Kim Dotcom Teaches How to Stop Piracy in 5 Steps

[someoneelse]

I think kims got a point. however "fair price" is often debatable.

Firstly games are often most expensive at first release - people willing to pay more help subsidise the games later reductions for other people. You have to remember with games and movies the price of development has come down with advancements in technology ( licensing game engines and chroma key for movies)

Secondly alot of the time the customer is investing their money into the unkown. The music industry of the 90s used to make lots of cash out of crappy albums headlined with one good single. Try before you buy is the best arguement for piracy that I know.

thirdly demand and price isn't always related. sometimes the lower the price the more people will buy however some people either will or won't buy something. EG - I wouldn't take a beiber album for free but some kids wiould pay $30for an album if they had to.

Getting the right balance for your product is difficult and piracy can really screws things up. However piracy can also be seen as free advertising. musicians make millions out of touring nowadays - what they need is lots of people willing to turn up. the more people listening and becoming fans the better.

Piracy is a complicated picture if you ask me and it doesn't always harm the companies. however the bottom line is that if you like something pay for it - or else they'll stop making it.

 

[may1]

Um, easier said than done? How easy is it to distribute contents illegally vs actually creating contents?

 

[hoofhearted]

Fair price - If all the major content providers followed 1,2,3 and 5. Economics/competition/supply and demand would naturally set 4

 

[azraa]

If its in the Internetz, its free.
It isn't that hard to understand, right?

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]kinggremlin[/nom]Really? So you think and took the same amount of time and money to develop?Yea, it's so incredibly difficult to see why games aren't as long as they used to be. When you consider how much more complex and expensive they have gotten to develop, we should feel fortunate that the prices have stayed roughly the same over the past 20+ years.[/citation]

um... i was talking about the premium that cartrages put on games, and how they were inflated, not because of the content you got but by the cost to deliver that content.

i go on later or at least i think i do about supply and demand with games, i dont know if the site ate my post about that or not, but it was a more recent thing that games sold those record breaking billion + dollars. some games sold less than 200k (from memory cant remember the generation, may have been super nintendo) and were considered successes. now, it takes a few million for a AAA game to break even.

less games sold means higher cost.
if these games sold in the million range back than we may have seen them go down in price to cover cost a materials and all that, with a slight increase for the content you bought.

[citation][nom]casualcolors[/nom]People really arguing about game prices? Lot of young'ins here I see. If you adjust for inflation, games in the 16-bit era for example tended to cost at least 50% more than current console titles, and in some cases almost 100% more. The reason that the gaming industry is so much more profitable today than it was 25 years ago is due to just how much sales have skyrocketed. Games now occasionally log units sold into the 8 digit territory cumulatively. In the past, for a game to sell that much that would take its entire lifespan and several years beyond and it would have been one of the rarest of standouts on its platform. Game sales have expanded at a rate that has significantly outpaced not only inflation but the increased costs of game development and marketing.In short, is gaming more a profitable industry today? Yes. But do you pay less in inflation-adjusted dollars today for a game than you did 25 years ago? Yes, considerably less.[/citation]

you are failing to take into consideration the cost of materials nosedived once cd and dvd came around. yea its mostly a console thing but point still stands.

[citation][nom]kinggraves[/nom]http/www.elizabethany.com/2012/1 [...] us-ad.htmlOh look, all games weren't $20 back in the day, they went up to $70. There's actually PROOF of that on the internet. They would cost even more today if anyone here has actually managed to pass grade school economics and understands there's inflation within 15 years. Know how much inflation? $70 in the 90s would be $100 today. Then again, even when I was in grade school I had the intelligence to go buy my games used from the video store and keep them in good shape. Those $15 copies of Chrono Trigger and Ogre Battle sure did pay some bills later in life.But hey, what video games used to cost is completely irrelevant. Do you comprehend how much effort it takes to complete a 3D rendered virtual world in a modern game with advanced AI compared to how much effort it took to make Pong? Major studios back in the day wouldn't pass as indie dev teams today. Making AAA titles takes massive teams of people comparable to blockbuster movies now. Sure, they may make millions, but it COST millions of dollars to make that game when you consider every single one of those employees was paid. You also do not consider that all the "cult classics" with low sales, remakes, even shovelware, may also end up as losses and cut into their profits. When a company doesn't make profits, they have less money to invest in future titles, and those may be titles you were looking forward to. Unprofitable companies cannot afford to take risks and release anything other than sequels they think will sell. Development studios aren't rolling in the money you think they are, that's why they're shutting down and going bankrupt left and right. The gaming industry is bleeding.So here's some options. Lower your standards and buy lousy mobile games, because they can be made cheaper and are far less of a risk both to the studio and the consumer. Get used to it cheapskate, you don't get steak on a ground chuck budget.Get used to DLC, because you aren't willing to pay more up front and they need to regain their money for that AAA title. Making a shorter game with DLC means they have less of a cost upfront, which means they can afford to gamble on risky IPs. Taking risks means we can perhaps get some fresh IPs rolling instead of just rehashes and sequels.Or stop crying and pay for the quality of game you insist on. Reality is that the demands of gamers and the difficulties devs face rises every year. You want better graphics, but better graphics haven't really gotten much easier to make. You want challenging AI, AI wasn't even a factor in the Atari days. Space invaders didn't sidestep your shot, they just came at you. You want engrossing plots, but quality writers are rare in any form of media. If you don't like a game, don't buy it. There weren't online demos in the past, there wasn't Gamefly. Even as a child, I saved up my allowance for weeks to buy games which occasionally turned out to be garbage. I rented games BY THE DAY at higher rates than VHS. You're complaining about being unable to afford things that A CHILD could afford.tl;dr: Get over it self entitled, socialist society. Things cost money.[/citation]

no, today any of the cartridge based games would be SIGNIFICANTLY LESS
most of the time games cost more with those systems, it was because of how much data was on the carts and the cost to make the cartrages.

i can find 512 mb flash cards for less than 1$ on amazon new. today, the cost of those would be FAR lower than what they were back than, which can be estimated at 20-30$ for the base cost of the cartage.

ok i'm done i just read more of your comment and its kind of painful to read. you don't take into account supply and demand, how many people use to buy games, ot how changes in manufacturing drove profits up with no cost saving on the consumer.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]I'm talking about PC games which case on floppies. I doubt they cost much different than a DVD today.[/citation]

----- ok forgot to press enter, better late than never

wasnt around back than for pc games... but i noticed something, my whole life, that pc games are always able to go down to that 2-10$ mark even in bigger stores... but i have never, outside of used games and rental places going under, seen a console game go under 20$ new if the game was worth owning.

but i do remember this.

pc games use to be rent able, and the places that rent games also sold floppies at the counter... i cant give first hand experience, because i wasn't around at the time (i was alive, but not in pc because i didn't have one) so anything i would say is really based on hear say.

but think of it this way, old games are notorious for being a pain to get playing well. i forget the company, but realisticly you had to upgrade your pc for every release they made.

up untill there were graphics settings and people could play a game reliably on a wide range from low end to high end, how well did pc games sell?

because i know that if there is low demand, the price needs to be high, and if demand is very high, price can be lowered... back than we weren't in this record breaking numbers in the billions of dollars in sales,

 

[razor512]

for those arguing inflation, keep in min that over time producing these games become cheaper. In the 80's you would spend thousands for a few GB of storage but now you can get 1TB for about $50

Games today adjusted for inflation are massively more profitable than games from the 80's and 90's, and that is due to the price being held artificially high relatively to the production cost.

Furthermore, while DRM was created due to theft, it has only increased it as people who would have never pirated before will now begin pirating when their game refuses to work properly due to the DRM.It is like trying to stop a targeted upper respiratory infection by amputating your upper respiratory system system and replacing it with an air assist machine (while on one hand it will prevent those infections ad the viruses literally can only target certain types of cells, it will not stop the virus from entering your body and it will make life a living hell for anyone who does it.

DRM does the same, it does not target the root issue, instead it takes the approach of punishment.

I am currently training to become a teacher and one common thing I have noticed is that there are some classes where the teacher will make everyone put their heads down when 1 or 2 students act up. after that punishment happens once or twice, the entire class eventually begins to act up until they are literally throwing things (because they they see no benefit to being bored and following every single rule when they will still receive the same punishment as the ones who do not.

With DRM, the pirate copies are often better, (for example some games like alice and many others actually perform better when you have a pirate version because the pirate version strips out various memory checks and other DRM related processes which eat up system resources)

In fact, simply going to a cracked copy of pretty much any modern game will net you an instant performance boost due to the lack of ongoing DRM checks.

And since the DRM can be cracked, those who will pirate, will continue to do so (thus the DRM did nothing to stop the people who would choose to pirate in the absence of DRM). When DRM is added, in addition to the people who will pirate regardless, you will not have people who would otherwise pay, choose to just pirate if they know that the pirate copy wont randomly quit if they lose connection to a DRM server, and also know that if the DRM activation ever goes down (eg if the company goes out of business), they will still be able to install and play their games. And if they see that the cracked copy with the DRM checking removed is also performing better (no random lag spikes that seem to happen for no reason, or the game clearly seeming less demanding but is running slow). Then those people who were willing to pay will just pirate the game also and get a better product for free.


With software, there will always be people who copy it for free and there is nothing you can do to effectively stop it, but the wonders of software is that there is no production cost other than the initial production. If you upload a picture of your cat and and someone puts it on reddit and a million people copy that image, does money magically disappear from your bank account? does your original photo magically become less detailed and lose a few stops of dynamic range?

No it does not. with software, there will be people who copy it. The best you can do is make the product inciting for purchase, and that is done by offering good customer service, charging a reasonable price (it is better to sell 100 copies at $5 profit than it is to sell 5 at $10 profit).
And they also need to remove stupid restrictions that make the product less desirable.

When you have games with no DRM, you can install the game to a flash drive and literally plug it into any system that can run the game, and double click on the exe file from the flash drive and the game will run. (when DRM is removed, you can save space in dual boot environment by charing a program files folder)
With DRm removed, (if the files are not being alered (works with some games which do not alter data in the install folder but instead create a locak file on the system (eg in the documents folder where new data is written to (you can install a game on a NAS and have multiple computers launch the game from the NAS at the same time (if the bandwidth is enough, imagine a LAN party of hundreds of people playing a game that they have not installed but can simply play just by being part of the LAN)

DRM is very limiting and it will limit sales. it does not stop piracy, it only stops you from getting as many paying customers as you would have gotten.

 

[beayn]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]The thing that kills me is the general complaint that games cost to much, yet they've cost roughly $50 for new releases for the past 25 years, while the value of that $50 is less than half what it was back then.[/citation]The games also contain less than half the content they did back then. We're still getting the same value.

Personally I don't mind paying $50 once in a while for a really great game. I can't afford to pay it for every new release, so I wait for steam sales and pick up other games for $5 to $15. It means I can't play it at release, but sometimes too many games come out at once anyway.

Now I haven't seen anybody mention movies. Movies in my opinion are far far more expensive. Since I have an HDTV, I would want bluray movies, but new releases are almost always $25, sometimes higher. There is simply no way I can afford $25 for a 2 hour movie, along with $60 for every new game.

If movies were $10 for new releases and would come down to $5 a few months later, I would buy every movie and rarely download. Instead, I buy a $25 movie maybe once a year, if that.

If movie companies won't budge on the price, then they should at least offer a "no extras" version of the movie for $10 at release and $25 for the one with all the extras.

 

[beayn]

Actually I'd like to correct myself but I can't edit my message. I said games contain less content so we're getting the same value out of them as the old days, however, if you work it out in cost per hour to play a game, it's not nearly the same value.

Games back in the day offered upward of 40-80 hours of play which often worked out to about $1 per hour if you paid $40 to $80. Many games today offer 6-12 hours of play at $60, which comes out to $10 per hour for the shorter games. If I want to buy a copy for my wife to play Coop, it will cost us upward of $20 per hour, which is more than most people make at their full time jobs. Even if it offered 12 hours, that's $10 per hour for both of us to play versus $1-2 in the old days.

So no, we aren't getting the same value out of games that we used to.

 

[razor512]

Keep in mind that some multiplayer games are designed around achievements and leveling up (eg some games will require you to reach certain stats/ milestones before you are able to use certain weapons so if you wait a while for the price to drop, then you will end up with a situation where you not only have to fight players who have more experience, but also better equipment and in many cases, it can make progressing either nearly impossible, or just not fun when you get tired of situations where you walk up to someone, start shooting, then after a second or so they notice that they are taking damage, then turn around, then kill you in 1/10 of a second because they have better weapons.

While not all games are like this, when you end up in a situation like this, it really sucks the fun out of the game.

 

[madooo12]

[citation][nom]internetlad[/nom]Works on any device eh? In that case i'm totally pirating GTA V if it doesn't work on my NES.Seriously though, I see where he's coming from, but I doubt anybody who matters is listening to him at this point.[/citation]
no, he meant that people can try to pirate stuff to enable it on more devices, like some games and OSes that won't run on older devices even though they are capable of running them, and some TWIWMTBP games that are crappy on AMD hardware, some crackers may find ways to disable that shit

[citation][nom]twelch82[/nom]Very true. And quite often I choose not to buy. I think what is missing in this is that when I choose not to buy something, it has effectively the same outcome as piracy. In both cases, the owner of the copyrighted material I didn't buy ended up with nothing. Actually, it's worse than piracy, because the copyright holder didn't benefit from gaining another person who knows what his material is about and would potentially recommend it. But nonetheless, that's what he wanted, so it's fair.[/citation]
totally agree, I think companies should help pirates, not attack them, stuff that gets pirated gets popular fast

 

[Aoyagi]

Works on any device? Yeah, that will improve controls and progression. Presonally I agree only with 2 and 3. They already make great stuff, people still pirate it. If it's not great, there is no reason to pirate it and waste time with in to begin with. Price is what the customers will pay. Most of pirates would still torrent (or whatever) the game even if it was $5. And really, why the hell would I want to make games run on everything? That would not only kill any kind of more complex controls, but would most likely stop progression altogether. AND not to mention that a PC pirates wouldn't pirate Heavy Rain, would they? Or PS3 player wouldn't pirate Diablo 3. Whoever created this list didn't give it much thought.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]beayn[/nom]The games also contain less than half the content they did back then. We're still getting the same value.Personally I don't mind paying $50 once in a while for a really great game. I can't afford to pay it for every new release, so I wait for steam sales and pick up other games for $5 to $15. It means I can't play it at release, but sometimes too many games come out at once anyway.Now I haven't seen anybody mention movies. Movies in my opinion are far far more expensive. Since I have an HDTV, I would want bluray movies, but new releases are almost always $25, sometimes higher. There is simply no way I can afford $25 for a 2 hour movie, along with $60 for every new game. If movies were $10 for new releases and would come down to $5 a few months later, I would buy every movie and rarely download. Instead, I buy a $25 movie maybe once a year, if that. If movie companies won't budge on the price, then they should at least offer a "no extras" version of the movie for $10 at release and $25 for the one with all the extras.[/citation]
There are a lot of games with every bit the duration of games back in the day. Many have more. Back in the day, games were made to be nearly unbeatable at times, perhaps the replaying to try and beat one gave you more hours than today's games, but that has not been my experience.

Anyways, you think it is ok to pirate because you don't know if it is worth buying. I think that would be a good reason to not buy games at release. Wait until others have had a chance to play and review the game, then buy the best ones. Only buy new releases when you are dying to play a sequel of a game you loved. Not only would it increase your chance of a great game, but you may pay less as well.

Now be honest with yourself. Have you pirated games you played for 20+ hours in the name of "testing if it is worth buying", and not paid for it?

My guess is you are following a human trait of always taking the easiest path to an end goal. If you can find it for free, you use it. Right or wrong.

 

[p05esto]

NO DRM, plain video files (MKV), HD quality and cheap prices ($5-10) at the very most and no one will ever pirate another movie..... You will make up the price with the volume sold, it's a win-win, and everyone will get to see your movie.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]Aoyagi[/nom]Works on any device? Yeah, that will improve controls and progression. Presonally I agree only with 2 and 3. They already make great stuff, people still pirate it. If it's not great, there is no reason to pirate it and waste time with in to begin with. Price is what the customers will pay. Most of pirates would still torrent (or whatever) the game even if it was $5. And really, why the hell would I want to make games run on everything? That would not only kill any kind of more complex controls, but would most likely stop progression altogether. AND not to mention that a PC pirates wouldn't pirate Heavy Rain, would they? Or PS3 player wouldn't pirate Diablo 3. Whoever created this list didn't give it much thought.[/citation]
It is possible he meant something else than what it sounded like from the article. He may have meant when you buy a game like Skyrim on the console platform, you can also use it on the PC without buying another copy.

 

[Kami3k]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]The thing that kills me is the general complaint that games cost to much, yet they've cost roughly $50 for new releases for the past 25 years, while the value of that $50 is less than half what it was back then.[/citation]

Funny because the value of a lot games released now are half of what they were just 10 years ago.

 

[11796pcs]

I hardly ever buy games at release (except when I really like the developer, like with Total War). Generally I pay about $30 for a game and I'm happy with that.

 

[Mathos]

Actually in the late 80s, early 90s I remember console games costing around 40-60 on release depending on the game. Mainly because they were still using cartridges back then, and cartridge ROMs were expensive to make. But the prices generally fell considerably after about 1 month or so. The whole purpose of switching to CD based systems was to lower costs and lower the prices of the games.... which lasted a whole not long after the ps1 launched, at which point they jacked the prices back up.

BUT, PC games were usually 20-50 for a new release, depending on the grade of the game, right up till they started making everything ports of console games.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]Kami3k[/nom]Funny because the value of a lot games released now are half of what they were just 10 years ago.[/citation]
I find it amazing what time does to ones memories and expectations.

You should try playing those great games back in the day, and compare them to games today. While I remember some great games back them, which caught a hold of me, playing them again shows just how poor many of them were.

Time spent on new games is also quite high on good ones. I have over 400 hours playing Dragon Age Origins, over 200 in Dragon Age 2. almost 500 hours playing Skyrim. I had over 200 hours playing Diablo 3. That's pretty good value to me.

 

[casualcolors]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]. you are failing to take into consideration the cost of materials nosedived once cd and dvd came around. yea its mostly a console thing but point still stands[/citation]

Actually I'm well aware of it, but for the sake of brevity (since this is a comments section) and the fact that it only adds to my point that was sufficiently expressed otherwise, I didn't feel compelled go on. There are more factors at play as well, but they all merely add to the point I was making, without changing or detracting from it in any way.