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Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

greenheartgames.com

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Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#131

Post by jiggy2011 »

chii wrote: post #100
CJefferson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

so in other words, they pirated PC games, and used their limited resources to buy the games they couldn't pirate. Thus, the total amount of money they spent had been the same whether they pirated or not (just distributed differently, to different platforms). Had they not been able to pirate PC games, they might've spent a few more coins on PC games, and a few less coins on the xbox games - the industry wouldn't have…

Well, that sends a signal to the market to produce more Xbox games and less PC games despite the fact that PC games are popular.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#132

Post by jeltz »

versk wrote: post #59
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…

"when in reality there maybe 1% of pirates that would have otherwise bought the game" Your number is ridiculous, and no-one assumes every pirated game is a lost sale either. Do you have any evidence to support this number?

1% is not totally unreasonable. See belorns post about conversion rates in freemium games for an explanation.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#133

Post by shpiel »

onli wrote: 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…

You are actually arguing that the developers should have made an effort to have their game appeal to those who take a copy of it without permission?

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#134

Post by Isofarro »

vy8vWJlco wrote: post #57
eropple wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Are people who go outside and drink from a stream (through a filter/firewall, of course), stealing? What about people who take in the scenery, or people who breath? Is nature a starving artist? I'm not for dumping toxic waste in the river, or stealing property, but the Internet is my environment, and copying data is not only cheap, that's what I pay my ISP to be able to do. IMHO, that makes copying as moral as breath…

> there is no way to downvote a game producer after you have paid for something you didn't know in advance that you would like.

A 30-day money back, no questions asked, guarantee would offer this. Then you can take a risk on a game, evaluate it to your heart's content, and if you didn't like it then request a refund. That would be a useful downvote indicator.

For the recent SimCity, a stream of refunds would show as the product not being fit for purpose at launch, and as the refunds taper off and the sales continue to grow, that's a confidence indicator that the game has reached an acceptable playable standard.

Though, it would be more useful for unsolicited/open-ended feedback as to why the refund, so a company could do something to improve their games.

Granted, that system can be initially gamed by serial refund-requestors - but those people are further along the spectrum of "will not pay" anyway, but at least they've taken the step of purchasing, that's one step closer to making inroads into the pirate instead of purchase segment.

By making the refund rates public, and some sort of identifier, it should be easier to target the non-regular refund-requestor with special offers and promotions. A company should have the ability to reward loyal customers too.

From the company's perspective, people will be less inclined to ask for a refund after they've purchased a game that works and provides a decent gaming experience. That's just the nature of people who believe that they have received value on their purchase. That is one improved step beyond the "need to evaluate before purchase" mindset.

I guess this will mostly prove that the "evaluate before buying" mindset is a self-rationalisation for piracy. The Radiohead "name your own price" album is unsurprising in that it was heavily slanted to as close to free as possible, rather than reflecting a demand versus supply equilibrium.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#135

Post by vidarh »

mjn wrote: post #60
algorias wrote: post #15

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…

That's a common approach to using gameplay for rhetorical purposes; the fact that you can code causal processes as you want is one of the main ways you can get videogames to push a point. As a more overt example, in the game Bacteria Salad [1], created after one of the E.coli scares, profits trade off directly against food safety: bigger farms are more profitable but also spread contamination more quickly. This may o…

Sim City is another good example of this. Even as a child when I first played the original, I remember reacting to the tax model in the game and how it affects net migration, as it was nothing like what I knew from Norway (and indeed, it bears little resemblance to how things works in most of Europe). A newspaper in Norway recently had to social economists play the most recent Sim City game to review the economic model, and their response was pretty much that they saw it as what in Norway would be considered a far right populist fantasy based on a range of economic assumptions that pretty much only the furthest right party in our parliament believes in.

So to successfully play the game, you will need to accept a range of economic theories far outside the European mainstream, that to a certain extent is directly contradicted by real-life experience. I found that unsettling even at an age when I didn't know much of the politics, given that the manual even of the original presented it as a simulation and went into great detail about the techniques they'd applied to make the simulation more realistic...

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#136

Post by spmurrayzzz »

StavrosK wrote: post #120
lucian1900 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although in almost all cases 128kbps is just fine and you couldn't tell the difference.

In no case is that true for MP3. The difference between 128 and 160 kbits is painfully obvious.

Agreed. It may be that my previous experience as a session drummer has influenced me here, but anyone that has challenged me in the past to point out the difference between 128 and above received the same statement each time: "listen to the cymbals, man".

Cymbal wash is enough for me to never pay a dime for 128 kbits tracks.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#137

Post by np422 »

eropple wrote: post #23
algorias wrote: post #15

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…

People who defend copyright take copyright for given, as that would be the normal state which can not be questioned. Don't pretend to a higher level of intellectual honesty or moral strength. Your position can lay claim to neither.

Culture, creativity and art have existed long before copyright and will continue to do so after it has been abandoned.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#138

Post by stefs »

kenkam wrote: post #21

Slightly unrelated to the original point of the article: has anyone heard of Kairosoft and Game Dev Story [0]? It's ironic the OP wrote an article about irony. Having said that, it looks like they have elements not seen in GDS, but the premise is similar enough. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Dev_Story

he's been accused of copying kairosoft's game a couple of times already, you can read his response here (he's ppakl):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1cn8yi/game_dev_tycoo...

yes, they've been inspired by it but "their version" does have different and more complex gameplay mechanics. a lot of people like greenhearts take on the subject more.

i've played neither, but i guess i'll give game dev tycoon a try - after not being totally happy with kairosofts ninja village, i guess ghg deserve a chance.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#139

Post by jgroome »

aaronjb wrote: post #105
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 acces…

Veering off topic, but I wonder what people would say if analytics for websites required telling the user what data is being gathered about them before requiring an active opt-in.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#140

Post by StavrosK »

spmurrayzzz wrote: post #136
StavrosK wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no case is that true for MP3. The difference between 128 and 160 kbits is painfully obvious.

Agreed. It may be that my previous experience as a session drummer has influenced me here, but anyone that has challenged me in the past to point out the difference between 128 and above received the same statement each time: "listen to the cymbals, man". Cymbal wash is enough for me to never pay a dime for 128 kbits tracks.

That's exactly how I tell the difference too, and I'm no drummer. It just sounds horrible.
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