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[10ebbor10]

Define: Evil

Because, you know, legitimizing something by saying that the "victim" is evil is a slippery slope.

After all, You can justify pretty much anything with that argument.

[kaijyuu]

Game devs get paid either way. It's the publishers that lose out if we don't buy the crap they sell.
(though notably, if a game sells well the developers are more likely to be hired for the next project)

If you want to send the creators money for their work on a specific game, cut them a personal check.

[10ebbor10]

Game devs get paid either way. It's the publishers that lose out if we don't buy the crap they sell.
(though notably, if a game sells well the developers are more likely to be hired for the next project)

If you want to send the creators money for their work on a specific game, cut them a personal check.

Depends on the system actually. Quite a few compagnies get payed per sold item.

[WealthyRadish]

I haven't seen this mentioned, so I thought I'd bring it up. The reason why indie games see such a high rate of piracy is because most pirates don't have a gaming PC, and thus play games with low system requirements. For all of the pirates I've met in person and otherwise, including myself during high school, it's a means of experiencing games that otherwise one would simply never play, even if they did have the money to spend on it. When an indie game reports high piracy rates, I'm very hesitant to believe that many of those were lost sales... but if a triple-A game (with moderately high system requirements) is heavily pirated, I would assume a higher quantity of those to be legitimately lost sales. Whether those sales were lost due to a response to the game's invasive DRM or simply selfishness is unknowable.

This is contrary to the view held by many on the interwebs, that pirating indie games is indicative of higher dickishness, and something I've always found somewhat funny. Sure, the money from indie sales goes primarily to the devs, whereas it goes mostly to the publishers in larger games, but the fact remains that most pirates are limited to the indie game market in the first place by their setup. Something I'm missing here?

[kaian-a-coel]

Define: Evil

Stick a blind man in a circular room and say 'your cup of tea is in the corner'

after five minutes of circling the room, he fixes his black glasses on the direction of your voice and he says "There is no corner."
then proceed to fly off the distance, for he is The One.

[10ebbor10]

This is contrary to the view held by many on the interwebs, that pirating indie games is indicative of higher dickishness, and something I've always found somewhat funny. Sure, the money from indie sales goes primarily to the devs, whereas it goes mostly to the publishers in larger games, but the fact remains that most pirates are limited to the indie game market in the first place by their setup. Something I'm missing here?

Most indie games can only be bought via the internet, and there are certain demographics who don't have the means to do so, but do know how to pirate.

[kaian-a-coel]

Most indie games can only be bought via the internet, and there are certain demographics who don't have the means to do so, but do know how to pirate.

This. I was in this case a couple years ago. No bank account => no internet buying. I could buy AAA games though (or have them offered at christmas and the like), because they have material support. But the little games like minecraft? Impossible to buy. So I pirated it. And felt reaaally guilty about it, because I view notch as a nice guy. So minecraft was one of the first things I purchased with my credit card, and I was relieved.

I believe a large chunk of indie games piracy is this. Minors unable to buy it. This is not lost sales, this is future sales and free advertising.
Of course I wont deny the existence of self-sufficient jerks who do it just because they can.

[werty892]

Used games and why they are bad for the industry.

I agree with this. In part. The big stores reselling used games are bad. But people selling person to person should never be eliminated.

[kingfisher1112]

Used games and why they are bad for the industry.

I agree with this. In part. The big stores reselling used games are bad. But people selling person to person should never be eliminated.

I was just about to post this. It brings up the interesting point of servers, after all, pirated games still use multiplayer servers unless they are P2P or pirate servers. So piracy DOES take away money!

[Sindain]

Used games and why they are bad for the industry.

I agree with this. In part. The big stores reselling used games are bad. But people selling person to person should never be eliminated.

I was just about to post this. It brings up the interesting point of servers, after all, pirated games still use multiplayer servers unless they are P2P or pirate servers. So piracy DOES take away money!

Probably not much money, and to my knowledge the majority of pirated games do use pirate servers because its easy to tell if its a cracked copy if they connect to a legit server.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah that's a pretty easy thing to authenticate, you need a proper key and stuff usually.

[da_nang]

Around the 12 minute mark he makes the argument that used games would somehow increase costs. I disagree with that point. Simply put:

• A game must be sold at such a price to pay for it's share of the expected lifetime costs that the unit will incur on the developer/publisher on the first sale of said unit. If not, then they would not make a profit on any one sale regardless of the influence of the second hand market and as such shouldn't be selling it in the first place.
• In order for there to exist a used unit, a first sale has to have been made.
• Therefore, when a used game is bought the first sale would've already paid for all the costs this unit would've incurred. The number of units in the system hasn't changed, so no extra costs have been incurred. The only thing that has changed is the owner of the unit.

In fact, the only way his argument would somehow make sense is if the developers/publishers severely underestimate the expected lifetime costs when shipping the units (and that's stretching it). However, this is the cause of a bad financial model or financial incompetence and not the second hand market because the underestimated costs would've showed up even in the absence of the second hand market. So even then, he's using a very poor argument.

The only real noticeable impact used games has is the time it takes to break even. However, is this purely the cause of the second hand market? No, it isn't. Ask yourself, why would one want to sell a game in the second hand market?

• Not enough replay value/loss of interest
• Quality doesn't reflect the price point
• Subsidy of further purchase
• Environmental

Let's go through the list:
Not enough replay value/loss of interest
Big, self-explanatory. You've played through the game but it didn't keep you interested. Why would you keep it. Maybe you didn't even finish because it was so dull. A game is meant to be replayed, it's not a one-time experience. If it doesn't meet that requirement then it's a bad game so why would you keep it? The Homo Economicus would've sold it to recoup their losses. This is the equivalent of a software developer who fails to make a product meet the requirement of a contract. What does the contractor do? Keep the contract? Unlikely. Time is expensive to them. Maybe he can afford a bit more time but not always. Instead, maybe he tries to find a different contract signer or simply cut their losses, cease the contract and sell whatever they can of the product they have.
Why should it be any more different for the buyer of a video game? After all, a sale is a contract no matter how you twist and turn it. So whose at fault really? Is the contractor or the contract signer? The developer/publisher or the buyer? The latter can't affect the replay value, so clearly it's the former!

Quality doesn't reflect the price point
So you've bought a game but found it was buggy, didn't do what was advertised or the price simply doesn't match the final quality of the product. The developer bought a nice new program to provide modeling tools but it crashes constantly, lacks features that should've come with it and the price point certainly didn't match the expectations. Does the developer keep using this program? Of course not, it's only going to keep costing them more money in the long run. What if this program was commissioned? They'd demand a refund immediately. Or sell it to someone else, it wouldn't make a difference for them. It would probably be faster too. So why shouldn't the buyer of a video game be able to do the same? They're not at fault for the product not being what was advertised or in a non-working condition. That's the fault of the developer.

Subsidy of further purchase
This is pretty common and was discussed in the video. Not everyone does it but usually people with less disposable income do it. And why not? It wouldn't make a damn difference in the eyes of the developers/publishers. If the consumer can't buy at full price, then he won't buy it period. However, by buying used games he can save money and that money can then be used actually buy that full-priced game. Is this the consumer's fault? Partially, I suppose, but it's also partially the developer's/publisher's fault as well since they're the ones setting the price point.

Environmental
Let's put it straight first that this one only holds while we still use physical storage devices to sell games on and I hope it's obvious enough as to why it helps. However, even if we did go digital, we would then run the risk of losing access to games if the publisher/developers goes under and the game wasn't installed at the time. Physical backups would prevent this but the systems currently planned to prevent used games would prevent this if the consumer didn't have the publisher's/developer's blessing to do so.

It's becoming more apparent that this is more than just about used games. This is also about hypocrisy by the developer/publisher. Hypocrisy and greed.

Finally, let it also be said that the one of the paramount duties of the second hand market is to serve as a safeguard for the consumer and act as competition in a market already dominated by monopolies since two saws can be functionally identical but still be allowed to be sold while two games need to be functionally different to avoid plagiarism. What drives prices down in a free market? Competition. So this second hand market is necessary to drive the prices down. As previously said, if a game doesn't reflect the price point, one would sell it necessarily at a lower price and as such create competition. So if you really want to minimize the effect of the second hand market, don't force consumers to keep your games. Make them want to keep them by giving them replay value, make them interesting and most importantly of all: Make the quality reflect the price point.

[Mech#4]

I don't think very highly of EBgames trade deal of "trade in 3 games for $50 off a new release" thingy, but I will say that I like pre-owned games since it can keep older games in circulation longer.

I remember I got a bunch of games second hand for the Nintendo 64 during the time they were releasing games for the Gamecube. I only had four before then, but I was able to get Super Mario 64, Mario Kart, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask as well as one or two others.

Retail stores tend to move stock off shelves pretty quickly, rotating as new releases come about. Having second hand games means I can get a game I might've missed earlier but read up on later.

[Grand Nagus]

Most indie games can only be bought via the internet, and there are certain demographics who don't have the means to do so, but do know how to pirate.

Of course I wont deny the existence of self-sufficient jerks who do it just because they can.

I know alot of people who have pirated stuff, and in my experience I know no one who fits this bill. They either cant afford it, or they buy it if they like it.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i pirate freely and guiltlessly. i sometimes purchase stuff i can't pirate and often regret, my money is little and precious. i also sometimes purchase stuff i pirated and enjoyed, as a form of donation, and i've donated to toady and other free content creators recurrently.

i do want a system to be in place to incentive, sustain, and reward good creators, there is one in place right now that does it with disputable efficiency and it features copyright, but it's proving to be unenforceable and making legitimate customers' life harder, while barely hindering us pirates. i believe art, science, and entertainment should be free and subsidized by state run public institutions, private associations, and private donations; you fill out a proposal, request a set ammount of money for a set amount of time, and then send it out to these institutions along with your credentials\portfolio, or put it up on a kickstarter-like, and in the end your work becomes public domain and is rated by how much critics and laypeople appreciated it, giving you a better or worse chance to get further subsidies on future projects.
i don't like artificial scarcity. we should be offering up more stuff for free, it'd make for a better world

i'm quite poor by first world standards, though i recognise i've it better than a lot of people in this world, but i would have played a lot less games, seen a lot less movies, read a lot less books, and listened to a lot less music if i had to pay for all of it. I feel i am a better person for having had access to so much culture, and i feel it's very sad that people want to deny so many people something that is so abundant and so important.