Piracy at GDC

KdjaCL

Piracy versus PC Gaming [March 09, 2007, 7:23 pm ET] - 136 Comments
Next Generation recaps a GDC talk titled "The Videogame Piracy Problem: Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest" by id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead about the impact of piracy on the game industry. They outline how Mr. Hollenshead says the estimated $3 billion economic loss caused by piracy in 2004 does not include piracy that takes place on the Internet. There is also an article about this talk on Joystiq that focuses on the statement that piracy is a factor in id's embrace of consoles, quoting Todd as saying "Piracy has pushed id as being multiplatform." On a related note, Can PC Gaming Survive in a Console World (thanks Digg) recaps a panel discussion on the topic that brought up a similar point:

Part of the problem is piracy. Big titles get stolen by cyber thieves, and it hurts revenue. "The market," said Capps, "that would buy a $600 video card knows how Bittorrent works."

Does that mean casual games, which exponentially outsell what PC gaming traditionalists think of as A-list titles, will one day rule? Hilleman made a point: casual is a poor choice of words. The average player on EA's Pogo "casual" game network plays "for 24 hours a week. There's nothing casual about that."

There is some light in the PC gaming world. World of Warcraft, for instance, is a massive hit, and the upcoming Spore looks not only creative and different, but promising. The MMO and other social networking games could become the norm for PC gaming, with big-ticket titles growing rarer with each passing year. Johnson added that MMOs are "successful because you can't pirate WoW. You cannot pirate an MMO. Period." Therefore, he said, "game design on the PC is going to bend toward persistence."


http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4911&Itemid=2

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2102189,00.asp

Dear developers

To fix piracy once and for all please do the following.

1 Make good games.
2 Cd key with online login requires no cd there saving money on inventing new cd protection for hackers to crak within minutes. Like steam and Bf2 and Pro Evo. For people with no internet tough.
3 Make good games.

kdjac

Fidelis

I agree with you 100%, KdjaCL. Make good games and people will buy them. Make bad games and people won't buy them, blame piracy :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, the internet is replete with muppets trying to convince people that Joe Public is at fault.

Nick_oliveri

I would be one for the pirates i must admit. I bought Oblivion, WOW and CSS Source at the time because i thought it was going to be the best thing since sliced bread. I might buy stalker.

I dont really agree with having a steam client setup, or them having one main server that crashed thousands because of a power outage sometime ago. I also think that WOW should be a one time payment, but im probably saying that because i have no income ATM.

And this addon payment for Oblivion is a bit shíte too.Whatever about expansion packs, you shouldn't have to pay for "horse armor" which was a 5-6 meg file.

Why dont they just do what they want and put fecking DRM on the games!

jesus_thats_gre

I have bought a handful of games in recent months like Ep1, BF2142, Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes and Zero Hour for the third time. The fact that I had to buy it a third time because I lost a key or whatever sums up the sorta challenges that the games industry need to tackle.

I would also agree that developers/publishers are partly responsible for widespread piracy. I would apply the same criticism for elements of the game industry that I would for the movie and music industries. The main criticism being they have got greedy and lazy. One positive aspect of piracy in those industries is that they have slowly brought about changes. The fact that 24 and Lost are now aired here within a week of been shown in the States is one of the most glaring examples of what has changed.

The industry has wanna get its finger out pretty quickly however or it will be left behind. I personally feel that moves towards digital distribution systems like Steam is a very positive move and I welcome the days when CD Keys are a thing of the past.

K.O.Kiki

...

Make better games.

So... you're telling me it's only BAD games that are being pirated?
BULLSH*T!!

I'm guessing your reasoning goes like this:

• I bought a game before (let's call it game "A"), and did not like it.
• Since I didn't like game "A", I'm going to pirate games "B", "C" & "D" instead of buying.
• IF I like game "B", "C" and/or "D", I will buy it.

You know what that makes you? A spoiled brat.
Furthermore, it makes you a spoiled brat who has conveniently forgotten that demos exist in the PC world! Try those out first!

And if your reasoning is one of the following:

• I don't care.
• I'm only hurting big business. (yeah I'm a rebel!)
• It's only one game.

Well, that just makes you a petty thief. And no, it still doesn't justify your crime.

If you want developers to make better games, send them a message by not buying their game; maybe even make others not buy the game. If the dev team gets the message -- great! Maybe they'll learn. Or dissolve, and the members might find some work elsewhere, and then make a better game.

Or, and here's another point: don't like the games that are coming out? Think it's all boring, samey, soulless, unworthy of you? Fine. QUIT FOR NOW!
There's a thousand other things you could be doing with your time. Buy all those games you missed yesteryear. Do other things with your PC. Learn carpenting. Hell, just learn to make games that are better yourself, show 'em how it's done!

But don't ever kid yourself into thinking piracy will go away with better games. The problem is deeper than that. Much deeper.

Fidelis

If you want developers to make better games, send them a message by not buying their game; maybe even make others not buy the game.

That's what people do, and when this impacts the developers, they tell their investors "no one's buying our game because they're all pirating it".

If a game is good, people will buy it. e.g. Oblivion, no demo ever released and no copy-protection (disc-check). It sold bucket-loads.

Case in point, make good games and people will buy them.

K.O.Kiki

Fidelis wrote:

That's what people do, and when this impacts the developers, they tell their investors "no one's buying our game because they're all pirating it".

If a game is good, people will buy it. e.g. Oblivion, no demo ever released and no copy-protection (disc-check). It sold bucket-loads.

Case in point, make good games and people will buy them.

And yet it was pirated. Hell, just searching it with the keyword "torrent" will throw up over half a million hits.

What you're mistakenly doing here is thinking that a good game, without demos or copy-protection, will sell regardless.
It won't. Ever.

Oblivion had plenty of pre- and post-launch hype (and good reviews), and strong marketing. It also benefited from good word-of-mouth from its Elder Scrolls predecessors.
That's what sells a game. And it still doesn't stop piracy.

Doodee

hahahahaha,

ahh your so wound up.

you'll never get rid of piracy, just like you wont ever get rid of crime or the weather,
but what people are saying about the whole good games thing is a typical example of what happened around the whole pirate bay thing, when control of the distribution and price of a product is removed from its corporations then they have to either resolve this problem by getting rid of the threat, or as is being seen in the music industry, stop bring out utter trash thats sole purpose is to sell sell sell. Quality is something that gets overlooked by greedy people and it happens in every industry not just gaming.

Fidelis

K.O.Kiki wrote:

And yet it was pirated. Hell, just searching it with the keyword "torrent" will throw up over half a million hits.

There's a torrent for every game and movie under the sun. What's your point? Just because it's pirated, doesn't mean it can't sell well. Windows is the most pirated software in history and yet how much is Bill Gates worth?

What you're mistakenly doing here is thinking that a good game, without demos or copy-protection, will sell regardless.
It won't. Ever.

Eh... but Oblivion did. I *just* said that :rolleyes:

I'll leave this thread for you and your detached brain to sort out.

steviec

Fidelis wrote:

There's a torrent for every game and movie under the sun. What's your point? Just because it's pirated, doesn't mean it can't sell well. Windows is the most pirated software in history and yet how much is Bill Gates worth?

Eh... but Oblivion did. I *just* said that :rolleyes:

I'll leave this thread for you and your detached brain to sort out.

For every person that torrents it, that's one sale being taken away(and don't say some of the people that torrent it will buy it, that's a tiny percentage). Of course it can still sell well but not as well as it would have. What you're saying is 'why not go shoplifting instead of paying for my groceries? Tesco will make a profit anyway.'

Making better games will increase sales, yes. But stopping piracy will also increase sales. And there's absolutely no link between the two, good games suffer from piracy just as badly as poor games.

Fidelis

and don't say some of the people that torrent it will buy it, that's a tiny percentage).

You'd be amazed. If people like the game, they'll buy it in order to give their money to the right developers.

What you're saying is 'why not go shoplifting instead of paying for my groceries? Tesco will make a profit anyway.'

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying :rolleyes:

DonkeyStyle \o/

steviec wrote:

For every person that torrents it, that's one sale being taken away(and don't say some of the people that torrent it will buy it, that's a tiny percentage).

I don't necessarily agree that every download is a sale lost... who's to say there was a sale there to begin with?
If you watch a film on TV, does that mean you would have bought the DVD had you not seen it?
While I agree that piracy hurts sales, I think there's an aspect of people using it just because it's there and costs them nothing... an unknown quantity of people who wouldn't have been paying customers anyway.
I'm not defending it (I buy my games and gladly so), but I think the figures are overblown if you're enumerating every single download as a lost sale.

There's a fair amount of rubbish games out there though... I'm waiting for GTA4 and the next Hitman game... beyond that, there's almost nothing I'm interested in.

steviec

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

I don't necessarily agree that every download is a sale lost... who's to say there was a sale there to begin with?
If you watch a film on TV, does that mean you would have bought the DVD had you not seen it?
While I agree that piracy hurts sales, I think there's an aspect of people using it just because it's there and costs them nothing... an unknown quantity of people who wouldn't have been paying customers anyway.
I'm not defending it (I buy my games and gladly so), but I think the figures are overblown if you're enumerating every single download as a lost sale.

There's a fair amount of rubbish games out there though... I'm waiting for GTA4 and the next Hitman game... beyond that, there's almost nothing I'm interested in.

Well obviously you're correct there, it's not a one to one ratio, but it can't be entirely insignificant. There's been a clear shift in the number of big games coming out for PC and consoles, the PC games market isn't nearly as healthy as it was 5 years ago by comparison to consoles (not that it's unhealthy, but it hasn't grown in line with the rest of the industry) and there's an obvious correlation between that and the growth of downloading. Not to mention the fact that the PC games that have been really successful have been online ones that you can't pirate.

DonkeyStyle \o/

steviec wrote:

Not to mention the fact that the PC games that have been really successful have been online ones that you can't pirate.

I had been thinking about WoW alright... do the 7 million odd subscribers to WoW still buy other games?
I've played a few MMORPGs briefly and while I played them, they took up 100% of my gaming time and however much additional non-gaming time in my day.
During the time I played these games, I really didn't have a need for other games.
Surely the rise in games that never end, that you can never complete, games that can last you for years will also effect the sales of new PC games.
Another interesting correlation?

jesus_thats_gre

steviec wrote:

For every person that torrents it, that's one sale being taken away(and don't say some of the people that torrent it will buy it, that's a tiny percentage)

What is to say that the person downloading it would have bought the game? This is a massive assumption and it is this logic that allows the likes of ID and music execs to say that they are loosing an estimated 20 billion a year. It is complete bull****.

Downloading a game on a whim and paying 60 euro over the counter are very different things. One can be done in a split second and there are absolutely no negative consequences, even if you never play the game. 60 euro for alot of people is a decent sum of money and they are not in the habit of just handing it over in a whim. It actually involves a thought process whereby the person wonders are they getting value for money and whether they will ever play it again.

God there has to have been something that you have download (music, movies or games) in the past that you know you would never have ever dreamed of paying for. It may even still be sitting on your PC somewhere. Lets pretend it was the most recent Westlife album (your secret is out!!). The record can quantify your single download as being €25 in lost lost revenue.

Take the telecoms industry for example. Back in the early days when Esat or Eircell ****ed up on a regular basis and forgot to charge for text messaging. Once people realised the messages were free, people would go nuts. In periods whereby only 1,000 messages might be sent, over 50,000 messages were being sent and not being charged for. I can tell you for certain that both of them calculated the revenue loss as being 1,000 x €0.13 and not 50,000 x €0.13.

If you service or game is **** and no one using/buying it, it is far easier to tell shareholders that you lost 50,000 x €0.13.

jesus_thats_gre

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

I had been thinking about WoW alright... do the 7 million odd subscribers to WoW still buy other games?
I've played a few MMORPGs briefly and while I played them, they took up 100% of my gaming time and however much additional non-gaming time in my day.
During the time I played these games, I really didn't have a need for other games.
Surely the rise in games that never end, that you can never complete, games that can last you for years will also effect the sales of new PC games.
Another interesting correlation?

Ironically enough, I think I read an article about 6 months ago whereby a large publisher suggested that WoW and games of this ilk were a bigger threat to the games industry than piracy.



Out of curiosity, what are peoples feelings on RTE releasing DVD's of their in house shows for sale. Do you not feel slightly miffed that we are paying a license fee yet are effectively expected to pay a second time.

Fidelis

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

I had been thinking about WoW alright... do the 7 million odd subscribers to WoW still buy other games?

Good point. The vast majority of people I know playing WoW, justify the monthly subscription price with the arguement that they don't buy any other games.

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

In periods whereby only 1,000 messages might be sent, over 50,000 messages were being sent and not being charged for.

Another good point. People will take something if it's free, something they would never have paid for in the first place. Greedy human nature

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Out of curiosity, what are peoples feelings on RTE releasing DVD's of their in house shows for sale. Do you not feel slightly miffed that we are paying a license fee yet are effectively expected to pay a second time.

If the programmes were particularly good (like BBC produced programmes) I wouldn't have a problem paying for it. It's not like I'll be rushing out to buy the next season of Fair City

TheAlmightyArse

One way to reduce piracy is to encourage people to buy more games. It stands to reason. Why pirate another game if you've already got a few to play through? As it stands, at €45-€70 for a new release, people don't generally go into games shops (or onto sites) unless they know what they're going to buy. If publishers brought the RRP of games down (to, say, €30), people could pop into a shop, browse the selection and take a punt on a game they've maybe not heard too much about.

Publishers would make less per unit sold, but that would even out as people buy more: the manufacturing costs of a game, once it's developed, are tiny, so as much would be made on two games at €30 each as would on one at €60. And of course, if games were more affordable, people would buy more. It beggars belief that not one of the gaint publishers in the games industry has copped onto this.

jesus_thats_gre

Fidelis wrote:

If the programmes were particularly good (like BBC produced programmes) I wouldn't have a problem paying for it. It's not like I'll be rushing out to buy the next season of Fair City

But what if you were paying for a TV license in the UK and you wanted Only Fools and Horses or Planet Earth on DVD. Pisses me off that you have to pay full wack for this. Should only have to pay the cost of the media and packaging

jesus_thats_gre

TheAlmightyArse wrote:

One way to reduce piracy is to encourage people to buy more games. It stands to reason. Why pirate another game if you've already got a few to play through? As it stands, at €45-€70 for a new release, people don't generally go into games shops (or onto sites) unless they know what they're going to buy. If publishers brought the RRP of games down (to, say, €30), people could pop into a shop, browse the selection and take a punt on a game they've maybe not heard too much about.

Publishers would make less per unit sold, but that would even out as people buy more: the manufacturing costs of a game, once it's developed, are tiny, so as much would be made on two games at €30 each as would on one at €60. And of course, if games were more affordable, people would buy more. It beggars belief that not one of the gaint publishers in the games industry has copped onto this.

A variation of this would be to introduce some flat montly fee server similar to the ones in place on the music download services where you pay 15 dollars a month for unlimited music.

Nick_oliveri

I took a lend of a game from a friend yesterday (not code for downloaded) , turns out the thing has Starforce Protection on it. I had to use a CD crack, Starforce remover and level patches to get around it. Ended up getting pissed off too much to enjoy the game. Handed the disc back to my friend.

jesusthatsgre wrote:

But what if you were paying for a TV license in the UK and you wanted Only Fools and Horses or Planet Earth on DVD. Pisses me off that you have to pay full wack for this. Should only have to pay the cost of the media and packaging

I totally agree.

jesusthatsgre wrote:

A variation of this would be to introduce some flat montly fee server similar to the ones in place on the music download services where you pay 15 dollars a month for unlimited music.

I'd only agree if the money was going straight to the Artists and Producers. 15% might be a fair percentage for Producers. Cut out the middlemen, ie Sony, Universal et all. Artists having to make most of their money through tours is just bullcrap.

Fidelis

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Should only have to pay the cost of the media and packaging

I know the licence goes towards home-grown shows and what not, but wouldn't a large portion of the funding come from advertising? If not, could you argue that because your licence money is making advertising revenue, you are entitled to some of it?

Frederico

K.O.Kiki wrote:

...

So... you're telling me it's only BAD games that are being pirated?
BULLSH*T!!

I'm guessing your reasoning goes like this:
er yourself, show 'em how it's done!

SQUEAL RANT WHINE

But don't ever kid yourself into thinking piracy will go away with better games. The problem is deeper than that. Much deeper.

Oh GOD This giant piracy problem will kill us all!! whats the odds this preacher has a ton of illegal mp3s on his pc.

steviec

From the consoles vs. PC thread on this board:

L31mr0d wrote:

Also, and this might be a mute point but it needs to be said because I know quite a few of my friends factor it in when discussing the pros and cons of console to pc gaming. Fact of the matter is, a lot of my friends haven't spent a dime on a new game for their pc in the last 6 years. Why? Pirating. It is A LOT easier to pirate a game for the PC than it is for the Xbox 360 or PS3 or Wii what with private torrent sites and newsgroups.

I'm not claiming to be completely innocent here (though I don't torrent games, my laptop couldn't run anything new anyway, I'm sticking with consoles for my gaming needs at the mo) but to try and take the moral high ground and somehow claim its the developers who are at fault when you steal their work is just silly.

Cuddlesworth

I know some people disagree with what I am going to say but, pc gamers buy games they play a lot. They do it to play online since most cracks and fake cd keys negate this. Pirate games they play once or twice, generally bad games with absolutely no long term appeal.

Also as above, piracy is not killing the games industry. Its the same as saying the American civil war was over slaves. It wasn't but it looks when when you say it to somebody else. Thats what games company's are doing.

K.O.Kiki

Frederico wrote:

Oh GOD This giant piracy problem will kill us all!! whats the odds this preacher has a ton of illegal mp3s on his pc.

No pirate mp3s. Pity CDs are still damn overpriced; I'd buy way more of them. Instead, I just get a handful of albums a year, and spend my money on DVDs instead.

passive

No pirate mp3s. Pity CDs are still damn overpriced; I'd buy way more of them. Instead, I just get a handful of albums a year, and spend my money on DVDs instead.

But if you're not buying those CDs anyway, because they're overpriced, what difference does it make if you download the songs or not? You're in no way affecting the company's profits to go from "not paying, not owning" to "not paying, owning" (with regards to ideas and informations that are already in circulation, not manufactured goods like tvs and stuff...)

Regardless of the availability of things through piracy, if i really like a band and have money I'm going to buy their album to support them. If i download ten albums of stuff i'm curious about, however, while i gain the music without paying, the band doesn't lose any profits because I wouldn't have bought the cd anyway because I don't really buy CDs...

or something...