Just to be clear. I am not saying DRM is bad, only that the current systems are unacceptable. If you support DRM policies and consider them acceptable I accept that opinion as well.
I dont see people who dislike DRM as being people who dont support companies right to protect their intellectual property, and I dont consider people who support DRM as being sheep, or stupid. There is a case for either side, but we dont have any reliable or accurate stats to say one way or the other about how piracy is affecting the industry, or how effective DRM is at reducing it (if at all). No one is willing to share where they get their figures from, and no way of telling what those numbers actually mean. Does 1 pirated copy equal 1 lost sale? Does a pirated copy even mean a potential sale has been lost at all?
The only things we can say for certain is: - DRM adversely affects a large percentage of legitimate users. The extent to which those users were inconvenienced is subjective, but can not be dismissed. - Piracy is still rife within the industry. - Sales and profit however is still very high (relative to other industries revenue is stable and the industry is still growing). - The topic remains an emotional one on both sides. - Real solid data is required before we can know just what is happening.
The fact that piracy is still rampant tells me that we need BETTER DRM, not less of it. Nobody wants to be inconvenienced, but I'd rather not have to lock my car door either. I do it because I don't want my car stolen. I can certainly understand not wanting to be inconvenienced by intrusive DRM, but I don't see how consumers expect companies to protect their products without some kind of external validation. Those which have chosen to go without DRM have basically said, "We know piracy exists, but we're not going to bother fighting it." While that seems spineless and a poor business decision to me, that's certainly their option, but if they're satisfied with letting people rip them off, I doubt they'll become as big as the major studios who at least make attempts to stop pirating. Not that they should go nuclear like UBI did, but moderate DRM makes sense.
If anyone here has a solution to protect products while not treading on the sensitive toes of those who refuse to accept any sort of validation by the content creator, I'm sure the software companies would love to hear it.
And how exactly would one get this evidence? People don't really come out and say "I only bought this game because I couldn't pirate it".
So Tanthalas not only admits he has no evidence that DRM works, but he is trying to weasel out of providing any by saying that gathering such evidence is impossible. He wants to developers to spend money implementing a technology that inconveniences their paying customers without even bothering to verify that it actually does what it says it does. With all due respect, that seems crazy to me.
Let me post what I think is the ultimate argument against the relevancy of game piracy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI Developers have literally been complaining for decades that piracy was going to ruin the gaming industry and many people believe the current incarnations of those complaints, but when we go back and watch the anti-piracy propaganda from decades earlier, it seems completely ridiculous. People copied floppies, but so what? The gaming industry didn't shut down. When CD-ROMs came around, people copied those, but the game industry did not shut down. When digital downloads came around, people started copying those, but the video game industry is still alive and well.
People will continue to pirate, but developers will continue to make money anyway. Piracy is not going away anytime soon, but neither is the game industry.
@Treyolen is absolutely correct that the way to combat piracy is not to include DRM, but to create as much value for the customer as possible. The best way to combat piracy is to give customers value that is impossible to pirate.
I thought Beamdog's preload was a fine example of this. Being able to download most of the game data before launch so you can install the game almost immediately after it goes live is an awesome value that no pirate could provide. And yet, if some of the customers are locked out of participating in the preload due to DRM (like me), then this additional value disappears for them.
And yet none of you have evidence that DRM doesn't work either. DRM doesn't have to be 100% failproof for it to work. Hell, look at Diablo III, if that's not a resounding success I don't know what is.
Saying that "companies still make money" is NO justification to not combat piracy. Or do you think that its also ok to go steal from a supermarket just as long as it still gets profits?
Then you use the argument that "the best way to combat piracy is to create value for the customer", but how? Boxed editions are on their way out and anything you give out digitally can be pirated too. You guys keep beating around the bush with this, but also provide no real way of fighting piracy.
And yet none of you have evidence that DRM doesn't work either. DRM doesn't have to be 100% failproof for it to work. Hell, look at Diablo III, if that's not a resounding success I don't know what is.
The burden of proof lies on the pro-DRM crowd. If you think DRM should be included in games, you are the one who has to justify that.
It's like Russell's teapot. If you say that there's a teapot orbiting around the sun, you can't just say "You can't prove there's no teapot orbiting around the sun, therefore there is one!"
Likewise, you can't simply say there's no proof DRM doesn't stop some piracy, therefore DRM must work.
Hell, look at Diablo III, if that's not a resounding success I don't know what is.
Funny you should mention that. I really liked D2 and I was impressed by some of the D3 preview videos, but I never bought D3 because I was scared off by the DRM. How's that for success?
Then you use the argument that "the best way to combat piracy is to create value for the customer", but how? Boxed editions are on their way out and anything you give out digitally can be pirated too. You guys keep beating around the bush with this, but also provide no real way of fighting piracy.
Selling boxed copies is a good way to create extra value for customers, but it's not the only way. I already pointed out that preloading is another good idea, but you seem to have ignored this.
I can say more generally that developers can make money by providing convenience to customers. Many of GOG.com's games can be pirated, but I know that visiting their website is still one of the most convenient ways to get their games. Instead of having to visit 10+ torrent sites to find a game, I can just go to one website: GOG.com. I know that when I go to GOG, all I have to do is use their search bar to find out if they carry a game. I know that when I look into a GOG.com game, it will always have a helpful description and screenshots. I don't have to worry that the version I download will have viruses or other malware because I trust GOG. I don't have to worry about the download taking forever because I am know approximately how long it takes to DL a game from them. To me, this convenient experience is valuable.
Another way to make money in the face of piracy is to raise money up front. Have you heard about any of the successful game Kickstarter projects like Wasteland 2? These are fantastic ideas. They allow the company to raise money up front (which can never be affected by "lost sales") and they make the developers accountable to their fans (rather than their investors). Kickstarter projects are also an example of creating extra value for paying customers since people who donate above a certain amount are usually promised cool limited edition swag.
Being able to download most of the game data before launch so you can install the game almost immediately after it goes live is an awesome value that no pirate could provide.
That's not always true. There are plenty of cases when a game was released in the wild a day or two before launch, and DRM free. I don't remember the specific titles, but at least one high profile game was leaked 30 days prior to release. I think it was Doom 3, but Google isn't being helpful right now.
Hell, look at Diablo III, if that's not a resounding success I don't know what is.
It may have made a lot of money, but I'm not sure about its level of success. After its brutal launch, I think many will be much more cautious before diving in again. After hearing that Diablo 3 is more about playing the auction house than it is about playing the game, I hear a lot of people soured by the experience. Many did not buy the game due to being online only even in single player. I doubt that number dented their profits though. Blizzard has a huge name, and could have probably sold anything for a profit, but I've heard plenty of people say that Blizzard and Bioware as we knew them are dead. For me at least, the image of both of those developers has been tainted. I am much more excited to play Grim Dawn, a game made by some of the original Diablo developers, than I am about Diablo 3. If it wasn't for DRM, I would probably my copy of D3, which I still believe is the main reason for DRM.
DRM doesn't have to be 100% failproof for it to work.
How effective should it be then? The numbers I have posted show that it isn't even in the ballpark of being able to be labelled effective. I've read statistics that say the average piracy rate is anywhere between 40% and 80% per title. Ubisoft claimed a 90% piracy rate with their draconian DRM. I would not be surprised of some games go over a 100% rate. And it stills comes down to the pirates are getting a better product in some cases.
As time goes on, I believe/hope more and more people will take a stand against DRM. The music industry dropped it after a while, and now I can enjoy buying MP3s from Amazon. I never bought digital music until DRM was dropped, it was always on CD. The MP3 market even adapted to allowing us to buy individual songs from an album, instead of forcing us to buy the entire album. It's time the gaming and movie industry follow.
Look at Ubisoft. Every time they tighten their DRM with Starforce, SecuROM, online activation, UPlay, the customer outcry was so much that they had to relax it again. I'm just worried what they will try next.
And yet none of you have evidence that DRM doesn't work either. DRM doesn't have to be 100% failproof for it to work. Hell, look at Diablo III, if that's not a resounding success I don't know what is.
The burden of proof lies on the pro-DRM crowd. If you think DRM should be included in games, you are the one who has to justify that.
It's like Russell's teapot. If you say that there's a teapot orbiting around the sun, you can't just say "You can't prove there's no teapot orbiting around the sun, therefore there is one!"
Likewise, you can't simply say there's no proof DRM doesn't stop some piracy, therefore DRM must work.
You've got it backwards. The burden of proof lies with the accuser, not the accused. If you say that DRM doesn't work and needs to be gotten rid of, then you need to prove that there are no cases where DRM stopped any piracy from occurring.
The burden of proof lies on the pro-DRM crowd. If you think DRM should be included in games, you are the one who has to justify that.
Oh really? Why? Your teapot analogy is cute but your argument also uses the same fallacy: "because you can't prove that DRM works it must not work", despite Diablo III and all.
Funny you should mention that. I really liked D2 and I was impressed by some of the D3 preview videos, but I never bought D3 because I was scared off by the DRM. How's that for success?
Are you really trying to argue that Diablo III wasn't a comercial success because you didn't buy it? Really?
Selling boxed copies is a good way to create extra value for customers, but it's not the only way. I already pointed out that preloading is another good idea, but you seem to have ignored this.
I didn't ignore, it was just ridiculous because:
1. It would do absolutely nothing for people buying the game after the release date. 2. It does nothing to prevent piracy.
Your GOG example is just you trying to invent "added value" where there is practically none, and your kickstarter example also has zero relevance to the matter at hand. And besides, none of these address piracy, it just keeps on ignoring it.
My girlfriend and I have had Angry Birds installed on every Android device we've ever owned, but we've never paid for it. It's not because we pirated the game. It's because the developer, Rovio, chose to give away the Android version of the game. And yet, my girlfriend and I have spent tons of money on Angry Birds merchandise. Plushies, refrigerator magnets, a tabletop game, and more. I don't have exact numbers, but I wouldn't be shocked to find out we had spent $100 on Angry Birds stuff and we're not even die-hard fans.
I should also point out that my girlfriend and I have had an easy time turning other people on to Angry Birds since it's free. My mother, for example, does not play many games, but she loves Angry Birds because we showed her our free copy. She own some merch too.
I'm not saying, of course, that Overhaul should give BGEE away and use it as an advertisement for merchandise, but it goes to show that even if someone plays your game for free, you haven't necessarily failed to earn money from them. There are so many possibilities here I couldn't begin to list them all. Here are just a few.
Baldur's Gate T-shirts? I'd buy one.
Baldur's Gate comics? I'm an avid comic book reader. I'd probably buy them.
Baldur's Gate board game or card game? I like playing these types of games with friends, so I'd probably buy that.
Baldur's Gate novelization? Okay, that one's probably not a good idea. :-)
And yet none of you have evidence that DRM doesn't work either. DRM doesn't have to be 100% failproof for it to work. Hell, look at Diablo III, if that's not a resounding success I don't know what is.
Saying that "companies still make money" is NO justification to not combat piracy. Or do you think that its also ok to go steal from a supermarket just as long as it still gets profits?
Then you use the argument that "the best way to combat piracy is to create value for the customer", but how? Boxed editions are on their way out and anything you give out digitally can be pirated too. You guys keep beating around the bush with this, but also provide no real way of fighting piracy.
The comment about companies making enough money (even the one coming from the studio) smacks of President Obama's tax the rich scheme, as if it is up to anyone but the producer to determine how much money they need to make and what measures they need to employ make that money. I can understand wanting to give additional value and studios already know that. That's why they produce limited and deluxe editions. However, they also know that people want convenience (which is a value in itself) and I'd argue that providing digital downloading is already an added value and it's freakin' free! Balancing that with an authentication scheme that is also present in the boxed version doesn't seem to me to be too much to ask. I'm all for creating as much value as possible but as you've pointed out, without some kind of validation, I can't think of anything that developers can do to the game itself which prevents piracy. The only model that works effectively is free-to-play which is only really effective in a competitive setting. A single-player free-to-play crippled game would alienate customers as much as a DRM-enabled title would. Who wants to play a game that's not fun unless you spend a lot of money on it?
Oh, and since DRM already exists and commenters are demanding that studios stop using it, I believe the burden of proof tilts towards their argument. I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that without DRM, the industry would collapse; clearly that's not the case, but the notion that it never prevents piracy is equally false.
I know I said I was out, but it's a long lunch today and I can't resist one more post. Mainly I just want to see Tanthalas dismiss the statements
"I agree 100% that DRM is never a solution. "
and
"Personally, I think DRM doesn't work. Either you spend forever developing an ironclad, bad-user experience DRM or you go halfway."
These are direct quotes from Trent Oster. I look forward to hearing why he is wrong and why he is "spineless" for not wanting to include DRM.
I've said it a million times. I just want the Beamdog crew to keep on keepin' on the fight against DRM. I have believed all along that Trent was much more on my side of the argument than the other. I just want him to keep advocating for us.
Hopefully I can stay out of it now. But like Al Pacino said, "Just when you think you're out..."
Kickstarter has relevance. It shows that people that will pay for games pay. The greatest Kickstarter successes offered DRM free. There are many questions and positive comments on those projects about being DRM free. There is not one comment that mentions "I want DRM in this game". Maybe not everyone wants DRM, but I can't imagine anyone wanting it either.
If a game is good, people will pay for it. The more appealing the game and the process are, the better the odds of making money. EA and the others may not care about me alone, but it's not just this game I'm not buying due to DRM. There are many titles over the years I would have purchased, but didn't due to DRM.
GOG offers old games, which have been available to pirate for a long time. Some people pirated the game because they could not buy it, but did buy from GOG when it was finally offered. Now GOG is starting to sell newer and even new games. If they were bringing in successful numbers, they would keep getting new games.
My point still boils down to DRM does not work. And stop with the "it doesn't need to be 100% effective to be effective". Four million downloads is not effective. So what if Bobby copies his game for his friend Johnny. That is nothing compared to the millions that are on torrent, edonkey, irc, newsgroups, etc. Stop inconveniencing the people that are giving you money for your game. Plus I am not convinced that the adults that pay for games copy them for their friends. I don't. I work hard for my money, and I reward the companies that provide what I want. Instead I encourage my friends to by the games so we can play together.
In my scenario Bobby and Johnny, they are kids without their own income. They are two friends, one of which had a game and loved it, and wanted to share it with his friend who couldn't buy it for what ever reason (no allowance, no paper route, parents couldn't afford it, Christmas is far away). Yeah, it's still wrong, but it's not a lost sale, and it's not rampant piracy. The millions on torrent, that's where your lost sales may be, but not all of those are lost sales. If DRM worked, those millions of downloads would not be there.
When piracy rates are around 5% or less than 50,000 on a high profile hit, then maybe you can say DRM is effective.
Also, I think the 90% piracy rate with Ubisoft shows that people actually don't want DRM. It has been mentioned in forums by many that they decided to pirate AC2 because of the DRM. Many sites also speculated that the DRM was driving people to pirate AC2 and SH5. If DRM was so effective, why the backpedaling by Ubi?
Point is, if you want my dollar, provide a product I want without providing a product I don't want. I like chocolate and I don't like mint, so don't offer me a mint-chocolate chip cookie when I want a chocolate chip cookie.
Oh really? Why? Your teapot analogy is cute but your argument also uses the same fallacy: "because you can't prove that DRM works it must not work", despite Diablo III and all.
That's not what i said at all. I said that it is your duty to prove why DRM works. Until you provide some sort of evidence that DRM works, I can't really meaningully repond to you in any way. I can't point out how you're wrong if you won't even bother to explain why you think you're right.
Are you really trying to argue that Diablo III wasn't a comercial success because you didn't buy it? Really?
This is a strawman. I never said that. My point is that DRM can cause lost sales. For all we know, Diablo III would have been even more successful if consumers like myself weren't scared off by the crazy DRM. Pro-DRM developers always complain about "lost sales" from illegal filesharing, but it's clear that there are lost sales due to DRM too.
Until you can show that the lost sales prevented by DRM are greater than the number caused by the DRM, you can't simply say that the DRM was a success. This takes us back to my point about the burden of proof.
Do you have proof that Diablo III's DRM prevented more people from pirating the game than the number of people who decided it wasn't for them due to the DRM?
1. It would do absolutely nothing for people buying the game after the release date. 2. It does nothing to prevent piracy.
I never said it would stop people from pirating the game after release, I was merely pointing out how it creates extra value for people who preordered the game. The more value you create, the more reason you give to people to buy the game.
... and your kickstarter example also has zero relevance to the matter at hand. And besides, none of these address piracy, it just keeps on ignoring it.
The fact that Overhaul did not use Kickstarter does not mean that it has no relevance to our discussion. The point is that the business decisions they made are only one possibility. They could have used Kickstarter if they chose too.
Remember, Wasteland II used Kickstarter and raised over $2 million and they didn't even have a demo or screenshots to show off. That's $2 million+ that they can't lose to "lost sales" from piracy. BGEE probably wouldn't have raised that kind of money, but they still could have made a lot.
Edit: Kickstarter also provides amazingly valuable marketing data to companies. If people are willing to pay enough money up front for a game to be successful, then the company will know in advance that it can make the kind of money it wants by developing the game (no matter how many people end up pirating it, I should point out). But if they fail to meet their fundraising target and face tons of criticism, they know they had a bad idea and should go back to the drawing board.
Oh, and since DRM already exists and commenters are demanding that studios stop using it, I believe the burden of proof tilts towards their argument. I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that without DRM, the industry would collapse; clearly that's not the case, but the notion that it never prevents piracy is equally false.
The burden of proof lies with the companies using DRM. If they want me to buy, then they need to convince me that I should accept DRM. They spent the money making the game, and they need to convince me to give them money for that game. What I can prove is that if BGEE drops the DRM before release, Beamdog will have a pre-order from me.
As long as 3 or 4 million plus pirated copies of any one game are out there, you will not convince me that DRM stops an effective number of pirated copies.
Since when have we as people gotten soft and let companies tell us what we want? What happened to "the customer is always right"?
I sometimes regret buying Diablo 3, I knew up front what I was getting into. I weighed all the reasons, and chose to get it anyway. I really liked the collector's edition, which now sells for $180 new, so I knew I needed to get it at launch. I also figured that sooner or later someone will release a server emulator for it (Starcraft 2 has one now), so I can play it offline or with friends on a private server. So even though I don't want to be tied to Battle.net, I still paid them for a product I intend to use. However they will not get another dollar from me using the auction house. It's kind of a win/win for them, I bought the game but I'm not hogging up resources.
Also, I have never heard one friend, coworker, online gaming friend, or anyone for that matter ever say "crap, I can't copy or find a pirated copy of this game, I guess I will go out and buy it".
This is a strawman. I never said that. My point is that DRM can cause lost sales. For all we know, Diablo III would have been even more successful if consumers like myself weren't scared off by the crazy DRM. Pro-DRM developers always complain about "lost sales" from illegal filesharing, but it's clear that there are lost sales due to DRM too.
No, your argument was the strawman argument because faced with evidence of DRM working you resorted to pretending that it didn't because the game lost your sale.
Then you proceed to use the argument that "for all we know this and that". Its kind of strange that when you use arguments like that suddenly they're valid for you.
And again, your other arguments are simply more of the same: ignoring that piracy exists and not attempting to prevent it.
Also, I have never heard one friend, coworker, online gaming friend, or anyone for that matter ever say "crap, I can't copy or find a pirated copy of this game, I guess I will go out and buy it".
Yeah, me and my buddies, we're constantly talking about our failures and successes at breaking the law.
And again, your other arguments are simply more of the same: ignoring that piracy exists and not attempting to prevent it.
I know piracy exists. I've never denied it or ignored it, but I do not think piracy will ever go away. I do not think piracy can be effectively controlled. What I've been trying to get accross is that there's tons of money to be made by companies in the face of piracy and I have given several real-life examples of how this is possible.
Yeah, me and my buddies, we're constantly talking about our failures and successes at breaking the law.
Perhaps that is because your friends and my friends aren't pirating games, which is good. If my friends were pirating, I would know because we are friends and we do talk.
So, my friends don't pirate games, and many of my friends will not buy games with DRM.
My point on this is I don't hear my friends complain about not being able to pirate, what I do hear is my friends not buying a game because it has DRM.
I've gone out of my way to get DRM free. Torchlight 1 had one way to get it DRM free, and that was on the disk version. And I mean completely DRM free, no CD check or anything. I had to track a boxed copy down, rather than have the convenience of Steam for example. Now that GOG has it, I went and purchased a second copy on sale.
As much as I wanted the physical version of Witcher 2, I bought it on GOG because at the time that was the only DRM free version.
Now I'm waiting for Torchlight 2 to meet that criteria.
This is in no way proof, it's just to show that there are people that do not want DRM in their games, and will buy games or not buy games based on that. The comments on that page may shed some light on how the DRM free crowd think.
@Tanthalas: I'm still not seeing any evidence that DRM was responsible for Diablo III's financial success.
Of course it wasn't responsible for D3's success, but you'd have to be pretty stubborn to not acknowledge that it certainly helped to increase their sales. How many DRM free games reached D3's numbers? Don't you think its strange that although the people that play MMORPGs are a minority, MMORPGs like Guild Wars actually have high sales?
What I'd like to know is how many of those friends are Anti-DRM because of what it is, or because of what they think it is. There's a big difference between "All DRM is wrong because it limits the rights of the consumer" and "All DRM because there are some really bad examples of what it does to the gamer's experience".
I'm not saying that either or both of these statements is wrong, but it can help to identify where the real problem lies.
If the majority of lost sales due to DRM are because people associate DRM with Uplay's (until recently) "always on" DRM or Steam's DRM, then we can reasonably state that the problem isn't DRM itself, but rather the more draconian ways in which it is implemented, and the stigma that these implementations have created for DRM as a concept.
If, however, the majority of lost sales are because of an "all or nothing" mentality, that gamers just don't like having their rights restricted in any way and it has nothing to do with Uplay or Steam's implementation of it, then you've got the foundation for an argument against DRM.
Conversely, if the number of lost sales due to piracy from pirates (who aren't pirating "just because they can" but who are actually interested in playing the game) is greater than the number of lost sales due to DRM, then you have a strong foundation for an argument in favor of some level of authentication. (EDIT: This also includes instances where piracy was prevented, in case that wasn't clear.)
If the number of piracy-based lost sales is smaller than the number of DRM-based lost sales, then that's an argument against DRM in general. (EDIT: In further clarification, this argument is modified depending on whether you include lost sales from all Anti-DRM people, or just the ones who are against DRM as a basic concept and not just because of the stigma it has earned over the years. Naturally, if the number of DRM-based lost sales is smaller than the number of piracy-based lost sales, but smaller if you include those who are acting based on their reaction to Uplay or Steam, then the argument begins to favor a lighter, more user-friendly version of DRM, rather than no DRM at all.)
It's not a question of whether it works or not; if it doesn't work, there are ways to make it work better. The question is whether DRM has the potential to prevent more lost sales from piracy than it may cause from people who don't like DRM.
Of course it wasn't responsible for D3's success...
Let me rephrase that. I still haven't seen any evidence that D3's DRM prevented more lost sales than it caused.
Remember, people who would have pirated but buy the game due to DRM are only one part of a complex equation. There are people who simply choose not to buy the game because of the DRM. There are people who pirate the game because they find a DRM-free crack that's more convenient than the legit version. There are people who pirate the game to try it before they buy it. There are people who do buy the DRM version but hate it so much they decide never to buy anything from Blizzard again. There's the fact that DRM costs money to develop and implement (money which could have been spent on advertising, lowering the price of the game or something, etc.). There are plenty of other factors too.
You can't just say that Diablo III made a lot of money and had DRM, therefore DRM works. It's not that simple.
You can't just say that Diablo III made a lot of money and had DRM, therefore DRM works. It's not that simple.
Except I didn't say that, I said:
How many DRM free games reached D3's numbers? Don't you think its strange that although the people that play MMORPGs are a minority, MMORPGs like Guild Wars actually have high sales?
That still proves nothing. D3 was a highly anticipated sequel to a well-loved game. It's a AAA title by a big league developer. Of course it made tons of money. It still could have made the same amount or more by going DRM-free or having lighter DRM.
@Tanthalas: I ignored that because I honestly don't know very much about Guild Wars. I don't really know what your point about it is, but if you want me to understand, you're welcome to explain in more detail.
That said, you still haven't shown that including DRM in D3 was worth it.
Or perhaps not. If I did something illegal I doubt I would talk about it.
Maybe you are not as close to your friends as I am to mine. I can only speak about myself, and those that I call my friends have been so for a long time. We trust each other, and we know the worst and best about each other. Believe me when I say, if they were pirating games, I would know. I have actually purchased some games for them when they couldn't afford to. They had kids, and I didn't. Now that I have a kid too, I can't do that as often. Which reminds me, I bought an extra copy of that recent release that has BG1, BG2, IWD, IWD2, PT, and ToEE all in on box that I still need to give to my friend that loves BG.
Comments
I dont see people who dislike DRM as being people who dont support companies right to protect their intellectual property, and I dont consider people who support DRM as being sheep, or stupid. There is a case for either side, but we dont have any reliable or accurate stats to say one way or the other about how piracy is affecting the industry, or how effective DRM is at reducing it (if at all). No one is willing to share where they get their figures from, and no way of telling what those numbers actually mean. Does 1 pirated copy equal 1 lost sale? Does a pirated copy even mean a potential sale has been lost at all?
The only things we can say for certain is:
- DRM adversely affects a large percentage of legitimate users. The extent to which those users were inconvenienced is subjective, but can not be dismissed.
- Piracy is still rife within the industry.
- Sales and profit however is still very high (relative to other industries revenue is stable and the industry is still growing).
- The topic remains an emotional one on both sides.
- Real solid data is required before we can know just what is happening.
If anyone here has a solution to protect products while not treading on the sensitive toes of those who refuse to accept any sort of validation by the content creator, I'm sure the software companies would love to hear it.
Let me post what I think is the ultimate argument against the relevancy of game piracy:
Developers have literally been complaining for decades that piracy was going to ruin the gaming industry and many people believe the current incarnations of those complaints, but when we go back and watch the anti-piracy propaganda from decades earlier, it seems completely ridiculous. People copied floppies, but so what? The gaming industry didn't shut down. When CD-ROMs came around, people copied those, but the game industry did not shut down. When digital downloads came around, people started copying those, but the video game industry is still alive and well.
People will continue to pirate, but developers will continue to make money anyway. Piracy is not going away anytime soon, but neither is the game industry.
@Treyolen is absolutely correct that the way to combat piracy is not to include DRM, but to create as much value for the customer as possible. The best way to combat piracy is to give customers value that is impossible to pirate.
I thought Beamdog's preload was a fine example of this. Being able to download most of the game data before launch so you can install the game almost immediately after it goes live is an awesome value that no pirate could provide. And yet, if some of the customers are locked out of participating in the preload due to DRM (like me), then this additional value disappears for them.
Saying that "companies still make money" is NO justification to not combat piracy. Or do you think that its also ok to go steal from a supermarket just as long as it still gets profits?
Then you use the argument that "the best way to combat piracy is to create value for the customer", but how? Boxed editions are on their way out and anything you give out digitally can be pirated too. You guys keep beating around the bush with this, but also provide no real way of fighting piracy.
It's like Russell's teapot. If you say that there's a teapot orbiting around the sun, you can't just say "You can't prove there's no teapot orbiting around the sun, therefore there is one!"
Likewise, you can't simply say there's no proof DRM doesn't stop some piracy, therefore DRM must work. Funny you should mention that. I really liked D2 and I was impressed by some of the D3 preview videos, but I never bought D3 because I was scared off by the DRM. How's that for success? Selling boxed copies is a good way to create extra value for customers, but it's not the only way. I already pointed out that preloading is another good idea, but you seem to have ignored this.
I can say more generally that developers can make money by providing convenience to customers. Many of GOG.com's games can be pirated, but I know that visiting their website is still one of the most convenient ways to get their games. Instead of having to visit 10+ torrent sites to find a game, I can just go to one website: GOG.com. I know that when I go to GOG, all I have to do is use their search bar to find out if they carry a game. I know that when I look into a GOG.com game, it will always have a helpful description and screenshots. I don't have to worry that the version I download will have viruses or other malware because I trust GOG. I don't have to worry about the download taking forever because I am know approximately how long it takes to DL a game from them. To me, this convenient experience is valuable.
Another way to make money in the face of piracy is to raise money up front. Have you heard about any of the successful game Kickstarter projects like Wasteland 2? These are fantastic ideas. They allow the company to raise money up front (which can never be affected by "lost sales") and they make the developers accountable to their fans (rather than their investors). Kickstarter projects are also an example of creating extra value for paying customers since people who donate above a certain amount are usually promised cool limited edition swag.
As time goes on, I believe/hope more and more people will take a stand against DRM. The music industry dropped it after a while, and now I can enjoy buying MP3s from Amazon. I never bought digital music until DRM was dropped, it was always on CD. The MP3 market even adapted to allowing us to buy individual songs from an album, instead of forcing us to buy the entire album. It's time the gaming and movie industry follow.
Look at Ubisoft. Every time they tighten their DRM with Starforce, SecuROM, online activation, UPlay, the customer outcry was so much that they had to relax it again. I'm just worried what they will try next.
That's all I'm saying on the matter.
1. It would do absolutely nothing for people buying the game after the release date.
2. It does nothing to prevent piracy.
Your GOG example is just you trying to invent "added value" where there is practically none, and your kickstarter example also has zero relevance to the matter at hand. And besides, none of these address piracy, it just keeps on ignoring it.
My girlfriend and I have had Angry Birds installed on every Android device we've ever owned, but we've never paid for it. It's not because we pirated the game. It's because the developer, Rovio, chose to give away the Android version of the game. And yet, my girlfriend and I have spent tons of money on Angry Birds merchandise. Plushies, refrigerator magnets, a tabletop game, and more. I don't have exact numbers, but I wouldn't be shocked to find out we had spent $100 on Angry Birds stuff and we're not even die-hard fans.
I should also point out that my girlfriend and I have had an easy time turning other people on to Angry Birds since it's free. My mother, for example, does not play many games, but she loves Angry Birds because we showed her our free copy. She own some merch too.
I'm not saying, of course, that Overhaul should give BGEE away and use it as an advertisement for merchandise, but it goes to show that even if someone plays your game for free, you haven't necessarily failed to earn money from them. There are so many possibilities here I couldn't begin to list them all. Here are just a few.
Baldur's Gate T-shirts? I'd buy one.
Baldur's Gate comics? I'm an avid comic book reader. I'd probably buy them.
Baldur's Gate board game or card game? I like playing these types of games with friends, so I'd probably buy that.
Baldur's Gate novelization? Okay, that one's probably not a good idea. :-)
Oh, and since DRM already exists and commenters are demanding that studios stop using it, I believe the burden of proof tilts towards their argument. I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that without DRM, the industry would collapse; clearly that's not the case, but the notion that it never prevents piracy is equally false.
"I agree 100% that DRM is never a solution. "
and
"Personally, I think DRM doesn't work. Either you spend forever developing an ironclad, bad-user experience DRM or you go halfway."
These are direct quotes from Trent Oster. I look forward to hearing why he is wrong and why he is "spineless" for not wanting to include DRM.
I've said it a million times. I just want the Beamdog crew to keep on keepin' on the fight against DRM. I have believed all along that Trent was much more on my side of the argument than the other. I just want him to keep advocating for us.
Hopefully I can stay out of it now. But like Al Pacino said, "Just when you think you're out..."
If a game is good, people will pay for it. The more appealing the game and the process are, the better the odds of making money. EA and the others may not care about me alone, but it's not just this game I'm not buying due to DRM. There are many titles over the years I would have purchased, but didn't due to DRM.
GOG offers old games, which have been available to pirate for a long time. Some people pirated the game because they could not buy it, but did buy from GOG when it was finally offered. Now GOG is starting to sell newer and even new games. If they were bringing in successful numbers, they would keep getting new games.
My point still boils down to DRM does not work. And stop with the "it doesn't need to be 100% effective to be effective". Four million downloads is not effective. So what if Bobby copies his game for his friend Johnny. That is nothing compared to the millions that are on torrent, edonkey, irc, newsgroups, etc. Stop inconveniencing the people that are giving you money for your game. Plus I am not convinced that the adults that pay for games copy them for their friends. I don't. I work hard for my money, and I reward the companies that provide what I want. Instead I encourage my friends to by the games so we can play together.
In my scenario Bobby and Johnny, they are kids without their own income. They are two friends, one of which had a game and loved it, and wanted to share it with his friend who couldn't buy it for what ever reason (no allowance, no paper route, parents couldn't afford it, Christmas is far away). Yeah, it's still wrong, but it's not a lost sale, and it's not rampant piracy. The millions on torrent, that's where your lost sales may be, but not all of those are lost sales. If DRM worked, those millions of downloads would not be there.
When piracy rates are around 5% or less than 50,000 on a high profile hit, then maybe you can say DRM is effective.
Also, I think the 90% piracy rate with Ubisoft shows that people actually don't want DRM. It has been mentioned in forums by many that they decided to pirate AC2 because of the DRM. Many sites also speculated that the DRM was driving people to pirate AC2 and SH5. If DRM was so effective, why the backpedaling by Ubi?
Point is, if you want my dollar, provide a product I want without providing a product I don't want. I like chocolate and I don't like mint, so don't offer me a mint-chocolate chip cookie when I want a chocolate chip cookie.
Until you can show that the lost sales prevented by DRM are greater than the number caused by the DRM, you can't simply say that the DRM was a success. This takes us back to my point about the burden of proof.
Do you have proof that Diablo III's DRM prevented more people from pirating the game than the number of people who decided it wasn't for them due to the DRM? I never said it would stop people from pirating the game after release, I was merely pointing out how it creates extra value for people who preordered the game. The more value you create, the more reason you give to people to buy the game. The many people who have purchased games from GOG disagree with you. The fact that Overhaul did not use Kickstarter does not mean that it has no relevance to our discussion. The point is that the business decisions they made are only one possibility. They could have used Kickstarter if they chose too.
Remember, Wasteland II used Kickstarter and raised over $2 million and they didn't even have a demo or screenshots to show off. That's $2 million+ that they can't lose to "lost sales" from piracy. BGEE probably wouldn't have raised that kind of money, but they still could have made a lot.
Edit: Kickstarter also provides amazingly valuable marketing data to companies. If people are willing to pay enough money up front for a game to be successful, then the company will know in advance that it can make the kind of money it wants by developing the game (no matter how many people end up pirating it, I should point out). But if they fail to meet their fundraising target and face tons of criticism, they know they had a bad idea and should go back to the drawing board.
As long as 3 or 4 million plus pirated copies of any one game are out there, you will not convince me that DRM stops an effective number of pirated copies.
Since when have we as people gotten soft and let companies tell us what we want? What happened to "the customer is always right"?
I sometimes regret buying Diablo 3, I knew up front what I was getting into. I weighed all the reasons, and chose to get it anyway. I really liked the collector's edition, which now sells for $180 new, so I knew I needed to get it at launch. I also figured that sooner or later someone will release a server emulator for it (Starcraft 2 has one now), so I can play it offline or with friends on a private server. So even though I don't want to be tied to Battle.net, I still paid them for a product I intend to use. However they will not get another dollar from me using the auction house. It's kind of a win/win for them, I bought the game but I'm not hogging up resources.
Also, I have never heard one friend, coworker, online gaming friend, or anyone for that matter ever say "crap, I can't copy or find a pirated copy of this game, I guess I will go out and buy it".
Then you proceed to use the argument that "for all we know this and that". Its kind of strange that when you use arguments like that suddenly they're valid for you.
And again, your other arguments are simply more of the same: ignoring that piracy exists and not attempting to prevent it.
So, my friends don't pirate games, and many of my friends will not buy games with DRM.
My point on this is I don't hear my friends complain about not being able to pirate, what I do hear is my friends not buying a game because it has DRM.
As much as I wanted the physical version of Witcher 2, I bought it on GOG because at the time that was the only DRM free version.
Now I'm waiting for Torchlight 2 to meet that criteria.
This is in no way proof, it's just to show that there are people that do not want DRM in their games, and will buy games or not buy games based on that. The comments on that page may shed some light on how the DRM free crowd think.
http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/games/torchlight_2
I'm not saying that either or both of these statements is wrong, but it can help to identify where the real problem lies.
If the majority of lost sales due to DRM are because people associate DRM with Uplay's (until recently) "always on" DRM or Steam's DRM, then we can reasonably state that the problem isn't DRM itself, but rather the more draconian ways in which it is implemented, and the stigma that these implementations have created for DRM as a concept.
If, however, the majority of lost sales are because of an "all or nothing" mentality, that gamers just don't like having their rights restricted in any way and it has nothing to do with Uplay or Steam's implementation of it, then you've got the foundation for an argument against DRM.
Conversely, if the number of lost sales due to piracy from pirates (who aren't pirating "just because they can" but who are actually interested in playing the game) is greater than the number of lost sales due to DRM, then you have a strong foundation for an argument in favor of some level of authentication. (EDIT: This also includes instances where piracy was prevented, in case that wasn't clear.)
If the number of piracy-based lost sales is smaller than the number of DRM-based lost sales, then that's an argument against DRM in general. (EDIT: In further clarification, this argument is modified depending on whether you include lost sales from all Anti-DRM people, or just the ones who are against DRM as a basic concept and not just because of the stigma it has earned over the years. Naturally, if the number of DRM-based lost sales is smaller than the number of piracy-based lost sales, but smaller if you include those who are acting based on their reaction to Uplay or Steam, then the argument begins to favor a lighter, more user-friendly version of DRM, rather than no DRM at all.)
It's not a question of whether it works or not; if it doesn't work, there are ways to make it work better. The question is whether DRM has the potential to prevent more lost sales from piracy than it may cause from people who don't like DRM.
Remember, people who would have pirated but buy the game due to DRM are only one part of a complex equation. There are people who simply choose not to buy the game because of the DRM. There are people who pirate the game because they find a DRM-free crack that's more convenient than the legit version. There are people who pirate the game to try it before they buy it. There are people who do buy the DRM version but hate it so much they decide never to buy anything from Blizzard again. There's the fact that DRM costs money to develop and implement (money which could have been spent on advertising, lowering the price of the game or something, etc.). There are plenty of other factors too.
You can't just say that Diablo III made a lot of money and had DRM, therefore DRM works. It's not that simple.
How many DRM free games reached D3's numbers? Don't you think its strange that although the people that play MMORPGs are a minority, MMORPGs like Guild Wars actually have high sales?
Don't you think its strange that although the people that play MMORPGs are a minority, MMORPGs like Guild Wars actually have high sales?
That said, you still haven't shown that including DRM in D3 was worth it.
The point is exactly what I already stated:
Don't you think its strange that although the people that play MMORPGs are a minority, MMORPGs like Guild Wars actually have high sales?
D3 with its always online policy functions essentially as a MMO.
But if I go with your logic I guess I can just say:
That said, you still haven't shown that not including DRM in D3 would have been worth it to Blizzard.
I'm just going to go ahead and link to my post earlier on this page, which seems to have been buried in the mix... http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/76931/#Comment_76931