Steam Soon To Implement Ingame Advertising...

[Huckeye]

There are some people who will pirate a game rather than buy it. This could be said to cost the publisher money.

 

There are other people who will pirate a game that they would never otherwise have bought. This is cost neutral to the company.

 

There are still other people who will pirate a game, find out they like it and then buy a legal copy (I myself have done this with at least 3 games). This benefits the publisher financially.

 

Without analysing and comparing the frequencies of ALL of these alternatives, it is IMPOSSIBLE to say whether piracy is a net benefit or a net loss to the industry, despite the self-serving waffle peddled by those with vested interests one way or the other.

 

This is one issue I can actually agree with the publishers on (in part, mind you, only in PART).

 

But I can see where the publisher will think that those arguments are illogical. IF, there was no way to pirate the game, then some of those people that pirated it to try it AND some of those that pirated it with no intention of paying likely would have become customers at some point. If the only way to get to something is to buy it, then I think there ARE sales uncounted for. In other words, since the games are in fact pirated, its fair for the companies to feel cheated as they can assume some of those people wanted to play it enough to risk legal action.

 

If It's my game I'm selling than I have no heart for ANY pirates regardless of reasons or circumstances.

 

That's about all I agree with them on though. Their relentless abuse of the paying customer is unethical in my opinion. I also seriously doubt they lose more money than they spend on anti piracy. I also know that games lose sales because of anti piracy as I avoid all steam games, and many variations of CD checking software. I don't pirate them, I just don't play them at all. And noticing some titles from one company that do have the anti piracy software installed, makes me avoid other titles from the same company that might not have had the same measures in place.

 

I also cry fowl on sales statistics. why are they so sacred? I say this because I think you could glean some interesting facts from games sales based on copy protection. I wonder how many copies of Oblivion have sold, versus an ubisoft game that has securom enabled. I don't think more people pirated oblivion than did any ubisoft game with copy protection, i just think more people bought Oblivion because it was a good game and then the company chose not to screw all those that paid for it. (knowing full well the same number of people would find ways to steal it regardless of the protection used or the quality of the game).

 

/end complaints. Sorry.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

If It's my game I'm selling than I have no heart for ANY pirates regardless of reasons or circumstances.

Their relentless abuse of the paying customer is unethical in my opinion.

I also cry fowl

It's unethical to have no heart?

you like fowl?

The last few games I bought are thief 2 (2002), siberia (2004), and doom 3 (2005). I haven't noticed any of those new-fangled antipirate thingies yet. Besides, if I consider pirating something then it's certain I would never pay for it otherwise, and I would use it a couple of times and let it sit on a shelf. (eg autocad)

[OrbWeaver]

But I can see where the publisher will think that those arguments are illogical.

 

I didn't present any arguments. The existence of the three categories (and possibly more) is a fact, as evidenced by the fact that I have known people in each category and have been a member of all three myself.

 

IF, there was no way to pirate the game, then some of those people that pirated it to try it AND some of those that pirated it with no intention of paying likely would have become customers at some point.

 

Quite possibly. There are also people who would never have bought the game if they hadn't pirated it first, which would result in lost sales if the game was impossible to copy.

 

It doesn't matter how you twist and turn, there will always be people in each category and anything short of a comprehensive scientific analysis of the numbers in each case is merely useless speculation.

[sparhawk]

So I guess I'm agreeing with the slippery slope theory and also gripping as one of the sole people in the world who refuses to pay for Steam games and getting to listen to countless thousands who supported it by buying it and then complaining that they don't like it.

 

That's exactly why I never bought HL2 even though I would like to.

[Gildoran]

I bought HL2, but soon after decided not to buy any more games from Valve/Steam.

[OrbWeaver]

I bought HL2, but soon after decided not to buy any more games from Valve/Steam.

 

Same. It's a pity, because the new HL2 extension looks quite interesting, but I am not going to pay for any game that I have to ask permission to play.

[Domarius]

Yeah I'm an avid game-buyer if I love the game, but even I can't bring myself to get tied up in that steam nonesense, even though I love HL2

[Huckeye]

It's unethical to have no heart?

you like fowl?

The last few games I bought are thief 2 (2002), siberia (2004), and doom 3 (2005). I haven't noticed any of those new-fangled antipirate thingies yet. Besides, if I consider pirating something then it's certain I would never pay for it otherwise, and I would use it a couple of times and let it sit on a shelf. (eg autocad)

 

Oops. I meant "I have not pity"

 

Don't particularly like fowl. But I cry it sometimes. Maybe I should say, 'its not fair'.

 

I'm also not a fan of episodic gaming. The lies that they can make better games in small chunks is merely a confession that they have been putting less into their big budget games and also an avenue to charge more for less.

[Domarius]

Crying foul is probably more effective than crying fowl though.

[Huckeye]

Crying foul is probably more effective than crying fowl though.

 

This is the problem with the world. If I had spoken that out loud no one would have corrected me

 

Next time i'll just cry.

[Crispy]

I'm also not a fan of episodic gaming. The lies that they can make better games in small chunks is merely a confession that they have been putting less into their big budget games and also an avenue to charge more for less.

I do like the idea, but not if they're going to charge full price for less content. Charging a little bit more I can understand, but not as much as I've seen them charging.

[sparhawk]

That's not going to happen. People are used to pay about 50 Euro per game, so why should they change that?

[Huckeye]

I do like the idea, but not if they're going to charge full price for less content. Charging a little bit more I can understand, but not as much as I've seen them charging.

 

so far the typical model has been 19.99US for around 4-6 hours of content. so 8-12 hours is 40 and 12 - 16 hours is $60.00. My numbers may be off here. I remember reading something about the hl2 episodes and I remember thinking that for 60$ you were getting around half of what half life 1 was. While some games are around 12 hours of playtime, many far exceed that. I think almost all episodic content will end up costing you much more in the long run. Plus, so far at least, it seems episodic content is synonymous with steam or some sort of online product activation.

[oDDity]

Well I got about 1000 hours of entertainment out of the Baldur's Gate games, for the same price as Half life or Doom3.

It's all about the quailty of the game.

It's easy to make a game that simply lasts long, but its not easy to make it high quality.

[Komag]

A lot of the price/hours thing is pretty relative anyway. Just take a date to the movies and you spent $20 easily, for only TWO hours entertainment.

 

Episodic content is still pretty new, so the market hasn't had time enough to be sure how it feels about it, but over the next few years it will become more clear what we in general feel is worth it and what is not.

 

Another part of it comes from psychological barriers - if we saw a game that cost $80 we'd balk, but perhaps it's really worth that much but we just can't get over the high number. Buy the same game for $40, then buy two $20 episodes, we get past the mental high number, and can more truthfully approach the real issue of value for price.

[Mr Retarded]

A lot of the price/hours thing is pretty relative anyway. Just take a date to the movies and you spent $20 easily, for only TWO hours entertainment.

 

Hopefully the date won't end straight after the movie, which would alter the Money/Hour number.

[Komag]

Or you could spend time together doing something free, which would send the money/hour ratio through the roof!

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

hour/money...

[Domarius]

Topic change from games to sex in 3 posts flat!

 

Back to games - I think they can milk a lot out of the HL2 theme and the game engine. After I complete a good game sometimes I think "Give me more of the same!" if its cheaper than a full game, great!

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

freud would be proud

edit: as long as it has aliens and that mysterious guy in a suit it's going to earn money.

Edited December 15, 2006 by Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat

[Gildoran]

HL2 fans are going to kick me for saying this, but perhaps one of the biggest let-downs for me was the physics... There's been a bug in HL1 physics that always drove me nuts, and when I heard that HL2 would have "realistic" physics, I just assumed they'd fix it, but they didn't... In HL2, when you jump your velocity is set (rather than added to), and when you fall the amount of damage you receive is based entirely off of your velocity (without taking into account the velocity of the surface you hit). This leads to severe problems with fast traveling elevators. When you're traveling up, you're stuck to the floor and can't jump. When you're traveling down, jumping will cause you to shatter your ankles. Even Thief 1 didn't have that bug (and I don't think Doom 3 does either), and they don't even advertise their "realistic" physics.

[Crispy]

That's terrible. Did nobody at Valve take high-school physics???

[Domarius]

Yeah I'd be inclined to blame Valve - the phsyics engine they used is fine, they just used it wrong. Setting the player jump velocity absolutely instead of relatively... that's fucked up.

[Vadrosaul]

Something odd about the recent Steam update:

Guest Passes allow owners of certain Steam games (purchased either via Steam or at retail) to let their friends play games for free, for a limited time trial. The first game to take advantage of this new feature will be Day of Defeat: Source.

Limited time trial?? So now a company that I fully purchased and own a product of gets to decide what I do with it and whom I give it to, and for how long? Or at least now they allowed me to.....

[SneaksieDave]

Right, and make no mistake, in addition to possible additional revenue, they are just looking for ways to get Steam installed on more systems, so they can take more liberties with those who don't understand (99%) or even read (99.999999%) EULAs.

 

Fuck off and die, Valve and your Steaming pile! Die, die, DIE.

 

Edit: Is that a bit too strong?

 

No. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE