What does DRM achieve, and does piracy equal lost sales?

[RSIK_4]

I just now read this blog it provides a good solution to fight against piracy

here is the link : http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/seven_ways_stop_piracy_without_drm

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

And I believe the better way to keep piracy from making it impractical to deliver games at a profit is to make your costs so low and your profit margins so high that you will turn a profit even in the presence of uncontrolled piracy.

Of course, that will drive up the price of games and force all of us to pay more so that freeloaders can get them for nothing. If you are so charitable as to pay for their games, the more power to you.

GOG were looking into an opposite experiment - i.e. reducing the prices, trying to measure whether it will increase the number of potential customers and in result would be more profitable than less customers with higher prices. I didn't follow whether they actually got any results or even attempted to do it in the end.

 

[Glaroug.531]

GOG were actually looking into an opposite experiment - i.e. reducing the prices, trying to measure whether it will increase the number of potential customers and in result would be more profitable than less customers with higher prices. I didn't follow whether they actually got any results or even attempted to do it in the end.

Do you have an evidence of that? I'm not doubting your words :, it just sounds like quite a gamble on their part, as they're prices are really awesome to begin with, especially combined with fairly regular sales.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I'll try to find that thread on the GOG site.

UPDATE: Here it is: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/new_pricing_experiment

 

[RSIK_4]

here is d link on gog for on post regarding

piracy

http://www.gog.com/f...y?search=piracy


http://www.gog.com/f...1?search=piracy

 

[GuyNwah]

GOG were looking into an opposite experiment - i.e. reducing the prices, trying to measure whether it will increase the number of potential customers and in result would be more profitable than less customers with higher prices. I didn't follow whether they actually got any results or even attempted to do it in the end.

I do not think the comparison between GOG and new titles is a meaningful one. GOG has minimal development and promotion costs. It can make a positive margin on minimal prices. A developer can't do that with new titles; it must recover the original development and promotion costs with a limited number of sales. While there's some elasticity where a lower price may mean more sales, there are limits to that, a price point below which you can't go without cheapening your image and a price point below which you can't go without selling at a loss.

 

[Glaroug.531]

UPDATE: Here it is: http://www.gog.com/f...cing_experiment

Thanks!

EDIT: The Pink Scorpion is absolutely epic. Too bad Blizzard didn't do something similar, like a kill cow horde, Diablo, player becoming corrupted, etc instead of DRM.

 

[Mataresa]

Well I know plenty of people that crack their own legally bought games, cause they want to be able to play them offline or without CD/DVD. Heck, they even download them from a torrent, cause the CD/DVD is in one place and they are staying at another at the moment.

 

[CostinRaz]

Attempting to stop piracy is a waste of time, the best you can do is to try and convince those that can and would buy your games if they had incentives to do so, but these people are a minority as pirates and that's simply a fact.

With regards to the legal rights to copyright: That's assuming laws for such things prohibit people from downloading and using a song, a movie or a game, and quite a few countries do allow it.

 

[Kaldurenik]

Well this topic sure went to places.

Its no secret what my opinion on these things are as we have argued about this many times on the forum. And my opinion is still the same.

In a market where publishers are happy to crap out games on a yearly base without demo's and then throw in some "paid" reviews and other fun things one have to ask why not?
When a guy go out and say "do not make a demo... if people see how shit the game is then they wont buy it"... "Its better to just hype people with a awesome trailer" then one have to ask what the hell is going on with the "gaming" market in general.

This is one of the new markets here in the world and its also the one where laws and rules and so on are so far behind that its kinda sad. In general as this topic is about. You have lots of politicians that have been chosen by the people that basicly only listen to what lobbyist groups are saying. Pushing for laws to give corporations more power and consumers less. Heck why would you NOT want that if you worked for one of the large corporations?

Anyway if i remember my numbers correctly the average pirate buy more media then a none pirate. Why? No idea... Maybe they are exposed to more games and there for dont just buy the latest and greatest "AAA" title on the tv? Maybe some pirates want to support some devs when they do enjoy the game?

In the end i guess i dont care if YOU pirate a game. I dont care if you pirate every single game that is released. The only thing i can say is that IF you enjoy the game and want more of said kind of games then buy it so they can make more games.
Please dont sell pirated copies or make money from it as you are a scum if you do that.

And no i dont see any moral problems with piracy i guess that makes me a bad person or something. And yes if i could copy a car and make it spawn next to me i would do that think of all the problems we would end in the world =)

 

[wichat]

Speaking of the devil is dangerous but not so much than speaking of God. DRM is not a reason to perform illegal acts but paradoxically encourages them.

The massive introduction of the Internet in consumers' daily lives was quickly exploited by the big distributors to sell their products. They invaded websites with all sort of advertising possible, (banners, pop-ups, spam). Consumers we find massive bid as a single click of our hands, which was the easiest way to acquire them without having to have a valid credit card upon.
Unfortunately, amoral ways with which large companies seek to get their benefits faster collided with the insatiable consumerist monster they had created themselves. For the vast majority of people who illegally downloaded a product from the network, the act could not be that harmful. One or two games can not harm mega-companies like those. BUT ... even for all existing companies (A clothes store where a t-shirt has been stealed a greengrocer where an apple disappears mysteriously ...), when a single product is multiplied by millions disaster is served.

Piracy? That's not the problem, really very few profit from the piracy business. Shoplifting (even digital)? Unfortunately we are not aware of the consequences that ALL commit these thefts.

So the big companies do not know how to deal with this problem. Piracy is legally easier to fight for them than these millions of small thefts. If I am offered every day dozens of different products and all appetizing and I can not afford them all, and they will not stop repeating that I MUST have them, what do I do if I'm not morally formed?


I'm not defending anything, just try to reflect a sad situation from my most humble opinion.

 

[luc0s]

Except you know piracy isn't stealing. Whatever moral wrong a person who pirates a game is committing he is still not a thief.

*FACEPALM*

Yes, piracy is stealing and yes, it is theft and yes, if you're a pirate, you are a thief.

Please explain to me how you think you "know" piracy isn't stealing.

 

[dragonbird]

However passionate you all are about this topic, please avoid making personal insults.

 

[luc0s]

I don't understand why my post is being down-voted. Does that mean people disagree that piracy is theft? It boggles my mind.

Please by all means, explain to me why piracy wouldn't be theft.

 

[Mataresa]

*FACEPALM*

Yes, piracy is stealing and yes, it is theft and yes, if you're a pirate, you are a thief.

I don't know Costin, but it sounds an aweful lot like you're being apologetic for piracy, and that behavior is against the rules of this forum.

No he is right, there is this stupid little video on youtube about piracy. Theft includes that the owner doesn't have the item afterwards. Piracy is a copyright infringement though, which is just as illegal. That is what he was referring to.

And I strongly disagree with this forum rule, that saying that all side effects of piracy might not be bad (free publicity for example) is equal to promoting piracy. As soon as we stop being allowed to view difficult topics from all angles (the positive and the negative sides), we stop bein objective about it and then we can stop discussing it completely, cause it has no more worth. That this is embedded in Polish law is even more worrying to me. After all this forum is not a democratic open structure, but a company owned place.

Being German and living currently in Hungary, I always feel very uncomfortable, whenever I feel, I am not allowed to speak my mind.

 

[umair2012]

I didn't read the whole article but my answer for the title of the topic is "False"
I don't think 1 pirated copy = -1 Legal Copy .
I also used to think the same like 6 years ago but I was wrong , DRM or blocking used games is not a valid option to stop piracy . More than 90% of people who pirate never buy the game no matter what . Those who intend to buy will buy anyways either by pre-order , buying on first day of launch or trying the game out .
Game industry and Game journalism have ways to go , we are no where near close to other industries . In other industries , makers of the product respect the customers as much as possible to sell their products (which is first law about marketing a product) , while in game industry customers get DRM and are treated like 2nd rate consumers .
Treat them better and they WILL buy your games .

 

[umair2012]

I don't understand why my post is being down-voted. Does that mean people disagree that piracy is theft? It boggles my mind.

Please by all means, explain to me why piracy wouldn't be theft.

The opinion you have today was the opinion of most people on these forums 5 or 6 years ago and that was wrong .

 

[dragonbird]

I don't understand why my post is being down-voted. Does that mean people disagree that piracy is theft? It boggles my mind.

Please by all means, explain to me why piracy wouldn't be theft.

Thank you for editing your post - the downvotes were from before the edit.

And I strongly disagree with this forum rule, that saying that all side effects of piracy might not be bad (free publicity for example) is equal to promoting piracy. As soon as we stop being allowed to view difficult topics from all angles (the positive and the negative sides), we stop bein objective about it and then we can stop discussing it completely, cause it has no more worth. That this is embedded in Polish law is even more worrying to me. After all this forum is not a democratic open structure, but a company owned place.

Being German and living currently in Hungary, I always feel very uncomfortable, whenever I feel, I am not allowed to speak my mind.

The thread is still here, in case you hadn't noticed.

 

[luc0s]

No he is right, there is this stupid little video on youtube about piracy. Theft includes that the owner doesn't have the item afterwards. Piracy is a copyright infringement though, which is just as illegal. That is what he was referring to.

The little video is wrong.

Theft is taking something that isn't rightfully yours, plain and simple. If you pirate a game or other software, you have the developer's software, but the developer doesn't have your money. That's theft.

And I strongly disagree with this forum rule, that saying that all side effects of piracy might not be bad (free publicity for example) is equal to promoting piracy. As soon as we stop being allowed to view difficult topics from all angles (the positive and the negative sides), we stop bein objective about it and then we can stop discussing it completely, cause it has no more worth. That this is embedded in Polish law is even more worrying to me. After all this forum is not a democratic open structure, but a company owned place.

To my knowledge, there is no such rule on this forum. Nobody is saying that discussing piracy and it's side-effects that might or might-not be positive is similar to promoting piracy.

Being German and living currently in Hungary, I always feel very uncomfortable, whenever I feel, I am not allowed to speak my mind.

I would agree with you if this was a public place. This forum, however, isn't. It's a private company-owned forum and the company behind this forum has every single right to enforce any kind of censorship they wish, like it or not, it's their forum.

I think the mods on this forum are already very generous that they actually allow us to discuss this topic here on this forum. Most video-game forums I know simply shut down these topics very quickly and do not allow any kind of discussion about software piracy whatsoever.

 

[luc0s]

The opinion you have today was the opinion of most people on these forums 5 or 6 years ago and that was wrong .

And what is your point exactly? And how exactly is acknowledging software piracy for what it is, wrong?