So true! Thats why I love stardocks games no DRM or any of that kind of crap. It leads to more piracy of their games but they believe that if the game is made well enough people will buy it and their sales wont be affected by the piracy.
Should be a third panel where the video gamer is saying "WTF this game is total shit. I feel like I got robbed..."
Don't Xbox users have to pay a subscription to Xbox live for multiplayer games ? Even when the same games on the PC have free multiplayer ? Wasn't Spore the most pirated game of all time ? Wasn't Spore also the most 'protected' game of all time ? I have a feeling that DRM encourages piracy, because people don't want to pay when they can get a better quality product for free. So instead of paying for the privilage of feeling like a criminal, they just become one. Besides, I don't think DRM is about stopping the pirates. If it was, it should of died out once they started to realise that it doesn't work without driving away customers, leaving only the stupid companies using it. But this shift towards limiting the number of installs does do one thing that helps the game developers/publishers: It prevents people selling the game second hand. Second hand sales are legal, but the original author gets no money from it. But if they can prevent the sale by making it too risky for the buyer*, then they get more people buying the game from them. Even if they sell the game at a discount, that is still more money for them than they would see from a second hand sale. *For example, by giving the buyer no way to know if that CD key had been used.
Was spore the most pirated? I wasnt aware of that. But I was just quoting a companies stance on DRM and protections. I know the first day demigod first came out around 10,000 people pirated the game and clogged the servers.
Spore: Most Pirated Game Ever Thanks to DRM. I've seen many people claiming that Stardock games are more pirated because of their DRM. But I have never seen anyone produce any numbers to back up that claim. Not even a claim like "DRM free games are pirated x% more than DRM protected games". Even with the numbers for Demigod, I still don't have the numbers for DRM protected games to compare it to. Well, unless I compare it to Spore which is a known outlier. I wonder if Stardock will use CD keys for their next game. Since that should be enough to stop the pirates getting onto the official servers. If someone tries to connect with a CD key that hasn't been issued, then they don't have a valid copy, so they don't get to connect. Even a key that the installer doesn't check for validity is enough. It won't stop people pirating the game, but it will keep them off the official servers.
honestly, if game trial's were placed on the torrent sites, they'd probably help get people hooked for the real thing. good games do get pirated, but a lot of people won't buy things without test driving... i got a good kick in the face with Empire Total War being kind of weak compared to earlier games (mostly from instability and bugs)
You pay like $14 a year for XBox life and you can download several demos, occasionally free games, get all of the updates and can play all games (with a couple of exceptions) online. Not a lot of money, and IMO, is worth it for what its like.
So $14 a year for stuff that PC gamers are used to getting for free. Still, it's not that much money. Do the online games get hosted on your XBox, or do they get hosted on the XBox live servers ?
They get hosted by players, and host is auto-determined by the master server, based on connection quality. PC gaming has its perks, but console platforms operate at a different level. PC game servers are paid for by players. With consoles, players cannot host their own servers. If the same was true for PC gaming, then they would've charged to play online as well (just look at MMOs). Xbox Live - for what it costs - is far better than what the competition offers for free (I'm referring to the PS3 and Wii). The PS3 and Wii games go offline as soon as the game's producers decide to take the server down, but Xbox online games will live on as long as there is Xbox Live. I'd even pay $100/year for that kind of service. I don't play the Xbox much nowadays, but when I did, I loved how organized the service was. Matchmaking is much better than manually searching for a good game (as on the PC).