I've always felt that piracy is bogus, honestly. Steam and Origin have now made PC games even more popular than ever. Indie games are now rising and gathering more and more followers and sometimes it feels like companies would rather point fingers at the pirates for shoddy work rather than take the blame for themselves, and yet you see people like Team Meat producing a game I've put 50 hours into (Binding of Isaac) for $5 (And let's not forget Orcs Must Die! Which is absolutely incredible - Or Terraria!). I think the problem isn't piracy. It's the industry.

I said it in the other thread but I will say it again. The figures of real game piracy in most of the world are far FAR lower than what the studios & publishers constantly cite and it would not surprise me of this went for other types of mediums as well including music, movies & TV shows.

In the gaming world Piracy was an excuse for a lot of publishers to ditch the PC format for consoles, they didnt happen to also mention that your average console game can be sold for $15-$35 more per copy & console games will just buy it. The most telling part that game piracy was always a bullshit excuse is the fact that this particular issue has been abandoned by publisher. Face it, nowdays the publishers are too busy demonizing the secondhand console games market (online play pass anyone ?) and trying to destroy it to worry about PC.

Infact many publishers are hailing PC & digital distribution as the second coming and I think sites like GoG.com (purveyors of new and old games that are completely DRM free) could not exist and make a profit if the gaming piracy figures for PC were even one two tenths of what publishers have long claimed they were.

More & more publishers are beinding to the will off the PC gamer when it comes to draconian DRM solutions & removing them or not implementing them in the first place. If Piracy truly were such a massive issue they would not budge on DRM.

If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.

Originally posted by jmcgrath

If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.

 

not likely. i never play demos because i can just download it. if companies in general started to make good games again im sure piracy would drop. but what we see is quantity over quality just like the rest of the worlds industries.

awesome aint it?

Originally posted by sumo0

Originally posted by jmcgrath

If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.

 

not likely. i never play demos because i can just download it. if companies in general started to make good games again im sure piracy would drop. but what we see is quantity over quality just like the rest of the worlds industries.

awesome aint it?

 

just because you don't play demo's doesn't mean someone else won't. I know plenty of people that bought games after they played their demo's.

I agree on the other part though; games are turning into breakfast cereal for developers and some are running out of idea's or imagination.

Originally posted by jmcgrath

If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.

 

If the demos were "true" demonstrations of the games, this might be the case. But mostly they are not.

I mentioned earlier that I use full versions of games in order to convince myself if it's worth a buy. Well, this wasn't always so. I used to use demos as a way of getting to know a game. Promblem was: Too many companies cobbled together a more-or-less awesome demo that emphasized the good parts of a game and hid the bad parts (think Dragon Age II, for a recent example). Sure, that's marketing. I also think it unfair to the customer.

If (IF - sad to say, that will never be the case) more people were mature enough and willing to spend money to support good games, I honestly think that "piracy" (i.e. the downloading of a full game w/o having to pay for it beforehand) could be a boon to the industry. If I hadn't had the opportunity to test drive, I would have bought none of those games. As it stands, i buy roughly 2/3rds of the games I "pirate".

But most people (especially on the internet) are not mature. They get something for free at little to no risk, and that -for them- is that. There's black sheep on both sides of the fences. And on both sides, they're motivated by greed.

I have never pirated a game, but I find services like steam make me want to buy more games. If I can watch a movie on netflix, then I'll watch it on netflix and not even think of trying to get fully free elsewhere. That's the kind of distribution the entertainment industry needs to focus on in order to survive and thrive, and I think it's pretty reasonable.

I don't feel bad that they need to change. I think it's the universe's reply for the movie and music industry increasing prices by like 50% when they switched to cd's and dvd's...which were cheaper to mass produce than tapes.

Not to mention the hundreds and thousands of mainstream albums with only 3 good songs.

And the crappy sequels.

And re-issues.

Originally posted by Grahor

Indeed. When you get something of value without paying anything to those who produced this value, it's a crime. It's theft. That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.

It's very simple. Every time you enjoy the value without paying the producer of that value, you steal. Game re-selleres, toys resellers, users car resalers... You are all criminals, the whole bunch of you. There is no way around it.

Sure, tradition allows us to actually steal things that way without suffering the stigma of being dirty thief that you are... But the principle doesn't change. You enjoy some value without paying the producer for that value.

Its Monday morning here and I needed a good laugh - thanks, I am still chuckling away here ...!

Originally posted by Grahor
 That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.

 

This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. There is a used market for almost any product. If a company can't stay in business for it, step aside, another one will come in and take their place. Also, go spend some time looking up what the definition of a criminal is... you missed the mark by a long shot.

Piracy on the PC is rampant as far as games are concerned.  As a knock on effect from this you also find it's the platform with the most 'issues'.    People with low moral standards tend to operate in the PC gaming world.  Here you find the majority of cheating. Play a shooter on the PC and it won't be long before you easily identify somebody using an aimbot or some other type of glitch/hack. Piracy is rife, cheating is rife.

MMO's are not that  much different, although not cheating in the true sense of the word (though it does happen). Things like key bindings, macro's all go to making things easy in the PC world for those that have technical savvy.  Often gaming skill doesn't come into the equation.  Which just leads to an imbalance and uneven playing field.

Overall I think it's up to the developer to protect their own games, but at the same time I think if you like a game you should buy it.   I question these days whether there are any true gamers left on PC or just people looking for something for nothing.  Be that either pirated games or a paid advantage in legitimate game.

Originally posted by Nesrie

Originally posted by Grahor
 That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.

 

 

This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. There is a used market for almost any product. If a company can't stay in business for it, step aside, another one will come in and take their place. Also, go spend some time looking up what the definition of a criminal is... you missed the mark by a long shot.

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic, though I have no idea what point he was making.

ok following your car analogy, in the car case we can go into a car dealership and ask for a test drive if a game has no demo we are denied the oportunity to test to see if we like or not said product ... so pirated copy comes to play, and the " i pirate games cause i cant afford them" is pretty pertinent now more then ever, unless ppl havent noticed theres a major economic crisis going on, and im very much of the opinion that if game companys were to lower the prices they would actually make more money or make the same money but have alot more customers and in business having alot of customers is probably a good thing...

Originally posted by c4viper1

in business having alot of customers is probably a good thing...