Piracy Part 2

[Mamoulian War]

Continuation from pretty old thread we had here some time ago

 

link to last page:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59648-piracy/page-29

 

link to first page:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/59648-piracy/

 

A special edition for some not to be named guys who are boasting, that downloading a DRM-stripped executable for your purchased game is unlawful, but getting cheap STEAM key from internet is all by the book...

 

30000 keys of the game having free copy promotion, were hijacked and then offered for sale on internet...

 

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-great-escape-of-30-000-steam-keys/1100-4780/

Edited November 11, 2013 by Mamoulian War

[Gorth]

Heh, piracy in its most "base" form. Trying to give away keys for free and resellers scooping them up to sell for profit. Way to go... It was a nice idea though. Execution not so good.

[Gorgon]

Profiting directly off piracy is kinda rare though,  I hear you can buy most any app or movie ever made if you go to the small tech shops and swapmeets in China, but that would be the exception. Piracy in its most base form is disabling DRM and doing whatever you want, namely giving it away for free. 

[NOK222]

I AM A DEVELOPER IN A BIG NAME VIDEO GAME COMPANY

 

BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY OPINION

 

I HATE PIRACY

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Probably Terrorists trying to make money from piracy.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTMIz0_Iij8

 

Yeah, I don't really believe it either. Just cheap scumbags trying to make a quick buck.

[alanschu]

Heh, piracy in its most "base" form. Trying to give away keys for free and resellers scooping them up to sell for profit. Way to go... It was a nice idea though. Execution not so good.

 

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the Steam key sales that go around.  They didn't pass the smell test for me and it seems that that was the case.

[Orogun01]

I AM A DEVELOPER IN A BIG NAME VIDEO GAME COMPANY

 

BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY OPINION

 

I HATE PIRACY

Can I ask why?

[Zoraptor]

Isn't it obvious? If it weren't for piracy his company could pay him more and he could afford a keyboard with a working caps lock key. Then he could revert to his preferred username, nkkkk.

[Mamoulian War]

Profiting directly off piracy is kinda rare though,  I hear you can buy most any app or movie ever made if you go to the small tech shops and swapmeets in China, but that would be the exception. Piracy in its most base form is disabling DRM and doing whatever you want, namely giving it away for free. 

 

Is not so rare, as you would think, and it is not only case for China and small tech shops. There are groups which are profiting from the stupid price policy which some companies have for worldwide users, and are offering in less rich countries "cheap official" releases and even offering support for that software. Something which big companies who are asking full price never heard of in this part of the world...

 

Apparently no profit and bitiching all day long about lost sales is for them better than offer their products for lower price and get the small profit...

 

Read the CD Projekt article in the random video game news. Especially the first part of the article, which describes, how it was working in 90's in eastern europe, and in the same way it is still working around the world in countries with low GDP per capita...

 

In Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and in Slovakia as well at the end of 90's, the original software started to have sales, when the local distributors have started to offer games for 15EUR localized in local languages instead of offering games in English only for 60-90EUR. People in my generation learned that way to appreciate the software makers and started to buy stuff from their favourite companies even after the prices has gone up to the normal 50-60EUR range nowadays...

 

You have to first offer in these countries a product, which competes directly with pirates and slowly educate the people. Then you will reap all the positive stuff, but most companies are just interested in short term profits and do not see much into the future... As much as I dislike Steam, they have done the right thing and have done the same in Russia, as CD Projekt in Poland. Offering cheaper games to win pirates for their digital distribution. Once you have them, it is hard for them to leave you, even if you start asking bigger prices, because they already experienced your quality service...

[Humanoid]

I have recently learned that I used to live a mere 15 minutes away from the second most notorious hotbed of piracy IN THE WORLD. In the humble outer south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

 

 

Man, all the cool things I missed out on as a kid.

[Malcador]

I AM A DEVELOPER IN A BIG NAME VIDEO GAME COMPANY

 

BUT THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY OPINION

 

I HATE PIRACY

I knew it! You always seemed like the Ubisoft sort.

[Mamoulian War]

One of the good examples how to solve piracy issues in lower income per capita countries:

 

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/where-movie-makers-and-former-pirates-are-starting-to-get-along/

[alanschu]

Price discrimination will (or at least should) become increasingly popular as things become more and more digital too, in my opinion.

 

According to the article places like Ecuador are still behind high speed which is necessary for that sort of stuff, but it's a huge deal for reducing costs.

 

I think there's still some level of trepidation with respect to it working the other way, however. In that, ensuring that someone in the US wouldn't be able to circumvent price discrimination to a place that is a lot poorer by comparison.

 

 

Not sure how big of a deal that would necessarily be, though I think it does happen with Australia (who somehow is hit with a higher price than other places).

[Mamoulian War]

So looks like, you can be locked out of your games because of DRM, if you use specific ISPs...

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/unknown-issue-locks-bt-internet-customers-out-of-their-ubisoft-games/

[Orogun01]

So looks like, you can be locked out of your games because of DRM, if you use specific ISPs...

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/unknown-issue-locks-bt-internet-customers-out-of-their-ubisoft-games/

Technically they don't know if is DRM or the Internet blocks set by the government.

[Mamoulian War]

Yeah. that's right. My guess would be conflict between both... If it would be the problem of the UK filter, why are not other ISPs affected? And maybe I am just overzealous here *chuckles*

[Orogun01]

Yeah. that's right. My guess would be conflict between both... If it would be the problem of the UK filter, why are not other ISPs affected? And maybe I am just overzealous here *chuckles*

Without knowing how they set up the filter, what words it targets, or whether if it blocks some particular networks, is all speculation. Though I wonder if they will release the cause if it makes them look bad.

[Zoraptor]

BT is notoriously bad for such things. Not sure I've ever heard anyone say anything positive about them. Since it's them and only them being effected and they are terrible logic dictates it's their network at fault, not Ubisofts. May even be the NSA monkeying about with a french company to benefit a US one, given Snowden's revelations :tinfoil:

 

Still, ironic that RPS decided to blame Ubisoft despite knowing how rubbish BT are when the previous week they'd automatically exonerated steam for MG: Revengeance needing a constant connection for a while. Almost as ironic as John Walker complaining about sexism then telling companies to ignore the complaints from fans which he doesn't like.

[Mamoulian War]

Finally a study on how movie sharing has impacted movie industry in 2003-2009.

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/233935885/Using-Markets-to-Measure-the-Impact-of-File-Sharing-on-Movie-Revenues-Koleman-Strumpf

 

Would like to see something similar for computer games and music as well.

 

TLDR version: the effect is estimated to be 0,03% of profit made, which is less than half of MPAA money thrown out of the window to "combat" the piracy...

[nipsen]

Actually, the numbers usually indicate that if the piracy bracket was decreased to 0, then the music and movie industry would make money without selling a single movie.

 

My guess is that if we used the estimates UBI and Activision use, then Activision would earn infinite amounts of money if they stopped developing games and axed the advertisement budget.

 

Microsoft probably has the best variant of all of this - they will actually sell OSes with every hard-drive sold in the universe. Because that only makes sense, to have a license for Windows sold every time you buy a new device, rather than keep the license from earlier. 

 

So in Microsoft's case, they are actually not only able to earn money by converting over time every pirate into a paying customer. But they also infinitely expand their market share to more than the amount of people on the planet within the same period of time. Sweet!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0

 

^Copyright Math

 

 

Heh, piracy in its most "base" form. Trying to give away keys for free and resellers scooping them up to sell for profit. Way to go... It was a nice idea though. Execution not so good.

..well, for any first attempt at digital piracy the laws on the book actually cover, it's not too bad. You know, growing pains.