[Gilrond]

This was an interesting discussion, but it went off-topic in the other thread about CDPR technical promises. So I open a new discussion here.

Note to moderators - this is not about promoting piracy or justifying any illegal copying. Illegal practices are not acceptable, let's say this explicitly. This is about an important discussion regarding public interests which are affected by intense copyright lobbies around the world, which exploit the logic of "piracy = lost sales" in order to push all kind of copyright extensions, laws like DMCA, SOPA and etc. as well as international trade agreements like ACTA, TPP, TAFTA and etc. which serve the interest of stronger copyright enforcement, at the price of reducing the freedom of speech and dumping the fair use.

This is an argument about essential theoretical basis of these lobbyists. I.e. they claim that piracy = lost sales, however this is not correct, since those who pirate wouldn't necessarily be inclined to buy the same thing if not for pirating. So for the sake of intellectual honesty, one can't use this argument when talking about piracy, especially for pushing copyright maximalism agendas.

Feel free to express your thoughts about it, but I assume we all agree that piracy is bad and that's not about promoting it.

[Agbeth]

Hm don't know what to say about that but:

There is SecuROM DRM which is the nastiest thing ever created. It was so bad that this game Spore was probably the most pirated game ever, thanks to SecuROM which is terrible. So I believe that horrible DRM can also equal lost sales

[Mataresa]

A bit dangerous to open a new topic, when we were told off to continue talking about it in the other one, don't you think?

I think noone of us wants to promote or support piracy. After all we want new games to be funded and we know, it is expensive.

I will wait posting my reply to get an official word though, that we are allowed to continue that discussion. Don't want to get a Warning or just write a lot of thoughts for a long time and then not see them discussed or the topic closed, cause it was not allowed.

[Gilrond]

I think it's not dangerous to discuss an issue of piracy and related subjects as long as we agree that we don't promote or consider them acceptable Otherwise forbidding it would be equal to censorship and that would be kind of ironic, since most of the time efforts to increase copyright enforcement are ending up in stifling the freedom of speech

[Aver]

I was warned, when I last time started a topic that was similar to the topic that was closed by moderator. L_L

On topic: Not all pirated copies are lost sales, but a lot of them are. I believe that if publisher would found out perfect copy protection and people wouldn't be able to pirate games anymore, then most of pirates would start buying games.

[dragonbird]

No, it's not a good idea to reopen a topic that's been closed off by a moderator. If anyone is considering doing the same in the future, ask first - this is one scenario where it's better to ask permission than forgiveness.

[vivaxardas]

Let's keep in mind that games are not physical goods, and there is no shortage of copies possible to be made. So,
1. If some people use pirated games as demos, when official demos are not available, and then delete the game in case they do not like it, or buy an official copy in case they like it, it does not result in lost sales. In some cases it might even lead to increase of sales.
2. Some people simply cannot afford the game to begin with, so piracy in this case also does not amount to lost sales, because in this case it is either pirated game, or no game at all.
So not every pirated copy of the game equals lost sales. BUT: I doubt that a number of people from #1 and #2 outweighs a number of people who can afford paying for the game, but simply prefer to get it for free. So I believe that in majority of cases pirating games does equal lost sales. I base this belief on my general very bleak view of human nature - a lot of people wouldn't mind to get stuff for free if they can get away with it. But it is impossible to verify without some study and good statistics.

I do not feel like pirating when I can avoid it, but I hate DRM and in general all this song and dance with installation, driver updates, and such. So I simply switched to xbox 360 just to avoid this whole mess. I do not really see any good justification for pirating games, it is exactly the same as shop-lifting, simply much easier to do. Plus, games are not any kind of necessity, but a luxury. The present situation is very damaging to the industry, and should be resolved one way or the other.

[Kudos]

An article about Music piracy not affecting sales referencing an EU study.

How far we can extend these findings to games piracy is an open question.

Open question because there's been no real studies performed - which *must* raise further questions itself.

My personal opinion is that many, perhaps the vast majority, of illegal downloaders are not actually potential customers, and that the issue is kept visibly high by various vested interest groups, or simply stupid bean counters... therefore:

Total potential game sales =|= Actual sales + Illegal downloads.

[Gilrond]

I agree that part of the pirated copies account to potential lost sales. The point was that it's not all, and there is no easy way to quantify that amount. While those who promote the agenda of increasing copyright enforcement (from what already exists) usually are using a simple logic where piracy = 100% lost sales and attempt quantification to create some bogus losses numbers to present to the legislators. That was the point of the argument, it's wrong, but not everyone is eager to admit it.

[Guy N'wah]

Kudos said:

An article about Music piracy not affecting sales referencing an EU study.

How far we can extend these findings to games piracy is an open question.

Open question because there's been no real studies performed - which *must* raise further questions itself.

My personal opinion is that many, perhaps the vast majority, of illegal downloaders are not actually potential customers, and that the issue is kept visibly high by various vested interest groups, or simply stupid bean counters... therefore:

Total potential game sales =|= Actual sales + Illegal downloads. ›››

While that is certainly so (since many freeloaders would never buy, and a few buy later), how much of their ill-gotten gains should freeloaders or pirates be allowed to keep? I don't think you can make an argument that they should not owe the full value of what they took.

I think the real problem is twofold, and it's not actually anything to do with freeloading.

One, there is a community of self-entitled twits such as Kim Dotcom and the operators of Pirate Bay who pretend that they are doing a public service by enriching themselves through traffic in pirated warez. There is also a community of Internet users who have been deluded into believing that their operation is something useful or even noble rather than merely parasitic. I'd be willing to let all the freeloading slide if a practical means of putting these invertebrate life forms out of business could be found.

Two, there is too much personal profit at industry expense in mergers and acquisitions of game developers. When you take on, say, $700 million in debt to acquire a company that doesn't do a fraction of that in annual sales, and pocket a large part of that in fees, bonuses, and golden parachutes, you do not strengthen your company: you weaken it by taking capital out of a hideously capital-intensive business and by driving up your costs with the cost of debt service. But if you made your M&A fees or your golden parachute or your profit on your end of the deal, what do you care.

That's why officers and directors of companies like EA have to have pirates to pick on for scapegoats. If they were truthful, they'd have to fire themselves, because they cost themselves a lot more by their own foolishness than pirates ever cost them.

[Gilrond]

Guy N said:

That's why officers and directors of companies like EA have to have pirates to pick on for scapegoats. If they were truthful, they'd have to fire themselves, because they cost themselves a lot more by their own foolishness than pirates ever cost them.

We are lucky that CDPR are quite different in that regard, in a sense that they encourage buying by different means (like making quality products, treating customers with respect and etc.) rather than chasing pirates with DRM and the like. However they are still quite the exception if you look at digital industry in general (not just games, but movies, books and etc.). Most of the "players" there are concentrating on pushing DRM like solutions (which don't work), rather than attempting to attract customers by treating them well. I'm not sure why that's so really. The worst part of it of course is that they often have a strong grip over various legal systems across the globe (US, Europe and etc.), and this causes a lot of bad effects, when they push this agenda on society.

[dragonbird]

Gilrond said:

We are lucky that CDPR are quite different in that regard, in a sense that they encourage buying by different means (like making quality products, treating customers with respect and etc.) rather than chasing pirates with DRM and the like. However they are still quite the exception if you look at digital industry in general (not just games, but movies, books and etc.). Most of the "players" there are concentrating on pushing DRM like solutions (which don't work), rather than attempting to attract customers by treating them well. I'm not sure why that's so really. ›››

It's interesting that there's been a couple of other developers come out with statements against DRM, and especially against "Always On" requirements, in the last few weeks, after the Sim City debacle.

[Gilrond]

Yeah, Sim City fiasco highlighted this issue quite well, but many of these execs aren't known to use clear logic, or to react to their customers dissatisfaction in a timely manner. Shortly after that, MS came out with a statement that they consider always on-line requirement for their new Xbox to be normal and expected.

[vivaxardas]

CDPR are simply realists. Some time ago they presented statistics of torrent downloads of TW2 and made an attempt to crack down on pirates trying to trace IP addresses and such. Backlash was pretty bad, plus they probably figured that it wouldn't return them any lost profits anyway. Does it amount to just bending over and pretending that you like it, I do not really know. But with TW3 their shift to nextgen consoles is obvious. There is only that much losses you can take, and that much money you can recover by a good treatment of paying customers.

[Guy N'wah]

Gilrond said:

We are lucky that CDPR are quite different in that regard, in a sense that they encourage buying by different means (like making quality products, treating customers with respect and etc.) rather than chasing pirates with DRM and the like. However they are still quite the exception if you look at digital industry in general (not just games, but movies, books and etc.). Most of the "players" there are concentrating on pushing DRM like solutions (which don't work), rather than attempting to attract customers by treating them well. I'm not sure why that's so really. The worst part of it of course is that they often have a strong grip over various legal systems across the globe (US, Europe and etc.), and this causes a lot of bad effects, when they push this agenda on society. ›››

Well, there aren't degrees of moral bankruptcy. There are better ways to chase pirates than DRM, because it rarely so much as inconveniences a skilled pirate while causing problems that sometimes end in tears for legitimate users. But I don't see any kind of lesser evil in allowing pirates to operate unimpeded.

That's why I'm carrying on about costs, though. Costs drive the perceived need to fight piracy. You have to sell enough games at a high enough price to cover your costs, fund the next generation, and turn a profit. Anything that drives up your costs means you have to sell more units or raise your prices. But the big conglomerate players like EA, Sony, and Disney take on enormous costs to do acquisitions that are in hindsight grossly overpriced, and they have to find excuses for why they can't sell enough to cover those costs. Preferably excuses that point the finger at somebody else, like your cheating freeloading customers

CDPR does have the moral high ground, in no small part because they have enviably low costs, they have a profitable side business to bring in capital, and they can price to absorb a huge blow from piracy. The big high-cost producers keep unit prices high, allowing CDPR to operate on gross margins that most bean counters can only dream of.

[Gilrond]

May be in gaming industry it's more intricate, but what for example about films industry? Why don't we see them selling films like simple files without any DRM, and offering streaming services as convenience, and not as a way to restrict use cases by putting DRM on top of it and limiting platforms where they can be used? In essence they are [not] competing with pirates who offer the same content without DRM (which means higher usability). I.e. they gain nothing and voluntarily reduce the quality of their product just to annoy their customers. This was always puzzling to me.

[Guy N'wah]

Gilrond said:

May be in gaming industry it's more intricate, but what for example about films industry? Why don't we see them selling films like simple files without any DRM, and offering streaming services as convenience, and not as a way to restrict use cases by putting DRM on top of it and limiting platforms where they can be used? In essence they are [not] competing with pirates who offer the same content without DRM (which means higher usability). I.e. they gain nothing and voluntarily reduce the quality of their product just to annoy their customers. This was always puzzling to me. ›››

It's a different industry; the movie industry is a close-knit oligopoly, and there is little dissent. Things like region restrictions are of long standing and go to the core of how movies are merchandised. Movies aren't executable content so they aren't subject to many of the technical problems associated with putting DRM on computer programs.

Also, antipiracy operations in the movie industry aren't aimed at inserting unbreakable DRM; the people who actually do antipiracy for a living know it doesn't work. They're after the pirates who profit by operating Web sites and making content available to freeloaders.

[RSIK4]

Piracy is an unfortuante drawback of the digital age, but the PC gaming industries reaction to it has been very poor. The reality is that people pirate games for a wide variety of reasons and very few of them have anything to do with “cost” of the game which is something that defenders of anti-piracy measures try to use as ammunition for the fight. Very few people actually pirate to avoid cost, a typical PC game is no more expensive than a dinner and a movie in most parts of the world. The real issue is quality and its an issue the PC gaming industry is responsible for.

The quality of PC games globally is extremely poor. Take a look at any given month of the year on gamespot and see how many of the 10-12 games released get a score better than a 7.0 the reality is that about 1 in 50 games are actually able to score better than 80% in your typical rating scale and about 50% of all games released are virtually unplayable. The PC industry has created their own problem by not adhering to a higher standard of quality. The concept of “if you don’t like it don’t buy it” is also flawed because its not like Im trying a Big Mac here. This is a one time purchase of a unique product and wether I like it or not, its paid for and Im stuck with it. So while cost is not the issue, buying something that is of poor quality and discovering that fact only after a purchase is.

This is why the Free To Play model with microtransactions has become such a phenomenon in the industry. There is no differntiation experiance wise between a free to play game and a pirated game, they are two pee’s in a pod. We try it and if we like it than we consider buying into it. If we don’t like it, we stop playing.

I think if the industry spent as much money on improving the quality of games, creating distribution networks, supporting their games long term and various other methods of giving us a reason to spend money rather than fighting piracy, piracy would be irrelevant.

This is a self created problem. Just look at the reason SimCity. By the youtube videos, disucssion, development bullet points and feature lists this was set to be an amazing game. 2 million people bought it only to find out that on the day of launch nothing works and it would be two weeks before it was even stable enough for you to try. The end result a gamepost score of 5.0!

This is why piracy exists. Spending 49.99 on a 5.0 rated game. Its so painfully obvious.


I m against piracy....

[Guy N'wah]

So piracy is a problem the industry made for itself because the industry doesn't produce quality games? No. Piracy is created by people who want something for nothing and people who find a way to make money by giving it to them. Telling whether a game is quality and you would enjoy it is what reviewers and demos are for, it's what experience with computers and games is for; these things tell you loud and clear when a purchase is likely to be a waste and when it is not. But there is no justification for "pirate it because you think it might not be good value."

"Free to play" is nothing like pirated games. Free to play is a revenue model that resembles the old "give away the razor, sell the blades" strategy. The money's got to come from somewhere, or the game's not going to be published. Whether it comes from initial sales, subscriptions, advertising, or microtransactions doesn't matter so long as it comes in. But the only person who profits on a pirated game is the pirate, who created nothing and is a mere parasite.

Piracy will remain relevant as long as people want something for nothing, and such people are not approaching the status of an endangered species. The more interesting question is how developers can produce worthwhile games at a fair profit in the presence of entrenched piracy.

[Glaroug]

Pirates are not the Black bearded figures of legend. No, in the eyes of the almighty Glaroug there Arrrrgh! but three types of pirates:

1. Wet, whiny snots whose parents will not buy them that filthy Witcher game with all its sex and violence.

2. Glass backs who are above the rest and with no respect for the material they steal.

3. People who think they're this guy

Quote

That's why I'm carrying on about costs, though. Costs drive the perceived need to fight piracy. You have to sell enough games at a high enough price to cover your costs, fund the next generation, and turn a profit. Anything that drives up your costs means you have to sell more units or raise your prices. But the big conglomerate players like EA, Sony, and Disney take on enormous costs to do acquisitions that are in hindsight grossly overpriced, and they have to find excuses for why they can't sell enough to cover those costs. Preferably excuses that point the finger at somebody else, like your cheating freeloading customers

Well chief, hard to argue with the Batman.

Jim Sterling had some interesting material released these past weeks on similar material. He's a interesting guy and certainly entertaining. This weeks episode is certainly relevant. Its here.

EDIT: A quick note regarding movies: Netflix is great if used enough to merit the monthly fee, but Amazon has some really great deals for renting videos and they're streaming service is not bad. You can rent V for Vendetta for the mere price of 2.50 and have access for 48 hours. Not a bad deal at all really. That's a candybar and a coke from those foul vending machines that rip you off. Honestly, I know I'll live to see the day of the 10 dollar 20oz.