I think games need to have demos again, or some kind of try-before-you-buy thing. We're at the point where people pirate games because they want to try it, then they buy it.
Or they could stop with DRM, Online Pass and high prices. Games are barely worth this nonsense.
I apologize in advance for the length of this post. But I believe arguments for controversial topics require a bit more thought than "This...because I said so."
If you want the TL;DR version: "If crime didn't pay, there would be very few criminals."
Zakarrum said:
Not true, pirates can later buy the game to support the devs or because the game was ACTUALLY worth paying for and they feel guilty for pirating it or because they buy it for the multiplayer,or buy it for better patch support and less bug issues.
1) If they supported the developer, they would have bought legitimately from the start. No need for duplicity if they trust and support the developer.
2) Pirated games can be kept up-to-date by rewriting the DRM-updates out of official patches.
Today, it's actually common for pirated versions to run BETTER than their legitimate counterparts due to the removal of what some call "Crippleware".
The pirates who write those hacks, are often gaming enthusiasts and modders who know the technical side as well (or even better) than the developers.
3) Multiplayer is the one incentive you've hit upon that I agree with, but I'm going into details on that later in this post.
Such solutions include; make games of good quality, don't fuck your consumers over with DRM and online passes, better support, provide frequent updates that are easily implemented, provide a community with your game (similar to what steam does or even battlelog), and lower prices (most games priced at $60 aren't worth it, remember when the standard price was $50?). Valve and the games it sells on steam somehow manage to make a shit ton of money buy selling games for 25% and 50% off, hell sometimes games are even 75% off or higher- they wouldn't continue with these sales if there were no profits to be made.
Those are all potential economic incentives...in a strictly-legitimate market. Pricing closer to the marginal cost, as Steam has shown, INCREASES your revenue for that game.
(This goes off into another topic entirely, but the other publishers price at the rates they do to partly compromise with retail costs, and mostly to acclimate a market to artificially inflated prices in the event that intense market growth occurs. "Loaded Gun" economics. This actually happened to the Nintendo Wii three years ago.)
However, piracy does NOT FOLLOW THOSE RULES AT ALL. It is an illegitimate/Black market by its very nature, and here's why:
The marginal cost (or financial risk) to the consumer is ALWAYS ZERO.
REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE LEGITIMATE MARKET OFFERS; REGARDLESS OF THE QUALITY OF THE GAME; REGARDLESS OF WHO MADE IT.
Everything is equal on the pirate market. Shovelware titles offer the same risk to the consumer as AAA Blockbuster Masterpieces. Risk is the same, but reward varies.
If you don't like something, you delete it. If you like it, you keep it.
(The legal risk is far greater, obviously, but honestly; the odds of getting caught are tiny)
For a "traditional video game", there is no real way to compete with that; only to mitigate and delay the inevitable, and hope that you acquire a greater number of new customers that are ignorant to the piracy option, OR customer-loyalty.
Because once someone goes pirate, there isn't much reason for them to go back.
Or, to use the old pithy quote: "There's a sucker born every minute."
*THIS IS WHAT CURRENTLY KEEPS THE INDUSTRY AFLOAT, AND BOOMING*
(if you've ever heard some older gamers complaining about "obnoxious/racist/offensive children" in their online multiplayer games, those children are actually the ideal demographic for the publishers. They're excited about games, but generally don't have the technical experience to commit piracy or the gaming background to make purchases based on quality and personal taste. This is also why I find the ESRB rating system an absolute joke, but that's going off topic again.)
And to those new legitimate customers, the Publisher can:
1) Try to scare people with horrifying fines and prosecution (enforced by DRM that plays on the average consumer's ignorance) for piracy.
2) Convert their game into a fully-online service and try to flex that "Network Good" muscle that MMOs rely on (Network Good Logic: consider MySpace and Facebook; why did everyone mass-migrate to Facebook after years of using MySpace? The answer is simple: Not because Facebook is technically better, but because it became more popular).
Or, alternatively, attach parts of a traditional game to a Network Good (Call of Duty 4.x, and Halo before it, can attribute an overwhelming degree of its financial success to this. CoD4.x, and nearly every online shooter that's followed have even introduced grind/levels to more firmly cement this).
I don't pirate games myself, but as long as the gaming industry (especially the publishers) keep treating theirt customers like some crazed axe murderers just waiting for an opportunity, i will not be too angry at the pirates either.
AverageJoe said:
I think PC gamers need a decent rental option. I think the fact that we can't rent anything is part of the reason there is so much pirating going on.
Ive been feeling more than guilty the last little while for the urge to download Skyrim to test first. Why? I dont want to get screwed -again- I was a big fan of morrowind , so of course i ran out to buy oblivion, got the nice fancy CE edition (cant find my damn coin nomore though!) Get home toss it in my machine .. oh herp derp needs pixel shader 2's -insert rage face here- a short time later was able to find Oldblivion, a great mod made to remove all those , I could play it!. The point is there is no mods, the creation kit wont be out till -january- this is a bethesda game its not worth paying for their buggy glitchy games that they have no clue how to patch properly to fix things (I'll take backwards flying dragons for 1000 Alex) Have they made a demo? No. If they did wouldnt it be polished to hell and back and not actually show any of the bugs? Probably. So this alone has me debating going back on the promise i made back in highschool (15 years ago .. geeze) that i wouldnt be pirating games "once i actually was old enough to be making money to get them myself" If i do wind up grabbing it to tinker? Its still going to be a sale when things get sorted out on my end and theirs. Still if they are watching that tracker im a "Pirate" not matter what even if id already owned it.
What, ofcourse it matters, it is the only thing that actually makes a difference in the real world. I don't buy a game and the developers don't get money, I pirate a game and the developers don't get money
And what do you say about me having skyrim on xbox (sister wants to play, computer can't run it) and pirating it for the PC so I could get UI mods? I did buy it and give them my money, does them getting money not matter?
You misunderstood what I meant. =x Look at the rest of that post.
I said that it doesn't matter whether or not pirates wouldn't have bought the game to begin with because lost profits isn't the real issue here. The issue is that developers are less willing to develop for the PC because of piracy, which means that we get less games.
If a developer stops making games for PC, while they are getting enough sales to justify more titles, because of piracy they are fucking retarded (or I guess its more the publisher)whether piracy is in the single digits or the billion digits the money you make is what matters. If piracy hurts the publisher and thus justifies moving platforms than they are lost sales , if it doesn't than it doesn't justify it and it is not the pirate's fault it is theirs.
I agree, people need to stop pirating. The DRM people have to make to compensate for it is ruining pc gaming. I wouldn't be primarily a console gamer if people didn't pirate so much.
Consoles pirate a shitload. So companies making claims that they won't port because of piracy are just cheap.
Lots of people who pirate to it to see if they want to buy the thing anyway.
Please note that I am not talking about second hand sales, I personally think that the consumer should be allowed to treat their own property as just that as long as it doesn't violate the IP and copyright laws. I don't trade in games myself but I can at least see the argument there.
They do nothing to support for the game designers; same as the pirates don't. As such they can never be considered fans. Should be okay on general gaming forums, but not on fan sites.
But it's still their right to do so. If I don't think a company's game is worth $60 and a store is selling it for half, you'd better believe I'm going to buy it used. It's that kind of attitude that it promoting the whole online pass/$10 crap.
As far as the topic, I'll start doing my part and reporting pirates when I'm not treated like one simply because I would rather buy a used copy of a game than a brand new one without being punished.
Find the gamer instead who was willing to part for it for a $5. That's how such games end up in shops in the first place. Be smarter and skip the middleman atleast. In this day and age of easy communication that shouldn't be too hard for you.
If you're not going to contribute anything, atleast save yourself some real money. Pirates are not at the bottom of the hierarchy in this scenario.
I do try to find people who want to sell the game. But a good chunk of the time, either the stores are the only ones with it or the seller thinks their game is worth so much more. I'm not saying I don't buy new games because I do when they're lowered to a more reasonable price or if I think the game is worth $60. But I do buy used when a company, not naming any names, thinks that their game is still worth $60 after a year or more when it was never worth that much to begin with.
And you are right. Pirates aren't the bottom of the hierarchy in all this. That space is a tie. On one side, you have publishers overcharging for their games, rushing games so no thought or effort can be put into them, and instituting things like online passes to dissuade used sales. And in the other corner are certain stores- namely one- monopolizing the market so that they can actually sell used games at the same price as others sell new online with no backlash from the public since they don't know any better. But I would attribute more of the fault to the publishers since the stores can actually provide hard to find games at a reasonable price sometimes.
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