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Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

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Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#101

Post by shadowmint »

I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I read most of the article, and was like, hm, I should buy this and support these guys.

Then I read:

    We know this because our game contains some code to send anonymous-usage data 
    to our server. Nothing unusual or harmful. Heaps of games/apps do this and we 
    use it to better understand how the game is played. It’s absolutely anonymous 
    and you are covered by our privacy policy.
Mm. Actually, I don't really care if it's covered by your privacy policy, if your game has a cute little 'phone home' sending who-knows-what from my computer off to yours, you can go jump~

Sorry.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#102

Post by lazyjones »

CJefferson wrote: post #75
lelandbatey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a claim of moral honesty as it is just one bit of factual data. A large majority of pirates won't buy the game. Ever. If they can't get a pirated copy, then they just won't play, but it's not as if they'll buy it instead. It's a sad but true fact. I only bring this up because there's often an underlying assumption that every pirate is a lost sale, when in reality there maybe 1% of pirates that would h…

The important figure (for developers) is not what proportion of pirates would buy the game, but what proportion of possible buyers will pirate instead. My experience with my social group is that this second group is quite high. I know (for example) people who have bought many xbox 360 games (as these are hard to pirate) and have never bought a PC game, despite playing similar number of games on each.

> The important figure (for developers) is not what proportion of pirates would buy the game, but what proportion of possible buyers will pirate instead.

There is also another important figure that is routinely ignored: the number of honest customers who get screwed by or annoyed with DRM and other forms of copyright protection (20 years ago we had to enter words from the game manual, page X line Y word Z, in the middle of the game) and decide to buy fewer games in the future (and possibly pirate them instead to avoid such annoyances).

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#103

Post by nanidin »

shadowmint wrote: post #101

I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I read most of the article, and was like, hm, I should buy this and support these guys. Then I read: We know this because our game contains some code to send anonymous-usage data to our server. Nothing unusual or harmful. Heaps of games/apps do this and we use it to better understand how the game is played. It’s absolutely anonymous and you are covered by our privacy policy. Mm…

You realize that almost all mobile apps dial home with app metrics data right?

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#104

Post by jiggy2011 »

vy8vWJlco wrote: post #95
jiggy2011 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is , for everyone who will happily compensate the artist if they feel they got value there are probably ~100 people who will just keep it for free even if they feel they had value.

That's only a problem if you consider a copy as damage. (I haven't seen a convincing argument.) There are also lots of factors in a financial proposition. Some people give away free samples, others invest in an education. It's interesting that iTunes is doing so well, without mandatory DRM, while copying has only gotten easier...

It is damage in the sense that you are consuming a product without "voting" for it in the marketplace.

This can lead to products that are in fact popular being less economically feasible to produce under certain business models if the piracy rate is too high.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#105

Post by aaronjb »

shadowmint wrote: post #101

I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I read most of the article, and was like, hm, I should buy this and support these guys. Then I read: We know this because our game contains some code to send anonymous-usage data to our server. Nothing unusual or harmful. Heaps of games/apps do this and we use it to better understand how the game is played. It’s absolutely anonymous and you are covered by our privacy policy. Mm…

This is how analytics applications work. Almost every website you visit has Google Analytics installed, which sends your data to their servers so that the developer gets a better understanding of their users.

Apps aren't an exception, you'll find it in almost all of them. When you install the app it should notify you what is does or doesn't have access to, so things like your phone book and call history are not accessible for the app.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#106

Post by belorn »

eropple wrote: post #80
belorn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% sound ridiculous high, and I would ask where in the world of sanity that people got that number. If we look at freemium to paid conversion rates, 20% seems out-of-this world large. Almost no one has that high. Looking around, 1% or 2.5% is said to be the average for games[1][2][3]. Why would a pirate be 10 times more likely to be incited to buy a game, rather than those who play a game designed from the ground up…

This line of thinking is what happens when you take barely overlapping populations and attempt to extrapolate between them. For a more related data-point that you can get from public data (because the 20-25% comment was inside baseball from folks I know personally), the average conversion rate across all titles on XBLA hovers around 18%. When you take into account the general demographics on XBLA versus something lik…

Source for that 18% on XBLA?

Through, you don't answer the question on why games designed for high conversion rate should fair worse than games that aren't. You also add a additional questions when putting distinction to the population in question. Are we saying here that pirates are more likely to convert to a pay-to-play model than non-pirates are to go from a freemium model to pay? Whats the basis of such statement? All I see is a claim of inside knowledge, which in 2013 means as much (or little) as anecdotal evidence.

If all we have is unverified claims about high conversion rates, and in opposing side we have studies that shows low conversion rates for identical products, I will go with the study until proven different otherwise. I find the idea that the population in question would have a 2000% effect on the conversion rate, and that pirates are part of that group, to be a very large and unverified claim. The wilder a claim is, the more is it up the commenter to provide evidence to support it.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#107

Post by StavrosK »

CJefferson wrote: post #75
lelandbatey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a claim of moral honesty as it is just one bit of factual data. A large majority of pirates won't buy the game. Ever. If they can't get a pirated copy, then they just won't play, but it's not as if they'll buy it instead. It's a sad but true fact. I only bring this up because there's often an underlying assumption that every pirate is a lost sale, when in reality there maybe 1% of pirates that would h…

The important figure (for developers) is not what proportion of pirates would buy the game, but what proportion of possible buyers will pirate instead. My experience with my social group is that this second group is quite high. I know (for example) people who have bought many xbox 360 games (as these are hard to pirate) and have never bought a PC game, despite playing similar number of games on each.

As a data point, I haven't pirated a game since Steam came out.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#110

Post by vy8vWJlco »

tpetrina wrote: post #2

This is just pure gold. When I was younger, I always pirated stuff because I didn't have the money nor the means. But today, my Steam collection is worth over a 1000 dollars and I buy more games I could play. It hurts me when people my age (27) don't consider buying stuff they like. I mean, you are paying the creators of the stuff you like so that they can create more of it. No one wants to work for free, why should…

(Sidestepping "has cost" vs "is worth.") It sounds like you are saying "do as I say, not as I did." You choose to pay now, but not paying made sense for you in the past. I'd like to see everyone have the same opportunity. I think that's the essence of digital capitalism. No copyright needed, IMHO.
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