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awmperryThere was an article in PC Gamer this month about games publishers tracking down people who had downloaded games, and sending them extortionate bills. And at first glance, of course, it seems reasonable; computer games cost a lot to develop and market, and of course people want to get paid for their work.
What they don't consider - indeed, what I haven't seen anyone mention at all yet - is that there is a valid ethical argument to be made in favour of piracy.
Many years ago, in the mists of time, there was something known as a "demo". This was a cut-down version of a new game, released so people could try it, have a go, see if they liked it. More to the point, see if there were any spectacular cockups in the game, like people in string vests taking half a dozen rounds from a G3 to the chest before slowing down, or using vehicles with mounted machine guns as close combat weapons. (Not that I'm still irritated about paying for Far Cry 2 or anything, oh no.)
Nowadays, however, the days of the demo seem long gone. Oh, there are some, but they're invariably for smaller releases. Back in the day, the PC Gamer cover disc - on CD back then, of course, even floppy disk in the early days - had lots of demos. Just after the transition to CD, when demos were still sized for floppy, there were dozens. They used to do compilation CDs, with demos for fifty games. The really big releases were on the disc for months. The original Half-Life had arguably one of the greatest demos of all time - a specially-built standalone game, if you recall - and it wasn't unusual for games to have demo-specific content. Strategy games had three of the best levels from the game, or maybe a short custom campaign. Shooters had either the first quarter of the game, or a selection of the best levels. And so on.
But now, nothing. Oh, there was Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, but that was really just a tech demo with some gameplay tacked on. And, of course, it was released long after the game, so can't really count as a demo. There was a demo of Peggle, which unfortunately did little to prepare me for the infinite tedium of the actual game. And now most recently, Far Cry 2 famously refused to release a demo because "Even if we blocked off a small area [of the map] ... it would be giving away too much of the game for free."
I think what they meant was "Because you punters might realise that the game as a whole is bollocks".
Even Spore didn't have a demo, not really. Okay, there was the Creature Creator, but a demo where you have to pay for the "full demo" strikes me as rather ridiculous. Particularly when it's just construction, no gameplay.
In fact, I have a cynical and subversive theory. Gather round.
The Creature Creator lets users make odd creatures. In purely numerical terms, compared to the number of known species on Earth - and according to an article I read last week, anyway - people using the CC are now more creative than God (or evolution, if you side with, y'know, actual science). And this was released before the game itself. A game that touted each game as being populated by a random selection of species from a huge library.
Now, call me cynical, but that sounds like "Let's get the players to provide most of our content, and have them pay for the privilege! We'll call it a demo."
Anyway, you may be wondering what all this has to do with piracy.
Well, I don't have limitless amounts of money. Chances are, particularly in the current economic climate, that you don't either. I can't afford to spend my money on a game that might be good, might be rubbish, and so I end up not buying - or playing, of course - many games at all. I buy games on occasion because, from all accounts, they should be good. And given the choice, I prefer to buy games. I get a proper disc, I can sell it on when I get tired of it (but not always; see "DRM"), I can get updates when they're released, and oh yes, it's legal and pays the people who've worked on it.
The problem is, an awful lot of games these days sell on hype rather than substance. One review of Far Cry 2 remarked that it was good "unless you're the sort of idiot who actually believes the hype". I may be paraphrasing, but that was the gist. In any other business, it would go to Trading Standards. "The new car will have four wheels, a CD player and revolutionary new helicopter technology!" sounds great, until you realise that it's actually got three wheels, a broken AM radio and no helicopter. "Oh, but you shouldn't have believed the hype" the manufacturer will say, and they'll immediately get hit with a huge fine by the TSA. That is how things should work, but not in computer games.
Where was I?
Oh yes. Games nowadays have a tendency to be more graphically impressive (until you actually pay attention and find that, wait a minute, those leaves always fall in the same spot, and the fire's just an animated texture that seems to be emanating from thin air), to have "cutting-edge AI" (in fact, just a couple of extra behaviours and a quick fix to stop them running right at you), and "open-world" always seems to end up meaning "corridor shooter with really wide corridors". And story is non-existent. (Take, for the sake of argument... oh, Far Cry 2. It was supposed to have an immersive, adaptive story with "an advanced AI author tailoring the story to your every action". In fact, what it did was just switch names and characters round depending on whom you'd killed at that point. The actual story didn't change; indeed, the only point at which you can actually affect the story is right at the end, where the "choice" boils down to a simple left or right, with not even a change in end cinematic. It's bollocks.)
(Do you get the impression that I'm feeling slightly buggered over by Far Cry 2 after pre-ordering it and paying £24.95 for a deeply rubbish game?)
I wish I'd downloaded a pirated version of Far Cry 2 first. I'd have tried it, found out that it was rubbish within an hour or two, uninstalled, deleted, and been done with it, and the absence of my £24.95 would have been a tiny bit of incentive for manufacturers to actually try to make a good game next time.
Because, you see, it cuts both ways. Yes, it's wrong to steal something people have put a lot of work into. But it's also wrong to take our money under false pretenses. It's wrong for game publishers to advertise one thing and deliver another. Fair is fair, and if they don't provide a decent and representative demo, people with limited money will need to find another way to try before they buy. And we can't return games when we find they're rubbish, because most used-game shops don't take PC games. (Copying and DRM - a bad combination.)
So I'm proposing the Perry Method for Ethical Piracy. (Don't call it the "PMEP", because that sounds rubbish.) It's a simple expedient to level the playing field and encourage fair play for both developers and gamers.
You see? A simple idea, it gives the customers the chance to make an informed choice about the quality of a game, and it ensures that companies that produce good games are rewarded for their efforts. I've downloaded a few games in the past - not many, to be honest, probably half a dozen or so, but still - and if I haven't liked them I've deleted them. Crucially, if I have liked them enough to continue playing, I've bought them. As a rough guess, I've got close to a hundred legally purchased games; many of them have proven to be grave disappointments, and have stopped me from buying more worthy games.
So, what are people's thoughts on this method? Is it fair for companies to charge exorbitant prices for products where their customers have no opportunity to make an informed choice? If you were to buy a car, you'd want to test-drive it first. If you buy a computer, you want the exact specs so you can have a realistic expectation of its performance. If you buy a magazine on the strength of a cover article and find that the big feature article on building a greenhouse is in fact a two-inch sidebar reading "Well, glass would probably be a good idea", you'd be rightly quite displeased.
At the risk of sounding up myself - which I do on a fairly regular basis anyway - that's my message to the computer industry. Treat us gamers fairly, we'll treat you fairly. Well, I will, anyway. I'm not sure about some of them. ;-)
If I can be bothered some time, remind me to type up my rant about DRM. DRM is an idiotic idea, as are most of the moronic and ineffective copy-protection measures they slam us with...
What they don't consider - indeed, what I haven't seen anyone mention at all yet - is that there is a valid ethical argument to be made in favour of piracy.
Many years ago, in the mists of time, there was something known as a "demo". This was a cut-down version of a new game, released so people could try it, have a go, see if they liked it. More to the point, see if there were any spectacular cockups in the game, like people in string vests taking half a dozen rounds from a G3 to the chest before slowing down, or using vehicles with mounted machine guns as close combat weapons. (Not that I'm still irritated about paying for Far Cry 2 or anything, oh no.)
Nowadays, however, the days of the demo seem long gone. Oh, there are some, but they're invariably for smaller releases. Back in the day, the PC Gamer cover disc - on CD back then, of course, even floppy disk in the early days - had lots of demos. Just after the transition to CD, when demos were still sized for floppy, there were dozens. They used to do compilation CDs, with demos for fifty games. The really big releases were on the disc for months. The original Half-Life had arguably one of the greatest demos of all time - a specially-built standalone game, if you recall - and it wasn't unusual for games to have demo-specific content. Strategy games had three of the best levels from the game, or maybe a short custom campaign. Shooters had either the first quarter of the game, or a selection of the best levels. And so on.
But now, nothing. Oh, there was Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, but that was really just a tech demo with some gameplay tacked on. And, of course, it was released long after the game, so can't really count as a demo. There was a demo of Peggle, which unfortunately did little to prepare me for the infinite tedium of the actual game. And now most recently, Far Cry 2 famously refused to release a demo because "Even if we blocked off a small area [of the map] ... it would be giving away too much of the game for free."
I think what they meant was "Because you punters might realise that the game as a whole is bollocks".
Even Spore didn't have a demo, not really. Okay, there was the Creature Creator, but a demo where you have to pay for the "full demo" strikes me as rather ridiculous. Particularly when it's just construction, no gameplay.
In fact, I have a cynical and subversive theory. Gather round.
The Creature Creator lets users make odd creatures. In purely numerical terms, compared to the number of known species on Earth - and according to an article I read last week, anyway - people using the CC are now more creative than God (or evolution, if you side with, y'know, actual science). And this was released before the game itself. A game that touted each game as being populated by a random selection of species from a huge library.
Now, call me cynical, but that sounds like "Let's get the players to provide most of our content, and have them pay for the privilege! We'll call it a demo."
Anyway, you may be wondering what all this has to do with piracy.
Well, I don't have limitless amounts of money. Chances are, particularly in the current economic climate, that you don't either. I can't afford to spend my money on a game that might be good, might be rubbish, and so I end up not buying - or playing, of course - many games at all. I buy games on occasion because, from all accounts, they should be good. And given the choice, I prefer to buy games. I get a proper disc, I can sell it on when I get tired of it (but not always; see "DRM"), I can get updates when they're released, and oh yes, it's legal and pays the people who've worked on it.
The problem is, an awful lot of games these days sell on hype rather than substance. One review of Far Cry 2 remarked that it was good "unless you're the sort of idiot who actually believes the hype". I may be paraphrasing, but that was the gist. In any other business, it would go to Trading Standards. "The new car will have four wheels, a CD player and revolutionary new helicopter technology!" sounds great, until you realise that it's actually got three wheels, a broken AM radio and no helicopter. "Oh, but you shouldn't have believed the hype" the manufacturer will say, and they'll immediately get hit with a huge fine by the TSA. That is how things should work, but not in computer games.
Where was I?
Oh yes. Games nowadays have a tendency to be more graphically impressive (until you actually pay attention and find that, wait a minute, those leaves always fall in the same spot, and the fire's just an animated texture that seems to be emanating from thin air), to have "cutting-edge AI" (in fact, just a couple of extra behaviours and a quick fix to stop them running right at you), and "open-world" always seems to end up meaning "corridor shooter with really wide corridors". And story is non-existent. (Take, for the sake of argument... oh, Far Cry 2. It was supposed to have an immersive, adaptive story with "an advanced AI author tailoring the story to your every action". In fact, what it did was just switch names and characters round depending on whom you'd killed at that point. The actual story didn't change; indeed, the only point at which you can actually affect the story is right at the end, where the "choice" boils down to a simple left or right, with not even a change in end cinematic. It's bollocks.)
(Do you get the impression that I'm feeling slightly buggered over by Far Cry 2 after pre-ordering it and paying £24.95 for a deeply rubbish game?)
I wish I'd downloaded a pirated version of Far Cry 2 first. I'd have tried it, found out that it was rubbish within an hour or two, uninstalled, deleted, and been done with it, and the absence of my £24.95 would have been a tiny bit of incentive for manufacturers to actually try to make a good game next time.
Because, you see, it cuts both ways. Yes, it's wrong to steal something people have put a lot of work into. But it's also wrong to take our money under false pretenses. It's wrong for game publishers to advertise one thing and deliver another. Fair is fair, and if they don't provide a decent and representative demo, people with limited money will need to find another way to try before they buy. And we can't return games when we find they're rubbish, because most used-game shops don't take PC games. (Copying and DRM - a bad combination.)
So I'm proposing the Perry Method for Ethical Piracy. (Don't call it the "PMEP", because that sounds rubbish.) It's a simple expedient to level the playing field and encourage fair play for both developers and gamers.
- Identify the game you're thinking of buying.
- Download a pirated version of it.
- Install the pirated version.
- Play the pirated version for an hour or two. No longer than you need to build up an impression of the game, its overall quality and whether it delivers what it promises.
- Decide if you liked or disliked the game. And then the key thing:
- Uninstall and delete the downloaded version.
- If you liked the game, Buy the game. Otherwise don't.
You see? A simple idea, it gives the customers the chance to make an informed choice about the quality of a game, and it ensures that companies that produce good games are rewarded for their efforts. I've downloaded a few games in the past - not many, to be honest, probably half a dozen or so, but still - and if I haven't liked them I've deleted them. Crucially, if I have liked them enough to continue playing, I've bought them. As a rough guess, I've got close to a hundred legally purchased games; many of them have proven to be grave disappointments, and have stopped me from buying more worthy games.
So, what are people's thoughts on this method? Is it fair for companies to charge exorbitant prices for products where their customers have no opportunity to make an informed choice? If you were to buy a car, you'd want to test-drive it first. If you buy a computer, you want the exact specs so you can have a realistic expectation of its performance. If you buy a magazine on the strength of a cover article and find that the big feature article on building a greenhouse is in fact a two-inch sidebar reading "Well, glass would probably be a good idea", you'd be rightly quite displeased.
At the risk of sounding up myself - which I do on a fairly regular basis anyway - that's my message to the computer industry. Treat us gamers fairly, we'll treat you fairly. Well, I will, anyway. I'm not sure about some of them. ;-)
If I can be bothered some time, remind me to type up my rant about DRM. DRM is an idiotic idea, as are most of the moronic and ineffective copy-protection measures they slam us with...
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-22 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-29 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-24 11:29 am (UTC)Let's hear it for loaded questions!
24.95 exorbitant? I don't want to drag up the old "When I was young" thing, but in the late eighties I paid 200 - 400 SEK for computer games. Check against historic Big Mac index of your choice.
Informed choice? You've got lots of information available, that's what reviews are for. There are loads of magazines and websites that do their best to make you able to make an informed choice.
Fair? What's that got to do with it? This is capitalism, fairness doesn't come into it. You know about advertising hype, about laughable "minimum system requirements", and Sturgeon's Law. Caveat emptor.
Game publishers could produce demos relatively cheaply, and offer them for download, even if no magazines wanted them for the cover discs (at least for PC games, but since the latest-generation consoles have internet access, too, that's not unfeasible). That they don't is a commercial decision, and it's theirs to make. If you don't like it, well, tough titties to you.
Okay, so you give them the money they're owed if you like a game. That only makes it theft during your evaluation period, right? (By the way, the "piracy isn't theft" argument is bullshit, as you still take someone elses property without paying for it.) That's laudable. But you don't pay for the games you don't like. Why? You've still used their intellectual property.
Do you also download films, in order to decide whether you should buy them? Or before deciding whether you want to pay the door price at the cinema? Do you steal books at WHSmiths, and pulp them if you don't like them, and go back and pay for them if you do? (The manufacturing cost of a paperback book is a small part of the cover price, and book shops are reluctant to accept returns, too.)
It's entertainment. Don't compare games to cars or computers. Compare to other forms of entertainment. Movies, books, cinemas, theatres, concerts and so on. You check the reviews, you judge them on your opinion of the producers, authors and performers, and you take your chances. Films and books are just as hyped as games.
I'd agree that your method might be morally and ethically correct if you had a need for games, or some fundamental right to them, but you don't. It's entertainment.
What you are saying is that anyone who produces something you don't like has no right to get paid by you for their efforts. Sorry, but that's ass-backwards. You are not obliged to pay them anything if you don't use their property, but if you want to use their property, you've got to follow their rules. If those rules are unacceptable to you, the ethical thing to do is to leave their property alone.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-27 12:23 pm (UTC)Then there's the consideration that a lot of review copies are pre-release builds. Often the game itself is finalised, but the review copy doesn't have the copy protection mechanisms of released games. Or, of course, the reviewer simply doesn't notice them, or thinks that they're acceptable.
And that's another thing. Look at things like Starforce or SecuROM. They don't stop piracy - indeed, on one or two occasions I've bought a game, found on reading the EULA that it includes copy protection and downloaded a pirated copy to avoid letting it install Starforce. It's counterproductive for them to include copy protection measures that make it *less* awkward and risky to use pirated versions.
If consumers were able to return games with unacceptable copy protection, that would be fine. But most retailers don't allow returns of PC games, and many games don't mention the copy protection until the install process. Even when they do, it's rarely mentioned by online retailers, so consumers still have no chance to find out about it until they've taken delivery.
Any other product that is harmful or otherwise not fit for purpose would be returned. And if "fair" has no place in capitalism, what's the function of UCTA?
The bottom line is this: if people have no way of protesting draconian copy protection measures, poor-quality games and false advertising (because that's what over-hyped games are), then games companies have no incentive to treat their customers with respect.