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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

#381

Post by LukeShu »

XorNot wrote: post #200
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…

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".

Exactly! I have a good number of friends who legitimately own the StarCraft, but have it installed via a crack because it is easier that way. And I've had to use cracks to get games to run in Wine, because the DRM won't work in Wine.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#382

Post by fennecfoxen »

dllthomas wrote: post #348
fennecfoxen wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes even if the money doesn't move away directly, some entirely unrelated money ends up somewhere else building factories, and then somewhere-else starts competing with you and taking away large slices of your business.

Sure, but that has less to do with tax rates.

Depends on how much the tax rates raise the price of labor or impair profitability (and limiting future investment on account of a lack of return).

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#383

Post by dllthomas »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #382
dllthomas wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that has less to do with tax rates.

Depends on how much the tax rates raise the price of labor or impair profitability (and limiting future investment on account of a lack of return).

I'm not saying tax rates have no impact; obviously they can. But taxes levied to addressed collective action problems, where people are actually seeing a return on the taxes paid for things they'd have to fund otherwise, should in fact make labor cheaper. This is also usually dwarfed by things like exchange rates, wages (possibly including minimum wage laws), cost of living, and labor laws - most of which also have interconnections. It's no longer a simple equation in the way that "Hm, my money will be taxed less in that pile than this one" is.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#384

Post by gotrythis »

One thing to consider, is that the distribution method for the pirated version is very established, accessible, and fast to get the word out. How have they marketed the legit version? Their graph doesn't necessarily mean that 93% of people pirate the game. It more likely means that the reach of the pirated version is much greater than the reach of the legit one.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#385

Post by gotrythis »

gotrythis wrote: post #384

One thing to consider, is that the distribution method for the pirated version is very established, accessible, and fast to get the word out. How have they marketed the legit version? Their graph doesn't necessarily mean that 93% of people pirate the game. It more likely means that the reach of the pirated version is much greater than the reach of the legit one.

And to answer my own question, this news article is how they are marketing the legit version, so it will be interesting to see what those graphs look like after the marketing has done its job.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#386

Post by gyom »

hosh wrote: post #323
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…

If so, then what about conflict and violence in video games? I'm speaking less about the use of games as a rhetorical device and more about creating and reinforcing deeply held assumptions and worldviews. I used to strongly object to rhetoric about how video game violence induces violent behavior in people; I thought that was bullshit coming from people who were scared of video games or did not understand them. It's…

It's a good point to raise because we are used to accepting violence (it was in movies and television that existed before modern video games).

I remember listening to a video online where the person explained how the american army had problems with the use of torture on TV because it always worked on TV when Jack Bauer needs it. New officers came in with these preconceived notions about torture because they had "learned" from TV that it worked (without saying it was moral or not).

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#387

Post by Houshalter »

chii wrote: post #373
Houshalter wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do all console games.

not the xbox 720, if the rumour mill is to be believed : http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+720+always+on+drm&pr...

That's absurd. For many years I used my xbox without connecting it to the internet at all.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#388

Post by touristtam »

rrouse wrote: post #162
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…

My favorite are the people who pirate the game at release and then buy it when it's in the bargain bin for $5, as if that undoes the initial act of piracy: "See? I bought it!"

What is the message carried by this action?

I read that as: I liked your product but not above the $5 price limit.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#389

Post by chii »

Houshalter wrote: post #387
chii wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not the xbox 720, if the rumour mill is to be believed : http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+720+always+on+drm&pr...

That's absurd. For many years I used my xbox without connecting it to the internet at all.

xbox 720 is not released yet.

Re: Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

#390

Post by EvilLook »

chc wrote: post #343
onli wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course I am. See my submissions.

I think he means a developer who is actually reliant on the financial outcomes of his work, like the OP. If you work for somebody else in exchange for a salary, yeah, of course you don't care about throwing good money after bad — it's not your money. (Obviously I don't know whether this is the case, but the difference seems significant to me.)

That is exactly what I mean. If you draw a salary from an employer then you are in an entirely different situation than if you're relying on your output to directly pay your bills.

If you've never been in a situation where you have to sell that output to customers then you know less than a shit about what piracy can do to cripple a small business and should shut your fucking mouth about which market to serve. I'll take care of those that put the food on my table, thank very much, and you can give throat-fucking forced blowjobs to any random stranger if you want.

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