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

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#301

Post by jtbigwoo » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #285

jvrossb wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relationship gets even more complex because, along with going Galt, simply moving can be a viable option. If moving to Bruxelles from Paris is really easy, the impact of higher taxes in France vs Belgium may be felt very differently than if a) it were more difficult to move or b) there are no places to move to with lower taxes.

Exactly There's a point where packing and leaving is easier. And the richest the people, the easier this is. Governments have to realize that, at a certain point, they are in competition with other countries. Multinational companies and rich people come to mind. The rich can pay their way through most of the immigration burdens that prohibit the average joe from moving (yes, even to the US)

Only certain types of rich people can pick up and move like that, though. Moving to a new country or even a new city means leaving behind the business connections and infrastructure they've built over the course of years and years. You'd have to be one of the idle rich or work in an industry that is location-independent and knowledge-based. That doesn't describe most rich people.

You're absolutely right about the ability of the rich to buy their way to the front of the immigration line, I just don't see it happening in significant numbers.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#302

Post by jdechko » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #210

mjn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty interesting; I knew there was some criticism of SimCity's simplified tax model in the U.S. some years ago (a simple inverse relationship between tax rates and business growth), but the Norwegian analysis sounds quite interesting. Any idea where I might dig up a reference to the article? I think in SimCity's case it was probably not intentional, at least originally. The first version of the game seems to…

>I knew there was some criticism of SimCity's simplified tax model in the U.S. some years ago (a simple inverse relationship between tax rates and business growth) Isn't that pretty much accurate? I'm not aware of any serious theory postulating that raising taxes will have any non-negative effect on economic growth in and of itself. Where it breaks down is once you account for what the tax dollars buy. If government…

Yes, but in SimCity you play the part of the government. So if you only collect $5000 in taxes, but provide $6000 in services, you lose. Ideally, government should be break-even, where services rendered = taxes collected, at least on the small-scale microeconomics of SimCity.

Even still, the above doesn't work out because you are responsible for providing city infrastructure as well, which costs money up front. If you don't collect tax revenues, you can't afford to build new infrastructure without going into debt.

You know, forget everything I said. It's a simulation game with only lose ties to real-world economics. It doesn't have to make sense.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#303

Post by notahacker » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

benpbenp wrote: post #214

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…

I would be interested to hear more detail on this as well. Keeping in mind we are talking about taxation on the municipal level, doesn't it make sense that a tiny, not-so-special town will have difficulty getting away with higher taxes? You say "it was nothing like what I knew from Norway." Does that mean in Norway you can have one crappy town charging 20% municipal taxes next to another crappy town charging only 10%…

I haven't played the latest version of the game, but the easiest way to achieve a nice SC4 city with full of shiny buildings, cleantech and high approval ratings was to levy much higher percentage taxes on low incomes than high incomes (thereby driving all the poor out of your city). And without those pesky low income Sims your city would continue to do just fine. That's almost as much a of a far-right fantasy as solving suburban crime by placing police stations every six blocks.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#304

Post by awesomeasfxxk » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 6:53 PM UTC

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…

^^ This

Confession.... I own a modded Xbox and only use it to play pirated games, Why? I simply do not play it enough to justify cost, when buying it my consideration was simply hacked Xbox vs no Xbox. I last turned it on about 3 months ago for about 30 minutes. Games are way too expensive, I would gladly pay some money but not the crazy prices of most games vs my usage.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#305

Post by b0rsuk » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

serf wrote: post #72

Cute. You may make sales due to the novelty of the idea getting blogged about, but you'll lose sales and PR due to the majority of your player base having played/used a faulty product. There are still gamers who think that 'Batman: Arkham Asylum' had legitimately broken mechanics, due to a similar action the developers of that game did ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94524-Arkham-Asylu... ). I'm all for p…

Implementing a copy protection mechanism like this is giving pirates Quad Damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#306

Post by ameen » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

The problem as I see it, is that the dev himself uploaded the "gimped version" to the torrent site.

Most indie games (unless they're a hit) never make it to TPB or some other place because the game is only available through legitimate sources, and most indie-loving gamers care too much about the developers to casually crack a game and upload it onto some shady torrent site.

It's easy to blame inefficiency to piracy. Minecraft was pirated heavily, did Mojang go bankrupt?

Gaming has evolved, Games are no longer a product to be packed up and shipped off. Constant updates, content packs, etc (free or otherwise) keep a customer engaged. If someone really likes the game, the lore and whatnot they will pay to get the original game. Heck, I personally know a ton of my classmates buying CoD4 since they couldn't access various multiplayer modded servers.

Piracy in general(be it games, movies, or music) is a problem that the content makers need to solve. New and effective services, sources will conquer it - Online streaming music has to an extent, Bollywood has taken warmly to YouTube and uploads ad-supported official HD movies (barely months after they launch). As Gabe Newell said, Piracy is a service problem. It has always been and it always will be.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#307

Post by JonnieCache » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:04 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #254

JonnieCache wrote: post #17

Yesterday I bought some mp3s legally off amazon. They were 128 kbit/s. I deleted them out of rage/spite and ordered the CD, which is out of print and so all the money went to a second hand record dealer. If only I'd had recourse to piracy in that instance!

If you legally purchase a digital copy of music and find the quality to be too low I don't see a problem in downloading a "pirated" copy at a higher bitrate. So long as you don't share it you will never run into legal problems for doing so.

Tried. Couldn't find a copy.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#308

Post by doktrin » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:05 PM UTC

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's probably less than 10% who can be persuaded to actually buy it."

Elsewhere in this thread I've seen other figures bandied about, ranging anywhere from 1-30%. Where are they coming from? Was there ever any actual market research performed, or are we collectively inventing figures that sound reasonable to us?

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#309

Post by saraid216 » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:13 PM UTC

ijk wrote: post #280

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…

Ironically, when it first came out, SimCity was seen as very left-wing because of things like the dominance of public transportation in the model.

It's worth recognizing that the American center is pretty far right of the international center. So a Norwegian right wing could very well be our left wing.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#310

Post by itsybitsycoder » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:15 PM UTC

claudius wrote: 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…

In addition to the other games people have mentioned, I'd add FTL. I usually don't like roguelikes or space-combat games, but FTL is utterly absorbing and has near-infinite replay value for me. The game is only about 0.5-2hrs for a playthrough, depending on how well you do, but I managed to spend most of my weekend playing it anyway.

My opinion is that there are more great games nowadays, but they're harder to find because there's also a lot more crap, and different people disagree on what is and isn't crap. The best games are not necessarily being produced by the big studios. So you have to go to the effort of finding the studios you like, and finding people with similar tastes so you can trust their recommendations.