Lionhead: "Piracy these days on PC is probably less problematic than second-hand sales on the Xbox"

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

No, because the former isn't illegal.

It's not a question of legality: a purely legal factor can have more impact than a non-legal one in any domain...

...and not on this one. At least the second-hand copy has been legitimately bought before, and counted as a sale.

this x10000

that first sale still counted, for piracy, that number gets smaller and smaller as more people pirate

 

[MysticToast]

The thing about piracy versus used games is this: with used games, the game was bought retail at one time, so the developer got the money. With piracy the company never got the money

 

[cainx10a]

In either case, the publisher/developers won't see the money right? Ain't piracy usually, one man/woman buys the game, then make an image of it, and distribute it via torrent or otherwise? You know how the used game system work, except, someone else make some money off of it -hint- Gamestop -hint-. Sure, in the latter, it's a 1 - 1 relationship, one purchased game is re-purchased by a user game buye, but money is involved, more so than in piracy.

When I buy for the x-360, if I can, I will buy used for older games I missed, but I honestly believe that some of that money should make it in the dev pockets.

 

[NoNameMcgee]

"The pirates, whatever you do on whatever system, they will crack it. It might take no time... I think the longest it's taken to happen is two days.

Actually the record is 424 days. The StarForce protection on Splinter Cell Chaos Theory proved incredibly hard to crack and major ammounts of code had to be reverse-engineered to get it working although these days there are easier workarounds and cracker groups don't have much trouble with StarForce. Assassin's Creed 2 also took about 2 weeks because of Ubi's online system.

Don't know why I felt the need to point that out, but just sayin.

 

[Shiftysnowdog]

2) What do you think game shops use the money they make of used sales for?!
Golden toilets?
No, they use that money to buy more games to sell in their store.
More money to gameshops = more money to buy more games from Publishers = more money for publishers = more games.

You make a very childish mistake. You are assuming that the owner of gamestop, who I believe to be J. Paul Raine, did not buy the company to make money. Do you honestly think that all of the 3.5 billion dollars of profit that Gamestop made in Q4 of 2010 went to marketing games, buying new games and upgrading their stores? hell, if I made nearly 4 billion dollars in 3 months, I sure as hell would have a golden toilette seat.

Both pirating and second hand sales hurt the people who spent over a year of their lives to make something for people to enjoy. That being said, in no way does that fact stop me from pirating. The last game I bought was portal 2, that was because I HAD TO. The game before that I bought was BFBC2, because I couldn't enjoy the multi-player without buying it. The only way to stop pirating is to eliminate large sections (or all) of the game to those who did not purchase a copy. That being said, current DRM outside of steam is shit. We all already know this. I have pirated many a game in my time, and I have pirated ALL of my music. The last time I bought a CD was in 1996, but alas I digress.

The point here is that buying a second hand game from GS for 3 dollars off full retail price is both ludacris and crippling for the game companies. But pirating a game is equally crippling for the company. Notice I used the term crippling and not deadly. Why the fuck do any of you care about a multibillion dollar industry losing a few million dollars? Good games are not going to stop being made because of a few hundred thousand pirates. I refuse to listen to any argument that says otherwise. Look at all the indy game devs making thousands of dollars! Did piracy hurt Notch? Is piracy killing Microsoft? Sony? Nintendo? Bioware? Activision? Short answer? NO. Long answer? Either very slowly, or not at all. I honestly wouldn't have purchased DA1 Or DA2 (games which i never played to completion)




And to leave on a final note, if piracy and second hand sales are hurting companies than so is borrowing a game from a friend! A buddy of mine at work gave me God of War 3 to play on my ps3. A game that I beat in literally a weekend. Why the hell would I pay 60 bucks for that?

Now observe as I receive either a warning or a temp ban for promoting piracy. even though people are either going to do it or not despite what I say in this post.

 

[bombadilillo]

Well Dev's.

1. Make your game so awesome that people can't help but buy it at/before launch.
2. Get rid of the 60$ pricepoint. People aperrently are not willing to pay it, so stop bitching are change your supply to fit demand. Somebody sure as hell knows how much people are willing to pay.
3. If everything moves to downloaded games. No physical media then this problem goes away no?
4. Nobody seems to whine about renting games, but that just as bad for the dev's. And as a avid gamefly user I get screwed all the time on day on dlc BS.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

It hurts devs much more. Not everyone can pirate, but everyone can take a deal from GameStop.

Still, it's not worse seeing as they are still paying for a product.

 

[TelHybrid]

I'm just going to throw my personal opinion out there, if anyone would like to discuss it with me, you know where the quote button is, hopefully I wont receive any butthurt responses.

We've already covered to death that one's legal, and one isn't. Does legality = morality? I don't think so.

I'll give you a for instance scenario. When Halo Reach was released, Gamestation were selling the limited edition for £55. In about 4 days, they had second hand copies being sold for £50.

People were buying these used copies (for quite frankly a very small difference in price proportionately), and Bungie wouldn't see a single penny of this.

Personally, I think there should at least be a 3-5 month waiting period between a game's launch and when a shop (or auction sites like ebay) should allow used sales of said game. Let's face it, the old "what if I buy it and don't like it?" argument isn't really one of much substance these days, considering there's downloadable demos a lot of the time, and at the very least, gameplay footage.

Now, there's the question, is piracy ever acceptable?

This is the one that gets people's backs up a lot. My view? If the game is no longer available from a source that will ensure the publishers (and by proxy the developers) get something for it, then it's simply abandonware. Why should I pay some random stranger on ebay £40 for a copy of System Shock 2?
Thankfully a large number of older games are being made available through services like Steam these days, so that helps remedy the problem somewhat. (No way I'm paying £80 for a copy of Castlevania SOTN on PS1 when I can download it on live arcade for 800ms)

What if you can't get a particular game at all through legal means? is piracy acceptable then? Should peer to peer transfers of this software be encouraged to ensure that these games are always available and don't disappear from circulation?

 

[AdamRBi]

So, here we go: the debate. Is buying used worse than pirating?

Yes

For one, it's legal. If the prospect of "stealing" something is enough to deter you from downloading an illegal copy onlineI feel the real pirates are those who copy and distribute in the forst place, not the downloaders., buying second hand is morally the better option even though it pays the same to the developer.

Also there's the wider and easily accessed market for used games. It's easy to forget that there are a lot of customers out there that find themselves having to buy games that would never be able to use game cracks or even know what a torrent is. They have to buy the game.

So if we take into account that let's say half the people who download illegally are lost sales to the company, compare that to the 100% lost sales to the company through used game sales and it's clear which is worse for the developers.

 

[TelHybrid]

Well Dev's.

1. Make your game so awesome that people can't help but buy it at/before launch.
2. Get rid of the 60$ pricepoint. People aperrently are not willing to pay it, so stop bitching are change your supply to fit demand. Somebody sure as hell knows how much people are willing to pay.
3. If everything moves to downloaded games. No physical media then this problem goes away no?
4. Nobody seems to whine about renting games, but that just as bad for the dev's. And as a avid gamefly user I get screwed all the time on day on dlc BS.

1. Quality doesn't necessarily mean sales. Sometimes a bad game can be marketed very well and get great sales at launch.
2. Games are expensive to make, and costs are always increasing. I'm surprised games have kept the same prices as they had in the 90s.
3. Then piracy becomes easier, and game retailers wont want to sell your console as they would have no games to sell for it (hence large scale store protest to PSPGo *urgh what a fail that piece of shit was*), and areas of poor internet reception are then isolated and abandoned.
4. "A spokesperson from one of the UK?s biggest game retail companies, LoveFilm, has explained that its own rental distribution process in the UK begins by consulting the publisher: ?We buy wholesale from the publishers with their permission. We have a good relationship with these publishers and we negotiate rental deals as well as actively promote them.? - Source: http://gadgetspy.co.uk/consoles-and-video-gaming/is-game-rental-piracy/1528

Publishers seem OK with rentals as long as it's on their terms.

 

[infinity_turtles]

I'm going to ignore the actual question being asked because damn if I haven't made those rants before, and target a specific argument. I really hate the argument that some people are making that "Piracy is teh evils but if developers hate used game sales they should add in good multiplayer." Seriously, that's your answer? Change the focus of all AAA games to multiplayer and multiple paths? I don't just hate that argument, I hate anyone who makes that argument. I like a good singleplayer experience, and if your answer is that those shouldn't be made anymore, fuck you in the ass with a spiked, vibrating, rotating, multi-headed dildo.

 

[aashell13]

well, the faster publishers get on the digital distribution bandwagon the sooner they can kiss this problem goodbye. That said, I have no qualms with used game sales. The main difference between used sales and piracy is that if you put up a torrent, any number of people can download it, while only one person can buy your used copy. Frankly, I don't think that publishers have any right to be upset over used game sales, it's no different than used sales in any other market. And most other manufacturers simply accept used sales of their product as a good thing, without any sort of greedy gimmicks like EA's online passes, because it increases their brand's presence in the market.

[rant]

seriously EA, your various online schemes have given me no end of trouble. get the hell off it already.

[/rant]

 

[bombadilillo]

1. Quality doesn't necessarily mean sales. Sometimes a bad game can be marketed very well and get great sales at launch.
2. Games are expensive to make, and costs are always increasing. I'm surprised games have kept the same prices as they had in the 90s.
3. Then piracy becomes easier, and game retailers wont want to sell your console as they would have no games to sell for it (hence large scale store protest to PSPGo *urgh what a fail that piece of shit was*), and areas of poor internet reception are then isolated and abandoned.
4. "A spokesperson from one of the UK?s biggest game retail companies, LoveFilm, has explained that its own rental distribution process in the UK begins by consulting the publisher: ?We buy wholesale from the publishers with their permission. We have a good relationship with these publishers and we negotiate rental deals as well as actively promote them.? - Source: http://gadgetspy.co.uk/consoles-and-video-gaming/is-game-rental-piracy/1528

Publishers seem OK with rentals as long as it's on their terms.

1. Well yeah, but what does that have to do with anything? I agree, get better marketing.
2. You are right, they cant get into a low bid war with gamestop, they will lose. Someone said earlier about making games people want to keep. I don't know where gamestop is getting massive supplies of games other then poeple buying them and turning them in because they beat it/ were dissapointed. Give the game longevity and there will be less used sales.
3. I thought we weren't worried about piracy anymore? At least on console if you can buy everything on psn or xbl then do it. For launches you just preload and give the onlock code at launch. With netflix instants growing popularity people will become increasingly comfortable with this. Pc is just insanely easy to pirate things, their screwed.
4. I call BS on this. I know I have "cost" the game industry 1000$ easily by my rampent use of gamefly. How is this not just as bad or worse? They buy 1 copy and 100 people play it then they sell their unneeded games for profit? Hell I can buy a new game of gamefly for 5-10$ less the day after launch so its at least as bad.

Edit. On 4 you are not wrong. I'm jsut saying I don't understand why they are not raging against the renting system like they do with second hand.

 

[t_rexaur]

I think yes, used sales do hurt more than piracy.

If a person pirates there's a very high chance that they weren't going to buy the game. This is illegal of course but it also doesn't actually impact the sales of the game. No sale, no loss.

If a person buys a second hand game though, then they've shown that they want to purchase that game, but rather than buy it new they want the cheaper version. THIS IS ACTUALLY A LOST SALE FOR THE DEVELOPERS/PUBLISHERS.

So morally Buying used is better than piracy.
Financially Piracy is better than buying used.

 

[veloper]

Unless they are a mega-developer like Bioware, developers can expect to be owed a paltry amount for each game sold.

Bioware is a part of EA. They cannot get royalties. All profit goes to the big EA.

The Bioware devs just get to keep their jobs and work on the next game, if the previous game makes enough money and that's the outlook for any developer.

 

[Andrew_C]

I would like the people who think it is somehow morally wrong to buy second hand game to explain their reasoning, because I for one cannot see any logic to it. Is it morally wrong to buy a second hand car? To buy second hand clothes? To buy second hand books and DVDs?

1) Pirates don't show the intent to make a sale on something they want to download, people buying used not only show the intent buy they are also handing over the money, just to the wrong people.

2) There have been several studies showing that people who pirate a certain medium are also likely to actually spend more money on that overall because they are enthusiasts (other than the people in 3rd world countries that can't afford them either way), there's also still the strong possibility that they download something to try it and buy it if they like it, like what demos used to be for.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101210/13123412237/warner-bros-finally-realizes-that-pirates-are-underserved-customers.shtml

3) The industries you are referring to are different in many ways, lets take the ones that are offering physical goods first because they're easier, you buy physical objects that you are usually either going to use for a long while (you don't buy a TV or a car for a week or less and then sell it on because you are "done" with it) or consume (in which case you can't sell it on), they are also subject to wear and tear as physical objects, are worth less after certain time periods, perform worse and are a lot more prone to break + they are not under warranty any longer. And there's also the hygiene part to consider when buying things like appliances or clothes used, a lot of people just won't.
For the other part there largely aren't any huge parasitic industries built around the business-model of feeding off the actual industry as there is for games now (see below) and they also have various different ways to commercialize their products in stages (e.g. theater release, DVD/Blu-Ray, TV PayTV, TV FreeTV etc. etc.)

2) What do you think game shops use the money they make of used sales for?!
Golden toilets?
No, they use that money to buy more games to sell in their store.
More money to gameshops = more money to buy more games from Publishers = more money for publishers = more games.

4) Big retail chains will not "put their money into getting more games", but expanding both their market base and availability by opening new retail chains and spending obscene amounts of money to convince people to buy "used" (e.g. their product instead of the publishers) with point systems, rewards, deals and direct verbal manipulation "are you sure...". The more their market expands the less shares the actual creative industry will likely see, GameStop is up to somewhere between 40-50% of used sales vs. new sales ratio, that means that money from about every 2nd game sold by them goes into their own pockets and never finds its way back to the responsible party. Not only that, but by showing that it is viable businees model they have conviced other retail and online chains to do the same (as mentioned in the main article). There never was much of a problem with "used sales" while it was a thing mainly for eBay or between friends because those were minor and not measurable, but since then it has grown into a problem they cannot ignore with up to 50% of their profits being lost, tendency up and more and more retail and online chains taking part in that kind of business. They will likely adress it with the next generation of consoles (most likely with unique keys, locking them to an account/hardware or similar), but till then they will have to make due and do what they can.

In regards to the people saying that everything legal is "alright" and everything illegal is "nono" you must have some deeply f-...(law)ed up moral system.

Summed up:
Piracy: Doesn't take away money or a copy from anyone as it cannot be counted as a lost sale, is illegal.
Used Sales: Directly takes the money paid away from the people responsible for the game, not only that but the money feeds a parasitic industry feeding off of them and helps it grow and expand even faster instead, is legal.

If you only care about the "legal" side of it I guess the answer is easy, if you consider the "moral" side (in that you like a great game and want to reward whoever made it or want them to make more instead of just "consuming") you are not only not helping but damaging them by buying used.

thanks for the in depth answer.
Re points 1 and 2:
Surely the point about pirates being willing to spend money on the industry also apply to buyers of 2nd hand games? I don't think they exclusively buy second hand games, any more than pirates exclusively pirate to check out a game they are thinking of buying

3) Agreed those industries are very different and not a good comparison, but the book publishing is the most similar (low margins and all about distributing of intellectual property) and 2nd hand book stores haven't destroyed the book industry, although they don't act like Gamestop. Which brings me to

4) From what you and others say, it seems the real problem is not actually people buying and selling 2nd hand games, but rather the questionable behaviour of chains like Gamestop.