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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?"

58 of 734 comments (clear)

  1. I use the tools... by binaryspiral · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When a no-cd crack or hacked exe for a game I purchased is released, I usually use it instead of carrying the CDs around with my laptop.

    Kudos to Valve's Steam letting me download and install the game on multiple machines without treating me like a frickin' crook.

    And the occasional time I've actually downloaded and ran a pirate game just to see if it was worth buying. I've been burned on way too many awesome demos and lackluster final games to drop $50 on a whim.

    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.

    1. Re:I use the tools... by cfkboyz · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I completely agree. The more they push DRM the less I buy. I hate being told I am a bad guy as soon as I break the shrink wrap. I am the customer and I should always be right. If not I will take my money else where. If that fails Pirate... and i don't think pirating is fair but if they leave me no choice that what they deserve.

    2. Re:I use the tools... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      i think it's pretty safe to say that steam will be around for a few years. if you're really that into a game that you're still playing it a decade or more from now i guess you have a point. normally i don't get upset about games of that nature though, i just buy another copy of it from the bargain bin.

    3. Re:I use the tools... by bh_doc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you think that pirating can ever be completely eliminated then you're hopelessly naive. There will always be at least a small subset of gamers who pirate games just because they can, whether they are "copy protected" or not. Then, developers will continue to (falsely) believe that copy protection is economically beneficial, ignoring (or not realizing) that by doing so they are driving away real paying customers.

      To continue your medical analogy, it's like the common cold. There is no treatment for the cold virus itself; it will always exist and the best you can do is treat the symptoms. But if your treatment gives you even worse side-effects... maybe you should try something else?

    4. Re:I use the tools... by enoz · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Steam games are the only PC games I buy.

      Not only have Steam got a user friendly authentication system, but they also have very reasonably priced games (if you buy direct).

    5. Re:I use the tools... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It doesn't have to stop piracy. It just has to stop enough piracy to be worth more to developers and the game industry as a whole than the losses due to the annoyance factor.

    6. Re:I use the tools... by Rowanyote · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unfortunately the copy protection is part of the reason that games are getting pirated. It adds to the cost of the product (driving away people who would buy at a lower cost), it imposes ridiculous hoops to jump through (making it easier to download a cracked version than to get through the registration and DRM), and it shows that publishers don't trust their customers.

      This last element is important, if a person is already being treated like a criminal or a potential criminal, it makes it far less of a leap for that person to act in such a manner. If a person is shown an element of trust they are more likely to act in a trustworthy manner.

      There certainly are exceptions, people who will take advantage of the trust, but most likely these are the same people that would have pirated the game even if the DRM were in place.
      --
      Sometimes the wolves are silent and the moon is howling

    7. Re:I use the tools... by AndrewNeo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While I don't -only- buy Steam games, I try and buy them there if I can. I don't need media, I don't have to give Walmart, Best Buy, or *shudder* Gamestop their cut, and for Valve games, the money goes exactly where I want it to go: Valve. They also tend to have preloading or first week 10% discounts on a lot of new releases, and they'll have weekend sales a lot (I got Bioshock for $15 a few weeks ago, I probably wouldn't have purchased it otherwise.) I like having my games accessable from any computer, and if I don't want to download, I can carry around the GCF files, like for playing on school computers. Personally I'd rather have Steam's control rather than hijackable CD keys, or game-breaking 'protection'.

    8. Re:I use the tools... by SendBot · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know, most of the pirated game releases I've come across aren't nefarious products of people with "at best questionable morality". They're heavily community-oriented, giving shouts out to people and crews and recruiting qualified crackers. And get this: a lot of them actually encourage you to buy the game if you like it.

      I've been completely burned by games I've bought new. For instance, star wars rebel assault for gamecube, which just SUCKED. And then I bought the sims box set at w-mart once, having ALREADY paid for the original, only to find out that the expansion installs were so borked that the thing didn't work AT ALL.

      Note: I've been channeling LOTS of money toward game makers for over two decades.

      It wouldn't be there if it wasn't economically beneficial to include.

      Because... you say so?

    9. Re:I use the tools... by rekrutacja · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > anti-copy is not the disease, it is the symptom

      The problem is much deeper than you think. Copy protection is artificial method of changing digital work - which you can copy with no cost - into analog object you can sell in a pretty the same way you sell bottles of booze. People do complain about copy protection, because this simply doesn't fit digital realm, which people got used to. I do not think you will be able to change people behavior. Game developers will be forced to adapt. Kongregate is a good example how this may be achieved. They changed business model. They moved from selling bottles of booze into selling services, ads etc. For others lowering prices to the point, that its easier and cheaper to buy or download one from official website than burden with warez server, is a way to go. In my country developer CDProject mastered this tactic years ago, with local Baldur's Gate release which was almost the same price in official box and as pirated CD's on the street, but box included a themed mouse pad. This proved to be a selling point. For others associated merchandise may be more important than game sales by itself. Most successful developers will closely look at local prices: 3$ in US is not much money, 3$ in Brazil is quite a lot.
      Game industry will be fine. Businesses will adapt and will find viable business models in a world, where people copy everything. We do have such businesses already, so question is "when", not "how".

      --
      This Is Not a Sig
    10. Re:I use the tools... by PitaBred · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Do you really think they've gone to enough trouble to actually work those numbers out? Because it seems to me like they're all like Tarkin, and more and more star systems are slipping through their fingers. 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. If a lot of people are pirating your stuff, more than about 5%, then you're doing SOMETHING to make them feel that they aren't being treated fairly. You aren't entitled to obscene profits. You aren't entitled to ANY profit. As a business owner, your raison d'etre is to make a product at a price you can sell it at and still make a profit. If people feel taken advantage of by the only gas station in town selling it at $10/gallon, you can bet your ass thefts will go up.

    11. Re:I use the tools... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I just like how they pirated Disney photos for their website.

    12. Re:I use the tools... by HadouKen24 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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. Correction: It wouldn't have been used if it had not been thought to be economically beneficial.

      The fact that it was once economically beneficial does not mean that it will always continue to be beneficial. There are currently no major PC titles for which the DRM has not been circumvented with easily acquired cracks. At this point, getting around most games' DRM is no more difficult than downloading a file and copying it to the right directory.

      The ease of acquiring a crack seems to make it unlikely that DRM is any kind of deterrent to piracy. On the other hand, DRM is driving users away. I don't think DRM is economically beneficial anymore. The big game companies just haven't caught up with this yet.

    13. Re:I use the tools... by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      "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."

      This is a complete cycle that will never end. It's like saying "If game companies didn't have DRM I wouldn't pirate their shit." and the companies saying "If people didn't pirate our shit we wouldn't have DRM." Round and round, nothing solved.

      It will take a developer or ten to stop with DRM to make people trust them and stop pirating. It will never completely vanish, and using DRM to try and stem the minor leak of piracy when dealing with a solid product and good distribution, will only cause problems instead of solving them. -R

      --
      If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
    14. Re:I use the tools... by delt0r · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And when steam goes belly up? Or just stops "supporting" older games? Or gets brought out by Yahoo/EA and they discontinue the service? Then what?

      Steam is DRM plain and simple and Just like the yahoo music shop or M$ Music, it won't be authenticating your games forever.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
    15. Re:I use the tools... by Spatial · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unless you specifically tell steam otherwise, it will keep all your games up to date, so you never have to check the game maker's site for patches.

      You forgot a disadvantage there. Last time I checked, you can't choose not to update a game and still be able to play it. This can ruin some games, like Stalker, which require a specific version of the game to run certain mods. If I had bought that game on Steam I wouldn't be able to play the game the way I want.

      Then there was Counter-Strike, where they added obnoxious in-game adverts. I uninstalled it and never played again. I bought the game, they put in adverts after the fact with a patch. Thanks Valve! How many people would've bought the game if it had adverts to begin with? How many people would've downloaded that patch if they had a choice? Not me.

    16. Re:I use the tools... by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There are lots of highly-reviewed games (ie. average over 90%) with under 200,000 sold through (which makes them a serious financial failure) and lots with scores under 75% but over a million sold through.

      I think that is just it. If we are grading on a 0-100% scale, shouldn't we use 50 as the median score meaning it is an average game? With the way most review sites work, 80-95% is the average score. This leaves way too little room to really distinguish the genuine gems from the rest. Scores are skewed too high and then some type of logarithmic scaling occurs for those last 6-8% points as well as reviewer bias in terms of system/console it is released for.

      And on the PC side, now just about the only thing we see is FPS after FPS after FPS (with a few RTS's thrown in for measure), yet, if you look at almost any of the Top 10 of all time games, you might see just 1 or 2 FPS games listed in there. I am personally pretty tired of FPS games. While I still play CS:Source, I don't really care for anything else. In fact if you do aggregates of most all the different Top 10 of All Time from all the different publications and polls out there, you only see 1 FPS even pop up more that 7 times across the 30 or so lists that are out there, and it is "Goldeneye 007" for the N64 of all things (which I have to agree was an awesome game). DOOM, Quake, or Halo (1, 2 or 3) didn't even get mentioned more than 2-3 times. So why is these they only games that keep getting dumped out in the PC market? Any why do the still get 80-90% for all of them? And will you seriously tell me that "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", which is on just about everyone's Top 10 of All time lists really only deserve a 95% in reviews when it first came out from places like Gaming Age or even Nintendo Power (9.5 of 10)? So what does it take to get that 100%? or 10 of 10? And even then, why would a so-so game like Crysis also get things like 9.5 or higher when in reality it is a pretty crappy game. Yes it has all the latest graphics bells and whistles, but aside from that, what does it really have? It is a horrible implementation which runs terribly on just about any PC hardware. If you look at user reviews, it gets maybe around an 8 of 10, which is certainly a lot less than the 9.5 that most magazines gave it.

      --
      We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
  2. This is awesome. by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone *this* in touch with not only their customers but with obvious potential customers definitely knows what they're doing.

    I'm seriously considering buying a few of his games even though I've never heard of the company before.

    PS: If you need a very experienced web developer...

    --
    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
    1. Re:This is awesome. by mazarin5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The truth is that it's already a popular opinion in the games industry that piracy really doesn't lead to lost sales; most of those people wouldn't pay for it even if they couldn't play for free. In the meantime, it bothers only legitimate customers. Unfortunately, the biggest publishers are still keen on "protecting their investment," so we're unlikely to see change any time soon.

      --
      Fnord.
  3. Re:First Post by master5o1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i'd pay for games if they were native to Linux operating systems.

    --
    signature is pants
  4. Fix Abandonware by fyrie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No one sells Ultima, Pools of Radiance, or Summer Games for the C64 anymore. If I wanted to play this game, my only choice would be to pirate it unless I could find a working copy on Ebay.

    Services like Gametap and Good Ol' Games need to fill this market so that people don't have to become criminals to play games of yonder years.

  5. Sounds good.... by gfxguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This guys sounds like a genuinely decent guy who's making efforts to make customers happy to reduce pirating; that's all great, but it seems to me, having never heard of his company, he's done an awesome job of getting a lot of free advertising.

    Not that that will keep me from perusing his games...

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  6. Linux Ports Please by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Your site says you do Mac ports. Can we get some Linux ports as well please?

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  7. Re:First Post by nawcom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i'd pay for games if they were native to Linux operating systems.

    I also agree, though the main issue here is when it comes to selecting between directx and opengl. Some devs design it so it is easy to run with wine wrappers (think spore). I am a little surprised that they didn't make a linux native version of spore, since they can easily use wine (or at least transgaming's optimized and modified build of it) to run it (from what i understand, the main issue with good ol' open source wine is depth perception + winsocks trouble).

    An amazing example of directx games running in wine are any Valve games that run off the Source engine. I'm curious if this was a surprise or an expectation from the devs. If anyone knows about that let me know.

  8. Video Game System by pembo13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I personally pay for 100% of the games that I play on the Wii. Just wanted to throw that out there as a partial suggestion.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  9. Re:Penny Arcade on affordable games by Eskarel · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Personally(and I don't have an X-box, so this is just a feeling). I think that the problem with Braid and its pricing is the same as what's wrong with a lot of PC gaming pricing(and for that matter most entertainment industry pricing).

    When you buy a game you're not buying a game, you're buying the fun you'll have playing it, and the price you pay for a game is more than the dollar amount on the sticker, it includes all the games of the same class you bought which didn't provide the requisite entertainment.

    If every game were fantastic then people would probably be perfectly willing to pay $60(or $100 in my neck of the woods, which with today's exchange rates is criminal) for it, because you'd be getting good value for entertainment.

    However since even with proper research it seems these days that best case scenario only 1 in 3 games really provides you with value on the entertainment front, from an entertainment perspective that game actually costs at least $180[$AU300] because for every good game you manage to buy and which provides value for money, you generally bought two which got dull after the first level, didn't offer what they promised, or were generally crap. This markup shall hereafter be referred to as the dud factor.

    The problem with Braid, and for that matter probably with this guys games, is that the class of game they exist in(small studio amateur) has a much higher incidence of crap(or at least games which while good didn't provide value for money) compared even to most commercial games these days. This means that even if your game provides as much entertainment as a commercial title, the dud factor makes your game seem, at half the price, to be even more expensive. The hotdog and novelty t-shirt in the penny-arcade comic are both known quantities and so don't have this dud factor markup. If you get a bad hotdog you can usually complain and get another one, and you can see everything that the t-shirt is when you hold it in your hands.

    This kind of sucks for small development shop games, as even if they're the most incredible thing in the world very few people will buy it at a higher price, but in other ways it's a good thing, because it means that if you're clever and you build up a good reputation so that people can feel confident in your product you can reduce the dud factor and therefor increase the price you can charge for your games.

  10. Re:First Post by theheadlessrabbit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    i have done something similar. i used to pirate everything. hell, i used to brag that my computer (which was given to me for free) had over $10,000 of software on it, none of which i had paid for.

    i was in school, i had no money, and i needed these programs for assignments (art school-video, photography, sound, etc...these apps aren't cheep)

    i have no problem using cracked goods as a student. but im not a students anymore. they day i graduated, i formatted the hard drive and went for a fresh start. but now im a poor college grad.
    no more stolen photoshop, now i use the gimp (while i save up for photoshop). no more audition, now i use audacity. no more stolen ms office, now i use open office. no more stolen windows, now i use ubuntu, and a free copy of winXP work gave me.

    its hard to describe, but it feels good not being a pirate. it feels good to know that i am a legitimate user of quality software, and that i am supporting the makers of that software.

    i think i'm always going to pirate software 1st to try it out before buying, i've been burned in the past. but now that i am employed, i do buy it when i find it to be useful. premier is garbage, sony vegas is amazing, and worth the money, (even though i hate to support evil sony, this one is worth the money)

    although, after buying the legit copy, i rarely actually install the legit version.

    --
    -I only code in BASIC.-
  11. Re:Mod parent fallacious! by piojo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, part of the big joke is that a game, once cracked, a game effectively has no DRM, no nag screens, no internet phoning home, no CD-ROM checks, etc. A legally purchased game continues to require these things, and over the long run, is more annoying than a cracked copy. This has been a problem with music, too, because an MP3 with no DRM will play on any device (which is a lot more than an encrypted AAC file).

    --
    A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
  12. Re:First Post by roystgnr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    The first thing to ask someone like that is: "What [games/movies/music/etc] have you *not* pirated?" If they can name several titles, then you know there's at least some way for publishers to behave differently which could cause such a person to make another purchase instead of committing more copyright infringement. If they try to insist that every single creator in an entire medium can somehow be dismissed with one rationalization or another, then you can be pretty sure they're either lying to you or lying to themselves.

  13. Demo to Full - make it easy! by seifried · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not make it easy for me to try out a demo and upgrade to the full version, I can pay $20 up front, or play an extended demo and play to the end of the demo (say halfway through the full thing, or with weapons/skills/whatever only in the full version) and pony up $20. But make it easy, like literally hit a key combo in game that launches my default browser to the right URL, payment should take ~10 seconds or less, and then the game goes legit (automatically or in some very easy manner). Literally make it as easy as buying a cup of coffee (probably one reason so many people buy cups of coffee =). It shouldn't interrupt the game for more than 60 seconds to upgrade. I suspect if there were games with this system they'd sell relatively well.

  14. Re:First Post by GuruBuckaroo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know exactly what you mean. For about a year, I used a cracked copy of Spacial Audio's SAM Broadcaster to DJ over the internet. It did the job I needed it to, but it never really left me feeling right. This summer, I paid off a loan that left me with actual /disposable/ income for the first time in my adult life, and one of the first things I did was plop down $279 for a legal copy. Not because I needed the upgrade, I could have swiped it too - but because I wanted to support the work they did. I love this program. And I /do/ feel better now - I can't really explain it, but, I do.

    Of course, then there's my music library. I don't feel any remorse about screwing the RIAA. I'll support the artists by paying for concerts & such.

    Yeah, so I'm a hypocrite. It's taken you this long to figure that out?

    --
    Poor means hoping the toothache goes away.
  15. Re:First Post by Belial6 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    DRM stopped me from 'pirating' games. I used to 'pirate' about 80% of the games I would play, and buy about 20%. Which lead to me buying about 4 games a year. DRM has become enough of a pain that I just don't play games anymore. I have found new toys that are less of a hassle. So, while it is true that the DRM stopped ~16 cases of 'piracy' a year, it has not improved the game industries profits at all.

    Of course, the continuing crappier and crappier packaging didn't help. Here is a hint. Put the game in a gem case. If you must put it in a paper sleeve, then at least include the proper art work so that when the customer puts the game in a gem case themselves, they have proper professionally printed spines that they can read. I know that if I have to do the manufacturing myself, I am far less inclined to pay someone else for it.

  16. Re:First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Amen. I was waiting for someone to say that. The pirates that hate DRM are over-represented here and the FA's minority of pirates that do because they can (and as such may lack morals) are seriously under-represented.

    Asking a pirate WHY is nonsense.

  17. DONATIONS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sorry for hijacking your thread but is there any way to just donate without purchasing one of the games? I'd like to support this kind of business model.

  18. Re:First Post by wmbetts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was a Comp Sci major so I qualified for a student copy of Visual Studio, but it was horrible. I prefered my priated version to the student version, because the every time I ran a program compiled with the student version there was a pop up that said something about it being compiled with a student version. So anything I worked on was nerfed. I couldn't afford a copy that didn't have that annoying pop up so I pirated it even though I got a student version for free. Now that I'm not in college any more I could afford to buy a legit copy.

    --
    "Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
  19. Re:DRM is a pretty lame excuse by MattW · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I greatly respect what RMS has done, but there are a lot of things I really enjoy that I can't really see coming out in a noncommercial form. I can *maybe* see some tipjar model where copies are freely made but the game still is commercially successful, but only maybe.

    Would I have gotten Baldur's Gate 2, Dark Knight, Portal, or a hundred other amazing pieces of IP if those people couldn't expect to get paid?

    I do believe that DRM should have a backdoor. All DRM should have to explicitly spell out what you CANNOT do, and everything else should be allowed. The "cannot do" and the product should be registered with someone (library of congress?) along with software capable of removing it entirely. In the event someone is restricted from doing something not on the predeclared "cannot" list, they should be able to acquire the "crack" from the LoC.

    I think a system like this, where people could, in general, feel comfortable they'd get what they paid for, would make people much more ready to buy things with DRM. Maybe not. It would for me.

    I've often thought that offering a "format guarantee" sticker on media would spur sales. I think people are tired of having bought the vinyl, the 8-track, the cassette, the CD, the mp3; or, alternately, the betamax tape, the VHS tape, the laserdisc, the DVD, the HD-DVD/Bluray disc. Enough. I want to pay for content once. Then I want to get it in whatever formats I want for a nominal fee (ie, cost of media). I want to be able to send in a hundred DVDs, and get back a hundred blu-ray discs for $200 + $10 shipping.

    Anyhow, I digress. I think opposing the moral rights DRM tries to protect is in error. Original, creative works deserve some measure of limited-time protection. But I also think trampling consumers on the way to maximizing profits is both self-destructive for the creators and unpleasant for consumers.

  20. Cliffsky is a pirate too! by psyopper · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Isn't it ironic... I went to the "response" page listed and what did I see? Two screencaps from Priates of the Carribean. That is porperty owned by Disney, did Cliffsky get copyright approval to post those images on his "response to piracy" page? Is he no better than the very pirates he is trying to appease?

    1. Re:Cliffsky is a pirate too! by Tuoqui · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think it'd fall under Fair Use since its a two frames out of a 1-2 hours movie, appropriately cropped/zoomed to focus on the faces. Quite common in movie reviews and what not.

      --
      09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
      +2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
  21. Re:Real World Goodies by HadouKen24 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    IIRC, adding that kind of thing to games was in response to piracy. Infocom got the ball rolling in that area by packaging some nifty "feelies" with their games. At the time, anyone could pirate a game who could copy a floppy. Adding feelies was a ridiculously popular move that kept Infocom in business until the move from text-based games to graphical games.

  22. Re:First Post by cheater512 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The interesting question is whether you would have paid for it if you hadnt pirated it first.

  23. The worst pirates I know are game writers by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, I only know very few game writes, so the stats are a bit thin, but the game writers I know are the worst pirates of all the people I know. They will readily pirate both material as well as development tools, OSs etc then bitch like hell if anyone rips off their games.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  24. Re:Real World Goodies by cube135 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They also were a layer of copy protection, often because they were hints or clues to an otherwise completely obscure puzzle.

  25. Re:Real World Goodies by HadouKen24 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The manuals were. The "feelies" were usually extra goodies. At least, that's how Infocom did it. The cloth map that came in Origin's Ultima VII, for instance, was used for determining the longitude and latitude of locations in the game world before you could go traipsing around outside the starting city.

    (To read the map, though, you had to translate it from the Futhark-inspired rune cipher all the place names were written in. It was extra effort learning the runes, but they were all over the game and added an extra level of immersion.)

  26. Parent is on the right track.. by nhtshot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's quite simple. Gaming in general (both PC and console) has evolved quite a bit in the past couple generations. I can't say that there won't be any new innovations, but I can say with certainty that almost everything has been tried at least once.

    With that in mind, there are a number of gimmicks that game studios use when producing games. IMHO, the worst are the following:
    1: Adding artificially hard/non-linear barriers to progression. The most recent splinter cell game is a great example of this. While the previous ones were quite linear and relatively free of frustrating gaps, "Double Agent" had several things that seemed as if they were put in there just for the sake of taking up the playerâ(TM)s time. Don't take a 7 hour game and try to stretch it to 12 with garbage.

    (2 and 3 are somewhat similar and several games are offenders of both. They are, however, separate problems)
    2: Using flashy pre-rendered cut scenes to advance major story points or game play. Part of me misses the age of cartridge consoles. With only 64Mbit to play with, these kind of antics were basically impossible. In todayâ(TM)s age of double sided DVD's and even BD-ROM discs, a game could conceivably have hours of cut-scenes. If I wanted to watch cut scenes (no matter how well animated) I'd rent a movie. If they take up more then 50% of the time spent playing, I generally skip them or have a beer/sandwich. Consequently, I miss out anything that's contained in them that is important or significant to the game

    3: Trying to make up for poorly designed or un-engaging game play with flashy/unique/overly high-quality graphics. Thanks to the availability of substantial hardware resources in the current generation of consoles (excluding the WII, of course), it's quite easy to fill a game with high polygon count skinned, boned models wrapped in super detailed textures, multiple light sources and hand perfected pixel shaders. It might look really spectacular, but that doesn't really mean anything if it's not any fun. Once again, if I wanted to look at something rendered absolutely perfectly, I'd watch a Pixar movie.

    4: Having a selection of difficulty levels that has little effect on the game. 15 years ago, Doom offered 5 different skill levels. While the playerâ(TM)s choice didn't massively change the game, it did incrementally increase the difficulty. The monsters were harder to kill, more populous and while health packs had less effect, more ammo was spawned. I would hope that modern games could do better then that. Doom ran fine at 33Mhz. Modern consoles have roughly 10,200 MHz at their disposal. There is no excuse for difficulty levels to do nothing more then spawn more or harder to kill Napâ(TM)s.

    Finally, the biggest and most annoying thing about the current generation of video games:

    5. Today's game producers tend to front load their game's content. I've never found a published statistic, but my estimation is that only about 40% of games purchased are ever fully completed by their purchasers. The player either tires of the game before the end, or gets another game to play before they finish. Since most games today are part of a series and are expected to remain viable for use in future sequels/ newer consoles, the game companies cheat on the content. They put, in my estimation, 75% of the best content in the first 50% of the game. The hardcore gamers and series fans will always buy the next sequel. They're hoping that by front-loading the best content, the semi-casual player that only finished half of the previous title in the series will have liked it enough to buy the new one when it comes out. While I understand their logic, I'd really like to get more for my money. 8-10 hours from a game that costs $50-60. That's between $5-7.50 per hour. I don't know what everyone elseâ(TM)s thoughts are, but I think that minimum wag

  27. Re:DRM is a pretty lame excuse by cbhacking · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Stealing (literally) whatever we want, hurting people who get in our way, having sex with anybody we find desirable, and driving as fast as *you* feel safe doing (or faster, if you're an adrenaline junkie) are all human nature too. As are many other despicable things. Civilization is not built on embracing "human nature" nearly as much as it is built on *containing* it for the good of all of us.

    If you want to argue that piracy, software or otherwise, benefits the community as a whole, I'll listen. If you want to quote some idealist, then put a downright out-of-touch-with-reality interpretation on it and justify that as "human nature", please go find somewhere else to do.

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  28. Performance tweaks by Zancarius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ozmanjusri's debunking is quite on-target to be honest. I've played WoW under Gentoo, and it's maximum frame rate was about 2/3rd that of windows (natively). In fact, Wine's average framerate before I added 2GiB more RAM was generally better than Windows. (Of course, this last tidbit might be due to the fact that Windows, with 1GiB RAM, was eating up far more than X--but I suspect a better VM, too.) If you plan on playing a game under Wine that is purported to do well, you should probably at least check the Gentoo World of Warcraft Howto and browse the performance tweaks section. Applying the registry tweak really does work, if you're playing an OpenGL game.

    Of course, the game very likely has to be an OpenGL game in order to work in the first place. But, in the case of WoW, OpenGL mode isn't slow because it's running under Wine--it's slow because of Blizzard's implementation. (Seriously--try running WoW in OpenGL mode under Windows, you'll lose approximately the same FPS as you would under Wine.) Plus, in a rather odd twist of irony, Tribes' dedicated server (the original Tribes!) runs somewhat better under Wine!

    --
    He who has no .plan has small finger. ~ Confucius on UNIX
    1. Re:Performance tweaks by kcbanner · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is quite amazing when you think about what the Wine team has done. They basically reverse engineered all the Windows APIs and trick apps to thinking they are actually running on Windows. While some apps spectacularly crash (this is usually to abuse/misuse of quirks/gotchas/tricks in the Windows API, which shouldn't even be there, but are used anyway), most run perfectly fine.

      I also like to see Windows programmers list Wine as a supported platform for their apps (uTorrent is a prime example of this). This simply means that the programmers were kind enough not to make use of weird tricks in the Win API, to write clean code, which Wine runs spectacularly well.

      Its actually quite ironic when one considers whats happening here...a group of Linux programmers are re-implementing the Windows API the way it should have been in the first place...it doesn't like it when programmers take shortcuts and abuse it. If Microsoft had taken a bit more time on their continually-backwards-compatible-so-no-updates-allowed-that-might-break-it API, I think there would not be only more quality code running on Windows, there would be better programmers writing code for it as well (instead of defecting to a real development platform (Unix)).

      I speak from experience...learning to program and develop quality software is *so* much easier under any Unix platform. The docs are better. The tools are better. Its faster (make > 300M of Visual Studio in my RAM). I found this out very quickly when I first tried Linux (I was 12 or so at the time)...it beat the hell out of Visual Basic, thats for sure.

      --
      Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
  29. Re:First Post by i_b_don · · Score: 5, Interesting

    hello everyone, I'm a pirate.

    I pirate software and i enjoy the feeling of freedom I get when I want to do something (video editing, photo editing, burning a DVD, or creating something cool) and I can do it without that agonizing over the question "am i buying the right product?" and that depressing feeling I get watching money flow from my wallet without knowing if i'm spending it in the right place.

    However I *want* to pay money for the products that I like. About 25% off the software i use I want to pay money for BECAUSE I think it rocks. 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.

    I started pirating when i was a kid and never stopped and I'm a professional engineer now so i can afford just about anything i want software wise (with the exception of some professional tools like solidworks or something).

    So for now, I think for now I'll stick with my current model. If a company writes good software and charges a reasonable fee, and I'll gladly pay for it after the fact.

    (BTW, PC games are actually a completely different story. Their cost is almost never outside of my budget and I want to support the PC gaming industry so it doesn't go away and get taken over by the console gaming industry. It's rare that I pirate a game.)

    d

    --
    all language nazi's will burne in heil!
  30. Re:Mod parent fallacious! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I completely disagree with you.
    I have tried digitally purchased games, store bought games, and pirated games, and by far the pirated games are superior.
    At first I purchased games like everybody else, in the store with a CD (or 4), and later DVDs, and it was frustrating when you get an urge to play a game, and you need to find the CD, so i turned to piracy. Often times i would pirate games i had a working copy of simply because i didn't want the hassle. In the past year I've tried Digital purchases from sites like Direct2drive.com, and easily half of them were buggered. For example I bought Neverwinter Nights 2, and i had to pump in the activation code every time i wanted to play after my computer restarted. Mass Effect continuously gave me errors about the validation, and Assassins Creed still doesn't work. Ive tried working with their support site and everything, and now after a month of no results I just pirated them, and what a surprise, they all work fine.
    I support the designers and developers of the games, when they make it work. I think digitally distributed is the way to go for sure, but until it works properly, they can go to hell. I'll pirate it until they catch on and make it work properly.

  31. Re:First Post by Menkhaf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I could say the exact same thing about music CDs. Tool's 10,000 Days did just that. The CD has some awesome artwork in the form of a booklet filled with stereograms, complete with glasses.

    I do pirate music, but I tend to buy it if I feel it's worth my money. I stumbled upon Japanese post-rock band Mono a few years ago, and pirated their music.
    After listening to it for a while, I decided that it was worth a buy, so I went and bougth almost all of their CDs.
    They played in Copenhagen last year, and a few weeks before, I introduced their music to some of my friends to try to get them to tag along to the concert. I was successful in just that, and I brought 5 friends to their show.
    To sum it all up, my act of piracy actually got them a lot of new fans. I bought almost all their albums, will buy their newest when I have some money to spare, and I brougth 5 people to their concert -- all because of piracy.

    If you're interested in hearing what they sound like, I suggest going to their MySpace. Wikipedia has an article about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(Japanese_band).

    --
    A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
  32. Sigh. Developers developers... by Fallen+Andy · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Rolls eyes. Yeah sure, and it doesn't cost more to QA and test your "portable" (sic) product on all those OS's. It doesn't cost more to roll out updates across those OS's. It doesn't cost more to get support desk people to support all those OS's in all those configurations... How many Linux distros are there? Do you really understand how support heavy some software houses are? Coders are a minority...

    If you just code and do nothing else then fine, I can see you won't see the problems. OK, here's a *simple* example from c.a. 1990: You have a simple dictionary program which runs on MS-DOS (using a memory swapping TSR). Three editions. Easy huh? Wrong - dead wrong - try QA/ing that across at least (I stopped counting at 13) variants of DOS, network shells, DR-DOS, PC-MOS 386.. (it goes on and on). Oh and by the way marketing doesn't want pirates to be able to take the Lite version and use it with the "Pro" files etc. etc.. (That's just in this example a little Greek-English dictionary called Gword).

    This was also a good example of insane copy protection as it (I fought this hard but lost!) locked to many of the hardware features of the machine it installed on. Net result: the more copies the company sold, the more support calls generated for new S/N's...

    The funniest thing was that someone *did* hack me (yippee!) and I got sent a SYMDEB script to patch the code. Took a while to stop laughing about that. The later windows version only had a registration number and was (is?) widely pirated, but I always took the view that it was a good advert for the company anyway...

    Re "most users don't want tech support" - here's another anecdote, this time from the mid 80's. When I was at TDI in Bristol UK in the 80's porting the UCSD p-system one of my colleagues ported it to the Sinclair QL. TDI had decided that there was to be *no* tech support for this system. Very clearly in the manual it said that. Didn't stop Sinclair QL users swamping tech support - nobody reads the manual anyway.

    Andy

  33. Digital Distribution by Catil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I still don't get how buying from steam is any different to buying from me, other than you may already have an account on steam.
    For the record, I'd love to get my games on steam. I wish it was that easy.
    [...]
    I'm really hassling my payment provider to support amazons one-click method. For me, I think that's even more convenient than steam.

    Well, that's basically it for the digital distribution point - people don't like to fill out forms, they don't like to give away their data; not their email, not their name and especially not their address, so the common accounts most people already have, Steam and Paypal, should be used whenever possible.
    Since your payment provider requires people to fill out that boring form every time someone purchases something, why don't you support Paypal directly? Just return a page with a download-link and/or serial key like other services do. One of your competitors when it comes to getting money from pirates, Rapidshare, does exactly that. If that's not possible on part of your payment provider then you should consider switching to a different one, perhaps one that doesn't support Paypal on it's own. Even if you drop it altogether and use Paypal as the only payment method, you might be better of.

    For the record, I'd love to get my games on steam. I wish it was that easy.

    Didn't they create Steamworks and recently released an SDK so that every developer can finally get their games on Steam? I didn't really look into it but where is the problem? Do they have some kind of requirements you can't meet?

  34. Re:First Post by goldspider · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "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."

    This sentiment always strikes me as odd, as it is a concept that, while obvious to me, is lost on software freeloaders. What if I were to suggest:

    "The presence of locks/security systems are the result of greedy homeowners knowing that not everyone is willing to knock on their door and are attempting to punish those who want to come in anyway."

    Umm... isn't that the whole point?

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  35. Re:First Post by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's your opinion on Photoshop Elements. It only costs $100. Which is pretty cheap if you are actually going to use it on a regular basis.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  36. Re:First Post by honkycat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm with you 90%. I don't have an ethical problem with "piracy" as a test drive, but I think you cross a line when you decide that you like a product but not at the offered price. IMO, you ethically either need to stop using it or pony up the cash.

  37. Re:First Post by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    EVERYTHING in Linux, from the constantly-changing ABIs (even libc!) to the repository-based distribution method, to the multitude of different distros, specifically designed, to discourage commercial software development. There are some projects to turn this around, like LSB, but they are woefully under-appreciated.

    The reason there's very little (consumer-level) commercial software on Linux is because Linux makes it hard. Linux makes it hard for ATI or NVidia to develop drivers, much harder than on Microsoft platforms and Microsoft has more users to boot. Linux makes it hard to put your software on a CD and install it in a way that works for all distros, and without screwing up the user's software repository. It's even harder to market your product, considering how vocal the "must use only free software!" crowd is in the Linux community.

    There's no mystery here, people.

  38. Re:First Post by EvilIdler · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe a bit harsh (at least the death bit!), but yeah, it's really crossing the line when people decide to keep using an illegal copy professionally because "they don't like the price". Even while bragging about having the money!

    I like it when developers have cool payment models, like GarageGames. They've recently gotten the Houdini folks on board, with an amazing $99 offer. That's a very capable 3D package, available for Windows, Linux and 64-bit OS X. You just need to be an indie, earning less than $250000 a year.

  39. Re:First Post by Toby_Tyke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thanks for proving my point.

    My preference for gaming under Linux is a pragmatic one. At this point, I only keep the Windows partition around for gaming

    You admit you buy the windows version of games, so why should developers port to linux? You might be happier, but why would they care? If, in the absence of a linux port, you're going to buy the windows version of a game, then how would they stand to gain by porting it to Linux?

    Think about it. FPS 3: The shootening, comes out for windows, and you and I buy it, making the developers $20 in profit. You would have preferred a linux version. Twelve months later FPS 4: The Dramatic Sub-Title* is released. This time the developers have gone to the time, effort and, crucially, the expense of porting it Linux. I buy the windows version, you buy the Linux one. The developers make, um, $20 dollars. how are they better off?

    Now don't get me wrong, I use Linux, and I don't really care about this subject, since I've pretty much given up on PC gaming (although I have a terrible suspicion that the new starcraft is going to suck me back in ), but I don't see big developers starting porting many games any time soon.

    *This one adds dual wielding, and a cool bullet time mode. IGN give it 9.5/10.

    --
    "I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks