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Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

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Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#51

Post by flashman »

kbenson wrote: post #26

Since in these breakdowns they invariably seem to be using stats collection from the games themselves, I would love to see how many of the pirated copies progress past the fist X% of the game, or continue playing beyond 24-48 hours, whatever the devs would consider around the mark for what they would consider releasing a demo for. Not that I think all the people that pirate are just demoing, but I think without quest…

I don't know whether that's possible. They calculated the piracy rate by looking at sales versus overall activations. That means they can't tell whether a particular copy is pirated or not, so they can't break out app usage stats into pirate/non-pirate demographics.

Possibly they could approximate this by pushing a version update through the app stores, which most pirates presumably wouldn't receive, and then comparing stats for different version numbers.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#52

Post by alexandercrohde »

The one thing that really doesn't resonate with me is the undertone of bitterness.

First, I bought Punch Club on steam, and enjoyed it.

But I think the assumption that's easy to make is "Look at all the money I would have made if people didn't pirate." It's not that simple. Some people who pirate would never have bought it in the first place.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#54

Post by aaron695 »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #52

The one thing that really doesn't resonate with me is the undertone of bitterness. First, I bought Punch Club on steam, and enjoyed it. But I think the assumption that's easy to make is "Look at all the money I would have made if people didn't pirate." It's not that simple. Some people who pirate would never have bought it in the first place.

> undertone of bitterness.

I didn't read this at all.

Just the facts and thoughts on solutions.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#55

Post by manigandham »

over wrote: post #46
deelowe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a dose of reality, I recommend browsing r/piracy. The mental gymnastics people go through to justify their actions is mind boggling.

Maybe, but for the silent majority it's pretty straightforward: 1) we view information as fundamentally different from currency, goods, and services; 2) we don't want to pay for information if we don't have to and we're not going to get caught. The gymnastics are mostly about just trying to figure out whether we're bad people or not - because everyone else's favorite game is Shame the Pirate - but once you realize yo…

> but once you realize you're not a bad person and that you're okay with doing something illegal then it all just sort of fades into the background.

Doing illegal things makes you a bad person.

This isn't some fight against tyranny, it's theft (or illegal copying, more specifically).

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#56

Post by toyg »

manigandham wrote: post #55
over wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but for the silent majority it's pretty straightforward: 1) we view information as fundamentally different from currency, goods, and services; 2) we don't want to pay for information if we don't have to and we're not going to get caught. The gymnastics are mostly about just trying to figure out whether we're bad people or not - because everyone else's favorite game is Shame the Pirate - but once you realize yo…

> but once you realize you're not a bad person and that you're okay with doing something illegal then it all just sort of fades into the background. Doing illegal things makes you a bad person. This isn't some fight against tyranny, it's theft (or illegal copying, more specifically).

Good != legal.

Bad != illegal.

A legal system that reflects everyone's moral system 100% of the time has not been invented yet (and is likely impossible).

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#57

Post by oldmanjay »

over wrote: post #46
deelowe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a dose of reality, I recommend browsing r/piracy. The mental gymnastics people go through to justify their actions is mind boggling.

Maybe, but for the silent majority it's pretty straightforward: 1) we view information as fundamentally different from currency, goods, and services; 2) we don't want to pay for information if we don't have to and we're not going to get caught. The gymnastics are mostly about just trying to figure out whether we're bad people or not - because everyone else's favorite game is Shame the Pirate - but once you realize yo…

Yes, we all understand the linguistic gymnastics are a way of rationalizing an action you know is wrong.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#58

Post by danielbarla »

aaron695 wrote: post #54
alexandercrohde wrote: post #52

The one thing that really doesn't resonate with me is the undertone of bitterness. First, I bought Punch Club on steam, and enjoyed it. But I think the assumption that's easy to make is "Look at all the money I would have made if people didn't pirate." It's not that simple. Some people who pirate would never have bought it in the first place.

> undertone of bitterness. I didn't read this at all. Just the facts and thoughts on solutions.

I think it depends on what angle you're looking at it from. The article does kind of read as: "hey look, we could have made 5x more sales if we'd been smarter about piracy". Not everyone agrees with this, and I think this argument is unhealthy in general.

I'd wager that if you made piracy completely impossible, most of the current pirates - who tend to hail from regions where the international pricing is prohibitive - would simply opt out of buying it. This may even have a negative effect by limiting the viral advertising indie hits like Punch Club have ("hey, what game is that on your phone", etc).

This is not to defend the act of piracy as such, but I think if someone wants to have a productive "facts and solutions" discussion, they should frame it differently.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#59

Post by sdenton4 »

thiagof wrote: post #48
speeder wrote: post #44

I would like to point out that Brazil currently is facing a extremely hard crisis, where people can't afford even food. Don't expect people to pay for entertainment here right now. EDIT: why the downvotes? What I said is entirely facts, to help explain the massive amount of piracy in Brazil.

You are exaggerating.

Seriously, they're on the verge of overthrowing the president because of a combination of corruption and the terrible economic situation. Overthrows are waaaay more likely to happen when there's a food shortage; I don't doubt the poster on this one.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#60

Post by Grue3 »

modoc wrote: post #22
dublinben wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising that Brazil, Russia, and China top the list for pirate users. This game is probably very expensive for users in those countries, if they are even able to easily pay for it.

shrug those are also the countries that tend to account for the most spam delivery attempts, SSH brute force attempts, etc.... on my server. So it may be something beyond just cost..

Poor economy drives people to crime? Shocking!
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