171 réponses à ce sujet

[Dethateer]

You realize that people who wouldn't buy anyway aren't lost sales because of piracy, right?

[Rubbish Hero]

Dethateer wrote...

You realize that people who wouldn't buy anyway aren't lost sales because of piracy, right?

They are lost sales as they are potential customers.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 19 mai 2010 - 10:25 .

[Dethateer]

No, they aren't. If they were potential customers, they'd do like me and buy a game after downloading if they like it. If they can't get a game, they move on, they don't buy it just because it isn't cracked.

[chiliztri]

Rubbish Hero wrote...

Dethateer wrote...

You realize that people who wouldn't buy anyway aren't lost sales because of piracy, right?

They are lost sales as they are potential customers.

How in the world are they potential customers? Did you even read the blog post I linked earlier?

There are unseen factors beyong simple "Well, they downloaded a copy of a game so obviously they are a lost sale". Besides the people who pirated a game because they simply can't afford it(IE, those in low income third world countries, poor college students, etc), you have people pirating to get a game before release, pirating to see if their computer can even run the game, pirating as a demo.

A lot of people bought Spore and then downloaded a pirated copy because they didn't want to install the DRM malware on their computers. How are they a lost sale?

Modifié par chiliztri, 19 mai 2010 - 10:32 .

[Rubbish Hero]

chiliztri wrote...

How in the world are they potential customers?

They are obviously interested in playing the games, that makes them  potential customers, it's a pretty simple concept. And no,. I'm no reading pirate propaganda.

Dethateer wrote... , they'd do like me and buy a game after downloading if they
like

Typical pirate excuse.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 19 mai 2010 - 10:52 .

[chiliztri]

If you aren't going to have the courtesy to read a blog post by an INDIE GAME DEVELOPER, then don't even bother posting articles to read if you aren't going to do the same for others.



Wow, an Indie game developer blog post is pirate propaganda? That's rich, really.



I'm not going to even bother arguing with someone with tunnel vision who can't even take a moment to look at other sides of the issue.

[Rubbish Hero]

chiliztri wrote...

If you aren't going to have the courtesy to read a blog post by an INDIE GAME DEVELOPER,

Who had there games pirated to hell and back. Even "choose your own price" charity games.
Having a nice optimistic outlook doesn't change this fact.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 19 mai 2010 - 10:56 .

[Fexelea]

@Rubbish Hero: you are missing the point. The blog post is by no means advocating piracy.



It reads: "I'm not questioning that piracy is common,...,I am, however, questioning what this means. How much revenue are developers actually losing to piracy? "



*That* is the important question, and he explores it well.

[Alexine]

I honestly don't see how piracy can affect PC game sales. Sure, it can affect sales to a degree, but it's not the main reason why pc sales are below console sales. Developers never really worked with porting PC games, mainly because it's a "backwater" game port. But hey, I'm one of them, since my income can't support a console and a horde of games.

And I find it interesting that Epic blames piracy for removing themselves from PC games into consoles. They are not the first ones to. Ubisoft blamed that pirates for destroying their servers when they introduced their internet-at-all-times DRM on their new game PC ports (which puts the question, why would pirates crash servers when they are playing the game without hindrance, laughing it out?). But piracy has gone back, to the days in high school, where everyone buys a game and rotates around. Did that affect sales when PC was the boom of gaming during 90s?

Personally, I think whenever a developer points the finger at pirates, it screams "lazy". Look at how successful the Humble Indie Bundle, managed to get over a million dollars with each developer walking away with at least around 100 000 and a substancial amount for charity. And what about games like Half Life 2, which was released as PC first, which sold over 1.7 million copies for PC alone. I'm also going to point out that The Witcher sold 1.2 million copies worldwide and it's a PC ONLY game. And don't forget that Steam is very popular as well, and it's one of the most successful DRMs out there, keeping pirates in check.

Modifié par Alexine, 19 mai 2010 - 11:35 .

[Rubbish Hero]

scyphozoa wrote...

Being interested in games does not make you a potential customer.

Actually going through the act of stealing it in order to play it does.
Outright eliminating  the ability to pirate, sales would no doubt rocket, sadly, this is not the world we live in, people pirate willy-nilly.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 19 mai 2010 - 11:34 .

[Alexine]

Actually Maviarab, the music industry IS losing money over the years if you compare back now to the 80s and 90s. They can never go back where artists can earn $15 million from a record. They still get profit, but they can never get back to the golden age of profitability.

If the publisher lose money or no profit = no financial support for developers = no game.

Modifié par Alexine, 19 mai 2010 - 11:48 .

[chiliztri]

Maviarab wrote...

Also, there is no need to eliminate the ability to pirate something, just get the lazy fat cat publishers to reduce the profit margin by 3% wiould filter out to the custer an average of around $3-4 or about £5 (where I am)...

There is really no need with modern manufacturing costs to be paying the extortionate prices we have to for media.

reduce the end user cost, virtually eliminate piracy and downloading overnight, as its the extortionate costs that drive most people to it in the first place.

I agree with that to an extent.

A copy of Window 7 cost the same price in America as it does in China. Piracy is high in China, but if you compare a persons salary in China to the salary of someone in America doing the same job, the picture is becomes clearer. They aren't making as much money, and they are still being charged the same price.

[Khayness]

How about making quality games instead of the usual crap with 0 replay value coming right off the conveyor belt lasting a few hours or so?

For the price of a freshly released Dead Horse Beaten Again franchise part n+1 game I can buy the BG saga and the Fallout trillogy giving me months (!) of gameplay. The quality of games today is incredibly bad, thanks to the likes of Robert Kotick and the horde of dimwits whom he makes a living from.

Thankfully a handful of developers (Bethesda, CD Project, BioWare, Obsidian has it's moments sometimes) are still alive and kicking providing some lasting games to keep me interested in gaming. I buy 2-3 games per year so I understand the gaming industry isn't going to be rich from the likes of me since I'm a tiny fragment of the gaming industry's supporters.

I blame human idiotism.

Modifié par Khayness, 19 mai 2010 - 11:57 .

[Fexelea]

The comparison between entertainment industries is indeed very interesting. For anyone wanting more in-depth, look up the "golden age of publishing" and read about how companies decided that there was money in books. Then there was money in music. Then there was money in movies. Now there is money in games... which is mutating into "casual" games. You can see the trail of sucking the heart out of each industry and making it as cynical as possible. This of course maximizes profits. But their lost profits are often dreamed up sums that have little base in reality. Say Heroes show blames its cancelling on Polish downloading... come on.

[Alexine]

Bff, Heroes was just past its used by date.

But I do agree with Fexelea. I believe we are at the stage of idea redundancy in the majority of industries, whether it be gaming, books, movies and music. But it sells. And the growing trend is consoles, even when it overall costs more money and much more production time to make.

Video games development are a risky investment, as much as anything in entertainment industry. But the risk is higher than other industries. Video games caters to a limited target market and with the growing desire of its target audience getting technical savvy, it's gotten even more expensive to produce. Unlike films, which is now a universal medium form of entertainment, the risk is not that high, because there is a large range of probability that it would be successful.

Modifié par Alexine, 19 mai 2010 - 12:29 .

[Rubbish Hero]

scyphozoa wrote...
Again, no it doesn't. There is an entire community of pirates who only pirate

And of these 1--7 million  people (and most likely upwards)  all of them are part of this community?
Doubtul. Do you think, personaly if the ability to pirate was suddently taken away from these millions upon millions of people, that they would just stop playing games altogether? I don't.

Maviarab wrote... please educate yourself

Maviarab wrote...talkign about.

I'm sure you can spell "hypocrite" and "pretentious".

Maviarab wrote... Rubbish,,, See you ignored me.

I just didn't see your post , probably for the best.

Maviarab wrote... let me tell you another fact. The majority of people who 'download' something (so not pirates, again, please educate yourself to the correct meaning of the term) do actually go and buy said media that they downloaded.

This isn't fact, it's speculation. If you are pirating, you are stealing, it is copyrighted i.e not your property to duplicate. You are also theoretically stealing profit.

Maviarab wrote... Get off your high horse, you have no knowledge of the situation and your making yourself look very foolish.

By high horse do you mean, actually buying games?
Yes,  I suppose it is high.

Maviarab wrote... When Quantum came out, I downloaded it the day it came out in the cinema....I alsi paid to watch it in the cinema the very nhext day, I also then bought the blu-ray....

So exactly who lost out when and because I downloaded it too?.

So, because you liked this movie after pirating it, that makes it ok?
Nonsense.

Maviarab wrote... Also, there is no need to eliminate the ability to pirate something,.

Uh-huh.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 19 mai 2010 - 01:31 .

[Loerwyn]

Maviarab wrote...

Chiliz...
well thats very simi9lar to the old DVD and now Blu-Ray issue....WB, Fox and Paramount made sure that there was region coding in place for the pure and simple reason of earning more money....

There was no other motive involved....

Case in question, why can I buy the special Edition of 2001 a Space Odyssey form the USa for $13 which comes with a host of extra's, yet here in the Uk the normal version costs me £14 (about $20)...and comes with no extra's?
Same with the xbox 360, $199 in USA I believe...yet its £199 here....work it our yourself...why do I have to pay an extra (approx) £30 ?

Why?...because they know they can charge what they like in different countries...thus improving their bottom profit margin....

I think you need a new store, Mav. You can get a 360 for £125 new.