Piracy

[Yantelope]

"It's impossible to know how bad piracy is," agrees Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan analyst, "but it's pretty bad. Ubisoft told me that their PC game sales are down 90 per cent without a corresponding lift in console sales. Some of the decline is truly due to people migrating to consoles, but my guess is that 40 to 50 per cent of PC games played are not purchased."

 

90% since when? 1980? Since the Invention of the internet? The number is meaningless by itself.

 

Additionally we're still talking % of legal copies which is not equal to "lost sales".

 

Besides, has there ever been a form of DRM which isn't cracked eventually? You can't prevent content from reaching pirates eventually so are those people really so impatient as to spend $60 now rather than wait 2-3 weeks?

Edited October 3, 2011 by Yantelope

[Hot Heart]

Plus, they are infamous for that ridiculous DRM (even if it is changed later) so maybe people are just steering clear of their PC games. I think that point has been made before though.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I certainly stay away from them due to DRM. Even during Steam sales I am opposed to buying their titles.

[MasterDex]

I certainly stay away from them due to DRM. Even during Steam sales I am opposed to buying their titles.

 

Same here. This is the problem with publishers. They'd rather blame piracy than listen to what their consumers are telling them. Sure, consumers can be a whiny bunch at times and unreasonable to boot but the truth of the matter is that Ubisoft's lack of sales on PC is as a direct result of their treatment of the platforms consumers.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

As someone who bitches about people bitching too much I agree. Very few other publishers have shown such an utter disregard for their audience than Ubisoft and how they've dealt with PC gamers nor has there been such a huge backlash. Look at the MW2 boycott and how that turned out. Of course, that wasn't anything this draconian and that has made a huge difference.

[Cyber Rat]

It's a shame, because I heard Driver is a very good game. Although it's hard to recommend with the DRM that it has.

[Johnny]

What actually amuses me about Ubisoft is that the Assassin's Creed titles are actually really goddamned well-ported. They run amazingly smooth with fast load times on my PC (which is crap) but then they go and release DRM. There's an AC2 White Edition PC box sitting at my local gamestop, in a little corner of the store. It costs like 20 dollars and I'd buy it if it wasn't for the DRM. =)

[Hot Heart]

Didn't they do the same with II as they did with Brotherhood? Make it a sign-in on startup, plus include an offline mode (where the bonus content is locked off). Or do you mean you wouldn't buy it on principle?

[Johnny]

I've already played the games, so I'd just be buying it for the Collector's Edition, but I don't want to do that with all the DRM stuff. I don't particularly know exactly what they did with AC2, if they did anything, when they decided to tone their DRM down. I remember when it launched it threw you out on the singest blip in your internet connection.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

AC2 had always on DRM Hot Heart. At least on launch.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, it did at launch, but they later modified it so you only have to connect when you launch the game, not continuously.

[Hot Heart]

Yeah, sorry, should've been clearer. I know Ubisoft realised how dumb they were and rectified that later. Wasn't sure if it had happened to II before Brotherhood though. Damage had been done either way.

I think Johnny and Ethan understood anyway.

Edited October 4, 2011 by Hot Heart

[fuchikoma]

Let's talk about piracy! That's always a popular subject amongst gamers. Have ever resorted or would you ever resort to pirating a game? Is it ever justified? Like for example when there's no demo and you want to try out the game before you buy it? Is it immoral or just illegal? If it's not illegal wherever you are, would it still be immoral?

 

 

Yes. I have many times. I can afford not to now, so I'm pretty much out of it. I think it is justified sometimes - for instance in the exact scenario you gave, needing a demo. I make some distinctions though; if something is justified, it makes sense; it does not make it legal. I also don't feel it makes it moral, even if it is fair. (This kind of ethical ambiguity is one of the things that sets IP infringement apart from theft.) For instance, I paid full price for Wipeout Pure and it was the buggiest POS on PSP. It crashed constantly, and didn't even feel like a Wipeout game. If I figure they owe me a working game, would I be justified stealing Wipeout Pulse? I'd say so, as a consumer. Is it a moral victory? Well no, there would be other staff working on the new game, and other conditions so it's still not really fair to them to take it for what their predecessors did wrong. It may be fair that as a consumer I get one working game that I paid for, but it's not morally upright to steal from those merely associated with others who were trying to give me what I deserved in the first place. On the other hand, I see no moral issue at all with "pirating" a game that's not even sold anymore. That said, waiting for a game to drop off the market to pirate it is as bad as pirating it when it's new... It's very hard to generalize about piracy.

 

Should one refrain from even pirating shitty Ubisoft DRM games?

Can't say honestly. I do, but they also don't interest me that much, so it's a happy coincidence. I think if I wanted them badly enough, I might pirate them because it's too risky running the legit product on my computer. Certain forms of DRM have effectively declared war on the user, and in war, you just try to survive.

 

And of course, what is the best way to combat piracy?

I am a lifelong computer geek, who has applied countless hacks to things, and have an academic interest in computer science so I have given this a lot of thought... based on a paper I wrote in college, I think the technical (not PR) solution is this:

 

Most anti-piracy measures are tacked onto a finished product. Because of this, they are easily "untacked." A nag screen or forced quit routine can be bypassed by simply reverse engineering the executable and altering it to skip over the offending portion. A serial number can be copied. Checking a bit that says a product is registered or not can just be flipped to say it is.

 

These sorts of measures are a padlock. If a thief wants what's inside, they must simply break the padlock and open it up. If the padlock is too well made, they will simply attack the door hinges and so on. Good security (has layers, yes, but also) is integral. It's not a padlock - it's a driveshaft that only works in your car. It's a key that also contains the heart of the system. I don't know what the best answer for consumers is, but if you want to prevent piracy, you could do something like including a hardware dongle that doesn't just spit out a serial number or something to check against (even a rolling one,) but instead spits out a decryption key that's needed to access part of the program. Or for a game or something, you could even put a chip in the dongle that handles all the calculations for something - like hitbox detection, or character stats. That way you can remove it, you can bypass it, but doing so will make the program technically unable to function. You would have to pour R&D into reverse engineering it, emulating it, and tricking the program into trusting the emulator in order to replace it (though to implement it, you'd of course have to make sure that it's working properly - for instance, a hitbox calculating dongle should not be subverted to make you invincible, but rather if it doesn't give predictable responses, it should be rejected. This is getting technical, but you could have the game engine run a randomized (to thwart simple "modchip" solutions) target shooting trial invisibly when the game loads, and if the targets are not hit or missed when appropriate, the dongle is failed. Of course it would still be possible to hack the program to expect the kind of responses the hack dongle would give - but the thing is, a determined cracker will hack your program, but the more effort it takes, the more determination it takes.)

 

There are surely ways to do this in software too, but this is more to illustrate the KIND of thinking that's required to make robust protection for a program.

 

Jumping to some points from this huge thread:

Piracy is not theft. Theft displaces an item for the benefit of the thief and the loss of the owner. Piracy is intellectual property infringement - it is less like stealing a product from a store, and more like infringing on a patent, or showing a pay per view to a room full of people who didn't pay for it individually. It is unfair to the IP holder based on their terms, and usually the local laws, but it does not deprive them of anything, and there is no relation to whether or not the infringer would have paid for it in another scenario.

 

The idea that one can pirate a game they would not have bought otherwise and it will not harm anyone is true, assuming they really were not buying it, and pirated only for personal use. This is a logical fact; it is not a justification, nor does it suggest a sense of entitlement. The truth is morally neutral; justification is a kind of rationalization; entitlement is a matter of opinion. This does not mean that it is ok to pirate in this scenario, but it also cannot be demonstrated to cause harm.

 

again I would like to ask of any of you have dropped $60 on a game after pirating it. If not then the whole demo argument is invalid.

 

I don't keep tabs on them, but I know that that was the case for Beatmania IIDX 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th style, and what's more, those are imports. Also, under $60 are many PSP games domestic and imported, like DJ Max Portable 1, 2, Classiquai, and Black Square editions, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva, and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Jan, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Need for Speed Carbon: Own the City, and Space Invaders Extreme. I've done this with DS games too - for instance, I have Scribblenauts, The World Ends With You, and Rooms: The Main Building all in their original wrapper, because it's more convenient to keep the downloaded copies on a flashcard.

 

I pay because I am able to and I understand the economics of it. I pirated because I couldn't pay, and then because it became obvious how much disappointment I'd save myself by testing games first. Demos are framed to put the game in the best light possible and may skip tedious features or rough-edged levels. With the ability to pirate games, I would be a sucker to drop $60 on something because of some flashy ads without knowing how good it is. The thing is, these days people can have the content (any media) either way, but they must realize that paying (for new copies) makes a game successful, and funds further development from those teams. If you don't want a sequel, keep leeching... but if you want your favourite makers to succeed and continue development, then you must pay. Why you? Because if everyone lets everyone else pick up the slack, then no one does it and it fails. If you are able to support an artist, then you should, but that said, I will pirate some titles not due to entitlement or justification, but because it is possible and reasonable to do so.

Edited October 5, 2011 by fuchikoma

[Strangelove]

You can't spell "privacy" without "piracy". Think about it.

[fuchikoma]

You can't spell "privacy" without "piracy". Think about it.

 

No, you can't spell "privacy" without "priacy". You also can't spell "believe" (or "Liepzig")without "lie," or "catamaran" without "Tamara."

 

I guess what I'm saying is... that's drivel.

[Strangelove]

Rearranging letters must not be your strong suit.

[fuchikoma]

Rearranging letters must not be your strong suit.

 

Logical reasoning must not be your strong suit. It's unfortunate then that most of this thread is either debate, or exploration of concepts.

[Yantelope]

The idea that one can pirate a game they would not have bought otherwise and it will not harm anyone is true, assuming they really were not buying it, and pirated only for personal use. This is a logical fact; it is not a justification, nor does it suggest a sense of entitlement.

 

The fallacy is that you can never actually make the assumption that they wouldn't have bought it. It's a caveat that makes the statement meaningless.

[MasterDex]

The idea that one can pirate a game they would not have bought otherwise and it will not harm anyone is true, assuming they really were not buying it, and pirated only for personal use. This is a logical fact; it is not a justification, nor does it suggest a sense of entitlement.

 

The fallacy is that you can never actually make the assumption that they wouldn't have bought it. It's a caveat that makes the statement meaningless.

 

Unless that person is yourself thus the statement holds true. I just recently "acquired" Europa Universalis III. I can say with absolute certainty that I would not have bought it because I had no idea whether it would be a game I would play or not. Having played it, I'm still unsure if I'd buy it but there's now a chance that I might.

Edited October 5, 2011 by MasterDex

[Yantelope]

I can say with absolute certainty that I would not have bought it because I had no idea whether it would be a game I would play or not.

 

Whether or not your would play it is irrelevant. You clearly have interest in the game enough to download it. If you remove the option of piracy then it simply becomes a question of price. How much would you be willing to pay to try the game in order to see if you like it? $20? $10? $1? Someone who is bothering to pirate a game that wouldn't be worth even $1 to them is a fool wasting his own time.

[MasterDex]

I can say with absolute certainty that I would not have bought it because I had no idea whether it would be a game I would play or not.

 

Whether or not your would play it is irrelevant. You clearly have interest in the game enough to download it. If you remove the option of piracy then it simply becomes a question of price. How much would you be willing to pay to try the game in order to see if you like it? $20? $10? $1? Someone who is bothering to pirate a game that wouldn't be worth even $1 to them is a fool wasting his own time.

 

Whether or not I would play it is relevant. If I don't think I'm going to play or enjoy a game, I won't purchase it. I have enough interest to try it out but not enough interest to buy it. How much would I be willing to pay to try the game in order to see if I liked it? Nothing. The point of trying it out is to decide if the game is worth my money. Why am I a fool for not wanting to hand over any money, even if it's as little as a dollar, if I'm not sure whether I'll like it or not. After trying the game, I may have decided that the game isn't even worth a dollar to me. If I had spent a dollar to try it then I'd come to the conclusion that spending that dollar was a waste.

 

It's not as if I'm going around pirating every game I see. I purchase 99% of the games I play. The other 1% is made up of free games and games I pirated before deciding I didn't like them. You may not believe me but I like to support developers but if I'm unsure whether a game is worth my money, I'm not going to waste my money on it.

 

Recently I've been listening to the audiobooks for A Song of Ice and Fire. I didn't pay for them but I've enjoyed them so much that I'm ordering the expensive slipcase editions.

 

Ultimately, my point is that piracy isn't as black and white as many make it out to be, which is a big reason why this thread has gone on as long as it has.

[Yantelope]

How much would I be willing to pay to try the game in order to see if I liked it? Nothing.

 

See, this is what's telling. The rest of your argument is simply to justify this statement. You have to contrive a justification for the fact that you're unwilling to part with any money lest you find that you wasted it on a game you didn't like.

[Thursday Next]

You may not believe me...

 

Is the point we keep coming back to. Pirate-to-demo folk claim that they would not buy the game without trying it, so it's not a lost sale. Some other pirate-to-own people claim they would never have bought the game so it's not a lost sale. Unfortunately, we can never know that they are telling the truth. The label "Pirate" doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the person making the assertion, nor does the fact that they obtained the software through an illegitimate source.

 

Further, the pirate themselves does not know that they would never have acquired the game legitimately. Perhaps someone would have gifted it to them if they had said in passing conversation to their friend/relative/significant other "I'm curious about x game, but don't want to buy it in case it sucks.". Maybe they would have walked into a store, seen a buy one get one free offer on a game they wanted and this was the only other title that was of any interest.

 

Unless you can see every twist and turn of your future you cannot say with certainty that you would never have bought it, so I can never really believe you when you do. You can only say that at the time you had/have no intention of buying it. So you cannot reasonably discount yourself as a potential lost sale.

[Yantelope]

Why am I a fool for not wanting to hand over any money, even if it's as little as a dollar, if I'm not sure whether I'll like it or not.

 

Because if you're spending hours of your life on something that's not even worth $1 to you then you clearly have no concept of the value of time or money or both.

[deanb]

I see we've started entering the realm of sci-fi...

 

Also Yante it usually takes a bit less than "hours of your life" to work out if a game sucks or not. Raptr says I have 2 hours in BF3 beta for example.