Piracy reason PC gaming is dying?

[Drizzt]

I'm really surprised there isn't a chip for the PS3 yet available globally. I know down here in Panama they sell pirated XBOX 360 games on the side of the street and stop lights, and you can get your system chipped for $30. They advertise all of those services on local classifieds websites as well to chip your wii, 360, ps2, etc. I found it hilarious that after M$ banned all of those accounts how many chipped 360's went up for sale over the next days with titles like "Hacked XBOX 360 with 65 games and 2 controllers, $280". I heard that once you chip it you can't really go back? Is this true?

Once it gets banned it can't go back. They ban the mac address right? Also, a cost effective system that some people do is they get a hacked xbox360 for single player games to pirate, and a regular 360 for games they actually own and wanna play online.

And yea, i was thinking about that too... Maybe the ps3 isn't popular enough? Still.. i am curious about PS3 hacking as well since it is done for everything else.

I think the biggest effect of Pirating on PC is that developers focus on Multiplayer more then they do on single player. I would like to use MW2 as an example, but I was satisfied with the single player even if it was very short. I have never played the multiplayer. I hear it is very good.

 

[wafflehammer]

I've seen the mention of charging monthly in this thread..and personally I don't think that'll help. Look at WoW for example, sure they have 11million subscribers. But they also have thousands who play on "private" servers so they don't have to pay a monthly fee :\

Sure that'd make more off the legit sales most likely..but they'd still be losing.

 

[hikaricloud]

I've seen the mention of charging monthly in this thread..and personally I don't think that'll help. Look at WoW for example, sure they have 11million subscribers. But they also have thousands who play on "private" servers so they don't have to pay a monthly fee :\

Sure that'd make more off the legit sales most likely..but they'd still be losing.

I think you're missing the point...piracy is never going away.

So you're saying that if a game sold for 5 bucks and charged 5 bucks a month for a monthly fee, they'd still lose just as much money? Are you seriously comparing a number like 11 million to thousands? Trust me, I don't think Blizzard is hurting too bad with an income like 165 million bucks a month from monthly fees alone. They lose out on 15k per thousand people monthly...guess that CEO won't be able to buy a porsche til next month, eh? :| Heck, even at 5 bucks a month that's 55 million. And I'm pretty sure they don't have to spend 55 million to keep the servers up and running and the developers paid that keep updating etc etc.

By your definition of how companies lose money, yeah, they will ALWAYS be losing money because piracy will always exist. The question is how to minimize the "damage". But I wouldn't say they are "losing" because 165 million in a month is winning if you ask me.

 

[synergy]

^^ Exactly. When I mentioned they get more creative that was also my thought. Instead of whining about and blaming piracy for killing a very profitable industry, why not get creative about ways to work around it...or, heaven forbid...embrace it . Granted, there would be a lot of work and money to get the infrastructure in place for pay-per-month gaming (look at the problems Valve had with Steam at first) but they will reap much more reward in the long run. Piracy will not go away. It's one of those things that will be more resilient the more it is fought, so the devs need to get a brain and "hack" the hack is what I'm saying.

 

[wafflehammer]

Well look at the great debate , even on this forum there is a topic about MMO's vs regular games. I doubt that many people would be willing to pay $5 a month for a game even if the game was free to begin with.


The point is they are losing money. That money (even though it's a dot in their millions) is still a percentage. What if someone took away X% of your income because your work wasn't worth the cost? I'm sure you wouldn't be to happy.

The way capitalism works is giving the people the option to expand and make more money. If you're not going to make the money..you have no reason to excel at what you do. Once that goes so far you just stop . Which is why the games " aren't worth buying anymore " . Why put 10x the amount of time and effort into something that will make you as much money as the next **** carbon copy game?

 

[Trotter]

I won't play a game I have to continue to pay to play. Paying the initial cost is more than fair for the company, but then wanting me to pay them X amount every month to be able to use the game I already bought grates on my sensibilities. I'm not saying I will never play a "pay to play" game, but I refuse to at this point in time.

However this model does have merit. If the initial game was of low enough cost, say what it cost to press the disk(s) and package it, I would be willing to give a game a go if it appealed to me enough. This would be especially true if it were a game several of my friends and/or clan was playing together.

But how much is too much? $15 a month to grind in WOW is ridiculous to me. $5 would be more palatable, and $10 would be borderline at best. EA's model with Battlefield 2 is a good one... people buy the game and can play for free, but those who want to have ranked servers have to pay for the privilege thus giving EA a steady stream of income and giving players the enjoyment they paid for.

Forget DRM and treating customers like criminals. If the game itself was distributed for free (or close to it) but used a "pay to play" model it would be stupid to try to use DRM on it. WOW would have been the perfect scenario for this, but Blizzard milks that cash cow with additional material that has to be purchased as well as paying for the initial game.

 

[synergy]

^ That's right...I forgot about the BF2 model. It makes the most sense, because to get the most (or anything if you ask the right person) out of the game you should be playing on ranked servers. It still enforces valid keys to play, but didn't require pay-to-play either.

Even then though some dumb ***es pirated the game and wondered why they wasted the GB's on their hard drive because offline/SP play on BF2 was a total nerf-fest.

 

[hikaricloud]

The point is they are losing money. That money (even though it's a dot in their millions) is still a percentage. What if someone took away X% of your income because your work wasn't worth the cost? I'm sure you wouldn't be to happy.

So wait. Who are the cheap people now?

The people who don't want to pay 50 bucks for a game they may not like? Or the people who you say are going to cry over a .0091% loss from their profits based on people using private servers?

Speaking as a musician, I think I would be more excited if people were just listening and liking my music more than my slight loss in profit margins. Any true creator of anything like this would prefer people liked it than how much money they get out of it. Sure, money to cover the costs and make enough money to live off of is one thing, but when you're going to complain about a .0091% loss, I don't think you can call yourself a true creator anymore. You're just a businessman then.

EDIT: Syn, wasn't that also Blizzard's old model? Starcraft, Diablo, etc etc.

 

[synergy]

Not sure...I never played those games :/

 

[hikaricloud]

Well, I don't know if there is a way to get around needing a legit key to play online, but what I do know is that you couldn't use a key online that was already being used online. So say, a pirated version as a set key and 500 people download it, only one of those guys can get online.

That's what I remember at least. I never had problems with that since I have them all legit.