Deus Ex Alpha

More and more often here, on YouTube and many other sites, I hear a dispute about pirating games for PCs. The reason is that game devs now blame players for downloading games instead of buying, and that, as they think, is the reason of PC discrediting itself as a gaming platform.

I'm not really following the gaming market, but I've got my simple opinion: f-ck off with your yelping!

Economics theory says: a too high price on the oligopolistic market creates a black market.

The computer game market is a perfect example of an oligopoly — there are like ten major players for the whole world: EA, Eidos/SCi, Activision, Microsoft, etc. The pirating of games on the computer game market is a perfect example of a black market.

In other words, if you, game developer/producer, want to defeat pirating and get higher profits for selling games — cut your prices. $50+ for a game is absolutely & undoubtedly over the top.

In other words:
— now, with price $50/piece you need to sell 200k copies to get 10 mln $.
— with price $15/piece you'd need to sell 700k copies to get 10 mln $. But I'm pretty sure you'd sell more than 700k copies because the consumer will be happier to buy a decent game for such price, and there will be a lot of "random purchases", when people buy because they like the cover. I don't think a lot of people spend $50 on a game, without reading anything about it in the internet beforehand.

Additionally, 700k players are more profitable than 200k players, because
— 700k players could spread a word about your awesome game to more people, than 200k players
— 700k players will recognize your brand name (brand name price goes up, higher stock prices, hint hint) + better start for other games
— 700k players may generate more fun for themselves — multiplayer, mods etc. That will attract a lot of new buyers ;-)
— there will more diehard fans among those 700k players, they will buy more of your T-shirts, god damn it!

High costs? Bullshit. Learn to reduce your costs. And risks.

Optimize game engines, so you don't have to spend a lot of time on them. Nokia cooperated with Sony to make Symbian OS for their camera/smartphones, and I must say it's a great OS. Not necessarily that you share work with competitors, maybe among the departments — would be good too.

The gaming market has reached the level when it becomes harder to improve graphics significantly because there is a limit of technological possibilities of console, and PC parts make smaller steps of improvement (I bought Nvidia 8800 a year ago, it's still considered good, I won't buy some high-end video-card to get 5 more frames per second). In addition, HL2 graphics is still considered good — while HL2 was released 4 years ago, in 2004. Noone considered Deus Ex graphics good in 2004.

Besides that, the gamers will be fine about not-absolutely-astonishing graphics if your game is beautiful ("beautiful" and "good graphics" isn't the same thing) and playable.

Reduce your risks. High risks = harder to get investments. it's a common rule in the economics. How do you reduce risks? Make less "average" titles, make less sucky continuations (like Deus Ex 2, for example). The producers should reduce pressure on the developers. Also, you suck when you try to make a "mass" game with as dumb story as possible. The masses aren't as dumb as you might think.

Fire your marketing departments (also, cost cutting! ;-D). Listen to gamers, simple as that.

That's my opinion.

Thank you Dae, I agree with this completely. But don't the low sales of PC games cause the publishers to hike up the price to get the budget back? I know this isn't the only strategy, but it's certainly common these days.

Aaron wrote:But don't the low sales of PC games cause the publishers to hike up the price to get the budget back?

pirating by potential customers => higher price from publishers => pirating by potential customers => higher price from publishers => pirating by potential customers => etc.

one leads to another, endless loop

If the publishers are interested in breaking this loop, they've gotta make the first step. (But they don't seem to be!)

We, the as all the customers, can do nothing about that. If I stopped downloading games and started buying all of them, if all people on our forum did the same — it'd still be a drop in the bucket, because dozens of millions of people all over the world would keep downloading the games nevertheless.

The only solution is to lower the prices, improve the quality and optimize costs. The producers don't do that because they act in a monopolistic collusion. Instead, they waste money on anti-piracy campaigns. And then blame us for downloading.

The 70% of games ( excluding downloaded ones ) I have come from ebay or magazines because i couldn't afford 79 - 59 € for each game. That's why everytime a game I really want to play is realased I don't go to buy it because I know it will cost 79 - 59 € and I prefer ask a friend to borrow me his copy or download it. The funniest thing is that a magazine with a game here cost around 20 - 15 € as Mr. D said. Torrents ftw.

I totally agree with you but unfortunately, while posting your opinion here is insightful. It won't get your voice heard by the people over at Electronic Arts or Actiblizzion. And, to be honest, they probably couldn't care less so long as the companies management is getting non-earned money into their already fat wallets at the end of the day.

~Psychotic~ wrote:It won't get your voice heard by the people over at Electronic Arts or Actiblizzion.

It doesn't reallymatter for me I just wanted to express my opinion.

Dae wrote:

~Psychotic~ wrote:It won't get your voice heard by the people over at Electronic Arts or Actiblizzion.

It doesn't reallymatter for me I just wanted to express my opinion.

Fair enough, it matters to me though because I don't like getting blamed for shit I'm not directly involved in. I've pirated, sure, not so much games though. Most of 'em either screw up and I prefer having the CD.

The only games I've ever downloaded could be considered abandonware now, you wouldn't find 'em in shops.

Dae wrote:More and more often here, on YouTube and many other sites, I hear a dispute about pirating games for PCs. The reason is that game devs now blame players for downloading games instead of buying, and that, as they think, is the reason of PC discrediting itself as a gaming platform.

I'm not really following the gaming market, but I've got my simple opinion: f-ck off with your yelping!

Economics theory says: a too high price on the oligopolistic market creates a black market.

The computer game market is a perfect example of an oligopoly — there are like ten major players for the whole world: EA, Eidos/SCi, Activision, Microsoft, etc. The pirating of games on the computer game market is a perfect example of a black market.

In other words, if you, game developer/producer, want to defeat pirating and get higher profits for selling games — cut your prices. $50+ for a game is absolutely & undoubtedly over the top.

In other words:
— now, with price $50/piece you need to sell 200k copies to get 10 mln $.
— with price $15/piece you'd need to sell 700k copies to get 10 mln $. But I'm pretty sure you'd sell more than 700k copies because the consumer will be happier to buy a decent game for such price, and there will be a lot of "random purchases", when people buy because they like the cover. I don't think a lot of people spend $50 on a game, without reading anything about it in the internet beforehand.

Additionally, 700k players are more profitable than 200k players, because
— 700k players could spread a word about your awesome game to more people, than 200k players
— 700k players will recognize your brand name (brand name price goes up, higher stock prices, hint hint) + better start for other games
— 700k players may generate more fun for themselves — multiplayer, mods etc. That will attract a lot of new buyers
— there will more diehard fans among those 700k players, they will buy more of your T-shirts, god damn it!

High costs? Bullshit. Learn to reduce your costs. And risks.

Optimize game engines, so you don't have to spend a lot of time on them. Nokia cooperated with Sony to make Symbian OS for their camera/smartphones, and I must say it's a great OS. Not necessarily that you share work with competitors, maybe among the departments — would be good too.

The gaming market has reached the level when it becomes harder to improve graphics significantly because there is a limit of technological possibilities of console, and PC parts make smaller steps of improvement (I bought Nvidia 8800 a year ago, it's still considered good, I won't buy some high-end video-card to get 5 more frames per second). In addition, HL2 graphics is still considered good — while HL2 was released 4 years ago, in 2004. Noone considered Deus Ex graphics good in 2004.

Besides that, the gamers will be fine about not-absolutely-astonishing graphics if your game is beautiful ("beautiful" and "good graphics" isn't the same thing) and playable.

Reduce your risks. High risks = harder to get investments. it's a common rule in the economics. How do you reduce risks? Make less "average" titles, make less sucky continuations (like Deus Ex 2, for example). The producers should reduce pressure on the developers. Also, you suck when you try to make a "mass" game with as dumb story as possible. The masses aren't as dumb as you might think.

Fire your marketing departments (also, cost cutting! ;-D). Listen to gamers, simple as that.

That's my opinion.

I agree with everything here.

Dae wrote:

Aaron wrote:But don't the low sales of PC games cause the publishers to hike up the price to get the budget back?

pirating by potential customers => higher price from publishers => pirating by potential customers => higher price from publishers => pirating by potential customers => etc.

one leads to another, endless loop

If the publishers are interested in breaking this loop, they've gotta make the first step. (But they don't seem to be!)

We, the as all the customers, can do nothing about that. If I stopped downloading games and started buying all of them, if all people on our forum did the same — it'd still be a drop in the bucket, because dozens of millions of people all over the world would keep downloading the games nevertheless.

The only solution is to lower the prices, improve the quality and optimize costs. The producers don't do that because they act in a monopolistic collusion. Instead, they waste money on anti-piracy campaigns. And then blame us for downloading.

Ah yes, that makes sense.

Dae wrote:The only solution is to lower the prices, improve the quality and optimize costs. The producers don't do that because they act in a monopolistic collusion.

That, right there, sums up most of the world's big-time corporations. I don't know any of the big game developers that (and I write this with the management in mind) actually give a shit about the consumer. How many companies do you think really do?

Smaller companies may care for the end-user, but that's because they are not getting nearly as much income as the giants like Electronic Arts, Eidos and Activision/Blizzard are. It seems the big corporations cared for the company, then when they got heaps of money the management was changed and bam, the consumer no longer exists unless they have money.

Indeed. Those big corporations exist for the sake of existing. (I wouldn't say all big corporations in the world do the same. There are pretty popular conceptions of "ethical business" and "ethical management" in the modern management theory, and some companies successfully use them).

Not-caring-about customers costs them a big sum. I'm pretty sure that sooner or later they will eventually realize that. Possibly the global crisis will help the situation and push them into the right direction.

I believe that the money they put into anti-piracy campaigns would be enough to develop a kickass copy protection software. If you really want to play the game, you're gonna have to buy it.

Cause of pirating, Game developpers will stop make games for PCs lol ;[

Btw, if you have pirated a game, you can't play online.

Chloe wrote:Btw, if you have pirated a game, you can't play online.

That's not true. How do most of DX community play DX online? Or how do so many people play COD2 online without original discs? Ever heard about AllSeeingEye, XFire, Steam?
Hell I can even play WoW online with a pirate copy.

But you can't always play on official servers of games or you can't directly connect to them by using your pirate copy.

Steam?

Did you accidently mention this lol, you can pirate games and use their shortcuts on steam but lol no chance you can play the games online unless you go to dodgy non-VAC Russian servers.

Chloe wrote:Cause of pirating, Game developpers will stop make games for PCs lol ;[

They will stop making games because of their own mistakes (which also led to pirating), that's the idea of my post.

DeathMaster wrote:I believe that the money they put into anti-piracy campaigns would be enough to develop a kickass copy protection software.

every kickass copy protection software will eventually be cracked

it happened with Starforce, it happened with all the consoles

it's a social phenomenon, all those millions of people can't be declared "outlaws", nor devs will solve this problem technically

In Russia, by the way, the game producers realized that noone would buy legal games for $50+ and lowered prices by at least 50%. The strategy worked seamlessly, and pirated CDs, which before were sold everywhere as if they were legal for a price of $3-$4, started disappearing from the shelves, being replaced by legal games

If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.

James wrote:

Steam?

Did you accidently mention this lol, you can pirate games and use their shortcuts on steam but lol no chance you can play the games online unless you go to dodgy non-VAC Russian servers.

Yea rofl just remembering that I was talking about steam on msn with a dude of mine while i was posting

Dae wrote:every kickass copy protection software will eventually be cracked

I still think it's a matter of money :p

•»Garçon«• wrote:If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.

I always hated those though, because it gives other people with money more of an advantage. They don't earn it through skill, they just go online and buy the item.

Not everyone can afford to do that, or is so cheap as to go and do that.

~Psychotic~ wrote:

•»Garçon«• wrote:If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.

I always hated those though, because it gives other people with money more of an advantage. They don't earn it through skill, they just go online and buy the item.

Idd.

~Psychotic~ wrote:

•»Garçon«• wrote:If you want make money with a game nowadays, you have to put it free to play, easy downloadable from a website and then start selling special items, a lot of players will start buying shits every month. Look at warrock or everygame made by GamersFirst... they get more than 20$ at month by the 60% of players whic is way better to sell a game for "only" 50$ considering that the 50% of player will use a pirated copy.

I always hated those though, because it gives other people with money more of an advantage. They don't earn it through skill, they just go online and buy the item.

Not everyone can afford to do that, or is so cheap as to go and do that.

Yes, I hate them too but is there something better than killing a noob with a 20$ weapon using your f2p shitty gun ?

EA Appear to be making an Honest effort.

I can see them having released Warhead at full price and justifying it with the multiplayer, but they didn't.

The quality of their games is vastly improving, Dead Space is good, Spore was good albeit short lived, FIFA 09 on PC is a major step in the right direction.

Some interesting numbers proving my idea:

Business Week wrote:<...>The most aggressive price cut has come in China, where Microsoft says 95% of Office installations have been pirated. Since it began testing a $29 offer in China last September, sales have soared more than 800%.

Is that the latest Microsoft Office for $29 US? Because if so, I wouldn't mind seeing prices like that here lmao. Most versions of Office still sell for around $150 to $250 here in New Zealand (that's NZD btw). Not that I'd buy Office mind you, but it puts it in perspective.

I only wish more game developers would see the flaws in their thinking about piracy. Raising prices does not help you, wasting money on solutions to stop piracy (like securer DRM) has not helped you. If people really want something for free they'll get it.

Meanwhile in the UK Activison-Blizzard have announced that they are increasing the RRP of their games starting with Modern Warfare 2.

The Escapist wrote:Activision revealed last week that it will be charging £54.99 (roughly $90) for the standard edition of Modern Warfare 2 in the U.K., a substantial increase over the usual price point for major game releases. High development costs and a weak British currency were blamed for the hike but Pachter says the reality is something entirely different.

>the escaptist
rotting in my skin, terrible source

http://www.dxalpha.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14662

and here's a better follow up:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/p ... -is-a-test

"Pachter thinks the question of whether this is fair is "a difficult one" to answer. Games, he explained, are cheaper to buy today but contain better graphics, gameplay and online functionality."

WHAT? YOU FUCKING COCK SUCKER. Maybe YOU can afford $120 for a video game but not everyone wants to pay that much. And furthermore:

"My guess is that this is a one-time test for Activision, and that they will re-think the strategy after seeing if it angers consumers," offered Pachter. "If there is no consumer backlash, I think we may see higher pricing on other games, regardless of the GBP/USD translation rate."

What a fucking money-hungry douche-bag. Fucking pricks wouldn't have gotten where they were today if it wasn't for us. WHO DO THEY THINK PAYS THEIR FUCKING BILLS? Not that bum down the street, no the CONSUMERS do, the people who BUY THEIR FUCKING PRODUCTS. I guess these dumbasses have never heard about recessions and what they mean. I can barely pay to fucking live and learn let alone eat and play games.

Fucking megalomaniacs.

Psychotic wrote:"Pachter thinks the question of whether this is fair is "a difficult one" to answer. Games, he explained, are cheaper to buy today but contain better graphics, gameplay and online functionality."

WHAT? YOU FUCKING COCK SUCKER. Maybe YOU can afford $120 for a video game but not everyone wants to pay that much. And furthermore:

"My guess is that this is a one-time test for Activision, and that they will re-think the strategy after seeing if it angers consumers," offered Pachter. "If there is no consumer backlash, I think we may see higher pricing on other games, regardless of the GBP/USD translation rate."

What a fucking money-hungry douche-bag. Fucking pricks wouldn't have gotten where they were today if it wasn't for us. WHO DO THEY THINK PAYS THEIR FUCKING BILLS? Not that bum down the street, no the CONSUMERS do, the people who BUY THEIR FUCKING PRODUCTS. I guess these dumbasses have never heard about recessions and what they mean. I can barely pay to fucking live and learn let alone eat and play games.

Fucking megalomaniacs.

Do you have the ability to stay calm? Or are you just a 24/7 raging teen?

One day, maybe not in our lifetimes, but maybe one day, the PC game developing industry will take one of two paths: either realizing that piracy cannot be stopped indefinitely and make PC games for free, or the entire PC gaming industry will be banned and games will be only made for consoles.

Until then I have to say piracy is great and I agree with Dae's rant.

Both paths are possible but I don't find either probable.

I doubt the big companies would make their games free, and I don't expect them too either. I can understand why they want money for their work, but it's just the amount of money they want that I argue.

As for the second path, that would be such a stupid thing to do in my opinion. So many people would outrage at even the consideration of it. I know I would. I don't mind consoles, some console games are bloody good, but I love the PC side of gaming and far prefer it over the consoles. I don't doubt many people agree with me.

I agree with you when you say piracy cannot be stopped. I'm sure we'll have software pirates until the end of time, it's just reducing the amount of people that pirate that you want to achieve. And the gaming corporations can easily fix it. They dug the hole and they can just as easily climb out of it.