Therefore it isn't a valid example piracy is hurting some indie games? A bit selective aren't we? I also throw in Project Zomboid because you mentioned something about indie games that's in alpha stage.AzrealMaximillion said:
When EA falls, Ubisoft will rise.
- Thread starter Matthew Jabour
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You haven't named an indie game that piracy has hurt and I can't think of one. The main problem for indie games is exposure. That's why Steam Greenlight exists.Tom Waits said:
But as has been seen, piracy is probably the best exposure that some indie games have gotten in recent years. I don't recall ever hearing/seeing World of Goo's "rampant piracy problems".
The developer even blog about it on their site. It was quite a big news couple years back.AzrealMaximillion said:
http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/
I'm sad whenever I'm seeing stuff like that. As I'm firm believer that content creators should get paid for their work.
EA, Ubisoft, and Activision own most of the well known content and control most of the gaming industry because they own all those developers. They have the money to take risks and try new things and make niche titles, but they're not interested in making games like the artists they own.crimson sickle2 said:
Them going into bankrupcy allows for a more even playing field which is what happened during the 90's and early 2000's, where independent developers created all of the games the big publishers are milking for all they're worth now after being bought up.
The artists controled the industry, not the publishers, and that's what needs to happen again.
Fuck Ubisoft. Ruining Assassin's Creed with constant releases and drawing out the series until it loses all plot integrity, Uplay trying to supplant actual online services, wasting my time, and online passes/preorder bonuses are rampant. I go to see about Assassin's Creed 3 and the special edition is the only one on the fucking shelves, selling for launch price and nothing more. THAT'S WHAT THE REGULAR EDITION IS FOR, ASSHOLES.
As you may have gathered, my only recent experience with them is AC3. But I do dislike them for it.
As you may have gathered, my only recent experience with them is AC3. But I do dislike them for it.
Thing is, EA, Ubisoft, and Activision don't own so many ip's that they can bully out every upstart design team, that doesn't stop them from trying. Even if they did, that's not a monopoly, it's technically an oligopoly.Nurb said:
Besides that irrelevant point, if a crash happens, even just targeted to these three, that's a lot of publishers out of commission. Who then is supposed to publish games? We got lucky with Nintendo stepping in and bailing out the industry. New publishers can step in and make themselves even more customer unfriendly than those three, make an even worst evil and all that. It'd be better to let them die off one by one if they continue to suck at their jobs, that's the natural order of nature and economy, plus it won't stop some inspired artist from getting the next classic gem published. Besides, how the hell is a crash supposed to happen at the current time? Maybe in a few years if we're diving for it, but otherwise I don't get how the chanting is supposed to call it upon us.
It was also a big news story that it was horribly exaggerated. From what I remember, they made up the statistic based on the number of IP addresses which had connected to the game's online features vs. the number of sales they had received. Lord only knows how many of those IP addresses came from me playing it on my laptop in various locations, and I paid for the stupid game. See the problem here?Tom Waits said:
It's always easy to be keyboard analyst when it's not your money on the line.Owyn_Merrilin said:
Likewise, it's always easy to go overboard and panic when it's your money on the line, even if it later turns out that what you were worried about wasn't really a problem.Tom Waits said:
The thing is, World of Goo was still decently successful. It was a multiplatform release after all. And I'm betting that the most of the 90% that pirated the game also bought it afterwards. The numbers on people who pirate THEN buy are never factored into these claims of 90% piracy.Tom Waits said:
Like I said, World of Goo is a pretty well known indie title that saw good success. The funnier thing is, if the had said that they were going to do always online DLC it probably would have failed in today's PC market.
What sounds better? A great success that gets pirated like everything else?
Or a failure that died only due to its draconian attempt to prevent people from pirating the game.
Look at Miner Wars 2081. That's a single player indie game that had always online DRM. While on Steam (which is DRM in a palatable form). They removed the DRM from the Steam Version after massive revolt and failing sales.
I hear more stories about games failing due to DRM than piracy.
Really? Because I'll still consider buying an EA game if it appeals to me. Same with Activision.
But Ubisoft? Dear Cthulu no they will not have my fucking money.
But Ubisoft? Dear Cthulu no they will not have my fucking money.
That is the attitude I'm sick of hearing. So, it was decently successful, so it doesn't matter it was pirated? Again, like I said before you have way too much faith in humanity.AzrealMaximillion said:
It's not faith in humanity. You seem to be ignoring any points taking the path of being woefully stubborn and ignorant. You may be sick of hearing attitudes like mine but you can't seem to dispute my argument with anything more than "I don't like it".Tom Waits said:
You don't seem to connect the dots between the fact that studies have shown that people who pirate are more likely to purchase and the success of a large amount of indie games recently. 10 years ago indie games exploding onto the scene so rampantly was unheard of.
At this point piracy is more of a demo than actually stealing because it really seems to show little harm to the gaming market. The market is selling more games overall than ever before. The PC market has been growing every year, right in the face of this "business killing" piracy. Indie games are more popular and have found ways to be funded well.
Now, I'm not saying that piracy is ok, but the pros for it in the gaming world outweigh the cons. Especially now that the
torrent websites where the piracy happen are promoting these indie games.
And that's my point. Piracy isn't right, but its not the boogeyman that you make it out to be. You can be sick of the attitude all you want, but at least make a point that considers what I have to say. Otherwise we'll just have to agree to disagree.
But where is there to talk about? I don't agree with your point and you don't agree with mine. I just think it's very naive to think "most of the 90% that pirated the game also bought it afterwards".AzrealMaximillion said:
Hypothetically*
It will be Activision and Ubisoft picking apart the remains, bias towards Ubisoft because they have the most to gain from EA's biggest properties.
Activision gains nothing from buying DICE and Battlefield; Call of Duty curb-stomps the laughably inept wannabe every season already, and not even Activision is so stupid as to pay for that lame duck. Ubisoft may find value in that acquisition though.
The big question would be "Who commits to purchasing Bioware if EA falls?" because outside of their sports lineup (which is a complicated proposition, given the recent legal trouble and monopoly charges), Bioware is the most visible developer EA possesses.
A company like Blizzard could profit from acquiring Bioware, both in branding and manpower; both of which they could use a boost in given how incredibly short-handed they must be.
(9 months and they still have not added PvP to D3. Heart of the Swarm launched a solid year and a half after it was supposed to. What the fuck are they doing at Blizzard? Don't say "polish" or anything involving "it's done when it's done" because after Diablo 3, I know it isn't fucking quality control.)
Of course, everyone else stands to profit from acquiring Bioware (oh, imagine the response if Square-Enix had the funds to even make the attempt).
The rest of EA's properties would probably be auctioned off piecemeal.
*[sub] (and it's sad I have to preface my post with something this fucking obvious just to ward off asshole pedants)[/sub]
It will be Activision and Ubisoft picking apart the remains, bias towards Ubisoft because they have the most to gain from EA's biggest properties.
Activision gains nothing from buying DICE and Battlefield; Call of Duty curb-stomps the laughably inept wannabe every season already, and not even Activision is so stupid as to pay for that lame duck. Ubisoft may find value in that acquisition though.
The big question would be "Who commits to purchasing Bioware if EA falls?" because outside of their sports lineup (which is a complicated proposition, given the recent legal trouble and monopoly charges), Bioware is the most visible developer EA possesses.
A company like Blizzard could profit from acquiring Bioware, both in branding and manpower; both of which they could use a boost in given how incredibly short-handed they must be.
(9 months and they still have not added PvP to D3. Heart of the Swarm launched a solid year and a half after it was supposed to. What the fuck are they doing at Blizzard? Don't say "polish" or anything involving "it's done when it's done" because after Diablo 3, I know it isn't fucking quality control.)
Of course, everyone else stands to profit from acquiring Bioware (oh, imagine the response if Square-Enix had the funds to even make the attempt).
The rest of EA's properties would probably be auctioned off piecemeal.
*[sub] (and it's sad I have to preface my post with something this fucking obvious just to ward off asshole pedants)[/sub]
UbiSoft's not as bad a people make them out to be. You can tell they're actually TRYING to not suck, but they just mess up more often than is good for them.
They're experimenting with ways to fix problems do sort of exist for them, and none of their experiments are working out super well. Every time they try and be unobtrusive they seem to find a new way to manage and step on the consumers' toes.
They make one of the best game series of all time (Assassin's Creed, obviously, and though the "absolute value" of the quality of the games in the series isn't remotely consistent, Evaluating each game on its own as if the rest of the series didn't exist, the inevitable result is that on any other scale they're all FANTASTIC games. They only suck relative to each other.
When UbiSoft starts cranking out Assassin's Creed games that ARE genuinely mindless yearly cash-ins like Call Of Duty, Madden, Battlefield, etc, THEN I'll start worrying that maybe UbiSoft has hoped completely aboard the greed train and decided to not give a damn about the consumers.
They're experimenting with ways to fix problems do sort of exist for them, and none of their experiments are working out super well. Every time they try and be unobtrusive they seem to find a new way to manage and step on the consumers' toes.
They make one of the best game series of all time (Assassin's Creed, obviously, and though the "absolute value" of the quality of the games in the series isn't remotely consistent, Evaluating each game on its own as if the rest of the series didn't exist, the inevitable result is that on any other scale they're all FANTASTIC games. They only suck relative to each other.
When UbiSoft starts cranking out Assassin's Creed games that ARE genuinely mindless yearly cash-ins like Call Of Duty, Madden, Battlefield, etc, THEN I'll start worrying that maybe UbiSoft has hoped completely aboard the greed train and decided to not give a damn about the consumers.
You're ignorance is great here. Let me throw this at you.Tom Waits said:
If you add the numbers in sales that AAA title sells on the PC and count the number of illegal downloads as legal sales, you'd get numbers that would suggest that every time a AAA hyped game was released a world sales record would be made or broken.
What you're suggesting is that most people who pirate games DON'T buy the games then sales for the game are lower and it's simply not the case. All you're argument has been is "humans are dicks", while I've brought up studies that you can look up, and sales numbers that show that the most pirated games of all time are world sales record holding releases. And not just world record holding in the gamin category, in ALL of entertainment. If you're logic were true in any sense, there wouldn't be a time where a video game release could make in a day what some of the highest grossing movies of all time made in months to years.
I understand your pessimism on the piracy matter, but the numbers obliterate your straw man argument of "humans are inherently thieves when given the chance, any other opinion is naive."
We may disagree but the numbers are heavily against you.