we have reached a point where DLC is not even a correct acronym anymore. Hell the "DLC" for Deus Ex is actually installed from the DVD if you buy hard copy.

At this point a lot of "DLC" is actually game content that has been deliberately held back at release.

Originally posted by warmaster670

Originally posted by Picklebeast

Originally posted by laserit

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by laserit

 

 Your one of the one's talkining sense.

Piracy is wrong, it's theft plain and simple.

I have a problem when people consider buying, selling or trading, legally purchased game's to be on the same level as pirating.

 Ok, I don't think I've said that selling/buying new games is illegal, I just pointed out that by buying used games from companies like Gamestop means that the developer doesn't make any money from the transaction, which to me is wrong.    I'm putting the blame for such actions on companies like Gamestop who have built their buisness model delibrately to exclude the game developers and publishers.  Charging for second hand DLC is the game developers fighting back. 

I'm not saying you can't sell your games, you bought them, they are yours.   Am I saying I would rather people paid the extra five dollars for the new game rather than buy the used copy?  Yes.   Who makes the games;  Gamestop or the developers?  Who would you rather see making profits?  I don't know about those who read these forums, but I'd rather see the developers get it.  They are the ones who make us the games. 

 But why should the gaming industry be treated differently then any other?

You can go to a bookstore and buy a second hand book. The author and the publisher get nothing, they lose the sale of a new book.

Should we ban the sale of used books?

I agree. Its absurd that the gaming industry (Hollywood as well) wants its product to be treated diffrently. I really love how when buying a digital version of the product (no box/shipping/DVD nothing...but...bandwidth) I save very little over buying retail. I love all the outsourcing which saves them money as well, and the tax breaks...

Why are games not getting any cheaper when the cost is going down? 

Games sell more today than ever, are becoming very mainstream  and generally are being purchased via download- And the rice is still high, now they want us to pay for every little thing that used to come with the game.

-Tired of being nickle and dimed.

Piracy USED to bother me...

You DO know that game developments costs haver gone up, right? cause you sure are acting like games cost the same to develop now as they did 10 years ago, they dont.

Sure, and sales have went up in proportion as games are becoming mainstream. In fact, take a look at what blockbuster games make today in profit vs what they made 10 or 20 years ago. Same with hollywood, they now spend an immense fortune to make a movie but continue to break records (thus make More $$$) every season- Yet still QQ about pirates and claim they are "ruining the industry".

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by laserit

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by laserit

 

 Your one of the one's talkining sense.

Piracy is wrong, it's theft plain and simple.

I have a problem when people consider buying, selling or trading, legally purchased game's to be on the same level as pirating.

 Ok, I don't think I've said that selling/buying new games is illegal, I just pointed out that by buying used games from companies like Gamestop means that the developer doesn't make any money from the transaction, which to me is wrong.    I'm putting the blame for such actions on companies like Gamestop who have built their buisness model delibrately to exclude the game developers and publishers.  Charging for second hand DLC is the game developers fighting back. 

I'm not saying you can't sell your games, you bought them, they are yours.   Am I saying I would rather people paid the extra five dollars for the new game rather than buy the used copy?  Yes.   Who makes the games;  Gamestop or the developers?  Who would you rather see making profits?  I don't know about those who read these forums, but I'd rather see the developers get it.  They are the ones who make us the games. 

 But why should the gaming industry be treated differently then any other?

You can go to a bookstore and buy a second hand book. The author and the publisher get nothing, they lose the sale of a new book.

Should we ban the sale of used books?

 No, I imagine that second hand book sales do hurt authors and publishers.   But I don't think we are talking nearly the same volume of sales when you compare used video games to used books.   Really this is a whole different topic because you have to look at a lot of different factors such as writing a book doesn't cost alot of money compared to designing and programming a game.   

 I beg to differ. Many books take year's to write, some a lifetime. The vast majority of sale's, is usually... not always, when a book or game is released. That's when the lion's share of the money is made. I would bet the profit margin of a successful title is something, almost all of us would salivate over.

As far as title's go that don't sell, well... Well heck you took a chance and you didn't make it, just like any other kind of industry.

A stinker is a stinker and should lose capital, just like any other product. At least with material product's if something's a stinker you can usually get a refund.

Risk versus reward right?

The entertainment industry as a whole is one of the most lucrative businesses period.

But in our society it's never enough.

A company doesn't lose money to Piracy unless the person was going to buy the game. /Oh but if given a choice people will steal the game../ No they won't. Not everyone does it. Not even the majority.

Piracy might actually help make game sales by spreading word of mouth about the game.

I would also say lowing the cost of a game would increase sales, but companies would rather sell high to a few (relatively) people than sell low to many. Therefor Piracy is nothing by an annoyance and can in some cases help make more sells.

None of this makes it right, but to use it as a reason to raise prices or for a game selling poorly is silly.

Piracy is an issue when one company tries to steal or copy (game/code/etc) from another.

Piracy could be an issue if someone/s stole and copied the game then sold copies of it.

Saying "Some kid(or a thousand) dl a game. Played if for a hour then deleted it", and this cost the company huge amounts of money isn't somehting I can agree with. Not when these people never planned on buying it. Wait.. Let me change my mind a bit. If the game was crap and word of mouth spread and people didn't buy it because they heard it was crap then yes I guess it could cost the comapny money. When more people knew their game was crap then less people bought it. However that's assuming none of those people ever looked at reviews.

Originally posted by laserit

 

 I beg to differ. Many books take year's to wright, some a lifetime. The vast majority in sale's is usually not always, when a book or game is released. That's when the lion's share of the money is made. I'm would bet the profit margin on successful title is something almost all of us would salivate over.

As far as title's go that don't sell well... Well heck you took a chance and you didn't make it, just like any other kind of industry.

A stinker is a stinker and should lose capital, just like any other product. At least with material product's if something's a stinker you can usually get a refund.

Risk versus reward right?

The entertainment industry as a whole is one of the most lucrative businesses period.

But in our society it's never enough.

 Alright, I can concede that writing a book takes alot of effort and can take a long time to write depending who you are.  Not everyone can write a book every couple of months like Stephen King and have constant best sellers.   But I can tell you that profit margins from writing a book aren't the greatest.   I've actually looked into it and for a book to be classified as a 'best seller' only has to sell ten thousand copies in my country.   The author recieves a royalty (which is normally based on how well they are known or success of their previous work), then normally only recieves a couple of dollars per book sold, so it's not exactly something to 'salivate over'. 

But it's all subjective depending on your point of view.   So no, I cannot say you are wrong. 

As for stinkers being stinkers, yes.  By all means they should lose money.   A poor product is a poor product.  But that doesn't mean even poor games should be pirated.  And well, if it's a stinker the resale value isn't going to be high anyway.

As for the greed of westren society or society in general...Meh...Don't get me started.

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by laserit

 

 I beg to differ. Many books take year's to wright, some a lifetime. The vast majority in sale's is usually not always, when a book or game is released. That's when the lion's share of the money is made. I'm would bet the profit margin on successful title is something almost all of us would salivate over.

As far as title's go that don't sell well... Well heck you took a chance and you didn't make it, just like any other kind of industry.

A stinker is a stinker and should lose capital, just like any other product. At least with material product's if something's a stinker you can usually get a refund.

Risk versus reward right?

The entertainment industry as a whole is one of the most lucrative businesses period.

But in our society it's never enough.

 Alright, I can concede that writing a book takes alot of effort and can take a long time to write depending who you are.  Not everyone can write a book every couple of months like Stephen King and have constant best sellers.   But I can tell you that profit margins from writing a book aren't the greatest.   I've actually looked into it and for a book to be classified as a 'best seller' only has to sell ten thousand copies in my country.   The author recieves a royalty (which is normally based on how well they are known or success of their previous work), then normally only recieves a couple of dollars per book sold, so it's not exactly something to 'salivate over'. 

But it's all subjective depending on your point of view.   So no, I cannot say you are wrong. 

As for stinkers being stinkers, yes.  By all means they should lose money.   A poor product is a poor product.  But that doesn't mean even poor games should be pirated.  And well, if it's a stinker the resale value isn't going to be high anyway.

As for the greed of westren society or society in general...Meh...Don't get me started.

 LoL no doubt.

By the way... I'm not arguing for, or justifing software piracy.

It's theft, plain and simple. The electronic form of shoplifting.

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by Ceridith

 

When did I ever say it was fair to the developers or that pirating is okay? I didn't.

But if someone pirates a game, the developers aren't losing money, they just aren't making it from the person... who arguably would not have even paid for the game. In other words, said persons pirate the game, or they don't... either way the developers neither make nor lose money from these people, because they were never potential customers in the first place.

Stealing software isn't like stealing a tangible physical good. Sure there was effort in making the original piece of software, but replication of said final software is arguably free and near infinite. Stealing a physical good on the other hand does incurr an actual loss, because that physical product took resources to duplicate, so it's a loss in inventory.

Again, I'm in no way defending or encouraging piracy. Rather simply pointing out that the entire premise that piracy actually costs developers money is nonsense. The only way piracy costs developers anything, is in their frivilous attempts to add copy protection, which will always be cracked.

The sad truth is that the intellectual property related industries use piracy as a scape goat for poor sales of low quality products that are priced far too high for what most would be willing to pay.

 If someone does pirate a game then yes, developers loose money.   Saying that the only people who pirate games are those who wouldn't buy them to begin with is nonsense.   Naturally people will gravitate toward the 'easy' or 'free' option.   Seriously, what's easier; downloading it illegally off the net, or going to the store and purchasing it?   People pirate simply because they can do so.  If there is something in place like a DLC to discourage pirating a game then it's entirely possible they might buy it instead.  

I honestly can't believe that you feel piracy is a non issue when it comes to revenue loss.  Hell if only ten percent of pirated versions of a game were actually purchased rather than stolen  think of how much revenue that represents. 

You're still assuming that people who pirate can actually afford the games they pirate, let alone would be willing to pay the $60+ that some developers are asking for the base game if they could afford it. That's $60-70 for just the base game and not any of the DLC content. Most can't afford to pay what some developers demand, so they pirate. In other cases, people pirate simply because the pirated version of the game works better than the purchased version, expressly due to restrictive DRM added by developers.

Your belief that DLC in any way combats piracy is nonsense. Any DLC can be pirated, just as easily as the base game can be. In several cases it's actually even easier because the DLC is already part of the base game, it's just locked away waiting to be activated.

Also that you think that the easiest route is what everyone will take... if that were truly the case, most developers would be out of business. It's extremely easy to download pirated games, particularly with how prevelant broadband connections are tofay. Yet your "easiest path" belief doesn't hold true for me, because I still buy the games I play.

Then again, I only pay what I feel games are worth. If a really good game comes out and gets rave reviews, I might pay the full release price. But if it's something I'm not overly excited over or I hear negative things such as it being a short game or not spectacular, I'll wait for it to go on sale and pay what I feel is a more fair price. And I'm sure a lot of other people who actually do pirate games would have been willing to pay a more reasonable price, but sadly so many developers think it's appropriate to charge $60+ for a lackluster game that's over in under 10 hours.

If developers charged more reasonable prices and made it easy for gamers to buy games over the Internet, they would make more money. Oh wait, that's already happening, and it's called Steam. Developers just need to catch on and start lowering the release prices on the base game and charge more reasonable prices for DLC... They might get more people willing to pay that way.

Sometimes I wonder if DLC's are just things that were in-game but they decided to take out and release in regiments just for a proper milking of their product... maybe im just crazy though and expect to little from people... even civ 5 jumped on the bandwagon, which was just sickening in my honest opinion. Dont get me wrong, I dont mind if a DLC is worth it but come on, how often does that actually happen. Its almost like single player games want us to pay a monthly fee as well, like they didnt get the same memo about the state of the economy that the rest of us did...

People actually buy dlcs?

I buy the full version, and uh..."download" the dlcs for free. ESPECIALLY if the content was already part of the game, and purposely left out, so people HAVE to buy it. Oblivion did this with their mage tower and a couple other things. I also download them if they get released within 1-2 weeks of a game release...but that goes back to the previous sentence. I didn't pay 50 dollars, only to have things locked out (Oblivion mage tower is a great example) on purpose, forcing people to buy it. I do however buy it if it is NEW content, and not things that were purposely taken out of the game.

Heck, you could even visit the mage tower in Oblivion, but you couldn't go in...and then there were player made mods that opened it up and unlocked it. Since it was already in the game. Bethesda fail.

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by Malevil

Originally posted by NavyJackal

Originally posted by saker

This is what you get with laissez-faire-style-capitalism. Vote for sanity, vote for your OWN self-interest -NOT- the interest of the corporate scum, or the ultra-rich.

 No, this is what you get when people pirate games or buy used games from retailers like Gamestop.  Game companies don't make any money when people pirate games or buy them used.  Gamestop doesn't share any of the revenue it earns on the sale of old games, and we are talking multi million dollars in sales.  Is it any surprise that the people who actually create, develop, and distrubute these games want some of that revenue that's being essentially stolen from them?

Yes game publishers are out to make money, they are a buisness after all.  They have bills to pay like everyone else.  That doesn't automatically make them scum.   If you call them scum you might as well be fair and call everyone who has purchased a used game to save a couple of bucks or pirated a game scum as well.  

LOL another one from PR department ? Ppl buy secondhand things (not only games) becouse they ussualy cannot afford to buy new one - it doesnt destroy car sellers and anothers, so i dont see why it should destroy sw bussines. And piracy is realy poor excuse, just becouse someone is stealing so you are going to get it back on your actual paying customers ? Thats like fair bussines ?

 LOL another person who can't spell or bother to use a spell check.   People often buy secondhand because they don't want to spend an extra five bucks for a new copy.   Also, your example of the used car dealer isn't valid because we are talking different volumes here.  Tens of millions of used games get sold each year, and the number of used cars sold at independant retailers (with no connection to established dealerships) is no where near that amount.  Also cars/trucks need service, and parts, which you need to get from the dealer so they are able to recoup their losses that way.    It's not like your used copy of Gears of War two needs a tune up or a new head gasket, does it?

And Piracy is a VERY valid excuse.  It's theft plain and simple.  The game developers don't make anything from the sale and it costs them millions.  AAA games are very expensive to make, an investment of tens of millions of dollars.  Losing that much revenue is enough to put small developers out of buisness.

Also I'm not in PR for anyone.  My name is NAVYJackal for a reason you asshat.

Piracy is wrong. It is theft. However resale is an entirely different issue. Not only is resale NOT wrong but it's an inherent part of classical property rights which our entire capitalist system is based upon. Ownership of property entails the inherint right to determine what is done with that property including selling it or gifting it to some-one else.

If you own a piece of land or a painting or a book or a board game, you have an inherent right to determine what to do with it, including selling it or giving it away to someone else. That's what ownership means.

It's the video game companies that came along and tried to warp the classic property rights model that pretty much the entirety of Western Civilization was built upon. They are trying to pretend that when you hand in your 50 bucks to the store clerk, you aren't actualy "buying" anything and therefore you don't "own" anything....you are simply licensing access to thier property (i.e. you are "renting" from them). I wouldn't actualy take them to task for that (although I think it's a raw deal for the consumer), if they didn't have "buy" and "own" plastered over pretty much every peice of adverstisement they have. If all they are doing is renting or leasing it to you...then they shouldn't be fostering the impression (false advertising) that you are BUYING anything when you fork over your 50 bucks.

BTW - Thank you for your service.

Originally posted by Isasis

People actually buy dlcs?

 

I buy the full version, and uh..."download" the dlcs for free. ESPECIALLY if the content was already part of the game, and purposely left out, so people HAVE to buy it. Oblivion did this with their mage tower and a couple other things. I also download them if they get released within 1-2 weeks of a game release...but that goes back to the previous sentence. I didn't pay 50 dollars, only to have things locked out (Oblivion mage tower is a great example) on purpose, forcing people to buy it. I do however buy it if it is NEW content, and not things that were purposely taken out of the game.

 

Heck, you could even visit the mage tower in Oblivion, but you couldn't go in...and then there were player made mods that opened it up and unlocked it. Since it was already in the game. Bethesda fail.

 Interesting take on things and I can only assume you mean that you tend to purchase games like I do.  I have stopped buying games new and tend to wait until a "complete" version is released instead of buying the game immediately and then paying constantly throughout the year for dlc's.

Now there are some issues I think need to be addressed with this concern, first are games now shorter than they have tended to be in the past? 

From my limited experience I would say no for example Dragon Age Origins which had quite a few dlc's was a pretty long game even without the extra content just as was Mass Effect 2 in those cases I have a hard time finding fault with them making a game last a player for an entire year as opposed to the few months games lasted us before we had dlc.

I think the next issue is the speed in which dlc's are created, I noticed a few companies recently had dlc's available on the same week as release and that is a practice I think the industry needs to avoid because in those cases it's too easy for the playerbase to look at it as a half baked product with content intentionally held back (whether it is true or not).

I tend to be very limited in my game style so I don't know about alot of popular genres such as fighting games or fps but with the games I tend to play it hasn't been a problem where I feel like they are doing something dishonest, I also pointed out though that I have also stopped buying games new because I would rather pay 60 dollars a year later for everything than 50 now and twenty every few months.

Maybe this is a practice that those with a problem with dlc's should look into adopting because to constantly support the practice while complaining about it sure doesn't help state your case.