Re:Sony: The Company That Kicked the Hornet's Nest
by masklinn on Sunday May 15, 2011 @10:24AM
(#2549989)
> the overwhelming majority of AAA games have fairly predictable sales curves with a peak window measured in weeks or, in some cases, days
Yep, big games are horrendously front-loaded and with very short legs (you can see that if you follow sales threads at e.g. Neogaf).
This is why DRMs which technically "fail" (they fall in, say, 2 weeks) have performed admirably, and as asked/required: for two weeks, where 90% of the game's sales happen, pirated games were not competition.
This is why I can only shake my head in disbelief when people claim DRMs fail as a DRM finally gets cracked 1 month after a game release: as far as publishers are concerned, a DRM which lasted 4~5 weeks has performed way beyond the call of duty, and you can be sure their next game will be using the same breed of DRM.
Yep, big games are horrendously front-loaded and with very short legs (you can see that if you follow sales threads at e.g. Neogaf).
This is why DRMs which technically "fail" (they fall in, say, 2 weeks) have performed admirably, and as asked/required: for two weeks, where 90% of the game's sales happen, pirated games were not competition.
This is why I can only shake my head in disbelief when people claim DRMs fail as a DRM finally gets cracked 1 month after a game release: as far as publishers are concerned, a DRM which lasted 4~5 weeks has performed way beyond the call of duty, and you can be sure their next game will be using the same breed of DRM.