Great job, Bioware!

[FeelTheRads]

What about borrowed copies? second-hand copies?

DRM will take care of second-hand copies will it not? Yeah, man, this is the same as piracy! If these people would stop buying second-hand the games will sell so much better.

 

[Brother None]

I want to know why exactly someone pirating and playing a game instead of not buying it is worse than not buying it and never playing it at all.

Oh, that's easy - on a theoretical level: a large part of our society functioning depends not on the ability of the state to coerce individuals into following law (Foucault, Schulze, Tilly), but in individuals accepting social contracts that state they will not break said law. That means that even beyond direct morality (I will not punch someone in the face because it's wrong) there is also social contract, which means that even so-called victimless crimes are unacceptable the moment they hurt in large numbers - my walking over the grass in the park once is fine, if thousands of people do it the grass dies.

Same goes for piracy. The problem is not when on person who would never purchases it downloads the game, the problem is that by now a network exists and people have made such twists and abuses of morality to explain it all away. By pirating and pretending this breach of social contract is alright because it is victimless, you are supporting and endorsing the wide breach of social contract which does result in harmful behaviour.

Of course, the big footnote is: does it? Does it result in harmful behaviour? Depends on how you look at it. Economically, we don't know. In a social and moral sense, yet it does, because there simply are individuals who become so lazy and spoiled from pirating that they no longer purchase even though they would. They exist, hence the network is wrong.

There is no denying this behaviour set up a model in which people can actually claim some kind of inherent *right* to use products they can't afford. That claim is very harmful to the very basics of our society. In a wider sense.

Go service based. Look at Blizzard.

Or Valve.

VD you perfectly know that Arcanum didn't sell and resulted in game-returns because it was too buggy. Fallout also was pirated like there was no tomorrow. yet it succeeded.

Eh? Fallout did not sell more than Arcanum. 'course, different times.

can't they just not buy their yacht this month and pay their "lower" devs instead?

Is there any industry that does that?

as I've wrote - EA pays $2 bln for Take Two. yet EA are the ones that cry about the piracy the most right now. if piracy hurts that much - where did they take that money?

Consoles?

The pirate is doing his moral obligation

I wish there were more anthropologists looking at the gaming industry. They'd have a field day with the way herd mentality serves as a crux and actually allows individuals to convince themselves of their own morality.

Incredible.

What does the pirate gain when he seeds a torrent for months after they got the loot and played the game? Nothing, at all.

Uh, actually, he - like anyone else - is aware that the system of theft only works as long as everyone supports it. Communal responsibility rather than individual. In other words, he knows that his action help facilitate his own theft indirectly, by making the system more supportable and thus more wide-spread.

In other words: personal gain.

That what you are allowed to is defined by your wealth and not by your condition as a human being. This is a violation of the second postulate, since it gives a higher importance to Wealth than to Humanity - Humanity, as a whole, not being an end in itself.

Holly hells. Do you think Kant was a communist? Where could the second postulate possible indicate - and this is the key bit - that humans have the right to own everything they desire? Because that's what your interpretation indicates, but it certainly isn't what Kant said.

You're sligning mud at one of my favourite philosophers. I don't like it.

It's also hilarious...I get from your posts that you're opposed to materialism, yes? Yet this interpretation comes down to defining human happiness through material goods - games or otherwise.

If stores were somehow able to make unlimited copies of any item, at no cost, yeah, that would be pretty much true.

This is fairly interesting in how it goes against EVERY FORM OF ECONOMIC THEORY EVER INVENTED EVER.

Lumpy, I'm not sure if you ever read any book or economics or know anything about it, but I'm going to talk down to you now in a condescending matter because I assume you haven't. I apologize for that in advance.

You see, dear Lumpy, there already exist products that have unlimited consumption: streetlights. Pavements. Highways (non-toll-based). Bridges. Canals.

There is no way to limit the consumption of these products and there's no need to because the existence of these products implies unlimited consumption. But there's a catch: they do not produce themselves.

"Oh noez", thought late-19th century Londoners. "Whatever shall we do - beyond the obvious stereotypical tea-drinking?" Thankfully, social networks and contracts had already advanced that an institution existed that could support such broad needs (in the Tilly sense, not the evil Foucault sense): states.

Funny thing: the very reason states provide such "public services" is not primarily based on the needs of people: after all states do not provide food and shelter (except to the neediest) for free, but they are more basic needs. The reason is less de Swaan-ish, namely that there is no one else who will, simply because these goods can not be sold, because there is no way to limit consumption.

Sounds familiar? The product is free to everyone, I can not arbitrarily bar anyone from consuming this product called streetlight, it is free to everyone and for that reason can not be profitable to anyone, instead being produced unprofitable by everyone via the state.

Can you see the problem yet?

The basic rule of any freely consumable good in our society is that it must either be freely produced (air) or produced by an institution willing to produce without profit (state and non-profit NGOs like charity).

Tic-toc tic-toc tic-toc. Bumped into it yet? You assume that despite your insistence that this product has to be spread freely on some arbitrary notion on the fact that it is digital rather than material...that despite that, there will still be someone willing to produce this good.

Here's the big ol' surprise for you: no there won't.

 

[MetalCraze]

Succeeded in what? Fallout was an Interplay sleeper-hit that nobody really cared about (in the company). As such very little was riding on it.

it also was so successful that Interplay quickly decided they wanted a sequel - and it was released just a year after. and it was heavily pirated. very heavily. but despite this piracy didn't ruin Fallout like modern devs like to whine about their mediocre games.

As for Arcanum, it wasn't that buggy and I don't recall any massive game-returns. What I do remember is Sierra sitting on it for 6 months and fans petitions pointing out the widespread piracy and begging Sierra to release the game. See Leon's quote for more details.

not massive but there were. also - so was it a piracy fault? more like Sierra stupidity. you need to count piracy as not something bad or good (because nobody will ever stop piracy) but as a simple marketing factor - Sierra made a mistake. Troika payed for the stupidity of the publisher.

Judging by this thread majority of people can't stand paying for game because it's like uncool or something.

VD you miss a lot of points in this thread. it was originally started to discuss the sense of DRM if it only hurts customers while pirates remain untouched by it, playing the game while legitimate customers don't. and what Bioware is going to do now. but then Gaider and fanboys came and simply shifted it to "well if you will use this as an excuse to pirate you're bad bla bla bla". and another shitstorm started.

Well, that's not how it works, unfortunately. We can all agree that the publishing model is retarded and that publishers are evil bastards, but that's not what we are discussing now, is it?

yes. but that's big guys who don't pay money to lesser guys, not pirates. as I seriously doubt that all pirated copies are lost money as greedy guys make us to believe.

And? What does that have to do with justifying piracy?

who is justifying a piracy? I wasn't protecting it or something. I was criticising modern devs and publishers for using it as a cover for every of their failures including forcing spyware on their customers and treating them like shit. my point was that "piracy hurts me" is a bullshit - because EA's $2 bln for Take Two and Bioware's 2 dev studios with 4 games in development simultaneously tell me that it does not. hey 10 years ago Bioware barely could make a single game considering that piracy wasn't such a huge problem like it is now like they want us to believe. so I think Bioware is just a bunch of greedy hypocrites.
now add EA's "we're most pleased with Crisis sales" and 4 months later "no we're not. piracy! that's why we will now force CryTek to make games for consoles as well so it will bring us MOAR money yay!". again large amounts of hypocrisy detected.

 

[aron searle]

Both already paid by bettering humanity in their particular ways, by cultivating their talents for all to enjoy.

Does that put food on the table.

No.

Stop with all the philosophical crap, and try to remember reality.

While there is something wrong, in my eyes, by asking someone to pay for a game a prohibitive price and then say "then no game for you, sucker" - just ask more of who can permit more and less from who can permit less, be flexible.

Fucking hippy, stop taking drugs, because its making you stupid.

What are you suggesting, that game stores should introduce means testing to determine the RRP for individual customers.

Or that "god forbid" people should just wait until the game comes down in price.

And yes, games are not "Food" or "Air" or "Water". But denying people some fun and, leaving the specifics for other time, cultural products because they were less lucky in the "Capitalist" game is just messed up from a moral perspective.

.

Communism makes slaves of the most creative and hard working people.

 

[FeelTheRads]

If Arcanum wasn't pirated like there is no tomorrow, it would have sold much, much better and Troika's fate would have been different. Arcanum was their flagship title, a foundation of the company. They were dead (at the complete mercy of publishers) the moment the flagship went down.

Man, I generally respect you (not because you're a developer, I don't give a shit about that and it wouldn't have put you above me even if I wasn't a developer myself - although I'm more in the graphics department, but let's not digress) for your sense of humor and for your point of views, but sometime you're so full of shit it scares me.
Do you actually believe that piracy hurt Arcanum? Jesus man, piracy is almost like a mirror of how games and other digital products do in terms of sales. Just look at a torrent site.. what do you think it has more downloads, Arcanum or Oblivion?
It's not piracy's fault Arcanum did not sell better (although as far as I know it sold pretty well considering its target audience), it's the lack of hype, it's the lack of reviews to gush over soil erosion and Pixel Shader 3. "Classic RPG" just can't compete with those, especially when Arcanum gets low scores for reasons like "it has a lot of bugs" and "you can't export the single-player character to multi-player"(this still bugs me for being of such a monumental stupidity since you can actually export the character).
And let's take as another example Another War, a game I recently purchased from ebay. This is a game that's virtually impossible to find pirated and yet I doubt it was such a success. Who's fault is it then? Certainly you can't blame piracy.

 

[wjw]

Do you actually believe that piracy hurt Arcanum?

Stupidity has reached a new level. Congrats.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Do you actually believe that piracy hurt Arcanum?

Stupidity has reached a new level. Congrats.

Snore...

Please show me some statistics that prove Arcanum's sales were reduced by piracy. Or is this another "Piracy is bad and as such it must be piracy's fault" fallacy?

 

[Jasede]

Please prove god exists.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Don't dodge the question, but if you really want to play - and who's not getting payed for there work on fixing this DRM shit?

You don`t answer my question. Bioware made MS and you can buy theirs game or not. If you DL MS you steal it . Plain and simple without implicit implications.

You sad that "Mass Effect" as Skyway said is already broken so DRM is not matter here.
The point is that Bioware fucked some of there costumers in the ass thanks to the DRM and they were not the ones cleaning the mess up.

If you DL MS you steal it

No shit sailor.

And thanks to who we have Mass Effect for PC , my I ask?

If I'm not mistaken your question is retorical you prick.

 

[Brother None]

Snore...

Please show me some statistics that prove Arcanum's sales were reduced by piracy. Or is this another "Piracy is bad and as such it must be piracy's fault" fallacy?

Heh.

You would suspect that since pirates are the ones stealing and breaking the law, the burden of proof would be on them to prove it is excusable because it lacks economic impact. A thief telling a cop that the cop is the one who needs to prove his stealing hurts someone is just a joke.

That said, apropos of the topic, Valve had some great stuff to say on PC gaming and piracy.

"This meeting that we're having here really should be done by Intel or Microsoft, companies that are a lot more central to the PC ecosystem, rather than just hearing about our perspective on these issues."

This kicked off a two-hour presentation, in which a number of Valve employees made the case for the PC as a robust, innovative platform.
(...)
According to Gartner Group data, there are over 260 million online PC gamers, with 255 million new PCs being sold in 2007. Steam alone has 15 million connected gamers, with 1.25 million peak connected gamers, and 191% year-over-year growth; Valve was quick to point out that Steam represents just one of many online distribution systems.

"This is a market that dwarfs the size of any of the proprietary closed platforms," Newell said. He noted that the vast difference in scale between PC and console platforms means that PC continues to be the platform with the most capital investment, allowing it to drive the innovation and technology development that eventually trickles down to consoles.

Newell then cited DFC Intelligence data showing that, while worldwide retail PC game sales have been relatively flat since about 2001, PC online sales have continually grown - that segment has traditionally not been tracked by widely-cited firms like NPD. With Valve's own products, it expects online sales to surpass retail sales within the next three months.
(...)
He stressed the importance of recognizing the size of the global market, particularly since digital distribution removes traditional barriers associated with retail games, such as shipping-related concerns.

Certain established markets like Germany and the Nordic countries, as well as emerging markets such as China and Russia, are, as Newell puts it, "leapfrogging the console generation" and being largely driven by the PC. Certain markets that can be difficult to reach via retail means can be highly accessible through digital distribution.
(...)
Holtman then expanded on Valve's success in Russia, a market that has traditionally frightened publishers away because of its widespread piracy. "Rampant piracy is just unserved customers," he argued. "Using Steam and Steamworks, we were able to address that."

 

[The Dude]

Can someone give me an answer please?: I want to know why exactly someone pirating and playing a game instead of not buying it is worse than not buying it and never playing it at all.

You know...I can sort of answer this, but not too well. See, I'm not much of a deontological man myself, but I'm sure people who subscribe to that type of thinking would declare your sample action morally impermissible because of the intentions and circumstances around it and completely ignore the consequential aspects here. A consequential thinker wouldn't see any problem with this.

Anywho, I really should stay out of this thread, but maybe I can try a little gambit to stop all this back and forth bull, eh? Or maybe I'm getting a little carried away here.

First off, get rid of the morals here. Morals are such a weak argument in anything business. All that matters is the bottom line, efficiency, and surviving/thriving in the free market. Let's also make the leap that I'm sure a lot of people are making in their minds now that piracy is virtually unstoppable with the current business model that game developers have. Now there's a few things to go through.

First up, let's look at why DRM is just plain silly. You know those people who say it only harms legitimate users? They're partially right. Why's this? Because it doesn't hurt pirates much at all. If someone was dead set or even pretty sure on torrenting a game, no DRM is going to stop them from doing so. Why? Because DRM will be cracked, and the cracked code will be all over the internet in a very short period of time. How long was it for Mass Effect? Two days? And now everybody and their brother with an internet connection can pirate it. So that leaves the burden of DRM solely now on the people who bought it. Now these people who bought, I mean bought the right to play, Mass Effect face a little bit of a problem. They don't own the game they paid for. They can't do what they want with it. Now, this becomes quite the fishy scenario when you compare it tothe console version of Mass Effect. Similarly priced, similarly featured, except the console owner can do what he/she wants with their game. They want to lend it to 10 friends? It's their choice. They want to play through it and then use it as a gift for a friend? It's in the clear. They want to resell it? Booyah. The PC owner on the other hand can't do this because they don't own a copy of the game, only the right to use it.

If the previous doesn't send up a "What the hell" flag or two in your mind, you haven't been paying attention or you are a little too accepting of corporate bull. See, does it make sense to have a business try to operate on a product model, sell their stuff at a "product-price" (see console games and PC games comparison), but in the end not give the consumer an actual product that they own? That's kind of strange, no?

Now this leads into the idea that piracy isn't some heinous moral outrage that must be defeated with lawyers, legislation, and moral arguments with stupid false equivocation (hello "It's theft" arguments), but just a technological "Pandora's Box" that's opened up and dumped a new global effect onto the market for games. Fact is, companies now have to compete with a faceless entity that can, within a very short time, use today's technology and take a game, replicate and distribute it at least 10 times as efficiently as the company could, all the while asking for no price paid. Simply put, a force most game developers can not fight. The only way the developers can survive is by offering something the pirated version can't, but to do that, they can't utilize anything in the product model of business, because whatever they add, piracy can easily replicate. The developers have to adapt, they have to change their business model.

They have a few different options:

1. Go console. Consoles don't have a piracy problem due to limitations built within them, allowing the "blockbuster" model of high cost, high revenue to still function. Plus they are infinitely better suited to the product model of business in games.

2. Go smaller and go off a patronage model. You make the game, and sell it to people with the idea that if people like your work, they'll buy it so you can make more and fulfill their gaming needs. However, this will have to be generally smaller budget operations, as consumers will generally feel pretty apathetic about system like this with a faceless corporation. Probably the right size is one where you could easily chat with a developer via a message board or e-mail. Take a look at Vogel, VD, Wolf Mittag, and Naked Ninja. Those are pretty much what this business model would/should look like. It has consumers like us paying for games because we like the games/ideas developers have and want more of their work. It's like an investment in our "fun future"

3. Go service based. Look at Blizzard. All PC games, all the time, and they don't complain about piracy one lick or have it hurt them. Why? Because they changed their business model to a service based one. You pay a fee to use their online space whether it be a monthly fee in World of Warcraft, or a once-per-different-game fee for a Battle.net access code like with Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo (read: the CD-Key).

4. Go ad-based. Tons of "free-mmos" do this, and so will EA's Battlefield Heroes. A good, free online game is sure to have a lot of players, and with such a high playerbase, companies will likely pay decent money for ad spots.

See, there are alternatives. Companies just can't make "blockbuster" single-player focused PC games anymore. So what. Stop whining and start adapting you freaking panda bears. Instead of fighting an unwinnable battle with stupid moral fallacies that no one deep down gives a shit about, get your shit together, get off your Luddite asses, and go out and compete in the free market.

And everyone ignores the most constructive and least whiny and bileful post in this thread. WTG Codex. Ah well, carry on the pointless discussion you idiotic morons.

 

[wjw]

Please show me some statistics that prove Arcanum's sales were reduced by piracy. Or is this another "Piracy is bad and as such it must be piracy's fault" fallacy?

In case anyone forgot.

Heh....Saint Proverbius also asked me if I thought the sales (or lack thereof) on Arcanum, and to some extent Fallout, were affected by piracy. I would have to say definitely, especially in the case of Arcanum.

I think the worst day in the whole development cycle of Arcanum was when they told us they were holding the release because the translations weren't finished. And this was after months of pressuring us to make sure we'd ship on time or it would be "the end of the world". Oh, and they'd also already sent out the press copies. So it was a no brainer that it would be pirated, but no amount of screaming on my part could change Sierra's decision to hold it.

Such is the pain of game development, I suppose.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Heh....Saint Proverbius also asked me if I thought the sales (or lack thereof) on Arcanum, and to some extent Fallout, were affected by piracy. I would have to say definitely, especially in the case of Arcanum.

So.. umm.. this is all? And how are you sure this is not just counting every download as a lost customer? Because otherwise I can't see how anyone, including developers can say for certain that piracy had an impact on sales, but maybe I don't know enough, I'll give you that.

Hey, sure, if say Arcanum was downloaded 1 million times and those 1 million people would've bought it instead it would have been great for Troika...but unfortunately I don't think that's how it works.

You would suspect that since pirates are the ones stealing and breaking the law, the burden of proof would be on them to prove it is excusable because it lacks economic impact. A thief telling a cop that the cop is the one who needs to prove his stealing hurts someone is just a joke.

Fair enough. It's theft by law and motivating it in any way doesn't excuse it. And I completely agree that a developer has the right to complain if their game is played for free. But, speaking of hurting actual sales...law or not, don't you think it's impossible to prove either way if piracy is hurting or not?

 

[Brother None]

And everyone ignores the most constructive and least whiny and bileful post in this thread.

*Python-style* I didn't.

Fair enough. It's theft by law and motivating it in any way doesn't excuse it. And I completely agree that a developer has the right to complain if their game is played for free. But, speaking of hurting actual sales...law or not, don't you think it's impossible to prove either way if piracy is hurting or not?

You'd be surprised by what econometricians can prove. I wouldn't know how they'd do it, but if someone were willing to shell out the bucks to prove it either way they would do it. Problem is, no one is going to, because no one has any interest to do so. Pirates can self-justify and just pretend they don't need to prove it for their own particular morality (plus there's no organization within piracy that can afford it), publishers don't need it for their big boogyman piracy, since everyone swallows their excuses like candy anyway - and why shouldn't everyone? Theft is theft, and it's easy enough to see that the legitimate publishers are in the right by default.

But without proof, if you ask me, I'd say that yes, piracy hurts PC gaming sales. It just seems counter-intuitive that wide-spread theft doesn't hurt an industry in one way or another.

But at the same time, I also believe this policy of invasive and game-breaking DRM hurts the PC gaming sales, and is one of the reasons people turn to consoles and abandon PC gaming wholesale. A kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for publishers who claim PC gaming is dying.

Y'know, piracy isn't going away, and while I wish to Frith pirates would shut up about their herd mentality-driven broken form of morality, I think it's more important that the ones that can take action - the publishers - would spend their time and resources on more productive ways of stimulating sales than invasive DRMs. Like Valve is doing, as opposed to the assraping EA BioWare is giving its costumers. Since we're talking about stealing here, it's a job for the government to fight it - not for the publishers - and I'd rather see the governments expand their piracy law to block piracy and imprison pirates.

 

[bezimek]

You sad that "Mass Effect" as Skyway said is already broken so DRM is not matter here.
The point is that Bioware fucked some of there costumers in the ass thanks to the DRM and they were not the ones cleaning the mess up.

As I said before:

- If DRM is problem for you buy orignal game and use mod exe
- If game with DRM is problem for you don`t steal this game and use money to buy some other game to show for instance Bioware to make games without DRM

Bioware before MS premiere told us about DRM so you or I as customers knew about it and could choose to buy game or not.

Edit: If you go to Bio Forum you will see that most problem ( maybe now - all) with DRM is solved

No shit sailor.

No shit at all And remember "stealing is sin", too

If I'm not mistaken your question is retorical you prick.

Yep If I made game I can put on it whatever DRM I want and you as customer can buy it or not.

 

[Lingwe]

The pirate is doing his moral obligation, making something that many people can't allow themselves to own available to them without asking nothing in exchange and by means of perfecting a craft in a way that benefit many.

I never realised how pirates were actually performing such a community service. Can you believe that some people are actually against the pirates from performing such benevolent activities? Disgusting.

 

[wjw]

Since you wanted some statistics:

[Just how rampant is piracy in PC casual gaming? In a startling instalment of his regular Gamasutra column, Reflexive's director of marketing Russell Carroll (Wik, Ricochet) reveals the 92% piracy rate for one of his company's games, and what worked (and didn't work) when they tried to fix it.]

“It looks like around 92% of the people playing the full version of Ricochet Infinity pirated it.” It’s moments like those that make people in the industry stop dead in their tracks. 92% is a huge number and though we were only measuring people who had gotten the game from Reflexive and gone online with it, it seemed improbable that those who acquired the game elsewhere or didn’t go online were any more likely to have purchased it. As we sat and pondered the financial implications of such piracy, it was hard to get past the magnitude of the number itself: 92%.

Fixing The Holes - The Results

Below are the results of Reflexive.com sales and downloads immediately following each update:

Fix 1 – Existing Exploits & Keygens made obsolete – Sales up 70%, Downloads down 33%

Fix 2 – Existing Keygens made obsolete – Sales down slightly, Downloads flat

Fix 3 – Existing Cracks made obsolete – Sales flat, Downloads flat

Fix 4 – Keygens made game-specific – Sales up 13%, Downloads down 16% (note: fix made after the release of Ricochet Infinity)

From the results above, it seems clear that eliminating piracy through a stronger DRM can result in significantly increased sales – but sometimes it can have no benefit at all. So what does that mean for the question about whether a pirated copy means a lost sale? The decreases in downloads may provide a clue to that

As we believe that we are decreasing the number of pirates downloading the game with our DRM fixes, combining the increased sales number together with the decreased downloads, we find 1 additional sale for every 1,000 less pirated downloads. Put another way, for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.

 

[Lumpy]

If stores were somehow able to make unlimited copies of any item, at no cost, yeah, that would be pretty much true.

This is fairly interesting in how it goes against EVERY FORM OF ECONOMIC THEORY EVER INVENTED EVER.

Lumpy, I'm not sure if you ever read any book or economics or know anything about it, but I'm going to talk down to you now in a condescending matter because I assume you haven't. I apologize for that in advance.

You see, dear Lumpy, there already exist products that have unlimited consumption: streetlights. Pavements. Highways (non-toll-based). Bridges. Canals.

There is no way to limit the consumption of these products and there's no need to because the existence of these products implies unlimited consumption. But there's a catch: they do not produce themselves.

"Oh noez", thought late-19th century Londoners. "Whatever shall we do - beyond the obvious stereotypical tea-drinking?" Thankfully, social networks and contracts had already advanced that an institution existed that could support such broad needs (in the Tilly sense, not the evil Foucault sense): states.

Funny thing: the very reason states provide such "public services" is not primarily based on the needs of people: after all states do not provide food and shelter (except to the neediest) for free, but they are more basic needs. The reason is less de Swaan-ish, namely that there is no one else who will, simply because these goods can not be sold, because there is no way to limit consumption.

Sounds familiar? The product is free to everyone, I can not arbitrarily bar anyone from consuming this product called streetlight, it is free to everyone and for that reason can not be profitable to anyone, instead being produced unprofitable by everyone via the state.

Can you see the problem yet?

The basic rule of any freely consumable good in our society is that it must either be freely produced (air) or produced by an institution willing to produce without profit (state and non-profit NGOs like charity).

Tic-toc tic-toc tic-toc. Bumped into it yet? You assume that despite your insistence that this product has to be spread freely on some arbitrary notion on the fact that it is digital rather than material...that despite that, there will still be someone willing to produce this good.

Here's the big ol' surprise for you: no there won't.

Can't say I disagree with anything you said, but I don't believe that's a refutation to my point. I've never said games should be free, nor did I advocate piracy as a moral fight for justice.
States don't make public facilities for free. They ask you to pay taxes, and they have methods of ensuring you can't avoid that. If paying taxes was, like paying for games, music and films, optional, would people still pay them?
When a payment is not enforced, it becomes the equivalent of a donation. At that point, an appeal to morality isn't the best way of insuring people give you money. Rather, developers should try to assure people that the money will be put to good use.
I'm pretty sure most codexers, including the more piratey ones, will buy AoD. That's because they know their money will likely be used for making more games like that. On the other hand, you can't be sure whether the money you spent on NWN2 will be used for creating a more hardcore, classic RPG, or some consolized ARPG trash.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Do you actually believe that piracy hurt Arcanum?

Yes, I actually do. The game was all over the net for 6 months before the release. Anyone who was even remotely interested in the game had plenty of time to download it. What do *you* think? Or do you naively believe that everyone who liked the game actually went and bought a copy or two? Also, see the Leon's quote.

it also was so successful that Interplay quickly decided they wanted a sequel - and it was released just a year after.

They also did a sequel to IWD. That was Feargus' slamdunk philosophy - quick sequels using the existing engine and art assets. However, if you paid attention it took them a very long time to start working on FO3, which, had the first two games sold that well, should have been the first priority.

... and it was heavily pirated. very heavily.

Doubtful. Maybe it was heavily pirated in Eastern Europe, but that's a different matter since these guys don't really influence sales.

not massive but there were. also - so was it a piracy fault? more like Sierra stupidity.

Sure, BUT had the game not been pirated for 6 months, there would have been no damage other than the unfortunate delay.

VD you miss a lot of points in this thread. it was originally started to discuss the sense of DRM if it only hurts customers while pirates remain untouched by it, playing the game while legitimate customers don't. and what Bioware is going to do now. but then Gaider and fanboys came and simply shifted it to "well if you will use this as an excuse to pirate you're bad bla bla bla". and another shitstorm started.

Uh, no. First, I didn't miss any points, but they are not relevant to the discussion. Second, here is the chronology of the events:

- celebration about cracking of ME DRM
- followed by claims that Bio is greedy
- followed by Gaider's post saying "we are not greedy, come on, you guys"
- followed by Futile's Pirate Manifesto
- followed by a huge pirate "new and creative ways to justify theft" conference and some feces throwing

Well, that's not how it works, unfortunately. We can all agree that the publishing model is retarded and that publishers are evil bastards, but that's not what we are discussing now, is it?

yes. but that's big guys who don't pay money to lesser guys, not pirates. as I seriously doubt that all pirated copies are lost money as greedy guys make us to believe.

*sigh* It's the system. If you can't change it, then try to understand it.

who is justifying a piracy?

A whole lot of people in this thread, including you.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Oh and VDweller, don't tell me it's piracy that hurts developers. You know it isn't, don't give us the "I'm a developer now, feel sorry for me" speech, mmmkay?

Are you fucking retarded? When have I ever given this speech and even argued from a developer point of view?

 

[Lumpy]

OMG. Piracy hurts games. That's pretty much a fact.
But that doesn't mean that everyone who partook in the piracy of Arcanum hurt the game. What about the people who downloaded it and then bought it?

 

[Vault Dweller]

If they were stealing bread and giving it to the poor, I'd understand your point. We are, however, talking about an entertainment product, which, in most cases, requires a very expensive hardware setup. You aren't trying to tell me that some poor guy with his old 486 and a dial-up connection will be downloading Gothic 3 or Mass Effect, are you?

Just becouse somebody can spend 500$ every 4-5 years on hardware it does not mean that he also has extra $ to buy every games that he wants to play. Big part of gamers are also kids that play on family PC. Lowering the game prices = more copies sold - fact.

Really? Wow. Let me try this argument too! Lowering car prices - more cars sold - fact! Lowering houses prices - more houses sold - fact! Hmm, let me take it one step further... Making games free - a gazillion games distributed - fact! Wow. How could I have been so blind before...

But that doesn't mean that everyone who partook in the piracy of Arcanum hurt the game. What about the people who downloaded it and then bought it?

These 5 guys are true patriots.

 

[Brother None]

States don't make public facilities for free. They ask you to pay taxes, and they have methods of ensuring you can't avoid that. If paying taxes was, like paying for games, music and films, optional, would people still pay them?
When a payment is not enforced, it becomes the equivalent of a donation. At that point, an appeal to morality isn't the best way of insuring people give you money. Rather, developers should try to assure people that the money will be put to good use.

"I only pirate because the games are crap" is a shit argument for two reasons:

1. If you don't like what the industry produces, why are you consuming it?

2. Your implicit implication is that if the industry were "better", a lot of pirates would drop their evil ways. That's simply not true. There's a market for better industry to be sure, exploited by indies and the likes of Stardock, but you can simply see that niche is not big enough for AAA publishers to take seriously - none of them sell enough for that.

No, most people pirate games because they want to play them. That means that without the option for piracy they would buy them. Do you honestly believe these people would be swayed by BioWare promising to make more hardcore RPGs? I mean, you might, but you really, really are not the target audience for EA Edmonton.

 

[Binary]

Oh and VDweller, don't tell me it's piracy that hurts developers. You know it isn't, don't give us the "I'm a developer now, feel sorry for me" speech, mmmkay?

Are you fucking retarded? When have I ever given this speech and even argued from a developer point of view?

Can't be arsed to quote you from other pages, but it's interesting to see you portraying the immature behaviour of other codexers. I expected better from you.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

As I said before:

- If DRM is problem for you buy orignal game and use crack (ninja fix)
- If game with DRM is problem for you don`t steal this game and use money to buy some other game to show for instance Bioware to make games without DRM

And where the fuck did I write that I'm gonna/have download this game? Please don't be like Volly and stop shinning on your moral pedestal.

Bioware before MS premiere told us about DRM so you or I as customers knew about it and could choose to buy game or not.

...and of course they mentiond that a lot of people will have problems with the DRM.

Edit: If you go to Bio Forum you will see that most problem (maybe now - all) with DRM is solved

You know what they say about ASSuming. BTW, you must be there often to know that...

No shit at all And remember "stealing is sin", too

Fuck you Mr. Innocent :wink:

Yep If I made game I can put on it whatever DRM I want and you as customer can buy it or not.

To make this clear to you, I will not buy it nor will I torrent it. There is also the possibilty that I may borrow it from a friend... no wait, that is also pirating, oh no.

Why am I then discussing all this - a fanboy would ask? Because I don't like when a company is screwing it's custumers ( happend to me once - it wasn't pleasant ).