... So.. How 'bout them, pirates?

[1FSTCAT]

It was pretty obvious to me, what was happening..

But I see a debate here. While the kneejerk reaction is to find a way to get them out of the game, I also see some positives...

They created a lot of cannon fodder for the Vets amongst us..

They've created a ton of activity that the game lacked before..

They MIGHT tell their friends, and they MIGHT decide to order it themselves..

It seemed pretty obvious to me in the last few weeks that this game needed some word of mouth, or something to get more players involved. Is this it? Is this the solution? Did Dan or someone at Battlefront make the decision for free distribution? (If you believe in black helicopters -- LOL)

While I believe that I'm wildly using my imagination here, I think there would be great benefit to Dan and/or Battlefront to capitalize on this.

Maybe find a way to verify the legit owners, and only they can compete in the tournaments. Maybe only they can get on the leaderboards.

Suggestions? I'd love to hear from Battlefront or Dan Verssen on this.

**I'm a legit owner, by the way. (Just wanted to get that out of the way)

If those pirates are reading this post, I hope they'll consider buying the game. It's pretty easy to see the people that have their lives invested in this. Battlefront, and Dan & Family, deserve their reward for creating and publishing a great game.

Thanks,

--Ed AKA 1FSTCAT

[Mistura]

Hello: Escape Death AKA 1FSTCAT. Cannon fodder for you VETS. I didn't get any. But really NEW Players. Please buy the game to help support the people that worked long and hard at giving us this GREAT GAME. If the shoe fits. Ware it. You know who you are.

[Sixxkiller]

Ok heres my take on the situation.

There is not one reason I can think of to find anything good from these freeloaders.

I know I work very hard on this game and I dont get paid for the stuff I do. I do it for you guys and so that Dan and Brian can have a successful venture and keep cranking them out. I am only 36 so I think they will make more games in my lifespan. Thats why I do it. Would I like them to hire me to do the work I do? You betcha, but I would rather know that they get paid for it and will keep doing it.

Apart from the $35 dollar price tag of the game they are losing, they will also have to pay for these freeloaders to use the bandwith. And seeing as how our little community quadrupled in the last few days this isnt some little problem.

I can guarantee you if I find out someone is running a illegal copy I will never let that person into one of the tournaments again. Infact I will shame you until you quit showing your face on the servers.

All it takes is $35 to play a game that not only has excellent workmanship, but is also expanding. Thats less than a weeks Frappaccinos at Starbucks for me. So do the right thing or this game may disappear.

-Ray

[Guest Mike]

You could start by asking who's a pirate every time you login - I did that thet other day - oddly enough no-one piped up!!

[Dan Verssen]

Here's my own personal point of view on piracy. This does not reflect any thoughts of Battlefront or the other members of the DIF development team.

Many people feel justified in pirating a game. It might be that they paid for a game in the past, and the game was buggy. Or maybe the game was supposed to be supported and the publisher dropped it, etc. There are many possible reasons.

Deep down, I think everyone realizes that using a commercial piece of software without buying it is theft. People must know that a team of people devoted long hours, lots of love, and tons of effort to bring a product to market. In return, the people who invested their time and effort would like to be compensated. Nothing new or surprising here.

So, here's my thought. If you pirated the game, installed it, played a few times and didn't like it, that's okay. You probably won't play anymore so the fact that you stole the game doesn't really matter.

However, if you pirated the game, and you're playing it on a regular basis because its fun, then please buy it. Everyone on the team has a day job and we work on the game as time permits. Well, the more sales we get, the more time we can afford to devote to future updates.

[tornado]

When I logged on and read what was going on one of the first things I said was - give Dan his money folks, he and the team have worked hard to produce a top notch game. If they have any experience with other games at all they will be amazed at the level of support you guys offer. It is a very well deserved 35 bucks.

[Sixxkiller]

Ya the level of support is worth the price tag. Find another gaming company (All of Battlefront) where you can log on and say, "You game is a piece of ****" and still get a response just like you were a valued customer.

And if the pirates ruin one game then maybe other developers will look elsewhere to develop thier games. Its like a domino effect.

Its just a sad day that we have wasted in talking about this crap! Screw it if you ripped it off then your just an ass and these words of wisedom are wasted anyway.

-Ray

[Moon]

Deep down, I think everyone realizes that using a commercial piece of software without buying it is theft.

I'm not sure, Dan. It might have been like this a few years ago, but when you have a look around the current situation might be different. It's so easy and everybody does it and those kids that are doing it grew up with it, I am not sure that they realize that what they're doing is theft.

We've had some discussions about piracy on the BFC forums in the past years, and many of these people don't understand when you tell them that it's not about how easy or convenient it is; that when there was a car standing on the street, door open and running and nobody looking, you still are not allowed to get in and drive away.

But these kids grew up seeing people do this all the time, and being anonymous on the net helps.

Luckily, there are some first ways to fight back it seems. For example, there is a Swiss company we've hired that is monitoring exchange networks and known pirate sites and logging all users who are downloading illegal games. More and more publishers are using their services. We've used them first for T72 with some staggering results (30,000 users identified). The data then goes to the various internet fraud agencies, and in some cases even leads to lawsuits (several hundred for T72). I bet some of these users will be shocked when they get mail from the authorities, and maybe, just maybe, it will begin to sink it.

Now... not everybody who's using a pirated version of the game would have bought it. Many won't come back after the first day. Some just download everything they can get in their fingers. These guys are an annoyance, but we can live with them. Cannon fodder It's the people who like the game that should at least pay for what they like... in the end, those measly $35 are going to make the game better (expansions, more featues).

Martin

[1FSTCAT]

Wow, thanks for everyone's opinions! I'm glad that Dan and Moon posted. Thanks again.

I used to think it was easy to make games, to program software. That might legitimize it to some people. For some, I think it's a faceless crime. In this instance - there are your faces - people like Dan and Moon.

I've followed the development of different projects now, over several years, and there's an incredible amount of time and heart-ache involved. In my own experience, I've poured my heart out for a year or two building a car that I wanted to drive. The thought that anyone would take advantage of that, by "borrowing" or stealing it is incredibly frustrating. It's in the top 10 list of things that could go horribly wrong in my life.

My point is, I grew up with piracy, (like Moon was saying) and I don't think I fully understood the impact until I was 28 years old (4 years ago -- not yesterday ). Hopefully some of these newbs will see that there's a great game here, and they'll invest in it.

Big thanks again to Dan and Moon and everyone else involved with the game. Also, thanks to the players like Mist, Tornado, Sixx, Stalin, who play with the newbs and help them learn the game. They are at least half of the gameplay experience from my perspective.

--Ed

[Baron von Beergut]

Sixxkiller: I saw your exchange with the Polish Pirate - darko.

Maybe if instead of jumping on him right away you might have gotten more info. If you'd have played a game with him he may have been talked into buying it. He may not have known he was wrong. And maybe you could have gotten him to say which of his friends got it the same way so you could ban them as well later.

Over at www.theblitz.org I play a lot of Combat Mission. Last year we had a CMAK tourney and there were two Polish teams amongst the many. One team it was found had a player that somehow broke the code and was cheating. He got booted from the tourney, but it shows there are folks out there without the best morals. It was found out by him bragging to his team and one of them were honest enough to do something about it. Now I'm wondering if any of those players got the game the way darko did with DiF.

[Baron von Beergut]

I just played another new guy that started two days ago. He's in Barcelona Spain. I said I thought the game was hard to get in Europe and how did he get it. Took a lot of questions to get the answer. He's playing in a game club (internet cafe?) where a friend loaded it onto the PC there. The friend got it from another friend who got it from someone in the states that mailed it to them.

He said he had a legit copy of the old actual card game and loved that as he does this. I told him what he had was a pirate copy and he should pay battlefront.com. That is when he said he didn't even own a computer and was playing at this club.

I recall when visiting Korea in 2001 and Philippines in 2005 that internet cafes commonly had all sorts of games loaded for them to play paying about a buck an hour.

So part of the answer might be to do like Battlefront's Combat Mission where you can't play without the CD in the drive.

[ January 20, 2006, 05:15 AM: Message edited by: Baron von Beergut ]

[Sixxkiller]

Hi BvB,

Well I personally have a problem with anyone getting on the server with an illegitimate copy. Lets face it, if he was going to buy a legitimate copy he could have downloaded the demo. Instead he downloaded a full version and then came online to get help in how to play.

Now lets just forget that Dam and Brian lost money on a product they worked on for 4 years and work on most every night. They know the chances of them getting a well deserved sale are about as good as me getting to marry Jessica Simpson.

Lets look at it another way BvB. You and I paid $35 right? So we have invested in something that we get a return on our investment everytime we log on. So lets say Dan and Brian say, "Well guys, we tried to make a game that you enjoy but we cant afford to keep making updates and will have to shut down the server in 2 months as our business plan didnt call for us to use the money we use to take care of our family to remain in business."

Now who loses BvB. Dan and Brian for sure, but also YOU and I do. The guy who downloaded doesnt lose diddly! He will just go DL a different game and not care that DIF didnt survive.

And BvB, I am into public relations. I try to make this game as fun as can be for you guys. This game is just as much about having fun and meeting great people as it is shooting down planes. I could type a page of how many people I have had a blast with in the short span of this games run. You are included in that page.

As I have said before, I dont get paid for the small amount of work I do here, but I will be damned if Brian and Dan are gonna do this for free! So if I have to shame someone into getting off the server, then I feel no remorse! All they have to do is do the right thing, I dont think thats asking too much. You and everyone who bought this game should demand the same thing!!!

-Ray

[Baron von Beergut]

no reason to get defensive. Like I said before, I don't fault what you did, just that with a little tact you might have found out some additional people he knew to also block. In my other post I mentioned a guy playing in a club that downloaded it, so while he doesn't have his own computer, someone else pirated it. The guy you got on was wrong, but I highly doubt he would have admitted it and given you the website he downloaded it from if he knew he was doing wrong. Example: [url deletd] you can download old out of print games for free. He could've thought this was similar. I can't image a theif being dumb enough to admit it as he did.

I'd recommend all of us paying customers do as you did and ask new opponents where they got their copy.

[ADMIN EDIT: URL deleted; out of print games are still not copyright free]

[ January 21, 2006, 09:57 AM: Message edited by: Moon ]

[Kindred]

Hi,

try to give my two cents.

I don't know if it possible but an idea is to send everybody who buy the game a userid-pass for online game.

Then you could be able to change it but you could only register to the site with the first id-pass.

This implies some changes i think in the server.

It also could be a way to sell the game to the pirates that already have the game.

They only pay for receiving the id-pass since they already have the cd.

I don't know if this is possible.

Best regards

Kindred

[1FSTCAT]

I agree that these players flat out stole the game, but you're not seeing the other side of the coin.

When I first logged into this game 2 weeks ago, I struggled to find people to play against. Everyone that owned the game had pilots well beyond my skill level. I find it BORING to play against the computer.

People just were not downloading the demo. The game was not getting out, the press had "expired", IMHO the game was being kept alive only by the existing hardcore players and other hardcore simmers that wander acrossed Battlefront.com.

This illegitamate circulation, in my opinion, has actually brought some life back to the game.

I would be interested to hear, a month from now, if Battlefront sold more copies of DiF in January, then the previous months. I would think that the answer would be YES, but only time will tell.

--Ed

[Dan Verssen]

Ed,

You might be right.

Any ideas on a way to convert people from being pirates to paying customers?

[1FSTCAT]

A couple of suggestions: You can keep having tournaments that require a license to play in.

If you did develop a method to track the pirates vs. the registered users, then maybe you could cap them at a certain level of experience. Say -- their character won't grow over 250 XP if they're not a registered user. This would give them a chance to "demo" the full version, and just when they're getting into it, stop them cold!

If Battlefront can't assist the tournament organizer in determining whose registered or not, someone could build a database of questions and answers based on the manual, and the organizer could ask those questions of the prospective players.

--Ed

[Sixxkiller]

Its too late for you to do anything to the retail pirates. i think the expansion will be much easier just for the simple fact that you can assign a "key" to play. I think you should tie it to the original address and tie the address to the login account . If more than one try to download using that address you will know about it.

Another way to look at it though is if the pirate does figure out he cant play the game unless he buys the expansion, maybe you will get his 15-20 bucks. Its better than nothing I guess.

-Ray

[Sixxkiller]

BVB,

I play at a net cafe my friend owns in Los Angeles. True they have all sorts of games, but the CD isnt required for any of them I can assure you. I actually know of a few places where even Windows XP is not a legitimate copy.

And in Korea its even worse for piracy, thats why most Korean online games are free but they make thier money by selling items and stuff like that.

-Ray

Originally posted by Baron von Beergut:

I just played another new guy that started two days ago. He's in Barcelona Spain. I said I thought the game was hard to get in Europe and how did he get it. Took a lot of questions to get the answer. He's playing in a game club (internet cafe?) where a friend loaded it onto the PC there. The friend got it from another friend who got it from someone in the states that mailed it to them.

He said he had a legit copy of the old actual card game and loved that as he does this. I told him what he had was a pirate copy and he should pay battlefront.com. That is when he said he didn't even own a computer and was playing at this club.

I recall when visiting Korea in 2001 and Philippines in 2005 that internet cafes commonly had all sorts of games loaded for them to play paying about a buck an hour.

So part of the answer might be to do like Battlefront's Combat Mission where you can't play without the CD in the drive.

[lakespeed]

Wow, did miss something for not playing the last few days? I knew it was really packed with about 20 players, most I didn't know, over Sundayish to Tuesdayish, the last time I was really on. I thought that was a good thing but I'm seeing not.

I do know from a retail standpoint that I bought my copy from here, as no retailers near me had even heard of this game and didn't even have it as a release date.

[Guest Mike]

Yeah - someone came on, said it was his first time there, Sixx asked him if he had the full game or demo - he had the full game so it was obvious he'd gotten it somewhere.....

So Six asked him where, on the basis that Six said he only had the demo & wanted to dl the game - a web site was given & Six went Ballistic - not a pretty sight!!

Dan - your game requires a server, so have you thought of charging for registration on the server and/or per game played rather than up front for the software?

I played a game for several years that did this - the software was a free download, and you could play it hotseat at home for nothing.

However to play full games on the server cost US$1 per game - the games took a bit longer than DiF ones tho!!

You could still play on hte server without paying, but it wouldn't let you FINISH a game unless you paid.

The site for this game is [url deleted] - it's a historical pre-gunpowder (ancient) game translated from a figure game onto computer.

For DiF you could limit non-paying ppl to an experience limit perhaps, or only let them damage a/c - they can't shoot anything less than 1 airframe (even a 2:d would leave 1 airframe), or some such.

[ADMIN EDIT: commercial URL deleted]

[ January 21, 2006, 10:00 AM: Message edited by: Moon ]

[Baron von Beergut]

My point exactly - the CD isn't required to play DiF. But if it was, that could preclude some of the pirating in the future. Too late now though as the cat is out of the bag so to speak. I ran into some more players today that are questionable. All were in Europe and all had gotten the game in the past two or 3 days. Only now they ignored my repeated questions about where to get the game although one did respond at battlefront, the rest claimed not to understand or just ignored the question and talked of other stuff.

Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

I play at a net cafe my friend owns in Los Angeles. True they have all sorts of games, but the CD isnt required for any of them I can assure you. I actually know of a few places where even Windows XP is not a legitimate copy.

[fej425]

Not sure if this would be feasible or not...

Don't know if anyone is familiar with Strat-o-matic, but I play their football and baseball PC games. They recently went to a new internet based authorization system that still allows you to play w/out the CD in drive. Basically you get a code with your game, the first time you launch it you have to type in your code and send it to the server where you are allowed 1 activation. An authorization file is placed on your hard drive from the server at that point. It stays there and you never worry about it again, unless you are getting a new PC or something at which time you can deactivate your code on the server (which sends your authorization file back) and move to another PC and input your code there, which retrieves you authorization to that computer. There needs to be a system in place to reset the authorizations for people who have a hard drive crash, etc, but that's about all. Perhaps the need for an authorization file could be added as an update, and battlefront could email a code to everyone who got the game from them. I guess if there are retail versions out there maybe they could send a proof of purchase of some sort in exchange for a code. Just an idea, but it seems to work well for Strat. I may be off on some of the specifics of how it all works, but that's the gist of it.

[TheSaint]

I think the pricing model is wrong. I understand why it was implementated this way because it must have been hard to judge the demand for online play also there was a fan base from the card game which could be used to pay for development costs.

The computer industry has been slowly changing, so that some of the biggest (by market cap) are not even thought of as computer companies. These would be Google, Ebay etc. They make there money by providing a service. How many on here have used Google? How many have even given one penny to Google? This company has a market cap of 120 billion US$.

I would have preferred paying an annual subscription of $36.00 or $24.00 for six months, instead of $46.00 for the CD.

No doubt Battlefront are well aware of subscription based pricing models but for discussion sake here are the benefits.

</font>

• Very low distribution costs
  The problem with the CD in the mail is of course you need to stock them and send them which is expensive. Why is it that pirates can download the game but paying customers have to wait? Sure some people would still want a CD but at least allow others the option of immediate gratification.</font>
• Sustainable development
  The problem with the current model is that to generate revenues you need to either expand the user base or sell a new upgrade (ver 2.0) to the existing users. A subsription provides a steady revenue stream as opposed to the big release method. Also from a development perspective it is easier to develop incrementally. Bugs can be found easier and the development team is more balanced, no rush to release, and the users can get the 'new game feeling'. For example the new upgrade to be released will let seasoned vets have something new to play with. Reading these boards I see this as a big plus since I get the impression folks are more concerned that freeloaders could cause the game to be abandoned rather than morality over the fact someone is not paying.</font>
• How much is a dollar?
  Not discussed much but all the big companies charge their rich customers more. Microsoft charges much more for the same product in Germany than it does in China. The $35.00 to a New York office worker is more like $140.00 to the office worker in Warsaw, $200 with p&p. For DiF probably not practical to have different pricing per area but Blizzard have 300k Warcraft users in China and they aren't paying $30.00 a shot.</font>
• Local and casual users
  Some people like playing locally and don't want to play online. These could use an activation code which could be purchased. Not perfect but if Microsoft can't stop the pirates Battlefront won't either. For casual users you could purchase a number of piliots at a dollar a piece? Something like that.</font>

Anyway I'm sure that Battlefront have been over this many times before but I felt like throwing in my tuppence.

[Sixxkiller]

Only one problem with this model. Down in Flames appeals to a niche market. Google has a market cap of less than 100 million in mean terms. They also have a HUGE lead in the market they compete in at the moment. I suspect this will not always be the case. If the advertising market shifts or dies down, Google will have a huge problem, especially with the pay per click model.

Wargamers also tend to be a little more mature in age and are less trusting of doing "business" on a continual basis over the net. I would be willing to bet most of these guys buy very few games per year.

Also you have to remember that these guys do not live in mansions in Beverly Hills, and probley dont have venture capitalists on speed dial. This would translate into a huge risk on the front end for them. The back end might be ok but they would need far more players for far longer periods willing to buy into this. And lets face it, gamers are kind of fickle. They may tire of this after a few months.

And I can show you lots of companies that have tried and lost tons of money. Hell, Korea has a new online game come out every month. They also have one fold every month.

-Ray