Piracy and sales

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.

It's part convenience as well though right? Surely, the way digital market places have made it sooooo much easier to buy stuff now (not too mention numerous sales with great deals) has impacted piracy more then any DRM implementation?
 
It's part convenience as well though right? Surely, the way digital market places have made it sooooo much easier to buy stuff now (not too mention numerous sales with great deals) has impacted piracy more then any DRM implementation?

I think that's definitely a factor. There's always threads about people's absurdly large and expensive Steam libraries of which half the games are completely untouched.
 
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.

Seems a pretty reasonable criteria to me tbh...

Not that I'm advocating piracy to address that criteria, the appropriate action would be to wait until a game reduces enough to meet that price point, however, making the decision to purchase something (and how much to purchase it for) based on how much entertainment/value you're going to get out of it seems very sensible.

Would you pay £40 for a game which was only 10 minutes long? 1 hour? 10 hours?

What if that game was only £4 instead?

Out of curiosity, if in my living room, I decide to put a glass shelf 253 cm from the floor and place a glass of water on it, is that theft?
 
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Piracy is a necessary evil.
Then again, I've not played any new games in a long time, I've got too many from my backlog I've bought.

But a lot of this stems from me not liking to buy games brand new anymore due to various issues.
 
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? :p

I imagine Witcher 3 didn't fair any better than other games when it comes to piracy.

You can't be part of a conversation about piracy when you insist that it is is theft.
 
If you don't want the product, don't buy it. If you're going to the hassle of finding a safe copy and downloading it then clearly the product has value to you, you are a thief, no matter how you justify it.

No demos anymore? These days you have extensive alpha and beta phases so not only do you get to try before you buy, you get to provide feedback before the game is finished.

Fed up with games not being what you thought they were going to be? Don't pre-order. Wait and see a review from someone whose opinion you respect.

It's hard to quantify, but Denuvo and the likes that cut out piracy in the critical first month of sale are no doubt having a positive effect on revenues.

That isn't theft, and there is no way you can justify why it should be called theft.

If you want to use legal terminology then you have to stick to the legal definition. Not pick and choose the parts you want so that you dramatise what is happening.
 
Denuvo is a good thing. Rise Of The Tomb Raider PC sold almost 1M copies so far & counting I doubt it would have sold anywhere near as many if it were not protected by Denuvo. In a few weeks it gets the last major update & a load of DLC which again would never have made its way to PC without strong sales (PC has outsold XB1 by a long way!).

Doom PC sold just over 1M copies now and again without Denuvo I doubt it would have been as popular.

So many game key sites around now selling for 25-30% less @ launch than RRP & way cheaper than Steam so no real arguments can be made for Piracy as the Steam refund policy means you can get your money back if uncertain!

Correlation doesn't equal causation. You're listing games that will sell well regardless. Tomb raider is a big one, and Doom is even bigger. It's been in great anticipation for very long time. Using that as a reference point for why it's good and why it works is logically dishononest.
 
That isn't theft, and there is no way you can justify why it should be called theft.

If you want to use legal terminology then you have to stick to the legal definition. Not pick and choose the parts you want so that you dramatise what is happening.

I'll use whatever words I want thanks.

I regard piracy as theft, if you want to regard it differently in order to make it seem more acceptable, that's up to you!
 
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I think £1 an hour for enjoyment is a little low as a standard, considering my time is worth £15+ per hour.

I personally don't really have a standard. If I enjoyed the game, it was worth it regardless of the cost (let's be reasonable, I'm not going to say 300 for 30mins is good. But £40 for a standard 10-20 hours game, 10-15 for an indy).

If the game sucked (and I couldn't refund it or had to trade it in if it was console) then it wasn't and I accept the loss.

Most of my logic comes from the fact that, as a none drinker I see my mates blow 100 quid on a 5 hour night out and have no issues with that.

I personally find it weird that as gamers, I can spend as much as a meal for two (which lasts an hour), get 10+ hours of enjoyment and expect to be annoyed by it!
 
Lots of people who argue for piracy as though it is their right, but say they don't do it themselves. Interesting position. Though, I'm glad to see I'm not the only person propping up the games industry with my cash.

Since some of you don't believe that copying protected data without the owners permission is in any way a form of morally arguable theft, then please, type your credit card details, scientifc theories, patents and exam answers below. I will gladly 'share' your unstealable data. :rolleyes:
 
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.


I don't think many sane people would argue that 1 pirate download equals 1 lost sale, but overall piracy definitely hurts sales, no question.

Why would publishers shell out large sums for Denovu or the like otherwise,

I can think of at least 1 game i would have purchased if i was not able to get a copy on TPB, so there's your proof:eek:
 
Fine, I won't give piracy a label if that makes anyone feel better. I'll just describe it for what it is. You are taking and enjoying something that others have worked hard to create, who are asking for money in return for their efforts. But you don't want to give it to them and take it for free.

That's what piracy is. And it's not a good/moral thing.

If you feel the price is too high/quality is too low, you shouldn't play the game. In fact with reviews and steam refunds now, you have the option of trying and seeing if it holds up. It's a fair system.

We have all done it (especially when we were younger) but I will never say that it was an ok thing to do. I think as you get older with more disposable income and an appreciation for the efforts that others make in general, you come to realise that you won't take things for free....
 
Why would publishers shell out large sums for Denovu or the like otherwise,

Pirates have been mindlessly downloading PC games for over a decade and despite the on going 'rampant piracy', the PC market still grew and remained profitable. Besides, as if people who've been downloading stuff for years are suddenly going to start paying for their games. :rolleyes:

It's is pure greed, nothing more.


And as if all these people in poor countries where a AAA game cost 1/3 of their wages are suddenly go out and buy it because Denuvo?

No, they won't.
 
I don't think many sane people would argue that 1 pirate download equals 1 lost sale, but overall piracy definitely hurts sales, no question.

Why would publishers shell out large sums for Denovu or the like otherwise,

I can think of at least 1 game i would have purchased if i was not able to get a copy on TPB, so there's your proof:eek:

Your not adding into that the sales gained from that pirated version. When people enjoy a game they tell people (more potential sales) and sometimes get very invested in the series and will buy the next game/merchandise/other devs games.
Its not a black and white argument as its next to impossible to measure but there have been accounts of indy devs getting massive sales boosts once their game gets uploaded to torrent sites. Again would that have happened anyway? who knows.

Also what happened to demos? I honestly think that piracy rates would drop if steam had an inbuilt demo period for ALL games. Download the game and play for 15/30/60minutes, after that you either buy the game or delete it. You don't go and buy boxsets for TV shows without watching a few episodes first or watching clips on youtube so why should games be any different, reviews and videos can only show you visuals and sometimes that's not enough.

Steam is doing a great job with the refunds I must say, really helped me when I bought cities skylines and just couldn't stand it, without that service i would have wasted my cash and been very bitter!
 
To compare piracy to regular theft is a little near sighted in my opinion. Theft involves depriving someone of something. You aren't stealing when you pirate games, but grabbing a copy. I'm not defending piracy at all - all my games are on Steam or legally purchased.

And I don't necessarily agree that you are depriving people of income either as I believe most people who pirate games would not have bought it in the first place.
 
Pirates have been mindlessly downloading PC games for over a decade and despite the on going 'rampant piracy', the PC market still grew and remained profitable. Besides, as if people who've been downloading stuff for years are suddenly going to start paying for their games. :rolleyes:

It's is pure greed, nothing more.


And as if all these people in poor countries where a AAA game cost 1/3 of their wages are suddenly go out and buy it because Denuvo?

No, they won't.

Most pc game pirates are not destitute 3rd worlders...come on, it's
1. Easy
2. Extremely low risk
3. Borderline socially acceptable

It's a first world problem, publishers are primarily concerned with preventing people who could or would buy their product from obtaining it by other means.

And once upon a time you could purchase AAA games for significantly less in less developed countries. But digital distribution killed that off, nothing to do with developers/publishers.

It's just not the case that people only pirate, or only buy legit. There is a huge grey area in between where people do both. That's what they're targeting.
 
Most pc game pirates are not destitute 3rd worlders...come on, it's
1. Easy
2. Extremely low risk
3. Borderline socially acceptable

It's a first world problem, publishers are primarily concerned with preventing people who could or would buy their product from obtaining it by other means.

And once upon a time you could purchase AAA games for significantly less in less developed countries. But digital distribution killed that off, nothing to do with developers/publishers.

It's just not the case that people only pirate, or only buy legit. There is a huge grey area in between where people do both. That's what they're targeting.

I purchased Witcher 3 on GOG on release, I COULD have torrented it and paid nothing.

I torrented No Mans Sky, ahahahahahaha...

That's the end of the argument there to be honest.
 
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