We need to remove the free dowloads!

[m_wellbring]

EA did a good job to add DRM-ON on SimCity, but what happened to the game is unbelievable. Full of issues and game crashes occured, just because of DRM-ON, apparently it wasnt correctly made. Thus why EA promised to not feature drm-no(Only Sims, I dont know if this applies to other games).

So they did a good but bad job. Got it.

[thekillergreece]

EA did a good job to add DRM-ON on SimCity, but what happened to the game is unbelievable. Full of issues and game crashes occured, just because of DRM-ON, apparently it wasnt correctly made. Thus why EA promised to not feature drm-no(Only Sims, I dont know if this applies to other games).

So they did a good but bad job. Got it.

Good job on making DRM-ON but they rushed it rather than testing it, resulting SimCity break down

[Svip]

EA did a good job to add DRM-ON on SimCity, but what happened to the game is unbelievable. Full of issues and game crashes occured, just because of DRM-ON, apparently it wasnt correctly made. Thus why EA promised to not feature drm-no(Only Sims, I dont know if this applies to other games).

So they did a good but bad job. Got it.

Good job on making DRM-ON but they rushed it rather than testing it, resulting SimCity break down

So they did a bad job?

[UberFuber]

EA did a good job to add DRM-ON on SimCity, but what happened to the game is unbelievable. Full of issues and game crashes occured, just because of DRM-ON, apparently it wasnt correctly made. Thus why EA promised to not feature drm-no(Only Sims, I dont know if this applies to other games).

So they did a good but bad job. Got it.

Good job on making DRM-ON but they rushed it rather than testing it, resulting SimCity break down

If your DRM stops people from playing their legitimately owned copy, there's no "good job" to be had. That's like saying that I did a good job of stopping the burglar from stealing my stuff by blowing up half my house.

As I said it before, DRM is a balance between maximizing the inconvenience of pirates while minimizing inconveniences to your own users. On that front, I think Introversion succeeded.
For player buying their game on their own site, how much did their requirement for you to login to download inconvenience you? Not much. You login, and find the download, and download it. No need to mess with anything else. If you get a Steam key, you create an account, copy-paste the Steam key, and get the same thing. You get timely updates, plus access to the official wiki, plus access to the developer's forum.
Did it impact pirates? Yes. No timely updates (until their piratey friend download it and upload it to them). No access to the official wiki, and no access to the developers' forum.
Basically, Introversion's own DRM didn't provide much in ways of inconveniencing their legit users while witholding (or put up some roadblock) to pirates, a success in my opinion.

Furthermore, PA is on Steam, a fairly successful platform with DRM for developers if they so chooses (some game on Steam has no DRM). Auto-update, Steam Workshop (for integrated mods and stuff), integrated network system, etc. I say they succeeded in making DRM acceptable to most users, since along with its comes a load of stuff that pretty valuable in my opinion.

[neale1993]

@UberFuber,


EA did a good job to add DRM-ON on SimCity, but what happened to the game is unbelievable. Full of issues and game crashes occured, just because of DRM-ON, apparently it wasnt correctly made. Thus why EA promised to not feature drm-no(Only Sims, I dont know if this applies to other games).

The only job to stop piracy is either, DRM-ON on their games(Worst idea), features that need connection, like this game Prison Architect, workshop, mods...genuine key to those who buy it, again, like prison architect or other games which have private official wiki that need only genuine username, etc. Ban torrent websites(Will never happen..), full control by Police(Never, needs money) and finally, ban PC, or any forms that have torrent which will never happen.

Piracy will probably for sure, ruin the future companies but we will see...At the moment, The Sims 3 is the 1# pirated game, but managed to get some good sales and is going for sequel.

As i said before, being anti-piracy isn't just about finding way to stop pirates. Cause that is just flat out impossible. Given time, pirates will find a way around them. Didnt take long for them to beat the drm-on of simcity. The only way to truly beat the pirates is offering a better service than them. IV do this well, with forum access, workshop etc and other perks to benefit buying the game.

As for the game pirates ruining future companies, I believe this is a false claim. I (and a group) did a report for university a few years ago that actually looked into the effects of piracy on companies. We did not find a direct link between high piracy and low sales anywhere in the gaming industry. What we actually found mirrored xander's comments, where high pirated games were also the highest selling games. From a survey, we also found that 93% out of 500 surveyed (approx, cant remember the whole number) of people that pirated games actually paid for the game or deleted it afterwards.

There was however, one area for question in our research. We wasn't focusing just on games, we was focusing on computer software as a whole. Now although game pirates seem to stick to the moral high ground, either buying or deleting the game, the same people in some cases download and keep other types of software packages. Whether it be Adobe packages, Microsoft Office or even operating systems, the same 'pirates' will happily download this software to use intentionally because of the high price tag.

Consideration needs to be taken when talking about these types of topics. People seem to target the whole pirating industry as one, but it is split down widely. Music, Movie, Games, Software, Adult Content, Books, Picture Sets.. there are all different streams that all affect the companies in a completely different way and have different effects on the company.

[killerx243]

*Clears throat*


That is all

[dksone]

Who said in future...The old important and nice companies who went into Bankrupty....THQ for example...or Computer Artworks

I've never heard of any company going under because of piracy. The die out because of bad management and/or bad business plan.
THQ invested millions they didn't have in uDraw Game tablet, which nobody bought because it just sucked, and nobody pirated it because it was hardware, and it sucked anyway.

Also, most of the time pirate either buy the game after they pirated it, or wouldn't have bought it anyway.

Concerning removing the links from youtube, Google and what not, it's complicate and time consuming. Most companies who bother pays lawyers to do it, and I'd much rather have IV working on the game than having them fighting and throwing money to remove a link only to have 10 more popping up. And they would never manage to convince site like pirate bay to remove it from their pages anyway.

[xander]

--==<snip>==--That is all

That may be all, but it is also utterly useless. Almost noone in this topic is arguing that internet piracy should be stopped (there are a few wingnuts who just don't get it, but they hardly count). The more nuanced point of view is that piracy can be (and often is) a problem, but that there are ways of handling it. DRM is one way (which seems not to work well), and converting pirates to paying customers is another (this seems to work well for indie developers, such as IV). Saying that piracy can't be stopped and ending the conversation there is not productive.

xander

[knoest26]

Saying that piracy can't be stopped and ending the conversation there is not productive.

Productive? No
True? Yes, if you develop an amazing piece of software to protect your files it'll take a few days untill someone else has broken it. Some people like to pirate of the sake of being badass...

[xander]

Saying that piracy can't be stopped and ending the conversation there is not productive.

Productive? No
True? Yes, if you develop an amazing piece of software to protect your files it'll take a few days untill someone else has broken it. Some people like to pirate of the sake of being badass...

There is nothing in your reply that contradicts or counters anything in the post that you quoted. My point was---and still is---that if you ask "How do we stop internet piracy?" you are asking the wrong question. The appropriate question is "How do we limit the damage that is done by internet piracy?" Draconian DRM is one answer (the argument runs something like this: most sales occur on launch day, so if your DRM only works for 24 hours, that's good enough because (a) you will already have made most of your money and (b) there are still going to be people willing to pay). Converting pirates to customers is another. Giving a meta-game perk to paying customers is a solution (i.e. IV's name-in-game, &c.). Steam sales work.

Basically, we shouldn't be debating whether or not piracy cannot be stopped. It can't. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows this. Saying that piracy must be stopped or that it cannot be stopped is unproductive, since it isn't even answering the right question.

xander

[balfro]

You guys should just stop debating on this. Pirating is ILLEGAL. See i put a dot there just like this one. So that means it is illegal, If i could i would remove it myself and take the first plane to arrest the people that pirated it. The only thing i need Introversion to do, is to take them videos of youtube. I want them to make a demo that is legal so that you can test it before. But do not pirate games. It is illegal.

[xander]

*sung to the tune of "Another One Bites the Dust*
Another one misses the point...

xander

[balfro]

I made the point. ---___---

[tertaim]

piracy is not the problem, it is how you deal with it..

[balfro]

The way i want to deal with it is to simply remove the videos on youtube that are with download links to prison architect. It is easy, just flag the video with violating copyright and then POOF it is gone.