cheeseboybeans

Things get more expensive as time flies by.

Games are actually getting cheaper as time goes on. $60 today is not the same as $60 ten years ago. And that's not even taking into account the days of SNES games nearing the $100 dollar mark.

Grive

simmo

Fixx'd.

I bet you're good buddies with Lars Ulrich. It's a hard lesson learned, boys. Whether you like it or not, piracy has been around longer than any of us, and it's here to stay. Besides, those of us who complain about cheating usually suck at the game to begin with.

Garonyldas

Remember piracy is much easier to do than thievery. They just need to crack ONE copy and then it's all over. For thievery (like cracking a safe) you have to do it every time. A rule of thumb is that countermeasures can only prolong the amount of time the thievery takes place, not stop it. With pirates, they pretty much have an infinite amount of time to crack the thing (and at the comfort of their own home too) and release it.

Again developers should really evaluate if their countermeasures are negatively or positively impacting sales and also if it's actually doing anything to prevent piracy. It's fine if it doesn't interfere with paying customers.

I think boycotting is a better route than piracy for those who don't like the measures.
As for cracking to create a backup/playing copy or to play without the CD, I don't agree with those who say it is as wrong as piracy. CDs do tend to wear down and get scratched and I'm sure a lot of gamers don't like to have to use the CD every time just to play it. They like to keep the CD mint in the case. I suppose digital downloads might end CDs, but most people still like to have a hard copy, esp if they spend $60. If they paid for it they should be able to enjoy it how they like (you can see parallels with movie and mp3s). Too long a comment though. DRM is just a very complicated topic.

stopcrazypp

FigNewton

Zunnoab

Even with the ones I've purchased I've removed the copy protection & put the box, along with the disk away in the top of my cupboard.

I actually wont install a patch until I can get a "fix" for it.

I also have Steam, and like the fact I can go to a friends house install a game or just log in as myself.

You dont have to patch any game, going to a games properties you can disable updating.

Syphurous

SlowDeath420

psychobaka

Of course piracy causes some lost sales, but whenever the industry talks numbers they're exaggerated beyond the realm of feasibility.

MattB

BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER I AM NOT ADVOCATING OR DENOUNCING PIRACY IN ANYWAY! (so back off)

It is so very convenient for the people in the industry to point the finger at piracy for all of the industry's woes, when in fact the problem with PC gaming is the PC industry itself.

Why do you think that they keep making games with higher and higher system requirements? So that they can put in that tiny little square on the side of the package: REQUIRES SUCH AND SUCH HARDWARE. "You wanna play this game you gotta go buy one of these cards, have this proc and have this much ram. you know you want it. You know you gotta have it. Go upgrade and play me dammit!"

PC gaming is becoming less and less about making quality games and more about selling vid cards and other hardware. Ass Creed requires a 512mb card and 3Gb of Ram?? I know, I know it says "Recomended" but honestly who are they kidding? The "Minimum" stats are if you want to play the game for 10 min and then wait for 5 min to load as is stutters along. Makes me wonder what the "Requirements" would be for GTA4 on pc... "8gb of RAM and a 1GB quad sli vidcard.

If they can manage to put out high quality games on consoles with limited resources, then why is the PC version so much more demanding? I realise they are different archetetcures but honestly now, is it realy THAT hard?? The PC Gaming industry would do well if they took a more console like approach and tailored their games to the hardware that has been out for a while and more people have than to force people into upgrading year after year.

Look at WOW for god sakes! You can run that shit on a freaking iPhone!!!!

Mr.SithNinja

nonbreakingspace

I'll just have to go get a version that I can play without an internet connection. What? That version is free? Cool.

eblack

And here's something else that's worth thinking about: If a developer does NOT try to push every last bit of detail out of their work, if they actually try to apply the 80/20 rule, they could still have a very nice looking, very nice playing game, with a fraction of the effort and cost. 80% of the results come from 20% of the work. After that, you're spending the other 80% of the time trying to add polish just to make a playable experience into a tech demo and spec cruncher.

Sure, you won't have the absolutely most pretty game... but you'll also likely end up with one that has a lot fewer bugs because the codebase and resources are a lot slimmer than it would have been, without sacrificing a lot of the functionality. And over time, what you can get for that 20% of effort increases, while everyone else is busy trying to make tech demos to push the limits.

The big problem we have right now, is that everyone is busy trying to one-up and create tech demos. We don't have people actually trying to make damn good games. Meanwhile on the console front, no one really has to worry about making tech demos, because no one is around to up the hardware specs. Yet, for every company that does push the limits, there's a bit of fallout that helps everyone else who isn't trying to blaze new paths.

If you look at where technology is right now, thanks to how tools have developed over the years, you could literally make a SNES-quality RPG over the span of 1 year, with a team of 5 or 6 people who know what they're doing, for next to no cost at all. The same kind of effort that took 2 years to make with a team of highly skilled professionals, getting paid huge amounts of money(AKA, the devs at SquareSoft). Granted, you wouldn't make the kind of money for selling the game now, that you would have back then, but it's really not that much different when you look at indy devs in a stable spec'd market.

As long as they're actually trying to make something good, it'll turn out good. If they're trying to make something great, it'll probably not go over too well, without a big budget behind it.

The PC market isn't very stable... but the games that can rake in the most profit, are also the games that have some of the smallest development budgets. Spend 30k to make a game that can be played by pretty much any machine newer than 5 years old, and that's a huge market you have to work with, and it'll probably only take a few days to make the money back once it goes on sale, if it's with a marketing partner. Spend 60 million to make a game that won't run properly on any hardware available for another 18 months, and you'll be damn lucky to ever break even.

SilverStar95

Piracy isn't even necessarily a sales thing - it's downright demoralizing to know that you put your time and money into an idea for years and anybody can have it without ever compensating you so you can continue making a living doing what you love.

Rebochan

We pirate games because you greedy pigs only to get a lot of money bringing games that clearly overrated

cjlopez

The other point is that, a lot of the games I have always downloaded, have been games LONG past their prime. The reason for that, is I don't have the money for a huge system upgrade just to play the newest game that's on everyone's tongues. And if I do spend the cash to upgrade my system in a big way, I no longer have the cash to drop on the game I might have wanted to play. Instead, I download it. The only exception to that, was Oblivion. And that was just because I had needed a heavy upgrade on my computer anyway.

Right now, I have a Semp 3000+, with a 512MB X1600Pro AGP and 2 gigs of RAM. I bought Orange Box, and loved it. It was a top game and played -great- on my hardware. But that's not something I can do with any of these other new games coming out. I'd pay for them when they're new, if they were something I could run at more than a snail's pace. Otherwise, they'll just wind up being games I'll likely download in a few years, when I get up the cash to build a new system one step behind the latest technology, just to keep the prices down.

Another big issue, is that a lot of the games coming out these days are nothing more than tech demos and online games. In a few years, most of the online games will no longer be around in anything worth diving into for a newbie. New games will be available. Single-player games are becoming less and less frequent, because they're easier to pirate. And that means, the games I would actually enjoy spending money on are becoming less frequent in the PC realm.

SilverStar95

GOLD5

The problem is copy protection measures that make running the game too risky even for legit consumers. The worse the protection gets, the worse piracy will get, because the protection schemes almost never matter to the operation of the game anyway, so they're popped off relatively trivially, and the games are actually USEFUL without all that user rights restriction BS in the way.

I'm getting really sick of saying this, I'll have to write it up properly and just link from now one because all these PC devs with combinations of tired game formulas and unusable copy protection keep going "BAWWWWWWW PIRACY IS KILLING PC GAMING" while the indie devs get popular as never before without any of that crap.

...but I think it's just part of the bigger problem that the big publishers are made of money, and don't listen to the widespread, loud and clear protests of their fans, so they're basically lumped into the same lot as the MPAA or RIAA. Hollywood formula movies lose more screen time to smaller studios' films, traditional CD sales wither as online sales grow, (*cough* fans of 80 year old superhero franchises dwindle while manga is sold in any bookstore, TV watchers turn to video games and Youtube like sites, etc...) and now giant corporate published games that come with Robocop to babysit the game, make sure you're not running any unapproved processes, phone home to ask permission to run, and sometimes even get in at the driver level and police your CD drive I/O are going to be supplanted more and more with indie games, or the same games with that intolerable bullshit peeled off.

...and they can either get with the program, or THAT particular branch of PC gaming sure as hell WILL die once they piss off enough loyal customers! It seems that in any entertainment medium things grow into proven formulas, get hyper commercialized and stagnate, then eventually consumers get dissatisfied and a slow changing of the guard happens as alternate channels offer original or at least superior products.

fuchikoma

orangedude

shimage

Xagest

1. People who truly pirate the games aren't the least bit affected by more draconian anti-piracy methods. There might be a week or two delay at worst before the game is cracked, then it's moot. Draconian anti-piracy methods like the ones in BioShock and the mentioned upcoming titles only server to stop people from handing the game to a friend. And given how easy it is to get a crack for a game you own, it's not even very effective at that. And yes, obtaining a crack for a game you own is legal because technically copy protecting media is illegal because it prevents you from making legal fair-use backup copies of the media. That's why sites like GameCopyWorld, and products like AnyDVD can exist - no company wants to take them to court and risk having to remove their copy protection.

2. As mentioned, a great multi-player experience is a great way to get people to buy games, but if the most popular games have ways around that as well. And sadly, the online play environments for those backdoors tend to be a lot less abrasive than the official ones, so much so that I'm playing on the cracked community for COD4 even though I own the game. :(

3. PC gaming will remain niche, and console gaming will continue to grow simply because of the cost. My Xbox 360 and my GeForce 8800GTS 320MB cost the same when I bought them; two years later, I can sill play every 360 game I buy, but PC games I have to run at "medium", rather than "high" like I could when I bought the card. While I know I could crank down to 720p to match the res I run my 360 at and get a better experience, the point is that my investment in my 360 has held up much better than the one in my video card has. Will that stop me from playing on the PC when I can? No, but it does make me pause every time I look at the $400 investment I need to make to upgrade to a more modern CPU, mobo, and RAM, which I need to do because I'm running a s939 Athlon x2 rig now with no cheaper upgrade path. But I want to play Fallout 3 on the PC, not the 360, so it will happen eventually.

4. I think that the thing that might really shrink the PC gaming market is the DLC that Xbox Live and PSN are offering. When I play Rock Band and get stuck, I can go spend $2 to get a new song that I'll enjoy playing, and go back to the grind later. PC gaming has the mod community, which is nicer in some ways, but the convenience of the DLC on the consoles is hard to beat, and is well worth the small fees.

OK, I could go on, but nobody's going to take the time to read all this anyway :P

Illrigger

超外人

Stardocks DRM free model really needs to be looked at. Lower prices and DRM free gets you more market share which should turn in to more profit. Plus you don't have to pay SecureROM or MediaMax their development costs.

Trust me, DRM will not stop the pirates anyway so save the money and make your game more accessable!

axiomatic

Either purchase/rent it or don't play it. There is no middle ground.

How you play it once you purchase it, well, that's your decision.

Grive

screwed the pooch... sins of a solar empire just made another retail sale.

railskins

krushjudgement

No wonder PC devs are flocking to console gaming en masse

LosDaddie

Ruzi

Even if the pirates weren't pirating and were saving their money. They're still only going to be buying the same amount of games they currently can afford. There are just too many games that come out for them all to be blockbuster billion dollar hits.

Take Unreal, it came out after a string of FPS including Quake Wars and Crysis. A lot of people can't be dropping cash on three games in a couple months. And that is just 3 good titles in one genre.

The thing with this is even if people did what you propose there is not going to be a huge jump in sales.

Also, concerning the comment(s) about game development costs going up and with it the game prices. There will be a point where no one will buy your games or enough games to fund your insane game development costs and that is when the price will go up. I think 60 is already pushing it. 60 dollars is a lot of money for a lot of people, especially if you're buying one at least once a month.

ehlaren

Derigor

Games on Steam are fucking CHEAP. The "I cant afford it so bittorrent" excuse really doesnt work there (doesnt work anyways but). I'll admit it, yea I torrent games. Games where there is no demo. I try the sucker out for about an hour then either go purchase it or delete the damned thing. DVD images take up too much hard drive space anyways, space that porn could be filling. Love the fact that on steam I can go and uninstall/reinstall games as often as I like without any kinds of punishment.

Hey PC Games industry. Wanna get revitalized? Make things easier? Every PC game published should be on Steam. Period. Interconnectivity with all your other games is friggin awesome. Steam is basically XBL for the PC (with the private chat, ingame interface and whathot). Pc devs need to get on that shit. Capcom is why arnt you! And the japanese friggin hate your online pc playing ass! (ok not really but shutup I'm worked up). If blizzard would release their shit on Steam too, christ. I'd love to be playing some Starcraft and get a message from my partner who is in a round of DoD where a spot just opened. Then I can just click his name and hit join game. Features like the convenience of Steam sales PC games.

Atleast here next week I can download Age of Conan then go pick up the game later in stores when it comes out.

Microsoft, giveu p your game for windows crap. Valve, please start your Games for Steam crap.

Ok I guess its almost 10 oclock and maybe I should stop slacking off at work now. Maybe eat some Doritos or something and pretend I was working this whole time typing up a report and go take a "break". God I'm an asshole.

Derigor

Some are even new games.

arstal

NukaCola

GTA IV anyone?

But hey, if anyone wants to present me with cold hard irrefutable facts that pircay harms gaming, go ahead.

Cruithne

PsychoticX

This means that if I don't play Spore for 10 days, then take my laptop on a trip, I'm screwed. I cannot play the game I purchased. They can go directly to hell. It makes me want to pirate the thing just to spite them. Why should I buy it and reward this type of thing?

Stardock is awesome and is almost exclusively what I purchase PC software through. And every time I buy a game from traditional sources I'm reminded why that is.

planetidiot

PsychoticX

Is that you Cevat Yerli? o_O

doesntlikedede

Now you shouldnt have to do that but /shrug.

Every EA pc game EVER has not worked in my dvd drive. Always says "please insert the original disk" So I had to use a nocd crack everytime. I emailed tech support and they told me it was because I downloaded the game and am running it on a virtual drive and that I should go purchase the game. Then I proceed to email them the scanned upc and receipt and tell them to shove it. Those fuckers are lucky that I like Battlefield and Mass Effect enough to overlook their crappiness.

They should include a second activation code in the box (engraved on the physical disk maybe?) to enable playback without the CD/DVD. Like official support for nocd if you purchase the game.

Then we can just start stealing games from walmart by slicing open the boxes and taking the dvds. That's the way games are meant to be stolen. If you are gunna pirate games, get some balls and goto the store and steal that shit from under the cameras and the watchful lazy eyes of renta cops you are basically excons who got busted for stealing.

Derigor

Piracy is indeed bad and I think the only time I ever advocated it was when I wasn't old enough to get a job or if I really wanted to try out a game that didn't have a demo. Either way, I now own every game in my library legitimately. The only people who try to justify piracy are those that look to assuage their own guilt for doing so.

Absent Blue

orangedude

And piracy leads to higher game prices...

And I seriously doubt that when the games do come down in price 2 to 3 months after they release, pirates are RUSHING to pick up their value copy.

Mukman

Mommar

SigmundTheSeaMonster

UFO

geoffcbassett

Rebochan

kwant

Heyyou27

2kreative

Evangel

Evangel

Steam does, but Stardock Central/Impulse (they're renaming and reworking it) and Gamersgate (Basically the Swedish Stardock- sells games in the US as well) don't.

Personally, I don't give a crap what these companies say or think. As long as they release software that is inferior to pirate versions (and DRM makes it inferior) I will not support them. Stardock and the good PC companies I will support.

The whole reason these companies want DRM is to screw people over later- and turn all games into MMO-style subscription models- since that's more profit for them.

That see, I agree with the 6 suggestions above, with the exception of demos, as no one really does demos anymore, that's the 1.0 release you download. The pirates who do offer pre-releases of a game should be the ones that gets hammered, and I don't mind that.

arstal

Jeebus... you guys will be the reason if ever PC gaming comes to a complete halt (except for wow lol)

Buy a game if you wanna play it, if you wanna try it without wasting your money theres a demo.

And hopefully companies realise that steam and what valve has done is the way forward rather than DRM's which i bloody hate. And i oh so hate it putting in the cd in the cd tray everytime i wanna play a game

Leepox

Maybe game companies are no longer making as big profits as they used to, so are blaming 'piracy' for downturn in revenue.

Maybe the issue is that producers are spending too much money creating epic games, when games like portal can be developed and be successful.

Lower development costs and piracy becomes less of an issue.

Blackspirit

Well, we can agree on that then. ;) If you want to speak in strictly economic terms, then your Bittorrenting coworkers are right: paying for something you can get for free is not economically rational. There's always going to be those people, unfortunately - those who only view it in terms of money.

My point with that "who does it hurt?" question was that you can't tar all pirates with the same brush; some are freeloading jerks, but some are just checking out something they otherwise wouldn't have paid for. Justifying what they're doing doesn't even enter into the equation for them, and really they don't need to.

The best way to combat piracy is to give people a motive to want a legit copy. Copy-protection only works to a point, and that point was reached long ago. It's time we saw some new ideas from the PC games industry on how to add value to genuine games, rather than hearing these continual complaints about something they'll never truly stamp out.

Peace brother!

freakout

Err lots of us aren't which is why sales have dropped, but a headline of "Games publishers are killing PC gaming with crap copy protection" wouldn't go down so well.

I've stopped playing on the PC since NWN2 which refused to work so I had to download the pirated copy and X3 which screwed my machine up. If it wasn't for the pirating scene I wouldn't have been able to play games I bought.

If they want to stop the pirating scene they should stop forcing people into using cracked copies when their legit copies refuse to run on their system.

noboard

1) Unavailability: Some games(almost exclusivley old ones) are extremely tough to obtain new. eg Lucasarts adventures etc. I would buy them online if they were made available. A lot of my ROM downloads turned into Virtual Console sales over the last year.

Before you say ebay the real thing, who does that actually benefit? The ebayer rather anyone involved with the game for the most part.

2) To get purchased games to work. An example is Dreamfall. Not only do we get Starforce here but it refuses to recognise the CD as real. The one I bought in the shop with the hardback artbook. I had to download the pirated cracked version just to enjoy it at all.

Also had to pirate Police Quests 1&2 because the Sierra Classics Collection versions I bought had broken sound.

Repsode

This is pure BS.

ironraiden

Sneakiest

I didn't suggest that it doesn't hurt the industry. Like I said the "industry" was in the same situation before it became an industry but it became a problem since it became an industry.

Garo

Saying that pirated copies of games never translate into lost sales is a huge assumption, and one that I don't agree with.

I personally know several people (co-workers, actually) who used to buy games but have since moved to using Bittorrent exclusively. Their justification: "Why buy something when you can get it for free?".

They can undoubtedly afford the games, but they choose piracy because, to them, buying games is an irrational course of action.

Yes, that's anecdotal evidence, but it at least indicates that some of the people who are pirating games would have bought them if they couldn't get them for free.

I (of course) don't agree with the bogus idea that every pirated copy of a game is a lost sale, but there certainly are lost sales as a result of piracy.

Marlor

fresh1

That article on Gamasutra was based on a single game from a casual software company. It also mentioned that their sales had risen quite substantially when they initially cracked down on pirates, but they ended up with diminishing returns each time they increased the strength of the anti-piracy techniques (resulting in the 10% figure eventually).

What it does anecdotally suggest is that draconian anti-piracy techniques mightn't be effective. It in no way suggests that piracy doesn't hurt the industry (even though some blogs incorrectly interpreted it to mean that).

And in any case, a sample size of one is not a good basis for statistical analysis.

Marlor

Ripner

PC game piracy is music piracy. You have to make games easier to pay for, you have to provide an excellent service through which to pay for and acquire them, and you need to increase value for paying customers.

I've bought more games through steam than any other channel in recent years. I think that's a good indicator.

Sunjammer

enewtabie

Good news for you:

[masseffect.bioware.com]

Derek French :

" believe that the SecuROM settings are for up to 3 activations.

There is no banning or such if you go beyond the 3 activations, it just won't activate. If you run into any issues with this, you will be able to contact EA tech support and they will help you resolve any problems you have getting your game to run, including issues with SecuROM."

Garo

WalkOnWater

How can piracy be a problem when game sales increased! by that much!?

STHD

Piracy's always been a problem for as long as there's been media. It's not new and it's not going to go away. Instead of having anti-piracy messages rammed down our throats everywhere we turn, how 'bout developers/publishers just make things that are worth buying? If more people are downloading it than buying it then they need to change their business model - either by providing some kind of added value for those purchasing a legit copy, or by lowering the price.

What won't stop piracy is a stern scolding, telling pirates what evil people they are. They don't care, frankly. The chances of being caught are a million to one and it's not like they mugged some old lady in the street. If you want them to fork up, you gotta give them a reason, 'cause otherwise they'll just keep playing the pirate copies - the ones that, ironically, are nowadays easier to install and play than genuine ones, thanks to the ridiculously draconian copy-protection methods the game makers are turning to.

None of this makes piracy right. But let's not pretend that it happens in a vacuum, that everyone who plays a pirated game is some dirty, rotten thief single-handedly destroying the industry. Devs and publishers have been moaning about this for years and - look! - they're still here. Piracy has always been around and the current high levels of it in the PC gaming industry are a symptom of an industry that has failed to change with the times - not the cause.

freakout

Don't get me wrong. I completely agree that piracy is a problem. With that said, it's not the only problem nor do we know how significant it is in comparison to the other problems. No, it cannot be assumed that torrent swarm sizes are indicative.

What I do know is that companies are releasing games that are:
1) More actively hostile to me as a consumer which DRM & Copy Protection.
2) Are less likely to work with the average consumer PC (Intel's fault).
3) Are simply not games that people want to play.

For my anecdote, I'm not pirating games but in practise I'm not buying them either, and it's not due to any anti-PC gaming mentality on my part. If anything I'd like to play more PC games, but with the likes of Crysis, Bioshock, Mass Effect and Spore it's simply more hassle than it's worth. The last PC games I bought were The Witcher and Sins of a Solar Empire. Both seem to have developers that actually worry more about those paying for the game rather than the pirates. I say this as a commercial software developer myself.

Something is seriously wrong here and the common industry view that it's piracy alone is simply naive.

MattB

Plus, it's not a question of it being a 'cool' thing to do, it's the fact that it's free, easy and people can get away with it. Many people still buy things they've already pirated if they turn out to be great, if companies stopped duping people into buying shit maybe they wouldn't need to try before they buy.

cheeseboybeans

Right now the people that have got it right is Blizzard with their new online store.(Put in the serial key for your old game and you can download it? I don't have to go get the crack so I don't have to put in my starcraft disc every time I want to play? Hell ya!) and Steam is also got it right to an extent..if we made a regular copy and a steam copy equal the same copy like Blizzard did then both companies would.

If mass effect has securom or some other copy protection software, anything like that added in they just lost this potential customer. Stop putting crap on our pcs to punish those of us who DO buy the games!

Ajh

My guess is that the reason companies make less money is because of the high production costs. Back in the old days piracy was as high as it is today. You just didn't torrent your copy, you had to leave your home and meet a pirate or friend physically. Copy protection was a joke (anyone remember the cute copy protection from Monkey Island?) but companies didn't care.

1. Their Marketing wasn't as much profit orientated as today hence it was less streamlined and it didn't use 50% of the production budget.

2. Production costs were low and you didn't need an army of artists and programmers to finish your project.

As I said nobody cared. But today it's totally different. Games aren't made by small garage-teams and Marketing is huge (Unless you're an indy).

The industry has became a giant Moloch that suffers under it's own weight. And the current actions, using better copy protection, controlling the user online, will only lead to the death of big budget games on the PC and finally deal an ultimate death blow to the PC gaming industry that we used to know.

But hey! Maybe that's exactly what we need. Maybe we should kill the beast and embrace a new world of PC indy gaming with creative minds that don't care about maximizing profits but have balls to try something new and fresh!?

Garo

mizeriq

Piracy is a real problem. It's damaging the PC gaming industry, that's undeniable. Just look at the number of people active on torrents of new-release games. If only some of those people bought the game, sales would increase dramatically.

This is a games industry site. Hopefully most of us here are passionate about gaming in all its forms. Yet so many of us seem to rail against any claims that piracy is damaging the PC gaming industry.

So, to answer the usual comments on this issue:

* Yes. Piracy is hurting the PC gaming industry. When the number of people downloading a game via torrents during the first week exceeds the total sales for that week, then something is very wrong.

* No. You don't have a right to pirate a game just because you can't afford it. If you can't afford it, then wait until it is on sale, or save up your money until you can afford it. You don't have a right to play every game that is released.

* No. Piracy doesn't help the PC "gaming hardware" industry in the long term. If sales of PC games decline, then there will eventually be no games to play on the gaming hardware.

* No. You don't have a right to pirate a game just because you dislike its copy protection. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

* No. The fact that you spent $2000 on your PC gaming rig doesn't give you a right to pirate games to "recoup the cost".

* No. "Trying games out" isn't a valid excuse. Neither is saying "games are crap these days, so I just pirate them all". If you want to know about a game, then read reviews and play demos. Then take a risk on buying it. The developers and publishers took a risk in making the game, and the risk in buying a promising-looking game is tiny in comparison to that.

* No. Pirating games isn't "sticking it to the man". It's ripping off the developers who put so much time and effort into developing the game. And it's "sticking it" to your fellow gamers who aren't pirates.

Marlor

Karlott

@freakout: I guess I should have been more clear about the point you made I believe was refuted. That people who pirate certain games weren't going to buy them. Now I liken not buying to not wanting, so I wonder why would someone even want to play a game if they didn't want it in the first place. I'm not a fan of FPS's, so even if someone gave me a free copy of Halo I still wouldn't play it.

As for the rest of your points, I already know a pirated copy isn't equal to a lost sale. The music industry used the same argument when it came to album downloads and blamed Napster instead of untalented artists.

However, I still stand by my original point that cutting the price of games in half as impractical. I can only see games such as MMOs which charge subscription fees as the only ones that can afford such a price cut. Games aren't even that expensive compared to the 80s-90s. I remember having to pay over $100 for an SNES cartridge.

UmeShoryu

The pirates will pirate games no matter what, the best way to prevent piracy is to make a fantastic online experience that can only be gotten via a legal copy of the game.

fumar

A couple of months ago I wanted to play Titan Quest, I heard on some podcast or another that it was cheap as on steam, fantastic, I go go to steam... Oh wait I'm in Australia I can't buy it digitally well that fucking sucks but I really want to play. Off I go to EB which I absolutely hate and buy a copy of the gold edition for 90 fucking bucks when it would cost me around ~$35 through steam, I take it home and the CD key is invalid.

Off I go to google where I find this is a widespread problem and has been fixed in the US and Canada, someone on the official titan quest board tells me to exhange it for another copy and it should work, I do that, same problem.

I walk back into EB get my money back and forget Titan Quest existed.

I know this isn't Iron Lore's fault and it was a THQ issue but PC publishers wonder why people pirate, how about giving your consumers a break hey, just because you can screw over people doesn't mean you should.

On a brighter note many retailers were selling GTA4 at a decent price with relation to exhange rates, so there may be hope. Until then I will boycott anything that is unduly expensive and not available through digital distribution.

Maccas

If you know what your doing, you shouldn't be upgrading video cards and cpus every year, unless you want the very best at the time.

fumar

For those who won't read it, he says:
1. Make sure the pirates can't offer a superior product.
2. Get closer to the community.
3. Offer a demo.
4. Entice them with valuable updates.
5. Clean House. (Hunting down people who do pre-releases, not hunting people who download the game)

I agree with him. This bullshit with Bioshock and Mass Effect will only push people to piracy because they're unable to play the game they paid for due to one reason or another.

Anecdote time: I paid $100 for Bioshock here in Australia, could not play the fucking thing for 3 days because their servers apparently couldn't handle the load. Skip forward to now and I can't play it because they've taken the servers down, released an update for installed games... but my disc still wants to authenticate with the servers. What am I meant to do? My game no longer works because they screwed me over. They lots me as a customer and pushed me to pirate the game I already own, just because their online authentication scheme does not work.

What happens, when you want to play Mass Effect on PC in 5-10 years when EA's taken down the server? What about next year when they've taken it down? What if you just want to play it on your laptop at night on the train in Europe and you haven't played it for two weeks since you were being all touristy?

Online activation and online reactivation are bad things. Being able to play the game anywhere you want is a good thing. Why are they putting bad things in games?

Damnit, long winded reply :\

Evangel

Don't want to pay? Make a statement by not playing their shit. There's more than enough amateur freeware games floating around, some better than others, that you can be wasting time on.

muu

Laptops can't play games at all because of retarded INTEL IGPs. Microsoft, INTEL and NVIDIA should come together and create standards for graphics performance.

If everybody could play next-gen games on their laptops and budget PCs, PC gaming would be in a much better shape.

KroKan

thinred

I'll repeat: I know people who have pirated games. These people are the first in line to pick up and pay for their pre-ordered copies of the games they really wanted. These people are not evil; they just take advantage of the fact that they can play for free games that they otherwise would never have bought anyway. Yeah, I also know jerks who just like to build enormous collections of pirated media just for the sake of it. But they're the minority.

A pirated copy does not always represent a lost sale. And the most successful devs and publishers who make games worth buying are making more money every year, even while those games are the most heavily-pirated 'cause they're so popular!

Sure, games have multi-million dollar budgets now. They also have the potential to make many times that in sales, simply due to the enormity of the market now. Everywhere you look, new, profitable niches are cropping up.

Piracy is not killing the PC games industry. What's killing the PC games industry is the slow drift of players over to the consoles, which is ironically caused by the publishers themselves, because they make pretty much all their games cross-platform nowadays, which in turn causes more PC gamers to drift... it's a cycle that will continue until developers are willing to either (a) make PC games more financially attractive than their console brethren or (b) make more PC-exclusive titles.

Both (a) and (b) require companies to care more about consumers than profits. Which is why they won't happen. If the PC market dies, it's because the game makers didn't care enough to make it attractive anymore. Piracy is not the real problem.

freakout

Poison

Hmm let me think, my legit version needs a patch on day 1, the CD in the machine and quite possibly the copy protection doesn't like my CD drive. The pirated version comes with the patch, works without a CD and doesn't give a stuff about my hardware and software configuration.

I believe the quote should be "How can people justify buying legit copies these days".

noboard

Draconian copy protection is just not acceptable. It's the reason I cancelled my order for Bioshock on the PC, and also the reason just today I cancelled my pre-order for Mass Effect.

How long do we have to drum this message into the industry before they get a clue?

MattB

Mr.DuckSauce

Bicro

People act like they have the right to play a game like they have the right to walk down the sidewalk or breathe. They don't. What you do have the right to do is buy the game.

Honestly, the publisher could charge $500 a game if they wanted to and that still wouldn't be an excuse to pirate the game. Its stealing, plain and simple. If the price offends you, don't buy it. That's what you have the right to do.

Let's take the scenario and apply it to cars. You want a car (game) but it costs too much. Does that give you the right to go to a dealer's lot and steal it? If you said yes, then you're an idiot.

If the copy protection offends you so much, don't buy the game. Pirating the game because you think the copy protection is heavy-handed doesn't make it any less unethical or illegal.

DarkLinkinfinite

trunk3h

I'm not fine with paying full price for what constitutes a rental of a game - i.e. when my purchase is reliant on a)the internet service providers and b) the company who created the game - whose interest is to not support the game for very long after release (due to resources and diminishing returns of investment) and also because they want you to buy their next big game(s).

They expect me to trust them when in the past those same companies have culled online servers due to costs or have released broken games and have refused to patch them even in the event of mass complaints?
The industry wants this all on their terms... the consumer has no rights, has no say and is given no respect in the eyes of developers and publishers.

I won't pirate games but neither will i end up buying many at this rate.

Duoae

ban_hammer

EA. EEEEEE EHHHHHHHHHH! Hell has a special place just for you.

The Commissar

Who gives a shit though... fuck the laws.

Do what you think is right.

VishusBurn

This "the sky is falling because of piracy" is the same hype as all others. Scare tactics not based in reality.

Look at consoles. One would think that less piracy would mean lower prices, but the opposite is the fact.

As long as they make money, which they do, the PC is safe. If it was this bad Mass Effect would never be considered for PC today.

How many people have a PC contra console? Will PCs disappear if game makers stop making games for them? No, ergo theres a market to sell games to PC owners. Ergo PC games will be made also in the future because despite piracy there is money to be made.

JojoTheSlayer

Hell, I used to buy every single Bioware game that came out. Now, I'm asking people on forums what a 'crack' is.

mcderek3000

Also Fileplanet/Gamespy is big enough that I don't expect them to go under before I get sick of any games I purchased through them - besides, once downloaded, I can burn an ISO, no need to worry about them keeping my accounts active indefinetly. DD is the way of the future, not just for games, but for shows and movies and music as well.

The Commissar

Not such a bad thing, really. The reason PC gaming is in the state it is has less to do with piracy (oh, poor us, we're bigger than Hollywood) and more to do with two key factors:

A trend of acquisitions & mergers that has taken the industry by storm, with EA being the big fish that keeps getting fatter. EA, notoriously, is focused far more on the bottom line than on quality.

Upgrade pricing - people are sick of having to upgrade their PC every year or two to keep pace with games. There is no reason for games to continue pushing the envelope as they have - since the market is not ready for it. If we're not upgrading to SLI cards and a brand new MB and processor now, its probably because you use bleeding edge hardware as a baseline. People are sick of that.

The Commissar

And I rest my case.

I already wrote a huge comment on this, and am planning on writing a huge post trying to break it down to point-by-point arguments, but the truth is: piracy is a complex issue. It isn't simply bad, and isn't simply good. But at least in my opinion, the whole game, music and movies industries has lots more to thank for it than to bash it on every single opportunity they have.

I for one probably wouldn't even be reading, maybe wouldn't even have a computer or videogames, if it wasn't for piracy. And I bet more than half of Kotaku's readers are on the same boat. At least.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

I want to support developers making great games but I do not in any way wish to support DRM development OR piracy.

THIS is the problem if I purchase any game with invasive DRM. I am effectivly giving publishers the green light to become more and more invasive with such protection. I don't want to be any part of that.

My other choice is not to purchase the game at all. Effectivily voting with my wallet.

THE PROBLEM here is in voting with my wallet on this case I am encouraging developers to either develop for other platforms other than the platform I WANT to be using.

Or for the developers to adopt a line of thinking that "there isn't a market here" or "people are just going to pirate here anyway". Without investigating the actual REASONS that I and possibly many others are no longer purchasing.

Soin otherwords reguardless of the choice I make I as a gamer.

I lose
PC gamers lose

trunk3h

Some dont ask themselves about the morality of it all. Either they know the answer, and choose to shamefully neglect it, or shamelessly neglect it, while others don't question it, because maybe they had someone in the house who already pirated stuff, and they assumed that this was simply another way of getting games to play (something I've seen with kids downloading music, simply because an older brother or sister showed them how to download the music at a young age).

People who pirate come in all different shades, and the same follows for those who are against piracy. If you're going to bring up points, its best to first understand where they are on the spectrum, because throwing out general terms and arguing with people as though they belong to two clearly drawn-out schools of thought is wasting time.

RabbidMickeyMouse

I did see there though about an expemption: Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace

Am I right in thinking that that would allow a bypass crack of Mass Effect for PC (if you own the game of course) if the authentication servers got shut down?

MasterDex

Fyren

It at least doesn't have such an impact on sales.

Roflcopter_Down: Wants you to follow HIM!

Roflcopter_Down: Wants you to follow HIM!

And besides, when I pirate something, it's normally BECAUSE of the ridiculous security measures on a game. Like the star force fiasco(s). Like hell I'm going to buy a game that disables my ability to burn CDs, and pretty much cripples my ability to backup my important files.

trelantana

Overlord44

VishusBurn

Cunder

And only Crysis.

Individually, the points are, in certain cases, correct... but overall he is merely a man who has been screwed by Crytek. I should know, I was too.

DaveKap

MercuricOxide

If you bypass any device that is intent to control access to digital media;
you a criminal according to US law, Even if you paid for the game.

Which is precisely why I disregard all legality when deciding who gets my monthly gaming $.

VishusBurn

ShirtGuyDom

Roflcopter_Down: Wants you to follow HIM!

NVIDIA is a fabless company and they make money by designing new chips and selling the schematics to other manufacturers. If there are no need to come up with new chips, they're gonna struggle.

ywpark

Playing video games is a luxury the majority of the world doesn't get to enjoy. If your acquaintances find games too expensive and use that as an excuse to pirate, then maybe they should take up another hobby.

Going back to the days of old? Cut game prices in half? Yeah, I wish gasoline went back to costing 35 cents per litre too. Not going to happen. So should the salaries of developers be cut in half as well? Games aren't made in sweatshops you know.

UmeShoryu

GiantEnemyCrab

MasterDex

The idea is simple for logical standpoint. It's never about downloading a game to see if it's worth my pay. It's about free hand me downs so people can feed what they crave the most gaming. I use to be pretty into PC gaming, not alot compared to me playing my console. But once in a great while I find myself playing a whole yr or so playing PC over console until moving back.

And over the years I have been noticing the lack of good games coming out for the PC for the very reason why developers are so angry about (priacy). And mostly all PC developers are jumping into console systems just to actually earn a profit in a game they work so hard on.

Priacy as certainly gotten worse and you can see it by looking at how much games come up for the PC that are even a great franchise. Developers no longer wanna risk much on there famous franchise. Thats usually why you see these games sell on console first then on PC these days. MMO's are safe from the rage of priacy thanks to the monthly payments. But in the end of the result as a PC gamer myself games like these are going in another direction. As long this continues no longer will you ever see a GOOD PC game or a good Ported game to PC.

Cunder

BlackDove