Piracy

[Hurlshort]

I'm not really sure what all this has to do with piracy. I understand that games are buggy, they've been that way forever. They've actually gotten a lot better, I no longer have to spend hours in DOS trying allocate memory to get a game to run. But yeah, they are still filled with bugs, and just when you think they are going to patch them, they break something else. Again, it doesn't justify piracy. This is a piracy thread, my responses were to a poster who said piracy is good.

 

As for opinions about games, neither of our opinions really matter. What matters is the consensus, and how that affects sales. I'm sure there are plenty of people upset about Fable, but the fact is it sold well, which allowed them to make a second game. The second game, by the way, crashed for me halfway through and corrupted all my saves. This was on the Xbox 360, so I can't even blame my PC. So what did I do? I didn't buy Fable 3, that's for sure. That's how the industry works. I believe Fable 3 had poor sales, I know their little recent DLC bombed terribly. The word is out, that property has been damaged by the general consensus, hurrah!

 

But again, piracy does nothing to help this situation of buggy and over-hyped games. So what are you guys arguing about?

[Grimlorn]

I'm not really sure what all this has to do with piracy. I understand that games are buggy, they've been that way forever. They've actually gotten a lot better, I no longer have to spend hours in DOS trying allocate memory to get a game to run. But yeah, they are still filled with bugs, and just when you think they are going to patch them, they break something else. Again, it doesn't justify piracy. This is a piracy thread, my responses were to a poster who said piracy is good.

 

As for opinions about games, neither of our opinions really matter. What matters is the consensus, and how that affects sales. I'm sure there are plenty of people upset about Fable, but the fact is it sold well, which allowed them to make a second game. The second game, by the way, crashed for me halfway through and corrupted all my saves. This was on the Xbox 360, so I can't even blame my PC. So what did I do? I didn't buy Fable 3, that's for sure. That's how the industry works. I believe Fable 3 had poor sales, I know their little recent DLC bombed terribly. The word is out, that property has been damaged by the general consensus, hurrah!

 

But again, piracy does nothing to help this situation of buggy and over-hyped games. So what are you guys arguing about?

If you aren't paying attention to the conversation and didn't get it the first time, then why should I try to explain it to you again?

[alanschu]

We both know it's no use trying to rebut the "moral" aspect of piracy, because that's not its raison d'être. You said it yourself in this very thread, even if it was just paraphrasing someone else. It's not about justice, it's not about consumer rights. It's about convenience. People pirate because warez is cleaner, easier to acquire, and to top it off, it's free. Everything else is just an excuse or an exercise in self-deceit. Now, there is a lot the industry could do to attack the real causes of piracy, and that sure as **** is not pump out half-assed sequels every odd year, protected by ever-increasingly obtrusive DRM schemes or ****ty forced-online activation platforms.

 

I find it funny that since working at BioWare, my disgust with piracy has gone up, yet my acceptance of DRM has gone down! LOL.

 

I do think it's a problem when pirates get a better user experience, though I think the idea that it's free is still the biggest motivator. Although I would challenge that the real cause of piracy is really related to half-assed sequels (though DRM likely does contribute).

[Grimlorn]

We both know it's no use trying to rebut the "moral" aspect of piracy, because that's not its raison d'être. You said it yourself in this very thread, even if it was just paraphrasing someone else. It's not about justice, it's not about consumer rights. It's about convenience. People pirate because warez is cleaner, easier to acquire, and to top it off, it's free. Everything else is just an excuse or an exercise in self-deceit. Now, there is a lot the industry could do to attack the real causes of piracy, and that sure as **** is not pump out half-assed sequels every odd year, protected by ever-increasingly obtrusive DRM schemes or ****ty forced-online activation platforms.

 

I find it funny that since working at BioWare, my disgust with piracy has gone up, yet my acceptance of DRM has gone down! LOL.

 

I do think it's a problem when pirates get a better user experience, though I think the idea that it's free is still the biggest motivator. Although I would challenge that the real cause of piracy is really related to half-assed sequels (though DRM likely does contribute).

I don't think DRM is really a good reason either to pirate and is a bad excuse. As long as that DRM isn't data mining on your computer, which doesn't happen anymore I think.

 

Obviously acceptance of DRM has gone down because it doesn't actually do anything to protect the game from being pirated. However, you hear the occasional stories from consumers who have encountered a bug related to it that prevents them from playing the game. Although this was more common 5+ years ago. I haven't heard anything these days. It's just an online activation and you're done. And I think it gets patched out in a lot of games so you don't need an activation if you reinstall later on too.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Grimlorn

[Oner]

The point is, I had to drop Binary Domain because it suffered from the console port syndrome so bad that playing with a mouse is all but impossible.

Huh, I could play it with mouse flawlessly. Voice Recognition was useless though.

[Hurlshort]

I'm not really sure what all this has to do with piracy. I understand that games are buggy, they've been that way forever. They've actually gotten a lot better, I no longer have to spend hours in DOS trying allocate memory to get a game to run. But yeah, they are still filled with bugs, and just when you think they are going to patch them, they break something else. Again, it doesn't justify piracy. This is a piracy thread, my responses were to a poster who said piracy is good.

 

As for opinions about games, neither of our opinions really matter. What matters is the consensus, and how that affects sales. I'm sure there are plenty of people upset about Fable, but the fact is it sold well, which allowed them to make a second game. The second game, by the way, crashed for me halfway through and corrupted all my saves. This was on the Xbox 360, so I can't even blame my PC. So what did I do? I didn't buy Fable 3, that's for sure. That's how the industry works. I believe Fable 3 had poor sales, I know their little recent DLC bombed terribly. The word is out, that property has been damaged by the general consensus, hurrah!

 

But again, piracy does nothing to help this situation of buggy and over-hyped games. So what are you guys arguing about?

If you aren't paying attention to the conversation and didn't get it the first time, then why should I try to explain it to you again?

 

That's how the internet works. People explain the same things over and over again. Don't break the internet Grimlorn!

[HoonDing]

You know, I don't know any other product that's so uniformly expensive and mostly rubbish at the same time as games are. Movies perhaps, but they're a lot cheaper.

Caviar?

[Amentep]

As for opinions about games, neither of our opinions really matter. What matters is the consensus, and how that affects sales. I'm sure there are plenty of people upset about Fable, but the fact is it sold well, which allowed them to make a second game. The second game, by the way, crashed for me halfway through and corrupted all my saves. This was on the Xbox 360, so I can't even blame my PC. So what did I do? I didn't buy Fable 3, that's for sure. That's how the industry works. I believe Fable 3 had poor sales, I know their little recent DLC bombed terribly. The word is out, that property has been damaged by the general consensus, hurrah!

 

But again, piracy does nothing to help this situation of buggy and over-hyped games. So what are you guys arguing about?

 

I'm not sure opinion or consensus (mass opinion) really matters; you're never going to experience the subjective quality of the game until you've played it which will always be after the procurement (means regardless). Until then you're only really looking at what the buying public feels (which may or may not accurately represent the game). Also, I've played a lot of buggy games and never experienced a problem, and I've played games that were considered very solid and had problems - subjective experience is subjective.

 

However to be fair advance word can get consumers motivated; in that way buggy games or games with promised features that don't exit/don't work/don't deliver could be identified by reviewers, pirates and early adopters affecting the life long sales of the game to some degree, which in turn could cause companies to rethink releasing buggy or incorrectly presented features on games (I think "over-hyped" is too subjective - I didn't buy Fable when it came out because despite of the early hype and promises it was pretty clear a lot of features had been cut from the game by the time it shipped, so can't really class that as over-hyped personally).

 

That said I'm not sure that piracy serves as a consumer based risk mitigator in regard to purchases in a way that reviewers or early consumer aren't/wouldn't.

Edited September 27, 2012 by Amentep

[Drowsy Emperor]

Maybe two games per year out of all the games I play are worth their price tag.

 

This trend of making a game a 5-10 hour movie needs to stop,and I'm not talking about the interactivity but the fire and forget nature of the experience.

 

I was looking at my friends collection of games on steam. He has 330+ titles and yet there aren't even ten games the he spent more than 10 hours playing. Really, what's the point of that? I don't think that's even gaming, that's just using up novelty value and moving on. Many of us do this too and then replay some or other game from the past that we actually enjoy.

 

Real games are like Civlization, Baldur's Gate etc. the stuff you can play and replay for dozens of hours.

 

Anyway I've gone off topic. I guess the point is I don't care much if anyone pirates what today's weak excuse for a game is hitting the top charts. A good game will always, without exception, get my money.

[Grimlorn]

That said I'm not sure that piracy serves as a consumer based risk mitigator in regard to purchases in a way that reviewers or early consumer aren't/wouldn't.

Reviewers tend to be bought and paid for by publishers. You can't tell me that reviews like DA2 getting 5/5 are accurate. Reviewers are just a part of the marketing hype machine. They never give honest reviews. Occasionally, you see reviews where the reviewer criticizes the game a bit but then still gives it a 85 or 90. Edited September 27, 2012 by Grimlorn

[Amentep]

That said I'm not sure that piracy serves as a consumer based risk mitigator in regard to purchases in a way that reviewers or early consumer aren't/wouldn't.

Reviewers tend to be bought and paid for by publishers. You can't tell me that reviews like DA2 getting 5/5 are accurate. Reviewers are just a part of the marketing hype machine. They never give honest reviews. Occasionally, you see reviews where the reviewer criticizes the game a bit but then still gives it a 85 or 90.

 

its a fair point that I've seen made on reviewers that they won't risk alienating the patronage of distributors. That's why I left room for doubt that pirates might have a room to play for good or ill (given that there used to be issues with pirates trashing games only to turn out they'd gotten their hands on an incomplete build - dunno if that happens much anymore).

 

That said, I enjoyed DA2 pretty much despite all of the stuff that I shouldn't have liked in it. So yeah, not really a taste arbiter, me.

[mkreku]

Before piracy: countries were ranked according to some weird 'worthy' list by movie publishers, where the USA was No. 1 every time. Then a month or so later came Great Britain. Then, several months to years (!) later came the rest of the world. The worse your country ranked on this scale, the later the movie premiered. Finland used to get movies a few months after Sweden, for example, even though being next-door neighbours geographically. TV-series were even worse, where most series took years to air everywhere. The excuse? Logistic problems.

 

After piracy: movies release within the same week (or month) all over the world. TV-series are being aired in the same day all over the world. No more rankings, all countries have equal worth. Suddenly the logistics seems to be working just fine.

[Orogun01]

The logistics was probably them waiting for the right bid. Score one for piracy over greed.

[Hurlshort]

Before piracy: countries were ranked according to some weird 'worthy' list by movie publishers, where the USA was No. 1 every time. Then a month or so later came Great Britain. Then, several months to years (!) later came the rest of the world. The worse your country ranked on this scale, the later the movie premiered. Finland used to get movies a few months after Sweden, for example, even though being next-door neighbours geographically. TV-series were even worse, where most series took years to air everywhere. The excuse? Logistic problems.

 

After piracy: movies release within the same week (or month) all over the world. TV-series are being aired in the same day all over the world. No more rankings, all countries have equal worth. Suddenly the logistics seems to be working just fine.

 

Do you have any proof of this?

 

I would consider it a lot more likely that distribution has simply gotten a lot easier, benefiting both pirates and publishers at the same time. Your premise seems to be that publishers were purposely holding back releases for some reason other than logistics. That seems unlikely.

[213374U]

I'm not really sure what all this has to do with piracy. I understand that games are buggy, they've been that way forever. They've actually gotten a lot better, I no longer have to spend hours in DOS trying allocate memory to get a game to run. But yeah, they are still filled with bugs, and just when you think they are going to patch them, they break something else. Again, it doesn't justify piracy. This is a piracy thread, my responses were to a poster who said piracy is good.

If you've lost track of the arguments, there's this snapback function the boards have. Use it. It started where you insinuated that getting ripped off is a common fact of life and "should get used to it".

 

And it's strictly false that bugs are getting better. Case in point, the original Civ never crashed, ever. The newer iterations... lol. Also, sub-optimal config.sys memory allocations are not related to a particular game in any way, and cannot conceivably be considered "bugs".

 

 

I do think it's a problem when pirates get a better user experience, though I think the idea that it's free is still the biggest motivator. Although I would challenge that the real cause of piracy is really related to half-assed sequels (though DRM likely does contribute).

It's part of the problem, I think. The "fast food" approach to game production fills the market with titles with dismal replayability values, mediocre writing, shallow mechanics, supported by the premise that eye candy overload can make up for that. Market saturation and creative exhaustion mean I'm much less inclined to give my money to someone for a product that's only superficially different from a competitor's or even its own 2-year-old prequel.

 

If I had more time (and a much higher tolerance for crappy games) I'd possibly pirate, while still happily buying the (very) few titles a year that are actually worth their pricetag. Instead, I find myself with a bunch of bargain bin/Steam sale titles that I've barely played for 3-4 hours, and dropped due to a lack of interest and a nagging feeling that playing a game that feels like a chore for the 2-3 hours leisure time that, at best, I have in any given day, is pointless. It's also the reason I cancelled my TOR sub after I hit level thirty-something with my main.

 

 

The point is, I had to drop Binary Domain because it suffered from the console port syndrome so bad that playing with a mouse is all but impossible.

Huh, I could play it with mouse flawlessly. Voice Recognition was useless though.

Okay, how did you manage that? Could you somehow adjust the weird mouse reverse-acceleration in the settings or just sucked it up? Because I searched high and low for a solution, edited registry entries, etc, and nothing helped. I'd really like to finish that one because the visuals and premise were fairly decent, and the gunplay was at least entertaining. Halp? Edited September 28, 2012 by 213374U

[Hurlshort]

It started where you insinuated that getting ripped off is a common fact of life and "should get used to it".

 

Oh, was that what we were arguing about? Next maybe we can argue about whether life is fair or not. I'll take the 'it's not' side

 

The point I was aiming for is piracy is not a good solution for when you do feel ripped off. I'm not sure why you feel the need to jump all over me for that.

[alanschu]

It's part of the problem, I think. The "fast food" approach to game production fills the market with titles with dismal replayability values, mediocre writing, shallow mechanics, supported by the premise that eye candy overload can make up for that. Market saturation and creative exhaustion mean I'm much less inclined to give my money to someone for a product that's only superficially different from a competitor's or even its own 2-year-old prequel.

 

Eh. I think rates of piracy are directly related to the demand of said game. I have no numbers to back me up, but would be surprised if crap games are pirated more relatively to sales compared to higher quality games.

[213374U]

It started where you insinuated that getting ripped off is a common fact of life and "should get used to it".

 

Oh, was that what we were arguing about? Next maybe we can argue about whether life is fair or not. I'll take the 'it's not' side

 

The point I was aiming for is piracy is not a good solution for when you do feel ripped off. I'm not sure why you feel the need to jump all over me for that.

I've spent the last few pages trying to explain that being ripped off is not a justification for piracy; thatithe comment was in response to something that had been said earlier along the lines of "poor devs, imagine how they'd feel".

 

If you got the impression I was attacking you, I'm sorry. But I'm simply not going to agree that "life is unfair" translates to "you'll be ripped off sometimes and there's nothing you can do about it".

[Gorth]

I tried the Binary Domain demo on steam. It sucked (controls in particular). Uninstalled it. Cost me 30 minutes of my life.

[213374U]

It's part of the problem, I think. The "fast food" approach to game production fills the market with titles with dismal replayability values, mediocre writing, shallow mechanics, supported by the premise that eye candy overload can make up for that. Market saturation and creative exhaustion mean I'm much less inclined to give my money to someone for a product that's only superficially different from a competitor's or even its own 2-year-old prequel.

 

Eh. I think rates of piracy are directly related to the demand of said game. I have no numbers to back me up, but would be surprised if crap games are pirated more relatively to sales compared to higher quality games.

You are right, of course. Didn't Crysis # break the record for downloaded copies some time ago?

 

Oh well, can't win them all.

[Zoraptor]

Do you have any proof of this?

 

I don't really know if it's 'provable' in a classic sense, but it is certainly what happened and I suspect pretty much anyone over 20 outside the US will have had similar experiences of releases being arbitrarily delayed to fulfil some obscure schedule. It is, for obvious reasons, not something someone in the US would really notice or be aware of.

[Gorth]

Something I suspect also adds to the number of gamers turning to piracy is the practice of regional price fixing. Especially noticeable when living down under. A game that costs $50 in the US typically costs between $80 and $100 down here, despite being delivered through the exact same digital distribution channel, so it's not even a question of shipping costs.

[Grimlorn]

Something I suspect also adds to the number of gamers turning to piracy is the practice of regional price fixing. Especially noticeable when living down under. A game that costs $50 in the US typically costs between $80 and $100 down here, despite being delivered through the exact same digital distribution channel, so it's not even a question of shipping costs.

haha yeah it sucks to be an Aussie. They also like to lock you in with the Asia servers online, so you don't get to play with the Europeans or Americans who also speak English. Edited September 28, 2012 by Grimlorn

[Hurlshort]

Do you have any proof of this?

 

I don't really know if it's 'provable' in a classic sense, but it is certainly what happened and I suspect pretty much anyone over 20 outside the US will have had similar experiences of releases being arbitrarily delayed to fulfil some obscure schedule. It is, for obvious reasons, not something someone in the US would really notice or be aware of.

 

Ok, I will take your guy's word on it, thinking on it more it does seem a little silly that distribution would take THAT much longer even in the olden days.

[Amentep]

One thing to remember about movie distribution is that digital projection has improved things a good deal (since the early 2000s) because of the lack of need in striking prints. Prints cost a lot of money and probably led some to delayed roll-out to other countries.

 

However I'm not sure that can really account totally for the shift just simply because it required cinemas to upgrade to digital projection as well.

 

It is pretty clear that US piracy - as well as imports of untranslated material - of Anime through the 80s amid fan-to-fan video trade led to companies noticing that there was enough interest in the US to start licensing and translating anime films and tv shows at a greater pace (far greater than the 80s when I can think of only a handful of films that ever actually got such treatment through official channels).

Edited September 28, 2012 by Amentep