Despite DRM-Free Version, Witcher 2 With DRM Most Pirated

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Don't take this as me defending piracy, but don't think that developers don't think piracy is going to happen. It's in there projections. They also fully realize that piracy accounts for a small percentage of lost sales. Although there may be more pirated versions downloaded than actually sold, they know they only lost about 3-5% of possible sales. They also know that piracy of a first game increases sales of a sequel. Internally they understand that it's all part of the business of making games and they all plan and price accordingly. Customer facing they have to keep a hard line because appealing to people's "moral" side does help reduce piracy, better than DRM.
 
[citation][nom]unksol[/nom]The DRM DVD version just came out first, and is an ISO. It gets a higher torrent seed for being there first.[/citation]

Exactly. There's nothing really strange here. If the DRM free version came out first, it would probably have been the one seeded.

[citation][nom]cmcghee358[/nom]Only those with 3 monitors fully understand the countless hours you spend trying to find the right hack, program, .ini edit to get a game to work above 1900x1200!!The most recent game I've pirated? Skyrim. It doesn't natively support Eyefinity.[/citation]

If you're strictly in the "pirate as demo" camp then that's okay, but I hope you're buying all the games you spend some hours playing, because you certainly don't have an excuse that you don't have the money to buy them.

[citation][nom]whysobluepandabear[/nom]Make a good product, and people buy it.[/citation]

Make a good product, and people will pirate it. Make a decent lower cost product and people will not look at it because they pirate the more well known product. My recent conclusion is that piracy hurts the alternate solutions more than the company whose software is pirated. (A little more detail on my blog: http://lowendia.com/2012/05/when-you-pirate-you-hurt-the-other-guys/)
 
There are always two sides to a story. Yes, DRM does suck. Yes, paying $60 does suck. But at the same time, telling developers to make better games ignores the fact that many games today are highly polished endeavors that may take millions to develop. The versatility of PC configurations also present a problem for programmers, who can't expect a single, unified set of specs to program against. Skyrim not supporting Eyefinity? Well, maybe it's because Bethesda determined it would take too much modifications to the code to make it work, all for the benefit of a small percentage of enthusiasts. Does it make financial sense? Apparently it didn't for Bethesda.

In the end, just buy the game when you have some cash. You're helping out your fellow citizens by buying their game. They have families to feed and bills to pay too.
 
reduce the price i think, thats the first cause of pirating, secondly a stringent DRM. 20usd at most, thats the only price i could throw for a game.
 
People really dont understand what stealing and piracy is. If person A takes person B's ham, its stealing. If person A makes a copy of person B's ham they can both have ham, its not stealing since person B gets to keep his ham.
Click to expand...

In that case, I'd like you to send me a copy of your credit card. You'll still have it but I get to benefit too.

Think about it.
 
People who pirate games don't care about the DRM and don't target games with DRM. The people that download games pick the most popular torrent and download it.

The argument about piracy not being about stealing is old and busted. If you take potential profit away from someone by downloading a game that you normally would buy is stealing from anyone who would make money from it. Why do people call it identity theft, you still keep your identity. Why don't those people try to justify identity theft the same way they try to make themselves feel good about piracy.

 
[citation][nom]tomc5[/nom]People who pirate games don't care about the DRM and don't target games with DRM. The people that download games pick the most popular torrent and download it.The argument about piracy not being about stealing is old and busted. If you take potential profit away from someone by downloading a game that you normally would buy is stealing from anyone who would make money from it. Why do people call it identity theft, you still keep your identity. Why don't those people try to justify identity theft the same way they try to make themselves feel good about piracy.[/citation]

Piracy is not stealing. This has been confirmed by courts. It's not even lost sales. The only "studies" that support your strawman argument are published by the MPAA or one of their funded projects. More recent studies tend to show that piracy has a similar effect to word-of-mouth advertising. And if you try to argue from a morality perspective, companies SHOULD only be caring about profit. If you can't compete with piracy, you should plain and simple get out of the business.
 
[citation][nom]mobrocket[/nom]i am tired of this comment that games are too expensive...adjuster for inflation, they are cheaper now than evercouple that with that fact, that almost no other form of entertainment offers such valueexample, if u get 25 hrs out of diablo 3 for 60 bucks, that is less then 3 dollars an hournothing offers a value like that[/citation]

True. Back in 1980 when I started buying computer games, the top notch games were $50-$60. About the same as now. Except with inflation, that same game would cost $167.54. Instead, it is still 50-60 bucks.

No surprise that there are fewer and fewer PC games being made. Why bother?
 
[citation][nom]mmm123[/nom]The best ways to combat piracy is to add value to non-pirated version.There are several things that can be done - for example verified non-pirate user could receive game exe optimized for his hardware. Also verified non-pirate users could receive additional music pacs, texture pacs, etc - things that are not necessary to store on local computer but could be downloaded during game-play.[/citation]

then people would complain that they are not getting the full game. they would complain that they don't have a good internet connection or none at all to download the additional game files. they would complain that it is a console port because you need to download the additional texture pack. etc.
 
Companies that hype their games beyond belief and then release a buggy, crappy mess steal money as well as precious time from me.
I don't pirate games, but then again, I don't buy many games. It's not just about the cost of games - you can always make more money. But you'll never get back the time you wasted on a crappy game.

Witcher 2 is one of those games that happened to be worth both my time and money however. I would be interesting to see whether the lack of DRM contributed to more piracy, less or whether it made no difference.
 
[citation][nom]ArgleBargle[/nom]Diablo 3 is the worst case of DRM punishing the user that I have ever purchased. When the servers go down, you have these completely useless bits on your hard drive. Can't play when Big Brother isn't watching you! I will never buy another Blizzard product again.[/citation]

you bought a game knowing that it always needs to be online and now you're complaining about it always needing to be online?
 
[citation][nom]atikkur[/nom]reduce the price i think, thats the first cause of pirating, secondly a stringent DRM. 20usd at most, thats the only price i could throw for a game.[/citation]
Exactly. People are more likely to pirate a $60 game (especially one that was digitally downloaded - I mean really? why would the digital be the same as physical? To conform to retailers so clearly this developer wouldn't have the customer in mind first). I'd be more inclined to purchase a game at launch if it was $30 or $40. Instead I opt to wait for price drops
 
[citation][nom]jacekring[/nom]Civ 5 Gold Edition just came out reciently on steam, it's priced at $49.99 if I remember correctly. Yes for a 4 YEAR old game, a GREAT game but still.[/citation]
How is Civ 5 a four year old game?
 
[citation][nom]scannall[/nom]True. Back in 1980 when I started buying computer games, the top notch games were $50-$60. About the same as now. Except with inflation, that same game would cost $167.54. Instead, it is still 50-60 bucks.No surprise that there are fewer and fewer PC games being made. Why bother?[/citation]

in the 80s how many people had a computer? the games market at the momoent was soooo tiny, no wonder the price is 50-60. now with everyone have a pc.. and not only in the US or western countrys that have a decent rig to play METRO's quality games .. is now the WORLD is their market... so why the games price keep high? they can and should lower the price, if they know how BIG the market is. if only they can sell it to the WORLD, remember STEAM? and i know steam service has been good (they have many innovation with price/deals),, but still , i think, not keep enough servicing the WORLD (because too many or too big).
 
Best way to avoid pirating is to not make games for the platform. This is one reason PC gaming took a hit. So continue to pirate and eventually there will nothing to pirate 😛
 
[citation][nom]sacre[/nom]...[/citation]

One, its not stealing
Two, You cannot count a downloaded copy as a lost sale.

I download every single game that is released, every single one. I then buy the ones i like.

I pirated The Witcher 2, due to issues with grass and a shader 2.0b card on the first one. Played about 30 minutes, deleted and bought the game. Without pirating it, the most they would have gotten from me was a 5 dollar steam sale; and now part 3 is a day one buy.

Its like the morons at crytek thinking they missed a trillion dollars in sales, most people only downloaded crysis to benchmark. I pirated crysis, but own all three.
 
[citation][nom]robochump[/nom]Best way to avoid pirating is to not make games for the platform. This is one reason PC gaming took a hit. So continue to pirate and eventually there will nothing to pirate 😛[/citation]

Console games are pirated and pre'd usually 1 month to 2 weeks prior to release. No crack time needed.
 
It seems like instant gratification really. They could pay the $50-60, they could download a cracked version that may or may not work, or wait a while for the Gold or GOTY editions. In this specific case, The Witcher 2 Enhanced I bought for $15 from Amazon in February. List is still $50, and it's $35 at Amazon now.

Besides, it's become acceptable to developers to release games that are nearly unplayable then patch multiple times in the first year. Why pay a premium price for that?
 
[citation][nom]yzf197[/nom]tl;dr version: STOP TRYING TO SELL GAMES FOR 60 BUCKS. I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL. I WILL FORK OUT TWO TWENTY DOLLAR BILLS FOR A GREAT GAME. sixty dollars is a joke, inflation citations are utter BS. ten years ago brand new games were 40 bucks, and even then that was too much, but good games were made and we spent the money. i'll never forget spending 40 bucks for Chrono Cross and Vagrant Story. back then a console going for 300 bucks was a lot. we now live in an age of phones that are $700+, and i won't be surprised if next gen consoles go for something just as stupid. if developers and publishers would MARKET A 49.99 PRICE POINT, MORE GAMES WOULD BE SOLD. drop the price ten freakin' dollars. get back to basics. games taking millions more to develop are proving they are wasting money that should be spent on creativity. graphics haven't improved enough for said amount of money either. big money gaming companies need to invest in gameplay over development costs if they expect to combat piracy.[/citation]
WTH are you talking about, some NES games were 60$ (DW3 for example) and a lot of them were 50$. If the price is too high for you, wait for it to come down until you feel it's at a reasonable price point like I do. With the exception of one game recently, I haven't paid full price for a game for years and I rarely pay over 20$ unless it's a game I really want (I think I shelled out 35$ for portal 2). Hell, with a backlog of 100+ games on steam, I have plenty to do to fill my time until the price comes down. Heck, with how bug-riddled and unbalanced some games are when they first come out, you're better off waiting 6 months anyway for all the patches and bug fixes come out.
 
I pirated almost every game I have. I have purchased so many games and replaced the computers, lost the disc, and even had my house burn down (including my pc and all my media.) Even if you register a game when you purchase it, the developer will not send you a replacement disc without the original's, and they charge you $20 for that privilege. I know I am not the only person that bought the diablo / warcraft battle chest two-three times because of damaged/lost media.

Ever since the invention of Steam I have pirated less games since I can always re-download them, but you try to repurchase a game of wizardry for $400 for a used copy from ebay (sir-tech doesn't exist anymore) then get a disc that doesn't even work, and you will just go download the torrent of it too.

As for the ass hat saying all software pirates should go to jail, when was the last time you saw someone doing hard time for $50 in "theft?" Break the $10,000 and your at felony level / jail time. $50 in theft should be punishable at most by 2-3 hours of community service, which is the current (and appropriate) penalty for that level of misdemeanor. Fortunately people are actually smarter than you give them credit for. The punishment does match the crime, the crime is considered trivial, hence the punishment is nothing. System working as intended.
 
[citation][nom]Kamab[/nom]Piracy is not stealing. This has been confirmed by courts. It's not even lost sales. The only "studies" that support your strawman argument are published by the MPAA or one of their funded projects. More recent studies tend to show that piracy has a similar effect to word-of-mouth advertising. And if you try to argue from a morality perspective, companies SHOULD only be caring about profit. If you can't compete with piracy, you should plain and simple get out of the business.[/citation]

Piracy is STEALING. You are stealing from companies by not paying for their product. You are stealing that sale. It's people like you that feel you are entitled to free shit that cost companies money.
 
[citation][nom]MMXMonster[/nom]Did Microsoft "Steal" or "Pirate" the Apple GUI and mouse?[/citation]They swiped the copy that Apple stole and pirated from Xerox
 
Ask yourselves who is pirating. Is it high-paid professionals who can afford games with pocket change? Of course not. When a video game costs nothing relative to daily income, buying it is a show of respect for the developer and a means of voting for a game and company to succeed.

Piracy is an issue only among the poor and the young who consider $60 too much money to spend frivolously. If they can't afford these games, how many sales are really being lost?
 
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