Dr Zaius
Chief Defender of the Faith
- Joined
- May 1, 2001
- Messages
- 8,902
- Reaction score
- 408
- Location
- The Forbidden Zone
- First name
- Don
- Country
-
Going back to a subject I've written about elsewhere, here's an excellent example of exactly what I was talking about. Bluenews is reporting on the ongoing pirating situation with the Humble Indie Bundle. For those that aren't familiar, this is a games bundle from Humble that can be downloaded 100 percent free of any DRM of any kind. The only thing that Humble asks is that gamers contribute at least 1 penny (1 US cent), so gamers are free to contribute as much or as little as they want. Humble has said they are not interested in DRM and don't want to inconvenience legitimate customers.
So where's the story here? Sadly, as reported by Bluesnews, Humble is estimating that at least 25% of the downloads have been pirated directly from the site, and this doesn't include any numbers from BitTorrent and the other common sources of piracy. The true numbers of pirated games for this pack are much higher than 25%.
WTF?
This is exactly what I was talking about. Even when given the opportunity to download a games pack completely DRM-free for only 1 cent, a huge percentage of gamers still choose to pirate the games instead. And this is just a pack of indie games! I stand by what I wrote earlier when I said publishers that produce major hits like GTA IV are right to be concerned about piracy and releasing their games DRM-free would lead to massive losses for the company. But I also stand by what I wrote when I said draconian DRM is not the answer.
It's a sad, sad day when a company practically gives away their games and so many people still choose to spit in their eye. Pathetic, really.
So where's the story here? Sadly, as reported by Bluesnews, Humble is estimating that at least 25% of the downloads have been pirated directly from the site, and this doesn't include any numbers from BitTorrent and the other common sources of piracy. The true numbers of pirated games for this pack are much higher than 25%.
WTF?
This is exactly what I was talking about. Even when given the opportunity to download a games pack completely DRM-free for only 1 cent, a huge percentage of gamers still choose to pirate the games instead. And this is just a pack of indie games! I stand by what I wrote earlier when I said publishers that produce major hits like GTA IV are right to be concerned about piracy and releasing their games DRM-free would lead to massive losses for the company. But I also stand by what I wrote when I said draconian DRM is not the answer.
It's a sad, sad day when a company practically gives away their games and so many people still choose to spit in their eye. Pathetic, really.