Limiting Piracy of Cricket Games

Gabe

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Apologies for the long post, but an interesting discussion broke out in the 'PC Troubleshooting' thread which I think it worthy or further comment. This started when a chap in Pakistan questioned the pricing of DBC14 in relation to the economy there.

@Gabe - we pay a percentage that is more than the cost of physical goods to Steam, your argument falls at the very first hurdle.

you're not really understanding what @Ross has said. (i am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are not talking out of your ass.)

ok, he doesn't have to print e.g. 10k copies, and pay for distribution etc. but he has explicitly stated that the cut steam takes of each sale is more than he pays for a physical sale.

i.e. (and pulling fingers out of the air here) if 10k physical sales costs him ?3000, he is saying that 10k Steam digital sales costs him more than ?3000 and so simply discounting for Steam downloads is not economically viable. Just because he doesn't have to pay to press the discs doesn't mean the sale doesn't have an associated cost.

the physical discs have an up-front, fixed cost. by what he's said the digital sales have an ongoing, potentially unlimited cost.

so selling more digital copies at a loss is a ridiculous thing to do. it would be potentially worth doing on a physical release since the up-front cost is already spent, and you're at least recouping something with each sale. it is suicidal digitally because you're incurring an additional cost with each sale, and recouping nothing.

Ha, I've been known to talk out of my ass (unintentionally), but I don't think I am in this case. What does the bolded sentence even mean?

You seem to be suggesting that Steam are taking 100% of the purchase price, which is insane and I don't believe for a second to be the case, because if it is then BAS will never make any money regardless of what they price it at.

I don't really understand your grasp of costs, either. What costs are there for a digital copy? There's no production cost because there is no physical product. The distribution cost is built into the cut Steam take, so that is accounted for. The only cost is the cut Steam take, and because that is a percentage as Ross has stated, so long as it is less than 100% there will never be a loss, no matter what price it is (be it ?10 or ?50).

Retail is different, and a fixed price per copy is paid, and any discount is taken from the producers cut rather than the retailers, so it is possible to sell at a loss.

Now what I suppose could be happening is that Steam say they will take 40% of the launch price as their cut (so, for example, 0.40 x ?35 = ?14 goes to Steam, ?21 to Big Ant Studios) and that 'cut' is then fixed forever/a period of time. In this scenario, then any discount would be taken from the producer's cut - so let's say BAS reduce the price to ?20 - Steam would still want their ?14 under the terms of the original deal, leaving BAS only ?6 per copy (rather than Steam getting 40% of ?20 - i.e. ?8.) But it still wouldn't cost anything extra to do that, it'd only take more to sell to reach their targets. The only way to sell at a loss would be to price it at under ?14 (in this crude example) and then have to pay Steam the difference. And I doubt anybody has ever done that in the history of the service, because it is beyond madness.

Happy to be proven wrong though, I find it an interesting discussion.
 
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ShamiLoverGlipGlops

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All he is saying in simple English is

If Big Ant pays $3000 for 10k physical copies where each copy sells for $60 each Big Ant is ending up paying $5000 for same 10k game for digital copies.

There is saying if you need luxury you need to pay more and digital copies are luxury, one can easily purchase download no hurrying nothing.

Anyways an article for you to read

As mentioned in the Sunday Papers yesterday, there has been some controversy sparked after remarks made by Gearbox?s Randy Pitchford to Maximum PC regarding Steam, where he stated that the digital distribution service from Valve was ?exploiting a lot of small guys.? This was later countered by an article on Gamasutra where Tripwire?s John Gibson retorted, ?Ask the Tripwire Interactive employees if they feel exploited, as they move into their new offices paid for by the money the company has made on Steam.?

Interested to see if there were other positions we spoke to 2D BOY and Zombie Cow, who have sold their games on Steam, to find out about their experiences.


Says 2D BOY?s Ron Carmel:

?Valve?s digital distribution agreement is the simplest and most developer friendly agreement I?ve seen so far, and we?ve signed over a dozen of those. Also, no other digital distribution service I know of, PC or console, pays a higher cut of the revenues out to developers.?

But before we get to that, let?s elaborate on the original Pitchford and Gibson quotes to provide context. Pitchford was explaining why he doesn?t trust Steam as a businessman. He says that ?Steam helps? when it comes to distributing games, but continues, ?As a guy in this industry though, I don?t trust Valve.? When Maximum PC point out that Gearbox have worked closely with Valve he adds, ?I, personally, trust Valve. But I?m just saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn?t.?

Borderlands from Gearbox is being sold through Steam.

The point of contention is Valve being a games developer, but also owning the distribution platform used by their rivals to sell games. Pitchford argues that Steam should be a separate company, and doesn?t mince his words.

?There?s so much conflict of interest there that it?s horrid. It?s actually really, really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win. I love Valve games, and I do business with the company. But, I?m just saying, Steam isn?t the answer. Steam helps us as customers, but it?s also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that?s not totally fair. Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service its providing. It?s exploiting a lot of small guys. For us big guys, we?re going to sell the units and it will be fine.?

There?s clearly two arguments going on here. The first is that Pitchford believes there?s a conflict of interest for Valve, not only creating and selling games but promoting and selling those of their rivals. The second is that Pitchford claims Valve is exploiting the smaller, perhaps independent developers, by taking too large a share of the money made. It?s this second point that has received the attention so far.

There are complications in investigating this. When a developer signs up to have their game sold by a digital distribution service they also sign a non-disclosure agreement saying that they won?t reveal the details of the deal publicly. This isn?t specific to Steam or Valve, but it does of course make it very hard for anyone on either side to definitively prove their case. It was this point that Gibson directly addressed in his article.

?So, is Valve exploiting independent developers? In short: absolutely not. Without pulling any punches, I can say with certainty that if it weren?t for Steam, there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now.?

Killing Floor - game that made some men rich.

He offers an example of the sorts of offers put toward them when first trying to get Red Orchestra signed for a publishing deal.

?We?ll give you a 15 percent royalty rate, take the IP rights to your game, and slap a $1.5 million administrative fee on top of your recoupment costs.?

Gibson goes on to explain that the contract from Valve was the most straight-forward he had seen, and describes the royalty agreement as ?great?.

?We were able to recoup our development costs for our first game within the first week of sales, and sales were straight profit from that point on.?

He drives this point home by concluding:

?Ask the Tripwire Interactive employees if they feel exploited, as they move into their new offices paid for by the money the company has made on Steam. Or me, as I drive away from the company that was built from the royalties we made on Steam, in my sports car paid for by the royalties we make on Steam, to the home that I pay for with the royalties we make on Steam. If that?s exploitation, I?ll take a little more.?

Lots of ?3s at once is nice to have.

We spoke to two other independent developers who have published their games via Steam as well as on their own sites, interested to find out if there were examples of the issues Pitchford raised. First we spoke to Zombie Cow?s Dan Marshall, who recently had their point and click adventures Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! added to Steam?s store. He replied to our query succinctly:

?Sorry, it?s not a very interesting story on my part. I?ve got nothing but positive things to say about Steam ? the guys I dealt with were thoroughly charming and helpful, and I feel far from exploited.?

2D BOY seem pretty happy with Steam.

Next we contacted 2D BOY, who garnered great attention and success almost a year ago with the release of World Of Goo. Ron Carmel told us,

?I know a lot of small developers who distribute their games via Steam and the only complaint I?ve ever heard is that they?re not always very responsive over email. I certainly have not heard anyone saying they feel exploited. My experience has been nothing but positive. Valve?s digital distribution agreement is the simplest and most developer friendly agreement I?ve seen so far, and we?ve signed over a dozen of those. Also, no other digital distribution service I know of, PC or console, pays a higher cut of the revenues out to developers. I think they deserve every penny of the revenue they get. They?ve invested a lot of money and effort building and supporting their distribution platform and every game that gets on it benefits from that investment.?

Clearly this is not a definitive survey, and only two more anecdotes. But the impression given is one of a service quite unlike Pitchford?s suggestions.

This of course only addresses the second point Pitchford makes. What about the other thought that there?s a conflict of interests?

Gibson addresses this in his article, acknowledging that Valve could exploit their position, but then explaining why he thinks they do not.

?Valve has a very unique take on this matter, and one that I think is smart business. Rather than say, ?I don?t want to sell your game, because it?s a competitor to our game,? Valve says, ?Our game is good, and so is yours, so let?s both make some money together.? The attitude is if the game is good, they?ll sell it. This is different than standard retail publishers and other digital distribution companies. GamersGate, for instance, refuses to sell games that require Steam because of the conflict of interest. And while they claim to be a better model for digital distribution because GamersGate is a separate business from their related retail publishing company Paradox Interactive, ask Paradox?s CEO if they would sell a game at retail that requires Steam.?

But of course the issue remains that they could. Perhaps if there?s something to take from Pitchford?s concerns it?s to ask questions about the position Valve is now in. They certainly did provide lots of promotion on Steam for Killing Floor ? a game you could argue directly competes with Left 4 Dead ? both are multiplayer co-op zombie survival games after all. Were the position being abused Valve could have taken their cut from sales while squishing the rival game from attention. However, they did not. (You might well point out that since they?re receiving a cut, it wouldn?t make sense to hide the game.) But they could have.

Since Valve wholly owns Steam, and Steam makes money from the sale of games made by rivals, Valve profits from the games made and published by their rivals. You can see why this may irk some in the industry. (You may also admire them for their moxie, and be rather impressed they?ve pulled this off.) But is it an issue?

Of course, if Steam were the only viable digital distribution platform (let?s say that Valve had patented the system, and no one else could compete) then this could clearly be an enormous issue. It would be a monopoly. But of course it?s not ? there?s many others from the indie systems like GoG to IGN?s (and therefore News International?s) Direct2Drive. There?s GamersGate, Impulse and there?s Metaboli. Also, major publishers have their own non-independent online distribution services. The question is, how much of this market does Steam dominate? Is it viable for a developer or publisher to refuse their game on Steam?

The next obvious remark when considering conflicts of interest is: Microsoft? A games developer, and publisher, and owner of a console, and unique controller of its digital distribution. And of course the same goes for Sony, especially with the release of the digital download only PSPgo, Sony now also wholly controlling the sales of that platform?s content. If you wish to publish your game on either of these platforms you must first have it be certified by them, and of course pay a cut of your revenue to them for the right to sell your game on their machine.

Of course, finding parallels doesn?t justify anything. It simply puts the situation into a larger context. To borrow Kieron?s comment, because another country gives up its freedoms, should ours do the same? Steam, and of course other ubiquitous digital distribution platforms, could be argued to be the consolification of the PC. A console?s real purpose is a controlled sales channel from which the channel owner profits from everyone else?s access. So is it reasonable for Valve to run a business that sells and profits from the products of their rivals? While they appear to not be currently abusing this position, could they in future, and should something be done to prevent this happening? Or does the fact that games are sold on Steam at the independent discretion of the developer or publisher mean this objection is meaningless? Since the smaller developers who have spoken about the subject are so overwhelmingly positive, are Valve the right people to be in control of such a service? What do you think?
 

Umair7

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What? Many filmstars come in anti-smoking commercials, do they stop smoking? No.

It's not about the prices, it's not about the availability, it's about the Indian Parent, the Indian Society. Whenever a kid asks for a game, his parents are like "No! When will you study? Exams are coming soon...blah blah blah"...I know it, I've begged a lot for my Ashes 09 CD, I've begged a lot for my Nintendo DS, my friend took 1 year to get his dad by him FIFA11.

By Indian you mean South Asian ;) well I was a pirate, but PC members told me what piracy is so now I buy games properly :)
 
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IceAgeComing

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Here's the thing: I think that there is the other extreme where anti-piracy measures to too far and start to annoy customers who buy the game. The big example for me is always-on DRM where even though I buy a single-player game, I can't play it unless I have a perfect internet connection at all times. That's something that I'm not down with: I won't buy a game that has it. I remember Sim City's launch last year: I paid ?50 for a game that I physically couldn't play until I emailed Amazon asking for my money back four days later. This isn't some newly launch MMO: I wanted to play a SINGLE PLAYER game and had paid lots of money to do so; but because EA didn't realise the demand on launch, the servers were at capacity for weeks after release. Sure: SimCity was never cracked (until they patched in offline Single Player), but EA also had tonnes of people who love the franchise who either didn't buy the game or asked for their money back (and got banned from Origin for the privilege). There is the balance of the sales that you lose from making piracy easier (many of whom will not buy the game anyway) and those that you lose from restrictive DRM (which definitely are going to buy your game).

Its piracy that causes these things though: if people went and pirated SimCity on release then it would only encourage the big companies to add more shitty DRM to their product which makes things worse for the consumer. I think that the Diablo 3, SimCity and Xbox One reactions have shown that the always-on thing is the last straw for people who play video games. Lots of people feel that they should be able to play a product that they've paid lots of money for whenever they wish; and shouldn't be locked out by their internet breaking or similar occurrences.

Its also open to debate whether DRM actually reduces piracy. Look at the Witcher 2: the version with SecuRom DRM was actually pirated more than the GOG.com DRM-free release: even after the GOG version was released (Source)! There seems to br a shift in two directions: some like EA and Blizzard are moving towards a system where you pay full price for a game that you only can play when they want you to because you control the servers: and will probably be shut off in a few years meaning that people will have paid ?50 for a fancy box and a game they can't play. Others are moving away from the thing because they see it as them spending money on something that doesn't help them in any way, and I think some appreciate that. It'd be interesting to see whether DRM-free releases are pirated any more than games that do have DRM: but that's something that you'd been statisticians to do a proper study in since its a very complex issue.

To bring this to cricket games: Big Ant seem to have an appropriate solution which is not go to for "traditional" DRM that prevents the game from loading, but DRM that lets you load a broken game. That's probably the best solution overall: make your product work perfectly without making your customer jump through hoops (or require an internet connection) while break things for those who refuse to buy a product. The reckoning will be if (although when is probably the more correct question, unfortunately) a cracked version that removes Big Ant's big bugs is released and whether that gets noticed more than the current broken or fake releases.
 

BigAntStudios

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Nice read.

"No one is entitled to nonconsensual ‘free’ labor from artists, or anyone else for that matter. This should not be a controversial proclamation in 2014."
 

IceAgeComing

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I found the bits about availability interesting. We seem to have turned a corner with Steam and other services providing easily accessible, immediate, legitimate downloads of games without the faff that other services foisted: like Adware or limited activations. You also get some innovative ideas like the Humble Bundle which provides a way for developers, especially smaller ones, to get their games in the hands of those that might not

An example might be the latest one: I just bought the latest Humble weekly bundle because it has WRC 4 in it and I've been eyeing that up for a fair while. I didn't spend a whole lot - around £10 - and got that and a bunch of smaller Indie games that I'll play at some point. If they're good then I'll probably get other games that the people that made them make and thus they get more money. That wouldn't be possible a few years ago - probably not until Steam became a thing - because digital marketplaces weren't designed to allow that sort of thing, and the digital market wasn't that large anyway. Although the developers aren't getting the same share of revenue that they'd get for those who just buy the game (Humble Bundle revenue is generally split between the developers, appointed charities and the site themselves) but they get something from someone who probably wouldn't buy their product anyway because they didn't know about it: and they probably gain a decent share of those in the future. Sure the developers of WRC 4 aren't getting the money that I would have given them had I bought it direct from Steam: but I imagine that they see some benefit from doing it since they wouldn't put it up otherwise...

In short: buying digital games is now much, much easier than the alternative whereas before Steam it might not have been. It still wasn't right: but now because of Steam and other services, you're intentionally going out of your way to pirate versus the alternative. Buying games is so easy and better value than ever from a consumer perspective that supporting developers is a really easy thing to do.
 

Chief

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Mos' Def'. And good shout for the Humble Bundle - I'm an ambassador for GamesAid (Our Mission | GamesAidGamesAid | GamesAid riases funds through the exploits of members of the UK video games industry. PLUG!) and it's a great charity which really benefits from various Humble offers.

And if you REALLY want to be depressed about piracy, why not read this about one of the first charity bundles, which people were... pirating. Saving a penny -- pirating the Humble Indie Bundle - Wolfire Games Blog
 

IceAgeComing

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BigAntStudios

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As I've maintained, it's not about price.
 
D

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I reckon a big factor is that it's just easier to pirate a lot of the time so people get into the habit of it and it becomes their main (or only) source of acquiring their games.

Although in recent years it's improved a lot with Steam (which is 'DRM' but done right) becoming more popular, many PC games used to have annoying DRM, limited activation systems and bloatware like Games for Windows Live, SecuROM, TAGES etc and even Uplay/Rockstar Social Club etc are annoying. The pirated versions would often completely remove the inconvenient DRM and the unnecessary bloatware, as well as offering quick digital distribution, which wasn't a massive thing for PC games until 5 years or so ago.

I used to torrent games quite often, but as I've matured my mentality has changed and I've stopped doing it, but some developers really didn't help themselves with their implementation of DRM and inferior distribution methods.
 

Kiko_97

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"plz upload steamrip with updates thanks as all the updates till 1.09 have bugs for pirates like rain, controllers not working and crashes..." One of my favourite comments on a DBC link... somebody reads the forums
 

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