True views on piracy

[Nexorsist]

This is utter rubbish, if you designed a product and people were buying your product and this in turn made you rich, would that make it ok for people to start stealing your product, or copying your idea's and selling them?

There is a massive list of PC titles that were moved to console because developers would rather maximise on profit then deal with the losses of piracy.

Also maybe you should look into what it actually costs to make a game, and how many years it takes before you assume that piracy has no effect on these organisations.

No it isn't utter rubbish actually.

Pirating a game is not stealing or copying IDEA's. The word you are looking for for that specific instance, is called Plagiarism. I am not copying Battlefield onto my pc and telling my friends I programmed it. I have heard of MANY instances where artists/developers said they don't mind having their game/music pirated for the reason that it increases popularity for a game tenfold.

I know that a lot of money goes into making a game, but don't even tell me that it costs even near R500,000,000. I already gave you my view as what I would feel if I was the game developer, so don't contracdict me and tell me what I am or should be feeling. You say a lot of things without proof, atleast I try and back myself up with some kind of fact.

Piracy is less at consoles at the moment, but quite an exponential increase in piracy is taking place because of the fact that consoles are becomming more pc like and like with the X360 they have harddrives. Console pirates are normally a whole lot worse, because they are the ones that don't know where to go online to get their pirate games for free. So they go to the flee markets and buy their pirated games.

Where is your proof that game developers are going accross to consoles anyway, or is that your calculated guess? As far as I am concerned all the big developers haven't gone anywhere, they are merely programming for both.

Nexorsist

 

[flarkit]

Pirating a game is not stealing or copying IDEA's. The word you are looking for for that specific instance, is called Plagiarism.

You're correct, that "idea theft" and claiming this to be your own, is "plagiarism". Pirating a game and then using the game as well as sharing the copy with friends, is in-fact stealing income.

Trying to argue that pirates usually buy the title after they've tried it, fails in my book too. That's what demo versions are there for. By playing a title without paying for it, you are stealing the developer's income.

 

[Nexorsist]

You're correct, that "idea theft" and claiming this to be your own, is "plagiarism". Pirating a game and then using the game as well as sharing the copy with friends, is in-fact stealing income.

Trying to argue that pirates usually buy the title after they've tried it, fails in my book too. That's what demo versions are there for. By playing a title without paying for it, you are stealing the developer's income.

I never said pirating was right and I never said it wasn't stealing. I said that pirating doesn't really affect the income the developers make that much, yes they're getting a few million less. It's like saying just because Telkom charges insane amounts for their products its right. Its NOT. We are lucky we have other lower prices to compare it too, but its a good example of seeing how easy it is to charge large amounts for things that don't need such high prices. I still stick to my conclusion that even if they halved the price of games piracy would reduce quite substantially.

If you go reread what I had said in my initial post, you will see that I said people buy the games after they played them FOR GAMES THAT YOU NEED TO BUY TO PLAY ONLINE. I wasn't referring to single player only games. I also stated that by no means am I saying piracy is right, so stop trying to attack me when I was just giving another outlook on things. If I am correct macguyver made the thread so he can have the opinion of EVERYONE. I never attacked anyone in my post I merely gave my view on things.

Anyway off to my last exam.

Yipeee
Nexorsist

 

[Pitbull]

I Pirate..... So what.

If you don't have the skill, pay. Thats not my fault.

 

[flarkit]

Location: Rant & Dal

'nuff sed...

Sorry, Nex, I wasn't attacking you there. My last statements were directed at the argument, that copying games, then playing and sharing them (without having bought the originals) is theft.

 

[doobiwan]

The fact that successful games may make $50 million upwards is not so much as irrelevant, but essential. (just think Wow, currently at $90mill a month!)

Look back over the last year and every game publisher has been reporting losses, or going insolvent, or on the verge of collapse. For every 1 super successful game there are half a dozen duds (BF:SF anyone?) that still cost $20million to make, and the companies have to cover those costs.

That's way everyone complaining about stale games: The companies have to ride successful formulas to stay afloat and don't want to risk it on something left field.

Hence, the Wii & XBLA/XNA was born.

On the "pirate for viral advertising" kick, that's what demo's are for.

 

[fivelza]

Just a quick point I'd like to make and you can draw your own conclusion from that. According to many people R300 is pretty cheap for a game.

Please take this into consideration before you think that:

This is just an example of 1 game. Each battlefield has sold way over a million copies (haven't checked the stats for 2142 yet though), now even if the developers charge only $2 for that game and if they sold say 2million copies, then they make $4,000,000 dollars (only in the US), with the current exchange that gives you roughly R28.8 MILLION. Now are you telling me we are the greedy ones? Now replace that with the current $40-50 that they are charging on a game and work out how much they make.

Thats just my 2cents.

Thanks
Nexorsist

Nex, with respect, that is a very narrow view of any business. Doobi makes the valid point that while some titles may sell many won't. So to argue that a title that does well should be cheaper, ignores an entire business model.