The Witcher 2, a single-player action-RPG (and fantastic game) developed by CD Projeckt, was estimated to have been illegally downloaded over 4.5 million times.
This is disheartening news. For those not familiar, The Witcher 2 is a single-player action-RPG with extremely high production values: Plenty of unique high-resolution art assets, voice acting available in multiple languages, a diverse range of quests and alternative endings. Essentially, TW2 provides the gamut of features that you'd want from a hardcore single-player role-playing experience. Unfortunately, the cost of producing such experiences has skyrocketed compared to 10 years ago, and costs are only going to continue to increase. If pirates continue to leech off the hard work of developers like CD Projeckt, the market for such games is going to crash as the profitability simply will not exist.
Long story short: Those epic 50+ hour experiences you grew up playing will be replaced by episodic, DLC, subscription based, watered-down nonsense. The crux of the problem is, how do you provide incentive for players to pay to play your game? How do you deter piracy?
Enter Dark Souls. Any one who has played Dark Souls (or its predecessor, Demon's Souls), is aware of the unique multiplayer gameplay found within. While they are both predominantly single-player games, you are perpetually connected online via PSN (unless you manually choose not to be) with others who are playing the game. This grants you the option to invade their world and kill them (and be invaded yourself) at any time.
When Dark Souls broke street date by approximately 1 week, a few shrewd pirates jumped at the opportunity to download the game early for free. How did the developers respond? They invaded as level 999 black phantoms every world of every pirate, and slaughtered them repeatedly.
This anecdote sparked within me an idea: Imagine if such justice was dispensed by the user-base of paying players? What if not only the devs, but all honest gamers could invade and slaughter all of the pirates in their own game world? What better way to combat piracy than to empower those who legitimately pay to relentlessly slay and abuse those who would seek a free ride?
This idea can be taken in any number of directions. Post your thoughts and own ideas on player-driven and gameplay-driven DRM methods.
The Dark Souls example only worked because it was a console game. Any sort of similar security measure on PC could easily be circumvented by any decent scene group.
Many people who pirate do so because they want to try a game out. If they enjoy the game, they will buy it too support the developer. 4,5 million downloads becomes a useless figure since you can not in any way know how many of those 4,5 million purchased the game afterwards. I feel that piracy is a good way to get rid of shitty developers how make crappy games only for the sake of making money (Well all developers want to make money ofc, but i hope you get my point). Good developers get the money they need and then some. Piracy will not be the end of gaming.
On November 30 2011 22:24 Interloper wrote: Many people who pirate do so because they want to try a game out. If they enjoy the game, they will buy it too support the developer. 4,5 million downloads becomes a useless figure since you can not in any way know how many of those 4,5 million purchased the game afterwards. I feel that piracy is a good way to get rid of shitty developers how make crappy games only for the sake of making money (Well all developers want to make money ofc, but i hope you get my point). Good developers get the money they need and then some. Piracy will not be the end of gaming.
This is the most common reason that has been given to me but more than often the person is also an expert at procrastination and gives the "oh I'll buy it later excuse". In the case of single player games, what usually winds up happening is that they'll beat the game and it becomes forgotten on their computers. Either way, I'd be willing to be a huge chunk of those who pirated wouldn't have bothered buying the game if piracy wasn't an option in the first place (in which case nothing would have been lost anyway).
I would rather prefer to see game demos be more prominent to get rid of that whole "I wanted to try the game" excuse.
Any form of DRM/protection can and will be circumvented. This is a basic rule that software-developers will have to learn to live with. Especially those working with single-player games. In the end, DRM can become so deeply rooted into the game that the game becomes more frustrating to play as a legitimate player than for the player that pirates the game. This phenomenon began with the CD having to be present in the drive for the game to launch and has now carried over to requiring an internet connection at all times while playing the game.
The lack of demos for new games also doesn't help. In earlier times, most games had a demo that was time-limited or limited to the first level, or whatever. A way to try the game before buying it. These would often be released before the actual game came out. I've not really seen demos any more in recent years. Blizzard, with their guest passes and now starter editions for SC2 and WoW, is an exception to the rule. So people pirate the game to see if they like it. And many, out of pure laziness, will probably just keep playing the pirated version rather than buying the retail version.
On November 30 2011 22:24 Interloper wrote: Many people who pirate do so because they want to try a game out. If they enjoy the game, they will buy it too support the developer. 4,5 million downloads becomes a useless figure since you can not in any way know how many of those 4,5 million purchased the game afterwards. I feel that piracy is a good way to get rid of shitty developers how make crappy games only for the sake of making money (Well all developers want to make money ofc, but i hope you get my point). Good developers get the money they need and then some. Piracy will not be the end of gaming.
This is the most common reason that has been given to me but more than often the person is also an expert at procrastination and gives the "oh I'll buy it later excuse". In the case of single player games, what usually winds up happening is that they'll beat the game and it becomes forgotten on their computers.
I would rather prefer to see game demos be more prominent to get rid of that whole "I wanted to try the game" excuse.
Yeah, demos would work too but it's hard to get a feel for a game when you are only allowed to play 20mins of it. I'll just say that yes, i have pirated some stuff before, and every singel time i have enjoyed a game, i have bought it. I'm tired of buying a game, and it turns out it's a shitty port from some console which is so destroyed by bad control schemes and bugs that its un-playable. Companys only do this to squeez the last bits of $$$$ out of a game, not thinking of the players or the game anymore.
Piracy is not a problem that needs to be adressed. It's a miniscule thing that doesn't make any mentionable dent on sales.
Meanwhile the damage done to the internet when the free flow of information is stopped will be of such a degree that the internet will never ever be the same again.
Any solution to the tiny problem of piracy is of such a massive and invasive scale that it is never worth it. It's like suggesting we should impose big brother-esque laws if that means reducing the crime rate by 0.2%.
It is impossible to combat piracy without resorting to totalitarian measures. We have to ask ourselves, do we really want to fuck up the entire internet just so music companies can start charging 50 dollars for a CD?
out of those 4.5 million probably 3 million wouldnt have bought it full prized anyway. out of the other 1.5 millions maybe 500.000 feel bad about it and either bought it afterwards or will buy a witcher 3 for sure. the numbers look worse than they are regarding the sales of games imho.
So, let's say we have a perfect system of DRM, how many of those 4.5 million would go out and buy the game?
Too often these numbers are taken as the revenue lost, when it would not mostly have been gained anyway. Of course, if all the pirates who would buy the game did buy them then that's still a huge boost for developers and publishers, although there is the flipside of legitimate customers suffering from overzealous DRM that doesn't work very well as well (Ubisoft).
On November 30 2011 22:24 SonicTitan wrote: Minecraft has been downloaded illegally over twelve million times. The creator wants less DRM, not more. There are lessons to be learned here.
Completely agree with this guy. Also It would be difficult to spot who is a legit user and who is pirate. I don't want to get harassed just on a hunch.
The publishers make it hard to be sympathetic to their cause. The pricing scheme they use is... less than agreeable. A game that costs $60 in the US of A costs 60 Euro for me? Not only that, but I'm probably getting to get a digital download as well, cutting their costs in packaging, shipping and whatnot. What gives the cost discrepancy? Not to mention that the standard of life in my country is way lower than most, so putting the price at $60 is kind of heavy on the user to begin with.
On November 30 2011 22:50 ZtOzZ wrote: I think that game developers will slowly stop making the games for PC, since there is so much piracy compared to consoles.
There are pirated games for consoles as well. If all games were to move to consoles, all energy would shift from PC piracy to console, and the same thing would happen again.
On November 30 2011 22:50 ZtOzZ wrote: I think that game developers will slowly stop making the games for PC, since there is so much piracy compared to consoles.
There are pirated games for consoles as well. If all games were to move to consoles, all energy would shift from PC piracy to console, and the same thing would happen again.
True, but i doubt it would be just as many as it is now for PC.
Preorder content, DLC at relase content, all that stuff isnt helping the companies. When I order at amazon and get my amazon-preorder bonus, and another person orders at gamestop to get the gamestop preorder bonus. Also you can buy the premium edition with extra DLC at release. Then at release you can enter 4 different keys somewhere. And then the companies - more often than not - just fuck up at release. "Oh we didnt expect such a huge storm of customers, our servers are down, since they are never intended to support such a heavy load (and they never will handle the load of any release, because it's uneconomical to have enough resources to handle this "once in a lifetime" peaks) we will try our best to fix them".
Then there's the pirate: He has the game 2 days before release, has the amazon preorder stuff, the gamestop preorder stuff, the DLC and doesnt care if the servers work.
It's easier to pirate than it's to support the company.
On November 30 2011 22:16 LilClinkin wrote: Long story short: Those epic 50+ hour experiences you grew up playing will be replaced by episodic, DLC, subscription based, watered-down nonsense. The crux of the problem is, how do you provide incentive for players to pay to play your game? How do you deter piracy?
DLC has nothing to do with pirates. DLC gets pirated. They want more revenue from the normal consumers. Same goes for subscription based content - though how many subscription based games are there? MMOs? Have been subscription based since the early days (UO). watered-down nonsense - again just more money. Watered down content is easier to produce and probably more interesting to the general public compared to the small circle of hardcore gamers. Non of those things address the piracy problem.
EPT
