Before you read this and start flaming me, this is an opinion, and one I feel very strongly about. Think before you start typing. I am not trying to justify piracy, I am simply trying to get people to think about it another way.
I have always been very intrigued by looking at things from a marketing perspective. One of the biggest subjects in gaming and on the internet that I have found most intriguing is the matter of piracy. One cannot deny that in some fields, piracy has done a lot of damage like in the area of music and movies. Since there seems to be so many threads about the subject I figure I will put my 2 cents in.
As a member of the community of many websites, I cannot deny the fact that I do use it. However, what I observe on these websites is what this entire thread is about.
There is a very large majority of people on these piracy website use the system mainly as a means of acquiring a demo on steroids. They just want to see if the game is good before they go shell out $50 or $60. I personally can't blame them when I see games with a lot of hype around them come out for $50 with nothing but trailers and screenshots to show you what to expect, no demo what-so-ever. Then people buy it and find out it was really just overhyped crap and they are out $50 while a mass developer begins development on the next $50 pos.
The publishers more than the developers seem to care about this. They load down games with crazy DRM and security measures thinking they are fighting the pirates when really all they are doing is enabling them. Sure it might delay the cracking of a game by 2 or 3 days, but it's going to happen. The god of all crazy-ass DRM measures, the ones that came with Assassin's Creed 2 and other Ubisoft games that came out that probably prevented who knows how many people who bought the game from playing, only lasted one week.
But back to the point, what I have seen over the years is that piracy gives actually good games a chance. The best example of this is the STALKER series. When the first game released it was little known, and I don't even think you could buy it in the US or Europe for months. However, the game was on the piracy websites and floating around. People picked it up and played it, and they loved it. Soon there was so much hype about this unknown game that they made a US release of it and GSC got pretty damn rich off sales. Since there have been 2 games and both have sold well. Granted there are still people who just steal the game and don't pay for it, but most likely they would not have the money to pay for it in the first place.
Really when you think about it, if a game releases and it is good, but sales aren't so great, but piracy is high and people love it, if you make a sequel or good multiplayer for it, you can expect sales to skyrocket.
Piracy can be the ultimate means of advertisement if you actually make a good product. If you make a bad product you will find yourself blaming pirates for the sales and loading your game up with annoying DRM features which tend to do nothing but hurt the actual customers since the pirates remove it.
At the end of all this was what I saw earlier: a torrent for Minecraft. I was dumbfounded why anyone would pirate this game. I went in expecting to be angry with people and all I found was people talking about how they tried it and then had to buy it.
My message to Notch out of all this is for him not to attempt to fight the pirates, they will always find a workaround. Work with it, make SMP very alluring and let them do it. In the end it will help you if anything. I realize that in a way piracy is theft, but if someone is going to steal something, make it just shiny enough for them to enjoy, but make the one they didn't get even shinier.
I don't understand how naive people can be. Sure, you and one or 2 others had the intention of buying it but there are literally thousands who plan on never buying it and pirate it.
I don't understand how naive people can be. Sure, you and one or 2 others had the intention of buying it but there are literally thousands who plan on never buying it and pirate it.
I'm referring to the vast majority of comments I read. 99% of the people who pirate something with 0 intention of possibly buying it, never would have paid $60 for it in the first place.
I don't understand how naive people can be. Sure, you and one or 2 others had the intention of buying it but there are literally thousands who plan on never buying it and pirate it.
Sure, a thousand people might plan on never buying it and playing the pirated version, but there are potentially tens of thousands more who wish to legitimately buy it when they're satisfied.
You can't use the mindsets of pirates as an argument.
I have always been very intrigued by looking at things from a marketing perspective. One of the biggest subjects in gaming and on the internet that I have found most intriguing is the matter of piracy. One cannot deny that in some fields, piracy has done a lot of damage like in the area of music and movies. Since there seems to be so many threads about the subject I figure I will put my 2 cents in.
As a member of the community of many websites, I cannot deny the fact that I do use it. However, what I observe on these websites is what this entire thread is about.
There is a very large majority of people on these piracy website use the system mainly as a means of acquiring a demo on steroids. They just want to see if the game is good before they go shell out $50 or $60. I personally can't blame them when I see games with a lot of hype around them come out for $50 with nothing but trailers and screenshots to show you what to expect, no demo what-so-ever. Then people buy it and find out it was really just overhyped crap and they are out $50 while a mass developer begins development on the next $50 pos.
The publishers more than the developers seem to care about this. They load down games with crazy DRM and security measures thinking they are fighting the pirates when really all they are doing is enabling them. Sure it might delay the cracking of a game by 2 or 3 days, but it's going to happen. The god of all crazy-ass DRM measures, the ones that came with Assassin's Creed 2 and other Ubisoft games that came out that probably prevented who knows how many people who bought the game from playing, only lasted one week.
But back to the point, what I have seen over the years is that piracy gives actually good games a chance. The best example of this is the STALKER series. When the first game released it was little known, and I don't even think you could buy it in the US or Europe for months. However, the game was on the piracy websites and floating around. People picked it up and played it, and they loved it. Soon there was so much hype about this unknown game that they made a US release of it and GSC got pretty damn rich off sales. Since there have been 2 games and both have sold well. Granted there are still people who just steal the game and don't pay for it, but most likely they would not have the money to pay for it in the first place.
Really when you think about it, if a game releases and it is good, but sales aren't so great, but piracy is high and people love it, if you make a sequel or good multiplayer for it, you can expect sales to skyrocket.
Piracy can be the ultimate means of advertisement if you actually make a good product. If you make a bad product you will find yourself blaming pirates for the sales and loading your game up with annoying DRM features which tend to do nothing but hurt the actual customers since the pirates remove it.
At the end of all this was what I saw earlier: a torrent for Minecraft. I was dumbfounded why anyone would pirate this game. I went in expecting to be angry with people and all I found was people talking about how they tried it and then had to buy it.
My message to Notch out of all this is for him not to attempt to fight the pirates, they will always find a workaround. Work with it, make SMP very alluring and let them do it. In the end it will help you if anything. I realize that in a way piracy is theft, but if someone is going to steal something, make it just shiny enough for them to enjoy, but make the one they didn't get even shinier.
MINECRAFT FACTS: BIG LIST OF WHAT NOTCH HAS ACTUALLY SAID ABOUT THE PLANNED FEATURES OF MINECRAFT
I'm referring to the vast majority of comments I read. 99% of the people who pirate something with 0 intention of possibly buying it, never would have paid $60 for it in the first place.
Sure, a thousand people might plan on never buying it and playing the pirated version, but there are potentially tens of thousands more who wish to legitimately buy it when they're satisfied.
You can't use the mindsets of pirates as an argument.