Pc Gamers, Do You pirate Your games?

Stev_o

brim4brim wrote: »

But that's what the entire article is about

The 90% and how they arrived at it so it really isn't a nice article but a completely irrelevant article since it displays nothing other than the industries illogical approach to determining whether DRM is neccesary or not.

Yeah i dunno its just to see the indy developers thoughts on it i guess i dunno at least its something to read :P

MOH

Kyle Gabler wrote:

We arrived at the 90% figure by looking at unique ip’s that have contacted our leaderboard server for any reason, at least once. So, this should rule out “multiple profiles per computer”. Of course, there is a lot of opportunity for error, like ip’s that change, playing at work/home/wherever, multiple copies being played from the same ip, etc, but it seems like a good enough fast and decent estimate. Then we divided that number into the total number of PC copies sold, giving us the percentage.

Seriously, that's a daft way to measure piracy, and 2D Boy know it. Of course, they also know that the figure is going be reported far more widely than the completely pointless metric used. And then you're going to have half the web using this as an example of how you must have DRM or you're going to lose 90% of your sales.

It's an even dafter measure of piracy than I'd first thought, because here's the leaderboard.

Anyone click on that? Well, now you're a pirate. According to the 2D Boy statistics.

thebman

MOH wrote: »

Seriously, that's a daft way to measure piracy, and 2D Boy know it. Of course, they also know that the figure is going be reported far more widely than the completely pointless metric used. And then you're going to have half the web using this as an example of how you must have DRM or you're going to lose 90% of your sales.

It's an even dafter measure of piracy than I'd first thought, because here's the leaderboard.

Anyone click on that? Well, now you're a pirate. According to the 2D Boy statistics.

I'm not, their crappy server is down :P

pixelburp

I hadn't even heard of World of Goo until the piracy claims came up, so I guess that makes me a dirty stinking pirate too.

Avast!

MOH

pixelburp wrote: »

I hadn't even heard of World of Goo until the piracy claims came up, so I guess that makes me a dirty stinking pirate too.

Avast!

That did strike me. They must know there's going to be widespread reporting across the web along the lines of "you must have DRM or you'll be hit by 90% pirating". Most of this isn't going to mention the daft way they arrived at the figure - most of it *is* going to mention the game. Simple way of getting free advertising.

Cuddlesworth

brim4brim wrote: »

They give out IP addresses (DHCP) to each user on their network on a lease. This lease is for a set period and then the users IP address changes automatically and this can happen earlier if the user restarts their modem. That renders the stats completely useless.

Not entirely true. What actually happens is that if the client is inactive for the period of the lease, the lease expires and the ip address might be given to another box. This is in itself a rare occurrence, as most DSL routers and cable box's are on 24/7. People ask for fixed ip's as a guarantee against this happening.

PogMoThoin

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Not entirely true. What actually happens is that if the client is inactive for the period of the lease, the lease expires and the ip address might be given to another box. This is in itself a rare occurrence, as most DSL routers and cable box's are on 24/7. People ask for fixed ip's as a guarantee against this happening.

Some ISP's (i kno BT do) force an update of ip address everyday, the router reboots itself.

K.O.Kiki

So 82% is WAY BETTER than 90% then?

...sometimes I wonder why I bother with forums :rolleyes:

Cuddlesworth

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Some ISP's (i kno BT do) force an update of ip address everyday, the router reboots itself.

That's a pretty aggressive tactic for a ISP.

L31mr0d

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

That's a pretty aggressive tactic for a ISP.

One of the main reasons I dropped BT and moved to UPC. My router wouldn't automatically restart so I had to manually restart it once a day to get my internet back :mad:

MooseJam

why would they do that, whats in it for them, have they not got enough ip's or what

Cuddlesworth

MooseJam wrote: »

why would they do that, whats in it for them, have they not got enough ip's or what

Stops people running file servers/Teamspeak servers etc, pisses off bit-torrent trackers, pisses off users. The less traffic on their network the less money they have to spend and the more money they make. But I say its a aggressive tactic because quite a lot of hardware will simply fail on a reboot if done every day.

kaimera

I have been known to acquire some pc games but since I got a decent machine + steam I've bought more games in a short period of time than I had in previous months,

lately I play & buy more 360 games so pc games tend to take a backseat.

I will always buy that one game I've been waiting for ages for. GTA4 for eg I'll buy as I also own the previous 3. Sentimental value

Soby

I rarely buy pc games unless its a classic/oldie so its going for like a tenner.
hey we are in recession after all:p

thebman

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

So 82% is WAY BETTER than 90% then?

...sometimes I wonder why I bother with forums :rolleyes:

Hang on those figures assume people enabled the scoreboard. The average user isn't capable of feeding themselves without instructions and wouldn't know how to enable the scoreboard or just wouldn't bother doing it because they have no interest.

I think pirate users are much more likely to know how to enable the option and if they know there is no penalty they would not hesitate to do so if they wanted to. Some would do it as a badge of honor or some bollocks like that.

I just don't trust the numbers no matter how much they say they aren't pro-DRM, the numbers just don't add up. I can't possibly believe that percentage of piracy occurs in the mainstream games. I mean I never heard of this game so I'm guessing it is much more likely to appeal to people who pirate since they know they can steal it without anything happening.

There are many things skewing the statistics.

K.O.Kiki

The average user has also never heard of World of Goo.

It's a WiiWare/PC-download only game, no retail release.
So people have only downloaded it, whether legally or not.

And if you don't believe that this percentage of piracy occurs in games... you are a naive fool. Sorry

thebman

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The average user has also never heard of World of Goo.

It's a WiiWare/PC-download only game, no retail release.
So people have only downloaded it, whether legally or not.

And if you don't believe that this percentage of piracy occurs in games... you are a naive fool. Sorry

So basically the only people that knew about the game are people who only download games and they are surprised a large percentage of these people are pirates.

I don't think it does, I think anybody that pirates something and submits it to a scoreboard is a fooking idiot TBH.

TerrorFirmer

L31mr0d wrote: »

One of the main reasons I dropped BT and moved to UPC. My router wouldn't automatically restart so I had to manually restart it once a day to get my internet back :mad:

That actually explains alot.

MooseJam

I sent an e-mail to securom saying whats the story I'm playing downloaded games protected by your product, it doesn't work, how do you find any customers, they haven't replied yet

CyberGhost

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I admit I pirate most games to try them out, if I enjoy them I buy them to support the developer. Please answer truthfully.

Same here,

If I like it and play it, I'll buy it. If I don't like it, I delete it anyway.

Can you really call that a piracy?

Seifer

CyberGhost wrote:

Can you really call that a piracy?

Whether you agree with it or not it is. You're taking something that you haven't paid for. The fact you give it back after a few days is irrelevant.

CyberGhost

Seifer wrote: »

Whether you agree with it or not it is. You're taking something that you haven't paid for. The fact you give it back after a few days is irrelevant.

And if I take a game from a friend and give it back after a few days, is that piracy aswell? I don't pay for it either, but I still play it.

Pyr0

CyberGhost wrote: »

And if I take a game from a friend and give it back after a few days, is that piracy aswell? I don't pay for it either, but I still play it.

I always loved that example..

MooseJam

whats the story with steam, can you just take your mates username/password and play all his games ?

AlmightyCushion

MooseJam wrote: »

whats the story with steam, can you just take your mates username/password and play all his games ?

Not at the same time but I imagine you could do that.

MooseJam

what about patching downloaded games, will they still play ?

PogMoThoin

MooseJam wrote: »

whats the story with steam, can you just take your mates username/password and play all his games ?

Yes, I share my Steam account with my son, Steam allows you to play on any pc but only on one pc at a time. Logging in on another pc will log you out elsewhere, although if you wish to play single player you can set steam to run in offline mode on the pc in question (or pull the network cable) and login on the other. There is now Steam Cloud so you can continue your single player games anywhere you go.

MooseJam wrote: »

what about patching downloaded games, will they still play ?

Steam handles all patches itself, so all players end up on the same patch at all times. When they make a patch available it will download and update automatically

MooseJam

thx but by downloaded I mean an ISO off BT, if I patch it will it still play ?

PogMoThoin

No, you got to find a crack to suit the version.