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[luoapp]

Basically the best idea yet.

But... let's say you could hook up the dongle via USB. The probably biggest problem is what kind of function? Your external bus speed is limited so it can't be too hefty.
Second, chip cost. A custom chip costs money. And if you AIM for like 100 pieces, the price... I'm not sure how large it would be.

Though I admit, what about a central chip protection system. Like you mass produce the chip for all the games in a timespan of a half year, then switch to a new one to prevent a break in protection. That would severly cut costs on the chip.

Basically this is VERY effective, just look at the CPS2 and CPS3 protection system.

Any further suggestions?

Spoiler

Without a down-to-cent cost/profit analysis, this is basically pointless, but

I am gonna throw my 2cents in anyway.

Several things are critical to pirate scene, and could be used against it if the dongle method done right:
1) Admitted, some of those guys are very good at cracking software protections. But, are they same good at hardware cracking? It requires a completely different skill set, and, more importantly, a completely different toolset, and those ain't cheap. Your PC just can't do it. For a game company, it a total different story, and there might be off the shelf commercial product.
2) Time window. We all know how important the first week sale is for a new game, sometime it's a difference between break-or-make, and we all know how good the pirates are/have been at this (0day). If the hardware dongle could defer the pirate for a month, I think the sale can probably go up more than 100%.
3) Distribution. Obviously, unless the dongle does nothing but verification and could be circumvented, you can't just download it from internet which is currently response for more than 90% of the pirate copy. In the good old days, pirated softwares were sold with a pirated dongle.

 

[Pachael]

Eh, that's not really true. The Stories line runs on the same engine as The Sims 2 (obviously, just look at them) and they pretty much have the same requirements. Certainly having more expasions installed will take up more hard disk space, but the performance of TS2 and the Stories series is about the same for me.

I would actually say Stories is worse because all the pre-made lots are filled to the brim with objects and there are usually lots of Sims that bog down the performance; whereas with TS2, you have a choice. Castaway Stories is particularly awful with all the lush vegetation and shimmery out-of-place water... it becomes a slideshow sometimes on my aging PC.

Actually, the Stories line is based off Sims 2 but as they're standalone (eg no expansions/stuff packs) they're optimised a fair bit.

Either way the Sims line, though largely scalable graphically, still has a large hit on the CPU (mind, even will all that sugarcoating, it's a simulator at heart. A people/life simulator). So it does stress the CPU a fair bit whenever there's lots of people on screen as the CPU has to 'free live' all the characters on screen.

That, and Maxis obviously didn't make the game scalable. It's about time - simulators are one of the genres that should benefit best with two, four or more cores from multi-threading, but SC4 and Sims 2 are stuck with one thread :<

 

[NeoZylom]

There's nothing that pisses off gamers more than when they buy a new 50$ game that sucks and/or needs a billion updates and patches before things run properly.

Bioshock, I'm looking at you...

The thing with registration is that never work, you always get problems ... Just look at Bioshock, If you forget to unistall it before formating your PC, you lost 1 of the 2 install you are allowed to do ...

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Honestly, most of these are such bad ideas which would only turn me away if anything from the pc gaming I enjoy so much. Anything that makes things more punishing for the consumer (within reason) is a pretty crappy idea to begin with. I understand validation and the such and even having the disk in the drive but having to keep track of multiple usb drives or having an unfair amount of installations, or having too shitty of customer support to gain more for legit owners, is a pretty awful alternative to the present state and if you actually gamed on a pc you'd most likely feel the same way.

"Bioshock, I'm looking at you...

The thing with registration is that never work, you always get problems ... Just look at Bioshock, If you forget to unistall it before formating your PC, you lost 1 of the 2 install you are allowed to do ..."


Huh? They upped the amount of installs to 5 ages ago... With plans to completely unlock it eventually if they keep their word.

 

[bigswords]

Huh? They upped the amount of installs to 5 ages ago... With plans to completely unlock it eventually if they keep their word.

The problem is the pirated version lets you install as many times as you want. It's seriously a uphill battle, but the best solutions are the way Steam does it and for the typical online games (such as Quake Wars, BF) you'll need a CDkey + online authentication.

 

[Kabouter]

Shawn of GFW brought up the killer point to this whole PC developers porting their stuff to the 360, C&C3 sold over a million for the PC, whereas it sold around 300k on the 360.

It's not a catch-all solution. Some games are better suited and better played on the PC, Piracy has always been an Achilles heel for the PC platform, I don't see why now is any worse then 20 years ago.

I don't think suited is why C&C3 didn't nearly do as well. I think it has a lot to do with where there's a market. Gamers generally go to a platform that has the kind of games they like. And a gamer who likes RTS games, is less likely to own a 360 than to own a PC. As more and more RTS games appear on 360 though, there will be an increase in the audience for them on 360 obviously.

The only thing that really bothers me about pc piracy, is the fact that PC gamers bitch and moan because all the good games are coming out on consoles, but then when a game comes out on pc, they pirate it instead of buying it.

Yes that's what all PC gamers do. ALL OF THEM. And on NeoGAF, of course there are never any console gamers that bitch in every PC-exclusive thread for a 360/PS3 port.

 

[iapetus]

The problem with the USB dongle approach is that dongles are even more annoying than CD checks to honest users, and can still be circumvented quite easily, unless they're genuinely doing something complex. I remember software emulators for hardware dongles in the past, or you can just remove the code that accesses it.

The best way to avoid piracy, of course, is to make the actual game code worthless and get the money by other means. That's how MMORPGs work - you can give away the game itself, because without an account (which can't be pirated) it's worthless. Extending that model to other games and genres seems like the obvious step to avoid piracy, as well as to provide the option of a continuous revenue stream, which most companies would like. I'd like to see considered is a model where the following happens:

- The game software is distributed for free over the internet, or at cost.
- A persistent world or online play is integral to the game.
- A limited or temporary account can be created for free.
- A full account can be created for a price similar to that of the game in a traditional market, which gives access to full functionality.
- Possibly a low level of ongoing payment.

The downsides are that some people dislike the subscription model, that you're limiting your market to those with a persistent internet connection, and that the game's lifespan is limited by how long the servers stay up. The upside is that the game can't be pirated in any useful way - since you're giving the client away, the whole point is moot. The free account acts as a demo, and the purchase of the full game from that point becomes a very simple process. It also removes the retailer from the majority of the purchase, which could also be good news for publishers.

 

[Victrix]

Are there any major studies out there on piracy?

If there are, how do they calculate lost sales? A 1-1 correlation between pirated copy = lost sale, or something else?

 

[Kabouter]

The best way to avoid piracy, of course, is to make the actual game code worthless and get the money by other means. That's how MMORPGs work - you can give away the game itself, because without an account (which can't be pirated) it's worthless.

I do wonder how many people play on private servers though.

The downsides are that some people dislike the subscription model, that you're limiting your market to those with a persistent internet connection, and that the game's lifespan is limited by how long the servers stay up. The upside is that the game can't be pirated in any useful way - since you're giving the client away, the whole point is moot. The free account acts as a demo, and the purchase of the full game from that point becomes a very simple process. It also removes the retailer from the majority of the purchase, which could also be good news for publishers.

Another problem is that it can't be applied to a great many games :/.
But I'm wondering, wouldn't it be possible to possibly stream a small amount of game code/game content instead of having the player download it? Nothing major that would cause huge technical problems, but maybe part of the audio or something? Like speech during cutscenes, or music in the game.

 

[Grayman]

I do wonder how many people play on private servers though.


Another problem is that it can't be applied to a great many games :/.
But I'm wondering, wouldn't it be possible to possibly stream a small amount of game code/game content instead of having the player download it? Nothing major that would cause huge technical problems, but maybe part of the audio or something? Like speech during cutscenes, or music in the game.

It varies from game to game. FFXI has private servers but they never cracked POL so you need an FFXI account to use them. SWG may have them now but they are a new thing compared to the games age.

 

[Borys]

I didn't even know about private (cracked) WoW servers untill GAF told me last year.

But really... does it matter? 10M people are playing it legally. WoW must have some good anti-piracy protection cause I don't believe the 10:1 pirated : legal ratio fits here (that would be 100M people playing on cracked servers).

 

[Kabouter]

But really... does it matter?

It's the choice between money and more money.
Which one do you think Activision Blizzard or whatever they're called would rather go for?

 

[McBradders]

Not sure if this has been posted;

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=93755

 

[Sato Koiji]

Its not "something has to be done" its "nothing can be done".

PC piracy is so advanced nowadays. Even I can list you more than 100 websites with easy access to full PC games. New ones, old ones...doesnt matter.

Its not like PC gamer intend to buy original PC games without the security of knowing that the game will run smoothly on their PC. Rather than buying they "test" those games by downloading them...playing them through and erasing them from their hd.

I wouldnt even want to develop any PC only games...its doomed for sure.

 

[Kadey]

As long as the internets exist, we can't really do anything. Digital distribution isn't perfectly secure, nothing is as long as hackers can use the net for various means. From like AOL 3.0 to now, the situation still hasn't change.

 

[lastendconductor]

WoW must have some good anti-piracy protection

It's not really a good anti-piracy protection, it's just that you need a full team of proffesionals to constantly mantain a game so huge. So yes, you can play WoW for free, but the experience sucks compared to the real deal.

As long as the internets exist

Bullshit. Anybody could get their paws on a pirated game back in the floppy era as easily as now.

 

[solid2snake]

there is nothing to do against piracy. the human race is a bunch of pricks, get over it.

 

[jeremy_ricci]

Serious question: If we take away the best selling Xbox/PS3/Wii games, how much is left?

edit:


Obviously not as The Sims franchise grinds it into a fine powder if were talking sales. The Sims is at nearly 100 MILLION sales since it began in 2000; and the fact that no one but EA seems to really want a piece of that part of the PC gaming pie is a little odd to say the least.

I think you're missing his point (as well as tha_con's point).

If you take out WoW, and many other subscription based services, you're significantly reducing the revenue generated by PC gaming. PC Gaming revenue is not generated by large amounts of software sales, it's generated by subscription services and Videocards.

Another large draw on PC gaming revenue is Hardware. When a game like Crysis comes out once a year that requires a powerful PC (say a $300 upgrade entry fee) then you're looking at increased revenue. The problem is, this revenue comes from the GPU upgrade, and not from the software sales, as it can be easily pirated.

PC Gaming revenue relies largely on subscription based MMO's and Hardware sales. I don't think it's a secret to anyone that the vast majority of PC games (even high profile ones like Crysis, UT3, or Hell Gate London) do poorly when it comes to sales.

This is why we see the growing trend of PC developers pushing their games out on consoles, because that lost development money has to be made somewhere else, and the console market is larger, and the percentage of units sold vs units pirated is significantly smaller.

Which is another reason I question the 30% revenue, because the units sold on PC vs the amount of software units pirated are disproportionate to the installed user base of 'PC Gamers', especially when compared to the console market.

 

[Onemic]

But that wouldn't really result in less pirates or more sales... (unless you're stardock, and the move generates more publicity...)

I wouldn't say that sort of thing is exclusive to stardock and Ironclad games. They've just been the only ones in recent memory to do something close to this(Other than steam games of course) If you don't treat your customers as criminals, which is what most PC devs are doing more sales are bound to happen. That and I'd say 90%+ of people that pirate PC games would never buy them anyway.

That and being active in your respective comunity generates a bigger fanbase and more sales. Actually listenening to user input in terms of concerns with the games look or design goes a long way.(I'm looking at you UT3) When PC devs start ranting and making excuses about piracy and how that' the reason why the game failed and not their marketing, game design, etc. it hurts them more than it helps them.

 

[SnakeXs]

Another large draw on PC gaming revenue is Hardware. When a game like Crysis comes out once a year that requires a powerful PC (say a $300 upgrade entry fee) then you're looking at increased revenue. The problem is, this revenue comes from the GPU upgrade, and not from the software sales, as it can be easily pirated.

Yeah, you go tell all these PC devs who are bringing this fact to light that, hey guys, it's alright, Nvidia's doing a-ok thanks to what you worked so hard for. I'm sure they'd love that.

PC Gaming revenue relies largely on subscription based MMO's and Hardware sales. I don't think it's a secret to anyone that the vast majority of PC games (even high profile ones like Crysis, UT3, or Hell Gate London) do poorly when it comes to sales.

Heavily on a few, major subscriptions, it's not like there's dozens out there doing remarkably well.

 

[YYZ]

ok, take out the top 2 from each and see what's left.

top 2, that's quite arbitrary.

 

[dgrdsv]

The first thing to do about piracy is try to get some evidence (no, not some of that shouting and crying we're usually get from publishers) about it really hurting PC games sales.
Then if it does (in which i myself not too sure...) there are always some technologies to make it hard but all of them will eventually be cracked.
So the real question is how to SLOW DOWN PC piracy to give a game at least a couple of weeks of sales without any pirated image of it torrenting on the internet.

 

[Kosma]

PC games should go BLU for starters.

 

[AstroLad]

Litigation, absolutely. Forget DRM--I hate constantly being punished for buying a legit version of a game, be it on the PC or PSP.

 

[InterMoniker]

PC games should go BLU for starters.

That could really help. Not to many people have blu-ray in there computers yet.

 

[TheExodu5]

Death Penalty for pirates! GO!

 

[Truespeed]

Please quit this silly talk about Dongles. The only place a dongle belongs is up your ass. A dongle up your ass is just as much a deterrent as it is for a game or app that uses it.

 

[SnakeXs]

PC games should go BLU for starters.

What's that gonna change? More 1's and 0's won't stop anyone but the most limited of bandwidth pirates. A few hours or a few days won't change shit.

And hell, if anything, due to the nature of P2P/torrents, larger games will lead to faster overall speeds. Obviously not faster overall downloads, but still.

 

[TheExodu5]

What's that gonna change? More 1's and 0's won't stop anyone but the most limited of bandwidth pirates. A few hours or a few days won't change shit.

And hell, if anything, due to the nature of P2P/torrents, larger games will lead to faster overall speeds. Obviously not faster overall downloads, but still.

It would affect it. Do you even realize how long it would take to download a 50GB title? It would be using up so much bandwidth for most people (and most people have a download cap as well). A fast torrent is a torrent that runs at about 200KB/sec...even at those speeds it would take well over 50 hours of straight downloading to get the title.

That being said, PC games would only ever go to Blu-Ray once Blu-Ray rewritable drives are below the $100 mark, and BD-R are affordable. Who knows what can happen to internet speeds from now until then.

 

[TomServo]

It would affect it. Do you even realize how long it would take to download a 50GB title? It would be using up so much bandwidth for most people (and most people have a download cap as well). A fast torrent is a torrent that runs at about 200KB/sec...even at those speeds it would take well over 50 hours of straight downloading to get the title.

That being said, PC games would only ever go to Blu-Ray once Blu-Ray rewritable drives are below the $100 mark, and BD-R are affordable. Who knows what can happen to internet speeds from now until then.

It used to take an hour to download a floppy's worth of data off of a BBS, even with a blazing fast 19.2 modem. Just hope your mom doesn't pick up the phone.

That wasn't that long ago - think circa 1994. Time marches on.

 

[TheExodu5]

It used to take an hour to download a floppy's worth of data off of a BBS, even with a blazing fast 19.2 modem. Just hope your mom doesn't pick up the phone.

That wasn't that long ago - think circa 1994. Time marches on.

Don't go thinking we're going to get a 300 fold increase in internet speeds within 10 years.

 

[Mooreberg]

People would be more likely to buy PC games if they were finished products. I bought Stalker during the Circuit City firesale, installed it, applied the NORTH AMERICA ONLY PATCH but get error messages in German. Increasing the page file size fixed the problem but could they at least tell me what is going on IN FUCKING ENGLISH?

 

[Sqorgar]

This is going to sound a bit crazy, but I think piracy is a symptom, not a cause. That is, pirating music used to be this really big deal, but Apple was still able to make a service where you pay for music. Why? Because they understood the perceived value of the music and how it was consumed. For many, paying $1 for a single song was much more attractive an option than paying $16 for a cd full of songs you might not like. Obviously, music piracy is still going on, but Apple has made a lot of money from music sales at a time when everybody else thought it impossible.

The reason people pirate is really a combination of a lot of things, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that there is no reason for them to pay $50 for a game that they can get for free now. Improving the distribution scheme (Steam), lowering prices to more realistic levels based on the fact that people consume dozens of games instead of two or three a month ($20-$30 is more appropriate, I feel), a more reliable way to try before you buy (demos), and packaging incentives for owning a physical copy (see Infocom's "feelies"). I think episodic gaming may be a good ultimate solution, but thus far, nobody has ever done it well.

I don't pirate. In January, I put $500 into gaming - and that was a lean month. That's just too much. The cost of gaming, for me, is far too high for the amount of games I consume. I used to be able to afford it since I don't really buy anything else, but now that I've got one kid starting private school and another kid on the way, I can't justify that kind of expenditure anymore. The solutions available to me are buy less games, buy cheaper games after they've dropped in price, or rely on demos to sate me - all three of the options are hardly beneficial to game companies. In short, no matter what I do, game companies are going to lose money. The game industry can't just target twenty-somethings anymore. They need to change, and I feel that when they do, they'll see piracy drop considerably (after all, piracy is a food for the young).

That all said, it's not a justification of piracy. Pirates are scum. Period.

 

[TomServo]

Don't go thinking we're going to get a 300 fold increase in internet speeds within 10 years.

10 years is a long, long time. From a technology standpoint, my life was completely different 10 years ago.

Given that some college campuses enjoy network speeds that put the typical 7mpbs cable modem download speeds to shame, I wouldn't count anything out.

That all said, it's not a justification of piracy. Pirates are scum. Period.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that that's a minority opinion, especially in the world of PC gaming. The norm is to pirate, and use the myriad of excuses to justify it.

 

[SnakeXs]

It would affect it. Do you even realize how long it would take to download a 50GB title? It would be using up so much bandwidth for most people (and most people have a download cap as well). A fast torrent is a torrent that runs at about 200KB/sec...even at those speeds it would take well over 50 hours of straight downloading to get the title.

That being said, PC games would only ever go to Blu-Ray once Blu-Ray rewritable drives are below the $100 mark, and BD-R are affordable. Who knows what can happen to internet speeds from now until then.

You have to make 50GB worth of content for that to matter, you know. And keeping in mind the affect of (legal) DD, taht's just not plausible.

THAT said, do you REALLY think a pirate cares about a 2 day download? Really? The only people a mythical 50GB download would stop is the minority group that have bandwidth caps. Most people don't.

 

[Mooreberg]

You also have to consider that

A. People pirating a shitload of games simply would not buy them even if it was the only way to obtain them.

B. The people who are spending money on PC games (at retail) are basically forking it over to two companies (EA and Activision). That really isn't too healthy for an industry, unless all you care about are Sims and Warcraft games.

 

[AstroLad]

I disagree with some of your points Sqorgar, but I think your overall analysis is very well done. I'll just list where my views differ:

lowering prices to more realistic levels based on the fact that people consume dozens of games instead of two or three a month ($20-$30 is more appropriate, I feel)

Dozens? I don't think this is true in any space, but certainly not in the PC space. The average big-release PC game is designed to be played for months, if not years. I can almost symphathize with some of the "value" arguments people make with lowering prices on four-hour long console action games or on annual updates on sports games, but for PC gaming I think it's wholly inapposite. Relative to all other games, they provide an insane amount of longevity, be it through customization, user mods, long-lasting online communities, and just their game mechanics. Maybe you still think the games are overpriced at the $40-50 Day One prices, but I think you'd have to impugn every other gaming space first before you started questioning the value of PC games.

Demos are also widely available, much more so than anywhere else. I'm not a huge consumer of demos, so maybe there are notable exceptions to this, but afaik demos originated on PCs and have thrived there as well. The community demands it.

packaging incentives for owning a physical copy

This kind of thinking irks me a bit. I have nothing against Ultima 7-style cool maps and trinkets, but I don't publishers should waste tons of money on physical trinkets just because that may convert a few of the thieves. It just winds up being another tax on legitimate consumers.

 

[lastendconductor]

PC games should go BLU for starters.

Oh yeah. Because it would be impossible for pirates to rip the filler data to fit it into a DVD :lol (or a couple of them) :lol

 

[Minsc]

Don't go thinking we're going to get a 300 fold increase in internet speeds within 10 years.

Comcast/South Florida Making Major Network Upgrades

Comcast/South Florida is also making modifications to its network to prepare for the roll out DOCSIS 3.0 in 2009. DOCSIS 3.0 is a revolutionary new broadband system allowing for up to 100 Mbps (megabits per second) download speeds.

Not 300 fold, but at 100 mbit/s, 50 GBs would download in a little over 1 hour (at 750 megs a minute) if my math is right, so that probably does the job well enough. Who knows, maybe by 2011-2015, that will be slow, and there will be 1000 mbit/s connections for the internet, strange as that sounds, though I doubt it.

Once this rolls out, I can see Bluray seeing some competition from digital downloads, same the gaming market. Also remote backup should become more popular as well, perhaps local storage (hard drives) will become obsolete nearer in the future than we think.

 

[TomServo]

Oh yeah. Because it would be impossible for pirates to rip the filler data to fit it into a DVD :lol (or a couple of them) :lol

Exactly. What's going to fill up 50GB? Uncompressed textures and audio. What's going to stop someone from compressing them?

Isn't that what happened with Dreamcast piracy to fit the contents of a GD-ROM onto a standard CD-R?

 

[Frankfurter]

PC games should go BLU for starters.

That would really help. I mean, 99.99% of the computers in the world couldn't be used for gaming anymore, but atleast there would be less pirated games, huh? :lol

 

[takotchi]

Actually, the Stories line is based off Sims 2 but as they're standalone (eg no expansions/stuff packs) they're optimised a fair bit.

Either way the Sims line, though largely scalable graphically, still has a large hit on the CPU (mind, even will all that sugarcoating, it's a simulator at heart. A people/life simulator). So it does stress the CPU a fair bit whenever there's lots of people on screen as the CPU has to 'free live' all the characters on screen.

That, and Maxis obviously didn't make the game scalable. It's about time - simulators are one of the genres that should benefit best with two, four or more cores from multi-threading, but SC4 and Sims 2 are stuck with one thread :<

Ehh... I don't know. How are they supposed to be optimized? The system requirements are about the same, I think a little higher (other than HDD space) for the Stories line. All things equal, TS2 and TSS run the same for me.

I agree with the multi-threading point, though... TS3 definitely must have that. Otherwise it's going to suffer just like TS2 and TSS do.

 

[jeremy_ricci]

The solution lies in a centralized software system, for example, Steam.

Until that happens, PC piracy will continue to be a problem, and will ultimately prevent gamers from the need to buy their games.

Dongles aren't a viable solution either. If developers got together and created a single platform (software based) on which all games run / execute, etc, then that problem is reduced. This system will have to offer things that most PC games get from 3rd party software (stat tracking, cross game voice chat, etc). Basically, an IM like service over the PC that is required to play Games for Windows (similar ot XBL and PSN). It's a closed network, and requires checks and authorizations in order to run properly. Will it eliminate PC piracy? No. But it would help significantly to reduce it.

Edit: And drastically reduced system requirements.

 

[Hooker]

Piracy will never be stopped, slowed down perhaps, but it will always be there.


The only way I see piracy dying is when every ISP employs a data-cap again, and I'm not really keen on seeing desperate measures like that. Although I do think that in the near future, we are going to pay for data. Same way with dial-up, where the accounts themselves were free and you only had to pay for the phone costs. But that's a different theory/story.

A thing of which I haven't seen enough of in this thread is the blame on the developers/publishers as well. 'DRM' on PC games is a hell of a lot worse than any music/movie DRM conceived. Why are the legal buyers being punished with CD-keys, keeping the disc in the tray and even rootkits among all kinds of exotic anti-piracy applications. All of this for the buyer, while the pirate doesn't have to experience any of those idiotic things. Thankfully the Starforce of old has died!

I used to pirate a lot, specifically around the time where I didn't have any money and too much free time (high school). Now in college, I try to buy as much as possible, not always though. I'm glad I pirated CoD4, UT3 and Crysis. CoD4 I bought, UT3 I discarded and Crysis put on the list-to-buy after I exchange this 8800GTX for something else that can run this game on 1920*1200. Why? Because I got burned by Far Cry, UT2003 (bought 2004 as well though) and never really liked CoD. But for those 3 pirated games, I blindly bought Orange Box, Bioshock, CoH:OF & AudioSurf to name a few. Why? Valve = God; Ken Levine = Jesus; CoH was AWESOME & wanted to support the AudioSurf lad with this great effort, and it's only 10 bucks Maybe it all goes down to quality and past experiences.

And they shouldn't encourage it either. I wanted to download the Anno 1703 demo couple of months ago. And the 500 something meg download took longer than downloading the 4+GB ISO from Usenet. Who's the dummy now?!

 

[bigmit3737]

You should check out the gamefaqs boards for the PC...and you will that AC has jumped to the top 10 out of nowhere...

Apparently the game has been leaked.

I am curious as to how much these ports actually cost and how much they actually make.

 

[OliveJuice]

Steam or monthly fees is probably what's going to happen. Server side authentication, online to play. Most people have internet anyways.

 

[Kosma]

Wait wait guys, someone got banned in a PC thread for bashing the PC? New lows have been reached.

What's that gonna change? More 1's and 0's won't stop anyone but the most limited of bandwidth pirate.

Hmm didn't think about that, guess you're right. Maybe Blu could offer space for some heavy encryption?

 

[bigmit3737]

Are there any major studies out there on piracy?

If there are, how do they calculate lost sales? A 1-1 correlation between pirated copy = lost sale, or something else?

You can't calculate studies. Too many variables.

First because there are too many "free" alternatives. If people can't pirate this game, they will pirate the many other games. So you can't use the case, that he wouldn't have bought it anyway.

The whole, he wouldn't have bought anyway case...well you can't really determine that till there is no other option. I am sure more people would start buying games...if they couldn't pirate it.
Some would wait for price drops and others might even buy it day one...I just think it's common sense...

Piracy is def hurting sales, but I don't really know how much. I just think the console is a much bigger market right now, and since the intro to xbox, western developers have a chance to make games for a console.

Western rpgs and FPS have really opened up since the intro of xbox, and now PC developers can make profits on consoles.

And there are TONS of people who don't want to deal with PCs. too much hassle. They prefer to use a 360 or ps3, because it's much much easier.

The only pc games my friends play are the bigger ones like Blizzard games.

 

[Ariexv]

Why can't every game just force them to connect online to the Devs server to authenticate the game, Im assuming most Multi-Player games already do something to this effect, but what if the single player games hooked up to the site and had to auth the game for you to continue everytime there's a Check-point or lvl change. You also can't really complain about the people who don't have internet access.... because seriously who is going to have a Gaming PC rig and no internet?

 

[Vaporak]

Why can't every game just force them to connect online to the Devs server to authenticate the game, Im assuming most Multi-Player games already do something to this effect, but what if the single player games hooked up to the site and had to auth the game for you to continue everytime there's a Check-point or lvl change. You also can't really complain about the people who don't have internet access.... because seriously who is going to have a Gaming PC rig and no internet?

There already are games that do this, they're pirated to. I assume they just get the server to authenticate them, and then just copy the code used to do it out of their RAM and try and see how it works.