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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

#311

Post by stfu »

lolcraft wrote: post #255
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Frankly, it's clear you have very much a microeconomics-based of the macroeconomy, all accounting identities and no feedback. To begin with, there has been made the case that progressive taxation does, mostly, not mean a significant negative behavioral response in production. That is, taxes can in practice be increased a lot until the rich start fantasizing about going Galt. [D&S] estimate the optimal tax rate, for m…

Since you are already turning this into a partisan politics meme spouting bash fest, I just wanted to point out that Obama paid last year a 18.4 percent tax rate [1].

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/13/us-obama-taxes-idU...

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#312

Post by rplnt »

ameen wrote: post #306

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.…

> ...most indie-loving gamers care too much about the developers to casually crack a game and upload it onto some shady torrent site.

You don't need to crack DRM-free game. You can just upload it as is.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#313

Post by doktrin »

alan_cx wrote: post #256
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…

You are assuming that some one using pirated software would have bought it. I think pirates actually harm people who make free and cheap software, by using expensive "pirated" software instead. Had they not used the pirated software, they would possibly be using the free stuff and boosting the use of that free stuff. The big boys don't lose out, because they wouldn't have bought it in the first place. As such, the hi…

> You are assuming that some one using pirated software would have bought it.

If you replace "it" [that particular good] with "something" [that good, or a similar one], then yeah. People used to buy music, after all.

> "I suspect that if there really was a way to stop piracy, many more people would use Linux and all it's alternatives for free. "

How many people pirate their OS? Windows comes bundled with just about every retail PC out there. Enthusiasts who assemble their own devices are in the minority.

> "IMHO, given the lack of large software houses going out of business actually due to piracy, I don't believe piracy has any real effect."

That makes no sense. Simply because the largest companies aren't literally going out of business piracy therefore has "no real effect"? That's a bit like saying the financial crisis in Europe isn't having any effect because Germany isn't deep in recession.

> Addition Edit: Also, most people spend the money they have. If they did buy all the stuff they pirated, software, games, music, movies, etc, there would be another sector that lost out. For example, pirating Far Cry 3 instead of buying, means £40 (whatever) to spend on clothes, food, cinema, fuel, etc. Its the same money, there is no extra. It just goes to different places.

Yeah, but so what? Not only is that statement irrelevant, but it obfuscates that where resources are allocated is just as important as whether or not they are allocated to begin with. The allocation of resources (money) is a reflection of what society deems important.

For illustration, a society that spends 20% of disposable income on alcohol & tobacco is radically different from one that spends 20% of disposable income on tools, woodworking sets & raspberry Pis. Moreover, for the protectionists out there, allocating resources domestically is different than abroad.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#314

Post by GhotiFish »

aaronjb wrote: post #295
GhotiFish wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no. Applications are an exception. Servers can do what they want, they have that freedom as far as I'm concerned, but the client is me. It's my computer. It does what I want. Applications should never be antagonistic to me.

Seriously guys, is it really a problem? Developers use the information to make the product better. They use crash reports to fix bugs without you having to report them and they can determine what operating system and screen resolution you're using so the next time you open up the app, it's been optimised so those ugly black borders have been taken care of. Granted, they could ask your permission to do this, as some a…

Also violations of EULA should be punished.

Most people don't really know or understand what facebook is doing. That is why it's unethical to hide under privacy policies that state how non-private everything is under the guise of "your privacy is our highest concern".

Personally I agree with you. Modern OS's actually police and inform users of just how overzealous these programs are, and give you an opportunity to reject the terms the program sets.

Programs in response, refuse to work if they can't get access to your data, even though that data has nothing to do with the service they provide.

All of this is wonderful.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#315

Post by GhotiFish »

eropple wrote: post #289
GhotiFish wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whether it makes "no sense" to you is, to be honest, pretty much irrelevant. It is a societal construct and you are a member of society and you take the "bad" (it's not, but, whatever) with the good. Copyright exists because we, as a society, want it to. We want people to make things for us to consume and so we enact laws to make it so they can do so and still eat. Don't like it? Feel free to try to change the law. B…

nope. Restructuring society happens when enough of it rejects the way things are currently ordered. I don't want to live with the way things are, and neither should you.

Copyright exists because a majority of society currently thinks its the best way to produce, and that very well may be in the real world of limited supplies. In a world where the only value is novelty, copyright makes no sense. Once something is created, it's value drops because it's supply is infinite. Currently society thinks the way around that is to artificially restrict supply.

I hope one day we will realize that were trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

I would LOVE to pay for game of thrones... to be produced. Buying a copy of game of thrones is not worth its value, it has no value. It is in infinite supply. It is like air.

This is why we donate to blogs, subscribe to series, and fund kickstarters. Because that is the economy of the web. The true economy.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#316

Post by Evbn »

tolmasky wrote: post #300
srl wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I remember (SimCity 3000), you start out with taxes at like 7%, and you can get away with 9% when your city is small, but when you grow, you have to /lower/ taxes (down to 1-2%, eventually) to keep things stable. Which makes sense from a game design perspective (there are enough hard things when you're starting out, without having to deal with obscenely low taxes), but doesn't have much to do with real life…

This just seems like a (lazy) way to make the game harder as you progress. Instead of bosses you have to do more with less. I don't think it necessarily reflects any sort of deep political/economic reasoning.

And an easy way to prevent massive revenue from unbalancing the game.

Remember that simcity is a socialist fantasy world: all development is directly purchased by central government. In the real world, zoning doesn't cost money, and stadiums are sometimes owner financed.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#317

Post by Evbn »

notahacker wrote: post #303
benpbenp wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sol…

Do you get high population that way? Because that solution is highly effective for low population special taxing districts like Chevy Chase Maryland

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#318

Post by Evbn »

stfu wrote: post #311
lolcraft wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, it's clear you have very much a microeconomics-based of the macroeconomy, all accounting identities and no feedback. To begin with, there has been made the case that progressive taxation does, mostly, not mean a significant negative behavioral response in production. That is, taxes can in practice be increased a lot until the rich start fantasizing about going Galt. [D&S] estimate the optimal tax rate, for m…

Since you are already turning this into a partisan politics meme spouting bash fest, I just wanted to point out that Obama paid last year a 18.4 percent tax rate [1]. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/13/us-obama-taxes-idU...

Obama didn't say his tax rate was too high, so that isn't relevant.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#319

Post by jholman »

eropple wrote: post #289
GhotiFish wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whether it makes "no sense" to you is, to be honest, pretty much irrelevant. It is a societal construct and you are a member of society and you take the "bad" (it's not, but, whatever) with the good. Copyright exists because we, as a society, want it to. We want people to make things for us to consume and so we enact laws to make it so they can do so and still eat. Don't like it? Feel free to try to change the law. B…

I was with you a few comments back, and I think I agree with your overall direction, but in nitpick land, I think the details of your argument have gone off the rails a little, here.

I think it's not clear that "society" "wants" copyright to exist. Society, or at least the collection of individuals composing society, is pretty clearly conflicted on the subject. People want to retain creative control over their own work, to a degree that is clearly insane and impossible. And simultaneously people (some of the same people!) want to be allowed to do whatever they feel like with the works of others, to a degree that is... dubious. The sum of these positions is not clear.

And in any case, the legal status quo does not derive from any such sum. It derives largely from Disney's lobbying, as you acknowledged.

And in fact, what society does about statuses quo is not "take the bad with the good", and "try to change the law". Historically, that's not how the law gets updated. I'm not personally drawing an equivalence between copyvio and e.g. slavery or e.g. marijuana policy or e.g. religious intolerance... but hopefully those examples will demonstrate that in most cases the law follows popular sentiment and disobedience, not leads.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#320

Post by Evbn »

stfu wrote: post #311
lolcraft wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, it's clear you have very much a microeconomics-based of the macroeconomy, all accounting identities and no feedback. To begin with, there has been made the case that progressive taxation does, mostly, not mean a significant negative behavioral response in production. That is, taxes can in practice be increased a lot until the rich start fantasizing about going Galt. [D&S] estimate the optimal tax rate, for m…

Since you are already turning this into a partisan politics meme spouting bash fest, I just wanted to point out that Obama paid last year a 18.4 percent tax rate [1]. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/13/us-obama-taxes-idU...

Plus ~5% for the income deducting effect of donating 25% of income to a charitable nonprofit not under their control.
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