In the wake of ApocalyPS3 and the whole Ubisoft DRM shabang, video game pirates, hackers, thiefs or whatever you want to call them are put under the microscope again. Love them or hate them, they are a big deal in video games industry and they impact the lives of every gamers.
Let me first admit it, during my college years, I've downloaded games on torrents, warez or whatever was available at the moment. Every time, my poor machine paid the price of my adventures, but when you're broke and living off on four hours of sleep and two cups of Ramen a week, cracked games will satisfy your gaming needs. As I graduated and got closer to the gaming industry, I understood that piracy wasn't that act of brave defiance against the system. As I think it's still no big deal to download a U2 album or Avatar (what a piece of shit movie anyway), downloading games has it's fair share of consequences.
We have to first understand piracy for what it is. Pirates are no leftist rebels. Most of the time they don't give a shit about the games, it's the challenge that motivates them. They like to crack the newest thing and show the world that nothing resists them. My insight on piracy world is limited, but they are getting paid to crack games and put them on shady sites. Downloaders aren't any better. I post last January the letter of a whiny game thief. This guy sounds all righteous about download Modern Warfare 2 out of spite due to the lack of dedicated server. He urges Activision to give better product, yet he's playing the game. Not the most convincing act. Downloading, like cracking is an act of selfishness, let's not kid each other here.
No pirate of thief or whatever punishes directly game companies when they do that. Their first line victims are honest buyers. Companies have money and no matter how paranoid they get from piracy, they have the financial means to protect their stuff. Ubisoft uses DRM, EA uses their ten dollar project (who's also countering re-sale, which I have nothing against)...and who knows what's coming next. Rumor is that ApocalyPS3 was caused by a hacker. Honest buyers are getting screwed in all of this. Screwed in between an ungrateful crowd and cheap developers.
How can we survive this? Music industry (think it was EMI records), after firing people...making crazy paranoid propaganda and cut promising bands..DECIDED...that MAYBE it would be time to be cool and lower the price of CDs. I'm not asking for a game price reduction here. Just asking for the gamers to get their money's worth. Sixty bucks is a decent price for a game that will last more than two days. I passed Silent Hill:Shattered Memories in twenty four hours!!! Two sessions of three hours and I was done. Not a good value. GTA IV, to a certain extent Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2 and Assassin's Creed 2 were all titles in the recent years that made 60$ a good investment. Is it hard to make a game with passion before thinking about money?
Piracy isn't going to disappear any time soon. It's not going away with the confrontational attitude displayed right now on both sides. It's not the first time I say it, but video game executives lack vision. Instead of pulling a Bobby Kotick and thinking about the next quick buck, look around and be inspired. Other fields are hiring hackers to work for them. Eliminates the problem and gives a shot to good programmers. No matter how self-motivated these guys are, they'd all like to say they make 50 grand a year at a prestigious company than to stew in their basement. When the confrontations in between greedy execs and smartass hackers will stop, maybe the problems will.
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