This is how PC Gaming piracy should be tackled!, Something that shocked me when I read up on it... Options

[Danrik]

The Void is a game released back in April 2008, which is so original that I can't begin to explain how it is played.

Developed by Ice-Pick Lodge, a developer situated in Moscow, Russia, it was awarded "Most Non-Standard Game", their second game to recieve this award (And when you consider they've only even released 2 games, that's something to brag about =P)

Inevitably, the game appeared on Russia's largest torrent site after a little while. This is what I found to be quite amazing...

Piracy
The Void was noted in Russia for its developers' reaction to piracy. When the game appeared on the largest Russian torrents.ru tracker, the developers talked to the downloaders in the thread, answered game related questions and encouraged them to buy the game, if they liked it. Also, the developers made an official torrent containing all bonus material from the gift edition

What do you guys think about Piracy and how it's being tackled? What do you think about this particular approach?

[cirro]

I don't think its really an approach to combat it. but more of a realistic situation instead of investing countless precious rubels on making new software, trying to reason with them. its most likely not going to stop them, but save them money in the long run fighting it.

[Danrik]

I don't think its really an approach to combat it. but more of a realistic situation instead of investing countless precious rubels on making new software, trying to reason with them. its most likely not going to stop them, but save them money in the long run fighting it.

I'll speak for myself when I say if I were in that situation and was told "Look, try the game out, and if you like it, buy it" and I enjoyed it, then I'd go out and buy it =P Without a shadow of a doubt.

I don't know, it might just be me but I REALLY respect stuff like that...
Unlike EA for example, the biggest example, who have their heads stuck so far up their backsides that their copy protection makes pirating a game MORE viable and makes buying the game a pain in the neck, yaknow?

I really think that game devs should stop and look at the example Ice-Pick Lodge set, because in the end as you mentioned it saves money, and I think that alot more pirates can be won over with a motion that would cause them to respect the devs alot more

[Fogel]

When Sins of the Solar Empire was released the only anti-piracy protection it had was a CD-Key to play online ...yet it was one of the more successful games in terms of sales despite not being a title everyone knows about.

[nickosha]

I do like that approach and it might actually be the best way for a PC developer (well maybe not the uploading part), considering that any measures to counteract piracy are pretty futile. Paraphrasing something I read the other day, the only thing stopping everyone from pirating is the thought of supporting the developers. Getting their name out and supporting their game and it's community is possibly the best way to be successful in our market, besides obviously making a good game.

The PC gaming community is very unique in the way that word of mouth/text is so powerful that games that aren't advertised very much can easily sell many more copies than games that spend a ton on advertising. Major examples of this are The Witcher and Sins of a Solar Empire. I imagine that this is also why independent developers can find success on the PC market.

This post has been edited by nickosha: Nov 7 2009, 03:47 PM

[psycho_terror]

i don't need to be told to buy games i like.

for example, i played the hell out of borderlands in the past few days, and now my copy is in the mail. played painkiller: resurrection for about 20 mins. not worth the RRP. hype doesn't sell games on the PC, quality does.

i will say though it is nice when a developer tackles piracy by building a relationship with players , and without punishing legit customers. in contrast is infinity ward, who have done a lot to annoy fans recently. the first COD6 torrents have just hit the net and think a lot of people won't be losing any sleep over downloading it and never buying a copy.

[actionstan]

The Void is a game released back in April 2008, which is so original that I can't begin to explain how it is played.

Developed by Ice-Pick Lodge, a developer situated in Moscow, Russia, it was awarded "Most Non-Standard Game", their second game to recieve this award (And when you consider they've only even released 2 games, that's something to brag about =P)

Inevitably, the game appeared on Russia's largest torrent site after a little while. This is what I found to be quite amazing...

What do you guys think about Piracy and how it's being tackled? What do you think about this particular approach?

im gunna go out on a limb here and say why stop piracy, its not really fair to us, most game now of days have multiplayer... for pc. and alot of companies are becoming to lazy to release a half way demo. explain to me why i should spend 50 hard earned dollars on a game i cant return if it blows chunks... i will continue to play games before i buy them(i call this renting a pc game). play the single player and if its worth its salt ill buy it. they wont stop piracy, piracy is about as stoppable as terrorism, you aint gunna stop. now if they figured a way to make pc games rentable, id be more down for that. ive spent 50 dollars on to many pc games ive played then threw in my drawer to gather dust. and i feel so burned every time i buy a game that i end up hating

This post has been edited by actionstan: Nov 7 2009, 05:20 PM

[actionstan]

i don't need to be told to buy games i like.

for example, i played the hell out of borderlands in the past few days, and now my copy is in the mail. played painkiller: resurrection for about 20 mins. not worth the RRP. hype doesn't sell games on the PC, quality does.

i will say though it is nice when a developer tackles piracy by building a relationship with players , and without punishing legit customers. in contrast is infinity ward, who have done a lot to annoy fans recently. the first COD6 torrents have just hit the net and think a lot of people won't be losing any sleep over downloading it and never buying a copy.

yea i agree with this completely. valve has impressed me so i didnt need to torrent l4d2 i acctually preordered my first game. it seems that mw2 CEO is just in it for money and is kinda evil so i hate him

This post has been edited by actionstan: Nov 7 2009, 05:26 PM

[Danrik]

Valve have always been awesome, no doubt about that =P

The government here in the UK are planning on disconnecting pirates permanently. Seriously, I don't see that going down very well at all...

[Jump4h]

Valve have always been awesome, no doubt about that =P

The government here in the UK are planning on disconnecting pirates permanently. Seriously, I don't see that going down very well at all...

I'd love to see them try.

[slick2500]

Yup the Pirated versions of most of EA's games are DRM free, which makes them so more appealing than the retail versions, wasn't spore the most torrented game of all time because it had the strictest DRM of all time? Which goes to prove that DRM does not prevent piracy it actually increases it. But they will never learn, EA will continue to make games that make your life a living hell to install Infinity Ward will continue to screw over pc gamers and make console ports of all their future games. The only developers that seems to care about pc gamers anymore are the small dev houses and Valve.

[Darkfuneral1337]

I played CoH about a year or so without buying. I loved it so much I decided to go ahead and buy the game. The thing is, a smart person would first like to try out the game, instead of spending $50-$60 on a game and then not liking it. I personally find this works better than going and making a thing that stops piracy. Of course there are those dumb crap who just download every game and don't buy, those people should just screw off.

Also, what is this with SecurRom or those other programs, I have never in my life had any issues with it. Seriously where do you get these errors? I have at least 50+ games(Probably even 100+) and not a single game has made me have issues because of SecurRom or other security programs.

This post has been edited by Darkfuneral1337: Nov 8 2009, 09:18 AM