Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game. They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
People who intend to steal never intend to buy the product--that is why they steal. This sentence is aggravating to hear because it means absolutely nothing. .
Yea, but when you steal you're taking something away from someone. With pirating you are just copying it, which is why the argument "i wouldnt have bought it anyways" is a good one, but one which you cant apply to stealing.
So many games today you can just pirate, but they still make tons and tons of money, pirating doesnt mean that you wont sell any games. And actually i think often times pirating helps to sell games by sort of spreading the word. And sc2 not having LAN probably means that a lot of people wont buy it as well.
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game. They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
People who intend to steal never intend to buy the product--that is why they steal. This sentence is aggravating to hear because it means absolutely nothing.
If I said that people who are hungry would like to eat, it would not be understood as an argument for stealing from a grocery store.
I'm not saying Blizzard shouldn't have LAN. Whether or not LAN is present doesn't stop the arguments in support of piracy from being stupid.
At no point is taking someone's product and not compensating it a good thing. It's an insult to the industry, and an insult to the market itself. It isn't like you're renting the game. Pay say small price for a month's worth of service, pay full price for full service. You're stealing someone's property.
Yes, his property. His product. To you it is just data that you copied, to the company it's another person out there in the world pushing the mindset that games should be free.
The logic for piracy is at best selfish and at worse malicious. It sounds too much like politicians promising bridges that they never have to build unless absolutely forced to.
My mistake, I didnt mean to make it sound like I support it or think its not stealing.
I meant it from marketing point of view (Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.) I meant this for single player games, I have many friends who pirate games and will never buy most of them unless they can clearly gain something from it (like multiplayer)
Once again, Im not saying piracy is right, or should be accepted, I mean it in the way they shouldnt try to fight against someone who doesnt actually hurt them (as in the will never buy it, so his money isnt a loss) example - Assassins creed 2's awful DRM system which only limits paying customers.
The loss comes from the culture that easy piracy brings.
It's not that SC2 will lose sales right now, it's the threat that if piracy becomes easier and more widespread that SC4 or SC5 or whatever product they make in the future gets hurt. The harder it is to pirate, the less people will pirate. The less people pirate the smaller the chance that piracy will hurt sales.
Those friends of yours only pirate because they know that they can do it. Piracy to them is this thing they can do easily. The goal of anti-piracy campaigns is to minimize the population of these people. You don't do that by asking pirates to stop pirating, you do that by physically and intentionally changing your product to counteract common piracy techniques.
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game. They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
This is just silly. It's because of pirates that we have sequels every year and it's because of pirates that I have to log in to Battle.net every time I start SC2. Stop pretending that piracy is something small and harmless. Downloading games IS stealing, no idea on which planet you live in. People work hard day and night to give you great games and by downloading the game for free you are not acknowledging their efforts. There is no free meal as they say and the same is with games. Today you get if for free and few months/years down the line you see companies less willing to invest money into expensive games and projects. No other company besides Blizzard, is willing to spend this crazy amount of money for a game to promote E-sports. If SC2 is not successful, I doubt we will see e-sports rising anytime soon. If you cannot afford a game, save some money and wait for it to become cheaper. I have been buying my games, although they cost A LOT in Bulgaria. SC2 is like 1/9th of your monthly salary. If I can't afford a game this month I might get it the next on. People had to work shitty jobs just to pay for their music/movies in the past, the same should be for games.
That's not true.
Because of developers who think they can pretend piracy we have to log in in Bnet, just because of developers who think it's LAN what causes piracy we have no LAN.
No LAN and LAN do nothing in favor or against piracy at all. All piraters will pirate and crack their games, every DRM was cracked what was yet released. There is nothing what prevents piracy.
The problem with DRM and constant online is that it hurts the players who actually bought the game. Because they want a full game and they get it only with 2 extra spy programs they don't want, or only if they are online (ever thought that some players who buy buy it because they don't want to have Internet on that special PC?) Piraters don't care. They don't care about LAN (see WoW private servers), they don't care about DRM, the real piraters just don't care.
I actually thought about cracking my already buyed copy of Dead Space 2, which i enjoyed and i don't regret buying it, but i don't wanna install the stupid "only 5 Installs and being online"-tool.
What publishers don't understand is that while piracy isn't good, there politic about "preventing" piracy is also really flawed and does nothing good.
Look at the entire marketing strategy for Battlefield, its all about how they care and its working like magic.
It is? Maybe among "the community" it works, but we'll see next year, when the CoD game outsells Battlefield. Maybe not on PC, but certainly overall.
Most Indie games feature single player only or multi player that can be cracked without a problem but still they get amazing sales with no marketing (not all of them ofcourse).
Bullshit. Most indie games do not get "amazing sales." And many that do only do so because they sell cheaply. When was the last time you saw an indie game go for $50?
these are all companies I can put faces behind that care and I buy most of their games due to it (and the support ofc.)
This says something about you as a person, that you can only care about "certain people" even though others are also people who worked hard on their games too. Devaluing other people, seeing them as sub-human and not worthy of participating in modern capitalism, is wrong and despicable.
Again, if you're going to be a pirate, I prefer the "it's all about ME!" kind of piracy, where you just take everything equally. This picking-and-choosing is what allows you the pretense of nobility. You support the "good" ones and steal from the "bad" ones. It's a way of salving your ego. You feel a bit like Robin Hood, hurting the "bad" people by playing their games without paying for them, while helping the "good" people.
It's a despicable attitude, the pretense of nobility hiding the withered, blackened heart of decadence and corruption.
Pirates are not stealing from companies
So, what exactly do you call it when someone works hard to create some entertainment, that you then play and enjoy without just and fair remuneration? The fact that you did not take a physical, tangible product does not mean that you aren't enjoying something without having remunerated the people responsible.
On June 23 2011 07:39 n0ise wrote: Goodwill is nice to have but it doesn't pay the bills and any gaming company out there is out there to make money first and make good games second
Even if you believe it or not, the person who said this paragraph in a public interview should be banned from public speaking, fired and completely dissociated with the company. I understand and even (kinda) agree with his point, but wow.
A child can see its the truth. You'd prefer them to spout obvious lies?
I would've wanted him to formulate the post in a way that says "Our main goal is to make quality games, but of course we have to support our financial needs", not "we'd do whatever if we get good money, good games sounds ok". I thought it was obvious and simple as a clear blue sky, I guess not for everyone.
Besides, it's not even completely true. Believe or not, (on an individual level, at least) out there there's people more interested in making a quality product and enjoying their jobs, rather then making a fortune out of it. Uncanny, I know.
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game. They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
People who intend to steal never intend to buy the product--that is why they steal. This sentence is aggravating to hear because it means absolutely nothing.
If I said that people who are hungry would like to eat, it would not be understood as an argument for stealing from a grocery store.
I'm not saying Blizzard shouldn't have LAN. Whether or not LAN is present doesn't stop the arguments in support of piracy from being stupid.
At no point is taking someone's product and not compensating it a good thing. It's an insult to the industry, and an insult to the market itself. It isn't like you're renting the game. Pay say small price for a month's worth of service, pay full price for full service. You're stealing someone's property.
Yes, his property. His product. To you it is just data that you copied, to the company it's another person out there in the world pushing the mindset that games should be free.
The logic for piracy is at best selfish and at worse malicious. It sounds too much like politicians promising bridges that they never have to build unless absolutely forced to.
My mistake, I didnt mean to make it sound like I support it or think its not stealing.
I meant it from marketing point of view (Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game.) I meant this for single player games, I have many friends who pirate games and will never buy most of them unless they can clearly gain something from it (like multiplayer)
Once again, Im not saying piracy is right, or should be accepted, I mean it in the way they shouldnt try to fight against someone who doesnt actually hurt them (as in the will never buy it, so his money isnt a loss) example - Assassins creed 2's awful DRM system which only limits paying customers.
The loss comes from the culture that easy piracy brings.
It's not that SC2 will lose sales right now, it's the threat that if piracy becomes easier and more widespread that SC4 or SC5 or whatever product they make in the future gets hurt. The harder it is to pirate, the less people will pirate. The less people pirate the smaller the chance that piracy will hurt sales.
Those friends of yours only pirate because they know that they can do it. Piracy to them is this thing they can do easily. The goal of anti-piracy campaigns is to minimize the population of these people. You don't do that by asking pirates to stop pirating, you do that by physically and intentionally changing your product to counteract common piracy techniques.
I agree. When they find a way to stop piracy without something as awful as most drm (which doesnt stop anyone i should add) I absolutely think they should include it in everything.
But the thing i was getting at was that cutting LAN support and limiting your customers (aka must be online to play) will improve your sales BUT giving your customers all you can and supporting them will improve your sales by as much. There was a youtube video earlier in this thread with Gabe Newell talking about how piracy isnt a problem for them, i encourage everyone to look at it.
On June 23 2011 07:41 Strayline wrote: The thing I'm wondering about is how long will it be before someone just sets up an alternate battle.net server in China. People set up fake WoW servers and such so it's not like it's impossible to set up pirate servers without LAN support already in the game--LAN just makes it much easier. After this happens will Blizzard then release LAN support to the rest of the community?
The way that B.net is set up right now, it's pretty difficult to create a crack since it would need to emulate quite a bit of the B.net architecture in order for it to work (or so I've heard). The hackers are already making small progress in cracking the multiplayer despite the difficulty, and I assume that adding in a LAN mode would only make their efforts easier.
And it is easier to stop a few versions of a complicated hack. If there was lan the hack would be so easy that it would be impossible to keep the losses low.
Blizzard has also made the chinese version od SC2 a mini transaction type of game, keeping the demand for hacks on a low.
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem
So you're saying the options Blizzard had was to either spend more money than they already did to try to get a *possibly* safe LAN system or ensure they prevent LAN abuse by saving money and not spend any resources in coding/testing it?
And you're confused why Blizzard decided to use the free option of not bothering with LAN? (Using your logic of course)
No, I was pointing out two things they could change easily and that would make the community happier. Yet they don't for whatever reason. They won't make any money out of it, probably on the contrary (they will charge for namechanges eventually - maybe it comes together with the map marketplace) so its just about doing the community a favor that doesnt cost them all too much. They decided not to do it which is a decision I dont like, cause the "old Blizzard" would probably have done it. My post was not about LAN mode, but I'll give you my opinion: I fully understand why there is no LAN. From a business perspective it is the logical thing to do, but I'm sure the game would have made profit even with it and all the piracy. I always hate it when they cut stuff because of piracy. Its just not fair. Because other people pirate the game the paying customer gets punished? I don't like that way of thinking. IMO Blizz shouldn't force customers to use their service to ensure they have to buy the game, but provide a service such good that people buy the game and use the service because of it.
I repeat my question.
But this time I'll use smaller words.
Why should blizzard spend extra effort (and money) to counteract something that shouldn't be done anyway?
For example. If rats steal an apple from your fruit bowl each day--does that mean you should buy one extra apple each time you buy groceries since you can't stop that rat anyway? Or should you buy a rat trap? OR you could pick the option where you stop buying fruits and just buy canned goods since rats can't steal canned food. Buying the rat trap requires bait, requires management, lots of time, etc... Just buying food that rats can't still is easy to do and removes the problem more quickly.
Your analogy is not really on spot. Let me extend it a bit: Say you have kids too and you want them to be healthy and happy. Your option is to tell the kids: "Shut up and sit down! The rat is stealing an apple everyday so from now on you will only eat canned food" and the kids will eventually be mad because they only get the canned stuff but love the real fruit. I would say give the rat that 1 apple a day, it doesn't cost you that much that it would ruin you and your kids are a lot happier and healthier that way. And who knows, maybe the rat will prove to be useful some day. The Analogy is still a bit off because pirating doesn't take away something you already own (like say, an apple, but only potential customers and it might generate additional customers too (if not for the pirated game, maybe for the sequel?).
TL;DR: As I said before, to not include LAN is the business thing to do. Including it would in turn please the customers and make them more loyal to your company and products. If it would gain or lose them money I'm not sure about: Piracy can have a lot of effects, negative and positive and I don't know how it would eventually influence SC2 in the long run.
Sure, to take it literally they are but a lot of them would never buy your game. They should a must be thought of as potential customers, not people who steal, companies should try to motivate them to buy their games, not fight against them and piss of their fans in the process.
People who intend to steal never intend to buy the product--that is why they steal. This sentence is aggravating to hear because it means absolutely nothing. .
Yea, but when you steal you're taking something away from someone. With pirating you are just copying it, which is why the argument "i wouldnt have bought it anyways" is a good one, but one which you cant apply to stealing.
So many games today you can just pirate, but they still make tons and tons of money, pirating doesnt mean that you wont sell any games. And actually i think often times pirating helps to sell games by sort of spreading the word. And sc2 not having LAN probably means that a lot of people wont buy it as well.
It *is* stealing.
Stealing is not the act of someone losing something. It is the act of taking something from someone that he did not intend for you to have.
If I raped your sister, and then told you "I didn't kill her, you still get her back" it would not be acceptable at all. If I licked your burger and told you "I just wanted to taste it in case I wanted to buy one" it would not be acceptable at all. If I hotwired your car and drove it around for a few months and gave it back--IT WOULD NOT BE OKAY.
The logic of "I left something behind so it's okay" is bad logic.
The fact of the matter is, when I am pirating Starcraft II, which really is just as easy as any other game, I'm actually get a better version of the game than what the developer offers me because I am able to play on Lan while the amount of people not pirating SC2 because of the requirement(lulz) of being connected to Bnet is barely significant.
Most Indie games feature single player only or multi player that can be cracked without a problem but still they get amazing sales with no marketing (not all of them ofcourse).
Bullshit. Most indie games do not get "amazing sales." And many that do only do so because they sell cheaply. When was the last time you saw an indie game go for $50?
these are all companies I can put faces behind that care and I buy most of their games due to it (and the support ofc.)
This says something about you as a person, that you can only care about "certain people" even though others are also people who worked hard on their games too. Devaluing other people, seeing them as sub-human and not worthy of participating in modern capitalism, is wrong and despicable.
Again, if you're going to be a pirate, I prefer the "it's all about ME!" kind of piracy, where you just take everything equally. This picking-and-choosing is what allows you the pretense of nobility. You support the "good" ones and steal from the "bad" ones. It's a way of salving your ego. You feel a bit like Robin Hood, hurting the "bad" people by playing their games without paying for them, while helping the "good" people.
It's a despicable attitude, the pretense of nobility hiding the withered, blackened heart of decadence and corruption.
So, what exactly do you call it when someone works hard to create some entertainment, that you then play and enjoy without just and fair remuneration? The fact that you did not take a physical, tangible product does not mean that you aren't enjoying something without having remunerated the people responsible.
I wish people would read more carefully .
Battlefield - isnt pc community the one we are all talking about, the one who has easiest time pirating? Indie games - these games dont sell as well as high budget titles but they dont cost as much and most importantly they have almost no marketing. With that in mind their numbers are very impressive. Robin hood attitude - as I have said in a response, I dont think pirating anything is right and it shouldnt be accepted. My entire post was about how companies shouldnt fight against pirates because they cant win, they should encourage people to buy them with support and giving a damn about their games. Pirates are not stealing from companies - Like i said in the first sentence, they ARE stealing from them im not saying they arent. Im saying companies must look at them not as someone to fight against (at this point since there is no way to stop them) but, once again, encourage people by quality service.
this is stupid. It's like saying internet killed the music industry cuz ppl download the songs. It actually gave it a huge ass boost, as bands got more fans some of which turned out to buy the cds, and the bands released other content like shirts or special dvds, collector's editions and put more emphasis on tourneys and concerts which are more popular then ever. (save for hippie festivals maybe)
If werent for hackers, about 1/10th or less people would have played w3 and dota (in the west the figures would have been better, eastern Europe, China, etc would have bought almost none), thus Hon would not have a market to speak of.
Same for fcking Blizzard with SC:BW, wihtout that sc2 would be nothing, and sc:bw wouldnt have spread the way it did w/out easy accessability. I had pirated copies of BW before i became a fan and bought the cd, twice.
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem
So you're saying the options Blizzard had was to either spend more money than they already did to try to get a *possibly* safe LAN system or ensure they prevent LAN abuse by saving money and not spend any resources in coding/testing it?
And you're confused why Blizzard decided to use the free option of not bothering with LAN? (Using your logic of course)
No, I was pointing out two things they could change easily and that would make the community happier. Yet they don't for whatever reason. They won't make any money out of it, probably on the contrary (they will charge for namechanges eventually - maybe it comes together with the map marketplace) so its just about doing the community a favor that doesnt cost them all too much. They decided not to do it which is a decision I dont like, cause the "old Blizzard" would probably have done it. My post was not about LAN mode, but I'll give you my opinion: I fully understand why there is no LAN. From a business perspective it is the logical thing to do, but I'm sure the game would have made profit even with it and all the piracy. I always hate it when they cut stuff because of piracy. Its just not fair. Because other people pirate the game the paying customer gets punished? I don't like that way of thinking. IMO Blizz shouldn't force customers to use their service to ensure they have to buy the game, but provide a service such good that people buy the game and use the service because of it.
I repeat my question.
But this time I'll use smaller words.
Why should blizzard spend extra effort (and money) to counteract something that shouldn't be done anyway?
For example. If rats steal an apple from your fruit bowl each day--does that mean you should buy one extra apple each time you buy groceries since you can't stop that rat anyway? Or should you buy a rat trap? OR you could pick the option where you stop buying fruits and just buy canned goods since rats can't steal canned food. Buying the rat trap requires bait, requires management, lots of time, etc... Just buying food that rats can't still is easy to do and removes the problem more quickly.
Your analogy is not really on spot. Let me extend it a bit: Say you have kids too and you want them to be healthy and happy. Your option is to tell the kids: "Shut up and sit down! The rat is stealing an apple everyday so from now on you will only eat canned food" and the kids will eventually be mad because they only get the canned stuff but love the real fruit. I would say give the rat that 1 apple a day, it doesn't cost you that much that it would ruin you and your kids are a lot happier and healthier that way. And who knows, maybe the rat will prove to be useful some day. The Analogy is still a bit off because pirating doesn't take away something you already own (like say, an apple, but only potential customers and it might generate additional customers too (if not for the pirated game, maybe for the sequel?).
TL;DR: As I said before, to not include LAN is the business thing to do. Including it would in turn please the customers and make them more loyal to your company and products. If it would gain or lose them money I'm not sure about: Piracy can have a lot of effects, negative and positive and I don't know how it would eventually influence SC2 in the long run.
Actually, with kid's in the analogy, the only realistic option is to kill the rat and to empty the house as you poison everything inside hoping everything dies as you and your kids wait for the slaughter to finish.
At that point, the rat would wish the parent simply got canned goods instead.
On June 23 2011 19:18 Geo.Rion wrote: this is stupid. It's like saying internet killed the music industry cuz ppl download the songs.
Actually, the music industry loved the internet UNTIL piracy reared its ugly head. The music and film industry LOVE being able to have websites with samples and trailers and all the other wonderful things the internet has. The music industry is specifically complaining about piracy.
In my opinion this whole argument is bullshit cooked up by some financial consultant because it's an easy way to promise the companies better results.
Sure there are some die-hard pirates that won't buy games no matter what but most people are reasonable with that stuff. I've got a bunch of online pals from my WoW time that started working by now (back then they were students as I am and pirated the shit out of new games like I do now...). When they started making money and having more available to spend they started buying more games.
They buy MMOs like Star Trek that they only test for some days or just go through the release lists of the months and preorder the stuff they're interested in.
Honestly: make good games that players will enjoy and you'll make money. If it's not enough you either spend too much making the game or you simply think you should get more than you will ever get...
and LAN doesn't even have anything to do with that at all... sure a few people play with tools like hamachi (at least that's what we used about 5 years ago), but it's not like a LAN modus "enables" you to pirate and play online... Who the hell pirates a game to play it in LAN modus over the internet? Are LAN parties such a big thing anywhere that you gotta "guard" your multiplayer by giving the games no LAN? Is Hamachi such a big hazard with millions of users playing pirated games there?
Honestly: What bullshit! Those guys are only damaging themselves by not adding LAN to "Esport" games
The chat client and other Bnet features are pretty lame at the moment, i admit. You blame everything on greed yet have no real proof. You say this or that is simple yet you know nothing about how the client works or how much work it takes.
I'm a programmer and CS student myself, so i know some things about software development. Name change is already implemented just not free, so i call that one easy. Dnd also can't be too hard you just have to track the status on the serverside (which i presume they do cause it shows you the status of your friends in the client) and then don't pass the messages if the target is on "block" mode. Im well aware that other things are more difficult and that even little changes require extensive testing and deployment can fuck things up. But blizz has so much capacity that it really shouldn't be a problem
So you're saying the options Blizzard had was to either spend more money than they already did to try to get a *possibly* safe LAN system or ensure they prevent LAN abuse by saving money and not spend any resources in coding/testing it?
And you're confused why Blizzard decided to use the free option of not bothering with LAN? (Using your logic of course)
No, I was pointing out two things they could change easily and that would make the community happier. Yet they don't for whatever reason. They won't make any money out of it, probably on the contrary (they will charge for namechanges eventually - maybe it comes together with the map marketplace) so its just about doing the community a favor that doesnt cost them all too much. They decided not to do it which is a decision I dont like, cause the "old Blizzard" would probably have done it. My post was not about LAN mode, but I'll give you my opinion: I fully understand why there is no LAN. From a business perspective it is the logical thing to do, but I'm sure the game would have made profit even with it and all the piracy. I always hate it when they cut stuff because of piracy. Its just not fair. Because other people pirate the game the paying customer gets punished? I don't like that way of thinking. IMO Blizz shouldn't force customers to use their service to ensure they have to buy the game, but provide a service such good that people buy the game and use the service because of it.
I repeat my question.
But this time I'll use smaller words.
Why should blizzard spend extra effort (and money) to counteract something that shouldn't be done anyway?
For example. If rats steal an apple from your fruit bowl each day--does that mean you should buy one extra apple each time you buy groceries since you can't stop that rat anyway? Or should you buy a rat trap? OR you could pick the option where you stop buying fruits and just buy canned goods since rats can't steal canned food. Buying the rat trap requires bait, requires management, lots of time, etc... Just buying food that rats can't still is easy to do and removes the problem more quickly.
Your analogy is not really on spot. Let me extend it a bit: Say you have kids too and you want them to be healthy and happy. Your option is to tell the kids: "Shut up and sit down! The rat is stealing an apple everyday so from now on you will only eat canned food" and the kids will eventually be mad because they only get the canned stuff but love the real fruit. I would say give the rat that 1 apple a day, it doesn't cost you that much that it would ruin you and your kids are a lot happier and healthier that way. And who knows, maybe the rat will prove to be useful some day. The Analogy is still a bit off because pirating doesn't take away something you already own (like say, an apple, but only potential customers and it might generate additional customers too (if not for the pirated game, maybe for the sequel?).
TL;DR: As I said before, to not include LAN is the business thing to do. Including it would in turn please the customers and make them more loyal to your company and products. If it would gain or lose them money I'm not sure about: Piracy can have a lot of effects, negative and positive and I don't know how it would eventually influence SC2 in the long run.
Actually, with kid's in the analogy, the only realistic option is to kill the rat and to empty the house as you poison everything inside hoping everything dies as you and your kids wait for the slaughter to finish.
At that point, the rat would wish the parent simply got canned goods instead.
I wanna see that internet pirate poison! I think you got what I meant, so there is no point in further arguing about the accuracy of the analogy. Ya know, I just wanna have LAN
On June 23 2011 19:18 Geo.Rion wrote: this is stupid. It's like saying internet killed the music industry cuz ppl download the songs.
Actually, the music industry loved the internet UNTIL piracy reared its ugly head. The music and film industry LOVE being able to have websites with samples and trailers and all the other wonderful things the internet has. The music industry is specifically complaining about piracy.
Music industry also hated radioes and fought against them, untill they realized they were actually extremely helpfull.
On June 23 2011 19:23 xlep wrote: In my opinion this whole argument is bullshit cooked up by some financial consultant because it's an easy way to promise the companies better results.
Sure there are some die-hard pirates that won't buy games no matter what but most people are reasonable with that stuff. I've got a bunch of online pals from my WoW time that started working by now (back then they were students as I am and pirated the shit out of new games like I do now...). When they started making money and having more available to spend they started buying more games.
They buy MMOs like Star Trek that they only test for some days or just go through the release lists of the months and preorder the stuff they're interested in.
Honestly: make good games that players will enjoy and you'll make money. If it's not enough you either spend too much making the game or you simply think you should get more than you will ever get...
and LAN doesn't even have anything to do with that at all... sure a few people play with tools like hamachi (at least that's what we used about 5 years ago), but it's not like a LAN modus "enables" you to pirate and play online... Who the hell pirates a game to play it in LAN modus over the internet? Are LAN parties such a big thing anywhere that you gotta "guard" your multiplayer by giving the games no LAN? Is Hamachi such a big hazard with millions of users playing pirated games there?
Honestly: What bullshit! Those guys are only damaging themselves by not adding LAN to "Esport" games
Their decision to remove LAN might or might not be a good decision. It might or might not hurt their business to do so. It's reasonable to be upset that there is no LAN.
What is not unreasonable is to believe that it's a bad idea for a company to not want their game to be pirated.
Imagine a world where piracy is legal. Perfectly Legal.
Blizzard releases SC2. Valve decides to grab it, copy the files to CDs and since they didn't need to spend any money on research and development they can sell the game at 2-3 dollars a CD. Blizzard goes bankrupt and never releases a game again. Valve does this for every single one of its competitors. Valve is now the only company that sells games. They then release games that have the most antipiracy protection that the world has ever known going so far as needing your DNA to turn on the programs you buy in order to protect its market share.
Just because the pirate feels that it is harmless does not mean that it is.
EPT
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