Software development is a service, not a good, and therefore there's nothing for me to "give" that I will no longer possess once it's purchased. It's my time and effort. Once I've served you with my game, I can't very well take back that time and effort and do something more worthwhile with it if you haven't paid me.
Yet the end result of a software development project is a product intended for sale--games or software. True you put time into developing that product (as a programmer, I know writing up a program is not an easy hundred lines of code or a few conditional statements), but a manufacturer of a car or a bread baker still end up with a product to sell: The car that goes on the market, or the bread sold in a super-market. If those products were taken from them with nothing in trade, I'd consider that theft. But if that analogy were to fit, its like the software developer, car manufacturer, or bread baker have a product to sell but not finding anyone to sell it too.
The software developer still owns the final product (Valve still sold "Half Life 2", and the same happened earlier with "Crysis 2" with EA). I agree they are losing money because a person could just get the game for free instead of giving them any money, but then this also gets into the ethical issue of used games or used products. The software developer doesn't get a penny if the customer gets their product from a Mom & Pop store, yet the customer legally purchases the product at a better deal for them. Of course the "Mom & Pop store" is usually replaced by GameStop. However, the direction of this argument (lack of payment for service = theft) implies the software developers/publishers are asking too much from the customer for the work they done. Valve had a holiday sale which included "Portal 2"--a game they released last year and was received well by gamers--for a great price on Steam. They continue to make a profit off their old and new products by giving a better deal to the customer.
If you think that piracy does not cause ANY loss of sales you're in denial.
Gamers like games - if they have to pay for them all they will pay for them. Maybe they won't pay for as many as they would otherwise pirate but they will buy SOME. I've been as dirt poor as anyone else at one point or another - I still found cash for the occasional game. Maybe not the latest released on launch day but I could still buy games.
So while I agree that one download does not equal one lost sale, game piracy DOES create lost sales.
Thinking that every single pirated game either falls into 'was never going to buy it' or 'will buy it later' is being silly. The third catagory 'pirated it cause I want it and this way is free' is a MUCH bigger number.
Game demos have been around a long time and most games have them (yes, not all I know). Those are the things you download for a test to see if you want to buy something, not the full game that you play for 10 hours then decide you don't want it.
I could write a whole my blog about how to save money while playing a lot of video games. I've noticed the average game has its price cut in half after six months and many beloved classics and inventive Indie games can be had for $20 or less (often much less).
I'm not sure if anyone else has thought of this but for the past 2000 years (at least) civilization has had a foundation based on a simple and broad exchange; A desired product or service for an agreed-upon volume of a currency and vice versa. While you think of the transaction as acquiring the end result you are also paying for the work that went into its creation.
Now we'll assume a basic level of intelligence and ask what would happen if non-entertainment items were digitized and distributed over BitTorrent. If you still can't see it I should remind you that about half the headlines you see in the news today are from money not circulating. It's not completely impossible I'm not sure what it would be or how but it is a possibility. Remember, no science fiction author could have printed the Internet or the iPod.
Games are to expensive is the most absurd point pirates ever brought up. Games are probably the 3rd cheapest form of entertainment media next to television and radio. You calculate the time spent vs the money paid and it is usually well under $5/hour. You can hardly say that for Going to the movies or buying a DVD.
If your in the United States there is almost no excuse. Between Blockbuster, Redbox, GameFly and other rental systems, you don't have to pay more than $10 for a couple nights with a game, usually long enough to play through the game.
Then there is always OnLive, which is FREE to have an account by the way. Even if you never purchase a game or playpass there. They have tons of games you can get 15-30 minute demos on. Not just old games, but newly released games too.
And finally if you can't afford a game, don't pirate it. Wait til it comes down in price. The games not going anywhere. Wait for Steam or Onlive(if you like that service) to have it on Sale. Or Go buy it secondhand at Gamestop(it still legal). You do not need it right away, no matter what the circumstance(or go get professional help if you do).
Always appreciate the editorialisation and intellectual dishonesty these articles stoop to.
We get it, the Escapist is anti-piracy. Calling it theft and calling anyone who opposes such a draconian and inaccurate viewpoint "apologists" is Fox News territory.
As I see it, the two polar notions that piracy is always a lost sale and that piracy is never effectively a financial loss are what is truly lacking logic. The truth is in fact somewhere in the middle.
The problem is that law works best when seen in black and white. It's really hard to make judgments when the problem is so murky and gray. Lawyers like problems that can be solved with "yes" or "no". Unfortunately this is a complicated issue
Morality is subjective, the law is not. It's perfectly legal to pirate software for non-profit use in a lot of countries (actually, most of them).
So, pirate only if it's legal in your country. Then you can think about morality.
The arguments for game piracy seem a bit flimsy in response to stories like CD Projekt's DRM-less Witcher 2 being pirated more than it was purchased or this abominable list of pirated games from TorrentFreak [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115003-TorrentFreak-Reveals-Top-Pirated-Games-of-2011]. The games industry can't just ignore these thefts, and no amount of backwards logic can argue the impact of piracy away.
1"It's not a lost sale, because they were never going to buy it anyway." (unverifiable ex-post-facto justification)
2"Stop calling it theft. The publisher is not denied access or deprived of any property." (a "no true Scotsman" regarding the definition of "theft")
3"Well the publishers need to stop being greedy, and maybe people will support them." (a deflection and complete change of topic. could be called "the Robin Hood defense.")
4"If they made better games, maybe people wouldn't pirate." (logically inside-out, since any improvement to the game itself would equally improve the pirated copy. No disincentive is established.)
5"People only pirate because of DRM." (reversal of the actual state of cause-effect, since DRM measures were created as a reaction to piracy, and DRM-less games are still frequently pirated)
So, now that we've got that out of the way, good article and I'm glad to hear lawyers weighing in on it.
EDITED in bold for clarity in my post below
-ragsnstitches
Total Agreement. I'm honestly sickened by the Pro-Piracy/Piracy Apologists on this site (and wider web).
As a reinforcement to your above points.
1 Sales are defined as "The exchange of a commodity for money; the action of selling something". If you pirate the game, whether you are going to buy it or not does not come into consideration. A lost Sale is a very simple concept... You have a copy of a item that took time, money and human effort to create, in which you did not invest your own money to reward the human effort and compensate the lost time and money.
The key thing to note is:
YOU DID NOT PAY FOR IT YET YOU HAVE IT! Ergo: YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE IT!
What's more, Sharing your games and 2nd hand game sales are also lost sales in regards to money going to the people that truly matter, though this is a point for another topic. The quality of the game is irrelevant in this point (see point 4 below).
2 Theft... consider this for a moment. The developers are not deprived of anything? You sure? Does this logic claim that an Item must be tangible for it to be considered of worth? The digital age is here for some time fellas, time to climb out of your caves and realise that the the WHOLE WORLD is changing because of it.
Does this logic ignore input involved in the production of a game?
It certainly does.
3 Logical response would be "Well maybe the customers shouldn't be so fickle and accept 10 year old tech that is a fraction of the cost to prduuce, a fraction of the time to create and at a fraction of the price". Look at PC/PS3/Xbox 360 v PC/PS3/Xbox 360 threads and realise how fucking retarded that logic is. Look at Console Cycles and how ridiculously short a console life span is (6 years between each new generation, whereby the previous generations support is rapidly discontinued)... also note the high demand RIGHT NOW, for a new wave of consoles. For luxury goods, the Greed of the companies is proportional to the demands of the masses... not the other way around.
Companies Breaking up their games into DLC pre-release to exploit honest consumers is a legitimate way to screw you over for their own greed. Pirating is just indulging your own greed at everybodies expense. Peas in a pod in my eyes.
4 Pure Pirate brainfart argument. Game Piracy has been existed since the advent of floppy discs (and possibly prior). Piracy was noted as a serious problem during the motherfucking golden age of PC gaming. This notion isn't just stupid, it's stupid born with cognitive defects and lobotomised for shits and giggles.
What's more... in the age of Youtube (and such), digital magazines (which are free to browse like this very site), a bajillion reviewers, amateur and professional and so on and so forth, you have so many other ways to gauge the quality of game OUTSIDE OF LEGAL DEMOS, that it's fucking retarded to argue Piracy is simply Taste Testing.
5
Read number 4 again, the part where I say "Game Piracy has been a problem since the advent of floppy discs (and possibly prior). Piracy was noted as a serious problem during the motherfucking golden age of PC gaming. This notion isn't just stupid, it's stupid born with cognitive defects and lobotomised for shits and giggles."
The only form of Piracy I have sympathy for (and which Dastardly did not mention) is Piracy committed due to forced Censorship or Bans. These imposed restrictions are crimes against human rights as mild as they are, and have denied both Developers of new customers, and potential customers of quality products... at least through this, the customers can still enjoy the games.
Still, 99 out of every 100 people I hear using this argument I will call them out for bullshit. Why? Because Pirates are liars and Self-centred fuckwits, I have little basis to believe them when they try to defend their crime.
....There's no sure-fire way to go after IP addresses that have downloaded games illegally, they say, because the hackers can just mask their IP address. Or just because a game was downloaded doesn't mean that the computer's owner was the pirate. Worse, pirates say that any prosecution is just a way to scare people or that most of the time pirates become real customers of the game. Jas Purewal is a lawyer based in London and he pointed out today that most of those arguments don't hold up to any real logical scrutiny.
Purewal says there is really no evidence that most pirates have the desire or technical chops to effectively mask their IP address, and even if some did, that's hardly a reason to stop going after pirates. "There's no empirical evidence so far to support how often IP spoofing is done," he said. "In reality, I suspect fairly few pirates actually go to the trouble of disguising themselves. Besides which, just because the method is not perfect, doesn't mean we should throw our hands up in the air and do nothing, does it?"
OK this lawyer may need some pointers
Innocent until proven guilty [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence]
In short 'Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies' or 'the necessity of proof always lies with the person who lays charges'
In other words can you prove from my IP that it was me, I'd say No...and one piece of unsupported evidence is not enough to convict someone anyway....
We move onto reasonable doubt - can this have happened. Yes, as such from IP evidence alone, which is all they have does reasonable doubt exist. Yes
the burden of proof rests on the prosecution throughout the trial and never shifts to the accused;
rather, it is based upon reason and common sense;
it is logically connected to the evidence or absence of evidence;
it does not involve proof to an absolute certainty; it is not proof beyond any doubt nor is it an imaginary or frivolous doubt; and
more is required than proof that the accused is probably guilty ‑‑ a jury which concludes only that the accused is probably guilty must acquit.
Some pointers as to what is involved with reasonable doubt.
Yeh I'm sure you could argue back and forth on that one, but I'd say it's a fairly strong case - and his oh 'just becuase it's not perfect it'll have to do' line makes me think of some medieval witch hunters
I must have missed something because I thought the arguement against this kind of talk was censorship, like how while the BitTorrent client can be used for piracy, that doesn't mean it should be banned. I was unaware there was an actual front saying piracy is okay. I know theres the debate over whether using piracy as a demo thing is one gray area and the DRM stuff is another, but I have never heard of a sizable movement to defend piracy.
Its an interesting concept but not surprising, but can anyone tell me if I am right? I'm very curious if there is an actual large party of people defending piracy.
Purewal says there is really no evidence that most pirates have the desire or technical chops to effectively mask their IP address, and even if some did, that's hardly a reason to stop going after pirates. "There's no empirical evidence so far to support how often IP spoofing is done," he said. "In reality, I suspect fairly few pirates actually go to the trouble of disguising themselves. Besides which, just because the method is not perfect, doesn't mean we should throw our hands up in the air and do nothing, does it?"
No, it's not. Someone who pirates a game was not definitely going to buy it if they could not pirate it. So if you stop all piracy, it does not mean that all those pirated copies would turn into sales on a 1:1 ratio. This is hardly rocket science, but some people try very hard to ignore common sense.
How is this article titled 'Lawyer Destroys Arguments for Game Piracy', when he does not even discuss any pro piracy arguments. The only things he is talks about are evidential short comings of enforcement and the industries wrong assumptions about how much piracy is costing them.
Greg Tito said:
The arguments for game piracy seem a bit flimsy in response to stories like CD Projekt's DRM-less Witcher 2 being pirated more than it was purchased or this abominable list of pirated games from TorrentFreak [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115003-TorrentFreak-Reveals-Top-Pirated-Games-of-2011]. The games industry can't just ignore these thefts, and no amount of backwards logic can argue the impact of piracy away.
And as I predicted in my comment to the top pirated games article, the figures now are being reported as fact even though they are ESTIMATES based on bad data collection methodology. And the two ESTIMATES don't even tally as if the Witcher 2 Piracy ESTIMATE was right, then the game would have appeared in the top 10 Torrentfreak article.
I don't like games being pirated and buy all of mine, but the reporting / journalism here on this issue, leaves a lot to be desired. All these badly sourced ESTIMATES do is convince developers to add more intrusive DRM schemes which only affect legitimate buyers, like myself.
The problem is that this is the narrative that the owners of this site want to drive. Sadly this is a common tactic in the media and there is nothing we, the readers/viewers/consumers can do about it. After all, publishers are privately owned and they dictate what can go in their publication. I don't like it, because in the age of unprecedented access to information, factual unbiased information has become more difficult to find. Either way, games "journalism" is a whole lot of wank anyway. Now as for the "The notion that piracy does not equate to lost sales is just as erroneous." - Is just well... erroneous. Allow me the liberty to use a hypothetical situation.
Ahem, I have made a self portrait that I worked very hard on. While doing this my living expenses were subsidized by a few investors (friends, family, etc). Now before it goes out, I decide on a sale price of $1,000,000. I also have a way to make quick replications of my masterpiece. So I go and people look at the painting, some even take photos, but no one buys it. Am I right to say that those who saw the painting and decided to keep on walking were lost sales? Can I return to the studio and say that I lost $75,000,000 because my painting didn't sell? No! I never had $1,000,000 in the first place. I had a painting that I put an arbitrary price on! What about the ones that took photos, you ask? Did they steal from me? No! They were never going to pay the asking price, they didn't steal the physical product either. But it's okay for corporations to have to treat projected profits as actual sales figures.
Ah but arguing this on the internet is like arguing politics. The minds of people just work differently. Make no mistake though, the piracy debate does come down to politics. If this was hard to follow, sorry, I'm terrible at debating.
Is there something I'm missing with DRM? Every single system of DRM I've used isn't that much of a pain in the ass in a first-world country. face it, you live in the western hemisphere and you're a gamer. You'll have always-on internet.
You vote with your money. The money you hand over isn't paying for the game you take home, it's funding the next one.
If you keep pirating games you like, you might find people stop making them. I'm not talking about genre or setting, but fundamental game mechanics and market strategy will move towards:
- Intentionally short, easy-to-play games with minimal overhead chasing the impulse purchase,
- Annual releases with minor updates in an attempt to emulate a subscription model.
- Completely locked down, download-primary ecosystems (XBLA, PSN, iOS, OnLive) where your game library can be held hostage for failure to comply with their ToS.
- Addenda to the above: episodic, DLC-heavy gameplay that, again, seeks to emulate a subscription model- even blatantly, lately.
- Free-to-play supported by in-game purchases. This is a proven money-maker in the right environment (MMO), but experiments are already underway elsewhere (such as Team Fortress 2).
- Kickstarter / hostage-based funding (I like this one, actually)
None of these are an evil in an of themselves, but the industry is shifting (and will continue to do so) towards what makes them money.
There'll be no trial before websites are censored by SOPA (in fact there's practically no confirmation needed at all, that's one of the main reasons people are against it), and I've certainly never been to a trial before being punished by bad DRM for the actions of pirates (who don't have to deal with said DRM at all).
Besides which, yes, you should be fairly certain that you've got the right person before you go to a trial at all.
Which is exactly what this lawyer is saying, we can be fairly certain that the folks with the IP addresses are the ones that are the pirate, because most of these guys aren't the crackers and simply aren't tech savvy enough (nor concerned enough) to bother with fake IPs.
SOPA's bad all around, I'll agree. However that doesn't mean that no attempts at enforcement are the answer, just that SOPA's a particularly bad one.
They aren't concerned enough yet, but as soon as you do start punishing them using their IP as evidence, they will be.
I just Googled "mask IP address" and sure enough, here's the top result:
How to Hide Your IP Address
whatismyipaddress.com/hide-ip
Instructions on how to hide the public IP address of your router or computer by masking so you can surf anonymously and protect your identity.
A page that shows 4 different ways of masking your IP address in a couple of small paragraphs of text.
What was required? Use of Keyboard. Ability to read. Brain (debatable).
Punishing them based on IP addresses just wouldn't work. Even worse, it could result in trouble for innocent people who have their networks used without their permission. Although I'm sure that 99.9% of the people who pirate are not tech savvy or cautious enough to do this, there is always the 0.1% that are, and it's just not worth it.
No-one would benefit from this, not the developers, not the publishers, and certainly not the innocent consumers.
The argument that piracy doesn't lead to lost revenue is complete and utter hogwash. Yes, the ratio of lost sales to copies pirated isn't 1:1... there ARE people who wouldn't be able to afford the game at all (and thus wouldn't be sales anyway), and there ARE people who would buy the game after pirating it. However, it is NOT 0:1, either... there ARE people who can... in fact.. PAY for the games they're pirating, but CHOOSE not to. While it's not 'theft' in the strictly legal sense of the word, as there are no physical goods being taken, it's not exactly saintly behavior, and is detrimental to the way society expects people to behave. If somebody provides a service to you with the expectation, be it a charity car wash or providing a game for you to play, and you consume such service without paying for it... well... there shows to be a significant breakdown. You wouldn't drive off after some high school club washed your car without paying... why would you pirate a game?
Likewise, though... people have to be able to say they're getting their money's worth. You'd be righteously pissed if... in going to the aforementioned car wash, you gave your money, but then told to piss off... or perhaps for a more apt picture to fit the scenario, they cleaned off the windows, but left mud caked on the sideboards. So many times, with so many games, it feels like you're given an experienced that's either incomplete unless you fork over additional money (mandatory day zero DLC and such)... or you're just given a product that is so inferior that there is no reasonable way you can say that it is worth your $60. These are serious issues that need to be addressed by the games industry.
For those saying there's should be no DRM... face it... it is NEVER going to happen. It is just naive to expect that if a game is released without DRM, that nobody will pirate it. Look at World of Goo, Witcher 2, etc. Some DRM is necessary... not so much to ensure that the game never gets hacked (which most likely will happen... sooner or later... if nothing else, the crackers love the challenge), but rather to keep would be paying customers honest. There are fewer people then people would want to admit who would pay for something if they can get it for free. It's that simple.
DRM, however, doesn't have to be completely draconian. Steam, as mentioned in the article, is a very good (though perhaps not perfect) example. It adds something to the games beyond simple DRM. The social aspects, the ability to re-download games, the quickly distributed updates, all provide a reason to make you want to continue using it beyond the simply copy protection. Yes, there are flaws to it, but in my own personal opinion, it's a net positive.
Value is something that needs to be seriously looked it. In all honest, for way too many games these days, they are NOT worth the sticker price of $60 that is asked. Many developers/publishers need to sit down and take an actual look at what they're providing, and price it accordingly. In a handful of cases, the price of games may go up. I know I, for one, would probably have been willing to pay MORE then the $60 asking price for Skyrim, for example... bugs and all. In many other cases, the price would drop. I feel sorry for anybody who paid full price for Duke Nukem: Forever. Finding the balance is key.
SOPA, however... is an iron fisted, heavy handed way of handling things, though. I'm not usually fairly progressive as far as my view of government goes, but in this case, I think the libertarian approach is probably ideal. Have the market decide the balancing point. It's an ongoing and continuing balance to find, and not an easy problem to solve. Blanket censorship without due process... well... most people here know the arguments... the vast majority of which really have nothing to do at all with piracy in the first place.
So I don't support piracy (yay...). I also think that any argument that attempts to make piracy 'justifiable' is silly. With that said, I also really dislike intellectual dishonesty, and think of it as being just as morally reprehensible. I see a lot of straw-manning going on, and claiming the moral-high-ground with such a snooty 'I am pure, and you are an evil pirate that deserves to burn' mentality just reeks of nasty >_>
Okay, we've been over this. You're not allowed to say piracy is a loss of revenue or a sale until you can refute this study. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114537-File-sharing-Remains-Legal-In-Switzerland] You need to back up your arguments with facts and evidence. I have facts and evidence. This lawyer doesn't.
I can understand the complaints regarding piracy. It absolutely sucks that developers and publishers lose out on sales and all, but I have a couple qualms with this, mostly because he isn't looking through a consumer perspective of things. There are a couple reasons why piracy is prevalent:
1. We don't want to put up with bullshit. We have absolutely no patience for DRM and less so for publishers who have a narrow and close-minded view of PC gaming as a whole. Denying them of a sale seems like a reasonable thing to do when said publisher implements a mechanism that sets out to punish people who purchased the game and inadvertently REWARDS those who pirate the game. It all comes down to the message said publisher conveys, and if the publisher is saying "Fuck you, we don't want your money.", they shouldn't ***** when they're refused a sale in favor of a better functioning pirated copy.
Same applies to those who force a spyware client to run a game (Battlefield 3) and the same applies to those that frequently and traditionally screw consumers over because they live in different territories of the globe (Nintendo and Xenoblade Chronicles). Publisher refuses our money? Okay! Don't come crying and blithely whining "HURF A DURF, PIRACY ARE BAD BECAUSE WE IS LOSING LEGITAMITE SALES. HURRRR DURRRRR"
2. Piracy is a good testing mechanism for PC gamers. We pirate the game, if it runs, HEY GREAT! We can buy the game and enjoy a legitimate copy to enjoy. I mean come on, Battlefield 3 and Crysis 2 are on that list, those are, if anything, heavy duty games that require a really good computer.
3. Piracy helps to justify a purchase. Yes, I know there is a thing called demos, but not a lot of games have them. I'll be the first to admit that I pirated Minecraft, but after playing the pirated copy, I set out to purchase it, knowing that the purchase I made was worth it having played it before and knowing what I was getting myself into. Plus, games are 50+ dollars these days. How do I know whether or not the game I'll be getting is either A: Good, B: Shit, or C: A console/PC port depending on the platform of choice?
This. This is exactly how I work, especially your second and third points. I remember buying a copy of Crysis 1 and Warhead, only it ran insanely slow on my computer, so I spent a few hundred upgrading it. I'm also in the middle of building a new high end rig and am planning on buying TWO copies of Crysis 2, one for PC and a console version, so I can compare the graphics (although if I can borrow a friend's console version, I would, if they had one).
And some illegal downloads DO lead to sales. I got the pre-release leaks of the Sims 3, Crysis 2 (the pre-release version that only supported DirectX 9) and a full release of Dragon Age: Origins. I went out and bought a copy of Sims 3 first opportunity I had, and as I've said above, once I've finished building my computer, I'm buying Crysis 2. As for Dragon Age, I torrented that and then, once the expansion Awakening came out, I BOUGHT THEM! I loved the game so much I decided to reward Bioware.
All of this damned piracy nonsense could have been averted if we had just NOT INVENTED COMPUTERS, THE INTERNET, AND EVERYTHING ELSE! That would be the only way to get rid of stealing of files. Piracy would be completely different and would involve actual pirates stealing real things.
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