If all that time, effort and brainpower had rather gone into making it a better game, they likely would have done a whole lot better in terms of reach and ultimately, profit. However copy protection was the standard method in those days, so one can only speculate on what might have been.
"Waste" means "use" with a negative connotation. The good thing about spending resources on copy protection may be that the developers were able to make more money on sales. I don't know if it's true.
That's the point. Copy protection doesn't help making any money on sales. It only reduces them. It's a common fallacy of DRM proponents which they like to repeat (that DRM helps them increasing sales).
This is detailed in the article. If it were easier to go out and purchase the game than to copy it, then you'd be more willing to do so.
The problem these days is that it's ridiculously easy to crack DRM, so it's often useless. Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Therefore, it did, in fact, increase sales.
> Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game. Therefore, it did, in fact, increase sales.
There was almost never a point in time where you needed more than perseverance. A debugger was usually enough, given enough time and determination, to strip any copy restrictions - and while the time constants have changed, it is mostly the same today.
And whether or not it increased or decreased sales (even back then) is not so easy to decide. A penniless 10 year old would pirate everything but buy nothing even if it was successfully copy restricted -- due to lack of applicable resources.
A gainfully employed person with something to lose would rather pay a reasonable amount than face the hassle and potential lawsuits -- although that is often predicated on getting a "taste", which an unrestricted copy (whether DRM broken or demo from download or a magazine cover) provides.
Personally, I buy all music I have copies of. If I wouldn't pay money for it, I don't waste space on my hard drive.
> Back in those days, you needed specialized equipment to get a perfect copy, so you had no choice but to buy the legit game.
Yet it was cracked and cracked copies were floating around all the same. DRM was stupid then, DRM is still stupid today and will always remain so.
I.e. this claim:
> That partially explains why they sold lots of copies!
is simply false. Copies were sold not because of copy protection, but despite it. I.e. users are always annoyed by DRM, by inability to back up their games and etc. So they are less likely to buy it to begin with.
Happy to contradict but I can witness as a pirate kid with no money that I saved over months to buy both dungeon master and its sequel, the only two games I ever bought for my atari st. I bought them because they were incredibly good games and due to them being unavailable in fully cracked version at the time.
Also when you bought the game, it included a way to get a backup disk as a mail-in offer:
[Al] A.HORTON I hope my question is not redundant. Three people in my home play CSB. I would love to back it up, but can't. Is there a way that key disks, doc copy protection, or code wheels could be used as copy protection?
FTL Actually, we think our current protection is less hassle than a code wheel or manual based protection. Also, we do offer a backup disk as a mail-in offer. (see the front of the Manual.)
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/94
There were studies which showed that DRM is likely to reduce sales. But it's rather self obvious. DRM cripples usability in some way. Worse product means less potential interest from the user. Not to mention that DRM is simply insulting, and insulting your own users sounds like a bad idea to increase sales.
I'm aware of those studies and an anti-DRM proponent, but this has all to do about how it's done nowadays and whom it profits.
It's not done with the user experience in mind, which is quite different with the dungeon master protection which allowed to play the game for a while (it was even possible to finish it with well timed saves but not see the end scene). Video games now are an industry and most come from major corporations in it for profit which means DRM are badly done, slapped on a game as an afterthought (see below why it's bad)
Besides DRM are a joke for crackers while on the other hand the dungeon master protection caused much respect from the crackers of the time:
What's the best job of a game crack (ST) you have ever seen?
Dungeon Master. It seemed to be written in some kind of interpreted language which made it very difficult to fathom. It also had protection embedded throughout the game. Good protection is like good encryption, it can never be an afterthought, you can't buy it off the shelf, it has to be part of the fabric of the game. Apparently it had a protection check after the final boss, just so you couldn't see the end sequence. Hats off to them. Hats off to Was (Not Was) for cracking it.
Except this doesn't apply for Dungeon Master, first because it is a great game as in a genre defining kind of game and secondly because at the time teenager me had dozens of games for my atari st all but two were copied: dungeon master and chaos strikes back (sequel to dungeon master).
Why ? because when I got my hands on the copied versions of the game it was badly cracked but still allowed me to play long enough to really get into the game until the party unexpectedly died.
Which means increasing sales is made through making really good games and that piracy channels can be leveraged to increase sales.
Copy protection doesn't help making any money on sales. It only reduces them.
Are you aware that commercial piracy used to be a big thing? You could walk about your local market and see pirated copies of games on sale for a quarter of the price.
These pirate sales absolutely had an impact on "real" sales, e.g. it was pretty common for parents who didn't know any better to buy a game in passing.
> Are you aware that commercial piracy used to be a big thing? You could walk about your local market and see pirated copies of games on sale for a quarter of the price.
Did it change much? Except now all that is available through torrents and so on and even for 0% of the price. While DRM didn't prevent it then and doesn't prevent it now. All it does is annoying legitimate users who buy the product, and as well gives some control freaks tools to shape the industry and the law (with DMCA-1201 like methods).
>While DRM didn't prevent it then and doesn't prevent it now.
Current generation console games are pretty well protected with their DRM and sell much better than their PC ports. Care to explain how it works with the theory that the DRM kills sales and gets cracked immediately?
Console games aren't "protected" by DRM, they are "protected" with reducing their portability. And those companies (like Nintendo) try to attack those who produce emulators. I.e. they want to control how you use the product. It's not about piracy, it's about their desire for control.
When Geohot tried to distribute tools to strip DRM from PlayStation, Sony was all rage and sued him. As I said, DRM is about control freaks trying to shape the industry with corrupted laws, not about any piracy or the like.
Sorry, I understand you rage, but I don't see an answer to my question. On the other hand, an angry outburst is a kind of answer too. I assume your theory failed here.
The answer to your question is, that DRM doesn't help console games in the least. It helps some companies like Sony to control the market with lock-in and restrict what users can do using corrupted laws. DRM itself can be broken and will be broken as the practice shows.
I never said it helps. I asked how you reconcile the believe that DRM hurts sales with the better sales on the system with uncracked DRM. If you consider much smaller installed base and much higher price the console sales are even more amazing.
I'm not sure what you mean by better sales. Some cross platform games which sell better on consoles than let's say on PCs? And why would you think that DRM is the reason for that?
A lot of such games have poor quality on PCs, and more focused on console UX, or there can be tons of other factors which affect it.
Also console manufacturers cultivate lock-in approach and push for exclusives rather than preferring cross platform games. So sales numbers aren't indicating normal competition.
As I said, I am not saying the DRM is the reason. Though I suspect it helps. When people cannot steal things they want - they do buy them. Not everyone, but there seem to be enough such people.
>A lot of such games have poor quality on PCs, and more focused on console UX, or there can be tons of other factors which affect it.
Sure. But games like COD are pretty well done on PC as well. Yet they sell a small fraction on PC even compared to a single platform. You seem to be very sure the DRM reduces sales so should not it be a slum dunk for you here? A system with a strong DRM vs a system where a "strong" DRM means a crack will come out in a month. Where sales will suffer? Where do they actually suffer? It's not some rocket science, the numbers get published every once in a while and everyone who ever shipped a multiplatform title knows them as well.
>Also console manufacturers cultivate lock-in approach and push for exclusives rather than preferring cross platform games.
Obviously I am not asking about exclusive games. Exclusive games do not get PC ports, do they?
> When people cannot steal things they want - they do buy them. Not everyone, but there seem to be enough such people
Or may be those people don't want to buy them, but if they get it for free from pirates, they infringe. And if they don't get it, they ignore it. So far I didn't see any studies which showed that DRM increases sales. But I saw studies to the opposite however.
> Yet they sell a small fraction on PC even compared to a single platform.
Because gaming platforms were unnaturally shifted to consoles by MS and the like? They tried to kill PC gaming market on purpose (consoles give them more monopolistic control). So disproportional amount of console gamers is not surprising. I suspect it has much bigger impact on sales numbers than any DRM can have in either direction.
Well, we are running in circles in here, are not we? These studies do not seem to be able to explain why the console DRM is not reducing sales. So you come with some other explanations instead of DRM. Which is something I expected because the whole premise seems very unnatural to me. Some intrusive and complicated DRM schemes might be able to affect sales negatively but there are just not that many people who have emotional reaction to DRM. I would not buy a game that required me to enter code from manual myself. I would not buy a game that depends on some central server verification. Not because I am religiously opposed to DRM but because it's asking for too much of my attention. I am just fine with console games - they just work.
On the other hand, the PS2 modchips required 20+ wires soldering and expensive at the time DVD-R technology. A lot of people went for that. So, while there are some people who infringe just because it's free, there are also people who infringe just because it's somewhat cheaper. The later category is converted to paying customers with the DRM.
> These studies do not seem to be able to explain why the console DRM is not reducing sales.
How do you know it doesn't? I don't think you have any easy way to measure that. As I said before, console sales numbers relate to the way the market shifted. They can as well be even higher if not for DRM.
> Which is something I expected because the whole premise seems very unnatural to me.
The premise is very natural. Reduced usability means crippled product (in some way). Crippled product means some users will more likely to avoid it. Pretty straightforward and iron logic no DRM proponent can deny. But they don't function according to common sense, or as I already said they use DRM not for anything related to sales, but for completely different reasons.
> while there are some people who infringe just because it's free, there are also people who infringe just because it's somewhat cheaper.
And of course there are those who break DRM for sport just because they like breaking it. I.e. if not for DRM they wouldn't even have paid attention. A clear example when DRM boosts piracy directly.
> The later category is converted to paying customers with the DRM.
Not at all. The later category stays a non paying customer, since why should they buy the same thing with DRM when pirates offer them it without it? I.e. without crippled usability? The only thing that can convince them to become paying customers is the same product offered without DRM by legitimate source. That's because that DRM is always broken.
What you are engaging into (and in pretty much every single message I've seen you post on the subject of DRM) is shifting the burden of proof. This is the same kind of argument we get from creationists or people who want the world to conform to a mental model they have ("The Earth is 4.7 billion years" "How do you know, were you there?").
Strong correlations have been observed between the presence of DRM and strong sales (for games that are worth it). The most obvious examples of this phenomenon would be World of Warcraft, Sim City 5 and Diablo. These games are very close to being impossible to pirate, are extremely high quality and have sold millions of copies.
All you have against the claim that DRM for good games seems to help sales is requesting certainty, but you're the one making the claim that DRM hurts sales, so the burden of proof is on you. I know you really, really want it to be the case, but so far, you've offered very little convincing evidence (not even circumstantial).
I dislike DRM and as a regular buyer of games, it's often been more of a pain than anything else, but I'm also a software engineer and I can't help but acknowledge that it works with sales.
The burden of proof is on those who introduce the preemptive policing. It's their idea to accuse everyone in advance.
There was already proof that DRM decreases sales however. But I've seen none that it helps anyone except those who pursue lock-in and other corrupted practices. DRM has no place in any ethical business.
> Strong correlations have been observed between the presence of DRM and strong sales
Can you point to any studies on this subject please? There are published studies in the other direction. Sales numbers can't simply be attributed to DRM because DRM is broken. Even latest upstart Denuvo was broken not long ago. So the theory of sales coming from DRM is easily refuted by reality.
> All you have against the claim that DRM for good games seems to help sales is requesting certainty,
No, what I have is certainty that DRM serves nothing related to sales. If anyobe still thinks that DRM is used for sales they are simply delusional or are akin to Lysenkoists who thought that plants can be trained to grow in cold climate.
> I'm also a software engineer and I can't help but acknowledge that it works with sales.
And your acknowledgement is based on what exactly? All engineers I spoke about it clearly say that DRM is dumb and never serves any useful purpose (and if it serves any, that purpose is crooked).
Lot's of things can be observed. Conclusion of correlation or rather causation is purely speculative however.
What I'm repeating and will be repeating is that such unethical methods like DRM have no place in any decent business. And they don't help sales of course. All they help are some crooks who want more control over the market or technology (DCMA-1201 and similar laws is their leverage on top of DRM).
Well, we have the same game selling much more on "crippled" platforms than on PC despite higher install base and cheaper price. If you want to say that without DRM it would be selling even better you have to present some proof. For example, what would have happened if a console's DRM had been cracked in a way that everyone could download game ISOs and play without doing complicated modifications to the hardware like they can on PC? Why, this has actually happened to Dreamcast. Its title sales have not increased because of this, in fact, it has tanked so much that Sega has retired it soon after this happened. But, of course, Sega is run by some reality-ignoring cretins, their sales actually increased, right?
>Not at all. The later category stays a non paying customer, since why should they buy the same thing with DRM when pirates offer them it without it?
Pirates are not offering the PS4 and X1 games without DRM. Please, talk about something you know.
> Pirates are not offering the PS4 and X1 games without DRM. Please, talk about something you know.
Because their DRM is one of the most intrusive ones. It will be broken as well, don't worry. No DRM will ever be unbrekable, that's the nature of it. Of course the more intrusive garbage they pile into it, the longer it can take to crack it. PS4 and XB1 won't be an exception though.
Nah. Probably took them a week or two. Getting ahead of piracy was (maybe still is) a big deal.
Making the game better -- if the game is already good -- is unlikely to pay off as much as reducing the amount of piracy in the first few weeks of a title's lifetime.
I sincerely doubt it. Dungeon Master was the all time best-seller on atari and maybe also on amiga, It has spawned a whole genre of games and is still a reference and is played to this day 25+ years later. It gained a cult following among people who played it to the point that one published a fully reverse engineered code in early 2014: http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=298...
I used to run my own application company and sold windows apps. I could directly correlate piracy with sales. If my latest version had a key generator+crack on the various torrent sites, my sales would go down by as much as 30%. This was mostly because the torrent sites can easily get good keywords on Google and even get results above my own. I essentially had to complete with myself.
It would also waste my time with customer service. A user would have a cracked version installed, get malware, and then expect me to come to the rescue (and of course blame my software for their poor choices). The nerve of some people!!
Large companies like Adobe and Microsoft can take the hit, small shops can't.
But, these days are over now. I created a SaaS out of all of my apps and now have more sales than ever (and guaranteed monthly income). I can see more companies doing this to combat the environment that piracy has created. It's why Stallman is getting so ornery about it lately.
I can see more companies doing this to combat the environment that piracy has created. It's why Stallman is getting so ornery about it lately.
Just for clarity, I doubt very seriously that Mr. Stallman disagrees with SaaS because it combats piracy. It is my understanding that his disagreement comes from the lack of options that are available to the consumer of those services: the freedom to take your data elsewhere, the freedom to audit [and possibly modify] the source code and probably 50 others that I don't even know.
On a separate note, I cannot even fathom a user who would call customer support for a cracked version. The only plausible situation I can imagine is that their child installed the app, cracked it and the parent wasn't savvy or strict enough about knowing where the child got the program and just assumed it was legit and therefore subject to support.
"On a separate note, I cannot even fathom a user who would call customer support for a cracked version. The only plausible situation I can imagine is that their child installed the app, cracked it and the parent wasn't savvy or strict enough about knowing where the child got the program and just assumed it was legit and therefore subject to support."
I sold B2B apps. These were small business owners emailing and calling us about cracked applications.
Some installed them unknowingly because they searched for our app on Google and thought that a site that offered a crack+download combined was our actual site. Others just didn't see a problem with it.
15 years ago, A friend of mine wrote an app for managing state forms for law firms. He eventually went out of business because lawyers not only would not pay for his software (they would just share it with all of their lawyer friends), but would laugh in his face when he tried to go after them for any kind of money.
My point is that with this sort of unethical behavior that seems like is getting more and more prevalent and accepted, businesses have no choice but to change their tactics to survive. Which means creating a service.