Quote: Original post by jtagge75
About the Windows thing, I got a whole stack of MS-DOS games that don't really work anymore. I know there are things like DOSBox but that is besides the point. Technology moves on and old things don't work anymore. If it means that much then keep a Win98 computer around. In 10 years make sure you got a old dual core with XP on it to run the 'old games'.

That's exactly why dosbox exists, and it's perfect, DOS games will live on forever! Wolfenstein 3D, BioMenace, etc..., they'll be playable in 100 years or more if needed. But that's because DOS was a reasonably simple platform. I don't think the same will be possible with many games for Windows 7. Although some things appear to work fine in Wine so those will work forever too.

Games just are priced completely wrong. 60$ is absurd for a game

If the game cost 10$-15$ many more people would actually buy it and they would probably end up making the same amount.

When World of Goo implemented the pay whatever you want temporary, they made vast amounts more from people who payed just 5$ (30,000$), versus those who paid the original amount (25$ only made 600$ or so)

Quote: Original post by LodeAnd that why I think it's the customer's right to complain about DRM.

I never meant to imply that people can't complain about DRM. Only that it is contradictory to complain about DRM and complain about what piracy is doing to the video game industry, which you didn't do in your post. If people want a 100% DRM-free world, and accept than they will be paying increasing costs and potentially have fewer game offerings, that is the person's choice and the logic of their opinion holds true.

I was only speaking of people who complain about what they consider intrusive DRM, and also complain that prices are going up, studios are focusing more on consoles (where piracy is not quite as wide-spread), etc.

Quote: Original post by jtagge75
[...]About the Windows thing, I got a whole stack of MS-DOS games that don't really work anymore. I know there are things like DOSBox but that is besides the point. Technology moves on and old things don't work anymore. If it means that much then keep a Win98 computer around. In 10 years make sure you got a old dual core with XP on it to run the 'old games'.

Actually, DOSBox is exactly the point - old technology can be imitated and reproduced freely such that it isn't much of a problem. Online verification, however, means that the game will be legally unplayable in a few years when the owners decide to stop supporting it (see Hellgate London [1]) due to laws like the DMCA that make DRM bypasses illegal.

The move away from user-run servers scares me as a game player. I don't want to be punished because a few people wont pay for game. I choose not to buy (or play) games that have excessive DRM. As a developer, I'm not going to uninstall all my tools just because they let me look at your game, and I'm not going to let game studios take control of my computer with rootkits or watch everything I do with monitors etc.

[1] While Hellgate London was technically an MMO, the game play was not any different than the small-party groups found in games like Diablo, and thus it could have easily had user-run games that didn't require the company's online server.

As far as the OP's idea, I think a good analogues situation would be to see how many people pirate Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 Standard - Professional+. The Express Editions are easily and freely available, just like the free or low cost game version suggested. Maybe look on a torrent site and see how many people are downloading the higher, commercial versions of Visual Studio. I am not actually sure how much it is being pirated.

Quote: Original post by Lode
I recently played Starcraft (Brood War) again. That's 10 years after I initially played it. I own it legally, but what did I do? I created an ISO file of the StarCraft and the Brood War CDROM, mount them in Linux, and play it that way with Wine. One of the last patches of SC removed the CDRom check anyway so now it even just works without mounting them. I hate having a spinning CDRom in my PC. It even works through battle.net.

I also still play Unreal Tournament every now and then. For that I bought "Unreal Anthology" on eBay for 5 or 10 euro's or so, because I lost the original. 4 Unreal games in one :)

I'm not the kind of guy who finished the one commercial game after the other, I'm someone who sometimes likes a certain game and can then be hooked on it for years. And that's never going to be the sort of game where you play it through once and you've seen and done everything.

So DRM in games is bad for me. It gives me the feeling that I'm not going to be able to play the game anymore in 10 years. And it depends on a lot of crap too, so the scenario of mounting ISO's in Linux and playing it with Wine doesn't sound realistic with modern games anymore either (and neither does playing it with whatever version of Windows that exists in 10 years).

And that why I think it's the customer's right to complain about DRM.

See I support DRM. If a company wants to protect its sales that's fine with me. However, they have to do it in a way that keeps the game alive after they're gone. Things like steam that last for a long time are key to this. I much prefer having a digital download than some disk laying around in my cupboard.

I'd imagine the concept of OnLive might scare some people. It's just an extension of what steam does basically though. :\ If I needed to play a game in 10 years I'd probably just find a digital download if it existed. Honestly all games should be brought to steam. Really simplifies things when you can just pick up a copy for a few dollars.

Quote: Original post by Lode
(and neither does playing it with whatever version of Windows that exists in 10 years).

I was playing the Myst games the other day. They don't run in Windows 7. (Well Myst does but crashes sometimes and riven is unplayable). So I just installed in XP mode and voilà. That should work in the future. (On a side note windows shouldn't be backwards compatible. Just run everything old in a seamless VM... :| )

Just like the music industry, the games industry is trying to find revenue models that don't require the constant vigilance and cost that's required when you treat data as an object in the world. The idea that a small team (under a thousand, let's say) of code-writers can produce software fortifications for a game in a few weeks or months that will last more than a few days once the pirate hordes lay siege to them is patently absurd, and forcing paying consumers to jump through hoops and endure hardship in order to "do it right" doesn't do anyone any good. I remember Spore was supposed to be a big step in the "oppress legitimate customers in order to stymie thieves" direction, and I know three people who stole it and zero who bought it.

Online-only play with version verification and constant support, including content updates, bugfixes and cunning punkbusting, seems to work well for most MMOs, and it also has the benefit of continuing to generate revenue from steady customers after they buy it the first time. I think I've given CCP $300 or more for EvE Online over the years, and my friend has given Blizzard more for his WoW subscriptions and expansions than he paid for his first car.

Consoles do well here, too, since you can have a smallish game released via PSN or XBLA and they'll be protected by the aegis of the network's security, plus the consoles and their users are less inclined toward piracy. How many hundreds of Xbox Live accounts were banned as the new Call of Duty game was rolled out? Lots, and that's the sort of direct punitive action that can actually dissuade would-be pirates.

But for a smallish game on the PC that won't have ongoing support and is completely contained in a single collection of files, there's no way to encrypt or boobytrap or cripple the game that won't be reverse-engineered or decyphered by end users. It just can't be done reliably, and the rootkits and DRM and online verification that try it will inevitably piss off the good guys without meaningfully interfering with the bad guys.

Quote: Original post by bgilb
Games just are priced completely wrong. 60$ is absurd for a game

If the game cost 10$-15$ many more people would actually buy it and they would probably end up making the same amount.

Pricing is an interesting topic, but there's many factors in play. I'm not sure of the absurdity of game prices, although that's less to do with my own study of the figures and mostly due to a gut feeling that if large publishers could make more money by pricing lower, they'd do so. They've certainly got access to better market figures than I do. Plus I remember back when game prices were a lot higher once inflation was considered. I remember Space Quest III in 1989 was around A$80. That would be, what, around A$140 in today's money? Given that full priced games cost A$110 and contain a heck of a lot more content than SQ3, that sounds like a bargain. I'm more likely to complain about the currency conversion rip-off. I mean, US$60? That's A$65, yet we pay A$110? Madness. [rolleyes]

As for whether charging $10 would earn more, I doubt it. It depends a lot on the game, but the current scheme of charging a higher price like $60 and gradually scaling down to bargain rates over the course of several years sounds to me like it should bring in more revenue than charging at the low rate to begin with.

I do know that some indie developers have experimented with price drops, and in most cases found they earned less money that way. The typical result for a price drop of $20 to $10 was for sale numbers to almost (note almost) double the next month, then dropping back to their original figures. Note though that indie games run in a different market than the big name commercial offerings, so I don't know if the same thing would apply to prices set to boxes sold in retail stores.

Quote: When World of Goo implemented the pay whatever you want temporary, they made vast amounts more from people who payed just 5$ (30,000$), versus those who paid the original amount (25$ only made 600$ or so)

That was a special offer that ran for a week for a rather well known indie title that had already been out for a year. I don't think it says that much about how a particular pricing scheme would work over the long term. It was mostly interesting to me as a clever marketing event. Interestingly, regular sales over Steam went up by 40% (although I don't know what figure they went up 40% from.)

Quote: Original post by Scet
I thought this thread was going to be about Pirates!.

Yes, that was my hope as well. 16 Colors of euphoria.

I know people complain about $40-$50 for a PC title, but when you actually break down how many people get their hands on that money, it really only comes out to $9 or so of actual profit for the publisher.

When you look at the trend of PC game prices, they've stayed relativly steady (when talking about "real money" value)...$80 in late 80's would be $40 today. So what would happen if PC game titles began to be priced like console titles? More money for the publishers and developers; meaning more resources to make better games...