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MSNBC.com has a video report about Demigod, and the effects of piracy with comments from Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell.
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30392391#30392391
Is there a link to the full interview/video? There was nothing about piracy or anykind of report on Demigod, just an overview of the concecpt.
Here is the correct link, their embed is messed up.
Man that's sad. I personally never got really interested in D-G, although I've got Gal and SoE (I think both are Stardock?) but this paticular game (I dont like most RTS's) was sorta out there. However I use torrents to get all sorts of stuff and I've seen the UNGODLY (Yeah, it's a pun give me a break) amount of people getting the 'hot' game of the week/month. People are really losing money. Sadly, there's that word again, I don't think copy protection actually HELPS anyone. The crackers will crack it, they will find a way. All it will do is, depending on the protection, lose the company sales or cost them money to buy the false sense of security.
Server side games? I would NEVER play a game like that. (Except on a console maybe) The security issues are HUGE. I don't trust anyone with that kind of access.
Anyway, my condolonces on this bs for your game SD. Very dissapointing. I'd say I'd buy two copies of Elm Magic to make up for the evil of the world...but I'm poor too.
"If the publishers are convinced they are losing sales."
Now that's an excuse they (other publishers) will jump on. They will never admit as Brad did there, and here many times that those same pirates had no and nor will they, any intention of buying the game, or any product in question.
The publishers will use the pirate issue (And what happened with Demigod as their example) to further introduce and implement even more draconian DRM.
No matter the stance taken by SD or EA or anyone, the pirates will persist till either A), server side gaming is the norm, which will only serve to harm the PC game industry, or B, game developers start going out of business due to loss of profit and furthering the harm to the pc game industry.
What is needed, is to address the issue as to why people pirate, not if. There will always be pirates, whilst there are games at retail that won't change, but what, if anything can drop that number?
Price? It's the obvious, but that's not going to readily change, and with reason.
I'll admit, i have no answer as to what would drive a pirate to actually purchase a game, if anything, except that Stardocks approach to me at least, even though not favorably demonstrated here, is the best way to go about it, other than....nothing.
Piracy is here to stay.
But since the drones at EA and the like will take note of the 120K pirates and forget everything else, it will be a cold day in hell before they all see the light.
To them, killing pirates = more sales. That is the concept that needs to be changed.
The answer would be a cultural change where people no longer generally believe that stealing and cheating is acceptable behavior.
It is unlikely to happen and it would probably take generations. Still, it is the only 'solution' I see.
Bingo! Sadly, many people who pirate software don't believe they are stealing to begin with. Though it is amusing to watch them bend over backwards justyifing their pirating.
@ Neilo, You are right about piracy is here to stay because in third world countries, pirates make a living cracking and selling thousands of CDs of games and moives so they can feed their familes that live under bridges for a few hunderd dollars a month. Right or Wrong? 
No they call it survivial. I see it on my way to school and at the malls I go to.
Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas
Excellent suggestion.
Honesty, personal morality, social contributions - name it.
If Humanity has (somehow and continuously) evolved beyond barbaric behaviors and what else, i really don't see why the good can't crush evil ways for reasons close enough to reasonably profits *AND* fair standards for all. That's the philosophical point.
Economy wise, people are complaining right now about worldwide recession conditions *AND* free-market forces tolerating piracy (one of which Capitalism ideology). Innovation is at stake, ingenuity is on the extinction list, investment will slowly vanish. What we are risking (by ignoring both the consequences and Piracy itself) is more than enough to create social chaos, primal wars of virtual terrorism and as a result, hell on Earth.
Am i exaggerating? Who can cure possible epidemics such as the swine flu out of Mexico, lately? Collective paranoia? I wonder.
Money is the currency of Peace & Human Rights as much as stupidly overstocked weapons, missiles or nuking arsenals by maniacs politically border-lined in their very own mental illness. Yes -- USofA and China and Russia and France and UK... etc, i'm looking at you all.
For a real solution, pay people to work & live. Take it away, you're in for a deserved revolution by Pirates or not.
Went waaaayyyyy off-topic --- sorry, but i HAD to.
I consider Ironclad's Demigod as an incredibly huge success, not by numbers or server lags caused by online theft of bandwidths from pirated copies but more by the guts SD is showing to the gaming industry. DRM, copyrights, property -- i don't care. If *i* work hard enough, they get my cash... if THEY worked hard enough they certainly deserve it. It's a matter of value & principles.
Server-side hosting of games. And there are no extra security issues at all because of it, i'm saying it as an IT specialist.
And I'm saying that would allow companies insane access to your machine. Not to mention what I'm sure some smart person would distribute viruses that way. But yeah, you're an IT specialist...you know what your talking about I guess. /S
Their families live under bridges and they're too poor to support them, yet they have the equipment to crack, mass produce, package, and sell software illegally? Give me a break.
Well duh, they put all their income into company infrastructure. Lol
As far I piracy goes it seems to me that the floodgates have been opened by virtue of the fact that during the early days of the internet there were so few companies unlike Stardock, not just in gaming but in the music and film industries too.
PS a slightly off-topic question: do all US news reporters speak as slowly as that guy?
Well, yes. If you launch any game with an exe file, you're already giving all access you can possibly give to that company. They don't need anything else besides that exe file if they'll be crazy enough to destroy their buziness and face charges in courts by adding trojans/viruses etc. to an exe file of the game.
And almost any game with internet access (say, for patching) technically can download viruses and upload your private information to companie's server. Once again, noone will be crazy enough to do something like that. Say, banks generally don't run with your money even if they have full access to it, so why should gaming companies do it? It's not really profitable (game will cost too much money so to make it efficient) and there are much easier ways to distribute viruses - say, use spam emails or exploits in operating system/popular programs...
In other words, you're a classical n00b who doesn't know what he is talking about.
Only Cafferty when he repeats daily that people can log onto his blog to stare at 300 replies (one of these mine to; Worst threat:Big Government or Big Business? *Small people, that's who. There’s no question about it, we’re all buying and being taxed for.*) for the CNN daily news poll question.
Far are gone the days of propaganda except for repetitive & annoyingly interruptive pubs on TeeVee.
It is a good thing Frogboy was able to get some voice time on a mainstream media outlet about the shitty reviews. Maybe some sites will redo their reviews because of it.
I'd never purchase/play a server side game (PC platform) for serurity/privacy issues as well. It would also raise many of the same concerns now coming to light with cloud computing. You're wise user for not trusting others with that level of access to your PC.
Game consoles with locked down hardware, and used only to play games (minimum level of personal info involved) would be an ideal platform for server side gaming. After what's happened to Demigod, I believe it's clear that developing games for the PC platform is hopeless. DRM is all it's forms has failed, and just being a "good" company has also failed. I really don't know what else to say. This is a sad day, and a real eye opener for myself. I have always been a strong supporter of "fair use" and the need to reform copyright time limits. But this time the numbers don't lie. (12% legitimate users - wow)
Wanna bet they wont bother, the damage is done. Piracy struck, again.
Stardock should sue Gamestop for releasing Demigod early and causing all this shit.
I'm also really pissed that the reviewers gave Demigod should bad scroes simply because of multiplayer issues. Those assholes didn't really even look at what the game really was. Stardock should also contact these people, explain what happened, and demand that they review the game again.
Oh, and I raise my middle finger to the pirates and the publishers who making this an excuse to put more DRM on the game.
Stop making games for good*. Maybe then some "people" will learn of their "mistakes". Some people only value things once they have lost them. But that means that as always the innocent have to suffer because of the guilty... so don't stop making games for good UNTIL AFTER Elemental is done and patched, ok? 
Also, no matter how many sales lost in the future, ban Gamestop from receiving any other SD game ever. If someone shows them that they have the "balls" to reject them for their obviously selfish reasons, maybe they wouldn't be so *BEEP*. Maybe they would fear that others could follow the lead. Maybe. Altough not likely with so much fear to piracy.
Demigod = 
in my book anyways.
* that means everybody, not just Stardock/GPG... Which we know won't happen.
Poor people survived long before video games existed. They don't need to pirate to survive - they simply choose to do so.
If they couldn't sell video games, they would sell something else on the black market. Or better yet, they might start legitimate businesses. But don't tell me this is "survival." That's nonsense. There are many other things to sell, and plenty of legitimate ways to sell products.
You can also technically receive viruses from software on a CD. If you don't trust a company to send you stuff electronically, then I wouldn't trust them with a physical CD either.
From the video:
. . . and that's what's going to happen. If you want to call it "survival" for the pirates, you accept the consequences of condoning their behavior. If you do not want that future, you NEED to convince people it's wrong to pirate, even for "survival."
Because all of the "survival" logic in the world won't matter. The publishers will do this if they think it is necessary. Even Stardock could do it if you push them hard enough and keep up the excellent work you're doing at making excuses for pirates.
Rationalize all you want. All the rationalization in the world won't matter if they decide to do it. It's not a matter of why people do it - it's a matter of how to stop it. Because if you don't become active in condemning it and taking steps to change the culture - they'll do it for you.
The differences are quite apparent. I have control of and can check and exe or other file I download. Also I know that the patch came from the game company, baring a complete takeover of a website/fileserver for a VERY short time that would effect relaitively small amounts of consumers.
On the other hand if a company/server had the ability to access and change files whenever I was playing a game...well...yeah. And all someone would have to do is slip in a little extra. People are not companies..but they work at them. But, hey..I'm just a noob who doesn't know anything about tech stuffz. (I added a z so I could look cool too)
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