Piracy, Ubisoft and "the loss"

[Vampire cat]

The flailing has been endless, so well... The question up for discussion is in bold just bellow here, and there is no TL;DR... This is the amount of text I felt I needed, so this is the amount of text there is. Enjoy, hoping for some nice grown-up discussion.

Why is it piracy is viewed as such a majorly destructive force in PC gaming?

For a comparable example, lets look at the music industry. Being substantially larger it's granted easier to keep afloat, but in said industry it is generally agreed that the sharing of Mp3's has in the end turned out to be a positive and at times lucrative arangement for artists, publishers and consumers alike. Artists can much more easily get their music out there and become known. As a result publishers save millions if not billions on advertizing every year, and they can put out a vast number of artists compared to before, where one had to get the CDs into shops and make sure to rustle up some awareness and interest in the product, a massively expensive thing to do! Now YouTube does the advertizing for you, something that benefits the consumer too, by allowing us to "look in the box" before making the buy. Despite global file sharing, the music industry is posting record earnings.

Meanwhile, game companies are desperately fighting an impossible battle, and spending vast sums in the process. The music industry knows it cannot stop the sharing of Mp3s, they knew this pretty soon after it started. Some tried, but they could never have done it. It's like trying to stop terrorism, bad apples will always find a way to break our hearts ... And just like the war on terrorism, the war on pirating ends up hurting only the paying consumers and the company itself. Even worse, when you challenge the hackers and piraters by declearing war (as Ubisoft has done), you are effectively dooming yourself. If there is one thing EVERYONE should know, it's that these people LOVE a challenge, and that they usually win... It's worth noting that the game industry are posting record earnings too, even on the PC...

...
How the hell did Minecraft sell so well if one assumes 95% of those playing are doing so on a pirated version?! Half of the PC owners in the world must be playing! Or maybe people actually bought Minecraft for real instead of pirating it because Mojang hasn't been complete cocks...

You know, Bethesda's got it... And Mojang too. Release great games at fair prices with wide mod support for the PC, and your name will last forever...

 

[saucecode]

Its only viewed this way because the big companies that make these products say so. Makes the people who don't know anything about piracy think that piracy is a sure-fire way to kill the industry.

Personally, I like the term "Piracy", and calling us pirates, it sounds kinda awesome.

 

[HassEsser]

You know, Bethesda's got it... And Mojang too. Release great games at fair prices with wide mod support for the PC, and your name will last forever...

Couldn't have said it better myself, unless I included VALVe in the mix. Seriously, they're rolling in dough.

 

[Vampire cat]

Hey, yeah! There's a 95% chance we're pirates. Cool! Finally an excuse to carry that cutlass around when it's not Halloween.

You know, Bethesda's got it... And Mojang too. Release great games at fair prices with wide mod support for the PC, and your name will last forever...

Couldn't have said it better myself, unless I included VALVe in the mix. Seriously, they're rolling in dough.

But they, rather cleverly, went "hey lets not bother with openly combating piracy, and just make some great games and stick them and a bunch of others into a brilliant distribution platform!"

 

[Arakasi]

...
How the hell did Minecraft sell so well if one assumes 95% of those playing are doing so on a pirated version?! Half of the PC owners in the world must be playing! Or maybe people actually bought Minecraft for real instead of pirating it because Mojang hasn't been complete cocks...

You know, Bethesda's got it... And Mojang too. Release great games at fair prices with wide mod support for the PC, and your name will last forever...

I'm pretty sure that's the logic behind it.
Although, I bought minecraft practically straight after ZP reviewed it, and I noticed a little while later that most of the people in my software design class were playing pirated versions of it. There was only me and some other kid who actually bought it out of like 7 people in the class playing it.

It's immensly popular + it would feel far worse to steal from an indie gaming company = less piracy.

Oh, also, it's really easy to access, all you have to do is download it, register an account and buy it and vola, you own it forever. A lot less screwing around than a lot of other games, with registration codes and shit.

 

[ZenoX969]

And the only reason they believe they have an 'increase' in piracy is probably because people who bought their games initially went out of their way to crack it to get rid of the super annoying always-online DRM. Another thing they don't quite seem to grasp is that for every pirated copy of the game, that doesn't necessarily mean a lost sale. Plenty of people pirate games to either use it as a 'demo' or just to test if it runs on their PC rig. And a lot of them actually buy the game afterwards if they feel it's worth it.

So Ubisoft just needs to get it's head out of it's ass and start to think about how to NOT alienate your customers. And instead think of how to best please your customers so they keep coming back and spending their money. Like mentioned above; Valve, Bethesda, etc.

 

[CrystalShadow]

This is kind of a devil's advocate thing, because my actual opinion on what the game industry is up to is somewhat unrelated.

But the music industry isn't a brilliant comparison.

Now, not to insult musicians, or imply they are unskilled (because that's self-evidently not true. Being a good musician is difficult.)

However...

Assuming everyone involved is skilled, you can write and record a song in a day. By yourself. (Obviously most professionally produced music involves far more people, and takes longer. But it's possible.)

But anyway, it is nonetheless possible for a person to create a song from scratch in a single day.

Can one person create a computer game in a single day? Well... Yes.

But that's not saying much. The game a single person could create in one day is going to be a very simple one, that stands no chance of comparing favourably to commercially produced titles. (Even relatively low-budget ones.)

The song written and recorded by one person in a day? Sure it's not as likely to be as good as something that was worked on by a large group for some time. But the chances of it being close are much, much higher.

A song written by one person in a day can compete with much more elaborate productions.
A game written by one person in a day won't even come close to competing with more elaborate productions.

That aside, the actual arguments the games industry is using are frequently incredibly stupid.
I fear it's usually more of a moral outrage kind of reaction "These people aren't paying me!"
Rather than a practical one. "I'm going broke because I can't make enough money due to the piracy."

I highly doubt the second one is true...

 

[TheGreekGeekPrick]

It's not ignorance. I highly doubt they don't know the reality of piracy. It's not unlike what they're trying to do with second-hand purchases now; they relied on Gamestop's rotten business model and suddenly they've vilified the consumer who looks for an affordable product. The only reason they combat piracy with such fervor is simply because they want to maximize their profits.

In addition, the supposition that their audience is mostly relied on piracy is one that's just not true. People who take gaming seriously, the people who will consider spending money on more than one game every six months are customers that live for this kind of thing; for the pretty case with the shiny manuals (which companies themselves have effectively eliminated, but let's not dwell on hypocricy), the DLC and just the inherent joy of knowing that you own a game. It's always been like that, it'll always be like that. The free market is based upon this principle and it hasn't failed yet.

Not to mention that the games industry owes a lot to piracy. It wouldn't have been nearly as big today if not for it. Everyone who has downloaded a game off the Internet in here has undoubtedly at least one story according to which they purchased the product afterwards regardless (and usually without this intention having been on the table originally). What many pretend to not understand is that piracy can be a tool they can use to their advantage.

Alternatively, we can always just pretend it's the audience's fault that their barrage of sub-par titles that ship with DRM and bad controls get burried.

 

[Farther than stars]

Its only viewed this way because the big companies that make these products say so. Makes the people who don't know anything about piracy think that piracy is a sure-fire way to kill the industry.

Personally, I like the term "Piracy", and calling us pirates, it sounds kinda awesome.

You still shouldn't pirate though. Of course it won't "kill" the industry, but it damages it. Game devs are already criminally underpaid as it is and the more money the company loses, the more of a chance there is that those devs will loose their jobs as well, simply because the company isn't performing as well as it should be.
But look who I'm taking to. A 13-year-old Java protigy such as yourself? You can probably pirate whatever you want. But I just wanted to remind you that just because you can doesn't automatically make it right.

As for you OP, I just wanted to note about minecraft that you have to remember that it was put together by one person. And at the time, all busy with the creativity of it, that one person probably didn't pay a lot of (if any) attention to protecting the software from piracy.
So Minecraft is already a very special sort of game in that sense anyway. Other, more professionally crafted games are harder to distribute illegally.

And as a final note, I think you might have used a different analogy than the War on Terror. I know you didn't mean it in that way, but what can be very much taken away from your statement is that "we should just let terrorists perform their attacks and not resist because it's pointless anyway".
That's pretty insensitive to all the people who have lost loved ones to those attacks and it undermines all the work that's being done by NATO and the national securities of the West to combat that terrorism. Personally, for instance, I like the fact that there are people out there stopping more terrorist acts from occurring, rather than just letting the extremists run riot.

 

[veloper]

The ratio of first sales to piracy on the PC is only getting lower and lower and the fools at Ubisoft choose to complain to PC gamers now.

Before 2000, many PC gamers typically couldn't even buy PC games in town even if they wanted to and had to go far out of their way to get a box. Piracy was the only norm then.
Around 2000 games started to get on the shelves in the smaller places too and alot more gamers started to actually buying games instead of copying cracked versions.
In the last few years we see PC games disappearing from shelves again, but mailorder is still flying and digital sales are skyrocketing.

While triple-A games still sell less on PC than on the 360 and PS3, the difference is not all that much (counting digital sales). Since most we get is PC ports and making a decent PC port of a 360 game is relatively easy and cheap, not going PC is just leaving a large market to competing publishers.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

yahaaa, audience aliented
if its such an issue, why not sub-contact out the pc porting

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

its Veiwed as a Major Problem because the thought of not getting EVERY cent outta people they can, scares some of the Execs, companys and record Labels

 

[Still Life]

The ratio of first sales to piracy on the PC is only getting lower and lower and the fools at Ubisoft choose to complain to PC gamers now.

Before 2000, many PC gamers typically couldn't even buy PC games in town even if they wanted to and had to go far out of their way to get a box. Piracy was the only norm then.
Around 2000 games started to get on the shelves in the smaller places too and alot more gamers started to actually buying games instead of copying cracked versions.
In the last few years we see PC games disappearing from shelves again, but mailorder is still flying and digital sales are skyrocketing.

While triple-A games still sell less on PC than on the 360 and PS3, the difference is not all that much (counting digital sales). Since most we get is PC ports and making a decent PC port of a 360 game is relatively easy and cheap, not going PC is just leaving a large market to competing publishers.

I remember the days of share-ware, and I often think to myself if that's the right way to go about things. How things have changed, though.

I don't think anyone can deny that piracy isn't an issue --it simply is-- but adapting distribution to better service models has shown great potential as retail gasps its last dying breaths. Give consumers good deals and a 'no bullshit' way of getting them their entertainment and you reduce the impetus to acquire a product through less ethical means. I think that Ubisoft has been extraordinarily unprofessional recently and is alienating potential customers by treating them with contempt. There is no way I will touch a Ubisoft game because the quality of their products and service are exceptionally mediocre.

At the end of the day those who want to pirate will. Looking at recent releases which have turned over large amounts of cash on the PC, it's facetious to say that PC gamers are inherently all pirates. I do believe that the debate has been blown out of proportion as well, as certain sales charts (which ironically factor in digital distribution) show PC gaming to be lucrative when offering a good product/service and that a large proportion of pirated software is being distributed in third world and/or isolated regions.... Oh, and China.

If you can make it harder for pirates to get their games to work whilst simultaneously making it easier for legitimate customers to enjoy their experience at a reasonable cost then you come out on top.

The industry has a lot of maturing ahead of it.

 

[Vampire cat]

And as a final note, I think you might have used a different analogy than the War on Terror. I know you didn't mean it in that way, but what can be very much taken away from your statement is that "we should just let terrorists perform their attacks and not resist because it's pointless anyway".
That's pretty insensitive to all the people who have lost loved ones to those attacks and it undermines all the work that's being done by NATO and the national securities of the West to combat that terrorism. Personally, for instance, I like the fact that there are people out there stopping more terrorist acts from occurring, rather than just letting the extremists run riot.

Why? Terror only works when we care. Terror WORKs because we care. Of course we shouldn't let anyones death just slide by without paying atention to them, and feeling for those who lost someone. But the only reason why terror is a viable option for anyone (ie, terrorists...) is because media and the people in general seem to care.

It does sound harsh, yes, but that is why terrorism works. That said, I didn't make the comparison for this reason, and talking about it is completely derailing the thread so lets leave it at this =3.

---

What I meant was, you cant effectively combat piracy in the same way you cant terrorism because it's impossible to cover all angles. There will always be SOMEONE that slips trough. In my country Norway there was a terror attack by a single person earlier this year, and after his horrible actions everyone was crying "why wasn't he stopped before?!" Well, how do you spot a person like that? Should we detain everyone with a shaky childhood just because they MAY become terrorists? One cannot get EVERY person that pirates games, and one can't easily secure a game from every angle of attack. If they stopped concentrating on protecting the game and put the money into making a great game that people would WANT to pay for, everyone would be winners.

 

[Wuggy]

[EDIT]

 

[veloper]

The ratio of first sales to piracy on the PC is only getting lower and lower and the fools at Ubisoft choose to complain to PC gamers now.

Before 2000, many PC gamers typically couldn't even buy PC games in town even if they wanted to and had to go far out of their way to get a box. Piracy was the only norm then.
Around 2000 games started to get on the shelves in the smaller places too and alot more gamers started to actually buying games instead of copying cracked versions.
In the last few years we see PC games disappearing from shelves again, but mailorder is still flying and digital sales are skyrocketing.

While triple-A games still sell less on PC than on the 360 and PS3, the difference is not all that much (counting digital sales). Since most we get is PC ports and making a decent PC port of a 360 game is relatively easy and cheap, not going PC is just leaving a large market to competing publishers.

I remember the days of share-ware, and I often think to myself if that's the right way to go about things. How things have changed, though.

I don't think anyone can deny that piracy isn't an issue --it simply is-- but adapting distribution to better service models has shown great potential as retail gasps its last dying breaths. Give consumers good deals and a 'no bullshit' way of getting them their entertainment and you reduce the impetus to acquire a product through less ethical means. I think that Ubisoft has been extraordinarily unprofessional recently and is alienating potential customers by treating them with contempt. There is no way I will touch a Ubisoft game because the quality of their products and service are exceptionally mediocre.

At the end of the day those who want to pirate will. Looking at recent releases which have turned over large amounts of cash on the PC, it's facetious to say that PC gamers are inherently all pirates. I do believe that the debate has been blown out of proportion as well, as certain sales charts (which ironically factor in digital distribution) show PC gaming to be lucrative when offering a good product/service and that a large proportion of pirated software is being distributed in third world and/or isolated regions.... Oh, and China.

If you can make it harder for pirates to get their games to work whilst simultaneously making it easier for legitimate customers to enjoy their experience at a reasonable cost then you come out on top.

The industry has a lot of maturing ahead of it.

Piracy may be an issue, but it's also a given, because people simply can. It's easy and no measures can stop it.

The baseline for game sales, with or without piracy, is ZERO and the only way to get people to give you money is to appeal to them.

Whether a game is copied illegally, traded or resold, the publisher makes no money anyway, though the game studio may still receive wider recognition this way (a small positive side-effect of piracy), so making gamers wanting to support the type of games you make is everything. That means fans, enthousiasts and the rare honest fool.

First sales during the important first weeks typically come from fans, so image and relations are the key to everything.