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[kingfisher1112]

Oh yeah, Game Dev Tycoon. Remember that? It schooled them as to why the fuck they would pirate an indie startup's game simply because they are thieves.

That was probably a publicity stunt to promote a game that was a blatant ripoff of another game for 3 times the price

That's a completely different argument for a completely different topic.

[GlyphGryph]

kingfisher, you are confusing as hell.

Human beings, even those working in corporations, are responsible for the choices they make. It's that simple. I'm not allowed to shoot someone who cuts me off in traffic, nor should I be. More similarly, if someone bullies me, that does not give me the right to turn around and bully the next person lower on the totem pole. I shouldn't do stupid things that hurt the people my company actually values, either.

Your willingness to claim that people aren't responsible for their own actions is not just absurd, it's pathetic. We are not animals, and we don't get to excuse are bad behaviour by pointing the finger at others. We ultimately get to decide how we act. The pirates don't get to excuse their piracy by saying "but I bought a game once and it wasn't as good as it promised so I'm just going to pirate future games as revenge", and the companies don't get to say "we aren't getting anything from these people who don't pay us money, so we have the right to screw over the people who do".

And I shouldn't (and don't) support companies that exhibit this kind of behaviour. I, at least, am perfectly capable of doing that. I can't do anything to stop pirates - well, beyond conversation and persuasion, which I do do fairly often. But they aren't a threat to me, and don't actually harm anyone, so I reserve my ire for the groups and individuals who do, through their abuses of legislation and their corrupting influence. There's not a whole lot I can do their, either, of course. But I'm certainly not going to start being apologists for them.

[Eagleon]

I see piracy as a good thing for reasons outlined in my first post. Leaving aside entitlement, or the attitude of the 'typical pirate' (whatever that is), it's a health indicator. Gaming has begun to inundate our culture in the same way that movies have, or literature. At this point, taking away the ability to game from -anyone- does more harm than good to the publisher. You simply cannot buy publicity equivalent to two people meeting and talking about the new Assassin's Creed, or other big-budget titles. It's impossible. Some people (myself included) just can't be bothered to pay attention to ads.

Game developers could not charge what they do now if they weren't getting day-one sales to pay for it all. In no way is the industry failing because of piracy. In no way are indies suffering, at least not the ones that are willing to work with reality. We would not be having this debate if games weren't being released and profit wasn't being made. It costs money to start a professional-quality development studio, and that money has to come from banks, and the banks have to see numbers and statistics before money is given to them.

For most titles, DRM does nothing whatsoever to stop piracy. I don't buy the "We're trying to discourage the casual pirate" line, because there's no such thing - there are practically zero games that are pirated with anything more than opening Explorer and dropping a cracked exe into the folder. So when you have publishers demanding that their studios include invasive DRM schemes that do nothing to stop those supposedly lost sales, yeah, I do see them as big idiot corporations being greedy. And I see any smaller studios doing the same as missing the point and their market entirely.

If you're really worried about sales, piracy is the least of your issues. Yes, it's annoying to cater to a market that doesn't encourage older style games that were made before the internet was everywhere. But there have always been things you needed to cater to, to encourage sales. It's absolute insanity to try to remove your customer's freedoms, forget about features that every other successful indie producer is including (free updates with content) which are becoming a measure of quality, and expect them to come back for your next game.

[Ameablable]

Could someone please tell me how this would work? how does something detect that its been pirated if its an offline game?

[GlyphGryph]

Basically, these companies release their own "cracked" versions of their games to filesharing networks in advance - being one of the earliest, if not THE earliest players, they can quickly obtain dominance even if their version is a bit... different from the real game.

Once you've got arbitrary code changes, everything is easy. That's why the risk of viruses is so high with pirated stuff, after all.

[Owlbread]

Guys, rather than just debating whether piracy is a good thing (by all means keep doing it, we've had some great discussion), could you maybe tell us what proposals you would have for legislation to protect the rights of consumers of digital products?

[Ameablable]

now why would a company release their game even if its screwy? that just doesnt make sense..

[GlyphGryph]

Because someone WILL, sooner rather than later. Unless, of course, someone already has - if someone already has, then people won't bother to release their own cracked version. And then, if that cracked version is actually a game that suddenly turns bad later on, well...

[Eagleon]

Guys, rather than just debating whether piracy is a good thing (by all means keep doing it, we've had some great discussion), could you maybe tell us what proposals you would have for legislation to protect the rights of consumers of digital products?

As far as I'm aware, it's a solution in search of a problem. There hasn't been any meaningful impact on consumer rights from any legislation that's been passed, or software that's adopted widespread use (though I'd be interested to hear otherwise) so how do you decide what to protect and how? Not saying it wouldn't be nice to block things like ACTA, but they'll keep trying to pass similar things regardless.

[zombie urist]

The companies probably calculated that putting more DRM increase total profit. A lot of people don't pirate and don't mind DRM and they contribute most to profits.

I think people against DRM are a vocal minority.

[GlyphGryph]

And I think most of those against DRM are really only against terrible DRM, and only because it makes their game worse while giving nothing in return.

[Levi]

And I think most of those against DRM are really only against terrible DRM, and only because it makes their game worse while giving nothing in return.

Yeah.  I don't have a big problem with steam(which totally is DRM) because its actually made things easier for me rather than harder.  Yet GFWL has caused me no ends of trouble in the past, and DRM schemes with activation limits just seem like a future pain in the butt.

In general as a consumer I don't like DRM, and whatever misfortunes a company is having because of a lack of DRM doesn't bother me in the least.  Its not my problem its their problem, and if they try to fix their problem by giving me problems then I get a bit irritated.

[Cheringe]

I have a totally radical suggestion. Developers that want to get paid for their work can change the way they sell it. I'm not super good at formulating stuff like this but bear with me.

You know, the only stuff that really costs something is the initial production of a game. Unlike material goods, once the software has been assembled, it can be reproduced infinitely with the only costs being bandwidth and hard-drive space. These can be eliminted from the authors list of expenses through peer-to-peer distribution.
Now: Should the devs get paid for the work they do or reduntant copies of the product which don't really cost anything to produce?

If the earlier, I suggest doing it like this:
step 1: Set up a website with a virtual 'tip jar'. Allow anyone who wishes to drop any amount of cash they want into said jar, until a predetermined quota has been reached.
step 2: Advertise your game using youtube, maybe a devblog, as well as showing up to public gaming events where you let people try the game out, and have Q&As. All that stuff.
step 3: Once the tip jar has been filled, release the game for free! With no incentive to add DRM and stuff like that, hell you can release the source code if you want!

In the end it all really works the way it always has: The people who can and want to pay are the ones that do so and the rest get free stuff. But if this was universally adopted you know what the awesome thing would be? All the bitching about piracy would end.

[Owlbread]

The issue with that though is that games companies and developers would make less money.

[alway]

Yeah. Dwarf Fortress, at this point, is kind of a big deal all things considered. It's downloaded approximately 100,000 times a month; factor out most of that because of people re-downloading, and it's still likely thousands of new people each month. Even with a $10 price, Toady could be making an annual income much closer to that of Notch. Instead, using a donation method, he currently makes a little less than an entry-level programmer could get; and that's only after years of making closer to the income of a burger flipper.