If I pay for a game, I want to play it. I’ve bought the right to play it. The copy protection restricts or prevents that - for example when the connection is suddenly disconnected. That might be not an issue, but it could be. And that’s because I don’t buy a game with a DRM system.
Have you ever played a game with a modern form of the copy protection?
I don’t know… I have like 30 in the steam library, but they are almost all adventure games.
Well, I hate to contradict, but AFAIU you did not buy the right to play it . You only bought the right to play it in some precise conditions (via internet, on a single computer at a time…)
But even supposing this makes you angry, why direct this anger at the developers? Why not at the freeloaders? That’s the point I was trying to make.
I don’t know of any good way to quantify the money that a company will not get in the following X years for having a bad reputation or for behaving in an unpleasant way. Also, it’s not easy to see how things will evolve and how people will react. You can’t easily predict a boycott campaign, for example.
I would. That sentence is awful, from a communication point of view. Telling people to blame other people is a horrible way to build a positive reputation for the company.
That’s right: I know these restrictions when I buy the game (in the best case 
). And that’s why I don’t buy it.
Because they chose this annoying copy protection. They don’t have to. But they have made this (political) decision.
(btw: I(!) am not angry, I just won’t buy the game with such a copy protection.)
They make me angry too. Because I know how much work the developers of a game have. And the pirates give a beep on it.
Can it be improved? “Sorry, we had to make this game online-only because of freeloaders. It was either this or not make the game at all / get another job”. Still awful?
…with the only alternative not to release any game at all, (except a MMORPG ) and find another job.
if by “they don’t have to” you mean “they don’t have to make a videogame at all”, technically you’re right…
but to call “political decision” the decision not to get another job seems to me wrong.
Did you ever get a 1-star review on a game because, I quote, “I don’t like that you have to pay the game to play it”?
I did, and I saw other games with the same kind of comments on the Play Store. There will be A LOT of people who will blame the developers for trying to earn from games.
By the way, I completely understand @Someone’s point. Having to be always online is awful for a non-online game, especially since non-online games are usually the last resort against boredom when… when internet is down. Not to mention that most of these kind of copy protection systems end up being hacked anyway, so the pirates can play the game without any problems while legitimate possessors get screwed whenever there’s some problem on the other side, like overloaded servers, or when somebody with a keygen registered his pirated copy with your code before you could.
I don’t think Someone is saying that he’d blame the developers for every kind of copy protection system. Just for the “always online” kind, am I right?
Yes, I got the same crack intro on my copy.
As I´ve said elsewhere I got Maniac Mansion in a disc box having no idea what it was. Only the name written with a pencil on the label of the disc:
I believe there was two ways to access the game one was “LOAD *,8,1” the other was “LOAD MANIAC,8,1” which you only really would´ve needed to do if there was another game on the same disc I think.
Years later I learned that MM had a similar code system like Zak when I got the PC version on the 10 Adventures Collectors Box(but there the door was permanently opened). So I just assumed the crackers had removed the steel door for the C64, but then I learned that wasn´t the case either.
So I only really know the C64 version and the enhanced versions that came out in like 88 or 89 but the initial 1987 release was also for DOS and Apple II, maybe someone who played those knows more about the copy proection there.
Anyway when we bought the retail copy of Zak it had the exit Visa codes and again we wouldn´t have bought that game hadn´t it been linked to Maniac Mansion in a 64 games magazine and Maniac Mansion we probably hadn´t learned about hadn´t it been for that disc box.
What?
No. They have different options - if we are not talking about an MMORPG. One would be to publish the game without DRM.
Another problem: Internet could be limited (on the country) and/or expensive (think of mobile connections).
I prefer DRM free games, but I buy the game, if the copy protection isn’t annoying. Examples: I won’t buy a single player adventure game that needs an online connection, but I would by a game with a code wheel.
But this is my personal opinion.
if you reread the first post, it says in China there is no way to make profit except with on online-only game. So there are only two options: 1) turn your game into an online-only game 2) don’t make any game and find a new job.
Ok, so we are talking only about the Chinese market? Well, I can’t say anything about that market.
(But if several TV documentaries are right, then China has a general problem with piracy: They are copying movies, software and even real things - like the iPhone. So this is a special case.)
But the Chinese market is only one of several: A Chinese developer could sell his game via GOG or Steam in the whole world.
No, the point applies to all markets. Only, for other markets, it only applies to some developers, not to all of them. For some, it is an option to release the game with no DRM, as you say. They just earn less, but still enough to make a living. For others, mostly niche genre producers, it isn’t an option. (because they wouldn’t recover costs).
Wouldn’t it be good to have both, DRM version (Steam-like) and DRM-free version (GOG-like) as the author of the article above explained? The first one protected by the related software, and the second one protected by an internal copy protection system (I say, like in the old times?) I remember finding serial numbers for big software like Adobe’s, Autodesk’s or Microsoft’s was a pain, and many times I didn’t succeed in make them work. Then if I could afford them for a reasonable price, I bought them, otherwise I started learning new programs that were less expensive or free for non commercial use or completely free. Now I have a mix, almost no pirated software apart some old software. But basically TWP is a game that has a fair, affordable price. And for sure those cracks aren’t a job for everyone. But I don’t know how much it costs a protection system like those.
Sorry, but I still don’t get your point. Each developer has several possibilities. He can publish his game with DRM or without. There are different DRM systems out there - from a code wheel to online connections.
There are several DRM free games that are or were a financial success. And there were several MMORPGs that weren’t successful (and shut down).
So you just can’t imply: no online-DRM = no income.
Of course, being an Indie developer is hard due to the limited budget (especially for marketing and advertising the game). But this apply to other markets too. For example try to make movies or release a new tuna flavoured beer.
German underground cult movie maker Jörg Buttgereit (mainly known for his 1987 scandal film “Nekromantik”) dropped out of movie making a few years ago stating that piracy basically killed independent film. It didn´t hurt the majors but it rendered the underground market near extinct.
It hurt the majors too. But they have more ways to compensate that, for example by selling action figures or licensing the films to TV stations.
I was mainly talking about the situation in germany, but you´re right they are just hurt less.
The way movies are consumed these days and how they were hurt by piracy for the majors has mostly led to two things.
A brief word on the music industry. Most seasoned musicans are lucky that there is still some money to be made in touring. Some are on the road for years and years but they don´t make records anymore because there is no more money to be made in record sales(at least from the cuts they get themselves to make a living). This has also lead to a radical increase in ticket prices.
Piracy has affected every creative field in a big way.
Yes, as a part-time author I’m affected too. For example there are people who copy (large) parts of a book and sell these texts via Amazon as their own work/book. So they steal the money from others.
Oh yeah, I think I read about that problem. That´s terrible. It´s a shame Amazon probably won´t do much about it.