By John Walker on November 14th, 2008 at 2:20 pm.
2D BOY have posted about the piracy World of Goo has suffered since launch. After Ron Carmel mentioned the figure – 90% – in a comment on RPS this week, the story was picked up across the internet. And it’s shaken a lot of people.
Carmel explains how they reached the dramatic figure.
“first, and most importantly, how we came up with this number: the game allows players to have their high scores reported to our server (it’s an optional checkbox). we record each score and the IP from which it came. we divided the total number of sales we had from all sources by the total number of unique IPs in our database, and came up with about 0.1. that’s how we came up with 90%.”
He then goes on to point out the possible inaccuracies: people installing a legitimate copy on multiple computers (I know I have), dynamic IP addresses, multiple pirated copies behind the same firewall, and people not checking the high score box, all of which could push the figure in either direction. But of course, it’s unlikely it would be that far each way.
Edit: It’s pointed out below that dynamic IP addresses could have a dramatic effect on this figure. I’ve no idea at all, but it would make sense that this could skew the results.
You might assume that the response to this – by any developer, let alone two guys on their own – would be to conclude that some manner of DRM was necessary. 2D BOY used World of Goo as an experiment, deliberately releasing it without any form of DRM, and said they would publish the results. And here they are: a 90% piracy rate. It’s got to hurt. As hypocritical as it may be, I find myself feeling far more angry that people have chosen to acquire this game without paying, than I am when it’s from a large corporation. It shakes my (personal – not the opinion of RPS) belief that DRM is both pointless and damaging. But amazingly, not 2D BOY’s.
Carmel links to Russell Carroll’s article about the 92% piracy rate of Ricochet. This is where that famous, controversial figure appeared, arguing that 1000 pirated copies of a game only represents one lost sale. Carmel continues,
“in our case, we might have even converted more than 1 in a 1000 pirates into legit purchases. either way, ricochet shipped with DRM, world of goo shipped without it, and there seems to be no difference in the outcomes. we can’t draw any conclusions based on two data points, but i’m hoping that others will release information about piracy rates so that everyone could see if DRM is the waste of time and money that we think it is.”
A remarkable response. But also a rational one. It’s so very impressive to remain rational in the face of learning how many people are taking the game you worked so hard on without giving you any money. It deserves enormous kudos.
Meanwhile, Spike TV’s Video Game Awards show has added a Best Independent Game category, in which World of Goo is nominated. It’s open to a vote, and along with Goo you can vote for Audiosurf, Braid, and PixelJunk Eden.
14/11/2008 at 14:23 MeestaNob! says:
It’s a shame they cant provide more accurate figures to make their point, although (sadly) I don’t doubt it’s more likely around 65-70%.
Either way, if you played it and like it, pony up some fucking money you tight arses. It’s only $20.
14/11/2008 at 14:27 Feet says:
Piracy! Booooo! DRM! Booooo! Games! Yaaaaay!
Comments thread complete.
14/11/2008 at 14:29 The Sombrero Kid says:
i don’t know anyone who bought the game who doesn’t run it on more than 1 pc i also don’t know anyone not running it at a static ip i would expect legit copies to average at 3 pcs with an escalating number of ip’s say after a month an average of 3, so i’d say there should be 9 ip’s for every user as a very rough guess, bearing in mind that this game of course runs on laptops.
this method however is leagues ahead of the add up all the downloads of the torrent and multiply by dream pounds approach as far as attempting to track this kind of thing goes i can think of few cheap better options
14/11/2008 at 14:30 Gap Gen says:
Yeah, I mean it’s pretty pathetic to pirate a £10 that’s downloadable from the maker’s website. It’s not even like (I imagine) people pirated it to try.
Has Steam been cracked? Obviously it’s the less attractive option for both consumers and for the makers (as income per sale probably goes down) but if 90% of people are indeed utter cocks, then it may be the safer option.
14/11/2008 at 14:31 bobince says:
It’s a shame the “90%!!!” headline has got so much traction and will be breathlessly quoted as fact without the caveat that we still really don’t know.
My own hunch is that the dynamic IP issue is likely to be a much bigger factor than the other sources of uncertainly mentioned and won’t be ‘cancelled out’, but there is no way to tell given only a list of IP checkins.
If the checkins also logged which installation they came from (either by unique install ID, or profile setup maybe?) it might be possible to exclude that factor and come to a more accurate (still inaccurate, but better) figure.
14/11/2008 at 14:32 Feet says:
I agree with Jon, it’s admirable that 2DBOY have remained rational about these numbers, despite the nasty picture they paint. Whether it’ll make any difference to the way DRM is employed, who can say.
14/11/2008 at 14:33 wien says:
Yeah, I think it’s important not to get too carried away with the 90% figure. With all the variables involved in their method of measurement the 90% would be the absolute worst case. It’s not really likely to be the true percentage.
Still sad though…
14/11/2008 at 14:37 Quirk says:
I’m tempted to use strong language here.
This is Internet 101, people. A very large proportion of internet users are on dynamic rather than static IPs – their ISP provides them with a new IP every time they log on. Get 10 registered users on such ISPs to log into your servers 10 times each, and you’ll quite possibly get 100 unique IPs (provided there are no duplicate IPs being handed out). To deduce from your 100 unique IPs and your ten registered users that you’ve got a 90% piracy rate is to fail spectacularly. The prevalence of dynamic IPs makes any correlation between unique IPs and users all but impossible to make.
It reads to me like they’d forgotten about dynamic IPs or something and published based on those results, and then realised that what they’d said was utter nonsense; but instead of taking it back, they said “dynamic IPs might be a factor”.
In other news, people with small feet tend to earn much less money per annum than people with larger feet. Possible confounding factors: children tend to have smaller feet than adults, and tend not to be in full-time paid employment.
14/11/2008 at 14:38 The Sombrero Kid says:
@Feet
forgot to mention this, totally agree 2D Boy are awesome and an inspiration for aspiring indie developers.
14/11/2008 at 14:39 Jerricho says:
How many unique usernames are there on the leaderboards? What’s their ratio against total downloads, unique ips and purchased copies?
14/11/2008 at 14:39 A-Scale says:
To be honest after playing the WoG demo I really don’t think it’s worth the 20 dollars. It’s a very quaint and fun game, but you can get similar gameplay in free flash games. For a game of this low level of complexity I hoped that a 10 or maybe even 15 dollar (US) price tag would be in order. It’s a lot easier for pirates to justify stealing a game if it is overpriced. I’m certain the author put a lot of hard work into this game, but I think people would be a lot more apt to buy if it cost half as much.
This should NOT act as a deterrent to publishers who are considering putting out no DRM games. ALL popular games, DRM or not, will be stolen. The trick is to put enough quality into a game at a low enough price that people can’t help but feel bad about stealing it. Also, I don’t even know who the author is, and I read RPS 5-10 times daily. If the author is unknown, it doesn’t even feel like stealing. Put a face to your game, and let people know that you’ve got a family to feed.
14/11/2008 at 14:39 cyrenic says:
Kudos to 2DBoy for keeping things in perspective.
At first I thought they should have released the game through Steam only. But now I think if they would have released only on Steam it would have hurt their sales, since it would not have been as widely available (region issues particularly). If you adhere to Stardock’s principles, you want to ignore the pirates and release the game as widely as possible. And it would have been trivial to crack the Steam version and put it on torrents like it is right now.
I do think they should only offer the 6th chapter to paying customers though. Might be a bit late to implement that however.
14/11/2008 at 14:39 Quirk says:
HEY! Did you hear that people with small feet EARN LESS than people with larger feet? LET’S HAVE A DISCUSSION ON WHY THIS CRUEL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE WITH SMALL FEET IS ALLOWED TO CONTINUE!
14/11/2008 at 14:41 Aldaris says:
I guess you have to look at it the other way, at least 10%, probably 30%+ bought it.
And for 2 people, that’s still a lot of money, as well as the satisfication of helping so many people enjoy their time.
14/11/2008 at 14:42 Bobsy says:
Ha. In that Spike TV awards thing Spore is in the category for best original score. No-fucking-way.
“Blip, bloop. If I keep this up I can convince people that this isn’t midi!” – Brian Eno, 2007
14/11/2008 at 14:42 Ian says:
Even if that number is greatly exaggerated for reasons beyond their control what if , say, 40% of copies are pirated. Would that number, less than half of the “90%” number but still nearly half of all copies, not still be outrageous?
And I don’t mean in comparison to anything, I just mean the fact that as many as half of the copies could be pirated.
Incidentally, I only have World of Goo installed on one machine but I don’t know anybody else who has it so I don’t know whether I’m an anomaly. :p
14/11/2008 at 14:44 suibhne says:
That’s a pretty sensationalistic claim. At least Stateside, almost everyone has dynamic IP addresses via their ISPs, so I’m a little surprised to see 2D BOY list that as some sort of minor fringe case.
Obvious caveat: Not saying piracy doesn’t suck, especially with such a wonderful, deserving indie title as this.
14/11/2008 at 14:47 theleif says:
Well…
My router has a dynamic ip, as, i think, all ADSL users have (at least here in Sweden). That number can change after only a week sometimes. Now, i havn’t bought (or played) this game yet, but if i had, i would have contributed 3-4 ip adresses so far to that stastistic.
14/11/2008 at 14:48 The Sombrero Kid says:
@Quirk
you make it sound like it’s justified for adults to ‘steal all the good jobs’ and only let children play tokenistic roles in shaping society and pay them BLOODY PITTANCE for it! no wonder so many of these poor out of work children are hanging around street corners, wearing hoodies, drinking in parks and generally being misunderstood by their elders!
BAN AGISM NOW (or wait and maybe the problem will go away on it’s own :S)
14/11/2008 at 14:48 Asbestos says:
Don’t forget that you can also upload your high scores from the demo. So lets hope they only counted high score uploads from chapter two and onwards (unless they can discern between retail and demo uploads). I haven’t bought or pirated the game, but I sure did upload my scores!
14/11/2008 at 14:49 Heliocentric says:
Remember, these guys are indie devs so you may not challenge their maths!
Hell…. 10%,1%.. Whatever! how many people did buy it? Are these people wearing money hats yet? They should be they made a lovely game :)
14/11/2008 at 14:50 The Sombrero Kid says:
@theleif
you can get static ips for more monies of your isp & it changes every time you turn your computer on if you don’t have a router, which is silly but does happen sometimes
14/11/2008 at 14:52 Toziel says:
Surely Piracy can be a thorn in the flesh of the developer but the question that also should be asked:
Would everyone that has pirated a copy of a game buy the game the if there was no piracy? Surely there are some that would buy the game but personally i think: I have no problem buying a game that is worth the money but I hate those companies that bring out a game in early beta or late alpha status (fallout 3 PC version….) and then they complain the game does not sell well.
14/11/2008 at 14:52 Quirk says:
Seriously, guys. Can’t you put some caveat in the article to the effect that these figures are blatant pseudo-science? Taking their outrageous claim at face value is, to draw an odious comparison, Daily Mail-worthy. I’m seeing comment after comment from people who presumably don’t have any technical background at all and are willing to trust your authority on this. Use it for good! That way, when you decide to use it for evil later, they will trust you!
14/11/2008 at 14:54 cyrenic says:
Another thought (find a fix for the edit button!):
At first I thought their 90% figure was wildly inaccurate because of dynamic IPs, but after thinking about it I’m not so sure. It’d be quite a coincidence for them to come so close to the number Russell Carroll came up with if it was just a random, inaccurate number.
Also, if dynamic IPs were skewing the numbers so much, I’d expect the number they came up with to be closer to 100% than it is.
Just a thought.
14/11/2008 at 14:55 green says:
The question is if using no DRM created more buzz, and thus more sales, than going with some easily cracked copy protection…
14/11/2008 at 14:56 The Sombrero Kid says:
@cyrenic
it’s because dynmic ips skew figures over time and they use a relatively small time slice thus limiting thier impact, in a year piracy from these figures will seem like a million billion to 1 legit copy
14/11/2008 at 14:57 The Sombrero Kid says:
@green
a.k.a. stardocking
14/11/2008 at 15:00 Bowl of Snakes says:
I bought the game and have played from at least 4 IPs, according to their data, I am 75% Piracy.
14/11/2008 at 15:00 Jerricho says:
@Quirk
It’s because people like Hobbits.
14/11/2008 at 15:07 nikos says:
@Quirk
ISPs who use dynamic IPs usually do so in a persistent manner. Also, you missed the point of the original article if you think it’s about statistics and “pseudo-science”.
14/11/2008 at 15:09 Downloads_Plz says:
I’ve installed my legally purchased game on 2 computers, and being extremely conservative, have had at least 5 different IP addresses while playing on each of them.
So I’m at least 90% Pirate, probably higher.
Seriously, that number is complete rubbish. I’m not saying the game isn’t pirated at all, but I would bet every penny I own that the real number is nowhere near 90%, and anyone taking that number and running with it should feel a bit foolish.
14/11/2008 at 15:11 screeg says:
You laud them for having a rational response and not implementing some sort of DRM… What, they’re supposed to get outraged at game piracy and punish the people who give them money? DRM is worse than useless. It doesn’t slow down pirates and pisses off people who actually pay for games. It’s irrelevant whether the game was 90% or 99% or 100% pirated, putting a DRM scheme in place isn’t going to help, is it?
14/11/2008 at 15:19 Colthor says:
Dunno how often other people restart their routers, but ours tends to get turned off overnight. A new IP every day means someone like me could quickly rack up a lot of ‘pirate’ copies…
14/11/2008 at 15:21 The Sombrero Kid says:
@screeg
wow’s drm is near impregnable, so it depends on the drm and how much people want to pirate it
14/11/2008 at 15:22 Myros says:
The anti-DRM folks just got another clip of ammo for their cause … football manager 2009. This has to be the worst day 1 DRM cluster-f*** I have seen so far. Servers not working, phone numbers not working or hanging up before you can finish, people who managed to activate their game late last night try to play today and get an ‘expired’ error and can no longer play, the serial number font is so bad that it is impossible to tell 1s from L or 0 from o or 2 from Z etc, leading to having to try a massive amount of combinations to attempt to guess the code. Bet about right now they wish they had not used any DRM :) The old thing about pirates being able to play the game easier than legal owners seems to be proven true in this case.
Myros
14/11/2008 at 15:23 Quirk says:
@nikos:
You’re going to have to explain what you’re talking about by “in a persistent manner”. Do you mean that the ISPs giving out dynamic IPs usually give out dynamic IPs, and thus the dynamic IPs can be factored out? If they had factored the dynamic IPs out though, they would not be giving it as a possible confusing factor. If, on the other hand, you mean that dynamic IPs are not changing, I think you may need to look up what a dynamic IP is.
And the original article goes into shock and awe at a piracy figure of 90%. It’s echoed in the “so many people” who’re not paying, in the rethink on the necessity of DRM – all of which ends up built on a false foundation if, in fact, piracy represents a very much smaller percentage of users than is being suggested here.
14/11/2008 at 15:24 Dusk says:
Four of my friends have pirated this on PCs which have dynamic IP, using i suspect 100+ independent IPs since release.
Dynamic IPs will skew the results of BOTH PIRATED AND LEGIT versions. So the effects may cancel.
$20 for a non-re sizable flash game is way too much. Hell crysis warhead was only $48 here, and has better textures. I would pay $5, except I never buy thing off the internet.
14/11/2008 at 15:24 Stuk says:
It appears some people here is denying the 90% because of dynamic IPs. It also appears that these are the people who didn’t click through and read the actual blog post from 2DBoy.
They explain why they believe their estimate to be true. The main counterpoint to dynamic IPs is the little checkbox which enables score submission. Which is unchecked by default. And if I were I pirate I would leave unchecked.
So for every 100 IPs someone here has had, I bet there are people (both legit and pirated) who didn’t submit any scores, balancing out the number.
(also most ADSL packages in the UK come with a router, meaning you essentially have a static IP until the router goes off)
14/11/2008 at 15:26 Quirk says:
@nikos:
You’re not talking about sticky IPs, by any chance? Dynamic IPs connected to cable modems etc which only change when the modem is switched off or the DHCP server is reset? Firstly, these still change, just a little less frequently, and secondly many ISPs forcibly reassign IPs anyway to prevent users of their cheapest option from running websites off a local computer.
14/11/2008 at 15:32 Quirk says:
@stuk:
Sorry, but that’s not even remotely a “balancing factor”. That’s another factor entirely, and is essentially unquantifiable.
You can click that checkbox, and submit a dozen towers under a dozen IPs, and be counted a dozen times. Your “balance” lies on the assumption that eleven pirates have downloaded the software and not clicked the box to have their score submitted. What evidence have you for that assumption? None.
Note well that they are not going off the IP at the time the checkbox was clicked, but at the time the score was submitted.
They’re two separate factors, and dynamic IPs are likely to play a much, much more massive role.
14/11/2008 at 15:32 cyrenic says:
@Dusk
I too use texture quality as my baseline for determining the monetary value of a game.
14/11/2008 at 15:33 Ian says:
Isn’t the real point of the article actually quite a positive one? In comparison with a game shipped with DRM, the piracy rate remains about the same — rather than being higher — therefore there seems to be no business justification in implementing a ‘feature’ which does little to protect revenue and much to irritate certain users.
You can argue all you like about the methods of reaching these numbers, but surely the conclusion that 2DBoy are drawing is that developers are better off finding other mechanisms of protecting their revenue than by using the hated DRM? A good thing, angry internet men, no?
14/11/2008 at 15:35 The Sombrero Kid says:
@Dusk
that’s stupid that doesn’t cancel 1 legit copy and 5 pirated copies each with 100 ip’s makes it look like 1 legit copy and 599 illegal copies thats 599:1 instead of 5:1 this is not the traditional definition of ‘canceling’ this is dream money!
14/11/2008 at 15:36 Blah says:
Dunno if anyone’s mentioned this yet, but people who pirate stuff aren’t prone to letting the software phone home anyway (e.g. using the high score table).
14/11/2008 at 15:41 D says:
“for simplicity’s sake, we just assumed those would balance out. so take take the 90% as a rough estimate.”
SCIENCE!!
Making an assumption that:
*Legit multiple dynamic IP’s* will balance out *Pirated versions never connected to server*
Is already making the implicit assumption that for every legit purchase, there will exist 10* pirated versions.
*(insert number of average unique dynamic IP’s assigned to each legit purchase over the sample period.)
14/11/2008 at 15:42 Gap Gen says:
“HEY! Did you hear that people with small feet EARN LESS than people with larger feet? LET’S HAVE A DISCUSSION ON WHY THIS CRUEL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE WITH SMALL FEET IS ALLOWED TO CONTINUE!”
It’s related to penis size.
14/11/2008 at 15:46 YogSo says:
@ Dusk: Four of my friends have pirated this on PCs which have dynamic IP, using i suspect 100+ independent IPs since release.
Dynamic IPs will skew the results of BOTH PIRATED AND LEGIT versions. So the effects may cancel.
I’m afraid it’s quite the opposite: Instead of only adding +4 to the total amount of pirated copies (that would be the real amount), your four friends would appear as if there are 4×100 = 400 more pirates playing the game for free… And that is absolutely ludicrous.
14/11/2008 at 15:46 DSX says:
I was very disappointed to read the 90% figure in the previous posts, but now I’m even more disappointed in how they’re calculating this figure.
“The prevalence of dynamic IPs makes any correlation between unique IPs and users all but impossible to make”
Exactly. As a former network admin, I believe this to be true, it slants the percentage significantly: more then any other statistical variance. For anyone to throw this number around and make a serious claim is *VERY* irresponsible. It undermines tremendously a very real, controversial issue.
It’s exactly like if I stood by housing complex with a single entry road and counted cars going by all day as a means of judging the population, then published it as argument for community zoning laws.
2D Boy: Congrats on World of Goo, Shame on you for hyping a volatile issue with nonsense statistics.
14/11/2008 at 15:47 Jerricho says:
@Ian
Quite the point, Ian. It potentially exsposes the truth of a number of rationalisations.
It’s been stated elsewehre that publishers are terrified of not using DRM for fear of the financial loss. This experiment adds to the weight of FAIL of that arguement.
Equally, Cliffski and others have raised this point, many who use DRM as a justification for piracy have also been invalidated. I say many and not all.
I think 2DBoy are ultimately doing the right thing here even if we disagree with their subsequent measuring techniques, by showing that a DRM free casual title suffers, at most, an equal degree of piracy as one with DRM: thus completely negating any support anyone could have for said DRM.
14/11/2008 at 15:47 Downloads_Plz says:
@Blah
If I had pirated WoG, I would still check the box to submit my scores. Why not, when they’ve already said there’s no DRM whatsoever?
And also for the sake of arguement, lets say that no pirates check that checkbox. In that case, 100% of the supposed “90% piracy rate” is actually coming from legitimate customers.
14/11/2008 at 15:53 Blah says:
@Downloads_Plz:
No DRM, no crime right?
14/11/2008 at 15:58 YogSo says:
@Ian: The problem is, we don’t have real data to compare to anything or to draw any useful conclusion from. Just imagine for a moment that, if they had used some other method, one that doesn’t include counting IPs and hoping for the imbalances to auto-magically correct themselves, the developers had arrived to a different percentage, for example 80 %. That would mean that a game released without DRM was being less pirated that another game with DRM. BUT if you cannot trust the method used, then you cannot trust the result given, and consequently the conclusions are irrelevant…
14/11/2008 at 16:00 Noc says:
@Toziel: That question has been asked, over and over and over again. It’s probably fair to say by now that no, nobody (reasonable) is assuming that every pirated copy is a lost sale.
But if these numbers are accurate . . . if one in ten prospective pirated decided to buy the game instead, sales would double. It’s silly to label every pirated copy a lost sale, but it’s not very much of a stretch to suppose that 10% of the pirated copies might have been sales under different circumstances.
. . .
Which brings up a similar analysis done by the folks at Introversion a while back. Interestingly, they produced almost identical numbers from a completely different data-gathering method: they compared the number of patches downloaded for full games to the number of full games that were purchased. There still is room for error there, with multiple legitimate installs of purchased games in one direction, and unpatched pirated copies in the other. But it’s worth noting that while these are factors in both Introversion’s and 2D Boy’s studies, dynamic IP address propagation is not a factor on Introversion’s end.
Despite this, however, both sets of data seem to match each other quite closely. So while it’s possible that piracy rates vary very widely even among low-cost Indie games, and that the factor of dynamic IP propagation was coincidentally just enough, in the right direction to bring the numbers back in line . . . it’s far more likely that piracy rates just happen to hover around 90%, and that over such a period of time the impact of dynamic IPs is not particularly high. Obviously this would be a stronger assertion if we had a much larger data set and more precise data-gathering methods, but the data we do have seems to match up much too neatly to ignore. Or at least dismiss out of hand.
And it’s worth noting again that even should these numbers vary significantly in either direction, they still show ten times as many pirated copies as they do purchased ones. If we assume a comically large margin of error, say, 50%, and suppose that this error served to inflate the number of pirates . . . then there may only be five times as many pirated copies as purchased ones. This is still a pretty significant figure. It would require a 90% error in favor of piracy in order to bring sold/pirated copies down to a 1:1 ratio.
It would be much better to have more comprehensive figures gathered with more precise methods. But every look at piracy we take keeps coming up with similar figures. Even conservative estimates assuming the possibility of absurdly mitigating factors tell us that pirated games outnumber purchased games by several hundred percent. And though we can quibble over how many hundreds of percent it is, exactly . . . it’s rather silly to imply that because there may be a few less hundreds of percent than there might be that piracy rates are not absurdly significant.
14/11/2008 at 16:04 RichPowers says:
Utterly meaningless. Too many variables involved. And 90% of what, exactly? 90% of 100, 10000, 100000?
The RIAA and MPAA get endless shit from the interwebs for basing their lawsuits on IP addresses. Relying on IP addresses and, in WoG’s case, optionally-checked boxes is an poor way of drawing conclusions. So I agree with DSX here.
Even so, I agree that DRM doesn’t stop those who’d pirate a game.
The real issue, though, is one of perception: does 2D BOY think that making PC games is financially viable? Have they gotten a good return on their investment with WoG?
14/11/2008 at 16:05 Okami says:
RockPiratesShotgun…
14/11/2008 at 16:08 Craymen Edge says:
It’s not technically murder if you kill someone who calls WoG a flash game, is it?
14/11/2008 at 16:09 Jerricho says:
@Craymen
No. In fact you get awarded a subscription to Edge magazine.
14/11/2008 at 16:11 The Sombrero Kid says:
@RichPowers
it’s also about how these figures are perceived by less reasonable developers that’s why it’s important to show how little meaning they have
14/11/2008 at 16:23 Mogs says:
Much ado about nothing. As long as they cover their costs, they should just be happy that so many people are playing their game. Most of those pirating it probably wouldn’t consider buying such a game anyway.
14/11/2008 at 16:25 Mark O'Brien says:
I really hope they retract this statement.
It seems quite obvious that this is not a sensible way to estimate the figure. The only thing we can say about what we know about piracy rates is that we don’t know anything .
As one of the many people who feels that DRM is harmful I feel really disappointed that this utterly unreliable statistic is likely to be quoted endlessly by corporate DRM advocates.
Personally I would have contributed many IP addressed to this list. My router crashes relatively frequently when it isn’t in use (overnight usually) and I get a new IP address every time I restart it.
I have also played it on two different computers in two different locations.
14/11/2008 at 16:26 Jim Rossignol says:
150k, as quoted in the original thread.
14/11/2008 at 16:28 Kanchi says:
Very smart idea to release WoG in europe a month later.
14/11/2008 at 16:30 Paul Moloney says:
WILL GYPSY EU IMMIGRANTS PC PIRATES HURT BRITAIN’S SWANS?
P. (with a little help from the Daily Mail Headline Generator: http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/)
14/11/2008 at 16:33 Xercies says:
The problem is as the second guy said, as this is an indie game many people will download it for free to see what it is like and then buy the game if they like it.
Also the way they did it I don’t think is very accurate. Also as many people said DRM does not affect the piracy rate, if anything it increases it. Just look at spore for example.
14/11/2008 at 16:35 ascagnel says:
One element that hasn’t come up in this discussion is how WoG is a “laptop-friendly” game. That is, its hardware requirements are slow, and can be enjoyed for just a few minutes at a time.
The laptop-friendly element means people will be moving about with the game from place to place, and more importantly from IP to IP. I currently have the demo installed on my laptop, and in the past week I’ve fired it up at least six times in six different locations, and I would imagine in most cases with different IP addresses.
Considering that the entire PC industry is moving away from the monolithic desktop and towards more and more portable systems (i.e.: Netbooks, ultraportables, the iPhone and other smartphones as a stretch, etc), this type of game probably gets moved around more than most. I gladly play WoG on my laptop, but something like Fallout 3 is just too much for it to handle, and is too much for many laptops, and my guess is that it would see far different numbers if it were to have the same type of piracy monitoring that 2DBOY uses.
Or it could just be my irrational desire for humanity to get better desperately wishing that the numbers weren’t this lopsided. Especially as a college (University for the non-cheeseburger-inhaling-Yanks out there) student considering joining the games industry.
Noc, you mention the margin of error on this. I’d like to see some serious numbers that we could do some serious crunching on. The bigger organizations might not be so wont to release these figures, but smaller developers like Introversion and 2DBOY might be more willing. Give us the sales numbers, and we can scour common piracy sources (BitTorrent trackers, file sharing fora, etc) that provide some type of tracking data. My guess is piracy on PC is pretty bad, due to the open nature of the platform, but that it isn’t as bad as 90%.
On an entirely different track, I’m a fan of Stardock’s DRM. Instead of punishing the user with disc checks, or requiring online authentication/login/activation, they instead provide a carrot instead of a stick as a bonus to their games. Registering a valid CD-Key with Stardock nets you lifetime upgrades, the ability to download the game from anywhere, online access to manuals, and all sorts of nice addons. This could work for the standard shooter, which has both online and single-player modes. Call of Duty 4 had an awesome single-player campaign, but it wasn’t long enough to justify the purchase. Give the SP away for free, or maybe steal Epic’s idea and give up to the conclusion away for free, and people would likely be hooked and would spend the money on the multiplayer (and maybe the ending). Epic’s model would work here, since people are willing to put up with much more BS on a free product than they are with a paid product.
</rant>
14/11/2008 at 16:36 Jochen Scheisse says:
I really wonder if it wouldn’t be able to confirm these numbers with a series of experiments, putting wothless test data online in the web and then downloading it with a number of test accounts over a time of, say, 2 months, using the same providers and procedures normal torrent users would.
14/11/2008 at 16:37 Hypocee says:
Yeah, this figure actually makes me quite chipper, given that it’s orders of magnitude worth of gibberish in the ‘worst case’ direction. I love you 2DBoy, but calling this asspull an ‘experiment’ is worse than just saying ‘oops we forgot to include a way to actually measure this’. Come back in a couple years with per-purchase EXEs or .inis that send a unique key.
14/11/2008 at 16:39 ascagnel says:
@Jochen Scheisse: Good idea, but that method wouldn’t work. Torrent search/trackers typically have a mechanism for users to warn others about junk.
@Hypocee: Unique IDs and per-purchase executables are DRM, just not particularly onerous.
14/11/2008 at 16:40 Jochen Scheisse says:
Oh wait, I just realized they controlled it over the high scores so my idea is nonsense. Also, while the dynamic IP thing will probably drive the pirate number way down (and not even out with legitimate copies, because legitimate copies with dynamic IP would also count against the pirated number), one has to account for all the people who do not use uplink features because they use a pirated game and fear something evil to happen.
14/11/2008 at 16:45 Quirk says:
@Noc:
When dynamic IPs are involved, it’s impossible to call 50% a comically large margin of error, because any individual machine with a dynamic IP will, over time, have an ever larger ratio of IPs to copies bought. Even if the results seem superficially to agree with someone else’s study which uses a better method, they’re junk. Throw them out. You’ll never get any science done that way.
Introversion’s case, on the other hand, is substantially stronger and worth discussing. 10+ times as many patch downloads as games sold most definitely suggests that piracy is significant in their case, as it seems absurd that each registered user would install the software an average of ten times. There will be possible other factors, such as whether they’re counting disconnected downloads as well as completed ones, but none of them that I can think of has the power to multiply a single user into hundreds.
Still, we need more good, hard data before the extent of piracy or the impact of DRM can be properly judged. Is Introversion’s piracy rate a common level for indie games, or is it an outlier? Results like this don’t tell us.
14/11/2008 at 16:46 thefanciestofpants says:
Personally I don’t see anything at all hypocritical about feeling worse that an Indie dev is being dicked out of their fair pay over a large corporation.
Then again I’m rabidly anti-corporate.
Never mind.
14/11/2008 at 16:46 RichPowers says:
@Jim: Thanks; I didn’t see that figure in their blog posts.
As Mogs said, there are only two figures worth noting at the end of the day: expenditure and revenue. Only 2D BOY can say whether or not releasing a PC version has been a financial success.
14/11/2008 at 16:54 Jochen Scheisse says:
Movies have it better. They can’t be pirated as easily and as perfectly. I bet if your average pirated copy in the first 6 months after release would force you to use the lowest detail settings and mono sound, sales would be better.
14/11/2008 at 16:55 Quater says:
I haven’t had time to read all the responses here but I’d like to cast my tuppence in the direction of those who say that, given all the variables, the true figure is probably nowhere near 90%.
In any case, something I haven’t heard said much about the piracy issue: consider the idea that a massive proportion of piracy is probably done by people who actually wouldn’t have bought the game anyway if there was no way of getting it for free. Sitting at home and downloading a game for free is a lot easier than paying money for it, and that facilitates a lot of people simply playing a lot of games they wouldn’t have bothered with otherwise, so a considerable proportion of the piracy figure does not necessarily constitute lost sales.
It’s just an interesting little thing to ponder – if I procure for free something that, be it due to preference, lack of money or simply lack of interest, I wouldn’t have paid for anyway, is that still directly harmful to the content provider? It’s purely semantic, of course, since there’s no way to prove whether you would or would not have paid for it hypothetically, but worth considering nonetheless when thinking about the problem of virtual theft.
14/11/2008 at 16:59 The Sombrero Kid says:
@ascagnel you stole my first statement and passed it off as your own much later so that people will think you spawn statements equal to my utter genius! i know your game i’m watching you!!!!!!
14/11/2008 at 17:00 francisco says:
In this case the demo was enough for me to buy it. Usually I download the full game, test it to see if I like and buy it. If I don´t like the game I just uninstall it and won´t play it again. The problem is that download I did counts on “Pirate Downloads”, even if I downloaded it and uninstalled.
Most games don´t give a decent demo and there are lots of factors about this.
World of Goo was different, I played the demo, instantly bought it and told friends to play it. 2 of them played the demo and also bought the game because it is not a matter of money for guys 18+ with a job.
(but I did like the postpone for GTA 4 as I bought fallout 3 and left4dead this month).
14/11/2008 at 17:02 Hypocee says:
If you don’t make the user punch it in or include any mechanism for breaking things based on it, a UID is neither DRM – no ‘management’ – nor onerous in any way. ‘Server, this submission hashes to the key 0x03ea72c.’ ‘Thanks, Client. That means this ID, which is in our sales records and thus probably not keygenned, has connected from 10 different IPs in the last week. Compare that to the median and standard deviation among our IDs, and that means…probably one legit and a copy.’ Or whatever.
The thought occurs, this is a sales announcement: 15,000 copies sold on PC through their website. At $20.00 per, that’s $300K… assume, say, a 20% cut for bandwidth/server/ad costs on their low-overhead business and you get $240K. That’s just about okay for 2.5 guys in SF for two years, AFAIK. So that’s rather disappointing. Obviously that doesn’t include Steam or Wii revenue, and hopefully my WAG about overheads is on the high side. I don’t see this as a title with a very long tail, though :(
14/11/2008 at 17:05 Adam Hepton says:
This saddens me. Massively.
14/11/2008 at 17:10 ascagnel says:
@The Sombrero Kid: What we said is pretty much equal, but its seen as maybe the best indicator of piracy so far.
14/11/2008 at 17:12 tmp says:
Hmm so in a nutshell…
- if a game has no DRM, 9 people out of 10 will choose to play it for free rather than pay for it,
- if a game does have DRM, 9 people out of 10 will still choose to play it for free rather than pay for it.
ITT: the obvious?
14/11/2008 at 17:18 Gap Gen says:
Quater: The piracy debate is a circular thing, but some counter-arguments:
There are no doubt many pirates who *would* buy games if piracy didn’t exist, but who are too cheap to otherwise. There’s a reasonable demo available, so the “try-before-you-buy” nature of things doesn’t really apply. For example, no doubt there are many people who, if TVs were piratable, wouldn’t dream of spending hundreds on a new TV, but since they aren’t, grudgingly part with their cash. That said, this is hypothetical, but useful for future considerations if indeed piracy were to be combatted effectively.
Downloading World of Goo from 2D Boy’s site is very, very easy. Especially if you have PayPal. Although some inveterate pirates might have seen it on Steam and immediately looked for a torrent.
14/11/2008 at 17:19 Nahual says:
I love this game, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but this header really irks me, and I’m actually disappointed RPS is running it now too.
The figure is totally askew, I bought the game on day one from Steam, installed it on my laptop, and have played the tower building from no less than 15 different ip addresses.
Offices, restaurants with wireless connections, parents and friends houses and once from the airport. Not to mention my own IP address at home changes at least once a week.
But apparently I’ve contributed 14 times more to the “pirated” portion of the statistic than I did to the legally purchased part.
I wish they would have related number of unique user names to purchased copies, because while there no doubt some people will change theirs from time to time when someone else is playing, the user name tends to remain the same for each unique person, i know mine hasn’t changed.
14/11/2008 at 17:22 chesh says:
rather tangential to the main discussion, but can we really vote on Braid? Seeing as it hasn’t seen a proper PC release yet.
14/11/2008 at 17:24 Broseph says:
This far down the road it doesn’t matter if it’s a 20, 40, or 80% pirating ratio. It also doesn’t matter that people (supposedly) pirate it to try it, then go buy the game. The fact of the matter is games are pirated enough that the marketing divisions and people in charge of budgets (read: people who have the say in how the game is made, what it’s released on, and if it has DRM) see high enough numbers that they’ll decide the PC platform isn’t the way to go, and DRM must be included. And it’s not like these people hate all of us PC gamers. Their job is to run numbers and see how viable a profit is. If they thought releasing a huge budget DRM-free game on PC was the best way to rake money in for them, THEY WOULD DO IT. It’s their job to find the best release method for people to buy the product!
It also doesn’t help when as a developer you see the thing you spent your 40 hours a week doing pirated 55,727 times (just a quick add up from World of Goo results on Demonoid), giving the impression that all your work wasn’t even worth 20 measly bucks to people.
People need to get over their lame moral justifications they have in their heads (which boils down to “wahhh, I want it, but don’t want to spend my monies”) and either buy it or don’t steal it. Good luck getting through life and expecting everything you spend your money on to be worth every penny.
Valve, please add a game rental feature to Steam!
14/11/2008 at 17:27 Hoernchen says:
Delaying the european release and counting dynamic ips as unique ips is the way to go if you want to whine about piracy. Seriously, duh !
14/11/2008 at 17:27 Tom says:
Why didn’t they just use Steamworks?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
It’s FREE. FFS it’s FREE! And clearly aimed at indie devs.
As has been clearly demonstrated by every game Valve have released. It works pretty damn well.
I personally don’t think that DRM is pointless. 2D Boy could have earned the money they deserved. Or at least a lot more of it.
The bad thing about DRM is how piss poor it’s implementation has been to date.
I don’t mean to sound like a Valve fan boy but Steams DRM clearly does work very well. An article on Valve’s opinions on DRM and the extent to they suffer from piracy would be extremely interesting I’d imagine.
14/11/2008 at 17:29 Nahual says:
@Mark O’Brien
I agree with you, the worst part of this silly number is that it’s going to get quoted till the actual zombie apocalypse by DRM advocates looking for excuses to make life harder for those of us who actually like to support game developers.
14/11/2008 at 17:39 Nick says:
Because Steamworks is only just released?
14/11/2008 at 17:39 Myst says:
In these situations I try to look at things from th perspective of my younger brother, if he didn’t pirate it he wouldn’t get to play it since our parents don’t like buying things online(old fashioned). So it’s either he plays is by pirating it or doesn’t play it and doesn’t buy it. The company isn’t seeing a dollar either way but him on the other hand misses out on a game. So I don’t blame him for pirating at all, if anything I blame our parents for pretty much forcing him too.
14/11/2008 at 17:43 qrter says:
Except that DRM plainly doesn’t work. Games still get pirated, quite easily and quickly, in fact.
I would propose that the fact of the matter is much more likely to be that the publishers have gotten mired in the practice of implementing DRM, are too scared of other possible solutions and have no real idea how to solve the problem themselves. They have to do something, so they do what they’ve been doing all along.
Except that they haven’t even really ever tried doing this – how would they know if it could work or not?
Granted, chances of it working are considerably lower with a big budget game – those attract a lot of people, including people who just don’t give a shit and download everything they can get their virtual hands on.
14/11/2008 at 17:50 Tom says:
It’s been out for about 8 months now.
Myst – I feel for you and your brother! Nothing better than sitting down, having a cuppa, something backed and a J with the folks! LOL. Can you even begin to imagine that happening in your household? ;)
14/11/2008 at 17:59 jk says:
ppl ! read Quirk’s first post….
I think the developers could possibly write something into their game that would count the numbers of different IP’s that the application used to send the highscores… I’m almost sure there is a way to do this. And it would show how many ppl are using dynamic IP’s .. can’t be that difficult – and would clear up things a bit.
14/11/2008 at 18:02 Jochen Scheisse says:
Yes, but wouldn’t that be considered Spyware?
14/11/2008 at 18:03 obo says:
Did anyone bitching about 2D Boy OR about piracy read the 2D Boy post?
The entire point of quoting any number is to say that their rate of piracy is the same as games with DRM and that it’s proof that DRM is a waste of time that doesn’t work.
14/11/2008 at 18:19 Devan says:
If 2DBoy was planning on running this kind of test, they should have uploaded a generated hardware signature with score submissions. This could anonymously yet uniquely identify repeated submissions from the same computer, even with dynamic IP addresses.
A much more reliable (although dubious) method would be to quietly embed a serial number into each executable downloaded (when one user downloads multiple times, they all have the same number), and then upload that with score submissions. They couldn’t claim true DRM-free, but they could easily tally up the username-per-serial-number ratio or hardware-signatures-per-serial-number ratio and call out the ones outside reasonable usage as piracy.
After all, if the piracy rate is really that high, you would probably end up with only a few executables distributed hundreds or thousands of times, rather than all of them used ten times.
14/11/2008 at 18:22 D says:
@Jim: 90% piracy of 150,000?
In the first thread, 150,000 was the number of towers in World of Goo. What you’re saying is that they sold 15,000 copies.
This is wrong, because you’re confusing the matter. We don’t know their sales, nor their measured amount of users.
And what they did was this: Piracy = UniqueIP’s/Sales. Two numbers unknown to all of us. If UniqueIP’s (150,000 or more users multiple dynamic IP’s), is maybe 1.5 millions, a sales amount of 150,000 would give you the imaginary piracy rate of 90%.
Over a longer timespan, with no additional sales and no additional piracy, the piracy rate would go up.
So again, implicitly assuming that (amount of pirates who do not connect) equals (amount of unique IP’s per user) is just bad thinking. It has no reason to be true. Consequently, saying “90%” is propaganda, regardless of how close it is to other studies.
This has been a really mismanaged discussion by RPS :( We all agree piracy is bad, at 10% or 50%, but ignoring bad science just because the results are stunning – well, I guess I expected more from the four best journalists in the webmachine.
14/11/2008 at 18:24 Devan says:
@obo
Statistics that show World of Goo had even less piracy than similar titles which had DRM would be even better at proving that point.
2DBoy is doing a great thing, but the method used to calculate the statistic is systemically unreliable. For such a widely advertised experiment, they should provide much more concrete results.
14/11/2008 at 18:28 Sithinious says:
I bought it. Can’t get it to run.
I’m considering looking for a torrent to see if maybe that version will run. I’ve had success in the past with “bought” games not running right whereas the torrent copies run fine.
14/11/2008 at 18:35 slang says:
I like 2DBoy and I paid for their game but quite hostely those numbers are pointless.
It would be far more interesting to see how much profit the PC version generated in comparison to the regioncoded (!) Wii Ware version (barely any piracy but royalties galore!). Am I right to assume that – despite the oh so big amount of evil freeriders – the PC version was far more lucrative than the Wii one? Those would be the numbers I’m interested in
14/11/2008 at 18:37 D says:
Devan: Exactly agreed. Hardware fingerprinting would be the correct way of counting the actual amount of users.
Ofcourse then you get number which only accurately identifies “rate of pirates who are stupid enough to click ‘connect to internet’”.
But getting to that number is an infinitely better experiment than sitting in your office going.. “hmm.. mm.. 90 sounds around right.”
Sithinious: The torrents won’t have anything changed from the purchased version, so I doubt you’ll have luck with that.
14/11/2008 at 18:44 Funky Badger says:
Astonished by the cheapness of some – $20 is too much for Goo, what’s that in real money, 4-ish Beer Tokens? So less than a decent night out.
14/11/2008 at 19:00 Tei says:
DRM is not copyprotection.
Copyprotection is not DRM.
Copyprotection is to stop people from making copys for friends, or for random internet people.
DRM is to stop *any* user rights, and limit his use of the program, say… make so the game is only playable monday, or other crazy restriction. Of course, is unfair and evil.
Region locking is a type of DRM. 3 activations is a type of DRM. You need the original cd inserted is (IMHO) a copy protection.
You can have a game with DRM, and withouth copy protection. Hell.. .you can distribute a full game as “shareware”, but have some type of DRM, like the ability to remotelly disable the game, If you don’t like the guy, or his country, his sex, or his religion.
Say.. a guy is black, and you don’t like black people, DRM let you disable his game, while all other games will work. DRM is “power” of the creator, after the sale.
14/11/2008 at 19:07 jalf says:
Yes, but should we avoid pointing out flaws in their argument just because we happen to like their conclusion? That’d be silly, wouldn’t it? Like not pointing out the flaws in the claim that the moon is made of cheese, simply because we like cheese, and we *want* it to be true.
Even though I like the point they’re trying to make (piracy is a big issue, but DRM doesn’t fix it), their 90% figure is still completely misleading and worse than useless, and I think that’s worth pointing out.
14/11/2008 at 19:10 A-Scale says:
I don’t waste my money on beer, either. Times are hard and I make very little as a student. $20 dollars is just over 2 hours of work for me, or a meal for me and my girl. It’s not a fortune, but isn’t pocket change either, especially when the game is this simple. It’s beautiful and I really like it, but for what it is the price is just too high.
14/11/2008 at 19:13 A-Scale says:
I’m pretty sure copy protection is a form of digital rights management, friendo.
14/11/2008 at 19:20 Mark O'Brien says:
@Tei
I’d say copy protection is a specific type of DRM. DRM is really any technology that let’s the creator of a digital product have some control over how that product may or may not be used.
This includes allowing or disallowing people from making copies.
I don’t really think it’s inherently evil, as you make out. I just think it’s harmful (especially EA’s) because it is next to impossible to make it uncrackable and so it ends up just causing problems for your customers.
If a truly effective DRM scheme could be created which offered genuine benefits to legitimate purchasers, I’d be all for it.
I think Steam’s is a good example of what good DRM offer to real customers, although I believe even that can be cracked by pirates to some extent.
14/11/2008 at 19:22 D says:
But he makes a good point – theres a difference. People don’t react adversely to DRM because it, shocker, demands that they pay up.
They react adversely when it restricts their rights to use their product. Nitpick the words all you like.
14/11/2008 at 19:37 Obdicut says:
Dynamic IP addresses FTW.
14/11/2008 at 20:05 rage says:
NERD RAGE enabled.
What the fuck. I know it’s been said over a hundred times now, but…
THE NUMBER OF IPs IS A HORRIBLE METRIC WHEN MOST ISPs ASSIGN YOU A NEW ONE EVERY 24 HOURS.
Seriously, what the fuck. That is all.
14/11/2008 at 20:13 Film11 says:
I’d like to see what the percentage piracy rate is after the publishers decide to allow the game to be sold in Europe again on Steam. I honestly have no idea why they decided to pull it like they did after the first day.
14/11/2008 at 20:22 Ixtab says:
I think a much more reasonable way of measuring it would be to only take the uploads of scores for a short time period, that way there would be no chance for people with dynamic IPs to have the IP change. However you then have the problem with people not all playing at the same time which would skew your results. You could somewhat reduce the effect of that error by repeatedly taking measurements, each over a short period of time, but it would still likely be a significant error.
Assuming the errors balance is really quite an unreasonable assumption as you have no way to quantify either of them or even estimate their effect.
14/11/2008 at 20:24 wyrmsine says:
I’d have to chime in on the Dynamic IP thing : one half of the telco duopoly in my province assigns Dynamic IPs (not sure about the other). Just for once, it’d be nice to see the job of estimating piracy given to someone who knows what they’re doing.
14/11/2008 at 20:25 cliffski says:
“It’s not a fortune, but isn’t pocket change either, especially when the game is this simple”
So simple games are bad games? Chess is simple. But it’s pretty awesome as games go. Game design is hard. Even if the end results looks simple, its likely the 20th or 30th attempt at making a fun game.
You should pay for fun games, not complex ones. Complex does not mean fun will be had.
14/11/2008 at 20:42 LionsPhil says:
Just wait until they release the Linux version—you’ll get “FreeGoo” springing up, the GPL-compatable reimplementation. Rampant copycattery (so as to shun anything which costs money) is how Linux gaming works.
14/11/2008 at 20:43 Paul Moloney says:
How on earth can you not get a 2D non-DRMed game to run? What are you trying to run it on?
P.
14/11/2008 at 20:46 Saflo says:
Times are hard and I make very little as a student.
Heavens, why didn’t you just say so? Take all you need, lad, and best of luck in all future endeavors.
14/11/2008 at 20:50 Erlam says:
I find it pretty disgusting people are attacking them over this. They ran a study, and told exactly how they did it, and then released the figures. Which, frankly, are quite believable. They do not go on to the bizarre tangents people are claiming they did.
Yeah, some people who downloaded it probably bought it – that wasn’t their stat. They said 90% of the copies of the game were pirated – which is not hard to imagine.
Hell, take this quote of theirs: “either way, ricochet shipped with DRM, world of goo shipped without it, and there seems to be no difference in the outcomes. we can’t draw any conclusions based on two data points, but i’m hoping that others will release information about piracy rates so that everyone could see if DRM is the waste of time and money that we think it is.”
Jesus, everyone back off these poor guys, they just released a stat they found, they didn’t rape your saviour or something.
14/11/2008 at 21:07 A-Scale says:
I didn’t steal it. Keep your not so clever English sarcasm to yourself.
14/11/2008 at 21:08 mejobloggs says:
The fact that there are dynamic IP addresses, and that 90% of people have them, make the “90% people pirate this game” completely pointless
It probably could be as low as 10%, but you wouldn’t notice
14/11/2008 at 21:09 A-Scale says:
I think you’re confused as to what I mean by complexity. Chess is complex because you can play it in an infinite number of ways by using distinct playstyles. Each WoG level is designed to be completed in one, or at best two distinct ways. That’s it. The level of replayability is very low. Chess has been played for thousands of years. While I like WoG, I doubt it will hold up quite that long.
14/11/2008 at 21:14 A-Scale says:
Another note: Team Fortress 2 is a complex game. I’ve played 2 fort literally hundreds of times, and had a riot every time. Do you really think you could get more than 5 plays out of a given level of WoG without getting completely bored? After just playing the demo of WoG I’m pretty much done. The only reason I would want to continue is to get the rest of the story line, which is cute and brilliant. The click and drag polygon based gameplay is very one dimensional, and doesn’t lend itself to multiple playthroughs.
I’ve probably clocked 200+ hours in TF2. How many hours will you get out of WoG? 2? 10? 20 at the VERY most?
Then how the hell can you justify pricing WoG at 20 dollars when TF2 also costs 20 dollars? Even in the very best scenario, your dollars are buying you 1/10th of the gameplay with WoG that you get in TF2.
So in my opinion WoG is overpriced for what it is. If you don’t think it is, please buy it. I think this developer is quite smart and I like his style, I just don’t want to buy his game.
Sorry for the triple post.
14/11/2008 at 21:23 footle says:
This has to be the most depressing thread I’ve seen on here, even given some of the DRM-hate-rubbish that’s been clogging up the comments threads recently.
90% of posts in this thread seem like an apology for piracy. Who gives two hoots whether the true percentage of pirates playing the game is 10%, 20% or 90%? All it means is that the PC is probably a less viable platform for interesting games than, for example, WiiWare.
I’m aware that I’m making an assumption about actual sales on both platforms, royalty rates etc. – but there’s considerably more console games for sale in both the town I live in, and the town I work in, than there are PC games: no shops in either sell PC games anymore – and I doubt this is coincidence.
The stats from Ricochet are only part of the story – and I disagree with 2dboy’s reading of them with respect to DRM. I read it making the assumption that the pirates just go elsewhere and play something else when the crack doesn’t work. If the pirate couldn’t go elsewhere – and had to make the choice between paying (hey – perhaps they might feel that morally it’s right to reward the creators!) and not playing [b]any[/b] game, we’d then have a more interesting comparison of the effectiveness of DRM.
(Disclaimer. I pre-ordered World Of Goo. I’ve played it on my PC up until the Epilogue, at which point it crashed and killed my save: I haven’t got around to working through it again yet. My girlfriend is slowly working her way through it on her Macbook. This is one outward facing IP address, that’s probably been reassigned dynamically a couple of time. )
14/11/2008 at 21:31 cyrenic says:
@A-Scale
If you measure games against TF2 for value, you’re not going to find anything that matches it :P. TF2 is probably the best single value in gaming I can think of, if you count games to come out in the last few years. And they haven’t even released all the free content for it yet.
14/11/2008 at 21:32 A-Scale says:
Maybe this is just me, but don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’m really tired of the “consoles are the messiah” chant. There are methods of dealing with piracy. I bet WoG sold far more copies of their product on Steam than on their site. Had they made their game a Steam exclusive, the piracy rate would have been 0%.
And for the record, there are console pirates too. That’s where the percentages factor in. Piracy is reality, and if more devs move to consoles so will the pirates.
14/11/2008 at 21:40 cyrenic says:
False. Maybe if WoG was a multiplayer game they could have dropped piracy rates dramatically through Steam, but single player Steam games get cracked too.
14/11/2008 at 21:46 Muzman says:
Mostly people a being a bit defensive about but attacking them, no generally not. And no, if you do a study people are supposed to put your data through the wringer. That’s how science works. It’s got to be a lot better than ‘believable’.
Some of the possible inflationary factors in the method so far are quite serious and should be looked at (although calling them alarmists like some are would seem to be ignoring their stated purpose; something which sections of the media and industry are no doubt doing as well).
Based on interviews and trade show presentations it seems the security industry holds the games industry in thrall, and game makers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (more, probably) on what is essentially voodoo. Hopefully 2dboy will continue to dig into their stats and open up a few cracks in this situation. My chief worry is that it’ll end up being a full time job for them.
14/11/2008 at 21:47 Tom says:
I just can’t quite get my head around the fact people are attacking them. Especially when they follow it up with:
“We can’t draw any conclusions based on two data points, but i’m hoping that others will release information about piracy rates so that everyone could see if DRM is the waste of time and money that we think it is.”
Makes me wonder how many rats we have on-board and how many of them are illiterate… strike that, f*cking retarded.
LMAO… oh. my. dog.
14/11/2008 at 21:51 Tom says:
Also, don’t know about the rest of you but my IP has changed twice. Once when I upgraded from modem to BT Broadband roughly when it first came out. Then again when I switched to NTL about 2 years ago. That’s over a rather long time period. 15 years at a guess. Thought I’d throw that out there.
My understanding of Dyn IPs is that they’re a fail safe for ISPs in case things go proper pear shaped there end, not a regularity. Every 24 hours… sorry but this has to be said… LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
14/11/2008 at 21:52 jalf says:
At a wild guess, I’d say anyone considering selling a PC game would give a lot more than two hoots to know the correct number. Because, you know, that number may determine whether their game is going to be profitable or not.
And those of us who *play* PC games also care because if developers wrongly believe the PC platform to be unviable, based on made-up numbers, we don’t get to play as many PC games.
No, 90% of the posts in this thread are not “an apology” for anything. They simply, as surprising as it may be, don’t share your preconceived beliefs.
14/11/2008 at 21:56 Tom says:
LMAO!!!!… again… of god… it never ends
14/11/2008 at 21:57 fulis says:
Is there no way the people playing the demo counted towards this number?
14/11/2008 at 22:04 Scott B says:
STEAM motherfuckers, I login from 5 machines and play games.
14/11/2008 at 22:12 Scott B says:
OK, these numbers are totally ridiculous.
Most consumer internet is DHCP based, with the consumer’s IP changing every 24 hours – this means that if I buy the game and play it on day 1 I contribute 1 sale & 1 hit on the piracy metric. Fine, still 1:1 after day 1.
Day 2 I contribute a hit to the piracy metric, no new sale, day 3, 1 more hit, etc.. Say I play a little bit every day for 15 days – at the end of this time it looks like 1 sale and 15 pirated copies. I’m not even accounting for people who bought on STEAM and play at 3 or 4 locations.
These numbers are so wildly, terribly inaccurate that they’re good for nothing but laughs but the damage potential they have for the gaming industry is fucking damning.
14/11/2008 at 22:14 Iain "DDude" Dawson says:
I plan to buy this as soon as I can on steam.
14/11/2008 at 22:17 A-Scale says:
You don’t understand the way dynamic IPs work.
14/11/2008 at 22:23 qrter says:
I don’t think anyone is ‘attacking’ anyone else – the problem with the whole PC piracy discussion is that actual facts have always been sketchy, to say the least.
The problem when releasing a stat like “90% is pirated” is that it becomes an unchecked ‘fact’ (I mean, RPS didn’t bother to check it either) and it gets copied as fact all over the place, with people running with the implications of such a statistic. I just listened to the latest Lan Party podcast (what one used to be GFW Radio) and they even mention it briefly (in the last five minutes), how horrible 90% pirated copies are.
If this shows anything it is perhaps that the gaming press tends to copy/paste info a bit too much, perhaps.
It would be quite refreshing if there were some actual reliable statistics around, now the monster that is PC piracy keeps fluctuating in size (depending whether you listen to rabid pirate defenders or foaming-at-the-mouth publishers), from a tiny tick to a planet-sized elephant.
Although I don’t agree with Erlam that their statistics are convincing (and 2D Boy didn’t just release a stat, they were drawing a tentative conclusion from it), I do agree with him that it would be helpful if more developers/publishers would release this kind of information, albeit in a form that makes a bit more sense, perhaps. ;)
14/11/2008 at 22:36 Muzman says:
Thought I’d fix that for ya ;)
14/11/2008 at 22:46 Digit says:
Ok, I’m going to go buy this now. Poor guys, I have more than enough to play and love the idea of this game – yet that doesn’t help the developers much.
14/11/2008 at 22:47 kf76 says:
DHCP Internet connections do not change very often in my experience. Certainly not every 24 hours, unless you’re on dialup and disconnect every day.
14/11/2008 at 23:17 RichPowers says:
@Erlam: This earlier comment says it best:
2D Boy: Congrats on World of Goo, Shame on you for hyping a volatile issue with nonsense statistics.
People are criticizing the faults in the study. If you conduct a study, and then explain you methodology on the interwebs, expect people to pick it apart (as they should).
The gaming press is notorious for perpetuating stupid memes (PC IS TEH DEAD); now people will quote this 90% piracy rate study as if it means something. I’m kinda disappointed to see this laughable “study” appear on RPS as if it has merit.
14/11/2008 at 23:40 MedO says:
@kf76, Tom: It all depends on where you are. At least in Germany, all major consumer household DSL providers disconnect you once every 24 hours. I think it’s pretty safe to say that over 50% of all internet users in Germany are connected in this way. The DSL routers you get here can make this behaviour almost transparent, since they reconnect automatically (getting assigned new IP in the process), and there is even a setting in most routers that lets you choose to “move” this forced disconnect to a timespan you can set (this is achieved by the router by disconnecting early sometimes).
Please don’t assume that things like this are the same all over the world.
14/11/2008 at 23:50 Devan says:
~Dynamic IP lesson time~
Every time a computer boots, it uses DHCP to request an IP address from the DHCP server (machines with static IPs don’t need to, but very few residential internet customers have static IPs). The DHCP server at your ISP then offers your computer an address to use. By default, most servers offer the same address your computer got last time it asked (it identifies your computer by the MAC address unique to your network card). This address is then leased to your machine until the lease expires, which can be any amount of time the administrator chooses (one day, one week or two weeks is common). If you don’t renew the lease before it expires, that address may be given to someone else and you will get a different one.
Depending on your ISP and computer usage, you may keep getting the same IP address for years or you may get random new ones quite regularly. Large private networks such as schools and workplaces can be set up to have many computers sharing one address (as 2DBoy points out) or each computer using many different addresses over time. If you like to play WoG in computer class and tend to sit at different computers each time, you’ve already inflated this piracy statistic.
My main point is that Dynamic Addressing is very unpredictable and is used differently all over the world. It’s simply not a valid measure for tracking piracy.
14/11/2008 at 23:58 Salen says:
“It’s pointed out below that dynamic IP addresses could have a dramatic effect on this figure. I’ve no idea at all, but it would make sense that this could skew the results.”
I really don’t mean to be rude, but reporting on a subject that you do not understand is not a good idea.
It makes me very sad for our fancy internet based media when this nonsense story spreads around the world, usually showing the writer hasn’t properly researched what’s going on. For instance, GU Comics has already picked it up. How many of their readers will check where these numbers came from, and how many will remember that nice round 90% figure? 5 pages of comments so far over there, and no mention of dynamic IP addresses yet.
I think that this would be a much nicer story if it were more about 2D Boy’s interesting reaction, and how a well placed (and poorly based) statistic can burst out over the internet within a few hours.
15/11/2008 at 00:19 malkav11 says:
It’s not impossible that there are that many pirates stupid enough to check a “please send feedback to the people I’ve stolen from” button. I’m frankly amazed at how many people were apparently dim enough to try to connect to official multiplayer servers for…whatever the game was where someone was drawing piracy stats from server connects. Or apparently request tech support on games they don’t own. But it *is* a rather dim thing to do. That plus the dynamic IP thing make these numbers fundamentally useless.
I’d really like to see some large-scale, reliable data on a lot of things related to piracy. I think it’s ridiculous to be making major decisions like ending PC development and slapping your legitimate users with reams of onerous DRM based on a lot of conjecture and fear. (To head off any confusion – not talking about World of Goo or 2D Boy in this paragraph.)
15/11/2008 at 02:02 Garrett says:
This is a moronic argument that hinges entirely on 2D Boy’s surprising ignorance of how dynamic IPs work. For those with routers, dynamic IPs are issued regularly (when restarting, updating ethernet drivers, manually requesting a new IP, having a power cut, losing the Wifi signal, etc.); these events guarantee at least one address per day, and often three or more.
An avid World of Goo fan using a dynamic IP might contribute 50+ addresses to the database in any given month, and that’s probably a conservative estimate. Multiply this by the large number of customers using dynamic IPs, and you’ve automatically got 30+ imaginary “pirates” for every legitimate buyer.
Every game is copied, this is a fact; however I have no sympathy whatsoever for 2D Boy’s imaginary “piracy” dilemma because his stats are false and baseless. If he tried to use this data for formal field of research he would be laughed out of the room and become a subject of ridicule; instead, he has earned the sympathy of those with little or no understanding of how significant dynamic IPs really are, and this story will be touted as further evidence of how widespread “piracy” is and how these freeloaders are so heartless that they will even “steal” from an indie developer.
15/11/2008 at 02:25 Y3k-Bug says:
Is there really some great mystery to this? PC piracy is extremely prevalent because it is insanely easy to do. Go to google, seach for “INSERT GAME NAME HERE torrent”, and you’re off to the races. A simple trip to any number of sites will provide the proper crack needed to run the game.
Compare this with the console market, which requires you to find the torrent, physically mod your system, etc. No where near as many people are going to go through that hassle. Or even know someone who can even if they wanted to.
Take Fallout 3. It’s 360 release was pirated weeks before the official debut, yet the game is enjoying tremendous sales on that platform. PC piracy can’t really be beaten, simply because its too damn easy.
Long and short of it is: this is why many PC developers are moving to the console side. Harder to pirate, better sales overall.
Can anything be done to stop piracy on the PC? Honestly? I really don’t think so.
Technology has gotten to the point now to where I think its simply impossible to stop it on the PC platform.
15/11/2008 at 02:28 Tom says:
Mine has all those options MedO.
I was wondering if maybe it was a country thing. America uses some kind of grid based telephony i once heard, so i was thinking maybe it’s a country thing or maybe even just an ISP thing.
So I must admit it could well be that.
To whoever said I don’t understand dyn IPs… i do.
15/11/2008 at 02:32 Eamo says:
PC piracy will fade when even single player games are hosted on the server. You will see games transition to doing that pretty soon I imagine. The only way to really govern PC piracy is to make sure that at least some piece of technology that is core to the game resides on an access controlled server at the game company.
The problem with this is that the Game retaillers will hate it. A substantial part of their market is selling to people who can’t / won’t get involved in online gaming.
15/11/2008 at 02:33 Echo says:
To all those in denial;
http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/
They have updated the article to justify their methods. This is a sad moment, as it calls out all those people who said they just pirated to avoid DRM, and is a ridiculous amount of people. 1 in 10 bought the game. This needs to change
15/11/2008 at 02:42 Y3k-Bug says:
@Eamo
A good point, but unfortunately pirates have beaten that already. What you described is basically what Steam is. Pirates beat Steam years ago. They just reworked it so that the game stops phoning home. It does help with piracy though, since cracking teams can’t put out a full version until the game is officially released by Valve. So no one can steal it until the day of release. Valve themselves have stated that this has helped quite a bit with sales, as Day Zero piracy is the worst kind. But it has been beaten already.
@Echo
Thats the thing I don’t get. The whole “we do it because of DRM!” is total nonsense. People steal games because free is better than paying. I admire 2D Boy for being brave enough to try to release it without DRM, but honestly.
Stealing games on the PC is simply too easy. Until a company manages to make it harder without hurting the end user nothing is going to slow it down.
Steam is the closest anyone has gotten I think.
15/11/2008 at 03:00 RichPowers says:
Locking down the PC = console. That would piss off enthusiasts — the folks who build their own rigs, optimize everything to their preferences, and buy high-end games.
As I mentioned in the forums, it’s still entirely possible to make highly profitable non-MMO PC games.
I’m still curious as to profitably of World of Goo. If they profited on the PC version, then they’re successful, right?
Is WoG in retail as well?
15/11/2008 at 03:03 Tom says:
Time to sold old and condescending – despite the fact I’m young and stupid:
I’ve said it before Y3K me ol’ mucka, a hardware intervention’s needed! You mark my words.
15/11/2008 at 04:03 Y3k-Bug says:
@Tom
I’m with ya there man. I brought it up in another RPS story, where I suggested that maybe video card makers could add hardware that only allowed signed software to run.
Someone much more knowledgeable than me made it known that such a solution wouldn’t work though, as it would be way too overzealous.
But I think a hardware solution would be needed. The thing is, how do you convince ATI and nVidia to BOTH go for it, and at the same time?
More over, who would step up to the plate and pay them for doing it?
15/11/2008 at 04:37 Oddbob says:
“This is a sad moment, as it calls out all those people who said they just pirated to avoid DRM, and is a ridiculous amount of people.” – I think it’s a bit of a leap of faith to assume that. They’re grim (if unsurprising) numbers but given we’ve already established that people offer different reasons to pirate things – we can’t automatically assume that those that said “I do it because of DRM” can’t, in at least some number, be legit purchasers and discounted.
Who knows though? We don’t have the data to make that call and it’s only wild flailing around pointing the finger a lot which doesn’t get anyone anywhere.
Depressing stats no matter how you paint it and I hope that 2dBoy make a nice hefty profit on WoG because it deserves to do well for being utterly, utterly brilliant. It just makes me sad to know that despite the clarity of their post and the conclusions they’ve come to, the Everiss’ of this world are going to run with that figure for all they can milk from it.
15/11/2008 at 04:56 James T says:
WILL UNIONS IMPREGNATE THE QUEEN?
I think they’ve missed the boat there…
15/11/2008 at 05:23 James T says:
That’s the same stat the original post was talking about, and which has already been thoroughly debunked here multiple times. Hoping that the unmeasurables will ‘balance out’ to turn your arse-pull (calling it an estimate would be far too generous) Just. Does. Not. Cut. It.
It would be about as accurate to write some numbers onto a blackboard and then throw a da–
“Hang on guys, there’s a NINETY-pound electromagnet suspended above the board! That’ll throw the dart way off!”
“Well, gravity affects your aim… We can safely assume that gravity will counter the magnet!”
It balances out!
15/11/2008 at 05:40 James T says:
edit: (okay, it’s a new post), it was kind of funny reading another ’1 in 10′ stat here…
15/11/2008 at 06:49 Chandrose says:
I would love to give kudos to 2D Boy for this amazing show of class and intelligence. Not only are they taking the slap in the face of losing money to pirates with grace, but they’re using it to help move the industry in the right direction. Every one of us paying PC customers appreciate you, and your efforts to improve the industry. Rest assured, you will receive my 20 bucks for your next game.
15/11/2008 at 08:13 Scott B says:
Hot, so if we divide the 2D Boy figures by the metric James T is citing we get 92%/25 = 3.68% piracy rate.
Granted, this is a wildly inaccurate outside guess, but it’s about as accurate as the original. So fucking LOL.
15/11/2008 at 09:19 Tei says:
How sad. Not this history is in Slashdot : /
Why would people pirate a soo cheap and easy to get game? Is just 20 euros, can be downloaded from internet, is a few of MB, so is a short download. Maybe people have fear his credit card will be stealed or something?
People that have warez this title sux.
15/11/2008 at 09:35 kf76 says:
they’ve updated their post, and got a more accurate 82% figure. The bulk (over 3/4) are fixed IP. Close enough imo.
15/11/2008 at 09:57 Kieron Gillen says:
kf76: Oooh. Fascinating stuff.
KG
15/11/2008 at 10:09 Srejv says:
It’s probably because it’s so small and easy to pirate that lots of people have downloaded it. Plus they updated their website with a refactoring:
Read here – and scroll down.
after factoring both of these in, the piracy rate would still be 82%, and we should keep in mind that this number doesn’t include those who never opted to submit scores to the leaderboard (it’s an option that’s off by default). so while it’s possible that the actual piracy rate is lower than 90%, it’s unlikely that it’s significantly lower. 2d boy hopes this satisfies the more rigorous number crunchers out there :)
15/11/2008 at 10:26 Wedge says:
I don’t really see the big deal with this all. It’s NOT a game a lot of people out there would buy, but it is a type of game that’s going to be a curiosity a lot of people would try. Physics based puzzlers are on of my favourite things ever, so I bought it as soon as it was up for presale, but I’m the vast minority. And to a lot of people nowadays, pirating games IS the demo, regardless of if there’s one released. It’s how I found out FarCry 2 is a bunch of crap, and why I’ll be buying FO3 once it’s been patched a bit and sees official mod support.
I’d be more interested to just hear how many sales they HAVE had, instead of all these stupid percentages. I’m sure it’s many thousands, and really all you could hope for from a quirky little indy title.
As long as this doesn’t inspire them to do anything stupid in the future though, I’m fine.
15/11/2008 at 11:05 MedO says:
Please note that a piracy rate of 82% as opposed to 90% would mean that there are “only” approximately half as many pirates – so this seemingly small drop in percentage is already very significant.
The corellation with unique user IDs they did makes this number a lot more convincing. It’s still pretty shakey, but then again it’s hard to find a way of measuring this better, since crackers would probably remove any “phone home” components. I still think the actual figure could be between half to ten times the current one (the question how many pirates submit their scores is very uncertain indeed)
15/11/2008 at 11:26 John Walker says:
MedO, can you explain the maths behind your 82% = half?
I can see how the drop from 90 to 80 means that twice as many legitimate copies exist. But that doesn’t mean the piracy rate has halved? Does it?
15/11/2008 at 12:25 Sam says:
@John Walker: simple, the magic of ratios.
If 90% of games are pirated, the ratio of non-pirated games to pirated games is 1 to 9, or 0.11111. (For every non-pirated game, 9 pirated copies exist.)
If 80% of games are pirated, the ratio of non-pirated games to pirated games is 2 to 8, or 0.25. (For every non-pirated game, 4 pirated copies exist.)
This value, you will note, is more than twice the previous one.
A 50% piracy rate would be a 1:1 ratio, and represent one pirated copy for every un-pirated copy.
15/11/2008 at 12:26 Matt says:
More than 90% is the sort of figure that I have heard for this sort of game before. If they have a rate around 80% then they would have doubled the sales if total number of people was the same.
If I was making a downloadable game I would rather have a piracy rate of 95% and 1 million installs than a rate of 80% and 150 thousand installs because I would make more money and have more of a brand name. I’d let someone else worry about the players morality.
15/11/2008 at 13:37 Anthony Damiani says:
Who cares about how it’s stealing, how is it selling?
Seriously.
15/11/2008 at 14:36 Sithinious says:
I bought it. Can’t get it to run.
How on earth can you not get a 2D non-DRMed game to run? What are you trying to run it on?
P.
It’s a Steam problem apparently. I bought it through Steam and have attempted to play it on two machines with vastly different spec’s (both high-end). The results are the same on both. That’s why I’m considering pirating a non-Steam version so I can actually play the game I paid for.
15/11/2008 at 15:39 Paul Moloney says:
“The results are the same on both”
What error do you get?
P.
15/11/2008 at 15:51 John Walker says:
I’m clearly being a bit thick here. If 1 out of 10 copies are legitimate, then 9/10 are pirated. If it’s 2 out of 10, then 8/10 are pirated. If there were 100,000 copies of the game out there, then from the first stat there’s 90,000 pirated copies, and from the second there’s 80,000. How is that half?
15/11/2008 at 16:55 Jp says:
@John Walker
Because the total number of games out there isn’t the constant – the number of games that have been bought is.
i.e., if 10,000 games have been sold with a 90% piracy rate, then there are 90,000 pirated copies out there. If 10,000 games have been sold with an 80% piracy rate, then there are 40,000 pirated copies out there – ie, half as many.
If the total number of copies out there were the constant, then although there’d only be an 11% decrease in the number of pirated copies (80k rather than 90k) the number of copies sold would double instead (i.e., 20k sales rather than 10k sales.)
Numbers are slippery wee bastards.
15/11/2008 at 17:27 John Walker says:
But I thought 2DB were basing their figures on the number of accounts – 150,000 – and the number they’ve sold. And then working out from that first number how many are legitimate users (at first they thought 10%, then after more maths, 18%).
I could be wrong.
16/11/2008 at 11:46 TheSombreroKid says:
@John Walker
the number of accounts is a constant in the maths they used to develop the ratio not the ratio itself, the number of copies sold is the constant in the ratio.
if the ratio was number of legit copies to accounts then the number of accounts would be relevant to the ratio.
16/11/2008 at 15:29 Crispy says:
Got here a bit late but these is one of the least sound figures I’ve seen for the impact of piracy. Of course dynamic IPs are going to influence that number, it’s ludicrous to claim that multiple IPs from only one source will have a negligible effect on the given estimate.
It’s pathetic and deeply frustrating that this statistic will probably be bandied about wooden-panelled boardrooms as gospel by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
17/11/2008 at 08:49 Hmm-hmm says:
I seriously don’t understand all the fuss about accuracy and misrepresentation. Maybe that’s because I’m not on the ‘ban DRMS now!’-crusade.
Now, as a gamer, I loathe the more extreme forms of DRM, like the limited copies thing, but I’m not at all against DRM in itself. Games are products. Products should be protected from theft. I know, copying a game isn’t exactly the same but it still gets a ‘good’ in the hands of someone who hasn’t legally purchased it and deprived income from those who have to make a living out of it.
Of course there’ll be people who purchase some of the products they pirate, but that’s no reason to cut pirates any slack, except, perhaps if a game makes more income that way.
I mean, game piracy is the lamest piracy, period. Games are a luxury item bar none, and you’ll have to have sufficient income to be able to get the means to play computer games at all. So I don’t understand why it’s all about DRM, all the time, unless it’s to discuss the more extreme varieties.
And another thought: why are the producers always on the block because of DRM and never the pirates? Surely, if nobody pirates (a utopian idea, surely), there’ll be much less incentive to add more restrictive DRMs, especially since it costs money.
*ducks and covers*
17/11/2008 at 16:26 Johnny Wad says:
It’s a really outstanding game. If get people to buy it IF I could ever find it in a store!
24/11/2008 at 18:57 Gryphyn says:
Don’t need to find it in a store, can get it online.
I bought two copies, I liked it so much. Well worth the $30 total.
23/12/2008 at 18:32 Jimmy Z says:
I purchased this game thru Amazon and love it, but heck, my IP is static and I used to watch it change numerous times a day, every day. That means after owning this game for a month, these ‘pirate’ researchers are going to have a result of worse than 99.9% piracy just from me and my single usage of a legitimate game. This 90% is complete crap, but will now be used to justify the invasive and destructive measures used by EA and DRM software like SecuROM. I would’ve thought these ex-EA employees who authored this game would have had a few more clues than that, but apparently not. They’ve gone from being heroes to being patsys in my book. BOOOOOOO!
13/03/2009 at 22:29 DEMONIIIK says:
See… this article brings many mixed responses.
First off, the fact that piracy rates of this game are so high should flatter 2D Boy. World of Goo is a great game, so the fact that so many people are pirating it should at least tell them they did a good job.
Next up. Sure, they are losing sales, but between two guys, I’d hope World of Goo netted at least SOME profit for them. Who else are they splitting it with? Valve might take a little for them using Steam, and so might the rest of their distributors. (I’m not sure how they work.) What else are they paying for? They don’t have an office, they just have two laptops and a lot of coffee consumption.
And… finally… as everyone has noted, there are many reasons why they might not necessarily have accurate numbers.
2D Boy is impressive. World of Goo is great.
They aren’t necessarily complaining (are they? I didn’t read their report), and I’m not saying they should or shouldn’t.
…I’m gonna stop talking now, cause I’m confusing myself :P