My favorite game is Planescape: Torment and I would of never played it if I haven't pirated simply because I had no means of buying the damn thing.
Gametap.
In 2003? Most of the nice alternatives came out recently. I signed up for the beta for GOG when it was first announced, which was less than a year ago I think.
Just sayin'. It's not like the game's impossible to find; I found a copy from gogamer for something like $8 in 2004.
I still think that PC gaming is doing so poorly not because of pirates, but because of consoles. And I don't think that's a bad thing. The only thing the current consoles need to make them in every way equal or superior to PC gaming is mouse/keyboard support. If all of the consoles had this, there'd be no reason for the PC gaming industry at all.
No, theres still mods. PC Gaming is like Lego. Theres the base stuff you buy, but theres so much more that can be added/hacked/changed, mostly for free. Console gaming is more polished, but what you buy is what you get.
I'm being 100% honest- I won't work on another PC game, given the choice.
So?
You stop making games for PC, a few thousand Chinese will not enjoy pirating your game, big deal, but then many thousands of hard working PC owning Americans won't get to buy the game from you.
You have to realize that majority of those torrenting are from the black hole of the game market; China. It doesn't matter whether you make your game for PCs or Consoles, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SELL IT THERE!
So sure, you can blacklist the PC market over some over inflated sense of self importance but that just means you get fewer sales. Then when all the cool game developers abandon the PC due to fear mongerers like you the pirates will just quietly and without effort pirate on consoles.
It's easier then PC, they all have hard drives and can even run torrent clients. It's like a super cheap pirating system.
I am not sure why there is so much hate towards developers. Casual Piracy is a huge issue for PC gaming. It takes very little technical savvy to pirate a piece of software. This is unlike Console Piracy which requires modification to the console (which is a tangible remainder of what you're doing) and you actually need to seek out someone to do it for you. It requires effort and makes you feel a lot more dirty.
To combat PC piracy, there needs to be the way to make the pirate feel dirty. Right now, it's easy to say the corporations make enough money and no harm done. Rationalizing it away as nothing as ever happened.
DRM is just annoying, does not deter pirates and simply a way of giving them an opportunity to pull the high horse.
I don't think console piracy feels "more dirty" at all. I think it's solely a matter of difficulty.
And we know PC piracy is an issue, but that doesn't mean anyone thinks it's OK for developers to overestimate the numbers of sales lost due to piracy, anymore than it is for the pirates to underestimate the number.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
I'm being 100% honest- I won't work on another PC game, given the choice.
So?
You stop making games for PC, a few thousand Chinese will not enjoy pirating your game, big deal, but then many thousands of hard working PC owning Americans won't get to buy the game from you.
You have to realize that majority of those torrenting are from the black hole of the game market; China. It doesn't matter whether you make your game for PCs or Consoles, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SELL IT THERE!
So sure, you can blacklist the PC market over some over inflated sense of self importance but that just means you get fewer sales. Then when all the cool game developers abandon the PC due to fear mongerers like you the pirates will just quietly and without effort pirate on consoles.
It's easier then PC, they all have hard drives and can even run torrent clients. It's like a super cheap pirating system.
But there are consequences to pirating games on consoles. I've heard lots of people got banned from Xbox Live recently for having flashed consoles. Plus, modding it voids your warranty. Also, in places like China and India the majority of piracy is street piracy not internet piracy.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
And are they somehow not succesful because of this?
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
Yet also at the top off the PC best selling lists.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
Yet also at the top off the PC best selling lists.
Of course, if a game is popular it will have more pirates and more legitimate sales. What I'm saying is that piracy rates don't go down if a developer follows the "demands" of most people on the internet. Spore, a not-so-highly acclaimed game with loads of DRM is also at the top of best-selling and most-pirated lists. Pirates will download whatever they want to, regardless of DRM and quality. Of course, there are exceptions. Some people download out of fear of DRM but generally pirates download a game because they are getting it for free, not to prove a point.
Ahem, can I interest you in a little thing called the Wii? Or WoW?
The head-over-heels race for better graphics that has dominated the video gaming market for the last couple of years has basically broken. The difference between Half Life and Doom 3 is very obvious to anyone who looks at the two games. The difference between Doom 3 and Crysis not so much. You are now running into a problem of dimnishing returns. The actual quality of the game as a game is far more important. The demographic shift created by products like the Sims and the Wii which have broadened the user base is also pushing this along.
WoW has a massive art budget and absolutely fantastic art direction, so I'm not sure why you'd bring it up. Say what you want about Blizzard, but they have some of the best artists in the business, and likely spend more on art than almost anyone. There is a huge distance between aiming to run on as many systems as possible (as Blizzard does) and releasing games that simply look bad, or have very little effort put into the art.
The point is, Sins deliberately did much less than it could have within its target system requirements, because art is expensive and Wardell wants to develop games as cheaply as possible. He's able to get away with it because there is little to no competition in his target niche. Mainstream game developers do not have the same luxury.
It's not a question of putting graphics on the level of Crysis, it's about making games that look as good at possible and can do as much as possible without stressing the system too much. That's a huge percentage of every mainstream game's development budget, and it's an important part of game development, and it's what lets games like WoW look good while running on almost any system.
As for the Wii, are you arguing that Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime didn't spend large amounts on their art budgets? Or that casual games like Wii Sports have the same graphics requirements as mainstream games?
But there are consequences to pirating games on consoles. I've heard lots of people got banned from Xbox Live recently for having flashed consoles. Plus, modding it voids your warranty. Also, in places like China and India the majority of piracy is street piracy not internet piracy.
Agreed, and these combined have kept console piracy below 5% pretty consistently. Connecting to Live with a flashed console can lead to your ID being banned, not just for the game you were trying to play, but for every game you might want to play on that system. Likewise, console pirates are often one RRoD away from a permanent system brick.
The point is, Sins deliberately did much less than it could have within its target system requirements, because art is expensive and Wardell wants to develop games as cheaply as possible. He's able to get away with it because there is little to no competition in his target niche. Mainstream game developers do not have the same luxury.
Absolute BS. No competition in the $50 RTS "niche"?
Ahem, can I interest you in a little thing called the Wii? Or WoW?
The head-over-heels race for better graphics that has dominated the video gaming market for the last couple of years has basically broken. The difference between Half Life and Doom 3 is very obvious to anyone who looks at the two games. The difference between Doom 3 and Crysis not so much. You are now running into a problem of dimnishing returns. The actual quality of the game as a game is far more important. The demographic shift created by products like the Sims and the Wii which have broadened the user base is also pushing this along.
WoW has a massive art budget and absolutely fantastic art direction, so I'm not sure why you'd bring it up. Say what you want about Blizzard, but they have some of the best artists in the business, and likely spend more on art than almost anyone. There is a huge distance between aiming to run on as many systems as possible (as Blizzard does) and releasing games that simply look bad, or have very little effort put into the art.
The point is, Sins deliberately did much less than it could have within its target system requirements, because art is expensive and Wardell wants to develop games as cheaply as possible. He's able to get away with it because there is little to no competition in his target niche. Mainstream game developers do not have the same luxury.
1) WoWs graphics are now a good couple of years old.
2) Do you have an actual dollar amount for this supposedly "massive art budget"?
3) I just looked for some screenshots of Sins and I am confused as to why you are acting like it's some kind of ASCII game.
As for the Wii, are you arguing that Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime didn't spend large amounts on their art budgets? Or that casual games like Wii Sports have the same graphics requirements as mainstream games?
I'm arguing that Nintendo thought that making good games and having a reasonable price point was more important than being able to render 80 bajillion polygons simultaniously or whatever. And they were right.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
How about developers make good games, sell them at a compelling price and don't treat legitimate consumers like they *MIGHT* pirate the game. I'm sure it's already been said but all the protections like securerom etc.. don't do fuck all to stop piracy and can result in a shitty experience for the legitimate consumer.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
POINT FUCKING PROVEN.
Both also sold in the 7 figures for PC, while not as good as they did for the 360 still both certainly sold quite a few copies. Fallout 3 hasn't even been out long and it's already sold enough copies on the PC where it would have made money if it was exclusive to the platform. This and it's an RPG! It's going to keep selling for a long time because the developer supports user modifications.
I am not sure why there is so much hate towards developers. Casual Piracy is a huge issue for PC gaming. It takes very little technical savvy to pirate a piece of software. This is unlike Console Piracy which requires modification to the console (which is a tangible remainder of what you're doing) and you actually need to seek out someone to do it for you. It requires effort and makes you feel a lot more dirty.
To combat PC piracy, there needs to be the way to make the pirate feel dirty. Right now, it's easy to say the corporations make enough money and no harm done. Rationalizing it away as nothing as ever happened.
DRM is just annoying, does not deter pirates and simply a way of giving them an opportunity to pull the high horse.
I've always theorized that games with active developer supported communities do better than ones that do not. I don't know if that's true or not, but when UT3 sells badly on the PC and the developer basically says that it's because PC gamers are a bunch of fucking thieves, I somehow doubt that will help future sales any. It couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the game being inferior to the last game in the series and the ads for it saying PS3 and only PS3. It's like they had completely given up on PC gamers, so PC gamers gave up on them.
Part of what makes this argument hard is that the sales data for alot of PC games simply isn't available or accurate. There's very little research out there. Now you can find a billion charts about how many copies were pirated, why do companies keep spending money on this? It's almost an entirely useless metric.
I'm being 100% honest- I won't work on another PC game, given the choice.
So?
You stop making games for PC, a few thousand Chinese will not enjoy pirating your game, big deal, but then many thousands of hard working PC owning Americans won't get to buy the game from you.
You have to realize that majority of those torrenting are from the black hole of the game market; China. It doesn't matter whether you make your game for PCs or Consoles, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SELL IT THERE!
So sure, you can blacklist the PC market over some over inflated sense of self importance but that just means you get fewer sales. Then when all the cool game developers abandon the PC due to fear mongerers like you the pirates will just quietly and without effort pirate on consoles.
It's easier then PC, they all have hard drives and can even run torrent clients. It's like a super cheap pirating system.
Self-importance? What in my post made you think my reasons are anything but self-interest? I'm just sick of seeing tens of thousands of torrents for a game I worked months of overtime to get out the door. I don't care where they come from, or how much money the game makes, or any of the many reasons people rationalize piracy, nor do I care particularly what it would take to get them to stop. I already know of an effective way to ensure the majority of the people who play my game have paid for it- by developing on the 360 or PS3. Despite what you say, it takes a lot more risk and effort to pirate on 360 or PS3.
The point I'm trying to get across is that the developers moving away from the PC market are doing it for more reasons than simple economics.
Do you care that people pay for your game or that you make the most money from your game?
Because one of those is entirely rational, and one of them is not. Whether or not the majority of people are paying for your game is immaterial if you make more money along side of those people pirating your game.
If you want to discuss rational self interest, then fine, go ahead and explain how you aren't going to make more money by releasing on the PC as well. If you can't then you can't.
Otherwise you're just being vindictive, which is kinda odd considering most people like the stuff that they produce to get use
The point I'm trying to get across is that the developers moving away from the PC market are doing it for more reasons than simple economics.
Wait, are you saying that developers, despite making money by developing on the PC in tandem with consoles are shunning the PC market because they want to take their ball and go home?
The point I'm trying to get across is that the developers moving away from the PC market are doing it for more reasons than simple economics.
Wait, are you saying that developers, despite making money by developing on the PC in tandem with consoles are shunning the PC market because they want to take their ball and go home?
Are are you, 12?
No, he has some fucking pride in himself, and has the belief that if he works hard on making something, he should be fairly compensated. If your boss told you that he was only going to pay you seven hours wages for eight hours work, would you just suck it up? Or would you quit and try to get the money rightfully owed you?
If we're going to tell content creators that they're second class citizens, then let's just be upfront and honest about it. The major problem with this generation of pirates isn't that they're pirating, it's that they're acting like they're in the moral right.
No, he has some fucking pride in himself, and has the belief that if he works hard on making something, he should be fairly compensated. If your boss told you that he was only going to pay you seven hours wages for eight hours work, would you just suck it up? Or would you quit and try to get the money rightfully owed you?
You suck it up, like everyone else who gets payed less than they want to and doesn't want to get fired.
There is no difference between "working 8 hours for 7 hours pay" and "getting payed 12.5% less than you think you should".
You're selling a product. The product can support a certain amount of sales and will make a certain amount of money. If its economic to produce that then you will and the amount of piracy is irrelevant unless its cutting into your sales.
Massive pirating is simply to be expected when you have such a cheap distribution network. The vast majority of the people pirating were not going to purchase your product anyway, they are purchasers below your price point.
Piracy that does take away sales is just another consideration that you make the same as any other person who is selling a product[I.E. shoplifting, grift, etc]. You're not some special segment of the economy that is free from costs due to illegal activity.
Its like some store in a mall saying "I am sorry, we just can't stand these 14 year old kids shoplifting our CD's, we're shutting the whole store down and now will only sell books"
My point stands, shutting down because of economic decisions is fine. Shutting down because of some "moral outrage" or "moral dampening" from people using your product is childish.
If we're going to tell content creators that they're second class citizens, then let's just be upfront and honest about it. The major problem with this generation of pirates isn't that they're pirating, it's that they're acting like they're in the moral right.
Man what?
No, the people who are arguing that piracy is not the problem its made out to be are not in the "moral right" they are simply "factually correct". There is no morality to the question on a macro level and anyone who is saying otherwise is simply getting in the way of the discussion.
Wow, look what I went and started. I'll just say that there's a difference between the economics of the situation and knowing that consumers put enough value on your work to pay for it.
I'll let you guys go back to arguing semantics I guess. There's no reason for me to hang around and get called a douchebag in many words.
Wow, look what I went and started. I'll just say that there's a difference between the economics of the situation and knowing that consumers put enough value on your work to pay for it.
Do you get offended by all the people who don't use your product? Because those people also don't "put enough value on your work to pay for it". They don't even put enough value on your work to download it for free. They actually value your work less than the people who steal it.
Do you care that people pay for your game or that you make the most money from your game?
Because one of those is entirely rational, and one of them is not. Whether or not the majority of people are paying for your game is immaterial if you make more money along side of those people pirating your game.
If you want to discuss rational self interest, then fine, go ahead and explain how you aren't going to make more money by releasing on the PC as well. If you can't then you can't.
Otherwise you're just being vindictive, which is kinda odd considering most people like the stuff that they produce to get use
Wait...what?
I would care if my piece of software gets stolen. If I invest myself in something to develop it from beginning to the end, I would like it to get respected and not treated trivially. That hurts.
Don't make assumptions in favor of your own self-interests.
I would care if my piece of software gets stolen. If I invest myself in something to develop it from beginning to the end, I would like it to get respected and not treated trivially. That hurts.
Don't make assumptions in favor of your own self-interests.
I don't pirate. Its not my self interest. But Kudos for making the association anyway and painting anyone on "the other side" as a criminal.
As explained above you "get respected" in terms of sales actually better by the people that steal your product. Your product, apparently, isn't even worth my time to go and steal.
When someone "steals" your software, it causes you no tangible economic harm unless that person would have otherwise purchased it. Nothing is lost. Its highly unlikely that that person "respected" you enough to purchase your product. The amount of "respect" in the system is unchanged.
Did you feel slighted when i gave away my copy of [your software product]? I mean, the guy who got it never paid you for it. He didn't even expend any energy to go steal it, someone had to give it to him. I had to incur cost upon myself in order to let that guy have it, indicating that the value of [your software product] to me was less than the value to me of someone else having [your software product]. That value is probably pretty low.
Does that "hurt" you? Does that make you feel insulted? Do you feel that authors aren't getting enough respect when someone goes to the library and checks out a book?
Because if it doesn't then your justification for being "hurt" by piracy is bogus.
Wow, look what I went and started. I'll just say that there's a difference between the economics of the situation and knowing that consumers put enough value on your work to pay for it.
Do you get offended by all the people who don't use your product? Because those people also don't "put enough value on your work to pay for it". They don't even put enough value on your work to download it for free. They actually value your work less than the people who steal it.
My work, from which pirates are benefiting for free, not the product. Christ, man, what is your problem? I'm simply trying to provide a more personal viewpoint on developers trending away from using the PC as their central platform.
In any case, it's not offensive. It's demoralizing. There's no point in getting one's feathers ruffled over this sort of thing, especially when I have the ability to avoid the worst of it.
As explained above you "get respected" in terms of sales actually better by the people that steal your product. Your product, apparently, isn't even worth my time to go and steal.
When someone "steals" your software, it causes you no tangible economic harm unless that person would have otherwise purchased it. Nothing is lost. Its highly unlikely that that person "respected" you enough to purchase your product. The amount of "respect" in the system is unchanged.
What a load of BS. In your first statement you're inferring that if someone wants but can't afford something the logical next step is to steal it. I can't get something legally. I don't automatically go to illegal means to obtain it. That doesn't mean that I don't still want the product.
And your second statement is also retarded, since it's more likely than not that at some price point the person pirating the game would have bought it. Regardless, it's still theft! He doesn't need an economic reason to be upset that his work is being stolen.
As explained above you "get respected" in terms of sales actually better by the people that steal your product. Your product, apparently, isn't even worth my time to go and steal.
When someone "steals" your software, it causes you no tangible economic harm unless that person would have otherwise purchased it. Nothing is lost. Its highly unlikely that that person "respected" you enough to purchase your product. The amount of "respect" in the system is unchanged.
What a load of BS. In your first statement you're inferring that if someone wants but can't afford something the logical next step is to steal it. I can't get something legally. I don't automatically go to illegal means to obtain it. That doesn't mean that I don't still want the product.
And your second statement is also retarded, since it's more likely than not that at some price point the person pirating the game would have bought it. Regardless, it's still theft! He doesn't need an economic reason to be upset that his work is being stolen.
You've gone completely off track yourself though. you're referring to it as theft, and comparing it to theft when its actually copyright infringement, which is completely different.
As explained above you "get respected" in terms of sales actually better by the people that steal your product. Your product, apparently, isn't even worth my time to go and steal.
When someone "steals" your software, it causes you no tangible economic harm unless that person would have otherwise purchased it. Nothing is lost. Its highly unlikely that that person "respected" you enough to purchase your product. The amount of "respect" in the system is unchanged.
What a load of BS. In your first statement you're inferring that if someone wants but can't afford something the logical next step is to steal it. I can't get something legally. I don't automatically go to illegal means to obtain it. That doesn't mean that I don't still want the product.
And your second statement is also retarded, since it's more likely than not that at some price point the person pirating the game would have bought it. Regardless, it's still theft! He doesn't need an economic reason to be upset that his work is being stolen.
You've gone completely off track yourself though. you're referring to it as theft, and comparing it to theft when its actually copyright infringement, which is completely different.
I'm not sure why people are still arguing this. It's not some ambiguous maybe it is maybe it isn't. Pirating a game is not theft in real unequivocal terms. Legally it is not theft, literally it is not theft.
its a game of semantics. Is theft wrong? Sure. Is copyright infringement wrong? Sure
The wrong-ness if it is not the issue. They want to equate copyright infringement to theft though because theft is a stronger word and it helps their arguement of 1 illegal copy = 1 lost sale. which means they're entitled to more damages.
What a load of BS. In your first statement you're inferring that if someone wants but can't afford something the logical next step is to steal it. I can't get something legally. I don't automatically go to illegal means to obtain it. That doesn't mean that I don't still want the product.
When you can't get something you want, the next logical step is to steal it. Welcome to economics. For those people that the cost of stealing it is less than the cost of the product they will steal it. The cost of copyright infringement is very low and as such the incidence of copyright infringement will be high. But a lot of those people will not be buying that product anyway, because in some cases the cost of copyright infringement is higher than the cost of simply working for the money to buy the product(these are the people who buy your product) and in other cases the cost of the copyright infringement is less than the cost of working to buy it(these are the people who copy your product) and in other cases the cost of the product to copy or purchase is not worth the product at all(these are the people who do neither). The thing is, in the absence of copying the second and third areas overlap quite a bit, and the first and second areas overlap very little. I.E. Most people who can afford to purchase your product and will purchase your product its actually cheaper for them to buy your product with money than it is to go and work through the hassles of piracy. Welcome to the basics of comparative advantage.
For many many people there are a lot of hidden costs for copyright infringement. For other people there are not. Congratulations, you are one of those people who does not care enough to buy or steal that guys software product. He must hate you because you don't show him enough respect.
At this point it needs to be noted that this is not analogous to theft. Because in theft, the victim ends up with less stuff. With copyright infringement the victim does not end up with less stuff. This is a big important point because if some guy downloads your product who was never going to buy it in the first place then you are no better off or worse off than you were before the piracy. Which is to say, there was no victim because no one was done any harm. Since the definition of a victim is that harm done to them. This is why copyright infringement is a civil matter.
My work, from which pirates are benefiting for free, not the product. Christ, man, what is your problem? I'm simply trying to provide a more personal viewpoint on developers trending away from using the PC as their central platform.
Your work is the same as your product. Yes, they're benefiting for free. No that is not the end of the world. Lots of people benefit from other peoples work for free. Just the other day, I went to a park and went sledding. I am in a state that is a net federal giver and i don't live in this state. I didn't pay for that park at all. Some guy went and tended that park for years and then i just came along and used it. I bet he is steaming mad.
There are many other instances. E.G. the other day i was in a store and they were handling out free samples. That cheese was really good but i didn't buy any. I bet the manager, cheese maker, and sample lady were just furious.
Oh, on that same day, i went online to a website which someone made and produced. And i didn't visit any of the ads and i didn't buy anything from it. I guess I am just an evil person. Then i gave 5 bucks to the salvation army. And frankly i am piping mad because i worked for that 5 bucks and they didn't pay me for it!
People benefit from your work without paying all the damned time its one of the things that drives economies. Getting upset about it is irrational any way you slice it. You have a product that you made. People are copying it, this may cost you some unknown amount of sales. There is a business decision to be made regarding the amount of profit you make at the end of the day against the cost of the work that you put into it. Just like a store owner has to account for grift and shoplifting[except those actually cause him direct harm].
I don't want to keep saying this, but people who pirate do ask for customer service, either through a forum or support line. That is a cost to the developer directly tied to piracy. It may not be massive but it is non-zero.
For many many people there are a lot of hidden costs for copyright infringement. For other people there are not. Congratulations, you are one of those people who does not care enough to buy or steal that guys software product. He must hate you because you don't show him enough respect.
When I purchase his game/book/movie/album/etc., I respect his skill at his craft.
When I refuse to purchase it, I respect his right to ask for compensation in exchange for his product.
People benefit from your work without paying all the damned time its one of the things that drives economies. Getting upset about it is irrational any way you slice it. You have a product that you made. People are copying it, this may cost you some unknown amount of sales. There is a business decision to be made regarding the amount of profit you make at the end of the day against the cost of the work that you put into it. Just like a store owner has to account for grift and shoplifting[except those actually cause him direct harm].
So, Goum, please show me where there's a movement to legitimize grift, shoplifting, and other forms of theft. Because I can sure as fuck show you a large and widespread movement to legitimize piracy.
For many many people there are a lot of hidden costs for copyright infringement. For other people there are not. Congratulations, you are one of those people who does not care enough to buy or steal that guys software product. He must hate you because you don't show him enough respect.
When I purchase his game/book/movie/album/etc., I respect his skill at his craft.
When I refuse to purchase it, I respect his right to ask for compensation in exchange for his product.
When I pirate, I respect neither.
Why is this so fucking hard to understand?
Because a lack of respect isn't killing the PC gaming industry, lack of money is.
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Just sayin'. It's not like the game's impossible to find; I found a copy from gogamer for something like $8 in 2004.
No, theres still mods. PC Gaming is like Lego. Theres the base stuff you buy, but theres so much more that can be added/hacked/changed, mostly for free. Console gaming is more polished, but what you buy is what you get.
So?
You stop making games for PC, a few thousand Chinese will not enjoy pirating your game, big deal, but then many thousands of hard working PC owning Americans won't get to buy the game from you.
You have to realize that majority of those torrenting are from the black hole of the game market; China. It doesn't matter whether you make your game for PCs or Consoles, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SELL IT THERE!
So sure, you can blacklist the PC market over some over inflated sense of self importance but that just means you get fewer sales. Then when all the cool game developers abandon the PC due to fear mongerers like you the pirates will just quietly and without effort pirate on consoles.
It's easier then PC, they all have hard drives and can even run torrent clients. It's like a super cheap pirating system.
To combat PC piracy, there needs to be the way to make the pirate feel dirty. Right now, it's easy to say the corporations make enough money and no harm done. Rationalizing it away as nothing as ever happened.
DRM is just annoying, does not deter pirates and simply a way of giving them an opportunity to pull the high horse.
And we know PC piracy is an issue, but that doesn't mean anyone thinks it's OK for developers to overestimate the numbers of sales lost due to piracy, anymore than it is for the pirates to underestimate the number.
When there are less problems downloading and running a pirated version of your game than buying the god damn thing theres a problem and you can go fuck yourself.
But there are consequences to pirating games on consoles. I've heard lots of people got banned from Xbox Live recently for having flashed consoles. Plus, modding it voids your warranty. Also, in places like China and India the majority of piracy is street piracy not internet piracy.
What hate there is is generally directed at the publishers, not the developers.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Call of Duty 4 and Fallout 3, both highly acclaimed games with minimal DRM, can be found at the top of "most pirated" lists.
And are they somehow not succesful because of this?
Yet also at the top off the PC best selling lists.
POINT FUCKING PROVEN.
Of course, if a game is popular it will have more pirates and more legitimate sales. What I'm saying is that piracy rates don't go down if a developer follows the "demands" of most people on the internet. Spore, a not-so-highly acclaimed game with loads of DRM is also at the top of best-selling and most-pirated lists. Pirates will download whatever they want to, regardless of DRM and quality. Of course, there are exceptions. Some people download out of fear of DRM but generally pirates download a game because they are getting it for free, not to prove a point.
WoW has a massive art budget and absolutely fantastic art direction, so I'm not sure why you'd bring it up. Say what you want about Blizzard, but they have some of the best artists in the business, and likely spend more on art than almost anyone. There is a huge distance between aiming to run on as many systems as possible (as Blizzard does) and releasing games that simply look bad, or have very little effort put into the art.
The point is, Sins deliberately did much less than it could have within its target system requirements, because art is expensive and Wardell wants to develop games as cheaply as possible. He's able to get away with it because there is little to no competition in his target niche. Mainstream game developers do not have the same luxury.
It's not a question of putting graphics on the level of Crysis, it's about making games that look as good at possible and can do as much as possible without stressing the system too much. That's a huge percentage of every mainstream game's development budget, and it's an important part of game development, and it's what lets games like WoW look good while running on almost any system.
As for the Wii, are you arguing that Mario Galaxy or Metroid Prime didn't spend large amounts on their art budgets? Or that casual games like Wii Sports have the same graphics requirements as mainstream games?
Agreed, and these combined have kept console piracy below 5% pretty consistently. Connecting to Live with a flashed console can lead to your ID being banned, not just for the game you were trying to play, but for every game you might want to play on that system. Likewise, console pirates are often one RRoD away from a permanent system brick.
Absolute BS. No competition in the $50 RTS "niche"?
1) WoWs graphics are now a good couple of years old.
2) Do you have an actual dollar amount for this supposedly "massive art budget"?
3) I just looked for some screenshots of Sins and I am confused as to why you are acting like it's some kind of ASCII game.
I'm arguing that Nintendo thought that making good games and having a reasonable price point was more important than being able to render 80 bajillion polygons simultaniously or whatever. And they were right.
It did?
Both also sold in the 7 figures for PC, while not as good as they did for the 360 still both certainly sold quite a few copies. Fallout 3 hasn't even been out long and it's already sold enough copies on the PC where it would have made money if it was exclusive to the platform. This and it's an RPG! It's going to keep selling for a long time because the developer supports user modifications.
I've always theorized that games with active developer supported communities do better than ones that do not. I don't know if that's true or not, but when UT3 sells badly on the PC and the developer basically says that it's because PC gamers are a bunch of fucking thieves, I somehow doubt that will help future sales any. It couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the game being inferior to the last game in the series and the ads for it saying PS3 and only PS3. It's like they had completely given up on PC gamers, so PC gamers gave up on them.
Part of what makes this argument hard is that the sales data for alot of PC games simply isn't available or accurate. There's very little research out there. Now you can find a billion charts about how many copies were pirated, why do companies keep spending money on this? It's almost an entirely useless metric.
Self-importance? What in my post made you think my reasons are anything but self-interest? I'm just sick of seeing tens of thousands of torrents for a game I worked months of overtime to get out the door. I don't care where they come from, or how much money the game makes, or any of the many reasons people rationalize piracy, nor do I care particularly what it would take to get them to stop. I already know of an effective way to ensure the majority of the people who play my game have paid for it- by developing on the 360 or PS3. Despite what you say, it takes a lot more risk and effort to pirate on 360 or PS3.
The point I'm trying to get across is that the developers moving away from the PC market are doing it for more reasons than simple economics.
Because one of those is entirely rational, and one of them is not. Whether or not the majority of people are paying for your game is immaterial if you make more money along side of those people pirating your game.
If you want to discuss rational self interest, then fine, go ahead and explain how you aren't going to make more money by releasing on the PC as well. If you can't then you can't.
Otherwise you're just being vindictive, which is kinda odd considering most people like the stuff that they produce to get use
Wait, are you saying that developers, despite making money by developing on the PC in tandem with consoles are shunning the PC market because they want to take their ball and go home?
Are are you, 12?
Funny how that works, the more popular games with higher demand also get pirated more
Who could have predicted it?!?!
No, he has some fucking pride in himself, and has the belief that if he works hard on making something, he should be fairly compensated. If your boss told you that he was only going to pay you seven hours wages for eight hours work, would you just suck it up? Or would you quit and try to get the money rightfully owed you?
If we're going to tell content creators that they're second class citizens, then let's just be upfront and honest about it. The major problem with this generation of pirates isn't that they're pirating, it's that they're acting like they're in the moral right.
You suck it up, like everyone else who gets payed less than they want to and doesn't want to get fired.
There is no difference between "working 8 hours for 7 hours pay" and "getting payed 12.5% less than you think you should".
You're selling a product. The product can support a certain amount of sales and will make a certain amount of money. If its economic to produce that then you will and the amount of piracy is irrelevant unless its cutting into your sales.
Massive pirating is simply to be expected when you have such a cheap distribution network. The vast majority of the people pirating were not going to purchase your product anyway, they are purchasers below your price point.
Piracy that does take away sales is just another consideration that you make the same as any other person who is selling a product[I.E. shoplifting, grift, etc]. You're not some special segment of the economy that is free from costs due to illegal activity.
Its like some store in a mall saying "I am sorry, we just can't stand these 14 year old kids shoplifting our CD's, we're shutting the whole store down and now will only sell books"
My point stands, shutting down because of economic decisions is fine. Shutting down because of some "moral outrage" or "moral dampening" from people using your product is childish.
Man what?
No, the people who are arguing that piracy is not the problem its made out to be are not in the "moral right" they are simply "factually correct". There is no morality to the question on a macro level and anyone who is saying otherwise is simply getting in the way of the discussion.
I'll let you guys go back to arguing semantics I guess. There's no reason for me to hang around and get called a douchebag in many words.
Do you get offended by all the people who don't use your product? Because those people also don't "put enough value on your work to pay for it". They don't even put enough value on your work to download it for free. They actually value your work less than the people who steal it.
Wait...what?
I would care if my piece of software gets stolen. If I invest myself in something to develop it from beginning to the end, I would like it to get respected and not treated trivially. That hurts.
Don't make assumptions in favor of your own self-interests.
I don't pirate. Its not my self interest. But Kudos for making the association anyway and painting anyone on "the other side" as a criminal.
As explained above you "get respected" in terms of sales actually better by the people that steal your product. Your product, apparently, isn't even worth my time to go and steal.
When someone "steals" your software, it causes you no tangible economic harm unless that person would have otherwise purchased it. Nothing is lost. Its highly unlikely that that person "respected" you enough to purchase your product. The amount of "respect" in the system is unchanged.
Did you feel slighted when i gave away my copy of [your software product]? I mean, the guy who got it never paid you for it. He didn't even expend any energy to go steal it, someone had to give it to him. I had to incur cost upon myself in order to let that guy have it, indicating that the value of [your software product] to me was less than the value to me of someone else having [your software product]. That value is probably pretty low.
Does that "hurt" you? Does that make you feel insulted? Do you feel that authors aren't getting enough respect when someone goes to the library and checks out a book?
Because if it doesn't then your justification for being "hurt" by piracy is bogus.
My work, from which pirates are benefiting for free, not the product. Christ, man, what is your problem? I'm simply trying to provide a more personal viewpoint on developers trending away from using the PC as their central platform.
In any case, it's not offensive. It's demoralizing. There's no point in getting one's feathers ruffled over this sort of thing, especially when I have the ability to avoid the worst of it.
What a load of BS. In your first statement you're inferring that if someone wants but can't afford something the logical next step is to steal it. I can't get something legally. I don't automatically go to illegal means to obtain it. That doesn't mean that I don't still want the product.
And your second statement is also retarded, since it's more likely than not that at some price point the person pirating the game would have bought it. Regardless, it's still theft! He doesn't need an economic reason to be upset that his work is being stolen.
You've gone completely off track yourself though. you're referring to it as theft, and comparing it to theft when its actually copyright infringement, which is completely different.
I'm not sure why people are still arguing this. It's not some ambiguous maybe it is maybe it isn't. Pirating a game is not theft in real unequivocal terms. Legally it is not theft, literally it is not theft.
The wrong-ness if it is not the issue. They want to equate copyright infringement to theft though because theft is a stronger word and it helps their arguement of 1 illegal copy = 1 lost sale. which means they're entitled to more damages.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
I'd say there's just a little difference.
When you can't get something you want, the next logical step is to steal it. Welcome to economics. For those people that the cost of stealing it is less than the cost of the product they will steal it. The cost of copyright infringement is very low and as such the incidence of copyright infringement will be high. But a lot of those people will not be buying that product anyway, because in some cases the cost of copyright infringement is higher than the cost of simply working for the money to buy the product(these are the people who buy your product) and in other cases the cost of the copyright infringement is less than the cost of working to buy it(these are the people who copy your product) and in other cases the cost of the product to copy or purchase is not worth the product at all(these are the people who do neither). The thing is, in the absence of copying the second and third areas overlap quite a bit, and the first and second areas overlap very little. I.E. Most people who can afford to purchase your product and will purchase your product its actually cheaper for them to buy your product with money than it is to go and work through the hassles of piracy. Welcome to the basics of comparative advantage.
For many many people there are a lot of hidden costs for copyright infringement. For other people there are not. Congratulations, you are one of those people who does not care enough to buy or steal that guys software product. He must hate you because you don't show him enough respect.
At this point it needs to be noted that this is not analogous to theft. Because in theft, the victim ends up with less stuff. With copyright infringement the victim does not end up with less stuff. This is a big important point because if some guy downloads your product who was never going to buy it in the first place then you are no better off or worse off than you were before the piracy. Which is to say, there was no victim because no one was done any harm. Since the definition of a victim is that harm done to them. This is why copyright infringement is a civil matter.
Your work is the same as your product. Yes, they're benefiting for free. No that is not the end of the world. Lots of people benefit from other peoples work for free. Just the other day, I went to a park and went sledding. I am in a state that is a net federal giver and i don't live in this state. I didn't pay for that park at all. Some guy went and tended that park for years and then i just came along and used it. I bet he is steaming mad.
There are many other instances. E.G. the other day i was in a store and they were handling out free samples. That cheese was really good but i didn't buy any. I bet the manager, cheese maker, and sample lady were just furious.
Oh, on that same day, i went online to a website which someone made and produced. And i didn't visit any of the ads and i didn't buy anything from it. I guess I am just an evil person. Then i gave 5 bucks to the salvation army. And frankly i am piping mad because i worked for that 5 bucks and they didn't pay me for it!
People benefit from your work without paying all the damned time its one of the things that drives economies. Getting upset about it is irrational any way you slice it. You have a product that you made. People are copying it, this may cost you some unknown amount of sales. There is a business decision to be made regarding the amount of profit you make at the end of the day against the cost of the work that you put into it. Just like a store owner has to account for grift and shoplifting[except those actually cause him direct harm].
When I purchase his game/book/movie/album/etc., I respect his skill at his craft.
When I refuse to purchase it, I respect his right to ask for compensation in exchange for his product.
When I pirate, I respect neither.
Why is this so fucking hard to understand?
So, Goum, please show me where there's a movement to legitimize grift, shoplifting, and other forms of theft. Because I can sure as fuck show you a large and widespread movement to legitimize piracy.
Because a lack of respect isn't killing the PC gaming industry, lack of money is.