Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#261

Post by jusben1369 » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 3:42 PM UTC

jack_trades wrote: post #245

jusben1369 wrote: post #224

Brilliant. Really enjoyed this. Also enjoying this lively thread. There's an awful lot of strange rationalization going on in the comment. For those of you who point out "Hey a lot of those pirated people aren't going to pay anyways!" here's a sobering fact. If just 7% of those pirated copies were paid this developer would have DOUBLED first day sales. Could be the difference between getting to work on their dream, h…

I want to respectfully disparage your statement. Doubling zero is zero. Doubling a small amount is likely still a small amount. They need to sell somewhere like 10k units to make this effort worth repeating, let alone a profit model. That means they better get working on getting this in the hands of 150k pirates. 7% of freeloaders is no small or easy task and compare time and energy trying to convert the sinful vs. p…

I respect your argument and approach. "Stop trying to fix culture or people" I think our culture and people generally frown upon stealing given the ramifications it has for all of us if it becomes rampant. So I'm not trying to fix these folks - just point out that the ease with which these goods can be stolen creates this outcome where it gets too much of a free pass.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#262

Post by anonymoushn » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

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…

My NES continued working when it couldn't contact anyone's always-on DRM servers.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#263

Post by EvilLook » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 3:52 PM UTC

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…

Garry's Mod took a similar tactic and they're doing just fine:

http://torrentfreak.com/garrys-mod-creator-trolls-pirates-wi...

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#264

Post by claudius » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

stefs wrote: post #237

claudius wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I’m still able to lose myself in, say, Patrician II or Pharao or FreeCiv. Maybe I don’t like modern graphics? :P

they're great games, you already know them and know that you like them and how they work. and. they're still triggering your dopamine release like when you were young. i remember reading an article about why every older person seems to hear the music from his youth. the reason for this is that when we're in our teens, the brain releases dopamines more readily and we're losing that ability when we grow older - except…

Hm – I actually only started playing Patrician last summer, when I would consider myself as old as I am now. But then I mostly played sandbox strategy games when I was young, and Patrician is basically that, so you might have a point there.

/me goes off to feel old.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#265

Post by ripter » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 4:00 PM UTC

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.

All of the above. I buy from Steam because I don't have to worry about DRM, I don't have to worry about losing the disks or if they get scratched. I don't have to worry about remembering another password for another site. (Fuck you Origin)

I buy from steam because I don't have to deal with any of this bullshit. It's stress free and easy to use. It's the same reason I buy from iTunes. The only computer game I bought that was not on Steam was Starcraft 2. And that was mostly because of nostalgia and great reviews.

The sales, prices, and income mean I buy more games. When I spend $60 on a game it's an investment. I want more than $60 worth of entertainment from it, otherwise I'll just take the g/f to the movies or on a date. When I spend < $20 on a game, it's on the level of a lunch. If it can last a few hours I'm happy.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#266

Post by rl3 » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 4:05 PM UTC

sanjiallblue wrote: post #247

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…

It should also be noted that there's pretty much zero evidence that piracy actually hurts the sale of a game. Any research done by third-parties on the subject has shown that piracy generally helps the sales of the products being pirated due to: A) Raising awareness of the product and giving the product exposure to a larger group of fans raising awareness of the product and studio responsible for the production. B) C…

I agree. It's certainly more prudent to go with the flow [of piracy] rather than waste time and resources struggling against it. The Hotline Miami developers did just that.[1]

Although the 93.6% piracy rate the Greenheart Games article references initially seemed shocking, I was reminded of the stance Gabe Newell has repeatedly taken over the years, of piracy being a service issue.[2] Part of that can be applied to this situation.

a) Convenience

With third party content distribution, the customer is likely purchasing the game via an interface they're already familiar with. They are used to acquiring their content through this interface on a regular basis. For the sake of argument, if you were to compare: Steam, torrents, and a checkout form on the developer's website, the latter sadly doesn't stand a chance in the contest for convenience. Since Game Dev Tycoon isn't on Steam yet, which distribution method wins out? Piracy.

There's actually nothing wrong with the game's website purchasing process; it's quite nicely streamlined and requires no login. However, a lot of people tend to loathe buying games directly from a developer's website, because it results in fragmentation of their games library, and it's one more purchase to keep track of. Some users are militant about keeping the entirety of their games on one platform for just this very reason.

b) Exposure

Game Dev Tycoon is currently on Steam Greenlight but not yet approved. If they have the good fortune to be green-lit, the piracy rate may just turn on its head.

The game is also available via Windows Store. To put it gently, Windows Store isn't exactly Steam. That said, I'd be interested in the ratio of sales between their website and Windows Store (my money is on the site).

c) Benefits

If you search this story, you'll quickly notice that it has spread like wildfire across the gaming press. The game is receiving large amounts of publicity as a result. Said publicity may end up being what tips the Steam Greenlight scales in its favor towards availability on the Steam platform, which in turn would ostensibly result in a massive boost in sales.

Not to detract from the cleverness of Greenheart's experiment and subsequent article, but I find it more than a bit ironic that the egregious 93.6% piracy rate may in fact be what indirectly results in Game Dev Tycoon game making it on to Steam in the first place.

[1] http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/25/hotline-miami-devs-endorse...

[2] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#267

Post by ripter » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 4:07 PM UTC

It seems like they are missing a great chance to get some money from these pirates. DLC. The pirated version of the game offers a DLC to add DRM to your games. It doesn't stop piracy, and can occasionally cause boycots of your game, but it keeps the game playable.

Paid players get a game they enjoy, pirates who might buy, might buy a DLC so they can keep playing.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#268

Post by mindstab » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 4:19 PM UTC

Is there any irony this game appears like a complete "remake" of Game Dev Story which I have bought and played a ton of? I do agree piracy is bad but I hope if they don't do well they don't just blame pirates. It's incredibly complicated and I don't want to knock their work but I hope they had some evidence there was demand for such a game, beyond the first one that already established some good market share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Dev_Story

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#269

Post by wahsd » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 4:20 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #135

mjn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mod…

SimCity and many other similar games are often biased towards American ideals, techniques, and methods. They are, in essence, confirmation biased. A good example is the tax structure, i.e., taxes automatically mean drag on an economy. The problem with such assumptions is that they are supremacist in that they make a broad assumption that they are definitive in spite of all the evidence in the real world to the contrary and while ignoring factors that lead to the confirmation bias being affirmed through externalities that support what is defined and determined to be "success".

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#270

Post by temp453463343 » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 4:21 PM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #43

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…

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."

Not saying you're wrong, but recognize that you're completely pulling this out of your ass.