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Slimebeast on 18 April 2010
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Rpruett said:
Slimebeast said:
NJ5 said:
Slimebeast said:

You don't have to comment that "not every pirated sale is a lost sale" because that's pretty obvious. We knew that already. But even if theres only 1 lost sale for every 10 pirated games, that's still lost sales and means financial impact on someone.

Maybe you knew it, but Zucas and other people don't take it into account when they say that piracy is always theft under a broad definition of theft that also includes virtual losses.

IMO it's ridiculous enough to call something theft when nothing is being removed, but to go as far as to call something theft when it can have no impact at all, that's too much.

 

One comment on the green though. Do you really think that's ridiculous?

Do you know the game Mount & Blade? It's a niche strategy/RPG PC game developed by a small Turkish independent studio. Many people in forums and gametrailers flame the game for having weak graphics. It's pretty obvious it hasn't got top-notch grafix due to their limited resources.

I pirated the game. Many others did too. Now the sequel M&B Warband came out, with the same graphcis and you hear the same comments. Again it's due to limited resources.

I feel that we who pirated the game, by not contributing financially to something we enjoyed without asking permission, we as a collective removed something. We removed income to the developer and we removed quality from the sequel by denying it resources. Because a proportion of us would have paid for it if it wasn't so easy to pirate.

Don't you feel it is up to the developers to make something compelling enough to purchase or at the very least come up with a game model that forces the hand of a purchase?   I do.   Sometimes games, music, movies that get purchased never would have been purchased gets pirated simply to see if a person would maybe enjoy that game or those types of games.  When they get that answer from personal experience they may become a fan of a game they never would have. 

This is just like the music industry all over again. People wanted to be able to listen to music on their computers in easy/user friendly manner as PCs were ever growing in homes.  Napster provided a way for that to occur.   The music industry was left at the alter with old business models and over-priced 20 dollars CDs filling the shelves.   They failed to provide the consumer with ANY viable alternative to what they wanted. 

Steam is an excellent example of a smart decision to protect company revenue from games and provide an easy to use avenue for consumers to flock to.  PS3 has provided another excellent example of a company protecting its revenue from games sales.  But what is absolutely funny about the PS3 example is that it commonly sells less software than the 360.   Which makes you wonder,  does the 360s piracy contribute to actually increasing software sales?

  
No because it's not always possible. For many people including me services like Steam and Apple-store mean nothing. I want the content, not the service. It's impossible to get enough revenue from just creating some artifical 'service' around the content. The value is in the content, and if the content can be pirated you can't offset it by just creating some service. It works for some people (browser games, Steam to some extent, Apple store) but not for the genres I like - niche hardcore games, heavy metal musicians, epic movies.
Rpruett said:

I won't defend the Music/Movie/Game/TV industries because in my opinion they have for far too long ripped off the very consumers that allow them to keep doing business at the capacity that they have.  Rather then attempt to make the experience as enjoyable as possible for the consumer.  It's like running a Theme Park and charging outrageous prices and once the consumers get inside they find out that there are no restrooms inside the park just outside in the parking lot. 

Music Industry -  CDs cost virtually nothing to make yet CDs you get at the store are 20$ with $18.50 going to the record label and contain 1 to 2 good songs and the rest just filler BS ones. No viable alternatives.  Prosecuting grandma's in vein instead of fixing the problem.

Movie Industry  -  VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray -  And just when you get a full collection of VHS or DVD you're going to need to get Blu-Ray but just when you get Blu-Ray you're going to need ______.   Happens every time. 

Games Industry - Promises of expansions to consoles, support for attachments, future support for consoles, etc.  Ever increasing prices for everything.  150$ for a plastic guitar/drumkit and cheap microphone?   Gameboy games for $40?  Seriously?   The jump from $49.99 to $59.99. The nickel and diming of their customers (Paying $0.99) per 'cheat code' in Madden 2010.    $1.00 for a PSN avatar? (A picture that either took 4 seconds to create or was just copied from somewhere else and moved onto their server as a possible avatar)?      Blizzard charging $25 dollars(2 months subscription time) for a virtual in game 'mount' in a game where you are paying for constant new content?

 

 

I would have an easier time justifying piracy as theft or as a terrible thing in general if there was some serious tangible proof that it hurts sales, because that's the core issue here.  And that's where it is commonly confused.  If I enjoy pirated Product A, but never would have purchased Product A in the first place that is not a loss of a sale.   Some people believe that, this = a sale and is a crime of theft in itself.   However, if it doesn't impact the sales or the overall bottomline of the owner of the product then how can you define it as theft?  You can't.  Thus the dilemma. 

 I hate this argument. It's not for us to decide who is allowed to make lots of money and who is not. That's commie ideas ffs.

The consumer votes through his Dollars. If the product is bad, don't buy it. I don't like this anarchistic idea of "if I steal everything they are forced to change lol".

Green part: 1 pirated game is not 1 lost sale, no. But piracy overall hurt sales to some extent. Just accept that fact and we can discuss from there. If you can't see that PC software development is getting hurt by piracy then it's not worth to discuss with you.