PC Gaming Alliance: Let's Use Piracy for Fun and Profit
Posted 10/20/08 at 06:32:55 PM | by Nathan Grayson
Being a blight upon the 99.8% of the gaming industry that enjoys making money, it's not too surprising that piracy has a place at gaming's Bad Guy table, where maniacal cackles flow freely and glasses are always half-empty. However, when one of PC gaming's great beneficiaries, the PC Gaming Alliance says piracy isn't so bad -- just misunderstood -- well, jaws drop.
That's exactly what happened when we heard about PCGA Pres. Randy Stude's plan to plant a money tree in piracy's apparently fertile soil.
"Let's monetize every one of those pirates, and let's advertise the hell out of them," Stude told Gamasutra.
Fearing that the big cheese had finally snapped, we nearly missed his explanation, wherein he said that such monetization should be "blatant." For instance, he noted, developers could plaster six times the number of in-game ads around unauthenticated versions of a game. The end result: pirates get an "inferior" version of a game, while developers rake in cash from ads.
"Don't throw [pirates] off [of the server], but show an ad every time a new level loads. The [paying customer] gets a billboard, a passive, less-aggressive ad than [pirates] are going to get," Stude added, demonstrably sane.
So those of you who play but don't pay, if Stude's grandiose plan were enacted, would you willfully download Far Cry 2: Viagra Blue Edition, or would you finally change your ways?
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I've just finish reading
Submitted by atomaweapon on Tue, 2008-10-21 20:01
I've just finish reading how far cry 2 will have that activation nonsense. It looked like a bad ass game that I was this close to purchasing, but then renigged because of the activation.
Bad Oversight
Submitted by thegamepro on Tue, 2008-10-21 12:17
Uhh...
How is this piracy if the developers are making money from this. I think it would be a brilliant Idea to legally download a full game for free but with ads just as long as they give us an option to pay to get rid of the ads. If the ads are in the load screens im fine with that. Seriously, didn't they just accidently stumble over a new way to market their game. Give it away for free with ads on bittorrent (so they don't have to pay for bandwidth) but also give us an option to pay without ads. They'll probably make more money that way.
Submitted by Muerte on Tue, 2008-10-21 12:50
Your missing the point. The people who get the intrusive adds are the ones that have already pirated the game. The people who buy it will get the same passive adds that were going to be there anyhow.
Its actually a pretty good idea if it were implementable. The whole idea of pirating a game is to be able to use it without people knowing you pirated the game. So I doubt anything will come of this.
If they could actually tell the should make the pirates cannon fodder by nerfing their weapons damage or whatever.
But again, I doubt this is really implementable.
Uhhh...huh?
Submitted by horzo on Tue, 2008-10-21 10:04
If publishers have a reliable way to distinguish between pirated and legit copies of games, why wouldn't they lock the pirated games entirely instead of just increasing ad content?
They do, if you have a
Submitted by AntiHero on Tue, 2008-10-21 12:40
They do, if you have a pirated version, you are UNABLE to use the online functions, they can't do it any other way, otherwise you'd require an internet connection to play the games single player. Unfair to those who play single player when the internet is under maintenance or while downloading music, movies or updates.
Submitted by Velcrow on Tue, 2008-10-21 08:09
Going after torrent sites isn't that simple, and certainly not very quick. Servers may be hosted in different countries with different laws. But also don't forget that torrent is just a distribution method. There is plenty of free software on there too. So should the torrent site be responsible for copyrighted data posted by it's users? Or should the user be responsible? Should YouTube be shut down because people post copyrighted material on that site? It's just not that easy. Hell, the torrent isn't even hosting the material, just tracking seeds & leechers.
Submitted by samduhman on Tue, 2008-10-21 09:49
I say go after the torrent sites. They should be held accountable. They are linking people to stolen goods. There is zero reason why they can't look at their seeds and see that it is a retail copy of whatever game.
I'm sick and tired of seeing the "pirates" topic and how they are ruinning my favorite platform. I pay for all my games and I want PC gaming to flourish since I hate consoles. I say do whatever necessary to take them down.
Submitted by Rltyg on Tue, 2008-10-21 07:42
As much as I would like to see an alternative to DRM type tactics, I just don't see this as being a viable solution. Publishers need to start going after the ip addresses of the torrent downlowders. What I don't understand, and maybe someone here can enlighten me on the subject, is why don't the publishers go after the websites with domain names and shut them down? I wont go as far as naming these sites, but we all know which ones I am talking about.
Submitted by neo1piv14 on Tue, 2008-10-21 07:04
How about instead of charging $50 bucks for the software in the store and then having to worry about activation and such, charge $20 bucks for the disc, manual, etc in the store and then you get home, you get online, enter the CD code, pay the other $20 or $30 and create a user name/password. You have to be online the first time you play the game and after that, it caches your credentials and lets you play ad-free. However, if you don't have a username and password to login with, then it floods you with ads. That way, legitimate users don't have to worry about how many activations you get because it's always tied to your username and password. Cached credentials would mean you only had to be online the first time you installed it, and pirates still get their free game: albeit a crappy ad loaded copy.
Submitted by orca11 on Tue, 2008-10-21 07:01
I've never pirated a game, DRM or no (although I do use no-cd cracks on games I own). This scheme would look to me like the developer endorsing "pirated" copies of the game and making that a legitimate distribution model. I would actually be more likely to "pirate" a game under this model.
Submitted by flomp83 on Tue, 2008-10-21 06:38
If you show an ad everytime you load a level in a pirated game, wouldn't that be just like clicking on "Read more" here on MaxPC? Seems to be woking out well for MaxPC, right?
Submitted by mpcrsc562 on Tue, 2008-10-21 06:33
the game install disc doesn't even have to install anything resembling a dialer. the instruction manual could include the telephone number of an authentication server and a person could set up a dial up connection to include a username & password (probably the cd key) and -bam!- your in. just a bit longer to actually play your game (waiting for your computer to dial and access the server).
Nah
Submitted by Wareagle on Mon, 2008-10-20 22:08
CD key verifcation seems to work really well, unless it's not a multiplayer game.
Cracked copies of the game are actually better than the 'real' ones: you don't have to deal with CD checks, games that refuse to run if you have Daemon Tools installed, phoning home, etc.
Case in point: http://xkcd.com/488/
Submitted by soccer1105 on Mon, 2008-10-20 20:31
Best idea i think i've ever heard on the topic. however knexkid makes very good points. A one-time only online acctivation might work. Every time you install a game for the first time on a computer, you must go online to activate it. I remember when XP first came out, you could call a certain phone numbre to get an activation code if you didn't have internet. that could still work here.
they had a version of far
Submitted by dankers on Mon, 2008-10-20 19:08
they had a version of far cry with some ads in it, you had to sit through like 1 minute of ads for a free full game
small change if you ask meactually quite a brilliant idea if you ask me everybody wins
the only problem is WHO WAS PHONE
I saw what you did thar...
Submitted by That guy type p... on Tue, 2008-10-21 08:27
1 minute of ads is overkill for me and others like me that are patience-deprived.
I like it, it finally
Submitted by chaos.13037 on Mon, 2008-10-20 18:58
I like it, it finally switches the tables and gives pirates a worse product than the paying customer.
Although, the pirates will probably find a way around it and then everyone will be playing the same game which is still better than pirates playing superior DRM free games now.
Submitted by knexkid on Mon, 2008-10-20 18:18
I think this is a great idea but once again here are your problems:
1. PIRATES WILL FIND A WAY TO GET AROUND THIS AND MAKE THE GAME SEEM LIKE A LEGIT COPY TO NOT RECIEVE ADS (It's hard to face that truth....)
2. The only way you could maybe prevent that would be having the game check online to a server everytime it is launched to see if it has a legit, one of a kind code. Then you will have people complaining that you must be online to play the game!
3. The loop continues.....
Submitted by dc10ten on Mon, 2008-10-20 18:10
I like how someone is thinking outside the box. Not 100% sure if it will solve problems with pirating, I hope that it would. At least i see one person thinking beyond DRM's answer to piracy.
Thats just too funny, rofl.
Submitted by Humpfester on Mon, 2008-10-20 18:10
Thats just too funny, rofl. What we have here is a comedian in the making.
I would gladly take a game
Submitted by b_boy_69_00 on Mon, 2008-10-20 17:46
I would gladly take a game like far cry 2 chock full of ads for free than pay $60 for the same game with just less ads in them. If there are going to be ads then it needs to be free no matter what. Don't make me buy something just to look at advertisements I didn't ask for.
Submitted by Vegan on Mon, 2008-10-20 17:19
And what do they do about false positives? Because we all know WGA worked so well.
good pount.... but
Submitted by Gailim on Mon, 2008-10-20 23:41
true, but this plan has too many positives. as long as its not based on something like a no cd crack (which many gamers use for convinience not law breaking) then it could be the solution weve been waiting for
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