Pirates ruining it for the rest of us.

[Rasmus Emilsson]

And by the way, just a thought. Of these 4.5 million downloads, don't you guys think ANYONE bought the damn game after thinking "damn, i like this game"?

I often pirate to try the game out, now when there is no demos available, if I like the game, i buy it. A download does not equal a guaranteed loss. I do download everything from Activision though, I hate that company with a fury unmatched by the gods.

 

[Sjakie]

Nope, first of all it is not your business to decide what other people should or should not do.
Everybody needs to decide what is right and wrong for themselves. What you think of that is a different matter.

Second: you are saying that a game is property, it is not...not anymore at least, just read a EULA from any modern day game, you will find that you own jack shit, your just leasing the right to play that game. a lease that can be withdrawn whenever the publisher sees fit without even telling you and leaving you with money spend and no game to play. If you actually owned the game, that would have been called theft!

It is this reason why im not really against piracy.

Also, getting screwed over by DRM as a paying customer (ubisoft for example) is just adding insult to injury.

Piracy is just a way that cheap bastards and curious people might use to play a game they dont know yet/want to try out. If the game is any good, some of those people might even decide to go out and buy a legal copy turning the pirate into a paying customer.
That the rest are cheap bastards and people that dont want to get ripped off by publishers 'crappy streamlined junk' is not your concern.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

So what you are basically saying is that you are clearly entitled to every game that comes out and it's the industries fault for making you pay for it.

Yeah that sounds right...

Where exactly did i say that? I feel like i need to get you a space rocket, that's how far the point went over your head.

What I'm saying is that piracy isn't the cause of the money problems in the industry.

The problem is caused by an exploding supply, but not an exploding demand.

It's economics 101. We live in a age where more games are made than ever, and the budget of those games are also more expensive than ever (read: the industry is spending more money than ever making games). But since we as consumers aren't getting more money between our hands, especially not with the economic crisis on hands, what do you honestly believe the result is going to be? That's right: Profits are dropping, and it is ENTIRELY unrelated to piracy.

I'm pretty sure that they are aware of how their economics work. When they are seeing The Witcher being pirated 4.5 million times you think they don't mark some of their losses down to piracy.

It would be idiotic for them not too.

Like I said it would be beneficial for them to have a more measured way of pricing games. I agree with that much.

Piracy is just a way that cheap bastards and curious people might use to play a game they dont know yet/want to try out. If the game is any good, some of those people might even decide to go out and buy a legal copy turning the pirate into a paying customer.
That the rest are cheap bastards and people that dont want to get ripped off by publishers 'crappy streamlined junk' is not your concern.

They made it my concern when they put PC gaming at risk.

 

[PanYue]

I'm questioning how the hell they got the figure 4.5million!

 

[Kopikatsu]

Internet: "THEY'RE TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OUR RIIIIIIIIGHTS."

Let's pretend I order a PPV movie. I invite some friends over to watch it. Am I now a felon? If I purchase a PPV, am I only allowed to watch it by myself, in a soundproof room with the windows covered?

If I buy a movie that was recently released, and I want to enjoy it with friends, or watch it a second time, should every viewer/viewing be expected to pay?

So... how is streaming any different? If I decide "hey, I bought Airplane!, I should watch it with a bro!" but my bro is 1,000 miles away, how is us watching it together on a stream any different than if he was on my couch eating my fucking pizza and hitting on my girl? Either way, he's watching it without paying. If we watch it together, physically, the distributers still didn't get that sale.

The Protect IP act doesn't cover normal streaming, just illegal streaming.

Example, Mastertoons.com streams a large number of copyrighted shows. Even if the Protect IP act passed, nothing would change. It only increases the punishment for illegal streaming. You can stream copyrighted material so long as you aren't trying to profit off it yourself.

Streaming the last episode of Dr. Who because you happened to miss it is fine. Charging someone $2 to watch Season 5 of Dr. Who without having paid the licensing fee is illegal, and what the Protect IP Act would be affecting.

Even something like Youtube would remain unaffected.

 

[DOOMGUY '93]

Honestly I'm not gonna buy any ubisoft game for as long as they pull this crap. I actually do see where they coming from on this one, but the way they say its not worth it just fills me disgust at them. Yea and you know what instead, no more ubisoft games for as long as I live. That is all.

 

[VanTesla]

What can gamers do? Yell at their friends and slap them on the wrist when they blurt out that "They don't wanna pay money for ____ and will pirate it"?

Yes, exactly that. I would also say that you should kick them in the crotch, but apparently that's sexual harassment.

It's an industry-wide issue and should be treated as such. Even though the popular opinion on the Escapist is 'Piracy doesn't matter because ', the fact is that it does matter. Even if pirates wouldn't have bought the games to begin with, that doesn't matter.

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

Or we can let our Governments take our rights away like some people in Congress in the U.S.A are trying to do... Have corporation take down any site that even mention a single thing about a product, music, movie, etc and do so without going through regular court laws... Piracy is going to endanger the majority of internet users by giving ammunition for Corporations and Gov't to take our rights away. People need to learn moderation and try to pirate less. We can't stop piracy, but if we can stop ourselves from going overboard and work together to find a compromise that would let us keep our freedoms and still be profitable for the Corporations we would be solid.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Honestly, I'd be more inclined to do this if the publishers would stop screwing me over and treating me like shit.

Yes, pirates are asses who are hurting things. But they've never sold me a game, then told me I couldn't play because I can't connect to the internet. Or put install limits on the games, and then tell me to buy it again when I used up those install limits.

It's a fight between a mugger and a robber. And I'm the one that's experiencing the fallout from both these jackasses.

agreed on this.

and i really really really really hate to say this, but my sega genesis copy of captain america and the avengers finally broke after all these years, and years ago my uncle got me the rom for it..good times were had.

 

[Frankster]

Protip: Don't fight pirates. Win them over. A vast majority of pirates are these crowds:

1. What the hell, 60 dollars in USA, 150 dollars here? F**k you.
2. No free demo? I'ma try it... *later* Eh, too lazy to go buy.
3. DRM blows. F**k you, publishers.


Also, the DRM costs publishers more money than pirates could ever steal.

There is something seriously fucked up when we have to "win over" the pirates who are in the wrong and get treated to the games they want nvm that those 3 reasons listed are complete BS (number 2 is only one which might have worth, but the % of pirates who genuinely do only install and play for an hour or so like a demo would ain't the majority i wager, once you've waited to install a 10 gb+ game, like hell you ain't gonna keep playing it after all that waiting ¬¬)

So, for the rest of us, who don't pirate, who have to manage their budget carefully and work hard to acquire their games, don't need to be won over?

Seriously the pirates should be thanking their lucky stars that the rest of us "legit" buyers don't decide aswell "fuck it" and go pirate things too, we are practically paying the bills for them as it is, so why should we keep on being taken for absolute chums and not join them in ruinning gaming for everyone?

"Also, the DRM costs publishers more money than pirates could ever steal" Demand empirical evidence due to piracy by nature being a hard beast to get accurate numbers for.

Truth be told you have no clue the damage piracy does, none of us here do besides the occasional dev moaning about it and the odd scary number (4.5 mill in case of witcher) but its always speculative. For all we know the gaming industry really is losing tons of money from piracy and the makes of titan quest amongst others weren't lying when they said that piracy bought them down.

Either way doesn't change anything, pirates would latch on to any excuse to make themselves look better (like yeh sure, the reason they pirate is out of gamer outrage against the evil pubs, and not at all to play any game they wish without price of admission) and whether this reason happens to be correct or not is independent of their actual motivations.

Fuck it if i cant beat them, il join them. So skyriM, batman arkham city, or w/e awesome game i missed out these past few years, which one to dl first i wonder? I don't need to feel bad even cos I'm doing it in protest of DRM, taking a stand for gamers everywhere.
Oh witcher 2... Whatya mean it has no DRM? Well CDKProject ain't going broke and they said they are totally cool with no DRM therefore they are totally cool with me playing their game for free ^^

 

[Athinira]

I'm pretty sure that they are aware of how their economics work. When they are seeing The Witcher being pirated 4.5 million times you think they don't mark some of their losses down to piracy.

It would be idiotic for them not too.

Like I said it would be beneficial for them to have a more measured way of pricing games. I agree with that much.

I'm sure they are aware of it as well, at least on some level, but what they definitely aren't aware of is that they are using the entirely wrong tactic to deal with it.

You see, there are two ways to try to make money in a market where supply is way higher than demand:
1) Make the most of the money you have (like trying to make something that sells reasonably well on a low budget, which means that you don't have to sell a trillion copies of the game to break even)
2) Try to beat out the competition

Most of the game companies are going for the second option, meaning that they try to make games that consumers are more likely to purchase than the other guys games. It's a competition, and I hopefully don't need to remind you that in a competition, there are losers.

And to put it frankly, it's a mistake. It's like gambling: Sure, there is a chance that win big, but at the end of the day, the only winner is the table. That's why most people in the world don't gamble (except small risk-gambling, like playing the lottery which isn't that expensive), so when almost every motherf*cker in the games industry try to gamble big, why do you think they end up losing?

This is why Indie Game-developers or any developer that goes for the first option are typically doing a lot better than those going for the second option, even if they don't end up as big. They have a much easier time reaching their turnover point.

On the other hand, playing the second option doesn't automatically mean you're going to lose. But you have to play cleverly, just like in, say, a Poker game. Ubisoft is an example of a company that isn't playing their cards in a smart way. Other companies are doing much better by creating value for the consumer, ensuring customer loyalty etc. which is eventually going to be one of the deciding factors when a consumer decides which game to buy versus which game to pirate/not-buy. Games from Valve are much less likely to be pirated than games from Ubisoft, and it's not because Valve has better anti-piracy measures, that's for sure.

 

[NightHawk21]

Shouldn't the legit PC gamers say to the pirates out there that 'Enough is enough'. They are going to ruin our gaming platform with their shenanigans. I personally hate being lumped in with people who steal just because I am a PC gamer.

I can almost guarantee you that the reason companies don't want to develop for PC, is because the PC sales aren't even close to any of the other consoles. Shit take MW3 as an example. On release PC sales mad up 5%, with the Xbox and PS3 controlling the rest and Xbox outnumbering the PS3 2:1 (so roughly 63% Xbox, 32% PS3). Consider than that the PC versions also have to have people working on them and that like all games they require continuous work in the form of patches, online servers, etc.

Also fun tip, the Xbox was broken and able to play pirated games very soon after its release, and the PS3 was broken a year or two ago, so piracy exists on all consoles.

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 freee from being copied and freely distributed?

My library carries video games but the problem there is that the games they carry are usually older and only 1-3 copies exist over all the branches. Also recording music from the radio is piracy so not exactly sure on your stance there.

People who are going to buy a new game are going to buy a new game.

The people who pirate a game are not people who were going to buy the game, but are now not going to buy the game because they pirated the game. They're people who will wait for the game to be in a bargain bin before even considering buying it.

Yeah, sure, I've pirated games. It's not illegal in my country. But never a game that I was planning on buying, and if I like the game after playing it pirated, I always fork out the money for it so I can support the company and get more games like it made. Most pirates are just like me.

Pirates aren't ruining PC gaming. Those 4.5 million pirated copies of the Witcher 2 DO NOT equall 4.5 un-sales. Thinking that they do is a basic misunderstanding of this market. Piracy won't end until games get reasonable try-before-buy policies, stop having DRM, and stop region locking. It's companies that are ruining PC gaming based on their outdated and hilarious ideas of who and what pirates are, not the pirates themselves.

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

The fact is, after buying a legal copy of a game, I often still pirate it. Why? Because pirated copies are more flexible, lack DRM, and can be used on any machine. It's an issue of convenience.

Exactly. Shit I'll openly admit it. I got a new computer this summer for a relatively cheap price and when they posted the recommended specs for Skyrim I was like when I have some of those, so I wasn't sure how/if it would play. I pirated the game on release from pirate bay booted it up say it looked beautiful and ran smoothly and bought it on steam the next day. 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. Shit happened with me and skyrim. I can personally count at least 3 people who bought the game after I showed them it (note: this was the day I pirated it on).

 

[deathbydeath]

this is actually semi-relevant to me, because everyone at my school is playing multiplayer on pirated versions of cod4, but what really pisses me off is how shitty the internet at school is now...

 

[Aeshi]

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.

What publishers need to do is replicate what piracy offers. DRM-free. Easy to access. Content rich. Available everywhere at the same time. No stupid day-1 DLC BS. High quality content at release (i.e. no stupid day 1 BSODs). The problem is people would just pirate it anyway because the pirated version is free and therefor still superior, changing nothing.

Fixed that for you.

 

[imnot]

I'm not supporting pirates by any means, but why are you not opposed to buying second hand if you are opposed to piracy?
If every pirate started buying used games instead only the retailers get more money.
The developers and the publishers won't get a single penny and will still rule the system as being "not worth it."

In fainess at leat with used sales the retailer makes money, where as with piracy no one does.
And I guess It helps the retailer financialy so they dont have to close down so the publisher can still sel ltheir games to them. Also its used so its been bought once already at least.

Wow im bad at this!

 

[Iron Mal]

A lot of the demand for anti-piracy could be argued to be an unintentional result of the massive growth and success of the industry in recent times.

Yes, we've always had pirates but now that the publishers (not the devs, as someone previously pointed out, their hands are effectively tied) are part of a booming industry that has exceeded the movie and music industry in terms of scope and profitability they've naturally become more paranoid about keeping that success (and pirates are a significant problem despite the lists of justifications or reasons people may have for it).

Anyone else remember how annoying it was on DVDs to have to sit through all the annoying anti-piracy adverts at the beginning (as hilariously hyperbolic as they were, 'piracy funds terrorism') and having DVD's simply refuse to run on computers and laptops sometimes because of the anti-copying stuff they had?

We've seen this before in other industries and they were much maligned back then too.

Big difference between the two is that DVD's have dramatically dropped in price while games...haven't.

Yes, you can't beat free but less people will feel the need to pirate when you can go to your local video store and grab a stack of films for about £10 (compared to trying to grab a stack of games which will usually empty your pockets of four times the cash for about a quarter of the titles).

I think that a good step towards reducing piracy (you'll never get rid of piracy and in some cases that's probably a good thing) would to lower prices throughout the industry and to stop taking such a hostile view towards second hand sales.

As some people on here have said, they pirate because games cost too much so it makes sense that making the entry fare more friendly and accessable would result in more people being willing to pay for the product (you can't beat free but that's no excuse not to try and at least make an effort).

 

[mjc0961]

Why should we bag on the pirates? They're the ones who provide the products without overly punishing 'features' that make playing games a fucking hassle. If I could find the guys cracking these games in real life, I'd give them a hug and a solid chunk out of my wallet to support them, because the publishers sure as hell doesn't.

You want to try and have an impact? Support the developers/publishers that does their best to provide games and products with good service and without flaming hoops to jump through and pirate the hell out of games/products that come with said punishments.

Pirates aren't ruining anything for us. It's the publishers who punish customers who legally bought and paid for the products that are ruining things for us, because there's just no way in hell that kind of treatment from them won't result in the crackin' communities taking it as an insult and a challenge.

There'll always be theft and piracy and some of the pirates are indeed thieves who don't have good reasons for what they're doing, but most of the PC gaming community that I know and interact with does support devs/publishers who are worth it.

Pirates aren't ruining anything? Pirates are the ones who caused all this DRM bullshit in the first place. If people hadn't been pirating to begin with, there wouldn't have been this kind of nonsense DRM to try and stop people from pirating. Seriously, people like you who try to justify piracy and treat these people as heroes instead of the scum that they are make me sick. Why can't you open your eyes and see that piracy is the cause of the problem, not the solution?! If people stopped pirating, companies wouldn't need to bother with DRM.

But no. You sit there and say that pirates are the heroes for cracking the DRM while forgetting that it's those douchebag pirates that got the DRM put there in the first place.

As some people on here have said, they pirate because games cost too much so it makes sense that making the entry fare more friendly and accessable would result in more people being willing to pay for the product (you can't beat free but that's no excuse not to try and at least make an effort).

They pirate because they're cheap bastards who don't want to have to pay for their entertainment. Nothing more. There is no justification for it, especially "it costs too much." It's entertainment, not a necessity for living. If you can't afford it, do without. Simple as that. Stop ruining things for the rest of us because you're poor and/or a cheap bastard.

I'm not supporting pirates by any means, but why are you not opposed to buying second hand if you are opposed to piracy?
If every pirate started buying used games instead only the retailers get more money.
The developers and the publishers won't get a single penny and will still rule the system as being "not worth it."

In fainess at leat with used sales the retailer makes money, where as with piracy no one does.
And I guess It helps the retailer financialy so they dont have to close down so the publisher can still sel ltheir games to them. Also its used so its been bought once already at least.

Wow im bad at this!

If retailers make more money on used games, that's more money they can spend to buy new copies of the games from publishers to sell to their customers who buy new games. Thus some money makes its way back to the publishers. Contrast to piracy, where no money goes anywhere. Second hand sales are nowhere near as bad as piracy and never will be.

 

[hawkeye52]

I tend to find though that companies use piracy as an excuse for them not doing well in the PC market instead of just admitting that their game just sucked (with the exception of Duke Nukem because even the developers deep down have to realise that this duke didn't have balls of steel).

If you look at all of ubisofts games (who are known for getting pirated to shit) they also have the most draconian drm seen yet. There was also problems with spore and again due to DRM which made no sense whatsoever just because it is simply a better product after the DRM has been removed.

Then also look at the prices of games and you see a large trend of piracy ratios to amount of sales it makes. Again look at world of goo. One of the most pirated indi games out there and I don't think anyone would say that it was a game that was deserving of GOTY material or that it was revolutionary or anything. It just got pirated to shit because it was £20 instead of the usual fair in indy games or of games of smaller developers of say £10-£15 (although the difference doesn't sound big it does make difference just look at supermarket shelves and see how they price everything with a 99p on the end of it instead of just making it the full £)

Also interestingly enough games like World of Goo or more specifically minecraft both got pirated and then had their sales hike to massive amounts and there is no arguing that minecraft is one of the bigger success story's out there.

Also the piracy issue can be reasonably circumvented by just releasing a demo that people can play like they used to. I bought Space Marine because I played a demo of it and also from that demo realised that I really like the game and so bought it afterwards.

Please note however I am not in support or against piracy I am kind of indifferent about it since my general feeling is that if a game is good and hasn't got lots of catches needed to play it or other problems then it will get bought by people. I myself have pirated a few games here and there if I wasn't sure I was gonna like the game but the majority of games I have pirated have ended up with me saying "wow that is a really good game" and then buying it afterwards or buying subsequent expansions for it. Afterall it sucks spending £40 or more on a game then hating it (Like I have done with Op:Flash dragon rising) wouldn't you be annoyed if you say bought a bike and then found out that it just doesn't work all that well and that its just as convenient to walk.

I have the same feeling with used games since its pretty much if someone loved a game chances are they aren't going to trade it in for another unless the game has no replayability value beyond do this again for completionist sake but even then someone might keep it just because they really liked it. (I have done that for numerous games)

In other words both have their good points and both have their bad points

EDIT: actually take a look at the sales hike here of a comic called underground that was pirated at 4chan at some point

 

[Tufty94]

It doesn't bother me because I also own an Xbox 360, but I can see why you're annoyed. I hate piracy, but publisher's don't help themselves. When Gabe Newell said that most cases of piracy are because of the service and not because of the cost it's true. If Ubisoft stopped using their stupid fucking DRM then their products would sell much better.

 

[hawkeye52]

Protip: shut down Pirate Bay. You know, have people who can do something about it actually do something about it.

Sure, there'll be massive fucking rage, but that'll blow over eventually.

Believe me, pirates can throw up sites and networks faster than anyone can take them down.

OT: What exactly are they ruining? In what way are they ruining PC gaming? Genuine question.

Pretty much this. Pirate bay has been shut down numerous times but been mirrored somewhere else until the court case came to trial and they realised they couldn't do it. It got to the point of annoyance for (sorry first wrote 4chan meant pirate bay) for pirate bay where they offered to buy the ministate of the principality of sealand so they could impose their own laws and be free of harrasment from the American government