Digital piracy (long)

[Andara Bledin]

It's an MOG - Multiplayer Online Game. It's a huge category.

There are a lot of those out there, it's just that most people don't really think of them for what they are. Most of the console FPS games are primarily MOGs. However, since consoles are walled gardens, they don't have the hacking issue to protect against like you do with computer games.

In fact, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 handles their MOG side in much the same manner as D3; The client side is just a key to get to the playground, but all of the game data is kept by the server. However, due to the previously mentioned walled garden status, there is an offline component to the game. I'm not sure half the players ever touch it, but it exists.

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[MrsEclipse]

It looks to me like if you prefer single-player games, then Diablo III looks like a single-player game with multiplayer options. But if you enjoy multiplayer, then Diablo III looks like an MMO with the option to go solo. Kind of a glass-half-empty glass-half-full kind of scenario. Either way, from what I've experienced it isn't an MMO in the traditional sense, nor is it fully single player. It's something entirely different.

[Andara Bledin]

There was also a quote from one of the Devs that they don't expect the RMAH to actually turn a profit, but I can't find a citation for that at the moment.

Here's your citation, also from Jay Wilson, lead developer. (article at bit-tech.net)

The relevant bit near the end: "Blizzard's lead designer, Jay Wilson, said that Blizzard was staying away from a percentage-based cut to avoid the temptation to meddle with the system. Wilson also said that Blizzard doesn't expect the auction house to make a profit, rather that it might 'break even'."

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[Silverharp]

Funny thing about "piracy"
Metallica used to encourage fans to make recordings at their concerts because it got more positive word of mouth advertising out.
Since then they've mutated into one of the biggest "You wouldn't steal a baby, so don't steal a song" promoters.

[Nekojin]

I'm sorry, but no.
D3 is being promoted as a single player game with mullti player functionality. It is Blizzards attempt at a constand DRM and their desire to promote the auction house and make more money that requires the constant connection, nothing more.

Jay Wilson, lead developer for Diablo 3, disagrees with you. According to him, the Diablo franchise has always been aimed at multiplayer gaming first.

There was also a quote from one of the Devs that they don't expect the RMAH to actually turn a profit, but I can't find a citation for that at the moment.

[Silverharp]

Ok, I'm actually playing D3, and am getting really sick and tired of people talking about it being a single player or stand alone game. It's not.

It's a multi-player online game that is capable of being played solo. And the reason for that has to do with the fact that they have real money trading for their auction house so they have to keep all of the item and character resources stored server-side so that it's pretty much impossible for someone to hack the system to essentially steal money.

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I'm sorry, but no.
D3 is being promoted as a single player game with mullti player functionality. It is Blizzards attempt at a constand DRM and their desire to promote the auction house and make more money that requires the constant connection, nothing more.

[Dreamstalker]

Some might argue that onerous DRM might actually increase piracy.

I agree. A much-anticipated game that I bought turned out to in fact have DRM (SecuROM), despite the devs saying they didn't believe in it (we suspect that Sony forced them to include it). The game doesn't work properly with the DRM sitting on it, I haven't been able to figure out precisely why but I did have to resort to downloading a crack that strips that out; while that didn't fix it disabling my CD burner (and if I replace it, I've used up one activation) the game at least plays now.

In theory, if you don't agree with the DRM you can return the software (most EULAs say this). In practice, most stores won't accept opened games in return due to 'piracy concerns'. Yet in order to read the EULA/find out if it has DRM in the first place you have to open it. How is that supposed to make sense?

[Rapscallion]

There's a webcomic I read called The Trenches. Under the main strip (based around an office where quality control for games is conducted and the various fuckery within), there are tales from readers who have worked in the industry - very much like the morons in management and cursing out coworkers sections of CS, but edited by the webmasters and you get one per udpate.

It's quite possible, based on what I've learned there, that the QA did spot the problems, but it's also horribly likely that they were blown off and watched their work go down in flames because the devs couldn't give a shit.

Rapscallion

[Jetfire]

Slashdot has a story about Game of Throne's and how its pirated. It's being pirated at about the same rate as it's being watched legally... and analysis seems to be showing that one of the main reason it's being pirated is due to regional limitations.

[Andara Bledin]

(One post later, and I'm back already >_< )

Disastrous launch days for everything that's connection-dependent is the norm and will continue to be the norm for the foreseeable future. Bandwidth is a finite resource and big popular launches will take things down every single time.

Seriously, not even the electric company can meet the challenges of demand, and that's been a commodity for over a century.

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[Gravekeeper]

Yeah, Capcom is god awful at it. They're like Horse Armour: The Second Coming.

I'm actually stopping my participation this thread derail here. This thread is supposed to be about digital piracy, not whether or not making an online game is a douchebag move nor about server-side issues.

It being online only *is* a move made against digital piracy. -.-

And while it being online only is a bad move in my book considering its prequels, its the fact that "disastrous launch days" and dickish attempts at revenue streams are suppose to be an acceptable norm in this industry now that aggravates me.

[Andara Bledin]

The thing that is lost here is that you pay $60 for something. For many people that is almost a day's wages. You take that home and it doesn't work. Since it's a "game", noone gives a shit.

For most people, that's actually more than a day's wages.

However, it's irrelevant as there were no misrepresentations given about what you would get for that $60. It was developed to be an online game, and if someone doesn't want to play an online game, then they shouldn't buy D3. Considering they've already sold millions of copies and are estimating 5mil copies sold by the end of a year, I'm not sure they're going to even notice that anyone's boycotting.

Making an online-only multi-player game is not "shafting the consumer." The insistence that it is devalues the rest of the argument. Plus, one day of outage is not something that anybody with any power is going to care about. The cable companies have this on a pretty constant basis, as do some phone and internet services. The fact that Battle.net is a gaming service just makes the regulatory commissions care even less. What are they going to do? Make them give you a pro-rated refund on your service charge of $0?

I'm actually stopping my participation this thread derail here. This thread is supposed to be about digital piracy, not whether or not making an online game is a douchebag move nor about server-side issues.

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[mikoyan29]

The thing that is lost here is that you pay $60 for something. For many people that is almost a day's wages. You take that home and it doesn't work. Since it's a "game", noone gives a shit.

[lordlundar]

Which one? There are a hundred different discussions about the direction gaming is going at any given time, and most of them have been going on for something on the order of decades.

Well Capcom's been the biggest offender as of late with their ideas of outright cutting access to content already on the game just to charge the users more to access it later on (Street Fighter X Tekken's "DLC") or or selling a game's main storyline ending as DLC. (Asura's Wrath Though EA/Bioware was toying with the idea for Mass Effect 2 and you can bet if it wasn't for the hostile backlash for the third game they would have pulled just that stunt for it)

Or should we also go into publishing studios constantly cutting off popular franchises and good IPs just to push out the east to churn out crap. (LucasArts, Squeenix, EA, Activision, Ubi-you know what? I could mention every publishing arm out there they are all guilty of this to pretty bad degrees)

There's also their blatant attempts to save their old sales models by aggressively accusing someone, ANYONE else of bad practice because their sales numbers aren't through the roof. (Piracy, second hand sales, gamers themselves, etc) Maybe they should look at the other media industries and see where that got them.

Yeah, these discussions have been going on for a long time, but with the internet chipping away at publisher's capability to maintain a choke hold on the sales and distribution is making it tougher to maintain for them. As well as making much more people aware of such practices and why they're bullshit is just aggravating the situation. It's getting to the point that the only thing to be done is to let the industry collapse and start from scratch again.

Not such a bad idea in my mind.

[Gravekeeper]

Defending a company's right to maximize profits is so far removed from claiming their perfect that I honestly don't know why you said it.

Company does something stupid and gets caught with its pants down. Resulting in consumers getting the shaft. You sit here and defend it, apparently, because "I expect to get shafted and everyone will just forget anyway.".

That's not a good enough reason, frankly and will just lead to a worsen of products and services from the industry.

That doesn't invalidate my statement in any manner whatsoever. The amount of time spent "botched" from expansions, updates, patches, maintenance, and fixes is utterly negligible against the time the systems spend running just fine.

And I don't know how else to explain it seeing as you're apparently fine with being shafted as a consumer. -.-

If I pay for a service, I expect that service. Its pretty simple. If your company has a history of failing to provide that service at key moments, it has a problem that should be fixed. Instead of brushed off because "Hey, we're making so much money anyway. Sides, they're up *most* of the time."

That bullshit wouldn't work in any other product or service. Why is the game's industry allowed to get away with it? If Pizza Hut failed to deliver your pizza one night, would you be totally okay if they responded with "Well hey, we delivered it every OTHER night."?

Not sure what you're referring to here. Care to expand?

Battle.net. Taking down Battle.net takes down everything else running on Battle.net. If D3 overwhelms the servers, people playing SC2 go down with it for example.

Which one? There are a hundred different discussions about the direction gaming is going at any given time, and most of them have been going on for something on the order of decades.

Hardly. I mean the one in regards to big push from publishers on DLC and DRM the last couple of years. Who are at this point basically just seeing how far they can shaft gamers without having their offices torched.