Pirating Game Dev Tycoon Dooms Players to be Ruined By Piracy

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

And the war wages on, and on, and on.

So let's look at it from another slant: Some publishers have become so wretched, taking their IPs and consumer loyalty to same so for-granted that it's become clear they don't care. We are their money cows. Moooo!

What's the worst thing we can do to them?

Pirate their game? No. Because, you see, we're then still playing the game. Sim City 5 sucks, but you forgive the suckiness if you got it for free. You're still being influenced by their culture. You'll still be looking forward to Sim City 6 or 7 or 8 which may or may not be better. You are still invested. You're still involved.

Rather, you can not pirate their game. Don't play it at all. Give them neither your money, nor your time. After all, even if it's the latest in a favorite series, it's a bad game and it soils the memories of former glory. It becomes easier with time and with iterations. Sim City 6? Whatever. Five had that game-killing DRM. Forget the series. Even Elvis died. Even Happy Days jumped the shark. Even Twilight: Breaking Dawn ...well... the less said the better.

Most artists, by a strong majority want you to enjoy their content. Most artists would rather you buy it, but if you can't (or won't for whatever reason) they'd rather you experience it for free than not at all. Gene Simmons is in the gross minority, and frankly, for his preference, I don't listen to KISS at all anymore.

Most of the IP maximalists have forgotten the point behind secondary sales, and libraries, and rentals. They don't understand abundance economics because their sense of property is so strong (not to be confused with a sense of propriety) that they'd rather have control of their stuff than make a profit. The sad thing is, the (most) artists who actually make the stuff don't agree. And I think we had a failing when we allowed copyright and patent ownership to be transferred from the creative source to bankers and lawyers.

And this poor game-creator shlub bought the line. I probably won't play his game at all, pirated or otherwise. I'm not that desperate for new titles. I already have bought No Time To Explain, and hope to enjoy both the primary release and the pirate one. That's how you do it.

238U

 

[ResonanceSD]

Figured i would waste the $8 and buy it if anything i can see how much they copied from Game Dev Story

Do you have any idea when the first version of a "game development sim" came out? Long before Kairosoft who made it in 1997, that's for sure.

 

[Entitled]

The publishers have zero authority over our lives, why do you believe you have some inherent right to consume digital content?

Why do you think that I don't?

But no, seriously. That's what I tried to demonstrate with the previous Alternate Universe scenario. This issue is not about "inherent rights", but about historical happenstance.

If time-shifting video recording would be illegal, you might not feel that "you have an inherent right to record TV shows", but you could deduce the fact that the industry's claims about how that would destroy them are BS, and you could still protest in favor of it, or do it illegally, or just hope that that law goes away, (depending on your temperament).

Because while YOU don't have an inherent right to record TV shows, neither do publishers have an inherent right to stop you from doing it, not even if they would happen to have a legal justification. So why bother with keeping the system?

It's the same deal with file-sharing. Just because it's not my inherent right, I can still tell that as long as enough people pay for enough things, the industry could be all right.

I really do not understand why you believe in this digital socialism, no joke or slight intended but can you explain exactly why you hold this belief? Digital content is simply a modern storefront, just because its digital it doesn't become a huge free for all.

First of all, you should read my posts to other people in this thread. This is already the third time I'm called a socialist, for suggesting that the government shouldn't grant monopolies for future distribution of data to publishers, instead just let them figure out how to make a profit without that particular regulation giving them an advantage.

Beyond the obvious problem, that piracy is ridiculously easy, it is likely only getting easier as the Internet gets more complex (unless we slip into a police state where all data is ridiculously accurately tracked).

The current business model simply doesn't work. Right now, it effectively is a donation system relying on people who are willing to "support the art". And of course, on digital illiterates.

There are several business models that WOULD work, and having a more free culture (As in free speech) without every digital copy of everything being locked behind paywalls, would only be one of their benefits.

Sadly the world doesn't work like that, because society cannot be trusted to pay someone for their efforts or creations we need regulation. No arguments about how hard regurgitation suck and how unworkable and unfair they become, thats the nature of legislation unfortunately. There will be winners and losers.

I agree, to some extent.

For example, I think that there is no reason to let every publisher sell the same physical products. Giving creators a monopoly on commercial selling of materials, is one part of IP that still works in this century, and doesn't particularly bother the common man's Internet usage either.

Ultimately though content creators need protection from the people that believe they do not have to give fair due in return for the entertainment they consume. Actors need to be paid, programmers want some recompense for the crunch where they neglected their family for weeks on end and the artists will have bills to pay.

Think of those guys, screw the higher laws that favor the big corporations and think of the little guys working for them. Those guys work the hardest, they are also the first to get pay cuts or get fired when sales do not meet expectations. Then they check stats and find millions of people decided to consume the content and not pay. If even half of those people actually paid for the content they still might have a job.

That's part of the reason why I'm spending a large part of my income on entertainment.

 

[Holythirteen]

If I would just want free stuff, I alone could get it all right now illegally, while you tools keep obeyin' the law and paying for it.

Oh good direct insults. I see, you do it because you can. If I do a search will I find you complaining about always-online DRM somewhere? That is the direct consequence of your way of thinking. WE ARE PAYING FOR YOU. And then you turn around and use it as justification for your theft. Awesome.

Legal readjustment needs because I want free culure (free as in speech), where people in general can openly distribute and experience and create and modify all kinds of media,

Did you know LittleBigPlanet had an included level editor for players to contribute their own levels? Not one of those levels was as fun as the ones included on the game disc itself. Why would I want to pay for the white-noise contributions of thousands of random, unaccountable people when I could pay professionals for top-tier work, withholding my money if I start to dislike their efforts? Why would I want these random unaccountable people taking my hero character from my book and possibly turning him into a pedophile? Like I said before, if people want to contribute their own media why do they need to take characters and worlds that others have already created?

while creators keep getting rewarded at least reasonably (if not necessarily as well as now)
There are multiple models to reach that, from the naively honor-based donation model to the cynical and harmful-to-artistic-integrity advertisement model, but all of them are more realistic than the current one.

What does reasonably mean? They own their ip, if its not worth the asking price, don't buy it. All these vague socialist justifications are getting old. You keep going back to it, but you don't have the first clue how that system would work and you don't care, so you just keep stealing stuff.

First of all, you should read my posts to other people in this thread. This is already the third time I'm called a socialist, for suggesting that the government shouldn't grant monopolies for future distribution of data to publishers, instead just let them figure out how to make a profit without that particular regulation giving them an advantage.

Fourth. That's the label you get when you start saying that my stuff should belong to the state. Why do you think my stuff should belong to everyone? If I make my own video game without copyright protection, a big company WILL take my works and make their own version because they can. You keep telling yourself that piracy is some sort of foundation of a new system where everybody owns everything and everything is more awesome because of it when in truth you have no idea how this magical system is supposed to ACTUALLY WORK. I can tell you that it won't, the humble indie bundle was 1 cent and people STILL pirated it. Justify that to me.

That's part of the reason why I'm spending a large part of my income on entertainment.

Like hell you do. Quit acting like you're fighting for the common man, you spend as little as possible while you steal the stuff you want and then say it's because it wasn't worth the money. It's called hypocrisy.

 

[Bad Jim]

Though I totally agree with the method and consequence of his actions by announcing it he screws it up. Wait a few days, the 'bugged' crack would have been analysed fixed and a new torrent will be available for download. The Dev should have kept his mouth shut on this one..

No. If he remained silent, there would be no fixed torrent, but that wouldn't generate any extra sales since the pirates would just assume the legit version was also bugged. Plus they would tell their friends it was broken, friends who might have paid for it.

 

[MrDumpkins]

So trying to slap me with a guilt trip for keeping my wallet to myself, crying about how you're going to starve because I refuse to pay ridiculous amounts of money for your average content....sorry, it's not going to work. Basic capitalism, here. Adapt your business model to something more appropriate, or just produce better games. Otherwise, your business will die, and I won't feel sorry for you when you do.

I agree that they charge over the ass for this kind of content, but where I don't agree is just playing it anyways. That's like saying I want a good fancy meal, but I don't think it's worth the money, so instead of just going somewhere else I'm just going to dine and dash. Regardless of whether it's good or bad food, It's their fault they weren't charging less. If they were, I would have totally paid for it.

If they have a bad pricing model then just don't buy their content. But don't go and download it anyways. All that does is create the illusion for these big companies that people would totally buy their game if they couldn't get it for free.

 

[phoenix352]

now the most used argument against piracy is "it hurts the developer" this is just false information.
piracy whole heartily helps the dev by making the game and the dev a household name.
the fact that people play it use the product for free is just a bit of a downside emotionally not financially since non of those were lost sales or lost value, NON OF THEM.

You don't think devs use sales figures when negotiating contracts with publishers? You don't think in-house devs get more resources based on sales figures? You don't think there's one person who would have bought a game they pirated if they couldn't pirate it?

Do i think they use sales figures? yes i do.
they use the actual game sales aka people who bought retail\ digital.
do i think they include theoretical sales? hell no.

pirated copy's are not lost sales, case closed.
you cant make business decisions from vague estimates and theoretical sales.

do i personally think out of those people who pirate some one would have bought a copy if he didn't have the option?
of curse some would , just like out of the people who pirate there are those who still buy copies afterwards.
those are just maybes and they work both ways.
you should not be making contracts using estimated numbers based on maybes.

if that's how the industry does business then they have only themselves to blame for it , piracy is still not a cause.

You would have to make a case for it to be closed.
You yourself admitted that some pirates would have purchased a copy if piracy was unavailable. THERE'S YOUR LOST SALE RIGHT THERE. Not theoretical, an actual 1 to add to the list of sales.

i made my argument about that in my original post~
yeah i admitted that i THINK there would be some who would pay for that game.
but you cant count sales based on THOUGHT , the only way for you to count that as a lost sale would be if you had the knowledge that some of those people would 100% buy that game if the piracy option was not available but you cant know that and that's the whole point. there's no way to get accurate numbers on any of this meaning you count lost sales on theoretical information.

on that note what do you then say to a pirate that bought that same game he pirated later ?
based on your calculations that's still a "lost sale" in the sales figures even if the pirate got it legit.
the publisher only sees that a new copy was sold but doesn't see less pirated copy's.
and then just claims like the rest that even tho sales were high piracy " crippled" half of it or some other nonsense like that.
its inherently a flawed system and should not be used.

Are you kidding? I don't have calculations. I'm talking about sales figures. Your pirate who goes on to buy the game adds 1 to the total sales figure. He is accounted for. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that my 'calculations' would not account for this. My pirate who would have purchased the game if not for piracy does not add 1 to the sales figure. We agreed that developers use these sales figures in their relations with publishers. Therefore, the person who pirates the game when he would have purchased it instead is doing harm to the developer in not adding to the sales figure. He would have purchased it. He did not because piracy exists. The developer has a weaker position in their next negotiation because of this person.

when i say calculations i mean the sales figures.
my pirate as i stated is indeed counted as a sales figure BUT he also pirated the game beforehand meaning he is also a "lost sale" based on your rules.

so how can 1 person then be both a sale figure and a lost sale figure?
that's the pickle with that one.

i agree that the person who would have bought a copy if the option of piracy wasn't available would do harm to the dev but again you don't know that he would have.
there is no way to determine that information.
saying that he harms the dev is hypothetical because you need to assume that he otherwise would of bought it.
meaning anyone that pirates is completely irrelevant to any sales figures period.

if a developer chooses to calculate lost sales from piracy along side the actual sales figures he ends up basing it on estimates and nothing else so there can be no argument made that piracy affected his negotiations.
because in our current reality you cant prove that a pirate would buy that game if piracy wasn't a thing.
so the end figures are just lies.




that's the whole overarching point its simply a fact that piracy does no harm.

I don't consider every instance of piracy a lost sale. I wouldn't count the guy who bought a copy after designing his own piracy demo plan as a sale that should have happened had he wound up not making the purchase in the end. All I'm saying is there are people who would purchase games but do not because they are available through piracy. This is separate from trying it out first or sticking it to publishers or any of that stuff. These are sales that would have happened had the game not been cracked at distributed. Call them lost sales if you like, but while not every instance of piracy is a lost sale, there are sales that get lost in the mix. Without even doing anything like calculating lost sales, developers are harmed because their final sales numbers are not as high as they would have been and they rely on those numbers. You're right that we can't put a number to them. I'm not saying devs should find some way to account for them on top of actual sales figures, but we have to admit that this happens simply based on our consuming like locusts nature as gamers.

Now we could argue that piracy does no net harm because you can eliminate the people who were never going to buy a game and compare sales gained because of word of mouth or do-it-yourself demoing resulting in a sale and those lost by people who would have purchased if they couldn't pirate, but we don't really have those numbers so it'll be speculation. Again, I'm just saying if there is one person who would have purchased a title and doesn't, the absence of his presence in sales figures does do a bit of damage.

The funny thing is, while I won't call for it in these forums, I won't be upset when a crack of the 'real' game dev tycoon comes out because this stinks of a PR stunt which, while brilliant, is more than a little hypocritical to me because as far as I can tell these two guys are straight ripping off kairosoft and their Game Dev Story.

Now with that i can agree , sure on an individual level piracy does some harm but on a large scale that number is just minuscule as to what devs / publishers depict it to be.
its so blown out of proportion and demonized to create this "piracy" entity that dooms games and developers.
bad games and bad business decisions do that, piracy does not.

and that's my problem with the whole ordeal.
piracy is not the coming of the apocalypse it does its small impact but it also regulates itself by giving all that free publicity to that product balancing that damage out.

now since like we established there are no hard numbers for and against piracy i cant say that the balance of damage to free advertising is tipped to any side.


so the only logical assumption to take away for these arguments is that piracy sure logically does damage but it also helps and since we cant prove either side its just completely irrelevant.




and that's my case for piracy, its the ol' innocent until proven wrong type of deal.
i just don't agree with the amount of flack and attention this gets based on assumptions.

 

[galdon2004]

Piracy does not hurt businesses. A pirated game is not a lost sale, because the one pirating often would not have spent that money in the first place. I don't pirate, especially not from an indie dev, but this idea that a company can be harmed by a loss in entirely theoretical money is ridiculous. Its not like shoplifting, when you download something, you are not depriving the manufacturer of an object they then have to replace.

Until all the hyperbole dies down, I really cannot take the 'piracy issue' seriously.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Piracy does not hurt businesses. A pirated game is not a lost sale, because the one pirating often would not have spent that money in the first place. I don't pirate, especially not from an indie dev, but this idea that a company can be harmed by a loss in entirely theoretical money is ridiculous. Its not like shoplifting, when you download something, you are not depriving the manufacturer of an object they then have to replace.

Until all the hyperbole dies down, I really cannot take the 'piracy issue' seriously.

So by your reasoning, it's simply "acting outside the law by deciding you're entitled to content without having to pay for it" for some reason. You're depriving the content producer of the money that THEY'RE entitled to by producing and distributing content.

Until you stop rationalizing crime, I really cannot take your argument seriously.

 

[likalaruku]

Bigfish Games should implement this DRM. Whenever I'm looking for a walkthrough or review for one of their games, Google turns up a ton of torrent sites.

I can understand downloading vaporware & out-of-print games that are 10 or more years older that a company is no longer making any money off of, especially if the console is prone to breaking or certain games were released in limited amounts & cartridges are rare to the point of costing hundreds. But when a game costs $7 & isn't even 5 years old, there's absolutely no excuse.

Indie games are so cheap, that if I really like the game & they have a donate button, I give them an extra $5-$15.

& if any of you like oldschool RPGs, go check out Amaranth Games. Aveyond 3 was awesome.

 

[Smeggs]

It would be easy to get around it though. In the sim, just make all your games "always online". That'll stop the pirates!

Your Dev PR Score is: ELECTRONIC ARTS.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Pirates tend to spend more money than 'legitimate customers' on whatever media form they steal from.

I do think this is funny though, that forum post is priceless.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Pirates tend to spend more money than 'legitimate customers' on whatever media form they steal from.

I do think this is funny though, that forum post is priceless.

Massive "CITATION NEEDED" stamp goes here.

 

[duchaked]

loll got 'em...

but I do like the guy's message/response to his audience. it's not being smug or anything just straightforward

 

[Vetta E-dom]

Snip

Apparently people who work in the game industry (like myself) have adapted to go without food, water, money for bills or to support their families? Because hay Piracy hurts no one right, not like anyones paycheck is riding on a product selling. And how dare them ask for money from something that supposed to be ART!!! The nerve of those bastards.... Don't they know that art has always existed without patrons or (customers) ...well excluding like the last 800+ years (which actually would be closer to like 4000+ but hey who's counting) who likes, Rococo, baroque, classicism, neo classicism, postmodernism, Dadaism, futurism, ect ect ... anyways those were all decedent, frivolous, and unnecessary.-Especially the Dadaist

Its hilarious to see people pull the ART card when referring to piracy, clearly they have absolutely no knowledge of Art history.

ResonanceSD - You're awesome keep fighting the good fight.

Others that think piracy hurts no one- How about not being a straight up dick to Us working in the industry, its bad enough its done in the first place, and then you go tell everyone that their horrible for asking to be paid for their work. In what way can you honestly think its right to tell people you don't give 2 shits about their work, and then go take off with it.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Massive "CITATION NEEDED" stamp goes here.

I dunno, some guy said it in another thread and it supported my argument, therefore it must be true. I heard it on the internet!

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/industry_news/riaa_pirates_spend_more_on_music.html

The RIAA(which hates pirates) says that music pirates spend up to 30% more on music than non-pirates. It's pretty easy to extrapolate this statistical principle to other pirates.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

I find most pirates to have no excuse all round, regardless of it being an indie game, heavy DRM, or sticking it to a publisher. You are still technically stealing something that someone spent time on and that to me makes the whole, "Oh but it was for this reason" a terrible excuse. If I beat a woman, but say, "She was pregnant with my child and wouldn't get an abortion" I'm still an asshole who deserves to go to gaol. If I steal a frying pan, but say it's because I need something to cook my food, I'm still going to be punished via some form of recompense to the store/owner.

There is no reason to pirate a game. If you have a computer, you can afford to spend money on one game per month or one game per 2 months. I've only ever heard one viable excuse for piracy, and even then it's still not a good excuse (See Extra Credits Piracy episode).

So yeah, there is practically no excuse for piracy.

I saw that episode, and the example you're talking about is pirating a game that you simply can't buy because it's not available at all, e.g. ancient games that the company got bored of selling, or ones that aren't available in your country (NOT counting localization or shop stocking issues). In my opinion, that's fine: if a company isn't even giving you the option of purchasing a game legitimately, then it's okay to pirate the game.
Of course, even this rationalization gets iffy when the company pulls out the option of purchasing classic titles (e.g. Nintendo's eShop letting you buy SNES or GBA titles) or when they make HD remakes.

Otherwise, I agree. Firstly, a game worth playing is a game worth buying, and telling someone their 'art' isn't worth anything just because you don't agree with the price tag is extremely insulting and obnoxious. Surely you people have jobs, what if your employers suddenly told you you're not going to be paid for a year's work because they wouldn't have hired you anyway? Yes I think that's a valid comparison, because it takes a LOT of effort and time to make a game, no I'm not going to argue about the semantics about employer contracts.

Secondly, if you honestly can't afford $5 for a steam sale or even one whole cent for a Humble Indie bundle (no, I don't want to argue about whether one cent sales hurt HIB) each month, then sell your fucking console/computer and get another job because you have bigger issues than finding something to do during your spare time. Oh, but you're a student? Doesn't matter. Even if your study/work schedule somehow gives you no time to scrape up enough cash to buy a chocolate bar, there are PLENTY of legitimate, entertaining gaming options for anyone with a $0 game budget. Whatever happened to free browser based game websites? (I STILL play games at Newgrounds.com, yay free ad for them) What about undeniably excellent F2P titles like League of Legends or Team Fortress 2, to name a few?

Thirdly, I still don't buy the whole 'Well I'll pay for it when i get the cash/ if I think that it's good enough afterwards' excuse. LOOK at that percentage rate. Maybe some people were kind enough to buy the game afterwards, but am I really expected to believe that a good portion of the other 93.4 percent bought the game after their trial run? (Or would have if the hacked version wasn't trolling them, or if it was of good quality blah de fucking blah) When the legit game sale percentage doesn't even reach double digits, don't fucking lecture me about the goodwill of pirates.

Seriously guys, watch that video bug_of_war suggested. Other than obnoxious/buggy DRM and the aforementioned Sold-Out-Forever / Not-Available-Ever games, the excuses pirates make over what is essentially theft just borders on snobbery and self-serving entitlement.

Ahhh I love the piracy defense attempts on subjects like this.

Think I'll go pirate a car. Wasn't going to buy it so it's not a lost sale! People seeing me driving it will want one themselves. I'm sure the police will understand perfectly that I didn't actually steal the car I stole and, in fact, did it to promote the model!

Gotta love how the completely self serving "logic" breaks down into utterly baffling stupidity when applied to anything but video games.

Is it wrong that I hate you for so perfectly summing up my entire statement?

As a final note, am I the only one who noticed the name of the company on the screenshot?

 

[Frankster]

Tried the demo as concept intrigued me and then got the game, so +1 sale from me. For 8$ the price was more then reasonable.