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On December 01 2011 02:03 Fruscainte wrote:Also, people need to stop misconstruing the points being made here. It's not about being "internet superheroes" or whatever. It's about not paying for shitty service. I do encourage you to watch Gabe Newell's take on it, since it got lost away in the spam last page. It really makes a good point on not defending piracy, which is not what I'm doing, but rather explaining how it can be logically reduced without using intrusive forms of DRM. + Show Spoiler +1:05 in.
Yeah, I saw that, and it's good.
However, it's also severely limited. Gaben isn't worried about pirating because he provides a good service. You're telling me that there aren't people who would pirate from a good service anyway? I know some pirates see themselves as "noble rogues, trying to combat an evil system", but if it came down to brass tacks, there was no DRM, online-only, or anything like that, people would still pirate games.
It's not like people would stop pirating games if every company was like Steam. Hell, people did it before, I knew a guy who had 6 copies of BW with CD Key broken installs. Almost no one ever payed for that game after like, the first year.
So don't try to play it off as "yeah, pirates are just fighting against the problems". No, that's just justification.
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Most pirates are not greedy at all, they just don't like paying for a shit service like Gabe Newell said, or they want to try out the product. I know guys who pirate alot and most of them have spent retarded amounts on their computers(talking 4-5k usd), and in general they like to buy pointless thing, yet they pirate games.
Most people who actually enjoy a game will buy it. I've pirated quite a few games, but it's all games I would never have bought anyway. I'm a big fan of the fallout and elder scrolls series and guess what, when fallout 3 and skyrim came out, I bought the games. The thought of downloading them didn't even hit my mind once.
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United States5162 Posts
On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped.
You're defending pirates a little too much. I agree that adding DRM only encourages people to pirate so they don't have to deal with the bullshit, but people were pirating games before all the crazy DRM though. For many, the simple logic of 'if you can get something for free why would you pay for it' is reason enough.
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It's worth remembering that many people also download games that they wouldn't normally buy. I know it's been mentioned hundreds of times that people download games to try before they buy, but that's not quite what I mean, as a lot of people will just down load the latest installment of the series they enjoy, just to see if it's ok and maybe to test if it runs on their current machine.
What I mean is, that people will pirate a game in a genre that they don't usually play, or a game with a concept/premise that they aren't familiar with, so they can see first-hand what the fuss is all about. For example, for people who aren't really familiar with Diablo-style RPGs might download Torchlight and give it a go, because the reviews/opinions they've come across don't really explain what compels people to play them.
This can be an excellent thing for developers as it can serve as another means of marketing their game. I remember hearing the Torchlight developers saying that they were actually pleased that their game was pirated over 2million (or was it 1?) times in China, because they viewed that as 2 million (and more, if you count word of mouth and viral interest) more potential buyers for that game and for their subsequent games.
edit - I mean to say that in the circumstances I'm talking about, no one can refer to those downloads as 'lost sales', but rather potential sales.
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Most of my friends will pirate a game if they don't have to buy it. The only games they will buy are the games that you have to register online to play (Battlefield 3, SC2, etc..).
For me it is different. I will buy ALL games I plan to play for a while (I also collect games so...) but yes I will download games sometimes that I just want to fool around with (Skyrim for exemple... not my type of game but I want to see what the fuzz is about).
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games are larger now than ever before
more peiople are buying games than ever before
more people are pirating games than before
the computer games industry is MASSIVE
piracy really is not a problem
traditionally games where shareware adn then you bought the rest ...
At the end of the day the biggest games get played by everyone and bought by those that can afford it.
THats the way its always been ... nothing wrong with it.
I spent £300 on games last year because i am 30 and can afford it ... when i was 16 i spent 0 (a lie i bought the second 2 episodes of doom). So there you go.
You need to differentiate between franchise games games liek EA games that are churned out year after year as well as games that are purley there to make money (EG battlefield and cod) vs games designed for well ... community. I pick those 2 games as they are iterations rather than *new games*. It is the capitalist idea of making someone go out and buy an upgrade... its like DLC.
You can usually tell from all the marketing ...
Look at skyrim ... VERY cool game ... butr thats because of all the work put into the world. As an rpg sure its iterated a few things ... but how is it really different to fallout3? Very similar idea. But look at it the other way with all the work most of the quests do not overlap or progress the story. Its clearly been built by a great number of people many of whom have probably never had to speak to each other. Games used to be 1 single small vision that was well executed. Hence why games like binding of issaac / plants vs zombies are highly deserving of my cash.
In 1988 i was playign a game called bards tale for £15 by EA. It was an rpg game with 6 party memebers a full class system a 70 page manual of spells items levels a map. Sure skyrim has a lot more than that in *SOME* ways, but at the end of the day we ahvent had a full paty rpg since baldurs gate (bethesda again). I probably put hundreds of hours into bards tale.
There are MANY more games being made now, most of them will be released early and need patching. There is no way you should pay fo ra game that needs a 0 day patch. It wasnt fit for purpose and igf you do buy them then games will be released because of the date not the quality.
PIRACY BUILT THE COMPUTER GAME INDUSTRY IN THE 80'S AND 90'S because games were so expensive. I was buying games at a rate of 1 per year for my megadrive as £40 for a game in 1990's was probably like buying a £80 game now.
Consoles have also killed UI in games .. so piracy? yeah its fine because PC owners are getting fucking in the ass wrt quality because of all the console owners out there.
I modified an imp image in a doom2 game once. Went to uni 3 yerra later and its already on the network there ... that means it went all the way accross the country being copied to beat me to uni. Piracy has ALWAYS existed on a large scale.
EG photoshop ... EVERYONE has some kills in this program because everyone has downloaded it adn used it. The result? It is the defacto standard for everyone. Dreamweaver got popular because they ahd a license that said use for free, pay us if you get paid using it. Microsoft have a similar approach now as they realised its the best way to get a new generation of developers. When i was 16 getting a IDE like visual studio cost thousands so you ripped it off. It snot liek you will ever get value from it ... the result of it is that i now own several high end visual studio licenses so they made their money back many tiems over from me.
If i ever manage to release one of my games which have taken thousands of hours of work btw, I will be happy if i see it getting pirated. That way more peopel will know about me - and hopefully in a good way.
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On December 01 2011 02:09 Requizen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:03 Fruscainte wrote:Also, people need to stop misconstruing the points being made here. It's not about being "internet superheroes" or whatever. It's about not paying for shitty service. I do encourage you to watch Gabe Newell's take on it, since it got lost away in the spam last page. It really makes a good point on not defending piracy, which is not what I'm doing, but rather explaining how it can be logically reduced without using intrusive forms of DRM. + Show Spoiler +http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk&feature=player_embedded 1:05 in. Yeah, I saw that, and it's good. However, it's also severely limited. Gaben isn't worried about pirating because he provides a good service. You're telling me that there aren't people who would pirate from a good service anyway? I know some pirates see themselves as "noble rogues, trying to combat an evil system", but if it came down to brass tacks, there was no DRM, online-only, or anything like that, people would still pirate games. It's not like people would stop pirating games if every company was like Steam. Hell, people did it before, I knew a guy who had 6 copies of BW with CD Key broken installs. Almost no one ever payed for that game after like, the first year. So don't try to play it off as "yeah, pirates are just fighting against the problems". No, that's just justification.
I never, ever, ever said that all pirates are trying to be FIGHT DA SYSTEM ROBIN HOOD YAAAR. In fact, a lot are just, as you say, douchebags. However, in an age where pirated versions are starting to be BETTER in terms of service and overall experience than the bought version, more and more people are pirating them. That's the issue here. There will ALWAYS be piracy, however, it can be made a non-issue when you make a great service. When you have something like Steam and Steam Cloud that provides the service that it does, all for free, it encourages people to buy games rather than torrent and re-torrent all the time.
You see, the issue isn't "How to stop pirates 4ever!!!!" or "PIRATES R EVUL", that is not the issue at all. The issue is how to reduce piracy to an acceptable level. The only way to do that is to remove intrusive DRM and to provide a service in a way that buying the game gives a better experience than pirating a game, which simply is not the case with most releases these days in age unfortunately. A lot of games I pirated and bought, I just kept playing the pirated version. Why? I didn't want to deal with the bullshit that comes with having to work with the shitty service with buying the game. Anno 2070 is a prime example of this, in recent time.
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On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped.
But that's completely immoral justification. Take that as you will, of course.
Your argument is "I'm having more fun this way, I don't care if it's illegal". What the fuck? Can you honestly tell me that this is your justification for not buying games? I can understand the guy from Bulgaria who can't afford them (seriously, never saw those prices before, holy crap), but crying because the bought version is trying to verify itself is dumb.
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On December 01 2011 02:11 Myles wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped. You're defending pirates a little too much. I agree that adding DRM only encourages people to pirate so they don't have to deal with the bullshit, but people were pirating games before all the crazy DRM though. For many, the simple logic of 'if you can get something for free why would you pay for it' is reason enough.
I'm not defending piracy, I'm attacking developers. Piracy is reduced with good service. I'm a pirate, and I buy games with great service. Where I get a better experience with the bought version than the pirated version. I outright refuse to download Ubisoft games because of how fucking bullshit 99% of their DRM is. It's not about me defending piracy, I'm actually providing the best way to STOP it almost entirely from an insiders point of view.
I'm a pirate, I pirated 1TB worth of shit in the past two years. It blows my mind that when pirates, not only just me, but all over the internet, are coming out with legitimate ways that are not hard nor costly at all to negate piracy to a level of non-issue people just go "STOP DEFENDNIG PIRACY YOU SCUMBAG WE'LL JUST KEEP PUTTING MORE DRM ON GAMES THAT CAUSES PEOPLE TO PIRATE IN THE FIRST PLACE"
It just outright blows my mind.
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On December 01 2011 01:36 daemir wrote:
If the indie game designers game is truely an amazing piece of work, people will buy it.
You'd like to believe that, but that is almost never the case. For every indie game that gets recognized, there are hundreds more that'll never sniff any success. Okay, maybe most of them aren't that great to begin with. But there are some niche appeal titles that should have more success than they currently have.
This problem also affects handheld games to a degree. Ghost Trick (DS) is a phenomenal niche game but it had less than 50000 sales in its opening months. Just because a game is good doesn't mean it'll sell. It'll sell only if it caters to the masses.
Gabe Newell is swimming in money so of course he doesn't care too much about piracy.
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On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped.
It does and doesn't work the more work people have to do to pirate a game the less likely they will wait around for a good version that's easy for them to work with and thus more likely to go out and buy the game. You want to say it doesn't wok? look at sc2 there are pirated online servers but with only a few hundred people on at a given time becuase it took so long everyone who wanted to play multi-player bought the game. The point at game companies is that they spend say 2 mil developing a game maybe 5 mil(random number) once it comes to producing and adverting a game etc and they get to sell you a game once for 50-60 dollars and the game will only sell well for maybe a year, this isn't an iron that they developed and can sell for 10 years pretty much with little alteration and they can't adjust their price really because everyone sells games at the same price this is a very ruff business model very similar to movies.
And talking to people i would say most pirate not to see if a game is worthy to buy but becuase they don't want to go out and buy the game. It's usually a combination of lazyness and paying for something, why pay for something when you can get it for free. Which brings up the moral argument why do some people claim it's a right to pirate to test out games, with that logic all people should be allowed to play the games for free and IF IF they feel like paying for it they can. Which is an absurd model, do you pay for movies after you've already enjoyed them? Do you pay for tickets to something after you've already done it? This is business money up front no bums
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+ Show Spoiler +On November 30 2011 23:24 Jojo131 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2011 23:06 Daimai wrote:On November 30 2011 22:28 Neo7 wrote: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. But demos aren't the full game! They often don't give you enough experience to decide. Also the game can look promising in the beginning but turn out shitty. For example. I pirated Portal 2. I liked it. I went out and bought it months after I completed the game just because I wanted to support Valve. I pirated Amnesia. I liked it. I am planning on buying it soon (tight on cash). I pirated CoD. It sucked. I didnt buy it. Everybody's happy (except Activision trying to steal my money). While I'm happy to read that you actually buy the games after pirating them, you really think that majority of people who pirate games do the same? What is the rational incentive to do so?
I tend to do this also, especially for games I'm on the fence about. I've picked up several games after having tried them through piracy. I have also NOT picked up several games because I didn't like them when I tried them.
I am all about supporting developers and furthering the game industry, but I am not blindly shelling out full retail price for a game I don't even know if I'll enjoy... it's just silly.
That said, most pirates probably fall into one of three categories:
1) People who wouldn't buy the game anyway: this was me for a long time in grade school as I couldn't afford / parents wouldn't buy me the games I wanted to play... aka this is not revenue lost. (Not that I believe games should be free, but saying 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale is utter nonsense)
2) People who want to try the game: Testing the hardware requirements, trialing the game before they buy, etc. are all valid in this category... and again, this is not revenue lost, only potential revenue gained. I'm fairly certain most in this category are in my boat (don't want to shell out $50-60 for a new title blindly without even trying it or receiving hearty recommendations)
3) People who can buy the game, but pirate it anyway - This is really the only group I object to and these ARE directly lost sales. I would almost argue this group is the minority to the above two.
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On December 01 2011 02:15 Fruscainte wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:11 Myles wrote:On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped. You're defending pirates a little too much. I agree that adding DRM only encourages people to pirate so they don't have to deal with the bullshit, but people were pirating games before all the crazy DRM though. For many, the simple logic of 'if you can get something for free why would you pay for it' is reason enough. I'm not defending piracy, I'm attacking developers. Piracy is reduced with good service. I'm a pirate, and I buy games with great service. Where I get a better experience with the bought version than the pirated version. I outright refuse to download Ubisoft games because of how fucking bullshit 99% of their DRM is. It's not about me defending piracy, I'm actually providing the best way to STOP it almost entirely from an insiders point of view. I'm a pirate, I pirated 1TB worth of shit in the past two years. It blows my mind that when pirates, not only just me, but all over the internet, are coming out with legitimate ways that are not hard nor costly at all to negate piracy to a level of non-issue people just go "STOP DEFENDNIG PIRACY YOU SCUMBAG WE'LL JUST KEEP PUTTING MORE DRM ON GAMES THAT CAUSES PEOPLE TO PIRATE IN THE FIRST PLACE" It just outright blows my mind.
Wait, so you're just saying "I want to have the same game experience but not go through the motions because it's annoying".
Product and service go hand in hand. You want one without the other, that makes you a pirate. It also makes you a fucking criminal.
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On December 01 2011 02:13 Requizen wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped. But that's completely immoral justification. Take that as you will, of course. Your argument is "I'm having more fun this way, I don't care if it's illegal". What the fuck? Can you honestly tell me that this is your justification for not buying games? I can understand the guy from Bulgaria who can't afford them (seriously, never saw those prices before, holy crap), but crying because the bought version is trying to verify itself is dumb.
It's actually not completely immoral, whether you agree with it or not. That situation could actually be described as 'taking a stand' against certain developers' decision as regards DRM for the sake of the games industry and the future of DRM.
Whether or not you think that works, or if you think that's the reason people are doing it, however, is a different issue. 
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On December 01 2011 02:17 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:05 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 02:04 Requizen wrote:On December 01 2011 02:00 Fruscainte wrote:On December 01 2011 01:57 subzer0 wrote:
Anyone trying to justify or defend piracy is a scumbag. Its exactly the same as walking into a store and stealing music, movies, or videogames. It is fundamentally wrong, but more or less completely free from prosecution. This is exactly the form of complete ignorance of the situation and total misinformation provided that lets the shit that developers are trying to pull on their paying customers go unhindered. Want to know how to "combat piracy"? Provide good service. Provide a good service and people will buy your shit. That's just the fact of life. If you are releasing shit that only hurts those whom buy the game, people are going to "steal" them (even though comparing downloading a digital representation of something is laughable to compare to walking into a store and taking something tangible.) No, that's dumb. DRM and online-only were put in place BECAUSE people were pirating shit. And yet it doesn't stop it at all and only hurts the buyers, causing even MORE people to pirate the game because they dont' want to deal with intrusive programs. See how that works? You'll never remove piracy. However, DRM only hurts it more. Every game gets cracked, and pirates still continue to play. And when buyers are stuck between the choice of having intrusive programs on their computer that limit their ability to play and have fun, and a version that has none of that which they should be getting when they buy the game, they choose the latter. You see, that's the issue. Pirated versions of games get better service than bought versions of the game. THAT is the issue that causes piracy. It's not about "HOW DO WE BLOCK ALL THE TORRENT SITES EVER", it's about providing a good service. When the pirated version is a better service than the bought version, more people will pirate. It's that fucking simple, I don't know how this can't be grasped. It does and doesn't work the more work people have to do to pirate a game the less likely they will wait around for a good version that's easy for them to work with and thus more likely to go out and buy the game. You want to say it doesn't wok? look at sc2 there are pirated online servers but with only a few hundred people on at a given time becuase it took so long everyone who wanted to play multi-player bought the game. The point at game companies is that they spend say 2 mil developing a game maybe 5 mil(random number) once it comes to producing and adverting a game etc and they get to sell you a game once for 50-60 dollars and the game will only sell well for maybe a year, this isn't an iron that they developed and can sell for 10 years pretty much with little alteration and they can't adjust their price really because everyone sells games at the same price this is a very ruff business model very similar to movies. And talking to people i would say most pirate not to see if a game is worthy to buy but becuase they don't want to go out and buy the game. It's usually a combination of lazyness and paying for something, why pay for something when you can get it for free. Which brings up the moral argument why do some people claim it's a right to pirate to test out games, with that logic all people should be allowed to play the games for free and IF IF they feel like paying for it they can. Which is an absurd model, do you pay for movies after you've already enjoyed them? Do you pay for tickets to something after you've already done it? This is business money up front no bums
You only reaffirmed my point. Blizzard provides an OUTSTANDING service to their community and their game, so people BUY their game. If Battle.net was the worst DRM ever, everyone would be playing on pirate servers (much like ICCUP was back in the day). A good service was provided and people, including me, bought it. And a very small number of people play the pirated version because well, they're douchebags.
You literally helped my point even more.
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I have a better analogy than stealing.
+ Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing
You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media.
You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government?
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On December 01 2011 02:19 dementrio wrote:I have a better analogy than stealing. + Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media. You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government?
That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale.
A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there.
Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is.
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On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:19 dementrio wrote:I have a better analogy than stealing. + Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media. You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government? That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale. A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there. Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is.
Here's a BETTER analogy.
You go into a car dealership with said magic gun. You have the choice of a shitty Camaro. One with torn seats, half the paint scratched off, the glass broken, and 100,000 miles. If you use the magic gun on said Camaro, you get a pristine, brand new Camaro. Which one would most people do?
Now imagine if the car dealership (or "developers") did what Pirates want them to do. Provide a service better than the copied version. If the Camaro you can buy is significantly better in every way than the Pirated version. Would more people buy the car, or use the version to copy the significantly inferior version? I think the choice is clear, my friend. Yeah, people will still take the worse version because they're cheap and douchebags -- but it will be much in the buyers favor.
This thread isn't about the moral implications of piracy, stop implying it is. The thread is about how to combat piracy. Piracy will ALWAYS exist, however, there are ways to significantly reduce its implications and impact on the market. That is what is being discussed here, how to make more people stop pirating the games and start buying them. That starts from the bottom up with better service.
The second developers stop labeling their customers as criminals by pre-emptively putting DRM on their computers, and start treating them as CUSTOMERS and providing good service, is when people start buying games.
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On December 01 2011 02:22 HereAndNow wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 02:19 dementrio wrote:I have a better analogy than stealing. + Show Spoiler +it's not hard to find one, because, well, piracy isn't stealing You live in San Diego and you just turned 21. You go party hard in Mexico, where a bottle of tequila costs $10. The same bottle in the US costs $20, because there is heavy tax on alcohol thanks to the liberal media. You drink a bottle and come back for the hangover. How much did you steal from the US government? That's not a good analogy, because you're still paying for the service. If I could find the same game in two places, but one charged me $20 dollars less, it's still a sale. A better analogy is this. You have a magic gun that lets you clone anything you shoot with it. You walk onto a car dealership. You shoot a Camaro. You drive off in a brand new Camaro that you didn't pay for, but the one you cloned is still there. Is this stealing a car? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is.
No, it's not. The owner of the original car still has it. You took a car that wasn't created and/or paid for by him in any capacity. #1 bad analogy.
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