Pirates ruining it for the rest of us.

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I am not assuming that you approve of DRM. However it you have made it clear that you at-least pick and choose in some cases and have a inconsistent standard. It is hard to take your views with any real meaning due to this. You sometimes choose to put the entire blame on one party when two parties have done a wrongful actions or at-least what you personally believe to be wrongful. While you don't seem to believe two wrongs make a right, you do however blatantly excuse the second party that responds with another wrong doing as you see fit.

If you had some consistency and simply did not pick and choose you would be more credible.
You can't expect to be taken seriously to bend what is excusable and where the entire blame lies in a situation of you are bias in one case and not another.

Nowhere have I been inconsistent with my views. It is clear that DRM is a reaction to pirates and pirates are making the legitimate consumer suffer.

It doesn't make the DRM the correct method of controlling piracy just as the teacher punishes the entire class. But I can understand why they react that way.

I think that when people attack publishers for DRM they completely miss that they should also be angry at the pirates.

If you are insistent on real world comparisons (which I don't like doing because it's ridiculous as I have said) how about the crackdown on airport security after 9/11 mostly it just inconvenienced regular passengers but most people could see the real reason for it and did not blame airport security workers. (Sorry Smash I don't mean to totally go against what I said to you there)

Give us a reason why people should buy.

Because if they don't it's stealing... :| If anything I would say that a better price range for games would be agreeable (which I have said earlier in the thread). But nobody is entitled to a game just because it is there.

 

[jpoon]

Eh, I'm not inclined to agree.

Unsavoury though it is, I think the pirate scene provide an important element to the... industry's eco-system if you will. They ensure that there's always a last resort if the publishers start screwing us too hard. For example, those people who lose their Steam or Origin libraries due to forum bans, there's an obvious course of action for them.

Pirated software is going to continue to exist for the foreseeable future. No amount of whining or DRM will make it go away. Might as well take it into account.

My thoughts exactly. I give a BIG thumbs up to pirates that crack bullshit DRM like the crap packed in Arkham City or anything that ubisoft touches. Crack and hack away my friends, hack away! They literally are the ONLY ones listening to the gamers when it comes to a gamers hate for DRM, the publishers and devs DEFINITELY are not (save 1 developer, CD Projekt).

If a dev ever makes a game worth actually paying for, I'm going to pay for it. I'm also going to thank the pirates for cracking the devs bullshit DRM schemes...

 

[Esotera]

Protip: shut down Pirate Bay. You know, have people who can do something about it actually do something about it.

Sure, there'll be massive fucking rage, but that'll blow over eventually.

Can't really tell if you're serious with this...

Pirate Bay is used for warez, but there's also a lot of legitimate open-source/free content on there that isn't copyrighted. And more importantly, pirate bay don't actually host anything. They just tell you where to find it. Any action should be taken against the person distributing pirated material.

And that assumes that piracy is actually bad for the industry.

They did this, the founders are four swedish guys. The police shut the site down, but it was up again after 24 hours, they just said, well let's move the servers to somewhere else, like the netherlands, so they did that and voila, TPB is up again. They also got a fine for about 50 million, but seeing as none of them makes that kind of money, the companies who sued them will never get the money.

fighting piracy is a lost cause, the people on scenegroups like SKIDROW, RELOADED etc. is lightyears ahead of the police in the world.

My original point was that The Pirate Bay doesn't host anything. They just provide addresses for places that do, which is an entirely different thing in the eyes of the law...the outcome of that case under Swedish law makes no sense.

I agree with your point that piracy probably can't be fought, but it can definitely be reduced by offering a good deal on games (current prices are too high, DRM is too restrictive etc). There will always be someone who can break DRM, as you said. Admitting that piracy will happen =/= condoning piracy...the sooner the entertainment industry realises this, the better.

 

[Harlief]

Pirates are a great scapegoat for companies who want to squeeze more money out of already paying customers and experiment with draconian DRM.

Piracy is a market force which has produced some fantastic business models, most notably Steam.
Steam has discovered that the best way to combat piracy is to offer reasonable prices, great customer service, community support, automatic and universal game updates spelling the end to compatibility issues when playing online, great anti-cheat measures and HASSLE FREE DRM.

And yet piracy continues because companies continue to offer bad customer service, DLC which gives an advantage in multiplayer, pain in the ass DRM, etc.

At this stage, a good deal of piracy (in my experience) is a protest against companies who produce games which provide WORSE service for people who buy legitimate versions of their games than the gaming experience they could have got from a pirated copy of the same game.

The big companies can complain all they want that piracy is decreasing their sales: the fact is that their terrible customer service and mistreatment of their paying customers is driving piracy. After all, if the free product is better and easier to use than the product you pay for, why would you pay?

Tl;dr: I used to pirate all my games and now I have over 100 games on Steam because the customer service is by far an away better than piracy.

[EDIT]There's also this false idea that a pirated downloaded is a sale lost. That's just bollocks. In many cases of piracy, a download is a sale made at a later date.

 

[Beat14]

I don't see the problem with DRM that allows you to install 5 times, but revokes a license on uninstallation.

Lets say you install the game on a pc and a laptop, you still have 3 installs left. Oh no your laptop and pc have vanished leaving you without a computer, and minus 2 installs. Which is enough if you get organised. If you end up losing all 5 installs you are a mess. Sorry if I have overlooked something but I haven't downloaded a virus that caused me to wipe my HDD 5 times, and if your pc breaks, or is stolen and you get another...5 times, then it's time to stop complaining about the price of a game.

I think the excuse about disliking the feeling you're on a leash is silly. If you manage to lose it 5 times maybe you should be.

 

[Kopikatsu]

=x I've been hearing that a lot lately. I should probably have watched the entire video, but I stopped paying attention after the bank part. Like...Kennedy assassination? Why is that even in there? I have no idea.

And they're wrong about the Federal Reserve being privately owned, but I said that already.

The theory is as follows:

The jist is Kennedy found out the "private" Federal Reserve was causing inflation and other problems and would destroy America. So, he was to sign "executive order 11110" which...not quite sure on this...would allow the printing of money by the mint without it having to go through the Federal Reserve, thus breaking their stranglehold. 3 weeks later...shot in Dallas. LBJ then throws out the order for fear he will be next.

Again, completely baseless conspiracy theory.

lolwat. Executive Order 11110 was just part of Kennedy's plan to get the US off the gold standard. (It relates to silver in specific, but that's part of the gold standard).

If anything, the Federal Reserve should have been overjoyed at Executive Order 11110 because it was part of a plan that would allow them to print unlimited funds, since it doesn't have to be based on anything physical as far as I know.

Silly conspiracy theorists...

Edit: Looked it up in case I was wrong. It seems that I was mostly right, but it also granted the Federal Reserve more power in that Executive Order 11110 let them print one and two dollar bills. Apparently they weren't permitted to before then.

 

[Vegosiux]

Give us a reason why people should buy.

Because if they don't it's stealing... :| If anything I would say that a better price range for games would be agreeable (which I have said earlier in the thread). But nobody is entitled to a game just because it is there.

See, this is what I'm talking about. Putting an arbitrary $60 price on a new release (and that is simply an arbitrary number) doesn't work.

But consider this.

1) So we made this game! We guarantee you that if you buy it, you're going to get your money's worth and you'll have a lot of fun with it! And if you don't think it's worth the money, we'll do our best to get to a satisfactory arrangement.

2) So we made this game! And if you go and pirate it, we're going to get on your case and sue your socks off! And if you don't think it's worth the money, well, tough luck, kid, we got your money and you're never seeing it again!

Currently, most "big" publishers are taking the line of 2).

And people here simply want them to take the stance of 1) instead.

 

[jpoon]

I don't see the problem with DRM that allows you to install 5 times, but revokes a license on uninstallation.

Lets say you install the game on a pc and a laptop, you still have 3 installs left. Oh no your laptop and pc have vanished leaving you without a computer, and minus 2 installs. Which is enough if you get organised. If you end up losing all 5 installs you are a mess. Sorry if I have overlooked something but I haven't downloaded a virus that caused me to wipe my HDD 5 times, and if your pc breaks, or is stolen and you get another...5 times, then it's time to stop complaining about the price of a game.

I think the excuse about disliking the feeling you're on a leash is silly. If you manage to lose it 5 times maybe you should be.

That's bullshit, if I buy a game I'll be damned if I'm going to be limited on the number of installs I do. This is the exact kind of bullshit DRM I'm talking about when I say hack away to the pirates. I'll find a way around that shit fast!

 

[snowbear]

I hate this notion the PC gamers are pirates blah blah. There is plenty of console pirates too. If not more so... add used game sales ontop of console pirates and you'll soon see which platforms screw the devs over the most, And it sure as hell isnt PC gamers.

Used games sales are just as bad if not worse than pirates.

Also the only real way to make people want to buy your game instead of pirating it, is to make the game good value for money. 90% of games just arn't worth thier price tag anymore.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

You are assuming that I support DRM, I don't but I know who is to blame for it and its not the legitimate consumer.

I think making blown up statements about terrorists doesn't really help anything. It's a completely different league of issue.

No, its not. Its an example. But fine. I see what you mean.

In my previous post, there is a reply to another guy, detailing why we should not be so quick to condemn and curse "pirates". Please read it, and get back to me when you have, I am curious as to what you think of it.

Spoiler: copied it here for your convenience, click me

Allow me to chip in.

http://torrentfreak.com/pirates-are-the-music-industrys-most-valuable-customers-100122/

Interesting read, I suggest you take a look. Its torrent freak, so its has a pro-piracy slant, but the numbers are legit, uncovered and released by an unbiased third party. Its also about the music industry, but I think you will agree one can draw numerous parallels.

The common misconception is that pirates simply never buy games for a number of different reasons. This is not true. No matter which way I look at it, everything I find points me toward one conclusion: the people that pirate the most are also the people that buy the most, and are actually the people keeping the gaming industry alive, not killing it.

Personally, I dont pirate. I used to, but stopped, because my eyes were opened in a way, and I realized no matter what excuse you have, if you are downloading a game, its good enough to make you want to play it and thus worth your money, even if you buy it at half price on Steam or whatever. Just my personal opinion. I do however have a lot of friends who pirate, hell, I think every single one of my gamer friends pirates. And low and behold, the one that pirates a metric fuckton of games is also the one that has the biggest Steam library. In fact, I think I have only one gamer friend who exclusively pirates and almost never buys, and considering the size of some of my friends lists, thats pretty low.

Obviously this is just my personal experience, but I do have numbers that pushed me in this direction. So yeah, stop for a moment and think, and be honest to yourself: how many of my friends pirate? And how many of them buy games?

If the article is true (which I highly doubt considering it's source) Then it's something that the publishers aren't seeing. They only see what they are losing by catering to the PC platform. It's clear that a lot of them see us as 'not worth it' and economically they are correct when faced with the xbox sales figures.

Also am I correct in that this is only considering those that seed and not those that download? I got that impression perhaps I am wrong.

 

[Stu35]

This is one of those fun ones because every pirate and their mother will now come out to say that it isn't affecting the industry at all.

Really?

The problem is that the facts just do not gel. Since downloading became a thing the music industry has lost more than half its sales, and gaming companies report 60-90 percents losses on PC games that just aren't there on consoles games (more like 20 percent, still bad but not critical)

Sources?

Also, if the impact currently being had is so huge, why are the Music and Gaming Industries continuing to pump out huge profits in a time of worldwide economic depression (generally a time when Luxuries like Games and Music are put on the back-burner by people spending money on things like food and somewhere to live).


Not supporting piracy by the way, just saying that these industries put a lot of work into looking like some sort of abused victims whilst they do their utmost to exploit their customers for maximum profits. Incidentally, I believe that the more that the industry attempts to limit piracy through draconian measures, the more piracy they'll suffer - Human nature combined with the relative anonymity of the internet has made a generation of online rebels who will do whatever it takes to piss "the man" off, whether it's hacking into the CIA and posting a picture of boobs, or bypassing the DRM of a new game.

 

[Beat14]

I don't see the problem with DRM that allows you to install 5 times, but revokes a license on uninstallation.

Lets say you install the game on a pc and a laptop, you still have 3 installs left. Oh no your laptop and pc have vanished leaving you without a computer, and minus 2 installs. Which is enough if you get organised. If you end up losing all 5 installs you are a mess. Sorry if I have overlooked something but I haven't downloaded a virus that caused me to wipe my HDD 5 times, and if your pc breaks, or is stolen and you get another...5 times, then it's time to stop complaining about the price of a game.

I think the excuse about disliking the feeling you're on a leash is silly. If you manage to lose it 5 times maybe you should be.

That's bullshit, if I buy a game I'll be damned if I'm going to be limited on the number of installs I do. This is the exact kind of bullshit DRM I'm talking about when I say hack away to the pirates. I'll find a way around that shit fast!

Well it's unlimted in a sense, all you have to do is uninstall. It's not hard or physically demanding. I understand it's a shitty feeling to have this limit over your head, but I don't understand how/why it is a problem for people apart from psychologically. Even then have some confidence in the fact you won't lose it 5 times without uninstalling it.

 

[Hazy]

I guess my discussion value is that 'Do you think gamers should take a bigger responsibility in looking after the integrity of their platform and shunning those that do pirate.'

I'm not their caretaker, nor do I want to be. What they do in the privacy of their homes, while legal or otherwise, is their deal, not mine.

The only thing I can hope is that developers smarten the fuck up and realize: A. piracy is RAMPANT on consoles as well, and B. DRM does absolutely nothing to detract from piracy, and just makes paying customers have to jump through unnecessary hoops.

 

[Aeshi]

[snipped as always]

1. So all they really need to do is host the entire game on said remote server?

3. And? Even if they do buy more games the games they buy probably aren't the ones they pirate. What they are doing is basically pirating from company X, giving money to company Y when they buy games from then trying to justify it by saying "well someone still got paid right?"

4. Yes? Yes what?

[5. Can't think of anything to say]

 

[Wolf Hagen]

Am I the only one who wonders HOW they got that number of Pirate copies to bash in our faces!?

Seriously: I think this is less a pirating problem, then the thing, that Ubisoft doesn't wanna get nagged on about their next generation of bulls*** DRM, so they just dump the whole thing and seek for the easiest target to blame on who is not them.

 

[BGH122]

I will say this again: you will not find a proper piracy debate on The Escapist because the moderators have already made it extremely clear that they don't want pro-piracy debates. If you want to genuinely debate the ethics, practicalities, and scientific studies of piracy, then go do so on an appropriate venue (ArsTechnia, for instance). These 'debates' on The Escapist just become "HERP DERP PIROCY R EYVIL!!! [citation needed]" because those smart enough to rebut the asinine arguments raised are also smart enough to follow this forum's rules.

The Escapist is a games site, and it requires decent relations with the content industry to continue to function. If you care about this site, then stop putting that in jeopardy with these threads. It's that simple. Take your piracy debates to appropriate venues.

EDIT:

If the article is true (which I highly doubt considering it's source) Then it's something that the publishers aren't seeing.

The crux of the argument is true, but (as ever) TorrentFreak has taken a largely advocate stance on the data, rather than just presenting it. The ArsTechnia (basically, TorrentFreak's scientifically literate cousin) version of the data is much less opinionated. I won't link it here for the reasons I've stated above (besides, it's easy to find).

 

[Dogstile]

Protip: shut down Pirate Bay. You know, have people who can do something about it actually do something about it.

Sure, there'll be massive fucking rage, but that'll blow over eventually.

Drop in the proverbial bucket. Pirate bay's not even the biggest one.

But OP: I already do. I'm pretty sure most legit users do.

 

[Scappo]

At the end of the day, companies will do what they have to do to protect themselves. Pirates like to argue that they're helping the industry by spreading their product and advertising their game (along with other assorted excuses and bile), but really all they're doing is ruining sales, killing trust between the producer and the consumer, and justifying it with flimsy excuses (I'm too broke etc.).

I understand that region locking and DRM are annoying, but again, it's just companies trying to protect themselves. Remember people, profit. Is. The. Bottom. Line. Whether or not the customer is happy is secondary to these people (at least, the bigwigs sitting in the conference rooms at the game companies)...it's a cold, hard fact, but it's true.

And honestly, how many people actually go out and buy the game after they pirate it? Probably not that many. There's a sliver of honest people out there that will do it, but not enough to maintain a successful business. The reality is that once it's pirated, the person will say "I'll buy it if I like it", then they finish it, decide they didn't like it, and never buy the game.

Bottom line: I totally agree that piracy is ruining it for the rest of us that actually SPEND MONEY on the things we want, instead of stealing it, and justifying the theft behind paper-thin excuses.

 

[Stu35]

I will say this again: you will not find a proper piracy debate on The Escapist because the moderators have already made it extremely clear that they don't want pro-piracy debates. If you want to genuinely debate the ethics, practicalities, and scientific studies of piracy, then go do so on an appropriate venue (ArsTechnia, for instance). These 'debates' on The Escapist just become "HERP DERP PIROCY R EYVIL!!! [citation needed]" because those smart enough to rebut the asinine arguments raised are also smart enough to follow this forum's rules.

The Escapist is a games site, and it requires decent relations with the content industry to continue to function. If you care about this site, then stop putting that in jeopardy with these threads. It's that simple. Take your piracy debates to appropriate venues.

Do you not think that we could debate the merits of whether or not current Anti-Piracy measures are effective without endorsing piracy itself though?

Surely that is both productive, and ought to be endorsed by the content industry as, if they choose to read such debates, they may be able to ascertain how their paying customers feel about their current methods and how they might improve on them.

Just a thought.