Pirates ruining it for the rest of us.

[Moonlight Butterfly]

So wait, it's okay to violate copyright law, but only when you think it benefits them?

At the moment people like Moviebob who use clips in their reviews aren't violating copyright law. SOPA means that he will so that completely negates your point as at the moment people who are at risk from SOPA are people who aren't doing the same thing as pirates. Pirating isn't word of mouth advertisement it's outright stealing.

Pirates buy more media than non-pirates. Your argument just died right there.

It would nice to have some proof of that that isn't from a torrent site...

I don't even agree with it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let a disingenuous argument stand.

So you are defending something you believe is wrong? :|...huh


The fact is that games developers are turning around and saying look we have had enough we are taking it to the consoles where we have a greater degree of control. It is happening right now, not a chicken little reaction...actual fact.

Pirates are to blame for that no one else.

 

[Kopikatsu]

SOPA is a completely separate issue and not at all what I was suggesting it involves putting a ban on even showing the content of games etc which will only go further to harm the industry as they will lose advertising and word of mouth.

So wait, it's okay to violate copyright law, but only when you think it benefits them?

Piracy completely circumvents any revenue they may gain from these things so you can't say it is the same thing.

Pirates buy more media than non-pirates. Your argument just died right there.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

You have a guy in this very thread stating that the reason pirates pirate is because he has no buying power.

Having no buying power kinda counteracts the 'we buy more' argument, because you CAN'T.

If I had enough money, I could go buy 51% of VALVe's stock. Then I would own the company, and could make decisions for the company without being affiliated with VALVe in any way.

Actually, owning a controlling share of stock in a company is, by definition, affiliation. The law is very clear on this.

However, you can be disinterested in the product, and not making artistic decisions, and solely concerned with policy. That much is true.

That's more of what I meant. When I said 'unaffiliated' I meant, they aren't actively involved in the development of games or anything. They're just kind of like..."I don't like how you do . will make you, and by extension me, more money. Do . And the company kind of has to, regardless of how they feel about it.

 

[DracoSuave]

That much is true, xJx. When you control 51%, you're da baws.

 

[NightHawk21]

What game companies are also missing is that sometimes piracy leads to even more sales. Sometimes someone pirates a game (usually a new IP) and tells there friends about it who then all buy it so they can play it.

So we're meant to believe that the people who PIRATED the game will tell their friends they should BUY it?

Either Pirates are a bunch of miserable hypocrites or you're lying. By this point I'm willing to believe either.

On the contrary, simply talking about a game is like advertising, and I believe that most people will genuinely buy a game if they thoroughly enjoy it (especially if there's a locked online component). If the friends of everyone who pirated a game, pirated the game a company wouldn't be able to sell a single copy.

 

[Da Orky Man]

They only consider us the enemy because pirates are stealing their games... if they didn't then DRM and all that comes with it wouldn't exist would it.

Not entirely sure how people don't see how DRM (liek I said in my OP I don't like being treated like a criminal either) is a reaction to piracy not something that games developers did just to be annoying.

Student uses a cheat sheet.

Teacher gives entire class a 0 because student used a cheat sheet and tell classmates that it's the student's fault.

Classmates turn on student instead of teacher.

Yeah, that sounds legit.

I've never heard of such a thing. That's how school works in the US ? If one student cheats then the entire class pays for it ? In Canada, when you get caught cheating, you get a 0 and that's the end of it.

You haven't heard of such a thing because he was using the technique known to most as sarcasm. It could be advantageous to learn how to recognise it.

 

[Kopikatsu]

That much is true, xJx. When you control 51%, you're da baws.

Maybe you could answer the question I had, though. To own the company, do you just have to be the majority stockholder or do you need 51+%?

 

[ElPatron]

Some developers have stopped supporting PC entirely because of piracy, with more following suit. Makes it an issue for everyone.

Let me tell you a story.

There is a book that was printed by a publisher. They only printed a small amount of books, and they were quite expensive, so students needed to make photocopies of a friend's book.

For years they were asked to print the books again, but the company used "piracy" as an excuse. Piracy was lead by the lack of books available.




So of course I am not trying to say "publishers do not make enough games". No, that would be nonsense.
What I am trying to say is that "Oh, we don't do X because pirates" is a great way to give a middle finger to legit costumers who are willing to pay for content AND STILL save face at the end of the day.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Some developers have stopped supporting PC entirely because of piracy, with more following suit. Makes it an issue for everyone.

Let me tell you a story.

There is a book that was printed by a publisher. They only printed a small amount of books, and they were quite expensive, so students needed to make photocopies of a friend's book.

For years they were asked to print the books again, but the company used "piracy" as an excuse. Piracy was lead by the lack of books available.




So of course I am not trying to say "publishers do not make enough games". No, that would be nonsense.
What I am trying to say is that "Oh, we don't do X because pirates" is a great way to give a middle finger to legit costumers who are willing to pay for content AND STILL save face at the end of the day.

Regardless of the reason behind it, the end result is that we get less PC games. Which, personally, I'm unhappy with.

 

[violinist1129]

Well, those $60 add up, and think of $60 times the number of pirated copies of witcher 2. that's almost a billion dollars. pirates are doing this, and EVERYONE else pays for it. we get punished for their crime.

No, it isn't. 4.5 million times 60 is 270 million. Not "nearly a billion".

i didn't take the time of doing the math, i apologize.

Still, GTAIV cost 100 million to make, so in the publishers/stockholders eyes, that is a shitton of money. They're incorrect, but they hold the power, so as long as they think that this money is disappearing, they'll treat the PC like shit.

Also, with the class example, it's more like the teacher believes that 9 out of 10 students are using cheat sheets and can't tell who isn't so gives everyone a zero. That is how the publishers see things

 

[CRRPGMykael]

Console games are also pretty easy to pirate. But they only talk about the piracy on the PC because even a 4 year old retard could pirate something for the PC.
Yeah, it's illegal and all that stuff, but if for example a publisher isn't gonna release a game in my region or some other barrier prevents me from buying and playing a game I want to, I may as well pirate it.

 

[Neyon]

I worry much more about cheating in online PC games (aimbots, wallhacks etc) than I do about piracy.

 

[A.A.K]

Look at Valve. They're PC-only, they're anti-DRM, and are THEY hurting for cash? Hell, no.

I hate to say this but Steam is DRM. You can not play a PC game without installing or having the game OKed by Steam. For instance I bought a retail copy of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Gold and I was FORCED to install Steam just to play it. If that isn't DRM then I do not know what is.

I actually stopped playing PC games entirely purely because of Steam.
Before then DRM just generally ticked me off but it meant go into autopilot for 5minutes..
Steam pushed me over.

As for the topic...What Deviate said sounds about perfect..and all that other points that the intellectual crowd are making.

 

[infinity_turtles]

SOPA is a completely separate issue and not at all what I was suggesting it involves putting a ban on even showing the content of games etc which will only go further to harm the industry as they will lose advertising and word of mouth.

So wait, it's okay to violate copyright law, but only when you think it benefits them?

Piracy completely circumvents any revenue they may gain from these things so you can't say it is the same thing.

Pirates buy more media than non-pirates. Your argument just died right there.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

You have a guy in this very thread stating that the reason pirates pirate is because he has no buying power.

Having no buying power kinda counteracts the 'we buy more' argument, because you CAN'T.

Saying "This guy made a different argument, so it invalidates yours" is kind of shitty. Also, there's the fact that the people who can't afford and the people who buy a lot fall into different groups.

That said, the link given for the pirates buy more thing, includes a page to a study funded by a music industry lobby group(the IFPI) by an anti-piracy group. The study said Pirates buy half as many physical CDs. They were however twice as likely to pay for a music subscription service, bought 31% more single tracks online, 33% more music albums online, and 60% more likely to pay for music on mobile phone. There was also a comparison on average money spent that portrayed pirates as spending less. Thing is, the numbers weren't actually mutually exclusive. As everyone who pirates music and and buys it contributes to the total of at least one of the other groups and every pirate who can't/doesn't brings down the pirates average the graph is very skewed. And given the fact that they're half as likely to buy physical cds, but more likely to buy stuff online, they make up a huge portion of the money spent by the other listed groups.(those were iPod owners, physical only buyers, music buyers, and digital music buyers. largest of these was digital music buyers, which pirates are more likely then non-pirates to do according to the study)

The link to the pages released are here. Most of the study wasn't released. http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2010.html This was spun as pirates not buying physical products as often, and the digital sales bit was left out entirely when it got reported. Read for yourself and decide

 

[ElPatron]

Regardless of the reason behind it, the end result is that we get less PC games. Which, personally, I'm unhappy with.

Personally, I knew someone would play a dick move because of how consoles have taken a huge chunk of the market.

"Durr if we release on PC 95% of the people who will play never paid for the game, hurr we release for console and we will sell millions automatically, no piracy there!"

After getting slapped:

"Misinterpreted, lol."


I haven't bought a PC game in a few good months. I am ruining the industry as much as pirates because I am generating no profit. Of course I am not playing the games either, but...


Play a game, support a company I don't like, and still lose 50??

Or not bother with broken, rehashed games?

Whether I play or don't play the games it doesn't matter. I don't like the games being released, I don't buy them.

Now, if someone still doesn't want to pay and decides to get it for free, they are making as much damage as if they didn't pirate it.

So you are defending something you believe is wrong? :|...huh

What's the problem?

I don't like men, doesn't mean I can't use my right of vote to benefit homosexual rights.

 

[Shydrow]

Your argument is invalid on the grounds that pirates don't ruin the pc market. See Skyrim, Serious Sam BFE pre-orders and Minecraft. Clearly their are reasons those games are not being pirated [minus SS:BFE for not being out yet] I think the issue is companies like Ubisoft do a lot of dick things and some people pirate as payback while others pirate to try the game and others cause they are dicks. The issue is how can they make paying for the product more appealing than pirating.

Look at Steam in Europe as another example of making the costumer experience better and less painful. Russia is their biggest market for them now and all everyone said was it would lead to a pirate epidemic there. Clearly the issue with porting is more about content than anything. Witcher 2 got a bad rep for being "too complicated" and watching a friend play it i can say they added WAY too many functions and small things that in general water down a game. It should reward players who go deeper into its mechanics but not punish players for not trying to master it. Which is why i can say people pirate it.

 

[Substitute Troll]

Pirating isn't exlusive to PC, stop pretending it is.

 

[Windcaler]

I would consider it a fallacy to say piracy is why a game didnt sell very well (on that note I would like to see their basis to make the claim that witcher was pirated 4.5 million times). Its more then likely that with how expensive games are getting that people didnt want to shell out $60 for a game they couldnt try out beforehand. Coupled with services like STEAM and Origin requiring you to be connected to the internet full time and being able to take away your games for pretty much any reason at any time. Also with invasive DRM. The PC market has gotten quite user unfriendly, its getting to the point that we PC gamers are buying liscences to play our games rather then purchasing the game itself. I have a problem with that, so much so that I usually refuse to buy games from companies who use these practices and they get a formal letter from me explaining why

Your other fallacy is the assumption that I know whos a pirate. As a PC gamer I dont know who pirates are and arent anymore then I know who does or doesnt steal office supplies from my job. How could I make any difference, assuming that I disagreed with piracy (and I dont necessarily agree that all piracy is bad and wrong).

I think its the companies that need to suck it up and either release their games on PC or realize that they will get a hit in revenue. PC gamers do not need developers who see us all as criminals like Ubisoft, Im fine with boycotting their butts and either saving my money or giving it to a company that will treat me like a valued customer.

 

[maxmanrules]

"You can't beat 'Free'.

Also, pirates obviously think the game is worth something, otherwise they wouldn't have pirated the game in the first place. By taking the time to download the game and using the space on their computer, they've shown a greater than zero interest and would obviously be willing to pay something."


What if they simply can't afford to buy the games? Being a gamer is expensive,regardless of platform. Why should the poor be excluded? Libraries exist, and music can be listened to and recorded from the radio. Why should games be the only media free from being copied and freely distributed?

But that something is obviously not the "$60" figure which all you Americans quote.
In New Zealand (don't know about other countries) games can cost up to $120 and scale back the further from release date they are. Skyrim is now between $110 and $100, depending where you buy it. Even old games in the cheapo section are $25 dollars. The thing is, pirates, even if they are willing to pay something, aren't willing to fork out x amount of money, but they have to, to legally buy the game.

Consoles cost more than the game. It doesn't matter if you are poor, if you are poor, you don't have the money to buy games and therefore should not steal them. If you couldn't afford a T.V. you shouldn't wander off and grab somebody else's(I'm ignoring the whole "Piracy isn't stealing, I know it's not, but it's damn similar). And there are plenty of Free-to-play games out there anyway, some companies make a point of releasing older games for free as well.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Until we can come up with the ultimate DRM--one that is unbreakable AND easy to use--pirating is just something we're going to have to accept and deal with.

The ultimate DRM: Totalalitarian Fascism.
Social panopticon; where the people police themselves out of fear of each other.

As crazy and stupid as this world can get, I still don't think anyone actually wants that.

Effectively, there is nothing that can put an end to piracy; simply measures to scare those on the fence away from committing it, as with any other crime.

And that assumes that piracy is actually bad for the industry.

No need for the assumptions. It is factually bad for the industry; not just for the Publishers and Developers, but ultimately for the customers as well.

I've never heard of such a thing. That's how school works in the US ? If one student cheats then the entire class pays for it ? In Canada, when you get caught cheating, you get a 0 and that's the end of it.

Actually, I've put up with similar measures growing up; especially in High School for group projects.
This goes back to the idea of Panopticon, where everyone is meant to police each other out of fear of universal punishment from the higher authority.

Historically, it doesn't work for long because it has a nasty habit of producing false positives.