Piracy & PC gaming

[Brad Wardell]

Okay, the horse is almost dead but I think the coverage of the issue of PC game piracy has tended to be a bit one-sided.

The PC software market is comprised more than just PC games. And piracy is certainly not exclusive to PC gaming. But people don't say that the PC software market is "d0med" every other week. Why is that?

In my opinion, it is because the PC game market (both developers and the enthusiast press) focus on making and covering things that are considered "cool" rather than on what the market is actually interested in buying.

I have seen (without naming names) 2 page spreads in PC game publications for game hardware from vendors who I know sell less than 10,000 machines annually (not just of the model being reviewed, but their entire product line). I see coverage for PC games for genres that historically don't get great sales.

In terms of development resources for games, I see a huge percentage of PC game releases targeting relatively small markets. It is as if the games being made are focusing on the people who buy those mega gaming PCs that sell so few units.

My applications don't require me to keep a CD in the drive or force me to go through obnoxious DRM to use. And yet they suffer piracy but are still very profitable.

When games come out that have hardware requirements that only a tiny % of users can make use of in genres with relatively small *potential buyers* we keep hearing that piracy is the cause.

Piracy is a serious problem on the PC. But not just for games. All PC software has to deal with it. But the general PC software industry deals with it by focusing on making software for people who buy stuff.

By contrast, the PC game industry continues to focus on making games that only a small % of PC gamers can actually play in genres that have amongst the lowest percentages of people who actually buy stuff.

I've written a lenghty (even lengthier than this) outline of this with more detail on the subject here:

http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/...racy_PC_Gaming

My point is that while piracy is a significant issue for PC gaming, it is hardly the primary cause of PC games selling lower than they "should".

The PC game industry has generally made the choice of glory versus profit. And that is certainly their choice. As a nerdy kind of guy, I'd like to be a "gaming rockstar" too so I can appreciate the desire to make the "coolest stuff". But there are economic consequences to that choice.

Anyway, just my 2 cents on the matter. Cheers.

[Nick Walter]

What non entertainment software types that sell retail directly to individual users and doesn't have some sort of DRM built in are profitable?

That's a serious question, I can't think of any but don't follow this space too closely.

[Rob_Merritt]

I agree with everything you wrote....


...except...

Games with low system specs in traditional genres are released all the time and tank. Is it possible that Stardock, because of its fan based, is the exception that could not be duplicated?

[steve]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

My applications don't require me to keep a CD in the drive or force me to go through obnoxious DRM to use. And yet they suffer piracy but are still very profitable.

Have you installed an Adobe product lately? Windows XP or Vista? None require a CD, but all have DRM/validation.

[Alan Dunkin]

Then again, Stardock doesn't just sell PC games either.

--- Alan

[Charles]

I wonder how much of Stardock's focus on low end systems is only possible due to the drive in cutting edge videocards.

Edit: Plus I think the post can be summarized as "Don't make FPS or RTS games on PC" which I think is a little unfair.

[Andrew Mayer]

Excellent article Brad.

There's been a massive disconnect for years in this industry between the market and the media. That's one of the reasons I got into casual.

[RightWrong]

I will seek out any game, even if five years gone on the used market at Half Priced Books, and pay the proper price for it. But for players like my twin brother, who I identified at college as the mainstream gamer, the only effective anti-pirating systems are any deterrant againt them. They love games, they even play maintream genres primarily on the PC, but will only play for a game if there is a service like Steam that prevents them from actively playing it online otherwise.

The "PC" is a varied machine with several developmental paths available to it. As opposed to most gaming platforms. Developers, as I feel, only use its diversity out of desperation or lack of connection to the actual industry.

[Brad Wardell]

Originally Posted by Nick Walter

What non entertainment software types that sell retail directly to individual users and doesn't have some sort of DRM built in are profitable?

That's a serious question, I can't think of any but don't follow this space too closely.

WindowBlinds generates millions of dollars annually to name one.

[intruder]

I said most of what I think about this topic in one of the other threads.
Just want to add that piracy was always a huge thing on computers back to the Commodore computer era and yet only recently it became the "reason" PC gaming is dying.

Hell back then I had maybe 2-3 originals with hundreds of copied games.
We copied tapes with a dual tape ghettoblaster back then as children and "XCopy" was the only applications I used on the Amiga 500.
No one told us that it's illegal not even the shop owners while we copied games using their displayed Commodores.

At school all PCs were full of Sierra adventures (QfG, KG, SG etc.) as well as Doom and Tetris among others. No teacher gave a f...
In fact we got copies of "LOGO" (some very basic language for taking the first programing steps) from them and I'm sure there was no school license for that.

In university once I was introduced to IRC I had everything on my fingertips and I was not the only one by far that used a Iomega ZIP drive with DOS drivers to get shit off the computer pool machines.

The only thing that prevents me from copying today is
a) time
b) the liberty to vote with my wallet and support games / genres I want to play in the future
c) the means to buy every game I want

[Brad Wardell]

Originally Posted by steve

Have you installed an Adobe product lately? Windows XP or Vista? None require a CD, but all have DRM/validation.

I would quibble that product activation is different from having to have a CD in the drive or game-like DRM where it's calling home whenever you use it. And activation is pretty easy to break. I don't think anyone's arguing that Photoshop isn't massively pirated too right?

I guess what I should say is that generally speaking, software applications have less copy protection than PC games. I'm all for any type of DRM, copy protection, whatever as long as it doesn't inconvenience the people who actually buy my stuff.

The copy protection issue is secondary to the main issue that non-game software suffers from piracy as well but it's not considered "domed". In the non game market, if a program is made and it doesn't sell enough products, additional programs aren't made for that particular niche.

But in the game industry, certain genres of games have been classified as "cool" resulting in lots of games being made for those "cool" genres despite the well established history of having a relatively smaller number of actual buyers in the market.

[Brad Wardell]

Originally Posted by Charles

I wonder how much of Stardock's focus on low end systems is only possible due to the drive in cutting edge videocards.

Edit: Plus I think the post can be summarized as "Don't make FPS or RTS games on PC" which I think is a little unfair.

I wouldn't say that. Call of Duty 4 and The Orange Box have been tremendous successes.

What I would say is that when making a product, you need to look at the size of the market in terms of actual potential buyers. Then you should look at how many competitors you have in that market. That may seem straight forward but that's not how it works in the PC game industry in general.

[Brendan]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

But in the game industry, certain genres of games have been classified as "cool" resulting in lots of games being made for those "cool" genres despite the well established history of having a relatively smaller number of actual buyers in the market.

Also, these games are usually cross platform and are more suited to console gaming. This means that the console versions are competing directly with their PC counterparts with predictable results.

[mono]

The d0med-ness of PC gaming is such a broad topic, and every aspect has been severely beaten to death.

• Piracy is bad, yes. However 1 download /= 1 lost sale. What % of pirated downloads, if prevented, really would have translated to a sale. Is there any data on this?
• Anti-piracy/DRM - Absolutely necessary, but it harms legit customers with CD/DVD drive compatibility, slows game performance, won't work if there are online connectivity problems. It's just plain inconvenient to dig up an old CD to pop in the drive.
• PC hardware: Mainstream PC's ($500-$700) sport terrible onboard graphics.
• PC diversity is its strength (niche hardcore & casual audiences, varied control schemes, multitasking, freely available community resources, free/self-hosted online play). Also it's weakness: High cost of customer support for users w/ wide variety of hardware, and tech knowledge for troubleshooting.

Going to console solves a lot of these problems for devs, but there's no doubt that PC gaming can allow for more complicated, varied, and demanding games. A closed platform 'just works' Apple does it, the consoles do it, but does openness have to be sacrificed? Isn't there room for everyone?

I'm a bit of an unabashed fanboy, but I think Steamworks solves a lot of piracy, patching and distribution problems. Even the Splash Damage (Quake Wars) guys called Steam a 3rd platform, along with the 360 & PS3 in a recent RPS interview. If Valve were to integrate some sort of system benchmarking utility ala the Vista System Experience score, it would go a long way towards letting people gauge if a game can run on their rig. Think of the immense wealth of information also, to Steamworks partners, if they can see what the System power scores are for the folks that buy their games? The whole Steam community aspect also value-adds what devs can integrate into their games, much like Xbox Live.

There's a lot to be said for leveraging creative art styles and gameplay innovations to push less demanding, but more compelling games. Also, empowering customers to understand, in a simple fashion, the capabilities of their PC's, raising the minimum graphics specs in mainstream computers, and offering a seamless, standardized, client that allows gamers to buy, patch, and play games is a big step in the right direction.

[intruder]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

The copy protection issue is secondary to the main issue that non-game software suffers from piracy as well but it's not considered "domed". In the non game market, if a program is made and it doesn't sell enough products, additional programs aren't made for that particular niche.

As stated in the other thread non-gaming software might profit from those copies in the long run in 2 ways:

1. People that are used to these products might nudge companies into buying the apps stating that they can do the job based on their personal experience. (Adobe products I look at you).

2. Companies get people that are already familiar with the software that is used in it. Therefore further link the company to the software product.

Therefore I think the crying of the non-game software producers is not that loud.

[Kunikos]

Originally Posted by Nick Walter

What non entertainment software types that sell retail directly to individual users and doesn't have some sort of DRM built in are profitable?

That's a serious question, I can't think of any but don't follow this space too closely.

I'm not 100% sure but I would hazard a guess that mIRC does OK. Possibly also WinZip and CuteFTP.

Also, pre-XP versions of Windows were still very profitable despite not having DRM (just a simple CD key input).

[Brad Wardell]

Originally Posted by Rob_Merritt

Games with low system specs in traditional genres are released all the time and tank. Is it possible that Stardock, because of its fan based, is the exception that could not be duplicated?

You still have to make a good game.

1) Identify market for product.
2) Determine size of market for product
3) Make good product for market
4) Market and distribute product effectively
5) Profit.

Stardock's not unique really. Paradox has done pretty well. I would even say that Valve deserves a lot of credit.

Valve doesn't get enough kudos for the fact that their engine scales better than most games. A normal gamer can buy The Orange Box and play it on their machine even if their machine isn't state of the art. The same is true of Call of Duty 4.

It's not about low hardware requirements, it's about having the lowest hardware requirements you can have to still make the game you want to make.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

I wouldn't say that. Call of Duty 4 and The Orange Box have been tremendous successes.

What I would say is that when making a product, you need to look at the size of the market in terms of actual potential buyers. Then you should look at how many competitors you have in that market. That may seem straight forward but that's not how it works in the PC game industry in general.

The Orange Box because it's tied to steam. Call of Duty 4 hasn't been a tremendous success on the PC -- the developers haven't been quiet about the disparity of sales between the PC and the consoles. My numbers show only 350k units sold on PC in North America. That's compared to four million on 360+PS3 combined.

[Kunikos]

I have a feeling that EA/DICE are going to make out like bandits with Battlefield Heroes.

Originally Posted by Charles

The Orange Box because it's tied to steam. Call of Duty 4 hasn't been a tremendous success on the PC -- the developers haven't been quiet about the disparity of sales between the PC and the consoles. My numbers show only 350k units sold on PC in North America. That's compared to four million on 360+PS3 combined.

Do you think there may be more weariness on the PC front what with users having to endure iteration after iteration of FPS games? I mean I would guess that UT3 tanked on the PC as well. Orange Box did well because not only do you get a high quality story-telling experience with Half-Life 2, but you also get Episode One and Two (value), Portal (GOTY) and TF2 (hardcore multiplayer) in the bundle. All of which, as Brad points out, scales very well on hardware of all types.

[noun]

Originally Posted by Rob_Merritt

Games with low system specs in traditional genres are released all the time and tank. Is it possible that Stardock, because of its fan based, is the exception that could not be duplicated?

I think Stardock is indeed an exception, but for different reasons. Frankly, it's one of the few game companies that doesn't treat prospective customers like thieves or idiots the moment they meet. People always respond well to that.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Kunikos

Do you think there may be more weariness on the PC front what with users having to endure iteration after iteration of FPS games? I mean I would guess that UT3 tanked on the PC as well. Orange Box did well because not only do you get a high quality story-telling experience with Half-Life 2, but you also get Episode One and Two (value), Portal (GOTY) and TF2 (hardcore multiplayer) in the bundle.

Call of Duty 4 I purchased and played on PC, and it was the best FPS I've played in years. It was better than HL2:Ep2 by a huge margin. Anyone who thinks CoD4 was just an iteration probably hasn't played it.

[Brad Wardell]

Originally Posted by Charles

The Orange Box because it's tied to steam. Call of Duty 4 hasn't been a tremendous success on the PC -- the developers haven't been quiet about the disparity of sales between the PC and the consoles. My numbers show only 350k units sold on PC in North America. That's compared to four million on 360+PS3 combined.

The console vs. PC sales are apples and oranges IMO.

The only way the discrepancy matters in sales is if you are asserting that if it weren't for piracy that the PC version of Call of Duty 4 would have sold 4 million or so units.

Is that your position? That minus piracy, Call of Duty 4 would have sold 4 million units on the PC?

[Kunikos]

Well, we could always go the 360 DRM route-- special discs with cryptographic executable signing and the decryption in an HSM in the drive itself.

Originally Posted by Charles

Call of Duty 4 I purchased and played on PC, and it was the best FPS I've played in years. It was better than HL2:Ep2 by a huge margin. Anyone who thinks CoD4 was just an iteration probably hasn't played it.

Maybe so, but I have heard the length of the game is very low and the price is still very high. I'll wait until it's half price and I have a faster machine. I have Orange Box already, so I'm in no hurry to pick up another FPS (I haven't even finished the original HL2 yet).

I gotta also chime in that I would think that PC gaming doesn't have nearly the installed base of machines capable of running modern games (even ones that scale well) as there are 360's and PS3's out there.

[intruder]

Originally Posted by Charles

The Orange Box because it's tied to steam. Call of Duty 4 hasn't been a tremendous success on the PC -- the developers haven't been quiet about the disparity of sales between the PC and the consoles. My numbers show only 350k units sold on PC in North America. That's compared to four million on 360+PS3 combined.

It's because the people that are into those games have largely migrated to Xbox 360 from the PC. So all MS did was canibalize the PC market with their Xbox 360. They didn't generate more action game players at all just shifted them to another platform.
I predict AC will have similar results on the PC.
Mass Effect might get a bit more since role players didn't move in droves as far as I understand.

Hell give the Xbox 360 a decent mouse + keyboard and I might switch, too.

[KieronGillen]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

I see coverage for PC games for genres that historically don't get great sales.

But do sell magazines.

It's actually the flip of your analysis*. It doesn't matter if the game sells more on the shelves - it's a question of whether the people who are interested in that sort of game will buy magazines (or go to websites) to read about it. Back when I was on PCG, we followed the UK sales figures pretty closely. The average "top" RTS sold twice what the "top" FPS sold**, yet still the sales when we put an FPS on the cover were - on average - higher than the strategy games.

So, no, it's not about cool. It's about money.

KG

*Which I generally agree with.
**Putting aside Half-life, in the UK, any of the big FPS did 70K and the big RTS did 140K. Roughly. Clearly, very roughly.

[zabuni]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

The console vs. PC sales are apples and oranges IMO.

The only way the discrepancy matters in sales is if you are asserting that if it weren't for piracy that the PC version of Call of Duty 4 would have sold 4 million or so units.

Is that your position? That minus piracy, Call of Duty 4 would have sold 4 million units on the PC?

They may be apples and oranges, but the numbers matter if you are selling fruit. And their does seem to be a demand to play the game, but not to buy it.

Which is the crux of the issue. That odd dissonance between magazine coverage and sales for hard core pc games is just a reflection of people's willingness to play, but not to buy the games. Coverage of Sins was muted because the amount of people interested in playing the game was similar to those that were willing to buy it.

I think that piracy did lead to significantly lower sales of COD4 on the PC. I do think that imagining a scenario that does not have piracy is a bit moot, and the best solution is to do as you have done, and make games for those that will pay. Hope everyone likes the Sims, Popcap, and WoW.

PC Gamer covers COD4 because people want to play it on the PC, and are interested in more information about it. They don't appear to want to buy it. Their interest in playing the game leads to increased readership and ad revenue for the magazine.

[Brad Wardell]

Originally Posted by KieronGillen

But do sell magazines.

It's actually the flip of your analysis*. It doesn't matter if the game sells more on the shelves - it's a question of whether the people who are interested in that sort of game will buy magazines (or go to websites) to read about it. Back when I was on PCG, we followed the UK sales figures pretty closely. The average "top" RTS sold twice what the "top" FPS sold**, yet still the sales when we put an FPS on the cover were - on average - higher than the strategy games.

So, no, it's not about cool. It's about money.

KG

*Which I generally agree with.
**Putting aside Half-life, in the UK, any of the big FPS did 70K and the big RTS did 140K. Roughly. Clearly, very roughly.

Certainly - because the gamers who buy magazines are not necessarily the same as the people who buy games.

If I were running a game magazine and money was the focus, I would indeed put FPS's on the cover but each magazine woudl have a Sims section and a WoW section - EVERY issue. But that's another story. :)

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

The console vs. PC sales are apples and oranges IMO.

The only way the discrepancy matters in sales is if you are asserting that if it weren't for piracy that the PC version of Call of Duty 4 would have sold 4 million or so units.

Is that your position? That minus piracy, Call of Duty 4 would have sold 4 million units on the PC?

What? No, not at all. I'm just saying, with respect to your post, that CoD4 on PC fits the mold of games that shouldn't be made. It caters to a hardcore audience, an audience that's prone to piracy, and the end result is weak sales on PC. It's a game that should've done a million units on PC at least, as it's a game that's the bread and butter of hardcore pc gamers. Had CoD4 been done exclusively on PC, it would have been a dismal failure. Plus, the devs said (I'm pulling from memory here) that there was a magnitude of pirated PC keys being used for online multiplayer, which *are* lost sales due to piracy.

It really is, based on your post, something that devs shouldn't do. So it's like you are advocating just cancelling FPS games on PC. The only ones still viable are tied to the internet like Steam games, which is borderline, when it comes to your post.

[AaronSofaer]

Originally Posted by zabuni

Hope everyone likes the Sims, Popcap, WoW, and Sins of a Solar Empire.

Fixed that for you.

[fuzzyslug]

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

I have seen (without naming names) 2 page spreads in PC game publications for game hardware from vendors who I know sell less than 10,000 machines annually (not just of the model being reviewed, but their entire product line).

Both PC Gamer and GFW do this constantly. How many people actually read the best PC penis contests looking for a new PC? Why would anyone pay $4000+ for a PC unless they bleeding gold coins? What's the market for this information other than the hardware editors of other PC magazines who get to play with stuff for free?

Originally Posted by Brad Wardell

I see coverage for PC games for genres that historically don't get great sales.

What's the problem here?