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Original post by Oluseyi
I just wanted to point out that Nielsen will start tracking advertisements in video games.

http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=245994
http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsID=245826
http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11271~2073188,00.html

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Interesting one of the key plus points quoted by Robert Kotick is that the target audience activly choose to buy the games.

Edit: I just had a thought. Adverts in games could actually lead to INCREASED piracy. A lot of people who actually own games seek out "no-CD" hacks so that they don't need to keep the disk in the drive. How long before hackers are posting "no-advert" hacks just to piss off the suits.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

[edited by - obscure on April 10, 2004 11:59:53 AM]

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Original post by MichaelT
The way I see it is that probably the only really effective way of dealing with piracy is to require the gamer to use an account on a game server. There would most likely be thieves there too but compared with todays rampant copying it would be significantly less copying/stealing going on (depending of game solution of course)
Which is why I believe so many developers are looking to go down that road sooner or later.

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I have to agree with this point. Online games are very resilient against piracy, so creating single-player games that also run off an online server and thus require an account could be a viable method of fighting game piracy.

Stick the enemy AI and other level-mechanic code on the server and cracking the game becomes almost impossible. You have the increased cost of running the server, but the guaranteed increase in revenue would probably cover this, especially since server and bandwidth costs are ever reducing.

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Original post by Starboy

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... You have the increased cost of running the server, but the guaranteed increase in revenue ...

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This kind of logic is flawed. It assumes that everyone who pirates, would buy a legal copy if they couldn''t get a pirate copy. Not everyone who pirates does so because they have the money and are being cheap.

I think a pirate proof game would garner some increased sales, but not to the level a lot of game companies think.

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Original post by yspotua

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Original post by Starboy
... You have the increased cost of running the server, but the guaranteed increase in revenue ...

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This kind of logic is flawed. It assumes that everyone who pirates, would buy a legal copy if they couldn't get a pirate copy. Not everyone who pirates does so because they have the money and are being cheap.

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Agreed; note that there's the 'ineffective demand' which it isn't a problem for pirates to be supplying.

That said, I think Starboy's hit on the critical point that I was trying to make: the way to do it is to stop seeking revenue through stuff which *can* be pirated (i.e. the software product) and start using stuff which *can't* (i.e. subscriptions, tech licensing, advertising).

[edited by - Superpig on April 11, 2004 12:32:03 PM]

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Original post by superpig
That said, I think Starboy''s hit on the critical point that I was trying to make: the way to do it is to stop seeking revenue through stuff which *can* be pirated (i.e. the software product) and start using stuff which *can''t* (i.e. subscriptions, tech licensing, advertising).

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While I think free software isn''t a viable option I certainly think that reducing the cost would generate more sales and more revenue (even if it doesn''t reduce piracy) and that the concept of charging for services is a good one.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

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Original post by yspotua
This kind of logic is flawed. It assumes that everyone who pirates, would buy a legal copy if they couldn''t get a pirate copy. Not everyone who pirates does so because they have the money and are being cheap.

I think a pirate proof game would garner some increased sales, but not to the level a lot of game companies think.

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Well, I tend to disagree with you on that. The ''I wouldn''t have bought it anyway so no-one''s losing out'' excuse is offered by many people who pirate games, but I doubt there''s much truth in it.

First off, if the person can afford the hardware the software runs on, then they *do* have the budget to buy the software too. Piracy enables them to have it for a reduced cost so can use their budget elsewhere, and therefore ''couldn''t afford it anyway''.

Secondly, and this is one thing that *really* pisses me off about piracy, pirates tend to spend huge amounts of money on piracy itself. I know of someone who had his XBox chipped so he could run copied games, which cost him £80 to fit. He then pays £5 for each copied games he buys from his ''dealer''. He owns around 30 copied games, so that''s well over £200 spent on piracy. It''s ironic that he only plays around 4 games regularly, so the money he spent could have bought those games outright and he could have rented the rest and still be way under what he''s spent on pirating games. If the games were pirate proof though, this money would be going into the games industry rather than the pocket of some dodgy lowlife.

People copy games because the option is there to do so and they can get away with it, and they feel they are getting a bargain. If you force them to either pay up or not play at all, I think you''d be surprised how many choose to opt in. I''m not talking about boosting sales 300%, but I''d be very surprised if it didn''t boost sales by at least 20-30%.

Starboy wrote:
First off, if the person can afford the hardware the software runs on, then they *do* have the budget to buy the software too. Piracy enables them to have it for a reduced cost so can use their budget elsewhere, and therefore ''couldn''t afford it anyway''.

Just because somebody has the budget to buy a game, does not mean they would buy it. A lot of people have an appetite for games larger than they are willing to spend on them. The argument still holds and it is true.

I walk to the quicky mart most every day and buy a bag of peanut butter M&M''s for 75cents. No way in hell would I pay that much at the regular store. I won''t even pay 50cents at the regular store. When they go down to 3 for a dollar. I am all over that and fill my cart. I have a large appetite for candy, but am only willing to pay a high price if it is extremely convienient. Hmm. Maybe this analogy works better for music. Oh well, I''ll just leave it for fun.

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Original post by billy_zelsnack

Just because somebody has the budget to buy a game, does not mean they would buy it. A lot of people have an appetite for games larger than they are willing to spend on them. The argument still holds and it is true.

I walk to the quicky mart most every day and buy a bag of peanut butter M&M''s for 75cents. No way in hell would I pay that much at the regular store. I won''t even pay 50cents at the regular store. When they go down to 3 for a dollar. I am all over that and fill my cart. I have a large appetite for candy, but am only willing to pay a high price if it is extremely convienient. Hmm. Maybe this analogy works better for music. Oh well, I''ll just leave it for fun.

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So some people wouldn''t still buy a game even if they did have the budget for it - the point is that *some* certainly would, which would make it worthwhile.

I''m not sure where you are going with the M&M analogy. What''s a quicky mart?

There is one rather large difference between music and games. Piracy of CDs started because the record companies really have been ripping people off. The ''quality'' of music has not gone up over the years. Indeed some people will swear the best music ever made was back centuries ago. The quality stayed the same, the price of production went down yet the retail price stayed the same? I can understand why people got annoyed. For a good while the only viable home production way to reproduce the CDs was through tapes useing time consuming methods that gave a fair loss in quality. Then came MiniDiscs and affordable, useable burners and you know the rest of the story.

A few years back before the burners there was plenty of complaints about the price of CDs. I don''t think the pressure against the price of games is anywhere near this yet because for one reason, the quality is going up. Graphics leap upwards every few months. And after a while the price of games drop down. If I go to a record shop I will find many old CDs on sale for close to the price of the new stuff. But I can buy a 2 year old game for well under the price of a new one.

I don''t think games will really be hit hard by piracy. Console games are complicated to pirate for the end user because of chips and stuff. PC games can be done easily enough but the download files can be massive. This drives off the bulk of the population, and face it, those who are willing to download the games will go far to get them considering how much time they spend.

I seriously do not think the effective demand will be cut into so badly. Most of the figures waved around the place take anything they can into account making them rather fake.

Well thats my 0.02€.

Starboy wrote:
I''m not sure where you are going with the M&M analogy. What''s a quicky mart?

Don''t worry about it. It was dumb, maybe I should bust it out on slashdot. Haha. As for a quicky mart. They are little stores where you guy buy gas, cigarettes, milk, alchohol, and M&M''s.