http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91001-Demigod-Piracy-Running-Highmrpenguinismyhomeboy said:First off: Piracy is not killing the games industry. Piracy doesn't make as much of an impact on sales as you think its does. Sins of a Solar Empire shipped with no DRM, and still had high sales.midpipps said:Yes people commit crimes but the difference is when people commit crimes and I see it I will turn them in for it. If I see someone murder or rob or steal from someone else you better believe that I will turn them in to the authorities. If I saw someone come on the escapist talking about how they murdered someone or raped someone I would definitely point the authorities to it to try and get them behind bars. The problem is there is nothing like that for this topic. Sure call me nosy I don't care but I am not prying into the affairs of others just to pry I am prying because it is hurting an industry that I love and would love to see continue to grow. But pirating is killing that industry.
There are very few small companies that can come up with the cash to create a full fledged game for systems out now and when they do they loose possible revenue due to people pirating it instead of buying it. Which stifles the creative processes. Even the bigger companies are stifled due to it why should they create new IP's when they know rehashing the old ones will at least get them the fans purchase where as if they create a new one there are no fans to purchase and half of the people that might like it pirate it to test it but never go out and buy it even if they like it.
Yeah sure I will not convert all the people but maybe one out of every one million people will read my posts and think about what they are doing by pirating. Maybe they will change their minds I know it is not a probable thing to happen but I will still try.
Second off: The amount of people that buy will always be greater then the amount of people that pirate, for all of the above reasons that have been stated in this thread. For example, Braid was pirated by a friend and given to me. I loved Braid. It was an amazing game. But Jonathan Blow already has more then enough money. My fifteen or twenty dollars wont make a difference.
Third off: In a paraphrase of Benjamin Franklin (and Yahtzee): He who trades freedom of the users for copyright protection deserves neither. In other words, Piracy will always happen, and because we are a free society, we must take the good with the bad.
(sarcasm)Yep piracy is not hurting the game industry and yep buying customers will always be higher then the pirating customers.(/sarcasm)
So not only are pirates stealing from the company they are also killing the servers for the paying customers which in turn causes bad reviews and in turn causes even less money spent on the game from potential customers.
Yeah sure maybe Jonathan Blow did make enough money off the game but how does that give you the right to steal from him. He put the hard work into making a game he should get reimbursed for it so that he has a reason to create more games and maybe that extra revenue that he would have gotten off all the people who might have bought the game if it was not free would have given him enough capitol to fund a new game.
What gives you the right to steal from someone? Especially when it is something that is not a requirement of your living it is an entertainment medium. You do not need to play the game you want to play the game.
Also this whole there will always be pirates BS is not a good argument by your logic there will always be killers and rapist, so you should go do that too?