34 réponses à ce sujet

[Default137]

About halfway through, he starts talking about Piracy and DRM.

Curious what any of the Bioware devs have to say about this, especially some of the stuff near the end, I know I would gladly give anywhere from $30-$80 to help finance a game that I thought I would enjoy, especially if it got me a minor discount when the game came out.

Modifié par Default137, 09 mars 2010 - 09:38 .

[Panderfringe]

What a load. Pirate pirate games because they, get this, like free stuff. Nobody is going to pay 60+ dollars for a game when they can get it for free, good service or not.

[Sir Shendar]

Easy on the pirating discussion. The mods will come down like a ton of bricks on that.



@Panderfringe: You are wrong. Not gonna explain why tho. Not on this forum.

[DiatribeEQ]

It's one thing to pirate a game 20 years ago when it cost 1 million to make a AAA game and they only have to sell a fairly low amount to recoup the development cost. Now? Now it can take 10-30 million to make a AAA game (or more), as a result, each pirated game, hurts the chances of seeing another title from that game maker.



All in all, I could pirate anything out there. But I don't. I don't buy as much as I used to and the titles that I do buy, I buy because I really, really like them and want to see more from the developer. When you look at a company such as Bioware, they've been making some of the best computer RPG's for the longest of times and we've grown used to a certain degree of quality from them, but if they knew that 25-50% of all copies out there would be pirated, you'd most likely see a decline in quality across the board, simply to return as much of their investment as possible.

[Rubbish Hero]

Interesting.

He also has a good point regarding steam.

[Default137]

DiatribeEQ wrote...

It's one thing to pirate a game 20 years ago when it cost 1 million to make a AAA game and they only have to sell a fairly low amount to recoup the development cost. Now? Now it can take 10-30 million to make a AAA game (or more), as a result, each pirated game, hurts the chances of seeing another title from that game maker.

All in all, I could pirate anything out there. But I don't. I don't buy as much as I used to and the titles that I do buy, I buy because I really, really like them and want to see more from the developer. When you look at a company such as Bioware, they've been making some of the best computer RPG's for the longest of times and we've grown used to a certain degree of quality from them, but if they knew that 25-50% of all copies out there would be pirated, you'd most likely see a decline in quality across the board, simply to return as much of their investment as possible.

Well, the question is, where do you draw the line?

I talked with Doug Lombardi about this last year at E3, and I think Valve thinks this way somewhat, but you really have to think of the pirate community as two different group, disgruntled possible consumers, and actual pirates, one group is lost sales, however, the other group wouldn't be buying the game even if they couldn't pirate it.

So you really have to draw that line, and recognize those two groups, gunning after the pirate group is all well and good, but your not going to convert them, and even if you stop them, they most likely won't buy your game, so whats the point in going after them? It just ends up costing you even more money in the long run. Meanwhile, there is this huge group of pirates who only do it because they view a company less then another company, or are dissatisfied with previous service, or see no reason not to pirate a game, because nothing is offered, and these are the people companies should be trying to sway back to their side, through things like Cerberus Network, Steam, and other such goodies for loyalty.

And then you have to recognize when your actions end up putting actual customers and fans in to that disgruntled catagory, I'm not in the group that feels that DRM alone causes piracy, however just take a look at Ubisofts latest DRM on Assassins Creed, within hours of it launching, the servers were hit by a DDOS attack for close to 6-8 hours, during which time nobody who bought the game legitimatly could play. This is not a good form of DRM, and it should be obvious by the fact its now becoming one of the fastest growing pirated games, closing in on MW2, another game where the service just wasn't there at all, and in fact the fanbase was ridiculed.

And yes, I realize piracy is a very delicate subject around gaming boards, and I do not condone it at all, however avoiding the issue will only make things worse, and I feel we as gamers should really take a step back, look at the problem, and try to find ways to solve it that do not involve alienating entire groups of people or screaming and pointing fingers at each other. I merely posted this in the hopes someone at Bioware would see it, and would comment on how Bioware feels about the whole piracy situation, and if they have any input as well, my intent was not to flame or anything.

Modifié par Default137, 10 mars 2010 - 05:55 .

[Balerion84]

Panderfringe wrote...

What a load. Pirate pirate games because they, get this, like free stuff. Nobody is going to pay 60+ dollars for a game when they can get it for free, good service or not.

Wrong. But discussing piracy on internet is a waste of time so I'm not going to bother.

[AntiChri5]

[quote]Panderfringe wrote...

What a load. Pirate pirate games because they, get this, like free stuff. Nobody is going to pay 60+ dollars for a game when they can get it for free, good service or not.[/quote]

Care to explain how the videogame industry survives then?

Modifié par AntiChri5, 10 mars 2010 - 10:20 .

[Fexelea]

Default137 wrote...

DiatribeEQ wrote...

It's one thing to pirate a game 20 years ago when it cost 1 million to make a AAA game and they only have to sell a fairly low amount to recoup the development cost. Now? Now it can take 10-30 million to make a AAA game (or more), as a result, each pirated game, hurts the chances of seeing another title from that game maker.

All in all, I could pirate anything out there. But I don't. I don't buy as much as I used to and the titles that I do buy, I buy because I really, really like them and want to see more from the developer. When you look at a company such as Bioware, they've been making some of the best computer RPG's for the longest of times and we've grown used to a certain degree of quality from them, but if they knew that 25-50% of all copies out there would be pirated, you'd most likely see a decline in quality across the board, simply to return as much of their investment as possible.

Well, the question is, where do you draw the line?

I talked with Doug Lombardi about this last year at E3, and I think Valve thinks this way somewhat, but you really have to think of the pirate community as two different group, disgruntled possible consumers, and actual pirates, one group is lost sales, however, the other group wouldn't be buying the game even if they couldn't pirate it.

So you really have to draw that line, and recognize those two groups, gunning after the pirate group is all well and good, but your not going to convert them, and even if you stop them, they most likely won't buy your game, so whats the point in going after them? It just ends up costing you even more money in the long run. Meanwhile, there is this huge group of pirates who only do it because they view a company less then another company, or are dissatisfied with previous service, or see no reason not to pirate a game, because nothing is offered, and these are the people companies should be trying to sway back to their side, through things like Cerberus Network, Steam, and other such goodies for loyalty.

And then you have to recognize when your actions end up putting actual customers and fans in to that disgruntled catagory, I'm not in the group that feels that DRM alone causes piracy, however just take a look at Ubisofts latest DRM on Assassins Creed, within hours of it launching, the servers were hit by a DDOS attack for close to 6-8 hours, during which time nobody who bought the game legitimatly could play. This is not a good form of DRM, and it should be obvious by the fact its now becoming one of the fastest growing pirated games, closing in on MW2, another game where the service just wasn't there at all, and in fact the fanbase was ridiculed.

And yes, I realize piracy is a very delicate subject around gaming boards, and I do not condone it at all, however avoiding the issue will only make things worse, and I feel we as gamers should really take a step back, look at the problem, and try to find ways to solve it that do not involve alienating entire groups of people or screaming and pointing fingers at each other. I merely posted this in the hopes someone at Bioware would see it, and would comment on how Bioware feels about the whole piracy situation, and if they have any input as well, my intent was not to flame or anything.

Very good post. This is precisely the issue that many companies are refusing to see. "It's the Pirates' fault!" is a get-out-of-jail card that many companies want to use when they fail to provide real value for their customers. Then you have the "lost sales" numbers crop up (which are made up) and the "most pirated game" claims (which are also made up). Pirates are an easy excuse for underperforming titles, and more often than not just lies to hide poor decisions leading to release date.

[superimposed]

Every anti-piracy measure put in to place has been circumvented. If you want people to stop pirating games, give retail consumers something extra in their experience that's not frustration at online authentication or having DRM spyware on their computer.

[Andarthiel_Demigod]

In a way he's right but he wasn't right about the price thing. Of course service is one of the issues that can lead to piracy. Games are expensive(especially in Aus) and I think that's one of the major reasons for piracy and the DRMs that some Devs put in,  harm sales not piracy. Quite the opposite strict DRM systems put most gamers off and they resort to downloading pirated and cracked versions that are DRM free.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention that when it comes to BioWare games I refuse to play illegal/pirated copies, I always buy Bio games^_^

Modifié par Andarthiel_Demigod, 10 mars 2010 - 02:00 .

[SithLordExarKun]

markanthonybriones wrote...

I only buy bioware games.

So you pirate everything else? Ding ding ding!

[Default137]

Andarthiel_Demigod wrote...

In a way he's right but he wasn't right about the price thing. Of course service is one of the issues that can lead to piracy. Games are expensive(especially in Aus) and I think that's one of the major reasons for piracy and the DRMs that some Devs put in,  harm sales not piracy. Quite the opposite strict DRM systems put most gamers off and they resort to downloading pirated and cracked versions that are DRM free.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention that when it comes to BioWare games I refuse to play illegal/pirated copies, I always buy Bio games^_^

Well, thats kind of covered by the whole weaker service thing.

If you only have enough to buy a single game, but happen to want two games, and know how to pirate, how would you handle the situation?

Most people would buy the game they have company loyalty to, and if that is missing, they will look at various other factors, what does buying this game get me, does this company actually support its game longterm, how do reviews look, does it have invasive DRM, are they community focused, can it be modded, really I could go on, but in general they will buy the more supported game, and pirate the second.

[Fredvdp]

Panderfringe wrote...

What a load. Pirate pirate games because they, get this, like free stuff. Nobody is going to pay 60+ dollars for a game when they can get it for free, good service or not.

Nobody? Isn't that a serious exaggeration? I buy games out of respect of the developers and because I want a disc in a box.

[RaidenXNS]

Fredvdp wrote...

Panderfringe wrote...

What a load. Pirate pirate games because they, get this, like free stuff. Nobody is going to pay 60+ dollars for a game when they can get it for free, good service or not.

Nobody? Isn't that a serious exaggeration? I buy games out of respect of the developers and because I want a disc in a box.

I must agree with you:) The developers deserve that for their hard work...

[AngryFrozenWater]

Thank you for that link.

This is a bit off topic, but in part one Michael Abrash is mentioned. That guy is my "hero" of the industry. He used to write articles in Dr Dobbs, he worked for id Software, Microsoft and Intel. Gabe is trying to hire him for ages.

His articles taught me to deal with software optimization, like finding bottlenecks and thinking outside the box to find solutions. The articles have been bundled in his Graphics Programming Black Book. It's out of print and outdated, but it is a must read if you want to know a bit about the history of gaming and are serious about optimizing software.

Modifié par AngryFrozenWater, 11 mars 2010 - 10:25 .

[TippertonThistledown]

Unlike many here, I think he's right about piracy because it agrees with what I've always thought was the best answer to the piracy issue.

If you provide a quality product that fits the customers needs at a reasonable price people will pay for it.

Gabe Newell at his very best!

Modifié par TippertonThistledown, 11 mars 2010 - 11:14 .

[Pious_Augustus]

A lot of pirates, pirate things now a days not because its free but because you have made the game so crippling and impossible to play that hackers have went in and reservered engineered a product and removed the DRM that can cripple your system and replaced it with systems can destroy your expensive PC Rig.



I recently invested in an Alienware PC, do you think I would ever, ever allow SuckROM onto my computer?

[DiatribeEQ]

People are going to pirate because if they can, they will. If they're of the mentality that they'd rather get for free, than pay, they will go free. There will always be someone who pirates trying to offer up some sort of justification for their actions. It doesn't matter: The vast majority who pirate, pirate because they don't want to pay for it. Here's some of their "reasons" in the past: Many of them made sense, but once you start fixing their issues, they always come up with new ones:





1: Why pay for an album when I only want 1-3 songs from it? Let me buy just the songs I want.

2: CD's cost too much. Let me order it direct from the publisher & avoid the middleman (FYE, Circuit City, Best Buy, Tower Records, Wal-Mart, ect) & make it cheaper for the actual CD.

3: I live in a rural area. Making it to a specific store that would order the music I want requires a several hour commute to/from in order to get that accomplished. Let me order all my music needs online & have it shipped to my home/PO Box. (2 & 3 are tied together, but are separate points)

4: Let me avoid the physical copy all together. I've got 500gig HDD's & 32-64gig mp3 players. I want it as cheap as possible. Let me download the mp3's from an online store or outlet of some kind.



What did they do to counter those arguments? We now can buy any CD, from any artist, any genre, from any country or origin, all without ever getting off our butts while sitting in front of the TV or from behind our PCs. Several days later, that very same CD is sitting in our hands. The average price of a album in the stores is about 17.99 (some stores are 15.99, others are 19.99). We generally pay 9.99 for most albums @ Amazon.com, Napster, iTunes, ect. Don't want the entire album? That's fine, you pay 99c for each of the songs you want and you're done. Sure, you might've paid 2.98 for those 3 songs you wanted on an album that cost 9.99 & had 14 tracks on it, but you got exactly what you wanted.



Did that stop (or slow/reverse) the rate in which music is being pirated? Nope. It's just as healthy as it ever has been.



What about PC software? The same can be said in there. I know they recently came out and said the PC software (gaming) recently GREW over last year. One would assume that this is a great thing, but I'm suspicious of their data. The largest gamers out there are women. That's not a bad thing at all. But women are also HUGE online players via web browsers (Farmville anyone?). My mother is a classic case of this type of person. She also plays all these 9.99, 14.99, 19.99 (i.e. Budget) games she gets from Wal-Mart. While these do count as sales towards the total PC gaming figure they quoted, they're not indicative of the games you and I play here (re: Mass Effect & Dragon Age for example). Those games cost 500k to 1 million to make and are done in 6 months, wherein games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age take 2-3 years to make and cost 10-30 million to make. Even though we can also get all of our games like our music now (and also massive deals for a digital version), PC piracy is still rampant.

[TippertonThistledown]

Pious_Augustus wrote...
I recently invested in an Alienware PC, do you think I would ever, ever allow SuckROM onto my computer?

There is no possible way that software can physically damage hardware, that is just a myth spread by people who don't know anything but think they do and have nothing better to do than to try and spread their hatred of DRM.

I have lots and lots of game all protected with SecuROM and I have yet to have any real problem with SecuROM ever. The only problem I've ever had was that the version origianlly used on Bioshock had a bug that prevented it from loading one of it's components. A reboot always fixed it when it happened and in the 1.1 patch they replaced that version of SecuROM with a newer version that had the bug fixed.

I've been in the computer industry since 1980 and am now a senior software engineer. The only people I know that have problems with DRM systems are those people trying to defeat them in one way or another and in that case all I can say is the difficulties are deserved.

Quit trying to use the program beyond the license limits that you agreed to when you installed it and you'll find that most if not all of your DRM issues will dissappear.

Modifié par TippertonThistledown, 12 mars 2010 - 04:01 .

[Panderfringe]

Fredvdp wrote...

Panderfringe wrote...

What a load. Pirate pirate games because they, get this, like free stuff. Nobody is going to pay 60+ dollars for a game when they can get it for free, good service or not.

Nobody? Isn't that a serious exaggeration? I buy games out of respect of the developers and because I want a disc in a box.

Hyperbole. Sure, you may like Bioware and want to support them, that's cool, or you may not feel justified in pirating.

But you are not the majority. PC gamers are a greedy bunch.

[TippertonThistledown]

Bottom line here is that there will always be a certain percentage of people that would rather steal than pay for the things they want and as long as those people exist, there will always be people that will manufacture locks in an attempt to prevent the theft and there will always be people willing to use those locks no matter how futile it may be.

If you can't accept that and thus accept DRM as a fact of your gaming life, then you may as well get out of computer gaming and find some other hobby.

Unfortunately piracy is here to stay and so is DRM.

[Pious_Augustus]

TippertonThistledown wrote...

Pious_Augustus wrote...
I recently invested in an Alienware PC, do you think I would ever, ever allow SuckROM onto my computer?

There is no possible way that software can physically damage hardware, that is just a myth spread by people who don't know anything but think they do and have nothing better to do than to try and spread their hatred of DRM.

I have lots and lots of game all protected with SecuROM and I have yet to have any real problem with SecuROM ever. The only problem I've ever had was that the version origianlly used on Bioshock had a bug that prevented it from loading one of it's components. A reboot always fixed it when it happened and in the 1.1 patch they replaced that version of SecuROM with a newer version that had the bug fixed.

I've been in the computer industry since 1980 and am now a senior software engineer. The only people I know that have problems with DRM systems are those people trying to defeat them in one way or another and in that case all I can say is the difficulties are deserved.

Quit trying to use the program beyond the license limits that you agreed to when you installed it and you'll find that most if not all of your DRM issues will dissappear.

StarFORCE has been proven to cripple peoples PC and also take away control away from the user.

[medlish]

Anyway, the way most companies go now is the way which promotes piracy even more. Ubisoft's DRM Server down? Good for people who don't need to connect. And Bad Comany 2 servers also have a lot of problems. And you can't have a private server. Nice job taking the freedom away from paying customers.