The choice to go (required) online with a singleplayer game does make sense.
As long as server errors and downtime dont mess up the gameing there is no real argument against it.
Its like buying a movie ticket: you pay for entertainment, but cant request to own the projector.
In a way it could be argued that illegal copying is actually worse than stealing: If you consider that illegal copying causes a devaluation of content, then not only the author of said content loses something, but all authors see the value of their product fall.
Piracy seems to be an evolution of the tragedy of the commons.
Although it is to some extent self-limiting - look what happened to the Amiga games market - it does rather heavily bias the outcome where studios go bust for no good reason other than they cannot compete with “free”. Riven - I understand what you’re saying but much of the time it really isn’t because the products are inferior or nobody wants to play them or there are too many competitors competing for the same pie. It really is just down to the fact that a studio’s biggest competitor in every area is “free”. We can see this tacitly acknowledged by developers who now actively produce free games, or games that simply cannot be obtained for free as they are not supplying the necessary servers.
Cas 
I can only imagine the next step of the hackers/pirates would be to break into the gameservers, and ‘steal’ (ahem) the code.
Surely ‘big corp’ can afford security specialists, but indies might struggle and see their business model ruined due to an SQL injection attack.
Let me get this straight. They wouldn’t be stealing the code. Code is digital…they are merely making a quasi-legal archive copy in-case your company goes out of business and protecting consumers. So if that happen we should pull up our pants and thank them. I’m sure there are some other far reaching benefits that I’m not thinking of since I’m so lousy at business thinking we compared to you’re average digital age Robin Hood. Am I getting good at this?
I think you think some of us are defending piracy by saying it’s not stealing. By saying it’s the wrong word, we don’t say we condone it.
Well, it is almost trolling him :-*
About that hem hem hem “borrowing” server code and setting up your own one… by all means, and it does happen. There are just two problems:
The vast majority of users will be on the official server, so fine if you want to play with your 2 cheapskate friends but not if you’re playing a game which maybe involves a more interesting and vibrant community. Most of the value is in the fact that the majority reside there. Just look at Facebook vs Google+ :
The illegal servers are painfully easy to find and shut down. If you can be arsed.
Cas
Facetious example: I just haxed into the JGO server and stole all your PHP code and the database and now I’ve set up my own Java-G4ming.org site, with blackjack, and hookers! Who’s with me?
.
.
.
Cas
It would work around DRMed singleplayer games though.
@princec - why bother with an illegal server? Just toss together a launcher that fires off a local host and then the client. Done.
@Riven - I’m poking fun. I really don’t see what the big deal is about calling it stealing though.
Illegal copying is a form of stealing, by the standard definition of the word “steal” as reported in standard English dictionaries.
[quote][quote][quote]1) to take or appropriate (another’s property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surreptitious manner.
[/quote]
Clearly an “idea” still exists for the person from whom the idea is stolen! Your additional condition that an object must be involved and this object must no longer be in the original owner’s possession is NOT part of the generally accepted definition of stealing.
[/quote]
I’d argue you can’t steal ideas by exactly the same logic as I previously offered. You’re begging the question because asserting that ideas can be stolen is effectively the same idea as the conclusion you’re trying to prove.
[/quote]
I am not the one asserting that ideas can be stolen. A standard English dictionary is reporting that this is ONE OF THE ACCEPTED DEFINITIONS of stealing. Stealing is a big word, and covers many diverse actions. Not all stealing is illegal (e.g., to steal a glance). But not all definitions of a word have to apply for the word to be appropriately applied.
If you say this is “rubbish,” you are declaring that dictionaries (millions in print) and the considerable scholarship and research that goes into them are rubbish.
I don’t see the relevance of the existence of factions that are trying to change the definition of stealing to exclude intellectual property theft or make an exception for illegal copying. That does not erase the fact that this definition still exists and is widespread. Do we anticipate dictionaries including this exception any time soon?
I’d like to see UK law’s definition on theft, that princec cites. I’d be VERY surprised if it excludes intellectual property theft from the definition.
Server games can be hacked and setup public pirate server 
Evil links
[spoiler]wow github.com/mangos/mango add “s” to end =)
aion my-svn.assembla.com/svn/aion-em “u”
(infesting fast, official Aion server was been pirated during some public tests ^^, so hi have 2 dif public emulators (1 from official, and 1 from crakers))
Diablo 3 skidrowcrack.com/diablo-iii-collectors-edition-full-crack-wai “t”
(all servers with old version of game, with bunch of bugs, but many ppl that’s can pay for official games. play on them, or simple for fun with friend, WoW with 150 lvls ^^)
(that’s why ppl crack games – for fun, they don’t do money on them, and even don’t want harm developers)
And many other games … =)[/spoiler]
What difference with pirate server, and official,
the difference in quality (many quests not work etc…),
Even if some one copy 100% you’re server you can faster update it and add new content, that’s holds clients.
Its something same as someone create games that’s looks better then yours,
ppl go to him and they really don’t care pirate him or not.
Its war for quality, who give more quality product holds more clients
even without piracy, better say piracy can’t compete with official servers.
Other company that create MMO better then yours do in million more harm then pirate server of your game.
Like someone smart say ”Do more quality product, don’t stop, and listen what other say to you, and you receive everything what you expected ;)”
I create new story about content modification
Like all know : developers not allow do that.
Customer buy apple from trader, and try draw on it
Trader “you can’t do that’s I not allow ;)” @facepalm
Why I can’t change logo in game that I buy(or models)? I pay for it.
Because companies not sell game there rather give games(Digital copy) in rent for unlimited time =)
Why they fear changed content?
Because they fears that someone using they work can create something better then they.
Not Buy, Rent
I agree with Markus,
with this
and La Quadrature du Net who are saying “Sharing helps culture”. I like seeing the big picture.
Blaming pirates completely for business failures. I don’t think so. Even saying that pirates are responsible for 70% of business closures. That is total nonsense. If that were the case, “renting” games and “trading” games would pose a similar threat. Bagging on pirates that illegally copy is just part of the whole problem. There is just a lot of ways to get copies of games.
The fact is that businesses that fail to keep up with demand are the ones that fall under.
Game companies that run offline can’t make one flagship game and believe they are going to make money on it for a lifetime. It isn’t going to happen. In order for them to implement new ideas, a sequel to a current game has to be made. They have to base their sales off the popularity of the older game, in order for them to get a decent turnout for the sequel. A good game will spread by word of mouth and sometimes generate new people to buy the sequel. But, one bad game can totally cripple an offline game developer and destroy the company.
Online gaming just has the bigger advantage when it comes to survival. They only have to make one flagship game and patch the errors all away. It is easier to gain money with online gaming as well because you can do several things to get a decent cash flow. These things include…
Offline gaming can’t do any of these things without a complete overhaul. To be honest, I like the older model of gaming better because we got a much higher quality of games. Today, I think the entire community of online gaming is just patch, patch, patch, and rip us off in terms of content. (but alas, I am getting off-topic…)
It isn’t really about pirating that fully puts the last nail in the coffin. It is a part of it, but not the whole picture. It is true that pirates are plaguing the gaming industry, but these pirates have existed for a long time.
Maybe instead of completely blaming the pirates, developers should start producing software actually worth buying. No one wants to buy from a fruit market that is filled with 99% rotten fruit.
Thanks, Riven - that was way more concise than I was.
I’d characterise my own point of view as: Piracy is the reality. I’d rather ask how we live in this world than moan about it.
Clearly an “idea” still exists for the person from whom the idea is stolen! Your additional condition that an object must be involved and this object must no longer be in the original owner’s possession is NOT part of the generally accepted definition of stealing.
[/quote]
I’d argue you can’t steal ideas by exactly the same logic as I previously offered. You’re begging the question because asserting that ideas can be stolen is effectively the same idea as the conclusion you’re trying to prove.
[/quote]
I am not the one asserting that ideas can be stolen. A standard English dictionary is reporting that this is ONE OF THE ACCEPTED DEFINITIONS of stealing. Stealing is a big word, and covers many diverse actions. Not all stealing is illegal (e.g., to steal a glance). But not all definitions of a word have to apply for the word to be appropriately applied.
If you say this is “rubbish,” you are declaring that dictionaries (millions in print) and the considerable scholarship and research that goes into them are rubbish.
[/quote]
What I said was ‘rubbish’ was your claim that there is no dispute about the usage of these words in the context of illegal copying. That is patently untrue as a quick perusal over these kinds of discussions around the net will show. I’m not arguing about what the dictionary says or what is in the law books - they are both interesting and relevant distinctions but NOT what I was talking about.
Yeah, I think that goodwill is a big issue. That’s what I was getting at when I referred to Cas’ blog post on copy protection being a sane and sensible response given the reality of piracy. It treats the customer as a valued trusted person, not as a potential thief.
It’s interesting you should say that because publishers have been looking for various ways to deal with each one of those points and eliminate them. Apart from rental; that actually fits extremely well with their business model, and actually helps them deal with the other problem areas.
Here’s a thing: games cost a lot of money to make. You need to make at least twice that money back in order to pay for the development of the game and pay for the development of the next one up front and mitigate the risk of a flop. So you have to choose a price based on sales expectations. Unfortunately because of the prevalence of each of those methods of obtaining games with no money going to the publishers, expected sales are very, very low compared to what you might expect them to be. This means the price of the game has to look relatively extortionate. This creates a feedback where the huge price of a game encourages each and every one of the ways a developer can lose a sale. Except for rental, interestingly.
Consider a strange utopia in which nobody copied anything, nobody traded anything… you might realistically expect to sell (hypothetically) twice as many copies of the game. You could, in theory, reduce the price by half; this is likely to further encourage sales, and we have a feeback loop in the opposite direction. This is impossible! You cry. Except it has already happened. Steam has done this. I can assure you they are incredibly successful at it as well. You basically can’t usefully pirate Steam games (because nearly the entire value in Steam games is the fact they’re in your Steam account, available anywhere, anytime, anywhen, and linked into your profile with achievements, etc. etc) - and nor can you trade them. So Steam suffers very, very, very little leakage. This is how they can sell AAA titles for £4 in a sale, and they can make a million pounds pure profit in 24 hours.
It was never really about “quality” - very very very few games are really shit. They might just not be to your tastes, maybe there’s one or two bugs - surprise! - but actually worthless? I think not. More hyperbole. It was all about these two competing feedback loops - one driven by the rampant effects of money simply failing to get to developers, and the other driven by the extremely powerful effect of low, low prices and locked down rights management.
Cas
Here’s some interesting anecdotal figures - make of them what you will:
Revenge of the Titans has grossed a shade under $0.5m in 2 years on Steam. In that same time it failed to even recover €10k gross in retail, despite the retail versions being approximately the same price as the Steam versions, and despite them each including a free Steam key.
Cas