Southern Piracy

[4537256]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

Originally posted by: 4537256
All new $50 games slashed to 100% *Free plus no drm, no activations, unlimited installs

lol, how can you compete with that?
there is no incentive possible to compete with that.
what should they do exactly? offer free drinks and meals if they buy it? lol
all they do is video games, they cannot offer anything else for incentive. you cant offer free games if you buy it cause the pirates can get those for free too.

You can absolutely compete with free if there is a greater incentive to buy the retail version. Some incentives could be.. easy to obtain game updates, DLC, multiplayer, better game manuals, collector's style content in the basic retail versions, etc.. Basically make it easier for legit customers to get extra stuff rather than more difficult to get only the basic game.

I understand that DLC and even multiplayer can be "pirated", but it's ease of use that will win people over. If it's going to take me a few hours to obtain a pirate copy and get all the DLC to work, or get setup to play on a hacked server, etc.. Then i'm more likely to buy it instead.

i see what your saying, however theres a plethora of potential problems. First its hard to beat "no dvd, no activations, unlimited installs, drm installation or interference"....really hard if you were to compare.
Multiplayer can be a plus, but it is extremely game dependant...look at doom3, prey . they dont sometimes stick around long. Prey is empty btw last i checked.
PC gamers know this.

Also, Multiplayer is already an incentive, if they improve it, that costs alot of money on top of their current investment. So far, piraters dont mind the illegal servers. Many gamers just want the "main" experience, MP is oftentimes "tacked on"

DLC is always pirated as well, better game manuals...well who reads the manuals?

collectors style content.....good idea but does cost extra money and usually only the fans ever have a desire for it. often times they are novelties like Oblivion's "Coin" and story book with maps. again not bad, just kinda a risky thing when were talking about millions of dollars. not many want to pay much money just to have a fake coin or tinbox..etc.

lets say they charge $25 a pop. They now must sell 2x's as much just to be where they are at right now.
So to make it worth while, they must sell 2.5 + times as many copies...but no one can gurantee that.

for millions of dollars worth of risk...who could guarantee that more copies will be sold? Some nowadays do have much cheaper prices, I've seen a few new games for $30 range. though they are not the big ticket games.

i dont mean to shoot your ideas down. i may even be completely wrong. I really hope they find a way...something, anything. However i'm afraid the damage may already be done, PC gaming kinda has a tarnished name to it in the business industry.
Look at how your treated when you take a PC game back to Best Buy or worse when you try to sell it? No used game store will touch them. Ebay has cut throats with so many Asian based copies that its near worthless.
i used to love PC gaming, but the games are getting pretty bad on average as far as "fun" goes, i spent so much time with updates, driver swaps, drm hassles...etc that i cant take it anymore
i dont like to pirate, so to continue supporting them, i moved to console for the most part, i still enjoy a few specific PC titles here and there.

 

[Pelu]

hey dude, that sounds like a reason to buy the game, for someone who buy up games anyway, and probably got it bought in the first place, but for a pirate if is hard to make it work, they simply download another one...

By the way, what you will think about a game that in the pirate version doesnt have disk insert annoyance, DRM annoyance, Installs annoyance, and such annoyances of box-buy versions...

Oh by the way add a security system that slow down the game, and you will get bashed in the comunity of releasing a buggy game with performance problems, and get a demerit in gamespot, of buggy and technical problems LOL!!!!!

 

[Pelu]

To the ones with the numbers 4531343 if they reduce the price to 25 bucks instead of 50... they need to sell more than twice to get into the same place... is not like 25+25 = 50 and 50 is one game, it doesnt work like that....

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: way2fast91

Food for thought:

1. Didn't your parents/preschool teacher teach you to SHARE?

2. Why is it in America that someone as noble as a teacher or police officer makes $30k-$60k a year and meanwhile a pro athlete convicted of illegal drug use or adultery continues to make Millions of dollars a year to play a game?

1. Even if kids manage to grasp the concept it will shoot right out of their hearts when they hit the rather conflicting puberty/teen stage of their life. Not saying they will not "share", they just won't understand the concept of sharing for the sake of sharing, almost no one does.

2. Mindcycle pretty much said it all but I just wanted to add that just because we pay a pro athlete who's a horrible human being millions of dollars doesn't mean we have our morals in the wrong place; we are rewarding his/her skills for athleticism which are more valuable (in both terms of rarity and popularity) than generic teacher/police skills. It's the same with MJ, some might argue he is a horrible human being, but the fact remains he was an outstanding singer and dancer and there's nothing wrong with idolizing him for that.

But I digress, that has (almost) nothing to do with piracy.

Someone talked about how games are not necessary to live; I wonder, where do we draw the line about what's necessary to live? in what way? If all we wanted to do is "live" then we could live in a cave with a candle, some clothes, eat one time a day, shower once a week (or once a month even) and have someone to talk to once in a while; we could surely live like that, but would you want to live like that?

Talking about living needs is a very complex issue, sure you don't need games to "live", you also don't need to shower daily to live, so why do you do it? How would you feel if your water company limited your daily showers? What would you then do to get your daily shower? Why is there so much stigma associated with people who don't shower daily when we don't really need daily showers to "live"?

The answer is simple, humans (and other animals too) are constantly trying to improve their life quality and once we find something that makes us feel good or something that's fun and maybe even emotionally significant to you (like games can be) then it's extremely hard to separate ourselves from that. It's not an addiction (though it can become one).

It has nothing to do with some wicked or wrong sense of entitlement, it has to do with the fact that we have improved our way of life through something; with games being the something, people in third world countries can't get games as easily or as cheaply but they still want them because it makes them feel better, piracy allows them to get the games without any moral or legal repercussions (read: they don't feel guilt or remorse like they would stealing a car and in 3rd world countries pirates roam free); so they just do it. It's not because they feel entitled to the games, it's because they want it and they can get it without feeling like they are doing any harm to anyone (if they are actually doing any harm to anyone).

It's a human weakness and we all share it, imagine your water company limited you to one shower per week (with no chance of getting an upgrade) but your neighbor had unlimited; if he was out of town and asked you to water his plants everyday, you would then surely use his shower too, not because you somehow feel entitled to daily showers, just because you know the joy that daily showers bring you and you know that by using your neighbor's shower you are not hurting anyone; so you do it because you are a human being, it's inevitable.

Compensating for human weakness requires reaching a higher level of self-improvement that most people will never reach so it makes more sense to adjust society to our weakness than try to adjust our weakness to society.

Just something to think about when bringing the whole "entitlement" argument, especially when talking about third world countries.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: 4537256
i dont mean to shoot your ideas down. i may even be completely wrong. I really hope they find a way...something, anything. However i'm afraid the damage may already be done, PC gaming kinda has a tarnished name to it in the business industry.
Look at how your treated when you take a PC game back to Best Buy or worse when you try to sell it? No used game store will touch them. Ebay has cut throats with so many Asian based copies that its near worthless.
i used to love PC gaming, but the games are getting pretty bad on average as far as "fun" goes, i spent so much time with updates, driver swaps, drm hassles...etc that i cant take it anymore
i dont like to pirate, so to continue supporting them, i moved to console for the most part, i still enjoy a few specific PC titles here and there.

You are right, the damage has been done. However I think it's a perfect time for publishers to adopt new ways of dealing with piracy. I think it's the time to refrain from alienating PC gamers by treating them like potential pirates and treat them like customers again. Let the pirates pirate, since it's going to happen anyway, and focus on gaining more loyal PC customers by offering greater incentives.

While my ideas may all have potential flaws, as you pointed out, they are still incentives. The more the better IMO, and if publishers choose to go that route they will most likely come up with even better ones in the future. What will not help is creating more roadblocks.

Look at EA and what they did with the Sims 3. They added greater incentives to purchase a retail copy by giving easy access to DLC and community functions. And while it's not perfect (mainly talking about the overprices Sims 3 store garbage), it's a step in the right direction. Does it prevent piracy? Of course not. But it does help someone who may be considering playing the game to decide against a pirated version and actually but it instead.

I think the Sims 3 mentality is drastically different than what EA was telling people who considering buying Spore. With Spore, they said: "We at EA think you might be a pirate or may become a pirate in the future, so we're only going to allow you 3 installs of this game and we're going to require you to prove you're not a pirate by authenticating online".

On the other hand, Sim's 3 said: "We at EA appreciate your business, so we're going to give you easy access to many additional features that aren't found in the pirate version. We are also going to trust you aren't a pirate and won't become one so we won't limit your installs or make you authenticate online."

Even though i'm not really a Sims fan, I actually considered buying the game when I found out all that, where as with Spore I never considered purchasing it at all. So IMO, the solution is pretty clear. And while I can't fault some devs and publishers from moving to consoles (where lots of money can be made with little fear of piracy), I also don't think it's the time to just give up on the PC market either. There are still plenty of people out there, myself included, who are still more that willing to buy PC games.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
It's a human weakness and we all share it, imagine your water company limited you to one shower per week (with no chance of getting an upgrade) but your neighbor had unlimited; if he was out of town and asked you to water his plants everyday, you would then surely use his shower too, not because you somehow feel entitled to daily showers, just because you know the joy that daily showers bring you and you know that by using your neighbor's shower you are not hurting anyone; so you do it because you are a human being, it's inevitable.

Compensating for human weakness requires reaching a higher level of self-improvement that most people will never reach so it makes more sense to adjust society to our weakness than try to adjust our weakness to society.

Just something to think about when bringing the whole "entitlement" argument, especially when talking about third world countries.

That's an interesting point. It may be hard to successfully market and sell games to those in poorer countries, but IMO little effort has been make to figure out a better way. It seems that publishers would rather "cry piracy" then actually give those people an easier way of obtaining their product. You can't really complain about something you are doing nothing to help fix.

 

[4537256]

Originally posted by: Pelu
To the ones with the numbers 4531343 if they reduce the price to 25 bucks instead of 50... they need to sell more than twice to get into the same place... is not like 25+25 = 50 and 50 is one game, it doesnt work like that....

i was showing a point, not mathmatical calculations. its likely they could sell more for a cheaper price, but to double/triple, whathef*ever sales could be very risky. they dont even have solid numbers on how many pc gamers there are per genre.

 

[4537256]

Originally posted by: Pelu
To the ones with the numbers 4531343 if they reduce the price to 25 bucks instead of 50... they need to sell more than twice to get into the same place... is not like 25+25 = 50 and 50 is one game, it doesnt work like that....

i was showing a point, not mathmatical calculations. its likely they could sell more for a cheaper price, but to double/triple, whathef*ever sales could be very risky. they dont even have solid numbers on how many pc gamers there are per genre which is something that changes all the time anyway

 

[Pelu]

yeah... actually the piracy can increase the game prices... instead of reducing them for a bit more sales...