Game Dev Tycoon (Oh, the irony) | Forums

[RetiredRonin]

Not to stoke any fires here, but no, DRM didn't bring upon piracy. If there were little to no piracy then there would never have been a need for DRM in the first place. DRM was dreamed up to try to offset the perceived loss in sales caused by piracy. I also do not agree, nor do I believe, that most pirates use piracy as a try-before-you-buy, they pirate games because they don't want to pay for them and the chances of being caught are low, and the chances of any real legal consequences are minuscule.

Online passes were dreamed up because of the used games market, and publishers & developers wanting to see some of the revenue from second hand sales.

Day 1 DLC is fine with me, unless I am being sold a $15-20 64kb file that unlocks content already on my disc.

[D2Dahaka]

In regards to day one on on-disk unlocks. In principal I think it sucks, but lets face it, Off disk they can pull the same crap anyway. ie. Make the content prior to release and put it on the market place a little later to give the appearance it's something additional and take up more of ones HD space in the process. On disk never bothered me too much for that reason so long as the core game isn't compromised.

I don't believe there is any moral justification for piracy of video games, but all this DRM unfortunately only punishes the honest end user. The pirates can now often have a "superior" gaming experience to someone who buys a game.

Though I don't have any metrics, I am not convinced there is a 1 to 1 relationship between a pirated copy of a game and a sale. Who is to say someone who pirates ever had any intension of buying a game or ever would? And is more invasive DRM really stopping those people? Sure make it harder to pirate, but think about paying customers as well and don't totally screw us of all rights in the process.

I personally don't buy used games, because I am anal about the quality of my property and don't like disks that have been fed to other people's pets and used as roller skates. But I will stop buying entirely the day all games essentially become overpriced "rentals" only.

Oh yeah, about that Dev Tycoon game now...

[Stego111]

Not to stoke any fires here, but no, DRM didn't bring upon piracy. If there were little to no piracy then there would never have been a need for DRM in the first place. DRM was dreamed up to try to offset the perceived loss in sales caused by piracy. I also do not agree, nor do I believe, that most pirates use piracy as a try-before-you-buy, they pirate games because they don't want to pay for them and the chances of being caught are low, and the chances of any real legal consequences are minuscule.

Online passes were dreamed up because of the used games market, and publishers & developers wanting to see some of the revenue from second hand sales.

Day 1 DLC is fine with me, unless I am being sold a $15-20 64kb file that unlocks content already on my disc.

+1

Day one DLC is never ok for me though. If the DLC is ready to go on launch day I would have preferred a small delay and have the content on the disc.

[rlmergeuser]

Day one DLC is never ok for me though. If the DLC is ready to go on launch day I would have preferred a small delay and have the content on the disc.

Actually, the excuse is often that devs work on the day1 DLC whilst the game is going gold. If true then that's fine, but it's fact that this is not always true.

Not to stoke any fires here, but no, DRM didn't bring upon piracy.

Nobody said it did. I said it caused a rise in piracy, though I have no facts to back that up. Yet piracy has risen in recent years and the excuse is often DRM pissing people off.

I also do not agree, nor do I believe, that most pirates use piracy as a try-before-you-buy, they pirate games because they don't want to pay for them and the chances of being caught are low, and the chances of any real legal consequences are minuscule.

Most, probably not, but there is definitely some.

[RetiredRonin]

Just so we are all clear:

The following post does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of RedLynx or Ubisoft.

Day one DLC is never ok for me though. If the DLC is ready to go on launch day I would have preferred a small delay and have the content on the disc.

Actually, the excuse is often that devs work on the day1 DLC whilst the game is going gold. If true then that's fine, but it's fact that this is not always true.

Exactly, there are months between when some games go gold (production ready) and when they are actually released. DLC made and sold during this time can certainly be ready for release day downloading.

Not to stoke any fires here, but no, DRM didn't bring upon piracy.

Nobody said it did. I said it caused a rise in piracy, though I have no facts to back that up. Yet piracy has risen in recent years and the excuse is often DRM pissing people off.

I would be willing to bet that the increase in worldwide broadband infrastructure has more to do with the rise in piracy than DRM. DRM is used as a scape goat in many of these instances by holier-than-thou pirates who pretend that there is some kind of political slant to their theft. If they felt that strongly about it then they would do more for their "cause" by not playing any DRM locked games whatsoever.

I also do not agree, nor do I believe, that most pirates use piracy as a try-before-you-buy, they pirate games because they don't want to pay for them and the chances of being caught are low, and the chances of any real legal consequences are minuscule.

Most, probably not, but there is definitely some.

I doubt that the "some" is in any kind of measurable proportion to the "probably not"s.

If piracy were not seen as a large problem then developers & publishers wouldn't pay a programmer to try to implement DRM as it wouldn't be cost effective. If you are only losing $10k a year due to piracy, then paying a programmer $30k a year to write DRM doesn't make sense. The perceived cost of piracy must be much higher than the cost of, at least, the programmer tasked with writing the DRM's code.

[rlmergeuser]

I would be willing to bet that the increase in worldwide broadband infrastructure has more to do with the rise in piracy than DRM.

It'd be a factor, yes.

DRM is used as a scape goat in many of these instances by holier-than-thou pirates who pretend that there is some kind of political slant to their theft. If they felt that strongly about it then they would do more for their "cause" by not playing any DRM locked games whatsoever.

I'm not sure if there is a cause for these particular group of pirates I'm talking about. They probably just don't want to end up buying a game that's crap and therefore use the cracks as demos, and if the game is good then they'll buy it because they want to support good games, not sausages. So that would be their cause.

I'm not justifying their actions, but I hardly blame them.

I doubt that the "some" is in any kind of measurable proportion to the "probably not"s.

Probably not

[Blastergamer]

That's why the anti-used-games come more, because of this, and I agree with it. It would suck if Trials Evolution Gold Edition had pirated games, so that's the only reason why uplay helps.

[rlmergeuser]

Witcher Dev: DRM the "worst thing in gaming industry"

[Stego111]

As crappy of a system as it is, there still needs to be something in place. I think there needs to be some sort of contract in place that allows developers to get a tiny cut of used game sales from the retailer. But maybe that is not possible.

[D2Dahaka]

Witcher Dev: DRM the "worst thing in gaming industry"

Music to my ears. No sloppy tacked on multiplayer to satisfy a publishers checklist, no crappy quick time events (what exactly is the point of these?) and no DRM. To back it up they have a solid game and are putting their paying customers first.

They are a business that understand the whole point...Provide a service/product to your customers that shows them value for their money. It's basic business that the gaming industry seems to forget.

Imposing more restrictions, offering less content and trying to milk as much money from people as possible through micro transactions with products that are mediocre in the first place is not good business on a basic level. Sure in the short term they'll make some money, but in the long term ... well look at the state of the industry now for proof.

One major factor people often overlook in this argument is that most games released aren't that good or offer little value for the asking price. If they aren't selling enough is it purely due to pirates or is it because they've released an unappealing product, not produced the right product for their budget/target market or various other reasons?

There's no justification for piracy, but the woes of the gaming industry go way beyond piracy - The industry has been going through a massive transition. It's a big problem and has even resulted in some small companies going broke, but it's also used as a scape goat for the real problems in the industry.

Just my 2 cents.