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[Zzoram]

You know that there is a piracy on x360... and its very easy to crack its protection and play pirated games.

PS3 is still holding up, but who knows for how long.

The thing is, Xbox Live is pretty compelling so piracy on Xbox 360 is still not as big an issue, plus dismantling a console to flash the firmware is much harder than downloaded a cracked .exe file. Remember when MSFT started banning modded 360s? Unlike on PC, there are consequences to pirating on consoles.

 

[BrainZEROX]

As a PC gamer... I have to say that they should reduce the price of the game as it PC has no loyalty charges.

Problem is that whatever the price, it's always more expensive than bittorrent...

Once again, my solution is secure gaming. Executable part of the software downloaded from secured servers for each gaming session, no storage on hard disk and check crc consistency regularly during the game session. Datas are available on mass storage (CD, DVD, etc...). Secure the server to prevent server emulation. If the security level doesn't cost you ten times the price of the game, it's should be fine... For a moment.

 

[itxaka]

Yes. Because warez games NEVER come with horrible viruses...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH

(for those who didn't know, in 1998/99/2000 most warez games were infected with CIH)

lol wut?

did you even read the link you posted?

In September 1998, Yamaha shipped a firmware update to their CD-R400 Drives that were infected with the virus. In October 1998, a demo version of the Activision game SiN was infected by one of its mirror sites.[1] In March 1999, several thousand IBM Aptivas shipped with the CIH virus,[2] just one month before the virus would trigger.

And no, almost every game on 98-00 didn´t come with CIH.

 

[Zzoram]

Perhaps... though I feel like the leap to BluRay is much more massive than the current rate of increase in bandwidth. I feel like at this point, where I'm in a major NA city getting the fastest residential cable possible, only now does a 4gig torrent seem do-able. An 8 gig torrent would make me sigh, and devoting over a week to a 40 gig torrent seems ridiculous.

Adding onto this the position of the internet carriers seems to be that there is too much non-vanilla internet traffic going on, and I don't think they're very interested in paying for infrastructure to encourage people to use even more bandwidth at this time.

It'll be interesting near the end of this gen to see if PS3 piracy ever caught on. If the system ever gets majorly hacked but BluRay ends up being what halts the piracy that could be interesting.

Media companies are pushing for greater bandwidth, and torrents of Blu-rays will be the side-effect. With more and more companies experimenting with streaming video, and the impending rise of the digital distribution model, they'll need that bandwidth in order to sell their product.

 

[Kamakazie!]

- Casual market. They buy stuff. They just need to know there's something else beyond The Sims. <--- This is the guys we need.

Like i said in my first post. Casual titles have higher piracy rates than hardcore titles.

Right now maybe 80% of the PC players (of SP games) are pirates... kicking them won't solve anything, what you need is to expand the userbase so all those guys represent only a fraction, a 20% for example, of that.

Where the fuck did you pluck 80% piracy from? That is some EPIC exaggeration.

It's impossible to know at the store, so unless I dedicate myself to an internet wide search, I don't know what games have malware, and this results in many lost impulse sales, so any game I kind of want but not too much doesn't get bought, though it likely will get bought eventually on a console without fear of malware.

So what games have come with malware? I've never researched about malware with any game and i have never had problems. I just buy games that interest me.



Anyway, wow at the amount of crap in this thread.

 

[ManaByte]

lol wut?

did you even read the link you posted?


And no, almost every game on 98-00 didn´t come with CIH.

Did you even read my post? I said most warez games those years were infected by it. Not "every PC game".

 

[Tmac]

There is no way to stop piracy. Never will be.

And any pc developper that seriouly think that piracy is the only problem, deserve to bankrupt and leave for good due to hes dumbness.

 

[No_Style]

I wonder how the PC gaming industry would fare if there was a system specifications freeze for 5 years.

For example:

All games from 2008 - 2013 must run at 1680x1050 with a framerate for at least 30 FPS. No exceptions. Devs can scale the game up to appease the graphic whores and hardcore.

OR

Better yet, I wish the PCGA would be able to pick a configuration as a baseline for all PC games for a set time.

For example:

Intel Q6600
2 GB RAM
GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB and AMD equivalent

In short, console-fy the PC hardware configurations.

 

[Swifty]

Barriers of entry on the consumer side seems to also be the edge that consoles have over gaming PCs. If Microsoft and Sony weren't subsidizing the retail price of their consoles, I imagine they'd cost as much as a similarly capable PC, no?

That's what I hoped the PC gaming alliance would do. Start artificially lowering the prices of Alienwares and Geforce 8800s

 

[Zzoram]

And any pc developper that seriouly think that piracy is the only problem, deserve to bankrupt and leave for good due to hes dumbness.

Piracy isn't the only problem, but it is a HUGE problem. People need to stop being in denial. Remember SiN Episodes? They got 3x the unique tech support calls than copies of the game sold. Titan Quest is claiming near 90% of people playing it pirated it (and I believe that).

 

[Zenith]

according to studies, 1000 prevented piracies translate into only 1 sale.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350

 

[Truespeed]

Another solution would be to just release Hanna Montana themed games.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

Best way to solve this piracy problem in pc games is advertisement. Think about it. If you make a popular game free, let's say counter strike 2 (saw the thread today). Because it's free, it will get allot of downloads, while installing but also in the game itself, you can put advertisements. Companies would pay for advertising in games, if millions of people will see it.

 

[Zzoram]

according to studies, 1000 prevented piracies translate into only 1 sale.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350

Not "studies", 1 study, and it was for a pretty obscure game, which fewer people would've been willing to take the chance of buying. Big budget titles with hype, awareness and marketing would have a better conversion rate.

 

[NekoFever]

I'm just going to throw my hat into the ring by saying that as unfortunate as piracy is, the one thing I dislike more than piracy is persecuting legitimate buyers just because some cunts think they deserve free games. When they're getting a better experience than me and they didn't pay anything, something's wrong.

Maybe at some point in the future when Internet access is really ubiquitous - or at least as close to ubiquitous as, say, cell phone coverage - I wouldn't mind online authentication, but currently I play games sometimes on my laptop in places without Internet access, and I wouldn't want to lose that. If I'm in an airport and don't want to spend ridiculous fees or even at work (no access to wi-fi for non-company computers), that shouldn't stop me playing a couple of rounds of DEFCON.

 

[ManaByte]

Piracy isn't the only problem, but it is a HUGE problem. People need to stop being in denial. Remember SiN Episodes? They got 3x the unique tech support calls than copies of the game sold. Titan Quest is claiming near 90% of people playing it pirated it (and I believe that).

There's a way that can be used to crack down on piracy...

 

[Truespeed]

Best way to solve this piracy problem in pc games is advertisement. Think about it. If you make a popular game free, let's say counter strike 2 (saw the thread today). Because it's free, it will get allot of downloads, while installing but also in the game itself, you can put advertisements. Companies would pay for advertising in games, if millions of people will see it.

Until the hack is released that removes it.

 

[Zzoram]

Best way to solve this piracy problem in pc games is advertisement. Think about it. If you make a popular game free, let's say counter strike 2 (saw the thread today). Because it's free, it will get allot of downloads, while installing but also in the game itself, you can put advertisements. Companies would pay for advertising in games, if millions of people will see it.

You mean Battlefield: Heroes?

 

[lastendconductor]

Like i said in my first post. Casual titles have higher piracy rates than hardcore titles.

So what? a game success is not measured by sold/pirated ratio. If it sells a shitload, it's unimportant if it was pirated like crazy. Just like in consoles.

Where the fuck did you pluck 80% piracy from? That is some EPIC exaggeration.

I said "maybe" because that's a number I pulled out of my ass obviously, but I have a feeling that's not far from the truth (and there's rumors like the CoH 1:5 ratio mentioned in this thread...).

Shooing pirates won't solve anything. They won't rush to the stores, they'll just find another hobby.

 

[Big-E]

You can't stop piracy entirely. Pirates are not just going to have an epiphany and start buying everything legitimately. PC developers need to look at what type of games sell on the PC and make games which fit the market. If piracy was the only problem developers face then how come Stardock is able to do so well and 2 Eastern European games in The Witcher and S.T.A.L.K.E.R are able to sell despite having a central focus to Eastern Europe where piracy is much more common. These games are all fairly hardcore as well and have no real appeal to an average WOW or Popcap player. The PC market has changed and devs need to realize that. Flooding the market with FPS' won't get it done unless its a standout title like TF2.

 

[Dr von plutt]

There are two major things that are hurting pc gaming or more precisely high end pc gaming. Which is what people are really talking about here.. the sims certantly isnt having any problems.

1. piracy. Anyone who denies this is fucking delusional. End of story.

2. LAPTOPS! The sales of laptops has exploded in the last 2-3 years. In sweden which is one of the strongest pc games markets in the world laptops now outsell stationary computers. The implication of this is absolutely huge for high end pc games. Because most of these laptops can not play the latest games.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

You mean Battlefield: Heroes?

Yes, i hope this will be a succes. I know allready millions will download it.

 

[Zzoram]

There are two major things that are hurting pc gaming or more precisely high end pc gaming. Which is what people are really talking about here.. the sims certantly isnt having any problems.

1. piracy. Anyone who denies this is fucking delusional. End of story.

2. LAPTOPS! The sales of laptops has exploded in the last 2-3 years. In sweden which is one of the strongest pc games markets in the world laptops now outsell stationary computers. The implication of this is absolutely huge for high end pc games. Because most of these laptops can not play the latest games.

Ya, system requirements is the biggest problem (numerous developers have complained about the ubiquity of Intel Integrated Graphics), followed VERY closely by piracy.

 

[Cheerilee]

http://i32.tinypic.com/103vsyu.jpg

The PC industry as we know it has been struggling with massive levels of piracy since the day it was created. And I for one don't want to see what the world would look like if piracy was somehow utterly stamped out and the guys in charge gained absolute power.

I believe the proper attitude is to make your product for your fans and give them every possible reason you can think of for them to WANT to pay you money, willingly, and don't worry about what some other people are playing around with. Anything less is a disservice to your real customers.

 

[zoku88]

I wonder how the PC gaming industry would fare if there was a system specifications freeze for 5 years.

For example:

All games from 2008 - 2013 must run at 1680x1050 with a framerate for at least 30 FPS. No exceptions. Devs can scale the game up to appease the graphic whores and hardcore.

OR

Better yet, I wish the PCGA would be able to pick a configuration as a baseline for all PC games for a set time.

For example:

Intel Q6600
2 GB RAM
GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB and AMD equivalent

In short, console-fy the PC hardware configurations.

No offense, but I think this is a bad idea. Your first idea doesn't even really make sense...

For your second idea, what would this baseline do (besides your baseline being something that is high-end, which DOES NOT represent the PC gaming market.)

 

[RobertM]

What you say? 50 GB games, that's it.

 

[Zapages]

PC games regularly come out at $40-50 whereas 360/PS3 games are $60. Also, PC games almost always drop $10 within 3 months of release.

The price of PC games isn't the problem, pirates are. All the PC gamers that claim not to have money for games don't seem to have a problem gobbling up those 8800s and 22" LCDs.

I say they should sell the games at 20 dollars, if they are going to put them on stream. Then reduce them to 10 to 15 bucks. Thus, they will eliminate the reason to even have piracy in the first place. Also most pirates are high school, University, and young adults who are short on cash. If the prices are this low, then they will have no reason pirate.

 

[Tmac]

Not "studies", 1 study, and it was for a pretty obscure game, which fewer people would've been willing to take the chance of buying. Big budget titles with hype, awareness and marketing would have a better conversion rate.

What % of those pirated gamers, whould never buy the original anyway?
What % are just testing the game? (1-2 hour play -> delete)?
What % are international users, which will never see the official original release on their countries?
What % want to try the game asap (remember sometimes is faster to download, than go to a store next day/week and buy the game)?
What % will eventually, after downloading, buy the original game?
What % whould buy the original game, if an more viable solution was avaible (digital distribution)?


How many people left pc gamming because on consoles they dont have to worry about hardware updates, software updates (OS, drivers, format and re-install crap windows), software installation, HD space, etc?

How many have a much better enviromment for consoles gamming than pc? I mean, a huge flat screen, home theather system and a nice sofa.

--------

Game developpers should adress those questions instead of just put all blame on piracy alone....

 

[Zzoram]

I say they should sell the games at 20 dollars, if they are going to put them on stream. Then reduce them to 10 to 15 bucks. Thus, they will eliminate the reason to even have piracy in the first place. Also most pirates are high school, University, and young adults who are short on cash. If the prices are this low, then they will have no reason pirate.

These kids short on cash seem to all carry cellphones and iPods and wear designer clothes, so I doubt that money is the problem. Not to mention that high end gaming PCs cost a pretty penny, and if you compare video card sales to game sales, you'll see quite a discrepancy.

 

[saelz8]

Yes, i hope this will be a succes. I know allready millions will download it.

2008 is the first year where we see that really changing.

Battlefield Heroes
Fallen Empires and InstantAction
Quake Live

These kinds of games actually could be the future of the platform as far as the mainstream is concerned. So, I can see a lot of people paying attention.

I remember at QuakeCon last year, Carmack said that Quake Live could potentially be bigger than any of their larger budget titles, like Rage, even though it costs less. I think it could be as well.

 

[The Faceless Master]

a lot of talk is missing another segment of pirates.

people who download the game and never even install and play it.

pirates have a backlog too, or so a friend of mine who actually plays pc games tells me!

 

[Suburban Cowboy]

how bout offer games at a price people are willing to pay? There will still be some piracy, but the majority of pirates dont represent lost customers.

 

[The Faceless Master]

These kids short on cash seem to all carry cellphones and iPods and wear designer clothes, so I doubt that money is the problem. Not to mention that high end gaming PCs cost a pretty penny, and if you compare video card sales to game sales, you'll see quite a discrepancy.

from the friends and family i have been around, a lot of kids can get their parents to buy clothes or pay for a cellphone for them, but the same parents will balk at buying games outside of birthdays/xmas.

how bout offer games at a price people are willing to pay? There will still be some piracy, but the majority of pirates dont represent lost customers.

you mean pay people to play? since that's the only thing that beats free!

 

[BrainZEROX]

What % of those pirated gamers, whould never buy the original anyway?

Lots of people around me pirate games and movies, I don't. And sometimes I really feel like an idiot... I'm not richer so I can afford every games I want. I just respect people that create great games and I think they deserve my money. The problem is that now it's so easy to pirate games that even people that would buy games don't buy them anymore. Why would they? I still do, probably beacuse I really am an idiot /

 

[pn18]

Better yet, I wish the PCGA would be able to pick a configuration as a baseline for all PC games for a set time.

For example:

Intel Q6600
2 GB RAM
GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB and AMD equivalent

In short, console-fy the PC hardware configurations.

This.


I had the same idea and I'm plannig to post a thread about this later this month.

 

[zoku88]

you mean pay people to play? since that's the only thing that beats free!

Dude, I'm down with that

 

[Bending_Unit_22]

Well I don't know much about PC piracy since I buy all my games so I may be a bit off here. It seems though there's two things that could reduce the effects of piracy, 1) raise the cost of piracy (mostly time), and 2) encourage more people to play PC games.

As for 1), a friend of mine is a good example. He does mostly play pirated games, however he recently purchased CoD4 because he got sick of his pirated game being banned everytime punkbuster was updated requiring him to download a new cracked version of CoD4. It's not that he couldn't afford CoD4 or that he couldn't just keep downloading a new version, it's that the $40 for CoD4 was no longer more expensive to him than the amount of time he had to invest downloading and re-installing CoD4.

As I understand it, the threat of MS banning your console from Live is one of the major deterrents to pirating on the 360. Perhaps the major PC game companies could get together and form a unified live style internet service. It could have the trappings of Live and be funded with $2-5 of the purchase price of each game. It could use something like a bank account, credit card, or anything verifiable and limited to tag the account. Then punkbuster or other similar software could ban not just your game but your access to the service (well, or that credit card/bank account/address/etc's access so most people could have a handful of accounts). Or in replace of or in addition to that, the service could require a $50 or $100 safety deposit that is lost if you're banned. Of course, I'm sure all this could be cirumvented by a dedicated pirate, but I doubt most current pirates would bother.

2) would be mainly making PC gaming easier for people. Prices could come down but theyre already cheaper than console games and that could lead to revenue drops which defeat the whole purpose for gaming companies. Mainly I would focuse on making PC's more hardware friendly. There are simply way too many video cards, RAM, and CPU configurations out there. Maybe Dell, HP, Apple, IBM, NVidia, ATI, AMD, and Intel could come together and agree on basic configurations for low end and medium gaming PC's while leaving the high-end still a free for all. Then people could more easily buy a gaming PC, more easily find which games will play on their PC, and game developers could more easily optimize their games.

I doubt any of that would happen of course, it would require multiple companies to work together in a manner that may not be directly beneficial to them.

 

[Tmac]

Battlefield Heroes
Fallen Empires and InstantAction
Quake Live

These kinds of games actually could be the future of the platform as far as the mainstream is concerned. So, I can see a lot of people paying attention.

It´s more like a testemony to pc's problems and weakness. What they all have in common? FPS's, RTS's, MMo's and simulation games are still strong on PC. Why? Thats because they still work on pc. All the other genres, works MUCH better on a console enviromment now.

Rather than a piracy problem, its a structural problem. Rather them complaining of escape goats, pc developers should be the ones solving those structural problems. And frankly they are failling in every possible way.

 

[Kabouter]

according to studies, 1000 prevented piracies translate into only 1 sale.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350

Yes, according to 'studies'. Actually, no. According to the increase in sale after the makers of an arkanoid clone beefed up their security. Many people will have just moved on to other games they could steal. And others will have waited until the new security was cracked. And it's regarding casual games, which is a far different market from the full-price retail game market we're talking about here.

 

[tha_con]

Here's the problem. PC is an open platform. People are free to code and run applications as they see fit.

It has nothing to do with advertising, or anything else.

It has everything to do with Developers on PC making their games extremely hardware intensive. 9 times out of 10, the people with hardware powerful enough to run this, are also intelligent enough to download / create cracks for these games. You can spend $500 on PC parts, and play games for free. The target audience for PC gaming is smart enough to hack and pirate every game on the market.

The other reason PC's have high rates of piracy compared to consoles, is Online play. Consoles have closed environments that must run through a set of certifications in order to function online. PC's do not require this, as being an open platform allow's for hacking and private servers.

This is why Console piracy will never be as high as PC piracy, and why PC's are ultimately going to see less and less in the gaming industry, and that market will crash.

Be prepared gamers, anything you love on PC now, will ultimately come to consoles soon.

It´s more like a testemony to pc's problems and weakness. What they all have in common? FPS's, RTS's, MMo's and simulation games are still strong on PC. Why? Thats because they still work on pc. All the other genres, works MUCH better on a console enviromment now.

Rather than a piracy problem, its a structural problem. Rather them complaining of escape goats, pc developers should be the ones solving those structural problems. And frankly they are failling in every possible way.

I sure hope someone catches those escape goats soon! :lol :lol

 

[Dr von plutt]

how bout offer games at a price people are willing to pay? There will still be some piracy, but the majority of pirates dont represent lost customers.

Thing is they dont have to lower the price, infact they could raise it.. by moving the game to consoles instead.

 

[lastendconductor]

This is why Console piracy will never be as high as PC piracy

It already is. It just passes unnoticed because there's also a lot of people buying the games.

 

[Vaporak]

if you compare video card sales to game sales, you'll see quite a discrepancy.

What discrepancy is that?

 

[No_Style]

No offense, but I think this is a bad idea. Your first idea doesn't even really make sense...

For your second idea, what would this baseline do (besides your baseline being something that is high-end, which DOES NOT represent the PC gaming market.)

My first idea is trying to standardize a gaming experience through setting a standard resolution and a framerate limit; just like the consoles with its 720p and 30 FPS. I'm aware that there are games who do not meet those requirements, but at least there is a baseline.

My second idea is going further by standardizing a hardware configuration which developers should aim for. I arbitrarily picked a configuration of hardware.

My point is that there should be some baseline which is set in stone for at least half a decade.

 

[Pachael]

how bout offer games at a price people are willing to pay? There will still be some piracy, but the majority of pirates dont represent lost customers.

While that is a good idea, I don't think many would see games as something worth paying for. Things like food, shelter and education are things people would pay for, in comparison.

Notice how expansively huge the PC markets are in Asia? It's mostly MMOs and the occasional Blizzard game. The MMOs gather revenue through buying points packs to buy stuff online - there's not much PC gaming as devs and publishers know that most* pirate

*Most, as in the 3rd world developing countries, like China, most of SE Asia etc.

Of course, you could argue that devs are looking at the wrong markets these days, which is why their stuff doesn't sell as much, eg. FPS games, once best and exclusive to PC, play better on the consoles.

 

[No_Style]

What discrepancy is that?

He's trying to say that a lot of people are willing to buy $500 hardware, but not pay for the games. I'm not sure where I read/heard this from, but it was recently brought up by somebody in the industry.

 

[tha_con]

It already is. It just passes unnoticed because there's also a lot of people buying the games.

Apples to oranges. If you want to present something with substance that will hold water, you'll talk percentages.

The number of pirated games doesn't matter so much as the ratio to purchased / pirated.

I think it's high time you accept that PC gaming is on the way out because of pirates, and it has nothing to do with the PC market going unnoticed by the industry. PC developers should get their heads out of their asses and create a unified system that all PC titles run on.

Until there is a set system that requires updates / checks for all PC games (think XBL or PSN) then PC gaming will continue to wither and die. It has nothing to do with marketing, shelf space, or anything else.

 

[zoku88]

My first idea is trying to standardize a gaming experience through setting a standard resolution and a framerate limit; just like the consoles with its 720p and 30 FPS. I'm aware that there are games who do not meet those requirements, but at least there is a baseline.

My second idea is going further by standardizing a hardware configuration which developers should aim for. I arbitrarily picked a configuration of hardware.

My point is that there should be some baseline which is set in stone for at least half a decade.

The problem with your first idea is that it really doesn't make sense in terms of the PC market. What may run at 30fps for some might run at 20 for others and 60 on others. And there are lots of different resolutions (4:3, 16:10...) that people play games at.

Aim for? For what purpose? Low-end, high-end, midrange?

Btw, half-a-decade is a very long time in PC hardware time. Doing that will probability negatively impact the hardware market...

 

[Cheerilee]

He's trying to say that a lot of people are willing to buy $500 hardware, but not pay for the games. I'm not sure where I read/heard this from, but it was recently brought up by somebody in the industry.

Bill Gates in 1976?

 

[vertopci]

All the pirates I know only download games they never planned on buying in the first place. :lol