- Oct 4, 2008
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First off, this is not flame-bait. This is a topic I honestly care about, and I am asking an honest question.
On this website, and many others I read, any article discussing piracy's comments section is filled with comments dismissing the issue. For example, the comments on the Epic interview today consist of "Meh. Generic over-used excuse," etc. Piracy is undeniably a huge issue - although obviously ever pirated copy does not equal a lost sale, it's stupid to think that none do either. The honour system does not work; this is an established fact, and the reason we have law enforcement officers. And the problem is only going to get worse, barring magic DRM. When nearly every major release sees hundreds of thousands of pirated copies plus, there is clearly a big issue. Why else do you think publishers risk their reputation and spend thousands of dollars on DRM schemes?
Speaking of DRM, it is my opinion that most of it takes a lot more flak than is truly fair. The way I see it, the attacks on DRM come from four different directions:
1. But the publishers are treating us like criminals! This is true. And to be honest, they are right. Spore sold just over two million (citation needed) copies in 2008, while the conservative piracy estimates hover around 1.5M. That is huge amount of piracy, almost 45% in a casual game, whose target audience isn't very tech-savvy, while the CEO of Crytek estimates the ratio of pirated users of Crysis to legit users is 20 to 1. Which is astronomical. Assuming those numbers are even close, and only one in ten of those pirates is a lost customer (which I doubt), that's a loss of two-thirds of their customer base, right there.
2. But DRM hurts legitimate customers! This is a slightly more legitimate claim. However, I believe that it, too, is blown well out of proportion. I will go on record, before God, as saying I, who have played a good number of heavily protected PC games, have never had a serious DRM-related issue, and I do not personally know anyone who has. I have played games with SecuROM, Starforce, and most of Ubisoft's crazier schemes, and I have had bigger problems activated my (perfectly legitimate) copy of Windows XP Media Centre Edition after a motherboard replacement, and that amounted to a single long phone call to somebody with a very strong Japanese accent. I do, however, understand that there are a significant number of serious issues that have cropped up, and that some companies have done a very poor job of handling the fallout, but I honestly believe this is the exception, not the rule, and the DRM gets an undeserved bad rap. As evidence, I present Valve, the proud owner of an untarnished "By the gamers, for the gamers" reputation, 's Steam. Steam is copy-protection in and of itself, and less reliable than most. And contrary to popular belief, it usually delivers games with their previous protection intact. Most gamers won't hear a word against it.
Furthermore, Ubisoft's new scheme, which requires a constant internet connection to play, has been lambasted non-stop. This I really do not understand. Ubisoft made no bones about the need for a constant internet connection, willfully removing those with unreliable internet connections from their target audience, the same way Crytek willfully excluded anyone without a powerful machine from Crysis. It was a business decision that was theirs to make, and shouldn't be insulting anybody. And it absolutely shouldn't be an excuse for piracy - if you can download the damn game, you're internet's good enough to play the damn game as is.
3. But DRM doesn't work! This is true, sort of. DRM will not likely ever stop piracy completely, but it does help. A locked door won't stop a thief who really wants to get in, but it may make it not worth his time, and lead him to move on or think twice. Aside from increasing the effort needed to pirate a game, if the game isn't leaked before the release date, it will take time for a working crack to be developed. And going by the amount of rage found after a delay notice, gamers are an impatient bunch. That's really all there is too it.
4. But DRM makes it harder for me to pirate games!!1!1! That's the point.
Obviously, the issue isn't that simple. Many people will bring up the music industry, which, contrary to the RCAA would have you believe, still exists despite rampant piracy. It is even theorized that filesharing may have helped the industry grow, especially to developing artists. But there are big differences between the situations: the millions of dollars of investment required to make a videogame, the lesser replay-ability of videogames, the identical quality of a pirated game to a new game, and the fact that most artists make more money touring than from record sales. The final point is likely due to the absolute pandemic of filesharing in the music industry. Movies are similar to record sales, while the only source of revenue for the PC gaming industry is initial sales, which in the era of unlimited freedom of copyright infringement, is likely not sustainable.
People give a number of excuses for their piracy, very few of which are even remotely valid.
1. It doesn't hurt the rich publishers! Contrary to this logic, lost sales do hurt the companies, and they very much do need more sales. Very few publishers made money this year.
2. If they didn't protect their games with DRM, we would buy them! This is hard to prove, but seems unlikely. This article claims that over 300,000 people were pirating Mass Effect 2 before the game even officially released. No copy protection whatsoever.
3. If they made good games, I'd woudn't pirate them! This crap isn't worth $50 This argument doesn't even really make sense. Why would somebody steal a game that isn't good? It's not as if there aren't any good PC games out there - 18 already in 2010 with Metacritic scores over 80%, and 90 since 2008. No lack of good games.
So why isn't piracy and issue, and why is DRM the devil?
On this website, and many others I read, any article discussing piracy's comments section is filled with comments dismissing the issue. For example, the comments on the Epic interview today consist of "Meh. Generic over-used excuse," etc. Piracy is undeniably a huge issue - although obviously ever pirated copy does not equal a lost sale, it's stupid to think that none do either. The honour system does not work; this is an established fact, and the reason we have law enforcement officers. And the problem is only going to get worse, barring magic DRM. When nearly every major release sees hundreds of thousands of pirated copies plus, there is clearly a big issue. Why else do you think publishers risk their reputation and spend thousands of dollars on DRM schemes?
Speaking of DRM, it is my opinion that most of it takes a lot more flak than is truly fair. The way I see it, the attacks on DRM come from four different directions:
1. But the publishers are treating us like criminals! This is true. And to be honest, they are right. Spore sold just over two million (citation needed) copies in 2008, while the conservative piracy estimates hover around 1.5M. That is huge amount of piracy, almost 45% in a casual game, whose target audience isn't very tech-savvy, while the CEO of Crytek estimates the ratio of pirated users of Crysis to legit users is 20 to 1. Which is astronomical. Assuming those numbers are even close, and only one in ten of those pirates is a lost customer (which I doubt), that's a loss of two-thirds of their customer base, right there.
2. But DRM hurts legitimate customers! This is a slightly more legitimate claim. However, I believe that it, too, is blown well out of proportion. I will go on record, before God, as saying I, who have played a good number of heavily protected PC games, have never had a serious DRM-related issue, and I do not personally know anyone who has. I have played games with SecuROM, Starforce, and most of Ubisoft's crazier schemes, and I have had bigger problems activated my (perfectly legitimate) copy of Windows XP Media Centre Edition after a motherboard replacement, and that amounted to a single long phone call to somebody with a very strong Japanese accent. I do, however, understand that there are a significant number of serious issues that have cropped up, and that some companies have done a very poor job of handling the fallout, but I honestly believe this is the exception, not the rule, and the DRM gets an undeserved bad rap. As evidence, I present Valve, the proud owner of an untarnished "By the gamers, for the gamers" reputation, 's Steam. Steam is copy-protection in and of itself, and less reliable than most. And contrary to popular belief, it usually delivers games with their previous protection intact. Most gamers won't hear a word against it.
Furthermore, Ubisoft's new scheme, which requires a constant internet connection to play, has been lambasted non-stop. This I really do not understand. Ubisoft made no bones about the need for a constant internet connection, willfully removing those with unreliable internet connections from their target audience, the same way Crytek willfully excluded anyone without a powerful machine from Crysis. It was a business decision that was theirs to make, and shouldn't be insulting anybody. And it absolutely shouldn't be an excuse for piracy - if you can download the damn game, you're internet's good enough to play the damn game as is.
3. But DRM doesn't work! This is true, sort of. DRM will not likely ever stop piracy completely, but it does help. A locked door won't stop a thief who really wants to get in, but it may make it not worth his time, and lead him to move on or think twice. Aside from increasing the effort needed to pirate a game, if the game isn't leaked before the release date, it will take time for a working crack to be developed. And going by the amount of rage found after a delay notice, gamers are an impatient bunch. That's really all there is too it.
4. But DRM makes it harder for me to pirate games!!1!1! That's the point.
Obviously, the issue isn't that simple. Many people will bring up the music industry, which, contrary to the RCAA would have you believe, still exists despite rampant piracy. It is even theorized that filesharing may have helped the industry grow, especially to developing artists. But there are big differences between the situations: the millions of dollars of investment required to make a videogame, the lesser replay-ability of videogames, the identical quality of a pirated game to a new game, and the fact that most artists make more money touring than from record sales. The final point is likely due to the absolute pandemic of filesharing in the music industry. Movies are similar to record sales, while the only source of revenue for the PC gaming industry is initial sales, which in the era of unlimited freedom of copyright infringement, is likely not sustainable.
People give a number of excuses for their piracy, very few of which are even remotely valid.
1. It doesn't hurt the rich publishers! Contrary to this logic, lost sales do hurt the companies, and they very much do need more sales. Very few publishers made money this year.
2. If they didn't protect their games with DRM, we would buy them! This is hard to prove, but seems unlikely. This article claims that over 300,000 people were pirating Mass Effect 2 before the game even officially released. No copy protection whatsoever.
3. If they made good games, I'd woudn't pirate them! This crap isn't worth $50 This argument doesn't even really make sense. Why would somebody steal a game that isn't good? It's not as if there aren't any good PC games out there - 18 already in 2010 with Metacritic scores over 80%, and 90 since 2008. No lack of good games.
So why isn't piracy and issue, and why is DRM the devil?
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