Piracy

[Blarghagh]

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.

 

I'd never considered this before, but now that I think about it those Pixar movies have dropped the half year delay of finally arriving in theatres here... Suddenly I support piracy.

[Oner]

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?

No idea? I just.. played the game?

[mkreku]

Do you have any proof of this?

Not really.

 

It is easy to prove that the delays are gone though. Just go to IMDB and check out the release dates for older movies in the US and Europe and then compare it to newer movies.

 

There never was any valid reason for this artificial delay. It was never difficult to make more movie rolls. It was never difficult to fly them over the ocean. It was never difficult to truck them out to all the cinemas in the world. If digital cinemas had made a breakthrough five or ten years ago, then there would be a less sinister logical explanation for the delays being gone. But they have not yet switched to digital in all movie theatres, so that is not the reason.

 

They just can't abuse their power anymore because the power balance has shifted. People all over the world now has the means to 'strike back' and suddenly the problem is solved.

[Grimlorn]

Do you have any proof of this?

Not really.

 

It is easy to prove that the delays are gone though. Just go to IMDB and check out the release dates for older movies in the US and Europe and then compare it to newer movies.

 

There never was any valid reason for this artificial delay. It was never difficult to make more movie rolls. It was never difficult to fly them over the ocean. It was never difficult to truck them out to all the cinemas in the world. If digital cinemas had made a breakthrough five or ten years ago, then there would be a less sinister logical explanation for the delays being gone. But they have not yet switched to digital in all movie theatres, so that is not the reason.

 

They just can't abuse their power anymore because the power balance has shifted. People all over the world now has the means to 'strike back' and suddenly the problem is solved.

That makes sense. They have to compete with pirates now, so they have to make more of an effort to distribute worldwide at the same time.

[Hurlshort]

Do you have any proof of this?

Not really.

 

It is easy to prove that the delays are gone though. Just go to IMDB and check out the release dates for older movies in the US and Europe and then compare it to newer movies.

 

There never was any valid reason for this artificial delay. It was never difficult to make more movie rolls. It was never difficult to fly them over the ocean. It was never difficult to truck them out to all the cinemas in the world. If digital cinemas had made a breakthrough five or ten years ago, then there would be a less sinister logical explanation for the delays being gone. But they have not yet switched to digital in all movie theatres, so that is not the reason.

 

They just can't abuse their power anymore because the power balance has shifted. People all over the world now has the means to 'strike back' and suddenly the problem is solved.

 

After thinking on it a bit, your point does make sense. Zoraptor also pointed out how it would be fairly difficult to even notice it from the US.

[greylord]

So how do you think the people that create the games feel about that?

How do you think gamers feel about paying for a product they don't enjoy and can't return? Especially, with all the marketing and hype surrounding games to get you to impulse buy them. I still remember Casey Hudson saying there wouldn't be a A, B, or C ending for ME3. Look what happened. There's no accountability for lying or half-truths in the gaming industry.

 

@Gorth Just playing devil's advocate. No need for insults.

 

Welcome to life. You are going to buy a lot of things that you will not be happy with, and you usually won't be able to get your money back.

 

You are also only out $60 here, the developer is losing much more when people pirate their work. Developer's put years of their life into these products, and then they ask you to pay a nominal fee to enjoy it. It's a simple idea. If you want to play it, do the right thing and pay. When you pirate, you disrespect all the work that they've done.

 

Such as??

 

I can return just about anything, inclusive of cars and computers if they do not work as advertised or work properly. In addition British Law gives Brit. citizens the right to make backups of media which is a LAW that MEDIA (so not just software) work VERY HARD TO CIRCUMVENT.

 

That's probably more illegal in my mind than the pirates.

 

HOWEVER...I choose to vote with my wallet. I will make purchases over the computer, but if DRM is too restrictive and I don't think the benefits outweight it...then I simply won't buy it on PC. Me a millions of others typically vote with our wallets which is one reason the PC industry in the US has gone so far downhill. Only a few PC games actually sell well enough on their investments because of this voting with our wallets, which in turn I'm certain the PC industry blames on piracy killing their sales rather then their intrusive DRM schemes and us doing EXACTLY what people have said one should do in this thread...which is vote with our wallets and not get the game.

 

However...I'm certain there are others which get a console instead and do much of their gaming via console these days rather than PC. It's not that I prefer the console to the PC...but when I get a game on the console it's not a single install and that's it (currently). I can play it on any console I get and not have to worry about whether that console is destroyed or not (and whether I'd lose all my games by such a destruction or not).

[AwesomeOcelot]

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.

 

The reason given was never logistics as far as I knew at the time. TV shows being released later was down to company negotiations. TV shows being released at similar times across the world is down to copyright infringement, if people like a show and it's being shown a year before in another country then that obviously is going to mean the show is worth less to the company buying it. The movie industry liked to use the US as a test basis for movies so they could decide whether they would release them more widely, they also sometimes do this within the US, so that explains a bit of the delay between the US and the rest of the world. The delays don't make much sense in the case of movies, but I doubt it was about "worth" of consumers, these people don't care as long as they're making money.

[Amentep]

It was never difficult to make more movie rolls.

 

To be fair, it actually is expensive (~$30,000 for a regular film) to strike a print of a film. If a film opens in 300 theaters world-wide and you are using film prints, you've just added $9 million to the cost of the film (without even counting shipping - film cans are heavy and usually come in 3-4 cans, dependent on the length of the film) before getting to the theaters.

 

If you subtitle a film you're adding the expense of a new print and someone to subtitle the film too.

 

There is a student film theater at my old university and sometimes they'd want to do a revival, but they could only afford to do revival showings of films that wouldn't need a new film print struck (due to the price added to the rental fees).

Edited October 1, 2012 by Amentep

[Mamoulian War]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/11/drm-error-causes-problems-for-legitimate-game-maker-users/

[anubite]

According to Ubisoft, piracy rate of PC is 95%. Given Skyrim's sales numbers for the PC, this would mean something like 50-60 million people pirated Skyrim, twice as many people who play CoD.

 

Such exaggerations are enough to make you shake your head at anyone who uses piracy as an excuse not to do something.

[Hurlshort]

According to Ubisoft, piracy rate of PC is 95%. Given Skyrim's sales numbers for the PC, this would mean something like 50-60 million people pirated Skyrim, twice as many people who play CoD.

 

Such exaggerations are enough to make you shake your head at anyone who uses piracy as an excuse not to do something.

 

Uh, no, 95% of a few million is not 50-60 million.

[Mamoulian War]

Wrong math Hurlshot...

 

What was Ubisoft meaning with the 95% bull**** number, is that number of their copies sold is 5% of all games available to users... So if they sold 5 million copies, it means that 95 million copies are pirated copies, which is ridiculous...

[Hurlshort]

No, 95% of 5 million is 4.75 million. It would be ridiculous to assume they mean it any other way.

[Mamoulian War]

Though they did mean it that ridiculous way

 

 

 

And your example is 48,718% piracy rate and not 95% piracy rate...

Edited November 29, 2012 by Mamoulian War

[Hurlshort]

Though they did mean it that ridiculous way

 

Do you have a quote for that?

[Mamoulian War]

As i edited my previous post, your example is 48,718% piracy rate... basic math

 

9.75 mio games available to end users in total. Out of which is 4.75 mio pirated.

[Pidesco]

No, 95% of 5 million is 4.75 million. It would be ridiculous to assume they mean it any other way.

 

Everywhere I've seen that percentage it was meant as 95% of all played copies are pirated. So yes, it's that silly.

[Malcador]

Well, if you're given 5 million copies sold, not being used then a 95% piracy rate would reach a pretty impressive number.

[AGX-17]

According to Ubisoft, piracy rate of PC is 95%. Given Skyrim's sales numbers for the PC, this would mean something like 50-60 million people pirated Skyrim, twice as many people who play CoD.

 

Such exaggerations are enough to make you shake your head at anyone who uses piracy as an excuse not to do something.

 

....Your assertion makes the fallacious assumption that skyrim sold more than 60 million copies.

[Hurlshort]

As i edited my previous post, your example is 48,718% piracy rate... basic math

 

9.75 mio games available to end users in total. Out of which is 4.75 mio pirated.

 

No, it is basic math that 95% of a number is not more than that number. You are looking at this in a very weird way. Now if we are looking at this as total copies of Skyrim played, rather than bought, then it changes the math. But how are they even getting a firm number of copies played?

 

50 million out of 5 million is 1000%

[Hurlshort]

So I just read that interview from last August from the CEO of Ubisoft. He is saying two entirely different things in it.

 

1. Piracy rate is 90-95%. He doesn't actually state whether he is saying played or sold. I would think it would be reasonable to assume he is talking about copies sold, which means for every 10 games sold, 9 are pirated.

 

2. Only 5% of players pay for the games. The problem is he is talking about f2p, and he's explaining that percentage compares to how may people pay for f2p, and then awkwardly saying they are about the same.

 

These two statements are contradictory. Honestly it's a bad interview, where the CEO is clearly stumbling over the numbers, and the journalist does nothing to correct or address the problems. Where is the follow up interview, by the way? This thing is posted all over, but this is the closest I can find to a follow up.

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/05/ubisoft-drm-piracy-interview/

 

This is the closest thing I found, and they stick to the first statement, which makes more logical sense.

[pmp10]

1. Piracy rate is 90-95%. He doesn't actually state whether he is saying played or sold. I would think it would be reasonable to assume he is talking about copies sold, which means for every 10 games sold, 9 are pirated.

 

2. Only 5% of players pay for the games. The problem is he is talking about f2p, and he's explaining that percentage compares to how may people pay for f2p, and then awkwardly saying they are about the same.

 

These two statements are contradictory.

How are they contradictory?

If 95% of people playing the game pirated it then only 5% payed.

Right?

[Hurlshort]

You are assuming he is referring to number of people playing the game. I assume he is referring to number of copies sold. It would be simple for the interviewer to clarify that, but unfortunately it didn't happen.

 

But logically it makes more sense that he was referring to numbers sold, as that would match the piracy numbers given out by other developers like Blizzard. Starcraft 2 sold 3 million and was estimated to be pirated about 2.2 million times. That's about 75%.

[alanschu]

Sigh.

 

The stupid part of this discussion isn't the Ubisoft CEO, but the people that extrapolate misinformation into what he said. People see "PC Piracy rate is 90-95%" (a number I have no idea where it came from), and then go "Uh, that must mean that 60+ million people played Skyrim... yeah right."

 

 

The statement isn't "The piracy rate of Skyrim PC is 90-95%" as many here seem to think it is.

 

One of the World of Goo developers put the estimates DRM free World of Goo's piracy rate to be about 90%. He admits the numbers aren't precise and that they are just estimates, so it's not like the Ubisoft CEO's statements aren't somewhat corroborated. I would bet that Skyrim does a pretty good job of pulling that estimate downward.

Edited November 29, 2012 by alanschu

[NOK222]

Regardless piracy is overblown. Game developers fail because their games fail, and their games fail because they suck - not because they've been pirated.

 

These are some wise words, while I've never pirated Bioware games, you should keep this in mind during the development process of Dragon Age 3 Alanchu.