Matts Blog

Game piracy, or indeed any other electronic entertainment piracy… I have never really been fond of it – preferring where I can to purchase something legally. The only thing I can hate just as much is extremely intrusive anti-piracy which does not appear to actually change anything. I heard of a pirate-Steam at one point, though I never researched it or looked into it further… and recent trends of using an online database to track installations just frustrates me (though a CD key rarely bothers me on itself).

I was never really sure what kind of numbers you often see on piracy, and what makes developers decide “we won’t produce for the PC much, its full of pirates”… and to that degree I as an honest PC gamer get a little worried, will this series I enjoy now (whatever it be) continue on the PC? I certainly hope so, apart from the deterioration of PC quality thanks to the whole console porting. A recent game to come out trying something different (although it seems standard practice for the company in question) is Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (OFPDR), released by Codemasters.

OFPDR is a tactical game to some extent (go for cover or terrain, because running through the meadow will see you shot), and I love it – when the multiplayer servers aren’t being a pain. I noticed there was no CD key on the manual, or box or for that matter on the CD (strangest of places, but I have seen it done). So how do they protect the game? Good old securom, without a CD key – so you still need the disc in. Apart from those pirates – who have a cracked version and can play online completely legally as far as the game knows!

It was also claimed this was the most pirated game of recent times – something to investigate I thought, and investigate I did. Sure enough, it has a number of cracked versions, a large number of seeds (3,572) and an even larger number of leechers (13,384)… ouch. That is £240,778.16 not going to someones pockets, that is based on a retail price of £17.99 (what I paid for it from play.com) – no doubt there were many more seeds and downloaders throughout the week and weekend, probably before the release.

Now I have no doubt the legal copies sales surpass that (if they don’t get returned for various negative reasons*) – but I still find it somewhat disgusting, I’ve heard reasoning such as “I just want to demo it” – and I don’t always disbelieve that, I seriously hope the person doing this has the honesty and integrity to go and purchase the game if they like it, or indeed delete it if they do not. But others, often a protest to something like DRM really do not add any positive light to the PC userbase as customers.

* I would just like to mention these points are a lack of SADS (Dedicated Servers) for PC users, and the persistent online connectivity issues. The latter is being worked on, no word on the former.

Piracy case studies/examples:

• World Of Goo – 90% Piracy rates (small percentage go on to buy the real game).
• Various – Indepth Study on Piracy, including consoles (p4). Dec ‘08, Updated Regularly.

Those case studies alone, and with my little shocking discovery (probably more if I’d jumped earlier and checked it out nearer release) – I really have become a proponent of anti-piracy. I see the reasons for and against, but overall anyone who pirates pushes the idea that the PC is a dead platform for game development – your best bet is wait for a demo, or at the rate games devalue these recent years (often around 12months) you’d be better off waiting for a lower price mark and buying it legally cheap; a number of games recently also have their installation limits removed after a year or two… so it is not all that bad.