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Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

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Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#41
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising that Brazil, Russia, and China top the list for pirate users. This game is probably very expensive for users in those countries, if they are even able to easily pay for it.

> if they are even able to easily pay for it I think this is something a lot of people don't realise but online payment systems in China and Russia are near completely different (and isolated) from ours. China doesn't do Visa, doesn't do Mastercard, doesn't do AMEX, doesn't do PayPal. Try buying something from a Chinese website like Taobao or Baidu. They use things like Alipay which are linked to their local payment…

Stripe supports Alipay: https://stripe.com/alipay

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you weren't making a joke, the article clearly states that the piracy is coming from Brazil, not Portugal.

Still, it's ambiguous whether the article recommends that Portugese localisation should still be done despite the piracy from Brazil, or whether other western european languages should be done excluding Portugese.

There's no harm of translating something into Portugese: If you translate there will be some piracy from Brazil, but if you don't translate users from Brazil won't buy your game at all.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point.

If its shown to be ineffective what is the point exactly?

I think the point is that unless evidence is shown otherwise, there's little reason to believe that a significant portion of the people that pirated it got his purposefully seeded cracked version, as it was prior to it being possibly cracked otherwise, and there's little incentive for some cracking team to crack it if it appears it has already been done.

That is, it's not that it's hard to work around his change, but that many people that could or would have done so may not have known it was needed. Of course, I'm sure that situation didn't persist.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#44
I would like to point out that Brazil currently is facing a extremely hard crisis, where people can't afford even food.

Don't expect people to pay for entertainment here right now.

EDIT: why the downvotes? What I said is entirely facts, to help explain the massive amount of piracy in Brazil.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#45

So localize in English, German, and French (maybe Spanish) and don't bother with an Android version, good to know.

If you are interested in profit, the number of pirated copies is entirely irrelevant. The only metric that matters in that case is the cost of supplying the game for that demographic and how much money is expected to be made. This is the same whether it's a language or marketplace.

For example, if it costs you $100,000 to supply and Android version, but you expect to make $1,000,000 event after all the (assumed) piracy, it still makes sense to release for Android.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point.

For a dose of reality, I recommend browsing r/piracy. The mental gymnastics people go through to justify their actions is mind boggling.

Maybe, but for the silent majority it's pretty straightforward: 1) we view information as fundamentally different from currency, goods, and services; 2) we don't want to pay for information if we don't have to and we're not going to get caught.

The gymnastics are mostly about just trying to figure out whether we're bad people or not - because everyone else's favorite game is Shame the Pirate - but once you realize you're not a bad person and that you're okay with doing something illegal then it all just sort of fades into the background.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#47

Getting some insight from the pirates would be interesting. If a pirate is detected, pop up a quick radio selection box: Thank you for playing the game. I noticed you pirated it and would like to know why (you can still play the game): * I can't afford the price * My parents wont let me buy games * I want to try the game free first * I believe games should be free * My computer is old and I don't know if it can play…

It's not surprising that Brazil, Russia, and China top the list for pirate users. This game is probably very expensive for users in those countries, if they are even able to easily pay for it.

This game is not expensive here in Brazil. I think the problem is other, maybe it's not easy to pay (not everybody have international credit card), or some people don't want to pay.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#48
post #44

I would like to point out that Brazil currently is facing a extremely hard crisis, where people can't afford even food. Don't expect people to pay for entertainment here right now. EDIT: why the downvotes? What I said is entirely facts, to help explain the massive amount of piracy in Brazil.

You are exaggerating.

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#49
post #48
post #44

I would like to point out that Brazil currently is facing a extremely hard crisis, where people can't afford even food. Don't expect people to pay for entertainment here right now. EDIT: why the downvotes? What I said is entirely facts, to help explain the massive amount of piracy in Brazil.

You are exaggerating.

I am?

Where I live at least, and considering my personal situation, it is no exaggeration.

I doubt that most of the population in a 5km radius within me can afford to buy several games, or even only one game.

I know lots of people (including family members) that are having a diet almost entirely based on potatoes, because anything else is too expensive.

EDIT: some hard data, freely available on IBGE site, I got that data in february, so now it might be slightly different:

Average wage on last ten years rose 44%, inflation was 78%, and food prices inflation was 124%

Re: Punch Club has been pirated over 1M times

#50
post #46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a dose of reality, I recommend browsing r/piracy. The mental gymnastics people go through to justify their actions is mind boggling.

Maybe, but for the silent majority it's pretty straightforward: 1) we view information as fundamentally different from currency, goods, and services; 2) we don't want to pay for information if we don't have to and we're not going to get caught. The gymnastics are mostly about just trying to figure out whether we're bad people or not - because everyone else's favorite game is Shame the Pirate - but once you realize yo…

Well you probably are a bad person though. A good person by definition tries to do good by other people.
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