To anyone who thinks piracy is ok

[Lem0nade Inlay]

large corporations are evil, there only goal is to suck every last penny out of you. pirates are people who share media, sharing is a concept known as 'socialism' big capitalist corporations dont like socialism

Pirates are evil, their only goal is to suck every last illegal file out of honest musicians/filmmakers etc. Musicians/Filmmakers etc are people who create media for a living, creating media is a concept known as 'having a job/tit for tat/hard work', pirates don't like hard work.

 

[Mosstromo]

If they started pricing right I wouldn't consider piracy. 60$ for medal of honor? 50$ for front mission evo? 40$ for dead rising 2? These games are not worth the price, and I've gotten ripped off way to many times. Oh and for anyone who says "you can wait for the prices to drop" take a look at CoD MW 2. Still 60$ after about 2 years, and it's only half as good as CoD 4. Price them reasonably and sure I'd buy it. The only time I wouldn't pirate ever would be for companies just starting.

I agree. I live in a country that mass produces piracy. But the original games (and music and DVD films) are not only reasonably priced, they are inexpensive by all standards. I could anyway buy pirated games (or films or music), since they are still a bit cheaper than the originals, but never had any reason at all since with no effort I can afford the original products.

Proper pricing does affect decision making.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

It's a conspiracy, isn't it? /sarcasm

To the companies using DRM, piracy is the same as used games: either way, they don't make money from it. And either way, DRM makes it difficult.

They don't make money on diaper sales either and for the same reason, they aren't entitled to money from used game sales nor from diaper sales.

Exactly. DRM is only a band-aid solution. What they really need to do is listen to the supply/demand cycle and lower the prices of the games. I'm sure plenty more people would buy games instead of downloading, or even take a risk on a game they hadn't heard much about, if the average price was $30-$40 instead of $50-$60

They could also develop demo's or allow people to return games that they aren't satisfied with.

You're just not making any sense anymore. When did Diapers come into play? Publishers don't have anything to do with items that falls out of their market. Publishers and Developers make video games to sell to the market for a profit, it isn't rocket science. If they don't make a profit, they take a different direction and we get games like Modern Warfare 2 and Medal of Honor that don't change the industry in anyway. They don't add anything, we have less developers taking risks and Pshyconauts and Portal may not have ever come into play. You want better games? Don't pirate. You do wanna play a bad game either, don't buy on launch day. Do some research. The only reason left for pirating on a PC is to test if it works on your Desktop, which is why I support your Demo suggestion, but not piracy.

My diaper example is just to point how ridiculous it is for game companies to expect profit from used games.

So if there is no demo available, are you ok with downloaded a pirated copy to test out?

No, I'm not. We've had this discussion before. People can claim to buy the game, but for all I know, they didn't use it as a Demo and are instead using it as there sole copy. If they buy the game at full price following it, good for them, but there are other ways to try out a game without pirating. Unless the Pirated copy is limited by the original provider to only allow the player to move to a certain point without being capable of progressing further (Like in most Demos), then I won't consider them demos.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

piracy can still be used in a semi honest manner as a way of testing games, then buying and deleting the pirated copy. I know people that do this. Yes you are pirating at some point, but you are still supporting the developers at another.

The percentage of the population that do this is beyond minimal. It's the equivalent of downloading a movie and then saying "Hmm this movie sure is really good, I think I'll head over to the theater and buy myself a ticket now."

 

[Tharwen]

Wow... 10 pages? I'm not reading all that (iPhone screens aren't known for their ability to read and manipulate text).

I don't pirate anything anyway, so I should be fine without though.

has anyone seen that video thats says "would you steal a car?", "would you steal a handbag?". piracy is stealing

erm ive just bought this film legally so why are you telling me this?

If you copy the data from the DVD to another one, the piracy warning goes with it, and the pirates have to be told what nasty people they are every time they watch the film.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

They do more than that, they nickel and dime their customers while blaming their customers for poor quality games and treating them like criminals.

The only company that has done remotely close to what you're saying is Ubisoft, and their barely functional DRM is an example of an unjustified response to piracy. BUT that does not justify prior nor post piracy.

So you are saying that only Ubisoft sells crappy DLC, blames poor quality on piracy and uses DRM that punishes their paying customers?

The quality of DLC is dependent on the developers not the publishers. And on the second two points yes.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Piracy is great for developers. People that wouldn't buy it anyway get to try it out, and they in turn can influence the people that are willing to buy stuff. Everyone wins!

Except the publisher who funded the developers into making the games who don't want to make a similar game now. Even if the game was good, making a profit is the goal of all in the business and every market.

You make absolutely no sense and all I can guess is that any point you tried to make is not relevant to what I was actually talking about.

Alright, lets look at Bioshock. It was made by Irrational Games, a developer owned by the Publisher 2K games. If it cost Bioshock x amount of money to make it, but the game did not sell as many, do you think 2K games would have given the green light for Bioshock 2? or even Infinity? The Developers don't lose out, but if the Publisher doesn't make there money back, they won't be making games that we enjoy and will most likely be making games like Modern Warfare 2 or Medal Honor as well as putting a bigger focus on marketing over development. Basically guaranteeing an easy sell. Remember, out of the 60 bucks on the price tag, Publishers only make 1/3rd of it.

So if my sources are correct, Bioshock had a budget of around 20 million USD. Now, in order to break even, the game needs to sell at least 1 million copies. It managed to break that number thankfully, but lets say hypothetically it didn't. That it only managed to sell 800,000 copies and there was an estimated 240,000 copies pirated/stole or put on the used game line. The Developer doesn't see the money from those copies and if they didn't break 1 million, then they probably wouldn't back another project like it. Developers don't get a say in what they make unless they're independent like Valve is.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

It's a conspiracy, isn't it? /sarcasm

To the companies using DRM, piracy is the same as used games: either way, they don't make money from it. And either way, DRM makes it difficult.

They don't make money on diaper sales either and for the same reason, they aren't entitled to money from used game sales nor from diaper sales.

Exactly. DRM is only a band-aid solution. What they really need to do is listen to the supply/demand cycle and lower the prices of the games. I'm sure plenty more people would buy games instead of downloading, or even take a risk on a game they hadn't heard much about, if the average price was $30-$40 instead of $50-$60

They could also develop demo's or allow people to return games that they aren't satisfied with.

You're just not making any sense anymore. When did Diapers come into play? Publishers don't have anything to do with items that falls out of their market. Publishers and Developers make video games to sell to the market for a profit, it isn't rocket science. If they don't make a profit, they take a different direction and we get games like Modern Warfare 2 and Medal of Honor that don't change the industry in anyway. They don't add anything, we have less developers taking risks and Pshyconauts and Portal may not have ever come into play. You want better games? Don't pirate. You do wanna play a bad game either, don't buy on launch day. Do some research. The only reason left for pirating on a PC is to test if it works on your Desktop, which is why I support your Demo suggestion, but not piracy.

My diaper example is just to point how ridiculous it is for game companies to expect profit from used games.

So if there is no demo available, are you ok with downloaded a pirated copy to test out?

No, I'm not. We've had this discussion before. People can claim to buy the game, but for all I know, they didn't use it as a Demo and are instead using it as there sole copy. If they buy the game at full price following it, good for them, but there are other ways to try out a game without pirating. Unless the Pirated copy is limited by the original provider to only allow the player to move to a certain point without being capable of progressing further (Like in most Demos), then I won't consider them demos.

So you only support being able to test out the software on your PC IF there is an official demo?

Yes. Whether you plan on using it as a demo or not, you're still downloading the full game.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Ok, but all those people who paid $0 ARE being called pirates. Seems like a trap to me. They made it easy to get for free and then they released the numbers of those who got it for free. So, who made the decision to call everyone who paid nothing pirates?

Did I miss a memo somewhere? I didn't see that! '

 

[TheComedown]

Yes it is

No, No it isn't you don't have to play games. It's not a right, it's a privileged.

since when do big companies care about us
if you saw a free game on the side of the road, you wouldnt take it?

I never said they cared about us, they care about our wallets yes, well actually valve do a pretty good job of caring for us, although in that caring is how they make it to our wallets....

Anyway pirating a game is not like finding it on the side of the road, nothing like finding it on the side of the road. Anyway if there was a game on the side of the road i probably wouldn't take it, firstly chances are its not on my platform(PC, not to mention cd keys already registered), secondly the disk is horribly scratched, if someone was careless enough to leave the disk on the side of the road chances are the game was shit anyway.

Your post doesn't really address any points I've raised, just because most companies just want your wallet doesn't change the fact that no-one has to play games, you have no right to play games, its a privilege.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

You would be wrong. The quality of the DLC isn't really the issue. I am sure some thought that Horse Armor was worth $5 but most did not. That is an example of nickel and dimming consumers. Map Packs are also forms of crappy DLC. Not just Ubisoft for sure.

Ubisoft is not the only company to claim piracy is to blame for the poor or unfinished quality of their games. Piracy is blamed for horrible DRM, tell me, was Spore made by Ubisoft?

The quality of the DLC is absolutely part of the issue as everyone has an issue with, like you say, "crappy" DLC but not with good DLC. The Secret Armory of General Knoxx was absolutely fantastic and well worth the price of downloading it. Most games don't require you to download additional DLC to keep playing it, it's optional. If you don't want to pay for it you don't have to buy it.

And Spore is the perfect example: People pirate games --> Game publishers includes DRM to prevent people from downloading games --> Outraged pirates use this to justify more pirating --> Publishers release more restrictive DRM --> etc.