Copying games, game prices and there effects on the games industry.

K!LL!@N

I've been thinking about this recently.

How much of an effect do you think copying games has on the games industry?

Now i'm not talking about people selling copied games because there is obviously a loss of money there.

I'm talking about average people who get a game and go "hey mate, this game is cool you might want to try it out", where there's no money changing hands.

I don't really think this hurts the industry all that much because most times the person that gets the copied game probably wouldn't have bothered buying it in the first place. But if they play it and like it, they're more likely to go out and buy a copy, especially if it's a multiplayer game that you need a cd key to play with online. I know over the years i've gotten games from friends, that i've played but never would have bought. Some of them i've uninstalled after a day, others i've ended up buying because i wanted to play them online.

The thing that stops me buying more games is the price of them.
I think this has the biggest effect on the games industry.
Games are getting more and more expensive.
For a new PC game, you're looking at spending €50 in a highstreet shop, less if you've savvy enough to look around online.
I think if games were cheaper, people wouldn't feel like they're taking a chance with their money.
I mean who likes forking over money for something you're not even 100% sure you'll like.
You'll wait til you play the demo or play it in a mates, before parting with your hard earned cash.
You only have to look at the threads about the cheap games being sold in PC world at the moment.
They're flying off the shelves, and i'm sure people are going in intending to buy one game and coming away with 2 or 3 because they're so cheap.
Obviously the game developers aren't losing out on these games being sold at this price because the shop has already paid the supplier, who's paid the publisher, who's paid the developers.
You can be sure PC world aren't selling these games at a loss. They've just lowered the huge profit margin on them.
When i saw the thread about the cheap games, i was like "wow, i definitely want that and that and that" but if they were full price i wouldn't be bothered with any of them.
I wouldn't even consider buying a game from Game or EB or any of the other ripoff merchants, at the normal prices they charge.

Opinions?


Killian

Hyzepher

When I saw the prices in PC World this week the exact sa,e thing crossed my mind. Now I picked up a few titles and will get a few more before their offers ends but I would never dream of getting them at full price.

If PC World are still making a smal profit on these €14.99 & €19.99 games then I am discussed at the level of profit on the games at regular prices. In fact PC World may find that their progits increase due to the shear volume of sales at the offer price. On these forums I have heard of people wanting to take 2 buses to PC WOrld to avail of the offers - now that is saying something.

Xtra-vision have opened up some games shops recently and their prices for NEW games are very very competitive - their prices on pre-owned games are nothing short of incredible - I'm sure GAME stores are taking notice.

It's a pity we cant voice these concerned to the retaillers ina more constructive manner - maybe it would result in lower prices.

Hyzepher

Hellrazer

Well with Pc worlds sale this week Ive bought more full price games in two days then I would normally buy in 6 months.Id probably only buy 2-3 games in 6 months and then only if they were really excellent games.Otherwise I stick to playing the one game for months and/or buy some decent enough budget games or being totally honest Id "borrow" from friends and maybe make a copy if it wasnt a multiplayer game and didnt need a cd key.

But if all new releases were reasonable prices I wouldnt even consider copying games.

And Pc world being suddenly able to drop a games price from €40 to €15 makes you wonder about the types of profits these places are making.I suddenly dont feel too bad about copying the odd game!!!!!!
Richie

Woden

i have no issues with copying games tbh and used to do it all the time, i currently have an issue though as the firmware on my rewriter can't deal with the latest protections so i need up grade to a newer rewriter to sort it out.

there is very few games that i want to own original copies of, recent examples of games i actually purchased would be battlefield vietnam, FF X-2 and FF XI i don't mind paying for these as i know i'll get my money out of them. if games where cheaper i wouldn't mind forking out for them so much as i do like having the original with the box and manual, a game i will probably go out and buy over the summer is morrowind as i feel i will get my money's worth out of it

effect on the industy? not massive from me as if i didn't copy em chances are i would not have bought them

Sleipnir

Although I do agree that games are, on the whole, well over-priced I can see some areas where copying them would have a detrimental effect.

My own main area of gaming is Flight Sims (Groan, boring I hear everyone saying) but it's a shrinking market and I'm lucky to see a decent new flight sim every 3 years (compare that to RPG)

The sim that currently takes up most of my time is LOMAC which is at the serious end of flight simming.
It was long-awaited by by flight sim community and has had many problems since it's release (not least that your need a seriously specced machine to run it) but it's well supported by the whole community.

So much so that some people have taken to buying several copies just to make sure it will supported by patches, add-ons etc.
Now if it was readily available on warez etc then the sales may have been too low for the publisher to say "yeah let's make some add-ons" and it would have been sunk.

Same thing happened for Falcon 4 Gold which was due to be released last month but was dropped. Why? The last version was out years ago and since then a huge community has built on it so much so that it's nearly open-source and the publisher just couldn't compete with the huge market that was already there.

K!LL!@N

The only game i've really been bothered about in the last few months, is UT2K4, so much so that i preordered it from play.
Even if i couldn't get it cheap from play i'd still have bought it.

But apart from that the only games, i've bought in the last 6 months were second hand.

I'll admit to getting copied games from friends, but i've hardly played most of them.
I think most people get copied games just because they can, not because they're particularly interested in them.

It's about time these companies stopped blaming copied games and started looking at their pricing structures and the huge margins being charged.
There has to be a balance between units sold and the price per unit.

I'm going back to leaving cert economics here, but there are less people willing to spend more money and more people willing to spend less money on certain items.
So which is better for the industry?
Have more people buying and playing there games but paying less per game, or have less people buying and playing ( legitimately ) but paying more per game.
The developer may still get the same amount of money, but surely having more people playing your games is the best option.

Killian

milltown

I have been having a small crisis of conscience lately. Since the arrival of my 1mbps connection and discovery of several good Bit Torrent sites, I have been thinking "This is cool, I'll never have to buy another game, DVD or album again". And so it has been for the past few months. I have downloaded movies I will probably never watch. I have downloaded more games than I will ever play, proven by the fact I have deleted some before I ever even installed them. Having suffered dial up for so long I felt as if I HAD to be downloading something at all times, the bandwidth must be used. Lately I'm wondering how anybody will make any money if piracy keeps getting easier and faster.
In a roundabout way I'm agreeing with points already made, I would never have considered buying any of these movies or games so the copyright owners have not lost a sale. I went to PC World this morning and got BF Vietnam and UT2k4, two games I had already downloaded and played briefly. Had they been available for between 15 and 20 euro I would not even have wasted a day each downloading them, I would have bought them straight off. There will always be the warez monkies who won't even pay €15 for weeks of entertainment but I think this is roughly the price point that will almost eliminate the harmful piracy, as in sales lost. I won't hesitate to buy a game I know is good for €15 and be able to read the manual and play it online. At that price I would even buy the odd game based solely on what is on the box.

On another note, if you have bought any of the bargains from PC world, have a look under the price sticker and see what other prices are there. My UT2k4 cost me €19.99, underneath was €14.99 and below that was €49.99. My BF:Vietnam cost €14.99, under that was €12.99! and under that was €40.99. So it seems I was ripped off on both games :rolleyes:

RobertFoster

I prefer to have the legit boxes etc for CDs DVDs and Games, but that said, if I got BB I'd probably turn into a "warez monkey" until I settled down.

Has anyone thought that these €20 in PC World have us shocked because we're used to getting the games at a certain price? After a couple of years at €20/game we might be back to "I'd get more games if they were cheaper" syndrome....

BKtje

Now if it was readily available on warez

If it was popular i would be avail onw arez which means that it would sell anyway.
Im sure there is a certain % of all people who have the game who warez'd it. I wouldbt be surprised if this figure was fairly similar accross the board.

l3rian

I know what you mean milltown, when you get something so cheaply, it somehow cheapens the thing too.

Copying games could effect the games industry in that it will make more online games with online cdkey verification.

And seeing as all my favourite games are online, this could be a good thing

BLITZ_Molloy

I did get copies a bit a few years back but most of the PC games I play are online so I always buy them now.

For consoles I think piracy is pretty uncommon. Getting a PS2 chipped is rather pricey. I never got around to copying games for my DreamCast because they're so cheap anyway.

K!LL!@N

The way i see it, generally people only warez games that are popular.
And to be popular they would have to be selling in the first place.
The fact that a game is warez'd a lot means it's probably popular, the more people downloading it, the more popular it must be.
What's the point of copying a game that no one wants?
What cracker is going to spend hours cracking a game that no one plays?
The games have to be popular to get onto people's warez lists.

So in that respect i think that warez actually increases the popularity of games.
It gets games played by people who wouldn't otherwise have played them.
Most times downloading these warez gives people a better taste for the game than a demo, and if it's an online game you're probably going to end up buying a copy so you can get a valid cd-key.
The majority of games these days have some kind of multiplayer element and this is where the lasting appeal of a game lies.
If developers make good games, with lasting appeal and support the communities that grow up around these games then they won't have to worry about a few people copying their game.
Who cares? They'd never have bought the game anyway.
Concentrate on the people that have paid, encourage them to buy the games you make in future.

In fact, i'd almost advocate letting people download the games (online ones especially) for free. Let them get a taste for the game, and allow them to buy a cd-key online or on a scratch card from a shop. You'd completely cut out the need for packaging/distribution costs, cd production/protection and you'd be able to sell the product at a cheaper price which would encourage more people to pay.
Make the cd-key authentication as strong as possible, put the effort into that instead of wasting time trying to copy protect cd's which in the end don't really come into the equation.

I'm sure it would be some time before thing would change that dramatically, but it's already heading that way with Steam. Valve are already offering the new CS game for paid download.

Killian

User45701

I got a lend of SW KOTR and completed it 5 times and i have every intention to buy it because it is a good game and they deserve money for making a great game.
It has no multi plyer and there is only 2 ways to complete single player, light side and dark side.

I probbley wont play it again for over a year but yet i will be buying it in the next week or so.

Woden

it doesn't always work like that though, there is other ways to get online play if you do a one is to one copy and you are the first person to have the cd key for example then the game is yours to play online i would think, or someone might have the key but not play online.

but yes restricting online play does work as that is what a lot of people buy games for these days and there is not many ways around that

K!LL!@N

Let's say i get UT2k4 ( if this postal strike ever ends ) and i make a copy and give it to my mate who had no intention of buying it.
He plays it, thinks it's great and says "let's join this server and i'll kick your ass" but both of us can't join because it's the same key.
So now my mate has decided he likes the game and if he wants to play it, he's going to have to go and get a cd-key.
Which generally means buying the game.


Killian

Woden

yes thats true but what if for example you where to take advantage of a stores leniant return policy after having purchased and copied a game?

K!LL!@N

Originally posted by Dataisgod
yes thats true but what if for example you where to take advantage of a stores leniant return policy after having purchased and copied a game?

I was under the impression that games shops were clamping down on returns of primarily online games like battlefield vietnam and UT2K4.
To combat that problem, you could set up a system whereby games with online cd keys are scanned in when returned and the original cd key is cancelled with a new one being issued if the game is to be resold.

Killian

Woden

Originally posted by K!LL!@N
I was under the impression that games shops were clamping down on returns of primarily online games like battlefield vietnam and UT2K4.
To combat that problem, you could set up a system whereby games with online cd keys are scanned in when returned and the original cd key is cancelled with a new one being issued if the game is to be resold.

Killian

well at the moment i don't think shops distinguish the type of game with regards to returns, yes a system where as the original cd is cancelled may work, sounds like effort for the shops wonder would they implement it

K!LL!@N

I don't know about small retailers, but i'm pretty sure Game etc. all use barcode scanners. I doubt it would be that difficult to implement. Infact they should be really keen to implement it as it would cut down on the number of returns.

Killian

Woden

well it would only cut down on the number of pc returns for the reasons stated above and game does seem to the retailer with the most leniant policy, if i was them i think i'd have a stricter refund policy

satchmo

Its a nice idea, but as I understand it barcodes don't identify the individual unit, but just what the product is - eg. every copy of BF Vietnam would have the same barcode. It would be quite a hassle for them to work out some way of cancelling/reenabling CD keys, unless they get a massive helping hand from the publishers and developers with some sort of new system. Every publisher would have a different way of handling CD key "returns", and I'd imagine it just wouldnt be feasible. Far more likely would be the retailers changing their stance and just refusing to take returns on multiplayer-only games.

I'd be very interested to hear from someone who works in PC World and/or knows the reason for their huge drop in prices. Was it - as someone suggested - just an ordering screw-up, or is it instead an uncharacteristically savvy marketing move? Let's hope it pays off for them and that the other retailers take notice (unlikely really). Who would have ever thought PC World would be the cheapest place to get... anything?!

I agree that the vast majority of games that I have copied from friends (c'mon we've all done it!) have been ones that I never would have considered buying, especially at the prices they normally sell at. For under €20, impulse game buying becomes a possibility once again... I can't remember the last time I've walked out of a shop with more than one game in my hand!