Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
You use backups of the floppies, mounted virtually or burned onto an alternate medium.
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.
"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.
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.
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
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.