Spirited Debate On Game Piracy

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Yesterday, Blue's News posted a story about a lecture id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead gave at GDC. It was a lecture about piracy and along with several other points, he alluded in the lecture that one of the main reason PC gaming is in decline and many previously PC-only franchises are going to consoles as well is because of piracy.

The thread has quickly grown into one of the largest in that site's history. Anyone who is a veteran of Blue's News will know the caliber of conversation that fills it but there is also a number of good point-counterpoint discussions about piracy's true impact and why it may or may not be hurting the industry as much as they claim. It's worth checking out if you've got some time to read through it all.

Personally, I don't believe piracy is nearly the problem the publishers and developers claim it is. I don't pirate games but believe that those who do on a large basis are people who never would have bought the games anyway so there are no potential sales or revenue lost to the developers. I also think developers and publishers have none but themselves to blame for piracy's rise since the number of titles that are coming out in buggy, broken, unfinished states is on the rise and they've seen to it that stores will not accept returns on games, even if they just plain don't work. I'm also getting frustrated with game prices going up and yet the quality, innovation and in particular length of most titles is dropping. That's why I rent most of my console games now and why I don't buy any PC game without reading a lot of reviews and getting a lot of community opinion. Don't even get me started on publishers bloating their budgets by buying expensive copy-protection mechanisms which only hurt the paying customers while doing nothing to stop dedicated pirates.

At any rate, I don't think the game development community can lay the entire problem on piracy but they'll certainly try. What do you guys think?

Im in the camp that says that the fight against piracy is hurting legitimate players and not hurting pirates.

I think the reason PC games don't sell well is because they mostly suck, and PC gamers are older and can tell.

Consoles tend to have new gamers, who are wowed by glitz, not having been exposed to as many really good titles.

This industry sells new glitz on old games, so of course they do better on consoles.

Edit to add: Galciv has sold like crazy with no copy protection at all.

Malor wrote:

I think the reason PC games don't sell well is because they mostly suck, and PC gamers are older and can tell.

I think it's because the entry barrier to PC gaming is too high. There are at least a half a dozen recent games I'm interested in but don't have the rig or equipment to play. Buying a gaming PC is a big cost for a relatively small "current-gen" library.

Who says pc gaming is in decline and on what is this assumption based? When I look at the list of upcoming games, I'm glad my pc is pimped - even though I have a PS2 and Dreamcast too.

All I know is Doom3 SUCKED and so did Quake4.

The "Entry barrier" is not huge anymore. I have a 3 or 4 year old PC and new games still work, with a Radeon 9800 card. Sure, I play 1024 but that's enough for me.

Piracy, much like drug use, cannot be prevented. It can be discouraged, but never truly prevented. Publishers are starting to take extreme measures which run counter to the legitimate customers ability to use their products as fully as consumers expect. Key codes can be cracked. "Phoning Home" can be spoofed. Encryption can be broken. CD Protection can be subverted.
What I believe will happen is that we will see more and more methods like Steam or WoW, where the publishers maintain online logins and require their customers to authenticate whenever taking their product online or accessing patches and new content. The days of a static game distribution are drawing to a close. Only by keeping the content dynamic and tightly controlled by known servers can piracy be slowed.
Piracy, much like drug use, will evade actions to halt, educate, ban, criminalize, prosecute, and will continue despite those attempts.

My advice? Accept the casual distribution of your static content. The people who would download rather than purchase will do so regardless of what you throw in front of them. Crackers, Script-kiddies, H4xx0r5, and criminals will view technical attempts to prevent piracy as a challenge, and as Publishers ramp up their efforts to lock those ones and zeros away, the "Pirates" will exert more effort to subvert them. You can look at it as an arms-race. But the only true result is a higher demand for more technically savvy criminals. Open recruitment for people with the skills to break encryption and driver based protection schemes, and a higher demand for successful cracks. The Industry's effort to prevent piracy is actually creating a lucrative market for pirates.
Why create an artificial market for these people? Why spend millions of potential revenue on methods that, at the best of times, simply slows the dissemination of your product?
Embrace the ability to get your game into as many systems as possible, and then market dynamic content tied to authentication.

This will not and cannot work for all games or publishers. But if the thought of piracy keeps you up at night maybe you need to reconsider how you do business in the digital age.

BTw, if they think console games aren't easy to pirate, they're in for a big surprise.

Here in Mexico, pirated console games are about 5-8% of the retail price. I don't think it will be long until the Ps3, 360 and the Wii are cracked (if they aren't already, I haven't been to markets lately), it's a huge market. I think near the end, Xbox games didn't even require a modchip.

Unless they do downloadable-only games through the XboxLive-type systems...

Arrrr! Pirates are better than ninjas which are better than cowboys. If developers would call these people "game cowboys" they'd probably stop doing it out of sheer embarrassment.

I do believe that pirates are asshats.

However, what DOES irritate me to no end is when the industry PREACHES that to me. That is, when I sit down at a movie theater and see an anti-piracy spiel in the "previews" time, or buy a DVD and it has an anti-piracy title in it (un-skippable!). Goddamit, I ALREADY paid you money for this stuff, why are you force-feeding this propaganda to ME?!

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

That is, when I sit down at a movie theater and see an anti-piracy spiel in the "previews" time, or buy a DVD and it has an anti-piracy title in it (un-skippable!). Goddamit, I ALREADY paid you money for this stuff, why are you force-feeding this propaganda to ME?!

Oh god, the un-skippable PIRACY WARNINGS are awful!

The funny thing is the pirated versions don't have that XD

I've pirated games which led me to actually buy the games. Kinda like playing a demo. For example Dawn of War, and Neverwinter Nights 2. What I found ironic about Dawn of War was the pirated version ran fine, but the one I bought from the store had some problem with my dvd drive and wouldn't play cause of the copy protection. So I had to crack my legal copy for it to work.

I use to play more pc games because of the internet, but with the more recent consoles packaging in online play I've pretty much turned to console games for my entertainment. My pc is used for paying bills,and checking e-mails these days.

There is an old saying "someone who stole your product was not going to buy it anyway." Very rarely is something "pirated" by a person who was a genuine potential customer. PC gaming is suffering in sales because of DRM. Same reason digital music sales are surrfering. People who WANT to buy music, will buy a CD, they are not DRMed to sh*t, lose functionality, etc. Did piracy hurt PC sales of Ubisoft and Midway games, or was it STARFORCE!? I refuse to buy another copy of a Guild Wars game, because I have to tie it to my e-mail address, cannot lend it to a friend, or sell it if I get sick. You can keep your game protected without stripping the utility away from the end user. Because a pirate will always be a pirate, he will rip games to his HDD, use a CD burner, he will Copy That Floppy. But the more DRM the less people will put up with it, a la the Starforce embargo of Ubi and Midway.

And I LOVE how, Id is suffering NOT from a bunch of sh*tty games (Doom 3 and Quake 4) as of late, but it is piracy. I guess Piracy was what plagued ET on the 2600. Relic seems very happy with PC sales, the STALKER team...in Russia has said that piracy(in the f*cking Mecca of priacy) is drastically overblown. Bioware seemed to do OK with Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights. How about How PISSED PC gamers got when the Xbox version of Doom 3 was considerably superior, Co-Op anyone? They need to get off that f*cking pedestal and come amongst the vile masses to see some TRUTH.

KingGorilla wrote:

There is an old saying "someone who stole your product was not going to buy it anyway." Very rarely is something "pirated" by a person who was a genuine potential customer.

I hear this a lot, and I used to believe it... but I've come to the conclusion that it's a fallacy. Why? Because I've seen the thousands of game/movie/music torrents, have rooted through usenet binaries groups, and have in the past downloaded things I've never subsequently bought. Would I have purchased it if I hadn't downloaded it? Who knows? Maybe I would have, maybe I wouldn't have... and I'm just one person, with (maybe sometimes) stronger morals than a lot of other people out there downloading.

So yeah, piracy is definitely playing a part. No way to really measure it, though.

And yes... DRM is a huge annoyance and should be avoided at all costs, because it only really bothers the honest customer anyway.

So why aren't we buying more PC games? Which is really the issue here in my humble opinion.

I don't buy (or pirate) PC games anymore simply because I spend all day (and some nights) on the PC working. When I want to relax and not think about work, sitting in my home office by the PC is not my idea of entertainment. The couch, however, is perfect.

SommerMatt wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:

There is an old saying "someone who stole your product was not going to buy it anyway." Very rarely is something "pirated" by a person who was a genuine potential customer.

I hear this a lot, and I used to believe it... but I've come to the conclusion that it's a fallacy. Why? Because I've seen the thousands of game/movie/music torrents, have rooted through usenet binaries groups, and have in the past downloaded things I've never subsequently bought. Would I have purchased it if I hadn't downloaded it? Who knows? Maybe I would have, maybe I wouldn't have... and I'm just one person, with (maybe sometimes) stronger morals than a lot of other people out there downloading.

So yeah, piracy is definitely playing a part. No way to really measure it, though.

And yes... DRM is a huge annoyance and should be avoided at all costs, because it only really bothers the honest customer anyway.

turn that around have you ever bought something that you had downloaded? or because of soemthing you downloaded?

KingGorilla wrote:

Because a pirate will always be a pirate, he will rip games to his HDD, use a CD burner, he will Copy That Floppy. But the more DRM the less people will put up with it, a la the Starforce embargo of Ubi and Midway.

13 posts for someone to post a reference to Don't Copy That Floppy? For shame! Piracy was a god-send during my adolescent Playstation years. Without it, I would have never had played 80% of the games I did on that system. I was lucky if I could squeeze the money for 5 used games a year out of my mother. With piracy I had as many games as I could download. Were game developers losing money because of my piracy? No. I had very little to begin with and even if I were to spend money on games they would all have been used. Over the years, after being old enough to work, I figured that if something was genuinely good and I really enjoyed it, I would buy it. Its much easier and cheaper to pirate first, buy later rather than buying first and being potentially burned by a purchase.

Games like C&C 3 (and WoW, if you ignore the server element) are going the right way about piracy - they offer downloadable version for a price, evening out the convenience level. Download without corruption, viruses, fakes, bad rips, etc.

I don't mention Steam because Steam is too tightly fused with the actual games. I don't want to have crap running in my system tray to "control my piracy" and online-authenticate my "right" to play a game.

As for Todd Hollenshead of id software... Quake 2 was their last original IP. Doom 3 was a horrendous misinterpretation of the Doom IP, which was a result of rendering genius John Carmack being left to his own devices - without a crazy wild John Romero to, ironically, give him a sanity check.

Few points:
There are games selling like hotcakes despite having no copy protection at all. Recent example can be Europa Universalis III. No CD in drive, nothing. The only thing is that you can register the game on-site and then you have a cute helmet under your avatar in the forums. And other users don't take kindly when you ask about the game and you don't have the helmet:) A nice touch, I would say.
Pirated game equals no sale is a fallacy. Down here, getting your paws on some more obscure games is sometimes very difficult, so you take a pirated copy instead. Example? Psychonauts, I played it a year ago, had a fantastic time and bought it a few weeks ago when I finally found it in store. I definitely want to have the thing in my collection.
I understand the companies are trying to protect their investments, but they should find other means of protection. I hate having an original CD in drive while playing (therefore kudos to Paradox Interactive, which demands no such thing) and am worried about the Starforce crap. First thing I usually do is crack my original game so that I am not bothered by CD in drive.

magnus wrote:

So why aren't we buying more PC games? Which is really the issue here in my humble opinion.

I don't buy (or pirate) PC games anymore simply because I spend all day (and some nights) on the PC working. When I want to relax and not think about work, sitting in my home office by the PC is not my idea of entertainment. The couch, however, is perfect.

A few reasons for me.

1) can't afford (well don't want to afford) the upgrade cycle. I bought most of my components just over a year ago and now I really can't play some of the new stuff. It has always been like that and I was ok with it for awhile but it is just getting old. It isn't fun anymore.

2) consoles are much, much closer to the quality of PCs and PC games. While there are some genres you just can't get on consoles there are almost all of them.

3) PC patches, bugs, etc. What was the last game which didn't have a needed patch? Sadly this is another area that consoles are catching up to PCs in.

If you listen to the developers at 1C (IL Stormovik, Pacific Fighters), they are almost out of business because of piracy. Some of the best in depth flight sims ever made, and they almost can't survive because of thieves. What else needs to be said?

The fact that copy protection is a burden to legit consumers, that should be blamed on the thieves. I'm sure it stops casual thieving, and if that helps the bottom line of a struggling developer, then I guess that has to be acceptable.

As a wargamer, a very small niche gaming group, I see how hard and long it is for small development groups to get out a good wargame. For them to lose even a small percentage of sales to thieves can put them out of business.

Finally, legitimate users end up bearing a higher penalty than just PitA copy protection - they end up missing out on new titles that aren't made because the developers go under or give up. That's why I hate game thieves.

magnus wrote:

So why aren't we buying more PC games? Which is really the issue here in my humble opinion.

I don't buy (or pirate) PC games anymore simply because I spend all day (and some nights) on the PC working. When I want to relax and not think about work, sitting in my home office by the PC is not my idea of entertainment. The couch, however, is perfect.

Very true. Spending 90% of my 40 hours in front of a computer has really done more to turn me into a 360 gamer than anything else. Other than BF2142 Thursdays and my PBEM wargames, I do not do much PC gaming these days.

It would be naive to think that Piracy doesn't have an impact on the PC gaming industry. It isnt the only factor.. there are many others as some have pointed out above.. If I had to rank Piracy in a list..I'd probably put it at #3.

Console gaming has hurt PC gaming more than piracy thats for sure.

SwampYankee wrote:

If you listen to the developers at 1C (IL Stormovik, Pacific Fighters), they are almost out of business because of piracy. Some of the best in depth flight sims ever made, and they almost can't survive because of thieves. What else needs to be said?

The fact that copy protection is a burden to legit consumers, that should be blamed on the thieves. I'm sure it stops casual thieving, and if that helps the bottom line of a struggling developer, then I guess that has to be acceptable.

So in paragraph 1 you point out how small developers are failing, then in paragraph 2 say if copy protection helps small developers it is acceptable...sorry doesn't paragraph 1 show that copy protection doesn't help small developers?

If copy protection worked then small places like 1C wouldn't be almost out of business. So why inconvenience legit users when it doesn't actually help developers?

I think that it's impossible to show causality in the case of a company that is struggling and piracy. Is it possible that, like the aforementioned Doom 3, the newer games just aren't any good, especially compared to the old ones? Or that perhaps the tastes of the consumer have changed?

Obviously piracy has a negative effect. Personally, I think it's much less than it's made out to be. You can't do the math as each pirated copy = one lost sale, because as has been said, a lot of people will pirate something that they would never buy. Sometimes they pirate them just to "demo" the game - they are nowhere near interested enough in a game to buy it untested, but they'll download it for free to give it a shot, play it for 15 minutes, and then delete it. That scenario may be illegal, but it doesn't really equate to a lost sale.

I'm not trying to excuse piracy here, but just to say that things are not as bad as publishers make them out, imho. Also, like countless others have said, I'm very tired of DRM and copy protection that punishes the legitimate purchaser. I'm more or less okay with the way that BF2 did things, although I would have liked it a little smoother than it was.

magnus wrote:

So why aren't we buying more PC games? Which is really the issue here in my humble opinion.

I don't buy (or pirate) PC games anymore simply because I spend all day (and some nights) on the PC working. When I want to relax and not think about work, sitting in my home office by the PC is not my idea of entertainment. The couch, however, is perfect. :)

Valve, Blizzard, Bioware-Pandemic, seem to be very happy with how their strictly PC games sell. Crytek, THQ, Relic are all very pleased with how well their games have sold. Just Cause, sold the absolute BEST on PC, the sequel(so far) is PC exclusive-a 3rd person, action shooter. One of the sage arguments(I first heard it from Gaming Steve). Console gamers are very forgiving of bad games-looks glaringly at Dead Rising, Resident Evil, Halo.
I hearken back to one of my points...Id's last 2 games have sucked.

KingGorilla wrote:

Valve, Blizzard, Bioware-Pandemic, seem to be very happy with how their strictly PC games sell. Crytek, THQ, Relic are all very pleased with how well their games have sold. Just Cause, sold the absolute BEST on PC, the sequel(so far) is PC exclusive-a 3rd person, action shooter. One of the sage arguments(I first heard it from Gaming Steve). Console gamers are very forgiving of bad games-looks glaringly at Dead Rising, Resident Evil, Halo.

Okay, now you're just trolling.

If Valve is so happy with how their PC-only sales are going, how do explain Ep 2/TF2/Portal coming to consoles and PCs simultaneously? And Left 4 Dead coming to 360? And I can't even figure out why you're mentioning Bioware/Pandemic. Bioware hasn't put out a PC-only title since the original Neverwinter Nights, and KotOR and Jade Empire were console-only for quite some time. And it's been since Dark Reign 2 in 2000 that Pandemic had a PC only title. Every release since then has been multiplatform or console-only. Blizzard is a different story because their huge cash cow is an MMO which is basically pirate-proof.

And where are you getting your info on Just Cause? I can't find any info anywhere that bills it as a PC exclusive.

I think that the S/W industry is going down the same bad road that RIAA is speeding on. Equating ordinary users that may break copyright rules through minor infractions (many of which should possibly be considered "fair use") to mass producing, for large profit, media pirates. That's like comparing your local coke snorter (that may possibly pass a few grams onto some acquaintances) to a Columbian drug lord. What this does is deminishes the worth and potency of the word pirate. We went from hardened organized crime gangs to highschool and college students being the main source of the losses. And I'm having a bit of a hard time swallowing that pill.

What I wanted to add to the pile of topics being tossed back and forth in regards to piracy...

How many of you think that Microsoft would have 90% of the market today, had people not been able to liberally copy OS and MSWord disks? How many of you think that people would willingly tie themselves to a propriatery document format and a crappy OS if they could not just bring it home from work and share it with their friends? I am personally convinced that the number one reason for MS's dominance in the market to day was the freedom with which people could disseminate their products 10 years ago.

As far as the PC gaming market drying up...

How many PC games have been sold last year? How many 5 years ago? How many 10 years ago? Also, how many games were published last year? How many 5 years ago? How many 10 years ago? All I hear is "experts" crying a river about how they can't make millions any more and how we, the users, no longer are willing to buy their crap just because they tell us we should. I would like to see some actual hard core data and make up my own mind about it.

KingGorilla wrote:

And I LOVE how, Id is suffering NOT from a bunch of sh*tty games (Doom 3 and Quake 4) as of late, but it is piracy. I guess Piracy was what plagued ET on the 2600. Relic seems very happy with PC sales, the STALKER team...in Russia has said that piracy(in the f*cking Mecca of priacy) is drastically overblown. Bioware seemed to do OK with Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights. How about How PISSED PC gamers got when the Xbox version of Doom 3 was considerably superior, Co-Op anyone? They need to get off that f*cking pedestal and come amongst the vile masses to see some TRUTH.

From what I recall, DooM3 sold incredibly well. Well enough that Carmack was happy with sales, and able to fund his aerospace company through it.
Hell, I pre-ordered it, and got more than my money's worth out of it. I enjoyed. Quake4, on the other hand, was a bucket of crap.

On the issue of Piracy, I admit that I used to, frequently. I'd also strive to buy the games that I liked.
Nowadays? Not at all, but having a real job means I play a lot less, and as others have noted, I seem to prefer NOT staring at a PC after work.
Consoles are much less about the copy protection getting in my way, I never ever notice it. PCs, it's gotten in my way frequently, corrupted my data, and generally been a huge pain in the ass.

It seems to me like the entire sales model is causing the problem, and piracy is getting the blame - From what I've read, the entire sales process seems that they aim for the first few weeks to actually sell the game in, and after that it's just dropped. Why? You'd think they would WANT and STRIVE for a long lifespan on the game, not the first 30 days before word has spread that a game is complete crap, which happens faster and faster as we get more connected.

Stuff like Gametap is proving there's a huge market for older games that people missed the first time around. It surprises me that there's not a bookstore model for games, an extensive back library in a -big- location.

How many of you think that Microsoft would have 90% of the market today, had people not been able to liberally copy OS and MSWord disks? How many of you think that people would willingly tie themselves to a propriatery document format and a crappy OS if they could not just bring it home from work and share it with their friends? I am personally convinced that the number one reason for MS's dominance in the market to day was the freedom with which people could disseminate their products 10 years ago.

hmm.. I could have just as easily pirated and shared Lotus Notes.. Wordperfect Office..OS2 Warp.. Mac OS 7-9..etc.. etc.. I would hardly say ease of piracy was Microsoft's key to world domination.

I'm so nice I posted twice.

edit X2

Quake 4 = RAVEN not id.

not sure why people mess that one up all the time.

If I can't find the game for less than what it went for at its original release then I'm going to pirate, especially if the developers aren't going to see a dime of my money. A lot of older PS1 games go for insane amounts on Ebay, so why should I pay 3 times what it goes for in retail if it's just going to some collector's pocket?

Developers should focus on making quality games that players like ourselves cannot wait more than week to have in our hands. If we can't fathom pirating a game because it's so good, or because we can't wait the time it takes to pirate said game because we are anxious, then that's how you get rid of piracy. Like has been said, if you make crappy games you'll get crappy sales. You'll get no sympathy from me that ends don't meet. Sports game franchises have fooled a lot of people into putting out crappy titles. I'm just glad others haven't.

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