I doubt that is the reason. Piracy hasn't been shown to be a risk in sales, so why would people crunching numbers use something that hasn't been identified as sales related?
A publisher isn't just a number cruncher. A publisher is an investor, which is really just sort of an informed gambler. Sometimes you find awesome people who totally get your idea and are willing to go out on a limb, but often you get someone who publishes books 90% of the time or something. And if piracy wasn't considered a risk in sales by people who tend to see themselves as pretty serious, why would anyone want to use DRMs such as the one Ubi is implementing?
I think the reason PC companies have harder times is simply because the market is a lot smaller in terms of who buys AAA games on the PC. Add to the fact that PC variances from system to system and its a lot hard to find that happy medium. PC gaming is treated differently then console gaming there for its investors will treat it differently also.
This I agree to also. The market, as in "The people who pay for games", for AAA titles IS a lot smaller. Wheter that can be blamed on piracy or not isn't really something anyone could answer. This is why I believe Stardock has been able to do their thing so well. They simply don't target the AAA crowd. And that's probably where the future of PC gaming is: smaller, more niched games. But that's just my personal gut feeling.
A publisher isn't just a number cruncher. A publisher is an investor, which is really just sort of an informed gambler.
Investing is more then just an informed gambler. Day trading, maybe you have something there, but not investing.
And if piracy wasn't considered a risk in sales by people who tend to see themselves as pretty serious, why would anyone want to use DRMs such as the one Ubi is implementing?
For the same reason the RIAA sues 13 year olds: to punish those who pirate(even though it doesn't work).
Steam's unit sales increased by 205% in 2009 over 2008's figures, Valve has declared as part of an announcement detailing the digital distribution platform's growth last year.
According to the Half-Life and Left 4 Dead dev, this "extraordinary growth" marks "the fifth straight year the platform has realized over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales."
I don't think PC gaming is going anywhere. I agree we will see MORE niche small budget titles, however, I don't think games like bioshock/fallout 3/Elder Scrolls/Dragon Age are going anywhere.
A publisher isn't just a number cruncher. A publisher is an investor, which is really just sort of an informed gambler.
Investing is more then just an informed gambler. Day trading, maybe you have something there, but not investing.
It was a simplification. I just meant to point out that they take a chance with every project they decide to help fund in the hopes of making more money back. The amount of money they think can make back is decides the amount of money they can put in. That was all I meant to refer to.
And if piracy wasn't considered a risk in sales by people who tend to see themselves as pretty serious, why would anyone want to use DRMs such as the one Ubi is implementing?
For the same reason the RIAA sues 13 year olds: to punish those who pirate(even though it doesn't work).
And why would they want to punish them if not to make them pay for the game? Vengeance or just plain malice? Nah, DRM is implemented 'cause they think it'll bring in more money.
And I agree in full that it doesn't work. Trying is just ridiculous.
I don't think PC gaming is going anywhere. I agree we will see MORE niche small budget titles, however, I don't think games like bioshock/fallout 3/Elder Scrolls/Dragon Age are going anywhere.
And why would they want to punish them if not to make them pay for the game? Vengeance or just plain malice? Nah, DRM is implemented 'cause they think it'll bring in more money.
They are not doing it to bring in more sales and I dont think they are doing it with malice. They do it in hopes of stopping piracy. It is because people are playing the games that they have worked over, payed for, and took a risk on for free. They do not want or like that fact. It is completely reasonable why they want to try and stop it. However, when it starts affecting the consumer it crosses the line, imo.
RyanMC on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
And why would they want to punish them if not to make them pay for the game? Vengeance or just plain malice? Nah, DRM is implemented 'cause they think it'll bring in more money.
They are not doing it to bring in more sales and I dont think they are doing it with malice. They do it in hopes of stopping piracy. It is because people are playing the games that they have worked over, payed for, and took a risk on for free. They do not want or like that fact. It is completely reasonable why they want to try and stop it. However, when it starts affecting the consumer it crosses the line, imo.
I think this might be what developers support drm sometimes, but I don't think that's the main motivation why publishers add DRM to a game. I think we are again back at the idea of "lost sales". As long as people think a pirated game is a denied sale, all DRM and anti-piracy measures have the ultimate goal of bringing in more revenue.
But I think we can probably give that discussion a rest. I guess we can agree on a hearty "Booh, DRM!"?
A publisher isn't just a number cruncher. A publisher is an investor, which is really just sort of an informed gambler. Sometimes you find awesome people who totally get your idea and are willing to go out on a limb, but often you get someone who publishes books 90% of the time or something. And if piracy wasn't considered a risk in sales by people who tend to see themselves as pretty serious, why would anyone want to use DRMs such as the one Ubi is implementing?
They -think- that it's a risk. Problem is that this, rather than being based on hard information (to be fair, hard information regarding piracy's effect on game sales is nigh impossible to get), this is based on smoke and mirrors to convince the people making the decision that it's a huge issue.
These are usually the creators of the anti-piracy software itself. Ubisoft and game developers et al. aren't in the business of coding "piracy prevention" software, and so it's almost always contracted to an outside developer. These are the people with a vested interest in spreading the belief that piracy has a much bigger impact on sales than it actually does. They're also often doing the selling to upper management (possibly savvy to the issue, possibly not) and investors (whose primary qualification is 'has a lot of money'). They're going to be easier to mislead on these subjects, as they most likely don't have a strong grasp on the intricacies.
Only to you and some others.
People believe what they want to believe even when proven wrong.
But in this case you can't prove that I am wrong yet.
This is definitely ad hominem but what are you, fucking twelve? Here's your argument:
P1 = Pirates share illegal content.
P2 = Pirates aren't selfish.
C1 = Pirates share illegal content because they aren't selfish.
P3 = Pirates wouldn't share illegal content if they were selfish.
C2 = Let's make pirates selfish.
This is about as retarded as arguments get. If premise two was a solid premise then maybe, but it isn't. That aside, conclusion one is so shoddy that I would have to slap you senseless anyway. Pirates participate in the community for totally self serving reasons which are relatively benevolent to everyone except copyright holders. To think otherwise is either willfully ignorant or foolishly optimistic.
First, I'd like to thank Cocktail for his/her contributions to this thread. It's a pleasure to read level-headed posts, and to hear the thoughts of someone in the industry.
Next, I'd like to say that the back and forth about whether or not piracy impacts sales is a bit odd. Obviously there are going to be a lot of pirates who wouldn't have bought the game anyway, but there are also people who don't buy it because the pirating option is available.
I know, for example, that there have been times when I've been willing to purchase another copy for a friend who couldn't afford his own, just because I want to play with him that badly. In some cases he was able to successfully pirate the game instead, and I didn't have to go buy him a 2nd copy. That's a lost sale.
I don't know what percentage of piracy represents lost sales - it's probably significantly less than half, but at least some of those players would have bought the title if they couldn't get it any other way.
I generally buy games, but out of the pirating that I've done over the years I'd estimate about 10-20% of it would represent a lost sale. That could be a big deal for a company, especially because of the way profitability works as you cross the breakeven point. A small increase in sales can actually represent a much larger increase in profits, particularly for a title that is just barely covering it's costs.
Thanks for your posts here, Cocktail. You've managed to say a lot of the things I wanted too, while being a little more level-headed and a little less frustrated.
I think some people have trouble with the idea that because Brad Wardell is fine doesn't mean every developer and every genre is in the same boat. Niche/casual games really are a different kind of business venture, and the things Stardock needs to succeed are very different from what a triple-A title targeted at hardcore gamers needs. It's not a binary debate with Wardell on one side and Ubisoft on the other - they're making different products for different people.
Console ports of triple-A titles are still profitable because porting from the 360 isn't prohibitively expensive. The PC versions of triple-A are subsidized by their console counterparts, with the more successful console market bearing the bulk of the development costs. That may not be a big deal now, but it will become a lot more meaningful if advances in console technology make PC ports more expensive to produce. If triple-A games are all using Natal (or whatever) in five years, it's easy to imagine the ports drying up and leaving the PC market extremely barren.
I'm not at all convinced that DRM - especially the kind of draconian DRM Ubisoft is employing - is the answer, but I can't fault them for at least trying something. The current triple-A PC market is tenuous, and as someone who much prefers a mouse and keyboard, I'd hate to see it go away.
Is there an official address to send letters to the head of Ubisoft?
Emails and stuff can be ignored, but I've found that a respectful, formal, written letter actually works for other things.
You can find the Ubisoft corporate headquarter location through their corporate website. To help you out when you hit the map of the earth, their headquarters are in France.
This site also has their sales figures and quarterly reports.
Here is an exerpt from their 2009-2010 3rd quarter sales press release.
This is found under their Online Strategy section after talking about Uplay and listing some new releases.
"
-A platform of online services for PC titles offering gamers a more in-depth gaming experience as well as providing an innovative solution for reducing PC game piracy. The first games to benefit from this solution will be released in the coming months.
"
Of the pirating I did before I got a steady job and steady income, I'd say 50% of those downloads were lost sales. I was in college, I had access to broadband, and my morality was more touch-and-go. These days, I have income, but more importantly, I'm an aspiring indy developer myself, and I don't want to hurt another developer's sales.
I'm kind of shocked that so much of this thread has been devoted to blaming the publishers, or at least giving them an equal share of the blame as the pirates. That's seems almost like screaming "NUH UH!"
I already know that gamers' opinions of publishers are fickle. EA closes down Westwood, everyone hates EA. EA publishes some more creative, new IPs like Mirror's Edge, and suddenly people don't remember Westwood anymore. I get that.
But we seem to be in a weird situation where enforcement of copyright law has proven inadequate for the technological revolution. Before the dawn of the Internet, code wheels and inputting passages from instruction manuals was pretty effective. Then in the late '90s commercial CD burners became available, and non-burnable game CDs became the rage. Piracy websites were really off the beaten track, as hosting pirated game copies (for fans that were mostly on dialup, nonetheless) made them very vulnerable to legal action.
But then came the age of broadband, BitTorrent, and tremendous variety in private server hosting. This spigot can't be shut off, as the relocation of The Pirate Bay can tell anyone. And aside from The Pirate Bay case (which amounted to nothing aside from some punitive jail time and a server migration), who has bothered to enforce copyright laws? Can they even be effectively enforced across foreign borders? (1.6 billion Chinese would law if you asked them that question.)
So since national and international groups can't actually enforce copyright law, the publishers, everyone's favorite villain, has had to do it themselves. Which is why DRM often sucks so much, because it's the result of a private company stepping in to do what their governments can't or won't. Hence the flailing around and the varying levels of invasiveness. I just find it galling that publishers' attempts to protect their software with DRM is considered equivalent to pirates downloading hacked copies with impunity.
I mean, it's not the chicken and the egg here. DRM definitely follows piracy. It seems a lot of you have forgotten that in light of modern DRM being such a royal pain in the ass.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
The only issue I have with DRM is when it makes the experience worse for the paying customer. I mean, they want the disk in the tray? Fine. They want some weird bit of software that makes sure it's the right disk in the tray? Fine. They force me to be connected to the internet to play a single player game and store all my saved games on their 'cloud'? Too far.
The current triple-A PC market is tenuous, and as someone who much prefers a mouse and keyboard, I'd hate to see it go away.
On that note, is there any reason why we can't have mouse and keyboard games on a console? Then I could have dedicated gaming hardware, the devlopers could have their preferred platform, and I could have my preferred interface to a game.
Mostly because it's a pain to code for multiple inputs, and because there's much more fine control available with a mouse than with an analog stick. Also probably because at this point, there isn't much demand; everyone who wants to game with the mouse and keyboard just does it on a PC.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
0
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
I'm not at all convinced that DRM - especially the kind of draconian DRM Ubisoft is employing - is the answer, but I can't fault them for at least trying something. The current triple-A PC market is tenuous, and as someone who much prefers a mouse and keyboard, I'd hate to see it go away.
On that note, is there any reason why we can't have mouse and keyboard games on a console? Then I could have dedicated gaming hardware, the devlopers could have their preferred platform, and I could have my preferred interface to a game.
Current consoles (well, the 360 and PS3, not sure about the Wii) support them, but not games be default. they need to be done specifically to support them, and developers don't do it. Likely because, well, not many people plug a mouse and keyboard in so it's not worth the time, and because for multiplayer, it gives unfair advantage to those that have them. They're not standard controllers like on a PC.
So since national and international groups can't actually enforce copyright law, the publishers, everyone's favorite villain, has had to do it themselves. Which is why DRM often sucks so much, because it's the result of a private company stepping in to do what their governments can't or won't. Hence the flailing around and the varying levels of invasiveness. I just find it galling that publishers' attempts to protect their software with DRM is considered equivalent to pirates downloading hacked copies with impunity.
I mean, it's not the chicken and the egg here. DRM definitely follows piracy. It seems a lot of you have forgotten that in light of modern DRM being such a royal pain in the ass.
Who gives a shit?
If GameStop flooded their store with CS gas in response to a shoplifter, well, I'd call the cops for one, but for two, I'd still be pissed at them for their overreaction which annoyed me as I was trying to hand them money.
Of the pirating I did before I got a steady job and steady income, I'd say 50% of those downloads were lost sales. I was in college, I had access to broadband, and my morality was more touch-and-go. These days, I have income, but more importantly, I'm an aspiring indy developer myself, and I don't want to hurt another developer's sales.
I'm kind of shocked that so much of this thread has been devoted to blaming the publishers, or at least giving them an equal share of the blame as the pirates. That's seems almost like screaming "NUH UH!"
I already know that gamers' opinions of publishers are fickle. EA closes down Westwood, everyone hates EA. EA publishes some more creative, new IPs like Mirror's Edge, and suddenly people don't remember Westwood anymore. I get that.
But we seem to be in a weird situation where enforcement of copyright law has proven inadequate for the technological revolution. Before the dawn of the Internet, code wheels and inputting passages from instruction manuals was pretty effective. Then in the late '90s commercial CD burners became available, and non-burnable game CDs became the rage. Piracy websites were really off the beaten track, as hosting pirated game copies (for fans that were mostly on dialup, nonetheless) made them very vulnerable to legal action.
But then came the age of broadband, BitTorrent, and tremendous variety in private server hosting. This spigot can't be shut off, as the relocation of The Pirate Bay can tell anyone. And aside from The Pirate Bay case (which amounted to nothing aside from some punitive jail time and a server migration), who has bothered to enforce copyright laws? Can they even be effectively enforced across foreign borders? (1.6 billion Chinese would law if you asked them that question.)
So since national and international groups can't actually enforce copyright law, the publishers, everyone's favorite villain, has had to do it themselves. Which is why DRM often sucks so much, because it's the result of a private company stepping in to do what their governments can't or won't. Hence the flailing around and the varying levels of invasiveness. I just find it galling that publishers' attempts to protect their software with DRM is considered equivalent to pirates downloading hacked copies with impunity.
I mean, it's not the chicken and the egg here. DRM definitely follows piracy. It seems a lot of you have forgotten that in light of modern DRM being such a royal pain in the ass.
There are other reasons besides money and DRM that cause people to pirate.
Don't feel like making something available to people if they're in X country or until X months? Guess what, they're gonna pirate it.
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
Of the pirating I did before I got a steady job and steady income, I'd say 50% of those downloads were lost sales. I was in college, I had access to broadband, and my morality was more touch-and-go. These days, I have income, but more importantly, I'm an aspiring indy developer myself, and I don't want to hurt another developer's sales.
I'm kind of shocked that so much of this thread has been devoted to blaming the publishers, or at least giving them an equal share of the blame as the pirates. That's seems almost like screaming "NUH UH!"
I already know that gamers' opinions of publishers are fickle. EA closes down Westwood, everyone hates EA. EA publishes some more creative, new IPs like Mirror's Edge, and suddenly people don't remember Westwood anymore. I get that.
But we seem to be in a weird situation where enforcement of copyright law has proven inadequate for the technological revolution. Before the dawn of the Internet, code wheels and inputting passages from instruction manuals was pretty effective. Then in the late '90s commercial CD burners became available, and non-burnable game CDs became the rage. Piracy websites were really off the beaten track, as hosting pirated game copies (for fans that were mostly on dialup, nonetheless) made them very vulnerable to legal action.
But then came the age of broadband, BitTorrent, and tremendous variety in private server hosting. This spigot can't be shut off, as the relocation of The Pirate Bay can tell anyone. And aside from The Pirate Bay case (which amounted to nothing aside from some punitive jail time and a server migration), who has bothered to enforce copyright laws? Can they even be effectively enforced across foreign borders? (1.6 billion Chinese would law if you asked them that question.)
So since national and international groups can't actually enforce copyright law, the publishers, everyone's favorite villain, has had to do it themselves. Which is why DRM often sucks so much, because it's the result of a private company stepping in to do what their governments can't or won't. Hence the flailing around and the varying levels of invasiveness. I just find it galling that publishers' attempts to protect their software with DRM is considered equivalent to pirates downloading hacked copies with impunity.
I mean, it's not the chicken and the egg here. DRM definitely follows piracy. It seems a lot of you have forgotten that in light of modern DRM being such a royal pain in the ass.
I like the sentiment in this post, but it has some problems. Most of the current DRM schemes seem to ultimately be attempting to 'put the genie back in the bottle' by technologically forcing a reset to pre-internet models.
This is because most of them are asking the wrong question; it's not "how can we stop piracy," it should be "how can developers make money?" Much as we saw with the music industry, publishers will fight tooth and nail to preserve a really profitable business model, even if other options are available. People like to avoid this discussion by saying that it's the pirates "fault," but even when that's true it's sort of a red herring.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I'm not at all convinced that DRM - especially the kind of draconian DRM Ubisoft is employing - is the answer, but I can't fault them for at least trying something. The current triple-A PC market is tenuous, and as someone who much prefers a mouse and keyboard, I'd hate to see it go away.
On that note, is there any reason why we can't have mouse and keyboard games on a console? Then I could have dedicated gaming hardware, the devlopers could have their preferred platform, and I could have my preferred interface to a game.
Current consoles (well, the 360 and PS3, not sure about the Wii) support them, but not games be default. they need to be done specifically to support them, and developers don't do it. Likely because, well, not many people plug a mouse and keyboard in so it's not worth the time, and because for multiplayer, it gives unfair advantage to those that have them. They're not standard controllers like on a PC.
It's not a developer issue - the 360 APIs simply don't support USB mice for game controls.
It's a choice on Microsoft's part. They could patch it if they wanted too. Retroactively patching in support for it on already released games would be more complicated, of course.
As to why Microsoft made that choice, I can imagine a few reasons, not the least of which is that they have a vested interest in keeping the PC alive and kicking as a gaming platform.
I had to register just to say this after reading the front page. I heard about the DRM a few days ago, and was pretty disgusted.
I've put up with a lot of DRM willingly that most people thought was terrible. Disc in the drive, Steam, Internet authentication, even Spore's retarded system I was able to work with. I didn't and don't like it, but I was willing to put up with it. But this is it. I'm done with Ubisoft. I will never purchase an Ubisoft game again, no matter how great. More importantly, I will never PLAY and Ubisoft game again. I'm 24 years old, and a student. I have NEVER played a pirated game. I am the exact demographic that game companies aim for. And I'm done with Ubisoft.
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
yes because people have a right to every media they want and they are owed the new hotness right now.
I don't think piracy is morally reprehensible or anything, lord knows 99% of the board has done their share. But if you are good enough at doublethink that you can make yourself believe that what you are doing is somehow justified then you are a silly goose. A very silly goose.
If you don't care about the artists or the publishers, by all means pirate and don't feel guilty about it. But if you actually care about the media you are consuming and you can somehow believe that what you are doing is not an insult to the parties responsible then you are... a very silly goose.
This is because most of them are asking the wrong question; it's not "how can we stop piracy," it should be "how can developers make money?"
They are already answering this question by moving development over to the consoles, delaying PC releases, shifting valuable IP's over to the MMO model (e.g. KOTOR), and reallocating resources to either casual or niche audiences that will pay for content.
The only losers here are companies still trying to develop for a mainstream gaming audience and people still investing in the PC as a viable alternative to console gaming.
I find it frustrating when people frame the piracy vs DRM issue as a moral debate.
No one is really taking an ethical stand here. Pirates aren't really saying "fuck you" to publishers, and publishers aren't really saying "fuck you" to pirates. Nor is either side causing significant damage to the other. What we have here is a pretty stable equilibrium, with the relationship between parties being somewhere between apathy and antipathy.
To me, this is purely a market issue. Publishers want to move product and make money, and in so doing they try to impede pirates. However, their efforts lead to a less desirable product. Piracy provides an alternative means to access the product, with a more acceptable cost-benefit ratio to the consumer. This is pretty basic capitalism: make a shittier product and you'll make less money. Would anyone be complaining if people just didn't buy the games? If not, what's the difference? (Well, I know what the difference is -- people consider it morally dubious to "steal." But insofar as I've yet to see anyone produce evidence that the crime is anything but victimless, this is a brand of morality that I really can't get behind.)
Really, the entire entertainment industry is facing this problem, and some of the foremost thinkers in those other areas concluded long ago that the solution is not in battening down the hatches, but exploring fundamental shifts in the business model. The fact that the gaming industry has yet to clue in doesn't speak too highly of it.
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
yes because people have a right to every media they want and they are owed the new hotness right now.
I don't think piracy is morally reprehensible or anything, lord knows 99% of the board has done their share. But if you are good enough at doublethink that you can make yourself believe that what you are doing is somehow justified then you are a silly goose. A very silly goose.
If you don't care about the artists or the publishers, by all means pirate and don't feel guilty about it. But if you actually care about the media you are consuming and you can somehow believe that what you are doing is not an insult to the parties responsible then you are... a very silly goose.
you are confusing cause with justification again
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
yes because people have a right to every media they want and they are owed the new hotness right now.
I don't think piracy is morally reprehensible or anything, lord knows 99% of the board has done their share. But if you are good enough at doublethink that you can make yourself believe that what you are doing is somehow justified then you are a silly goose. A very silly goose.
If you don't care about the artists or the publishers, by all means pirate and don't feel guilty about it. But if you actually care about the media you are consuming and you can somehow believe that what you are doing is not an insult to the parties responsible then you are... a very silly goose.
you are confusing cause with justification again
Yeah I realize that but I have an opinion man and it needs to be heard.
This is because most of them are asking the wrong question; it's not "how can we stop piracy," it should be "how can developers make money?"
They are already answering this question by moving development over to the consoles, delaying PC releases, shifting valuable IP's over to the MMO model (e.g. KOTOR), and reallocating resources to either casual or niche audiences that will pay for content.
The only losers here are companies still trying to develop for a mainstream gaming audience and people still investing in the PC as a viable alternative to console gaming.
The question of course would be "why is the 'mainstream gaming audience' worth preserving?"
One of the best things piracy did to the music industry was force it away from the "mainstream" model of "promote 30 albums and hope 15 sell 10 million copies." I would much rather live in the "long tail" world of niche targeting than in the world of the ubiquitous mainstream.
There isn't any guarantee that the PC market will segment as neatly or as successfully as the music market has, of course. But if the answer to piracy is more console development a move on the PC toward niche/multiplayer titles, then I'll cry about as hard as I cried over record stores (and in fairness, I did cry over them a little bit.)
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
yes because people have a right to every media they want and they are owed the new hotness right now.
I don't think piracy is morally reprehensible or anything, lord knows 99% of the board has done their share. But if you are good enough at doublethink that you can make yourself believe that what you are doing is somehow justified then you are a silly goose. A very silly goose.
If you don't care about the artists or the publishers, by all means pirate and don't feel guilty about it. But if you actually care about the media you are consuming and you can somehow believe that what you are doing is not an insult to the parties responsible then you are... a very silly goose.
They may be silly gooses. You're the one without their money. Who's the silly goose now?
A lot of people really *don't* care about your well-being personally. The sooner you that the sooner you'll be happier and have their money. Their justifications are secondary to that fact.
If their approach to DRM was going to be this draconian and ass-backwards and anti-consumer-friendly, why would they even bother coding and releasing it for the PC?
With tangible actions like this, how do you even justify the non-piracy of this version of the product? It seems they want you to crack it (aka download the cracked version, we're not all uber-hackers) just to be able to keep your saves.
The best anti-piracy is making buying your product more appealing than pirating it. You can do this by including some nifty little doo-dad (soundtrack CD, plush doll) a la Atlus and any one of its million releases over here. Or by suing the people who pirate it for $100-200. That amount doesn't place you on the same level of super-villainy as the RIAA / IFPI. No one will begrudge you if you get double or triple or quadruple (that's the ceiling) the amount from people who pirated it.
DRM, as a general rule, does not endear you to anybody.
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
yes because people have a right to every media they want and they are owed the new hotness right now.
I don't think piracy is morally reprehensible or anything, lord knows 99% of the board has done their share. But if you are good enough at doublethink that you can make yourself believe that what you are doing is somehow justified then you are a silly goose. A very silly goose.
If you don't care about the artists or the publishers, by all means pirate and don't feel guilty about it. But if you actually care about the media you are consuming and you can somehow believe that what you are doing is not an insult to the parties responsible then you are... a very silly goose.
They may be silly gooses. You're the one without their money. Who's the silly goose now?
A lot of people really *don't* care about your well-being personally. The sooner you that the sooner you'll be happier and have their money. Their justifications are secondary to that fact.
Yes I am perfectly happy with this. If you pirate and say 'yeah I just don't give a fuck' at least you are honest with yourself. It is when people claim that pirating is a 'victimless crime' or that piracy is morally justified that i am mystified by.
The whole pirates don't buy games thing is so fucking stupid. Yeah pirates don't buy games because they don't have to. If piracy magically became impossible tommorow do you think the thousands of people who pirate games would just say 'yeah gaming was fun, but I think i'll try figure skating now'? That is absurd.
I'm not at all convinced that DRM - especially the kind of draconian DRM Ubisoft is employing - is the answer, but I can't fault them for at least trying something. The current triple-A PC market is tenuous, and as someone who much prefers a mouse and keyboard, I'd hate to see it go away.
On that note, is there any reason why we can't have mouse and keyboard games on a console? Then I could have dedicated gaming hardware, the devlopers could have their preferred platform, and I could have my preferred interface to a game.
Current consoles (well, the 360 and PS3, not sure about the Wii) support them, but not games be default. they need to be done specifically to support them, and developers don't do it. Likely because, well, not many people plug a mouse and keyboard in so it's not worth the time, and because for multiplayer, it gives unfair advantage to those that have them. They're not standard controllers like on a PC.
It's not a developer issue - the 360 APIs simply don't support USB mice for game controls.
It's a choice on Microsoft's part. They could patch it if they wanted too. Retroactively patching in support for it on already released games would be more complicated, of course.
As to why Microsoft made that choice, I can imagine a few reasons, not the least of which is that they have a vested interest in keeping the PC alive and kicking as a gaming platform.
Sorry for bringing this up, but, what? Microsoft has been doing everything in it's power to try to kill PC gaming, from closing down Ensemble, which made the guaranteed million seller AoE games, to forcing 2nd parties like remedy into dropping the PC versions of games that were in development from the beginning of their devcycles
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Fair enough. :P
It's just some of your posts are very hard to read.
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And are completely wrong. 8-)
Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
Only to you and some others.
People believe what they want to believe even when proven wrong.
But in this case you can't prove that I am wrong yet.
Golly, is that how it works? I never knew!
...
Yeah, its still no less of a platitude.
Ah, ok, I misinterpreted you, I guess. Sorry. I guess I'm just used to being personally attacked in this sort of discussion.
A publisher isn't just a number cruncher. A publisher is an investor, which is really just sort of an informed gambler. Sometimes you find awesome people who totally get your idea and are willing to go out on a limb, but often you get someone who publishes books 90% of the time or something. And if piracy wasn't considered a risk in sales by people who tend to see themselves as pretty serious, why would anyone want to use DRMs such as the one Ubi is implementing?
This I agree to also. The market, as in "The people who pay for games", for AAA titles IS a lot smaller. Wheter that can be blamed on piracy or not isn't really something anyone could answer. This is why I believe Stardock has been able to do their thing so well. They simply don't target the AAA crowd. And that's probably where the future of PC gaming is: smaller, more niched games. But that's just my personal gut feeling.
Investing is more then just an informed gambler. Day trading, maybe you have something there, but not investing.
For the same reason the RIAA sues 13 year olds: to punish those who pirate(even though it doesn't work).
Totally agree with this, although I would add ports of AAA titles as well.
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I don't think PC gaming is going anywhere. I agree we will see MORE niche small budget titles, however, I don't think games like bioshock/fallout 3/Elder Scrolls/Dragon Age are going anywhere.
It was a simplification. I just meant to point out that they take a chance with every project they decide to help fund in the hopes of making more money back. The amount of money they think can make back is decides the amount of money they can put in. That was all I meant to refer to.
And why would they want to punish them if not to make them pay for the game? Vengeance or just plain malice? Nah, DRM is implemented 'cause they think it'll bring in more money.
And I agree in full that it doesn't work. Trying is just ridiculous.
I hope you're right and I'm not.
They are not doing it to bring in more sales and I dont think they are doing it with malice. They do it in hopes of stopping piracy. It is because people are playing the games that they have worked over, payed for, and took a risk on for free. They do not want or like that fact. It is completely reasonable why they want to try and stop it. However, when it starts affecting the consumer it crosses the line, imo.
And MMOs that need the PC platform capacity.
I think this might be what developers support drm sometimes, but I don't think that's the main motivation why publishers add DRM to a game. I think we are again back at the idea of "lost sales". As long as people think a pirated game is a denied sale, all DRM and anti-piracy measures have the ultimate goal of bringing in more revenue.
But I think we can probably give that discussion a rest. I guess we can agree on a hearty "Booh, DRM!"?
Maybe we can just ignore the "smaller" up there and add RTSs too.
They -think- that it's a risk. Problem is that this, rather than being based on hard information (to be fair, hard information regarding piracy's effect on game sales is nigh impossible to get), this is based on smoke and mirrors to convince the people making the decision that it's a huge issue.
These are usually the creators of the anti-piracy software itself. Ubisoft and game developers et al. aren't in the business of coding "piracy prevention" software, and so it's almost always contracted to an outside developer. These are the people with a vested interest in spreading the belief that piracy has a much bigger impact on sales than it actually does. They're also often doing the selling to upper management (possibly savvy to the issue, possibly not) and investors (whose primary qualification is 'has a lot of money'). They're going to be easier to mislead on these subjects, as they most likely don't have a strong grasp on the intricacies.
This is definitely ad hominem but what are you, fucking twelve? Here's your argument:
P1 = Pirates share illegal content.
P2 = Pirates aren't selfish.
C1 = Pirates share illegal content because they aren't selfish.
P3 = Pirates wouldn't share illegal content if they were selfish.
C2 = Let's make pirates selfish.
This is about as retarded as arguments get. If premise two was a solid premise then maybe, but it isn't. That aside, conclusion one is so shoddy that I would have to slap you senseless anyway. Pirates participate in the community for totally self serving reasons which are relatively benevolent to everyone except copyright holders. To think otherwise is either willfully ignorant or foolishly optimistic.
Emails and stuff can be ignored, but I've found that a respectful, formal, written letter actually works for other things.
Next, I'd like to say that the back and forth about whether or not piracy impacts sales is a bit odd. Obviously there are going to be a lot of pirates who wouldn't have bought the game anyway, but there are also people who don't buy it because the pirating option is available.
I know, for example, that there have been times when I've been willing to purchase another copy for a friend who couldn't afford his own, just because I want to play with him that badly. In some cases he was able to successfully pirate the game instead, and I didn't have to go buy him a 2nd copy. That's a lost sale.
I don't know what percentage of piracy represents lost sales - it's probably significantly less than half, but at least some of those players would have bought the title if they couldn't get it any other way.
I generally buy games, but out of the pirating that I've done over the years I'd estimate about 10-20% of it would represent a lost sale. That could be a big deal for a company, especially because of the way profitability works as you cross the breakeven point. A small increase in sales can actually represent a much larger increase in profits, particularly for a title that is just barely covering it's costs.
I think some people have trouble with the idea that because Brad Wardell is fine doesn't mean every developer and every genre is in the same boat. Niche/casual games really are a different kind of business venture, and the things Stardock needs to succeed are very different from what a triple-A title targeted at hardcore gamers needs. It's not a binary debate with Wardell on one side and Ubisoft on the other - they're making different products for different people.
Console ports of triple-A titles are still profitable because porting from the 360 isn't prohibitively expensive. The PC versions of triple-A are subsidized by their console counterparts, with the more successful console market bearing the bulk of the development costs. That may not be a big deal now, but it will become a lot more meaningful if advances in console technology make PC ports more expensive to produce. If triple-A games are all using Natal (or whatever) in five years, it's easy to imagine the ports drying up and leaving the PC market extremely barren.
I'm not at all convinced that DRM - especially the kind of draconian DRM Ubisoft is employing - is the answer, but I can't fault them for at least trying something. The current triple-A PC market is tenuous, and as someone who much prefers a mouse and keyboard, I'd hate to see it go away.
You can find the Ubisoft corporate headquarter location through their corporate website. To help you out when you hit the map of the earth, their headquarters are in France.
http://www.ubisoftgroup.com
This site also has their sales figures and quarterly reports.
Here is an exerpt from their 2009-2010 3rd quarter sales press release.
This is found under their Online Strategy section after talking about Uplay and listing some new releases.
"
-A platform of online services for PC titles offering gamers a more in-depth gaming experience as well as providing an innovative solution for reducing PC game piracy. The first games to benefit from this solution will be released in the coming months.
"
I'm kind of shocked that so much of this thread has been devoted to blaming the publishers, or at least giving them an equal share of the blame as the pirates. That's seems almost like screaming "NUH UH!"
I already know that gamers' opinions of publishers are fickle. EA closes down Westwood, everyone hates EA. EA publishes some more creative, new IPs like Mirror's Edge, and suddenly people don't remember Westwood anymore. I get that.
But we seem to be in a weird situation where enforcement of copyright law has proven inadequate for the technological revolution. Before the dawn of the Internet, code wheels and inputting passages from instruction manuals was pretty effective. Then in the late '90s commercial CD burners became available, and non-burnable game CDs became the rage. Piracy websites were really off the beaten track, as hosting pirated game copies (for fans that were mostly on dialup, nonetheless) made them very vulnerable to legal action.
But then came the age of broadband, BitTorrent, and tremendous variety in private server hosting. This spigot can't be shut off, as the relocation of The Pirate Bay can tell anyone. And aside from The Pirate Bay case (which amounted to nothing aside from some punitive jail time and a server migration), who has bothered to enforce copyright laws? Can they even be effectively enforced across foreign borders? (1.6 billion Chinese would law if you asked them that question.)
So since national and international groups can't actually enforce copyright law, the publishers, everyone's favorite villain, has had to do it themselves. Which is why DRM often sucks so much, because it's the result of a private company stepping in to do what their governments can't or won't. Hence the flailing around and the varying levels of invasiveness. I just find it galling that publishers' attempts to protect their software with DRM is considered equivalent to pirates downloading hacked copies with impunity.
I mean, it's not the chicken and the egg here. DRM definitely follows piracy. It seems a lot of you have forgotten that in light of modern DRM being such a royal pain in the ass.
On that note, is there any reason why we can't have mouse and keyboard games on a console? Then I could have dedicated gaming hardware, the devlopers could have their preferred platform, and I could have my preferred interface to a game.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Current consoles (well, the 360 and PS3, not sure about the Wii) support them, but not games be default. they need to be done specifically to support them, and developers don't do it. Likely because, well, not many people plug a mouse and keyboard in so it's not worth the time, and because for multiplayer, it gives unfair advantage to those that have them. They're not standard controllers like on a PC.
Who gives a shit?
If GameStop flooded their store with CS gas in response to a shoplifter, well, I'd call the cops for one, but for two, I'd still be pissed at them for their overreaction which annoyed me as I was trying to hand them money.
There are other reasons besides money and DRM that cause people to pirate.
Don't feel like making something available to people if they're in X country or until X months? Guess what, they're gonna pirate it.
You want region locks and then don't port games over? People will install homebrew to play their imports and hey, might as well take the second step and also start pirating.
Like it or not, a lot of times piracy is a result of the customer saying FUCK YOU TOO back to the company for putting up any sort of barriers to their consumption, whether it be price, availability, DRM, or just general inconvenience.
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I like the sentiment in this post, but it has some problems. Most of the current DRM schemes seem to ultimately be attempting to 'put the genie back in the bottle' by technologically forcing a reset to pre-internet models.
This is because most of them are asking the wrong question; it's not "how can we stop piracy," it should be "how can developers make money?" Much as we saw with the music industry, publishers will fight tooth and nail to preserve a really profitable business model, even if other options are available. People like to avoid this discussion by saying that it's the pirates "fault," but even when that's true it's sort of a red herring.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
It's not a developer issue - the 360 APIs simply don't support USB mice for game controls.
It's a choice on Microsoft's part. They could patch it if they wanted too. Retroactively patching in support for it on already released games would be more complicated, of course.
As to why Microsoft made that choice, I can imagine a few reasons, not the least of which is that they have a vested interest in keeping the PC alive and kicking as a gaming platform.
I've put up with a lot of DRM willingly that most people thought was terrible. Disc in the drive, Steam, Internet authentication, even Spore's retarded system I was able to work with. I didn't and don't like it, but I was willing to put up with it. But this is it. I'm done with Ubisoft. I will never purchase an Ubisoft game again, no matter how great. More importantly, I will never PLAY and Ubisoft game again. I'm 24 years old, and a student. I have NEVER played a pirated game. I am the exact demographic that game companies aim for. And I'm done with Ubisoft.
yes because people have a right to every media they want and they are owed the new hotness right now.
I don't think piracy is morally reprehensible or anything, lord knows 99% of the board has done their share. But if you are good enough at doublethink that you can make yourself believe that what you are doing is somehow justified then you are a silly goose. A very silly goose.
If you don't care about the artists or the publishers, by all means pirate and don't feel guilty about it. But if you actually care about the media you are consuming and you can somehow believe that what you are doing is not an insult to the parties responsible then you are... a very silly goose.
https://medium.com/@alascii
They are already answering this question by moving development over to the consoles, delaying PC releases, shifting valuable IP's over to the MMO model (e.g. KOTOR), and reallocating resources to either casual or niche audiences that will pay for content.
The only losers here are companies still trying to develop for a mainstream gaming audience and people still investing in the PC as a viable alternative to console gaming.
No one is really taking an ethical stand here. Pirates aren't really saying "fuck you" to publishers, and publishers aren't really saying "fuck you" to pirates. Nor is either side causing significant damage to the other. What we have here is a pretty stable equilibrium, with the relationship between parties being somewhere between apathy and antipathy.
To me, this is purely a market issue. Publishers want to move product and make money, and in so doing they try to impede pirates. However, their efforts lead to a less desirable product. Piracy provides an alternative means to access the product, with a more acceptable cost-benefit ratio to the consumer. This is pretty basic capitalism: make a shittier product and you'll make less money. Would anyone be complaining if people just didn't buy the games? If not, what's the difference? (Well, I know what the difference is -- people consider it morally dubious to "steal." But insofar as I've yet to see anyone produce evidence that the crime is anything but victimless, this is a brand of morality that I really can't get behind.)
Really, the entire entertainment industry is facing this problem, and some of the foremost thinkers in those other areas concluded long ago that the solution is not in battening down the hatches, but exploring fundamental shifts in the business model. The fact that the gaming industry has yet to clue in doesn't speak too highly of it.
you are confusing cause with justification again
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yeah I realize that but I have an opinion man and it needs to be heard.
https://medium.com/@alascii
The question of course would be "why is the 'mainstream gaming audience' worth preserving?"
One of the best things piracy did to the music industry was force it away from the "mainstream" model of "promote 30 albums and hope 15 sell 10 million copies." I would much rather live in the "long tail" world of niche targeting than in the world of the ubiquitous mainstream.
There isn't any guarantee that the PC market will segment as neatly or as successfully as the music market has, of course. But if the answer to piracy is more console development a move on the PC toward niche/multiplayer titles, then I'll cry about as hard as I cried over record stores (and in fairness, I did cry over them a little bit.)
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
They may be silly gooses. You're the one without their money. Who's the silly goose now?
A lot of people really *don't* care about your well-being personally. The sooner you that the sooner you'll be happier and have their money. Their justifications are secondary to that fact.
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With tangible actions like this, how do you even justify the non-piracy of this version of the product? It seems they want you to crack it (aka download the cracked version, we're not all uber-hackers) just to be able to keep your saves.
The best anti-piracy is making buying your product more appealing than pirating it. You can do this by including some nifty little doo-dad (soundtrack CD, plush doll) a la Atlus and any one of its million releases over here. Or by suing the people who pirate it for $100-200. That amount doesn't place you on the same level of super-villainy as the RIAA / IFPI. No one will begrudge you if you get double or triple or quadruple (that's the ceiling) the amount from people who pirated it.
DRM, as a general rule, does not endear you to anybody.
Yes I am perfectly happy with this. If you pirate and say 'yeah I just don't give a fuck' at least you are honest with yourself. It is when people claim that pirating is a 'victimless crime' or that piracy is morally justified that i am mystified by.
The whole pirates don't buy games thing is so fucking stupid. Yeah pirates don't buy games because they don't have to. If piracy magically became impossible tommorow do you think the thousands of people who pirate games would just say 'yeah gaming was fun, but I think i'll try figure skating now'? That is absurd.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Sorry for bringing this up, but, what? Microsoft has been doing everything in it's power to try to kill PC gaming, from closing down Ensemble, which made the guaranteed million seller AoE games, to forcing 2nd parties like remedy into dropping the PC versions of games that were in development from the beginning of their devcycles
"That operation is not allowed."
::I start screaming obscenities at the TV and mashing the same button repeatedly::
Your product should not make me scream obscenities at inanimate objects; that would be about 180 degrees from customer satisfaction.