Piracy - unbelievable figures.

snowdog · 24 Jun 2012 at 02:18

Omaeka said:
I can't say I'm really bothered about the shooters, but Portal 2 being pirated 2,000,000+ times? I've never played it myself but at least it is a decent IP that's well made!
:/

Means bugger all though, I pirated Portal2, and bought it later on...

A download doesn't mean a lost sale, tbh I try all games before buying except if I'm 100% sure it'll be a good game.

Why would anyone pirate BF3 for 15 minutes of single player?

See what its like ? I regret buying BC2 and glad I didn't buy BF3...
I'd never have bought BF2 ages ago is I didn't try it in sp first illegally...

And meh torrents ? A lot these days is downloaded from a news server, at least here in Holland most major ISP's provide quite decent news servers for free with your internet connection. 5-6mb/sec no problem and anything less than a couple of months old is there&complete. That's the free ones, the truly hardcore downloaders pay for a decent news server...

I don't give a hoot whether it's legal or not, if I'm not sure about a game I try it first, demo's are a bad example these days as usually you want more, then you get the full game, and are bored with it in less than 30 mins of play. If it's good I'll buy it after... Only games in the past year I bought without trying were expansion packs, Civ5: Gods and kings, and Total war Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai, because I knew they were good. Any other game I bought, and I buy quite a lot of games, I've played the pirated version before buying... They can ban torrents all they want, I'll just permanently switch to spotnet or some other nice news community. They will never stop it.

You've probably played through it now and you aren't going to pay for it. Excuses.

BS, most games are so boring these days you never run them longer than 30 mins. Like: Rage, Port Royale 3 ( disappointement after 2), CodMW3, Duke Nukem...
Most games these days are not even worth the hassle of downloading and installing, let alone buying.

grudas · 24 Jun 2012 at 03:18

oh i pirate pretty much all my games before buying unless i have a demo out

and tbh im glad i do.. some games get uninstalled 10mins after installing and on pc you can't resell them either.. console on the other hand - buy -dont like - resell and lose very little..

Daze · 24 Jun 2012 at 03:58

I've never pirated a game in my life. Movies on the other hand...

bhavv · 24 Jun 2012 at 08:16

I wouldn't pay for any of those FPS games in the first place, but then I wouldn't even want to play them. Long story short, when companies make dumbed down FPS games, they get pirated a lot by people who are interested in them. Compare that to how awesome Skyrim sold and how many people were playing it on Steam. Also yesterday there were just under 50,000 people playing the new Civ V expansion, point to note here is that both these games use Steamworks so they require a valid key. Also if you look in the 'show your steam library' thread, you get a picture of how much people in the PC gaming community really do support PC games, but its when we keep getting shoddy console port after console port after console port (90% EA's doing), that PC gamers simply don't want to pay for those games.

If companies can't handle console ports as well as Bethesda do, then why even bother releasing lame games on the PC? more people might actually then buy PC games that are worth the money if they get to play decent games instead.

Pretty much the only 'AAA' games I blind purchase on release anymore are Elder Scrolls and Civ games, and this year GW2 as well. Then there are those awesome little steam for pennies, stuff like Bastion, Braid and Defense Grid pretty much did nothing but make me hate how unbelievably terrible most 'AAA' games are in comparison. I dint even get what the appeal of BF3 / COD games on the PC is, oh wait yes I do, graphics, at least for people who have never heard of modifications for Elder Scrolls. Civ V and Shogun 2 also have top end graphics, but I suppose that these games are cases of 'not simple enough for dummies'.

Age of Empires Online was another awesome recent gem. When it launched on Steam it was just £10 for the full unlocked game. Oh right but it has 'bad cartoon graphics', completely ignoring the fact that it is a superior improvement in every possible way (graphics included) to AoE2.

Mucky_Pup · 24 Jun 2012 at 08:47

Maybe if I pirate BF3 I'll get it working, rather than paying the obscene amount that I did pay for it all those months ago.

Paul11 · 24 Jun 2012 at 09:00

this is unique situation where it is easy to break the law and very very unlikely that you will get caught, so people do it

imagine if shop lifting from tesco was as easy, and there were no security guards, no cameras, no staff watching you and you could just pick something up and put it in your pocket without repercusion

im not sure what the answer is, but at the moment its far to easy for people to download and pirate games/films/music.. and trying to block one site is a waste of time

so im not surprised by these figures at all

Loosecannon · 24 Jun 2012 at 09:05

There are these things on the internet, you know, sites that review games! They can give you a good idea of a game and if it is worth buying.

There are also reviews on you tube so you can see how it plays.

There are even websites like this with forums and people post what they think of games.

Can't afford a game? Wait till it comes down in price.

There is no excuse for pirating a game, no matter what you think up in your head. Companies will always just be able to use the excuse of the figures for piracy until the amount comes down because they can also say these are lost sales, no matter if you bought the game after or not. You have no right to play every game.

Mittens · 24 Jun 2012 at 09:39

if no one pirated a certain release and every unit sold was paid for, companies would still moan and blame piracy, citing it as the reason their 'blockbuster' did not do as well as they expected, because they A/ are greedy and always want more B/ cannot believe something of such 'quality' from their world shaking publishing house, did not appeal to everyone.

TL;DR if something has not sold as well as expected its because of piracy, not because it is carp

kitch9 · 24 Jun 2012 at 09:41

Omaeka said:
Source

I can't say I'm really bothered about the shooters, but Portal 2 being pirated 2,000,000+ times? I've never played it myself but at least it is a decent IP that's well made!

Even Call of Duty though (which I hate)... 3,500,000+!? No wonder PC is losing out to titles like Dragon's Dogma when so many people just pirate, I doubt they realise it; but people who pirate PC games are slowly killing the platform. We were lucky as hell to get Max Payne 3!

DRM always used to make me just go -_- but after reading that, if there's any ounce of truth in it then I can understand why its there (not why so many companies mess it up, though).

:/

How many of those were downloads that were started but never finished? 70-90% of the trackers I've joined I've given up on as the downloads were 10-80KB/s. Its one of the reason I never bother with them anymore, its just easier to pay a few quid for the real thing and get none of the hassle. How many of those would have bought the game is piracy was not available? How many of those downloaded the game just for the sake of it and have never done anything with it?

almoststew1990 · 24 Jun 2012 at 09:45

I wonder how arma 2 did in sales vs piracy since the dayz mod came out? It was at the top of the steam sales charts for quite a while, on and off. I would consider it a different type of gamer to the AAA COD and Crysis 2 gamer. Also, it takes (used to take?) a bit of fiddling to get It to run- if someone Is capable of getting the mod to work, they are technically minded enough to download arma illegally, so therefore more of the consumer base would be capable of pirating it. But I still reckon arma was pirated 'less' because it is a fairly original concept...

SB118 · 24 Jun 2012 at 09:45

I pirated Portal 2, purely so i could get started a couple of days before getting paid and buying it (twice, pc & xbox).

Do i count as a lost sale, 1 sale or 2 sales?

SkeeterUK · 24 Jun 2012 at 10:15

Pff ppl download games just to try em if they like em they will buy em if they think they are good enough. If they are bug ridden or just plain **** then they just dont buy the game and have saved some money. I see it as a try before you buy.

3 million cod ppl saved their money

Portal 2 numbers are probably ppl who tried it liked it and bought it. It did do well after all. You cant exactly say any of the people who tried it didnt go on to buy it so im guessing a lot of them numbers would really be much lower if you convert them downloads into actual paying customers later after they tried it.

Antar Bolaeisk · 24 Jun 2012 at 10:37

Omaeka said:
(pirating on consoles is a lot harder and a lot rarer).

And generates more income for those involved in it. I'm aware of at least three people in the local area who offer enabling consoles for piracy as well as selling on of the games he downloads (1 download = many lost sales

), they make quite a penny from it as well (all declared to the taxman as well I'm sure).

Piracy is a problem, there's no doubt about that, but the fixation on it by developers and publishers is wrong. Fighting it very often involves horrendous DRM which puts the paying customer off getting the game, pushes them towards pirating (the only game I ever pirated was one I already owned that refused to run due to restrictive DRM) and generally doesn't affect the pirate.

Pirates will pirate regardless, this thread is evidence enough of that, they believe they're justified in stealing the game (even if it's just temporary until they decide if they are going to pay for it or not and how much).

bhavv · 24 Jun 2012 at 10:41

Paul11 said:
this is unique situation where it is easy to break the law and very very unlikely that you will get caught, so people do it

imagine if shop lifting from tesco was as easy, and there were no security guards, no cameras, no staff watching you and you could just pick something up and put it in your pocket without repercusion

Are you being serious? Software piracy is in no way similar to theft. If shoplifting was so easy I still wouldnt shoplift.

Making a copy =/= stealing a car. Now if people could somehow download any actual car in the world off the internet ... I dont think theres a single person out there who wouldnt.

Antar Bolaeisk · 24 Jun 2012 at 10:44

bhavv said:
Are you being serious? Software piracy is in no way similar to theft. If shoplifting was so easy I still wouldnt shoplift.

Making a copy =/= stealing a car.

Just because the original isn't removed from the owner doesn't make it anything less than theft. Through piracy you obtain a copy of a product without paying for it.

Theft: the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

orderoftheflame · 24 Jun 2012 at 11:32

Antar Bolaeisk said:
Just because the original isn't removed from the owner doesn't make it anything less than theft. Through piracy you obtain a copy of a product without paying for it.

Theft: the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

+ 1. It's an easy concept to grasp. Intellectual property in the form of games is far more than the mindless 1 and 0s you download. Nobody has a right to copy something and get the benefits from it just because the original owner is not deprived of a physical object.

Kenai · 24 Jun 2012 at 11:41

Antar Bolaeisk said:
Just because the original isn't removed from the owner doesn't make it anything less than theft. Through piracy you obtain a copy of a product without paying for it.

Theft: the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

Actually, in the UK theft is defined as:

1.-(1) A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and "thief" and "steal" shall be construed accordingly.

So making a copy isn't theft at all, because you aren't permanently depriving the other party of the copied item.

caz32 · 24 Jun 2012 at 11:45

Originally Posted by Omaeka:
(pirating on consoles is a lot harder and a lot rarer).

I don't think this is true, it might be harder but don't console games get leaked like a week or 2 before there official release date?

Amp34 · 24 Jun 2012 at 12:04

Limenote said:
what if your boss said you will only be paid at the end of the month if a certain cross-section of consumers feel your hard work was justified?

edit: you don't eat a meal and decide it was disappointing so refuse to pay, or do a weekly shop but decide not to pay because you didn't like the products you put in the trolley (but take them home anyway)

That's called commission, lots of companies of it...

As for the other two example there is a legitimate argument for not paying for food you did not enjoy, if you ate it all you probably don't have a leg to stand on but eating half of it and then complaining, much like playing the game for a few hours and deciding you don't like it, you probably wouldn't have to pay at any restaurant worth their salt.

How about buying a product, taking it home and then deciding you don't like it and returning it? Fairly common, with some shops doing 30/60/90 day returns policy.

On the other hand the whole play it then buy at a later date is all fine, except that the later date probably meant you only paid £5 for it rather than the £35 at release.

Amp34 · 24 Jun 2012 at 12:24

Kenai said:
Actually, in the UK theft is defined as:

1.-(1) A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and "thief" and "steal" shall be construed accordingly.

So making a copy isn't theft at all, because you aren't permanently depriving the other party of the copied item.

Which is why it's called copyright infringement not copyright theft (unless you are someone from the BFI making stuff up) and why it's a civil case not criminal one (making a profit is something different and may well get you a criminal case).