{"id":52071,"date":"2013-03-20T12:13:22","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T10:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=52071"},"modified":"2013-03-20T12:17:20","modified_gmt":"2013-03-20T10:17:20","slug":"drm-harms-game-developers-sales-more-than-piracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/pc\/52071-drm-harms-game-developers-sales-more-than-piracy","title":{"rendered":"DRM harms game developers, sales more than piracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Super Meat Boy developer Tommy Refenes has posted a blog which argues that DRM and other loss prevention techniques actually hurt developers more than piracy.<\/p>\n<p>Refenes\u2019 stance is that DRM is not a profit-saving procedure for game developers hoping to protect their products.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a forward thinking developer who exists in the present, I realize and accept that a pirated copy of a digital game does not equate to money being taken out of my pocket,&#8221; Refenes writes. &#8220;Team Meat shows no loss in our year-end totals due to piracy and neither should any other developer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Companies try to combat piracy of their software with DRM but if loss due to pirated software is not calculable to an accurate amount does the implementation of DRM provide a return on investment? It is impossible to say yes to this statement,&#8221; Refenes continued. &#8220;Everyone needs to accept that piracy cannot be stopped and loss prevention is not a concept that can be applied to the digital world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_52073\" style=\"width: 609px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Team-Meat-Tommy-Refenes-and-Edmund-McMillen.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-52073\" class=\" wp-image-52073\" title=\"Team Meat - Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen\" src=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Team-Meat-Tommy-Refenes-and-Edmund-McMillen.jpg\" alt=\"Team Meat - Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen\" width=\"599\" height=\"396\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-52073\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Team Meat &#8211; Tommy Refenes and Edmund McMillen<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Refenes explained that limiting the redistribution of digital goods is not the solution for developers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the retail world, you could potentially put a return back on the shelf, you could find another customer that wants it, sell it to them and there would be virtually no loss,&#8221; Refenes said. &#8220;In the digital world, because there is no set amount of goods, you gain nothing back (one plus infinity is still infinity). It&#8217;s only a negative experience. A negative frustrating experience for a customer should be considered more damaging than a torrent of your game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Refenes concludes that piracy is a reality of the industry, and that mutual respect between customers and developers can help drive game sales.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The reality is the fight against piracy equates to spending time and money combating a loss that cannot be quantified,&#8221; Refenes concluded. &#8220;Everyone needs to accept that piracy cannot be stopped and loss prevention is not a concept that can be applied to the digital world. Developers should focus on their paying customers and stop wasting time and money on non-paying customers. Respect your customers and they may in turn respect your efforts enough to purchase your game instead of pirating it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h6>Source: <a href=\"www.gamesindustry.biz\/articles\/2013-03-18-meat-boy-dev-drm-refunds-hurt-more-than-piracy\" target=\"_blank\">Gamesindustry.biz\u00a0<\/a><\/h6>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More gaming news:<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/playstation-4-news\/52066-next-gen-lighting-tech-showcased.html\">Next-gen lighting tech dazzles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/hardware\/52058-razer-megasoma-2-mouse-mat-sa-pricing.html\">Razer Megasoma 2 mouse mat SA pricing<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/52036-gta-5-beta-its-a-scam.html\">GTA 5 beta: it\u2019s a scam<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/news\/52028-fan-immortalised-in-total-war-rome-2.html\">Cancer-stricken fan immortalised in Total War: Rome 2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Super Meat Boy dev explains why a frustrating experience is worse than piracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":52072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[41,6626,21,101,1617,9359],"class_list":["post-52071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc","tag-drm","tag-game-piracy","tag-headline","tag-piracy","tag-super-meat-boy","tag-tommy-refenes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52074,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52071\/revisions\/52074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}