A lot of piracy happens specifically because a lot of games aren't worth what the publishers are trying to charge for them.
LOL no way!!! first those hacker dudes that crack games, they do it because they actually like hacking software...
Think about it a video game costs what? a quarter days pay? it takes hackers weeks to crack software.
The other people that download it not because it isnt worth buy, they do it because they actually want the game but dont want to pay. its really that simple.
Free is better.
Nonsense, you obviously aren't an economist. You actually don't even need to be one to now that people are not born to steal. Piracy/Thievery among other things is directly related with the price of the product. The games are too expansive, and the piracy easily available for everyone.
I'll pass because if it's an article trying to state that PC games are less complex or bad console ports from consoles is due to Piracy then the article is just wrong lol.
Just a little note, they tried saying Piracy would kill the music industry. Sure it hurt profit margins, but by a very small percentage. The music industry is still alive and thriving lol.
Piracy hasn't killed the Music Industry, the Movie Industry and it won't kill the gaming Industry. No I'm not justifying it, I just know how little it actually effects the industries lol. I mean they spend a great deal more fighting piracy than they actually lose due to piracy.
Do you know how the music industry is making money nowadays? Not through sales, but through the courts with copyright infringements.
Nobody has addressed another issue that at least for me and I know several others is the direct cause of piracy for us. That is the fact that for all of these products games, movies, even music no matter the quality of the product sold to you unlike all other merchandise you CANNOT GET A REFUND. If your food is subpar at the restaraunt you send it back, clothes don't fit take them back, if your new tv doesn't work for you you take it back. If you listened to the PR and Hype of gaming companies these days (or movie ads) you would think every new game (or movie) coming out is the second coming but when you start to play it and find its a steaming pile where's the REFUND? Wait thats right you can't get one. That movie that was hyped up that just sucked balls and wasted 2hrs and $12 where's the REFUND? I am tired of companies providing crappy subpar products with no accountability. If I enjoy a game or movie I will buy it if it sucks balls like 95% of the stuff being produced today then thank god for torrenting and the ability to check something out before wasting even more of my time and money. Its not just "the kids" downloading these days its also smart consumers sick of marketing gimmicks and lies of these media companies whose sole purpose is to drain your wallet.
I used to pirate hardcore when I was a teenager, and well into my 20's. But now I have a solid job, I work in IT, and I guess I've grown out of pirating software. I have a sense of business world now and why it's important to pay for products that you enjoy. Because nothing is free, if you don't pay for good products, then good products will eventually go away and disappear.
Someone said in earlier posts that it's naive thinking piracy leads to bad quality PC games. I think it's the other way around. Anybody that doesn't think piracy affects quality of PC games is naive. You can debate how much it affects it, but you can't deny that it does affect quality of games. There are obviously many things that affect quality of PC games today. Piracy is definitely one of them.
It's amazing the lengths people will go, to justify piracy. It is even more amazing the lengths they will go, to separate piracy from theft. Twist semantics all you want, piracy is theft. No doubt about it. Theft = criminal. Piracy = criminal. Criminal = jail.
So true in many countries, but not in The Netherlands. Two different courts just declared earlier this month that IT IS NOT ILLEGAL to download copyrighted stuff. Those courts even went as far as telling that the copyright holders should get other ways to get their money...
I know, these rulings do open up some interesting stuff for me as Dutch citizen, but I do agree. Piracy is a criminal act. I think EA made a nice attempt not to bother anymore with the actual game but allow DLP's to be bought (Dragon Age & Mass Effect 2), but those got hacked already as well and can be obtained through the same channels as you got your game from...
But before we go on, lets split up the stuff a bit... Games take millions to develop, and I think if a game is good, you should buy it. I'm okay if you download the game first (legally or illegally according to your local laws), but if you decided to keep it, BUY THE DAMN GAME!
Music on the other hand... What's the cost of a CD..? around € 15 - € 18 in Holland, and I think that's insane! You get 12 songs for that price on a plastic dish in a plastic case with some poorly printed paper that costs less than 50 cents to produce. OUTRAGIOUS! Then think of how many times you play those CD's... I have had over 1000 CD's total, and I sold off most of them (for only € 4 each) because after I bought them, I hardly listened to them once a month. Not worth the money that was spend on it. IMO, downloading music is okay if you listen to the music not that often (might as well turn on the radio). CDs that you listen to often you have to buy though, as well as the ones you like (but play not that much) that are from small artists (I have a huge collection of that).
But back to topic (I didn't read the article, since it's midnight here now). Download to try the game is okay in my book. After a few hours you can tell if you like it or not. If you like it, you buy it, if not, delete it...
I have downloaded a good amount of movies this year. Only about 2 are worthy of my hard earned money. The rest, I'm SO glad I watched for free and I would have felt ROBBED if I had gone to the theatre or bought the dvd. So who is the thief? Let me toss this out for brevity, 2 of the movies I downloaded I bought on DVD because I felt they were worth the money due to their quality. In essence, the movie company got my business by making a quality movie that didn't rob me of time or money.
See how this isn't a black and white issue?
Personally, as long as the downloaded material isn't being sold for profit, who the hell cares? It's free advertisement. Same with music and games. Oh, and the games and movies and music I downloaded that sucked, which is about 90% of it all, I deleted. Figure that into your "moral" calculations.
I'm not ashamed in the least. I haven't made any money off of them and have spent only on the items that were worth my cash. Hint to creators of entertainment products, make a quality product and it will sell. Pretty simple.
Main reason they pirate things is they are tired of consumers in general being treated like dirt by companies. If companies spent less time trying to do crap like DRM's and such on their own consumers, people would probably buy the products more then pirate them.
Look back in the day when things like NES were around. People bought those games for the consoles. Why? Was none of this copy protection and crap that we have today and majority of the games made back then were actually good.
That is a very dumb rationalization. People pirate games. Companies add on protection so it will help curb the pirating. They then claim they are stealing because of the added-on protection? Come on...that's almost as funny as the pirates who claim they buy the product after 'sampling' it.
Yes games/movies/music will still make money. They won't make as much if people didn't pirate en masse like they do today. This costs some people their jobs. So by pirating, you not only cost some jobs but you essentially give the middle finger to every person who put in a lot of time to create the product. It is nothing more than being an a-hole. It's as simple as that.
"Why money grubbing game developers are leading to the demise of quality games in general"
I buy games, but it still can be hard to justify spending 67$ after tax on a game that will resell for 10$ in 6 months, or be full of gamefreezing or horrible glitchy bugs. (Fallout 3: New Vegas was/is just this, I love the game, but damn is it incredibly glitchy)
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
I do not care about morality, immorality, traditional belief. religion or any manipulative vices. All I care about is if something is Legal or Illegal. If something is either and I do not like it, I can challenge it in the U.S as all law is subject to interpretation on a case by case basis.
How nice it would be to be a real pirate.
I could take a nice ship...sink a few coast guard ships (killing a few people thousand people) and then set an anchor and deploy on the port, breaking into bars where all pirates could drink their problems away prior to setting the town on fire and seizing all valuables and gold, of course the occasional kidnapping and hanging of the town leader. Oh yeah lets not forgetting a few cute haneous crimes...Considering pirates need their "love" too right? and we can end the day singing songs about death, destruction, rape and other cute things....like killing anyone who stands in my way and burning their bodies alive, along with threatening all who remain. ^_^
Thanks for comparing us to the real thing. Here is a present for you. This song comes to mind hehe ^^
This isn't only a PC problem. New console games get heavily torrented too. There was one game a few months back that had thousands of people seeding/leeching it, and it was for both xbox360/ps3. Think it was Assassin's Creed 2, but don't remember now.
So don't say its just a PC problem, its a console problem too. Despite what some gaming companies would want you to believe.
Heck, even the Nintendo Wii games are heavily torrented...I don't see anyone complaining about that, only about PC pirates.
Doesn't make any sense to me. Like their is an agenda against PC games or something. When pirates are a problem for all consoles, not just the PC.
Check out my nature/animal/relaxing music channel on Youtube!
Yes games/movies/music will still make money. They won't make as much if people didn't pirate en masse like they do today. This costs some people their jobs.
And they wouldnt make as much money if there werent dumb people buying shity games which affect the industry even more than pirating
I rarely pirate since i very well know from the beggining if a game will be good ro not, cnc4 was a nice example, it was the worst cnc ever, bad gameplay, even bad story from what i hear and it was rushed from all aspect and it was known that it was rushed and that studio would close after its release, i didnt even waste time pirating it, yet it still sold copies while it shouldnt...
I downloaded both mass effect 1/2 and sw: kotor, i liked biowares storytelling skills, even if it was an EA game i bought it after i have played the game
Why money grubbing game developers are leading to the demise of quality games in general
If dumb people didnt exist these people wouldnt exist either, since they see that dumb people fall for marketing trciks and pay 60$ for pretty much the same game with other skins and 10$ worth new content they do it because it works...
Pirating has rarely anything to do with the quality of games.. Even Valusoft games get pirated.. It all comes down to some people either not having the money to pay for a game, or people just not wanting to pay for games.. To some people, everything should be free.. Even if it costs someone else some money, as long as they get it for free they are happy..
Most of the same people who torrent and download games, download movies, music and all other media types as well.. The quality of the game doesnt matter in most cases, its all about getting shit for free. triple A titles get pirated more because guess what, they are triple A titles! Games that people would NORMALLY lay down money for (especially new ones) are hotly demanded, even if they down right SUCK.. They are new games and some people feel that they should just not have to pay for it..
However, I do believe that as the console and PC gaming markets merge, that we will see a complete shift in games designed specifically for PC's and more for consoles. I say this because soon consoles will have most if not all of the functionality of PC's and the compatability and stability of a console, in one standardized hadware package, that they can use a different yet stiffer security encoding for the games.
This isn't only a PC problem. New console games get heavily torrented too. There was one game a few months back that had thousands of people seeding/leeching it, and it was for both xbox360/ps3. Think it was Assassin's Creed 2, but don't remember now.
So don't say its just a PC problem, its a console problem too. Despite what some gaming companies would want you to believe.
Heck, even the Nintendo Wii games are heavily torrented...I don't see anyone complaining about that, only about PC pirates.
Doesn't make any sense to me. Like their is an agenda against PC games or something. When pirates are a problem for all consoles, not just the PC.
i would say its more a of problem with PC games..microsoft has done alot with fighting illegal xbox pirating
I think the quality of games have gone down hill. Thus=lost revenue. Who is at fault for consumers not wanting to by garbage products? The creators of games. Someone mentioned earliers if you think Dragon Age was better than BG2, this thread is not for you. Lets take a look at the real quick, we were told DA was going to be a spiritual success to BG series through the whole process, it comes out and its pretty much a craptastic game(It wasn't great, it wasn't bad IMO) How about Doom 3's release and its length compared to the new Wolfenstein? Holy crap batman, ID actually signed off on that short game. I felt ripped off when I bought it because I loved RTCW released in 1999 or whatever. Games have gone down hill because of CONSOLE games. When the sheep will buy games such as COD:BO for a couple hours of gameplay and rehashed textures for 60bucks and it'll be one of the biggest selling games of the year..what the hell do you think will happen? If people are willing to pay and purchase crap games, they will keep on coming.
Secondly, I highly doubt he looked into Facebook type games, farmville, etc that cost near nothing to make yet the creators are cashing in big time. I'm willing to bet if you take all the games released each year in every category on every system, you'll find less gems than you did 10years ago. Because its all about rushing it out to complete the next one and so on and so fourth, as long as people keep buying the garbage...
I think the quality of games have gone down hill. Thus=lost revenue. Who is at fault for consumers not wanting to by garbage products? The creators of games. Someone mentioned earliers if you think Dragon Age was better than BG2, this thread is not for you. Lets take a look at the real quick, we were told DA was going to be a spiritual success to BG series through the whole process, it comes out and its pretty much a craptastic game(It wasn't great, it wasn't bad IMO) How about Doom 3's release and its length compared to the new Wolfenstein? Holy crap batman, ID actually signed off on that short game. I felt ripped off when I bought it because I loved RTCW released in 1999 or whatever. Games have gone down hill because of CONSOLE games. When the sheep will buy games such as COD:BO for a couple hours of gameplay and rehashed textures for 60bucks and it'll be one of the biggest selling games of the year..what the hell do you think will happen? If people are willing to pay and purchase crap games, they will keep on coming.
Secondly, I highly doubt he looked into Facebook type games, farmville, etc that cost near nothing to make yet the creators are cashing in big time. I'm willing to bet if you take all the games released each year in every category on every system, you'll find less gems than you did 10years ago. Because its all about rushing it out to complete the next one and so on and so fourth, as long as people keep buying the garbage...
So your blaming the developers for making bad guys that you don't have to buy? The answer is simple, yes PC gaming is dying. These guys can argue and make their case in favor of pirating and how torrenting games doesn't hurt anyone, but PC games have gone from 50% of the market in 2000 to less then 6% today. The developers don't want to touch PC because their shit will be hacked and sold and they won't make a dime, they are all running to consoles for a reason, because the PC crowd is too greedy and selfish for their own good.
but PC games have gone from 50% of the market in 2000 to less then 6% today. The developers don't want to touch PC because their shit will be hacked and sold and they won't make a dime
And world is a box and turians are attacking earth and 4% of human childs die and 23% of turians die and 52% of console games suck and 65% is on fire
Nice univerese lol
When the sheep will buy games such as COD:BO for a couple hours of gameplay and rehashed textures for 60bucks and it'll be one of the biggest selling games of the year..what the hell do you think will happen?
Piracy is not the reason for the decline in PC games Consoles are. Consoles are much simpler for the masses to operate and the games sell for more $$$ (developers likey). Think about the prices of games, console games go for $60+ new or even recently released PC games sell for $49 or less and often drop to $39 after only a few months while console games stay high for a much longer period of time. THERE ARE MUCH MORE PROFITS TO BE MADE OFF CONSOLE GAMES! That is why PC gaming is declining (and of course most people are just too dumb to operate and maintain a decent gaming pc) Console games are often simpler (cheaper and easier to make) and sell for alot more. Why would you keep making pc games? Its all about the money, piracy is just the scapegoat being used so companies can fool their customers into thinking their the "good guys" just trying to stay around when really they are releasing a higher priced crappier version of the game for all the sheep to consume.
A lot of piracy happens specifically because a lot of games aren't worth what the publishers are trying to charge for them.
LOL no way!!! first those hacker dudes that crack games, they do it because they actually like hacking software...
Think about it a video game costs what? a quarter days pay? it takes hackers weeks to crack software.
The other people that download it not because it isnt worth buy, they do it because they actually want the game but dont want to pay. its really that simple.
Free is better.
more like a couple of days at least for newer games
I dislike consoles (joysticks.. yukk) but by little bro is a console gamer he owns about every single console ever made starting whit the first atari consoles. (its worth bucks now :P) . anyway, he has all his consoles altered. they all run ilegal games. he can make and copy his own xbox games. the black market for console games is jsut as big if not bigger then pc gaming.
back in the early days when nobody had desent internet connection and defently no cd writers , no programs to emulate cd drives exsisted yet amoung the masses back in those days we ordered twilight cd's they were ilegal cd's full of games and programs all hacked and ready to install. thats how the console backmarket nowadays still operate. most ppl cant burn their own xbox games but they can buy them.
I think the quality of games have gone down hill. Thus=lost revenue. Who is at fault for consumers not wanting to by garbage products? The creators of games. Someone mentioned earliers if you think Dragon Age was better than BG2, this thread is not for you. Lets take a look at the real quick, we were told DA was going to be a spiritual success to BG series through the whole process, it comes out and its pretty much a craptastic game(It wasn't great, it wasn't bad IMO) How about Doom 3's release and its length compared to the new Wolfenstein? Holy crap batman, ID actually signed off on that short game. I felt ripped off when I bought it because I loved RTCW released in 1999 or whatever. Games have gone down hill because of CONSOLE games. When the sheep will buy games such as COD:BO for a couple hours of gameplay and rehashed textures for 60bucks and it'll be one of the biggest selling games of the year..what the hell do you think will happen? If people are willing to pay and purchase crap games, they will keep on coming.
Secondly, I highly doubt he looked into Facebook type games, farmville, etc that cost near nothing to make yet the creators are cashing in big time. I'm willing to bet if you take all the games released each year in every category on every system, you'll find less gems than you did 10years ago. Because its all about rushing it out to complete the next one and so on and so fourth, as long as people keep buying the garbage...
Raises a good point imo, console games do tend to be more expensive than PC games, and yet the quality of console games tends to be... at best.. good enough.. and at worse.. embarassingly bad, few excel in any way... then there are the number of games that are ported from console to the pc.. and the complaints about dodgy game ports are too numerous to recount, it seems to be one of the biggest complaints.. these days, the money is in MMO's or DLC.. when it comes to the PC.. its pretty much becoming a situation where single player games are primarily aimed at the console players, and multiplayer+ games at the pc... i dont know why it is but for some reason console games seem to have a problem handling more than 60 or so players, which isnt very many at all, console games are considered pretty good if they can handle 8 players in multiplayer.. on a pc thats barely even considered to be a multiplayer game! but.. the profit margins do seem to be the major influence in game design, and with their often ridiculously high pricing.. console games do seem to be the main target after all, if you can sell a game for 60 quid, thats a bit more of an attraction than being able to sell a game for 40.. if its very good that is.. if the game itself isnt that special (surprising how many console games fall into that category) then on a pc you'd be lucky to get many takers even if you put up for 20 quid... so yes.. i agree.. as long as people keep paying over the odds for garbage.. then the situation isnt likely to improve..
Piracy never has caused the pc industry much damage and it never will, drm causes more damage than piracy ever has. Root kits, viruses, hardware that won't function after its installed, inability to have apps installed on your computer that are necessary to do work, loss of sales, hardware incompatibility errors, unnecessary crashes, lost time fixing bugs and real issues, security holes, slower running games, games requiring additional horse power, etc. Those only begin to skim the surfaces of the damage of drm.
The only way piracy hurts the pc industry is if you make the very (large and absurd) assumption that every or even MOST pirated copy is a lost sale. The real number is around 8% based on released numbers. If you change your drm scheme to something that has no existing cracks and keygens and such, you gain 8% more people... is that worth damaging the game play experience, their impression of the game AND YOUR COMPANY, for the other 92% of your players? You've heard the phrase I'm sure haters will hate... well pirates will pirate. It's simple fact, if they can't... they move on to another game (usually this is an economics issue in my experience... a highschooler isn't going to get 6 new aaa-title #47-53 because they don't have the excess money, but they will warez copies.)
Piracy is the downfall of console gaming too? Wouldn't that be true as well OP?
Ever hear of a mod-chip? Ever hear of .iso and a dvd burner? I guess piracy is why single player console games are less complex or just bad ports from PC games right?
I have every new PC game thats come out for the last 4 years on burnt disc, every single PS2 game worth playing burnt and played on a ESR patched PS2 and my XBOX360 is chipped with SmartXX Spider and I burn every single game out there and play them on XLIVE.
Ive managed to save over $100,000 in my lifetime thanks to the internet and hackers.
I dont think you should worry about PC game piracy. Worry more about console game piracy.
I think the quality of games have gone down hill. Thus=lost revenue. Who is at fault for consumers not wanting to by garbage products? The creators of games. Someone mentioned earliers if you think Dragon Age was better than BG2, this thread is not for you. Lets take a look at the real quick, we were told DA was going to be a spiritual success to BG series through the whole process, it comes out and its pretty much a craptastic game(It wasn't great, it wasn't bad IMO) How about Doom 3's release and its length compared to the new Wolfenstein? Holy crap batman, ID actually signed off on that short game. I felt ripped off when I bought it because I loved RTCW released in 1999 or whatever. Games have gone down hill because of CONSOLE games. When the sheep will buy games such as COD:BO for a couple hours of gameplay and rehashed textures for 60bucks and it'll be one of the biggest selling games of the year..what the hell do you think will happen? If people are willing to pay and purchase crap games, they will keep on coming.
Secondly, I highly doubt he looked into Facebook type games, farmville, etc that cost near nothing to make yet the creators are cashing in big time. I'm willing to bet if you take all the games released each year in every category on every system, you'll find less gems than you did 10years ago. Because its all about rushing it out to complete the next one and so on and so fourth, as long as people keep buying the garbage...
So your blaming the developers for making bad guys that you don't have to buy? The answer is simple, yes PC gaming is dying. These guys can argue and make their case in favor of pirating and how torrenting games doesn't hurt anyone, but PC games have gone from 50% of the market in 2000 to less then 6% today. The developers don't want to touch PC because their shit will be hacked and sold and they won't make a dime, they are all running to consoles for a reason, because the PC crowd is too greedy and selfish for their own good.
No, I blaming publishers/corporations such as EA and Atari, Activision Blizzard for releasing piles of shit to be blunt. Look at Oblivion, no DRM nothing, yet it sold a crapload. Why? Because its fantastic. Other games that are fantastic sell a lot as well(Even DA that I mentioned that I was personally disappointed in) and ME/2, etc. I don't torrent nor will I ever. I feel that at some point if everyone gets on board of, 'Hey lets just download this stuff, who cares" the industry will die and my favorite hobby will disappear. The point really is this, we all know someone that d/l's all their music, movies, and games and doesn't pay a dime into the media entertainment industry right? The question is why do they do that? And most have the general thought, why should I pay when I can get it for free even if they have the cash. So until they change their mentality, which honestly short of them having some sort of epiphany or being fined they probably aren't.
I'm pointing the blame at the CONSOLE crowd. Nothing against people that use/buy their games, but as others pointed out resell is where Gamestop makes ALL their cash, which hurts the industry a ton. I find that as long as people are willing to buy steaming piles of crap, they will shove it down our throats. Very few non-MMO's do I buy at release, normally I wait until they are at a bargin to purchase because i can almost know it'll be a something I won't finish and is fun for a bit. I'm more likely to load of BG2/IWD/D2/DunSiege/Oblivion than purchase a new game that sucks to me.
Here is an basic example. Movie=>Video Game. Why? Why? Why? They all suck and are pile of crap that they attempt to sell in order to turn a profit. I can't believe they still sell why? I'm not sure I don't know any gamer that specifcally buys movie to game makes. But for some reason they sell, and well otherwise why would they continue to make them? People are like sheep, have to have this or that because its just the thing to do.
Now for my last attempt to make a valid point, the reason why PC games are dying is because people are stupid to put it bluntly. I mean look, we got tvs now that are media enabled and smart phones so people don't even need a PC for their social sites anymore. How about that killing the PC market. Short of a couple genres(MMO's, RTS, Flight Sims) why would you honestly own a PC that requires constant upgrading to be highly effective every couple years. Not to mention the cost to maintain a PC because people are illiterate morons who can't figure out how to push a bloody icon that says "UPDATE" when your systems is telling you it needs to update or your virus programs says update(reason why a lot of them auto-update now) Really I think people are just scared to learn technology and the younger generation that is growing up now has fancy consoles that connect to the internet so they can game with other people, it no longer is a PC only thing. Parents don't want to shell out the money for them since a: they don't know how to operate them properly and b: it cost way to much compared to console that will without a doubt run everything you purchase on it.
So in short, until a new wave of teenagers find the oh, awe and use a PC for more than porn and facebook and start gaming on them the few games released on them will continue to for the most part be after-thought ports and piles of poo with a few gems here and there.
Yes there are people who download everything for free just because its free and a big percent of that group are teens who have no money, but there are more who just donwload to try or dont want to pay for shity games yet this doesnt affect the overall game sales much since there are still stupid people who will buy the games...
Pc gaming evolved and now there are some people who are real gamers(i dont mean people who play games all the time and just play games), but more than 90% percent arent gamers and just play games and buy crappy games and are just led by marketing they are the easy cash for companies
In consoles its 99% or 98%, easy victums with no resistances to marketing and 0 gaming expirience making them believe that consoles are unhackable or are better thats why many people believe consoles are the futures
Comments
Nonsense, you obviously aren't an economist. You actually don't even need to be one to now that people are not born to steal. Piracy/Thievery among other things is directly related with the price of the product. The games are too expansive, and the piracy easily available for everyone.
REALITY CHECK
Do you know how the music industry is making money nowadays? Not through sales, but through the courts with copyright infringements.
Nobody has addressed another issue that at least for me and I know several others is the direct cause of piracy for us. That is the fact that for all of these products games, movies, even music no matter the quality of the product sold to you unlike all other merchandise you CANNOT GET A REFUND. If your food is subpar at the restaraunt you send it back, clothes don't fit take them back, if your new tv doesn't work for you you take it back. If you listened to the PR and Hype of gaming companies these days (or movie ads) you would think every new game (or movie) coming out is the second coming but when you start to play it and find its a steaming pile where's the REFUND? Wait thats right you can't get one. That movie that was hyped up that just sucked balls and wasted 2hrs and $12 where's the REFUND? I am tired of companies providing crappy subpar products with no accountability. If I enjoy a game or movie I will buy it if it sucks balls like 95% of the stuff being produced today then thank god for torrenting and the ability to check something out before wasting even more of my time and money. Its not just "the kids" downloading these days its also smart consumers sick of marketing gimmicks and lies of these media companies whose sole purpose is to drain your wallet.
I used to pirate hardcore when I was a teenager, and well into my 20's. But now I have a solid job, I work in IT, and I guess I've grown out of pirating software. I have a sense of business world now and why it's important to pay for products that you enjoy. Because nothing is free, if you don't pay for good products, then good products will eventually go away and disappear.
Someone said in earlier posts that it's naive thinking piracy leads to bad quality PC games. I think it's the other way around. Anybody that doesn't think piracy affects quality of PC games is naive. You can debate how much it affects it, but you can't deny that it does affect quality of games. There are obviously many things that affect quality of PC games today. Piracy is definitely one of them.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
So true in many countries, but not in The Netherlands. Two different courts just declared earlier this month that IT IS NOT ILLEGAL to download copyrighted stuff. Those courts even went as far as telling that the copyright holders should get other ways to get their money...
I know, these rulings do open up some interesting stuff for me as Dutch citizen, but I do agree. Piracy is a criminal act. I think EA made a nice attempt not to bother anymore with the actual game but allow DLP's to be bought (Dragon Age & Mass Effect 2), but those got hacked already as well and can be obtained through the same channels as you got your game from...
But before we go on, lets split up the stuff a bit... Games take millions to develop, and I think if a game is good, you should buy it. I'm okay if you download the game first (legally or illegally according to your local laws), but if you decided to keep it, BUY THE DAMN GAME!
Music on the other hand... What's the cost of a CD..? around € 15 - € 18 in Holland, and I think that's insane! You get 12 songs for that price on a plastic dish in a plastic case with some poorly printed paper that costs less than 50 cents to produce. OUTRAGIOUS! Then think of how many times you play those CD's... I have had over 1000 CD's total, and I sold off most of them (for only € 4 each) because after I bought them, I hardly listened to them once a month. Not worth the money that was spend on it. IMO, downloading music is okay if you listen to the music not that often (might as well turn on the radio). CDs that you listen to often you have to buy though, as well as the ones you like (but play not that much) that are from small artists (I have a huge collection of that).
But back to topic (I didn't read the article, since it's midnight here now). Download to try the game is okay in my book. After a few hours you can tell if you like it or not. If you like it, you buy it, if not, delete it...
I have downloaded a good amount of movies this year. Only about 2 are worthy of my hard earned money. The rest, I'm SO glad I watched for free and I would have felt ROBBED if I had gone to the theatre or bought the dvd. So who is the thief? Let me toss this out for brevity, 2 of the movies I downloaded I bought on DVD because I felt they were worth the money due to their quality. In essence, the movie company got my business by making a quality movie that didn't rob me of time or money.
See how this isn't a black and white issue?
Personally, as long as the downloaded material isn't being sold for profit, who the hell cares? It's free advertisement. Same with music and games. Oh, and the games and movies and music I downloaded that sucked, which is about 90% of it all, I deleted. Figure that into your "moral" calculations.
I'm not ashamed in the least. I haven't made any money off of them and have spent only on the items that were worth my cash. Hint to creators of entertainment products, make a quality product and it will sell. Pretty simple.
Box office for Avatar, one of the most pirated movies of recent times :
Domestic:
$760,507,625
27.4%
+ Foreign:
$2,016,982,765
72.6%
= Worldwide:
$2,777,490,390
That is a very dumb rationalization. People pirate games. Companies add on protection so it will help curb the pirating. They then claim they are stealing because of the added-on protection? Come on...that's almost as funny as the pirates who claim they buy the product after 'sampling' it.
Yes games/movies/music will still make money. They won't make as much if people didn't pirate en masse like they do today. This costs some people their jobs. So by pirating, you not only cost some jobs but you essentially give the middle finger to every person who put in a lot of time to create the product. It is nothing more than being an a-hole. It's as simple as that.
Shouls rename the title to
"Why money grubbing game developers are leading to the demise of quality games in general"
I buy games, but it still can be hard to justify spending 67$ after tax on a game that will resell for 10$ in 6 months, or be full of gamefreezing or horrible glitchy bugs. (Fallout 3: New Vegas was/is just this, I love the game, but damn is it incredibly glitchy)
I am entitled to my opinions, misspellings, and grammatical errors.
I do not care about morality, immorality, traditional belief. religion or any manipulative vices. All I care about is if something is Legal or Illegal. If something is either and I do not like it, I can challenge it in the U.S as all law is subject to interpretation on a case by case basis.
How nice it would be to be a real pirate.
I could take a nice ship...sink a few coast guard ships (killing a few people thousand people) and then set an anchor and deploy on the port, breaking into bars where all pirates could drink their problems away prior to setting the town on fire and seizing all valuables and gold, of course the occasional kidnapping and hanging of the town leader. Oh yeah lets not forgetting a few cute haneous crimes...Considering pirates need their "love" too right? and we can end the day singing songs about death, destruction, rape and other cute things....like killing anyone who stands in my way and burning their bodies alive, along with threatening all who remain. ^_^
Thanks for comparing us to the real thing. Here is a present for you. This song comes to mind hehe ^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A19q7rysLs
This isn't only a PC problem. New console games get heavily torrented too. There was one game a few months back that had thousands of people seeding/leeching it, and it was for both xbox360/ps3. Think it was Assassin's Creed 2, but don't remember now.
So don't say its just a PC problem, its a console problem too. Despite what some gaming companies would want you to believe.
Heck, even the Nintendo Wii games are heavily torrented...I don't see anyone complaining about that, only about PC pirates.
Doesn't make any sense to me. Like their is an agenda against PC games or something. When pirates are a problem for all consoles, not just the PC.
Check out my nature/animal/relaxing music channel on Youtube!
My game channel on Youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/vendayn
And they wouldnt make as much money if there werent dumb people buying shity games which affect the industry even more than pirating
I rarely pirate since i very well know from the beggining if a game will be good ro not, cnc4 was a nice example, it was the worst cnc ever, bad gameplay, even bad story from what i hear and it was rushed from all aspect and it was known that it was rushed and that studio would close after its release, i didnt even waste time pirating it, yet it still sold copies while it shouldnt...
I downloaded both mass effect 1/2 and sw: kotor, i liked biowares storytelling skills, even if it was an EA game i bought it after i have played the game
If dumb people didnt exist these people wouldnt exist either, since they see that dumb people fall for marketing trciks and pay 60$ for pretty much the same game with other skins and 10$ worth new content they do it because it works...
Pirating has rarely anything to do with the quality of games.. Even Valusoft games get pirated.. It all comes down to some people either not having the money to pay for a game, or people just not wanting to pay for games.. To some people, everything should be free.. Even if it costs someone else some money, as long as they get it for free they are happy..
Most of the same people who torrent and download games, download movies, music and all other media types as well.. The quality of the game doesnt matter in most cases, its all about getting shit for free. triple A titles get pirated more because guess what, they are triple A titles! Games that people would NORMALLY lay down money for (especially new ones) are hotly demanded, even if they down right SUCK.. They are new games and some people feel that they should just not have to pay for it..
However, I do believe that as the console and PC gaming markets merge, that we will see a complete shift in games designed specifically for PC's and more for consoles. I say this because soon consoles will have most if not all of the functionality of PC's and the compatability and stability of a console, in one standardized hadware package, that they can use a different yet stiffer security encoding for the games.
i would say its more a of problem with PC games..microsoft has done alot with fighting illegal xbox pirating
gamertag - Swaffle House
I think the quality of games have gone down hill. Thus=lost revenue. Who is at fault for consumers not wanting to by garbage products? The creators of games. Someone mentioned earliers if you think Dragon Age was better than BG2, this thread is not for you. Lets take a look at the real quick, we were told DA was going to be a spiritual success to BG series through the whole process, it comes out and its pretty much a craptastic game(It wasn't great, it wasn't bad IMO) How about Doom 3's release and its length compared to the new Wolfenstein? Holy crap batman, ID actually signed off on that short game. I felt ripped off when I bought it because I loved RTCW released in 1999 or whatever. Games have gone down hill because of CONSOLE games. When the sheep will buy games such as COD:BO for a couple hours of gameplay and rehashed textures for 60bucks and it'll be one of the biggest selling games of the year..what the hell do you think will happen? If people are willing to pay and purchase crap games, they will keep on coming.
Secondly, I highly doubt he looked into Facebook type games, farmville, etc that cost near nothing to make yet the creators are cashing in big time. I'm willing to bet if you take all the games released each year in every category on every system, you'll find less gems than you did 10years ago. Because its all about rushing it out to complete the next one and so on and so fourth, as long as people keep buying the garbage...
So your blaming the developers for making bad guys that you don't have to buy? The answer is simple, yes PC gaming is dying. These guys can argue and make their case in favor of pirating and how torrenting games doesn't hurt anyone, but PC games have gone from 50% of the market in 2000 to less then 6% today. The developers don't want to touch PC because their shit will be hacked and sold and they won't make a dime, they are all running to consoles for a reason, because the PC crowd is too greedy and selfish for their own good.
And world is a box and turians are attacking earth and 4% of human childs die and 23% of turians die and 52% of console games suck and 65% is on fire
Nice univerese lol
Nicely said
Piracy is not the reason for the decline in PC games Consoles are. Consoles are much simpler for the masses to operate and the games sell for more $$$ (developers likey). Think about the prices of games, console games go for $60+ new or even recently released PC games sell for $49 or less and often drop to $39 after only a few months while console games stay high for a much longer period of time. THERE ARE MUCH MORE PROFITS TO BE MADE OFF CONSOLE GAMES! That is why PC gaming is declining (and of course most people are just too dumb to operate and maintain a decent gaming pc) Console games are often simpler (cheaper and easier to make) and sell for alot more. Why would you keep making pc games? Its all about the money, piracy is just the scapegoat being used so companies can fool their customers into thinking their the "good guys" just trying to stay around when really they are releasing a higher priced crappier version of the game for all the sheep to consume.
more like a couple of days at least for newer games
I dislike consoles (joysticks.. yukk) but by little bro is a console gamer he owns about every single console ever made starting whit the first atari consoles. (its worth bucks now :P) . anyway, he has all his consoles altered. they all run ilegal games. he can make and copy his own xbox games. the black market for console games is jsut as big if not bigger then pc gaming.
back in the early days when nobody had desent internet connection and defently no cd writers , no programs to emulate cd drives exsisted yet amoung the masses back in those days we ordered twilight cd's they were ilegal cd's full of games and programs all hacked and ready to install. thats how the console backmarket nowadays still operate. most ppl cant burn their own xbox games but they can buy them.
Raises a good point imo, console games do tend to be more expensive than PC games, and yet the quality of console games tends to be... at best.. good enough.. and at worse.. embarassingly bad, few excel in any way... then there are the number of games that are ported from console to the pc.. and the complaints about dodgy game ports are too numerous to recount, it seems to be one of the biggest complaints.. these days, the money is in MMO's or DLC.. when it comes to the PC.. its pretty much becoming a situation where single player games are primarily aimed at the console players, and multiplayer+ games at the pc... i dont know why it is but for some reason console games seem to have a problem handling more than 60 or so players, which isnt very many at all, console games are considered pretty good if they can handle 8 players in multiplayer.. on a pc thats barely even considered to be a multiplayer game! but.. the profit margins do seem to be the major influence in game design, and with their often ridiculously high pricing.. console games do seem to be the main target after all, if you can sell a game for 60 quid, thats a bit more of an attraction than being able to sell a game for 40.. if its very good that is.. if the game itself isnt that special (surprising how many console games fall into that category) then on a pc you'd be lucky to get many takers even if you put up for 20 quid... so yes.. i agree.. as long as people keep paying over the odds for garbage.. then the situation isnt likely to improve..
Piracy never has caused the pc industry much damage and it never will, drm causes more damage than piracy ever has. Root kits, viruses, hardware that won't function after its installed, inability to have apps installed on your computer that are necessary to do work, loss of sales, hardware incompatibility errors, unnecessary crashes, lost time fixing bugs and real issues, security holes, slower running games, games requiring additional horse power, etc. Those only begin to skim the surfaces of the damage of drm.
The only way piracy hurts the pc industry is if you make the very (large and absurd) assumption that every or even MOST pirated copy is a lost sale. The real number is around 8% based on released numbers. If you change your drm scheme to something that has no existing cracks and keygens and such, you gain 8% more people... is that worth damaging the game play experience, their impression of the game AND YOUR COMPANY, for the other 92% of your players? You've heard the phrase I'm sure haters will hate... well pirates will pirate. It's simple fact, if they can't... they move on to another game (usually this is an economics issue in my experience... a highschooler isn't going to get 6 new aaa-title #47-53 because they don't have the excess money, but they will warez copies.)
http://www.positech.co.uk/ dropped drm that they had started to add because they thought it would increase sales and got a massive increase in sales (and an easier game to program since they don't have to spend time debugging drm issues and incompatibilities.) He also found out longer better demos were a huge thing. http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=76 http://www.positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html
TL;DR - DRM is junk, it breaks computers. Piracy will happen regardless.
Shadus
Piracy is the downfall of console gaming too? Wouldn't that be true as well OP?
Ever hear of a mod-chip? Ever hear of .iso and a dvd burner? I guess piracy is why single player console games are less complex or just bad ports from PC games right?
I have every new PC game thats come out for the last 4 years on burnt disc, every single PS2 game worth playing burnt and played on a ESR patched PS2 and my XBOX360 is chipped with SmartXX Spider and I burn every single game out there and play them on XLIVE.
Ive managed to save over $100,000 in my lifetime thanks to the internet and hackers.
I dont think you should worry about PC game piracy. Worry more about console game piracy.
LOL FAIL
No, I blaming publishers/corporations such as EA and Atari, Activision Blizzard for releasing piles of shit to be blunt. Look at Oblivion, no DRM nothing, yet it sold a crapload. Why? Because its fantastic. Other games that are fantastic sell a lot as well(Even DA that I mentioned that I was personally disappointed in) and ME/2, etc. I don't torrent nor will I ever. I feel that at some point if everyone gets on board of, 'Hey lets just download this stuff, who cares" the industry will die and my favorite hobby will disappear. The point really is this, we all know someone that d/l's all their music, movies, and games and doesn't pay a dime into the media entertainment industry right? The question is why do they do that? And most have the general thought, why should I pay when I can get it for free even if they have the cash. So until they change their mentality, which honestly short of them having some sort of epiphany or being fined they probably aren't.
I'm pointing the blame at the CONSOLE crowd. Nothing against people that use/buy their games, but as others pointed out resell is where Gamestop makes ALL their cash, which hurts the industry a ton. I find that as long as people are willing to buy steaming piles of crap, they will shove it down our throats. Very few non-MMO's do I buy at release, normally I wait until they are at a bargin to purchase because i can almost know it'll be a something I won't finish and is fun for a bit. I'm more likely to load of BG2/IWD/D2/DunSiege/Oblivion than purchase a new game that sucks to me.
Here is an basic example. Movie=>Video Game. Why? Why? Why? They all suck and are pile of crap that they attempt to sell in order to turn a profit. I can't believe they still sell why? I'm not sure I don't know any gamer that specifcally buys movie to game makes. But for some reason they sell, and well otherwise why would they continue to make them? People are like sheep, have to have this or that because its just the thing to do.
Now for my last attempt to make a valid point, the reason why PC games are dying is because people are stupid to put it bluntly. I mean look, we got tvs now that are media enabled and smart phones so people don't even need a PC for their social sites anymore. How about that killing the PC market. Short of a couple genres(MMO's, RTS, Flight Sims) why would you honestly own a PC that requires constant upgrading to be highly effective every couple years. Not to mention the cost to maintain a PC because people are illiterate morons who can't figure out how to push a bloody icon that says "UPDATE" when your systems is telling you it needs to update or your virus programs says update(reason why a lot of them auto-update now) Really I think people are just scared to learn technology and the younger generation that is growing up now has fancy consoles that connect to the internet so they can game with other people, it no longer is a PC only thing. Parents don't want to shell out the money for them since a: they don't know how to operate them properly and b: it cost way to much compared to console that will without a doubt run everything you purchase on it.
So in short, until a new wave of teenagers find the oh, awe and use a PC for more than porn and facebook and start gaming on them the few games released on them will continue to for the most part be after-thought ports and piles of poo with a few gems here and there.
Yes there are people who download everything for free just because its free and a big percent of that group are teens who have no money, but there are more who just donwload to try or dont want to pay for shity games yet this doesnt affect the overall game sales much since there are still stupid people who will buy the games...
Pc gaming evolved and now there are some people who are real gamers(i dont mean people who play games all the time and just play games), but more than 90% percent arent gamers and just play games and buy crappy games and are just led by marketing they are the easy cash for companies
In consoles its 99% or 98%, easy victums with no resistances to marketing and 0 gaming expirience making them believe that consoles are unhackable or are better thats why many people believe consoles are the futures
Nor pc or console gaming is dying...