Pirates not worse than publishers?

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Here's the link: http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?c=1&AID=21895&u=0

I'm not quoting anything on purpose: let's simply talk about the subject after reading the whole of it instead of beating to death a quote or two I could post with the link.

Personally, I believe the guy is right and have always been thinking like he does. Not only are all those copy protections mean towards legal buyers and useless against piracy, but also the whole anti-piracy fight is a very bad business.

Why? Because it starts at the wrong end. People pirate games for a reason. Don't give them the reason and they won't pirate the software.

The money spent on anti-piracy campaigns and copy protections would be much better invested simply cutting the price accordingly.

Next important issue is that the publishers indeed want to have your money without taking any responsibility on themselves. You'd better just buy the game and leave them alone, simple as it is. Demos don't show everything and ads or trailers or slideshows even less so. Bugs are a standard - everything gets released earlier than it should and always a part of features needs a patch to function properly. Of course, the vendor disclaims any and all liability blah blah blah, nor does it warrant that the product will run at all, blah blah, or that the features described are included etc etc. In short, with that sort of "contract", they could sell you a cheese and ham sandwich in a software box as well.

The whole CD-key thing is ridulous. One always loses them. I always lose them and have to search my house up and down to find some crappy manual or CD cover. And if I wanted a bogus cd-key, I would have it much easier from first site on google's search result list.

Not like any other copy protection is more reasonable. Pirates who sell games will always break it. Petty pirates are typically geeks who will either write a crack or know where to get it. Who gets hurt? The little people who need a backup copy to which they should be bloody well entitled.

Look, here's the common publisher trick: sell crappy CDs with insane copy protection and make people ride the originals to death and buy a new copy of the game. In my book this is a very low trick placing an individual amongst those people who should be forbidden from breeding.

Another trick is the one computer problem. People sometimes own multiple computers. But the program can only be installed on one. Just on how many computers can you run and enjoy a game or whatever program simultaneously? Uninstall before installing on another computer. Ridiculous.

Also, geeks are typically single, but normal people tend to have spouses and children (hey, what's that? ). Should they buy a separate license for everything they have on their three or so computers? That's downright mean. Plus, no one can ever forbid anyone from letting anyone else play a game on his own computer. If I want, I can always finish the game and let my brother play it after me or uninstall and give it to him to play when I'm done with it.

Would it be any different if we played both at the same time, each on his own computer? What's the result? Two people playing one game, paying once. Does it change in either case? Hell, no. It's exactly the same in the end. Therefore: bull****, this simply doesn't make any sense.

Producers go to extreme lengths when preaching how pirates are bad because they deprive the authors of their due royalty and all.

News: who's paying the royalty and making it so low as possible? Publishers. Who owns large sums to the authors and in many cases never pays them? Publishers.

Perhaps to stop treating your target customers like a bunch of thieves would a good idea for a beginning. Next focusing on the real problem and making the software worthy of the price might do the trick. Dare I say actually take responsibility for what you do rather than disclaim liability of whatever sort including deliberate tort (just in case in some jurisdiction this sort of provision might actually be legal they put it in every EULA... thankfully in most countries one can never disclaim liability for deliberate harm). Paying the authors what's due also sounds nice.

Yeah, there's much to do yet.

To sum it up, in very brief:

Lower price > More people buying.

No idiotic copy protection > People not dabbiling with cracks, not visiting the hack and crack and CD-key realms.

Not making people buy a second, third, Nth copy if the damage the CDs > People not arriving at the conclusion that they needn't actually buy the first one legally.

No idiotic one PC policy > Family users buying the legal copy (if they install one copy on more computers, it's already illegal, so why not just pirate it all without buying any legal copy whatsoever?).

Software being worthy of the price charged > Customers buying it because it's good and not because they have to have a license because of someone's legalised monopoly aka patent for a whole standard.

Accepting responsibility > People knowing they're being treated seriously and so buying programs with confidence. If it's going to be buggy and potentially not work at all, people are more likely to get an $0 copy, courtesy of CD burner owning friend.

Good product > good opinions > best advertisement ever and totally free in the form of thousands or even millions of satisfied users.

Royalties paid to the authors > authors having more incentive to make even better software, selling even better - a well-paid worker always works better, saving on people's pay for some mysterious reason tends to upset them.

 

I can only disgree with the same game on multiple computers fact Chev. If you allow people to play the game on many computers, what will stop them from installing it on their friends computers... their friend's friends computers and so forth?

If they want to stop piracy simply put CD keys on everything that has a multiplayer component. Don't bother with single player oriented games, people'll just find and download one from google. However multiplayer require a legit CD key.

Blizzard had a good idea with the 'spawned' versions of their games. Allowing them to be played on multiple computers in a networked enviroment. More companys should follow suit.

 

If you have the chance to choose between a game in its box, with its manual and a cd key for 100 U$S (that price is standar here) and a simple copy of that game, with the chance to download info (the one in the manual), with cracks that let's you play it without the cd on for 2 U$S, what you choose?
I bought every game in a store, paying infamous amount of money for games that sometimes they don't earn it, but that's because I can affort it, I have some friends that can't pay that much so they choose a copy. So I think that like in the music industry, there are too many intermediates that sucks the money out of the people who really earn that money. I guy who made a game gets only cents for every geme's copy other people sell; it's too bad that with the years, every guy who wants to sell something has to go through 50 other guys.