Could you guys stop with that potential crap? It's potential! It's not real!
Here's another stupid example, that might show how dumb this whole potential idea is: I did put some money to look really awesome. Not as awesome as Chuck Norriss, but still awesome. Being all that awesome, I walk up the street passing hundreds of people, who see me being all awesome. Dudes were all jelly and shit. Chicks were all wet and stuff. But I'm so awesome noone dares to even speak to me. So in the end I return home alone, without any success, but still awesome. So, let's imagine I'm also as dumb as modern game-publishing companies, and I think that I lost some potential sex action and a pile of respect-moneyz that day, and now I'm about to go there again, not being awesome this time, and start demanding blow jobs from any chick and respect-moneyz from any dude I remember I saw on that awesome day, despite the fact that it was clearly possible to just take a look at me and keep goin. Does that make sense to you?
I know there a law of copyrights and stuff, but who gives a f#ck about laws this days? Even our president doesn't give a sh#t about them, unless they smells of easy moneyz. Actually that's the point here. Easy moneyz. Publishers wants them and pirates, being all godmighty, dickslaps their faces. Which is right and good, for noone wants to pay for sh#t.
You did good - you'll get your moneyz at least out of respect. You did a halfassed job - you'll get dickslaped. That's the right way. But strangely it didn't work out with Skyrim for some reason... Awesome trailer must have done the job. Damn, awesome trailer gets stuf, but awesome me gets nothing. WTF!
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So you wouldn't be upset if someone stole something you worked on and were selling?
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First thing is that I wouldn't be selling sh#t that I myself wouldn't pay for. That actually excludes the possibility of me selling any work of mine. But if I would somehow happen to find myself in such situation, I wouldn't be upset. And here's why: You do not own something you can't protect. And it's clear as day that you can not protect information, what any software basically is, while giving it out.
In a rush for moneyz publisher dudes forgot the roots of merchandise they're selling. Information cannot be owned by someone particular when he openly shares it with the world, even for moneyz. And pirates aren't right or wrong. They are the natural outcome of this stupid idea and should be accepted as is. Or exterminated (sued) completly. That depends on whose insterests are to be prefered - those of the creators or the customers.
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I've always been a firm believer that it is not stealing, until recently. When I read Financial Management we covered alot of different aspects, this included: Depreciation
Which stated by Wikipedia can be explained as: the decrease in value of assets
Does the value of said product get decreased by an infinite supply of "identical" free products? I think we all can agree that it is hard to justify 20€/Bluray when we can download it for free, and if everyone gets it for free "why cant I"?
For many it is hard to understand that this is not black or white...
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You'll never stop piracy without creating a totalitarian state and killing any spirit of freedom or innovation that the internet has left. So, to me, the argument is not whether or not piracy is moral, but how can industry adapt to the reality of it? And several publishers successfully have. The first step is to realize that 1 pirated copy does not equal 1 lost sale.
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I'll start buying games when they stop pretending like a-holes. First time I see that game I (really) want has normal price; I'll buy it! Hell, I'll buy one for SG. But, for as long as released games are being sold at unreasonably high prices (yes, it's the €=$ stuff) I'll pirate games. Yes I pirate games and I fu*king enjoy it. I pirated B:AC (and enjoyed it), went to Steam to buy it only to find out that game that not only are they selling it at a price of 50€ but it was, soon after release, region locked!
So, dear WB and all others who complain about pirating (this includes Valve as well). Make ONE worldwide market (wink wink) that will WORK everywhere and where EVERYONE will have SAME prices.
p.s. I haven't read article you linked, it's just my 2 cents. Happy holidays!
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pirating games is not a bad thing! its free advertising for the companies, and to tell you the truth you should pirate any game before buying. 50% of the games anyone pirates they buy on steam when its on sale, the other 50% of the games get uninstall in a couple days for being not what the consumer wanted. And to EVERYONE buys games for the online play, and MP play, so they are forced to buy any game they want to play with friends.
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To be perfectly honest, Piracy in my eyes is a GOOD thing. I can't count how many times I've heard songs, watched movies, or watched a friend play a game that they pirated, then I went out an bought that exact game. In short term you may lose out on gross sale, but the quicker distribution of a product through download means a greater possibility for sales in the long run. Even when I was the one that pirated a game, I played it for several hours to see if it was worth my investment, and if it was I would purchase it.
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Good for the popularity of a product, but bad for its economy (in some cases, REALLY bad, like for Witcher 2).
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How many pirates who didn't buy the game would have bought it if they didn't have the option? When you say it's bad for the economy of a product, you say it as though there is a real way to quantify lost sales due to piracy versus the benefits of getting your product out to the people. As much as copyright lobbyists would have you believe that pirating a game is the moral equivalent of pickpocketing fifty bucks out of the developer's pocket, it's about a far from the truth as you can get.
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You say it as if its totally okay to play someone's hard work which they put hundreds of hours worth of effort for your own enjoyment and you paid nothing for it. Say what you want, but that's clearly stealing. Each person who pirates the game means a potential loss of a sale. If everyone in the world decided to pirate a game and think that "someone else will pay for it, so it's fine if I don't", then there would be no sales at all, and the game developers would go to shit. Now wouldn't they? I'm not talking about morality, I'm talking about the fact that shithead pirates don't realize the damage they are doing to these developers.
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I pay for games (and it makes up more of my budget than it probably should). I also pirate. If someone else only pirates and never contributes then that is their failing, not mine. What I can say is that none of the instances of piracy on my side are 'potential lost sales' (as my budget is always occupied by other titles that I've given a higher priority), and that the whole problem is vastly exaggerated by entities such as the RIAA, MPAA, and the ESA (on the American side of things, one example here). Why are PC sales typically so much lower than console sales then? Because A. Consoles are simpler and easier for the average consumer to understand, purchase, and use and B. Multi-platform games are usually designed for them, sometimes to the point that the PC version is an inferior product thanks to bugs, DRM, and shoddy optimization.
So, in conclusion, does it do harm? Probably some. Not nearly as much as some would have you believe. And it's not going away, so it's up to the gaming industry to adapt rather than be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age as the music industry was.
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"So, in conclusion, does it harm? Probably some."
You just proved my point.
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If everyone in the world pirated from a single developer, they would be set for life.
As everyone in the world had played, enjoyed, and PAID ATTENTION TO that game, the developer would then be exposed to everyone in the world. Investors, major labels, and anyone else with money would pay attention to that.
Think of Justin Bieber. His(?) "music" sucks hairy donkey balls unequivocally, but everyone has heard of him. Hell, even my 90 year old grandmother has heard his(?) music.
The point is not that he sucks, but rather that hes famous. The dude started with music vids on Utube. He got enough hits and a major label picked him up. The rest is hell.
The same holds true for videogames. The more exposure they get, the more mainstream the individual game is. While the value of the individual game goes down, the value of the DEVELOPERS goes up. They have proven they can generate interest in their product. In that scenario, piracy is not anything to the DEVELOPER but a gauge of success. The distributors are the ones actually making most of the money off the individual sales being "lost".
The main exception to this is a company that self distributes. They are losing money in then. CD Projekt is one of those (or are they Atari?) I think, so their actions are understandable.
When discussing piracy it is vitally important to distinguish between monetary parties. Each group makes their profit differently. Most of the money "lost" is not lost by the developers.
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In my original comment I said that pirating is good for popularity. Did I not?
It helps to solidify the developers place in a market, which is extremely important, I agree. Unfortunately, with popularity comes expectancy. If everyone started to pirate Justin Bieber's albums (never would happen, but I'm using an example) and his popularity goes up, then more people expect him to do MORE in the future. If not, the popularity dies down. He then creates more songs, but then they pirate the songs again, and then the process repeats. Same with game developers. They can get their money from sponsors and networks, but if they lose money from actually profits from their products, then the sense of "getting ahead" is lost. And having a lack of sponsors and publishers only makes it worse.
I understand how the profits are made between developers, but those who publish their games independently get screwed over with piracy. Those who are supported by other parties and/or networks, then piracy creates somewhat of a stalemate in their business and is much less harmful. In my case, I'm talking about the developers who are getting screwed by piracy.
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"Piracy isn't stealing is DUPLICATING"
"They don't lose money because they wouldn't have bought it anyway"
"They DESERVE to be pirated because their company policy/DRM/whateverthefuck"
Plain and simple, anyone who thinks any of these so-called "justifications" for piracy are true is a complete and utter dumbass. I'm sorry there is no other way to put it. Let me explain;
Lets start with everyone's favorite "I'm just copying it, its not like stealing because its not a physical object"
I would like to quote Nearlight, who makes an excellent point
"Automotive engineers made that vehicle to meet those exact specifications; it is a product of their mental and physical capacity. You would not be able to design or make that vehicle yourself."
I don't know how to make it anymore simple than that. YOU can't produce something like that so YOU pay THEM to use THEIR creation. Someone likened this to cloning a car at a dealership, okay, so they still have their car but you have a copy so thats okay right? WRONG. That car you just "cloned" is the effort of their research, their craftsmanship etc. You stole their creation by not paying them for it.
Moving on. Ah yes, the infamous "It's not a lost sale because that person wouldn't have bought it anyway"
Okay, lets say you're right. Lets say there was no possible way to pirate that thing so the person couldn't pirate it. He couldn't afford it so he didn't buy it anyway. No sale anyway right? WRONG AGAIN. I know we like to think pirating something is "okay" because we couldn't afford it. Guess what? It's not okay. I don't want to sound like an asshole but I have to say this, IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT, YOU CAN'T HAVE IT. I'm sorry but its the truth. If you can't afford that shiny new car do you simply get a free one? No you don't, so why should it be different with media? If you weren't gonna buy it anyway, then why should you pirate it?
Lastly, lets hit on the "The company is evil, they are greedy pigs who harm the users by putting DRM or whateverthefuck in their products, I refuse to buy their stuff"
WELL GUESS WHAT GENIUS? It's THEIR stuff, THEY get to decide how they want to protect it from assholes who steal it. Yes, DRM sucks, I hate it too and yes it punishes the legitimate users but how did we get here? PIRACY. If you want to show them that you won't stand for their DRM or whatever policies, good for you, don't buy their products, maybe they'll get the message. But what you don't wanna do is PIRATE because thats how we got here in the first place, it only makes things worse!
Geez, I spent too much time ranting there. I'd like to throw a small disclaimer that I pirate just as much as anyone. I just can't stand the idiots who try and justify an obviously illegal and immoral act.
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I'd dispute that there is any harm done by a person who can't afford a game pirating it instead. It's a completely self-contained action that affects absolutely nobody. The way I see it personally is that I have a specific budget that goes into entertainment. Very seldom will it ever grow or shrink unless my income changes or some other cost of living fluctuates. I distribute that budget to the content providers that I deem most worthy of it in exchange for their products. That doesn't mean I won't sample the work of others, or that I won't compensate them for it at a later time. However, unless you can quantify to me the precise harm I'm doing in that, I see no moral or ethical reason to stop.
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I'd agree that there truly isn't harm done directly BUT why should you get that game for free? Why shouldn't that guy get a game for free? Why did that person have to pay for what you got for free?
Only because piracy is possible with digital goods is the concept of taking something without paying for it even if it is only copying something you can't afford/ wouldn't buy anyway acceptable. Does being digital take away the rights of your creation? Just food for thought ;)
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I've said elsewhere that piracy is simply a reality. It isn't going away, and dwelling on it like this is useless. Sure you could put a dent in it if you instituted Chinese-style censorship and a decent police state, but I don't think we want to push for that. SOPA already goes too far. Hell, the DMCA went too far in some ways. While it would be nice if unethical piracy stopped, it's not going to, and I think the onus is therefore on developers and publishers to realize this and work with it, foster good relations with their customers like Valve or CD Project, make people -want- to pay for your games, not because they have to but because they want to support you or they want incentives they can't otherwise get. That's why I buy games.
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There are a lot of comments here and I skimmed most of them so I'm not sure if this was mentioned or not. I recall hearing something like this somewhere, but I don't recall where or by who: You can't fight piracy the way you might theft, you can't just lock your items away from the consumer and only bring them out after they've been purchased. Instead you need to beat the advantages of piracy for the consumer. You make a product worthy of it's price tag, and you make it easier to buy and use than the effort that would be required to pirate it. No matter what you do, your game is still going to be pirated, but by doing the aforementioned, you will get more customers than if you tried to protect your game with some ridiculous DRM method that will be cracked the next day anyways. Offer compelling content at it's appropriate price and make it easier to obtain and use than it would be to otherwise pirate it.
This is basically what Steam does for the most part. You can argue some games not being worth their price, but that's usually not Steam's fault. And with the sales we get all the time Steam does their best to give us an opportunity to get a game at it's reasonable price or even cheaper. Steam and Valve are the shining example of how to best fight piracy.
The price thing is always going to be an issue, some people feel certain games are worth more than others. And the industry is holding onto an outdated arbitrary pricing structure. Not every game is worth $50-$60, some are(and some arguably worth more) but not all. There are numerous different models to use, but I think the first thing is to introduce the industry to the idea of the $30-$40. If you're game isn't a AAA title it probably doesn't deserve to be more than $40.
Brick and Mortar stores need to go, plain and simple(as far as selling games is concerned at least). Cut out the middleman and distribute your product digitally, and IIRC most of these stores get a $15-$25 cut on $50-$60 games. Digital version should be that much cheaper but the Walmarts and such have basically strong-armed Valve and other DD-sites into forcing the same price so they don't lose as many customers. Obviously consoles are limited right now, and they'll probably be limited next generation as well, but there's no reason PC games couldn't go DD-only. I know some people like buying that physical package, but I'd say to that; DD-sites should offer boxed copies of games as well. It would be similar to buying games on Amazon.
So really, is piracy a problem? Sure. Is it wrong? Definitely. But it needs to be addressed differently than it currently is.
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You make some good points. Digital games SHOULD be cheaper than games sold in retail, there is no manufacturing the disc/case and no shipping. I think retail stores should still stick around though, people will still buy from them for a long time to come.
Steam does an excellent job to deter piracy. One of the great things about consoles is that you have "platform" where you can have your collection of games, a friends list etc. Thats one of the reason people love consoles. Until Steam PC users didn't really have anything comparable (yes we had similar things but nothing great). Steam offers everything consoles have to offer but with all the benfits of being on the PC. They also do pricing right, with frequent sales and stuff like the winter giveaways. I'm sure thats helped alot in solving PC piracy however;
Yes DRM is annoying but developers and publishers have the right to at least TRY and protect their content. Sure it gets cracked right away but they have the right to try.
Piracy will still remain a huge problem because its nearly impossible to beat "free" for EVERYBODY. But yes, offering advantages to legitamate buyers is the better route.
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Steam's share at least serves a purpose. 1.) Steam keeps track of every one of its users (not in a stalker kind of way), it keeps all its products up to date. 2.) It provides a direct connection to devs via its forums. 3.) It stores EVERY game it has sold in its servers. This would be like walmart keeping a few warehouses full of every game they have ever sold. 4.) It pays to effectively ship your product (sometimes a few times to a few hundred times) from its servers to your PC. 5.) Steam's share is a smaller percentage then walmart's or gamestop's cuts and is based on a per sale bases rather then a bulk discount (most times).
So to recap. Steam effectively finds users for your product. Allows you to communicate to your users. Allows you to update ALL copies of your product, or at least allows your users to have an up to date copy of your product. Stores and ships your product to new and old users. Allows your users to intermingle and create a community that can thrive in an area with a simple and none intrusive and often very helpful DRM.
Walmart lets you... hmm.. er.. see the local wild life in person?
2012
Still not letting steam sell your games for you..
ISHYDDT
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Long story short, don't pirate, and you'll never find yourself in situations where you need silly arguments like 'but it's not stealing, it's duplicating' and other such irrelevant bullshit. Games don't really have DRM nowadays as developers have more sense, so there isn't really an excuse.
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Games don't really have DRM nowadays?
Which games are these? WHERE CAN I GET THEM!!!!!!!
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I'd like to share what an indie dev just shared on Reddit. He's also a member of our community. It's his thoughts on piracy and DRM.
At the very least, please give him an upvote.
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By definition, singing happy birthday at a party is a public performance of a copyrighted song (Warner Music holds the copyright) without paying licensing fees or asking for permission. Some companies have actually pirated anti-piracy software, so they are not squeaky clean. Some companies have made examples of people by suing single mothers and people who have illegally downloaded one song for excessive amounts of money, not to mention legal fees. I think pirating is wrong when it directly hurts those that need the money. Pirating indie music is wrong, unless limited distribution makes it near impossible to obtain. In the music market artists have learned to make good money while facing piracy, in some cases giving away music or encouraging it. MC Lars and Jonathan Coulton make a good living off of merchandise and tickets sales (which amount so more than half their revenue). For video games it is to much of a hassle for many people to pirate games due to hardware mods, hacks, keygens and other DRM removers being hard to use or obtain. I obtain almost all my games for free, but through perfectly legal means. I do believe piracy is justified for much older games do to a lack of distribution and the fact that they will earn very little (if any) extra money on a product that has already earned its fair share when it was first released.
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Out of curiosity, what about games that are almost impossible to find at even retail prices (think KOTOR2, BfME2)? Sure, you can find used copies being sold far above the release retail price, but thats just as bad (if not worse).
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I think in this case piracy is justified. If the publisher is no longer interested in distributing its old game, there are no lost sales. Of course, some games can no longer be sold because of legal difficulties (rights split between two companies etc.), so it's not developer's or publisher's fault. But it's not our fault either.
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Aslong as most games are MP there won't be a huge issue with Piracy, people don't pirate games like BF3 because you can't play them online, the only games that get pirated real bad are single player. Another reason why games are moving away from LAN hosted servers so pirates can't play with there friends on closed networks.
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This is a good example how you can reduce piracy with some added value for legal customers, not with some draconian DRM. You want to play single player? Sure, you may as well pirate it. You liked it and want to play multiplayer on our servers? Buy a legal copy. But restricting players from playing on closed LAN is not fair in any way, in my opinion.
But it shouldn't be only multiplayer. It could be a constant support of the customers, regular updates, bug fixes and bounses, etc. So in the long term it would be easier and more satisfying to buy a legal copy, then to constantly search for updates on torrent trackers.
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I only pirate games which I have actually bought in the past and have been stolen/destroyed.
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Please see arguments from glorious chairman gaben and they fat swedish guy, notch. Piracy is the result of poor service in many cases, and in the end really equals free publicity. Notch himself states minecraft would not nearly be as successful without piracy to increase word of mouth advertising. I had terabytes of pirated games, yet i spend just about all my money of the ones I feel are worth supporting.....
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Before finding Steam I pirated alot of games, but now I only pirate the ones which don't have a demo out for them, and pirating them is the only way to test them on my system. Also, I am tempted to pirate games which aren't available in my region, for example: "Batman-Arkham City", and I want to play it really bad. The only punishable piracy, in my opinion, should be if somebody is selling either digital or physical software copies that he doesn't have permission to sell. In the end, If I was, for example, a musician trying to live out of my musical creations, I would definetly put my songs on my main site for free of charge downloading, in high quality, and try to live out of donations from fans who want to pay voluntarily.
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People made the product and it's their right to sell it. It is stealing no matter how you try to justify it.
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So I was reading this article and the author had a good point, I felt. But I read some of the comments from people like: "Agreed.Piracy is stealing,plain and simple"
Now I don't have a Kotaku account, so I'd like to talk with you guys about this. Piracy isn't stealing, as some people say it is, because there is no deprivation of a product. It is simply the duplication. I know people try creating similes or metaphors as examples (like the guy with the supermarket example in the comments), but in truth I think this is a one-of-a-kind thing that was only possible in modern times.
Thoughts?
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