I won't be buying Settlers 7 before they remove this DRM. Settlers is one of my favorite series and Settlers 2 probably my favorite game of all time, and what I've read about Settlers 7, it again has more emphasis on economy and all the other aspects that used to make Settlers series great before they changed the game play too much. Settlers 7 would had been a nice strategy game fix right now, but I can surely wait for the upcoming Civilization V too.
That being said, while it's an intrusive and assholish DR
I don't really think it leads to more sales. Let's suppose I'm a pirate (*ahem*). If I can't play Settlers 7, or Assassin's Creed 2, or whatever hot-game-of-the-minute, I will find something else to occupy my weekend. I'm not going to feel the overwhelming urge to go "haha, ok Ubisoft you win this time" and give them $70, when there are hundreds of other recent titles available right on the first page of my torrent site. In fact, if something is known to be "uncrackable" a pirate is more likely to NOT want to buy it, for fear that it will rootkit their PC, mess with Daemon Tools, or phone home with a list of all the other ill-gotten software they have.
Now I'm going to take a rather offensive stance: I, as an occasional producer of (low budget) software, pirate my own stuff. By that, I mean I routinely package the product that I myself created, throw in a valid unlock code, and seed it on torrent trackers, push it through Usenet, stick it on Rapidshare. Why in the fuck would I do that ? Because pirates make up the oldest and largest social network of all time. I shit you not, I have been making more money and more repeat sales. The reasoning ? There are several types of pirates, I lump them into four main categories:
1. Hardcore pirates who won't pay for software, ever
2. Casual/bored pirates who will download whatever's new and try it out
3. Average Joe who shares stuff with a few friends and relatives, might do group buys
4. Try-before-you-buy types (yes they do exist)
#1 is most likely 12 years old and/or living in the 3rd world, might as well forget about them there is no hope for this category
#3 is small peas, blue-collar cheap-ass. Even legit businesses don't spend much on marketing to these types
#2 and #4 are GOLDEN. The try-before-they-buy types often become life-long supporters. These are the guys who will chat you up in the forums and spread your gospel to coworkers and acquaintances. The casual pirates are similar, but they won't buy your product: their friends will. The casual pirate will blog about your app or mention it on IRC/Facebook, proportionate to your app's quality and apparent ease-of-use.
I know these observations don't directly scale to these big-name game houses. Obviously there is a greater benefit to indie guys like myself, but on some level, people will always buy a certain portion of their software... for some it's 100%, for others it's zero, and I don't think DRM has much influence on that.
Piracy is a constant. You can't kill it, no matter how clever you get, it's still just a software or hardware lock, and both can be broken by someone with a bit of smarts, time and motivation. DRM is nothing but a series of small pyrrhic victories and each incremental tightening of "security" leads to an equal or greater increment in the cracker's knowledge and skill. The only ones who truly profit from DRM are the people selling DRM.
So your claim about piracy being constant is false. Your excuses for pirates are rather sad as well. You didn't mention another group which is people who pirate because they just don't want to pay.
There are off-line servers for the likes of WoW, you can play without paying a dime, there are others too. Some MMOs even have a single player mode built in (hellgate: london)
You didn't mention another group which is people who pirate because they just don't want to pay.
There is no piracy on the PS3, because the protection hasn't been broken yet. When someone finally cracks it, and I assure you there are quite a few groups working on it quite diligently, PS3 games will be pirated just the same as everything else. Sometimes it's a modchip, other times a firmware flash, but there's always a way to break the protection. It's all just bits on a disc, which become bits on a wire, and ultimately bits buzzing through a chip. There aren't a millio
Yeah, that is true But only if your product is good. If its bad and pirated it still might get forum/blog attention, but not the kind you would want. Anyway, I turned from #1 to #4 now that I have a job, but sometimes I don't do #4, instead watch youtube vids, read forums and just buy it if its good enough for me. Still I was burned a few times even with such precautions, as an good example would be Bioshock 2 with its Live! requirement, that is supported only in a few selected countries... not in mine. "Dem
That is certainly true, pirating your own stuff doesn't automatically make your product awesome. If it sucks, it sucks and the strategy will backfire, because more people will know of the suckage. That's a risk I'm willing to take, because if my app sucks, I don't want people to be using it.
"It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even
*I* don't know how it works!"
-- from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse
Settlers 7 (Score:5, Informative)
I won't be buying Settlers 7 before they remove this DRM. Settlers is one of my favorite series and Settlers 2 probably my favorite game of all time, and what I've read about Settlers 7, it again has more emphasis on economy and all the other aspects that used to make Settlers series great before they changed the game play too much. Settlers 7 would had been a nice strategy game fix right now, but I can surely wait for the upcoming Civilization V too.
That being said, while it's an intrusive and assholish DR
Re:Settlers 7 (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really think it leads to more sales. Let's suppose I'm a pirate (*ahem*). If I can't play Settlers 7, or Assassin's Creed 2, or whatever hot-game-of-the-minute, I will find something else to occupy my weekend. I'm not going to feel the overwhelming urge to go "haha, ok Ubisoft you win this time" and give them $70, when there are hundreds of other recent titles available right on the first page of my torrent site. In fact, if something is known to be "uncrackable" a pirate is more likely to NOT want to buy it, for fear that it will rootkit their PC, mess with Daemon Tools, or phone home with a list of all the other ill-gotten software they have.
Now I'm going to take a rather offensive stance: I, as an occasional producer of (low budget) software, pirate my own stuff. By that, I mean I routinely package the product that I myself created, throw in a valid unlock code, and seed it on torrent trackers, push it through Usenet, stick it on Rapidshare. Why in the fuck would I do that ? Because pirates make up the oldest and largest social network of all time. I shit you not, I have been making more money and more repeat sales. The reasoning ? There are several types of pirates, I lump them into four main categories:
1. Hardcore pirates who won't pay for software, ever
2. Casual/bored pirates who will download whatever's new and try it out
3. Average Joe who shares stuff with a few friends and relatives, might do group buys
4. Try-before-you-buy types (yes they do exist)
#1 is most likely 12 years old and/or living in the 3rd world, might as well forget about them there is no hope for this category
#3 is small peas, blue-collar cheap-ass. Even legit businesses don't spend much on marketing to these types
#2 and #4 are GOLDEN. The try-before-they-buy types often become life-long supporters. These are the guys who will chat you up in the forums and spread your gospel to coworkers and acquaintances. The casual pirates are similar, but they won't buy your product: their friends will. The casual pirate will blog about your app or mention it on IRC/Facebook, proportionate to your app's quality and apparent ease-of-use.
I know these observations don't directly scale to these big-name game houses. Obviously there is a greater benefit to indie guys like myself, but on some level, people will always buy a certain portion of their software... for some it's 100%, for others it's zero, and I don't think DRM has much influence on that.
Piracy is a constant. You can't kill it, no matter how clever you get, it's still just a software or hardware lock, and both can be broken by someone with a bit of smarts, time and motivation. DRM is nothing but a series of small pyrrhic victories and each incremental tightening of "security" leads to an equal or greater increment in the cracker's knowledge and skill. The only ones who truly profit from DRM are the people selling DRM.
Re: (Score:1)
There is no piracy on the PS3 (Score:1)
So your claim about piracy being constant is false. Your excuses for pirates are rather sad as well. You didn't mention another group which is people who pirate because they just don't want to pay.
Re: (Score:2)
and many MMOs don't have piracy either.
There are off-line servers for the likes of WoW, you can play without paying a dime, there are others too. Some MMOs even have a single player mode built in (hellgate: london)
You didn't mention another group which is people who pirate because they just don't want to pay.
Group 1#
Re: (Score:2)
Your trolling is very sub-par.
There is no piracy on the PS3, because the protection hasn't been broken yet. When someone finally cracks it, and I assure you there are quite a few groups working on it quite diligently, PS3 games will be pirated just the same as everything else. Sometimes it's a modchip, other times a firmware flash, but there's always a way to break the protection. It's all just bits on a disc, which become bits on a wire, and ultimately bits buzzing through a chip. There aren't a millio
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, that is true But only if your product is good. If its bad and pirated it still might get forum/blog attention, but not the kind you would want.
Anyway, I turned from #1 to #4 now that I have a job, but sometimes I don't do #4, instead watch youtube vids, read forums and just buy it if its good enough for me. Still I was burned a few times even with such precautions, as an good example would be Bioshock 2 with its Live! requirement, that is supported only in a few selected countries... not in mine. "Dem
Re: (Score:2)
That is certainly true, pirating your own stuff doesn't automatically make your product awesome. If it sucks, it sucks and the strategy will backfire, because more people will know of the suckage. That's a risk I'm willing to take, because if my app sucks, I don't want people to be using it.