Piracy, Ubisoft and "the loss"

[Jack Rascal]

Wait now, renting or borrowing it still means you get to play it without buying it, so that doesn't help your argument.

When I rent a game I get a copy of a game that has been given the rights for rental (rental companies pay for that). I have the game for a limited amount of time before I have to give it back. If I like the game, I will purchase it. If I borrow a game from my friend, I assume he wants it back. So again, I have the game for a limited amount of time. If I like the game, I purchase it. If I pirate the game, I have the copy. Why buy when I already have it?

It delays pirates, not stops them. Everything gets cracked. While in the meantime the paying customer has to deal with DRM and game validation systems, jump through hoops in order to enjoy the product they bought - while the pirates laugh on, and play their "No validation, no CD, no DRM" cracked games. And it makes me, a paying customer, feel upset because I'm being treated that way, because I have to jump through hoops, and they don't.

So game companies should just stop fighting piracy? Raise their hands and say they give up? This must be a PC gaming issue as I have not experienced any "hoop jumping"

 

[Vegosiux]

So game companies should just stop fighting piracy? Raise their hands and say they give up? This must be a PC gaming issue as I have not experienced any "hoop jumping"

I already said what I think they should do - start offering a product that is better and less inconvenient than a pirated one would have been. More carrot, less stick, as someone else mentioned.

And for Pete's sake, let us play our games offline!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Piracy is ubiquitous because the moral justification against stealing is gone.

There is no suitable policing method against it, just heavy handed banning.

And it's not helped by the executives that relied on the moral compass to prevent it happening, and then abusing the moral compass for people to reap more benefits from double dipping.


Most people would like an original. This is prevented by:

A) Price
B) Ease
C) Availability

Piracy beats normal retail sales in all three of these areas. (although it stumbles at B sometimes)

Why do we want these things? Because we've been told we MUST have them, and we don't have to worry about A/B or C.

So, naturally, people will go with piracy...That would be the only sensible thing to do in this situation.

BUT WAIT

Most people here have most of their collections as legit. I'm sure everyone has pirated something in their life, even if it's only a copy of a TV programme on VHS or a tape of something off the radio. Still Piracy. But still not ubiquitous.

Now, if we're (as a group) mostly getting legit copies, then either there are millions out there who are pirates...or people aren't telling the truth.

That's not to point out that a lot of authors regard piracy as a gateway drug to legitimacy.

Where Piracy comes from, imho, is a moral dislike of a company. Notch/Toady etc. just said "Here's something awesome, pay when you want" - And people did.

Certain other companies said "THIS IS THE GAME YOU NEED, PAY US NOW AND LOTS" - and people pirated the hell out of it.


Piracy will always happen. Especially if it's followed up by a toothless police dog. But I think Piracy is increasing in response to demand being greater than availability.

If you NEED MW3 as soon as it's released, and you've no money, Piracy - for you - is legitimatized.

If you enjoy Minecraft and want to share it, Piracy - for you - is illegitimate.


Moral Guardians - Far more powerful than Legal Guardians. Especially when the legal guardians are bullies.

(Before World of Goo is used as a counter, that was a badly handled release - that comes under B)

 

[AngryPants]

Pirating was never as popular as it is in the past few years thanks to piracy-advertising in mass-media all over the world: television, Internet, newspapers are all discussing how bad it is to get things for free and telling where to get them (referring to pirate resources in question).

Piracy was always there, it was just never a part of main-stream culture as it is today. Previously it was an underground movement and an occupation of underdogs, now it's easily accessible and well advertised. The more they talk about it, complain about it or blame it, the worse it'll be.

Something to think about...

 

[Arcanist]

By your logic OP: if I stole more food, clothes and house hold items I'd find more stuff I'd like, and then buy more - resulting in more money to people I'm stealing from?
This is the logic you're applying here?

That's a strawman argument because you can't compare the theft of real-world materials to digital piracy for one reason - theft eliminates a good that can no longer be used by anybody else, while digital piracy makes a copy, leaving the original for others to use.

In economics, we refer to these things as 'public goods' - things people can use without being consumed, thus leaving it for others to use. You might be familiar with a few - roads, schools, police and fire departments, ect. If a foreigner comes to America and uses a road, are they 'stealing' the road from other people? Are they cheating the government if the police assist them as they're getting mugged?

Piracy hurts people.
Notice how only AAA games get shelf space at stores, now-a-days? Notice how "Twilight" movies and remakes are the only thing making consistant money these days? This is piracy: if people don't know the brand, they pirate it.
This is why we see remakes, rehashes, retreads and "safe" projects year after year. No original Sci-Fi movies? No original concept large scale video games? This is why.

Rose-colored glasses, I'm afraid. Safe, bland products have always been the main output of the entertainment industry.

And to say that indie games never make money or become big is a spit in the face to every indie developer out there. Want to know why they aren't on the shelves? Even if they feel like taking risks, it costs quite a bit of money to develop, print, distribute, and market a game - so publishers can only do it for a small number of games at any given time. So small, unproven developers will always have trouble getting their products noticed and sold in the same manner as larger developers.

This is the positive effect piracy can have on small developers. Getting your game out there and known is the best way to succeed in a field as competitive as the entertainment industry, and piracy, as we all know, is free.

Some of pirates then buy it, yes, but most don't.

I'd beg to disagree.

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/WhatTheBagelManSaw.pdf

Take a look at this. People had an easy way to steal bagels. No repercussions. But their honesty - or their self interest, as they wanted bagels to continue being made - overrode their selfishness. I suspect something similar might be at play with digital piracy, that people recognize that developers and publishers need money to keep functioning, so they still buy the product despite the fact they could steal it with no harm to themselves.

 

[Jack Rascal]

Every pirated copy is a lost sale. If you did not want the product in the first place, you would have not pirated it.

Bullshit. I'm not a pirate (unless it's something I can no longer find legally), but the idea that a pirate would have actually paid for every pirated bit of booty he has in his treasure chest is just flat out wrong. Often pirates just pirate things because the barrier of entry is free, so why not try something new?

What?

Buying Showtime to see some show called Dexter that you've heard good things about costs money, pirating it to see what all the fuss is about does not. If a pirate torrents Dexter that does not imply that if they had not they would have opted to buy Showtime to see it.

It isn't a lost sale, it's a lost potential sale. It's still wrong, morally, but it isn't theft.

That is not even remotely the same thing. When have you been asked to buy all Bethesda games when you bought Skyrim? Comparing TV-shows and games isn't getting us anywhere.

 

[Jack Rascal]

Heres an idea, what if some dude wants to play the game and pirates, but wouldnt have had any money to buy a copy anyway.

Yeah, I know. Mind = blown.

I must admit, my mind is utterly blown!! Poor fellow does not have money to buy a game. A game that is not a necessity like food and clothing or a roof over your head. Poor poor thing...

But in all seriousness, not having the money to pay for it is not a justification to steal it

I think its safe to go ahead and call troll now.

I am aware of the forum rules but many people have stated multiple times that this is not about justifying piracy, its about disproving that one pirated copy = one lost sale. Whether or not pirates are assholes is not the damn topic and completely irrelevant.

Are you calling me a troll? I find that quite offending.

I have quite a few times explained how "pirated = lost sale", please read my posts.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Before I start, I fully agree piracy is bad, but we need to drop the 'piracy is theft' thing, as it ALWAYS brings up the same tired arguments. How about 'piracy is legally and morally wrong', I think we can all agree on that.

What I'd really like to see, is a study into regular pirates, and what they actually own.

I genuinely believe a majority own, and buy, a lot of content, and still pirate stuff.

There's another group, like me, who were terrible, obsessive pirates during their school years, when buying a game was out of the question, and you maybe got 2 new games a year, one at xmas and one for birthdays. (Hear me out before you cry "cant afford doesn't mean you get to steal" because I agree with you.

However, me and many like me, grew up, got a home, got a job, became a regular member of society, and started buying the things we like, because most of us much prefer to OWN things (putting aside the complex arguments about owning anything digital with all the EULA agreements etc).

I'd suggest, and Stephen Fry agrees with me, so I must be right, that the majority of people who download things ARE your customers, and they DO buy things, and if you broke down their door at 3 in the morning, you'd probly find shelves full of bought and paid for games, dvd, and music, OR you'd lock away a teenager and potential future lifetime customer over a couple of hundred bucks of copied stuff.

It'd also strengthen the argument if the companies weren't such dicks about it, claiming that people loaning games to friends, letting them hop onto a personal account, or buying second hand is as bad as piracy just makes it transparent that you're not about right and wrong, you've just heard that there might be some money out there that's not in your pocket yet.

 

[Pandabearparade]

What?

Not to be rude, but the point was pretty clear and concise. Someone who pirates something wouldn't necessarily have purchased it. Pirating offers next to no barrier of entry, purchasing something costs money. Someone is going to be far, far more liberal in what they pirate than what they purchase. This isn't difficult to grasp.

That is not even remotely the same thing. When have you been asked to buy all Bethesda games when you bought Skyrim? Comparing TV-shows and games isn't getting us anywhere.

The analogy still holds. If you're going to be that nitpicky just substitute Showtime with 'The DVD box set of Dexter'. The point is that a pirate can see an untried product that they would not be willing to pay to test and pirate it. That doesn't mean they would have paid for the product, therefore it isn't a lost sale.

 

[Vinicius Zoio]

Every pirated copy is a lost sale. If you did not want the product in the first place, you would have not pirated it. For example I could not care less about CoD, I have no intention whatsoever in buying it, so why would I pirate a copy? I do not want to play the game. This is why piracy is hurting the industry, people pirate games they wish to play. That's my argument, not directed at you

I know this is a lost battle to explain why piracy is wrong... People have strong believes. Nothing I or anyone else here says can convince them otherwise.

Well, I was going to stay clear from this buuuuut... I guess I should try and tackle this one...

With all due respect, things just aren't this simple. Or so black and white for that matter.

I'll try to post my thoughts on how I think the bolded phrase above and below is not true in a respectful and concise manner.

Every pirated copy is a lost sale.

You see, for that to be true, that would mean that, if a person was unable to get a pirated copy, each one of those illegal downloads would turn into a sale. However, even though a certain number of those illegal donwloads would turn into a sale, we can safely bet that not all those pirates would decide to buy the game if it wasn't available for free.

The big question is if that number of real "lost sales" is significant enough to pay off investing money in ways to prevent piracy. Most big publishers think "Yes it is", and then proceed to explore all kinds of avenues available for combating piracy. However, if the answer is "no" and that number of real "lost sales" is insignificant, then all these big companies are pouring down money on the wrong end...

That's the simple answer, I'll try to be more detailed below.

---

The big problem of saying "every pirated copy is a lost sale" is that it is an absolute, and more often then not, absolutes may lead to falsehoods. For the above phrase to be true, every-single-pirate would buy the game had it not been pirated - and with the numbers in the millions, it's very unlileky that -all- those people would follow the exact same course of action had they've been unable to download it illegaly.

Of course, the number of people who would buy the game could be greater (or even much greater) than those who would still not buy the product, and if so, the argument behind this phrase would remain plausible (piracy hurt sales).

However, since that number is unkwown, that phrase is incorrect and cannot be used to defend that argument.

As I understand you, you seem to think that phrase is true because one would only pirate something he wishes to play, but, while this phrase is evidently true, that does not mean that person would buy the game had he not pirated it.

Think for instance of the people in that number who pirated the game but couldn't buy the game. This may seem absurd to americans but believe me, there are some places in the world where such games simply cannot be afforded to be bought by the average citizen. Evidently, that does not make "piracy right" - specially with so many good games out there available for free and the rising number of options for buying games at decent prices - but that still means that some of those people who pirated the game will not buy it later, simply because they can't.

That alone would mean that not every pirated copy = a sale. There are lot of other factors to take into account that would invalidate that thought, but let me try to explain things with a silly example.

---

Suppose that, every day after your work, you walk back home and pass through a gallery of sweet vendors. In this gallery, there are approximately ten stalls selling different kind of sweets, each at 10$, even though the candies available are very different from each other. 10$ just happens to be your change every day - so you get used to buy some a candy on your way back home every day.

Now, what would happen if everyone of those candies were free? Well, if you like candies, you're probably going to eat a lot more than the original "10$-candy a day" that you otherwise would spend. You may try different sweets, somedays you'll eat less, somedays you'll eat more.

But if all the sweets returned to the 10$ price, you would return to your routine of spending your money in the stalls you like best. Perhaps you used to eat candy at the red stall when they were free, but now that the candys aren't free anymore, you'd rather spent your money in the blue stall with the candy you like best.

---

In many ways, piracy follows the dynamics in the silly example above .

A person that is used to pirate games will pirate every kind of game, certainly more than he is able to play or buy. If suddenly, piracy was stopped, that person would then spend his money on the titles he would think more deserving - and not in all the titles he would have pirated.

That means "pirated copies does not directly equals lost sales". Without some kind of "magical farseer", it's very difficult to know what number of those pirated copies represent truly lost sales. To makes things even more complicated, there is also the possibility that piracy can lead to better popularity and generate actual sales.

Using the example above, perhaps you never went to the yellow stall before candies were free because you thought their sweets wouldn't be so good. But then, after sampling their food in the "free period", you've grown to like them. Maybe you told your friend about the yellow stall. And then, when the candies went back to their usual price tag, perhaps you became an avid buyer of the yellow stall...

---

So, no, we can't state that "piracy hurts sales" as if we had actual evidence of that. We don't. The ammount of study and "guessing the possibilites" to make an accurate and scientific research on the impact of piracy in the sales of games would be astonishingly expensive, and frankly, I think we fear the possible answers.

In most cases, piracy is wrong for ethical reasons - in the game industry, an entertainment industry, piracy simply isn't ethically justifiable. But we cannot state that piracy reduces sales in the digital enviroment without concrete evidence. It would be easier if one could concretly prove that - but as of now, it isn't. And that's why so many people refuse to see their actions as inherently wrong.

 

[Jack Rascal]

Not to be rude, but the point was pretty clear and concise. Someone who pirates something wouldn't necessarily have purchased it. Pirating offers next to no barrier of entry, purchasing something costs money. Someone is going to be far, far more liberal in what they pirate than what they purchase. This isn't difficult to grasp.

The "what" came from your "bullshit". You are saying that pirate would not have necessarily purchased a copy, which is my point. Pirated copy is a lost sale. If you do not want the game to start off with, you do not pirate, you are not a sale. If you do want the copy, you are a sale. If you pirate a copy, you want the game and are counted for a sale.

The analogy still holds. If you're going to be that nitpicky just substitute Showtime with 'The DVD box set of Dexter'. The point is that a pirate can see an untried product that they would not be willing to pay to test and pirate it. That doesn't mean they would have paid for the product, therefore it isn't a lost sale.

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

 

[Rude as HECK]

You are saying that pirate would not have necessarily purchased a copy, which is my point. Pirated copy is a lost sale.

Isn't that the polar opposite of what you were saying?

Anyway, I am going to need empirical evidence supporting the lost sale concept before accepting it.

Oh, btw, it's worth noting the lost sale doctrine has been rejected in courts in various jurisdictions, notably the US, most recently Spain, for what it's worth.

 

[Pandabearparade]

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

I'm tempted to call 'troll' too. I've made it pretty clear I'm not defending piracy, I'm demonstrating that not every pirated product equates to a lost sale. Which I've done.

"Interest" doesn't equal a sale. Pirating something doesn't necessarily mean one would have bought it without the piracy option. Your assertion fails, sir.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Hey, yeah! There's a 95% chance we're pirates. Cool! Finally an excuse to carry that cutlass around when it's not Halloween.

You know, Bethesda's got it... And Mojang too. Release great games at fair prices with wide mod support for the PC, and your name will last forever...

Couldn't have said it better myself, unless I included VALVe in the mix. Seriously, they're rolling in dough.

But they, rather cleverly, went "hey lets not bother with openly combating piracy, and just make some great games and stick them and a bunch of others into a brilliant distribution platform!"

Actually, it's more than that; Steam has one of the more intrusive DRM platforms on the market built in (it's called Steamworks.) It's just that they're so good with customer service, Steam itself brings so many fringe benefits, and the games are so cheap, that most people don't care.

OT: Here's the real reason piracy is such a big issue: the people in charge of publicly traded companies have to answer to the shareholders, and have to show them that they are trying to maximize profits. Well, they're doing a pretty good job of that; they're already selling pretty much all of the copies they're going to at the current price, and the only way to get more to sell is to lower the price, which for whatever reason, they're unwilling to do. But the shareholders want more money, so what else can they do to at least /look/ like they're working harder? The answer is to go after casual pirates. Sure, it's not going to make any real difference in the bottom line, but people with large stakes in multimillion dollar companies tend to ignore logic when it gets in the way of their bottom line. They're too busy counting their own short term profits to care about the long term ones they're throwing away by pissing off their customers with intrusive DRM. The front page article about Ubisoft is a prime example of a company that does that starting to get that niggling feeling that their efforts are actually costing them in the long run.

 

[Jack Rascal]

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

I'm tempted to call 'troll' too. I've made it pretty clear I'm not defending piracy, I'm demonstrating that not every pirated product equates to a lost sale. Which I've done.

"Interest" doesn't equal a sale. Pirating something doesn't necessarily mean one would have bought it without the piracy option. Your assertion fails, sir.

Thanks for that. I'm really glad people are throwing troll when an opinion differentiates. For the reference, troll is someone who is intentionally flaming others, not when giving an opinion.

If you think that downloading Dexter is fine, because you only wanted to know if it's any good, fine. I am saying that any illegal copying is pirating, and in effect direct hit on sales. Why purchase something you can have for free?

But apparently I am a troll. Cheers for that.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

As long as there is interest, there is a sale. You cannot justify piracy with "viewing" or "playing" before buying. Most of TV shows and games have websites where you can view the product before buying. And even then, if your friend praises Dexter, why not go to their place and watch it?

I'm tempted to call 'troll' too. I've made it pretty clear I'm not defending piracy, I'm demonstrating that not every pirated product equates to a lost sale. Which I've done.

"Interest" doesn't equal a sale. Pirating something doesn't necessarily mean one would have bought it without the piracy option. Your assertion fails, sir.

Thanks for that. I'm really glad people are throwing troll when an opinion differentiates. For the reference, troll is someone who is intentionally flaming others, not when giving an opinion.

If you think that downloading Dexter is fine, because you only wanted to know if it's any good, fine. I am saying that any illegal copying is pirating, and in effect direct hit on sales. Why purchase something you can have for free?

But apparently I am a troll. Cheers for that.

It's only a directly lost sale at the price point of "free." That's what everyone is getting at. The way supply and demand works, there is only a certain quantity demanded for a given price point on the supply end. The quantity demanded at $10 is going to be higher than the quantity demanded at $60, and the quantity demanded at free may as well be infinite, assuming the item in question is actually desirable, and not something that isn't selling because it's a terrible product. What pirates are really saying is "the asking price is too high, but free is not too high." There is probably a point somewhere between the asking price and free that would get a lot of pirates to start buying, but it's a fallacy to say that each pirated game is a lost full price sale.

Edit: This applies double for used games, since the people who buy them are showing that they are willing to pay for a product, just not $60 each. By fighting a war on used games, game publishers are actually trying to ignore the way the free market works.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm not really well-versed in the exact statistics and my opinion alone won't carry much weight or even get noticed in a thread with this much traffic. I'll just point out that those in the industry will now look at any gap between their expected sales and their actual sales and say "must be pirates". That's where we get these ridiculous figures from.

Edit: This applies double for used games, since the people who buy them are showing that they are willing to pay for a product, just not $60 each. By fighting a war on used games, game publishers are actually trying to ignore the way the free market works.

I'm sorry to pester your inbox when I'm only addressing a minor part of your post, but I just wanted to say how nice it is to see other users espousing this view.

It's actually supported by law, at least in America. First-sale doctrine has been codified in U.S. law ever since the 1970's - it essentially gives an individual who has payed full price for a copy of something the right to re-sell it or pass it on to another without the permission of the original creator, provided the copyi tself does not infringe any copyright. This right was recognized in the states as far back as 1908, apparently. And yes, I'm using Wikipedia here.

I'm fairly certian that it would be surprisingly easy to use this right to support the Used Games market and criticise the emerging practice of locking gamers who buy used out of certian content, or even the entire game. I'll admit I'm not well-versed in this law, but it seems to me that any developer who attempts to stop the game from changing hands as soon as the first sale is over is infringing on it, and that first-sale specific content or renewable codes aren't much better.

Unfortunately, there's a contrary law in Europe which allows an original artists to get a cut of re-sale profits. The only thing similar to First Sale Doctrine only really regards patents. I find this slightly surprising, since it's in keeping with the attitude America is supposed to support but doesn't (see the likes of SOPA and it's ilk for an example of what I'm on about here).

It goes back even farther than that, actually. The current law on the matter was written in the '70s, but it's been codified in some form or another for over a century, and it's been a part of English Common law (which is the basis for American law) for multiple centuries. The European law you're thinking of is actually a French thing, and it was put in place because some of France's most famous artists were having a hard time surviving after World War I, even though their paintings were being sold for ridiculous sums of money. In other words, it's a relatively new concept. It's really scary just how bad gamers are at filling the consumer's role in the free market; they basically do the producers' job for them, as far as maximizing profits at the cost of consumer rights goes.