Funcom No Longer Making Offline Games

1up has commentary from Funcom, makers of games such as Anarchy Online, Dreamfall, and Longest Journey. The developer has taken the drastic step of deciding to cease creation of games without an online component. The company's CEO pins the blame squarely on game piracy. "Several stats he listed were startling if ... true, including that 200,000 illegal copies of Dreamfall had been downloaded before the game was even released and anywhere from three to ten copies of any PC game are pirated for each one sold. Adventure Gamers suggests that future offline games such as Dreamfall Chapters may require an active internet connection to prove authenticity when you play, similar to how Steam works."

Not the pirates to blame for this

[sqlrob]

200,000 illegal copies of Dreamfall had been downloaded before the game was even released

So, where did the original come from?

Steam

[c.r.o.c.o]

It will definitely stop piracy, because we all know HalfLife2 simply cannot be played without a valid Steam account....

Re:Required internet connection

[Akaihiryuu]

There really isn't any comparison between WOW and single player "offline" games that "require" an internet connection to play. Something like Half-Life 2 having to "authenticate" to play is ridiculous...whereas for WOW there would be no way NOT to do it. WOW is a lot more than just a game, it's a persistant online world...there would be no way to implement that type of game without a network connection. WOW doesn't sell like hotcakes because you have to buy it...it sells like hotcakes because it's a really well done game. The price is reasonable ($19 for the game w/first month free, $15/month) for an online game you can play with your friends with millions of players. $15 for a month of WOW is very cheap, entertainment/$ wise. Sure, Burning Crusade costs $40, but it's not required, and if you think of it as a one-time fee to add additional content without any increase in the monthly fee, it's not really that bad. A company that makes bad games trying to reduce "piracy" by adding authentication to single player games is just signing their death warrant.

Re:Beats the alternative

[GrievousMistake]

I'd just as soon just buy the box and download a pirated version, then. I'd hate to see games go the way of movies, where illegal downloads are the better value, since you can backup them, play them on Linux, don't get ads, don't get stupid annoying unskippable 'you filthy pirate' videos, etc.

Re:Speaking of Steam and Funcom

[Animaether]

ah.. but what if you loved it, but stopped loving it? (e.g. you found it fun to play, but can't be bothered to play it again.) Would you still have purchased it?
What if you didn't love it, but found it quite entertaining enough to play it through anyway? Would you still have purchased it?
What if you only loved it half way through, then found yourself bored with it or just otherwise couldn't bring yourself to play it through anyway? Would you still have purchased it?

The problem is that for every 1 person that actually buys a game they loved playing in pirated form, there's 1+ person who thinks "I already played it, I have no desire to play it again anytime soon, why would I purchase it?".

If everybody was like you, piracy wouldn't be a particular problem. If everybody in the above situations said "Yes", piracy wouldn't be a particular problem. Sadly, most people don't go around buying games/movies they loved, as they already enjoyed it and have no particularly compelling reason to shell out money for it after the fact.

Good for them.

[anduz]

The gaming industry is a funny place really, we the gamers want good innovative games with breath taking storytelling but whenever such a game arrives for the PC it ends up with horrible sales because it gets heavily pirated. So naturally smaller companies, one example being trokia, dies down due to lack of willing investors while giant companies like Blizzard and EA triumphs on by selling the same mainstream games year in and year out.

No I'm not a big fan of hefty anti piracy, but then I guess you need it in a world where people don't pay you unless they have too - whether they love the game or not. - Going for consoles is another sollution, one that has carried companies like bioware far.

Re:Good for them.

[geekoid]

Or people don't really want that and lacking game sales are blamed on piracy.

Of course, if someone got a copy of th e game before release, and released it, then it sounds like they have company security issues.

And people download cracked versions of games they gave bought because the cracked version doesn't bog down the system with annoying tools designed to make you prove your not a criminal.

Re:Not the pirates to blame for this

[blackicye]

They're likely to hurt themselves more than tackling the problem of "piracy". More of the usual punishing of paying customers, its not like people will be more willing to pay for games if you put additional hassle into their experience. And its definately not like it won't be cracked eventually. So unless your game is approaching greatness I don't think this will help their sales much if at all.

I personally won't buy any game I know to be encumbered by additional DRM such as online verification. I don't even really mind the more intrusive on-disk protection schemes, Safedisk, Securom, Starforce as much. Though usually they lead to lower compatibility and more stability issues than games which are not as rigidly copy protected.

Starforce protected games used to be a total bitch, but its not as bad these days and IMO not near as bad as having to online verify/force update your games.

HL2 was a tremendous pain in the ass because of the pathetic bandwidth they have for the Steam service. (From outside the USA, it took me about five hours of downloading/updating/verification to get my retail copy validated and updated before I could play the game.

Steam updates still take a fair bit of time, the only upside is possibly that if you lose your media, you can redownload all the binaries if you've registered them under your steam account, not sure if there is still a DVD copy protection check though.

The biggest value add I'd imagine would be online play, and also the ability to run player mods, if it was compelling many more people would buy the game for the replayability.

DRM is no substitute for releasing a quality product.

Meh.

[WarlockD]

Wish this didn't sound like a troll, but I bought this thing when it first came out. The Longest Journey was by far my favorite adventure game of all time and even at the $40 dollar price tag, Dreamfall was far worth it. (Ending was bleh, but it makes me want the last in the series)

Just that the times have changed. No one wants to pay real money for games now a days. It takes just a few clicks to get a pirated game, its just that easy now adays. Why spend $40 bucks on a single player adventure game when it can be had for "free"

I really wish for a final game in the Dreamfall series, but I saw the seaders/leachers when Dreamfall came out, and I just think 200k is a bit conservative.