DRM is hampering sales, look at ubisoft i have not bought a game from them in years cause i refuse to have to be online while playing. its just stupid if the servers ever go down i cant play, or if i am on a plane or in a car with no net access
Micro transactions seems like the safest route to go these days. This way you can monitor item distributement and catch accounts that are generating items without purchase.
I don't mind buying games online so long as I can play them offline as well. Steam was terribly buggy for the longest time and I still have nightmares about having to use it. Great idea but the kinks have had to be worked out over a long time.
With something like Steam, I wonder why they don't just spend some of their "bandwidth budget" on giving people upload credit for sharing their bandwidth. They could add a torrent component to steam downloads, similar to the Blizzard downloader, and give people a few dollars of Steam credits for turning it on. I'm sure it would net them more bandwidth than simply increasing it through their service provider.
I think the other two are marginal compared to the first to be honest.
No. I used to pirate quite a few games. Then I got steam. Yes there's a form of DRM in there but it doesn't harass me, PLUS it offers me the convenience of the store, being able to play everywhere I want, not worrying about CD's and more. Nowadays I don't pirate anymore, and I've got over 240 games on steam.
What pissed (still pisses me off, but I avoid it now) me off about DRM is that I, a paying customer, got a worse product than the pirates. That's not how you should incentivise. I bought Crysis Warhead boxed in a store. Installed a couple of times because I was dicking around with the Windows 7 B
There will always be those who just know that it is easier to spend a night or a couple of hours searching and downloading than to fork over 30 - 60 bucks.
There will always be those people. You can't get rid of them. They won't buy your games anyway. They will not spend money on you even if you have hella-tight DRM and super low prices. These people are NOT the market you should be focusing on.
Yeah, you're seeing those people tinker around with private WoW/Diablo3 servers right now... no matter how shitty that experience is, they just won't buy those games. I think there's a point where trying to convert pirates into costumers is an exercise in futility.
This seems more of a PC issue than console. Consoles sales are being destroyed by used game sales.
There were a lot of used games sales for the PC back in the time before tight DRM, when all you had to do is enter a serial number. PC's have always been a bit of a forerunner in many ways, not just hardware. I can pretty much guarantee you that consoles will also start to implement DRM and other methods (such as the $10 online pass) to get rid of used sales. And then some tougher DRM, and then they'll be where PC gaming is right now.
I support the steam way of doing it, except he fact that they are fucking over their European costumers with the 1 usd = 1 euro
This is not VALVᴱ. That is the developers' pricing system. Nevertheless I feel your pain (Netherlands) and I can only give you one tip. Find a friend in U.S. territory you trust enough to have them buy you games. (make sure to thank them and gift them a game once in a while)
"AAA" movie still costs only 9-10 bucks and make the same revenues or even more than most games. It's much less of a commitment buying something for 10 bucks than 50 or 60 bucks.
Sure, but going to the cinema lasts 2 hours, where a game usually lasts 10 or more (for big titles, not indies). If you're looking at DVD/BluRay however, releases here are around 25 for a DVD and 30 for a BluRay. Just searched for some big end-of-year movies: Mission Impossible was released as 23/30 and is now 20/28, Twilight released at 27/33 and is now 25/30.
By comparison, Battlefield 3 isn't all that expensive, PC version launched at 50 and is now 40. Yes. That's more expensive, but not nearly as stark a contrast as $10 vs $60. I do agree though, that games should drop a bit in price. I recall when games used to launch for 45 guilders (roughly 20) in the late 90's...
1. Games are a risk purchase. If you buy a game and don't like it, you don't get a refund.
2. They are expensive and a luxury. If it costs too much, they'll either not play it or find a way to play it for less.
3. Consumers don't need the games, but developers need them as customers. The power is clearly on the consumers' side.
4. You can't make legal backups. Console games are the most notorious for this. If your disc is damaged, you have to pay for a new copy or pay for a replacement direct from the publisher (if they offer it at all).
5. This is up to personal preference but, it's a PITA to drive to the store to buy a game when all you really need is the data on the disc and not the disc itself. Digital distribution makes for a much better market for games and you don't have to use up your HDD for games you aren't playing as services like Steam store your games for you to download at your leisure. If you can't get digital downloads from the publisher, then your only option is to download it for free.
6. The game isn't available in your country because of legal issues that are immaterial to the consumer or you're just not considered worth serving.
I'll try to keep it short:
1 - start releasing demos again, people. It's not all that costly in the grand scheme of things.
2 - I'm of the opinion that there already is a good money-saving system: patience. How badly do you want it? How long do you want to wait? What are you willing to pay? Just wait for games to get cheaper.
3 - not alsways the case. People will buy CoD anyway, Ubisoft kinda got away with DRMing the fuck out of Asassin's Creed because it's strong franchise.
4 - We should not be focusing our effort on locking the installable data, we should be focusing on the installed and running software. As long as a player only gets 1 online account per game, I don't give a shit how many DVD's he burns as backup.
"The job of any entrepreneur is to construct a use case and a business case that allow them to make money, given the current constraints of society and technology. They do not get to dismantle civil liberties, even if they cant make money otherwise." - Rick Falkvinge
Fucking truth. We should adapt to the market, not the market to us.
While I love the idea behind Steam sales, I was actullay kinda with the performance of the service this year...
Yeah, they were definitely not prepared for this.
They broke 4 million users in September, and they broke 5 million yesterday. That's a pretty explosive growth. I think I can forgive them, since it wasn't as though we couldn't play our already-installed games anymore.
Well, actually yes. But yeah, Steam is bloody great for deals, most of my games actually bought off the platform are deals, like your Deus Ex one. Apart from steamworks titles, which were hard copies. They'd be the only full price titles on my list. Hard copies of PC games often go on sale or drop in price in stores very soon after, like MW3 and Skyrim are both still 60 on Steam (which is sinful) whereas both in stores in my city went to 25 before Christmas (and are back up now )
So like I said, the price is far more of an issue than the DRM or that.
The price is far more of an issue than the DRM or that.
For you, as the consumer, yes. I'm talking from the perspective of the developer. You only have a limited amount of money. Making games cheaper will not get you to spend more money. So it's not efficient for them to make cheaper games because instead of 1 $60 game and 1 pirated game you would buy 2 $30 games.
However, there are people that DO have plenty of disposable income, who are just sick and tired of having to re-install their DVD drive again, because of securom. Of having only 5 installs before the game gets locked. Of having to be constantly connected to UbiServers. Those are the people we can convince to stop pirating. Those are worth the effort. Those are the market.
There will always be those people. You can't get rid of them. They won't buy your games anyway. They will not spend money on you even if you have hella-tight DRM and super low prices. These people are NOT the market you should be focusing on.
Even with UBISOFTS DRM.
I bought all my assasin creed I ever wanted yesterday ( now only steam DRM? )
for only $4.99.
Almost every awesome game made for pc has been on a steam sale fer under $5.00
Stealing with that kind generous pricing is really slimey. You become subhuman when you let your self interest blind you to that point.
What I do not agree with is cracking a game you have bought being piracy.
When I can enjoy Starcraft II in epic Multi-Monitor surround and Blizzard BANS my account even when I only play the single player campaign then I feel every right to crack and hack that game back to the Multi-Monitor Joy I had in the first place!!!
Making games cheaper will not get you to spend more money. So it's not efficient for them to make cheaper games because instead of 1 $60 game and 1 pirated game you would buy 2 $30 games.
How are you coming to that conclusion? If games were overnight sold instead for half the price they are now, I might consider buying two games instead of buying just the one I really want. Christmas was an excellent example of this. Waaaay too many good games out this year. I havent even bought half of them yet.
DRM and prices are not a problem to me. I own too many Ubi soft titles (as example: splinter cell conviction, prince of persia and all the Assassin's creed saga), and the DRM doesn't bother me... if you complaint... i may think it's because you may be a pirate.
Amazon.com have had really great offers for these holidays (game downloads), Steam aswell, and in play.com you can find games like this one
Hey, 12 euros!!!!. And in Zavvi there are similar and excellent prices. So ranting about prices it's just a poor excuse. We have great games with great prices 1 month later...
In Spain we approved the Sinde Law, and i don't know how well it will work, but something like the SOPA law should be approved aswell. Too many great games are pirated massively, and it's a fact that the people don't pay because it's "for free" googling a bit. They claim Freedom... but where is our future? broken?
pirates say: "Who pays for something if you can find it for free? just an idiot", and that's like people see you here when you buy games.
"moron, waste your money in hardware, not in games... don't you know they are free with the internet?"
For me, the unique possible solution to piracy is to force players to connect to a server, and have all their data/saves in that server. Account + Serial, easy. The blizzard way.
Another thing would be to inject malicious code to the game making it unplayable, similar to Serious Sam 3 BFE but worse, like a memory leak that will put your fps to 2. This happens in Vista with games like Dark Messiah due to a bug (with source engine).
For me, the unique possible solution to piracy is to force players to connect to a server, and have all their data/saves in that server. Account + Serial, easy. The blizzard way.
Not everyone has a stable internet connection, nor will they always have access to the internet when they want to play a game. That type of DRM is extremely intrusive and benefits customers in no way, and will allow pirates to have a much cleaner experience if they pirated the software in the first place.
DRM that requires a constant internet connection and limits the ability for a paying custom to use the product is in no way beneficial for the customer in any way.
To quote a wolfire blog
To recap the DRM argument, the reasoning is as follows:
All popular media will be cracked shortly after the official release (sometimes even before).
DRM negatively effects legitimate customers, yet pirates can seamlessly bypass it.
However, Ubisoft provides a test-case. We are almost two years into its aggressive attack on PC piracy. Recently, Ubisoft called its always-on DRM a success, claiming a clear reduction in piracy.
In terms of actual sales, however, the results seem decidedly mixed. Michael Pachter told Eurogamer that Ubisofts PC game sales are down 90% without a corresponding lift in console sales.
Actually, the only real working thing is to seperate the paying and non-paying crowd in a way that the non-paying crowd would rather be a part of the paying crowd even if they can bypass the drm enough to set up their own crowd, see: multiplayer games.
You can set up your own private hacked server in something like starcraft, minecraft, or world of warcraft, but none of the legit servers will let an invalid account in.
Minecraft itself as no drm at all except the one where you have to pay to play with the payers, because they are not going to suddenly turn of the validation-check on their servers even when it's super easy.
Actually, the only real working thing is to seperate the paying and non-paying crowd in a way that the non-paying crowd would rather be a part of the paying crowd even if they can bypass the drm enough to set up their own crowd, see: multiplayer games.
You can set up your own private hacked server in something like starcraft, minecraft, or world of warcraft, but none of the legit servers will let an invalid account in.
Minecraft itself as no drm at all except the one where you have to pay to play with the payers, because they are not going to suddenly turn of the validation-check on their servers even when it's super easy.
Yeah, it makes close to no sense to pirate multiplayer games if you want to play online with other people in a non-private server setting, however not all games have that option, such as...
Skyrim
RAGE
The Witcher 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Bastion
ect.
Multiplayer is a good pirate deterrent, but not everyone wants to play a multiplayer game and not everyone wants to program a multiplayer game.
Ubisoft games are not an example of games with solid DRM. We all know the pirates play all their games without DRM. Ubisoft invested in a DRM that does not work.
BTW, if i'm going to play multiplayer i will need an internet connection. I played diablo 2 with 256k... "Not everyone has a stable internet connection", that's another poor excuse.
Just look how many titles we had this past year, most of them were MMOs and Multiplayer games. So, Internet is a must have for a PC Gamer. You may be connected with you samsung galaxy or iphone to internet... but how's possible to don't have a good internet connection nowadays? o.O
Yeah, it makes close to no sense to pirate multiplayer games if you want to play online with other people in a non-private server setting, however not all games have that option, such as...
Skyrim
RAGE
The Witcher 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Bastion
ect.
Multiplayer is a good pirate deterrent, but not everyone wants to play a multiplayer game and not everyone wants to program a multiplayer game.
Those are perfect examples of great games pirated massively. I own all of them in my steam account.
Sonic generations could be added aswell, red faction armageddon, assassin's creed revelations, and much more.
Ubisoft games are not an example of games with solid DRM. We all know the pirates play all their games without DRM. Ubisoft invested in a DRM that does not work.
That DRM being a constant internet connection required to play the game
BTW, if i'm going to play multiplayer i will need an internet connection. I played diablo 2 with 256k... "Not everyone has a stable internet connection", that's another poor excuse.
Not all games are multiplayer
Just look how many titles we had this past year, most of them were MMOs and Multiplayer games. So, Internet is a must have for a PC Gamer.
There are much more singleplayer games released every year than multiplayer games.
Not only that but there are much more high profile singleplayer games than multiplayer games.
La Noire, Witcher 2, Fallout Series, Elder Scrolls
Those are perfect examples of great games pirated massively.
Compared to what? Games that focus on multiplayer elements of the game? No kidding.
You may be connected with you samsung galaxy or iphone to internet... but how's possible to don't have a good internet connection nowadays? o.O
Most cellphones use Celltowers to connect to the internet, but beside that point, not everywhere in the world has 3G coverage. Nor did I ever mention anything about phones, mobile games, or mobile DRM.
Yeah, it makes close to no sense to pirate multiplayer games if you want to play online with other people in a non-private server setting, however not all games have that option, such as...
Skyrim
RAGE
The Witcher 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Bastion
ect.
Multiplayer is a good pirate deterrent, but not everyone wants to play a multiplayer game and not everyone wants to program a multiplayer game.
I entirely agree with that, there's really no easy fix for non multiplayer games unless you want to incorporate community/online functionality in your singleplayer game.
Steam acts partially like this, where you have achievement and other community related features that makes you want to own these titles on there, as everyone who you know will be on there too and will know if you actually bought your skyrim or pirated it.
People want to be a part of the community, not just play the game.
All of those games have multiplayer components as a selling point with, 3/5 (the top three) of those games having multiplayer as the main portion of the game.
Steam acts partially like this, where you have achievement and other community related features that makes you want to own these titles on there, as everyone who you know will be on there too and will know if you actually bought your skyrim or pirated it.
Not only that but Non-Valve games can be launched via the .exe directly without an internet connection, or going through steam.
There are much more singleplayer games released every year than multiplayer games.
You may be ignorant in this , but i'm sure you don't play mmos. Single player games in PC are a minority nowadays, give or take, and it's a fact as big as a mountain.
edit: That top five games... have one player campaign or one player
Not only that but Non-Valve games can be launched via the .exe directly without an internet connection, or going through steam.
In the cases when a game might have steamworks in the launcher but not in the actual game, but in any other case you have to go into offline mode for that.
But again, then you're not on line, you're not on your steam friends list, you're not talking to them about something like skyrim because the only legit pc skyrim is on steam.
You may be ignorant in this , but i'm sure you don't play mmos. Single player games in PC are a minority nowadays, give or take, and it's a fact as big as a mountain.
edit: That top five games... have one player campaign or one player
Well, if we want to count indie games, which we certainly will, singleplayer games dominate the market :P
But that's not accounting for Geography. Look at those games, Crysis, Portal, they're PC-heavy games. If you'd look at the geography of where piracy takes place most with those titles, I'm willing to bet good money that it's mostly in Asia, with Russia as the epicenter.
Then look at how long it takes for those titles to get to that market legitimately. With a translation and all that. And then look at how much those games cost there as a percentage of salary.
Since I come from places like that, I can guarantee you that the picture is pretty grim. A situation is created where you're just asking for piracy.
It's like what that guy from Valve said about steam, it's not price, it's service. If those games came out legitimately in those countries, at the same time as the rest of the world, at a decent price for that economy, with a proper translation, with proper online services, I'm absolutely sure those piracy numbers would dwindle to near-nothing.
But right now piracy just offers a better service. You get the game on-time. You don't have to rely on getting a physical copy. You don't have to put up with crappy DRM. And yeah, you lose multiplayer, but hey, it's free.
It's incredible you dare to say "and?". Believe or not, there are people that only want to play an epic campaign, or just the single player. They are not interested in the mp aspect as too many of us.
In almost all the forums i know, all the brats claims that they will not pay 1 single cent for a single player game.
It's incredible you dare tu say "and?". Believe or not, there are people that only want to play an epic campaign, or just the single player. They are not interested in the mp aspect as too many of us.
In almost all the forums i know, all the brats claims that they will not pay 1 single cent for a single player game.
And all this is just a matter of facts.
I was posting those stats in response that
Just look how many titles we had this past year, most of them were MMOs and Multiplayer games. So, Internet is a must have for a PC Gamer.
You were using that argument saying that multiplayer games are pirated less than singleplayer games. Those games that I posted are highly focused on the multiplayer; the singleplayer aspect being an aside; yet they were also highly pirated, which rejects the idea that mutiplayer-centric games are not pirated less than singleplayer games. QED
If games were overnight sold instead for half the price they are now, I might consider buying two games instead of buying just the one I really want.
And my point is, that doesn't matter to the developers. Either you give then $60, or you give them $30 + $30. In fact, chances are they'll have less income because you'll still only buy the one you like most. What incentive is there for them?
I remember a little game called titan quest, from a little developer called iron lore. The studio went bust due to rampant piracy of a very good game.
Does "good games sell, mediocre games get pirated" argument hold water here? I am tired of excuses people make for this and that. Look I don't even care that you pirate as long as you don't come up with endless list of reasons as to why you are not paying for content that is a luxury good.
As for DRM. Yes, it's not ideal. But remember, our industry is evolving and they are just trying to figure it all out. just be a little patient. We live in such a self-entitled instant gratification society that an instant we aren't stimulated with content we start whining. No developer wants to alienate their consumers, that's how they make a living after all. Some drm is more successful than others, sure, and we are still figuring out ways to do it right by the buyer. It just requires a little patience on the part of the impatient consumer.
What other industry communicates so closely and holds such near dialogue with their consumers more than the gaming industry. Recently, I remember the release of Rage was a little shaky and I also recall some instances of less than stellar initial experiences with Games for windows live on titles like Arkham City. Sure I was a little inconvenienced, but the solution was usually prompt and it didnt really prevent me from enjoying the product that the developers so lovingly crafted.
This topic has been debated over and over on these forums. What hasn't changed is the numerous amount of excuses people make for stealing, here, of all places.
I remember a little game called titan quest, from a little developer called iron lore. The studio went bust due to rampant piracy of a very good game.
I thought they just had problems securing funding to continue development, I hardly think that it could have been solely piracy that killed the company.
But that's not accounting for Geography. Look at those games, Crysis, Portal, they're PC-heavy games. If you'd look at the geography of where piracy takes place most with those titles, I'm willing to bet good money that it's mostly in Asia, with Russia as the epicenter.
yup. And the funny thing is, the players in those countries DO buy games - many do not pirate themselves. Except they buy them from pirates who offer them at prices suitable for those economies. Funnily enough, here in China are still many people who do not even KNOW that the $5 USD game/DVD they just bought is NOT the real thing. The copy is often just perfectly packaged and many of them have never seen the real legit retail box.
Although now that the market is strongly in the hand of commercial pirating ventures and IP law is weak, there's no chance for publishers to enter that market easily. That's probably why most local studios make MMOs which cannot be pirated.
I was posting those stats in response that You were using that argument saying that multiplayer games are pirated less than singleplayer games. Those games that I posted are highly focused on the multiplayer; the singleplayer aspect being an aside; yet they were also highly pirated, which rejects the idea that mutiplayer-centric games are not pirated less than singleplayer games. QED
I didn't say "multiplayer games are pirated less than singleplayer games". You don't read well :S
Just one question, are you against the SOPA law?
just answer yes o no and then i will know if i'm discussing with a pro-piracy guy or not.
yup. And the funny thing is, the players in those countries DO buy games - many do not pirate themselves. Except they buy them from pirates who offer them at prices suitable for those economies. Funnily enough, here in China are still many people who do not even KNOW that the $5 USD game/DVD they just bought is NOT the real thing. The copy is often just perfectly packaged and many of them have never seen the real legit retail box.
Although now that the market is strongly in the hand of commercial pirating ventures and IP law is weak, there's no chance for publishers to enter that market easily. That's probably why most local studios make MMOs which cannot be pirated.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Where I come from, you straight-up have shops that sell modded consoles as if they were brand new. Then they also sell burned games that are nothing more than a regular CDR (back then) with the game's name written in Sharpie on it. Likewise for PC games.
Growing up, I just didn't know the difference. I thought that was normal. I even had a modded NES (called Megason over there) that played all sorts of weird cartridges. They would be 10in1 cartridges with like 10 games on it. Stuff like Mario and those.
I thought they just had problems securing funding to continue development, I hardly think that it could have been solely piracy that killed the company.
From IL
Greetings:
So, ILE shut down. This is tangentially related to that, not why they shut down, but part of why it was such a difficult freaking slog trying not to. It's a rough, rough world out there for independent studios who want to make big games, even worse if you're single-team and don't have a successful franchise to ride or a wealthy benefactor. Trying to make it on PC product is even tougher, and here's why.
Piracy. Yeah, that's right, I said it. No, I don't want to re-hash the endless "piracy spreads awareness", "I only pirate because there's no demo", "people who pirate wouldn't buy the game anyway" round-robin. Been there, done that. I do want to point to a couple of things, though.
One, there are other costs to piracy than just lost sales. For example, with TQ, the game was pirated and released on the nets before it hit stores. It was a fairly quick-and-dirty crack job, and in fact, it missed a lot of the copy-protection that was in the game. One of the copy-protection routines was keyed off the quest system, for example. You could start the game just fine, but when the quest triggered, it would do a security check, and dump you out if you had a pirated copy. There was another one in the streaming routine. So, it's a couple of days before release, and I start seeing people on the forums complaining about how buggy the game is, how it crashes all the time. A lot of people are talking about how it crashes right when you come out of the first cave. Yeah, that's right. There was a security check there.
So, before the game even comes out, we've got people bad-mouthing it because their pirated copies crash, even though a legitimate copy won't. We took a lot of shit on this, completely undeserved mind you. How many people decided to pick up the pirated version because it had this reputation and they didn't want to risk buying something that didn't work? Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy.
One guy went so far as to say he'd bought the retail game and it was having the exact same crashes, so it must be the game itself. This was one of the most vocal detractors, and we got into it a little bit. He swore up and down that he'd done everything above-board, installed it on a clean machine, updated everything, still getting the same crashes. It was our fault, we were stupid, our programmers didn't know how to make games - some other guy asked "do they code with their feet?". About a week later, he realized that he'd forgotten to re-install his BIOS update after he wiped the machine. He fixed that, all his crashes went away. At least he was man enough to admit it.
So, for a game that doesn't have a Madden-sized advertising budget, word of mouth is your biggest hope, and here we are, before the game even releases, getting bashed to hell and gone by people who can't even be bothered to actually pay for the game. What was the ultimate impact of that? Hard to measure, but it did get mentioned in several reviews. Think about that the next time you read "we didn't have any problems running the game, but there are reports on the internet that people are having crashes."
Two, the numbers on piracy are really astonishing. The research I've seen pegs the piracy rate at between 70-85% on PC in the US, 90%+ in Europe, off the charts in Asia. I didn't believe it at first. It seemed way too high. Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1. These are hardcore games, shooters, classic PC audience stuff. Given the difference in install base, I can't believe that there's that big of a difference in who played these games, but I guess there can be in who actually payed for them.
Let's dig a little deeper there. So, if 90% of your audience is stealing your game, even if you got a little bit more, say 10% of that audience to change their ways and pony up, what's the difference in income? Just about double. That's right, double. That's easily the difference between commercial failure and success. That's definitely the difference between doing okay and founding a lasting franchise. Even if you cut that down to 1% - 1 out of every hundred people who are pirating the game - who would actually buy the game, that's still a 10% increase in revenue. Again, that's big enough to make the difference between breaking even and making a profit.
Titan Quest did okay. We didn't lose money on it. But if even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today. You can bitch all you want about how piracy is your god-given right, and none of it matters anyway because you can't change how people behave... whatever. Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren't so rampant on the PC. That's a fact.
Enough about piracy. Let's talk about hardware vendors. Trying to make a game for PC is a freaking nightmare, and these guys make it harder all the time. Integrated video chips; integrated audio. These were two of our biggest headaches. Not only does this crap make people think - and wrongly - that they have a gaming-capable PC when they don't, the drive to get the cheapest components inevitably means you've got hardware out there with little or no driver support, marginal adherence to standards, and sometimes bizarre conflicts with other hardware.
And it just keeps getting worse. CD/DVD drives with bad firmware, video cards that look like they should be a step-up from a previous generation, but actually aren't, drivers that need to be constantly updated, separate rendering paths for optimizing on different chips, oh my god. Put together consumers who want the cheapest equipment possible with the best performance, manufacturers who don't give a shit what happens to their equipment once they ship it, and assemblers who need to work their margins everywhere possible, and you get a lot of shitty hardware out there, in innumerable configurations that you can't possibly test against. But, it's always the game's fault when something doesn't work.
Even if you get over the hump on hardware compatibility - and god knows, the hardware vendors are constantly making it worse - if you can, you still need to deal with software conflicts. There are a lot of apps running on people's machines that they're not even aware of, or have become such a part of the computer they don't even think of them as being apps anymore. IM that's always on; peer-to-peer clients running in the background; not to mention the various adware and malware crap that people pick up doing things they really shouldn't. Trying to run a CPU and memory heavy app in that environment is a nightmare. But, again, it's always the game's fault if it doesn't work.
Which brings me to the audience. There's a lot of stupid people out there. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of very savvy people out there, too, and there were some great folks in the TQ community who helped us out a lot. But, there's a lot of stupid people. Basic, basic stuff, like updating your drivers, or de-fragging your hard drive, or having antivirus so your machine isn't a teetering pile of rogue programs. PC folks want to have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want with their machines, and god help them they will do it; more power to them, really. But god forbid something that they've done - or failed to do - creates a problem with your game. There are few better examples of the "it can't possibly be my fault" culture in the west than gaming forums.
And while I'm at it, I don't want to spare the reviewers either. We had one reviewer - I won't name names, you can find it if you look hard enough - who missed the fact that you can teleport from wherever you are in TQ back to any of the major towns you've visited. So, this guy was hand-carting all of his stuff back to town every time his inventory was full. Through the entire game. Now, not only was this in the manual, and in the roll-over tooltips for the UI, but it was also in the tutorial, the very first time you walk past one of these giant pads that lights up like a beacon to the heavens. Nonetheless, he missed it, and he commented in his review how tedious this was and how much he missed being able to portal back to town. When we - and lots of our fans - pointed out that this was the reviewer's fault, not the game's, they amended the review. But, they didn't change the score. Do you honestly think that not having to run back to town all the time to sell your stuff wouldn't have made the game a better experience?
We had another reviewer who got crashes on both the original and the expansion pack. We worked with him to figure out what was going on; the first time, it was an obscure peripheral that was causing the crash, a classic hardware conflict for a type of hardware that very, very few people have. The second time, it was in a pre-release build that we had told him was pre-release. After identifying the problem, getting him around it, and verifying that the bug was a known issue and had been fixed in the interim, he still ran the story with a prominent mention of this bug. With friends like that...
Alright, I'm done. Making PC products is not all fun and games. It's an uphill slog, definitely. I'm a lifelong PC gamer, and hope to continue to work on PC games in the future, but man, they sure don't make it easy.
In fact, chances are they'll have less income because you'll still only buy the one you like most. What incentive is there for them?
Thats the point you made last time, and I'm not sure where you are getting those 'chances' from. Like I said, theres a cartload of games that came out around November time that I have not been able to buy yet. If they were half the price, I would have been able to buy them all. Im sure that goes for a lot of people.
:poly142:
You are arguing for the opinion that if games were cheaper they would sell the exact same units, but I definitely would not agree with that I'm afraid.
If games were overpriced, then publishers would try to undercut each other when matched on similar products. But they mostly don't. Game development, distribution and marketing is an expensive business.
This is a piracy discussion and pricing is not the issue when it comes to stealing. So the best we can do is provide the consumer with an easy and problem free access to legitimate versions of our products.
Thats a shame Interestingly enough, one could argue that it was the DRM that hurt the game more than the piracy. One could then go on a tangent and mention what a commercial success Borderlands was and it had little to no drm, even for online play.
It sucks that the company went down, but to say that it did so through "rampant piracy" alone would be incorrect.
Yes that's what we like to do on the Internet. Tangents and postulations in the face of cold hard numbers.
Reality check, a lot of polycounters worked on TQ and lost their jobs due to piracy. You can sit all day and speculate what specific portion of the problem was directly related to it, but the truth is. Piracy is a legitimate problem, not a pretend one.
You are arguing for the opinion that if games were cheaper they would sell the exact same units, but I definitely would not agree with that I'm afraid.
No I'm arguing that if games were cheaper, they would sell more units, but for the same total revenue, or worse.
DRM and prices are not a problem to me. I own too many Ubi soft titles (as example: splinter cell conviction, prince of persia and all the Assassin's creed saga), and the DRM doesn't bother me... if you complaint... i may think it's because you may be a pirate.
Amazon.com have had really great offers for these holidays (game downloads), Steam aswell, and in play.com you can find games like this one
Hey, 12 euros!!!!. And in Zavvi there are similar and excellent prices. So ranting about prices it's just a poor excuse. We have great games with great prices 1 month later...
In Spain we approved the Sinde Law, and i don't know how well it will work, but something like the SOPA law should be approved aswell. Too many great games are pirated massively, and it's a fact that the people don't pay because it's "for free" googling a bit. They claim Freedom... but where is our future? broken?
pirates say: "Who pays for something if you can find it for free? just an idiot", and that's like people see you here when you buy games. For me, the unique possible solution to piracy is to force players to connect to a server, and have all their data/saves in that server. Account + Serial, easy. The blizzard way.
Another thing would be to inject malicious code to the game making it unplayable, similar to Serious Sam 3 BFE but worse, like a memory leak that will put your fps to 2. This happens in Vista with games like Dark Messiah due to a bug (with source engine).
The internet needs CONTROL, POLICE.
DRM is a problem. It is well known that it harms legitimate consumers while it does nothing to prevent infringement. It breaks software and causes instability on many computers.
Do you realize what you are asking for? Do you realize how horrible SOPA is? There are plenty of reasons to hate SOPA that has nothing to do with "piracy".
You're demanding the power to censor the internet. And SOPA lets copyright holders make the determination of what is infringing or not, without due process (i.e. you don't get to defend yourself). What right does anyone have to decide what information is passed around on the internet? I'll just repost a very apt quotation:
"The job of any entrepreneur is to construct a use case and a business case that allow them to make money, given the current constraints of society and technology. They do not get to dismantle civil liberties, even if they cant make money otherwise." - Rick Falkvinge
In other words, you don't get to police the net because it interferes with your business model. That's just wrong. It won't work either. You can't force people to abide by your business model. You'll never win.
The internet cannot be controlled by you, me, or anyone else.
If the game you like best is $60, you only buy that game.
If the game you like best is $30, you buy that game, and maybe a second one.
First situation, developers are guaranteed to get $60. Second situation, they get at best $60, at worst $30.
That's a strange argument... You're talking about a person who you know to spend $60 on a game.
But compare the target market of people who are willing to spend $60 on a game. Now compare that to a target market of people who are willing to spend $30 on a game. Seems obvious to me that the $30 market is a hell of a lot bigger.
It would include those who were willing to pay $60 for a game, they'll just buy more games, some won't. But then in addition also all those people that wouldn't spend $60, but would spend $30. If you think that number is insignificant, you're sorely mistaken.
Following that logic though, why sell a game for $60? Why not just sell it for $120? I mean, sure, less people would buy it. But those that will would pay double the money, so it's the same thing, isn't it?
You are arguing for the opinion that if games were cheaper they would sell the exact same units, but I definitely would not agree with that I'm afraid.
You're smart to not agree, because they sell WAY MORE UNITS
Illustrating his point, Newell showed the results of a Left 4 Dead promotion Valve ran last weekend, which cut the price of the game in half to $25. The discount (and promise of new content for the game) rocketed sales of the game on Steam by 3,000 percent.
Discounting games does not only increase unit sales--it increases actual revenues. During the 16-day sale window over the holidays, third-parties were given a choice as to how severely they would discount their games. Those that discounted their games by 10 percent saw a 35% uptick in sales--that's dollars, not units. A 25 percent discount meant a 245 percent increase in sales. Dropping the price by 50 percent meant a sales increase of 320 percent. And a 75 percent decrease in the price point generated a 1,470 percent increase in sales
with the game's name written in Sharpie on it. Likewise for PC games.
actually here they fake the labels too, everything - including embossed prints, glossy colors, holograms, etc. Looks very professional. If you haven't seen the original you can hardly tell if this is the real thing or not.
Yes that's what we like to do on the Internet. Tangents and postulations in the face of cold hard numbers.
Reality check, a lot of polycounters worked on TQ and lost their jobs due to piracy. You can sit all day and speculate what specific portion of the problem was directly related to it, but the truth is. Piracy is a legitimate problem, not a pretend one.
No, what happened is that they tried to fight piracy, but it backfired and blew up in their faces (I'm sorry they lost their jobs, but it was their mistake). Had they not added that code designed to break the game, nobody would have been complaining and the game wouldn't have been labeled as broken. It was designed to break and it broke. This upset people and they blamed the developers. And if it can break for illegitimate users, it can break for legitimate users as well, which are the people that will ultimately be shorted, as the cracked version will have that broken code fixed. DRM and other locks just make the "pirate" version superior.
It's folly to try to stop anyone from accessing a copy of any game because that's not how technology works. Furthermore, human beings are sharers of ideas and information. It's part of our nature and how we grow as a society. You're trying to fight human nature and technology. You will always lose.
Aye, that's my point, and I do believe it correlates a little into piracy (the issue of the cost being 'too high')
Mind you, thousands of people have torrented those charity indie bundles that you can pay as little as $1 for, so its not all black and white I guess...
You are forgetting the obvious. These games were discounted after being on the market. It's not the same as launching a title at a reduced price. The publisher has to maximize profits in a short time in a competitive market at launch to pay for development costs, marketing and have enough money left over to fairly compensate the developer post launch. Maybe even have enough to warrant another project
Steam is a self marketing behemoth. It has direct access to advertise to millions of users and is able to distribute content much cheaper and faster. Older games cost next to nothing to distribute digitally so of course price cuts results in higher profit margins for publishers who enjoy success of steam. But just because it happens in a tightly controlled ecosystem like steam, it doesn't always apply to traditional methods of distribution.
Steam is great, it's a very great service that treats customers fantastically and thus is very profitable for everyone. But AAA titles don't survive on steam alone. Thus we are back at square one.
Replies
I don't mind buying games online so long as I can play them offline as well. Steam was terribly buggy for the longest time and I still have nightmares about having to use it. Great idea but the kinks have had to be worked out over a long time.
No. I used to pirate quite a few games. Then I got steam. Yes there's a form of DRM in there but it doesn't harass me, PLUS it offers me the convenience of the store, being able to play everywhere I want, not worrying about CD's and more. Nowadays I don't pirate anymore, and I've got over 240 games on steam.
What pissed (still pisses me off, but I avoid it now) me off about DRM is that I, a paying customer, got a worse product than the pirates. That's not how you should incentivise. I bought Crysis Warhead boxed in a store. Installed a couple of times because I was dicking around with the Windows 7 B
There will always be those people. You can't get rid of them. They won't buy your games anyway. They will not spend money on you even if you have hella-tight DRM and super low prices. These people are NOT the market you should be focusing on.
There were a lot of used games sales for the PC back in the time before tight DRM, when all you had to do is enter a serial number. PC's have always been a bit of a forerunner in many ways, not just hardware. I can pretty much guarantee you that consoles will also start to implement DRM and other methods (such as the $10 online pass) to get rid of used sales. And then some tougher DRM, and then they'll be where PC gaming is right now.
This is not VALVᴱ. That is the developers' pricing system. Nevertheless I feel your pain (Netherlands) and I can only give you one tip. Find a friend in U.S. territory you trust enough to have them buy you games. (make sure to thank them and gift them a game once in a while)
Yes. But it's not intrusive DRM, and it also offers benefits. That's the point. Most DRM only takes freedom and gives nothing in return.
Sure, but going to the cinema lasts 2 hours, where a game usually lasts 10 or more (for big titles, not indies). If you're looking at DVD/BluRay however, releases here are around 25 for a DVD and 30 for a BluRay. Just searched for some big end-of-year movies: Mission Impossible was released as 23/30 and is now 20/28, Twilight released at 27/33 and is now 25/30.
By comparison, Battlefield 3 isn't all that expensive, PC version launched at 50 and is now 40. Yes. That's more expensive, but not nearly as stark a contrast as $10 vs $60. I do agree though, that games should drop a bit in price. I recall when games used to launch for 45 guilders (roughly 20) in the late 90's...
I'll try to keep it short:
1 - start releasing demos again, people. It's not all that costly in the grand scheme of things.
2 - I'm of the opinion that there already is a good money-saving system: patience. How badly do you want it? How long do you want to wait? What are you willing to pay? Just wait for games to get cheaper.
3 - not alsways the case. People will buy CoD anyway, Ubisoft kinda got away with DRMing the fuck out of Asassin's Creed because it's strong franchise.
4 - We should not be focusing our effort on locking the installable data, we should be focusing on the installed and running software. As long as a player only gets 1 online account per game, I don't give a shit how many DVD's he burns as backup.
Fucking truth. We should adapt to the market, not the market to us.
Yeah, they were definitely not prepared for this.
They broke 4 million users in September, and they broke 5 million yesterday. That's a pretty explosive growth. I think I can forgive them, since it wasn't as though we couldn't play our already-installed games anymore.
Well, actually yes. But yeah, Steam is bloody great for deals, most of my games actually bought off the platform are deals, like your Deus Ex one. Apart from steamworks titles, which were hard copies. They'd be the only full price titles on my list. Hard copies of PC games often go on sale or drop in price in stores very soon after, like MW3 and Skyrim are both still 60 on Steam (which is sinful) whereas both in stores in my city went to 25 before Christmas (and are back up now
So like I said, the price is far more of an issue than the DRM or that.
For you, as the consumer, yes. I'm talking from the perspective of the developer. You only have a limited amount of money. Making games cheaper will not get you to spend more money. So it's not efficient for them to make cheaper games because instead of 1 $60 game and 1 pirated game you would buy 2 $30 games.
However, there are people that DO have plenty of disposable income, who are just sick and tired of having to re-install their DVD drive again, because of securom. Of having only 5 installs before the game gets locked. Of having to be constantly connected to UbiServers. Those are the people we can convince to stop pirating. Those are worth the effort. Those are the market.
Even with UBISOFTS DRM.
I bought all my assasin creed I ever wanted yesterday ( now only steam DRM? )
for only $4.99.
Almost every awesome game made for pc has been on a steam sale fer under $5.00
Stealing with that kind generous pricing is really slimey. You become subhuman when you let your self interest blind you to that point.
What I do not agree with is cracking a game you have bought being piracy.
When I can enjoy Starcraft II in epic Multi-Monitor surround and Blizzard BANS my account even when I only play the single player campaign then I feel every right to crack and hack that game back to the Multi-Monitor Joy I had in the first place!!!
Particularly since I have now bought the game for my family's LAN battles 3 times already!
http://widescreengamingforum.com/forum/13416/someone-test-starcraft-2-5760-x-1080-support-and-post-here
That they may do the same to Diablo 3 before I might even had the chance to let the wsgf forums hack the game leaves me no other option to beg and plead for Epic surround/eyefinity support and forever curse their name in the event they commit that egregious eror!
http://widescreengamingforum.com/forum/forums/multi-monitor-gaming/multi-monitor-gaming/16082/diablo-3-wont-support-3-monitors
How are you coming to that conclusion? If games were overnight sold instead for half the price they are now, I might consider buying two games instead of buying just the one I really want. Christmas was an excellent example of this. Waaaay too many good games out this year. I havent even bought half of them yet.
Amazon.com have had really great offers for these holidays (game downloads), Steam aswell, and in play.com you can find games like this one
Hey, 12 euros!!!!. And in Zavvi there are similar and excellent prices. So ranting about prices it's just a poor excuse. We have great games with great prices 1 month later...
In Spain we approved the Sinde Law, and i don't know how well it will work, but something like the SOPA law should be approved aswell. Too many great games are pirated massively, and it's a fact that the people don't pay because it's "for free" googling a bit. They claim Freedom... but where is our future? broken?
pirates say: "Who pays for something if you can find it for free? just an idiot", and that's like people see you here when you buy games. For me, the unique possible solution to piracy is to force players to connect to a server, and have all their data/saves in that server. Account + Serial, easy. The blizzard way.
Another thing would be to inject malicious code to the game making it unplayable, similar to Serious Sam 3 BFE but worse, like a memory leak that will put your fps to 2. This happens in Vista with games like Dark Messiah due to a bug (with source engine).
The internet needs CONTROL, POLICE.
Not everyone has a stable internet connection, nor will they always have access to the internet when they want to play a game. That type of DRM is extremely intrusive and benefits customers in no way, and will allow pirates to have a much cleaner experience if they pirated the software in the first place.
DRM that requires a constant internet connection and limits the ability for a paying custom to use the product is in no way beneficial for the customer in any way.
To quote a wolfire blog
Not only that but:
via http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opinion-ubisoft-piracy-and-the-death-of-reason/ This isn't even beneficial for the developer.
You can set up your own private hacked server in something like starcraft, minecraft, or world of warcraft, but none of the legit servers will let an invalid account in.
Minecraft itself as no drm at all except the one where you have to pay to play with the payers, because they are not going to suddenly turn of the validation-check on their servers even when it's super easy.
Skyrim
RAGE
The Witcher 2
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Bastion
ect.
Multiplayer is a good pirate deterrent, but not everyone wants to play a multiplayer game and not everyone wants to program a multiplayer game.
BTW, if i'm going to play multiplayer i will need an internet connection. I played diablo 2 with 256k... "Not everyone has a stable internet connection", that's another poor excuse.
Just look how many titles we had this past year, most of them were MMOs and Multiplayer games. So, Internet is a must have for a PC Gamer. You may be connected with you samsung galaxy or iphone to internet... but how's possible to don't have a good internet connection nowadays? o.O
That's just an excuse man.
Those are perfect examples of great games pirated massively. I own all of them in my steam account.
Sonic generations could be added aswell, red faction armageddon, assassin's creed revelations, and much more.
Not all games are multiplayer
There are much more singleplayer games released every year than multiplayer games.
Not only that but there are much more high profile singleplayer games than multiplayer games.
La Noire, Witcher 2, Fallout Series, Elder Scrolls
Compared to what? Games that focus on multiplayer elements of the game? No kidding.
Most cellphones use Celltowers to connect to the internet, but beside that point, not everywhere in the world has 3G coverage. Nor did I ever mention anything about phones, mobile games, or mobile DRM.
Your move.
I entirely agree with that, there's really no easy fix for non multiplayer games unless you want to incorporate community/online functionality in your singleplayer game.
Steam acts partially like this, where you have achievement and other community related features that makes you want to own these titles on there, as everyone who you know will be on there too and will know if you actually bought your skyrim or pirated it.
People want to be a part of the community, not just play the game.
http://kotaku.com/5872253/the-most-pirated-pc-xbox-360-and-wii-games-of-2011
Top 5 Pirated PC Games
1. Crysis 2 (3,920,000) (March 2011)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000) (Nov. 2011)
3. Battlefield 3 (3,510,000) (Oct. 2011)
4. FIFA 12 (3,390,000) (Sept. 2011)
5. Portal 2 (3,240,000) (April 2011)
All of those games have multiplayer components as a selling point with, 3/5 (the top three) of those games having multiplayer as the main portion of the game.
Not only that but Non-Valve games can be launched via the .exe directly without an internet connection, or going through steam.
edit: That top five games... have one player campaign or one player
In the cases when a game might have steamworks in the launcher but not in the actual game, but in any other case you have to go into offline mode for that.
But again, then you're not on line, you're not on your steam friends list, you're not talking to them about something like skyrim because the only legit pc skyrim is on steam.
Well, if we want to count indie games, which we certainly will, singleplayer games dominate the market :P
...and ?
Then look at how long it takes for those titles to get to that market legitimately. With a translation and all that. And then look at how much those games cost there as a percentage of salary.
Since I come from places like that, I can guarantee you that the picture is pretty grim. A situation is created where you're just asking for piracy.
It's like what that guy from Valve said about steam, it's not price, it's service. If those games came out legitimately in those countries, at the same time as the rest of the world, at a decent price for that economy, with a proper translation, with proper online services, I'm absolutely sure those piracy numbers would dwindle to near-nothing.
But right now piracy just offers a better service. You get the game on-time. You don't have to rely on getting a physical copy. You don't have to put up with crappy DRM. And yeah, you lose multiplayer, but hey, it's free.
It's incredible you dare to say "and?". Believe or not, there are people that only want to play an epic campaign, or just the single player. They are not interested in the mp aspect as too many of us.
In almost all the forums i know, all the brats claims that they will not pay 1 single cent for a single player game.
And all this is just a matter of facts.
I was posting those stats in response that You were using that argument saying that multiplayer games are pirated less than singleplayer games. Those games that I posted are highly focused on the multiplayer; the singleplayer aspect being an aside; yet they were also highly pirated, which rejects the idea that mutiplayer-centric games are not pirated less than singleplayer games. QED
And my point is, that doesn't matter to the developers. Either you give then $60, or you give them $30 + $30. In fact, chances are they'll have less income because you'll still only buy the one you like most. What incentive is there for them?
Does "good games sell, mediocre games get pirated" argument hold water here? I am tired of excuses people make for this and that. Look I don't even care that you pirate as long as you don't come up with endless list of reasons as to why you are not paying for content that is a luxury good.
As for DRM. Yes, it's not ideal. But remember, our industry is evolving and they are just trying to figure it all out. just be a little patient. We live in such a self-entitled instant gratification society that an instant we aren't stimulated with content we start whining. No developer wants to alienate their consumers, that's how they make a living after all. Some drm is more successful than others, sure, and we are still figuring out ways to do it right by the buyer. It just requires a little patience on the part of the impatient consumer.
What other industry communicates so closely and holds such near dialogue with their consumers more than the gaming industry. Recently, I remember the release of Rage was a little shaky and I also recall some instances of less than stellar initial experiences with Games for windows live on titles like Arkham City. Sure I was a little inconvenienced, but the solution was usually prompt and it didnt really prevent me from enjoying the product that the developers so lovingly crafted.
This topic has been debated over and over on these forums. What hasn't changed is the numerous amount of excuses people make for stealing, here, of all places.
yup. And the funny thing is, the players in those countries DO buy games - many do not pirate themselves. Except they buy them from pirates who offer them at prices suitable for those economies. Funnily enough, here in China are still many people who do not even KNOW that the $5 USD game/DVD they just bought is NOT the real thing. The copy is often just perfectly packaged and many of them have never seen the real legit retail box.
Although now that the market is strongly in the hand of commercial pirating ventures and IP law is weak, there's no chance for publishers to enter that market easily. That's probably why most local studios make MMOs which cannot be pirated.
I didn't say "multiplayer games are pirated less than singleplayer games". You don't read well :S
Just one question, are you against the SOPA law?
just answer yes o no and then i will know if i'm discussing with a pro-piracy guy or not.
Another thing. And this is for all, enter this site: http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Where I come from, you straight-up have shops that sell modded consoles as if they were brand new. Then they also sell burned games that are nothing more than a regular CDR (back then) with the game's name written in Sharpie on it. Likewise for PC games.
Growing up, I just didn't know the difference. I thought that was normal. I even had a modded NES (called Megason over there) that played all sorts of weird cartridges. They would be 10in1 cartridges with like 10 games on it. Stuff like Mario and those.
Well then I don't know why you brought multilayer games into the discussion.
The only people who support SOPA are uneducated in what the bill entails. In addition one does not have to be pro-piracy to disagree with it.
From IL
If anyone can explain what this means feel free, maybe I'm not just seeing it. What are you trying to say?
Thats the point you made last time, and I'm not sure where you are getting those 'chances' from. Like I said, theres a cartload of games that came out around November time that I have not been able to buy yet. If they were half the price, I would have been able to buy them all. Im sure that goes for a lot of people.
:poly142:
You are arguing for the opinion that if games were cheaper they would sell the exact same units, but I definitely would not agree with that I'm afraid.
This is a piracy discussion and pricing is not the issue when it comes to stealing. So the best we can do is provide the consumer with an easy and problem free access to legitimate versions of our products.
Thats a shame
It sucks that the company went down, but to say that it did so through "rampant piracy" alone would be incorrect.
Time for the rise of the Indies!
Reality check, a lot of polycounters worked on TQ and lost their jobs due to piracy. You can sit all day and speculate what specific portion of the problem was directly related to it, but the truth is. Piracy is a legitimate problem, not a pretend one.
No I'm arguing that if games were cheaper, they would sell more units, but for the same total revenue, or worse.
Emphasis mine.
If the game you like best is $60, you only buy that game.
If the game you like best is $30, you buy that game, and maybe a second one.
First situation, developers are guaranteed to get $60. Second situation, they get at best $60, at worst $30.
DRM is a problem. It is well known that it harms legitimate consumers while it does nothing to prevent infringement. It breaks software and causes instability on many computers.
Do you realize what you are asking for? Do you realize how horrible SOPA is? There are plenty of reasons to hate SOPA that has nothing to do with "piracy".
You're demanding the power to censor the internet. And SOPA lets copyright holders make the determination of what is infringing or not, without due process (i.e. you don't get to defend yourself). What right does anyone have to decide what information is passed around on the internet? I'll just repost a very apt quotation:
"The job of any entrepreneur is to construct a use case and a business case that allow them to make money, given the current constraints of society and technology. They do not get to dismantle civil liberties, even if they cant make money otherwise." - Rick Falkvinge
In other words, you don't get to police the net because it interferes with your business model. That's just wrong. It won't work either. You can't force people to abide by your business model. You'll never win.
The internet cannot be controlled by you, me, or anyone else.
Not if that person doesn't have the 60. Then the developer gets nothing because the user pirates it instead.
That's a strange argument... You're talking about a person who you know to spend $60 on a game.
But compare the target market of people who are willing to spend $60 on a game. Now compare that to a target market of people who are willing to spend $30 on a game. Seems obvious to me that the $30 market is a hell of a lot bigger.
It would include those who were willing to pay $60 for a game, they'll just buy more games, some won't. But then in addition also all those people that wouldn't spend $60, but would spend $30. If you think that number is insignificant, you're sorely mistaken.
Following that logic though, why sell a game for $60? Why not just sell it for $120? I mean, sure, less people would buy it. But those that will would pay double the money, so it's the same thing, isn't it?
not an opinion:
http://www.next-gen.biz/features/valve-are-games-too-expensive
This was during the 2009 steam holiday sales.
actually here they fake the labels too, everything - including embossed prints, glossy colors, holograms, etc. Looks very professional. If you haven't seen the original you can hardly tell if this is the real thing or not.
No, what happened is that they tried to fight piracy, but it backfired and blew up in their faces (I'm sorry they lost their jobs, but it was their mistake). Had they not added that code designed to break the game, nobody would have been complaining and the game wouldn't have been labeled as broken. It was designed to break and it broke. This upset people and they blamed the developers. And if it can break for illegitimate users, it can break for legitimate users as well, which are the people that will ultimately be shorted, as the cracked version will have that broken code fixed. DRM and other locks just make the "pirate" version superior.
It's folly to try to stop anyone from accessing a copy of any game because that's not how technology works. Furthermore, human beings are sharers of ideas and information. It's part of our nature and how we grow as a society. You're trying to fight human nature and technology. You will always lose.
Aye, that's my point, and I do believe it correlates a little into piracy (the issue of the cost being 'too high')
Mind you, thousands of people have torrented those charity indie bundles that you can pay as little as $1 for, so its not all black and white I guess...
Steam is a self marketing behemoth. It has direct access to advertise to millions of users and is able to distribute content much cheaper and faster. Older games cost next to nothing to distribute digitally so of course price cuts results in higher profit margins for publishers who enjoy success of steam. But just because it happens in a tightly controlled ecosystem like steam, it doesn't always apply to traditional methods of distribution.
Steam is great, it's a very great service that treats customers fantastically and thus is very profitable for everyone. But AAA titles don't survive on steam alone. Thus we are back at square one.