So I was playing around today on Q23 and someone posted a link to a pirate bittorrent search engine (which I will not repost in case it’s frowned upon) and I checked it out.
No it hasn’t turned me into a pirate yet but wow I was suprised at what I could get, all the seinfeld shows before the dvd releases, every new theater release, games and more games.
So question is, how long will this business model where honest people in the US (and friendly countries like England, New Zealand France etc.) pay exorbident prices for media while people overseas and people willing to do a little searching online pay nothing?
The most interesting thing about it is that the stuff I’d be most interested in downloading is the stuff that I wouldn’t pay to get. For example I bought GTA San Andreas for PS2 so there’s no way in hell I’m gonna buy it for PC. However I’d consider downloading it. Leisure suit larry? Not gonna buy it but I’d consider it for free.
Is there any business model that will solve this problem? I’m sick of paying $50 for $20 games and publishers are sick of people paying $0 for them.
Torrent sites will track your IP address, and peers know who is connected to them and downloading from them. So you risk getting caught. The thing is though, there are so many people doing it, there just isn’t enough enforcement to stop it. Especially in Europe and Asia where the fines for this type of activity is negligible.
Look at AllofMp3.com… You have a website selling music for pennies, and it’s completely legal because of loopholes in Russian copyright law.
The new generation of ultra secure and private P2P clients like freenet are going to cause even more proplems for the publishers because there will be no way to stop them.
Yes, in fact there is - a business model that forces people to register their CD codes online and/or a monthly subscription model.
Battlefield 2 is a pretty good example; no it’s not foolproof, and there are private server patches and similar things around, but it’s more of a hassle than anything. If you required all games to be like this, the amount of pure everyday piracy would drop. If you’re a dedicated pirate it won’t bother you that much. But it certainly makes it less convenient.
For MMOGs of course, piracy is practically pointless.
This brings up an interesting question, which is how much should this stuff cost. Personally I think $10-15 for a movie DVD seems very reasonable, and I don’t mind paying $20 for recent releases. Discount DVDs at $6-9 are great deals. Full-priced Music CDs on the other hand seem way overpriced.
New Zealand has parallel importing. There is no reason that some third party cannot buy at wholesaler prices in the United States or somewhere and just ship it to New Zealand at a better price.
Or people could just buy through the internet when they see it at a price they like. This is what I tend to to, even with exorbitant shipping, costs sometimes it is so much cheaper.
But the real case where you get shit on IMO is movies and TV. These are a different matter from games. Theres nothing worse than seeing someone gush spoilers about the finale of an interesting show or movie that won’t reach your country for months, if not a year. Especially in these days of RSS feeds and nonces posting inconsiderately to their blogs.
This brings up an interesting question, which is how much should this stuff cost. Personally I think $10-15 for a movie DVD seems very reasonable, and I don’t mind paying $20 for recent releases. Discount DVDs at $6-9 are great deals. Full-priced Music CDs on the other hand seem way overpriced.[/quote]I get more mileage out of a good CD than a good DVD. I can watch a DVD 2-3 times before I have to set it aside for a year or so. A CD, I can listen to that over and over, especially if it’s in a rotation.
The day before release I downloaded this game so that I would be able to play even if nobody in my area would break street. Downloaded the game, installed it, put in the provided serial number (they give you 4 to choose from, and it can be rechanged by running regedit and searching for the existing number).
In less than 5 minutes I was online playing on a ranked EA Official server. The only restriction is that 2 people in the same game can’t have the same serial number. Once a keygen comes out (which won’t be long, if there’s not already one), there will be nothing to stop people from playing anywhere they want to.
(and yes, I bought the game the next day – but all I did was change my registry to put in my valid CD key)
Wow, EA didn’t even link the key to your gamespy account? They’re not even trying very hard.
I’ve been thinking for years that CD prices are too high, especially relative to DVD prices. I know damn well how to download a movie, but I like to have the packaging and professional presentation of a good DVD set. CD’s on the other hand are full of filler songs to pad out a release, often don’t include basic things like complete song credits and lyrics, are disproportionately expensive relative to the cost of production, and priced to support a business model that rewards publishers at the expense of artists, who seem to make most of their money with live performances rather than royalties. It’s hard to bring myself to reward that sort of behavior, and my CD buying has dropped considerably in the last 5-6 years.
Two things. One, not buying anyone’s CD in order not to reward the awful record industry will do nothing to help artists.
Second, you do realize that, statistically speaking, everyone buys fewer CDs as you get older? You may say to yourself that you’re not buying as much music as you did because of piracy or business, but the reality is that you’re probably just finding less stuff you’re digging.
The day before release I downloaded this game so that I would be able to play even if nobody in my area would break street. Downloaded the game, installed it, put in the provided serial number (they give you 4 to choose from, and it can be rechanged by running regedit and searching for the existing number).
In less than 5 minutes I was online playing on a ranked EA Official server. The only restriction is that 2 people in the same game can’t have the same serial number. Once a keygen comes out (which won’t be long, if there’s not already one), there will be nothing to stop people from playing anywhere they want to.
(and yes, I bought the game the next day – but all I did was change my registry to put in my valid CD key)[/quote]
Ah okay, bad example.
Well, if EA/DICE had properly implemented this, it would have been a good example :)
I’m not saying they won’t be cracked, what I’m saying is that it’s really inconvenient - the HL2 crack used to require (and still does to a lesser extent) a lot of work, and every Steam patch requires a new update every time.
The mere inconvenience of these issues - delaying crackers and other things for weeks if not months - will do a lot to curb convenient piracy.
That being said, the more hardcore and patient pirates will not be deterred, but I think today’s convenient piracy is running rampant.
And new BT clients effectively hide IPs from what I understand… and of course we’re not even talking about Usenet. Bittorrent makes everything very convenient for the casual pirate, Usenet slightly less so.
And some people wonder why the PC gaming market is shrinking.
There are a lot of people who do legally buy games, but the ones who don’t are killing the market. Will it go away? No, but I can tell you that green-lighting a PC-only project these days is extremely difficult. The top two or three PC games each year make money, but everyone else loses their shirt.
I can only hope Microsoft has something interesting up their sleeve with Longhorn.
There are a lot of people who do legally buy games, but the ones who don’t are killing the market. Will it go away?
Sorry but I do not think that is the case. There are lots of reasons why the PC gaming market is shrinking and sure people stealing games might play a small part but on the whole its not the reason the PC market is shrinking.
Do you actually need gamespy for online gaming these days? I maintain my account, but it’s purely for content. After Urban Terror floundered a bit, I haven’t fired up ASE in forever.
I really dont think there is anything the publishers can do about it. The MMO market is the only thing thats safe, and even it has had its fair share of problems with private servers and such. for instance did you know that for the longest time it was possible (and still may be) to run a private EQ server in your own home?
One thing the publishers should not do however is get over zelous with thier copy protections. Starforce is a great example. I dont pirate games, but i do make back up copies of my retail CDs because i tend to kill them quickly. In order to do that i have to use cracks and Virtual CD mounts in order to do what the EULA give me permission to do. If thats not bad enough now we have starforce telling me what programs i can and cant have installed on my PC. That led me to download my first game in … around 7 years just so i could see the game. Ive since deleted it and moved on but only because the hackers stopped updating when patches came out. The quickest way i know to loose paying customers is to treat them like criminals. in the end at least in this example for me it became a self fulfilling prophecy.
