Who Should Pay For Games?

[fletch_talon]

I have noticed that there are a number of piracy advocates that claim that games (or art as a whole) should be free. Their claim is often that, as a part of our culture, games should be freely available to everyone.
Now I disagree, as I'm sure do many others, but what I really want to know is...

Where should the money come from?

Funnily enough the only answer I've ever gotten to this question is "its art, they should do it for free".
To those who feel this way,:
-Would you be happy with the inevitable drop in quantity and quality of games as a result?
-If not, how would you have games development funded?

To other piracy advocates:
-Who should pay the costs involved in creating a game?
--Please be sure to address any issues that would arise from your solution (eg. If government funded, who gets taxed? If some customers should pay, why should others get it free?)

To anti-piracy folk like myself:
Please, if you disagree, do so civilly, or try and restrain yourself (as I plan to). Part of my reason for making this thread was to have questions answered, without having to commit to a debate. By all means ask questions (myself and others will likely want to hear the answers as well) just be nice about it.

[sub]
To everyone:
If you start getting frustrated with the other side, do yourself a favour and walk away. I know how hard that is, but you'll thank yourself in the long run... Or so I'm trying to convince myself...
[/sub]

 

[More Fun To Compute]

"its art, they should do it for free"

Who says that? Art is some of the most needlessly expensive stuff ever created. Take a used unrinal stained with years of things you would rather not think about then call it art and it can sell for more than a new car.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

If you enjoy something, you should bloody well pay for it. Game developers have to got to feed their families too. Movies are considered an artform, but you won't see the next AAA title being shown for free.

 

[Scout Tactical]

For reference, advocating piracy violates The Escapist forum rules. Just warning everyone now so you can avoid moderator wrath.

IE: If you disagree with the OP, don't post it, or you will get wrecked.

 

[Nunny]

Wait what? That makes no sense no matter how you put it

Someone has to pay, and i highly doubt the Game companys are going to do so

 

[Ridgemo]

I hate the self-entiltment that people who pirate games have. They are basically communists, this stupid idea that everyone deserves everything.

We all know what Liberty Prime thinks of communists.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If people don't buy games, game makers will have to get money from advertisers.

I'm looking forwards to playing as Ronald McDonald helping Batman fight the Joker and the Hamburgler.

 

[migo]

It's pretty simple. Pay for the games that are good, and aren't riddled with DRM.

This is where the freemium model comes in. The game is free to play, and you get way more than a demo's worth out of it. If you like it, you pay to get additional features, if you don't, then you stop playing it.

It's changing the payment model from before you play to after you play. This forces devs and publishers to make sure the games are good, because aside from DRM, a big motivator for piracy is wasting money on games that turn out to be crap a few too many times. You just get shy of buying just based on hype.

 

[MercurySteam]

Here's a good answer: "All of us!"

For a few exceptional instances when pirating may be acceptable - please watch [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2653-Piracy].

 

[fletch_talon]

"its art, they should do it for free"

Who says that? Art is some of the most needlessly expensive stuff ever created. Take a used unrinal stained with years of things you would rather not think about then call it art and it can sell for more than a new car.

As I say, some people seem to think art is something everyone should have access to. Which is fair to an extent, but I don't think it should apply to all forms of art or all individual pieces of art. Art galleries are good for example, but I don't condone piracy.

For reference, advocating piracy violates The Escapist forum rules. Just warning everyone now so you can avoid moderator wrath.

IE: If you disagree with the OP, don't post it, or you will get wrecked.

You don't have to advocate or promote, or even admit to piracy to answer the question. You can have the belief that piracy should be legal for the reasons I posted, without admitting to partaking in it, or sugesting that others should.

 

[Timmibal]

There seems to be an increasing number of piracy advocates that claim that games (or art as a whole) should be free. Their claim is often that, as a part of our culture, games should be freely available to everyone.

[citation needed]

It's changing the payment model from before you play to after you play. This forces devs and publishers to make sure the games are good, because aside from DRM, a big motivator for piracy is wasting money on games that turn out to be crap a few too many times. You just get shy of buying just based on hype.

This, I believe, is really what file sharers are asking for. A reasonable 'try before you buy' demo of the product. Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Duke 3d. All gave a fully playable and fully featured chapter of the game as a demo. No Adware or time restriction. When was the last time you saw something like that?

"But you can always return a shitty game!" people will cry. True, but for a full refund? And that's without even going into all the DRM and 'exclusive content' which producers are stuffing into games in order to cash in on resale, if not attempt to halt it altogether.

The issue is much more labyrinthine and requires much more thought than simply belching, scratching your testicles and calling the opposing party 'commies'.

 

[rubinigosa]

Well I think that even if it is a art form it should not be free because,I as a artist disagree about the part that art forms shall be free because how are we going to find time to do the things we love (for free),working (so that we can eat),doing things we like (gaming) and of course sleeping.The answer "its art, they should do it for free" is most likely from a person that thinks that art is easy (it`s not). But if we would find a way so that all artist gets paid in some way donations maybe. Then of course all art forms shall be for free. But then it raises the question what is an artist because it will not work if any one that made a stick figure would get paid.Like the part that I called myself an artist will not work in my own ide because I have never sold any of my paintings. And also what will happen to all the Indy developers . *sorry if I spelled anything wrong*

 

[DawnSR]

Since when is art free?

Ever been to a museum?(entrey fee)
Boutght a Painting or Sculptur.... every artist want to get paid for the work and Mats he use to create his work.

 

[Something Amyss]

If you enjoy something, you should bloody well pay for it. Game developers have to got to feed their families too. Movies are considered an artform, but you won't see the next AAA title being shown for free.

You will see it pirated to hell though. It's not like movie pirates have a different mentality.

 

[Thaliur]

For reference, advocating piracy violates The Escapist forum rules. Just warning everyone now so you can avoid moderator wrath.

IE: If you disagree with the OP, don't post it, or you will get wrecked.

I think this post basically destroyed most of the discussion value in this thread...

I'll risk moderator wrath and hope for the best:


I'm not actually in favour of piracy, and I pay for the games I play. It's not a financial problem, I rarely buy a new game anyway, and if I do, I wait for a while, the game gets cheaper, I know what to expect, and that I will get a game worth its price when I buy it. Sometimes I also get games for far less than what they would be worth (like ME2. I would have gladly paid full price, but didn't have time for new games when it came out, so I bought it in the last Steam sale for a ridiculous amount of money.)

Here's how I can definitely understand the viewpoints behind piracy:
For many new games, there is no demo available, lots of people don't know anyone who has the newest game they're interested in, and don't trust reviews enough to completely rely on them.
Solution? They "acquire" the game some other way, play it and either like or don't like it.
These people basically fall into two categories:
The "good" pirates play the game, and if they like it, they decide to buy it, although they already got it for free (illegally though). This kind of pirates don't actually damage the industry in my opinion, because if they hadn't had first-hand experience with the game, they probably wouldn't have bought it at all, and if they didn't like the game, they don't buy it, basically punishing the publisher/developer by not providing them with profit, thus forcing companies to make good games.
Actually, that last sentence explains EA's harsh stance against piracy, considering their strong series ("[famous person]'s [sport] [year or iteration]" and similar).
To these pirates, piracy serves as a kind of inofficial demo. Although it's still illegal, I would consider this stance as morally justifyable.

Then of course there's the bad kind of piracy, where people completely refuse to buy anything that can be downloaded or otherwise acquired for free. These people actually do damage. In most cases, they don't even raise a game's popularity, which would at least lower the damage, because to play online, they need special servers, since a pirate CD key probably can't join the official ones, so the official game rooms don't get more players, and the number of online players is a strong selling point in multiplayer games.
So in this case: More piracy => Less "legal" online players => Less popularity => even less legal players, leading to even less sales.
I guess it's true for Spore, too, I think I had to register online using my game key to get other players' content, so there probably are "inofficial" Spore servers, too, withholding possibly good content from the actual game.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I wish people would stop with this does anyone really think Razor1911/RELOADED gives a damm about what anyone on a forum posts.
Or the fact next to all piracy is in china anyway where the real issue is actual counterfitting than downloads.

 

[ezeroast]

Never heard anyone use the "games are art and should be free" argument. Mainly because its retarded i guess.
Art isn't free

 

[Halceon]

The end user should pay for games and I don't know anyone, pirate or not, who'd say something else. However, what you pay for is work, not a product. If you were paying only for the product, you'd be effectively buying a printed disc or paying a small . Now here's the thing, do you pay for work that doesn't fulfill what is expected? It depends, but it ranges from "no" to "less" to "pay in full and bear it".
If you buy some paint and then hire somebody to paint your walls, you won't pay them in full, if they also paint over your windows or paint only up to waist-height. There is no such scaling at the moment for developers who release a game with gamebreaking bugs, there is no scaling for outright lies spouted by the hypemachine, there is no scaling for debilitating support.
I call this bullshit and stick to my cheap titles, where, if it turns out to be crap, at least I haven't spent my month's entertainment budget on it.

Funny enough, the folks from The Pirate Bay are working on a system that will address this very issue - Flattr [http://flattr.com/].

 

[Meggiepants]

Artists don't work for free, I'm afraid, so that comparison is bunk. Both my brother and my sister are working artists. Both make money off of their art.

If you think the art you see around the city is free, you are wrong. Those statues in the park? They were paid for. More than likely it was the city that commissioned them, but it could also be a donation from a wealthy individual who bought the art then donated it to the city. I'm not saying it's impossible the artist didn't do it for recognition, or a tax write off, but one way or another, the artist is indeed, getting paid.

The art in those art museums is also not free. Those museums had to acquire them somehow. Again, if a piece of art is considered something of historical significance, the government will pay to buy it then display it. And it isn't free anymore than a library is free. Everyone pays taxes that support those institutions. They are social programs for the betterment of society.

I don't know what these piracy advocates you've been speaking to are smoking, but art, it ain't free. My brother does quite well. I don't think he could if no one was willing to pay for his stuff.

 

[Timmibal]

However, I live in Australia, where import and government tax rates are so high that a US$30 game costs AU$100.

Not to mention steam has recently been bullied into arbitrarily bumping up game prices for Aussie customers because retailers were having a cry. Too bad the justifications for the price hike don't wash when you're dealing with a digital release.

And they still have the audacity to call filesharers thieves.