Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

I myself am more interested in this. I dont care about Movies or Music that is just how I am. I dont pirate Movies, and I will admitt, I have in the past pirated lots of music. This discussion can be about ALL Piracy. But lets keep this about Intellectual/Software type of Piracy(not a bunch of somali boats).

The PC Gaming Industry is heavily suffering from Piracy. PC Gaming constantly gets MORE exclusives than other Consoles, and righteously a lot of them are AWESOME. But recently more and more companies are starting to release games on consoles as well, and other moving totally away from PCs. Thank god we still have a few powerful companies staying strictly PCs.

But the fact is, and I dont blame them, it is smart to move to consoles as well. Piracy has been costing millions to the PC gaming industry. many games that could be sold are pirated. certain ways to try to stop piracies are cool but end up as major flops(StarForce anyone?)

We are supposed to get all the good games and support, and the cream of the crop. But pirates are making it harder on these companies to compete!

Why is it hard for us to stop piracy and making it harder for games to be downloaded? Do even enough people care? Why cant someone make software similar to StaRForce that actually works? It just CANT be THAT hard to put up measures, maybe a programmer here can tell us?

mind you this isnt really a rant, but there has been a nice drain on games for PCs. And movie piraitng is a little different because almost ALWAYS the Actors get paid, and socially people LOVE going out to the mall and theatres to watch these movies before they are released. Music is getting cheaper and easier to buy, so it isnt as much as a problem as gaming.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

A game like battlefield 2142 cannot be played online without having a legit cd-key, unlike other games you cannot create servers that don't require you to have a legit cd key (as far as i know). One could apply this to every and all games, online game or no, you must be connected to the internet to verify your copy each and every time you play.

Sure, some people will be turned off by it, but i think the gaming industry will be better off.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

I actually wanted to initiate a discussion about copyright as well as noncommercial usage of copyrighted material in the new future, but I guess this does it. =p

Software like StarForce just stops people from making personal backups from legit software/games. In Germany btw, making personal copies (!) of CDs or DVDs is illegal, if a copy protection is cracked in the process of doing so. How silly is that??

Pirates (arrrrr!) can sooner or later circumvent any protection anyway.. And as far as I know, it's possible to rip console games as well. Heck, it's possible to emulate GameBoy or Nintendo64 games on a computer. =p

But I can somewhat understand people who e. g. want to "test" games/software/music before buying them. My last purchase was Quake Wars, I absolutely loved the Open Beta, I bought it, played it once, was completely turned off and I couldn't return it, as it was of course unsealed and now my freakin' 50 euros have gone to waste. -_-

Though I would be careful naming piracy as the reason for developers moving towards consoles. Other things may attract devs, e. g. the unified hardware setup or high quality graphics as well as certain features (Wii, anyone?).

Also, piracy is not the only reason why sales figures might decrease. One reason being bad support.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

The result is that EA requires you to buy a brand new copy of the game. Second-hand copies are useless, because the CD key can only be used for one computer. So they're raking the money in.

Connecting to the internet just to play single player is excessive, and not available to many people.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

Although A LOT of people now have internet many dont. But there is a fix for the no internet thing. Telephone. You can get it activated over the phone, if there is no internet, what do you think?

I am a staunch opponent of StarForce but I believe if fixed and reworked it can work in helping against game piracy.

I agree with what you are saying, but usually hwen the game is released they have demos. Yes not all games have demos but most do, maybe when piracy is fixed we can get on to getting more demos ;) but for now the better and more important fix is piracy.

High Quality grpahics are so far STILL PC and probably will be for the longest time to come, especially with the recent 9600GT release. I still believe that piracy is the main reason. Computers are just a little more accesible, and doesnt need to be recoded to work for consoles. If a lot of people leech and pirate instead of making sales for a company, then why bother?

And yeah N64 and the like can be emulated, but I can play Mass Effect on my computer yet. Gotta wait for the PC version.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

lol, like with Windows? For every game? Oh, give me a break. ;)Well how exactly? There are coders out there eagerly waiting for new copy protection to show off their skills.

As I said, the only thing that copy protection does is stop people who have legally purchased digital content from making personal backup copies. And maybe stop a 12-year old kid from illegally burning a CD, but I guess those aren't knowledgeable in that particular field anyway.
If the absence of demos supported piracy, then filling that gap would be a step to decreasing the problem. =pHow many people, particularly adolescents or young adults, do you think have enough money for an up-to-date computer?
Consoles are a lot cheaper and a big variety of games will work without the need for updates.
Tbh what you believe has little meaning, unless you have studies backing it. =p

And actually, despite Canadian as well as recently Norwegian police announcing that they will not waste resources on chasing filesharers, I have not read that any sort of digital content purchases are dramatically decreasing in those countries.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

It's hard to create an anti piracy that will to a good extent because, if it's on there, you can get to it. Sure a bit of hacking might be involved to get to it, but you can still get to it. You would have to make so you have to connect to a company computer in order to play it in order to stop piracy almost completely.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

Then again there are cracked versions which you can use on cracked servers... =p

What might decrease gaming piracy is basicly good products. You see, if people feel a game sucked (no dev support, short story, bad gameplay, whatever), why would they risk being ripped off again?

Sure, there would still be the "I never pay" and "I cannot afford it, even though I try to" pirates, but there will be more satisfied customers who feel the money was worth it.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

BBC NEWS | Technology | Rampant piracy threatens PC games

For every game? Every company would control its own lines and activations, but how many games does one person REALLY purchase? And it doesnt take THAT long to activate over the phone.

Another thing, it DOESNT have to be every game, it can only be the major game developers and thier main game lines even. Battlefield series for example. Age of Empires(well I mean if it was set from the past), Empire Earth, etc. etc. Sons of a Sor Empire, Im afaird might be pirated a LOT considering how good it is of a game.

Not all hackers are bad, its kinda like how PunkBuster and other software and security firewalls are always being updated, some of them can be hired to be good guys.

Its only a part of it, my freind has lots of money, is young enough to not pay bills yet, and he pirates games like World in Conflict, BioShock, and he even just got Frontlines: Fuel of War. so Demo or not some people are just plain out bad.

I was only talking about what you said about devs wanting higher quality graphics. And fact is the PC has them, and more and more people are getting better PCs, and if people ONLY play for graphics I feel sorry for them.

Studies?? You think Piracy doesnt cost people money?
BBC NEWS | Technology | Rampant piracy threatens PC games

Where I come from(Egypt), over the breaks I visit families and internet cafe' EVERY SINGLE computer in the country is equipped with cracked windows, and a VAAAST library of pirated games both new and old. Even on PS2s!

asI just said even the good games are being pirated, and a LOT! You cant be serious and think good games arent pirated.

There was another article that Id Software said that 5-1 of the callers for support are illegitamte owners of the pirated games.

Re: Gaming Piracy - How to stop it?
 

This is true, I had this problem with a second hand copy

EA tells the retailers that second hand copies won't always work, unless the person unregistered.

It's up to the game shop to test that, failure to do so is their problem and should be changed, or money given back.

As I said above, I had this problem, and the store in question apologised and swapped it for a new copy for no extra charge.

As for an end to piracy? Well I guess it might work.