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Norway28648 Posts
On December 01 2011 03:50 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:40 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:22 HereAndNow wrote: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. it's actually more like, "I have all the parts needed to build a helicopter in my back yard. but I don't know how to go about it. hm, here's what i'll do, I'll download some instructions on how to manifacture a helicopter so I can build it myself, rather than having to pay an inflated price for something that I already have all the necessary components to enjoy". many gamers are younger than 18, living with their parents, and thus not responsible for their own economic status. in norway, a 16 year old is discouraged from working. (apart from summer jobs.) further, many gamers live in development countries, where computer games happen to be one of the very few things not price-adjusted for the regular wage in said country. if every single pirate was a 20+ year old living in a western country and capable but too lazy to get a job, then absolutely, your blanket statements might have a semblance of truth to them, but when you look at your statements from like, a "reality" perspective, then they end up just being.. bitter and resentful. That's not even close, though. You don't have the parts for the game, you don't have a framework. You get all the software when you buy/pirate it. If anything, you have a helipad but no helicopter. The point is, getting a hobby illegally because you can't buy it legally is not a justifiable by any means. It's superfluous to your life, unnecessary, and only there for enjoyment. You won't die if you don't get a game, it's not like you're stealing food to stay alive another day. You're stealing entertainment because you can't afford it/don't want to buy it. You would survive just fine without games. my helicopter example is less stupid than your helicopter example, and more in line with what piracy is than what your methaphor seems to indicate that you think it is. Neither is perfect, but then again there is no corollary to piracy other than, like, music or movie piracy. You never argued the actual point, though. A hobby you can't afford is one you shouldn't have. As a kid, my parents were middle class. I wanted to play Warhammer 40k so badly, but I could never afford a full army and all the necessary books. So I chose a different hobby. It's a selfish, childish act to pick a hobby and ignore the fact that it's outside of your realm of cost, and just illegally acquire it instead.
I don't agree with that point at all. I think if you weren't capable of paying for warhammer 40k and this stopped you from enjoying warhammer 40k, then your life became worse as a consequence of it. if there had been a way for you to aquire the items necessary to play it without anyone losing out on sales or items of their own, then your life would have been more enjoyable. a net gain for yourself, a net 0 for everyone else, thus a net gain for society.
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On December 01 2011 04:02 dementrio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:54 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:50 dementrio wrote:On December 01 2011 03:46 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:43 dementrio wrote:
Remember,
If you cook a pancake for yourself, you are stealing from the coffee house round the corner. They put effort into developing pancakes, but thanks to your theft, they are not getting any money for it. It's not even like you need pancakes. You should not steal something that was not meant to be free, there's no way to go about it. You still paid for the mix and/or ingredients. The coffee shop around the corner may go out of business if everyone cooks their own pancakes, but the stores that you buy ingredients from are profiting and flourishing. Who profits when you pirate? Just yourself. It's a selfish act that doesn't help anyone in the long run and hurts others in the process. The companies making hardware profit. If instead of a regular pancake we talk about a superspecial pan-aux-caque you have the EXACT SAME THING that is the video game industry, and everything based on intellectual property, copyright and patents. Spoiler alert: it seems ridiculous with a pancake, because it is ridiculous. The hardware industry has nothing to do with it. That's like saying "I know I stole a car, but the lockpick and tool industry made a profit because I needed to buy things to steal it with". You already have a PC. If you didn't, you wouldn't think about pirating in the first place. The developer has already made a game. When you buy a game, you profit enjoyment, the company profits money. When you pirate, you profit enjoyment, the company gets nothing at all. And it's not the same. If you went out and made your own game instead of buying theirs, then it would be the same thing, but you're not doing that. I already have flour and eggs. If i didnt, I wouldn't think about making pancakes. And it is the same thing. If I went out and made my own pancake recipe, then it would not. But I am shamelessly stealing their recipe. It is theft. They are losing money because I am stealing their idea. It is morally wrong, and moreover, I have a job and could afford tons of pancakes. I just enjoy to sabotage the very fabric of our society.
You're being obtuse. You do not have all the parts for a game. You have the hardware to run it on. There is a distinct difference, and if you don't know that, you're completely uneducated when it comes to technology.
Making your own pancake is the analogy for making your own game. Let's say SC2 just came out. You don't want to buy it. So you sit in front of your computer, and you make a RTS with three races that plays similarly to SC2. That's not piracy. Pirating SC2 is piracy. The former means nothing to Blizzard unless you infringe copyright by naming everything the same. The latter is punishable.
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On December 01 2011 03:56 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:44 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
man, the comparison with "stealing physical items" is just.. stupid. if you steal a physical item from a store, or from a person, it means that the store lost an item which it thus couldn't sell and which it thus couldn't gain a profit from, or it means that a person lost an item which he paid money for (and thus would have to spend money on again to continue having).
in the event of piracy, there's no physical item disappearing, but rather, you create a new item without having paid for it. theft of physical item = someone lost something, always. but piracy only results in a loss of profit in the event that the person who pirated would have bought the item if piracy was not an option. The problem is that despite being "copied" it still follows the concept of supply and value. Making essentially infinite copies of something makes it valueless. Piracy destroys incentive to create what we perceive as valued games. 1: perhaps music and games have been overpriced. especially now that distribution can be done virtually for free, there's no reason why one single cd should cost $30. 2: the music, movie and games industries are not on the verge of breaking down. the game industry has continuously been growing for the past 20 years, and will continue to do so. this indicates that people do value the products they make, even if they exist in numberless amounts. 3: as shown by a recent post, at least with music and anime, people who pirate also purchase more. from my point of view, piracy is something that 1: acts as a way of balancing the market. if a sufficient amount of people pirate, it means a sufficient amount of people consider a product overpriced or a service bad/inefficient, and 2: allows more people to benefit from cultural products that enlighten us as humans and improve our lives (this is one of the best, if not the absolute best, aspect of globalization, and 3: allows some cheap bastards to not pay for products they could and should pay for. with the introduction of spotify, with the introduction of services like steam, with the introduction of services like hulu, it shows that my point in #1 is absolutely correct and something the industry has already taken into account; the old method of cultural distribution was archaic, inefficient, and expensive. but spotify, steam and hulu would not have been created if there wasn't an economic incentive to create them - piracy is the primary reason why digital distribution is becoming more and more competitive relating to physical stores selling physical objects.
You aren't paying for a disc, you're paying for the experience on that disc and the extensive manpower/thought that went into it's creation. $30-$50 for hours upon hours of entertainment is not an expensive hobby. The issue is that people who wouldn't normally be able to afford now have the alternative of reaping the benefits without shelling out a single cent. Feeling entitled to make things fit one's price range at the expense of others is ethically wrong.
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Numbers of times pirated means literally nothing. Assuming people pirating would normally buy it is straight up wrong, and assuming pirates won't buy it later is wrong as well.
Plus, majority of pirates probably pirate everything under the sun and never really do anything with it.
Piracy is combated by well thought out pricing models, and high quality game-play content. Not by retarded DRM that seems to hurt actual customers more than pirates. (pirates just straight up bypass any DRM anyway)
Valve/steam has shown fairly well that better prices and an easy way to get the product means more profit anyway.
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On December 01 2011 04:02 dementrio wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:54 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:50 dementrio wrote:On December 01 2011 03:46 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:43 dementrio wrote:
Remember,
If you cook a pancake for yourself, you are stealing from the coffee house round the corner. They put effort into developing pancakes, but thanks to your theft, they are not getting any money for it. It's not even like you need pancakes. You should not steal something that was not meant to be free, there's no way to go about it. You still paid for the mix and/or ingredients. The coffee shop around the corner may go out of business if everyone cooks their own pancakes, but the stores that you buy ingredients from are profiting and flourishing. Who profits when you pirate? Just yourself. It's a selfish act that doesn't help anyone in the long run and hurts others in the process. The companies making hardware profit. If instead of a regular pancake we talk about a superspecial pan-aux-caque you have the EXACT SAME THING that is the video game industry, and everything based on intellectual property, copyright and patents. Spoiler alert: it seems ridiculous with a pancake, because it is ridiculous. The hardware industry has nothing to do with it. That's like saying "I know I stole a car, but the lockpick and tool industry made a profit because I needed to buy things to steal it with". You already have a PC. If you didn't, you wouldn't think about pirating in the first place. The developer has already made a game. When you buy a game, you profit enjoyment, the company profits money. When you pirate, you profit enjoyment, the company gets nothing at all. And it's not the same. If you went out and made your own game instead of buying theirs, then it would be the same thing, but you're not doing that. I already have flour and eggs. If i didnt, I wouldn't think about making pancakes. And it is the same thing. If I went out and made my own pancake recipe, then it would not. But I am shamelessly stealing their recipe. It is theft. They are losing money because I am stealing their idea. It is morally wrong, and moreover, I have a job and could afford tons of pancakes. I just enjoy to sabotage the very fabric of our society.
You are paying the pancake house for the act of making a pancake. The use of their pancake making service. Not only their recipe. Even with it, your pancake could be worse, and you would choose to go to the pancake house and buy one. The analogy would only be perfect if how to make a game was common knowledge, all the steps and resources used by the game making company avaible to you, and you could choose to make the game yourself. But you are not a good game maker, or you don't have the time to make a game. Then you have to go somewhere and buy the game done. It really is a silly analogy, do you really believe game makers shouldn't be paid for actually creating a game?
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The problem is, no one here in this thread as a gamer, or working as a games developer knows enough of the picture to form adequate and correct conclusions on it. No one.
I think DRM is more of a prevention of after-market re-sale, or second-hand sales, than of copy-protection, IMO. If you think about it, buying a second hand game is money that 'should' have gone to the developer but doesn't, because the person making the purchase is obviously willing to spend some money on the product. However there isn't really any way of ascertaining that from illegal downloads.
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On December 01 2011 04:06 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:56 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
man, the comparison with "stealing physical items" is just.. stupid. if you steal a physical item from a store, or from a person, it means that the store lost an item which it thus couldn't sell and which it thus couldn't gain a profit from, or it means that a person lost an item which he paid money for (and thus would have to spend money on again to continue having).
in the event of piracy, there's no physical item disappearing, but rather, you create a new item without having paid for it. theft of physical item = someone lost something, always. but piracy only results in a loss of profit in the event that the person who pirated would have bought the item if piracy was not an option. The problem is that despite being "copied" it still follows the concept of supply and value. Making essentially infinite copies of something makes it valueless. Piracy destroys incentive to create what we perceive as valued games. 1: perhaps music and games have been overpriced. especially now that distribution can be done virtually for free, there's no reason why one single cd should cost $30. 2: the music, movie and games industries are not on the verge of breaking down. the game industry has continuously been growing for the past 20 years, and will continue to do so. this indicates that people do value the products they make, even if they exist in numberless amounts. 3: as shown by a recent post, at least with music and anime, people who pirate also purchase more. from my point of view, piracy is something that 1: acts as a way of balancing the market. if a sufficient amount of people pirate, it means a sufficient amount of people consider a product overpriced or a service bad/inefficient, and 2: allows more people to benefit from cultural products that enlighten us as humans and improve our lives (this is one of the best, if not the absolute best, aspect of globalization, and 3: allows some cheap bastards to not pay for products they could and should pay for. with the introduction of spotify, with the introduction of services like steam, with the introduction of services like hulu, it shows that my point in #1 is absolutely correct and something the industry has already taken into account; the old method of cultural distribution was archaic, inefficient, and expensive. but spotify, steam and hulu would not have been created if there wasn't an economic incentive to create them - piracy is the primary reason why digital distribution is becoming more and more competitive relating to physical stores selling physical objects. You aren't paying for a disc, you're paying for the experience on that disc. $30-$50 for hours upon hours of entertainment is not an expensive hobby. The issue is that people who wouldn't normally be able to afford now have the alternative of reaping the benefits without shelling out a single cent. Feeling entitled to make things fit one's price range at the expense of others is ethically wrong.
Firms price on the margin. The marginal cost of an additional copy of a game is $0 (or very near zero). For a firm to charge $50 for a product that has near zero marginal cost of production is absolutely ludicrous.
I'm aware video games cost million to develop, but those are fixed costs, they do not factor into a rational or practical pricing model.
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On December 01 2011 04:03 plated.rawr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:56 Nemireck wrote:On December 01 2011 03:49 plated.rawr wrote:I see all the cries of lost profit, but where's the advocates of gained marketing? When I was 12 or so, I got WC2 burned from a friend of mine. Good ol' manual pirating. Played that to death. Few years later, WC3 is released. What do I do? Buy it. TFT released. Buy it. WoW released. Buy it. Subscribe for four years. Every expansion so far, bought 'em. Now imagine I didn't get that WC2 from my pal. What'd be the biggest money loss, that copy of WC2 or WC3 + expansion and WoW + subs for 4 years + 3 expansions? Same thing with Heroes of Might and Magic, really. Played it at a pal's when I was 10 or so. Got my own computer a couple years later, and bought HoMM3 plus expansion. HoMM4 releases, bought it. HoMM 5, bought it plus both expansions. HoMM 6 released, bought it (even my computer can't run it, kek). I will echo what another guy said a couple pages earlier - On December 01 2011 02:44 jtype wrote:On December 01 2011 02:43 Probe1 wrote:On December 01 2011 02:41 Neeh wrote:
So many people here with the most awful excuses for pirating. Keep at it, screw the industry over..
How hard is it to actually pay for something? Trust me the 'industry' will be just fine. In the last 15 years I've seen it do nothing but accelerate, regardless of piracy. Probably due, in part, to piracy. Indeed, the industry accelerates probably due, in part, to piracy. The ammount of free advertising pirating yields is mindbogging, really. Plus there's the entire fallacy that a download is a lost sale which you lot have gotten stuck in, but I won't touch that. It's great that one pirated game caused you to purchase later titles by the same developer, and I'm certain that you aren't alone. The problem arises that for every person that pirated WC2 and went on to purchase all of the sequels in the series, there are 5 people that pirated WC2, then pirated WC3, then played WoW on a free hacked server until they got bored/the server got shut down. I would imagine that for the most part, quality speaks for itself, and piracy doesn't ACTUALLY do a whole lot of harm to large developers. Where piracy does the most damage are the small indy camps by cutting into their profits, thus slowing down their growth, and thus their ability to get a strong foothold in the market and BECOME a large developer. Yes, but are those 5 people who kept pirating and used hacked servers people that'd otherwise actually buy the game? Chances are they're too young to have income to buy games or pay for subscription-based services, or they're simply not -that- interested. Plus, even if those five others keep playing pirated games, how many pals do they not spread the word to? How many future generations of high-income consumers do they not lay the foundation for? Sure, the company might miss out on sales now, but they're gaining a generation of strong, game-friendly buyers for the future. The problem lies in that every company wants short-term profits and ignores the long haul, but this is not a metaeconomy thread, so I'll stop there.
To the question "how many of those 5 people would have bought the game?" I already raised that exact point in my larger, initial post.
To your second point, I would submit that spreading the word can hurt just as much. Because their friends won't likely be saying "Wow, cool game, I'm going to get Mom to buy it next week." But rather would ask "Cool, you said you got it for free? How?!" Spreading the word is a double-edged sword. Again, for every person that's motivated to go purchase the game after playing a friend's illegal copy, there are probably many more (particularly kids) that will just ask their friend how to get it for free and do that instead.
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On December 01 2011 04:03 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:50 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:40 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:22 HereAndNow wrote: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. it's actually more like, "I have all the parts needed to build a helicopter in my back yard. but I don't know how to go about it. hm, here's what i'll do, I'll download some instructions on how to manifacture a helicopter so I can build it myself, rather than having to pay an inflated price for something that I already have all the necessary components to enjoy". many gamers are younger than 18, living with their parents, and thus not responsible for their own economic status. in norway, a 16 year old is discouraged from working. (apart from summer jobs.) further, many gamers live in development countries, where computer games happen to be one of the very few things not price-adjusted for the regular wage in said country. if every single pirate was a 20+ year old living in a western country and capable but too lazy to get a job, then absolutely, your blanket statements might have a semblance of truth to them, but when you look at your statements from like, a "reality" perspective, then they end up just being.. bitter and resentful. That's not even close, though. You don't have the parts for the game, you don't have a framework. You get all the software when you buy/pirate it. If anything, you have a helipad but no helicopter. The point is, getting a hobby illegally because you can't buy it legally is not a justifiable by any means. It's superfluous to your life, unnecessary, and only there for enjoyment. You won't die if you don't get a game, it's not like you're stealing food to stay alive another day. You're stealing entertainment because you can't afford it/don't want to buy it. You would survive just fine without games. my helicopter example is less stupid than your helicopter example, and more in line with what piracy is than what your methaphor seems to indicate that you think it is. Neither is perfect, but then again there is no corollary to piracy other than, like, music or movie piracy. You never argued the actual point, though. A hobby you can't afford is one you shouldn't have. As a kid, my parents were middle class. I wanted to play Warhammer 40k so badly, but I could never afford a full army and all the necessary books. So I chose a different hobby. It's a selfish, childish act to pick a hobby and ignore the fact that it's outside of your realm of cost, and just illegally acquire it instead. I don't agree with that point at all. I think if you weren't capable of paying for warhammer 40k and this stopped you from enjoying warhammer 40k, then your life became worse as a consequence of it. if there had been a way for you to aquire the items necessary to play it without anyone losing out on sales or items of their own, then your life would have been more enjoyable. a net gain for yourself, a net 0 for everyone else, thus a net gain for society.
I wouldn't have done it if I could have, though. Just because we now have a way to commit crimes without directly hurting anyone doesn't mean it's ok to commit them. A victimless crime is still a crime.
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All I know is that all the industries that "piracy" supposedly hurts, are all growing.
As far as numbers go, these industries are expanding, not diminishing.
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On December 01 2011 04:08 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 04:06 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:56 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
man, the comparison with "stealing physical items" is just.. stupid. if you steal a physical item from a store, or from a person, it means that the store lost an item which it thus couldn't sell and which it thus couldn't gain a profit from, or it means that a person lost an item which he paid money for (and thus would have to spend money on again to continue having).
in the event of piracy, there's no physical item disappearing, but rather, you create a new item without having paid for it. theft of physical item = someone lost something, always. but piracy only results in a loss of profit in the event that the person who pirated would have bought the item if piracy was not an option. The problem is that despite being "copied" it still follows the concept of supply and value. Making essentially infinite copies of something makes it valueless. Piracy destroys incentive to create what we perceive as valued games. 1: perhaps music and games have been overpriced. especially now that distribution can be done virtually for free, there's no reason why one single cd should cost $30. 2: the music, movie and games industries are not on the verge of breaking down. the game industry has continuously been growing for the past 20 years, and will continue to do so. this indicates that people do value the products they make, even if they exist in numberless amounts. 3: as shown by a recent post, at least with music and anime, people who pirate also purchase more. from my point of view, piracy is something that 1: acts as a way of balancing the market. if a sufficient amount of people pirate, it means a sufficient amount of people consider a product overpriced or a service bad/inefficient, and 2: allows more people to benefit from cultural products that enlighten us as humans and improve our lives (this is one of the best, if not the absolute best, aspect of globalization, and 3: allows some cheap bastards to not pay for products they could and should pay for. with the introduction of spotify, with the introduction of services like steam, with the introduction of services like hulu, it shows that my point in #1 is absolutely correct and something the industry has already taken into account; the old method of cultural distribution was archaic, inefficient, and expensive. but spotify, steam and hulu would not have been created if there wasn't an economic incentive to create them - piracy is the primary reason why digital distribution is becoming more and more competitive relating to physical stores selling physical objects. You aren't paying for a disc, you're paying for the experience on that disc. $30-$50 for hours upon hours of entertainment is not an expensive hobby. The issue is that people who wouldn't normally be able to afford now have the alternative of reaping the benefits without shelling out a single cent. Feeling entitled to make things fit one's price range at the expense of others is ethically wrong. Firms price on the margin. The marginal cost of an additional copy of a game is $0 (or very near zero). For a firm to charge $50 for a product that has near zero marginal cost of production is absolutely ludicrous. I'm aware video games cost million to develop, but those are fixed costs, they do not factor into a rational or practical pricing model.
I'm pretty sure they only price on the margin in a perfectly competitive market with no product differentiation, which games are not.
They operate a bit like a monopoly, since products in gaming are so different they can't be considered the same thing. Thus they price to maximize profits, not to be competitive.
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On December 01 2011 04:03 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:50 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:40 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:22 HereAndNow wrote: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. it's actually more like, "I have all the parts needed to build a helicopter in my back yard. but I don't know how to go about it. hm, here's what i'll do, I'll download some instructions on how to manifacture a helicopter so I can build it myself, rather than having to pay an inflated price for something that I already have all the necessary components to enjoy". many gamers are younger than 18, living with their parents, and thus not responsible for their own economic status. in norway, a 16 year old is discouraged from working. (apart from summer jobs.) further, many gamers live in development countries, where computer games happen to be one of the very few things not price-adjusted for the regular wage in said country. if every single pirate was a 20+ year old living in a western country and capable but too lazy to get a job, then absolutely, your blanket statements might have a semblance of truth to them, but when you look at your statements from like, a "reality" perspective, then they end up just being.. bitter and resentful. That's not even close, though. You don't have the parts for the game, you don't have a framework. You get all the software when you buy/pirate it. If anything, you have a helipad but no helicopter. The point is, getting a hobby illegally because you can't buy it legally is not a justifiable by any means. It's superfluous to your life, unnecessary, and only there for enjoyment. You won't die if you don't get a game, it's not like you're stealing food to stay alive another day. You're stealing entertainment because you can't afford it/don't want to buy it. You would survive just fine without games. my helicopter example is less stupid than your helicopter example, and more in line with what piracy is than what your methaphor seems to indicate that you think it is. Neither is perfect, but then again there is no corollary to piracy other than, like, music or movie piracy. You never argued the actual point, though. A hobby you can't afford is one you shouldn't have. As a kid, my parents were middle class. I wanted to play Warhammer 40k so badly, but I could never afford a full army and all the necessary books. So I chose a different hobby. It's a selfish, childish act to pick a hobby and ignore the fact that it's outside of your realm of cost, and just illegally acquire it instead. I don't agree with that point at all. I think if you weren't capable of paying for warhammer 40k and this stopped you from enjoying warhammer 40k, then your life became worse as a consequence of it. if there had been a way for you to aquire the items necessary to play it without anyone losing out on sales or items of their own, then your life would have been more enjoyable. a net gain for yourself, a net 0 for everyone else, thus a net gain for society.
Your argument is assuming that the guy would just sulk around if he couldn't afford to play games.
There are tons of hobbies out there. A person who can't afford to play games could easily have a net enjoyment doing other things, socializing, mountain hiking, jogging etc.
Video games aren't a neccessity. They're a luxury. If your economic situation is that bad, you shouldn't be playing too much games anyway. Work harder and get yourself out of it first.
I'm from Malaysia. Our currency is quite shit in the grand scheme of things. To put things in perspective, coming from a well-off family, buying a Yu-Gi-Oh booster pack (the ones that came with 5 random cards) costed me 5 days worth of allowance. What did I do? I adapted, I watched the show on TV with friends, we made our own cards and still had a great time. Couldn't afford AAA games at retail price? We played F2P games like MapleStory.
There are legitimate reasons for piracy e.g. when the game you're looking for is like 15 years old and is impossible to locate, being unable to afford games is not one of them. It just reeks of entitlement.
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On December 01 2011 04:06 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 04:02 dementrio wrote:On December 01 2011 03:54 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:50 dementrio wrote:On December 01 2011 03:46 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:43 dementrio wrote:
Remember,
If you cook a pancake for yourself, you are stealing from the coffee house round the corner. They put effort into developing pancakes, but thanks to your theft, they are not getting any money for it. It's not even like you need pancakes. You should not steal something that was not meant to be free, there's no way to go about it. You still paid for the mix and/or ingredients. The coffee shop around the corner may go out of business if everyone cooks their own pancakes, but the stores that you buy ingredients from are profiting and flourishing. Who profits when you pirate? Just yourself. It's a selfish act that doesn't help anyone in the long run and hurts others in the process. The companies making hardware profit. If instead of a regular pancake we talk about a superspecial pan-aux-caque you have the EXACT SAME THING that is the video game industry, and everything based on intellectual property, copyright and patents. Spoiler alert: it seems ridiculous with a pancake, because it is ridiculous. The hardware industry has nothing to do with it. That's like saying "I know I stole a car, but the lockpick and tool industry made a profit because I needed to buy things to steal it with". You already have a PC. If you didn't, you wouldn't think about pirating in the first place. The developer has already made a game. When you buy a game, you profit enjoyment, the company profits money. When you pirate, you profit enjoyment, the company gets nothing at all. And it's not the same. If you went out and made your own game instead of buying theirs, then it would be the same thing, but you're not doing that. I already have flour and eggs. If i didnt, I wouldn't think about making pancakes. And it is the same thing. If I went out and made my own pancake recipe, then it would not. But I am shamelessly stealing their recipe. It is theft. They are losing money because I am stealing their idea. It is morally wrong, and moreover, I have a job and could afford tons of pancakes. I just enjoy to sabotage the very fabric of our society. You're being obtuse. You do not have all the parts for a game. You have the hardware to run it on. There is a distinct difference, and if you don't know that, you're completely uneducated when it comes to technology. Making your own pancake is the analogy for making your own game. Let's say SC2 just came out. You don't want to buy it. So you sit in front of your computer, and you make a RTS with three races that plays similarly to SC2. That's not piracy. Pirating SC2 is piracy. The former means nothing to Blizzard unless you infringe copyright by naming everything the same. The latter is punishable.
If you really work for a software company, you should know that your product is an idea. That's why you don't sell a good, you sell a license. You sell the right to use your idea.
A pancake is not sold this way. Not even recipe books are sold this way. Because it's ridiculous, a pancake recipe is such a simple idea that it's just so incredibly stupid to think of controlling it.
The internet has made controlling software just as hard. It has made controllyng ANY idea unfeasible. But if you don't like this, and try to fix it by calling things theft, then acknowledge that using a recipe you didn't invent is stealing. You are not in the moral highground. You are just trying to defend your interests.
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On December 01 2011 04:09 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 04:03 plated.rawr wrote:On December 01 2011 03:56 Nemireck wrote:On December 01 2011 03:49 plated.rawr wrote:I see all the cries of lost profit, but where's the advocates of gained marketing? When I was 12 or so, I got WC2 burned from a friend of mine. Good ol' manual pirating. Played that to death. Few years later, WC3 is released. What do I do? Buy it. TFT released. Buy it. WoW released. Buy it. Subscribe for four years. Every expansion so far, bought 'em. Now imagine I didn't get that WC2 from my pal. What'd be the biggest money loss, that copy of WC2 or WC3 + expansion and WoW + subs for 4 years + 3 expansions? Same thing with Heroes of Might and Magic, really. Played it at a pal's when I was 10 or so. Got my own computer a couple years later, and bought HoMM3 plus expansion. HoMM4 releases, bought it. HoMM 5, bought it plus both expansions. HoMM 6 released, bought it (even my computer can't run it, kek). I will echo what another guy said a couple pages earlier - On December 01 2011 02:44 jtype wrote:On December 01 2011 02:43 Probe1 wrote:On December 01 2011 02:41 Neeh wrote:
So many people here with the most awful excuses for pirating. Keep at it, screw the industry over..
How hard is it to actually pay for something? Trust me the 'industry' will be just fine. In the last 15 years I've seen it do nothing but accelerate, regardless of piracy. Probably due, in part, to piracy. Indeed, the industry accelerates probably due, in part, to piracy. The ammount of free advertising pirating yields is mindbogging, really. Plus there's the entire fallacy that a download is a lost sale which you lot have gotten stuck in, but I won't touch that. It's great that one pirated game caused you to purchase later titles by the same developer, and I'm certain that you aren't alone. The problem arises that for every person that pirated WC2 and went on to purchase all of the sequels in the series, there are 5 people that pirated WC2, then pirated WC3, then played WoW on a free hacked server until they got bored/the server got shut down. I would imagine that for the most part, quality speaks for itself, and piracy doesn't ACTUALLY do a whole lot of harm to large developers. Where piracy does the most damage are the small indy camps by cutting into their profits, thus slowing down their growth, and thus their ability to get a strong foothold in the market and BECOME a large developer. Yes, but are those 5 people who kept pirating and used hacked servers people that'd otherwise actually buy the game? Chances are they're too young to have income to buy games or pay for subscription-based services, or they're simply not -that- interested. Plus, even if those five others keep playing pirated games, how many pals do they not spread the word to? How many future generations of high-income consumers do they not lay the foundation for? Sure, the company might miss out on sales now, but they're gaining a generation of strong, game-friendly buyers for the future. The problem lies in that every company wants short-term profits and ignores the long haul, but this is not a metaeconomy thread, so I'll stop there. To the question "how many of those 5 people would have bought the game?" I already raised that exact point in my larger, initial post. To your second point, I would submit that spreading the word can hurt just as much. Because their friends won't likely be saying "Wow, cool game, I'm going to get Mom to buy it next week." But rather would ask "Cool, you said you got it for free? How?!" Spreading the word is a double-edged sword. Again, for every person that's motivated to go purchase the game after playing a friend's illegal copy, there are probably many more (particularly kids) that will just ask their friend how to get it for free and do that instead.
Mind linking that larger, initial post? I've read the thread, but I skip names.
As for your comment to my second point - this is exactly what's free advertisement and growing for the future, though. Yes, they do probably lose some sales right now, but you spread the word about the franchise and the company, which results in brand recognition. In effect, the brand becomes vastly bigger through word-of-mouth, reacting in recognition and purchases from groups that would never have heard of the brand before at all.
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On November 30 2011 22:28 Neo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2011 22:24 Interloper wrote:
Many people who pirate do so because they want to try a game out. If they enjoy the game, they will buy it too support the developer. 4,5 million downloads becomes a useless figure since you can not in any way know how many of those 4,5 million purchased the game afterwards. I feel that piracy is a good way to get rid of shitty developers how make crappy games only for the sake of making money (Well all developers want to make money ofc, but i hope you get my point). Good developers get the money they need and then some. Piracy will not be the end of gaming. This is the most common reason that has been given to me but more than often the person is also an expert at procrastination and gives the "oh I'll buy it later excuse". In the case of single player games, what usually winds up happening is that they'll beat the game and it becomes forgotten on their computers. Either way, I'd be willing to be a huge chunk of those who pirated wouldn't have bothered buying the game if piracy wasn't an option in the first place (in which case nothing would have been lost anyway). I would rather prefer to see game demos be more prominent to get rid of that whole "I wanted to try the game" excuse.
This more or less sums it up. Buying SC2 is necessary in order to play competative multiplayer. Buying Skyrim is never necessary as you can do everything without a legitimate key.
Additionally, when I was a kid, every game I bought came with a set of demos. Games are doing this less often. Some devs don't bother making a demo which hurts them. If a person can't find a demo for a game that looks good, they are more likely to pirate it.
The other thing I'd like to mention is that steam sales are wildly successful because the games are being sold for around $5-15 which for most kids and young college students with low income can afford. A price revision of games would help in my mind. A lot of people aren't willing to pay $60 a game in a down economy when they have the option of getting it for free.
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United States5162 Posts
On December 01 2011 04:10 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 04:03 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:50 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:40 HereAndNow wrote:On December 01 2011 03:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:22 HereAndNow wrote: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. it's actually more like, "I have all the parts needed to build a helicopter in my back yard. but I don't know how to go about it. hm, here's what i'll do, I'll download some instructions on how to manifacture a helicopter so I can build it myself, rather than having to pay an inflated price for something that I already have all the necessary components to enjoy". many gamers are younger than 18, living with their parents, and thus not responsible for their own economic status. in norway, a 16 year old is discouraged from working. (apart from summer jobs.) further, many gamers live in development countries, where computer games happen to be one of the very few things not price-adjusted for the regular wage in said country. if every single pirate was a 20+ year old living in a western country and capable but too lazy to get a job, then absolutely, your blanket statements might have a semblance of truth to them, but when you look at your statements from like, a "reality" perspective, then they end up just being.. bitter and resentful. That's not even close, though. You don't have the parts for the game, you don't have a framework. You get all the software when you buy/pirate it. If anything, you have a helipad but no helicopter. The point is, getting a hobby illegally because you can't buy it legally is not a justifiable by any means. It's superfluous to your life, unnecessary, and only there for enjoyment. You won't die if you don't get a game, it's not like you're stealing food to stay alive another day. You're stealing entertainment because you can't afford it/don't want to buy it. You would survive just fine without games. my helicopter example is less stupid than your helicopter example, and more in line with what piracy is than what your methaphor seems to indicate that you think it is. Neither is perfect, but then again there is no corollary to piracy other than, like, music or movie piracy. You never argued the actual point, though. A hobby you can't afford is one you shouldn't have. As a kid, my parents were middle class. I wanted to play Warhammer 40k so badly, but I could never afford a full army and all the necessary books. So I chose a different hobby. It's a selfish, childish act to pick a hobby and ignore the fact that it's outside of your realm of cost, and just illegally acquire it instead. I don't agree with that point at all. I think if you weren't capable of paying for warhammer 40k and this stopped you from enjoying warhammer 40k, then your life became worse as a consequence of it. if there had been a way for you to aquire the items necessary to play it without anyone losing out on sales or items of their own, then your life would have been more enjoyable. a net gain for yourself, a net 0 for everyone else, thus a net gain for society. I wouldn't have done it if I could have, though. Just because we now have a way to commit crimes without directly hurting anyone doesn't mean it's ok to commit them. A victimless crime is still a crime.
I've agreed with most of what you've said, but I disagree on victimless crime. If something is victimless, it shouldn't be a crime.
However, pirating isn't victimless. There are many people who could afford it and pirated simply cause they could. Trying to differentiate the people who pirate because they can vs pirate because it's their 'only choice' is impossible in the justice system.
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On December 01 2011 04:10 wei2coolman wrote:
All I know is that all the industries that "piracy" supposedly hurts, are all growing.
As far as numbers go, these industries are expanding, not diminishing.
And they would grow larger and faster if they weren't being slowed by piracy. If every person who pirated actually bought the game/CD/movie as well (and don't try and pretend they do), the prices would go down because the makers would know the market is willing to pay.
Let's say you make a game and you need to make $120 between 5 people to break even. You know three of those five will pirate, so you price it at $60. If you knew all 5 people would buy it legally, you'd only charge $24.
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Norway28648 Posts
On December 01 2011 04:06 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 03:56 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
man, the comparison with "stealing physical items" is just.. stupid. if you steal a physical item from a store, or from a person, it means that the store lost an item which it thus couldn't sell and which it thus couldn't gain a profit from, or it means that a person lost an item which he paid money for (and thus would have to spend money on again to continue having).
in the event of piracy, there's no physical item disappearing, but rather, you create a new item without having paid for it. theft of physical item = someone lost something, always. but piracy only results in a loss of profit in the event that the person who pirated would have bought the item if piracy was not an option. The problem is that despite being "copied" it still follows the concept of supply and value. Making essentially infinite copies of something makes it valueless. Piracy destroys incentive to create what we perceive as valued games. 1: perhaps music and games have been overpriced. especially now that distribution can be done virtually for free, there's no reason why one single cd should cost $30. 2: the music, movie and games industries are not on the verge of breaking down. the game industry has continuously been growing for the past 20 years, and will continue to do so. this indicates that people do value the products they make, even if they exist in numberless amounts. 3: as shown by a recent post, at least with music and anime, people who pirate also purchase more. from my point of view, piracy is something that 1: acts as a way of balancing the market. if a sufficient amount of people pirate, it means a sufficient amount of people consider a product overpriced or a service bad/inefficient, and 2: allows more people to benefit from cultural products that enlighten us as humans and improve our lives (this is one of the best, if not the absolute best, aspect of globalization, and 3: allows some cheap bastards to not pay for products they could and should pay for. with the introduction of spotify, with the introduction of services like steam, with the introduction of services like hulu, it shows that my point in #1 is absolutely correct and something the industry has already taken into account; the old method of cultural distribution was archaic, inefficient, and expensive. but spotify, steam and hulu would not have been created if there wasn't an economic incentive to create them - piracy is the primary reason why digital distribution is becoming more and more competitive relating to physical stores selling physical objects. You aren't paying for a disc, you're paying for the experience on that disc. $30-$50 for hours upon hours of entertainment is not an expensive hobby. The issue is that people who wouldn't normally be able to afford now have the alternative of reaping the benefits without shelling out a single cent. Feeling entitled to make things fit one's price range at the expense of others is ethically wrong.
I already wrote this in an earlier post actually. I don't think all piracy is defensible - and I personally have not pirated a game for several years, or any music since I got spotify almost 3 years ago. but that's because I am an adult living in a western country, and I can afford to pay for the games I want to play. and yes, to me, they're not expensive. what I'm defending is piracy for 1: people whose consumption of games/music is so enormous that they can't pay for everything they want to enjoy, but who still pay for quite a bit. this includes those reasonable pirates who pirate games and buy them if they like them, or people who download 120 cds per month and buy 2 cds per month. in this event, their consumption and thus contribution to the industry increases because of their piracy. I also defend piracy for 2: people who can't afford games or music period - and this includes most people younger than 18 who have been encouraged to go to school rather than work, and people who live in countries where games/music costs equally much but where average wage is 10-20% of what it is in norway. in none of these cases does the industry lose money, as the act of piracy either makes a person capable of enjoying something he couldn't afford otherwise, or makes a person capable of choosing with greater accuracy which artist/game producer he wishes to support.
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On December 01 2011 04:12 ThaZenith wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 04:08 Klondikebar wrote:On December 01 2011 04:06 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:56 Liquid`Drone wrote:On December 01 2011 03:44 SoLaR[i.C] wrote:On December 01 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
man, the comparison with "stealing physical items" is just.. stupid. if you steal a physical item from a store, or from a person, it means that the store lost an item which it thus couldn't sell and which it thus couldn't gain a profit from, or it means that a person lost an item which he paid money for (and thus would have to spend money on again to continue having).
in the event of piracy, there's no physical item disappearing, but rather, you create a new item without having paid for it. theft of physical item = someone lost something, always. but piracy only results in a loss of profit in the event that the person who pirated would have bought the item if piracy was not an option. The problem is that despite being "copied" it still follows the concept of supply and value. Making essentially infinite copies of something makes it valueless. Piracy destroys incentive to create what we perceive as valued games. 1: perhaps music and games have been overpriced. especially now that distribution can be done virtually for free, there's no reason why one single cd should cost $30. 2: the music, movie and games industries are not on the verge of breaking down. the game industry has continuously been growing for the past 20 years, and will continue to do so. this indicates that people do value the products they make, even if they exist in numberless amounts. 3: as shown by a recent post, at least with music and anime, people who pirate also purchase more. from my point of view, piracy is something that 1: acts as a way of balancing the market. if a sufficient amount of people pirate, it means a sufficient amount of people consider a product overpriced or a service bad/inefficient, and 2: allows more people to benefit from cultural products that enlighten us as humans and improve our lives (this is one of the best, if not the absolute best, aspect of globalization, and 3: allows some cheap bastards to not pay for products they could and should pay for. with the introduction of spotify, with the introduction of services like steam, with the introduction of services like hulu, it shows that my point in #1 is absolutely correct and something the industry has already taken into account; the old method of cultural distribution was archaic, inefficient, and expensive. but spotify, steam and hulu would not have been created if there wasn't an economic incentive to create them - piracy is the primary reason why digital distribution is becoming more and more competitive relating to physical stores selling physical objects. You aren't paying for a disc, you're paying for the experience on that disc. $30-$50 for hours upon hours of entertainment is not an expensive hobby. The issue is that people who wouldn't normally be able to afford now have the alternative of reaping the benefits without shelling out a single cent. Feeling entitled to make things fit one's price range at the expense of others is ethically wrong. Firms price on the margin. The marginal cost of an additional copy of a game is $0 (or very near zero). For a firm to charge $50 for a product that has near zero marginal cost of production is absolutely ludicrous. I'm aware video games cost million to develop, but those are fixed costs, they do not factor into a rational or practical pricing model. I'm pretty sure they only price on the margin in a perfectly competitive market with no product differentiation, which games are not. They operate a bit like a monopoly, since products in gaming are so different they can't be considered the same thing. Thus they price to maximize profits, not to be competitive.
It's certainly not perfect competition but I would argue video games are pretty damn good substitutes for each other. Sure, a player isn't likely to substitute Skyrim for MW3, but they sure could substitute for any of the bajillion other shooters out there. And Skyrim players could easily substitute for the plethora of sandbox RPG's.
Also, in monopoly pricing MC is still an upward sloping curve (at least to a point) and the monopolist charges where MC=MR. But with copies of video games, MC=0 the whole damn way...where do you price? When MR=0? It never equals 0 because with zero marginal cost of production MR is flat and copyright law means they never lower the price (you pay our price or we put you in jail).
I suppose you could say "you pay their price or you go buy a different video game" but then we're back to a model that's more like perfect competition.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On November 30 2011 22:38 zalz wrote:
Piracy is not a problem that needs to be adressed. It's a miniscule thing that doesn't make any mentionable dent on sales.
Let's say that 2 out of 3 people (in this case, roughly 3 million people) do not buy the game. 3,000,000 x 60 (Approximate price upon release) = 180,000,000. That is a lot of money. Even if only 1 out of three people do not buy the game, it would still end up at almost a hundred million euros. Most companies (obviously excluding giants like Activision that can just throw money at a project until it winds) would do well with an additional ~90 million euros.
Of course, the above estimate is extremely rough, but nevertheless, your statement appears rather ignorant.
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