Biggest threat to the SOW series

[Chivas]

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

[Bobb4]

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.

[mondo]

Originally Posted by Bobb4

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.

[Feuerfalke]

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.

[Sturm_Williger]

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.

[bomath]

Originally Posted by Bobb4

[...]
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.
[...]

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.

[Bobb4]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

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.

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

[Bobb4]

Originally Posted by bomath

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.

Lol... Way too many honest people

[Oktoberfest]

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.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Oktoberfest

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.