Video game piracy is one of the largest problems that game developers face in the age of widespread sharing of files and cracking of code. Established and indie developers lose a lot of their revenue to cracked and torrented copies of their games. However, there is a simple way to prevent gamers from pirating games. The answer lies in online content.
Many developers create singleplayer-only games. Some of those games are Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Elder Scrolls series, and Metro: Last Light. These games and more are easy targets for "pirates", as there is no difference in the gameplay experience that you get when you pirate the game or buy it.
However, adding multiplayer and co-op content to a game limits how much gameplay the pirated copy can give the player. Multiplayer, unlike singleplayer, is known to make a game last for a long time due to the challenge, progression, ability to play with friends, and each match turning out differently.
Games are mostly pirated for singleplayer and co-op content. The co-op content is played through third party services, such as Tunngle, with a group of friends. These services, however, are unreliable when it comes to playing multiplayer content or co-op with strangers. They are unreliable because the playerbase is much smaller on these isolated services and there are more steps that need to be taken to successfully set up a multiplayer game.
Video game developers can take advantage of this pattern and add co-op and multiplayer content to games to make buying them a much more attractive option. For example, Battlefield and Call of Duty games are well known for their multiplayer content. Pirating these games puts the gamer at a disadvantage as they will not be able to fully experience the multiplayer, and therefore miss out on many hours of gameplay.
It is a simple trick, but unfortunately many developers, especially the established ones, still do not add co-op or multiplayer into their games and become the main victims of video game piracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment