158 réponses à ce sujet

[Realmzmaster]

I paid for music within the last week.  Physical media and everything.

 

I prefer physical media with everything I buy from games to music to books. I like reading the physical manuals away from my computer. 

[Fast Jimmy]

I find Origin to be a better system for my purposes than Steam. Why can't I get my Steam games on Origin? I have more games on Origin than Steam. Could it be because Valve and EA compete against each other and both want to keep a bigger share of the pie?

What? No. Impossible. Clearly, EA is evil and should be punished for their crimes.

[Fast Jimmy]

Developers do not worry as much about used games (They are still concerned.) because someone had to buy a retail copy to even get a used game in the first place. So at least those sales are reflected in their bottom line. Also the court in the US and other countries have sided with gamers who wish to resale their physical copies of the game and in some cases the digital copies.

States that at the time CDPR was using a method developed by an external firm to track Witcher 2 piracy in Germany and other places. CDPR sent out legal notices to those alleged pirates. According to the article quite a few owned up to the theft and paid up.

I think this might be the best approach I've seen - don't go above and beyond trying to block pirates that can't be stopped, but determine accurate ways to track them and, instead of prosecuting them, just ask them for money. Because otherwise, you get...

It is a sad commentary that on society when over 4 million illegal users are enjoying your game and the people who worked hard to make it so will not be compensated as they should be.

...THIS mentality.

It's not wrong. But it is viewing the data the wrong way.

If I own a donut shop and I advertise that for one day, I'm going to be giving away free donuts to every one who walks in the door, no strings attached, I will likely move more donut volume than any other day in the history of my shop. Great advertising and exposure, not to mention many people who would have never had my donuts can say "man, that donut shop really is great!" or, conversely, "well, I didn't like A, B and C about your donuts, so I'm glad I got them free - maybe if you fixed those things, I would be a happy paying customer."

But if I, as a donut shop owner, say "man, I should have charged for my donuts today! I would have gotten more in profit than I did all last month!" then I miss the point - many, MANY more people will take advantage of a free product over a paid one. 4 million illegal downloads are 4 million people who would take a (very) small risk to enjoy a product for free. The number of them who would pay full price may be 10%, 1% or even .1%, we don't know. But it will NEVER be the full amount. If companies spend huge amounts of dollars (not to mention a good chunk of consumer goodwill if the means of doing so are a hassle for honest customers) to prevent piracy, they may only see a marginal increase in sales, nowhere near the volume seen pirated.


I am all about seeing developers get money for their work, but software is always going to be open to editing to get around any safeguards a company puts in. Even the CDPR idea, if widely adopted, will be cracked and untraceable if someone puts the time into it. If, instead, a company views piracy not as a lost sale, but a marketing cost to promote the game and possibly turn existing pirates Ito possible future customers, then maybe a little less futile effort can go into chasing something that may never be caught.

[Elhanan]

Sorry, but piracy should not be considered a marketing fee, tool, etc. If caught and convicted, I would love to see account bans, fines, possible imprisonment, etc depending on that specific theft. No rewards for thieves, not even if it is something easily stolen.

All that said, I really do like the new approach at GOG Galaxy, and hope others join in on this idea, too.

[AlanC9]

The obvious problem with that donut analogy is that the donut shop owner has a choice about giving his donuts away for free.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Free is really just a discounted price. Steam already does that on a regular basis.

[ShinsFortress]

What? No. Impossible. Clearly, EA is evil and should be punished for their crimes.

 

Yep, after the disappointments that were DA2 and ME3, definitely.

[Fast Jimmy]

The obvious problem with that donut analogy is that the donut shop owner has a choice about giving his donuts away for free.

True, but the conclusion the shop owner made - that every donut someone wanted for free could have resulted in a paid sale - is false. It is the same with piracy. People take it because it is free. And it will continue to be free, because piracy is practically as easy as a few Google searches. It's not difficult to shut down one source of piracy, but it is impossible to stomp it out because it just re-materializes hours (if not minutes) later somewhere else.

Since the Internet is worldwide without borders, it will always be nearly impossible to regulate, simpy because there isn't a worldwide legal authority capable of influencing anything. Nor, many would argue, should there be. Interpol, a worldwide police force, made it their job to regulate pirated movies, hence the warning notice before every video we watch. But nothing can stop me from burning a copy of a DVD for my friend. And nothing can stop me from hosting a mirror site supplying a cracked game for anyone to download.

In that regard, I don't blame Steam or Origin in their attempts to institute DRM policies, but nothing can be done to stop work arounda of this. Software can be countered with more software, every time. Unless you want to start handing out RSA token generators for every copy of a game you sell, it's just a price of doing business

[Fast Jimmy]

Yep, after the disappointments that were DA2 and ME3, definitely.

So, because divisions of EA made games you (and, to be frank, I) don't like, they should be banned from trying to expand into a market Valve has made millions on with limited competition?

The capitalist in me says that is plum loco.

[Realmzmaster]

@Fast Jimmy

 

Let me expand on your donut analogy. What if the owner of the donut shop has all of the donuts stolen by a thief on any given day. Which is what happens with piracy. Those donuts were going to be sold to paying customers. So the donut owner is out any development and material costs plus lost sales and profits from the donuts.

 

As AlanC9 stated giving away the donuts for free is a choice having the donuts stolen is not. So the donut owner should look at the stolen donuts as free marketing?

 

Ket say that out of those 4 million illegal copies 10% could have been converted into actual sales do to DRM. That is 400,000 copies at $60 each. That would be 400,000 copies sold which would 24 million dollars in sales. That is not a small piece of change.

 

Of course this is all conjecture. IMHO, I see no point in rewarding thieves.

[Realmzmaster]

Yep, after the disappointments that were DA2 and ME3, definitely.

 

Which I happen to like so I think EA should be rewarded. Whether you like the games or not has no bearing on fostering competition. Valve is no saint in this game considering Valve with Steam set up most of the practices now used by EA and Origin.

[Setiweb]

Why isn't this on Steam?

I don't know anymore.  Something about globalized electricity and donuts.

[Fast Jimmy]

@Fast Jimmy
 
Let me expand on your donut analogy. What if the owner of the donut shop has all of the donuts stolen by a thief on any given day. Which is what happens with piracy. Those donuts were going to be sold to paying customers. So the donut owner is out any development and material costs plus lost sales and profits from the donuts.
 
As AlanC9 stated giving away the donuts for free is a choice having the donuts stolen is not. So the donut owner should look at the stolen donuts as free marketing?
 
Ket say that out of those 4 million illegal copies 10% could have been converted into actual sales do to DRM. That is 400,000 copies at $60 each. That would be 400,000 copies sold which would 24 million dollars in sales. That is not a small piece of change.
 
Of course this is all conjecture. IMHO, I see no point in rewarding thieves.

You aren't rewarding them. They are thieves - they reward themselves.

The thing is you can reliably catch them and, in the rare cases you can, it is insane to prosecute. How much money and bad publicity would a case for $60 be worth to a company? It's not like they could do a reverse class action lawsuit.

[Realmzmaster]

You aren't rewarding them. They are thieves - they reward themselves.

The thing is you can reliably catch them and, in the rare cases you can, it is insane to prosecute. How much money and bad publicity would a case for $60 be worth to a company? It's not like they could do a reverse class action lawsuit.

 

I agree that it would be insane to prosecute, but to paraphrase Aron Nimzowitsch  "the threat is stronger than the execution". Sometimes the threat alone is enough to bring one into compliance. 

[Fast Jimmy]

I agree that it would be insane to prosecute, but to paraphrase Aron Nimzowitsch "the threat is stronger than the execution". Sometimes the threat alone is enough to bring one into compliance.

The music industry would beg to differ.

After shutting down Napster and prosecuting some random people who downloaded free music (including, famously, a twelve year old girl), the music industry was CONVINCED they had put the fear of God into those who would download free music in the early 2000's. A few years later, they had seen some of their biggest losses to date and actually buying a CD became an archaic activity to do, with many people who actually bought their music from places like iTunes as "chumps."

The Internet cannot be intimidated. It cannot be cowed. You think you can work at an individual level, but you can't. The second you plug up one hole, nine more pop up to replace it. People aren't scared - there isn't enough worth in going after individual offenders and shutting down a distributor is a temporary setback, at worse.

Threat and fear of retribution only work when it's possible to retrobute on someone. But no one can - they cannot return the bute. The hackers will always remain, by and large, the sole buters. The bute stops there.

[Schreckstoff]

The music industry would beg to differ.

After shutting down Napster and prosecuting some random people who downloaded free music (including, famously, a twelve year old girl), the music industry was CONVINCED they had put the fear of God into those who would download free music in the early 2000's. A few years later, they had seen some of their biggest losses to date and actually buying a CD became an archaic activity to do, with many people who actually bought their music from places like iTunes as "chumps."

The Internet cannot be intimidated. It cannot be cowed. You think you can work at an individual level, but you can't. The second you plug up one hole, nine more pop up to replace it. People aren't scared - there isn't enough worth in going after individual offenders and shutting down a distributor is a temporary setback, at worse.

Threat and fear of retribution only work when it's possible to retrobute on someone. But no one can - they cannot return the bute. The hackers will always remain, by and large, the sole buters. The bute stops there.

 

There's a funny South Park episode on the issue Wasn't there like a student a few years back who distributed a bunch of songs and got fined a few hundred thousand dollars.

found it $675k, I'll never share a single song in my life.
http://www.digitaltr...y-penalty-plea/

[In Exile]

Yeah, that's why I asked. If the government funded the infrastructure, it makes sense that there would be more competition in such a model, as there isn't a single company that owns the infrastructure AND is providing the services, making anyone else coming in have to pay a fee that would make it difficult to price equally while offering the same tier level of service.

I've long hoped that the U.S. would move to a system where data infrastructure, including physical lines and towers, were owned and financed by the government and where ISP companies would compete with service alone. As is, we can have one network with next to no bandwidth right next to another with full bandwidth and, instead of a shared network, one company has to build another tower, which is becoming increasingly more difficult and expensive, particularly in metropolitan areas.

 

There are tremendous pressures to auction off the infrastructure to the private sector. That's what happened in Canada. The infrastructure was build with public funds, and then effectively sold at a haircut to the major Canadian telecon companies, who know charge a hefty fee to other smaller ISPs for the honour of using the infrastructure in the first place. 

[Fast Jimmy]

There's a funny South Park episode on the issue



Wasn't there like a student a few years back who distributed a bunch of songs and got fined a few hundred thousand dollars.

found it $675k, I'll never share a single song in my life.
http://www.digitaltr...y-penalty-plea/

Yet obviously it hasn't instilled the fear of pirating music into the general public, as he music industry isn't magically recovering back to their 1990's numbers. If people try and do the same to strong arm gamers into submission, they will fail. If government agencies across the world can't stop pirates from being scared, there's no reason to think a developer would.


What would be smart is for video game developers to look at the music industry for lessons. Mostly in how to not do things, but more recently, how to do a few. The number of subscription-based music devices is on the rise. Services like Pandora or Spotify have found ways to provide people what they want in an instant, need-it-now-get-it-now digital world and still make money in a legal way that also pays the artists and record publishers.

Maybe instead of a platform like Origin, EA might fare better with a subscription model to let you play all of their game library for a flat fee. Developers would get revenue based on how many players use the service for that developer's particular game(s), EA gets a steady revenue stream and the consumer doesn't have to get suckered into making purchases on hype, not pushed into pre-ordering for day one. That's a solution I would entertain.

It doesn't remove hackers, but it makes it as viable of a method as Netflix is in a world of free downloadable pirated movies. Which is to say... pretty dang viable.

[Fast Jimmy]

There are tremendous pressures to auction off the infrastructure to the private sector. That's what happened in Canada. The infrastructure was build with public funds, and then effectively sold at a haircut to the major Canadian telecon companies, who know charge a hefty fee to other smaller ISPs for the honour of using the infrastructure in the first place.

See, it is the opposite in the US. Companies invested (EDIT: not-so-)small fortunes building most of our telecom infrastrcuture (with large tax incentives to do so, in many cases), so they own the lines/towers/etc. Having another company come in and use them is something they would happily welcome... as they charge through the nose for it. Making competition very difficult.

Conversely, what I'm seeing in my area right now is the sole cable and ISP provided, Comcast (formerly Time Warner Cable, formerly Insight Communicaitons) is having their business encroached in by ATT's UVerse. See, ATT owned the lines in the region back when people actually used land line phone services. Since they weren't in the cable/ISP business, they rented out the lines and raked in the cash. Now that ATT has their own cable and ISP service, though, they are moving into territories they own and eating up huge swaths of business with reduced prices (since they own the lines and don't have to rent them from themselves).


All of which could have been avoided with publicly owned infrastrcuture. But that shop has sailed - the government would take it in be teeth if they tried to buy all of America's data towers and fiber optic lines, and to take it by imminent domain or something would result in World War 3. So... I'm just waiting for Google Fiber to come in and lay new wires and happily contribute to them controlling the planet.

[Schreckstoff]

See, it is the opposite in the US. Companies invested small fortunes building most of our telecom infrastrcuture (with large tax incentives to do so, in many cases), so they own the lines/towers/etc. Having another company come in and use them is something they would happily welcome... as they charge through the nose for it. Making competition very difficult.

Conversely, what I'm seeing in my area right now is the sole cable and ISP provided, Comcast (formerly Time Warner Cable, formerly Insight Communicaitons) is having their business encroached in by ATT's UVerse. See, ATT owned the lines in the region back when people actually used land line phone services. Since they weren't in the cable/ISP business, they rented out the lines and raked in the cash. Now that ATT has their own cable and ISP service, though, they are moving into territories they own and eating up huge swaths of business with reduced prices (since they own the lines and don't have to rent them from themselves).


All of which could have been avoided with publicly owned infrastrcuture. But that shop has sailed - the government would take it in be teeth if they tried to buy all of America's data towers and fiber optic lines, and to take it by imminent domain or something would result in World War 3. So... I'm just waiting for Google Fiber to come in and lay new wires and happily contribute to them controlling the planet.

 

That's only the start of the problems for a developed country to not have the power lines run underground is ludicrous.

[Fast Jimmy]

That's only the start of the problems for a developed country to not have the power lines run underground is ludicrous.

Let's not get started on US energy infrastructure. It makes our data infrastrcuture look like a brain trust.

[In Exile]

See, it is the opposite in the US. Companies invested (EDIT: not-so-)small fortunes building most of our telecom infrastrcuture (with large tax incentives to do so, in many cases), so they own the lines/towers/etc. Having another company come in and use them is something they would happily welcome... as they charge through the nose for it. Making competition very difficult.

 

It's important to appreciate certain differences between Canada and the US in our internet packages to appreciate the telecon hostility to smaller ISPs. Essentially, we don't have unlimited download plans from our major companies (with some exceptions, for absolutely exorbitant fees). Smaller ISPs offer unlimited plans, so to avoid losing marketshare the major companies jack up the price and take other steps to limit download speeds (at least allegedly - nothing's been proven in court, despite complaints). Coverage areas tend to be poor, as well. 

 

We do see a price difference, it's just not as pronounced as it would be with a public network and our packages suck compared to what you'd usually see, so to an American our "good" deals wouldn't look good at all. 
 

Conversely, what I'm seeing in my area right now is the sole cable and ISP provided, Comcast (formerly Time Warner Cable, formerly Insight Communicaitons) is having their business encroached in by ATT's UVerse. See, ATT owned the lines in the region back when people actually used land line phone services. Since they weren't in the cable/ISP business, they rented out the lines and raked in the cash. Now that ATT has their own cable and ISP service, though, they are moving into territories they own and eating up huge swaths of business with reduced prices (since they own the lines and don't have to rent them from themselves).

All of which could have been avoided with publicly owned infrastrcuture. But that shop has sailed - the government would take it in be teeth if they tried to buy all of America's data towers and fiber optic lines, and to take it by imminent domain or something would result in World War 3. So... I'm just waiting for Google Fiber to come in and lay new wires and happily contribute to them controlling the planet.

 

All hail our new Google overlords. That said, I agree the general principle behind your post (that this kind of infrastructure should be publicly held to encourage competition) and appreciate the lesson on the US market. It was quite informative. 

[In Exile]

 

 

That's only the start of the problems for a developed country to not have the power lines run underground is ludicrous.

 

Let's not get started on US energy infrastructure. It makes our data infrastrcuture look like a brain trust.

 

Don't feel felt out - Canada has this problem too. In Toronto, there was a serious power outage during an ice-storm because trees feel on the power lines. This is especially comical because Montreal had a similar problem in 1998, which they just solved by cutting down trees near the lines. Something Toronto has yet to do, even after the ice storm. 
 

[Sylvius the Mad]

There are tremendous pressures to auction off the infrastructure to the private sector. That's what happened in Canada. The infrastructure was build with public funds, and then effectively sold at a haircut to the major Canadian telecon companies, who know charge a hefty fee to other smaller ISPs for the honour of using the infrastructure in the first place.

It should have been sold at an open auction, with foreign bidders allowed.

[Sylvius the Mad]

All of which could have been avoided with publicly owned infrastrcuture.

Do you trust the government to improve it over time? To do the necessary R&D? And to do so in a cost-effective way?