BioWare to combat piracy through customer loyalty

I would never pirate a BioWare game. They deserve every penny that they pull from my pockets.

They did not care much about customer loyalty when placing the ridiculous DRM on their products and limiting the amount of allowed installs. What a bunch of PR bull****.

Sounds good to me. Nothing annoys a paying customer more than having to jump through hoops to play a game they own. Pirates find a way to circumvent whatever copy protection mechanism is in place and are the only ones who get to enjoy the game free of the burden of copy protection.

Copy protection isn't a piracy-deterrent, it's a sales-deterrent.

Mass Effect (PC) only allows three intalls. Once you use them up, EA/Bioware tells you over the phone to Buy Another Copy. Ya, people are gonna stay loyal with that bullshit, Bioware.

Well, customer royalty and invasive copy-protection, at any rate.

There will always be piracy.

But make a game good enough and that alone will curb some (I repeat, some) of the problem.

I like what BioWare is saying.

Sounds more like damage control to me.

I think a lot of the people who bitch about the DRM/3 install issues are just bitching to hear their own voice. I have multiple PC's and I have never ran around and installed a game on each one, nor would I expect to be able to. We have multiple copies of the MP games we play, so that we can play online together. I wouldn't expect a game manufacturer to absorb that cost for us.

To expect every game company to allow their products to be used as defined by each user alone would be back breaking for them. Besides, the vast majority of PC gamers are fine with the security measures.

I think BioWare is getting itself confused with Valve, because right now Mass Effect on PC has the most retarded DRM I've seen.

P.S. Console games are not inherantly less piratable - it's just more of a PITA to modchip or hack your console but once you have the ability to copy one console game you can copy all of them.

Tell that the Cry(baby)tek guy. But what a concept, make a good game and people will buy it? GASP! this is why Bioware has such respect..

I'm not at all a big fan of PC gaming but I do hate DRM in any form so I hope that they stop it or make it less intrusive.

The only game that I might want on PC would be Spore.

Quite the optimists.

So I was on this site with pirates and their bays to see what kind of Mass Effect related fixes they may have(Cough cough) and I saw a download with a DRM crack. After clicking the link in the comments section I find some ISP's from Bioware are there seeding the information with some naughty data to screw the entire download. I don't know if that's awesome or not but I guess they forgot to add that with their whole "We stop pirating by caring."

Ever since one of my friends in college almost got expelled for piracy, I've been a bit wary about game, video, and music piracy.

I know that it's an unpopular opinion on the internet, but as an artist, I can understand why piracy is wrong and I pay for my music / movies / games. It's only fair that the people responsible get paid for the work they put into the product.

Don't get me wrong - I completely despise the RIAA / MPAA for the way they handle these things, and I know that the money you put into these products doesn't always find a way back into the hands of the people doing all the grunt work, but frankly, I'd rather not see another good game franchise go bust just because too many assholes felt entitled to play for free.

On average (in the US, anyway), liberal-minded people score higher on intelligence tests than conservatives, so GTFO.

I think another strategy would be to release games at different price point in different regions. It seems unfair to ask people in many countries in Asia to pay $50 for a game when you can easily have a good meal at a decent restaurant for under $5.

Bioware is playing good cop, bad cop with EA.

I do believe in supporting the publishers by purchasing their software. I wish I could go back in time and buy psychonauts instead of just renting it (partial support).

I don't support draconian DRM, but I'm afraid I see what they've said above as being wishful thinking. Yes, it's true that producing a product of value, that people get value from over time should result in people paying with their wallets.

Economics and all that.

The trouble is, it may not be enough. I'm sad to say it's all too easy to encounter people who have had this value. They've played games for months if not years. Had productive communities they've formed and been involved in for years. All based on PC games none of them have paid for. These are often people with plenty of income. I know these people exist.

One interesting experience (though this isn't the only way I encounter them) was WoW, as it was probably the first MMO to see an influx of FPS players. One thing way too many people said was WoW was the first game they'd paid for in ages as they copied everything else. This was despite the fact they formed guilds and communities around them that lasted years. And they still didn't want to pay 30 GBP for that.

There is a good number of people who just don't believe they should pay.

And IQ tests are a load of bullshit anyway. There aren't many differentiating factors between the two parties these days except for types of educational degrees pursued. Liberal arts degrees tend to be more heavily Democrat while hard science tends to be more Republican. Otherwise, not much different, especially in policy making. They both want to run your lives but use different methodologies to obtain the goal.

They should simply make good games with engrossing multiplayer aspects and demonstrate good value. The Orange Box comes to mind.

Maybe I'm missing the mark here. If I have a 360, and a copy of Mass Effect, I can play it on my friend's 360, and their friends' 360s, and if my 360 bricks, I can play it on a new 360.

Meanwhile, if I get it on PC, I can play it on my desktop, my laptop, and a third computer...and then that's it? That's kinda lame.

If anything, they should allow 3 installs, and then a ROM-only mode, something where it can play off the disc just like 360 would. If it's not getting copied it's not piracy, right?

@Marty - source?

...and the world was right again.

In accordance with his logic, all Bioware games do not have SecuROM, yes?

For all those resorting to corporate apologism, it's becoming increasingly clear that security measures regarding most software these days is becoming exponentially fascistic. I don't think that this should be a time to live and let live, especially if these so called "Anti-piracy" programs directly affect our computers with rootkits and the like. Ultimately, theirs is a practice that shouldn't be tolerated. I can't imagine that there's anything justifying the game industry's practice of assuming the worst of their customers.

People are forgetting that EA was responsible for the DRM on the PC and we know how little they care about the end user.

I have nothing but respect for Bioware, the best example of them being good developers is that they are STILL supporting Neverwinter Nights 1 which has kept it's only community thriving. They're in the process of releasing an absolutely collosal patch that basically releases all of the premium content from the modules for free for all the online users to use. If that doesn't make them awesome, nothing does.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/20/Opinion/Does_IQ_matter_in_pol.shtml

Not that I want to stray too far off topic here...

Ok I can visit the pirate bay and pirate every pc game in exsitance. Do I therefore own every game? NO. I dont because most of the games are not worth my time. That means I dont want them, even for FREE. It means you would have to pay ME to play them.

So the solution to piracy is deffenitly to make a good game. If your game is bad, and people wont even pirate it for free, what makes you think they are gonna pay money for it?

I think the other half of hte solution is lower pricing. You can charge $9.99 for a brand new game and still make profit. No1 would ever bother with piracy if a game was $9.99. Hell I would pick up spore right away for $9.99. Millions of people would. They would still make millions of dollars on the game. But companies like money. Why charge $9.99 when the average person will pay $49.99?

Oh and 1 last thing. Theres always amazing multiplayer to prevent piracy. With most multiplayer games, you need a cd-key to play on official servers (which are way better then these laggy 3rd party things people set up) Take starcraft 2 for example. Im buying that game for sure, day 1. I need my cd-kay to play on bnet. Now if it were a 1 player game, or a game with lame multiplayer, I would be inclined to simply download it for free and play through the 1 player mode. Its not like I have any morals about not giving my little money to those billionairs at activision blizzard. They are so rich they should be making their next 4 or 5 games for free.

Modern Republicans are not conservatives. That misconception might have skewed the results a bit.