The Importance of Demos in Combatting Video Game Piracy

In today's digital age, video game piracy has become a significant issue that affects the gaming industry as a whole. Many gamers turn to pirated copies of games as a means of trying before they buy, especially with the way DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems work. However, this approach is not only unethical but also counterproductive. A more effective solution lies in providing well-thought-out demos that allow gamers to experience the game and decide whether or not it's worth purchasing.

The current state of demo releases is often underwhelming. Most demos are limited to just intro cinematic scenes, giving players little to no idea about the gameplay mechanics or overall quality of the game. In contrast, a proper demo should showcase key features, multiplayer modes, and other aspects that make the game enjoyable. This is especially important for AAA titles, where the game's replay value and longevity often lie in its multiplayer and online features.

The problem with current DRM systems is that they can be overly restrictive, making it difficult for players to access certain features or content unless they purchase a legitimate copy of the game. For example, some games have strict requirements for accessing multiplayer servers or DLC content, which can be a major barrier to entry for potential buyers. Piracy often becomes a means of circumventing these restrictions and gaining access to the full range of game content.

The case of Ubisoft's Mass Effect series is a notable example of how poor DRM systems can drive players to piracy. In some instances, buying the game only led to pirating it shortly after, as the official DRM system proved too restrictive and frustrating to use. This highlights the need for more user-friendly DRM systems that prioritize accessibility over revenue protection.

Steam and Origin, on the other hand, have been praised for their more relaxed approach to DRM. By providing a seamless and intuitive gaming experience, these platforms make it easier for players to access and enjoy games without resorting to piracy. A similar approach can be taken with demos, where a well-crafted demo experience can serve as a gateway for gamers to try out the game before deciding whether or not to purchase.

In addition to improving DRM systems, making demos more accessible and engaging is crucial in combatting video game piracy. With the rise of streaming services like HBO's online episodes, it's now possible for viewers to access content without having to resort to pirated copies. Similarly, a robust demo system can give gamers a taste of what a game has to offer, allowing them to make informed purchasing decisions and reducing the need for piracy.

The author notes that this primarily applies to AAA titles, but the principles can be applied to any type of game. By providing well-designed demos and user-friendly DRM systems, the gaming industry can reduce piracy and promote a more sustainable business model. As gamers, we have the power to demand better from developers and publishers, and by supporting companies that prioritize accessibility and quality, we can help create a more positive gaming ecosystem.

In conclusion, the importance of demos in combating video game piracy cannot be overstated. By providing well-thought-out demos that showcase key features and gameplay mechanics, gamers can make informed purchasing decisions and reduce the need for piracy. A user-friendly DRM system that prioritizes accessibility over revenue protection is also essential in creating a more sustainable gaming industry. As we move forward, it's crucial to prioritize these aspects and create a gaming ecosystem that values quality, accessibility, and player satisfaction above all else.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enadamer eposvox here and welcome back to another forum friday on a very very rainy friday for me also a very allergy filled friday as it is about to be springtime and my allergies are swinging in full force i'm taking my allergy medicine every day but man am i getting congested and i'm talking funny and i had tuesday this week where i just barely felt like i could get out of bed or go anywhere and i was late to class and it's been an interesting week last yesterday i actually spent all day out of the house in class and then i had to go do a video shoot for a class project that were like a month late on it was like i said it's been a very interesting week but it's over and i get to spend the weekend doing a little homework but also playing some video games i do have to make next week's videos at some point but meh i'm kind of at that point where i need to really really focus on school and spring break is the week after next and so i really really need to focus on school because things are you know lots of due dates are coming up so i got to make sure i get everything done then i can go back to making videos so the next week's videos may not be super strong or like important i don't know yet a couple house cleaning things before we get too far deep into euros comments for the week although there were only a couple so it won't take us too terribly long um at the moment there's been a misunderstanding with my google plus page somehow in that i am now unable to respond to comments or messages just at all on the entire channel on the entire main channel or google plus page that's youtube slash people's fox um for probably another week it's it was a two-week little band thing that didn't make any sense and i tried posting in some support forums to try to like appeal it or something because it didn't make any sense and i was given a warning for something i wasn't doing but i was never actually given the warning it i don't know um so it i don't know i just that sucks because i really need to be able to respond to comments and i like talking to you guys in the comment section and there's lots of you all who have questions for example actually the comment on this past week's form friday was asking about a laptop or a computer streaming specs something that i responded to but i have lots of comments that i need to respond to and i have lots of videos that i watch that i like commenting on and yet i can't do that now so that really sucks but it will be back probably by next week um yeah or on friday so i should have a bit more interesting gameplay for you guys today as i've been posting a lot of destiny as of late so i'm trying to make sure i use a little bit of gameplay that's different than destiny today but today i wanted to talk to you guys about demos game demos this used to be huge like i don't know how many of you all experienced this or were old enough to have experienced this or whatever but back when i was a kid pizza hut actually had video game demo discs that came with the with the kids meal so i would beg my parents there used to be they just actually turned it into a full taco bell but by my house there used to be a combination taco bell pizza hut restaurant you'd drive there and you could order either taco bell or pizza hut or get a cross of both it was a really interesting idea and i used to always beg my parents because that was the closest like quick serve pizza hut kind of place to my house i would always beg my parents to take me there get me a personal pan pizza with a couple of their amazing bread sticks and i would get a pizza hut demo disc and this would be for the playstation one and i think they had a couple on the playstation 2. and it'd just be all sorts of new games to play of playstation 1 games that i hadn't played yet because either they weren't out or i just didn't own them because we didn't get new games all that often we didn't have a lot of money for games and so those demos were my games and especially back then i didn't exactly finish games all the time so it's not like i it seemed it's seen as like casual scrub knot status but i never i was not a completionist as a kid i barely like there were a lot of games that i just didn't understand how to finish and frankly i didn't have like i wasn't given the ability to just play video games 24 7. like i currently can when i'm not working all the time um and when i was a kid like i had very limited video game access i had to get permission i'd have to have my dad set it up i'd be watched it was very very limited my parents did not want me to come become a couch potato so instead it became a desk chair potato but so those demos were my games because i could actually play through them and play a hefty amount and it didn't really matter if i didn't finished or whatever and they were a lot of fun and then we also for a while i think it was really my dad who subscribed to it not me per se but we we got the playstation magazine this was really popular back then and we got it quite a while we got it quite often we i think we got it for quite a few years there because it came with i believe ps1 and ps2 demo discs and so we had demos of all kinds of crazy stuff and it was just amazing to get to experience so many new games and it led me to want other games like there used to be this goofy little skeleton rpg thing called medieval and i think they actually did a newer goofy version of it on like the playstation arcade or whatever for the ps3 but it was just i got to play as a skeleton and go through this medieval scene and as a kid who was also often limited to non you know bloody or too mature games as a kid as a like young kid this was the closest i got to having those kinds of games and so it was a lot of fun we don't get a whole lot of that now there are some demos on steam and for a while there were some demos on xbox arcade and playstation network and things like that but it it was never as good as the experience was back in the day and that may be of pure nostalgia but i really do feel like demo quality is just really dumbed down quite a bit because demos used to be actual like beta versions of the game that you'd have a couple levels of and there used to even be secrets in them like in a demo of one game you could find the demo of another game or screens for another game or in the full version of one game you could find like a demo of another game like secretly hidden in the menu with button shortcuts and stuff and nowadays it's just like oh you go to the xbox live arcade choose a game and it's like oh look there's a demo and it's just like some really crappy intro cinematic or something and that's it and so i missed those days and the the discussion kind of came up recently because it was for whatever reason explicitly announced that mortal kombat x would not have a demo and you don't exactly need a demo for a normal motor combat game so it's not like it was that big of a deal for that game specifically mortal kombat is mortal kombat except in the case of shaolin monks but we already know this game isn't going to be shaolin monks so we're pretty good on that front water camera is going to be pretty good but we did like we we don't get demos that often and to me that is exactly why piracy is up piracy for video games at least for myself and for most people that i know is a means of trying before you buy nowadays with how most games work or how the drm works you don't even get the full features of the game unless you actually have a legitimate copy multiplayer versions are disabled you can't play on the multiplayer servers you can't get access to certain you know dlc things you can't get access to certain game modes because they all require accessing the actual publisher servers which you can't do on a pirated copy of the game what you can do is actually play the game and experience it and figure out whether or not you like it and whether or not it's worth sinking the money into at any point in time you know how we could also do this in a totally legal and legitimate way that's not misconstrued as stealing money from the developers or publishers by playing a demo a good thought out planned demo that isn't just you know intro cinematic stuff to me that is the solution to proper or to video game piracy is proper well a proper drm support because there are lots of games in which honestly playing the pirated version is a lot easier than playing the official version because there were some issues there's always issues with like you play servers and things like that uh ubisoft stuff but there was one game i feel like it was like the original mass effect or something where but i know it wasn't that but it was i think it was a uplay based game where literally people who bought the game ended up pirating it right after they bought it and just using that key because the official drm for it was just so impossible to like use that it made actually play the game near impossible whereas if you pirated it and just put in your game code to activate it you had the full game and so a getting rid of really just stupid and absurd drms steam and origin are perfectly fine you don't need all this you play and games for windows live stuff which they thankfully got rid of and then be providing proper demos so we can actually test the game and figure out whether or not we like it seeing an intro cinematic that actually doesn't show any good gameplay nor let us play it is not a substitute for a demo neither is like five minutes of gameplay than a buy here screen so i wanna know what your guys's thoughts are about demos if you have any positive experiences with demos in the past what you think about them what you think should be done about them etc let me know in the comment section down below obviously this primarily applies to aaa titles not indie games but it could be applied to anything just like the way that um good tv networks like hbo and stuff are combating internet privacy is by making episodes readily available on the internet for viewers and you get like one to five for free this is amazing if i want to go watch elementary i can go to abc's website or cvs's website and look for elementary and then i can watch five episodes for free which is enough actually to let me catch up on the show without pirating it or then if i want to make sure i stay up to date i can subscribe for however much it's not that much and i have a much easier access service than piracy especially with all the pirate based stuff going down and all that craziness so apply that to video games and let me know what you think thanks for so much for watching guys thanks for your support and for your comments and for everything else i'm sorry i can't respond to comments at the moment as soon as that gets re-enabled i will be catching up and responding to everything for the past couple weeks see you later thanks for watching etc if you need to contact me in which i can reply feel free to comment on the other channels such as my tf2 channel which is also posting a lot of destiny right now so that's just what i'm going to call my solo gaming channel that's where i'm posting destiny and um i've posted some halo reach videos hopefully going to get back to tf2 videos the vlog channel of course where we post vlog videos and then the co-op gaming channel where we post guild wars 2 co-op we've been doing some pvp and some dungeons and things like that we've posted don't starve together we're going to get back into a couple other games it's going to be great so comment on those channels or just tweet or facebook me on the facebook page or twitter thanks for watching see you next timeadamer eposvox here and welcome back to another forum friday on a very very rainy friday for me also a very allergy filled friday as it is about to be springtime and my allergies are swinging in full force i'm taking my allergy medicine every day but man am i getting congested and i'm talking funny and i had tuesday this week where i just barely felt like i could get out of bed or go anywhere and i was late to class and it's been an interesting week last yesterday i actually spent all day out of the house in class and then i had to go do a video shoot for a class project that were like a month late on it was like i said it's been a very interesting week but it's over and i get to spend the weekend doing a little homework but also playing some video games i do have to make next week's videos at some point but meh i'm kind of at that point where i need to really really focus on school and spring break is the week after next and so i really really need to focus on school because things are you know lots of due dates are coming up so i got to make sure i get everything done then i can go back to making videos so the next week's videos may not be super strong or like important i don't know yet a couple house cleaning things before we get too far deep into euros comments for the week although there were only a couple so it won't take us too terribly long um at the moment there's been a misunderstanding with my google plus page somehow in that i am now unable to respond to comments or messages just at all on the entire channel on the entire main channel or google plus page that's youtube slash people's fox um for probably another week it's it was a two-week little band thing that didn't make any sense and i tried posting in some support forums to try to like appeal it or something because it didn't make any sense and i was given a warning for something i wasn't doing but i was never actually given the warning it i don't know um so it i don't know i just that sucks because i really need to be able to respond to comments and i like talking to you guys in the comment section and there's lots of you all who have questions for example actually the comment on this past week's form friday was asking about a laptop or a computer streaming specs something that i responded to but i have lots of comments that i need to respond to and i have lots of videos that i watch that i like commenting on and yet i can't do that now so that really sucks but it will be back probably by next week um yeah or on friday so i should have a bit more interesting gameplay for you guys today as i've been posting a lot of destiny as of late so i'm trying to make sure i use a little bit of gameplay that's different than destiny today but today i wanted to talk to you guys about demos game demos this used to be huge like i don't know how many of you all experienced this or were old enough to have experienced this or whatever but back when i was a kid pizza hut actually had video game demo discs that came with the with the kids meal so i would beg my parents there used to be they just actually turned it into a full taco bell but by my house there used to be a combination taco bell pizza hut restaurant you'd drive there and you could order either taco bell or pizza hut or get a cross of both it was a really interesting idea and i used to always beg my parents because that was the closest like quick serve pizza hut kind of place to my house i would always beg my parents to take me there get me a personal pan pizza with a couple of their amazing bread sticks and i would get a pizza hut demo disc and this would be for the playstation one and i think they had a couple on the playstation 2. and it'd just be all sorts of new games to play of playstation 1 games that i hadn't played yet because either they weren't out or i just didn't own them because we didn't get new games all that often we didn't have a lot of money for games and so those demos were my games and especially back then i didn't exactly finish games all the time so it's not like i it seemed it's seen as like casual scrub knot status but i never i was not a completionist as a kid i barely like there were a lot of games that i just didn't understand how to finish and frankly i didn't have like i wasn't given the ability to just play video games 24 7. like i currently can when i'm not working all the time um and when i was a kid like i had very limited video game access i had to get permission i'd have to have my dad set it up i'd be watched it was very very limited my parents did not want me to come become a couch potato so instead it became a desk chair potato but so those demos were my games because i could actually play through them and play a hefty amount and it didn't really matter if i didn't finished or whatever and they were a lot of fun and then we also for a while i think it was really my dad who subscribed to it not me per se but we we got the playstation magazine this was really popular back then and we got it quite a while we got it quite often we i think we got it for quite a few years there because it came with i believe ps1 and ps2 demo discs and so we had demos of all kinds of crazy stuff and it was just amazing to get to experience so many new games and it led me to want other games like there used to be this goofy little skeleton rpg thing called medieval and i think they actually did a newer goofy version of it on like the playstation arcade or whatever for the ps3 but it was just i got to play as a skeleton and go through this medieval scene and as a kid who was also often limited to non you know bloody or too mature games as a kid as a like young kid this was the closest i got to having those kinds of games and so it was a lot of fun we don't get a whole lot of that now there are some demos on steam and for a while there were some demos on xbox arcade and playstation network and things like that but it it was never as good as the experience was back in the day and that may be of pure nostalgia but i really do feel like demo quality is just really dumbed down quite a bit because demos used to be actual like beta versions of the game that you'd have a couple levels of and there used to even be secrets in them like in a demo of one game you could find the demo of another game or screens for another game or in the full version of one game you could find like a demo of another game like secretly hidden in the menu with button shortcuts and stuff and nowadays it's just like oh you go to the xbox live arcade choose a game and it's like oh look there's a demo and it's just like some really crappy intro cinematic or something and that's it and so i missed those days and the the discussion kind of came up recently because it was for whatever reason explicitly announced that mortal kombat x would not have a demo and you don't exactly need a demo for a normal motor combat game so it's not like it was that big of a deal for that game specifically mortal kombat is mortal kombat except in the case of shaolin monks but we already know this game isn't going to be shaolin monks so we're pretty good on that front water camera is going to be pretty good but we did like we we don't get demos that often and to me that is exactly why piracy is up piracy for video games at least for myself and for most people that i know is a means of trying before you buy nowadays with how most games work or how the drm works you don't even get the full features of the game unless you actually have a legitimate copy multiplayer versions are disabled you can't play on the multiplayer servers you can't get access to certain you know dlc things you can't get access to certain game modes because they all require accessing the actual publisher servers which you can't do on a pirated copy of the game what you can do is actually play the game and experience it and figure out whether or not you like it and whether or not it's worth sinking the money into at any point in time you know how we could also do this in a totally legal and legitimate way that's not misconstrued as stealing money from the developers or publishers by playing a demo a good thought out planned demo that isn't just you know intro cinematic stuff to me that is the solution to proper or to video game piracy is proper well a proper drm support because there are lots of games in which honestly playing the pirated version is a lot easier than playing the official version because there were some issues there's always issues with like you play servers and things like that uh ubisoft stuff but there was one game i feel like it was like the original mass effect or something where but i know it wasn't that but it was i think it was a uplay based game where literally people who bought the game ended up pirating it right after they bought it and just using that key because the official drm for it was just so impossible to like use that it made actually play the game near impossible whereas if you pirated it and just put in your game code to activate it you had the full game and so a getting rid of really just stupid and absurd drms steam and origin are perfectly fine you don't need all this you play and games for windows live stuff which they thankfully got rid of and then be providing proper demos so we can actually test the game and figure out whether or not we like it seeing an intro cinematic that actually doesn't show any good gameplay nor let us play it is not a substitute for a demo neither is like five minutes of gameplay than a buy here screen so i wanna know what your guys's thoughts are about demos if you have any positive experiences with demos in the past what you think about them what you think should be done about them etc let me know in the comment section down below obviously this primarily applies to aaa titles not indie games but it could be applied to anything just like the way that um good tv networks like hbo and stuff are combating internet privacy is by making episodes readily available on the internet for viewers and you get like one to five for free this is amazing if i want to go watch elementary i can go to abc's website or cvs's website and look for elementary and then i can watch five episodes for free which is enough actually to let me catch up on the show without pirating it or then if i want to make sure i stay up to date i can subscribe for however much it's not that much and i have a much easier access service than piracy especially with all the pirate based stuff going down and all that craziness so apply that to video games and let me know what you think thanks for so much for watching guys thanks for your support and for your comments and for everything else i'm sorry i can't respond to comments at the moment as soon as that gets re-enabled i will be catching up and responding to everything for the past couple weeks see you later thanks for watching etc if you need to contact me in which i can reply feel free to comment on the other channels such as my tf2 channel which is also posting a lot of destiny right now so that's just what i'm going to call my solo gaming channel that's where i'm posting destiny and um i've posted some halo reach videos hopefully going to get back to tf2 videos the vlog channel of course where we post vlog videos and then the co-op gaming channel where we post guild wars 2 co-op we've been doing some pvp and some dungeons and things like that we've posted don't starve together we're going to get back into a couple other games it's going to be great so comment on those channels or just tweet or facebook me on the facebook page or twitter thanks for watching see you next time\n"