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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

#191

Post by jiggy2011 »

vy8vWJlco wrote: post #168
jiggy2011 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a college degree will likely get you a job if there is demand in the area in which you did your degree. Imagine the situation where you get your CS degree but find that few people are willing to pay for programmers or software and the people who are willing to pay will still not pay very much yet the demand for software is still very high. Such a situation doesn't make sense in a rational market. Problem with…

" Such a situation doesn't make sense in a rational market. " Tell that to philosophy majors. :) I can also turn on the radio and receive music for free, with ads. TPB has plenty of those (but isn't distributing anything themselves, so arguably isn't infringing... Perhaps they are facilitating, but if so they are largely facilitating non-commercial infringement; I can't imagine anyone downloading a movie and selling…

TPB do make money from advertising and I'm pretty sure they aren't cutting cheques from that to the artists/developers.

The issue isn't so much the copies themselves, I could download every torrent on TPB and archive them on a stack of HDDs somewhere and it wouldn't hurt anybody.

The issue is that there is no longer a requirement to pay to consume something where the business model requires that the consumer pay.

Perhaps this is no longer a viable model, but the question is how to replace it?

Does popular content simply move to locked down platforms? Do we deliver games under a SaaS model (WoW etc)?

Both of these models have disadvantages to consumers, arguably it would be better if people simply refused to consume pirated goods and always paid the asking price but this seems unrealistic.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#192

Post by GhotiFish »

eropple wrote: post #87
vy8vWJlco wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm assuming some bad faith here, because the next person who actually compensates creators, without exception and at the price they ask for the content they pirate and use will be the first." In your own words, you say copying is human nature. It sounds like the "pay-before-evaluate" model is hoping to change that. I'd say expecting human nature to change is unrealistic. Isn't it easier to just exploit human nature…

"Taking shit for free because I can" is the nature of a certain audience, yes. Relying on attacks of moral conscience from people already willing to do this is not a workable business model, and because of this , we as a society have evolved a system of copyrights to incentivize content creation[1]. (Tchotchkes with a free game attached is, likewise, not particularly viable.) [1] - No, this is not a defense of Disney…

a system that makes absolutely no sense for data.

no sense.

none.

Do not try to shoehorn a model where it doesn't fit, and for data: It doesn't fit. A different standard has to be adopted, and piracy is merely a symptom of that.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#193

Post by Garoof »

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; their choice is purely between pirating and not playing."

Yeah. It's like these guys totally don't get that there are "individuals who either can’t make a legal purchase because of payment-issues or who genuinely cannot afford the game."

People don't ignore that fact.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#194

Post by jaredmcateer »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #141
StavrosK wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Out of interest, why do you think that is? Is it due to convenience , availability of cheap games in sales , extra features in steam or did a rise in your disposable income just happen to coincide with the launch of steam? For me it was mainly 2 and 4.

I had a disposable income before Steam had quite come into its own. I still pirated games. I think the biggest thing for me is not having to go to a box store to buy them. I hate going to stores, any stores, given the choice I will always choose online first. Steam being a viable and convenient source of games was the nail in the coffin, I have never bought a game in a retail store nor pirated a game since.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#195

Post by winthrowe »

rmc wrote: post #182
vidarh wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mod…

Even in European countries that are much more laissez-faire than Norway has tax rates much higher than in SimCity. A friend here in Ireland¹ noticed that the income tax rate can only go up to 20% in the original, and at that rate, the population were very annoyed. [1] Barack Obama refered to Ireland as a tax haven recently http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/obama-forced-to-retract...

I think that the reason that the taxation rates are capped like that is that they represent a regional differential. You'd be annoyed too if your taxes were ten percent higher than a neighbouring town for no discernible reason.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#196

Post by chasing »

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…

Care to cite where your stats on piracy affecting game developers came from? Or did you just hear it somewhere on the internet somewhere and it sounded good?

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#197

Post by matthuggins »

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 should probably not use a computer/smartphone/xbox/playstation/etc. then since pretty much every app, game, and website you use does this.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#198

Post by hxa7241 »

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…

What precisely is wrong with people copying things for free? Since these are non-rival, non-finite goods -- that is, as many people can use or reproduce them as want to without obstructing anyone else -- there is no basic physical reason for restriction.

It is illegal, but that is not the same as immoral. For illegality to imply immorality the law would need to be shown to be itself moral. But unfortunately the law has (like the game concerned) been rigged by particular interests for their own purposes. No-one has so far produced good evidence to show the current laws are economically beneficial overall.

So the intellectually honest and moral position is to admit the law is unfounded, gradually abolish it, and try to figure out other better economic arrangements that allow people to do what is the obviously moral thing: freely use and copy non-rival, non-finite goods.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#199

Post by winthrowe »

tinco wrote: post #175
lazyjones wrote: post #102

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. 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 mid…

There is also another important figure that is routinely ignored: The number of honest customers who get screwed because game companies can not profitably release a big game anymore, so they won't. The CEO of Square Enix was fired because he produced the latest iteration of Tomb Raider, and it arguably is the best iteration of Tomb Raider ever, and plainly didn't make any money. Also your argument about 20 years ago…

You're almost a decade off; 20 years ago Doom was released and the hottest game I knew of.

The North American release of the NES was 28 years ago now.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#200

Post by XorNot »

lazyjones wrote: post #102
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.

> 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 mid…

Or do buy the game, encounter the DRM, then download the CD-crack or whatever to bypass it. The various piracy figures are incredibly simplistic and just group "downloads" as "total number of pirates".
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