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My responses will focus on the PC market, mostly. The console market is a different beast altogether. > Instead of relying on a single instance of a product ma

My responses will focus on the PC market, mostly. The console market is a different beast altogether. > Instead of relying on a single instance of a product making money for years to come, focus more on new games Sell it at a loss, make it up in volume? Right. > or in-game content sales. That's exactly what I DON'T want. Dragon Age has a guy in your camp with the "I have a quest!" marker above his head. Except it's a paid quest. And you can't make him go away. Die. And what, exactly, is supposed to prevent someone from pirating in-game content sales? DRM sucks. But so do people. LGP is a small company fighting the good fight. They have clear evidence that piracy is taking place. There are only a few things they can do about it: - Suck it up and take it. This is the route that most indie/small companies take. Estimates at the piracy rates from other indie devs seem to be about 80-90% [1][2][3]. - Build DRM like 2k games, using SecuROM and like technologies, that make users despise you. This option is expensive in both money and reputation. - Build DRM like Steam or Stardock's Impulse, where the pain of DRM is offset by the community aspects and other perks. This option is expensive in money, but the reputation damage is minimal. - Do something quick and simple. LGP seems to have implemented this option. I posit[1] that DRM does reduce piracy. It cannot stop it, but it can reduce it. Most vendors try to come up with a 100% solution that turns out to be an 80% solution while screwing the legit user over. LGP has chosen to aim for an 80% solution, and I bet it will be just as effective as the other DRM schemes (which is to say, maybe 10-20% of people who would have pirated won't. It only has to pay for itself, remember!). The LGP solution isn't described in much detail, but if it works the way they claim (no internet connection, etc) it seems to fail open. How common is that? I really hope this works for them, because evidence that this works would be a great precedent. Due to this scheme, when LGP says they're giving you a license for the game and not the game itself, they really mean it. They're giving you the benefits of a license-based scheme rather than just the usual punishments. This sort of scheme is exactly what I want the RIAA to implement; I want my collection in the cloud, and I want to be able to download and play the music on any computer I want, as many times as I want. 1) http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350 http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350 2) http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/ http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/ 3) http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/25809/TapFu_Developer_Claims_90_iPhone_Piracy_Rate.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/25809/TapFu_Developer_Cla...

Xurinos 17y ago
> Sell it at a loss, make it up in volume? Right. Or diversify. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. This is the games business, the entertainment industry, where the audience is fickle and diverse in their interests. When it comes to volume, avoid repackaging the same game; you want to hit other player interests. If your ROI for a game is particularly low, that should be an interesting clue into what players like (and it may not have anything to do with the game itself). "Piracy" is a convenient scapegoat. > That's exactly what I DON'T want. Dragon Age is an interesting example with its own history as to why this bit of content was silly. Better comparisons would be to in-game sales for several FPSes. They work for DDO and other MMOs. Let's also recognize that these do not account for 100% of the sales; that would be a bit narrow. > Estimates at the piracy rates Strangely, this does not lead to good estimates of potential sales loss, as we have learned from the ridiculous figures RIAA has presented. Pirates are not the problem. We are selling air. Know your customers. If you want to make money, sell something people are willing to pay for.

Xurinos 17y ago

> Sell it at a loss, make it up in volume? Right. Or diversify. Do not put all your eggs in one basket. This is the games business, the entertainment industry, where the audience is fickle and diverse in their interests. When it comes to volume, avoid repackaging the same game; you want to hit other player interests. If your ROI for a game is particularly low, that should be an interesting clue into what players like (and it may not have anything to do with the game itself). "Piracy" is a convenient scapegoat. > That's exactly what I DON'T want. Dragon Age is an interesting example with its own history as to why this bit of content was silly. Better comparisons would be to in-game sales for several FPSes. They work for DDO and other MMOs. Let's also recognize that these do not account for 100% of the sales; that would be a bit narrow. > Estimates at the piracy rates Strangely, this does not lead to good estimates of potential sales loss, as we have learned from the ridiculous figures RIAA has presented. Pirates are not the problem. We are selling air. Know your customers. If you want to make money, sell something people are willing to pay for.