An idea to combat the piracy of PC games.
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This^^starfox444 said:
(note to mods the following is NOT an advocation of piracy or any moral judgement on it)
Piracy has existed since the dawn of technology. EVERYTHING can be and will be reverse engineered. The only way to combat piracy is lower prices with increased availability. Piracy will always be here. forever. There is no solution, only ways to lower it's impact on the industry.
on a side note: Punishing the loyal consumer might as well be an advertisement for piracy. As I buy my games. I sure do download the crack for it. I also image all of my software I but directly to my server. I hate having to rifle for a disk or look for an image just to have it spin up for half a second.
Blizzard??? all but ONE game that they have ever made has nothing more then a CD key and that's star craft 2. So why does blizzard need help??Gindil said:This is exactly the reason why I hate Blizzard. They sure need help in this arena...
And the funny thing is, people STILL don't understand that THIS... THIS is how you compete with piracy.
Bravo, man.
This is not economical. It would ACTUALLY cost companies money, where as right now they are only losing potential sales they may or may not have had in the first place (imagined sales). There is no gain by annoying pirates and people looking for games. Legit copies usually come from private trackers and such anyways.josemlopes said:
The problems have been pointed out. Very quickly, the real ones will be "thumbed up" and commented and such, while all the fake ones will disappear. Even if you were to get developers, maybe even volunteers or conscientious gamers as well to "thumbs up" the fake ones, all one would have to do is check the comments and see hundreds of people saying "don't bother, it's fake".
However, I still think it's a good idea. Many developers (Ubisoft for one [I think]) have said that they implement DRM knowing it will be cracked eventually, for those weeks or whatever when the only way to get the game is to buy it, which may encourage some people. This would help in the same way, until the real ones rise above the rest. And this way you don't punish people who buy it. On top of that, there's people here in Australia at least with limited bandwidth. If they download a version or two that was nothing more than a 8GB waste of time or whatever then they might just cut their losses, maybe buy it instead.
Basically what I'm saying is your idea isn't that effective, but it isn't totally ineffective. Since I assume many developers on the team would be happy to carry out the scheme, it's worth a shot.
However, I still think it's a good idea. Many developers (Ubisoft for one [I think]) have said that they implement DRM knowing it will be cracked eventually, for those weeks or whatever when the only way to get the game is to buy it, which may encourage some people. This would help in the same way, until the real ones rise above the rest. And this way you don't punish people who buy it. On top of that, there's people here in Australia at least with limited bandwidth. If they download a version or two that was nothing more than a 8GB waste of time or whatever then they might just cut their losses, maybe buy it instead.
Basically what I'm saying is your idea isn't that effective, but it isn't totally ineffective. Since I assume many developers on the team would be happy to carry out the scheme, it's worth a shot.
Suing individuals for ridiculous amounts... [http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/08/17/blizzard-sues-private-wow-server-operator/1]Digitaldreamer7 said:Blizzard??? all but ONE game that they have ever made has nothing more then a CD key and that's star craft 2. So why does blizzard need help??Gindil said:This is exactly the reason why I hate Blizzard. They sure need help in this arena...
And the funny thing is, people STILL don't understand that THIS... THIS is how you compete with piracy.
Bravo, man.
Suing starcraft hackers in other countries [http://www.geekosystem.com/blizzard-sues-starcraft-ii-hackers/]
Censoring maps because they can [http://www.pcworld.com/article/202727/keep_it_in_your_head_blizzard_censoring_starcraft_ii_maps.html]
And don't get me started on why they don't include LAN but are suing people in Korea for playing their game while unauthorized...
They really need to learn about customer friendliness... Since Kotick took over, they've been getting more and more... "evil". I seriously think they'll turn into a Death Star for their 20th anniversary...
The only way to stop the minuscule damage piracy dose to PC gaming is to not sale to that platform at all, also since the 360 is more easily hacked that can go as well. The size of PS3 games will slow what minuscule damage is done. The WII is kinda less focused on so I do not see it having enough troubles to warrant not selling titles on it.
Of course if you are not offering titles for sell then you are guaranteed no profit rather than letting the market decide on what profit you make. Piracy is so tiny compared to the available market its like not wanting to bother with selling X or Y because it costs to much to ship.
Of course if you are not offering titles for sell then you are guaranteed no profit rather than letting the market decide on what profit you make. Piracy is so tiny compared to the available market its like not wanting to bother with selling X or Y because it costs to much to ship.
Gindil said:Suing individuals for ridiculous amounts... [http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/08/17/blizzard-sues-private-wow-server-operator/1]Digitaldreamer7 said:Blizzard??? all but ONE game that they have ever made has nothing more then a CD key and that's star craft 2. So why does blizzard need help??Gindil said:This is exactly the reason why I hate Blizzard. They sure need help in this arena...
And the funny thing is, people STILL don't understand that THIS... THIS is how you compete with piracy.
Bravo, man.
Suing starcraft hackers in other countries [http://www.geekosystem.com/blizzard-sues-starcraft-ii-hackers/]
Censoring maps because they can [http://www.pcworld.com/article/202727/keep_it_in_your_head_blizzard_censoring_starcraft_ii_maps.html]
And don't get me started on why they don't include LAN but are suing people in Korea for playing their game while unauthorized...
They really need to learn about customer friendliness... Since Kotick took over, they've been getting more and more... "evil". I seriously think they'll turn into a Death Star for their 20th anniversary...
Protecting one's IP and being an "evil empire" are two different things. Here's an example
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107147-Blizzard-Gives-Thumbs-Up-to-World-of-StarCraft-Mod
They contacted him and asked him to change the name then green lit his project, THEN they flew him out to blizz HQ to meet the starcraft 2 dev team and tour the place.
Suing a private server operator who is clearly doing something they shouldn't be is protecting their IP. They worked hard to make wow what it is, they dont need a bunch of knobs for mucking about making private servers.
Did you read the part in the starcraft 2 map deletion article where it said the maps had ANTI SEMITIC symbols on it?? That should be deleted and the user that created it given a ban. That shit has no place in video games.
As for the no LAN issue.... THAT's what developers are doing to combat piracy that is the least invasive. Requiring internet to play multiplayer instead of LAN sucks and it's killing the lan party but it is WAY better a deterrent then using stardock or other forms of DRM like that to try and keep people from stealing your game. I miss in game LAN as well, but, I understand why they did it.
Blizzard is one o the few good developers left who really listen to the community they make games for. Hell when they announce something, if it gets a big enough rally on the forums the devs will chat with the players and revise it to what the players want.
Game-makers should stick to making quality games. Every CD-check and DRM just makes their product inferior to the pirated one.
Additional services are the path to victory... providing a 'better' product than the pirated one.
This is easy for good Multiplayer games & MMOs - provide good servers/matchmaking/ladders, that sort of thing.
For Single-Player only games it's a little harder but can be done, leader boards, achievements, content patches, good support, Mod support/Mod browser, convince us it's worth registering online. Dragon Age did some integration with their community site, it was an interesting idea but certainly not a 'game-seller' for me.
I buy any reasonable priced game on Steam these days, as I think it's become easier than pirating.
'Lost Sales from Piracy' is vastly over exaggerated (for games, music, and movies) trying to 'reclaim' these sales is a wild goose chase.
Additional services are the path to victory... providing a 'better' product than the pirated one.
This is easy for good Multiplayer games & MMOs - provide good servers/matchmaking/ladders, that sort of thing.
For Single-Player only games it's a little harder but can be done, leader boards, achievements, content patches, good support, Mod support/Mod browser, convince us it's worth registering online. Dragon Age did some integration with their community site, it was an interesting idea but certainly not a 'game-seller' for me.
I buy any reasonable priced game on Steam these days, as I think it's become easier than pirating.
'Lost Sales from Piracy' is vastly over exaggerated (for games, music, and movies) trying to 'reclaim' these sales is a wild goose chase.
The idea of flooding networks with intentionally bad files isn't new. Back when p2p networks were all the rage for music sharing, companies did exactly that; any search turned up about 90% junk files that were nothing but ten minutes of static. However, this tactic did absolutely nothing to stop- or even slow, really- the piracy of music.