Bethesda tires of spending money to support pirates

[Brother None]

There's a heavy dose of irony on this article that talks about PC piracy mostly, but still the central point stands:<blockquote>Hines discussed the problem of piracy with MTV Multiplayer just days before, ironically, the Xbox 360 version of “Fallout 3″ leaked. Piracy is still far more prevalent on the PC side, which has serious implications for studios like Bethesda Softworks, whose development bread-and-butter has been PCs.

“It is probably the most…[long pause]…probably the most difficult issue specifically facing PC gaming right now,” said somberly-toned “Fallout 3″product manager Pete Hines to me after playing four hours of his new game a few weeks ago. “How are we gonna walk that line?”
(...)
“The amount of times we see stuff coming through where it’s like, the resolution to the problem was [the] guy had a pirated copy of the game…” said a visibly frustrated Hines. “The amount of money we spend supporting people who didn’t pay us for the game in the first place…it’s f–ing ludicrous. We talk to other developers, guys who are [like] ‘Yeah, it’s a third, it’s 50% of our [customer] support.’”</blockquote>

 

[Gentlemen]

I'd be pretty pissed too. If I was Bethesda I could be using that money to have more parties or sending out more merchandise.

 

[Leon]

Begin to use CD keys and request them before giving support. If someone doesn't have one, or gives an obviously pirated one, then deny them support. Effective and not particularly annoying for end users, I think.

If not a CD key (since that obviously wouldn't work well on the console end), then a unique product ID printed on the manual.

 

[Wild_qwerty]

It is kind of moronic that people with cracked copies of the game will go to the devs website and ask for support.... It leads to unfortunate things like having to pay for support.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I'd like to know how they determine these numbers because if it's just assumption then they can shove them up their proverbial asses. Still, CD keys are always a decent way to go (can always read them off on the phone) but the question is whether it's worth the time and effort to deal with that. I'm curious how much of the tech support for pirates is done via phone and via email as well simply because I can see pirates preferring the digital method to the phone but I could be wrong here.

 

[Sorrow]

What? Tech support by phone? That's just weird.

 

[Ixyroth]

My heart bleeds.

 

[Stoveburner]

What? Tech support by phone? That's just weird.

You'd be surprised. Not everyone is internet-savvy. They look in the manual, find the number and call. That's how things were done for years before this newfangled typing doohicky with quick responses caught on.

 

[Oakraven]

There are companies who are seriously looking at things like Subscription modles for their games. (just pulling numbers out of my (AHEM!)) Pay 49.99+ 9.99 a month and get points every month(and you can buy more points when you need em) to spend to get new via single install download or Via being mailed a single install licence copy of the game.

to them its win Win WinN WIN $$$$WIN$$$$,

They get 100% of the cash income and cut out the need to cut in outfits like Gamestop and Wallmart, (EA for example has been trying for years to caputre more of the retail dollars directly)

They get a steady Constant cash flow thats not tied to them shiping titals out on specific dates, thus reducing the Feast to Famin development cycle with games

When you contact tech suport you can provide them a serial number thats tied to your game that then cant be used by anyone else.

Cuts out the used game trade by allowing them to discount the games that people download below

Phone based tec suport now has a mallet in its toolbox because when you call in and somehow manage to give them an invalid ID number from the game generating it useing the copy ID number and your CPU id number

. . . not online? . . . oh wait how did you get a download copy in the first place. . . so sad too bad have a nice day and next time use our Subsciber service!

To be honest I dont have a problem with the companies that honestly use their income to pay off investors and make new games.

the problem is that unfortunatly the stockholders honestly Expect them to make a big profit every time.

 

[Sorrow]

What? Tech support by phone? That's just weird.

You'd be surprised. Not everyone is internet-savvy. They look in the manual, find the number and call. That's how things were done for years before this newfangled typing doohicky with quick responses caught on.

It makes me wonder how much I overpay my games for features (like tech support) that I don't use.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

What? Tech support by phone? That's just weird.

You'd be surprised. Not everyone is internet-savvy. They look in the manual, find the number and call. That's how things were done for years before this newfangled typing doohicky with quick responses caught on.

The thing is that it seems like it'd be more work for pirates to find the tech support phone number than it would be to send an email and a pirate is going to need to be computer literate to pirate the game and find the tech support number or email. The impression I got from Pete was that they had all of these pirates calling them, that just doesn't seem likely to me.

 

[Stoveburner]

People don't want to wait. You ever tried emailing for tech support? It can take days to get a response. Call and you are going to get someone within an hour or so.

 

[Oakraven]

I'd be pretty pissed too. If I was Bethesda I could be using that money to have more parties or sending out more merchandise.

its not just Beth that is haveing the problem



Tom Ohlehas (CD Projekt Red) said they feilded more Tec suport calls that were solvable by being registered and lownloading the existing patch than they sold copys of the Witcher.

In fact one of the jokes at one of the GDC vidios by a pannelist said something to the effect that they would not mind the pirates so mutch if the would at least put up the current patched version of the game.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

People don't want to wait. You ever tried emailing for tech support? It can take days to get a response. Call and you are going to get someone within an hour or so.

Actually I emailed THQ for my Dawn of War (they gave me a bad CD key) and they were pretty fast, it took them maybe a day (I think it was only a few hours but I honestly don't remember). Never taken very long for any tech support for my PC (HP) or any other software (only done it with my anti virus and to set up my internet connection [screw up on their end]).

Tom Ohlehas (CD Projekt Red) said they feilded more Tec suport calls that were solvable by being registered and lownloading the existing patch than they sold copys of the Witcher.

In fact one of the jokes at one of the GDC vidios by a pannelist said something to the effect that they would not mind the pirates so mutch if the would at least put up the current patched version of the game.

That is totally believable and I'm sure there are plenty of legit users who do the same damn thing (particularly new ones).

 

[Stoveburner]

People don't want to wait. You ever tried emailing for tech support? It can take days to get a response. Call and you are going to get someone within an hour or so.

Actually I emailed THQ for my Dawn of War (they gave me a bad CD key) and they were pretty fast, it took them maybe a day (I think it was only a few hours but I honestly don't remember). Never taken very long for any tech support for my PC (HP) or any other software (only done it with my anti virus and to set up my internet connection [screw up on their end]).

Took me 3 days to get my Witcher CD key from Atari.

 

[whirlingdervish]

Are we forgetting something here?

This is Bethesda, a company who's last big game was actually patched and fixed by 3rd party modders and not their own devs.

They were busy selling horse armor while the players made the patches and fixed the bugs that BS outright ignored, and it cost them nothing.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Are we forgetting something here?

This is Bethesda, a company who's last big game was actually patched and fixed by 3rd party modders and not their own devs.

They were busy selling horse armor while the players made the patches and fixed the bugs that BS outright ignored, and it cost them nothing.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. I bet a lot of the complaints they got were about bugs which they never officially fixed. Granted, I never clipped through got myself stuck in seams in the map like I did repeatedly in the few hours I played Morrowind (one of the reasons I stopped playing, a friend stopped playing after getting stuck in the dock rail at the very beginning of the game [which I also got stuck in twice, once from each side]).

 

[Sorrow]

I don't really understand the tech support thing - I never used it.

 

[Stoveburner]

Are we forgetting something here?

This is Bethesda, a company who's last big game was actually patched and fixed by 3rd party modders and not their own devs.

They were busy selling horse armor while the players made the patches and fixed the bugs that BS outright ignored, and it cost them nothing.

Odd. I played the game all the way through before any patches (with no mods) and don't recall encountering many bugs.

But that doesn't mean some didn't exist. They exist in every game. And patches don't code themselves.

I dunno how long it took for them to get the loading patch for Witcher out.. but it was months, and the game was unbearable without it. Then another how many months for the EE to make the dialogue in English not ass?

So yeah. Beth may do a lot wrong, but let's not hold them to some higher standard than the rest of the industry.

 

[mlk]

I hate pirates with all my heart, I can only imagine they are a huge part as to why the game market sucks so bad today for the PC compared to 10 years ago when we had so many more games available and so many different games than today.