Piracy - unbelievable figures.

[Daichin]

Which is why it's called copyright infringement not copyright theft (unless you are someone from the BFI making stuff up) and why it's a civil case not criminal one (making a profit is something different and may well get you a criminal case).

Precisely. Copyright infringement isn't theft but, remember, you are still using something you should have paid for.

As for reviews, there are genuine reviews and opinions from forums like these available. I don't have a problem finding information about a game that I'm interested in and it takes me less time and saves me from helping publishers to hate the PC. I've not bought any game recently I haven't enjoyed - other than BF3, of course, which is a terrible game despite the fact no one else seems to think it is. But hey, I wouldn't have been able to pirate that and get a decent representation of the game anyway.

Easy solution to this though is that companies release proper demos on Steam. Then, everybody is happy.

 

[JediFragger]

Easy solution to this though is that companies release proper demos on Steam. Then, everybody is happy.

Agreed, easy (and early!) access to demos will cut out a LOT of piracy imo

 

[rare]

I've never not bought a game. If I can't afford it, I don't buy it. I like to support pc game developers as much as possible because I love the format and it's a terrible shame a lot of developers get put off by piracy.

 

[bhavv]

Just because the original isn't removed from the owner doesn't make it anything less than theft. Through piracy you obtain a copy of a product without paying for it.

Theft: the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

Wrong as shown a few posts later. Copyright infringement is a completely separate issue to theft. Its an easy concept to grasp, theft is actually stealing an item and depriving the original owner of that content, not borrowing a friends CD, making a copy then giving the original back.

I cant believe that all the whinging and crying that rubbish companies like EA and Activision, plus the record industry keeps on doing actually manages to convince people that copying a CD is the same thing as stealing someones car. I'd expect 12 year olds to fall for that cheap trick, but its funny that people on a computer forum can actually believe it as well.

 

[HangTime]

Random thought - I wonder what the cost of DRM is per unit on the games? I'd guess it's not excessive (probably in the £1-2 per unit range at most) but still - offer the game without the damn DRM and drop the price by the same amount.

Problem is without knowing how many units are 'produced' it is difficult to say as the vast majority of the cost will be fixed/up front.... in a game that sells over a million units the DRM cost per unit is likely measured in pence rather than pounds. DRM is primarily an R&D cost (even if outsourced) so for big AAA titles it represents a very small portion of the cost.

For smaller titles, the cost per unit will be higher and smaller titles are probably less likely to get pirated anyway (judging by these figures) so there is more of a case for small devs/publishers to do away with DRM I'd say.

Finally I'd echo Gabe's comments about distrubution, Doom 3 is probably the #1 case I can think of, one of the most anticipated titles of the millenium that came out in America more than a week ahead of the European launch I think. If you release to NA so far ahead then the Euros are going to pirate your game, and in some cases will probably have completed it before it hits the shelves. Contrast that to the modern era whereby you can preload a game online and play the moment it is released, that makes things much more convenient.

I strongly believe that convenience is one of (certainly not the only) drivers behind traditional games piracy:
+Get hold of games earlier
+No DRM
+Download without having to leave your house
+HD full of images so no need to swap CDs etc

However in the modern era things are looking much better:
-Digital distribution has reduced the number of fiascos like Doom3 mentioned above
-DRM is becoming easier to manage in the background (although lacks consistency)
-Lots of legit, easy download services springing up rather than having to fiddle about with FTP/XDCC/NZB/Torrent/HTTP etc
-Again digital distribution meaning no disks to worry about

Things are definitely moving in the right direction, the fact that Steam automatically updates games probably makes things easier for some people too, rather than having to download and install patches manually, maybe waiting for a nocd crack to appear etc.

In terms of demos, I think initiatives like Steam free weekend are good, since if you like the game and decide to buy it you don't even need to download the whole thing again, you've already got it there.

 

[Omaeka]

Whether any of these points hold any significance in their truth (admittedly they are good ones).

The fact remains that piracy is damaging the PC platform, from horrid DRM's that destroy your access to the game to companies flat out refusing to support the platform with new IP's and going to the console instead, and there may be a lot of piracy within the console market too, but the percentage is minute compared to the PC.

Watch Dog's, probably the most promising looking game to be announced in years, if it wasn't an MMO I would put money on it being a console exclusive.

I think that 90% of the people who pirate consoles do so because they are poor and couldn't afford them legally, and like Notch said about Minecraft; 'I'd rather somebody pirate my game and experience it than not bother due to money issues, at least then the game gets more exposure and more potential legitimate sales'.

Not an exact quote, but its the jist of what he said. Most pirate's on PC do it because they can and because its so easy. I do recognize though, the point that a lot people only pirate due to no demo support. I agree with that and have done it once or twice myself, developers need to do release demo's, instead of moaning about piracy and smashing games down with nazi-like DRM's, that only encourages pirates. Skidrow and Razor take a lot of pleasure in beating them in the same way us gamers take pleasure in beating a challenging game! Every Steamworks title to date has been cracked and pirated.

Some games don't deserve to be sold, pre-1.6.00 Skyrim didn't deserve to be sold on PC due to the fact it damn near refused to run on AMD machines, that is pathetic! I personally pirate any game I'm interested in that has Nvidia/Intel slapped all over it, to see how it runs, and why? Because developers bias themselves towards certain hardware and then screw the rest over! That is completely pathetic! Make your game work on everything or don't ****ing make it at all, that's as bad of a practice by developers as paying reviewers is by publishers. Both of which in the end screw over the legitimate customer, and that is what causes a fair amount of piracy, the consumer being screwed over because the developers want to bias their software to certain hardware because they are too lazy and not skilled enough to get it to run on everything. The amount of money they charge for games too, beggers belief! The only time a game will be worth its full £40 price is when they start releasing hardware specific versions, like an AMD version of Skyrim or a Nvidia, with each version stating what it can do (version 1 being optimized for AMD processors and Nvidia cards, versiosn 2 being optimized for Intel processors and AMD cards, version 3 being optimized for full AMD machines, etc etc.)

Until then, they are lazy and throw out products that screw over half of their consumers!

/rant

I am however against a few types of piracy, I'm only against those who pirate due to being thieves, who are doing a lot of damage. The ones who pirate due to no access of a demo, and the ones who do so because they are flat out broke, in my opinion don't harm the industry. I have pirated a game recently; although I won't name what it is. I have however owned it on Xbox 360 and will own it on PC when I have the money, and the amount of friends I've gotten to give it a try? I'm responsible for at least 5 sales of that game, 1 of which is my own, and the figure will rise to 6 when I have the money.

Damn that seems like a back and forth argument between two people! Maybe I am bipolar.

 

[snowdog]

There are these things on the internet, you know, sites that review games! They can give you a good idea of a game and if it is worth buying.

There are also reviews on you tube so you can see how it plays.

There are even websites like this with forums and people post what they think of games.

Can't afford a game? Wait till it comes down in price.


There is no excuse for pirating a game, no matter what you think up in your head. Companies will always just be able to use the excuse of the figures for piracy until the amount comes down because they can also say these are lost sales, no matter if you bought the game after or not. You have no right to play every game.

Hows the view from your moral high horse there ?

Reviews mean bugger all too. Some hyped PoS can be rated awesome yet still be a turd not even worth your time installing, let alone buying.

Just because the original isn't removed from the owner doesn't make it anything less than theft. Through piracy you obtain a copy of a product without paying for it.

Theft: the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

Yes it is, don't you understand the meaning of ''taking'', nothing is taken, someone is sending you a copy over.

It's the reason why downloading is still legal in Holland ( though they want to change it) but uploading is not... But who cares, in the real world everyone downloads and copies, even the ''legit'' customers who have major collections of games, films, music, etc... I know NOBODY from the real world who doesn't copy music/dvd's/games/downloads em, these people only seem to show up on forums like these... I've never ever heard someone say in person ''no man that's illegal'' if you ask for a copy on a dvd/over msn/etcetc.

It's the industries own fault for not moving with the times, since I have Spotify I barely downloaded any music any more. Main reason for piracy for me is convenience.

Forbidden sharing on a public forum like this is one thing, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen in the real world.

 

[Jimz]

Listen,

We ALL have done it so I don't want to hear people bleet and cry.

The reason why so many people download and have downloaded these games is because they game companies make it TOO EASY to crack and install.

There has to be a way how these PC games can be un-crackable because nothings ever going to change.

 

[crinkleshoes]

Everything is crackable

 

[HangTime]

I am however against a few types of piracy, I'm only against those who pirate due to being thieves, who are doing a lot of damage. The ones who pirate due to no access of a demo, and the ones who do so because they are flat out broke, in my opinion don't harm the industry.

The thing is though while understandable reasons, those aren't necessarily justifiable reasons.

1) Not being able to try before you buy is not exclusive to the gaming industry... a comprable analogy that doesn't involve the physical theft of goods might be e.g. forging a ticket to a themepark so you could try the rides because you don't know if you will like them.

2) Being broke is not an excuse for 'theft' (or copyright infringement, or whatever we want to call it). Lots of so-called 'broke' people are quite happy to spend their cash on luxuries like going out, televisions etc, if they've spent all their cash on that and don't have enough left for games, tough titties. Don't spend your last £30 on a game this month boys, blow it down the boozer and just leech the game!

Whether these things harm the industry is another issue, personally I don't think they help. People not buying games because there is no demo will still in some cases be a lost sale. Also people may not be broke forever; rather than waiting until they have the cash and buying a game, if people are just downloading and completing games, chances are they won't all buy them in future. And maybe if they couldn't get games for free they'd have spent some of their money on games instead of other luxuries.

The reason why so many people download and have downloaded these games is because they game companies make it TOO EASY to crack and install.

There has to be a way how these PC games can be un-crackable because nothings ever going to change.

Never say never but history has shown us that most games can be 'cracked' (from a user perspective - getting the game to run even if not 'cracked' from a purist perspective) eventually. Starforce was supposedly uncrackable, I think it was TOCA RD2/3 used it and it took months to get properly cracked, but it did eventually. That is probably the key, if they can get DRM that lasts for months then it probably will stop piracy hurting sales too much. So yes I agree that being easily cracked does contribute to the amount of games being downloaded - I don't think that can really be classed as a cause though, it is more of a facilitator.

Obviously with a shift towards multiplayer the online cdkey has helped quite a bit, SP games can usually be cracked but a lot tricker when it comes to multiplayer server validation.

One of the problem with anti-piracy measures in the modern age is that the internet (and development of) has opened up the floodgates in terms of:

-Lots of people have fast internet connections
-Availability of dodgy stuff has become mainstream thanks to P2P apps, torrents, widespread information about newsgroups, online file hosting sites with huge capacities etc. In the old days, you either had to know the right people (FTP), use slightly quirky stuff like XDCC, or trawl HTTP sites in the hope that one of them wasn't just trying to to trigger 999 pr0n popups.
-General widespread information
-Can't rely on physical DRM such as manual ("what is the second word is on page 15, paragraph 3, line 1?") due to being able to share that stuff online. I remember Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on the CPC had this crazy photocopy-proof red sheet thingy you had to hold up to the light!

 

[Omaeka]

The thing is though while understandable reasons, those aren't necessarily justifiable reasons.

1) Not being able to try before you buy is not exclusive to the gaming industry... a comprable analogy that doesn't involve the physical theft of goods might be e.g. forging a ticket to a themepark so you could try the rides because you don't know if you will like them.

2) Being broke is not an excuse for 'theft' (or copyright infringement, or whatever we want to call it). Lots of so-called 'broke' people are quite happy to spend their cash on luxuries like going out, televisions etc, if they've spent all their cash on that and don't have enough left for games, tough titties. Don't spend your last £30 on a game this month boys, blow it down the boozer and just leech the game!

Whether these things harm the industry is another issue, personally I don't think they help. People not buying games because there is no demo will still in some cases be a lost sale. Also people may not be broke forever; rather than waiting until they have the cash and buying a game, if people are just downloading and completing games, chances are they won't all buy them in future. And maybe if they couldn't get games for free they'd have spent some of their money on games instead of other luxuries.

What your saying is too textbook, its too black & white to really apply to reality. The reality of it is, if a game sucks, then we deserve to be able to at least play a demo to determine if we like it, the only reason companies don't is because they know that will kill the sales of their **** games, instead they make people buy it to try it despite being trash. If a game doesn't provide a demo, and is either well known to suck or well known to be horribly optimized and play like **** on the PC, then it deserves to lose sales to pirates, GTA IV for example; doesn't deserve a single sale on PC.

 

[ThunderLicker]

The reason why so many people download and have downloaded these games is because they game companies make it TOO EASY to crack and install.

There has to be a way how these PC games can be un-crackable because nothings ever going to change.

The problem is when they are trying all this different **** to stop piracy they are making their actual customers suffer for it. The pirated version is in a lot of cases the better version of the game and a lot less hassle than the bloated drm versions some publishers put out.

They are trying to stop piracy and screwing their own customers in the process and what they fail to realise is a good number of the people who pirated the game just flat out wouldn't buy it anyway.

Whether there is piracy on the pc or not the publishers still wouldn't support the platform properly because the userbase just isn't there like on consoles and they go where the money is. What they really should be focussing on is reducing costs of making the games in the first place so they don't need to sell ridiculous amounts to start with to break even.

 

[Macro]

DP delete

 

[Macro]

Are you being serious? Software piracy is in no way similar to theft. If shoplifting was so easy I still wouldnt shoplift.

Making a copy =/= stealing a car. Now if people could somehow download any actual car in the world off the internet ... I dont think theres a single person out there who wouldnt.

Would you be happy regularly forging tickets to get into a concert/cinema/theme park/theatres for free?

 

[HangTime]

If a game doesn't provide a demo, and is either well known to suck or well known to be horribly optimized and play like **** on the PC, then it deserves to lose sales to pirates, GTA IV for example; doesn't deserve a single sale on PC.

Why does it deserve to lose sales "to pirates" rather than just "lose sales"? Surely if it is well known to suck, play like **** or whatever then people shouldn't be downloading it anyway.
Nobody could take issue with people boycotting the purchase of a game that doesn't have a demo - but if they choose to play it anyway, that makes them a hypocrite.

 

[Chrisbes]

I think it's not too bad if you torrent a game to try it due to lack of a demo. It's rather annoying when console players get a demo but people who play on PC, where a demo matters most, don't.

 

[snowdog]

Would you be happy regularly forging tickets to get into a concert/cinema/theme park/theatres for free?

I have done so for a school prom/year end party once, though this has been at least 6 years ago . Too late to buy a ticket so made a ''professional'' copy with my scanner/printer a couple of hours in advance.

 

[spudbynight]

I personally don't know anyone who has pirated a game since Steam really kicked off.

 

[Neil79]

I personally don't know anyone who has pirated a game since Steam really kicked off.

You sure

 

[Omaeka]

Why does it deserve to lose sales "to pirates" rather than just "lose sales"? Surely if it is well known to suck, play like **** or whatever then people shouldn't be downloading it anyway.
Nobody could take issue with people boycotting the purchase of a game that doesn't have a demo - but if they choose to play it anyway, that makes them a hypocrite.

Just cause a game is supposed to suck, it doesn't necessarily mean it will to an individual, I was going to avoid Two Worlds on the Xbox 360 a few years back because of how badly it got slated, but it had a demo so I gave it a go and enjoyed it a lot and purchased it. If I had a PC at the time, and had the game not had a demo, how would I know if I like it? Buy it and potentially hate it, knowing I've just spent £30+ on something I cannot get a refund for? No way man, if a games supposed to be ****, I'll give it a whirl anyway, if I enjoy it I'll buy it, if its what everyone claims to be then I won't, and I'll uninstall it.

Not having a demo for your game is unacceptable ESPECIALLY on the PC platform, as there's no way to tell if you can run it or not, do you just buy the game and not be able to play it?

My PC far far outspecs the recommended specs for GTA IV yet I can't even play the piece of **** above medium, it doesn't look half as good as Xbox. Therefore GTA IV doesn't deserve my money, neither did it get it and neither did it stay on my HDD for too long.

If you disagree with that, then I don't understand you at all, are you just incredibly rich and can buy any game you feel like and just lol as you through it in the bin if it sucks? You must be or else you wouldn't carry this opinion bro.