PCGA To "Take Up the Challenge of Piracy"

Ars Technica reports that the PC Gaming Alliance has declared themselves the "guardians of PC gaming," which includes finding ways to help gamers decide on gaming hardware, and to make progress on the issues of piracy and DRM. "[PCGA President Randy Stude said,] 'The PCGA will take up the challenge of piracy, not to assume the responsibility that the ESA has taken on... rather the PCGA would like to address the methodology that publishers might be able to take to solve, or to do a better job trying to solve, the piracy challenge for their substantial investments in content.' The PCGA won't give a standard approach to publishers, saying it is much more likely it will release a series of recommendations to publishers, and track piracy on an annual basis to see if the problem is growing or shrinking. The PCGA is also working on methods for members to track how effective their antipiracy measures are once a game has been released."

Comments

Bleh

[Tubal-Cain]

Members include Microsoft and WildTangent.
I think I'm gonna be sick.

I'd prefer to have Penny-Arcade as the "Guardians of PC Gaming"

I don't see what the problem is

[hairyfeet]

With simply needing a legit key to play online. Because even the primarily single player games you'll still want to play online for the occasional frag. But the DRM has gotten so nasty lately that I'm afraid to buy any games for fear it'll bone my PC. So hopefully they'll address the issue of DRM making the pirate version so much better than the retail. While I don't pirate I'd be afraid to play Spore or C&C 3 simply because the DRM is so nasty. So in those cases the pirates win because I'm afraid to buy them and the pirates get the game for free. So sorry EA,but the DRM is just too nasty to have your product anywhere near my PC.

Re:I don't see what the problem is

[Sentry21]

But the DRM has gotten so nasty lately that I'm afraid to buy any games for fear it'll bone my PC.

And ironically, the best way around it while still staying legal is to download the cracked version from BT or usenet, and then buy the boxed game and toss it in the closet.

Guess which step most people these days leave out?

Re:I don't see what the problem is

[Rockoon]

I don't see what the problem is with simply needing a legit key to play online.

The problem is in the act of deciding if a key is legit or not.

Pay-per-month games (ex: World Of Warcraft, Eve Online, ..) don't have much of a problem here because even illegitimate keys must pay. Games which are not pay-per-month (ex: CounterStrike, Diablo, ..) do have a serious problem with key validation.

I don't know what solution is acceptable here, however the latest DRM schemes seem to address a different issue entirely (that of removing First Sale rights from the consumer.)

Re:I don't see what the problem is

[bigstrat2003]

Don't worry, most native speakers will need that link too. Thanks for providing it.

Stop treating the customer like a criminal.

[Yoozer]

Pirated games win over legal ones because of:

• they don't treat the customer like a criminal (why do I get an anti-piracy warning when I've bought or rented a DVD, but not when I've downloaded a movie?)
• removing pretty much all of the hassle of proving you're a paying customer (in terms of installation and stability)
• availability (for abandonware) and convenience
• cost

If you can beat the pirates on the first 3 points, people are generally a lot more willing to pay.

Re:Stop treating the customer like a criminal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me add more to this. The software industry is one of the few industries that get away with selling complete bug ridden crap, and stuff that will stop working one day as computers and operating systems advance with no recourse to support.

I have an old copy of FF7 for the PC which just barely works, but it took a lot of hunting around the net to do so. This could be cured by forcing old games source to be opened so that the games themselves could be maintained as newer hardware and OS's are released. You'd never tolerate a car that couldn't be fixed, the fact this happens with software is a tragedy. There has to be some way that users can force companies to give up the source after the sales period has ended so that they can fix and update their games.

Re:Stop treating the customer like a criminal.

[Splab]

Not only do you get the piracy thing, but also lately quite a lot of DVDs I've bought came with commercials for other movies. With the anti piracy (don't steal this movie) and FBI warning (smart one to show in Denmark) and absurd long menu sequence and commercials for other movies (skip able) it took almost 4 minutes before I got to see my movie - and you have to sit through it every bloody time you want to watch it. Next time I'm downloading!

Re:Stop treating the customer like a criminal.

[Anonymous Coward]

At that point it's faster and easier to just find a torrent and download the movie.

Free bits, not pirated

[bboxman]

Claiming to lay property to a sequence of bits is hillarious. There is nothing wrong with creating yet another copy of computer game.

Re:Free bits, not pirated

[cliffski]

...says someone who still no doubt expects to get paid for HIS job, although you are clearly delusional enough to expect you have the right to take the fruits of other peoples work for free.
Fucking bullshit. You are just rationalising being a cheap-ass.

Re:Don't waste your money on Wikipedia

[crossmr]

the difference here is if there was a mistake on a wikipedia page you see the fix now. If you stumble across an old magazine that had a print error you don't necessarily have the page 400 font size 3 correction printed 6 issues later laying beside it..

Re:consoles are the key

[Amphetam1ne]

Ask the 10M-ish WoW players....

Re:consoles are the key

[Anonymous Coward]

I rather think you missed the point, while simultaneously demonstrating just how valid it is. Sure, most individual games haven't been dumbed down. But that's because the only games that see release are the ones that are already dumb. By deliberately constraining console releases to those that are well suited to the consoles' simplistic control scheme, you're basically discouraging development of a whole range of more complex (and arguably more interesting) games. And even if you wish to argue that some of these more complex games can be made to work with console controls, that is accomplished at the expense of the game's complexity, i.e. some games are indeed dumbed down. For example, compare CivRev to any of the other games in the Civ series. Don't get me wrong, it's great fun, but it has nowhere near the depth that you'd expect from a real Civ game, and it suffers as a result. You can't deny that example of a game that was designed dumbed down just for consoles.

Re:Who put them in charge?

[Draek]

"I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law" -- Aristotle

Some of us don't need DRM to keep us honest. You'd be wise to do the same.

Re:consoles are the key

[brkello]

PC gaming is done at a desk with a keyboard and mouse. Console gaming is done on your couch with a game pad. I don't want a KB + mouse on my couch just like I really wouldn't want a gamepad on my computer. Certain games are better suited for each different set up.

Beyond that, for most games that I can get on a PC and a console, I get it for the PC. I have a gaming PC that is more powerful than a console. I prefer the ease of getting user created mods for these games on the PC. You just don't have the flexibility on the console. Some games like Civ just are too complex for a console and they have to dumb it down if they move it over (again, KB + mouse on a console defeats the whole reason I am playing on the console).

Personally, I like both types and hope neither of them die. There are a lot of advantages to consoles, but since you were asking about PCs I just listed why I like them.