Gamers are Killing the Games Industry

[AndyFromMonday]

Sometimes I read things like 'I couldn't afford the games' or 'it was too expensive' or 'it's not fair', to which I want to scream at my screen in reply "If you can't afford the game then don't buy them, it's no excuse for piracy.". 'B-b-but don't I deserve to have fun too?' the cringing pirate masses demand, to which I reply (If I could somehow project my shrill, screaming voice through my monitor and broadcast it to every pirate out there who holds up this excuse!) "Sure you do, so go outside, have fun. Even better, go to a library, it's free, and if you're so petty that you honestly think the only means of entertainment out there are videogames, and you're so desperate for that entertainment you're willing to break the law, then reading something could only to good for you."

Reading does not provide the same entertainment value has a game and you can only be outside doing jack shit for so long. TV provides absolutely no entertainment and you can't honestly listen to music all day for entertainment.

Everyone should have access to the comodity that is gaming and if developers can't be bothered to care about lowering prices then give me a good reason why I should care about not pirating?

But hey, I guess in your view it's A-OK to deprive people of something certain countries have access to easily.

 

[IankBailey]

The problem is, like the music and movie industry, gaming has gotten expensive while it's target audience has largely not increasingly gained the funds to support the industry.

Back in the day, when kids got an allowance for doing chores (and the pressure to "get a job" when you were 14/15 wasn't as present), a kid could buy a brand new game every week or two.

Now? Kids (who don't otherwise have a job) might still get 20 bucks a week for allowance, but games cost $50 or so (I assume that is the average) and there are a LOT more ways they could spend the money--iTunes, gas for their cars, weed...I dunno, just guessing. >>;;

Plus, and this is VERY present here on the forums when the topics arise, people aren't WILLING to buy games anymore. They don't want to spend money on MMOs, nor do they want to hand over 60 bucks for a crappy game, so they wait to get ROMs or illegal downloads, or they rent--Netflix will stick a huge dagger in the industry, I presume.

Just my 2c, tho.

While that's very true, it isn't justifiable. I can't afford a flashy car at the moment. I have other things to spend my money on that I need and those cars cost a lot of money to buy. A flashy car, like computer games, is a luxury not a basic right. If you can't afford one then you don't have one (or rather, you shouldn't have one).

But then after you buy a cheaper car you find out that this car only starts 4 times before it explodes. Meanwhile I'm sitting here in my Firrari Enzo that I got for free. It's human nature to want something you can't have. When someone offers it to you for free with little to no penalty most people with take it while they can.

 

[JEBWrench]

But then after you buy a cheaper car you find out that this car only starts 4 times before it explodes. Meanwhile I'm sitting here in my Firrari Enzo that I got for free. It's human nature to want something you can't have. When someone offers it to you for free with little to no penalty most people with take it while they can.

You'll find a lot of cheaper cars are like that.

Everyone should have access to the comodity that is gaming and if developers can't be bothered to care about lowering prices then give me a good reason why I should care about not pirating?

I can't tell if you're actually serious about that.
There's absolutely no reason why someone who can't afford to game should be able to do so. Entertainment is optional. Not necessary.

 

[Altorin]

However, blaming DRMs for your piracy is silly. Piracy existed before the DRMs and I don't see people pirating games any less just because the invasive DRMs are being removed.

There has always been DRM. It wasn't in every game, and back in the very beginning it was based on a real thing the player had if they bought the game, like a book or a card with a chart of letters/numbers.. but it was still DRM.

And there were pirates, but it wasn't as big of an issue as it is now. There was no internet, all piracy was literally peer to peer.

Even back then, the DRM was an annoyance to the legitimate user (having to either have the book on hand to provide the required password - "The third word on the fifth paragraph on the tenth page"). It may have equally annoyed the pirate, but it was still a drastic measure to prevent something that wasn't really an issue.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

I can't tell if you're actually serious about that.
There's absolutely no reason why someone who can't afford to game should be able to do so. Entertainment is optional. Not necessary.

I'm not talking about affording, I'm talking about overpricing. If companies choose to overprice games then I will have no problem with pirating it.

(I had a rant about this on my first post on this page. Read it)

 

[NickCooley]

Ugh. What bugs me most about piracy is all the crap people use to justify it. You're not some moral preacher stealing from the rich and sticking it to the man. You're just a dick. I've also heard the "omg ebil corparashuns r sukin moniez frm uz wiv DRM!1!11!" argument before. To which I can only reply with you're a dick. Get rid of the tin foil hat and do something with your life.

Yeah. I have no sympathy at all with pirates. Sure just getting a crack to work around the DRM of a game you bought isn't as bad as full on pirating the game. But you're still part of the problem. You want to stop DRM? Find all your friends or people you know pirate games and repeatedly kick them in the head until they stop. No pirates, no DRM. Simple as that.

Of course this will probably be buried under some pseudo-moralistic bullshit as does every thread concerning DRM or piracy. But it's good to vent I suppose.

 

[AlanShore]

Do you want that in gaming? Gaming is hung primarily on a backbone of big-budget blockbusters. We want Halo, we want Mass Effect, MW2, and full 3D everywhere. Do you think that a bedroom programming company can do that? Imagine if all of gaming was Peggle and Steam games (not the big-name ones, the "independent" games); would that sate our thirst for games?

To be honest, yes, that's exactly what I want.

Personally, I would prefer it if graphics etc took a jump backwards to keep budgets down and team sizes small. At least then developers might actually try something new rather than what we have now; a tonne of expensive, but bland and derivative, games.

 

[JEBWrench]

I can't tell if you're actually serious about that.
There's absolutely no reason why someone who can't afford to game should be able to do so. Entertainment is optional. Not necessary.

I'm not talking about affording, I'm talking about overpricing. If companies choose to overprice games then I will have no problem with pirating it.

(I had a rant about this on my first post on this page. Read it)

Actually, I didn't notice your prior rant, sorry.

But, whose opinion should be used on what "overpriced" is.
Game companies have no trouble selling boat-loads of games, and, believe it or not, they do have professional bean-counters who help set the price.

Look at MW2. Despite the huge piracy numbers (though the rate is only roughly 20%), and the expensive tag, it sold somewhere close to bleentillion copies.

If the price was lower? I bet the numbers for sales and piracy would still be pretty close. But the profit would likely drop.

Edit: Crunched some numbers. Sims 3? No DRM? More than 50% piracy rate.

I hate this. The more I crunch, the more it looks like DRM actually works. Fucking statistics.

 

[Altorin]

I can't tell if you're actually serious about that.
There's absolutely no reason why someone who can't afford to game should be able to do so. Entertainment is optional. Not necessary.

I'm not talking about affording, I'm talking about overpricing. If companies choose to overprice games then I will have no problem with pirating it.

(I had a rant about this on my first post on this page. Read it)

Actually, I didn't notice your prior rant, sorry.

But, whose opinion should be used on what "overpriced" is.
Game companies have no trouble selling boat-loads of games, and, believe it or not, they do have professional bean-counters who help set the price.

Look at MW2. Despite the huge piracy numbers (though the rate is only roughly 20%), and the expensive tag, it sold somewhere close to bleentillion copies.

If the price was lower? I bet the numbers for sales and piracy would still be pretty close. But the profit would likely drop.

Edit: Crunched some numbers. Sims 3? No DRM? More than 50% piracy rate.

I hate this. The more I crunch, the more it looks like DRM actually works. Fucking statistics.

those statistics are still phantom numbers though.

50% piracy doesn't equal 50% games sold.

If DRM actually STOPPED pirates, we'd see 0% piracy, and then the numbers would hold weight. Until then, they're hypothetical at best.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Look at MW2. Despite the huge piracy numbers (though the rate is only roughly 20%), and the expensive tag, it sold somewhere close to bleentillion copies.

The profits would've been a tad smaller giving that most people bought the game for their console and a console game is usually 60 bucks.

The problem with Modern Warfare 2 on the PC is the broken multiplayer and the 4 hour long campaign. These 2 DO NOT justify a 60 bucks price tag for the PC version and that is why it's overpriced.

In certain countries, like I explained in my rant, prices tags for games are ridiculous which in turn justifies the high amounts of gamers that choose to pirate rather than buy.

Crunched some numbers. Sims 3? No DRM? More than 50% piracy rate.

Again, there's a simple solution for piracy that I outlined in my rant but it needs to be done by everyone and not just one company.

Also, Spore. Contained DRM and yet it was the most pirated game of 2008. That doesn't show that DRM works at all.

 

[JEBWrench]

those statistics are still phantom numbers though.

50% piracy doesn't equal 50% games sold.

If DRM actually STOPPED pirates, we'd see 0% piracy, and then the numbers would hold weight. Until then, they're hypothetical at best.

No, it translates, as best as I can figure from what limited numbers there are, to about 5% more games sold.

 

[kingmob]

Good indie games get pirated a lot because there's no DRM in them!

And do you honestly believe that DRM would've made any difference apart from just plain punishing the customer? I mean hell, DRM has been totally successful in stopping pirates and it has NEVER been cracked...

Also, advertisement. This game lacked it.

Maybe I'm missing some form of sarcasm, but this wasn't what I posted at all? Quite the opposite actually.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Good indie games get pirated a lot because there's no DRM in them!

And do you honestly believe that DRM would've made any difference apart from just plain punishing the customer? I mean hell, DRM has been totally successful in stopping pirates and it has NEVER been cracked...

Also, advertisement. This game lacked it.

Maybe I'm missing some form of sarcasm, but this wasn't what I posted at all? Quite the opposite actually.

My God, I completely misread your entire post. I'm an idiot, I apologize.

 

[qubit]

While I know that this thread is supposed to be about piracy killing the games industry, I thought I'd chime in that gamer TASTE is also killing the game industry.

You see, there's a way around this.

Gaming is, at its core, an industry. Its goal at the end of the day is to make money.

If we, as gamers, purchase more high-quality games and ignore bad games (even for bile fascination and the like, we can pirate those if we must see what all the fuss is about), the corporate (as opposed to artistic/programming) arm of big developers will realize that quality games make money, and bad-quality games lose money.

If we can make them see that good games = money, they will make more good games with the expectation that people will buy them and the devs, in turn, will make even more money.

It's win-win, for both developers who want money and gamers who want good games.

 

[Altorin]

those statistics are still phantom numbers though.

50% piracy doesn't equal 50% games sold.

If DRM actually STOPPED pirates, we'd see 0% piracy, and then the numbers would hold weight. Until then, they're hypothetical at best.

No, it translates, as best as I can figure from what limited numbers there are, to about 5% more games sold.

what number translates to 5% more games sold? 20% for MW2 (which seems really low)? or 50% for Sims 3? and where do you get these figures from, particularly that 5% number. Surveys perhaps? "Would you buy games if you didn't pirate them?" questions like that? If so, you should know surveys are very bad at showing real numbers unless they're mandatory. If a survey is elective, then the numbers will always skew drastically in one way or another.

The problem is, people look at numbers as if they were nuggets of fact, but the truth is, that they're just twisted little coiled bundles of bullshit.

*snip*

I'm an idealist, but that is poppycock. One person's "bad game" is another person's "favorite game ever".

 

[JEBWrench]

Again, there's a simple solution for piracy that I outlined in my rant but it needs to be done by everyone and not just one company.

Also, Spore. Contained DRM and yet it was the most pirated game of 2008. That doesn't show that DRM works at all.

And the piracy rate was only about 30%.
Rates are better indicators than sheer numbers.

As for the solution, I'm not sure what in your rant was a solution; were you referring to publishing hard data? If so, I'm all for that. The trouble is, it's all subjective. The only study I've found puts to about 1 to 1,000. (And my math was wrong in a prior post. 50% piracy rate translates to about 0.05% more sales, not 5%.)

 

[kingmob]

Edit: Crunched some numbers. Sims 3? No DRM? More than 50% piracy rate.

I hate this. The more I crunch, the more it looks like DRM actually works. Fucking statistics.

There is no way one can accurately measure piracy, all these numbers have a huge margin for error. Discussing them as if fact is near useless, especially regarding the usual sources for the numbers.
Trying to imply correlation between increased piracy and the lack of DRM would take more than just a few selective numbers out of thin air. There are so many other variables of influence it is crazy, especially with the lack of accuracy of all numbers except sales.

Common sense dictates that DRM can not work. It does not block the downloader in ANY way and there does not exist any that has not been cracked. How exactly do you propose DRM would ever work to battle piracy and increase sales? The concept is severely flawed.

 

[JEBWrench]

what number translates to 5% more games sold? 20% for MW2 (which seems really low)? or 50% for Sims 3? and where do you get these figures from, particularly that 5% number. Surveys perhaps? "Would you buy games if you didn't pirate them?" questions like that? If so, you should know surveys are very bad at showing real numbers unless they're mandatory. If a survey is elective, then the numbers will always skew drastically in one way or another.

The problem is, people look at numbers as if they were nuggets of fact, but the truth is, that they're just twisted little coiled bundles of bullshit.

But the crazy thing is? Statistically speaking from the indie market? It takes the removal of about 1,000 pirated downloads to equate to one single sale.

The most effective technique to the smaller devs appears to be just dealing with exploits and keygens as they come along - amounts to about a 70% increase in sales with a slight drop in piracy.

Source, and unfortunately very single-game specific, but as I said before, it's really freakin' hard to find hard data on this stuff: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350

The best I could come up with - the industry really needs to release some hard data.

And in my past post, I messed up my numbers. It's about 1 to 1000, which is about 0.01% change for each percent pirated.

 

[JEBWrench]

There is no way one can accurately measure piracy, all these numbers have a huge margin for error. Discussing them as if fact is near useless, especially regarding the usual sources for the numbers.
Trying to imply correlation between increased piracy and the lack of DRM would take more than just a few selective numbers out of thin air. There are so many other variables of influence it is crazy especially with the lack of accuracy of all numbers except sales.

Common sense dictates that DRM can not work. It does not block the downloader in ANY way and there does not exist any that has not been cracked. How exactly do you propose DRM would ever work to battle piracy and increase sales? The concept is severely flawed.

My source is based off torrent dowloads alone, which I don't post openly on account of not wanting to advocate piracy in any way, even indirectly.

As for DRM working/not working, I think there's some sort of graph not unlike the uncanny valley one - something involving invasiveness of said DRM.

 

[Altorin]

Again, there's a simple solution for piracy that I outlined in my rant but it needs to be done by everyone and not just one company.

Also, Spore. Contained DRM and yet it was the most pirated game of 2008. That doesn't show that DRM works at all.

And the piracy rate was only about 30%.
Rates are better indicators than sheer numbers.

As for the solution, I'm not sure what in your rant was a solution; were you referring to publishing hard data? If so, I'm all for that. The trouble is, it's all subjective. The only study I've found puts to about 1 to 1,000. (And my math was wrong in a prior post. 50% piracy rate translates to about 0.05% more sales, not 5%.)

that's a HUGE difference, such a huge difference that it hardly is worth arguing about. If that's the case, Bobby Kotick spends more on toilet paper then he'd get from all the "extra sales lost to piracy".

edit: just so we're clear, I'm not trying to be glib. I don't generally support piracy either.. I just don't trust numbers that just float around in the ether.