DRM, Censorship, you brought it on yourselves.
- Thread starter Lord Krunk
- Start date
Recommended Videos
The easiest and perfectly legal option is to buy the game used at GameStop (no, don't stop reading, hear me out.)
Play it for a while and decide if it's shit or not. If it IS shit, take it back and get a full refund. It's even cheaper than renting, and there will always be at least a few used copies floating around mere days after any game comes out. For some reason people buy it and then immediately sell it.
Play it for a while and decide if it's shit or not. If it IS shit, take it back and get a full refund. It's even cheaper than renting, and there will always be at least a few used copies floating around mere days after any game comes out. For some reason people buy it and then immediately sell it.
If you own a radio you pay for a radio license, however if you own a TV chances are you pay a TV license. The cost of your Radio license is included in this...Tenmar said:
"So, to return to my title statement; DRM and Censorship, you brought it on yourselves."
TC you're just.....*fill in the blank*
1. pirates are going to DESTROY the gaming industry. you sound a lot like those apocalyptic weirdos who think the world is going to end in 2012. Do you find it interesting that in this bad economy right now, the gaming industry is doing WELL compared to the others (gasp)?
2. You're so incredibly self-righteous. DRM HURTS legitimate users, while leaving pirates unscathed. I especially love the Mass effect ordeal, when legitimate buyers (like myself) needed to GET A PIRATE-PATCH to make my game work. great logic there buddy, it's all OUR fault
TC you're just.....*fill in the blank*
1. pirates are going to DESTROY the gaming industry. you sound a lot like those apocalyptic weirdos who think the world is going to end in 2012. Do you find it interesting that in this bad economy right now, the gaming industry is doing WELL compared to the others (gasp)?
2. You're so incredibly self-righteous. DRM HURTS legitimate users, while leaving pirates unscathed. I especially love the Mass effect ordeal, when legitimate buyers (like myself) needed to GET A PIRATE-PATCH to make my game work. great logic there buddy, it's all OUR fault
Don't say "drugs" as an umbrella term. Smoking pot or even taking acid or mushrooms is very, very different from shooting up heroin or cooking yourself some meth.cball11 said:
Not all drugs are the same thing. That's just what the powers that be would like for us all to believe.
I am a software developer myself and a strong proponent for outright digital theft in today's climate. Don't get me wrong, I think developers and IP owners/creators should be reasonably compensated and that promotion/marketing/lawyering are a necessary evil. It's the larger infrastructure, monopoly, and unabashed greed I disagree with. The reason I pirate/crack, and I think the prime driving force for piracy today is the inordinate pricing of IP despite what should be severe mitigating factors.
The industries have moved from slow/expensive magnetic disks and tapes to mostly plastic disks with no moving parts and nearly instant duplication; not to mention digital distribution which is essentially free. So ...you used to make huge tapes, wind it around a spindle, attach it to another spindle, seal it in a cartridge with at least 3 moving parts, silk-screened it, inserted into a hard case with more printed media, loaded it onto a truck and delivered it to a brick-and-mortar who added significant overhead to cover their operating costs and their liability for underselling the product. ...and now you deliver it with as little effort as those emails that promise to make my junk bigger ...and it costs more money.
Also, the market share has exploded. Developers aren't slaving away for 200 graphic design professionals or financial analysts who might or might not want their software. They are developing for a huge community of users, you are buying one millionth of one developers/creators time. If an artist produced five million prints, exactly how much are those prints worth? At what point does the reward so far outstrip the effort that we take notice? I guess that is a bigger issue than software/IP, but can we seriously say as a nation that "Oops I did it again" was worth one hundred and fifty million dollars? The industries want me to feel guilty for "stealing" ten dollars from someone who squandered over 60 million dollars of her net worth before she was 30? I just don't believe it is fair to rent digital information for recreational use at ten dollars a pop. I'd say purchasing, but I don't consider it ownership unless I can take it to a pawn shop and use it to buy back grandma's wheelchair. *insert miscellaneous fair-use rant here*
Also, more specifically within the gaming industry, tool-sets have improved dramatically. Developers aren't working from scratch, most all software leverages modern technology and methodologies. Quake and Cry Engines aside, even the low-level APIs and IDEs are easier than ever. You don't have to build and debug your own clipping routines to publish a shoot-em-up.
I think piracy could be cut to a minimum if reasonable, transparent business practices were put in place. I have and would pay 10c for a song, I think most people would, it just doesn't sit right giving apple 35% for their veritable musical monopoly and producers 55% for ...uhm producing.
The industries have moved from slow/expensive magnetic disks and tapes to mostly plastic disks with no moving parts and nearly instant duplication; not to mention digital distribution which is essentially free. So ...you used to make huge tapes, wind it around a spindle, attach it to another spindle, seal it in a cartridge with at least 3 moving parts, silk-screened it, inserted into a hard case with more printed media, loaded it onto a truck and delivered it to a brick-and-mortar who added significant overhead to cover their operating costs and their liability for underselling the product. ...and now you deliver it with as little effort as those emails that promise to make my junk bigger ...and it costs more money.
Also, the market share has exploded. Developers aren't slaving away for 200 graphic design professionals or financial analysts who might or might not want their software. They are developing for a huge community of users, you are buying one millionth of one developers/creators time. If an artist produced five million prints, exactly how much are those prints worth? At what point does the reward so far outstrip the effort that we take notice? I guess that is a bigger issue than software/IP, but can we seriously say as a nation that "Oops I did it again" was worth one hundred and fifty million dollars? The industries want me to feel guilty for "stealing" ten dollars from someone who squandered over 60 million dollars of her net worth before she was 30? I just don't believe it is fair to rent digital information for recreational use at ten dollars a pop. I'd say purchasing, but I don't consider it ownership unless I can take it to a pawn shop and use it to buy back grandma's wheelchair. *insert miscellaneous fair-use rant here*
Also, more specifically within the gaming industry, tool-sets have improved dramatically. Developers aren't working from scratch, most all software leverages modern technology and methodologies. Quake and Cry Engines aside, even the low-level APIs and IDEs are easier than ever. You don't have to build and debug your own clipping routines to publish a shoot-em-up.
I think piracy could be cut to a minimum if reasonable, transparent business practices were put in place. I have and would pay 10c for a song, I think most people would, it just doesn't sit right giving apple 35% for their veritable musical monopoly and producers 55% for ...uhm producing.
OUTSTANDING post. seriously i mean that.Metal Genesis said:
you sound like a communist though.
people have a right to charge what ever they like for their product. the fact that they overcharge is not an excuse to steal from them. the proper moral/ethical way to fix this problem is to not buy from them and watch them go out of business. the next guy will get the idea and lower prices or do something different.
i cant say i disagree with anything you said though, but i do think, 'what if it was MY work being pirated' im certian id feel quite differently about the subject, then again i wouldnt be asshole enough to think that i needed to make a bazillion dollers for 20 minuts worth of work. hell sometimes i even mow my neighbors lawn for free when the mood strikes me. unheard of i know, this novel idea of not getting paid for every single thing you do.
it seems like sometimes all measure of decient humanity is killed on the alter of the allmighty god called 'business', and that pure greed, something that would be ugly and tastless in real people we deal with face to face is shruged of as 'just business' when you dont look your customers in the eye.
DRMs and the major publishing houses' BS monopoly on the art is whats killing the games industry, not piracy.
piracy is not the problem in the state of affairs, it's the result.
when demand goes down, the prices must as well. if people aren't buying your product, yet it is clear they WANT your product, making the product less accessible to them is probably one of the dumbest commercial choices you can make.
i am fairly confident a financially sizable chunk of consumers chose to pirate spore on release day purely because of the unfair DRMs and limited number of installs. you can pay 50 bucks for a copy of the software that the publishers have F*ed with, or pay nothing to experience the game just as the developers intended.
i dont know how many of you know of the band radiohead, but they did something last year that gave me alot of hope for the entertainment media industry, radiohead decided to sell their newest album over their website and let the consumer choose the price. if you wanted, you could get it for free, straight from the source. however, the average people payed was about seven dollars usd. radiohead did very well off of that album, and it proved a point that theres still plenty of money in the industry, especially for the artist themselves.
to my knowledge the pay what you want approach has not been taken with game sales, but some really great things have happened to the gaming industry lately, things that will very well keep gaming's head above the water. the most beneficial of these things, in my opinion, is the electronic distribution service run by valve corporation, called STEAM. steam is alot like an itunes for video games. you can buy and download games from their network, and enjoy them at your leisure. however, the analogy ends there.
a far cry from itunes' unfair pricing and system-limits, steam embodies the perfect example of a working, profitable digital distribution network. once you buy a product on steam, you own permanent rights to it's use. once you have it, its yours. you can play it on as many computers as you want (provided you have internet for the initial local install and you are logged into your account on the steam client), and when you decide to uninstall it, or buy a new computer, you can get your (digital) copy back from steam whenever you want, and reinstall it as much as youd like.
of course, some titles on steam still contain minor DRM's due to legal issues with the publisher.
unsurprisingly, those titles don't do as well. (however they still do better than at retail)
to sum things up, the entertainment industry is changing. it's going to be much easier for developers to make money if they cut out the middle-men (publishers, and retailers as well to an extent), and digital distribution will not disrupt the link between the artist and the audience. i believe, in the coming years this change will be inevitable. the video game publishers, the major music labels, will become obsolete and vestigial. internet and independent distribution will, in my opinion, spark a new era in the industry once they have taken root.
more games will sell, the developers will make more money, the developers will make better games, there will be more games to play, the art won't be monopolized.
just say goodbye to EA.
of course, all of this is moot if net neutrality is compromised, but that's another issue altogether.
piracy is not the problem in the state of affairs, it's the result.
when demand goes down, the prices must as well. if people aren't buying your product, yet it is clear they WANT your product, making the product less accessible to them is probably one of the dumbest commercial choices you can make.
i am fairly confident a financially sizable chunk of consumers chose to pirate spore on release day purely because of the unfair DRMs and limited number of installs. you can pay 50 bucks for a copy of the software that the publishers have F*ed with, or pay nothing to experience the game just as the developers intended.
i dont know how many of you know of the band radiohead, but they did something last year that gave me alot of hope for the entertainment media industry, radiohead decided to sell their newest album over their website and let the consumer choose the price. if you wanted, you could get it for free, straight from the source. however, the average people payed was about seven dollars usd. radiohead did very well off of that album, and it proved a point that theres still plenty of money in the industry, especially for the artist themselves.
to my knowledge the pay what you want approach has not been taken with game sales, but some really great things have happened to the gaming industry lately, things that will very well keep gaming's head above the water. the most beneficial of these things, in my opinion, is the electronic distribution service run by valve corporation, called STEAM. steam is alot like an itunes for video games. you can buy and download games from their network, and enjoy them at your leisure. however, the analogy ends there.
a far cry from itunes' unfair pricing and system-limits, steam embodies the perfect example of a working, profitable digital distribution network. once you buy a product on steam, you own permanent rights to it's use. once you have it, its yours. you can play it on as many computers as you want (provided you have internet for the initial local install and you are logged into your account on the steam client), and when you decide to uninstall it, or buy a new computer, you can get your (digital) copy back from steam whenever you want, and reinstall it as much as youd like.
of course, some titles on steam still contain minor DRM's due to legal issues with the publisher.
unsurprisingly, those titles don't do as well. (however they still do better than at retail)
to sum things up, the entertainment industry is changing. it's going to be much easier for developers to make money if they cut out the middle-men (publishers, and retailers as well to an extent), and digital distribution will not disrupt the link between the artist and the audience. i believe, in the coming years this change will be inevitable. the video game publishers, the major music labels, will become obsolete and vestigial. internet and independent distribution will, in my opinion, spark a new era in the industry once they have taken root.
more games will sell, the developers will make more money, the developers will make better games, there will be more games to play, the art won't be monopolized.
just say goodbye to EA.
of course, all of this is moot if net neutrality is compromised, but that's another issue altogether.
Your post does make some sense, but it doesn't really justify pirating the game. Being a dev yourself, you should know this.Metal Genesis said:
Believe me, if there was an option where all proceeds were going to the developers, I would choose that one.
Oh, and welcome to the Escapist!
The issue for me is that the vast majority of people (or so I've been told over and over again) who pirate games, wouldn't have bought the game they are pirating in the first place. I know for a fact that everything I pirate, I wasn't going to spend my hard-earned money on anyway. After I'm done with said software, I promptly delete it. Tell me, if I would have never bought the game in the first place, how am I making developers lose money. If I buy a crappy game and end up hating it, it will likely make me stop buying any game from that developer in the future. So if I bought a game that I thought about pirating and I end up hating it, the developers would actually lose all prospects of making any money off of me in the future.
I don't like piracy, especialy when someone is pirating an indie game, like a big company still isn't good but is slightly easier to justify but making some poor guy who made an entire game by himself lose all his money is just downright mean.
What's wrong with being a communist? Hell, your whole post seems to complain about how horrible capitalism and it's neighbour greed is.Wyatt said:
And yes, you are correct, in theory. The "right" thing to do is to avoid purchasing the goods of said developer/publisher. But it's not that easy. Gamers are the laziest bunch of people out there. You'll never get all gamers to go along with something like that. If just you and your friends stop buying games from EA, they're not going to notice it, since there are so many people that still buy the games.
See, since most publishers do use these techniques, and according to me, every company out there that I've found except Taleworlds, Wolfire and Soldak (all three indie developers) overcharge for their games, gamers wouldn't be able to play anything if they tried. Since they want to play, and won't organise as a whole group, the industry is going to be able to keep it up. It's capitalism. It only works if someone on the market is big enough to be competition, and still is led by nice people. Something that doesn't happen very often.
I also suspect you exaggerate the amount of money recieved per work hour. There is a lot of work put into a game. Sure, it's not as complicated as used to be, like Metal genesis describes but he misses some points. If you put the work you used to do into a game today, you would sell a single game. Every model needs more detail than practically the whole world in an older game, the textures, normal maps, alpha channels, animations, dialogue, hit boxes.
A lot of work goes into a game, a lot of people work on it, they all need to be paid, enough to clothe and feed themselves and their families. A game is in development for a long time. The sales have to cover that whole time, and the time until a new game is released, since that's their only revenue. It takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of money to make things work.
The problem is of course how profit is calculated these days. Profit isn't how much money you make minus the money you lose. It's your profit this year, minus your profit last year. You could make millions of dollars, and still "lose out". Another little flaw of capitalism, I might add. But as long as that's the general practice, the gaming industry is always going to be dying, and it's always going to be the fault of pirates, and paying customers, and even more importantly, the regular workers, are going to be the ones to pay.
first EA HAS noticed that their customers dont like being fucked and it didnt require any mor organization that a few very public campaigns on places like Amazon to let people know how they were being screwed with the DRM so thats that. check any games sight or any economic sight for the massive kick in the teeth EA has taken in the last year.Silver said:
second though i mostly agree that an economic system driven by pure greed (such as the one here in America is) is bad, im very leary of letting the government (the only bodys large and powerful enough to FORCE business to comply with rules) decide how much profit is enough. there neds to be a ballance between regualtion and free markets. and when in doubt that ballance needs to tip too the side of free markets. the stagnation of European inovation and ability to actualy compeat is example enough of this, thats leaving aside totaly the example of the obvioulsy disaster that Russia was for 60 years and that China was before they moved from a pure communist economy to a more free market one. free markets are the only system taht truly work well for businesses but ........ im with you in thinkins that often what we give up isnt worth what we gain.
ultimatly i see the net as a good thing in this enviroment. its allowing people who otherwise wouldnt interact to do so, it makes 'organizing' a snap and word of mouth that was here-to-for non existant to become wide spread. id credit Amazon.coms review section for Spore's trashing. both the sight itself and the links it generated to other places really brought the DRM issue to everyones attention when they wouldnt have otherwise noticed untill they got the game and did the install if even then with the stealth install of the DRM.
i wont how ever agree that stealing someone elses work is ever ok. there is no excuse to take something that doesnt belong to you, but as long as the compays continue to fuck their CUSTOMERS im willing to turn a blind eye too those that fuck them back. if a time ever comes when companys 'get it' than id be the first one turning my 'brother' into the cops for pirating. till then let the war rage, even if it means i have NO games to play i dont care, the point im aruging for/against and that is mega corperate greed is a MUCH larger issue for me than wether or not i can play a new video game in the future.
This is bloody pointless. I've never heard of a person who was scared into buying games because of DRM. Realy, how is DRM going to stop piracy when crackers are all around? Pirates can afford to wait, 'cos they paid nuthin in the first place. And they aren't complaining "boohoo, game's hard to crack". The real victim is Money "Righteus" McPlenty who buys games. The DRM money could go to, i don't know, maybe making the games more optimised *cough* GTA IV, Saint's Row 2 *cough* or ridding them of bugs.That would make them have more appeal. So what do you do? Steam the whole damned thing. You cut out the whole process and expenses of getting a game to shops and gamers and get a nice protection measure to boot.
Also: i don't know about you folks in the Decadent West, but here piracy isn't a business of crackling one-eyed beardos who say "YARRR" while dowloading a song or a game. People here are too damned poor to buy a bloody game. EA or Stardock, they aren't getting the money anyway. NEVER. a new release, if it ever comes 'round here, is to costy for anyone who ain't stealing, pushing, pimping or is hoping to eat that month. That may be an exageration, but we can't allow ourselves to buy. Especially when games are getting shorter and crud-ier and rape-high-end-PC-er. The only reasonable thing is to buy older game (Morrowind or Deus Ex, anyone?), that is reasonably cheap and runs great. However, that way you buy a game that is almost freeware and forgotten by it's developers.
And liking download piracy to old fashioned theft (with a bag and letter "SWAG" on top of it, no less) would be valid IF i could just replace the item with little-to-no price whatsoever.
Also: i don't know about you folks in the Decadent West, but here piracy isn't a business of crackling one-eyed beardos who say "YARRR" while dowloading a song or a game. People here are too damned poor to buy a bloody game. EA or Stardock, they aren't getting the money anyway. NEVER. a new release, if it ever comes 'round here, is to costy for anyone who ain't stealing, pushing, pimping or is hoping to eat that month. That may be an exageration, but we can't allow ourselves to buy. Especially when games are getting shorter and crud-ier and rape-high-end-PC-er. The only reasonable thing is to buy older game (Morrowind or Deus Ex, anyone?), that is reasonably cheap and runs great. However, that way you buy a game that is almost freeware and forgotten by it's developers.
And liking download piracy to old fashioned theft (with a bag and letter "SWAG" on top of it, no less) would be valid IF i could just replace the item with little-to-no price whatsoever.
Piracy disgusts me in most cases, and I do everything I can to encourage people to avoid it. It is, frankly, amazing the lengths that some pirates will go to in order to defend their indefensible decisions and practices, to the point where it'd just be faster and easier to actually buy the product. The most common excuse I see for piracy these days is "I wouldn't have bought it anyway", yet those same still go on to play that game or watch that movie for hours on end. I do sympathise with piracy in some cases, where perhaps a sufficient demo or sampler is not released to make an informed purchasing decision, but try finding the person who goes out and buys the game afterwards, or deletes it from his or her computer if it's considered unsatisfactory. Yeah, right, like that happens often. There is also the case of very old or hard-to-find games or music. Some titles are simply impossible to get these days, even used, and in those situations I also sympathise with pirates. However, online shopping tends to alleviate these problems. I can still find new copies of Jade Empire for the PC if I look hard enough, for example.
It really just comes down to the fact that most pirates want something for nothing, but don't want to admit to it. The culture of file sharing constructs tedious excuses about why they steal: they try to redefine "property", they attempt to oust the developers and publishers as crooks by pointing to "draconian" EULA clauses, and they even make the claim that it helps the industry as a whole. It's all bullshit. People steal stuff because they can get away with it, and there is no perceived risk in most file sharing. There are reasons developers are turning away from PCs and towards consoles, there is a reason why PC games ship with DRM software, there is a reason why PC games don't get downloadable content, and there is a reason why games on the PC don't get significant post-release support anymore. It's because of piracy, and the fact that it does not render these sorts of practices financially viable even though the developers would probably be all for it if they could.
I should point out that there is a strong moral element to my anger towards pirates. As I said above, I view piracy as stealing; in this case, you are stealing from the fruits of literally years of work by hundreds of people, who often go largely unrecognised by the press and the gamer culture at large to begin with. It is the continuous, twelve-hour-a-day-seven-days-a-week work that makes the games you play and enjoy so much a reality. Don't piss on them. They deserve your support if you want to play their games. Do you commission a carpenter to build you a cabinet, only to steal it from the back of his store when he's not looking? Do you hotwire some guy's Ferrari because "you weren't going to buy one anyway"? The double-standard in logic that pirates use to attempt to justify their acts is absolutely ludicrous, and it is morally reprehensible and indefensible.
It really just comes down to the fact that most pirates want something for nothing, but don't want to admit to it. The culture of file sharing constructs tedious excuses about why they steal: they try to redefine "property", they attempt to oust the developers and publishers as crooks by pointing to "draconian" EULA clauses, and they even make the claim that it helps the industry as a whole. It's all bullshit. People steal stuff because they can get away with it, and there is no perceived risk in most file sharing. There are reasons developers are turning away from PCs and towards consoles, there is a reason why PC games ship with DRM software, there is a reason why PC games don't get downloadable content, and there is a reason why games on the PC don't get significant post-release support anymore. It's because of piracy, and the fact that it does not render these sorts of practices financially viable even though the developers would probably be all for it if they could.
I should point out that there is a strong moral element to my anger towards pirates. As I said above, I view piracy as stealing; in this case, you are stealing from the fruits of literally years of work by hundreds of people, who often go largely unrecognised by the press and the gamer culture at large to begin with. It is the continuous, twelve-hour-a-day-seven-days-a-week work that makes the games you play and enjoy so much a reality. Don't piss on them. They deserve your support if you want to play their games. Do you commission a carpenter to build you a cabinet, only to steal it from the back of his store when he's not looking? Do you hotwire some guy's Ferrari because "you weren't going to buy one anyway"? The double-standard in logic that pirates use to attempt to justify their acts is absolutely ludicrous, and it is morally reprehensible and indefensible.