pirating games.

PC piracy is obvious, and the resons people do it are clear. there are many reasons, many people simply cannot afford to buy games after thier other expenses. Aside from that reason, piracy is just easier than legally purchasing a game, the install is easier, you can install on however many systems you want etc.. I personally buy most of my games, my most recent legit purchases were Stalker Clear sky, and crysis warhead, but I can somewhat understand people's tempation to just pirate the game rather than buying it.

The problem with PC piracy is that it's just TOO easy, you download then install, and that's it, Console piracy is also there, but it's much more complicated, for the Xbox360 , I wont tell people how to, but it involves opening the console, voiding the warrantee, and purchasing DVD+R DL disks which are expansive. Also most people who game on the consoles do not know that piracy exists on thier console, yet almost every person will know how to pirate a game on the PC.

Many people would look at PC game sales and also think that there are more console gamers than PC gamers, but that isn't true, over 25 million people have PC's capable of gaming, and pirate every one of thier games. I have also talked with people who feel that after spending $200 on a GPU they're entitled to all the free games they want.

I think to fix the piracy, they obviously need to get rid of PC DRM and instead give people more incentives to purchase the game.

 

My take on pirating:

Illegal and hurts the industry.

My take on used game sales (what Gamestop [formerly EB games] built their empire on before they almost abandoned PC gaming):

Legal and doesn't help the industry.

I agree with the poster who said pirating is more slanted towards the young...in high school, my friends and I lived to copy Commodore 64 games...it got to the point where we wouldn't even do it to play them...we did it just for the challenge...the 1541 would allow you to intentionally write errors to the 5 1/4 diskette sectors...publishers would exploit this to create errors that the game program would look for prior to starting, but the errors wouldn't just copy over...you had to spend hours writing errors to your copied diskette...digga-digga-digga...early copy protection...easy to defeat but time consuming...I would much rather spend my limited time now playing games versus breaking copy protection...(I was curious about college students having lots of time though...my freedom ended the day I entered college...I remember having very little time for anything in college)...

And I haven't had any of the reported problems with DRM and games (knock on wood) so I'm not very vocal against DRM although I agree that it does little to limit piracy...it prevents casual piracy...but the people working against copy-protection are never that far behind the people working for it...

I own a PSP and it's almost laughable how fast people break the firmware updates which tend more to close security loopholes than add features...one of the firmware releases was compromised before I even knew that Sony had released a firmware update...

The only DRM hiccup that I've had was with an OEM installation of XP on my Toshiba laptop...when I ghosted the hard drive to a larger hard drive and installed the larger drive as my boot drive, XP thought I had just installed my single XP license on a new computer...it took a couple hours to straighten out and I was more than a bit upset...but if that will help bring the price down for a new OS to something reasonable then I won't complain too much...(but again, I think publishers are living in la-la land if they think that's the fix...I wonder how many people-hours are spent on the DRM portion of a piece of software...)

In the end, I think it will be we, as game players, that have to end piracy...we'll have to snitch on our peers a la the German kid that hacked Valve and stole the Half-Life 2 source code...Valve knew they weren't going to catch him without help and law enforcement agencies can't do much either...we can do something to discourage piracy in our circle of influence...

What do I think drives piracy? *shrug* For me in high school, it was lack of money and the challenge of doing it...I have more money now (less time) and very little interest in even trying to figure out how to do torrents (but I do know how to swap out a graphics card and update drivers...thank you very much Cliffy B...and yes, I bought Gears of War for the PC, and you can definitely tell that it was ported from the 360...most annoying part of GoW is Microsoft forcing me to sign up for their Live game service...I hate online gaming and refuse to participate)...

I do use *gasp* no cd cracks which are illegal (I accepted a software distribution agreement on every game that I've installed where I said that I would not copy, modify or make love, sweet love to the code) but I like to be able to play whatever game I fancy whenever I fancy it...I'm a packrat and have dozens of games on my hard drive...(and that's why PC gaming will always be more preferred than console gaming for me...I just pick up my backpack, and dozens of games go with me...built in display, audio and controller...)

I guess another reason for piracy, though it's lame, is price and quality...I rarely buy a game for full price upon initial release (other than Blizzard)...but I played the demo for Space Siege and loved it...I loved everything Chris Taylor ever did from Total Annihilation (even Kingdoms) to Dungeon Siege to Supreme Commander...I figured the full version of Space Siege would have a lot more variety and it was a no-brainer for me...paid my $50 + tax for the game the day it was released and wished I would have pirated it...but piracy isn't the answer...I'll just wait for a few gaming site and user reviews next time...(Meanwhile, anyone interested in paying $40 for a slightly used Space Siege? Please...pretty please...box included...)

Probably, the most compelling reason for me to be an, argh, pirate is Star Trek: Starfleet Command 3...during the late 90's, Activision took over the Star Trek franchise and released some very high quality Star Trek games across all genres (FPS, RTS, Turn Based)...unfortunately, Activision lost the licensing rights and no longer publishes any of these games which include aforementioned Starfleet Command 3...a quick look at eBay or Amazon will reveal a low, bargain price of about $100... $100!!!! Now, if I choose to spend that much coin on the game, neither Activision or Paramount gets a dime of it...there's the moral and ethical dilemna...I guess I'll just have to hope Activision and Paramount kiss and make up and at least release an anthology...it would be easy money for both of them...

I suppose DRM can be irritating, but it's not the worst copy protection scheme ever...those that played games in the early 90's will remember...'Please type in word 3 of line 2 of paragraph 3 on page 22 that starts with 'a.''...that was total crap...one game even had a code wheel that you had to properly align...ridiculous...

I think the industry needs to move towards the Steam and Blizzard model...Steam, for me, is very painless and it auto-updates your games...since very few games have a manual worth reading anymore (they sell it to you as the strategy guide now), I have no problems with digital downloads...direct downloads eliminate the cost of retail so prices can be more reasonable...and Blizzard games always seem to take forever to be released...but have any of them ever been of poor or mediocre quality? You may not enjoy the game (I hate World of Warcraft), but the quality is very evident...

I have no problem running old games on my m1710 under XP...DOS games work great under DOSBox...and even those pesky Windows 95/98 games that didn't use the NT kernel run fine if you spend enough time with them... System Shock 2 (had to disable one of the duo core processors while the program was running...cute little file you could download from Microsoft to disable the core of your choice when running the System Shock 2 .exe) and Longbow 2 (have no idea what was done in the patch, but there's a very helpful online community with coders that have done something to make Longbow 2 run perfectly under XP) were probably the most troublesome...I never got X-Com: Apocalypse to run under XP, but I didn't try very hard...and now that it's available on Steam, I've quit trying altogether...

Please help me...I can't stop typing...

 

I buy all my games pretty much because I can afford to, and I'm picky about what I buy, I only buy games I know I'll want to keep playing or, a game that is worth the price of purchase to play once.

I do however, install cracks on the executeables so I can play without the DVD, there's nothing more annoying than having to open your dvd drive on your laptop, find the dvd, and then slide it in.

Also I happened to lose my Oblivion discs, but fortunately I had the game and expansion already installed on my desktop so I just copied the files and sent em to my laptop and cracked it on both, so I guess I can still play that.

How do you guys feel about cracks if you legitimately own the game?

 

I'll also add that the last 2 games I bought were Warhammer Online and The Witcher.

I really need to play through more of The Witcher.

 

I think you missed the point.

The game would be easy enough to hack that it would not present a challenge.
Yes, someone could just post everything that came out on the owner board...

However, the community and mods would go first and foremost to the owners.
The people who cracked the game would have to wait at least long enough for the leak to post it.

The point is that the owners would have a superior version and would get what they paid for and at the very least would not have to deal with DRM processes, stupid hoops and buggy code they shouldn't have to worry about.

It is also worth $50 to me to not have to deal with the endless popups, stupid html tricks and various booby traps (some quite literal) at crack sites every time I want a good mod.

 

First, it's not just "one"

Second, there is no solution that doesn't require pure internet validation (much the way multiplayer works).

Since internet validation itself isn't enough, they'd have to implement some form of required downloading for which the current internet is too slow.

edit: The pricing structure would also likely be changed.

 

I would hardly call pirating an XBOX 360 game just as easy as a PC game.

They are totally different ball fields.

 

Understand, today's consoles (especially the Xbox) ARE PCs that are designed around a specific hardware config with a focus on gaming.

Pirating a console game is only as difficult as finding the copy protections built in the hardware and in the software. The only real difference is that the maker can design certain hoops to jump through to aid in copyright enforcement.

If the carrot is juicy enough it doesn't matter one little bit what those protections are... they will be beaten.

In fact, most consoles are ported to emulators after a while and are played on PCs despite everything!

If the carrot ever gets juicy enough to allow non-copyright countries to mass produce hardware which bypasses consoles' grip... trust me, it will happen and every PC user on the planet will have a USB device which runs console games... even if it is outlawed and made black-market.
(look at the "war on drugs" and the prohibition days and how successful those were, if you need something closer, look at the black market for cable/sat signal pirating)

The only real difference is the degree and it is a LOT more minor than most console fanbois seem to think.

 

ha i agree. i havent actually finished a story mode since the n64. i can say for sure zelda was the best game in terms of a fun story. and the graphics were pretty good for the time. now with all these new games (cod4, vegas2, halo 3 etc) i just cant stay interested in a story mode. online play is the way to go

but anyway, its really hard to find a good torrent download for a game. they take days to download, and you can only get games that arnt for online play. so i just go out and buy it. i cant say that ive never downloaded a game off of a torrent, but i dont bother anymore because it takes too long, theres alot of problems and id rather just buy it now.

i think the last game i downloaded was the new simcity societies, since its not online, and im happy i didnt buy it! simcity 4 is the way to go and i bought that and the expansion

 

AFAIK you can't play online with pirated games so whats the point? The only 1 player game I've played in the last 5-7 years is Portal and Pokemon. Boring...

 

Well here in Venezuela is just to easy to pirate a console game... In fact, every store (except stores like Sony, or the Microsoft Authorized Sellers Duh!) have the consoles already "chipped" so you can use pirate games... Actually is very weird if you find a X360 or a PS3 in original state... You always find it with the modded chip... ANd "burned" games are just as easy to find...

Now, this happends "FOR NOW" in Latin America, Asia, some arabian countries, etc... Developers don't "notice" this because the bigger market is obviusly USA & Europe, but if they stop making PC games i bet there will be console pirating in USA & Europe just as much as there is here or in Asia...

 

This reminds me of Korea
I bet most of starcraft (multi as well) would have pirated :/
I understand the price in korea ex: i asked a guy for flight sim 2004 in korea electronic store, he said 65000 won or 65 dollars! WT# i got the game here for like $20

 

And that's because of the attitude of game publishers. If publishers were the ones handling the majority of used game sales, or got involved in the resale industry, they'd just be extending the profit on their own products that much more. Instead we get stuff like Spore's activation limits, which is primarily designed to kill the resale market. Carrot, not the stick EA.

As for console vs PC pirating - frankly, console is easier. It's harder to set it up but after your one time setup (or get someone else to do it) it's incredibly easy. The real difference is this: the impatient 12 year old market is much higher for consoles, which are nobrainers in terms of usage, while PCs by their nature require more skill to get things working on (for good or bad). PC games aren't "easier to pirate" - consoles just have a higher % of uninformed people.

 

And what's wrong with a publisher making a profit or even extra profit? That's what they're supposed to do...they're neither a public service for gamers or a charity for developers...they have to make money...we, the consumer, control the profit...if they, the publishers, can make more money by calling subsequent re-issues of the game Gold, Platinum, Ultimate, whatever, then more power to them...if they can push off half-baked expansions for almost full price because of Pokemon (gotta have 'em all) personalities like mine then good for them...if we're willing to pay $50 for a shoddy game, then the publishers will put shoddy games on the retail shelves and ask for $50...

And now for my digression/rant since that previous sentence fired that **** (<- You can't say d*mn in the forum? I've never been censored before...I guess I know how Larry Flynt feels now) synapse in my brain again:

(Never again Gas Powered...I thought I could trust you, but I'm watching you now...unless you do something for Space Siege like that developer did for The Witcher, then I'm afraid *snif snif* that it's over...at least until Demigod comes out...now, to be clear, Sega published the game and I should have known better, but I trusted Gas Powered, the developer, to hold their ground against Sega...now I know that Gas Powered is spineless when it comes to dealing with a lame publisher...the money was more important to GPG than their reputation...so be it...)

Back from the digression...I've never viewed the gaming industry as an us vs them proposition...the publishers provide capital to the developers who hopefully craft a decent game with little interference from the publisher for the use of their capital, and then I reward the publisher for a decent game by giving them some of my hard-earned money...they thank me by providing capital to the same or another developer...lather, rinse, repeat...

We, the consumers, determine what we think is fair with our purchasing power...unfortunately, I don't think the publishers are going to view 'free' (pirating) as fair and they will stop providing capital...look at the PSP...what an awesome handheld platform...nothing handheld can compare to it...but there's a perception (reality?) that it's a heavily pirated platform, and you can't get third party publishers to touch it...

And as long as consumers are willing to pay $60 for a console game, I don't see the PC market shrinking that much from the price tag...publishers will just go to the consoles...and leave some very talented, somewhat independent European developers to make games for the PC because that's what they love...

But I do completely agree with your 'carrot, not the stick' comment...it would be nice if the publishers didn't view us (the consumers) as adversaries...I don't know who started it (us or them), but I wish we could all just get along...and have fun making and playing games and let the publishers get really rich doing it...

Amen. 100% agree though I couldn't provide any statistics to support my agreement. I think you hit it dead on.

 

Developers don't care about console pirates because the market is much bigger for kids and 30+ gamers. The 30+ have the money and only buy games they will play, and the kids have games bought for by parents. Its the 17-29 year olds who are tech savvy & will mod their console and then pop off 40 games for $200.

On the PC however, the age-range for pirating games is much larger. So when developer has to choose, they'll choose console over PC because less people will pirate and the hardware demands are easier to design for.

When i was in university, I pirated games with the best of them. It wasn't until I got out of school and realized I wanted to purchase games to support developers for making a great game. At the end of the day, we live in a world driven by dollars. We don't have cures for certain diseases because there's more money in medicine, we don't drive cars that run on water because there's more money in oil ... so when they don't make a game for PC that they make for a console, don't be sad - that's our world, as sad as it is, things only get done where the greatest margins of profit are.

 

Well here in the Philippines (and other places with lots of LAN cafes I guess..) playing online isn't the only thing you can do. There's always LAN. People here hop cafes from city to city/island to island just to compete, and that's just almost the same as playing online with different people.

 

When i first saw this thread i thought:



but then i realized it was ok

I think most people pirate not because they cant afford it, but because they can. If they could totally stop it some how i think sales would go through the roof.

 

I truly doubt sales would go through the roof. There may be a lot of pirates, but I've known many many more who buy most or all their games. Lots of people are proud of supporting publishers and developers they like, sometimes even buying games they're not completely crazy for in order to do it. Plenty of people are ordinary joes buying games for their kids. Stores still run out of popular games and have to put them on reorder all the time.

There's a lot of wringing of hands that PC game makers aren't making any money. Maybe they should try making better games instead of blaming the public. Lots of games come out, but it's not like there's ever too many good ones. I like RTS's and RPG's for example, and turn-based strat games, and I can wait a long time before finding a well-reviewed, non-buggy game that also gets good reviews from actual customers rather than just the gaming mags and sites. And, if applicable, has online play solid enough to form the lasting community you need for online play to be worthwhile.

 

anyone remember halo2 for the xbox, you could pirate it in french before the game was out! dont ask how I know

 

And here's a quote from Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock and game designer for Galactic Civilizations 2) to counter Cliffy B's little take on piracy...you can decide for yourself which of the two makes more sense...

*applause* Wow...some people in the industry really do get it...I hope Brad is filthy, stinking rich, and either does many charitable things with it or lavishes the money on himself, his family and friends...I've contributed to his wealth, and in return, he's given me one of the better gaming experiences of the last couple of years...I played through Gears of War once and gave all the requisite ooh's and aah's...it's pretty cool and raised violence to a new level (made the chainsaw in Doom look like a toy)...but I still play both Galactic Civilizations 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire...

 

Nice, I actually just found this article myself. He has a good many things to say about piracy and the industry as a whole. I highly recommend everyone on this thread read it.

Another good read on the subject is Penny Arcade's "The Origin Of The CD-Keys" two part editorial just published on Sept. 24th & 26th. It also mentions the Stardock article above.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/9/24/

EDIT: Here's the Stardock article. http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

 

I agree wholeheartedly; games need to be designed for the customers, not the pirates. People who are going to pirate will pirate, however, honest paying customers are the ones companies need to spend their time and resources on.

When it's obvious companies like EA designed their games with pirates in mind, that is exactly what they got.

 

Good inclusion.

Brad is right. The last people you want to alienate are the people who choose not to pirate when it's so easy, but instead to spend what has become a fairly hefty chunk of change for a modern PC game. (And its expansions.)

I've bought GalCiv2, it's expansion Dark Avatar, and its expansion Twilight of the Arnor, and really love them. I also bought Sins of a Solar Empire, but wasn't too sure I would like it. However, the fact that it was Brad's company Stardock making it pushed me over the line. I knew there would be no copy protection and that I was supporting first a company that made quality games and second a company that viewed and treated its customers as assets instead of enemies.

Sometimes what goes around comes around. EA and other companies are putting DRM surreptitiously on their titles, and that alone makes their market smaller than it would be. Stardock doesn't do any sneaky business or treat its customers like filth, and what do you know -- people are tremendously supportive. I'm sure there are many, like me, for whom their good reputation is what finally clinches the decision to buy a particular game. Good karma comes around, just like bad karma does. Reap what you sow, etc.

EA will make plenty of money, sure, but in fretting so much about how much more they could be making, ironically they are losing customers who might have pumped hundreds of dollars into their company every year or two(like me), and losing all that beautiful extra money.

And to add further irony, meanwhile, the pirates are not only undeterred, but energized by EA's lousy actions. And thousands of people pirate as protest who probably don't even want some of the games they pirated. But EA has prompted some of them to learn how to do it simply in protest, training a vast new crop of potential pirates.

This comes under the heading of people doing worthless and stupid things just to think that they're "managing." What they're really doing is baloney, and they just have to hope nobody paying them pays enough attention to figure it out.

 

i just wan to ask, but how many people download music? i know at least 90% of us do it, and we should all admit to it. its pretty much exactly the same as downloading games and is a much bigger probem than game downloads.

i download music off of limewire so thats just me, and probably nearly everyone else

 

Of course I download music...but not using P2P software like Limewire...ever since the recording industry got smart, and started offering downloads at reasonable prices (typically 99 cents), I love downloading music from Amazon, iTunes (not so much from iTunes due to some wierd principles I have, but my wife is addicted to all things Apple) and even Wal-Mart...

Unfortunately, I'm stuck in the 80's and 90's and some of that music is hard to come by even on iTunes...then it's off to eBay...although I have a tough time spending $100 on a rare, out-of-print PC game (Starfleet Command 3), I don't mind dropping $20 for a Gene or Catherine Wheel CD...

Again, due to personal preferences, please, please, please continue pirating everything that's popular right now...hopefully, it will put those record companies and the artists they represent out of business...please let pirating in the music industry be the end of Britney Spears and the re-formed New Kids on the Block...

 

Hm, the number of albums I have actually downloaded and decided I liked enough to listen to more than once, I will usually go out and buy it the next payday or sometime thereafter. I use music downloads like game demos. If it's good, I'll buy it. If not no loss to the jokers who think I'll like it enough to pay for their filler.

On another note, in some cases I have purchased albums more than once for one reason or another and I'll be ****ed if I am going to buy it yet again if I happen to lend it or lose it etc... or if the standard format changes to "Super Duper" audio from CDs and MP3s. So I have some downloads in my collection that at some point in time I actually purchased well in advance LOL.

Don't get me wrong I fully support the people and companies that put this stuff out into the marketplace, but sadly for them, the market has changed. Gone are the days of $20 CDs you buy with only hearing one song only to find out it's all filler. The music industry has shot itself in the foot with their "Radio Single" formula. Start producing good albums again and people will buy them.

And to add to that the music industry was more intent on finding ways to collect on "missed" royalties with tariffs than try and change their model to suit the times, as well as go through this whole DRM debacle. They are getting it now though. It's Apple that is all about DRM not EMI, Universal and other big record companies. The music big wigs have started to figure it out. DRM is dead. But gaming and Hollywood are still in the dark ages and think they can do it better. Pffft good luck :\

 

The recording industry of late has pretty much disgusted me with horrible "britney-spears-alikes".

So no... no mp3's other than music I actually purchased and my brother's stuff which I have permission for.

The music industry is one of those places that seems to be combating piracy with outright being so horrible that even the pirates don't want it.

That isn't working either.

 

funny! like we are the affected ones if they stop making pc games!
plus it is easier to pirate consoles than pc, get a chip and then just copy your games.
and who cares about gears of war anyhow!!!

also downloading p2p in Canada is not illegal

 

o well...I was planning on getting it for 360

But i will have to find something to handle my gears fix for the next month...maybe SR2 for laptop anyone?

 

Hmmm...how embarrassing...I double posted...just a moment...I have to go take my ginkoba-enhanced Geritol...sorry everyone...

 

i think unknown had a great idea earlier on page six: offer more incentives to buy the game so theres a good reason to get off our butts and walk to the store instead of clicking download and installing it.

give out little trinkets, like fallout 3's nuka cola bottle opener, or a t-shirt (like the one i got off buying guild wars factions on the release day) maybe a cool map or poster or artwork. all of those are great incintives to buy the game, and would undoubtably boost sales.

 

yea i am seeing more of the freebees with games now.

battlefield came with some extra guns when you preorder it. gta4 came with some maps and free xbox live, need for speed gives you special cars for buying a special edition, some other games come with teeshirts but cant remember.

but anyway, i dont buy the games for the extras, i buy them if their good, and usually find out about the extras after i actually buy it

i also know theres alot more people that download music, like come on. even if they are 99cents each, most people have 500+ songs, which is 500$ just for music that you can get free. for me, i have about 3,000 songs all free from limewire. theres no way im paying 3,000 for acdc, stones, aerosmith, the who, zepplin etc. i think i bought a couple acdc albums but thats before i started downloading it

 

I'm not going to defend piracy, but the Spore copy protection really is a step too far. I remember the days when games had virtually no copy protection and the franchise was doing well. If EA and other companies will continue to use that kind of software that scares more customers off than it saves, the franchise deserves to go into ruin. I honestly don't care much. I have my collection of legally bought(!) games that will keep me entertained for the foreseeable future. I'd rather replay Fallout 2 a hundred times than waste money on software that treats me like a criminal, or bandwidth pirating a game which only serves to reaffirm the notion that producing PC games is no longer profitable.

Incidentally, blaming lousy sales on piracy is no solution. I remember some head honocho from Crytek saying a while ago that Crysis had comperatively low sales because it was pirated 20 million times.

 

i agree with you, the spore drm (any drm really) is too much. not that i would buy spore, i think it looks retarded. also i think the drm stabbed ea in the back. didnt it have like 500000 illegal downloads in the first week?

 

Nothing, it's just that's exactly what they're NOT doing, despite trying to do that. Publishers like EA lack a basic knowledge of economics (among other things) and are doing everything wrong with regards to increasing their profits. I think you misread my post, or something, as I was arguing for game publishers to get involved in a resale market and do positive things to increase their profit margins, not hinder what is actually a legal & fair use market (resale of originally purchased goods) as well as turning off purchasers of new copies of the software by their restrictions. I actually think Spore's DRM could be easily challenged in court if there's a hard limit (ever) on the # of installs, or a resold copy cannot be activated by the purchaser.

As for music, the download from places like Amazon/emusic (not iTunes - qualitywise it's pretty low) is great, but prices should be more in tune with CDs (physical media should not be priced at or lower than digital downloads - I can find CDs for $8-10 at good record stores, new, while the equivalent digital download @ $0.99/track can often go above that). Steam (for some games possibly a slightly less restrictive version of steam) and similar online offerings is the way to go with combating PC piracy, imo - but the prices need to be in tune with boxed copies (i.e. less, or give me an incentive to not collect boxes).

And just a counterpoint to the 'give me freebies so I go to the store and buy a box' - I actually detest boxes (space, organizational, clutter issues) and would much prefer an online way of purchasing games (where 1) prices go down over time to at a minimum match the price drops that boxed copies get and 2) is hassle free, fast, does not have it's own annoying DRM/phone home system (i.e. not a "rental" but a "purchase") and 3) is a permanent archive of games I've purchased).

 

My 2c:
If as a publisher you dont want youre game to get pirated then as a publisher you need to give reasons for that not to happen..

And i will give some examples: Game Categories like WoW,how many got a pirated copy of that game or how many pirated servers are to give you a reason not to buy the game,another game that comes in my mind is CoD4 it has such a great multiplayer mode that the publisher force you as well to buy the original(the same i can think for games like Starcraft/Diablo etc),so for me it all come to what you deliver as a product to control and maximize youre sales.

You need to provide products with features that in the long term make the customer to admit that yes it worth it to pay $50 to have that because of several reasons,pirates always were there and always will be there,good games are hard to find...

 

if the game itself isn't incentive enough to buy it, don't illegally download it.

also, another pc developer speaks.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6198824.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

 

I saw that, so dumb.

First of all, is there any conclusive evidence that releasing a PC game same time as a console version affects console sales? No.

Many people who own consoles don't have a PC that can run the console ported game anyways.

So then why even release the PC version at all then?

I've always bought my games. Have spents thousands and thousands of dollars over the last 20+ years. But always have to live with the POS anti-piracy stuff that never works anyways.

...

 

i haven't bought a new game since cod 4....i have to aggree with old mate in the second or third post that games these days focus on graphics rather than game play........for some reason i am still playing 5 year old games as though i got them yesterday..........and i don't need a cd for any of these games without having to download a crack.

 

exactly, great post

 

With computer getting more and more capable of doing pretty much everything for us, and the "average joe" getting more and more "tech savvy", this was only a matter of time. I don't believe that game company's will stop making computer games all-together, because they would lose just way to much business, and the ratio of what they are losing to what the are gaining is lower than if they stopped selling all-together.

It's always going to be a race. A race between game developers and the people who pirate their software. The game developers will race to make a better software/hardware to stop them, and the pirate'ers will race to break that software/hardware so they have the upper hand.

There will always be conflict between company's, whether its with games, computers, gasoline (Thank god the gas prices went down where I live), etc etc. There is always someone out there trying to get pass the rules to benefit themselves. And stopping or taking away the product wont do much good, because they will always find another way. I.E; With this problem, they will just end up pirate'ing the console cd, and going that direction (not that they don't do it now, just more if they take away PC games).

 

Crysis may have been this or that in terms of gameplay, but it suffered from what many games have suffered from on release: requiring a powerhouse computer to either play at all, or play at settings that let you appreciate all the eye candy. This is the same problem that Supreme Commander faced: make a game more fit for the computers of tomorrow than today, and you will forfeit a good portion of today's sales when the word goes round.

 

Will Dead Space include the same type of drm spore had? Or did EA learn their lesson this time?

 

Console pirating is rampant, worse then pc pirating I would say.

It's a very ignorant thing to say that console gaming is free of this or is less affected by pirating.

In most cases it takes about 60 dollars and about an hour of your time to mod a console. AFter that you can run all games free of charge.

I know several people that have done this. Placed like Blockbuster/other rental places even have special console rental plans that cater to these console pirates.

30 bucks a month and you can rip a game a day. That' 30 games a month for a savings of:

(30 days x $50/game) - $30 sub fee/month = $1470/month

If you don't feel like ripping you can just as easily download console games off torent sites.

If anything I would say that console pirating is far easier then pc pirating.

edit: oh and btw, pc gaming isn't dying. People have been claiming it's dying ever since the release of The atari. PC gaming has shown strong growth for the past 25years, year after year.

 

Crysis's sales problem is not because it requires a powerhouse to run it at max settings, its problem is that it was marketed as the game "no-one can play on their computer". WTH kind of marketing is that!?! I can play Crysis on Very High (cheap config) w/a desktop 8800GT at 1680x1050. That's a $100 gfx card. Not really extreme hardware if you ask me. :\

 

so it's ok to steal something as long as it sucks to you?

the fact of the matter is, it is not your product, and unless you bought it you do not have the right to steal it.



"I would never buy that POS game, ill just download it instead".


what a load of crock.


you don't like it, don't play it, simple.

if you download something with the intention of playing it, you should buy it.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it, like any other product.

 

Publishers should give reasons for you to not pirate, otherwise you should pirate the game? Gtfo, they aren't making the game to please only you, they can be making it for many reasons, and maybe you aren't their targeted audience, maybe they enjoy making the game, maybe a small audience enjoys playing it? How about we smash the windows open of ugly cars at a dealership and steal them because they suck and do not provide enough worth for you to pay for it? Is that morally correct?

People even pirate games worth buying, so what's your excuse for that?

 

EA has said that they are going to include DRM in everything from now on. Whether it will be as bad as Spore's is open to question. However, I think some people are getting misled about their "softer" DRM policies on some upcoming titles. SecuROM is an invasive DRM program to have in your system that has been shown to interfere with some computer programs and components. Whether its level of allowed level of authorizations per game is dialed up or down has nothing to do with that.

 

You can hardly compare console pirating and console pirating on the ease of it.

I know 0 people who pirate console games. Although I easily know of 100+ people who have pirated a PC game.

Did you see how many times spore was downloaded? You aren't going to sit here and tell me that many people went through the trouble of spending 110$ and modding their xbox in able to play GTA4 on xbox for free.

And the failing of the PC is starting to show very slowly, if you see ubisoft and some other groups.

However, valve and the company that made witcher have the right idea. There will always be computer gaming, but you will start to see many mainstream and platform titles steer clear of the PC.