Soldato
I used to often pirate games but I don't really anymore. I don't buy them either so I haven't affected the sales stats 
Piracy and sales
- Thread starter spudbynight
- Start date
Soldato
I admit that when I was younger and had no/ little money I did pirate some of my games. However I did buy most of them (especially those that I really enjoyed) eventually even when I had no intention of replaying them.
These days I buy all my games.
It's a bit of a facetious argument this one when it comes to digital media.
Yes it doesn't cost anything to copy it, but it has cost a shedload of money to produce the master copy and developers need people to pay for copies in order to carry on doing business.
Piracy does have real effects on what developers produce. You can be a lot more assured of genuine sales if you make an always-online MP game for instance...and on mobile the prevalence of F2P is definitely partly due to how easily premium android titles are pirated....very very risky doing premium on mobile.
Soldato
I do love it when people say that piracy hurts sales.
There is no proof that they would have purchased the game at all if they couldn't download it.
It's like saying that a library hurts book sales, also, the second-hand market damages manufacturer sales.
There is no proof that they would have purchased the game at all if they couldn't download it.
It's like saying that a library hurts book sales, also, the second-hand market damages manufacturer sales.
Soldato
Hasn't there been a few AAA games this year where the pirated version ran better due to the DRM affecting the games in certain ways?
Piracy is not theft or stealing. Stop trying to act like it is. Nothing is lost or taken away the vast majority of people who pirate wouldn't or cannot buy the games regardless.
I for one find the latest games far too expensive for how many hours of content they have. I expect 1hour of gameplay, per £1 of payment. Most games never get anywhere close with really short storys.
Same applies to movies with bluray prices and the like, far too expensive for the runtime.
Also where the hell did demos go? developers got rid of them purely to stop you trying games before you buy and finding out how crap they are. The new steam refund policy helps but not everything is on steam.
I for one find the latest games far too expensive for how many hours of content they have. I expect 1hour of gameplay, per £1 of payment. Most games never get anywhere close with really short storys.
Same applies to movies with bluray prices and the like, far too expensive for the runtime.
Also where the hell did demos go? developers got rid of them purely to stop you trying games before you buy and finding out how crap they are. The new steam refund policy helps but not everything is on steam.
Last edited:
Soldato
That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on the internet.
£1 payment = 1 hour of game play
'Where is the wet myself laughing smiley?'
This is why people say the excuses of pirates are laughable.
So your happy paying £40-60 for a 10-15hour game?
I'm not.
And who says I'm a pirate? I never said I pirated anything.
Last edited:
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
So by that reasoning it's justified to steal anything if you think the quality of products on the market is not up to your standard?
For comparison:
I think most food in the supermarket or in restaurants is not up to my high taste standard and is overpriced and undersized. Am I ok to steal all food? They're simply using me as a tester for their terrible recipes right?
I imagine Witcher 3 didn't fair any better than other games when it comes to piracy.
You seem to be missing a key point in all your ridiculous analogies.
I do food shops online and get it delivered due to disability. Frequently orders have the wrong item or bad quality food, bread that has gone mouldy within a day, etc. You know what I do when the product isn't good enough, I 'take it back'. In reality I get a refund and they never chase anything up like come and collect it but you can also take it back to the store and get a refund.
If I buy a sofa that has a fault or I don't like... I can send that back to. Toaster that sucks or doesn't work, can take that back.
All these other items you're trying to draw analogies to compare them, all of them have a recourse if the product sucks... games do not. It was easier/better pre-cdkey and pre locking a game to a specific account on a platform. 15 years ago you could take a game back relatively easily, today you basically can't and getting a refund on a game is incredibly difficult. Some platforms allow them in a limited capacity now, most don't, those that do don't always help. NMS is a great example, the first planet is pretty boring but you've been told there is loads of other stuff in the universe but the way the game is laid out almost no one will know that 90% of the content promised was either completely different to described or flat out missing. So the only reliable refund method, the 2 hour steam refund, didn't work for most people because it was beyond 2 hours you found out the game was a complete lie.
When the gaming industry decides I can get fair refunds on games that suck hard, that is when you can draw a fair analogy to other products. You also aren't in any way stealing from any over worked developer. Developers work as long as they are willing to work, it's that simple, they aren't more overworked than any other industry. You're trying to paint game developers as some kind of victim here. If someone either chooses to pirate a game or NOT buy it... then the developer gets no money either way. What have they lost, literally nothing. The most basic and incorrect fact that everyone detailing how much money is lost from pirating starts from is that if they didn't pirate it they would buy the game. That is the fallacy.
Speaking hypothetically of course, after being screwed out of buying MANY games I absolutely hated and had no recourse, I could absolutely understand pirating new games and then buying the games I actually liked and just getting rid of the ones I didn't. Lets take it from the other angle, think of all those devs who lied, who paid reviewers and websites to give positive reviews, who effectively committed fraud to sell a game where the final product turned out to be a complete joke... the victims there, gamers.
Is Sean Murry currently under investigation for fraud? What about the hundreds of websites that lied about how fun it was to play? How many millions of NMS buyers got screwed out of £40 was it, for a game that never existed?
Apparently gamers pirating is morally awful because of those poor victims that are game developers, slaving away with no choice but to keep working at those companies... but devs lying to sell games and screw gamers is seen as completely fine.
Soldato
If piracy does drag down game sales, the drop in profit would inevitably reduce the investment on developing pc games.
So if one really want the industry to advance then piracy is not justified other than one's greed
Edit: As for using piracy as a free demo, this might be justified for that specific purpose, but how often is it really the case? Let's face it most ppl only pirate a game and be done with it, it may justify your cause but as a whole piracy is still not justified.
From another aspect, people complaining games being too expensive these days, you do realise the markrt price actually account for the expected loss due to piracy right?
TLDR: Think/Research before you buy.
So if one really want the industry to advance then piracy is not justified other than one's greed
Edit: As for using piracy as a free demo, this might be justified for that specific purpose, but how often is it really the case? Let's face it most ppl only pirate a game and be done with it, it may justify your cause but as a whole piracy is still not justified.
From another aspect, people complaining games being too expensive these days, you do realise the markrt price actually account for the expected loss due to piracy right?
TLDR: Think/Research before you buy.
Last edited:
Caporegime
Except a library book is a discrete physical item, and only one person can borrow it at a time, and libraries still get funded...
AHarvey said:
Perhaps, though no more than the second-hand car market damages car sales, and no one is lining up to decry that.
Associate
I haven't acquired a pirated game for years and years. I have enough in my library and I'm in no rush for new games unless it's something that I've been really waiting for.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 4,356
Why?? I don't pirate games but this is one of my criteria to gauge whether I feel like I got my monies worth. Pretty sure a lot of people do the exact same thing too..
Soldato
The sooner they stop games getting hacked the better for us all tbh. They is no excuse like couple years back people used to try before buy. Now Steam and even Origin offer Full refund..
Piracy is evil for PC gaming!! brings hate towards the PC platform.
Piracy is evil for PC gaming!! brings hate towards the PC platform.
'Journey' must be one of the worst games ever then...
Fair enough, to each his own. It's good that people even have a system for what constitutes 'worth' when buying a game. My friend has a similar system but it's £5 an hour as apposed to £1. I couldn't do that personally. What constitutes enjoyment in a game for me is all too relative. As above, Journey is my favourite game of all time. Paid £17 or something and it's barely 2 hours long.
Games aren't appliances, or tools though. You can't return a music download because it sucks, you can't get a refund at the cinema if the film sucks, you can't get a refund on a book if it sucks.
Why are games a special case?
Before I buy a book, CD or film I'll check around a few reviews and opinions and see if it's worth the money first.
If you don't want to get burned buying something that you might not like then don't buy it without getting an independent opinion of whether it's any good or not, and definitely don't pre-order it.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Jun 2006
- Posts
- 4,356
I do of course have exceptions, as an example I think the Max Payne games have never matched the hour/pound ratio but I love them to bits. For me, rather than it being a set in stone rule, it's a good guideline and purely just something that my brain judges as important for a 'good game/good value game'. If a game is really short but exceptional, that would outweigh (think Brothers- A tale of two sons).
Last edited:
This. This this this this this this this. It's different if the game is broken on release but still...
There's a really odd sense of entitlement these days about what gamers think they 'deserve' as consumers. If something doesn't often meet there very specific standards then it's garbage. There are of course exceptions, but the majority of the whining is from those consistently expecting innovation in every new release.
Edit:
obviously, if the dev has openly lied then fair enough. Before I get my head ripped off by the anti NMS brigade...
Last edited:
Caporegime
Getting older and the accompanied lack of free time is the single largest contributer to me stopping game piracy altogether. My back catalogue is so large that most games are old and deeply discounted by the time I get to them.
There are a few exceptions that will get my day 1 payment, basically CDPR and the Mass Effect franchise.
There are a few exceptions that will get my day 1 payment, basically CDPR and the Mass Effect franchise.