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I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

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Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#31

Post by mkr-hn »

calinet6 wrote: post #16
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #11

I agree with all of sentiments in the blog post but this: “Why should almost 40% of my time be taken up by adverts for something I am ALREADY paying for?” Your cable subscription is a partial payment for viewing the shows. It's works in the same way as buying a newspaper or magazine: the revenues from newsstand sales are a fraction of what it costs to create and distribute the publication. The rest is paid through ad…

I wonder how much people would pay for advertising-free television?

About $1.99 an episode.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#32

Post by grapjas »

rplnt wrote: post #28
calinet6 wrote: post #12

Pirating has become a much higher quality entertainment experience than any other. The pace of development is insane, and the things you can do with pirated content these days are, in a word, wonderful. Let's say I pirated a show called Fest of Kings. The hour Fest of Kings aired, it would already be on my home media server. It would have downloaded at about 6MB/second (that's MegaBytes) over a secure SSL connection…

> If there was a legitimate content source that did all this well, and gave me the content I wanted when I wanted it (right when it airs), I would be paying for it. I won't be available for everyone and for a fair price. So piracy will still exist.

But not because of technical reasons. See: Steam.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#33

Post by marknutter »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

People have always been, and always will be, willing to pay for good products. We have always understood Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that. Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20, that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the companies stopping them" arg…

And so are you suggesting that if it had DRM it wouldn't have seen such a high piracy rate? The fact is, there's going to be some level of piracy no matter what you do. There will always be people out there who will obtain the game but would have never otherwise bought the game. There will always be people out there for whom $20 is a reasonable price and will gladly pay it to obtain the game. It's up to the game author to determine the optimal price point to maximize their return. The option of preventing piracy, frankly, will never exist (barring egregious internet freedom encroachments). And people like you can continue to feel morally superior to everyone, if it helps you sleep at night.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#34

Post by njs12345 »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

People have always been, and always will be, willing to pay for good products. We have always understood Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that. Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20, that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the companies stopping them" arg…

The piracy rate is meaningless. The figure you want is the piracy rate amongst people who would have paid for the game if it hadn't been available to pirate, and determining that is close to impossible.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#35

Post by Samuel_Michon »

calinet6 wrote: post #12

Pirating has become a much higher quality entertainment experience than any other. The pace of development is insane, and the things you can do with pirated content these days are, in a word, wonderful. Let's say I pirated a show called Fest of Kings. The hour Fest of Kings aired, it would already be on my home media server. It would have downloaded at about 6MB/second (that's MegaBytes) over a secure SSL connection…

“It's also not free.”

Sure, but the creators also don’t receive any compensation from you. It’s like jumping the turnstile at a subway station, figuring that because you bought NewBalance sneakers you're already paying the government for providing public transport.

That said, if I could pay, say $100 a month for ‘all you can eat’ pirating (providing that money would go to the studios and artists) I’d love to.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#36

Post by Kequc »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

People have always been, and always will be, willing to pay for good products. We have always understood Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that. Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20, that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the companies stopping them" arg…

The price was way too high. $20 for a casual 2D touchscreen game? When they shifted to "pay what you want" they made $100,000 on it in one week.

The lack of DRM had nothing to do with the piracy rate that rate would have been identical either way. If they had released it "pay what you want" I imagine that would have made a big difference.

Why people bring up that World of goo was DRM free and got pirated makes no sense to me. Games that aren't DRM free get pirated as much or more, I say more because then there's a legitimate reason to pirate it. To acquire a DRM free version.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#37

Post by PeterisP »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

People have always been, and always will be, willing to pay for good products. We have always understood Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that. Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20, that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the companies stopping them" arg…

Who cares about % of piracy? The only value that matters is the absolute number of sales, not what the non-customers did or didn't do with that game.

DRM hurts sales of many products. If one more extra customer pays for your movie because the DRM-free service is better, then it outweighs a billion of freeloaders.

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#38

Post by josscrowcroft »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

People have always been, and always will be, willing to pay for good products. We have always understood Return on Investment, even if we don’t call it that. Which is why World Of Goo[0], a fantastic indie game that was priced at $20, that has a 90 / 100 Metacritic score[1], that has absolutely no DRM is a game that had over 80% piracy rate at launch? The "People want to pay it's just the companies stopping them" arg…

This seems like a bit too much extrapolation from one example, and I don't think it renders the entire position 'bunk'...

Re: I pirated Game of Thrones season premiere

#40

Post by josteink »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #35
calinet6 wrote: post #12

Pirating has become a much higher quality entertainment experience than any other. The pace of development is insane, and the things you can do with pirated content these days are, in a word, wonderful. Let's say I pirated a show called Fest of Kings. The hour Fest of Kings aired, it would already be on my home media server. It would have downloaded at about 6MB/second (that's MegaBytes) over a secure SSL connection…

“It's also not free.” Sure, but the creators also don’t receive any compensation from you. It’s like jumping the turnstile at a subway station, figuring that because you bought NewBalance sneakers you're already paying the government for providing public transport. That said, if I could pay, say $100 a month for ‘all you can eat’ pirating (providing that money would go to the studios and artists) I’d love to.

I think his point was that people aren't pirating purely because it is free, but because the experience is superior in every way measurable, even to the point that people will pay for pirating.

User experience counts. You'd thought companies like Apple and Google had taught us that by now.

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