Piracy Numbers

[Giest118]

Whether you're against piracy or not, it's an objective fact that publishers are trying to prevent it in all of the most wrong ways possible.

 

[lockeslylcrit]

I am in the "I pirate because it's an extended demo" camp. Official demos are often butchered versions of the game, or are unfinished (read: Aliens vs Predator). If I pirate the full game, I'm able to experience the game the way it is supposed to be experienced, and judge whether or not I will buy it. If I like the game, I'll throw down my money for it. If I don't, I delete it from my hard drive and never speak of it again except in hushed whispers.
Case in point: I was really on the fence about getting Plants vs Zombies because I absolutely HATE tower defense games. However, after "acquiring" it and playing for about twenty missions, I knew I HAD to buy this game. And I did. I'm now the proud owner of PvZ. Please don't sue me, PopCap T_T

 

[TarkXT]

How many pirates are jerks?

100%

How big of you to make that claim.

Not paying for something that it cost money and peoples' hard work to make is pretty jerk-y to me.

but what if i want to keep my hard earned money and not buy something overpriced?

Then... by all means, go ahead and do that.

You just don't get to play the games. Why should you have your cake and eat it?

why shouldnt i have my cake and eat it?

Because the baker gets paid.

 

[Daniel_Rosamilia]

How many pirates are jerks?

100%

How big of you to make that claim.

Not paying for something that it cost money and peoples' hard work to make is pretty jerk-y to me.

You do raise a good point, however, that stat may be a wee bit off, maybe 99.9% of pirates are jerks, the .1% are actually good, honest people that can't get the game to work, and therefore pirate it.

 

[Arothel]

What saddens me about this column in general is that it seems to be preaching to the choir. Shamus, you have excellent points week after week concerning this stuff, but how likely is it for someone who can actually make an impact with this information will actually read it? Is it at all possible for you to show this stuff to the publishers? I'm sure the DRM costs substantially more to produce than the publishers would care for if they actually knew how pointless it was. The question is how can we show the publishers this folly, rather than ranting to one another about it on a gaming website that only gamers read?
The point was brought up that the war on piracy was a red herring, a distraction from the war on the used game market. If that is the case, then there is nothing that can be said to the publishers about their DRM that will change their minds. Regardless, only discussing these numbers and research (research that Shamus has executed both thoroughly and intelligently) with the publishers can yield the results we as gamers call.
BTW Shamus, I love your column for its intelligence, but I do miss you talking about good story telling.

 

[BigFurry]

The war on piracy is the same as the war on drugs. Druggies will do drugs, it doesn't matter what the government does to track them down, it doesn't matter what they do to stop it's use. They will do drugs. Same as piracy, it doesn't matter what the publisher does to stop it it will still happen.

If people want free games, they will get free games. There is nothing we can do about it.

 

[Knight Templar]

snip

So because piracy isn't causing the end of the world it's not a bad thing to do, and those that do it are 100% ok to do so?
Sweet I'll go kill everybody I know, because people do that all the time and the world is still running fine! Just because a problem doesn't ruin a system doesn't mean there isn't a problem.
Clearly you care what people say, why else would you be here?

EDIT:

How many pirates are jerks?

100%

How big of you to make that claim.

Not paying for something that it cost money and peoples' hard work to make is pretty jerk-y to me.

You do raise a good point, however, that stat may be a wee bit off, maybe 99.9% of pirates are jerks, the .1% are actually good, honest people that can't get the game to work, and therefore pirate it.

If you pay for a game you're not really pirating it. Its like somebody sneaking into a Movie, if they paid for a ticket it doesn't matter that they are sneaking in. Of course somebody sneaking into a movie they paid to see is very strange but its a metaphore so lets ignore that part.

 

[theultimateend]

How many pirates are jerks?

100%

How big of you to make that claim.

If by big you mean not.

I was at one time but I am no longer. Someone gave me a service that was as convenient as piracy (namely gamefly).

Shockingly I stopped pirating music the moment a service came out that was just as convenient (zune marketplace for me).

If someone would make a quick legal version of tvtorrents I'd be all over that hardcore.

I love convenience, I'll even pay for it. As it stands before these services existed, the pay version was extremely inconvenient.

People can, and will, argue with my points. But at least for people like me, all you need to do to stop us from pirating is give us a good service at a fair price.

The war on piracy is the same as the war on drugs. Druggies will do drugs, it doesn't matter what the government does to track them down, it doesn't matter what they do to stop it's use. They will do drugs. Same as piracy, it doesn't matter what the publisher does to stop it it will still happen.

If people want free games, they will get free games. There is nothing we can do about it.

Except that there shouldn't be anything getting done about drug use. If people want to do drugs it should be their right and freedom to. I don't understand it, but the fact that we don't embrace something that is victimless (to a large extent) is alarming.

The only reason using drugs currently creates victims is because we made it a crime. Check any nation that has a drug that is illegal here and it is legal there. Try and find any sort of similar numbers in family breakups, child abuse, or crime. I don't think there are any examples.

 

[theultimateend]

So I'm curious. Going off the 1/1000 pirates actually bought.

Is there any ACTUAL loss of profits here for the game makers? If they aren't losing a product they could have sold, and if the thief would never buy anyways, doesn't that leave them with only the people who would have bought buying, and their stock entirely intact?

 

[Olrod]

How many pirates are jerks?

100%

Even the people who buy the DRM-infected game and pirate a clean version?

How about those who pirate games they're unable to legally purchase, whether the game hasn't been released in their region or the game is out of production/sale?

Also, I think "waiting for the activation servers [to] tell you you're allowed to play the game you just bought" is the Best. Line. Ever.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

So because piracy isn't causing the end of the world it's not a bad thing to do, and those that do it are 100% ok to do so?
Sweet I'll go kill everybody I know, because people do that all the time and the world is still running fine! Just because a problem doesn't ruin a system doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

First of all, piracy =/= MURDER, and never will.
I'm here because people like you think they matter and that their opinions on the forums mean something, when they really don't.
I'm also here to represent the opposite view of the issue, because nobody is actually discussing the issue, just adding their own flavor of what the article says. And nobody here seemed to hitch on the fact that pirates don't give a damn what you think, so I had to flatly tell you.
Piracy is like the war on drugs, do what you will, you might catch one or two fish, but in the end it's ineffective. You can waste your breath and your money trying to fight it, or you can accept it, shoulder up and move on with your life.
Piracy is not as much as an epidemic as people would like to believe (it's the new witch hunt), fucking AVATAR has banked over 6 HUNDRED MILLION [http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm], so don't tell me it's the end of the fucking world. I'll consider it an "epidemic" when people are getting laid off not because of a recession but because of piracy rates.

Even if you were to omit all ethical and moral concerns from the equasion, in the end some pirate who follows that same moral code is going to put a viruses into pirated games for lulz, and eventually your going to download one of his "warez". Then you've basically lost a multi-thousand dollar system (or at least are looking at some expensive software replacement if he did the job right and you need to totally reformat your HD and replace the operating system).

I'm answering this out of surprise because I thought people would've figured this out. Pirates will, and have, put viruses, ads, false product, etc and masked them as popular downloads. However, people don't like being tricked, especially pirates. What ensues is the complete excommunication of that member, either by the website or the community, everyone spams their torrent with messages of warning and "fuck this guy, don't dl from him EVER". If the entire community is overrun, then the pirates leave. This is why only morons use Limewire today, that place is more infested than a diseased back alley hooker. However, because every pirate knows this, the number of people who do so (poison different torrent sites for the lulz) are lower than you'd think. Pirates are self preservation-al of themselves, but even more-so of their own culture. They won't let anything stand between them and their booty (lol, booty), not even other pirates. And for this, the community is actually quite complying and agreeable, not the soulless, devil worshiping, culture eroding, rats people make them out to be.

Clearly you care what people say, why else would you be here?

That....is...such a GOOD question. Why am I still here?
*leaves*

 

[Worgen]

the problem with this story is it seems like the moral of it is to stop developing for the pc, unless you can get some sales numbers that make it still sound viable

 

[w00tage]

Wait, didn't software companies spend a lot of investment money in the Capitol building to get the whole "license agreement, no returns" thing sanctioned by our erstwhile consumer rights protectors? And it was expressly because of those NASTY PIRATES, wasn't it? Software companies were getting ripped off by people who bought software, copied the disks and returned the software. In fact, they were hurting so badly that they needed a license agreement to take all of the money they can possibly get for a product sale, with no returns, no warranties, and no liability if it screws up the customer's computer, life, whatever.

So, giving them a complete pass on the whole "consumer rights" thing, just like they asked (and donated campaign dollars generously) for meant the end of the pirate problem years ago, didn't it? And hey, if there still were any leftover issues, they got to keep the cash from the honest customers who had actual reason to return the software just to fill in any holes in the ol' spreadsheet. Problem solved, right?



What? They're saying that 90% of their software is being pirated still? And therefore, they should be making ten times the money they are?

Hmm, how could there be so many many pirates? I really thought people were better than that I wonder - maybe not being able to return software, even if it's bug-ridden crap that will screw years worth of important records or even break your computer, might have caused some developers to send less-than-full-quality software out to consumers? You know, "just this once", because otherwise the company might fail, they might lose their jobs, etc.?

(I don't postulate any lesser reasons for doing so though. Nobody of integrity, when handed the right to do business with no responsibility at all to their customers, would abuse that kind of godlike business power. It's just too freakin' sweet as it is.)

So, if it has ever been the case that software companies deliberately didn't do all in their power to ensure the quality of their product, they would have been guilty of exploiting people who were helpless to take any action because their consumer rights were taken away expressly so those same software companies could prosper. And if that were the case, some people'd probably be feeling used, maybe even like their trust had been betrayed. And we all know that when we feel that our rights have been violated, it can be harder to care about anyone else's, right?

And that would make any piracy occurring by those people less about greed or even need, and a lot more about protecting themselves from being taken advantage of again.

However, there really can't be many of those people pirating, even casually by downloading products or cracks made by others. I mean, how many software companies have ever really failed to deliver on what they said on the box? Or sent out software that caused problems with people's computers or data?

/ok, sarcastic rant off

(TL;DR start here)

Seriously, I think the real solution is to restore consumer rights to software purchasers. Whenever one side has rights and the other side doesn't, the underdogs are going to find some way to make themselves feel like they have power. Casual piracy is real easy, and can even be rationalized as a "test drive" to make sure you won't get burned by a greedy company again. As we all have.
(I don't pirate, but as an example, I sure wish I'd known how jackass MW2's multiplayer is before I got the game. It's a peer-to-peer system from the days of freaking KALI. Google that for laughs, it was awesome in the days of modems MW2 has modern bells and whistles, but the peer-to-peer connectivity system suffers from the same damn latency problems and hax vulnerabilities I was seeing 15 years ago. Big disappointment and definitely something that would have affected my purchasing decision.)

It's also obvious that software companies need the same controls every other industry has in order to keep them from abusing their customers. And worse, going crappy with their products, which is the trend I'm really afraid of. The foundation of the drive to put out products people want to keep is the ability of the consumer to just go give the product back and get their money back.

The End. Finally lol.

 

[Knight Templar]

Snip

You missed my point.
Just because piracy doesn't leave gaming in ruins doesn't mean it isn't bad. The same logic you used for piracy I applied to murder. Fair enough it was a bit extreen but my point was how your argument could be used to support just about anything.


Making several lengthy posts and then taking your ball and going home claiming you never cared anyway isn't exactly a good way to "represent the opposite side", unless that side is a six year old.

 

[neolithic]

just my 2 cents, SPORE, as rampantly pirated and protested, and what not. still sold over a million copies. just saying...

 

[Flash787]

"I bought the game after I got a pirated copy."... That means you have two copies of a game and only paid for it once. You're a thief.

"I pirated a copy so I could get around the oppressive DRM"...still a thief.

"I don't have the money to buy games all the time.".....you're a lazy thief.

"It doesn't hurt the producing/distributing companies." You're probably right. It only hurts the developers...you know, the people that actually made the game. You stole from them.

"I only pirate the good/expensive games." ... you're a picky thief.

"I only pirate the games that I had no intention of ever buying anyway"....Why play the game at all, then, if you didn't think it was worth spending money on? You're a stupid thief.


Did I miss any of the lame excuses offered up so far?

I wonder if any of you thieves were on the game developer side of things, you'd feel the same way about taking what you didn't pay for.

Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

 

[seditary]

There are 3 options available to gaming consumers.

1. Buy the game with money
2. Don't buy the game
3. Pirate the game.

In the long run options 2 and 3 are exactly the same for the industry as a whole. Yet people who claim to support the industry have no problem telling consumers to just not buy games instead of pirating.

(Yes, its supposed to sound as stupid as it does)

 

[Giest118]

There are 3 options available to gaming consumers.

1. Buy the game with money
2. Don't buy the game
3. Pirate the game.

In the long run options 2 and 3 are exactly the same for the industry as a whole. Yet people who claim to support the industry have no problem telling consumers to just not buy games instead of pirating.

(Yes, its supposed to sound as stupid as it does)

Quoted for truth.

 

[duckfi8]

Yawn...

This whole discussion is just tired. Pirates who claim what they're doing is completely justified are idiots, but people who take the high ground and say pirates are all scum need to get off their high horse and shut the hell up.

I pirate most of my games first, and if I feel the game is worth the money I like to buy them at a later date. Games I am quite sure I will enjoy a lot get bought straight away, and games that I download and turn out to be 'bleh' I never bother buying. For example, I bought Mass Effect 2 straight away on launch because I knew it would be an excellent game. Last week I downloaded Bioshock 2 because I was unsure about it, I am near the end of the game now and I can safely say the game is great, so I'm going to buy it in the future. I downloaded Red Faction Guerilla because I was pretty sure the game would be 'okay' at best; turns out I was right, and even though I got through most of the game the entire experience was at best a time-waster and at worst completely lackluster, therefore, not worth the money in my eyes and I have no interest in supporting the developer.

I do care about the games industry, and I support the game developers that I actually give a crap about. I don't have the kind of money to buy all my games, and if I did, hell I probably would buy them all simply for the ease of it all. However, since I don't have much money, I have to be selective about what I buy, and I would prefer the money I'm spending to go towards a developer who actually deserves it. Since I'm getting increasingly picky with games and my overall tastes in games are often a lot different than most peoples, I can't fully rely on reviews anymore because they usually don't tell me enough about the game for me know if I'm going to really like it or not. And we all know demo's tell us fuck-all in the long run because it's a small snippet of a game that can completely go downhill at any point past the first level.

Am I a pirate? Hell yes. Am I a thief? No, I don't personally think I am. Piracy can't be judged the same as going into a store, taking something off the shelf and running off with it. You must ask yourself if I would have actually bought the games I pirate if I couldn't pirate them. The answer is hell no. In fact, if I couldn't pirate games I would buy LESS games in the long run because the games I am unsure about I would never buy. But if I pirate a game I'm unsure about, and find out it's actually pretty great (which has happened a lot in the past) I will then put it on my list of things to purchase in the near future.

I don't think piracy is good or bad, I think it's a massive Grey area. People pirate for different reasons, there are a tonne of variables involved and it's not as simple as just pointing at all of us and going "thieves!" I don't think I'm in any kind of lawful right with what I am doing, and I don't think I should be in any kind of lawful right. But what I'm doing is not morally wrong either (according to my personal morals, remember we all have our own batch of those). I really don't give a shit about developers who make shitty/mediocre games, and I don't want to support them to keep making them. So piracy is a life saver for me because it lets me pick and choose what I personally believe is worthy of paying the money for and is worthy of being in my collection. Whatever reasons other people pirate games, or the pirate community as a whole is of no interest to me, it doesn't concern me. I have my own personal reasons and I'm glad that I am this way instead of buying everything and feeling constantly disappointed and ripped off by the shovelware that keeps getting thrown at us and I am expected to pay $100 AUS for.

I'm not a jerk, I just refuse to accept all the crap that is churned out at me by the games industry.

the thread should have ended after this post, AverageJoe rules.