PC Gaming and Piracy: Examined

Sjosz said:

The difference is that I'm an informed customer whereas a lot of people are not with regards to what the difference is when buying new or used beside the difference in price point. A lot of people will buy games used not thinking twice about what happens with that money. It may not be a net loss or gain for the developers in the big picture, or worse or better for my wallet, but in a way I'm helping the industry I work in.

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Of course, people will stop thinking to what happens to the money as soon as it leaves their pockets I personally don't buy used games, but I also don't buy full price for myself for obvious reasons: I have to make choices in life and don't really like to pay 50€ for today's shallow games. UT3 CE costed around $95 to someone that had half of the average income of US, Germany or Sweden. Still, give me an UT every year and I'll buy copies of the CE for me and probably others

I can't stand very intrusive software but can see why they use strong DRM to protect their work. There I even have some solidarity and I'm far from hating them, but I'll not going to buy such a game either. Still, about used it's very different. Seen from their side is still loss of profit, but more than ever they must not forget that they are targeting people that want to pay for games. Just focus on gameplay, don't waste money on multimillion $US cutscenes and make games more affordable.

Honestly, when I consider who and how much has to be paid to make an expensive movie that is still profitable with 8€ cinema tickets, I don't see how digitally distributed games can't be at 30 or 35€

Benfica said:

Honestly, when I consider who and how much has to be paid to make an expensive movie that is still profitable with 8€ cinema tickets, I don't see how digitally distributed games can't be at 30 or 35€

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Yes, because the distribution method and type of media and age of the media is all equal here. Cinema is a much more widespread and accepted form of entertainment, and the 8 Euros for that ticket is for admission for one person, for one viewing. It's not a chance of maybe a global sell-through of your product of a couple of million, it's millions upon millions of people seeing the movie in the cinema (multiple times, sometimes!). The comparison is pretty skewed and largely invalid.

I could turn this around and wonder how many hours of entertainment you get out of your purchase. Let's say that the movie you watch is 2 hours, so 4 Euros an hour. Now buy a game like UT3. Has singleplayer, has multiplayer, and how many hours total did you get entertainment from it? How does that hold up at the price point it is sold at? Personally, I get a lot of value out of UT3. I don't play it much, but the editor has given me a creative outlet at home (and still does), and I've spent hundreds of hours in there after buying a 60 Euro CE of the game. (and in my head I end up calculating that for a LOT of the games I've bought over the past year, and all in all I am pleased with the majority of purchases/investments)

And then there is price consistency with retailers. Why would anyone buy a game at a retail shop if the digitally distributed equivalent costs less? It's partially there to keep that side of the market stable. I get your point, but there are more arguments against it than for it.

OK, I'm done now. These kind of topics make me more argumentative than I want to be.

They sell games at retail shops to show it's precede value.
If you see it in a box with nice artwork, it then has a value.

You have to remember that no credit card company will ever give you your money back for a bad downloaded game/music/video/book.
Because it has no return value.

You can't return a download, but you can return (or resell) a box.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Players Prefer PC To Console

DICE associate producer Barrie Tingle has revealed that at the moment, during the week of the game's retail release, more people are playing the PC version of the game than both the 360 and PS3 editions combined.

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Legit copies bought, or a whole mess of pirates?

Sjosz said:

Yes, because the distribution method and type of media and age of the media is all equal here. Cinema is a much more widespread and accepted form of entertainment, and the 8 Euros for that ticket is for admission for one person, for one viewing. It's not a chance of maybe a global sell-through of your product of a couple of million, it's millions upon millions of people seeing the movie in the cinema (multiple times, sometimes!). The comparison is pretty skewed and largely invalid.

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Fair enough

I could turn this around and wonder how many hours of entertainment you get out of your purchase. Let's say that the movie you watch is 2 hours, so 4 Euros an hour. Now buy a game like UT3. Has singleplayer, has multiplayer, and how many hours total did you get entertainment from it? How does that hold up at the price point it is sold at? Personally, I get a lot of value out of UT3. I don't play it much, but the editor has given me a creative outlet at home (and still does), and I've spent hundreds of hours in there after buying a 60 Euro CE of the game. (and in my head I end up calculating that for a LOT of the games I've bought over the past year, and all in all I am pleased with the majority of purchases/investments)

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Yes you could turn it around, but you don't need to What I meant to say is that besides not wanting to spend much money on games, I see huge value on UT while I don't on "PC gaming", that's the way it is.

And then there is price consistency with retailers. Why would anyone buy a game at a retail shop if the digitally distributed equivalent costs less?

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I'd mention why that happens in practice:
- Slow internet connection for the downloads
- Buy games as a gift
- Wanting to have a physical copy with a box and instruction manual
- Possibility of a refund
- Advice that can be understood (e.g. same language, from the local friendly store employee)
- Impulse purchases while shopping for other items
- TV, newspaper, leaflet advertising coming from the retail shop itself

You can add basically all the complains about Steam, they fit well here.

It's partially there to keep that side of the market stable. I get your point, but there are more arguments against it than for it.

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Well, I mean a 30% price reduction on both retail and digital distribution. The thing is, there's an huge gap between top titles and low cost/indie/older games. Said in another way: either games are bought at 50€ or at 10€, when the majority should be mid price because otherwise it stands out too much. It's easier to digest when it blends well or is just a bit higher than other forms of entertainment like a DVD-Video, a music CD or some others. Of course the 3 are pirated like hell, but for gifts or for someone that appreciates multiple kinds of entertainment, the game should be competitive.

I thought about and actually have more to write, but I'll post tomorrow or so.

That was a very good article. Thanks for linking to it.

The thing that makes me sad are all the people who pirate a game, justifying it by claiming that they are "fighting DRM". When really, all they do is make it worse for those of us that actually buy games.

The current Ubisoft insanity is a case in point. All the while Ubisoft are insistent that an on-line connection is required to play any of their games I won't be buying them. Instead I will simply post on their forum stating why I'm not buying the game; and also send an email as well. I certainly won't be pirating any of their games.

Luckily for me the only Ubisoft game I was particularly looking forward to was TrackMania 2. It'll be a shame to miss it, but I'm not buying it with such intrusive DRM.

ilkman said:

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Players Prefer PC To Console


Legit copies bought, or a whole mess of pirates?

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Probably legit. You can't log in to EA online in BC2 without entering a valid key.

I totally get what Benfica's saying here I think.

I too also tend to wait until I see a deep discount on a game before I even consider buying it. This isn't spurned from some arrogant belief that my money is worth more than it's worth, or that I'm some higher being capable of judging a developer's level of commitment to their work.

It just got annoying after the first few titles that were done and over in less than a week, or games that were so shallow or half-a$$ed that they weren't even fun enough to finish. Especially when the things that killed the fun were technical problems. (it especially smacks of laziness when the problems get modded and fixed by casual modders faster than they do by the company who made the game. -Cryostasis, Red Faction:Guerrilla for starters).

It just seems like games nowadays really don't want us to value them for too long. I mean yeah true, devs gotta eat all year round too, not just at release time. but things quickly went from :

"holy cow have I really been playing this game for 2 years already?!"

to:

"Ugh I just bought this at $50, 4 days ago, and I can't be bothered to finish it,.. hell the save probably won't load anyways,.. oh look it crashed."

I'd bet a lot of the problems stem from the publishers (maybe marketing depts too?) taking too big a chunk of the profits. I'm not in the industry, by a long shot, but I'll bet it's becoming more and more like the music industry. You know, how the artists seem like they're rolling in dough, but it's really just the publishers keeping them on a leash until the product is released then everyone from the customers to the devs themselves are left to wonder where all the marketing and money guys are when things need fixing, and customers are left unhappy. I don't know though, there seem to be way too many bags of cash being spread around to all the wrong people, and hardly any of it gets put towards making the games work, or making them seem worth the investment of the customer's time or money.

Autopsy said:

I totally get what Benfica's saying here I think.

I too also tend to wait until I see a deep discount on a game before I even consider buying it. This isn't spurned from some arrogant belief that my money is worth more than it's worth, or that I'm some higher being capable of judging a developer's level of commitment to their work.

It just got annoying after the first few titles that were done and over in less than a week, or games that were so shallow or half-a$$ed that they weren't even fun enough to finish. Especially when the things that killed the fun were technical problems. (it especially smacks of laziness when the problems get modded and fixed by casual modders faster than they do by the company who made the game. -Cryostasis, Red Faction:Guerrilla for starters).

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This is totally true. Broken games are no fun and a person might as well wait for fixes and the bonus lower price.

I must ask though, what did the community do for RF:Guerrilla?
I did a quick search and all I can find are a few gun mods and stuff like that.

I think it was Bill Gates who said "If you don't like DRM In you music, then just buy the CD and rip it"

It's kind of ironic, now that thay have GFVL. LOL

I wanted to elaborate a bit more and make sure I posted clearly, but I see I'd not add anything substancial.

I believe that mid-price games are viable if investments are scaled down. Do elaborate cutscenes really matter? Is it possible to release a solid core less expensive and with less content, even more when there are enthusiasts or people are becoming used to get DLC later? Is it correct to spend millions on uber graphics and have most games around the same theme or just sequels of sequels? How do they want then to stand out and enlarge the potential maket, they are just competing for the same one. Note that I don't want to pretend I came up with any of this myself, just took a look at Valve games: 2 candidates for medium-price standalone in the Orange Box (of course, Portal and a basic TF2 that got upgrades), L4D2 base price is 37€, etc... Despite my rants, I see Valve do so many things right that it's not even funny

Then I notice that sometimes with too much focus on the problems in front of me, I forget to think about at lost opportunities. That's how I see PC gaming. Everyone could come up with his own set, but I see atm split-screen or dual-monitor, games more suitable and safe choice for a gift, suitable for parents to play with their kids, and laptop-friendly gaming. Today's gaming trend kills all those, either because of ratings and saturation of M games, games are slow because HW manufacturers need to sell their stuff (NVidia and Ati can't survive), because of Vista, etc... I don't know the reasons or their relative importance but what I mean is, how do they want PC sales if the games are not suitable, accessible or playable? You could do that scaling down and enlarging the player base. People have the notion that everybody is migrating to consoles, but that's false. At least the ex-PC gamers that I personally know are ditching gaming altogether or not offering because even if the shelves are full of PC games, they are unable to find suitable ones.

In short, my points are: 1) people that buy used games aren't pirates, they are willing to pay; 2) the price distribution is incorrect and it's possible to scale down and offer more mid-price games that don't stand out of other forms of entertainment and the price isn't "out of reach" (most feel comfortable to pay 30€ but not 50€ or 60; 3) enlarge the potential market and make visible games for the ones or similar to the ones that enjoyed it 10 years ago, used to other genres, very old-school gamers not requiring hyper-realistic graphics, for which gameplay > all, social PC games that directly compete with consoles and others. You don't need to invest millions to get fans and costumers there and the graphics complexity of HL2, UT2004, Broken Sword or Painkiller will always be more than enough

It only talks about consoles, but this article discribes well the used game market and supports what I've been saying (specially the 2nd graph). More and higher res slides there.

Analysis: 49 Million U.S. Gamers Buy Used Games
...
What Do They Do With the Money?
Despite these worrying results, OTX’s study noted there may be a positive effect of used game sales for game publishers. Of the 26 million sellers, OTX have found that there are 21 million “category re-investors” who sell their games to save towards any video game related products.

Among these, specifically 16 million are “New Game Gluttons” who use the used game market as a way to subsidize their new game purchases, by understanding that “the faster they play and finish a game, the higher its resale value will be.”

Why Do Gamers Buy/Sell Used Games?
OTX noted that three most important factors that compel gamers to keep a game are “replayability, lovable characters, and socially engaging gameplay” with, intriguingly, the three least important factors “critical acclaim, developer loyalty, and collector’s editions.”

Gamers over the age of 35 [/B]tend to consider “add-ons” such as downloadable content and online features as less compelling reasons to hold on to games they would otherwise sell, with gamers under the age of 18 holding the need for money to buy new games as an especially important reason to sell games, though this ranked high on the list (4th) of reasons to sell games from all gamers in the study.

The three most important factors above the need for money to sell a game were “the game’s quality, game length, and the need to get rid of duplicates in their collections.”

I slightly agree with you, Benifica. To completely disregard the used market is a pretty bad idea. Much like any other medium, people are more likely to make impulse buys if they have that option of reselling in the future, so while you see some people buying used games (meaning no money for devs), you will also see SOME people using the $ from reselling a game they bought new to buy another new game (so there is some degree of devs coming out winners, in the end). Of course, there are also a great deal of people who buy most of their games used, and while if they were forced to only buy new they would buy LESS games, they would certainly put a good deal more money into the pockets of devs.

It's not a wash, in the end, and the used games market most certainly costs devs money, but it is also not nearly as much of a loss as publishers would like you to believe (much like piracy doesn't = 1-1 #s, neither does used).

As for your idea of putting out mid-priced games, there are studies (that I can't be bothered to look up) that show how people would rather spend full price on a game because when they see something that is only $40, they make the assumption that it is that price because it isn't that good, and so will avoid it. It works some of the time to put out something that is not AAA but is still good for a sweet spot in price, but at the same time, it is risky. People seem to be happiest paying <$20 OR $50< and that middle zone is death. Or to put it another way:


~Jason

P.S. (oh, Jacks, sorry I didn't respond to you. I wasn't so much calling you a bad person or anything but noting the closeness of differing remarks within a SHORT period of time)

Plumb_Drumb said:

This is totally true. Broken games are no fun and a person might as well wait for fixes and the bonus lower price.

I must ask though, what did the community do for RF:Guerrilla?
I did a quick search and all I can find are a few gun mods and stuff like that.

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People had to find out which files for the GFWL install, that shipped with both the discs and were included in the Steam DL were broken, out dated files that pretty much destroyed any compatibility with RF:G.

The borked up install of GFWL would not allow itself to be updated, (crashes and lock-ups instead of updates yay!) even though it would prompt you to update it in order to save your game progress. People who just wanted to play the game at all also had to do tweaks to registry files, and all sorts of really annoying and dangerous stuff just to get RF:G to stop going into "RAAAWR I'M'A EAT YOUR CPU!!" mode.

All the stuff I keep finding out is stopping me from playing the game at all, seems to be stuff the developers and testers shuld have made work before release. It honestly seems like they only tested this on 1 or 2 Vista systems and that's it.

When I got to the part that said in order to get GFWL to work on my system ever, thanks to the screwed up fies I got from Steam's version, I'd have to rewrite a few complex (for me, I'm not a programmer) registry files in different areas of windows, I just said "yyyeeeahNO." It's just not worth it to me. I consider my $20 lost and lesson learned.

Yeah though, long story short, I wasn't talking about modding a great game to prolong value, I was talking about just getting the game to load and play reliably on systems it was (supposedly) meant to be played on.

@Benfica Sorry I totally missed a huge part of what you're saying about game pricing. you're Right on the money there too. (puns are fun!) Seriously there's no justification for games going from $60!! BUY ME NOW to $19.99 bargain bin other than the powers that decide these prices just swallowig their pride and realizing they couldn't sell their bunk-broken crap game as fast as their marketing dept. convinced themselves they could.

Sorry I'm a bit bitter here. I'm looking at half a desktop full of icons that do me jack sh1t for gaming. (about 5 games total this year, when I really only buy like 10 a year tops, and that includes buying a few for my kids on the Wii.)

<<UPDATE: I did fix my Uengine problem, so ut3 and UDK work for me again. It was that stupid Kernel32dll error I'd forgotten about from waaay back.>>

dragonfliet said:

As for your idea of putting out mid-priced games, there are studies (that I can't be bothered to look up) that show how people would rather spend full price on a game because when they see something that is only $40, they make the assumption that it is that price because it isn't that good, and so will avoid it. It works some of the time to put out something that is not AAA but is still good for a sweet spot in price, but at the same time, it is risky. People seem to be happiest paying <$20 OR $50< and that middle zone is death.

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Good point, even though I suspect it's still not valid everywhere Even more after finding this report (PDF): http://knihovnam.nkp.cz/docs/ISFE_Consumer_Research_2008_Report_final.pdf
You can conclude that the PC is still THE gaming platform, whether casual or more dedicated, one or multiple genres. Look at the European results:
There's a small decay of the PC, but what I see the most important there is the migration from the PS2 to the Wii. People are (were) very used to PS2 game prices(there you go), the PS3 climbed above XBox360 in one year, Europe is horrible for the XBox therefore common games don't threaten PC. Promoting the perspective that "PC gaming is dead", Steam rocks, retail doesn't matter much anymore and others, this all is an huge disservice.

Then regarding piracy, prices and ranting against all kinds of DRM. I can't speak for others, but in Portugal young families income is at most 70 or 80% of Central Europe or US, but it's not only the matter of people having an hard time or being cheap-asses. We have affordable and advanced broadband, I mean 24mbit + phone = 20€ or 80TV channels/some HD/time shiftng/blabla + phone + 100mbit optical ~= 60€ (upgradable up to 200mbit or even 1Gb/s in some situations - yes the theoretically read speed of some 10k drives or SSD!! ) It's safe to admit that people can torrent a game like CoD MW2 as fast as you copy files from a CD and the game happens to cost as much as 3 months of basic or 1 of advanced service.

Edit: consider reading the important PDF if you have free time, and sorry for abusing this important thread

I kind of understand the idea of not pricing something too low, 'cause dim bulbs will overlook it. but wouldn't it be really super neato cool to see any, and I mean ANY of those sequels, you know for those games that sold like a bazillion copies less than a year ago... cost maybe I dunno, a little less than $50 for a change?

I mean we all ate the first one up and loved it! You know the sequel is gonna sell like crazy. You also know it's being rushed out the door in time for xmas or what have you.

Sigh. Greed.

Sjosz said:

I could turn this around and wonder how many hours of entertainment you get out of your purchase.

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It sounds awful putting a price on entertainment. What will the future hold? Pay-per-view art galleries?

Azura said:

It sounds awful putting a price on entertainment. What will the future hold? Pay-per-view art galleries?

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Well, they all seem to be going for the 7 dollar an hour range, not counting MP (if anyone ends up playing it).
Movies and games.

So a days pay at your local 7-eleven, as a noob, will probably equal the cost of an 8 hour game, in SP.
Well, a bit less including state and federal taxes.

Benfica said:

We have affordable and advanced broadband, I mean 24mbit + phone = 20€ or 80TV channels/some HD/time shiftng/blabla + phone + 100mbit optical ~= 60€ (upgradable up to 200mbit or even 1Gb/s in some situations - yes the theoretically read speed of some 10k drives or SSD!! )

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That's some sick speeds there.

/jealous

Benfica said:

You can conclude that the PC is still THE gaming platform, whether casual or more dedicated, one or multiple genres.
There's a small decay of the PC, but what I see the most important there is the migration from the PS2 to the Wii. People are (were) very used to PS2 game prices(there you go),

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I read through the whole PDF and was saddened it didn't answer many of my questions. As for the PC bit, most people that say yes, they play games are in fact playing games such as Bejeweled, the farming game on Facebook, etc. While there is certainly money being made (by popcap and through advertising), this isn't actually holding up the games industry as we are discussing in this thread, which is mostly regarding more "hardcore" games and in general these types of games aren't selling very well on the PC.

Regarding Wii, the units being sold are Wii Play, Wii fit, Wii sports plus (or whatever it's called) and a handful of nintendo branded games. I'm not saying these aren't good games (they're fun and nintendo makes awesome games), but hardly indicative of the continued existence of the games we as gamers want to keep playing.

~Jason