Software Piracy

[Control Group]

Yeah, but when you worked there, did you buy your own computer? Or was it the company's?

It was the company's.

I'm just saying it's perfectly possible for a job to entail an amount of information that necessitates a computer, so FrewFrux's statement is plausible.

 

[Frewfrux]

1. That, you're right about. But I'm not complaining that they don't sell Pocky or original Kerokeropi dolls in my local supermarket.

Yes, but complaining about not having Pocky is quite different then complaining about not haveing *any* food.

3. AHAHAHAHAhahahah. Ahaa...haha. That's funny. Did you know that those little cans you drop coins into in the supermarket, the ones with pathetic pictures of kids on them? Did you know that the charities they support lease them, and that some private individual that pays 5 bucks for the right to do so, gets to keep the money in there?

This is waaaayyy of topic, but I have to say this one thing. Research! This is why World Vission came to mind. I did a bunch of research on where to give what money I could a few years ago and this seemed the best organization. Fewest overhead costs and more money to the people who needed it most then any other. Don't know what it's like now, but it's probably still about the same. Oh, and after setting up a fresh water system, their priority was education, not just giving out food. They really impressed me.

All I'm saying is because there are scams out there doesn't mean that they are all scams. If you really search for where to give you will find somewhere.

 

[PennHead]

Perhaps I'm a few pages late, but I had to say something on the whole issue of piracy hurting the small company more.

Consider this hypothetical: On the one hand, you have John Madden's Football. It sells millions upon millions of copies a year.

On the other, you have an innovative, fun game by a little known developer. Due to their smaller buget for advertising and such, even with good word-of-mouth, they're probably doing great to get 500,000 copies sold. However, such a success could help springboard them to bigger and better projects in the future.

With a game, as has been pointed out, the majority of the cost of gamemaking is in development. The business model is basically that the first X copies of the game pay for the development. Beyond that number is profit. "X" varies by how much the development costs were, how much the game sells for, how much of every sale goes to manufacturing, shipping, buying shelf space, licensing, etc.

Let's say 25% of games are pirated. EA loses far more sales in terms of numbers, and a greater volume of money, however, their development costs were covered ten million copies ago. The game would still be a finacial success with even higher piracy, although they would have made more money without it.

The smaller game, with it's lower sales volume, now runs the danger of not covering it's development costs. It could be a major factor towards the end for the studio.

Sadly, it is the little guy hurt more by piracy. As someone else said, if there was no piracy, Microsoft would own the world. Instead, they just own a portion But for a company dealing with smaller numbers, any negative factor is felt more strongly, including piracy.

So far as the semantics between theft and copyright infringment: When I, as a game developer, read in an internet forum that people are pirating my work, it sure as heck feels like they stole from me, no matter what you want to call it. It's money out of my pocket. I feel stolen from, infringed, violated, or whatever other label you'd like to put on it. I feel no sympathy for someone who downloads games out of a sense of entitlement.

The OP, on the other hand, I do feel for. He wants to get it legitimately, but can't for circumstances beyond his control. I hope you find a way to get it online, through friends in other nations, or something.

 

[Efexeye]

So far as the semantics between theft and copyright infringment: When I, as a game developer, read in an internet forum that people are pirating my work, it sure as heck feels like they stole from me, no matter what you want to call it. It's money out of my pocket. I feel stolen from, infringed, violated, or whatever other label you'd like to put on it. I feel no sympathy for someone who downloads games out of a sense of entitlement.

Amen, brudda.

 

[Frewfrux]

K, well, I gotta get going. It's been fun. Oh, and by the way, my opinion is that piracy is bad. That being said, if I was in the OPs position I would have no problem pirateing the software for now and then buying it when it became available.

C Ya

 

[MattJek]

meback, so what you posted was simple slander.

I'll be ignoring your posts from here on out- you're clearly interested more in trolling than the actual debate.

Good move, you dont have any constructive responses to my sound arguments so you just label me a troll and ignore me, nice debating tactics.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

2. YES, I do! I should have checked beforehand, and, if I didn't want to carry the hard drive, I shouldn't have bought the game!

Too bad that your argument is a local one. It may be valid in the U.S., but in Germany it's a different story. Here you are DEFINITELY ALLOWED to make copies for private use. The media companies managed, however, to weaken that rule by making it illegal to break a copy protection in order to copy something. Nice, eh? This is, as anybody can see, against the spirit of our "fair use" law, but obviously, the lobby is strong here, too...

Nevertheless, as soon as you HAVE a working copy (who says it must be you who makes it? BREAKING is illegel - USING such an image is not), you can store it wherever you like, never mind the crappy EULA that is invalid in several aspects anyhow (they try hard, but it doesn't change the fact that some parts of those "contracts" are worth exactly zero. This is true for MS EULAs, too,which are notoriously different from German law).

So, I have the license to install and use the game and I am forbidden to copy the game onto my harddisk which I happily ignore because our law pulls rank and makes this part of the EULA invalid, letting me indulge in the joys of a discless installation.

What exactly was the morale you wanted to preach in this respect? That I dared to make my playing as comfortable as possible within my guaranteed rights?

 

[Efexeye]

I have yet to preach ANYTHING, as far as I know.

And it's spelled "moral" for future reference. Low "morale" is what people have when they lose arguments.

 

[CyberChrist]

@Efexeye:
Having read most of your posts on this thread I have come to the conclusion that any further debate involving you is pointless(for me at least), as you indeed seem to be genuinely ignorant about and/or adamantly ignoring how a lot of things actually work/is in this world.

If our current draconian copyright/DRM law could be brought back in line with its original intent, and not just what MS/MPAA/RIAA want for maximum profit, then I would like to think we would see less piracy. OTOH, a staggaringly large number of people will go for "free, and not-prosecuted" over "paid-for" any day.

I assume you are referring to US law, but it is undoubtedly true at some compareable level in many countries around the globe - especially western ones. All of the possible ways to handle the piracy issue has it's drawback, but I for one would prefer another way - than what seems to be the most common one of today - that leaves the paying users with the least amount of hassle and the highest amount of benefits.

 

[Efexeye]

@Efexeye:
Having read most of your posts on this thread I have come to the conclusion that any further debate involving you is pointless(for me at least), as you indeed seem to be genuinely ignorant about and/or adamantly ignoring how a lot of things actually work/is in this world.

Genuinely ignorant? I work in software development! Point out some specifics that show my "ignorance", or kindly don't condescend to me. Or, are you just mad that I haven't backed down or changed my mind, or been baited into some puerile flame war?

Some clarification, please?

Thanks.

EDIT: You've posted twice in this thread! How are you even involved in this debate?

EDIT AGAIN: How about posting something to try and convince me of the correctness of the other side's point of view, instead of making some asinine statement about my naivete? It's easy to criticize people taking part in a debate that you aren't taking part in....

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Sadly, it is the little guy hurt more by piracy.[...]

As I pointed out a couple of pages earlier: No, that little company would never be hit by piracy in a proportional size - for the simple reason that smaller companies' games normally don't have the "hype factor". Even IF they are cracked, spread and pirated after some people have discovered how good these games are, they never face the danger of being pirated from day one - as is the case with much-hyped and -advertised "mega games" by Electronic Arts etc. And everybody knows that the first months after a game has gone gold are the most important ones (the "full price months").

Again: The more advertising, the more people know the game, the more people want it, the more fame pirates see in it and the more (and the earlier) a game ist spread by them. For pirates, there is no fame in an unknown game of a small company. An EA game, however, is SURE to be pirated within the first 3 days - if not before!

 

[Kolyana]

EDIT: You've posted twice in this thread! How are you even involved in this debate?

@Efexeye:
Having read most of your posts on this thread I have come to the conclusion that any further debate involving you is pointless(for me at least), as you indeed seem to be genuinely ignorant about and/or adamantly ignoring how a lot of things actually work/is in this world.
.

I think his post is rather self explanatory ... he doesn't need to post to read what you have to sat and how you have responded to others to draw a conclusion from it.

 

[Efexeye]

I think his post is rather self explanatory ... he doesn't need to post to read what you have to sat and how you have responded to others to draw a conclusion from it.

Well, when he says that "further debate" with me is pointless, yet he has yet to actually try to debate me.....pretty nonsensical, I'd say. Nor has he illuminated me as to why my point of view is wrong/irrelevant/misinformed, just that that is his opinion.

It's a lot easier to criticize than it is to do. It's why there are so many more movie critics than movie directors.

Good try, though. Appreciate the Carebear sentiment behind the post.

 

[Kolyana]

Good Try?

..........

 

[Efexeye]

Good Try?

..........

Uh, to elaborate, yeah, good try at making sense of a post that made no sense.

 

[PiTiFUL]

Efexeye, I'm game Do not have the time today though. I would like to say that I am impressed with how civil this discussion has been, cudos everybody

 

[Machete Phil]

DemonDeLuxe

As I pointed out a couple of pages earlier: No, that little company would never be hit by piracy in a proportional size - for the simple reason that smaller companies' games normally don't have the "hype factor".

This would be a convenient fact to bolster the pro- or middleground piracy "supporters," but I simply don't see evidence to back your claims. Given enough people participating in the pirate community and enough P2P computers sharing this cracked software every game is subject to piracy.

Take, for example, Divine Divinity from Larian Studios. This game didn't receive a lot of hype at all. It was the first game to come out of a fledgling development studio in Belgium, and the life-and-death of the studio really hinged on its success.

Once a few people started realizing it was a decent game, it was widely pirated. I could find 40+ people at any given time sharing it on my college campus, and hundreds if I ventured out beyond the firewall.

And everybody knows that the first months after a game has gone gold are the most important ones (the "full price months").

Nah.

In fact for small companies exactly the opposite is true.

The initial months after release are much less important, because your game needs to build hype among the players, fans, and critics before you can expect to see an increase in sales.

Unfortunately, when this hype does start to build and more and more people learn about your game -- just when sales might start to rise -- that's usually when it gets pirated and hits the P2P networks like a wildfire.

 

[PennHead]

As I pointed out a couple of pages earlier: No, that little company would never be hit by piracy in a proportional size - for the simple reason that smaller companies' games normally don't have the "hype factor". Even IF they are cracked, spread and pirated after some people have discovered how good these games are, they never face the danger of being pirated from day one - as is the case with much-hyped and -advertised "mega games" by Electronic Arts etc. And everybody knows that the first months after a game has gone gold are the most important ones (the "full price months").

Again: The more advertising, the more people know the game, the more people want it, the more fame pirates see in it and the more (and the earlier) a game ist spread by them. For pirates, there is no fame in an unknown game of a small company. An EA game, however, is SURE to be pirated within the first 3 days - if not before!

I'm going to agree and disagree with you here. You are correct that the big companies get pirated more. I was guilty of oversimplifying by assigning the same % of games pirated to the two.

The "little guy's" games do have less risk of being pirated on day 1. However, it DOES happen to nearly EVERY game. How do I know? I work for a smaller developer. I have personally seen every one of our games pirated. Believe me, we're not immune. Yes, the early months are the most important to a game's success. But I think you are overestimating the piracy "grace period" having less hype gives you. Piracy still happens, and it still happens pretty quickly. Consider also, that a smaller game's success is often reliant on word-of-mouth publicity, and that takes time to happen. Piracy usually happens faster, or is at least close behind, possibly even happening because of it.

The main point I was trying to make may have been missed, so I will try to clarify. Even with the larger amount of money lost to piracy of the "big" game, the fact that they easily cover development costs through their sales volume and make quite a bit of profit anyway allows them to soak the loss more easily. For a smaller game, it doesn't take as much pirating to keep them from being able to cover development costs. A little bit hurts the little guy a lot. While he may have proportionally less piracy than the big guy, it hurts him proportionally more.

 

[Eagle_Seven]

Hmm , without jumping into the dying embers of a flame war....

Large-scale piracy is bad for everyone involved, except for the pirate. The problem I see with the current proprietary software market, however, is that products are faulty. I have yet to buy a Microsoft or EA product that did not have game-destroying bugs.

If Microsoft and EA are making millions by selling battered used cars as new, is that not in itself immoral? Let the bloody developers do what they do! Fix the damn product before you sell it! If you'll make more money if you release a crappy version by Christmas, do us a favor and wait!

Its called consumer fraud, and I'm almost powerless against it.

Therefore, I feel no remorse regarding individual piracy with their products.

On the other hand, I'll be more than happy to shell out $50 for a independent, well-made product. That is the type of company I hope will prosper.

If hospital supplies were sold like Microsoft sells software, pacemakers would stop working after two days!

 

[Efexeye]

PEOPLE, THIS IS NOT A FLAME WAR.

This is a (mostly) levelheaded debate.

A flame war is people slinging insults back and forth. Trust me, the mods would have axed this thread loooooooooong ago if it was degenerating into a flame war.

They always do!