Things that should be done to break the piracy debate.

[bluestarultor]

Okay, so we've talked about piracy, and had a thread locked asking if we pirated, so this is a place to suggest what could be done to fix, de-criminalize, or actually discourage piracy.


This is NOT a place to suggest pirating, provide ways of pirating, etc. This is taking the problem and finding a give-and-take solution that makes sense for both sides.



I'm going to start off with a favored topic of mine: abandonware. There is legal abandonware, and then there are illegal oldwarez. If a company is not gaining anything from a property and has no plans to do so, I think it's easier to release it, rather than try to fight to protect it and wasting time, energy, and money. Or better yet, continue to sell it for a nominal fee, like 3D Realms. Digital distribution is removing barriers to cost like packaging and CD printing. After that point, any amount you charge is pure profit, minus hosting. And if you can still gain profits from a 20-year-old game, it means that people get the game they want for cheap, you get money you didn't even know you wanted for profit, and nobody has any reason to complain.

In terms of DRM, keep it in the medium the game takes place in. If you have it on CD, do a CD key or CD check. If it's digital, a key should be fine on its own. If the game is offline, keep the security offline. You can put a certain amount of security on a game to deter casual piracy, which is really all you can hope for, without hurting the consumer.




Anyone else have ideas?



EDIT: Fuck, I made this in the wrong forum. Move plz?