The Big P

[Canadamus Prime]

Other 'P' word? What other 'P' word? Potato? Pistachio? Piccolo? Printer? Playstation? Pringles? Pepsi? Paparazzi? Pokemon? Phantom? ...damn running out of 'P' words.

 

[mike1921]

Ah, the dreaded P-word. Well ... the other P-word.

Still haven't narrowed it down.

People play pirated PC ports? Preposterous. >.>

Particularly appreciated the part about the property being pretty poor.

Pirates vote with their wallet.

Poppycock.

Piracy statistics say to the producers that these games are worth playing. This promotes the persistence of those poor titles, pretty much resulting in the polar opposite of a negative vote.

"Voting with your wallet" is a pretty pathetic notion to begin with, as it only really relates to affirmative motion. Particularly, whether game X or game Y is preferred. Negative votes are impossible to differentiate. Piracy Proponents are merely setting up another positive voting predicament, predictably prompting the assumption that people prefer these titles but prefer not to pay.

Popular pirated properties are considered preferable by corporations as they still promise popularity.

does popularity matter if it doesn't mean money? Piracy only helps game profits if word of mouth is good and convinces someone else to buy it.

Voting with your wallet is a fine notion if you could actually get enough people to do it. The problem is it's impossible to get so many people aware with a market like gaming.

 

[Comic Sans]

Well, Crysis 2's singleplayer was awesome, and I'm a PC gamer. Multiplayer was great in the demo, but in the final version it had lost it's charm.

And yes, I had played Crysis, and I think it's a better game, but Crysis 2 was still a solid, very fun game.

Someone. Finally!

I was beginning to feel like that one guy who likes the prequels better in a Star Wars convention. Honestly, I liked Crysis 2 a whole hell of a lot. It was more linear and wasn't as graphically impressive (though it still looks better than everything that doesn't have Battlefield or Witcher in its name), plus it's a shining example of how to perfectly pace a game.

I can't see how this game deserved much hate...

Because this is The Escapist, where it's popular to bandwagon hate popular stuff.

 

[soulfire130]

Crysis 2 was fun, if not futrating at times. Multiplayer wasn't bad either though it was kinda funny when one day there lots of on multi then the next no one was there.

 

[AJax_21]

Huh... I always thought that smaller, more linear level design would give developers more opportunity to enhance NPCs AI behavior and pathfinding. Say what you want about Crysis but the AI was impressive for the scale of environment it had to deal with. Thanks for lowering the bar Crytek!

Speaking as someone who predominantly played stealthy in Crysis 1, the human AI was just this side of retarded. You can quite literally walk up and choke a ***** right in front of someone and they will continue to stare blankly at you until you walk away.

Yes I agree. The AI in Crysis acted stupid, I won't deny that but the tactics and behavior that the AI employed despite the sheer scale of the environment was impressive. Crysis 2's environments are much smaller and linear in comparison yet the AI is hundred times more retarded. How the heck does this make any sense?

 

[Toeys]

IF this is like any other pirated software, then of the 4million downloads it probably was like this:

- some could not get the game to work cause of corrupted files
- some could not play it cause their computer couldnt handle the graphics
- some got so infested with trojans and malware that they are still trying to get rid of them
- some downright hated it so much that they were happy they hadnt put any money towards it
- some havent been able to complete it cause the game is too hard for them
- some love it to bits and have completed it several times and gone off to buy the original
- some love it to bits and have completed it several times and will never buy the original

- THEN there are some that do just like you and me.. you know when we sit and look around in the Steam store and find a game that we have heard bout, that we figure out would be nice to have and cost next to nothing right now... so we buy it, and MAYBE play it in a year or two.
That happens, ppl download maybe as much as 100GB of different crap everyday just because they have the Fibre to handle it and then never ever play, listen to, watch or use.

Im saying this cause i once ran a pirate ship, which has now sunk. Pirating isnt good for either the user or the developers, but its not going to stop with either SOPA or murders.
And its for sure something that doesnt have as high impact on sales as the number "4 million downloads" sounds like it does.

I would go as far as to say that there has been more money lost in the ongoing work for or against SOPA itself, than there ever has been through pirating

 

[Agayek]

Yes I agree. The AI in Crysis acted stupid, I won't deny that but the tactics and behavior that the AI employed despite the sheer scale of the environment was impressive. Crysis 2's environments are much smaller and linear in comparison yet the AI is hundred times more retarded. How the heck does this make any sense?

Oh it doesn't at all. Crysis 2 should have had both stronger graphics and better AI due to its significantly more limited level design. Unfortunately, Crytek was aiming for the console demographic and the game we got was significantly, to borrow a phrase, "dumbed down". 'tis really quite annoying, but there's nothing we can do about it.

 

[derbt]

You know, I had hoped that 'The Big P' was a reference to male genitalia... alas, it was not to be.

OT - I thought the comic was funny. I tend to sit on the fence in the piracy debate. While I don't agree with taking stuff for free, I also seriously dislike the people from whom pirates... well, pirate. I'm copping out, I know.

 

[Something Amyss]

does popularity matter if it doesn't mean money?

Positively.

Piracy only helps game profits if word of mouth is good and convinces someone else to buy it.

Please. That wasn't the problem presented previously. Don't shift the goalposts. Piracy does not need to prompt profits to appeal to the publisher's senses.

I don't get the " No one working for the publisher was ever told or figured out something that common sense would dictate" argument. They know that 4 million pirated copies aren't 4 million lost sales .

Proof, please.

Loading the deck with notions like "It's common sense" doesn't particularly help. It's no less offensive to logic than the people who claim that it's obviously stealing and obviously hurting the industry.

[/quote]Voting with your wallet is a fine notion if you could actually get enough people to do it. The problem is it's impossible to get so many people aware with a market like gaming.[/quote]

Plenty of people play at politics through payment. Predictably, the plan doesn't pay off.

Look, I already covered part of the problem above and if you want to ignore how it only really counts affirmative votes, that's fine, I can't make you. But it's not just "lack of awareness," since that works in other fields. It's the fact that people are enjoying stuff you don't. Right now, people ARE voting with their wallet; they are merely voting in a way you don't want.

I think it's particularly priceless the probable payoff of your plan fails to please, yet you prefer to promote it anyway.

But then, the problem goes right back to what I said before. The "vote with your wallet" system is loaded to the affirmative side. So since you choose to ignore that, I doubt the rest will ever make sense.

"voting with your wallet" is roughly on par with Stephen Colbert's question of "George Bush: Great President or GREATEST President?"

But if you prefer to play at a ploy with a loaded outcome, please, by all means.

Meanwhile, piracy does say to the industry "I still want it."

It's funny that you would promote "voting with your wallet" while promoting piracy is a positive pointer prompting a pattern in publishing.

It's always a problem when people treat their own views as a given, because it prohibits actual discourse. It's the same thing the corporations are doing when they claim piracy is theft and you're taking profits.

 

[Something Amyss]

Because this is The Escapist, where it's popular to bandwagon hate popular stuff.

Yeah, completely preclude the notion that other people just don't like the stuff you like.

 

[ElPatron]

Now, prove that there were 4 million individual downloaders.

Didn't even prove that. It used some dodgy assumptions and cooked mathematics maths are maths, it's an exact science - if yo are cooking up an estimated number, you can't prove it' "right" to what would ultimately be a seriously inflated number. I seriously wouldn't be surprised to find the number was double or more what could be reasonably proved. Another 4 million pirates without nobody noticing them - somewhat far fetched

As of the time I hit quote, I have one post in this thread for a total of 33 posts. Assuming no other posts until I hit send, I will be one seventeenth of the thread.

Extrapolating, as CD Projekt did, I could assume I was 1/17th of the Escapist board posts. Since I have 7874 posts, that means that there is a grand total of 133858 posts.

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one who read the whole interview, as the guy who gave that number even partially admits to its faulty nature.

Then we agree. There were no 4 million pirated games because that number has an erroneous nature. It could be higher, of course, but I doubt more than 4 million people actually cared about Witcher. Even I admit I will never try to finish it.

 

[mike1921]

does popularity matter if it doesn't mean money?

Positively.

Piracy only helps game profits if word of mouth is good and convinces someone else to buy it.

Please. That wasn't the problem presented previously. Don't shift the goalposts. Piracy does not need to prompt profits to appeal to the publisher's senses.

How so?

I don't get the " No one working for the publisher was ever told or figured out something that common sense would dictate" argument. They know that 4 million pirated copies aren't 4 million lost sales .

Proof, please.

Loading the deck with notions like "It's common sense" doesn't particularly help. It's no less offensive to logic than the people who claim that it's obviously stealing and obviously hurting the industry.

The logic that because you're willing to take something free you're willing to spend money on it is ridiculous. Like I haven no idea how anyone could honestly defend that

Voting with your wallet is a fine notion if you could actually get enough people to do it. The problem is it's impossible to get so many people aware with a market like gaming.

Plenty of people play at politics through payment. Predictably, the plan doesn't pay off.

Look, I already covered part of the problem above and if you want to ignore how it only really counts affirmative votes, that's fine, I can't make you. But it's not just "lack of awareness," since that works in other fields. It's the fact that people are enjoying stuff you don't. Right now, people ARE voting with their wallet; they are merely voting in a way you don't want.

Yes in a sense. They vote on the influence of the game and how much they are interested in it. I'm saying it's impossible to get enough people aware that say...It's made by a company that wants to censor the internet or their DRM is ridiculous. It's impossible to get an effective boycott going where enough people who would otherwise buy the game don't that it actually significantly hurts the publisher.

I think it's particularly priceless the probable payoff of your plan fails to please, yet you prefer to promote it anyway.

But then, the problem goes right back to what I said before. The "vote with your wallet" system is loaded to the affirmative side. So since you choose to ignore that, I doubt the rest will ever make sense.

Ofcourse it is. That's why you need to get the negative side high enough.

Meanwhile, piracy does say to the industry "I still want it."

It's funny that you would promote "voting with your wallet" while promoting piracy is a positive pointer prompting a pattern in publishing.

It's always a problem when people treat their own views as a given, because it prohibits actual discourse. It's the same thing the corporations are doing when they claim piracy is theft and you're taking profits.

If they're intelligent they'd be aware that piracy could mean a variety of things, it means at least one of three things:there is something special about the game,the pirates hate you/the drm/ the publisher(if you're the dev), or they want the game. Are you challenging that people have pirated games because they don't like the developer or because there's one interesting aspect about the game but it's bad? Or even BECAUSE it's bad? People pirated Crysis 1 because it looked pretty but no one wants to spend $30 to see what pretty things their computer could render. And do they really think 4 million people pirated the second one because it really had that much more interest on it than other games? Like even beating COD?

 

[Arppis]

Terrible? No it wasn't. Was way better than most shooters when it comes to singleplayer last year. Was good to see a shooter that has alternative routes and multiple tactics on almost every scene. I know it's suposed to be a joke, but I played trough it 3-4 times last year. Wasn't waste of money for me.

 

[theultimateend]

I'm aware that if a game is pirated 3,000,000 times, it does not equate to 3,000,000 lost sales.

But to say it doesn't have any kind of negative impact on the industry?

Well, that's just daft.

It doesn't appear to have any statistically significant effect. There has been no data released that I've ever seen that says otherwise.

But discussing piracy is fairly pointless. People are just overwhelmed with personal biases that cause every discussion to devolve into pandering and childish ranting.

If people want their products purchased all they need to do is price them fairly, make it more convenient to purchase than pirate, and rake in the profits.

But when an industry is bringing in year-over-year profits during a global economic crises, I can't really accept the idea that piracy is crushing it.

I don't even pirate myself (I make enough money to buy things and I wait for steam sales), but the vast majority of discussion against the practice is riddled with problems. Seems more like a religious debate than a logical one.

Other 'P' word? What other 'P' word? Potato? Pistachio? Piccolo? Printer? Playstation? Pringles? Pepsi? Paparazzi? Pokemon? Phantom? ...damn running out of 'P' words.

Sheogorath tells me the word you are looking for is "Pumpernickel".

 

[tetron]

Last panel is my thoughts exactly when I saw that list.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

snip

I suppose that's the real difficulty when it comes to the topic of piracy.

Piracy causes a negative effect, no doubt about that, but how exactly is that effect quantifiable?

Is it negligible at best? Having very little impact worth taking action over?

Or is it a real issue that needs to be combated?

Because of the nature of piracy, it's very difficult to answer those questions.

 

[theultimateend]

snip

I suppose that's the real difficulty when it comes to the topic of piracy.

Piracy causes a negative effect, no doubt about that, but how exactly is that effect quantifiable?

Is it negligible at best? Having very little impact worth taking action over?

Or is it a real issue that needs to be combated?

Because of the nature of piracy, it's very difficult to answer those questions.

By using the word combat the discussion already becomes moot.

Problems are not things that people stab, crush, kill.

Every negative problem is caused by some level of dissonance be it cognitive or otherwise.

Most drug users are criminals because the laws enacted against drug use make it impossible to live a normal life while also doing drugs. If Cigarettes or Alcohol were illegal the people using them would become no less erratic (look at prohibition).

Piracy is a matter of cost to quality and convenience. Steam rakes in money hand over fist because they provide games at a price point people are willing to pay and through a service that is far more convenient than torrents or other piracy systems.

DRM is an example of "war against piracy". It's a foolish endeavor and any company that does it is destined to just worsen the issue for themselves costing them actual customers. It also costs them real world money to pay people like Sony to produce Securom.

The impact of something like Piracy is almost a non-issue, when presented with the problem of Piracy a company should address the reasons it exists and try to find means to lessen the impact without direct conflict. Want people to do less drugs? Make it legal and educate them seriously.

I know people always bring up the Witcher when you mention that good games at good prices lead to sales, but I would in turn mention every record breaking sale on steam, minecraft, and dozens upon dozens of indie games that do amazing sales while being made by a single guy somewhere.

And still to say Piracy causes a negative effect "no doubt about it" is no different than saying Drugs are evil "no doubt about it".

Yes, there are doubts. About the only negative effect I'd be willing to say is likely and legitimate is the emotional stress it causes upon the developers. Which is the only way I can comprehend the erratic reaction to piracy that publishers tend to latch onto.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

snip

I suppose that's the real difficulty when it comes to the topic of piracy.

Piracy causes a negative effect, no doubt about that, but how exactly is that effect quantifiable?

Is it negligible at best? Having very little impact worth taking action over?

Or is it a real issue that needs to be combated?

Because of the nature of piracy, it's very difficult to answer those questions.

By using the word combat the discussion already becomes moot.

Problems are not things that people stab, crush, kill.

Every negative problem is caused by some level of dissonance be it cognitive or otherwise.

Most drug users are criminals because the laws enacted against drug use make it impossible to live a normal life while also doing drugs. If Cigarettes or Alcohol were illegal the people using them would become no less erratic (look at prohibition).

Piracy is a matter of cost to quality and convenience. Steam rakes in money hand over fist because they provide games at a price point people are willing to pay and through a service that is far more convenient than torrents or other piracy systems.

DRM is an example of "war against piracy". It's a foolish endeavor and any company that does it is destined to just worsen the issue for themselves costing them actual customers. It also costs them real world money to pay people like Sony to produce Securom.

The impact of something like Piracy is almost a non-issue, when presented with the problem of Piracy a company should address the reasons it exists and try to find means to lessen the impact without direct conflict. Want people to do less drugs? Make it legal and educate them seriously.

I know people always bring up the Witcher when you mention that good games at good prices lead to sales, but I would in turn mention every record breaking sale on steam, minecraft, and dozens upon dozens of indie games that do amazing sales while being made by a single guy somewhere.

And still to say Piracy causes a negative effect "no doubt about it" is no different than saying Drugs are evil "no doubt about it".

Yes, there are doubts. About the only negative effect I'd be willing to say is likely and legitimate is the emotional stress it causes upon the developers. Which is the only way I can comprehend the erratic reaction to piracy that publishers tend to latch onto.

Pedanticism aside...

I agree with you. I believe piracy causes negative effects, but like I said, whether those effects are large enough to be worth taking action against or to just count as inevitable losses is a different matter.

Publisher responses to piracy have been terrible, punishing those who don't pirate more than those who do.

Piracy isn't going away, it never will. There will always be those who feel entitled to something without actually paying for it, and will spin that ideology to any angle to 'justify' it.

Like you said, we just need to look at Steam for how it's done right.

 

[theultimateend]

Pedanticism aside...

I agree with you. I believe piracy causes negative effects, but like I said, whether those effects are large enough to be worth taking action against or to just count as inevitable losses is a different matter.

Publisher responses to piracy have been terrible, punishing those who don't pirate more than those who do.

Piracy isn't going away, it never will. There will always be those who feel entitled to something without actually paying for it, and will spin that ideology to any angle to 'justify' it.

Like you said, we just need to look at Steam for how it's done right.

While I disagree that it is Pedantic (perhaps it was in your case because you didn't mean it like that, but usually people treat it like a scourge that must be cleansed), I do agree with everything else you've said .

I've always been the kind of guy who looks at an issue and thinks "What is the root cause?"

Basically why try and treat the symptoms when you can just treat the cause? I'd much rather never get the flu than keep treating it after I get it (not that this is currently an option).

Edit: Oh my lord...I think I just made the world's best cup of coffee...