Why is Piracy the giant industry bogeyman?

[ProfJohn]

I don't think the point of DRM is to STOP pirating, but to make it harder.

As for the state of the industry, all you have to do is compare the amount of shelf space giving to PC games vs console games to see that the PC is suffering greatly right now. A lot of that has to do with the fact that so many game genres no longer exist on the PC, such as sports and racing games, and that is because the consoles provide a much better gaming experience for these types of games.

 

[StrangerGuy]

On a related note:

STOP RELEASING SO MANY DAMN GAMES during the Christmas period. Few people have the time and money to play all at the same time even if they wanted to and this also means less of the "KOTOR2-esque rushed buggy garbage" games.

 

[Visaoni]

You have to understand that developers are not the ones that are for DRM , it is the publishers. To the publishers it is a business , they don't care how fun the game is or what the game is about or even what system runs the game, all they care about is will it sell.

Think of the publisher as a bank because really that is all they are. They make a loan and expect the game sales to pay that back + interest. Most publishers have share holders. If share holders see reports that a game was pirated they complain to the publisher asking what they are doing to stop it. The share holders are just like other investors, all they care about is a return on their investment. If the publisher did not include DRM then the share holders could say they were negligent pointing to downloaded copies. With DRM the publishers can tell the share holders, we did try to stop it.

A publisher shipping a game with no protection would be like a bank explaining how they were robbed and they had no cameras, guards, alarms.

I figured that would come up. I used the term developers broadly to mean anybody involved in the finished product.

At any rate, what do you think shareholders would rather hear? That x amount of money was spent on DRM that went uncracked for say, a week tops, or that overall the game posted more profits because of a well-received launch and because that $x went to improving the game, boosting both launch sales and the overall longevity of the game?

At the bottom line, shareholders wish to make a profit. As long as they see increased profits, they don't really care if DRM was or was not added to the game.


Also, that is a rather flawed analogy. Cameras, vaults, security guards, and alarms have proven incredibly effective in reducing bank robbery. Nor do they inconvenience the customers that don't intend to rob the place. DRM would be more akin to banks requiring all customers to submit to having a gps-tracking device attached to their bodies. The tracking device wouldn't terribly difficult to remove, but to do so would be illegal. Perhaps even a little painful, just to drive home the point that it hurts legitimate customers more than criminals.

I don't think the point of DRM is to STOP pirating, but to make it harder.

Pirating games is not terribly hard. The people that do it do so because they enjoy the challenge of reverse engineering, as well as the sort of notoriety of comes with attaching ones online name to a pirated version. Everybody else just has to copy a cracked file. DRM is a worthless endeavor unless it can get to the point where it does not hinder legitimate users, and actually increases profits for the developers.

 

[shortylickens]

On a related note:

STOP RELEASING SO MANY DAMN GAMES during the Christmas period. Few people have the time and money to play all at the same time even if they wanted to and this also means less of the "KOTOR2-esque rushed buggy garbage" games.

They dont care if you play it or not. They just care if you buy it.
Interestingly, people do buy assloads of games right before Christmas. I find it unlikely they will change a winning strategy.

Me? Fuck em all. I'm only waiting on Deus Ex 3 and thats it.

 

[videogames101]

A company saying they use DRM to prevent piracy is like saying the United States uses a musket as a nuclear war deterrent.

 

[Modelworks]

At any rate, what do you think shareholders would rather hear? That x amount of money was spent on DRM that went uncracked for say, a week tops?

It has been shown that delaying a games pirating by just a few days can increase sales by large amounts. Shareholders often don't even know what game a company is selling, just that they are in that business.

Also, that is a rather flawed analogy. Cameras, vaults, security guards, and alarms have proven incredibly effective in reducing bank robbery.

The point was they have to do something. If they do not then they can be sued by the shareholders. A public company is required to do everything reasonable to protect the shareholders. If they released the product protection free the shareholders could charge the company with willful negligence. As long as they have some form of DRM that is fairly current they can say they did their part. The same is true for banks, nothing they have done stops robbery, it merely makes it harder.

Pirating games is not terribly hard. The people that do it do so because they enjoy the challenge of reverse engineering, as well as the sort of notoriety of comes with attaching ones online name to a pirated version. Everybody else just has to copy a cracked file. DRM is a worthless endeavor unless it can get to the point where it does not hinder legitimate users, and actually increases profits for the developers.

I started cracking software back in the early 80's with things like disc lock. The thing is the older guys like me have been replaced by a newer generation that has different morals. In the old days we NEVER would have released something to the public, it would have been kept under wraps with a select few. Now it is a contest to see who can do it the fastest without any respect to the developer . It disgust me really because these same people providing cracks would bitch and moan if someone stole something from them but have no problem doing it to someone else.

DRM that would be required isn't going to happen with gaming. The purchase price for the software is too low to worry with working protection. And there are some VERY tough protection methods that would work to stop copying but the cost is too high to implement on a $50 title.

Some examples are dongle based protections. Cubase took over a year to crack with about 40 people working on it . But the dongle would cost about $30 in 1000/qty so making a game cost $80 because of DRM would only piss off gamers.

DLL encoded hardware is another way to protect. It uses encrypted smart cards. It essentially places files that are needed to run the software in a MCU. The MCU contains fram that stores the parts of the program needed for the software to work. It is like taking dll files a game needs and placing those on a flash drive that you cannot read. When the software runs and calls the dll only the calls are received by the MCU and it replies back with the instructions it processed. This is about 99.9% piracy proof. The MCU cannot be downloaded once programmed and the only way to get the code would be to slice the chip under a electron microscope. But again this hardware would add about $20 to the cost of each game and require people to keep up with the card as well as have a smartcard reader on the pc.

The cost to publishers for current methods like securom is less than $1 a copy.

There are plenty of other ways but none of them are cost effective for games.

 

[Cogman]

*edit* Disreguard that..

An MCU would work to stop or significantly slow piracy as they only way to really combat it is to completely duplicate the functions that it is performing. If you do some significantly intense calculations with the MCU, then that would effectively make it impossible to replicate in software.

 

[BladeVenom]

It has been shown that delaying a games pirating by just a few days can increase sales by large amounts. Shareholders often don't even know what game a company is selling, just that they are in that business.

Where's the proof? The only people I hear making that claim are selling DRM. Spore had tough DRM and it sold below expectations? GTA4 on the PC had plenty of DRM, did it sell anywhere near as well as the console version? Starforce was the toughest to crack, but games using didn't appear to sell any better, possibly they sold worse. Crysis Warhead had tougher DRM than Crysis, did it sell a lot more?

 

[kalrith]

Not a really fair comparison. Second hand market or rental market doesn't involve illegal and unethical means of getting a game for free.

As was pointed out in this thread, PC games are pretty cheap overall. That's why I say there is no excuse for piracy with these. People talk about how games should only be $10 or something but it's just no realistic. They are cheaper than console games and cheaper compared to most other entertainment. Also I find it ridiculous when I see a forum post of a guy talking about a game he pirated it because it was expensive or he was poor, but in his sig is a top of the line computer.

I don't think it's a fair comparison for piracy, but it is a fair comparison for DRM. I can buy a console version of the game and play it with no problems for the next 15 years. I can at any time sell it or loan it to someone else, and it will work just fine on there system. According to the producers, I don't get rights to an actual PC game but just rights to a license of that game, and they get to decide those rights. If I upgrade my computer a little too often or loan the game to a friend for a while (and not even have it installed on my computer), my license rights might expire causing me to purchase the game again and again.

For example, I've probably installed Diablo 2 at least 10 times. It would really suck if the game had DRM that limited it to 3 installations. That would mean that I would've bought Diablo 2 4 times already, which is something that someone would never have to do on a console unless they ruined or lost the physical media.

 

[exar333]

I don't think it's a fair comparison for piracy, but it is a fair comparison for DRM. I can buy a console version of the game and play it with no problems for the next 15 years. I can at any time sell it or loan it to someone else, and it will work just fine on there system. According to the producers, I don't get rights to an actual PC game but just rights to a license of that game, and they get to decide those rights. If I upgrade my computer a little too often or loan the game to a friend for a while (and not even have it installed on my computer), my license rights might expire causing me to purchase the game again and again.

For example, I've probably installed Diablo 2 at least 10 times. It would really suck if the game had DRM that limited it to 3 installations. That would mean that I would've bought Diablo 2 4 times already, which is something that someone would never have to do on a console unless they ruined or lost the physical media.

+1.

Don't forget that the console game you bought could be played on any number of consoles too. You could play it on your current system, replace the system if it broke, and keep playing. You could loan it to a friend, let them play it, and then keep playing once you get it back. PC gaming used to be like that too.

 

[skace]

Publishers are not going to give up on DRM just because it has failed in the past. It isn't a set in stone object, it is continually being refined, and if you think it is going anywhere then you are mistaken.

Sites like GOG and Impulse, while often praised only exist because they are the minority. If games without DRM became the status quo, the guilt behind warezing them would soon vanish and we would be back to the early 90s. It is just like musicians who release their music on the web for free or on a donation base. It's an awesome social experiment, but if everyone were to do it, the donations would quickly dry up.

Also, DRM does not fail simply because the game can still be warezed. If it makes it difficult to pirate on a CD, or difficult to get 0day, or hard to patch, all of these things are small successes in the grand scheme.

The reality is that we all have BT trackers to thank for the current blame game. I'm sure developers and publishers alike have known about piracy just as long as you or I, however having a site that logs statistics on just how large this # is, allowing them to compare these #s to their own sale #s, is what caused a lot of alarm. When piracy # is a multiple of the sales #, it becomes a cause for concern.

 

[Regs]

The DRM to prevent resale has been struck down in court. The whole idea of being able to license software and that you don't own it was over ruled a few months ago in court when someone wanted to resell autodesk software they had bought and the policy with autodesk has been you can only buy new copies or upgrade old copies and can never resale. The courts decided that was wrong and forced autodesk to allow resale of purchased copies.

That case wasn't exactly clear cut. There seems to be a large discrepancy in judgments and contradictory cases that cover transfer of ownership and licenses. Judge Jones himself made clear that the issue was "swamplike in its murkiness". The Ninth Circuit, whose jurisdiction Jones is under, has issued various (and contradictory) ways of thinking about the difference between a "transfer of ownership" and a "mere license." Reconciling the competing precedents are proving to be difficult in court.

 

[BassBomb]

piracy is the perfect scapegoat to tell everyone about how your game failed

rather than pointing out how your game was a piece of s hit

 

[JoshGuru7]

It has been shown that delaying a games pirating by just a few days can increase sales by large amounts.

In spite of how often this point is brought up I have yet to see any convincing proof on it. It would certainly run counter to my experiences.

Consider how often you hear the following statements, relatively, when talking to contacts when they are candid about piracy:
1) That game looks like a must have and I'm going to be buying it as soon as it comes out.
2) That game looks like a must have and I'm going to pirate it if possible, but otherwise pay full price for it.
3) I have a bunch of games in my queue already so maybe I'll pick it up down the road in a steam deal or when prices have fallen to $20.
4) I'm not really interested in that game but might eventually play it if I get it super cheaply or run across a torrent posted.

For an 8/10 game I would peg the distribution of people I know at (10%, 0%, 50%, 40%) and I would be surprised if anybody had much different experiences. Many of my online friends were acquired through MMO gaming and as such are not necessarily representative of the larger population. However, they are representative of the population that publishers should be targetting (gamers who have revealed a willingness to pay upfront and monthly fees).

I think the real value of DRM is not preventing day 1 piracy like the publishers employing DRM insist, but rather trying to capture more of the "super cheap" market for the publishers by restricting resales.

 

[BenSkywalker]

PC gaming still makes up a majority of gaming revenue

Not quite-

http://investor.activision.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1104659-09-63352

Page 18. So far this year the consoles have brought in ~$300 million more for Activision/Blizzard then all of their PC operations- and that includes WoW. Excluding WoW the gap is $1.2Billion. That is the most successful PC publishing house in the world, and the third biggest console publisher. I'm sure when you add up the revenue from Pogo/Yahoo games or whatever other sources it helps PC gaming out enormously, but for core gamers and boxed retail/Steam products the PC is close to dead outside of the MMO market. The numbers are in the link above, the largest PC publisher in the world is making ten times the revenue on boxed game sales for the consoles versus the PC. In terms of raw margins, WoW is the best thing going in all of gaming, but when talking about the rate of sales and publishers making PC games when you look at the typical titles the consoles utterly obliterate what PC gamers are spending on games.

If you look at PCGA's numbers, a propaganda/PR group, using their numbers PCs are currently selling one new $50 game for every $250 worth of hardware sold. Those numbers more then anything speak to the level of piracy running rampant in the market unfortunately. How may people are going to spend $250 on PC hardware to play one game? The amount is miniscule, and no that doesn't include the hardcore gamer who pays $500 for upgrades to play Crysis better, that is $250 in gaming hardware for each and every $50 game sold.

There are a lot of different ways to look at the market and try and figure out piracy rates, the sales of gaming hardware versus software sales is a very good metric to get a rough idea. By way of comparison, the 360 is selling ~$500 worth of software for every $300 sold in hardware in the US, and that is a platform that also has a 'large' piracy problem.

 

[mindcycle]

A company saying they use DRM to prevent piracy is like saying the United States uses a musket as a nuclear war deterrent.

I Agree. LOL

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

If you look at PCGA's numbers, a propaganda/PR group, using their numbers PCs are currently selling one new $50 game for every $250 worth of hardware sold. Those numbers more then anything speak to the level of piracy running rampant in the market unfortunately. How may people are going to spend $250 on PC hardware to play one game? The amount is miniscule, and no that doesn't include the hardcore gamer who pays $500 for upgrades to play Crysis better, that is $250 in gaming hardware for each and every $50 game sold.

That doesn't really say much of anything. How much of that 250$ is 300-500 dollar (or even 1500 if they're dumb enough) computers bought by people who don't game or by companies that block it? Outside of 2 or 3 games I play regularly, all the others combined are just a statistical anomily, and I recently spent 1100 on a computer.

 

[lifeobry]

Console gamers will buy the the most random games @ $60 a pop. You can't compete with that kind of buying power.

Majority of PC gamers pirate anything they can. WoW that is impossible to pirate? Well then they pay for that.

Only way to resuscitate PC gaming IMO is to make piracy extremely difficult. Not by system invading DRM but more like Steam or some other online verification system. Sales numbers would go up if piracy isn't as easy as clicking a file and running it.

 

[BenSkywalker]

How much of that 250$ is 300-500 dollar (or even 1500 if they're dumb enough) computers bought by people who don't game or by companies that block it?

You know a lot of people who buy 9800GTs who don't game? Given, I'm not sure of the exacting criteria used, but it is the PCGA, the PC's gaming advocacy group, that is posting those numbers.

Outside of 2 or 3 games I play regularly, all the others combined are just a statistical anomily, and I recently spent 1100 on a computer.

So you play 2 or 3 games, that is a lot like a lot of other PC gamers. When console gamers buy 10, and there are more of them that pay for their games, where are the publishers going to focus their efforts?

Console gamers will buy the the most random games @ $60 a pop.

Not really. Good games tend to sell very well, bad games tank just like their PC counterparts. If you take a look at the best selling PC and console games, outside of platform exclusives you will see they are pretty much all the same games, the diffence is just that the consoles sell a hell of a lot more copies.

Sales numbers would go up if piracy isn't as easy as clicking a file and running it.

I absolutely agree and think anyone who doesn't isn't being honest with themselves. No, not every game that is being pirated would translate into a sale, but at the very least some of them would. How many that 'some' is, is what leads to these types of conversations

 

[mindcycle]

Majority of PC gamers pirate anything they can. WoW that is impossible to pirate? Well then they pay for that.

You can still pirate WoW. You just won't be able to play on the blizzard servers which is the huge advantage of paying for the real thing. I don't personally play the game but i've heard the pirate servers are dodgy at best.

Only way to resuscitate PC gaming IMO is to make piracy extremely difficult. Not by system invading DRM but more like Steam or some other online verification system. Sales numbers would go up if piracy isn't as easy as clicking a file and running it.

That's actually wrong. Steam is system based DRM with online elements. It's actually one of the most overly aggressive forms of DRM IMO. All of your games are locked to your account. If your account is terminated for whatever reason you lose access to everything. Many games have their own DRM on top of steam DRM. Plus, you can never resell a game that uses steam DRM.

IMO, the solution to piracy is to offer greater incentives to purchase games. WoW offers dedicated servers and access to a large user community. That alone offers gamers a greater incentive to purchase the game. Games from Stardock are DRM free and sell very well given the extra incentives a purchase provides you (plus the fact you don't have to deal with DRM). Mainly access to dedicated servers, user support, quick access to updates, etc..

The solution is clear. Greater incentives to purchase games, not more roadblocks.

 

[lord_emperor]

Yes, they do, they have plenty of reasons for DRM other then piracy.

1. Resellability. If you can only install the game x times before it doesn't allow another install, all the sudden buying a game on Ebay isn't such a great idea, after all, who wants a game that they can't install? This makes it so people HAVE to buy from the manufacturer (What they want).

2. You can force people to buy more then one copy of the software. You want to update your PC? Too bad, you need a new copy of the software. Your junking your old pc? Too bad, you need a new copy of the software. This is great news for the game producers, because, again, it creates an artificial need for a legitimate user to buy more then one copy of their software.

3. It give the producers more control then they should have. You didn't participate on our forums the way we liked? Well, your game no longer works, you'll have to buy a new one if you want to play.

What DRM DOESN'T do is stop piracy. I have yet to see a DRM system that pirates haven't broken.

Piracy is an issue, but DRMs are not the answer. They are there because big media companies want an excuse to use them.

Could not have said this better myself.

CD keys are completely adequate and fair to the consumer.

- Prevents distribution of legit copies because only one person can play at a time.

- Provides a way to suspend or ban a player in case of cheating or harassment.

- Maintains the consumer's right to resell, as he can sell the media + CD key.

- Provides convenience tot he consumer, he can install on as many machines as he wants but only play (multiplayer) on one at a time.

 

[lord_emperor]

You can still pirate WoW. You just won't be able to play on the blizzard servers which is the huge advantage of paying for the real thing. I don't personally play the game but i've heard the pirate servers are dodgy at best.

The quality on private servers is now quite high, and they keep up with the latest patches well.

The problem is there is no community built upon them, if you look around you can find more private servers than Blizzard servers with almost no one playing on any given one.

<-- Paying WoW subscriber.

 

[BassBomb]

Could not have said this better myself.

CD keys are completely adequate and fair to the consumer.

- Prevents distribution of legit copies because only one person can play at a time.

- Provides a way to suspend or ban a player in case of cheating or harassment.

- Maintains the consumer's right to resell, as he can sell the media + CD key.

- Provides convenience tot he consumer, he can install on as many machines as he wants but only play (multiplayer) on one at a time.

That is only true for online games, or people playing multiplayer together on LAN.
You can be playing many instances of a game (if they dont have a CD check)

 

[dguy6789]

PC games in general are so dodgy. If it's not one problem, it's ALWAYS something else.

The installer could be junk. It could install tons of 3rd party junk the game needs to run for some reason or another. There could be a serious lack of options in regards to start menu and desktop icon options. The game might put files into numerous folders not in the main game directory. The uninstaller is almost always junk. Far more often than not, when you uninstall a game, it leaves behind the game folder and or registry entries. I've seen games install 3rd party programs without mentioning them anywhere in the installer nor making start menu or desktop folders or icons for them, and when you go to uninstall the game, it uninstalls the game but leaves behind these programs that came with the game. To make matters worse, these 3rd party programs can have processes that run when you start up your computer and take up memory at all times that do not show up in the system tray.

Various games(even new ones) have silly problems like not properly supporting wide screen or not allowing you to rebind your keys. Really bad looking games could have horrible load times or run really poorly on very high end hardware. Some games are just really glitchy. Patch 1.4 of Farcry makes it to where your mouse does not work in game without doing some post patch INI file editing. What kind of nonsense is that? Some games are just inherently unstable and will crash on any and all PC configurations even if they are patched to the latest version.

There could be any number of DRM types. A game might tell you that you can only install it three times and then you will need to buy a new game. A game might tell you it won't let you play it just because you have Alcohol 120&#37; or Nero installed on your PC. It might install a kind of DRM that has a process running at all times from bootup even without the game running.

As for console games, they always just work. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to game on consoles as well. The same $300 console you buy at launch will play the latest and greatest games coming out 5 years later.

 

[nitromullet]

Bingo.
And in my opinion the poor sales are mostly caused by stupid console gamers who reliably pay 60 bucks for crappy titles. PC gamers dont normally put up with that shit.

Why does it always come down to "stupid console gamers" when there is a problem with PC gaming?

Sometimes buying the console version of a cross platform title makes sense IMO. I tend to buy the console version when I don't think the game has a whole lot of replay value because I can sell/trade the game when I'm done with it.

For me $60 - $25 trade in is "smarter" than $50 for a game I'll never play again. Of course, this doesn't take into account sale pricing, but you can find games for PC and consoles at decent discounts.

The other time I buy the console version is when the console is clearly the lead platform. This is the case with MW2. IW clearly is targeting the 360 as the lead platform, so I'm got it on the 360. I'm enjoying the game on the 360, and I'll leave the boycott and whining to the PC gamers on this one. Granted, I'm not in a clan and don't care about dedicated servers. If I did, I would probably just not buy the game at all.