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You can pirate just about any game if you are savvy enough and have the determination to do so. This is not what removing LAN is meant to do.
Removing LAN, just like patching security holes, just makes it far harder and more inconvenient for pirates to crack and distribute the game. Similar to general internet security, there is no guaranteed way to secure any software completely from another active individual.
The point here is nullifying the various routes pirates have and LAN is a wide open target for potential pirates. I still have trouble understanding how people can be so nonchalant about most piracy.
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On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss off actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do.
I don´t think you get the full picture. With LAN support you can pirate the game and play online vs anyone in the world by using a simple program, that´s what happened with Warcraft 3 with the program hamachi. Without LAN you can only pirate the singleplayer portion of the game.
I don´t support Blizzard's decision of not having LAN but I can see their reasoning behind it. I really believe and hope that not supporting LAN will come back to bite them in the ass in the end. The only reason why they can get away with doing it is because there is no equally good game with LAN support to compete with SCII. If there was, then surely that game would have a huge advantage because it has LAN support, it may get pirated more but me as a paying customer would definitely buy it over a game with no LAN support.
The sad truth is probably that the average buyer of SCII has no clue what LAN is though, we live in a world of ignorant people. One doesn´t have to look further than the COD phenomenon to realize this sad truth, the masses buy anything with a cool marketing campaign.
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On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated.
The impact lies upon the hackers who crack the game, and not the downloaders. As a downloader, it makes no difference to me how the game was cracked, all I have to do is search up the torrent and then I get to play the game. It does not reduce the number of people pirating the game because it has absolutely no impact on the downloaders.
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On June 23 2011 10:29 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated. As much as it provides a stumbling block, I'm still yet hear to hear of a major game that hasn't been cracked, leaving pirates playing the game and customers stuck with DRM. Portal 2 has actually broken the 3 million sales mark despite very heavy pirating. Valve don't even consider piracy to be an issue at all.
If they didn't consider it an issue they wouldn't force you to be connected to steam to play any single player game you own.
I lost internet for a week and was unable to play any steam games at all. It would try to log in, tell me to check my internet, then close.
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Didn't our good friend Bobby Kotick say that e-sports games like SC2 are barely worth it due to the cost of running and maintaining the game? Why is a desperate need for total control the best way to make money? by all means give the damn game to Kespa or ICCUP and charge whatever fees you can get with zero maintenance.
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On June 23 2011 10:18 flowSthead wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:01 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:49 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:43 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:33 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:28 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:24 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:22 theOnslaught wrote:On June 23 2011 09:21 masterbreti wrote:
Just for reference. Right now over 5k people are downloading sc2 and pirating it. at 50 a peice. There is something like 300,000 in lost sales just for today. assuming on average sc2 get pirated the same amount for the last 6 months and for the entire 2011.
That means in 2011 alone. sc2 was pirated and lost blizz more than 3.6 million. Thats a huge amount fo money.
I think in 2010 the most pirated gameswas sc2 with like 1.2 million pirated it. Thats hundreds of millions of dollars lost. You're a fool, not everyone that pirated the game was going to buy it in the first place. People keep up bringing this up, but I do not see how it makes it better. It is the equivalent argument to saying that not everyone that drinks and drives will murder someone. It happens often enough. Excuse me sir, which arguing college did you go to? Because they have done some sterling work... How is the analogy poor? Illegally downloading a game and drunk driving are both illegal, and both of them have the possibility to cause harm. One by potential lost sales, and the other by injury or death. People not against piracy are saying that not all pirates would have purchased anyway, and I make the analogy that not all drunk driving results in death. This doesn't change that more drunk driving usually leads to more death, and more pirating will mean a greater number of people that might have bought it. Also, both are illegal. Explain to me where the analogy fails. Because the person you were quoting was talking about the "I think in 2010 the most pirated gameswas sc2 with like 1.2 million pirated it. Thats hundreds of millions of dollars lost" line, specifically. Nobody said it made it better, just that it made the conclusion obviously wrong. Also equating people getting killed in car accidents to blizzard not getting money, thats not really the best of analogies. I don't care about who Onslaught was quoting, the argument he made is one seen in this entire thread and it is a flawed argument. The conclusion is also not wrong generally, just specifically. If out of 1000 games only 20 are real lost sales, those are still 20 lost sales. The number doesn't change the reality of the crime. I also don't think you understand what an analogy is. Just because you interpret dieing in a car accident to be worse than Blizzard losing money, does not make it a poor analogy. The analogy serves to clarify. The fact that you see an issue with drunk driving, but not pirating and stealing someone's stuff, just serves to illustrate something about your personal morals, not the analogy as a whole. I happen to agree that drunk driving is worse, by the way, I just don't then make the conclusion that pirating is suddenly ok because something worse exists. The analogy works because it illustrates that both are wrong due to bad consequences that follow them. The percentage of bad consequences to actions does not change how good or bad those actions are. They are separate issues. A flawed argument for what? The number of people pirating the game =/= the number of lost sales. Nobody is saying people are pirating the game and also paying for it, therefore all the other piracy is ok. An analogy is comparing 2 similiar circumstances. I dont see that these situations are that similiar, its like a wee version of godwins law. The fact that I notice the difference of scale between piracy and manslaughter shows something about my perspective. At no point did I endorse piracy for the sake of not paying for things. Over a hundred games on steam, shelves of games and dvd's, shelves of books, I have no issue with paying for things. At no point did I say that piracy is ok because something worse exists. My point was that the person Onslaught quoted made an estimate of lost sales based on number of times SC2 has been pirated. Onslaught responded with the idea that not all pirates are lost sales, and no other points. And I have seen other people saying that not all pirates are lost sales as an idea that companies shouldn't worry about pirating. My point was that this argument was flawed because some pirating is lost sales. I already explained how the situations are similar. Here I will explain it again. Drunk driving and pirating are [negative actions]. Injury from a car crash and lost sales are [negative result]. The situation is that not all [negative action] will lead to [negative result], but some of the time [negative action] DOES lead to [negative result]. I am arguing that because it happens some of the time, we should be trying to curb [negative action], not ignore it because it happens all the time. The analogy between the two works even better because both actions are illegal, and I would also argue immoral under a standard set of societal morals. Just because one negative action is worse than another, why would that make it a poor analogy?
Fair enough, I would have set your post out as a response to someone who actually was making that claim then. Ive often seen Onslaughts post as a response to MAFIAA studies that show little to no objectivity, and frankly im still pissed about the DEA (Digital Economy Act) that got passed in the UK on the back of a lot of false figures.
If I pirate the game now, having already paid for it, I do not run the risk of losing Blizzard a sale. However, there is no real scenario where drink driving is without the risk of manslaughter. So not all pirating is [negative action] whereas all drink driving is.
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On June 23 2011 10:29 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated. As much as it provides a stumbling block, I'm still yet hear to hear of a major game that hasn't been cracked, leaving pirates playing the game and customers stuck with DRM. Portal 2 has actually broken the 3 million sales mark despite very heavy pirating. Valve don't even consider piracy to be an issue at all.
Starcraft 2 multiplayer. HoN? Maybe not major, but it definatelly is quite famous.
The single player being cracked may not actually be that bad, because a huge part of the players plays for the multiplayer, so someone that really likes the single players is very encouraged to buy the game.
If the multiplayer was cracked, though, not only would they lose that incentive, it could become another WC3.
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If people are pirating a multiplayer game and using the LAN to form their own servers it pretty much means the developers failed at creating a good online game system. Battle.net 2.0 has an excellent matchmaking system, and a pretty damn good custom game system. There would be extremely little incentive for people to pirate SC2 to play on a pirate battle.net realm, which would have a smaller playerbase and less support.
People hear about LAN and piracy here and they think ICCup. ICCup was the result of SC1's nonexistent matchmaking and terrible ladder system. The people on ICCup are competitive players looking for something that the game does not provide them. This is not true for SC2.
Piracy is a bigger concern for companies creating single player games, whose players have no incentive to actually buy the game. Online achievements or DRM that forces people to remain connected to the internet is an attempt to create incentives to actually buy the game.
Another incentive is cost, but for most pirates, the only acceptable cost is 0. So why change a game for people who wouldn't buy it anyway? Make the game good so people will want to buy it, and they will.
The idea that including LAN is dooming your game to financial failure is absurd. The idea that not having LAN in SC2 has created a single extra sale is absurd. If Blizzard truly cared about piracy, they would have put more draconian measures on the single player, which was available for piracy on the first day of release (you can play it offline). They could have taken a page from ubisoft and made people stay connected to battle.net to play the campaign. Assassin's creed 2 took forever to crack, and even then it was a convoluted system.
Piracy is simply being used as a scapegoat so that developers can maintain total executive control over their game and keep it open for any future DLC opportunities.
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On June 23 2011 10:36 SKC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:29 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated. As much as it provides a stumbling block, I'm still yet hear to hear of a major game that hasn't been cracked, leaving pirates playing the game and customers stuck with DRM. Portal 2 has actually broken the 3 million sales mark despite very heavy pirating. Valve don't even consider piracy to be an issue at all. Starcraft 2 multiplayer. HoN? Maybe not major, but it definatelly is quite famous. The single player being cracked may not actually be that bad, because a huge part of the players plays for the multiplayer, so someone that really likes the single players is very encouraged to buy the game. If the multiplayer was cracked, though, not only would they lose that incentive, it could become another WC3. That's the most hilarious thing I've read in this entire thread. It could become another WC3, like that's a bad thing? Despite all the piracy and garena bullshit that made blizzard go all butthurt, wikipedia has the following to say about WC3:
"The game proved to be a best seller and one of the most anticipated and popular computer game releases ever, with 4.5 million units shipped to retail stores and over one million units sold within a month."
Which game developer in their right mind wouldn't want their game to be like WC3?
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On June 23 2011 10:36 SKC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:29 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated. As much as it provides a stumbling block, I'm still yet hear to hear of a major game that hasn't been cracked, leaving pirates playing the game and customers stuck with DRM. Portal 2 has actually broken the 3 million sales mark despite very heavy pirating. Valve don't even consider piracy to be an issue at all. Starcraft 2 multiplayer. HoN? Maybe not major, but it definatelly is quite famous. The single player being cracked may not actually be that bad, because a huge part of the players plays for the multiplayer, so someone that really likes the single players is very encouraged to buy the game. If the multiplayer was cracked, though, not only would they lose that incentive, it could become another WC3.
Warcraft 3 sold quite a number of millions of copies though.
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On June 23 2011 10:36 Vandal_heart wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:18 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 10:01 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:49 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:43 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:33 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:28 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:24 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:22 theOnslaught wrote:On June 23 2011 09:21 masterbreti wrote:
Just for reference. Right now over 5k people are downloading sc2 and pirating it. at 50 a peice. There is something like 300,000 in lost sales just for today. assuming on average sc2 get pirated the same amount for the last 6 months and for the entire 2011.
That means in 2011 alone. sc2 was pirated and lost blizz more than 3.6 million. Thats a huge amount fo money.
I think in 2010 the most pirated gameswas sc2 with like 1.2 million pirated it. Thats hundreds of millions of dollars lost. You're a fool, not everyone that pirated the game was going to buy it in the first place. People keep up bringing this up, but I do not see how it makes it better. It is the equivalent argument to saying that not everyone that drinks and drives will murder someone. It happens often enough. Excuse me sir, which arguing college did you go to? Because they have done some sterling work... How is the analogy poor? Illegally downloading a game and drunk driving are both illegal, and both of them have the possibility to cause harm. One by potential lost sales, and the other by injury or death. People not against piracy are saying that not all pirates would have purchased anyway, and I make the analogy that not all drunk driving results in death. This doesn't change that more drunk driving usually leads to more death, and more pirating will mean a greater number of people that might have bought it. Also, both are illegal. Explain to me where the analogy fails. Because the person you were quoting was talking about the "I think in 2010 the most pirated gameswas sc2 with like 1.2 million pirated it. Thats hundreds of millions of dollars lost" line, specifically. Nobody said it made it better, just that it made the conclusion obviously wrong. Also equating people getting killed in car accidents to blizzard not getting money, thats not really the best of analogies. I don't care about who Onslaught was quoting, the argument he made is one seen in this entire thread and it is a flawed argument. The conclusion is also not wrong generally, just specifically. If out of 1000 games only 20 are real lost sales, those are still 20 lost sales. The number doesn't change the reality of the crime. I also don't think you understand what an analogy is. Just because you interpret dieing in a car accident to be worse than Blizzard losing money, does not make it a poor analogy. The analogy serves to clarify. The fact that you see an issue with drunk driving, but not pirating and stealing someone's stuff, just serves to illustrate something about your personal morals, not the analogy as a whole. I happen to agree that drunk driving is worse, by the way, I just don't then make the conclusion that pirating is suddenly ok because something worse exists. The analogy works because it illustrates that both are wrong due to bad consequences that follow them. The percentage of bad consequences to actions does not change how good or bad those actions are. They are separate issues. A flawed argument for what? The number of people pirating the game =/= the number of lost sales. Nobody is saying people are pirating the game and also paying for it, therefore all the other piracy is ok. An analogy is comparing 2 similiar circumstances. I dont see that these situations are that similiar, its like a wee version of godwins law. The fact that I notice the difference of scale between piracy and manslaughter shows something about my perspective. At no point did I endorse piracy for the sake of not paying for things. Over a hundred games on steam, shelves of games and dvd's, shelves of books, I have no issue with paying for things. At no point did I say that piracy is ok because something worse exists. My point was that the person Onslaught quoted made an estimate of lost sales based on number of times SC2 has been pirated. Onslaught responded with the idea that not all pirates are lost sales, and no other points. And I have seen other people saying that not all pirates are lost sales as an idea that companies shouldn't worry about pirating. My point was that this argument was flawed because some pirating is lost sales. I already explained how the situations are similar. Here I will explain it again. Drunk driving and pirating are [negative actions]. Injury from a car crash and lost sales are [negative result]. The situation is that not all [negative action] will lead to [negative result], but some of the time [negative action] DOES lead to [negative result]. I am arguing that because it happens some of the time, we should be trying to curb [negative action], not ignore it because it happens all the time. The analogy between the two works even better because both actions are illegal, and I would also argue immoral under a standard set of societal morals. Just because one negative action is worse than another, why would that make it a poor analogy? Fair enough, I would have set your post out as a response to someone who actually was making that claim then. Ive often seen Onslaughts post as a response to MAFIAA studies that show little to no objectivity, and frankly im still pissed about the DEA (Digital Economy Act) that got passed in the UK on the back of a lot of false figures. If I pirate the game now, having already paid for it, I do not run the risk of losing Blizzard a sale. However, there is no real scenario where drink driving is without the risk of manslaughter. So not all pirating is [negative action] whereas all drink driving is.
I finally understood your last point. That is true. I am glad all of the issues between you and I are resolved at least ^_^.
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Russian Federation949 Posts
On June 23 2011 10:40 Gheed wrote:
If people are pirating a multiplayer game and using the LAN to form their own servers it pretty much means the developers failed at creating a good online game system. Battle.net 2.0 has an excellent matchmaking system, and a pretty damn good custom game system. There would be extremely little incentive for people to pirate SC2 to play on a pirate battle.net realm, which would have a smaller playerbase and less support.
People hear about LAN and piracy here and they think ICCup. ICCup was the result of SC1's nonexistent matchmaking and terrible ladder system. The people on ICCup are competitive players looking for something that the game does not provide them. This is not true for SC2.
Piracy is a bigger concern for companies creating single player games, whose players have no incentive to actually buy the game. Online achievements or DRM that forces people to remain connected to the internet is an attempt to create incentives to actually buy the game.
Another incentive is cost, but for most pirates, the only acceptable cost is 0. So why change a game for people who wouldn't buy it anyway? Make the game good so people will want to buy it, and they will.
The idea that including LAN is dooming your game to financial failure is absurd. The idea that not having LAN in SC2 has created a single extra sale is absurd. If Blizzard truly cared about piracy, they would have put more draconian measures on the single player, which was available for piracy on the first day of release (you can play it offline). They could have taken a page from ubisoft and made people stay connected to battle.net to play the campaign. Assassin's creed 2 took forever to crack, and even then it was a convoluted system.
Piracy is simply being used as a scapegoat so that developers can maintain total executive control over their game and keep it open for any future DLC opportunities.
Good point, if blizzard bnet was the best client available then there wouldnt be bunch of servers like ICCUP, there are multiple threads with good suggestions on how to improve bnet, but blizzard seems to not care.
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On June 23 2011 10:40 Gheed wrote:
If people are pirating a multiplayer game and using the LAN to form their own servers it pretty much means the developers failed at creating a good online game system. Battle.net 2.0 has an excellent matchmaking system, and a pretty damn good custom game system. There would be extremely little incentive for people to pirate SC2 to play on a pirate battle.net realm, which would have a smaller playerbase and less support.
People hear about LAN and piracy here and they think ICCup. ICCup was the result of SC1's nonexistent matchmaking and terrible ladder system. The people on ICCup are competitive players looking for something that the game does not provide them. This is not true for SC2.
Piracy is a bigger concern for companies creating single player games, whose players have no incentive to actually buy the game. Online achievements or DRM that forces people to remain connected to the internet is an attempt to create incentives to actually buy the game.
Another incentive is cost, but for most pirates, the only acceptable cost is 0. So why change a game for people who wouldn't buy it anyway? Make the game good so people will want to buy it, and they will.
The idea that including LAN is dooming your game to financial failure is absurd. The idea that not having LAN in SC2 has created a single extra sale is absurd. If Blizzard truly cared about piracy, they would have put more draconian measures on the single player, which was available for piracy on the first day of release (you can play it offline). They could have taken a page from ubisoft and made people stay connected to battle.net to play the campaign. Assassin's creed 2 took forever to crack, and even then it was a convoluted system.
Piracy is simply being used as a scapegoat so that developers can maintain total executive control over their game and keep it open for any future DLC opportunities.
Yeah, that decision cost Ubisoft, however insignificantly. I havent bought a Ubisoft game since AC, given that it was a poorly ported drm laden insult.
I also would have thought that bnet was enough added value to make lan play for anything not a tournament way too much effort. I cant imagine anyone who could afford the game choosing not to use an automatching system over the price of the game.
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On June 23 2011 10:41 branflakes14 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:36 SKC wrote:On June 23 2011 10:29 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated. As much as it provides a stumbling block, I'm still yet hear to hear of a major game that hasn't been cracked, leaving pirates playing the game and customers stuck with DRM. Portal 2 has actually broken the 3 million sales mark despite very heavy pirating. Valve don't even consider piracy to be an issue at all. Starcraft 2 multiplayer. HoN? Maybe not major, but it definatelly is quite famous. The single player being cracked may not actually be that bad, because a huge part of the players plays for the multiplayer, so someone that really likes the single players is very encouraged to buy the game. If the multiplayer was cracked, though, not only would they lose that incentive, it could become another WC3. Warcraft 3 sold quite a number of millions of copies though.
But not because of LAN.
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I could actually see them adding LAN after all the expansions are out and they have made their money.
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On June 23 2011 10:45 flowSthead wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:36 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 10:18 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 10:01 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:49 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:43 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:33 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:28 Vandal_heart wrote:On June 23 2011 09:24 flowSthead wrote:On June 23 2011 09:22 theOnslaught wrote:
[quote]
You're a fool, not everyone that pirated the game was going to buy it in the first place. People keep up bringing this up, but I do not see how it makes it better. It is the equivalent argument to saying that not everyone that drinks and drives will murder someone. It happens often enough. Excuse me sir, which arguing college did you go to? Because they have done some sterling work... How is the analogy poor? Illegally downloading a game and drunk driving are both illegal, and both of them have the possibility to cause harm. One by potential lost sales, and the other by injury or death. People not against piracy are saying that not all pirates would have purchased anyway, and I make the analogy that not all drunk driving results in death. This doesn't change that more drunk driving usually leads to more death, and more pirating will mean a greater number of people that might have bought it. Also, both are illegal. Explain to me where the analogy fails. Because the person you were quoting was talking about the "I think in 2010 the most pirated gameswas sc2 with like 1.2 million pirated it. Thats hundreds of millions of dollars lost" line, specifically. Nobody said it made it better, just that it made the conclusion obviously wrong. Also equating people getting killed in car accidents to blizzard not getting money, thats not really the best of analogies. I don't care about who Onslaught was quoting, the argument he made is one seen in this entire thread and it is a flawed argument. The conclusion is also not wrong generally, just specifically. If out of 1000 games only 20 are real lost sales, those are still 20 lost sales. The number doesn't change the reality of the crime. I also don't think you understand what an analogy is. Just because you interpret dieing in a car accident to be worse than Blizzard losing money, does not make it a poor analogy. The analogy serves to clarify. The fact that you see an issue with drunk driving, but not pirating and stealing someone's stuff, just serves to illustrate something about your personal morals, not the analogy as a whole. I happen to agree that drunk driving is worse, by the way, I just don't then make the conclusion that pirating is suddenly ok because something worse exists. The analogy works because it illustrates that both are wrong due to bad consequences that follow them. The percentage of bad consequences to actions does not change how good or bad those actions are. They are separate issues. A flawed argument for what? The number of people pirating the game =/= the number of lost sales. Nobody is saying people are pirating the game and also paying for it, therefore all the other piracy is ok. An analogy is comparing 2 similiar circumstances. I dont see that these situations are that similiar, its like a wee version of godwins law. The fact that I notice the difference of scale between piracy and manslaughter shows something about my perspective. At no point did I endorse piracy for the sake of not paying for things. Over a hundred games on steam, shelves of games and dvd's, shelves of books, I have no issue with paying for things. At no point did I say that piracy is ok because something worse exists. My point was that the person Onslaught quoted made an estimate of lost sales based on number of times SC2 has been pirated. Onslaught responded with the idea that not all pirates are lost sales, and no other points. And I have seen other people saying that not all pirates are lost sales as an idea that companies shouldn't worry about pirating. My point was that this argument was flawed because some pirating is lost sales. I already explained how the situations are similar. Here I will explain it again. Drunk driving and pirating are [negative actions]. Injury from a car crash and lost sales are [negative result]. The situation is that not all [negative action] will lead to [negative result], but some of the time [negative action] DOES lead to [negative result]. I am arguing that because it happens some of the time, we should be trying to curb [negative action], not ignore it because it happens all the time. The analogy between the two works even better because both actions are illegal, and I would also argue immoral under a standard set of societal morals. Just because one negative action is worse than another, why would that make it a poor analogy? Fair enough, I would have set your post out as a response to someone who actually was making that claim then. Ive often seen Onslaughts post as a response to MAFIAA studies that show little to no objectivity, and frankly im still pissed about the DEA (Digital Economy Act) that got passed in the UK on the back of a lot of false figures. If I pirate the game now, having already paid for it, I do not run the risk of losing Blizzard a sale. However, there is no real scenario where drink driving is without the risk of manslaughter. So not all pirating is [negative action] whereas all drink driving is. I finally understood your last point. That is true. I am glad all of the issues between you and I are resolved at least ^_^.
Agreed, best argument Ive had in a while. Although as far as I can tell, we were actually arguing from a pretty similiar point :D
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Develope a LAN function for all the big organizers like Dreamhack,GSL,MLG to use like they did with the wow tournament servers.
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On June 23 2011 10:46 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2011 10:41 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 10:36 SKC wrote:On June 23 2011 10:29 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 10:27 Whitewing wrote:On June 23 2011 10:22 branflakes14 wrote:On June 23 2011 09:35 Alaron wrote:On June 23 2011 07:10 mdma-_- wrote:
that still doesnt explain why they cant allow people to play each other in lan with the necessecity of being logged into bnet/whatever online client.
cheap excuse just to blame it on pirates tbh Think logically. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Pretty much anyone can find a way to pirate a game that has LAN just by googling it. Whether or not a game has LAN has absolutely zero effect on whether or not it's pirated. Starcraft 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Modern Warfare 2 doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated. Spore doesn't have LAN but was heavily pirated, the list is endless. Not even DRM that forces a constant connection will stop piracy (Looking at you Ubisoft), all it'll do is piss of actual customers which is exactly the wrong thing to do. You're wrong. It doesn't have absolutely no impact whatsoever, it does have an impact, and it is a factor. It just isn't the ONLY factor. Here's how security works: You build a security system to make it sufficiently difficult for anyone to breach that they don't have the time or resources to break it, or want to bother breaking it. It is impossible to make something completely unbreakable, anyone sufficiently determined will eventually manage. LAN makes it much easier to pirate it. Lack of LAN does not make it immune, but it makes it a lot harder. Thus, one can logically conclude, that the inclusion of LAN will increase the rate at which the game is pirated. As much as it provides a stumbling block, I'm still yet hear to hear of a major game that hasn't been cracked, leaving pirates playing the game and customers stuck with DRM. Portal 2 has actually broken the 3 million sales mark despite very heavy pirating. Valve don't even consider piracy to be an issue at all. Starcraft 2 multiplayer. HoN? Maybe not major, but it definatelly is quite famous. The single player being cracked may not actually be that bad, because a huge part of the players plays for the multiplayer, so someone that really likes the single players is very encouraged to buy the game. If the multiplayer was cracked, though, not only would they lose that incentive, it could become another WC3. Warcraft 3 sold quite a number of millions of copies though. But not because of LAN. Your point? Unless you are claiming that removing LAN would have increased sales(which I believe is ludicrous at best) you have none.
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Buuuhuuu, pirates ruined our shit, pirates are the reason we're not making as much money as we would.
Grow the fuck up developers. Music and movie-industry has been saying the same shit for years, but looking at the numbers it turns out they're lying. They're making money as never before, despite not keeping up with the wishes of customers in terms of prices and ways of selling their merchandice.
Now, there are ofcourse diffferences when it comes to games, but are there good games out there that didn't make money? I don't really see an issue here, good games -will- sell.
I'd buy any good game. As an example, I bought Morrowind and I didn't buy Oblivion.
See how that work developers? Get your shit straight and your games will be paid for. Stop making boring fps-games or shitty games in general and stop blaming your lack of creativity and skill on pirates, it just doesn't work.
Zzz
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If they didn't believe piracy was an issue then lan would be implemented.. I'm fairly certain that the companies have more insight,knowledge and stats on the situation then most the people here trying to act smart and call BS.
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EPT
