Free Games As a Solution To Game Piracy 806
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.)
ooh, ooh, I've got one! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yarr, I be a clever pirate.
make good games that run on reasonable hardware (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of mediocre games that require incredibly expensive stuff few people have.
Re:Problems... (Score:3, Interesting)
PC gaming's real enemy: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
That's quite a leap there. If I steal your product, that implies that I want it. Do I want it badly enough that I would pay for it if there was no possible way to steal it? Maybe, maybe not, but the product clearly has some value to me, since I was willing to go through the trouble and risk of stealing it.
However, if I'm buying someone else's product instead, that implies that your game has no value to me, since I believe your competitor's product to be superior enough to spend my time on it rather than on your game.
As for someone renouncing society and all its benefits, to truly do that they would need to be living in a cave somewhere completely off the grid (and certainly without access to the Internet), so they would be unlikely to be in the market for computer games anyway.
Re:Problems... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, someone please mod the parent post up!
PC Gaming is dying because people are tired of the "latest, greatest" games not only including a $50 price tag, but also another $250 price tag for a new video card to play them well!
People constantly complain that the Mac is "not a viable computer" for them because they don't have enough games out for them, not enough graphics card options, etc. But I can see the flip-side of that. Sometimes it's nice watching Apple "hold the line", saying "What?! These configurations REALLY aren't good enough for you? They're good enough for all the *real* applications we sell. They're good enough for Hollywood to edit movies on and create special f/x with. They're good enough for pro photographers and artists. They're even good enough for the people who DO bother to port the "best of breed" PC games over to our platform, here and there. If you'd rather play "musical video card swap" every few months, go get a regular Wintel PC instead!"
The low-end, ultra-small notebooks are a booming market-segment right now, too. Another sign that people realize their computers are just FINE for everything they do BUT the games with insane requirements. So sure, people just invest in the one-time cost of a console, and focus their gaming budget on titles for it, instead.
Piracy is not an excuse (Score:4, Interesting)
People have been pirating games for almost 30 years, but companies have been profitable. Pirating games is a giant pain in the butt, so if you can purchase a game online and legally download it, you're probably going to do it. You can purchase almost any game via digital downloads these days.
Compare to consoles, I own an xbox 360 but do not own a single game. I don't pirate, but I have gamefly. I get 3-4 games per month, which I play beat and return in mere days. The amount of money being made there per game is miniscule, if I had more free time I would probably do the trade-in thing which I understand is all the rage.
I'm not convinced "free" (as in crack) games are a solution to a real problem. Windows is just not turnkey enough for the simple games that consoles do best. For the complicated games, lately people don't buy very many. Who has time for WoW AND Lotro AND MMOG++? PC games tend to be involved, for this reason we won't acquire every game that hits the shelves and will be selective. If a game sucks, we won't buy it, no time, forget money.
Console games...well gamefly will send me anything on my queue, and I'll keep the queue full even if the games on it suck and I just send it back barely touched. If you're EA, this is just fine, that means they're getting more share of my entertainment budget ($14.99/mo or whatever it is). From the standpoint of running a business based on increasing profits, they like it, no risk.
Expensive hardware kills PC gaming (Score:2, Interesting)
Inappropriately conflated "Illegal" w/ "Steal" (Score:5, Interesting)
You make a reasonable argument on why its wrong to violate copyright. That does not mean its "stealing."
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.
There are a number of other variations on the above. Simple possession of another person's rightful property does not necessarily constitute theft.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, I would still be willing to BUY games if they would stop rehashing half witted half finished games
I realize that you personally haven't used it to justify piracy, but I see this all too often from pirates. This is not a valid excuse. If games really sucked so much, you wouldn't even be interested in pirating them!
Why is it that so FEW companies actually put out workable, GOOD products?
What games don't work? List some, and I will list you twice as many that do ship in a reasonably working, bug-free form.
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's stealing: you're depriving the intellectual property owner of one of their property rights, i.e. exclusivity. The same way I may choose who gets to stay in my realty (i.e. I control the exclusivity of the property)
You seem doubly confused. If someone violates the "exlusivity" of your property, that's called trespassing, not theft.
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:3, Interesting)
The term is actually already being used by some people; it gets ~2000 Googles and most of the first-page hits seem relevant. However, apparently someone came up with a pseudo-license/copyleft workalike called CopyTheft [biolicense.org], so there might be a conflict there.
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Under no rational analysis can it be said to be, "stealing."
Schwab
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:1, Interesting)
um... it's property because of a set of rights. Ownership only works because of those rights. Land is property, air is not, though both are physical. You can't own air, though there are rights regarding the air and your ability to pollute it.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:5, Interesting)
+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.
Re:Problems... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about the term "anonymous offsite back-up with frequent integrity testing"?
But honestly, I don't see much point in pirating the games. Most aren't good enough to be worth the effort and those that are should be bought just to support the companies that make good games. When I was younger (kid, had no money), I "acquired" some "back-ups" and frequently "tested the integrity" of those back-ups, but now that I'm older and have money, I just buy the ones I want.
Layne
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think that buying stolen property is theft, plain and simple? Is fraud also theft, plain and simple? Then if you own any land, you are a thief, plain and simple, as all property was either stolen from its original owners, or they were defrauded of it.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:4, Interesting)
The no return with open package isn't just because of piracy... it's because people would use big-box stores as rental stores. Get a game, play through it, return it and get another one, all "free". What I'd be most impressed with is if they did a return policy like Gamestop does. 7 days, no questions asked, after that, you're SOL. 7 days is long enough that you can return it if it sucks, but short enough that you can't play through most games worth money, assuming you're a normal person. There may be a few people who abuse it, but I think that would be a solution that would appease the greatest number of people, and get more people buying games again.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't classify most pirates that way but quite a few.
you can't return a game once you opened the box. therefore if the game doesn't play well on your hardware, or if it really sucks and the demo has all the good parts in it(like some movie trailers). Console Gamers can usually rent games from blockbuster, etc.
PC gamers have to shell out money to even find out if they might actually like it.
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a quite (unintentionally) interesting post. The words "stealing" and "piracy" are criticized here because they are inaccurate metaphors for the thing being described, chosen to sway the debate by their emotional impact. Here we have an AC troll who is trying to veer the conversation back into emotionalism by yet another inaccurate metaphor.
You can see that the words "stealing" and "piracy" obscure the issue, without necessarily thinking that copyright infringement is acceptable.
Some cases of piracy are reasonably close to theft: unauthorized commercial duplication for example. In this case, the copyright holders aren't deprived of the material, they are deprived of the revenue, which the infringer enjoys. Other cases are not very much like theft, but are still not very admirable. They are more like freeloading.
Still other forms of copyright infringement represent the user trying to exercise a right he believes he has but which the copyright holder does not believe he has. In some cases that may be a legal right (such as archival copying), in other cases it may be a moral right, like replacing a CD lost in a fire. Such infringements have to be viewed on a case by case basis. Some are be reasonable and others are not, some are legal and others are not, but none are precisely "stealing" nor are any "piracy", which technically means robbery on the ocean without a valid legally recognized license from a sovereign nation.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
As a result of that, I'd be willing to bet just about anything that if you call the game producer and inform them that you're rejecting the license, that they'd give you a full refund or tell you how to get a full refund.
And they'd probably be facing a lawsuit from a AG looking to score consumer protection points if they required you to pay shipping on it.
Re:A favorite term to replace 'piracy'? (Score:3, Interesting)
"stealing games"
That is exactly the thought in my head when I played on some "private" World of Warcraft servers. Which are already offering this model of business. In that market rules of the game often relaxed to increase the rate of character progression for more casual players. Also often times the group running the emulated World of Warcraft server will accept donations and in exchange offer in game items of various levels. From 5USD for 5k gold to 250USD for collections of vastly overpowered items. Needless to say this makes for an unbalanced and unenjoyable experiance as the 13 year kid with a 25 dollar visa gift card is slaughtering you all day simply because he was willing to spend money.
And therein lies the problem, the objects being sold must remain mostly cosmetic. Or else the game will become a whole let less fun as there will always be a core few willing to spend absurd amounts of time or money on such endeavors.
what a crock. (Score:3, Interesting)
Games don't have to be free.
And they will never get away with charging microtransactions to PC gamers.
David Perry of Shiny Games is a moron.
Make a decent product. Give us plenty of chances to view it. Give us ample opportunity and convenience to purchase it. If we like it, we will.
Eliminate DRM. It obviously doesn't work. Sometimes it prevents your game from working properly.
Use Steam!!!!! We do. Stop wasting your whole budget on marketing. We don't care about the TV commercials. We don't come to E3 to get posters.
Impulse Buy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:5, Interesting)
Right 'free' games (Score:3, Interesting)
For those who don't know, these free games are all the rage in places like korea. Instead of buying a boxed game and then paying a monthly subscription ala World of Warcraft, you download the game for free and play it for free BUT all the advanced items are not looted or crafted but bought.
The earliest games just made some useful but not-essential items buyable. Buyable but still lootable or at least tradeable. Think Second Life where 1 person buying linden dollars can buy stuff from players who never spend any real cash.
But that isn't profitable enough, so slowly the "buy" items have become more and more essential to play the game beyond the basics.
One example is a game, might be Perfect World, where you get one free sample of a pet. A little pig that picks up loot for you that drops in the world. Handy no? But hardly essential? No, the game drops so much loot that anyone trying to pick stuff up AFTER the free pet has run out will find the game near impossible to play. So where do you get more piggies? From the shop.
And then of course the smart players are going to do a small sum, exactly HOW much do you have to pay each month to play the game succesfully? Oh dear, an amount very similar to the monthly subscription of WoW. Execpt for ONE small problem, that is the MINIMUM sum. You can easily spend more and we all know how addictive these games can become. Blizzard can only charge you the monthly fee, although Blizzard and SOE are learning how to fleece their customer for more, but the Korean games go far further.
Remember all the outcry when console games for the x-box and 360 started charging, one racing game where most tracks and cars had to be bought after you bought theboxed game?
The Koreans go far further.
I don't see this as the future.
Do you REALLY want games entirely designed around selling you items? An RTS where every upgrade for your units has to be paid for, an adventure where puzzle items have to be bought, an RPG where every skill is paid for?
As expensive as single player games have become at least that is a fixed one time charge (oh okay ignoring games like Oblivion) where you know the game can be finished for that amount of money. I really don't want a future in which a company makes its money from me playing the game over and over.
lets not forget also that this means the end of modding. Do you really think that if EA manages to introduce the sale of single pieces of furniture in The Sims that they would allow the countless free mods that exist?
How are you going to sell a FPS with bought items if any modder can add far better weapons?
No, just produce games that are decent value, remove the damn DRM so paying customers ain't punished and accept that perhaps the market isn't in producing the Xth FPS but in producing unique fun games that the people want to pay and play. Remember that the biggest game ever is The Sims. A series that launched WITHOUT drm and allowed open modding and made the company more money then they could ever have dreamed. The PC market is alive and well but you got to stop aiming for the 12yr old boys. I know quite a few The Sims fans and they don't give a shit about buying a new expansion, all they care about is new options to produce free content for EA. That is how you make money. Sell to people willing to pay for your product, not fight a loosing war.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:5, Interesting)
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:I prefer this idea: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of the people I know that pirate PC games end up buying the game a few days later if they like it, or dumping it if they don't. These are the same people that rent console games from blockbuster and then buy copies if they like it after the weekend.
If you could return PC games, or rent them, their piracy would stop.
Myself, I just wait for someone else to buy it, and then play it at their place, and buy it if I like it, since it isn't worth the time and effort to locate a working pirated version and download it (and yes, I know it isn't hard at all, it just isn't worth my time). Likewise, I rent console games or borrow them from friends before I buy them.
We have plenty of disposable income, and don't mind spending it on gaming. We just don't like to throw it away on a game we can't return when we find out it is junk. Which might be why we have disposable income and aren't broke.
Of course, the people I speak of are in their late 20s through early 40s - not high-school and college aged kids, which I suspect is the source of the majority of "true" pirating.
Re:Why do they need to be free? (Score:3, Interesting)
The funniest thing about Steam is, I tried to use it... and ended up with a game that didn't work! Then I went and checked isohunt... oh yeah, there is halflife2... oh look, this version works! Maybe valve should take some coding lessons from the blackhats - or, possibly something else (like they noticed I stole halflife1 and still had it on the pc, hahaha) was going on. They really got owned on that issue though... I've heard several people say they had the same problem
Subscription Gaming (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest reason piracy is so rampant is because it's so easy and because it's free.
If they added value by putting feelies [wikipedia.org]back in boxes, it could help.
Re:I prefer this idea: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've never asked for a movie ticket refund because the movie sucked, so why would you expect to refund a game if it sucks?
Actually, if you leave during the first 15-20 minutes and tell the manager "The Movie sucks, I'd like a refund" they will generally oblige you.
Source: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/yourmoney/11349201.html [startribune.com]
Do you honestly think that if more people knew they could get refunds by leaving in the first 15-20 minutes of the movie, they would just say "fuck it, nothing I can do now!"?
Confusing WoW and AoC references. (Score:2, Interesting)
Piracy's a great term for this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Piracy has meant theft of copyrighted materials for a VERY long time. Since 1790. I think 218 years or so is long enough for the definition to be valid.
From the 1828 edition of Webster's dictionary:
" PI'RACY, n. [L. piratica, from Gr. to attempt, to dare, to enterprise, whence L. periculum, experior; Eng. to fare.]
1. The act, practice or crime of robbing on the high seas; the taking of property from others by open violence and without authority, on the sea; a crime that answers to robbery on land.
Other acts than robbery on the high seas, are declared by statute to be piracy. See Act of Congress, April 30, 1790.
2. The robbing of another by taking his writings."
Schwarzkopiererei (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really a replacement for the english-speaking world. But in german, "schwarzkopieren" means "copying something without being authorized to do so", thus somebody who does that is a "Schwarzkopierer".
This is analogous to "schwarzfahren", which means using some public-transport vehicle without paying the fare.
Simple economics (Score:2, Interesting)