The Formula Against Game Software Piracy

August 8th, 2010 8 Comments

After a long search for the magic formula, I think Blizzard has done it with the release of the highly anticipated StarCraft 2 last month.

Here’s the formula for success…

For the first time ever, demand (and sales) for an ORIGINAL BOXED game has been never been this big. Especially here in my home country, the Philippines, gamers usually go to the torrent sites or hop on over to Greenhills to purchase a cracked version of the game.

What has been the deciding factor(s) on how Blizzard accomplished this? Let’s enumerate them below;

  1. Make the online play more compelling than the single-player game/campaign - SC 2 has always been about the fights between PEOPLE. Skirmish and AI battles are fun for a while. But after so much repetitive play, the computer ALWAYS has a pattern. There’s no better opponent than an actual person. This is where Battle.net shines
  2. Take away LAN features – the “always online” mode of SC2 has helped them with this. In this day and age, it’s seldom that you have an “unconnected” PC. At first, a lot were whining about this issue. But business-wise, it makes perfect sense.
  3. Always Online – I think that you cannot play even the single player game without logging in to Battle.net. Again, a major business decision that scored big for the SC2 team. Kudos!
  4. Accomplishments – of course, gamers like to know where they rank among their peers. The accomplishments feature of Battle.net is a great way to “incentivize” players to play more and to play well.
  5. Tap into the power of SNS – Facebook and SC2 are integral to online play. Making connections with Facebook and the Real ID system were met with some abrasive comments from the SC2 community. Now, the issue has died down and many now see the value of a real identity.
  6. Allow lots of purchase options – With SC2, you can pay online, just download the installer, log in and enter your CD Key and you’re done. You can also do traditional purchases via brick-and-mortar shops.
  7. Superior Marketing - Blizzard has always been known about the hype. Even with delays, it just adds more fuel to the fire. They have communicated to the potential buyer, the REAL VALUE of buying an original product.

I’m sure a lot of other companies will be follow in Blizzard’s footsteps. The formula, albeit risky at the early stages and open to criticism, proved to be a huge success. Now they’re laughing all the way to the bank.

Gotta go… have to pawn some Zerg @$$!

Cheers!

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Btw, I’m giving away my limited edition SC2 Dog Tag. Click here to join

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  • Tristan “JT” Awat

    Sir mon…ano Name sa SC2..add kita if possible..;)

  • Andrew Tuazon

    The crack for SC2 allows for singleplayer playing, im not really interested in multiplayer so i borrowed my friends orig copy for a while using his battle.net account to play the campaign until i accidentally disconnected him during multiplayer game of his. after that i got a 9mb crack that let me play singleplayer

    A bigger turnoff for me from buying orig is that the game costs 3500(70-75$) pesos in datablitz which to me is too much

  • Jerx

    it’s all cool but then there is always the issue of “matopak ang net sa ‘pinas”

  • ghost

    I agree with some most of what you said. But as a gamer. I disagree with some of the business decisions made.

    For me, what can really make you pay for an orig game is multiplayer and an awesome overall package.

    I admit for the past years I’ve torrented and gone to get some discs at GH or the like but just one/two years ago, I started buying original games.

    What made me buy original games? The price difference. (Except for SC2 I guess) Original PC games only cost about 900-1300 most of the time. That’s a bargain.

    I bought call of duty mw2 as my first original game. Call of duty 4 made me consider buying an original for the next iteration. COD4 had one of the most memorable singleplayer game. and to add it had an awesome multiplayer, it was the first time i tried multiplayer outside of an mmmorpg.

    After buying cod mw2, i started buying other orig games, battlefield bc2, got a ps3 and bought metal gear and uncharted.

    what i think would really make me buy an orig game would be
    1. Great multiplayer (though not really much of a factor if the single player is something really worth the money MGS, uncharted)

    2. Cheap price. 1,100 is a great price for original pc games i think esp it’s not that expensive and a college student can easily save up for it. 2,300 is a bit too much for a console game though, sweet spot would have been at 1,600 i think.

    3. Great community. TipidPc is a great place to meet pinoy orig gamers. its really fun to have that sort of active community talking and playing about the game

    I think a cool feature (well not really a feature) of COD4 was that you could play it online for free with the crack but you couldn’t play on servers with “official” servers.

    It would be interesting if they could implement something like a demo of online multiplayer too. not just a beta phase.

    I don’t like that they take away lan features though. it be really great to play it on a computer shop with friends. of course if they did have lan you could use a virtual lan like hamachi or use software like garena.

    i think the main thing would be a lot of incentives in buying original games and if isn’t too expensive. that would be the perfect combo.

  • Akuzihs

    you can already play skirmish games in a cracked sc2…

  • http://blog.chinoyray.com Chino

    Sulit yung 3,500php actually. Aside from the fact that busy people would rather buy an original than crack since wala ka nang iisipin pa kung orig, the multiplayer part of the game is what made Starcraft 2 become the most anticipated RTS ever.

    Connection is not an issue as well. Try playing the ladder matches and see what I mean.

  • Yewl

    Blizzard kasi yan kaya mahal.. Alam ko na mahal yan dahil sa world of warcraft ko. Ilan thousands yung inabot ko para mabili lahat hanggang sa latest expanaion tapos may monthly pa na ang mahal.

    Ang maganda lng sa blizzard.. Magaling sila mag maintain ng kanilang community. 6 yrs na world of warcraft buhay pa rin siya. Hundred thousands pa rin nag lalaro. Dami nga gumagaya sa features nila pero wala parin nakakatalo sa playing hours ng mga games nila.

  • DingusFungus

    Please correct me if im wrong yung crack version hindi ka makakapaglaro ng multiplayer? puro campain lang. I read kasi dati na wala siyang LAN sa battlenet ang pinaka multiplayer which will require you to have an account?. tama po ba?

    For the love of the game atsaka kung fan ka talaga ng SC ok lang yung 3500 para sa mga may income. Sad to say yung iba mahihirapan talaga.


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