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Post by William Miller on Apr 21, 2019 18:36:28 GMT -6
Copyright laws are upheld by most all law abiding countries.. some are more enforced then others.
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Post by charybdis on Apr 21, 2019 18:39:12 GMT -6
Three things,
Firstly, Thatzenoguy, your personal aside is, if anything a possible argument for DRM when you just expressed your belief (and mine too) that DRM only hurts good customers.
Secondly, I would argue that this is the first time that genuine alternatives to RTW exist, and therefore probably the worst moment to risk your customer base, it just does not make sense to me make this move now, when prospective buyers (not pirates) may just go and purchase one of the other unnamed alternatives to RTW.
Thirdly, if popularity is more the factor than the price, why risk torpedoing your product's popularity by damaging your relationship with paying customers? I fully accept the desire to protect the product, but whats the point if you lose more customers than you would have otherwise had?
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Post by mycophobia on Apr 21, 2019 18:40:24 GMT -6
Copyright laws are upheld by most all law abiding countries.. some are more enforced then others. I do believe that it is upheld to varying degree of effectiveness anywhere in the world essentially, but as my knowledge is limited to these two countries I do want to avoid generalizing .
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Post by thewood1 on Apr 21, 2019 18:40:34 GMT -6
"As for RTW2, I'm fine with hardware related keys as long as there is a reliable way to renew them after the inevitable upgrade or fried PC."
Again, I see few people jumping on this point. Its the most important point in the entire discussion. I have a few games over the years that had a combination of limited parallel installs and a machine-based key for DRM. They were all a waste for myself and the developer. Simple changes in speakers and RAM upgrades triggered the DRM. Upgrades became a major hassle and chewed up my time and the dev's time.
I still find it extremely inconsiderate of the customer's time and resources to use a machine-keyed DRM. I will be shocked if this type of DRM doesn't become a PR disaster. Non-intrusive DRM, few issues from me...poorly executed DRM, the dev deserves every negative business reaction they get. People just don't learn from history, especially software companies. They all think they can make it work this time.
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Post by asehujiko on Apr 21, 2019 18:43:20 GMT -6
My, and everybody else's, concern are not and have never been about the exact make and model of your authentication tool. It's about the absurd method of validating the product we're paying for.
To use an analogy since those are always thread favourites: You've announced that you plan on joining the Dakar rally using a pogo stick and are trying to assuage misgivings about this endeavour by citing the steel quality of the stick's handlebars. While the robustness of the part may be beyond reproach, we can, and do, think you're greatly misapplying it.
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Post by darkrenown on Apr 21, 2019 18:45:41 GMT -6
Theft or copyright infringement is still breaking the law. All legit companies have a right to produce product for payment.. theft can be product or lost revenue. If you are not against piracy then your not against sourced pirated product which is direct loss of revenue. The individual pirate might not be breaking a law (depending on location and interpretation) but the source is. Defending or using that source is essentially advocating ripping off a publisher. BTW, a while back data had shown that regardless of price mark.. the piracy levels were relatively the same. Popularity was much more of a factor then price. Neither you or I enforce laws. Frankly I don't much care if someone breaks the law if no one is harmed in the process, and the law-breaking aspect of piracy shouldn't really affect your decisions here unless you are trying to say you are selflessly adding DRM to your game to prevent would-be pirates from damaging their moral fibre. If your data shows no link between piracy and price, wouldn't you conclude that people aren't pirating games to save money and so preventing piracy wouldn't improve sales?
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Post by charybdis on Apr 21, 2019 18:47:36 GMT -6
In response to darkrenown, those companies the article listed all have much higher profit margins than NWS does, they can eat the losses because they gross more to begin with. Runic, for example had its majority share bought out for $8.4 million dollars. NWS does not seem to have that level of financial weight to throw around. Also worth noting that Runic was shut down last year despite its value.
To your first point about value. Say you weave a basket, and it takes four hours to weave the basket. You determine the cost of the basket for sale will be $40. Your labor per hour to make the basket was $10. If someone steals the basket, then you make $0 and all of the labor hours you put into making the basket are lost, they're now worth $0. Say you make 40 baskets, and sell each at $40 dollars, if someone steals one of your baskets, that you produced, you just lost one fortieth of the value.
Personally, I think this new DRM is an anti-consumerist action and a mistake. Based on the length of this thread and some of the more vehement responses I think this is already becoming a PR mess.
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Post by mycophobia on Apr 21, 2019 18:47:37 GMT -6
The potential value of the lost sale is still value... The developer is losing the value of their labour by way of the lost sale. Everytime a copy is pirated, the value of the dev's labour drops by whatever the price of the copy was. Also it's infringement on the security of the publisher/producer's good. and it's just wrong??? That's just crazy. "The value of their work drops"? The value of a game can be measured in two ways, how much it cost to make and how much it earn in sales. If you assume someone wasn't going to buy the game anyway, how does their pirating a copy affect the value? Also, please cite some evidence to back up your claim that Steam's deep sales are good for revenue on the part of the developer. Steam takes a pretty big cut to begin with, and personally, while it would be cool if RTW appeared on Steam I am totally behind the devs/publisher on that front. Small company, keep it that way, and maximize your profits. Well source 1 is I'm a game dev whose company sells games on Steam and we love sales. Source 2: www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.phpAnd a smaller slice of a much large pie is worth more than a small pie. The only question is, is 70% of X greater than 100% of Y? If X = Y, then nope, if X = 10Y then YEEEEEP. That’s because piracy is a misappropriation of the developer’s right. That right is the right to benefit from the fruit of their labour. As mentioned above, even if individual pirating users are not necessarily punishable based on jurisdiction, there is no justification for making available the fruit of other people’s Labour for free.
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Post by thatzenoguy on Apr 21, 2019 18:48:43 GMT -6
Three things, Firstly, Thatzenoguy, your personal aside is, if anything a possible argument for DRM when you just expressed your belief (and mine too) that DRM only hurts good customers. Secondly, I would argue that this is the first time that genuine alternatives to RTW exist, and therefore probably the worst moment to risk your customer base, it just does not make sense to me make this move now, when prospective buyers (not pirates) may just go and purchase one of the other unnamed alternatives to RTW. Thirdly, if popularity is more the factor than the price, why risk torpedoing your product's popularity by damaging your relationship with paying customers? I fully accept the desire to protect the product, but whats the point if you lose more customers than you would have otherwise had? DRM only ever hurts paying customers. Pirates will inevitably break it, so why bother? All you're doing is wasting time and resources to increase short term monetary income.
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Post by William Miller on Apr 21, 2019 18:50:03 GMT -6
If they are not willing to pay for it why did they bother downloading it? So we should insult those that are nice enough to pay to play by allowing others to steal it and then possibly eat up our time with support?
Sorry.. not buying that argument. That would be no less then asking for services your not willing to pay for because you found a way to get out of paying. There is no justifiable argument here, none.
A while back several publishers counted 20-35% sales losses though "call in" codes built into their software .. and the gamers still played the game. That is basically giving the middle finger to those that did pay.
Sadly.. the pirating continued in a few cases where the codes were deactivated.. and they simply did it again. Point being, not all pirates do so for kicks.. many do it to get out of paying.. regardless of price.
If the pirate plays the game then the game sales took a hit.. end of story, and there is no excusing that fact.
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Post by williammiller on Apr 21, 2019 18:50:48 GMT -6
I am locking this thread. Its devolved into a "piracy is bad/not really bad", "piracy is not theft/is theft", etc endless and pointless argument. We have already clearly stated our opinion on the matter of how we view piracy, so enough is enough.
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Post by William Miller on Apr 21, 2019 18:58:22 GMT -6
I have to agree with William.. as we have made our points clear.
We hope most would understand our points of view and that publishers should not be virtually powerless to try and curb the theft of their products.
Thanks.
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