Indie Devs Turn To In-Game Ads After Piracy Strike
Nearly 24 hours after it went out in mid-April, John Warner checked on the numbers for Raycatcher – a game he and a partner designed and distributed over Steam. The first day, it sold 1,000 copies for $US5. But pirates had also made 35,000 copies for free.
Warner, 25, an environmental artist who had worked at Relic Games on Dawn of War II, expected to lose copies to piracy. He’d already begun pondering what might be a third option in the ongoing zero-sum struggle between keeping gamers happy and ensuring they give you money for your work. But if nothing else, the torrenting of Raycatcher provided a good argument that someone in the indie sector should try building a game supported by product placements and in-game advertising. And after this experience he figured, why not him?
“I think people are voting – they’re just not interested in paying for games any more,” Warner said. “The DRM is getting cumbersome, and everyone hates it. I think we’re at a point where indies have to consider a new revenue model. Because it takes a long time to make a game.”
Warner and another partner, Mitch Lagran, 22, formed Vancouver-based Greener Grass Games to explore just that – a free, browser-based and ad-supported game. The thought of in-game advertising may make the skin crawl for the gaming cognoscenti who form the most evangelical constituency of independent development. The practice may be, on the AAA retail level, a disappointment so far, with slender prospects until a terrible economy rebounds. And browser-based games may have yet to catch on in North America the way they have elsewhere. But games are not built for free, and these two developers- and others – think it can be done at this smaller scale.
“I don’t want to do anything The Man-ish,” Warner said, acknowledging the stereotypical disconnect between an indie developer, who’s supposed to be making better games because he’s freed from corporate trappings, and product placements, a nakedly capitalist practice.
“But in order to make games consistently, we need to make money,” said Lagran. “Otherwise, we can’t pay the rent. And if people pirate a lot, advertisements make sense.”
Warner (pictured) had no illusions that Raycatcher (built with another partner) was going to make him rich. Just getting it onto Steam was a learning experience and an accomplishment, he said, akin to a writer getting one’s first novel published. But the aftermath – from piracy to patching – poses disincentives to the independent developer, who began wanting to make the cool game he always dreamed of making, and finds that he’s inherited a lot of problems and obligations he hadn’t imagined.
“The money we’re making off Raycatcher, it doesn’t justify working on a project for a long period of time; I can’t support myself on it,” Warner said. Especially when you release a game, and it has bugs, and you have to fix them. In a certain sense, when you release something for money, it’s almost like you create a liability for yourself.”
The way Warner sees it, the game he and Lagran really wanted to make – a narrative, 3D first person adventure set in an alternate reality – can be done quicker, more cheaply, and with fewer of the headaches that come from a commercial downloadable release like Raycatcher.
In their development histories, Warner as an artist, and Lagran as a programmer, shared the same zeal for the immense back story that is created during a game’s design, and only partially revealed during its play. The game they are building, untitled as of now, opens that faucet of creativity. Through exploration and observation, players uncover how they got where they are, what they’re supposed to do, and advance the story to its conclusion in a game reminiscent of the Sierra and LucasArts adventures of those companies’ 1990s heyday, with elements of Myst.
Such a dependence on observation lends itself to advertising. What kind will players see? Their game, still untitled, will be a 3D, first person adventure, so everything you might see in the real world is on the table, Lagran says. Unity 3D, the engine they’re using, supports video texture mapping, so a television displaying a video ad is one example. Outdoors, billboards are a given. Product and brand placement could show up as a poster in a character’s bedroom.
“If there’s going to be a poster on the wall, and a brand on that poster, you might as well make it a real one,” said Lagran (pictured), a programmer whose experience includes work as an artist on PowerUp’s Night of a Million Billion Zombies. Other possibilities include getting a link to a magazine article, targeted to their player demographics. Or opening up a laptop in a university setting in the game, and getting directed to the web site of that university, in real life.
For all of these, however, Lagran and Warner have to make separate and sometimes competing sales pitches, to gamers as well as advertisers. For advertisers, they’re hawking a new and effective way to reach a targeted audience’s eyeballs. For gamers, they’re saying in effect, don’t worry, if the advertising is done well, you’ll barely notice.
“I’ve definitely played games with (in-game advertising) and it’s never bothered me,” Lagran said. “The only time it does is when it’s out of context, the random logo that doesn’t fit, like you’re in a sci-fi world and you see the Apple logo.”
So it’s clear that the sponsors are going to have to fit organically into this story, somehow, says Warner, who offhandedly confesses a “seething hatred” for pushy, repeated or conspicuous advertising, probably because he’s studied hypnosis. “I don’t hate products or people making me more aware of products – I buy my clothes the same places as everybody else. But people getting leverage on me emotionally – Axe (body spray) makes people insecure about their sexuality for example – it’s very manipulative and a form of bombardment. There are more tactful ways.”
And that’s where his and Lagran’s sensibilities as artists will help an indie developer do it better.
“I could be delusional, but I haven’t seen anybody else, really, doing it at this level,” Warner says – meaning advertising within fully-rendered 3D games played online.
That points to another condition of the gaming market they hope to exploit: Low expectations. Casual flash games with advertising, while showing an audience increase (67 million in 2007 to 86 million in 2008, with a 28 percent bump in ad views, isn’t looked to as any kind of a memorable gaming experience. “They’re almost so casual that they’re not considered real games,” Lagran said. “We want to capitalise on the idea that these browser games are nothing, and make one that feels like a full-fledged game that you’d download…. I think that’s where the industry is going to go.”
Of course, it already has, notably in Asia, with North America lagging behind. One portal under development, also based in Vancouver, is Dimerocker, and it too envisions enough potential for in-game indie advertising that it has secured venture capital and is building an API to serve ads to developers that list games there.
J. Joly (he goes by his first initial), Dimerocker’s founder and VP of content, considers his venture very much borne of the indie-scene aesthetic, envisioning a portal where users and developers communicate with no middlemen, in a give-and-take of release, adoption, feedback, revision and re-release. The portal is also geared toward distributing games built with the Unity 3D engine, which Greener Grass Games is using. Both studios consider it the fastest way to get a professional quality game into production.
“A great Unity game can be done with a 2 or 3 man team and $US100,000,” Joly said. That translates to considerable development agility and, by using the advantages of browser-based games, can target them to specific emerging markets such as, say, Brazil, skipping the overhead of traditional retail or downloadable releases, while making money back using Joly’s API. Lagran and Warner contend they don’t need eye-popping numbers to do well. “I think we’re looking at between 50,000 and 100,000 impressions in a month, and we should be pretty good.”
That’s the concept, anyway. It’s not something so ahead of the cutting edge that everyone’s shooting it down, but it’s not to say in-game indie advertising is unqualifiedly the next great thing.
“I’m a venture capitalist; I support the little guy,” said Jeremy Liew, managing director of Lightspeed Venture Partners, with an expertise in social media and casual gaming. “The short story here is in-game advertising has been a little bit of a disappointment. It’s not lived up to expectations as a major driver of revenue. That was true even when the ad market was strong, and obviously there’s an advertising recession going on right now.”
Even though recent (and not exactly disinterested) research projects a $US2 billion in-game ad market by 2012, the company releasing that sort of figure, IGA Worldwide, is itself in trouble, trying to secure additional funding but also exploring selling itself off, after losses of $US11 million in 2007 and $US26 million in 2008. Microsoft also just laid off a quarter of the workforce at Massive, its advertising service.
Sure, the scale of the ad sales operation undertaken by an indie game house might not be so large that it needs to hit the kind of numbers larger publishers want to see. But “I guess it depends on what you define as a success,” Liew said. “The challenge still is one of demand. And if you’re smaller and more targeted, you do have fewer things to offer.”
Liew understands Lagran and Warner’s instinct to shift to web-based games, but wonders if the in-game advertising is even necessary. “Piracy is what led people in Asia to shift to free-to-play games with digital distribution models,” Liew said. “This is a solved problem. Perhaps we can consider using the solutions that are out there.”
Dimerocker would be one of those solutions, with plans for a traditional model of free play leading to premium content, with some microtransaction capabilities. But that doesn’t particularly differentiate that portal from the others in that space, which is part of the reason why Joly’s pushed into it.
This of course is the business plan; what it may meet in reality bears watching.
“Most marketers characterize in-game advertising as experimental,” Liew said. “Given the major budget cuts people are seeing, they’re not feeling super experimental. And given the context that this has not lived up to expectations, in a recessionary environment, it’s going to be a tough challenge for them.”
Perhaps, but at least the price of failure, if it comes to that, will be comparatively low. The episodic nature of their project allows them to either continue a successful IP, or cut their losses without having wasted time and development on a full game nobody really preferred.
“Right now, we’re 10 grand in the hole, and it’s all borrowed money, friends and family,” Warner said. “Even if the first episode is a bomb, my mum isn’t gonna get the repo man after us.”
And they’re banking on the goodwill of gamers who will give a game a chance and understand the tradeoff – that free content has to be supported some way. It’s true that their exploration of advertising came about, in a sense, because gamers would not support a previous effort with their own money, and worse, pirates stole it. But gamers shouldn’t feel that in-game ads are some form of punishment.
“DRM,” said Lagran, “would be a punishment.”
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
I would like to share something here, whether or not you believe me is not key to what I'm about to say, but I'd really appreciate any reaction whatsoever.
I'm a game designer.
I have no track record.
I tried and tried and failed and failed to break into the industry over years using many different channels and approaches.
Now I'm funding a small team with basically my life savings to this point.
I want to release my game on XBLA and/or PSN.
My "dream approach" would be to release the "full" game, trophies, achievements and all at no cost.
I would like to offer players purchasable aids in the game, like a conversion of real cash to an in-game resource.
The player would not "require" this resource to progress, but he could directly influence his gaming experience if he should choose to do so.
At a halfway point into the game he would however be required to make a payment to "unlock" the second half of the game, a potential previous purchase would be subtracted from this set amount, so the price of admission would be the same for everybody who'd want to continue passed the first quasi-demo-half of the game.
But beyond that point players could still buff themselves if they'd consider it a worthy investment and/or wanted to increase the warm and fuzzy "I supported the indie-scene" feeling.
I would never call this a "perfect" approach and it's obviously limited by whether or not a game's game-play gels with the scheme. But I would be confident with putting something out like that, hoping to cater to my target audience in a way that's fair and transparent.
Of course I know, the team knows and you all (likely) know that this isn't possible on any of the available distribution systems for various reasons. Regardless of how we ultimately get the game shipped, I just find it unfortunate that even though the systems are already in place, the ways they can be utilized are still so restrictive.
tl;dr: Putting aside exact details, would you as a gamer and a consumer even be interested in or care for a more "give and take" sales model?
Like Radiohead's "Pay the amount you want or nothing at all for our new album." ?
@Vonhert: Actually no, I don't.
Have fun trying to discern good games from staged-to-look-good-to-get-you-to-buy-a-... demos. I'll stick to my tried and tested way.
@introvert:
FFS....
1. It's for rent? I have friends who have it?
2. Hands up anyone who has a machine WAY over the quoted minimum specs and still couldn't get a game to play because the specs were a LIE and the game was BUGGED.
You're obviously not one of the thousands who still can't get 'Lost Planet' or 'Gears of War' to even load up without crashing out.
3. Whether devs get canned or not isn't the point. Marketing and management won't be, and they're the departments that wield the power in a corporatised studio. Devs (and all their hard work) can get canned over a shareholders' rumour, or bad press at E3, or basically any damn reason at all.
4. Suuuuure.
4a. Have you noticed how many places/companies/sellers only accept credit cards, or systems like PayPal which are credit card dependent anyway?
5. You say I'm not magically entitled to play 'every game in the world'. I have a copy of 'Dark Messiah Of Might & Magic'. I bought it new two years ago after a friend recommended it. It's never worked because the securom (installed secretly, of course) insists that it's not a legitimate disc. Gamestop don't care.
But I am capable of downloading a cracked version without the securom, and so I will.
1 and 2. "Games rarely work perfectly right out of the box."
Really?? Only around 12 years ago, games rarely DIDN'T work perfectly right out of the box. But as soon as Big Money entered the equation, game quality was discarded in favour of profit and market share. You'll notice this nowadays when companies blather on and on about 'quarter-term profits' and 'targetted demographics' etc.
Those people aren't software developers, they're business school graduates. Look at all the 'developers diaries' and teaser trailers that come with a game. The marketing of a game takes far more importance in the minds of those people than the testing and quality control.
Why should I reward them for normalising inferiority?
3. I'm in Europe, and seriously, it's difficult to find an independent (non-GameStop) retailer in this city.
And I personally define a reasonable price as less than what we're charged (€45+) for a new game when it fulfills all of the other reasons why I'd want to pirate it.
By the way, an Aston Martin DBS is a complex, engineered, marque name [b]car[/b]. A computer game is code on a disc that costs less to manufacture than the cost in electricity you used to load this page.
4. My argument is pure laziness? You really must be a console gamer then. Discs get scratched, lost, stolen. It happens all the time.
CD/DVD checking has been around since the '90s. I still have all of my games from then and guess what? Some of them are from companies who disabled CD checking after they updated the game.
Will your console discs still be around?
That's assuming your console hasn't failed and you find that the manufacturer acts like it's never heard of backwards-compatibility. Congratulations, you've paid for disposable culture.
Keshie
I've pirated games before, but to be honest I wouldn't pirate a 5$ game, much less one that is an indie title. Pretty much everytime steam runs one of those AWESOME 50-75% off deals on an indie title I pick it up (I pirated and beat Defensegrid, 2 weeks later they had the 75% off deal and not only did I buy the game, I convinced 3 other people to buy it)
EternalStar
a wise man in the game industry once said, "If a customer took the time to pirate your game, they wouldn't of bought it anyway."
case closed.
@Matt0505:
There is always one self righteous bastard who has to walk in the room and make sure everyone hears them say "Hey piracy is bad and you a piece of shit if you steal. I dont steal because Im great and if you steal then your bad"
Get over yourself, no one cares and in 5 hours your post will be gone and nobody will see it.
And you know what? I pirate stuff, mostly movies but everything I ever got was stuff I was never ever going to buy anyway. And actually in some cases after pirating it I ended up going out and actually buying it because I liked it.
If a company makes a product worth buying people will buy it. Like sins of a solar empire had no security, no disc check, no cdkeys or anything and it was on top 10 pc games list for like 5 months straight because it was a good game. Or cliffy "im a media whore" bleznski said gears of war 2 was ruined by torrents and threw a tantrum cause it was out 2 months before launch, well when gow2 launched it sold 2.1 million copies in a day.
If I have to see commercials in my games then I should get the game free or atleast at a severly discounted price.
If the company is getting paid to put ads in their games then I should get a discount for watching those ads. I shouldnt have to pay full price to see them. Its as bad as going to a movie and watching commercials before you see commercials for other movies before the movie starts I paid 9 bucks to see.
I detest ads anyway, I play games because its not reality and nothing breaks my mood to play something or detracts my gameplay experince like playing some fictional game and see a sign for snickers candy bars or something
@abort_user: bioshock was released at the same time on windows and 360. I know about systemshock and i think thats more 2ks fault than anything. I really dont think that console games in general are shallow, maybe arcade games can be storywise but theres more than that out there. It is all about how you play games too. Take fighting games for example. When youre into them enough to memorize player movements down to the frame, you cant say thats shallow. I mean, sure, donkey kong country isnt deep, but disgaea isnt shallow.
@SuperSonik: I imagine that where you're at games are probably priced at flat rate, but here I'm expected to shell out an extra 2000 yen just because Final Fantasy is on the label. Meanwhile, in an effort to maximize profits, the games get watered down for the lowest common denominator, becoming more tech demo than game.
Music piracy forced the record industry to make steps to meet consumers halfway--I'm not totally pleased with the way they went about it (bonus DVDs, etc., although iTunes, while still overpriced, is a good step in the right direction), but it's working. The film industry is going to have to find a way to get off its high horse as well. Games, I think, will be slow to catch on, but we'll get there.
Chrysolite
Its $5 - just BUY the damn thing! You spend more than that on coke and useless items on a daily basis.
Paul Klausing
i have a solution to every developer worried about piracy: make multiplayer games that require a valid serial to play online. the percent of people willing to play LAN-only via hamachi is probably in the single digits. piracy is effectively useless for most people. problem solved.
ColemanNoodle
@Altersparck: Sorry, but I have to disagree. Of course, I'm not a typical consumer, but I spend more than a dollar on my coffee because I want a) flavor and b) the knowledge that it didn't get into my cup by way of modern slavery. But I do believe very strongly in freedom of information.
Chrysolite
@curly haired boy: youre kidding right? advertisers get tv shows canceled. advertisers carry great sway with a simple threat of "were going to be no longer funding your project if..." welcome to the real world buddy. advertisers run more of the show than you realize.
abort_user
@NeoStarr: I agree with you wholeheartedly, and In Rainbows is an example that I hope will eventually bring a lot of people around to the freedom of information.
Unfortunately there's a major roadblock in the form of people coming to associate the branding of a label/studio/production company with the product on a very deep level. One could even argue (personally I don't, but for the sake of balance) that the only reason In Rainbows worked as well as it did is because it was fucking Radiohead.
But the biggest difficulty is the inability to separate the idea of entertainment experience from a commercial product in the same vein as a car or (to stay on topic with entertainment) a stereo or piece of gaming hardware. Hell, this site and many others refer to new games as new IP--intellectual property.
In any case, YouTube is blocked at my job, but I will definitely be checking out your videos when I get home.
Chrysolite
@shouryuuken: well yeah. its called an opinion for a reason.
i personally think MOST console games lack the depth that pc games offer, not just how many more options pc games have but also the gameplay tends to have much more depth on the pc (bioshock vs system shock 2 is like night and day). consoles games have always been shallow minus some rare exceptions. i play them when i want something simple like a platformer or a racer. but its neither here nor there really. i could go on rants about dlc, subscriptions, etc. but i wont.
abort_user
@abort_user: pc gaming is only more superior on consoles if you like certain games..
sure, you can get better graphics out of a pc, but the genres i tend to go after dont really have a strong showing in the pc market.. i dont like rtses, fpses (most)/or western rpgs/mmos all that much. i know theres more out there... but not much.. its either a console port which isnt going to be much more fancier on a pc..
@James Gornall: i paid 150 for my 360 then sold it for 300.. so i made money off that.. and i got a 60 gig ps3.. u know the ones that were 600 bucks at one point.. for 240. everythings cheap if you do your research.
@arstal: we have things called demos and reviews.
curly haired boy
@MrBionic: i'm sick of this.
you DO NOT NEED TO CONSTANTLY UPGRADE YOUR PC.
you need a 100 dollar GPU, a 100 dollar CPU, and a motherboard/other stuff to support them.
that setup right there will play any current game (save for crysis) at max settings until this console generation ends. Geez.
curly haired boy
@Mucki: see, the thing is, once you play the pirated game, you OWE the developers for that experience. it doesn't matter that you never INTENDED to buy it, but once you play it, you are indebted to those who made it. there is an inherent value to the game.
curly haired boy
@0xC001D00D: wow, so the only 'good' is to not even try to make a living off of doing what you love.
that's the 'pure' way to do it.
you guys act like folks don't have EXPENSES to pay. i wonder how many of you "content should be free" people would fare if you actually had to pay the bills with content you made.
curly haired boy
@abort_user: this is bullshit.
advertisers don't have anywhere near the level of 'control' that you're giving them.
besides, what real difference are you trying to point out? are you saying 'indie' games are some kind of anti-corporate philosophy?
they wouldn't be IN this position if people didn't believe they have a god-given right to any content they want. if indie games with ads is selling out, then blame the bad behavior of the audience, not the developers.
curly haired boy
@iliekpie:
Have you even looked at PC parts prices recently? $1300 on a graphics card!? You can get a 4850 (does fairly well with most games today, esp @ 1680x1050) for $100. Hell, you can get 4870's now for $140. PC gaming is so affordable right now, its awesome.
I still wanna know how you spend $1,300 on a GPU.
@Matt0505: it just pisses me off that someone would pirate a $5 game I mean come on people are you that fucking cheap? Most of you have probley spent more on your coffee and redbull hell even when I was a kid with no job I could come up with five bucks Id just have to do chores or something for it. I mean have we hit the point in our world where he have to steal a game that only cost a few bucks? Add to the fact that these guys are Indie devs which means every sale is needed. Dam it guys if you cant spend a few bucks on a game then you have no right to even bother playing games in the first place.
Befitzero
@JSPOOLE: You are sadly mistaken. Ever heard of Pacsteam? There's a whole world of "Steam Hackers" out there who do whatever they can to make every game free to the public... for reasons I don't know really. Also, I imagine if this isn't an online game, it really only requires steam to be accessed, so as soon as someone figures out how to make it standalone, its torrented infinately.
I was there, to be honest. And I'm glad I stopped doing it. I'd MUCH rather pay money than to deal with that crap again.
Steam does the best it can at being the remedy for the pirate in the realm of PC gaming, though, and I thank them for that.
ZaxCG2
@JimmyPewtron: ^^^correction I meant to say "Stealing and Piracy are two different things"
JimmyPewtron
@Altersparck: Personal theft and corporate theft are two different things, Pirates aren't stealing from individuals 'or taking food or clothing' off other people distort the argument as you wish that's not what's happening.
Stealing and theft are two different things, hence the different definitions, I guess we were all filthy "thieves" in your book back when people copied movies from TV on to VHS, at least that's how the corporations would label us and in a fair society a distinction has to be made.
JimmyPewtron
@iliekpie: Hardly lol. If you talking about top of the line upgrades, that's for playing games at WAY HIGHER FUCKING DETAILS than any console.
But if you just want to play with still good details (better than console still), it's not very expensive, around the same as a console. Only need to upgrade certain parts. And there's the joy of building a PC yourself and upgrading it. It's like a car, it's nice to upgrade and put your own touches into it. It's more than just gaming for PC users.
And $1300 is ridiculous. Yeah, if you bought a workstation GPU, but those only cost that much because their optimized for CAD functions. (3D modeling programs). Gaming GPU's are a lot cheaper. You can get an ATI 4770 for $100 bucks and it will wipe the floor with a PS3.
Kakkoister
@Keshie:
On your reasons for pirating:
01) Rent the final game. Borrow it from a friend. Play it at a friend's house. Read reviews.
02) This is what the minspec on the game's site/box will provide you. If it still doesn't work, then the company should help you sort it out.
03) Even if they are, there are devs working in the trenches for these companies who don't deserve to be laid off. They will be if the company can't sell enough copies of a game. And don't say "Then work for someone else!" You're under 18 (according to one of your other reasons), and I'm guessing you have no idea how difficult the jobs market is right now. Most people are happy to have a check at this point.
04) There's always a way to find something without breaking the law. eBay. Craigslist. Retro gaming forums. You're connected to billions of people around the world. You can do it.
04a) Get a checking account with a banking/debit card. That should let you purchase anything you want online. I abhor credit cards, and almost never use mine. This attitude has yet to prevent me from purchasing anything I want.
05) DRM infestation is a reaction to piracy. Pirating because it exists is madness. It leads you round in circles. If you don't like a game's DRM, the answer is simple: don't buy it. Don't play it. You're not magically entitled to play every game in the world. Either suck it up and deal with the DRM or don't play the game. My wife and I didn't pick up Spore (despite our interests) for this very reason.
To your reasons AGAINST pirating games:
01) Games rarely work perfectly right out of the box. Financial stresses on a company can actually make this problem worse. When a company is rushing to get a game out the door because they're desperate to make up for losses in the current quarter, corners can be cut. When they're healthy, making good money and not worried, they can afford to take their time and make sure the bugs are sorted out.
02) All companies should be doing this, but I don't feel that piracy is a reasonable response if they don't. They did something crappy so you break the law. How does that make sense?
03) You should be able to find indie retailers, unless you're outside of America/Japan/Europe. I do the same. "Reasonable price" bothers me though. What defines a reasonable price? Why should you dictate that? A company puts a price on a product. That is their choice. You either buy it or do not buy it, based on how you feel about the value of the product. That is your choice. Pirating a game because the price is "unreasonable" is BS. I hate to sound like one of those stupid MPAA adverts, but I'd love to own an Aston Martin DBS. The price is out of my range. Perhaps unreasonable. Doesn't give me the right to hotwire one and drive it off the lot.
04) I've never understood the issue with having the disc in the drive. Maybe because I'm so into console games. Why can you not put the disc in the drive? Does it kill you to walk across the room to get the case? This argument is pure laziness. As for DRM, I addressed that earlier.
I'm glad that you prefer to buy the game, but I don't agree with your excuses for pirating under certain circumstances. There isn't an excuse in any circumstance.
introvert
@NeVeRMoRe666: as i said before, if an indie company seeks corporate sponsorship, ie getting corporate ads in their games, it doesnt come free. those ads affect the games. the end message is:
"we would be a giant corporation but we just fucking suck too much but thank god we got ads! sure it might compromise our games vision. but man do we suck!"
but the game is no longer indie. and now it has to compete with the big boys. im pretty sure halo or any other corporate franchise runs circles around raycatcher (though i bet a lot of indie games run circles around raycatcher too...).
abort_user
@0xC001D00D: i started gaming with the pc. i will end with the pc. pc gaming is far superior than anything on the consoles even now in this so-called slump.
it IS is a niche machine. sure everyone has them. sure theres the casual market which means there are a lot of pc gamers. but non-casual pc gaming has always been a small market. sure it used to get more shelf space. but it also used to be vastly more profitable than consoles.
@sereal: for most people thats far more than they want to learn. an ex of mine, a straight a college student, thought trying to learn what a torrent did was too much for her. she was content with her laptop playing flash games on the internet. she also played consoles but no serious pc gaming. a gp...what??... my dad who is a fairly technologically minded person and who worked with computers before retiring, feels that the much of computers has passed him by and now he struggles to understand my simplifications. he normally just starts cursing at the screen! and he doesnt even game....
abort_user
@Greg Rassam: That's all too complicated for the average consumer. How is someone who knows nothing about how a video card works supposed to know what the best video card is without someone like you telling them?
And besides that, looking on newegg there seems to no "8800 GTX" on there. There's GTS, but no GTX.
@Altersparck: Oh, haha, I was just commenting on the game. It totally doesn't justify it. It's only 5 bucks, buy the frickin game. No worries, man.
@Nekusagi: And by you pirating games to avoid advertising, they're going to have to find some other way to make money that you and even more people won't like, increasing piracy and decreasing profits. And it will snowball to the point of killing the video game industry.
You're scum.
@Cururu: If everyone thought like you, the video game industry would die. Because of piracy, DRM and advertising will likely be in every single game sometime in the future. That means you will no longer buy games. This would in turn kill the industry and one of the few reasons for living in this world =/.
I'll admit to pirating games for the following reasons (and ONLY the following reasons):
1. I want to try before I buy. Demos aren't always representative of the final game, you know.
2. I want to see if the game even runs on my PC before I give them my money. Let's face it: Gamestop won't care if the game turns out to be so bugged it breaks my PC.
3. The devs/publishers are corporate evil personified and I don't care how much they lose. I'm looking at [i]you[/i] EA and all your bugged derivative crap.
4. I can't get the game anymore. Anyone tried buying Vangers or AVP Gold lately? If the game isn't available to buy new (or it's just ridiculously hard to get) then I'll pirate it.
4a. Sidenote: I totally support pirating a game if the only way to buy it is with a credit card. There's no good reason why someone under 18 and without 'acceptable' credit should be blocked from buying what they want.
5. The game demands online-activation, has a limited number of activations or just comes infested with DRM.
Having said that, I won't ever pirate games for these following reasons:
1. The game is available in a nice box with a printed manual and it works perfectly right out of the box.
2. The devs/publishers deserve to be paid for making a good game. I'm thinking of the likes of Muckyfoot and Firaxis and independents generally, but it applies to any company that supports its games with patches and updates.
3. I can just wander into a local independent retailer and buy the game for a reasonable price.
4. If they've no fucking DRM. I don't even want to need to have the disc in the drive.
I'm not lazy and greedy about getting the latest shithot game the day after it's released. I prefer to buy a game a few months after it's out and that's the point really. I prefer to BUY the game and have a decent pressed disc with all the trimmings.
Keshie
@JUNK: 9800pro was a amazing card. Best videocard I ever bought.
sereal
@abort_user: If people don't know how to research a expensive product before they buy it that's their fault. Tune the graphics till it works, if thats not possible return the game. duh!?
sereal
@VardonGeryon:
Just played the demo and i'd have to agree. If they took longer than 3 months to program that, I don't know what to say anymore
chibixleon
@0xC001D00D: Yeah, for the slight price difference, I'd suggest Audiosurf, as it seems leagues better.
nworobes
@NeVeRMoRe666: so Valve software is indie... interesting
@abort_user: i agree with you, like, totally
@brent_r: No it wouldn't as a pirated copy of a game is not like the original at all.. It's not like another car, it's like a fake version of the antique car. Collectors doesn't give a shit about an .iso, they only search for CDs\DVDs, possibly only boxed ones
@iliekpie: you can make yourself a good gaming pc with almost the price of a ps3 (without the monitor, but hell, you need to pay for an HD tv too) so that's not true at all.
And i run Crysis at max settings...
@abort_user: PC gaming a niche machine? LOL, let me try, you started gaming with the ps2 didn't you?
The more articles I've read like this, the more I end up supporting indie gaming. So instead of buying a £30-£40 title, I'll buy two, three maybe four indie games. I totally get why advertising in games is going to become necessary.
@death_to_midgets: You, my friend, are a rationalizing douche.
@iliekpie: If you upgrade after every other game you're doing it wrong. Just because you belong to a social mass that don't know what hardware to buy nor when to buy it doesn't make your argument against PC gaming valid. An 8800GTX is now almost a 3-4 year old card. You can run all games on that card including crysis at very high settings on resolutions beyond 720p. And seeing how most games coming out these days are multiplatform, that 8800GTX will last up until the next console cycle. It's always been this way. You have to know what graphical/processing trends are, and when they occur, thus knowing when the best time is to buy hardware.
It's a small price to pay to be technically proficient and know hardware, at least you wont have to pay sums like 2000$ or 5000$ all these PC NOOBS keep mentioning.
Greg Rassam
@Comatose Turtle: IT'S A.... TRAP!
@godot: It's on Steam frontpage so a lot of people knows about Raycatcher, but it seems less fun than Audiosurf.
@Altersparck: you didn't understand a word, so i'm not the jackass here, sorry.
Being Indie is about the spirit, an indie developer usually try to do the games of his dreams and live doing them, these guys are trying to make a good businness out of in game ads, so if it's true they were indie devs... they're now in the dark side, young padawan.
You guys can make all the excuses you want, discuss the specifics of which element is most responsible for the near-death of PC gaming, etc. It doesn't change the fact that when you pirate something, you're taking money out of the pockets of the people that made the game. When people can't make a living making games, they stop making games and look for another way to make a living. End of story. I make a living in the games industry, and I love doing it, but the day I find I am unable to provide for my wife and children doing this, I will switch to something else. Being passionate about what you do means nothing when you can't pay the bills and feed your kids.
12% of the game developers in North America are currently out of work. Is this all the fault of piracy? No. Does piracy contribute to this? Absolutely, and anything that contributes to this is bad in my eyes, especially as I was one of them for a while. I was lucky enough to find a new job, as my field is pretty specialized and in demand. A lot of the level designers, programmers and artists I worked with weren't so lucky, and are still trying to find work.
There is no excuse for piracy. None at all. If you feel the game is too expensive for what it provides, don't buy it. If you want to "try before you buy," rent it, borrow it from a friend or download a demo. If you throw the excuse of "I wouldn't have purchased it anyway," then don't download it... if you truly wouldn't have purchased it then you have no reason to download it.
Let's see... what other excuses are there? It's out of print? Find a used copy or NOS ("new" old stock). I collect classic games, believe me they can be found. You say you want to have a backup? Take better care of your discs. I have two young children who play games, yet the discs in our collection are perfect almost without exception. And finally, if you can't afford it, then WAIT UNTIL YOU CAN. Save up for it. Re-evaluate your expenses, see if you can make room for it. Our family has a games budget every month, we know what we can spend and what we can't, we watch for sales (cheapassgamer.com is great for this), we prioritize the games we must play and those we can wait for, we rent games we don't necessarily have to own.
There is no excuse. If you're making one, it's because you're too cowardly to just admit you're a worthless thief. I have seen projects I've worked on be negatively affected by piracy.. I know people who have experienced similar challenges as the guys above, and it makes me sick because they're doing their best to make something amazing and fun, something that isn't another cookie cutter EA game, and they're then pissed on by the very customers they're trying to entertain.
I guess the final excuse is that game developers make millions anyway. That one's not exactly true either. Sure Bobby Kotick, John Riccitello, Peter Moore and the rest make tons of money. But the devs in the trenches, the ones who actually make the games? Not so much. We're trying to make ends meet. We're dealing with rising gas, food and utility prices, just like everyone else. And when the companies we work for experience financial troubles, whether from piracy, the economic downturn, etc, we're the ones who suffer for it. Shit rolls downhill, and we get the axe, not the rich executives at the top.
You have no excuse.
introvert
@Neon:
I damn near pissed my pants at this comment. I assume its a joke to rile people up, so it is made of copious amounts of win.
@Vonhert: dude im a 24 year old guy, got my own place and all so i do appreciate the value of a paycheck, im not saying i pirate every game, I do buy the good ones but with the amount of trash on the market now adays its hard to determine the shit from the good every game has 9/10 10/10 plastered over its cover. I'd rather play something first before spending my hard earned paycheck money on something im only going to touch once, you wouldnt buy clothes without trying them on first see how they fit with your persona so why would you do it with games. Just cause i pirate games doesn't mean i don't support the industry when they do a good job, gotta spend my pennies wisely
death_to_midgets
@Mucki: How is that a dumb comparison? Whether a thing is physically tangible or exists only as ones and zeros is negligible. You're still stealing. Whether it's a car or software or baby food, someone still worked to make that product. In the end, you're still stealing.
As for whether it makes a difference to the developers, the next time you offer up that argument think about this: would it make a difference to you if you were paid only for a day's worth of work when you had gone to your job for a week?
@JimmyPewtron: I think you are the one who needs a lecture on fairness. You also deserve a lecture on what the definition of theft and piracy is. If we were neighbors and I decide to steal your car because I couldn't afford one, would you let me off the hook? If I got your credit card information and started buying myself food and clothing would you cry foul? What if I said that I couldn't afford it? What if I robbed your house and pawned off all your things because I couldn't afford a new toy? Would that be fair to you?
If you can afford it, buy it. I agree with you there. But are you really telling me that if one can't afford something, one should steal it instead? That's not fairness; that's a crime.
@supo: I personally think you look ilke Shit so you are better off doing us a favor and go Kill yourself. EA only pays huge amounts into advertising because they know their games are going to be crappy. Since they put a lot of money into advertising good screen shots, game footage, dumb people purchase it.
Vonhert
@Altersparck: Welcome to the recession of 09 where everyone is trying to make a profit to put food on their tables.
Vonhert
@1Grand_Marquis: True, couldn't agree with you any more. The majority of gamers just grown middle age/pathetic kids who live with their mommies and daddies to use their credit card. Once you have a job and realize how much work and effort it takes to make a pay check, then you start to appreicate the work/effort others put into their job.
Vonhert
Or sell it on consoles as DLC where it's a lot more cumbersome to pirate than it is on the PC...
Xsid
@Shiloa: I'm considering buying Raycatcher. I wonder how many other gamers like me might never have known about this game had it not been for this article. Of course this begs the question; would this article have been published had there been no piracy?
:o
godot
@1Grand_Marquis, I'm all for digital distribution.
@JesusDeSaad: Because you allowed (seeded) 50 other poor douche bags to have the game for free.
Don't you feel like a dumbass!
Vonhert
@Kobun "Honestly, I don't know why companies develop for the PC anymore.":
Because there are still people that buy PC games maybe?
And your logic is insanely flawed, considering you can easily pirate games for the 360, Wii, DS and PSP. Are you saying companies should only develop for the PS3?
@Cloral:
I totaly agree with you.
Music piracy isn't so bad, you can't pirate going to a gig or even hearing a radio in a shop (they have to pay royalties).
Film piracy isn't so bad, nothing beats the cinema or watching an uncompressed DVD or preferably blu-ray movie.
Game piracy sucks, because there no other way for game companies to get revenue other than to sell games. You don't sell games you close up shop in the game industry or use horrible DRM measures like securom which can cause major computer isntability.
Game pirates are a selfish breed, unless of course you downloading a game which is no longer manufactored (eg: the Freespace series). Downloading a brand new game is making the industry worse, it ups prices and it ups the harsh measures companies go to to protect what in fact, in law and in reality their property.
The typical reaction is "why should I pay for it", well why did you pay for that expensive gaming rig you downloaded Crysis onto? Why didn't you just break into your local computer store and steal the components? (and don't say they are different, it's a different means but the same end).
Raptr569
@Cururu: I'm totally with you against the quality argument. A game's price isn't tied to its quality and never was. It's tied to a standardized model based on the labor and resources put into the game. You're paying someone's bills, not raising your hand to an auctioneer because your art expert informed you of the game's quality, historical importance, and rarity.
That's like walking into a painter's workshop and saying, "This work is terrible! Give it to me for free!"
1Grand_Marquis
@iliekpie:
Abit In9-Max32 Wifi
Zotac Amp! 8800GT x2 Sli
4gb DDR2 1066
Core2Duo 3.2ghz
Crysis is probably only thing I can't run at decent frames on max settings (which is what I said). 1680x1050
About £800 computer there 2 years ago, PS3 and Xbox360 cost me about that much with the add ins.
PC Gaming is only as insane as you make it.
James Gornall
@Dragonzigg:
The same people that crack iPhone apps. A friend of mine wrote an app, I think it goes for $3, and he made several thousand off it, but he's decided to give it up because of his apps being cracked and having the crackers tell him "we're doing it for the people so they can test your app for free, you should be glad we're doing this"...never mind that he already has a lite (free) version of the app out. Pirates will justify anything, douches.
bitgod
@supo: There is an argument to be made here that this game would have never been given any press time whatsoever, by Kotaku or anyone else, had it not been so massively pirated in the first place. I didn't even know this game existed, for instance. Now I'm curious.
That's free advertising at work, right there.
1Grand_Marquis
@abort_user: Indie is short for Independent. There is no other meaning other than the way it is defined. Everything else is an association with the term but not the definition of the term itself. Being independent means you are working for yourself rather than acting as part of a conglomerate or a larger managing corporation. It does not mean skinny jeans with accompany acoustics. Words have meanings. USE THEM!
I pirate games to see if they'll run on my laptop. If they do run just fine, I'll go out and buy it. I've had demo's run fine while the actual game refused to actually work.
I also pirate music until I'm able to buy the CD.
I also pirate old console games you can no longer find new because money spent used games won't go to the dev's anyway, it'll just goto the owner of said used game selling company. (Which is why I think, personally, that it's actually illegal for Gamestop to do this)
If I did buy more digital distribution games, I'd prefer to give my money to the actual developers. However I prefer having a physical copy of the thing I own.
@QualityJeverage: For the record, I would totally buy a Zelda game willing to be that ridiculous.
1Grand_Marquis
@1Grand_Marquis: *most flash games /blarghNeedPreviewButtonOnKotaku... blah blah blah
1Grand_Marquis
@The Amazing Exploding-Man: hahahahaha
@Leanid: I played the demo. It did not convince me to buy it. Even if I pirated games, I wouldn't even bother pirating it, as I really had no interest in continuing to play it.
nworobes
@death_to_midgets: Good man, i do the same.
In retrospect, after I discovered piracy I actually buy more games than before because I simply pick the best and leave the rest.
Before I discovered piracy I would experiment by buying 2-3 games per year. Now that I know what I'm getting it's about eight games give or take one.
WHAT'S THAT?
The industry is getting more money out of me because of piracy?
And I'm happy with spending more money?
HOW CAN THAT BE?
@1Grand_Marquis: I played the demo, and it did not convince me to buy it. Not because I'm cheap, as even if I were the kind of guy who pirated games, I would not even bother pirating it. It did not really maintain my interest.
Maybe the gameplay really takes off after the first couple levels or something, but what I played barely maintained my interest.
nworobes
This is a great idea. Even if you can't charge pirates, you can at least show them some ads. The only problem being, of course, the ads would have to be hard coded in. If the game was supposed to connect to your server to update the ads, then it could also connect to check legitimacy... which pirates would most likely disable.
Well, I dunno. They still might make it updatable without DRM. Anyway, I think the overall idea's a good one... they just need to work on implementation.
Piracy is fine. Just add government support,like the BBC, with cuts from the military. Everyone wins. Give out the money based off of popularity and off of critical acclaim voted upon by esteamed peers - thinking Nobel Prize. Tax deductions for donations wouldn't hurt. Also, make it old school and get rich sponsers, 'dedicated to such and such who is so great ...' rich people love themselves so that works.
@iliekpie: THE MOTHERLOVING TRUTH IF THERE EVER WAS ONE.
@Hey_Blinkon:
"When you pirate out of print copies you devalue existing copies out there."
i dont know about this. i highly doubt that marvel vs capcom 2 will go down in value after the xbox live/psn version arrives.. same goes for x-men vs street fighter for saturn.. even though its been piratable for quite some time now.
im a hardcore collector, and the fact is.. anyone with a collectors mind doesnt care that they or anyone else can download it for free or cheaper.. its about that artwork, case, and disc. its people like me who keep the values of those games high and not the people who just want to play it.
@Ackers: ha!
optimusp
@MrBionic: Yeah, must flash games have 15 or 30 second ad slates at the front, while the game loads. And there are some that use a between-ever-other-level style commercial break format, if they're long-form and into that sort of thing.
Considering all flash games are generally free, I see it as just a minor nuisance. On the whole, radio commercials are more obnoxious than anything I've seen in video games, just in general.
1Grand_Marquis
@Cloral: Agreed. Anyone who pirates games is a scumbag. Especially these indie games.
It's a shame cops couldn't just hunt them down and shoot them. Someone who would pirate a 5 dollar game is of no value to society.
@Kobun: I'm not entirely sure that killing physical media is a bad thing.
1Grand_Marquis
@Shiloa: Any good?
1Grand_Marquis
@xrabohrok: oops, I meant this site: www.instantaction.com.
xrabohrok
@Cloral: I only pirate games just to piss all of you off.
Kidding, I only pirate music.
Kidding, I only pirate movies.
Ah who am I kidding, I only pirate Somalian pirates pirating pirates who pirate pirates of the pirate Caribbean pirates across the pirate seas, pirates!
Kidding, I only pirate the word "pirate".
Pirates: they pirate!
yeah... raycatcher...
xrabohrok
@Dragonzigg: Agreed. I'm not going to pull the whole ethics argument, because pirates generally don't care. However, EA isn't hurting for money, but the smaller guys need it. A couple thousand copies can mean the difference between success and bankruptcy, and the latter means you can forget about expansions and sequels.
Tiber
Good job pirates. Killing PC gaming one game at a time.
@Altersparck: Sigh, that's a stupid comparison, you don't actually take something away when you pirate a game. It makes no difference to the developers if you pirate their game when you wouldn't have bought it anyways. Still doesn't give you the right to do it, of course.
Mucki
@Cloral: Freedom of information (why do people call it piracy?) makes a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, we never paid to see art before it became mass produced; we paid to own it, and it's value went up with the demand for and prestige of the artist. Now that anybody can have that opportunity we get this arbitrary pricing system that puts the same value on a Friday the Thirteenth movie as it does on an Oscar winner. Frankly, the only reason I'd ever want a hard copy of anything is for a collection; and digital media these days really doesn't have any sort of raw materials or value in the end product (an image on a screen). Radioheads "In Rainbows" album proves that you can make a substantial amount of money without the need of a large corporation backing you up for funding. It also eliminates the demands of producers/fans in favour of the artists vision. These guys actually have the right idea with the advertising thing. Advertising is a form of art in itself and it will pay the bills for artists who want their work appreciated. Look how many people heard Chocolate Rain before Mountain Dew paid that kid a bunch of money to do a remix for them. If you don't pay for anything, ever, not even in a donation to an artist or anything then that's just wrong, but frankly I don't think that's the way most people will react to their favourite artists. Artists who release their work based on donations have the same profit opportunities as mainstream artists. Even though they might not make money on each download, the money isn't divided among so many people at the label/studio/production company and the artists themselves will see a lot more of it; their bank accounts will level out. Thus; everything should be free. I'm much more comfortable paying what I decide is appropriate for an artists work based on how much appreciation I had for their work than paying a huge corporation what they tell me to pay; but if there is no alternative then I'll happily hit up a torrent for it until it's price range and availability is appropriate for me.
Of course, I'm Canadian, so that might explain it.
Oddly enough, I made a two part YouTube video on this exact topic yesterday, but it mostly repeats what I said here so don't bother; I'm boring. Since this message was long I'm not even gonna bother to embed them...
Part 1: /watch?v=Mnki9O6nIgM
Part 2: /watch?v=4qcgZ_iU_qM
@JUNK:
Ditto that Junk. Lots of interesting comments. But the one that got me was bout abandonware. Abandonware is programs that are no longer sold/supported but the copyright is still in affect. I'm okay with downloading abandonware. I'm not okay with downloading (for an example) Far Cry 2 for the PC.
Yes we don't know how many of the 3,500 downloaders would actually buy the game. But I would say at least 10%, if not more. That is (350X$5=$1,750) and that could certainly help the creators with their indie game.
rabidkeebler
IDK, I just think the marketing model for games now is obsolete. Banking on profits on initial game sales doesn't seem attractive on the consumer's end. Maybe a more long term profit model would be beneficial?
Piracy is ok. It is merely the symptom of problem/problems that is not addressed. The extent of piracy that game developers should be concerned about, I believe that it is an indicator of how games their are/should be improved upon. Unless game companies find a way to control the consumer, I doubt we'd be seeing the last of game piracy.
@Dragonzigg: seriously.
pirating a $5 indie game is about the same skill/rep level as defeating your bed-ridden grandma at Dance Dance Revolution.
in fact, we should lampoon the group(s) that stole it for utter lack of ability.
3faced
@Cloral: I don't pirate PC games, but only because they can be had for obscenely cheap. How the heck could I be bothered to pirate Psychonauts, Team Fortress 2, Sam & Max, Painkiller or Darwinia when I can get all of them at brick 'n mortars for $4-6?
PS2 games, on the other hand... Although, I only pirate games I don't give a shit about. I'm quite proud of my collection of SNK, Atlus and Nippon Ichi games, and I want to support those companies. However, there is no way in hell I'd ever pay more than $5 for Liberty City Stories.
@charman: Yeah, I remember the ads in R6V. The way they were handled there was quite well. Ads are part of the normal everyday landscape, so seeing a Suduobucks on a virtual corner instead of Starbucks actual hurts immersion sometimes.
Robotic Bilbo Bagins has no use for fleshy ones
@Cloral: I do hate it how piracy steals from actual game sells. But for someone like me, who buys about a game a year, well. The only game I ever pirated was World of Goo last year, and it was the best game I played all year in my opinion, so I ended up buying the game even though I had already cleared it. So hmmm,yeah, I have no point.... just, can everyone please go and buy World of Goo?
@iliekpie: but these upgrades aren't exactly necessary by any stretch of the imagination. playing Crysis is on its maximum settings is a complete waste of money, yes, but there are plenty of high quality games that do not require these upgrades, such as pretty much any and all indie games (such as the subject of this article, Raycatcher). Hell, I was running TF2 on a Athlon 64 and a now 5-year-old ATI Radeon 9800 up until a year ago, all of that system was long "out-of-date" at the time, and I never ran into any problems, other than that ATI cards overheat like a bastard.
For every argument that says that PC gaming is dead/dying/exhausted, it's almost always followed up by the notion that PC gaming is too expensive, which is pretty much not true at this point - as long as you're willing to put in the research into building your own computer and not just dump money into a pre-made $2,000 Dell or $4,000 Alienware. Just because you can't play Crysis, that doesn't mean that PC gaming is over. And $1300 on a GPU? Please, I have a GeForce 8800 GT, which retails for about $100-200 from TigerDirect, along with a $70 Athlon X2 CPU on an $80 motherboard filled with features i don't even need, and the system ran the entirety of FarCry 2 on highest settings with absolutely no problems.
As far as the rest of these arguments, PC Gaming is heavily affected by piracy, but it's not going to die anytime soon. As far as the popular consumer goes, PC gaming has almost always been in the backseat to consoles. There have been plenty of hits, but most of the mainstream audience has never given a flying shit about PC gaming. It can also be argued that most people that legitimately buy PC games usually stick with them, while people who pirate games just want to grab the newest game to play, for free, for maybe a whole fucking day before finding something else to download, just like any other kleptomaniac. I used to do it all the time, my friends still do it all the time (one of whom called me a jackass for buying World of Goo), life goes on, and yes, i think that in-game advertisements are definitely the way to go for these studios that don't seem to make money in return. i just hope that we don't get something like a sequel to World of Goo with a bunch of Axe billboards in the background or some silly shit.
@Leanid: I bought it cause it was a measly five bucks.
In retrospect... should've pirated it.
@iliekpie: I hope you're joking, right? My 4870 was $250, and I can play every single game, other than Crysis, with 8x AA, 16xAF, ultra/maxed settings at over 30-90, and CSS is like over 250... Where the fuck are you getting 1300 on the GPU?
IoWn3rU
@Altersparck:You'd be surprised how often that happens to people every day, and is it fair that I and other hard working people pay higher taxes for the next 10 years to bail out corrupt bankers, politicians and the financial regulators, who get to retire on million dollar pensions??? paid for by the rest of us, or us lucky enough to still be in a job.
My belief is if you can afford to pay for it, buy it! if not, pirate it. isn't that what capitalism teaches us dog eat dog and all that. It's not me that needs a fairness lecture.
JimmyPewtron
If you see an Apple logo advertisement in a Sci-Fi game in a futuristic world, that logo should fit the time period and then it will be all good. Example: Back to the Future 2 when McFly goes to the future and sees and drinks Pepsi out of a futuristic can. Thats when ingame advertising makes sense and it can apply to any project. As long as it is created within the context of the game world then I am fine with it and I would venture to say it expands if not immersing you and grounding your player character in the environment and game that much more.
OMG a study just came out showing Pirates buy the most music, movies, games etc. When you are a total nut about media you simply can't afford to buy all of it. I personally don't have time to actually play games, but I have a nice setup so every once in awhile i'll try a game for like 5 minutes. I'm not going to pay $50 for 5 minutes. If I know a game is going to actually capture my imagination for more than an hour so that I can schedule my life around that for a little while then I'll more than likely purchase it. Marathon 2, Baldur's Gate II, Silent Hill. Those were worth it. I bought Doom 3 for $10 and it still hasn't payed off.
Nova Terata
To quote the legend that is Bill Hicks:
'Do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect, you're a corporate whore and eh, end of story.'
@High Speed Indeed: I was really just raising the question. But, if you don't care about the collector, why should anyone care about the developer? Isn't it the developer/publisher's fault that they no longer make the game?
I find it interesting where people draw the lines as to property rights. It's not cut and dry to pick and choose who to "care" about.
Hey_Blinkon
Yo, about raycatcher.. he's lucky he even got 1000 copies sold.. its a crappy game imo. You spin a wheel to put colours in the right order, its like a really lame version of audiosurf. Even the menu shows its quality is more like a free flash game than a game you'd pay for.
VardonGeryon
@Dragonzigg: unfortunately the thousands of pirates I've seen here are just children with barely a dime, no access to credit cards, and a lot of free time after school - enough time to bother searching for Steam roundabouts and whatnot, little ego spent on affirming they're a member of the adult society.
Then, there also are those with badass mentality.
@Hey_Blinkon: Or maybe they just want to make enough money to keep doing what they love.
@Altersparck: Funny how video games seem to be the sole benefactor of such "marketing." :/ The point of demos is to get people to try then buy. Piracy goes well beyond a demo or rental, leaving no incentive to make a purchase that isn't required to get enjoyment from the game.
@Cloral:
Piracy is okay.
Virussz
It's nice to see these folks being so diplomatic about it. "Gamers are voting" and all.
Piracy really has become disgusting, though. I won't claim to have never illegally downloaded anything, but I always use it as a try-before-I-buy thing. I've never illegally downloaded a game, though. Even Mother 3, I bought a copy before downloading the emulator.
I hate thieves with such a burning passion.
@Hey_Blinkon: So what you're saying is that pirating old, out-of-print games hurts the collector market, right? Why should someone who is a gamer, but not a collector, care if the collector market crashes?
I think it's complete bullshit that someone will pay upwards of $100 for some old obscure game, and that just goes into some other collector's pocket, and the original developer gets nothing.
Meanwhile the guy that paid $100 is probably just gonna put it on a shelf and hardly, if ever, play it.
Really... why should we care?
I love this idea. I'm all for in-game advertising as long as it's done tastefully and within the context of the game universe. For example, real-world ads might not work so well in Grand Theft Auto because so much of the humor in that game comes from the fake advertising; however, in something like Burnout, I'd have no problem with it.
kylenalepa
@SinisterSkull: Steam isn't pirate proof but it's more hassle than just buying. It's very convenient for legitimate users, so only those who really aren't interested in paying for games (and you can't do anything about them) are pirating things that appear in Steam.
Narishma
@iliekpie: Yes it would devalue the original.
An antique car has collector's value exclusively because there are a limited number of them in existence.
brent_r
@Hey_Blinkon: who cares about devaluation of end-users' collection? The only indirect downside is that the guy you bought the game from won't collect money for additional new games to the planned ones, to increase revenues of current developers by up to 15% (price_of_old/$60). Provided that said seller won't just go to McDonalds with that extra cash...
Why not simply save-up the cash that you'd have paid for postal services, and buy extra games on a whim (be it indie or pro) - to ensure that cash goes to developers, instead of McDonalds. You can even hunt-down the devs that made that old out-of-print game that you just pirated, and buy their current in-circulation ones (which you wouldn't have otherwise even demoed). Win-win.
@abort_user: Many Valve fans love to say Steam is piracy proof. Honestly, I don't know why companies develop for the PC anymore. Fact is the only way to pirate proof a game is via console digital distribution. I do believe piracy is going to end up killing physical media.
@hodayathink: Stoya's personal Android developer: i suppose. i know it seems kinda silly. but even indie people want money. im sure there are indie companies looking for ad space and video games help to reach a younger demographic. i would have much less of a problem with a sub-pop records ad in raycatcher than an interscope records ad.
but if you have an ad from a big corporation there are going to be strings attached. the game is hardly indie then.
but in all honesty ads or no ads i doubt ill play this game.
abort_user
@JimmyPewtron: Would it be fair if you showed up to work, expecting to be paid and wasn't? Would it be fair if your boss decided to make the work you did from 8am Monday to 5pm Thursday all volunteer time and pay you only for part of Friday? Is that fair, jackass?
What if your employer decided to only pay you one-eighth of what you earned in a month? Would that be fair?
@kidko: as i explained things are locked out in a demo you dont get use of all the features so you dont really know how long it will play out when everythings unlocked, and in reply to cururu if i dont intend to purchase a game after 3 hours of gameplay its gone never to be seen again, i never complete the games i download just use them as a taster to how the games going to play out
death_to_midgets
I can give you two good reason why people d/l pirated copies of Indie games:
They have no way to legit way to buy them, lack of credit card etc.
Many indie devs do not release demos of thier games so getting a pirated version is the only way to try before you buy. Yes i am aware there is a demo for Raycatcher. @Cloral:
SmokeyTab
I just think if you're going to pirate something, try and limit it to things that aren't available new anymore. Don't pirate things while you still have a chance to give devs some return for their hard work. I mean, shit, it's not like if you're low on money there aren't thousands of games that fit into that category that you can pirate with a slightly cleaner conscious.
@Hey_Blinkon: But at the point when the only person that can profit is fellow end users, should the majority really lose the chance to enjoy a title just so the resale value stays high for that minority? Once we start talking about old games (and I mean old), I think you seriously have to start considering that there should be some room for the spreading and archival of older games, especially classics that can't be found outside of eBay. If you think of gaming as an art, anyway.
I mean, I can think of at least one title that can't be republished due to legal reasons *cough* that's such a startlingly well woven title and far ahead of its time that it's practically a crime for anyone who considers themselves a student of game design as art not to play through any means necessary.
P-Flute
@abort_user: What, exactly, is an "indie ad"? A poster for the latest album from Sub-Pop Records?
Very good article Owen. I hope Kotaku keeps on doing more articles such as this one. Although I do enjoy reading the quick and straight to the point articles usually offered in blogs I think we need more "feature" articles such as this one. They help to entice discussion and enlighten folk about things they might haven't known about the industry.
Now that people rely more on the web than in print for their news we need to borrow the good aspects of print and emulate them...or even make them better.
again, kudos and keep it up!
@-Hairball-: That still doesn't justify piracy. If you steal a car, but then decide it wasn't that good of a car, that doesn't absolve you of the crime; it just makes you a dumb thief.
@Cururu: Yeah, how about just getting the actual demo
@acidcrownie needs to learn how to use Photoshop.: Not that I'm accusing you of it, but that doesn't justify piracy.
@Hey_Blinkon: I used baseball cards as an analogy - would cars work better? Just because they replicated the car doesn't devalue the original. Same rules apply to OOP pirated games.
iliekpie
"But pirates had also made 35,000 copies for free."
Im Interested to know how they came about with this number.
spectralpulse
@Derek Rumpler: well someones always going to want something for free. but you cant force that person to buy a game. people always tout these numbers like pirates are potential customers. some are and generally those buy the game at some point. but if someone has it in their mind that they dont want to pay for a game, theyre not going to pay for it. simple as that. even if piracy wasnt real there would still be other ways of obtaining a product for free.
the more successful your game. the more pirates you will have. but if you want to maximize your profits put out a quality product.
abort_user
@supo: Marketing tools usually pay off for those who use them. If you can clearly demonstrate that of those 35,000 pirates, even 1,000 will actually buy the game, then you can call it a marketing tool in the loosest sense of the term.
@Codemakura: persians????
*runs away*
@Secret Agent Cow3.14: Bingo, dude. In-game advertising can be good when done in context. Doing them in a blatant manner will just turn away the intended audience.
@The Amazing Exploding-Man:
You are a cretin
gaanbo
@Cururu: That's true to a point, I mean I'd rather give it a try (although there is a demo I believe) than fork up even 5$ for a game. Call me cheap, but I'd rather put that 5$ towards another game. But obviously there are a lot of people who pirate just because "hey its free games!".
supo
I didn't even know you could pirate games on Steam 0.o
@GnatB: If your interpretation is correct, then I would agree with both of you. I buy my games. I don't like DRM or in game ads. So I blame pirates that such things are necessary. I also blame the companies that take things too far with both advertising and DRM, but I can easily punish them by not buying or playing their products.
Cururu
@iliekpie: Right. So they hold a value to the person, personally. But of course they have a monetary value? You really dispute this? It not the same as baseball cards, because you can't PLAY baseball cards. The video game has a collecting value, and a use value. People pirate games to play them. Thus, the game is at least of some value to them. Both collection and play values determine the financial value.
Hey_Blinkon
Realistically, you expect people to just hand money to some no-name company for a product you have no idea what the quality will be?
Gaming dollars are limited (even not assuming piracy). People will be risk-averse when it comes to game buying.
I think without the ability to pirate- that 5,000 sales may have been 500.
arstal
@Derek Rumpler: well in all honesty i oversimplified because the thread was oversimplified. sometimes it helps to look at things from the other side.
but if an idie game has corporate ads it doesnt really feel very indie now does it? but if an indie game had indie ads it might ad to the indie feel. but even indie companies want money. i just happen to think that these people are going about it wrong and selling one of their major selling points right down the shitter.
abort_user
@jikifreak: Pirates are why we can't have nice things.
@Hey_Blinkon: No it doesn't, people who pay OP prices for games are collecting them to collect them as a hobby. The hobby is the same concept as baseball cards
iliekpie
@0xC001D00D: What's wrong with mainstream? Would you rather those devs toil in obscurity, selling 5,000 units and having 35,000 stolen?
If a game is fun, it's fun. Whether or not it's "mainstream" or "indie" has jack shit to do with it. And if you're one of those people who can't enjoy something because others enjoy it, well... I could call you a jackass, but you might enjoy it too much.
@The_M: I like this analogy. I might have to use this one in the future.
@iliekpie: I wasn't really making a moral judgment. But, the value of everything is subjective to the buyer. Supply and Demand. If there is less of a game I own, and people want it, it is worth more if I sell it. If they can pirate it, it's value inevitably decreases, and people would pay me less for my legit copy.
Hey_Blinkon
@Cloral: I agree with you, but I have long since learned its not worth arguing with "pirates" because you're not going to change many minds.
@abort_user: I also agree somewhat with this, but I don't know if its true that making non-shitty games will make someone want to own a copy. What's to stop someone from taking a successful game just because they can get it for free? Either way, it hurts the industry.
I don't think there needs to be a crackdown on the people downloading content illegally, but I do think torrent sites that let people upload what they want(not torrenting itself) should be illegal. I think that might make piracy a lot more manageable, but then again, this is said out of complete ignorance of torrenting technology.
@PSOCecil: Also, wow, that makes me sound young... never having bought PC Doom, but buying GBA Doom.
For the record, I had Mac Doom growing up, as I didn't have a PC until I was like... 12 or so.
@The Amazing Exploding-Man: If games weren't stolen as soon as or before release, we wouldn't be in this situation. Serial numbers, remote authentication, SecuROM, Star Force, and all that shit came about as a response to PIRATES STEALING GAMES.
Intellectual property laws have nothing to do with it. The core reason is that pirates steal games and developers and publishers had to do something to stem the theft; we consumers are the collateral damage in that war.
And hey, if IP laws were neutered to the point that any game (or software) released did not enjoy any sort of legal protection, then there wouldn't be any incentive at all for any developer or publisher to operate in that market. Why would you spend thousands if not millions of dollars in development if you can't recoup that investment? Or worse, if you had no legal recourse when your property is stolen?
The next time you think of saying something as blatantly ignorant as your comment, stop for a moment and mull it over. Ask yourself if you really want to be this dumb and inarticulate in public. Or, should you want to go through with this display of ignorance, bring some data or studies or whatever to support your argument. That way, at least, you can walk away knowing that you've proven yourself to be an articulate jackass.
@JimmyPewtron: How the hell do people making $5 a weeks afford a computer, or internet? Would it be okay to you if these people stole these somehow, in the name of a fairer market for all of course.
I find it impossible to swallow your second argument.
dustforged
I thought you couldn't pirate on steam?
JSPOOLE
@potatojenkins: Of course, the reason there is no rental service is because of people like you pirating games..
lulfas
@Hey_Blinkon: The value of OOP games is subjective to the buyer. This is hardly a valid arguement
iliekpie
Anyone remember when you could go to the movies and not be subjected to ads before it started? Every time I go now I still have that..."Wait, I'm paying $10 for a movie and someone gets to show me an ad." moment.
akidderz
@Cloral: - "Anyone who says piracy is ok is a total jackass."
AGREED 100%. I'm fucking tired of these selfish assholes that assume a privilege that they don't deserve. Truly, the internet has turned a lot of people into selfish assholes who truly don't understand the repercussions of their actions. They say, "one guy downloading it doesn't do shit" ... but they never take into consideration that 30,000+ other people are saying the exact fucking thing. I still say pirating something is just like stealing. Fuck pirates.
@charman: I have never pirated a PC game, closet would be downloading a torrent of Company of Heroes because I bought the game and could not install by DVD. Now other software...
@James Gornall: Wrong.
Compare specs and money (key here is money) going from Counterstrike to Mass Effect to Crysis. You can spend easily over 2,000 upgrading everything, hell 1300 or so on the GPU alone. You playing at max settings getting a minimum of 18fps on Crysis? If you answer yes, I call BS right there. Anyway - after you've added all that up, compare it to console system.
Like i said, upgrades killed what was left of PC gaming; not pirating
iliekpie
@supo: That explains how they heard of it, but it still means that they were too cheap to pay for it and felt entitled to the product of someone else's labor.
Cururu
My feelings on piracy are simple.
Buy what you intend to buy. If you REALLY intend to purchase it, it's about self control. However, that's really for new/currently-on-the-market games.
If something's really old.. I tend to avoid buying it again if I just, say, lost the disk, or own it on another console (like say, buying GBA Doom, but never bought PC Doom, so I pirated PC Doom). Oh no, id lost out on a $5 (isn't that it's Steam price?) purchase because I pirated a over-10-year-old game.
Also, I'll buy a PC game if, say, the CD crack doesn't work well. Case in point, GTA: San Andreas, it kept crashing with CD crack, so I bought it for $10 at Wal-Mart. Whee.
@abort_user: I don't know, I definitely don't have the knowledge these two yet (I'm taking programming courses), but I consider myself "indie" and want to make money.
I guess it depends on how you define "indie". My definition is freedom from a corporate environment. It doesn't mean I don't want to make money and if this is the route that these two want to go, shame on people who essentially told them what they "couldn't do" with their project and stole it.
@Cururu: I agree. The issue here isn't DRM and the like. DRM was created because people were pirating, not the other way around. Pirating will occur. It's a shame. I, however, am not one of those people who believes just because it will occur means I have to sit by and not do anything.
The issue here is there is no moral or ethical standing for someone who illegally obtains someone elses property. I believe many people out there quantify such actions by claiming stupidity/ignorance and would honestly rather not realize how it affects the people they are stealing from. When they finally do admit it's theft, the answer then becomes, "Well they're rich fatcats (ie EA, Activision, Sony, Microsoft) so they deserve to lose money." Really? They make money because people ARE willing to purchase their goods. And when people don't they have to subscribe to MORE shitty titles.
This topic can go on forever but the bottom line is as follows:
Pirating is a douchebag move. Want to know about the game, find a review site you can trust. Most games now days also support demos. Just because YOU pirate doesn't mean you're not a douchebag. Live up to it and just admit to yourself you're justifying it. Your reason is seperate from the act. You pirate. You have a bullshit reason.
The End.
-Adam
ApocalypseVII
@Matt0505:
Piracy is a big deal, its just not something we as a consumer can do anything about.
Balls in their court, but as some have said previously. its usually us who pay the price.
James Gornall
The lesson from all these comments is quite simple:
1) Piracy, when it hits an indie developer, is bad. We all shed a tear and lament the state of piracy hitting indie developers, because indie developers are precious little angels who aren't in it for the money.
2) Piracy, when it hits a big developer, is okay - in fact, we applaud it. And then we bash the developer when they try to compensate for piracy through DRM, DLC, or IGA. Hey big-time developer! We want and expect your games for free - and keep making them better!
Kotaku commenters: doling out wise advice to the gaming industry since never.
PontiusPirate
@death_to_midgets: If you are using the pirated copy for a demo then I assume that you immediately delete the files from your computer after you are done with the demo, correct? This also begs the question: How long can one play a pirated copy before it is no longer a demo?
Cururu
@QualityJeverage:
It would never mean a cheaper game, at least not for the consumer.
These extra profits will never, ever be passed back to us in way of lower base prices for new titles.
What does however is piracy, a company has to compete with people getting it for free. Thats quite stiff competition so in theory they should give us more incentive to buy, not ways to make it more profitable.
James Gornall
Am I the only one wondering how they could possibly know that 35000 copies of the game were pirated?
Also, won't the pirates just nix the ads from the game before re-distributing it?
@Ackers: Oh gross, you found his "a douchebag" Keep it away.
Hey_Blinkon
It's terrible that passionate indie developers like these two people need to resort to in-game advertising all because of those shitholes who don't want to spend 5 bucks! Pirating a game made by a large development studio? That's too bad. Pirating a game made by a small scale indie developer? Pretty much unacceptable! Pay for it or don't play it at all you greedy fucks!
Grind_Axis
@James Gornall: Sounds like my comp, except without the majority of games working on highest settings; you must've gotten some insane Alienware.
CosmicElement
@BigBadHarv:
Absolutely,
DRM only works when a game isn't pirated successfully. After that its just a pain in the arse for legit consumers.
I have tonnes of games running with NO-CD cracks because I can't be arsed pulling disks out of drawers constantly.
James Gornall
@WordMan: Ironically that's exactly why I pirated Bejeweled.
I prefer my puzzle gaming ad free, thanks, and I'm not going to pay $20 for something I can play free on my browser just to have my high scores saved.
I would not pirate a single PC game if there was a service like gametap, for a small fee, but with the selection of games that wasn't absolutely fucking awful.
The fact of absolutely no rental service at all existing for PC gaming is a real damned turn off.
@Rory Michael O'Sullivan: When you pirate out of print copies you devalue existing copies out there. No matter how you look at it, it is an injustice to someone.
Most people don;'t care though.
Hey_Blinkon
@abort_user: I oversimplified. Piracy isn't the only reason, of course. But PC gaming used to be a much healthier market. Back in the 90s you would see rows in stores devoted to nothing but PC game software. Now you would be hard pressed to find a quarter of the previous space devoted to it. Meanwhile console gaming has grown to fill whole departments (which is not a bad thing; I just wish PC titles had kept up).
Cururu
@Dragonzigg:
The same stupid people who pirate regular games.
Gam3r
@Cururu:
I'm assuming by "more reasonable" he means stricter, not less strict. Presumably he's saying that if more countries actually had IP laws, and actually prosecuted IP law violaters, then there would be less piracy. Or at least, the fees from the violations would be used to pay the victims.
Personally, I'd have to agree with him. IMO IP laws, even in the U.S, aren't nearly tough enough and prosecuted well enough. Admittedly, I've never had a problem with DRM keeping a game I've legally purchased from running correctly, or in any way, shape or form messing up my system, so don't particularly see why people complain about it.
GnatB
@Dragonzigg: This is why we have DRM. Pirates ruined PC gaming for honest consumers.
@iliekpie:
Quite a large overstatement.
Aint upgraded my Rig in over 2 years. When I bought it 2 years ago it wasn't top spec. Can still play the majority of games on highest settings.
Crysis been the ever present exception.
James Gornall
@Cloral: I pirate games that are out of print, that can only be found 2nd hand in poor condition for high prices and that purchasing the found version would give nothing to the developer.
I make games myself (not commercially yet) and I know that if I ever stopped selling a game I'd probably release it for free but definitely would prefer if people pirated rather than paying a 2nd hand seller for my work
Rory Michael O'Sullivan
@The_M: Totally different consumers, I think. I doubt that those with the monetary resources to spend more than a dollar on a cup of coffee would be stealing games.
@supo: All in all, I just hate reading articles and seeing how exagerated the numbers can be. You make a game that looks like it will be shit, then people aren't going to buy it. You don't market your game, people aren't going to know about it and won't buy it.
Like I said, torrents and whatnot are a form of marketing. Just not the preferable kind :p
supo
@Hey_Blinkon: This is true.
If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck...
in game ads are tacky, just like billboards and commercials irl.
Cold calls.
door to door marketing.
all of it is repugnant.
Do something else to make your money, like...make a game that is so good people will respect you enough to pay for it after they DL it for free. (which really, is the consumer saying 'i dont want to pay for a bad game or a bad rental')
I think it has more to do with the fact that Raycatcher was not that great and people wanted to see if it was any better with their own music, which it likely wasn't if the "sales numbers" are anything to go off of.
I'm not justifying piracy here; all that I am saying is that for a game that no one knew anything about, was not exactly marketed, has visuals that I've seen independent flash developers put to shame, and did not have the same appeal as a game such as Audiosurf, the developers were expecting too much just because they put it on Steam.
Before I pass judgment on the "people are voting" statement, I would like to see the numbers for something like Trackmania Nations Forever versus Trackmania United Forever. For those not in the know, Nations is available for free and in its own right is a rich game, but for those who want to support Nadeo, United offers a ton more tracks and skins.
i feel bad for these guys because they are obviously passionate and dedicated to making games...
but shouldn't they be paying the pirates for free advertising. how much does it cost to advertise on kotaku? i am on steam every other night and never noticed this game.
meandurmomcampin
@JimmyPewtron: So many excuses. Do you actually believe all of that?
Cururu
@Cururu: That's not how it works.. cracking groups will release it, and someone will grab it and throw it on torrents, available for all to see.
supo
@Sam_Lowry: Heh.
A hardball stance like this is both amusing, and confusing.
There are other explanations here than just "Bloody Pirates!" Maybe their game just sucked?
I'm glad that they're exploring alternative revenue models. This is something that the industry has needed to do for a while. My problem is that the 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale myth has been debunked time and again; yet people still wave that flag around. How many of those pirated copies were played once and then deleted, or left to take up space on the pirate's HDD? The world will never know.
Now, it's impossible to deny that increased connection speeds, the rise of bit torrent, etc. have hurt. But what evidence does anyone have (especially in the case of an Indie game)to say that they would have done substantially more than 1000 purchases at all?
Yes, pirating is bad. Yes, the industry needs to find ways to combat it without turning their customers in to criminals. Does piracy kill games? Jury is still out on that.
Other thoughts:
1. Time-limited demos. I really like the time-limited demo that popcap did for Plants vs. Zombies. It was the full game, not some stripped down 15 minute experience from a stale build. I purchased the game because of it. Other examples would be the frequent "Free Weekends!" that Valve offers on the games available through Steam. They have REAL metrics that show how much sales of those titles increase because of those demo sessions.
2. There is such a thing as too cheap. I'm not a marketing person by any stretch of the imagination, but I've seen the kinds of questions our guys ask. If a product is too inexpensive, it can send a negative message to the consumer. They assume that because your product is so inexpensive that it must be of inferior quality.
3. One of the bigger problems (bigger than piracy, imo) that I can see with Indie titles is the sheer cost to create them vs. the potential for sales. $100,000 dollars is still a HUGE chunk of change for your average person to put together. However, a garage band with a much less substantial investment can put together an album, record it and press it. They also stand a much better chance of seeing a return on their investment. They also have more revenue streams available to them.
PEWPEWGreenLaser
I bought RayCatcher on it's first day since I like those types of games (REZ, AudioSurf) but . . . it's really lacklustering and a letdown.
Piracy is an issue, but I think the game needed alot more work. Even for 5$, I didn't feel like I got my money's worth.
Alexander Calderon
@NeVeRMoRe666: The dwindling PC Gaming industry is dwindling for a heck of a lot more reasons than piracy alone.
Might want to take a deeper look into the outrageous hardware costs and expectations of having to upgrade that hardware far faster than most people can/want to afford... for one example.
@Dragonzigg: The kind that says, "it's only 5 bucks". Sad, but true. As fun as it was to swap music from each other in the days of WinMX and Napster and Kazaa, I'm afraid some day the pirates are going to win, only to find out that by stifling creativity because of their pirating, Nintendo isn't going to make a new Zelda and SqaureEnix isn't going to make a new Final Fantasy because they wont be profitable. Not that that will probably happen or anything, but is it not a possibility?
SuperSonik
@Fallible.:
I don't have a problem with in game ads; most of the time I don't even notice them, except probably on a subconscious level. I can only remember a few examples of in game ads and most of them were car company ads. Dodge had ads in both Crackdown, and GRAW. There is another American car company ad in GH3 (I think), your stage is one big advertisement. And the other one was for the movie "shoot'em up" in Rainbow 6 Vegas. That last one was the only one I actually liked. It was well placed, and wasn't plastered over every wall.
charman
@Matt0505:
Ninjas>Gamestop>Pirates
SaanZ
I played the demo, it promised something, didn't deliver and I didn't even thought about pirating or buying it.
the thing is, the demo itself was terrible because you couldn't actually test what it promised and it sounded like a poor man's Audiosurf rip-off.
and Audiosurf has the whole competitive stuff.
I'm not trying to justify piracy, but it's here and there's no magic to undo it. so either ignore it or try to offer the best value to the consumer so he has to buy your game, which today is basically requiring a key to play the game online, but not simple online play: leaderboards, continued support, etc.
salaminizer
@Dragonzigg: what kinda bastard would call himself indie and then put ads in his games?
abort_user
@iliekpie:
...except that most people HAVENT pirated
SaanZ
@Cururu: I see pirate games as demoes, you get to give the game a try before actually buying it, without any of the little bits locked off like they do in official demos, i downloaded sims 3 yesterday and after a couple of hours play im quite intrigued so i will prob pay for the game.
I know no developers start thinking how can we make a shitty game, but trying to meet deadlines severly destroys the quality of a game and more and more games seem to be rushed now meaning lower guality games.
Im not condoning what alot of people do ala gta china town wars i bought that game after playing with it on my r4. the point im making is for me anyways piracy is just a form of a demo if its worth more than 6-7 hours play ill more than likely buy it
My ps3 is the only console i own that isnt able to play pirate games and i have like 2 games for it, I own atlesat 25 for my 360 and have about close to 100 pirated games for it that ill never touch again
death_to_midgets
@Neon: I think the console gaming industry is doing fine without your "help". Unless you're only pirating PC exclusives, you're hurting the same devs who make console games.
@Hey_Blinkon: well there are ways to do that; ending up win-win. Just listen to your fans and make stuff they want. People will buy your stuff, and they won't think you're in it for the money cause you're making it for them anyway.
Many times, producers and developers just want to put new things across and explore their own creativity, that's great and all, but not everyone will think you're idea's the shit.
It's hard to see game developing companies that have a really close relationship with their audience these days. They just think they do, and boy are they wrong.
@Cururu: youre kidding right? pc gaming is a mere shadow because most people arent technical minded and dont want to think about gpus, cpu, etc when they go to play a game. even if you know all those things theres no guarantee your pc game will work out of the box. most people dont see the point.
pc gaming was never big. there were big games. but there still are. just like there are still pc gamers. its always been a niche machine.
software piracy has always existed. not just on pcs either. the successful famicom disk system had it. the wii has it. its everywhere. its a fact of life. the moral: dont make shitty games and people will actually want to own a copy.
abort_user
Who needs RUGS?
@charman: and a hypocrite.
iliekpie
@JimmyPewtron: The dwindling PC gaming industry would like a word with you.
@Cloral:
Anyone who says they haven't pirated anything is most likely a liar.
charman
@supo: Obviously at least 36,000 people had heard of the game on day one. 35,000 of them were just too cheap to pay for it, but felt entitled to the product of someone else's labor.
Cururu
Well they can go out of business for all I care, I don't support games or companies with in-game advertising.
Sam_Lowry
@MrBionic: "Hey Mac! Join Club Nintendo today!" said Doc Lewis after my first bought.
Cloral
@supo: audiosurf is a quality title. i havent played raycatcher but it looks crap so i wont even bother. personally im surprised people even bothered to pirate it...
abort_user
@Leanid: That's what I said Leanid. If it were truly worth it im sure they'd be making money. But who knows, it is always ONE variable and that variable is piracy..../s
It's just like product placement in a film, it might put you off but it won't ruin the experience.
But, I hope this refines the current pay by in-game advertising model which is slowly starting to become popular. Games are cheaper that way, and the devs still get their money. Everyone's happy.
Except from the awkward ones who don't want the in-game advertising.
@death_to_midgets: If the game isn't good, why do you bother pirating it? It obviously has some value to you. Share that value with the developer and support them. If you can't afford to, don't play it.
Cururu
Piracy is good and healthy for an industry, it keeps a fair balance between large corporations and the average hard working consumer, you'd all be paying $40 for music CD albums and their would be no such thing as iTunes etc if it weren't for piracy. The balance has probably shifted towards the consumer but this simply makes up for previous inbalances in favour of corporations.
It's evolution towards a fairer market for all, those 35k pirated, were they all downloaded in the USA?? or from countries where people earn less than $5 per week?? These people wouldn't be buying the game in the first place, they should think themselves lucky they sold 5k during a major recession.
JimmyPewtron
@SinisterSkull: no. steam was never meant to be pirate proof. it was meant to be resale proof.
abort_user
@Neon: lol. What the fuck is wrong with you?
@Hey_Blinkon: DS/PSP/Laptop on the can... at least it passes the time nicely. Just be sure to wash your hands.
@Neon: Now that's a new one.
@SinisterSkull: HAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha ha ha ha ha.... hee hee...
Oh, that's a good one...
@Leanid: ive seen it advertised on steam. looks like it sucks. big time. some games you just know... even the forums there have problems with it. the low sales are probably related to that.
abort_user
@QualityJeverage: They could always be clever about it and put, say, a Roots logo on Link's tunic :D
@death_to_midgets: You have the choice to purchase the game, a developer doesn't have any say when you choose to steal the game. That's the moral difference. I'm sure no developer has ever started a project by thinking, "hmm..how can I make this game shitty?"
Plus, often the best games are the ones that are the most pirated- GTA:Chinatown Wars for example.
@Cururu: Pirating didn't kill PC gaming, upgrading after every other game did.
iliekpie
@Neon: ...
I guess that makes sense if that is your objective. Seems to be working rather well too.
Cururu
@Neon: your a douchebag
That's actually a really interesting approach to both development and piracy at the same time. I want to see this work, at least they didn't opt for DRM.
Another thing is that I don't get this "try before you buy" excuse people give. Use other tools like reviews and youtube videos to figure out if you like something or not. I didn't get to steal my new Airsoft gun to try it out and return it for a sale. If you make a bad purchase, its your own damn fault. We're lucky we have demos.
@WordMan: Um. that already happens to some degree.
I played the demo of raycatcher, and I really didn't like it. That's just me, though.
Raycatcher is not really much of a game in fairness, I really doubt that many of the people who had pirated that game would have got it if piracy wasn't an option.
I guess one way to deter people from pirating is to threaten them with in-game advertisement that cheapens the experience.
....Nah, that probably won't work.
@The Amazing Exploding-Man: What exactly do IP laws have to do with this case? On the first day the pirated copied outnumbered the legitimate ones by more than two to one. Do the developers of the work not get to control their product for even a day now?
I'm guessing you're one of the short-sighted people that believe that there's no such thing as IP. I'm also guessing that you've spent much more time consuming the work of others rather than producing it yourself for others to consume.
Cururu
@NeVeRMoRe666: Errr...summer.
@Cururu:
I PC pirate not to play those games, but just to make the numbers bad and support console gaming
Neon
@Hey_Blinkon: Ghost "Fuckin" Busters comes out this fall...
Here comes a perfect example of the point that guy made in the Gamestop column earlier in the day.
Everyone ran to that article to bash the hell out of Gamestop, now watch the masses come here to dance their way around justifying piracy as not being that big of a deal.
Matt0505
@Hey_Blinkon: Have you played Jekyll & Hyde for the NES? 20 minutes with that will have your mouth pooping all over the game.
Damn, those are some fine eyebrows.
Not OK: A pause before a boss in a Zelda game to say "This boss brought to you by MOUNTAIN DEW: NEW HYRULE BERRY FLAVOR!"
OK: A game set in a city has billboards for Axe body spray.
---
I don't have a problem with advertising as long as it doesn't interrupt gameplay and at least makes SOME sense in the game's setting. Sam Fisher using a specific brand of phone? I can buy that.
For the games where that doesn't make sense (Like Zelda, as above), perhaps they could insert ads into the beginning of the game. I wouldn't be too bothered by a 20 second commercial played before or after the developer logos when I start the game.
If it means a cheaper game (As well as some guaranteed, piracy-proof income for the developers) without sacrificing the game itself, I'm all for it.
QualityJeverage
@Hey_Blinkon: The original Silent Hill, and to an extent F.E.A.R. worked wonders.
No, the problem here is that nobody has even heard of this game. If you don't market the game, you'll suffer in sales. The fact that there was 35000 downloads (if thats even true) says something about how piracy can be a marketing tool in a sense. Clearly not the best way to do it as we don't know how many of those people will go and buy the game, but maybe that says something about the game's quality.. Audiosurf has a similar premise yet it sold pretty well I think, even being 5$ more expensive.
supo
I wouldn't mind too much if John Shepard asked for Jack Daniels and coke in one of the conversation wheels. Or may be Honda tossing Little Mac a box of Advil before the match started saying you'll need it for later. It'd be a problem if you get commercials as loading screens though.
As games start to become more like movies, we'll start seeing more subtle ads creeping in games when companies start doing ads right and not have a bottle of Axe deodorant sitting on a wall in the middle of a firefight.
piracy is ok, ok maybe not the whole idea of it. But when companies allow piece of shit after piece of shit to be released on the market it gets kinda annoying paying $50-$60 a pop for a meager 2-3 hours of entertainment that you will never touch again. I pirate games all the time but if i do donwload something I really enjoy I will go and buy a retail copy to show my support (e.g. call of duty series, bioshock) I think the solution to piracy is to actually make good games and not just throw out garbage all the time, if developers make a decent game people will be happy to pay for said game.
death_to_midgets
I'm kind of the opposite, I have no problem buying a $5 game if it looks promising. But I feel in-game advertisement has been done so wrong in the past, and so out of place like he was saying that it just starts to annoy people. I'm not big on blatant advertisement, I'd just prefer some that my mind filters naturally.
NewSpecies
If piracy continues like this, sooner or later we'll eventually have commercial breaks during game sessions.
WordMan
@The_M: Yeah, but coffee helps me poop. Games have yet to do that :)
Hey_Blinkon
@Wibnar: Which is why PC gaming is a mere shadow of what it used to be even ten years ago. If you think that's OK, then keep on pirating. Just don't be surprised when you run out of booty to plunder on the high PC seas.
Cururu
@The Amazing Exploding-Man: LOL
Hey_Blinkon
But I thought Steam was pirate proof...?
@The Amazing Exploding-Man: *facepalm
Sounds like a viable alternative. But, saying "I don't want to do anything the man-ish" is kinda lame. Its like saying, "I want people to buy my stuff but still think I'm not in it to make money"
Hey_Blinkon
Well thats how gaming is these days. Anything comes out, its pirated. Too bad too. So many developers deserve the money :(
jikifreak
"Raycatcher"
What? Never heard of it.
Leanid
Just wrote a paper on the issue of DRM and the biggest problem is that there really is no balance between punishing a pirate and punishing a consumer. The consumer usually gets shafted in the end while the pirate finds a way around said DRM. In-game advertising really is a good idea.
@Pirates: Put your talents to better use than pirating games.
Well, I just bought Raycatcher for the sake of it. Bloody pirates.
Shiloa
If IP laws were more reasonable people wouldn't have to suffer like this.
The Amazing Exploding-Man
@Cloral: Piracy is nothing new if you go in the industry you have to know about high piracy especially for pc.
Wibnar
so piracy leaded them from indie to more-mainstream-than-EA? Uhm.
PLEASE SUPPORT INDIE DEVELOPERS, don't let them turn into monsters D:
@Cloral: Piracy is okay.
The Amazing Exploding-Man
I have no problem with in game advertisements, that is assuming that those advertisements are implemented within a complete, appropriate, game. Generally, it's bad games with in-game advertising that bares the brunt of frothing at-the-mouth fans (see: movies).
That said, I can't help but feel that developers are using piracy as an excuse, the diving platform if you will, for something that they were already planning on implementing regardless.
What kind of bastard would pirate an indie game made by just two guys and costing $5? Regardless, it's good to see they've been exploring alternative ways for them to get their dues.
shame people will spend 5 bucks on a cup of coffee thats gone in like 20 minutes but won't spend money on a game that provides up to 10 hours of gameplay.
The_M
Anyone who says piracy is ok is a total jackass. See what it does to the people who make the games you enjoy?
Cloral
@Chrysolite: But the human rights violations are what makes Kenya AA beans taste so damn good!
Teira
@BigBadHarv: Are we talking pirates as typical 'pirates', or real pirates? Your typical 'pirate' is a penniless mook with no real technical skill other than finding torrents and less ability nor incentive to contribute anything of value to society. Sponge comes to mind: possibly useful to wipe up some shit with, but otherwise only useful in a decorative sense.
'Real' pirates, I agree. To all the future Frank Abignales out there: Get yourself a job writing security code for banks, or companies like Amazon, Ebay and Apple.
@Valnen: No, that simply means we'll all just have to play excellent Stardock games in the future, as well as any other forward thinking companies that don't waste precious development money on useless DRM.
However, if they DO have to use ingame advertising, they should handle 'ads' like William Gibson did in Neuromancer and the rest of The Sprawl series... write about how viable and successful those companies are in the future, and have THEM beating a path to your door to be in the books. It's a LOT more immersive if the future companies involved are ones you've heard of for years, and can totally picture making the leap in technological progression.
@Wibnar: Exactly, which stops a lot of developers making games for the PC in the first place.
@Cloral: I never got into the whole pirating thing. I've had friends who did it, but I'd just feel bad. The only games I have pirated are games I already owned for other systems and I wanted to see if they'd run on my pc, since you can't rent or return pc games. ...
... also ROMS. I do have quite a few ROMS, but by this point, who really cares if I'm stealing Rygar... I mean comon.
The problem is people don't like paying for bad games even more than they do decent ones.
Going by the reviews, their game isn't that good.
R0YB0T
@QualityJeverage: I'm sure someone will do a No-Ads crack
@Kobun: honestly i don't know why you don't shut your mouth :\ console fanboy
I honestly wish I first pirated Raycatcher because the game is so badly glitchy and pointless. Since there was no demo I had no idea how bad it was and thought for 5 bucks how bad can it be? Well it's so full of bugs it should have never been released in that state...
Eric Fine
@curly haired boy: i said "trying to do the games of his dreams and live doing them", I'm a game programmer and i'm in the industry since 2006, paying my rent and so on. It's true piracy is a big problem and it hits the indie devs more than big names that can afford muultiplatform development, but it's not true you can't live out of indie games. Maybe it's only true you cannot get rich
@abort_user: When it comes to games, hardly. Remember how City of Heroes was going to have ad-supported revenue to keep it afloat a few issues back? Or how Anarchy Online had switched to a free to play game with ad-assisted revenue, and an ability to pay a small fee to allow for the disabling of said ads? You really don't hear much about those efforts at all these days. EA has tried implementing ads in select games as well, and I'd be willing to bet it hasn't really made much of a splash there either. Don't try to lump games in with passive entertainment media such as television or film; they're completely different beasts.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@Derek Rumpler: Yeah very appropriate.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@NeoStarr: I'm also Canadian.
A few points here:
You do get to decide what is appropriate as a reward for your appreciation of an offering. Namely, you can either accept the price they are offering for their IP (and if you truly appreciated someones work, this shouldn't even be an issue), or you can walk away and hope for a price reduction at a later date. At no time are you able to dictate price to the person who has created the very thing you have some interest in. Personal feelings of entitlement do not enter in that equation.
Everything should not be free. You claimed that indie developers would have their bank accounts level out - had you not read the article? These guys are 10k in the hole, and have only 1k in sales. They quite clearly mentioned that they'd be unable to support themselves under the current situation. They are a tiny company and deserving of some respect here. It's not only *your* feelings that matter in all of this!
Finally, in response to, "and digital media these days really doesn't have any sort of raw materials or value in the end product (an image on a screen)", you are completely dismissing the value of their effort. Let's say you pirate something and then for whatever reason (power blackout in some other part of the world, phone lines being worked on, etc) you lose connectivity to the internet. For the sake or argument, let's say that you've somehow also lost access to this favored game and due to the lack of internet access, can't simply log back on and torrent it again. Wouldn't you feel as if you'd want to play it still but were unable? I'd imagine it would almost be like a smoker having run out of cigarettes. You still think it would have no value to you?
The point to all of that, was that your emotional investment in the game IS the value. And for developers to be able to deliver that to you, they should be rewarded, and not be at the mercy of anyone who arbitrarily feels like paying or not paying for something.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@Cloral: That line cracked me up. Yes, it's a shill for Club Nintendo, but also a nice call back to Doc's similar line in the NES game.
@Pikachu Mariachi: Will electrify your piñata.: Kudos to you at least for buying the game in the end 8)
Colin Craig Pattinson
@JUNK: My only fear here would be a pirate somehow being able to hack the game so that billboards and other forms of advertising were somehow disabled, but the core game remained playable. Games played from a browser seem a good counter to something like this, though.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@SmokeyTab: Conveniently, you fail to mention that there can be workarounds to this, such as the use of a PayPal account or a bank card that can be used like a visa card.
Additionally, how do you demo an emotional experience? When you pirate the full version of some software, and then play it through most or all of the way until you beat it, you'd be more then likely highly resistant to the idea of forking any money over to the developer as you've just beaten the game. The price that developers charge for games isn't only for the license to play the game in ones own home, it also represents their willingness to share with you an experience that was crafted for your enjoyment. Do you try to trick your favorite restaurant out of a meal? It's much the same thing here.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@abort_user: It's ridiculous to present an argument that pirates will only be interested in downloading substandard programs. That's disingenuous at best, precisely due to the fact that pirates are actively seeking out games that are 'worth their time'. The problem is that all of this stems from desire. They see something they want, they go after it, having no care for how it was made. I fully expect to see at some point in time in the possibly-near future, a system akin to what Blizzard uses for WoW. As much as it may suck for everyone involved, companies may feel forced to go with something that requires the game to communicate with an authentication server just to be able to play a game, regardless of whether it's online or not. Crack that code, and suddenly you have a junk download, unless you find a way to bypass the authentication. The real question in all of this though, is why haven't the pirates rewarded the developers of the games they most enjoy? That's more pressing issue here.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@Cururu: Because its kinda difficult to determine if a game is good or not without a first hand experiance. Keep in mind reviewers are doing it based on what THEY like and not what YOU like.
reluttr
@Befitzero: I agree this is sad, its even on steam is what is puzzling...
I might had understood if it was on games for windows live and was some odd point price like 1200 so you had to pay for the 1000 points AND the 500 points, then you was left over with a odd point value... "did I mention I hate GFWL?"
reluttr
@Cururu: In fact, the last time I'd entered a local Electronics Boutique, they had a single rack (!) for PC titles, everything else was devoted to Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony products. And this was at a high-traffic store no less.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@abort_user: You have got to be kidding! Pirates simply download whatever strikes their fancy, irrespective of quality. If it's an unknown or badly-rated game, they're just downloading it as a 'demo', 'trainer', 'trial' or some other such garbage. They seem to ESPECIALLY want to pirate something if it's of high quality! This holds true for DVDs, games, and productivity software. The very last thing on their mind is ever paying for any of those things, because they have the conceit that they are above reproach. Stop defending these individuals. Gaming is a privilege, not a right.
Colin Craig Pattinson
@curly haired boy: Even if you're right, 9/10 people are barely intelligent enough to find the power button on their premade Dell piece of shit, much less know what the difference is between a 5400 and 7200 RPM hard drive.
@JesusDeSaad: I know this is a controversial topic but I fully agree. I don't necessarily pirate every game I'd like to play but I do my damn research beforehand, and it has served me quite well so far. I rarely will buy a game for full price without trying a demo and reading multiple 9+ reviews.
I still get burned occasionally but even with games like Mirror's Edge and Mass Effect for 360 I either knew and expected some flaws or received a nice discount. (Mass Effect was $20 and I beat Mirror's Edge 3 times before making $25 back on it. I consider both of those major wins.)
But on PC, yeah I'll give something a look, maybe even run through the single player campaign.
Interested to see how this new adventure game of theirs turns out.
billnabors65
@death_to_midgets: I'd rather play something first before spending my hard earned paycheck money on something im only going to touch once
There you go. You're a pirate. Stop trying to justify it. If you wanted to simply try before purchasing, you'd be satisfied with the demo. You know, the demo that's not good enough for you because it's a limited version of the full game you wish to pirate and play for free.
@azr: My logic is flawed? Then how are people pirating XBLA games? I said specifically, "the only way to pirate proof a game is via console digital distribution."
@0xC001D00D: It's not a matter of being a "console fanboy" but rather looking at how easy it is to pirate on the PC and how it is affecting PC development. You must have noticed how the bulk of what comes out on PC these days are either subscription based MMORPGs or console ports with an ever dwindling amount of original content. I just think game development is too costly to risk on a PC title that can get pirated to death with a single torrent click. I enjoy PC gaming, but I'm not blind and see it going downhill from how it used to be. :/
@MrBionic: I just don't want to get to a point when Link walks into the Boss chamber of a dungeon and just as your about to see the monster it cuts to a Dorritos commercial.
WordMan
@dredgman: People actually believed that? That's kinda cute.
arstal
1) Rarely an option for people these days. Thank DRM, DD, and the decline of video storess. That ship has sailed.
2) Like those numbers are truthful. Many companies, especially the big boys, lie here.
3) I'll agree here. If you don't like a company, don't play their games. Pirating is advertising for them.
4) Not avaliable to everyone.
5) DRM is about shutting off used games. Publishers know DRM doesn't affect piracy. Either publishers who use DRM are idiots (quite likely), or they're doing it for another reason. Non-Intrustive DRM such as Stardock's is ok in my eyes though.
Reasons against
1) Should we settle for that? That's like grabbing ankle. If companies can't release a working product it's on them.
2) Legality and morality are separate things. Also, there is no real threat from this law, unless you do something stupid like download a popular movie or music where they have the means to enforce such things.
3) It's known that pricepoint and piracy are directly correlated. This is one reason piracy has much less of an effect on sales then the amounts say: most pirates aren't customers, and wouldn't ever buy the game anyways.
4) It's annoying to switch games, espcially if you game on a laptop. I hate it in consoles as well, which is my console is ONLY for games I can't get on PC. If I can download one small file to avoid that aggravation, I'll do it in a second.
BTW my rules on piracy: if it's actively being sold in my market- I'll make a good faith attempt to get it. I have NO problem buying then DL'ing cracks to get around DRM garbage, though I'll usually just boycott- I don't play enough games where I need to settle for shovelware crap. If they're not trying to sell it to me, I don't care as I'm not hurting them.
arstal
@ninjafetus: Those ads would hurt the game potentially, in which case it wouldn't even be good enough to be pirated.
If the game is popular enough, the pirated version would take annoying ads out.
This idea is snake oil, and shows the low quality of this company to me.
arstal
@cametall: PC gaming won't die as long as good companies can make profits off it- such as Stardock.
It's shovelware makers like these guys I don't care for.
arstal
@curly haired boy:
Which aren't trustable. Reviews are largely about payola these days on most sites- look at the Gamespot and IGN debacles over the past 1-2 years.
As for Demos, they can be misleading as well, and take just as much effort to get as getting the full version off a torrent site.
(the risk factor for pirating an Indy game is even less then a mainstream game as well, as they don't have the resources to go after people)
This is not a defense of the act of piracy, but it is reality.
arstal
@death_to_midgets: I don't understand the "piracy as demo" argument.
I hear people say this all the time and I really don't think it happens all that often and still hurts the industry regardless.
For one thing, this practice really hurts the smaller developers who create "good" games. I mean, say you pirate a game that excellent - maybe you actually buy a copy. Great. Or maybe the game is AWFUL then maybe the devs don't deserve your money. But what about a game that's maybe a 7/10? These games are good enough to provide a few hours of fun... but not necessarily something you'd run out of your way to buy. So what then?
Besides, I don't know how many people actually follow through and buy games they pirate.
negitoro
@Kobun: Your logic is flawed because digitally distributed titles on consoles don't sell nearly as well as retail titles. Are you saying people should stop developing AAA titles and only make games like Flower and Braid? I enjoyed both of those games greatly, but I would choose GTAIV and COD4 over them every time.
As for your assumption about PC games these days, it's very bias. There are just as many great games coming for PC as consoles, why are all games that come on both console and pc necessarily console ports?
Look at MGS4 they have apple computers and also sony ericsson phones in it but they are discrete. sure they were sponsored but it turned out to be a good advertisment for the products
Edward Vella
@Gargus: I think in-game advertisements could be transparently incorporated into the game. Right now, wall textures may include, for example, torn up posters of fictional products. Soda machines standing around have fictional soda and fictional brands. Billboards and neon signs in games advertise fictional items and services. In-game radio and television, fiction. All of these things could be redesigned to maintain thematic/artistic integrity while depicting "real life" products, brands, items, services, etc. This fully integrated and transparent in-game advertising would not detract from some game play or experience. Better than banner ads and other more blatant advertising. No?
@Blue_Six : Can I really be the an hero?: Is this significantly different from crippleware or other shareware models? Are those models known to be successful? I'm thinking that CoH/CoV frequently releases more content in small pay-again packages. Is this closer to what you mean?
@Cloral: Agreed... and look how it trickled down to effect others, not directly related to the game.
These guys are borrowing money from their friends and family to pay their bills... and now those people are now dealing with a lack of money... all due to the sefishness of a gamer who doesn't feel the need to pay for the products he want's to enjoy.
Piracy is just selfish... no matter how you look at it. And anyone who supports it, should be downright ashamed of themself.
lolomfgisuck
In-Game Advertising
I'm thinking about some of the funny stuff we liked in Wolverine, like discovering a WoW reference or a Half-Life reference. Those could be said to be in-game advertisements for WoW and Half-Life. And if Fallout's power-up soda pop were actually brand names like Red Bull or Coke, you'd have an in-game advertisement. If the random billboards and wall posters in sci-fi games were papered with RL product names and brands, you'd have in-game advertisements. If the in-game radio programs (as in Fallout or BioShock) included comic or otherwise entertaining advertisements for real products, you'd have in-game advertisements.
In other words, it is my thought that you could possibly incorporate all kinds of in-game advertisement things in an interesting, cute, entertaining way that adds value (or at least doesn't actively detract value) from the game. Even, possibly, resulting in affection for the brand, when you considered integrated in-game advertisements as opposed to popping up banner adds or cover screens, which would result in disgust and annoyance in the brand. Thoughts?
@reluttr: I dispise GFWL what a piece of shit software that thing is only reason I put up with it is to get my fallout3 DLC and then I move all the stuff over so I can play it offline.
Befitzero
@Colin Craig Pattinson: Huzzah!
@NeoStarr: Honestly, I stopped paying attention the second you non-ironically used the phrase "freedom of information" to refer to piracy. It's the equivalent of referring to grand theft as "wealth redistribution"; technically true, but it doesn't come close to the whole picture.
@iliekpie: Oh, so that's why WoW is so popular. All the upgrades. Good to know.
@abort_user: Except for the part where pirates pirate good games more, then come up with some crap excuse for not buying it.
@iliekpie: Which is irrelevant. If an ex-con speaks to kids about how a life of crime is bad, is he a hypocrite? No, he's just condemning his own past actions.
@Gargus: "Get over yourself,"
That saved me the trouble of reading the rest of your post. I know know you are a self-centered narcissist. Thanks!
"If a company makes a product worth buying people will buy it. Like sins of a solar empire had no security, no disc check, no cdkeys or anything and it was on top 10 pc games list for like 5 months straight because it was a good game."
And World of Goo did the same thing, and had something between 80% and 90% piracy rate. Except in rare cases, like Spore, people are going to pirate anyway, and come up with all sorts of rationalizations for it.
"bleznski said gears of war 2 was ruined by torrents and threw a tantrum cause it was out 2 months before launch, well when gow2 launched it sold 2.1 million copies in a day."
That's like saying someone who steals a thousand dollars isn't committing grand theft as long as they're stealing from Microsoft.
@reluttr: If only it were possible to talk to actual people with similar tastes to yours.
"The first day, it sold 1,000 copies for $5. But pirates had also made 35,000 copies for free."
So, how many people are going to use that "I'm just sampling" argument? Anyone? Anyone? You in the back? No? Okay then.
@Shiloa: I just pirated Raycatcher to make up for your throwing money at them for sympathy, developers don't want your pity!
Actually planning to download the demo tonight, figured I would give it a try at least.
Kyoya
@Cururu: Um, I can see not buying the product in this example because they are talking about supporting their game only through in game ads and having it be free. The main argument with in game advertisements people have are that they already paid for a game, and are paying for ads also. If you don't pay anything to begin with that argument is invalid...
Poorly done ads can ruin a game, but if they are done well and are in a game that is free anyways, what is the harm? Sure you have to look at an ad while you are playing a game, how many hundreds (if not thousands) of ads do you see in a day anyways? A few more to play a game and have some fun when it costs you nothing else is worth it I think.
Kyoya
@Kobun: by limited i mean that certain weapons are locked out, parts of levels locked out etc etc.
@negitoro: it doesnt matter if its a 10/10 or a 1/10 if i enjoy it for 3 hours and still want to play more I will pay to play it more.
Not that many people do actually go through with purchasing the games i never used to when i was unemployed, i was more interested in keeping upto date with releases but now i can afford to support the industry I do, so long as I enjoy the game first, same goes with movies and music, I download them to but only if I enjoy them will I purchase a legit copy
death_to_midgets
@Cloral: How is buying a game used different than pirating it? The money still does not go to the developers pocket.
@Cururu: Yeah, but look at the gaming market then compared to now. Lots of people had PC's, but far fewer had a nintendo or sega system. When Sony came in and really ramped up the level of quality and power, it brought people from the PC market into the console space. Then we see the level of competition and saturation rise as we get Xbox, Dreamcast, game cube, and then PS2. Now, we only have three console competitors, but PS3 and Xbox 360 directly compete with PC gaming due to their high system specs.
The PC is just not the gaming system of choice anymore. I still prefer some games on PC, but it is easier and more enjoyable to sit in a lazyboy with a gamepad and a HD TV. I know I could hook my PC up to my TV and do all of that stuff, but again, that's not what everyone is willing or able to do. Console and hand held games have taken over because there are so many of them and people are buying more of them. They command more shelf space.
But I also don't agree with piracy, i'm just saying piracy is not the driving factor in my opinion.
ankhenaten
@abort_user: A desperate one, of course.
gdamascus