Pirating Game Dev Tycoon Dooms Players to be Ruined By Piracy

vasiD

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I'm all for this, very clever (plus, and I don't know if this was intentional, but a GREAT way to get some publicity).

In fact anyone who pirates an indie game being sold at a reasonable price is a monster and a thief honestly... That said I still feel that piracy for over-priced DRM-bullshit-filled games is totally acceptable. After all this is still capitalism unless I'm mistaken, and unless I'm mistaken capitalism is all about who can provide the best service at the best price and, while with things like steam the market is indeed getting better (which is why I have a 100 game steam library that's filling up the majority of my harddrive, and genuinely don't pirate very often any more unless it's an early leak of a game), for some games (those with draconian DRM or absurd prices) piracy remains the best service.

But seriously though if you pirate indie games made by small developers which are priced reasonably then you're an ass.
 

Covarr

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SecondPrize said:
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.
I think what phoenix352 is saying is that this is negated by the number of people who only buy a game because they were able to pirate it first. I can see the train of thought, but it's no good because he's completely guessing at the numbers, and assuming that the two groups balance each other out based on no evidence whatsoever.

P.S. Thanks
 

saintdane05

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Personally, I always prefered the Earthbound one. In Earthbound, it lets you go all the way up to the final fight with Giygas... and then erases your save data. Just to torture you.
 

redisforever

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Ooh, I would actually like to buy this game, I just don't have $8 now... Maybe next week. I loved Game Dev Story for Android, so I'll certainly be giving this a close look soon. Off to get the demo, then.
 

vasiD

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Kwil said:
vasiD said:
I'm all for this, very clever (plus, and I don't know if this was intentional, but a GREAT way to get some publicity).

In fact anyone who pirates an indie game being sold at a reasonable price is a monster and a thief honestly... That said I still feel that piracy for over-priced DRM-bullshit-filled games is totally acceptable. After all this is still capitalism unless I'm mistaken, and unless I'm mistaken capitalism is all about who can provide the best service at the best price and, while with things like steam the market is indeed getting better (which is why I have a 100 game steam library that's filling up the majority of my harddrive, and genuinely don't pirate very often any more unless it's an early leak of a game), for some games (those with draconian DRM or absurd prices) piracy remains the best service.
You fail to understand capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered.

Capitalism requires the participation of two parties. Piracy is explicitly *against* capitalism, because it cuts one party out of the equation completely.
U wot?

And piracy isn't a provider? (Which was the whole point of my post)

That's bullshit.

Piracy is still being participated in by two parties, there is the consumer and the supplier... Just because the supplier isn't charging money doesn't suddenly negate the fact that they're offering a service... Or is it *against* capitalism when a company offers free anything?

"Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered."

Yeah, and my post was stating the fact that sometimes Piracy is the best one being offered... o_O

It's not like someone goes online and says "I want this, it is now mine" and suddenly it's all set to go... it has to be uploaded by someone and shared with them (which is why it's so hard for piracy to be stopped, because all pirates are friends and what's the world coming to if we can't share media with our friends?)...


That said I fucking hate capitalism anyway so the point is moot if you're trying to change my mind on piracy, I was merely using the retarded and doomed system that everyone seems to worship as a solid example of why companies need to stop bitching about piracy and offer better services already if they're having a problem (though, again, not in the case of indie games or anyone for that matter offering their game at a reasonable price in a reasonable format, in which case it's just theft).
 

phoenix352

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SecondPrize said:
phoenix352 said:
SecondPrize said:
phoenix352 said:
SecondPrize said:
phoenix352 said:
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.
 

Not G. Ivingname

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I just love the :-( as the ending message...


By the way, without DRM, this PS1 game took two MONTHS to crack with all the sneaky layers of protection layered on.

But seriously, only 6.4% people bought legit copies? Jesus...
 

Aeshi

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vasiD said:
Piracy is still being participated in by two parties, there is the consumer and the provider just like any other "provider"... Just because the provider isn't charging money doesn't suddenly negate the fact that they're offering a service... Or is it *against* capitalism when a company offers free anything?

That said I fucking hate capitalism anyway so the point is moot if you're trying to change my mind on piracy, I was merely using the retarded and doomed system that everyone seems to worship as a solid example of why companies need to stop bitching about piracy and offer better services already if they're having a problem (though, again, not in the case of indie games or anyone for that matter offering their game at a reasonable price in a reasonable format, in which case it's just theft)
Last time I checked Piracy is always the better service by simple virtue that theirs is free, and unless companies start paying you to take the product (Which I somehow doubt will work) I don't see that changing.
 

Amir Kondori

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I haven't pirated a game in years and years, ever since I had a disposable income, but this idea that piracy is killing gaming is ridiculous. Games are selling more than ever with higher revenues than ever and the only thing hurting some of the bigger publishers is that they can't keep their budgets under control.
Look at Ubisoft, about a year ago they got rid of the most extreme DRM they had, instituted one time activations, and their revenues have hit an all time high, 1.1 billion euros! Their earnings are through the roof and beat expectations by a wide margin.
Piracy is always going to exist. A very small sliver of people who pirate would ever buy the game. If you want those people to buy the game make it as easy as possible, make sure they get updates on time, have features like cloud save or easy matchmaking and chat functions built in that only paid players can access and you will convert as many of those people as possible. The rest are just NEVER going to buy your game.
 

00slash00

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JazzJack2 said:
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.
i feel like with minecraft, that had less to do with the amount of people who pirate it, and more to do with The Yogscast. Their videos did a lot to increase the popularity of minecraft. heck, i dont even like games like minecraft, and i almost bought it because The Yogscast made it seem so fun
 

vasiD

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Not G. Ivingname said:
I just love the :-( as the ending message...


By the way, without DRM, this PS1 game took two MONTHS to crack with all the sneaky layers of protection layered on.

But seriously, only 6.4% people bought legit copies? Jesus...
That's not the same thing... That's just regular old DRM...


They're talking about a very clever bit of DRM in a video game about making a video game studio that sees your studio go out of business due to piracy on pirated copies of the game.

I mean, don't get me wrong they're both DRM that stop you from playing, just one (Spyro) just blatantly says "you copied this game you thief, you may go no farther", while the other one forces a game over that RELATES DIRECTLY to the act of theft you committed.

Granted, in Spyro it is neat hearing it from a voice acted fairy rather than a black screen with white text.
 

vasiD

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Aeshi said:
vasiD said:
Piracy is still being participated in by two parties, there is the consumer and the provider just like any other "provider"... Just because the provider isn't charging money doesn't suddenly negate the fact that they're offering a service... Or is it *against* capitalism when a company offers free anything?

That said I fucking hate capitalism anyway so the point is moot if you're trying to change my mind on piracy, I was merely using the retarded and doomed system that everyone seems to worship as a solid example of why companies need to stop bitching about piracy and offer better services already if they're having a problem (though, again, not in the case of indie games or anyone for that matter offering their game at a reasonable price in a reasonable format, in which case it's just theft)
Last time I checked Piracy is always the better service by simple virtue that theirs is free, and unless companies start paying you to take the product (Which I somehow doubt will work) I don't see that changing.
Not quite, and anyone who has gotten a virus off a bad link can tell you that.

Don't get me wrong, free is a nice price, but it usually takes a bit of work (almost unnoticeable to those who are tech savvy but quite the barrier to those who aren't), doesn't run as well as an updated and patched game, and sometimes features errors or other difficulties.

I'm super tech savvy, and super poor, but it's worthy my money to have the 100 steam games I do be kept up for me by the service (and their prices were all more than reasonable). In fact a really good recent example is my purchase not more than a week ago of Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate on Steam. Now pretty much since I built my computer I've had a pirated copy of the game on it, just because I wanted to see what the game looked like on my PC (not even really play it, I beat it on PS3 and am not quite ready for a new game yet), and I would have been fine with my functional and updated cracked copy, but Steam offered it to me for $8, and that seemed reasonable, so I got rid of my pirated version and installed Steam's.


Companies can EASILY still win, they just have to offer a better service at a reasonable price.

Plus, while piracy can be nice for the pocketbook of the customer, it does leave developers in the lurch, and hopefully gamers can think long term enough to realize that could endanger that game they really like getting a sequel. I mean that's the real power of paying for something isn't it? It's a clear vote that says "I want more of this right here" that developers would have to be stupid to ignore.


Personally, my favorite means of doing business with game developers so far is Kickstarter, I can spend what I want, get the game, and help the developers. I can't imagine it getting any better.
 

hazabaza1

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omega 616 said:
hazabaza1 said:
tiny pink invincible scorpion
Whut? If it's invisible how do you know how big it is, what colour it is and what it looks like?

Wait, does that mean it's legal to download or what? 'cos I kind of want to play this version, sounds interesting.
Invincible. Can't be killed.
 

phoenix352

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Covarr said:
SecondPrize said:
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.
I think what phoenix352 is saying is that this is negated by the number of people who only buy a game because they were able to pirate it first. I can see the train of thought, but it's no good because he's completely guessing at the numbers, and assuming that the two groups balance each other out based on no evidence whatsoever.

P.S. Thanks
i am not assuming numbers , there are no numbers for both groups.
i just lay it out like it is.

just like were assuming some people would have bought a copy if the piracy option wasn't there. were also assuming that some of the pirates will buy a copy after they already pirated that game.

its an argument based on assumptions = irrelevant.
all i meant.


if there was a proven way to accurately know how many people would of bought a copy if piracy didn't exist then i would whole heartily agree.
but as that's not the case i will continue to defend that side.

piracy gets the wrong rep here and i dislike that, while its immoral its not harmful financially.
 

Entitled

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Kwil said:
They're not forcing a damn thing on you. It's entirely up to you whether you engage in a transaction with them.

This is entirely different from piracy, where someone take the fruits of the labour the publishers paid for without allowing those who made it happen the option to disagree. The pirates are the only ones who are forcing anything.
IP laws *ARE* enforced by law, without asking you first whether you agree that publishers' rights to data control can supersede your own rights of communication, and usage of your own property.

Every time a youtube video you made is removed because it's someone's property, every time a café owner gets fined for playing his own music CDs to a too large public, every time you are told whether you are allowed to apply your photocopier to the books that you own, they are forcing their rights before yours.

ARE their rights more important in these cases than your? Is it somehow part of creative workers' "property" to tell what other people are allowed to do with their own objects, how they can use the Internet, and what data they are allowed to share each other?

If yes, why? After the entertainment industry growing like crazy in the past decade either in spite of or thanks to all this piracy, if the protection of "sciences and useful arts" is possible without that much control, why is it necessary that they have such rights?

Kwil said:
Seriously? You're seriously arguing that the person who came up with the idea, laid down the effort and cash required to make it into a game (whether by doing it themselves, or finding someone willing to risk their cash to hire the people needed to get it done) has no moral right to dictate what happens to it? You do realize that without the IP holder, the IP in question would probably not exist, right?
(I think we have already talked about this part once, but...)

No, I'm not questioning the general concept of IP, of creators dictating "what happens to it", but how do you know exactly HOW FAR is it reasonable for creators to dictate?

Yes, the work wouldn't exist without them. So what? They can ask for payment before doing a certain work, like everyone else before doing a job. But doing a job, and then asking the government to give them the right to censor other people's data distribution?

Actually most creators have every such right. It why we *have* the copyright and patent systems, after all, to protect these people so that they feel that if they spend the time and effort to make something that benefits us all, they'll get properly compensated for it, and not ripped off by a bunch of entitled brats who think not having enough money is justification enough to take anything they like.
Most creators, yes, if you intentionally define these as IP holders, but I asked for most workers.

There is enough enough data to suggest (beyond common logic and anecdotal evidences), that the entertainment industries can still exist while data distribution is not limited.

If that is the case, what makes their demands of "proper compensation" so proper, and being "ripped off" so ripped?
 

phoenix352

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Not G. Ivingname said:
I just love the :-( as the ending message...


By the way, without DRM, this PS1 game took two MONTHS to crack with all the sneaky layers of protection layered on.

But seriously, only 6.4% people bought legit copies? Jesus...



that would be shocking if you didn't factor in that the game is indie
sold of the guys site.


a game posted on all the popular torrent sites will get millions of hits , some indie game on some website is going to get a hell of a lot less exposure.

so based on that we can assume couple hundred thousand people glanced over this on torrent sites while only a couple hundred maybe thousand knew about this through legit channels.
 

omega 616

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hazabaza1 said:
omega 616 said:
hazabaza1 said:
tiny pink invincible scorpion
Whut? If it's invisible how do you know how big it is, what colour it is and what it looks like?

Wait, does that mean it's legal to download or what? 'cos I kind of want to play this version, sounds interesting.
Invincible. Can't be killed.
Sorry, I derped pretty hard there, didn't I?

Though they do look quite similar, don't they?
 

Entitled

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Kwil said:
You fail to understand capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't mean you get to unilaterally decide the terms of the deal if you don't like the ones the providers are offering. Capitalism means you get to choose from a number of providers and choose the best one being offered.

Capitalism requires the participation of two parties. Piracy is explicitly *against* capitalism, because it cuts one party out of the equation completely.
Yeah, because monopolistic market regulations as defined by governments are just so freakin' laissez-faire!

Capitalism means that you can make a deal, if you can actually provide supply of a product or service that there is high demand for (because few are willing to provide it at the same price).

But IP laws are pretty much the opposite of free trade, they mean that if you can provide a service, like sing a song that you wrote, and if someone else can sing it better and she asks a better price for it, you can ask your friend the Man to punch her in the face until she stops singing so you are the most demanded singer again.

It would work if you would assume that your writing of the song was some sort of "property" that was yours before it was "taken away", but this in itself is a legal fiction invented specifically to make you more profitable, not a self-evident part of Natural Law.

You have a monopoly on singing that song, and your friend the government is regulating it for you. He might also decide that the other singer was actually doing "fair use" so you are out of luck, or that you lose your "property" after x years in favor of the Public. It's pretty much depending on his mood, how much of a winner you are picked to be.