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Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

greenheartgames.com

31–40 of 395 posts

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#31
post #14

The irony is great. But I fear it is possible that wasn't such a good idea. Given the graphs, there were 4k people interested in the game. Over 90% of them now have the impression that the game is unplayable long-term because of the message-box. Maybe many of them get the hint, but those who don't might generate bad pr and prevent others from buying it. But well, maybe that article combined with answers to the compla…

My thoughts exactly. The pie chart towards the end should scare off anyone willing to try this: if 93.6% of users who played the game on the first day after release got a shitty experience, it means that at least 93.6% of feedback is going to be negative (or more, because people are more likely to provide feedback when they are unhappy than when they are satisfied).

Still think it's a great idea, and I love the irony (especially since it's a game dev simulator), but if I were them I would have put a timed delay on the pirate punishment.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#32
post #22
post #8

I haven’t bought any game released after 2004[0] – simply because in my opinion, gameplay has suffered a lot lately. I can recall spending years building stuff in Pharao when I was a kid and recently had a lot of fun (months!) playing Patrician II/III, bought from GOG. Where are these games nowadays? [0] The latest game I bought on Steam was Counter Strike: Source, mostly because it was on sale and bundled up with so…

Minecraft. Skyrim. Civilization IV/V. Avernum. Starcraft II. Crusader Kings II. Dungeons of Dredmor. Portal and Portal II. Torchlight. XCOM. The Witcher and The Witcher II. FTL. That list is just off the top of my head, without looking at my Steam library; all of those games, XCOM and maybe Portal excluded if you don't dig the user content, can easily take up multiple months of gameplay. Deep, involving games are mor…

Portal took me about a week – I haven’t played regular Portal II, but got through the multiplayer version with a friend in a couple of evenings. Reviews for Skyrim look somewhat promising, I will give it a try when I get a Windows machine again.

Civilization is also somewhere on the list, though the existence of FreeCiv doesn’t really help in persuading me to buy a very similar (for appropriate values thereof) game.

Maybe I should just go and invest some time into Dwarf Fortress :)

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#33
post #14

The irony is great. But I fear it is possible that wasn't such a good idea. Given the graphs, there were 4k people interested in the game. Over 90% of them now have the impression that the game is unplayable long-term because of the message-box. Maybe many of them get the hint, but those who don't might generate bad pr and prevent others from buying it. But well, maybe that article combined with answers to the compla…

This article is going to be covered by all major gaming press by the end of the day, it will have hundreds of thousands of page views and probably result in thousands of sales just from "that's so funny I'm going to buy it just to support you!" so while in isolation you might be right that it would reduce sales the marketing value of this post is going to be many orders of magnitude more than the negative experience…

Guilty as charged. Going to install it and give it a whirl after I finish my exam tonight. It'll be a good break from Dota I guess!

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#34
post #8

I haven’t bought any game released after 2004[0] – simply because in my opinion, gameplay has suffered a lot lately. I can recall spending years building stuff in Pharao when I was a kid and recently had a lot of fun (months!) playing Patrician II/III, bought from GOG. Where are these games nowadays? [0] The latest game I bought on Steam was Counter Strike: Source, mostly because it was on sale and bundled up with so…

You haven't bought or you haven't played any new games since 2004 ?

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#35
post #23

While I think this is a very clever idea, it's also somewhat dishonest. In the game world, pirates cause studios to go bankrupt. In the real world, the causal link is not as clear. People arguing that piracy is ruining gamedev routinely ignore the fact that those who pirate don't necessarily have the means to buy many games; their choice is purely between pirating and not playing. Of those 90% or more who pirate the…

> People arguing that piracy is ruining gamedev routinely ignore the fact that those who pirate don't necessarily have the means to buy many games And people who defend pirates routinely ignore that pirated products are also pirated by people who will take what they want for free if they can, because they can. Don't pretend to a higher level of intellectual honesty or moral strength. Your position can lay claim to ne…

I'm not sure you're actually disagreeing with the post you replied to. People that take things because they're free end up downloading things they're not particularly interested in and may never even watch/play. Those people aren't potential customers. This isn't a moral issue at heart, it's about the impact of piracy on sales.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#39
post #22
post #8

I haven’t bought any game released after 2004[0] – simply because in my opinion, gameplay has suffered a lot lately. I can recall spending years building stuff in Pharao when I was a kid and recently had a lot of fun (months!) playing Patrician II/III, bought from GOG. Where are these games nowadays? [0] The latest game I bought on Steam was Counter Strike: Source, mostly because it was on sale and bundled up with so…

Minecraft. Skyrim. Civilization IV/V. Avernum. Starcraft II. Crusader Kings II. Dungeons of Dredmor. Portal and Portal II. Torchlight. XCOM. The Witcher and The Witcher II. FTL. That list is just off the top of my head, without looking at my Steam library; all of those games, XCOM and maybe Portal excluded if you don't dig the user content, can easily take up multiple months of gameplay. Deep, involving games are mor…

I don't know if I'd put Avernum on that list, since it is substantially the same game as Exile, which was made in 1995.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#40
post #14

The irony is great. But I fear it is possible that wasn't such a good idea. Given the graphs, there were 4k people interested in the game. Over 90% of them now have the impression that the game is unplayable long-term because of the message-box. Maybe many of them get the hint, but those who don't might generate bad pr and prevent others from buying it. But well, maybe that article combined with answers to the compla…

Do we really have to go to these stretches of logic to defend pirates?

No wonder PC gaming is dead

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