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The problem is differentiating between those who have no connection and those saying they have no connection in order to avoid doing the checks.
The music industry is already on the verge of giving out free songs because of piracy, and games are only a little way behind. but if they stopped playing ping pong a lot of very clever guys i'd be bored. then again most people that crack firmware for a hobby generally do it just to see if they can. Not for the sake of piracy.
The problem really is that by and large having hacked consoles at least has generally resulted in them having a lot more functionality.
Just take a look at the wii, Normal one can read wiiware off an sd card. finally has a limited number of games for older/ other machines using the vc and is region locked and can not play regular dvds or media files
Its hacked counterpart on the other hand is regionfree, has an inbuilt cheat code system, Can run games off an external HDD, can play regular dvds and other media files, can run whatever games you want from other older console via emulators. You can also obtain patches for games like manhunt 2 with uncensor it and play control metroid prime to make the japanese version english.
You don't have to be a pirate to make the most out of your machine. its a common and glaring misconception. What is this idiot talking about?
Having stolen software on your pc is a crime and the law should be finding ways to track offenders down, prosecute and fine.
The law can track down pedophile's online successfully, using these techniques many many game pirates could be caught. Having thousands of pounds worth of stolen games, movies, music etc deserves nothing less than a prison sentence.
They should start with the pirate bay servers, use any info available to track down the criminals.
Once the ball starts rolling and offenders are being prosecuted on a weekly basis the message will be clear enough to reduce piracy.
As the most of us are law abiding citizens, we will all be sitting back and enjoying seeing these offenders being put behind bars. Everyone will then benefit from more developers being able and willing to really push the boundaries of game making in a profitable industry that is not tainted by the hordes of criminals that download stolen material. Finally! Yet another industry man who "sees (part) of the light". Also, the first two comments quite neatly sum up some of the largest issues in the piracy debate. In particular for PC users where there are rampant accounts of legitimate customers being much, much worse off than the people who play the pirated version - indeed, in some instances completely unable to play the *legally purchased game*!
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that when your business model has gone so far as to render the genuine product all but unplayable for the paying customer, while the pirate can enjoy the game as it was designed to be without paying for it, that soemthing has gone terribly wrong. Of course, acknowledging that would require some amount of honest self-reflection, pragmatic sense over misplaced pride and a touch of humility. These are not traits that a mega-publisher such as EA, nor Sony for that matter, are reknowned for. Goodness, you sound like a young teenage version of myself back in the day. While I can still appreciate the rule of law it seems you still suffer under the naive impression that the law is infallible, that the law automatically equates with justice (which it doesn't; in some instances something can be "the law" and be brutally unjust), and that the law always catches its man.
All of these naive assumptions are false. The powers that be have enough trouble just keeping things together as things stand. Complete control of the internet is still, in so far as is publically acknowledged at least, a pipe dream and thankfully so.
While it may seem a good idea to be able to control all things so as to subvert and prevent criminal acts, please bear in mind that laws and technology are dual use and thus are quite likely to be applied to you as well as the criminals. I don't know about you, yet personally I do not relish the notion of having my every move and activity monitored and logged regardless of the fact that I have very little to hide. It's not that black & white. For instance, I love shows such as The Wire/Shield, but these shows got poor treatment when scheduled on UK tv. Thanks to Pirate Bay I watched these programs soon after they aired in the States and I bought the boxsets when they came out (The Shield is pre-ordered).
As a primarily vinyl DJ, I also download tracks I want to put on CD's that I already own on vinyl.
I don't believe I should be tracked down and locked up, do you? At least we now have the first person talking about the OpenLive service to be about piracy, not about providing better quality games!
You can't have it both ways. You can't have Bethesda crowing about Fallout 3 sales and then say piracy is killing the market!
Maybe console doesn't have the piracy problem because you can rent console games. Why can't you rent PC games - oh yea, because thy would be pirated!
Stardock doesn't seem to have a problem with no DRM, GOG is actually benefiting from using no DRM as a marketing exercise, and it would be prudent for each major publisher to release at least one title with no protection whatsosever and see what happens!
The No.1 reason for PC gaming going down the tubes is the fact that publishers started listening to their accountants and not gamers. When publishers were smaller and closer to their customers, games were better. Now publishers are on their high clouds we get the shallow crap we get!
Here are the hit games released in 1994, that should be celebrating their 15th anniversary:
Doom
TIE Fighter
System Shock
1942: The Pacific Air War
Star Trail: Realms of Arkania
X-COM: UFO Defense
Panzer General
NASCAR Racing
Lords of the Realm
Goblins Quest 3
The Way Things Work
X-Wing Collector's CD-ROM
Under a Killing Moon
Creature Shock
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Beneath a Steel Sky
FIFA International Soccer
Aces Of The Deep
Colonization
Descent
Alone In The Dark 2
Desert Strike - Return to The Gulf
Jagged Alliance
Jazz Jackrabbit
Legend of Kyrandia, The - Malcolms Revenge
There are 25 titles in that list. For the WHOLE of 2008, Gamespot had just FIFTY TWO PC game reviews.The average review score was 69.5%
Compare the above list with any yearly list from, say 2004, and see how far down we have come.
If we are going to get hardly any PC game releases,k and the quality is, on average, going to be so low, is it any wonder PC game sales are declining!
Piracy is a problem, but it's not THE problem. The Longest Journey sold 5 million copies - over FIVE YEARS - tell me how a game could do that if piracy was as rampant as publishers keep on telling us.
Quite simply it's easier for publishers to blame piracy when a game doesn't sell than answer to the charge it was a crap game. I just wish the games media pushed them on this! I think you'll find peodophilia is both a MUCH worse crime and MUCH less widespread. Games are way too overpriced in the first place anyway (esp. consoles). If publishers and retailers werent so greedy in the first place, then it is argueable that piracy wouldnt have taken off as it has:
The main reason I don't buy many games is the £35 price tag. Perhaps i will buy 4 games a year and use mods/ online play to extend the lifetime.
If games were £10, then I would be happy to buy three/ month and try different genres/ games that look interesting.
Now: £120 a year spent
Price drop: potentially £360 a year, distributed around more developers.
Obviously there are those that still spend their entire disposable income on games that will nullify this point, but if it encourages people out of piracy and get them to spend a little, then everyone is a winner in the long run.
"Simples" as that annoying merecat says in that crap advert. And what if the game costs £25 to design, develop, produce, market and distribute?
At £35 they make £10 profit a unit, at £10 the loose £15 a unit. Your nothing going to be able to buy many games with a model that could well see developers go under.
Nor would it encourage developer to make new or inovative IPs that may not sell, give that no profit at all may be involved.
Its not as simple as pulling a figure out of the air and saying sell it for that price.
Far from simples. *As long as you live in America or Canada. by that retarded logic games should cost thousands of punds a time. The pysical materials needs to create a disc are minimal. Fair enough your average AAA games costs tens of thousands to make through man hours and labour. Despite this much greater cost to develop the price of games has actually dropped in the last 10 years, or at lkeast balanced out a bit. I remember when games would set you back £60 a time.
I think further reductions in price would lead to increased sales. i don't think anyone here would knowingly want to pay more for something when they can get a cheaper alternative. The very fact that games can dramatically drop in price from one week to the next and still make profit shows there is a considerable mark up being placed on the medium somewhere down the line. »
How the **** can making a profit on a product be regarded as retarded logic?
How you then turn that into games costing thousands of pounds at retail is just plain bizzare.
My post points out that you can't simply drop the price of a product to an abitrery value simply because the consumer demands it.
Yes the price of games does fluctuate (as it does for any product), that doesn't mean they are all sold at a profit at all.
Some will be sold by retailers at a profit and some will be sold at a loss (the concept of loss leading products is hardly a new one).
The price of a game will also drop over the long term once the inital development costs have been recouped and you are then only looking at the manufacturing and distributing costs as an ongoing expense.
If an average console game costs $3 million to develop (and a quick google shows it does - hell Gears cost a reputed $10 million to make and was considered cheap for a AAA title - GTA IV is rumoured to have cost $100m) and costs $2 to produce and distribute, and ignoring any profit at the retail end sells for $35. Then you would have to sell 90,910 copies before you recovered the development costs and even started to make a profit.
At $10 a unit you would have to sell 375,000 copies before making a profit of any kind.
Now while AAA titles will shift that many units, they also costs a damn sight more to develop and market.
Far from retarded logic. Impossible is nothing. :wink: Unless there has been some development I haven't read about the PS3 has remained untouched thus far, I know they can rip the PS3 games to ISO's/whatever but thats as far as it goes. Although again nothing is impossible. Let me correct you all dear puny nutsacks.
First of all, I've been in the entertainment industry acting as a movie critic for half a decade and I have noticed some thing's that goes above everyone's head. Yet it's extremely effective.
First things first, if game A costed the company €20 every copy, sell it for that price. Instead of including ridiculous and pointless adverts ala (GTA) include a real life product, also known as PRODUCT PLACEMENT.
You'll cover the expenses of the game from the gamers but the real profit will come from the in-game adverts. Simply effective and yet hardly used. Three cheers for product placement, the savour of all.
Of course blatant product placement doesn't look like a pile of crap, its oh so subtle use in movies has proven that beyond all doubt.
A movie critic that calls for an increase in product placement, well that is a first. BTW can you let me know who you write for (so I can avoid it like the plague.
Nutsack indeed, in reply, you sir are a cock. I write for a maltese paper - not in english.
As for product placement in movies it's not bad until it's not overdone.
Oh and calm down about the nutsack thing was just a joke, kid. »
Don't you mean its not bad unless its overdone (I hope that's what you mean otherwise you are advocating lots of product placement).
I know the nutsack crack was a joke, that's why I called you a c.o.c.k in return.
BTW at 38 I'm a bit to old to be called a kid. Now allow me to correct you:
1) That point is hardly new nor is it overlooked by all of "us", but thanks for the condescending tone. I'm sure it is much appreciated by all.
2) Easy for you to claim you are veteran movie critic. Even easier to slip up and make a mistake by using "costed", eh? So much for credibility.
3) Movie critics' have their opinions and you know what is said about opinions, right? Sorry to take this back to this point but how would they know it would cost £25 to develop a game in the first place? All they know is the overall cost (most of it is the creation of I.P and not raw materials). If they sell one copy or 1,000,000 the overall cost to the developer is pretty much the same due to the IP investment cost involved. This renders your arguement mute.
Additionally, the fact that a film can be sold at £12 (ish) corroborates my point that these are overpriced. A film has actors, film crew, stage costs, post production editing, special effects, travel costs etc. which must be more expence than a team of coders working on a game for a couple of years and some (often poor) marketing effort.
While I am not going to proclaim that I know too much about this, it stands to reason/ logic that the average film would cost more to make than the average game, yet it is being sold at a third of the price??? They have cinema taking as well but that is only a few quid more.
When square sells it 85th millionth copy of FF and EA is upto 1/2 billion copies (recent news) it is not hard to see how games have surpassed Hollywood in finance.
They can afford to lower prices and I would have thought that this would reduce piracy and diversify the choice of games out there. Okay guys. Here's someone who spent 10 years working in the games industry, 3 of them running my own gaming company out of Houston, Texas, (yes I am a London boy!). The cost of all production (DVD, DVD case, manual, wrapping, etc) is about £0.60p. So let's forget about that. The marketing is another £1.15, if it's a AAA title. So let's say the game has a retail price of £39.99. Well, the publisher sells to the distributor for about £16.50, and the distributor sells it to the retailer for about £23.00. This allows the retailer, should he wish to, sell the game for £29.99 or £34.99 from the get-go as a 'special offer'. This means the publisher gets a gross profit of about £14.50. Profit is now based purely on development costs. So let's say the publisher spent £10 million all told on development, that staff, office lighting, sandwich bar, the whole 9 yards. Well, that publisher has to sell approx 690,000 units to break even. If it sells a million units they make around £4 million profit.
On the above basis, you can see that even if you spend £50 million on development to bring a game to market for say PC, 360 and PS3, you're only going to have to sell about 4 million across all formats to break even. A hit 360 title does 3-4 million, a hit PC title does around 600,000 and a hit PS3 title does about 1.5 million. So you can see that a hit title (not a huge No.1 title) will make around a 6% return on investment. If it turns out to be a huge No.1 smash (no publisher can know that for sure), you can double your investment.
The problem with development costs is, just like the movies, thy tend to be exaggerated so the profit 'looks' smaller and less (or no) tax is payable. Generally, as long as a Corporation makes a profit one year in three, the taxman won't chase him.
Also, when you consider publishers are working on multiple titles simultaneously, and also that you can get multiple games from one engine (Oblivion engine for Oblivion, Fallout 3 AND Fallout: New Vegas, for example), you can see that even if Bethesda did spend $100 million, that's already divided over three titles and of course, all the DLC we're going to get. Downloadable content is money for old rope, as are expansions. Give people a 30 hour game for £35 and then give them a 5 hour 'episodic' or 'expansion' or 'DLC', not for 1/6th the price, or even 1/3rd the price but 1/2 the price! While we all may have downloaded HL2 EP1 from Steam for £10 doesn't change the fact that the recommended retail price for the retail version was £19.99, over half the price of the full game, and yet only offered about 20% of the gameplay. I'm not talking quality of game or expansion here, I am talking about the economics for publishers.
If publishers have to persuade us to spend £1,000 on a new OpenLive 3D machine for no other reason than they think it will cut piracy and raise profits for them, they will persuade the media and the media will persuade us (that's their job). They won't say that publically, publically they will say it will bring innovation to gaming or somesuch.
The moral of this post is to be an educated consumer. Don't believe everything you see/read, and if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
In the games market both industry and media, the future is always bright - it's the next great thing, never the current great thing. That's why at the start of every year, it's going to be a great year. If you look at the last dozen PC game reviews from any major gaming magazine or website, you will see maybe one in the 80's another 6 in the 70% range and another 5 below 70%. But then look at the 'Coming Soon' feature... Always looks so great, doesn't it? It's called marketing, keep the customer always 'wanting' - however bad it actually is!
I refer to the other post I made showing 25 classic games that came out in 1994 and how for the whole of last year, Gamespot only reviewed 52 games with an average 69.5%, but where are the headlines that last year saw the fewest PC game releases - ever. Where are the articles showing the average review score was 4% point below the year before? You're not going to see them. because the media, in league with the industry is only ever going to be upbeat so you carry on spending your money!
It's simple really......! :) |
