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Spore the Most Pirated Game of 2008
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Dec 06, 2008 06:18 AM
from the clearly-securom-is-doing-its-job dept.
from the clearly-securom-is-doing-its-job dept.
TorrentFreak has posted some statistics on the most pirated games of the past year. Leading the list by a large margin is Spore, made infamous even before its release for the draconian DRM attached to the game. It was downloaded through BitTorrent roughly 1.7 million times, with The Sims 2 and Assassin's Creed following at just over a million each. (It's worth noting that Spore came out in September, so that figure is essentially for a mere three months.) GameSetWatch has posted a related piece discussing the countermeasures involved in dealing with piracy. It's the second article in a series about piracy; we discussed the first a couple days ago.
Related Stories
[+]
Will DRM Exterminate Spore? 881 comments
AC Dude writes "Will an anti-DRM flash mob that's determined to give EA's latest sim game Spore a rock bottom rating on Amazon.com sink the game, or will Spore evolve and shed the DRM? Is this the beginning of the end for DRM-laden games?
'Over the past few years we've focused a lot on the music industry and how it has attempted to use DRM to control distribution. While DRM in this market segment has been unpopular, anti-DRM campaigns have largely fallen flat when it comes to attracting widespread public attention because of the fragmented nature of music. Games are a much easier target given the monolithic nature of their release — campaigners only need to spread the word on a handful of specific online outlets to reach a wide audience. A quick read through the Amazon reviews of Spore seems to suggest that the negative comments are already putting people off from buying the game.'"
[+]
Valve's Gabe Newell On DRM 241 comments
Ars Technica is running a story about recent comments by Valve's Gabe Newell in which he bluntly stated, "As far as DRM goes, most DRM strategies are just dumb. The goal should be to create greater value for customers through service value (make it easy for me to play my games whenever and wherever I want to), not by decreasing the value of a product (maybe I'll be able to play my game and maybe I won't)." Ars then points out a response by Microsoft's Games for Windows Community Manager Ryan Miller suggesting Rockstar Games' recent decision not to have install limits for the PC version of GTA IV made the use of SecuROM acceptable. GameSetWatch has a related piece discussing the difficulty in measuring piracy and enforcing infringement laws.
[+]
EA Is Now Officially On Steam, Spore Loses SecuROM 354 comments
Trevor DeRiza writes "Today, Valve and EA revealed that this week's earlier rumors were true: Spore (and other EA games) are coming to Steam. As of today, Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online, Mass Effect, Need for Speed: Undercover, and FIFA Manager 2009 are all available for download on Steam. In the coming weeks, EA will add Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, and Red Alert 3. On the official Steam forums, when asked whether or not Spore would contain the dreaded SecuROM DRM that contributed to it being the most pirated game of 2008, a moderator replied, 'It does not have third party DRM.' EA has also finally launched a 'de-authorization tool' to free up limited installation slots."
Several readers have written to point out other news about Steam today: they've begun selling games priced in local currency for European customers. The only problem? Their conversion rate seems to be $1 per €1, somewhat less favorable than the current exchange rate, which is roughly $1.40 per €1.
[+]
The Sims 3 Racks Up Over 180,000 Downloads Prior To Release 187 comments
Bloomberg reports that pirated versions of EA's The Sims 3 were downloaded over 180,000 times between May 18 and May 21. The game will not be officially released until June 2nd, and it does not make use of SecuROM for DRM. Quoting:
"That outpaces the 400,000 downloads over three weeks for Electronic Arts' Spore, the most-pirated game of 2008. ... Copies of the game available on file-sharing Web sites aren't the full version, Electronic Arts said. 'The pirated version is a buggy, pre-final build of the game,' Holly Rockwood, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. 'It's not the full game. Half the world — an entire city — is missing from the pirated copy.'"
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Because of the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. I'm included in that statistic, despite buying the game. Downloaded the game when it first appeared, but waited until release day to actually install from my retail version, then use the crack from the pirated version.
Given what a letdown the game was, I should have installed the pirated version earlier and seen it wasn't worth the $50 and just deleted it.
Ah well.
Parent
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for killing the games industry, you filthy thief.
Parent
Exactly !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for killing the games industry, you filthy thief.
Yes, I second that !
We need more suckers... huh, no... "customers" to fall for the brainwash... hu, sorry... for the marketing overhyping our product, and who will blindingly throw their money at whatever product we manage to persuade them will be the best-game-ever-even-better-than-blowjob-and-beacon-sammich !
Our economy is dying because of all the filthy thieves who selfishly want to see what a game is worth before buying !
--
though, seriously, I actually found the game kind of cool.
Parent
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Its because of the Marketing blitz.
Everywhere I look its Spore this, Spore that. You'd have mushrooms in your ears to miss hearing about it.
OF COURSE people are going to think: "Whats all the hype about - not like MARKETING has LIED to me before so I'll take a free no-obligation look-see for myself."
Some %, possibly significant, of those downloaders are going to perhaps like it and/or will want to play online, so they will sign up for valid copies. These people are new clients - they would not of bought the game otherwise.
Now the hardliners-stuck in the 80's software model will cry "these numbers will destroy the game industry". Bollocks. They are getting 1.X million potential clients who would never have bother buying the game to see if it was worth the hype in the first place.
News flash: Bittorent downloads will reflect real world marketing promotion.
Parent
I can see why people would be skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
Particularly in the case of Spore. That game was sold as just damn amazing. Well often when that's claimed it turns out not to be the case. Fable would be a good example. Had it been what it was originally claimed to be, it would likely be the defining RPG of this generation. Instead it was a fairly average action RPG.
Such is the case with Spore as well. Now I don't know, maybe the game gets awesome in later stages but to me, it seemed very shallow the little I tooled around with it on a friend's copy. The first two stages were really boring. I also had a look at his game on the Civilization stage. Well guess what? I've already seen that done better in a game called... Civilization. I likes me a good Civ simulator, in fact I own Civ 4 and it's two expansions. So if you aren't doing it better than that, and it isn't, well then I am not that interested.
Had I bought it, I would have felt rather ripped off. However I know you have to be careful on those extremely hyped games. You can't go by reviews either. Reviewers have already talked them selves in to how good the game will be, reviews are far too positively biased for Big Hits(tm).
I also think in Spore's case a non-trivial amount of it may have been due to DRM protest. Now you can argue if that's the way to go about it or not, but there were lots of people pissed about it. I've decided EA can basically get fucked. I'm not buying their games with this activation bullshit unless they are absolutely superb. I bought Mass Effect, that game is just that good, but I'm giving most others a miss.
For example I'm not going to get Red Alert 3. I'm a fan of the C&C series and have bought most of them. I quite liked C&C3 and Kane's Revenge. However though I like them, they aren't good enough for me to put up with the activation shit. So I'll get something else instead, Demigod probably.
Now while I'm not going to go nab a copy off Bittorrent, that may be what some people do, people who are put off by the DRM.
I'm reasonable when it comes to DRM. I'll accept that publishers are paranoid and need the "feel good" of having some DRM on the games, even though it seems it really doesn't help (see Sins of a Solar Empire for proof). However when it gets to be bullshit like "You can only install the game 3 times and then never again," well fuck you. Good games, I want to play and replay. I still fire up Baldur's Gate 2 from time to time. You'd better believe I've done more than 3 reinstalls since then. Hell I've gone through more than 3 complete system upgrades since that came out.
EA really seems to have crossed the stupid threshold. In particular the activation limits imply that it isn't so much about preventing illegal copying as it is about preventing a used game market and forcing you to buy new versions. I think the rampant copying will help show that no, this shit DOESN'T stop it.
Parent
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Can go one better: The weight of evidence is in the real world sales: http://torrentfreak.com/alchemist-author-pirates-own-books-080124/ [torrentfreak.com]
http://toc.oreilly.com/2008/08/pirates-convince-game-develope.html [oreilly.com]
The weight of real-world evidence is in favor of the hypothesis posted above. The only anti-hypothesis you've got is 1 Pirate == 1 lost sale. *cough* Your data prove your hypothesis?*cough**cough*
Parent
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to pirate the game after buying it in Thailand (I live there) because EA support refused to give me the English language (1.3 meg of files)
and why the fuck should I care if it's more expensive in the UK if I don't live there? In fact why do they mention the UK at all?
WHY RESPOND! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHY YOUR FUCKING ME OVER FOR THREE FILES!!!
Parent
Re:Because of the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm... because they're a company and don't give a rat's rear about you?
Let's calculate. One customer pissed off vs. thousands of cheap "imports" from countries where you couldn't charge 35 quid for a game because copying rates are already higher than the US national debt.
Now imagine you're a company and think accordingly.
Yes, it sucks for you. And don't get me wrong, I'm neither berating you nor taking EA's side here, but that's how it looks for them. You're one customer who already bought the game anyway, and it's not an MMO where they could squeeze any more money out of you.
Parent
The Solution. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
You jest, but this is precisely what the shareholders will demand of the publishers. They do not understand that piracy cannot be defeated by technical means, so they'll just keep on layering increasingly nasty DRM on the games.
At the same time, they will lobby politicians to implement even more draconian "IP-protection" laws.
So while the headline does induce a warm, fuzzy "serves you right" feeling, the implications are not so funny.
Parent
Re:The Solution. (Score:5, Informative)
Copying games is about as old as the game industry. About 20 years ago, when I was young, it was often also the only way to actually get games before they were outdated. Not to mention that back then games were often not only cracked but also included a "trainer", i.e. a built in cheat, which actually made the copies more interesting than the originals.
A bit like today with DRM, but back in the good ol' days game crackers actually added value instead of just removing the value subtraction... anyway.
Copy protection is also about as old as the game industry. And no copy protection ever protected a game from being copied. If anything, it led to the rise of certain copier groups. Without copy protection, this kind of organisation would not have been necessary, and I doubt they would have risen to the levels they were until about a decade ago. And without them, the widespread copying would not have been possible.
Stings like Buccaneer and Fastlink certainly put some strain on "cracker groups", but whether or not they continue is no longer of pressing importance for the copying of games. You don't need the sort of organisation anymore that was necessary one or two decades ago. You don't need suppliers, couriers, BBS operators and all the other people involved with acquisition and distribution of software. You only need the person cracking the game. And, more importantly, you need globally one single person to do it, distribution of the crack is easily accomplished through P2P.
Now we see a focus on P2P in the fight against copying. There may be some sort of achivement similar to the stings mentioned above, maybe in 3, maybe in 5 years, but then we'll be on the next technology for getting, cracking and spreading software.
See the pattern? Whatever is done against widespread copying, it is usually too late to actually counter what has already been established.
You want people to heed copyrights. That is a fair demand. I'm actually sure people are very willing to heed them if their demand is met, too. But we're moving away from the demand with the supply. Companies supply software with more and more invasive DRM. People want software that allows them to use it without hassle and without jumping through hoops to be allowed to use what they pay for. Draconian DRM, lawsuits and stings will not help there in any way. It will, if anything, alienate your customer. People are usually quite willing to play fair if they feel they are treated fairly. You offer me a fair deal and I will play fair. You offer me a foul deal and I will play foul.
Parent
DRM just. can't. work. Period (Score:5, Insightful)
A company that makes Spore wants to earn a living. And to do that they put on DRM.
And it just can't work.
The premise of DRM is to make more difficult for people to casually copy the game.
That means managing to put restriction for every last game player out there. Everyone has to be subjected to that shit in the hopes that the copying will be limited.
But then, all it takes is 1 single unique copy. 1 single unique time when the DRM has been circumvented, for that copy to be made available to millions via the internet.
Who in his right mind could guarantee that, out of the several millions of sold copies (2 million after 3 weeks according to EA as reported on Wikipedia*), the DRM will stand un-defeated, not even 1 single time.
That requires failure rates lower than 1 in several dozen of millions. That are failure rates that even space exploration - with all its engineering brilliance - can't guarantee. And your expecting shitty manufacturer of crappy DRM systems, which can't even stay stable on a machine without crashing it, to be able to guarantee that ?
Even without entering in the stupidity of the DRM's cryptographic details, or the complete out-of-reality of the pay-per-copy failed business model, just the sheer numbers involved tell you that DRM just doesn't stand a snowball in hell's chance to be even remotely reach something that could be interpreted as success.
DRM just can't be the answer to the piracy problem :
to succeed it must stop absolutely everyone from copying.
to fail 1 single leak is all it takes.
That's impossible.
--
*: EA reports 2 million copies sold after 3 weeks.
TorrentFreaks reports ~2 million download after 3 months of BitTorrent.
That's an incredibly high... SELLING RATE. Articles on /. have mentioned that 90% piracy is rather the norm in the gaming industries.Whereas, it seems that Spore has sold more copies than it got pirated.
That's some damn fucking sign of tremendous success. And given this success, given all the money Spore has managed to earn, why does anybody need to give a fuck if some punks have downloaded copies of the intertube ?
Parent
Re:The Solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that time is, what, four years ago?
Parent
Re:The Solution. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
WRONG! (Score:5, Funny)
There was not a single case of a shipping of that game being stolen on the high seas.
Oh, you mean people shared the files? Well, here's a handy guide for you [filesavr.com].
Arrrr!
Despite DRM? Or rather because of it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, let's ponder for a moment. Was this game P2Ped so often despite the insane DRM mechanisms? Or was it maybe because of it?
How many read about what EA wants to do with their PCs to be allowed to play this piece of ... erhm ... software? Deep manipulation of your driver makeup, authorisation requirement to be allowed to use what you pay for, the sword of damocles hanging over you in the guise of limiting the times you may activate it, not to mention the question whether or not you'll be allowed to play it when EA decides that you shouldn't any longer because you're supposed to buy the successor...
How many of those copies are actually people who bought the game and for some reason had to activate it once too often, and instead of calling the very helpful, friendly and lightning fast user support people of EA who speak flawless English they decided for the faster venue of downloading the game to play it? Or, how many actually HAD to download it to play it at all because for some funky reason that DRM barfed on them and all EA said was "sorry, problem at your end"?
I'm actually willing to grant the DRM advocates that this time those copies are actually lost sales. But not despite, rather because of DRM. People wanted to play that game and they would have had no worries about the 50ish bucks it costs, but they just didn't want you to mess up their PCs.
Before someone asks, no, I didn't copy it. The money allotted for the purchase of Spore was redirected to Sins of a Solar Empire when I heard about Spore's DRM mechanism. Sins was a purchase of protest, only to turn out to be a pretty well made game. I then saw Spore at a friend's and realized it ain't even worth the bandwidth necessary to P2P it. So, I guess, I'm not in this statistic this time.
Re:Despite DRM? Or rather because of it? (Score:5, Insightful)
UbiSoft? You want me to trust a study regarding DRM troubles coming from a company that has to steal warez cracks to deal with their DRM troubles [slashdot.org]?
Umm... any credible sources to back that up?
Parent
Re:no demos (Score:5, Informative)
The creature creator used SecuROM (invasive copy protection) and 'phoned home'. I imagine a demo would do the same.
I, and a lot of other people, would avoid it as a matter of principle.
Parent
Re:no demos (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, when you saw Spore, I think you'll agree that any kind of demo would have hurt the sales, not helped them. What would you have demo'ed? The "eat and grow" treadmill in the beginning that I have seen done better in various flash games? Doubt that would have convinced anyone to actually buy the game.
But if it tells me something it is to stay away from games that don't dare to offer a free sample of their gameplay. When they're not confident that the 20ish minutes I can usually play such a demo before I hit the "buy the full version to play on" wall will make me want more, the game is usually good for less than those 20 minutes.
And, bluntly, 50 bucks for 20 minutes ... dunno, how much are hookers these days?
Parent
Re:Propaganda terms... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maritime piracy still goes on, and is still a major problem in some parts of the world. Just because someone's smear tactic to conflate illegal copying with theft and murder has been successful doesn't mean we should stop resisting it.
Parent
Re:yes (Score:5, Insightful)
You've never been a teenager, have you? It's bragging rights. Remember kids, the more you download, the longer your penis is.
In my days it was the kind of clothes you wear, later it was having the biggest trading card deck, today it's the amount of ripped software you store. It's not like anyone really needs 20 TB of software (or movies), it's our good ol' hunter and gatherer impulse.
Parent
Re:This is one of those rare cases (Score:5, Insightful)
Spore is, if anything, a lesson. I think it should be used as an example in game design classes.
Spore is also a lesson to MMO makers, it really has a lot of qualities found in MMOs and it also shows why so many MMOs fail despite good outlook and design.
The first few chapters in Spore is a lot like leveling your character in MMOs. You play and grind, you build your character, you "level" (as in, gain DNA and "evolve"), you make your decisions where to improve your character, what parts to focus on and what you can do without, aiming for the "endgame".
Then you reach that endgame and realize a few things:
Your decisions are pointless. No matter what you "evolved" and no matter what your race is like, the game is the same.
The endgame itself stinks. Too much micromanagement, too little freedom in your decisions.
The replay value, which could have been stunning considering the ways you could create your race, is near zero. Most of all, you do not want to replay, knowing that what is in for you in the end is the most tedious, boring part of the game.
Parent
Re:I only buy from Steam (Score:5, Insightful)
Steam isn't better than any other DRM, and worse than most. It's just very convenient, being able to download a game to any computer.
Effectively, however, your Steam "purchases" are rentals. Internet connection down? Games are inaccessible. Account gets banned? Games are lost. Valve goes out of business? Games are lost. Valve gets bought up? Pray the new owners don't change the terms of use to something draconian.
I wouldn't spend a dime on Steam. I like to own my stuff.
Parent