Piracy

[Red Scharlach]

I get where your coming from but renting is WORSE than piracy, google the game overthinker and watch his latest video

Actually, he says the second hand market kills the industry. Assuming you are referring to Episode 41: The Revolution.

 

[Siuss]

'That's US $90 spent on one game. That is more than some people spend on housing in a month.'

/quote]
No, seriously, do you know what you are saying when you say '$90 a month is more than what some people pay for housing?'

I feel like you are baiting me.

I care about what you say a lot actually.

Funny story, it's for people who need the help to live comfortably. Not only those who need it to live, you get helped out more or less depending on the money you personally make. Oh, and did you go to college? If you did I would bet you had housing assistance.
I'm a generally peace loving person, but you really are just bringing out the worst in me.

Been to college, never been on assistance. I can see why people need help to pay the bills tho. I still don't think prices for games are crazy. Some people pay more than $90 a week on booze, especially when they party in college. I am bringing out the worst in you because I challenged your $90 a week for housing thing. Just like many others in this thread have.

Not everyone is accepting assistance for living like you, or your friends, or the people you know are.

After school, you don't get that kind of price.

You did name this thread Piracy, and your first sentence was

'I recently read on the discussion for the new M$ anti-pirate attempt that piracy was only for "poor people".'

Poor people shouldn't spend $90 a week on games. They should buy food instead. Poor people have no right to entertainment that excludes them from paying. Thinking otherwise is just selfish.

I don't want to anger you. But I will keep on responding if you quote me.

Well I'm glad to hear you had parents to pay your way through school, the rest of us need as much help as we can get. I choose not to drive, and I don't indulge in booze. All my excess money goes to rent, then prescriptions, then food, and then gaming.

And just so you know, poor people have just as much of a right to entertainment as you do. I'm sure they're sorry to you that they don't get to have as much disposable income as you obviously do, but that's just the way things are for some people out there. Not everyone gets the opportunity to go to college, because to some it's simply too expensive. Now you're saying that those people who have to work for minimum wage should simply accept no assistance and live their lives doing nothing but struggling to keep their home on their small time job? You sir make me sick.

Oh, and no one said $90 a week, you really should stop putting words in my mouth to make your argument seem stronger, it only shows how weak it really is.

And yes, after school you still can get that price, you see there's this weird thing called the world. Not everything is the same everywhere, things work a certain way here, which apparently they don't work there. Now if you are too ignorant to accept that, please just move on.

 

[Red Scharlach]

Poor people shouldn't spend $90 a week on games. They should buy food instead.

Things are likely different where you are from, but where I am from, social services make an allowance for entertainment in addition to essentials. Basically, at least some entertainment is considered essential. At the least, this shows that some people and authorities have a different opinion than you do. Naturally, it doesn't say you are wrong.

 

[Daniel Laeben-Rosen]

Fractional Games, the independant developer of Amnesia: the Dark Descent, were concerned at the wide availability of pirate copies of Amnesia. That's a game that costs $20, from a small indie developer aiming to sell 20 or 30,000 copies of their game to stay in business.

Piracy has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of games. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

This I agree with completely. If people only pirated the expensive AAA-titles, that'd be one thing. But when some people don't even bother paying for the cheap indie-titles they claim to crave they're really setting the industry back. I've yet to get Amnesia personally because I am infact a chicken when it comes to horror-games.

OT: I don't pirate. It's not some moral high-ground, I just prefer having an actual physical copy of a game when I buy it. Or at the least being able to get at it again whenever I want to, like with Steam or GoG.com. Mostly GoG. I love GoG.com, they're awesome. But that brings me to another point; DRM. Some DRM are simply a pirate's prime excuse and frankly... I don't blame them. Take the disc-version on PC for BioShock or Spore for instance. "Yeah, you payed $50 for this game. Congrats on your newly aquired rental. Be sure to buy the game again if you ever install them more than 3 times."
Yeah. Screw that. When I buy a game I want to actually OWN the game.

That is just one big Fuck-You to the consumer, and sadly validates half the other side of the piracy-argument.

With that said, I still don't support piracy. But I do understand some of it.
But pirating cheap indie-titles and blaming the money is just stupid.

 

[Siuss]

Fractional Games, the independant developer of Amnesia: the Dark Descent, were concerned at the wide availability of pirate copies of Amnesia. That's a game that costs $20, from a small indie developer aiming to sell 20 or 30,000 copies of their game to stay in business.

Piracy has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of games. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

This I agree with completely. If people only pirated the expensive AAA-titles, that'd be one thing. But when some people don't even bother paying for the cheap indie-titles they claim to crave they're really setting the industry back. I've yet to get Amnesia personally because I am infact a chicken when it comes to horror-games.

OT: I don't pirate. It's not some moral high-ground, I just prefer having an actual physical copy of a game when I buy it. Or at the least being able to get at it again whenever I want to, like with Steam or GoG.com. Mostly GoG. I love GoG.com, they're awesome. But that brings me to another point; DRM. Some DRM are simply a pirate's prime excuse and frankly... I don't blame them. Take the disc-version on PC for BioShock or Spore for instance. "Yeah, you payed $50 for this game. Congrats on your newly aquired rental. Be sure to buy the game again if you ever install them more than 3 times."
Yeah. Screw that. When I buy a game I want to actually OWN the game.

That is just one big Fuck-You to the consumer, and sadly validates half the other side of the piracy-argument.

With that said, I still don't support piracy. But I do understand some of it.
But pirating cheap indie-titles and blaming the money is just stupid.

You make some very good points, but in all honesty I think my whole post was to help prove that piracy isn't just for the poor or cheap.

I do like what you said about PC DRM though, and I do understand those frustrations, but at the same time I've never really understood why all PC gamers don't just use steam or downloads (the legal paying kind). Maybe that's just me, or there's some untapped market but yeah.

And I totally agree! I hate people who pirate third party titles, there is simply no excuse.

 

[tzimize]

Not true. Lets say nobody pirated. Do you think companies would lower prices if they sold more games because they are just that nice? Please. They sell the games for as much money as they can get away with, usually more.

But at the same time, more money would flow into the industry which would mean more developers and more games. This in turn would mean more competition which would mean better quality and at the same time more niche games. Simply put: a bigger market.

While I understand the theory behind your thinking I still believe it is wrong/would not work out that way. Take the 8-bit era for example. Games were more expensive then, and there was less/no piracy.

If the industry actually got more money I have no doubt that they would churn out an even bigger number of failed CoD clones and other garbage. Good games are few and far between not because there is not enough money, but because they are hard to make. You need talent. Talent does not magically come into existence with more money. Sure, you can hire more talented people but there are only so many talented people in the world. Adding more money will not up that number.

 

[Wintermoot]

I get where your coming from but renting is WORSE than piracy, google the game overthinker and watch his latest video

Actually, he says the second hand market kills the industry. Assuming you are referring to Episode 41: The Revolution.

yeha I meant that episode but it boils down to the same idea, that any and all money goes to the store

 

[Red Scharlach]

Not true. Lets say nobody pirated. Do you think companies would lower prices if they sold more games because they are just that nice? Please. They sell the games for as much money as they can get away with, usually more.

But at the same time, more money would flow into the industry which would mean more developers and more games. This in turn would mean more competition which would mean better quality and at the same time more niche games. Simply put: a bigger market.

While I understand the theory behind your thinking I still believe it is wrong/would not work out that way. Take the 8-bit era for example. Games were more expensive then, and there was less/no piracy.

If the industry actually got more money I have no doubt that they would churn out an even bigger number of failed CoD clones and other garbage. Good games are few and far between not because there is not enough money, but because they are hard to make. You need talent. Talent does not magically come into existence with more money. Sure, you can hire more talented people but there are only so many talented people in the world. Adding more money will not up that number.

The 8-bit consoles were difficult to pirate but compare the contemporary Commodore 64. Piracy on computers has always been rampant.

I think we can agree that there are a lot more talented people in the world than are currently working in the games industry. Also consider that more money in the industry would imply more people moving in from other creative industries.

More developers intrinsically means more titles that are not sequels. More money means developers can take bigger risks. Obviously, the majority will still make clones but you will still have more unique titles to choose between.

 

[Daniel Laeben-Rosen]

You make some very good points, but in all honesty I think my whole post was to help prove that piracy isn't just for the poor or cheap.

I do like what you said about PC DRM though, and I do understand those frustrations, but at the same time I've never really understood why all PC gamers don't just use steam or downloads (the legal paying kind). Maybe that's just me, or there's some untapped market but yeah.

And I totally agree! I hate people who pirate third party titles, there is simply no excuse.

Well personally my internet has this annoying download-limit at 20gb, counting all streams, updates, uploads(for some reason) and so on.... once it get's met I'm stuck at a snails-pace for the rest of the month.
So if I buy one of the larger download-titles it'll take about 2 weeks to get it down. I know this because I bought Freespace 2 on gog and it took 1½ week to get down the 1.4gb file.

And buying downloads before that limit is met will screw my connection over somewhat fierce. So I prefer discs.

Reasons like that keep some pc-gamers(like me) from buying more on Steam. Not to mention the rampant piracy to keep on track. Some Pc-gamers really are cheap bastards. Pc games have the benifit of dropping in retail-price by about half every 6 months. I picked up Mass Effect 2 this summer for roughly $20. Fully retail.

 

[Red Scharlach]

I get where your coming from but renting is WORSE than piracy, google the game overthinker and watch his latest video

Actually, he says the second hand market kills the industry. Assuming you are referring to Episode 41: The Revolution.

yeha I meant that episode but it boils down to the same idea, that any and all money goes to the store

Not really. Buying a game second hand gives NO extra money to the developer. Renting it means you are using a much more expensive license. Lots of people renting means the rental store has to get more of these licenses. It is certainly less than the developer would make if everyone bought the game but it is still money. If they find they make too little on rental licenses all they have to do is adjust the price of those licenses.

 

[Siuss]

You make some very good points, but in all honesty I think my whole post was to help prove that piracy isn't just for the poor or cheap.

I do like what you said about PC DRM though, and I do understand those frustrations, but at the same time I've never really understood why all PC gamers don't just use steam or downloads (the legal paying kind). Maybe that's just me, or there's some untapped market but yeah.

And I totally agree! I hate people who pirate third party titles, there is simply no excuse.

Well personally my internet has this annoying download-limit at 20gb, counting all streams, updates, uploads(for some reason) and so on.... once it get's met I'm stuck at a snails-pace for the rest of the month.
So if I buy one of the larger download-titles it'll take about 2 weeks to get it down. I know this because I bought Freespace 2 on gog and it took 1½ week to get down the 1.4gb file.

And buying downloads before that limit is met will screw my connection over somewhat fierce. So I prefer discs.

I've heard about that and was told that it would be installed in my area, but if anything since then I feel like my internet speed as increased, and I download quite a bit. I guess I just didn't realize that it really was legitimate.

 

[Daniel Laeben-Rosen]

I've heard about that and was told that it would be installed in my area, but if anything since then I feel like my internet speed as increased, and I download quite a bit. I guess I just didn't realize that it really was legitimate.

Well it depends so much on what service-provider and so on that you have. What country you live in, what part of the country and so on.
The provider I use is for a mobile connection, because I tend to take my computer with me wherever I go. There are maybe 3 providers in Sweden, one I hate because they completely fucked me over when I had a cellphone for them, the other sucks and the one I have gave me a loyal-customer-discount deal.
When I pay as little as I do I can't really complain, even if my gaming suffers for it sometimes.

It is a big problem though, and if you ask the providers why they have the annoying-ass limits it's usually "To stop piracy" or the rarely factually true: "so not one person hogs all the bandwith in the country."
It's annoying tbh.

And just speaking of piracy in general, I have an open complaint to WB: If you want us NOT to download your shows, let us use your FREE STREAM SERVICES!

Sorry. Just annoys me.

 

[tzimize]

The 8-bit consoles were difficult to pirate but compare the contemporary Commodore 64. Piracy on computers has always been rampant.

I think we can agree that there are a lot more talented people in the world than are currently working in the games industry. Also consider that more money in the industry would imply more people moving in from other creative industries.

More developers intrinsically means more titles that are not sequels. More money means developers can take bigger risks. Obviously, the majority will still make clones but you will still have more unique titles to choose between.

Piracy on PCs has always been rampant, but still it has evolved and flourished. I dont think piracy is such a bad thing as people make it out to be. It just makes it more difficult to sell mediocre games. Which is NOT a bad thing.

Pirates is not a group of 100% similar individuals. Some pirates pirate everything, which obviously is not good for anyone. Some pirates pirate the bad, and buy the good. Some pirates pirate as a way of trying out a product before buying, not to get something free at all. It is a more diverse group than most people think, and not all of it is negative.

Take the two last groups I mentioned. A lot of those pirate stuff, then buy it afterwards for different reasons. These people dont cost the industry anything, rather they earn the industry more money. By being able to try the product before they buy, they often end up buying a product they would not have chanced to buy if they couldnt have tried it. This is A DOUBLE win for the industry because:
1: They get paid for the product they develop.
2: The person buying it will likely show it off to his friends, maybe write a blogpost about it, discuss it in internet forums or something similar, thus giving FREE PUBLICITY to the developer. This is publicity the developer would not have had if the person had not pirated it in the first place.

Developers are very busy trying to define how much money piracy is costing them, and it annoys me to no end that none of them can acknowledge the amount of money it is EARNING them.

Personally I DONT think there are a lot of talented people in the world, and I DONT think we would get more quality titles. But I'm just a pessimist that way I guess

 

[Red Scharlach]

The 8-bit consoles were difficult to pirate but compare the contemporary Commodore 64. Piracy on computers has always been rampant.

I think we can agree that there are a lot more talented people in the world than are currently working in the games industry. Also consider that more money in the industry would imply more people moving in from other creative industries.

More developers intrinsically means more titles that are not sequels. More money means developers can take bigger risks. Obviously, the majority will still make clones but you will still have more unique titles to choose between.

Piracy on PCs has always been rampant, but still it has evolved and flourished. I dont think piracy is such a bad thing as people make it out to be. It just makes it more difficult to sell mediocre games. Which is NOT a bad thing.

Pirates is not a group of 100% similar individuals. Some pirates pirate everything, which obviously is not good for anyone. Some pirates pirate the bad, and buy the good. Some pirates pirate as a way of trying out a product before buying, not to get something free at all. It is a more diverse group than most people think, and not all of it is negative.

Take the two last groups I mentioned. A lot of those pirate stuff, then buy it afterwards for different reasons. These people dont cost the industry anything, rather they earn the industry more money. By being able to try the product before they buy, they often end up buying a product they would not have chanced to buy if they couldnt have tried it. This is A DOUBLE win for the industry because:
1: They get paid for the product they develop.
2: The person buying it will likely show it off to his friends, maybe write a blogpost about it, discuss it in internet forums or something similar, thus giving FREE PUBLICITY to the developer. This is publicity the developer would not have had if the person had not pirated it in the first place.

Developers are very busy trying to define how much money piracy is costing them, and it annoys me to no end that none of them can acknowledge the amount of money it is EARNING them.

Personally I DONT think there are a lot of talented people in the world, and I DONT think we would get more quality titles. But I'm just a pessimist that way I guess

There are demos of games to try them out instead of pirating them, so in my opinion that is a poor argument for beneficial piracy (from the developers' perspective). The publicity stemming from word of pirate mouth is difficult to measure but consider that most of the people hearing about a game from a pirate is going to pirate the game themselves. Since pirated copies are estimated to be around 90% of all copies, every pirate would have to convince another ten people that the game is great just to make up for not paying him/herself. Thus, my opinion is that this free publicity is worth far less to the developer than pirates like to think. Besides, there are plenty of legitimate reviewers to find out if games are good or not. The publicity argument is pirates rationalising poorly.

As far as talent goes, you are of course entitled to your opinion. I would just like to ask you to consider what would happen to the gaming industry if you added some of the best authors, directors and actors to games development. What if Neil Gaiman wrote for games? What if David Fincher directed games? Then consider what would happen if the next generation of brilliant writers and directors focused on games instead of films or books.

 

[RicoADF]

Good choice in not doing piracy.
Piracy increases costs of games because fewer people buy them, which results in more piracy.
It's a vicious cycle.

Good choice in that he's not going to be sued. But as far as your point is concerned, he's no better for the industry than if he did pirate. He said he rents most of his games, that isn't helping the industry at all.

Actually it does help the industry as places that hire games and movies out have to pay for them, and I'm certain they pay more for the license to lease them, to compensate for the multiple users.

 

[Hateren47]

I thought to myself, as I was watching my sister in law play Fable 3, that with all the DLC and the amount of money they want for it I would have to pirate Fable 3 to not feel ripped off. It's not that I mind paying for games, I buy a lot of games on Steam and a few in stores, but the whole DLC business is ridiculous. I don't think I'm getting Fable 3 at all though (it looks kinda boring if you're a 100%'er like I am(shees, all that dancing)), but if I did it would be a pirated version with free DLC. Kinda like a protest but not really because I don't care enough.

And before you say "just don't buy the DLC" thats not my argument. I would want the DLC, I just don't want to pay 20% of the vanilla games price, per piece, for it. I want that junk for free like the last 15 years of PC gaming. Which in turn would mean I would have to pirate the game as well since I don't want to have my serial key banned for using pirated DLC. It's not that I can't afford it, it's more a feeling that I wouldn't be getting my monies worth.

This is one of the cases where the industry could actually lose some money over piracy. Most of the time they don't though as the pirates most likely don't want the games they pirate enough to pay for them, but in the case of DLC and the chance of being banned for using "free" DLC I can see why you wouldn't want to buy the game in the first place if you really want to play it.

That said I rarely want to own or possess console/consolised games. They just suck. IMO.

Long story short. Fuck your pay-DLC. Release a proper expansion pack if you want more of my money, or make your game free-to-play with micro transactions and stick a ton of DLC in it.

I don't want to advocate piracy and certainly not videogame piracy but sometimes it feels like it isn't as immoral as some would like to think. Am I being irrational?

 

[Aesthetical Quietus]

Fractional Games, the independant developer of Amnesia: the Dark Descent, were concerned at the wide availability of pirate copies of Amnesia. That's a game that costs $20, from a small indie developer aiming to sell 20 or 30,000 copies of their game to stay in business.

Piracy has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of games. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

I say otherwise. I will always pick up a game I enjoy when it hits the bargain bin, often before it. My first line is piracy, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I will pirate a game to see if I enjoy it, and that's simply because I can't afford to spend $100-$150 on a game I don't know if I'll enjoy. My prime candidate for this is MoH. I played it, I enjoyed the game, but if I'd bought it for the $129.99 it is currently sitting on the shelves for, then I would be shit out of luck for the rest of the month. I don't play Multiplayer except for a few rare games, and if the campaign is too short or not fun, then I will not buy that game.

 

[Vrach]

...where can I find housing for less than 90 bucks a month?

You know those maps in the atlas not entitled the US? Try looking into a few of 'em

 

[Vrach]

Fractional Games, the independant developer of Amnesia: the Dark Descent, were concerned at the wide availability of pirate copies of Amnesia. That's a game that costs $20, from a small indie developer aiming to sell 20 or 30,000 copies of their game to stay in business.

Piracy has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of games. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

I'll just point you to my post cause I'm sick of typing this every time the argument comes up:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.242008-To-anyone-who-thinks-piracy-is-ok?page=23#8789713

Also, you're missing the whole point here. Those 20$ are 20$ for everyone. To you, 20$ is nothing, to someone else it's quite a bit. The fact is, not adjusting that price for regions you're trying to sell it to means that proportionately, you're still trying to rip off the majority of people you're labeling as pirates. Saying 30% of your sales (or however much the number supposedly is these days) are lost to pirates doesn't hold much weight when you're not catering to the part of the market most of those people are from.

 

[DustyDrB]

...where can I find housing for less than 90 bucks a month?

I saw a listing for 90 bucks. It was a tipi in the back of some dude's house in the mountains of North Carolina. Not even lying.