5 ms·

The thing that struck me was that there was not a word about sales figures in this article. Yes, it seems they gave the pirates a hard time with their DRM. Howe

by Apreche 17y ago

The thing that struck me was that there was not a word about sales figures in this article. Yes, it seems they gave the pirates a hard time with their DRM. However, I think it is fairly obvious that those pirates had little to no interest in actually playing the game. They just like breaking DRM, that part is the fun for them. I think it is also obvious that people who got the game from these DRM-crackers, and actually did want to play it, would not have ever paid for it. Even if the DRM was perfect, would sales have gone up? In all that time people were waiting for a successful crack, how many people gave up on pirating and bought the game? I'm betting the numbers were ludicrously small. The developers would have been better off not spending any money whatsoever developing this copy protection. Unless they can provide evidence of a large increase in sales, I call BS. All they did was spend money developing a free game of "crack the DRM" to a bunch of nerds.

teamonkey 17y ago
Sales figures are a closely guarded secret. Today, rough (monthly) console sales figures in the US are published, but not PC games, digital downloads etc. I don't think that there should be any obligation for the publisher to release sales figures. However, without some hard figures it's really difficult to make any sort of judgement about whether DRM (and a crack) actually affects sales or not.
rick888 17y ago
"I think it is also obvious that people who got the game from these DRM-crackers, and actually did want to play it, would not have ever paid for it." You expect sales figures yet you say it's "obvious" that people that got the game from DRM crackers would never pay for it? Where are your facts to back this up? Do you really have any proof beyond a blanket statement? "The developers would have been better off not spending any money whatsoever developing this copy protection. Unless they can provide evidence of a large increase in sales, I call BS. All they did was spend money developing a free game of "crack the DRM" to a bunch of nerds." Right. We see how well that works. You seem to forget that DRM was created only recently, in response to mass piracy. You would think that people would take the hint and stop pirating games. If this happened, schemes like DRM would start to disappear because companies would not want to waste the effort or the money. The next step for game developers is software as a service, which has already started to happen.
- ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
  Right. We see how well that works. You need to research Eclipse Phase, the RPG. Scratch that, your ignorance is startling.
  - Estragon 17y ago
    I know nothing of this field. What is the story with Eclipse Phase?
    - ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
      Eclipse Phase is a roleplaying game that is the first (AFAIK) to come under the Creative Commons license. They seed their own torrent for the PDF. They still sell well at $50 dollars, when the average cost of a RPG book is 20-40.
      - rick888 17y ago
        Eclipse Phase is a roleplaying game that is the first (AFAIK) to come under the Creative Commons license. They seed their own torrent for the PDF. They still sell well at $50 dollars, when the average cost of a RPG book is 20-40." Eclipse Phase is a pen and paper RPG. Although they do torrent the PDF, I would think that using a PDF is tedious for most people, which is why they sell the hard copy for $59.99. I'm the same way with computer books. I would rather have a hard copy. How can you even compare this to an actual game, which would not be able to sell a book? I also see a comment where you said they are making money. How do you know? The books say "sold out". But this doesn't actually tell us how much money this company made from these books.
  - rick888 17y ago
    "You need to research Eclipse Phase, the RPG. Scratch that, your ignorance is startling." How so? Because you don't agree with me and the only thing you can attempt to do to silence me is to call me ignorant? DRM did not exist during the Napster days. This is a fact. Piracy was rampant during this time. The industry didn't make the right decision by trying to sue everyone that shared a song, but people have no right to complain when companies smarten up and start adding more and more protection. you have given me one example of one game that may or may not even add anything to our discussion. Think of it this way: Do you actually think game companies want to add more protection to their games? It adds more complications, costs more money, and many times increases development time. I don't believe that piracy is stealing. It's counterfeiting, which is much worse than theft. If Toshiba starts getting televisions stolen, their product value isn't really effected by that one product that is stolen (they can always sell more at the original price and people won't expect it to pay less). However, if a company's product is shared on the Internet, It can eventually destroy the product line. Not only that, if it has a virus or the crack doesn't work properly it can and will make the original developers look bad. Also, people start to expect that the software will be free in the future. Everything digital is only worth what people are willing to pay. If most people can do a simple Google search and find your product for $0, less people will be willing to actually pay for it, devaluing your product over time. It's funny how so many people say piracy has no direct relation to sales yet when I disable a crack that I found for any app I am selling, my sales increases by 15-20% (and sales decrease over time when more and more cracks are available). I have heard this from other software developers.
coffeeaddicted 17y ago
A sales manager told me once that you can see the day a game got cracked in the sales charts because sales drop afterward that much. But well, purely anecdotal, I've not seen the charts myself and that was also 10 years ago.

by Apreche 17y ago

teamonkey 17y ago

Sales figures are a closely guarded secret. Today, rough (monthly) console sales figures in the US are published, but not PC games, digital downloads etc. I don't think that there should be any obligation for the publisher to release sales figures. However, without some hard figures it's really difficult to make any sort of judgement about whether DRM (and a crack) actually affects sales or not.

rick888 17y ago

"I think it is also obvious that people who got the game from these DRM-crackers, and actually did want to play it, would not have ever paid for it." You expect sales figures yet you say it's "obvious" that people that got the game from DRM crackers would never pay for it? Where are your facts to back this up? Do you really have any proof beyond a blanket statement? "The developers would have been better off not spending any money whatsoever developing this copy protection. Unless they can provide evidence of a large increase in sales, I call BS. All they did was spend money developing a free game of "crack the DRM" to a bunch of nerds." Right. We see how well that works. You seem to forget that DRM was created only recently, in response to mass piracy. You would think that people would take the hint and stop pirating games. If this happened, schemes like DRM would start to disappear because companies would not want to waste the effort or the money. The next step for game developers is software as a service, which has already started to happen.

ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
Right. We see how well that works. You need to research Eclipse Phase, the RPG. Scratch that, your ignorance is startling.
- Estragon 17y ago
  I know nothing of this field. What is the story with Eclipse Phase?
  - ThinkWriteMute 17y ago
    Eclipse Phase is a roleplaying game that is the first (AFAIK) to come under the Creative Commons license. They seed their own torrent for the PDF. They still sell well at $50 dollars, when the average cost of a RPG book is 20-40.
    - rick888 17y ago
      Eclipse Phase is a roleplaying game that is the first (AFAIK) to come under the Creative Commons license. They seed their own torrent for the PDF. They still sell well at $50 dollars, when the average cost of a RPG book is 20-40." Eclipse Phase is a pen and paper RPG. Although they do torrent the PDF, I would think that using a PDF is tedious for most people, which is why they sell the hard copy for $59.99. I'm the same way with computer books. I would rather have a hard copy. How can you even compare this to an actual game, which would not be able to sell a book? I also see a comment where you said they are making money. How do you know? The books say "sold out". But this doesn't actually tell us how much money this company made from these books.
- rick888 17y ago
  "You need to research Eclipse Phase, the RPG. Scratch that, your ignorance is startling." How so? Because you don't agree with me and the only thing you can attempt to do to silence me is to call me ignorant? DRM did not exist during the Napster days. This is a fact. Piracy was rampant during this time. The industry didn't make the right decision by trying to sue everyone that shared a song, but people have no right to complain when companies smarten up and start adding more and more protection. you have given me one example of one game that may or may not even add anything to our discussion. Think of it this way: Do you actually think game companies want to add more protection to their games? It adds more complications, costs more money, and many times increases development time. I don't believe that piracy is stealing. It's counterfeiting, which is much worse than theft. If Toshiba starts getting televisions stolen, their product value isn't really effected by that one product that is stolen (they can always sell more at the original price and people won't expect it to pay less). However, if a company's product is shared on the Internet, It can eventually destroy the product line. Not only that, if it has a virus or the crack doesn't work properly it can and will make the original developers look bad. Also, people start to expect that the software will be free in the future. Everything digital is only worth what people are willing to pay. If most people can do a simple Google search and find your product for $0, less people will be willing to actually pay for it, devaluing your product over time. It's funny how so many people say piracy has no direct relation to sales yet when I disable a crack that I found for any app I am selling, my sales increases by 15-20% (and sales decrease over time when more and more cracks are available). I have heard this from other software developers.

coffeeaddicted 17y ago

A sales manager told me once that you can see the day a game got cracked in the sales charts because sales drop afterward that much. But well, purely anecdotal, I've not seen the charts myself and that was also 10 years ago.