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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).
The solution is obvious. Add more DRM!!!
The creature creator used SecuROM (invasive copy protection) and 'phoned home'. I imagine a demo would do the same.
I, and a lot of other people, would avoid it as a matter of principle.
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.
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.
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.
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*: 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 ]
Regarding point 1:
If I go to a restaurant and the food is bad, I can get a refund. If I walk out of a movie, I can get a refund. If I buy a book, I can return it. And for that matter, when I go to a bookstore I can actually read the book on the shelf and decide if it is crap before I buy it.
You may get all or a part of your money back depending on the situation or you may get store credit, but the point is that there is a mechanism in place for refunding all or part of the expense on those items if they are crap.
Software is one of the very few things that is almost impossible to return if the box has been opened. Here a few returns policies:
http://www.bestbuy.com/olspage.jsp?type=page&contentId=1117177044087&id=cat12098 - "Opened computer software, movies, music and video games can be exchanged for the identical item but cannot be returned for a refund."
http://www.newegg.com/HelpInfo/FAQDetail.aspx?Module=5 - "Retail Boxed software may only be returned for refund within 30 days of the invoice date if the packaging is unopened and factory sealed. Opened retail boxed software can only be returned for replacement if it is defective or damaged."
Amazon has probably the best software return policy: "Any CD, DVD, VHS tape, software, video game, cassette tape, or vinyl record that has been opened (taken out of its plastic wrap): 50% of item's price." http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=901926&#amount
>>>want to see what a game is worth before buying!
I just got into a debate on a forum about this very subject. Unfortunately the Moderator is pro-copyright, and I earned myself a one-week banning. :-( My argument was: "I downloaded Galactica 1980 to see if it was worth buying, and it was worthless trash, so I saved myself from wasting ~$50." I was amazed at how many people rushed in to call me scum, part of the entitlement generation who steals instead of pays, and that I should have supported that show by buying the DVD.
RIAA's propaganda campaign seems to be working. They even have customers claiming I should buy ____ like Galactica 1980!!!
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Not to mention all those things you can be reasonably sure you can actually use: You can eat the food, you can watch the movie, you can read the book. I for one am seriously fucking sick of paying the crazy money for a new game that I am WAY over the minimum system requirements for and then have the damned game eat it 10 minutes in if it even runs at all and having to wait a year+(if you ever get a patch at all) that fixes their shit code.
And please don't say "run the demo" because that is BS and we all know it. The demo level is ALWAYS the most well tested and stable piece of code in the game, often having been passed out since before beta stage to try and drum up a buzz. A couple of examples from my own experience: Max Payne and Vampire:Bloodlines. The demos played like a dream and were really fun so I bought the games when first released. That was a BIG mistake. Max Payne had to set in my closet for 9 months thanks to a bug that would crash to desktop halfway through the second level. And Vampire:Bloodlines would have ended up in the trash if the modding community hadn't put out a patch a year and a half later that fixed my bug that was less than 30 minutes in that caused it to freeze the entire PC solid.
And finally as a PC repairman I can't count how many times I have been called on to fix a "virus infection" that ended up being SecuROM, Starforce, or Safedisc. Frankly the new DRM causes more problems that a freaking Trojan. I have had machines that risked burning up the DVD burner because the DRM would keep throwing it into PIO mode, Had every singe burn in Nero fail because the DRM had screwed the Windows drivers, and more random crashes than I can even count. So before I will even pick up a game in the bargain bin I make damned sure I can get a clean copy from P2P. How sad is it that the risk of an infection from the P2P ISO is less than if you bought it at the store.
So they can bitch and moan all the want. I will NOT be buying anymore games at release time thanks to the inability to return code that doesn't work, I will NOT buy any game that I can't find a clean version of so I can avoid the DRM infection on my PC, and I will NOT buy any more games from EA for their completely overboard asshat DRM. And this is from someone who ALWAYS bought a new C&C or MoH. So congratulations! You have mistreated yet another customer to the point they wouldn't buy from you if you entire catalog was on sale for $1.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If you bought a loaf of bread, got home and discovered it had weevils in the center of it, you'd return it to the store wouldn't you? And the store would exchange it or give you your money back. You were sold something that did not live up to your expectations.
You buy a game, and even if it doesn't work, you can't return it.
And yet it seems the industries that produce this effluence, and movies and music, have convinced the world that if you buy a piece of what should be unsellable garbage, you're screwed.
THIS is why piracy is so rife. It has nothing to do with people being cheap, scum or whatever asinine insult is thrown around. It has far more to do with people being sick to death of being ripped off.