Easy. They shouldn't bother trying too hard. They should follow Neil Gaiman's example and treat it like library visits.G-Force said:
How do you think game companies should combat piracy
- Thread starter G-Force
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It's pointless to try to stop piracy, because there are a lot of people out there who will not buy a game ever. Those people are not customers, and they should not be thought of as such. What needs to be done is get the people who are holding off buying until they have had a proper taste to buy. Those are the people that DRM should be concerned about. The DRM will scare them off while still allowing anyone to play the game because all DRM still gets hacked. It's not like a pirate is going to want to play a certain game so badly that he goes out and buys a copy at a store because there was no crack available online. He will have tons of other games available to him that are cracked so he can just go play those.
You don't. You don't use any DRM and you give perks to paying customers. Not pre-ordering customers, all paying customers.
You can't really stop it, but if you wanted to see a drastic reduction in piracy stop releasing for the PC. Consoles are much harder to hack and often require special hardware. This makes it considerably harder to pirate things when the only options are consoles, especially when you compare it to PC and the countless torrent sites there are.
That's my ideal solution or... most ideal. My unrealistic solution is to appeal to the better instincts of my fellow human beings and simply not ask them to pirate.
That's my ideal solution or... most ideal. My unrealistic solution is to appeal to the better instincts of my fellow human beings and simply not ask them to pirate.
Well they're never going to be able to stamp it out completely, there'll always be those who do just because they can. However I think they should try to minimize it by rewarding their legitimate paying customers. Provide incentives to buy the thing legitimately.
It's like that old saying "You'll catch more bees with honey than with vinegar." ...or something like that.
It's like that old saying "You'll catch more bees with honey than with vinegar." ...or something like that.
And that shitty code is not stored somewhere in a copy, and decryption is a nono?TypeSD said:
How exactly would you make bypass impossible?
And once I activate the game, what exactly is stopping me to copy it GG
Great ideas, from top to bottom!Treblaine said:
I think they should do something like they did with Batman Arkham Asylum, but taken to the next level.
Like instead of gimping the character they should just completely destroy the game, break the coding, make it totally unplayable.
Make enemies spin in place and fart rainbows or something and make the player character's head enlarge and fill up the screen, have all the characters start speaking in Swahili, have the game delete every file on the pirate's computer.
Basically do something amusing that would discourage piracy.
Like instead of gimping the character they should just completely destroy the game, break the coding, make it totally unplayable.
Make enemies spin in place and fart rainbows or something and make the player character's head enlarge and fill up the screen, have all the characters start speaking in Swahili, have the game delete every file on the pirate's computer.
Basically do something amusing that would discourage piracy.
God no.Dirty Hipsters said:
Provide free demos for all games so people can try before they buy, but if prirating games is difficult less people will bother - fact.
However if your DRM is a hassle for actual customers, that is a very very bad thing and can push people to pirate it instead, so there is a fine line.
Piracy is a big reason as to why game companies are leaving the PC market and focusing more on console versions of games then just porting it over to PC later on. Console piracy rates are much lower as it's not as simple as just downloading it, you need to mess with your console first and easy as it is to do this, many people just won't.
Devs are also focusing more on multiplayer based games as well as microtransactions and games that are distrubuted via xbox live and such. You can't play online with everyone else unless you buy the game and microtransactions net them enough cash they don't bother to even charge for the game.
The attitude of pirates just blatently refusing to support the developers has just led to them moving to game styles that don't lend themselves to being pirated in the first place which is a serious loss for the gaming community.
Nesco Nomen said:
Sure, copy it, the next idiot who doesn't buy it, and tries to use a key that's already been activated won't be able to launch it.
They should lower the average price of new release games from $60 to $30. More people would buy the games if they were that cheap, and the increased number of customers would make up for the loss of profits per individual unit.
The short answer is to make games which people feel are worth paying hard earned money for. This is by no means the simple way of doing it, though many companies like Valve have already figured out how to do this with pretty much everything that they do. Sadly, this also takes actual effort, planning and creativity on the part of the developer to pull off. Not to mention an understanding that building a loyal community for the long term is more important than pissing everyone off while trying (and failing) to stop piracy.
Sadly, DRM takes far less effort than any of this and is used as a quick and easy way to try and protect their games.
Sadly, DRM takes far less effort than any of this and is used as a quick and easy way to try and protect their games.
Vivi22 said:
So you're telling me some kid will be able to convince his parents for the money? A lot of pirates are like this. No income, no intention of paying for things even if they can afford them. BECAUSE THEY CAN GET IT FOR FREE. No matter how good it is.
I think they should do as little as possible. Take basic safeguards of course, but nothing that would in any way put extra burden on or require more effort of those who buy legitimately. I see it this way: People who are going to buy games will buy the games. People who are going to pirate the games will pirate the games. No matter how hard you try to keep your games from getting pirated, the hackers and pirates will try even harder to make sure they can still get it. That is just the way of it.G-Force said:
So I think developers should just cool down with this war against pirates and stop punishing their PAYING customer base. Quit making them jump through hoops just to prove they bought the game legitimately. If anything, they should thank and reward the customer for buying. Come up with some sort of points or benefits system, like DLC that becomes available only if you've done a transaction with their online store or something.
It definitely is, you don't want to punish paying customers with intrusive DRM or the annoyance of having to enter a code found on a sheet of paper you'll never use again afterwards using a clumsy D-pad to access basic functions of the game like multiplayer.
That said, another key feature would be dropping the price, as others have said. Some five years ago there was a campaign that had calculated that about half of your money that you pay for a game goes straight into the pocket of the retailer, leaving the remaining fifty percent to be split between the distributor, publisher (and their marketing teams), developer, and whatever other middle men I might have missed.
Granted, a recent article on the Jace Hall Show site says that only 20% goes to the retailer, but hey. It does mean that they should drop the price of games sold through digital distribution since several middle men disappear and you don't have to produce anything physical, no discs, boxes, manuals or anything.
And if you want to combat piracy in Europe in particular, well, that's easy, publishers should stop wielding the $1=?1 policy, in short, a $60 game in the US becomes a ?60 game in Europe, sadly, at the current conversion rate that means that a European pays 42% more, or $85 for what is a $60 game on US soil. And it gets completely outrageous when you consider you have to pay just that amount to get Black Ops on Steam, so much for PC gaming being cheaper than console gaming.
That said, another key feature would be dropping the price, as others have said. Some five years ago there was a campaign that had calculated that about half of your money that you pay for a game goes straight into the pocket of the retailer, leaving the remaining fifty percent to be split between the distributor, publisher (and their marketing teams), developer, and whatever other middle men I might have missed.
Granted, a recent article on the Jace Hall Show site says that only 20% goes to the retailer, but hey. It does mean that they should drop the price of games sold through digital distribution since several middle men disappear and you don't have to produce anything physical, no discs, boxes, manuals or anything.
And if you want to combat piracy in Europe in particular, well, that's easy, publishers should stop wielding the $1=?1 policy, in short, a $60 game in the US becomes a ?60 game in Europe, sadly, at the current conversion rate that means that a European pays 42% more, or $85 for what is a $60 game on US soil. And it gets completely outrageous when you consider you have to pay just that amount to get Black Ops on Steam, so much for PC gaming being cheaper than console gaming.