Today I'm going to talk about one of the biggest issues plaguing the gaming market! No, not Bobby Kotick but... You guessed it! Pirating!
With the way that technology has progressed, it's no wonder that thievery can now be accomplished over the internet! And to think 10 years ago if you had AOL and a dial-up connection, your were the coolest person you knew!
Things sure have changed since then, and along with it, the way people commit crimes. What used to be called stealing is now a widely accepted act known as pirating. No I'm not going to bash people who pirate games (or anything for that matter), because honestly, not all pirates are bad. In fact, some people pirate games first to try them out, and if they enjoy it, drop the cash to buy it.
But it is one thing to steal from a major corporation that really doesn't take a hit when you jack their stuff, and another thing entirely to steal from that guy across the street who works hard to pay his bills. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Frictional Games (the amazing 5 man team that worked their asses off to bring us this game) is a PERFECT example of the way that pirating affects independent game developers. And as a matter of fact, todays post is more specifically about Indy Games and what pirating does to their sequels and the people who make them.
Get a load of this (not so) bite-sized post that I found on the developers blog for Frictional Games (If your too lazy to read the really long wall of text, scroll past the italics and i'll sum it up for you. Gee, aren't I a nice guy?):
"it is time to discuss pirating and how this has affected us. First of all, it is quite easy to see that there are tons of torrents/shared files of Amnesia available. When we search the web to see if any news on Amnesia has popped up, almost 50% of the results go to a pirated version of the game. This is of course makes us sad, but it is also something one has to deal with when living in today's world. We are well aware that the same technology that allows pirating of our game, is the same that enabled us create the game in the first place. Without a fast Internet and a connected world we would never be able to work together or distribute our games. But this does not mean that we should just ignore piracy and it is important to figure out what kind of impact it has on us.
As I have said, the sales have been above what we had expected, but compared to the response we have gotten it still feels kind of low. For example, the very hyped Minecraft has gotten more than ten times the sales compared us. While being a vastly different game compared to Amnesia, there are some differences that are worth discussing. In terms of the amount of PR received, I would say that Minecraft is more well known, but Amnesia is not far behind. Google gives us two times the hits compared to them and a popular pirate site gives Minecraft double the distributors compared to us. We have gotten more reviews from popular outlets, Minecraft has gotten more viral-like PR. As I said, I think Minecraft has the upper hand here, but not by that much. Still, Minecraft has a over ten times the sales compared to Amnesia, which is a huge difference.
Our conclusion is that a large part of this is due to the lack of pirating in Minecraft compared to us. As I mentioned above, Minecraft has 10x the sales, but only 2x the torrent distributors. A Google search on the subject also turns up twice the hits for Amnesia. It seems like more people are pirating Amnesia and we think there are two main reasons for this. Both of them are related to the single-player nature of the experience.
First of all, once you have played Amnesia there is little meaning to play again. A person pirating the game and finishing it has no real reason to go back. So even if a player likes it and determines that it is well worth paying for, there is no incentive to do so. It is quite common to read on forums that people have downloaded a pirated version and say that they will probably buy it later. The question here is how many actually does this? Even if you really liked the game and want to support the developers, it basically feels like money down the drain since you get nothing extra after paying. This is not the case for a game like Minecraft where more content is released all the time and the game is designed to be highly replayable (and darn it for that, damn time consumer!).
The second reason is the lack of any proper protection. Not only does Amnesia not have any real protection from the start, there is almost no way for us to force people into buying ad-hoc. What we can do is to release patches, but this only affect people that have not been able to start the game, a small part of the user base. So once the game is out we are basically screwed and we can not do much to make people chose a legal over a pirated one. Minecraft requires a server connection and is constantly updated, effectively pushing people towards buying the legit version.
So what to do about this? One way is to create different kinds of games, where we can implement these sort of things. But that just feels wrong. A developer should not design a game based on how it can be protected and doing so can only lead to bad things for our games (to avoid feeding potential flames; this is based on what we want to do with our games, not what we think of others who might do this). What we want to continue doing is to create single player games that try to evolve the way in which videogames tell stories and evoke emotions. Another option is to expand our horizons and try other platforms. This is what we are currently looking into. We do not know what this will mean as of yet, but hopefully we can continue to expand platforms and not limit them."
Tl;dr: Frictional Games has been working their asses off for this game (which has been reviewed extremely well) and their taking a hard hit from pirating, which may force them as a whole to actually scrap their next project. And why? Because nobody is buying their game!
Another not as critical example is 2D Boy, the developer of the critically acclaimed World of Goo (which did so well in fact that it was re-released on the Wii Shop Channel). And hows this for a reward for actually buying the game; it's getting a sequel! Now this is the important part, so listen closely. IF NOBODY HAD BOUGHT THE GAME, IT WOULDN'T BE GETTING THE AFOREMENTIONED (I love that word) SEQUEL!
I mean, if you owned a store, and everybody stole your apples instead of buying them, would you continue to carry them? Of course not! You'd be losing money every single day that you allowed the act to continue. But chances are, instead of flat out not carrying apples anymore, you'd make them harder to steal (effectively punishing the people who actually buy them in the process) by beefing up security.
Games implement this increased security in what is commonly termed as copy-protection. The protection usually prevents the gamer from playing the game without the original disc, or unless certain conditions are met. Ubisoft actually makes gamers stay connected to the internet while they play, or the game won't start. As a matter of fact, if you're mid game and suddenly your internet connection dies, your shit out of luck.
The thing is, usually within a week of ANY games release, some crafty fellow creates a workaround, in the form of a crack or a user licence agreement breaking patch! Which adds another layer to pie that is piracy (bad metaphor, I know). With increased security, playing games can become difficult, inconvenient, or even flat out painful. An example of this is disc based computer games. Most games today are installed on a hard drive, and run ENTIRELY off said hard drive. The only real purpose of the disc after the initial installation is to act as a key, that allows you to PLAY the game. If you try to start it and the disc isn't in the CD (or DVD) drive, a nifty little window pops up, instructing you to insert the disc, preventing you from enjoying your legally purchased game. Now heres an issue with that. For people who have lots of computer games (like myself) it's hard to keep track of the physical copy of the discs, to the point where finding the damn disc can be a discouraging task in itself. Which makes you want to buy games that much less, considering that pirating and implementing a patch is cheaper AND more convenient. It's just another way that people who abide by the rules get fucked for playing nice.
This is applicable outside the gaming world as well. Lets go back to that hypothetical store you owned earlier (the one that sold the apples you forgetful douche). If, to stop the apple stealing problem, you started doing a 5 minute body search whenever someone entered or exited the store, do you think your customers would continue to return? If you answered yes to the previous question, then you are either a sarcastic bastard, a lazy bastard who won't drive to the market a bit further down the street, or a dumbass. So for those of you people who fell into those 3 categories, the CORRECT answer is NO, you wouldn't continue shopping there, because it's an inconvenience and a complete waste of your time.
Horrible apple store metaphors aside, the point that I'm getting at is; don't steal from Independent Developers who actually NEED the money to continue making great games we want to buy. Steal from Activision, or EA or something (I'm joking, I don't condone piracy in any way shape or form, don't sue me!). So to sum up an unintentionally long-winded post in two words:
Piracy=Bad
Sincerely,
A Gamer Who Rants
P.R. (Post Rant) It's 4:25 A.M. and for whatever reason I'm still awake, so I'm going to go pass out now. K bye.
E.M.P.R. (Even More Post Rant) Marley and Me and Ink are two ridiculously well written movies, if you haven't seen them, go buy or rent them (Don't pirate them silly, didn't I just waste an hour writing about how much piracy sucks gigantic nuts?) Also, I guess I lied earlier, I did end up bashing pirates a bit, didn't mean to, it just kind of happened. Please forgive me?
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