Biggest threat to the SOW series
 

Heres some interesting comments about the PC Gaming and Piracy


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More Opinions On PC Gaming And Piracy

Yet another industry exec has now ranted about the perils on rampant piracy in the PC gaming industry. This time the rant is on the Quarter to Three message board and written by Michael Fitch, the director of creative management at publisher THQ. In his rant, Fitch talks about how piracy affected the 2006 released action-RPG Titan Quest; its developer, Iron Lore, announced last month that it would shut down its operations. Here is a snip:
Titan Quest did okay. We didn't lose money on it. But if even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today. You can bitch all you want about how piracy is your god-given right, and none of it matters anyway because you can't change how people behave... whatever. Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren't so rampant on the PC. That's a fact.

Fitch also talks about the well known issue of hardware and software compatibility as they relate to running PC games and even goes after gamers and reviewers who in his words don't read the game manual or do basic PC maintainance. Here is a snip:

There's a lot of stupid people out there. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of very savvy people out there, too, and there were some great folks in the TQ community who helped us out a lot. But, there's a lot of stupid people. Basic, basic stuff, like updating your drivers, or de-fragging your hard drive, or having antivirus so your machine isn't a teetering pile of rogue programs. PC folks want to have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want with their machines, and god help them they will do it; more power to them, really. But god forbid something that they've done - or failed to do - creates a problem with your game. There are few better examples of the "it can't possibly be my fault" culture in the west than gaming forums.
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Edit...the link http://www.firingsquad.com/news/news...searchid=19824

Elicences are the way of the future, no one yet has managed to crack Theatre of War's eLicence procedure and my guess is the PC Gaming industry has taken note.

Ironically "Sins of a Solar Empire" was released as a torrent it is rumoured by the company themselves to boost sales. A ploy that seems to have worked. All they did was make online almost impossible and updating the game via patches hard without buying the game.

Piracy is here to stay unfortunately and it has helped increase the prices of games as a whole.
Maybe the solution is to make games cheaper. lets face it who would bother buying a pirated game if it was only a few dollars to buy the real thing.
Game manuals and boxes that were works of art have been replaced by pdf's and movie DVD boxes yet game prices skyrocket higher and higher and the executives wonder why they make no money? Sell it for less and people will not buy pirated goods.

I know it is not that simple, but neither is some executive moaning about the fall of a software house and blaming it on piracy.
The game was an old fashioned hack and slash rpg using ideas stolen from a thousand such rpg's like diablo that filled a void in the market.

Thats beside the point. They didn't equip the game with sensible anti piracy measures. People could have a copied version of the game and play it online or offline at will. They shot themselves in the foot because there was nothing on or offline to authenticate the game as genuine.

Back in the old days and partially upcoming again was the most effective and unproblematic copy protection ever invented: Complex games with tons of handbooks and goodies in the box.

Hmmm, but what are "sensible anti-piracy" measures ?

As an example, I recently decided to upgrade my Medieval II Total War with the Kingdoms addon. Browsing, I discovered a "Gold" edition pack which contained both games. It was fairly cheap, so I bought that. What I didn't know was that it ( unlike the original standalone MTW2 I bought when it came out ) was protected by SecureRom. Now I didn't think this was as bad as Starforce, but when one of the Kingdoms campaigns crashed on install... I couldn't see my CD/DVD drive anymore. It took a reboot to fix this.

Then this "piracy" protection failed to recognise the disc when I attempted to play the game. And then removed my ability to see the DVD drive again. Cue another reboot.

And so, ho hum it was off to find a NoCD crack ... for the game I paid for, but couldn't play due to the piracy protection. Why do they bother I wonder ? Stuff like SecureRom and Starforce have done more to enlighten legitimate buyers of software to the world of hacks and cracks than years of piracy ... because they HAD TO in order to get their legitimate copies to work.

ELicence sounds like a far more intelligent way to go.

That's hopeful thinking; even if a game would be one dollar, the people would find it hard to go to a shop and buy the box; instead they can download the torrent for free. For the online shop, the same problem: either people are reluctant to pay online to a relatively unknown gamehouse/shop (especially if it's an eastern european one; Russia recently took over China at the top of the malware/scams). Or the pure laziness to reach and grab that card, just to enter your dates; that's especially lousy, considering the fact that you work more for installing a crack. I also have the perfect example, right in our area of interest: an add-on for a submarine simulator, Silent Hunter 4: U-boat missions. It's only 10$, can be bought online and downloaded right away, but I know right from the makers the sales are pretty scarce and this is while many forums (e.g. subsims.com) are afire talking about it.

Up until now, only online games succeeded somewhat in controlling the piracy, and basically only the massive multiplayer online games. World of Warcraft can be found pirated, but the servers are many updates behind and I think only this game (WoW) could make more sales by means of piracy; anybody who would use a pirated game on a botched server would sooner or later rush to buy the original, so he/she can play the real thing.

And gents, do not forget that only you can determine if there will be a future for SoW, add-ons and any game that might come from the same source; for Microsoft FlightSimulator there is a HUGE industry for add-ons, and it can only survive because there are thousands and tens of thousands of customers, paying good money for every add-on. There are many sites like ThePirateBay.com which offer the torrents for these add-ons, but the sales are as strong as ever.
So, gents, remember: if you didn't buy the game, don't complain that the bugs are not corrected by patches, or that the next development won't be great or if it might never exist.

I'm curious, how many have the guts to recognize that they use a pirated copy of IL-2 Sturmovik?
I've created an anonymous poll, it's here: http://www.polldaddy.com/p/382475/
Go there and vote, if you're afraid that in forum somebody could trace the votes to a specific person.

You are so right, Falcon 4 came with a staggering 700 page manual... Talk about pirate proof!

Lol... Way too many honest people :)

Well I buyed the original IL2 CD but I use it with a no CD crack because the anti-piracy technology make it that my DVD driver can't identify the CD ten out of eleven times. It was really a pain just to INSTALL the game because I had to relaunch ten times the CD player to get it working. I have that since the AEP.

I'm sure games were better protected when you had real stuff inside of the box than just 1 copy of the game and nothing else. I remember Silent Hunter or Panzer Commander where you had tons of documentation about the ships or vehicles you were using or fighting plus short stories over events, etc. Today, well.... you know.

Same here. I really understand why they have to apply copy-protections to the games, but sometimes it really does more damage than it helps.

Oktoberfest: apologies for the 'Off Topic', but I must ask if you can play Panzer Commander on XP? Ever since I upgraded to my Sony Vaio some four years ago, I have been unable to run this tank simulator, even when telling Windows to emulate Windows 95. The game loads, but stalls and locks up about 10 seconds into a scenario. As a marginally computor literate, I would appreciate any advice.

Smart game developers like Ironclad do not use copy protection. You can install one copy of SoaSE on multiple computers and it does not require a cd to run, so you can have multiple friends playing with each other. I think more developers will follow suit with anti-DRM policies. There are many people who support anti-DRM and purposely buy products to support developers who do not use it.

Interview with Ironclad.

The absolute best anti-piracy measue out there is one of the oldest. A good, old-fashioned CD-Key. I "download" a lot of games to try them out before I spend money (and yes, I DO buy the ones I like and unistall the rest) and the ones that I run out and buy the fastest are the good games that require a valid cd-key to play online. A good Example, GTR2, all the guys in my squad were getting into this game and everytime I got on TS to fly with them they were racing. So I downloaded a copy to try it out, I could run the single player stuff no problem but when I wanted to run with my squad I couldn't without a cd key. I noticed right away it was a great game and because of the cd key issue I bought this game the very next day. I would have bought it to support the developer eventually but it may have been a few weeks, bue to the cd key being required for online play I bought it the next day. I know others who are not as scrupulous as me and ONLY buy a game when the cd key is required for online play.

I don't think they have to worry about piracy when it comes to IL2 and BOB. If you spend 200-500 dollars or euros to buy a hotas, track ir etc... I think it's safe to say you'll spend the 10-40 €/$ for the game too.

i have:

Track ir 4 pro 160€
Saitek X52 120€
IL2: Complete Ed. 30€
IL2: 1946 10€

Game = 40€
Equipment to play the game = 280€

Bollox. A thief is a thief.

+1

B

I bought the original IL2 and every expansion and version including 1946. I also use the DVD crack, because I play the game a lot and HATE having to have the CD in. When you can pirate a game easier than run in legitimately, you are asking for trouble. When I bought the original Unreal Tournament, the copy protection wouldn't let the cd drive read the disk, and the store wouldn't take it back. My only recourse? - a "pirate" version, but since I bought it it wasn't really pirated - just a countermeasure for a stupid protection attempt. No matter what the method, there is always a crack practically the second a game comes out. If you deliver enough value, people will buy it, just like I bought all the IL2 stuff! BTW, Theatre of War is cracked, though not like I would use or condone that.

Starforce and that kinda stuff is bad. I'm not a security expert, so I wouldn't know where to start to protect software.

I do know I didn't buy PE-2 because of Starforce, and I've never bought anything LockON after the first release.

I don't have alot of time for IL2 or anything else for that matter anymore. So I want no problems with a software I buy. So, if any possibilities for problems exist... I don't go there.

In Brasil i was the first to buy the genuine imported DVD:

http://yhst-12000246778232.stores.yahoo.net/ilst19.html

I send this link to all my friends, today we have about 700 onliners in Brasil

After months IL-2 1946 arrived, but isnt possible find DVD to buy:

http://www.americanas.com.br/AcomProd/1858/2469791

I voted in that poll. I'm an honest citizen. I own FOUR copies of IL2, from the very first version to the latest 1946 DVD. And I have always used a no-CD crack. On every game and every piece of software I own. And I've got a lot of software (including both Titan Quest and Immortal Throne).

I resent the implication of software houses that purchasers of their software are "dishonest" and must be "disciplined" by copy protection schemes. I'll go out of my way to defeat every one of them on software I've purchased, as a matter of principle, self-defense, and independence. I've felt that way from the first copy of dBase I ever bought to the present time, and that opinion is not likely to change.

I don't fly Lock-On, although I own a copy of it. Secure-ROM will never be on my system (it's MY system and I get to make the rules!). Likewise several shooters I have purchased that I will not play.

So be it.

Bring on SOW. I'll purchase and fly it too, and I'll search out and find a No-CD crack and use it. Unless it is protected by Secure-ROM or a clone. If so, it's "bye-bye", regardless of how much fun it might be.

And a game is but a game, your point?
I own Il2, pacific fighters, that stupid gold edition, the one the buggers brought out just before 1946 and of course 1946.
I also own CFS3, all the battlefield games, armed assault, Guild Wars and a host of other...
Both Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes have given me grey hairs regarding copy protection.
One minute I can read the disks the next I cannot.
That is why I advocate the elicence system, it is simple, effective and does not stuff-up your system.
Having attended many lans in our neck of the woods, piracy is rife, games are out before they are even officially released.

So yes a thief is a thief but tell that to a thirteen-year-old at a 1000-man lan.
Is he the thief or is it the countries that allow sites like piratebay to operate.

No.... I tried to let it run but I had a lot of graphic bugs in it. And yes, the game froze everytime I wanted to play it. So did red alert too, that I really liked for the briefings etc.... But today it says : Red Alert doesn't run under windows NT.....

Thanks for the response, Oktoberfest. Too bad . . .

I'm no more a lover of copy protection than you are, especially when it causes problems like securom does, it's the suggestion that a lower price will stop thievery..... If people would stop stealing the stuff the prices would go down on thier own because the software companies would stop wasting time and money on preventing theft.

It's the idea that piracy is the software companies fault that wrangles me (you might get me to listen in Microsoft's case). Guy's like Maddox and crew are not going to get rich on thier software, how can we take the bread from thier table and say it's thier own fault for not locking the door?

I meant no personal attack but I'm passionate about the subject as I protect peoples property for a living.

I'm not specifically for or against piracy. What bothers me with piracy is that it creates problems for people that make the games we play and then they make no more games. What bothers me with anti-piracy is the poorly implemented software protection that looks more like a trojan/virus than a protection program. Most of all it's the fact that anti-piracy is not really what's on some people's minds, they use it as an excuse to gradually implement software and hardware solutions that will make it easy to monitor and file everything we do on our PC, either for advertising purposes or for other more sinister purposes.

I think that responsibility here is shared. A developer that's rushing half baked projects and delivers less than promised can't expect me to pay 40 Euros for a disc with an unfinished game in a very cheap package. I will download and try the game based on what i read in reviews, if i like it i'll buy it and play through it, if not i'll uninstall it before completing it.

It also depends on the company that released the game, the way they operate, how much they value their customers and the quality of their products. In the case of IL2 i have never downloaded anything, because it's coming from a company i trust to bring me quality products and listen to feedback about improving them. It's also a small company and i want to support them with my money to help them make more quality games.

In the flight sim genre it would be highly hypocritical of me to pirate games, even if it was for sampling puproses only, when most of us complain that there's not enough independent developers and not enough good sims around. It's the same with decent RPG games too. I might still download shooters to see what it's all about, but if i don't like a game i will still delete it and if i like it i will buy it.

There could be a workaround to this, i think 1C has alreade done it and it's mentioned in this thread as well. One of my friends bought a license for Theatre of War and he told me that you can get 2 keys for one license. This is a very clever way to make more people aware and interested in the product, without doing something illegal in order to try out the game. If you don't like it, you can uninstall it and deactivate your key so that someone else might receive it-->another person that you can "advertise" the game to. Sooner or later, someone will think "hey, this is a cool game, i want to buy it too".

I would still prefer to have printed manuals and goodies in the box, instead of just the discs and a couple PDF files. I know this will drive up the retail price, but maybe it could be done if the company agreed to ship different versions for a different price (just like 1946 special edition). I know that 90% of the people in this forum would gladly pay 10-15Euros extra to have BoB:SoW with a manual. That is, as long as it was a well researched manual that includes real, useful advice and tips for each aircraft in the sim. If CEM goes the way we were discussing in the other thread a manual would be indispensible and that alone would drive piracy down. Imagine someone pirating the game only to find out that he kills his engine right away because he doesn't set the correct RPM and manifold pressure that's listed in the manual :grin:

The US music industry is an interesting study of piracy.
I am 38 yrs old and probably have not bought a CD in 15 years. (I have never downloaded a song of the internet either)
The CD were to expensive - I remember seeing a normal album for $21.99 or $27.99 , that to me was a major rip off and so I never bought any.
After the whole internet download craze their sales hit the basement. Now albums go for $7.99 or $9.99 and that to me is a fair price and I buy them.
Make it cheaper and you will sell more.

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If CEM goes the way we were discussing in the other thread a manual would be indispensible and that alone would drive piracy down. Imagine someone pirating the game only to find out that he kills his engine right away because he doesn't set the correct RPM and manifold pressure that's listed in the manual
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Unfortunately, they soon get that information from the forums of legit users. Having a printed manual will have a positive effect but not enough to make a difference on Piracy.

I bought Forgotten Battles in early 2003 after reading about it in a pc magazine. I then bought AEP and PF and finally 2 separate copies of 1946, I must be a fanboi. I didn't buy PE2 as I don't like the idea of paying money for a tiny amount of electricity that is used to transfer binary code to my hard drive LOL and I refuse to buy over the internet anyway and I refuse to use internet banking.

I'm at the stage now of seriously thinking about using a no-cd hack because I'm sick and tired of having to restart 1946 because secure-rom is such a poorly written piece of malware it can't recognise my pioneer dvd drive. I forgot to mention how long it takes to decide to work or not work for that matter. Normal load time is one minute-plus in which I have to sit twiddling my thumbs anxiously waiting to see if the game is going to load or crash or say "insert the original dvd in the drive". I know one minute isn't all that long, it's just tiresome not knowing if it will load after one,,,,,,,,,,,,whole,,,,,,,,,,minute,,,,,,,,,,,:-x. It happens so often that my grey matter has now been re-programmed to expect it to fail, one minute has now turned into two,,,,,,,,,,,minutes. My wish is that secure-rom goes bankrupt in the not too distant future.

Not a very popular game either. The more popular a game the more time hackers will spend trying to crack it.

S!

I have all the IL2 disks up to Forgotten battles, and I dont have 1946 ( not yet...I have it on order), reading this post left me thinking...what if. you buy the game and the cd/dvd only contains the basic info on the game, but you have to log in your CD key ( which will be tied up to your game/name and customer number) to download the part that makes the game work?..not like steam that verifies the game, but an actual and critical part of the game that without it the game will not work?....sounds like a good alternative., and that part downloaded can only be unlocked with your name/customer number?....and at no time can be the same number more than once online, hard coded on the game.

I would like that option, instead of root kits and disabling features from star force or securom.

that way, you can have the unlocking part of the game on your backup, but already tied up to the system, and only available to one account/CD key, any other combination or fake number would disable the game until the correct match be introduced at reinstall.

@loco-s

that seems to be a solution, but there is this one little problem:
you have to have an internet connection to make it work.
The unlocking-file must be small enough to send it by email and
crypted enough to make it safe.

So hacker will crack that part of the game with a hacked critical part (stolen by a original game).

I own Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts; if you are connected to internet you have to login as registered user (inserting cdkey during craation of the account), if not the disk must be inserted (and antipiracy system will activate).

Private lobby for online play.

I think this is the good way since many games are directed the online gameplay.

This was a problem a while back for those of us who installed Pacific Fighters I don't think it's a problem now because the US version of 1946 plays without being in drive I myself dread having to do a reinstall because I DL'd the SOM and 46 and I have to get my hands on a copy of 46 before I reformat (soon) but at $20 it's worth it. I own the original the Forgotten Battles, Aces Expansion and PF, I also use a no cd rts.dll but that came from UBI after much complaining about the right of a company to use software that makes my burner inoperable or to say what legal programs I have installed are allowed by a game program.

I have mentioned a form of copy encryption on the UBI Oleg room, I hope he's taken note ! :cool:

All it takes is one guy with a bit of patience and a scanner to circumvent that.

I agree.. though not fool proof... it helps. This Eliance thing sounds good... that and a CD key might be the ticket. But that kind of stuff usually inspires those who are bent on cracking a game...

+1



+!

One way to go cheaper, and still make the required revenue stream is more, paid updates.

I'd personally be fine with a subscriptive service. I've held a ww2ol account since before 2001 (I was a beta tester). I maintain it even though I don't play much because I love the idea of it, and $12/mo is no big deal to support it. The few hours a month I play are well worth the $12, I'd spend far more in the same few hours at the bar on beer.

Many in the il-2 crowd view any kind of subscriptive model as anathema, but I think it's a good idea. I remember playing WarBirds when it was $2 an HOUR. I had many many months of multi hundred dollar tabs. Worth every penny, too.

I liked the idea of the 700 page manual.

Unfortunately, someone with too much time on their hands would quickly scan it to PDF.

I think the "check registration" at online login may be most effective.

Yes but even so a pdf file certainly is NOT the same thing as a book you can look at while playing the game.

a cdkey + a nice book would be good enough i think. Software protection can in most cases be cracked and only the buyers of the game will be punished.

but again $3-500 equipment vs $30 game, if you're stealing the game then i think it's someone that never would have played it anyway. I don't care if it's just a blank box with a disc in it, i'm getting it either way. Only thing that would stop me from getting it would be starforce or similar...

Between printing and shipping how much would that add to the cost of the game?

a good question would be how much is gained from today copy protection at all?

music industry is a good example how managers try to use piracy to cover their own inability. After latest actions again P2P piracy gone down but same time sales dropped to record low, so what?

It is plain stupid to think that anyone who steals a sports car would buy one if he can't steal one. Porsche could easily make their cars impossible to steal buy introducing a delay of 1 hour from opening the door to starting the engine. Only small problem: Who would buy such a car?

Game distributors need to invent a lock that is as easy to use and fail save like today car locks. Beside this they need to concentrate on the people who plan to buy their products and not on the people who plan to steal it.

There are companies making billions $ from easy to use music downloads and handy tunes while the music industry is searching for a way to turn time back.

QuietMan