Piracy, Ubisoft and "the loss"

[CrystalShadow]

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.

Call me a cynic, but it sounds like you're trying to catch more flies with honey than vinegar and in this situation I can't help making up a balance of what that means.
What you're saying is that if you spend less resources protecting your software and more on improving it, this will then diminish piracy. But isn't at the same time a game with less protection and a better quality also a more lucrative possession and therefore a greater incentive to pirate it?
You see, you say that you can't combat all angles, but that's not the way I see combat, since combating to me means covering all angles possible, so that the ones you can't cover cause minimum damage.
Anyway, I'd also like to go back to the War on Terror thing, as I agree it's a bit of a tangent, but it's the same basic principle. Do you really believe that extremists are going to stop killing people if we keep our mouths shut about it?
How many eyes were on Norwegian terrorism when this happened? Because I'll wager there weren't a lot, but it still happened. Shouldn't we then at least put this knowledge that we've gained of the situation to good use so as to help ensure that this doesn't happen again?

Perhaps it's true that trying to close as many gaps as possible is the correct idea, but some ideas are mutually exclusive.

DRM is an obvious example of this. DRM of any kind whatoever harms your legitimate customers. However, it does delay (but not prevent) the ability of pirates to provide alternate copies.

Further to this, DRM costs money to implement. Both directly, and because it involves doing something really unnatural to a digital file. (Prevent copying. - That's the antitheses of why digital files exist in the first place. A digital file, and the equipment surrounding it are explicitly designed to consistently make reliable copies of information.)

Doing something which goes against the innate properties of the medium you're working with inevitably creates complications and bugs. If you can even get it to work at all.

So...

You're left weighing up something like this:

Direct implementation cost of DRM + Support cost of DRM related problems + Loss of goodwill due to inevitable negative effects on your customers of DRM.

Against

Temporary reduction in piracy rates.

(It's inevitably temporary, because as soon as you have even a single crack for your game, the protection your DRM provides is gone, and you're back to a situation akin to not having DRM at all.)


The question you have to ask, is are the direct and indirect costs of implementing DRM less than the extra profits you'll gain from reducing piracy rates.

Sounds like a simple calculation... But of course the problem is you can't obtain any figures that aren't purely speculative.

There's no way to prove if you would have made more, or less had you made a different choice...
So people just go with a gut reaction, and do whatever...

And then if they make a profit they say "See? it worked." (Irrespective of if they wanted to prove their DRM worked, or wanted to prove you can do fine without DRM.)

If they made a loss, they blame piracy. Because it's easier than trying to figure out if there's anything else that may have contributed.

And you can't prove it anyway. Did I not make a profit because my game sucks? Did everyone just pirate it because they could? Did they pirate it in protest of my harsh DRM?
Did I not do enough marketing?

Impossible to answer with any reliability. So instead people just go with whatever absolves them of responsibility for the problem. (That goes for both developers and pirates by the way. Neither wants to face up to the possibility that they're at fault for anything.)

 

[Jack Rascal]

Compared to you walking into my house under shroud of darkness and TAKING my box and wires so that I no longer had access to it myself? No. Would you?

I would be most upset if someone came to my house and stole my internet, naturally. Did I claim otherwise? Piracy is a lost sale, it is pretty much the same thing as stealing a copy. People who do not wish to play the game, do not pirate as they would never buy the game in the first place.

Would I be happy that you leeched of my internet? No. Would I try to prevent it? Yes. Would I punch my room mate that actually pays to use my internet in the face because YOU are leeching off my internet? ... Would you?

Are game companies happy that people pirate? No. Would they try and prevent it? Yes. And how are game companies punching me in the face? Have not noticed that yet. Weak little things...

I haven't been defending piracy. Maybe it seemed a bit like it, but what I WAS trying to do was point out that it's not as big a problem as some make it out to be, and that their actions in defending against piracy is hurting the paying customers more than it is hurting the pirates. And to all you that felt the terrorism part was the most interesting, this is where that comes in. Defending against terrorism eventually ends up hurting the general public more than it does the terrorists. You can defend against it to a certain degree, but when it starts seriously eating at peoples freedoms and standard of living it's gone too far, in an atempt to protect against something which is so hard to protect against as to be almost impossible.

Pirating is a problem. Pirating is a problem in every industry it exists in.

There's a whole market for pirated Louis Vuitton bags for example. People buy them because they are fashionable and whatnot. Does pirating their products increase their sales? I don't think so. Would you go out and buy a pirated Vuitton bag, carry it around for a few weeks before deciding that yes! This is the bag for me! No, I don't think you would. This is a bad example in a way as fashionable bags are ridiculously overpriced where games are not. But it is still pretty much the same thing.

As for your terrorism claim, I'm not quite sure I follow. Why are you comparing pirating games to terrorism? How does defending against terrorism hurt the general public more? I am sorry for what happened in Norway, I really am, but how are these two things comparable?

 

[SushiJaguar]

OP: Drop the terrorist thing. You're just digging a bigger hole.

 

[Darkmantle]

Bethesda has got it, eh?

25,000 people are pirating Skyrim right now, that's just today, that's just from [u/]one site[/u]... that's 1.5 million in sales not being paid after a product is used.

What?

I hate pirates.

I fucking hate pirates.

EDIT: Also, comparing video games to the music industry isn't fair. Artists never made that much from record sales anyway. They make the bulk of their money from performing live.

the problem with that is I know half a dozen people who pirated it then bought it, and only 1 that has yet to buy it.

with this estimate, that's about 1.2 million in sales they ARE getting.

 

[Jack Rascal]

Bethesda has got it, eh?

25,000 people are pirating Skyrim right now, that's just today, that's just from [u/]one site[/u]... that's 1.5 million in sales not being paid after a product is used.

What?

I hate pirates.

I fucking hate pirates.

EDIT: Also, comparing video games to the music industry isn't fair. Artists never made that much from record sales anyway. They make the bulk of their money from performing live.

the problem with that is I know half a dozen people who pirated it then bought it, and only 1 that has yet to buy it.

with this estimate, that's about 1.2 million in sales they ARE getting.

Oh yes, yes YES!! Pirating is direct sales! There is no other reason to pirate a game other than to buy it later. /sarcasm

Seriously though, you actually believe that? You have 6 friends that illegally downloaded a game "to try it". And you think that 1,2 million people are merely trying it out? Oh my...

 

[Vegosiux]

Oh yes, yes YES!! Pirating is direct sales! There is no other reason to pirate a game other than to buy it later. /sarcasm

Seriously though, you actually believe that? You have 6 friends that illegally downloaded a game "to try it". And you think that 1,2 million people are merely trying it out? Oh my...

Without evidence pointing either way, neither of you can prove a point.

All I'll say is, anti piracy measures do more harm to legitimate customers than they do to pirates. They only delay pirates, while treating the legitimate customers like potential perpetrators. Idealistically speaking, one should work on reducing the desirability of piracy by providing a better alternative, but as I said, that's idealistic.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm just gonna throw the idea out there that piracy is not theft, but it certainly is dishonest, and it terribly devalues the things copied.

Seriously, if you can have every game you want, for free, are you really going to play any of them to their full potential?

Not only are you not paying for the games, you're not even showing the artists who created them the respect of bothering to spend a decent time enjoying them.

I know that's aside from the financial side of things.

On the financial side, I do agree, companies need to stop treating their customers like criminals, they must know by now that the pirates will undoubtedly have a DRM free, fully hacked, 'doesn't need the disc in the drive' copy of the game, ready to play within a week of any release. Sometimes a week BEFORE release.

'Better than free' is the ideal to go for. Make your game better than the pirated one, offer bonus content from the server after you've proved yourself a legit customer, maybe send out bonus bits in the mail like, Skyrim had a lovely map in the box, maybe send things like that out to genuine customers.

Or Blizzard, facing a decline in WOW subscriptions, recently offered the annual pass.

You agree to sign up for 12 months, but don't need to actually change anything about payments, short of registering a credit card (that only gets charged if you stop payments the other way), and if you do so, you get some bonuses in game, and you get Diablo III for nothing on the release day!

Sounds like a lot to give away, possibly a million or more copies of a game they've not even finished yet. How can they justify it?

DLC.

You've got a million or so people playing D3, you now KNOW you've got a massive userbase who'll maybe be happy to pay for more content.

It's all about carrot not stick.

 

[Fishyash]

Piracy isn't good, of course, but I have to say the publishers definately need to stop going agressive about it. I wanna use the music industry since you mentioned it. I swear most artists that I have heard being interviewed don't really care about filesharing, although the music industry made a massive deal about with napster and stuff. Now look at the music industry taking as much advantage from downloading, sharing, youtube etc. as possible.

The gaming industry needs to stop fighting a losing battle. Every cloud has a silver lining and there is probably a way to find a way to put it to their advantage. Condoning piracy is awful, but starting an guns blaring war against it only hurts the innocent buyers. I think gaming gets hurt by piracy more than music does (artists can still get money from gigs, t-shirts, royalties etc.) but there must be...

ohwait I think...

...ok nevermind that's just stupid, keep looking.

...so close...

 

[Jack Rascal]

Heres an idea, what if some dude wants to play the game and pirates, but wouldnt have had any money to buy a copy anyway.

Yeah, I know. Mind = blown.

I must admit, my mind is utterly blown!! Poor fellow does not have money to buy a game. A game that is not a necessity like food and clothing or a roof over your head. Poor poor thing...

But in all seriousness, not having the money to pay for it is not a justification to steal it

 

[Vegosiux]

But in all seriousness, not having the money to pay for it is not a justification to steal it

Well, the question here was "Does every single pirated copy mean a lost sale?". The answer is, of course, "No. Some would not have bought it in the first place."

See it's hard to defend the anti piracy position when people on your own side destroy your arguments with populist nonsense.

Is piracy a bad and dishonest thing? Why yes, yes it is!

But some "arguments" against are just as ridiculous, and are not making it any easier to make people listen to reason, and are most definitely not helping with making people see why piracy is wrong.

 

[Jack Rascal]

Oh yes, yes YES!! Pirating is direct sales! There is no other reason to pirate a game other than to buy it later. /sarcasm

Seriously though, you actually believe that? You have 6 friends that illegally downloaded a game "to try it". And you think that 1,2 million people are merely trying it out? Oh my...

Without evidence pointing either way, neither of you can prove a point.

In all honesty, it doesn't matter if either can prove the point. Pirating is illegal, even if you only want to try the game out. As an alternative, how about renting it? Or borrowing from a friend? How about trying out the demo (if there is one) or watching videos? Reading reviews? You cannot justify piracy by saying "I only wanted to try it before buying".

All I'll say is, anti piracy measures do more harm to legitimate customers than they do to pirates. They only delay pirates, while treating the legitimate customers like potential perpetrators. Idealistically speaking, one should work on reducing the desirability of piracy by providing a better alternative, but as I said, that's idealistic.

How does antipiracy harm legitimate buyers and delay pirates?

 

[Vegosiux]

In all honesty, it doesn't matter if either can prove the point. Pirating is illegal, even if you only want to try the game out. As an alternative, how about renting it? Or borrowing from a friend? How about trying out the demo (if there is one) or watching videos? Reading reviews? You cannot justify piracy by saying "I only wanted to try it before buying".

Wait now, renting or borrowing it still means you get to play it without buying it, so that doesn't help your argument.

How does antipiracy harm legitimate buyers and delay pirates?

It delays pirates, not stops them. Everything gets cracked. While in the meantime the paying customer has to deal with DRM and game validation systems, jump through hoops in order to enjoy the product they bought - while the pirates laugh on, and play their "No validation, no CD, no DRM" cracked games. And it makes me, a paying customer, feel upset because I'm being treated that way, because I have to jump through hoops, and they don't.

 

[aksel]

Piracy (which is an awesome term, by the way) does not directly cause the loss of sales. The "war on piracy", on the other hand, harms the paying customer in every way, and might cause them to outright refuse to pay for a game.

DRM, online-activation and the likes, only harm the paying customer, as it alienates people with slow/no internet and people who will not stand for being looked at with evil eyes.

Pirates do not have to bother with it, because the game is cracked almost instantly after release, and in these times, more commonly before release.

I have more than often found myself cracking a game I payed full price for on release day, just to play it properly, without having to bother with typing in a long and bothersome key, having internet connection to play, and the most shocking, forcing me to install spyware on my personal possession. And on the case of EA's Origin platform, a non-Origin fix was released, only a few hours following the release of Battlefield 3.

In a perfect world, all games would be pay-what-you-want (see Humble Indie Bundle). However, it is not only the gaming industry that needs a shaking; too many pirates download, enjoy and never even consider paying the developer(s).

 

[mjc0961]

Enjoy, hoping for some nice grown-up discussion.

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.

Kind of shot yourself in the foot there, didn't you? I mean really, did you just imply we shouldn't try to fight terrorists and stop them from blowing us up or killing us in other ways by comparing the war on terrorism to the "war on pirating"? Yes, game publishers are always going to lose the fight, and DRM only drives away paying customers (or makes them act like twats and think it's okay for them to pirate a copy after buying one when it's not, because pirating a copy still ups the numbers for how many times that game was pirated and only convinces publishers that they should try harder to stop it next time). But really, did you just imply that this is comparable to stopping terrorists from trying to kill us?! Good god. I can't find the words to explain how incredibly dumb this comparison is.

http://www.gameproducer.net/images/piracyisnottheft.jpg

Incorrect image is incorrect. What do you call taking something without paying for it? Because generally, people call that stealing. Another term for stealing is theft. Piracy is taking something without paying for it, and thus piracy is stealing and any other words that mean the same thing as stealing, such as theft.

Keep coming up with those really poor justifications for not paying for your games, though!

 

[Vegosiux]

Incorrect image is incorrect. What do you call taking something without paying for it? Because generally, people call that stealing. Another term for stealing is theft. Piracy is taking something without paying for it, and thus piracy is stealing and any other words that mean the same thing as stealing, such as theft.

Actually, I wouldn't be so sure about that. I'm pretty sure around here piracy and theft are two separate felonies in our law. They're both felonies, but they're not the same. It's still wrong and illegal, but it's not stealing.

So no, piracy isn't theft. It's like apples and oranges. Both are round, can be sweet and are fruits, but that doesn't make them the same.

 

[Jack Rascal]

But in all seriousness, not having the money to pay for it is not a justification to steal it

Well, the question here was "Does every single pirated copy mean a lost sale?". The answer is, of course, "No. Some would not have bought it in the first place."

See it's hard to defend the anti piracy position when people on your own side destroy your arguments with populist nonsense.

Is piracy a bad and dishonest thing? Why yes, yes it is!

But some "arguments" against are just as ridiculous, and are not making it any easier to make people listen to reason, and are most definitely not helping with making people see why piracy is wrong.

Every pirated copy is a lost sale. If you did not want the product in the first place, you would have not pirated it. For example I could not care less about CoD, I have no intention whatsoever in buying it, so why would I pirate a copy? I do not want to play the game. This is why piracy is hurting the industry, people pirate games they wish to play. That's my argument, not directed at you

I know this is a lost battle to explain why piracy is wrong... People have strong believes. Nothing I or anyone else here says can convince them otherwise.

 

[Pandabearparade]

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...

-This-.

I could have pirated both Minecraft and Skyrim easily, but I didn't, because I love the companies that made the games.

Hell, I wish Bethesda released more content faster. TAKE MY MONEY, BETHESDA!

 

[SenseOfTumour]

"How does antipiracy harm legitimate buyers and delay pirates?"

By offering a far worse product for sixty bucks than the pirates get for free, sometimes before the arbitrary release date chosen by the marketing people.

One suggestion I'd have is that if for example, it's discovered that Modern Warfare 4 was leaked a week early, don't leave the download locked on Steam, don't leave the piles of games out the back of the stores waiting for the magic day to come, get em out there!

Every hour you're NOT selling your game after the pirates have released it is lost sales and cancelled preorders. You can still have your magic day of promotions, just let people who want to pay for the game play it at the same time as the pirates.

Also, if the pirates can play it without an constant, blip free net connection, why should your customers not be able to?

Lastly, don't expect massive sales for a PC game, if you can't make it run smoothly on a mid range PC, when it runs fine on Xbox 260 hardware. When we've got a PC that runs better than half a dozen 360s wired together, and we can't play something like Saint's Row 2 half as well, because of a shoddy, badly done port, we do not become happy customers.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Every pirated copy is a lost sale. If you did not want the product in the first place, you would have not pirated it.

Bullshit. I'm not a pirate (unless it's something I can no longer find legally), but the idea that a pirate would have actually paid for every pirated bit of booty he has in his treasure chest is just flat out wrong. Often pirates just pirate things because the barrier of entry is free, so why not try something new? Buying Showtime to see some show called Dexter that you've heard good things about costs money, pirating it to see what all the fuss is about does not. If a pirate torrents Dexter that does not imply that if they had not they would have opted to buy Showtime to see it.

It isn't a lost sale, it's a lost potential sale. It's still wrong, morally, but it isn't theft.