GC 2008: Peter Moore doesn't want to punish pirates
by Kevin Kelly 
{ Aug 22nd 2008 at 12:00AM }
Granted, this doesn't mean he wants people to run out and torrent the latest EA title but "there are better solutions than chasing people for money," Moore says. "I'm not sure what they are, other than to build game experiences that make it more difficult for there to be any value in pirating games."
So will Moore change his tune and start keelhauling PC pirates? Probably not, since he's "not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer." Avast, me buckos! Might we expect a subscription-based Madden on PC then?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
superberg @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:25AM
Funny, considering it was just announced that the Mac version of Spore (and other EA games for Mac) will "feature" SecuROM.
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/08/21/transgaming-to-use-securom-for-cider-games/
Psaakyrn @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:41AM
There's a difference between punishing pirates (aka fines and lawsuits) and punishing consumers (aka DRM, software validation).
superberg @ Aug 22nd 2008 1:25AM
'So will Moore change his tune and start keelhauling PC pirates? Probably not, since he's "not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer."'
And yet...
theturtle363 @ Aug 22nd 2008 1:48AM
last i checked Spore wasn't part of EA Sports....
Tiptup300 @ Aug 22nd 2008 2:05AM
The DRM on crysis freaked me out at first, it makes certain models of dvd drives make a clicking sound. It sounded horrible.
BananaBoat @ Aug 22nd 2008 2:28AM
Spore is going to use Securom? Well, they just lost a sale. I say that with extreme sorrow, but seeing as how it took me half an hour to delete the fudged registry entries and locked folders that the World in Conflict demo left on my machine, I'm certainly not going through that again.
The sad part is, the "pirates" will quickly rip out securom and play the game freely, while paying customers will have to suffer the major security hole that securom punches into their machines. You'd think will wright would have stopped them from turning his supposed opus into a rootkit propagation machine, but I guess it's too late.
As for Me? I'm going to play it at a friends house.
I haven't bought an EA game for a few years now. This is why.
Replica23 @ Aug 22nd 2008 3:54AM
Yeah but then there is the Criterion/Burnout Paradise situation, of which are both owned by EA. Weird eh? That said piracy is simply another form of competition and publishers need to realize the best thing they can do is make you want to pay for the content they provide. And you should, unless they're totally dicking you around. Valve and (now) Criterion both do this and it has a wonderful effect. Hopefully more developers/publishers catch on and realize they key to your wallet is through your heart (yeah I know I just wrote that).
Bleck @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:25AM
Absolutely correct. Punishing pirates really isn't the way to go. I think that they should somehow automatically detect pirated consoles/games and limit them somehow. Though I do not know how this could be done...
Senor Facekick @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:50AM
Well, the problem with stopping pirating is that countermeasures -can- be taken to simply make pirating impossible but some of it crosses the line of "too costly and unwieldly" or even 'too complicated for the end user' such as the proposed weekly re-registration with EA which will piss off the users. Too little and the pirates will eat it up, too much and it'll piss off finicky gamers, it's a fine line.
Giroro @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:55AM
Nobody knows how to do it, and therein lies the problem.
Haggard @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:28AM
The problem is that half-assed anti-piracy solutions get cracked in a couple of days, and then everyone can download your game anyway.
You might as well do what Stardock did with Sins of a Solar Empire and simply put no DRM on at all, and instead reward the people who do buy it with extra content patches.
Jigga @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:37PM
Exactly. Reward the people who purchase the game. Microsoft (and now Sony) do this best by including options (i.e. Achievements and online play) that you can't (normally) get by pirating the game.
While there will never be a way to stop pirates, developers can cut down on the number of times their game is bootlegged by providing us more of an incentive to buy their game.
Modding my Xbox isn't worth it to me if it means that I'm going to loose Live, its (friend) leaderboards and achievements. Hell, the friend leaderboard in GeoWars 2 is like digital crack to me.
BigD145 @ Aug 22nd 2008 2:19PM
Make horrible games and nobody will pirate them.
Step 1: Horrible game
Step 2: ??
Step 3: EA Profit
#28 @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:29AM
Smart man.
Beatz @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:30AM
Pretty cool of the guy to understand. Now I feel bad for beating the shit out of him in the Facebreaker demo.
AxelFury @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:37AM
Team Fortress 2 has great anti-pirating features.
Tiptup300 @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:53AM
They are so unfair though, it requires you to be online to play!
Giroro @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:58AM
Nice Avatar AxelFury, and most new online games are hard to pirate, especially through steam.
The hard part is to stop the pirating of single-player offline games that cant be constantly checked for authenticity.
Haggard @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:28AM
@tiptup300
I see what you did there :P
Giroro @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:54AM
http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf
Zorink @ Aug 22nd 2008 4:22AM
Limewire? Really?
Psaakyrn @ Aug 22nd 2008 1:00AM
I don't think WoW is pirated that much...
Tyler Jones @ Aug 22nd 2008 2:42AM
Plenty of pirate servers of WoW still running around though.
Eh @ Aug 22nd 2008 1:11AM
Ship 2 dual layer dvd's packed to the max with uncompressed stuff (has to be required for the game like uncompressed sound or it will just be ripped out). People arent going to want to download 18gbs from a torrent with thousands of leechers, it would take weeks. It wont stop piracy dead in its tracks but a lot of people would be scared away from such a huge download. Sure it will cost more to manufacture but if they actually believe they loose hundreds of millions of dollars from piracy then I dont see the problem.
DigTheDoug @ Aug 22nd 2008 8:57AM
Pirates/crackers aren't that dumb though. They will just lossless compress it or exclude all of the 'junk' data from a new build/copy, keeping only what's necessary. This 'padding' is already done in a good amount of games, though not to the extent of your example.
theturtle363 @ Aug 22nd 2008 1:49AM
Keep on keeping on Pirate Petey.
aj @ Aug 22nd 2008 1:53AM
And why not go after software pirates?
Maybe going after people for money is silly, but last I checked they still put price tags on games in stores. Go after the pirates, and stop punishing the consumer with DRM. And lower the prices. The problem the music industry is having is probably mostly related to the fact that CDs are overpriced to the point of absurdity.
Psaakyrn @ Aug 22nd 2008 3:08AM
a) It's not cost effective.
b) Global markets makes it infeasible for the most part.
c) It's not cost effective.
d) See point (a)
e) It's not cost effective.
rTwelve [xbl:chilblane] @ Aug 22nd 2008 2:17AM
right click
save image as...
piratemoore.jpg
t_m @ Aug 22nd 2008 10:19AM
Didn't I just read that 25,000 game downloaders are getting sued in the UK?
The solution is making games as easy to get legitimately as to download off bittorrent.. put preinstalled versions of something like Steam or gametap on every PC sold.. with lots of free (ad supported) or demo content.. something like Wiiware or XBLA.
Tridus @ Aug 22nd 2008 11:34AM
They won't punish pirates. They will however continue punishing paying customers with SecuROM nonsense, limited installs, and other "features".
The moral of the story? They want you to pirate their games.
Creciente @ Aug 22nd 2008 12:05PM
Piracy must be eliminated.
zodduska @ Aug 22nd 2008 2:36PM
People stop blaming DRM for piracy.. little whining bitches, Securom is a nightmare? give me a break, remember STARFORCE???
DRM EXISTS FOR ONE REASON: TO SLOW DOWN PIRATES!
If you are savvy enough to bitch about DRM chances are you are savvy enough to download a fucking crack if it bothers you that much.
Good on Peter Moore, Aye Matey!