TorrentFreak Reveals Top Pirated Games of 2011

[Magnicon]

one of gaming's most loyal customers

And as I stated before, if everyone acted like you, and actually paid for things they wanted, there would be no need for DRM and intrusive measures. I'm also reasonably certain that large lawsuits are brought against individuals who, let's make no bones about it, steal things, because they're the ones who get caught. If the industry at large could bring a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against pirate websites and file hosting sites, and win, you wouldn't see stuff like SOPA being thrown around. However, we can't, so SOPA it is. (And it's likely to get passed, too)

Still with the DRM? If DRM has no negative effect on piracy(proven fact), and thus only negatively effects paying customers(proven fact), which in turn pisses people off and make them less likely to buy your game, why do you think DRM is "needed"? All it does is lower your profits, and its 100% because of your own assumptions and actions.

I really don't understand why you would come here and start debating a subject with people when you flat out refuse to look at the information provided to the opposite side of the argument. You're just coming off like a troll at this point.

 

[ResonanceSD]

one of gaming's most loyal customers

coming across as a troll at this point

Still with the DRM? If DRM has no negative effect on piracy(proven fact), and thus only negatively effects paying customers(proven fact), which in turn pisses people off and make them less likely to buy your game, why do you think DRM is "needed"? All it does is lower your profits, and its 100% because of your own assumptions and actions.

I really don't understand why you would come here and start debating a subject with people when you flat out refuse to look at the information provided to the opposite side of the argument. You're just coming off like a troll at this point.

I actually had no intention of debating anything, I'm just stating the industry viewpoint, which in turn, dragged me into your rationalising of the problem. If there's an alternative to DRM that the industry found to be more effective and could be implemented with minimal disruption to existing systems, you'd be using it right now. However, there isn't. So current-form DRM it is, with all the system-scanning, account-banning and general unpleasantness that it entails.

Anyway, I'm off now, feel free to PM me if there's anything else you'd like to discuss.

 

[Belated]

one of gaming's most loyal customers

And as I stated before, if everyone acted like you, and actually paid for things they wanted, there would be no need for DRM and intrusive measures. I'm also reasonably certain that large lawsuits are brought against individuals who, let's make no bones about it, steal things, because they're the ones who get caught. If the industry at large could bring a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against pirate websites and file hosting sites, and win, you wouldn't see stuff like SOPA being thrown around. However, we can't, so SOPA it is. (And it's likely to get passed, too)

Wow, no comment on my borderline-threat in response to your repeated accusations against me? Now I feel kinda guilty for saying it. And now I apologize.

Anyway, all I'm saying is, there's still no need to take measures like that. I know it may sound crazy, but what I'm suggesting is, the industry should just let piracy happen. I'm not saying they shouldn't do anything at all to curtail it. I mean, CD Keys and account registration are fair enough. Suing people who sell bootlegs of your product, also fair enough. But I just don't feel legal action beyond that is really necessary. Maybe if we reformed the laws so punishment wasn't quite so harsh, I'd feel better about it. The biggest problem I have with it is the amount of debt an individual civilian can be put in over it. I'm a fan of second chances, and you're not going to get much of a second chance if you just lost all your life savings in a trial over a pirated copy of Halo.

In other words, I feel the bigger jerks should be the ones to back down. And in my opinion, between the college student who couldn't wait for his paycheck to arrive before he could play The Witcher, and the monolithic millionaires suing him, I say the bigger jerks are the latter.

 

[Wolfram23]

Just a few things to consider.

You can't rent PC games.

You can't resell PC games (though you can trade on Steam, now).

You can't return PC games (even if they're unplayable).

When buying a game becomes a gamble, and finances are tight, I think there's an obvious solution to the problem. Not saying it's right, but there is a lot of motivation to pirate.

If you can't afford the luxury, stick to a cheaper hobby. And is that a watercooled full tower in your avatar? Possibly one of the last people here that can talk about tight finances.

I wasn't trying to make excuses for piracy, but rather point out that there is a pretty big difference when thinking about getting a PC game. Might help explain why the numbers are 3x greater for PC downloads.

My favorite piracy excuse is the "no demo" one, to be honest

So hypothetically if you wanted a machine for gaming, and don't want to spend a lot of money, you couldn't think of any other option? Really? As the owner of a top-spec PC, I can tell you that's a thinking-fail.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about anymore. Do you mean "any other option" as in, the "top spec liquid cooled PC" or as in my thoughts on why people are possibly more prone to pirating PC games?

I think you mean the PC... maybe...

Well anyway, you should know that I've bought plenty of games this year. Dead Space 2, Dragon Age 2, LA Noire (ps3), Witcher 2, Dirt 3, Bastion, Dark Souls (ps3), Rage, Battlefield 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations (ps3), and Skyrim as far as this year releases go. I also purchased some games on the Steam sales like Portal 2 and STALKER: SoC. EDIT: I forgot, I also bought DJ Hero 2 with a turn table for 2 player (have the first one as well).

I can think of 3 games I acquired for a free "demo" and subsequently deleted after a single gaming session, because of suckage. Which is why I wanted to demo them. BF3's beta, though, pretty much sold me on the game. Last year I bought Metro 2033 after a "demo". If Steam, for example, let me buy a game and then return it within 24-48 hours, you better believe I'd do it that way instead, so I'm not out $50-60 on shit like NFS: The Run. Or if Direct2drive allows you to take the rental fee off of a purchase (apparently it's $5 for 5 hours rental) then I'd do that (and I'll look into that tonight since I just found out they do rentals today).

 

[Naeras]

Stick to Ubisoft and Steamworks. The industry will attempt to protect it's interests. If piracy ends up inconveniencing legitimate customers, that's hardly the industry's fault. If the industry at large could trust consumers to, you know, actually pay for stuff they want, you wouldn't have to deal with DRM. However, we can't.

Sorry, but you're wrong. It's entirely the industry's fault. They're the guys putting it there. They're not inconveniencing the pirates: hell, the pirates are cracking that DRM for fun in the first place. Besides, it doesn't even help. Pirating games is extremely easy to do even with all the money you guys are pumping into DRM: just type " + torrent" in Google. All you're doing is making sure that the pirates are providing a better product than the industry are, and you're even spending money on it.

Until you can give me solid numbers that prove that the DRM Ubisoft and EA are employing is in the slightest way worth it, I'm not buying any claims that "this is not the industry's fault". I'm also not touching anything I need to be online in order to play single player, makes my computer run slower because it's scanning through my system, or that in other ways restricts my use of a product I spent 50-60 euros on. That money will go to publishers and developers who make good games and treat me like a customer, not a potential felon.

 

[Continuity]

but even 700,000 copies of a full-priced Xbox title is still a painful $42,000,000 of potential revenue loss.

No, its not. 1 pirate download does not = 1 potential purchase. at best 1 in 100 pirate copies are lost sales at my guess, which makes that 42m figure a much more believable 420k... but then these are all figures being pulled out of asses after all.

 

[ResonanceSD]

So I was lying about leaving, here I am!

snip

I'm saying, that as we both own pretty expensive gaming systems, we're the last people on earth qualified to talk about financial hardship preventing people from gaming. It's a luxury hobby. If you can afford the cash for a machine to run a game, you can afford to buy a game to play on it. I think extra credits used that exact phrase. There are plenty of cheaper options to play games that do not involve theft.

That money will go to publishers and developers who make good games and treat me like a customer, not a potential felon.

If you find that the scanning that, for example, steam, GFWL, Origin, Ubisoft Launcher or any other DRM are significantly impacting system performance, you need a new computer.

And as I said earlier, it's the best solution we have. So you don't buy anything by Ubisoft or EA, or anything valve makes, or anything that requires steam to run, or games for windows live, or origin.

1) Good luck with that

2) What's it like in 1980?

3) It's the best solution we've got at present.


Also, where's the sudden assumption that I work for a game company? I said "industry affected by Piracy"

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

snip

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http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal

to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment. I'm gonna say games count as ideas and even if you don't I really don't see a reason to make an argument unless you plan to tell me piracy is okay because it's not theft

No one is saying it is right because it is not theft but we are talking about a legal matter which is something where semantics count and no Piracy is not theft but that does not make it ok and no one in their right mind believes that. It is classed differently and functions differently and needs to be treated as such.

If people actually read their EULA they would know that not a single person in the world owns a game what you buy is 1 licence to use that copy of the game and a licence that can be revoked at any time so since you are circumventing a licence it is not theft. Still wrong but not theft.

 

[Naeras]

3) It's the best solution we've got at present.

And what does it solve? I mean, it doesn't make games significantly harder to crack or download.

 

[ResonanceSD]

If I want to buy a game for my PC, so I try the demo before playing it. I'm not gonna buy a 60 euro game if I'm not sure my PC can run it. Is it wrong to pirate a game and check if it works?

um, yes, yes it is. Read system requirements.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Read system requirements.

Let's be honest, there are 'minimum specs' that are some of the greatest works of fiction to ever be written... Even 'recommended specs' should come with list of what sort of performance they're recommended for.

Of course, if you're the kind of person who waits a week or two before ponying up the scratch for a game it's pretty easy to find out how accurate the listed specs are and if there are any major issues (such as the developer not testing the game with AMD drivers, that's always a laugh)

 

[ResonanceSD]

Read system requirements.

Let's be honest, there are 'minimum specs' that are some of the greatest works of fiction to ever be written... Even 'recommended specs' should come with list of what sort of performance they're recommended for.

Of course, if you're the kind of person who waits a week or two before ponying up the scratch for a game it's pretty easy to find out how accurate the listed specs are and if there are any major issues (such as the developer not testing the game with AMD drivers, that's always a laugh)

my strategy is to have too much hardware for any game to stress

 

[maninahat]

Pirating is stealing. Hence the use of the word "pirating". You keep saying that the notion is "debunked"; Try telling a court of law that; see if it stops them from sentencing internet pirates.

Seeing how Copyright Law is handled by Civil Court, and not Criminal Court, there is a 100% chance they will *not* CONVICT (not to be confused with "sentence") any software pirate of Theft.

Even if you want to be pedantic about my terminology, pirating can be handled as a federal crime as well as civil case [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act], so yes, a person can be sentenced or convicted (though not of "theft").

You will not find a court that will convict someone who downloaded a game off the internet with theft. Piracy, in this context, is referring to copyright infringement which is not theft. Your poor use of legal terminology shows you're yet another person who knows nothing about the law yet feels they can offer an opinion on it.

Also, the word you're looking for is "paid", not "payed".

Perhaps I just wasn't using strict legal terminology in my use of the word "theft", but using the word colloquially? Okay, I will concede to your superior knowledge that courts officially distinguish copyright violation from theft. That doesn't take away from my previous arguments that filesharing is obviously stealing, in the same way that "abstacting electricity" is also quite obviously theft (despite it being officially impossible to "steal" electricity in the eyes of UK law). Either way, copyright infringement is still a crime that will still result in a punishment. That was the simple point I was trying to make in the first place. I was mistaken in assuming the argument "copyright violation=/=theft" was meant informally, rather than in strict legal terms.

 

[rapidoud]

Billions of dollars worth of product distributed that wasn't payed for.

Yes, that is a loss. Damn asshats.

1. It's paid
2. Who's the arsehat when you're assuming that the majority of people who pirate weren't going to buy even one game they would've otherwise?

 

[Amnestic]

If I want to buy a game for my PC, so I try the demo before playing it. I'm not gonna buy a 60 euro game if I'm not sure my PC can run it. Is it wrong to pirate a game and check if it works?

um, yes, yes it is. Read system requirements.

Hey, remember when RAGE had minimum requirements and it was found to have massive issues with certain graphics cards until they could release a patch to fix it?

'cos I do. It didn't happen that long ago. Just last year, in point of fact. 2011! So long ago... I wonder what reading the system requirements would have done for them before they dropped £45 on a new game only to find that it doesn't run on their PC? Oh well, I'm sure it's not a problem.

Mike, didn't you read the study? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114537-File-sharing-Remains-Legal-In-Switzerland] Piracy is not a loss of a sale. People who pirate things don't spend any less money on entertainment. Their entertainment budget stays the same, but they merely supplement that with piracy. Therefore, the industry doesn't lose a damn cent. A pirated copy is not a copy stolen off a shelf. That shelved copy is still there for someone else to buy. And if piracy wasn't around, those millions of pirates would just decide they can live without the game and make a conscious decision to not spend the money they don't have.

Come on, this argument has already been won by my side. Why is this still an issue?

My favourite part of this post is how you quoted an Escapist article for it.

I know the Escapist doesn't let us +1 posts, but you can consider yourself the recipient of a

 

[DarkSoldier84]

Microsoft's console was hit the least of the three reported platforms, but even 700,000 copies of a full-priced Xbox title is still a painful $42,000,000 of potential revenue loss.

Developers get a pitiful cut of the retail price, something like $3 if I recall correctly. It goes through so many markups from developer to publisher to distributor that the price of the final grossly-overpriced retail product is enough to buy it many times over if you could get it directly from the developer.

I think that's one of the problems regarding piracy: the blatantly unfair retail pricing. These games cost less to produce than a Hollywood movie, yet the ticket price for a movie is less than USD20 while the retail price of a new game is USD60 (and CAD60) and publishers are starting to lock out previously-integrated features (like online multiplayer) behind single-use codes in a vain attempt to discourage secondary-market sales.

If publishers and distributors started lowering the initial retail price to around USD40, I bet we'd see a lot more new game sales enough to offset any lost revenue from the lowered price.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Hey, remember when RAGE had minimum requirements and it was found to have massive issues with certain graphics cards until they could release a patch to fix it?

'cos I do. It didn't happen that long ago. Just last year, in point of fact. 2011! So long ago... I wonder what reading the system requirements would have done for them before they dropped £45 on a new game only to find that it doesn't run on their PC? Oh well, I'm sure it's not a problem.

This isn't an excuse for piracy. A patch was released. In any case, we all know that minimum requirements are barely enough to run the game.

 

[Amnestic]

This isn't an excuse for piracy.

Never said it was, but enjoy reading things into my statements. I merely pointed out that even as recently as last year (by four days...), 'recommended requirements' from even big name developers can be wildly and even egregiously inaccurate. Trusting them is clearly folly.

 

[ResonanceSD]

This isn't an excuse for piracy.

Never said it was, but enjoy reading things into my statements. I merely pointed out that even as recently as last year (by four days...), 'recommended requirements' from even big name developers can be wildly and even egregiously inaccurate. Trusting them is clearly folly.

Taking one example from a year, there have been plenty of releases where the min/rec specs were correct. I got told off for lumping all gamers together when presented with a few pirates in the mix, don't do the same to the games industry and expect to get away with it.