Game Developer's Response To Pirates 734
cliffski writes "A few days ago, indie PC games developer Positech publicly called for people pirating their games to explain why, in an open and honest attempt to see what the causes of gaming piracy were. Hundreds of blog posts, hundreds more emails and several server-reboots later, the developer's reply is up on their site. The pirates had a lot to say, on subjects such as price, DRM, demos and the overall quality of PC games, and Positech owner Cliffski explains how this developer at least will be changing their approach to selling PC games as a result. Is this the start of a change for the wider industry? Or is this the only developer actively listening to the pirates point of view?"
First Post (Score:5, Funny)
Most responses were, "we'd pay for your games if you'd remove the key protections"
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Informative)
Debunking Wine Myths
for those applications that do work and from a purely subjective point of view, performance is good. There is no obvious performance loss
http://www.winehq.org/site/myths#slow [winehq.org]
Performance tweaks (Score:5, Interesting)
ozmanjusri's debunking is quite on-target to be honest. I've played WoW under Gentoo, and it's maximum frame rate was about 2/3rd that of windows (natively). In fact, Wine's average framerate before I added 2GiB more RAM was generally better than Windows. (Of course, this last tidbit might be due to the fact that Windows, with 1GiB RAM, was eating up far more than X--but I suspect a better VM, too.) If you plan on playing a game under Wine that is purported to do well, you should probably at least check the Gentoo World of Warcraft Howto [gentoo-wiki.com] and browse the performance tweaks section. Applying the registry tweak really does work, if you're playing an OpenGL game.
Of course, the game very likely has to be an OpenGL game in order to work in the first place. But, in the case of WoW, OpenGL mode isn't slow because it's running under Wine--it's slow because of Blizzard's implementation. (Seriously--try running WoW in OpenGL mode under Windows, you'll lose approximately the same FPS as you would under Wine.) Plus, in a rather odd twist of irony, Tribes' dedicated server (the original Tribes!) runs somewhat better under Wine!
Re:Performance tweaks (Score:4, Interesting)
I also like to see Windows programmers list Wine as a supported platform for their apps (uTorrent is a prime example of this). This simply means that the programmers were kind enough not to make use of weird tricks in the Win API, to write clean code, which Wine runs spectacularly well.
Its actually quite ironic when one considers whats happening here...a group of Linux programmers are re-implementing the Windows API the way it should have been in the first place...it doesn't like it when programmers take shortcuts and abuse it. If Microsoft had taken a bit more time on their continually-backwards-compatible-so-no-updates-allowed-that-might-break-it API, I think there would not be only more quality code running on Windows, there would be better programmers writing code for it as well (instead of defecting to a real development platform (Unix)).
I speak from experience...learning to program and develop quality software is *so* much easier under any Unix platform. The docs are better. The tools are better. Its faster (make > 300M of Visual Studio in my RAM). I found this out very quickly when I first tried Linux (I was 12 or so at the time)...it beat the hell out of Visual Basic, thats for sure.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Informative)
As we're talking about games here let's just say that
for those applications that do work and from a purely subjective point of view, performance is good. There is no obvious performance loss
is total bullshit.
Yes I know it's a wonder and everything that I can play selected DirectX games under Linux at all. But those people claiming they run Half-Life 2 (or any source based game) through wine and it runs "the same as in Windows" kinda piss me off.
Personally if I run Team Fortress 2 in wine I see a huge performance loss. I play with DX9, FSAA and full details in Vista and get about 80-100 frames average. Using wine the game will only allow DX8.1, medium detail levels and using FSAA is right out...and it still runs with less than 60 frames most of the time. All this at 1680x1050 with an 8800GTS and a Q6600.
If we're talking about apps then yes, performance loss is minimal. Or at least performance loss is not apparent since modern machines are overpowered for most applications anyway...
But games still run like shit a good deal of the time.
Re:First Post (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
Being native to Linux is the answer for many Linux users, but certainly not all. I was using Nero + keygen for quite a while until two things coincided: 1) the quality of the product had risen making the product worth the money they were asking and 2) my income had risen to the point that I could afford the money they were asking.
But the same goes for other software that I have actually contributed my money to support. (I choose those words intentionally because I don't truly believe that software is a product in the sense that other products are.) I pay for software as a form of expression of my appreciation. I have even been known to donate to various free software projects because I appreciated what they did. This perspective, of course, is likely to be shared by a rather small portion of people and I recognize that.
But ultimately, there's a combination of what something is worth and what people can afford and when those two things intersect, you will find people more willing to buy or pay for something. I don't think it's all that mysterious and really doesn't need some sort of grand gesture like "ask the pirates." Hell, most of the coders and other software people have likely used software without paying for it at some point -- why did they do it? They should ask themselves and accept the answer is likely true for others as well. "Can't afford" is quite likely to be the most common reason closely followed by "not worth the price."
The presence of DRM or other software locking/security mechanisms are the result of greedy software makers knowing that not everyone is willing to pay their prices and are attempting to punish those who want to use their software anyway. Make no mistake about it, software protection measures are punitive in nature and design. And people are right to be offended by it. Some people think of it as no different from locking your home up when you are away, but it's quite different in that you're locking your neighbor's door to keep him form stealing from you when you go visiting. Software publishers fail to appreciate that their software is an add-on to an operating system and collection of existing software and data and should try to coexist and cooperate within that environment as a guest should behave himself in your home. Coming to your home and behaving with paranoia, fear and distrust is likely to result in negative feelings and impressions. Worse, attempts of software writers to include destructive anti-piracy measures goes well beyond the concept of the well-behaved guest principle that software publishers should observe.
People are willing to buy when it's worth buying... that's true of the majority of all people everywhere. There will ALWAYS be the element who will prefer something for nothing. Nothing will change their minds or influence their preferences on the matter. These software publishers generally need to come to terms with this aspect of human nature and factor it into their pricing models and business models. There will always be a certain amount of this, but when you price something properly, the people who behave badly are a small enough minority that they would be insignificant when compared to the people who pay.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
i have done something similar. i used to pirate everything. hell, i used to brag that my computer (which was given to me for free) had over $10,000 of software on it, none of which i had paid for.
i was in school, i had no money, and i needed these programs for assignments (art school-video, photography, sound, etc...these apps aren't cheep)
i have no problem using cracked goods as a student. but im not a students anymore. they day i graduated, i formatted the hard drive and went for a fresh start. but now im a poor college grad.
no more stolen photoshop, now i use the gimp (while i save up for photoshop). no more audition, now i use audacity. no more stolen ms office, now i use open office. no more stolen windows, now i use ubuntu, and a free copy of winXP work gave me.
its hard to describe, but it feels good not being a pirate. it feels good to know that i am a legitimate user of quality software, and that i am supporting the makers of that software.
i think i'm always going to pirate software 1st to try it out before buying, i've been burned in the past. but now that i am employed, i do buy it when i find it to be useful. premier is garbage, sony vegas is amazing, and worth the money, (even though i hate to support evil sony, this one is worth the money)
although, after buying the legit copy, i rarely actually install the legit version.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
I know exactly what you mean. For about a year, I used a cracked copy of Spacial Audio's SAM Broadcaster to DJ over the internet. It did the job I needed it to, but it never really left me feeling right. This summer, I paid off a loan that left me with actual /disposable/ income for the first time in my adult life, and one of the first things I did was plop down $279 for a legal copy. Not because I needed the upgrade, I could have swiped it too - but because I wanted to support the work they did. I love this program. And I /do/ feel better now - I can't really explain it, but, I do.
Of course, then there's my music library. I don't feel any remorse about screwing the RIAA. I'll support the artists by paying for concerts & such.
Yeah, so I'm a hypocrite. It's taken you this long to figure that out?
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
The interesting question is whether you would have paid for it if you hadnt pirated it first.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer in my life would have been "No".
I'm a VFX artist. I got into the business in JrHi through pirating. I wanted to use the software but there was 0% chance I was going to afford $12,000 for Maya or $3,500 for Max. Since then prices have plummeted in some areas (Some versions of Maya are now in line with reality around $3,000). And now I have a home copy of Max and my studio pays for a license for work.
Educational software is dramatically more affordable than it used to be. But even then piracy offers a 0 risk point of entry for people to dabble without investment. I think most people who have a copy of Photoshop fall into this camp. It's the pirates who later 'settle down' and actually decide they want to use it for real who are most of their customers.
I wouldn't say $3,500 for software is unreasonable. I think it's probably about right for what you get. It's just unreasonable for someone who isn't making an income from it. And I don't mean a profit I mean an income.
3D Studio Max is still outsells just about every other piece of 3D software by 2-3x I believe. And I suspect a suspiciously large number of customers at some point in their lives dabbled in illicit copies.
That's why I applaud companies like Splutterfish who offer professional tools with very few limitations to the masses for free. They understand that there are lots of people who might want to play with something but not badly enough to actually spend any money. And as soon as the crack gets installed you've lost a customer. This is the point of inflection that has to be fought at all costs. As soon as someone has cracked their software they're not dramatically less likely to convert to a customer. You need to keep them using your software but not get comfortable pirating your work. Even if it means giving away more than you would like for free you want to keep them inside your sanctioned legitimate fence so that when the time comes that they do want limitless access they don't look to the Pirate Bay.
If you're under 18 I think these companies should be handing out their software like political buttons. You want customers who think your product is *the* product so that employers buy your product because it's *what people use*. It'll also broaden the horizons of people who might not even consider your category of software something they would want or need.
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
But Yes it's a bit of a catch that if you want to work with graphic or music you pretty much need to learn how to use software way before you are in a position to buy it. Friend of mine have a home studio, played and mixed music since he was 12, most of his software is pirated. Because legal versions is very expensive, but if we want to work with sound and music he have to learn and increase his experience. He is pretty firm that if he actually at some point start making serious cash, he is beginning to since his level of expertise has reached a significant level, he will buy all the software he needs so ensure everything is good and legal.
When it comes to games I usually pirate a game, play it for a few days, get sick of it and delete it. The games I play for a long time like the Total War series (or Team Fortress 2, go go steam), I buy. But for the most part games are way to expensive to buy just to realize, like many others have said, it's utter crap. Or at least not good for more than a few hours worth of below average entertainment.
That being said when decent games comes along I am more than happy to go the extra mile to not just buy the game, but to buy the extra expensive collector's edition (I am a sucker for concept art books most of all). But I just can't afford to buy games if I am not absolutely certain it's worth the investment.
Re:First Post (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
What a terrible analogy to choose (unless you were trying to disprove your own words).
You would NOT buy a car without test driving it first. Neither would you buy a house, or even a shirt, without trying it first.
But for software you are asking people to purchase something shrink-wrapped as a done deal, and then complaining about their motives.
Every company will naturally say "ours' is best" ... that's called advertising ... but the reality doesn't always live up to the expectations.
When you are being asked to make a capital investment of 3,000 dollars for some software, you'd better be DAMN sure it's what you want.
Ever wondered why so many companies give a free trial, anywhere from a month to a year, before asking you to buy the thing ? It's called an "evaluation period".
Any company who doesn't trust their potential customers enough to allow them to "test drive" their product before purchase is not getting a cent from me.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
hello everyone, I'm a pirate.
I pirate software and i enjoy the feeling of freedom I get when I want to do something (video editing, photo editing, burning a DVD, or creating something cool) and I can do it without that agonizing over the question "am i buying the right product?" and that depressing feeling I get watching money flow from my wallet without knowing if i'm spending it in the right place.
However I *want* to pay money for the products that I like. About 25% off the software i use I want to pay money for BECAUSE I think it rocks. Unfortunately some software, even though I like, I won't pay for becuase the cost is too high (i'm looking at you photoshop)... so they get bubkis.
I started pirating when i was a kid and never stopped and I'm a professional engineer now so i can afford just about anything i want software wise (with the exception of some professional tools like solidworks or something).
So for now, I think for now I'll stick with my current model. If a company writes good software and charges a reasonable fee, and I'll gladly pay for it after the fact.
(BTW, PC games are actually a completely different story. Their cost is almost never outside of my budget and I want to support the PC gaming industry so it doesn't go away and get taken over by the console gaming industry. It's rare that I pirate a game.)
d
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm with you 90%. I don't have an ethical problem with "piracy" as a test drive, but I think you cross a line when you decide that you like a product but not at the offered price. IMO, you ethically either need to stop using it or pony up the cash.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
My piracy to purchase rate is down significantly from when I didn't have a job or a lot of disposable currency. Buying has 3 advantages over Piracy, 1. ease of use, this is how it is meant to work, making it easier to acquire and use the software than it is to download, DRM works against this goal if I have to jump through more hoops to install it I may as well have pirated it in the first place. 2. Support and updates, many companies will keep putting out extra content (Unreal Tournament, Galactic Civilisations, HL/Team Fortress 2) which increases the value*(I'll get back to value later) I derive from the product and make sure that the product works on release or at least when problems are identified. 3. Multiplay, some people like playing against others, using simple non-intrusive key checks 99% combined with blacklists of compromised keys of pirates cant play online (I don't count this as DRM as its serverside, only treats you as the recipient and not the attacker at the same time).
Developers or I should say more distributors, please get this clue, you are not entitled to money just because you have made a product, you cannot force people to by your product, you can only ever entice them to buy your product and the best way to do this is to have a product with value. Value must exceed the cost of a product for a purchaser to actually want to buy it, games that are frustrating and don't deliver entertainment or are buggy/unfinished do not deliver value. Developers who are know for supporting a product after release tend to give value to a product before purchasing, developers who add extra content more so which influences purchasing decisions. I am far more likely to purchase a game from Valve or Stardock than I am from EA, THQ or Ubisoft if I have no other information on the game than the developer (or more rightly so in the context of this rant, the distributor). DRM, CD checks and no support detracts from the value of a purchase, I will not buy Bioshock because of this (OK I lied, I purchased it for AU$2 in a Bangkok market, so take that DRM) It's unfortunate that EA, THQ and Ubisoft have the mindset that they are entitled to payment just for releasing and blame piracy for failed games even when it is clear they were not worth buying.
Re:First Post (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
But the same goes for other software that I have actually contributed my money to support. (I choose those words intentionally because I don't truly believe that software is a product in the sense that other products are.) I pay for software as a form of expression of my appreciation.
This is a total cop out.
Someone worked hard to develop an application. Why is it not a product? Because it's soft? That's the same line of thinking that people have when they say, "Oh...just throw a quick fix in...it's easy 'cause it's software!"
Face it. If you could get away of having free copies of electronics, food, etc that isn't "worth it" - you would. Why? Because you like free. Of course, this is much easier to get away with when it comes to software and you can justify it as, "I don't appreciate the software." If you really believed that, you wouldn't download and install free software in the first place. Anything else is just you justifying you getting something for nothing.
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone worked hard? No. Programming is what people do for a living when they don't want to work hard. And the really good coders do it under a sense of inspiration.
Heh. You, obviously, have never developed software in your life. Developing software is not hard work from a "I sweated while busting concrete for a road today," but, it can be mentally exhausting coming up with a good algorithm that solves a complex problem and can take some time to do.
Why is it not a product? Have you read a typical EULA?
Just because companies like Microsoft have completely messed up how software is viewed does not make it any less of a product. Again - you're just trying to justify getting something for free.
If a car had the problems software had... Do I really need to complete that? If a car had the guarantees that software comes with... Once again, no need to complete that. We have an unspoken, unexplainably low expectations for software. No returns, no refunds, on and on and on...
Yes. We do have low expectations for software. Here's the problem - creating GOOD software is difficult. It's extremely difficult. There are far too many people in the industry who should not be there. This is the real problem. There should be far more stringent requirements for software developers.
As for the no returns/refunds...well...unfortunately people who steal software have been the reason for that. It's so easy to make a copy of software, stores have no other choice but to not accept refunds. Maybe some sort of Lemon Law would be good (to take your car analogy) for software. I don't know.
Software as a product or as an industry is inappropriate. This is far from a cop out.
Um. Do you realize that pretty much everything you come in contact with in your daily life (banking, POS systems, your cell phone, etc) runs software that is supported by a software industry? Without that industry, you wouldn't even be able to start your car (or pump your gas to fill up your car). Of course, that wouldn't matter to begin with because you wouldn't be able to buy your car because your bank wouldn't have software to support the transaction in the first place.
In general software makes our lives easier. Yes, there are software systems that suck. Again - too many bad developers are part of the industry and should not be.
I haven't bought music in a very long while, but when I do, it's often as a gift for someone else or something along those lines. One thing about old music or old books is that they're often as good now as when they were written or performed. Can this really be said for software? Software is at best a temporary, disposable tool or distraction and should be priced and treated as such. In the grand scheme of things, software should remain as it started out and not as a "product."
Horrible analogy. Books and music do not have the same intent as software. Additionally, books and music have had the experience of millions of years of development. Software has really only been around for...oh...maybe 50 years. It's still very new and is constantly evolving.
Also, have you listened to every piece of music and read every book that has ever been written? Yes, there are some "classics" that are still very excellent today. But for every classic, there are thousands of pieces that were complete failures (and rightly so).
And, I honestly have no clue what you mean by your last statement.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard that wine, if used to excess, can not only cause depth perception issues, but also memory corruption and crashing.
Usually only with the older builds, however.
Re:DONATIONS (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
What a troll.
Develop things properly in the first place, and it's not hard to support multiple OS's. The hardware is going to be identical, and a lot of the API's are at least comparable. You follow proper coding practices, and it's hard to NOT make an application trivially portable. Besides, most Linux users don't want too much tech support. They just want support of their choices. I don't use Linux because I'm too cheap to buy Windows... I use Linux because it just does what I want better, and doesn't get in my way of doing it. I think the same could be said of many Linux users. Some people will steal ANYTHING they can get. But that's not the majority, and it's not enough to worry about. The majority of people feel that the right thing is to reward people for their work in a fair manner. You give people an option for rewarding you in a manner that EVERYONE agrees is fair, and they will.
Sigh. Developers developers... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you just code and do nothing else then fine, I can see you won't see the problems. OK, here's a *simple* example from c.a. 1990: You have a simple dictionary program which runs on MS-DOS (using a memory swapping TSR). Three editions. Easy huh? Wrong - dead wrong - try QA/ing that across at least (I stopped counting at 13) variants of DOS, network shells, DR-DOS, PC-MOS 386.. (it goes on and on). Oh and by the way marketing doesn't want pirates to be able to take the Lite version and use it with the "Pro" files etc. etc.. (That's just in this example a little Greek-English dictionary called Gword).
This was also a good example of insane copy protection as it (I fought this hard but lost!) locked to many of the hardware features of the machine it installed on. Net result: the more copies the company sold, the more support calls generated for new S/N's...
The funniest thing was that someone *did* hack me (yippee!) and I got sent a SYMDEB script to patch the code. Took a while to stop laughing about that. The later windows version only had a registration number and was (is?) widely pirated, but I always took the view that it was a good advert for the company anyway...
Re "most users don't want tech support" - here's another anecdote, this time from the mid 80's. When I was at TDI in Bristol UK in the 80's porting the UCSD p-system one of my colleagues ported it to the Sinclair QL. TDI had decided that there was to be *no* tech support for this system. Very clearly in the manual it said that. Didn't stop Sinclair QL users swamping tech support - nobody reads the manual anyway.
Andy
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
What percentage of Linux users do you think are gamers? Shall we say ten percent? OK, now, what percentage of that ten percent do not have a windows machine for playing games, and exclusively game on linux? Ten percent again? Personally, I think both these numbers are probably two high, but what the hell. OK, that is the sum total of the of the market from which you could gain extra sales by porting to linux.
Admittedly, I pulled the numbers out of my ass, but do you really think there are hordes of frustrated gamers out there sat in front of Linux boxes waiting for a port of GTA IV? Like I said, my numbers are probably too high. You are talking about a vanishingly small segment of the market. Sure, if there was a Linux port of, say, Dawn of War, I know several people who would have bought it, but each one of them bought the PC version instead, so the publishers gain nothing by porting it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Surprisingly, people who successfully circumvent DRM are not forced to buy games, and instead pirate them. They find DRM annoying.
There is an obvious sample bias problem, as people not able to circumvent DRM (including downloading the work of other people), aren't pirates and wouldn't have respondeded.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I know there are some cases where this really is the case but my point is that its bound to be overrepresented. Psychological studies take this into account when using self-reporting on behaviour as a source of data.
My other point is while, it might turn some people off, DRM also forces some people to buy the game, when they would have pirated it if they could (this is often more the case with indie games where there is not enough interest to develop a crack, than with major games) and this needs to be taken into consideration when making a decision.
Finally not all DRM is the same - a balance between security and ease of use might perhaps be best rather than a binary decision.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM doesn't necessarily force someone to buy the game. It very often forces people to say "This is more trouble than it is worth. I'm going to buy a Wii, where the DRM is transparent, and won't annoy me". Note that people who say *that* have no need to rationalize anything.
It's the side of the DRM equation that is generally ignored. Developers are so fixating in using DRM to force pirates to buy their games that they ignore the number of paying customers who don't buy their games *because* of the DRM. If the second outweighs the first, they lose money even though they've "stopped the nasty pirates".
It's like getting upset about shoplifting, hiring an uzi carrying security guard for every aisle and then wondering why your sales go down.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, the continuing crappier and crappier packaging didn't help. Here is a hint. Put the game in a gem case. If you must put it in a paper sleeve, then at least include the proper art work so that when the customer puts the game in a gem case themselves, they have proper professionally printed spines that they can read. I know that if I have to do the manufacturing myself, I am far less inclined to pay someone else for it.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S. Electronic copies of the manual on the cd is not a ok compromise.
Real World Goodies (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Including a cloth map, a moonstone and an ankh in the packaging (Rest in Peace, Origin :~( ) will make more people buy the actual game instead of copying than any DRM ever will.
Re:Real World Goodies (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Real World Goodies (Score:4, Interesting)
(To read the map, though, you had to translate it from the Futhark-inspired rune cipher all the place names were written in. It was extra effort learning the runes, but they were all over the game and added an extra level of immersion.)
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
I do pirate music, but I tend to buy it if I feel it's worth my money. I stumbled upon Japanese post-rock band Mono a few years ago, and pirated their music.
After listening to it for a while, I decided that it was worth a buy, so I went and bougth almost all of their CDs.
They played in Copenhagen last year, and a few weeks before, I introduced their music to some of my friends to try to get them to tag along to the concert. I was successful in just that, and I brought 5 friends to their show.
To sum it all up, my act of piracy actually got them a lot of new fans. I bought almost all their albums, will buy their newest when I have some money to spare, and I brougth 5 people to their concert -- all because of piracy.
If you're interested in hearing what they sound like, I suggest going to their MySpace [myspace.com]. Wikipedia has an article about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(Japanese_band) [wikipedia.org].
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a big factor for me too. I bought Neverwinter Nights 2, instead of pirating it, in part because I wanted a proper manual. In that kind of game you tend to need to look things up as you play so a real manual is much more convenient.
Of course when I got it home and opened the box it turned out that the 'manual' was a ten page quickstart guide and the actual reference was just a pdf on the disc.
If publishers want to increase sales they should offer people a product that can't be replicated if the game is pirated. Whether this takes the form of physical items in the box or the ability to play online.
I often buy games that I have already downloaded pirate copies of partly because that way I know they are good and partly because I want to play online and that is rarely possible with a pirated copy of the game. My most recent purchase was Call of Duty 4, it has really good multiplayer with persistant stats and unlockable achievements. I have already played through the single player but was happy to buy the game for the mulitplayer content.
More carrot and less stick is what is needed.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Informative)
Developers are so fixating in using DRM to force pirates to buy their games that they ignore the number of paying customers who don't buy their games *because* of the DRM.
I'm a game developer; this is partially correct.
While some developers may want to use DRM, it's more commonly a publisher that forces a team to utilize the DRM solution they bought into. On a previous AAA project we had to utilize the DRM the publisher utilized
We hated it, my friends who bought the game hated it, but our hands were tied.
On top of that, a patch was recently released which appears to mainly have tightened the DRM. The result: my friends are extermely upset as their Daemon tools ISO solution no longer works; they now have to keep the CD/DVD in their computer to play the game, another DRM annoyance pushed on customers who paid for the game. Personally this is making the game more trouble than it's worth; if my friends didn't play this at LAN parties I'd uninstall the game.
I wonder how die hard fans feel.
But in the end this is what the publisher wanted. Our team didn't agree with it, but while they paid our checks our hands were tied by what their marketing team dictated was good to protect their IP and ensure no lost profits, "due to pirating".
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
If your DRM will EVER prevent a legit customer from using a legit product that they paid for, it is bad. That's a pretty binary decision to me. Were I to develop games and try to copy protect them, if there was even a 1% chance a legit customer couldn't use the software they paid for, I'd skip the option.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing he failed to take into account is that people rationalise their "evil" choices to make it sound righteous. So people tell themselves and others its because of DRM or its because of the price or whatnot when in reality its just that they don't want to fork over money for it.
The first thing to ask someone like that is: "What [games/movies/music/etc] have you *not* pirated?" If they can name several titles, then you know there's at least some way for publishers to behave differently which could cause such a person to make another purchase instead of committing more copyright infringement. If they try to insist that every single creator in an entire medium can somehow be dismissed with one rationalization or another, then you can be pretty sure they're either lying to you or lying to themselves.
Re:First Post (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a big gamer... in fact, I really don't play much other than Nethack. However, I have pirated quite a few games - sometimes for other people, and sometimes "just to see what all the fuss is about" when lots of people are raving about it. I invariably delete it a week or so later out of lack of interest in it.
I have purchased a total of ONE game in my life. Uplink from Introversion Software. I played the demo at a friend's house, enjoyed it. Wondered if it was available for other platforms (my friend had the demo on Windows), and then discovered if I buy the CD, it comes with Windows, MacOS and Linux on the same CD. I immediately bought it.
I actually have all three of those Operating Systems (Win, Mac, Linux) at home, but simply having the choice went a long way towards my decision to buy it. That, combined with a very reasonable price, good playable demo to get me interested, and just the "geek chic" of the style of game itself were more than enough to make me want to buy it rather than pirate it. Like some other posters have mentioned, it's a matter of feeling as if you are rewarding the developer for their work - if you don't feel they SHOULD be rewarded for their work, you won't feel bad about pirating their stuff. Pirating Uplink would've made me feel really bad, because those guys definitely DID deserve to be rewarded.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a bit personal for me to say but I think that it will be okay and I won't bother posting AC as that goes against my beliefs.
I am a recovering meth addict. My drug use scaled every wall known to man it seems. My polymorphic drug abuse (we label it meth but, really, that is just to keep the paperwork simple) was rampant.
My mother passed away about a month ago. This was a troubling time for me. I could have used that as an excuse to use/abuse again. I could have "justified" it in many ways - those are called thinking errors.
The reality is that I should never use.
The reality is that if I do use that the reasons I give are full of shit.
If I'd used then I'd have not been using because my mother died, I'd have been using because I wanted to. There are many studies that show the nature of the brain during the addictive cycle and that may be the root of the problem but the reality is, none the less, that if I use it is simply because I wanted to.
To justify it, much like you're saying, is no excuse. They do it because they want to.
I have read some interesting things, "It was required for _________" or "I didn't have the money to pay for ________" but the reality is that they wanted it. In none of those circumstances is it required, forced, or the likes.
To those who want to make excuses, the one and only is, "I did it because I wanted to."
It is personal, it is accountable, it is real. There's a billion reasons you can argue to justify it but the only reason it is ever done is because we want to.
(This post is not to argue your point but to give my own personal perspective on it.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While DRM does cause issues in legit copies sometimes, the "anti DRM" group would be over-represented by the former rather than the latter.
When you say Cracked copies have no drm - what you mean is they have no drm because it was disabled, which importantly needs to be updated for each patch, causing more inconv
Re:Mod parent fallacious! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, part of the big joke is that a game, once cracked, a game effectively has no DRM, no nag screens, no internet phoning home, no CD-ROM checks, etc. A legally purchased game continues to require these things, and over the long run, is more annoying than a cracked copy. This has been a problem with music, too, because an MP3 with no DRM will play on any device (which is a lot more than an encrypted AAC file).
Re:Mod parent fallacious! (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM causes issues in legit copies a LOT. I have a lot of games that worked when I bought them but don't work on my new hardware.
My solution wasn't to pirate... my solution was to stop buying PC games altogether. I have no hidden agenda when I say DRM prevents me from buying software.
I now have dozens of 360 and Wii games.. all paid for. I'm never going back to PC gaming.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Kudos to Valve's Steam letting me dow...
What are you talking about?!? Steam sucks! It *IS* DRM! It insists on being installed even when I bought the damned discs, it demands a network connection, it phones home, and it's flaky and crashes my machine repeatedly. HL2 was the last Valve game I'll ever buy. My wife thought I was over the top and bought Bioshock, and came to hate Valve even more than I did. She doesn't take kindly to hearing "I told you so", so I never said it.
Re:First Post (Score:5, Insightful)
I use the tools... (Score:5, Interesting)
When a no-cd crack or hacked exe for a game I purchased is released, I usually use it instead of carrying the CDs around with my laptop.
Kudos to Valve's Steam letting me download and install the game on multiple machines without treating me like a frickin' crook.
And the occasional time I've actually downloaded and ran a pirate game just to see if it was worth buying. I've been burned on way too many awesome demos and lackluster final games to drop $50 on a whim.
1. Lose the damn copy protection.
2. Use Steam or develop a system where people aren't chained to a CD or Jewel case with a cryptic serial number on it.
3. Release honest demos.
4. Don't get bought by EA, they have no honor.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Lose the damn copy protection. 2. Use Steam or develop a system where people aren't chained to a CD or Jewel case with a cryptic serial number on it. 3. Release honest demos. 4. Don't get bought by EA, they have no honor.
Agreed. :
And I would add to that
5. Can't trust review sites/magazines to give an honest opinion of the game.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I've found that I can find relatively reliable reviews of games on penny-arcade.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My main complaint about this is that you're installing executables from people of, at best, questionable morality. At least half the time somebody at school asks me to clean malware off their machine, it got there through a NoCD-type executable they downloaded off DC++.
Valve does seem to "get it" pretty well. Blizzard is moving this way as well, with legit NoCD patches, the ability to store your CD key online behind a username/password, and free binary downloads. They still have the keys, of course, and unl
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To continue your medical analogy, it's like the common cold. There is no treatment for the
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Insightful)
You might notice, that since the days of floppies copy protection IS NOT STOPPING PIRACY.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't have to stop piracy. It just has to stop enough piracy to be worth more to developers and the game industry as a whole than the losses due to the annoyance factor.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you really think they've gone to enough trouble to actually work those numbers out? Because it seems to me like they're all like Tarkin, and more and more star systems are slipping through their fingers. Consumers are PEOPLE, first and foremost. They have a sense of right and wrong, and most importantly, fairness. There are outliers, but the majority of people want to play fair. If a lot of people are pirating your stuff, more than about 5%, then you're doing SOMETHING to make them feel that they aren't being treated fairly. You aren't entitled to obscene profits. You aren't entitled to ANY profit. As a business owner, your raison d'etre is to make a product at a price you can sell it at and still make a profit. If people feel taken advantage of by the only gas station in town selling it at $10/gallon, you can bet your ass thefts will go up.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately the copy protection is part of the reason that games are getting pirated. It adds to the cost of the product (driving away people who would buy at a lower cost), it imposes ridiculous hoops to jump through (making it easier to download a cracked version than to get through the registration and DRM), and it shows that publishers don't trust their customers.
This last element is important, if a person is already being treated like a criminal or a potential criminal, it makes it far less of a lea
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Interesting)
> anti-copy is not the disease, it is the symptom
The problem is much deeper than you think. Copy protection is artificial method of changing digital work - which you can copy with no cost - into analog object you can sell in a pretty the same way you sell bottles of booze. People do complain about copy protection, because this simply doesn't fit digital realm, which people got used to. I do not think you will be able to change people behavior. Game developers will be forced to adapt. Kongregate is a good example how this may be achieved. They changed business model. They moved from selling bottles of booze into selling services, ads etc. For others lowering prices to the point, that its easier and cheaper to buy or download one from official website than burden with warez server, is a way to go. In my country developer CDProject mastered this tactic years ago, with local Baldur's Gate release which was almost the same price in official box and as pirated CD's on the street, but box included a themed mouse pad. This proved to be a selling point. For others associated merchandise may be more important than game sales by itself. Most successful developers will closely look at local prices: 3$ in US is not much money, 3$ in Brazil is quite a lot.
Game industry will be fine. Businesses will adapt and will find viable business models in a world, where people copy everything. We do have such businesses already, so question is "when", not "how".
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that it was once economically beneficial does not mean that it will always continue to be beneficial. There are currently no major PC titles for which the DRM has not been circumvented with easily acquired cracks. At this point, getting around most games' DRM is no more difficult than downloading a file and copying it to the right directory.
The ease of acquiring a crack seems to make it unlikely that DRM is any kind of deterrent to piracy. On the other hand, DRM is driving users away. I don't think DRM is economically beneficial anymore. The big game companies just haven't caught up with this yet.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:4, Informative)
The reason why people like Steam is that despite the fact that steam has DRM features, those features largely stay out of the way of a legitimate end user.
(This post will be a long list of positive steam attributes, followed by some of its problems).
First of all, note that steam lets you download the game at any time, and there is no maximum number of times one can do this. Many other electronic game delivery systems have a limited time window for re-downloads.
Any steam member can log into his opr her account on any computer with steam, and may download any or all of his games on that computer to play. There is no limit to the number of computers one can download the game on.
Unless you specifically tell steam otherwise, it will keep all your games up to date, so you never have to check the game maker's site for patches.
Obviously, Steam does not require a CD to be inserted to play the game.
When buying the Steam games online no CD keys must be entered by the user.
Steam does have a few flaws:
First of all retail cd-keys can only be used to activate a steam license for Valve games and a few (far from all) third party games.
If you bought a Valve game retail and somebody had already guessed the CD key, the process of proving that you are the legitimate owner is a royal pain. This can be avoided if buying the game online is a viable option for you. (Obviously that is not a viable option for many dial-up users).
Before a game can be played offline after it is downloaded or updated, the user account must be authenticated. This is done by simply starting the game at least once once while in online mode.
Games cannot be transferred or sold. This is the only part of the Steam DRM system that any legitimate user is likely to see. This is arguably Steams largest disadvantage.
As for the event that Steam goes under, if the files for the game are fully downloaded when this happens ("100% - Ready" is what steam would say) then the existing Steam Cracking tools could be used with minimal effort (the tools act almost exactly like Steam, except that they do not check that a user is authorized before launching a Game, as long as the game is already installed). In the event that Steams goes under, these tools will become widely available. They install easily enough and just work. The only issues of note would be that servers would needed to be cracked (and if steam goes under, all remaining servers would have the cracks applies), new updates obviously would not be download-able via Steam, and one would lose the ability to download and install new copies of the game on new machines without resorting to piracy measures.
So overall Steam is not bad. It works well, and what little DRM it has is specially designed to minimize the possibly of it causing any problems for legitimate customers. (Unless those customers wish to sell or transfer a game.)
Future features are planned, including Steam's servers holding a copy of your saved games, so you can continue a game you started on one computer on another. (This feature requires the game to support it. Valve's games will be updated, (possibly even the old GoldSource games) and third party games using the Steamwerks API can add this feature if the developer desires.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If, and when Steam goes down that would not mean that you are unable to play your games. There are at least two present day work-a-rounds, not even counting the possibility that Valve releases a no-cd.exe before they croak.
When Valve croaks, they will not release a no-cd crack. If bankrupt they will be obligated by their creditors not to devalue assets by giving them away for free. If bought out, same thing.
1. When the Steam servers go down and your client fails to connect just throw it into offline mode.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When Valve croaks, they will not release a no-cd crack. If bankrupt they will be obligated by their creditors not to devalue assets by giving them away for free. If bought out, same thing.
What makes you so sure they won't? Its not like they haven't already done this before, The last update for Half Life one released in around 03' striped the CD check.
And pray you never buy a new computer? Good plan.
I suggest you read the last sentence.
So your solution to failed copyprotection is use utilitilies that
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Informative)
No, they really won't. You will be unable to restore those backups until you've installed and logged into Steam (just try it, I did).
So, yes, you save yourself the download, but if Valve is out of business you're still screwed and have to rely on cracked copies.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Funny)
How do you play your games that ran on 5 1/4 inch floppies? DO you piss and moan that the publisher screwed you over, or wasn't forward thinking enough?
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Insightful)
You use backups of the floppies, mounted virtually or burned onto an alternate medium.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Insightful)
"devalue assets by giving them away for free"? What a straw man. If anything, they would be "devaluing the assets" if all Steam games stopped working. Hi, we're millions of enraged customers, here's a class-action lawsuit.
Maybe you meant that if Valve unlocked the games that the backup archives (you're aware that Steam can generate backup archives, right?) would be easily pirated. That's moot because piracy occurs regardless...every piece of media ever made can be and is cracked and made available on the internet if you know where to look.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Informative)
"devalue assets by giving them away for free"? What a straw man.
No, speaking as a lay expert on company law, vux984 is right. A company in bankruptcy (or which can reasonably foresee bankruptcy in its future) is obliged to trade in the way that is in the best interests of its creditors.
In Valve's case, this would clearly be to keep steam running in the hope that it could be sold as a going concern to another company to raise funds to pay off those creditors. Any action otherwise could expose valve's directors to personal liability for the company's losses.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Informative)
So you're basically saying that people who buy on Steam are idiots and deserve what they get if Steam goes away?
Yes, people who buy anything that is protected by DRM, in a world where breaking the DRM is illegal, even if the company that made it is out of business and cant authenticate your purchase anymore is an idiot.
I'm not saying they deserve to be screwed. They deserve better.
Fuck you.
Seriously, its not =me= that's going to be responsible for your purchases not working one day.
If Valve goes away they are obligated to their consumers to provide them the products they bought. All of them, for free and forever. If that means a noCD crack, too damn bad for the creditors.
Perhaps you should look into the ugly world of failed businesses and see just what happens to their customers. Their intellectual property. I assure its VERY VERY VERY RARELY a happy ending for anyone. Hell, try these on for size:
How much longer do you think "Plays for sure" music is going to be usable, now that Microsoft has discontinued it?
"Microsoft announced that as of August 31, 2008, PlaysForSure content from their retired MSN Music store would need to be licensed to play before this date or burned permanently to CD."
Fortunately consumers were given permission to burn songs to CD, so if they act fast, they can burn it, and then rip it back in an unprotected format. What happens next month? Poof? Oh, sure there are tools to crack the files out there... but their legality in the face of the DMCA is pretty questionable.
How about another example? Major League Baseball changes DRM, and old content no longer viewable.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071107-major-league-baseballs-drm-change-strikes-out-with-fans.html [arstechnica.com]
And these are both corporations that are doing well, that have said fuck-you to the consumer. You really think Valve is going to honour what you think their obligtation to you is in a bankruptcy scenario? HA. Seriously. Read the fine print of the terms of service. They have virtually no obligation to you at all.
If Ford goes out of business, you want them to steal your truck? I think not.
Isn't that cute, you think you -bought- Valve software. No. You just 'subscribe to it' (read the fine print, your a subscriber not a customer, you pay one time fees to subscribe to their games, you don't buy them). And when they go under, your 'subscription' ends.
Finally, this is the same Valve that today when its doing just fine, won't allow you to transfer something you claim you own to someone else. You can't move a title from your account to someone else. You can't transfer your entire account to someone else. Per the terms you can't have two people using your account.
Think about this: you can't even have two different people use two different online titles on one account at the same time. So, here you've bought 2 different games, and you can't use both of them online at the same time? Yeah, Valve really is honoring their obligations to your purchases NOW. Your on crack if you think they are going to suddenly honor them in their death throes.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lose the DRM and use Steam huh?
Mutually exclusive. Steam is an implementation of DRM. Moreso than requiring a CD in the drive, to be sure. It might be a good implementation. Okay, maybe instead acceptable
Let's not mistake Steam as merely some tool of our own convenience. It is a means of access control as well as distribution and handy middleware features. Yes, the community features, automatic updates, achievements, and ease of getting your games (both buying and redownloading) are delightful. To a large degree, it fills a niche similar to that of Xbox Live, for the PC.
But Steam is the gatekeeper. By some effort you can play offline, but for the most part you are dependent on Valve to not take away your pretties or otherwise poof out of existence. You know that familiar delay before you are deemed worthy to launch the game? It's the same issue that we bitch about near daily here on slashdot, but it's damn convenient in this case.
Do we *really* object to DRM on moral grounds? Or only the kind that gets in the way? Steam does work for you most of the time - your 'rights' being 'managed' in this case in such a way that redownload anywhere is permissible. I think we do object. We're praising Steam now because it's many steps up from our other options - just ignoring for the moment all the times my game list is empty for no apparent reason.
I think what you meant to say was to lose the annoying implementations of copy protection. The kind that inexplicably fails on certain configurations, requires you to download CD-cracks from unofficial channels to keep your sanity, and type in the CD key that you lost 4 years ago when reinstalling.
Re:I use the tools... (Score:5, Interesting)
Steam is DRM plain and simple and Just like the yahoo music shop or M$ Music, it won't be authenticating your games forever.
This is awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone *this* in touch with not only their customers but with obvious potential customers definitely knows what they're doing.
I'm seriously considering buying a few of his games even though I've never heard of the company before.
PS: If you need a very experienced web developer...
Re:This is awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth is that it's already a popular opinion in the games industry that piracy really doesn't lead to lost sales; most of those people wouldn't pay for it even if they couldn't play for free. In the meantime, it bothers only legitimate customers. Unfortunately, the biggest publishers are still keen on "protecting their investment," so we're unlikely to see change any time soon.
The worst pirates I know are game writers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In his article on his site, he is even more transparent, stating...
"There was a point to all this, and it was partly to sell more (I have bills to pay!) as well as hopefully get more people to legitimately play my games."
Which I see nothing wrong with.
Thanks (Score:5, Funny)
DRM is killing PC gaming for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to find it amusing that people are willing to live with Steam's DRM, but complain about DRM in general. I've personally resisted Steam for years and years before I finally decided that Steam's DRM is actually palatable compared to some of the shit that's out there (securom).
What's disappointing is how badly the large shops are butchering the PC gaming market with DRM that absolutely sucks. Bioshock, Mass Effect and Spore are all games I wanted to play but at this point I will not dump the money down for them. Even the Steam version of Bioshock contains securom. How screwed up is that?
I'm at the point now where I'm slowly turning towards indie developers for most of my gaming neads (Stardock) and I'm really really glad that Positech has made it to slashdot or I'd never have heard of this company. I'll have to look at their games more closely.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Any kind of DRM makes a pirated game better than the original.
The only PC(linux, kind of) game I play is EVE, and that doesn't have any DRM from what I can tell. I don't even have a disc or serial number to go along with it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
EVE is an MMO and they make their money on the account that you log in to. Gving the client away is common with indie MMOs.
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Fix Abandonware (Score:5, Interesting)
No one sells Ultima, Pools of Radiance, or Summer Games for the C64 anymore. If I wanted to play this game, my only choice would be to pirate it unless I could find a working copy on Ebay.
Services like Gametap and Good Ol' Games need to fill this market so that people don't have to become criminals to play games of yonder years.
Re:Fix Abandonware (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll note that none of those developers are in business anymore. Many games that are distributed as abandonware, developers endorse the practice because they want their game to be played by people. Yet big companies bought out the old development houses and go after abandonware sites.
EA never produced the old Ultima games, yet go afte people distributing 20 year old games. Vivendi didn't make the old Sierra adventure games, but they've prosecuted people over them.
I think 5-10 years after someone stops selling software, people should be able to redistribute it as abandonware for software preservation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think 5-10 years after someone stops selling software, people should be able to redistribute it as abandonware for software preservation.
I completely agree. There needs to be laws in place to support this because right now if someone is filesharing Karateka for the Apple II, they are breaking the law.
Also, I agree with the term "preservation". We've already begun an age of IT archeology where people are trying to dig up games and word processors from years back to see how they worked in order to improve society today.
Back in the day.... (Score:5, Informative)
As far as having a good "taster", Id did pretty well with this. With say DOOM, you knew up front that the game would have a total of three episodes. Id let you play pretty much the first third of the game free. Hell, their demos even had some replay value. As it turned out, their clueful use of shareware pretty much made them back then.
Of course, not all games are as episodic but it you could draw some rules of thumb from it. A first time player casually making his way through DOOM's first 9 levels will take about 1.5 to 3 hours to do it. So it seems you have to give a quality experience for at least that amount of time to start some buzz going and of course the paid portion of the game has to maintain that quality so you'll tell your friends and blogs that the rest of the game is worth paying for.
I'd also suggest not continually have the player running into physical barriers and what not that aren't present in the payware version. Just structure the demo such that the game can be experienced for that critically addictive amount of time. Building in nags and frustrations will keep your prospective customer from getting hooked and wanting more. Rather you need an end that takes some period of time to encounter whether it be "level 9" or a decently far extent of a game universe. A game using the hub and spoke system should supply a quest or two say.
We can draw a parallel from the serialized stories of yesteryear. A good solid first installment is what is needed to get the reader caring about the story and characters. The "gotta know" sets in so the rest are bought.
Parent is on the right track.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's quite simple. Gaming in general (both PC and console) has evolved quite a bit in the past couple generations. I can't say that there won't be any new innovations, but I can say with certainty that almost everything has been tried at least once.
With that in mind, there are a number of gimmicks that game studios use when producing games. IMHO, the worst are the following:
1: Adding artificially hard/non-linear barriers to progression. The most recent splinter cell game is a great example of this. While the previous ones were quite linear and relatively free of frustrating gaps, "Double Agent" had several things that seemed as if they were put in there just for the sake of taking up the playerâ(TM)s time. Don't take a 7 hour game and try to stretch it to 12 with garbage.
(2 and 3 are somewhat similar and several games are offenders of both. They are, however, separate problems)
2: Using flashy pre-rendered cut scenes to advance major story points or game play. Part of me misses the age of cartridge consoles. With only 64Mbit to play with, these kind of antics were basically impossible. In todayâ(TM)s age of double sided DVD's and even BD-ROM discs, a game could conceivably have hours of cut-scenes. If I wanted to watch cut scenes (no matter how well animated) I'd rent a movie. If they take up more then 50% of the time spent playing, I generally skip them or have a beer/sandwich. Consequently, I miss out anything that's contained in them that is important or significant to the game
3: Trying to make up for poorly designed or un-engaging game play with flashy/unique/overly high-quality graphics. Thanks to the availability of substantial hardware resources in the current generation of consoles (excluding the WII, of course), it's quite easy to fill a game with high polygon count skinned, boned models wrapped in super detailed textures, multiple light sources and hand perfected pixel shaders. It might look really spectacular, but that doesn't really mean anything if it's not any fun. Once again, if I wanted to look at something rendered absolutely perfectly, I'd watch a Pixar movie.
4: Having a selection of difficulty levels that has little effect on the game. 15 years ago, Doom offered 5 different skill levels. While the playerâ(TM)s choice didn't massively change the game, it did incrementally increase the difficulty. The monsters were harder to kill, more populous and while health packs had less effect, more ammo was spawned. I would hope that modern games could do better then that. Doom ran fine at 33Mhz. Modern consoles have roughly 10,200 MHz at their disposal. There is no excuse for difficulty levels to do nothing more then spawn more or harder to kill Napâ(TM)s.
Finally, the biggest and most annoying thing about the current generation of video games:
5. Today's game producers tend to front load their game's content. I've never found a published statistic, but my estimation is that only about 40% of games purchased are ever fully completed by their purchasers. The player either tires of the game before the end, or gets another game to play before they finish. Since most games today are part of a series and are expected to remain viable for use in future sequels/ newer consoles, the game companies cheat on the content. They put, in my estimation, 75% of the best content in the first 50% of the game. The hardcore gamers and series fans will always buy the next sequel. They're hoping that by front-loading the best content, the semi-casual player that only finished half of the previous title in the series will have liked it enough to buy the new one when it comes out. While I understand their logic, I'd really like to get more for my money. 8-10 hours from a game that costs $50-60. That's between $5-7.50 per hour. I don't know what everyone elseâ(TM)s thoughts are, but I think that minimum wag
Make games for customers. Not for users. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's simple as that. If you just make games where you have the biggest player audience instead of making games for those that are most likely to pay for their games, you're prone to having a lot of copies. If your market demographics consist mainly of people with little money and/or a low chance of getting caught, you will be copied.
There are simply people who buy and there are people who copy. And no copyprotection, no DRM, no law will get the latter to buy your games. If anything, DRM will drive those that would buy them (like me) away.
Seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
I like that guy's attitude.
Instead of corporate PR bullshit, he's honest, open and willing to discuss with his potential clients.
My answer to his question would most likely have been : I just fucking hate big games companies who are run by corporate idiots.
I'll probably give one of his games a try, just to encourage this kind of behavior.
Re:Seriously... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate being this much of a cynic, but - 1-man indie game developer hits slashdot and such twice in a week, talking about how his recent game was his "best game ever" and he was GOING to price it much higher but now he's thinking he'll price it lower because of what pirates told him?
And there are now like 20x as many people who have heard of him as before? Well, more power to him.
Sounds good.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This guys sounds like a genuinely decent guy who's making efforts to make customers happy to reduce pirating; that's all great, but it seems to me, having never heard of his company, he's done an awesome job of getting a lot of free advertising.
Not that that will keep me from perusing his games...
Linux Ports Please (Score:5, Interesting)
Your site says you do Mac ports. Can we get some Linux ports as well please?
Video Game System (Score:3, Interesting)
w00t for Free Games! (Score:3, Informative)
Make me like your company (Score:3, Insightful)
Do the opposite of what they do, like George Costanza.
Demo to Full - make it easy! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Informative)
See: Fair use.
Is it different than pirating a game? Perhaps. "Pirating" a game to play it for a half-hour to see if it's any good: probably not. Pirating a game and playing it forever: quite different.
Sloppy and ethically challenged, perhaps.
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Informative)
The guy's a Brit (or at least it's a UK company), and we don't have a "fair use" clause in our copyright law. We do have a similar concept, so I doubt that he's going to be sued any time soon, but never forget that while slashdot may be US-centric, not all stories are actually about the US.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is this the start of a change for the wider industry? Or is this the only developer actively listening to the pirates point of view?
Re:Penny Arcade on affordable games (Score:5, Interesting)
When you buy a game you're not buying a game, you're buying the fun you'll have playing it, and the price you pay for a game is more than the dollar amount on the sticker, it includes all the games of the same class you bought which didn't provide the requisite entertainment.
If every game were fantastic then people would probably be perfectly willing to pay $60(or $100 in my neck of the woods, which with today's exchange rates is criminal) for it, because you'd be getting good value for entertainment.
However since even with proper research it seems these days that best case scenario only 1 in 3 games really provides you with value on the entertainment front, from an entertainment perspective that game actually costs at least $180[$AU300] because for every good game you manage to buy and which provides value for money, you generally bought two which got dull after the first level, didn't offer what they promised, or were generally crap. This markup shall hereafter be referred to as the dud factor.
The problem with Braid, and for that matter probably with this guys games, is that the class of game they exist in(small studio amateur) has a much higher incidence of crap(or at least games which while good didn't provide value for money) compared even to most commercial games these days. This means that even if your game provides as much entertainment as a commercial title, the dud factor makes your game seem, at half the price, to be even more expensive. The hotdog and novelty t-shirt in the penny-arcade comic are both known quantities and so don't have this dud factor markup. If you get a bad hotdog you can usually complain and get another one, and you can see everything that the t-shirt is when you hold it in your hands.
This kind of sucks for small development shop games, as even if they're the most incredible thing in the world very few people will buy it at a higher price, but in other ways it's a good thing, because it means that if you're clever and you build up a good reputation so that people can feel confident in your product you can reduce the dud factor and therefor increase the price you can charge for your games.
Re:DRM is a pretty lame excuse (Score:5, Informative)
to claim that DRM is a reason to steal the whole game?
Y'know, I attended a talk by RMS in New Zealand about copyright law last night (13th), and he put forward the view that anyone should be allowed to make unmodified copies of a product (for non-commercial use). Also, he mentioned people should only have files protected by "Digital Restrictions Management" if they had the facilities available to bypass that protection using free software.
My interpretation of what he said was that software piracy is a fallacy. Making copies of things is human nature and should not be restricted.