kuze

When I say "unbreakable", I mean "unbreakable for the time being".

Not true, take a look at SC CT (Starforce 3). A crack has not been available for almost a year (I do not consider "unplugging your DVD drives" a crack, even less so the "SFN"). Eventually, everything will be cracked, but as a copyprotection Starforce was (and still is) a success. Besides, it is also a matter of implementation of the copyprotection.

EDIT: OK, sorry for bringing up the Starforce topic again. But if you talk about copyprotection, you have to mention the strongest one out there.

stepurhan

I've presented a logical argument for my view that copying does reduce sales. Can you do the same for your view? I've seen this argument before but I haven't seen anyone properly back it up yet.

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No Nonsense Nonsonnets #43

Cold Topic

A thread most controversial, that’s what I want to start
Full of impassioned arguments, of posting from the heart
And for this stimulation all will be thankful to me
On come on everybody it won’t work if you agree

Aj_

There are other ways of disabling devices quite easily, you don't need to unplug DVD drives, it's only given as one possible solution.
Companies like Sony complain about copy infringement in places where they don't sell, these are not lost sales. They don't know whether people would have bought a game, and they don't know whether people buy games because they've downloaded them.

What happened to Music, sales increased, and continued to increase, then they skyrocketed. iTunes wouldn't have happened without p2p. CD prices would have continued to be really high.

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Richard Dawkins :: AAI 07 :: NOVA ID on Trial :: Skeptic's Guide :: Beyond Belief :: Out Campaign :: NeuroLogica :: Skepticality

CrimsonBlue

Just had an idea. Have the games use serialnumbers to activate, then give you the ability to get an official no-disc patch from the publishers, or have one on the cd that only works with genuine (ie the serial you just inserted). Then you would save the hassle of updating your no-disc patch every time there's a new gamepatch.

Thus reducing the advantages of having a pirate copy to a minimal. Make the buyers WANT to buy the game not only for having a nice jewel case and a manual.

Jeysie

My vote would be for *no* copy protection. As many others have said, CP doesn't stop pirates, and nowadays the pirated version is often superior in convenience as well as price *because* of CP, among other reasons. Also as has been said, part of the "fun" of piracy is the challenge of cracking a CP method... where's the bragging rights in simply uploading a game?

No, the only people who lose out with CP in the end are the legitimate customers.

But, of course, good luck convincing the publishers of those facts. So, some thoughts...

1. Make it as easy as possible for people to buy games. More online store availability. A few clicks at the store/company website and you have a downloaded game and a backup CD on the way to your mailbox.

2. Do what PopCap Games does and have it so that the CD has a file on it that the program must detect to install, but once you've installed the game the CD is no longer necessary. Programs that full-blown install tend to work wonkily without proper registry entries, so that would discourage digital copying somewhat.

This won't be as effective on non-Windows systems, and it won't stop "serious" pirates who aren't bothered by registry hacking... but then, nothing will stop them anyway.

3. Ship your game with whatever CP as usual, but have it so that before installation you can go to the company website, register the game, and download a special file and password that will let you install the game in a CP-free manner. Make each download traceable to a single registration.

4. Go the StarDock route: have the game be CP-free, but you have to register to get patches, extra content, etc.

Of course, the downside to the last two is that you have to register with a bazillion companies, and you have to rely on the company's word that if they go under they'll release the patches/CP-freeness/etc. for general consumption as to not leave their customers with crippled games.

If given enough time I could probably think up several more methods to make the publishers feel artificially protected without pissing off customers *too* much, but I still stand by, "Face reality, CP is utterly useless, concentrate on making your customers happy instead."

Peace & Luv, Liz

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Adventures in Roleplaying (Nov. 19):

"Maybe it's still in the Elemental Plane of Candy."
"Is the Elemental Plane of Candy anything like Willy Wonka's factory?"
"If it is, would that mean Oompa Loompas are Candy Elementals?"
"Actually, I'm thinking more like the Candyland board game. But, I like this idea better."
"I like the idea of Oompa Loompa Elementals."

kuze

Please be careful with "CP", it usually stands for "child pornography". I had quite a hard time reading your post with my brain automatically substituting the abbreviation.

insane_cobra

Actually, I've seen a cracked version of SC CT just several days ago, no drive unplugging or disabling necessary.

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What you piss in is yours for life.

kuze

Yes, after a lot of work RELOADED finally released one that isn't a loader - it still took them a year. And yes, on some mainboards and with some versions of Starforce you do not need to unplug the drives.

A lot of suggestions have been made to be able to 'unlock' the game online. If I recall correctly, Valve did it with Steam, and a lot of people were unhappy about having to be online to play a game.

stepurhan

Fair comment about the lack of logic from Sony complaining regarding countries they don't sell in. However, that doesn't address the issue of people pirating the game that COULD obtain it legitimately.

I don't see the logic of your second sentence. You can never prove that someone who pirated the game would have bought it otherwise. But that doesn't address the logic of my argument as to why some people may pirate a game if they see pirating as an easy option. You appear to be saying either it's OK to pirate a game (because you wouldn't have paid out for a legitimate copy in the first place) or that people who have downloaded a fully working pirated copy will then go out and buy a legitimate copy afterwards (if they've got a full copy, why would they do this? An attack of conscience?.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. Care to elaborate?

iTunes have proved a viable way of selling music online. I would hardly say this transition has been without it's problems.

While music can be compressed fairly easily regardless of the complexity of a piece (a 3 minute MPEG is going to be the same size for music of equal recording quality) the same can't be said of games. I'm not convinced that this would work wholesale for the computer games market. Many worthwhile smaller games have been made available by download but an igames equivalent would require someone to be able to download full-scale commercial games. They'd have to not only be online but have a reasonably fast broadband connection to make downloading larger games at all viable.

I've got Baldur's Gate sitting next to me. It comes on 6 CDs (including the expansion disc) How long a download would that be?

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No Nonsense Nonsonnets #43

Cold Topic

A thread most controversial, that’s what I want to start
Full of impassioned arguments, of posting from the heart
And for this stimulation all will be thankful to me
On come on everybody it won’t work if you agree

RLacey

Not to mention bandwidth costs if you spent all day downloading games...

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RLacey | Killer of the Thread™

I do not change to be perfect. Perfect changes to be me.

Aj_

People try games before they buy them. They obtain copies when they can't afford them, but the demand for games is there when they can afford them. Some might want printed discs if they like a game they have downloaded.

Many believe, including me, that Photoshop, 3D Studio Max, and Windows wouldn't have been as successful without copyright infringement. Photoshop is great, but people wouldn't know it at the price it is.

It's easy enough to download games, bittorrent and steam manage it well. technology to distribute the bandwidth with p2p is wildly used. Linux distros manage to put out images will limited budgets. 4GB doesn't take long to download. The UK is quite far behind other countries but my bandwith is 4Mbit/s.

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RLacey

More and more ISPs are introducing bandwidth limits, though. And those get eaten up quickly if you keep download 4Gb files .

Incidentally, I really can't see Windows having been less successful if it hadn't been pirated unless you're going all the way back to Windows 95. Possibly not even then. As the most successful operating system available (just as DOS was) it was always going to be the one sporting the most programs and thus the one that people chose to get, surely?

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RLacey | Killer of the Thread™

I do not change to be perfect. Perfect changes to be me.

kuddles

A lot of people were unhappy when Bioware did it with their Premium modules as well. But I think a lot of that resentment has cooled, and by the time a new form of copy protection is absolutely necessary (more people are downloading their software than buying actual physical copies of it), reliable and fast internet connections won't be as big of a deal for the vast majority of people.
Just because someone can't afford games doesn't give them the entitlement to download them for free. Besides, it may help retain demand when they can afford them, but then they have no incentive to buy it even once they do. Why spend money on something you've been getting for free all along? I've yet to meet a person in real life who admits to torrenting music and games who don't use an excuse like "I can't afford it" or "I don't want to get ripped off." And all of them could afford it just fine if they budgeted for it, which they have no incentive to do so. itunes, while impressive, is far from doing well enough to counter the drop in sales of physical CDs, and P2P doesn't seem to be suffering much from it either. itunes merely became another avenue for people who don't pirate music in the first place to purchase it. And those that do, don't see a reason to change their behaviour.

Successful piracy supports more piracy just as much if not far more than it does eventual legitimate sales.

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CrimsonBlue

Let's say I'm curious about a certain game for my Playstation or Xbox. I download the PC version to see if it's worth getting, read reviews to find out if there's any gamebreaking differences between the formats, and then decide wether I want to buy it or not. If I don't buy it, it's probably because I don't want to play it.

And a lot of people download the games at first, simply because their easier to get their hands on at tiimes. Sometimes a game leaks on the internet weeks before the actual release date. Sometimes, a game is released in another country but not yours, and ordering takes time, so you won't be getting it for a couple of weeks. You download the game in the meantime, while waiting for your copy to arrive.

There's a lot of ways to use piracy, it's not all "I don't want to pay for games ever". There are perfectly "legit" ways to use it.

And if the only reason people use piracy is because it costs money to buy a legit copy, why the hell do they care about copy protection anyway? By doing this they're FORCING people to buy the game, instead of ENCOURAGING them to buy it. With that attitude, people will stop playing games because they can't afford it and think it's a lot more hassle than it's worth. So as I said with my first post, get rid of the disadvantages of only having an original copy, make sure you get the same advantages as you do when downloading a game (register game, get no-disc patch for free, for example). Either way, the only disadvantage you can't get rid of is the price you pay for the game. But if that's the ONLY reason to pirate a game, there will be a lot less pirating than we have today.

MoriartyL

I don't buy the argument that piracy is hurting the industry. I really don't. Let me tell you my story.

When I was a younger boy, I had no computer games. Seriously, none. My parents weren't going to buy me any, and I (not knowing to be interested) wouldn't have bought myself any if I came across money. The game I played most was the terrible Commander Keen 4, because it was a shareware game we had gotten with our Sound Blaster. And I had the frustrating adventure game Robot City, because a friend had given me it as a present. That was it. I enjoyed them because I had nothing else to play, but I wouldn't have called myself a fan of computer games. I was not even a potential customer of video games.

Then I borrowed Warcraft 2 from a friend, and by "borrowed" I mean that I installed it on my hard drive and gave the CD back later. This was the first time I really enjoyed a game. I have incredibly fond memories of the times I tied up the phone line to play multiplayer with my friend. (I got my tush kicked every time.) And suddenly I couldn't shut up about how great Blizzard was. I looked forward to the release of Warcraft 3 when it was announced a few years later, and would bother everyone within range about how it was going to be an RPS.

One day, I was browsing the web and discovered the existence of Game Boy emulators. I wasn't interested in Game Boys, but it was free, so I checked it out. And by far the easiest to find Game Boy ROMs on the internet were the Pokemon games. So I downloaded Pokemon Yellow and started to play. This was the first time I'd ever played an RPG. And I loved it. I loved it so much that I put it onto disks and started handing it out to kids in my class. Yep, I was a sixth-grade ROM dealer. I gave them out because something so good has to be shared with others. I wanted them to enjoy it like I did. One kid in my class in particular (who had no previous interest in games) got hooked, and what did he do? He went out and bought himself a Game Boy Color with Pokemon Blue so he could play it the way it was meant to be played, and whenever he wanted. (And this was in Israel, where the prices are obscene, so this is saying something.)

From there I got into N64 emulation. I played Super Mario 64 and became a Miyamoto fan. (I had never played a Mario game before.) I played Rayman 2 and become an Ancel fan. I played Paper Mario and became a fan of Mario RPGs. I played F-Zero X and became an F-Zero fan. I played Super Smash Bros. and had a reasonably fun time. And I downloaded Mario Party 3 and my sister became a Mario Party fan. And then I played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which changed my life. It was the most incredible experience I've ever had. And suddenly I wouldn't shut up about the greatness of Miyamoto and I was desparate for more. By this point I browsed the Nintendo site often, though before all this illegal emulation I barely had even heard of them. And on their site it said that a new Zelda game was coming out for Gamecube. So I went out and bought myself a Gamecube to be ready for it.

And I bought Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Mario Sunshine and Beyond Good & Evil and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (with the bonus copy of Ocarina of Time) and Pikmin and Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and F-Zero GX and The Legend of Zelda: Four Sword Adventures, all games which I would have had zero interest in without emulation. And my sister bought Mario Party 4 and Mario Party 6. And since I already had the Gamecube, I bought Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2 and Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia (which I shouldn't have bought. I wish I had played an illegal version first so I'd know I hated it.) and Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 and Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat and Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil 4. And I'm now waiting for Wii's Virtual Console, so that I can buy good copies of Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 and Rayman 2. And my brother, who I introduced to Nintendo through SM64 on the computer, is now considering getting a Wii. So you see how much money piracy has cost Nintendo.

But it doesn't end there. You see, as I was emulating N64 I was also emulating the current Game Boy Advance. I played the old Super Mario Bros. games and Metroid Zero Mission and Advance Wars and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Wario Ware and so on and so on. And so I got myself a GBA, and I bought the GBC game Super Mario Bros. Deluxe and Metroid Zero Mission. And I got myself Metroid 2 (because I'd played part of it illegally and knew it was good), also for the older Game Boy. And I bought Pokemon Ruby. And I bought Fire Emblem, because I knew the team was good from Advance Wars. And I bought Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, because I liked the Mario RPG I'd played. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance I'd played illegally twice from start to finish. And I loved it so much that I bought it, and when that used copy didn't work I bought it again, and when that copy didn't work (I suspect it was actually the same copy, by an amazing coincidence.), I bought it a third time. And I bought Wario Ware and Wario Ware: Twisted.

And it doesn't quite end there. You see, GBA emulation is so easy that I was able to use it on any computer. So when I went to a school that had a computer room with lots of computers, I introduced my schoolmates to SMB3 and Metroid: Zero Mission. And they enjoyed them so much (though they had no previous experience with Nintendo games) that I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of them bought Nintendo products later on based on the experience. Piracy turned them from being absolutely noncustomers to being potential customers. And don't think this phenomenon is limited only to me!- in my school, there was just one other person who owned a Gamecube, and he told me it was because of emulation.

I'm not very interested in most computer games, so I don't have many stories to tell there. But I will tell you how I discovered Myst. A friend told me about the first Myst game, and I was intrigued, so I downloaded the Myst IV demo. I loved it, so I downloaded the first Myst game. And I loved that so much that I bought myself all four games (including the first).

And understand that when I say I bought games, this is no small matter. Here in Israel, as I mentioned earlier, prices are ridiculous. The other day, I was in a store where I noticed Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time for DS. In America this costs, what- 30 bucks? Here, it was 350 sheqels, which translates (according to Google) to $77 dollars. I've seen GBA SPs (even after the DS was released) sold for over one thousand sheqels, at a time when in America it costed $80. So I can't buy games here. I buy them all over the internet, and since none of the online stores ship to Israel, let me tell you, it is a nightmare. But piracy has turned me into such a fan that I'll go through it. I must have payed over a thousand dollars on games by this point, and I will pay many thousands more in my lifetime. And every cent of that money, the game industry owes to piracy.

Oh, and one final anecdote: One summer I was in America on vacation, and I went into a store where I saw Warcraft 3 selling for $65 dollars. I bought it.

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-Mory

MoriartyL

Now that I've said all that, you might understand my answer to the question of this thread: none whatsoever. Copy protection prevents piracy from turning some noncustomers into potential customers. And the people it doesn't work against, it just pisses off, and they get to play the game anyway.

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-Mory

stepurhan

So you're saying that sampling games led to you (and others) buying games?

One word seems inadequate response to such a long post but...

Demos?

__________________
No Nonsense Nonsonnets #43

Cold Topic

A thread most controversial, that’s what I want to start
Full of impassioned arguments, of posting from the heart
And for this stimulation all will be thankful to me
On come on everybody it won’t work if you agree

MoriartyL

They're good marketing tools too. What's your point?

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-Mory

Aj_

I remember those!
In new markets its more apparant, where manufacturers aren't forced to ship Windows on a PC, but if they couldn't somehow get Windows they'd be using Linux right now. Microsoft prefers for them to use Windows than use a competitor.

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Richard Dawkins :: AAI 07 :: NOVA ID on Trial :: Skeptic's Guide :: Beyond Belief :: Out Campaign :: NeuroLogica :: Skepticality

AFGNCAAP

I can relate to your story in some ways, but come on, in no way does it support piracy's harmlessness. ("I don't buy the argument that alcoholism is harmful. I really don't. If not for pubs, I would have never met my beloved wife." )

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