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Post by hawkeye on Jul 31, 2021 12:07:48 GMT -6
Well, there might be legal problems with such a plan, depending on the form of a company and the way it goes belly up.
I remember a similar discussion with re. to Steam and it was pointed out that removing the DRM requirements would very likely be illegal for them in case they went under, because all the assets, including the DRM protected games, would be part of the value of the company, entering the bankruptcy case.
Now I'm aware that you aren't Valve and your company is set up quite differently, so this might not apply to you, just wanted to mention it.
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Post by atomickiwi on Aug 25, 2021 4:27:33 GMT -6
For what it's worth I've nearly pulled the trigger on purchasing Rules the Waves 2 a couple of times now and have been put off by the DRM. At least something like Steam is painless to use. I'd even be happy to pay 30% more for the game to buy it on Steam (I know that platform takes a large chunk of profit that would make it a bad choice for a niche game like this) to not have to worry about the DRM it uses now.
Now obviously the developer is entitled to do what they think is best, and you never know I might break down and purchase the game despite my reservations about the DRM it comes with, but I just wanted get my 10 cents in that the DRM is a barrier to purchase for some people.
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Post by silamon on Aug 25, 2021 10:59:32 GMT -6
I can confirm I was initially put off by the drm as well. After quite some time though I finally decided to try it.
It honestly was not that bad for me, and I was able to change graphics card and a couple other parts on my rig without losing the activation.
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mailo
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Post by mailo on Aug 26, 2021 10:56:32 GMT -6
+1 for someone checking the forums every few months to see whether I can finally buy the game or not. I sincerely hope you are not shooting yourself in the foot by keeping more people from buying your game due to the draconian DRM (and yes, I actually do consider this one to be worse than e.g. Denuvo) than you gain in sales from the few percent of the people who pirated but would actually buy the game if it wasn't pirate-able. Do you have any data on this, or is it just a gut feeling?
Then again, if your goal is to ensure as few people as possible pirate the game and do not actually care about sales, it is fine I guess. Which would actually be a valid goal, it is your game after all.
I actually thought about buying the game and then using a pirated version to not suffer from the DRM, but a) I have no idea how to get one nor an inclination to find out, and b) don't want to run the risk of ... "catching" anything.
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Post by cv10 on Aug 26, 2021 13:21:11 GMT -6
Do you have any data on this, or is it just a gut feeling?
Then again, if your goal is to ensure as few people as possible pirate the game and do not actually care about sales, it is fine I guess. Which would actually be a valid goal, it is your game after all. This might not answer your specific point, but William Miller did state that the number of pirated downloads of RTW 1 outnumbered sales by a factor of 2-to-1. Here's the thread: nws-online.proboards.com/post/40247/thread
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mailo
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Post by mailo on Aug 26, 2021 15:27:02 GMT -6
Do you have any data on this, or is it just a gut feeling?
Then again, if your goal is to ensure as few people as possible pirate the game and do not actually care about sales, it is fine I guess. Which would actually be a valid goal, it is your game after all. This might not answer your specific point, but William Miller did state that the number of pirated downloads of RTW 1 outnumbered sales by a factor of 2-to-1. Here's the thread: nws-online.proboards.com/post/40247/thread I did read that. Unfortunately a pirated download does not equal a lost sale. I did read some statistics a while time back that it is more on the order of one lost sale per 10 pirated downloads, maybe 100. Many people download things they have no intention of ever buying, others simply do not have the economic power to do so ($50 is half a monthly salary in some countries), and still others use it as a demo and buy the game afterwards.
Basically my question was do they have any statistics on how many sales were actually lost due to piracy vs. how many sales are lost due to the DRM.
Then again, as I said it is their game, the goal might be to ensure as few people as possible play it without paying, and total number of sales do not matter, and that would be fine.
I also develop software for a living, not in the gaming industry though. We talked about DRM quite a bit as well in the team, and fortunately decided go go a different route.
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Post by legion0047 on Aug 27, 2021 3:43:42 GMT -6
If you scrolled just a bit in this thread, you would see the actual statistic being a rough 50% loss in revenue. But I guess that's just too much effort if you could just **** on something instead.
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mailo
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Post by mailo on Aug 27, 2021 8:22:55 GMT -6
If you scrolled just a bit in this thread, you would see the actual statistic being a rough 50% loss in revenue. But I guess that's just too much effort if you could just **** on something instead.
That does not equate to a loss of revenue of 50%. If the developers believe that, then unfortunately they base their actions upon incorrect data, to their own detriment. While hard numbers are difficult to come by, there is a study by the EU done on the object, which mostly found no statistically relevant correlation between piracy and lost sales, with one notable exception: Pirated top recent movies. But even there, for every 10 illegal downloads, only ~4 sales of movie tickets were lost. In other areas, they even found slight positive correlations, meaning e.g. for every 100 illegal downloads, one net additional sale occured.
On the other hand, there are multiple reports in this forum from people saying the only reason they have not bought the game is due to the method of DRM employed. Those are definitely lost sales. Note I said "method of DRM", not "because there is DRM". Add to those the people who simply have not bothered to register an account just to state this.
I never demanded they remove DRM from their product. I just suggested they choose a different one, basically any different one that does not depend on a Yahoo email adress still being active in 5 or 10 years time. If the developers are 100% sure though that the number of lost sales due to piracy with a more lenient DRM is larger than the number of lost sales due to this method of DRM, then everything is fine, and they should not change anything.
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Post by kungfutreachery on Aug 27, 2021 12:53:26 GMT -6
Part of the reason for the extensive piracy is that many people are uncomfortable with the purchase process for RTW. The fact that they ask you to send your money and then wait for them to manually email you your activation code is really sketchy. I have NEVER encountered this with any other storefront. When I recommend this game to my friends I have to preface it with a long, complicated explanation of how it isn't a scam, I promise. And then I have to explain the DRM system, at which point most of them start laughing.
I bought RTW2 legitimately, but frankly, if I ever run out of activations, I'm just going to pirate a copy so I don't have to go through the trouble of emailing the dev for the privilege of playing the game.
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Post by gurudennis on Aug 27, 2021 13:51:34 GMT -6
I think most people would agree to pay an extra $10 to buy the game on Steam instead. Not to mention the fact that it would bring significant exposure to the game and bring in huge sales as Steam tends to do, especially if the publisher flirts with discounts at least every once in a while. This is not some idle speculation either: look no further than Slitherine that sells many "top shelf" niche strategy titles on Steam in addition to having their own storefront.
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Post by kungfutreachery on Aug 27, 2021 15:18:05 GMT -6
I think most people would agree to pay an extra $10 to buy the game on Steam instead. Not to mention the fact that it would bring significant exposure to the game and bring in huge sales as Steam tends to do, especially if the publisher flirts with discounts at least every once in a while. This is not some idle speculation either: look no further than Slitherine that sells many "top shelf" niche strategy titles on Steam in addition to having their own storefront. Absolutely. I would even buy the game again if it were released on Steam.
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Post by charliezulu on Aug 27, 2021 17:37:39 GMT -6
I think the greatest irony of all this (and mods, forgive me if mentioning this crossed a line) is that the DRM was cracked within a week or so of the game release. For all intents and purposes, people who want to pirate the game have been free to do so. I have multiple friends who, despite owning legitimate copies of RtW2, instead use pirated copies because they don't want to bother with the DRM.
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Post by vader111 on Aug 28, 2021 2:00:28 GMT -6
If you scrolled just a bit in this thread, you would see the actual statistic being a rough 50% loss in revenue. But I guess that's just too much effort if you could just **** on something instead.
That does not equate to a loss of revenue of 50%. If the developers believe that, then unfortunately they base their actions upon incorrect data, to their own detriment. While hard numbers are difficult to come by, there is a study by the EU done on the object, which mostly found no statistically relevant correlation between piracy and lost sales, with one notable exception: Pirated top recent movies. But even there, for every 10 illegal downloads, only ~4 sales of movie tickets were lost. In other areas, they even found slight positive correlations, meaning e.g. for every 100 illegal downloads, one net additional sale occured.
On the other hand, there are multiple reports in this forum from people saying the only reason they have not bought the game is due to the method of DRM employed. Those are definitely lost sales. Note I said "method of DRM", not "because there is DRM". Add to those the people who simply have not bothered to register an account just to state this.
I never demanded they remove DRM from their product. I just suggested they choose a different one, basically any different one that does not depend on a Yahoo email adress still being active in 5 or 10 years time. If the developers are 100% sure though that the number of lost sales due to piracy with a more lenient DRM is larger than the number of lost sales due to this method of DRM, then everything is fine, and they should not change anything.
Look out, this person spitting out facts here. But yes the DRM has to be the worst implementation of any drm so far solely due to the way you have to activate it. And the fact that the drm is so delicate that really anything can trigger it and deactivate it, so you then have to go thought the whole process of emailing, and then waiting god knows how long and also for me get some evil looks from them because of how many times i have had to reactivate it because of a possible underlining issue with the drm.
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Post by vforvegas on Aug 29, 2021 2:40:20 GMT -6
I am also waiting on another email so I can play the game I have bought and activated previously.
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Post by williammiller on Aug 29, 2021 10:08:47 GMT -6
I am also waiting on another email so I can play the game I have bought and activated previously. PM me with your SITE/MID codes and I will activate the game for you.
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