German Appeals Court Sides With RapidShare Against Atari in Copyright Case

[ionveau]

A candle loses NOTHING by lighting another candle

 

[dishwasherwong]

Why would people download Alone in the Dark? That game was fucking terrible. No surprise then that German courts sided with Rapidshare.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Atari are clearly deluded, I mean, how many people could possibly be downloading Alone in the Dark?

PS Effing blind captchas, there has to be a better way.

 

[mjc0961]

The ironic thing here is that for all the fighting and the big lawyers they are hiring, the games industry hasn't done the one big thing that could change all this: lower their prices.

They are pirates. The price could be $0.50 and they'd still steal it just to save $0.50, the cheap bastards.

 

[felixader]

Wait a second. Sligthly off topic:

"and has hired the lobbying group Dutko..."

What the Fuck? Shouldn't Lobbyists stand behind waht they are ... lobbying for? °_°

 

[Therumancer]

I think a lot of people will risk $5 or $10, especially for a copy of a game they know will work without any special manipulations, as opposed to the above *IF* games ever fell to that level.

You ever hear the phrase "It's a sin to steal a pin?" That's because people will steal anything, even something that costs next to nothing. As a matter of fact, when you devalue it that just makes it seem all the more acceptable. I might also add:

No price beats free. Reanimated Strawman destroyed. You have gained 50 xp. Collect 200 gold

But instead of being a dick I'm just gonna run some figures by you man. And see what you think when I'm done. The Team behind "Breath of Death" (XBLA indie title), Zeboyd Games is very candid about their financial statistics. They are a team of two men. They sold their first game for 1 dollar a copy. They sold 40,000 copies. Pretty good right? Their final profits were 21,000 dollars. Their game, while not a bad game by any means, looks like this:

.

A bit much with all the screenshots, for the record I own both of Zeboyd's games, and Mass Effect (both games), and yes I purchused them.

That said, the biggest problem is when you sit there and go "oh wow, $60 million dollars" consider that Hollywood spends that much, and more on movies, and you can go see a film two, or maybe three times, and buy the same movie (with extra features) on DVD or blue ray for the cost of one of these games!

You'll also notice that movies drop in price VERY quickly after the new release, so if you don't need the film in your collection immediatly, a couple of months later in many cases it will be at Wal*Mart for half price.

What's more you talk about packaging and distribution, but also remember that one of the big things about digital downloads was how much savings could be passed on to us consumers by cutting those things out. You'll notice that for the most part when you download game, you pay the same price you would pay for it retail, despite not getting any of the physical materials that go with it. The industry just pockets that money as profit, as opposed to passing any of it on to the consumers.

To be entirely honest I think there is no question that the industry could lower it's prices substantially and still make a profit, although it does mean the human resources would wind up making less money overall, with the prices being driven pretty much by what these guys think they should be making. Look at the whole Infinity Ward thing, and the bonuses they were promised (which nobody bats an eye over) simply the fact that bonuses that massive are being promised to employees and they don't even bat an eye sort of illustrates the problem in terms of development costs, contrary to rumors and defenses, apparently people in the industry are expecting those kinds of paydays, which of course directly influances how much we pay for games.

That's what I think at any rate.

As far as people pirating games goes, PB Winterbottom hasn't always been that cheap, and while there are people who will steal anything and everything, I don't think that is a standard state of being for people in general (despite being cynical). I don't think lowered prices will totally stop piracy, so don't misunderstand that, but I do think it will reduce the amount of it substantially.

 

[felixader]

Wait a second. Sligthly off topic:

"and has hired the lobbying group Dutko..."

What the Fuck? Shouldn't Lobbyists stand behind waht they are ... lobbying for? °_°

yea, your behind, almost no lobbiest group actually believes what they lobby for. They make big business lobbing for interest and being payed millions to do it. While some groups do exist they are usualy directly run by the people they are lobbing for, like the video game industry lobbiest group. Most lobbiests are for profit entities that only directly benefit by getting what ther customers want passed in the form of more business and thus more profit.

Its a industry where former politicians make millions, the real reason they went into politics to start with.

I knew that the Problem (for true Democracy) is severe but i didn't think it would be so intense as to be it's own Jobgroup.

What a Fuck Up.