Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Pathos on May 28, 2010, 02:55:12 pm

Quote from: Muz on May 28, 2010, 02:52:46 pm

Sort of had it coming, with the stunted growth and all. 

I think you mean it was to be expected.

Yeah, they do tend to have a short life expectancy.

That's not all that was short about him! Buh-dum bum! Tish~!

Sorry, couldn't resist the short joke.

Anyway, he will be missed. I remember hating how he was always typecast just because he was the way he was.

I think we all have very different views here of what copyright is, but let me point out that copyright was originally intended to keep companies from stealing material from each other. This means that 2K wouldn't be able to use material licensed by EA in their games and so on. Copyright has recently become an issue for customers because companies feel like blaming waning sales for crappy games on piracy.

Here's a fact: Console piracy far outstrips PC piracy. Sounds crazy, but more people have consoles than PCs. Also, do you know how easy it is to mod a console? I've had customers come in and ask us if we mod consoles or loudly brag how their 360 is modded and they use an external HDD with all the games on it they want. If it wasn't breaking forum rules, I could probably pop on Google and find several sites that offer modding assistance or tutorials that show you how to do it yourself. Nintendo has tons of piracy going on, yet they regularly post in the black every fiscal year. This means that, overall, they are making money.

Now, the comment made that most pirates are the biggest consumers of media? Possibly. This isn't too farfetched and, honestly, the people that would pirate most are people who don't have the money in the first place. I could argue here that piracy may actually help artists and developers in the long run because it expands their market to everyone with some know-how. Instead of paying customers finding that new CD you just put out and liking it, anyone with a computer and torrent software can find it. If they like it, they buy it. These people then come to your concerts and make you more money. This, however, doesn't exactly transfer over to developers for obvious reasons. It can help them, however, because people can actually try the game before they buy it. More often than not, purchasing the game to get support and patches and other cool stuff is just what you do. It's the reason you're buying the game. You're not buying code at that point, you're paying to get support and patches made and other cool little tidbits.

I think an easy way to abate piracy enough to ensure it doesn't truly harm sales is to require registering on the forums and a simple CD-Key/Machine-Key verification. This makes sure that pirates are less likely to be able to download patches and obtain technical support. If you want technical support, buy the product. That simple.

As far as open-source being hurt by piracy... Pirates tend to be the #1 supporters and spreaders of open-source software. IRC warez channels, torrent websites, and download sites all tend to host any open-source software they can get. It's one of the many reasons why large companies that were considering the blackbox approach to hardware (blacklisting any non-licensed software) simply did not care about open-source OSes and software. Of course, the blackbox approach got squished because, frankly, consumers hate any DRM.

When you buy something, you don't want to be asked several times "DID YOU REALLY BUY THIS?! ARE YOU SURE YOU AREN'T A PIRATE?!"

Moral arguments, by the way, are just a silly thing. This is not an argument of morals. This is an argument of the bottom line effects of piracy. I highly doubt that piracy significantly effects the bottom line for a simple reason I've stated before: There is no guarantee that pirates are "lost sales" You cannot lose something you never had and, most likely, pirates would have never bought the product in question anyway.

It's all a question of demographic. If pirates aren't the purchasing demographic and represent a portion of people that never were, then why would DRM change that? All it does is make paying customers angry and upset at being treated like criminals in an attempt to recoup sales that were never lost in the first place. In fact, I would wager that companies like Ubisoft have lost more money and sales due to invasive and batshit insane DRM than they would have gained by their foolish attempt to force people who wouldn't have bought the software in the first place to buy the software.

Let's review one simple fact: People who aren't going to buy are just not going to buy. Businesses are ignoring the main tenet of retail and that is to entice the consumer to buy their product. You don't punish consumers for what shoplifters do. You don't raise prices because your store gets robbed. You simply offer incentives to buy, which do not extend to people who steal. In the retail business, a receipt is proof of a sale and gets you customer support. In software this is equivalent to your CD/License key. This is your proof that you are a paying customer and deserve support. We identify forged receipts in similar ways we identify fake CD/License keys.

Ok I REALLY got to stop starting arguements on Spore...

Honestly, you didn't start an argument. It was a simple misunderstanding that you thought I meant Spore was simplified for technical reasons. I meant that SimEarth was simplified for technical reasons.

Spore was simplified because it revealed secrets of the G̶r̶͜ę̀͢at̸̴̸ Ol̴d́ ̵҉Oǹ̢ȩ͠s̵̷.

People do spend money on games when they are in a recession, though. Also on movies and other forms of entertainment. This is a trend which has been observed again and again.

Where did my last post go? :O

They do, and I realize this... But they also spend money on food, clothing, beer, etc. The gaming industry really isn't having much of a "boom"... It's just that there are some really good games that have been coming out. During summer, sales will be crap. They always are.

Kick him out. C'mon.

We can't. He's on the lease till it's up and, to be quite frank, we need him paying rent so we can afford the place easier. We're less like lesbians and more like poorbians.

manstink? Are you one of those kind of lesbian?

No, no, no. I was describing our (my GF and mine) roomie. His room reeks of must and mildew so much that I have to hold my breath whenever I hear his door opening. It's really nasty. I also have a sensitive nose and once that manstench gets in there it won't go away for an hour.

Let me list some of the problems we have with him:

1) Manstink. Seriously.
2) Never. Cleans. Anything.
3) Showers every day yet still creates Manstink.
4) Rarely does his dishes. Longest time they were in there was three months before we got fed up and threw them in his room while wearing hazmat suits.
5) Doesn't contribute to household funds for essentials or cleaning supplies like toilet paper, drain cleaner, or cleaning solution.
6) Lived here a year, only done laundry once when his dad came over to force him to do it. His dad did most of the work.
7) Lived here a year, still can't remember address.
Too damn difficult to get rent and bill money out of him.
9) His room has no floor. Only clothes and crap.
10) Has little grasp on the concept of ownership unless something belongs to him.
11) Constantly touches stuff we have in common areas and moves things just to annoy us.
12) Manages to somehow knock bottles of shampoo off of our shelf in the shower and is too stupid to at least pick them up. We find them lying in the tub.
13) Doesn't understand that food we buy is not for him.
14) Thinks we don't know when he steals our food.
15) Ate peanut butter for dinner last night. Complains he has no money, yet buys a plethora of Magic the Gathering cards.
16) Has taken one film class (Intro to!), yet believes he knows so much about film that he criticizes and critiques any film he sees. Usually during the film.
17) Played video games. Decided he wasn't into video games anymore. Now decides he is back into video games. During that whole time, he still criticized any and every game he's seen me playing. I have a collection of over 100 games of almost every genre. He plays Call of Duty.
18) Sounds like a goddess forsaken elephant (E!) and makes me feel like I like in Boatmurdered. I can't ever find the "Flood the world with magma" lever, though.
19) Loud. He cackles like a hyena and we can hear him. Always.
20) Has trouble understanding how locks on a door work.

I'm sure there are more, but I don't feel like raging more about him right now.

This may make me unpopular, but here goes:

There is no substantial evidence supporting the claim that piracy truly negatively impacts sales. People who weren't going to buy the thing still don't buy it and people who are going to buy it will still buy it because they can afford it and obviously want to buy it.

If piracy is such a big issue then why are companies that sell legit games like Gamestop still posting profit increases? I work for them, so I know. There are still people buying games! Companies like EA, may I point out, probably are losing so much money because of their "avante garde"-esque approach to sports games.

Any company that releases a sports game every year is begging to hemorrhage money due to a few simple facts. Licensing is huge with franchises like Madden. Seriously. Those sports guys ask for a big cheque for a game that isn't even out, just to have their likeness in it or to have their face on the cover. Marketing is likewise as huge. EA pays companies like Gamestop to push its employees to sell the product. We compete to see who can get the most Madden reserves. Also, when Madden is near release my damn store will be coated in Madden promotional crap. Hype is also gigantic and filled with bullshit. Seriously, for the past few years I've heard how each new Madden has "more realistic" graphics and is "innovative" and has new "tackle dynamics". Buzzwords and bullshit, all of it.

Sales for games like Madden and Fight Night (Round 4, particularly) and UFC (2010, particularly) have been tanking hard. I'm not talking old school hard where they sunk a couple million in and aren't going to see it back. We're talking tens if not hundreds of millions for a goddess damned sports game. They do this every year and people are getting tired of it. Last year we were getting tons of reserves for Madden 10 because EA finally said, "Look, we're making this shit real, baby!" and people bought it, both figuratively and literally. Madden 10 came and went with very little bang. Madden 11 says the same shit. It's ridiculous that these companies then turn around and bitch about copyright and blame people downloading their crap for free.

Hell, I remember a pretty obscure game that some of you might know... It was called Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. That gem of a game was released in 2000 and I was pretty psyched when I got my copy. You guys remember 2000?! There was piracy then, too! However, ten years later, Bioware isn't even limping from piracy. They don't care. Why? Their shit is golden. You may not like them, but most of their games meet with critical acclaim and the sales follow. In fact, many games considered "heavily pirated" were games people weren't sure of. Also, that fucking manual. I swear to goddess, the Baldur's Gate II manual was enough to make you buy it. It was your bible for the game and served as a great way to make the purchase worthwhile.

Consider Spore and the Sims 3. EA's two gems from Maxis guy Will Wright. Let's look at Spore. Spore was designed by WW and developed by Maxis. Now, this game was "heavily pirated", although how they can reliably state an amount of illegally downloaded copies is anyone's guess seeing as this information would need to be identifiers of an individual and can then lead to an arrest... But I digress... Why do you think this game was heavily pirated? Well, people weren't sure what they were getting and the game was hyped so majorly. Sims 3, same thing. Many people already paid the two-hundered and some odd dollars that getting all the expansion packs and the core game when they came out cost. I know I did. Why would you want to add sixty to that to get the same thing? More uncertainty.

Let's think about this, though: Spore and the Sims 3 were giant financial successes.

When licensing for Spore on consoles is over (Damn you, Nintendo!) we will likely see a lot more expansions, sort of akin to what we will see when Sims 3 is out on consoles. Why? It is profitable.

Let's face it, these companies are still making huge profits off of these titles. The losses from piracy can't be that bad if the companies aren't financially suffering from it.

While this may seem like I'm attempting to say, "It's a-ok to pirate!" I am more saying that the crazed vilification of downloaders and the likening to car thieves, purse snatchers, and murderers is just fucking insane. The punishment should fit the crime and prison time, internet restrictions, and humongous fines are simply not working. Why? They all cost money. If someone is a pirate, it is likely due to financial issues and not due to "simply wanting to" or "thinking it's cool".

Here's another fun fact for you, by the way: Companies are focusing more money on crazy copyright protection schemes, like Ubisoft and their "Have to be online all the time!" DRM. This costs money. Maybe they are losing money because they are sinking their costs into creating batshit or invasive DRM instead of making quality product. They are failing to realize that most consumers do not see digital things as legitimate objects to purchase. When you buy a game, you want the physical artifact of it. If you paid a lot, it had better be an epic physical artifact. DLC is shifting this paradigm a bit, but the only reason is because you own that license for the game for all time. There is nothing to lose and no reason that license should be taken away. With PC games and whatnot, people want downloads to be cheaper. $59.99 for a game in store AND to download? Batshit.

People need incentives to purchase the product, instead of punishments for pirating. These incentives aren't even technically incentives and should be offered anyway, even though they are usually not. Here goes:

1) A reliable demonstration of the game. If shareware has taught us anything, it's that you need to put out your product for free with skirmishes completely unlocked with all the features they would have in the full game. If people want to play multiplayer or the singleplayer campaign or even unlock new content, they need to register for (insert normal price of game here). Registrations should be online-only and offer the ability to get shipped a physical copy with the same serial number for a slight fee. For strategy games, this would make piracy pointless. You get the skirmishes anyway, but if you want to do anything else or use expansions you need a key. Also, I am damn tired of games not having demos. How the fuck am I supposed to know it's not a piece of shit? Cut out some features or make it stop after 5 minutes. I don't care, just put out a demo that is actually the game and not a specially made piece of shit marketing tool.

2) Product support. You need it. End of story. I am tired of developers and publishers putting out crap and then not listening to customer inquiries for support. If you can't support your product, then don't charge money for it. Consumers don't pay for buggy pieces of shit and there should be some protection for consumers that get screwed over by giants like EA when it comes to support.

3) Content-based incentives. Make it so people actually want to give you money and see you make more stuff. Here's an example, a game a select few of you might have heard of: Dwarf Fortress. I won't be surprised if you haven't heard of it but-[/sarcasm]... Ok, enough of that. Seriously, though, people give Toady money. Does he charge for DF? No. Does he support DF? Yes. How is it that a two-man team can come out with a product that has little polish, excellent gameplay, and jaw-dropping mechanics? How is it they can do this fulltime and not charge for the game yet still make money?! People are simply so amazed and love DF so much, they pay for more.

---

This is all a crazed thing that is mostly shrouded in grey, although I believe that both sides have core ideals that are somewhat goodhearted and each is vilified to some extent. Pirates are seen as greedy asshats who want everything for free while DRM-supporters are seen as aloof asshats who want to control and sell the world.

In reality, many "scenes" that crack games look down on the release of their work outside of smaller communities. Also, many of them do it for rather simple, non-asshat reasons: As a show of skill. Much like football players do what they do to show how physically fit and able to play football they are, crackers disable DRM to show that it can be done and say, "Look at me, Ma! I can understand code and modify it to do what I want it to do!"

In reality, there is a large and growing group of "noble" pirates who claim to only pirate due to economic reasons and likewise claim to actually purchase things they have obtained for free if they like it and have the disposable income. These are the same people fighting against large publishers for music and games, believing that the internet is replacing these outdated methods of "getting yourself out there" and making it increasingly more viable to publish your own music and games.

In reality, DRM-supporters just want to ensure their favourite artists or developers keep on developing or doing whatever artistic thing they are doing. Many of these people may be "noble" pirates as well, and are supporting the spirit but usually not the method of DRM.

In reality, most of the DRM activity is being pushed by publishers. The developers are, usually, already paid when it comes to big projects like The Sims, and the people losing out on sales tends to be the publishers. In music, the publishers make most money off of CD sales while the artist makes most money off of things you cannot pirate, like concerts and public appearances.

I think the publishers are fighting a losing battle as we are seeing a trend where more artists and developers are choosing to work with companies like Valve (Steam) or Stardock (Impulse) and, even on mobile phones, we see more "accessible to anyone" publishing platforms like Android. Production of physical mediums is also getting more streamlined and the batch sizes are able to be lower and lower. There are talks of "books to order" and "CDs to order" so artists can pay to have 1 CD made at a time or 2000 CDs made at a time.

I support the open transmission of ideas and culture, but I also want developers and artists to keep being awesome. I'm very conflicted between the two sides as there is a beautiful, good, bad, and ugly side to each of them. Neither is completely in the right, but both are definitely in the wrong somewhere.