Does piracy really cause that much of a problem for video games?
Matt Hawkins Some say it’s what will eventually destroy the industry, while others claim it’s no big deal. So what’s the story?
Stanislas Mettra, the producer of the upcoming I Am Alive from UbiSoft, recently got into a hot bit of water with gamer dorks when explaining why his so-called “thought provoking” post-apocalyptic adventure that’s headed to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network is skipping the PC.
His reasons? Well, no one buys PC games anymore, apparently, and that’s mostly because everyone just steals everything. He also noted everyone that’s pissed of are bitching for the sake of bitching, and was probably never going to buy the game anyway. That last point is fair, but his other two? It largely depends…
As noted in the past, the big time publishers, likes Ubi, are trying their best to combat piracy with all sorts of wacky DRM schemes that are a huge hassle to their customers. Though more importantly, they don’t seem to work. If someone is going to steal something, they will figure out a way, period.
And that person who just stole game X; if they can’t play it for free by unscrupulous means, will they eventually throw in the towel and just buy the damn thing? Maybe a few, but honestly, for the most part, probably not realistically speaking.
There are various other means of preventing a game from being stolen. Like making it actually worth putting money down for. As Fork Parker, CFO for Devolver Digital, aka the folks behind Serious Sam 3 claims: “people will pay for awesome.”
Furthermore: “Piracy is a problem and there is no denying that but the success of games like Skyrim and our own Serious Sam 3 on PC illustrates that there is clearly a market willing to pay for PC games… It’s on the developers and publishers to put something out on the market that’s worth paying for in the first place. Those that place the blame on the consumer need to rethink the quality of their products and the frequency in which they shovel out derivative titles each year.”
Got that right. He goes on to state that one major component is the distribution model, like Steam for example, which is essentially to games as to what iTunes was to music. Someone on the outside might find all the love and adoration that Valve’s digital distribution channel gets a bit perplexing, since EA’s Origin gets nothing but flack. I myself have a hard time truly discerning the difference between their DRM schemes at times. But the fact of the matter is, Steam is just easy to use, as well as convenient.
Everyone thought Apple was nuts with their initial $1 a song deal, but in the end, it takes a lot of energy to pirate something. Oh, and some of us actually care about supporting artists, and actually mean it. Though I believe the real key to Steam’s success is all those wacky sales, which leads to plenty of impulse buys. Everyone thinks they’re getting a great deal, and they are… on stuff that they may never actually touch. It’s consumerism at it’s finest.
Unfortunately, life is rarely fair. The Witcher 2, which by all accounts is a great title, has
“From the very beginning our main competitors on the market were pirates… We of course experimented with all available DRM/copy protection, but frankly nothing worked. Whatever we used was cracked within a day or two, massively copied and immediately available on the streets for a fraction of our price.
“We did not give up, but came up with new strategy: we started offering high value with the product – like enhancing the game with additional collectors’ items like soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc. This, together with a long process of educating local gamers about why it makes sense to actually buy games legally, worked. And today, we have a reasonably healthy games market.”
Despite all the b.s. that his folks are going through, he still stands by the stone cold truth, that being how DRM is ultimately ineffective and that it’s more trouble than its worth, especially to those that play by the rules. Well, I feel so bad for the guy that I might just buy his game, just because! Anyhow, the point is, don’t dipsh*t and don’t steal. Seriously.
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