Round 3 : PCGA believes in 'Evolve Or Die'

Says Randy Stude of the PC Gaming Alliance:

I like the idea.

What's the point in advertising to people who steal everything anyway?

if you run the free or lite version of anything you normally have to put up with some c**p or another, like 30 second count down till the program starts, so this sounds like a good idea.

just dont let them know that you know they are pirates, they might think its all part and parcel of the game and accept it
or
tell them that you know that they are using a pirate copy and that if they had a legit copy they would cut out 90% of this stuff

the game that had pirate copies kicked out without warning just gave people the impression the game was flawed even though it only affected the pirate edition (the largest section of players)

other options
(game specific)
level capping
more chance of your loot being stolen in your sleep

treat them like unregistered shareware games
treat them like unregistered shareware games
and
treat them like unregistered shareware games

and if that fails
treat them like unregistered shareware games ;)

Brilliant idea! Pay to remove advertising works well in other industries, so I'm all for it. Also everyone who pays for the game could wear fashionable camouflage, while Pirates could be forced to walk around looking like a race car driver, with advertisements pasted all over him.

AmIRC did something similar. If you used an illegal version, the conversation looked perfectly normal to you, but no matter what you typed, everyone else saw /me is a lame software pirate! or something to that effect. Hilarious.

closest analogy i can think of

my mobile provider (3) used to have a free to watch section (i can no longer find it so i assume its gone)
they would have streaming videos of
highly dubious news
lenor
random adult swim (you could have part 9 of an episode one week and 5 the next)
and some cartoon network 30 second clips like scooby doo and flintstones

now each started with an advert that you couldnt skip (unfortunatly they only ever seemed to have 4 adverts running each month so it got very repetative)
then youd get your clip

now they also sold clips for download (but not the same ones from the free to watch pages)
but these were add free and saved to your phone for 50p or there abouts

get it free
watch an advert first and streamed
pay 50p
download it advert free and watch it as many times as you like

Sounds cool.

If the publishers are able to get enough revenue from advertising, what the pirates do with the information presented to them is of no concern.


Lol. Love it.

Doesn't this makes it "okay" to pirate games?
-"I don't care if I download it illegaly, I pay by watching ads."

treat them like unregistered shareware games

the whole sales model could do with a rejiggle
the original link cited the large download 'sales' of the far east
i dont know if that means they sell online or its an euphimism for torrents
but WoW and other subscription based games, you pay for the cd/dvd with all media and levels, then you pay monthly for access to said levels as there is no offline campaign
so surely WoW the retail box should be dirt cheap as you pay monthly to play said game (kinda like how you can get an expencive moblie phone on contract vs buying it on pay as you go)

not all online games are subscription based models
quake 3 and unreal tournament were not
and if your key was in use at the time you couldnt gain access no matter who was the real key owner it was first come first served

itv channel 4 and 5 make their money (to buy and make tv shows) with adverts inbetween shows
bbc gets their dosh via the licence fee
just cos you watch a show on itv that is sponsored by someone and is littered with advert breaks doesnt mean you have to go out and buy every damn thing going

24 when on sky etc is an hour long due to adverts, when it is on bbc its 45 mins due to no advets and the same for the dvd, is it a lesser experience watching it with adverts?

Good point if they are advertising games. But even the most hard core pirate typically has to actually pay for his (or her) McDonald's cheeseburger.

Surely the pirates will have some reference as to what the game really is like, and crack it, just like every other game? I think it's a good idea though. Just wonder the point, if people are cracking games and distributing the cracked versions.

Well you could say that the existence of freeware games makes it seem ok to pirate games. Yes, I suppose it might confirm the belief that you shouldn't have to pay for games. I think a bigger concern is that this sort of technology will be available to Ubisoft and EA, but Joe IndieGamer probably will end up with some cheap-ass third party variation which pays a fraction of what the big companies are getting, and they may end up trying to sell it the old way anyway. Which might well be more difficult.


Now this is what I'm thinking too. You're still going to need SecureRomAd or StarAdForce to stop people from disabling the ads, aren't you? And then you've still got the same nasty DRM stuff on your hard drive. Ok, if the DRM fails you're not completely prevented from playing the game, but you're still the one inconvenienced while the pirates are playing ad-free care of "The Scene".

Or is the point of the exercise that the crackers won't find the same challenge in breaking and removing the protection if it's only ads? Because I suspect they will.

The only way to prevent piracy is with an online subscription model, and even then that just makes accounts stealable - and so many people dont protect their password properly (I know, i'm guilty too - I dont want a complicated password for my online games that I play so rarely).

Blizzard came up with quite a nifty idea with a keyring dongle that is tied to your WoW account, as an optional extra, you use that to login instead of your normal password details - but I think it's a bit of a cheak to expect end users to pay for a problem that really is at the server end. Personally I think the best way to protect an account is a 'restore point' being created with each change in connecting IP address to an account, but anyway i've digressed (maybe Gin related).

All these other methods of game protection have failed, and inconvenience legitimate users and do not hinder pirates.

A good copy-protection system is one that hinders pirate users more than it hinders legitimate users. Look hard if you will, but i'm yet to see one - apart from the subscription model.

My view, having looked at the options, is if and when I ever do get to develope a personal games project again - i'd like to develop a game that uses the subscription model. Not to say i'd charge £14 a month. Maybe £5 for 2 months or something who knows, but the point is, aside from that I dont think i'd bother putting protection on at all.

To all the people who think this is a "good idea", don't you understand that this is just as flawed as any other copy protection scheme? The pirates will simply find the "off switch" for the advertisements and now the only ones punished with the ads will be legitimate users who've installed it on more than 2 PCs or whatever trips the "pirate-o-meter" alarm.

Why would they crack something that can be played for free?


Of course; for the first few major name titles. But this will soon become boring if it remains largely unchanged between releases; or changed just enough to brake the last crack.


Didn't have to look very hard to see that those with limited or no internet connectivity are pretty screwed.

Because cracking is a challenge. People enjoy doing it, just to do it.

Of course if you could play 100% for free then there's nothing to crack. But as long as there's some form of copy protection "punishment" or block enabled, believe me, someone will remove it.

People who enjoy "sticking it to the man" are prepared to run Linux as a desktop OS. So they're no strangers to suffering pain for no tangible benefit beyond being a rebel.

If the crackers can't find the motivation from being heroes of the underground to being a rebel, then the paying customers are certainly not going to find the motivation to stump up cold hard cash for a game they can already play with ads.

So you end up just going back to a revenue model where everyone gets ads and there is no registered version. Probably work better that way. No DRM, integrate the ads fully into the game.

It's a dumb idea because the pirates will find a way to prevent the ads from showing.

I agree with ImaginaryHuman, it's actually very easy to do. :D
What they actually need to realize is that their marketing obviously isn't working in the first place. Oh well.

Hackers don't crack games to get them for free. They do it for the challenge. Now bittorrent whores are a different story. Why would they risk searching a bittorrent site and viruses if they can play the game for free? More than likely they will follow the path of least resistance as they always do. Who knows without their "fans" maybe the hackers will just go back to tinkering with Linux or making Trojans.

I don't understand. There is a perfect copyright-protection system out there already. It's called Steam. Maybe there is a way around it, but I wouldn't know how, and I am more technical than 99% of their customers.

People who are willing to download a gigabyte on bittorrent and risk viruses and who knows what are people with lots of time and no money, anyways.

Steam has been cracked before HL2 hit the streets...

And to disable ads on games, just edit your windows HOSTS files to point the ad serving server to 127.0.0.1... not even a crack is needed :P

Copy protection is a big waste of time. If you're into ads, then start making flash games.

It already is. For the vast majority of everyone, Piracy is socially acceptable.

Sure. But getting publishers to abandon copy protection altogether seems unlikely. Particularly since the trend is "more Draconian" and not "more Liberal".

Absolutely. But I really couldn't care less about the pirates. I just want my games with the lesser of 2 evils, and if EA don't think $90 USD is enough for me to play SPORE, I'd rather play it with advertising than not at all.

Assuming that there is any sort of challenge involved.


Steam has never seen a cent from me...

waste of time, the only way to prevent piracy is to have the software running on a remote computer that you log into and play over the net. Like a remote desktop connection. You think subscription based model works to prevent piracy?

Well try doing a search for "WOW private server". People legitimately crack the packets in network traffic off of their own backs, to make server emulators! So even these games are at risk! Serious risk.

>>Absolutely. But I really couldn't care less about the pirates. I just want my games with the lesser of 2 evils, and if EA don't think $90 USD is enough for me to play SPORE, I'd rather play it with advertising than not at all.<<

mann..i got Spore here today for 5RM (Malaysian rinngit)..its about 1 euro :) but kicker is..there is HUGE malls where people selling tons of pirated software.. LOL

I think it's hard for a lot of people to accept the laws on this. As Naughty says above, piracy is everywhere. There is a chinese guy who comes round the factories, and sells pirate DVD's, and games. Most people look at the DVD, see it costs £2, and think, well that's £12 odd cheaper than it costs in the shops so why not?

I'm afraid ethics will go out the window in alot of cases.

Saving money VS the extremely small chance you'll get caught with a pirate DVD? Not much of a choice I wouldn't imagine.

I think the public is the public's worst enemy sometimes. If no-one bought crap games and no-one watched crap movies, they would be forced to stop releasing them and only release good quality stuff.

if WoW warcraft and the other mmorpg's sold the cd/dvd as
£5 cost of manufacturing
£x months subscription
and sold it retail and the game could only be played online then anyone who 'acquires' a copy is technicaly only saving £5 as the rest of the cover price is subscription

no ok granted they dont do that, but if the RRP included 2 or 3 months rental and spoof accounts were found and deleted with ease, then all you are saving is £5 (i know ive repeated that bit i couldt be bothered re editing it)

other games this isnt possible, and nice as advertising more to the pirates sounds, if there is a fix it will be fixed, i really just hate the honest punters getting shafted by these measures just to 'stop' those that dont feel they have to pay

I wonder how Randy Stude plans to "monetize" people who pirate single player games?

Randy Stude - that's a made-up name, right?!

> Doesn't this makes it "okay" to pirate games?

The games could be released for free in this case - those who like the game could then pay (register) to remove the ads.

Of course, if a pirate can work out a way to remove the copy protection on a game, then can certainly get rid of in-game advertising too.

Indeed, I have played extensively with an EQ emulated server, and played on a WoW one. The problem is the content is never as good and connections are more laggy, as a player on a pirate server you are getting a far lesser experience than the main game. WoW also doesnt help matter by segregating the community into different realms, which defeats the purpose of playing online and means pirate server communities can thrive with similar environments. I've never agreed with this aspect of the EQ/WoW model. I don't see the point in realms, except as a shortcut to poor game design.

That's what I thought at first. However, at second thought I think that the idea moves in two different directions: first of all, you eliminate all the scare-tactics which make distributors quite unpopular since the concept behind pirated copies go from contraband to advertisement (or at least it should), and secondly, many of the people who copy games are actually unaware of the proper usage of a computer (probably more than the so-so computer literate ones though you may think otherwise, expecially who physically buys pirated discs) so that they could just accept the game that way since it is actually running and not displaying disc errors. Also, if a crack isn't available and the player is eager to play the game, he could as well just run it.


Actually, the concept behind Steam is more evolved than the standard retail box, and a lot more fair if compared to the latest EA protection schemes. When you buy a game, even leaving the EA rent scheme out, you are forced to use your physical copy and to waste it if the disc brokes.

With Steam, you can redownload the games whenever you are, and how many times you like. So, if you go on holiday, you just redownload your games at Valve's expenses and you don't even have to bring on a serial or a disc. Also, you don't have to insert a disc prior to playing. That's not bad at all compared to any other distribution scheme. I understand that it is unacceptable without broadband access, but it's the only flaw so far.

Without copyright law and some protection, you get Russia's software market. I guess they made Tetris, back in the 80's but that's about it.

I think the system of different realms exists because otherwise you would have too many people in one game, like 300.000 people in the auction house etc.

On-topic, why not just serve more adds to ALL players. This will also scare the pirates away and give the publisher even more money, which is what it's all about. Sure you might scare away a few normal people but who cares.

Seriously if they can target pirate players directly like that, why not just throw them out of the game.

On the other hand, this system could work for criminals in general. Instead of arresting a burglar or kidnapper you just show them a few adds and make some money. (When I said criminals in general I didn't mean to imply all people who play a pirated game are criminals, but it's too late to edit it now, after all you never know if someone is already quoting you.)

> Seriously if they can target pirate players directly like that, why not just throw them out of the game

They are hoping to strike a balance, the hackers will not be bothered enough to try and crack the system (to take away the ads), while those who have not paid for the game will buy it in order to get rid of the ads (since a cracked version would not be available)

I give it no chance of actually working.

EA no longer see anything from me either =]

I think it may work if they could convince the advertising companies to pay them more for purposely releasing a version with like a billion ads in it and then releasing a version that you have to pay for with no ads They would make money both ways... if the pirates disabled the ads, they would just be hurting the advertising companies anyway.

Yes, I'm sure the ad companies will blindly continue giving the game publishers huge wads of money despite the fact that no one is viewing their ads and noone is buying their products. Ad companies are good like that.

was that sarcasm???

I'm sure any ad revenue would be garnered on a per view/per click basis.

well I think that putting excessive anti-pirating programs in games is excessive anyway because they will just figure out a way to crack it in the end and thanks to the web within a few days anyone in the world will be able to crack the anti pirating software.

Also... I personally hate it when I play those games that you have to pay for but they are still swamped with ads...

You mean "Valve going bankrupt, taking your entire video game collection with them." isn't a massive flaw in Steams business model? If EA went bankrupt tomorrow, I could still actually play Bioshock, Mass Effect and SPORE until I needed to reinstall them.

Probably not. But at least someone is thinking about it.

Of course excessive anti-pirating scheme are excessive. The point is that the entertainment industry executives can't sleep very well in their football field sized gold-plated waterbed, knowing that someone might potentially download their dubiously priced merchandise, without having to actually pay for it. It doesn't matter to them, whether someone actually does it or not, they just don't want to give anyone the opportunity.

You can play your purchased games offline with Steam too.

pirates would simply create versions where there would be no ads...

:)

But would the lazy players who download hacked games play the free ad game or go through the trouble and risk of using a bittorrent when it wouldn't cost them anything to play in the first place? It's all about the path of least resistance.

Really? On a clean install?

Yes, I just tried disabling it with my firewall prior to posting. You only have to connect the first time right after the install in order to update the game and authenticate. The client also includes backup features and automatic patching, so it's actually a nifty app made with community support in mind despite criticism.

Anyway, nearly all the casual game market is based on similar distribution schemes nowadays.

Flameduck's reasoning is understandable, but by the day Valve goes bankrupt you'll probably have much more to worry about, or don't care about the games anyway. :)
I agree with that point though, expecially since corporatives rarely care about the userbase and usually just disappear or are swallowed by bigger ones.

OK, so the answer is actually no. Thanks.


I still play Dungeon Keeper 2.

> OK, so the answer is actually no. Thanks.


How many games can be played on a clean install without patches or internet signup anyway? Not too many.

minesweeper ;)

I shudder to think what filth you must be installing onto your system.

Not sure you can, doesn't Spore have the most draconian DRM going since Apple looked at an mp3 file?

> I shudder to think what filth you must be installing onto your system.

What games are you installing that don't need a patch right away?

Well at this time I only have The Sims 2 and it's boatload of expansion packs installed. But I'll say them.

Looking thru undeleted stuff that is no longer installed, I can also vouch for Baldurs Gate 2 (with expansion pack), Diablo, Diablo 2 (with expansion), Aliens vs Predator 2, Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 + 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 (expansions help though due to their on-disc patches), Postal 2 (with expansion), Worms World Party, TrackMania United (though the patch does remove StarForce) and Warcraft III.

All games really quite stable without the need to connect to the net or be patched first, though in most cases patches would of course help the actual gameplay.

Do you know that The Sims 2 uses the filthy stuff you are talking about, right? Securom is a Ring 0 driver, to be exact, a layer which actually wasn't intended for such uses. So while you can turn off Steam, you can't turn off Securom. Guess what's filthy between the two?

Sadly, it seems the Sony rootkit representative was right after all: if people don't even know there is a problem, they will not care.

I've never had a problem with it personally, then again I've only had one problem with Starforce (it couldnt' read anything in my DVD drive, but never destoyed the OS).

Also, I never actually mentioned any filthy stuff in particular so I'm not sure where you got the idea I was talking about SecuROM.

At least the game doesn't NEED a patch to get working, which is actually what I referred to, hence the statement I quoted, which appears to have gone to waste.


If it doesn't cause a problem, there is likely not a problem.

In all the years EA have used SecuROM (ie if you have bought any EA game since 2000) there hasn't been any coverage I'm aware of whereby SecuROM has destoyed ones OS (and before some link whore pops in I'm not saying that it hasn't happenned), as opposed to the likes of StarForce, so even if it is a Ring 0 driver, it appears to be stable, so where's the problem?

The problem is that this stand clashes with your previous one. Anyway, the 'appears to be stable' is the point here. Ring 0 drivers can cause security issues, collide with other apps and official windows updates, or be incompatible with future versions of windows (as the old starforce drivers are incompatible with 64bit os's). The fact that the protection scheme is not as badly coded as starforce is somewhat irrelevant: if Sony's rootkit didn't create the obvious security breach it caused due it's bad coding, would it be right for sony to install it as a stealthed app? it would be right then to have companies secretly install any kind of stuff, for any kind of reason as long as they don't 'appear' to cause damage?

I argued that you seem to make a stand in the wrong place: Steam doesn't do anything bad (the worst I can think of is aggregating info) or install anything stealthed in the background while it also provides useful features, and you say you're not going to give them any money and wonder what kind of filth people installs on their machines, and then pick as an example of rectitude companies which actually cross the line in that respect. I have not problems in installing Securom games myself, but it's just a little contradictory, that's all.

I guess the problem here is that I have no idea what stand I'm apparently taking, let alone which ones I'm clashing with.

Actually this is the second time you've taken one of my comments and gone on a completely random tangent. Stop that.


Which were two completely different comments aimed at two completely different people, with regards to two differing parts of the thread/conversation. I'd thank you to keep my comments in context.


Yeh, I don't care. I never said it did.


Only one game in all the games I listed actually use SecuROM, to my knowledge, as the rest aren't EA titles. Huge 'rectitude' you got going there...

You're assuming Valve doesn't go bankrupt in the foreseeable future. Which seems at best rather naive.

I only meant that other big companies still require online activation, while providing overall worse distribution schemes. What's naive is to be shocked at the proliferation of online-based solutions in this day and age; it's an integral part of this era, with obvious advantages and obvious disadvantages in case of a nuclear fallout.

Well again, worse is highly subjective. My copy of SPORE comes on a proper DVD. Should EA go bankrupt, I can get a crack and patch from any one of 1000's of perfectly legal websites that redistribute it.

Now let's say I'd bought it off Steam, or even the EA store, and they go bankrupt. I'd have to download the whole thing, from an unambiguously illegal site. I am in short a criminal, and if I happen to live in a place like France, I'd also be potentially without an Internet connection.

Having a physical product, while far from ideal, is much preferable to having a single monolithic gatekeeper, that controls everything. Do you know why it's a bad idea to "keep all your eggs in the same basket". Yeah, because you want to avoid a situation with a single point of failure.

Really? 2 months ago, which would have been the safer investment? A wall street investment bank, that had been in business for 158 years, with 26,000 employees or video game company that's been around 12 years and has 150 employees. Well if you'd said Lehman Brothers, you'd look pretty stupid today, wouldn't you? So yeah. If one of the worlds largest investment banks can tank in less than a year, despite a conspicuous lack of nuclear fallout, what on earth makes you think Valve is impervious to harm short of nuclear fallout? You don't really need nukes to cause a company to tank, give them enough rope, they'll hang themselves.

It's not like video game publishers haven't gone bankrupt ever. In fact generally speaking the video game market is a lot more volatile than the investment market, and you can bet your government isn't going to spend 700 billion dollars, and then some just so you can keep playing Half-Life 2.

Well if the Amazon reviews for Spore are anything to go by, it's that people are fine with the Ring 0 driver if it doesn't affect them but not fine with online authentication.


Actually the EA download manager saves an easily accessible .exe file (so long as you know where to find it) so if you use it and don't back that up you're asking for as much trouble as when you don't back up anything else you downloaded.

Another misunderstanding. The issue never was about the online authentication, but about the three install system which makes your purchase like a rent. Nobody complained before this restriction.

And... FlameDuck, don't cite on irony. Anyway, I have a boxed copy of the Orange Box (which is called box for a reason). Games which are only available at steam and not boxed are usually games which would only have shareware distribution anyway.


That point is abigous too. You can backup your games with Steam too, and I don't think you'll have much trouble finding a crack if they go bankrupt and don't release a solution themselver.


Also because this decision will boomerang back, but don't start about politics. :)

Either way I'll probably be quoted over and over again it seems with no apparent end.
I prefer to distribute my apps without as much restrictions as possible, but I never go blindly against something with reasoning based only on rumors and word of mouth too.