1: Consoles are not the Future, if they replace the PC they need a Keyboard and Mouse and become PC with tighter restrcitions than todays PCs - but they convert into a PC!
2: Piracy is not the reason why quality of Games is degrading.
MMOs can not be Pirated and the best MMOs were produced years ago and all the newer ones do NOT meet the expecatations bcs their management has BAD EXECUTED their task and the EXPECTATIONS of the players are to high!
3: The loss of money is not as big as assumed as only a fraction of the pirating users would ever buy all the games they have collected so at all the monetary impact is minor.
4: Piracy is not good and no one should be proud of it but its mainly an excuse for the business why they did not meet their exaggarated predicted sales figures.
PS: I do no piracy nor do i believe in bullshit!
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
It's probably a very well written article but I personally have no opnion about what system a game comes out for, as long as the game is good it doesn't matter to me if it's for pc,ps3,xbox360 or even the wii.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Sorry this is not true. Though its not helping its not nor ever well be. Fallout just made MILLIONS.. was a hit.. all the pirating of that game stopped nothing. Yet you believe this so much you still download music, cheat , lie on taxes blah blah..
Pc quality games are not coming and wont because of consoles. Consoles are NOT bad. Just still outdated and the game company's will make games for that 1st then pc. The pc will be dumb downed. You should be more concerned about what is happening out side.. for its not getting better.
Pirating wont ever stop. So if you like playing that game.. just buy it. So this is just another thread that wont say anything that has never been said before. Those that pirate will keep on. Those that don't will keep buying.
Yet with that camera on your ps3, xbox.. can they now see you? Microsoft just was talking about this.. haha.. so much is happening no most are like sheep. Not that they do.. but want to..
We've begun to see a fix of sorts to the piracy problem.
To begin, I will admit that I myself download games. Personally I do it because it's so hard to get a good demo these days.
My rules are simple:
A) If it's a shit game, I'll delete it and not bother with it ever again.
If it's a good game that I enjoyed I'll delete it and put it on my list of good games I wouldn't mind playing again.
C) If it's an excellent game I buy it the second I have the money.
D) If it's a game I really want I skip downloading entirely and flat out buy.
Now we've got that out of the way, the fix for piracy that has begun to surface is this:
No LAN.
Bad Company 2 did this and it annoyed downloaders to no end.
Granted it doesn't do much to save the singleplayer from downloaders, but many games these days have good multiplayer options that people want to take part in.
The Blizzard way seems to have saved Starcraft 2, though I haven't checked for downloadable versions. It was a game I really wanted regardless of the no-lan issue (mates and I used to love taking out computers to someones house and laning games back in the day.)
Anyways, without a LAN feature programs like Hamachi which allow downloaders to bypass online verification/online play systems absolutely moot.
But I don't honestly think that downloaders are the reason for the decline of video gaming. Many Games Companies go crazy when their projected sales aren't met, but some of them don't add downloaders to their projections and find that they are meeting the projections.
A good portion of downloaders wouldn't have bought the game they downloaded anyway. Some of those who would never have bought the game, who then download it and try it, find they like it and buy it. I know this for a fact because I've been like that with some games. Hate the concept of a certain game but download it at some point out of curiosity only to find it was brilliant. I can't really give any examples though. I can't remember.
The thing is, a large portion of games these days are utter crap, and without a good set of demo's anymore, it's become a system of "Buy to Try" instead of "Trial Before Buying". These days you can't tell if you will like a good portion of games that come out. Many people don't have the money to waste on a bad game, but have to in order to try it out. This is why I think downloading can be useful for many.
Once upon a time, video gaming was for the fairly wealthy. Games weren't cheap. People rant about games being $40-80US, but back in the day, some early console games cost double the highest number there. I found a version of an early Street Fighter with the original sales tag on it. $260NZ.
Now lets add in the fact that while games cost 40-80US in America (duh), they still cost rediculous amounts of money elsewhere. Take New Zealand for example. $100-140NZ depending on the game, the highest there often being collectors editions (which can still range higher still.)
49.95US is about $66NZ dollars. Aren't we getting ripped off? Yes. Is it hard to see why kiwi's might download games instead of buying them? Not really no.
Unless a game is out on Steam. It's clearly cheaper to pay the US price than the NZ price thanks to currency differences right now.
I'm fairly sure other countries have it worse still than us Kiwi's.
It really isn't hard to see why people download games these days, for several different reasons. It's also pretty rediculous to say that downloaders and pirates are the cause of the decline. No. That's just stupidity on the parts of game companies.
As a side note, I'd like to point out that the entertainment industry these days is being slammed full on in the teeth. They expect the sorts of income they managed years ago, but people aren't willing to pay a crap load for nothing.
Take the music industry for example. Many people aren't willing to pay full price for an album when all they want is a song or two (or a few).
The entertainment industry is slowly SLOWLY beginning to look at digital sales, but they're still not quite with it. Here's the thing. Digital sales drop the costs of having to make and try to sell boxes with DVD's, fully printed and coloured manuals, etc. The trouble is the entertainment industry hasn't gotten on to that full steam, and many 'middle men' are making the money that those companies think they should be getting, because they're too stupid to sell digitally.
Video Games are selling digitally these days, but one thing I've noticed is that it's mostly middle men giving good prices. The actual publishers put games up at box price or just a tad below it and they wonder why people download a free copy instead :
What I'm trying to say is, you can't just blame the populous for this. There have been complaints about the price of video games for years. If companies won't listen, then the masses will continue to defy them. Simple as that.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
Quite frankly teh whole situation is messed up and really needs to be taken care of in the overall picture. The RIAA is suing people for thousands when their crime is really nothing more than petty theft.
PC gaming is dying because developers can move to console and churn out a game on an 18 month development schedule with a cheaper cost. It doesn't need to be a good game because it will be bought regardless. It's easier and faster than PC development. But one thing that consoles will never have is any amount of versatility. It will play games pretty well, but that's it. And if you enjoy taking advantage of player created content in your games (often superior to what you would otherwise have to buy) you have only one option.
Yes, PCs are more expensive. This is because gaming is just one of their myriad functions. With consoles, there's gaming and being a doorstop. Not much in between. And as far as I'm concerned, most of them do a better job of being a doorstop than a game platform anyway.
What was the topic? Oh yeah, piracy. So ... piracy bad. Don't do it.
This has been parroted for the last 5 years, but I've yet to any indication that this is the case. The PC game market is still alive and well, it's just migrated moreso to online sales platforms due to sheer common sense with regards to convenience and cost.
Actually its not only that PC gaming is not going anywhere. Consoles in one or two gens will become PCs. As the casual market gets used to the games they get now (it becoming the major focus of game studios), these sunday gamers will demand more. More options, more everything. Its only natural that when you become acustomed to something you look more deeply in it. The trend of simplyfing game will hit rock bottom in a few years, to simply bounce back, which will result in a 90's type golden age. People will demand more involved game, more involved hardware. Hardware that refelects their commitment to their hobbys.
Piracy is easier on consoles anyways, its a PITA on PC. The only thing is that I cant play my console games online (nor do i want to pay for xbox live) because they have a way to check if its piracy evidently since they killed a ton those a few years ago.
Mod the chip. (have it installed)
Copy the DVD.
Enjoy.
On PC, you have to have someone that actually cracks the program, makes it available. Then when an update comes, crack the update, make it available. All that, and the game risks crashing still because of the crack.
The quality of games is lowering as fast as EA is growing. Its not just a coincidence. The fun thing is, the more people complain, the more they buy the crap too, so the less companies think they have to do to sell the product. It all comes down to 1 thing: Money.
If I offer you a salary of 20 000$/year to say hi to me every morning, and 20 000$/year to say hi to me for the first 4 months of the year, you wont take the longer one for the same amount.
Same thing with EA, they wont work 3x as hard to get a great product out there when a poor product rakes in the same numbers.
The only solution is onlinegaming with different revenue models!
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
Thank you for the link. The author's work in objectively analyzing data points was admirable. I haven't pirated games before, so I think I may have intellectually downplayed the severity of what was going on. I had no idea the numbers were quite as staggeringly high as they appear to be (the "Piracy as a Proportion of Total Internet Usage" section on page 4 was astonishing). One or two of Ghazi's sources seemed iffy in sections (like this one), but there were far more that seemed completely credible; furthermore, most of his conclusions were very logical, "1 + 1 = 2" conclusions, rather than "I feel such and such" opinions. While he did take a leap here and there, he didn't have to clear much of a gap.
What's especially amusing, and more than a little depressing, is the sheer number of negative responders in this thread who clearly didn't get past the article's first page. Each and every response in the thread attempting to legitimize or rationalize piracy, either in part or in whole, is specifically addressed and debunked with data points in the article, from legality to "Just put it all on Steam," all the way through to "PC gaming is Dead." At no point does the author inject personal feelings into the piece. In fact, the only recommendations of any kind (based on the data and conclusions accumulated and analyzed over the 9 previous pages) come in at page 10, and they're as much to game designers and publishers as they are to consumers.
Anyway, I know people tend to be irrevocably married to their own belief systems, so one article isn't going to change anyone's mind. It was an interesting read for someone like me who thought that piracy was "just something going on over there somewhere," though.
Pirating is illegal, there is no need to debate this.
That said, there is a lot wrong with this article with respect to determining the direct affect of piracy. The crux of his argument is PCs have the same install base as consoles but game copies sell 4 to 5 times less than on consoles. Ergo, there is no doubt that piracy is causing major losses for PC game companies. The rest of the article is fluff or extrapolations from the previously mentioned assumption, which of course would sound reasonble give the assumption.
What is wrong with his assumption --> He calculates the PC base by taking TOTAL number of computers sold, worldwide, analyzes it with the number of gaming cards that can run the latest games, and comes up with a computer gaming base that is higher than consoles.
1. I have four (4) PCs in my house, all game capable. I am not buying 4 copies of the same game for all my PCs.
2. He needs to take off all business computers (hello, design studios, gaming making studios, game convention comps, etc) right off the top.
3. I have 2 consoles in my house. If a game is for both PC and console, I'd buy the console one, and I bet a lot of other people do to.
4. There is huge game console pirating. In fact, I'm sure they are part of his numbers.
Other people could pick it apart even more, and that's just his main assumption. The bottomline is, his base assumption is off, and so what points he makes that follows cannot be viewed as reliable. Too much to go into the rest, but I'll throw out some questions.
a. Console pirating is huge, yet consoles are held up as a contrast to why piracy affects PCs?
b. He says pirating makes PCs games more expensive, and they would be cheaper if not for piracy. Consoles are cheaper, easier to develop, and according to him, sell more 4x more, and yet why do they cost $10 more on average (his number)?
c. If 12 games release a month (my bs number), will (can?) a pirater buy them if he can't pirate them? Maybe in the US and like countries, but what about poor ones? There has got to be a way to measure this more reliably than the article writer.
Conclusion
I can't say with certainty that his conclusions are wrong, but I can say they aren't wholly supported. People look at his number and go "oh shit!".
However, one thing I do know is that while piracy is unlimited, resouces are NOT. What percentage of downloads would turn into cash were piracy not possible? This article does not answer that question.
Piracy wrong, gaming too focused on lowest common denominator, publishers release buggy pc titles. ect ect ect... meh.
If publishers had better qa and programmers had better support,. Might be different. Of course if nation wide CCW was ever passed. maybe people would not have to put up with as much stupidity.
When I posted my reply to this thread I was not "supporting" or "attacking" piracy. I was merely stating the laws as they are written and preserved. The law is the law, and all law is subject to interpretation in the United States.
Theft was mentioned before in this thread....
Theft is when you take something that does not belong to you with the intent of not returning it and keeping it for yourself. It is usually accompanied by other crimes such as assault, breaking and entering and even murder. Theft is about physically taking something and keeping it for yourself. If I steal your car, It means I have stolen a car and now you are without a car. If I steal $20 from you, it means I now have $20 and you have $20 less.
Copyright infringement exists because when one purchases software, the end user does not own the software. His money goes towards buying (obtaining) a license to "Install, run and operate" the software under a user agreement that outlines and governs the limitations to both parties in regards to its operation.
When a file is downloaded, the file is "copied" at a location to your machine. Nothing happens to the file sitting in the remote server. What you have done is cloned the file. The "Copyright Infringement" comes from the fact you are giving away "licenses" to a software requiring to pay for it from an unlicensed third party. This is why "distributing" without the permission or right to do so is the crime itself.
If you buy item X and I steal it, you no longer have item X because it is under my possession.
If I download item X, the original item X still remains in the server for others to download.
Once again...I am merely speaking about laws. I don't care about what people tell me is "right" or "wrong." I only care about if its legal or not. As long as I am not breaking the law, I am free to do anything I want at my own risk. ^_^
...it all starts to sound a little repetative and meaningless after a while.
There will ALWAYS be pirates, or thieves, or whoever you want to call them. There have been since some guy put in the first cassete tape into his radio and recorded a song, or since the first person popped in a blank VHS tape to record something on tv.
People were copying things even before all that.
The entertainment industry is fine. They keep making stuff, people keep paying for it. They expect a certain amount of loss each time, and adjust for it accordingly.
For some pirates, its not even about money. Its just because its there, and its something to do. Its that uncertain thrill of not knowing if you'll get caught.
Personally, I don't advocate or advise any illegal activities, of any sort.
But the phrase 'making a mountain out of a mole hill' does come to mind.
You're not shopping in the right places if all you are finding are ports from the consoles. Also, there isn't an industry around that doesn't have issues with people taking what doesn't belong to them. It's only the media industry in general that seems to think the solution to that is to punish the people who actually pay them.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I encourage people who care about the fact that nowadays most PC games seem less complex or just bad ports from console ,to read this article
It is brilliantly written and articulates exactly why Pirating is so destructive to single player PC games
It is long and I know most people won’t bother ...but take 40 minutes to go through it. It is both scary and illuminating
It addresses every single excuse I’ve heard about why people Pirate
Oh, yeah. That is why the games are changing, I remember my C-64 and my Amiga, didn't have pirate games for it...
Ok, I'm lying, it is actually the opposite. For my C-64 I had 1 original and the rest were pirated copies. For the Amiga it was even worse.
Once I got my PC in '95 I bought Original games and I have ever since. And you know what? Most of my friends did the same thing at the time and most of them are actually paying for their game today. I promise you that piracy of games is down, and I am talking about a lot down.
With C-64 people had hundreds or even thousands of games. Today they have maybe 20 games and possibly twice that much lying in the attic. And almost every single game for the C-64 was a copy. I am not proud that I copied game at the time, but I was 12. I have 0 copied games today.
The reasons PC games are less complex today is because they cost a lot more and you need more people to make them too. In the old days a single guy often did a complete game himself in a month. He did not have to sell much to get in the cash needed to make a game. Today there are often hundreds of people involved in making a game and it can take many years to make one. And the more complex the more expensive it is to make.
So a really complex games will have to sell millions of copies to earn any money. The only game I know today made by a single guy on almost 0 budget is Minecraft but it is an exception.
There will always be pirates around, but they have been around since the first games came out. They are not great for the publishers of course but the question is if they actually would buy the games they are playing if they werent pirates or not. If they wouldn't play them otherwise the business actually wouldn't earn more if they werent pirates.
But it is all beside the point, you basic theory is wrong because the reason games are getting simpler is just because they are getting more expensive to make, nothing else. Even if every single pirate would buy games instead of downloading them will games generally be simpler.
There are not more pirates around, there are less. As for music I don't see it affect the quality of the music even if some artists surely should get better paid. The good artists makes music for other reasons than money, they actually do. The ones who only care about getting rich generally suck anyways. A few less JLOs and Brittneys are not something I worry about at least.
I've never pirated a game. But the gaming industry still doesn't get much money from me, thats for sure. Because there are no demos anymore. I don't buy an album if I've never heard any of the songs on it. Likewise I most likely will not buy a game if I haven't tried it out. Particularly since this industry is so fond of churning out bullshit full of macho-cheese muscle dudes, over-sexualized women, cliche plots, pointless killing of hordes of generic unintelligent baddies, and a general artistic design sense that seems to have been dreamed up by a group of 8 year olds that spend all day watching anime and thumbing through superhero comic books. Why take a chance on a game when its almost guaranteed its going to be garbage.
I have purchased any game I previously downloaded and enjoyed. If I felt the game was crap, I did not purchase it especially if the company has a history of crap titles. Why? Because if I'm not satisfied with any thing I buy from a store I can bring it back usually up to 2 months down the line and return it for a full refund. However once you pay for a video game you can never get a refund for it.
But I have also paid for more than my fair share of worthless games prior and even during the age of piracy. So right now I see myself at a loss and the game industry at a net gain from me.
Piracy has existed since the 80s and the Commadore 64. Hell, many self run game stores made a living off selling bootlegs. There's no more piracy now than there was before, less probably, its much harder to pirate games now.
The big problem is, there are so many crappy ports now, most don't buy without first trying. Without some kind of rental system for PC games, you have no idea if the games going to work on your PC, or if you'll even like it.
Piracy has existed since the 80s and the Commadore 64. Hell, many self run game stores made a living off selling bootlegs. There's no more piracy now than there was before, less probably, its much harder to pirate games now.
The big problem is, there are so many crappy ports now, most don't buy without first trying. Without some kind of rental system for PC games, you have no idea if the games going to work on your PC, or if you'll even like it.
Those are called "Demos" and do exist even if they are less common today thanthey were before.
I agree with the rest however, or you agreed with my last post....
What's especially amusing, and more than a little depressing, is the sheer number of negative responders in this thread who clearly didn't get past the article's first page. Each and every response in the thread attempting to legitimize or rationalize piracy, either in part or in whole, is specifically addressed and debunked with data points in the article, from legality to "Just put it all on Steam," all the way through to "PC gaming is Dead." At no point does the author inject personal feelings into the piece. In fact, the only recommendations of any kind (based on the data and conclusions accumulated and analyzed over the 9 previous pages) come in at page 10, and they're as much to game designers and publishers as they are to consumers.
Anyway, I know people tend to be irrevocably married to their own belief systems, so one article isn't going to change anyone's mind. It was an interesting read for someone like me who thought that piracy was "just something going on over there somewhere," though.
I find it incredibly reassuring when I read posts like this
The fact that yourself and others have actually bothered to read this informative but long overview of the reality of pirating.Also the fact you have a new perspectice on Pirating is a victory for me
Its funny because I have posted this on other forums I frequent and it actually makes me laugh when someone immediately disagrees with the assertion of the article but its clear they haven't read it as almost all justifications and reasons for pirating are discussed and counted
Something else ,this article was released on December 2008 and updated in 2010 but already we can clearly see the impact that Pirating has as the author predicted and describes ..these include
Games only released for Console...take a look at Rockstar ...most of there games are just console or are ported to PC later
Less complex PC games compared to past games(Like Baldurs Gate ) ....look at DA ,Mass Effect etc etc
Really bad PC versions when released for both platforms ...look at Gothic 4
Game companies are actually selling more Console versions...therefore less emphasis is on PC games
Of course there are exceptions ...like SC2 ..only for PC but they are the exception
MMO will actually keep the PC alive thankfully as most MMO run on PC only
Guys I keep saying this and some of you don't seem to get it ...anyone pirating is contributing towards the demise of single player PC games ..its not an opinion...its a fact
And yes it can't be stopped because people just don't get it ...and keep on with these lame excuses why they pirate
I am hoping initiatives like Steam will still encourage gaming companies to develop quality PC games ...but only time will tell ?
Companys releasing crap is a reason why People Pirate Games lets take the new "Two Worlds 2" RPG , Some days ago Topware Interactive has published the map of new Antaloor & people got excited with the scope of the game area & Many Many rushed out & purchased the game in Europe
Only to find out later that only the small island in the south is for normal Gameplay & the Large Island in the north is Multiplayer only , so they have gone fore thinking of having 60+ hours gameplay to maybe 20 hours ..
Another major disapointment that I wasted $90 on was Gothic 4 " It should never have had the name Gothic incolved in the title its a piece of crap hack'n'slash adv game not a real RPG
Comments
1: Consoles are not the Future, if they replace the PC they need a Keyboard and Mouse and become PC with tighter restrcitions than todays PCs - but they convert into a PC!
2: Piracy is not the reason why quality of Games is degrading.
MMOs can not be Pirated and the best MMOs were produced years ago and all the newer ones do NOT meet the expecatations bcs their management has BAD EXECUTED their task and the EXPECTATIONS of the players are to high!
3: The loss of money is not as big as assumed as only a fraction of the pirating users would ever buy all the games they have collected so at all the monetary impact is minor.
4: Piracy is not good and no one should be proud of it but its mainly an excuse for the business why they did not meet their exaggarated predicted sales figures.
PS: I do no piracy nor do i believe in bullshit!
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
I've always thought that a hidden reason for why so many prefer PC gaming over console gaming is "because" they can pirate.
It's probably a very well written article but I personally have no opnion about what system a game comes out for, as long as the game is good it doesn't matter to me if it's for pc,ps3,xbox360 or even the wii.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Sorry this is not true. Though its not helping its not nor ever well be. Fallout just made MILLIONS.. was a hit.. all the pirating of that game stopped nothing. Yet you believe this so much you still download music, cheat , lie on taxes blah blah..
Pc quality games are not coming and wont because of consoles. Consoles are NOT bad. Just still outdated and the game company's will make games for that 1st then pc. The pc will be dumb downed. You should be more concerned about what is happening out side.. for its not getting better.
Pirating wont ever stop. So if you like playing that game.. just buy it. So this is just another thread that wont say anything that has never been said before. Those that pirate will keep on. Those that don't will keep buying.
Yet with that camera on your ps3, xbox.. can they now see you? Microsoft just was talking about this.. haha.. so much is happening no most are like sheep. Not that they do.. but want to..
We've begun to see a fix of sorts to the piracy problem.
To begin, I will admit that I myself download games. Personally I do it because it's so hard to get a good demo these days.
My rules are simple:
A) If it's a shit game, I'll delete it and not bother with it ever again.
C) If it's an excellent game I buy it the second I have the money.
D) If it's a game I really want I skip downloading entirely and flat out buy.
Now we've got that out of the way, the fix for piracy that has begun to surface is this:
No LAN.
Bad Company 2 did this and it annoyed downloaders to no end.
Granted it doesn't do much to save the singleplayer from downloaders, but many games these days have good multiplayer options that people want to take part in.
The Blizzard way seems to have saved Starcraft 2, though I haven't checked for downloadable versions. It was a game I really wanted regardless of the no-lan issue (mates and I used to love taking out computers to someones house and laning games back in the day.)
Anyways, without a LAN feature programs like Hamachi which allow downloaders to bypass online verification/online play systems absolutely moot.
But I don't honestly think that downloaders are the reason for the decline of video gaming. Many Games Companies go crazy when their projected sales aren't met, but some of them don't add downloaders to their projections and find that they are meeting the projections.
A good portion of downloaders wouldn't have bought the game they downloaded anyway. Some of those who would never have bought the game, who then download it and try it, find they like it and buy it. I know this for a fact because I've been like that with some games. Hate the concept of a certain game but download it at some point out of curiosity only to find it was brilliant. I can't really give any examples though. I can't remember.
The thing is, a large portion of games these days are utter crap, and without a good set of demo's anymore, it's become a system of "Buy to Try" instead of "Trial Before Buying". These days you can't tell if you will like a good portion of games that come out. Many people don't have the money to waste on a bad game, but have to in order to try it out. This is why I think downloading can be useful for many.
Once upon a time, video gaming was for the fairly wealthy. Games weren't cheap. People rant about games being $40-80US, but back in the day, some early console games cost double the highest number there. I found a version of an early Street Fighter with the original sales tag on it. $260NZ.
Now lets add in the fact that while games cost 40-80US in America (duh), they still cost rediculous amounts of money elsewhere. Take New Zealand for example. $100-140NZ depending on the game, the highest there often being collectors editions (which can still range higher still.)
49.95US is about $66NZ dollars. Aren't we getting ripped off? Yes. Is it hard to see why kiwi's might download games instead of buying them? Not really no.
Unless a game is out on Steam. It's clearly cheaper to pay the US price than the NZ price thanks to currency differences right now.
I'm fairly sure other countries have it worse still than us Kiwi's.
It really isn't hard to see why people download games these days, for several different reasons. It's also pretty rediculous to say that downloaders and pirates are the cause of the decline. No. That's just stupidity on the parts of game companies.
As a side note, I'd like to point out that the entertainment industry these days is being slammed full on in the teeth. They expect the sorts of income they managed years ago, but people aren't willing to pay a crap load for nothing.
Take the music industry for example. Many people aren't willing to pay full price for an album when all they want is a song or two (or a few).
The entertainment industry is slowly SLOWLY beginning to look at digital sales, but they're still not quite with it. Here's the thing. Digital sales drop the costs of having to make and try to sell boxes with DVD's, fully printed and coloured manuals, etc. The trouble is the entertainment industry hasn't gotten on to that full steam, and many 'middle men' are making the money that those companies think they should be getting, because they're too stupid to sell digitally.
Video Games are selling digitally these days, but one thing I've noticed is that it's mostly middle men giving good prices. The actual publishers put games up at box price or just a tad below it and they wonder why people download a free copy instead :
What I'm trying to say is, you can't just blame the populous for this. There have been complaints about the price of video games for years. If companies won't listen, then the masses will continue to defy them. Simple as that.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
PC gaming is dying because developers can move to console and churn out a game on an 18 month development schedule with a cheaper cost. It doesn't need to be a good game because it will be bought regardless. It's easier and faster than PC development. But one thing that consoles will never have is any amount of versatility. It will play games pretty well, but that's it. And if you enjoy taking advantage of player created content in your games (often superior to what you would otherwise have to buy) you have only one option.
Yes, PCs are more expensive. This is because gaming is just one of their myriad functions. With consoles, there's gaming and being a doorstop. Not much in between. And as far as I'm concerned, most of them do a better job of being a doorstop than a game platform anyway.
What was the topic? Oh yeah, piracy. So ... piracy bad. Don't do it.
PC gaming has been dying for...what now, 15 years?
Actually its not only that PC gaming is not going anywhere. Consoles in one or two gens will become PCs. As the casual market gets used to the games they get now (it becoming the major focus of game studios), these sunday gamers will demand more. More options, more everything. Its only natural that when you become acustomed to something you look more deeply in it. The trend of simplyfing game will hit rock bottom in a few years, to simply bounce back, which will result in a 90's type golden age. People will demand more involved game, more involved hardware. Hardware that refelects their commitment to their hobbys.
Piracy is easier on consoles anyways, its a PITA on PC. The only thing is that I cant play my console games online (nor do i want to pay for xbox live) because they have a way to check if its piracy evidently since they killed a ton those a few years ago.
Mod the chip. (have it installed)
Copy the DVD.
Enjoy.
On PC, you have to have someone that actually cracks the program, makes it available. Then when an update comes, crack the update, make it available. All that, and the game risks crashing still because of the crack.
The quality of games is lowering as fast as EA is growing. Its not just a coincidence. The fun thing is, the more people complain, the more they buy the crap too, so the less companies think they have to do to sell the product. It all comes down to 1 thing: Money.
If I offer you a salary of 20 000$/year to say hi to me every morning, and 20 000$/year to say hi to me for the first 4 months of the year, you wont take the longer one for the same amount.
Same thing with EA, they wont work 3x as hard to get a great product out there when a poor product rakes in the same numbers.
There is also console piracy:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/pl_games_bootleg/
The only solution is onlinegaming with different revenue models!
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
@OP:
Thank you for the link. The author's work in objectively analyzing data points was admirable. I haven't pirated games before, so I think I may have intellectually downplayed the severity of what was going on. I had no idea the numbers were quite as staggeringly high as they appear to be (the "Piracy as a Proportion of Total Internet Usage" section on page 4 was astonishing). One or two of Ghazi's sources seemed iffy in sections (like this one), but there were far more that seemed completely credible; furthermore, most of his conclusions were very logical, "1 + 1 = 2" conclusions, rather than "I feel such and such" opinions. While he did take a leap here and there, he didn't have to clear much of a gap.
What's especially amusing, and more than a little depressing, is the sheer number of negative responders in this thread who clearly didn't get past the article's first page. Each and every response in the thread attempting to legitimize or rationalize piracy, either in part or in whole, is specifically addressed and debunked with data points in the article, from legality to "Just put it all on Steam," all the way through to "PC gaming is Dead." At no point does the author inject personal feelings into the piece. In fact, the only recommendations of any kind (based on the data and conclusions accumulated and analyzed over the 9 previous pages) come in at page 10, and they're as much to game designers and publishers as they are to consumers.
Anyway, I know people tend to be irrevocably married to their own belief systems, so one article isn't going to change anyone's mind. It was an interesting read for someone like me who thought that piracy was "just something going on over there somewhere," though.
Pirating is illegal, there is no need to debate this.
That said, there is a lot wrong with this article with respect to determining the direct affect of piracy. The crux of his argument is PCs have the same install base as consoles but game copies sell 4 to 5 times less than on consoles. Ergo, there is no doubt that piracy is causing major losses for PC game companies. The rest of the article is fluff or extrapolations from the previously mentioned assumption, which of course would sound reasonble give the assumption.
What is wrong with his assumption --> He calculates the PC base by taking TOTAL number of computers sold, worldwide, analyzes it with the number of gaming cards that can run the latest games, and comes up with a computer gaming base that is higher than consoles.
1. I have four (4) PCs in my house, all game capable. I am not buying 4 copies of the same game for all my PCs.
2. He needs to take off all business computers (hello, design studios, gaming making studios, game convention comps, etc) right off the top.
3. I have 2 consoles in my house. If a game is for both PC and console, I'd buy the console one, and I bet a lot of other people do to.
4. There is huge game console pirating. In fact, I'm sure they are part of his numbers.
Other people could pick it apart even more, and that's just his main assumption. The bottomline is, his base assumption is off, and so what points he makes that follows cannot be viewed as reliable. Too much to go into the rest, but I'll throw out some questions.
a. Console pirating is huge, yet consoles are held up as a contrast to why piracy affects PCs?
b. He says pirating makes PCs games more expensive, and they would be cheaper if not for piracy. Consoles are cheaper, easier to develop, and according to him, sell more 4x more, and yet why do they cost $10 more on average (his number)?
c. If 12 games release a month (my bs number), will (can?) a pirater buy them if he can't pirate them? Maybe in the US and like countries, but what about poor ones? There has got to be a way to measure this more reliably than the article writer.
Conclusion
I can't say with certainty that his conclusions are wrong, but I can say they aren't wholly supported. People look at his number and go "oh shit!".
However, one thing I do know is that while piracy is unlimited, resouces are NOT. What percentage of downloads would turn into cash were piracy not possible? This article does not answer that question.
Piracy wrong, gaming too focused on lowest common denominator, publishers release buggy pc titles. ect ect ect... meh.
If publishers had better qa and programmers had better support,. Might be different. Of course if nation wide CCW was ever passed. maybe people would not have to put up with as much stupidity.
When I posted my reply to this thread I was not "supporting" or "attacking" piracy. I was merely stating the laws as they are written and preserved. The law is the law, and all law is subject to interpretation in the United States.
Theft was mentioned before in this thread....
Theft is when you take something that does not belong to you with the intent of not returning it and keeping it for yourself. It is usually accompanied by other crimes such as assault, breaking and entering and even murder. Theft is about physically taking something and keeping it for yourself. If I steal your car, It means I have stolen a car and now you are without a car. If I steal $20 from you, it means I now have $20 and you have $20 less.
Copyright infringement exists because when one purchases software, the end user does not own the software. His money goes towards buying (obtaining) a license to "Install, run and operate" the software under a user agreement that outlines and governs the limitations to both parties in regards to its operation.
When a file is downloaded, the file is "copied" at a location to your machine. Nothing happens to the file sitting in the remote server. What you have done is cloned the file. The "Copyright Infringement" comes from the fact you are giving away "licenses" to a software requiring to pay for it from an unlicensed third party. This is why "distributing" without the permission or right to do so is the crime itself.
If you buy item X and I steal it, you no longer have item X because it is under my possession.
If I download item X, the original item X still remains in the server for others to download.
Once again...I am merely speaking about laws. I don't care about what people tell me is "right" or "wrong." I only care about if its legal or not. As long as I am not breaking the law, I am free to do anything I want at my own risk. ^_^
get off your pedestal
laziness is leading to the demise of games. How could thiefs by any means lower the quality of a game, that's designer error not a thief.
Piracy is killing music.
Piracy is killing movies.
Piracy is killing software.
Piracy is killing games.
...it all starts to sound a little repetative and meaningless after a while.
There will ALWAYS be pirates, or thieves, or whoever you want to call them. There have been since some guy put in the first cassete tape into his radio and recorded a song, or since the first person popped in a blank VHS tape to record something on tv.
People were copying things even before all that.
The entertainment industry is fine. They keep making stuff, people keep paying for it. They expect a certain amount of loss each time, and adjust for it accordingly.
For some pirates, its not even about money. Its just because its there, and its something to do. Its that uncertain thrill of not knowing if you'll get caught.
Personally, I don't advocate or advise any illegal activities, of any sort.
But the phrase 'making a mountain out of a mole hill' does come to mind.
You're not shopping in the right places if all you are finding are ports from the consoles. Also, there isn't an industry around that doesn't have issues with people taking what doesn't belong to them. It's only the media industry in general that seems to think the solution to that is to punish the people who actually pay them.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Sony and Ubisoft especially
Worst DRMs ever.
Oh, yeah. That is why the games are changing, I remember my C-64 and my Amiga, didn't have pirate games for it...
Ok, I'm lying, it is actually the opposite. For my C-64 I had 1 original and the rest were pirated copies. For the Amiga it was even worse.
Once I got my PC in '95 I bought Original games and I have ever since. And you know what? Most of my friends did the same thing at the time and most of them are actually paying for their game today. I promise you that piracy of games is down, and I am talking about a lot down.
With C-64 people had hundreds or even thousands of games. Today they have maybe 20 games and possibly twice that much lying in the attic. And almost every single game for the C-64 was a copy. I am not proud that I copied game at the time, but I was 12. I have 0 copied games today.
The reasons PC games are less complex today is because they cost a lot more and you need more people to make them too. In the old days a single guy often did a complete game himself in a month. He did not have to sell much to get in the cash needed to make a game. Today there are often hundreds of people involved in making a game and it can take many years to make one. And the more complex the more expensive it is to make.
So a really complex games will have to sell millions of copies to earn any money. The only game I know today made by a single guy on almost 0 budget is Minecraft but it is an exception.
There will always be pirates around, but they have been around since the first games came out. They are not great for the publishers of course but the question is if they actually would buy the games they are playing if they werent pirates or not. If they wouldn't play them otherwise the business actually wouldn't earn more if they werent pirates.
But it is all beside the point, you basic theory is wrong because the reason games are getting simpler is just because they are getting more expensive to make, nothing else. Even if every single pirate would buy games instead of downloading them will games generally be simpler.
There are not more pirates around, there are less. As for music I don't see it affect the quality of the music even if some artists surely should get better paid. The good artists makes music for other reasons than money, they actually do. The ones who only care about getting rich generally suck anyways. A few less JLOs and Brittneys are not something I worry about at least.
I've never pirated a game. But the gaming industry still doesn't get much money from me, thats for sure. Because there are no demos anymore. I don't buy an album if I've never heard any of the songs on it. Likewise I most likely will not buy a game if I haven't tried it out. Particularly since this industry is so fond of churning out bullshit full of macho-cheese muscle dudes, over-sexualized women, cliche plots, pointless killing of hordes of generic unintelligent baddies, and a general artistic design sense that seems to have been dreamed up by a group of 8 year olds that spend all day watching anime and thumbing through superhero comic books. Why take a chance on a game when its almost guaranteed its going to be garbage.
I have purchased any game I previously downloaded and enjoyed. If I felt the game was crap, I did not purchase it especially if the company has a history of crap titles. Why? Because if I'm not satisfied with any thing I buy from a store I can bring it back usually up to 2 months down the line and return it for a full refund. However once you pay for a video game you can never get a refund for it.
But I have also paid for more than my fair share of worthless games prior and even during the age of piracy. So right now I see myself at a loss and the game industry at a net gain from me.
Didn't bother to read.
Piracy has existed since the 80s and the Commadore 64. Hell, many self run game stores made a living off selling bootlegs. There's no more piracy now than there was before, less probably, its much harder to pirate games now.
The big problem is, there are so many crappy ports now, most don't buy without first trying. Without some kind of rental system for PC games, you have no idea if the games going to work on your PC, or if you'll even like it.
Those are called "Demos" and do exist even if they are less common today thanthey were before.
I agree with the rest however, or you agreed with my last post....
I find it incredibly reassuring when I read posts like this
The fact that yourself and others have actually bothered to read this informative but long overview of the reality of pirating.Also the fact you have a new perspectice on Pirating is a victory for me
Its funny because I have posted this on other forums I frequent and it actually makes me laugh when someone immediately disagrees with the assertion of the article but its clear they haven't read it as almost all justifications and reasons for pirating are discussed and counted
Something else ,this article was released on December 2008 and updated in 2010 but already we can clearly see the impact that Pirating has as the author predicted and describes ..these include
Games only released for Console...take a look at Rockstar ...most of there games are just console or are ported to PC later
Less complex PC games compared to past games(Like Baldurs Gate ) ....look at DA ,Mass Effect etc etc
Really bad PC versions when released for both platforms ...look at Gothic 4
Game companies are actually selling more Console versions...therefore less emphasis is on PC games
Of course there are exceptions ...like SC2 ..only for PC but they are the exception
MMO will actually keep the PC alive thankfully as most MMO run on PC only
Guys I keep saying this and some of you don't seem to get it ...anyone pirating is contributing towards the demise of single player PC games ..its not an opinion...its a fact
And yes it can't be stopped because people just don't get it ...and keep on with these lame excuses why they pirate
I am hoping initiatives like Steam will still encourage gaming companies to develop quality PC games ...but only time will tell ?
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
Companys releasing crap is a reason why People Pirate Games lets take the new "Two Worlds 2" RPG , Some days ago Topware Interactive has published the map of new Antaloor & people got excited with the scope of the game area & Many Many rushed out & purchased the game in Europe
http://www.twoworlds-game.com/images/Temptation/Maps/twoworldsii_map.jpg
Only to find out later that only the small island in the south is for normal Gameplay & the Large Island in the north is Multiplayer only , so they have gone fore thinking of having 60+ hours gameplay to maybe 20 hours ..
Another major disapointment that I wasted $90 on was Gothic 4 " It should never have had the name Gothic incolved in the title its a piece of crap hack'n'slash adv game not a real RPG