Titan Quest producer rants on PC market.

[Gorth]

Actually, what you guys are proving with your failed analogies is that there is no simple analogy.

 

Which is part of the problem in terms of people understanding how to deal with the issue.

Maybe we just don't have any decent training in proper argumentation techniques

[Gromnir]

and now come the stoopid rationalizations. stealing info is different than stealing a thing, right? only to the thief is it different.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Nick_i_am]

And to the person from who it's being stolen, the law and everyone else.

 

Being that buying a game does NOT mean that you're buying the code, stealing the code doesn't mean you're stealing the game either. When you pirate a game you're stealing the lisence and that's a vastly different concept from stealing somthing physical.

 

I'm not even saying that it's better, but saying that it's the same thing and should be subject to the same laws is int < 8.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Nick_i_am

[alanschu]

/grabs popcorn

[Gromnir]

"When you pirate a game you're stealing the lisence and that's a vastly different concept from stealing somthing physical."

 

this is nuts. is not different from pov of the law... nor should it be. is wrong not 'cause you deprive somebody else of use, but because it Doesn't Belong to You. you is stealing stealing bread to feed your kids 'cause they is starving IS different... is still stealing, but raises a possible defense. heck, why is steal from a fed insured/protected bank wrong? the money is insured by the fed, so nobody lose anything. steal at night when nobody is around, and it ain't even a genuine crime, right? bah. is kookie to claim that there is some special category 'o theft for information and use. is wrong 'cause you take that which you do not own and you did not pay. there is a reason we separate tort from criminal. with criminal larceny the degree to which the injured party suffers is not relevant when determining if there were a crime committed.

 

is simply free rider problem for a new generation, but on a vastly different scale than peoples using public transportation for free.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited February 29, 2008 by Gromnir

[Nick_i_am]

'is not different from pov of the law'

 

except that it falls under a completely different set of laws.

 

Again, i'm not saying it's acceptable, but i'm not saying it's the same thing either. A better analogy than any you've offered is a person fishing in a lisenced lake without a hook. Yes, he's fishing, yes, it's wrong, yes, he's stealing, but only by virtue of the fact that he hasn't payed. If arrested, he wouldn't be charged with theft.

 

I'm stealing if I ride an empty rollercoaster without paying, but that's vastly different to stealing the bloody rollercoaster. If i'm arrested, again, i'm not charged with theft.

 

If i'm arrested for software piracy i am NOT charged with theft, i'm charged with copywright infringment and the likes.

 

'is kookie to claim that there is some special category 'o theft for information and use.'

 

Yes, because there is. Again, you're not stealing somthing that doesn't belong to you, you're stealing the right to use it.

Steal the software but don't install or distribute it and you're basically in a legal grey-area.

 

 

Now, if you want to talk about livelyhoods of the programmers, that's different.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Nick_i_am

[Tale]

you're ignoring the fact that the pirate in question probably wouldn't have spent more money on games either way.

You're ignoring the fact that that is not actually a fact. It is speculation based on benefit of the doubt. Just because someone didn't spend money does not necessarilly mean they wouldn't have spent money for the same end if they had to.

 

I'm not saying that everyone who pirates would have purchased if they didn't pirate, just that claiming it is "fact" that they "probably wouldn't have" is a nearly unsupportable statement.

 

What we can presume is that people who play games have a chance of spending money on games. Now, it is reasonable to assume someone who pirates games may pirate more games than he would have paid for had they not adopted piracy, but it is unreasonable to assume they simply wouldn't have purchased any games at all. The same pressures that encouraged the obtaining of games via piracy still exist even if the individual were to choose to pay for the vidya.

 

"When you pirate a game you're stealing the lisence and that's a vastly different concept from stealing somthing physical."

 

this is nuts. is not different from pov of the law... nor should it be.

This is indeed different from pov of the law. In common law theft requires deprivation of the rightful owner of his or her rights to possess, use, or destroy property.

Edit: I previously tried to cite case law, but could not find something I had previously seen.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Tale

[Nick_i_am]

asdsa

 

Oh, yeah, totally, only, I was refering to a specific individual who seemed to do exactly what I do.

 

That is to say, i've only pirated games I would never have bought. This isn't subjecture based on other people, it's me.

 

It was projection and when refering to the general populus you're right, both about the issue and the language used to express it.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Nick_i_am

[Gromnir]

new crimes needed to be added 'cause when originally envisioned it were not possible to steal use of pure info... and you is getting sentencing guidelines confused with threshold question regarding whether or not a crime were committed by a defendant. is judge having opportunity to tailor punishment? sure, but often there is min and max set... and for good reason. again, threshold question o' whether or not crime were committed does not look to the suffering o' the injured party. is a non-factor.

 

btw, the laws for stealing info is generally stiffer with harsher punishment than simply steal goods. 'course there is exceptions, 'specially the anachronistic laws in some jurisdictions regarding particular types o' produce and livestock.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Dakar]

There are few better examples of the "it can't possibly be my fault" culture in the west than gaming forums.

 

It's funny to me he says this when his whole rant is an example of it.

 

Your, in my opinion, mediocre game actually makes money and yet you still have to close the studio. Sounds like either terrible management or someone is lying. And of course it's not terrible management, it's these bastard pirates, reviewers, stupid customers, and even stupider hardware vendors. Not because the game was a mediocre Diablo-clone. Never!

 

I know alot of folks who played the demo and had no interest in playing the larger game because it held almost no creative ideas to set it apart from other similar games. It's claim to fame was "Diablo in Ancient Greece" for the most part.

[Tale]

asdsa

 

Oh, yeah, totally, only, I was refering to a specific individual who seemed to do exactly what I do.

 

That is to say, i've only pirated games I would never have bought. This isn't subjecture based on other people, it's me.

 

It was projection and when refering to the general populus you're right, both about the issue and the language used to express it.

Oh WEeeeeeell then. Wanna make out?

[Nick_i_am]

Take me.

 

NOW

[Amentep]

If i'm arrested for software piracy i am NOT charged with theft, i'm charged with copywright infringment and the likes.

 

Which makes the better analogy, if one wants to use one, the author and/or publisher who find their copyrighted works distributed online, I guess.

 

As to the story, I can't say its anything I haven't heard before (as Di points out). I also got a laugh that he mentioned the cost of programming for PC games that have to consider multitudes of PC configurations, hardware and so forth since someone a few years ago on another board tried to tell me there wasn't any extra complexity in designing for PC vs a console...

 

Sad to hear about Iron Lore though. I quite liked Titan Quest and was looking forward to something else from them (yeah I'm behind on my game info.)

[skuld1]

I think part of the problem is, that the media and technology has completely outpaced peoples moral values. Kids grow up with an internet connection at home, with easy access to intangible goods, ready for snatching with little risk of being caught.

 

Question is, how to accomplish a shift in attitude and get to the point where it is worth the investment in time and money to create "virtual" things?

 

Part of the reason piracy is so widespread is that there is a (correct) perception that you have an extremely small chance of being caught and facing adverse consequences.

 

A highly publicized world-wide sting (of say several tens of thousands) of pirates, with stiff punishments (something along the order of a fine dependent on amount of pirated software, 500-1000 hours of community service, and a 1-2 year ban on obtaining broadband internet service) would be a good start.

 

Changing the perception that you'll never get busted for piracy certainly won't eliminate it, but it would certainly help. ...Or do I get to hear some absurd comment like "Rawr, that is so evil, that would cause people who buy games to start pirating in protest!"

[Moatilliatta]

Actually, I highly doubt that that would have any noticeable effect, most of the people that I know/ have known who download stuff, are clever enough to realize that those sting operations would have to be incredibly big and done often, to have much of a chance of hitting them. There is also the problem of actually making such a sting operation.

 

Edit: Also, does anyone know when it became socially acceptable to pirate games, music and movies? I've had friends who were sons of policemen who were actively encouraged by their parents to pirate stuff, since their parents thought it was okay.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Amentep]

Edit: Also, does anyone know when it became socially acceptable to pirate games, music and movies? I've had friends who were sons of policemen who were actively encouraged by their parents to pirate stuff, since their parents thought it was okay.

 

I knew people pirating games during the C64 era back in the early 1980s. And by "people", I mean pretty much everyone I knew who had access to a C64. None of them had a problem with it; in fact most used the "I want to try it before I buy it" rationale, but dunno if that counts as "socially acceptable".

[Moatilliatta]

I was thinking mostly about PC games as that is what this thread is about, still some interesting stuff though.

 

And socially acceptable as in talking openly about it and people not caring that you're a slimy bugger, which I guess it was like in your example.

[Starwars]

I'd guess it's mostly the whole abstraction of the Internet itself. We all know people speak their minds wildly (sometimes without thinking beforehand) on here without caring, people are quick to pick fights and start arguments and so on.

I would guess it's the same with pirating and it being acceptable so to speak. It's much more abstract, less risky and less confrontational to download something than to go and steal something in a store for example. And of course, it's fast. You can download a song in a few seconds, that's a big temptation.

Even my otherwise very law-abiding parents have asked me to download stuff for them, and when I point out that it's illegal, they're just like "yeah, well" and laugh about it.

 

Launching some great attack on piracy, well... I don't condone piracy at all, but this would need a massive effort, and to tell the truth there are *plenty* of other illegal activities that I'd rather see that effort go into.

To be succesful, and actually deterring people from downloading stuff illegally... Well, yeah. That would have to be massive and also continious. Again, I'm not defending piracy, but I don't think it's viable to tell the truth. Are there really resources to do it properly and effeciently?

[Amentep]

I was thinking mostly about PC games as that is what this thread is about, still some interesting stuff though.

 

And socially acceptable as in talking openly about it and people not caring that you're a slimy bugger, which I guess it was like in your example.

 

 

Well I can't imagine those people who were copying & sharing games from the 5.25 inch disks (or worse, those dreaded cassette tapes some C64 games were on), were all that dissimilar to those who made illegal copies of games from multiple 3.5 disks or from the CD/DVD burners and the online streamers.

 

Its mostly a matter of scale. Those guys on the C64 were still pretty limited in what they could pirate by who they knew and what they could afford to buy, make copies of, and return (if they could). Nowadays they have the whole world under their potential contacts...

Edited February 29, 2008 by Amentep

[~Di]

"look, i have spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on cars over the past 15 years. so i stole a car. big whoop. what are you going to do, throw me in prison for stealing a car? heck, with all the money i have already spent on cars, audi should have given me that s8 for free."

hmm, except if we're gonna be strict with our analogies here, he's not actually stealing the car is he? he's making an identical copy of the car and driving off. the owner of the car still has it.

 

is that morally the same as stealing it? is it even legally the same as stealing it.

 

no, not by a long shot.

 

piracy ain't like stealing cars. when you steal a car, you take it away from the owner. when you steal software, the owner still has it. what piracy takes away is the opportunity of developers/publishers to sell their game and thereby make a profit. but theft of an individual copy is at best the loss of a single customer, and not even one who might have paid for the game otherwise. so berating the guy who steals the occassional game as a car thief is pretty silly.

 

i get that piracy hurts developers and, in the long run, ultimately consumers as well. but this whole hysterical 'piracy is theft/'piracy funds osama bin laden'/'piracy gives your puppy cancer' schtick is doomed to fail because people aren't idiots. they know the difference between things which can be copied infinitely and things which can't.

 

Except that Grommy wasn't comparing the theft of a car to piracy. Grommy was comparing Gorgon's implication that since he had spent ten thousand dollars on games he was therefore entitled to help himself to a few extra games for free with a clear conscience.

 

And I still see the self-same stubborn "piracy is not that big a deal" attitude in the rest of your post. Which is sad.

Edited February 29, 2008 by ~Di

[~Di]

i disagree. snatching something intangible is morally different from snatching something tangible...

 

Not to the person who is being victimized by theft. I used to be a novelist, so I basically sold books for a living. Books which could be scanned onto a computer by the unscrupulous then downloaded either for free or for a price that went into the unscrupulous scanner's pocket instead of mine. So, am I less of a victim of theft that someone who is mugged in the street?

 

This is simply more of the same, lame justification for taking goods/services without payment... which is the legal definition of theft. Good God, when the developers themselves are telling you that 70-90% of their potential revenues are being siphoned off by piracy, how the hell can you possibly continue to justify it?

[Sand]

Back in the days of yore, when the Commodore 64 reigned supreme and the original Pool of Radiance was the most kickarse game on the market I pirated. I not just pirated games, I pirated applications, operating systems, anything I got my grubby little digit on. It wasn't til I grew up some that I realize that everything that I pirated was the work of others. Work that people put their own sweat, tears, joys, and frustrations into. I wondered to my self how would I feel if my hard work was so under appreaciated that no one would pay for it. That was when I stopped pirating.

 

Pirating games and apps is basically an insult to those who created the work you are using.

[newc0253]

Not to the person who is being victimized by theft. I used to be a novelist, so I basically sold books for a living. Books which could be scanned onto a computer by the unscrupulous then downloaded either for free or for a price that went into the unscrupulous scanner's pocket instead of mine. So, am I less of a victim of theft that someone who is mugged in the street?

ah yes, the good old 'scan a book onto a computer and then download it' scam. i hear all the cool kids who read are doing it...

 

tell me, were you victimised by people who bought copies of your book but then lent theirs to friends?

 

what about second hand sales? did you ever get a share of those?

 

what about libraries? i know technically speaking that libraries ought to be paying royalties but - let's be honest - if 1000 people read your book in a library, you wouldn't get nearly the same amount as you would if they all bought a copy.

 

did you feel mugged then too?

 

yes, comparing loss of sales to theft is pretty silly, but then most arguments against piracy are pretty silly. there are some sensible arguments, but they're rarely the ones you hear because neither side of the debate wants to hear them.

 

piracy is condoned in the way that theft isn't, not because people are hypocrites but because they're smart enough to know that software and music and tv shows aren't like cars and houses. the more industry maintains that they are, the more people scoff, ignore them and carry on their merry way.

 

since piracy is inevitable, you'd think that the industries most affected would be scrambling to find some kind of pricing structure/business model that would appeal to folks' common sense intuitions about intangible property and just compensation for those who create/produce/develop the intangible property in the first place.

 

but instead they band together and waste time with cumbersome copy protection efforts, regional coding, 'piracy funds terrorism' publicity campaigns and other silly nonsense. industry could learn a thing or two from thom yorke et al. offer an album for free and still find people willing to pay for it.

 

This is simply more of the same, lame justification for taking goods/services without payment... which is the legal definition of theft.

maybe where you live. where i live, the legal definition is slightly more complicated.

 

Good God, when the developers themselves are telling you that 70-90% of their potential revenues are being siphoned off by piracy, how the hell can you possibly continue to justify it?

Good God! (a) because 70-90% figures are bogus; and (b) because maybe a certain amount of piracy is legitimate and, indeed, for the greater good.

Edited February 29, 2008 by newc0253

[Sand]

How is stealing for the greater good? Don't see the logic there. If it is legitimate then its not piracy, if it is piracy then its not legitimate.

Edited February 29, 2008 by Sand

[~Di]

I've answered these same lame questions about two dozen times over the years, so please don't think yourself terribly clever. But because you asked so nicely I'll answer them again. Just for you.

 

tell me, were you victimised by people who bought copies of your book but then lent theirs to friends?

 

Nope. Because I got royalties on that book, which is what I was entitled to.

 

what about second hand sales? did you ever get a share of those?

 

Nope, because I got royalties on the original book, which is what I was entitled to. BTW, game developers don't get royalties from Amazon or EBay when they sell used games either.

 

what about libraries? i know technically speaking that libraries ought to be paying royalties but - let's be honest - if 1000 people read your book in a library, you wouldn't get nearly the same amount as you would if they all bought a copy.

 

My publishing contracts all specified a number of books that would be donated free to libraries and various other media.

 

did you feel mugged then too?

 

Nope, only when my intellectual property rights were violated, my books put online without my permission, and the royalties to which I was entitled were stolen.

 

yes, comparing loss of sales to theft is pretty silly, but then most arguments against piracy are pretty silly. there are some sensible arguments, but they're rarely the ones you hear because neither side of the debate wants to hear them.

 

Tell that to game developers. They quite stridently disagree.

 

piracy is condoned in the way that theft isn't, not because people are hypocrites but because they're smart enough to know that software and music and tv shows aren't like cars and houses. the more industry maintains that they are, the more people scoff, ignore them and carry on their merry way.

 

Piracy is condoned because it's an easy way to steal property without paying for it, and morally-challenged individuals like to steal stuff. If you worked at a company, or spent a year writing a book, or years developing a game, only to have a bunch of self-serving hooligans say, in effect, "Cool! Thanks for spending all those hours creating this... now watch me take it for free, mwahahaha", I think you'd feel a little less charitable toward the thieves.

 

since piracy is inevitable, you'd think that the industries most affected would be scrambling to find some kind of pricing structure/business model that would appeal to folks' common sense intuitions about intangible property and just compensation for those who create/produce/develop the intangible property in the first place.

 

"Since piracy is inevitable" we, the gaming public, are saddled with horrific anti-theft software on our legally purchased games, which probably cost nearly double what they would cost if piracy wasn't inevitable because a larger percentage of the globe's population weren't self-justifying theives. I suppose you support shoplifting too, because "shoplifting is inevitable", and so is the hefty 30-40% retail increase placed on items we honest people buy to cover the loss of merchandise that dishonest people steal. Even you must be able to realize that when huge percentages of revenue is lost through theft, the price of the items on the shelf must be increased to cover the loss.

 

but instead they band together and waste time with cumbersome copy protection efforts, regional coding, 'piracy funds terrorism' publicity campaigns and other silly nonsense. industry could learn a thing or two from thom yorke et al. offer an album for free and still find people willing to pay for it.

 

Which they are forced to do because people like you insist that "piracy is inevitable." Then go out and pirate to prove it.

 

Good God! (a) because 70-90% figures are bogus;...

Right. Developers have no idea what those percentages are, on account of they are attempting to make a living out of the legitimate sale of games, so have absolutely no way of following figures which affect their entire livelihood. You, of course, have much better and more accurate information than they do, on account of you need to gather those figures through means they have no access to in order to justify the theft of those games from those same developers. Gotcha.

 

and (b) because maybe a certain amount of piracy is legitimate and, indeed, for the greater good.

 

That is the saddest, I daresay sickest, statement of all. Do me a favor. Write to good old Michael, or even to J.E. Sawyer... hell go straight to Fergus... and you tell them that you are stealing their products so that they have to struggle even harder to stay in business, lest they end up like Black Isle, IL, Strategy First, Eon Storm, etc., is "for the greater good"... the "greater good" meaning, of course, your ability to continue to steal their stuff with impugnity.

 

I'm sure they'll send you a letter of profound thanks, which you may then share with the rest of us.

Edited February 29, 2008 by ~Di