Pirates moan about getting pirated

Well, there is a difference between whether a person will play a game they got for free or if they would pay to buy the game if it was impossible to ever get free in the first place.

That is the crux of the issue. You can't tell that because it would require reading every single person's mind ever, something not possible.

All that said, I don't pirate games unless I own them in some fashion or they're out of print or the in-print version out currently is bungled to the point of being sub-par to the extreme(Let's say the controls are completely fucked up and lag about two seconds behind input. Such a case happened with the ports of Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 to the GBA, though I believe it wasn't quite that bad. It was still very, very poor compared to most games with laggy controls, though) and making the in-print version unplayable or unplayable to All But Gods. I think I've done that twice and not for quite a few years.

I own the PC versions of EWJ1+2 btw, and the genesis version of 1, BTW.

 

I don't think you really understand. I'm talking about crowd sourcing the full cost and profit of the product, then giving it away for free. There'd be nothing to pirate.

Most people who contribute towards game development do so for fixed financial compensation. Yet we have this idea that games are meant to be an investment with potential for unlimited return (and the most popular games get milked indefinitely). That is what I think needs to change, not some hopeless goal of shaming people into no longer pirating.

 

I understand, thanks. This is a business model decision. The rights will still be owned by the content author. If they choose to use this model, it is still their right to do so. They cold even assign the rights to the crowd, but it doesn't change the nature of copyright.

This may very well be a good solution, but it doesn't change the fact that piracy is wrong.

There are good and bad points on that idea, but ultimately you are talking about business models designed to work around piracy, rather than change attitudes to the original problem.

Just quickly, ignoring the pejorative term "milking" (commonly called earning), I don't think anyone in the industry thinks that there is an unlimited return in games. Lol, we wish!

Shaming actually does work over long periods of time. Most social change comes from a growing number of people who point out and highlight behavior that needs to change. If you want to change social attitudes then it requires a sustained effort of direct engagement. I would argue that sidestepping an issue with workarounds never works in the long term.

 

No actually, I think that this model has other advantages, making piracy irrelevant is just one of them. For one thing, it removes the risk of a game not selling and therefore lets developers pitch more things.

And I don't really understand your criticisms - the risk isn't that high that your money will be gobbled up for zero return if invested in a group with any real experience in making games. And the individual contributions are generally not high enough for it to be a huge deal if this happens (vs you know, wasting money on a game you don't enjoy). I also don't understand how users would pay substantially more this way... are game developers currently getting their funding from doing something other than selling games?

What is that supposed to mean exactly?

 

Call me when some one raises what it costs to build a AAA game via crowd sourcing.
I'm principle it's fine for niche titles, though most developers end up spending way to much of their own cash on speculative future royalty income, but a current AAA title is in the $50M range budget wise and many much higher than that.

 

Do you see any reason why that couldn't happen?

 

Could it happen, sure, but I'm not sure it wouldn't be limited to the same set of constraints that you have with existing publishers.
I.e. low risk developer, low risk title....

FWIW I know of a game that was crowd sourced through one of the major sites that had to take the site to court to get the money released to them because they considered the developer too much of a risk to release such a large quantity of money to. Because the sites offer money back guarantees to the "investors". So it's not a panacea.
Publishers take a risk funding a project, I'm not sure that crowd sourcer's are are going to be willing to invest if failure and monetary loss become common place.

 

Well put.

The only way it *could* work is if it is not given away for free, otherwise as you say, who would pony the money up front and take the risk. The only way that can happen is if there are protections such as copyright etc etc etc. The only way copyrights work is if they are enforced. You have to deal with piracy sooner or later. It might as well start now.

 

And if they weren't going to buy the game, then they certainly don't deserve to be playing it. After all, why are they playing it? They are deriving some form of enjoyment from someone else's hard work.

Only in the case of pirates they don't think those people should be rewarded for their hard work even if they themselves enjoy playing the pirated game immensely. So much so that they are will to spend multiple hours of their lives playing it.

If someone loads it up and after 10 minutes deletes it off their drive, fine. But in a case like this where pirates are playing the game for hours enjoying it so much that when piracy enters the equation in game, they feel compelled to seek a solution so they can keep on playing the game.

If it was something that wasn't worth buying then it is something that isn't worth playing.

Hence, anyone not willing to pay for a game should not be entitled to steal from the people that developed the game.

Yes, there is no physical product. But people still spent weeks, months, years (4-5 years in the case of some AAA titles) working on the title. Just like physical products must account for the physical labor (time = money) when pricing a product and seeing if they can make a profit and continue to remain in business. That part of it is still very much relevant here.

Just because there is no physical product, does not mean that the product has no value due to money invested into making it.

If no one, or not enough people, buy a game then games of those types will no longer be made.

Want to know why everyone wants to try to replicate something like CODs success? Because people buy it because they can't play a pirated version of it (multiplayer being the most compelling draw for most players).

Want to know why most innovative single player games don't see that level of success? Yeah, they are easy to pirate.

More people bought Diablo 3 (sold 1 million copies in less than a day) by a long shot than bought Torchlight 2 (took over 3 months to sell 1 million copies). But more people play Torchlight 2 than Diablo 3. Think about it. The less popular game is the one that is purchased more, because it is virtually impossible to pirate it at this time. Pirated version of Torchlight 2 was available when the game came out.

If the pirating of Torchlight 2 is even remotely on the same level as the game in the OP. That would imply there's likely over 20 or 30 million people playing the game. If even a fraction of those people bought the game because they couldn't pirate it, the developers of Torchlight 2 could invest a whole lot more money into Torchlight 3 to make it that much better.

Regards,
SB

 

But that's a moral argument (which I agree with when it comes to entertainment software, BTW), not an economic one.

In an economy where the available cash for entertainment purposes is, say, $40; that is also the maximum financial loss to the system due to piracy (and most likely it won't be a net loss at all, but a redistribution effect). No matter how many games are actually pirated.

 

True, but games do not just compete with each other but all forms of discretionary spending, many of which do not have the disadvantage of being easy to copy.

While it won't be a net loss to the economy or discretionary spending it most likely will be a loss to content that is easy to copy.

 

I own 107 games on Steam. I was looking at my collection today so I figured I would point that fact out in light of the other things I have said in this thread.

 

You do not own any games on Steam. All you have is a license to play them until Steam shuts down.

 

Hey, lets not jump on a positive

 

but what is that not easy to copy?
books for study on university? The lecturer recommend to just copy it from library.
comics? the pirated version available on train stations.

food? its hard to discern which one is the real food and which one is fake food :/
(what i mean by fake food is crisply chicken that being made using plastics fryed together on the frying oil, etc and clone brand food)

i think games compete with other things that easier to buy. Its much easier to by clothes than buying original PC game. Impulse money goes to clothes when a person walks on shopping mall.

impulse money gone to pirated CD/DVD/Bluray on shoping mall, etc.

original games need to be easier to buy.

 

A movie ticket
A TV
A Pool toy
A Groucho Marx mask
A holiday
A ticket to the football
A new car
Eating out
Caviar

I can go on.

You can't copy those things so people will pay for those and copy digital media.
Money that would have gone to digital media has now gone to other things. This is not hard to grasp.

Ah I see because it's easier to take someone else's property than pay for it that's ok?
And PC games are hard to buy? You don't have steam? access to amazon, ebay etc etc etc.

 

pirated games are sold openly. A lot easier to buy than original games.
you PAY to get pirated games.

Steam? Its hard to get credit card. Even after getting credit card, downloading gigabytes of game is hard.

If have a credit card, its a lot easier to BUY pirated game and also buy original game. Use the pirated game data to "inject" original game.

works fine for Origin and Steam. And its the reason my games collection changing from physical to digital. Its just not worth the effort to buy original "physical" pc games. Better just buy original digital game and pirated physical pc game to inject data.

thats why i say original game need to be more easier to buy

people that cant affort those things will affort other things. If not have money for a new car buy used car.

 

Easier is not a valid excuse.