My Suggestion on How to Stop a Large amount of Piracy.

[RTX 5080 FE(Mr Happy)]

Let's face it, There are pirates everywhere and for everything. From video games, to knock off Purses and I phones to bootleg movies.


But on the PC platform, the power to reduce a large amount of piracy lays 100% solely in the hands of the devs.


How so? 2 words. FREE DEMOS And no, dont give me that you can refund a game in 2 hours on steam, because steam gets all pissy with you and sends an auto threat of"You refunded alot of games recently We are not a demo service, if we think you are abusing the system, you will lose the right to buy games " type message(I had it once, dont recall the exact words)


Every game on steam that has a demo, I have bought. However, I will not admit or deny having tried games that I was curious about. The world economy sucks. Unless you are rich, $60 may not be alot, but it sucks to spend it on a trash game you decide wasnt worth it.


A demo allows you to try it, play it, and if you like it, you are gonna end up buying it. If you dont like it, you wont. Sure it wont stop 100% of the issue, but I know of atleast 5 or 6 games I personally would never have bought(or otherwise tried) if not for a demo.

There is also a good dozen games I found my own "free trial" that I instantly bought after trying.


Anyway, that is just my late night energy drink fueled rant.


Be safe all.

Discuss

(Please note I do not support piracy and do no contact me about it. Support the developers, buy games. Developers support the gamers, release demos)

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

You should ask the game devs. They are not here in the main Steam forums. Use their game hub or social media.

Valve already suggests game devs make demos. It is up to the game devs to consider making one or not.

And demos will not stop piracy.

[RTX 5080 FE(Mr Happy)]

cSg|mc-Hotsauce の投稿を引用：

You should ask the game devs. But they are not here.

Valve already suggests game devs make demos. It is up to the game devs to consider making one or not.

:qr:

So many games to have to post on. One can only hope one of the gaming news outlets might see this post and make their own thread. Doesnt hurt to try, but great advise.

[Tito Shivan]

You're assuming whoever goes to pirate a gamedoes it because they want to try it and not to play it for free.

[RTX 5080 FE(Mr Happy)]

Tito Shivan の投稿を引用：

You're assuming whoever goes to pirate a gamedoes it because they want to try it and not to play it for free.

True, there will always be a certain amount of people no matter what, but I feel my suggestion is one in the right direction.

[eram]

the demo isnt the full game for free.

when you pirate you dont have to pay anything, its the full game and you dont have to run it on a launcher. you cant beat that with a demo not even close.

also steam had the summer of demos last year 100s of new demos were added. did it change anything?

[Brian9824]

Demo's won't do anything to stop piracy, people don't go thru the effort to pirate a game just to "try it"

[WhiteKnight]

No one can stop piracy completely. I think it's possible that streaming can or may stop piracy completely. That's another issue.

The only way to lower piracy is to make the price attractive and easier to buy games like cash cards, local payments & local currency.

Although steam offers local currency & payments to many countries. They are still many too go. Ex - Pakistan, Jamaica, Nigeria, Egypt & so on.

Storefronts such has GOG & Uplay does not offer local payments & currency to many countries.

Storefronts such has Battle,net & Origin do offer cash cards but they are not readily available. They don't offer local pricing & payment.

[eram]

I reckon Steam and good sales did more to lower piracy than demos have. Yes more demos would be good but i think it has a negligible effect on piracy.

[Start_Running]

eram の投稿を引用：

I reckon Steam and good sales did more to lower piracy than demos have. Yes more demos would be good but i think it has a negligible effect on piracy.

Demos are not a creall. Plenty of games have had misleading demos.

Its easy to create a good looking demo for a bad game, bt its actually hard to create one for a greate game.

[Walach]

Wasn't there a "totally not biased or something" study of some kind where it showed that; less people paid for a game If they could see that it was a bad game in a demo?

Thus they wouldn't buy it but, if they didn't know that before hand then they might not bother with a refund? :P

EDIT: And that is a reason why they stopped making demons for a game.

[Brian9824]

Walach の投稿を引用：

Wasn't there a "totally not biased or something" study of some kind where it showed that; less people paid for a game If they could see that it was a bad game in a demo?

Thus they wouldn't buy it but, if they didn't know that before hand then they might not bother with a refund? :P

EDIT: And that is a reason why they stopped making demons for a game.

Even if true that doesn't translate into less people pirating the game. I mean if i played a demo and it was bad I wouldn't buy it probably, but if there was no demo I wouldn't pirate it instead.

[Crazy Tiger]

Demos don't battle piracy.

Walach の投稿を引用：

Wasn't there a "totally not biased or something" study of some kind where it showed that; less people paid for a game If they could see that it was a bad game in a demo?

Not just that. Demos also can provide enough of a "fix" to people, so they only play the demo and never purchase the game.

Back in the day when we had a lot of demos there are more games I didn't buy because I enjoyed the demo enough than there were games that I bought because of the demo. A Delta Force demo springs to mind, played some level in Egypt countless times.

Heck, the Medal of Honor Spearhead community that I was in, with various snipe only clans, completely was build around the multiplayer demo. Only 2 maps (Malta Fortress and a submarine base) and both could be modded (invisible wall in the middle, all guns available, one spawn for each team (one side), some additional boxes as cover placed on strategic places) and we were entertained for at least 2 years (that's how long I participated in it, the community existed before and after that). There were lots of servers available at all times, not just the clan ones.

[Joe Cool]

Best way to cut down on piracy = eliminate DRM.

It's really as simple as that.

Legit users who pay for their games get saddled with DRM that causes all sorts of problems from not allowing them access offline (kind of important) to having bugs and glitches due to the DRM software itself.

Meanwhile those who sail the high seas to acquire their copies face no problems whatsoever. They can play offline, don't suffer from glitches/bugs getting it to work, and often get better performance (due to the bloat of the DRM not being present)

[Brian9824]

Joe Cool の投稿を引用：

Best way to cut down on piracy = eliminate DRM.

It's really as simple as that.

Legit users who pay for their games get saddled with DRM that causes all sorts of problems from not allowing them access offline (kind of important) to having bugs and glitches due to the DRM software itself.

Meanwhile those who sail the high seas to acquire their copies face no problems whatsoever. They can play offline, don't suffer from glitches/bugs getting it to work, and often get better performance (due to the bloat of the DRM not being present)

There is so much wrong with that I don't know where to start.

I'll ignore the bit where you try to blame DRM for all the games issues which is patently false and most testing has shown at most a very minor impact to performance in the worst case scenario when they are implemented properly.

The biggest issue is people pirate games because they don't want to pay, hence why even DRM free games are pirated. I mean look at Cyberpunk 2077 for an example. There is a DRM free version being sold and its being pirated at a rate that is unheard of in gaming circles. Also those playing the pirated version are 100% suffering the same issues as those playing Steam's DRM version.....

So no, eliminating DRM will do nothing to stop piracy, it will in fact make it even easier and more widespread.

[Muppet among Puppets]

I look at a gameplay video, and i know if i want that game.
Or better say, if i dont want that game.