Is EA Figuring Things Out? Says 'Please Pirate Our Games' And Has A Business Model For It
from the could-it-be? dept
Could it be that EA is actually figuring this stuff out? It's been one of the most maligned video game companies when it came to mistreating fans with things like draconian DRM -- but perhaps that's changing. Earlier this month we quoted EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, putting a positive spin on the fact that people had downloaded and shared unauthorized copies of The Sims 3, finally recognizing that it was like a demo version of the game. Reader Jim alerts us to the news that Riccitiello was apparently so happy with the response to The Sims 3 sharing, he's now going even further, telling people to "please pirate our games":"By the way, if there are any pirates you're writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes... if they would just pirate lots of it I'd love them."It's not clear Riccitiello is totally comfortable saying these things. As with the quotes earlier this month, you sorta get the feeling that there's a lot of nervous laughter around the quotes -- but at least he's trying. And part of it is because EA is, in fact, putting in place smarter business models, such that unauthorized downloads can actually lead to more sales:
"Because what's in the middle of the game is an opportunity to buy stuff. I increasingly believe that's the way the market's going because that's how the consumer wants to consume. And by the way, [regarding] my competitor, do you think Blizzard gets upset when someone pirates a disc of one of their online games? While we don't want to see people pirate Warhammer Online, if they're going to give us a year's subscription it's not exactly a total loss."Indeed. He's getting there. If the real opportunities to make money are from buying stuff within the game, then you want the game itself to be as widely spread as possible...
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Filed Under: business models, john riccitiello, piracy, video games
Companies: ea
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Congrats! You have almost won the Masnick Award!
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With this announcement, I fully intend to run right over to the store and drop the $$ on it.
I may or may not ever play with the game, but I will buy it to reward EA for getting it's head on straight (and 'cause physical copies of game "items" are fun to own)
I may only represent .1% of the buying public but I can assure you it will make a difference to EA.
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Um, all their games are already pirated. So how, exactly, is this statement going to suddenly make their sales disappear? Pull your head out of your ass. They are giving consumers more for their money, better monetizing the game after the sale, and stopping the practice of punishing paying customers by giving them a copy of the game that is harder to use and more limited than what the pirates have. Plus, they are engendering goodwill in their consumer base. How is all that going to do anything but help them?
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When you stop making something worth buying, people won't buy it.
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some people are making money
Obviously someone is making money out of those else why all these other game companies are saying "Me too!". I think other country besides Korea is slowly catching on...
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Re: some people are making money
EA is takinga huge risk giving up as much revenue as they will in order to hope to make money on a non-required upsell in the middle of the game. The upsell doesn't even sound to be specific to keeping playing.
If anything, this sounds like "give it away and pray" marketing.
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Re: Re: some people are making money
The upsell in many of these games may not be specific to keeping playing, but it is required in order to unlock better parts of the games (other areas, access to more advanced items, vehicles, quests, etc).
I wouldn't characterize it as give it away and pray - more like here's the first 3 tracks...pay for the rest - and that's not quite the best characterization either...
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Re: Re: Re: some people are making money
The ones that buy it get ripped off if EA is also going to support those that didn't buy it.
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Granted, it's a nice step forward, but once it becomes an acceptable attitude en masse that "piracy" is perfectly acceptable that initial purchase won't exist at all, and you won't even have the distinction.
Of course, like all things that EA has tried to protect its content it's easily circumvented, with the extra content being fileshared the day it's released. It was a nice attempt, anyway, but EA should really stop trying to be a leader in these things.
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I bought the game and I get nothing that those that download it also get.
And then they want to charge $$$ for stuff that was normally included with the game (hair, towns, editors, ect)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: some people are making money
What problem? Why do you need to even compare the two together?
"The ones that buy it get ripped off if EA is also going to support those that didn't buy it."
Does no one remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard? They all made the money they agreed to make for the various amounts of time they worked, and it worked out that all of them were paid the same amount. When they complained, the vineyard owner asked, "Did I not pay you what we agreed to?"
If you want to support EA and buy the product for the agreed to sum, and you get the experience that EA promised, what does it matter what experience they give to others?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: some people are making money
Simple: If I pay $40 for "experience", and others get it for free, I feel ripped off. By following the rules, I get the same and less? (less because I no longer have the $40 I could have used for beer).
The only way this works for EA is if they say tomorrow "We no longer sell games,we give them away" and go to a 100% download economy of free games with t-shirt upsells or whatever they come up with.
Then they can fail outright.
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Re: some people are making money
Maybe this is changing.
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Here's the rub
They have a taken a good business model and turned it sour. There are games out there that take this business model and use it well. NavyField, free-to-play, but gives you a bonus for subscribing and give you the option to buy in game items, for a large some of around USD$3 a item. Some Nexon games are free-to-play, but again give bonuses to subscribers. Nexon's Shattered Galaxy has been this way since, well as long as I've played it, and it launched in 2001.
EA is still screwing their customers out of their money for what THEY think is value, not what we do.
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Re: Here's the rub
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Everyone of those games is free to play, something you can't really pirate or worth pirating.
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Free RPGs
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Re: Free RPGs
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Again, games are for fun. I can drop 2-5k on a game because I enjoy it and the product is fun. I can drop 5-10 on a game and get the same satisfaction from a game.
You don't look at games as an investment. Most of the CD's I've bought for games are probably burned. Why? They are unnecessary clutter in the closet and not fun to clean.
Basically, games are like different hobbies. Some people spend 200-300k on a car and tune it and spend more money and get enjoyment out of it. Others spend 200 on a freshwater aquarium or some other pet and get the same enjoyment out of it.
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Why dont they offer the "demo" as a download then?
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Re: Why dont they offer the "demo" as a download then?
If nothing else, it's a really funny commentary on how little most people know about actual piracy.
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Re: Re: Why dont they offer the "demo" as a download then?
Or about how corporate mindsets operate. There is no way in hell EA is truly interested in changing their gameplan... which is sell as many copies of a poor quality game as possible and then rinse/repeat as soon as sales fall. EA does not produce 'good' games, they produce lots of bad games.
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Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I really dislike this idea. It used to be that you bought a game, installed it and knew exactly what you were getting. Most games had patches and a few had extra bonus content that you could download, but you got the entire base for the purchase price. Now it seems that what's in the box is little more than the program and a basic set of levels. You have to register to download the rest of the stuff that should have come with the game in the first place.
I've never played any of the Sims games and to be completely honest, I wouldn't even know where to start. There are so many different packages and so much crap available on the net for them, that I would have no idea what I needed and what I didn't in order to get the complete "experience".
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Innovative Business Model
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Making Money from Pirated Games
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Ignorance...
My point here is NOT that we shouldn't pirate, because that wouldn't be a liable argument here anyway, look at the article for Christ's sake...
I'm here to try and let you guys know that, to believe EA to give up, just like that... Is pure ignorance...
This is a WAR, and we the Pirates will continue to fight this war, just as we are doing the best we can to support ThePirateBay at this time of trouble. The fact still remains that EA has pulled a shady move... Tactical none the less... You can not reverse engineer a program, and release it as some of the groups found on Demonoid.com, IPTorrents.com, ThePirateBay.com, do and expect the Developers to be unbelievably blind to the process.
EA wants you to crack/modify the games they release at this point to gather statistical information, and furthermore find out HOW people are stealing the games. Even if they allow people to play online in pirated copies, for free... This move was made to monitor you... You the Crack-Specialist, or you the Reverse-Engineer, are being watched by EA, not only that... A marketing team is trying to find out how to turn the situation around a little, and they have about found it... But as Server-source on certain applications are being released/stolen as well, it's only a short while later before everyone starts using a pirate server, where all is free... ;)
+1 EA for being creative...
+1 To Pirates, because we are the ones passionate about our work...
Passion Vs. College Degree
I've seen passion win, more often than not...
--
BinaryBrother[AT]SpamFails.com
[SpamFails.com] = [Gmail.com]
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Pirates YAAARRG!
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indirect ads
pirated games will (relatively) increase sales point bcos after people tried the game, they will eventually buy the original game.
it somehow serves as ads.
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Any online gambling games also (Although slightly different)
The model is already there.
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All of the items in the sims 3 shop total around 200$, and the sims 3 is built around a premise of user created content anyways, it doesn't make sense to sell these things when the user created content is often better.
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