Video Game Developers Say That Piracy Really Isn't A Big Threat To Business
from the good-for-them dept
Well this is a bit of a surprise. For all the talk we keep hearing about how piracy is destroying the video game industry, and news stories with video game execs talking up DRM and the threat of piracy, a recent study of video game developers had only 10% saying that piracy was a threat to their business. Plenty were concerned about it as an issue they had to deal with, but most seemed to have some perspective on the relative risk of the threat. In fact, other parts of the survey note that about 50% are adapting to the marketplace, saying that "piracy" will change the way they do business, with it mostly meaning more "piracy-proof" business models. On the DRM front, there isn't a whole lot of interest. 50% called it irrelevant with another 20% describing DRM as a part of the problem. I have to admit I'm a bit surprised by the findings (which makes me wonder a bit about the methodology), but it's nice to see at least some suggestion that developers are adapting, rather than threatening and blaming.
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Filed Under: piracy, threat, video games
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And isn't the video game industry threatening to bribe, sorry, lobby politicians to throw people off of the internet based on an accusation?
No? That's the recording industry that keeps seeing it's profits fall thanks to piracy?
But the video game industry keeps making money in spite of piracy?
Boy, these issues sure are confusing.
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That said, I don't agree with the doomsday piracy types, simply pointing out that there's a chance the poll's targets may not be the best to survey.
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A) Create these anti-piracy measures.
B) Deal with customer issues.
C) Have an understanding about the technology they're dealing with.
D) In the cases of online games, actually deal with user traffic.
And in the cases of executives they have to deal with:
E) Have their bosses breathing down their necks about needing "unbreakable DRM".
So while it's the executives and marketers that will probably have a better grasp of sales and "demographics", it's the developers who are closer to the action, in touch with the customers almost directly, and it's them who actually understand fully the nitty-gritty of piracy. Hell, I bet most of them WERE pirates before they entered the industry, to some degree.
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Someone like Maxis develops a game (Spore for example). Securom is the one doing the DRM. Sure Maxis needs to implement it in the game but the DRM is written and sold by Securom, probably at the request of the publisher.
I wouldn't call Securom game developers is all I'm saying but as I said in my other post, if they were included in interviews, I'm sure they contribute to the numbers that say DRM works. :)
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It could also depend on who they talked to in terms of developers. I'm sure if they're interviewing some of the higher level developers/leads or the people who have a job because of something like DRM, you'll probably find the middle ground between the average developer and the publisher... Like the 50% that seems to think DRM works.
The average game developer isn't far off from most gamers. They buy and play other companies games and see the same kinds of things we do.
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Adapting
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Re: Adapting
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Re: Re: Adapting
your analogy implies that the protection scheme is somehow defeated with a superior force. cracking DRM doesn't work that way. a better analogy would be lockpicking, or key copying.
at the risk of sounding pointlessly academic, DRM circumvention in games is a matter of reverse engineering, not brute force. in most cases, it's not cryptanalysis (breaking encryption), it's getting the guts of a program with a valid key into a debugger, watching the game validate, and then figuring out how to either route around the validation step or generate keys that will satisfy the validation procedure.
keygens and cracked exe's are common techniques for circumventing DRM. the DRM code (the armor in your analogy) is completely intact in a cracked game, much like a lock that has been picked. the drm code just not called into play, either by a spoofed key that fools the validation check or a modified executable that skips the validation routine.
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Well, if by "game developers", they mean the people who actually develop the games and not the individuals how own a development company or (if you really want to get loose with the term) the publishers, then it shouldn't be surprising at all. The people who do the grunt work of developing games are gamers themselves, so they'd be just as annoyed with DRM as anyone else.
From the looks of the TIGA web site, the organization which sponsored the study, it does appear that they're talking about the actual developers. So, yeah, the findings make sense to me.
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As an anti-piracy measure, serial numbers are a weak solution at best. There are too many legitimate reasons that the same number may be used more than once, and if software companies get too hard-nosed about it, they lose customers. That's why they don't actually get too hard-nosed about it. Look at the company who is most eager to use such numbers for anti-piracy: Microsoft. Even they allow the same number to be used several times before acting.
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I guess you can take "registering" a couple of different ways, but I took the AC to mean entering a GUID that is printed somewhere on the jewel box during the installation. These games don't (or didn't) "phone home" to confirm the GUID or make sure that you've only installed it so many times. They just run it through a local process that confirms whether the GUID is valid. So, it sounds like you're talking more about the Spore-like DRM.
In any case, is the GUID a form of DRM? I think so, albeit a very light form.
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This kind of thing is DRM indeed, and a particularly dumb form of it. One project I was involved with used it as way of placating clueless upper management without causing a huge amount of hassle for developers (i.e. increased development costs) or customers. It's useless as DRM so I forgot about it. I think A Keygen wants to say hi.
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If someone could find a way to brick any percentage of them, it could be an interesting (and easy!) way to create a couple million console sales right before the Christmas season.
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New sales don't necessarily mean new customers as explained with this arithmetic equation:
-1 + 1 = 0
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Software history is often forgotten
Early in the days of consumer software, anti-piracy measures were the norm, not the exception. We had outright DRM solutions, such as dongles (remember those?), anti-copying measures, secret keys embedded in manuals, etc. Some companies still use these, but by and large the industry learned two simple truths:
1) Any form of copy protection creates a problem for paying customers and makes the software more difficult to sell. Adding copy protection reduces the number of paying customers you have.
2) Illegal copies don't hurt that much because most infringers would never have been paying customers anyway. However, they do tell their friends about how great the software is (assuming it's great) and therefore act as salesmen. Also, a not-insignificant minority of infringers end up buying a later version of the software they found indispensible -- so became paying customers in the end.
Significantly, I think, none of this applies to businesses who infringe. This is why you see the BSA still engaging in overly-energetic actions such as raiding businesses, but you rarely or never see them acting directly against consumers.
Why the music and movie industries don't learn from software industry's experience is beyond me, particularly considering the software industry paid a heavy financial price in terms of lost sales, dissatisfied customers, and bad reputations for their missteps in this area.
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Re: Software history is often forgotten
Ah, how innocent we were back then. :P
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Ah, the weird things I get nostalgic about...
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Re: Re: Re: Software history is often forgotten
Then, as in my case, your dog at your decoder wheel and you were fucked...
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Re: Software history is often forgotten
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I'd never buy a full price game if there's a preowned one going for a few quid less.. And NONE of my money then goes to the publisher.
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queue digital delivery in 3... 2.. 1.
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Firstly, the majority of video games developers (60%) see piracy as a problem for their business and most also see this as a constant or increasing problem for their business going forward (90%). However most developers view the actual threat of piracy to their business survival as low (60%) with only 20% ranking the threat as medium and only 10% considering the threat to be high (10% had no view).
Now I may be stupid, but it looks like 60% of them consider piracy a problem, and considering an increasing problem. Did I miss something?
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You used:
recent study of video game developers had only 10% saying that piracy was a threat to their business.
The real quote is more like:
recent study of video game developers had only 10% saying that piracy was a threat to their business survival.
very different, your take on the story seems to be VERY misleading.
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Yes, the 2nd sentence.
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Yes. They see it as an ongoing point of concern (as in an issue that shouldn't be ignored), but not an existential crisis.
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It just means that it's annoying and gives them headaches. If they're talking directly to the code monkeys then the reason it's a problem is because management is going to expect them to implement some more asinine piece of code that never quite works right and is a hassle to maintain.
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That additional word changes everything.
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This isn't surprising as a gamer...
Gaming companies are just realizing now that they need the cwf part of the equation to really form a relationship. Some companies are already doing this, one example being Riot Games who are constantly communicating with fans.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4177/ancients_reborn_launching_league_.php
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Re: This isn't surprising as a gamer...
1) Piracy has virtually no impact on developers. It does however have an unclear impact on publishers, which is not the topic of the survey.
2) Piracy rates are significantly higher on the 360 as opposed to the PC because piracy is easier on the 360 for a few reasons.
A) It maintains the appeal that if the disc runs, the console will play it well, no hardware troubles or compatability issues.
B) You keep the game on a disc rather than wasting valuable hard drive space on your computer for all the games you could pirate on the PC.
C) I'm going to be vague about this one to not stir up trouble, but once you get on the right track to pirated games on the 360, you are guaranteed all of the same benefits a legitimate buyer has with significantly less thought and effort to achieve that than a PC game. There is virtually no DRM.
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PC piracy is much more prevalent than 360 piracy. There are probably more cracked copies of windows than total 360s.
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Now I just play 'official' trials - or don't get the game. With a few exceptions - well, only one I can think of in recent years I bought without a trial was Fallout 3.
Most games I play now are online with a monthly fee anyway.
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Where as, if I pirate it, I don't have to worry about that at all. Doesn't seem to make anything harder to be a pirate.
DRM is in no way shape or form to prevent anyone from downloading the software. It's to prevent people from copying it in the first place. As we can see from any search on The Pirate Bay or a thousand other torrent sites, DRM douse not work. When there are so many people who get more fun out of cracking the DRM than playing the actual game, DRM douse not work.
Thus, since it's not in any way shape or form annoying to be a pirate, and it can be annoying to be a legitimate user, you are wrong.
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Not really a good find...
You basically found a survey asking music artists do they feel music piracy threatens their livelihood?
They almost in majority respond "Not totally, because the record company makes most if not all the money on sales, we mostly get paid to do shows and make music."
Developers are the same way, they're the companies who get paid to be there, to make the game. They will get paid the same amount regardless of sales, although if in the IMPOSSIBLE event that sales rates were so low because of piracy, their publisher might not fund them for another game because they look unsuccessful. But like I said, that's impossible, profit has to be much much lower than the investment in the project for the publishers to turn a blind eye to greed and drop a potential sequel or future partnership. This is why the developers only had 10% saying it was a threat to their survival, because most recognize as long as they put out their intended product, they'll be secure then and in the future.
Now, if you could find a survey which says publishers or record labels, the ones who make money on sales, agree in majority piracy isn't bad, I'd be in utter shock.
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Re: Not really a good find...
Not actually true. Every company I've ever worked for, and the company I own and operate, compensates according to sales. True, the baseline salary is a constant (although if the company isn't making enough money, layoffs happen), but if software is selling well, bonuses and, in the old days, stock, get paid to developers. And believe me, the developers know this.
If piracy was a huge deal, the base payrates would be lowered, the bonuses wouldn't happen, and worst-case, jobs would be lost. Developers are less insulated from the realities of business than employees of many other businesses.
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Re: Re: Not really a good find...
That started a long time ago. It's why Atari came to be.
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I hate DRM, and see no point in any of it. No DRM method is foolproof, including Steam and other online validations. It is something that the software gaming industry has STARTED to realize, but no turn-around has yet taken place. There is no evidence of the publishers understanding the reality that DRM reduces future sales.
I paid for zero games in 2008-2009 and have plans to buy only one game in 2010. The industry has done a great job alienating me as a paying customer and convincing me not to spend my money on their products.
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Why Boycotts never work
http://i.imgur.com/abXW9.png
Hilarious.
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Re: Why Boycotts never work
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Also Mike should look at their business model - at $7.62US an aircraft this sim should eventually clock in at about $200 a seat....
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Cost-benefit of pirating
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Cost-benefit of pirating
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