I want a honest answer on these points. How many of you actually bothered to listen, and how many of you actually grasped what he was saying. I take it most of you either didn't listen, or didn't actually understand. He was using the PS1 games as an example of a problem endemic to the platform. They are being used as an example. They are not the crux of what he is talking about. What he is talking about is a company that he professes can make some pretty damn good hardware, but doesn't know the first damn thing about customer service. This is hardly a revelation. Everyone knows that Sony as a service provider just plain sucks. I mean it is just disgraceful.

What is most damning however isn't the poor customer service. It is the fact that Sony doesn't even recognize that there is a difference between employees and customers. They believe customers exist solely to service Sony rather then Sony exists to service them. How else would you explain apologizing for a failure by producing the excuse that your own internal mechanisms are slow, and as a customer you must learn to deal with this. Stop for just a moment and think. How fucked up in the head do you have to be to say my excuse for giving shitty service is the fact that I am a shitty person.

Hell how messed up in the head do you have to be to repeat that as a defense. If a certification system crawls it isn't a acceptable excuse. It is a strike against the company for being poorly managed. Other companies do have certification systems of their own. You want to know the difference they work. You know what else something like digital rights management shouldn't be a mystical experience. Everyone else on the planet can seemingly support multiple devices without causing customers headaches. Hell I gotta ask is Sony still pulling this dial up speed shit with customers. Is it still taking you guys hours to download stuff.

Anyway the biggest deterrent to piracy is human decency. It isn't just a little bigger it is like ninety percent of why a person will not commit a crime. You know what it takes to get that ninety percent to change their minds. They just need a justification. A good justification is what they get when the company they do business with treats them like they are thieves, or worse they are slaves. He is basically right in what he is saying. If you treat people with the respect they deserve, and you make a comparable product. Those people aren't going to steal from you. Do the opposite, and you all but assure it is going to happen a whole lot more.

"Machinarium, a game you can get easily and cheaply without DRM, saw like a 90% piracy rate."

People won't steal from you if you treat them with respect?  Absolute bull.  People steal videogames because it's easy and cheap.  Simple as that.  Otherwise, explain why people pirated Machinarium.  Go ahead.  A game you could get dirt cheap, with a developer that does not believe in DRM.  Did they treat people like slaves and thieves?  

Rationalization is saying that someone "deserves" to be stolen from because you don't like them.

The idea that a business won't be ripped blind if they don't attempt to protect themselves is laughable and unrealistic.

It pushed PSP sales, so perhaps they're hoping it will work again.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I beleive Machinarium was a point and click game that cost $20... was about 3 hours long.

3 hours?  Really?  Not for me.  GameFAQs says "Average Play Time: 7.1 Hours".

Searching "machinarium play time" on google gets me these results on the first page:  "Machinarium. Playtime: 4 hours (5.75 hours total). I finished Machinarium, and I have glee like a kid in a ball pit" -- "Machinarium is an adventure puzzle outing which, as I'm sure you're ... With around 6 hours of fantastic play" --  "the game offers up over 6 hours of play time" -- "Expect a good six hours from Machinarium, more or less".

If it took you 3 hours, awesome, but it doesn't look like that's even close to an average.

And, regardless, so what?  That's a justification for stealing it?  If that's your belief then we are just two entirely different people and there is no need to even talk about it.  If I think something isn't quite worth the price then I won't buy it, but I won't steal it, either.  Of course, Machinarium is a fantastic game that I definitely think was worth $20 when it was released.

The point is... if you take care of your customers they won't pirate... or rather potential customers will pirate less anyway.  Since it's been shown that higher piracy numbers correlate with higher sales.  In some cases actually, a game that sees a big increase in piracy leads to an increase in sales after the fact.

An extremely short game with zero replayability at $20 is not taking care of your customer.

Now a game like Binding of Isaac....

@pokoko

I reject your logic, and substitute the truth. The people who bought the game, and those who pirated the game may only represent a fraction of those who shopped the game. In other words ninety five percent of people who viewed the game may have decided they didn't want that game. So they didn't buy or steal. You haven't disproved anything.

Meanwhile what I have said is backed up by a profound volume of scientific studies. From anthropological all the way too zoological. Human beings have a strong aversion towards conducting unfair transactions. We will even be willing to go so far as to hurt ourselves as a retort to unfair dealings. We will even hurt ourselves if we actually get the better end of the deal. This is why only a small fraction of any given population are hardened criminals. It isn't that there isn't a incentive. It is the fact that we will feel pain such as remorse, guilt, and even a desire to be punished.

Despite what you see on the news, hear from others, or read online. The vast majority of people are incredibly altruistic towards one another. Were that not the case we wouldn't have civilization, or be able to live in large groups. Pirates aren't the norm they are the exception, and most pirates cannot do what they do unless they can create a real justification for what they are doing.

Poor Sony. Can't get anything right.

There's also that too, but I've found that scienctific studies and economic theory are generally lost on people in regards to this.

I'm actually surprised by the content of the video because I kind of assumed it was going to be about how many people believed that the PSP's sales were heavily driven by piracy ...