A new take on how to deal with piracy, or a very old one?

Karuji

So what happens when a developer notices that their game is being pirated?
Should they use draconian DRM,
Or do they do something new which is actually rather old skool.

edg3

Well, there are quite a few people that have been doing exactly that for a while now. It isn't substantially new.

Karuji

Well the reason, at least to me, that this is new is that the game was retro actively set up to make money off a new market. The general concept isn't new shareware has been around since the early 80s.

edg3

I dont mean shareware (it is too much of a blanket term), I mean the specific "I gave people a torrent" model.

Karuji

Well that's why I thought this was slightly different. Since it isn't I gave people a torrent: it's my small game is being pirated. It's cool that more people are playing it. Let me make it easier to give them money.

Which to me is an adaptation of shareware.

The reason I am happy is that instead of fighting piracy — which unless you are Diablo 3 is nigh impossible, also from what I hear Diablo 3 is rather shitty — you find a way to make it easier for pirates to give you money.

Aequitas

I think the "ask them to pay" model can work, but I'd much rather the game have extra features that can't be accessed unless you have a legit copy.

Stardock did this with Sins of a Solar Empire's patching system. You would only get a patch if you logged in, and we're doing something similar with DD. If you log in, your game is saved to our server, and available on any device where you own DD.

Karuji

@Aequitas totally agree on that. My view of how to 'beat' piracy as a game dev is to offer things to my customer that the pirates cannot.

shelton

I heard about softwrap awhile back. I guess where I'd begin with the battle with piracy

Aequitas

@shelton Softwrap has already been cracked, and so it's effect on piracy is essentially zero.