41–50 of 81 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's $5 for everyone. The piracy thing is a marketing gimmick because you don't get written up in gadget blogs just because you have a sale.
Is it $5 for those who already paid ?
Interesting. So 90% of the people pirate the game (which has no serial number or protection). I thought the reason people pirated apps was because of draconian protection systems like DRM?!
People pirate in general because it's easy. People pirate games with DRM because the pirate version is better than the legit one. You could easily argue that the DRM is increasing both the number and social acceptability of software pirates, which is basically the opposite of what it claims to be doing.
How do we know that the people that pirate games with DRM aren't doing it because it's "easy"?
"You could easily argue that the DRM is increasing both the number and social acceptability of software pirates, which is basically the opposite of what it claims to be doing."
No, the piratebay is increasing the social acceptability of software pirates. So is the increasing rate of entitlement among people in their 20s.
This small example shows me that having no DRM (or any other kind of protection) means an application developer will not make any money on their app because most people will just pirate it. DRM at least helps prevent piracy to some degree.
Downloadable apps are on the way out. Because of piracy, I predict most companies will move over to web services in the future.
This should make most people happy because now, instead of paying for software once, you will need to pay for it every month/year.
Interesting. So 90% of the people pirate the game (which has no serial number or protection). I thought the reason people pirated apps was because of draconian protection systems like DRM?!
Hardcore pirates will always find a new excuse. Most of them just don't want to pay. They can't be counted as lost sales if they never had any intent to buy.
This may be the case, but allowing people to share your application freely will make it that much easier to create more pirates (IE: someone who doesn't know that much about computers searches your app on Google and finds the "free" version instead of your site).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah - most of the people pirate because its easy and relatively risk free. They would never think of 'pirating' a car. Who came up with the term pirating anyway? It adds a glamor that 'stealing' just doesn't have.
You can't "pirate" a car. If I took your car, you'd be less one car. If I copy a game, nobody is less anything. It would be as if I had a device that could duplicate your car in 10 minutes, atom-for-atom. Clearly this would spell big trouble for the auto industry. We might even introduce laws which make this act illegal, or otherwise induce artificial scarcity so that the price of a car doesn't fall to zero, because…
What if I "steal" your identity? Technically, you don't lose anything. I am just borrowing your information. Should this be okay too?
How about a website that posts valid credit card information. Before someone actually uses the credit card, it's just numbers and letters on website.
"Clearly this would spell big trouble for the auto industry. We might even introduce laws which make this act illegal, or otherwise induce artificial scarcity so that the price of a car doesn't fall to zero, because we decided, as a society, that the auto industry is something we want to encourage."
There is no "artificial scarcity". The talented people that actually make software, music, and movies are scarce. This is what you are buying. If this wasn't the case, anybody could make Photoshop (not copy) in a few clicks.
"Hmm. That sounds familiar. On the other hand, I'm not stealing someone's car when I duplicate it, am I? Suddenly there's this third party (the car manufacturer or retailer) who cares a lot about what I do with me car. They'd say, "No, it's bad for you to copy other people's cars" and do what they could to stop me."
Not "stealing" per se, but if you took the original developers work and put them out of business because you were copying (and distributing) it for free, isn't it almost the same thing?
I find these discussions really funny. A few weeks ago, there was a heated debate about the author from the thesis wordpress theme and wordpress. By creating the theme (and not giving back to the GPL), the author really wasn't affecting the original (since it technically was just a copy of some bits). Many people here were against him because of the political ideology behind the GPL. When the discussion leads to piracy and its effects (such as this one), everybody has a different opinion.....
"Copyright infringement isn't theft, not legally, not historically, and not morally."
It's counterfeiting, which is worse than theft. With theft, you aren't going to put a television company out of business because a few tvs got stolen out of the back of a van.
When software is pirated (like in this article), it really can put a company out of business and destroy their entire revenue stream.
" the game doesn’t bother players serial codes or online authentication, but it’s also very easy to copy it " Somewhat misleading. It's also very easy to copy all the super-DRMed games. In fact, the process is identical. Load up a torrent site, search, download. At any rate, claiming 90% piracy (regardless of truth) to run a sale is probably a good marketing move. It's a beautiful game.
It is a good move. I didn't pirate it, but I'll buy it to support them (plus it's just three quid). I only wish it were on Steam...
Developer, if you read this, please offer the sale on Steam! I will gladly buy it
What seems to be missing, as usual from these piracy posts is that the 90% who pirated the game most likely wouldn't have bought it. Sure, pirating games is a bad thing. But, it doesn't hurt to have a little perspective on it. There was a post on HN a few months ago doing some analysis on this subject.
We will never know this. When I used to pirate software in my younger years, I would buy software that I needed if I couldn't find it anywhere. I suspect that the number of pirates that would never buy are a lot lower than you claim.
The problem now is that piracy has muddied the waters. We will never know either way.
" the game doesn’t bother players serial codes or online authentication, but it’s also very easy to copy it " Somewhat misleading. It's also very easy to copy all the super-DRMed games. In fact, the process is identical. Load up a torrent site, search, download. At any rate, claiming 90% piracy (regardless of truth) to run a sale is probably a good marketing move. It's a beautiful game.