Denuvo anti-piracy 4.8 has been defeated again

[Doobeedoo]

10 hours ago, Bit_Guardian said:

OMG you and the walls of text...

 

NO! The evidence is not there! All we have is the raw sales, and the Witcher series is not God!

 

It's exactly as I say so. I've worked on Unreal Engine. I've talked to Mike Acton about this kind of thing. You're completely delusional and ignorant of how these decisions are made.

 

Yes, post-game DLC starts about 6 months prior to release very regularly. The Dragon Age games are in fact examples of this.

 

They could've been part of the game if you gave it to the writers 12 months prior to launch and let them properly integrate all of the consequences and experience into the story Arc. I'm sorry but you're living in a dream world.

 

It does hold the water, to the tune of 30 million dollars or more.

 

Games these days have 10x the code vs. what you're comparing them to, because they are that much more advanced.

So you really think DRM is the best solution overall then? Sure Witcher series is not a God but it does prove a point. 

Also, what are you going to do, are you going to use DRM for your game then? What's wrong with way how for example Serious Sam handled the cracked game or even GTA4 too. That was funny.

 

As far as DLC thing, it's pure BS and money grabbing. Rarely any are worth it these days. There's barely anything like expansion even. I'm not delusional, you like to wear you pink tinted glasses and justify how companies do certain stuff, like you work for them. For many DLCs being worked before game release there's no reason not being able to incorporate additional work into main game release really. Don't deny that. For certain story DLC I may see fit but many are there just to put additional price on already regular release price, and for just little additional content. 

"They could've been part of the game if you gave it to the writers 12 months prior to launch and let them properly integrate all of the consequences and experience into the story Arc. I'm sorry but you're living in a dream world." - Yeah exactly, actually putting resources and everything you got for a 1.0 game and it's $60 price. Such a "dream world" sure.

 

You're just making up excuses for companies failures in terms of releasing either broken game or making money milking out of it. 

 

What are you talking about, as far as deadlines holding water? I was just saying how for couple of years already games on releases felt very rushed and you go justify that, get out.

 

"Games these days have 10x the code vs. what you're comparing them to, because they are that much more advanced."

- I'm not comparing them to 90s game and no code complexity didn't increase how you say over last couple of years. New engines and low level APIs are there yes, the problem of game being broken is also mainly due how they don't make game for PC the proper way if it's for multi platform. The proper way would be make it for PC without any restraints, once it's done bring it down to consoles. Many don't go that route cause it would require more money. Console porting and make it look less far from console is what's bad and also causes issues on PC side too. There's also a whole another console debate about that.

 

 

[Bit_Guardian]

18 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

So you really think DRM is the best solution overall then? Sure Witcher series is not a God but it does prove a point. 

Also, what are you going to do, are you going to use DRM for your game then? What's wrong with way how for example Serious Sam handled the cracked game or even GTA4 too. That was funny.

 

As far as DLC thing, it's pure BS and money grabbing. Rarely any are worth it these days. There's barely anything like expansion even. I'm not delusional, you like to wear you pink tinted glasses and justify how companies do certain stuff, like you work for them. For many DLCs being worked before game release there's no reason not being able to incorporate additional work into main game release really. Don't deny that. For certain story DLC I may see fit but many are there just to put additional price on already regular release price, and for just little additional content. 

"They could've been part of the game if you gave it to the writers 12 months prior to launch and let them properly integrate all of the consequences and experience into the story Arc. I'm sorry but you're living in a dream world." - Yeah exactly, actually putting resources and everything you got for a 1.0 game and it's $60 price. Such a "dream world" sure.

 

You're just making up excuses for companies failures in terms of releasing either broken game or making money milking out of it. 

 

What are you talking about, as far as deadlines holding water? I was just saying how for couple of years already games on releases felt very rushed and you go justify that, get out.

 

"Games these days have 10x the code vs. what you're comparing them to, because they are that much more advanced."

- I'm not comparing them to 90s game and no code complexity didn't increase how you say over last couple of years. New engines and low level APIs are there yes, the problem of game being broken is also mainly due how they don't make game for PC the proper way if it's for multi platform. The proper way would be make it for PC without any restraints, once it's done bring it down to consoles. Many don't go that route cause it would require more money. Console porting and make it look less far from console is what's bad and also causes issues on PC side too. There's also a whole another console debate about that.

 

 

It's the best solution for now when the goal is maximizing profit made from game sales.

 

I work for a bank and insurance company. I understand the justifications. If you piss off your investors, your funding dries up. It's a delicate balance to maintain. Quality of DLC is a matter of opinion. See again the Dragon Age games.

 

No, sorry, wrong. Adding in all those side stories and trying to make it coherent to the campaign and manage all of the ripple effects and balancing is no small task. As I said: you're delusional. As a software engineer myself who has to also do the macroscopic architectonic work for solutions in my team, I'm sorry but making modular software is no easy feat, and game stories are some of the most tightly coupled scenarios you're ever going to come across. It is not a simple matter of the writer spending a week to fit something in. You have to account for motivation to go there in the story Arc. You have to get the devs to rebalance all the levels that come after to account for experience gain and scaling. You have to properly play test from that point forward too. DLCs get started a couple months prior to launch because the game is in its polishing stages. Mainline developers get some free time. Social circles come together on a mini project they envisioned sometime prior, and they do it if they have enough time. That's nowhere near the resourcing required to properly stitch the DLC into the main story. Your methodology would demand no DLC whatsoever, and games would never be finished.

 

Please stop being an armchair warrior for consumers. You don't understand the half of the equation that actually produces consumable results. You just want results your way. Go start a game company if you're so sure you can do it better. Good damn luck.

 

I've committed close to 8000 lines of code to UE4 since it converted to DX 12. Yes, the code has blown up exactly as much as I said in the last 6 years.

 

Nope, consoles are the big sellers, not PCs. Again, you're idealising the situation. Shareholder interests come first. Consumers are dead last in the chain of being catered to at the macro decision level.

 

And much of the console port problem was fixed when consoles moved to x86 architecture. Now there's a lot of perfectly valid 1:1 copy/paste. We're no longer in the days of having to convert from Big-Endian pseudo-PowerPC in the PS3 and XBox and Wii to Little-Endian x86, sometimes via an emulation later. You don't have to change the system API calls because now all the consoles run a standard Linux kernel and the engines use cross-platform system libraries to account for both Windows and Linux.

 

The calculus has changed so much around you I don't think you know which era you're in. Take a breather, actually look at the problem, and come back.

[Alemagno31]

23 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

 Just had breaking footage from the Denuvo head offices with an exclusive interview

credits go to /r/crackwatch

OFFTOPIC : This is from an Argentinian TV show called PONE A FRANCELLA, Francella is the guy with the moustache, and he was one of the most gifted comedians in our country, here is the original vid

 

[ItsMitch]

Just now, Alemagno31 said:

OFFTOPIC : This is from an Argentinian TV show called PONE A FRANCELLA, Francella is the guy with the moustache, and he was one of the most gifted comedians in our country, here is the original vid

 

OT: Why is he so mad

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 hours ago, Bit_Guardian said:

The evidence in my case is that they've continued to do it for five years now and obviously see it as still worthwhile.

That's, at best, evidence that they think it is probably profitable. It is no evidence that it actually is (which is the kind of evidence they would need themselves to know it is profitable).

In other words, as I said, there is no evidence, but just a conjecture that "it must be profitable since they do it", implicitly assuming they ha ve managed to produce such evidence for themselves.

 

3 hours ago, Bit_Guardian said:

I'm pretty sure Pirate Bay and others still list torrents by popularity and download count, so the research is freely available.

I don't know what you mean. A ranking of most popular downloads tells you zero about the profitability of including eventually crackable DRMs with your software.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, Alemagno31 said:

OFFTOPIC : This is from an Argentinian TV show called PONE A FRANCELLA, Francella is the guy with the moustache, and he was one of the most gifted comedians in our country, here is the original vid

 

Spreading culture around the world

Spoiler

 

[raphidy]

Annndd. Denuvo GGed. Sold to irdeto.

[Bit_Guardian]

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

That's, at best, evidence that they think it is probably profitable. It is no evidence that it actually is (which is the kind of evidence they would need themselves to know it is profitable).

In other words, as I said, there is no evidence, but just a conjecture that "it must be profitable since they do it", implicitly assuming they ha ve managed to produce such evidence for themselves.

 

I don't know what you mean. A ranking of most popular downloads tells you zero about the profitability of including eventually crackable DRMs with your software.

No, because they'd know their own profits and would have enough data to model it too.

 

Wrong. Popularity is the effective date load rate. Given there is no evidence of significant torrent users going out to buy games afterward, the evidence is clear that tens of thousands of copies are I'll ally downloaded. That's lots profit. Multiply that # by your margin per unit and there you go.

 

And we know the bulk of sales are within the first two months. If you track the torrents from launch, you know your lost profit.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

No, because they'd know their own profits and would have enough data to model it too.

More conjectures.

I'd be happy to hear how they estimate the counterfacutal profits or otherwise identify the causal effect of using this DRM on profits, whenever someone provides an actual explanation. So far, you are just telling me your beliefs. You may as well believe in a teapot orbiting the sun. The level of certainy you have about it does not constitute a proof.

 

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

 

Wrong. Popularity is the effective date load rate.

I'm sure you wanted to mean something with that, but I'm afraid you didn't.

 

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

Given there is no evidence of significant torrent users going out to buy games afterward,

There is no evidence of the opposite either. There is just no evidence.

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

the evidence is clear

Which evidence? No evidence mentioned so far.

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

that tens of thousands of copies are I'll ally downloaded.

I don't think that's English  

 

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

That's lots profit. Multiply that # by your margin per unit and there you go.

Now you seem to be doing the extremely wrong calculation of "downloads x price = forgone sales", as if every download at $0 would translate into a purchase at $60 (or $X, whatever X>0 may be). But since your previous lines were incomprehensible, I can't be sure that's the case.

 

2 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

And we know the bulk of sales are within the first two months. If you track the torrents from launch, you know your lost profit.

Wrong. Knowing that most sales happen during the first months doesn't tell you how much net additional profit, if any, is brought by having uncracked DRM during those first months. Because you do need a credible estimate of how many deterred pirates will choose to buy the game instead of waiting, which so far you haven't provided (you haven't provided either an estimate or a strategy to obtain said estimate).

TL;DR: you just have what happened, but you don't have anything on what would have happened in the alternative scenario, which is crucial to make any claims on whether it is worth it or not. And given the difficulty in achieving identification in this context, no, it is definitely far from obvious that the publishers themselves can produce such estimates. Running the company doesn't make them immune to epistemological limitations.

[Derangel]

15 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

No, because they'd know their own profits and would have enough data to model it too.

 

Wrong. Popularity is the effective date load rate. Given there is no evidence of significant torrent users going out to buy games afterward, the evidence is clear that tens of thousands of copies are I'll ally downloaded. That's lots profit. Multiply that # by your margin per unit and there you go.

 

And we know the bulk of sales are within the first two months. If you track the torrents from launch, you know your lost profit.

So, there is one thing here to point out: Publishers are not using DRM because of piracy. It is about controlling access, protecting other revenue streams, and placating shareholders. Publishers are not stupid, they know that piracy rarely does significant harm to game sales, they also know that DRM doesn't really seem to have a negative effect on their bottom line and makes shareholders happy.

[Jito463]

56 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

the evidence is clear that tens of thousands of copies are I'll ally downloaded. That's lots profit.

No, that's potential profit.  There's no profit (or loss thereof) unless the individuals downloading were going to buy.  Since there's no proof to indicate either way, you can't make a blanket claim that 'X' downloads = 'Y' lost profit.

 

And before someone misconstrues my argument (as has happened so many times before), I'm not advocating piracy.  Ignoring the legality of it, it's unethical.  My intent is merely to correct the above misconception that often gets bandied about.

[Bit_Guardian]

1 hour ago, Derangel said:

So, there is one thing here to point out: Publishers are not using DRM because of piracy. It is about controlling access, protecting other revenue streams, and placating shareholders. Publishers are not stupid, they know that piracy rarely does significant harm to game sales, they also know that DRM doesn't really seem to have a negative effect on their bottom line and makes shareholders happy.

They wouldn't bother paying for the resourcing if it didn't provide them a profit to outpace that cost of resources. Sorry but that's business 101, no conjectures required. It's been what, 6-7 years since Denuvo took off? We know the profits of EA and Blizzard over that time along with the games released. I'm sorry but this isn't a conjecture. The Board of Directors also isn't stupid. If someone could prove the DRM is pointless then they'd say stop paying for it and give them higher profits and share price.

 

Seriously people, this is how every publicly traded business works. This is not conjecture. This is solid economic theory and practice that's stood the test of time since Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" 

 

Get back down to brass tacks. The proof is there. You're operating at way too high a level to understand the motivations and reasoning. And further you're making conjectures about the ineffectiveness based on one private company CD Projekt Red based off of one game series when you can see how much it has been pirated. It's safe to assume half of those torrent downloads are permanent pirates. It's human nature to be greedy and you know it. Stop hiding behind the dress of an invalid exception to the rule.

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

No, that's potential profit.  There's no profit (or loss thereof) unless the individuals downloading were going to buy.  Since there's no proof to indicate either way, you can't make a blanket claim that 'X' downloads = 'Y' lost profit.

 

And before someone misconstrues my argument (as has happened so many times before), I'm not advocating piracy.  Ignoring the legality of it, it's unethical.  My intent is merely to correct the above misconception that often gets bandied about.

Wrong. If you have to buy to try, and people were already interested, most would buy. Steam proves this. It's not a misconception. You just have your fingers in your ears. Get back to basics.

[Jito463]

3 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

Wrong. If you have to buy to try, and people were already interested, most would buy. Steam proves this. It's not a misconception. You just have your fingers in your ears. Get back to basics.

Except you have no idea how many of those downloading would actually buy it, if they couldn't torrent it.  My fingers aren't in my ears, yours are.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

They wouldn't bother paying for the resourcing if it didn't provide them a profit to outpace that cost of resources.

If they didn't expect a benefit. There is simply no guarantee that they can actually measure it and be certain about it. They can't wait for perfect information to magically appear, so they have to make choices one way or another even if they can't really know.

 

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

Sorry but that's business 101, no conjectures required.

Business decisions under uncertainty are based on millions of conjectures, expectations that may or may not realized, and ex-ante optimal choices that may as well be ex-post suboptimal. Business 101 indeed.

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

It's been what, 6-7 years since Denuvo took off? We know the profits of EA and Blizzard over that time along with the games released.

And we don't know the profits they would have made without it.

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

I'm sorry but this isn't a conjecture.

Saying so doesn't change the fact that you are just conjecturing that "they must know / it must be profitable" on no scientific basis.

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

The Board of Directors also isn't stupid.

Not being stupid =/= being omniscient. Come on, you are not even trying.

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

If someone could prove the DRM is pointless then they'd say stop paying for it and give them higher profits and share price.

Of course. Except not having someone proving it's pointless doesn't equate to have proof that it is beneficial. In fact, it would take the same empirical procedure to test both hypothesis (that it's beneficial and that it isn't), and given its extreme difficulty, it is unlikely that they, or anyone, has conclusive evidence either way. But I'd love to hear from someone with a nice identification strategy, I could end up publishing it and everything  

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

Seriously people, this is how every publicly traded business works. This is not conjecture. This is solid economic theory and practice that's stood the test of time since Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" 

Oh, please, don't talk about "solid economic theory and practice" when a) you are contradicting economic theory and practice, and b) you are incapable of understanding the standards for empirical work in Economics.

You have no evidence. You see some (not all, by the way) players in the market making one decision. You assume they must have some unspecified form of evidence supporting it with certainty, which you don't know yourself, but "there must be". You are conjecturing. Period.

 

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

Get back down to brass tacks. The proof is there.

Are you going Fox Mulder now? "The truth is out there"?  Saying "it's there" is cheap talk, try pointing to an actual proof somewhere. It sounds like some illuminati thing, you know? "The truth is evident to the initiated"  

 

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

It's safe to assume half of those torrent downloads are permanent pirates.

I think the technical term is "pulling numbers out your ass".

7 minutes ago, Bit_Guardian said:

Wrong. If you have to buy to try, and people were already interested, most would buy. Steam proves this. It's not a misconception. You just have your fingers in your ears. Get back to basics.

If I had a dollar for every time you liberally use the word "proof" and its derivatives, I could buy Denuvo, Valve, and Apple  

[jagdtigger]

9 hours ago, Bit_Guardian said:

A pretty healthy profit in your opinion. Businesses are not charities and shareholders are right to push for maximum growth.

 

Sorry but after a game's been out a few months and the review videos have come out, they're not even going to pirate it if it sucks.

 

You still have no good counterargument.

Not just mine since CDPR is still DRM free.... If this isnt solid enough IDK what it is. And put aside that lame excuse that this is only a exception, its pretty childish how you repeat it. Even though the evidence is there that people are willing to pay even without DRM. The harder they try the more they will hurt themselves, basically they shooting themselves in the foot with their current trend(not just DRM).

Edited January 23, 2018 by jagdtigger

[Doobeedoo]

4 hours ago, Bit_Guardian said:

It's the best solution for now when the goal is maximizing profit made from game sales.

 

I work for a bank and insurance company. I understand the justifications. If you piss off your investors, your funding dries up. It's a delicate balance to maintain. Quality of DLC is a matter of opinion. See again the Dragon Age games.

 

No, sorry, wrong. Adding in all those side stories and trying to make it coherent to the campaign and manage all of the ripple effects and balancing is no small task. As I said: you're delusional. As a software engineer myself who has to also do the macroscopic architectonic work for solutions in my team, I'm sorry but making modular software is no easy feat, and game stories are some of the most tightly coupled scenarios you're ever going to come across. It is not a simple matter of the writer spending a week to fit something in. You have to account for motivation to go there in the story Arc. You have to get the devs to rebalance all the levels that come after to account for experience gain and scaling. You have to properly play test from that point forward too. DLCs get started a couple months prior to launch because the game is in its polishing stages. Mainline developers get some free time. Social circles come together on a mini project they envisioned sometime prior, and they do it if they have enough time. That's nowhere near the resourcing required to properly stitch the DLC into the main story. Your methodology would demand no DLC whatsoever, and games would never be finished.

 

Please stop being an armchair warrior for consumers. You don't understand the half of the equation that actually produces consumable results. You just want results your way. Go start a game company if you're so sure you can do it better. Good damn luck.

 

I've committed close to 8000 lines of code to UE4 since it converted to DX 12. Yes, the code has blown up exactly as much as I said in the last 6 years.

 

Nope, consoles are the big sellers, not PCs. Again, you're idealising the situation. Shareholder interests come first. Consumers are dead last in the chain of being catered to at the macro decision level.

 

And much of the console port problem was fixed when consoles moved to x86 architecture. Now there's a lot of perfectly valid 1:1 copy/paste. We're no longer in the days of having to convert from Big-Endian pseudo-PowerPC in the PS3 and XBox and Wii to Little-Endian x86, sometimes via an emulation later. You don't have to change the system API calls because now all the consoles run a standard Linux kernel and the engines use cross-platform system libraries to account for both Windows and Linux.

 

The calculus has changed so much around you I don't think you know which era you're in. Take a breather, actually look at the problem, and come back.

Yeah I'm sure companies want max profit no shit. Also it doesn't mean 1 pirate = 1 potential buyer lost. It's way way less in that way. Even if piracy didn't exist at all, many that were set not to buy it for various reasons, still wouldn't buy it. Be it young no money thing or not wanting to support company for reasons. 

It's also not best solution as far as company reputation too, it does screw buyers. As mentioned before, others found a different way to combat cracked game. 

Some companies just want to ride their glory from certain series, rush the game, protect it with DRM in start and maybe gain some extra with DLC and move on very fast. Some games tend to be broken for a while after release. Quality control is sub par. 

 

Don't compare bank and insurance company to video game companies please. Cause you just streamline and tunnel vision everything into profit and nothing else. Now I don't say work completely against investors and piss them, but rather find a better way to also not screw community in the process and release a quality product for set price people want and expect. 
Yes sure DA DLC nice and all, also TW and there are other games. But point is, many are outrageously priced and already set price before launch time, being beyond regular price tag. Those X editions and season passes, which can cost way over $100 easily. While adding extra gameplay which is far cry from something like expansion would. 

 

I know that DLC planning starts before vanilla game is released. Depends how much they give for asked price too. Pretty much no one does expansions any more. The modern DLC way is BS most of the time. Be it you like certain DLC or not, it's a money grab, specially if you need them to keep players playing the game, seems main game is not good enough then. Depends. Seeing like numerous DLCs for some games that total cost would be like you bought many games is plain dumb. It would make it look like from all of that main game is barely half. 
Many people will always support greed sadly, games could be made better in a way that 1.0 game is better than current 1.0 with all shitty seasonal DLCs together. Depends on game, additional small free DLCs can be good and more bigger content like expansion can come later on to give a game a breath of life. 

I don't even know if you've seen how much some games cost with certain season pass or extra expensive edition for all DLCs and all. Again, many are simply not worth it for what they give over initial premium game price you payed. Even asking out of buyers to pay up front over regular price tag before release is insulting. 
They definitely want to squeeze max profit for least work with pricey DLC injections.

 

Yeah sure I'm and keyboard warrior for consumers and you seem to act like a CEO or lawyer of some game company. Just blindly defending every act company does of zero input of anything bad toward consumer. 

"You don't understand the half of the equation that actually produces consumable results." - I take it you love microtransactions and lootboxes don't you. And I'm sure you have something to say about it in "if if if" and "you don't need.." way. 

 

Companies don't develop game for PC like they used to but tend to port it many times, many games got released broken and visually sub par from expected or shown. And then they ask them selves why certain people pirate or don't want to buy it. These companies don't understand everything on the market like you imply you know. They could change some approaches how they develop a game for PC if they're doing it for multi-platform and they would benefit from it. People would see that, they're just to scared to go that route. It's like everyone want to be Activision with CoD or something. There are more gamers on PC though, have you also seen the revenues from PC gaming market. And can you stop talking about shareholders every other sentence. I don't want to talk to one or a lawyer like. Can you like give some other view perspective maybe. 
Or you're to excited to make your game with DRMs DLCs in work and microtransactions and lootboxes cause, profit. And game quality, however it ends. 

 

While it's true as far as consoles moved to x86 it's still not 1:1 at all. It's still a custom chip, memory works completely different. And no copy-paste is not valid. Or better yet, specially not in a way it's being done most of the time. Console to PC and not backwards, cause yeah, some extra cost. Also there's that thing about how console makers don't want the PC counterpart to look much better too. It's true. And games that got like you say copy pasted from console to PC didn't work very well. Even after years, performance is not really the best. Don't know if you know which and how many games suffered issues, but yeah. It's all out there.

[asus killer]

i read and read and i cannot see how pissing off your customers (creating people that buy your games but hate your guts and only buy because games are really good and the moment they aren't they are out the door) just to get some pirates to buy your games (not loyal, not caring, and that will pirate the shit out of your games the next time if they can) makes any sense.

And then you have the guys form CDprojectRED that have loyal fans, not buyers, fans, that are willing to buy anything you sell no matter if you put DRM or not.

 

And if it is nice for the company to have 3 layers of DRM to say no one pirates their games it is inversely proportional to the work paying customer's CPU have to do to get over those 3 layers of DRM.

[Derangel]

1 hour ago, Bit_Guardian said:

They wouldn't bother paying for the resourcing if it didn't provide them a profit to outpace that cost of resources. Sorry but that's business 101, no conjectures required. It's been what, 6-7 years since Denuvo took off? We know the profits of EA and Blizzard over that time along with the games released. I'm sorry but this isn't a conjecture. The Board of Directors also isn't stupid. If someone could prove the DRM is pointless then they'd say stop paying for it and give them higher profits and share price.

 

Seriously people, this is how every publicly traded business works. This is not conjecture. This is solid economic theory and practice that's stood the test of time since Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" 

 

Get back down to brass tacks. The proof is there. You're operating at way too high a level to understand the motivations and reasoning. And further you're making conjectures about the ineffectiveness based on one private company CD Projekt Red based off of one game series when you can see how much it has been pirated. It's safe to assume half of those torrent downloads are permanent pirates. It's human nature to be greedy and you know it. Stop hiding behind the dress of an invalid exception to the rule.

Wrong. If you have to buy to try, and people were already interested, most would buy. Steam proves this. It's not a misconception. You just have your fingers in your ears. Get back to basics.

 

The benefit isn't stopping pirates. DRM like that might catch a few people that would have otherwise pirated it, but it's off set by the small number of people that won't buy it due to the DRM. The net gain in sales is likely very small, if there is one at all. What it does do is prevent pirates from playing for a time, but it doesn't suddenly turn pirates into paying customers. I doubt anyone running these companies is stupid enough to believe that each pirated copy of a game is a lost sale. That simply is not true and never will be. Most pirates like to pretend they have grand, moral, reasons for piracy but in reality they pirate just because they can. It is quite simply impossible to turn all pirates into customers and publishers know this. They also know that investors are morons that don't know jack shit about the industries they invest in and DRM makes them happy. Being able to say "our game has gone weeks/months without being pirated" is a huge win for publishers because it boosts investor confidence. On top of that it helps protect recurrent spending revenue streams. If you can't hack the game, you can't bypass loot boxes and microtransactions. On top of all of that, it also gives publishers more control over when and how people can access and use their products. That level of control is very important to them. Why do you think publishers were 100% on board with the bullshit Microsoft tried to do when they announced the Xbox One? You're a fool if you believe publishers don't want more control and more ways to force people to spend money. Stuff like Denuvo is a pretty damn good way to do that.

 

Also, what the hell are you talking about in your last paragraph? The only time I've mentioned CDP in this topic is to say that they're a single exception to the whole "you get more sales without DRM" argument and that a single exception does not prove a trend.

[Derangel]

13 minutes ago, asus killer said:

i read and read and i cannot see how pissing off your customers (creating people that buy your games but hate your guts and only buy because games are really good and the moment they aren't they are out the door) just to get some pirates to buy your games (not loyal, not caring, and that will pirate the shit out of your games the next time if they can) makes any sense.

And then you have the guys form CDprojectRED that have loyal fans, not buyers, fans, that are willing to buy anything you sell no matter if you put DRM or not.

 

And if it is nice for the company to have 3 layers of DRM to say no one pirates their games it is inversely proportional to the work paying customer's CPU have to do to get over those 3 layers of DRM.

Let's be blunt here: The amount of people that care that much about DRM is minuscule. If DRM was actually proven to drastically hurt sales then publishers would find different avenues to get what they want. CDP is a unique company with a unique situation. They built their brand and reputation on being anti-DRM. They created a DRM-free digital platform and worked to revive old games that were nearly impossible to legally acquire anymore. They created a digital market for old titles. They were willing to get sued by publishers for removing DRM. There can only be one CD Projekt. Red's popularity is built off of the marketing and branding of their parent company. No other company can come along and copy what CDP did and be successful, it's a one time thing. CDP is a special exception.

 

PS: CDP aren't saints either. They threatened to sue pirates, claiming pirated copies are lost sales. They only stopped because of mass outrage.

PSS: Being a "loyal fan" is stupid. Unless you work for a company you should NEVER feel loyalty towards any for-profit enterprise.

[asus killer]

5 minutes ago, Derangel said:

The amount of people that care that much about DRM is minuscule.

how can you state something like this? do you have numbers? on the other hand you only have to browse the steam forums to see the opposite. Is may not stop sales nor i said it did, but people don't care? no way man, no way.

 

I agree, they are different because they are about the only ones option out of DRM BS and they thrive, so why the hell should that serve as a argument against the point that DRM serves no actual purpose is beyond me.

DRM is vital but if CDP doesn't do it and they are fine then there must be because they are special. Oh came on. If everybody that crosses the street outside the crosswalk gets run over but one guy that crosses on the crosswalk does not get run over then the logical conclusion is that the crosswalk serves no purpose, the guy that crosses the crosswalk must be different, special. 

[Derangel]

21 minutes ago, asus killer said:

how can you state something like this? do you have numbers? on the other hand you only have to browse the steam forums to see the opposite. Is may not stop sales nor i said it did, but people don't care? no way man, no way.

 

I agree, they are different because they are about the only ones option out of DRM BS and they thrive, so why the hell should that serve as a argument against the point that DRM serves no actual purpose is beyond me.

DRM is vital but if CDP doesn't do it and they are fine then there must be because they are special. Oh came on. If everybody that crosses the street outside the crosswalk gets run over but one guy that crosses on the crosswalk does not get run over then the logical conclusion is that the crosswalk serves no purpose, the guy that crosses the crosswalk must be different, special. 

I'm not even going to read beyond you using the Steam forums as proof. You do realize that people reading forums, even the Steam ones, only represents a tiny minority of gamers right? The vast majority of people don't even know what DRM is. It has more of an effect on smaller titles were the community is more likely to be active on forums, but for AAA games? HA!

[asus killer]

33 minutes ago, Derangel said:

I'm not even going to read beyond you using the Steam forums as proof. You do realize that people reading forums, even the Steam ones, only represents a tiny minority of gamers right? The vast majority of people don't even know what DRM is. It has more of an effect on smaller titles were the community is more likely to be active on forums, but for AAA games? HA!

i never quantified the number of people who know about DRM, you did when you said it was minuscule. I really don't know, neither do you. But it really creates bad PR and that is quantifiable either in steam forums or wherever games are discussed like here.

I do believe you're right and i don't disagree that a lot of people, probably the majority do not know about DRM, but that is irrelevant when we could all have a better experience without DRM. Just because you don't know something is bad for you doesn't mean it is good, it's still bad.

People could look at AC:O and look at that mess and blame the PC or bad coding when the problem is obvious, it does not make the problem nonexistent, you just don't understand it.

[jagdtigger]

8 hours ago, Derangel said:

No other company can come along and copy what CDP did and be successful, it's a one time thing. CDP is a special exception.

Is that your personal belief or someone actually failed while trying out their method? Because i never heard about it... And as long this is true you cannot claim its impossible since no-one even tried it. How could anyone(including you) know its impossible hm? Most of the studios are blinded by pure greed thats pretty obvious, but for some reason people still defending them and their ineffective methods.

[EG!]

8 hours ago, Derangel said:

Let's be blunt here: The amount of people that care that much about DRM is minuscule. If DRM was actually proven to drastically hurt sales then publishers would find different avenues to get what they want. CDP is a unique company with a unique situation. They built their brand and reputation on being anti-DRM. They created a DRM-free digital platform and worked to revive old games that were nearly impossible to legally acquire anymore. They created a digital market for old titles. They were willing to get sued by publishers for removing DRM. There can only be one CD Projekt. Red's popularity is built off of the marketing and branding of their parent company. No other company can come along and copy what CDP did and be successful, it's a one time thing. CDP is a special exception.

 

PS: CDP aren't saints either. They threatened to sue pirates, claiming pirated copies are lost sales. They only stopped because of mass outrage.

PSS: Being a "loyal fan" is stupid. Unless you work for a company you should NEVER feel loyalty towards any for-profit enterprise.

I think there is something all of you miss and that is the community of a game, the fans, the free marketing they give if they like a game/franchise, the power they have over the sales. If pusblishers like Ubisoft keep adding layers of DRM in their games they will run more and more terrible on the PC, people that don't know about DRM will blame the developers for "bad code" , "unoptimised game" and the sheep of the community will follow the hate and don't buy the game. I don't believe The Witcher 3 isn't the only game that has profited from torrenters. I myself bought The Witcher after playing at a friends on a torrented version of it, the community of that game is big but not all of those legally own the game, yet they leave reviews, tell people they like it. --> free marketing that might follow up with sales, not from necessarily from pirates but from people that hear or see the reviews.

Many of my friends hold off on buying Ac:Origins because I said it doesn't run smoothly on my i5 6600k and an GTX1070, they googled it and there are lots of complaints -> missed sales because they like it and I like the game.

You are right that the people that care about is not big but GoG exist because there is a community of anti DRM gamers.

 

17 hours ago, Bit_Guardian said:

No, sorry, wrong. Adding in all those side stories and trying to make it coherent to the campaign and manage all of the ripple effects and balancing is no small task. As I said: you're delusional. As a software engineer myself who has to also do the macroscopic architectonic work for solutions in my team, I'm sorry but making modular software is no easy feat, and game stories are some of the most tightly coupled scenarios you're ever going to come across. It is not a simple matter of the writer spending a week to fit something in. You have to account for motivation to go there in the story Arc. You have to get the devs to rebalance all the levels that come after to account for experience gain and scaling. You have to properly play test from that point forward too. DLCs get started a couple months prior to launch because the game is in its polishing stages. Mainline developers get some free time. Social circles come together on a mini project they envisioned sometime prior, and they do it if they have enough time. That's nowhere near the resourcing required to properly stitch the DLC into the main story. Your methodology would demand no DLC whatsoever, and games would never be finished.

 

Nope, consoles are the big sellers, not PCs. Again, you're idealising the situation. Shareholder interests come first. Consumers are dead last in the chain of being catered to at the macro decision level.

I haven't followed whole the discussion that led to your answer but EA often has their DLC already in the launched game but disabled, so he isn't entirely wrong. On the other hand you seem to have some knowledge about game development yet what you describe with alot of passion it seems I've barely seen the sole DLC that ever looked worth the money are the ones from the witcher 3 or oblivion, I haven't seen many newer games release DLC that took alot of time or add something drastic that needs the story to be tweaked. Look at the sims 3 or 4, it's just modular code with a small tweak and there you go expansion pack.

 

Your last point might be true where you live but the total of revenue gained from pc gaming vs consoles worldwide pc gaming industry overtook it by far,I predict that the profit from mobile games will even surpass both of them in the future.

[Bit_Guardian]

On 1/23/2018 at 3:46 PM, Jito463 said:

Except you have no idea how many of those downloading would actually buy it, if they couldn't torrent it.  My fingers aren't in my ears, yours are.

Even if it we're as low as 10% it'd be worth it. Sorry, but the best data available suggests 40% or more would.

 

On 1/23/2018 at 1:27 PM, SpaceGhostC2C said:

More conjectures.

I'd be happy to hear how they estimate the counterfacutal profits or otherwise identify the causal effect of using this DRM on profits, whenever someone provides an actual explanation. So far, you are just telling me your beliefs. You may as well believe in a teapot orbiting the sun. The level of certainy you have about it does not constitute a proof.

 

I'm sure you wanted to mean something with that, but I'm afraid you didn't.

 

There is no evidence of the opposite either. There is just no evidence.

Which evidence? No evidence mentioned so far.

I don't think that's English  

 

Now you seem to be doing the extremely wrong calculation of "downloads x price = forgone sales", as if every download at $0 would translate into a purchase at $60 (or $X, whatever X>0 may be). But since your previous lines were incomprehensible, I can't be sure that's the case.

 

Wrong. Knowing that most sales happen during the first months doesn't tell you how much net additional profit, if any, is brought by having uncracked DRM during those first months. Because you do need a credible estimate of how many deterred pirates will choose to buy the game instead of waiting, which so far you haven't provided (you haven't provided either an estimate or a strategy to obtain said estimate).

TL;DR: you just have what happened, but you don't have anything on what would have happened in the alternative scenario, which is crucial to make any claims on whether it is worth it or not. And given the difficulty in achieving identification in this context, no, it is definitely far from obvious that the publishers themselves can produce such estimates. Running the company doesn't make them immune to epistemological limitations.

Apologies for Android's shitty autocorrect, but you're wrong. Downloads x sales cost x 10% is still a guaranteed minimum. It's worth it to the accountants, and that's all that counts.

 

Identification is easy. You can buy the data from Google.

 

14 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Is that your personal belief or someone actually failed while trying out their method? Because i never heard about it... And as long this is true you cannot claim its impossible since no-one even tried it. How could anyone(including you) know its impossible hm? Most of the studios are blinded by pure greed thats pretty obvious, but for some reason people still defending them and their ineffective methods.

More than 20 companies have failed using CDPR's model. It's the exception that proves the rule.

 

Blinded? No. Organised by? Yes. Welcome to publicly traded companies 101. They are perfectly justified on data and principle.