So right or wrong being irrelevant here, people pirate things and companies don't like it. Obviously the way things are isn't working. So what are we going to do to fix it? Even if it isn't very realistic, I invite you to post it so someone else can improve it. Just keep in mind that posts count here so don't be too "out there" with any ideas. Remember, attack ideas not people. Likewise don't be upset if people don't like something you say in here. As always you can bring it to staff if things get bad, just take it outside the thread. (Sorry about rambling a bit there, I've been in brainstorming sessions that have been less than pretty so I'm a bit paranoid on that) I'll start with an idea I just had. The idea is that instead of selling to individual people you sell it to the public as a whole. So lets say that some company makes a game and expects to make sales at 1 million dollars (obviously that is a completely arbitrary number) then they could create a webpage to take donations and show progress on it. Then once it reaches the goal it is sold and released to the public, then since the public as a whole owns it the game would be able to be distributed openly without penalty. Obviously there are variations of this that can be done. Releasing material in parallel to the funds being raised until eventual completion for example.
I see how your model would work. Very clever of you, and it ties in with my ideas. However, in order to get that much money you would have to both create a high demand for your work and refuse to release to anyone before your goal was reached. It would be hard, but it could be managed. Sample tracks would be a good investment. It functions like preorders and that ilk. You already know what I think. Let people burn out and revert to decency as they are prone to doing. If you get rid of the thumb on them, they will act with decency. Not everyone is a bastard, contrary to popular opinion. Most people will feel guilty for not paying for something that they enjoy thoroughly if no one is watching and waiting to call them for it. Live performances are examples of ways for bands to promote albums and draw in money for labor and merchandise more directly. In a society where the customer is always right, everybody is usually happy. Show me something to the contrary and I may reevaluate my position.
if i remember right, iTunes used to limit how much you could copy your MP3s. i think that approach is the right one. kind of like how Playstation Network ties downloads to accounts and you could share with up to 5 consoles. i mean, if they made MP3 and movie downloads like that but a little less restrictive because i believe iTunes did away with that method because it was too restrictive. maybe up to 10 devices could have the same license file and have it work. and of course unlimited re-downloads (unless the files are already on 10 devices in which case it needs to be emptied from one). so my solution is like iTune's old one but a less restrictive version.
I really like this idea and I wish it were viable but there are some very big problems with it. The first, most obvious one is that some games may not make their target price, and then what happens? You have a bunch of pissed off employees that aren't getting paid, that's what. The second is, how are new companies supposed to get off the ground this way? The only way anyone's going to donate to your game is if they know about the company and the kind of games they make. People are probably going to feel really sketchy about donating to a company who they've never seen a game from before and to a game that may never even get released. The last problem is, how does this work internationally? Are they selling the game to the whole world? Because if so they'll need to set the price much higher and it may end up getting disproportionate. I don't think there is a need for a "Solution to piracy". The game companies are doing fine. Valve said in a recent interview that "Piracy just isn't a problem for us". If game companies really want to reduce piracy, all they have to do is release demos of their games and make them DRM free. Oh, and the games should be good and reasonably priced. There are game companies that don't do any of these things (INFINITYWARD) and yet make mountains of money, even though people pirate the crap out of their games.
I don' t see how it would improve the situation, there would still be people enjoying games for free at the expanse of someone else. It would only prevent companies to gain more than they hope to. Personally I wouldn' t invest a cent in any game, I want to pay to enjoy a game right now, not give money to enjoy it at an unknown date, especially if its not even finished yet (which means there aren' t any review or video of the final product to give you an idea of what you' re paying for exactly, and the game may never see the light of day). Sorry but I can' t think of a clever anti-piracy proposition to make.
Keep in mind people this is a brainstorm. Saying what is wrong helps, but providing counter ideas (unique or adjustments of other ideas) is better. The goal would be something that the company decides. If they make it unrealistic then it is there issue. Same as the fact that I could make a game and sell it for $150 dollars, when people don't buy it it would become my fault. There will be some trial and error here while it is determined what a good number is. If things don't work out there are roads they can take. Such as releasing it early, or releasing material relative to the amount they have made (e.g. raising 500k on a game valued at 1m would result in release of about 1/2 the game. If people like it and want to see the other half they could pay more, or the game could flop right there). It would be in the best interest of companies to release demos and the like anway to try and get momentum. As for limiting profits. This is harder to reverse. I would be willing to bet that companies would also set up pages for general development support, or perhaps even just leave the donation page open after the product release so that people can show their support for releases that they liked after experiencing it. Obviously this would result in a profit spike after release from the people who say "I'll pay for it after I decide what it is worth" and then a gradual decline after that. Though without data we aren't even sure if this is an actual issue, this could in theory lead to increased profits just as easily as decreased.
I do believe the donations would work. It already works with some things, like Minecraft. There are a lot of modders out there who have donation links, and if the mod is good enough, they will receive donations. I think it's a good idea to rely on donations, because that would push game developers etc. to make their games stand out. Then again, I think the videogame industry would eventually go under, because many people don't pay. If people didn't suck as much as we do, it would work long-term, but due to greed (someone would most likely figure out a way to abuse it)
mixt, that is a revolutionary idea, which has actually proved to be successful in small scale. I really doubt it could be scaled up. As certain project gain mass appeal, they may see "investments" faulter. Secondly, what if the budget is rather large, unpredictably large. It can happen, ambitious designers could run into complications. Asking for more money will turn off investors, viewing the project as a "money pit". Whats worse, what if investors decide they want a cut of the profit? What if information is miscalculated? All of these problems can be felt in a conventional system. But because this system is more transparent, it can backfire much worse. If a Beta Demo looks bad, and turns off investors, the project gets canned. The result, everyone loses. No game is released past a incomplete buggy demo, and the company loses money, the investors never see a game. What then?
I believe this applies to games today as well. If a game does not look good, then it will not get many sales after completion, and it will not pay for itself.
Read my post before you try to counter. I said its a problem, but in a more transparent system, the problem is exageratted.
Already I'm sensing some complication. Firstly, there must absolutely be a dichotomy established as to whether or not piracy is a problem; if it isn't explicitly "Right or wrong," it must at least exist in some form. Second, what's not working? Piracy? Sales in relation to piracy? Or simply counter-piracy measures? To the latter I'll agree, but I don't see it as much of an issue. Where are the figures on what piracy does to companies, fledgling or otherwise, product notwithstanding, that would not be done in due course? What killed Jet Set Radio Future was poor advertising; people didn't want to pay for it because they didn't know it existed. Machinae Supremacy and the many incarnations of Renard have as much money and popularity as they need to do what they love because they have an open, trusting, and generous relationship with their fans; they outright encourage piracy as a means of spreading their name and sound. Having established my view, I hope it comes as no surprise that I haven't given much thought to how piracy could be abolished for good. But if you want the too-simple-to-be-true answer: Make products that are worth the money you charge, both by being good products and by not being too expensive. Yes, there's a lot of subjective coming off that idea, but there's a lot of "We will pirate whether you like it or not and your defenses will not stop us" coming off of most of the plans developers and corporations dream up to keep their stuff safe, and the nasty side effect of their ideas tends to be screwing over people who did pay money for what they've got. I did not appreciate Apple locking all of my downloaded music into Apple products, so I tossed my iPod and got a third-party MP3 player. Treat your consumers like potential criminals and this is the treatment you get. I honestly don't think there's a better answer that would also be feasible. It would take a radical social, economical, and maybe even psychological shift in affected countries/economies to get rid of it in whole. Not to mention there are viable benefits to the practice: For instance, American game publishers have been known to refuse to port foreign games that are pretty much guaranteed to sell well, both by popular demand and by a precedent for sales of ported games in the U.S. (I can get names and numbers on this one if asked). At that point, for a gamer passionately interested in having the experience, piracy is sometimes necessary. Of course, if a regular old import would do, then all the better, but otherwise there is zero chance for profit anyway. And no, piracy is usually not costing companies money they would otherwise be making. A fair share of pirated material is software, and the pirates have the decency to copy it in their own time and share it through their own channels--usually with people who wouldn't have paid anyway or didn't have the money to begin with. The company is not involved and loses no manpower, no resources, and a negligible amount of money. The whole process is ethereal as far as they're concerned, which quite literally turns anti-piracy into jumping at shadows. That model locks developers into not only a certain price range, but a certain number of copies developed. When the potential gain for a series is higher than its initial projected profit, what happens to the extra people willing to pay the money? Copies are produced and sold by the person because you never really know who or how many will be interested. If a company makes a million copies of a CD and only forty thousand want it, they've wasted a ton of money; but if two million are interested, they've blown half their potential profit. And in that case, I doubt you're going to find a company who's willing to produce more than they've been paid to produce, especially when they set the price at a hard line that can't be crossed up or down. It's been said that this model works on a small scale, and that's absolutely correct. Take the regularly offered Steam game packages, for example; you can pay whatever you want for them and still receive the whole package. However, those are motivated by very different factors. The example used is a donation drive for several charities, so most of the proceeds are for their benefit. Refreshing to see the point raised by someone other than me. Have to agree; in fact, I get that way a lot. Hell, I feel that way about the Silversun Pickups I DL'd recently. Maybe I'll be paying a visit to Best Buy soon... Presumptive and mean-spirited. Keep it clean, folks.
I do not see the presumption. Makaze "corrected" my post by paraphrasing the latter half of my post. And, if you want solutions: Registration systems work for software. I do not see how they will not work for games. The reason its not common for gaming purposes, is companies are too afraid of hurting thier pocket books by alienating customers with little to no access to the internet. But registry keys are working as anti-piracy equipment for computer software. Simple, and effective, and cheap. Since the big three modern generation system are heavily built for online play and have internet browsers built into them. It would be easy to have a registry key system for each game. Yes, there are registry key generators... But overall, those are the minority. This thread IS NOT about whether its right or wrong to pirate, nor whether or not companies lose money from piracy. Its about finding an effective way to stop piracy. I see no reason not to use a tried and proven system.
It would have helped you to wait for an answer before breaking into the following rant. What I'm saying is that no one is happy with the current system. If you think piracy is acceptable then all of the enforcement of it is costly and annoying. If you think it is unacceptable then there are too many people doing it. If you are indifferent then you are content with how things are, but would also be content wherever this goes. So unless I'm missing something there is no party that would rather things stay as they are with piracy. The only argument I can think of is one that you touched on briefly; that we are simply on the least of several evils (i.e. where we are isn't good, but any direction we could hope to take this would be worse), in which case I invite you to argue that case by case (assuming anyone else wants to add something instead of this all being about my idea) Well I had been thinking of it in terms of downloadable content, but if this were to be done for physical media as well it could easily be adapted to something where there is a minimum donation x to cover the production cost and shipping. As for restrictive profits, I've already said companies could easily leave the donation page up past the goal mark and it just becomes free money then. There are many who would only wish to pay after they experience the game, those who only heard about it after the release, etc. And yes, there will be many people that will just freeload this system, but there will also be people that over pay and those that pay a little when they would have otherwise passed it up due to the price. Underselling is harder to "fix" but you essentially have the same problems as exists with underselling now. The big new one is just what to do with the unreleased media? They could decide to release it before quota and hope the post release cash pushes them over, they could decide to release part of the media reflective of the amount received thus far or they could remain steadfast and insist on no release until quota is made. There aren't any rules on it so the company can approach the problem however they see fit.
Trying to defeat piracy permanently is like shooting flies with a pistol. It will never work. Companies shouldn't look into a permanent way to defeat piracy, but how to prolong it before it happens. Given the right amount of time and knowledge, any human can defeat any form of protection placed on a product (DRM, encryption, etc). Proof of that is the past 30 years. The idea should be "How can we make this product not be pirated when it comes out, at least till we see reasonable profit". Sony is the only company that seems to be using this tactic that I'm aware of. They change how the encryption of their newer games works by changing the keys and sending firmware updates to its machines to keep up with how the new security works. 3.50 and below use the same as that's when piracy hit them, but with 3.60 and 3.70 they each have their own set of keys to encrypt and decrypt their content. With their current tactic, when one game can be pirated does not mean all can. Newer games will take longer to pirate then others (since march this year not 1 game that uses the new encryption has been pirated.) Again, prolonging piracy is the only reasonable way to go with this.
I always buy albums when I find them. Not even record stores have the ones I am buying, though... One of the greatest factors that goes into my downloading something is how easy it is to find it otherwise. That was the presumption. You got a lot out of two sentences. Please show me what I paraphrased and in what way, or more, how I tried to correct it. I was offering what I saw as insight, and I spoke about your whole post, so I see no need to get snippy. If my point was invalid, then please explain why it was invalid instead of simply calling it out as a straw man without explanation. Technically, it is about how to stop the problem of piracy, and not piracy itself. Once we establish what that problem is, then we can try to work against it, but most people have agreed that piracy is not a huge threat as it is now.
I am. :L By "all of the enforcement" I assume you mean "anti-piracy efforts." Absolutely so, and I'd rather the things I do pay for not be bogged down by pointless, ineffectual lock-down measures. I am not happy with that; and if happiness is a binary in this instance, then I guess I've made the jump. But I consider it a minor annoyance when the solution is in my hands: to withdraw support from troublesome companies and seek better alternatives. Define "too many." Piracy hasn't crashed the economy. Wouldn't that be the defining point when it has become a true problem? Oh, I wouldn't say that at all. Indifference tends to change with the conditions. I am not indifferent to the situation--Were I indifferent, I wouldn't be in this thread. In that case, however, I wouldn't remain indifferent if anti-piracy measures tightened to an absurd degree, nor would I remain indifferent if piracy was explicitly linked to the decline of a handful of useful or enjoyable services, products, or works. I am indifferent, in this hypothetical scenario, because nothing about the situation particularly ignites my passions. Well, the problem is that starting discussion from brainstorming effective anti-piracy methods assumes much which the interested parties are not ready to assume. Also, my argument is not that we are enjoying the least of x evils; it's that piracy is not an evil. Right, and it does work on small scales, but for different reasons. It's a nice idea, but in my opinion too restrictive. And it would be assumed that the price included production cost and shipping to begin with... but how would the minimum cost for such be determined? That's the issue. How many products are we making and shipping? Fair enough. But it would be a tough thing to get developers to agree to, especially with such expensive products coming out each year. Again, fair point. Everyone has their own response to underselling. Honestly, though, is all of this going to prevent piracy? Seems more like it will just disguise or transform it. To wit: The Humble Bundle, my previous example (which I erroneously labeled a Steam package--It only has Steam tie-in options) is pirated, despite being available for free if the consumer so chooses. And referring to your comment on some people paying above average: There are others who download the package legitimately and pay upwards of a hundred dollars for it. In that light, seems like your proposed system is just another way to skin a cat.
Sforzato: mixts strategy is not to prevent piracy directly, but to allow media to be traded more freely, therefore eliminating the need for piracy. No need for piracy equals no piracy. Its an indirect way of stopping it. It would actually be completly effective. I actually advocate a registry key strategy because it has less potential of taking major losses. The reason mixt strategy is s effective for indygaming, is the scale is so small, it takes a lot less capital to make an indygame. I doubt this wll scale well at all.
Ok, I get that. The thing is, as I mentioned already, people will still do it. There are people who will pirate things that are free. But that's hardly enough to tear down the point itself. If the goal is to render piracy obsolete, then I can better see where he's coming from. True, it probably wouldn't scale well. Then again, a lot of hot ideas don't scale well. I'm rather fond of the anarcho-communist model, but if anyone can get a whole country going along with it, I'll eat my hat. And my hat is large and fanciful.
