Growing up pirates?

[Arawn.Chernobog]

Oh there are plenty of solutions to truly fight piracy gone rampant, all of them mean sacrifices for those who don't pirate, the most popular one currently being suggested by several companies: "Make a monthly subscription system for all PC games and lock out half the content in on-line databases without which the game will not run properly, keep them lock until the subscription is paid"

Or people can start buying their damn games.

Yes, lets punish paying customers for the actions of people engaging in activities deemed illegal by countries they may not even live in. Flawless plan.

Never said it was my plan, but it's what the companies are doing at the moment. Blame the pirates for any shit that gets thrown in the way of the actual paying customer

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Yes, lets punish paying customers for the actions of people engaging in activities deemed illegal by countries they may not even live in. Flawless plan.

This point has been argued time and again. While I find no credible defense has been made for the legitimacy of piracy, I would also find it increasingly difficult to justify producing increasingly draconian DRM from a simple cost benefit perspective.

 

[direkiller]

Lets say you have a cake duplicating machine. You come to a man selling cakes, pick whichever you like and duplicate it, aren't you puting the man out of business? Obviously some would still come and pay for the original, and yes it is possible that if you didn't have the machine you never would have bought the original but there also a possibility that you would be really hungry and spend your money on the cake instead of spending it on something else.
And with the ability to duplicate the cake why would you ever want to buy the cake instead of duplicating it for all your friends and family?

That would only be a relevant analogy if the man selling cakes was also using a cake duplication machine, while suing anyone who also used a cake duplication machine to make cakes. Making the 'victim' in your scenario a gigantic prick.

For the second group it picking between going to see that movie this weekend or buying that game and some would buy the game and thus lost sales. As i said its not every pirated copy is one lost sale but there is still loss of sales due to pirated copes.

Lets look at the wii after that chip hit the market there sales of games dropped. Why because people who normal would have bought the game pirated it instead.

That first hypothetical is pretty thin. You're pitting the theater experience vs the game experience with a hypothetical group of people who are already declaring they are willing to pay money for the theater experience, and insisting they'd pay for games were they not available free.

Also, the wii's game sales were always "down." This isn't a recent development. Most wii libraries consist entirely of wiisports (and maybe wiifit). Apart from wiisports, wii game sales to console sales ratio never matched up to even the worst performing games of other consoles. Most of wii's install base likely doesn't even know there are other games for it... and they sure as hell don't want to play them.

my hypothetical group was an example of people with income they set aside for entertanment that chose to pirate games and chose to spend that money on something else because a pirated copy of a game is easy to obtain you can replace the movies with anything. None the less it is true that that is sales lost due to piracy.

and down is referring to a drop in sales of games. As in people were buying games at a steady rate a chip comes along that lets you play pirated copy and sales drop. this isint about peoples wii collection this is about sales figures.

 

[Signa]

This is why I feel education is a far better approach than any DRM scheme. There is no point in stopping piracy, but if you tell all your "customers" that you won't get any more of what you like if you pirate our stuff, and then maybe offer incentives to buying the original product, you are going to capture as much of your market as you possibly can. There is no point in crying over your game getting stolen by a 12 year old because 1) he doesn't have the money to buy it and 2) chances are his parents weren't going to buy it for him either. Just tell the 12 year old that if you liked the game, buy it when you get the money and realize that the candy he'd otherwise buy can wait.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm old, but not that old. Surely some of you remember that shit.

Wow. I've heard of this, but I've never seen it before. I love how they try to encourage people to buy their software by pointing out that new copies come with a manual and get support. Good manuals are now all but dead, and the internet is my tech support.

OT: I think most of it stems from not having the money to buy entertainment, and a good portion of the rest comes from the convenience. I never got into game piracy, aside from abandonware in the pre-GOG days. However, when I was about 12, I pirated tons of music off of Kazaa, and then later over usenet. Once I got a little older and had money of my own, I stopped pirating in bulk, and only grabbed an individual song when I needed it for something like a school project. I think the last time I pirated anything was Halloween 2009, when I had a list of movies that I wanted to watch, but couldn't find legit copies of in time for my movie marathon. I tried all of the local libraries, as well as Wal-Mart and Bestbuy, but I couldn't find copies of most of them at all, and the two I could find were way overpriced for a couple of 20 year old movies. I still intend to buy every last one of them at some point, but I couldn't get them in time for my marathon, so I downloaded them.

On the other hand, when I recently got a new computer -- the first time there's been a new one in the house since 2004, and the first time I've bought one for myself ever -- the first thing I wanted was a copy of F.E.A.R., which I had been looking forward to right until I realized my last computer wouldn't run it. To my surprise, it wasn't legally available anywhere, not even on Steam. Well, at this point I could easily have pirated it. But I didn't. I had the money, and I wanted a physical copy to put on my shelf. So I hit up Ebay and payed some random dude $20 for a copy of the Gold Edition. I was playing it not half an hour ago, and it was worth every penny. Again, I grew up in the age of piracy.

The moral of my story is that a pirated copy is not a guaranteed lost sale, and also that kids who grow up pirates often grow out of it once they start making money and gain the ability to buy legit copies of software. These petty DRM schemes and other anti-piracy measures are going about it the wrong way; if anything is a danger to the industry, it's the industry's reaction to piracy, not piracy itself.

 

[trickyfingers]

No. It just means they care even less.

Basically this.

Some of us literally grew up with it. At age 2 or 3, my very first computer games for DOS were all pirated by my dad. He introduced me to Napster back in its heyday, and he turned me onto bittorrent about 7 years ago. It's a bad habit and had me spending a good chunk of my income on harddrives. Completely transitioned toward legit, streaming music nowadays.

I don't pirate games because theres really no need, and my computer has shit for graphics. All my PC gaming is retro, at least 10 years old usually. Half-Life, Quake, Starcraft, UT99, these are games I already own legit copies of, but you can be sure I'd fire up bittorrent if any of my original disks got damaged or stolen.

I have no hacked or pirated console games. I'll be damned if I'm going to 1.) risk bricking my console in an effort to play pirated games and save money, and then 2.) risk getting banned from online play. I wait for games to get real cheap or at least become a 'greatest hits' before I buy them.


Don't make excuses for your bad habits.

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

Wow that 'don't copy that floppy' vid someone posted is truely bizarre.

I basically grew up with pirating, and when i was younger i was adamant i wouldn't pirate stuff. Now i frequently do so with things like music, but when it comes to games i'll only pirate a game i've already paid for.