Dragon Age 2 leaked

[znix]

So, it's out for consoles and pirates get first crack at it. Horrible!!

Or not?

This may not be a bad thing at all. Read what Minecraft creator Markus ?Notch? Persson had to say on piracy and why it's not theft - but rather free advertisement.

http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-theft-ridiculous-lost-sales-they-dont-exist-says-minecraft-creator-110303/

What do you think? Is the leak a blessing in disguise?

 

[darth.pixie]

It leaked already? Honestly, either the people at dev teams hate security or are plain sloppy with it. Who the hell leaks these things?

They could have waited for a couple of days for it to get out at least.

Honesly, DA2 didn't need more advertising, piracy or not. Not with all the campaigns. And while Minecraft was a cheap, infinitely replayable game that anyone could buy, the same could not be said about Dragon Age. I only played it twice before having finished all the quests, adopted all the conversation options and exploring everything and DA2 doesn't sound too different. So I'm not sure it will be good advertisment.

 

[Nova Helix]

I find Notch's argument to be complete crap. If I steal a new 3D TV but watching it convinces 4 friends to by it it is still stealing. If you pirate a game it is the same thing. To compare it to something a little better if you steal an idea and use it in your paper it is plagiarism and possibly a violation of copy right laws.

He focuses on "loss of sale" which I agree it's not, but they do not make money and you enjoy the fruit of their labor. If someone wants to sell their intellectual property either you buy it or you don't, but just taking it is wrong.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I find Notch's argument to be complete crap. If I steal a new 3D TV but watching it convinces 4 friends to by it it is still stealing. If you pirate a game it is the same thing.

Oh great, more childish arguments like this. He's written a length post discussing the economics and intrigue in the scenario and you basically 'lulz' it away with the same old tired "But if you stole a material good blah blah blah" argument. As always incorrectly trying to apply physical goods economics to a virtual good.

His argument is very simple:

Case 1: Person A Pirates game. Persons B,C,D buy game. Net gain: 3 sales
Case 2: Person A Doesn't Pirate game, and doesn't buy game. Net gain: 0 sales.

This is his point. And yes, He'd much rather person A bought the game, but he can't deny that the availability of the game via other means did end up turning better than zero profit. He's making an argument from an economic standpoint, not an ethical one.

This kind of analysis is about as reasonable as saying "Buying games when they are on sale is unethical, because you didn't pay full price!" The merchant knows they can get more total sales by having the sale. They might even give away free ones to build up hype.

Yes there is a difference of volition here, in one case the merchant is purposefully taking the per unit price hit for the overall gain, and in the other they aren't, but they do end up with similar results.

Please, if you want to discuss this, at least address the full issues at hand, and don't reply to thought out prose with the equivalent of a 'party line'.

 

[MisterShine]

It leaked already? Honestly, either the people at dev teams hate security or are plain sloppy with it. Who the hell leaks these things?

The 360 and PS3 versions arrived at some Gamestops about a week ago. I'm surprised it took this long honestly.

What do you think? Is the leak a blessing in disguise?

Yeah. I've discussed piracy enough times indepth on the Escapist a few times, I'll quote Mister Mackey:

It's bad, mmkay?

Any possible benefits don't make up for the fact that people have the right to protect their intellectual properties, and no one has the right to use them without their permission.

 

[squid5580]

Leaked already? It is less than a week before release. The leeches are slackin. Hell it has prolly already shipped to Gamestop (or reasonable facimile).

And no there is no justification for this. Minecraft is an indie game with a crappy title put out by some no name developer. He needed all the advertising he could get. DA 2 is a sequel to a best selling title, been hyped to the heavens and is on the hearts and lips of anything to do with modern gaming on the internet. You can't throw a virtual rock without hitting something DA 2 related. Just because it worked for one guy with no marketing to begin with doesn't make it right.

 

[Nova Helix]

-snip-

How about instead of just calling it childish arguments you read more than the first free lines?

If you're not going to go through the trouble of reading and responding to my whole post I'm not going to bother reading past your insult. Hell you probably won't even read this far. Correction that was the third line so you won't read this far.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it's really nothing new in the pirate debate, yes it has been shown that piracy is free advertisement, and that people who pirate music buy more music then others, but you can't argue pirating is stealing.
Just what the end net profit is noone can really tell, companies will scream they lose everything and how Bobby is on the brink of starvation, pirates will scream they lose nothing,...

 

[Zechnophobe]

-snip-

How about instead of just calling it childish arguments you read more than the first free lines?

If you're not going to go through the trouble of reading and responding to my whole post I'm not going to bother reading past your insult. Hell you probably won't even read this far. Correction that was the third line so you won't read this far.

I didn't realize some lines weren't free. I have a budget so I only read the free ones. In all seriousness, I read your full post, and only quoted part of it.

 

[Spencer Petersen]

I find Notch's argument to be complete crap. If I steal a new 3D TV but watching it convinces 4 friends to by it it is still stealing.

He said piracy was fundamentally different as you never actually took the 3D TV, you just used a machine to make an exact copy of the TV. The developer may "lose a sale" but nothing was stolen, at most you could say that it infringed on the copyright of the TV design.

As far as plagiarism goes, if you look at a dresser you want to buy but decide that instead you can build one in your garage yourself with the same design, does the furniture store have the right to repossess your dresser? Now I can understand they might be upset if you started selling the dressers you made for profit, but pirating videogames isn't about profit, its about using the product yourself.

 

[Savagezion]

I find it funny that when something gets leaked, it usually goes on to make a shit ton of money. I could go into the specifics as to why piracy isn't a bad thing but people on this site don't want to listen as they are too busy shouting that piracy is the worse than devil worship.

 

[Nova Helix]

-snip-.

Like I already said int the post you quoted; They still have a right to their intellectual property. Seriously why can't you people read past the first bit?

 

[squid5580]

I find Notch's argument to be complete crap. If I steal a new 3D TV but watching it convinces 4 friends to by it it is still stealing.

He said piracy was fundamentally different as you never actually took the 3D TV, you just used a machine to make an exact copy of the TV. The developer may "lose a sale" but nothing was stolen, at most you could say that it infringed on the copyright of the TV design.

As far as plagiarism goes, if you look at a dresser you want to buy but decide that instead you can build one in your garage yourself with the same design, does the furniture store have the right to repossess your dresser? Now I can understand they might be upset if you started selling the dressers you made for profit, but pirating videogames isn't about profit, its about using the product yourself.

The site hosting them makes money from ad space. Quite a few torrent programs/sites charge money. If every pirated copy was done individually by the person who is going to play it then you might have a point. Instead they are being put out by some jackhole who doesn't give 2 shits about the industry and given to however wants them. So it is ok for me to reproduce the dresser and sit out front of the store and give my reproduced dressers away for free to everyone who is about to walk in the door? Does that sound fair or right?

 

[Bobbity]

I find Notch's argument to be complete crap. If I steal a new 3D TV but watching it convinces 4 friends to by it it is still stealing. If you pirate a game it is the same thing.

Oh great, more childish arguments like this. He's written a length post discussing the economics and intrigue in the scenario and you basically 'lulz' it away with the same old tired "But if you stole a material good blah blah blah" argument. As always incorrectly trying to apply physical goods economics to a virtual good.

His argument is very simple:

Case 1: Person A Pirates game. Persons B,C,D buy game. Net gain: 3 sales
Case 2: Person A Doesn't Pirate game, and doesn't buy game. Net gain: 0 sales.

This is his point. And yes, He'd much rather person A bought the game, but he can't deny that the availability of the game via other means did end up turning better than zero profit. He's making an argument from an economic standpoint, not an ethical one.

This kind of analysis is about as reasonable as saying "Buying games when they are on sale is unethical, because you didn't pay full price!" The merchant knows they can get more total sales by having the sale. They might even give away free ones to build up hype.

Yes there is a difference of volition here, in one case the merchant is purposefully taking the per unit price hit for the overall gain, and in the other they aren't, but they do end up with similar results.

Please, if you want to discuss this, at least address the full issues at hand, and don't reply to thought out prose with the equivalent of a 'party line'.

The thing is though, his argument relies heavily on word of mouth. That's not such a strong factor with video games though - not as strong as it is with books, literature, and so on. It's worked for Minecraft, but very few triple A games gain large numbers of sales because of piracy, simply because of how much cheaper it is to pirate games.
Anyway, just to state my opinion, piracy is morally disgusting, but economically useful; although the pirates themselves are terrible, and the people who upload the games in the first place even worse.

 

[Savagezion]

As far as plagiarism goes, if you look at a dresser you want to buy but decide that instead you can build one in your garage yourself with the same design, does the furniture store have the right to repossess your dresser? Now I can understand they might be upset if you started selling the dressers you made for profit, but pirating videogames isn't about profit, its about using the product yourself.

That is a fun comparison. Kudos.

It leaked already? Honestly, either the people at dev teams hate security or are plain sloppy with it. Who the hell leaks these things?

Many people have offered it is the companies themselves that "leak" this stuff. Then they ruffle their feathers to put on a good show and stir controversy which drives sales.

Honesly, DA2 didn't need more advertising, piracy or not. Not with all the campaigns. And while Minecraft was a cheap, infinitely replayable game that anyone could buy, the same could not be said about Dragon Age. I only played it twice before having finished all the quests, adopted all the conversation options and exploring everything and DA2 doesn't sound too different. So I'm not sure it will be good advertisment.

I agree that DA2 is everywhere the past couple months but this could be one last "hoorah" before release week.

 

[OniaPL]

Piracy is very tempting this month... Total war: Shogun 2, Dragon Age 2, Crysis 2... Wthe month of the sequels. Too bad that I can afford only 2, so I guess I'm skipping Total War.

 

[MisterShine]

Damn, I try to get out and I let myself get sucked back in..

...yes it has been shown that piracy is free advertisement,

Been shown? Or you mean thats what some people said? Cuz' its also been said that if some of those pirates didn't have the option to get that product for free they would've paid what they owed for it.

and that people who pirate music buy more music then others,

Oh yeah, gonna' need a citation on this.

but you can't argue pirating is stealing.

Legally, no, two different baskets of fruit. In a colloquial sense, calling it stealing isn't much a stretch. You can steal an identity, you can steal a kiss, you can steal an idea. You can steal some digital code.

I find it funny that when something gets leaked, it usually goes on to make a shit ton of money.

What's your point? Products deserve whatever the market decides they're worth. If people decide the price point just isn't worth it, they can not buy it. No one gets to circumvent that bedrock of our economy unless the owners say they do.

I could go into the specifics as to why piracy isn't a bad thing but people on this site don't want to listen as they are too busy shouting that piracy is the worse than devil worship.

Yeah... devil worship... Or maybe just annoyed at the people who make things worse for the rest of us when publishers look at the insane amount of downloads they see for their games and have no idea what this is costing them, or what to do to protect their investments.

I think using hyperbole to describe people who aren't on our side doesn't do any good.

 

[Jandau]

A quick check of a few torrent sites reveals a delightful irony: the game does seem to be leaked, but only the 360 version. The only torrents claiming to be the PS3 and the PC version seem to be fake if the comments and the ratings are anything to go by...

Well since as we all know, all pirates are on the PC and console piracy doesn't exist, there's nothing to worry about, am I right? [/sarcasm]

Seriously, it sucks that the game got leaked early, but I just know someone is going to try to lay this at the feet of the PC gamers, when it's the console piracy that gets to go free time after time. Same thing happened with Assassin's Creed 2, it got leaked early on the consoles, but not on the PC. Same thing happens with quite a few major multiplatform releases, but who gets the blame for all the piracy? PC.

 

[kurokenshi]

I have to say something here!
Seriously everyone seems to be blaming piracy for leaked games lately. I agree that piracy is wrong but the game got leaked and in my mind that has nothing todo with piracy that is someone with access to the product breaking security protocol!