Slashdot Mirror
The State of Piracy and DRM In PC Gaming
VideoGamer sat down with Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, to talk about the state of piracy and DRM in today's gaming industry. He suggests that many game studios have themselves to blame for leaks and pre-launch piracy by not integrating their protection measures earlier in the development process. He mentions that some companies, such as Blizzard and Valve, have worked out anti-piracy schemes that generate much less of a backlash than occurred for Spore . Stude also has harsh words for companies who decline to create PC versions of their games, LucasArts in particular, saying, "LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time. That's my opinion. ... It's ridiculous to say that there's not enough audience for that game ... and that it falls into this enthusiast extreme category when ported over to the PC. That's an uneducated response." Finally, Stude discusses what the PCGA would like to see out of Vista and the next version of Windows.
If a game is good, charge a nominal fee which includes patches, etc and ability to play online. Those who dont want to pay can play the local version (and may get hooked and end up paying)
If the publishers would spend more time pushing out innovative games (not the most recent installment of the flavor of the month) and provide a reason to purchase a genuine copy, then maybe they wouldn't need to be in the business of criminalizing their own customers.
Spore is at least innovative and provides some value to the original owner of the game, in spite of the stupid DRM. IMO, it would be nice if they could transfer those rights to the secondary market though.
-=- I tried going insane, and it was fun for a while, but I got bored and decided to go sane. -=-
Not because there isn't an audience, but because the audience is too diverse. From the $4000 liquid cooled (or even oil cooled) systems to the Pentium IVs, it's hard to find settings that work across the board, or scale well.
Console games all play on machines with roughly the same processing power. That makes things a lot easier.
I don't know why the parent was modded -1. Creative business models around video games like this have succeeded. If I remember correctly, Guild Wars charged for the game and subsequent upgrades but online play was free, which often negated the cost of the game as many would attest to after months and years of playing other games such as WoW (look up the guy that plays 36 characters and spends ~$5700 yearly on subscriptions). Forcing game companies to become more competitive and creative is a good thing.
Just displays the evolution of the PC gaming industry..:)
RS: "Piracy is an issue for some publishers, but if you sat down and you talk to Blizzard or Funcom or the guys at EA about Warhammer, about all the noise that was made about Spore and the reaction to the DRM, but they're still selling games and they're selling them well."
Despite the cryptic grammar, the key words 'selling' and 'games' are clear... When/if that process is put at risk, then there'll be an issue over piracy. As it stands now, piracy is most likely helping to simply sell more games.
I went out and bought Sins of a Solar Empire recently.
First game purchase in years. I'll be honest, it's mostly because the market has degenerated into crap of late. But it's at least partially because - get this - I can play Sins without needing the disc. Without shitware being installed on my system. Without a company that knows better treating me like a goddamned thief.
There's no excuse for DRM, unless you put out crap games.
You could always try sending a message to the gaming industry by playing Game! - The Witty Online RPG. It's DRM free and you don't need to pirate it.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
The problem is that it's encouraging "creativity" in the wrong places. If the industry abandoned traditional business models, we'd never have Portal or Ico. These games would not have been improved with online-play.
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
Indeed. I'm a habitual software pirate. I know it's wrong, but I simply don't want to pay more for less.
Games with significant online content (MP mostly) I buy or skip entirely. I have bought, and not even at a discount, the entire Guild Wars series, as well as a great number of the optional addon content (extra character slots, skill unlock packs). I have spent more on GW than any one other game series in PC history. Why? It's good, it's fairly priced, has effectively no copy protection, and I can freely download the client. I have several times set it down for months and then picked up again. A subscription MMO would have lapsed, and I would likely have lost my characters or their gear.
This is why I don't play WoW. GW is better in all the ways I care about. Steam is also a leader in the Right Way to do things. I have probably bought more titles on Steam than via physical purchase over the last 4 or 5 years. Physical media is dying.
For the most part games are HARDER to pirate on a console almost always requiring hardware mods, so if piracy were such a primary motivator, people would never buy consoles. They don't put draconian anti-piracy measures into most console games (yet) so by doing so on the PC they're pushing people further away. Consoles are fine for shoot them ups - platformers, FPS and the like, and they're even good for some interesting additions with peripherals like eyetoy, guitar sims, golf sims, fishing sims etc. but for certain games they're awful.
Any serious flight simulation for instance is best done on a PC, with a keyboard and multiple screens. I'm not talking about flight games, I'm talking about realistic simulation. Flight simulation isn't a potential mass market so any peripheral made for it tends to be pricy...and people do go to extremes. Flight sims also tend to need more power than consoles provide.
So what we're missing by going to the consoles is the flexibility. The other thing we're missing is the ability for a hobbiest to dive in and write their own software, although the games are complex enough now that there are only a handful of open games without a proprietary heritage. That's what the push is about - shutting out any remaining competition and innovation by hobby projects. The less competition and the harder it is for people to pirate, the more they can charge for 3rd rate games.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I have multiple high end computers, ranging from an 8-core Mac Pro with an 8800GT, to a Quad Core SLI system running Vista with 8GB of ram. I have never owned a console. I previously never wanted a console. However, since games are now "console only" (like "The Force Unleashed") I am seriously considering buying a 360 or a PS3. I much prefer the Keyboard+Mouse controls, but when there are minimal good games come out.... they don't do much good. (Crysis + Crysis Warhead looked good, but the gameplay was really sub-par... especially in Warhead) The only thing that I use my high end gaming computer for anymore is World of Warcraft... (at least, the only thing it's used for out of video games) just my two cents
I don't know about anyone else, but I will NEVER be buying a call-home-during-install game again. I can't play Half-Life 2 because I can't make the updates over a modem, and I can't just play the damned game (even from my Steam backups!) Valve, pay attention - I will NOT be paying for Half-Life 3 if you keep this shit up, and I know you will. I have all but given up on PC gaming (At this point I play only Free/OpenSource games and classic games on the PC, and occasionally buy a console game title) because, frankly, it is hell. I am just tired of fucking with graphics drivers, sound drivers, directx releases... I want games to just work. If that means I play less games, then so be it. I have other things to do anyway. I believe the majority of the recent growth in the games industry has mostly been in console and handheld gaming anyway, why put more effort into a sinking ship?
The sad truth is that Microsoft probably killed the PC games industry with Direct3D. DirectX was a great idea but Direct3D was a brain-damaged one. Microsoft already had support for OpenGL, and OpenGL can already evolve as quickly as DirectX via Vendor-specific extensions (as it did with 3DFX's treatment of the SGIS_MULTITEXTURE extension.) Direct3D hampered cross-platform games development and now the situation looks especially bleak what with games requiring Vista, which nobody wants. I am simply not going to "upgrade" (haha) to Vista to play games.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It sounds like this Randy Stude guy is strongly advocating more and better DRM on games to me. It will always end up broken, and will only truly inconvenience those who have obtained the game legally.
Microsoft has so far wasted some 7-8 billion dollars on the Xbox fiasco. Around 4-5 billion on the first Xbox and another 3 billion or so on the 360 including the insane 1.1 billion just for the RRoD defect costs.
And they are letting the PC game market just wither and die.
Just think if they had not thrown all that money at the Xbox mess and instead invested even half of those wasted billions on supporting PC game developers. The PC section at the local major electronics chain keeps getting smaller and smaller with boxes scattered on the shelves. And it has been moved into an area that is with a bunch of other crap that you never see people browsing through.
The console section has large advertising banners overhead, stocked shelves, end caps with promotions going on, TVs seteup with games to be played, and constant traffic.
All that stuff costs money and effort by publishers and console makers to arrange and setup. Microsoft is doing nothing. Absolutely nothing for the PC gaming sections of stores.
No wonder more and more major PC developers are making the move from console ports of their PC games to dual releases to even worse console first PC port later games and perhaps eventually just dropping the PC entirely.
Someone at Microsoft needs to wake the fuck up and dump this Xbox garbage and save PC gaming before it is beyond repair. PC gaming was one of the major reasons DOS/Windows became so popular because all the IT guys in companies wanted to work on the same systems at work that they had at home.
With Internet multiplay, multiple models in a product line, and installs for many games, the line between the PC and consoles as a game platform is becoming less distinct with each generation. As a member of the occasionally rabid fandoms created by good LucasArts games, it's hard (and disappointing) to see a game like Force Unleashed justify a release that doesn't include the PC. One of the main holdouts of the PC as a platform is a modding culture (and its evil goateed brother, piracy and cracks). Playing with games, instead of merely playing them, is a selling point for many PC diehards. Some games enjoy tremendous success by catering to this facet of the platform (see Counterstrike, which has gained a life outside the game on which it was originally based), while it's simultaneously a contentious and intimidating element for developers.
...don't leave anything to chance and keep it protected all the way through the production pipeline.
I can't see why those idiots in the video game industry aren't listening to Randy Stude. Obviously we're dealing with someone who's seen the issues and thought out detailed solutions to them. And when confronted with this biting criticism from the interviewer:
VideoGamer.com: It doesn't sound like rocket science to me. I don't understand why publishers don't shore up the production line.
Randy fires back a steadfast conclusion:
Yeah. And that doesn't even mean that at the end of the day someone's not going to hack the game and put it up on a torrent network ... We in the PCGA believe than an industry group such as ours and others out there should be the ones that tackle it from a standards perspective, provide guidance ... We don't have the answer yet today but we would invite anyone who believes piracy is a problem to join our organisation ...
Amazing! This nearly tops the genius and wisdom of a self referential slashdot post. Hats off to you, Randy! I'm going to join the PC Gaming Alliance right now!
A subscription MMO would have lapsed, and I would likely have lost my characters or their gear.
This is why I don't play WoW.
There are better and real reasons not to play WoW. Lapsed accounts do not lose characters, nor their stuff. That is a lie or you do not have the command of the English language that you think you have.
Easier solution:
pay developers more, make better games.
I think the obvious answer to this problem is to distribute all games from here on out through Steam.
(not really)
But honestly, Steam's a great platform for game distribution. You have your own account and once your purchased game is installed you can re-install it as you like through said account.
Even games that don't charge still can make money this way. For example, Neverwinter Nights 1 patched out its CD copy protection, but piracy remained low on the game because a big part of the game was automatic updates (which requires unique serial numbers), online persistent worlds, and the sheer numbers of player made modules available which equaled or surpassed the single player campaign of the game.
You're not really explaining why you're entitled to other people's work. Video games don't just write themselves. If I spend hours and hours writing a game, why should I just give you a copy for free?
That's cool if people want to volunteer their time and do that, but I really don't see why you think you're entitled to it.
Maybe not
DRM won't get rid of piracy, nothing will. The mice will evolve as fast or faster than the mouse traps, companies will always have someone willing to "stick it to the man", and leak code if necessary. Honestly though, its the price. I'm not forking out $50 for a game I don't KNOW is good. I've bought games that were bugged, games that were supposed to play on my system, games that SHOULD work out of the box. I shouldn't have to give you money, then spend hours of my own time making your games work right. WOW has proven their are gamers out there, and if you're willing to build a game worth buying, people will buy it. What's 5million customers times $10/game compared to 100,000 at $50/game? Gee, I just compounded the net intake by a factor of TEN! Don't you're programmers do math? Even minimum wage gamers can buy a game for $10, and at that price, why waste your bandwidth downloading illegal and possibly virus infected versions? But rather than lower price, you'd rather jack up costs by adding DRM or other crap, and pissing off your customers....
I don't know about anyone else, but I will NEVER be buying a call-home-during-install game again. I can't play Half-Life 2 because I can't make the updates over a modem, and I can't just play the damned game (even from my Steam backups!) Valve, pay attention - I will NOT be paying for Half-Life 3 if you keep this shit up, and I know you will.
Sadly, your threats don't carry any weight -- Valve doesn't want you as a customer. They would ideally like to get out of retail and move entirely to digital distribution. They cut out the middlemen and have far greater margins that way.
As dialup user, you don't fit with their plans.
GameRanger - multiplayer gaming service for PC and Mac games
... about getting more companies to make games for our computers, as opposed to dedicated game consoles. THEN they say the system they want to see it on is Vista.
Aaaaaaaaarrrrrggghh!!!
Next, we'll read that we want to see all cars get hybrid-like mileage...
and that the system we want to see it on is the Edsel.
I'd hardly call free but a fee to play online a creative business model. We usually call that a scam.
The difference is that Guild Wars gives people something, and there is never a fee you'll ever have to pay again to play the same thing, even if you lose the CD's. That is not the case with Wow, or Warhammer or any other mmo. The difference is those games (wow,warhammer, any pay or subscription mmo) are subsidizing their users to pay for the privilege to play an inevitable grind at the cost of the company's bandwidth. It's comparable to taxing people for air usage.
A real creative business model would be something you can embrace that doesn't have infinite fuckups (drm, subscription fees), and uses common sense. Such as, I don't know, paying for a game and not having subscription fees, drm, or cd keys or any forced "linkage" of any sort? Go back to requiring a cd in virtual CD or physical form, and we'll all be happy. Will it sell more copies in reality? You bet you it will. Is it cheaper to not have to pay a company to DRM your software (or engineers to do it)? Absolutely.
If we're going to talk about MMORPGs, PlaneShift is often overlooked IMHO, and it's very much free-to-play, as well as in beer and (mostly) libre (although note the proprietary licence for art and game rules, more about protecting the quality and consistency of the game than anything else).
It's not as popular as WoW by any means, but it's certainly a lot of fun, even given the fact that it's pre-1.0 in terms of status.
On the flip side, why are you magically entitled to anyone's money just because you spent effort on anything (let alone programming a game)? Trade for something, sure. Reality of the currency barter is that setting a specific price is not respective of people's perception of value. What you think is worth 500$ and maybe is to one or two people, might be worth 0$ to the rest of the world. This is why letting people pick their own prices works. However, the simple answer is that you're not entitled to other people's money.
I play almost exclusively single player games. I have no interest for on-line gaming. The only exception was with a game called Trackmania and some PBeM I played in the 80s and early 90s. I never played an RTS on-line (although I did play Warcraft 2 on a local network), I never played an FPS on-line (again, only on a local network) and I never played any on-line RPG. I just don't see what's fun with on-line gaming.
I'm not saying your idea is not good for a few games, but the truth is a lot of people never play on-line. Most people I know play video games, but very few play on-line. For the game Trackmania, the only one I played on-line, it was only a small percentage of people owning the game who ended up trying the on-line mode. I really don't think it would be a good idea for most game to use this business model.
Give him a break. He wrote that message 8 years ago, it just took a while to transmit. He's probably changed his mind by now, and we'll find out about that in 2016.
"Consoles are fine for shoot them ups - platformers, FPS and the like, and they're even good for some interesting additions with peripherals like eyetoy, guitar sims, golf sims, fishing sims etc. but for certain games they're awful."
So basically the difference between one kind of computer vs another is external devices.
"The other thing we're missing is the ability for a hobbiest to dive in and write their own software, although the games are complex enough now that there are only a handful of open games without a proprietary heritage. "
XNA,Xbox live.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
The latest trend in annoying DRM: publishers using SecuROM and install limits on games sold through Steam. Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, and X3 have a 5 install limit, crippling one of Steam's greatest features: unlimited installs on any PC. The former two games also use SecuROM. Why on earth would you add third-party DRM on top of Steam? Maybe because these publishers are run by dicks? Who knows. What I do know is that my PC game purchases have gone down solely because of DRM. I'd love to play Red Alert 3 or Far Cry 2, but I won't until EA gives up on installation limits and SecuROM. Shame, too, since I don't own any consoles.
(I know that Steam is a form of DRM with its own share of problems, but I rather enjoy the service. Unlike SecuROM or similar schemes, Steam at least provides some side benefits to gamers.)
I just finished COD4 over the weekend curtsy of our friends at TPB. I bought it today after work for the MP. This is quite a common trend for me. I might be a dirty pirate, but I also see value in these alternate business models. (Even if it wasnâ(TM)t exactly intentional in my case)
I heard good things about SoaSE on Penny Arcade and went out and bought a copy. I had a lot of fun with it and took it to a friends house. I had noticed that it didn't even ask for the cd key during install so we installed it on his system and played on the lan for a couple days. Then we wanted to play online and he bought two more copies, one for him and his wife. Of course this is only anecdotal evidence but I suspect that it may be a fairly common scenario leading to higher sales on the game.
Vote McCain!
See above, I just posted the most informative essay Slashdot has ever seen.
People keep telling me FOSS is the wave of the future. Yet when it comes to non-enterprise type software like games, there just don't seem to be that many compelling titles.
But it's not your decision to make. If I build a car and decide to sell it for $5000, your only options are to buy it for $5000 or not buy it for $5000. You can't just steal it from me and give me $1000 because that's all you think it's worth. That's just not how trading works. If it were, I could kick you out of your house, toss you a $5 bill and claim I bought it from you.
And where did I say that I was?
Maybe not
Ok, so we have one side saying "you're not entitled to my work" and we have the other saying "you're not entitled to my money" and yet we have sites like this. So where's the site the creator can go to to download "free money"?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
"The difference is those games (wow,warhammer, any pay or subscription mmo) are subsidizing their users to pay for the privilege to play an inevitable grind at the cost of the company's bandwidth."
Bandwidth? Yeah, you're paying for bandwidth. I mean, it's not like they created the client software, the server software, the game, the characters, the entire world, or like they pay for servers, hosting, and the BANDWIDTH.
Sheesh.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"However, the simple answer is that you're not entitled to other people's money."
And you're not entitled to the game. See how easy that was? But the simple answer is that he's not entitled to your money, and you're not entitled to his work.
He created a product and set a price for it. You get to determine if that product has sufficient value to you and, if so, to pay the price. Quid pro quo. If, however, you DON'T think it has value, then you're free not to pay, and he is not "magically entitled" to anything. He invested his time and money, rolled the dice, and lost.
"...setting a specific price is not respective of people's perception of value."
Actually it is. As said, you're free to make the judgement call on your own.
"What you think is worth 500$ and maybe is to one or two people, might be worth 0$ to the rest of the world."
Again, don't pay. If enough people fail to do so, maybe he'll adjust his price accordingly. Or maybe he's happy with one or two $500 sales. His creation, his choice.
The problem with letting you decide what, if anything, you're willing to pay is that it always devolves into people not paying their share, or what game theorists call the "free rider" problem.
Me, I just call 'em parasites.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
That is not the case with Wow, or Warhammer or any other mmo. The difference is those games (wow,warhammer, any pay or subscription mmo) are subsidizing their users to pay for the privilege to play an inevitable grind at the cost of the company's bandwidth. It's comparable to taxing people for air usage.
Just because you don't enjoy playing MMO's doesn't mean other people don't either, you know. Anything in particular happen to make you feel this way, or were you just unable to hook up with folks ingame?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I never understood what "boggle" meant in "the mind boggles", until I tried to figure out how you could possibly think anybody's talking about being entitled to somebody else's money.
It's really fucking simple: trade or don't. That way nobody is acting entitled.
I'm beginning to think that if I "sat down with" myself to talk about "DRM and the state of the game industry"* it'd be a featured article on here, and probably get duped to boot. I know the flamebait articles get all the traffic, but I just keep hoping people are going to get sick of trotting out the same arguments when there aren't any new developments.
*Readers will note that the only game I've ever made was one of those origami diamonds you slip over your thumbs. It didn't have DRM. It was a financial failure by most accounts.
If a game is good, charge a nominal fee which includes patches, etc and ability to play online.
Those who dont want to pay can play the local version (and may get hooked and end up paying)
That's a solution for those few games that are a balance between single player and multiplayer. WOW would be what without the online? Wouldn't be a draw at all to run around an empty world. Conversely, how many people would pay for online of half life?
I was charmed by the way 2D Boy handled copy protection with their "World of Goo".
The purchase email came with the following claim:
"We are trying an experiment: World of Goo has absolutely no copy protection or DRM at all, since we want to give you (and everyone) the best experience we can. Thanks for not distributing this, and helping us make this possible!"
Besides: buying the the Windows version also entitles you to download the Linux and Mac version (once they're finished...).
Apparently there's a Steam version of the game as well, but it's not clear from the website if a Steam purchase entitles you to the Linux version as well.
It is not unknown for PC-gamers to update their hardware for a game. Can't update a console. You are stuck with what it was designed to be years ago. Why do you think SWG and EQ from SONY never made it to the console? Because they can't. Games that were once state of the art (and don't forget that even WoW pushed some machines at launch) find themselves with better and better hardware in their lifetime.
As a console developer, you are always stuck with the current generation of hardware. You can never push beyond it, never just say "fuck it, we need 4 gigs and that is the market we are going after". Any decent developer knows how to deal with multiple settings. Just lower the texture detail often helps a lot with performance but it means you can have amazing screenshots and low specs at the same time.
Sorry, but if your company was unable to come up with a PC spec to aim at, they can't have been very good. All it requires is to look at what PC's dell sells to consumers. Similar to having to research just what the spread is between console versions (HD space) and accesories.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you read more carefully, he doesn't want DRM, he wants Trusted Computing. His talk about encryption on the PC, that isn't DRM. The only way encryption after all work is if the system is a black box with no way to intercept the signals. Trusted Computing, making DRM seem like childs play.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Check what type of sound files a LOT of games are now using. No longer MP3 but ogg. Same goes true for a lot of other stuff in games.
Remember that games are content. Apache, linux, php, perl, mysql etc etc are OPENSOURCE products used to host websites with content. Nobody says that if all software becomes opensource all website content will be opensource.
The simple fact is that producing a game is a LOT of work, not so much because of the engine, but because of the amount of art/content needed.
Part of the problem is also that designing games for your own use doesn't work for a lot of games. Opensource is usually developed because the developer had a need for it. What need do you have of a game you made yourself? That you played over and over during development and know every secret of? It would be boring as hell to play, the developer would have no use for it.
There are FOSS games out there and some are pretty decent but big budget titles like Mass Effect or a WoW are never going to happen because they need to much content where somebody just sits down and creates for hour after hour and that is hard to get done without paying someone.
Odd as it may sound, developing games just ain't no fun and unlike a utility program you get little personal use out of it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I guess that really depends on demographics. I'm in my thirties, from EU, and nearly everyone I know plays online games in one form or another. I hate the pay-to-play idea because I've always played fps games online, but I'm definately the exception at this stage as near everyone else I know is paying subscriptions (WoW or xBox-live mostly).
Personally, I wouldn't pay a subscription for online-gaming in any form, but if it works for others then best of luck to them.
Well, the influences of the English language in the rest of the world make people split up words that are supposed to be togetherwritten so I see this as sweet revenge.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
As you've probably seens mentioned lots of times here on slashdot already, there is a big difference between a physical product and something that can be duplicated at nearly no cost.
It worked for Radiohead to let people set their price, because 1) enough people paid to give them a nice profit, and 2) their loss for each freeloader was the cost of bandwidth only.
I completely agree with you, and I'm an avid PC gamer. For a lot of games online is everything. Especially for FPS'. Nobody buys Call of Duty 4 for the offline play. It's all about online. I don't see why instead of releasing a lame demo which doesn't really show you much, why not just release the "offline" version for free? How is it going to hurt them? People will tire quickly of playing against the computer and they'll want to play against real people.
Although this model wouldn't work for games that aren't really geared towards online play. However for first person shooters and the like, it would be perfect! They'd end up making more money. Because c'mon, who's spending $50 to play against the computer for 10 hours?
Get them hooked and get their cash. Sounds like a good model to me!
You are, actually, wrong by making this comparison because, in your examples, the goods you're talking about are physical goods. If someone would take them from you, you wouldn't be able to use them anymore. On the other hand, digital goods are different. If somebody makes a copy of your content, both of you will be able to use that content afterwards.
Yes, indeed, you could argue that the content creator would loose a potential customer. Nevertheless, that isn't exactly true. What they actually lose is free publicity because the people that don't purchase the content legaly might either not purchase it at all or decide to purchase it ONLY after trying it for free. And trying the whole thing is not the same thing as trying the demo, so, plese, don't go to the demo line.
As further proof of what I just said, check out http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350, or, if you want the short version http://kotaku.com/tag/reflexive-arcade/. There are a lot of other examples but this would degenerate into an encyclopedia of game producers coming to terms with the real world and it would take to long.
You are, actually, wrong by making this comparison because, in your examples, the goods you're talking about are physical goods.
Why? Do games cost nothing to make? Or are the $millions bills for staff, equipement and buildings imaginary?
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Sounds like a bit of creative extrapolation.
I'd say "15 million of them are either quite pleased with, or begrudgingly put up with."
(I'll admit that I'm a lot more pleased with Steam than other forms of DRM, and I choose to use it, but I'm not too "pleased" with the idea that Valve can terminate my "subscription" to the games I own, including the ones I purchased before Steam even existed, at any time. Usage != Pleased.)
I'd be surprised if these big commercial games stay profitable for much longer. When I buy a game, I'm not buying a game, I'm buying entertainment. I haven't bought a big-studio game for a few years, but I still read reviews and they often talk about 20-30 hours as being the amount of entertainment to expect from one of these games. Competing with them are browser-based games, and open source games. Open source games tend to be less polished, but I've found a few which provided over 20 hours of entertainment. Browser-based games tend to be polished, but shorter. It's pretty common to find one that can provide 2-5 hours of entertainment. At this level, half a dozen flash games are as entertaining as one big-box game, but cost a tiny fraction of the amount to develop. Open source games tend to take a lot longer to develop, since no one has yet come up with a business model that lets people work on them full-time, but when they are done they tend to be more fun, since they're written by people who want to play the game, not by people who want to get paid.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
A lot of people in this thread don't get his comparison. The botton line is you can't copy money like you copy games.
If the cost was truly "just bandwidth" then that means you still owe them 1 or 2 pennies. ;-)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Most businesses set a high initial price for the early adopters with lots of money, and then gradually bring the price down for other more-frugal customers.
In the gaming world that typically means $50 for a just-released game, $30 for a year-old game, and $15-20 for an older game.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I could imagine some badass coop with portal with one person having a blue gun and the other person having the orange one.
But it's not your decision to make. If I build a car and decide to sell it for $5000, your only options are to buy it for $5000 or not buy it for $5000. You can't just steal it from me and give me $1000 because that's all you think it's worth. That's just not how trading works. If it were, I could kick you out of your house, toss you a $5 bill and claim I bought it from you.
But if that car was software, you would still have that car and I would have "mine".
I find it quite curious how people that stand firm against DRM are so positive about Steam.
Doesn't Steam suffer from everything DRM does? It isn't portable, you need Steam to be ON to play and worse of all, what happens when Steam goes offline one day? Wouldn't all our games just stop playing?
I buy quite a lot of titles on Steam, however, I can't say I feel too good about it. I merely do it because it is comfortable, but it still doesn't seem to me like the Right Way to do things.
What do you guys think?
Portal has online play? ...I don't have to share my companion cube, do I?
...getting rid of restrictive DRM altogether? You can't honestly expect people to pay money for an inferior product and put up with it.
I'm not joking when I say that there have been times where I've bought a game legitimately and then later downloaded a cracked version simply because the restrictions on the genuine one were too crippling.
The writing is on the wall for PC's. As soon as gaming went mainstream, they had one foot in the grave. Most sane people don't want to spend half their sparse leisure time monkeying with video drivers, downloading patches, watching scroll bars, ad nauseum...they just want to play. The console offers a good and reliable gaming experience, the PC does not. With the continued proliferation of HD sets and a wider variety of controller options (thanks to USB), there is very little a PC game can offer that a console cannot. (I'm a flight simmer, so I have always lamented the lack of realistic flight sims for the console, but HD and increasing computing power is changing that, too...the IL-2 codebase has been leveraged to make the first honest flight sim on the xbox due next year, and the in-game video I've seen of it blows the PC version away)
Given the growing number of compelling reasons to buy a console, the increasing number of reasons to NOT want to own a PC (Vista, cell phones with tricorder-like capabilities, etc ), and the ever shrinking shelf of non-returnable PC games in your local game store, I'd say that arguing about the future of DRM in PC gaming is like fighting over the paddle in a canoe headed down the Niagara...
Part of being the person who wrote the program is being allowed to set the price. If the person is smart, they'll set the price at a level that people will buy. But they can set it at something completely absurd and sell none. It doesn't appear that the GP was implying that he had a right to anyone's money because of effort. He doesn't. He does have a right to the money of people who use his software, and that price can be whatever he wants. If you don't like the price, you have a right to not use his software.
The problem with letting you decide what, if anything, you're willing to pay is that it always devolves into people not paying their share, or what game theorists call the "free rider" problem.
Me, I just call 'em parasites.
A point that was conveniently proven by a real World example when Radiohead launched their album "In Rainbows" online, inviting people to "pay what they consider it's worth" for it. As it transpired (and wasn't particularly surprising) most people didn't bother paying anything at all.
Either they thought it was worthless (then why bother getting it?) or the mere fact that they could get it for free meant they jumped on the chance. It doesn't take a genius to work out which is the more likely scenario.
Whilst I'm no saint it angers me when people put forward the argument that "if it wasn't so expensive then I wouldn't have to warez it". Quite frankly that is ridiculous, outside of the digital realm you couldn't just walk into a shop and say "I don't think that TV is worth what you're asking for it therefore I'm going to steal it or offer what I believe it's worth" - it's madness.
Of course people then trot out the familiar retort about the difference between stealing a tangible item vs a digital reproduction. The media is irrelevant really, you're paying for someones time & expertise, it's not your place to determine how much this is worth, you either buy it or you don't.
i've already decided i won't pay for any game that needs an internet connection to install...has ads, or any other type of DRM...the only way they will stop using this crap is if everyone stopped buying them...the backlash against spore didn't really work since it's the top selling game...the DRM pissed everyone off but they still spent their money...dumbasses...look at the world around us...housing market, cars...they are getting cheaper or financed at low rates because the economy sucks...they want you to buy so they do what they can to get your money...if you want the DRM crap to stop, don't buy the games...they will get the hint and if they don't, buy a console...
Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 wasn't that long ago.
I don't see *any* reason to play a PC game. Back in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s it made sense to prefer computer games since the computer was typically more-advanced than a console. For example 16-bit Amiga was superior to the then-dominant 8-bit NES (both in graphics and sound quality).
But nowadays there's very little difference. A PS3 or Xbox360 or Wii looks just as good as the PC version. I don't blame some companies for not targeting the PC platform, since there's no real advantage to doing so.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I find it quite curious how people that stand firm against DRM are so positive about Steam.
Because despite all of the errors you can (and will eventually) get with Steam, they don't make it annoying.
Doesn't Steam suffer from everything DRM does?
Not really? One of the core tenets of anti-DRM is that it just screws over the user who paid for stuff. I don't think Steam really does for the most part IMO.
It isn't portable, you need Steam to be ON to play and worse of all, what happens when Steam goes offline one day? Wouldn't all our games just stop playing?
It depends on your definition of "portable". To me, Steam is actually highly portable.
Let's say I go to a buddy's house and I want to show him what Portal is like. I can download Steam, log into my account, and show him the game. Installing on a new format is easy as pie. Hell, even backing up files is easy - just copy and paste. It always works. Steam keeps 99.9% of their files in the Steam folder, so backing it up just consists of copying it elsewhere.
You don't need Steam to be ON to play, just to play online. If you want to play only single player games, you just need to verify the games *once* on the current install of Windows (which happens automatically in the background - you just load it up, I believe). Then you can set the games to "Offline Mode" and play without having to log into Steam.
As for playing online, well... it's a compromise worth making. You're going to be online anyway, and the conveniences (able to pull down my games from their servers at 1.7 MB/s, anywhere, anytime, the friends network, easy to backup, etc.) are more than worth it.
If Steam ever went down, I believe that someone at Valve (I think it was Gabe Newell) stated that it wouldn't be too hard for them to write up a "killswitch" patch. Considering that there already are shadow Steam networks running for people who pirate the games, somebody else would write up a patch on the off chance Valve *didn't* write such a patch themselves.
I buy quite a lot of titles on Steam, however, I can't say I feel too good about it. I merely do it because it is comfortable, but it still doesn't seem to me like the Right Way to do things.
So you're saying you keep building up this collection of games that could disappear at any moment - you're aware of this, but you do it anyway? I don't know whether it's subconscious or conscious, but it's because Steam is probably the best compromise when it comes to DRM out there. That's a Hell of a statement for me to make, yes, but it wouldn't be so successful if it weren't so damned convenient.
I do have my gripes, though. One of my mates lost his Steam account. Why? Someone re-registered his original Hotmail account that expired and used password recovery to get his account. Nevermind the fact that he bought many games under a credit card in his name - they tie the account to the e-mail. He was basically shit outta luck.
The Steam API is also a huge resource hog. Playing Steam on a low-end system with in-game friends enabled will *hurt* your system - some games will flat-out just not run, and many will run slow. It's coded very sloppily and is in need of many efficiency improvements.
I'd like to be able to "sell" games, using Steam as a payment system. While you can sell your account (which is against the TOS), you can't really sell one game off of it because it is tied to your account. However, the Steam Store lets you buy games as a "gift" that you can give to another account. I don't see why it would be so hard to say "transfer X game to this account when I receive the money over Steam". Hell, use the money as credit in the Steam store or something - even that would be better than not being able to sell it at all.
Steam customer service leaves a lot to be desired and there's still a good lot of bugs, but it's a big improvement over previous DRM schemes and previous iterations of Steam.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Would it seem fair to have every new model of a car cost $30,000 if the first one cost $1,000,000 to make but every one after that was magically copied from nothingness?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Since ever in the computer history, people are used to copy softwares from each other. It became a habit to do such thing, and it doesn't fell like that you're stealing something. We may be on the 3rd generation of 'copiers', and we keep doing it. The same thing explain the illegal mp3 downloads and creation.
I started buying games when I met Steam, and HAD to buy the game or I wouldn't be able to play online (with good, fast servers); last year I bought WoW, and since that 'I keep buying it', if I can say that.
The answer is: change the games or change the gamers. I bet they will keep picking the 3rd and bad choice.
Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
What are you talking about?
I play warhammer myself, and played wow for a year in a half. Warhammer more because it can be casual, and wow to try out the hardcore (I was in the #1 guild in dark iron which was #6 in the US). In irony, I had actually hooked up with a cute girl when I was playing wow, a penny arcade girl, as well, although I had to fly to another state to see her.
Please, don't make BS assumptions. I don't lie about what I say, least you could do is be a little less ad hominem, eh?
If a game is good, charge a nominal fee which includes patches, etc and ability to play online.
Those who dont want to pay can play the local version (and may get hooked and end up paying)
Hellgate did this exact thing, but unintentionally.
I downloaded a cracked copy of Hellgate and started playing through the single-player. I enjoyed it. Threw a copy of it on my wife's computer, she enjoyed it. Threw a copy on my kid's computer, he enjoyed it. Reminded us all a lot of Diablo II, and we used to have a ton of fun playing Diablo II on-line. Of course the on-line play wasn't going to work with the cracked copy...
So we ran out and bought three copies of Hellgate at the local GameStop. We played on-line using their free multiplayer for a good several months... And then my wife and I wound up with a paid subscription for a couple months after that.
The availability of a cracked single-player version of the game definitely got Flagship Studios a couple sales that they wouldn't have had otherwise.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
If you had no free riders, you'd have no publicity. Your game would be unknown to the world. People just don't get that. Politics wouldn't work if it wasn't for "free riders". If you had absolutely no clue what (XYZ physical object) was, how would you make any form of decision. The real "free" product is being make conscious of the game, which may or may not result in it being a sale.
Also, the minute you sell the game to ANYONE, it can be given to ANYONE else. It's called right of first sale. Sucks to be a publisher? I'd say no, considering the cost of software distribution. Also, people can make illegal copies whether you like it or not. That's not called piracy, it's called sharing.
As said below, plenty of people have refuted your idea here. Selling a game for 50$ at start and 10$ later means you really were willing to sell it for 10$. There will be freeloaders but there will be people who want to donate to support you if they choose their price. Also your mistake.
What if someone rich goes "hey, this is awesome. I'm going to give this guy a grand as a donation" but whoops! We can't donate to you. Best we can do is buy it for 50$ (which you get something less than that).
Man, people really don't get how to create incentive donations. Being a prick really doesn't work for that.
I have mod points that I rarely waste on ACs so I will post here in reply instead. I see that your post is currently modded "Funny". I think you are being extraordinarily rude and would have moderated you down just because of it. I appreciate the point that you are making, agree with it in many cases, however the simple fact of your rudeness deserves either an "Overrated" or "Flamebait" mod.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Yeah I've spent like 200 dollars on guild wars too. And I've spent over 200 dollars on Company of Heroes, just so I could have accounts for guests to play on when they come to my LAN dungeon. I must have bought 3 copies of starcraft, and like 4 of diablo 1/2. I spend this much because I have to, the best aspects of all these games are the online play! I've spent hundreds of hours on each of these games over the years.
On the other hand, I don't hesitate to grab pirated copies of any games I can. I don't recall any single player game I just had to buy since Wing Commander 3/4. I tried that Spore game, and I'm so glad I didn't give EA my money. What garbage! Same thing with Bioshock. I looked at the nice graphics for 10 minutes then I never played it again. Probably isn't garbage though.
Anyway, the way I look at software piracy is if I wasn't going to buy it anyway, there's no harm in stealing it. The game company gets 0 from me in the first case, and $0 from me in the second, except in the second case it gets good exposure if the game is good. And there's lots of cases where I wasn't going to buy it anyway, because I'm a poor student!
The same goes for the case of "i'd buy it if I had the money" I don't think it's wrong let poor people take software for free, it's just like letting young tots into half empty movie theaters. It doesn't cost anything at the margin to the theater.
Where I draw the line, though, is when people who can afford to buy software they have their eyes on don't to save a few measly bucks (to them). This goes for companies especially.. I'd have no tolerance for companies that didn't pay for software that improved their business. My dad's a farmer and he throws around 100 dollars like I'd throw around a buck. There's no excuse..
No. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
I completely agree with your point, but I believe the much more troubling lesson learned from the Radiohead example was that even when people could get it for free 100% legally, they still chose to download it illegally, which leads to the natural conclusion that people aren't even bothering to consider the price offered in the first place, going directly to P2P as their first port of call.
Going to your TV example, it would be like Store A offering free TVs to anybody who wants one, but people still going to Store B and stealing the same model TV. As I said, much more troubling that this is the society we live in.
I agree with this, in fact I have previously downloaded Half-Life 2. I played through the first few hours and really enjoyed the game. My son also seemed to enjoy it, so now Valve will have an additional two sales of Orange Box for Christmas due to our enjoyment of the pirated HL2 game.
Not to say that I don't feel guilty for having pirated the game in the first place, but with only one or two game purchases available per year (we don't have much money for gaming) the try before you buy concept works well for me and typically enriches one or two game companies. The downside of this is that other companies that make not-fun games don't get any purchase - we did the same with Spore, just trying it out and really hated it so EA will not get any purchase this year and the game is no longer on our systems... we thought it sucked that badly (DRM issues aside).
So unfortunately I appear to have unintentionally invalidated both our points about the fairness of pirating. It is very fair to me, and it is fair some of the time to a limited number of developers, but it screws everyone else.
I think to combat this, and build upon the likelihood that someone trying a game and liking it will buy it, Steam has a really great try before you buy free download on some of the games. We just saw a game called Peggle, did the free download of X number of levels, and have had a really good time with it. I suspect that we will purchase this game also.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Unfortunately, the PC gaming industry seems to be designing itself for failure. In a time when companies are taking losses on hardware to increase their userbase (consoles) the PC gaming industry seems to be going to extra efforts to actually limit the growth of their market.
What has been the single most revolutionary improvement to console gaming? Multiplayer. The console industry has realized this and games that only offer single player are so rare that when something lacks multiplayer it can be seen as a black mark by critics. We are a social species, and gaming originated as a social activity. It is only for a brief period when transitioning into the electronic world that gaming became a single player activity. Improvements in hardware and data connections are bringing gaming back into the 'coffee table' world of board and card games.
Back to my topic. When you brought over your copy of monopoly, it was a game that was designed, and infact required, multiple players. Yet it is rare that you come across any PC game that isn't designed in such a way that you are expected to pay an additional fee to enjoy it with your friends. It may be a throwback to the per-chair licensing that is still utilized by many software producers, but it is detrimental to the growth of the PC gaming industry. It is an intentional speedbump that is thrown in the path of growth. If the PC gaming industry wants to continue with the concept of DRM, then they have to do so in a manner that allows people to socialize with the friends the know in the real world. Online 'lobbies' and forums don't completely fill that gap.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
What if I don't own a console -- or don't want to own a console?
The wonderful thing about computers is they can simulate anything else -- including a game console, or better yet, a more complex interface (such as a flight sim) - while also allowing me to concurrently search the web, write in my blog, podcast, record my music, and write software...a console can't do that.
The more we move away from the general purpose computer, the more we will be constrained by the limitations imposed on us by the console makers - and each will have their own standards and OS - creating walled gardens, instead of standards based architectures. Furthermore, if consoles are opened up to be as general purpose as a computer --- why bother having a console in the first place?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
But if I build my own car to the same design as yours, and I feel generous enough to give you $1000 in thanks for coming up with such a cool design, I think you should be grateful.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The problem is that it's encouraging "creativity" in the wrong places. If the industry abandoned traditional business models, we'd never have Portal or Ico.
Not wrong, just different. No-one is preventing a game developer from releasing different games using different business models, if it makes sense given the nature of each game.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"The word boggle is about 400 years old. In "mind boggling" and "the mid boggles," boggle has a meaning of amazement, of being overwhelmed and confused.
The original meaning referred to horses who were said to have been boggled when they started or were spooked by something their drivers or riders couldn't see."
Boggle was also a great game that wasted many an hour of my time as a kid.
Steam has its good and bad points.
The good comes from the fact that once you buy the game, it automatically installs and updates the game for you. There has never been any work required for any steam game I have ever played. It warns me if it believes my computer isn't good enough (good and bad, a quad core 2.6 Ghz apparently throws a warning for a game requiring 2.7 Ghz). Steam makes PC gaming easy
The other side of the good debate comes from how the company is viewed. Look at Microsoft vs Google. One is viewed as trustworthy for the most part, as their slogan is "do no evil" while the other is seen as the evil empire. We both give up personal information to their vast data mining, but we don't mind it as much when it goes to google.
DRM is the same way. I don't mind Valve/Steam doing what it does, because I've transferred games between computers, I almost always have an internet connection, and I enjoy the features it offers. SecureROM and EAs Download manager make me cringe, especially at the fact that it acts like spyware on your computer (doesn't uninstall when its supposed to). For most people, it is a matter of trust. I trust Valve's steam to work correctly and do what it is supposed to, I trust EA to be the Evil Empire of gaming.
The bad parts of steam have only come from the fact that it is hard for me to share a game with friends. I'm not talking about illegally sharing, but where I would hand them my CDs and CD key's before, I'd have to now allow them to login as me
The vast majority of games on steam will still run if steam doesn't have connection. That said, what you buy in steam are account keys. If Steam were to turn off one day, they could just email you a list of all your actual cd keys and let you use them with retail copies.
What, is Penny Arcade the new Canada? Or did she have a thick outline, oddly curved fingers, and was drawn awfully sexy for a 14-year old?
I'd hardly call free but a fee to play online a creative business model. We usually call that a scam.
You might call it that, but presumably the many players who pay up for their on-line services disagree with you. It's not as if they have to keep paying if they don't think they're getting anything worthwhile in return.
A real creative business model would be something you can embrace that doesn't have infinite fuckups (drm, subscription fees), and uses common sense. Such as, I don't know, paying for a game and not having subscription fees, drm, or cd keys or any forced "linkage" of any sort?
But with this model, what pays for the constant development of new content, maintaining the infrastructure, providing the bandwidth...? I'm not sure what you describe is a viable business model for an MMORPG at all.
Go back to requiring a cd in virtual CD or physical form, and we'll all be happy. Will it sell more copies in reality? You bet you it will.
In a business setting, you're not trying to sell more copies, you're trying to make more money. One user who pays a year's worth of monthly subscription fees is probably worth several users who pay a one-off price for buying the software but never pay again, and the subscriber might still be worth something next year.
Is it cheaper to not have to pay a company to DRM your software (or engineers to do it)? Absolutely.
The implementation cost of DRM is negligible in the final accounts. The cost in terms of PR and lost legitimate customers is far more significant, particularly the way people are starting to feel as average users start to encounter the DRM restrictions that geeks have been warning about for several years. The business decision is simply whether the anticipated loss due to those negative effects is outweighed by the anticipated gains through increased sales from failed pirates. I've always been a bit sceptical about relying on that in the long run, but then I don't run a successful games company, and contrary to Slashdot sarcasm, presumably the people who do aren't completely stupid.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Considering Portal is based on Narbacular Drop which was actually University project, we already got the creativity without going through the standard games industry business model. Narbacular Drop was free and apparently had a decent community creating maps for it (I never tried it myself). Admittedly Portal has shinier graphics and a story, but IMO the current business models pushed by publishers are more likely to stifle innovation than encourage it - which is why Bungie left Microsoft for example. They were fed up churning out sequels to Halo, because they know they are capable of much more.
I don't mind publishers and developers releasing sequels - as long as the original game was good and the sequel is just as good or better, of course - but using recent business models it is difficult for developers with original ideas to get their foot in the door. We still get original games occasionally, but there is pressure from the publishers to produce more of the same recipes rather than try out new concepts - see DeathSpank for another example. Ron Gilbert tried pushing the ideas to publishers for years before he found one that was willing to take the risk on it, even though he's got some great games under his belt. We will always have developers/designers with interesting ideas, it's currently up to the publishers who gets through though.
I have no idea why nobody is still making good ol' point and click adventures. We have plenty of point and click cruft like the Sims and WoW, but for some reason point and click adventures are 'outdated'. I'd choose playing a Ron Gilbert Monkey Island sequel over the Sims any day (though if you said Half-Life 3 I'd have to think about it)! I'm definitely getting DeathSpank when it comes out anyway.
The current generation of consoles are starting to have channels for homebrew type games, and things like Steam on the PC are good ways for developers to be able to release their games without going via the traditional publisher route. I'd never heard of Ico - apparently it was a bit of a flop - but if it was released as a cheap WiiWare game or PS3 store download right now it would do very well. I'd buy it now that I've heard about it. Of course if you threw in every other PS2 game ever, I probably wouldn't notice it at all. It all comes down to marketing and a bit of luck in the end as to which games get noticed - but then that's just life (and damn statistics).
PS - I actually thought Portal would be rather spectacular with online multiplayer. It would be pretty cool playing in a deathmatch arena with traps everywhere, trying to drop objects on people's heads, send them into a spiky pit/whatever. Or perhaps they could have some kind of capture the flag variant. It would be a bit messy and hectic, but could be good fun. As it is, it's "just" a puzzle game to me and I probably will never play it again. I hope they include portals and multiplayer in Episode 3 anyway :)
which is totally what she said
The point is that he has bad Karma - and was modded -1 to begin with - so it is the system that is at fault (if anything) - not the mods.
I prefer mods to rockers anyway.
This is actually detailed in the user's journal: http://slashdot.org/~The_Fire_Horse/journal/
But it's not your decision to make. If I build a car and decide to sell it for $5000, your only options are to buy it for $5000 or not buy it for $5000. You can't just steal it from me and give me $1000 because that's all you think it's worth. That's just not how trading works. If it were, I could kick you out of your house, toss you a $5 bill and claim I bought it from you.
Trading actually does involve a process whereby the two trading partners find a price that is acceptable to both of them. This doesn't happen in retail (well, in big-store retail anyway. You can still haggle with small retail store owners), but that doesn't mean it can't happen in trade.
In standard commercial retail we get the choice to buy for $5K, buy a similar product from someone else for a different price, or not buy at all.
At this point.
It's easy to see a future where we can negotiate with a website to find a mutually acceptable price for a game.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
Not having to waste hours fiddling with Windows settings (or worse: forced upgrade of expensive video cards) is why I chose the console route. The gaming console just works.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
In the real world, MOST people already didn't think that a
Radiohead album was worth paying for and they never would
have bought one. This fact is not altered by computing
technology. The easy ability to download and copy things
just give content creators a false impression of the value
of their work.
Pirates create a false impression of value. All of those
zero dollar value transactions are much like the funny
business that was going on with junk bonds, energy trading
or the recent mortgage resale shenanigans.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What do you mean "it isn't portable"?
It has an offline mode for single player games, and how were you going to play online games without a net connection anyway? It also lets you download and install to any machine you want without having to delete the original install, which makes it even more "portable", as well as a very convenient way to manage your games without having to manually install them yourself and type in registration keys, which you've had to store away safely with their disks.
Installing from disks is still quicker than downloading, but it definitely isn't as convenient when you have a large collection of games and have just bought a new machine or reinstalled Windows. You can either download all your games again, or restore from a Steam backup or whatever.
which is totally what she said
I don't blame some companies for not targeting the PC platform, since there's no real advantage to doing so.
The advantage of targeting the Windows platform is that it allows a developer to get its first few titles out the door so that it can afford the leases and devkits for a console license.
Pirates create a false impression of value. All of those zero dollar value transactions are much like the funny business that was going on with junk bonds, energy trading or the recent mortgage resale shenanigans.
I think the flaw in that argument is that while no money changed hands in a pirate "transaction", it is self-evident that the pirated material does have some value to the pirate, because the pirate bothered to spend the time and effort to download and play/listen to/watch the ripped content. Unless someone wants to claim that pirates only ever download material to try, and immediately obtain a legal copy of everything they actually like, of course... (Traditionally on Slashdot, someone now pops up and replies claiming that they do this, ignoring the fact that they are not representative of pirates in general.)
If we assume that pirates do in fact keep and enjoy some of the material they download illegally while others are paying the going rate for that material, then it is easy to argue that piracy is unethical: if everyone would lose out if they all followed the actions of the pirates, then those who do not are subsidising the pirates and the pirates are abusing the system and taking unfair advantage of others.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The wonderful thing about computers is they can simulate anything else -- including a game console
Unlike most PCs, a game console has SDTV outputs, and most PCs would need a $40 adapter to simulate that. It's a lot easier to fit four people around a 27" SDTV than around a 17" monitor, even though the 17" monitor has a higher resolution. Most party games are either single-console exclusives or on everything-but-the-PC because their publishers assume that customers using a PC aren't going to buy the $40 adapter and a $10 USB hub to plug in four game controllers.
They'll also typically build in card fees, delivery and maybe credit terms in some cases, which if you don't want them, you can probably push them to waive.
go read other comments to my post.
When you don't shove prices in people's faces, it tends to reflect better on you as the one who made the program and your business as well. Hell, people might even do that magic thing called donate to be an incentive for you to do more with your program!
Just because america has accepted a "this is our price and we're holding to it with our teeth" doesn't mean it's accurate for the rest of the world, where retail prices are not set in stone by a longshot.
It's an american fallacy that people think they can stick someone with prices. Really it's only been in place since the FDIC came into play. After having traveled to europe, the middle east, and south america, I can confirm that it is only a US thing. Also, the consumers are more educated and you dont' find them treated like shit.
I frankly think the consoles do a better job, particularly XBox. If you buy the game, you play it against the computer. It's yours to run forever, regardless if you never connect to the internet. If you pay $60/year you get to play that game online. If you get tired of the game, you can sell it.
What's not to like about that?
DRM is like the clap. Getting a little is not better than getting a lot; it just takes longer to affect you.
But it's not your decision to make.
Except that it is. You may not like it, but all the lawsuits and czars in the world can't change that.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You don't see what's fun with online gaming? Hmm, well, I'd turn that around. I don't see what's wrong with online gaming. Certainly there are some games that don't 'share' particularly well, but there's also a lot that do. Like, every RTS or FPS out there, benefits from having a real intelligence behind it, rather than a 'random AI' which at best is 'well scripted' and at worst is 'just moronic'.
Absolutely. The only thing that Steam needs to be better is:
1. Better customer support
2. Being able to sell or transfer the license for a game you bought to someone else.
Other than that, never had any problems and I love Steam(as long as you're online, of course).
Furthermore, if consoles are opened up to be as general purpose as a computer --- why bother having a console in the first place?
Because of same hardware in every single console of same generation !. There are more than 110 milion of PS2 and a similar number of PS1 and the big plus for developers is that they dont need to test against thousand of hardware configurations. Also the game for the console is writen specificaly for that hardware so you dont need to buy another 2GB stick of ram for the newest shooter.
I pay an MMO sub. I find the cost-benefit ratio to be quite good. It's a lot less than a 'brand new' game, and generally gives me more hours of entertainment. It doesn't stop me buying the 'latest' RTS (I like RTS games a lot) but it does mean since playing, I've dropped from buying a new game every month or so, to doing so once or twice a year, and only when it's _really_ good. The sums add up for me. (Although, admittedly somewhat less so now I've started running multiple MMO accounts)
Parent poster is absolutely spot on with their comments on World of Goo. Not only is the game a real gem, it comes with absolutely no copy protection or DRM at all. Even though 2D Boy is an indie outfit, and not a huge corporation, those who slam DRM in games (an boycott games such as Spore) should put their money where their mouth is and support games like this. Perhaps the success of a DRM-less game (in terms of sales) will have some impact on the market as a whole.
If you had no free riders, you'd have no publicity. Your game would be unknown to the world. People just don't get that.
That's because it's clearly not true. Word-of-mouth publicity is a very powerful thing, and it worked just fine before computer games or music or movies could be cheaply and quickly reproduced. The big games shops and movie studios and record labels and book publishers spend a lot of money on marketing to raise awareness of their new products as well.
Also, the minute you sell the game to ANYONE, it can be given to ANYONE else. It's called right of first sale.
No, if you have a product you bought legitimately, you can give it to one other person instead.
Also, people can make illegal copies whether you like it or not. That's not called piracy, it's called sharing.
No, it's called piracy, and if you bothered to consult an etymological dictionary, you'd find that it had been called that for a very, very long time.
In any case, your argument is naive. I could drive my car through a city at 100mph. I could run through the streets hacking at anyone in range with a kitchen knife. Realistically, it is unlikely that anything would physically stop me before serious damage was done. That doesn't mean society should condone such inconsiderate and dangerous behaviour, or that the law should not provide for penalising those who act in such antisocial ways. That's what laws do.
As said below, plenty of people have refuted your idea here. Selling a game for 50$ at start and 10$ later means you really were willing to sell it for 10$.
No, it doesn't. There is nothing in business, economics, or indeed ethics for that matter, that says you must always sell a product at a constant price throughout. That isn't how free markets work. (Anyone about to divert into an off-topic rant on capitalism and credit crunches, please save it for a more appropriate forum. Thanks.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Please, don't make BS assumptions. I don't lie about what I say, least you could do is be a little less ad hominem, eh?
You pretty much stated that all MMO's are grindfests you have to pay for, comparable to taxing people for air. Just how do you console that with your next post?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
A subscription MMO would have lapsed, and I would likely have lost my characters or their gear.
This is why I don't play WoW.
No matter how long your subscription lapses Blizzard never deletes your characters or gear. You can subscribe, unsubscribe, and resubscribe as often as you want with no threat to your characters.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Actually I didn't know some of that!
I guess I Steam isn't as bad as I thought.
Thanks for explaining.
Wow. That just brings creative team griefing to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL when you split up the Portal gun modes in co-op play.
"What? You mean you don't like it that I plop your exit portal over the lava pit every time?"
>:)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Unfortunately, just because it's on Steam doesn't also mean there isn't atrocious DRM. I downloaded Assassin's Creed from them. It worked fine for a bit but then suddenly it would freeze solid for about 5 seconds every time you killed somebody, or were spotted by guards, or got a flag. I checked out their forums. Lots of people had this issue. UBISoft told us all that nobody was reporting such a thing (EXCEPT US???) but they'd look into it. Somebody who isn't UBISOFT found the solution though: Disconnect your network cable. Because the issue is, Assassin's Creed connects to a UBISOFT server every 3 SECONDS while you are playing, and the lockups happen if it can't for some reason, or if there is a delay. If it detects not network though, it doesn't try.
In fact, Assassin's Creed is a shining example of piracy doing exactly what the pirates say: establishing word of mouth. On PS3 and 360 it sold like 1.5 million copies. They released the PC port. BUT, about a month before it came out, there was a pirate version "leaked", that intentionally locked up randomly, and was also designed to crash to desktop about half way through, to frustrate pirates and make them buy the real deal I guess. But what happened is by the time it was out, most people on the Internet had heard it was slow and unstable and crashed about half way through so you could never beat it. It sold very very few copies, and they blamed this on piracy!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Unfortunately I don't see #2 as ever happening. When you purchase a game at a store you have a physical media that can be transferred, often at a lower resell price because it is used. but when you buy online, there's no point in buying something "used". What I would think would be a better idea would be simply to make the online purchase of the game about $10 to $20 bucks cheaper simply because there is no physical media and no means to resell.
With the rise of online play "fitting four people around" a display is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
But I've seen more parents who are willing to let their kids' friends from school into their house than to let their kids play over the Internet, possibly due to four horsemen paranoia.
Even school kids all rush tome to jump on Xbox Live rather than huddling around a single display.
Even if the school kids live in the same house? Not all parents can afford to buy multiple TVs and multiple Xbox 360 consoles, or multiple monitors and multiple PCs. I already bring two TVs and two consoles to serve eight kids at the annual Christmas party; I don't want to have to buy and bring six more, plus more copies of each game.
most people didn't bother paying anything at all
The article fails to note how many of those who downloaded the album for free later returned to pay after listening to it to determine its worth. Given the option, I wouldn't pay until I heard it; I expect many others feel the same way.
The article suggests that 38% of 1.2 million visitors paid an average of $6. Some quick, sketchy math says they made $2.7 million.
When I see that "38% paid" figure--again with the sketchy math--I see "61% returned to pay." Considering how many people will give any music a listen if it's free, I'm guessing they're pretty pleased with that result.
The downside of this is that other companies that make not-fun games don't get any purchase - we did the same with Spore, just trying it out and really hated it so EA will not get any purchase this year and the game is no longer on our systems... we thought it sucked that badly (DRM issues aside).
Steam has a really great try before you buy free download on some of the games.
What ever happened to decent demos of games? Or shareware/trialware? There was a time when pretty much every game had a demo out, usually before the game itself was released. It was great advertising for a game... Stirred up lots of enthusiasm... And it gave people a chance to try a game before paying for it.
Right now I'm agonizing over Dead Space for PC. It looks like a decent game, looks like something I'd really enjoy. And I've got some cash set aside at the moment from a recent bonus. But I've heard reports that the keyboard/mouse controls are horrible and you really need to use a controller to enjoy Dead Space on a PC. I don't want to buy a game for $50 only to find out that I need to spend another $30 on a controller just to play it. I'd love to play a demo of the game to see how it works, but there isn't one out there.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Ok Ryan i won't be a friend to the parasite.
You're not really explaining why you're entitled to other people's work. Video games don't just write themselves. If I spend hours and hours writing a game, why should I just give you a copy for free?
I will give you a copy of my money if you will give me a copy of your game. See - there's a difference between a tangible and an intangible.
Nah, average looking but mentally unstable at the time. Not 14 though, nobody likes jailbait lol.
As you've probably seens mentioned lots of times here on slashdot already, there is a big difference between a physical product and something that can be duplicated at nearly no cost.
Tell a lie long enough and it sounds like the truth. People say it again and again on slashdot, but it has no more truth to it than the day it was first said. The only difference between the two things you mentioned is a technicality: if we're discussing the ethics of taking them without consent, they are the same.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Aint nothin stopping flight sims on consoles these days except for the fact that flight sim dev houses tend to be PC only. I know of at least two console flight games that support USB Joystick and Throttle type controls.
Where have you been for the last 6 years. Did you ever wonder why Sony always referred to the PS2 (and PS3) as "computer entertainment systems"?
I love doing this:
Used to do it with my PS2 with a Linux kit in it too.
When it comes to games, walled gardens are a good thing.
One might ask that if consoles can do general purpose computer type things, why have a Windows computer? But let me answer your question. Gaming on the console is true plug and play. I don't have to worry about system requirements or a game like Crysis forcing a hardware upgrade on me for it to be playable. Everything just works. And I have a large selection of genre's other than just RTS, FPS and MMORPG.
Would you rather pay $1,000,000 for merely one car? It's quite fair to spread the cost out amongst many people, considering the cost is out of reach of any one person.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Something else that's not particularly surprising: The "study" cited in that article is completely worthless. From the article:
A few hundred people? Out of the millions that bought/downloaded the album? Even if only a million copies of the album were sold (for any price), a "few hundred" people represent on the order of one hundredth of a percent of the total number of copies sold. That could just as well mean that 62% of that 0.01% paid $0 and the other 99.98% of people paid money. It's worthless. To highlight the problem, when the sample size is increased to 3,000 people (as cited on Wikipedia), only a third of the people paid $0. One order of magnitude made a difference of one third in the final outcome. The sample size would have to be another couple of orders of magnitude still to have any meaning at all.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Most people probably did get it simply because it was free. We seem to be hardwired (and reinforced by our society) to collect stuff. I've lost count of how many computers I've brought home from work that were going to be tossed out. I didn't need them, and most I've never used but I took them anyway because I couldn't resist free hardware. If on any occasion the company had wanted anything more than the $20 I might have had in my wallet, I would have declined because it wouldn't be worth my time or money to bother with it. I suspect it's the same with the Radiohead album. Some people downloaded it just to have it and have never listened to it. Others actually wanted the album but not enough that they would have paid any money for it.
Well there is a difference: a physical object can typically only belong to one individual at a time so for that object to come into the possession of another individual without authorization, it necessarily requires the violation of the natural rights of the former owner. Distributing knowledge without authorization (copyright infringement) is an entirely different situation with its own unique issues.
If you think there is no difference between media, you might want to consult the RIAA. If I steal a CD, I'm probably going to be required to make restitution to the store and possibly suffer some sort of punitive measure like a fine, depending on the situation. If I infringe on a copyright by making an unauthorized copy of a single MP3, according to the RIAA I should pay thousands of dollars. In both cases I have not "payed for someone's time & expertise," so why is there such an enormous difference in the penalties? I find it very odd that when someone can be proved to have been deprived of something the punishment is reasonable and in proportion to the crime, but when it cannot be proved that anyone has been deprived of anything the punishment for the "crime" is very severe. Why?
But what is the difference between steam and, say, Walmart's DRMed music? The music only needs to phone home if you make significant changes to your machine. That will happen a lot less often than playing online will. Valve may claim they will write some skeleton patch when they go under, but I highly doubt a dying company is going to burn resources that way. Especially when it would be a clear indicator that they were about to fail. If they were really serious about the patch it would be in escrow somewhere waiting for the company to fail. I have to agree with the GP, steam gets good press on Slashdot despite being as bad or worse than existing music DRM schemes that everyone hates.
Yes, it's your decision to make. As long as you accept the consequences that go with it. I can decide to steal a car. It's my decision. But no one will listen to me whine if I go to jail for it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
(Score: Troll)
I wish the moderators would stop marking comments as trolls simply because they disagree. If you want to disagree, say so in a reply to the original post. I don't mind disagreement. I DO mind mis-marking of people's comments; that's abuse of your moderation powers. If you're not going to do a proper job, then step-down.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
With Steam you agree that you own nothing. That Steam can take away your access to the game for any or no reason.
Why is this acceptable DRM? Would you be ok if Samsung made you agree to this with your TV? What about your car? Your house?
I find being offended by me offensive.
How dare you compare these two companies.
With Valve you have to ask permission to play. You have to agree to a contract that states valve can revoke your access at any time.
Ironclad on the other hand gives you an install file in exchange for registering your serial number with them. No DRM. No call home and ask permission. Literally the only thing you can't do is update. That's their hook to get you to not pirate.
With Valve you have to trust them. With Ironclad they have to trust you.
I find being offended by me offensive.
If I had mod points (of course you never do when you need 'em), I'd mod you up some more with +1 suddenoutbreakofcommonsense.
I am also angered by the views of many people in the tangible vs digital reproduction discussion.
Just because a copy costs $0, the initial investment is there just as with tangible goods. The dumbed down math looks something like this (IANAEconomist):
(((development cost) / (minimum expected number of sales)) + (reproduction cost)) * (profit margin) = sale price
The only difference between tangible and digital is that the reproduction cost is now 0. I completely fail to see how this makes sale price 0 as well, as some people seem to think it should be.
Now of course, if the situation warrants it, you can change that formula if you do business a different way. But you can't ever take out the (development cost) part. Radiohead came out on top (I think) just because of the very big number of sales. This will only work in certain instances. 'Small businesses' can't do this, the list of situations where this just doesn't work is endless.
What ticks me off most is the argument that if you copy a digital good it isn't stealing, because the original is still there. Perhaps the word stealing is not 100% literally correct, I will grant you that. However, you are still denying income to the authors. The argument that you would not have bought it doesn't fly either. If it is useful and provides a function people need, people will buy it. However, if they can get it for free, they will do that instead.
In the end, all these people are doing is making sure the developers cant feed their children and move to other things instead. Bottom line is they don't want to pay up, and make up all kinds of excuses why they shouldn't have to. It's like a little kid in the candy store, mommy doesn't want to buy you the candy, so they go crying and stomping around. Grow up.
And then of course the OSS enthousiasts will show up claiming it works for project X and Y so it should work for Z as well. Big-corp A will pay coders to work on it! Now, there is nothing wrong with OSS, in fact, I think it's great. But this model, again, does not work for a lot of projects, and all you're doing this is actually putting more into Big-corp A. Sell support contracts? Again, this works for some projects, not for others. Kinda put the effort out of trying to write decent software that doesn't need support too. The development cost has to be made back somewhere.
In the end, there are different business models, some work for some things, others for others. Thinking one-size-fits-all is IMHO shortsighted. And just because the business model used for product X you want is not agreeable to you, does NOT give you ANY right whatsoever to just pirate it instead.
With Steam you agree that you own nothing. That Steam can take away your access to the game for any or no reason.
Why is this acceptable DRM? Would you be ok if Samsung made you agree to this with your TV? What about your car? Your house?
Because they won't do that. There is a vested interest in keeping Steam going. It is like a retail store in itself. They can sell things to you. It is a portal to take your money. If I had a freaking portal to your wallet that cost me little to maintain you can damned well be sure that I wouldn't be turning it off. What happens if they did decide to 'take away your stuff', well that would be the end of steam, I'd be out a few games which I would promptly pull off the net to replace what I already have.
Evil DRM is stuff like TIVO that requires a subscription for physical hardware. Steam is unobtrusive and unless they don't like money, isn't going anywhere.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I feel that it offers enough value in exchange for the restrictions to make it worth it.
I don't have to keep track of media, and I don't even have to keep a disc image somewhere like I would if I pirated it. Less disc space wasted on that means less time worrying about backups, less money spent on hard drives, etc.
The comfort of knowing that it's taken care of for me is worth the restriction. That said, I NEVER purchase games that have further DRM on them through Steam, like Bioshock. The whole point is that Steam stays out of my way, while providing some benefits that make its mostly-harmless restrictions bearable; more DRM on top of that is NOT acceptable.
I'll also probably stop buying there if they ever have a problem that results in my losing one or more of my games. I don't mind the occasional rare hiccup (though I've yet to experience one) but any permanent loss of something I've purchased or any significant requirement of my time to recover it would be a deal-breaker
There was good reason, though, and it always comes back to the process the legal channel has created. The illegal file was point-click-download easy, the legal file required signing up with a company no one had ever heard of, which actually required about 8 steps to sign up, check email, verify, input credit card, etc. This was required even to download while paying $0. Go figure.
"He suggests that many game studios have themselves to blame for leaks and pre-launch piracy by not integrating their protection measures earlier in the development process."
But if they do that, then they'll have to deal with a whole host of performance issues, incompatibilities, and possibly bugs that have nothing to do with the game itself. That's way more hassle than the developers should have to put up with, unlike their customers, who have ample time and money to deal with such things once the game ships.
Oh, wait.
There's something inconsistent there, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
The torrent didn't cost Radiohead any bandwidth though and was probably faster. I like some of Radioheads songs but I'm not a really big fan. I have two options, I can download the album from their site, which they have to pay for, for something I may not like or I can torrent it, listen to it, and then decide if I feel it is worth buying. Which do you think the band prefers?
Going back to the TV example it would be like Store A offering free TVs but the line being so long that you go to Store B to make sure it's actually a TV worth getting.
I keep reminding my chums the same thing: Steam IS DRM, and it is DRM almost at its worst.
Let me know when I can play Wow, Civ IV or Diablo 2 on a console...
It's not about NEW games, its about _existing_ games that will NEVER be ported to consoles.
You're welcome. There's some other cool stuff in the works, too:
Valve's Steamworks is taking on mods that will be distributed and updateable through Steam. So woot, free games.
So long as you have Source SDK, you can play pretty much any Source Engine mod. Some, like Insurgency or Garry's Mod, require you to also have another game like Counter-Strike because of the materials they use in it (textures, etc.), but most don't. You can get Source SDK cheapest by buying HL2:DM for $5. There's lots of great mods, my favorite being Zombie Panic!, Eternal Silence, and Fortress Forever at the moment. Full disclosure: I'm a staffer for Fortress Forever.
One of my favorite bits, though, is that other people who have Steam accounts can use my already installed games. The way things work nowadays, if my buddy logs into his account and wants to play HL2 you'd expect that he'd have to redownload it and install it even though I already have it installed under my account. Not true. He can just play my copy while logged into his account. (I believe it keeps save games stored seperately from mine, but I'm not 100% sure on that.) Games he doesn't own are locked out, obviously.
Steam has the potential to be great. They still have a lot of kinks to work out and their customer service leaves much to be desired, but overall its probably the best digital distribution platform out there.
Also, try giving the Valve guys an e-mail. If you Google online (or listen to the HL2 commentary), they often list their e-mails. Most of the Valve guys actually get around to answering them, even Gabe Newell himself ( gaben (a)valve.com, I believe). If you have concerns, bring them up to them. They'll listen.
Oh, and lastly - stay away from the Steam Forums. There's a Hell of a lot more bad there than good. /=
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
This is just ignorant. You don't sign a contract and then expect people to not enforce the contract. Putting these clauses in the contract is intent to use them.
They can revoke access. The idea that your safe because they won't do it enmass is irrelevant. All they have to is do it to you, by accident. They're fully in the right. You have no game and and uphill battle (since technically you have no legal way to get it back) to get what you "purchased" back. I use quotes because the Steam contract explicitly states you own nothing.
It's completely unacceptable DRM. You don't give vendors permission to take your "purchases" back. This is the definition of slippery slope.
A good reasonable test for DRM is would you do it with other products. Would you buy food that the vendor could take back at any time. A house? A car? A TV?
I find being offended by me offensive.
Absolutely. The only thing that Steam needs to be better is: 1. Better customer support 2. Being able to sell or transfer the license for a game you bought to someone else.
The only two things that steam needs to be better at are customer support, license transfer, and fear!.
The only three things that steam needs to be better at...
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I don't know the last time a a computer I made or bought didn't come with video card that at least an svideo out on the back.
In my experience, less expensive PCs are more likely to have integrated video and less likely to have TV output. The advantage of consoles is that every make and model since 1991 has composite and S-video outputs.
I have 2 usb controllers(not any more expensive than buying a PS2 controller) no need for a hub or an adaptor(it's dual shock controller too check out logitechs site sometime).
Nice to see another fan of Logitech controllers. The box of a Microsoft Xbox 360 controller states that it will also work with a PC. I also like to use PlayStation 2 controllers through the "EMS USB2" adapter, which turns them into USB HID game controllers. But the advantage of consoles is that developers aren't locked firmly into the keyboard-and-mouse mindset.
Most of my friends I play games with have a computer
I often play games while babysitting my aunt's sons. They have a computer at home but 1. can't take a desktop PC with them, 2. have only one computer between them that can run Windows games (the other was changed to Puppy Linux and then Ubuntu after Windows stopped working and they lost the install disc), and 3. don't own copies of the same games that I own. The advantage of consoles is that multiplayer costs $50 for one copy of a game instead of $160 for four players, even counting the $10 console maker tax.
I won't say that the 360 or PS3 are a bad choice, but most of the time your going to be hooking them up to a TV that has HDMI capabilty
I've never seen HDMI on an SDTV set. If people in major anglophone markets (especially the United States) are upgrading to HDTVs so quickly, then why are so many people still buying CRT SDTV sets and coupon-eligible ATSC decoder boxes?
and if your computer doesn't have an DVI port on the back
Even for older video cards with no DVI-D output, most HDTVs have a VGA input.
it probably won't support the game your going to want to play anyways.
I'm mostly looking for a way to market an independent game that I'm developing.
The biggest problem with PC games is FPS with multiplayer
And whose fault is it that PC ports of cooperative first-person shooters can't split the screen into two 640x720 pixel windows on a basic HDTV like mine or two 960x1080 pixel windows on a premium HDTV like yours?
Controllers are only useful(usually) if your doing emulation.
Or EA Sports titles. But my next game will take up to four USB gamepads. It won't exactly be the next Smash Bros., but it'll be a start. Do you have any idea how I could start a business to market it?
That game didn't spawn out of nowhere. You pay for the work that was put into the game, not the game itsself. Is it that hard to get?
It is like paying for a hair cut. What you pay for is not something you can take home and lock into a safe. It is called labor and it is worth some money.
Admittedly Portal has shinier graphics and a story
Princess No-Knees would argue that Narbacular DID have a story...
As opposed to the one-size-fits all style of MMORPGs, NWN1/2 online games are built up around small communities of players who create their own servers. You can browse online and find hundreds of servers in unique environments, with different playstyles, etc.
On many of those worlds, the things you do will directly impact the world itself - in minor ways such as NPCs getting added or removed, or in more significant ways such as altering the storylines, new zones to get built, altering or destroying existing ones, etc.
I think that's something that the game companies are just not buying a clue on. The fancy, invasive new DRM is not any more effective than a simple requirement of having the CD/DVD in the drive. THat will prevent the casual copying, which is really all that you can ever expect out of anti-piracy measures in the first place.
Steam has its good and bad points...I enjoy the features it offers
For most people, it is a matter of trust.
And so we go directly to the heart of the DRM problem. When consumers complain about DRM, they are complaining about three things:
Lack of trust in purchase - (A lack of trust that they will own what they have purchased, and that they will not lose access to it through negligence, malice, or a critical existence failure on the part of the seller)
Lack of trust in software - (The belief that the DRM software itself will behave in a manner that is annoying, impact game or system performance, block legitimate access for dubious reasons, or worse, install something like a rootkit, causing more permanent damage to the OS or even the hardware, whether or not such a thing is *actually* possible)
Lack of comparable advantage - (The failure of the legitimately purchased software to be comparable to the pirated software. This is a *huge* problem for some software. If it has annoying intro videos, or the DRM adds several seconds of load time, or the pirated versions offer better performance, or the legitimate version has annoying crap bundled into it all over the place, or the pirated version is necessary to run mods, or you just plain need to break the DRM to back it up, or play without the CD)
Steam addresses enough of these problems for many people. Some other developers are working in similar areas, Stardock's Impulse for example, some developers are simply abandoning the whole DRM idea. Positech, GOG, and more.
Valve's Steam is also trying to capitalize on the 3rd point in particular, by offering an easy way to integrate updating, and even mods. Some people don't like it, which I certainly understand, since forced updates can and often do break third party content, but I can't deny that it's also way easier than trying to find a patch that's often not even hosted by the company that made the game, and is instead only available from some annoying third party hosting company that requires registration, or having to worry about applying three different patches in the right order to get from the retail version to the current version.
there is a big difference between a physical product and something that can be duplicated at nearly no cost.
The only difference between the two things you mentioned is a technicality: if we're discussing the ethics of taking them without consent, they are the same.
Dismissing the fact that one object is expensive to duplicate whilst the other costs almost nothing is not a technicality. Look at it the other way: if cars were as easy to duplicate as bits everyone would be doing it - it'd be a Star Trek future!
As it stands duplication of bits is essentially free so it's not possible to steal them. The ethical question is different, it's not a case of physically taking something that belongs to someone else, it's about depriving artists/authors of money. That's why it's clearly wrong to download a game/album/film and then not buy it if you like it. I'd even agree that it's wrong to download said media in the first place, it's just that there's no legal alternative in place for downloading lots of stuff and figuring out what you like. I imagine P2P for most people is just a bit of immoral laziness like this.
As all the .nfo's say, "buy it if you like it!" but that's really all it comes down to.
Nick
Thought about it a bit (may have been obvious.. i don't keep track of the gaming sites though).. DRM has nothing to do with preventing piracy. DRM in gaming was designed to 1) prevent selling used games - we've all seen the topics here about the ire over the used console game market.. and 2) prevent renting of games through the netflix-style mailing services. If you can't reuse or recycle something, your only option (in the 'I gotta have' consumer mindset) is to buy new. Which is more money in the publishers pocket.
DRM = new sale
My PC still drives way more pixels and looks way more pretty than any console currently on the market. What's more, I use a mouse and keyboard for most games, (I can't stand shooters, strategy games, and games with heavy inventory management on consoles or menu navigation on controller, not when the mouse with clickwheel exists), and if I want to play a flight sim or something, I can hook up a joystick and throttle, or wheel and pedals, or whatever. What's more, it plays DVDs, and HD video, and even all of the videos that I have ripped and put on my fileserver. And I can save things, and install mods, and I don't have to walk into the other room and boot up a different device, which means I can do all of this more casually and easily, from the comfort of my desk. What does a console offer me?
Not that I object to consoles, I like the Wii a lot, and I'm thinking of grabbing a used PS3 so I can put Ubuntu on it, and use it as a media center. I just don't get how console gaming is any more superior to PC gaming than boardgames are. Console gaming is similar to PC gaming, because they both involve videogames, but the closer a console is to a PC, the *less* superior it is in my mind. Consoles should take advantage of their differences (standard hardware, lower system requirements, potential for faster boot times, simpler controls, and so on. The PS3 is so much like a PC that it's attractive to me *as a PC*, but not as a gaming platform.
I purchased STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl over Direct2Drive. Stalker has multiple versions - Worldwide, US, and Digital Distribution (mine.)
The physical discs (WW and US) get a patch up to 1.0006. The DD version only has a patch up to 1.0005, with no plans for 1.0006 to be released for the DD. THQ's support contract with GSC ended at patch 1.0005, and GSC is an overseas company, so I have no real chance of any legal recourse.
That leaves me 100% unable to play multiplayer, which is the ENTIRE reason I paid for the game in the first place.
So what am I supposed to do about that, huh?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
But you still haven't explained why you're entitled to it in the first place. Regardless of how easy it is to duplicate, there's still the initial problem that I start out with the only copy and you don't. You're saying I shouldn't be compensated, so where's my motivation to share?
But it didn't work for Radiohead. According to Wikipedia, Readiohead never publicized the results of letting people set their own price. When they released the regular CDs to retail, it did well. Maybe you're a Radiohead insider or something, but that doesn't sound very promising to me. Seems like if their little experiment went well, they'd want to let people know.
Maybe not
"Doesn't Steam suffer from everything DRM does? It isn't portable"
Actually, I can just copy my entire steam directory from my desktop to my laptop, and play as long as I have my password, or I can play in offline mode.
"you need Steam to be ON to play "
Nope, there's a play offline mode. Doesn't work for the online games like TF2 but hey, you should KNOW that.
"what happens when Steam goes offline one day?"
Well, let's see, since scene people like dopeman and such have already managed to rip the actual games and make it steam-free, you won't have to worry that much except for maybe the multiplayer games.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I agree. Steam gets in the way in tangible ways, unlike the supposedly bad DRM of other systems (like iTunes). When I boot up my PC, the system hangs for what feels like an eternity, only to see that Steam is firing up in the system tray. It hogs resources, and is always popping up with stuff when not asked. It sucks like Adobe updater sucks. I don't mind DRM when I don't notice it, but Steam is constantly in my face.
It worked so well that the Radiohead album in question is now available on iTunes for $0.99 per track! I love a nice fairy-tale like Radiohead supposedly changing the music distribution with their bold new paradigm. Hell, Trent Reznor leaving USB sticks of his music laying around public toilets is more interesting than naming your own price.
I just finished working on a multi-platform title (360/PS3/PC) and everything he says is true.
Our renderer had more than 5 separate code paths to handle all the flavours of PC hardware. We had tonnes of separate code path to get good performance out of SLI setups and for Crossfire setups. We had a special mode for the physics system to use on low-end systems (in some areas of the game only).
We had a database of specific video chips and specific driver levels for them that were known to work or not work or have specific bugs in them, so that we could override the driver-supplied caps to work around them. We used the bleeding-edge-latest video drivers from Nvidia and ATI and found new bugs in them at least a dozen times (some of them would cause the machine to lock up for 15 seconds or spontaneously reboot).
Don't get me wrong, I like making games for PC as much as for console, and I'm glad that most publishers see the value in putting out a PC version rather than just neglecting that market segment... but the truth is, the PC is not a single "platform" in the same sense that the Xbox360 or the PS3 or the Wii is a single "platform".
The PC is a strange hardware soup of "platforms" with varying capabilities and driver bugs and whatnot. It takes a LOT of effort to make an engine and a game that can run smoothly across all of those various end-user configurations, and invariably some small percentage (2-5% ?) of our customers will experience problems that we never encountered in our (extensive!) compatability testing, and then they will flame us for it.
But if this ever happens to you: then please know that honestly, we tried our absolute damn best for you, because we love games as much as you do and we want to make the best possible games.
Did your friend go to the credit card company after not getting anywhere with Steam? Sometimes they can be quite helpful in nudging the vendor, or just yanking the money back out of the vendor's accounts.
One thing to consider is the difficulty of downloading the song legally vs. illegally. I went to the Radiohead site to check it out (was gonna pay $0, since I'm not a fan) and I couldn't get the site to display correctly and/or I couldn't figure out what to do (can't remember the details). I found it on bittorrent about 2 minutes later. Now that it is also available on iTunes, I would have just gone there first, knowing I could sample the songs there and buy it if I liked what I heard. This logic also works in explaining why I prefer iTunes DRM-laden songs to the Amazon DRM-free tracks. Why should I waste my time searching on Amazon, when I know it will be on iTunes, but the chance is very good that it won't be on Amazon? For a while, I'd check Amazon first, but I got so many hits with the "we'll be adding this to our catalog soon" messages, it was not worth my time. You gotta remember there are tons of non-geeks who don't want to spend all night perusing music catalogs. Some of us graduated college a long time ago and have other things to do now ;-)
I am not positive about steam. I really really want to play Half Life 2 and Portal, but I refuse to play a game with that sort of DRM. I hate it when people say "look at how Steam did DRM right" because they did not do it right. I want money too, but there are a lot of methods to make money that I won't engage in either.
If you let "convenient DRM" like Steam go unchallenged, it leads to more intrusive and obnoxious DRM of the sort we've been seeing.
Save the DRM for online games. That makes sense there. If the online company goes away, likely the entire online experience vanishes (barring things like UO living on in shards). But for a single player game I should be able to play it long after the company has disbanded, and without having to scour the ugly world of software crack sites.
Steam makes sense for digital online purchases though, but with on a physical purchase of a DVD. But after downloading and verifying it should remove the copy protections and let me reinstall forever without phoning home.
Wow. Pirates will go to any length to validate their nasty habits.
Too bad those consoles don't have the sorts of games I like to play.
Funny. Considering that software piracy is an accurate term, I'd say you'd go to any length to vilify someone as a "pirate". Reason people call it pirate? Because it's not copyright infringement and it's not physical theft, or even tangible theft. You're not losing anything, and we're not making a profit. So what's left? DMCA, and that's all.
The problem is that the media companies have exerted market pressures by making it hard to use things legally. In doing so, they prop up the P2P systems. The problem isn't that people don't want to get Radiohead legally... the problem is that they want a Wal-Mart for media online. They aren't going to try to remember 15 different sites to get all the different media they want. They're going to go to the pirate bay and search for Radiohead because that's where they get all their media.
It's not a sorry state of society, it's a completely logical state given what people have been subjected to by the people who create the content.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I've traveled all over the world, and have lived in the UK and Germany. Capitalism is the same (at least in Western Europe). The only places I've been that were significantly different --due to deeply ingrained cultural issues-- are Egypt and Mexico. If you would like to posit that those two places have inherently better systems of capitalism in place, I got a bunch of socio-economic statistics in my favor to dispute that.
I thought the term "Pirate" stemmed from the "anything goes" mentality of a software pirate. Just like pirates of the open seas can do anything they want and there's nobody to stop them. Then again, maybe the term has changed meaning with younger generations, but I clearly remember the pirate analogy being the origin of the term way back 30 years ago or so.
Where do you talk this shit? I've been in Germany, as well.
I didn't say that their cultures were different. I said "It's an american fallacy that people think they can stick someone with prices. Really it's only been in place since the FDIC came into play. After having traveled to europe, the middle east, and south america, I can confirm that it is only a US thing. Also, the consumers are more educated and you dont' find them treated like shit."
In other countries, they round dollars, they negotiate. This has nothing to do with capitalism, and more to do with being polite to the consumer, aka my point.
And you're not entitled to the game.
That's incorrect. Based on copyright law, once something is released, it does belong to everyone. Sure, there is a restriction for a limited time as to who may profit from it, but when they release it, it is headed into the public domain and everyone on the planet is "entitled" to it. That's the law. That's how the Constitution laid it out. That's how it works in every country I know of. That's how all the international treaties work it out. They release it, and it will become public domain. Period. So he *is* entitled to it, even if he has to wait some period of time.
But the simple answer is that he's not entitled to your money, and you're not entitled to his work.
But there are laws sealing my money for a work I don't want (streaming radio stations, even when using individually licenensed works, must pay money to a licensing organization they have no relationship with it or its members, or break the law to distribute works they have the right to distribute). And as I have stated, I am entitled to his work for free after some "limited time." Some people assert that the "limited time" has been repealed by Disney, and thus the law itself is illegal, and the absence of that law means all works are in the public domain the instant they are released. If you believe that infinity != "limited time" then you too can assert that you have 100% entitlement to all works.
Me, I just call 'em parasites.
Yes, that's what I call the copyright holders that prevent their works from entering the Public Domain as they initially agreed to. I'm glad we agree on something. If you invoke copyright, you must, by law, give your work to the Public Domain. Anyone that doesn't do that is a parasite operating in violation of the Constitution. Disney, I'm looking at you.
Learn to love Alaska
Heck, fairly large numbers of adventure games are released to retail every year, to the slew of whiny reviews complaining about how outdated they are.
If you say you'd choose such a game over the Sims any day, but you haven't taken five seconds to look around and see that they exist, what does this say? That the game industry is doing a terrible job at letting people know what games are out there? That customers are too lazy to search for anything that isn't shoved in their faces?
Or do you already know about all the indie and niche games that exist, but ignore them because they're not as pretty as the big releases, because they can't possibly afford fifteen million dollar graphics? That's one of my enormous frustrations with pirates*... some of them complain that a game's not worth buying because it's not pretty enough, but by not contributing, they make it impossible for the developer to afford to make anything prettier.
* - not saying you're a pirate! just seguing to the Thing That Annoys Me :)
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
Why? It's good, it's fairly priced, has effectively no copy protection, and I can freely download the client. I have several times set it down for months and then picked up again. A subscription MMO would have lapsed, and I would likely have lost my characters or their gear.
Just so you know, you can download the WoW client now, as well as quit for months even years at a time and your characters and gear will still be there if when you come back. But my guess is you play GW for the gameplay more than these other reasons. Same reason I avoid GW like the plague. ;)
Yes, a lot of people do not play online because of various factors, one being high server pings from their countries, another typical reason being broadband that is simply not fast enough. I'm not talking OECD countries here - I'm talking the rest of the world and Joe Bloggs who don't know a thing about broadband and sign up for what they think is the best deal because an advertisement told them so.
The value of online gaming is growing despite this fact. I know a lot of people who end up playing online because there is only so much fun you can have with game AI. They love the game they play and they are willing to pay to make their game play that much more fun. Man is a social animal.
If you look at the current value of online gaming versus the potential market for it, you will see there is a point in transitioning people to online gaming - it is simply more enjoyable than playing alone. The business model of free single player and paid multi player focuses on helping the transition to online and thereby expanding the online gaming market. It simply has to be profitable. It is.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
But if we stuck to traditional business models, we'd never have had Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein3d, or a lot of other great 90s games. Keep in mind that shareware was not always traditional,
...some Steam games. Dark Messiah, for one. Checking various forums, I never saw anyone who got the Steam version to play off-line. 'Course, that title had plenty of other issues, although I enjoyed it.
I'm not crazy about Steam, but at least it has some advantages that offset its DRM-ness. I like the fact that all my games are stored on the internet, so I don't have to keep track of CDs. And patches get installed automatically. Yes, there is the potential that Valve can just cut you off, but they don't seem to have behaved very dickishly so far, compared to other publishers cough-Sony!-cough.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
No. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
What the natural conclusion is here is that people didn't see a difference between different venues of finding the same product at the same price... to whit, free. There's nothing "troubling" about people who realized that it was free and found the "easiest" way of getting it for free.
First, I am not defending Steam in any way as I am pretty wary to use the service myself but the comparison to Walmart's DRMed music is poor in that I can play my steam games on any Windows PC with a network connection (or without network connection if it is already installed, registered, and set to offline mode). I can only play my Walmart DRMed Music on my PC and whatever portable player (if any) Walmart specified. As far as If Steam Goes under, If they don't release a patch some industrious hacker wlll... hell, I believe a quick google search for "crack steam" shows a few solutions already.
I'll tell you what's unethical: It would cost me around a million dollars to fill up an iPod, if I bought all my music from the iTMS.
So, what's it going to be? A million dollars to apple, or nothing? Or just what you want?
Music is not worthless to me. But to be honest, I could just turn on the radio, and "rip" all my music from there. It won't be pretty, but then again I can streams of music channels off of QAM, so assuming it's high quality, well...
I'll buy the music that I want. But buying "music", a non-transferable digital file, is like buying bottled water. Most of the bottled water (especially brands like Neste's) are pretty much dangerous to your health. [Not to mention it would run your city not too much to get you a fresh supply of clean water, if they weren't crooks who gave away your water rights (hello dustbowl and trees dying).] Buying bottled water is a good example here, because I pay pennies for tap water, and hell there's nothing stopping me from cleaning rain water and drinking it.
So why should I pay for music? Support the bands? No thanks. These "bands" are just going to get cheques from the C-RIAA for all the blank CDs and DVDs I get, and that will kill some real bands in the process (who might not be able to import discs to try and avoid the levy).
Music is the only thing I really will not buy, because whereas year-old releases of movies drop down to 15$ or less, a music CD is still 10$-20$. Uh, yeah. Games are still high and don't seem to drop in price; but then again the used market is strong.
Portal would be a very interesting game to play multiplayer. I see no reason why it wouldn't. There would need to be a few changes but it adds a interesting dimension being able to, for example, stick a portal high on a ceiling, and to place another around a corner for a player to step on ...
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Your argument assumes there is a property transfer. There isn't. The customer isn't buying anything really, besides a vague, revocable, 'license.' Unless the customer can turn around and state to the seller how his money may be used, with revoke rights at any time, it is not really quid pro quo. It is not even a sale.
The market doesn't base itself on the seller's subjective morality, it works on 'demand for what is desired for the least money.' The customer doesn't want a piece of paper spelling out pretentious ivory tower 'rights' given teeth by government, he wants the product. If he can get it without buying the piece of paper, he'll do so. You're the seller/provider. You set the stage. If the customer can get it without paying you, you screwed up. Not his fault. Yours. At its heart, IP's a utopia with that 'starving artist' victimhood whinefest at the center, and that doesn't scale for long (hence why original IP law had short term limits). Of course, this has been perverted into a banner for anti-competitive behavior on the part of those with the pockets to line washington and pay for legal battles with others that have equally deep pockets.
Biologically speaking, ideas can't be owned or transfered like discrete physical property. Once the idea is out there, it's out there...and more than one person may have come up with it, making it impossible to determine a 'true' originator. It is not realistically possible to micromanage/monetize every ripple ideas create, nor should any supposed originators have the support of law enforcement to try...that is of course if the society values liberty. If the goal is to make money, use your ideas to create a service that naturally keeps you in the loop, or to make and sell physical property. Selling 'access' rights to the ideas themselves like a troll guarding a bridge is the quickest way to make yourself irrelevant. Sure you can still take your ball and go home, but if the demand is still there, someone else will fill it...oh and your intellectual 'property' is still out there.
You can try to rationalise your behaviour as much as you like, but you still fail the basic ethics test: if everyone behaved as you do, everyone would lose.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I won't reiterate everything everybody else said about Steam. I will add that we tolerate - hell, almost enjoy - having it because it adds value.
Let me say that again - it adds value to the product. The steam client is free, and when you log in on a new computer, a recent format, or a friend's computer your games are available. No screwing around finding CD's or (worse) CD-keys. Friends work across games (a lot like XBOX Live) - something that disparate games won't have. You can play when the game's only about half downloaded (no idea how - it's dark magic)
Again - with all the things the DRM enables, the content-protection bit might as well only be a side-effect of the features.
To put it another way - Steam DRM has been cracked. For a while. But I still buy from Steam, because it's easier, faster, and more full-featured than the pirate.
Spore, on the other hand...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I used to think this way until I recently got my PS2... right... not 3... 2... :-) :-D ).
Fine little machine, clearly YEARS ahead when it first came out, 2008 and still fully playable. And developers still consider it (guitar Hero Aerosmith anyone?
Where I was going?
Right! playing with a console its just too easy, no hardware/config hassles (Lost Via Domus Anyone?) as all machines are the same. Maybe I got lazy with time, but I really like that it's TRULY "plug and play".
Great for kids also!!! (get it moded, so you don't have to worry about scratching the DVDs).
(Did I mention fully pirate-able)
"Well, let's see, since scene people like dopeman and such have already managed to rip the actual games and make it steam-free, you won't have to worry that much except for maybe the multiplayer games."
I am not worried. And yes, this offline mode is new to me. However, suppose you have a new computer and steam is offline forever, why should I need the help of pirates to play the OFFLINE games I played for?
I agree that it is DRM it its best (so far) but it is still restrictive and lets not forget that.
That's fine. I can live without Brotney Spars. Not like she and the rest of hollywood deserve millions of dollars a year. All for her voice?
I'll just keep buying my Sezen Aksu CDs and other more obscure turk pop.
The more we move away from the general purpose computer, the more we will be constrained by the limitations imposed on us by the console makers - and each will have their own standards and OS - creating walled gardens, instead of standards based architectures.
True.
A few reasons why I personally prefer console gaming, nevertheless:
1) No rootkits on your really important computer. The walled garden nature of the consoles insulates the players' general-purpose computers from the paranoid DRM lunacy of the game publishers.
2a) No online activation or other similar juvenile crap. You bought the game, you own the copy.
2b) Resale value. You buy actual video games instead of non-transferable software licenses. You can pick up out-of-print titles on the used games market, or possibly get the same games for less $$$.
3) Relatively history-proof. Both old consoles and old games stay available longer than in the PC gaming market.
4) Less moving parts in the software. You insert the game and you play. No incompatibilities, no fiddling with the OS to find the best video card drivers to use for game X, etc.
5) No updates and less bugs. Because console games cannot be updated after release, the game creators generally do a good job ensuring that the first and only release is bug-free. Sadly, this feature is being lost with the current console generation and their software updates (for both the firmware and the games themselves).
6) No need for Windows. You know, I'm pretty OS-agnostic... I'll give it a chance as long as it's not made by Microsoft. >;)
-AC
"I'll tell you what's unethical: It would cost me around a million dollars to fill up an iPod, if I bought all my music from the iTMS."
Well, there's **cough** movies, you know. At 1.5GB a pop it would only cost a little over $200 to "fill up" a 32GB Touch.
But that's a pretty stupid rationalization, even for rationalizations. You might as well complain about the bazillion dollars it would take for you to "fill up" a terabyte HD with commercial software and games.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"Period. So he *is* entitled to it, even if he has to wait some period of time."
So your statement should then read, "He's entitled to it AFTER it becomes public domain. He is not entitled to it beforehand." Just because you WILL buy that house on the corner doesn't mean you own it, or are in any way entitled to it now.
Besides, both you and I know that even if the copyright period was, say, the same 17-year period invoked for patents it wouldn't matter in the least. People pirate music and movies and software from the SECOND it's released. Hell, half the time someone manages to steal it BEFORE it's released.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Just because you WILL buy that house on the corner doesn't mean you own it, or are in any way entitled to it now.
That's false. If I have submitted my "earnest money" for a bid made and accepted and have entered into a good faith attempt to buy the house, then I do have rights over it. I don't have the right to move in before closing, but if they pull the house off the market, I have a wide variety of legal recourses regarding my action of buying the house. I am "entitled" to it, giving me some rights to it even before it is mine.
Besides, both you and I know that even if the copyright period was, say, the same 17-year period invoked for patents it wouldn't matter in the least.
So? We should make bad laws and support them because people will behave badly whether they are there or not? Make software copyright 2 years, books 5, and patents 7, and you'll have fixed the problem. Catch actual pirates, the ones that sell them, and work to discourage copiers, and you'll nearly eliminate it.
People pirate music and movies and software from the SECOND it's released. Hell, half the time someone manages to steal it BEFORE it's released.
Nearly everyone I know that pirated something before it came out, also bought it after it came out. Would you be for full punishment for someone that was found to have gotten it illegally before release, then on release day deleted all they had and installed the one they bought it the day it came out?
So your statement should then read, "He's entitled to it AFTER it becomes public domain. He is not entitled to it beforehand."
If everyone played by the rules, then sure. But the rules aren't consistent, so he's entitled to it after it's in the public domain, but because the current copyright laws conflict with the Constitution, they are illegal and everthing released is in the public domain from day one. Or so one could argue.
Learn to love Alaska
But it wasn't a simple case of "free" vs "free". It was a case of "free and legal" vs "free and illegal", and a large amount of people chose "free and illegal".
Ease of use is hardly a good excuse to use in any circumstance. You might as well be justifying the act of robbing a bank, because it beats the hassle of creating a resume, getting a job there, working for a month then waiting for your first paycheck. I mean, either way you're taking money from the back right? One method just involves a lot more work than the other.
The ends doesn't justify the means.
I didn't say console was superior. I said that where PCs used to be a generation ahead of consoles (16 bit Amiga versus 8 bit NES), now the gap has closed. I cannot see any visible difference between the graphics of the latest PC game versus the same game on a PS3 or Xbox360.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
It may lead you to that conclusion, but you would be wrong. I wanted the album, and went to the official website to download it. However the site was incredibly slow, it took minutes just to bring up the splash page, then when I finally got in they wanted an email address in order to download the album! Since each page load was taking 5+ mins, I wasn't about to start exploring the site looking for a privacy policy, so I went to mininova. 10 seconds later I was downloading the album.
It's not that I went to mininova first, nor that I shunned the official channel, it's that the "illegal" route worked a lot better than the legal one. If these companies and bands want me to use their sites and services, they have to be at least on a par with the alternatives.
To use your TV analogy, it's like store A offering a free TV to anyone who wants one, and then being surprised when 10,000 people show up trying to get into the shop. There is a major crush, no-one can get in or out, the few people who actually got a TV died of heatstroke trying to get back through the crowd and the shop gets trashed due to the number of people. So any late arrivals see that the shop is mobbed by people, and decide to go somewhere else to get the same thing for the same price.
Steam DRM prevents legit customers from playing legally purchased product.
The PC version of the game is unplayable until it has been registered via Steam network.
You shouldn't have to call home to ask permission to play a legally purchased game.
I find being offended by me offensive.
I don't see *any* reason to play a PC game.
I didn't say console was superior.
Understood. I do see many reasons to play PC games, however, and attacks on my platform of choice are starting to piss me off.
1998 called, and they want you criticism back..
That reminds me, I have to go back to 2005 and return this joke~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Software isn't a car.
Your analogy misses the point, completly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I call is civil disobedience
The consumer has no rights.
I can not buy a game and take it back if I do not like it, or if it turns out to be incompatible.
I am bound to an agreement I can not read.
It is filled with crap that harms my system and it's security.
"you're willing to pay is that it always devolves into people not paying their share,"
Evidence and real world facts shows that isn't true at all.
People can download any song they want for free, yet iTunes has sold over 2 billion songs.
Artists that ahve released there stuff as 'pay what you like' have made more money then they would have from record sales, even though a fewer number of people paid for it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Except 450,000 people did pay.
they paid a globalized average of 6 bucks.
So, they made over 2 million dollars.
More then they would have made if they sold 1 million albums through traditional channels.
It's about the artists getting paid, right?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'll tell you what's unethical: It would cost me around a million dollars to fill up an iPod, if I bought all my music from the iTMS.
Whine, whine whine...
Sooo... I guess you've never heard of legal alternatives to iTunes like Jamendo (free) or Emusic (cheap)?
But you're right, damn those unethical people for forcing you, the victim, to acquire music solely through Apple.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Let me first start by saying that I have a copy of the PC game 'Ravenshield'.
Second, allow me to say that I've had many great hours of play with this game and it's been a wonderful experience that could only be made significantly better if the game allowed more players in multiplayer terrorist hunt.
Third, I would like to just take this opportunity to say: $@$#R you UNISOFT you #^@^@%&@ %#@holes why the #%@! did you think that a %$^&*(#^ INTERNET CHECKING was $&#%#%#@ REQUIRED EVERY $&*$%^^#$ 10 SECONDS? YOU ^*%#^&* *$$HOLES!!!!!!!!!!!!
We found how to make it so that we can play Ravenshield on a local lan without it locking up every 10 seconds. It involves a software firewall and a single rule.
From what others have said Ubisoft should consider me a prime candidate to sell games to. I have bought (and in doing so showed that I have potential to BUY more) a game they produced and loved it and could easily move on to other games.
No.
Screw that.
Starforce? Intentionally destroying a game experience by pinging an internet server? How low can we go? Apparently, we haven't reached the bottom and couldn't see it if we dropped a small sun down the hole the software industry is digging for itself.
The question is, if you're selling for those prices, what do you expect us to fill it up with?
A TB HDD, well, it's pretty obvious: DVD rips, music, games, pr0n.
Well, you know, you could actually make music, take photos, and create your own videos.
(You could make your own pr0n too, but that's probably a bit much to ask of a geek.)
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.