Piracy: How would you stop it?

[Slayer_2]

First I'd stop hunger and war, then tackle the much more challenging issue of stopping piracy.

Captcha stereotyping us Canadians again: "maple syrup reserve"

EDIT: A sidenote, my own game will be released DRM free, you cannot stop pirates, might as well make the experience less frustrating for legit customers.

 

[Ryan Minns]

Edit: Apparently my comment may have been seen as a confession to piracy... not sure where the logic in that comes from but I can't be bothered. Anyways, I wouldn't try to stop it, for starters it'll be an easy thing to fail in and also why stop those who wish to spend money? I have honestly never seen a pirate who doesn't spend a fortune more than most on their media in the long run.

 

[Olas]

[HEADING=2]I have an idea![/HEADING]​

If you can't block the flow, poison it.

Create lots and lots of fake downloads with virus's so that nobody can tell what's safe anymore and pirating becomes too dangerous for most people to dare attempt.
Yes, I'm suggesting media corporations create virus infested games/movies/music to sabotage p2p sites, you can't fight piracy if you aren't willing to play dirty.

Maybe it wouldn't work, maybe it would, from what I can tell it's never been tried.

That is what they are doing now. It has been about as effective as throwing a rock at the moon. You might knock a few people out next door, but you haven't accomplished your goal.

Who's doing that? Obviously there are plenty of torrent files that have virus's out there, as with all things in the back alley's of the internet where nothing is safe, but it's just minor stuff. I've never heard of a large scale concerted effort to flood P2P sites with these to make them into a genuine minefield. From what I can tell pirating is still relatively safe, assuming you aren't an idiot, so what I'm talking about isn't being tried.

How hard would it really be? Have everyone working at your company create an account at torrentzFr33k.uk or whatever, and have a hundred or so of them upload a fake virused version of the game they've been creating. Then have them all flood the comments area underneath the uploads with positive comments saying they're safe and flood the comments area for legitimate torrents with comments claiming they're viruses. It would take maybe an hour or two and make it considerably hard to tell what's safe and what will turn your PC into a brick, and it'd give people a stronger incentive not to try and steal your game/movie/etc.

Because nomatter how convenient and DRM free you make your games you still can't compete with free.

 

[Slayer_2]

Out of interest what game are you releasing?

I am sure the escapist wouldnt count it as self advertising if you are asked. xD

A survival/exploration game set in the Sierra Leone civil war. It uses the Cryengine 3, and I have about 20 square kilometers of terrain roughly mapped in now. Here is a link if you want to see more, but if a moderator asks, you didn't get it from me: http://www.indiedb.com/games/escape-sierra-leone

 

[Treblaine]

PS: it's "just my opinion" that draconian corporate whores should be ridiculed before being completely ignored.

pps: if you can't see the distinction between identity fraud and cracking a game that has gone out of print decades ago then I shant waste another moment of my time on you. Well, maybe some teasing.

You are obviously someone who thinks arguments are won via memes and comedic video's. Anyone of real substance knows that if someone has a difference of opinion to you that you wish to dispute, you discuss it like an adult not start calling names. I'd love to discuss the issue sensibly with you. But your clearly not up to the job.

Pirating games that aren't made any more isn't an issue because no one gets screwed, pirating new games is a big issue not so much for big developers, but more specifically the little companies. You think information theft is a joke? I only hope for your sake that you find it as funny, if your identity is stolen or your bank account is hacked.

P.S: If you want anyone to take you seriously I suggest you quote whoever you are poorly attempting to tease properly ("cyber thieves are among the worst kind of peopl"). It's people not peopl.

you are an information thief

then you say

Anyone of real substance... discusses it like an adult not start calling names

Your last post was so bad the moderators gave you a warning for it.

And yes, you don't seem to realise how effective satire and ridicule are at defeating cruel ideologies that hope to get anywhere by draconian over-reactions.

You think information theft is a joke?

Yes, I think that it's fucking hilarious you think I am stealing your information because I copied it, as if it's a zero-sum change. And only made worse by how you think it should be treated, with long prison sentences.

If you want to discuss the legitimacy of legally enforced monopolies of information, then you might be getting somewhere.

P.S: If you want anyone to take you seriously I suggest you quote whoever you are poorly attempting to tease properly ("cyber thieves are among the worst kind of peopl"). It's people not peopl.

Truly a master debater we have here. He pointed out a typo! That must mean I'm an idiot! HERp a Derf!

 

[Treblaine]

[HEADING=2]I have an idea![/HEADING]​

If you can't block the flow, poison it.

Create lots and lots of fake downloads with virus's so that nobody can tell what's safe anymore and pirating becomes too dangerous for most people to dare attempt.
Yes, I'm suggesting media corporations create virus infested games/movies/music to sabotage p2p sites, you can't fight piracy if you aren't willing to play dirty.

Maybe it wouldn't work, maybe it would, from what I can tell it's never been tried.

That is what they are doing now. It has been about as effective as throwing a rock at the moon. You might knock a few people out next door, but you haven't accomplished your goal.

Who's doing that? Obviously there are plenty of torrent files that have virus's out there, as with all things in the back alley's of the internet where nothing is safe, but it's just minor stuff. I've never heard of a large scale concerted effort to flood P2P sites with these to make them into a genuine minefield. From what I can tell pirating is still relatively safe, assuming you aren't an idiot, so what I'm talking about isn't being tried.

How hard would it really be? Have everyone working at your company create an account at torrentzFr33k.uk or whatever, and have a hundred or so of them upload a fake virused version of the game they've been creating. Then have them all flood the comments area underneath the uploads with positive comments saying they're safe and flood the comments area for legitimate torrents with comments claiming they're viruses. It would take maybe an hour or two and make it considerably hard to tell what's safe and what will turn your PC into a brick, and it'd give people a stronger incentive not to try and steal your game/movie/etc.

Because nomatter how convenient and DRM free you make your games you still can't compete with free.

Because even with an unauthorised download it's illegal to deliberately put a virus onto someone's computer. Not that you suggested that, but that would make it a minefield.

All you can do is release crap or deliberately broken version of your game that won't work as they will very quickly be weeded out, marked as defective on torrent sites and the most stable crack will float to the top of the search results.

What makes far more sense is to release your game demo with an upload speed and convenience far superior to what torrenting can offer and support. Put ads for direct download of the game everywhere, sponsored tweets, banner ads. Just "click here to start playing Arkham County". The demo could even be put on torrent sites and artificially given the highest number of seeds.

And the advantage of the demo is it's a small download, but the save-game progress isn't lost, getting to the final stage of the demo there is an opportunity to buy the rest of the game right there with a limited time offer discount code, authenticated via the Publisher website so you know it's not a scam from some no-name outfit.

Now here is the thing, you downloaded the demo because it was quickest and most stable... now you could just do hunting on torrent sites for the full rip but you are RIGHT THERE with a high speed link to download and play the rest of the game, with 50% off.

Steam has shown that people WILL pay if you just get them all in the same place and entice them with convenience. Put them right there on the spot and offer them the rest of the game, quicker than if they hunted around torrent sites for versions and cracks, offer the chance to carry over saves from playing through demo, and of course, auto-updates for stability.

But most importantly, there has to be a REASON that they want to stay under their wing. If the publisher abuses their trust with awful patches that screw over the consumer, then they'll be glad to avoid them with pirating.

yes, many people will pirate games, many people will pirate movies, but the important thing is a lot of people still buy the real deal.

Give incentive, like with a legit purchase you can transfer your old saves over into the sequel a-la mass effect style. But that transferring is done secretly in the publisher servers, it cannot be easily cracked, there is an incentive to have played the game legit.

 

[verdant monkai]

you are an information thief

then you say

Anyone of real substance... discusses it like an adult not start calling names

Your last post was so bad the moderators gave you a warning for it.

And yes, you don't seem to realise how effective satire and ridicule are at defeating cruel ideologies that hope to get anywhere by draconian over-reactions.

You think information theft is a joke?

Yes, I think that it's fucking hilarious you think I am stealing your information because I copied it, as if it's a zero-sum change. And only made worse by how you think it should be treated, with long prison sentences.

If you want to discuss the legitimacy of legally enforced monopolies of information, then you might be getting somewhere.

P.S: If you want anyone to take you seriously I suggest you quote whoever you are poorly attempting to tease properly ("cyber thieves are among the worst kind of peopl"). It's people not peopl.

Truly a master debater we have here. He pointed out a typo! That must mean I'm an idiot! HERp a Derf!

Saying someone is an information thief is an accusation not petty name calling, like calling someone a corporate whore is.

Mods gave me a warning for indirectly insulting you for only being able to defend yourself via memes..... guess the mods must like just meme's. Plus you called me a "corporate whore" I think they may have just forgotten that.

I thought satire needed to be funny to aid getting its point across? If you disagree people will respect you more for having a sensible conversation, like I tried to do before you decided to post pictures to cover for your inability to have a debate.

The honestly quite sad "theft" of my information was something you dreamed up and are obviously very proud of. I was talking about the whole issue not you quoting me three times, you can do that as much as you like.

Getting the quote right is just basic stuff especially when you are trying to be rude to someone, when implying someone is being stupid you cant get it wrong yourself, otherwise people will appreciate the irony. To be honest you are the one who needs to deal with it. I have a different opinion to you and all the other adults can see that, you don't have to plumb the depths of immaturity to get a point across.

 

[Entitled]

Criminal penalties.

Also I'd find the folks at SKIRDROW, ReLOADED, noSTEAM and Finity and hire them to create DRM, since they're the ones cracking it in the first place.

Cracking doesn't work like the Hollywood version of hacking.

DRM didn't just fail because some ragtag group of genius cyber-ninjas outwitted the corporations' cyber-samurai in a duel of coding, but because DRM is an inherently flawed concept. Computers are entirely based around copying data, while DRM can only stop a particular pathway to copying. It's like building a fence at the edge of the Mariana trench

And the folks you quoted aren't famous because they are the most skilled at it, but only because they are the most devoted and prolific, in other words, the least likely to suck up to "The Man".

 

[fenrizz]

Make sure your product is better than the pirated version.

I reckon Spotify (and similar services) has done more to curb piracy than RIAA and excessive fines ever did.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Make sure your product is better than the pirated version.

I reckon Spotify (and similar services) has done more to curb piracy than RIAA and excessive fines ever did.

This. And make the product just as, or more, easily accessible: break down the idiotic area code system, and just release the thing everywhere at once.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Make most of it legal, IE if its not generating revenue its not piracy.

 

[kommando367]

1. I'd stop calling it piracy because sea piracy is awesome.

2. Grab a few proxies and DDoS all the Torrent sites.

 

[Treblaine]

you are an information thief

then you say

Anyone of real substance... discusses it like an adult not start calling names

Your last post was so bad the moderators gave you a warning for it.

And yes, you don't seem to realise how effective satire and ridicule are at defeating cruel ideologies that hope to get anywhere by draconian over-reactions.

You think information theft is a joke?

Yes, I think that it's fucking hilarious you think I am stealing your information because I copied it, as if it's a zero-sum change. And only made worse by how you think it should be treated, with long prison sentences.

If you want to discuss the legitimacy of legally enforced monopolies of information, then you might be getting somewhere.

P.S: If you want anyone to take you seriously I suggest you quote whoever you are poorly attempting to tease properly ("cyber thieves are among the worst kind of peopl"). It's people not peopl.

Truly a master debater we have here. He pointed out a typo! That must mean I'm an idiot! HERp a Derf!

Saying someone is an information thief is an accusation not petty name calling, like calling someone a corporate whore is.

Mods gave me a warning for indirectly insulting you for only being able to defend yourself via memes..... guess the mods must like just meme's. Plus you called me a "corporate whore" I think they may have just forgotten that.

I thought satire needed to be funny to aid getting its point across? If you disagree people will respect you more for having a sensible conversation, like I tried to do before you decided to post pictures to cover for your inability to have a debate.

The honestly quite sad "theft" of my information was something you dreamed up and are obviously very proud of. I was talking about the whole issue not you quoting me three times, you can do that as much as you like.

Getting the quote right is just basic stuff especially when you are trying to be rude to someone, when implying someone is being stupid you cant get it wrong yourself, otherwise people will appreciate the irony. To be honest you are the one who needs to deal with it. I have a different opinion to you and all the other adults can see that, you don't have to plumb the depths of immaturity to get a point across.

I never called you a corporate whore, I just said they (whoever they may be) should be ridiculed then ignored. How dare you suggest I was directly referring to a fellow forum user.

Are you willingly identifying with this label that I merely mentioned in a passing post-script comment?

having a sensible conversation, like I tried to do...

after you said this:

6 month Prison sentences for anyone who tries to pirate media or steal anything digitally.

Oh, how did that gif end up there? Anyway, ignore it, it's just a silly trolldance.

To be honest you are the one who needs to deal with it.

 

[floppylobster]

ACCESSIBLY
- Make everything as easy to buy and as accessible as possible (everything released worldwide on day one etc).

PRICE
- Sell everything at a reasonable cost. Corporations are fond of putting out press releases saying things like '100 billion lost to pirates'. Well if those figures are really true, then half your selling price. Get half those 'lost sales' back and, with those honest buyers, you should be making enough to get by with 50 billion.

CUSTOMER SERVICE
- Don't just put your product out there and hope to milk it to death. Work hard for what you create, look after it, and look after your customers. In return they will appreciate what you do and will want to give you their business. I don't have any figures to back me up but I'd be willing to bet less people pirate Valve over someone like Activision. Because Valve have started, and kept open, a relationship with their customers.

QUALITY
- Create something that people want to own - That makes them feel the item itself holds value. I paid for a lot of old Nintendo games because back in the day they took the extra effort to print colour manuals with nice boxes (over Sega who just started printing almost black and white photocopies manuals in crappy plastic boxes). These days I collect Game & Watch machines. Why? Because they're quality. You can feel it when you hold one, you can sense the effort that has gone in to making it. It still holds value for years later, and sometimes even increases. Mass producing a game on a CD with not even an instruction book is not something people feel the need to pay full price for.