Quakecon: id Targets Pirates

[Evil Avatar]

Next Generation has a Quakecon inspired article (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3581&Itemid=2) online, with quotes from id's Kevin Cloud on how software piracy is killing PC gaming.

"Piracy is hard," Cloud continued, “It’s really – from my opinion, destroying the PC market." Cloud believes there are many good ideas on how to solve the problem, "but when you look out there at the number of games that are getting pirated, it is just devastating."

"It’s the primary reason retailers are moving to the console," Cloud said. "It’s something that’s on every PC developer’s mind – on how to reduce [piracy]. Because, if you like the PC, you hate to see it fall lower and lower down."
Good article, but I thought Next Generation was smart enough to know that the company name is id Software, not Id Software.

[Evil Avatar]

Funny, I thought what was killing PC gaming was the high cost of upgrading components (an Xbox 360 is the same price as just a video card), the number of Meh "Me Too" titles and "Relase now and patch later".

Those three things are the cause of software piracy, so if you address the problems CAUSED by developers and publishers, you might address a lot of the piracy.

[AversionFX]

id, not eye-dee. Most people I know don't realize that.

Also, the best way to counter piracy (that I know off) is cd-keys and online content. Sure, you can get a key-gen to get you IN game. But online? Completely different story (as far as I know). As long as you have to verify with a master server that shows that your key is in/valid? I imagine this would deter the largest group of pirates: the "i can pirate it, i just don't know how the fuck to do anything else" kids.

Funny, I thought what was killing PC gaming was the high cost of upgrading components (an Xbox 360 is the same price as just a video card), the number of Meh "Me Too" titles and "Relase now and patch later".

Those three things are the cause of software piracy, so if you address the problems CAUSED by developers and publishers, you might address a lot of the piracy.

Not even close on the video card issue. My 6800 GT (PCIE) still runs GRAW, Oblivion and BF2 quite well (~200$ card). And those are among the more power-hungry games available. So, video price? Maybe a bit. Upgrading entirely from your 3200+, GF4 4200 and 512mb RAM? Yeah. That gets expensive, but if you're pissy because that rig can't play BF2 worth a damn (at all?) you're in a completely different epoch from the rest of the enthusiast/hobby/diehard gaming world.

I think what's killing PC gaming is the lack of innovation. PC gaming is too heavily focused on MMOs (there's been a really huge rise of MMOs in the last few years) and FPS. It's starting to feel like PC gaming is just a way to bleed money, and yet so many games are so poorly made, implemented, or whatever. It's just not worth it to buy a shitty singleplayer game for 40-50 bucks when you can just get it off of mininova, or whatever.

I mean, I personally feel enraged and downright cheated when I drop 50bucks for a game I think is going to be awesome, only to end up with a craptacular game with 10 hours of gameplay and no replay value.

I agree with the "Wow, we spent too much time partying instead of finishing our game. Fuck it, just release it and we'll drop a patch in about 2 weeks to add the rest of the game we were too busy to make" point.

[Mondopest]

Funny, I thought what was killing PC gaming was the high cost of upgrading components (an Xbox 360 is the same price as just a video card), the number of Meh "Me Too" titles and "Relase now and patch later".

Those three things are the cause of software piracy, so if you address the problems CAUSED by developers and publishers, you might address a lot of the piracy.

Right with you there EA, I thought that the unstable PC platform, lower cost of established console technology, and a MUCH larger market penetration (from consoles) were bringing down PC gaming, not piracy. If anything, I think we could blame price hikes on piracy, but there havent been any big price hikes in a while.

[GrinR]

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3779/piratecopyfloppy1fhhl3.gif

The sooner we eliminate piracy, the sooner the prices will drop for software.

Just like it did for unpirate-able Xbox 360 games. :rolleyes:

[AversionFX]

The sooner we eliminate piracy, the sooner the prices will drop for software.

Just like it did for unpirate-able Xbox 360 games. :rolleyes:

Ha! Zing!

GrinR to save the day. Yet again.

[zokrath]

In direct contradiction to the gentleman in the article, I believe that anti-piracy measures are greatly responsible for a decline in mass market PC gaming. There are enough genuine compatibility issues for people to deal with; additional artificial one included because a bean counter decided the theoretical reduction in privacy was worth inconvieniencing every single legitimate fan, every time they try to play the game.

I agree that a CD key and online content are the best way to encourage legitimate use. Starforce and other heavy-handed measures are a great way to discourage legitimate users.

[The Continental]

id, not eye-dee. Most people I know don't realize that.
Also, the best way to counter piracy (that I know off) is cd-keys and online content. Sure, you can get a key-gen to get you IN game. But online? Completely different story (as far as I know). As long as you have to verify with a master server that shows that your key is in/valid? I imagine this would deter the largest group of pirates: the "i can pirate it, i just don't know how the fuck to do anything else" kids.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Not even close on the video card issue. My 6800 GT (PCIE) still runs GRAW, Oblivion and BF2 quite well. And those are among the more power-hungry games available. So, video price? Maybe a bit. Upgrading entirely from your 3200+, GF4 4200 and 512mb RAM? Yeah. That gets expensive, but if you're pissy because that rig can't play BF2 worth a damn (at all?) you're in a completely different epoch from the rest of the enthusiast/hobby/diehard gaming world.

I'm still running on an ATI 9800XT (after almost 3 years), and I honestly don't forsee me upgrading it until late next year. Just because Nvidia is cranking out crap like Quad-SLI rigs doesn't mean anyone is buying them. Hell take a look at Valve's Hardware Survey (http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html), less than 1% of the nearly one million samples used a multi GPU setup. It is companies like Valve that realize that PC gamers, while being loyal hobbyists are not buying up the latest hardware just for the sake of having it. The absurdly powerful, absurdly expensive hardware is most certainly an example of putting the cart before the horse.

id is for the most part a dinosaur, they've been making the same game for over a decade at this point, it's no wonder they're feeling the effects of piracy. It is companies like Valve that go out of their way to find out what it is their audience wants that are going to continue to keep PC gaming progressing. The sooner the rest of the industry takes note of this trend, the better.

[AversionFX]

I agree that a CD key and online content are the best way to encourage legitimate use. Starforce and other heavy-handed measures are a great way to discourage legitimate users.

I'm posting way too much.

But to follow up on this point.

I think, perhaps a good way to solve the piracy issue is:

1) Get rid of copy protection. If a person is going to buy it, they don't need to run into problems/conflicts because of this.

If you're going to pirate, tough luck, sonny, see point 2.

2) Enforce stronger cd-key protection. One key/one userid, no exceptions. If your key is legit, you're good to go. You can get IN game, and you can play the game the way it's meant to be played.

You pirated that shit? Fuck yeah, man! ... Wait, why can't I play? CDkey? Wtf! I just spent 3 days downloading this shit for nothing!

Quake 4 uses a system sort of similar, but it runs a check ONLINE. Easy way around this is to (you guessed it) unplug your internet connection. Run the game, the cd-key/check will time out and say "Looks good, Boss!" And there you go, bypassed key.

The ideal cd-key system would do something similar, however, if no internet connection was detected, default fail. Couldn't work though, because a lot of people sure would be unhappy their game wouldn't work without them being online. Or maybe the first time the user installed/entered key/ran the game, it would require an internet connection. Key in/validates with master server, and the computer is "set" for that key.

No idea. Fucking pirates.

[Sloth]

The only reason I'm not on board with the industry trying to stop pirates is that usually means the games I buy have added frustration trying to run them.

[MrPoo]

Cost alone isn't necessarily a factor...

My vote is on: lack of decent games with CO-OP support.

One of the most incredible parts of the original Doom games was that you could play--together--with a friend, not having to share a screen!
Hell, you even could use dialup and connect to a friend on the opposite coast! How cool was that?!?!

Over the past few years it seems the good games with fairly-well-designed co-op gameplay support have been quite few. Games with a half-assed job of it (think GRAW PC) are better than nothing, I guess... but it's kind of sad, considering it was one of the things (in my opinion) that really put PC gaming on the map.

I guess I'll see how Quake Wars is. If that's kinda stinky then I'll look forward to the FEAR expansion. After that... hmm... oh, yeah! Supreme Commander FTW! :)

(and until I can plug my favorite USB keyboard into a console, and play everything with kb+mouse combo, I'm not interested yet)

[Serapth]

I will take the unpopular stance here, but frankly from my perspectives, the most successful anti-pirate mechanism out there is in fact StarForce.

Yeah, they are a right bunch of bastards, from the sounds of things. That said, their shit works. Its a mondo clusterfuck trying to defeat starforce, and almost every other copy protection mechanism gets broken within a day, especially CD keys.

Dialing home isnt really a solution, as you cant gaurantee your userbase has a dialup connection. Ironically, this is a big part of the reason MMO's that someone earlier bitched about, are so popular. In a way, the piracy rate for MMOs is zero.

[Heretic Machine]

I was under the impression that PC gaming wasn't dieing, and that piracy is a red herring.

I will take the unpopular stance here, but frankly from my perspectives, the most successful anti-pirate mechanism out there is in fact StarForce.

It also guarantees, 100%, that I won't buy your game.

[Serapth]

In regards to the StarForce works part, let me say, from personal experience, im not kidding. I recently tried to get around the piracy mechanism on a star force protected game I *OWN*, and frankly the work around is just obscene. In order to get the game working ( X3 ), you need to run drive emulators ( and no, im not talking Alcohol or Daemon tools, its an actual low level program that can fuck your computer up ), and then PHYSICALLY unplug your dvd/cd drives. I hate to tell you, but thats just too much of a pain in the ass for most pirates to deal with. Thus, and effective anti pirate mechanism.

That said, I didnt want this shit to be installed, which is why I tried to crack a game I legally own. Downside is, the rumours of the damage Star Force can do are also true. After installing the legit copy of X3, my burner would no longer burn CDs, although oddly it would still burn DVDs.

[AversionFX]

I will take the unpopular stance here, but frankly from my perspectives, the most successful anti-pirate mechanism out there is in fact StarForce.


I'm 95% sure that Deviance broke Starforce. (I forget who it was, since there's a few big names in that scene, and I'm just too lazy to verify)

[Serapth]

It also guarantees, 100%, that I won't buy your game.


I never said it didnt have its downsides :)

All im saying is, its pretty much the only unbroken copy protection mechanism out there that doesnt dial home. Even high end dongle based copy protections are broke within days.

[MrPoo]

Which version? There were separate utilities for each major release and sub-version, if I remember correctly... and I think it was Deviance.

Don't worry... X3 was broken, Starforce or not :(

[Serapth]

I'm 95% sure that Deviance broke Starforce. (I forget who it was, since there's a few big names in that scene, and I'm just too lazy to verify)

It could be, but 2 months ago when I bought X3, it was undefeated. Well, mostly undefeated... like I said, if your were willing to unplug your drives, you could get around it.

[aversion2k]

Pc gaming isnt dieing, well not much. Console games are just becoming incredibly popular. Pc will always have the indie games and the mods. Its the underdog of gaming.

[Serapth]

Which version? There were separate utilities for each major release and sub-version, if I remember correctly... and I think it was Deviance.

Don't worry... X3 was broken, Starforce or not :(


In the end it doesnt matter. X3 ended up being pretty shitty ( which is a shame, so much potential!!! ) and I have reinstalled that machine since, so the starforce root kit is gone.

[GrinR]

Which version? There were separate utilities for each major release and sub-version, if I remember correctly... and I think it was Deviance.

Don't worry... X3 was broken, Starforce or not :(

Every game has been cracked. The various software(s) used to break Starforce have been out for a long, long time. As usual:

Pirates: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Copy Protection: 0

[Inglorion]

Hate to hijack a thread, but here's a bit of trivia from Wikipedia: id Software was originally named ID Software; the Freudian twist came into play later, when they relased Wolfenstein 3D.

[AversionFX]

It could be, but 2 months ago when I bought X3, it was undefeated. Well, mostly undefeated... like I said, if your were willing to unplug your drives, you could get around it.

I'm not speaking recently. It was 2+ months ago that I read about it. A complete crack. I think it was for R6: Lockdown. And it didn't involve any disc drive unplugging.

Pc gaming isnt dieing, well not much. Console games are just becoming incredibly popular. Pc will always have the indie games and the mods. Its the underdog of gaming.

1. Dying.

2. Not all games have as immense of a mod community as Half-Life/HL2.

3. "Indie" developers most likely don't have the funds or publishers to toss their games to. "Indie" developers are as much on the PC fence as they are for the console fence. The middle, as it were.

[rein]

That said, I didnt want this shit to be installed, which is why I tried to crack a game I legally own. Downside is, the rumours of the damage Star Force can do are also true. After installing the legit copy of X3, my burner would no longer burn CDs, although oddly it would still burn DVDs.

I will never install a Starforce game again because it screwed up one of our cdr drives. Screw Starforce and any company that uses it. I will not buy a game that has the potential to screw up my system and that is exactly why console gaming is growing and pc gaming is stalling. Cloud might be right, piracy is ruining pc gaming, he is just wrong in how it is doing it. The copy protection that companies are using to defeat piracy is bring it down.

[claws]

Every game has been cracked. The various software(s) used to break Starforce have been out for a long, long time.
As I understand (everybody correct me if I'm wrong), some Starforce games have been cracked, but there is no generic dumper/unpacker as there is for other systems. So every SF game has to be done the old-fashioned way. SF itself is pretty tough, but as usual the actual integration of the protection into the game is of varying quality.

[Serapth]

Every game has been cracked. The various software(s) used to break Starforce have been out for a long, long time. As usual:

Pirates: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Copy Protection: 0

Yeah, all of them are cracked, but have you seen some of the hoops your need to jump through? Many times, if copy protection simply makes it easier to buy the game then pirate it, its done its job.

Perhaps 6 months after the games release someone has a no brainer crack for a game, but after 6 months, most games have already made 90+% of their sales.

[GrinR]

As I understand (everybody correct me if I'm wrong), some Starforce games have been cracked, but there is no generic dumper/unpacker as there is for other systems. So every SF game has to be done the old-fashioned way. SF itself is pretty tough, but as usual the actual integration of the protection into the game is of varying quality.

I'm not sure about the "generic dumper" (must not make crude joke... must ressisst...) but I know that every game that's worth talking about has been cracked or at least cloned, which is about the same thing.

[GrinR]

Yeah, all of them are cracked, but have you seen some of the hoops your need to jump through? Many times, if copy protection simply makes it easier to buy the game then pirate it, its done its job.

Perhaps 6 months after the games release someone has a no brainer crack for a game, but after 6 months, most games have already made 90+% of their sales.

This is the faulty anti-piracy logic in action. If my friend had the MONEY to buy the game in the first place, he'd DO IT. It's not about buying the game, it's about collecting it and/or playing it without paying for it (because there's no money to pay for it). The general populace doesn't bother with cracks and modchips and so on because they already have the dough to just buy a copy.

Make the game completely uncrackable and see if sales change significantly. Like on the 360.

[Serapth]

This is the faulty anti-piracy logic in action. If my friend had the MONEY to buy the game in the first place, he'd DO IT. It's not about buying the game, it's about collecting it and/or playing it without paying for it (because there's no money to pay for it). The general populace doesn't bother with cracks and modchips and so on because they already have the dough to just buy a copy.

Make the game completely uncrackable and see if sales change significantly. Like on the 360.

Wow, you are seriously misguided on the ethic level of the average person. If you could just burn XBox 360 games like DVDs, over night sales would drop in half. People seem to forget the 360 has MORE copy protection then the PC, its just rom'ed in, so it doesnt fuck shit up, so thus no negative press.

[GrinR]

Wow, you are seriously misguided on the ethic level of the average person. If you could just burn XBox 360 games like DVDs, over night sales would drop in half. People seem to forget the 360 has MORE copy protection then the PC, its just rom'ed in, so it doesnt fuck shit up, so thus no negative press.

Welp, you're wrong. Sales of Xbox games didn't noticably shift regardless of how mod-chipped it got. Your average gamer simply doesn't have the time and inclination to go through the bother required to "hacK" it.

Windows is different, but not THAT different. The basic level of copy protection that most games have - that make it very hard to just pop it in and make an image and copy it over - is enough to combat most "casual" piracy.

[claws]

I'm not sure about the "generic dumper" (must not make crude joke... must ressisst...) but I know that every game that's worth talking about has been cracked or at least cloned, which is about the same thing.
Hmm...I'll see if I can get through *this* post without a poop reference.

You're right about the eventual cracking, buit Starforce does at least slow things down. With your average game, you can probably pick up a torrent with crack included even before release. With SF, the less popular games are uncracked, and the others aren't immediate. So I suppose it's at least effective. I'm generally with rein on his don't-want-it-near-me stance, but unfortunately I capitulated already to buy Flatout 2.

[MasterEvilAce]

I've noticed a lott of games that have flimsy protection.. I know a lot of people here are advocates of a master server to validate CDKeys and all that. And for the most part that actually does work.. HOWEVER, shitty implementation automatically destroys that idea.

1) One game that comes to mind.. the cd-check is bypassed by BLOCKING a certain IP in your hosts file

2) another game can be played on MULTIPLAYER by using The All-Seeing eye, or Gamespy arcade to connect. This seems to bypass the CD Key check from the master server (which connects when the server browser is loaded.. so if you skip that.. you're in)

Other protection schemes such as where the game checks for virtual drives, Daemon tools, alcohol 120, etc. Those are easily fixed by another program which somehow masks those (almost seems like removing registry keys?)

For the majority of games out there, though.. all you need is a nocd crack.

I personally believe that it doesn't seem worth it for all this advanced anti-piracy shit. It's so easily defeated, and a lot of problems with the retail version of the games simply don't show up in the pirated versions. A simple CDKey check will deter the dumbest of pirates.. an online CDKey check will deter friends from sharing their copy for the most part (implemented correctly, of course). If it's ANYTHING else, then only the intermediate pirates and the hardcore pirates will be pirating it. The intermediates will usually buy a game if it's good enough, and not ridiculously overpriced. The hardcore pirates will NEVER buy anything that they can get their hands on otherwise.

If you're a game dev, don't even bother about going after the hardcore pirates-- you're not losing sales. To go after the intermediates, make good games and make them affordable. For everyone else, there's mastercard.

I'm a programmer, and I know damned well I would hate it if my software was pirated, but I know that a lot of people (primarily kids) can't afford to play all the games that they want, and a lot won't pay at all. Protect your software, but don't spend a bundle doing so. Just protect it against day to day piracy, and you should be good. Keep up to date with how your software is getting pirated, and try to block it such as block known shared CD-Keys, for example. If your game doesn't sell well, then most likely nobody wants what you have to offer, or they don't know about it. Neither of those is the fault of piracy.

[GrinR]

Hmm...I'll see if I can get through *this* post without a poop reference.

You're right about the eventual cracking, buit Starforce does at least slow things down. With your average game, you can probably pick up a torrent with crack included even before release. With SF, the less popular games are uncracked, and the others aren't immediate. So I suppose it's at least effective. I'm generally with rein on his don't-want-it-near-me stance, but unfortunately I capitulated already to buy Flatout 2.

Yeah but the games that aren't cracked are CloneCDed, which is the same thing. Ultimately it's just about can you download it and play it. If the answer is yes, the copy-protection FAILED.

Consider how much effort it takes to get familiar with torrents, get alcohol120 or whatever, find good torrents, download MULTIPLE gigs and so on... it's a bitch but to the people who pirate it's a breeze. Which is my point.

[danhoo]

People keep basically making a stronger lock, while they should just be working on more incentives for people to buy. We've reached the point where we need to use copy protection that may work some of the time, but also is very likely to affect people who bought the game legally. That's lame.

Anyone remember the time when games came with extra stuff in the box, like those Infocom games, or some stuff from Origin with cloth maps and such? Cheap stuff, but it really gave me that extra incentive to buy. These days it's a much harder 'sell' to those with less scruples to tell them they should do it just because "it's the right thing to do".

Same thing for music CDs. Give me a discount on concert tickets or something if I buy a CD, or something. Don't load the CDs up with a bunch of DRM junk.

[Kelegacy]

I'm 95% sure that Deviance broke Starforce. (I forget who it was, since there's a few big names in that scene, and I'm just too lazy to verify)
I've played a game that was Starforce "cracked". That means I had to disconnect my IDE drives and all sorts of hoo-ha. Then there was the StarFuck utility that made your drives "look" like they were unhooked. Long story short, there were always work arounds, but they were a pain.

Hey, don't look at me like that. I was in college and I bought the fucking game afterwards.

[MasterEvilAce]

Same thing for music CDs. Give me a discount on concert tickets or something if I buy a CD, or something. Don't load the CDs up with a bunch of DRM junk.
Exactly! Promotions and such are an easy way to do it. I picked up a CD at a concert that I went to because the artists were signing CDs/Posters/what have you (you got to meet them) for their latest album. Definitely worth that, in my opinion.

However, at the same time I'm glad for piracy. The cd I bought became scratched.. three songs were completely screwed, and at the time I never ripped them to my harddrive. So I got my friend to burn me a copy. If the music companies would accept scratched discs and give me new ones, I'd be all over that. However, I have never heard of them doing anything of that nature. Some piracy is in the sense.. legit. If you want me to buy it twice, you're just greedy for the money.

[Royal Fool]

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3779/piratecopyfloppy1fhhl3.gif
Argh, you suddenly made me want to watch that again! Involuntary self-torture!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9045861006530293045

[laggerific]

I'm a programmer, and I know damned well I would hate it if my software was pirated, but I know that a lot of people (primarily kids) can't afford to play all the games that they want, and a lot won't pay at all. Protect your software, but don't spend a bundle doing so. Just protect it against day to day piracy, and you should be good. Keep up to date with how your software is getting pirated, and try to block it such as block known shared CD-Keys, for example. If your game doesn't sell well, then most likely nobody wants what you have to offer, or they don't know about it. Neither of those is the fault of piracy.


It isn't a surprise that John Carmack can drive around in his ferrari, or with his buddies who he made it big with him...there is money in video games. Piracy is an issue they should deal with, but it's by making better games and pricing them right. Psychonauts was crazy cheap on release for the PC...30 bucks...XBox had it for 50. Wow, and the PC version had widescreen and HIGH res...it was something to behold on a 50" DLP monitor through DVI. Good game, too...Tim Schafer. I've owned so many versions of his DoTT...I've quoted it in my year book. Well...these are well known developer's, but many excellent games have come out of no where...Riddick, which I think was also a cheaper PC game...don't know as I got it for Christmas.

All I'm saying is that excellent games make good money...mediocre games may get lucky, but aren't necessarily going to rake it in. But, it's possible to make games that last forever, like Starcraft...still selling like hotcakes to this day. And it's a great value with the Starcraft universe and its guides...pretty dense set.

[Serapth]

Welp, you're wrong. Sales of Xbox games didn't noticably shift regardless of how mod-chipped it got. Your average gamer simply doesn't have the time and inclination to go through the bother required to "hacK" it.

Windows is different, but not THAT different. The basic level of copy protection that most games have - that make it very hard to just pop it in and make an image and copy it over - is enough to combat most "casual" piracy.


If you will re-read what I posted earlier, you will see you are supporting my argument. Copy protection works by making it to much trouble that people just say fuckit, and buy the game. Mod chips are a pain in the ass, as is unpluging your drives to play a game.

However, what I said is, if it was as easy as just burning a DVD, piracy on the 360 would become brutal. It happened to the dreamcast, where basically it was as easy as buring a CD.

[Serapth]

It isn't a surprise that John Carmack can drive around in his ferrari, or with his buddies who he made it big with him...there is money in video games. Piracy is an issue they should deal with, but it's by making better games and pricing them right. Psychonauts was crazy cheap on release for the PC...30 bucks...XBox had it for 50. Wow, and the PC version had widescreen and HIGH res...it was something to behold on a 50" DLP monitor through DVI. Good game, too...Tim Schafer. I've owned so many versions of his DoTT...I've quoted it in my year book. Well...these are well known developer's, but many excellent games have come out of no where...Riddick, which I think was also a cheaper PC game...don't know as I got it for Christmas.

All I'm saying is that excellent games make good money...mediocre games may get lucky, but aren't necessarily going to rake it in. But, it's possible to make games that last forever, like Starcraft...still selling like hotcakes to this day. And it's a great value with the Starcraft universe and its guides...pretty dense set.

Making better or cheaper games has fuckall to do with piracy. Plus this idealistic attitude that people pirate because they cant afford it, is also a crock of shit.

Pirates are theives, and games arent exactly bread, so there is no justification for it. And yes, piracy in the pc world is rampant and no doubt is resulting in companies moving to consoles SKUs to make more money.

[AversionFX]

I've played a game that was Starforce "cracked". That means I had to disconnect my IDE drives and all sorts of hoo-ha. Then there was the StarFuck utility that made your drives "look" like they were unhooked. Long story short, there were always work arounds, but they were a pain.

Hey, don't look at me like that. I was in college and I bought the fucking game afterwards.


Nothing of the sort. This game was cracked in much the same way as any other game (not using Starforce) is cracked. Apply fixed EXE, and any other applicable files, play like normal. Starforce broken. Without unplugging anything.

[claws]

Making better or cheaper games has fuckall to do with piracy. Plus this idealistic attitude that people pirate because they cant afford it, is also a crock of shit.
I don't think anyone actually believes that ; it's just superficially more morally defendable to say 'I couldn't afford it, but I'll buy it next week!' than 'I wanted it, screw you'. You're dead right ; these are luxury items, and you don't have to buy them.

And yes, piracy in the pc world is rampant and no doubt is resulting in companies moving to consoles SKUs to make more money.
There's probably easier money to be made from consoles ; it's yet to be proven that pirated games directly translate to lost sales. Doom 3 was heavily pirated yet sold absolute bucketloads (I think).

[Royal Fool]

It isn't a surprise that John Carmack can drive around in his ferrari, or with his buddies who he made it big with him...there is money in video games. Piracy is an issue they should deal with, but it's by making better games and pricing them right. Psychonauts was crazy cheap on release for the PC...30 bucks...XBox had it for 50. Wow, and the PC version had widescreen and HIGH res...it was something to behold on a 50" DLP monitor through DVI. Good game, too...Tim Schafer. I've owned so many versions of his DoTT...I've quoted it in my year book. Well...these are well known developer's, but many excellent games have come out of no where...Riddick, which I think was also a cheaper PC game...don't know as I got it for Christmas.

All I'm saying is that excellent games make good money...mediocre games may get lucky, but aren't necessarily going to rake it in. But, it's possible to make games that last forever, like Starcraft...still selling like hotcakes to this day. And it's a great value with the Starcraft universe and its guides...pretty dense set.
I hope you're not implying that Psychonauts made money, because it didn't. I'm sure the sales numbers would throw any publisher into a frothing seizure.

[OrangePulp]

Something simple and easy they could do to combat piracy is get major BT indexing sites and the like (such as isohunt) to not index torrents of their games. Sure, if you dig hard enough, you'll be able to find it somewhere, but I'd bet doing something like this would be just as effective as some of the less aggressive methods, if not more so, and for less cost.

[Royal Fool]

Something simple and easy they could do to combat piracy is get major BT indexing sites and the like (such as isohunt) to not index torrents of their games. Sure, if you dig hard enough, you'll be able to find it somewhere, but I'd bet doing something like this would be just as effective as some of the less aggressive methods, if not more so, and for less cost.
That's an interesting idea, pirates have mostly moved on from newsgroups and filesharing programs and adopted torrents instead, so if the sites they frequent wouldn't list certain games, that would probably help the publishers out a lot in the long run.

Of course, to use this method you have to believe that 100% of all pirated software/media leads directly to lost sales. Frankly, that's just not the case. Pirates often have a minor case of OCD, where they collect every bit of games/movies/music/TV series they can get their hands on, because they like the idea of having it all in digital form on their hard drives. It's a real obsession - many of the movie pirates I know don't actually watch half the stuff they have, they just like downloading it and stuffing it onto their HDD for safekeeping, possibly watching it on a rainy day. Others try to watch everything they possibly can, but they only do it because they're getting it all for free.

[UnderHero5]

That said, I didnt want this shit to be installed, which is why I tried to crack a game I legally own. Downside is, the rumours of the damage Star Force can do are also true. After installing the legit copy of X3, my burner would no longer burn CDs, although oddly it would still burn DVDs.
That happened to me too, with X3 and Starforce. After Starforce, my burner wouldn't burn DVD+R or DL discs. After I uninstalled X3 and Starforce. I had to flash my drive with the latest firmware to get it working again.

I actually purchased X3 twice now (I got the new Starforce free version that was recently released on Steam).

Now I just wish they'd release TrackMania Sunrise on Steam too... sans starforce. Another game I own and want to play more of but am never installing again because of SF.

[OrangePulp]

That's an interesting idea, pirates have mostly moved on from newsgroups and filesharing programs and adopted torrents instead, so if the sites they frequent wouldn't list certain games, that would probably help the publishers out a lot in the long run.

Of course, to use this method you have to believe that 100% of all pirated software/media leads directly to lost sales. Frankly, that's just not the case. Pirates often have a minor case of OCD, where they collect every bit of games/movies/music/TV series they can get their hands on, because they like the idea of having it all in digital form on their hard drives. It's a real obsession - many of the movie pirates I know don't actually watch half the stuff they have, they just like downloading it and stuffing it onto their HDD for safekeeping, possibly watching it on a rainy day. Others try to watch everything they possibly can, but they only do it because they're getting it all for free.

Speaking from personal experience, piracy can indeed tranlate to lost sales. There are some games I've pirated (sure, I'll admit it, although don't give me a raft of shit about it because I really don't care what you think) that I probably would have bought anyways. Sometimes the games turn out to be shit, and I'm glad I never actually bought it. Others turn out to be pretty good, and probably would have been worth the money. Oh well.

There are some games I buy without hesitation, even though they would have been easily pirated; Oblivion springs to mind, as well as an obscure indie river city ransom type game, called Zombie Smashers X 2. There will always be some games, whether big and popular or small and obscure, that I really feel are worth my money.

[DeadScreenSky]

Just like it did for unpirate-able Xbox 360 games. :rolleyes:
The only unpirate-able X360 games are the arcade stuff, and Geometry Wars only cost me $5...

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Man, I miss ye olde days of PC gaming - ie the mid to late 90s. So many awesome releases with DIVERSITY! The market today is really boring IMHO. As someone above said, the focus is on MMOs and FPS titles. I'll throw in Sequels to complete the trifecta.

The console market really isn't any better though. Gaming as a whole is going down the tubes.

[mikeohara]

it looks like the majority of publishers are gonna have to embrace a Steam-type system in order to cut down on piracy.

[Voodoo]

PC gaming is akin to Jazz in the music industry. It influences many different types of music yet all along marches along on the 2. The same can be said about PC games, there is huge influence towards the other gaming environments. When the XBOX 360 is 5 years old, PC Gaming will still be marching along quite as well as it has always done.

Oh, and I hope that there is found a way to lessen the amount of piracy in PC Gaming. :D

[Frogleg Special]

The death of PC gaming is also the death for the video card manufacturers. That'll be day when they have their behinds in front of Sony or Microsoft. Still, Nvidia and ATI pack so much technology in the Xbox 360 or PS3 GPU to make owning a PC gaming unnecessary. If PC maintains advantage on Graphics technology compared to the consoles, then no matter how exorbitant the price of the video card there will be people wanting to buy it.

Especially ATI, they do have their priorities screwed in making Xenon a powerful GPU but yet to create a comparable one for the PC. It's like Honda making NSX and Civic, but now it adds so much power for the cheaper Civic there is no need for buying an NSX. Nvidia PS3 chip doesn't seem to take much thunder from the DirectX 10 card, so NVidia is right in giving PS3 a so-so power and rely more on the unique chip. AMD should beat the remnant of ATI management senseless by giving Xbox 360 too much power and putting the spotlight on the console instead of PC.

So yeah, ATI is killing PC gaming.

[vallor]

Piracy is bad, but it isn't the whole reason publishers and devs move to console only games.

As expensive as they are to publish you get quite a few freebies when developing for consoles. In a lot of cases it has to do with developing for a fixed platform.

In the most recent game I'm working on we've spend 2 man years doing hardware compatibility testing across hundreds of different configurations. The worst part about it is that eventually we had to give up being compatible with a ton of hardware because it just doesn't support some of the shaders and stuff we want to do.

That is a very large bucket of money that could have been spent on more features or maybe even saved had this been a console title instead of PC.

And thats even before we account for any revenue lost through piracy. We've spent another bucket of money developing a fangled activation system that we can only hope will slow down the pirating... slow down, not stop.

If we're lucky, even with the new tech we'll have a month of pure sales before the pirates work around it.

[GrinR]

The only unpirate-able X360 games are the arcade stuff, and Geometry Wars only cost me $5...

Cool yer jets, turbo. I'm sure there's a nerd or two out there pirating 360 games on their linux-cracked xboxs... but I could count the guys playing pirated 360 games on our hands.

[Jart]

I wish publishers would openly state the numbers they track with pirated copies of games. I know from one publisher employee that they can and do track AAA title pirating and easily see a million + illegal copies, but they publishers never seem to want to stand up and say it. I can never figure out why pirating of pc games is always viewed as "ok".

[Majster Wichajster]

I'm also for supporting the game industry, but how can you support ALL of it? I mean, shit, console games are expensive but I tend to gravitate towards them because they WORK. I have enough problems with my PC as it is. I don't even have FarCry and it's cheap dirt around here. Somewhere around 5$. I'm not saying it wouldn't run on my computer, it's just that I could also jump out of the fucking window. Same difference. Yes, I'm not a goddamn angel but I try to buy the games when I have the money.

That being said, when I'll finally get around to having a job many games are going to be bought. Finally.

[AversionFX]

That being said, when I'll finally get around to having a job many games are going to be bought. Finally.

You say that now. Once you're making money though, you realize there are more important purchases.

Like an adios motherfucker (http://www.webtender.com/db/drink/3264") at your local bar. mmm.

[Majster Wichajster]

We'll see. Mostly due to the availability of said products. I wanted to buy Disgaea but it would be easier to expect humanity from RIAA.

Besides I don't drink. I'm addicted (not in a bad poop-sock way) to games and languages.

[laggerific]

Making better or cheaper games has fuckall to do with piracy. Plus this idealistic attitude that people pirate because they cant afford it, is also a crock of shit.

Pirates are theives, and games arent exactly bread, so there is no justification for it. And yes, piracy in the pc world is rampant and no doubt is resulting in companies moving to consoles SKUs to make more money.

Oh...I was just saying that I like how PC games are getting some great pricing...I would have bought it for $50 bucks on the PC, because that is the superior version, but they sold it for a good price.

Sorry to hear Psychonauts was a bomb financially...I wonder what inspired the cheaper price on the PC? It's odd, as the PC version would be easier to pirate,
I would think.

Well, I've never believed that piracy is what causes games to be so expensive...especially with them now claiming it's the high cost of development that justifies the $10 price increase.

[Lactose]

I was about to write something very much like what Serapth said.. you guys recommend making the games more innovative, including coop, removing copy protection, etc etc, but why not just release on console?

The advantage of PC is that you dont have to pay $10 or whatever to the console company, but if you lose more than that to piracy, then you might as well just switch to console development. I'd like to see some single player PC games that run the gameplay logic on a server so you have to be on the net to play it. I'll bet the savings from the complete elimination of piracy would much more than cover the cost of running the servers for the game (assuming the servers have to do a lot less work than they do for, say, an MMO where they have to deal with multiple players simultaneously).

You can judge the state of the PC just by walking into a game store and timing how long it takes to actually find the PC games.

[laggerific]

I was about to write something very much like what Serapth said.. you guys recommend making the games more innovative, including coop, removing copy protection, etc etc, but why not just release on console?

The advantage of PC is that you dont have to pay $10 or whatever to the console company, but if you lose more than that to piracy, then you might as well just switch to console development. I'd like to see some single player PC games that run the gameplay logic on a server so you have to be on the net to play it. I'll bet the savings from the complete elimination of piracy would much more than cover the cost of running the servers for the game (assuming the servers have to do a lot less work than they do for, say, an MMO where they have to deal with multiple players simultaneously).

You can judge the state of the PC just by walking into a game store and timing how long it takes to actually find the PC games.

I'm still playing Ultima 7, Starcraft, System Shock (If I could get it to run), Deus Ex, Fallout 1/2...if the logic for this was on a server somewhere, these games would be beyond dead (except maybe Starcraft), but thankfully I can still play them. I actually blame the game stores for the demise of PC gaming. They are a cutthroat industry that has turned into an ugly industry...my favorite store EBGames has turned into a preorder whoring monstrosity...no longer the bastion of ubergamers. It makes me sick that compusa is where I need to go to if I am looking for a good sized collection of pc games to choose from. Specialty game stores seem to really not want to deal with PC gaming...but that doesn't mean the market doesn't exist.

[easi]

Piracy is not killing PC gaming, you have Steam to blame for that. Every jackass that knows c++ now thinks he can shit out a half-assed mod, call it a 'conversion' or some other doublespeak term and charge 20 bux for it with NO DEMO.

Remember when you had about a dozen quality, well-populated mods and all you needed to enjoy them was a budget copy of Half-Life? When people actually looked at modding as a hobby and not a way to make a quick buck? I'm sure I'll be shouted down by the koolaid-drinking capitalists and people who like to put the devs on a pedestal, but it's all true.

[51|RandoM]

I'm 95% sure that Deviance broke Starforce. (I forget who it was, since there's a few big names in that scene, and I'm just too lazy to verify)

Starforce receives frequent updates. Deviance may've broken a version, I doubt they've broken all of them.

[51|RandoM]

There are pirates... and then there are pirates.

Serapth just gave pretty compelling evidence that starforce works just great to deter the casual copier from pirating a game. That is the goal. For every hardcore pirate/collector out there there must be hundreds of casual copiers.

If piracy wasn't an issue, investment in stuff like starforce wouldn't even happen. Pick a torrent tracker site, pick a game you know to be shitty, you'll still see 5000+ downloads. That is just one tracker out of many, one transfer method of many.

People who don't think piracy is a valid concern to developers and publishers are ignorant, or idiots, perhaps both. Maybe you can lie to yourselves, but don't expect anybody else to buy it.

[bapenguin]

The funny thing is most copy protection isn't made to stop pirates (because it never does) but it's made to defeat the "loan it to your buddy" kind of thing. Most "average" gamers will try to let a buddy copy a game and it just won't work.

The problem is...the "average" gamer demographic is very small anymore on PCs.

[51|RandoM]

The death of PC gaming is also the death for the video card manufacturers.

The vast majority of video sales are embedded chipsets and/or budget to midrange stuff for your basic business desktop.

That $600 top of the line shit-hot video card? That is only there for marketing, and you only need that with competition.

Get rid of that topend market and all you do is make the cost of doing business CHEAPER for the videocard manufacturers. They'd love to see PC gaming die. And, as you pointed out, they've got a piece of the console pie anyways.

[Jart]

The funny thing is most copy protection isn't made to stop pirates (because it never does) but it's made to defeat the "loan it to your buddy" kind of thing. Most "average" gamers will try to let a buddy copy a game and it just won't work.

The problem is...the "average" gamer demographic is very small anymore on PCs.

Preventing the loaning of games is not the point of copy protection at all really. The primary goal is to delay the cracking of the copy protection as long as possible. If you have a mass of eager fans who want to play a game and the game hits the net 2 weeks before the ship date, then you lose sales without question. If you can make it through the first week of release before it is cracked and downloadable, then the people who would have paid for the game already have and you take your losses on the remainder of the games shelf life.

[DeadScreenSky]

Cool yer jets, turbo. I'm sure there's a nerd or two out there pirating 360 games on their linux-cracked xboxs... but I could count the guys playing pirated 360 games on our hands.
Right now Mininova lists over 900 people downloading/uploading Table Tennis. The various releases of Prey X360 have over 1500 people (in fact significantly more, but I'm assuming some of these are double counts). The highest Xbox1 title I can find is only a little over 400.

So you must have quite a few more hands than the average person. :D

[drakkarim]

the original article has a statement about developers loving the consoles more because there's no piracy on that... that's about as ignorant a statment as you can make.

hacking a console is typically much more elaborate of an undertaking then hacking any pc game, but like pc piracy, it is also 100% guaranteed to work (for 99% of the titles) for anyone that really wants it to. granted it takes more time to develop a console hack, but the benefit is that its a universal solution after that (i.e. one chip/hack and 99% of the games are available, whereas on the pc side each title has to be 'hacked' seperately).

anyway, i'm sure we all know that, except some of these 'smart' developers. someone needs to send them a snail mail with the key updates in the hacking industry in the last decade.

here's a new way to combat software piracy: (not saying its a good way necessarily, but might work?) copying software is easy, copying hardware is not :) so, make the game requirements so high that it takes high end hardware to play, the software will drive the purchases of better hardware, then have the hardware companies give a percentage of their profits to a pool which will be distributed between the software companies based on number of sales (not shipments or productions) of their particular title within some time period. Title prices would need to be much cheaper (about half?).

how would the lack of copy protection work? well, you can choose to get the software illegaly, but since you'd need good hardware to get it running anyway, you're already paying into the hardware companies "software pool", which the developers would get a share of anyway :)

rough around the edges, i know, but its an idea. i know i personally would be much happier dropping $550 on a 7950gtx if i knew i could get a boatload of nice looking software at $20 a pop....granted, eye candy isn't everything, but it doesn't hurt :)

[Furious Wang]

There exists quite a large piracy market for consoles as well. Those same sites that offer PC game disk images offer Console game images. All it takes is a few easy modifications to your console and off you go to pirate land. This is the same "off the cuff" justifaction for more and more annoying copyprotection implementations that we've been hearing for years.

The fact remains, though, that console piracy will always be less than PC piracy because businesses like Blockbuster exist.

[AversionFX]

Starforce receives frequent updates. Deviance may've broken a version, I doubt they've broken all of them.

I would disagree with you in the fact that Starforce in its namesake was undefeatable. And yet Deviance still managed to crack it.

One version or all of them, it doesn't matter. It was done once, it can be done again. Until such a copy protection exists that you need to authorize your own copy with a fingerprint key, groups like Deviance will continue to break the "latest and greatest" copy protections.