Pirated Amnesia

[Googolplex]

I read this article from Frictional Games:



"Our conclusion is that a large part of this is due to the lack of pirating in Minecraft compared to us. As I mentioned above, Minecraft has 10x the sales, but only 2x the torrent distributors. A Google search on the subject also turns up twice the hits for Amnesia. It seems like more people are pirating Amnesia and we think there are two main reasons for this. Both of them are related to the single-player nature of the experience.

First of all, once you have played Amnesia there is little meaning to play again. A person pirating the game and finishing it has no real reason to go back. So even if a player likes it and determines that it is well worth paying for, there is no incentive to do so. It is quite common to read on forums that people have downloaded a pirated version and say that they will probably buy it later. The question here is how many actually does this? Even if you really liked the game and want to support the developers, it basically feels like money down the drain since you get nothing extra after paying. This is not the case for a game like Minecraft where more content is released all the time and the game is designed to be highly replayable (and darn it for that, damn time consumer!)."



I think, Amnesia has so much torrents, because there are no retail versions released to buy in regular shops.
The copy protection system is easy to outwit but that is not the reason.
The reason is, that there are not enough people, who knews this game. Only fans of Penumbra and a bit others.
Ask for "Need For Speed", "Call Of Duty", "Fallout" or "Battlefield". Everyone knews that but no one knews Amnesia.
Here Amnesia is a very great game, better as all this others. But if you are growing up with this other games, then you prefer this only.

Amnesia is unique and the world should be playing more like this sort of game. Actually I did not knew any other game that is like Amnesia.
Amnesia has no name in marketing but if it is talking about how fantastic the game is, then it could be able to get a name and people wanted to buy it all (and it costs only little price).

But there is no Amnesia in our shop's shelf.
You are not able to find Amnesia there. Only in the internet as a download version with credit card. There are only a little group of people that buying with credit card.


Find a publisher and distribute it in all the world's shops like Electronic Arts.
Then you should make a short TV-Spot of the game. Then the people will hear the name "Amnesia" and they buy it for little money if they see how good the game is.

[jaivyn]

I bought Amnesia on steam without a creditcard.
And there are, in fact retail versions of Amnesia. It just has a horrid cover.

I think the amount of youtube vids are great for the game actually, and I believed they said the game sold over their expectations. More marketing could help to reach others yeah but a tv commercial running at a time when many people watch is extremely expensive, plus where I live there's hardly any commercial for a game. The only ones I've ever seen were Halo, Warcraft and general ones for Xbox and PS3.

[Googolplex]

Steam is not that, what people really want.
And the pirating has started before a retail release was coming out.
And there is not really a retail release. I can not find any and I can not buy any.
In my country and in the rest of europe is no retail release and I'm not able to buy in dollars or for an english version.

Games from other publishers are avaiable at first release day in shop's shelfes.

This game has been developed in my street from a small group of developers and it was released in all the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IFsIXGi9...C6335359EA

[jaivyn]

Games from other publishers are avaiable at first release day in shop's shelfes.

That is because Amnesia DIDN'T HAVE a publisher. Many indie games are only available for downloads. Machinarium is an indiegame that I have NEVER seen in retail (apparantly, it has been released in retail though), but I could buy it through Steam. Steam looks like it will be the future anyway.

Risen was made by the makers of Gothic and was supported by JoWood, and now by Deep Silver which are both large publishers. Deep Silver is a huge company and JoWood sells lots of rpgs, so that's not really a good comparison.

There is a retail release. q.q


Also, tv commercials will not work.
I think that the game also hasn't sold much because it is a niche. I know many people who are interested, but aren't willing to buy it cause they're easily scared.

[texter]

Steam is not that, what people really want.

I second that.

Actually, game studios can easily rise their sales, you simply need MORE payment options. It's so simple, it baffles me why so many companies making software products are so rigid in their sales tactics, their options being limited by PayPal and credit cards.

Look, for example, at Renoise music software. It's a very indie thing, and it's extremely pirate-vulnerable. But they have a very strong (and steadily growing) fan base. Guess what, those people purchase licenses several times over, just to support their favorite tool! On their web shop you can find every possible payment option, for people in any country to be able to purchase their stuff without difficulties.

Most game purchases, AFAIK, are done via PayPal or credit card. But you know what? In Eastern Europe, for instance, it's a rather exotic payment method, more suitable for people knee deep in business and cash, not your average gamer dude. The average gamer dude uses systems like WebMoney, YandexMoney etc.

So, I'd suggest, if you want to REALLY counter piracy, learn the payment preferences in countries you want to sell in, and incorporate those payment options in your web shop. It works.

[hollowleviathan]

You can currently buy Amnesia via steam, NA retail, Russian retail, from their website via paypal, credit card, or cell phone charge.

[Shev]

"[i]Our conclusion is that a large part of this is due to the lack of pirating in Minecraft compared to us. As I mentioned above, Minecraft has 10x the sales, but only 2x the torrent distributors. A Google search on the subject also turns up twice the hits for Amnesia. It seems like more people are pirating Amnesia and we think there are two main reasons for this. Both of them are related to the single-player nature of the experience.

Minecraft doesn't need to be torrented, theres minecraftSP which is basically a slightly modified viewer of minecraft in which it doesn't check if you actually bought the game. So you just go to mediafire or somewhere and download the exe. This is most likely how most people steal it.

[nielsthomas1]

Considering the fact that Amnesia has sold a LOT more then Frictional anticipated. I think those few pirates don't really matter. Piracy will forever exist and there is nothing you can do about it.
It's just about hoping that the pirates think the game is good enough to buy.

And yeah, Minecraft gets constant updates (though not as much as it used to )
Amnesia is a Singleplayer game that someone plays through once, and then hopes to forget the experience so you can play through it again and get scared as you don't remember what happened.

My rule for pirating is simple. If it's an indie developer then you just don't do it.
If it's EA/Activision then be my guest. Until they start reducing the overpriced games/DLC

[Gameoids]

Could you not take some form of legal action against the torrent websites, in some form or another? (Or at least threaten to do so in the future?..)

[hollowleviathan]

Torrent sites generally don't host the actual pirated content (just the .torrent file to share it), and going after gamers torrenting the games is considered very bad PR. Maybe if the law for piracy was commensurate with petty theft, but that's another topic.