(David) Piracy Rates for the New Release: Demigod!
April 20, 2009
Alright, so this should probably be the last update about piracy, so we can get back to the fun gamey stuff! On April 9th, a game for the PC called “Demigod” was released, and with that release was an interesting decision by the game developers. They chose –not- to put in any DRM protection into the game; their logic was that it harassed the honest buyers and their solution was that in order to play the game online (which was its main appeal) you’d need to have a legitimate copy anyways.
http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815/
Here are the announced figures for the game: 18,000 people bought the game legitimately, and over 100,000 people pirated it. Things are looking very poor for the company in light of this, amongst other problems, and it appears that their faith in the consumer may not have paid off. What is someone supposed to do? If you put too much protection on a game it backfires horrendously, like in the case of Spore, and is worse than if you left your game naked. If you do leave it naked, though, and go by the honor system, no one will buy the game anyways and they’ll just pirate it. What is the solution??
The OnLive Cloud computing system
http://www.redherring.com/Home/25965
The link above talks about Cloud computing. In this, all of the computing power is with the company and they send you the images on your monitor. Basically, you don’t own the computer or game, just the tv and controller/keyboard. Piracy would, in theory, be impossible with this because there’s no game to spread around after release. The problem with this? The US is woefully lacking in the high speed internet power needed to effectively deliver enough information to have a great gaming experience. Many other countries are moving to fiber optics while we’re still stuck in high speed cable.
Advertising in Games
http://www.blindsociety.com/blindspot/2007/06/
Lastly, this link talks about advertising in gaming. Advertising, known as commercials here, basically pay for the television we watch, so why not games? We could have commercials during loading screens and product placement in games, so the advertising companies pay for everything and thus, even if you pirate the game all of the advertising is intact (since you would weave it into the game) The problem? http://www.filmhobbit.com/games/Advertising-In-Gaming-Bombs-With-Consumers-2102.html
The study above says that gamers don’t really pay attention to ads in games, so it might repel otherwise willing companies. The temptation to continue charging more and trying to pound pirates will also continue, because if you can beat piracy your revenue theoretically goes up. What is the final solution to all of this? Likely it will be a combination of several things, such as those above. Definitely though, piracy will never truly die out, in our new digital age it’s here to stay. I wonder if we are living in the golden age of pirates, or if this is simply an omen of things to come?
1. Demigod cover. [Online image] Available http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Demigod_Cover.jpg, 4/19/2009. 2. OnLive System. [Online image] Available http://www.redherring.com/Home/25965, 4/19/2009. 3. Ads in Gaming. [Online image] Available http://eduncan911.com/archive/2007/01/27/if-you-watch-ads-you-should-get-free-stuff.aspx, 4/19/2009.
The last game I played was 007 in eighth grade making me not e much of a gamer. But by looking at the picture and your blog..I was in amazement when I saw the Subway product placement. Can’t we just play our games in peace! I like how the study showed that gamers don’t pay attention to the advertisement. However i feel it would be difficult to avoid and some gamers may end up at subway.
-Chelsey
in the theme of shameless advertizing, come check out our blog. The recent post is about the online gaming community.
Secondly, I find it interesting that a study says that advertisement in video games are ignored therefore not useful. What about all those pointless ads online or on tv? How often do we ignore the commericals and leave the room? Yet, commercials continue to be produced and they will infect the gaming world. For every 100 people who ignore the ad, 1 person listened.
I’m a pretty big gamer so I follow the DRM news as well. In your post you asked what are they supposed to do when so many people pirate the game? I’ll agree with the on the point that you need a legit copy to play online anyways but the simple solution is to make a game that people WANT to play online. In other words: make a good game. I was having this conversation with my friend last night, and we agreed that it seems like game companies really aren’t even trying to take or money anymore. I know there’s the argument that says since they’re losing money from piracy they have to cut costs, but there’s definitely evidence to the contrary. Often times a simple game will be innovative enough to be a good game that people want to play even without being the best. Take something like Braid or Darwinia. Often times indie games will actually be more entertaining than the big budget games out around the same time, very like music. In short, if the companies would put more focus onto the innovativeness/story/details of their games first, then they can reap the profits from their legacies later (Like SquareEnix: don’t play the Last Remnant Demo on PC. Just don’t.)
~Jonathan S.