On June 23 2011 08:51 dudeman001 wrote: I believe this came up in the funny pictures thread a little bit ago, it'd be nice if people followed it instead of 99% of piracy resulting in thievery. + Show Spoiler +
Still, it's first point is debatable, because you still pay for a dinner you didn't enjoy, and it's second point even more so. If you have money for a high-end PC, you regularly go out, you actually do stuff for fun that isn't free, you ussually have money to buy a single game. The "lack of money" only exists because you spent it elsewhere. If you couldn't pirate it, maybe you would have saved for it, and bought it. Few people have money to throw around, they just choose to buy games.
Even then, like you said, 99% of them fall on point 3.
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
Do you think you represent the majority of people who pirate? Anecdotal evidence is not justification for a generalization.
Steam actually is a poster boy for pirating because it's DRM does not work. All that is necessary is a replication of the steam client and platform, which is why games when released on Steam become pirateable within the day. If the game has Lan, this is especially potent in its removing of anyone's need to buy it.
On June 23 2011 08:32 VirGin wrote: To the people who say pirates would not buy games anyway - so there is no sale lost; Of course there are sales lost. Certainly not ALL pirates would buy the game anyway (I myself have pirated tons of games I would never buy, but also some I would in fact buy, if I couldnt get them for free.) but a fair percentage probably would.
People that pirate and wont buy, are only affecting rentals if anything, because they're basically the same thing (except one is legal), you dont want to buy the full game, but you want to test it first, so you either rent it or pirate it, if you like it you buy it.
I dont know you but i have a subscription to grooveshark, and i barely ever buy a music disc... just because a disk has 1 or 2 good songs, that doesnt mean its worth $10+ usd. Pricing is just as wrong as pirating.
I would strongly disagree with pricing being considered as wrong as piracy. Piracy happens whether or not the developer approves of it. Pricing is primarily determined by the market, the consumers willingness to buy the product given the circumstances of the market. Piracy is theft, it may be justified but it is intellectual theft regardless. Pricing gives the consumer a choice of whether or not they want it or not.
The pricing is wrong because they're not considering that most people is already too tight to have money to spare for entertainment, We're on a global economy crisis, people dont spend money because they dont have it, if we were all rich as fuck, and still, taking things (Like Lindslay lohan), it would be wrong, obviusly. We're not talking about stealing a frikking ferrari here, we're talking about basic entertainment, that can make you better at alot of things in life. RTS for example, are great at making you great at quick thinking, and desicion making. MMORPGS are fantastic at making people good at problem solving, and team play. Games are great training for life, and a great stress relief in a world filled with just bad things.
For anyone to be able to buy, and play games, watchs movies, etc. should be a human right, and priced accordingly.
As much as I would love to have free entertainment all the time of my choosing, how is this feasible in a global economy? Besides the warm fuzzy feeling someone might get from providing great entertainment to someone, what is the bottom line at the end of the day? Money. In a such a recession more people will pirate games, and find alternative methods of entertainment that suit their lifestyle and financial situations. Then what happens? Less of a demand and consumer base will be in the gaming industry and as a result companies need to compensate for this - possibly a price drop. Pricing isn't inherently evil, and can't be it's just a tool of exchange.
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
blizz downloader is a torrent program it's slow because of people like you not using it. I mean i only get 400kbp/s down on the host server that is distributing it plenty for my dsl but not that fast.
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
Do you think you represent the majority of people who pirate? Anecdotal evidence is not justification for a generalization.
Steam actually is a poster boy for pirating because it's DRM does not work. All that is necessary is a replication of the steam client and platform, which is why games when released on Steam become pirateable within the day. If the game has Lan, this is especially potent in its removing of anyone's need to buy it.
And your anecdote that everybody who downloads via bittorrent is a pirate is better justification? What?
On June 23 2011 08:32 VirGin wrote: To the people who say pirates would not buy games anyway - so there is no sale lost; Of course there are sales lost. Certainly not ALL pirates would buy the game anyway (I myself have pirated tons of games I would never buy, but also some I would in fact buy, if I couldnt get them for free.) but a fair percentage probably would.
People that pirate and wont buy, are only affecting rentals if anything, because they're basically the same thing (except one is legal), you dont want to buy the full game, but you want to test it first, so you either rent it or pirate it, if you like it you buy it.
I dont know you but i have a subscription to grooveshark, and i barely ever buy a music disc... just because a disk has 1 or 2 good songs, that doesnt mean its worth $10+ usd. Pricing is just as wrong as pirating.
I would strongly disagree with pricing being considered as wrong as piracy. Piracy happens whether or not the developer approves of it. Pricing is primarily determined by the market, the consumers willingness to buy the product given the circumstances of the market. Piracy is theft, it may be justified but it is intellectual theft regardless. Pricing gives the consumer a choice of whether or not they want it or not.
The pricing is wrong because they're not considering that most people is already too tight to have money to spare for entertainment, We're on a global economy crisis, people dont spend money because they dont have it, if we were all rich as fuck, and still, taking things (Like Lindslay lohan), it would be wrong, obviusly. We're not talking about stealing a frikking ferrari here, we're talking about basic entertainment, that can make you better at alot of things in life. RTS for example, are great at making you great at quick thinking, and desicion making. MMORPGS are fantastic at making people good at problem solving, and team play. Games are great training for life, and a great stress relief in a world filled with just bad things.
For anyone to be able to buy, and play games, watchs movies, etc. should be a human right, and priced accordingly.
O.O
The people that make games are not doing it for charity. Same way the people that make beds don't do it because they would just love to give people a good nights sleep. They do it to make money. Is it a human right to have a bed?
It's most certainly not a human right to play games or watch movies.
Who said i wanted it free?, i buy my stuff, but just because i have access, and money, that doesnt mean i dont have emphaty for those who dont. Im not asking for anything free, but you know whats worse than theft?, the fact that we're allowing all the money to go to a few, while 90% or more of this worlds population just keeps rotting with nothing at all to fall on.
Just look at the music industry, they say they're broke becuase they cant afford 5 more ferraris ? cmon dude, they're still fucking rich, just not RICHER, there should be a limit in the amounts of money somone can hold, its just retarded for us to want to accumulate money into a couple bank accounts, those guys will never return it to the people, and thats why we're so screwed.
We should care about the hard-working people, not the assholes that're just investing the money, trying to get sick returns from them.
AGAIN, i repeat, i dont want anything for free, i just wish it was priced so anyone could enjoy it, we're talking about basic things here, not luxury items.
On June 23 2011 07:56 worldsnap wrote: You keep saying this over and over but it's still not true. While a pirated copy of something is definitely not always a lost sale (For example, i'm not going to actually rent all the movies i watch if i couldn't download them), but i sure as hell downloaded a lot of games until Steam made it even easier than pirating to get a game on release. And i'm by far not the only person in this position.
lol, I said it twice for the sake of reiteration because they selectively read my post and argued on pretty much no basis.
Pirates were not consumers in the first place = "While a pirated copy of something is definitely not always a lost sale."
Enough said.
edit: quotations
You're wrong. Pirates make many real consumers feel like suckers. This leads some of them to start pirating as well.
Personal insecurities have no value. I can claim that I feel good when I buy games as opposed to "feeling like a sucker" because I see to it that money goes to where money is well-deserved. I can coerce my friends and people within my network to purchase software too to make them also "feel good".
^ You realize your argument is a personal sentiment of yours and holds no bearing as neither does my hypothetical situation
Your statements that pirates aren't real customers has no bearing either, then. That statement has no value and no truth to it no matter how many times you repeat it. Your original argument is a personal statement of yours, too. Don't try to twist it around.
I'm not gonna respond to your feeble points from now because there is nothing of value in our little debate and I hope you can see to it as well.
Why does my statement that pirates = aren't customers has no bearing? No value? No truth? My original argument "is a personal statement too" "don't try to twist it around?"
First and foremost I'm not trying twist anything around and of course all my statements are personal or else whose statements are they lol? Now that that's cleared up, I've stated it 3 times now because of people who can't read.
Let's logically break this down:
1) Pirates = individuals who get involved in unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind is extremely common
2) They do this for several reason, one of them predominantly is because they don't wish to purchase the software
3) Buy not choosing not purchase the software and to pirate it, that indicates they didn't have the intentions of purchasing in the first place, nor did they end up as a customer (they could have been, but unlikely)
I don't have any data on this as I did not conduct a study on this but since you feel so strongly about the issue and feel I am wrong in my logic, maybe you should
Your 3) is wrong. Noone wishes to buy things if they can get it for free, so 2 applies, but it applies to every single thing.
They choose not to buy things when they can do so. But a big part of them, and this is where there is an actual discussion, wether this part is huge or not that big, but undeniably big, will still buy the games if they have no way to obtain them for free.
So while not all pirates are customers, some definatelly are. And those represent lost sales.
Anyone that says piracy doesn't represent lost sales makes no sense. What you can argue is wether the "cons overcome the pros".
Saying that no one buys things they can get for free doesn't make sense when Team Fortress 2 hats sell by the truckload, League of Legends follows a similar trend, and Brood War is one of the biggest selling PC games of all time.
And Valve has the highest revenue per head in the entire world. :D
I'm sorry, but can they get the hats for free without huge time investments? Can you just download the hats from another site? It is impossible to get those items, in both LoL and in TF, just by playing cassually. I'm sure that they would get pirated to death and wouldn't sell at all if you could dowload them for free. When you pirate a game, you get the exact same thing you would have paid for.
People will pay for things they can't obtain otherwise, exactly my point in the previous post. I'm not sure what your point is.
My point is that service is what's key when trying to beat piracy, not actively trying to stop piracy. DRM measures have proven to be counter productive in combating it and an awful lot of people were rather miffed when SC2 was announced to not have LAN. Publishers interacting with their community and not treating their customers like money cows waiting to be milked makes the customer more likely to recommend the publisher to their friends, who in turn recommend to their friends and so on, and through all of these new customers the publisher makes their money. And saying pirated copies are lost sales is a bit sketchy.
Piracy if anything just seems like a scapegoat to try to wring remaining customers even harder. Especially when you read articles like this:
On June 23 2011 08:51 dudeman001 wrote: I believe this came up in the funny pictures thread a little bit ago, it'd be nice if people followed it instead of 99% of piracy resulting in thievery. + Show Spoiler +
Still, it's first point is debatable, because you still pay for a dinner you didn't enjoy, and it's second point even more so. If you have money for a high-end PC, you regularly go out, you actually do stuff for fun that isn't free, you ussually have money to buy a single game. The "lack of money" only exists because you spent it elsewhere. If you couldn't pirate it, maybe you would have saved for it, and bought it. Few people have money to throw around, they just choose to buy games.
Even then, like you said, 99% of them fall on point 3.
When I was a kid, I had to download a lot of games because I had no money. I had the gaming PC because my dad did a lot of computer stuff and there were just computers around the house. When my brother and I begged, we might be able to get a new video card or some RAM, but getting games were much more rare (in comparison to how often we wanted them, of course).
When I got older and could afford to buy stuff, I had a nice, solid gaming addiction. Now I don't download stuff (except Spore, but that was after buying a legit copy and being very, very angry over the stupid DRM).
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
I would argue that is still stealing, you bought a legit copy but that still does mean your stealing. Unless the distributor or producer of a game permitted you to acquire the game in such a manner you would be stealing.
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
I would argue that is still stealing, you bought a legit copy but that still does mean your stealing. Unless the distributor or producer of a game permitted you to acquire the game in such a manner you would be stealing.
You really believe that? Do you also believe that it's stealing to buy an album, then rip it to my MP3 player? I can't understand this mentality - that every single thing a business desires is how things should be. The shift to digital music mostly happened because consumers got fed up with unreasonable demands, like the example I gave, and decided en masse to say "Fuck you. I'm doing it anyway.".
LAN is clearly wanted dearly, but the fact of the matter is that you CANNOT implement LAN without knowing you're going to lose HUGE amount of money. I do think a potential LAN that require you to log in online yet run a peer-to-peer connection/LAN of some form.
Anyone thinking that Blizzard or any other of these gaming companies don't NEED the money, then please open your own business and attempt to thrive under these savage conditions that are progressing. I do believe that some progress of LAN will be made such that they can implement it without risking piracy, but atm there should be no expectations of it in the immediate future.
Stating that someone like Microsoft has the biggest piracy issues and are still a forward moving company, comes from someone who is ignorant. Their scenario is completely differant in multiple ways. First of it has nothing to do with LAN, and their market is MUCH MUCH MUCH larger than that of a gaming company(specifically PCs).
I as much as anyone, want LAN and pray for it, but until a effective method of LAN that can be backed by the security of online gaming is created, there will only be large declines of LAN use.
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
I would argue that is still stealing, you bought a legit copy but that still does mean your stealing. Unless the distributor or producer of a game permitted you to acquire the game in such a manner you would be stealing.
You really believe that? Do you also believe that it's stealing to buy an album, then rip it to my MP3 player? I can't understand this mentality - that every single thing a business desires is how things should be. The shift to digital music mostly happened because consumers got fed up with unreasonable demands, like the example I gave, and decided en masse to say "Fuck you. I'm doing it anyway.".
Yes I do. You acquired an ILLEGAL copy of the digital and intellectual contents that Blizzard created, through a method of free exchange that was UNAUTHORIZED and NOT permitted by Blizzard. If that's not stealing, I really need to revise my understanding of it.
We're so masochists as a race(humans), its unbelievable... why are we taking the sides of the few, and not the masses?, i appreciate the creativity and effort of the guys at blizzard, but the reality is that they're not even the ones making the money. The investors are, and they're making shitloads of return just based on a group of devoted, genius creatives that most companies have.
Watch tv shows like dragons den one day, the investors don't care one bit if you're going to feed all the world's hungry people with your invention, they care about return. How much money am i going to get if i invest... Its a stupid logic, that's only making a group of few people rich, while everyone else roots in poverty.
On June 23 2011 08:10 theOnslaught wrote: These guys just dont get it... pirating is not killing any industries, most of the people who pirate wont even buy the game anyways, if pirating wasnt possible, you would see people lending their games, as they do with DVD's, or books, to friends after they finish reading them.
If anything, pirating is good for all industries, as people will not likely buy something that they havent tested, and liked... there is a bigger chance of someone pirating SC2, liking it and then, buying the game, than anything else, since lets get serious here, the real deal in RTS games is not the missions, not even lan (playing with your friends), the real deal is online play, and great online playing systems should alone be a reason to have to buy the game, rather than them forcing you through silly tactics that are only holding e-sports back (because of how common issues like disconnections and lag are in local tournaments).
There is a great video arround youtube about a book writer, that at first hated pirating, because he though of it as people stealing him money, but when he noticed the places where he was beign pirated had a GREAT increase in sales (like russia), he understood that pirating was a way for new people to get to know his work, and then, if they liked it, buy it.
How many people have you met that said they didn't buy SC2 because they couldn't test it first? And not just as a "protest" because of the lack of LAN, but because they didn't actually knew if the game was good.
Now think about how many people wouldn't have bought the game if they could play online without paying.
It's not that simple, for both sides. You will never bring a argument and everyone will just say. OMG I had never though about that! It makes sense now! This kind of discussion will go on forever.
People keed saying "It's fine to pirate it if you don't have the money to buy it, even if you like it", but seriously, who has a PC capable of running recent games and has actually no money to buy a single game? Just because you spent all your money in other things, doesn't mean you wouldn't have spent it on the game instead of something else if you couldn't pirate it.
I know several people that only buy games that can't be pirated, and not because they are the only good games.
We bought sc2 because its blizzard, one of the Best game companies, and they still screw up... Just look at Duke Nukem, hyped as shit, alot of people bought it because they though it was going to be awesome, like the first one... what did it turn out to be? a piece of garbage... people pirate for that reason, just as companies might feel ripped off if someone pirates their game, customers feel as ripped off if they pay $50+ usd for a game, and its crap.
That is still a shitty attitude. Why does the game company owe you anything? Why do they have to make a good game? None of that makes sense to me. This is why reviews exist for movies, books, tv shows, and games, so you don't have to make an uninformed decision before purchasing. If a company keeps on making shitty games, then let the market take care of it by not purchasing its games. If people keep on purchasing their crappy games, then good for the company. None of this means that a company owes you anything.
If you feel ripped off, it's probably because you make poor decisions rather than the company made a mistake. At this point, in the 21st century, people should know that hype and advertising has 0 correlation with quality. People who bought Duke Nukem early should have waited for the reviews.
This is something else that I feel a lot of people have ignored when they give examples of successful games like Counterstrike and BroodWar. CS 1.6 was out in 2003. BroodWar was out in 1998. Are any of you seriously comparing the internet 10 years ago to the internet today? Today you can find torrents and p2p programs of all varieties in a snap. 10 years ago, it would have been a lot more difficult, and the amount of people with passable computer knowledge was a lot smaller. It's not just a matter of ease of torrenting, but the size of the market that is capable of pirating, which increases every year as old people who don't understand computers are replaced by young people who do (that sounds crass but I couldn't think of a nice way to say it).
On June 23 2011 09:03 LITTLEHEAD wrote: LAN is clearly wanted dearly, but the fact of the matter is that you CANNOT implement LAN without knowing you're going to lose HUGE amount of money. I do think a potential LAN that require you to log in online yet run a peer-to-peer connection/LAN of some form.
Anyone thinking that Blizzard or any other of these gaming companies don't NEED the money, then please open your own business and attempt to thrive under these savage conditions that are progressing. I do believe that some progress of LAN will be made such that they can implement it without risking piracy, but atm there should be no expectations of it in the immediate future.
Stating that someone like Microsoft has the biggest piracy issues and are still a forward moving company, comes from someone who is ignorant. Their scenario is completely differant in multiple ways. First of it has nothing to do with LAN, and their market is MUCH MUCH MUCH larger than that of a gaming company(specifically PCs).
I as much as anyone, want LAN and pray for it, but until a effective method of LAN that can be backed by the security of online gaming is created, there will only be large declines of LAN use.
On June 23 2011 08:42 Seam wrote: The term "This is why we can't have nice things" comes to mind.
I'm not really sure why people are arguing over if lost sales are a good reason or not...it is. You honestly can't expect a company to throw away a chance to make money.
"But adding LAN might increase sales!" Maybe, but if they add LAN there is a 100% chance they will be pirated a ton.
Tell me, though ICCups history how many of the players there do you think actually bought SC1? A nice chunk, no doubt, but don't tell me it was everyone. I'd be willing to bet at least 10% just downloaded it from ICCup before playing the 5/10$ game for hours on end.
This would happen to SC2. It being Pirated isn't in question. It would happen.
It makes sense for them to not add LAN mode. It sucks for the rest of us, but it makes sense. Not that it'll stop people from getting pissed and calling Blizzard the bad guys, though.
Citation very much needed...
Really tired of some of the stuff thats done to screw over gamers in the fight against piracy. DRM that slows down pirated releases for a whole evening of some script kiddies time, and is removed for the non paying customer. One time use codes so you have to keep track of account details if you think youll want to replay a game at some point. And no lan, so you can watch MLG and see Incontrol's face get increasingly more FFFFFUUUUU as the connection to bnet lags.
On June 23 2011 08:44 Pirat6662001 wrote: Games that people pirate= games they wouldnt buy otherwise. And companies like Valve and Blizzard shouldnt worry about it cause they make awesome games that people WANT to buy.
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Pretty much everyone on TL fall under the category of people WANTING to buy SC2. But there is also a large group of people unwilling to buy, these numbers are probably quite a bit larger given the date of the source.
Silly, I downloaded a game through a bittorrent because it was faster than through blizzard system (i dont own a hard copy), but i still have a legit copy. Just cause you download a torrent doesnt make you a pirate. I download most games i buy (dont own hard copys) through a torrent and have a legal version still. I now that my gamer friends do the same thing cause its efficient
I would argue that is still stealing, you bought a legit copy but that still does mean your stealing. Unless the distributor or producer of a game permitted you to acquire the game in such a manner you would be stealing.
You really believe that? Do you also believe that it's stealing to buy an album, then rip it to my MP3 player? I can't understand this mentality - that every single thing a business desires is how things should be. The shift to digital music mostly happened because consumers got fed up with unreasonable demands, like the example I gave, and decided en masse to say "Fuck you. I'm doing it anyway.".
Yes I do. You acquired an ILLEGAL copy of the digital and intellectual contents that Blizzard created, through a method of free exchange that was UNAUTHORIZED and NOT permitted by Blizzard. If that's not stealing, I really need to revise my understanding of it.
Yeah. You definitely need to revise your understanding of stealing.
Take my Spore experience as an example. A friend of mine bought Spore for me for my birthday. I went home, installed it and had fun. My computer crashed a few days later and I had to format and reinstall. The DRM was locking me out because it thought I already had installed my copies too many times (glitch on their end, as admitted by their tech support that still didn't help me).
What was I to do? Go buy another copy? Hell no. I downloaded it and played the game I legitimately had every right to play. Yet you would call me a thief and say I should be penalized for this?
Ah, the ol'e piracy debate. Don't fucking do it. That should be it. It's bullshit, immoral, selfish and harmful. This is one of the few cases in all debates where I can say that by pirating you actually are hurting esports*.
*Note use of non-capitol letters. This shows the non-ironic use of the word. In future, the use of ESPORTS as displayed should be considered satirical and sarcastic.
On June 23 2011 07:56 worldsnap wrote: You keep saying this over and over but it's still not true. While a pirated copy of something is definitely not always a lost sale (For example, i'm not going to actually rent all the movies i watch if i couldn't download them), but i sure as hell downloaded a lot of games until Steam made it even easier than pirating to get a game on release. And i'm by far not the only person in this position.
lol, I said it twice for the sake of reiteration because they selectively read my post and argued on pretty much no basis.
Pirates were not consumers in the first place = "While a pirated copy of something is definitely not always a lost sale."
Enough said.
edit: quotations
You're wrong. Pirates make many real consumers feel like suckers. This leads some of them to start pirating as well.
Personal insecurities have no value. I can claim that I feel good when I buy games as opposed to "feeling like a sucker" because I see to it that money goes to where money is well-deserved. I can coerce my friends and people within my network to purchase software too to make them also "feel good".
^ You realize your argument is a personal sentiment of yours and holds no bearing as neither does my hypothetical situation
Your statements that pirates aren't real customers has no bearing either, then. That statement has no value and no truth to it no matter how many times you repeat it. Your original argument is a personal statement of yours, too. Don't try to twist it around.
I'm not gonna respond to your feeble points from now because there is nothing of value in our little debate and I hope you can see to it as well.
Why does my statement that pirates = aren't customers has no bearing? No value? No truth? My original argument "is a personal statement too" "don't try to twist it around?"
First and foremost I'm not trying twist anything around and of course all my statements are personal or else whose statements are they lol? Now that that's cleared up, I've stated it 3 times now because of people who can't read.
Let's logically break this down:
1) Pirates = individuals who get involved in unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind is extremely common
2) They do this for several reason, one of them predominantly is because they don't wish to purchase the software
3) Buy not choosing not purchase the software and to pirate it, that indicates they didn't have the intentions of purchasing in the first place, nor did they end up as a customer (they could have been, but unlikely)
I don't have any data on this as I did not conduct a study on this but since you feel so strongly about the issue and feel I am wrong in my logic, maybe you should
Your 3) is wrong. Noone wishes to buy things if they can get it for free, so 2 applies, but it applies to every single thing.
They choose not to buy things when they can do so. But a big part of them, and this is where there is an actual discussion, wether this part is huge or not that big, but undeniably big, will still buy the games if they have no way to obtain them for free.
So while not all pirates are customers, some definatelly are. And those represent lost sales.
Anyone that says piracy doesn't represent lost sales makes no sense. What you can argue is wether the "cons overcome the pros".
Saying that no one buys things they can get for free doesn't make sense when Team Fortress 2 hats sell by the truckload, League of Legends follows a similar trend, and Brood War is one of the biggest selling PC games of all time.
And Valve has the highest revenue per head in the entire world. :D
I'm sorry, but can they get the hats for free without huge time investments? Can you just download the hats from another site? It is impossible to get those items, in both LoL and in TF, just by playing cassually. I'm sure that they would get pirated to death and wouldn't sell at all if you could dowload them for free. When you pirate a game, you get the exact same thing you would have paid for.
People will pay for things they can't obtain otherwise, exactly my point in the previous post. I'm not sure what your point is.
My point is that service is what's key when trying to beat piracy, not actively trying to stop piracy. DRM measures have proven to be counter productive in combating it and an awful lot of people were rather miffed when SC2 was announced to not have LAN. Publishers interacting with their community and not treating their customers like money cows waiting to be milked makes the customer more likely to recommend the publisher to their friends, who in turn recommend to their friends and so on, and through all of these new customers the publisher makes their money. And saying pirated copies are lost sales is a bit sketchy.
Piracy if anything just seems like a scapegoat to try to wring remaining customers even harder. Especially when you read articles like this:
I will not even argue for or against DRM, I do believe some things are done right, and some are too intrusive. That system works perfectly fine for LoL, but a lot of people still mind that paying customers have advantages and it definatelly is a system that wouldn't work in most games.
I do believe most piracy estimatives are completelly wrong, I always did. But I still believe that companies lose money because of piracy. It's undeniable that A LOT of stuff is pirated, it doesn't actually matter exactly how much. It's very hard to deny that a good portion of those would never buy the games if they couldn't pirate.
It's obviously just what I can see, but I know a lof of people that only buy games that can't be pirated, I assume everyone does, because it's pretty damn common. Those people would definatelly buy all kinds of games, and not just multyplayer ones, if they couldn't be pirated. They would probally buy less games than they pirate, yes, but they would also buy more games than they currently do.
I'm not exactly trying to say every DRM is great, etc. I just can't believe that piracy doesn't hurt sales at all. Wether it's worth it or not, it's definatelly debatable, and for some games piracy definatelly helps, mostly for advertising, something that the big games don't need as much.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9880/piracy.png)
