The CEO of Codemasters has been caught saying that he thinks selling “unfinished” games to customers is a much more effective strategy than investing in DRM.
Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens sees the answer to piracy not as enacting draconian copy protection but as nickel-and-diming consumers by selling them an incomplete game and then having them buy the rest as downloadable content:
I’m not necessarily a fan of DRM measures. I think sometimes they’re almost counter-productive. I can still be persuaded on them, and I completely understand why they exist.
But my initial thought is that DRM is not the answer to the piracy issue.
The video games industry has to learn to operate in a different way. My answer is for us as publishers is to actually sell unfinished games – and to offer the consumer multiple micro-payments to buy elements of the full experience.
That would create an offering that is affordable at retail – but over a period of time may also generate more revenue for the publishers to reinvest in our games.
If these games are pirated, those who get their hands on them won’t be able to complete the experience. There will be technology, coding aspects, that will come to bear that will unlock some aspects. Some people will want them and some won’t.
When it comes to piracy, I think you have to make the experience the answer to the issue – rather than respond the other way round and risk damaging that experience for the user. But I may be a lone voice in that.
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Piracy has been there forever. Whether we care to admit it or not and whether we say it’s right or wrong, it’s a factor. It’s never going to go to zero.
Lyndon B Johnson once said ‘you want to be on the inside pissing out rather than the outside pissing in’ – and I wholeheartedly agree. Look at the partial demise of the record industry – they never embraced technology, they fought technology and I think that created a huge downturn vacuum for them.
Consumers may find themselves needing an umbrella in short order.
Pirating DLCs is not much of a problem.
If you can pirate the game- you can pirate DLCs as well.
There are a surprising amount of people who actually don’t have internet or don’t want to connect their consoles online. So these people are just getting the shaft then?
Oh, really?
How about I give him another idea:
If they are SO set up that piracy is the same as stealing a physical car from a store, and want to treat software as physical items, then let’s do it.
They will have law protection against pirates until they earn the set profit margin (let’s say 20%) of the cost they had to pay, or until a period of e.g. two years expires.
I don’t seem to remember Ford making a *single* car and earning money off of it for the next 80 years. They have to make that car model over and over again, using their funds to buy materials, pay people for constant work – but publishers think they can “ride” on a single game/program till the end of their lives – since they’re still selling old classics – “Oh, hey guys, let’s take this game from 1997, merge it with emulator for XP and sell as a new game”… GOD, those people piss me off.
Who is he kidding? They’ve been selling unfinished games since 0-day patches became standard.
But what he’s described in this article is called trialware or shareware. Standard marketting technique for three decades, at least. Get a “demo” or cheap limited version with a code or coupon for getting a cheap “full” version.
The real way to fight piracy is the way Stardock does it— give the game its own key, have NO DRM, and make fun games. People that like the game will buy the game. People that don’t will play the game and pass it along to other people— free advertising. Stardock releases bonus FREE material for their games after they’ve been out a while, to reward customers who bought the game. Works well for them.
It will defeat piracy but it will also defeat gaming.