Free Games As a Solution To Game Piracy

christ, jesus H writes "PC gaming may not be dying, but it is in a state of flux. We're seeing developers and publishers blaming piracy for all the ills of PC gaming, but attempts to rein in pirates with the help of DRM only annoys and mobilizes the legitimate customers of your games. The solution? According to David Perry of Shiny Games, PC games are going to be free." (And if anyone has a favorite replacement term for "piracy," in the context of electronic copyright violation, please suggest it below.)

A favorite term to replace 'piracy'?

[Millennium (2451)]

I prefer the term "stealing games" myself. It fits well, does away with the positive connotations that the term "piracy" has gained in some circles, and -perhaps most important- it really makes the pirates mad.

I prefer this idea:

[DaedalusHKX (660194)]

I would still be willing to BUY games (I don't pirate them, I just haven't found much to interest me, console OR desktop alike).

Again, I would still be willing to BUY games if they would stop rehashing half witted half finished games. So few companies really release good games, and everyone expects insane growth. Always "growth". Perhaps some retards somewhere forgot that you can only grow so much before your body either collapses under its own weight or you evolve into something else. Otherwise, no luck.

Blizzard always releases late. People understand them. Why? Because Blizzard, ID, Ravensoft and no others I can think of, have managed to release a bug free or complete product. Most of their fixes, in my memory, have been playbalancing, rare bugs on rare configs, etc. But their games WORK. Other people's games... often hit and run.

Why is it that so FEW companies actually put out workable, GOOD products? Perhaps if more of them did, and if shoddy products were to be refunded in FULL, then perhaps better products would "revitalize" the market.

Games don't need to be free. Shitty ones and incomplete ones should be. The "no return if opened" policy is bullshit. It just allows a company to sell a shitty game and get away with it. It allows a store to carry a non tested product and get away with it. But hell, if pharmaceutical companies and electronics and even car companies can get away with shoddy products, why not the software industry? If the customers keep waiting for governments to step in and save them, they ought to realize that it is MUCH easier to buy off bureaucrats and politicians than ten thousand pissed off freemen customers, some of whom might be willing and able to use their rights (from the vocal to the physical) when other means fail to extract remedy for shoddy product and vaporware sold as an actual, complete product. Fraud of this sort should be held accountable by the victims, the customers. Until the customers demand quality, and stand by that remark... and demand refunds on shitty products, until that occurs... well, nothing's gonna change.

Re:I prefer this idea:

[truthsearch (249536)]

Other people's games... often hit and run.

Hit and run games are fun, too. Now hit and miss games I could understand not liking. ;)

Re:I prefer this idea:

[billcopc (196330)]

+50, Nailed it!

The no-refund policy leads to horrible products with fantastic marketing budgets. What's a scorned gamer to do, sue the company ? On what grounds ? You can't prove "lack of fun" in court.

I'm of the opinion that piracy / software theft / whatever you wanna call it, helps the good game houses and hurts the bad ones. The whole try-before-you-buy excuse is a very valid one IMHO. There's a crapload of software out there, that I would have never heard of, were it not for some illiterate little shit in Norway posting it on Usenet. Not just games but apps too... prime example: O&O Defrag. I saw it on some FTP eons ago, gave it a whirl, and have been a paying user for over eight years now. Why the *&@^ am I paying for a defrag tool ? Because I like the damned thing, that's why. Had it not been pirated, I would still be cursing at MS Defrag / Diskeeper on a daily basis.

Same thing applies to games. You mentioned Blizzard, well a long long time ago, when I was just a teenager with lots of BBS accounts, I stumbled upon the original Warcraft. I had no clue what this game was, nor did any of my friends, but it was an addictive little thing. Chop wood, mine gold, kill stuff - FUN! Warcraft 2 came out, I trotted down to EB and picked up the War2 battlechest. Then Starcraft, War3, and WoW.

Had it not been for that pirated copy of the original Warcraft, I would never have bought the 2nd and 3rd installments.

The same is true for a bunch of Lucasarts games... Day of the Tentacle, anyone ? If it weren't for those massively distributed copies of Monkey Island, I would not have been hooked, and they would have sold $250 less games to this one guy alone.

Meanwhile, when companies release shitty games, the kind that's not even worth pirating, you can be damned sure I'll never buy their stuff, and I won't bother downloading it either.

If games didn't cost $60-70 to "try", maybe they would sell more. There are very few shops that release demos anymore, and the ones that do, often pull a Hollywood on us, where the full product only adds filler with no substance. The business model needs to be redesigned from the ground up - new distribution, new (smaller) budgets, greater emphasis on gameplay... it's not so hard, just look at all the runaway hits of recent years like Portal or Sam & Max - inexpensive to make and tons of fun.

Sure, blockbusters can be good too, but so many of them flop because the money takes over, release dates get bumped up and salaries get chopped. What, you actually believe those no-experience foreign sweat shops with mile-long resumés are going to cut development costs while delivering a superior product ? Ever heard of EA and Activision ? Ever seen them release a top-quality product ?

The game industry is fucked, much like the music industry. Pointing fingers will not change that.

You can't compare Blizzard to most of the rest

[Jesus_666 (702802)]

Blizzard is entirely unlike most game companies. Blizzard values its customers and wants them to have as good a time as possible. They don't just abandon products, they release no-CD patches. They allow their customers to enter their CD key on the website and download the entire game (useful if you bought the PC version and now want to play on a Mac), even if said game was released eleven years ago. Heck, they still have tech support subsites for Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing - titles they released back when the company was still called Silicon & Synapse.

Blizzard puts the customer first and only delivers polished products, release dated be damned. And that's why everyone loves them. Now compare that to, oh, just about everyone. It's a shame Looking Glass died, but the retail version of System Shock 2 was unbeatable for most people because a crucial window wasn't breakable. Piranha Bytes' The Gothic 3 gold master was so unready for production that they had to release the first patch on launch day. BioShock is a prime example of DRM gone bad^H^H^Hworse as many players are locked out of the game for too many reinstalls before they even played the game once - reinstalls which they accumulated trying to get the game to work.

To put it like Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee might: The video game industry is a sea of vomit and that's the qualitative standard against which new games are measured. The better ones are usually very nice and pretty examples of vomit but they're still vomit. The few gems people like Blizzard release can't change the fact that we're waist-deep in gastric acid.

Re:You can't compare Blizzard to most of the rest

[MooseMuffin (799896)]

bnetd? The reverse engineered version of their free online service, minus the check for a legitimate copy of the game?

How exactly can they justify not shutting that down?

Re:I prefer this idea:

[sxmjmae (809464)]

I have returned lots of opened software. I return it and claim I disagree with the Licensing agreement (which typical states that if you disagree with it you are to return it). If push comes to shove I ask them to read the Licensing prior to opening the box and of course you can NOT use my copy to do that. I have had 100% success rate in returning opened software packages.

Re:I prefer this idea:

[Denial93 (773403)]

When I worked in a games company, I was told matter-of-factly that 80% of games sold are played for less than 30 minutes, and 80% customer satisfaction was alright. By that logic, a lot more effort was put in the first level compared to the last. Playtesters made sure the game was finishable, but everyone involved knew it started to get tedious after the first few hours. I scripted a couple of cutscenes very late in the game that I was told less than a percent of players would ever see. I still did them as best I could, but I wouldn't be surprised if others were less motivated...

Re:I prefer this idea:

[Surt (22457)]

Having worked for blizzard, I can assure you we shipped at least diablo, diablo II, starcraft, broodwar, lord of destruction, warcraft III, frozen throne, and wow with lots of software bugs.

Not many fatal bugs, but plenty of bugs. I personally fixed about 300 non play balance bugs that went into various patches.

Bugs are unavoidable in large software projects. Avoiding serious bugs that will make your customers unhappy is mostly about devoting sufficient testing resources to finding that class of bugs before shipping, and planning for extended work hours right after release to quickly fix the most serious bugs that escaped your testing.

Re:I prefer this idea:

[Danse (1026)]

Here's a hint, if you truly can't return the game, you can't reject the EULA, and as such aren't bound by the terms.

Which means that you'd be able to distribute as you like.

What are you smoking? The EULA doesn't take away the right to distribute, copyright law does. That is in effect whether you agree to the EULA or not, so no, you could not distribute the game if you refuse the EULA. You're stuck with a box of discs that are essentially worthless unless you can sell them to someone else. Of course if it was an online game or application, then that person would be stupid to buy the opened box b/c you could have already gotten the CD Key from it and they would not be able to use it online. Of course sites like Ebay will probably shoot down your auction of it too. Sucks to be a software consumer these days.

Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'?

[spun (1352)]

It's not stealing as copying does not deprive the original owner of anything. Copyright is an artificial monopoly provided by the government as an incentive to create and release creative works.

Am I stealing from you if I choose not to buy from you, but from someone else? No? Yet I am depriving you of revenue, isn't that stealing? No? Then depriving you of revenue by copying your product isn't stealing either.

It is copyright violation, which is wrong, but not stealing. It is wrong because it violates the social contract you agree to by continuing to live in our society.

That is important: you wouldn't even have a moral claim against a person who renounced society and all its benefits who then violated copyright. They would not be a party to the social contract, and would have no moral reason not to copy.

Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'?

[Nursie (632944)]

"Actually, no, because the copy wasn't obtained by lawful means. You are depriving its rightful owner of a product it could sell or otherwise dispose of as it saw fit."

Hate to break it to you, but no he isn't. You haven't in any way taken a physical item from them, or prevented them from making more. Your logic sucks.

Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'?

[nharmon (97591)]

If you violate the law, you are a criminal.

Not true. Some laws specify civil torts while others specify crimes. You become a criminal by violating the laws that specify crimes. This isn't philosophical bullshit.

Copyright infringement (my favorite replacement term) can either be a civil tort or criminal depending on the purpose and circumstances. In most cases, especially involving P2P sharing, the infringement is a civil tort.

However, theft is always criminal. Sure, it might have to exceed a certain threshold to be a felony, but stealing even a fraction of a penny is a crime.

Theft is always a crime. Copyright infringement is only a crime in certain instances. Again, this is not philosophical bullshit.

Arguing that theft and copyright infringement are the same thing demonstrates a lack of understanding the difference between civil and criminal law not to mention the purpose and nature of copyright law.

Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'?

[bzipitidoo (647217)]

The physicality of the item, or the lack thereof, is not important.

Wrong. The "physicality" is fundamental to the issue.

Your bank account scam analogy is fatally flawed. You said "shaved". As in, people's bank accounts are being reduced. That is theft. A whole lot of people lost a little money out of their accounts. That does not happen with copying.

Even the immaterialness of your bank account example is flawed. Money is a convenient representation of all scarce resources, and as such must itself be scarce. Easily done by using some sort of material representation such as coinage. But if it's done electronically, then it must be kept scarce by other means. Otherwise the economy would have to go back to barter. Creating more money, which is what copying money would do, is another crime known as counterfeiting. Unlike money, information is not scarce. And information does not need to be kept scarce to be valuable, just the opposite in most cases.

when you pirate software, you have deprived the copyright holder of something which belongs to them: the copy you made.

No. Information is not a good, and cannot be owned. It isn't material. Now, information can be "fixed" in a medium, and that material item can indeed be owned. But the author has a copyright, not a property deed. Copyrights can be owned, media can be owned, but information cannot be owned. We often say of people who have paid for a medium containing a copy of something that they "own a copy of" or even just "own" some album, book, movie, or whatever, but what is meant is that they own the medium, not the information on it. There are many things they can legally do with the medium such as sell it, that they can't do with the information. Fixing a copy of some copyrighted info to a medium does not somehow assign the ownership of that medium to the copyright holder, that's not how the law works.

We can't have a good argument on these issues until we can agree on the terms. Your logic is founded on redefining the basic terms to mean things they do not mean. There's nothing more to say until you stop equating copying with theft. Copying is NOT theft. It's not even similar to theft. Copying isn't always a crime, theft is always a crime. Copyright infringement is always a violation of the law, but not all copying is copyright infringement. Murder, speeding, perjury, vandalism, fraud, and counterfeiting are always violations of the law. But none of those are theft. There are many, many crimes that are not theft. Copyright infringement is not theft. Copyright infringement is not theft. One more time: Copyright infringement is not theft.

Inappropriately conflated "Illegal" w/ "Steal"

[Woundweavr (37873)]

You make a reasonable argument on why its wrong to violate copyright. That does not mean its "stealing."

When you pirate a work, you must by definition make a new copy. That copy can only be legally produced by the copyright holder. It would make no sense to simply destroy it, and so ownership of it reverts to the one legally able to produce it in the first place. Most of the time illegally-produced copies get destroyed anyway, but that need not be the case.

In any case, you now have a copy of the software that belongs to the copyright holder. By not returning the copy to them or buying it outright, you are in fact depriving them of something: a copy to sell or otherwise do with as they will.

And so, piracy equals theft.

Possession of something that should lawfully belong to someone is not theft on its face. The means by which one takes unlawful possession indicate different crimes.

• If one physically takes possession of something belonging to another person through force or stealth, this is called theft.
  
• If one obtains property of another through a transaction that used an excess of deceit to the point that the transaction is considered invalid, this is called fraud.
  
• If one makes a copy of media that is copyrighted without the consent of the copyright holder to an extent that is considered unlawful (one has the right to make backup copies under the fair use doctrine and until the 90s one could make copies if one did not receive financial gain from the copies), this is called copyright violation
  
• If one purchases or otherwise obtains property in a transaction that would normally be legal, but the goods are stolen, this is called purchasing stolen goods (and is only a crime if done knowingly).
  
• If there is a civil dispute over property ownership and the possessor of the goods is found to not be the proper owner, this is not considered theft or even a criminal matter (generally).
  

There are a number of other variations on the above. Simple possession of another person's rightful property does not necessarily constitute theft.

Like dropping a house on a witch

[spun (1352)]

"Using someone else's wifi is stealing, "

only if you don't have authorization. If the system lets you in by design, then you have authorization.
The incoming house analogy will inevitably show how little the person knows about how computers communicate.

Stealing wifi is like dropping a house on a witch. It will make strange looking midgets dance around with glee, and get her sister to send flying monkeys after you.

Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'?

[flaming error (1041742)]

> favorite replacment term for "piracy,"

market correction

ooh, ooh, I've got one!

[BlackCobra43 (596714)]

Electronic copyright violation.

Yarr, I be a clever pirate.

Bootlegging

[Geof (153857)]

Bootlegging [merriam-webster.com]: to produce, reproduce, or distribute illicitly or without authorization

This helps to distinguish private copying from for-profit counterfeiting by organized crime.

Problems...

[Darkness404 (1287218)]

Sure, free games may solve game "piracy", but it doesn't address what is killing PC gaming. Which are A) Windows, B) Insane hardware requirements and C) Consoles. When all PC games become cross platform (Linux, Windows and Mac), require the average hardware and will run decently on low-end hardware (for example, now it would need to run on 512 MB of RAM and a cheap Intel graphics card), and be better than the games on consoles. Once they solve all those problems PC gaming may be mainstream, but right now they confine themselves to a small niche.

Re:Problems...

[JCSoRocks (1142053)]

Holy crap can we stop with the "PC gaming is dead / dying" mantra? It's simply not true.
- US PC Gaming Revenues 2007 - $2.76 billion +12%
- US PC Gaming Revenues 2008 - $3.1 billion +14% (forecast)
- Worldwide PC Gaming 2007 - $8.3 billion +14%
- Worldwide PC Gaming 2008 - $9.6 billion +16% (forecast)

Those numbers are from the May MaximumPC. PC gaming is *not* dead, it's growing. Stop spreading the FUD.

Call it what it is

[Mr.Ned (79679)]

"And if anyone has a favorite replacement term for "piracy," in the context of electronic copyright violation, please suggest it below."

Umm, a copyright violation? Copyright infringement? Why not just call it what it is instead of bringing in some new word that's going to have a specific connotation?

Not free. Digital downloads, easy updates.

[Zarhan (415465)]

Valve has a nice vision:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=160866 [eurogamer.net]

Have to say I agree with them.

I recently bought a new, up-to-date PC with dual cores and all the bells and whistles. After playing nothing but WoW, Civ and other less-powerhungry games on my trusty old 1,2 GHz Celeron and Win'98, I could finally check out all the games I missed.

So far: Half-Life 2, Orange Box (consisting of EP1&EP2 too, and Portal). Love it. Also love Steam. It works.
Another case: Galactic Civilizations 2. Stardock's Stardock Central (and the parallel, Impulse), rock.

NO Copy protection. No DVD in drive bullshit. No running through the hoops. Before, when I bought a game it was always running via gamecopyworld.com to get the crack. Another game that I got was Crysis. Fine, gamecopyworld has cracks - except there isn't one for the 64-bit 1.21 version. So I was stuck with the DVD in drive..

Then, as an old Baldur's Gate&Torment&Kotor fan, I heard that Bioware had done a new RPG - Mass Effect. To avoid hassle, I googled for what copy protection it's using - and read about the whole phone-home-schema. I can run Steam in offline mode. Stardock Central doesn't phone home. But these guys seriously thought that spyware in your PC is ok?!

I was already firing up my torrent client, but then I read http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/2318229 [slashdot.org] about EA loosening the DRM and actually bought the game instead.

Gotta love Valve. And Blizzard.

Call a spade a spade

[eepok (545733)]

It's not stolen, it's not pirated... it's an "Unlicensed Copy". Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:make good games that run on reasonable hardware

[Darkness404 (1287218)]

Ummm... Quantity != Quality. Just look at games for the Wii, sure there are some good ones, Super Smash Bros Brawl, and Super Mario Galaxy to name just two, but if you go into any major store you find that about 75% of Wii games are crappy mini-game collections with virtually no purpose that involve shaking around the Wii remote to try to do something.

Even if you look back to the NES where we only had a few major developers there was a lot of quality games made, games that pushed the hardware to the limit. In the SNES/Genesis era things stayed the same. But once we got to the PS1/N64 era, we got flooded with a ton of really crappy games. Think about it, once Disney games were good, at least decent, and worth playing, then midway into the '90s something started to go terribly, terribly wrong. Every movie had some lame video game tie-in, games started to all be the same, originality seemed to be confined to first-party developers. We are still there, you only need to take a look at the Wii.