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AnthonyW86 on 27 January 2010
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ChichiriMuyo said:

AnthonyW86 - If those people couldn't afford to buy the game then it didn't impact sales. You're assuming those people could have actually bought the game which is a huge mistake. Even assuming they had the money, it's a mistake. One in four people in the Western industrialized world (which already only makes a tiny fraction of the whole pirating pie) who pirates also buys worthwhile products afterwards. For many, piracy is like a demo, and without that they wouldn't willingly commit their limited resources at all. Also, if you listen to the executives at MS piracy can lead to loyal customers later. While ideally they don't want any piracy, they'd rather build brand loyalty by allowing it than to have their products go unused.

Really, though, if YOU had anything to do with job in the Economics section you'd understand that the lost sales are statistically insignificant. There is no evidence whatsoever that piracy has a negative impact, let alone what the extent of that may be if it truly does. Oh, and I've already posted three links that mention at least 4 different studies that suggest piracy has had a net benefit. So, again, the fact is that piracy has no real impact on the sales of a game. There is no tangible proof that any harm is done at all, and the companies that complain the most about piracy also put out the worst games. Top-notch developers like Valve and Blizzard have themselves come out and said piracy has not had a noticeable impact on them at all

Also, when it comes to the deeply impoverished, don't talk about priorities. You got a $10 a week allowance, there are people in this world that bust their asses off for a $10 a week salary. There are KIDS busting their asses at a full-time job to make $10 a week. You have not lived that life, and you can't even begin to imagine it apparently. Try living like that and then tell me if their priorities are wrong when they want to sit down and escape their lives by means of media. Yeah, they can't afford it, so should they live that bleak, miserable existence without anything to dull the pain? Should a kid in Taiwan work in a factory from sunrise to sunset to buy bread just so you can tell him he's not allowed to watch the movies or play the games you take for granted? You need to get some perspective on purchasing power parity (PPP, if you know ANYTHING about economics) before you go around acting like you earned those games but people that work harder than you ever will haven't.

 

Oh, and FFS, don't go around acting like you know things you don't.  If you knew anything about economics you wouldn't be making the hard-line argument that you have, and your implication that I don't have an understanding of it just goes to show that you're not even remotely qualified to make that assesment.  Maybe try pulling that off on a subject that you have some actual expertise in, next time.  At least then you'll only look like a jerk instead of an ignorant jerk.

Maybe instead of formulating a seriously insolting and completely off-topic post you should have read mine more carefully. And i really don't need any life lessons from anyone, especially someone who doesn't personally know me. Because if you did i can assure you the last thing you would do is trying to show me how fortunate i am to have the oppertunities that i have. And if you like insulting people you don't know, please save it for youtube...

And as mentioned above, if they couldn't afford buying games they probably also cannot afford a PC capable op playing the latest games.

Back on-topic: I never implied that people who downloaded something would have bought it if they couldn't pirate it. I never even mentioned any connection of that sort. What i said was that people who own a ps3/x360 or maybe even both(witch obviously doesn't fall in the category of poverty), might download a version of a game for the PC instead of buying it for a console. Therefore damaging totat sales. And since PC numbers usually aren't near those of console versions, i think there is a real possibility that the number of people acting out the first scenario(pirating on pc) outweigh the number of actual PC copies sold.