DRM, Censorship, you brought it on yourselves.

[Pimppeter2]

erased

 

[jim_doki]

Keyword bolded.

If Piracy ended, I would no longer have the only quick way of seeing if a game is worth my time or my money. Every single game I've ever demo'd has been purchased and every single game I've hated has been lamented (I think that's the word I'm looking for).

Now for most pirates that I've ever known, this is how the system works. I don't care what you 'think' all the pirates are doing, that doesn't matter to me, I'm not here to defend all pirates. But every single one I've ever known has worked like this. We all have copius gaming shelves full of only the best games, what makes a game the best game you might ask "IT'S A GAME YOU ACTUALLY LIKE REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAY!"

-snip-

Now you might say "That's what Demo's are for." and I agree. Any company that has ever provided me a Demo has never seen my IP on any torrent site for their game. Well I suppose I should rephrase that. Any company that has provided me a real demo has gotten that courtesy. DoWII for instance gave me the option to demo their game (because I bought Soulstorm, a game I pirated first I might add) and I appreciate that. I mean I'm not going to buy it because to me it's a complete piece of shit. That's my opinion, I know many of you don't agree with it but that's how >I< feel. (I'm being specific here to limit the amount of bitchy responses if anyone is curious)

-snip-

There are exceptions to some of the above of course. If a game is properly priced I will buy it without checking in advance, a few of my DS purchases have been like that, they were cheaper than their competitors and I appreciated that nod to me. They realized that I have other bills in my life and while I want to support them I can't fork out 35 dollars everytime I want a handheld game. In the end they get a thank you, some money, and I get a product which is how I used to feel the gaming world worked.

-snip-

It is entirely possible to produce games of exceptional quality with absolutely minimal protection (See CD Key) and still survive and become a thriving and utterly dominating company.

-snip-

The biggest issue I think I have is that piracy nuts believe there is a direct and almost unanimous correlation between piracy and loss in sales. Never once questioning the developers or the product. It is no wonder that SPORE was pirated so many times and didn't get many sales, I imagine most people pirated it and were appalled at what had become of a revolutionary concept. Games like Crysis complain about piracy but frankly it was a turd with a shiny crown on it, it did nothing exceptionally well except cover up its problems with beautiful landscapes. That's admirable but I have high definition images when I want pretty.

-snip-

well done, amazingly lengthy post. And I agree with a lot of it. Everything I agree with has been snipped from this quote, but i urge you all to read it, it's really quite good.

now, on to the fun part!

Ok, if you don't think, based on info you've seen (you've seen info, you know about the game, right?) that the game is going to be worth your time and money, then don't buy it. It's a little hard to grasp at times that you AREN'T entitled to try before you buy (outside of officially licenced demos, which, i agree, would hopefully stop a lot of this) because of the very nature of replicated software. It's easy to copy, to hold on to forever, to sell on again. this is why when you buy software, you don't get The Game, you get Licence to Use The Game. The car metaphor that was mentioned a few pages back, about Honda not telling you where you can drive your car? well you have a licence, with certain rights and responsibilites, that if violated will result in legal issues. Try to keep that in mind, as it's how I'll be responding in this case.

I would like to know why you feel your opinion is ultimate as to what games should be on shelves when thousands of dollars of market research has gone into deciding what sells and what doesn't. It's not an uncommon opinion, ie "only the games I want should be available", but if that is how you feel, i would start bankrolling EA, commission various independant designers. this, i promise you, will get you the game you want to play, and ONLY the games you want to play.

Again, back to the demos, that is EXACTLY what they are for, but I am curious as to how much of a demo you would like. I mean, when you say REAL demo, do you mean like a level? A few levels? a cinematic?

I would argue that "properly priced" is again a very subjective term. I mean how do you price a game? each unit has to pay for so many things (team members. graphic designers, programmers ect), perhaps you would rather take a hit in one of these areas to lower the price of the game?

While i love, LOVE cd keys and the like, the fact is they are just too simple to bypass. Random number generators alone have been known to break them. These things are just not practical anymore. It's a shame, but it's a fact.

On to the final point, I don't think there's a DIRECT link between lost sales and piracy, but there is definately a link. If you rip a game and put it on a torrenting website, sooner or later somebody is going to download that game and not buy it. I really dislike the idea of people downloading, installing finishing and then MAYBE deciding the game was worth it. Sometimes in life you have to pay for things. I mean if you work, you have to give some money to the government, regardless of whether you like what they do. You need to eat, so you buy what they have at the supermarket, regardless of whether or not it's your favorite food.

I personally think an "In Rainbows" solution would work really well. Radiohead put their album "In Rainbows" online for download under a Pay What You Want scheme. anything from $1 all the way up to Trent Reznor's $10 000 copy. anybody who pirates anything like that, would need to be shot

 

[jdnoth]

There has always been piracy on all levels of the media. And as new means of distributing pirated content come along, new means of distributing genuine paid content follows. For example: Fairly recently bittorrent was invented, and around the same time we were introduced to Steam. And once Limewire, Grokster, Napster stared hitting it big, we got Itunes, audible, last.fm etc.

Piracy is not new. Piracy is easier than it used to be, but so is buying genuine media from the developers. This is a two way street. In fact I very much doubt all of this paid online content distribution would exist without the pirates. After all; Limewire was around before Itunes. Without the push of online piracy there would have been no need for companies to expand beyond the high street. You can thank the pirates that you can buy buy and download psp games in a few clicks, and that you can download films onto your Xbox.

Don't bite the hand that feeds.

 

[theultimateend]

Keyword bolded.

If Piracy ended, I would no longer have the only quick way of seeing if a game is worth my time or my money. Every single game I've ever demo'd has been purchased and every single game I've hated has been lamented (I think that's the word I'm looking for).

Now for most pirates that I've ever known, this is how the system works. I don't care what you 'think' all the pirates are doing, that doesn't matter to me, I'm not here to defend all pirates. But every single one I've ever known has worked like this. We all have copius gaming shelves full of only the best games, what makes a game the best game you might ask "IT'S A GAME YOU ACTUALLY LIKE REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAY!"

-snip-

Now you might say "That's what Demo's are for." and I agree. Any company that has ever provided me a Demo has never seen my IP on any torrent site for their game. Well I suppose I should rephrase that. Any company that has provided me a real demo has gotten that courtesy. DoWII for instance gave me the option to demo their game (because I bought Soulstorm, a game I pirated first I might add) and I appreciate that. I mean I'm not going to buy it because to me it's a complete piece of shit. That's my opinion, I know many of you don't agree with it but that's how >I< feel. (I'm being specific here to limit the amount of bitchy responses if anyone is curious)

-snip-

There are exceptions to some of the above of course. If a game is properly priced I will buy it without checking in advance, a few of my DS purchases have been like that, they were cheaper than their competitors and I appreciated that nod to me. They realized that I have other bills in my life and while I want to support them I can't fork out 35 dollars everytime I want a handheld game. In the end they get a thank you, some money, and I get a product which is how I used to feel the gaming world worked.

-snip-

It is entirely possible to produce games of exceptional quality with absolutely minimal protection (See CD Key) and still survive and become a thriving and utterly dominating company.

-snip-

The biggest issue I think I have is that piracy nuts believe there is a direct and almost unanimous correlation between piracy and loss in sales. Never once questioning the developers or the product. It is no wonder that SPORE was pirated so many times and didn't get many sales, I imagine most people pirated it and were appalled at what had become of a revolutionary concept. Games like Crysis complain about piracy but frankly it was a turd with a shiny crown on it, it did nothing exceptionally well except cover up its problems with beautiful landscapes. That's admirable but I have high definition images when I want pretty.

-snip-

well done, amazingly lengthy post. And I agree with a lot of it. Everything I agree with has been snipped from this quote, but i urge you all to read it, it's really quite good.

now, on to the fun part!

Ok, if you don't think, based on info you've seen (you've seen info, you know about the game, right?) that the game is going to be worth your time and money, then don't buy it. It's a little hard to grasp at times that you AREN'T entitled to try before you buy (outside of officially licenced demos, which, i agree, would hopefully stop a lot of this) because of the very nature of replicated software. It's easy to copy, to hold on to forever, to sell on again. this is why when you buy software, you don't get The Game, you get Licence to Use The Game. The car metaphor that was mentioned a few pages back, about Honda not telling you where you can drive your car? well you have a licence, with certain rights and responsibilites, that if violated will result in legal issues. Try to keep that in mind, as it's how I'll be responding in this case.

I would like to know why you feel your opinion is ultimate as to what games should be on shelves when thousands of dollars of market research has gone into deciding what sells and what doesn't. It's not an uncommon opinion, ie "only the games I want should be available", but if that is how you feel, i would start bankrolling EA, commission various independant designers. this, i promise you, will get you the game you want to play, and ONLY the games you want to play.

Again, back to the demos, that is EXACTLY what they are for, but I am curious as to how much of a demo you would like. I mean, when you say REAL demo, do you mean like a level? A few levels? a cinematic?

I would argue that "properly priced" is again a very subjective term. I mean how do you price a game? each unit has to pay for so many things (team members. graphic designers, programmers ect), perhaps you would rather take a hit in one of these areas to lower the price of the game?

While i love, LOVE cd keys and the like, the fact is they are just too simple to bypass. Random number generators alone have been known to break them. These things are just not practical anymore. It's a shame, but it's a fact.

On to the final point, I don't think there's a DIRECT link between lost sales and piracy, but there is definately a link. If you rip a game and put it on a torrenting website, sooner or later somebody is going to download that game and not buy it. I really dislike the idea of people downloading, installing finishing and then MAYBE deciding the game was worth it. Sometimes in life you have to pay for things. I mean if you work, you have to give some money to the government, regardless of whether you like what they do. You need to eat, so you buy what they have at the supermarket, regardless of whether or not it's your favorite food.

I personally think an "In Rainbows" solution would work really well. Radiohead put their album "In Rainbows" online for download under a Pay What You Want scheme. anything from $1 all the way up to Trent Reznor's $10 000 copy. anybody who pirates anything like that, would need to be shot

A REAL Demo is any demo that earnestly portrays the content of a game. Not something that shows the only redeeming section of the entire game.

Likewise I like the radiohead solution . No arguments at all there.

Finally the "Don't have a right to try before by." sounds good, but as I said, many people with my outlook (and heck just the 100 or so I know of is still a nice chunk of cash) would stop buying outright .

I don't think any company would thank you for convincing the only people they were getting cash from from a scenario to vanish. I agree pirates who pirate to evade buying are assholes, but I don't think any company would support losing out on earnest sales that result from it. As I said in past posts, if I took your advice about 10 companies would have lost between them thousands of dollars from a single customer over the last few years. That's just me it probably would be much much worse overall. Because I NEVER feel the information I have is enough unless the info is a proper demo (explained below or above I forget...this is an edit) or a pirated copy to check it out with.

Why you think ADOBE doesn't run around suing people? The word of mouth alone of the pirates has made them millions of dollars in sales. They aren't retarded.

As for properly priced that's not rocket science. Most people know when they are being charged too much, it's subjective but only to a point. Generally when you get 100 people into a room and show them X amount of items you will see very similar opinions on which items are overpriced and which are not.

It's kind of like when you walk into a room and see something happening and you aren't sure its wrong but it just 'feels' wrong. "Ok I don't know what you are doing to that girls butt...but I feel dirty."

But yeah, I think the biggest issue with some people saying "Don't like it how its setup stop playing games" is that their favorite game companies would die if people took this avenue ;p.

I think the major thing about subjective stuff is that many times people outright lie when you ask them. "Do you feel your demo was accurate to the game?" *Lying for sales* "OF COURSE!" "But your demo showed us high paced action which literally only happens in that 60 second sequence from the demo."

It's like how the original commercials for Fallout 3 made it look like Halo in a Fallout universe with high speed gun fights and lots of cuts. That is actively lying to your customer and it's common practice because you can't return PC games. So as long as they can scam you long enough to get the sale they get their money.

As for supporting what I like.

0 Dollars - How much money I give to EA on any month.
20-100 Dollars - How much money I give to Indie Devs every 60 days or so.
40-200 Dollars - How much stardock gets from me any year they make a game .
40-200 Dollars - How much money Valve usually gets from me in a year.

I already do that . Likewise 2 out of the 3 people I support have little to no DRM (in stardocks case its literally non-existent if you don't want patches). Valve makes good enough stuff that I let them cock punch me with DRM that's a little worse.

EA makes non innovative trash that does NOTHING better than its predecessors and yet they charge 60+ dollars and have enough DRM to sink a small island nation beneath the sea (I know mind boggling isn't it!)

Again that's in my opinion but I think their stocks show I'm not in the minority on that opinion haha.

I will end this with "ho-ly-shit" because I was fully expecting you to bash me for not demanding pirates be castrated like that other fellow that trolls around in these things . I don't see his name on this page so I can't point a finger but most people probably know who I mean .

Anywho if I didn't say it I'm pretty much in support of the points you brought up and I think I answered your other questions.

PS. Final sidenote, this might sound weird, but I also have a pension for giving games a bit of boost in opinion if I can pirate them without trouble. That's what first made me get a chubby for stardock. I downloaded it, installed it, played it and thought "Wow pre cracked" till I read their policy on optional CD-Key (for patches) and I uninstalled the pirated copy and bought the real thang. They showed me that they trusted me and I returned their kindness in tow, people will always ALWAYS rise to the bar you set for them (overall...you'll always have that guy who likes raping puppies while watching Hannah Montana).

PPS. Also the problem with saying "Someone will eventually download it and not buy it." What's to say that person would have ever purchased it in the first place? Which then brings me to is that the entire point? Are we just slamming our fists on the ground because someone didn't pay us to do something they'd have never purchased regardless. I mean I'd be mad if someone stole a book I wrote (a digital copy to keep it in context) but if they made the case they'd have never purchased it period anyways I am 100% certain that I'd just call them an asshole and move along .

Plus like I said before with photoshop, piracy is a wonderful word of mouth because it's mostly word of mouth from people who aren't balls deep into the wallet of the people who made it.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

My god i might actually have to get my free music by listening to...RADIO!

Humanity as we know it is doomed...

 

[Knight Templar]

Don't steal and ***** when you are no longer trusted.

 

[mattttherman3]

Well I'll probably ride the piracy of music until I get stopped but I don't pirate games, too much effort, and I like online play.

 

[Blind0bserver]

I've taken part in this argument on these forums more times that I'd like to recall. I'm not going to bother repeating the same points over again to what is probably the exact same people.

I'll only say one thing before I leave this thread and never turn back: as one of the "innocent bystanders" caught between the crossfire between pirates and developers I have never been inconvenienced by so-supposed "oppressive" DRM. For example, I was just able to reinstall (which means, by the way, "to install the program for a second consecutive time) the PC version of Mass Effect on the same computer I'm using to type this post on a few days ago with zero problems. I entered a CD key, installed it and then played the game ten minutes later without a hitch. Fuck, a while back I actually copied off the disk a handful of character meshes and textures so I could toy with them in XSI| and Photoshop respectively. The disk did nothing to stop me. Don't even get me started on Spore. Everything was over-hyped about that game, including the "oppressive security measures" I kept hearing about.

From my personal experience the "DRM harms the average customer" excuse is a load of B.S. I personally haven't ever had any problems with DRM, so from my eyes the argument just appears to be a shallow justification for theft.

 

[Lord Krunk]

So, to return to my title statement; DRM and Censorship, you brought it on yourselves.

How is censorship part of this equation? I understand DRM and am not too bothered by it... but in what way is censorship justified by pirating?

Some threads were around a while back, saying how terrible Censorship was. In any case, the censored sites were pirate sites, and should have been censored. The issue is, they were talking about how many more sites would be censored to combat piracy, such as Youtube.

Ergo, Censorship is caused by piracy.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Ergo, Censorship is caused by piracy.

Which is not true, period. Censorship existed long before piracy.

 

[slxiii]

the more companies consistently put out crappy titles , the more they get pirated
the more they put invasive DRM on their titles, the more they get pirated

i think that good game makers should get their share just like anyone else, but considering that pirates just crack the DRM once, and after that anyone can get a copy, DRM hurts the consimers more than the pirates.

 

[Snotnarok]

I always read what game has DRM, if it does have DRM I avoid it or get it for console, I refuse to bend over for this "limited install" b.s. It's not what games ever had and I'm not paying 50 bucks for it, or any amount really it's just dumb.

 

[Lain Kura]

One thing that always bugged me about the argument for "Pirate because of DRM" is as follows:

If you do not like product X for reasons A B C D, you simply do not buy it and look for other products that are not deficent in the areas you are most concerned with.
With pirates of the gaming nature (The meme seems to be that you pirate game X because it has "draconian" DRM etc), they steal a copy of the product for their own use.

What gives them the right to take what they do not give compensation for?

If you do not like the product and it's features, you simply do not buy it, and in doing so the product is absent from your life.

In any case this whole debate is nonsense because piracy of current levels would happen with out DRM anyways. Until piracy because of DRM or crappy games stop, it will only get worse, and any company that makes pirated product of the video game nature has every right to instate what ever legal protections they feel are adequate to keep them selves from going under because of poor sales brought on by piracy.

 

[Jimmyjames]

I don't see how that post could have meant anything other than "less copy protection = less chances of something going wrong = less excuses to download games"

Really? You don't understand? Maybe because THIS is what you actually said:

"If things like SecuRom were removed from all games tomorrow, games got some actual quality and only required a cd-key or cd/dvd in the drive, most pirates would stop downloading and actually buy the games."

Sounds to me like you are inferring that a lack of quality and addition of SecuRom/DRM is why most people copy games, and if games were better and didn't require DRM "pirates would stop downloading and actually buy the games".

Did I somehow misunderstand this statement? Seems to me that I understood every (explicitly stated) word.

What you wrote is laughable. And it's bullshit. Pirates have ALWAYS been copying shit. Quality and copy protection has nothing to do with it.

 

[Lord Krunk]

Ergo, Censorship is caused by piracy.

Which is not true, period. Censorship existed long before piracy.

Yeah, but it's swelling up a lot recently, on the internet.

And might I remind you of the seriously crazy (and sometimes illegal) shit that the internet provides?

 

[Lord Krunk]

Don't steal and ***** when you are no longer trusted.

Story of my life.

 

[HectorTheLamerGamer]

I have read through most of this thread, as well as many more like it, and throughout all of this there are only two arguments for piracy that I have found to be legitimate.
Number one is the argument of convenience. I don't mean it's easier to download the game I mean that it's easier to use a digital copy than the physical one you already own. I made a similar argument in the R4 thread a while back. I wouldn't download a ds game without buying it. However once I buy it I prefer to keep all my games in one cartridge instead of lugging around an entire case full. This is why I am a fan of direct distribution services such as Steam. I get a physical copy that I can play (all be it in a more limited fashion) off line or I can have the digital version downloaded directly from their main server so that I need not put wear and tear on the disk. The best of both worlds and DRM is kept to a minimally invasive level by associating my game to my user account rather than to my PC itself.
The second reason, which is slightly more shaky to be honest, is games that are no longer distributed. For instance, if I want to play certain older games I have to either hunt down a used copy (which can be difficult to find, is not guaranteed to work, and does not give any money to anyone except the prior owner of the game negating the idea that the company loses money on it)or I have to download a copy. However, if the company still sells the game officially, no matter how old it is, I can see no way to justify piracy.
DRM is necessary. Does it stop piracy? No. Does it slow it down? Sort of. But really it is there because the programmers have to try something. What bothers me is when companies decide that they aren't trying to stop piracy so much as they are trying to get extra money. Don't put malware or rootkits such as Securom on my computer (if what I have heard of Securom is not true then I will eat those words. However, I can only go on the information I have been given). Don't make me pay for a game more than once just because my hardrive broke down or I decide to upgrade my computer. Don't put my ownership of a game I Paid For at the mercy of trigger happy admins. Essentially don't treat me like that unidentifiable glob of muck you stepped in just because someone else is an idiot. As long as the DRM is reasonable I'm fine with it.

 

[theultimateend]

But really it is there because the programmers have to try something.

Try something? Like trust their customers and make good games and services? Works for Stardock.

That's not an attack against you just a response to what should be done. I mean the only DRM that IS on Stardock games is effing optional (if you want patch updates which are usually really well done patches that put other companies patches to shame).

 

[Rianna]

I'm one of these awful, dirty, horrible, filthy, etc. pirates. (Gasp) I was one of those untold masses who downloaded Spore. Hype hype hype, it's the best thing since bread, etc. So I decided to download before I bought. Lo and behold, I wasn't all that impressed with the game. I did think it may be worth a purchase, and it was uninstalled and deleted. I'm not going to say that piracy is good or bad, but it has given me the opportunity to find out if a game was shit or not without having to pay $50 and deal with pain in the ass security.

I actually have bought games that I downloaded and enjoyed, but I like the option to try a game before I throw my money at a developer.

 

[Novajam]

I'll say two things.

1:

So, to return to my title statement; DRM and Censorship, you brought it on yourselves.

How is censorship part of this equation? I understand DRM and am not too bothered by it... but in what way is censorship justified by pirating?

Some threads were around a while back, saying how terrible Censorship was. In any case, the censored sites were pirate sites, and should have been censored. The issue is, they were talking about how many more sites would be censored to combat piracy, such as Youtube.

Ergo, Censorship is caused by piracy.

You may want to clear that up as what most people have probably mistaken you for is the censorship of things in videogames (like F.E.A.R 2's gratuitous amount of blood, sex scenes in GTA4 and Mass Effect etc) being caused by DRM, which wouldn't make any sense.

Second: I'm a predominantly console gamer with an old computer so I'm not affected as much by all this DRM piffle, however I still like the ideas of "One Disc, One Key" that I came up with a while ago, and free DLC for legitimate copies.