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[Soulwynd]

Soulwynd, that post was awesome! ^_^

Thanks. I just wanted to lighten the mood, but I think some people might be offended, haha.

To be more serious, I'm against the generalization of copyright to anything other than books. I also don't acknowledge piracy as a crime or morally wrong. Piracy for is somewhat like circulating libraries were at the beginning and I think studios should start to accept that. I believe a games studio would me more successful if they, instead of releasing demos that give a biased view of the game since they are meant to make players buy the game, released the full game with a shareware model such as play it full for 7 days. Lets face it, most games aren't worth even a movie ticket (at least for me). Lets face it again, I'd rather buy a pizza than most of the games out there. I think the best way to deal with piracy is to add -good- online content that makes your clients to really want that content and start going back to the shareware model, let them play your full game, even for 3 or 4 days. Why would they pirate when they can do that? Course, people would come up with cracks as usual, but believe me, if someone uses a crack after 4-7 days, he's never ever buying that game even if he couldn't play it.

Bottom line is, you can't stop piracy, being it right or wrong, someone will always find a way. The more we accept it and try to incorporate it, the better.

[magellan]

Piracy is a lot harder than exploring stuff. It's a balance thing. I am working on it.

Oh... *that* piracy.
Actually i think companys are really bad at making games, because they have to. See, what makes a game good, makes it a lousy product.
Replayability should be a key value. Lets look at one of the classics: chess. Around for, what. 2000 years? And in all that time there was one new product (www.sjgames.com/knightmare/) and that didn't exactly change the world of chess either. Now imagine going to your marketing department and stating that that would be what you aspire to as a product life cycle. I guess they won't think that is such a good idea.

And of course distribution has a whole lot less added value than it used to. Look at my little pet project. almost 500 people got the last version. It isn't much but if you got all of them together they would not fit comfortably into my flat. Now i could have made the exact same game 20 years ago, but to get 500 people to try it i would have had to put a considerable amount of time and money into buying disks, envelopes and stamps.

[Leafsnail]

I think that pirating of music is now almost pointless, as you get free and legal services.  Even with the adverts it still can be quicker than illegal downloading.

One of the reasons for illegal downloading is disparities in different countries.  For instance, many films come out in America 2 months earlier than they do here.  Some people may cut the wait by downloading it.  Same goes for video games, to some extent - and, in addition, when games get here, they tend to cost at least 50% more.  To add insult to injury, our DVD players and consoles are specially configured so as not to be able to play foreign goods.  It's probably even worse in other countries, like Australia (see: Zero Punctuation passim).

I've always put up with waiting longer and paying more for the product, but I suppose other people don't.

[Thndr]

I'll have to agree with the sentiment of shareware VS Piracy.

Pirates will pirate games for 3 reasons:
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.

Number 1 guarantees either buy or not (which means crappy games don't get money because they suck. This should make it so that companies have more to risk to get return on investment, instead of making a horse-crap slurry and getting their return because the only way people can rate the game is to buy it.)

Number 2 wants to play the game, and if the game is good will potentially try to save up money to buy the game (especially if incentive is given *like shareware BUY TO CONTINUE*) This is far less likely than Number 1, but still provides a satisfied customer

Number 3 are a more complex crowd, as they could pass between the other groups. However given the proper incentive, even they can be coerced into buying the product. Although most of the time they'll just pirate anything, even indie games, just to get free shit


All of those groups have 1 thing in common: They're all generate word of mouth off from no effort from the producers/developers of the games. Why fight such a system, especially when part of the problem stems from the idea of what made computer games popular in the first place.

Shareware.

------
Drm

Sims 3 should dispel the entire myth of drm-less sales == more piracy. It sold a verily crapload of games. Even if you did pirate it, the content most people get for sims (expansions) is available via frequently updated DLC store, which is a very successful model from the korean market.
*Sims 3 has discchecking DRM, a technology almost as old as the CD drive, but it's non invasive.*
------

Although I'm guilty of number 2 myself, I try to buy things that deserve compensation for their efforts, like The Conduit(Yeah it was dissapointing. Do I regret spending $50 on the game? No. Reason: The Grinder and potentially Conduit 2). However I kinda regret also buying Spore, due to the fact that it's complete BS. I am also annoyed that the space expansion for Spore is the cost OF AN ENTIRE GAME.

[Deon]

Pirates will pirate games for 3 reasons:
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.

You confuse pirates and users.

Pirates:
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.

Users:
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.

P.S. 4) They don't want the f*cking DRM/Starforce/Whatever trojan in their system.

[Thndr]

Pirates will pirate games for 3 reasons:
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.

You confuse pirates and users.

Pirates:
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.

Users:
1) They want to try before they buy
2) They don't have money
3) They just want free shit.

P.S. 4) They don't want the f*cking DRM/Starforce/Whatever trojan in their system.

Woops, forgot number 4 .

Media, companies, and non-pirates don't care if you're a user or an actual illegal reselling disgusting pirate. So I didn't think of differentiating.
I figure well defined federal laws would be more suited to prevention (or at least punishment) for illegal resale. Since illegally profiting from something like piracy is probably the furthest thing from a user's mind, but everyone treats the two the same.

[a1s]

Pirates:
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.

the number of those kind of pirates has been decreasing over the last decade. In fact I can safely bet that at the moment the number of people who produce free torrents (for whatever reasons) outweighs the number people who sell bootleg DVDs of games by an order of magnitude. Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.

[Thndr]

Pirates:
they want to earn money as other people, though not really in a legal way.

the number of those kind of pirates has been decreasing over the last decade. In fact I can safely bet that at the moment the number of people who produce free torrents (for whatever reasons) outweighs the number people who sell bootleg DVDs of games by an order of magnitude. Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.

Well the virus torrents usually either are just there to grief, or to steal identities. Identity theft generates money.
But the torrent field is kinda a small area for virus identity theft, as the people who torrent stuff are usually too smart for that trick.

[Deon]

Virus torrents? Show me some (no links please) .
The ones I know are without such thing.


About difference between pirates and users: well, users are harder to punish because there's too many of them and they can't give anything to companies. I think every workplace have at least one pirated program, so it's not possible to catch or punish them. However if it's a big pirating company or market, they can be made to pay.

[Ivefan]

Torrents generate a lot of things- traffic, complaints, virus distribution, etc. But not money.

It do generate money for the ISP. Most people that want high speed connections are the ones that download a lot and the ones needing such bandwidth for legal material are rather few i belive.

[kholhaus]

Starting anew, with a seperate idea.

A section of Pirating comes from downloading games that companies no longer sell. If companies no longer sell a game, then the game should be up for grabs on downloading for free. Otherwise we're repeating history. We're making new knowledge, but instead of PRESERVING it, the companies are just burning it.

[Micro102]

To the OP, what about EA's games, where they charge normal price, then make you buy half the original content for 100's?

Would you pirate the full game?

[Thndr]

Virus torrents? Show me some (no links please) .
The ones I know are without such thing.

They usually show up around the release date of the game. and usually through elimination, they eventually have low enough seeds that no one downloads from them.

[Sordid]

It do generate money for the ISP. Most people that want high speed connections are the ones that download a lot and the ones needing such bandwidth for legal material are rather few i belive.

No they don't, the internet just gets ever faster, that's all. Even the cheapest connection my ISP offers, 10Mb down/1Mb up, is more than enough for torrents. I'd settle for a tenth that speed for my everyday browsing, but there's simply no such option anymore.
On the other hand, all those torrent trackers do have to cover their maintenance costs somehow...

Virus torrents? Show me some (no links please) .
The ones I know are without such thing.

That'd be the ones with a lot of negative votes and comments.

About difference between pirates and users: well, users are harder to punish because there's too many of them and they can't give anything to companies. I think every workplace have at least one pirated program, so it's not possible to catch or punish them. However if it's a big pirating company or market, they can be made to pay.

Oh sure, and I think that they should be made to pay, unlike the regular joes. Using pirated stuff to make money just crosses a line, IMO.

[Sensei]

Yes, undercutting normal prices with bootlegs just makes you a stolen goods dealer.

On the other hand, I think weird shit like pulling data from computers because it was pirated or discs that don't reinstall makes you a thief.

Oh, and I personally need all the bandwidth I can get my hands on for online multiplayer games. Other than that, 90% of files I download are freeware, the other 10% being legitimate downloadable purchases, usually which I have regretted (been trying to redownload Trackmania United Forever since I wiped my hard drive).