Pirating Game Dev Tycoon Dooms Players to be Ruined By Piracy

Calibanbutcher

Elite Member
Nov 29, 2009
1,702
8
43
TopazFusion said:
It would be easy to get around though. In the sim, just make all your games "always online". That'll stop the pirates!



I think I love you, you mangificent mod you.

That was probably the best burn I have read all week...
 

AdamG3691

New member
Nov 18, 2009
313
0
0
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
do you know how devs are paid?

evidently not.

at the start of the development, the developer is given a certain amount of money, that money is what funds the game.

when the game is released, the devs get NO MONEY FROM SALES until they sell (initial budget/cost of a game) copies, after that they start to get money although most still goes to the publisher.

if you pirate or buy a preowned game, that doesn't count as a copy, and if the developer doesn't make enough to break even, they are unlikely to be hired again.

now explain to me, how is it that piracy increases the number of copies sold? because if you are going to argue that the good press from the game contributes, then you better be forcing two people to buy it full price, one to make up for your own actions, and one to allow your flawed justification to make even a tiny bit of sense.
 

Entitled

New member
Aug 27, 2012
1,254
0
0
Calcium said:
marurder said:
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..
But it's not really an anti-piracy measure, keeping quiet wouldn't accomplish anything. He doesn't 'screw' anything up by announcing it - by announcing it he just got his game a lot more publicity than it otherwise would have received. That's a win right there I'd say.
That's true. Actual DRM doesn't work. This would have eventually been fixed anyways, just like The Sims 2'a and Settllers 3's gimmicky DRM was fixed.

This was useful for sending out an appealing message to the pirates, not for ruining their game experience out of spite.

JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
I agree with that, but this is only true because there ARE those 5-10% percent of players who buy it after hearing from it through piracy, because they feel the responsibility to support the developers.

I don't think that there is anything morally wrong with the 90% freeloaders either, who didn't actively harm the company, and I absolutely don't condone the shaming of copying as if it would be theft, and I'm concerned about the legal systems that are criminalizing it.

BUT it's still important to make people conscious about their personal contribution being needed. If just begging is not enough, then a little white lie about how they are harmed by piracy can also be effective.

Seriously. If you do have money, buy as many games as you can. I don't care what you do with the rest of your time and internet usage BEYOND that, but payment being a virtue still needs to be advertised loudly.
 

JazzJack2

New member
Feb 10, 2013
268
0
0
AdamG3691 said:
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
do you know how devs are paid?

evidently not.

at the start of the development, the developer is given a certain amount of money, that money is what funds the game.

when the game is released, the devs get NO MONEY FROM SALES until they sell (initial budget/cost of a game) copies, after that they start to get money although most still goes to the publisher.

if you pirate or buy a preowned game, that doesn't count as a copy, and if the developer doesn't make enough to break even, they are unlikely to be hired again.

now explain to me, how is it that piracy increases the number of copies sold? because if you are going to argue that the good press from the game contributes, then you better be forcing two people to buy it full price, one to make up for your own actions, and one to allow your flawed justification to make even a tiny bit of sense.
Piracy leads to more people playing your game, and if your game is good then they will not only gain trust in you as a developer (leading to much better sales for future games) but they will help market your game through word of mouth. Look at minecraft, not only is it one of the most easily pirated games of all time it is also one of the most successful indie games of all time. Why? Because piracy helped send it to almost viral like popularity.
 

Entitled

New member
Aug 27, 2012
1,254
0
0
AdamG3691 said:
now explain to me, how is it that piracy increases the number of copies sold? because if you are going to argue that the good press from the game contributes, then you better be forcing two people to buy it full price, one to make up for your own actions, and one to allow your flawed justification to make even a tiny bit of sense.
Expecting "good press" to be directly expressed in a countable number of people "forced" to buy the game, is just as silly as counting every pirated copy as exactly one lost sale.

Just as you can't directly convert it into an exact number of lost sales that it represents when a poor uranian teenager downloads a game that he was only mildly interested in (it's less than 1 but more than 0 since he is still making a bad precedent and habit), you likewise can't directly count the number of gained sales that the increased audience represent.

First of all, good press is synergic. It's not about individual choices, but a matter of what the community as a whole does.

If 100k people buy a game and 1 million pirate it on release day, then it has a much bigger fandom and much more growth potential, then if, say, 200k people buy and play an always online game.

A fandom of 1.1m people can gain attention and grow much quckly than a fandom of 0.2k, and even if only 10% of the newcomers continue to be buyers, it is not unlikely that it's audience could grow beyond 2.2m, at which point piracy gained sales.
 

AdamG3691

New member
Nov 18, 2009
313
0
0
JazzJack2 said:
AdamG3691 said:
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
do you know how devs are paid?

evidently not.

at the start of the development, the developer is given a certain amount of money, that money is what funds the game.

when the game is released, the devs get NO MONEY FROM SALES until they sell (initial budget/cost of a game) copies, after that they start to get money although most still goes to the publisher.

if you pirate or buy a preowned game, that doesn't count as a copy, and if the developer doesn't make enough to break even, they are unlikely to be hired again.

now explain to me, how is it that piracy increases the number of copies sold? because if you are going to argue that the good press from the game contributes, then you better be forcing two people to buy it full price, one to make up for your own actions, and one to allow your flawed justification to make even a tiny bit of sense.
Piracy leads to more people playing your game, and if your game is good then they will not only gain trust in you as a developer (leading to much better sales for future games) but they will help market your game through word of mouth. Look at minecraft, not only is it one of the most easily pirated games of all time it is also one of the most successful indie games of all time. Why? Because piracy helped send it to almost viral like popularity.
and if piracy makes the game a flop, then there won't BE any future games.

minecraft was always an outlying case in that it was popular BEFORE it went on sale, the "MC Classic" mode was a free browser toy, that was where it got most of it's initial traction from, then when it allowed access to it's paid beta they sold it for only a few dollars.

plus, what do you think spread the word about minecraft more? pirates? or youtubers like the yogscast?

don't justify piracy by pointing to an outlying case, that sort of thing is an anomalous result and would be discarded in any study
 

A-D.

New member
Jan 23, 2008
637
0
0
AdamG3691 said:
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
do you know how devs are paid?

evidently not.

at the start of the development, the developer is given a certain amount of money, that money is what funds the game.

when the game is released, the devs get NO MONEY FROM SALES until they sell (initial budget/cost of a game) copies, after that they start to get money although most still goes to the publisher.

if you pirate or buy a preowned game, that doesn't count as a copy, and if the developer doesn't make enough to break even, they are unlikely to be hired again.

now explain to me, how is it that piracy increases the number of copies sold? because if you are going to argue that the good press from the game contributes, then you better be forcing two people to buy it full price, one to make up for your own actions, and one to allow your flawed justification to make even a tiny bit of sense.
Here's a train of thought. Piracy doesn't ruin developers. Publishers ruin developers. By your own logic, the developers make a game that is funded by the publisher and also advertised by them. So if the game doesnt sell well enough, they dont get paid, or not paid enough and eventually go under. How exactly is that the fault of pirates though?

Imagine the publisher being very crap at advertising and people basicly dont know the game exists. Its like Activision being suprised their newest call of duty doesnt sell when nobody even knew there was one, since they didnt advertise at all and nobody ever mentioned it being in development. This is a hypothetical scenario of course, by now we know this series is on yearly release schedules, but what about games that arent? Is piracy at fault the game doesnt sell? Or is it because the publisher didnt advertise.

Or what about stupid bullshit like "Have 85 Metacritic score or dont get paid royalties" like what happened to Obsidian with Fallout New Vegas? Yeah that totally was the fault of pirates, wasnt it?

Fact is, remove the publishers and give all money earned directly to the Developers. Even if they get pirated, they can still survive and make games, look at CD Project RED, the first Witcher was pirated, the second one was too, now they have the third game in development AND another project, Cyberpunk 2077, on top of it. Somehow pirates didnt ruin them. Pirates are a problem, especially if it is rampant.

But here's a nice inside joke: On average, Pirates or former Pirates buy more games per month/year than your average joe game enthusiast. I'm not trying to make a excuse here, but to me, pirates are just people, a handful of the lot probably pirate because "lulz, free is best". Others do it for another reason, alot of them eventually buy the games they pirated, or stop pirating altogether when they have the option to get games with little problems for good prices.

You know (this is generally speaking, not to the person quoted alone), cause most people have morals and tend to pirate cause they cant indulge in their favourite pasttime to make ends meet, you know, rent, food etc. And if you want to bring up "Well then they shouldnt play at all." i will reply simply with this.

If you arent capable of any kind of empathy, or critical and logical thought, please turn in your brain, evidently you have no need for it. If you dont have enough money for rent, should you then "not have a home"? If you do not have enough money for food, should you then "not eat at all"? Note here, eating is necessary, a home is not. Before anyone brings up the argument of necessity vs luxury.

OT:

I want the pirated version. I'd even pay for it. I just want to try and somehow beat that system. Seriously, that sounds way more awesome than just the sim game itself.

Developers, if ya seeing this, add that mode to the sold version too. Do it and take my money.
 

JazzJack2

New member
Feb 10, 2013
268
0
0
AdamG3691 said:
and if piracy makes the game a flop, then there won't BE any future games.
Show me one game that was caused to flop by piracy.

plus, what do you think spread the word about minecraft more? pirates? or youtubers like the yogscast?
Minecraft was already snowballing into popularity before the yogscast found it, most of minecraft's popularity came from people discussing it on forums (particularly /v/ which is where Notch originally advertised his game.)
 

Entitled

New member
Aug 27, 2012
1,254
0
0
AdamG3691 said:
minecraft was always an outlying case in that it was popular BEFORE it went on sale, the "MC Classic" mode was a free browser toy, that was where it got most of it's initial traction from, then when it allowed access to it's paid beta they sold it for only a few dollars.
The "MC Classic" was popular, *because* it was free. Pirated games are also free, except without their publisher's permission, but they do the same thing.

AdamG3691 said:
plus, what do you think spread the word about minecraft more? pirates? or youtubers like the yogscast?
What do you think, every single youtuber actually bought the game?

Youtube suddenly being full of minecraft videos was part of word of mouth, and if most minecraft players are pirates, then we can assume that a number of those promoting it were also pirates.

Every time a game goes viral because of it's huge enthusiastic fan community, part of that is how so many people could freely access it.

Another example of that is how Friendship is Magic went viral on Youtube, when most bronies didn't subscribe to the Hub. (and resulted in iTunes sales years later).
 

AdamG3691

New member
Nov 18, 2009
313
0
0
A-D. said:
AdamG3691 said:
JazzJack2 said:
But piracy doesn't make developers lose money, in fact it does the opposite, devs gain money from piracy.
do you know how devs are paid?

evidently not.

at the start of the development, the developer is given a certain amount of money, that money is what funds the game.

when the game is released, the devs get NO MONEY FROM SALES until they sell (initial budget/cost of a game) copies, after that they start to get money although most still goes to the publisher.

if you pirate or buy a preowned game, that doesn't count as a copy, and if the developer doesn't make enough to break even, they are unlikely to be hired again.

now explain to me, how is it that piracy increases the number of copies sold? because if you are going to argue that the good press from the game contributes, then you better be forcing two people to buy it full price, one to make up for your own actions, and one to allow your flawed justification to make even a tiny bit of sense.
Here's a train of thought. Piracy doesn't ruin developers. Publishers ruin developers. By your own logic, the developers make a game that is funded by the publisher and also advertised by them. So if the game doesnt sell well enough, they dont get paid, or not paid enough and eventually go under. How exactly is that the fault of pirates though?

Imagine the publisher being very crap at advertising and people basicly dont know the game exists. Its like Activision being suprised their newest call of duty doesnt sell when nobody even knew there was one, since they didnt advertise at all and nobody ever mentioned it being in development. This is a hypothetical scenario of course, by now we know this series is on yearly release schedules, but what about games that arent? Is piracy at fault the game doesnt sell? Or is it because the publisher didnt advertise.

Or what about stupid bullshit like "Have 85 Metacritic score or dont get paid royalties" like what happened to Obsidian with Fallout New Vegas? Yeah that totally was the fault of pirates, wasnt it?

Fact is, remove the publishers and give all money earned directly to the Developers. Even if they get pirated, they can still survive and make games, look at CD Project RED, the first Witcher was pirated, the second one was too, now they have the third game in development AND another project, Cyberpunk 2077, on top of it. Somehow pirates didnt ruin them. Pirates are a problem, especially if it is rampant.

But here's a nice inside joke: On average, Pirates or former Pirates buy more games per month/year than your average joe game enthusiast. I'm not trying to make a excuse here, but to me, pirates are just people, a handful of the lot probably pirate because "lulz, free is best". Others do it for another reason, alot of them eventually buy the games they pirated, or stop pirating altogether when they have the option to get games with little problems for good prices.

You know (this is generally speaking, not to the person quoted alone), cause most people have morals and tend to pirate cause they cant indulge in their favourite pasttime to make ends meet, you know, rent, food etc. And if you want to bring up "Well then they shouldnt play at all." i will reply simply with this.

If you arent capable of any kind of empathy, or critical and logical thought, please turn in your brain, evidently you have no need for it. If you dont have enough money for rent, should you then "not have a home"? If you do not have enough money for food, should you then "not eat at all"? Note here, eating is necessary, a home is not. Before anyone brings up the argument of necessity vs luxury.
true, publishers are the root of the whole thing, but the studios need to get that money from somewhere (woo crowdsourcing :D)

I'm not saying that piracy and used game sales are the whole problem, they're not, they just don't make the problem better, and in the case of pirates who just pirate the game and don't buy it later and don't attempt to spread the word of mouth, they are actively making it worse
 

1337mokro

New member
Dec 24, 2008
1,503
0
0
Well that's quite a bad simulation.

Where is the increased exposure, the added word of mouth, the extra purchases due to guilt or interest? I have yet to hear a game that people actually thought to be worthwhile die an agonizing death due to piracy.

Maybe that 6,7% is the actual amount of people who would have bought your game anyway? Sure allot of people are playing it but evidently not allot want to actually buy it. Do I really have to pull up Minecraft? A game so easily pirated it's not even funny (online as well), but despite the piracy turned out to be a game that basically set a small indie company for life?
 

Entitled

New member
Aug 27, 2012
1,254
0
0
AdamG3691 said:
I'm not saying that piracy and used game sales are the whole problem, they're not, they just don't make the problem better, and in the case of pirates who just pirate the game and don't buy it later and don't attempt to spread the word of mouth, they are actively making it worse
I think it's just faulty logic to focus too hard on individual actions, and judge their morality entirely based on what would happen if everyone would act exactly like that.

Human communities are built on much more complicated mechanics, than everyone simply "doing their share".

Basically, while I agree with this developer's PR move, with trying to guilt-trip people into paying, after all payments do need to be made, but in the end, positive encouragement is more useful than the shaming of freeloaders, especially if the latter has such unhealthy side effects as vilifying the concept of sharing, and handing over the legal control of our online activities and data accesses to publishers, "to protect their property".
 

J Tyran

New member
Dec 15, 2011
2,407
0
0
I hope there is a special circle of hell for people that pirate an indie game that has no DRM and has a demo. All of the excuses for piracy fall to pieces, its cheap, you do not need to crack it because of broken DRM and you can try the demo.

Plus its not a protest against big publishers and their practices its just the little guys trying to earn a living, no excuses whatsoever.
 

thetoddo

New member
May 18, 2010
214
0
0
This is almost as good as the copy protection on Earthbound back in the day. The pirated version of the game would function almost normally (I think monster spawn rates were higher but that wasn't a bad thing) until you got to the last boss at which point the game would "crash" and when you hit reset all of you saves were gone.

I actually like that they did this with Tycoon. Heavy handed? I'd say so. Preachy? A little. Funny? You betcha. But not nearly as psychologically destroying as erasing a 60+ hour save.
 

itsthesheppy

New member
Mar 28, 2012
722
0
0
Oh man. The people who pirated the game, posting about how piracy is ruining their in-game dev empire.

Sublime.
 

ZippyDSMlee

New member
Sep 1, 2007
3,959
0
0
In order to sell millions you'll lose thousands that's how any market works, get over it or find a new job outside intellectual properties...
 

N3squ1ck

New member
Mar 7, 2012
243
0
0
The Lord of the Rings Battlefront-style game (I forgot how it was called, sorry) had a protection like that too, when you got to Moria there was a invisible wall that prevented you from actually entering the damn thing.
 

Xukog

New member
May 21, 2011
126
0
0
Oh that is hilarious,A pirate complaining about piracy ruining his game.Now I am going to have to buy this when I have the spare money,that is great!