Video Game Execs Join BSA, RIAA, MPAA In The Bogus Piracy Stats Brigade
from the welcome-to-the-club dept
The BSA, RIAA and MPAA are all well known for their bogus stats about piracy that are easily disproved. In fact, when it comes to the BSA, the company they contracted to conduct the study has even complained that the BSA is misusing the stats. You would hope that a younger, more dynamic industry wouldn't fall into the same trap. Unfortunately, though, it looks like the video game industry is going down the same pointless path. Todd Hollenshead from id Software is getting a lot of attention today for trumpeting the ESA's latest bogus stat numbers that appears to assume all pirated copies are lost sales and not taking into account (at all) the fact that pirated copies can later lead to legit sales. Hollenshead goes on to talk about various annoying means of copy protection to keep anyone from pirating the game. This isn't a new argument for id. Last year, the company put out a similar statement about how piracy was killing the video game industry (which actually appears to be pretty vibrant). It also ignores id's own history. The early success of games like Castle Wolfenstein and Doom were, in large part, thanks to pirated copies being widely available and getting people hooked (often resulting in them buying legit copies, or later software products from id). It also ignores the success of other game publishers, such as Stardock, who decided that treating all its customers as if they're criminals is a bad idea -- and releasing their game with no copy protection at all... and having it turn into a best seller.
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Did anyone stop to think...
Want to blame someone Todd? Look in the mirror...
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I want my, I want my, I want my Nintendo Wiiiiii
The Wii introduced some new ways to play the games, but even then it's a relatively small step forwards. Wii sports is still a sports sim! That small invention was enough to gain the Wii a lot of sales. If iD sales are suffering then they should do something new, Quake 4 won't hack it anymore no matter how pretty the texture mapping.
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Doom
Didn't the success of ID and Doom come mainly from the fact that they CHOOSE to give away copies and demos as a marketing ploy and in an attempt to bypass the traditional sales channels? And that they encouraged people to give away copies of the demo?
Because if they made that choice, then piracy had little to do with it. My choosing to give my content away is one thing, taking it when I choose not to do so is something else entirely.
IIRC, that was also early in the "online" era, and people paid to get disks after they'd been hooked with the three-level demo version, as the full version was much too big for most people to download via modem.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when it comes to selectively cherry-picking "facts" to support your position, you seem to have quite a bit in common with the organizations you spend so much time deriding...
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pirated copies can later lead to legit sales.
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Make something worth buying
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At first glance..
However, the points raised above are good ones. I have games I have purchased, that I have to 'pirate'(If you ask EA anyways) in order to play conveniently. It's 'against the EULA' to take a CD image of my Battlefield 2 disk and use that to play the game. I have installed the game onto my hard drive, and no files from the DVD are required for a technical reason. The game's copy protection requires that I put the physical DVD in my DVD drive every time I play, which can get very annoying if I am switching between games often, or trying to rip a dvd at the same time. I use an imagedrive to mount the DVD image in a virtual drive, and this fools their copy protection just fine. But if they catch me, I'm liable to lose my right to ever play the game again using that CD key.
so while the stores you buy your games from take the opinion that it is 'yours for life' becasue you COULD have made a copy of the disk, it's the game publisher's opinion that you are only borrowing the right to play the game, and it can be revoked at any time.
Unlike physical goods where you generally have a 30 day(Longer in some states) return window - no questions asked - you do not get a choice to return computer software if you have broken the shrinkwrap seal.
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Bob Dole loved and paid for Ghost Recon, but Bob Dole hated Ghost Recon 2, less flexible, more like a bad movie, let's get some new ideas boys, put your money in development and stop inventing problems that don't exist.
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Re: pirated copies can later lead to legit sales.
It is sad to see the great industry of video games fall into this trap.
I do the same for movies too.
Download, show to friends.
If it is liked, it is bought.
We should sue them for advertisement costs.
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- the distribution was done with the full support of ID
- only the first third of the game was freely available to everyone
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WTF?
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How to sell Games
Get back to work!
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Lack of new content...
So instead of trying to go into new direction the execs of the game industry have decided that must do what they can to insure that their great-great-grandkids never have to work a day in their lives. And since the RIAA and the MPAA are dealing "significant blows" to piracy left and right then why not join them to deal even more "significant blows"?
The fact is most people that pirate are the ones that will find the underground hack/crack sites. And if they're willing to go through all that trouble to pirate a game then its safe to assume that for the most part they will never buy a legit copy.
Sadly I think the various industries have concluded that if they can weighproducts down with enough DRM and copy protection that the crackers/hackers will just give up and buy it legit. No. Those see all that "protection" as a challenge.
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GalCiv2 FTW
It is dissappointing to hear this from id, but then I believe the company's name was always a reference to the psychology term. The selfish child in all of us. First they were the kids on the block showing up the establishment. Now they are the old behemoth that doesn't know how to keep riding the gravy train.
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Computer games are a hit and miss industry. Who remembers the early days when you would dish out on a game just to find out it wouldn't run or even crash if it was able to run at all?
Things now aren't much different, if you buy a game in a shop chances are you'll be dissapointed with the performance. Downloading the entire game (not just a streamlined demo) to try it before buying is a great idea.
When you test drive a car you don't test drive part of the car, you test drive the entire car. Then if you like it you buy it.
Good games sell, bad games dont, this is the same with music, movies, whatever.
I pay for games that are good and don't buy games that aren't.
God bless cd and dvd burners and compression and their inventors.
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Re: Doom
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet!
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I think there were more copies of pirated doom out there than anything. Yet, I think it sold more copies than anything... Obviously - ID games wouldn't be a big corporation today if it wasn't for that.
Perhaps the reason ID isn't making much money is that companies like Sony, Blizzard, Firaxis, EA Games are simply kickin' their asses...
I literally have a large drawer full of purchased games - The Sims 2, all it's expansions, Warcraft 1-3, Civ 1-4, Starcraft, oh heck I could name them for hours. I've downloaded my share, but I don't like the hassles of patching and such if you don't have a legal copy. Plus, I don't want to have to go back and figure out how to crack a game and get it going if I uninstall and want to play later. If it's a good game, I'll buy it without doubt.
Yet, other than doom - I don't think I've ever bought a game from ID.. err, maybe - if they made Quake 2, but past Quake 2, I hated the others.
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Re: Re: Doom
Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet!
Make a little birdhouse in your soul...
And that's all I have to say about that.
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Blind buying...
Remember how people wondered if the first trailers of Gears of War were actual gameplay or not? Mind you from what I've seen/heard Gears of War has more than enough going for it than pretty graphics to call it a great game but there are plenty of games out there that had pretty trailers/demos with over the top graphics but then the final product was horrible.
So it could be possible that another reason (along with all those "lost sales") the industry wants to stop piracy is so that they can get you to blindly buy a mediocre game.
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PC games are shabby
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...
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Shrinkage
What it boils down to is if you have a product lots of people want and your pricing is on target, you'll make lots of money. If you don't, you won't. Blaming your shortcomings completely on piracy won't improve your bottom line.
In IDs case, they've been re-hashing the same old thing since the original Doom came out. I suppose Quake was a step up, but adding the flight dimension was really just a variation on the first-person shooter theme, and Half-Life was much better executed. I did not pirate, play, or have anything else with Doom 3. Because I think having to put down my gun to see what I'm trying to shoot is stupid for a video game.
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Re: PC games are shabby
I play only MMOs now. and MMOs are shabby from consoles.
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Re: pirated copies can later lead to legit sales.
So I'm not stuck with crap where they spent
more time and effort on the packaging graphics
than the game itself.
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Re: PC games are shabby
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selfish little brats
"I get pirated copies of games, if i like the game I'll buy it. If I don't it gets deleted."
and
"…when I can open the game and play it say for a few days then realize the game SUCKS! Allow me to return it for a full refund…. so much garbage comes out now days you need to test drive it before you dump your $$ into it."
Oh, I see. You have decided when and if it's OK to steal something. Do you also go down to local car lots, hot wire sports cars, and then drive them home for a few days before deciding whether of not you'll actually buy them? Also, would you mind if I slip into your house one day and borrow some of your consumer electronics so I can give them a "test drive" in my own house for a while? Hey, I promise I'll buy my own and return yours if I end up liking them. See, you have nothing to fear!
PUH-lease. Don't give me that bullsh*t story about how you actually do go out and buy the games you like after you've given them a "test drive." If you want a test drive, go down to your local video store and play them on the consoles they have there. Or go over to a friend's house and check them out. But don't pretend that you're a little angel with the best interests of others in mind when you download or burn complete copies for yourself.
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Yo Momma, your response is idiotic: comparing downloading a computer game to stealing a car or breaking into somebody's house??? ROFLMAO, you must work for *AA.
I often d/l games from BT too as a way to demo them since many games these days don't even come with demos, or the demos come (months) later or the demos are not representative of the actual game (like the demo runs fine then you buy a game only to find it's slower than the demo or crashes on your machine - FEAR, that I bough anyway after upgrading my video card), often demos have too many limitations, or... the demo is the best 10 minutes of the entire game. I buy my games even if I d/l them first from BT (if I don't like the game I usually know after few levels and delete it anyway) but often playing the demo is insufficient or, like I said, the demo just doesn't exist and I don't have friends who play games, and I don't want to try out games on consoles in a game shop. I've bought crap games before and I don't want to burn another $50 based on hype until I'm sure I want the game. There are very few stores that would accept game returns. If I had console I'd rent games, but I don't have that option with PC games. So it's not stealing, and please stop freaking comparing downloading games to stealing cars, robbing homes, etc., it's DUMB.
The game industry has only themselves to blame for crappy, short games and misleading or non-existing demos.
Adam
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The video game industry is heavily hit by piracy. Many users of games try to pirate them, if possible.
While all pirated copies are not lost sales, some percentage surely are.
The shareware concept developed in the video game industry as a method of sampling the final product, and serves the purpose quite well.
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.
that's why i didn't buy doom 3. i downloaded it.
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DNF
Man... and I have been waiting for the sweetest game in history... what a fool... LOL
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Sounding like a broken record
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look at WoW. its how old and still is past some +3 million sales. so bullsh*t that games are sufferes to piracy... not saying every game should require an internet connection to play. but g/d if you put in the effort that you do for copy-protection (eg: Securom7) into the acutal gameplay, you might have a decent product that people like. gaming companies need to realize, they arent a monopoly like M$ and think they can push people around to buy their products. Piracy is a "bad" benefit of the internet / society. but it happens, make a better game so users would be mroe likely to buy it.
imo, they should make a game that would require a key to play online and users submit maps n such, where other users can play on them. then you have yourself a real game. multiple ideas + constantely updated + piracy eliminated. if you dont follow.. look at WoW...
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