I don’t know if there’s any way we can generalize. It’s true that many pirates would never buy a game.
However, among gamers I know, plenty of people have stopped paying for PC software just because it’s so easy to pirate. They still buy the latest console games because piracy requires more complicated steps like console modification (which voids warranty), but the number of PC titles is down. Naturally, more money gets spent on PS3/XBox360 stuff since cash is freed, but that doesn’t help the PC game market.
Ultimately, I think the impact of piracy differs on a case to case basis.
Of course it differs case to case. But the undeniable fact is it does not prevent piracy, and only succeeds delaying it.
I think it rings true, that if a person is enamored with a particular game, they will buy it instead of pirating it simply due to the fact thety want to support the creation of the material. Pirates are criminals and would rather steal something than pay for it regardless of there intrest level. Fans buy games, pirates are pirates. Therfore DRM is inherently flawed and eventually useless.
The numbers given for Gal Civ 2 in an earlier post, acurate or not, do not accuratley reflect the situation. One would need to research ALL of the numbers involving torrents and sales of numerous titles to garner a more acurate view of the state of piracy. Then the question must be asked, how many individuals DL illegal code with the sole purpose of demoing a product and then delete it. Is that the same thing as stealing the product?
Well, the fact is that legal demos do exist. The whole demoing a game idea is a weak excuse made up by pirates to justify their actions. Even if said people DO buy some games once in a while, those would be multiplayer-friendly or in best-case scenarios highly replayable. Bishoujo games are unfortunately not in that category.
I’m not saying I support highly intrusive DRM, but I just can’t blame companies trying to find a solution to piracy.
The problem is, as far as I can see there is no perfect “solution”. I may get blasted by some people by saying this, but I find that the situation is, in a way, similar to the idea of gun control. Criminals don’t care what protections must be bypassed to get what they want. So in the end, the only one hampered by the protections are those that follow the law.
(Please keep any further comments regarding gun control out of this topic. If you feel you must debate me over the issue, then PM me.)
Yeah, yeah, I know this isn’t a PM, but it still fits with the topic, because (leaving my own position about gun control entirely out of this) the traditional rebuff to that argument is similar to one for DRM- that lax gun control laws allow criminals easier access to the guns, and lack of DRM allows pirates easier access to the game, because no hacking work needs to be done before it can be readily distributed! =P
even though I am an anti-DRM gamer (and have not bought some new EA games due to their DRM*) I am willing to make an exception to this case. As it was pointed before in the MG thread (by someone), we are lost in a desert and quite disparate for VNs. So anyone who is not willing to make an exception to this, s/he should start learning Japanese. :lol:
this DRM need to be activated once (only) and it will not need an internet connection after that (I see no problem with this, see point 2)
you can de-activated your activation at will
the above 2 point are really all I am looking for from DRMs, I never really cared about activation, what really bothers me is the lack of ability to “de-activated” the product when you want to shift it to another computer (I have a bad experience of losing activated e-books and games when I wanted to format my notebook or when I get a replacement).
Any way, in this case we are talking about VNs, VNs are not a resource huge, they work fine on a virtual machine. Once you activate them on a Virtual Machine you are ready to move them to another PC. That is what I’ve done with MG games and they are working fine for me (I have no internet connection at home, so I activate the game on a VM at the office then take the virtual harddisk home, no problems with this method as far as I can see).
well I bough the PS3 version of Dead Space and Ubi’s Far Cry 2 (even though I want to play both with a “mouse”) but I am not getting the PC version of those game due to the DRM.
To round up the piracy discussion with the most important fact, one that a lot of people just ignore:
Stopping piracy will not increase sales.
The kind of person that pirates a game does it because they dont want to spend money.
They are not going to buy a game if they cant pirate a game.
In fact, piracy enables people to get their hands on more games than they could ever afford.
Piracy only becomes an issue if people willing to spend money on games prefer piracy over retail because of copyprotection
mechanisms that punish the people that buy a retail game.
If prices for games were lower, a lot of those who currently pirate the games could afford them and would gladly save themself
the download time of a 12 GB game, going to the stores to buy them.
Also a thing that many people dont consider is that the highest cases of piracy stem from less wealthy countries like Russia, Romania, Poland
in which the average guy just doesnt earn enough wage to afford those games.
And in all honesty: if that was the case for me, I would pirate aswell, because I wouldnt want to live a dull life just because of some economic unequality in the world…
I can answer that with a simple reply: Stopping piracy is not always about increasing sales: it’s simply to stop piracy.
Sure… it’s not 100% foolproof, but despite how some feel, the major game companies ARE NOT going to just sit around and let their software get stolen. Just because CURRENT protection software isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean they won’t find one. The military has encryption software that’s impossible to crack without the key - even if you have every computer on Earth trying to crack it. There was a time back in the 1970’s and 1980’s when this wasn’t so. However the people in power never stopped trying to find a solution… and they eventually did.
EA is a major investor in finding new anti-piracy methods, [b]and they aren’t suffering from the negative feedback of DRM.[/b] SPORE (and later SIMS 3) have some seriously intrusive and aggressive protection, but sales for SPORE are record breaking. To play a Devil’s Advocate again: there are times when the inclusion of DRM, doesn’t really impact a game’s blockbuster success. SPORE has sold over a million copies with protection (although the claim is that 99% of customers don’t even notice it)… SIMS 3 is expected to sell two or three million copies. EA has discovered that a great game will sell millions with DRM, just as a great game will sell millions without DRM. So long as their games sells millions (and there’s no evidence that SIM3 will not sell millions), EA is going to put DRM in it… because…
GASP
It still sells. Wow. Imagine that.
Also something worth noting: EA feels that the most noise about their DRM, comes from people who didn’t buy SPORE to begin with… and EA really could careless what non-buyers think about their DRM. Puts a huge wrench in the argument, that game companies only want DRM to boost sales, doesn’t it? Oh yea… and if you think EA has some crazy DRM protection, wait till you see the behemoth on the upcoming Starcraft and Diablo discs. Blizzard is gonna blow your mind. Betcha their still gonna sell millions on them too.
This is the industry’s way of saying: less qq, more pewpew
That’s because the people who view the unencrypted stuff isn’t trying to break the encryption. For games, the user has to be able to use it, and there will be a weak point somewhere if you give the user the ability to view the content. Look at HD-DVD and Blu-ray. They’re encrypted to hell, but the user has to able to play the disks, so hackers found a way to get the keys. You can’t compare encryption to DRM.
That’s because Spore and Sims 3 are mainstream games. Look at Mass Effect, Dead Space, Far Cry 2, etc. You don’t see the publishers spouting out how well they sold for PC, do you? The DRM didn’t stop piracy. It only made people who would have bought the games (like me) not buy them.
And know why nobody notices the DRM right now? It’s early. Wait until people get new computers, reinstall their OSes, etc. Then they’ll reach the install limit. Wait years and watch EA take down the activation servers. People will complain. The argument against activation is that the games may not be usable in the future.
And wait for Blizzard? They already said Battle.net is their DRM. The main selling point of their games is multiplayer, so there’s no point in restrictive client-side DRM for their games.
yeah, but I’m afraid boycotting the game (like Reikon suggest) wil NOT help. The liscensors don’t give a shit about this market, and would you prefer PP went out of business?
They just think were all pirates, so there going to use flawed systems. In this case, you can ask for reactivation, and they promise to get out patches if the worst happens…
Also the lack of a background process is actually quite important, EA is getting sued over this…
Dude. Are you kidding me? The Soviets spent BILLIONS trying to break NATO encryption. Chinese are doing the same right now. The United States does the same for other nations. Some of the most brilliant mathematical and linguistic minds on Earth, are working on breaking (and creating unbreakable) encryption. For twenty years people deemed certain codes and methods as impossible ¬ñ unrealistic. Then a breakthrough is made, and what was impossible is now common child’s play.
DRM is the same. At the moment it seems impossible, simply because the technology isn’t viable or the problem is being tacked from a difficult direction. Protection software is not fantasy - it’s still in its infancy. The comparison still applies. More time and money will bear fruit. ESPECIALLY with the US Homeland Defense being interested in DRM style software to track terrorists and business transactions. When that’s made “off the shelf”, things will get really interesting.
LOL… he sidestepped the question, and didn’t give a straight answer. Should be a politician. :lol:
Vivendi (parent company of Blizzard) is planning a new DRM system for Starcraft 2, which will be incorporated into Diablo 3 depending on it’s success. There’s going to be DRM on it. Bookmark this thread, and wait until the release next year. You’ll see.
Considering that McDonalds gets sued over hot coffee and US State Department wants to lockup people for owning fictional drawings of naked children, getting a lawsuit doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Preliminary court have actually looked at EA being the winner, since this is a EULA case. EA (and indeed most game companies) have yet to lose a major EULA case. It’s in the EULA. The class action states that:
That’s what the EULA does… it tells you. You have to his “I AGREE” before it lets you continue. When it comes to software, ignorance of the clause, does not give immunity to it: so says the 7th and 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Microsoft and Novell will happily let you know that.
EDIT
Had to double check my sources, but Mass Effect sold well over a million copies. I can’t find the immediate numbers on Dead Space, but enough were sold to warrant the production of a sequel with a higher budget, so I think it’s safe to say that sold rather well. [b]Dead Space sales are more likely hurt from being banned in certain countries for excessive violence, than for DRM.[/b] Don’t have anything on Far Cry 2¬Ö I’ll check with my partner and see. I think he did some number crunching on that title.
I’m sure Blizzard doesn’t need DRM and completely agree with this comment. But (mainly or exclusively) single-player games don’t have that luxury. And I’m not letting some sweaty dude going near MY lolis, so bishoujos adding multiplayer is out of the question. Those kinds of companies need some sort of copy-protection. Even if it’s ineffective now, they have to keep trying.
Now, I know that isn’t entirely true. Me and my friends, we were all country bumpkins and Blizzard fanboys and we used to have some very flexible ethics about intellectual rights. Then, one day I stopped instructing my friends on how to apply a certain patch on Blizzard’s games. Blizzard sold some 10 extra copies that same day.
Please make sure you’ve studied the actual case before mentioning that as an example of a frivolous lawsuit. The details are quite far from what many people represent it as. You may or may not still feel that the lawsuit was wrongly decided, but it really irks me that it gets constantly tossed around as an example of “completely ridiculous american behavior”… if that had happened to everyone on this board, I suspect a number of us would sue too.
Anyone who tells you that piracy is always right or always wrong or DRM will definitely increase sales or will definitely decrease sales is a liar. It’s waaaaay too complicated for that.
If you add DRM, some people will buy that would otherwise have pirated, some people will pirate that would otherwise have bought, some people will pirate that would never have bought anyway, some people will neither buy nor pirate that might otherwise have bought, and some people will buy, have a bad experience, and swear off buying in the future. There are so many variables in play that it’s extremely difficult to narrow down the exact effects of any particular step.
Evidently the “magic answer” is to label the cup “Warning: Coffee is Hot” to protect the company from liability. :roll:
It’s like making a judgment against a knife company, because the blade is super sharp. Recently the 7th Circuit Court has evidently had enough of these lawsuits, and seeing them as frivolous. The temperature is high for keeping flavor and preventing the growth of bacteria - among other things - and was mandated by food health organizations. The fact that someone got burned is unfortunate, but HOW the coffee burned her, was her own fault. She handled the coffee cup in a manner which you’re NOT supposed to handle a coffee cup- by her own admission no less!!! :roll:
Even ABC News called it: “the poster child of excessive lawsuits.” The core issue is more than the lawsuit itself, but also the corruption of tort reform. The negative media and sensationalism against McDonalds gave her more legal weight than she rightly deserved. Even more so, the fact that later appeals kept lowering the amount for damages (which weren’t shown on the news; and thus loss of media power), proves the court systems viewed it as a beast going out of control.
Oh, the amount of damages awarded were crazy crazy ridiculous, but that was a failing of the system, not the woman who started it. All she wanted in the first place was to be covered for her medical expenses for an extremely nasty injury.
Liability is a screwed-up thing in the US at times, you get people who are afraid to apologise for any harm they may have caused because an apology might stand as an admission of guilt in a court. Which may have been why McD’s brushed her off, I don’t know.
She was seriously injured, it wasn’t a ridiculously frivolous lawsuit, I feel defensive of the poor old woman for the blame people lay on her. The way it ended up was nuts.
Aye. But an injury that occurred because she mishandled the coffee cup. If I carry a knife around by the blade and I cut myself, that’s my own fault. If I decide to open a hot container of liquid, held between my legs while in a vehicle and the liquid spills on me, that’s my own fault. Hot coffee is going to be near the boiling point… that’s how hot coffee is made.
Technically speaking, you’re not supposed to be eating or drinking anything while in a vehicle: operator or passenger. Some car manuals even state that in them. But the cops have bigger things to worry about than arresting people for drinking a coke while driving. Only God knows why they have drink and snack holders in them… don’t even get me started on Limo’s with the minibar. :?
Narg, you’re overlooking the part of the story where the plaintiffs were able to prove that McDonald’s had been quietly paying off a string of similar cases for awhile.
If someone burns him/herself on hot coffee, it’s basically the person’s fault. When it’s an ongoing problem, then it becomes a situation where you have a design flaw in your cup. Not that this means the burn victims are totally blameless - but McDonald’s assumes some liability. They could have changed the packaging; they figured it was cheaper to pay off burn victims than to fix it. But for the lawsuit, they would likely have continued this policy.
To make my point clear: Just because you put something in a disclaimer doesn’t make it so. If you pour arsenic into lemonade, and leave it lying out somewhere with a sign taped on the pitcher saying “warning: do not drink” … Even though it’s the victim’s fault for not following directions, would that REALLY mean it wasn’t ALSO your fault?
It’s still not the best example of our legal system at work, but it’s not entirely outrageous.
I still disagree. The design is a cup to hold coffee. I don’t want to sound snarky, and I’m not trying to be: but how else do you hold a liquid? Design a spill proof container? Sure, that can be done… to an extent. No matter how you design something, someone will inevitably figure a way to spill out the continer. Indeed if McDonalds were to create a “spill proof” container, it would most likely prompt a new round of lawsuits: false claims that the container is spill proof, when someone finds a way to make it spill.
You’re buying hot coffee for godsakes. It’s supposed to be hot. And the temperature of the liquid, is predefined by health regulators. Why just stop with hot coffee? Why not start holding companies liable for other things? For example, what if I spill water on my laptop while it’s on my lap, and I get electricuted? Obviously this is a sign that that the laptop company is at fault: they should have built a waterproof laptop. You can’t seriously think that… People are suing McDonalds for making them fat. Is that McDonald’s fault too? Maybe I should start suing bacon companies for giving me a high cholesterol, since it’s obviously their fault for not mentioning bacon can give me high cholesterol on the package. Or perhaps I should sue Pepsi and Coca-Cola for giving me Type 2 Diabetes… because they didn’t say drinking nothing but Coke and Pepsi for years on end, would give me that.
Were do you draw the line? She opened the cup in a manner that people aren’t expected to open a cup: positioned between the thighs, on an uneven platform (car seat), in a space with limited room to maneuver (one can easily hit their arms against something in a small car)… given her advanced age, I can’t begin to imagine if she has shaky hands or not. I still see her at fault. Had she been more careful, the coffee wouldn’t have spilled on her. It’s like suing McDonalds for getting in a car accident, because I dropped some french fries. The fry container should have been better designed, to not drop fries.
Seriously. People should take responsibility for their own actions.
