Titan Quest producer rants on PC market.

[vrok]

It's not really an argument. I'm merely exposing a flaw in your argumentation when you equal piracy to theft. But yes, it does make a difference.

Jaywalking is murder!

 

[Damned Registrations]

It changes it from a crime of theft to a crime of... well there's really no way to describe the criminality of duplicating property. It's criminal in the same way as gay marriage and smoking pot.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Do you even understand what the word 'piracy' means, you ridiculous nutjob?

There is no flaw. Piracy = theft of intellectual property.

well there's really no way to describe the criminality of duplicating property

Wrong. There is an entire set of legislature, international bodies and guidlines. I have personally met copyright lawyers whose entire job is based around "describing the criminality of duplicating property". But hey, just because you can't be bothered to learn them, they must not exist?

 

[vrok]

No. Reproduction, use, redistribution and several other things. Not theft. That part you made up yourself. Read the law for yourself. Too bad those copyright lawyers you met failed to educate you, as your first grade teacher failed to educate you in reading comprehension.

 

[DraQ]

In Before Retardo?

 

[Naked Ninja]

I feel so sorry for the Titan Quest guy. Dealing with this kind of idiocy on a large scale would drive a stronger man than me to drink.

Keep weaseling buddy.

 

[The Feral Kid]

Good riddance I say.

As for piracy I believe especially rpg fans are entitled to it cause they're most mistreated segment out there. The industry is making shitty games that are not worth spending a penny on them, its their fault. Buying them is encouraging them to continue doing it. And I don't think an industry that killed of everything that was innovative and fun about gaming has any right to complain about piracy. Neither I want to award the current trend in gaming in general and rpgs in particular with my money. They brought it on themselves. Maybe if they haven't killed favourite franchises ( Fallout, Dungeon Keeper, NOLF the list is long) to opt for something more "casual" and "profitable" I would consider to actually pay for a game again.

 

[Gnidrologist]

I really don't understand why is it so important for some people argue about piracy defending it's merits to people, who find it vicious and evil. Just pirate your stuff and tell guys like NN to buzz off or better yet, ignore all these discussions.
If i liked to kill people or illegaly distribute pot or whatever action, that is legally prohibited, i'd never bother to be all defensive against other people, who'd go all lawfull-good on me.
Get a grip.

 

[Raapys]

Well, the problem is that, at least in this case, they're blaming piracy for something that is entirely their own fault( i.e. making bad games ). They're taking the easy way out.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Yes, that i can agree upon. Titan Quest was sutch a craptastic pile of shit, i can't see how he would've had high expectations about the sales.

 

[Lemunde]

It may surprise him to find out that DRM is a deciding factor for many customers. Bioshock? I didn't buy it. I wanted to. It looked fun. It got great reviews. But I didn't buy it. I got wind of the horrible DRM system they had set up and I did what many others did. I let my money do the talking. My money said "The person I represent is fed up with publisher's invasive DRM and is not going to give me to anyone who puts it in their product no matter how great you may think it is."

I'm glad companies are starting to feel the sting of my actions but apparently they think that sting is coming from something else.

 

[WalterKinde]

Yeah thats the reason i didn't touch bioshock, the third prince of persia game, titan quest and several others that at the time carried the stench of StarForce.

I voted with my cash, did i pirate these games?
No but its funny in the case of bioshock a working pirated version that didn't have the drm on it surfaced only after 7 days or i think two weeks so their invasive drm only inconvenienced the paying customer and it still does since they have yet to remove it.
All these drm schemes are not about stopping piracy IMHO but about control of the media even after its been purchased, in the case of bioshock theres no way you can resell that game once the installs have been used up, sure after a lot of pressure they created a tool that gives you back the install but its incomplete and stil causes problems.
And blaming the failure of titan quest on those evil evil pirates is ridiculous , was the game pirated of course, however pirated copy does not really equal lost sale , its the way the riaa and mpaa calculate loss nobody knows for sure if those who pirate would have been an actual paying customer, sometimes the reverse happens people download a game and go out and buy it.

 

[Kingston]

You can only reinstall Bioshock five times I think and then the DRM goes apeshit on you and you can't play it anymore. Or so I've heard.

 

[DraQ]

You can only reinstall Bioshock five times I think and then the DRM goes apeshit on you and you can't play it anymore. Or so I've heard.

"OMGWTF?" might be a retarded expression, but in this case no words would suffice.

 

[WalterKinde]

Yep and if you are windows savy and install the game the way Microsoft recommends installing games that costs you two installs since the game requires admin privalages.
So you are already out two of the five installs if you try to run the game in a limited user account it demands that you register it again.
And remember initially Bioshock had only 3 installs and the company lied and said all you had to do was uninstall the game to get the install back pure lies.
And the drm continously phones home even though bioshock is a single player offline game.
In this case the pirates had it easier no install limit and the full game, right there is a reason why piracy happens, pay money for the full game and then the game won't run, then visit the official site/forums and learn you have to remove daemon tools and any other similiar tool before it will run and then have invasive hard to remove third party drm keys on your registry that requires you know how to use regdit and editing the windows registry to remove.

 

[spacemoose]

I just came up with a pretty good analogy for piracy:

coming into a bookstore with a camera and taking pictures of every page of some book

 

[DraQ]

I just came up with a pretty good analogy for piracy:

coming into a bookstore with a camera and taking pictures of every page of some book

If actually buying the book would require you to agree to have a device* installed, that would monitor your activity to prevent you from ever borrowing the book, it seems to be a reasonable activity.

*the device, of course, would be in the form of a buttplug - bend over, dear customer.

 

[The_Pope]

And yeah, there will be a consequence. The big companies are going to look for ways to tighten control, like they have on consoles. You heard about the PC gaming alliance? I wouldn't be surprised if that thinktank came up with something like steam. We are going to see stricter controls and less consumer trust. You are going to play games where the majority of the game sits on a server, where you won't get the software at all, only dumb clients. Where if the companies servers go down, say goodbye to your saves. It's already coming, I suggest you google InstantAction, garagegames' new initiative. Once they get this working it's going to change the whole face of the market. People like disconnected are in for a surprise.

The difference with that is it has a good chance of working. Traditional copy protection causes more trouble for legitimate customers.

 

[Alex]

But I think the problem here is that there is nothing anyone can do, Naked Ninja. I read the example you posted, and while it is great that it worked out for that company, I think the only reason it did was because the game was downloadable.

No, it worked because it made it harder. That is the simple, fundamental truth. People in general take the path of least resistance. Talk of sharing awareness or whatever, thats all very altruistic sounding. But the real reason is just that it is easy. If it's easy and consequence less to steal, they do. If it isn't, they pay.

This is kind of my point. Making DRMs that are harder to crack isn't making it harder for pirates to install their games. It does make it harder for the crackers to make a cracked version, but they seem competent enough at it and some even seem to like the challenge.

This is human nature. But really, turning round and jeering at the guy for being angry and upset about it...makes me grind my teeth.

Now, I actually think you are right here. In an ideal world, game developers should be allowed to develop whatever kind of games they like the most, I didn't play TQ, but even if I had found the game bad, I think its developer should be allowed to keep producing games like it. Because while someone producing games he himself likes may not produce anything, he certainly won't start by producing games he doesn't like.

And yeah, there will be a consequence. The big companies are going to look for ways to tighten control, like they have on consoles. You heard about the PC gaming alliance? I wouldn't be surprised if that thinktank came up with something like steam. We are going to see stricter controls and less consumer trust. You are going to play games where the majority of the game sits on a server, where you won't get the software at all, only dumb clients. Where if the companies servers go down, say goodbye to your saves. It's already coming, I suggest you google InstantAction, garagegames' new initiative. Once they get this working it's going to change the whole face of the market. People like disconnected are in for a surprise.

Yes, that is what I believe will happen too.Though I do think that this course of action will affect game companies too. This kind of action is very heavy handed, and turns away part of your consumer base. Certainly some pirates will start buying the games, but some consumers will protest by not buying games anymore.

Now, if all gaming companies adapt such strategy, they may effectively make gamers have nowhere to run. But if one or a few companies act like stardock, treating their consumers with carrot instead of stick (like DraQ said) they will gain the image of "good company". Effectively, the heavy handed companies will drive away customers toward their rivals.

Now, you may say that such drive will be minimal, but I really don't know how to argue about it without statistics. Still I am optimist, and I think that in the end companies with heavy handed tactics will be overcome by the ones with more tact.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I really don't understand why is it so important for some people argue about piracy defending it's merits to people, who find it vicious and evil. Just pirate your stuff and tell guys like NN to buzz off or better yet, ignore all these discussions.
If i liked to kill people or illegaly distribute pot or whatever action, that is legally prohibited, i'd never bother to be all defensive against other people, who'd go all lawfull-good on me.
Get a grip.

Never underestimate a human being's need to justify their actions.

 

[Xi]

If you want a number, but can't estimate it, why is 0 any more stupid than any other guess?

To make a guess - 400 seeders. How many of those would even consider buying the game if it didn't show up on their torrent site? 4? I doubt more than 50 even install and try to play it. Even if against all logic, 20 people woul d have bought it if not for the torrent, 20 is much closer to 0 than 400.

As for your chinese tracker. Of the 89,000 seeders, exactly 0 would have been willing to spend money on it.

First let me clarify, I said Seeders but should have said leechers, my bad.

Your assumption is unreasonable because it is simple black and white reasoning. "Because they pirated it, they wouldn't have purchased it anyway." That's just a stupid argument to begin with. I will agree that many of those people may never have purchased it, but that doesn't mean none of them would have.

So the question is, of the pirates, how many of them would have purchased the software if there were no other reasonable means to attain it? 20-30%? I mean, they must have had an inclination of interest in the product to download it in the first place.

My only real point was that piracy does have an impact and that it is hurting PC gaming. That's it! Sure we don't know the magnitude of impact, but we know it's a factor, and that's whats important.

One last thing because I've seen it mentioned in this thread. In what other industry does "theft" account for so much loss that a business cannot sustain itself?

 

[Gromnir]

No. Reproduction, use, redistribution and several other things. Not theft. That part you made up yourself. Read the law for yourself. Too bad those copyright lawyers you met failed to educate you, as your first grade teacher failed to educate you in reading comprehension.

copyright laws was created, for the most part, to fill in gaps where common law theft and larceny did not suffice. original common law didn't envision the possibility o' such stealing. however, the principles behind theft and copyright is largely the same, and in point o' fact, the minimum penalties & punishments for copyright violations = to theft of a single $50 is much more harsh for copyright than for similar larceny w/o aggravating factors.

am familiar with the desire of pirates and those sympathetic to pirates to reassure self that theft is so complete different than info reproductions, but the truth is that the principles is virtual the same. from a legal history standpoint, the folks who wanna argue that theft is complete different from copyright violations is not arguing from a position o' strength. theft & copyright has never looked to the amount of suffering of the victim to determine threshold questions o' guilt.

regardless, the "theft" or reproduction o' a luxury item with no real value save for it's capacity to entertainment, pretty much precludes any reasonable legal defense. is no exigent & life threatening circumstances, eh? software piracy is wrong for same basic reason "theft" is wrong: you is taking something that not belong to you w/o compensating the current owner. not matter the degree to which owner suffers... if at all.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Your assumption is unreasonable because it is simple black and white reasoning. "Because they pirated it, they wouldn't have purchased it anyway." That's just a stupid argument to begin with. I will agree that many of those people may never have purchased it, but that doesn't mean none of them would have.

Yes and no. Potentially your argument is just as daft as his is. Just because someone has acquired something for free, doesn't mean they would've ever paid for it if they could get it no other way. I mean, they're not paying for it. Your emphasis is on the acquisition of goods. His is on the "they're not paying for it" aspect. You rate the former higher than the latter, so you assume that some would've paid for it where-as he's rating the latter higher than the former, so he assumes that none would've. Of course, this doesn't include all the people who purchase the pirated copies. Seriously, anyone been to Asia? Any game you want for $2.

Actually, I'll attempt an analogy here. If candy bars were free and you could get one at every petrol station everytime you filled up, a lot of people would probably eat candy bars. You'd just pick a few up every time you went in. Maybe even walk out with thousands if you wanted to hoarde them. As a result, "sales" would be in the millions. However, you make people pay $2 for that candy bar and suddenly "sales" would plummet quite dramatically down to whatever level candy bar sales are at today. The problem the gaming industry makes (and the RIAA), is they think that every single person who would've gotten a candy bar for free would've paid for one and it's simply not the case. They think that if all those people just paid $1, they'd make billions. Perhaps more to the point, they think a significant portion would pay for them (around the 10% - 20% or above mark) and so far, everything that's been raised in this thread, doesn't seem to indicate any sort of figures anywhere near that. People like free candy but don't expect them all to suddenly start paying for it. In our case, most of the pirates would likely shift to other forms of free entertainment.

So the question is, of the pirates, how many of them would have purchased the software if there were no other reasonable means to attain it? 20-30%? I mean, they must have had an inclination of interest in the product to download it in the first place.

According to the statistics from Reflexive (I think it was), stopping 1,000 pirates converts into 1 extra sale. So if your game is downloaded 10,000,000 times, you're talking about 10,000 lost sales (10M / 1k). A game that's illegally downloaded 10M times apparently sells around 1M copies (using Doom as a basis), so it's about 0.001% of sales lost (if I did that right, statistics aren't my strong suit).

My only real point was that piracy does have an impact and that it is hurting PC gaming. That's it! Sure we don't know the magnitude of impact, but we know it's a factor, and that's whats important.

The magnitude is important though. I mean, if what I did above is right and piracy accounts for 0.001% of extra sales lost, then... Well, it's not really anything to cry home over. Half-Life 2 for example, with probably the greatest anti-pirate protection ever, sold around the 2 - 3 Million mark. That's roughly equivalent to Doom 2 which I'm fairly certain was pirated to death. It's certainly not an "Oh my God, that must be all the pirates buying the game!" figure. Actually, Valve banned a fairly meagre 30,000 pirated accounts from Steam, which seems to equate to its 2M - 3M sales on the same scale. It's certainly nowhere even near the "10M pirates r stealin' ur game" mark.

One last thing because I've seen it mentioned in this thread. In what other industry does "theft" account for so much loss that a business cannot sustain itself?

After having just stated you don't know what number of pirates would convert into sales, you haven't yet justified that theft is accountable for "so much loss" in the gaming industry. For all we know, it could be the same as normal theft. That is, just because a couple of kids steal some candy bars from a convenience store doesn't mean the convenience store is about to go out of business because of that. If it does go out of business, it's typically because it doesn't get enough customers in, not because of the 1 - 3% of goods stolen (or whatever the petty theft statistic is these days).

Don't get me wrong, I think piracy is wrong and should be stopped too. I just don't see it as being fully responsible for "all the loss" in the gaming industry. I also believe that if we don't "fight" piracy, then more genuine people who would've purchased the game will be encouraged to steal it. I just can't see how it's single handedly responsible for the death of the PC gaming industry. More to the point, I can't even see it playing a large factor. Especially when you consider console games are pirated just as much too (mod chip anyone?)... and yet apparently PC developers are moving to the console because of piracy.

 

[Annonchinil]

This is still going on? But I agree, people only pirate the bad, buggy, incomplete and uncreative games, nobody ever pirated a game they enjoyed, and then finished it. And even if they did than they would go straight to the store and buy a hardcopy just so that they can have the pleasure of looking at it. Also stating that people who pirate games would actually buy them is the most retarded thing ever, they would simply quit gaming, go play outside, get laid, whatever, and let their $1000 gaming PC's go to waste. Finally how can piracy hurt PC gaming? Its like those idiot store owners complaining that they can't compete with Wal-Mart, so what if they can't match its price, the consumer does not care about that at all! The decline of PC game sales since 2002? Its the hardware, you see back then there were games like Unreal, Total Annihilation and Quake 2 that could run on everything (and didn't push the graphics, because they were about the gameplay), never mind that GPU sales are up and that Nividia is now having billion dollar quarters, its bullshit and even if its true its do to those crappy $10 integrated chips they manufacture.

 

[Section8]

People make it look like it's Iron Lore's fault they had to make a diablo clone. Well, if they pitched a topdown view turnbased RPG they never would have gotten to make a game in the first place.

From a Brian Sullivan interview on Gamasutra a couple of years ago:

“The whole time I was working on Age of Empires games I always thought about doing an action RPG in the same setting, but with all the mythology thrown in,” he said. “It was very nice to actually be able to develop this game after thinking about it for so many years.”

But hey, like the guy who invented Bulletball and expected it to become an olympic sport, it couldn't possibly be their own fault that their horribly flawed idea failed to achieve the commercial success they'd hoped for.

---

We're going in circles here, so I'll try to shorten this somewhat.

You've got to be kidding? You aren't are, you? You actually believe that compensates for the sheer loss due to piracy. [...] I'm curious, so none of your friends play or watch something for a bit then decide it isn't quite worth spending cash on right now...of course not. You all either like it or dismiss it. The fact that you have milked the free content isn't a factor in anyones decision, ever.

I'm not saying that, but in this specific case, we're comparing the merits of "no potential for sale" against "pirated material that may or may not drive a sale." "Milked the free content" or not, there's no reason for me to buy a CD of an artist I've never heard (/of), or a TV show I've never seen. Even if I've "heard good things", individual taste accounts for a lot when it comes to entertainment.

Ah well then, you were 12. My arguments are negated, I feel so silly.

I'm not trying to justify my illegal activities, my point is - there's no way we were paying for those games, even if it was impossible to pirate them. The difference between "No sale" and "No sale, pirated instead" is fairly clear. You now have a bigger audience at no extra cost, and I fail to see how that's a bad thing. It's "investing" in the future without cost.

Way to quibble there chief. Yes, I'm sure the guy wrote that article chose to carefully obfuscate the fact that sales were 70% higher for one day only. You missed the part where they said they grew their company from that extra profit. Perhaps he meant grew as in bought everyone some more staplers? Good lord dude, this is getting silly.

Honestly, I did miss the bit about "growing the company" and re-reading it - I'm still missing it. But if you want to tout that 70%, can I also say that there's "proof" that making keygens obsolete actually causes a decrease in sales?

No, they aren't. Your assumption is that a pirate has a chance of turning an unknowing person into a customer. But there is a MUCH higher chance they will turn a potentially paying customer into a pirate. Free is extremely compelling. If each 100 pirates creates awareness of the game in 1 player but their uploading it to torrents results in 2 people who would have payed for it simply downloading it instead, because it is easy, free and consequence less, net loss of customers.

Okay, I'll admit I hadn't really considered the "paying customer to pirate conversion rate" but I can't see it being a "MUCH higher chance", at all. All anecdotal evidence I've seen leads me to believe that customer loyalty becomes a significant factor, and the factors that would lead a customer to pirate something they would have once bought are generally much more than "free is seductive". Things like customer dissatisfaction/distrust, drastic departure from previous titles, loss of customer income, no demo, all play a major part here. But to go with a specific example - even though it's clear Oblivion was heavily pirated around these parts, there's got to be at least as many people in the "I loved Morrowind so I bought Oblivion" mindset.

You assume too much. Demonstratable increase in sales of 70% says that some were. You laugh at the 1 in 1000 thing, but you know the average rate of downloads of demo to purchase, for a decent indie title? 1 in 100. So the rate is a tenth of that, which isn't insignificant.

That 70%? I'm still saying it's it an odd figure because out of four different occasions, it happened once. There need to be more context for it to have any meaning. Did the update of their DRM coincide with another event? It seems likely. As for the conversion rate, I'm not scoffing at it, it's obvious that winning over customers is tough business. But I still maintain that 1000 customers, paying or otherwise can contribute to the process of winning customers over.

What the hell is your point, really? Say I have a field of corn, I grow 10 crates full. I need 6 to feed my family. Someone steals 5. I go to some jacknut, he says hey, those guys over there grew 12 crates, sure, someone also stole 5from them but that leaves them with 7, enough to survive and a bit extra! So stop whining!

Good lord, I'd kick him in the groin, the pompous twit. Why does that fact negate my anger over people stealing my fucking corn? And why isn't the corn theft a problem in general, since the other guys, even though they survived, could have 5 MORE crates if something is done about it?

The fact is, if this is happening to every corn grower, then those 5 stolen crates are a known factor. The grower who didn't grow enough to feed his family after a predictable loss is a fucking idiot. So is the guy who decides he's going to contaminate the corn to fuck with the thieves, and is then surprised when the thieves spread the word about how his corn is contaminated, thereby deterring paying customers.

When you were on holidays and baboons invaded your picnic, why did you run away? Why didn't you just assume that you'd be some special case that is somehow exempt from the norm and that instead of attacking you, the baboons would sit down for a tea party and bring you some food?

Whatever the circumstances, of course it doesn't change the fact that the baboons themselves are a problem for people wanting to enjoy lunch in the great outdoors, but an solution that addresses that problem must also consider the other aspects of baboons. It would be foolish, for example to lay traps for the baboons, because you're likely to cause "collateral damage" to other, non-problematic animals. The owners of the game park might even find that patrons are turned off by the wailing of baboons who have wandered into those traps. And if the baboons are smart enough to get around the traps, as they have done countless times in the past, then the traps are no longer addressing the problem, yet they've become a problem of their own.

Let me try and summarise a bit here. I'm not saying piracy isn't a problem, but I am saying it's not exclusively a problem. Yes, it would be a good thing to stop the problematic portion of piracy - ie the customers who would be willing to buy your game if they couldn't get it for free. But you're shooting yourself in the foot if you consider the players who would never have bought your product anyway to be part of that problem. Likewise, you're shooting yourself in the foot if your anti-piracy measures either cause "collateral damage" to your paying customers, or generate bad publicity.

Is your argument that they shouldn't be upset their corn was stolen because other people get by despite that fact? Ridiculous.

Well yeah. If somebody decided they wanted to run around in traffic, they shouldn't be angry at the driver who failed to avoid them, they should be angry at themselves for not possessing the common sense to not play in traffic. Piracy is a known factor. THQ and Iron Lore would have known about it long before Titan Quest went into production. Despite that, they went ahead with the project, failed to achieve something that sold enough to get by despite piracy, and failed to implement any measures to actually prevent problematic piracy. I can see why they're angry, but why the fuck should I sympathise?

I'm getting tired of asking you to cut the personal bias. Cut it. Please, for the love of all that's holy.

Personal bias? Is it my personal bias that failed to achieve sales figures compelling enough to warrant future funding? Is it my personal bias that caused lacklustre reviews across the board? Am I responsible for the countless other negative comments here on the Codex? Would it be "personal bias" if I said Daikatana was a piece of shit, and that pirates were the least of Ion Storm's woes?

They do?!?! Wow!!! I did not know that! They should hire security guards who keep an eye on you and check your bags, install scanners and tags on their items....no, that would be treating the customer like a criminal.

Funnily enough, most of those methods are effective deterrents, though none will actually stop a determined thief, and many cause undue problems to paying customers. Ever bought a DVD, only to find the clerk didn't swipe it through a magnetic decoupler, and the case is locked? Ever bought a game and found the clerk has taken the wrong disc out of their locked cabinet, or hasn't realised the game comes on two discs, and only gave you one? That's happened to me plenty of times.

Now, explain to me how most of the methods employed by game publishers work in a similar fashion.

Plus, hey, if they like your clothing and other people see them wearing it it'll generate awareness, and then more people will come to your store to buy your clothes!! And afterwards we can all sing kumbaya and skip through the fields together, hooray!

Popularity begets popularity. Ever wonder why the first issue of an new magazine series costs about 10% of the standard price? Ever wonder why pretty girls offer you free drinks/vouchers for brands of alcohol you've never heard of? Ever wonder why Microsoft is happy to make substantial losses on the Xbox and 360? It's all about securing a market share.

They will in future. Haven't you noticed all the devs moving to consoles? It's like a mass exodus. I can't blame them, even if it makes me unhappy. Oh wait, this is the Codex, the mindset is that only the dumb ones will move to consoles right? Ahaha.

So at the time Titan Quest was given the green light, there were no trends suggesting a much bigger console market, and excessive piracy rates on the PC? They made their choice, and to moan about what we already knew doesn't engender any kind of sympathy from me.

And an interesting thing to consider with consoles - the market is bigger, but that doesn't necessarily make it a fucking utopia where every game is hugely profitable. A quick examination of the biggest selling console games show very little evidence to support the notion that derivative knock-offs of previously venerated games is profitable. Like the PC, sequels, licensed properties and the occasional complete innovation dominate.

If Iron Lore had decided that they were going to make a console based Final Fantasy VII clone with near identical gameplay, shiny graphics and a setting based in greco-roman mythology, they'd probably still be out of business.

An indie company eliminates known cracks in their security and sales drop slightly.

Is that comment just as reasonable as your own 70% comment? After all, mine is derived from the same report as yours, with an equivalent fragment of information and no context.

I love your hindsight. Who would have thought that people would do the equivalent of buying a watch from a guy in a back alley who holds open his coat to show his wares, then when it stops working after a month thinks "Damn you Rolex!!!!". Shows how pervasive the piracy mindset is, that we can pull dodgy copies off the net and when they don't work perfectly we think it must be the devs fault. I'd be hellova frustrated in that case. Oh wait, he was too.

Oh come on. The failed security check is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as a crash to desktop. The user has no way of knowing the truth. That's almost the exact opposite of the very pronounced difference between a reliable, legitimate vendor and a dodgy guy in a street alley.

Let me refine that analogy for you. Someone receives what they think is a Rolex as a gift. The watch packs it in after a month, and so the owner registers what they believe is a legitimate complaint against what they believe is a genuine Rolex. If the person givng the gift provided them with the necessary information - "Don't get excited, it's counterfeit." - That person now directs their complaint to the giver when the watch breaks.

Same applies with the Titan Quest crack. If the user knew the "crash" was actually a failed security check, then they'd be saying "The <pirate> crack release is worthless, and <pirate> are incompetent fucks who code with their feet" and not directing their ire at Iron Lore. Pretty simple, yeah?

Player base is meaningless if it's not a paying player base. Thats like Mercedes counting car thieves when they try to work out what percentage of drivers drive their car. Meaningless except to make one angry.

I've test driven quite a few cars in my time. Every now and then, I'll get together with a mate and do the rounds of the dealerships, even though I can't possibly afford any of the cars I'm "testing". If I was in the market for a car, I have a shortlist of cars I like from first hand experience.

The dealership loses nothing, because they don't lose an asset when I borrow the car. Even if I were to steal or write the car off, they're insured. In fact, they have everything to gain, and many dealerships promote "road show" weekends, even though they're fully aware most of the yahoos that turn up to try out the cars are highly unlikely to actually buy them.

It's hard to compare that effectively to games, but I think you're being very short-sighted if you want to view all pirates as a problem. The guy who would gladly buy your game if he couldn't get it for free is a problem. But for each of him, it seems fair to assume there are probably about 7-9 people who weren't going to buy the game anyway, and can't be considered a problem. In fact, why shouldn't they be considered 7-10 more potential viral marketers, or at the very least, potential future customers?

Even if you were to foolishly dismiss them completely, you have to ensure the solution you target at the small percentage of problematic pirates doesn't lead to 70%-90% of your audience becoming a potential source of negative publicity.