legit customer from using a legit product that they paid for, it is bad. That's a pretty binary decision to me. Were I to develop games and try to copy protect them, if there was even a 1% chance a legit customer couldn't use the software they paid for, I'd skip the option.
I do too, and there are a lot I wish I didn't pay for = (
DRM causes issues in legit copies a LOT. I have a lot of games that worked when I bought them but don't work on my new hardware.
My solution wasn't to pirate... my solution was to stop buying PC games altogether. I have no hidden agenda when I say DRM prevents me from buying software.
I now have dozens of 360 and Wii games.. all paid for. I'm never going back to PC gaming.
And MOST of the time you'll find that those games are titles that require a legit copy to participate in online play...
And from a user's standpoint, the difference is academic semantics.
All comments are properties and trademarks of the voices in my head. Not like I'm gonna claim them.
What a troll.
Develop things properly in the first place, and it's not hard to support multiple OS's. The hardware is going to be identical, and a lot of the API's are at least comparable. You follow proper coding practices, and it's hard to NOT make an application trivially portable. Besides, most Linux users don't want too much tech support. They just want support of their choices. I don't use Linux because I'm too cheap to buy Windows... I use Linux because it just does what I want better, and doesn't get in my way of doing it. I think the same could be said of many Linux users. Some people will steal ANYTHING they can get. But that's not the majority, and it's not enough to worry about. The majority of people feel that the right thing is to reward people for their work in a fair manner. You give people an option for rewarding you in a manner that EVERYONE agrees is fair, and they will.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
And auto security systems haven't stopped car theft as a whole. Cars have had locks, alarms, and various other systems for decades now, and auto theft still exists.
Of course, experts in the auto security field will tell you that auto security systems are a deterrent, and not intended to stop the sum total of auto theft. The smarter ones who tell you that anybody who claims otherwise is being disingenuous and employing the straw man fallacy.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Lose the DRM and use Steam huh?
Mutually exclusive. Steam is an implementation of DRM. Moreso than requiring a CD in the drive, to be sure. It might be a good implementation. Okay, maybe instead acceptable
Let's not mistake Steam as merely some tool of our own convenience. It is a means of access control as well as distribution and handy middleware features. Yes, the community features, automatic updates, achievements, and ease of getting your games (both buying and redownloading) are delightful. To a large degree, it fills a niche similar to that of Xbox Live, for the PC.
But Steam is the gatekeeper. By some effort you can play offline, but for the most part you are dependent on Valve to not take away your pretties or otherwise poof out of existence. You know that familiar delay before you are deemed worthy to launch the game? It's the same issue that we bitch about near daily here on slashdot, but it's damn convenient in this case.
Do we *really* object to DRM on moral grounds? Or only the kind that gets in the way? Steam does work for you most of the time - your 'rights' being 'managed' in this case in such a way that redownload anywhere is permissible. I think we do object. We're praising Steam now because it's many steps up from our other options - just ignoring for the moment all the times my game list is empty for no apparent reason.
I think what you meant to say was to lose the annoying implementations of copy protection. The kind that inexplicably fails on certain configurations, requires you to download CD-cracks from unofficial channels to keep your sanity, and type in the CD key that you lost 4 years ago when reinstalling.
"Strangers have the best candy" -Me
Did anyone else notice the 2 copyrighted images from "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the article. For some reason, I doubt he properly licensed those, but I'm sure that is completely different than pirating a game.
i'd pay for games if they were native to Linux operating systems.
And this is relevant to an article about software piracy how?
That's an area I would also stress: when I buy a game legit, I would like to get the manual as well as a proper cd case for it. I make an exception for the bargain bin games which one expects this sort of thing - but I'm talking about games that you pay $40+ for which don't have anything else but a cd-rom in a paper sleeve.
P.S. Electronic copies of the manual on the cd is not a ok compromise.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Stardock is probably the most gamer friendly developer you will find. None of their games require the CD to run, the CD-key is not mandatory to installation (however, you cannot update the game if you do not key it in, but this is not unreasonable IMO) and they do a great job of supporting their games. Sins of a Solar Empire is an extremely fun game, and if you are into 4X games, Galactic Civ II was also fun IMO.
Dude owns a business and is up-front with it. Is it a crime to try to expand your audience?
Plus, it's nice to see someone who isn't immediately hostile to "us evil pirates."
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Although Steam is a form of DRM, it is also much more liberating than even having a cracked .ISO of a game. A purchased Steam game is available on any computer where you can install Steam. That means you have no .ISOs to keep track of, no discs to lose, no CD keys to remember, no authorization hoops to jump through. All you need is your steam account name and password.
Yes, it's DRM, but considering the fact that it lets you install your game anyway, as many times as you want, on whatever computer you want, I'm willing to accept it.
You use backups of the floppies, mounted virtually or burned onto an alternate medium.
If a game needs administrator privileges to install, its DRM is too intrusive. It's just not acceptable to give some no-warranty game the privilege to overwrite your system settings and install hidden software. There's a moderately high probability of hostile code being present, a strong possibility that the DRM system will open a security hole, and a high probability that the software will not uninstall fully.
If it won't install with unprivileged user privileges, it's hostile code. Send it back.
No you won't. You will complain and bitch that a Corporation is making on profit on top of Free and Open Source software.
You'll want and demand the game also be FOSS.
Indeed. Including a cloth map, a moonstone and an ankh in the packaging (Rest in Peace, Origin :~( ) will make more people buy the actual game instead of copying than any DRM ever will.
There are some remarks that can be made about price too, which similarly may have to be taken into account.
A lower price may attract more buyers, but then, stealing a $10 item may not be perceived as stealing a $20 item.
With every purchase on the internet I perceive a little unease. There go my credit card details to yet another party. I may not be going to risk it for a low-priced item (come to think of it, I cannot recall buying low-priced items over the Internet). He talks about Steam, which I presume is a sales outlet for software/games. He wants the buyer to buy from him (as it is not easy to join Steam). He could do something else: Contact other indie game developers and make a portal for their games. People will have to buy from only 1 shop, and it could attract even more potential buyers because there is more to see.
Bert
I'm not a big gamer... in fact, I really don't play much other than Nethack. However, I have pirated quite a few games - sometimes for other people, and sometimes "just to see what all the fuss is about" when lots of people are raving about it. I invariably delete it a week or so later out of lack of interest in it.
I have purchased a total of ONE game in my life. Uplink from Introversion Software. I played the demo at a friend's house, enjoyed it. Wondered if it was available for other platforms (my friend had the demo on Windows), and then discovered if I buy the CD, it comes with Windows, MacOS and Linux on the same CD. I immediately bought it.
I actually have all three of those Operating Systems (Win, Mac, Linux) at home, but simply having the choice went a long way towards my decision to buy it. That, combined with a very reasonable price, good playable demo to get me interested, and just the "geek chic" of the style of game itself were more than enough to make me want to buy it rather than pirate it. Like some other posters have mentioned, it's a matter of feeling as if you are rewarding the developer for their work - if you don't feel they SHOULD be rewarded for their work, you won't feel bad about pirating their stuff. Pirating Uplink would've made me feel really bad, because those guys definitely DID deserve to be rewarded.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
I do not live in US. But i have a kickass machine config, a fast 2 Mbps internet, and buy most of the games like CoH, CoH: OF, Age of Empires, etc.
Most games sold online or through Amazon are available only to US residents/credit card holders.
This forces me to pirate games that i love to buy, but CANNOT buy because the stupid publisher thinks US==World.
I had to ask my sis-in-law to buy games like Company of Heroes/Opposing Fronts from US, because these games are not available where i live and amazon refuses to ship them.
OTOH Stardock/Impulse pioneered a way to buy games without the US restrictions. So i ended up buying most of my games from them.
Second reason is DRM crap.
I bought crysis and i ended up with SecurROM which slowed down my DVD read/write drive to such an extent i had to reinstall XP.
Now? Crysis sits on my desk and i play CoH.
Third is the way the authentication of keys work.
I had to reinstall XP (problem above) without uninstalling anything (could not boot up PC).
Most games allowed me to reinstall without trouble (like CoH, Age of Empires, etc).
Stardock automatically allowed me to download same games once again without asking major questions.
WarCraft refused, saying am pirating.
Rise of nations refused to go online stating same reason.
Both support people were helpful, but wanted me to scan the original DVDs, proof of purchase and a signed affidavit stating i bought it from so-so dealer.
I bought Rise of nations a long time ago. Shifted homes thrice. P-of-Purchase NA. So no online! I sent the jpg shots of my game DVD, and a CD key paper i had retained.
When support refused to activate it, i cracked it.
After all, am "helping" the company to provide me the service i paid for. Right?
Short story: KISS and allow anyone to purchase your games from anywhere. Don't insist on stupid lawyers to restrict regions/countries.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
"devalue assets by giving them away for free"? What a straw man. If anything, they would be "devaluing the assets" if all Steam games stopped working. Hi, we're millions of enraged customers, here's a class-action lawsuit.
Maybe you meant that if Valve unlocked the games that the backup archives (you're aware that Steam can generate backup archives, right?) would be easily pirated. That's moot because piracy occurs regardless...every piece of media ever made can be and is cracked and made available on the internet if you know where to look.
Auto security systems are more like a password to access the car each time you use it (your car key). Even very complex modern car security is ALL bypassed when you unlock your car and start it with the right key - the additional security is just there to make it harder for people who don't have the key.
Now, imagine if the "worst of game DRM" were applied to your car:
1) You have to drive your car to a mechanic once a week to get "re-activated" or it'll stop working
2) If you want a friend to drive your car, they have to buy a separate key, that costs the same as a new car
3) If you want to drive your car to a city you didn't buy it in, your insurance won't cover you anymore
4) At any time, a mechanic employed by the manufacturer may come and make alterations to your car without your permission (potentially to install new security features that require you to do more insane things)
5) If you lose your car key, you must buy a new one at the same price as a new car
6) If the car manufacturer goes out of business, you can't drive your car anymore
7) The car manufacturer has the right to come and take your car away for any reason whatsoever
8) You are not allowed to modify your car in ANY way - not even a bumper sticker
(note: As it relates to game DRM, this is pretty much the "worst of the worst", and I'm not saying all of these together apply to game DRM in general, however ANY of the above points, even without the others, should NOT be acceptable!)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
but you're not management :)
This is a bit personal for me to say but I think that it will be okay and I won't bother posting AC as that goes against my beliefs.
I am a recovering meth addict. My drug use scaled every wall known to man it seems. My polymorphic drug abuse (we label it meth but, really, that is just to keep the paperwork simple) was rampant.
My mother passed away about a month ago. This was a troubling time for me. I could have used that as an excuse to use/abuse again. I could have "justified" it in many ways - those are called thinking errors.
The reality is that I should never use.
The reality is that if I do use that the reasons I give are full of shit.
If I'd used then I'd have not been using because my mother died, I'd have been using because I wanted to. There are many studies that show the nature of the brain during the addictive cycle and that may be the root of the problem but the reality is, none the less, that if I use it is simply because I wanted to.
To justify it, much like you're saying, is no excuse. They do it because they want to.
I have read some interesting things, "It was required for _________" or "I didn't have the money to pay for ________" but the reality is that they wanted it. In none of those circumstances is it required, forced, or the likes.
To those who want to make excuses, the one and only is, "I did it because I wanted to."
It is personal, it is accountable, it is real. There's a billion reasons you can argue to justify it but the only reason it is ever done is because we want to.
(This post is not to argue your point but to give my own personal perspective on it.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Same here, I used to pirate a lot of games (still do on occasion) but this was back in my collage days, I now have a job and have been buying the back catalogue of games I enjoyed playing when I can find them (most of them are now in). Piracy is good for determining a products quality before purchasing, I pirated Galactic Civilisations II, I liked it enough that I purchased it after 1 day (it being 25% off was a bonus). That being said I have pirated games that I'm glad I didn't pay for and also purchased games I regret paying for (Command and Conquer 3 I'm looking at you, as far as I'm concerned EA owes me AU$90).
My piracy to purchase rate is down significantly from when I didn't have a job or a lot of disposable currency. Buying has 3 advantages over Piracy, 1. ease of use, this is how it is meant to work, making it easier to acquire and use the software than it is to download, DRM works against this goal if I have to jump through more hoops to install it I may as well have pirated it in the first place. 2. Support and updates, many companies will keep putting out extra content (Unreal Tournament, Galactic Civilisations, HL/Team Fortress 2) which increases the value*(I'll get back to value later) I derive from the product and make sure that the product works on release or at least when problems are identified. 3. Multiplay, some people like playing against others, using simple non-intrusive key checks 99% combined with blacklists of compromised keys of pirates cant play online (I don't count this as DRM as its serverside, only treats you as the recipient and not the attacker at the same time).
Developers or I should say more distributors, please get this clue, you are not entitled to money just because you have made a product, you cannot force people to by your product, you can only ever entice them to buy your product and the best way to do this is to have a product with value. Value must exceed the cost of a product for a purchaser to actually want to buy it, games that are frustrating and don't deliver entertainment or are buggy/unfinished do not deliver value. Developers who are know for supporting a product after release tend to give value to a product before purchasing, developers who add extra content more so which influences purchasing decisions. I am far more likely to purchase a game from Valve or Stardock than I am from EA, THQ or Ubisoft if I have no other information on the game than the developer (or more rightly so in the context of this rant, the distributor). DRM, CD checks and no support detracts from the value of a purchase, I will not buy Bioshock because of this (OK I lied, I purchased it for AU$2 in a Bangkok market, so take that DRM) It's unfortunate that EA, THQ and Ubisoft have the mindset that they are entitled to payment just for releasing and blame piracy for failed games even when it is clear they were not worth buying.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The answer in my life would have been "No".
I'm a VFX artist. I got into the business in JrHi through pirating. I wanted to use the software but there was 0% chance I was going to afford $12,000 for Maya or $3,500 for Max. Since then prices have plummeted in some areas (Some versions of Maya are now in line with reality around $3,000). And now I have a home copy of Max and my studio pays for a license for work.
Educational software is dramatically more affordable than it used to be. But even then piracy offers a 0 risk point of entry for people to dabble without investment. I think most people who have a copy of Photoshop fall into this camp. It's the pirates who later 'settle down' and actually decide they want to use it for real who are most of their customers.
I wouldn't say $3,500 for software is unreasonable. I think it's probably about right for what you get. It's just unreasonable for someone who isn't making an income from it. And I don't mean a profit I mean an income.
3D Studio Max is still outsells just about every other piece of 3D software by 2-3x I believe. And I suspect a suspiciously large number of customers at some point in their lives dabbled in illicit copies.
That's why I applaud companies like Splutterfish who offer professional tools with very few limitations to the masses for free. They understand that there are lots of people who might want to play with something but not badly enough to actually spend any money. And as soon as the crack gets installed you've lost a customer. This is the point of inflection that has to be fought at all costs. As soon as someone has cracked their software they're not dramatically less likely to convert to a customer. You need to keep them using your software but not get comfortable pirating your work. Even if it means giving away more than you would like for free you want to keep them inside your sanctioned legitimate fence so that when the time comes that they do want limitless access they don't look to the Pirate Bay.
If you're under 18 I think these companies should be handing out their software like political buttons. You want customers who think your product is *the* product so that employers buy your product because it's *what people use*. It'll also broaden the horizons of people who might not even consider your category of software something they would want or need.
I keep pounding this drum: the future is already here, at least in China.
Problem: the core gaming audience won't pay for games. (Maybe its because they're poor, although darn, they cough up money for their iPods, sneakers, designer clothes, meals, computers, and ...)
Solution: don't sell games.
Sell items -- $1 for a Sword of Extra Harming. Sell server access -- $12 for a month of WoW. And when it ceases to be profitable, turn the whole system off and let the customers whine if that makes them feel better. They'll be back, because your business model is the only one in town. (Ever wonder why you can find a zillion Japanese games in the US, but the only Chinese/Korean imports are item selling games? It is not because Korea couldn't do a console RPG to save their lives -- it is because no Korean businessman is going to front $100 million to develop the Korean Final Fantasy when they can actually make money on Item Selling MMORPG #416.)
Slashdot should be careful of what it wishes for. It is very possible that in 2020 you'll never be accused of stealing a game ever again, simply because there are no games which can be owned in any sense of the word we're familiar with.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
While I agree with some of what you say (although I can assure that the QA alone for porting to multiple OS's is anything but trivial), there is a very simple reason why most major game publishers have little or no interest in Linux. Let me explain.
What percentage of Linux users do you think are gamers? Shall we say ten percent? OK, now, what percentage of that ten percent do not have a windows machine for playing games, and exclusively game on linux? Ten percent again? Personally, I think both these numbers are probably two high, but what the hell. OK, that is the sum total of the of the market from which you could gain extra sales by porting to linux.
Admittedly, I pulled the numbers out of my ass, but do you really think there are hordes of frustrated gamers out there sat in front of Linux boxes waiting for a port of GTA IV? Like I said, my numbers are probably too high. You are talking about a vanishingly small segment of the market. Sure, if there was a Linux port of, say, Dawn of War, I know several people who would have bought it, but each one of them bought the PC version instead, so the publishers gain nothing by porting it.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks
This is a big factor for me too. I bought Neverwinter Nights 2, instead of pirating it, in part because I wanted a proper manual. In that kind of game you tend to need to look things up as you play so a real manual is much more convenient.
Of course when I got it home and opened the box it turned out that the 'manual' was a ten page quickstart guide and the actual reference was just a pdf on the disc.
If publishers want to increase sales they should offer people a product that can't be replicated if the game is pirated. Whether this takes the form of physical items in the box or the ability to play online.
I often buy games that I have already downloaded pirate copies of partly because that way I know they are good and partly because I want to play online and that is rarely possible with a pirated copy of the game. My most recent purchase was Call of Duty 4, it has really good multiplayer with persistant stats and unlockable achievements. I have already played through the single player but was happy to buy the game for the mulitplayer content.
More carrot and less stick is what is needed.
Speaking from personal experience, I always achieved higher framerates under wine when running WoW.
:)
The only problems I did have were related to my xinerama/dual-head setup. Mix Wine and strange X setups and the shit is bound to hit the fan. But the point is even with an outrageous setup like that the game still ran...under linux.
Now, can you run linux native games under Windows? No. So we win
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
I've heard testimonies to WoW's superior framerate from both sides of the OS divide, and I believe they were all sincere. The point is that it is inconsistent. That is not good enough. That some people are able to get better rates with WINE isn't sufficient to show something is cross-platform. It needs to be developed that way in the first place so that people have the ease and reliability that you'd get on a Windows platform. No offense meant to WINE, but impressive though it is when you think about how hard the task is, it's not there yet.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Well, he's an indie developer, so some of his games are only $10 to begin with. That would probably be the minimal I'd give anyone as a donation. If you aren't worth $10, you aren't worth a donation at all. Plus you'd get a game, you'd be able to try it out, and you might even like it. If there is a donation box, you could still use that, but at the prices of these games, I'd just recommend buying one if you really want to support him.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I agree with most of what is written here. My main hobby is drawing (paper and pencil, or computer tablet). Mostly I try to use Gimp when I draw on my computer, but Photoshop has some features that I like AND there are a lot more guides and instructional videos for Photoshop than Gimp (unfortunately). But I wouldn't be able to actually go out and buy Photoshop so I try to use Gimp for moral reason.
But Yes it's a bit of a catch that if you want to work with graphic or music you pretty much need to learn how to use software way before you are in a position to buy it. Friend of mine have a home studio, played and mixed music since he was 12, most of his software is pirated. Because legal versions is very expensive, but if we want to work with sound and music he have to learn and increase his experience. He is pretty firm that if he actually at some point start making serious cash, he is beginning to since his level of expertise has reached a significant level, he will buy all the software he needs so ensure everything is good and legal.
When it comes to games I usually pirate a game, play it for a few days, get sick of it and delete it. The games I play for a long time like the Total War series (or Team Fortress 2, go go steam), I buy. But for the most part games are way to expensive to buy just to realize, like many others have said, it's utter crap. Or at least not good for more than a few hours worth of below average entertainment.
That being said when decent games comes along I am more than happy to go the extra mile to not just buy the game, but to buy the extra expensive collector's edition (I am a sucker for concept art books most of all). But I just can't afford to buy games if I am not absolutely certain it's worth the investment.
The Long Now Foundation
And this is the same criteria I use when buying products. I've bought DRM'd things in the past thinking 'that won't affect me because I don't use this in a way that the DRM doesn't allow.' Then, a bit later, my usage has changed, and I've been bitten by the DRM. Now if there's even a hypothetical chance that the DRM will prevent me from using the product then I assume it won't work for me at any arbitrary time in the future and I am no longer willing to pay an amount corresponding to a sale, just to a short-term rental.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Consumers are PEOPLE, first and foremost. They have a sense of right and wrong, and most importantly, fairness. There are outliers, but the majority of people want to play fair.
The majority of people will pirate if they think they'll get away with it, without social stigma or punishment. Online pirating is practically risk free, so the question people ask themselves is - Why not, after all, everyone else is doing it?
To use your analogy, if the gas station in town sells at $3 a gallon and suddenly people find they can syphon off fuel for free, and no one will notice, how many people would take advantage of that - I'd say over 50%. And you can rely on them coming up with post-facto justifications like 'The price was too high, they were ripping us off', 'I can't afford gas' etc.
You said : Software publishers fail to appreciate that their software is an add-on to an operating system and collection of existing software and data and should try to coexist and cooperate within that environment as a guest should behave himself in your home.
Thats Wrong, no one buys a computer to run an OS, people use OSes to run applications on their computers. Apps sell computers OSses run those apps.
You also said : People are willing to buy when it's worth buying.
Thats wrong too, if people can get it for free and dont get any kind of punishment for it , they wont pay for it (I know there are a few exceptions).
I wont judge the motives that anyone copies something, but one thing is for sure, there are no noble motives either, a game isnt exactly food or medication or any kind of thing you need to live. There is NO justification for copying software and using it on a regular basis, there are : free alternatives for most apps, games arent a prime necessity, if games are too expensive is because people DO pay that kind of money for them, try this, do not buy new games if they are too expensive, buy 2nd hand ones. So IMHO if you want to copy games and movies do whatever you want but dont waste bandwidht saying that you do so because of _insert_noble_and_oh_so_sad_story_ , you do it because you are being selfish and do not want to pay the price that someone asked for it, and because you can do it and get away with it !!!
Jorge
Personally, I think the major reason that pirates steal games is that gold-laden Spanish galleons are now awful hard to come by.
Yeah and cruise ships are surprising well armed.
Unfortunately some software, even though I like, I won't pay for becuase the cost is too high (i'm looking at you photoshop)... so they get bubkis.
Photoshop is professional software intended for professionals. It's not intended for the guy in his basement cropping photos for his blog.
I'm guessing that, the features you use in Photoshop, are free in Paint.NET, or cheaply gotten in Photoshop Elements (the non-professional version of Photoshop.) If you're actually using CMYK separations, and other pro features in Photoshop, then you're an idiot for saving a few hundred bucks on the software after paying tens of thousands on the printing equipment that requires it.
Comment of the year
But the same goes for other software that I have actually contributed my money to support. (I choose those words intentionally because I don't truly believe that software is a product in the sense that other products are.) I pay for software as a form of expression of my appreciation.
This is a total cop out.
Someone worked hard to develop an application. Why is it not a product? Because it's soft? That's the same line of thinking that people have when they say, "Oh...just throw a quick fix in...it's easy 'cause it's software!"
Face it. If you could get away of having free copies of electronics, food, etc that isn't "worth it" - you would. Why? Because you like free. Of course, this is much easier to get away with when it comes to software and you can justify it as, "I don't appreciate the software." If you really believed that, you wouldn't download and install free software in the first place. Anything else is just you justifying you getting something for nothing.
Blizzard seem to be quite successful developing graphics intensive games for both Windows and Mac at the same time.
What Blizzard games have you been playing? Blizzard is consistently anywhere from 3-5 years behind the state-of-the-art when they release their games; in their case, it's a purposeful decision which results from "we want it to run on mid-range hardware on release" and "we'll release only when it's done," and I'm not saying that Blizzard games suck because of it, but I certainly wouldn't call them "graphics intensive."
WOW and Everquest 2 came out at the same time; take a look at those two side-by-side and tell me which is more graphics intensive. EQ2's engine simply blows WOW's out of the water.
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What a terrible analogy to choose (unless you were trying to disprove your own words).
You would NOT buy a car without test driving it first. Neither would you buy a house, or even a shirt, without trying it first.
But for software you are asking people to purchase something shrink-wrapped as a done deal, and then complaining about their motives.
Every company will naturally say "ours' is best" ... that's called advertising ... but the reality doesn't always live up to the expectations.
When you are being asked to make a capital investment of 3,000 dollars for some software, you'd better be DAMN sure it's what you want.
Ever wondered why so many companies give a free trial, anywhere from a month to a year, before asking you to buy the thing ? It's called an "evaluation period".
Any company who doesn't trust their potential customers enough to allow them to "test drive" their product before purchase is not getting a cent from me.
"That's obviously not the case with stealing from someone's house, where you actually deprive the person of their property and the person is left worse off than they were before."
I didn't say anything about stealing from the home.
Yes, copyright infringement doesn't physically take anything away from the copyright owners. That's not what I'm addressing. What I don't understand is where the sense of entitlement comes from.
I'm not willing to pay $1000 for Adobe Creative Suite. By what reasoning am I, therefore, entitled to a copy of the software? I have yet to hear a rational answer to that question.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I think his point was that while you would rather game on the Linux partition, you *have* a Windows partition that you use for games. As long as you're willing to go to that extent to play their game, what's the gain for the game company? You're going to buy it anyway, for Windows. All they get out of it is goodwill.
Personally, I see how they could garner a *lot* of goodwill very easily with certain sections of the market by porting to Linux, but realistically, the amount they'd gain wouldn't be enough.
Someone worked hard? No. Programming is what people do for a living when they don't want to work hard. And the really good coders do it under a sense of inspiration.
Heh. You, obviously, have never developed software in your life. Developing software is not hard work from a "I sweated while busting concrete for a road today," but, it can be mentally exhausting coming up with a good algorithm that solves a complex problem and can take some time to do.
Why is it not a product? Have you read a typical EULA?
Just because companies like Microsoft have completely messed up how software is viewed does not make it any less of a product. Again - you're just trying to justify getting something for free.
If a car had the problems software had... Do I really need to complete that? If a car had the guarantees that software comes with... Once again, no need to complete that. We have an unspoken, unexplainably low expectations for software. No returns, no refunds, on and on and on...
Yes. We do have low expectations for software. Here's the problem - creating GOOD software is difficult. It's extremely difficult. There are far too many people in the industry who should not be there. This is the real problem. There should be far more stringent requirements for software developers.
As for the no returns/refunds...well...unfortunately people who steal software have been the reason for that. It's so easy to make a copy of software, stores have no other choice but to not accept refunds. Maybe some sort of Lemon Law would be good (to take your car analogy) for software. I don't know.
Software as a product or as an industry is inappropriate. This is far from a cop out.
Um. Do you realize that pretty much everything you come in contact with in your daily life (banking, POS systems, your cell phone, etc) runs software that is supported by a software industry? Without that industry, you wouldn't even be able to start your car (or pump your gas to fill up your car). Of course, that wouldn't matter to begin with because you wouldn't be able to buy your car because your bank wouldn't have software to support the transaction in the first place.
In general software makes our lives easier. Yes, there are software systems that suck. Again - too many bad developers are part of the industry and should not be.
I haven't bought music in a very long while, but when I do, it's often as a gift for someone else or something along those lines. One thing about old music or old books is that they're often as good now as when they were written or performed. Can this really be said for software? Software is at best a temporary, disposable tool or distraction and should be priced and treated as such. In the grand scheme of things, software should remain as it started out and not as a "product."
Horrible analogy. Books and music do not have the same intent as software. Additionally, books and music have had the experience of millions of years of development. Software has really only been around for...oh...maybe 50 years. It's still very new and is constantly evolving.
Also, have you listened to every piece of music and read every book that has ever been written? Yes, there are some "classics" that are still very excellent today. But for every classic, there are thousands of pieces that were complete failures (and rightly so).
And, I honestly have no clue what you mean by your last statement.