I agree with @213 and @Anzious. CD Projekt Red uses noninvasive techniques and generally is of the opinion that they can win the market with service and quality. I would encourage the Warhorse developers to read the various articles written regarding CD Projekt Red’s approach the pirates.
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Lately they seem to try to win the market by marketing talk and “we hate DRM” blabla. We haven’t seen anything from Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk for ages now…
Warhorse should concentrate on the game. Everything else is completely unimportant for now imo.
@213 Witcher 2 [edited 
] was DRM-free on gog.com on the very first day. They just implemented a (bad) DRM-solution on the disc because their publisher/distributor wanted it that way. It was removed after CDPR and Namco Bandai split.
Wait… Witcher 3? I see you can’t wait for it so you think of it all time. 
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Good game will sell itself, there is no need to waste money on DRM which actually bother just a honest buyers at the first place.
Maybe the alpha get pirated, but we can offer you more then some lines of code. We will listen to you, our backers. It is up to you, not the pirates, how the game will look like in the end. Thank you for your support!
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You’re right, I misquoted - sorry about that.
I understand that Steam comes off as somewhat convenient. However, I don’t like the idea of buying the “right” to play something - after all, that “right” has already been revoked in some cases and I doubt they are obligated to refund in that case. So what worries me about STEAM is that you don’t own the game. You may play it, but what happens if Steam goes bankrupt? Or is bought by a competitor, who shuts it down? Or if Steam decides you may not play the game anymore because you moved to the wrong country? (Wolfenstein - The New Order comes to mind, buy it in Austria, move to Germany and you lose the english audio and some graphics - not Steam afaik, but these issues exist there, too).
So that’s about online services that provide “copy protection” - Steam is just one example, possibly the biggest or best known, but it’s true for all others as well.
To my second point: No, I don’t like installing DirectX. I understand that’s a software layer many games are built on. But it’s crappy software and it runs only on Windows. Besides, if you install DX11 you still need to install DX9.0c. I wonder when they take it out of the Microsoft Download Centre and you can get it only on shady third party sites, where you neither know if someone has tampered with it nor that you commit possibly some license infringement or such.
And to my first point:
Technically you’re right, piracy won’t get you into trouble - juridically. Because it will be hard to sentence you for copying a game or a movie (as long as you don’t distribute it, which makes torrent a problem already).
Practically state attorneys have found a way around this, at least in germany: they simply get an order to search your house and impound any computerized devices to secure evidence- even your smartphone, because you could have used this, too. Judges grant house searches for absolute ridiculous reasons, in one case in southern germany for copied mp3 files worth €6 (six). They know that it will never be any use in court. However, judges grant the search and besides being embarassed in front of your neighbours (they will notice police kicking in your door at 6 am and wonder why) you will have no hardware for the next year. If you get it back it will be damaged or worthless.
Now I could live with that because it has no juridical consequences and I could talk to my neighbours - but since I just recently went freelance I can’t afford to buy a new rig and lose all my data and my phone. I depend on my computer, I depend on my data and I depend especially on my phone - and I can’t afford right now buying everything the next day. If I lose it I lose practically all my customers and the ability to do my work. Even worse, they would take the hardware of any family members, too - and some of them depend on it as much as I do. I simply can’t take the chance, so I don’t pirate.
Paradox do rather well with games like Crusader Kings 2 and Europa universalis 4… and they got no copy protection of any kind. Sure you buy it on steam, but you can just move the folder from the steam folder and to another PC and the games will run.
They know this and don’t care. Great games at a good price make for loyal players.
EU3 did have a CDkey… that you didn’t use for anything.
And look at the comments made by HBO about the fact that Game of thrones is the most pirated tv series…
They dont care and simply work on allowing more people to get it legally.
I downloaded the first two seasons… then they started HBOnordic.
Now I pay 10€ a month … even with the rather bad site it is still very easy to just log in and watch the show…
And since they also have other great shows, I have had this subscription for over a year now…
good price, good game, good service is the way to kill the pirates… not futile attempts at copy protection.
This is in no way official response of Warhorse. Just my personal thoughts.
Every game will be pirated. But you can manage the extent of that by recognizing what customers value. I think you have all seen this picture: http://goo.gl/kcnWvj . This is the example where an original copy has much less value for the customer than the pirated one. You have to make sure that there is no obstacle while buying, installing or playing the game (“Press enter to start game” or unskippable logos make me chew my keyboard). But you need more than just equal value. Some customers value if you communicate with them. If you show them that you are not some mega corporation but a bunch of real people that puts their hearts into the game. You also have to treat the customer fairly. That means no first day paid DLC, no P2W etc (I refused to buy Dragon Age: Origins until the complete edition with all the DLCs came out) . You can also add value with another services like steamworks, or regular free updates that add some minor things into the game and will automatically install for the paying customers.
If you do that you won’t eradicate piracy but you will make sure that mostly only the people that really can’t afford to buy the game, or the people that wouldn’t buy it anyway will pirate it. And even these people will speak fondly of your game and even might eventually buy your next game.
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You know, this is just my personal my thoughts. We have such a great community going here with history experts and enthusiastic gamers who can critique the alpha and offer valuable feedback. Personally, I would hope that no member of this community would pirate the alpha. The people who have pledged who participate in these boards are so loyal to this project I would hope very much that no one would put it in jeopardy by pirating the early build.
The finished game will hit the open market where someone will of course pirate it. However, I believe the community here will do the right thing and keep the alpha contained to the backers.
Again, just personal thought.
I think pirating the alpha would just be stupid. What is the point of playing a bugged, unfinished game with potential spoilers if you can’t give any constructive feedback.
Steam and Steam sales definitely makes piracy unnecessary for me. But it has a history of being unable to deal with big releases. I remember people who bought skyrim having to wait longer than others who pirated it. All in all though patches and mod support make steam versions worth it.
I would care a bit if it was a MP game, where it would matter if you had bought the game or not. In this case getting downloaded by people that don’t want to buy the game but are still interested is as said below more publicity and if the game is good, from word of mouth publicity is often a great way to get other people to play or buy the game and then know your company for making it. The last thing you want is bad publicity for bullshit DRM nonsense preventing the actual legit players from playing the game. No matter how hard the crackers will find the way to get in.
I don’t even think that an “open” alpha/beta without any DRM measures would only have bad consequences. See it like a demo. People who possibly haven’t seen or heard about the game so far could try it and then possibly buy the final game because they are convinced by its vision and quality. It’s also CDPR who said that each pirate of today is a potential customer of the future. That’s even more true if you take into account that many software pirates are kids and students who don’t have much money to spend on games. But they likely change their purchasing/pirating behaviour once they get older and have to work for their own money and stuff. I admit that I pirated a lot while I was at school. But now, as a grown-up man I have enough money to pay for each game I like and I gladly do so because I know that only that way I can ensure more good games are made in the future. As a developer you have to build up some reputation and a certain fanbase. There will always be pirates, you cannot prevent that without using measures that are painful for everyone playing your games. Treat your customers respectfully and try to convince them wit quality and with honesty and you will most likely sell enough copies. Let’s be honest: how could you more likely convince pirates to buy your games? With DRM measures or with quality and honesty? If you put more gruesome DRM in your game they just download something else and maybe never experience your games and never become a fan of your franchise. If you tolerate a certain extend of piracy by not putting hard DRM measures (I don’t talk about Steam here) in your game you gain both, happy current customers and happy possible future customers. And of course, Steam sales and other sales make piracy way less an issue today than it was a few years ago (though it seems that too many and too early sales have an ambivalent effect on piracy and sales). 
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Very true, I have played a shitload of games during my study period but bought only games that I really liked or needed a legit gamelicense for online gameplay, like battlefield 3 and such. But I have also bought games after I have played them for ‘free’ because they were awesome, Skyrim for instance, and quite a few games on steam. Those games I would not have known if not on my newsgroups or TPB and such. Same goes for music.
Ditto on this. When I was in school a decent chunk of the game I played were grabbed off BBS’s hosting pirated software. Once I got out in the working world I gained an appreciation of paying for quality. As an adult I read the reviews of games, check out their demos, and if I like the product I give the developers their just payment by purchasing the legit game. These days I wouldn’t even think of pirating a game because I want to see quality developers succeed and produce more games.
The game will be pirated.
So I hope there will be none, so I can buy it:) I will not support games with DRM, there is enough of games without it already, so why support a system where pirates can play games for free without intrusive DRMs while paying customers have to suffer them?
Games must evolve or continue to be subjected to piracy. Kingdom Come will be cracked, regardless of the complexity or method employed in protecting it. This is a fact. We can choose to ignore this or try to find a way to deal with it. It’s not as simple as grouping everyone who pirate into a single category either. As someone who used to do this in her youth [Before I realized that it was not only ethically wrong, but hurt the quality of games] I think most will fall into one of these groups:
They do it to test the game before deciding to buy it.
They can’t find the game locally and resort to piracy.
They can’t/don’t want to pay the price tag. [Sadly, I fell into this group. It changed when I was allowed to get a job]
They don’t want to support bad business practices but still want to play the game.
They like the convenience.
The ‘activists’ who do the cracking and uploading for the most part fall into the first category. A few are politically motivated, but those are much smaller fish comparatively. The site hosting like TPB are another matter. They are wholly motivated by politics and ideology. They will routinely places banners on their main page telling people to “vote for the pirate party,” and put out ridiculous propaganda to support it.
The only Permanente way that these places can be dealt with are by means of internet regulation, which judging from past attempts like SOPA [which sparked an unholy shit storm], will not happen anytime soon. In the past I’d notice that while all games are listed within a week of release, not all patches are. Infact patches are pretty rare. Sure you could find them after a couple hours, but it was always a risk because of people uploading viruses in the .exe .
Ubisoft had some initial success with its hardcore protections, but it also caused a backlash with its player-base. Silent Hunter 5 had gone uncracked for a few months because all the missions had to be downloaded from their website and it was not possible to replicate them. The most famous game however was Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, which took years to crack. Since few now like Ubisoft for its polices, and not everyone can pull a Chaos Theory, my suggestion is to make games F2P. Use in-game advertisements [IE, main game menu screen.] to make returns and have players go to your website each day to get the daily pass to play. Surely that would earn a few million, enough to pay for the development of the game and earn a bit of money. It’s a minor inconvenience for the player, but in exchange for a free game is there really any grounds to complain?
I respect your opinion but hope with every fiber of my being that Warhorse doesn’t go this route. I don’t want advertisements in my games; I don’t want to have to go their website everyday to get a passcode to play. F2P can stay with the MMOs.
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It’s a bit moot when we have all already paid for the game. I don’t think much else would destroy the company faster than charging people and then making it F2P.
he did write “games” in plural. so I think he was Commenting on games in general and not specificly on this one.
[quote=“specialsymbol, post:15, topic:16536”]It is not theft. There is nothing stolen.[/quote] Disagree. Vehemently.
Not aimed at anyone in particular…just a general stance on the issue
You pirate software? You’re bottom feeding scum. You don’t get to demand free games in much the same way as you don’t get to demand free theatre.
For the scum-buckets: If you’re pirating, quit pretending there’s nothing wrong with it. Accept and embrace your parent’s failure to instil in you any sense of social responsibility and behaviour. Stop whining about how you’re judged because of your moral failures.
On Topic: No DRM please. It really just treats your paying customers as if they were criminals, with a side order of aggravation.