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General discussionInteresting article about GOG/Steam & DRM (Train Fever)(23 posts)(23 posts)
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Posted December 06, 2015
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tomyam80: The article further reinforces my belief that making a game with DRM will only push honest customers away from buying & perhaps even 'forcing' them to seek alternate copies online.
It does not. The article it's biased, figures do not include GOG sales and it's wrote by people with direct interest in selling that game. We're never gonna know if the figures are true, and, to be honest, i don't think that they know if they are true either. There's no way for them to check every illegally downloaded copy of their game. They probably took big torrent sites, took the numbers of downloads from there are applied. But big part of P2P illegitimate distribution it's made through private trackers. So numbers are probably different.

Also, a bad game like theirs will not gonna be too wanted, even on torrent sites. Also, torrents do not have such a big life span. They are downloaded mostly on first days on when they are put up, when the game it's hot. They pretty much have the same interest rate as the actual sales, that's normal.

And, even big hypocrisy about this article it's that their below-average game was done with "internet money" as many other games, thanks to this thing called "crowdsourcing". So, these games start on profit from their first games sold. Big companies do not enforce DRM just to mess with their buyers, but because they need it in order to sell as many copies as they can. They need that online servers exclusivity, as they play with their money, not with "internet money". For those guys it's important to sell games, as they start on negative balance. But for these indie guys that ask internet people for money, there's no biggie if they don't sell too well, as they generate income. The difference it's if they feel like working on some future patches due to that income. If they don't sell enough, they might not.
Posted December 06, 2015
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mindblast: "internet money"
There's no such thing. Money is just that. It doesn't matter how you're funded, it's still money, and you still have the same business drivers. There may be people that con financers out of their money, but that's true of kickstarter, VC, or just casual investors.

The funding is irrelevant of the drive to sell the software. Unless you have a golden goose (which kickstarter etc. is not) you have limited funds and therefore a forced timeline.
Posted December 07, 2015
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mindblast: "internet money"
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wpegg: There's no such thing. Money is just that. It doesn't matter how you're funded, it's still money, and you still have the same business drivers. There may be people that con financers out of their money, but that's true of kickstarter, VC, or just casual investors.

The funding is irrelevant of the drive to sell the software. Unless you have a golden goose (which kickstarter etc. is not) you have limited funds and therefore a forced timeline.
That's just silly. Of course you have limited funds. But if that limited funds are from internet people, you don't have any obligation to them. You can sell 2000 copies as far as you care, the money from those are coming as your profit, as you already had financed everything else.
But when you invest your own money, you will want them back and you will want more than that, otherwise, why would you do it? So, you need to sell at least to cover your investment. You "need", it's not the case of wanting. Same with investors. You need to make sure that you do your best in order to get their money back.
And Kickstarter it's exactly that. A golden goose. You get those money in order to finance your project and you don't have to give them back. It's basically a donation to start up your thing.
Post edited December 07, 2015 by mindblast
Posted December 07, 2015
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vanchann: Anyway the game was released on GOG on March 5th 2015, so the data on that graph aren't from the GOG version.
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Pheace: Knowing this I find the conclusions he draws a little doubtful. That's half a year after the Steam release, I'm not surprised the piracy rate didn't go up from the GOG release at that point, interest for the game from pirates will have been satisfied 6 months before that, when they gained access already.

-snip
If the piracy appetite for a game is so quickly satisfied, why is it so hard to get that stuff out of there after the pirates move on to the next thing? Too much trouble? Too much paranoia? They are building in forever hoops to jump through to solve a 1 month problem. That seems like an extreme solution to a short lived problem.

If the problem is once it's cracked it's cracked, then it doesn't matter what happens after first crack. It's out there. It's cracked, and the pirates are moving on to the next thing. DRM-free at that point should hold no fear. Maybe a studio doesn't want to bother with it, that's one thing, but indefinitely hiding the game behind layers barbed wire and landmines in order to protect it from something that has already happened isn't a valid reason at that point.

If this only shows, that after 6 months of DRM, its usefulness has expired, then that's probably something. And if 6 months of DRM is all that is needed, then I think the argument could be made that GoG's catalog should be a bit beefier than it is. I'm all for making that argument - if that's something we can say.

So devs and publishers, piracy is not a valid reason to not sell games on GoG after 6-12 months. What do you have that over a year old and not on GoG?
Posted December 07, 2015
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mindblast: <snip>
A golden goose tends to refer to a product that is continually giving without need for maintenance. One such example (which is fading a bit now) would be MS Windows (or MS Office), which will just keep generating a profit, leaving MS free to do other stuff while their golden goose continues to generate revenue.

As for the rest, you're right. If you invest your own money then you've a commitment far beyond anything that other funding sources will provide. However that doesn't devalue the funding sources, nor does it discriminate between VC, private investor, or crowdfunding. All other sources are equally disposable, and unless you signed some very ropey deals with a VC, you're as fine to shaft them as you are to shaft any other funding source.
Posted December 10, 2015
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tomyam80: The article further reinforces my belief that making a game with DRM will only push honest customers away from buying & perhaps even 'forcing' them to seek alternate copies online.
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mindblast: It does not. The article it's biased, figures do not include GOG sales and it's wrote by people with direct interest in selling that game. We're never gonna know if the figures are true, and, to be honest, i don't think that they know if they are true either. There's no way for them to check every illegally downloaded copy of their game. They probably took big torrent sites, took the numbers of downloads from there are applied. But big part of P2P illegitimate distribution it's made through private trackers. So numbers are probably different.

Also, a bad game like theirs will not gonna be too wanted, even on torrent sites. Also, torrents do not have such a big life span. They are downloaded mostly on first days on when they are put up, when the game it's hot. They pretty much have the same interest rate as the actual sales, that's normal.

And, even big hypocrisy about this article it's that their below-average game was done with "internet money" as many other games, thanks to this thing called "crowdsourcing". So, these games start on profit from their first games sold. Big companies do not enforce DRM just to mess with their buyers, but because they need it in order to sell as many copies as they can. They need that online servers exclusivity, as they play with their money, not with "internet money". For those guys it's important to sell games, as they start on negative balance. But for these indie guys that ask internet people for money, there's no biggie if they don't sell too well, as they generate income. The difference it's if they feel like working on some future patches due to that income. If they don't sell enough, they might not.
Yes it does, @ least it does to me. Given a choice between buying a game with DRM & the EXACT same game w/o DRM, i'll definitely choose the latter. I believed many here wld also think the same way as me. In the event that the game is not available for sale w/o DRM i might just resort to 'trying out' the game via some other 'sources'. That being said, shd that game ever become DRM-free i would not hesitate to buy it if my budget allows me to.

As for ur point that the article is biased, does not factor in sales fr GOG, is untrue or actual figures not accurate, i shall not comment on them as whether that article is true or not is completely UP TO U (& each individual) to judge. I personally dun c any sense for them to make up the numbers as well as stating a game being DRM has little/no impact on their profits. I think when a person plays on their server they shd have the technology to check whether any1 is using a legally bought or cracked copy of the game & if they were truly afraid of cracked versions will eat into their profit margins they wld not be even putting it up for sale DRM-free in the 1st place.
Post edited December 10, 2015 by tomyam80
Posted December 10, 2015
Is Train Fever better? I got it right at the GOG release and it was unplayable. You couldn't build a decent line, then of course it would crash after a while.
Posted December 10, 2015
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BKGaming: ...90% of the sales came from Steam, can't help but wonder how much of a difference there would have been had the game released at the same time on GOG and Steam ...
Good question I also wonder about that. The only number I know what Witcher 2 where quite a high percentage of Witcher 2 copies were sold via GOG although still more on Steam. Also it might be a bit distorted towards GOG and outdated. Since then surely GOG has gained some popularity.

The percentage of sales coming from Steam is so high because concentrate on Steam as publication channel. It doesn't really mean Steam has much higher quality/service level. But nevertheless it is a warning sign for all others, because in the end only the number matters, not the reasons for preferring Steam, may they be very reasonable or not reasonable at all.
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General discussionInteresting article about GOG/Steam & DRM (Train Fever)(23 posts)(23 posts)
(23 posts)