5 ms·

Is it just a game mod, or is it “facilitating piracy”?

33 points by pavornyoh 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago
> Patankar did concede that FiveM does get around the "GTA V launcher," which usually gates the game's content behind some digital rights management. Despite this, he insisted that the mod doesn't help users get unpaid access to either the single player (SP) game or the traditional Grand Theft Auto: Online mode. "[Running] FiveM with whatever copy you have doesn't act as a gateway towards the SP or GTA:O portions," he said. "Even with a legit copy, I can't open FiveM and end up in GTA:O or SP." Compare this to Minecraft where there are 3rd party launchers which ask you for your Minecraft username and password login details. These are used because adding mods is a bit tricky and launchers let you easily experiment with them.
- Joona 11y ago
  Or compare it with the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod, which requires you to own the game on Steam, and acts like a DLC. http://store.steampowered.com/app/259080/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/259080/ Edit: Before they got on Steam, they required you to log in on their site and the mod with Steam's OpenID system, which they could use to check if you owned the game or not.
  - voltagex_ 11y ago
    And Avalanche welcomed them, instead of sending goons to their houses.
    - Joona 11y ago
      I think that's why they got on Steam.
ossreality 11y ago
I guarantee they've lost more potential revenue doing this than they would have ever lost from anything that could be construed as piracy, though that claim still just flatly doesn't make sense to me. Stuff like this makes me wonder how the dev team feels. Somehow I think they and Rockstar lawyers might have vastly different opinions. What a good way to alienate users, and kill off excitement on the dev team. If someone took my game and made it even more sandboxy and hackable and people invested hours and hours into goofy and fun gameplay? I'd be so happy and proud. I don't get it Rockstar, I don't get it.
- elthran 11y ago
  I don't think singling out Rockstar here is fair - I'm sure devs at all the AAA publishers are hate how what they create ends up due to corporate requirements. Here's looking at you Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Konami...
  - anon4 11y ago
    > Konami They aren't a game dev any more. EA seem a bit less awful than their heyday, too... I agree 100% on the rest.
    - elthran 11y ago
      I know - I really didn't realise making Pachinko machines was a viable business, but I feel after all the business with Silent Hills and Kojima, that they still need their fair share of disapproval. As for EA - Yeah, "a bit less awful", but I think SimCity showed that they really haven't changed too much, especially now we've seen what Colossal Order have done with Cities:Skylines
- MisterBastahrd 11y ago
  .... bullshit. Microtransactions are how they SUSTAIN the online version of the game. The people who were going to play this mod were never going to pay for their content anyway.
bitJericho 11y ago
This is too bad since giving pirates and hackers their own space would be vastly better than them being on GTA Online!
- Frenchgeek 11y ago
  More importantly, it could give them a metric on piracy for their game.
  - anon4 11y ago
    90%. You can expect that about 90% of people who play your game have pirated it. This figure has kept constant since the day Doom 1 was new. There are exceptions of course - when the game is tied to hardware copy protection, the number can go down to 0%, but for a PC game with purely software copy protection that is already cracked, the figure is 90%.
    - dijit 11y ago
      anon4 will be chastised for not providing citations, but I work in the games industry and I can confirm this level of piracy. Only on PC though. Publishers realise though that Playstation and Xbox exclusives get cracked significantly less often. It helps when there is no PC version to "unlock" secrets on either. So.. it's a hard sell to management: the least selling platform which also weakens the copy protection of the other platforms (often resulting in lower sales), which additionally; releases to the most vocal and entitled group with an ever increasing amount of issues because of hardware incompatibility or unrelated uncontrollable problems. I understand the frustrations of consumers, but realistically, if you were the publisher- you probably wouldn't be so generous in releasing PC editions of certain games. :\
      - saiya-jin 11y ago
        well, you could just release the game say 6 months after PS/XBOX launch, so it wouldn't eat their sales at all. and, you could spend that time to make the game actually better, ie higher-res textures, and the most important - horrible console controls. it seems this is what is done usually, but the result often feels like 1 developer was dedicated to this effort, for 50% allocation.
antihero 11y ago
They've made over 2 billion dollars. Is a few hackers wandering around a crappy alternative online really something they need to care about? It cost them a mere 265 million to make, too.
ases 11y ago
I think the article has missed something about what Rockstar could consider piracy here: the revenue they get from selling GTA:O microtransactions. If people are opting out of the GTA:O experience for a different online one, that is users Rockstar no longer have to potentially sell microtransactions to. If Rockstar's plan is to focus on GTA:O as a revenue source, then it makes sense to shut down any potential competition, especially if that competition is in their own game. Of course, one could argue that Rockstar may sell more copies of the game for the sake of playing alternative online modes, but I think that this won't be true. If the potential gains from new 'boxed' copies of the game were greater than the potential gains from microtransactions, I think we'd see Rockstar focusing on bringing out more content similar to the two expansions they released for GTA4, rather than the online content they are focusing on now.

33 points by pavornyoh 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

> Patankar did concede that FiveM does get around the "GTA V launcher," which usually gates the game's content behind some digital rights management. Despite this, he insisted that the mod doesn't help users get unpaid access to either the single player (SP) game or the traditional Grand Theft Auto: Online mode. "[Running] FiveM with whatever copy you have doesn't act as a gateway towards the SP or GTA:O portions," he said. "Even with a legit copy, I can't open FiveM and end up in GTA:O or SP." Compare this to Minecraft where there are 3rd party launchers which ask you for your Minecraft username and password login details. These are used because adding mods is a bit tricky and launchers let you easily experiment with them.

Joona 11y ago
Or compare it with the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod, which requires you to own the game on Steam, and acts like a DLC. http://store.steampowered.com/app/259080/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/259080/ Edit: Before they got on Steam, they required you to log in on their site and the mod with Steam's OpenID system, which they could use to check if you owned the game or not.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  And Avalanche welcomed them, instead of sending goons to their houses.
  - Joona 11y ago
    I think that's why they got on Steam.

ossreality 11y ago

I guarantee they've lost more potential revenue doing this than they would have ever lost from anything that could be construed as piracy, though that claim still just flatly doesn't make sense to me. Stuff like this makes me wonder how the dev team feels. Somehow I think they and Rockstar lawyers might have vastly different opinions. What a good way to alienate users, and kill off excitement on the dev team. If someone took my game and made it even more sandboxy and hackable and people invested hours and hours into goofy and fun gameplay? I'd be so happy and proud. I don't get it Rockstar, I don't get it.

elthran 11y ago
I don't think singling out Rockstar here is fair - I'm sure devs at all the AAA publishers are hate how what they create ends up due to corporate requirements. Here's looking at you Ubisoft, EA, Activision, Konami...
- anon4 11y ago
  > Konami They aren't a game dev any more. EA seem a bit less awful than their heyday, too... I agree 100% on the rest.
  - elthran 11y ago
    I know - I really didn't realise making Pachinko machines was a viable business, but I feel after all the business with Silent Hills and Kojima, that they still need their fair share of disapproval. As for EA - Yeah, "a bit less awful", but I think SimCity showed that they really haven't changed too much, especially now we've seen what Colossal Order have done with Cities:Skylines
MisterBastahrd 11y ago
.... bullshit. Microtransactions are how they SUSTAIN the online version of the game. The people who were going to play this mod were never going to pay for their content anyway.

bitJericho 11y ago

This is too bad since giving pirates and hackers their own space would be vastly better than them being on GTA Online!

Frenchgeek 11y ago
More importantly, it could give them a metric on piracy for their game.
- anon4 11y ago
  90%. You can expect that about 90% of people who play your game have pirated it. This figure has kept constant since the day Doom 1 was new. There are exceptions of course - when the game is tied to hardware copy protection, the number can go down to 0%, but for a PC game with purely software copy protection that is already cracked, the figure is 90%.
  - dijit 11y ago
    anon4 will be chastised for not providing citations, but I work in the games industry and I can confirm this level of piracy. Only on PC though. Publishers realise though that Playstation and Xbox exclusives get cracked significantly less often. It helps when there is no PC version to "unlock" secrets on either. So.. it's a hard sell to management: the least selling platform which also weakens the copy protection of the other platforms (often resulting in lower sales), which additionally; releases to the most vocal and entitled group with an ever increasing amount of issues because of hardware incompatibility or unrelated uncontrollable problems. I understand the frustrations of consumers, but realistically, if you were the publisher- you probably wouldn't be so generous in releasing PC editions of certain games. :\
    - saiya-jin 11y ago
      well, you could just release the game say 6 months after PS/XBOX launch, so it wouldn't eat their sales at all. and, you could spend that time to make the game actually better, ie higher-res textures, and the most important - horrible console controls. it seems this is what is done usually, but the result often feels like 1 developer was dedicated to this effort, for 50% allocation.

antihero 11y ago

They've made over 2 billion dollars. Is a few hackers wandering around a crappy alternative online really something they need to care about? It cost them a mere 265 million to make, too.

ases 11y ago

I think the article has missed something about what Rockstar could consider piracy here: the revenue they get from selling GTA:O microtransactions. If people are opting out of the GTA:O experience for a different online one, that is users Rockstar no longer have to potentially sell microtransactions to. If Rockstar's plan is to focus on GTA:O as a revenue source, then it makes sense to shut down any potential competition, especially if that competition is in their own game. Of course, one could argue that Rockstar may sell more copies of the game for the sake of playing alternative online modes, but I think that this won't be true. If the potential gains from new 'boxed' copies of the game were greater than the potential gains from microtransactions, I think we'd see Rockstar focusing on bringing out more content similar to the two expansions they released for GTA4, rather than the online content they are focusing on now.