Piracy: does removing offline mode make an impact?

[Deleted]

The diablo series has always been the game I turned to when router was giving me problems, or power outage, ect, now with D3's limitation I might not even get it /sadface

Starcraft II allows offline play if you've recently played it online (I imagine it's about a week or so window you can play offline) and I think this will be in D3 as well.

[Alcsaar]

Starcraft II allows offline play if you've recently played it online (I imagine it's about a week or so window you can play offline) and I think this will be in D3 as well.

Highly unlikely. Im SC2 offline mode you can't get achievements. However, in D3, you have to save your character. You can't save it offline because they're stored on Blizzard's servers to reduce cheating.


Its a bit silly that they did this to be completely honest. There was nothing wrong with Single Player charactesr and Multiplayer characters being seperated. Some of us liked mods or trainers for single player dickery. Torchlight 2 will still supports mods and what not...its something I'll def. consider picking up. Blizzard imposes to many limitations these days.

[Wilian]

Starcraft II allows offline play if you've recently played it online (I imagine it's about a week or so window you can play offline) and I think this will be in D3 as well.

People still keep thinking it might? It doesn't. There is no offline mode at all. None, nada.

[Sun-Ra]

They already had a cracked offline mode for the beta, just couldn't save your characters. And THAT should be trivial to work around. So in the end, pirates will be playing the game and laugh a shitty laugh to the guy who bought it legit and now can't play because his internet is down for half a day.

Sad, just sad. If gaming companies continue this route, it looks like LAN parties will be a thing of the past.

[Mkalafut]

I really think that removing offline mode and LAN does NOTHING for Piracy. The fact that I can no longer have monthly LAN parties really saddens me though. Gone are the days of Diablo 2, Starcraft Brood War and Counter-Strike 1.6 LAN. Every game from now on is pretty much ditching LAN and Offline Support.

[glowpipe]

The pirates see it as a challenge to crack their shit. It only leads to faster and better cracks. Does nothing to stop piracy. AT ALL

[strangebreed]

its a huge pain in my bum , do i think it actually effects piracy alot no. im much less likely to buy a game if i have to be online to play and i know so before hand. if its not a online game its pointless for me to be online -.-

[Deleted]

The pirates see it as a challenge to crack their shit. It only leads to faster and better cracks. Does nothing to stop piracy. AT ALL

Well people who are able will try to crack every popular game. Only thing that matters is does it increase amount of otherwise paying customers go for the pirated version which is better when it doesnt need online mode.

[Ravenblade]

There is no 100% bulletproof method to fight piracy but outsourcing architecture to a server system reduces it theoretically by alot. Theoretically because disgruntled players may easily join or even replace that group which was made up solely of pirates before. There is also no warranty for that some people won't try to find a way to emulate the missing parts.

They already had a cracked offline mode for the beta, just couldn't save your characters. And THAT should be trivial to work around. So in the end, pirates will be playing the game and laugh a shitty laugh to the guy who bought it legit and now can't play because his internet is down for half a day.

Actually it's far from trivial from what I've seen and been reading so far and the quality and stability is not even close to the original, it also requires some expert knowledge to run it. So realistically only a minority will benefit from it. Blizzard is certainly aware of it but their level of actions depend on how far people are going with that stuff, they willl just issue a takedown order or c&d if they see it as threat like they usually did in the past. Someone will be foolish enough and demand money and that's usually the signal for Blizzard to take action.

[Deleted]

In regards to the OP, no all forms of DRM are pointless and the end result is that the paying user is the only one affected by it. If what you meant by the post was that removing it promotes pirates to go and buy the game instead then it does a little but the numbers over all are minor.

Now in regards to how much piracy effects game sales I would say a bit but it's not only a PC problem console games are also being ripped and shared at about the same rate it's just in terms of total sale numbers console games tend to sell more then that of the PC due to the shear amount of console users so the piracy numbers seams low for now but I have no doubts that number will rise till even console developers can't ignore it any more.

In regards to piracy as a whole sure it's wrong and those who have done it shouldn't be doing it but at the same time it's like dropping a wad of money off a building and and shouting down please don't take my money and walk off with it.... simply put your money is gone by the time you get down or at least the majority of it because people will always take advantage of ways to get free stuff.

The only way I see piracy dropping is if they make the game sizes so large it turns people off downloading it, sure many people have super fast download speeds but not all and uploading 50 to 100+ gig games in it's self will quell the amount of pirated games. And in terms of those who download, burn copies, and sell them I say get someone like Sony and Bluray but make another disc standard but only sell readers never make writers available to the public, treat it like a money press and keep them under lock an key. This way all said media is completely locked down and they can freely go around charging those who do manage to get a writer with full copy write infringement.

[Burpie]

The only way I see piracy dropping is if they make the game sizes so large it turns people off downloading it, sure many people have super fast download speeds but not all and uploading 50 to 100+ gig games in it's self will quell the amount of pirated games.

Wouldn't that damage digital distribution of games? People in some countries even have bandwidth limits of how much they can download per month, I'm sure that would hurt them, too.
Quite a silly idea, in my opinion.

[Atrea]

I don't mean to nitpick, OP, but the way you've phrased the polls (using 'effect' instead of 'affect'), makes it sound like you're asking if these things CAUSE (specifically, "bring about") piracy.

[Deleted]

Wouldn't that damage digital distribution of games? People in some countries even have bandwidth limits of how much they can download per month, I'm sure that would hurt them, too.
Quite a silly idea, in my opinion.

True tbh I completely forgot about digital distribution because well I don't buy games online I like hard copies, but yea your right it would hurt that industry now but it wouldn't have been such a bad idea a few years ago before DD went main stream.

And to add to the topic, one sure fire way to increase piracy numbers is to add a charge on day 1 DLC.... see Mass Effect 3 topic

[schippie]

It comes down to if the security gets cracked and how much of the game is not in the game files on your computer.
If a big important part is missing like characters and those are stored on the server. It could be the game simply cant play at all and then pirating a game is pointless.

D3 is heavy protected and i dont expect the game to be cracked any time soon since we also have to deal with the realm money AH etc. In the end anything can get cracked, but making it more and more difficult is for me the only solution. Since the argument if its fun people wont pirate it, or i first pirate it to check if its fun before buying etc. Also doesnt hold any ground and its just a excuse a worthless excuse at that.

In the end it are the pirating players who ruin the PC gaming market and while im not going to say PC gaming is dying, but with the next generation of consoles it will just like the previous time have a period of about 2 years where its on the back burner. Also to keep in mind, developers need to spend a ton of money on developing games to prevent pirating, while this is far easier for consoles where they dont have to do this at all. Most is done by being a console game so it only works on a console.

And depending on what type of gaming we are going to i wouldnt be supprised if companies take more and more the OnLive approach to things. Maybe even going as far as completely preventing a game to start if its not in your steam libary or other options.

[Blackmist]

Depends what it's doing online.

If it's just checking to make sure it's there, that will be cracked before release. Pirates will steal a game anyway.

If the online part is important to the gameplay (for example, Trials HD is nothing without comparisons to your friends times), then they may be less inclined to pirate it. Or may well be more inclined to buy it afterwards. Or they may miss the point entirely and think it's crap.

I'd prefer PC DRM (if it really must be there) to offer an online check OR have the CD/DVD in the drive. If one of those are satisfied, then you can play. Maybe even offer a CD-free patch once the game has been out for a bit and cracked anyway.

DRM of any description is only designed to deter ultra casual piracy, where one person has bought the game, and they lend it to other people to install it.