There is no more evid
Piracy and Used game sales afford the consumer a luxury that I don't think they deserve. They can recieve the product that a creator valued at 60 dollars retail, for an arbitrary amount determined by somone who had absolutley nothing to do with the work that went into the game.
Companies put out things I think are overpriced all the time, 400 dollar phones, 3k TVs. I express my lack of interest in that value proposition by not buying the product. I don't think used game sales should be illegal since I feal my rightfully purchased copy is mine to do with as I please. However, it is detrimental to the creator, and while hard data on bootleg copies = lost sales is essentially impossible to nail down, it is overly generous to assume no pirate was a potential customer. When PC game piracy was small groups of people on obscure web-sites PC games saw higher purchase/pirate ratios. But as friends told friends people who used to pay for games or wait for thier birthday eventually found themselves on torrents.
Piracy is mindnumbingly accessible these days. The cost of video games have not inflated anywhere near pace with the cost of cigarettes. But you can't pirate cigarettes. Which is exactly my point. People pirate and buy used copies because they can. Many of these people were customers before they were pirates. It doesn't help that so many people buy into the "The ignorant buy, the informed and intelligent pirate" schtick. I'm not ignorant for engaging in what I determine a fair trade between me and a creator. I enjoy the content, they spent thier time to create it, I feal an exchange of money for services is due. It's called a sense of fairness, and ethics, that expand beyond "what's most advantagous for me".
OT: This is a complex issue, especially from enforcement standpoints and I don't really think our Gov. is nimble enough to navigate it properly. Best approach is to direct your enforcement at the distributers and crackers. The end user pirates aren't an issue if the availability is gone. Trade restrictions on countries that allow your countries IPs to be misused, completely fair game. I see people crying about the lost revenue in jobs of that country. No tears for the lost revenue and jobs from the rampant piracy? But laws are written in ink and lack the grace to manuever through the complexity of the world. I doubt these laws will be enforced outside specific victims seeking action. I don't think the FBI is gonna have some guy that trolls forums to see if anyones pirating Assassins Creed 3. More likely Ubisoft will first approach the FBI with a complaint. So I don't really see this being a big hammer dropping on the broke ass Chinese with R4s in thier DS. Instead fining and shutting down web sites broadly advertising theyre working on violating the copyright on big budget games, movies, so on so forth.
There is no more evidence to support that a used sale is a lost new sale than there is to support that piracy is a lost sale. Let me start by saying i generally despise what gamestops used game blitzkriege has done to the developers ability to profit off of thier games. However used games are cheaper, even if it is a small percentage. You do not have the data to prove that was a lost new sale. There are people who always trade in thier old games and always buy used copies. They want Game X for $55 dollars, but that does not prove they would have payed 60. The fact that they did in fact buy a used one might suggest that they are willing to part with money for games but it does not indicate that they would have bought a new copy in the absence of a used one. For all you know they would have pirated it instead.Cynical skeptic said:So, according to rhethoric, piracy damages, used sales support. But based on the evidence, piracy, at worst, does nothing, and used sales subvert the sale of new copies.7ru7h said:-snip-
Piracy and Used game sales afford the consumer a luxury that I don't think they deserve. They can recieve the product that a creator valued at 60 dollars retail, for an arbitrary amount determined by somone who had absolutley nothing to do with the work that went into the game.
Companies put out things I think are overpriced all the time, 400 dollar phones, 3k TVs. I express my lack of interest in that value proposition by not buying the product. I don't think used game sales should be illegal since I feal my rightfully purchased copy is mine to do with as I please. However, it is detrimental to the creator, and while hard data on bootleg copies = lost sales is essentially impossible to nail down, it is overly generous to assume no pirate was a potential customer. When PC game piracy was small groups of people on obscure web-sites PC games saw higher purchase/pirate ratios. But as friends told friends people who used to pay for games or wait for thier birthday eventually found themselves on torrents.
Piracy is mindnumbingly accessible these days. The cost of video games have not inflated anywhere near pace with the cost of cigarettes. But you can't pirate cigarettes. Which is exactly my point. People pirate and buy used copies because they can. Many of these people were customers before they were pirates. It doesn't help that so many people buy into the "The ignorant buy, the informed and intelligent pirate" schtick. I'm not ignorant for engaging in what I determine a fair trade between me and a creator. I enjoy the content, they spent thier time to create it, I feal an exchange of money for services is due. It's called a sense of fairness, and ethics, that expand beyond "what's most advantagous for me".
OT: This is a complex issue, especially from enforcement standpoints and I don't really think our Gov. is nimble enough to navigate it properly. Best approach is to direct your enforcement at the distributers and crackers. The end user pirates aren't an issue if the availability is gone. Trade restrictions on countries that allow your countries IPs to be misused, completely fair game. I see people crying about the lost revenue in jobs of that country. No tears for the lost revenue and jobs from the rampant piracy? But laws are written in ink and lack the grace to manuever through the complexity of the world. I doubt these laws will be enforced outside specific victims seeking action. I don't think the FBI is gonna have some guy that trolls forums to see if anyones pirating Assassins Creed 3. More likely Ubisoft will first approach the FBI with a complaint. So I don't really see this being a big hammer dropping on the broke ass Chinese with R4s in thier DS. Instead fining and shutting down web sites broadly advertising theyre working on violating the copyright on big budget games, movies, so on so forth.