By Kieron Gillen on July 19th, 2009 at 7:35 pm.
Sundays are for jet-lag, 110 degrees Vegas heat, and crouching on an old friend’s apartment whilst being harried by her dog. Also compiling a list of the notable games writing from across the week while trying not to lob in a link to one of the most glorious noble follies of Eighties pop music.
- Game Set Watch sidles up to another one of our writers, gets them drunk and then takes them home to have their wicked way with them. This time it’s our man in Canada, comrade Quinns, starting a new column – BATTLE KLAXON! – which seems to be about whatever is in the inside of his funny little noggin. This time it’s how Warhawk is an overlooked pleasure. And it’s certainly overlooked. I can’t find it on the PC release schedule anywhere. Man!
- I’ll try to write up my notes on Barnett’s presentation at Develop before I disappear into Comicon, but one of his themes – one of the more traditional ones mentioned by UK devs – is the difference between what the programmers our side of the pond had to do versus the ones over in the US. As in, limitations are creative. Edge Online published a great Making Of piece about the seminal Lords of Midnight which includes all the evidence you wish.
- Big Ken Levine interview over at Gamasutra, on the topic of studio culture.
- Meanwhile, Lewis Denby went to Manchester’s Videogame Nation exhibition and reports back for Gamasutra.
- Derek Smart on DRM.
- Harry Kaplan interviews Jim Mahrer on his specialist topic – being the history of Interactive Fiction.
- Rammy lets Tom “Tom Bramwell” Bramwell take over his blog to talk about the problems of embargoes and games.
- Crispygamer gets cheerily provocative, arguing why – despite many publishers anguished cries – the second-hand market doesn’t hurt but helps the industry.
- The Onion do some more WoW parody malarkies. We all feel like this about Walker, because he’s the worst healer.
- The seemingly-pseudonymous R Dobbs’ Examiner.com columns caught my eye. I will be watching.
- Dennis Dyack of Silicon Knights thinks a single format is inevitable. Lucky he didn’t say war is inevitable as.. oh, God, I’m going to start segueing into In The Loop gags.
- Some non games stuff: Warren Ellis’ notes on his Dundee speech on comics are interesting for cross-media thinking. Similarly, Tom Ewing kicked off a debate about why serious music writing didn’t emerge until the sixties. Finally, in Darkfallout I linked to my piece on games journalism in the general Drowned In Sound Is Music Journalism Dead? special. It was an unusual one to write, in terms of trying to explain briefly everything we do in this corner of the world to a field of writing where stylistic excesses are a lot more accepted. There’s a lot of worthwhile stuff in the series, but I’d point you in the direction of my old hero Neil Kulkarni 10-step guide to being a record reviewer. Compare and contrast.
- As those who follow my twitter will know, I had a cheery twitter-fit upon discovering there’s a full twelve minute version for Dexys Midnight Runners’ This Is What She’s Like. Sober, I think I already knew it, but it’s still quite the thing. The record remains a singular achievement in pop music. And while we’re at it, it was first brought to my attention by Chris Roberts’ rhapsodic 95-era piece for the Melody Maker covermount “Unknown Pleasures” where their critics each wrote an essay hailing something that seemed to have slipped from the canon. Awesome piece.
Failed.
19/07/2009 at 20:12 Paul Barnett says:
Good sunday papers as ever, makes me feel better following the links.
Currently reading Rockpapershotgun from an airplane at 36,000 feet. Is this a first for RPS? it is for me. In flight wifi is ace and should be the law. Neil Kulkarni’s page is awesome. Just noticed that Doom is working on the in flight game system, is it still the game of choice to prove a new platform…
19/07/2009 at 20:15 Duckmeister says:
Folks on the other side of the pond really seem to enjoy songs from what Americans consider one hit wonders. I don’t want to say we have better taste in music, but oops I just did.
Oh wait, you guys have Radiohead. You guys win.
19/07/2009 at 20:17 RagingLion says:
Hmm … not so much that interests me this week.
19/07/2009 at 20:22 Dominic White says:
The article on Warhawk is so very true – all of it. It’s also notable for being one of the few downloadable console games to maintain a large playerbase at all times, mainly due to its PC-like dedicated servers and browser.
If any of you RPS blokeys own a PS3, it’s a must-have.
19/07/2009 at 20:36 Quinns says:
BATTLE KLAXON! is a bi-weekly thing where I take a game not enough people are talking about and try to shout about it as loudly as possible while remaining credible.
(I like to think the Battle Klaxon itself sounds like every track on Cross by Justice playing at the same time.)
19/07/2009 at 20:49 Fat Zombie says:
I tried the Warhawk demo. The concept is really quite entertaining but there’s something about the game ‘feel’ that puts me off. Otherwise, awesome.
19/07/2009 at 20:57 GreatUncleBaal says:
@ Quinns: I need features like this, there’s so many bloody games about now that I always feel like I’m missing out on stuff – a good, fun read. However, having now listened to “Cross”, I don’t think the universe would tolerate the whole bloody thing being played simultaneously. I’m still not sure if I like the album or not, but it certainly seems URGENT.
19/07/2009 at 21:19 GreatUncleBaal says:
Just to add: Lords of Midnight is a game I have tremendous affection for, even though I have a sound strategy for beating it every time now. Doomdark’s never quite captivated me in the same way, for some reason the underground tunnels didn’t resonate with me. Really interesting to read behind the scenes stuff on a classic.
19/07/2009 at 21:31 jalf says:
Ow, I think I lost a good handful brain cells from reading that DRM thing… DSmart, graphics drivers most certainly run code in Ring 0. Lots of it.
Impulse does not do online activation checks before launching your game, so if that is the criteria, I fail to see how it can be considered DRM.
And of course, “theft”, according ever dictionary I was able to find, is taking someone’s property without their consent Pirating a game does not do that. The developer’s property is still intact and untouched. It is copyright infringement, yes, illegal yes, but no more “theft” than jaywalking or murder is.
Sigh…
19/07/2009 at 21:32 tapanister says:
By the Gawds, Derek Smart can write a long-ass blog post. Damn.
19/07/2009 at 21:34 Heliocentric says:
Warhawk is along side mgs4 one of the few titles which makes me sad sony are still harvesting exclusives, no 360 exclusive title effects me similarly, except chrome hounds. God i want to play that.
19/07/2009 at 21:42 Heliocentric says:
Digital rights management is, the managements of the digital rights to your property, or lack thereof. Impulse is drm, the games lack drm (mostly), but the drm app is required for at least the initial install. A disc needed in the drive to install gets a free pass, but that too is drm if for whatever reason you can’t yank the installer (and related files) off the disc and run it from the hard drive. Thats drm too, disc checks? Drm, cd key? Drm, map or manual with symbols the game will prompt you for? Drm. Need to phone up taiwan for a 2gb cipher code? Dr-fucking-M.
19/07/2009 at 21:46 alseT says:
Yeah I read that DRM thing up until seeing “THIEVES” in bold. We know and he knows that legally, morally and practically piracy is much different from stealing, and yet he makes fallacious statements that remove any shred of credibility that he might have had before.
19/07/2009 at 21:47 Novotny says:
Didn’t Douglas Adams invent Derek Smart?
Good article matey, I know you peruse this site :)
19/07/2009 at 21:49 jalf says:
Huh? Impulse isn’t required for the initial install.
Last I checked, I could download an Impulse game from a torrent site, install it and run it. No cracks needed or anything. (for the record, I’ve only done this with GalCiv2, which I own)
Anyway, even if Impulse was needed for the initial install, that wouldn’t make it DRM. Impulse is free to download, after all. It would be DRM if it somehow attempt to prevent you from installing/running a game if you don’t have a valid license for it. The only time Impulse does that, to the best of my knowledge, is when patching. So you could say their patches are DRM protected, but the games are not.
19/07/2009 at 21:50 Heliocentric says:
Eh, i consider it a crime, and when the pirates claim a profit, that money is stolen from the rightful sellers, but who carboot sales pirated pc games really?
19/07/2009 at 21:52 Heliocentric says:
So you admit impulse uses some drm? How it uses it is beside the point. Thing is, the impulse title you downloaded was unlocked, but you download a locked version you need a license to unlock.
Its quite friendly drm, but its drm.
19/07/2009 at 21:59 bigredrock says:
Great, great Dexys track. Thanks for the link.
19/07/2009 at 22:00 bhlaab says:
Hold up. They also have Oasis, which negates Radiohead.
19/07/2009 at 22:14 Magnus says:
Derek Smart mentions theft, and then proceeds to make a comparison with car theft.
Later, he mentions that when you buy a game, you’re actually just paying for a license.
Copyright infringement of a software license is not equivalent in any way to car theft.
This doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem, and it is still against the law.
I’m not against certain types of DRM, but they have to keep in mind that it should be as unobtrusive as possible.
19/07/2009 at 22:36 manveruppd says:
Umm, he’s not from the Seattle Examiner, he’s an examiner.com blogger based in Seattle.
Just clarifying.
19/07/2009 at 22:39 Kieron Gillen says:
Yeah – sorry. Misphrased.
KG
19/07/2009 at 22:55 Novotny says:
I’ll forgive any Americans slagging our music scene, as they gave us the blues.
Oh wait – you also gave us Rap. Negated!
19/07/2009 at 22:59 Matt W says:
WRT to the Crispygamer article, I’m slightly grumpy (and on holiday so feeling like being vocally grumpy.).
In the first instance, the argument actually being made is less “used games are good for the industry”, and more “cheaper games are nice for gamers”, and I’m not sure that’s something that needed four pages to explain.
Even with that said though, the remaining interest of the argument is pretty much destroyed for me by the complete failure to even acknowledge price cuts and budget releases. The industry has demonstrated a fine understanding of the fact that different people will buy the same product at different price points for many years, as demonstrated by the aforementioned cuts and rereleases. The only benefit that used games bring in this regard is that they let you get the game you want at the price you want sooner (which the article doesn’t have an argument in favor of that I can see), and make certain retailers wads of money*.
Also, the idea that all games are either AAA blockbusters or Deerhunter remakes is silly (and it wouldn’t surprise me if the games in the middle, the 7/10 perfectly-good-but-not-quite-stellar mid-budget stuff were the ones that were hurting the most from resales as they’re right in the “I want it but not quite for that much” sweet spot).
* “PC gaming is dying” because it has reduced presence at retail because retailers are giving PC games less shelf space because most of their profit comes from resales and you can’t really resell PC games. Discuss. For bonus marks, predict what would happen to games retailers if console titles could not be resold.
19/07/2009 at 23:05 dsmart says:
I started typing up a cleverly written synopsis of your silly commentary. Then decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle or the argument. So instead, I’ll just pop these up for you.
Wiki – definition of theft
Webster – definition of theft
Wiki – definition of Copyright Infringement of Software
No matter how you try to justify it, appropriating something that does not belong to you or infringing copyright, is theft.
PYAITK.
19/07/2009 at 23:16 robrob says:
Park Your Ass In The Kage! You just got smarted.
19/07/2009 at 23:30 Anaonymous says:
Wiki: “In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person’s property without that person’s freely-given consent.”
Merriam-Webster: “1 a: the act of stealing ; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b: an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property.”
Wiki Copyright Infringement: “The copyright infringement of software (often referred to as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software.”
So…. Where precisely did it say that theft was the unlawful copying of information? No matter how you try to justify it, copyright infringement involves neither taking nor removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.
Theft is theft, copyright infringement is copyright infringement, and Derek Smart should read his own damn links.
19/07/2009 at 23:49 Yay! says:
Exactly. Replication does not deprive the owner. You do not own the copies, as such. That’s the whole point of having copyright and theft separate. If I copy software I just bought, that’s not theft, but would be copyright infringement. They’re not synonymous.
It’s not a justification of anything.
19/07/2009 at 23:49 SirKicksalot says:
before I disappear into Comicon
I envy everyone that’s going to see the Avatar footage.
19/07/2009 at 23:51 Kowalski says:
Let’s say pirating computer games *is* theft, for a second.
Where does anyone’s argument differ?
20/07/2009 at 00:03 Markoff Chaney says:
You gave us Muse. I call it even.
20/07/2009 at 00:11 frymaster says:
“We know and he knows that legally, morally and practically piracy is much different from stealing”
legally, piracy is not theft, at least is some places. But morally? As kids, swapping disks in the playground, it would never have occurred to us to say “this is OK because it’s not really stealing, it’s copyright infringement” or “it’s ok because we don’t have an income so would never have bought this anyway”. We knew damn well what we were doing, we did it anyway because, well, we were kids.
I admit right now I still pirate the odd game (especially when I can’t physically get a hold of it) but I don’t try to justify myself… I’m ripping off the developers and yes, the publishers too. Just because the chances are the developers never would have seen a penny from me does not in any way justify the slap in the face that is me consuming the products of their creativity without reimbursing them
20/07/2009 at 00:21 Chriller says:
Haha, from the moment I noticed that little drm linky in the list, despite it being given practically no space or commantary at all, it was sooo obvious that it was going to be the main subject of the comments.
@Kowalski, well, as it is now, at least 2dboy aint paying the internet 160 bucks for every one of their honest customers. Man would they have been in some deep shit!
20/07/2009 at 00:30 LewieP says:
Oh hey, I went to Videogame nation today, caught up with Matthew Smith (Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy) and gonna upload the video tomorrow. He’s a really nice bloke.
20/07/2009 at 00:31 Gap Gen says:
Yeah, legally copyright violation isn’t classed as theft. I don’t think it’s legally useful to define it as such either, although it is a crime. I don’t know if there’s a better system out there than copyright, but I’m not a lawyer or economist. Not my job.
Anyway, good article on DRM. I think it’s main point is the most useful one – that it’s up to game developers to ensure that DRM works smoothly, as well as the DRM software developers. Much of the bad press surrounding DRM is partly down to bad implementation (as well as ideas like limited installs, even though I only played Spore through once and then never went back…)
Steam is very interesting, too (as is Impulse). Not only is it workable DRM, but gamers like it. (Which ties into Crispygamer’s interesting article).
20/07/2009 at 00:34 LewieP says:
Piracy really is not the same as theft, and if you can’t see any moral difference between the two I suspect you are being intentionally obtuse.
20/07/2009 at 00:41 dsmart says:
Close, but no cigar :D
20/07/2009 at 01:27 Starky says:
Here’s a thought exercise for you people…
A) If I make a copy of a game I own and then give it to a friend who was going to buy it I’ve committed piracy, this is a crime.
B) If I buy a game and then advice a friend NOT to buy it (for whatever reason), this is fine.
Both cases result in a lost sale to the content creators/distributors, what is the moral difference between them?
The only difference (the consequence) is that in situation A the “friend” gets enjoy that game anyway.
So, lets add situation C
C: I own a game, and loan it to a friend for a week for him to play instead of buying it.
Again, the result is exactly the same, only the method to achieve this result differs.
Morally what is the difference? With either one I’m “stealing” money from the Dev’s pocket (or from his childrens starving mouths).
Legally the only difference is the method.
Which I’m fine with, many laws are based on the method over the consequence, but morally it is a fine line.
That and I think it important for people to know that the difference really is one of method vs. consequence.
I honestly think the entire concept of IP when it comes to digital goods is going to have to die, copyright is something that was only feasible when the act of copying was difficult and physical.
That is no longer the case – except possibly in physical products with added value, a good DVD with extras, behind the scenes, commentaries and such has added value over a 700mb xvid rip – unfortunately in many cases not enough to justify the large retail price tag.
The whole world (users and producers) is going to have to go through a paradigm shift when it comes to IP based digital products (anything that can be converted to 1s and 0s and distributed over bittorrent).
In the short term I think there is going to be lots of pain, struggling producers, lots of sueing of downloads equal lots of anger and lots of bullshit.
Still in the end people will realise that if they want to enjoy content they need to reward the producers they like, I can honestly see music and game production (at least on the indi level) becoming one of a almost medieval patronage, except instead of having one wealthy patron, you have thousands of smaller ones.
Like it or not the release for free, and then earn your money on donations – donations on the promise of future work, as in release a game for free, and promise an expansion/sequel if you get X money – is the model of the future.
Artists in the music world are starting to wise up to this. Well this and that concerts are where they earn money, not the digital recordings themselves – live is something you can’t copy.
Oh I expect it will take a decade or more for this paradigm shift, but it is coming.
The public will learn that the value isn’t in the product, that song on Itunes isn’t worth $1, that’s just ones and zeros. What is worth $1 is the promise of a new song by that artist i the future.
Artists will have to realize that once that first copy is made, then the product itself is worthless – they can’t apply a “cost” to a copy, they can’t “charge” for it, they must just hope that enough people enjoy their work enough to donate for future material.
Basically the digital IP based world will have to take a leaf from the drug dealers world (after all, a game, and a recreational drug are similar products in many ways), you get the first for free, but if you want more you’re going to have to pay.
[b]Then once enough people have paid enough, EVERYONE gets the next “hit” for free.[/b]
20/07/2009 at 02:02 Novotny says:
That’s a very interesting argument. I’m too mashed to add more
20/07/2009 at 02:04 Radiant says:
I remember a time when Piracy was about ships and games that took ages to load.
20/07/2009 at 02:10 Pundabaya says:
One thing about second hand games that people seem to overlook, is that their price tend to fall far lower than discounted new titles do. If a store has a ton of ‘Obscure Game’ new, that aren’t selling, at some point its easier to send them back. If they’ve got a ton of ‘Obscure Game’ secondhand, then they’re stuck with them…
This puts them into the ‘take a gamble’ price range. Of course, if I’ve picked up a game I initially didn’t fancy for 7 quid, and really enjoyed it, then I’m much more likely to splash out full whack for a new copy of ‘Obscure Game II: The Obscurening’.
I’ve done exactle that. I picked up a used copy of Madden NFL ’98 for a pittance, then paid full whack for the latest version. Then the version after that… and a version after… you get the picture. (It also got me into the strange, yet satisfying sport of American Football)
Rage Racer cost me a few quid, Ridge Racer Type 4 cost me a whole lot more, as did Ridge Racer 6.
Final Fantasy 7 cost me 7 pounds, 8,9,10 cost me a combined amount of £135.
The second-hand market broadens consumers tastes, and that can only be a good thing for the industry.
20/07/2009 at 03:01 dsmart says:
I personally have no problems with used games.
20/07/2009 at 03:03 dsmart says:
@ jalf
Was my blog written in Swahili or did you just not get it?
20/07/2009 at 03:07 Bhazor says:
Reply to Pundabaya
Yep I’m sure thats a big comfort to the companies who make daring games and then go out of business because everyone bought their games second hand. The only excuse for the second hand industry I agree with is to keep out of print games in circulation. Which sadly means those companies already collapsed.
I also think your examples of obscure games really takes the biscuit.
But I do agree that lower prices encourage people to take the risk but it’s up to the publishers and retailers (bastards to a man though they are) to set the prices lower.
20/07/2009 at 03:08 Robin says:
Dyack’s wrong. Games have always been too broad for a single platform to make sense. Whenever a de facto standard has emerged (the NES, PS1, PS2, Game Boy) it’s always narrowed the field of what is technically and commercially viable and outstayed its welcome.
Saying you want a single platform means saying you want the lowest common denominator of hardware cost, input device and enforcement of the business model that best suits the ruling platform holder or consortium. Which are all utterly idiotic things to want if you like creativity.
Even if an impartial body was given the task of speccing out such a platform, they’d fail. It’s not like asking for a single recording format. It’s more like trying to announce that the Honda Accord is now the standard form of transport for the next ten years and all railways and airports will be closed forthwith.
The current situation of multiple viable platforms means virtually everyone is catered for. What he’s really saying is that it’s hard for his epically mismanaged b-games to get signed any more. Mr. Dyack, if you’d be so kind as to look into this electron microscope we have prepared the appropriately sized violin.
20/07/2009 at 03:33 Nafe says:
@Starky: A very interesting post indeed.
@Derek Smart: I’m sorry but you’re just wrong and the most amusing thing is that the links you used to back up your point actually disproved it. Perhaps you should put your arse in the know. That car theft analogy is also total crap, you’re clearly not an idiot so I expect you see that.
I get the impression that this is simply a very emotional subject for you because you create games and the idea of people enjoying your hard work without reimbursing you is horrible. I totally get that, however I think approaching any practical problems such as DRM and piracy from an emotional standpoint is just silly. Don’t fuddle arguments with crap like “piracy is theft” – be straight forward about it and I expect people will give more of a shit about what you have to say.
Incidentally I’m very much in agreement with the consequence based morality Starky mentioned. The tricky thing is actually being aware of what the consequences of ones actions are. If I were to torrent a game that I wouldn’t have bought I could say “hell, the developer/publisher has lost nothing so who cares” but there are other things to keep in mind. If I’m torrenting chances are I’m aiding someone else get a freebie which they may well have purchased. When using the game, it may well have online components that use resources I’ve not paid for (howdy Demigod!).
There’s a lot too this piracy debate, but something that always grinds my gears is people trying to make their argument seem more valid when they chuck in bullshit comments like piracy IS theft. It just isn’t. It has similarities but the details are entirely relevant.
20/07/2009 at 03:40 Novotny says:
Quite a convincing piece of writing, Robin – but I’d put it to you that creativity often springs most keenly from within shackles.
Give an artist unlimited resources, and you get a bag of shite.
There’s some sort of connection between creativity and limited means. Any student of this daft species could acknowledge that.
20/07/2009 at 03:57 solipsistnation says:
“The self-abasing degrading shame of being a critic doesn’t paralyse, it frees you up to write what the fuck you want[...]”
Fuck yeah.
20/07/2009 at 05:22 Thants says:
Bhazor: I don’t understand where this idea came from that the second hand market is some unique problem that the game industry has. Most other industries have second hand markets. No one is arguing that me buying a used book is hurting the poor small book publishers. The Americans even protect it by law, the First-sale doctrine. It works just fine with everything else, why are games so special?
20/07/2009 at 06:26 invisiblejesus says:
@Bhazor
Yep I’m sure thats a big comfort to the companies who make daring games and then go out of business because everyone bought their games second hand. The only excuse for the second hand industry I agree with is to keep out of print games in circulation. Which sadly means those companies already collapsed.
I also think your examples of obscure games really takes the biscuit.
But I do agree that lower prices encourage people to take the risk but it’s up to the publishers and retailers (bastards to a man though they are) to set the prices lower.
I’d buy that argument if I could more easily find used copies of “daring games”. When I go to the store though, I see the shelves lined with the same old, same old. The used market isn’t hurting publishers of more envelope-pushing titles because for it to do so there’d have to be more people actually buying those titles new, in a format that allows for reselling. But there aren’t. If you wanted to argue that somehow GTA4 made a few thousand less than it might have because of used sales then sure, I’ll buy that. But it’s going to take a little more to convince me that the used market endangers games like Psychonauts, Eternal Darkness, Beyond Good and Evil, etc, when I can’t find used copies of the games at reasonably affordable prices even when I’m trying. The only stuff I see readily and easily available at reasonable prices is the straight-ahead mainstream stuff.
20/07/2009 at 07:20 Esc7 says:
@Thants:
Really they don’t care about the concept of used games market. You reselling your game to me, concerns the publishers, not one bit.
Seeing gamestop rake in millions off the backs of kids who trade in their christmas and birthday presents to buy a used game because they’re bored with the new ones bothers the publishers VERY VERY much.
Not cause they care about the kids. Because they aren’t the ones taking advantage of the kids.
20/07/2009 at 09:17 alseT says:
@dsmart
I believe you made my point for me. I thought that concept wasn’t that hard to grasp for you but apparently I was wrong.
As for the other side of the article are you seriously going through all that trouble to protect a niche, practically multiplayer only, first person warfare game, when critically acclaimed popular multiplayer games such as CoD4 or Left4Dead don’t have viable pirate communities? You are wasting all that time and effort to thwart a handful of people who aren’t going to get organized enough to play together anyway.
Anything more than a master server which only accepts valid serial numbers would be overkill, but hey, I’m not the games developer.
20/07/2009 at 10:00 Robin says:
@Novotny: Cheers.
I don’t think there’s any danger of anyone being given unlimited resources. Having several non-overlapping sets of format-shackles serves a wider range of creative impulses than railroading everyone down the same route.
20/07/2009 at 10:27 Dante says:
“Here’s a thought exercise for you people…
A) If I make a copy of a game I own and then give it to a friend who was going to buy it I’ve committed piracy, this is a crime.”
I still can’t get my mind to a place where this is true.
I like to think that’s a good thing.
20/07/2009 at 10:29 Jim Rossignol says:
Does the ease of copying the game make it okay? Copying a book is hard, so you’d be unlikely to do so: you’d lend them it, or get another copy.
20/07/2009 at 11:15 aoanla says:
Jim: well, that’s surely part of the point of why copyright infringement sits oddly in the “digital world”, or whatever newspaper journalists are calling it now. Since copyright infringement, as a crime, was originally framed to protect authors from the few people wealthy enough to have the resources to copy books effectively (for their own profit), it doesn’t fit people’s instincts when dealing with cheap, easy, mass copying for no profit at all. Because, if you’re not getting a profit from the action, it doesn’t feel like a crime – you’re doing it for *someone else’s good*, rather than your own. And, yes, it’s easy, so you don’t even have to put in much time to do it – but I don’t think that’s really the main impetus for not-for-profit piracy.
(I’m also, btw, in full agreement about the moral sense of “consequence-based” payment for games. You pay developers *so they will have money make more stuff you like*, not because the copy of the product is itself worth anything. It’s like maintaining public parks and the like. It’s also why I bought Multiwinia from Introversion, despite not liking it anywhere near as much as their other stuff – I want to see Subversion, and there’s no way to give them money to develop it other than buying their previous games.)
20/07/2009 at 12:22 Paul Moloney says:
“Oh hey, I went to Videogame nation today, caught up with Matthew Smith (Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy) and gonna upload the video tomorrow. He’s a really nice bloke.”
Please do. Manic Miner; very first game I ever completed, I think.
P.
20/07/2009 at 12:23 LewieP says:
Just watched it back, audio is a bit rubbish, gonna add some subtitles before I upload it.
20/07/2009 at 12:26 Gap Gen says:
Lending DVDs to people is also illegal, I gather. People still do it, and I’d be surprised if it were brought to court. Like Derek said, with digital information the distinction between giving a copy to a friend and seeding a torrent to hundreds of people you don’t know is blurred.
The linking of the Crispygamer article is quite relevant to the DRM debate – if used games have a lower cost, piracy have zero cost. You can spend all your money on beer and pizza and still have infinite games to play. In this case, abandonware is similar to used games (and for this reason, no doubt, Ground Control 1 was given free to promote Massive’s other games).
I still don’t see any other real justification for pirating games other than the above argument: people have limited budgets, so getting things for free is a way of packing infinite value into their budget. Arguments of “I’m only trying it out and will buy it if it’s good” may well be made in good faith, but they’re not necessary – publishers would no doubt rather you used demos and preview videos to make your purchasing choice rather than driving piracy of their games.
20/07/2009 at 14:29 Pod says:
“jalf says:
Ow, I think I lost a good handful brain cells from reading that DRM thing… DSmart, graphics drivers most certainly run code in Ring 0. Lots of it.”
Vista graphics drivers don’t run in Ring 0. (Only parts of them do).
20/07/2009 at 14:48 Dinger says:
Rossignol: copying a book is now easy. Back when it was hard (both labor-intensive and capital-intensive), the notion of intellectual property didn’t exist. IP laws accompanied the arrival of (non-labor-intensive but capital-intensive) means of duplication, and they are geared to that situation. Now that copying and distributing software (and books) is trivial (A moderately experienced individual can make and distribute a pretty decent PDF of a 250-page book in about an hour), a whole new group is capable of mass copyright infringement, and the “property” in question and the law are being used in entirely novel ways.
20/07/2009 at 15:03 Jim Rossignol says:
Right, yeah, that book piracy is rife.
Copying a book, from book form to book form is *not* a trivial process. Copying a game is.
20/07/2009 at 15:19 jalf says:
@Pod: Last I checked “only part of them” is a valid subset of “them”. Therefore, Vista GPU drivers most certainly run ring0 code. Yes, they *also* run code in userspace, but that wasn’t the point. The point is that part of them run in kernel space, in Ring 0. So if, by DSmarts words, DRM drivers are just like them, then they’ll also run partly in ring 0.
@DSmart: I don’t know. Perhaps it would have been more enlightening if I’d interpreted it as Swahili. Because interpreting it as English just resulted in a lot of jumbled contradictions and factual errors, and angry nonsense about stealing. Which is a shame, because it’s actually much easier to justify DRM when you stick to the facts.
20/07/2009 at 15:29 LewieP says:
@Jim
Sure, copying a book is not a trivial process, but typing “The Watchmen PDF” into The Pirate Bay is certainly not.
20/07/2009 at 15:30 LewieP says:
that’s “not not a trivial process”, damn double negatives.
20/07/2009 at 15:51 dsmart says:
@ Thants
My thoughts exactly. The argument that used games hurt sales never made sense to me tbh. If the price of games were lower, that won’t be a problem. I can go into a Borders and see a new hardcover for $25. Then go online and buy a used – perfectly good copy – for about $7.5 + shipping from someone who has already read it and is selling it or has already sold it to a wholesaler.
@ Dante
If you know what the DMCA is – or even those FBI warnings you see in VHD, DVD-ROM modes etc – then you already know the answer to that one.
@ Pod
Indeed. And don’t you just love it when people who have to frigging clue what they’re talking about, try to pass off their crap as facts? I’ve been writing device drivers since I learned assembler programming. Yet some whippersnapper wants to tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
@ jalf
I have come to the conclusion that you’re just a silly fellow.
20/07/2009 at 16:05 Nafe says:
“Indeed. And don’t you just love it when people who have to frigging clue what they’re talking about, try to pass off their crap as facts?”
Kind of like when people claim that copyright infringement is theft? :)
20/07/2009 at 16:21 Tei says:
Re: “DRM uninstallation”
DSMART comment is brilliant about describing how a normal windows installation accumulate crap. His point is “why you care about the empty pizza box our demo abandon on the saloon, if there are countless more everywhere” (my words).
Well… I don’t know if the technology is good enough. But has described to me like MSI, the ‘new’ windows installer technology, works much like these linux .DEB or .RPM packages. A MSI can’t install itself. Is a description of task, and the OS is the one that read that instructions, so is clean to install and uninstall MSI files properly created.
And I think a DRM system should have a uninstall feature. Once you activate it, should show a window “Game X, Y and Z depends on this software, If you uninstall me, these games will stop working. Are u sure?”.
Is better to install a piece of treacherous software withouth uninstall option? No information about what games need it, or have installed it?.
Hell.. why not another option on the control panel, to check the “licenses installed on this computer”.
If you are doing something legit, you don’t need to hide in the shadows.
And, what DRM do anyway? what exactly is doing? Is just a “conversion layer” to run encrypted binaries? something has simple like that??. How do I know what is doing?
20/07/2009 at 16:38 LewieP says:
RE: VideoGame Nation
Here’s some pics I took from the exhibition.
20/07/2009 at 17:42 dsmart says:
@ Tei
Neither the demo, nor our games leave ANYTHING behind. Did you not understand what I wrote? I even spelled it out in clear sentences. Even the P.R.I.S.M guys (anti-DRM group) confirmed that neither our game (BETA) nor the demo leave ANYTHING behind.
20/07/2009 at 18:40 Starky says:
@ Jim
“Does the ease of copying the game make it okay? Copying a book is hard, so you’d be unlikely to do so: you’d lend them it, or get another copy.”
No, it doesn’t make it right, but the expense and difficulty of copying a book is what gives a book value.
The content of the book, the story is somewhere between worthless and priceless – either way, the price of the contents of that book are utterly arbitrary, it’s valueless because everybody assigns differing value to art in different forms.
So say it costs £2 to print a book and ship it to the shop (when printing in mass numbers), this is sold for £5 wholesale and then £8 RRP.
This is a tangible reason for why the price is £8.
Digital copies on the other hand are infinite and free (the cost is met by the consumers themselves via their ISP payments), so there is no cost involved in copying.
So the cost you’re left with is that utterly arbitrary value judgement by the creators deciding beforehand what THEY think the value of their product is, and then hoping that they sell enough copies at this price point to make money.
Do they sell it for £10 and hope to sell 500k copies.
Or sell it for £30 and hope to sell 170k copies?
Maybe they sell it for £5 and sell one million?
So the only value is arbitrary because it is based upon the creators hopes to sell X number at Y price for a profit level they’ve got in their heads.
Now the problem is that media’s value is utterly dependant on the users enjoyment of that media.
A game may be worth £30 to one person, while to another it’s worth £10.
Traditionally this has been provided for by price dropping over time, so those that pay more get the media sooner, those that pay less wait. This was fine when media was physical, something you could hold in your hand and had a cost to produce, had tangible value – copying wasn’t free and it wasn’t infinite.
That kind of piracy has another term more fitting to describe it – Counterfeiting.
Still in a digital world with infinite free copies with zero production costs on those copies, and no tangible value except the “eye of the beholder” media value as decided by the creators (or publishers) the idea of charging for a product just falls flat.
You’ve also got the problem of middle-men, you see people want to reward creators (most do I think, maybe I have too much faith), but very few want to reward the middle-men. Especially when those middle-men often do everything they can to control, manipulate and often downright steal from the creator.
No one wants to pay £30 for a product knowing that the Dev studio/musician/creators maybe only get £3 of that.
Now when they know that the middle-men had near zero costs involved in making that copy and getting it too you, because the same could be done by some bloke on a broadband connection and a bit torrent client for nothing.
Most people, including myself would rather make a donation directly to the creators, by bypassing all the middle-men and ensuring that their thanks in monetary reward goes to the people who deserve it.
Shareware, and donationware is the past and the future another option lets call it fundware (though I knid of like “Thermoware” after those fund raising thermometers you always see on churches) which simple operates like a fund raiser.
The product is released for free and the creator simpley says honestly and up front, “This took me 6 months and many hours to create, and it is utterly free for you to enjoy – however if you do enjoy it and would like to support my further work please donate”.
Then goes on to explain “Once I have £100,000 in donations I will release the next game/chapter in the series for free to everyone, so give what you think you think my game/product was worth too you.”
It seems a bit backwards on current models, to work hard for a long time only to be paid for your NEXT project (based on the quality of your product history) – but I honestly believe it (along with mini-transactions, and mini-subscriptions) is the pricing model of the future.
The days of media as a product are dead, long live the days of media as a service.
20/07/2009 at 18:56 Starky says:
Bleh! I wish to god I could edit. should have taken it into word for proof reading, oh well…
20/07/2009 at 19:06 dsmart says:
@ Starky
That model is flawed on so many levels that when I read today that Gabe is even suggestion it, I was a bit baffled.
20/07/2009 at 20:09 Starky says:
Derek, the problem is that when you’re dealing with a product that is infinitely copyable at near to zero cost no current business model works.
You can’t say of media that “this is worth your X value of money”, you can’t really say “30 hours of gameplay” then try to compare that to say a movies 2 hours for £10 and claim value.
It’s because the value of that content shifts in often extreme ways depending on the user. Take CoD4, someone who played the single player once and that is it got maybe 5-6 hours entertainment for their £30-40, where as I have maybe 300+ hours from it and so gained massive value for money from that media.
How can you account for this in product pricing? You can’t. When you sell 1kg of washing up powder, if someone does 10 washes a week or 1 they are still getting the same value just on a differing time scale – media is totally different though so the only pricing models that really make sense any more are those based on a service.
Methods need to be used that charge the people who get the most value from a product the most money.
Be that via DLC, Mini-subscriptions, Micro-Transactions or other models – and of course I’m not saying that my Fundware could work for everyone, but it can work and has worked in the past for other media, several webcomics work on that basis Something Possitive springs to mind, in which the author basically asked the community to pay his wages so he could quit his job and work full-time on the comic, based upon his past (totally free) work, and the promise of continued free work (just with more updates) the community did indeed donate.
I remember reading a story (though can’t find any links) about an author who did the same released a novel chapter by chapter, releasing each one as a set donation target was met, in which once it was it became free for everyone.
The Major flaw in it is that it requires a decent body of free work in place before people will begin actively supporting the creator in regular donations for continued production, but it’s a great way for an amateur to become semi-pro or even begin to work at it full time.
No I think the pricing model of the future is going to be a massive mix of these various methods, but whichever method is used, in whatever combination the bottom line is the only way pricing is going to work is for creators to charge small amounts, but in regular doses.
Episodic content, subscription models, DLC and micro-transactions are something media producers need to embrace.
I can really see even the big boys doing this…
Another method I think might have possibilities is the rent until you’ve paid for it.
Say you rent a game (on steam or equivalent) for £3 per week, but once your total rental equals the RRP of the game, it becomes yours permanently.
Something like this could easily be done through Steam, allow people to rent PC games (like they can console games) the Dev’s get a share, and the people that really like the game and keep renting know that they’re not wasting money as they’ll eventually own the game outright.
20/07/2009 at 20:47 Robin says:
@Thants
Ah, there it is, regular as clockwork. The argument that ignores the fact that book, cd, dvd, whatever retailers on the high street aren’t selling second hand goods whereas games retailers do little else.
If I go into a high street bookstore, they’re not actively trying to sell second-hand copies of books that have just come out. They’re not taking on an ever-narrower range of stock at ever-shrinking wholesale prices so that they can give over more shelf space to bypassing their suppliers.
Retailers like GameStop are milking this model so excessively that they’re rapidly accelerating the migration to digital distribution.
@dsmart
It is precisely /because/ retailers are able to make money several times on a unit of stock whereas publishers can only do so once that prices are kept artificially high. The retailers hold all the cards. They don’t want to sell a game for $20 when they can offer two new copies at $40, and twenty used copies originally bought elsewhere for $34.97.
20/07/2009 at 21:55 SuperNashwan says:
The moment you start saying copyright infringement is theft and throwing around the flawed car analogies you start having these tedious side debates over semantics and logic that don’t add anything. If you want to talk about it being immoral, fine. If you want to talk about it being illegal, fine, providing you’re accurate about it. Just for the love of divine entities stop with the “It’s theft”/”It’s not theft” rubbish.
http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/ffi/ffi1.htm
21/07/2009 at 00:14 frymaster says:
@LewieP: I must just be very obtuse then because I honestly don’t think developers see the piracy rates, go “oh well, at least this can’t technically be called stealing” and go skipping off into the sunset singing happy songs.
21/07/2009 at 01:32 invisiblejesus says:
@Jim
Right, yeah, that book piracy is rife.
Copying a book, from book form to book form is *not* a trivial process. Copying a game is.
Look up the current fuss over allegedly pirated copies of 1984 and one or two other books showing up on Kindle. When/if more people start reading books in digital form, you can bet piracy will follow.
21/07/2009 at 03:06 LewieP says:
@frymaster
I didn’t at any point say “Piracy is OK because it is not theft”, I said “Piracy =/= Theft”
The link SuperNashwan posted explains it fairly well. Copyright infringement is bad, but saying it is the same as theft is incorrect and pointlessly muddying the water.
21/07/2009 at 10:53 Pod says:
Where’s Cliffski in all this?
24/07/2009 at 15:33 Burglar says:
I was in Vegas this time last month!