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Spore the Most Pirated Game of 2008
TorrentFreak has posted some statistics on the most pirated games of the past year. Leading the list by a large margin is Spore, made infamous even before its release for the draconian DRM attached to the game. It was downloaded through BitTorrent roughly 1.7 million times, with The Sims 2 and Assassin's Creed following at just over a million each. (It's worth noting that Spore came out in September, so that figure is essentially for a mere three months.) GameSetWatch has posted a related piece discussing the countermeasures involved in dealing with piracy. It's the second article in a series about piracy; we discussed the first a couple days ago.
Maybe that is because of the DRM, even if you buy the game, you still have to pirate it to be able to play a clean version (clean meaning without DRM restrictions of course).
And that time is, what, four years ago?
You jest, but this is precisely what the shareholders will demand of the publishers. They do not understand that piracy cannot be defeated by technical means, so they'll just keep on layering increasingly nasty DRM on the games.
At the same time, they will lobby politicians to implement even more draconian "IP-protection" laws.
So while the headline does induce a warm, fuzzy "serves you right" feeling, the implications are not so funny.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
It's time to stop fighting this. Nobody I know associates "pirating a game" with hijacking a boat. Besides, it's gone colloquial and is making it into the dictionaries.
piâ...raâ...cy
â"noun, plural -cies.
1. practice of a pirate; robbery or illegal violence at sea.
2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.: The record industry is beset with piracy.
Particularly in the case of Spore. That game was sold as just damn amazing. Well often when that's claimed it turns out not to be the case. Fable would be a good example. Had it been what it was originally claimed to be, it would likely be the defining RPG of this generation. Instead it was a fairly average action RPG.
Such is the case with Spore as well. Now I don't know, maybe the game gets awesome in later stages but to me, it seemed very shallow the little I tooled around with it on a friend's copy. The first two stages were really boring. I also had a look at his game on the Civilization stage. Well guess what? I've already seen that done better in a game called... Civilization. I likes me a good Civ simulator, in fact I own Civ 4 and it's two expansions. So if you aren't doing it better than that, and it isn't, well then I am not that interested.
Had I bought it, I would have felt rather ripped off. However I know you have to be careful on those extremely hyped games. You can't go by reviews either. Reviewers have already talked them selves in to how good the game will be, reviews are far too positively biased for Big Hits(tm).
I also think in Spore's case a non-trivial amount of it may have been due to DRM protest. Now you can argue if that's the way to go about it or not, but there were lots of people pissed about it. I've decided EA can basically get fucked. I'm not buying their games with this activation bullshit unless they are absolutely superb. I bought Mass Effect, that game is just that good, but I'm giving most others a miss.
For example I'm not going to get Red Alert 3. I'm a fan of the C&C series and have bought most of them. I quite liked C&C3 and Kane's Revenge. However though I like them, they aren't good enough for me to put up with the activation shit. So I'll get something else instead, Demigod probably.
Now while I'm not going to go nab a copy off Bittorrent, that may be what some people do, people who are put off by the DRM.
I'm reasonable when it comes to DRM. I'll accept that publishers are paranoid and need the "feel good" of having some DRM on the games, even though it seems it really doesn't help (see Sins of a Solar Empire for proof). However when it gets to be bullshit like "You can only install the game 3 times and then never again," well fuck you. Good games, I want to play and replay. I still fire up Baldur's Gate 2 from time to time. You'd better believe I've done more than 3 reinstalls since then. Hell I've gone through more than 3 complete system upgrades since that came out.
EA really seems to have crossed the stupid threshold. In particular the activation limits imply that it isn't so much about preventing illegal copying as it is about preventing a used game market and forcing you to buy new versions. I think the rampant copying will help show that no, this shit DOESN'T stop it.
You forget tho. The more restrictive the DRM the more people turn to the pirated version to avoid it. Whats the point of not using a CDkey? It still stops people that are dumb or lazy. The current DRM schemes do the same thing but while treating the paying customer as a thief.
Its not I that should be going "Oh wow I cant believe I was allowed to play Spore on my computer!! Im so Lucky!" It should be the game companies that are happy that we want to play their game and pay them money to do it.
A company that makes Spore wants to earn a living.
And they're doing a damn good job of it, piracy or no. Nobody is going to bed hungry because 1.7 million people pirated Spore.
You've never been a teenager, have you? It's bragging rights. Remember kids, the more you download, the longer your penis is.
In my days it was the kind of clothes you wear, later it was having the biggest trading card deck, today it's the amount of ripped software you store. It's not like anyone really needs 20 TB of software (or movies), it's our good ol' hunter and gatherer impulse.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nice how you will always see statistics used in articles but they never go into detail how they generated the statistics. The article is entirely based on their own generated statistics yet there is no information how they generated them. Might as well be pulling the news from your... you get the idea..
UbiSoft? You want me to trust a study regarding DRM troubles coming from a company that has to steal warez cracks to deal with their DRM troubles?
Umm... any credible sources to back that up?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Spore is, if anything, a lesson. I think it should be used as an example in game design classes.
Spore is also a lesson to MMO makers, it really has a lot of qualities found in MMOs and it also shows why so many MMOs fail despite good outlook and design.
The first few chapters in Spore is a lot like leveling your character in MMOs. You play and grind, you build your character, you "level" (as in, gain DNA and "evolve"), you make your decisions where to improve your character, what parts to focus on and what you can do without, aiming for the "endgame".
Then you reach that endgame and realize a few things:
Your decisions are pointless. No matter what you "evolved" and no matter what your race is like, the game is the same.
The endgame itself stinks. Too much micromanagement, too little freedom in your decisions.
The replay value, which could have been stunning considering the ways you could create your race, is near zero. Most of all, you do not want to replay, knowing that what is in for you in the end is the most tedious, boring part of the game.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Even sub 1% of a few million people is a lot of people. A half percent of a million is 5,000 people. The game obviously sold more than that. Would you really want to take that risk? Let's just assume that it won't affect you, as the chances really are small. Are you comfortable installing an unremoveable root-kit on your machine? I know I'm not. Or let's assume you're ok with both. Are you ok with the low installation limit? For me, no game is worth that potential hassle.
You also have to keep in mind that the numbers are also going to be skewed by the fact that a large number of angry people will just automatically return a game if it doesn't work (which has become increasingly harder to do) and won't bother calling technical support. I can't say by how much those numbers are skewed, however. It's probably not significantly, but it's still something to consider.
Well, when you saw Spore, I think you'll agree that any kind of demo would have hurt the sales, not helped them. What would you have demo'ed? The "eat and grow" treadmill in the beginning that I have seen done better in various flash games? Doubt that would have convinced anyone to actually buy the game.
But if it tells me something it is to stay away from games that don't dare to offer a free sample of their gameplay. When they're not confident that the 20ish minutes I can usually play such a demo before I hit the "buy the full version to play on" wall will make me want more, the game is usually good for less than those 20 minutes.
And, bluntly, 50 bucks for 20 minutes ... dunno, how much are hookers these days?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thanks for killing the games industry, you filthy thief.
Yes, I second that !
We need more suckers... huh, no... "customers" to fall for the brainwash... hu, sorry... for the marketing overhyping our product, and who will blindingly throw their money at whatever product we manage to persuade them will be the best-game-ever-even-better-than-blowjob-and-beacon-sammich !
Our economy is dying because of all the filthy thieves who selfishly want to see what a game is worth before buying !
--
though, seriously, I actually found the game kind of cool.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I am not one for draconian DRM, but the reality is that people pirate way too much.
The other fact is that draconian DRM doesn't stop people pirating single player PC games and may even encourage it.
If your game is good and has strong multiplayer then you can control piracy through the online multiplayer component (think starcraft, I know plenty of people whose first copy of starcraft was a burnt copy but later bought legit copies to play online) but if your game is shit or mostly singleplayer than you have little hope stopping pirates on the PC platform.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Standard excuses for not paying for this or any other game (pick any that apply):
1) I will pirate it first and then pay only if I like it (a la when I go into a restaurant and only pay when I liked the food, or go to the theater to see a film and pay only if it didn't suck). If the game is not PERFECT, I don't pay.
2) My pirating is good for the software developer (more people playing, even without paying is good, it gives them lots of free publicity). Piracy increases sales! I am doing them a HUGE favor.
3) I am a cheap ass.
4) There is no such thing as copyright (or shouldn't be). Other people should create art, music, games, films, and entertainment for me as a favor and fund it out of their own pocket.
5) Piracy is a fact in the gaming world. Get used to it. It's the developer's own fault because they should have taken it into account in their business case (besides, they should have been working on this full time as an open source program for free anyway).
6) $50 for this game is too much. Come to think of it, $25 is too. And if it is only $10, then pirating it shouldn't be that much of a burden to the developer.
7) I do not want to try the demo because the only meaningful way to try out a game is to try out the ENTIRE game.
8) Who cares if there is 99.9% piracy, all the developers need is to make just enough money to fund developing another game. They don't need to get rich (after all, I'm not).
9) "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
10) Because I have never had to create, develop and market a game and I don't have a clue as to what it takes to run a business.
11) Because DRM is such a great excuse.
A company that makes Spore wants to earn a living. And to do that they put on DRM.
And it just can't work.
The premise of DRM is to make more difficult for people to casually copy the game.
That means managing to put restriction for every last game player out there. Everyone has to be subjected to that shit in the hopes that the copying will be limited.
But then, all it takes is 1 single unique copy. 1 single unique time when the DRM has been circumvented, for that copy to be made available to millions via the internet.
Who in his right mind could guarantee that, out of the several millions of sold copies (2 million after 3 weeks according to EA as reported on Wikipedia*), the DRM will stand un-defeated, not even 1 single time.
That requires failure rates lower than 1 in several dozen of millions. That are failure rates that even space exploration - with all its engineering brilliance - can't guarantee. And your expecting shitty manufacturer of crappy DRM systems, which can't even stay stable on a machine without crashing it, to be able to guarantee that ?
Even without entering in the stupidity of the DRM's cryptographic details, or the complete out-of-reality of the pay-per-copy failed business model, just the sheer numbers involved tell you that DRM just doesn't stand a snowball in hell's chance to be even remotely reach something that could be interpreted as success.
DRM just can't be the answer to the piracy problem :
to succeed it must stop absolutely everyone from copying.
to fail 1 single leak is all it takes.
That's impossible.
--
*: EA reports 2 million copies sold after 3 weeks.
TorrentFreaks reports ~2 million download after 3 months of BitTorrent.
That's an incredibly high... SELLING RATE. Articles on /. have mentioned that 90% piracy is rather the norm in the gaming industries.Whereas, it seems that Spore has sold more copies than it got pirated.
That's some damn fucking sign of tremendous success. And given this success, given all the money Spore has managed to earn, why does anybody need to give a fuck if some punks have downloaded copies of the intertube ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
A few people have mentioned DRM as shareholder appeasement. It would seem the company would enact more sensible policies if their shareholders were themselves gamers. Either that or people from this group who understand that DRM can always be circumvented.
It would be interesting if a major benefit of holding shares in a company was a discount on the company's products. It's a very old fashioned view of the stock market, but I think you should buy shares because you believe in what a company is doing and want to help them succeed. Of course, their success = your success as far as your ownership goes, so it's not an altruistic act to purchase shares. Currently, many companies are run by people who have no interest in the products being good or even finished are a bad thing as well. Maximizing shareholder value doesn't always give you long term success or a good product - just look at Circuit City. They were held up as an exemplar in Good to Great of increasing shareholder value. Even during that time where they were doing a great job, their customer service (which I guess is one of their main products) was widely panned.
I'm no economist so maybe this idea is hugely naive. I welcome being shown as naive.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Steam isn't better than any other DRM, and worse than most. It's just very convenient, being able to download a game to any computer.
Effectively, however, your Steam "purchases" are rentals. Internet connection down? Games are inaccessible. Account gets banned? Games are lost. Valve goes out of business? Games are lost. Valve gets bought up? Pray the new owners don't change the terms of use to something draconian.
I wouldn't spend a dime on Steam. I like to own my stuff.
Don't whistle while you're pissing.
I don't mind people using "piracy" as a sort of shorthand for "copyright infringement". I just object when people try to reason that because the word is also used to refer to armed robbery on the high seas, it is therefore morally and legally equivalent to armed and violent robbery and should be treated in a similar manner.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
DRM isn't there to stop someone experienced in illegally obtaining software. It is there to stop the average person from doing so. Most people don't know how to download software, run key generators, replace binaries and that sort of thing. They want to click on something and have it run. It is just like a lock on a house doesn't do anything to stop a professional thief, but it will stop the guy going door to door just trying doorknobs until he's found one that is unlocked. The people screaming "DRM is useless", are like the professional thieves saying "locks are useless" all the time justifying that they only break into houses because people put locks on them.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The thing that bothers me the most is how much tax money went to fund those two operations. (anything that involves law enforcement also involves public funds) Why should the taxpayer have to pay to protect the bottom line of companies? If the release groups and game companies want to fight it out, that's fine with me, (since I'm involved in neither party) but the industry should have to pay for it if they want to get law enforcement involved.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
So why all the research into new and better DRM schemes? If DRM is only meant to keep out the common man, the simplest DRM should be enough.
"It seems that the current generation thinks that charging for software is a bad thing."
That could only be true if the RATE of piracy is higher than in the past. And what you'd need to do is to study what is being pirated and how it compares to 5 or 10 years ago. You could do lots of interesting research in this area provided you have the data.
What we're lacking is facts, and the people providing them have a vested interest in doing research only as long as the outcome they're paying for.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Manages to stay alive and keep making hit games with no DRM.....Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are all bona fide hits, surely making the company a big pile of money, and yet none contain DRM. Hmmm.....I wonder how that works....Maybe it has something to do with the fact that these games are great, and can yield years of entertainment. Morrowind is one of my most played and replayed games of all times, with it's open ended nature (in terms of game play and modability), and both Oblivion and Fallout 3 follow this trend. If you make quality stuff, you don't need DRM, apparently.