Great job, Bioware!

[Fez]

No it's theft.

Copyright infringement would be if I were to release a space themed action-rpg called "Mass : The Effect"

Wrong.

 

[MetalCraze]

Clueless much?

in that case where is my annual IWD or PS:T? why would BIS make Fallout3 right away? they already got two games in the series. instead BIS went for PS:T next year. something completely new. and then for IWD. now a project like PS:T wouldn't be possible if BIS didn't get enough money from Fallout 2 don't you think?

When most people were still on dial-ups?

oh not again. even in our "backwater commie shithole" we could find a way to get a copy of the game. also did many people have unlimited fast internet in 2001 when Arcanum appeared? I doubt it.

Sure. And it's a simple fact that piracy brought Arcanum sales down to the point of Troika losing even a chance to make another Arcanum game.

yes sure. that's why Sierra waited for 6 months looking at how Arcanum is pirated and doing nothing. but we're going in circles here.

Is David a spokesperson for Bioware? No. He's a writer/designer. The question was a setup. I'm all in favor of hard questions but they should be directed to the right parties.

David is not a small man in Bioware. ok he can't answer what they will do with DRM but he could ask his boss. has he no contact with his boss? he's the only Bio guy on this forums and people pretty much associate him with whole Bioware - I can't say that's wrong. another question was what's his personal stance on DRM - does he think that it is a bad or good thing?
another funny thing will be is that Bioware will blame piracy for poor sales of ME on PC. when the reason will be people not wanting to pay money for currently "empty" dvd. mark my words.

Oh, now the system must mind your delicate sensibilities lest they push you over the edge and you start pirating games angrily?

where did I say that? I just said that system is trying too hard to look innocent and constantly oppressed by pirates. while flying in private jets. and making shit copy-pasta games every year.

If you lose a book you like, will you go and steal another one because you've already paid for this book once?

here we go again. book is physical. if I will take it - somebody won't have it. if I will download the game I once paid for - nobody will lose anything. plus Valve even has this on steam. you can download a game you've paid for countless times.

As for your question, who cares? You use one non-representative example and expect it to prove something? It's like saying "I was bleeding and was about to pass out, so I ran into a pharmacy and grabbed some medicine without paying. Thank god for theft!"

no - it's just an example of how you can't see things in black and white extremes. sure piracy has more negativity in it but it doesn't mean it's a totally evil thing.

 

[Brother None]

No it's theft.

Copyright infringement would be if I were to release a space themed action-rpg called "Mass : The Effect"

Wrong.

Wrong about what? Releasing a game entitled Mass Effect (or Mass: The Effect) would be copyright infringement

I was wondering about numbers for Blizzard games, aggregated figures don't really shed much light on that. Got anything more specific?

For Blizzard? Not really. SC sold 9.5 million copies, Diablo I + II combined for 6.5 million, WarCraft II + III combined for 5 million copies. So numerically, other products > WoW, but WoW is their best-selling product ever, and really dwarves these others in revenues (no exact figures there, but it's pretty clear (up to) 10 million subscribers > 20 million sales)

in that case where is my annual IWD or PS:T? why would BIS make Fallout3 right away? they already got two games in the series. instead BIS went for PS:T next year. something completely new. and then for IWD.

PS:T and Fallout 2 were developed simultaneously.

Also, as I tried explaining to you:
Actually, I feel you don't really understand BIS. BIS, under Feargus' flag, made mostly sequels and derative products...and PS:T.

PS:T being the big exception (and even that is derative), most of it had to confirm to a "guaranteed sales" status first. This is what makes Feargus such a good manager - which is one of the reasons why Obsidian is doing better than Troika.

 

[Fez]

Wrong about what? Releasing a game entitled Mass Effect (or Mass: The Effect) would be copyright infringement

You should read the context of that. I was commenting on him saying it was not copyright infringement.

EDIT: I'll just add to the chorus that I really don't like the DRM that is being used on Bioware and other developer's games. It does make life more difficult for me as a buyer and player of these games (hence reducing my enjoyment of them) and it doesn't seem to have any real success against those that refuse to pay for it no matter what. I'll still pay for it for it as I like having the real package and supporting the developers that entertained me, but I don't understand why the relationship between consumer and producer needs to be so sour in this case. It would be nice to see some developers speak out against the terrible DRM, rather than distance themselves from it or end up apologizing on behalf of the publishers who put it in.

Also: Why did piracy not destroy the music industry or the movie industry despite all the claims of doom and gloom about tapes, then CDs, DVDs and the internet?

 

[MetalCraze]

PS:T and Fallout 2 were developed simultaneously.

Also, as I tried explaining to you:
Actually, I feel you don't really understand BIS. BIS, under Feargus' flag, made mostly sequels and derative products...and PS:T.

PS:T being the big exception (and even that is derative), most of it had to confirm to a "guaranteed sales" status first. This is what makes Feargus such a good manager - which is one of the reasons why Obsidian is doing better than Troika.

BN I got your idea. but I don't think that money from FO1 didn't help both FO2 and PS:T - and when FO2 was released - it's money didn't help PS:T development. you don't develop games of such a scale if your previous titles worked poorly on the market.

 

[Bossman]

Debating on whether piracy is moral or not won’t ever lead to a conclusive result. Piracy will always be there, no matter how draconian the protection systems will be. Why? Because there will always be people out there with the skills necessary to hack the shit out of the most advanced piracy preventing systems, even though it might take them a year to do it (see StarForce). But it will still be beaten. Just because the system is there and it’s shouting “Hack me if you can, bitch!”.

But as some of the other posters have already pointed out, the actual big issue is this: “Is it worth alienating the established base of potential customers just so you (might) get a few extra copies sold “thanks” to the protection scheme?”. Because that's what most of the publishers simply fail to understand (Blizzard and Stardock did, however, and look at how they're doing): that if you treat potential customers as customers they will buy your game (considering it's worth a damn, mind you) and love you for it. The second you go the "Here be pirates" approach, most of them will turn to piracy to avoid your "necessary" inconveniences. The only problem is that few studios can actually explain this to their publisher or actually enforce it.

Let’s take Mass Effect. The game was a huge success on the 360, got rave reviews and so forth. Did Electronic Arts or BioWare really believe that the PC version won’t sell on the PC and turn a profit? That it will be such a big flop that it absolutely needed that dreadful protection scheme to “save” the sales?

See, a major upside for piracy, from my point of view, is that in 90% of the cases, pirating a game won’t rob you of any experience that would have made the game even better. Here’s what I mean. Starcraft, a game that sold millions of copies and was pirated like fuck. And it still is, true. BUT, it had the support of Battle.net behind it. You want to pirate the game? Here ya go sunshine, have fun, play it in single-player, Direct-IP or LAN. We’ll even throw in a “Spawn” install option so you can easily share it with your buddies. What’s that you say? You want to play online, be a part of a huge community, get to see your name in leader boards and participate in tournaments? Well then move your ass to the nearest store and buy it.

Wouldn’t it have been better if Mass Effect had no disc copy protection and just go for the 1-2-3 approach? As in, buy the game, install, play? You want the downloadable content? Sure, make an account on the BioWare forums, register your copy with the key you got from the retail box, login and download away. Here, we’ll even throw in some special concept arts, maybe some videos from the 360 Collector’s Edition for you to see and so on.

Instead, what do we have? We have fans who actually bought the game, but can't play it because of the protection system, and those who pirated the game and play it hassle free (although I understand the Galaxy Map isn't working in the cracked version). No Securom, no Online check, nada. So then, what can a paying customer say to a pirate who goes "R00fles, why the heck did you buy the game if you can't even play the damn thing, eh?"

Bottom line: wouldn’t it have been easier for EA and BioWare to tell the fans all the cool things they do get for buying the game, instead of explaining them why it’s in their "best interest" to be treated like the scum of the Earth?

 

[Brother None]

BN I got your idea. but I don't think that money from FO1 didn't help both FO2 and PS:T - and when FO2 was released - it's money didn't help PS:T development. you don't develop games of such a scale if your previous titles worked poorly on the market.

Frith I hate double negatives.

Anyway, I think we're talking past one another here. Fallout 1 and 2 were both moderate successes: Fallout 1 did well enough for a B-list product (and it was considered B-list, internally), Fallout 2 did well enough for a quickly punched out sequel.

But here's the thing: for bottom-line-ists like Feargus Urquhart, with the choice of which guaranteed slam dunk to go for: AD&D titles or Fallout...well, it was a non-choice. Fallout did ok, but don't oversell it. It never equalled a lot of other RPG IPs, most noticeably - for BIS - the D&D license.

If Fallout were a *big success* it might have competed with AD&D and amongst all the derivative AD&D products and they could have punched out another sequel. Other than the doomed Van Buren, that was never a serious option, and that says it all when the value of this IP is concerned.

Why did piracy not destroy the music industry or the movie industry despite all the claims of doom and gloom about tapes, then CDs, DVDs and the internet?

Actually, the claim wasn't really that the music/film industry were doomed, but the derivative CD/DVD industry. Music and film both have a lot of alternatives for revenue (shows and film theatres).

I worked for the biggest music store chain in the Netherlands when piracy became a real problem and the entire chain nearly went bankrupt. The hype of DVD saved it (yes, I'm talking that many years ago and no, I'm not overstating it when I say the chain nearly went bankrupt - the crisis in CD sales nearly killed a 200-store chain), and they've been slowly pushing away shelf space of CDs in favour of DVDs. The CD industry is pretty much dying. The DVD industry is still in healthy stages, but will be hit by the same problem inevitably - the industry knows this, hence their trying to push in and hype new formats, trying to postpone the inevitable.

However, CD and DVDs are just carriers of products, and the music and film industry has - perhaps ironically - been at least as progressive if not more progressive in the opportunities offered by digital download than the game industry has been. In Rainbows probably being the biggest example of daring experimentation with DD that the game industry isn't willing to touch with a 10' pole.

 

[Xi]

I think that you are a smart guy, Sage, so I assume that you can't be a fucking moron. Thus, I think that you are a deluded guy who read some Kant's bullshit, liked it, and is now using it as his own personal Bible that has answers to all questions.

In defense of ethical philosophy he has simply interpreted it wrong. The wiki quote you provided clearly shows this. His method is a devolution of the system, and sense the system is the entire reason to participate and follow such guidelines, his methodology must be wrong. He's adding in his communist perspective and trying to show how all goods must be equally distributed. This is far from the Kantian point of view because it requires that the communist state creates a product to be consumed for free, and then as an upstanding citizen, you would help to distribute such goods as a patronage to the mother land. Anyway, maybe he's not from a communist country, but it really wreaks of it.

I think he also fails to see that if the intent of the product wasn't to create profit from private investment, it wouldn't be piracy to download said software because the intent would have made doing so permissible. After all, you can download all the shareware/freeware you want and it's not considered piracy. Again, he's arguing that we apply the standards of a communist country in a capitalistic one, and failing to see how that would cause harm. It's hardly a Kantian perspective when applied in such a way.

 

[Brother None]

In defense of ethical philosophy he has simply interpreted it wrong.

+1. Kant isn't flawless, but he's not nearly as stupid as the rambling sage is making him look.

 

[Fez]

[Actually, the claim wasn't really that the music/film industry were doomed, but the derivative CD/DVD industry. Music and film both have a lot of alternatives for revenue (shows and film theatres).

I worked for the biggest music store chain in the Netherlands when piracy became a real problem and the entire chain nearly went bankrupt. The hype of DVD saved it, and they've been slowly pushing away shelf space of CDs in favour of DVDs. The CD industry is pretty much dying. The DVD industry is still in healthy stages, but will be hit by the same problem inevitably - the industry knows this, hence their trying to push in and hype new formats, trying to postpone the inevitable.

However, CD and DVDs are just carriers of products, and the music and film industry has - perhaps ironically - been at least as progressive if not more progressive in the opportunities offered by digital download than the game industry has been. In Rainbows probably being the biggest example of daring experimentation with DD that the game industry isn't willing to touch with a 10' pole.

Ineresting, thanks.

 

[Xi]

In defense of ethical philosophy he has simply interpreted it wrong.

+1. Kant isn't flawless, but he's not nearly as stupid as the rambling sage is making him look.

Exactly, even science does not revolve around absolutes, so why do we expect ethical philosophers to be without error? That's aside from the point because it is the goal to perfect the concept of morality to such people, not to lack humility during the search for such things. ;P

Also, what's with the piracy double standard in this thread?

Causing harm to customers - bad. Check
Causing harm to publishers/developers - not bad. Check

 

[The Dude]

Bentham and JS Mill with a pinch of Kant mixed in = Teh win.

 

[Lumpy]

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.

My implicit implication is that, if a person thinks "I really like what they did with this game. I wish they made more games like this", he is much more likely to buy a game after piracy than if he thought "This game is okay. I don't give a fuck whether they make more of this though".

 

[Vault Dweller]

Clueless much?

in that case where is my annual IWD or PS:T? why would BIS make Fallout3 right away? they already got two games in the series. instead BIS went for PS:T next year. something completely new. and then for IWD. now a project like PS:T wouldn't be possible if BIS didn't get enough money from Fallout 2 don't you think?

Still clueless. Go read something on the subject if you want to argue about it. Here is a starter for you:

Feargus: Fallout 3 not Starting : This is sort of long, so you'll need to bear with me. We actually did begin in early 1999, a couple months right after we shipped Fallout 2. Things were not coming together very quickly, which we were working on to figure out why. At the same time, I was very concerned about not being able to ship a title in 2000, because of what was happening across the rest of Interplay. Interplay seemed to be having a lot of problem deciding products to ship that would actually make money, and I didn't want to have to lay off anyone else (we had gone through a lay off in late 1998).

So, I thought about using the Infinity Engine to make a dungeon crawl game that was initially called Dungeon Crawler, then Dragonspine (I think), and then finally Icewind Dale when the team thought that the snowy look would help differentiate the game even further from Baldur's Gate. So in essence, the Fallout 3 team became the Icewind Dale team.
...
We couldn't really focus on launching another title right then, because of the time crunch and because of the resources in the division. ... So, I decided for us for most of the Icewind Dale team to go onto Heart of Winter...
...
So, everyone in the division was working on titles until about March of 2001, which was when Heart of Winter shipped. During that time, we had also cancelled Stonekeep 2 for a number of reasons... All of that and the feedback we received about Heart of Winter being too short led to our decision to develop Trials of the Luremaster.

So that I could retain as much of Black Isle as I could, I had to come up with a project that could be finished relatively quickly and was a slam dunk with very little to no risk of it getting done on time. That project is the Monroe project (IWD2) which we are announcing within the week. "

oh not again. even in our "backwater commie shithole" we could find a way to get a copy of the game.

In your "backwater commie shithole" pirated copies are sold on the streets, which is a very different situation, requiring very few high speed connections.

also did many people have unlimited fast internet in 2001 when Arcanum appeared? I doubt it.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-History-o ... &id=113855

"High speed internet access became an extremely rapidly developing market in many regions in 2000."

Sure. And it's a simple fact that piracy brought Arcanum sales down to the point of Troika losing even a chance to make another Arcanum game.

yes sure. that's why Sierra waited for 6 months looking at how Arcanum is pirated and doing nothing. but we're going in circles here.

Sierra was ran by idiots at that time. They came up with that 6 months delay idea and even after being told and pointed at the piracy they didn't want to admit that they were wrong. They could have and should have released the game instantly at that point, but they decided to stick with the plan. No different from EA fucking up ME launch with the DRM thingy or Atari sitting on Mysteries of Westgate for 6 months for the same reason.

David is not a small man in Bioware.

Your understanding of corporate ways is very flawed.

no - it's just an example of how you can't see things in black and white extremes. sure piracy has more negativity in it but it doesn't mean it's a totally evil thing.

It's theft. Is it evil? Depends on your set of moral values, but service to the community it is not.

 

[Xi]

My implicit implication is that, if a person thinks "I really like what they did with this game. I wish they made more games like this", he is much more likely to buy a game after piracy than if he thought "This game is okay. I don't give a fuck whether they make more of this though".

Your method increases risk for the publisher/investor(higher than it already is to invest 10 Million on a game), and you expect more innovation and better games out of a system that involves higher risk? That's just fucking stupid.

I guess it boils down to 10 games are made each year, and 1 of them is good, vs 100 games made a year and 10 of them are good. Which sounds better?

 

[Longshanks]

Also, what's with the piracy double standard in this thread?

Causing harm to customers - bad. Check
Causing harm to publishers/developers - not bad. Check

Actually, the majority claim seems to be that certain forms of IP infringement do no harm to developers, or anyone else.

 

[Ander Vinz]

I don't want to argue about the whole "pirates vs. greedy publishers" theme but let me cite a specific example:

I've already torrented Mass Effect and after running through the first mission realized that in fact, this game is not for me. Not that I dislike ARPGs that much but it just doesn't appeal to me at the moment. I'd rather read a book or find a brainier game.
The question is, should have I bought the game and thrown away my money or am I a resourceful buyer who outwitted cheating publisher?

Personally I think that as a customer I have undoubtful right to try most goods before buying them. Or am I wrong?

 

[Vault Dweller]

In defense of ethical philosophy he has simply interpreted it wrong. The wiki quote you provided clearly shows this. ... This is far from the Kantian point of view because it requires that the communist state creates a product to be consumed for free, and then as an upstanding citizen, you would help to distribute such goods as a patronage to the mother land.

Communism - utopia. It does not and can not exist because the human nature is completely incompatible with it. Any attempts to fantasize about utopia ignore the human nature factor and thus are deeply flawed and even dangerous because idealistic fools like Sage will overlook the flaws and embrace the system, which will only lead to suffering on the enormous scale. If the Soviet Union example wasn't enough see the French Revolution for details.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Personally I think that as a customer I have undoubtful right to try most goods before buying them. Or am I wrong?

Most games have demo versions planted throughout the internet and gaming magazines, but of course, if a publisher doesn't release a demo, he's pretty much shooting his own foot. This is also something I find particularly disturbing lately - is it just me, or are there less and less of demoes of new games?

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't want to argue about the whole "pirates vs. greedy publishers" theme but let me cite a specific example:

I've already torrented Mass Effect and after running through the first mission realized that in fact, this game is not for me. Not that I dislike ARPGs that much but it just doesn't appeal to me at the moment. I'd rather read a book or find a brainier game.

Did you not know that before? This is the Codex (well, used to be), not GameSpot.

The question is, should have I bought the game and thrown away my money or am I a resourceful buyer who outwitted cheating publisher?

You shouldn't have bought the game and shouldn't have torrented it.

Personally I think that as a customer I have undoubtful right to try most goods before buying them. Or am I wrong?

Will you open a bottle and try whiskey to see if the blend is up to your standards before buying it? Will you try new yogurt before buying it? There are plenty of products that you can sample before and plenty that you can't. If you are a cautious consumer don't buy the latter or wait for reviews/informed opinions.

 

[Xi]

Will you open a bottle and try whiskey to see if the blend is up to your standards before buying it?

"I would like to sample all of your alcoholic beverages before making a final purchasing decision. Yes, I see that you have hundreds, and yes I will be making a purchase today, maybe."

 

[The Dude]

How long has the fucking horse been dead already? Deontologists can't convince consequentialists and teleologicans with deontological arguments, and vice versa. Where's the point?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Fuck philosophy

 

[sqeecoo]

Here is a quote that applies to you:

"It is very easy to be lulled by this moralistic lullaby into intellectual submission to Kant's program here. And while we should not want to forego the insights into duty and its metaphysical presuppositions and retain them as some touchstone or magnetic point in guiding our actions, a commitment to these principles with fanatical consistency in the absence of deeper humane commitments to the specific or particular dignity of others and cultivated values of oneself would seem to produce moral monsters! Is it not possible for a fully Kantianized agent to feel only contempt and revulsion for all others, both generally and, wherever possible, specifically. We may be very grateful that this antipathetic individual is held in check by the dictates of reason, but such an individual is hardly the best candidate for the ideal human moral agent!"

Um. So Kant says "well, you can't *command* people what to feel (to love their neighbor), but as long as they act from duty they are fine", and you answer by saying "but a guy who does not like his neighbor but is still polite to him is still not moral (or not "ideally" moral!". That's silly.
All you do is boldly claim that "such an individual is hardly the best candidate for the ideal human moral agent!", cross your fingers and hope everyone agrees. That does not even approach being an argument or criticism, but amounts to saying "but that is OBVIOUSLY stupid!". I hate such "arguments". Nothing is "obviously" or "evidently" true, and if you are going to claim why something is "hardly the best", please explain why you think so.

Let's look at the closing remark of that article too:

Finally, it does seem possible that a cynical and psychopathic (bereft of any feelings of sympathy for others) individual might be able to achieve Kant's ideals, yet still fail as a person to be admirable. Perhaps, you have met that person who insists on telling you every unflattering truth they can speak of you. As they exercise all that is right according to Kant, they do all that seems contrary to good by our everyday ethical reasoning. If this seems possible, it is a serious failing of Kant.

Is this guy really saying that being sincere is immoral, and that you are "all that seems contrary to good by our everyday ethical reasoning" if you tell people the unflattering truth? This person could be called blunt or impolite, but it's hardly OBVIOUS (as the guy puts it) that this would be less-than-moral, let alone "all that seems contrary to good".

If you disagree, please note that the codex (and your reviews, for instance), is full of such immorality.

And how would we apply this "criticism" to the piracy problem? Apparently, to be moral it would not be enough for a guy to rationally decide that piracy is illegal and damaging to others and thus buy games, but would also have to love every developer, feel only disgust and no temptation towards pirating, and smile while he gives his money away to Bioware bastards, or risk being called "OBVIOUSLY ALL THAT SEEMS CONTRARY TO GOOD!!!"

You are a nice guy VD, but if you are going to present criticism of great philosophers, please make sure it's not laughable.

(by the way, I don't even claim that this criticism couldn't be made into something more-than-worthless, but in it's current state it's a great example of a horrible argument)

 

[Brother None]

Bentham and JS Mill with a pinch of Kant mixed in = Teh win.

+1

Even if Bentham was a total cockfag

My implicit implication is that, if a person thinks "I really like what they did with this game. I wish they made more games like this", he is much more likely to buy a game after piracy than if he thought "This game is okay. I don't give a fuck whether they make more of this though".

Any my explicit implication is that most of the retards that pirate mainstream AAA games really like the games they pirate, and wish the developer to make more of these kind of games so they can pirate them.