Sorry, another piracy/DRm article...

[Scrobbs]

...except this one is actually quite good; the author's rather breathless writing style is a little irritating, but it's thorough.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html

[Jayel]

Near the end of the article:

Consumers

Reduce piracy. ...

Stop making excuses for piracy. ...

What the hell? Are they implying that consumers are pirates?

[Karimi]

Good article, though in the typical economist fashion it could have been shorter and without all the run on sentences.

As the above models show, in each case there are certain quality tradeoffs necessary to make the model viable, and the common theme in all of the models is that it's likely that certain types of games, possibly entire genres, will be relegated to niche status, or in extreme cases die off altogether as adventure gaming did.

I still don't know why adventure gaming died...

Overall a good article, wish the solutions provided were better , it seemed to lose focus towards the end.

On a side note, what about game piracy vs other software. Paying 300 dollars for photoshop is just insane. Any thought on how those products are priced and what effect piracy has there ?

[ThunderPeel2001]

They're aimed at businesses to help them generate far more money than they actually cost. (It's $700 new and $200 for an upgrade.)

[Karimi]

They're aimed at businesses to help them generate far more money than they actually cost. (It's $700 new and $200 for an upgrade.)

Thats what I assumed, that piracy from companies rather than individuals was more damaging for them.

[elmuerte]

Adventure games are dead? Why didn't anyone tell the companies who are still creating adventure games.

[syntheticgerbil]

Adventure games are dead? Why didn't anyone tell the companies who are still creating adventure games.

I certainly wish someone would. Especially Benoit SOKAL, adventure genius.

[Jayel]

DRM articles in big publications always skirt around the issue of DRM destroying resale value of software. It's a bit like how major media networks never mentioning oil and war in Iraq in a same sentence.

I think Adobe actually released affordable consumer-level photoshop before (photoshop LE, they might have been called), but they must've not caught on, because they don't make them anymore.

[syntheticgerbil]

DRM articles in big publications always skirt around the issue of DRM destroying resale value of software.

Sometimes, but then they go on about how the resale value of software affects the sale value of software and so on.

[elmuerte]

I don't care as much about resale value, I've only sold a single game I bought ever (Dreamfall).

What I do care about is replay value. And DRM, specially the recently popular online activated variants, make replaying games in the future more difficult.

Of course that stuff isn't a reason to "pirate" or even download an illegal copy. The only reason I have for downloading an illegal copy is that I want to demo the game before I buy it.

[Scrobbs]

Relic, in an interview discussing the forthcoming DoWII, let slip an interesting take on how to deal with people nicking their game...

Strategy Informer: Now this is a standard question that we always ask, but what do you have lined up in terms of expansion packs and DLC?

Jonny Ebbert: We have a lot of seriously exciting plans for DLC. We really want to give our players a top-notch online experience and we want to reward our players for playing our game. We want to give out steady doses of free downloadable content because we believe in rewarding people who buy the game and the reason we don't like DRM solutions is because they punish the innocent and they have to jump through all these hoops. We don't want to do that so we're going with the approach that Valve pioneered to just reward the people who actually bought the game with cool stuff. Free downloadable, regularly accessible stuff that enhances the game and then that's an incentive for the people who didn't buy the game to buy it. So we've got a really bold, robust strategy for that and we're going to be revealing more details in about a month, but I think players are going to like it. And everybody wins you know? The people who paid for the game don't have to go through any fuss and they're constantly getting new stuff, which keeps the game fresh

Quite a healthy step forward I reckon.

[gdf]

I don't care as much about resale value, I've only sold a single game I bought ever (Dreamfall).

What I do care about is replay value. And DRM, specially the recently popular online activated variants, make replaying games in the future more difficult.

Of course that stuff isn't a reason to "pirate" or even download an illegal copy. The only reason I have for downloading an illegal copy is that I want to demo the game before I buy it.

Doing that doesn't help anyone, because for every game pirated the publisher sees it as another sale lost, meaning they are more likely to place prohibitive measures of DRM in games. I wonder what percentage of pirated copies are just for people to "demo". Hint: It's probably significant enough that we all suffer for it.

However, arguably developers should all be putting the maximum effort into their games, and if most games were worth buying people would be less likely to do that.

Bottom line though, I wholly disagree with piracy.

[elmuerte]

It helps me. There have not been a lot of brand new games I bought without demo'ing it first. No demo = probably no sale; Very restrictive DRM = no sale. No games I want to buy = play old games + different hobby.

We don't want to do that so we're going with the approach that Valve pioneered to just reward the people who actually bought the game with cool stuff. Free downloadable, regularly accessible stuff that enhances the game and then that's an incentive for the people who didn't buy the game to buy it.

When did Valve do that?

I do remember free bonus packs from various other devs, and I seriously doubt Valve was the first to release a free bonus pack.

[toblix]

Me playing a game = (Awesomeness² + Achievements + (1/η)Tits -(1-1/η)DRM) / Checkpoint sparsity, where η is the number of outfits.

[Scrobbs]

I'm glad you're picking holes in the details...who cares if he attributes that to Valve or whoever - I wanted to draw attention to the point that a pretty large developer seems to have realised that using a stick is bad, and a carrot might be better.

[ThunderPeel2001]

If the details are wrong, it makes you question the things you don't know.

[Cigol]

Valve might not be the first, but they are one of the big hitters in the field. That said I'm guessing they attributed it to Valve simply because they'll be releasing their games on the STEAM network!

[elmuerte]

but I still don't know what Valve gave away for free...

[miffy495]

I'm thinking all the huge updates to Team Fortress 2 is what they're referring to. And maybe The Lost Coast for HL2 a few years back. Mostly TF2 though.

[Cigol]

Yes, the post-release updates is what they are referring to. Left 4 Dead is going to get the same treatment. One might say the Orange Box was rather generous in its offerings as well.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'm thinking all the huge updates to Team Fortress 2 is what they're referring to. And maybe The Lost Coast for HL2 a few years back. Mostly TF2 though.

Oh yeah! Didn't the original Half Life / Team Fortress / Counter Strike have tons of free upgrades, too?

[Cigol]

Good point now you mention it, it seems Valve have been doing this from the very beginning. Although, some people hated the updates so much they still play the earlier versions.

[DanJW]

Valve: Pirates Are Just Underserved Customers

[elmuerte]

it's funny how he says that Steam is world-wide available and implies that it is neutral. It's of course true for North-America, but not for rest of the world.

But he has a good point (not a very new point, because a lot of people have been saying it for years). Piracy will go up when people have to wait an insane long time for the game to be release in their country. Of course there is a fair chance people that pirated the copy might still buy it when it's finally released in their country. But there is also a chance they already forgot about the game they played 2 months ago.

[syntheticgerbil]

I wish it wasn't so difficult to release things simultaneously all over the world. I also wish they would do away with region coding for movies and games, and somehow make it so PAL vs. NTSC didn't exist. I'm not even sure why there are different formats in the first place.

I like that a few games I imported from Europe for PS2 allow me to pick PAL or NTSC, but I've never seen a North American game give the same option.

Ultimately though, I didn't know digital sales were really catching on, but Steam would prove otherwise. I also didn't know people like Remo with Steam-love existed in such great number and enjoyed playing all from one module. I'm just one of those hard copy nuts, I like having packaging and manuals. I keep many old consoles around just because I'd rather just play like I've always had on the TV with the actual system and not on an emulator. Ultimately I will succumb, but for now, I'd like for companies to always offer a hardcopy if you are paying for a digital copy, even if it comes later the way Telltale does it.

But yes, more power to Steam. I agree with all Valve is saying here, and it seems obvious people wouldn't pirate as much if a legal copy was easier to get than a pirated copy, digital or retail. So again, hooray for worldwide release dates.