Dave Perry's piracy solution: Be better than free

Steam does it right with their sales, I went from pirated to legit with both L4D and TF2. Also Steam does the DRM properly, its a win for everyone.

i use steam too and I enjoy it, but I dont really understand the difference? What doe steam do so great?

Steam is by Valve, so it has a certain amount of street cred. And keep in mind, when Steam debuted with Half-Life 2, it was every bit as controversial as Starforce and SecuRom.

Put it simply, thieves want a reason to excuse theft. Be it "putting it to the man" or "culture should be free." Fucking thieves are thieves.

better than free? omg they're gonna pay us to buy their games. woooooooo

World of Goo developer = 2dboy (sill alive)

the publisher went bankrupt

Sorry to steal this post..but..

I'm a student who has to pay for school and all so likewise I have very little extra money.
So I just recently (like..an hour ago) ordered a pandora battery from dealextreme to download psp games for free. but after seeing these pirate posts.. i cancelled the order. I also do have a habit of buying used games. Unless its out of print, im going to buy the new copy from now on.

go developers! and sorry for almost pirating your games :)

Oh, jeez, Shepp, you said the same thing here too? Allow me to put this clearly:

PIRACY IS NOT THEFT.

It is illegal, it is unfair, it is bad for the industry, and it should be discouraged. But it is not theft because nobody is depriving anybody of anything. Equating pirates with people who would actually walk into a store and take a product from the shelves without paying is intellectually dishonest, and just as annoying as PETA saying "meat is murder" or equating a verbal assault (insulting someone) with actual physical violence.

Oh but back to the main point, I agree with the OP. "Feelies" were a common practice back in the Inform days, of course with no graphics you kind of *had* to have something to aid in immersion. I think the classic example of value in a retail product versus piracy is the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Those extended versions just came with a ton of extras, and the collector's editions came with some really cool little statues and bookends that any movie fan would love to have on his shelf.

Continued updates is a nice incentive, a la Valve. Tying multiplayer functionality to the a registered account also makes sense, and is not too burdensome.

Actually, crispito, piracy IS theft. You define theft only as the dishonest acquisition of a physical product. How 1960s of you.

What game software IS is the code, art assets, and basically time put into the product. The media it's printed on is is, simply put, the media it's printed on. So the software itself extends beyond the medium it comes on. And evidence of this fact is found easily enough. Steam, PSN, XBLA, Popcap, Wiiware, VC, iTunes, Amazon.com. All places where you don't buy physical copies of games. In these arenas, are you to tell me the software on offer is still defined as a "goods" or rather a "service."

But fine, since you bitched about my analog in the other thread... here's one that fits perfectly. Not paying your cab fare. Illegal and considered in the eyes of the law as theft though no physical good was exchanged. Theatre Hopping, once again treated as shoplifting legally even though all you stole was a viewing pleasure.

Or maybe I should really just disregard your qualifier. Because, frankly, the only people who try to lesson the harshness of the words used are the people who are currently doing said actions.

@ chispito:

"... it is not theft because nobody is depriving anybody of anything."

Really? You're not depriving developers and publishers of the money you're keeping in your pocket?

No you are not depriving anybody of anything because there is nothing that was removed from its rightful owner. It was copied. If I take a picture of the Mona Lisa, I have not stolen the Mona Lisa. If I sneak into the Louvre and take said picture, without paying admission, I still have not stolen the Mona Lisa, and I have not stolen the admission because there was nothing that the museum possessed in the first place that I removed.

You misunderstand me. I think piracy is wrong, but equating it with theft, like the goons at the MPAA and RIAA try to do, is only going to hurt your case against it, not help it. Focus on the truth, not on exaggeration.

@Shepp

Your cab fair analogy is still misplaced. With software and media piracy, the developers and publishers have expended the exact same resources to produce the product regardless of how many people pirate it. Your fictional cab driver loses on gas and opportunity costs. You can argue that some of the pirates would buy the product if piracy were not possible or they were sufficiently dissuaded from it, but retroactively attacking people you wish were paying customers is not a good business plan and is not going to lead to increased sales.

Your line of thinking is almost universally shared among content distributors these days. They see piracy and immediately think of how much money they're losing--which is likely very little--instead of thinking how they could make the legal purchase of their product more desirable.

Very very simple. Allow me to return a shitty opened game that I paid full price for at a full refund within say.. 7 hours. I just want some sort of consumer assurance I'm not getting a lemon for my money, you know like every other product in the US.

You do realize that if you buy 2 games a year at $60 and claim that's all you can afford, your gaming budget is $120. If games were lowered to $40, you'd only buy 1 more game a year. With a budget of $120, you'd need games to be $10 or under to pick one up every month.

Just saying...

150000000% agree with that.
With the $60 standard, I keep having to closely debate my purchases, or soley by used :/

I think you guys that are calling for cheaper prices are missing a large side of this.

The simple fact is that piracy and used game sales are crippling publishers right now...which means games aren't going to get cheaper, they're likely going to increase in price unless things improve.

Let's be clear, making games is a business, and it has to make money to continue. Calling for publishers to lower the price of their games while still being exposed to piracy and 2nd hand sales isn't possible - they will hemmorage even more money than they do today and they will not be able to continue.

There have to be greater changes before games can become cheaper...most notably used game sales. Publishers HAVE to start getting a kickback from used game retailers, otherwise they're going to have to recoup the losses from somewhere else (read: higher prices!). Or you're going to see more DRM or online-activation required.

Of course I would love it if games were cheaper again...but it's just not possible in the current environment unless a publisher just wants to piss away money and go bankrupt.

Is the price situation different in America?

Here in the UK, last gen games were £40, but I get most of my next gen games at launch for £37 or so.

He does, however, make a valid point. The pricing is a very important factor, and $60 ($70 now if you happen to be Canadian) is quite a high price point for the average piece of entertainment software. If lowering the price allowed you to fit that many more interactive experiences into your video game budget, then you would be less motivated to steal that same experience. If I felt I could afford to go out and purchase an interesting game, the hassle would be less than to download a torrent over the course of a day and take the time to get such a copy working.

The industry keeps talking about lowering the price point of video games, but recent history has only shown it go up in price slightly. It seems they are aware of this being a possible solution, what's going on there?

While it's possible that lowering the price could deter a few pirates, I don't think a publisher will try to create a valid business model on that assumption. There are just far too many variables and 'faith' involved.

BunnySlapper,

You seem to be suggesting that lower game prices is correlated with more piracy. I don't think that is a logical conclusion. If we're talking about reducing the number of people who "want" buy a game, but feel it is not worth the cost, then reducing the price would reduce the number of those people pirating the game. If people stealing a game would never have bought it in the first place, then reducing the price point would not cause more of those people to download more copies.

No I'm not correlating lower price with an increase in piracy, I'm correlating lower price with a reduced revenue stream for the publisher while still having the drain of piracy/used game sales. I am in fact stating that assuming piracy/used game sales stay the same - not increase or decrease (I don't think there is data to support either).

Stardock released DemiGod without DRM because they wanted to be kind to the consumer. And what happened? They were overrun by pirates on release day - not happy consumers.

Lower price equalling lower pirating is just too big of an assumption in my opinion. If someone has been getting games for free, why would they pay anything when they can still get it for free?

because it is more convienient to purchase a game than to download it in my opinion. I would suggest that it is a hassel and time consuming to pirate a game. If the price point is more attractive I would rather buy the game convienently than continue to steal it.

@Spallit

Yes I understand your opinion and the logic, but you're only taking into account the consumer end of things. A business would not be fiscally responsible to make such a leap of faith.

It may very well be true that lower price would equal lower pirating, but I don't think you are going to find many (if any) publishers willing to take such a risk.

What you may see are smaller games at retail for a smaller price and a greater amount of DLC...for example a Gears of War2 for $40 at retail that has no multiplayer on disk, but offers it via paid DLC.

For $60-$70 I can pick up some big/epic Fantasy Flight tactics board games that require no electricity (more money loss) and only require a large table and some real people in front of me.

I dunno about you guys, but here in Australia i've noticed Wii games at least selling at a lower price. They used to all be AUS$99.95 (USD$70, but our prices include all taxes with no other charges) but i've noticed lately some brand new games like Mad World coming out at $79.95 and HOTD:Overkill at $69.95, with the 'Play on Wii' remakes at $45. From where i'm sitting, games seem to be getting cheaper if anything.

If publishers see it as fiscally irresponsible, then perhaps that's part of the problem. They need to think more long term. Lowering prices may not results in an immediate improvement in sales, but I honestly think that it would reduce the portion of piracy that affects them the most in the long run.

I'm one of those that buys more things if they're cheaper than normal. I'd rather spend $160 on 4 games than $120 on 2.

I almost kick myself every time I've bought a new game in the past few years. Plunking down $60 in one go kinda deters me in the longrun from being so willing to throw down $60 on the next game I want, even if it's a month or several down the line. $40 at a time just feels like a safer investment on a game. For me.

And after getting 4 games out of $160, I'd still be more willing to venture forth and buy more down the line.

Demigod launched without DRM and at $40 US and the pirates outnumbered legitimate customers 24-1 on launch day. World of Goo, a $5 game, pirated the developer into bankruptcy. A lower cost clearly doesn't have an effect on reducing piracy. The only solution is the method used in the old days, hand them dead in public.

didnt n64 games cost like 80 dollars? because it was on cartridge? i heard snes was expensive too.

so that must not be what you're talking about when you say cheap prices. (besides ps1.. but just go along with me.)

and the dreamcast/ps2/gamecube/xbox games were standard 49.99

ps3/360 are 59.99

wii is 49.99.

that almost averages it all out.

but where did you get 40? (for a new release game)

1. Console games ONLY had the $40 standard price during the Atari 2600 days. I severely doubt you were a gamer back then. Given inflation, however, that was more akin to $90 compared to the economy today.

2. Cartridge systems were much more expensive. $60 was the average asking price for a first party NES game. Chrono Trigger was $85 on SNES. Virtua Racing was a nearly $100 game since they built an FX chip onto the ROM.

3. The price to develop games has gone up dramatically as the material cost has gone down. Games cost more to make nowadays than they ever had. Why someone says "games should increase in price" is beyond my understanding. You want AA video games and you sure as fuck can't do that with a Carnival Games budget.

4. Pirates are right now trying to figure out how to steal DSi and iPhone games. With the price range of $.99-$10 in effect there, clearly price isn't the problem.

But in essence, your problem is simple to figure out, even easier to come up with a solution. You don't HAVE to buy your games Day 1. I know, I know. Then you won't be the coolest kid in school who beat Bioshock 2 on Tuesday when it came out on Sunday but stay with me here for a second. Make a list of games you are interested in. Watch prices fall. Hell, Cheapassgamer just added an entire app to help you with this. When the game reaches this $40 you're willing to pay, buy it then. This Day 1 mentality is expensive, yes. And for some games, WORTH IT. But not for every game. Take, as an example, I had interest in Prince of Persia. Not $60 worth of interest, but the $25 of interest I paid? Definately.

That's a bit extreme, as it'd stopped anyone buying games used.

And in 8+ years time, when the game is no longer in print, the only way to buy a game is used. It'd suck so much if someone wanted to pick up a used copy of a favourite game they lost years ago, and can't complete it because it doesn't come packaged with a code.

Not to mention people who don't have their console connected to the internet (and they still make up around half of all PS360 owners) would be screwed as well.

@Hyams

The Gears 2 example you posted below has the same problem, albeit to a far lesser extent.

Would suck even more if you don't have your console hooked up to the net. Or if you want to play your old games 10 years in the future and you can't reinstall them cause the ending is on a server somewhere that got shut down when the whole world stopped playing that game.

They should just periodically give free DLC away to people that have a serial code on their box, I don't see why they couldn't do that, other then for example Microsoft wanting a share in the profits.

@Hyams: Good point. I didn't really think it was the best solution by any means, but people will definitely not pirate the game if they know they will miss out on an important part of it. I guess I should have been more specific. DLC that matters doesn't have to be the extreme example I used (game ending); I meant to say that they need it to be DLC that people will care about. The game ending was kind of a joke extreme example.

Jacksons:

Losing out on a couple of additional (ie. not required) maps is hardly game breaking, though, is it?

Not to mention that: a) in 8+ years, no one will be playing online anyway, so you're not missing out on anything, and b) an offline-only gamer has no need for additional maps for online play.

Yarr

One more problem is that PC DRM gets cracked pretty easy, so it wouldn't be too hard it figure out how to unlock the rest.

I think this is the first time I have ever seen Saria at 1 heart.

The world is coming to an end.

Run.

@The Doctor: You've obviously never been to the spanking thread. :P

And, yeah... *sigh* Obviously people have no imagination because they didn't catch the humor in my extreme example.

one word. YouTube. They could just play through the nwhen the hit that last part youtube the ending.

My idea is along these lines, but less extreme. I fundamentally think you should be able to get the core game experience no matter what - used, really old game, etc.

So, have a single-use code for some content that adds meaningfully to the game; additional side-quests or different characters for RPGs, different weapons for FPSs, maybe some additional (non-major plot) levels, etc. Those that buy new get an enhanced experience.

Then, because not everyone will buy new, you also allow people to buy the code directly from the publisher. Each publisher can set this price as they see fit, and reap the profits directly (no middle-man of retail, PSN/XBLA/WiiWare, etc.) in order to recoup the money lost to pirates and the used game market. And if a publisher sets the level too high, well they wont get much back, will they? Market forces will play a role; well priced, good additional content, = more code sales, crap or overpriced = poor sales. And if a publisher crosses the line and hides the ending or something, then public outcry will lead to excessive pirating/boycotting and they will hurt as well.

As for those that aren't connected to the internet, they are still getting the core game experience they paid for, and if they take the extra effort, they can get some additional content. It is up to the consumer to decide.

Now clearly some would protest to this, and there might be some backlash at first, but I think if it was properly done and properly advertised, consumers would come to terms with it.

I think this idea has real merit. If you do too, please let me know, or if you have any suggestions to improve it.

@scratch: That's basically what I was trying to get at. Have meaningful DLC to reward legitimate purchasers, but nothing as drastic as the ending. I totally agree!

Single-use codes and DLC doesn't work because any pirate that wants to upload the game will redeem the code first, and then upload it (with the DLC). Or upload the DLC separately from the game itself.

@Brit: But if the only way to get the DLC is by buying a new game, how would a pirate get around this? The pirate would have to buy the game new (because the code is packaged inside the case), open it, get the code, redeem...And then what? Re-package the game and return it?

> @Saria the Cat:
Huh? Here's the way piracy works: one person buys the game and uploads it. Other people download the pirated version.

Here's the way to pirate DLC: one person buys the game, gets the DLC, and uploads it. Other people download the pirated version (of both the game and the DLC). It's the same way downloadable games get pirated. The fact of the matter is that once you have the binaries and the artwork on your machine (and you break any DRM), you can put the whole thing into a zip file and upload it to the internet. DLC doesn't change the equation at all. At best the only difference is that real-buyers automatically get the DLC, whereas the pirates have to be aware of it's existence and download it from a pirate website.