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Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

arstechnica.com

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Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#21

Post by bigB »

goodgoblin wrote: post #20
rick888 wrote: post #4

Interesting. So 90% of the people pirate the game (which has no serial number or protection). I thought the reason people pirated apps was because of draconian protection systems like DRM?!

Yeah - most of the people pirate because its easy and relatively risk free. They would never think of 'pirating' a car. Who came up with the term pirating anyway? It adds a glamor that 'stealing' just doesn't have.

Pirate, or the term for a "copyright thief" was coined somewhere back in the 1800's I think, by a poet or author describing the people who stole and reprinted his works. Its seems to have stuck though. I know I have the link somewhere to back this up, but cant find it right at the moment

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#22

Post by patio11 »

noodle wrote: post #15
patio11 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then i wonder how they got the 90% number. Comparing the number of unique copies of your program running to sales made takes about ~20 lines of code. On first run, ping the website and mark somewhere that you won't do that check again. Count how many times your program accesses the website.

well, i mean, i know that doing that action is trivial, but isn't a pingback a light form of registration/drm/etc.?

I might have agreed with you once. These days, Google Analytics tracks 2/3 of pages on the Internet. I already know you downloaded it -- if you think you have a legitimate reason to not let me track that you turned it on once, send me an email and I'll be happy to discuss the many benefits of paying Big Freaking Enterprise pricing with you.

I have no desire to do privacy-increasing mechanisms which only help the privacy of pirates, which is what opposition to phone home is (since all legitimate customers left download and purchase logs).

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#24

Post by StavrosK »

MichaelGG wrote: post #11

" the game doesn’t bother players serial codes or online authentication, but it’s also very easy to copy it " Somewhat misleading. It's also very easy to copy all the super-DRMed games. In fact, the process is identical. Load up a torrent site, search, download. At any rate, claiming 90% piracy (regardless of truth) to run a sale is probably a good marketing move. It's a beautiful game.

It is a good move. I didn't pirate it, but I'll buy it to support them (plus it's just three quid). I only wish it were on Steam...

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#25

Post by moomba »

What seems to be missing, as usual from these piracy posts is that the 90% who pirated the game most likely wouldn't have bought it. Sure, pirating games is a bad thing. But, it doesn't hurt to have a little perspective on it. There was a post on HN a few months ago doing some analysis on this subject.

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#26

Post by joblessjunkie »

goodgoblin wrote: post #20
rick888 wrote: post #4

Interesting. So 90% of the people pirate the game (which has no serial number or protection). I thought the reason people pirated apps was because of draconian protection systems like DRM?!

Yeah - most of the people pirate because its easy and relatively risk free. They would never think of 'pirating' a car. Who came up with the term pirating anyway? It adds a glamor that 'stealing' just doesn't have.

I have never considered pirate software to be "risk free".

I'm not concerned about getting caught. I'm concerned about running arbitrary binaries downloaded from god-knows-where which were prepared by hackers with less-than-honorable intentions.

After you've reformatted your hard drive for the 3rd or 4th time, you give up on pirate software.

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#27

Post by stonemetal »

StavrosK wrote: post #24
MichaelGG wrote: post #11

" the game doesn’t bother players serial codes or online authentication, but it’s also very easy to copy it " Somewhat misleading. It's also very easy to copy all the super-DRMed games. In fact, the process is identical. Load up a torrent site, search, download. At any rate, claiming 90% piracy (regardless of truth) to run a sale is probably a good marketing move. It's a beautiful game.

It is a good move. I didn't pirate it, but I'll buy it to support them (plus it's just three quid). I only wish it were on Steam...

The game is on steam. Not sure about the sale.

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#28

Post by noodle »

patio11 wrote: post #22
noodle wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, i mean, i know that doing that action is trivial, but isn't a pingback a light form of registration/drm/etc.?

I might have agreed with you once. These days, Google Analytics tracks 2/3 of pages on the Internet. I already know you downloaded it -- if you think you have a legitimate reason to not let me track that you turned it on once, send me an email and I'll be happy to discuss the many benefits of paying Big Freaking Enterprise pricing with you. I have no desire to do privacy-increasing mechanisms which only help the priv…

i'm not really trying to make an argument about privacy and your rights online type of stuff.

i'm just trying to make note of the fact that if you do have something that phones home, can you really say that your product is totally free and clear of that drm/registration/etc type of software practices? more similar to false advertising. "our product will NEVER do this. except, it does, but just a little"

Re: Machinarium suffers 90% piracy rate, offers $5 amnesty sale

#29

Post by j-g-faustus »

bigB wrote: post #21
goodgoblin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - most of the people pirate because its easy and relatively risk free. They would never think of 'pirating' a car. Who came up with the term pirating anyway? It adds a glamor that 'stealing' just doesn't have.

Pirate, or the term for a "copyright thief" was coined somewhere back in the 1800's I think, by a poet or author describing the people who stole and reprinted his works. Its seems to have stuck though. I know I have the link somewhere to back this up, but cant find it right at the moment

Daniel Defoe (of Robinson Crusoe), 1703:

    [my novel] is being Printed again and again, by Pyrates
But the term was in use as early as 1600: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
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