Creative ways to combat piracy.

[avrame]

Buying games must be more convenient than pirating them. Then piracy will decrease.

Steam is doing a good job then, still is the easiest way to buy a game.

[Hatta]

The only solution to the fundamental economic problem here is to charge for the resource that is actually scarce. That means developer time, not copies of digital data. I can imagine a co-op where bids are placed by developers to create games, and members of the co-op make and solicit donations to go toward the games they actually want to play.

Why would people participate in such a system, when they could still get the games for free? Besides just good will, it would give us a connection to the development process. Under such a system we'd be much more likely to get the games serious gamers want to play.

[Lord_Santa]

be creative with the manual; make the box itself be something actually worth having in your shelf (I for one hate the DVD-boxes, albeit they do fit nicely in the shelf; they take away all characteristics of the game)

include a map, a comic, or similar for the game

the "protection-wheel" of Monkey Island only worked back when, these days it's ineffective, since you can just look things like that up on the internet

same goes with the old SSI anti-piracy methods (having the manual handy at all times)

you need to make sure that the buyer is getting something for his/her money, instead of just another DVD-box with manual in .pdf format

the least they can do is include a printed manual

lower the prices; and I know people are going to bitch about this not being possible, but in all seriousness.... game developers don't need Ferrari's more than the average person does (iD I'm looking at you)

don't spend all those extra $$ on making it "uncrackable", since it won't work, period.
(Rockstar/GTA IV, I'm looking at you)

[Flake]

Lower the prices. It's the only way.

But it's also a catch-22. Gamers have demanded better graphics, physics, on-line support...better everything. So development costs have sky rocketed. That cost has to be passed on to the player who then bitches about the cost of software. Software gets pirated, lowering the cash flow to the developers who then have to try and come up with better graphics, physics, on-line support...better everything. So development costs...

[flamepanther]

Lower the prices. It's the only way.

But it's also a catch-22. Gamers have demanded better graphics, physics, on-line support...better everything. So development costs have sky rocketed. That cost has to be passed on to the player who then bitches about the cost of software. Software gets pirated, lowering the cash flow to the developers who then have to try and come up with better graphics, physics, on-line support...better everything. So development costs...

I think that's why some developers are so hopeful to get procedurally generated content perfected, and why licensing pre-made game engines has become so popular. It frees the developers up to work on the important major ideas, and leave the tedious details to the computer or reuse what's already been done.

[Flake]

I think that's why some developers are so hopeful to get procedurally generated content perfected, and why licensing pre-made game engines has become so popular.

It's also why so many games feel derivative and soulless to me. But hey, that's progress. More FPS, anyone?

[Hatta]

Try nethack. Procedurally generated content with a soul. Far more internally consistent game logic than any commercial game I've seen. It really shows the incredible amount of depth you can put into a game when the dev team is focused more on the game than the presentation. It's entirely free too.

[jfrost]

Buying games must be more convenient than pirating them. Then piracy will decrease.

Steam is doing a good job then, still is the easiest way to buy a game.

I haven't pirated a game this year because of Steam, and have told my friends to do the same. And they have.

I wouldn't buy a game before, because they're overpriced as fuck in this country. But digital goods aren't taxed, and so I can buy whatever I like over the Internet. It helps that Steam is so convenient. The Steam/GOG combo is making me rely less and less on piracy.

I mean, PC games always were the most affordable solution here if you were trying to play games legitimately, but it's still expensive (I haven't seen a Valve game on store shelves, for instance, and I know they have different prices for poorer countries, such as Russia).

There's a movement here called "Fair Game" ("Jogo Justo"), trying to make taxation levels on games go down to humane levels, but so far it hasn't garnered much support outside the specialized media.

Still, I think that at least Steam is making a difference here. It has made for me.

Speaking more generally, I think that the retail prices of games are too high, even if you factor in the features Flake has mentioned. But companies seem to be stuck on a business model and won't experiment with pricing schemes (maybe they have logistic problems, I couldn't tell). At least these digital distribution outlets let them price their games more realistically and publishers and developers are properly supported when they do that.

[ZeroAX]

Ok let's, just for a moment, throw the legal issues of piracy out of the window.

I think by throwing it out the window he meant not to make it a part of this discussion. Of course that is just my interpretation.

That is exactly what he meant .

My ideas:

1) Give small trinkets as gifts aka give more value to the package. This will not only be an incentive for someone to buy original, but also to buy the game new. For example I bought the Fallout 3 collector's edition and then I traded it but kept the vault boy wobble head.

These things (rings, posters, comics, small books, CDs, mousepads ect.) cost next to nothing when mass produced and can really add to the value of an original copy. They are also a hit against pre owned sales. If gamers keep these goodies when trading in a game at gamestapo people will prefer to pay more for a "complete" copy, so they'll buy new.


2) Lower prices and shorter games. I keep reading online that most of the time only 10% of a game's buyers finish it. I believe that games should cost way less at launch, but at the same time also be a lot shorter. Then they can sell extra levels/missions as expansions, level packs, or if it's heavy on story sell it like a trilogy or something. That way more people will experience more games because of lower barrier of entry (money and time restraints)

[jfrost]

Yeah, I mostly don't finish games, I don't really have the time anymore. I'm loving Super Meat Boy because stages take seconds (of course, they can be very hard, but I can just go back to the same place any time).

I really can't invest in games that have not even started in the first hour.