Piracy and sales

mid_gen said:
I regard piracy as theft!
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Then legally and objectively you're wrong. If you want to use inappropriate words for emotive reasons then that's up to you (and I hear the daily mail are looking for "writers" :p)

Jarrastafari said:

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:
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So would you consider me putting a glass of water on a glass shelf to be theft?
 
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Jarrastafari said:
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:
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If I give you my account number and you took money out of my account, it would be gone. If you COPIED the money from my account, we'd both have the money. Of course if we could all do that, money would end up worthless.
 
I wonder, if piracy never existed, would games be cheaper or more expensive?
I've seen some people say cheaper, because they haven't got to make up for lost sales.
I'd be surprised if that happened, I think they would get more expensive without the competition of free alternatives.
 
Haggisman said:
Then legally and objectively you're wrong. If you want to use inappropriate words for emotive reasons then that's up to you (and I hear the daily mail are looking for "writers" :p)
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While I'm loathe to continue down a pointless semantics discussion....pirating a game you would otherwise have bought is depriving the developer of a sale.

People like to get up in arms about the use of the words 'stealing' and 'theft', because they are emotive, they have strong correlations with crime and criminal activity, things that people that engage in and condone piracy like to pretend are not related....that it's some kind of perfect, victimless crime.
 
pitkin said:
If I give you my account number and you took money out of my account, it would be gone. If you COPIED the money from my account, we'd both have the money. Of course if we could all do that, money would end up worthless.
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Piracy died for me when key sites emerged (not the grey ones), and Steam sales became regular - oh and having more disposable cash.

There are some games however that I have bought and after playing 3-5 hours I have never touched them again, this makes me miss piracy as I have now wasted the cash on that game - I can't trade-in and can't sell it, an expensive mistake.
 
What are people even on about. Haggisman you're going to have to explain that because I don't see your point.

Mid_gen is right, lots of you seem to be arguing semantics. How about we update the definition of theft for the digital age? I'm sure you wouldn't disagree with the term identity theft so much.

The act of copying data itself is not inherently wrong here. It's the fact that you are aquiring a copy of a cracked game, for which you are legally required to have a license for and then playing it. Which at that point is the equivalent to the 'taking the money' part of the copying your bank data comparison.

Drunkenmaster called me out on "all" of my bad analogies (of which I had only provided one) and then all read in the counter arguments are incomparable analogies. Copying a loaf of bread? Oak tree glasses? I've even asked other people what you mean and they couldn't explain it to me either.

So if we copy money it becomes worthless and that'd be wrong but if we copy games thats ok. :D
 
pitkin said:
If I give you my account number and you took money out of my account, it would be gone. If you COPIED the money from my account, we'd both have the money. Of course if we could all do that, money would end up worthless.
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A better example would be imagine in your bank vault you had a million copies of game They are worth £10 million if you sold them all but at present are not worth anything except your time and effort.. I then came in to your vault copied them all and gave them away to a million people you would have just lost time and effort but nothing else. Well except the cost to make the game to you, lost earnings, staff costs etc etc but we could argue you have lost nothing so no harm.....
 
Jarrastafari said:
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You can't PROVE that a pirated game has resulted in a lost sale.

It doesn't DENY the creator of the content any possession of the article.

It may very well need a new law - but I will point out that it's likely impossible to police without severe privacy invasion. You'll also have to give it a new name because it is certainly not theft or stealing.
 
Yes I can. Three proofs:

1. I, myself, pre-ordered a game for full price. I fully intended to buy the game but was impatient and heard an early copy had been leaked, so I acquired a cracked copy from a torrent website. I then decided I didn't like the game after playing it and cancelled my pre-order.

2. My friend Dave loves Minecraft. He plays it every week. I asked him why he doesn't buy this game, that he could afford easily and he tells me it's because it is available online for free.

3. I'm sure we're not the only two people to have lost a developer a sale because of our own (not their) actions.

Piracy doesn't deny the creator possession of their article, that I do not dispute. What it does do is it denies them the exclusive right to control the distribution of their product. I think the problem most people seem to have here is the abstraction between yourself and the author that the internet's anonymity provides.

If you were to stand next to me, at my PC and copy my game data which I have protected (serial key, DRM, etc.) and am asking you (right there to your face) to pay for access to, you're saying that you're not doing any wrong whatsoever because I am not losing anything physically tangible. Come back to the real world please. :)
 
do you remember a time when it was said that when games go digital they would be cheaper because they could cut out the middle men. Well that never happened did it. Do you remember a time when you got a game and it was the complete thing with all content, no micro transactions, no season pass, games now costing over £100 for extra's is also becoming all the norm. Do you remember playing new games only also, non of this lets tart up the graphics and release again and again on new systems. Also why do i have to pay for 1 game on one system yet if i want it on another i have to pay again. Piracy may be wrong but there's a lot of reason why people get annoyed and do.
 
Jarrastafari said:
Yes I can. Three proofs:

1. I, myself, pre-ordered a game for full price. I fully intended to buy the game but was impatient and heard an early copy had been leaked, so I acquired a cracked copy from a torrent website. I then decided I didn't like the game after playing it and cancelled my pre-order.

2. My friend Dave loves Minecraft. He plays it every week. I asked him why he doesn't buy this game, that he could afford easily and he tells me it's because it is available online for free.

3. I'm sure we're not the only two people to have lost a developer a sale because of our own (not their) actions.

Piracy doesn't deny the creator possession of their article, that I do not dispute. What it does do is it denies them the exclusive right to control the distribution of their product. I think the problem most people seem to have here is the abstraction between yourself and the author that the internet's anonymity provides.

If you were to stand next to me, at my PC and copy my game data which I have protected (serial key, DRM, etc.) and am asking you (right there to your face) to pay for access to, you're saying that you're not doing any wrong whatsoever because I am not losing anything physically tangible. Come back to the real world please. :)
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So for point number one, what you're saying is that the developer lost a sale because the person actually didn't like the product that they were going to pay for, and thus cancelled their order? I'm sorry, but they most likely lost a sale because the person discovered that the game was rubbish after trying it out, or it just wasn't for them. The issue here, as has been raised so many times before, is that it is totally unfair to put the burden on the purchaser in these situations. It is absolutely impossible to know whether or not you'll like a game before purchasing it, but as already pointed out, with many other things you can try them or go into a shop and look at it first before making your purchase. And then, after the purchase, if you don't like it you're still protected by laws that allow you to get a refund within a certain time period. Digital goods have no such laws covering them, and so it's just "Oh well, I've wasted £40 on my digital copy of this game, nevermind". No, not nevermind. I'm in no way justifying piracy, but I am saying that developers need to start offering refunds on their games, or they need to provide game demos before the launch of the product. As has been proven countless times, what they say and videos, trailers etc don't reflect anything of the finished product for most game developers. Now though, it just seems to be the accepted norm that if you've bought a game and you don't like it, you're stuck with it. Some platforms are trying to offer ways of refunding, but this needs to be improved, as Steam showed with No Man's Sky. 2 hours isn't long enough to evaluate a game like that.

Games these days are way overpriced for their digital format already. Years ago you could pre-order from sites like Gameplay.com and it would be RRP £34.99 for a disc copy, but you'd easily get £10 off that for pre-ordering and it would be shipped to you before the release date in most cases. Now you get the digital copy, you get all this rubbish DLC that you don't even want, and some titles are upwards of £49.99! So when you don't get a demo, no deal for pre-ordering, and also no real benefit to pre-ordering because stock can't run out, do you really think it's ok to make the purchaser risk losing out if the game isn't for them?

It's very easy for developers to sit back and cry about "lost sales" etc. But it's also becoming the norm for developers to shaft the players and that, is wrong. The No Man's Sky debacle has proven this and something really needs to be done. If developers stopped spending time going on and on about lost sales, and actually put out a demo or a limited time use of their games, I'm sure that many would be happier buying them. And if they don't buy them after trying the demo, they can then take the responsibility for it being their game that lost them a sale and nothing more.

Please would you use the proper forum font colour here? It's off-putting having your text in a colour that clashes with the rest of the forum theme.
 
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The person is me. As mentioned at the start of point 1. I chose to cancel my pre-order and buy drugs with the money instead because I saw that I'd spent (surprise!) too much time playing the game. I have since bought a copy of that game for my cousin.

You went off on a rant about the state of the industry there. Times change friend.
 
CHokKA said:
So for point number one, what you're saying is that the developer lost a sale because the person actually didn't like the product that they were going to pay for, and thus cancelled their order? I'm sorry, but they most likely lost a sale because the person discovered that the game was rubbish after trying it out, or it just wasn't for them. The issue here, as has been raised so many times before, is that it is totally unfair to put the burden on the purchaser in these situations. It is absolutely impossible to know whether or not you'll like a game before purchasing it, but as already pointed out, with many other things you can try them or go into a shop and look at it first before making your purchase. And then, after the purchase, if you don't like it you're still protected by laws that allow you to get a refund within a certain time period. Digital goods have no such laws covering them, and so it's just "Oh well, I've wasted £40 on my digital copy of this game, nevermind". No, not nevermind. I'm in no way justifying piracy, but I am saying that developers need to start offering refunds on their games, or they need to provide game demos before the launch of the product. As has been proven countless times, what they say and videos, trailers etc don't reflect anything of the finished product for most game developers. Now though, it just seems to be the accepted norm that if you've bought a game and you don't like it, you're stuck with it. Some platforms are trying to offer ways of refunding, but this needs to be improved, as Steam showed with No Man's Sky. 2 hours isn't long enough to evaluate a game like that.

Games these days are way overpriced for their digital format already. Years ago you could pre-order from sites like Gameplay.com and it would be RRP £34.99 for a disc copy, but you'd easily get £10 off that for pre-ordering and it would be shipped to you before the release date in most cases. Now you get the digital copy, you get all this rubbish DLC that you don't even want, and some titles are upwards of £49.99! So when you don't get a demo, no deal for pre-ordering, and also no real benefit to pre-ordering because stock can't run out, do you really think it's ok to make the purchaser risk losing out if the game isn't for them?

It's very easy for developers to sit back and cry about "lost sales" etc. But it's also becoming the norm for developers to shaft the players and that, is wrong. The No Man's Sky debacle has proven this and something really needs to be done. If developers stopped spending time going on and on about lost sales, and actually put out a demo or a limited time use of their games, I'm sure that many would be happier buying them. And if they don't buy them after trying the demo, they can then take the responsibility for it being their game that lost them a sale and nothing more.

Please would you use the proper forum font colour here? It's off-putting having your text in a colour that clashes with the rest of the forum theme.
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Steam does offer refunds.
 
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