An interesting article about piracy

[Mamoulian War]

Wasn't there some research out there that showed second hand sales actually increase the sales of new games?

 

of course they do... as much as selling used cars increase the sales of new cars... Rich people buy new stuff, less fortunate sell old stuff to buy new stuff, the unfortunate buy only used old stuff... less possibilities to sell old stuff = less money for spending in the hands of less fortunate = less new stuff sales... CEOs often forget that common people can't conjure money out of nothing like FED...

[Mamoulian War]

And another interesting read from a person in the gaming industry speaks his mind about the issue...

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05...rt-business.ars

[Oner]

He's just stating what everyone already knows(or should know, in the case of publishers). And the second half is rubbish.

[Mera]

I see he took some notes from that Stardock dip****. As for the whole pirates wouldn't have bought it anyway fallacy, I have nice example here.

Bioshock 1 went uncracked for weeks and the PC sales were fantastic, nearly one million. The sequel? Got cracked pretty much right away and sold less than hundred thousand copies.

 

Well I guess it is just a stupid consoletrash port

[AutomaticMeat]

I see he took some notes from that Stardock dip****. As for the whole pirates wouldn't have bought it anyway fallacy, I have nice example here.

Bioshock 1 went uncracked for weeks and the PC sales were fantastic, nearly one million. The sequel? Got cracked pretty much right away and sold less than hundred thousand copies.

 

Well I guess it is just a stupid consoletrash port

 

Or maybe they thought it would be a worthy successor to System Shock 2 and then learnt their lesson the second time?

[GreasyDogMeat]

I see he took some notes from that Stardock dip****. As for the whole pirates wouldn't have bought it anyway fallacy, I have nice example here.

Bioshock 1 went uncracked for weeks and the PC sales were fantastic, nearly one million. The sequel? Got cracked pretty much right away and sold less than hundred thousand copies.

 

Well I guess it is just a stupid consoletrash port

I don't really think that is a good example. There was a lot of worry about the sequel. New developer, play as a big daddy, early reviews that said it was more linear than the first and the story wasn't as good. Personally, I enjoyed the first but from what I've heard of the second I've had little interest or motivation to get it, atleast not until the price drops quite a bit.

[Spider]

Dragon Age was cracked on Day 1. I'm pretty sure the PC sales for that game were also amazing.

[Slowtrain]

Or maybe they thought it would be a worthy successor to System Shock 2 and then learnt their lesson the second time?

 

That's the way it went for me. No way I was buying BS2 after wasting my money on the first one.

[Hurlshort]

Or maybe they thought it would be a worthy successor to System Shock 2 and then learnt their lesson the second time?

 

That's the way it went for me. No way I was buying BS2 after wasting my money on the first one.

 

Thirded.

[mkreku]

Exactly the same for me. I even bought the Collector's Edition of Bioshock, based on the 10/10 Eurogamer review! There's just no way I'm buying Bioshock 2 after that disappointment.

[Spider]

Same here. Bioshock was touted as an innovative shooter that more or less would redefine the genre. The problem is, it wasn't even a very good shooter. Sure, the story and atmosphere was stellar, but the gameplay was dull. So after that, there is no way I'll spend anything on that franchise.

[Zoraptor]

Same with me, though I'll probably pick up #2 at some stage it's well down the list. Preordered the original, haven't even been tempted by 2 yet despite being offered the lesser collectors edition for half the price of the standard one within a month of its release.

 

Not surprising really, 2k did just about everything in their power to tell their PC buyers to foad short of saying the actual words.

[WorstUsernameEver]

A more fair comparison would be taking into account the console sales of both games.

If the difference is comparable... well then the argument about 'early crack significantly reduce PC sales' would be stupid.

Though I believe it's true they reduce them.. just not as much as the publisher/developers want us to believe.

[Niten_Ryu]

Bioshock was ok game, maybe even good for the first run but hardly worth full price. I plan to buy sequel from the Steam holiday sales or when it's price is bellow 15-10

[Pidesco]

Same for me on the Bioshock vs Bioshock 2 issue. Bioshock 1 was the first game I've ever pre-ordered, after decades of gaming. As for Bioshock 2, I haven't even read a preview or seen a gameplay video.

[Tigranes]

People pirate humble indie pack

 

You can... name whatever price you want for it, and proceeds... go to charity. But you.. pirate it.

 

WTF?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

People pirate humble indie pack

 

You can... name whatever price you want for it, and proceeds... go to charity. But you.. pirate it.

 

WTF?

 

That has to be one of the more disgusting things I've read recently. The link to their blog post about it is not working too so here's a functional one.

[Mamoulian War]

People pirate humble indie pack

 

You can... name whatever price you want for it, and proceeds... go to charity. But you.. pirate it.

 

WTF?

 

When you look at it with a look that "name whatever price you want for it" means that you can name that your price is 0 USD/EUR/Whatever aswell... That means the people downloading it for free are not pirates, but cheap asshats whothink that the price worth to pay for the awesome games is zero...

 

If you offer something which can people get for random price from 0 to gazzillion, you can't complain, that some people decided to pay 0 and some hundreds of muneh...

 

EDIT: Anyway, if the numbers are correct, 25% is very low number of free leechers...

Edited May 11, 2010 by Mamoulian War

[Walsingham]

Ok, I hate pirates now.

[Nightshape]

Piracy... Because its too expensive? Nope. MYTH BUSTED!

 

Piracy... Because of DRM? Nope. MYTH BUSTED!

 

Piracy... Because of game quality? Nope. MYTH BUSTED!

 

Piracy... Because people from the Intarweb have a bizzare sense of entitlement... Yup.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Nightshape

[213374U]

Right, because reducing the opinions and reasons of any number of members of a heterogeneous group to just ONE, always works beautifully.

 

Great job.

[LostStraw]

When you look at it with a look that "name whatever price you want for it" means that you can name that your price is 0 USD/EUR/Whatever aswell... That means the people downloading it for free are not pirates, but cheap asshats whothink that the price worth to pay for the awesome games is zero...

 

If you offer something which can people get for random price from 0 to gazzillion, you can't complain, that some people decided to pay 0 and some hundreds of muneh...

 

EDIT: Anyway, if the numbers are correct, 25% is very low number of free leechers...

The blog post linked to by Deadly Nightshade has more information and is quite a good read. Some interesting tidbits, the piracy rates quoted to do not include things like Bittorrent/Usenet and the minimum price for the bundle seems to be $0.01.

[Purkake]

No honor among thieves?

 

Just goes to show that it is easier to pirate games than to go to where the developer is providing it and get it for 0$.

[Walsingham]

discussion point: If people pirate when material is free, what chance is there that expensive material won't be pirated?

[Thorton_AP]

People pirate humble indie pack

 

You can... name whatever price you want for it, and proceeds... go to charity. But you.. pirate it.

 

WTF?

 

When you look at it with a look that "name whatever price you want for it" means that you can name that your price is 0 USD/EUR/Whatever aswell... That means the people downloading it for free are not pirates, but cheap asshats whothink that the price worth to pay for the awesome games is zero...

 

If you offer something which can people get for random price from 0 to gazzillion, you can't complain, that some people decided to pay 0 and some hundreds of muneh...

 

EDIT: Anyway, if the numbers are correct, 25% is very low number of free leechers...

 

 

The number is considered a conservative estimate.

 

And no, the "name whatever price you want for it" in this case DOES NOT include ZERO. You had to pay at least a penny. Way to justify and rationalize the pirates. Maybe they felt the DRM was too restrictive.... /facepalm

 

 

EDIT: Just made a donation of $30

Edited May 11, 2010 by Thorton_AP