One-time online activation rule sparks outrage from 'legitimate' customers
Sega has made Steam activation compulsory for the next edition of Football Manager, after claiming that at least four fifths of the game’s players are using pirated copies.
Those who buy the upcoming football management simulation will need to install Steam, if they haven’t already, and activate the game through Valve’s online network.
Sega insists that this one-time activation is the only measure that will be taken to prevent piracy. Players can play offline.
Yet the announcement has met resistance from vocal members of the Football Manager community.
Sega, and the game’s London developer Sports Interactive, is engaging with the community to calm concerns raised by piotential customers.
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“Last year we decided against any activation as we couldn't find a solution that we thought struck a balance on combatting piracy and not penalising the genuine consumer,” a Sega spokesperson said.
“We did make our position on anti-piracy pretty clear though, as we see it as a big problem for our game and we said we'd continue to look for a solution that stopped, or made it very difficult, to pirate the game and play it for free.
“This year we have found what we believe is an acceptable solution,” the company added.
The statement, which can be read in full on the FM forums, claimed “if a quarter of the people that usually pirate the game switch to purchasing Football Manager 2012, the sales of the game worldwide would more than double”.
That calculation suggests Football Manager has been pirated by more than 80 per cent of its fan base.
Sega said increased legitimate buyers would boost development budgets.
Despite the 80 per cent piracy rate, Sega said that “the vast majority” of people reading its forum were legitimate users – a claim which, statistics suggest, may not be true.
Numerous replies to the message threatened to never buy the game unless Steam activation was removed.
“We've taken this decision because we believe that the steps the consumer has to take are not excessive, and that as a one-time only measure with no tracking or reporting it is not too intrusive,” Sega added.
“Having worked with Steam for a few years now we also believe that their system is ever improving and gives Football Manager players a good service of free auto-updating, achievements and other great benefits without cost or hassle.”
Football Manager routinely tops the Chart-Track PC format chart, which measures physical sales. The game has expanded across digital formats, with the full package available to buy on Steam, while various spin-offs have been released onto handhelds and mobile devices.
I just want to start with i love steam and how it works as a service i have over 100 games on it. But there are couple of things those guys should be aware of.
1. its called Steamless.
2. paradox razor skidrow and reloaded.
The good thing for me is i can buy it on steam install and take it everywhere where there is the capability to install steam. (and i move a lot)
But other people will be pissed of because if you crack it you mostly put a exe into the folder and it works. I had problems with my sacred2 copy which didn't want to work somehow. because of some "security" program wouldn't install properly. After 2 days of installing and uninstalling i used a "fixed exe" that relieved me from my pain of being the poor schmuck that bought the game actually. My point is. there will always be people who pirate and you wont be able to stop it. What you can do is not pushing people to piracy because of so called "anti piracy measures" the hackers/crackers will laugh and have their "fixed exes" ready in days!
this stuff always reminds me of this image
http://i.imgur.com/GlQr3.gif
I applaud Sega for justifying their decision, stating the reasons, and consequences. I'd like to know their source for this "80% pirated" though.
I feel that Steam is a reasonable method of copy protection. I hope it improves sales.
My only problem with Steam based activations is, you can buy a game in the store early, come home and not be able to play it because of some arbitrary digital release calendar. Consoles don't do this, if you have the disc you can play.
Piracy is a good excuse, but I wonder how much more it's to do with lost business thanks to the diabolically bugged Byteshield protetion they used on 2011 and also the cost of supporting multiple skus. Even more cynically, Steam keys can be used to ring-fence territories and keep prices high in places like Germany. Just a thought ;-)
This is nothing new, loads of other games do this. Call of Duty for example requires Steam and an internet connection.
It's not cool if you've not got the internet though of course! A lot of people out there don't have it still and companies don't seem to realise that so it would feel really harsh to not be able to buy a great game due to your lack of internet when all you want to do is play it offline anyway!
It's a one time activation.
If you can afford a PC and the game you can probably find a friend how can lend you their cell phone to tether, get online and activate the game just once.
The more important issue is how retailers will react. It's like saying, to play this game you must download and install a very good digital download offering and use it to activate the game. You may as well download the game from Steam and not bother with physical media.
You will then see how easy and convenient it is to buy digital games on line with auto updates, cloud based save games, a great community, frequent and decent sales, bundle deals etc.
If they didn't charge 50€ for the game, maybe piracy would decrease. If really 80% of the players use cracked versions, a decrease on the price and a consequent increase on sales would be more benefic for Sega then this Anti-Piracy-Measure-obsession. Big, greedy companies get what they deserve. They could learn a lot from Indie developers, few people dare to crack their cheap, awesome, world changing games.
It's only sensible to do something like this. Long gone are the days when you got a code sheet with your game or you had to input a certain word from the manual on loading! I'm no fan of football, let alone football games, but I'm guessing this game can be played online? If so, they'd surely be able to tell how many online players there are and compare it to sale?...Just a theory!
The thing is these idiot pirates want something for free and they can't get it through their thick skulls that by not buying the game they're actually putting the game at risk!
Like everything else, there are two sides to this story and each side will exaggerate in whatever way helps their case. Not everyone who pirates games is a potential customer. Just because they got the game for free doesn't mean they would have bought the game if they wouldn't have been able to get it for free.
All software DRM can be overcome. You can make it more annoying to bypass, but the fact is once it's bypassed, it only needs to be done once. When protection comes down to IF/JMP statements, it is easy to simply change them to do the opposite, or skip altogether.
Compiling software on individual computers using hardware IDs, etc. to name calls may make it harder to pirate, although I don't think operating systems are currently capable of making this work. The best way to stop this that I can see if hardware-based, which even then may not be perfect. I'd imagine even if you required a fingerprint or retina scan or piece of hardware to install and setup software, there will be a way to bypass/trick it. Software companies need to come up with new revenue sources if they think piracy is affecting them that much. Maybe product placement in games, hell I spent an hour modding GTA IV to replace fake products and advertisements in the game (Time Square, for example) with the real products and advertisements to make it more realistic... using mods that someone spent even more time to create.
Piracy seems to affect single-player gaming the most, as gaming companies have gotten pretty good at validating legitimate copies for online play. So this is where it should end up. Offer a single-player for a low price (or free) to allow players to try out the game. If they like it enough to play online, that is when they make the purchase. I know that's what demo downloads are for, but in regards to this article and piracy, I see no point in trying to enforce this for single player/offline games because it is simply too difficult. Besides, if people don't like your game enough to purchase the game for online play, maybe that says something about your game and you should work more to put out a better product.
