Article - PC Game Piracy Examined (Author: Koroush Ghazi - Tweak Guides) - Games

I've read most of the article, and he makes some strange comparisons that diminish some of his points. for Example, using World of Goo as his only proof that the amount of DRM doesn't affect the amount of piracy. Of course it's going to be higher than other games, It isn't available retail, and It's a game that you really don't know if you'll like without playing it. I personally pirated, then purchased it from their website after playing through it. (It's a great game by the way.)

[QUOTE=Mac2468;19816958]Make the game WORTH the money and people will buy it.[/QUOTE] That has never worked. There are dozens of worthwhile games that are pirated by the hundreds of thousands. You haven't read the article either.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817025]Don't be so presumptuous, it's just an interesting topic and it's fun to explore different solutions. Of coarse you are not going to stomp every pirate out on the planet, but you can single it out until only the risk-takers do it. If you haven't noticed what I said already, installing modified firmware into console can potentially screw it up. In addition to that, even if you do get it successfully installed, there is a risk of being banned of the XBOX live or PlayStation network. Not to mention that doing this all together voids your warranty on the product. That's three risks too many for a lot of pirates.[/QUOTE] For the roughly 36 Million 360's sold, only 17 million are connected to xbox live, and of that 36 million, 1 million(Roughly) are cracked by conservative estimates. What do you say to that? Again, A hardware update will solve nothing.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817052]That has never worked.[/QUOTE] I Respectfully disagree. Regardless of what the article may say there are quite a few people out there for whom a true promise of a demo or good updates would go a long way in the decision making process. Games which have a good span of continuous content update, regardless of the significance, will do great in the long run for influencing people who will then think twice about downloading it illegaly

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;19817053]For the roughly 36 Million 360's sold, only 17 million are connected to xbox live, and of that 36 million, 1 million(Roughly) are cracked by conservative estimates. What do you say to that? Again, A hardware update will solve nothing.[/QUOTE] I need a source please. Was it on the article? I might have forgotten.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817114]I need a source please. Was it on the article? I might have forgotten.[/QUOTE] Not this article. It's taken from various articles. I don't recall the piracy stat, but it was brought up by the Kotaku guys on one of their Podcasts, the 36 million is the published statistic by Microsoft, same with the Live statistic. There was also the statistic, that from one torrent site alone, there was one million downloads of MW2 for the 360. That's a lot of downloads, and not everyone that has a hacked one downloaded it I bet, and there's got to be more downloads from more sites. There's a lot of hacked xbox's out there. [editline]11:01PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Hostel;19817052]That has never worked. There are dozens of worthwhile games that are pirated by the hundreds of thousands. You haven't read the article either.[/QUOTE] It would work better than a hardware update. Those just don't work.

Online activation is probably the only foolproof method to stop pirates dead. As long as the end user has access to whatever is providing the encryption or protection it is only a matter of time before it gets cracked. Empire Total War's pirated version is still of poor quality because it is a steam rip. Patching it frequently as well will also screw with pirates since they have to crack the exe every time you do it. I ended up buying that game when it went on sale. I'm a pirate sometimes, I admit that. However I find it annoying when people try to justify it. When Spore and Bioshock came out message boards were full of people saying how they are so justified in pirating it because of DRM. Fuck you, you're stealing. I don't care how bad the DRM is. Don't try to pretend you are doing it for some higher purpose like freedom of information, you just want free shit. I don't mind DRM as long as it doesn't stop me from playing my legit games. Unfortunately it does, [I]very[/I] often. I don't think I've played a game that was a genuine copy and not on steam whose DRM didn't stop me from playing and leave me no choice but to crack it. Silent Hunter 3 and Splinter Cell 3 don't fucking work because Starforce either doesn't like Windows 7 or doesn't like my DVD drive. I cracked them and they work fine. Civ 3 Conquests when fully patched does not recognize my [B]real[/B] disk. I crack it, and it works fine. It works from a flash drive! I think it is hilarious that a fairly good portion of my legit games don't fucking work solely because of the DRM and force me to crack it but all my pirated games work beautifully. In fact, they work [I]better[/I]. I don't have to turn on my DVD drive and dig out the disk when I apply a crack.

He keeps using Crysis as an example, and talking about how it didn't sell well. When it came out, very few computers could run it at decent framerate, so of course no one bought it.

[QUOTE=Skooma;19817153]Online activation is probably the only foolproof method to stop pirates dead. As long as the end user has access to whatever is providing the encryption or protection it is only a matter of time before it gets cracked. Empire Total War's pirated version is still of poor quality because it is a steam rip. Patching it frequently as well will also screw with pirates since they have to crack the exe every time you do it. I ended up buying that game when it went on sale. I'm a pirate sometimes, I admit that. However I find it annoying when people try to justify it. When Spore and Bioshock came out message boards were full of people saying how they are so justified in pirating it because of DRM. Fuck you, you're stealing. I don't care how bad the DRM is. Don't try to pretend you are doing it for some higher purpose like freedom of information, you just want free shit. I don't mind DRM as long as it doesn't stop me from playing my legit games. Unfortunately it does, [I]very[/I] often. I don't think I've played a game that was a genuine copy and not on steam whose DRM didn't stop me from playing and leave me no choice but to crack it. Silent Hunter 3 and Splinter Cell 3 don't fucking work because Starforce either doesn't like Windows 7 or doesn't like my DVD drive. I cracked them and they work fine. Civ 3 Conquests when fully patched does not recognize my [B]real[/B] disk. I crack it, and it works fine. It works from a flash drive! I think it is hilarious that a fairly good portion of my legit games don't fucking work solely because of the DRM and force me to crack it but all my pirated games work beautifully. In fact, they work [I]better[/I]. I don't have to turn on my DVD drive and dig out the disk when I apply a crack.[/QUOTE] DRM is a valid reason not to buy it, and instead steal it. Is it [b]fair[/b] that the company treats you like shit, and essentially doesn't really give you the game when you buy it, and really only lets you have a licence of it? No. Don't defend DRM saying it's not, when you don't really own the game, you shouldn't really be paying for "ownership" of the game.

For whatever reason though. Games are pirated less on consoles, that's what we need to figure out. Just for a bit of insight on how cruel the game developing scene is... [I]Geoffrey Zatkin of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research is quoted in this article as saying: Only 20% of games that begin production will ever finish. Of those 20% that are finished and released to the market, only 20% of them will ever realize a significant profit... that equals 4% of games that start production return a significant profit. There are plenty of others who will validate just how risky the business can be. From this article by one developer: "...the fact that 90+% of all games lose money makes game developers a particularly risky business."; similarly, from this article by another developer: ...only 15% of all titles break even. That's not "make money," that's just "break even." So that's 85% of all titles that lose money. That 15% pays for the rest. If you're, say, working for a publisher and you're working on one of these titles that's losing money, you're not going to be getting as much for it, you're not going to be getting as much funding, because you haven't been succeeding. For independent devs, it's even more lethal. For [our game], we put our own money into the product. We put our own money there. As a result, we don't have that advance to run out against. Every single lost sale is money out of our pockets. [/I] Don't fall under the impression that they are charging you too much or that they are robbing you. They are only making you pay as little as they can really make it. Another quote from the article.. Since some of you guys refuse to read it after being told about three times: [I][B]Console Piracy[/B] The next logical question is: if piracy is a reason for the discrepancy in sales, why would it affect the PC so much and not the consoles? This is a perfectly valid question, because a torrent search will show you that pirated versions of most any console game are also available. Consoles are definitely not exempt from piracy. However the data we examined in the Scale of Piracy section provides a clear answer to this question: the scale of piracy is far lower on consoles than it is on PCs. Looking at torrent data for the same games on PC vs. XBox 360 vs. PS3, we saw that the number of downloads of the PC version is often five or ten times higher than the console versions. The number of individual active torrents for the console versions were also noticeably lower; in some cases there were no PS3 torrents at all for certain games. The most likely reason is that undertaking console piracy is not as straightforward an exercise as PC piracy for the average user. To successfully play a pirated game on a console, you need to modify the console in some way, whether by installing a 'mod chip', or flashing the console with custom firmware. Indeed on some consoles, even these steps are not enough - on the PS3 not only the complexity of the hardware, but also the use of Blu-Ray media for games has significantly deterred piracy. Furthermore hacking a console to allow piracy carries risks which the user may not consider worth bearing, including being banned from popular online services such as XBox Live, or being denied warranty repairs. PC piracy on the other hand carries no costs and usually has insignificant risks, it's as quick and easy as downloading and installing a small torrent client, clicking a torrent link, and within minutes you're off and running. There is one exception: the Steam client does introduce additional risks to piracy and this has aided its success - we discuss this in the Copy Protection & DRM section.[/I]

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817247]For whatever reason though. Games are pirated less on consoles, that's what we need to figure out. Just for a bit of insight on how cruel the game developing scene is... [I]Geoffrey Zatkin of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research is quoted in this article as saying: Only 20% of games that begin production will ever finish. Of those 20% that are finished and released to the market, only 20% of them will ever realize a significant profit... that equals 4% of games that start production return a significant profit. There are plenty of others who will validate just how risky the business can be. From this article by one developer: "...the fact that 90+% of all games lose money makes game developers a particularly risky business."; similarly, from this article by another developer: ...only 15% of all titles break even. That's not "make money," that's just "break even." So that's 85% of all titles that lose money. That 15% pays for the rest. If you're, say, working for a publisher and you're working on one of these titles that's losing money, you're not going to be getting as much for it, you're not going to be getting as much funding, because you haven't been succeeding. For independent devs, it's even more lethal. For [our game], we put our own money into the product. We put our own money there. As a result, we don't have that advance to run out against. Every single lost sale is money out of our pockets. [/I][/QUOTE] Yes, but when you think about the vast majority of the games that come out, say, 80% of games, [b]well over half of that is shovelware[/b]. The thing about those statistics is the vast number of games that comes out in your average year. And yes, consoles are pirated less on, because it takes slightly more effort, and it takes time, a little more time. Most people are not going to spend that time unless they are dedicated cheap asses, dedicated pirates, or just people who have too much time on their hands.

[QUOTE=Janus Vesta;19807095]Printing millions of DVDs, manuals, cover art slips and producing the boxes and shipping them all. Not expensive individually but the scale makes the costs stack. Though the huge prices on digital games annoy me. Why should what I buy and download cost the same as a physical copy?[/QUOTE] Hmm. Maybe they should just put the disk in a plastic baggie with the name written on it with magic marker. :eng101:

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;19817193]DRM is a valid reason not to buy it, and instead steal it. Is it [B]fair[/B] that the company treats you like shit, and essentially doesn't really give you the game when you buy it, and really only lets you have a licence of it? No. Don't defend DRM saying it's not, when you don't really own the game, you shouldn't really be paying for "ownership" of the game.[/QUOTE] If you don't like DRM, [b]don't buy the game[/b], if fucking pirates got this concept through their head, maybe we wouldn't have DRM like this. And read the fucking article, piracy rates [b]do not go down[/b] when a game doesn't have DRM. [editline]02:18AM[/editline] and you have legally only had the license to play a game for decades now, stop pretending it's new

[QUOTE=Lazor;19817349]If you don't like DRM, [b]don't buy the game[/b], if fucking pirates got this concept through their head, maybe we wouldn't have DRM like this. And read the fucking article, piracy rates [b]do not go down[/b] when a game doesn't have DRM. [editline]02:18AM[/editline] and you have legally only had the license to play a game for decades now, stop pretending it's new[/QUOTE] But sales do. And that's the point. Piracy rates may not change, but I assure you sales do. Even so, is it ok for a company to do that to you? Do you fucking like the idea of not owning something you PAY to own? DRM would likely still be an issue even without the "massive" piracy rates currently going on. Are you saying that all the games I own from 1997 and up I don't own? Really? Holy shit, because I'm pretty fucking sure I can install anyone of them at any time(with system reqs ignored here) and they'll still work without me having to jump through hoops. Show me an example of it.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;19817295]Yes, but when you think about the vast majority of the games that come out, say, 80% of games, [b]well over half of that is shovelware[/b]. The thing about those statistics is the vast number of games that comes out in your average year. And yes, consoles are pirated less on, because it takes slightly more effort, and it takes time, a little more time. Most people are not going to spend that time unless they are dedicated cheap asses, dedicated pirates, or just people who have too much time on their hands.[/QUOTE] There you go, that was my point. What ever it is that makes it time consuming to condition your console to play pirated games needs to be done to a PC. I know you've stated before that this would require every Mobo from every manufacturer to put this chip on. Don't skip on the fact that it takes time. It took time for every Mobo to have PCI, AGP, PCI-E, and PCI-E 2.0 to be put on their Mobos. And in reverse, it was a big decision when to start removing the famous AGP slot. In other words, it's not nearly the first time hardware vendors and software developers had to make a joint effort in getting something to go mainstream.

Just because pirating happens less on Consoles, doesn't mean it isn't possible to do so, and the suggestion is not all that relevant to pirating on PC. There are far too many what ifs in making the statement that a chip would ultimately prevent piracy on PC, as there are far too many variables in question which would determine the outcome. No matter what happens, unless we change the entire system of which we go about doing things (which, will most likely never happen) we cannot change piracy on a physical level. You can create as many hoops as you want but all it takes is one person to jump through them to make their existance pointless.

[QUOTE=Lazor;19817349]If you don't like DRM, [B]don't buy the game[/B], if fucking pirates got this concept through their head, maybe we wouldn't have DRM like this.[/QUOTE] Pirates aren't the ones buying the game :downs: [editline]07:27AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Hostel;19817390]There you go, that was my point. What ever it is that makes it time consuming to condition your console to play pirated games needs to be done to a PC. I know you've stated before that this would require every Mobo from every manufacturer to put this chip on. Don't skip on the fact that it takes time. It took time for every Mobo to have PCI, AGP, PCI-E, and PCI-E 2.0 to be put on their Mobos. And in reverse, it was a big decision when to start removing the famous AGP slot.[/QUOTE] The difference here is that PCI-E was an upgrade, that consumers wanted. Motherboard makers have no reason to put chips on their boards, because consumers don't want them, and the motherboard companies aren't directly affected by piracy. Not to mention the fact that the chip gives Microsoft and Sony the ability to choose who makes games for their respective consoles. (and charge them for it.) Good luck getting PC developers on board with that.

god, you guys need to fucking read the article I know, reading more than a damn paragraph and comprehending it makes your head spin, but you can probably handle it with practice

[QUOTE=Wtbalife;19817425]Just because pirating happens less on Consoles, doesn't mean it isn't possible to do so, and the suggestion is not all that relevant to pirating on PC. There are far too many what ifs in making the statement that a chip would ultimately prevent piracy on PC, as there are far too many variables in question which would determine the outcome. No matter what happens, unless we change the entire system of which we go about doing things (which, will most likely never happen) we cannot change piracy on a physical level. You can create as many hoops as you want but all it takes is one person to jump through them to make their existance pointless.[/QUOTE] Welcome to five hours ago. If a hoop that someone could pass through makes the hoops' existence pointless, I don't see why Microsoft made dedicated hardware on the XBOX 360 to stop it. It's pretty obvious we are not talking about eradicating pirating. Whatever Microsoft put into their 360, they must have thought it was worth while putting it in because it sure as hell is stopping some people. The argument is not about stopping it, it's about reducing the piracy rate.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19807749]Opinions don't over-rule facts, and they can become invalid with proper facts and statistics. If you read the article fully, you would change your tune. [/QUOTE] TorrentFreak and other pro-piracy sites point to the same facts and come to different conclusions. Being backed up by facts doesn't make it not an opinion.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817390]There you go, that was my point. What ever it is that makes it time consuming to condition your console to play pirated games needs to be done to a PC. I know you've stated before that this would require every Mobo from every manufacturer to put this chip on. Don't skip on the fact that it takes time. It took time for every Mobo to have PCI, AGP, PCI-E, and PCI-E 2.0 to be put on their Mobos. And in reverse, it was a big decision when to start removing the famous AGP slot. In other words, it's not nearly the first time hardware vendors and software developers had to make a joint effort in getting something to go mainstream.[/QUOTE] Except that this would be pointless. It wouldn't work and it would be entirely too expensive for us, and for them. A PC and a console have key differences that you aren't grasping here. Beyond just the firmware chip that slows piracy, what does the console have to stop piracy? A custom UI and OS, a custom coding index, and a specialized set of hardware. A PC doesn't have this, and in fact, a PC has the opposite. A PC gives the user the control he wants to have, putting that chip in will last about a month. IF you can even get people to install it in their new computers that they would have to build specifically around them. Just because it's the "new hardware" people are not going to buy them, and then create mostly new computers for them. Not to mention, it wouldn't sell well because it's a vast invasion of privacy if you ask me. What's to stop that chip from getting updates that make you have to do or buy other things? Not a lot. [editline]11:34PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Hostel;19817526]Welcome to five hours ago. If a hoop that someone could pass through makes the hoops' existence pointless, I don't see why Microsoft made dedicated hardware on the XBOX 360 to stop it. It's pretty obvious we are not talking about eradicating pirating. Whatever Microsoft put into their 360, they must have thought it was worth while putting it in because it sure as hell is stopping some people. The argument is not about stopping it, it's about reducing the piracy rate.[/QUOTE] No, being LAZY is what stops piracy on a console because it takes very little effort to do so in the long run.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817526]Welcome to five hours ago. If a hoop that someone could pass through makes the hoops' existence pointless, I don't see why Microsoft made dedicated hardware on the XBOX 360 to stop it. It's pretty obvious we are not talking about eradicating pirating. Whatever Microsoft put into their 360, they must have thought it was worth while putting it in because it sure as hell is stopping some people.[/QUOTE] Your neglecting to see the bigger picture that [U]they can do it because they created the console[/U]. Your never going to see a Chip for PC because in order to make it have similar effects against pirating that the xbox does it would have to be completely maintained by one company with no customization or 3rd party coding outside of what the company allows. This type of control will never happen on PC side where there are hundreds of thousands of different combinations of hardware and software together. It simply wont have any lasting impact to fix the solution.

[QUOTE=Wtbalife;19817580]Your neglecting to see the bigger picture that [U]they can do it because they created the console[/U]. Your never going to see a Chip for PC because in order to make it have similar effects against pirating that the xbox does it would have to be completely maintained by one company with no customization or 3rd party coding outside of what the company allows. This type of control will never happen on PC side where there are hundreds of thousands of different combinations of hardware and software together. It simply wont have any lasting impact to fix the solution.[/QUOTE] Thanks for saying what I said, but better than I said it. I got a bit lost for a moment on my train of thought, but this is what I was getting at.

Not to mention anti monopoly laws in the US basically forbids companies to work together like this.

I didn't buy Spore. I thought the drm on it was bullshit. I did however buy The Sims 3, because I heard the most it had was a cdkey. I love it.

[QUOTE=Hostel;19817390]There you go, that was my point. What ever it is that makes it time consuming to condition your console to play pirated games needs to be done to a PC. I know you've stated before that this would require every Mobo from every manufacturer to put this chip on. Don't skip on the fact that it takes time. It took time for every Mobo to have PCI, AGP, PCI-E, and PCI-E 2.0 to be put on their Mobos. And in reverse, it was a big decision when to start removing the famous AGP slot. In other words, it's not nearly the first time hardware vendors and software developers had to make a joint effort in getting something to go mainstream.[/QUOTE] Yes but they sold because they were useful for the consumer, PC components are an open market and no manufacturers are going to willingly hurt sales by adding something a consumer doesn't want on the board. Think of it this way; imagine if there were multiple companies making Xbox 360s, one company boasts a completely open system and they other has hardware locks, which do you think the consumer is going to buy? It only works for consoles because the console manufacturer controls all hardware decisions. The reason why this won't work on the PC (and is arguable the PCs biggest advantage) is because it is an open system, anyone can make parts for it.

guys i thought we were talking about video game piracy not crap about computers

[QUOTE=jordanh91;19817629]guys i thought we were talking about video game piracy not crap about computers[/QUOTE] :downsbravo:

[QUOTE=laserpanda;19817434]Pirates aren't the ones buying the game :downs: [editline]07:27AM[/editline] The difference here is that PCI-E was an upgrade, that consumers wanted. Motherboard makers have no reason to put chips on their boards, because consumers don't want them, and the motherboard companies aren't directly affected by piracy. Not to mention the fact that the chip gives Microsoft and Sony the ability to choose who makes games for their respective consoles. (and charge them for it.) Good luck getting PC developers on board with that.[/QUOTE] Quote from [URL="http://www.jasonunger.com/2008/04/17/hdmi-vs-component-the-new-format-war/"]here.[/URL] [I]When I caught up with Steve Venuti of HDMI Licensing at EHX, he pretty much admitted that a lot of the early problems could have been avoided if HDCP didn't exist. "HDMI would have entered the market easier without HDCP, but the studios wouldn't have let it happen."[/I] HDCP is a protection scheme for HDMI cables to prevent movie piracy. Look like the movie industry has stuck their noses into places you would have not expected them. So you could possibly imagine someone out there willing to work in cooperation with a popular chipset manufacturer. [QUOTE=jordanh91;19817629]Guys I thought we were talking about video game piracy not crap about computers.[/QUOTE] We are talking about piracy, read through the thread and article. Congrats on your first post.

[quote] the game also had an initial quiz screen which required the input of several random words from the manual... ...the copy protection scheme on Faery Tale Adventure presented a non-intrusive but solid defense against not only bored computer store workers, but anyone who bought the game and then wanted to make copies for friends and neighbors.[/quote]How does he consider having a quiz every time you start the game "non-intrusive" ?