My interest in PC gaming has been dwindling over the last year and one of those problems is copy protection. Thanks to being a multi platform gamer, I have way less tolerance towards PC gaming barrier crap then most gamers. If something about your PC game pisses me off, then it’s just a 5 second walk downstairs to my consoles.
Copy protection in it’s current form has only one purpose, to piss off the legitimate customers who buy games. We have all heard the stories of people cracking the copy protection within hours of a PC launch title, so they get to enjoy a copy protection less gaming experience while us schmucks who buy legal copies of games to support our developers get the shaft. For the record I have never pirated a game in my entire life with the only exception being X-Com, and that decision was made after spending 4 years trying to find a copy of it that could work on my newer computer. I don’t even download the no-CD patches that are released.
On the other side I no longer buy PC games that require copy protection to play, and I have a strict no Steam policy as well. I’ve already banned my self from ever buying another Company of Heroes expansion or game from the crap they pulled by actually adding on copy protection to the original version that didn’t have it Today I had a chance to buy the expansion that caused all the trouble for $14 and I turned it down. BioShock is already on my list of games I hated, and the copy protection they put on it pushes it into “if I ever meet Ken Levine I may have to punch him” territory.
So now your probably wondering “what the hell do you play on the PC?” I support Cryptic Comet, Shrapnel Games, TellTale Games, Introversion, and lastly StarDock as of right now. I’m a huge supporter of StarDock from the numerous articles their CEO Brad Wardell has done regarding his position on copy protection. To sum them up, he believes to give people a reason to buy his games legit and supports his games with constant updates that can only be gotten thru their download service and with a purchased copy of their game. I want to go into more detail in that in a bit, but I want to address something everyone is wondering about by now.
If I support Stardock’s service then why do I condemn Steam? Simply because it doesn’t do anything to reward the customers for buying thru them. I hate having to have Steam on to play any games I buy, compared to StarDock I can easily never turn on their service and still be able to play any game I bought thru it. Which brings Steam up to the annoyance factor of regular copy protection on PC games for me. There is also the fact that it doesn’t feel that I own these games, something that is not a problem with StarDock. I have not played any thing in the Orange box, and will continue that way while I have to have steam on my computer to play them. Yes I’m paranoid and private, haven’t you read my first entry here ?!
Now back to StarDock and why I love them so. They have taken the step that I think is the best form of copy protection, providing a qualitative benefit to their customers for buying games from them. I know when I buy a StarDock product , that it will be supported by their company and that free stuff is sure to come. I’ve played a few games online with Brad (and kicked his but at Rise of Legends if I do say so my self, which maybe I should add to my resume …) and he always comes off as an intelligent person who understands the market. Having a fan base that supports your company is a goal that all designers should strive for. It means that they are less likely to be swayed by negative reviews and will guarantee sales when your game is released. Yet Brad has also talked about the reason why Stardock can do this.
Their market isn’t a highly pirated one, strategy titles attract for the most part , more matured gamers then the first person shooter genre. Which does raise an interesting question, if StarDock works on a first person shooter and releases it the same way as their strategy titles, will it sell well and not be as pirated? My views are conflicted here, on one hand I am against all copy protection on my games, on the other however I will concede that the first person shooter genre is more popular then the strategy genre at this time. Which raises my next point, what is the solution to copy protection?
I think StarDock is going in the right direction, but their solution is somewhat limited towards a smaller genre then others. I have thought up several points that need to be address to create successful copy protection. First is that copy protection on the user’s end is faulty, if the user can get access to it then it is crackable no matter what the publishers say. Moving the copy protection to a one time check by the developers is the right way to go and getting rid of the CD requirement in games. Next, is rewarding the player for supporting the company. Most games aren’t really designed for additional content such as the games from StarDock, but there are ways to reward legitimate customers. First is simply a price cut, instead of spending $50 in a store for a PC game, why not $40 if you buy directly from the developer’s site? Another side of this solution is to only give patches out to people who register their legal copies of the game, I think this could really hurt the problem of piracy as we all know computer games can be pretty fickle with hardware configurations.
Third is better presentation, I want full color manuals and a greater attention to detail in designing them. One of my favorite companies is Double Jump Books that go the extra mile in their strategy guides, that should be the case with the actual packaging of the game as well don’t you think ? Make it worth my while to buy your games and show me you actual give a damn about the customers. This one I will admit could be hard to implement, as I’m not knowledgeable on the pricing of full colored manuals.
Fourth, online access for offline purchased products. I just learned today that Blizzard is going to allow customers who bought their games to enter in their CD keys online and download non copy protected versions of their games. I could go over to Blizzard and kiss everyone responsible for this decision , but it could be pretty awkward afterwards. If the publisher is going to require copy protection in the store, then allow me to download a free version from your site minus the protection after giving the CD key, you know I bought a legitimate copy now give me the respect I deserve and not label me as a potential pirate.
With these suggestions game developers should earn alot of goodwill from their customers. Which in my opinion is more important then a few more sales thanks to some evil copy protection. My biggest complaint about copy protection is that we are part of the video game industry, which is one of if not the most creative industry on the planet. Your telling me that we’re not creative enough to find a better solution towards copy protection !? I think right now every game developer except for those working at the companies I mention need to go stand in the corner right now. My perfect vision is that in the future all gamers have their own gamer account that they can enter in CD keys from any game and be able to download them protection free from this one utility or website if you don’t want it on your computer.
Now finally after that long discussion I can get to the meaning of the title. Pirating is the phrase used for stealing games, and thanks to them the developers behind Titan Quest, one of my favorite hack and slash rpgs went out of business. For that reason ninjas are cooler then pirates, you don’t hear the phrase ” I ninjaed the new Grand Theft Auto game” do you? In fact the only example I can think of for ninjas is me dressing up as a ninja and infiltrating Maxis to get an early copy of Spore.
Josh
5/6 update: Wow I pulled a bit of Nostradamus as the copy protection for Spore and Mass Effect was announced yesterday, and now I’m pissed. I guess I’m really going to have to sneak into Maxis and steal a copy protection-less version of Spore to play.
