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| [Sep 30, 2011, 8:01 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
An article on Eurogamer speaks with a few figures from the game industry seeking to answer the question "How Bad is PC Piracy Really?" The general consensus is that it is impossible to definitively determine what percentage of PC games are pirated, or how many legitimate sales are actually lost as a result, but that doesn't stop some of the people they spoke with from taking guesses: Reinhard Blaukovitsch from SecuROM vendor Sony DADC says "between 40 and 80 per cent of total copies of a game being played are pirated," and: "The commercial value of global software piracy is growing by 14 percent annually." Analyst Michael Pachter tells them: "Ubisoft told me that their PC game sales are down 90 per cent without a corresponding lift in console sales," and that he guesses "40 to 50 per cent of PC games played are not purchased." Capcom's and PCGA's Christian Svensson says he thinks it ranges from 50/50 at the low end and: "At the higher end you can see 90 per cent illegitimate usage to 10 per cent legitimate."
They also discuss solutions: "[There's] no public data to suggest that DRM works," says Pachter. "But the fact that more companies are imposing it strongly suggests that they believe it works." They also have a separate article about Pachter's comments. "Yes, piracy is ruining PC gameplay, and yes, it is forcing PC games online," the analyst says. "This happened in China 15 years ago, and in Korea in the last decade, and it's happening in the West now." One thing all their respondents seem to agree on is that it's a problem when DRM punishes legitimate users and encourages piracy. Here's a chunk with a few takes on that concept: "Consumers are right to complain about DRM, since it impacts both legitimate and illegitimate users," reckons Pachter. "The problem is that the companies think it limits piracy, and an industrious and determined hacker can work around DRM, while a normal, legitimate user must deal with a hassle. I'm not sure where to come down on this, as I respect the companies' right to protect their intellectual property, while acknowledging the legitimate consumer's complaint about the problems created with DRM."
"The challenge nowadays is to reward loyal users," GOG.com's managing director Guillaume Rambourg believes. "If you make the whole gaming experience more complicated and more frustrating for people who buy the game; if it's easier to play a game that is pirated because they removed all the technical restraints, then I think there is a big issue on the plate now. It should be easier to play a game that you bought legally than play a game that you pirated."
"Through the use of DRM, a publisher can meaningfully improve profitability on a project." Christian Svensson, PCGA and Capcom "There's good DRM and what we call bad DRM," explains Svensson. "There's a huge breadth of parameters and technologies available, and no one technology is bad - it's the implementation that can be bad, the communication around the implementation that can be bad. What we try and do - and we haven't always been successful in this - is never hurt the legitimate user. If the legitimate user is ever going to have a more negative experience than a pirate, you've done something wrong.
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| 39. |
Re: PC Piracy and DRM Analysis |
Oct 1, 2011, 14:10 |
Ruffiana |
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fela wrote on Oct 1, 2011, 00:04:
To the gaming "industry": Industry is the problem, not the solution. The industry has adopted the bullshit Hollywood model of pumping out garbage after garbage (yay more sequels and clones!) while additionally nickel and dimming the customer with $10 patches packaged with malware (DRM) and bloatware that nobody wants. This is ruining gaming.
Thank the gods for the Internet and indie games. Developers should understand by now there are only two ways of making a living developing games:
1) Sign away your rights, games, and ideas to middlemen who lost their reason for existence over a decade ago while gambling on a archaic business model that has shown countless failures. Hopefully all the PR stunts will turn a profit for the game and make up for the eventual layoffs of your friends/co-workers and the fact you worked 60 hour weeks for a $60 "AAA" title that will be featured in the bargain bin in a month.
2) Ditch the parasites, self-publish, and make a quality game that rises above the sea of gaming garbage. Since you don't have to appease inept corporate overlords and the almighty profit margin, one can produce twice the quality at a fraction of the cost, and all the while still leaving your dignity intact! See "Minecraft" as an example on how this model works.
If one wants to make money on the Internet one must understand the environment. Since anything you put into 1's and 0's becomes virtually and infinitely abundant, "intellectual" copyright and the cute notion of claiming ownership over non-scarce goods has died its well deserved death. Sorry Mr. Old Guard Developer if you came up with the idea first, but copying and sharing is not theft. I cannot be "stealing" if I am not depriving anyone of their property first, and virtual (non-scarce) goods do not count sorry buddy.
Welcome to the Digital Age kids. Adapt or die.
I've been part of the "industry" for over 12 years now and have never, NEVER, worked a 60 hour week period. Meanwhile, I've drawn a nice comfortable salary week after week, month after month. Sure I've ridden through a number of layoffs and shutdowns in that time, but you know what...it's still better than sitting at home, not making any damn money while trying to support my family and make a supposedly super-awesome game to appease the mass of anonymous gamers.
You are grossly romanticizing indy developers. The majority of whom work as long or as hard as those in the mainstream industry with much more personal risk, far less security, and far less chance for success. There are literally a handful of successful indy games out there and behind them hundreds of failed attempts from people who didn't even make it to their audience. Pointing to Minecraft as the poster-child for indy games is the same as pointing to WoW for commercial enterprises. Hey, you can make a game that brings in more revenue that most countries...that muts be the model for success, right? Frankly, you get more than 3 people involved in a project and you run into the exact same sort or creative disagreements and politics involved in minstream game development. The problem is people, not big-business. And creative people are the worst because they all think they're ideas are the best thing since sliced bread.
Otherwise, your rant translates seamlessly to any creative art as a commercial enterprise. Movies, Music, Games pick your poison. It's the same thing. There's plenty of room in the world for both.
As for adapting, the industry is. The era of a cohesively bundled, big-budget, AAA game that's 20-30 hours neatly packed up on a DVD is coming to an end. Everyone is moving to a dedicated online game of one sort or another. Most are treading into the free-to-play waters where piracy isn't nearly as casual as it is everywhere else. This trajectory began the moment games started being released and has been rapidly accelerating as more and more people world-wide become connected through the internet and the rise of piracy as a perceived threat to revenues has increased along side it. |
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