On the piracy that's "not occurring" in PC Gaming...

[ja1484]

Regarding Infinity Ward's lack of dedicated servers in Modern Warfare 2 (which doesn't really bother me, because I've thought all the CoD games were shit, never played past the demos, and had no intentions of bucking that trend):

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/10/26/

As to why they want to create their own matchmaking network in the first place, the ability to make money selling maps is floated as a reason, and it makes a lot of sense - presumably they would rather make a million dollars than zero. A centralized defense against piracy is also suggested, and things tend to go downhill quick after this. It is not a mischaracterization to say that conversations with the hardcore PC community about software theft follow these tenets:

- There is no piracy.
- To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault.
- If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle.

It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service? You need to know it, because nobody else is going to tell you: you guys sound like Goddamned subway vagrants. Of course when you speak exclusively to each other, it all sounds so reasonable. It'll be reasonable when you all board the bus, and the songs you sing en route to excoriate your enemies will be forceful, but within reason; and when you douse yourself with gasoline and immolate yourself in front of the offices of Infinity Ward, one assumes this will be reasonable also.

So watcha think, you hardcores you? Time for a lot of agreeing with each other?

 

[Auryg]

They're making a product worse because a portion of the population (pirates) aren't buying it. Pirates will still pirate it, but now less customers are going to want it. I bought UT2k4 and Half life 1 BECAUSE of mods. Call of Duty's matchmaking system is the best I've used - Halo's sucks in comparison, but I still prefer server lists and customization. And yeah, I'd bet most of the reason is to sell maps, which probably more than makes up for lost costumers. I'm getting it for my 360 so it doesn't matter to me, but PC players need to stand up and not buy this for a variety of reasons, but I know they wont.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Auryg
but PC players need to stand up and not buy this for a variety of reasons, but I know they wont.

I'm curious as to what that would accomplish, other than to have Super Consolidated Game Co. emphasize PC game development even less, if not abandon it altogether?

I think the PC gaming community is shooting itself in the foot by blaming the developers for attempting to protect their property rather than blaming pirates for the problem in the first place. Watching this whole thing hatch and develop over the past 5 or so years has been very strange to me. A problem has developed, and rather than be pissed at the people causing the problem, people are angry at the developers for responding to it.

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
There are other ways to combat piracy without completely destroying the entire online community. E.g. battle.net, steam, etc.

Some may argue there are better solutions than the ones they have tried. I wouldn't mind hearing out those ideas? Bear in mind, they need to make financial sense to a business.

The lack of dedicated servers smacks of a last minute change demanded by the publisher.

And perhaps it was. But what if it wasn't?

 

[QuantumPion]

There are other ways to combat piracy without completely destroying the entire online community. E.g. battle.net, steam, etc.

The lack of dedicated servers smacks of a last minute change demanded by the publisher.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: Auryg
but PC players need to stand up and not buy this for a variety of reasons, but I know they wont.

I'm curious as to what that would accomplish, other than to have Super Consolidated Game Co. emphasize PC game development even less, if not abandon it altogether?

I think the PC gaming community is shooting itself in the foot by blaming the developers for attempting to protect their property rather than blaming pirates for the problem in the first place. Watching this whole thing hatch and develop over the past 5 or so years has been very strange to me. A problem has developed, and rather than be pissed at the people causing the problem, people are angry at the developers for responding to it.

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
There are other ways to combat piracy without completely destroying the entire online community. E.g. battle.net, steam, etc.

Some may argue there are better solutions than the ones they have tried. I wouldn't mind hearing out those ideas? Bear in mind, they need to make financial sense to a business.

The lack of dedicated servers smacks of a last minute change demanded by the publisher.

And perhaps it was. But what if it wasn't?

While I'm tired of this discussion what can you do?
ok, so i get mad a pirate? no what? I can't do anything about that.
in order to defeat the pirates, the companies are creating methods that hurt the people who get the software legally, while the pirates still get the game WITHOUT the methods used to defeat them. Yeah, who should we be mad at?

 

[BladeVenom]

Retarded article. It's not going to reduce piracy. Actually it may increase the percentage of piracy since they are losing so many paying customers by trying to screw over the PC gaming community.

 

[Azeroth101]

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
There are other ways to combat piracy without completely destroying the entire online community. E.g. battle.net, steam, etc.

The lack of dedicated servers smacks of a last minute change demanded by the publisher.

Man up?

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Retarded article. It's not going to reduce piracy. Actually it may increase the percentage of piracy since they are losing so many paying customers by trying to screw over the PC gaming community.

This is an exact example of "If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle".

Also, I don't know that it's a net loss. PC Games sales seem to decline year on year, but overall games purchases (mostly consoles) continue to skyrocket.

I think developers are just going where the money is. I love PC gaming, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking there's more money here than consoles.

Originally posted by: pontifex
in order to defeat the pirates, the companies are creating methods that hurt the people who get the software legally, while the pirates still get the game WITHOUT the methods used to defeat them.

I'm still interested in hearing your proposed alternatives?

 

[ja1484]

snip. Consolidated above.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Retarded article. It's not going to reduce piracy. Actually it may increase the percentage of piracy since they are losing so many paying customers by trying to screw over the PC gaming community.

This is an exact example of "If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle".

Also, I don't know that it's a net loss. PC Games sales seem to decline year on year, but overall games purchases (mostly consoles) continue to skyrocket.

I think developers are just going where the money is. I love PC gaming, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking there's more money here than consoles.

Originally posted by: pontifex
in order to defeat the pirates, the companies are creating methods that hurt the people who get the software legally, while the pirates still get the game WITHOUT the methods used to defeat them.

I'm still interested in hearing your proposed alternatives?

Alternatives to what? stopping piracy? DRM?

obviously DRM doesn't stop piracy and it hurts the legal players. simple solution - remove DRM and just deal with piracy. I don't have any other solutions and its not my job to come up with solutions.

 

[Qbah]

I think this move was done to lessen piracy on the PC version. Since CoD was popular mostly due to a very exciting and fun multiplayer, they want to make sure that people play a legit copy when they're shooting others online (you have to go through IW.net). Of course single player mode was also very nice, but you finish it a few times at most and that's it. The multi aspect has a lasting value to the game.

I think there will be hacks that will allow non-IW.net multi for the pirated copies, it just won't be as good and probably have a lot of bugs - not to mention it will require the pirates to do some (probably) complicated things to make it run for them.

 

[Glitchny]

Originally posted by: Azeroth101

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
There are other ways to combat piracy without completely destroying the entire online community. E.g. battle.net, steam, etc.

The lack of dedicated servers smacks of a last minute change demanded by the publisher.

Man up?

Isn't IW.net the same as battle.net in concept?

 

[lupi]

so who's showing a bigger vagina here should be the real question, the article writer or the OP.

 

[mmnno]

That makes no sense. You get money from people who actually buy your game, not from a fewer number of pirates. If you make a change that results in less pirates, and also less customers, then you lose. Thus they must be trying to get more money out of less customers, i.e. sell more DLC.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I agree with Tycho completely.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: pontifex
obviously DRM doesn't stop piracy and it hurts the legal players. simple solution - remove DRM and just deal with piracy. I don't have any other solutions and its not my job to come up with solutions.

So your proposal to these companies is "ignore this problem that decreases your revenues"?

You have a very valid point that coming up with solutions is not your job, but then some might argue that you don't get to bitch about it if you're not going to be involved in fixing it.

Originally posted by: mmnno
That makes no sense. You get money from people who actually buy your game, not from a fewer number of pirates. If you make a change that results in less pirates, and also less customers, then you lose. Thus they must be trying to get more money out of less customers, i.e. sell more DLC.

A lot of people have been proposing that, and it seems to make the most sense. There is also the speculation that tying multiplayer to legitimate copies and use of the IW.net service will get a dragnet around most of the paying groups. CoD4 was mostly popular for MP, and that's probably where a lot of the people interested in the sequel are headed.

Originally posted by: lupi
so who's showing a bigger vagina here should be the real question, the article writer or the OP.

Beg pardon?

I find this amusing because most of these discussions that I've seen on here fall under the category of:

Of course when you speak exclusively to each other, it all sounds so reasonable.

It seems like some people, especially those agreeing with each other about the evils of DRM on "hardcore PC gaming" forums, think that their opinion of the PC gaming landscape somehow affects how developers feel about piracy and lost revenue. They also seem to think it affects how developers are going to address it.

Let's clarify a few things before going on: Developers are businesses. They want to make money. All these misguided thoughts people on forums have about "customer satisfaction" and "unique/new IP" aren't even in the minds of the suits at most game development companies. They want to get paid. Obviously, they don't feel that they would continue to be as profitable without DRM or whatever protections they use.

You can argue, if you want, about how things *could* be different. I doubt anyone at EA or BlizzardVision is listening - they're too busy counting Madden and WoW money. For the businesses, it's not about the games...it's about gross margin. Try to work that into your perspective when trying to understand why these companies do what they do. Yes, some of their decisions may hurt you. But it's not about you. You, being the hardcore PC crowd (and I include myself, at least as a former member), are a tiny percentage of their current revenue stream. You are not the bread and butter. You should stop expecting bread and butter treatment, or be prepared for continued disappointment. I 'spose you can pick your own adventure on that one.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Originally posted by: ja1484
This is an exact example of "If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle".

Also, I don't know that it's a net loss. PC Games sales seem to decline year on year, but overall games purchases (mostly consoles) continue to skyrocket.

I think developers are just going where the money is. I love PC gaming, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking there's more money here than consoles.

I'd love to see some evidence to support that.

 

[Bryf50]

Originally posted by: Glitchny

Originally posted by: Azeroth101

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
There are other ways to combat piracy without completely destroying the entire online community. E.g. battle.net, steam, etc.

The lack of dedicated servers smacks of a last minute change demanded by the publisher.

Man up?

Isn't IW.net the same as battle.net in concept?

Somewhat similar in that people host the games with their own connection, but it is very different because the games that use battle.net aren't fps. The games in an rts like starcraft aren't persistent, once they start there are no new players joining mid-game. Once the game ends and you want to play again you join a new lobby. This model works well for rts games because it wouldn't make sense for people to join midway, there are less players in a game and less need for low latency like an fps.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: pontifex
obviously DRM doesn't stop piracy and it hurts the legal players. simple solution - remove DRM and just deal with piracy. I don't have any other solutions and its not my job to come up with solutions.

So your proposal to these companies is "ignore this problem that decreases your revenues"?

You have a very valid point that coming up with solutions is not your job, but then some might argue that you don't get to bitch about it if you're not going to be involved in fixing it.

Originally posted by: mmnno
That makes no sense. You get money from people who actually buy your game, not from a fewer number of pirates. If you make a change that results in less pirates, and also less customers, then you lose. Thus they must be trying to get more money out of less customers, i.e. sell more DLC.

A lot of people have been proposing that, and it seems to make the most sense. There is also the speculation that tying multiplayer to legitimate copies and use of the IW.net service will get a dragnet around most of the paying groups. CoD4 was mostly popular for MP, and that's probably where a lot of the people interested in the sequel are headed.

Originally posted by: lupi
so who's showing a bigger vagina here should be the real question, the article writer or the OP.

Beg pardon?

I find this amusing because most of these discussions that I've seen on here fall under the category of:

Of course when you speak exclusively to each other, it all sounds so reasonable.

It seems like some people, especially those agreeing with each other about the evils of DRM on "hardcore PC gaming" forums, think that their opinion of the PC gaming landscape somehow affects how developers feel about piracy and lost revenue. They also seem to think it affects how developers are going to address it.

Let's clarify a few things before going on: Developers are businesses. They want to make money. All these misguided thoughts people on forums have about "customer satisfaction" and "unique/new IP" aren't even in the minds of the suits at most game development companies. They want to get paid. Obviously, they don't feel that they would continue to be as profitable without DRM or whatever protections they use.

You can argue, if you want, about how things *could* be different. I doubt anyone at EA or BlizzardVision is listening - they're too busy counting Madden and WoW money. For the businesses, it's not about the games...it's about gross margin. Try to work that into your perspective when trying to understand why these companies do what they do. Yes, some of their decisions may hurt you. But it's not about you. You, being the hardcore PC crowd (and I include myself, at least as a former member), are a tiny percentage of their current revenue stream. You are not the bread and butter. You should stop expecting bread and butter treatment, or be prepared for continued disappointment. I 'spose you can pick your own adventure on that one.

It decreases their revenue even more when legit buyers don't buy your game because you use some sort of DRM that everyone hates. Besides, the pirates always find a way around the DRM anyway, you're not really defeating the pirates at all, just alienating yourself from legit buyers, the people who actually put money into your hands.

have you ever heard the term "cutting off your nose to spite your face"? in this case nose = paying customers and face = pirates.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

It's a pair of two observations. One - a correct idea, that PC gamers have an attitude towards DRM that borders on insane, is the truth. One can say 'harsh DRM doesn't stop pirates and alienates customers, so it's pointless', but eventually the reality will sink in that DRM is essentially a desperate attempt to stop piracy. If, as is so often asserted, piracy can not be stopped - or even curtailed significantly, they'll just stop making PC games. Labor isn't free, and if most of the PC users don't buy, there's no reason to use your good talent working on it.


The second observation - that the whole no dedicated servers thing has anything to do with piracy - is bunk, though. They've made no secret that their DRM is steam. Steam DRM already works just fine with dedicated server support, as a vast number of games will happily attest to. No dedicated servers is totally disconnected with piracy, as the anti-piracy tech they're using works just fine with dedicated servers.

 

[Maleficus]

Why do people ignore the fact that console piracy is even more prevalent than PC piracy these days?

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Because percentage wise, console piracy is an order of magnitude less the pc piracy.

 

[postmortemIA]

interestingly people have no problem installing antivirus that does 10 times worse things to system than DRM .. even pirates enjoy it the most, so that DRM thing is nothing but an excuse for getting stuff for free that is not free.

Why every pirate argument starts with excuse?

 

[Praxis1452]

What excuse is needed? I can get it for practically free with extremely small chance that I will be caught and prosecuted. What is IW going to do that will make me want/need to buy the retail version? This certainly isn't it. In all honesty though, almost all of my games are legitimate. I've only ever pirated like 4 games ever heh. I pay for the ones I like, and I pirate games that I will play for only a few hours, perhaps with a friend.

 

[Red Irish]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: ja1484

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
Retarded article. It's not going to reduce piracy. Actually it may increase the percentage of piracy since they are losing so many paying customers by trying to screw over the PC gaming community.

This is an exact example of "If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle".

Also, I don't know that it's a net loss. PC Games sales seem to decline year on year, but overall games purchases (mostly consoles) continue to skyrocket.

I think developers are just going where the money is. I love PC gaming, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking there's more money here than consoles.

Originally posted by: pontifex
in order to defeat the pirates, the companies are creating methods that hurt the people who get the software legally, while the pirates still get the game WITHOUT the methods used to defeat them.

I'm still interested in hearing your proposed alternatives?

Alternatives to what? stopping piracy? DRM?

obviously DRM doesn't stop piracy and it hurts the legal players. simple solution - remove DRM and just deal with piracy. I don't have any other solutions and its not my job to come up with solutions.

:thumbsup: