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On December 01 2011 03:04 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:00 MrTortoise wrote:On December 01 2011 02:56 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:49 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:45 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:38 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:25 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:19 dementrio wrote:I have a better analogy than stealing. + Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media. You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government? That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale. A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there. Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is. No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy. Alright, now what's to prevent 1000 people from walking on to the lot and doing the same thing? The going price of the 2011 Camaro is ~$35k. That's $35,000,000 worth of car that's driving out without being paid for. Oh look, the Camaro isn't being made anymore! But why? I still want a new Camaro even if I don't pay for it! Well you see, you fucking need to pay people for a service, or they're not going to keep making products because there's no revenue in it. How many pirates do you think are out there? Lol... if I clone a Camaro that goes at $35000, that's not $35000 lost for the company, since I can't afford it anyway. Now, with cars, there's a multitue of price ranges and different types, etc. So I'm able to afford a car. True, it's not as good as the Camaro, but it works. With computer games, however, I'm stuck with paying 60 Euro for a product, that I will add, costs 30 Euro in Finland (which I only found out today, thanks to this thread) - a country in which, a person at minimum wage earns 10 times what a person in my country does. It is $35000 wasted for the company though. Why should they even bother making cars when they won't sell? Again, this doesn't work for gaming because the games don't disappear, but the point still stands. Why do you spend time and money making a game that a good chunk of the people aren't going to pay for? You'll just run yourself broke that way. Do you even read what I write? People that pirate games can't afford them, due to poor pricing in most of the cases. If pirating was impossible, they still wouldn't have bought them. You can't magically wish more money into existance. Actually, why am I wasting my time on a troll.... Dude, shut the fuck up. If you really think every pirate is just some poor kid who really likes games but can't afford them, you're deluding yourself. A lot, if not most, are people who have enough income but are too cheap or lazy to buy the game. Pirating isn't saving the starving children in Africa, it's mostly douchebags. the only douche bag here is you. If someone decides to download it instead of paying for it ... that means by defitiion they are not willing to pay for it (or its easier and the games company hasn't found the right delivery mechanism as my time is more precious than money) and so cannot afford it why not learn some logical interpretation. ps stop being a douche adn shut the fuck up. Having £40 in your account doesn't mean you can afford to spend £40 ... its not like we all have pocket money from mommy and daddy. I have a fucking job. I sit at a desk for 8 hours. I get paid, because people buy my product. If they all pirated it (yes, I work for a software company), then I'd be out of a job. See how that works? You don't NEED games. If you can't afford them, tough shit. The answer isn't "lulz just pirate it", it's actually get a better job or don't worry about superfluous shit like games.
WAAAAA i would feel sorry for you but you come over as a dick who needs to get a new job. Yes i do see how that works .. do you understand marketing and market segmentation? I think your just an angry mofo that likes beating up on people.
I am a developer also btw so pls put away the violin. If your 8 hours of work are so much hard work find a job you enjoy and stop using it as some wierd cathartic whinging. I worked 10 hours today tryign to merge some code accross 2 projects, tedious as fook but im not complaining because i have a decent job - and i do that much time everyday.
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Piracy is more of an individual issue. Many of these supposed illegal downloads were made by low budget gamers who never would have been able to buy the $60 dollar titles. For me, it is often hard to find big titles in stores directly after release. Not only that but being a student i rarely have $60 to throw down at release time for a game that i genuinely want to play and pay for. I downloaded Skyrim, and only just bought it yesterday, more than two weeks after. Although i only pay for maybe 1/10th of the games i have illegally downloaded, most of them end up being utter shit that the developer should not be rewarded for. Any want to give me their outrage about how much "Big Rigs" was pirated?
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On December 01 2011 03:07 Thorakh wrote:Show nested quote + Games don't just fucking show up out of nowhere for no cost. It is wrong to take them without paying. If you can't afford them, don't play games. It's not a necessity in life, you can get by without games, bought or pirated.
I'm poor. I can't afford any games. I pirate them. Developer lost nothing. I gained. The world just gained happiness without losing any. Something is only wrong when someone else gets hurt. A victimless crime cannot be wrong. note: I don't actually do this as I am able to buy games If you're poor, you don't need to be spending your time playing games. That's cold and mean, but it's the truth. If you are destitute and you spend 20+ hours a week playing pirated games instead of trying to make more out of your life, then it's wasted.
That sounds harsh, but yeah.
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On December 01 2011 03:06 Liquid`Drone wrote: some piracy is defensible. some is not. if you are a working 25+ year old living in a western country, pirating is pretty.. petty. games give an immense amount of entertainment per buck spent compared virtually every other activity we can engage in - for example I've played 85 hours of skyrim already, a game which I paid $60 or so for. but if you're younger than 18, you prolly couldn't afford the game anyway if you didn't pirate it, so just do it - nobody loses anything from your piracy, if anything a good game will get slightly more publicity and thus a miniscule increase in sales numbers.
as for the example from OP; the 4.5 million number is obviously inflated and I'd be surprised if the amount of actual sales lost due to piracy were higher than 500000 (still a high number.) but as for the witcher 2, they've sold more than a million copies - 250k online and at least 750k box packages. now, even with a huge development team, and even with using a small figure like say, $30 as an average cost per game (it's obviously higher), then they've certainly made a lot of money, because I can't imagine production costs exceeding 30 million dollars.. if anything, piracy is a problem for smaller indie games.
Optimus' CEO stated that CDPR hit 100% ROI at something like 600k copies (I don't remember the exact number). Anything beyond that is profit. Keep in mind that any digital copy bought via GOG.com was supporting the developer and the developer only (you'd be surprised how big of a percent distributors snatch, steam included). If anything, the fact the game sold over 1 million copies at this stage just proves how good service goes a long way. CDPR's take on piracy is commendable and I can only hope GOG.com will become a big player in digital distribution over the next couple of years.
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On December 01 2011 03:01 Myles wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:00 MrTortoise wrote:On December 01 2011 02:56 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:49 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:45 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:38 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:25 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:19 dementrio wrote:I have a better analogy than stealing. + Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media. You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government? That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale. A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there. Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is. No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy. Alright, now what's to prevent 1000 people from walking on to the lot and doing the same thing? The going price of the 2011 Camaro is ~$35k. That's $35,000,000 worth of car that's driving out without being paid for. Oh look, the Camaro isn't being made anymore! But why? I still want a new Camaro even if I don't pay for it! Well you see, you fucking need to pay people for a service, or they're not going to keep making products because there's no revenue in it. How many pirates do you think are out there? Lol... if I clone a Camaro that goes at $35000, that's not $35000 lost for the company, since I can't afford it anyway. Now, with cars, there's a multitue of price ranges and different types, etc. So I'm able to afford a car. True, it's not as good as the Camaro, but it works. With computer games, however, I'm stuck with paying 60 Euro for a product, that I will add, costs 30 Euro in Finland (which I only found out today, thanks to this thread) - a country in which, a person at minimum wage earns 10 times what a person in my country does. It is $35000 wasted for the company though. Why should they even bother making cars when they won't sell? Again, this doesn't work for gaming because the games don't disappear, but the point still stands. Why do you spend time and money making a game that a good chunk of the people aren't going to pay for? You'll just run yourself broke that way. Do you even read what I write? People that pirate games can't afford them, due to poor pricing in most of the cases. If pirating was impossible, they still wouldn't have bought them. You can't magically wish more money into existance. Actually, why am I wasting my time on a troll.... Dude, shut the fuck up. If you really think every pirate is just some poor kid who really likes games but can't afford them, you're deluding yourself. A lot, if not most, are people who have enough income but are too cheap or lazy to buy the game. Pirating isn't saving the starving children in Africa, it's mostly douchebags. the only douche bag here is you. If someone decides to download it instead of paying for it ... that means by defitiion they are not willing to pay for it (or its easier and the games company hasn't found the right delivery mechanism as my time is more precious than money) and so cannot afford it. why not learn some logical interpretation. ps stop being a douche adn shut the fuck up. Having £40 in your account doesn't mean you can afford to spend £40 ... its not liek we all have pocket money from mommy and daddy. You tell him to use logic when you assume that because someone is not willing to buy something, but are willing to use it for free, that they automatically can't afford it. That's horrible logic.
Yes, if someone is not willing to pay THAT price for something ... they cannot afford it ... being able to afford something is (as i said) not related to how muich you have in the bank.
Eg I want to goto oslo for instance ... I have a few grand but tickets are 700 ... i decide not to go because that is more than i expected and i cant afford a flight that is that expensive. The amount i own is irrelevant if i decide that the price is not right - i ahve decided that i cannot afford it.
You say logic, what you ahve failed to do is understand that words can be used in many many ways and instead focussed on one way so missed the point.
Wow I didnt check where you are from but if its an english speaking country you really suck. If not then i fully appreciate the ambiguity, i was just making a point against an angry mofo.
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Germany2426 Posts
Even though I have a Steam account with games worth between 400-500€, I have pirated some games, because I didn't know how much it was worth. Honestly, I pirated SC2. My friend got it and recommended it, but I didn't know if it was good (I didn't have any RTS background, except for AoE2 at a young age). After I played the first few Missions I bought it immediately, I don't know if I had ever bought it if I didn't had this opportunity (The Starter Pack wasn't out yet, this was 3 months after release). I am a student with no great source of income, apart of indie games, I buy maybe 5-6 a year. I am not defending piracy, I'm only saying that 5 Million copies pirated, doesn't mean 5 Million costumers where lost.
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On December 01 2011 03:10 MrTortoise wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:04 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:00 MrTortoise wrote:On December 01 2011 02:56 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:49 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:45 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:38 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:25 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote: [quote] That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale.
A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there.
Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is. No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy. Alright, now what's to prevent 1000 people from walking on to the lot and doing the same thing? The going price of the 2011 Camaro is ~$35k. That's $35,000,000 worth of car that's driving out without being paid for. Oh look, the Camaro isn't being made anymore! But why? I still want a new Camaro even if I don't pay for it! Well you see, you fucking need to pay people for a service, or they're not going to keep making products because there's no revenue in it. How many pirates do you think are out there? Lol... if I clone a Camaro that goes at $35000, that's not $35000 lost for the company, since I can't afford it anyway. Now, with cars, there's a multitue of price ranges and different types, etc. So I'm able to afford a car. True, it's not as good as the Camaro, but it works. With computer games, however, I'm stuck with paying 60 Euro for a product, that I will add, costs 30 Euro in Finland (which I only found out today, thanks to this thread) - a country in which, a person at minimum wage earns 10 times what a person in my country does. It is $35000 wasted for the company though. Why should they even bother making cars when they won't sell? Again, this doesn't work for gaming because the games don't disappear, but the point still stands. Why do you spend time and money making a game that a good chunk of the people aren't going to pay for? You'll just run yourself broke that way. Do you even read what I write? People that pirate games can't afford them, due to poor pricing in most of the cases. If pirating was impossible, they still wouldn't have bought them. You can't magically wish more money into existance. Actually, why am I wasting my time on a troll.... Dude, shut the fuck up. If you really think every pirate is just some poor kid who really likes games but can't afford them, you're deluding yourself. A lot, if not most, are people who have enough income but are too cheap or lazy to buy the game. Pirating isn't saving the starving children in Africa, it's mostly douchebags. the only douche bag here is you. If someone decides to download it instead of paying for it ... that means by defitiion they are not willing to pay for it (or its easier and the games company hasn't found the right delivery mechanism as my time is more precious than money) and so cannot afford it why not learn some logical interpretation. ps stop being a douche adn shut the fuck up. Having £40 in your account doesn't mean you can afford to spend £40 ... its not like we all have pocket money from mommy and daddy. I have a fucking job. I sit at a desk for 8 hours. I get paid, because people buy my product. If they all pirated it (yes, I work for a software company), then I'd be out of a job. See how that works? You don't NEED games. If you can't afford them, tough shit. The answer isn't "lulz just pirate it", it's actually get a better job or don't worry about superfluous shit like games. WAAAAA i would feel sorry for you but you come over as a dick who needs to get a new job. Yes i do see how that works .. do you understand marketing and market segmentation? I think your just an angry mofo that likes beating up on people. I am a developer also btw so pls put away the violin. If your 8 hours of work are so much hard work find a job you enjoy and stop using it as some wierd cathartic whinging. I worked 10 hours today tryign to merge some code accross 2 projects, tedious as fook but im not complaining because i have a decent job - and i do that much time everyday. It's not hard. I like my job. And, it gives me enough money to live comfortably and buy games. You're the only one attacking the person and not the problem. I was responding to: "its not like we all have pocket money from mommy and daddy".
The point is, you should play games if you can afford them. I'm sorry if you can't, but that doesn't rationalize pirating them. Games are not necessary for your life to go on. Do something else with your time instead of stealing.
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On November 30 2011 22:24 SonicTitan wrote: Minecraft has been downloaded illegally over twelve million times. The creator wants less DRM, not more. There are lessons to be learned here. this this this 1k times Your not going to download a game cuz you are "bad" your going to download it cuz you are poor, if a game is worth buying and you have the money + its a developer that is worth supporting ( not one that launches 1k $ worth DLC's...etc ) then 99% of the ppl will just buy it. I can bet you anything that white ra started playing bw 13 years ago on a pirate version and then only got the original when he realized he liked it, not every country has an avg income of 5k per person and free time to protest about the rich ppl not giving them money and thus some countries ( mine would be a good example ) need piracy not be ripped off. Want to know games that were highly rated by all the "honest" reviewers and sold for a decent ( quite high but affordable ) price that i and many other ppl would have buyed ? EE 3, Dragon age 2 , C&C 4 ring a bell ? Games with high pirces that were released relatively recently and were a complete scam with a almost non improved engine and dumbed down gameplay that were quite honestly not worth getting half way trough yet CC 3 EE1 ( and 2 at some extent ) and DAO DAA were fucking great games and most ppl would buy ( and many buyed ) them blindly. When developers actually decide to NEVER release a shitty game ever ( or in the case they do patch it swiftly, for free and apologies to the community ) and to break from the corporations they are now being "owned" by ( aka EA Activision ) then i would see no excuse for pirating. Pirating a good game from X developer is bad ... i agree Pirating a game that could be good or could be bad ( but your not allowed to release a negative review so... yeah ) from EA.... that does not seem so evil at all, it seems rather rational to some which do not have enough money to say 50-150$ is something they can lose and be fine with it. Good games are gonna suffer but in the end good games can get most of the money they deserve and out of the pirate that pirated TW2 i can grant you that 90% ethe buyed the game or wouldn't have buyed it any way and out of the ppl that pirate some of the games like the one listed above they never touched them again and the developers didn't got the money... and rightfully so.
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United States7488 Posts
Let's tone it down on the name calling/arguing/etc
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United States5162 Posts
On December 01 2011 03:12 MrTortoise wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:01 Myles wrote:On December 01 2011 03:00 MrTortoise wrote:On December 01 2011 02:56 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:49 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:45 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:38 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:25 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote: [quote] That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale.
A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there.
Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is. No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy. Alright, now what's to prevent 1000 people from walking on to the lot and doing the same thing? The going price of the 2011 Camaro is ~$35k. That's $35,000,000 worth of car that's driving out without being paid for. Oh look, the Camaro isn't being made anymore! But why? I still want a new Camaro even if I don't pay for it! Well you see, you fucking need to pay people for a service, or they're not going to keep making products because there's no revenue in it. How many pirates do you think are out there? Lol... if I clone a Camaro that goes at $35000, that's not $35000 lost for the company, since I can't afford it anyway. Now, with cars, there's a multitue of price ranges and different types, etc. So I'm able to afford a car. True, it's not as good as the Camaro, but it works. With computer games, however, I'm stuck with paying 60 Euro for a product, that I will add, costs 30 Euro in Finland (which I only found out today, thanks to this thread) - a country in which, a person at minimum wage earns 10 times what a person in my country does. It is $35000 wasted for the company though. Why should they even bother making cars when they won't sell? Again, this doesn't work for gaming because the games don't disappear, but the point still stands. Why do you spend time and money making a game that a good chunk of the people aren't going to pay for? You'll just run yourself broke that way. Do you even read what I write? People that pirate games can't afford them, due to poor pricing in most of the cases. If pirating was impossible, they still wouldn't have bought them. You can't magically wish more money into existance. Actually, why am I wasting my time on a troll.... Dude, shut the fuck up. If you really think every pirate is just some poor kid who really likes games but can't afford them, you're deluding yourself. A lot, if not most, are people who have enough income but are too cheap or lazy to buy the game. Pirating isn't saving the starving children in Africa, it's mostly douchebags. the only douche bag here is you. If someone decides to download it instead of paying for it ... that means by defitiion they are not willing to pay for it (or its easier and the games company hasn't found the right delivery mechanism as my time is more precious than money) and so cannot afford it. why not learn some logical interpretation. ps stop being a douche adn shut the fuck up. Having £40 in your account doesn't mean you can afford to spend £40 ... its not liek we all have pocket money from mommy and daddy. You tell him to use logic when you assume that because someone is not willing to buy something, but are willing to use it for free, that they automatically can't afford it. That's horrible logic. Yes, if someone is not willing to pay for something ... they cannot afford it ... being able to afford something is (as i said) not related to how muich you have in the bank. Eg I want to goto oslo for instance ... I have a few grand but tickets are 700 ... i decide not to go because that is more than i expected and i cant afford a flight that is that expensive. The amount i own is irrelevant if i decide that the price is not right - i ahve decided that i cannot afford it. No, just being unwilling to pay for something doesn't mean you can't afford it. Being able to afford something and being willing to purchase it are two different things. And given the situation you described, you could afford that plane tickets, you decided that they weren't worth it. Now if you had $3,000 in the bank, but owed $2,500 to someone, and tickets cost $700, then you can't afford it.
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Norway28642 Posts
On December 01 2011 03:09 Myles wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:06 Sm3agol wrote:On December 01 2011 02:53 Myles wrote:On December 01 2011 02:49 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:45 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:38 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:25 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:19 dementrio wrote:I have a better analogy than stealing. + Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media. You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government? That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale. A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there. Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is. No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy. Alright, now what's to prevent 1000 people from walking on to the lot and doing the same thing? The going price of the 2011 Camaro is ~$35k. That's $35,000,000 worth of car that's driving out without being paid for. Oh look, the Camaro isn't being made anymore! But why? I still want a new Camaro even if I don't pay for it! Well you see, you fucking need to pay people for a service, or they're not going to keep making products because there's no revenue in it. How many pirates do you think are out there? Lol... if I clone a Camaro that goes at $35000, that's not $35000 lost for the company, since I can't afford it anyway. Now, with cars, there's a multitue of price ranges and different types, etc. So I'm able to afford a car. True, it's not as good as the Camaro, but it works. With computer games, however, I'm stuck with paying 60 Euro for a product, that I will add, costs 30 Euro in Finland (which I only found out today, thanks to this thread) - a country in which, a person at minimum wage earns 10 times what a person in my country does. It is $35000 wasted for the company though. Why should they even bother making cars when they won't sell? Again, this doesn't work for gaming because the games don't disappear, but the point still stands. Why do you spend time and money making a game that a good chunk of the people aren't going to pay for? You'll just run yourself broke that way. Do you even read what I write? People that pirate games can't afford them, due to poor pricing in most of the cases. If pirating was impossible, they still wouldn't have bought them. You can't magically wish more money into existance. Stop throwing out absolutes. Yes, some people who pirate stuff wouldn't be able to buy if they wanted to. There are others though who simply don't want to pay. As well as people who want a good demo, or are 'making a statement'. So again, stop posting absolutes as to why pirating happens - there are a variety of reasons. I would say the majority of people who download games illegally either 1. Can't afford them, or 2. Wouldn't buy them in the first place. I have friends with hundreds of GB of illegal games on their hard drives that they just download compulsively, because they can, same with music/movies. They never watch the movies, listen to the music, or play the games most of the time. Pirating games and getting them to work properly can be a pain in the butt if you actually spend a lot of time with the game(and depending on the game). Obviously this is just my experience, but people seeing "millions of illegal downloads" and them thinking that is millions in lost sales are delusional. And stupid, considering that an illegal download from someone that would never be able to buy it/just won't buy it in the first place doesn't affect them in the slightest other than free publicity. I don't disagree. A friend of mine has hundreds of gigs of songs on his computer. He could have never afforded to buy all of it. However, the problem is that you aren't paying for any of it. Normally, you might consume 1/5 of what you pirate(pulled out of my ass, don't take seriously) so you'd be contributing to some people. By pirating it all you're contributing to no one.
hasn't there been some research showing that people who pirate music also purchase more music though?
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Most piracy stats are bogus at best because of how they're collected and used, secondly any DRM hurts paying customers more than it ever hurts pirates. Implementing more DRM just pleases shareholders who think their investements are being protected when they really arent, the best course of action is to simply make the best game possible, market it well and hope for the best. Piracy isnt really worth attacking right now and it seems evident DRM doesnt matter much.
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On December 01 2011 03:10 InterestingName wrote: Piracy is more of an individual issue. Many of these supposed illegal downloads were made by low budget gamers who never would have been able to buy the $60 dollar titles. For me, it is often hard to find big titles in stores directly after release. Not only that but being a student i rarely have $60 to throw down at release time for a game that i genuinely want to play and pay for. I downloaded Skyrim, and only just bought it yesterday, more than two weeks after. Although i only pay for maybe 1/10th of the games i have illegally downloaded, most of them end up being utter shit that the developer should not be rewarded for. Any want to give me their outrage about how much "Big Rigs" was pirated? The idea of a "low-budget gamer" seems to be the problem here. If something is outside your budget, it shouldn't be your hobby. I want to have my own helicopter as a hobby. I can't afford one. I don't steal one. Simple.
"I want this, so I'll steal it since I can't afford it" isn't justification. It's childish behavior.
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United States5162 Posts
On December 01 2011 03:21 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:09 Myles wrote:On December 01 2011 03:06 Sm3agol wrote:On December 01 2011 02:53 Myles wrote:On December 01 2011 02:49 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:45 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:38 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:33 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 02:25 Nikon wrote:On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote: [quote] That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale.
A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there.
Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is. No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy. Alright, now what's to prevent 1000 people from walking on to the lot and doing the same thing? The going price of the 2011 Camaro is ~$35k. That's $35,000,000 worth of car that's driving out without being paid for. Oh look, the Camaro isn't being made anymore! But why? I still want a new Camaro even if I don't pay for it! Well you see, you fucking need to pay people for a service, or they're not going to keep making products because there's no revenue in it. How many pirates do you think are out there? Lol... if I clone a Camaro that goes at $35000, that's not $35000 lost for the company, since I can't afford it anyway. Now, with cars, there's a multitue of price ranges and different types, etc. So I'm able to afford a car. True, it's not as good as the Camaro, but it works. With computer games, however, I'm stuck with paying 60 Euro for a product, that I will add, costs 30 Euro in Finland (which I only found out today, thanks to this thread) - a country in which, a person at minimum wage earns 10 times what a person in my country does. It is $35000 wasted for the company though. Why should they even bother making cars when they won't sell? Again, this doesn't work for gaming because the games don't disappear, but the point still stands. Why do you spend time and money making a game that a good chunk of the people aren't going to pay for? You'll just run yourself broke that way. Do you even read what I write? People that pirate games can't afford them, due to poor pricing in most of the cases. If pirating was impossible, they still wouldn't have bought them. You can't magically wish more money into existance. Stop throwing out absolutes. Yes, some people who pirate stuff wouldn't be able to buy if they wanted to. There are others though who simply don't want to pay. As well as people who want a good demo, or are 'making a statement'. So again, stop posting absolutes as to why pirating happens - there are a variety of reasons. I would say the majority of people who download games illegally either 1. Can't afford them, or 2. Wouldn't buy them in the first place. I have friends with hundreds of GB of illegal games on their hard drives that they just download compulsively, because they can, same with music/movies. They never watch the movies, listen to the music, or play the games most of the time. Pirating games and getting them to work properly can be a pain in the butt if you actually spend a lot of time with the game(and depending on the game). Obviously this is just my experience, but people seeing "millions of illegal downloads" and them thinking that is millions in lost sales are delusional. And stupid, considering that an illegal download from someone that would never be able to buy it/just won't buy it in the first place doesn't affect them in the slightest other than free publicity. I don't disagree. A friend of mine has hundreds of gigs of songs on his computer. He could have never afforded to buy all of it. However, the problem is that you aren't paying for any of it. Normally, you might consume 1/5 of what you pirate(pulled out of my ass, don't take seriously) so you'd be contributing to some people. By pirating it all you're contributing to no one. hasn't there been some research showing that people who pirate music also purchase more music though? I haven't seen that research, but I know my friend hasn't bought a CD in at least 8-10 years.
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I mean I can see this being good with pirated multiplayer games, but they really don't get succesffully pirated that often, since you need to be connected to some master server in order to play it successfully. Most of the games that are pirated are those single player ones, where I can't see any sort of player vs player griefing to work.
Really great idea though, I'd join in. And as Gabe Newell said, if you make the game easily available, then people will be less inclined to pirate it, or something like that.
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Wasn't there a study recently that showed people who pirate games were considerably more likely to buy said games than people who didn't?
Piracy is not the problem. 1 illegal download does not equal 1 unsold copy.
The problems are cost (during hard economic times) and lack of GOOD demos until well after release. I've downloaded a couple of games which I played a little of and didn't like. Yet someone will add those games to statistics and cry foul, saying those downloads mean 1 more unsold game.
Incidentally I've also downloaded portal 2 and amnesia: the dark descent (thanks day9!), loved them and bought them to support their developers.
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On December 01 2011 02:57 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:49 Mammel wrote: In the last ~5 years I've bought SC2, WoW TBC and WotLK, and... Thats it? Played most of the games. Most of the were trash.
What I probably would've paid for if they wouldn't be insanely overpriced for a student are TW1 and 2, DA:O, skyrim, maybe Risen, Medieval 2, Heroes 5 was decent, dunno about that... There are probably ~5 single player games other than those that I've played for more than 5 hours and roughly 50 games that were so bad that I couldn't even finish them.
With 1:10 of the games not sucking ass, how can anyone whine about piracy? I don't care If I'm a billionaire, I refuse to pay for trash games, DLC, preorder crap etc. And you think that good games are going to get made if there's no money in it? Games are crap because developers are working off a budget. That budget is small because people like you aren't paying and giving them money to make good games. You want the game industry to grow? Support it with your wallet.
Just wrong...
Most of the bad games ARE the ones with the biggest budgets. A lot of Indie games are much "better" games than the ones that take an absolute shit load of money to fund as well as leaving another 300+ million for advertising.
I pirate games although I'd barely call it that any more. Most recent games in my opinion are just bad and not worth my money. I pirated Skyrim because how else am I supposed to know this game is insanely shallow with a slew of "OMG GREAT GAME 90+!" "reviews"? Am I supposed to give them my money so I can take a wildshot and see if I enjoy the game or not? If I do, cool. If I don't then I might have a bitch of a time trying to return or sell a PC game.
There are very few developers that I have faith in...well, not even that. Any developer can make a shit game or completely ruin a series for me like Bioware. I don't know how old you are or if you want to call me a nostalgia faggot but I honestly think that most modern games just don't have that much creativity to them or a really good foundation of actual gameplay and game mechanics.
Besides, pirating is easy. You can talk about all the arguments for and against but the truest one is, you're getting something for free. Doesn't matter what it is, getting something for free is always good. Only game I've pirated in months was Baldur's Gate 1 + 2 thanks to how shallow Skyrim is.
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Piracy is a difficult topic. I dont think there is any way to stop it completely. I think the problem is 60$/€ is a pretty big investment for teens 13-18 (which should be the biggest part of the gaming community). You invest 60$/€ in something you don´t even know if its worth it? I think one way to decrease piracy could be putting out the full game to everyone for free for lets say 3 days. So you can test it see how it is and than decide if you really want it. I think a lot more games would be sold because in those 3 Days they get interested and want to see how the game goes on. But realizing such a system would probably be pretty tough. But who knows, maybe someday...
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On December 01 2011 03:21 Liquid`Drone wrote: hasn't there been some research showing that people who pirate music also purchase more music though?
Some, maybe 50% of people.
I've pirated some songs, usually when I hear a song on the radio I like I'll usually just download it. Then, when I hear it on my iPod, I'll consider looking out for newer songs or other good songs by the artist - which I usually buy. (Lady Gaga is a good example, downloaded Bad Romance because it was catchy, now I own all her albums).
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