Of course I am not going to tell you how to do it exactly. For a number of reasons, the first and foremost is that I don’t know how Ubisoft DRM works. Just like the crackers of the DRM software, you make good guesses, explore the program and try to work around what you have. It’s about repeating these long, arduous and mundane steps until the games DRM is cracked. From the point of view of the scene, I can respect the challenge!
Ubisoft doesn’t have just one DRM system; it in fact released several different versions of the UbiDRM, testing the waters as to what works best. Some games like Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell Conviction used a less sophisticated method of the DRM. But the newer UbiDRM, being used now, uses an incremental release of the play files.
Clever!
This means if the games DRM is bypassed, a cracker has to double check the whole file, otherwise it could look bad on their part. Of course this means that when Ubisoft were boasting it hadn’t been cracked, and the crackers where saying here you are, they where both right. But it was wrong of Ubisoft to say anything in the first place, then to say nothing afterwards. However at the moment the DRM is proving its ground. And good luck to it!
Not that it ever was a weak DRM in the first place. Much to the surprise of many people, the first round of UbiDRM was not cracked straight away. Even though it was widely reported as being done in 24 hours, it was not completely true, but what happened is a story in itself.
Personally I don’t agree with the UbiDRM! There is no denying that this is a very clever system, but it breaks one of the most fundamental rules of the ten DRM commandments.
I. You shall not have any DRM before me! (One DRM protection method per Game is enough!)
II. You shall not make for yourself any likeness of the Game or DRM! To those that crack games or illegally distribute you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
III. You shall not take the customer’s name your god in vain, for the customer will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain!
IV. Remember the Game, to keep it holy. For days the customer shall labor, but the weekend is for serious gaming.
V. Honour thy Game Publisher and Developer, that your gaming may be long upon the land which they have provided for you.
VI. You shall not corrupt the gamers rig.
VII. You shall not cheat on the gamer.
VIII. You shall not steal the gamer’s personal information.
IX. You shall not bear false witness against thy gamers rig.
X. You shall not covert thy neighbour’s DRM, Rig, Gaming Experience, nor anything that is your neighbour’s!
Yes, UbiDRM breaks the third DRM commandment:
It takes the customer for granted. Well honestly it breaks more than one, but the third commandment is such an important one. To say we are constantly watching you! Is saying that you don’t trust the honest customers, no matter what benefits you dress it up with, Ubisoft is branding all as the one. And that’s insulting, and of course this is the territory of the double edge sword.
You want to target the illegal downloaders and convert them into happy customers. You don’t want to target everyone, force them to the doors of the credit card company and force them to pay!
I pre-ordered Assassins Creed 2, then some months later when more details came out. I found out that it would come with this uPlay/UbiDRM system; at that time I don’t think it had a name. So my internet connection being weak and intermittent I just knew that it would never work out. I sent out a complaint to Ubisoft and they never even bother to reply.
Instead they hired some third party PR company to solve all their complaints. The Third Party PR Company were fantastic and did everything Ubisoft has failed to do, respect the customer. I cancelled my pre-ordered copy and they sent me out a free game. It was King Kong 2005, the one with StarForce protection system. The thought was nice, but I don’t attribute this goodwill gesture with Ubisoft. Sometimes I get the impression they can’t even be bother or even worst they don’t care!
Anyhow!
It’s interesting to know how UbiDRM or the always online DRMs differ from the past protection methods such as SecuROM. These newer DRM, in comparison are a whole different ball game when it comes to breaking the DRM. In the old days, with SecuROM, you’d come to some code that performed a security check, which basically look like this:
[--GAME CODE--]
Perform Security Check!
If it FAILS{ Stop the Program from Working EXIT}
If it PASSES { Continue playing Game }
[--GAME CODE--]
With a very liberal brush, I am tarring all the old DRMs as employing this simple method. It’s not true, but the point is that problem is that once the game kicks you out, this gives away a tell-tale sign. This tells me some security protection happened at this point. So with a debugger, a common programming tool, a lot of time, you can rewrite the main exe file to skip the security check. So it now looks like this:
[--GAME CODE--]
Skip 3 lines down!
Perform Security Check!
If it FAILS{ Stop the Program from Working EXIT}
If it PASSES { Continue playing Game }
[--GAME CODE--]
Of course I really have underestimated the brilliance of what crackers do and the brilliance of the security companies too. Most of the newer DRM version don’t do these simple security checks any more, but still use this exception rule of kicking you out of the game. That is enough to give crackers a starting point, and all they need.
As my old college professor used to say “let hack to learn, not learn to hack!”
Currently there are a number of implementations that make up the UbiDRM. The one here is specifically for the PC game Tom Clancy’s H.a.w.x. 2 released on the 16th November 2010. What Ubisoft has decided to do, and quiet rightly, is to use a whole host of security methods. Because time is the enemy of the gamer, and there is a limit to the amount of time an illegal downloader is willing to wait.
The things that UbiDRM uses is the handshake, UDP connection, Cookie, Server Checks, Ubi Launcher, partial files and maybe some other methods. And of course I want to make it perfectly clear; I haven’t discovered or explored any of these.
The first thing you have to realise is that human speech isn’t like computer speech. Computers need order and timing; otherwise it would get into a big mess. As for human speech, it is a big mess, but we normally use visual clues as to when we can talk back. Computers use a handshake, and at its most basic level it’s a greeting from one computer and an acknowledgement from another. In this handshake, the computers agree on the message size, frequency and a whole other list of protocol issues. But in its simplest terms, if you think of two radio stations, you can think of it as agreeing to say “over” at the end of the conversation.
UDP, now this is surprising as all other UbiDRM games used the TCP method of transmission. Basically Transmission Control Protocol is message system that uses the handshake method, it is very controlled and every message sent is sure to be received and acknowledged. While UDP, User Datagram Protocol, doesn’t use a handshake method. It’s more fire and forget, if the message gets there then so be it.
Ubisoft must have its own internal handshake sent on an unreliable transmission system. Or that the game files don’t regard the transmissions as important, which means there must be a leeway in the time between communications. But as it turns out, blocking the UDP ports still allows the game to function, so they can’t play a huge role in the protection system.
There is also a theory going around that UbiDRM uses http cookies, of sorts, that it creates text files that the server can then analyse. Cookies, basically a bite size chuck of information stored for your web browser. They are not code and cannot be run, but contain instructions that can be used by something else. This is why you are warned so often about cookies, as they can be to store information on your computer and you.
Server check makes the majority of the security protection system here. If Ubisoft can constantly make changes to the DRM from the server side, this is good as they have total control. But its bad, if Big Brother is going to watch the honest gamers who have purchase the games. They might as well take it one step further and setup all games in Ubisoft HQ and play under their watchful eyes. This further punishes the honest gamers, but at the moment the H.a.w.x. 2 still doesn’t have a crack. But the real test will be Assassins Creed Brotherhood due out next year.
The Ubi Launcher is a security system in itself, not only does employ some of the tactics, such as communication with the server, it also has a CD check. Currently, this isn’t a problem as the cracker groups have release a work around for this. A very good start, but means nothing at the moment. As you are able to bypass the security check to gain access to the main menu, just not play the singleplayer game, however you can play the LAN.
The partial file is also a good system to use, as it means that someone has to play the whole game, and upload it for someone else to work on. Because rarely are the two the same people, this means more time is needed before the game is cracked for the general populous. Black ops sold 7 million copies in the first 24 hours, this means you only have to protect a new game for a short while to get the majority of sales.
Of course in the pirate world this isn’t completely true. For starters I believe that illegal downloaders are so use to having a crack, they are prepared to wait for the one stubborn game. But after 1-2 weeks that patience wanes significantly, but of course it depends on the game. If Black Ops was protected for the length as H.a.w.x. 2 is, I believe that the sales number would be very significant.
Tom Clancy’s H.a.w.x. 2 was released on the 16th November 2010, and it is now crack free for 34 days (20/12/2010) and still counting.
Unfortunately the waiting game is also a double edge sword as new titles are constantly being released. If one game proves to be very secure, but not in high demand, people just move on. But if publishers don’t protect their games, they lose money, if they do and it takes too long people move on, there just seems to be no winning for the publishers at all. A protection company would need a constant series of wins, before becoming a threat.
Even though Ubisoft uPlay system is very customer unfriendly, it seems to be doing the trick. There seems to be only two ways to crack the UbiDRM, either by pretending to be the server (emulation) or through removing the DRM from the game exe file. Both are difficult tasks.
The first round of UbiDRM was removed through a cracking process and the sever side emulation, through a program called dormine. Skidrow have created the crack and released it, but to the jeers of the other groups, who believe that they have stolen code. Technically it’s not it not completely true, did they take the dormine code, yes. But in the rules, yes cracking groups do have unspoken ones, there has never been any mention of not being able to borrow code. And as it stands the dormine program will only get you to second base with UbiDRM. It only solves the handshake, TCP, and encryption, i.e. once you have the message you still have to know the correct responses. Skidrow did a commendable job in figuring out the rest and for the first Ubisoft games, all their bases where belonging to Skidrow.
The second method is just a pure crack, this doesn’t require an emulation of the server because it will strip out the protection code completely. However this is a difficult task, because you have to manually search for the parts figure what it is doing, try to remove it, and make sure that you haven’t missed anything. Finally it’s extremely difficult if Ubisoft are withholding parts of the game files. Because now its not about removing the security protection, is about rewriting the missing parts.
Imagine, I could tell you the story of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but could you write a page or even a paragraph, exactly from memory. How hard would that be? We know Ubisoft is on to a winner with this security protection system. But as for creating a revenue source from their DRM, they have a long way to go.
As for Tom Clancy’s H.a.w.x. 2, this is unfortunately a game with an average want value. Most people are willing to wait for this game to be cracked, because it’s not high on their Christmas list. Now next year Ubisoft will be releasing Assassins Creed brotherhood, a highly anticipated game. It will be on everyone’s want list. This is the real litmus test, and I fear why Ubisoft should have released this DRM with that game. As this has given the crackers time to explore this method, and depending on the circumstances, could hinder the UbiDRM protecting Assassins Creed Brotherhood.
But for the many illegal downloaders looking to get their hands on H.a.w.x. 2 it’s a case of singing “All I want for Christmas!” And it’ll probably happen too!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Call of Duty-Black OPS Breaks even the Illegal Download record
Following the much praised Modern Warfare 2, again the Call of Duty series has broken all records for the first day sales. After all the court cases, the feuds, and the tantrums that followed MF2 Treyarch has pulled this one out of the bag. The first day sales being reported as 7 million copies worldwide, everyone must be happy with that!
But what I am finding more and more, when people talk about gaming sales. They are talking Xbox and PS3, but when it comes to PC versions everyone shuts up. It’s all about perception, and the PC sales are just embarrassing. Even though it took a while, I found that the sales market share of the Xbox 360 was at 59% and the PS3 at 36%. The PC market share was not so clear cut!
“Xbox 360 takes the largest proportion of sales with 59%, 36% for PS3 and the remainder on PC, Wii and DS.”
The article states, perhaps a little flippantly, the “remainder on PC, Wii and DS” fight for the rest of the market share scraps. This sentence is all too telling! It wasn’t even worth the effort to work out the remainder, which was 5% of the sales. On top of all of that the PC has now been pigeon holed with a girl’s game console and a girls, hand held, game console.
To claw some dignity back for the PC gamers, am going to assume and desperately hope that the sale market share was 3% for PC, while the Wii and DS combined was the final 2%. I chose this because I seem to remember the market share for Modern Warfare 2 was also 3% for the PC.
I suppose it’s interesting to know that the Xbox and the PS3 games are more expensive than the PC version. Under the Euro, both Console versions sell at a MRSP of €54.99, while the PC version is €10 cheaper, at €44.99.
The table below shows us that the PC sales brought in just under 10 million Euros for Activision. This isn’t bad, but dwarfs in comparison when compared to the sales of the Xbox or even PS3. Even if 210,000 units were sold at the console price, you still be looking at a drop in the pond.
Even though the more expensive Xbox 360 version and PS3 out sold the cheaper PC version, “The Poor Pirate Excuse” tells a different story. The PC version has been downloaded illegally a disproportionately amount of times compared to all the console versions put together. For the full story you can read here at: <a href=” http://warfaceaps.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/the-glorious-pcs-greatest-shame/”>wordpress blog</a>. Below are the main two slides from that blog:
These pie charts show the illegal downloading proportion for the same game title across several different gaming platforms. The difference between the console, marked in Red, and the PC platform marked in Blue, is extremely clear and one sided.
This table shows the percentage value of the illegal downloading on a Console platform vs the PC platform. As you can see, generally the PC platform has a clear majority easily averaging 95% of the illegal downloads. Unless it’s a “high want value” game, then people who own a console are far more willing to illegally download it, the percentage becomes roughly 75%.
The Tables and Pie Charts dispel a belief that piracy happens because games are way too expensive. This is wrong, bearing in mind that PC games are normally cheaper than Console versions and that they are a want and not a need. The evidence shows that for Call of Duty: Black Ops the PC sales are out stripped by 2404% for the Xbox, and by 1467% for the PS3. Then in the same light, the PC illegal downloaders outweigh the consoles by 78%, compared to 22%. It just doesn’t make any sense.
It makes perfect sense if you cast a big shiny light on piracy and say it for what it is! Illegal downloading and pirating software material is far greater and easier on the PC. That nobody wants to pay for a game, when the perceived value of a PC game has become nothing.
Unlike the Xbox and the PS3 that need modchips to play the games. And this is no longer completely true as the hacks are getting much simpler! Most people are unwilling to use these kind solutions as it normally requires some complex steps and if it goes wrong then warrantees are void. The PC is a different beast, as the user normally has a certain degree of computer skills. For them, rar files and an illegal ISO, is a park walk with a Segway!
So how many times was Call of Duty: Black OPS illegally downloaded on its first day? Well this is a hard question for a number of reasons.
Firstly, in the piracy world, things happen a little differently, the game was available 5 days before, on Thursday 4th November.
Secondly, the piracy market isn’t exactly like the conventional retail market.
Normally illegal torrents released on the official date do not peak straight away. They climb rapidly and then peak in 1-2 days; afterwards the tail off comes down slowly for about 1-2 weeks, were it reaches a saturation level. Normally at saturation level the Seeder graph line meets the Peer level, and it can stay like this, slowly decreasing for many months. Just through observation, torrents stay active for many years, depending on the popularity of the game. Black OPs downloading peak didn’t happen until Friday 12th and Saturday 13th of November 2010. Below is an example of the time line for one illegal torrent for the PC game Mafia 2.
So counting all the illegal downloads up to 1 day of the official release date across 7 illegal torrents for Call of Duty: Black OPS. We have a total illegal download count of 592,736, this is more than twice the PC sale estimate.
If we count the Seed and Peers of all the torrents, to when it peaks on Sunday 14th, from when it first appears on Thursday 4th. The illegal downloads figure dramatically rises to 1,817,990. From our experiments, most illegal downloaders don’t anticipate a release, but as soon as they hear of it, say a TV advert, then they join the P2P network.
However the Torrent Watch experiment was not designed to find the specific illegal downloads on any particular day. It was designed to say over the period of 6 month the average estimated loss, which we say is 10%, of a game would be roughly... this much. In this case over a period of 6 months there would be an estimated figure of 26,713 downloads a day. This comes to €120,181 per day, which is 26,713 x €44.99 x 10%. So if you imagine this loss over 6 months, being 182.5 days, you come to a rough amount of €21,933,032.
This is how we arrived at this figure of 26,713 downloads per day for Call of Duty: Black OPs. Torrent watch looks at the aggregate Seed and Peers 4 times a day. This gives us two curves per torrent, showing the numbers currently downloading from the illegal market. To turn this into an illegal download figure we estimated the rough time it takes to download 7 GB. But this depends on a number of factors like network speed, if people are sharing, the users connection speed and so on. So we generalised it, and said that if someone was to download 7 GB in 2 days (48 hours) they would need an average connection speed of 41 kb/s. In today’s internet connection terms is small, and seems like an average download speed!
The table shows the total recorded Seeders and Peers, and the number of days the tests was active for the particular torrent. You can see the total count of Seed and Peers for each of the Call of Duty: Black Ops torrents. From these numbers we calculate our recoup figure, taking the 10% as the minimum, to see what the return could be!
I suppose it really depends on the popularity you place on the PC platform, as 3-5% worldwide market share never felt right to me! While I don’t think it's in the same bracket as the PS3 or even the Xbox, I would like to believe that the actual share is much higher. There is no bases for saying this, but if we look at the gradient of the Xbox to the PS3 which is 0.61. By extending this gradient for the PC it gives a unit count of 1.5 million, a total sale of roughly €67 million, and a recalculated market share of 18%.
But as I have said; other than a straight gradient through the Xbox and the PS3 there is no proof for this. However on a subjective look, my own personal belief, it does feel more in line with the total sales. But I guess we shall never know? But WarFace will struggle to find out one day!
As for records, this is sure to be the most illegal download of this year. Torrentfreak releases those figures around the 27th December. My predictions for games in this year’s top 10 will be in this order Call of Duty: Black OPS, Mafia 2, Fallout New Vegas, Medal of Honor, Darksiders, PES 2011, and StarCraft 2: Wings of liberty. As for the number of illegal downloads, I am guessing it will be a whopper of a number at around 6-7 million illegal downloads.
The more worrying fact in all of this is the constant rise of illegal downloading. In 2008 the top most illegally downloaded was 1.7 million (Spore), last year 2009 it was 4.1 million (Modern Warfare 2), and if this year is as I suspect! Then it paints a bad picture for the PC Platform, and a very shaky one for the future of PC gaming!
Well as a publisher I’d have to ask myself why bother releasing a game for the PC at all?
Why don’t I just give it away for free...?
At least for that PC game the piracy level would be 0%, and that would be another record!
But what I am finding more and more, when people talk about gaming sales. They are talking Xbox and PS3, but when it comes to PC versions everyone shuts up. It’s all about perception, and the PC sales are just embarrassing. Even though it took a while, I found that the sales market share of the Xbox 360 was at 59% and the PS3 at 36%. The PC market share was not so clear cut!
“Xbox 360 takes the largest proportion of sales with 59%, 36% for PS3 and the remainder on PC, Wii and DS.”
| Call of Duty: Black Ops Sales Top $360 Millionhttp://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/23252/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-Sales-Top-360-Million/By: - "-Sparky-" Nov. 11th, 2010 10:08 am It seems that the hype surrounding Call of Duty: Black Ops has paid off for Activision. The game launched on November 9th in North America and the U.K. with massive ad campaigns that spread across gaming websites, billboards and television ads. Day one sales for Black Ops totaled 5.6 million copies or $360 million dollars. These sales figures eclipse last year’s launch of Modern Warefare 2 which sold 4.7 million units within the first 24 hours. Activision is hailing this launch as the “biggest launch in entertainment” surpassing the opening weekend set by the film Avatar last December. |
| Call of Duty: Black Ops Sells 7 Million Copies on Day Onehttp://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/82685/call-of-duty-black-ops-sells-7-million-copies-on-day-one/by Brett Walton on 10 November 2010 According to early VGChartz estimates, Call of Duty: Black Ops has become the fastest-selling game of all time with over 7 million units sold on day one following over 4.5 million preorders as reported earlier in the week. If the 7 million for Black Ops holds true, it would make the launch around 10% larger than Modern Warfare 2 and the biggest of all time. Lending some extra weight to our estimations are reports that over 4 million users have now connected to Xbox Live to play Black Ops and similarly impressive figures via PSN. Breaking the data down, we estimate over 3.6 million units were sold in the USA, 1.4 million units in the UK, over a million units in continental Europe and 350,000 units in Canada. Xbox 360 takes the largest proportion of sales with 59%, 36% for PS3 and the remainder on PC, Wii and DS. |
The article states, perhaps a little flippantly, the “remainder on PC, Wii and DS” fight for the rest of the market share scraps. This sentence is all too telling! It wasn’t even worth the effort to work out the remainder, which was 5% of the sales. On top of all of that the PC has now been pigeon holed with a girl’s game console and a girls, hand held, game console.
To claw some dignity back for the PC gamers, am going to assume and desperately hope that the sale market share was 3% for PC, while the Wii and DS combined was the final 2%. I chose this because I seem to remember the market share for Modern Warfare 2 was also 3% for the PC.
I suppose it’s interesting to know that the Xbox and the PS3 games are more expensive than the PC version. Under the Euro, both Console versions sell at a MRSP of €54.99, while the PC version is €10 cheaper, at €44.99.
| GameStop Irelandhttp://www.gamestop.ie/core/common/default.aspx?quickSearch=Black%20Ops Price Check (27/11/2010) Call Of Duty: Black Ops Std (Xbox 360) = € 54.99 Call Of Duty: Black Ops Std (PS3) = € 54.99 Call Of Duty: Black Ops Std (PC) = € 44.99 |
The table below shows us that the PC sales brought in just under 10 million Euros for Activision. This isn’t bad, but dwarfs in comparison when compared to the sales of the Xbox or even PS3. Even if 210,000 units were sold at the console price, you still be looking at a drop in the pond.
Even though the more expensive Xbox 360 version and PS3 out sold the cheaper PC version, “The Poor Pirate Excuse” tells a different story. The PC version has been downloaded illegally a disproportionately amount of times compared to all the console versions put together. For the full story you can read here at: <a href=” http://warfaceaps.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/the-glorious-pcs-greatest-shame/”>wordpress blog</a>. Below are the main two slides from that blog:
These pie charts show the illegal downloading proportion for the same game title across several different gaming platforms. The difference between the console, marked in Red, and the PC platform marked in Blue, is extremely clear and one sided.
This table shows the percentage value of the illegal downloading on a Console platform vs the PC platform. As you can see, generally the PC platform has a clear majority easily averaging 95% of the illegal downloads. Unless it’s a “high want value” game, then people who own a console are far more willing to illegally download it, the percentage becomes roughly 75%.
The Tables and Pie Charts dispel a belief that piracy happens because games are way too expensive. This is wrong, bearing in mind that PC games are normally cheaper than Console versions and that they are a want and not a need. The evidence shows that for Call of Duty: Black Ops the PC sales are out stripped by 2404% for the Xbox, and by 1467% for the PS3. Then in the same light, the PC illegal downloaders outweigh the consoles by 78%, compared to 22%. It just doesn’t make any sense.
It makes perfect sense if you cast a big shiny light on piracy and say it for what it is! Illegal downloading and pirating software material is far greater and easier on the PC. That nobody wants to pay for a game, when the perceived value of a PC game has become nothing.
Unlike the Xbox and the PS3 that need modchips to play the games. And this is no longer completely true as the hacks are getting much simpler! Most people are unwilling to use these kind solutions as it normally requires some complex steps and if it goes wrong then warrantees are void. The PC is a different beast, as the user normally has a certain degree of computer skills. For them, rar files and an illegal ISO, is a park walk with a Segway!
So how many times was Call of Duty: Black OPS illegally downloaded on its first day? Well this is a hard question for a number of reasons.
Firstly, in the piracy world, things happen a little differently, the game was available 5 days before, on Thursday 4th November.
Secondly, the piracy market isn’t exactly like the conventional retail market.
Normally illegal torrents released on the official date do not peak straight away. They climb rapidly and then peak in 1-2 days; afterwards the tail off comes down slowly for about 1-2 weeks, were it reaches a saturation level. Normally at saturation level the Seeder graph line meets the Peer level, and it can stay like this, slowly decreasing for many months. Just through observation, torrents stay active for many years, depending on the popularity of the game. Black OPs downloading peak didn’t happen until Friday 12th and Saturday 13th of November 2010. Below is an example of the time line for one illegal torrent for the PC game Mafia 2.
So counting all the illegal downloads up to 1 day of the official release date across 7 illegal torrents for Call of Duty: Black OPS. We have a total illegal download count of 592,736, this is more than twice the PC sale estimate.
If we count the Seed and Peers of all the torrents, to when it peaks on Sunday 14th, from when it first appears on Thursday 4th. The illegal downloads figure dramatically rises to 1,817,990. From our experiments, most illegal downloaders don’t anticipate a release, but as soon as they hear of it, say a TV advert, then they join the P2P network.
However the Torrent Watch experiment was not designed to find the specific illegal downloads on any particular day. It was designed to say over the period of 6 month the average estimated loss, which we say is 10%, of a game would be roughly... this much. In this case over a period of 6 months there would be an estimated figure of 26,713 downloads a day. This comes to €120,181 per day, which is 26,713 x €44.99 x 10%. So if you imagine this loss over 6 months, being 182.5 days, you come to a rough amount of €21,933,032.
This is how we arrived at this figure of 26,713 downloads per day for Call of Duty: Black OPs. Torrent watch looks at the aggregate Seed and Peers 4 times a day. This gives us two curves per torrent, showing the numbers currently downloading from the illegal market. To turn this into an illegal download figure we estimated the rough time it takes to download 7 GB. But this depends on a number of factors like network speed, if people are sharing, the users connection speed and so on. So we generalised it, and said that if someone was to download 7 GB in 2 days (48 hours) they would need an average connection speed of 41 kb/s. In today’s internet connection terms is small, and seems like an average download speed!
The table shows the total recorded Seeders and Peers, and the number of days the tests was active for the particular torrent. You can see the total count of Seed and Peers for each of the Call of Duty: Black Ops torrents. From these numbers we calculate our recoup figure, taking the 10% as the minimum, to see what the return could be!
I suppose it really depends on the popularity you place on the PC platform, as 3-5% worldwide market share never felt right to me! While I don’t think it's in the same bracket as the PS3 or even the Xbox, I would like to believe that the actual share is much higher. There is no bases for saying this, but if we look at the gradient of the Xbox to the PS3 which is 0.61. By extending this gradient for the PC it gives a unit count of 1.5 million, a total sale of roughly €67 million, and a recalculated market share of 18%.
But as I have said; other than a straight gradient through the Xbox and the PS3 there is no proof for this. However on a subjective look, my own personal belief, it does feel more in line with the total sales. But I guess we shall never know? But WarFace will struggle to find out one day!
As for records, this is sure to be the most illegal download of this year. Torrentfreak releases those figures around the 27th December. My predictions for games in this year’s top 10 will be in this order Call of Duty: Black OPS, Mafia 2, Fallout New Vegas, Medal of Honor, Darksiders, PES 2011, and StarCraft 2: Wings of liberty. As for the number of illegal downloads, I am guessing it will be a whopper of a number at around 6-7 million illegal downloads.
The more worrying fact in all of this is the constant rise of illegal downloading. In 2008 the top most illegally downloaded was 1.7 million (Spore), last year 2009 it was 4.1 million (Modern Warfare 2), and if this year is as I suspect! Then it paints a bad picture for the PC Platform, and a very shaky one for the future of PC gaming!
Well as a publisher I’d have to ask myself why bother releasing a game for the PC at all?
Why don’t I just give it away for free...?
At least for that PC game the piracy level would be 0%, and that would be another record!
Monday, November 15, 2010
The Glorious PC’s Greatest Shame!
As a PC man, this is hard for me to say, so listen carefully as I shall say it only once.
“Consoles might be a more popular gaming rig!”
Oh... I think I am going to be sick...
Well it’s true, while there are many benefits of all platforms, the PC has always been highly adaptable and versatile. It is even possible to use Wii remotes with a PC! But of course the main benefit is that a PC is graphically better in all respects, with the worst problem being the cost and complex nature of the machine.
But as a “sit down in your living room and help you relax”, you have to admit, Consoles win every time. There is nothing better for many a hard worker around the world to come home. Switch on the Box, and the Console and start playing. Which would mean that consoles would be far more popular, right?
Some of the claims I hear from Pro-Pirates is that PC games are rubbish, they have no lasting content, and aren’t worthy of being bought. Gaming consoles are far more popular, but is piracy levels greater than the PC? No, deep down we all know that piracy is greater on the PC because it’s easier, and because it’s easier people pirate more!
What really amazes me about this kind of quote, that “PC Games are rubbish!” People don’t seem to understand that most games are released across the platforms. So if a game that does well in sales, then it can’t mean that the game is rubbish, as it will be the same content across the platform board. More often than not “rubbish” games do exceptionally well in console sales and exceptionally well in PC piracy.
This leads me to believe that pirates are lying! This is just an excuse, so pirates can justify not having to pay for a game. Games are expensive, and no one likes buying a product, and having the feeling they have just been ripped off. But how come we can understand that compensation fraud is driving up the costs of insurance, but not piracy driving up the costs of games. It’s killing the PC industry; just not kid yourself into believing otherwise!
There are some Good Games, Bad Games and Downright Ugly ones too; the platform has nothing to do with the quality. Actually the quality should affect the consoles versions even more, because you can always patch a PC game. A console game is much harder, unless you hold off, as the recently released Fallout: New Vegas stands testament to!
Watch this it’s very funny and scary (PC Version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ
On a PC game this can be patched and downloaded easily and quickly, as in the case for this Steam version.
One of the best was to judge piracy level is to look at the game releases on the PC and Console Gaming rigs. For the Consoles we have the Xbox 360, the PS3 (PlayStation), The Wii, PS2, and Hand Held Devises such as the PSP (PlayStation Portable). These are just to name a few, but in this test I have only looked for the main three XBox, PS3, and PC.
I have used a torrent search engine, because it makes life so much easier, and then searched for games that stretched the platform divide. The torrent search engine provides a static count of the Seed and Peers. I took those results and then divided up the torrent by the platform, either PC or Console, and counted the total seed and peers.
Image of the search for Call of Duty: Black OPS
If we look at the table of all the torrent results we find some astounding results. We have all assumed that piracy for the PC was greater than the Console, but to find the huge gap between each level is shocking.
The last two columns show the percentage increase between the Console and PC. So for Call of Duty Black OPS, you can see an increase of 146% (Seed) and 452% (Peer). As a ratio that would be nearly 1.5 and 4.5 greater than the console. Now consider the average illegal PC game will have 18 times more seeders and 20 times more peers than its console counterpart.
The pie charts show the Console as red, the seed being dark read and the peers being light red, while the PC being in blue. Each individual game title shows a clear majority of blue compared to red sections.
But it is also worthy of note that of all the games displayed, there is a clear two tier piracy level. On the one hand you can see the 6 of the games clearly show a console minority of under 10%. While 3 games show a clear console minority of around 25%.
This indicates that the 3 games (Call of Duty: Black OPS, Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2, and PES2011) are highly anticipated games. This allows you to draw a number of conclusions!
Either (1) The PC platform is far more popular than Consoles!
Or (2) That people really don’t want to pay for games, and the PC is the machine for the Job!
If you’d like to download the data sheet, that has all the names of the torrents and their counts, you can do so here. (http://www.warfaceaps.com/files/PCvsConsole Data Sheet.pdf)
What should be taken away from this?
I think it is a good idea to note, from this experiment at least, it suggests there are two types of games. The ones that do well and the ones that do not, platform and cost does not decide. Of course there is probably a sliding scale of games ratings. But unpopular games don’t get pirated more, in fact, as suspected the more popular games are, funnily enough, pirated more.
But what is clearly stated here is that piracy on the PC is far greater than the Console. The lowest percentage being 72%, this shows a serious problem with releasing games on the PC. If you owned a gaming company, producing something that you worked hard on, no matter if it was rubbish. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that there is an awful gamble when it comes to the PC platform.
I know it’s probably not true, but I’d like to think that the PC catapulted gaming into the main stream. If I am honest, piracy probably had something to do with the widespread gaming situation we have today. But if I take that one step further, I believe that piracy will also have a hand in undoing all the great work it started.
A Great Shame!
“Consoles might be a more popular gaming rig!”
Oh... I think I am going to be sick...
Well it’s true, while there are many benefits of all platforms, the PC has always been highly adaptable and versatile. It is even possible to use Wii remotes with a PC! But of course the main benefit is that a PC is graphically better in all respects, with the worst problem being the cost and complex nature of the machine.
But as a “sit down in your living room and help you relax”, you have to admit, Consoles win every time. There is nothing better for many a hard worker around the world to come home. Switch on the Box, and the Console and start playing. Which would mean that consoles would be far more popular, right?
Some of the claims I hear from Pro-Pirates is that PC games are rubbish, they have no lasting content, and aren’t worthy of being bought. Gaming consoles are far more popular, but is piracy levels greater than the PC? No, deep down we all know that piracy is greater on the PC because it’s easier, and because it’s easier people pirate more!
What really amazes me about this kind of quote, that “PC Games are rubbish!” People don’t seem to understand that most games are released across the platforms. So if a game that does well in sales, then it can’t mean that the game is rubbish, as it will be the same content across the platform board. More often than not “rubbish” games do exceptionally well in console sales and exceptionally well in PC piracy.
This leads me to believe that pirates are lying! This is just an excuse, so pirates can justify not having to pay for a game. Games are expensive, and no one likes buying a product, and having the feeling they have just been ripped off. But how come we can understand that compensation fraud is driving up the costs of insurance, but not piracy driving up the costs of games. It’s killing the PC industry; just not kid yourself into believing otherwise!
There are some Good Games, Bad Games and Downright Ugly ones too; the platform has nothing to do with the quality. Actually the quality should affect the consoles versions even more, because you can always patch a PC game. A console game is much harder, unless you hold off, as the recently released Fallout: New Vegas stands testament to!
Watch this it’s very funny and scary (PC Version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ
On a PC game this can be patched and downloaded easily and quickly, as in the case for this Steam version.
One of the best was to judge piracy level is to look at the game releases on the PC and Console Gaming rigs. For the Consoles we have the Xbox 360, the PS3 (PlayStation), The Wii, PS2, and Hand Held Devises such as the PSP (PlayStation Portable). These are just to name a few, but in this test I have only looked for the main three XBox, PS3, and PC.
I have used a torrent search engine, because it makes life so much easier, and then searched for games that stretched the platform divide. The torrent search engine provides a static count of the Seed and Peers. I took those results and then divided up the torrent by the platform, either PC or Console, and counted the total seed and peers.
Image of the search for Call of Duty: Black OPS
If we look at the table of all the torrent results we find some astounding results. We have all assumed that piracy for the PC was greater than the Console, but to find the huge gap between each level is shocking.
The last two columns show the percentage increase between the Console and PC. So for Call of Duty Black OPS, you can see an increase of 146% (Seed) and 452% (Peer). As a ratio that would be nearly 1.5 and 4.5 greater than the console. Now consider the average illegal PC game will have 18 times more seeders and 20 times more peers than its console counterpart.
The pie charts show the Console as red, the seed being dark read and the peers being light red, while the PC being in blue. Each individual game title shows a clear majority of blue compared to red sections.
But it is also worthy of note that of all the games displayed, there is a clear two tier piracy level. On the one hand you can see the 6 of the games clearly show a console minority of under 10%. While 3 games show a clear console minority of around 25%.
This indicates that the 3 games (Call of Duty: Black OPS, Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2, and PES2011) are highly anticipated games. This allows you to draw a number of conclusions!
Either (1) The PC platform is far more popular than Consoles!
Or (2) That people really don’t want to pay for games, and the PC is the machine for the Job!
If you’d like to download the data sheet, that has all the names of the torrents and their counts, you can do so here. (http://www.warfaceaps.com/files/PCvsConsole Data Sheet.pdf)
What should be taken away from this?
I think it is a good idea to note, from this experiment at least, it suggests there are two types of games. The ones that do well and the ones that do not, platform and cost does not decide. Of course there is probably a sliding scale of games ratings. But unpopular games don’t get pirated more, in fact, as suspected the more popular games are, funnily enough, pirated more.
But what is clearly stated here is that piracy on the PC is far greater than the Console. The lowest percentage being 72%, this shows a serious problem with releasing games on the PC. If you owned a gaming company, producing something that you worked hard on, no matter if it was rubbish. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that there is an awful gamble when it comes to the PC platform.
I know it’s probably not true, but I’d like to think that the PC catapulted gaming into the main stream. If I am honest, piracy probably had something to do with the widespread gaming situation we have today. But if I take that one step further, I believe that piracy will also have a hand in undoing all the great work it started.
A Great Shame!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Convincing the Hard of Hearing
One of the main problems that I come across is no matter what I show people, they still don’t want to listen. And I am quite well aware of the lack of statistics and vagueness of the whole topic of illegal downloading. Also the vagueness and lack of any proof people post in return. Still when I show people the results I come up with, and a lot of it is based in hard facts, people still insist on the same old unproven chestnuts.
And it’s not that I don’t respect people’s views, because we are all entitled to one. But whatever excuse the illegal downloader subscribes to, there is one undeniable fact. Downloading illegally is plain wrong! Unfortunately it is that simple statement, which takes a really long time for illegal downloaders to process. Flat out wrong, no justifications, only excuses, some good but most are just plain awful. To state that “I am poor/wasn’t going to buy it/against DRMs”, and so on, really doesn’t give you the right.
I think a lot of this comes from the little white lies that we tell ourselves!
“It’s a big money grabbing publishing house that can take the hit!”
“It harms no one!”
“Software is copying, not theft!”
“I wouldn’t have bought it anyway!”
“I can’t afford it!”
“I hate DRM’s!”
And my personal favourite:
“Hey, **** you *****! I am an illegal downloader and I ****** do what I ******* well please *******. Kiss my ******* you piece of **** next time I **** and I’ll ******* and then ****** while ***** your mother!”
There are some arguments that you just can’t answer back too! Some have valid points, very few mind you, but the rest of the illegal downloaders hide behind them!
In my mind only two points have merit; one, they experience software issues with the DRM product and illegally download it. Second they would like to play the game without the DVD in the drive. But there are crack sites that just host the modified exe file that allow you to play the game!
But both of points have merit because the person has bought the product in the first place!
I don’t think illegal downloaders have realised the severity of it all. And the true means test here is the cracker groups themselves. Who have almost started pleading with people to actually support the publisher companies and buy the products?
[Images of cracking groups, these are the nfo files that come with the cracks and illegal downloads. The message in the red circle is clear with them all support the publishers!]
Jaguar- "Support the companys involved in this release."
Razor1911- "Support the companies that produce quality software!"
Reloaded- "Support the software developers, if you like this game, BUY IT!"
Skidrow- "Support companies, which software you actually enjoy!"
The people to whom illegal downloaders owe so much too, beside the publishing house, crackers are almost begging P2P networks to stop pirating PC games and buy it! And it’s only fair isn’t it, that when you take someone’s work, you’d buy it? If you went into a restaurant and the food was ok, it’s your right as a consumer to complain, or never go back, not to keep going back and never pay! Then claim the food is rubbish, no lasting content, or too expensive.
But I think the main problem these days is illegal downloaders have wrongly justified their position. Using a number of childish excuses to overlook the fact that they are fundamentally stealing a product! Claiming that you wouldn’t buy it in the first place seems like the silliest excuse. This is the biggest contradiction; an illegal downloader is not interested in buying it, but still interested enough to actually steal it. No one steals things because it is worthless!
So the illegal downloader, say a young male, possibly in college who favours games/movies with blood, guts, and killer moves. Why would they download the latest my little pony/ carebears movies? At first it seems to lend credit to the excuse that people download because they can!
But we forget the human traits of storing and gluttony. We call them packrats, where someone will not throw anything out regardless if it is of any actual use. With data, this is even more of a problem. Memory, or hard drive space is so cheap, it seems like a waste not to fill it! It’s been hard coded into our brains, and downloading illegally for fills the very same need. That need to horde and store, just in case we have a bad nuclear winter!
Illegal downloaders don’t do this often; downloading media they have no intention of using, but still hide behind this as if it was the norm. The reason why they download is because after years, you come to realise one fundamental thing. Illegal downloaders have been so glutinous that they have over saturated their viewing content. They have downloaded so much, so when they see a link for something different, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", and they think “why not!” Even if they have no idea what it is, but still download just in case!
I suppose what really boggles the mind, and it took me a long time to understand this. Why would you want to illegally download something that isn’t worth something!
I put it to you that Illegal material is worth something, and why people download illegally. And if it is worth something then this means it is stealing!
If it is stealing then is it not fair to contribute something back to the publishers? To keep them going, to allow them to run, and publish more games so you can keep illegally downloading!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Is Piracy Growing?
The teacher stands before the class. “Children, today we are going to answer the question of piracy?”
The little boys and girls, all beaded eyed and fixed on the teachers professional authority, are hanging on every word.
“Now hands up who here is a pirate?”
A number of hands fill the air! And the teacher begins tipping the air with the edge of her pencil as she begins to count the hands held high.
“Well done, hands down, now who here was a pirate last year?”
Again the hands flood the air, the teacher begins counting again.
If only it was that easy! And you are under no obligation to raise your hand, but the chances are that everyone has tried it at least once. Even if they haven’t downloaded, they probably have borrowed from a friend. And why not? Sharing is one of human’s most profound abilities, and yet at times we confuse piracy with sharing. But it’s not; it is more like stealing!
But software piracy or illegal downloading is an oddity. While all the uploaders get all the credit, publishers don’t seem to get anything in return. It is normally here when pro-pirates jump in stating something along the line of “money grabbing”. But do we say this because it is easier to steal from someone who has so much?
Yes Publishers make a profit, and do well, but doing better means more titles for the gamer. If I lend ten friends a 1 dollar each, and only three pay me back. Next time I can only lend three new friends a dollar, because I have no more. And that simply is what is happening to the Gaming industry. Piracy is a problem and because of the shortfall in returns publishers are taking fewer risks.
Ultimately it’s the gamer that suffers, whether he be a pirate or land lubber!
So is Piracy growing…? That is a real tough question, because not everyone would put up their hand! And that’s not a criticism, that’s smart! Another thing that WarFace wants to address, suing people is the biggest waste of energy since an air-conditioned room full of servers! We don’t want to punish pirates or illegal downloaders; we want to encourage sharing, with publishers too!
However, I believe piracy is not only growing, but it is flourishing. Unfortunately torrents and file sharing is something that can be picked up real easy. With little information, people can install the software and start looking for files that they want to download. The list is endless, and fairly easy to find.
| Analytical Essay # 61832 :: Piracy in the Video Game Market An analysis of the issue of piracy in the video game market. Written in 2004; 899 words; 3 sources; MLA; $ 31.95 http://www.academon.com/Analytical-Essay-Piracy-in-the-Video-Game-Market/61832 From the Paper: “Sales of counterfeit video games are increasing worldwide. In 2003, video game executives joined a coalition of movie, software and music companies to appeal for help from the United States government, citing that they had lost a combined $20 billion due to piracy in 2002 (Kent, 2003). Video game piracy “is more than a $1 billion industry,” according to Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association, the trade organization that represents the games industry (Kent, 2003). “It is well over $2 billion worldwide if you include all piracy, which would include PC games.”" |
| Global Software Piracy Study “Sixth Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study” http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/index.html Working together, governments, software companies, and BSA are making progress in stopping the illegal theft and use of PC software products. But piracy remains a serious problem in all countries. The key findings of this study are: Piracy down in many nations: The rate of personal computer (PC) software piracy dropped in 2008 in about half (57) of the 110 countries studied, remained the same in about a third (36), and rose in just 16. Piracy up on a global basis: However, the worldwide PC software piracy rate rose for the second year in a row, from 38 percent to 41 percent, largely because PC shipments grew fastest in high-piracy countries such as China and India. Dollar losses up: The retail value of unlicensed software — representing revenue “losses” to software companies — broke the $50 billion level for the first time in 2008. Worldwide losses grew by 11 percent to $53 billion. Excluding the effect of exchange rates, losses grew by 5 percent to $50.2 billion. |
| PC Game Piracy Examined, [Page 4] The Scale of Piracy http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html Piracy as a Proportion of Total Internet Usage While the sites which provide links to pirated material are at the top of the web popularity list, there’s evidence that Peer to Peer (P2P) traffic in particular is monstrously high as a proportion of total Internet traffic. This Report from Multimedia Intelligence shows that at present, P2P traffic makes up approximately 44% of all consumer Internet traffic globally (33.6% in North America). Similarly, this data from Ipoque also points to P2P traffic accounting for a large proportion of all Internet traffic, as much as 54% in places like Southern Europe. Both data sources point out that the vast majority of P2P data currently being shared is, as you’d expect, pirated material, with 70% of it being audio and video files (i.e. songs and movies). The data paints a fairly solid picture of the Internet being absolutely saturated with pirated material, where up to half of all Internet traffic can be composed of illegally shared files at any time. |
| Piracy a growing concern in B.C. By The Vancouver Sun December 15, 2007 http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=cef1eaca-c64e-464b-b736-1539643df863 ”It’s a difficulty within our industry,” said Daniel Brady, general manager of Burnaby-based Blue Castle Games, which makes games for five different platforms. “Piracy is more prevalent in the PC games, and there is a certain degree of protection in consul games. But as consoles are around for a while, people figure the machines out and piracy really takes off.” anielle Parr, executive director of Toronto-based Entertainment Softwear Association of Canada, said video game piracy is a growing problem, costing North American companies $3 billion globally. Here at home, Canadians are worse than their American cousins when it comes to waving the skull-and-crossbones flag. A recent ESAC survey of gamers reported 17 per cent of Americans admitted to owning a pirated video game, while exactly double that number, 34 per cent, of Canadians confessed. |
I recently found that BSA did admit to some errors! But what they have done is to take a broad guess as to the illegal costs, and assumed that every pirate unit is one direct sale. This has led to much criticism, partly because many court rulings have been based on it.
While I can understand the pirates and their banner of “One illegal download is not one Direct Sale!” This is now beginning, to pain the ears more than a child’s cry! I can also understand that the BSA only stated that the potential loss, because they wanted to show the market size of piracy. Good intentions landed them in hell.
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At the end of the year TorrentFreak releases a top 10 chart of the most illegally downloaded. These are the top 10 charts of 2008 and the top 5 charts of 2009. From watching the illegal torrents ourselves, I don’t believe that they watched every illegal torrent. But I do believe they have put some work into it and that it has a strong creditability.
What should be taken from this is not the number of times a game was actually downloaded. But if you look at the download in position one, for both 2008 and 2009, what is the difference? By looking at the top 5 positions, and calculating the increase, you find some startling conclusions.
| Spot Number | 2008 | 2009 | Increase of |
| 1 | 1,700,000 | 4,100,000 | 241% |
| 2 | 1,070,000 | 3,200,000 | 299% |
| 3 | 940,000 | 2,350,000 | 250% |
| 4 | 860,000 | 2,100,000 | 244% |
| 5 | 830,000 | 1,850,000 | 223% |
The average difference between all the number spot is an increase of 251. This backs up the claim that piracy is growing, and will be very interesting to see what 2010 holds. Results should be out at the end of December this year.
These figures show a more than double in the number of downloads for each of the top 5. I find it hard to believe that 2009 had much better games that people wanted and didn’t want to pay for. I can more likely believe that people have found downloading games very easy. This would explain the nearly 250% increase in piracy across the board.
| PC Games 14% of 2007 Retail Games Sales; World of Warcraft and Sims Top PC Sales Charts by Aaron Linde Jan 24, 2008 5:16pm CST http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50939 Data from the sales-tracking firm NPD reveals that retailers sold 267.8 million games in 2007, 36.4 million of which were PC titles. Console games brought in $6.6 billion, selling 153.9 million units total, while portable software hauled a record $2 billion in revenue with 77.5 million units sold.
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Now if you take into account the sales figure of 2007, which related to the download figures ending 2008 by torrentfreak. When you look at these figures two things really stand out.
Firstly the top 2 figures are games that are not pirated. The problem with pirating the top 2 games is that they require a serial key, which you have to log on to a server with. The Game Company can ban serial keys if people distribute them, therefore kicking them out. This game is an online game, which means that it is very hard to circumvent. Therefore you can see the figures for these are well above the figures for any of the other games, which are easily cracked.
The second is the huge gap left between the sales figure and the download figures. While I only have three “download” figures for the PC game sales. What you can see here is the downloaded figure is far greater than the purchases.
| Game | Sales | Illegal Downloads | |
| 1 | World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade | 2.25 million | |
| 2 | World of Warcraft | 914,000 | |
| 3 | The Sims 2 Seasons Expansion Pack | 433,000 | |
| 4 | Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare | 383,000 | 830,000 |
| 5 | Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars | 343,000 | 860,000 |
| 6 | Sim City 4 Deluxe | 284,000 | |
| 7 | The Sims 2 | 281,000 | 1,150,000 |
| 8 | The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack | 271,000 | |
| 9 | Age of Empires III | 259,000 | |
| 10 | The Sims 2 Pets Expansion Pack | 236,000 |
As you can see from the results it suggests that Piracy for PC Games is rising, and at least twice as much as sales. Please note that I have used the word “suggest”, I would like to have a bucket of statistics before I add “heavily”. This also points out the glaring hole in the piracy issue. Not only is there a complete lack of people taking measurements of the piracy world, but even on the business side there seems to be a refusal of releasing measurements.
Pirates have the perfect right to claim that it is not a problem or that sales losses are made up and over exaggerated. Because when Publishers claim something with no facts to back it up, how else are you to convince them? This being said, what little evidence there is, only supports Publishers, Pirates need to stop pretending and hiding behind the childish excuses that hold no water.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
What do torrents statistics, for PC Games, look like?
There is always that moment of "strange silence" in the cinema. You know when they tell you it's illegal to use a camera or recording device. Making you feel like a criminal, you even glance around and wonder if anyone is doing it or more importantly if someone suspects you are!
What is the likelihood of seeing someone trying to record a movie in the cinema?
If you did see someone, with a real long trench coat and a big bulge in the front, what would you do?
Would you think pirate or unibomber?
Stand up and question him?
Report him to the cinema attendants?
Leave him alone and the get the hell out of there!!!
The thing is, no one really knows how big the piracy problem is and everyone is afraid to ask. Some people even think that statistics are made up or even over exaggerated! TorrentFreak.com releases the most downloaded torrents for each year, all of them illegal. But I have never seen the original results these statistics come from, not saying that they are made up. What I am saying is we need better measurements, to know where results have come from.
In fact combating Piracy is a big problem because it is too secretive. Even the business and anti-piracy organisations are secretive about their statistics. Of course pirates are very happy with this situation because having no data immediately undermines the results. Plus Pirates with good reason don't loudly announce any illegal activities. But you can't fight this problem unless you know what you are dealing with! It almost becomes a catch 22 situation. You need the results to fight piracy, but piracy is secretive so there are no results!
I am a big fan of the PC platform and it's only now I realise that Piracy is destroying it. Having been exposed to a lot of piracy, I even personally sided with the pirate thought process. It seemed so obvious that Piracy would not directly mean one sale. Who could argue with that!? However all these excuses, was not the question I should be asking, what I should have asked is: How many sales is piracy taking away!
All too often we are justifying the means, and not addressing the cause. So with that in mind, it is still question I cannot answer myself, but WarFace is setting out to find out! For the past month, WarFace has been watching the legal torrents of PC Games. We have included some popular games from the end of 2009 and the titles from 2010. The reason is so we can roughly calculate the number of losses, and more importantly the recoup sales that could be made.
You can see the titles that are being watched: http://www.warfaceaps.com/titles.php
The chart for all the illegal downloads: http://www.warfaceaps.com/amline.php?size=med
With the results, we have estimated recoup values: www.warfaceaps.com/files/TorrentResults-estimatedsales.pdf
If you look at the results on pages 2 and 3 (of TorrentResults-estimatedsales.pdf) you can see the estimated recoup in sales from the current piracy market. I have supplied three percentages, 10, 60, and 90. Now I am not saying that any particular figure is right, but what I am saying is look at the numbers these figures produce.
First I have arranged the percentages into three name categories. These percentages coincide with the side of the fence you lie with. If you are Pro pirate then you are more likely to believe that only 10% of all illegal downloads would end in a sale. Conservative has a recoup value of 60%, and Pro-Publisher is a recoup sales of 90% from the piracy market.
Pro-Pirate Conservative Pro-Publisher
34.99 € 5,262 € 31,573 € 47,360
44.99 € 6,766 € 40,597 € 60,895
From this table you can see the estimated losses per day. So if we take the lowest possible value, a Pro-Pirate opinion, for a €34.99 game. We can make some calculations as to the recoup value from piracy sales. So for the shelf life of a PC game, roughly 6 months (182 Days, we'll forget about the half day!), this gives us a recoup value of €957,684.
Oh an in this case, if you are wondering what the opposite end of this 10% recoup. The 90% that doesn't generate sales is approximately €8,619,156. (I am not stating that this is a loss figure!) But it is hard to dismiss, that over 6 months, the average recoup could be just under a million per game.
These figures change as the results are updated which you can download here: (Located in the Excel spreadsheet, under the last two tabs "Sum Up" and "Sum Up - Calc".) www.warfaceaps.com/files/TorrentResults.xls
You can also edit the figures in the control tables, in the cells that are highlighted, and use figures that you believe are more accurate, I think you'll be amaze at the number you get out at the end!
For those that are going to point loop holes in this: To them I say, remember not to be too hung up on the specific numbers, and I encourage active discussion. I might not always be right, but please point it out politely!
First off I have to address that these numbers are all based on the illegal torrents that are currently being downloaded. This gives me a bases in the number that I would expect across the board for PC games, for downloads per day and the cost associated.
Secondly the recoup figures are chosen for a reason, not because I think that's what it should be. But for easy calculations, 10 and 90 make 100, so people can then turn away and quickly do their own sums, and know the potential losses. For example, some pirates out there might believe the recoup value is 20%, well that's double, just over €10k per day, per game. And the Conservative estimate was chosen to show the kind of revenues that WarFace claims it will make back.
Some of the top PC game publishers release 10-15 PC games per year, start adding up the figures and you can see they are missing out on huge revenues. I believe "the want" value is the major driving factor for its sales, which sounds really stupid to state the obvious. But this want will also drive the illegal downloads market too, which in turns drives the number of recoup sales we can make from it.
What do illegal torrents and file sharing of PC Games look like?
"A whole lot of money!"
What is the likelihood of seeing someone trying to record a movie in the cinema?
If you did see someone, with a real long trench coat and a big bulge in the front, what would you do?
Would you think pirate or unibomber?
Stand up and question him?
Report him to the cinema attendants?
Leave him alone and the get the hell out of there!!!
The thing is, no one really knows how big the piracy problem is and everyone is afraid to ask. Some people even think that statistics are made up or even over exaggerated! TorrentFreak.com releases the most downloaded torrents for each year, all of them illegal. But I have never seen the original results these statistics come from, not saying that they are made up. What I am saying is we need better measurements, to know where results have come from.
In fact combating Piracy is a big problem because it is too secretive. Even the business and anti-piracy organisations are secretive about their statistics. Of course pirates are very happy with this situation because having no data immediately undermines the results. Plus Pirates with good reason don't loudly announce any illegal activities. But you can't fight this problem unless you know what you are dealing with! It almost becomes a catch 22 situation. You need the results to fight piracy, but piracy is secretive so there are no results!
I am a big fan of the PC platform and it's only now I realise that Piracy is destroying it. Having been exposed to a lot of piracy, I even personally sided with the pirate thought process. It seemed so obvious that Piracy would not directly mean one sale. Who could argue with that!? However all these excuses, was not the question I should be asking, what I should have asked is: How many sales is piracy taking away!
All too often we are justifying the means, and not addressing the cause. So with that in mind, it is still question I cannot answer myself, but WarFace is setting out to find out! For the past month, WarFace has been watching the legal torrents of PC Games. We have included some popular games from the end of 2009 and the titles from 2010. The reason is so we can roughly calculate the number of losses, and more importantly the recoup sales that could be made.
You can see the titles that are being watched: http://www.warfaceaps.com/titles.php
The chart for all the illegal downloads: http://www.warfaceaps.com/amline.php?size=med
With the results, we have estimated recoup values: www.warfaceaps.com/files/TorrentResults-estimatedsales.pdf
If you look at the results on pages 2 and 3 (of TorrentResults-estimatedsales.pdf) you can see the estimated recoup in sales from the current piracy market. I have supplied three percentages, 10, 60, and 90. Now I am not saying that any particular figure is right, but what I am saying is look at the numbers these figures produce.
First I have arranged the percentages into three name categories. These percentages coincide with the side of the fence you lie with. If you are Pro pirate then you are more likely to believe that only 10% of all illegal downloads would end in a sale. Conservative has a recoup value of 60%, and Pro-Publisher is a recoup sales of 90% from the piracy market.
Pro-Pirate Conservative Pro-Publisher
34.99 € 5,262 € 31,573 € 47,360
44.99 € 6,766 € 40,597 € 60,895
From this table you can see the estimated losses per day. So if we take the lowest possible value, a Pro-Pirate opinion, for a €34.99 game. We can make some calculations as to the recoup value from piracy sales. So for the shelf life of a PC game, roughly 6 months (182 Days, we'll forget about the half day!), this gives us a recoup value of €957,684.
Oh an in this case, if you are wondering what the opposite end of this 10% recoup. The 90% that doesn't generate sales is approximately €8,619,156. (I am not stating that this is a loss figure!) But it is hard to dismiss, that over 6 months, the average recoup could be just under a million per game.
These figures change as the results are updated which you can download here: (Located in the Excel spreadsheet, under the last two tabs "Sum Up" and "Sum Up - Calc".) www.warfaceaps.com/files/TorrentResults.xls
You can also edit the figures in the control tables, in the cells that are highlighted, and use figures that you believe are more accurate, I think you'll be amaze at the number you get out at the end!
For those that are going to point loop holes in this: To them I say, remember not to be too hung up on the specific numbers, and I encourage active discussion. I might not always be right, but please point it out politely!
First off I have to address that these numbers are all based on the illegal torrents that are currently being downloaded. This gives me a bases in the number that I would expect across the board for PC games, for downloads per day and the cost associated.
Secondly the recoup figures are chosen for a reason, not because I think that's what it should be. But for easy calculations, 10 and 90 make 100, so people can then turn away and quickly do their own sums, and know the potential losses. For example, some pirates out there might believe the recoup value is 20%, well that's double, just over €10k per day, per game. And the Conservative estimate was chosen to show the kind of revenues that WarFace claims it will make back.
Some of the top PC game publishers release 10-15 PC games per year, start adding up the figures and you can see they are missing out on huge revenues. I believe "the want" value is the major driving factor for its sales, which sounds really stupid to state the obvious. But this want will also drive the illegal downloads market too, which in turns drives the number of recoup sales we can make from it.
What do illegal torrents and file sharing of PC Games look like?
"A whole lot of money!"
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Hands down a Win/Win for Piracy
The following extract is from a Porn Director who was so fed up with his work being illegally downloaded that he began his own pay back campaign. Only nobody told him that this would make him look silly and that the tactic was considered a legal form of blackmail. Something businesses don’t want to advertise!
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/amounts-to-blackmail-inside-a-p2p-settlement-letter-factory.ars/
When I first read this I thought it was hilarious, long and drawn out at times. But what really made the thread extra sweet was the icing of excuses. You know when someone has been caught out, and the excuse seems totally logical to them, but common sense tells you that it’s a bit of a tall tale.
Ok, very few of them here are silly, but the serious ones, are also laughable but for an entirely different reason. The excuses are so smack in the face honest, it leaves the people who have had their works stolen with no recourse. They could pursue, but any victory would be picric, and probably end up costing way too much in company image!
All the parts in red are extracted from Page 2
There is a lot of sympathy in this sort of letter; are parents suppose to know how computers work? Are they supposed to monitor their network? In the eyes of the law, the answer is clear cut, but in these cases, there is a large loop hole!
This letter suggests that his wifi network was unencrypted, and what the next sentences are based on. That someone, who may not be technically minded, may not have secured their network and left it opened for everyone to access. Many people would have no qualms about accessing someone else’s network and using their internet, this happens more than some might care to imagine. But still leaves the payee of the bill in charge, and ultimately responsible!
Even if someone has knowledge of computers, and secured their network, it might not be enough. It has been known for some time that WEP encryption can be bypassed in a few minutes. This huge security flaw still remains the default method of encryption for routers. The IT industry may be a clever domain, but sometimes it does make some silly mistakes.
And this is the fundamental problem, that companies that have had their works stolen, don’t know who exactly has downloaded it. The last stop is the person who pays the bill for the internet connection. This looks like another case of someone entering the network illegally, but again who is at fault. Would a company dare pursue this case any further and try to get compensation? I would hope not!
Even if a company did pursue this person, by alerting them with a letter, it gives them the ability to cover their tracks. I could easily deny that I have downloaded, and spend the next day wiping the drives of my computer. I would assume that someone who is clever enough to use P2P networks will also know of hard drive wiping tools. This could mean long legal bills for the companies with very little choices and even less proof!
Even when the companies do win, it seems almost cruel and again a picric victory! There is a very genuine quality about this letter, which raises the next question, are the companies going to make him pay? He clearly doesn’t have the funds, is sorry about it, and completely in the wrong, but where does that leave the situation?
Force him to pay, get the money with a negative image on the company’s reputation! Or let him go, and people find out that companies are unwilling to sue, seen as a soft touch and safe to download illegal material! It’s a no win situation!
But personally I am not surprised; it was never a win situation in the first place. Will the lads from The RIAA and the MPAA even realise this? I don’t think so, they are so focused on the bone, they fail to realise their very names produce bile in the mouth!
The other thing about these charges is the cost. What concerns me the most is the high figures that are being asked? Normally a movie, be it blue or main stream, would retail at around £20, so where did they get the £400 or £495 from?
I know it’s probably a fine and calculating the number of people that have possibly viewed the material. But still, if they can’t even exactly identify the culprit, then how do they know how much to charge?
(My apologies for repeating the derogatory terms, some people will never learn ??)
As funny as the last letter is, it also leaves you with an unnerving feeling. The sad fact is that we are all capitalist at heart; all the good things come from hard work, and the bad things from enjoying it too much.
Publishers just want to make lots of money, and because they do, everyone around them gains some benefit. The businesses which support them and the thousands of employees who are able to get on with their lives and enjoy it. But as soon as you take the money out of it. Things go wrong, the business has to migrate into other areas or reduce its size and costs.
It comes down to this point, if all the money is leaking out to piracy; then there is no point to being in business.
While you may feel that Publisher are making too much money. The stark reality for us PC Gamers is that releases are drying up or come with plenty of DRM strings. Tom Clancy’s HAWX2 has been out for some time now, apart for the PC, which will be released sometime this month (October 2010). I have been informed by GameStop that it will be “probably the 15th” (European Release date).
Gamers do have a choice...
Pretend nothing is happening!
Keep illegally downloading!
Do something about!
Wait for the change!
You will have to pick one, of that I am certain!
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/amounts-to-blackmail-inside-a-p2p-settlement-letter-factory.ars/
When I first read this I thought it was hilarious, long and drawn out at times. But what really made the thread extra sweet was the icing of excuses. You know when someone has been caught out, and the excuse seems totally logical to them, but common sense tells you that it’s a bit of a tall tale.
Ok, very few of them here are silly, but the serious ones, are also laughable but for an entirely different reason. The excuses are so smack in the face honest, it leaves the people who have had their works stolen with no recourse. They could pursue, but any victory would be picric, and probably end up costing way too much in company image!
All the parts in red are extracted from Page 2
But the effects of this operation on those accused of infringement are remarkable. The e-mail trove is stuffed with anguished pleas like this:
I was in total shock after receiving the letter I received from you today as explained in the telephone conversation. I will say that I was not the person responsible for this infringement. The only person who it could have been would be my son who is [name redacted]. I would never entertain the idea of downloading such a thing—in fact I do not even know how to download any type of software. I only use the internet for Ebay and emails. I also go on dating sites and facebook. This is where my knowledge of computers stops. I do not understand what P2P is....
At the time of the download, to my knowledge my son was visiting my home. I have no idea what he was looking at on my computer. I must add that I do not tolerate any such pornographic material. This letter has upset me greatly and I have spoken to my ex husband who also called yourself with regard to this matter.
There is a lot of sympathy in this sort of letter; are parents suppose to know how computers work? Are they supposed to monitor their network? In the eyes of the law, the answer is clear cut, but in these cases, there is a large loop hole!
Most of the notices seem to have gone to parents, as one would expect from a program targeting ISP account holders. But many of the parents seem baffled:
I have today received a legal notification from you that a pornographic film was downloaded from my internet connection in October 2009.I immediately phoned your contact number and was told to put my comments in writing. I am obviously shocked both at this alleged illegal activity and the fact that the title appears to be of an offensive nature. I can confirm that i have no knowledge of this download being carried out at my home address. I have checked my computer and my sons computer for any reference to this file (using windows search function) and have found no trace.I have spoken to my two sons about downloads (They are 8 and 12) but obviously not about the nature of this file and to be honest they know even less than me. My oldest child has used i tunes and downloaded games from a site called friv.com but these claim to be free. Is this true? or will it also result in copyright issues ?
This letter suggests that his wifi network was unencrypted, and what the next sentences are based on. That someone, who may not be technically minded, may not have secured their network and left it opened for everyone to access. Many people would have no qualms about accessing someone else’s network and using their internet, this happens more than some might care to imagine. But still leaves the payee of the bill in charge, and ultimately responsible!
Even if someone has knowledge of computers, and secured their network, it might not be enough. It has been known for some time that WEP encryption can be bypassed in a few minutes. This huge security flaw still remains the default method of encryption for routers. The IT industry may be a clever domain, but sometimes it does make some silly mistakes.
Others are offended at the titles they are accused of sharing:
I am no prude and can see what type of material something entitled Granny F— is. I am the father of 5 children, 3 of these under the age of 7, and to suggest i would have such material on a computer is what i find offensive. May i also add that i am very anti pornography, having been abused as a child by someone who would use porn films before abusing me .this is why i am totally anti porn.
And this is the fundamental problem, that companies that have had their works stolen, don’t know who exactly has downloaded it. The last stop is the person who pays the bill for the internet connection. This looks like another case of someone entering the network illegally, but again who is at fault. Would a company dare pursue this case any further and try to get compensation? I would hope not!
Then come the "innocent infringers," though some of these explanations can feel a bit... strained.
on the date 16-11-2009 at 16.35 i was browsing the internet namely bt junkie ,without going into a long story i accidentely pressed the download button for the copyright protected file british granny f— 5@6 which then opened my bittorrent client on my pc which the torrent is sent to with the forementioned file is attached. It normally takes a few minutes for the file to start downloading and before it did i realised what i had done and canceled the file preventing any copyright infringement from taking place. just by starting the download process would have been enough to leave my ip address listed. I hereby appologise for any inconvienience i have caused yourself or your client and can swear at no time was any part of the forementioned copyright protected file downloaded onto my pc or shared with anyone else.
(I mean, haven't we all, at one time or another, accidentally been browsing BitTorrent sites and accidentally clicked on a film called Granny F—?)
Even if a company did pursue this person, by alerting them with a letter, it gives them the ability to cover their tracks. I could easily deny that I have downloaded, and spend the next day wiping the drives of my computer. I would assume that someone who is clever enough to use P2P networks will also know of hard drive wiping tools. This could mean long legal bills for the companies with very little choices and even less proof!
Others took responsibility for their actions:
I am writing in response to the recent letter my father [name redacted] received on the 13.04.2010 based on the subject of infringement of copyright. I would firstly like to state that I am solely responsible for this and I [name redacted] take full responsibility. I have read through all the information that you have supplied and I understand how serious the matter is—since last year 2009 I have not downloaded any material as I understood how it was a bad thing to do and how it is killing out industry.
I do take responsibility for this issue and I would very much like to ask if the required payment of £495 could somehow possibly be reduced. The reason i am asking this is because I am currently a student and money is a big factor and getting by generally is a hard thing to do.
Even when the companies do win, it seems almost cruel and again a picric victory! There is a very genuine quality about this letter, which raises the next question, are the companies going to make him pay? He clearly doesn’t have the funds, is sorry about it, and completely in the wrong, but where does that leave the situation?
Force him to pay, get the money with a negative image on the company’s reputation! Or let him go, and people find out that companies are unwilling to sue, seen as a soft touch and safe to download illegal material! It’s a no win situation!
But personally I am not surprised; it was never a win situation in the first place. Will the lads from The RIAA and the MPAA even realise this? I don’t think so, they are so focused on the bone, they fail to realise their very names produce bile in the mouth!
Indeed, many of the guilty appear to be kids. Some parents figured it out:
I would also like to also say that it was not my sons intention to fileshare this music and was unaware of how file sharing works as am I—I appreciate that this is no excuse but ask you to bear this in mind. As mentioned in previous correspondence from myself I am writing to again explain that my financial circumstances make it impossible for me to pay £400 in one go or even at £40 per month I am in extreme financial hardship with mounting debts and do not have any spare money - if you were to take this to court I would be unable to even pay the basic utility bills or even the necessary food bills.
The other thing about these charges is the cost. What concerns me the most is the high figures that are being asked? Normally a movie, be it blue or main stream, would retail at around £20, so where did they get the £400 or £495 from?
I know it’s probably a fine and calculating the number of people that have possibly viewed the material. But still, if they can’t even exactly identify the culprit, then how do they know how much to charge?
If there's one great theme running through these letters, it's the poverty of the respondents. One is a "a single mum living of state benefits who cannot afford to pay any kind of money my daughter is very sorry for any problems caused," while another lives "in the hold of my bank overdraft my money is never my own. We at present find it very hard to make ends meet, at the moment I am trying to amass funds to pay our utility bills for this month and can not see any change in the near future." Students plead hardship due to school fees; many people claim to be unemployed.
But perhaps most creative are the letters that make no attempt at argument. These are sheer vitriol. One stands out among the rest:
Go f— your mum you stupid pakistani black jew. You zimbabwean immigrant.
So listen up fat f—, don't send me another letter. If you do send me another f—ing letter, I will rape your mum against the wall and I will blow up your house and kill you all in a terrorist attack.
In addition, I want a £3500 cheque written to me for the inconvinience [sic] you have caused me.
*If you do not reply to this email with a confirmation that you will pay me, I will hunt you down and stab you in the back and blow your d— up.*
Creative, in an unhinged way. If you had thoughts about going into P2P litigation, consider the sheer migraine-inducingness of getting such messages on a daily basis. Indeed, after reading the correspondence, it's not hard to see why one paralegal who worked at ACS Law during the summer of 2010 told a friend there was "no chance in hell" she would go back.
(My apologies for repeating the derogatory terms, some people will never learn ??)
As funny as the last letter is, it also leaves you with an unnerving feeling. The sad fact is that we are all capitalist at heart; all the good things come from hard work, and the bad things from enjoying it too much.
Publishers just want to make lots of money, and because they do, everyone around them gains some benefit. The businesses which support them and the thousands of employees who are able to get on with their lives and enjoy it. But as soon as you take the money out of it. Things go wrong, the business has to migrate into other areas or reduce its size and costs.
It comes down to this point, if all the money is leaking out to piracy; then there is no point to being in business.
While you may feel that Publisher are making too much money. The stark reality for us PC Gamers is that releases are drying up or come with plenty of DRM strings. Tom Clancy’s HAWX2 has been out for some time now, apart for the PC, which will be released sometime this month (October 2010). I have been informed by GameStop that it will be “probably the 15th” (European Release date).
Gamers do have a choice...
Pretend nothing is happening!
Keep illegally downloading!
Do something about!
Wait for the change!
You will have to pick one, of that I am certain!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
An interesting thing happened a while back!
So an interesting thing happened a while back, as the word of WarFace is spreading, most of the time I receive positive reviews. Then sometimes I receive bad ones too, it doesn’t bother me; that is the nature of the human condition.
Some people believe, some don't, some think this is an excellent idea, while
other dismiss without a second glance. All criticism are welcomed, and anything that can be used to learn from is a bonus.
So after checking several statistical bots, I found a link to a German overclocking site that had linked to my webpage. I followed it back, basically to see the opinions of WarFace.
http://www.overclockers.at/games_forum/warface_the_answer_to_pc_piracy_218962
Of course I wasn’t bother by any of the opinions expressed, in fact they have no idea of me or what I am trying to achieve. Why would they believe I am any different than any other soothe sayer? WarFace is a company “of getting results” through strange and unorthodox means, how do you describe that on paper? No that is something that has to be proven over time!
Spikx
quote:
[...] With all that said and done, however, piracy is always going to be an issue on the PC. So when I saw the tweets from a startup company known as WarFace, offering up a full “Anti-Piracy Strategy” and omitting the dreaded words of DRM from the aforementioned tweets, I had to find out more. So. I proceeded to get in touch with founder of WarFace, James Grimshaw and bombarded him with questions about the product.
http://ironhammers.org/?p=2367 http://www.warfaceaps.com/
TassDingo
http://www.warfaceaps.com/itworks.php
wenn ich das so durchlese kann ich nur schmunzeln, imho nicht ernst zu nehmen...
It makes me smile when reading, in my humble opinion not to be taken seriously...
22zaphod22
badass - supergeil - darauf hat die industrie gewartet
das it-works ist ja endgeil ... die verpflichten sicher den cast von the expendables um alle illegalen kopien aufzuspüren und dann mit shotguns zu erledigen
badass - super cool – this is what the industry has been waiting for
If it indeed works, its hot shit ... just like the cast of the expendables to track down the illegals with shotguns
Mr. Zet
I loled (als ich die FAQ gelesen habe)
I Loled (as I read the FAQ)
WarFace
Hello lads
TassDingo
laugh as much as you want.. but WarFace is able to track anything down. Even someone not man enough to insult warface to its face!
Help me fight piracy or shut up!
pwned!
James
Spikx
Awesome :D
sk/\r
:D
COLOSSUS
:-o
maXX
catfight!
daisho
Google is their tool, hate their motivation.
wtf? :D
thachriz
:D
GrOnD
weils dazu passt " :D "
Because it fits (Because it works?)
userohnenamen
muahahahhahaha :D
edit: jetzt is er sicher auf einer watchlist ;-)
muahahahhahaha
edit: Now he is safely on their watch list
thachriz
Herrlich:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
na wenns so einfach is :D
Alle die " :D " gepostet haben sind bestimmt schon auf der Warface pöse user watschlist!
Marvelous:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
Now if that’s so simple
All the posted users are already on the Warface watchlist!
COLOSSUS
Ich persoenlich finde
quote:
Will this work?
Yes!
noch viel ueberzeugender!
I personally think
Yes!
Much more convincing! (Unsure about this line? literal- “much convincing fool”)
GrOnD
das ganze Konzept passt einfach, jetzt habens alle pösen L33CH3R !!!11
The whole concept fits, now having people pose as L33CH3R !!!11
HaBa
quote:
Originally posted by thachriz
Herrlich:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
na wenns so einfach is :D
Alle die " :D " gepostet haben sind bestimmt schon auf der Warface pöse user watschlist!
Marvelous:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
Now if that’s so simple
All the posted users are already on the Warface watchlist
8-) :D
“Haba is reposting expressing agreement with thachriz!”
Turrican
lol, was für ein joke :D
lol, what a joke
SaxoVtsMike
quote:
Originally posted by thachriz
Alle die " :D " gepostet haben sind bestimmt schon auf der Warface pöse user watschlist!
Wenn das dann so ist schaun ma mal.
" :D "
Hab mir das auch durchgelesen, Wäre aber mal ein interessanter ansatz das eine firma aktiv versucht torrents zu stören, bzw. gabs da nicht mal ne geschichte (zu napster zeiten <== oops pöses wort) das da mit absicht lieder in umlauf gebracht haben die irgendwo störungen hatten ?
naja mal sehen, von all den kopierschützen ist mir steam immer noch am sympatischsten
All the posted users are already on the Warface watchlist
If so then this is the times we live in. (?literal- If so then the show of the times)
I have also read, it would be an interesting approach for a company to actively disrupt torrent, or. Was there not a story (In Napster times <== oops ?pöses -post? word) where songs in circulation are used for intentional interference? Well let’s see, of all the copy protections Steam is still the most likeable.
Turrican
quote:
Originally posted by SaxoVtsMike
<strong
Wenn das dann so ist schaun ma mal.
" :D "
Hab mir das auch durchgelesen, Wäre aber mal ein interessanter ansatz das eine firma aktiv versucht torrents zu stören, bzw. gabs da nicht mal ne geschichte (zu napster zeiten <== oops pöses wort) das da mit absicht lieder in umlauf gebracht haben die irgendwo störungen hatten ?
naja mal sehen, von all den kopierschützen ist mir steam immer noch am sympatischsten
ja, da waren damals iirc einige "fakesongs" im umlauf.
If so then this is the times we live in. (?If so then the show of the times)
I have also read, it would be an interesting approach for a company to actively disrupt torrent, or. Was there not a story (In Napster times <== oops pöses word) where songs in circulation used for intentional interference? Well let’s see, of all the copy protections Steam is still the most likeable.
Yes, as there were some “fakesongs” in circulation back then. (? iirc is either “in my recollection” or maybe means IRC?)
d3cod3
da will wohl wer schnell förderungen abstauben bevor das unternehmen ex geht
:-p
Who wants to help themselves to some quick downloads before the company starts (?Total guess work, my German is rubbish!)
Rektal
I only believe it when I see it, i.e. a game said to have that "thing" and being not available illegally.
Excuse my translation, and if anyone wants to point out any corrections, just leave a comment. I think the best thing it to take a general meaning of what the sentence is implying. For example Turrican says “lol, was für ein joke” which translates as “lol, what a joke”. But I don’t think it means the same in English. I would like to think that it means that the whole
nature of the thread is a funny joke! Unless the joke is actually on me! :)
I bear no ill will towards any of the guys here, I am sure they are all good people that have no dealings with illegal downloading. I think we were all having a little fun and all in the spirit of things.
Though, I never did hear again from TassDingo! But does he have a point? No and yes, based on the failings of others over the years and the whole mess that has now become piracy. I don’t blame anyone for making snap judgements and laughing at the whole topic that is piracy!
Something has to be done! If nothing more than to give gamers a reassurance that positive steps are being taken! WarFace is here to walk those steps. We are the middle ground; we cater for both gamers and publishers, not just protecting copy infringement rights, but protecting the PC platform.
Now these guys are all worried about WarFace tracking the names of illegal downloaders, we aren’t interested in that, though I didn’t say it. What we are interested in is removing illegal torrents or file sharing. Trying to track someone through the internet is worse than a needle in 20 haystacks. It’s a waste of time and resources! We are more interested in getting results, not wasting time.
Anyone who uploads PC games, they are fair game. We are not after the crackers, because they are a separate entity to the people that share games. Crackers are in it for the challenge of breaking something, while they make the whole anti-piracy process more difficult, we do respect them. (But that’s for another post!) It’s the uploader, who is at fault, they are the ones killing this industry, and yes we maintain that it is dying!
But don’t worry, WarFace is here to solve everyone’s problems!
Just the piracy issues first!
Some people believe, some don't, some think this is an excellent idea, while
other dismiss without a second glance. All criticism are welcomed, and anything that can be used to learn from is a bonus.
So after checking several statistical bots, I found a link to a German overclocking site that had linked to my webpage. I followed it back, basically to see the opinions of WarFace.
http://www.overclockers.at/games_forum/warface_the_answer_to_pc_piracy_218962
Of course I wasn’t bother by any of the opinions expressed, in fact they have no idea of me or what I am trying to achieve. Why would they believe I am any different than any other soothe sayer? WarFace is a company “of getting results” through strange and unorthodox means, how do you describe that on paper? No that is something that has to be proven over time!
Spikx
quote:
[...] With all that said and done, however, piracy is always going to be an issue on the PC. So when I saw the tweets from a startup company known as WarFace, offering up a full “Anti-Piracy Strategy” and omitting the dreaded words of DRM from the aforementioned tweets, I had to find out more. So. I proceeded to get in touch with founder of WarFace, James Grimshaw and bombarded him with questions about the product.
http://ironhammers.org/?p=2367 http://www.warfaceaps.com/
TassDingo
http://www.warfaceaps.com/itworks.php
wenn ich das so durchlese kann ich nur schmunzeln, imho nicht ernst zu nehmen...
It makes me smile when reading, in my humble opinion not to be taken seriously...
22zaphod22
badass - supergeil - darauf hat die industrie gewartet
das it-works ist ja endgeil ... die verpflichten sicher den cast von the expendables um alle illegalen kopien aufzuspüren und dann mit shotguns zu erledigen
badass - super cool – this is what the industry has been waiting for
If it indeed works, its hot shit ... just like the cast of the expendables to track down the illegals with shotguns
Mr. Zet
I loled (als ich die FAQ gelesen habe)
I Loled (as I read the FAQ)
WarFace
Hello lads
TassDingo
laugh as much as you want.. but WarFace is able to track anything down. Even someone not man enough to insult warface to its face!
Help me fight piracy or shut up!
pwned!
James
Spikx
Awesome :D
sk/\r
:D
COLOSSUS
:-o
maXX
catfight!
daisho
Google is their tool, hate their motivation.
wtf? :D
thachriz
:D
GrOnD
weils dazu passt " :D "
Because it fits (Because it works?)
userohnenamen
muahahahhahaha :D
edit: jetzt is er sicher auf einer watchlist ;-)
muahahahhahaha
edit: Now he is safely on their watch list
thachriz
Herrlich:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
na wenns so einfach is :D
Alle die " :D " gepostet haben sind bestimmt schon auf der Warface pöse user watschlist!
Marvelous:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
Now if that’s so simple
All the posted users are already on the Warface watchlist!
COLOSSUS
Ich persoenlich finde
quote:
Will this work?
Yes!
noch viel ueberzeugender!
I personally think
Will this work?
Yes!
Much more convincing! (Unsure about this line? literal- “much convincing fool”)
GrOnD
das ganze Konzept passt einfach, jetzt habens alle pösen L33CH3R !!!11
The whole concept fits, now having people pose as L33CH3R !!!11
HaBa
quote:
Originally posted by thachriz
Herrlich:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
na wenns so einfach is :D
Alle die " :D " gepostet haben sind bestimmt schon auf der Warface pöse user watschlist!
Marvelous:
What about file sharing?
File sharing Sites have one major weakness; the links has to be passed on to others. This is normally done in a forum, and that means people have to leave their details behind. WarFace has first hand information of these sites and the email addresses of the moderators.
Now if that’s so simple
All the posted users are already on the Warface watchlist
8-) :D
“Haba is reposting expressing agreement with thachriz!”
Turrican
lol, was für ein joke :D
lol, what a joke
SaxoVtsMike
quote:
Originally posted by thachriz
Alle die " :D " gepostet haben sind bestimmt schon auf der Warface pöse user watschlist!
Wenn das dann so ist schaun ma mal.
" :D "
Hab mir das auch durchgelesen, Wäre aber mal ein interessanter ansatz das eine firma aktiv versucht torrents zu stören, bzw. gabs da nicht mal ne geschichte (zu napster zeiten <== oops pöses wort) das da mit absicht lieder in umlauf gebracht haben die irgendwo störungen hatten ?
naja mal sehen, von all den kopierschützen ist mir steam immer noch am sympatischsten
All the posted users are already on the Warface watchlist
If so then this is the times we live in. (?literal- If so then the show of the times)
I have also read, it would be an interesting approach for a company to actively disrupt torrent, or. Was there not a story (In Napster times <== oops ?pöses -post? word) where songs in circulation are used for intentional interference? Well let’s see, of all the copy protections Steam is still the most likeable.
Turrican
quote:
Originally posted by SaxoVtsMike
<strong
Wenn das dann so ist schaun ma mal.
" :D "
Hab mir das auch durchgelesen, Wäre aber mal ein interessanter ansatz das eine firma aktiv versucht torrents zu stören, bzw. gabs da nicht mal ne geschichte (zu napster zeiten <== oops pöses wort) das da mit absicht lieder in umlauf gebracht haben die irgendwo störungen hatten ?
naja mal sehen, von all den kopierschützen ist mir steam immer noch am sympatischsten
ja, da waren damals iirc einige "fakesongs" im umlauf.
If so then this is the times we live in. (?If so then the show of the times)
I have also read, it would be an interesting approach for a company to actively disrupt torrent, or. Was there not a story (In Napster times <== oops pöses word) where songs in circulation used for intentional interference? Well let’s see, of all the copy protections Steam is still the most likeable.
Yes, as there were some “fakesongs” in circulation back then. (? iirc is either “in my recollection” or maybe means IRC?)
d3cod3
da will wohl wer schnell förderungen abstauben bevor das unternehmen ex geht
:-p
Who wants to help themselves to some quick downloads before the company starts (?Total guess work, my German is rubbish!)
Rektal
I only believe it when I see it, i.e. a game said to have that "thing" and being not available illegally.
Excuse my translation, and if anyone wants to point out any corrections, just leave a comment. I think the best thing it to take a general meaning of what the sentence is implying. For example Turrican says “lol, was für ein joke” which translates as “lol, what a joke”. But I don’t think it means the same in English. I would like to think that it means that the whole
nature of the thread is a funny joke! Unless the joke is actually on me! :)
I bear no ill will towards any of the guys here, I am sure they are all good people that have no dealings with illegal downloading. I think we were all having a little fun and all in the spirit of things.
Though, I never did hear again from TassDingo! But does he have a point? No and yes, based on the failings of others over the years and the whole mess that has now become piracy. I don’t blame anyone for making snap judgements and laughing at the whole topic that is piracy!
Something has to be done! If nothing more than to give gamers a reassurance that positive steps are being taken! WarFace is here to walk those steps. We are the middle ground; we cater for both gamers and publishers, not just protecting copy infringement rights, but protecting the PC platform.
Now these guys are all worried about WarFace tracking the names of illegal downloaders, we aren’t interested in that, though I didn’t say it. What we are interested in is removing illegal torrents or file sharing. Trying to track someone through the internet is worse than a needle in 20 haystacks. It’s a waste of time and resources! We are more interested in getting results, not wasting time.
Anyone who uploads PC games, they are fair game. We are not after the crackers, because they are a separate entity to the people that share games. Crackers are in it for the challenge of breaking something, while they make the whole anti-piracy process more difficult, we do respect them. (But that’s for another post!) It’s the uploader, who is at fault, they are the ones killing this industry, and yes we maintain that it is dying!
But don’t worry, WarFace is here to solve everyone’s problems!
Just the piracy issues first!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
How to download like a pirate!
The first thing that amazes me; there is honour amongst pirates. Well most of the time!
If you don’t know how the torrent system works, then this is a quick run down! Basically you look for an illegal torrent file; this is a pointer to the latest movie/game/music/whatever. You double click, and it loads into your torrent client and away you go! It starts downloading, when you reach 100%, you can stop the torrent and you have the latest film on your hard drive.
It sound so simple, and it is. Basically the program is split into pieces and downloaded to the hundreds of people who want it. These people are called Leechers or Peers. Then there are people who have the file but share pieces out to those that don’t have it, Seeders. If everyone shares these pieces around, you can imagine how quickly the file would be downloaded.
Once you have gotten all the pieces from the internet there is no need for you to seed. It seems silly that illegal downloaders, who are fundamentally stealing a program, would hang around giving pieces of the files to others so they can steal it too! No it would seem more plausible that they would download and go, too play the latest game without being tracked! But it doesn’t work like that, and where the honour among thieves comes in.
This is what a lot of people don’t realise! That your information is logged, and I am not talking about your IP address because that really is not as important as you might think. But what is important, and often understated, is what kind of pirate you are!
On some sites, in the comments section, you'll see:
How do you install the program? (noob!)
Or:
Please Seed!
Or:
Plz Seed..! (for coolness!)
These people don’t realise it, but they have just become a part of the unwitting joke of the P2P networks. And they are probably noobs too!
If someone seeds a program, they start getting a score which reflects that they share. The same with a person that doesn’t share, they become known as a leecher. Computers track this information and start shutting off seeders and peers on the network. Your connection gets slower and slower, but because it’s a gradual process and you won’t notice it. Even if there are thousands on the network, you’ll be scratching your head wondering why you have a 1kb download rate!
So what kind of pirate are you?
If you are constantly asking for people to seed, I think you have your answer!
So there are two types of illegal downloaders, the honest and dishonest! Who would have guessed there could be such a thing? Well its true, and even better, the sub groups within the P2P networks get even more complex. It’s almost like a community of people! For example there can’t be any more dishonest than a dishonest illegal downloader, can there? Can a woodchuck chuck wood?
You’d be wrong, for any action in life, there is always a reaction. So if people are going to start tracking your Leecher or Seeder life style, and if you are going to be a leech; then wouldn’t it be clever to have some kind of program to counter this. Of course there is, tonnes of them! From programs that directly edit the statistics file of your torrent client. So you edit the uploaded and download amounts. To programs that intercept packets, giving out a fake ratio. So it looks like you are constantly seeding, but in fact you aren’t.
Then there is the other side of the coin, the sharing illegal downloader, where people who seed can be invited to special groups. Called private torrents, these are almost exclusive clubs, which eliminate the riffraff from the P2P networks. So we have the elitist, the common man, and even the criminals! The more you look into the whole community, the more you realise, this world of computers is a human thing.
This stuff is all fascinating, and it seems odd that an anti-piracy group is talking so openly about it. But that’s the point, no one is! People, on the anti-piracy side of the fence, are blindly investing in products. They have no idea why the problem is there in the first place. WarFace is looking at illegal downloading and studying it, because to win a war, it’s as simple as the cliché, to know your enemy!
If you don’t know how the torrent system works, then this is a quick run down! Basically you look for an illegal torrent file; this is a pointer to the latest movie/game/music/whatever. You double click, and it loads into your torrent client and away you go! It starts downloading, when you reach 100%, you can stop the torrent and you have the latest film on your hard drive.
It sound so simple, and it is. Basically the program is split into pieces and downloaded to the hundreds of people who want it. These people are called Leechers or Peers. Then there are people who have the file but share pieces out to those that don’t have it, Seeders. If everyone shares these pieces around, you can imagine how quickly the file would be downloaded.
Once you have gotten all the pieces from the internet there is no need for you to seed. It seems silly that illegal downloaders, who are fundamentally stealing a program, would hang around giving pieces of the files to others so they can steal it too! No it would seem more plausible that they would download and go, too play the latest game without being tracked! But it doesn’t work like that, and where the honour among thieves comes in.
This is what a lot of people don’t realise! That your information is logged, and I am not talking about your IP address because that really is not as important as you might think. But what is important, and often understated, is what kind of pirate you are!
On some sites, in the comments section, you'll see:
How do you install the program? (noob!)
Or:
Please Seed!
Or:
Plz Seed..! (for coolness!)
These people don’t realise it, but they have just become a part of the unwitting joke of the P2P networks. And they are probably noobs too!
If someone seeds a program, they start getting a score which reflects that they share. The same with a person that doesn’t share, they become known as a leecher. Computers track this information and start shutting off seeders and peers on the network. Your connection gets slower and slower, but because it’s a gradual process and you won’t notice it. Even if there are thousands on the network, you’ll be scratching your head wondering why you have a 1kb download rate!
So what kind of pirate are you?
If you are constantly asking for people to seed, I think you have your answer!
So there are two types of illegal downloaders, the honest and dishonest! Who would have guessed there could be such a thing? Well its true, and even better, the sub groups within the P2P networks get even more complex. It’s almost like a community of people! For example there can’t be any more dishonest than a dishonest illegal downloader, can there? Can a woodchuck chuck wood?
You’d be wrong, for any action in life, there is always a reaction. So if people are going to start tracking your Leecher or Seeder life style, and if you are going to be a leech; then wouldn’t it be clever to have some kind of program to counter this. Of course there is, tonnes of them! From programs that directly edit the statistics file of your torrent client. So you edit the uploaded and download amounts. To programs that intercept packets, giving out a fake ratio. So it looks like you are constantly seeding, but in fact you aren’t.
Then there is the other side of the coin, the sharing illegal downloader, where people who seed can be invited to special groups. Called private torrents, these are almost exclusive clubs, which eliminate the riffraff from the P2P networks. So we have the elitist, the common man, and even the criminals! The more you look into the whole community, the more you realise, this world of computers is a human thing.
This stuff is all fascinating, and it seems odd that an anti-piracy group is talking so openly about it. But that’s the point, no one is! People, on the anti-piracy side of the fence, are blindly investing in products. They have no idea why the problem is there in the first place. WarFace is looking at illegal downloading and studying it, because to win a war, it’s as simple as the cliché, to know your enemy!
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