EA, SecuROM Receive Class-Action Lawsuits

ahhhh EA...

I got a few minor beefs with the development studios under the EA banner... but EA as a publisher is possibly one of the worst things to happen to this industry.
 
I got no problem if a company wants to use an activation scheme like Microsoft does to protect their software. Just don't install anything but the product I purchased on my machine. Lower the price. Make patches and fixes only available to those who register legitimate serial numbers. That will drive behavior much more than any goofy DRM.
 
To those saying make games cheaper, making a game cheaper does not put more money in the pockets of consumers. It is not going to double or quadruple sales as some seem to claim. It's a completely illogical argument. If I spent $200 a year on games, I can buy 4 games at $50 or 6.6 games at $30. At the end of the day the industry is still only getting $200. What's worse is that it costs them more because they are covering the additional costs of moving/producing extra boxes, but they aren't getting any additional money from me. You're only looking at this from the viewpoint of consumer, which is good for you because you get more games, but it's not any better for the industry. They're still getting the same amount, well really individual studios will be getting less, because your money is more spread out and they have higher production costs.

This doesn't even take into account that even though I'm buying 4 games a year, I could be pirating 8 additional games every year. (Assuming a 66% piracy rate, which is probably low) So lower costs you say! Okay, well now I'm buying 6 games a year but I'm still pirating 6 additional games. That's still a 50% piracy rate.
 
faust_20.png
 
I've been avoiding EA titles since I learned this crap had been foisted on me in Mass Effect. I even avoid Xbox 360 games published by EA. The sooner they go bankrupt the better.
 
bonsai said:
To those saying make games cheaper, making a game cheaper does not put more money in the pockets of consumers. It is not going to double or quadruple sales as some seem to claim. It's a completely illogical argument. If I spent $200 a year on games, I can buy 4 games at $50 or 6.6 games at $30. At the end of the day the industry is still only getting $200. What's worse is that it costs them more because they are covering the additional costs of moving/producing extra boxes, but they aren't getting any additional money from me. You're only looking at this from the viewpoint of consumer, which is good for you because you get more games, but it's not any better for the industry. They're still getting the same amount, well really individual studios will be getting less, because your money is more spread out and they have higher production costs.

This doesn't even take into account that even though I'm buying 4 games a year, I could be pirating 8 additional games every year. (Assuming a 66% piracy rate, which is probably low) So lower costs you say! Okay, well now I'm buying 6 games a year but I'm still pirating 6 additional games. That's still a 50% piracy rate.
Click to expand...

I don't know too many people that budget their entire games expense for the year. At $30 a pop they are more of an impulse buy then at $60. I know I'd buy more games at $30 so at least a publisher has a better shot of getting my slice of the pie if not more. Your argument doesn't fly.
 
"Lower the price!!!"
Click to expand...

They do lower the price.... after the game has been out for a while. Their current strategy is to put a new piece of super annoying DRM on every game to slow the rate of priacy while charging a LOT of money for the game at release. After everyone willing to fork over that amount of money has bought it and before it becomes widely available to pirate for the poorer people, they lower the price. The problem is that the pirating is happening too fast these days and raining on their little release week gouge parade. Heck, now days the games are sometimes available to pirate BEFORE release day. That is what is really really pissing them off, they are losing out on their little time of price gouging the new releases.
 
bpmurrGT said:
I don't know too many people that budget their entire games expense for the year. At $30 a pop they are more of an impulse buy then at $60. I know I'd buy more games at $30 so at least a publisher has a better shot of getting my slice of the pie if not more. Your argument doesn't fly.
Click to expand...

Even if you're more apt to buy games at $30 instead of $60 it's not going to make a big difference. Even if you bought twice as many games at $30, at the end of the day you're spending the same amount. You would have to buy 3x or 4x times as many games as do, to see any significant rise in profit, which in reality isn't going to happen. Your average consumer probably only buys 3-4 games a year, making the price cheaper and they'll maybe buy 4-6, but the industry won't be making any more money.
 
What you haven't considered is people may buy legit copies instead of pirating if the price is cheaper. I think the publishers have to provide more of an advantage to buying a legit copy. For example free downloadable content, support etc.
 
I think Wal Mart would like to disagree with you, being the largest company in the world and becoming that way by doing exactly what you are currently saying doesn't work. You can make up for low profit margin with high volumes and there's nothing that's easier to distribute in high volumes than software, especially when it's distributed digitally.
To the earlier poster talking about prices of games and marriage, that's exactly it. The wife frowns on $60 all at once for a single game, which I may or may not enjoy, but $90 on three $30 games over the course of a couple months garners not even a glance. Heck, I've taken to buying games from gog.com. Gotta love games that had to have good content to make up for their crappy graphics.

bonsai said:
Even if you're more apt to buy games at $30 instead of $60 it's not going to make a big difference. Even if you bought twice as many games at $30, at the end of the day you're spending the same amount. You would have to buy 3x or 4x times as many games as do, to see any significant rise in profit, which in reality isn't going to happen. Your average consumer probably only buys 3-4 games a year, making the price cheaper and they'll maybe buy 4-6, but the industry won't be making any more money.
Click to expand...
 
shadowwar said:
What you haven't considered is people may buy legit copies instead of pirating if the price is cheaper.
Click to expand...

Right, but as a publisher I'm not going to be making any more money, so why should I cut the price? I can sell one game for $60 or 2 games for $30, but I'm still only making $60. That's the point.

Cutting the price in half means I now have to sell twice as many copies. Now my publishing costs are higher because I have make more boxes, and my advertising costs are more now too because I need to attract more people, so even if I can somehow magically double my sales, I'll still be losing money.
 
Tokamak said:
I think Wal Mart would like to disagree with you, being the largest company in the world and becoming that way by doing exactly what you are currently saying doesn't work. You can make up for low profit margin with high volumes and there's nothing that's easier to distribute in high volumes than software, especially when it's distributed digitally.
Click to expand...

Wal-Mart also has low margins because it offers very low quality items, forces it's suppliers to cut their costs, sends businesses overseas, and exploits it workers, but that's for another time. ;)

Wal-Mart operates on 5-10% prices differences, not 50% like some people here are claiming would work for video games. 5% price cut is manageable and can be made up in volume, 50% cannot. Would $45 games sell better? Possibly, but it's not going to take a sizable chunk out of piracy, which really was the point.
 
I've always seen this as somewhat of a chicken-egg issue:

* People would (theoretically) pirate games less if there wasn't such crappy DRM and/or copy protections, etc. in the games. (Price is another issue to me altogether)

* Gaming companies would (again, theoretically) remove or lighten up the DRM and/or copy protections, etc. if the games were pirated less.

Where is the happy balance? Does one side have to cave-in in order to move this forward?
 
wasnt this posted here already a few weeks back, or was that another law suit

it is individuals who make change, not large masses, that is why this lawsuit is happening a "small" few are sick of this crap and want change and in the end that change benefits large masses.
 
bonsai said:
To those saying make games cheaper, making a game cheaper does not put more money in the pockets of consumers. It is not going to double or quadruple sales as some seem to claim. It's a completely illogical argument. If I spent $200 a year on games, I can buy 4 games at $50 or 6.6 games at $30. At the end of the day the industry is still only getting $200. What's worse is that it costs them more because they are covering the additional costs of moving/producing extra boxes, but they aren't getting any additional money from me. You're only looking at this from the viewpoint of consumer, which is good for you because you get more games, but it's not any better for the industry. They're still getting the same amount, well really individual studios will be getting less, because your money is more spread out and they have higher production costs.

This doesn't even take into account that even though I'm buying 4 games a year, I could be pirating 8 additional games every year. (Assuming a 66% piracy rate, which is probably low) So lower costs you say! Okay, well now I'm buying 6 games a year but I'm still pirating 6 additional games. That's still a 50% piracy rate.
Click to expand...


That's not a valid argument because there is no preset 'limit' on how many game I will buy a year. I will buy anything that is under $40. I can buy them once or twice a month. If it's $60, I will not buy it at all.

So, when you consider the games that have not made money on me until they show up in teh used bin or on sale, I would think the game deveolpers would have more overall profit if they made something I would buy at a cost I would pay.

Not to mention, I am not going to buy a new video card to play crysis when I do not buy the game, where if it was cheaper, I would have bought it and so would all my friends, then nvidia wouldn't be having problems selling me new video cards (it's easier to justify hardware once a year then software every month).
 
Meh I doubt if EA had any intention of stopping piracy. They know that piracy cannot be stopped, so instead they're going to try and salvage sales at another angle: preventing Gamestop or equivalent stores from reselling software.

If they could implement a way of doing this without harming people's computer, they might be able to get away with it a little more successfully.
 
Azhar said:
Meh I doubt if EA had any intention of stopping piracy. They know that piracy cannot be stopped, so instead they're going to try and salvage sales at another angle: preventing Gamestop or equivalent stores from reselling software.

If they could implement a way of doing this without harming people's computer, they might be able to get away with it a little more successfully.
Click to expand...



BINGO You just won the gold star. This entire thread never touched on this one issue. Used games, A few months ago (mabye a year) there was a big hoopla about publishers hating the used game market cause its killing them apparently. There is NO better way to prevent u from selling a used copy than DRM. They know they cant stop piracy, but they can make it so gamestop wont take a game on trade cause they know it had limited activations. I think this is 100% what EA and others have been trying to do, not curb piracy.
 
Don't recall Spore specifically stating it was going to install the crap, but I haven't had any problems with it either...Mind you I lost interest once I hit space.
 
Will I buy 2 games for $60 or 8 games for $30? I will definitely go for 8 games. Reducing the price would make me more readily buy games and thus spend more overall. It is a thorn in my side to pay $60 for a single game. At that price point, even a demo (which only shows the best parts of the game) usually isn't enough of a taste to determine if it's worth the $60.
Just like buying hi-def movies. I will not buy a single movie for $25-30, but I will buy several if they get below $15. Consumers have certain price points they believe a product is worth.
 
MaxKool said:
BINGO You just won the gold star. This entire thread never touched on this one issue. Used games, A few months ago (mabye a year) there was a big hoopla about publishers hating the used game market cause its killing them apparently. There is NO better way to prevent u from selling a used copy than DRM. They know they cant stop piracy, but they can make it so gamestop wont take a game on trade cause they know it had limited activations. I think this is 100% what EA and others have been trying to do, not curb piracy.
Click to expand...


It was actually mentioned twice on the first page. The third post brought it up. :p

They know they can't stop piracy, games are now available for warez prior to being commercially released as often as not, so the only logical reason for spending money on these DRM measures must be used games. Or they are just really into pissing customers off. Who can say for sure. A simple CD check that prevents a game from running without the original disk in the drive is no less effective than phoning home, driver replacement, or other intrusive measures.

Buy the game, download the crack. That's TWIMTBP these days. Sad that, that, is the best method I know of buying games legit and then playing them with out hassle.
 
its called allowing companies to be run by business majors. no one with naught but a business degree has any business running a large coporation.
 
GORANKAR said:
Buy the game, download the crack. That's TWIMTBP these days. Sad that, that, is the best method I know of buying games legit and then playing them with out hassle.
Click to expand...


Seems to be gaining popularity doesn't it?
 
Problem is: By installing the game from the original dvd you also install the crapware they call copy protection, and it can be a real pita to remove that stuff from your harddrive.

Oh, btw, do you remember the Sony audio copy protection debacle?
Well, guess who owns Securom... Fresh from their website:

Sony DADC Austria AG
Sonystrasse 20
A-5081 Anif/Salzburg
Austria

I said it back when the shit hit the fan with Bioshock, and I can only repeat: Why am I NOT surprised...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top