EA has been SUED 5 TIMES MERRY CHRISTMAS EA MUHAHA ARR!

[Devilfish]

I recall an essay where it was written that when attitudes like that start appearing, it really WILL start to be a problem. Whereas pirates-of-convenience and 12s-with-no-money don't represent any loss, when it starts turning into a political protest, that is when it starts to actually lose money.

I'd be interested in reading that essay. Do you remember which one it was or where you got it?

[Skadi]

I second a call for linkage, that would be a really interesting read.

[SoggyFox]

As would I.  It does make sense.  Most politically/fair-minded people don't mind -paying- if they are treated with respect as customers.  I know I don't.

[JFederated]

Seems a fairly straightforward concept:  when you repeatedly crap on the people who pay you, strictly to get at the people who never will, you have made yourself a home in a giant bucket of well-deserved fail.

Sixth lawsuit gearing up:  http://www.lawyerseek.com/Practice/Consumer-Protection-C21/SPOREs-SecuROM-DRM-P206/

[Devilfish]

I was more interested in this part:

I recall an essay where it was written that when attitudes like that start appearing, it really WILL start to be a problem. Whereas pirates-of-convenience and 12s-with-no-money don't represent any loss, when it starts turning into a political protest, that is when it starts to actually lose money.

I can imagine how that would work but I'd still love to read some smarty people's opinions and data on this. Sounds interesting enough.

[SnarkyShark]

Seems a fairly straightforward concept:  when you repeatedly crap on the people who pay you, strictly to get at the people who never will, you have made yourself a home in a giant bucket of well-deserved fail.

Sixth lawsuit gearing up:  http://www.lawyerseek.com/Practice/Consumer-Protection-C21/SPOREs-SecuROM-DRM-P206/

Awesome turn of phrase, JFed. It's encouraging to note, also, that as the number of lawsuits filed against EA continues to rise, the easier it will be to convince people that EA's software really does contain shady malware.

[Pescado]

I was more interested in this part:

I recall an essay where it was written that when attitudes like that start appearing, it really WILL start to be a problem. Whereas pirates-of-convenience and 12s-with-no-money don't represent any loss, when it starts turning into a political protest, that is when it starts to actually lose money.

Well, the basic gist of it is that there are some people who are "Always Pirates". There is nothing you can do about these people, and whether you stop them or not, it makes no direct difference to your bottom line and may even hurt it (through bad or reduced publicity). These people will simply never, or can't, buy your product, because you don't sell it there (foreigners and people living in bumfuck nowhere), because they simply don't have money (12s), or simply because they are religiously opposed. These people can still HELP your product sales simply through exposure (many people like this are regarded as authoritative sources on what is worth getting, simply because they can sample so much of it), but you will never get any money out of them. Period. These people are basically irrelevant to the issue. Companies, however, don't see that, and in their attempts to reduce pirates, like EAxis has done, will offend customers to the point where they decide to BECOME pirates as form of protest. At this point, you HAVE lost a sale. What's more, it has a long-term harmful trend, because once you start down the path of the Dark Side, forever will it dominate your destiny. Once someone has turned to the Dark Side, it is harder to recover them as customers.

[SoggyFox]

Recovering me as a customer is rather simple for EA - Start producing good quality games again - start treating their paying customers like they are valued - actually hire QA for their games - stop double dipping with both advertising and charging an arm and a legg for crap...

But they won't.  Personally, I feel like if anything EA has gone far down the path of the darkside and you are right, once you have, its harder to recover.

[JFederated]

@Devilfish:     aren't I smarty people?     Pes explained it much better - don't give people another ideological reason to pirate, especially when the Dark Side provides benefits that purchased copies don't, and for free.  I'd also add that you just plain lose paying customers by abusing them with restrictions and tech issues, either to the Dark Side or to boycott/avoidance of your products.  Same difference, you've just grown your actual losses, which is the height of asshattery.

If they're going to hew to the old property value standard for digital copies, they're going to spend most of their time chasing ghosts - digital copying makes software virtually worthless (not valueless, as in people value having the software, but, worthless as in worth zero monies due to software being easy and basically free to copy digitally once a single copy is available without DRM technology).  So publishers need to see and use the Dark Side to their benefit, as Pes said, and churn profits in other ways than depending on digitally distributed stuff that is burdened wtih crap that only affects those that will pay -  services, 'hard' goods, advantages for the customer.  Games are different from music since they're whompus efforts for one experience (instead of several songs on one CD), but they need to figure it out and change the mindset to focus on those that find it worthwhile to pay for the experience since they find value, benefit, and advantage in it, not on those that never will for whatever reason.

And that's not even getting into the whole 'USED GAMES MUST BE DESTROYED!' online only/limited activation bullshit, like you're supposed to get paid over and over for one sale...WTF?  I understand wanting people to buy new and buy more, but to attack and dismiss the inherent advantages of any used goods market is so incredibly foolish, especially when they could offer the same service themselves if they wanted - they don't so Gamestop, etc. fill that void to their huge profit.

And EA muckymucks are on record as saying they want it 'all online' - but does the customer base want this?  Part, maybe, but this is really all about what EA wants, further cementing their notorious 'ignore the customer' reputation.  They want to cheap out yet reap the same rewards and I doubt it'll work like they think it will.  ISP bandwidth caps anyone?  No more owning what you buy?  Server dependence?  No avoiding spy/bloat/adware injection?  Remote control of your purchase?  No more New Game Manual smell?  Ick.

EA screwed the Sims/Spore pooch by ruining a good thing, using problematic, paranoid and restrictive tech - that will always be broken - in an effort to 'protect' their stuff, spy on customers, and make it harder to sell on a game you bought.  EA drove paying customers away and simultaneously made those former customers aware of their fiercest competition, the Dark Side.  Preposterous considering they had such a good multibillion dollar industry thing going a couple years back with just CD checks and a largely non-savvy fanbase.  If not for Securom, lots of us wouldn't have turned our heads toward what the Dark Side had to say at all.  Now we look there to find out how publishers are out to screw us or not.  I'm very glad they provide this consumer awareness service.

Pirates use technology to give people what they want; EA uses it to give people what they DO NOT WANT and expect payment besides...

EA!  You've destroyed potential profits for an entire industry!  Take a bow so we can kick your ass!

Apologies, I've come over all blabby this morning.   

@Snarky:     Seems each successive suit hones the template.  I wonder if or when the US FTC will get involved at all.

@ Pescado:  baa.   

[calalily]

And that's not even getting into the whole 'USED GAMES MUST BE DESTROYED!' online only/limited activation bullshit, like you're supposed to get paid over and over for one sale...WTF?  I understand wanting people to buy new and buy more, but to attack and dismiss the inherent advantages of any used goods market is so incredibly foolish, especially when they could offer the same service themselves if they wanted - they don't so Gamestop, etc. fill that void to their huge profit.

Yes - I agree with this. I got into the Sims because I borrowed the game from the library, and after playing it for about 16 hours straight, decided I just had to get it. Limiting activations means that I would never have played that game - the library wouldn't have it.  I've now given them about $AU1000 with my purchase of all the sims games.  They threw this down the toilet with SecuRom - I won't arr, but I won't buy Sims 3, Spore, Simcity Societies and the rest of the Life Stories as intended, so they've screwed themselves out of more money that they could have gotten out of me.  All in favour of stopping me becoming a pirate - a particularly stupid move as I did seriously consider it when I got hit with BV.  In the end, I couldn't do it, and decided on a boycott of all the other non-Sims 2 franchises (I'm realistic enough about myself that I have to get the whole set). 

[redisenchanted]

Brilliant post by Jfederated

It's like EA sat down and planned how to effectively drive people to piracy. It's beyond stupid.

[Devilfish]

@Devilfish:     aren't I smarty people?
*smartness*

Aw, sorry, I must've skipped over your post. The wall of text was full of win though

[Kragey]

Brilliant post by Jfederated

It's like EA sat down and planned how to effectively drive people to piracy. It's beyond stupid.

"Beyond stupid?" Sounds more like usual EA policy to me.

[JFederated]

@Devilfish:     aren't I smarty people?
*smartness*

Aw, sorry, I must've skipped over your post. The wall of text was full of win though

   Iz patented.   

I don't know if it would work for video games, but this guy at least seems to have a direction for his music that doesn't include suing fans for filesharing that will never go away.  When you pull down 1.6 million in about a week, even tho the music is widely available for free, you just might be onto something.

I don't want game publishers to fail due to not seeing the point in bothering to make anything anymore.  I want them to succeed by being smarter (not sneakier) about what it takes to make me feel their products are worth paying for, because I will pay for the game itself.  But not the associated DRM crap, no way.  As it stands I'd feel like an idiot for buying an EA game these days, so I'm shooting spitballs at Cala as we ride the boycott train.  I can't seem to bring myself to arr either for many reasons, including the ability to seriously screw up such processes all on my own.  And maybe I'm a bit apprehensive about the no turning back that Pes talked about.  I've snapped up some non-DRM games lately tho, like Prince of Persia - dunno if I'll play, but I'm bored, and let's face it:  no DRM is a selling point I'd like to see proven, and it felt like the good old days when I didn't know enough to care about this stuff.

New Manual Smell...I'll probably play it.   

[Missbonbon]

Nine inch nails have always been very creative. I like the way Trent is promoting himself.  Because it's just like Pes said, no matter what you do, you will always have pirates. Companies shouldn't cater to trying to deter illegal downloads, because that will only create more. They need to cater to the populous that will actually buy their product. I have many friends that refuse to illegally download music from some of their favorite bands. Even if it's a sample to their new album, they would rather buy the album. If gaming companies catered and took care of their fans, they wouldn't have to worry about pirates as much.