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How would you make piracy pointless?

Ok, the law is not an option for anti piracy in the same way telling a teen to abstain from sex is a moronic for of birth control.

I likely will never get tired of ranting against the worthlessness of anti piracy laws, as anti piracy laws are likely never going to be written by people with brains. They think they need only write a law, and everything just works.

So, how do they prevent it?

Maybe prevention shouldn't be as worthless as abstinence is for sex.
People are going to do it, maybe the prevention should work along those lines.

I've been reading some thoughts from people in gaming and it appears the answer actually IS out there, but, maybe just as with abstinence, they can't deal with the answer. Telling teens to go ahead and have sex, just so long as they do it safely, I guess some people just can't live with people having sex. And it appears the same sort of thinking is occurring with piracy.

I wonder, if there weren't any games out there any fun to get for free, would anyone want to get them for free?

How many games today exist as only being good if they are online, and requiring online accounts?
How many games are out there, that might have an online functionality but are not absolutely in need of an online account?
What if game makers suddenly stopped making games that could be enjoyed offline?

Now currently games like WoW seem to be the only easily thought of games that absolutely require an online option. Well I am assuming playing the game offline is not much of an option at least.
Why can't games start making this more prevalent?
Seems like an easy fix.
It would mean not having a real account was a real limiting factor.

What games can NOT be played online?
To be honest, I can't think of any that are MORE fun played against the machine than another human.
So on the surface, it seems providing the online interactivity may well be the big solution.
Is it easy? Unlikely I guess. Those servers have to have some expensive needs I am sure.
And if your game ends up being like the current PS3Civilization Revolutions with the multi player pissing off at least the vocal buyers, well I suppose you have a major problem.

But since 2000 I have come to understand a few things about the internet.
1. Nothing can't be pirated, but obscure games take a few more minutes to find.
2. Intrusive anti piracy never bothers pirates, only legit customers, that only get angry and ditch your company.
3. Serials are for the most part ok, but lack any worth if the serial isn't actually needed to verify anything after the install. Because the serial can be pirated, which means if they can play the game, it better have content they can't get without registering the serial.
4. People don't feel one bit guilty about pirating (well the ones that do it that is). And there isn't one single genre or portion of gaming that won't parite (again, not all will do it, but any demographic will have those that will).
5. Anti piracy laws don't really work. Catching a worthless sum of the whole is the same as "doesn't work".

Just how many sales are denied from piracy likely is totally unknowable.
How do you rate a person that downloads a game they wouldn't have ever actually wanted, but because they can go online and download it they can be curious and look at it anyway. Are curious people, that don't really give a damn about a game, really "lost sales"? If they would have never bought it, because they would never be that curious if it came to a cash purchase, then they can't be considered a lost sale. They had NO plan to EVER buy the game.

Are demos worth it? Would it not be cheaper, and easier, if the game could just be examined if the person actually gave a damn? Rather than make the effort to make a demo, that was a stunted form of the game.
If the game was nothing but an install, and the ability to see it running, but missing all the ability to go online and actually enjoy it at it's max, the game loses no sales, but gains a full demo in effect and would not require copy protection.
You merely need to deny use online to unregistered copies.

So human to human is the weakness of just about any game it would seem.
I can say that every game I have ever played, was sadly lacking solo.
PC titles, console titles, hand held titles, they are really lose something solo.
Is it possible, that in order to safer guard sales, they really just need to make it so an unregistered copy has no merit?

I'm enjoying Civilization Revolution DS right now, great game. I am fairly sure online would be several levels better.
I know of several of my PC wargames that are only long time major successes from human vs human playings.
All the games that have come and gone, missed out on this feature. They looked great, but they missed being great.

I think designers need to realize THEY are the weakest link, not the laws, not the anti piracy software.
They make games people want, but they don't make it so they must be online and playing humans and with a registered copy.
So people decide to get the games, and if they want a pirated copy, often there isn't really any reason to avoid it.
What if a pirated sucked and had no appeal? What if it was no better than free advertising and demo value at best?
Why not LET the pirates do all the grunt work of distributing game demos and let them deal with all the expensive bandwidth?

The old saying, you get more with honey than vinegar applies to anti piracy as well.
Don't offer us laws that suck, and drm that punishes only the innocent. Offer the public a clear reason for needing that registered serial, and ditch anything to do with drm that really imposes nothing on pirates anyway.
It would sure kill off no cd cracks, and serial key generators and a host of other dodges if you simply had to have a registered key or you missed out on the party.
They need the party.
Give the game a great online interaction option that absolutely had to be obtained.

They'd also be killing off the pathetic attempts to create AI opponents if playing the AI was a lame choice. Who's going to play the AI when you can go online and play a real person instead.

Comments

D
The whole thing about DRM punishing the legal consumer is quite true, as I heard with the (initial) fallout over Mass Effect PC. The kicker was that pirates could and did (right? I don't know for sure) completely block out that feature. How amusing. And, up until...hmm, around January of this year, I had dialup. Go ahead and cry for me, I know it was bad. And, we only had the one phone line. Having to keep connecting to the net and potentially missing calls because it was so slow could not be an option. Everyman doesn't have the best PC and online service available. I get a new PC around half as often as I do a new game console, and I'm sure that's how it is for several others. Not all of us have T1 lines or whatever is fucking epic nowadays. But to get back on track, Sins of a Solar Empire apparently did very well retail wise, and yet had no security on it whatsoever. I have no idea how often it was torrented or the like, but...

As for effective counter-piracy methods, I'm not quite sure. Your method of the registration sounds good, but I'm sure that can be spoofed and trick the system. I don't know if that'll allow for online play or not, but shrugging aside, pirates can probably crack that too. For example. Diablo II had a CD-key, as did generally all of the PC-era Blizzard games after Diablo I. This CD-key can be used only once while on Battle.net, that is to say, it is like your ID code, and only one instance of that code can be used at one time. Right. So with online in that game being optional, one could easily pirate the game, get a phony CD-key off of the net, and be playing in no time. Sure, it's not the 100% full product you didn't pay for, but you take what you can get, I suppose. With a game like World of Warcraft, this is infinitely more difficult as you need to be online 100% of the time in order to play, and it also costs a monthly fee that as far as I know, you can't get out of or dodge in any way (and still play, I mean). Blizzard thankfully allows one to download a ten-day trial of WoW free of charge, and they can upgrade to a full game right away if they so wished (it seems to be the full game in the trial, though some features are naturally blocked). I dunno if there are CD-keys and the like for WoW, but given how you need a registered paying account with Blizzard to even play...downloading it isn't really going to do you much good.

I'm starting to think that senator who proposed that, upon detection of stolen software on your computer, the government sends a command to your computer to tell it to explode wasn't so crazy after all. D:

Edit: Relevancy.
 
Veho
An effective anti-piracy method? More bang per buck. If we're supposed to pay $90 for a PS3 or X360 game, let it come in a tin box, with a promo T-shirt, extra DVDs, posters, booklets, OST CDs, Easter eggs, stuff. Seriously, the extra cost for them would be minimal, and I bet people would be more inclined to buy.
 
Panzer Tacticer
[quote name='fischju' post='1317538' date='Aug 4 2008, 01:18 AM']I would just tax the internet, and give the money to the publishers[/quote]

No real solution there. In Canada blank media is supposedly taxed (certainly can't be much though). What that means to the consumer though is "we have already accommodated piracy so stop crying". But it appears they still want internet wrecking laws all the same. More money likely would be gladly received and still not stop the whining.
 
Panzer Tacticer
[quote name='Veho' post='1318048' date='Aug 4 2008, 08:29 AM']An effective anti-piracy method? More bang per buck. If we're supposed to pay $90 for a PS3 or X360 game, let it come in a tin box, with a promo T-shirt, extra DVDs, posters, booklets, OST CDs, Easter eggs, stuff. Seriously, the extra cost for them would be minimal, and I bet people would be more inclined to buy.[/quote]

Product fluff likely would only further inflate the price and nothing else.
Myself, I'd like to see the opposite. Remove retail mostly, move to digital download primarily drop the price fractionally to reflect not needing to cover retail mark up and shipping and packaging.

But as far as price goes, I think there will always be a threshold sum they will push a product to and no further. And that is usually as much as we will pay for.

Myself, I routinely pay out 70 bucks for PC wargames.
A 70 dollar Nintendo DS title wouldn't faze me in any way shape or form.
And my demographic is the one with the LARGE sums of cash. We ain't the teen scraping together cash.
All I have ruling my cash decisions is "how much can I juggle this month?"
 
E
the price of most of the games that come out are not worth it, make them less expensive and ill buy them
I'm not paying 60 euros for 10h of gameplay
 
Panzer Tacticer
Want to give Doomsday Forte a more involved reply (decided to not quote).

Copy protection runs to all manners of effective.

First there is the "no" copy protection. Must be games out there I have encountered that had it, but it was some weak it felt like there was none.

Cd in drive is a form that can feel like "no" copy protection as you can either ruin it was a no cd patch, or effectively eliminate it with a drive emulator program that renders the copy protection pointless to have even used at all.
I'm fairly sure I've walked right past a lot of Cd in drive copy protection without realizing it. This is because I have long since compiled all of my cd based games onto dvd blanks as image files just for the sake of storage. You play the copy, you store the original.

In short, companies using Cd in drive copy protection are hopelessly idiotic.

There are companies that are very intrusive to a computer's hardware with their PC game titles. The most celebrated copy protection in recent years has to be Starforce. Reputed to be capable of damaging actual hardware. The storm of protest generated by this program is likely epic. Companies using it were bluntly informed lose the Starforce or lose all of your paying customers. Some actually adjusted to other methods.

In the end, the pirates didn't care, they expertly ripped out the Starforce and business as usual for them resulted. Meanwhile costumers went elsewhere and games using it likely had dismal sales.
It was brutish, and stupid as a means of protecting software. It cost the maker money to use it, and it didn't work.

I don't need industry numbers to back up the above, hell it's common knowledge level information.

Serial numbers are not worth much if it's an insert once only process that is not required to be verified.
I've lost count of all I have witnessed in my time that exploited a serial key generator. And even IF the key generator is infected with some malicious hidden secret(s), a clever user need only employ the key generator in a safe environment, write down the serial, and transfer it. The key generator is only as dangerous as a clumsy person needs to make it.

Serial numbers that MUST be registered are not perfect (is anything perfect). But, I have seen they can be hard to spoof. Very hard to spoof. Patches can be produced that can invalidate all known circulated bogus serials. And patches are often unavoidable, and invaluable. They render a game pointless if they must be had, but can't be installed.

The weak link in a serial, is verification. If you HAVE to verify in order to play, they you basically need that serial to be real.

I prefer digital download. But it's not always ideal.
I prefer the company Matrix Games (they make old school wargames). A digital downloaded file comes as a set up file that has no strings attached. I can install it once or a thousand times. Thing is, if it get's invalidated, it's dead. So handing it out isn't really a good idea. Not when it ruins a 70 dollar game eh.

The reverse is an elicense. I think I have actually avoided games with elicenses. It's not that they don't work. They are very hard to defeat. I can respect that. But, they are intrusive. If your system is modified they can object. And frankly, if I want MY game on every machine I use ALONE, I don't want to be told it has to be uninstalled on a previous machine first.
If I have 10 computers and I want it on all 10, damn it I'll do it.
And while I don't subscribe to paranoia, if Matrix Games ever went out of business, it wouldn't matter where serials from them are concerned. But if you can't get back to that eLicense, you basically no longer have a game.

It's more about designer choices than it is about building a better mouse trap.
The mouse will always find a way eventually.
But what if the trap wasn't a trap in the first place.

The cliche online MMO is already well known. You pay to play. They provide and ever evolving experience to keep you playing.
No surprise they make a lot of money, and have no problem if you DO copy their game.

But I am a fan of turn based wargames. I need only install in too many cases.
I register my Matrix Games purchases because updates and patches are essential. The games revolve around accuracy.
But it would be nice if they had some place where I could go, a lobby where I could see a line of people waiting to play game X. And if that lobby was only open to registered players, it would sure make a difference in sales.

If they made games intentionally built around being online, and if that required being registered, I think it would be a boon to game sales.
Somewhere along the way, game makers that want to blindly stumble along without thinking, without actually innovating, without actually doing anything smart with their game, really should be allowed to fall into the perils and pitfalls they make for themselves.

All of the above works fine for games. I will admit here, this has likely no application to music or film. They don't require "updates/patches" and if it doesn't need to be registered, you can hardly use it as a means.
I have some ideas for music and film, but they are not entirely great. I can leave the floor open to good ideas theree (if anyone has any).

My closing thought.
Picture what it would be like, if EVERY Nintendo DS game had to be registered, but had killer cool online multi player modes.
I'd really like that.
I also think it would drive all the schlock off the market, or at least it would render it as less important to Nintendo.
I think most of the flash cart scene are teens for the most part. I don't think Nintendo is losing much in sales to kiddies and their kiddie schlock. Well at least that likely holds true outside of Japan :)
 
R2DJ
Making everything free would stop it, but it would cause more chaos.

Piracy is just inevitable. It cannot be stopped.

Or you could do them "Give $2 to help stop piracy". That would DEFINITELY help.


Text highlighted in bold is meant in a sarcastic way.
 
Panzer Tacticer
[quote name='Endogene' post='1318130' date='Aug 4 2008, 09:15 AM']the price of most of the games that come out are not worth it, make them less expensive and ill buy them
I'm not paying 60 euros for 10h of gameplay[/quote]

Worth is subjective.

I'd have paid double for Panzer Tactics, but I KNOW you likely won't play it for free :)
I think neither of us wants to play anything with a Pet on the cover.
I think both of us could like playing something from the major franchises.

The key is to identify the demographic, and sell to them.
I know my Panzer Tactics is an older gamer demographic.
I also know that FFIV was likely mainly a teen demographic even if I could like it.
I personally think they should be pricing those Pet games as econo schlock barely above 20 bucks.

How they arrive at 30 and 40 for the bulk of games makes no sense.
We both know they won't sell many of mine, but the adults won't even care if they want it. So sure make it 50 bucks and get that extra while you can on limited numbers.
 
Panzer Tacticer
[quote name='R2DJ' post='1318164' date='Aug 4 2008, 09:47 AM']Making everything free would stop it, but it would cause more chaos.

Piracy is just inevitable. It cannot be stopped.

Or you could do them "Give $2 to help stop piracy". That would DEFINITELY help.


Text highlighted in bold is meant in a sarcastic way.
[/quote]

That idea likely would completely obliterate any chance of whining YOU WOULD THINK.
If the game was 40 bucks and you were flat out told the game was being sold for 42 so that they could just ignore piracy, would it bother you that you were paying for pirates?

Personally, even if people decided if it shut them up it was ok, the real truth is the companies would still find a way to bitch.

Technically, in Canada we have the blank media anti piracy tax. Yes it is really there, it is just not revealed in any fashion, but it is indeed there.
All you Canadians likely are not aware, but they have essentially made it plain the industry has been paid off. The industry in Canada actually has no right to bitch and complain. Supposedly they are being given a credit for all the money they assume is being lost to piracy.
The industry in the US is also being told "sorry we added a tax to cover it, now kindly shut up".
 
bunnybreaker
I have thought about this a lot, and I think multi-tier sales are the way forward.

For example, if I have the option of going into a shop and buying a game for £20 (I don't think games are worth more than this and have only paid more twice, EVER) with a shiny case and manual, maybe even a limited edition version with extra shit for £30, that'd rock, but I'd also like the option of downloading an ISO for £5.

When it comes to games I really like, I WANT to pay for them, sometimes money is a factor, such as now, I am broke, so I download all my games. But if I could support the devs for less money, I would.

I see the points people have made about online games, but you need to take into account there are a lot of single player games that require no online, there still isn't a realistic solution for those.

Ultimately, games are really overpriced and publishers take way too big a cut, if online downloads were available, or even mail order ghetto (homemade by the devs) versions were available for less money, where the devs actually get MORE money (per sale) we'd see more innovation AND less piracy, well, I think so.
 
Veho
[quote name='Panzer Tacticer' post='1318104' date='Aug 4 2008, 03:00 PM'][quote name='Veho' post='1318048' date='Aug 4 2008, 08:29 AM']An effective anti-piracy method? More bang per buck. If we're supposed to pay $90 for a PS3 or X360 game, let it come in a tin box, with a promo T-shirt, extra DVDs, posters, booklets, OST CDs, Easter eggs, stuff. Seriously, the extra cost for them would be minimal, and I bet people would be more inclined to buy.[/quote]

Product fluff likely would only further inflate the price and nothing else.
Myself, I'd like to see the opposite. Remove retail mostly, move to digital download primarily drop the price fractionally to reflect not needing to cover retail mark up and shipping and packaging.[/quote]
True, digital distribution is the way of the future, and should eliminate all the "shipping/handling" costs of physical media, but the vast majority of games is still distributed on DVDs, and until that changes (which is still some time to come, I believe), more fluff and goodies (without raising the prices) is a good idea. It would definitely attract many people who've already pirated the game. Of course, I can't estimate the increase in earnings versus the increase in budget, but I think they would profit in the end.
 
NeSchn
Or you can do what Microsoft did with the Xboxes. Put a firmware in there that cannot be hacked by all means like their Lite On thingamajob.
 
CockroachMan
Make the game free and put ads in it.. it works with movies.. :P

And I wouldn't mind seeing a big "THIS GAME IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSI!" in the splash screen.. actually, in games like GTA and Need for Speed that are passed in current times, putting a big Nike outdoor in the middle of the city would make it more realistic.. in fact, NFS already does that.. Why is that game so expensive!? :huh:

Another solution is stuff like Steam, if a game is on Steam, I usually buy it.. it's cheaper for me, more convenient, gives me automatic updates and there's no risk of loosing or breaking the disk! Also, the exclusive online features are worth it..
 
Panzer Tacticer
Bunnybreaker
"I see the points people have made about online games, but you need to take into account there are a lot of single player games that require no online, there still isn't a realistic solution for those."

I'm not saying I don't like single person games.
But if they made games increasingly multi player, if they made those games increasingly games you played online, regardless of the nature of the game, they'd get increasingly easier for the makers to keep them safe.

In some cases, when I look at the games being made, and HOW the games are being made, I can't help but ask the game makers "Do you really want a solution, or do you do you just want to whine about needing a solution?".

Because in a lot of cases, the people to blame for the predicament, and the people that put themselves IN the predicament.

I agree with respondents, that the realistic price if a product, might not be what the makers wish to insist it is.
It's their "right" to put any price they want on their product, but it's the prerogative of life to laugh at them if they had that coming to them.

I don't think a digitial download price need be massively reduced from a retail shelf copy, but, we all know they don't pay a fortune for a jacket, case and cartridge. A 40 dollar Nintendo game should at least be no more than 30 digital download. a 30 dollar game should be 20. If the game isn't worth 20, maybe they should take the logical route of not making it.

Oh I would be so devastated if Nintendo had to cut back on making so many routine Nintendo DS games so they could concentrate on a few really good ones :)
 
Sc4rFac3d
Make the games big, like 50GB big. That'll stop people from downloading. It'll sure as hell slow it down. Blu-ray seems to be doing pretty good right now, of course that's cause the PS3 is not hacked. But I'm sure the numbers of people downloading won't be as high as on the 360/Wii when it does get hacked.
 
M
I cant see any 50gb DS games coming soon! lol and i bet the ds is the most common pirated format. YOu can download any game an a minute and no installation etc needed.

The reason people pirate is simply being able to have something quickly for nothing.


I think the answer is the same as music, 99% of games, music etc that is pirated comes from the net.

So just charge ALL internet users a £5 a month extra charge and the money goes to publishers etc.

Think of it as car insurance, because of naughty people, your premiums go up to cover the costs. If that was the case id be happy. People will download games etc even if they were £3.99 as being free is always better. So publishers should just accept the inevitable and apply for a surchage option.

THEN turn a blind eye to the downloaders so although mass music (for example) downloads are still frowned upon, the odd couple of games, mp3s etc now and again are tolerated.
 
Harsky
Games like Guitar Hero where you're pretty much forced to buy the accessories. But this is a short term solution as the second the update comes out, you can just download it and use the existing accessories.
 
Ferrariman
Step 1: Try to kill most popular flashcarts.
Step 2: add atleast 5 security features to your game and then add more crazy exclusive stuff. (Instore activation + Unique IDs = profit. When A game is activated, the stores sends the ID to nintendo)
Step 3: browse the interwebs
Step 4: ????

Step 5: PROFIT
 

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