Do you think pirating is changing PC gaming?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
61,772
17,476
136
Originally posted by: Xavier434
In short, I haven't noticed a big difference in PC gaming between the time that pirating wasn't as popular to now. If I had to make a guess though, I would say that pirating has made gaming a more popular hobby. Perhaps the sales figures that big companies are seeing today would be much less if games weren't available to pirate for free back when that hobby was just gaining some serious popularity? Free stuff often hooks people resulting in more money being spent in the future. I'm just speculating of course. Who knows?

When exactly was this mythical time that pirating wasn't that popular?
Even in the days before the Internet was widespread, you could make a 1:1 copy of a friend's disk and photocopy the manual, or write down stuff from a code wheel, or find a crack from a BBS. There were crack programs that had cracks for dozens of games within one program.
 

Randum

Platinum Member
Jan 28, 2004
2,473
0
76
pirating games has been around since the days of floopy drives...sooo i dont think its making any drastic changes to pc gaming anytime soon if it already hasnt
 

PhatoseAlpha

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2005
2,131
21
81
Of course it's impacting PC game sales and thus PC gaming. Yes, it's been around a long time. But it's never been as easy as it is now - bittorrent even makes spyware, adware, and trojan infested warez sites unnecessary. The further spread of broadband only exacerbates this. Development costs just keep going up, supporting the wide variety of PCs out there is as painful as ever, and the consoles outsell the PC like 5 or 10 to 1.

Then you tack on people who feel so indignant about companies trying to protect their profits, even if just to stay in business, that they somehow imagine themselves as Robin Hood when they steal, instead of criminals.

Now, piracy is far from the only thing hurting PC gaming, but suggesting that widespread piracy doesn't affect PC gaming is little more the willful ignorance.
 

Martimus

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2007
4,490
157
106
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Originally posted by: Xavier434
In short, I haven't noticed a big difference in PC gaming between the time that pirating wasn't as popular to now. If I had to make a guess though, I would say that pirating has made gaming a more popular hobby. Perhaps the sales figures that big companies are seeing today would be much less if games weren't available to pirate for free back when that hobby was just gaining some serious popularity? Free stuff often hooks people resulting in more money being spent in the future. I'm just speculating of course. Who knows?

When exactly was this mythical time that pirating wasn't that popular?
Even in the days before the Internet was widespread, you could make a 1:1 copy of a friend's disk and photocopy the manual, or write down stuff from a code wheel, or find a crack from a BBS. There were crack programs that had cracks for dozens of games within one program.

BBS'es weren't very popular. I used one, but it was rather slow on my 14.4kbs modem. Imagine downloading a few hundred megs, it would take full week sometimes to get all the files, and sometimes it wasn't complete! It just wasn't worth it to pirate. Once CD writers became commonplace (around the time of Starcraft) would be when I would say Pirating became a big thing. Before that, friends would make copies of games for each other, but it was a hassle breaking it up onto so many disks, so it wasn't something that we would do often. CD writers made it much easier. P2P brought pirating to a whole new level. I use to pirate software, because I was a kid and I didn't have any source of income, and I wanted the software. I didn't think about it being wrong. Now I wouldn't pirate anything. If I can't afford it, I won't get it. Plus, I would be afraid to d/l a Trojan horse or virus. It isn't like before where you knew who had the software, you are getting it from complete strangers who may have malevolent intentions with whatever you are downloading.
 

BladeVenom

Lifer
Jun 2, 2005
13,365
16
0
Originally posted by: Martimus

That is a good point about digital downloads making the process much easier. I love playing games from Stardock Central. It makes the whole experience so much easier. I'm not really a fan of Steam, but if they update it to be close to what Stardock has done, I would appreciate it.

QFT!

Stardock has done it right. Do what's best for your paying customers, and that's no DRM.
 

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
1
0
alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: Scrimmy
Yeah, there are tons of factors to consider and pontifex sums it up nicely. People have been pirating games on computers for as long as people have been making games for computers. Hell, I remember "Pirate's Chest" getting copied all over the place in middle school for Apple IIe games back in middle school in around '83 or '84 so we could all pass around copies of Lode Runner and Ultima III: Exodus. Bet that'll cause some flashbacks with the other 30-somethings on here. :p
Copying has been around since LP records and cheap audio tape :p
--and it was never a problem to exchange games or records AMONG FRIENDS

... the problem is the *unlimited sharing* over the Internet
 

wanderer27

Platinum Member
Aug 6, 2005
2,173
15
81
I agree that the response to piracy has impacted gaming.

I had a mild interest in Bioshock, but once I saw all the commotion about the DRM on it - forget it, not happening.

Crysis has crap DRM? That I didn't know, I'd been thinking about getting it after I got a new Video Card. Looks like one more reason to go ahead and put off getting that Video Card now.

So in essence, in my case it's (the response) also affecting the Hardware (Video Card) industry.

Way to go DRM :(

 

Drift3r

Guest
Jun 3, 2003
3,572
0
0
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Well considering the crap that is the majority of DRM; yeah, it is, because if there were no piracy, companies would not feel the need to place DRM on their products, or so I would hope.

KT

Restrictive DRM policies don't effect pirates. The tools put in place now are used to lock in and control paying customers. Also what has hurt game developers the most is not pricey but the ever increasing budgets for developing a quality title which incorporates the latests and greatest technology.
 

invidia

Platinum Member
Oct 8, 2006
2,151
1
0
No. I'll say more that the majority of the sales from PC Gaming comes from the fact that it has some type of online play. A game with online capabilities will more likely sell a whole lot better than one that doesn't. And since playing online requires unique CD-keys, pirating has little to no effect on PC gaming.
 

PhatoseAlpha

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2005
2,131
21
81
Assume for a second that everyone would pirate a game they wanted to play if they could.

Now, assuming CD keys actually work, the net upshot of that would be that people would pirate single player games and buy multiplayer gamers. Thus, multiplayer games would outsell single player games. And the industry as a whole would shift emphasis to multiplayer games and away from single player titles, simply do to business requirements of sales.

In short, multiplayer games selling a whole lot better then single player games would be a direct effect of this wide spread piracy. And it seems that your observation is that this is true.

I'd call that a pretty huge effect on PC gaming, wouldn't you?
 

Drift3r

Guest
Jun 3, 2003
3,572
0
0
Originally posted by: PhatoseAlpha
Assume for a second that everyone would pirate a game they wanted to play if they could.

Now, assuming CD keys actually work, the net upshot of that would be that people would pirate single player games and buy multiplayer gamers. Thus, multiplayer games would outsell single player games. And the industry as a whole would shift emphasis to multiplayer games and away from single player titles, simply do to business requirements of sales.

In short, multiplayer games selling a whole lot better then single player games would be a direct effect of this wide spread piracy. And it seems that your observation is that this is true.

I'd call that a pretty huge effect on PC gaming, wouldn't you?

Online games are successful because people get to play with other people. Even without piracy Online games which are fun to play and allow you to be online with other people would sell more because of the basic social interaction you can get from them vs a solo pc game with NPC ai.
 

BladeVenom

Lifer
Jun 2, 2005
13,365
16
0
Originally posted by: PhatoseAlpha
Assume for a second that everyone would pirate a game they wanted to play if they could.

Now, assuming CD keys actually work, the net upshot of that would be that people would pirate single player games and buy multiplayer gamers. Thus, multiplayer games would outsell single player games. And the industry as a whole would shift emphasis to multiplayer games and away from single player titles, simply do to business requirements of sales.

In short, multiplayer games selling a whole lot better then single player games would be a direct effect of this wide spread piracy. And it seems that your observation is that this is true.

I'd call that a pretty huge effect on PC gaming, wouldn't you?

I don't see that though. The Sims series is the best selling video game that's come around in a long time, and it's single player. I think Oblivion sold well and it was single player. Lots of great selling PC games are single player. Epic said that half the people who purchased Unreal 2004 never played it online. So single player makes up half the sales of a game that's mostly designed for multiplayer. So if companies started making mostly multiplayer only games, they would lose at least half their customers.
 

Xavier434

Lifer
Oct 14, 2002
10,373
1
0
Originally posted by: Martimus
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Originally posted by: Xavier434
In short, I haven't noticed a big difference in PC gaming between the time that pirating wasn't as popular to now. If I had to make a guess though, I would say that pirating has made gaming a more popular hobby. Perhaps the sales figures that big companies are seeing today would be much less if games weren't available to pirate for free back when that hobby was just gaining some serious popularity? Free stuff often hooks people resulting in more money being spent in the future. I'm just speculating of course. Who knows?

When exactly was this mythical time that pirating wasn't that popular?
Even in the days before the Internet was widespread, you could make a 1:1 copy of a friend's disk and photocopy the manual, or write down stuff from a code wheel, or find a crack from a BBS. There were crack programs that had cracks for dozens of games within one program.

BBS'es weren't very popular. I used one, but it was rather slow on my 14.4kbs modem. Imagine downloading a few hundred megs, it would take full week sometimes to get all the files, and sometimes it wasn't complete! It just wasn't worth it to pirate. Once CD writers became commonplace (around the time of Starcraft) would be when I would say Pirating became a big thing. Before that, friends would make copies of games for each other, but it was a hassle breaking it up onto so many disks, so it wasn't something that we would do often. CD writers made it much easier. P2P brought pirating to a whole new level. I use to pirate software, because I was a kid and I didn't have any source of income, and I wanted the software. I didn't think about it being wrong. Now I wouldn't pirate anything. If I can't afford it, I won't get it. Plus, I would be afraid to d/l a Trojan horse or virus. It isn't like before where you knew who had the software, you are getting it from complete strangers who may have malevolent intentions with whatever you are downloading.

Yes, that is correct. Toss things like AOL in there and the world wide web and you got your pirating revolution in a nutshell. Pirating has always existed but the big difference you see between the past and today is that today it is much easier and it is common knowledge. Everyone knows how to burn CDs and DVDs. Everyone knows that it is possible to get free music, games, and movies. Even if you do not know exactly how and where to pirate that stuff, odds are you know someone that does who can hook you up quickly and conveniently.

Back when BBS's were the "in thing" this was not the case. Hell, you can walk around a mall today and ask 200 random people of various ages if they know what a BBS or a code wheel is and most of them will shrug their shoulders. You might even be surprised how many people don't even know what a "crack" is. They may have heard the term, but they may not know what it is or what it does. BBS's and pirating in general was only popular amongst really geeky people back then who knew a lot about computers which is why those are the only people who remember and talk about them today. There were exceptions but not that many. That is not true anymore. It has completely changed.
 

Scrimmy

Member
Oct 19, 2007
144
0
0
Pretty interesting discussion so far. :) As other people have said, I think piracy does also help explain the hard push for multiplayer gaming on the PC, as it's much easier to make sure everyone has a legal copy when you can use an account that's tied to a unique CD key.

I think this also helps explain the push for making a good MMO, as it's the most piracy-proof genre of game out there, considering there is exactly zero offline play. Couple that with monthly fees (the Holy Grail of money-making) and you've got a genre of game that's got both the least vulnerability to piracy and the highest potential earnings.

Works for me, as that's my favorite genre of game now, anyway. Sure, we'll get inundated with a whole bunch of crap but that will only draw more people in the market so more games get made over the long haul, making us much more likely to have more good ones to choose from. Definitely have to give Blizzard the credit for this one; Everquest expanded the genre and made it more accessible compared to MUDs, but WoW really brought it into the mainstream.

OK, just give me my damn Conan game in March and no one gets hurt.
 

mrCide

Diamond Member
Nov 27, 1999
6,187
0
76
I haven't read the replies but as I got older I started buying all my games. I used to only pirate as a teenager. Now, I'd rather buy the game. I'll usually wait for a sale though, but I don't like having pirated games.
 

smaky

Member
Jan 1, 2005
119
0
0
Years back, the programing was very simple. It didn't take multi-million investment to create great games, so if only few games were sold the company made money. Nowdays the games are so complex its takes years to program and troubleshoot and tons of money to publish. I dont' blame them for trying to protect their investment.

DRM are here to stay. If you dont' like em don't buy the game. Get a console and play on that. The differences between consoles are becoming smaller and smaller. I am thinking next step is a consoled pc, with keyboard and mouse.

I hate consoles, mainly because I can never learn to use the controlers. I played CoD4 on Xbox with the controler. It was painfull. I couldn't get used to the joysticks, and I am not the only one since the game comes with what I call "aim bot" button to help. There is no precision like I get with mouse and keyboard.

I love the pc, however the pc as I know it is becoming the thing of the past unless we embrace DRM.

Scrimmy wrote "as it's the most piracy-proof genre of game out there, considering there is exactly zero offline play" that is not exactly true. There are private server hacks out there. Just its not mainstream type of pirating yet. If more and more people started playing on private servers to a point where it hurts Blizzards bottom line, than people will start talking about it.

This situation seems similar to that of the early years of pirating of games. Noone cares, till it starts hurting bottom line.
 

Xavier434

Lifer
Oct 14, 2002
10,373
1
0
Originally posted by: mrCide
I haven't read the replies but as I got older I started buying all my games. I used to only pirate as a teenager. Now, I'd rather buy the game. I'll usually wait for a sale though, but I don't like having pirated games.

Same here. Partially because I have more money now and I want to support devs that make games that I like. Other reasons include wanting online play.

Much of it also has to do with the quality of the copy I get. Pirated games are often more buggy which is sometimes too annoying for me not to justify spending the money on a legal copy. However, this is also why I do pirate some games which is kind of funny. The problems with DRM are just as annoying as the buggy pirated copies. If I can get a quality pirated copy without the issues of DRM then I will be more inclined to pirate. I don't pay for crap. All of this nonsense about it being ok to release games where a lot of known bugs still exist (including ones associated with DRM) just to meet a deadline only to rely on patches later is bullshit to me. I would rather wait for a clean copy or pirate a cleaner copy.

I just want a game that I pay for to work and for it to work well. That shouldn't be an unrealistic expectation and I hate how certain standards in the gaming industry have dropped to such low levels of quality. It's even happening with more console games now that online play for consoles is everywhere.
 

MetaDFF

Member
Mar 2, 2007
145
0
76
Interesting that you bring up piracy as the catalyst for changing PC gaming.

This was posted by an Infinity Ward developer:
They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More

He basically said that the number of people playing online with pirated copies was astounding. (You can do that with CD checks etc.? I guess those keygens are really good). He didn't quantify what he meant by astounding, but I would imagine it was a number shocking enough to make mention.

Tom's Games has a second take video that also discusses the slump in PC gaming in 2007, even with all these top titles that have just come out.
Second Take PC Gaming Slump

According to their video, COD:4 on the PC sold less than 100k copies in it's first month while the console version sold 1.5M copies on 360 alone. Although the 100k PC sales didn't include digital sales, the number is just too small compared to the console sales numbers. If you are a game developer and you look at these unenthusiastic sales numbers for the PC, it really makes them reconsider where they are putting their developer resources for their next titles. Don't forget game developers are out there to make money after all.

There is probably a larger underlying trend that is causing poor PC gaming sales, more than just piracy. Probably some of the people who would have purchased a PC copy instead picked up a console version so they can play with friends on their home theater etc. But low sales coupled with piracy can only hurt PC gaming, which has already been on the decline. It is like the final stick that breaks the camels back.

I hope PC gaming is here to stay, but I fear the trend is now consoles first and PC games as afterthought.
 

smaky

Member
Jan 1, 2005
119
0
0
I hope one day we get an XboX with mouse and keyboard. Than I will consider console. Pc will however always be my hobby.

Pc enthusiasts is a niche market nowdays. Its dieing for sure, console is very much growing and there is tons of money to be made there.

why am I here browsing the forums? I should go and grind out a few more lvls on Tabula rasa!

come to think of it, I used to "grind" out lvls on duck hunt, asteroids just to see if I can make the score roll over. lol
 

Xavier434

Lifer
Oct 14, 2002
10,373
1
0
Originally posted by: MetaDFF
Interesting that you bring up piracy as the catalyst for changing PC gaming.

This was posted by an Infinity Ward developer:
They Wonder Why People Don't Make PC Games Any More

He basically said that the number of people playing online with pirated copies was astounding. (You can do that with CD checks etc.? I guess those keygens are really good). He didn't quantify what he meant by astounding, but I would imagine it was a number shocking enough to make mention.

Tom's Games has a second take video that also discusses the slump in PC gaming in 2007, even with all these top titles that have just come out.
Second Take PC Gaming Slump

According to their video, COD:4 on the PC sold less than 100k copies in it's first month while the console version sold 1.5M copies on 360 alone. Although the 100k PC sales didn't include digital sales, the number is just too small compared to the console sales numbers. If you are a game developer and you look at these unenthusiastic sales numbers for the PC, it really makes them reconsider where they are putting their developer resources for their next titles. Don't forget game developers are out there to make money after all.

There is probably a larger underlying trend that is causing poor PC gaming sales, more than just piracy. Probably some of the people who would have purchased a PC copy instead picked up a console version so they can play with friends on their home theater etc. But low sales coupled with piracy can only hurt PC gaming, which has already been on the decline. It is like the final stick that breaks the camels back.

I hope PC gaming is here to stay, but I fear the trend is now consoles first and PC games as afterthought.

I am no expert, but I would say that this subject matter has much more to do with certain game genre's becoming less popular on PC's due to competition with consoles. You got your exceptions of course, but a great example would be COD:4 like you mentioned. COD:4 is graphically intensive if you want to play it maxed. Most people do not have the computer to run it well with those settings, can't afford to buy one that does, or cannot justify buying one that does since they already own a 360, HDTV, and can buy COD:4 for $60.

In short, the reason behind the slump (if it exists at all) has more to do with competition than it does piracy.