pc-game-piracy posts

Avalanche Studios' CEO Christofer Sundberg has a strong distaste for DRM set-ups in PC games. The head of the studio behind the Just Cause open world game series told Computer and Video Games, "I think piracy wouldn't be as much of an issue if there were better PC games out there. We could just scrap the whole concept of stupid DRM." Indeed he hates the very idea of DRM in games, saying " ... Forcing people to be online all the time and so on doesn't show respect to the people who actually buy PC games."

Sundberg also doesn't care for PC ports of console games, saying, "You end up just doing a port, so there's not a lot of time, budget or creative thinking going into using the PC." He adds, "I would like at some point to do a really good PC game designed specifically for PC players."

For years and years we have been told by game developers and publishers that people who download pirated copies of PC games for free were in fact stealing from the PC game industry. That's not the viewpoint of Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson.

Edge reports that during a panel at this week's GDC 2001, Persson states, "If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world." He believes that pirated copies of games should be thought of as ways to expand the audience for your game. He also believes that game should be thought of as services rather than stand alone products, stating, "Make a game last longer than a week. You can't pirate an online account." With sales of Minecraft approaching 1.5 million Persson clearly hasn't been hurt by anyone who has pirated his game and he and his time have constantly been updating Minecraft with new content and features.

Half-Life 2 was one of the most anticipated PC games of all time. However Valve's first person shooter sequel became the most infamous example of a pirated PC game in September 2003 when a German named Axel Gembe found a way to hack into Valve's servers and download the still incomplete source code for the game.

Eurogamer has posted up a feature article that's mostly an interview with Gembe about how he got access to the Half-Life 2 source code. He was arrested for the crime in May 2004 (after emailing Valve head man Gabe Newell asking for a job). Gembe admitted to downloading the source code but insists he did not upload the code to the internet for everyone else to grab. He states that he gave the code to a still unidentified person, saying, " ... the person I shared the source with assured me he would keep it to himself. He didn't."

In the end Gembe got what some might consider to be a light sentence for his crime; two years' probation. And what would he tell Gabe Newell now? Gembe states, "I am so very sorry for what I did to you. I never intended to cause you harm. If I could undo it, I would. It still makes me sad thinking about it. I would have loved to just stay and watch you do your thing, but in the end I screwed it up. "

Earlier this week PC gamers came down hard on Ubisoft after it was revealed that their new PC DRM set-up requires a always on internet connection, even if its a single player only game like the upcoming Assassin's Creed 2. the UK version of PC Gamer, which broke the story, got a chance to chat with Ubisoft about the issue.

When asked if they knew most PC gamers didn't care to have a constant net connection to play their future PC games, Ubisoft's answer was, "We know that requiring a permanent online connection is not a happy point for a lot of PC gamers, but it is necessary for the system to work." Indeed Ubisoft's response to the questions about their new DRM set up seem to have an almost paranoid attitude towards PC game piracy. In response to another question the Ubisoft rep states, " In the end it all comes back to one single truth: piracy is a big, huge, hairy problem. It's a market that suffered a lot because of piracy, and we're all just trying to figure out what we think is the best way to deal with it."

Ubisoft also believes their system will take a while to be hacked, saying, "The guys who designed it believe in it. Do we think that it's the one system that God has sent onto earth that will never be cracked by anybody ever? We can't guarantee that, but we believe in it. " The chat also deals with how game progress is handled when a net connection goes down (it's different from any game) and that Ubisoft will patch any PC game to work without a server if they decide to do away with the always on net connection.

Modern Warfare 2 for the PC may have become the highest selling game in the Call of Duty series for Infinity Ward and Activision but one group claims that those sales pale in comparison to the pirated copies that have been transfered via BitTorrent locations. The site TorrentFreak claims that a whopping 4.1 million illegal copies of the first person shooter were downloaded via torrent sites in 2009.

That number is a new "record" for a pirated PC game and was generated after less than two months (the game was released in early November). The Sims 3, released in June, is number two on the list with 3.2 million downloads. Somewhat suprisingly, Prototype was third with 2.35 million downloads, according to the report.

While most PC developers dread the thought of their games being pirated on torrent web sites, one game developer actually sent a build of their game to pirates site deliberately. Gamesindusty.biz reports that's exactly what happened to Trials 2: Second Edition, the 2008 released racing game from developer RedLynx.

The developer's CEO Tero Virtala said the version of the game they made available to pirate sites lacked the online leaderboards of the full version. His hope was that the pirates would like the game enough to pay for the full version. So far 150,000 copies of the full version have been sold and Virtala states, "When we compare that hacked version with those who have access to leaderboards and are accessing our servers they match. So at least people have not cracked out leaderboards yet."

Piracy has been one of the major factors behind publishers and developers moving more towards console games. Trying to fight piracy through various DRM-based set ups has not slowed down the amount of illegal PC game copies on the Internet and in fact has upset some consumers who feel they are being subjected to overly restrictive rules on how they can install and use their legitamently purchased games.

During Ubisoft's conference call to investors this week (which you can listen to at their corporate web site) the publisher's CEO Yves Guillemot stated that they plan to implement new tools that he claims will "actually decrease tremendously the piracy on PC." He indicated the new tools will be ready sometime next year and perhaps even uses on an unnamed PC game to be released sometime before the end of 2009. We won't jump to conculsions about these anti-piracy "tools" yet but we do wonder what the response will be from consumers who don't care for any DRM set-ups at all in their PC games.

[Via Shacknews]

Just after The Sims 3 went gold, the people sim sequel was quickly pirated and placed on various pirate web sites. In a chat with IndustryGamers (conducted during E3) Electronic Arts' CEO John Riccitiello joked, " You identified our secret marketing campaign!" when asked about the Sims 3 pirate leak.

More seriously, Riccitiello stated that one of the ways they are looking to fight piracy is by offering more downloadable updates and content to games. For example, The Sims 3 has a entire downloadable town that can only be accessed by registered users of the game. Riccitiello states, "It's a very content intensive game, so to have the pirated version and not have access to that is a little bit like having a subscription for Starbucks and only getting one coffee. It just whets your appetite rather than satisfy your ultimate goal."

Oh Canada! Land of people interested in beer, hockey and cheap movie and TV production facilities. But Canada, are you really a hot bed for PC game piracy? That's what the United States Trade Representative said this week when it placed our grand neighbor to the north on their "Priority Watch List". According to a new press release from the Entertainment Software Association Canada has failed "to maintain effective intellectual property protection and enforcement."

It's a bit of a shock to see this happen, especially since Canada is home to tons of major game developers and publishers. ESA CEO Michael Gallagher, however, seems pleased that such a decision was made, saying, ""Canada's weak laws and enforcement practices foster game piracy in the Canadian market and pave the way for unlawful imports into the U.S." Canada joins 11 other countries on America's piracy watch list including China, Russia, India and Thailand.

As is usually the case with PC games these days, the recently released first person action game Zeno Clash has found itself on BitTorrent-based pirate web sites with people downloading the title for free. Ars Technica reports that the game's development company ACE Team have taken the unusual move to ask those who are pirating the game to, please, pay for it.

In a comment page for one of the BitTorrent sites that has the game available for free download, ACE Team member Carlos Bordeu wrote that like most indie game devs, ' The only way in which we can continue making games like this (or a sequel) is to have good sales." He pleads with those who have downloaded the game from the site to " . . . purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it." Bordeu claims that their method has worked for at least some people, saying, "We've received several mails and posts in our own forums of people who pirated the game that decided to buy it because of the message." In the meantime ACE Team is working on a free demo of Zeno Clash that should be released soon.