Fallout 3 pirates asking for tech support from Bethesda

http://www.gamestooge.com/2008/10/14/pirates-continue-with-support-calls/

.... WTF?!

No, really, WTF?!

* * *

I’m not exactly sure why, seemingly all of a sudden, pirating video
games is high on the list of news lately. Now Bethesda Softworks has
concerns over how to handle paying their customer support folks for
supporting pirated copies of their titles. Customers actually call up
the Bethesda support line with issues and support actually handles
their call.

Why? Because real customers would be utterly pissed if they were
deemed “a pirate,” so everyone has to be handled with care - even the
real pirates. ARG!

That’s the rub, if every pirate called up screaming “AAARG ME MATEY!”
it would be easier to handle the problem, but asking each customer to
provide evidence their holding a legal copy of the game is a sensitive
situation. Considering customers aren’t calling the support line to
socialize, they’re probably stuck and need real help.

“The amount of times we see stuff coming through where it’s like,
the resolution to the problem was [the] guy had a pirated copy of the
game…” said a visibly frustrated Hines. “The amount of money we spend
supporting people who didn’t pay us for the game in the first place…
it’s f–ing ludicrous. We talk to other developers, guys who are [like]
‘Yeah, it’s a third, it’s 50% of our [customer]
support.’” (multiplayerblog)

Seriously. This is an unfortunate problem, the fallout of piracy (pun
intended) is a downward spiral of additional overhead. If they could
limit the number of pirated copies they would limit the number of
support calls. The trick is, solving the actual problem of stealing
the loot. The current solution is stronger and ugly DRM which pisses
off customers before they get have a chance to call support.

Honestly, if I had to read my serial key or some unique ID for my game
box/manual off to a support person, I’d really not have a problem with
this. Most hardware vendors require me to give them a manufacturing
ID, vehicles have their VIN number and software requires me to give
them my registration information, what makes a game so different?

As the industry grows in scale, we’ll have to solve all these problems
with more detail. At some point, consumers are going to have to be
aware and deal with some types of registration activity equivalent to
other tech toys they may own.