Good editorial on piracy by Stardock
polycounter lvl 18
Editorial
And while not actually naming them, it nicely explains what epic is doing wrong and why they think the PC market stinks (they just announced that UE4 will be console only at first).
And while not actually naming them, it nicely explains what epic is doing wrong and why they think the PC market stinks (they just announced that UE4 will be console only at first).
Replies
reading it all at the mo
but christ that site hurts my eyes
He talks a lot about how you should target the market of actual customers rather than the pirates, but the hell do you even do that?? It's the same people with slightly different morals as far as I can tell.
He says current PC devs are doing it all wrong by making games that mostly pirates want, but he doesn't suggest what they should be making. The onyl real suggestion he makes is that copy protection is pointless. Certainly the budgets for games needs to be dropped considering how few make a profit, but he doesn't mention low budget vs. high budget issues.
Its a good article, but it certainly raises the question: HOW!
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I focus on making games that I think will be the most profitable.
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That kind of quote is not what I like to hear from a game developer cause you end up getting the same game, slightly different.
Keg: I think you're looking at that quote out of context. He means he designs games directed towards those who will actually purchase it for the gameplay value. Those with interest in the game type, and the system to run it well.
And they will never stop costing money, because obviously the developers need, and deserve the money.
Unless it becomes an offense punishable by death.
Who do you listen to? An official website, a well-informed editorial written by someone with the knowledge to develop a fun game for the appropriate demographic and hardware.
Or a CEO who writes "There's a lot of stupid people out there." when referring to his past and potential customers. May as well blame all those pesky pirates, reviewers, and average PC users, who cause so many of them game studios with great games to shut down.
So all games should be made in genres that have less pirates in the demographic? That is a terrible suggestion. Great companies like Iron Lore go down in part to piracy in the PC market and this developer is saying its their fault they didn't make a low budget/ low system requirement game like theirs. Just because pirates don't affect them as much doesn't mean companies should follow their footsteps. Not every game company wants to make RTS Space games.
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The guy came off as slightly full of himself, but put another way, it's still the cold hard truth regarding the PC market. Even if Iron Lore had made the game on a lower budget with lower system requirements, I doubt piracy of TQ would have been mitigated much, if at all. On that note, it seems like the only way to curb piracy in PC games these days is to require online accountability in some form, whether it be registration on an authentication server (a la Steam) or a subscription model (a la WoW), and even then this truly only applies to multiplayer games.
Whether this would've worked for Iron Lore and TQ is another discussion, but given Blizzard's success with Diablo 2 and battle.net, it's plausible. Developing in a genre whose main demographic consists of older, mature gamers who are willing to actually pay for games shouldn't be the only solution to profitability in the PC gaming market. Hell, I might even call it "selling out," ironically (the turn-based strategy genre isn't exactly huge, after all), but I gotta admit, even if grudgingly, that PC gaming inexplicably focuses on genres that generate buzz but not necessarily sales.
Clearly the majority of PC users cannot or will not pony up for a relatively expensive decent gaming machine, so why is the media so fixated on games that push the technological envelope? Even if the industry as a whole feels this is the only way the PC can remain competitive with consoles, WoW remains as the one glaring exception to this rule. Obviously PCs are more capable in some aspects of gaming than consoles, so it remains to be seen if any developer has the cajones to explore these possibilities. And I don't mean more MMOs.
I'm more likely to pirate the game with the protection cracked. ... And companies that develop these titles shouldn't blame piracy for that.
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Get the fuck off Cloud 9.
Back before "these days", people made games for the fun of it, or to challenge themselves, or just to create something cool. I bet that a really large amount of the successful games companies today have roots back in the days when someone wanted to try something new with a computer ... I don't think Epic, id, Infinity Ward, Bioware or any of the "famous name" companies were started up purely from a profitable business standpoint.
He is right that to get a good market share these days, it's a bad idea to just target the high-end PC/hardcore gamer market (see the spectacular commercial failure of Crysis for example), since even if it's a good game, your market is far too small to make any sensible return on the huge budget (although then you can do stuff like engine licensing to get those profits back, as a lot of the FPS devs are doing now).
I don't think that sort of thing encourages piracy though. Piracy is just there because it's possible to do things like that and get away with it without any repercussions. And I don't think that just developing a mass-market or casual title will save you from piracy, it'll just mean that you get more money from the customer base (which is partly his point)... but still, his article reads like a personal puff piece more than a useful insight into where the games industry should go.
Also, check out COD4 for a strange example - it's been a huge commercial success, it also manages to cover a lot of the "hardcore" market while still staying comfortably mainstream, and it actually has very high levels of piracy (look at a server list any day of the week and count the number of servers with "cracked" in the title).
Meh. I didn't like his article... although I do agree with some of it.
crysis sales
Would be very interested in seeing exact current sales figures if anyone can get them.
This guy points out nothing new, move along...
Have to say i dont know what crysis cost to make and i dread to think how much EA spent on marketing it but it had sold over a million by january at the least, so i dont think its done too bad.
crysis sales
Would be very interested in seeing exact current sales figures if anyone can get them.
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I'm pretty sure that is sell-in and not sell-through, which would explain why the NPD figures are different from the EA numbers.
I'm more likely to pirate the game with the protection cracked. I also won't buy a game that looks best with the latest and greatest graphics hardware (Crysis). And companies that develop these titles shouldn't blame piracy for that.
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So you're saying you pirate games that have copy protection systems or high system specs...but developers shouldn't blame you for pirating it, they should blame the system specs they targetted or the fact that they tried to stop you from pirating it?
Get. Fucked. After those development teams put years of their life into developing those games, the fact that you have the audacity to say "IT'S YOUR FAULT I DIDN'T PAY TO PLAY YOUR PRODUCT" is fucking ridiculous.
Those are the most common and flimsiest rationalizations behind piracy (although "I ONLY WANT TO SPEND MONEY ON GAMES THAT ARE GOOD...so I'll pirate this game and play it for 10 hours. and then this game and play it for 10 hours...and then this game and play it for ten hours...I ONLY BUY LONG GAMES THAT ENTERTAIN ME FOR 30 HOURS).
Piracy exists, not because of the product's quality (hell, the only games that won't get pirated are the games that are so terrible they're not worth your overnight torrent download) or any mitigating market factors - piracy exists because people want something that they value for nothing. They offer up flimsy rationalizations to allow them to feel good about themselves, and it's only when a game is so mindblowingly good that they break down and buy it after they pirate it, because it blows their rationalization away.
But that game that got 70% in PC Gamer that you downloaded and played for 9 hours deserved to be bought just as much as that game that got a 95% and game of the year that you downloaded and played and later bought.
People are selfish, and take things for free when they can. There is nothing more to the cause of piracy, and any justifications people offer up are them merely trying to settle their conscious with the fact that they ripped a developer off because they could.
The fact that Stardock spent a long time developing office applications to supplement their income because their PC games weren't profitable seems strangely missing from their editorial. I don't think they were saying the same thing six years ago when they didn't have two successful niche titles under their belt.
And while not actually naming them, it nicely explains what epic is doing wrong and why they think the PC market stinks (they just announced that UE4 will be console only at first).
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Hmmmmm, maybe it´s just me but I couldn´t relate that article to Epic or UE4 in any way? Do you HONESTLY think epic is focussing on the console market because of PC game piracy?
Also, the writer of that article claims to be 'reasonably good at business´. But somehow he doesn´t seem to have the slightest clue why gaming magazines dont have covers with spaceships on them instead of Lara Croft for example. The guy is incredibly shortsighted in my opinion.
PS: Sorry for the crappy english, it´s not my native language
Also, the writer of that article claims to be 'reasonably good at business´. But somehow he doesn´t seem to have the slightest clue why gaming magazines dont have covers with spaceships on them instead of Lara Croft for example. The guy is incredibly shortsighted in my opinion.
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For the sake of being pedantic, that's marketing, not business.
Get the fuck off Cloud 9.
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Get. Fucked.
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Hi guys. Thanks for contributing to this discussion. I'm grateful you're so willing to admit your difficulties in reading the English language. Context is an important aspect. And the article was very long. Your feelings towards my preference to avoid the purchase of games with copy protection and system taxing (often unstable) design decisions, fills my heart with confidence that we can all express tolerance towards those with differing opinions than the average game fuel chugging consumer whore. Go Marketing!
Fact is, I don't pirate games. I simply don't buy them. Unless it's something I believe is worth buying. If something included makes the simple act of game enjoyment more of a hassle for me, I don't send them my money. If a developer fails to spark my interest, oh well. Sucks to be them.
In closing, in a language you can understand, go fuck yourself.
I put the discs in and installed (on cd) and couldnt wait to play the game. Then steam popped up...what is this crap!? was my first thought. Then it said I needed an internet connection, in south africa these arent so common but we had dail up,so I got wires running across my house in order to connect. Then when it finally connects it starts to install all sorts of steam stuff and updates, this took no less than 5 hours and in south africa we pay for the internet per hour. So I had effectively bought half the game again by the time it had installed. Alot of people there in south africa wouldnt be as lucky or as patient as me, for them piracy and no steam sounded a much much better option.
I know currently people in south africa do have access to broadband but in my opinion its still the elite few that can actually play games that include such anti-piracy measures and Im pretty sure this is the same for most of the non-westernised world.
apparently its estimated that only about 1 percent of the worlds population has computers. If you ask me theres bigger issues to spend money on than piracy.
difficulties in reading the English language. Context is an important aspect.
Fact is, I don't pirate games.
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If you don't pirate games, why did you say:
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I'll pirate the expensive stuff, for the eyecandy, and move on to something else with more compelling gameplay.
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Whether or not piracy is the biggest reason why the PC game market is becoming increasingly dry and why more developers are moving over to consoles and then porting to the PC as an after-thought, if they port it at all, is certainly debatable.
I don't believe that "piracy is a problem" is debatable, nor do I believe that there are any valid moral justifications to pirate a game.
Ged said:
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apparently its estimated that only about 1 percent of the worlds population has computers. If you ask me theres bigger issues to spend money on than piracy.
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There are certainly many big problems in the world that would benefit from funding and the caring and volunteered time of many people. But donating your stockholder's money to take care of people instead of developing and trying to sell a game is not really good business sense and "there are many problems in the world" doesn't really have much bearing on a discussion about industry and business practices
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And while not actually naming them, it nicely explains what epic is doing wrong and why they think the PC market stinks (they just announced that UE4 will be console only at first).
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Hmmmmm, maybe it´s just me but I couldn´t relate that article to Epic or UE4 in any way? Do you HONESTLY think epic is focussing on the console market because of PC game piracy?
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no, they are switching to consoles because their latest games sold very bad on the PC. The article explains why they sold so bad:
1. because they targeted a very small customer base only
and
2. because they ALSO targeted a potential customer base where piracy is especially high.
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The fact that Stardock spent a long time developing office applications to supplement their income because their PC games weren't profitable seems strangely missing from their editorial. I don't think they were saying the same thing six years ago when they didn't have two successful niche titles under their belt.
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Sounds like a smart strategy for a company that makes strategy games, eh? Fact, Stardock is still around, and is most likely secure in funding for larger game developments, like an MMORTS. Even after the Starforce controversy, Stardock continues to release games without copy protection, and provide support for their products. Stardock is only a publisher of Sins of a Solar Empire, a game I've heard great things about from the few I know that bought and played it.
And so, I take this editorials credability and experience far above THQ "There's a lot of stupid people out there." CEO's rant about piracy. Therefore, I see no debate on the effects of piracy. It's not something you're going to affect, without angering or misguiding those who play no part in it. The real discussion is the need for an effective business model for PC game developers. One that more accurately plays to its customer base. As a company, Stardock was smart enough to start small and secure its financial future as a developer/publisher. A strategy many start-ups can learn from.
donating your stockholder's money to take care of people instead of developing and trying to sell a game is not really good business sense and "there are many problems in the world" doesn't really have much bearing on a discussion about industry and business practices
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I never said any money should be taken from the development of the game, I was talking about the money being used to create elaborate anti-piracy procedures that could be better used. Perhaps on the game itself or perhaps on poverty aid or something similar, if more people in more countries had access to computers then games would be more widely accepted and more profitable. Besides all this, Im not the kind of person which would run a business with the core goal of making a profit, so to me the fact that "there are bigger problems in the world" does actually have a profound impact on business practices.
From my experience, pirates are mostly collectors, gatherers. They often thrive in having volumes of data that they don't need, and won't ever use. They get a kick out of downloading the latest game that has leaked onto the Internet for the sheer fact that it has leaked onto the Internet, and they get access to it before most other people do. It doesn't mean they will install it, and play it.
Kotaku had an article recently about how they monitored mininova to see how many copies were downloaded of certain games, and the results showed that some 25,000 people had downloaded the leaked preview build of Assassin's Creed, and almost 13,000 had downloaded Frontlines: Fuel of War.
Now, statistics can be made into look like anything. It's all about how you present it, and apply it. In the above examples what we see is a representation of the availability of these games, but only someone clueless (such as the RIAA and MPAA, and many publishers) take these numbers at face value.
From my experience I am willing to bet not even half of those 25,000 people paid any attention to the game once downloaded. Out of these roughly 13,000 people who remembered they had downloaded it, only 8,000 people would actually unpack it. Out of these people some 2,000 would not be able to install it properly and not be able to run it. Now there's 6,000 people remaining whom installed the game, and made it run. Out of these people roughly 3,000 will play it for a few minutes and realise they'd rather go and do something else, which leaves us with 3,000 people actually playing the game. Out of these people, how many would have paid for the game hadn't it been piratable?
We don't know. You don't know. I don't know. Not even the pirates know. How accurate are the numbers I'm presenting above? Not very accurate, but they are probably as accurate as any guess would be.
Now, I'm not defending the pirates. I'm not saying piracy isn't a problem. We all agree that piracy doesn't help the industry. Fine. But what are we going to do about it? I suppose we could whine about it, like some of you do, but fact is you are only wasting your breath and energy up on your high moral stallions. We can put more onerous copy protection schemes on the products, and the only ones who would suffer are the legitimate customers. We can force ISP's to monitor their customers' Internet usage and have them cut the Internet connection of suspicious people, and create an oppressive Orwellian climate which would lead to free, open parallel alternate networks to emerge.
So what are we up against? Like it or not, we're up against human nature. We're up against the fact that piracy, among a large group of people, have evolved into a socially accepted norm where these people don't perceive their activites as being illegal. Also, if you've read all this and think I'm heading towards some kind of insightful conclusion, I have to disappoint you and say I don't have one, but I'll say this much: The Internet is, and will remain, a wild, wild west. We need to realise that our civilised ideals aren't applicable here. Our age old concepts of ownership also don't apply as cleanly as they once did.
Anyways, enough rambling for tonight
I wonder just ham many less pirated copy's of games are downloaded when there is a demo of a game?
I know i used to download games back in the day so i could see if it was fun to me. I would play until i got bored or until i finished the first level/mission. If i finished the first level/mission then i would buy it. Now that most games have a playable demos i can just play that to get a feel of the game. If the game doesn't have a demo then i can see good reason for it to be pirated. Then again maybe that was just me.
Sometimes I can't afford a game. Most times I'll just wait until it's cheap, but if I've been looking forward to it forever I'll pirate it and get a copy later. I can understand both sides and I know that the industry is affected by piracy, but to be honest I wouldn't have bought the game when I pirated anyway. I think I am the exception amongst my pirate friends though. I have a friend who has an entire 120gb HDD completely filled with pirated music and he listens to maybe like 8gb of that. He has never payed for a CD in his life.
A perfect example of what I think is a good business model is what Adobe did with Flex. The builder is usually $249, but they offer it completely free to students (you just have to scan a tuition bill or an ID). When I got the chance to use it for a commercial product I got it legally and it payed off. I probably would have never bothered if it wasn't free.
The thing that's always kept me from downloading pirated software (which, from what I hear, will backfire anyway and keep me out of the industry due to my lack of recent experience with $4500 modeling packages since graduation-- but that'll teach me to obey laws) was the potential hazard that peer to peer networks pose to your system.
When I was in school, gnutella network clients were all the rage with my classmates for getting access to industry-standard software without going into insurmountable credit card debt. (I know, it's not something that's spoken of. But I'm not naming names or anything.) But the vast amounts of malware that pollute those networks was messing up people's machines left and right. So rather than risk losing all my work due to a hard drive crash or whatever (which ended up happening anyway, as such is life), I decided to risk the debt on as much as I could and go without the rest. I'll skip any further violin chatter about how that's been working out. But my point is that if people wanted to stop piracy, they could use all sorts of indirect Draconian methods to make it more risky by populating the channels pirates use with even more digital nastiness.
It wouldn't stop it entirely, of course. Because some people are connected or just lucky, and would still get everything they want without any trouble. But it'd probably cut down on it slightly.
92% Piracy rate
Follow up
Its about a casual game(ricochet) dev who found they had 92% piracy when they compared copies sold vs. people playing online.
They also found that when they put in harder to crack anti-piracy protection they would gain 1 additional sale for every 1000 pirated copies they eliminated. Thats a pretty sad figure.
So how do you fight that? I really don't think ignoring pirates because they wont pay anyways is the right way to go. Not being able to pay or not wanting to is no excuse. I would really love to drive around a Ferrari but just because I couldn't afford to doesn't give me the right to steal one and use it or store it in my garage to look at.
So how do you fight that? I really don't think ignoring pirates because they wont pay anyways is the right way to go. Not being able to pay or not wanting to is no excuse. I would really love to drive around a Ferrari but just because I couldn't afford to doesn't give me the right to steal one and use it or store it in my garage to look at.
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I'm not sticking up for piracy, but I hate that analogy. A lot of people try to use something similar. If someone could go buy one Ferrari, copy it at absolutely no cost 10 million times, and give them out for free to anyone who wanted one without getting in trouble you wouldn't do it? I sure as fuck would like that.
If random strangers just kept getting into your car every day and expecting free rides like it's their right, I think you'd start getting a bit pissed off...
I'd think of piracy more as something like patent theft - if someone patents something, TECHNICALLY you can go off and steal the idea and make tons of your own version for knock off prices (or even better, try to sell the idea to other people without ever building a single "real" thing), but there are tons of well-established laws in place to heavily prosecute people trying to do this. The same just isn't true for piracy because it's so easy to come by.
I'm not pro-piracy, but I think it's something we're going to have to accept as a downside to keeping the internet as the free, open virtual world it is. I would much rather have piracy on a wild-wild-west internet than higher video games sales and a tight, monitored, restricted internet. We'll come up with better encryption I'm sure, and the hackers will hack it... who knows what will happen once quantum computer becomes a consumer norm.
We all agree that we should just keep on trying new ways to secure games without being dicks to consumers, and the hackers will continue to find ways around that security. Se la vis.
For the record, I haven't pirated a game in 3+ years... were I to pirate a game, it would only be to make sure it was worth my money before I bought it. They let you test drive cars before you buy them, after all.
I know this is unrealistic for smaller game developers because they don't have huge connections, but I wouldn't mind seeing more games like that.
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Actually it seems to be fairly viable for smaller devs. A local guy in Vancouver started up a small company, just him and his wife, doing online free to play games. http://www.maidmarian.com/
Apparently they're doing fairly well. Not sure of the exact numbers right now, but I think I remember hearing something like 1,000,000 unique hits a month.
Unless it's something I believe is worth buying.
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I'll pirate the expensive stuff, for the eyecandy, and move on to something else with more compelling gameplay.
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I would play until i got bored or until i finished the first level/mission. If i finished the first level/mission then i would buy it.
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were I to pirate a game, it would only be to make sure it was worth my money before I bought it.
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I see this a lot with people who casually pirate stuff. It seems to boil down to 'What is the value of this game to me as a consumer?' Are these games really worth the $60? What am I getting for that $60? A lot of times the answer is 'Not very much.'
For an FPS, about 8-10hrs of pretty much the same since Doom/Quake, a few innovations here and there but overall about the same. (Let's not even go into sports games.) And how many countless times have we been promised the world and been given 40 acres and half a mule?
You used to be able to take sucky games back to the store and get your money back. Now you are lucky to get $5 in trade-in value on a brand new game (only to have it turned around and sold for $5 less than retail).
Companies used to be able to get away with producing crap and getting it to sell reasonably.. Now we are in the digital age and every opinion is out there for the world to see... and expectations are astronomically higher than they used to be.
Last PC game I bought was World of Warcraft nearly 3 years ago. Before that HalfLife 2 about 6 months after release. For me there is not a lot of value in PC gaming. Even though I only buy a 2-5 console games a year, they are worth the money I put into them. My hardware will always run them, no gajillion processes running in teh background, consistent framerates, bigger screen, better controls, my friends can borrow them or come over to play, multiplayer on one screen is a blast and it's way more comfy to sit on the couch and play.
If the game isn't worth the price they place on it, if the game is the same 8-10 hours of the same since doom/quake with few innovations....then don't buy it...also don't pirate it then lament about how it isn't worth what they're charging for it.
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Here's where another problem lies:
Publisher A puts out a game, it sucks, but a few million people pirate it. Publisher A blames the poor sales on piracy, and learns a lesson, don't make games that are easy to pirate.
Where as if no one pirated it...
Publisher A puts out a game, it sucks. Very few people buy it. Publisher A blames this on the game sucking (rightly so), and learns a lesson, don't make crappy games if you want to make money.
I hardly ever play games on my pc now days because i have a 360 and i can get a demo of about any game on that. I think that this generation that grew up in the post shareware world pirates because they just want it but don't want to pay for it. I don't think they care any bit about buying it unless its so cool that they want to support the company who made it.
Good post East. I think probably the best and most effective way to combat piracy is to create games that use the "micro-transaction" business model, where the core game is free and you purchase points or credits to unlock certain features. That way you avoid the intrusive copy protection measures (which pisses off legitimate customers), and you also expand your user-base since all of those swashbuckling pirates are now going to be legitimate users who d/l the game for free. Of course, this really only works for online games where you can have the user log-in to verify which features they have unlocked.
(I didn't actually read the article, so I'm not sure if I'm just rehashing something that's already been discussed)