Stardock and Starforce

[Angelspit]

The Starforce made the headlines once again when an administrator of their forum posted a link to a torrent site distributing <a href="/http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redir ... ">Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords</a><img src="/http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=cele ... &l=ur2&o=1" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />, as a proof that software piracy was bad for sales. The <a href="/http://www.star-force.com/forum/index.p ... 0">post</a> has since been edited. The publisher of the game, Stardock, reacted by posting a rather diplomatic <a href="/http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx?fo ... itorial</a> on their own forums, calling the admin's action unnecessary. The post is also an interesting description of the current state of software piracy, along with Stardock's own way to deal with the issue: <i>"Our primary weapon to fight piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates. If you make it easy for users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more users from that convenience than you'll lose from piracy."</i>

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1142190127

[ThunderTitan]

So let me get this straight, they wanted to prove that it was bad for sales by offering illegal copies to people!?

Are these morons even aware that you can find all games pirated!?

I do love this though:

[q]"The purpose of copy protection is not making the game uncrackable – it is impossible. The main purpose is to delay the release of cracked version. Maximum sales rate usually takes place in the first month(s) after the game release. If the game is not cracked in that period of time, then the copy protection works well. After several months of sails even we recommend the publishers to release the patches that remove the copy protection just to make the game play more comfortable to the customers."[/q]

[Arzang]

That's frightening to read. They recommend the publishers to remove copy protection?



well, atleast they admit that copy protection is a hassle. Even if you own a legitimate copy, downloading an image (or ripping yourself but I prefer downloading) and playing with the image-file rather than your disc is pretty smart. that way you can tuck your box away neatly on a shelf or something or put it on display if it's particularly pretty.



and the chance of the game disc living for a longer time increases.



I guess this means I'll wait a few months before buying H5 to see if the copy protection is eased up.

[Kristo]

What's funny is that all this hubbub will cause GalCiv2 to reach a lot more people than it otherwise would have. I find it ironic that something StarForce did will actually generate more sales.

[Pitsu]

Is Starforce forum admin a frequent torrent user? O_o

[Corribus]

So let me get this straight, they wanted to prove that it was bad for sales by offering illegal copies to people!?

Are these morons even aware that you can find all games pirated!?

I do love this though:

[q]"The purpose of copy protection is not making the game uncrackable – it is impossible. The main purpose is to delay the release of cracked version. Maximum sales rate usually takes place in the first month(s) after the game release. If the game is not cracked in that period of time, then the copy protection works well. After several months of sails even we recommend the publishers to release the patches that remove the copy protection just to make the game play more comfortable to the customers."[/q]

I'm not sure what you think the problem with that quote is. It makes perfect sense to me.

[Campaigner]

Funny coincidence that GalCiv II is brought up...I was planning on talking about it here and show it to you people (Yes, I bought it, which is very rare as I almost never buy software)



And that linking of the torrent site. If JM (SF admin) hadn't linked then he wouldn't have proof for his argument. And now when he did provide proof for it he gets bashed anyway! Seems like a lose-lose situation to me :p

[Wildbear]

Actually the only thing he proved is that unprotected games can be downloaded. Whatever he told then about the game being sold less than it should is nothing but suppositions. Actually the fact is that the game sells much more than expected, without any copy protection system.

[Campaigner]

Yes, it sells alot more than it "should". But don't you think that many people buy it instead of downloads it simply because it requires a serial to download updates? (Yes, I know that many people want to support their stance on copyprotection and customertreating) That's why I bought it, just like I bought WarCraft III and its expansion to wage war on Battle.Net

[ThunderTitan]

Seeing how protected games become available within days, proof that an unprotected one also does isn't really needed.

I find it idiotic that anyone thinks that is a good argument against not having cd-protection. Even SF protected games are available on torrent sites within days, it's just that you have to jump through hoops to make them work. After a few months a crack comes out and you can stop jumping.

[Psychobabble]

Even SF protected games are available on torrent sites within days, it's just that you have to jump through hoops to make them work. After a few months a crack comes out and you can stop jumping.

And in this situation, the decision to use starforce is likely justified from the company's point of view. All they need to do is provide a road bump which diverts the mass-market from hastle free copying/downloading in order to capture the large post-release sales spike. Anything after that is a bonus, but if it gets cracked in the medium turn that isn't an argument against cd protection.

As an aside, the fact that the copy protection causes some lost sales isn't an argument against it either. The whole point of the protection is that it will cause some increase in sales from people who would otherwise copy it. So you have a positive and a negative effect from including it and these need to be balanced. People at these companies aren't stupid, they know this, and so they take all the available information about this, do some market research of their own and come to an assessment of whether or not it's worth including or not. And remember, they have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars resting on the answer to that question so they have good incentives to ge the answer right.

Personally, I'd trust their judgement on whether or not it's worth it more than people on internet forums, but maybe that's just me.

[ThunderTitan]

And you missed my point. I'm not saying that it's not "justified" by whatever numbers they use, but that being on a torrent site does not equal "complete and utter failure". Like you said, SF games "provide a road bump", GCII does something else.

And do pray tell, how do the game companies know how many sales they lost to piracy? Do they ask the people that have an illegal copy if they would have bought the game otherwise? From what i read they just assume that every pirated copy/torrent download is a lost sale. That's stupid, because some people might just d/l it, not like it and del it. Or wouldn't have bought the game for lack of money, lack of wanting to spend that much money on a game they play for a week etc.

[Furay]

"From what i read they just assume that every pirated copy/torrent download is a lost sale."



I don't think they would be that stupid to assume that... Perhaps they would use those figures in their anti-piracty arguments, but surely not in their in-house calculations of lost sales.



But then again, big corporations do some very silly things at times...

[Corribus]

And do pray tell, how do the game companies know how many sales they lost to piracy?

They probably pay some lucky analyst, who is an expert in this sort of thing, more than you and I make combined in a year to figure it out. Game companies aren't stupid, as PB said. I'm sure they have reliable ways of estimating how many illegal copies are on the market.

[Psychobabble]

Furay's right, they make the claim that each pirated copy is a lost sale in public, but they're not stupid enough to believe it . As to how they assess it, as Corribus says, they have analysts and market researchers who try and do these things. They'll survey a large, random sample of people from representative demographic(s) to get some base figures and then build models from there. They might also do things like compare sales from titles with and without protection (even cross-platform comparisons taking into account that it's harder to hack some consoles) or run the protection in a test market to see what effect it has on sales (I know for a fact that EMI is doing that with it's nasty CD protection in Australia, I wouldn't be surprised if game companies try the same). Companies do this sort of thing all the time to estimate things like market demand and consumer tastes. They really do have a lot of money resting on these questions so they do actually try and do things to work it out even if they don't say what these things are in their public statements. Their figures are never going to be totally precise, but they'll at least get the + or - question right which is all that matters.

[ThunderTitan]

I'm sure they have reliable ways of estimating how many illegal copies are on the market.

Like i said, is not about how many illegal copies are out there, is about how many of them are lost sales.

And about them making more money that you and me will ever do: there are certain persons who can't even sing and/or act and have no talent that make more money then you, me, those analysts and people that actualy do sing/act/have talent combined.

And Psychobabble, I doubt that there are major titles without protection, so comparisons like that can easily de skewed.

[diorj]

It was lame to post a game's illegal torrent on the starforce forums. I now will never buy a game including H5 if it has starforce.



GalacCiv by the way is a great game, and so far their sales have been way beyond Stardock's expectations. SO I guess they are doing something right.



Make a good game.

[Corribus]

Like i said, is not about how many illegal copies are out there, is about how many of them are lost sales.

And like I said, they people lots of money to figure these things out.

[ThunderTitan]

And like I said, that doesn't mean they get it right.

[Linky]

The companies with experience in selling video games have a better grasp of how piracy affects them than we do. They aren't just flipping the coin when calling wether to have protection like StarForce or not.



They do know how much one pirated copy of a game affects sales on average. It's really complicated to get an accurate assesment of how piracy will affect future game X, as everything starting from the genre and platform has an effect on 1) how much piracy will the game be exposed to and 2) how big a loss of sales will that amount into. Then there's also the company image issues and so forth.



If I'd have to take a guess, I'd say the copy protection gives a boost on sales but the big question is is it worth the impact on company image?

But I could very well be off by a mile. Or a kilometer.