I know that anyone looking to defend DRM using this data will ignore this, but is this typical for any game? Even games that are heavily DRM'd are cracked and distributed anyway, but if they've been cracked they probably no longer "phone home" like in this situation so we wouldn't have easy numbers like we do here.
Yeah, this is a pretty unique situation in which we know exactly how many pirated copies are out there, rather than looking at a torrent list and guessing.
I know that anyone looking to defend DRM using this data will ignore this, but is this typical for any game? Even games that are heavily DRM'd are cracked and distributed anyway, but if they've been cracked they probably no longer "phone home" like in this situation so we wouldn't have easy numbers like we do here.
Well, from awhile ago, 2DBoy said World of Goo's PC piracy rate was around 90%. Considering they were basing it off of number of different IP addresses connected, that rate is going to be off for anyone who has a dynamic IP address. How much the dynamic IP issue affects it, I have no idea, but I can't imagine it's a great difference. However, that was another DRM-free game. I'd be curious to see numbers on a DRM-'enhanced' game.
I know that anyone looking to defend DRM using this data will ignore this, but is this typical for any game? Even games that are heavily DRM'd are cracked and distributed anyway, but if they've been cracked they probably no longer "phone home" like in this situation so we wouldn't have easy numbers like we do here.
Well, from awhile ago, 2DBoy said World of Goo's PC piracy rate was around 90%. Considering they were basing it off of number of different IP addresses connected, that rate is going to be off for anyone who has a dynamic IP address. How much the dynamic IP issue affects it, I have no idea, but I can't imagine it's a great difference. However, that was another DRM-free game. I'd be curious to see numbers on a DRM-'enhanced' game.
I'm not sure you'd ever see generally accurate numbers. Since that would confirm exactly how effective DRM is. And I'm pretty sure that no matter how effective it is, it's still a high enough number to put paid to the lie that DRM is 'worth the hassle'.
Gamasutra's NPD article is up. Just starting to read it but here is the teaser graph:
[edit]
Heh, did we already know that CoD4 DS sold 500k?
All of Sony's consoles falling on sales for Q1 year-on-year? Whelp, that doesn't look good.
It's expected for the PS2 as it's slowly being phased out, but the PS3 and PSP should be doing better. Sony need to get off their asses and do something about it.
So the Elite pack o' awesomeness is true? Good move on Microsoft's part, that's a MUCH better fit for the price point than Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indie. Looks like they're pushing the Netflix thing on the box too, that's another smart move.
Yeah, they're throwing in $100 of games and catering to the older crowd that usually gets the Elite. Oh, and MS has been pushing Netflix since the first wave of consoles/Live accessories to hit after the Netflix streaming went live.
Look, 88% piracy rates for Stardock's game and 90% piracy rates for World of Goo, those don't hurt or hardly even affect the games industry. All 88-90% of those pirates simply would not have paid the $20 for one of the best games of 2008, World of Goo. That's too much, they can't afford that. They wouldn't have bought it anyway. Plus, they're driven to piracy because of extreme DRM measures. The whole paying money for the game is a huge deterrent to buying it; thus by paying money for the game, the legitimate consumer is punished for being a good faith purchaser of the thing. He's driven to piracy to avoid that kind of excessive draconian DRM. Furthermore, buying games is simply way too much of a hassle for today's PC gamer. Retail is practically dead and digital distribution is the way of the future. People are simply pirating because they don't want to go and buy the game at retail. Next, games like World of Goo are the type of game that no gamer wants to risk his hefty $20 on without making sure that the game would run on his system. With mere quad cores and SLI 1gig $400 video cards, the gamer just cannot afford to risk $20 on a game without first making sure that World of Goo would run on his system. Without some kind of way of testing the game first, the gamer is driven to piracy to make sure that their quad core SLI system can appropriately run 2D gooball physics. Finally, how is a PC gamer supposed to know if the $20 game of the year runner up is worth the money? Besides not knowing about performance, that $20 risk and extreme universal praise for the game and abundance of readily accessible reviews and videos online, how is the PC game supposed to know if he might want to risk his $20 on the game? Read reviews? Watch gameplay videos? That's a lot of trouble when you could simply track down a torrent and illegally take the game.
Simply stated, the industry is in great health and PC companies are better off than ever thanks to torrents. With most of the 90 percent of pirates 'testing' the game, most of those 'tests' result in the pirates liking the game and then going out to buy the games to support their favorite developers. At no point do these pirates just decide to continue playing through their pirated games and enjoy them to the fullest, to the end, and then decide ex post facto that they would not have bought it.
World of Goo is the poster child of why PC piracy really isn't piracy because there aren't any real lost sales and the fact is PC gaming specs are just running wildly out of hand and how can PC gamers really decide if their large amounts of MSRP payments are worth it for such games.
The preceding all applies to Demigod and its 88% piracy rate and excessive $39.99 msrp as well.
I dunno if I'd call World of Goo one of the best games of 2008. It really felt like an elaborate flash game to me. But I did pay for it (thank you Steam weekend deal) so I gave the guy's money to keep doing what they're doing.
I'm surprised that GTA Chinatown Wars didn't move more units. I've seen boatloads of the thing at local retailers, so hopefully it'll have the long legs that 2K and Nintendo want it to have.
brynstar on
Xbox Live: Xander51
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I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited April 2009
You guys have it wrong.
World of Goo was one of the best games of the year, bar none.
“I’m concerned this recent threshold news is generating an artificially negative wave of press. The spirit of the threshold was never to screw the developer - it was, as far as I can tell, a quality control mechanism to prevent the service from getting overrun with a bunch of crappy games. Once the threshold is crossed, the developer is retroactively paid for every single unit sold below the threshold. I know there has been confusion on that point in the past. From the stats I’ve seen and heard developers report, the threshold is easily surpassed within the first day, or at least the first week, for many games. I hear rumors within the dev community that Nintendo recognizes a problem here, where occasionally an entirely legitimate game just doesn’t make it, and is looking for a way to make exceptions, to ensure small devs are paid even if the threshold is not reached. Just rumors though, so who knows. I just fear this is one of those things that sounds a lot more evil than it actually is.†- anonymous WiiWare dev
I thought some of the places out there were overreacting to this threshhold thing concerning Wiiware.
It's nice to know that even if a game doesn't meet the threshhold, if the product is still a quality one, then Nintendo still tries to make sure that they small dev team is paid. Nintendo has seemed like they are being quite stand up with this program.
Good to know that devs are still saying good things about Nintendo's practices.
The fun part is going to see if we can even compare DRM vs. DRM-free games piracy rates. Even if there's a 10% or 20% difference in the piracy/purchased rate, is it profitable to put DRM in the game? Does the reduced piracy (and does reduced piracy = increased sales?) make it worthwhile to spend the money?
I don't envy the game companies who have people working on this problem..
The fun part is going to see if we can even compare DRM vs. DRM-free games piracy rates. Even if there's a 10% or 20% difference in the piracy/purchased rate, is it profitable to put DRM in the game? Does the reduced piracy (and does reduced piracy = increased sales?) make it worthwhile to spend the money?
I don't envy the game companies who have people working on this problem..
Which is why I'm sure this will just cause more and more PC game devs to go "fuck this, we're going to the consoles."
The fun part is going to see if we can even compare DRM vs. DRM-free games piracy rates. Even if there's a 10% or 20% difference in the piracy/purchased rate, is it profitable to put DRM in the game? Does the reduced piracy (and does reduced piracy = increased sales?) make it worthwhile to spend the money?
I don't envy the game companies who have people working on this problem..
Which is why I'm sure this will just cause more and more PC game devs to go "fuck this, we're going to the consoles."
Or iPhone! (Sorry, just had a long chat at lunch where a few of us were interested in doing something for that market)
Seriously though, I do think the piracy problem will be solved on PC faster than we all might think. It's called online authentication (a la Steam, WoW, etc.). The upside is that it's relatively simple and unobtrusive to most users. The downside is that it limits those who don't have online access or is less viable for laptop gaming (for example, playing a game during a long plane ride). Those limitations are going away though, as wireless becomes more and more ubiquitous.
I played the demo of World of Goo. Wasn't too impressed. Picked it up as part of the Macheist bundle and enjoyed it more. Not game of the year material by any means (for me) but it's a cheap diversion that I enjoyed.
Interestingly enough I wasn't keen on Demigod; after hearing about the rampant piracy and the $40 price tag I bought a copy. Odd, that.
Re: Authentication - at some point, in a disconnected world, you need to trust the user just a bit. It's that thin edge that will see piracy through. Shame, really.
Until we're not in a disconnected world - which is fascinating, convenient, and creepy.
Re: Authentication - at some point, in a disconnected world, you need to trust the user just a bit. It's that thin edge that will see piracy through. Shame, really.
Until we're not in a disconnected world - which is fascinating, convenient, and creepy.
That's why I think at some point, PC developers will make that step to say that if you want to play the game, you have to be online. It's obviously easy to swallow for games that have to be online, like MMOs. Not so much for traditional "offline" games.
I do think that one way to make that much more acceptable is to add a lot more functionality to the game once you're connected. For example, you want to play this puzzle game online so it can track your score, award achievements/badges, compare scores, etc.
Re: Authentication - at some point, in a disconnected world, you need to trust the user just a bit. It's that thin edge that will see piracy through. Shame, really.
Until we're not in a disconnected world - which is fascinating, convenient, and creepy.
That's why I think at some point, PC developers will make that step to say that if you want to play the game, you have to be online. It's obviously easy to swallow for games that have to be online, like MMOs. Not so much for traditional "offline" games.
I do think that one way to make that much more acceptable is to add a lot more functionality to the game once you're connected. For example, you want to play this puzzle game online so it can track your score, award achievements/badges, compare scores, etc.
It's about the only reason I play my 360 connected to LIVE. Just so that each achievement has that date stamp on it. It makes it a little easier to track progress.
Or iPhone! (Sorry, just had a long chat at lunch where a few of us were interested in doing something for that market)
Isn't that tantamount to treason where you work? :P (I hear Bill Gates actively forbids his wife from getting an iPhone.)
Actually, that brings up another issue... apparently piracy's an issue on the iPhone as well. I find myself wondering whether that's due to exclusivity with AT&T... when people jailbreak the phone, they figure they might as well take advantage of ALL aspects of jailbreaking other than the ability to switch networks. Or maybe if there would be this amount of jailbreaking even if the iPhone was on multiple networks.
I don't think it's as bad a problem on the iPhone as on the PC, then again digital piracy can be hard to measure. But it's enough of a problem for some devs to gripe about it.
Or iPhone! (Sorry, just had a long chat at lunch where a few of us were interested in doing something for that market)
Isn't that tantamount to treason where you work? :P (I hear Bill Gates actively forbids his wife from getting an iPhone.)
I thought he kept his kids from getting iPods ("You'll just have to settle for the innumerable other, better brands of digital devices.") Then again, if Steve Job's kids wanted a Zune, I'm sure he'd beat them upside the head or somethin' ("The hell are you kids thinking?!" You wanna be freaks?!")
Seriously though, I do think the piracy problem will be solved on PC faster than we all might think. It's called online authentication (a la Steam, WoW, etc.). The upside is that it's relatively simple and unobtrusive to most users. The downside is that it limits those who don't have online access or is less viable for laptop gaming (for example, playing a game during a long plane ride). Those limitations are going away though, as wireless becomes more and more ubiquitous.
Yeah, I think this will be the solution too, and it's not one I'm fond of. Basically, developers in a lot (but not all) circumstances are going to have to come out and say, "You need to be online to play this game. Even by yourself. It says on the box. If you have no regular ISP, tough shit, don't buy our game. Or better yet, buy our game, but don't expect to install it."
Of course, I can't think of a better solution. And in the end, annoyed consumers/bored hackers are going to keep producing ways to get around this anyway, so it all works out. Then again, I'm standing from the perspective of someone who dislikes using STEAM, online or offline. Protection schemes that just involve checking things online when you start the game up, rather than a whole separate program, I'm okay with.
And in the end, annoyed consumers/bored hackers are going to keep producing ways to get around this anyway, so it all works out.
Just like there are patches for games that connect to a possibly now defunct central server listing, hackers will either remove the call home feature or someone will host a server that will simply authenticate anything that comes to it. Slightly more complicated, but in the end, I'm sure it won't stop anything for long.
And in the end, annoyed consumers/bored hackers are going to keep producing ways to get around this anyway, so it all works out.
Just like there are patches for games that connect to a possibly now defunct central server listing, hackers will either remove the call home feature or someone will host a server that will simply authenticate anything that comes to it. Slightly more complicated, but in the end, I'm sure it won't stop anything for long.
Pretty much. They're already doing similar things now, why the hell not? Frankly, my only concern is if developers steer in the direction of having their own STEAM-analogs--having a half-dozen STEAM-like programs running just so I can enjoy a variety of games is almost as bad as the thought that a fuck-up by a single, small, privately-owned company can effective cause me to loose every game I ever paid for, even if I am still holding the material copies.
Seriously, I'm sure it won't happen, but the thought of every game coming out requiring STEAM fir copy protection (not something similar, but actual STEAM) freaks me out. Valve is run by people after all: they screw up. The only consolation for that unlikely scenario is that some hacker will find some way around it, and it will spread like a burning version of the virus from Outbreak (since we'll all need the internet in either scenario anyway).
And in the end, annoyed consumers/bored hackers are going to keep producing ways to get around this anyway, so it all works out.
Just like there are patches for games that connect to a possibly now defunct central server listing, hackers will either remove the call home feature or someone will host a server that will simply authenticate anything that comes to it. Slightly more complicated, but in the end, I'm sure it won't stop anything for long.
If it's merely one "Am I authorized?" call, then yeah ... that's fairly easy to spoof. However, once it's a bunch of other things like, "How many players are online?" and "What's my friends list?" and "What are their scores?" and "What's new for DLC?", etc. that's a whole lot more things to spoof and have to get right. Not to mention those are legitimate questions players want to have answered.
I think of it like this. After a lot of work, I believe hackers are able to run their own private World of Warcraft servers. But as a user, why would you care about playing there? So sure, a really smart hacker may be able to bypass Steam and spoof a lot of its features, but will gamers really want that? I don't think so. They're going to want to play their games connected against the "real service".
If hackers ever find a way to hack into the service itself to get back real data, you better believe that it'll get patched pretty quickly and it'll be back to square-one for them. Not to mention the threat of being banned from a service means that many users won't want to risk pirating a game and losing all of his/her achievements, message, friends contact info, purchased items, etc.
Pretty much. They're already doing similar things now, why the hell not? Frankly, my only concern is if developers steer in the direction of having their own STEAM-analogs--having a half-dozen STEAM-like programs running just so I can enjoy a variety of games is almost as bad as the thought that a fuck-up by a single, small, privately-owned company can effective cause me to loose every game I ever paid for, even if I am still holding the material copies.
I agree that having a bunch of different Steam-like platforms can get annoying for a user. Unfortunately it's no different than what we experience on the Internet today. Depending on which products you use, there's a different login for your web e-mail, IM client, RSS reader, social network site, video site, forums, etc.
Pretty much. They're already doing similar things now, why the hell not? Frankly, my only concern is if developers steer in the direction of having their own STEAM-analogs--having a half-dozen STEAM-like programs running just so I can enjoy a variety of games is almost as bad as the thought that a fuck-up by a single, small, privately-owned company can effective cause me to loose every game I ever paid for, even if I am still holding the material copies.
I agree that having a bunch of different Steam-like platforms can get annoying for a user. Unfortunately it's no different than what we experience on the Internet today. Depending on which products you use, there's a different login for your web e-mail, IM client, RSS reader, social network site, video site, forums, etc.
In complete seriousness, I understand what you mean--you use one site for email, or maybe two, another for instant messaging. I get all my email through websites, and I don't use use RSS. So really my IM client (Pidgin) is the only thing that stays open.
On the other hand, having a bunch of programs is going to have some serious disadvantages comparatively, especially if you're short on memory and the designers decided it was more important to have a pretty flashy interface with plenty of ad space than memory conversation. That's the big annoyance for me. Still I would personally pick it over having every game attached to the same client. That just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
In complete seriousness, I understand what you mean--you use one site for email, or maybe two, another for instant messaging. I get all my email through websites, and I don't use use RSS. So really my IM client (Pidgin) is the only thing that stays open.
Outside of gaming, there's some interesting things going on with authentication. Facebook and now Twitter are opening up their authentication so that other websites can use them to "login" to their sites. It's akin to using Windows Live ID to access all of the MS services, and your Google ID to access all of the Google ones. It would be awesome if we ever got to the point where they were all linked together in some way, although it does open up some serious questions about security ...
On the other hand, having a bunch of programs is going to have some serious disadvantages comparatively, especially if you're short on memory and the designers decided it was more important to have a pretty flashy interface with plenty of ad space than memory conversation. That's the big annoyance for me. Still I would personally pick it over having every game attached to the same client. That just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Agreed. We already have some of this happening now. Dawn of War II, which just came out, uses Steam for authentication and digital distribution purposes. However, it also uses Games for Windows - LIVE for matchmaking and other bits. So it's a weird mish-mash of a game using two online platforms at the same time.
Now I'm biased so I wish everyone would use Xbox/GFW-LIVE of course.
So Rooks, would you say it's likely there will be a renewed push for GFW-LIVE with the release of Windows 7?
It seems that the next few years (and more if next gen really is delayed) PC gaming will be more price competitive and have a large capability advantage over even the HD consoles. It seems that the release of Windows 7 could synergyze well with that.
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
So Rooks, would you say it's likely there will be a renewed push for GFW-LIVE with the release of Windows 7?
It seems that the next few years (and more if next gen really is delayed) PC gaming will be more price competitive and have a large capability advantage over even the HD consoles. It seems that the release of Windows 7 could synergyze well with that.
I would love to answer, but I don't think I'm allowed to or it would be dangerous (not sure what's public versus private). Sorry! If you want a good answer, search the Internet for "Drew Johnston" and "Games for Windows" or "Win7" or something similar. There's also one interview here that might answer some questions: http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Community/NewsArticles/Pages/gfwldrewinterview.aspx
I will mention one thing. There is certainly a lot we would love to do with Win7. But anti-trust/legal concerns can be restrictive. So our hands are arguably tied. As you might know, the EU loves going to court against MS.
I know. It doesn't help either that Google and Apple are starting to creep in on the "being evil" space too.
I understand the catholic church is making excellent inroads.
Too soon?
?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
To make this post actually relevant - Do you think nintendo will turn out correct and GTA will turn out to be a game with long legs? Personally I think it will but that may just be hopeful thinking on my part. But I still think it could quite easily hit atleast a million copies sold.
Also all we have is march's data, and I wonder how the DSi effected that. I know myself (and several other people I know) waited till we picked up our DSi's before we bought the game.
Posts
Yeah, this is a pretty unique situation in which we know exactly how many pirated copies are out there, rather than looking at a torrent list and guessing.
[edit]
Heh, did we already know that CoD4 DS sold 500k?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Well, from awhile ago, 2DBoy said World of Goo's PC piracy rate was around 90%. Considering they were basing it off of number of different IP addresses connected, that rate is going to be off for anyone who has a dynamic IP address. How much the dynamic IP issue affects it, I have no idea, but I can't imagine it's a great difference. However, that was another DRM-free game. I'd be curious to see numbers on a DRM-'enhanced' game.
3DS FC: 0817-3759-2788
I'm not sure you'd ever see generally accurate numbers. Since that would confirm exactly how effective DRM is. And I'm pretty sure that no matter how effective it is, it's still a high enough number to put paid to the lie that DRM is 'worth the hassle'.
It's expected for the PS2 as it's slowly being phased out, but the PS3 and PSP should be doing better. Sony need to get off their asses and do something about it.
PSN = Wicker86 ________ Gamertag = Wicker86
Yeah, they're throwing in $100 of games and catering to the older crowd that usually gets the Elite. Oh, and MS has been pushing Netflix since the first wave of consoles/Live accessories to hit after the Netflix streaming went live.
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
Look, 88% piracy rates for Stardock's game and 90% piracy rates for World of Goo, those don't hurt or hardly even affect the games industry. All 88-90% of those pirates simply would not have paid the $20 for one of the best games of 2008, World of Goo. That's too much, they can't afford that. They wouldn't have bought it anyway. Plus, they're driven to piracy because of extreme DRM measures. The whole paying money for the game is a huge deterrent to buying it; thus by paying money for the game, the legitimate consumer is punished for being a good faith purchaser of the thing. He's driven to piracy to avoid that kind of excessive draconian DRM. Furthermore, buying games is simply way too much of a hassle for today's PC gamer. Retail is practically dead and digital distribution is the way of the future. People are simply pirating because they don't want to go and buy the game at retail. Next, games like World of Goo are the type of game that no gamer wants to risk his hefty $20 on without making sure that the game would run on his system. With mere quad cores and SLI 1gig $400 video cards, the gamer just cannot afford to risk $20 on a game without first making sure that World of Goo would run on his system. Without some kind of way of testing the game first, the gamer is driven to piracy to make sure that their quad core SLI system can appropriately run 2D gooball physics. Finally, how is a PC gamer supposed to know if the $20 game of the year runner up is worth the money? Besides not knowing about performance, that $20 risk and extreme universal praise for the game and abundance of readily accessible reviews and videos online, how is the PC game supposed to know if he might want to risk his $20 on the game? Read reviews? Watch gameplay videos? That's a lot of trouble when you could simply track down a torrent and illegally take the game.
Simply stated, the industry is in great health and PC companies are better off than ever thanks to torrents. With most of the 90 percent of pirates 'testing' the game, most of those 'tests' result in the pirates liking the game and then going out to buy the games to support their favorite developers. At no point do these pirates just decide to continue playing through their pirated games and enjoy them to the fullest, to the end, and then decide ex post facto that they would not have bought it.
World of Goo is the poster child of why PC piracy really isn't piracy because there aren't any real lost sales and the fact is PC gaming specs are just running wildly out of hand and how can PC gamers really decide if their large amounts of MSRP payments are worth it for such games.
The preceding all applies to Demigod and its 88% piracy rate and excessive $39.99 msrp as well.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
PLAY THE HELL OUT OF WORLD OF GOO.
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
Also, that was fantastic, Slash.
Never. But flash games never hold my attention more than 30 minutes then I get bored and want to start cutting things.
It was pretty cool during those 30 minutes though. But since then I've removed it from my Steam list.
I'm surprised that GTA Chinatown Wars didn't move more units. I've seen boatloads of the thing at local retailers, so hopefully it'll have the long legs that 2K and Nintendo want it to have.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
(I did buy it full price directly from the developer though)
Let me tell you about Demon's Souls....
World of Goo was one of the best games of the year, bar none.
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I thought some of the places out there were overreacting to this threshhold thing concerning Wiiware.
It's nice to know that even if a game doesn't meet the threshhold, if the product is still a quality one, then Nintendo still tries to make sure that they small dev team is paid. Nintendo has seemed like they are being quite stand up with this program.
Good to know that devs are still saying good things about Nintendo's practices.
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I don't envy the game companies who have people working on this problem..
Which is why I'm sure this will just cause more and more PC game devs to go "fuck this, we're going to the consoles."
Or iPhone!
Seriously though, I do think the piracy problem will be solved on PC faster than we all might think. It's called online authentication (a la Steam, WoW, etc.). The upside is that it's relatively simple and unobtrusive to most users. The downside is that it limits those who don't have online access or is less viable for laptop gaming (for example, playing a game during a long plane ride). Those limitations are going away though, as wireless becomes more and more ubiquitous.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
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I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
Interestingly enough I wasn't keen on Demigod; after hearing about the rampant piracy and the $40 price tag I bought a copy. Odd, that.
Re: Authentication - at some point, in a disconnected world, you need to trust the user just a bit. It's that thin edge that will see piracy through. Shame, really.
Until we're not in a disconnected world - which is fascinating, convenient, and creepy.
That's why I think at some point, PC developers will make that step to say that if you want to play the game, you have to be online. It's obviously easy to swallow for games that have to be online, like MMOs. Not so much for traditional "offline" games.
I do think that one way to make that much more acceptable is to add a lot more functionality to the game once you're connected. For example, you want to play this puzzle game online so it can track your score, award achievements/badges, compare scores, etc.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
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I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
It's about the only reason I play my 360 connected to LIVE. Just so that each achievement has that date stamp on it. It makes it a little easier to track progress.
Isn't that tantamount to treason where you work? :P (I hear Bill Gates actively forbids his wife from getting an iPhone.)
Actually, that brings up another issue... apparently piracy's an issue on the iPhone as well. I find myself wondering whether that's due to exclusivity with AT&T... when people jailbreak the phone, they figure they might as well take advantage of ALL aspects of jailbreaking other than the ability to switch networks. Or maybe if there would be this amount of jailbreaking even if the iPhone was on multiple networks.
I don't think it's as bad a problem on the iPhone as on the PC, then again digital piracy can be hard to measure. But it's enough of a problem for some devs to gripe about it.
I thought he kept his kids from getting iPods ("You'll just have to settle for the innumerable other, better brands of digital devices.") Then again, if Steve Job's kids wanted a Zune, I'm sure he'd beat them upside the head or somethin' ("The hell are you kids thinking?!" You wanna be freaks?!")
Yeah, I think this will be the solution too, and it's not one I'm fond of. Basically, developers in a lot (but not all) circumstances are going to have to come out and say, "You need to be online to play this game. Even by yourself. It says on the box. If you have no regular ISP, tough shit, don't buy our game. Or better yet, buy our game, but don't expect to install it."
Of course, I can't think of a better solution. And in the end, annoyed consumers/bored hackers are going to keep producing ways to get around this anyway, so it all works out. Then again, I'm standing from the perspective of someone who dislikes using STEAM, online or offline. Protection schemes that just involve checking things online when you start the game up, rather than a whole separate program, I'm okay with.
Eh, Rooks has mentioned that there's a bunch of people at MS that use iPhones.
Just like there are patches for games that connect to a possibly now defunct central server listing, hackers will either remove the call home feature or someone will host a server that will simply authenticate anything that comes to it. Slightly more complicated, but in the end, I'm sure it won't stop anything for long.
Pretty much. They're already doing similar things now, why the hell not? Frankly, my only concern is if developers steer in the direction of having their own STEAM-analogs--having a half-dozen STEAM-like programs running just so I can enjoy a variety of games is almost as bad as the thought that a fuck-up by a single, small, privately-owned company can effective cause me to loose every game I ever paid for, even if I am still holding the material copies.
Seriously, I'm sure it won't happen, but the thought of every game coming out requiring STEAM fir copy protection (not something similar, but actual STEAM) freaks me out. Valve is run by people after all: they screw up. The only consolation for that unlikely scenario is that some hacker will find some way around it, and it will spread like a burning version of the virus from Outbreak (since we'll all need the internet in either scenario anyway).
If it's merely one "Am I authorized?" call, then yeah ... that's fairly easy to spoof. However, once it's a bunch of other things like, "How many players are online?" and "What's my friends list?" and "What are their scores?" and "What's new for DLC?", etc. that's a whole lot more things to spoof and have to get right. Not to mention those are legitimate questions players want to have answered.
I think of it like this. After a lot of work, I believe hackers are able to run their own private World of Warcraft servers. But as a user, why would you care about playing there? So sure, a really smart hacker may be able to bypass Steam and spoof a lot of its features, but will gamers really want that? I don't think so. They're going to want to play their games connected against the "real service".
If hackers ever find a way to hack into the service itself to get back real data, you better believe that it'll get patched pretty quickly and it'll be back to square-one for them. Not to mention the threat of being banned from a service means that many users won't want to risk pirating a game and losing all of his/her achievements, message, friends contact info, purchased items, etc.
I agree that having a bunch of different Steam-like platforms can get annoying for a user. Unfortunately it's no different than what we experience on the Internet today. Depending on which products you use, there's a different login for your web e-mail, IM client, RSS reader, social network site, video site, forums, etc.
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Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
Uh....yeah....there are...different logins....
*shifty, nervous eyes* Gottagochangeallmypasswords.
In complete seriousness, I understand what you mean--you use one site for email, or maybe two, another for instant messaging. I get all my email through websites, and I don't use use RSS. So really my IM client (Pidgin) is the only thing that stays open.
On the other hand, having a bunch of programs is going to have some serious disadvantages comparatively, especially if you're short on memory and the designers decided it was more important to have a pretty flashy interface with plenty of ad space than memory conversation. That's the big annoyance for me. Still I would personally pick it over having every game attached to the same client. That just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Agreed. We already have some of this happening now. Dawn of War II, which just came out, uses Steam for authentication and digital distribution purposes. However, it also uses Games for Windows - LIVE for matchmaking and other bits. So it's a weird mish-mash of a game using two online platforms at the same time.
Now I'm biased so I wish everyone would use Xbox/GFW-LIVE of course.
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Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
It seems that the next few years (and more if next gen really is delayed) PC gaming will be more price competitive and have a large capability advantage over even the HD consoles. It seems that the release of Windows 7 could synergyze well with that.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I would love to answer, but I don't think I'm allowed to or it would be dangerous (not sure what's public versus private). Sorry! If you want a good answer, search the Internet for "Drew Johnston" and "Games for Windows" or "Win7" or something similar. There's also one interview here that might answer some questions: http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Community/NewsArticles/Pages/gfwldrewinterview.aspx
I will mention one thing. There is certainly a lot we would love to do with Win7. But anti-trust/legal concerns can be restrictive. So our hands are arguably tied. As you might know, the EU loves going to court against MS.
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Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
I know. It doesn't help either that Google and Apple are starting to creep in on the "being evil" space too.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
I understand the catholic church is making excellent inroads.
?
To make this post actually relevant - Do you think nintendo will turn out correct and GTA will turn out to be a game with long legs? Personally I think it will but that may just be hopeful thinking on my part. But I still think it could quite easily hit atleast a million copies sold.
Also all we have is march's data, and I wonder how the DSi effected that. I know myself (and several other people I know) waited till we picked up our DSi's before we bought the game.
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