Second Take: Did Piracy Kill Iron Lore?

[impar]

Greetings!

Add all the numbers up on the two pages you can find.. Add them up ALL OF THEM.. Even couters in the bottom of the screen.. numbers for what ever .. if you see a number ANYWHERE on the page add it up EVEN the numbers telling you how large the files are.. and you still will not reach 180,000 times..

Rduke, calm down, its not my fault you cant do a proper torrent search.

The numbers for the more popular CoD4-PC "releases" from Mininova (includes a Spanish one and no crack or map files):
35,049 + 20,871 + 28,739 + 77,633 + 10,271 + 20,483 + 9,746 + 23,349 = 226,141

Now imagine all the other torrent sites, other P2P technics, other "releases" and the traditional piracy.

 

[Rduke]

Greetings!Rduke, calm down, its not my fault you cant do a proper torrent search.

The numbers for the more popular CoD4-PC "releases" from Mininova (includes a Spanish one and no crack or map files):
35,049 + 20,871 + 28,739 + 77,633 + 10,271 + 20,483 + 9,746 + 23,349 = 226,141

Now imagine all the other torrent sites, other P2P technics, other "releases" and the traditional piracy.

Go http://www.mininova.org/search/COD4-PC/size

Search for CALL OF DUTY.. Take a look into each file that is 6-GB in size.. according to you.. There are even LESS seeders and games then what link I provided before..

Now go pound sand you. You don't know wtf you are talking about.. ALL TORRENT SITES??!!

TRACKERS ARE TRACKERS FOOL!.. It does not matter what site links them...

The tracker listed at mininova is the same that is a TPB, .. same at Torrentreactor.. same at ISOhunt..

FFS.. you are dumb...

 

[robwright]

You're just arguing semantics. The "license" doesn't cost the game company a dime. If I make a copy of the game on my hard drive, or 100 copies on my hard drive, I'm not costing the company any more money than they already spent to make the game/market it/put physical copies on the shelves. Your argument is ridiculous.

It's not ridiculous, Ohhsnap. It's the way software is sold. You're buying a license that gives you the right to play the game. For someone who's accusing me of arguing semantics, you are truly hung up on establishing a difference between "copying" or "file-sharing" and "stealing" or "theft" (which is a common trait among the friends I have who pirate regularly). Why is that?

And yes, it is costing a developer more money. If you copy the game and put it on a torrent for thousands of people to download, they're losing money because you are enabling people to illegally obtain a product that they didn't pay for. You are depriving the developers of their money by ripping off their hard work without paying a dime. Why is this so hard for people to see? Think of it this way: I work at Tom's Hardware, and sadly, our articles are frequently poached (i.e. copy and pasted by other sites and forums) all the time. You may think to yourself, hey, what's the big deal, they're not stealing anything, plus THG doesn't charge anything to visit the sites. But instead of getting those page impressions and visitors to our sites, they're going to other sites to the read the content. So we lose traffic, and as a result, we potentially lose ad revenue and that adversely affects our business (this is one of many reason's I'm sensitive to copy protection, BTW).

Please understand, Ohhsnap, my approach here isn't to make you or any other person who downloads games out to be a immoral criminal. My intent is to show that piracy is hurting PC gaming. Under the pirate's way of doing business, games would be free unless the user decides the game is great enough to actually shell out money for it. But even the argument that pirates pay for the great games doesn't work because even great games are being downloaded illegally. Is Infinity Ward using piracy as a scapegoat? Why would they do that? CoD4 is a huge seller, even on the PC. So what's their motivation for claiming piracy has hurt sales on the PC?

The fact of the matter is, making PC games is incredibly expensive. In fact, budgets for major games can cost millions of dollars. The PC gaming industry cannot be supported if a siginificant portion of its audience is playing the games without paying for them.

 

[impar]

Greetings!

Take a look into each file that is 6-GB in size.. according to you.. There are even LESS seeders and games then what link I provided before..

Glad you replied so promptly, I still have the search tabs open, that way dont have to do another search.
All the number above are between 4,05GB and 6,46GB, with one 2,5GB exception.

It does not matter what site links them...
The tracker listed at mininova is the same that is a TPB, .. same at Torrentreactor.. same at ISOhunt..

You obviously misinterpreted what you were supposed to look for.
Its not the seeders or the leechers numbers, its the ".torrent" downloads. You know, the little file that starts the all process?
It shows that starting only from Mininova, counting several CoD4-PC "releases", more than 200.000 copies of CoD-4 were P2P freeloaded.
Not all torrent sites shows that statistic but Mininova happens to be one that does show it.

 

[OhhSnap]

It's not ridiculous, Ohhsnap. It's the way software is sold. You're buying a license that gives you the right to play the game. For someone who's accusing me of arguing semantics, you are truly hung up on establishing a difference between "copying" or "file-sharing" and "stealing" or "theft" (which is a common trait among the friends I have who pirate regularly). Why is that?

And yes, it is costing a developer more money. If you copy the game and put it on a torrent for thousands of people to download, they're losing money because you are enabling people to illegally obtain a product that they didn't pay for. You are depriving the developers of their money by ripping off their hard work without paying a dime.

Nope, completely and totally wrong in every sense of the word, and I'm going to have to shut you down.

steal·ing, noun
%u2013verb (used with object)
1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.

Do you seriously not understand the difference between COPYING and TAKING? Here's an example:

You have two objects in your possession: a ball and a piece of paper with the numbers "010101" written on it. I take your ball, and I also have my own piece of paper where I copy your string of numbers "010101" on it. Now, you're left without a ball, but you still have your piece of paper with numbers on it. Do you honestly not see the difference? Is it really that difficult to understand? Now, I go outside and let 1000 people copy the phrase "010101" onto their own pieces of paper. No doubt you spent a lot of time writing down that string of numbers in the first place, and you also run a service where you sell your own pieces of paper with it pre-written on them. In your eyes, I've STOLEN from you? No. It's presumptuous (and quite a hilarious indication of how a lot of game companies think so highly of their own products) that you would assume that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people who copied that string of numbers would have purchased one of your own printed pieces of paper had it not been available. Even if this was so, your argument holds no water, no matter how large you make the tank. You're stating that the distribution of copyrighted material is stealing because it's going to a LOT of people, but you still don't understand the difference between a single person STEALING property and DUPLICATING it.

You also don't seem to understand the difference between a failing investment and stolen revenue. If I start my own business and invest a large amount of my own money, and then I don't have enough customers to make back enough to cover my initial investment, I don't get to claim that someone STOLE that initial investment. They chose not to support it, and I took a risk and lost. If a company invests $2,000,000 in a game and only makes $1,500,000 back because no one bought their game (because they simply chose not to buy it, or decided to play a pirated version), it doesn't mean that they STOLE that initial investment. The company put it forward, it didn't turn out how they wanted, and they lost.

Your analogy is also poor because you still don't understand the difference between preventing someone from purchasing the game vs. allowing someone to copy the game. If I steal a game off the shelf, not only did I not pay for it, but I also have prevented someone from buying that same copy of the game. I care so much about the correct wording because I hate seeing the industry assume that they're somehow entitled to making back their investment. They're not. Every business takes chances, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you can't just claim that someone STOLE your investment because they choose not to pay you for something.

However, you bring up the example of you posting articles on your site, and someone copying that article and posting it on their own. This isn't a great example, but essentially I could read the article on either site for "free". Say, however, that they DON'T have ads on their site and you DO. I've chosen to not deal with your ads in favor of reading the same article, ad free. However, I haven't STOLEN the article from you, I simply chose not to support your initial investment of time (spent writing the article, working on your site, getting advertisers) and money (paying for the server, designers, maintenance, etc.). If anything, by reading your copied article on ANOTHER website I've actually done you a service compared to say, using Adblock for Firefox (which I do use), because at least I'm not using your bandwidth. You're still in full possession of your own article which you worked on, and on your own website and server which you made an investment on. It didn't work out for you, tough break. However, say that person that copied your article is actually making money off of their own advertisements on their site. In that case, you are entitled to whatever they earn as a result of using your copyrighted material. That's all it means -- you're entitled to any earnings associated with your work. You aren't entitled to making back your initial investment from people who simply may not have ever considered paying for it in the first place.

Now if I went to, say, Blizzard HQ and physically copied over the game files AND THEN DELETED THEM from their system so they no longer had the game, that would be STEALING. The company paid their programmers for their work, they paid for the distribution and marking of the game to get it on the shelves, but in reality, they are still in full possession of everything they paid for, they just didn't make the profit they feel they're entitled to.

If I have a for sale sign on my car and some guy walks up to it, takes a look at it, pulls out a wand and *DING!* he's duplicated my car, gets in it and drives off, he COPIED it, he didn't STEAL it, regardless of how many hours or how much money I may have spent fixing the car up in order to sell it. When I steal something from you, I'm making something of yours mine and making it no longer yours. It's no longer in your possession. When I copy something, I'm making something of yours mine, but you still have yours too. Can you really even argue this any further? I'm simply amazed my initial point obviously didn't make it clear enough for you, especially for someone who's supposed to be so adept at reading comprehension.

And on another note, I find it quite funny that you're trying to defend the term "stealing" by justifying it with the idea of licenses. It's rather audacious to state you're selling the right to use a given product, and then turn around and say everyone using it without your permission is stealing. I'm selling the right to drive my used Ford Taurus, so that guy who used his magic wand to duplicate has surely stolen it! Wrong, he simply isn't paying me for something that didn't cost me any additional money beyond my original investment

Please understand, Ohhsnap, my approach here isn't to make you or any other person who downloads games out to be a immoral criminal. My intent is to show that piracy is hurting PC gaming. Under the pirate's way of doing business, games would be free unless the user decides the game is great enough to actually shell out money for it. But even the argument that pirates pay for the great games doesn't work because even great games are being downloaded illegally. Is Infinity Ward using piracy as a scapegoat? Why would they do that? CoD4 is a huge seller, even on the PC. So what's their motivation for claiming piracy has hurt sales on the PC?

I'm not arguing that the ability to pirate games isn't detrimental to the success of the PC gaming industry. Under their current business model and the huge investments they're making in order to produce these games, combined with how easily one can pirate a game, there's no doubt that a lot of the smaller companies are destined to fail, although the exact extent of the piracy's effect isn't known, it's only estimated. Companies have had it there way for a long time, and it's upsetting when things change and they're no longer in complete control of "licenses." Before, they could guarantee that the sale of said licenses would make up for their investments, and as time grew, so did the initial investments, assuming that the number of sales would also follow. Then, file-sharing came into the picture, and now in order to survive, they either have to fight file-sharing with more sophisticated copy prevention, or change their model in order to succeed in this new environment. What model is that? I really don't know, I'm not an expert, all I know is that the water's getting thicker so they're going to either have to swim a lot harder or find another way to keep afloat.

 

[MagicPants]

I buy a lot of games on the PC and I never pirate them. It's been sad watching the PC platform become MMO only. I think Ben and Rob are right that the two biggest threats to the PC games industry are piracy and crappy hardware.

That said a fair number of games I buy simply don't work because their DRM causes them to crash (Spell Force 2). I actually liked Bio Shock's scheme of requiring a small download to play, to me the limiting of the installs was the problem. I think if games would let you install them 4 times right away and then twice within any given 30 period that would be a good compromise, because it would guarantee that I could install it on a new computer 10 years from now.

Also if a company goes out of business they should release a patch that removes the activation.

The piracy and crappy hardware come down to the same thing: people are cheap.

 

[Rduke]

First of all, Rduke, your analogies are terrible and offensive, and I suggest you think a little harder about some of the comparisons you're making.

Your assumptions and lack of information regarding this issue is terrible and offensive.. I suggest you do some actual research into what we are talking about .. other then going by idiots like Micheal Fitch..

THE ANALOGY I USED REGARDING RAPE, BLACKS, WHITE WOMAN AND CANNABIS IS FRACKING TRUE...

Those exact words were said on the floor of the senate, as well as "A black man smoking the vile plant marihuana would cause him to look at a white woman.. TWICE!" and my personal favorite "A black man under the influence of the pychosis enducing plant with roots in hell marihuana would actually step... on a WHITE MANS SHADOW!!"

That and many other LIES IS A MAJOR REASON WHY THE SENATE MADE CANNABIS ILLEGAL IN 1937!

Ever heard of that???

Think if the same arguments were made today we would arrest 1 million people a year for possession of a plant??

(which is more then we arrest for all other crimes combined..btw)

Second, you accuse us of throwing around numbers blindly. We quote the numbers Michael Fitch and THQ came up with.

Actually yeah.. and you did .. By quoting that tards vague and stupid information of 70-80%.. you are throwing even more then numbers..

You are throwing percentages.. 70-80% of WHAT number???

Of the Population of people who play video games in the US?.. So how much is that exactly???

How many households own PC's?? Macs?

200,000,000 ?... 150,000,000??? 50,000,000?? 20,000,000??. 10,000,000?? 5,000,000?? So 70-80% of that are people pirating?>!?!?!

LMAO.. comon now..

I actually said I didn't think it was that high, maybe 50 percent.

Yes you did.. I gave you credit for that.. However once again.. 50% of what?.. And 50% is way too high.. Think about how many people that is.. and go look at the amount of trackers... No where near .2-4% maximum world wide..

And most torrents are used for TV shows.. and movies.. but mostly TV shows.

That is based on my own experiences as well as talking with other developers and publishers. You may have a different opinion, which is fine. But the funny thing is, everyone who seems to be defending piracy always says the piracy percentage is always lower than what's being quoted. Why is that? If you're downloading games illegally, what concern is it of yours if the piracy rate is 30 percent, 50 percent or 90 percent? Furthermore, the feedback on this discussion thread and other recent threads on piracy is revealing, too; I'm guessing for every one reader that agrees piracy is hurting PC gaming, there are three readers who oppose that view.

Because the situation is blown out of proportion and being made a scapegoat.. when it is not responsible or anywhere near as large as you claim...

There are NOT that many people using Torrents.. It is a very small minority.. and yet.. "industry insiders" are so whacked out of their brains .. they are blowing it to immense proportions.. 30% 50% 60% 80% 90% .. Why not just say 140%.. it is just as wrong as the rest of your information...

Second, you say my claim of 50 percent is MADNESS yet you throw out numbers based on your own experiences. You write "I would say is that for the limited niche of people that download torrents," so what makes your opinion any more valid than mine? And as for Sins of a Solar Empire, are you simply looking at the Pirate Bay numbers or are you looking deeper? Also, the game sold 100,000 copies in its first 23 days on sale. But the game has NO copy protection software at all. And this is how Stardock is rewarded? How many pirated copies of the game do you really think are floating around out there?

It is madness.. you can share my experiances as well.. go LOOK at the numbers that are LIVE right now..

Thats what makes my opinion more valid..

When looking at Pirate Bay numbers.. and you saying what you said regarding looking deeper..

That seriously exposes your ignorance on this subject..

The Pirate Bay numbers .. ARE the numbers.. The numbers are Universal.. The Pirate Bay happens to be one of the largest.. most well known and best of all the torrent tracker sites.. however going to any of the others will simply yield lower numbers if any...

So TPB numbers there are also most accurate.. They are not hyper inflated.. the Trackers are real and the numbers once again are accurate.

Go look..

 

[Rduke]

Greetings!Glad you replied so promptly, I still have the search tabs open, that way dont have to do another search.
All the number above are between 4,05GB and 6,46GB, with one 2,5GB exception.You obviously misinterpreted what you were supposed to look for.
Its not the seeders or the leechers numbers, its the ".torrent" downloads. You know, the little file that starts the all process?
It shows that starting only from Mininova, counting several CoD4-PC "releases", more than 200.000 copies of CoD-4 were P2P freeloaded.
Not all torrent sites shows that statistic but Mininova happens to be one that does show it.

LMAO

You are so wrong its unbelievable...

First of all ..

The amount of people downloading the 4.2kb torrent file.. is not the same as downloading the 6 or 4 Gig version of the game..!!!..

That is why you are so wrong.. this is why you have no idea what you are talking about.. That is why your numbers are so off..

Talk about digging deeply.. ffs..

The SEEDERS and LEECHERS are directly proportional to how many LIVE activities are taking place right now.--- People who are successful Leechers.. turn into SEEDS.. They want to SEED because if they don't they will get a BAD share ratio.. and they will get BAD download rates..

When you download torrents .. You want to have a very high share ratio... 1 to 1 does not cut it.-- Thats why that number is REAL.. and valid..

I have said and will continue to state that .. OF COURSE there are people that will download the game and keep it for FREE.. however they will only have a **** version of the game...they have no updates .. and they SHOULD NOT have any access to any of the servers ... if they do.. that is the fault of the developer for not having stricter GUID settings...

It should be simple.. 1 good purchased unique CD KEY get = 1 good 128bit encrypted GUID that remains the same forever = access to the online community.. (which is NOT paid for by the company.. players PAY for having their servers.. AN virtually NO server owners will tolerate having someone with a stolen copy on their servers.... EVEN SAYING that in a FPS MP game will get you banned in like 5 seconds..)

1 cracked Key = 1 good 128bit encrypted GUID.. that will be used by more then one person = immediate ban of that GUID forever.. rendering the key useless..

Its not rocket science.

People will download a torrent that fails to work.. go check the comments and listen to more then half of them not even understand how to get the damn game to work...

People will download the torrent and not complete it because the tracker goes down..

People will download the torrent to test the game.. and for a myriad of other reasons.

However once again.. the number of people who download a torrent file .. is not the number of people who download the entire torrent..

It is most likely that at the highest roughly 20,000 people have downloaded COD4.. in TOTAL... check the numbers.. and check my posts.. I said 12-16,000 people did it..

Some of them will not buy the game..

However I wager that they will be a VERY small minority of players.. because in order to get the most out of the game.. they need a VALID KEY.. so I wager MAJORITY of that 20,000 will go buy a box with a key.. take the key.. put it in, and leave the disks in the box and they will play.

Another aspect of people who download games is those who's computers do not meet the minimum requirements .. but they want to try it out anyway.. so they do... and get perhaps 1/1,000 th the experiance they would if they upgraded their PC and got a valid copy..

Also if you read the comments you will often see if the game is good or crap!!..When the game is good many people will tell you to BUY the game and support the developers.. and in fact there are cracker groups out there that WANT you to also BUY the games they crack.. so they insert code into the keys that render the game useless after a time.

Go check that out..

Bottom Line.. Pirates are NOT the cause of the industry failing..

And they are CERTAINLY not the reason Titan Quest and IronClad failed .. So much were they not the reason .. that to say so is a friggen LIE..

 

[Rduke]

Oh and another group of pure scum that download games are the ones who CHEAT at the game in online play..

They usually have a valid copy.. and a valid key.. but will not cheat with that copy as they do not want to lose their ability to play the game..

So they use a cracked copy... as many of the people who SELL hacks and so forth will provide them with key-gens as well.. as part of the service.. they will also provide them with methods and ways in order to remove hardware bans and so forth..

They are a real scourge of people in the pc gaming community...

However.. their numbers are also very small..

 

[SpinachEater]

"You have two objects in your possession: a ball and a piece of paper with the numbers "010101" written on it. I take your ball, and I also have my own piece of paper where I copy your string of numbers "010101" on it. Now, you're left without a ball, but you still have your piece of paper with numbers on it....Now, I go outside and let 1000 people copy the phrase "010101" onto their own pieces of paper. No doubt you spent a lot of time writing down that string of numbers in the first place, and you also run a service where you sell your own pieces of paper with it pre-written on them."

That could be the worst argument I have ever seen. It doesn't even make sense. You are comparing software to a piece of paper with meaningless numbers. I can't tell if you are arguing for the sake of argument or if you are really that naive to how business works. You sound like a child that says "no it doesn't infinity times two!"

So tell me, what exactly would people do with that piece of paper with 010101 on it? What makes them even want it? Would any person on earth ever want to purchase a piece of paper that has 010101 on it? The answer is no, because it is meaningless. The paper in your argument with 010101 on it has no function in your make believe world. No one, not even in your fantasy world, would ever invest time or money to create a piece of paper with 010101 written on it if it was completely meaningless.

No one can even build a counter argument for what you just said because the magnitude nonsense is too great. It is like trying to apply logic to something completely illogical...it just isn't possible.

Answer these questions.

1. Would you work at a job if your employer didn't pay you in any way?
2. Would you feel that you deserve compensation in exchange for your labor?
3. On the flip side, if you were an employer, would you compensate someone who doesn't do anything for you?
4. So in either case, if you were the employer compensating someone for nothing or the worker not getting compensation, wouldn't you feel cheated?

If you don't understand the concept of compensation for labor then there is no way that you would understand what you are arguing against. Or, and I think this is the real situation, you do understand the concept of compensation for labor but you are just backed in a corner and have nothing logical to say anymore so you are just making things up to have an argument.

 

[Rduke]

Answer these questions.

1. Would you work at a job if your employer didn't pay you in any way?

No

2. Would you feel that you deserve compensation in exchange for your labor?

Yes

3. On the flip side, if you were an employer, would you compensate someone who doesn't do anything for you?

No I would fire them. And I would fire them if they produced shoddy work.. as their shoddy work is going to put me out of buisness.

4. So in either case, if you were the employer compensating someone for nothing or the worker not getting compensation, wouldn't you feel cheated?

I would and while I see what you are saying.. and I see the point you are trying to make.

Something is seriously disconnected in what you are saying...

Evidence in light of how you failed to comprehend Ohsnaps point.

And then the best you have is to ask some generic questions that get no where near to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak, and my thoughts seem to scatter, but I think its about forgiveness Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore!!


DAMN YOU DON HENELY!!!

 

[Rduke]

And as for Sins of a Solar Empire, are you simply looking at the Pirate Bay numbers or are you looking deeper? Also, the game sold 100,000 copies in its first 23 days on sale. But the game has NO copy protection software at all. And this is how Stardock is rewarded? How many pirated copies of the game do you really think are floating around out there?

Missed this and I wanted to definitely touch on it when you mentioned it.

Selling 100,000 copies in the first 23 days is damn good.. 5 million dollars off the bat.. and every additional sale adds to that.

I am sure they popped a few corks on that alone...

Stardock knows what it is doing.. that is why there is NO copy protection to its software.. They know they are producing a QUALITY product.. that offers many many many hours of playing time beyond...

Do we have to mention how awesome their support is?... how deep their updates are??

They know that giving out or not prohibiting people from playing their game.. will HOOK them and engage them to actually WANT to own their product..

Seems like a solid and modern business practice...

I think Stardock will survive the emerging paradigm... as they are helping to pave the way.

 

[SpinachEater]

I would and while I see what you are saying.. and I see the point you are trying to make.

Something is seriously disconnected in what you are saying...

Evidence in light of how you failed to comprehend Ohsnaps point.

And then the best you have is to ask some generic questions that get no where near to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak, and my thoughts seem to scatter, but I think its about forgiveness Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore!!


DAMN YOU DON HENELY!!!

Ohsnaps didn't have a point because it was based on nonsense. There was an attempt to justify pirating via duplication because somehow it isn't stealing but the use of a piece of paper with no value has no relation to supplying legally protected products or services for people to purchase. I see the point he was trying to reach but it is invalid without logical support. He has a serious lack of how intellectual property is treated legally.




"The copyright infringement of software (also known as software piracy) refers to several practices when done without the permission of the copyright holder:

* Creating a copy and/or selling it. This is the act that some people refer to as "software piracy". This is copyright infringement in most countries and is unlikely to be fair use or fair dealing if the work remains commercially available.

* Creating a copy and giving it to someone else. This constitutes copyright infringement in most jurisdictions."


So my point about the work...everyone that is sane expects to get paid for their work in one way or another. If you don't get paid you aren't going to work. I wouldn't and you know that you wouldn't either. So how can you justify that game developers shouldn't be paid for their work? By making copies of a game, you not only are partaking in copyright infringement, you are not compensating them for their work as well. Do you expect them to keep developing then? You wouldn't because you already agreed that you wouldn't work for free.

 

[Iscabis]

If you search for any popular game on a bittorrent search engine, it will undoubtedly be there with instructions on how to play it illegally. Piracy is definitely an issue, and I hope it does not bring the PC gaming industry down to its knees one day.

I buy all of my computer games, because years and years of work go into making these, and I cannot bring myself to steal something like that. Most of the games I have bought recently have been Steam games, and I really think a Steam-type system is the answer.

I bought Bioshock off of Steam, and I never had to worry about any of the Securom headaches whatsoever. Why do you think so many small game developers release on Steam? One reason is the wide advertising audience, and two is probably that is protects their game from being pirated as easily.

Take Audiosurf for instance. This is an excellent game, and it is the number one best selling game on Steam right now (it has been since its release). However, I don't think it would have done so well if it was released on a physical medium. Games on discs are easy to crack if one knows where to look. There are entire websites devoted to releasing game cracks, and it is as easy as copy and paste to play a game without the need for the disc.

Seriously, copy protection on discs does nothing to protect the game content. Steam does a much better job, and it would be nice if more companies began realizing this and released their games on Steam or an equivalent service. That way, everybody wins.

Abandoning the PC gaming audience is NOT the answer, and I hope game developers will never resort to this.

 

[jalek]

Then when Steam goes out of business for whatever reason and you have no software on media, what do you have?

I really don't know in their case, but there've been similar things that have folded in the past and it didn't go well for users.

 

[jalek]

So wait.. I'd never heard of Sins of a Solar Empire, so I look and magazines are still releasing ratings, so it's apparently pretty new.

It's also dead as well? Guess it's not worth looking at anyway. Why buy something that could have bugs that'll never be fixed? Even free could be too much for something that comes with endless frustration.

 

[Rduke]

So my point about the work...everyone that is sane expects to get paid for their work in one way or another. If you don't get paid you aren't going to work. I wouldn't and you know that you wouldn't either. So how can you justify that game developers shouldn't be paid for their work? By making copies of a game, you not only are partaking in copyright infringement, you are not compensating them for their work as well. Do you expect them to keep developing then? You wouldn't because you already agreed that you wouldn't work for free.

Sigh...

You seriously are missing the details.. and that is the problem..

Once again we are at the paradox of the paradigms...

Of course people should be paid for their work... However if people do **** work... how can they expect to be paid for it??

The designers, coders, graphic artists, etc.. are all PAID for their work..

If they do sub-par work ... Then guess what.. They fail!..

What you and the majority of the folks who think like you do not understand is the power that is now available to them...and how much faster it can be taken away...

Once again.. as it does not seem that you people are reading what I am saying.

Like in the restaurant business.. Word of mouth is VITAL for the success or failure of a computer game.

However even a successful game is not a guarantee for success in business... And the first rule of any successful business when they start is that .. NO MATER WHAT.. THE CUSTOMER IS KING!

Case in point... One of the best games ever made.. FALLOUT and its creator and publisher Interplay & Black Isle.

Interplay made some of the greatest software to ever flow through a circuit board... Their games created a RABID following that exists even stronger today then it did when the games were first made!!! They made some bad BUSINESS decisions.. racked up too much debt.. and had to fold and is only by the grace of the EXCELLENT game they created able to come back into business.. and hopefully development once again!!

How they did that is by selling the FALLOUT license to Bethesda.

That is right.. The FAN Base for the GAME was so devout.. and so adamant about having a genuine 3rd installment to the Fallout cannon.. that Bethesda purchased the rights and got Interplay out of the hole.

The King Wins... The King saved Interplay

Because Interplay made a quality product over 10 years ago that we loved... they did a good job.. and they are getting PAID for that.

There was Piracy then too.. In fact it was probably more rampant then as more people per capita were committing it as there were more people that actually understood computers owned them.. Unlike today where almost everyone who owns a computer today needs to have a service person put RAM into a board for them!.. *snicker*

Piracy is not the point...

Producing quality products are...

Besides the fact that Piracy in gaming software is such a small segment of the market.. why don't you go do some research.. talk to a couple of thousand people.

Go download Team Speak.. go download Ventrillo.. install both then go from server to server and ask the participants in the server if they would mind if you asked a few questions. And ASK them.. Ask gamers.. the very people that are most likely the ones who would be PIRATES!

You will certainly find a bunch that have downloaded.. of this there is no doubt

Ask them if they have ever downloaded a game, found it lacking in taking up any of their entertainment TIME and MONEY.. and they promptly deleted it.

Then ask them if they told anyone else about that negative encounter with that particular game and warned them to not buy it.

Ask them if they have ever downloaded a game ...loved it .. then purchased it.

Then ask them if they ever told anyone else about the positive encounter with the game ... and told others to purchase it!

You will hear ... 4 yes answers.

I am making it a point to ask all the gamers I come in contact with those questions... Let me tell you .. my finger is on the pulse...

PIRACY Does not kill Companies.. It actually HELPS companies!

Bad Software kills companies... Piracy makes that happen FASTER!

No updates and lack of support ...kills companies!

Piracy is a scapegoat for the weak.. and a boom for the strong.

 

[Rduke]

So wait.. I'd never heard of Sins of a Solar Empire, so I look and magazines are still releasing ratings, so it's apparently pretty new.

It's also dead as well? Guess it's not worth looking at anyway. Why buy something that could have bugs that'll never be fixed? Even free could be too much for something that comes with endless frustration.

OMG..

I have not downloaded the game... but let me tell you because it is Stardock.. I do not have too..

From what I have seen of Sins'.. it looks totally incredible.

You should check it out...

 

[Iscabis]

@Jalek
I don't think Valve will be going anywhere for a long time. And if PC gaming completely dies, then where are we? Digital content distribution solves a lot of problems, and so far I have had no complaints with Steam.

No disc = no hassles in my experience. I always make images of my discs and play with those anyway, so Steam makes my life much easier.

 

[impar]

Greetings!

The amount of people downloading the 4.2kb torrent file.. is not the same as downloading the 6 or 4 Gig version of the game.

You do make a valid point, theres is no way of finding out if a ".torrent" download equals a full game "release" download.

In the end, however, that argument is just another excuse to tolerate P2P freeloading. Even if only three quarters of those ".torrent" downloads were a full game "release" download, you get ~170.000 freeloaded CoD4-PC copies.

Performing another search in Mininova for Call of Duty 4 keygen, one gets 216.499 dowloads of ".torrent" files.
These torrents vary from 1,31GB to 6,32GB, depending if they include or not the actual game.

Again, those are only ".torrent" downloads from Mininova, one needs to add another torrent sites, another P2P systems and the traditional "for profit" piracy to get an idea of the huge problem piracy has become.

 

[Slobogob]

And as for Sins of a Solar Empire, are you simply looking at the Pirate Bay numbers or are you looking deeper? Also, the game sold 100,000 copies in its first 23 days on sale. But the game has NO copy protection software at all. And this is how Stardock is rewarded? How many pirated copies of the game do you really think are floating around out there?

A whole lot. There is a difference though. Stardock made a slight mistake with their distribution. There are some western countries (i.e. Australia) where the game is not sold or was not sold until a few weeks after it's release because stardock didn't find a publisher/distributer willing to sell it for their price. You can easily confirm that by checking their forums.
The trouble with gamers is, they can't wait - well, at lest if the screaming and moaning, that takes place if a game is delayed or is buggy, is an indicator.
Now with rampant piracy they have almost immediate access to it, just like people in countries where it was released. In this case it might be especially harsh since it's even the same language. Once the game gets distributed in a country where pirating is rampant, a good chunk of those that pirated it and liked it, will buy it for it's low price and for the patches that stardock distributes. Sure, some black sheep won't buy it, but a whole lot of them downloaded it, didn't like it and trashed it anyway - they are not even possible customers.
Someone might argue, why didn't they wait, why didn't they get the demo? Well, the pirates offer the better service. The demo is free, as is the pirated version of the game. Why wait if it can be downloaded right away?
And a digital distribution is not nearly as effective as selling a box with a dvd. To many pirates a download is worth nothing. While some can wrap their head around digital distribution, a lot of them won't and will stick with a box, a manual and a DVD.
I think stardock should have delayed the game launch a little to make sure the game has a solid distribution. Then again, some of those pirates will turn into customers once the game is distributed in their area so the loss won't be too big.

 

[sezyboy]

sins of the solar empire is an awesome game.
Stardock puts a lot of effort into listening to their customers. I assured my friends this and now all of a sudden stardock has 6 new customers...word of mouth.

Rduke, yea i know what your talking about. I know several artists(music) and I even know people in the gaming industry. Those that make quality products (the programmers, artists, etc notice i did not include management or shareholders), dont even give a rats arse about piracy when they release a good product....why cause they know it will sell.

Customers should always have the option to try and return the product. Recently I have also been doing the movie thing as well (complaining about crappy movies and getting my money back halfway). Feels damn good.

Just on a gut feeling (with no numbers, facts blah etc), I believe that majority of those that download illegal copies (assuming the game is good) will end up buying the game and if the game sucks, well I feel that majority of them wouldnt have bought it anyways.

For console games btw, I never buy till I have rented our borrowed it from a friend....oh WAIT IVE DONE SOMETHING ILLEGAL! I borrowed it from a friend....man i crapped my pants and misused the license agreement

Anyways interesting debates, very fun to read.

 

[Rduke]

Greetings!You do make a valid point, theres is no way of finding out if a ".torrent" download equals a full game "release" download.

In the end, however, that argument is just another excuse to tolerate P2P freeloading. Even if only three quarters of those ".torrent" downloads were a full game "release" download, you get ~170.000 freeloaded CoD4-PC copies.

I love your assumptions of 3/4 success... you have much experiance using torrents?

You understand that trackers go down???

You understand that a whole lot of people simply shut their computers OFF after trying to download a 6 gig file and only having 4% after 6 days..

Any of these things getting through?

p2p.. lol theres a riot.. There would be no way to monitor that... and I am sure way more people use that then use torrents.. although torrents when properly configured are faster and more reliable.. they are still not an ideal setup..

170,000 MY ASS!

However if your super sleuthing is factually correct.. and the GAME is awesome.. that 170,000 could become 340,000 SALES .. VERY EASY!

Performing another search in Mininova for Call of Duty 4 keygen, one gets 216.499 dowloads of ".torrent" files.
These torrents vary from 1,31GB to 6,32GB, depending if they include or not the actual game.

sigh.. That is irrelevant..

As depending on the game or not they will need a key gen to install it..

HOWEVER.. if they attempt to use the real draw to the game.. THE MULTIPLAYER.. they should (if the developer is not totally stupid).. get a guid key run to them.. rendering their ability to download updates and connect to the real meat of the game impossible.

Again, those are only ".torrent" downloads from Mininova, one needs to add another torrent sites, another P2P systems and the traditional "for profit" piracy to get an idea of the huge problem piracy has become.

AGAIN.. I repeat.. it does not MATTER what site you are getting your information.. YOU CANNOT ADD THE FRIGGEN NUMBERS@!!@<!@<ER#<W#REKL:Otgjiop

FFS LISTEN TO ME FOR A SECOND!@@@#@

Trackers are TRACKERS.. NO SITE OWNS THEM>>>THE TRACKERS YOU FIND ON MININOVA ARE THE SAME ON THE PIRATE BAY!.. SOME SITES LIST MORE .... SOME LESS... MANY OF THEM ARE THE SAME EXACT TRACKER DUPLICATED!...YOU CANNOT GO FROM SITE TO SITE AND ADD THEM ALL UP!~!!~~~~!@!

GET THIS THROUGH YOUR SKULL!@!!

I AM TRYING TO EDUCATE YOU AND YOU ARE FAILING BIG TIME!

I must of written a damn BOOK in this thread and you (not just you) people are not paying attention.. Same pathetic mistakes in understanding the basic principals outlined over and over.. Same inane nitpicking of analogies that reference historical events that happened.. yet the offended is totally ignorant of historical factual event ...while he may very well cheer while people get dragged off for that absurd violation... but hes offended..

Plus.. missing the whole point of using piracy how 96.566% of all gamers that I know.. Which trust me is a large number of people... and as you can see I am not shy about asking questions and stating opinons.. So I have been talking to gamers all night.. so far I have talked to 23 directly regarding this issue..

SO FAR .. the EXACT SCENARIO I HAVE ESTABLISHED HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY EVERY SINGLE GAMER I TALKED TO !!!

What I .. and the other obvious gamers laid out.. about how WE use Torrents to JUDGE a game .. to see if it is WORTH our TIME and MONEY ..

IF IT IS GOOD THEN WE BUY IT..and TELL OTHERS!!..

OR ..

IF IT SUCKS DOG ASS.. WE DELETE IT .. and TELL OTHERS TO STAY AWAY!!!


WTF.. why are you all so DENSE!??!

It is cranial density akin to what you "BLAME PIRACY!" are exhibiting .. that causes companies to FAIL!

---

Also.. Outside of GAMING .. in the REALLY REAL WORLD..

THE ECONOMY SUCKS!!

IT IS GETTING WORSE!!!

IT IS NOT GOING TO GET BETTER!!!

ENTIRE INDUSTRIES ARE GOING TO FRIGGEN COLLAPSE!!

BLAME PIRATES!!!

REMAIN OBLIVIOUS!


"Daddy.. why are you typing at the keyboard so hard?"

"Because Daddy is type yelling"

"Why are you yelling??"

"Because these people don't listen .. and I have to keep repeating myself over and over.. "

"Why don't they listen?"

"Because they don't understand what is happening .. and it frightens them...the more it frightens them..the more they do exactly what they should not ... and the more they ensure their own extinction.."

"Like the dinosaurs"

"Yes honey.. exactly like the dinosaurs..."

"Silly people"

"LOL .. Yes they are, you want some pancakes?"

"Yaaaaaaah pancakes!!"

 

[Chetou]

I buy all of my computer games, because years and years of work go into making these, and I cannot bring myself to steal something like that. Most of the games I have bought recently have been Steam games, and I really think a Steam-type system is the answer.

Seriously, copy protection on discs does nothing to protect the game content. Steam does a much better job, and it would be nice if more companies began realizing this and released their games on Steam or an equivalent service. That way, everybody wins.

I don't like Steam. What if ten years from now I decide to install the game and play it again? Who knows where will Steam be then. And, not less important for me, I like to have that box on the shelf, the manual in my hand, CD and all the extras that might be included. Steam download is so impersonal, not tangible...maybe I'm a hopeless romantic

 

[clay12340]

It has become apparent to me through reading this thread that the PC gaming audience is a complete anomaly.

Apparently given the option the mass majority of PC gamers would choose to pay for something that they don't have to. Which makes complete sense as no one in this thread seems to have any concern for the money they spend. The idea of $50 being a mass amount of money has not come up even once. The concept of video games being expensive has yet to come up. Nor has there been any mention of increasing non-gaming related pressures on people's income and expenses. Such a power spending group the PC gamers are that high end hardware requirements are never a problem as all of our machines straddle the bleeding edge of technology.

So obviously the correct business model for THG is to start charging a sizable subscription fee. However, in order to increase sales they need to publish all content to my free website www.claytonpiratesTHG.com. This way users will be able to get a taste of every bit of content on my website and be hopelessly hooked on the original THG and want to spend their money to see the same content again. The only caveat is that they must continue to support their website by offering updated spelling and grammar checks on all content, which I will then receive for my site a week after their release.

Rob you need to ride this new paradigm right to the top of the Forbes list. Since I'm a reasonable guy all I will charge for my services is that you send me all of the new hardware you guys rate as excellent products.