204 réponses à ce sujet

[Elite Midget]

What safeguards or steps should be taken by Bioware to fight against Piracy? Many companies have struggled with it for years and haven't found a viable solution yet and have only ended up angering legit costumers. An example of piracy at its finest will be New Vegas. Supposedly Pirates had nabbed the game early, somehow, and had it cracked long before the official release date. Thus pirates winning out in getting the game earlier and getting all the pre-order stuff in their game.

So, as Bioware fans what ideas do you have to curb Piracy or for the use of non-intrusive DRM that wouldn't cause you to rage?

[crimzontearz]

You know I always wondered...HOW does a game get leaked before release? How is a leak like that not traked and harshly dealt with?

[Xewaka]

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

Modifié par Xewaka, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:20 .

[Nerivant]

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

[crimzontearz]

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

Partially true

To make games cost less we should make the available for digital download only

[Huntress]

One way to do that is making every game sold to log in biowared computer or something like that, but.. what about players that travel and don't have internet? Do they have to stop playing the game because of piracy? A game they paid for...

[Xewaka]

Nerivant wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

Then they wouldn't have bought the game anyway, so antipiracy measures wouldn't make them buy it.
The battle of companies against piracy only has one victim: The buying customer, who has to put up with DRM crap. Pirates are going to find a way around it, no matter how byzantine your protection system is.

Modifié par Xewaka, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:25 .

[Elite Midget]

There's an infamous hacker group that destroyed the Assassian's Creed II online always DRM. The DRM bought them time to ward piracy but in the end after it was cracked only the Legit costumers suffered.



Price doesn't always help... Hell, Steam has insane deals yet pirates still continue to pirate. Why pay would they pay when they can get it for free, why?

[Nerivant]

Xewaka wrote...

Nerivant wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

Then they wouldn't have bought the game anyway, so antipiracy measures wouldn't make them buy it.
The battle of companies against piracy only has one victim: The buying customer, who has to put up with DRM crap. Pirates are going to find a way around it, no matter how byzantine your protection system is.

*salutes Steam*

[Skilled Seeker]

Nerivant wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

Also games are tenfold more expensive to make now so it would be madness to sell a new release for 12€.

[Saibh]

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

I don't think file sharing was commonplace back then. Piracy would have been very tough to do in a non-bootleg fashion.

Price won't make a difference.

crimzontearz wrote...

You know I always wondered...HOW does a game get leaked before release? How is a leak like that not traked and harshly dealt with?

They are usually not leaked more than, say, a week before. Game stores often get the games early and are told not to display or sell them. Someone who works at one opens it anyway and uploads it.

Modifié par Saibh, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:27 .

[Elite Midget]

If they don't put in some defenses than it would concede defeat and only further encourage piracy.



Hell, the Assassian's Creed II DRM was horrid but it bought Ubisoft a lot of time to grab the initial PC market and convince impatient pirates to actually buy the game. When it was finally cracked those that waited were never gonna buy the game anyway. Though I still must say that the DRM was horrid for Legit Fans.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Just put an international law that puts piracy as a capital crime. Now that would show who the real pirates are.... I have no respect for people who illegally download. They could at least have enough balls to go steal a physical copy, that shows some spine at least...

[Saibh]

Elite Midget wrote...

If they don't put in some defenses than it would concede defeat and only further encourage piracy.

Hell, the Assassian's Creed II DRM was horrid but it bought Ubisoft a lot of time to grab the initial PC market and convince impatient pirates to actually buy the game. When it was finally cracked those that waited were never gonna buy the game anyway. Though I still must say that the DRM was horrid for Legit Fans.

The internet goes into direct retaliation mode if they feel like DRM and piracy protection is starting to impede the gamer. Spore is the famous example, as people pirated that game so much as to show that even the most secure piracy protection could be subverted. It is currently the most pirated game of all time.

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

Just put an international law that puts piracy as a capital crime. Now that would show who the real pirates are.... I have no respect for people who illegally download. They could at least have enough balls to go steal a physical copy, that shows some spine at least...

That's right. You steal fifty bucks, you should be electrocuted to death.

Priorities, lawmakers, priorities.

Modifié par Saibh, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:35 .

[Gill Kaiser]

Elite Midget wrote...

There's an infamous hacker group that destroyed the Assassian's Creed II online always DRM.

...and a good thing too. That DRM was a travesty. I was praying it would be cracked as soon as possible so that whoever came up with the idea drowned in a tide of his/her own hubris.

The best policy against hardcore pirates is to ignore them, as they're irrelevant to you. They're never going to buy your games, so they're a non-entity. Instead, the focus should be on the people who might casually pirate if they're unsure about the game or if they don't think it's going to be worth the full price. Provide a better service and product and they'll pay.

Pirates aren't ogres. Often they'll pay for products they truly care about, such as Bioware products. It's horrific things like Ubisoft's DRM that only serve to encourage piracy.

[EmperorSahlertz]

Nah not so much the amount they steal.. Its the cowardly way they do it. I hate cowardice most of all (and I hate alot of things). And In the days of yorn you would be killed for a lot less... Ah yes, it was a simpler time..

[Morroian]

Nerivant wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

Wrong, there are many examples of what Xewaka said from Steam to Baen books for book publishing.

[Nerivant]

Morroian wrote...

Nerivant wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

Wrong, there are many examples of what Xewaka said from Steam to Baen books for book publishing.

Really? Lowering the price says that you're trying to combat pirating, which makes them retaliate, which requires more to combat. It's a vicious cycle.

[hexaligned]

Lots of people pirate software based on nothing but spite, as the above poster said Spore is a good example. DRM has never and will never stop piracy. Nothing will really, releasing polished products that fans actually want to support dev companies for is a step in the right direction though.

Modifié par relhart, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:46 .

[eshrafel]

"Back then" there was indeed the sharing of material of all kinds and I wouldn't say it was particularly rare. Of course, you had to know what you were doing since these things were hosted on BBS hosts, but a significant proportion of people who were online back then were so because they had the technical knowledge that again, could access this kind of stuff if they wanted.



Price only comes into play for me if a game is marketed at greater than £30 or so (I'm a PC gamer). If a game is £10 I might just pick it up if it sounds interesting. £15 probably, if the reviews are good. I'll buy a £25-£30 game if I've been anticipating it or all my friends recommend it. Anything more I will just wait for the price to drop. Some people will always prefer free of course, but I think you would clearly start seeing an increase in piracy if you launched your game with an RRP of £60 on the PC! The people who refuse to buy due to DRM are most likely a small minority.



I believe the pre-release date leaks on the internet usually come from folks in stores who get the games x days before they hit the shelves and they have a contact in some group and upload it for them. The much more rare leak is the internal builds which typically aren't a finished game anyway, and these would only feasibly come from versions sent to manufacturers for testing (like the ATi leak of Doom 3), and would almost certainly not come from within the developer.



It's a given that most DRM will be broken, probably before the shelf date. Most DRM is again packaged software, so the same methodology can be used and there was even some intelligent tools that could be found that could remove the older SafeDisc protections from an arbitrary executable for you. The key is of course, particularly with UbiSoft's recent efforts, to *delay* the crack until a week or so after the shelf date which is when the sales peak. If it lasts that long, mission accomplished (from the publisher's point of view), and everyone is still saddled with whatever scheme has been cooked up, even if it is some convoluted nightmare that ends up swamping the tech support lines.



No DRM is always the ideal of course, but DRM (it's copy-protection damn it, I don't want my rights managing!) has been around longer than most people realise. I found fairly recently to my dismay that my old (retail) copy of Lemmings 2 which comes on 2 floppy disks won't run anymore because it has a copy protection that doesn't work with anything newer than Windows 98 (no, DOSBox doesn't work either). Naturally, we aren't going to get 'no DRM', but I'd appreciate a token gesture that our games will be playable in the future. For example, a year or so after Quake 3's release, iD software disabled key authorisation, effectively making the game open for copy to all and sundry, but people can still play it happily today. Will the DRM for Mass Effect 1 be removed in a year or so? I doubt it. But if it were, it'd certainly make me feel more comfortable with whatever they cook up for their next games.

[Xewaka]

Nerivant wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Nerivant wrote...

Xewaka wrote...

The best way to protect it is to sell it at lower prices.

Back when I was young and games costed the equivalent of 12 €, piracy was not a problem.

That won't help. It might sway the tiniest fraction of a percent, but the rest will keep pirating.

Wrong, there are many examples of what Xewaka said from Steam to Baen books for book publishing.

Really? Lowering the price says that you're trying to combat pirating, which makes them retaliate, which requires more to combat. It's a vicious cycle.

I know quite a lot of people that pirate games when they're out and wait 'til price drops or GotY edition comes out to actually spend the cash. Lower prices and extra stuff encourages buying. Nightmarish protection rackets encourage piracy.

Modifié par Xewaka, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:49 .

[Morroian]

Nerivant wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Wrong, there are many examples of what Xewaka said from Steam to Baen books for book publishing.

Really? Lowering the price says that you're trying to combat pirating, which makes them retaliate, which requires more to combat. It's a vicious cycle.

Nope, at least not on price, the majority of those who obtain pirated products do so because they perceive inequities in the price or DRM etc., get rid of those inequities and they're perfectly willing to buy the product. Some won't but there will always be some form of piracy, it just has to be limited. Overbearing DRM tends to make people angry so minimise that and they won't have a reason to get angry.

Baen books has just given away free electronic copies of the entire Vorkosigan series by Lois Bujold including the current book, Cryoburn, which has just been released. They have direct evidence that people treat their free library of ebooks as a try before they buy mechanism, and they will buy the books after trying, even those they have downloaded. Baen have been doing it for years and are a sucessful niche publisher.

Modifié par Morroian, 17 novembre 2010 - 12:53 .

[Ziggeh]

Nerivant wrote...

you're trying to combat pirating, which makes them retaliate, which requires more to combat. It's a vicious cycle.

This.

The more developers get this the better for all concerned. Give people an excuse, make DRM increasinly obtuse and you're just pushing more people in that direction, giving them a flimsy rational to be cheap. You might get a few more sales on the specific product, as impatient pirates wait for the inevitable crack, but in the long term you've moved people into the catergory, one which they are more likely to revisit in the future.

I'm not overly keen on the disc check myself, as none of my disks are ever in the right case, but I think it's the best solution all round. It stops the casual game sharing while not giving people a reason to get indignant about DRM, largely because there's a decent history of it's use.

[lv12medic]

Bioware will just send Isabela to deal with all these so called pirates. There can be only one pirate after all.

[Nerivant]

Morroian wrote...

Nerivant wrote...

Morroian wrote...

Wrong, there are many examples of what Xewaka said from Steam to Baen books for book publishing.

Really? Lowering the price says that you're trying to combat pirating, which makes them retaliate, which requires more to combat. It's a vicious cycle.

Nope, at least not on price, the majority of those who obtain pirated products do so because they perceive inequities in the price or DRM etc., get rid of those inequities and they're perfectly willing to buy the product. Some won't but there will always be some form of piracy, it just has to be limited. Overbearing DRM tends to make people angry so minimise that and they won't have a reason to get angry.

I'm ignoring DRM in my point. Most pirates state price as the main reason for pirating. Unless you lower the costs of games by a significant margin (and the companies lose money with every sale), they're going to keep pirating.