Video Game Developer Talks To Pirates: Realizes He Can Compete With Free
from the shocking dept
Slashdot points us to an interesting story of a video game developer in the UK, Positech Games, who put up a blog post recently, asking people who "pirated" the company's software to explain why they did it. They did... in droves. Now there's a new post up discussing both the results and how the company is responding. While the guy sounds surprised about the results, they don't really seem all that shocking: people hate, hate, hate DRM of any kind (which should serve as a counter to the guy who showed up here last week insisting that DRM is here to stay). That was the thing they were most vehement about. After that, they were upset about the high price of games and the short demos that were offered that weren't representative of the game.The good news is that the company is responding. It's swearing off DRM completely, reducing prices on some games and promising better demos. It's also exploring ways to make it more convenient to buy to avoid any "hassles" that users have in buying. It's nice to see someone realize that, rather than freaking out and trying to sue everyone, the proper response to "piracy" is to figure out how to better compete with it by decreasing inconveniences and giving people a reason to buy rather than pirate. So far, it appears that Positech is focusing mostly on that first issue (decreasing the annoyances). Hopefully it takes the second step also, giving people additional reasons to buy rather than pirate.
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Filed Under: competing with free, piracy, uk, video games
Companies: positech
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MAYBE . . .
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+5 Insightful
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and then
As long as piracy is the same product for free, people will always find a reason to justify their piracy.
Why would you pay for something if you can get the same thing for free with little fear of repercussion?
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Re: and then
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Re: Re: and then
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if prices aren't exorbitant
That is just common sense market influence.
Meanwhile, I suspect this guy will get a lot of support for agreeing to drop DRM among other things, and also for having an ear to the public.
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Remember Wolfenstien?
Free works if you use leverage it correctly.
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Good marketing move
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Re: and then
As long as piracy is the same product for free, people will always find a reason to justify their piracy.
Why would you pay for something if you can get the same thing for free with little fear of repercussion?"
The problem is not that people can get the same thing for free, its that they can often get an improved product for free. The question is currently; "Why would you pay for something if you can get a better version for free". This is the current state of DRM in gaming.
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Tech Savvy
But asking the gaming crowd, especially the PC gaming crowd, is an entirely different animal. Unfortunately, I don't think this sample is representative of public perception, or even general awareness of DRM.
The guy in that other comments section may be right in one respect: DRM is going to stay, at least for a while, until it begins to truly inconvenience the average consumer. I think it's partially hit critical mass in music, and that's why we're seeing DRM-free offerings now. Too many iPod owners were discovering that their music wouldn't play anywhere else, or was not transferable to a different device (one they may have purchased out of dissatisfaction with Apple's imposed obsolescence, or just the iPod's tendency towards hardware failure).
But there has yet to be an "Aha!" moment with films. It may not come for a while, until digital distribution and internet bandwidth grows to the point where it's practical, and enough people get burned by similar circumstances.
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Re: +5 Insightful
I use Steam, but I don't remember if there's a way to easilly tell whether or not a game uses DRM or if so, what kind. If DRM really is as big a concern as the response to Positech indicates, then maybe Steam customers would find some kind of uniform DRM labeling system worthwhile. For example, if there was an obvious "DRM!" icon next to the price of a game, people might think twice about buying that game. And consequently maybe publishers would think twice about requiring DRM be added to their games.
I don't expect it to change any time soon, but it's interesting to think about whether Steam has enough clout now to shame publishers into not using DRM.
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Re: Re: and then
I also hate the fact that the industry always wants the best of both worlds. They want to say that what you are buying is simply the physical good and no rights or licenses under copyright. On the other hand, they scream copyright when someone tries to assert their rights on the physical good.
Last, it angers me that the entertainment industry has no obligation to back its own product. If they release a music single, a movie trailer, or a game demo that completely misrepresents the product, there are no repercussions. I buy the product, hate it, and have no options. Anything else I can take to the return counter, but thanks to the improper assertion that I "must have copied it," I can't return entertainment products.
Despite all this, I am an honest buyer. I have a large collection of CDs and DVDs, many of which I downloaded first. Some of those DVDs I haven't even watched again since I purchased them, but I bought them to support the creators because it brought me enjoyment when I downloaded it. Of the people I know, there is a pretty consistent relationship between "piracy" volume and the size of their legal, retail collection. That is, my friends who pirate the most also have the largest DVD and CD collections.
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Orange Box
Last you have price. Price is always a big issue for me, but if you look at the Orange Box it was a great value. I bought 5 games for $40. Sure I already had one of the games (Half Life 2), but I get an extra copy of that that I can give to somebody and I have several more games to play.
At this point you would think more companies would start to realize the sucess valve has had in actually selling games where other companies are struggling.
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Re: and then
The issue here isn't the morons who will never, under any circumstances, pay for a game. It's a question of "how do we address the issues and concerns of otherwise honest customers?". If someone is pirating because it gets around cumbersome and abusive DRM that's one thing, just being a money-grubbing thief is another entirely.
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Re: Orange Box
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Re: Re: Re: and then
What if you download a movie you own on VHS or DVD?
And I'm not saying you own the original Star Wars and download the special edition. This is like 'versions'.
To be honest, I do this because I haven't found a dependable free movie ripper. I have an extensive DVD collection because they are cheap and play on my computer and on my TV and don't take up that much space and I like collecting things.
But I don't want to put a DVD into my computer except when installing something. And even then...
More and more 'cyberpunk' back stories/themes/technologies are becoming true. It disturbs me when life imitates art sometimes. Hopefully one of the ones that will come true is a free (as in liberty) 'Net and fast digital distributions.
There will always be a need for physical media. Backups and so on. Discreet transfers. But this is why I like Steam. Developers I can trust distributing games I want to play and I can download them onto any computer I want. i just can't 'share' with friends officially, but I can unofficially.
/me goes off to ramble somewhere else
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Pirating? I prefer not...
Why? Because the Perfect Circle songs are available as DRM-free digital downloads and Tool songs are not. I looked to purchase the CDs but they cost over $20.00 new. Too much, sorry.
So I'm just going to wait and borrow my friend's Tool collection and rip thier CDs for free. The point is that I would *rather* pay for what I get. I don't want it free. I just want it convenient and reasonable.
Dumbasses. They wanted their $20 so bad that they missed my $10.
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Demos
When I was a kid though I would spend days pirating games and software because I didn't have any money to buy them. Now that I do have the money, I want immediate satisfaction and not to wait around for something to download or waste time trying bogus keygen software. Maybe its just me, but I'd rather pay money and get the software right then than waste time pirating or wait for something to arrive by mail. I've actually gone with competing software companies for some utilities because they allowed me to download and pay for the software right there then make me wait for it to come by mail.
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Re: and then
After first being appalled at the Orange Box, having to re-purchase games I already owned, I pirated Portal and after playing the first few rounds, immediately uninstalled the "free" copy and and purchased the Orange Box.
If the computer-savvy pirates pirate all the quality games, only the Wal-Mart sheople picking up The Sims 3: Nose-Pickin! and Deer Huntin' 14: Bambithon, will be paying for their games, making them the the more lucrative option for developers and publishers.
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Re: and then
There will always be pirates... just as there has always been pirates. However, there are more now than there used to be... which brings up the question: why?
Why is simple... in addition to it becoming easier to pirate games developers have become increasingly anti-consumer. Now in reality developers can't control whether or not it has become easier to pirate. They can try to make it hard again but thus far have met consistently with failure. So instead of trying to change the world around them this developer has chosen to change themselves.
In theory this should reduce, though not eliminate, piracy.
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Re: Re: Re: and then
Maybe the cost point would shift if we didn't have to pay the overhead involved in DRM research and development. Especially considering that we have folks who put just as much time and effort into circumventing said DRM for free.
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I find this article encouraging
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Re: Demos
YEAH.
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Re: I find this article encouraging
I'm glad she always pushes me to do my best. She let me try for free but I insisted on paying for the product.
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Re: and then
Sheesh! Don't you people read anything on this blog!
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Do what I say, not what I do
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What has Positech even made?
I know everythign isn't xbox live, but that is the service i most often use that has DRM on games, the disc format titles are over priced but at least they aren't crippled by DRM like they are on xbox live arcade...and it adds insult to injury when your xbox dies and the games you paid for don't work on your new console without having to jump through 18 hoops throughout 5 weeks of "discussions" with xbox customer support.
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Re: Re: and then
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Re: Do what I say, not what I do
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Re: Remember Wolfenstien?
To me buying a game is like buying a shirt, if I don't like it, I should be able to return it or sell my used clothes to someone else.
What happen the next game that company releases a game, the price is jacked up due to losses "Piracy".
It is a fair game, and the damn government should stay out it. companies jack up prices, find more way to buy politician to pass laws to protect them, and the honest average joe who end up paying for "LOSSES" in profits for the gas companies, high gas prices, Microsoft, software, companies, taxes, etc...
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Re: Re: and then
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I agree....
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Not that other's haven't said it but...
I know of people who will buy a video game they really like twice, once when it comes out in Japan, then again when it comes out in the US, just so that the US market doesn't lose the sale and is more likely to bring more games like it to the US.
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But...
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Re: Re: +5 Insightful
That's a really great idea, but they'll never do it, because the game developers would object. I've said it before, but service providers bow down to content providers far more than they do to customers. It's weird corporate psychology/these are the guys I golf with.
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Here's an idea..
You could then easily set a slightly higher price for a pre-order and tier pre-orders to things like collector editions to the plain early release editions. Once it's released in retail, it's more or less like music swapping for games. If people like it, they'll buy the retail edition for the extra artwork and tangible copies. All without DRM. If they share it with others, and they like it, and the price is reasonable, then it's most likely going to end up in a sale for the company and a new customer.
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Price of games in AU
The worst offender is EA, buying a digital download is still double that of the US. Does a digital download really incur those sort of import costs?
There are several reasons why people pirate games, and I can blame publishers for one of them specifically.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: and then
DVDFab. There, fixed that problem!
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Not to mention
I made a point to purchase each copy of a game I wanted to have available on 20 PC's AND get the extra licensing required but there was no way I was going to hand out a CD anytime someone wanted to play a game. When you do that things have a tendancy to grow legs then I have one less copy to allow someone to play. Steam is kind of expensive for a LAN center ($10 per month per PC) but so worthwhile since there is no DRM.
There are some very clever technologies available for LAN centers that are donation based (free) as well. I valued those technologies so much I made up my own donation number, usually $10 per machine, which I kind of felt was low but it was what the store could afford at the time. More than once I got an e-mail thanking me for my large donation ($200+/-) then I would explain why I was using their product and usually got a very favorable responce of "oh yeah? Cool!".
Two software creators actually kept in regular contact with me allowing me to try new builds of their software free as long as I provided my feedback and customer feedback, which I gladly did.
Only one developer I donated to had an issue with what I was doing and reported me to Microsoft for "suspected licensing violations". I passed the inspection with flying colors AND sold the two inspectors 6 hours of game time each. Needless to say I did not use his product again but I almost made my money back on what I donated to him from those two M$ licensing goons.
BTW. M$ Licensing inspectors are very nice people if you are in compliance.
If more game companies go the route of Steam I would not be upset. Saving toward the day I can open my own LAN center (and not have it closed by the owner because he is bored with it after 1 year) and it would be a real boon.
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Re: Re: and then
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I do agree piracy has its uses but exploiting the nature of it that's thievery. There is no point stealing from indy developers or even small companies who's price points are more than adequately priced.
However to sell something $20 that includes DRM? WTF??!
I can example of where piracy works, being digital artist I pirated a copy of ZBrush in order to learn it's ins and outs. I was amazed at the dedication and thought that went into the product that I bought a legal license and paid $510 real dollars. However I am appalled at people who steal and not give back to deserving software developers. Now I can run you an instance where software developers got what was coming to them, the example of this form of piracy is the game SPORE I hope to hell that game is pirated to the point the minds behind it go bankrupt. They morally raped the franchise and got what was coming to them "a law suit".
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