Just spotted this on the Puzzle Quest forum.
http://forums.infinite-interactive.com/showpost.php?p=13921&postcount=5
Is anyone else getting sick and tired of this argument yet? When are devs and publishers going to realize that pirated copies and downloads DO NOT EQUAL lost sales? Sorry, they don't. The vast, VAST majority of people who pirate games have no intention of buying the games in the first place. I pirated Puzzle Quest. And for the first 5 hours, I felt guilty because it seemed like a great game. Then it got very old, very quickly and I didn't play it anymore. I would have been annoyed if I paid for that. As I've said before, there have been times when I pirated surprisingly amazing games, and then rushed out and bought them. If it weren't for piracy, those developers would have never gotten my gaming dollar. I've done this about a dozen times. That's a dozen games I would have otherwise never purchased.
I mean, listen. There may have been a day where piracy was an actual issue (I can only refer to America here), but the fact is, the gaming audience has grown older, gotten jobs, and can easily afford video games. We're no longer at that stage when all the pirates are just 13 year old's who are leeching the latest warez via IRC Fserves so they can avoid begging their mommies to buy the game for them.
I'm also tired of the PC being specifically targeted as such an easily pirate-able medium. Who started this? These people clearly haven't played a PC game in the last 15 years. We no longer are asked to simply recite lines from the manual texts. Let's see the average PC user pirate a modern game. Try to explain what disc images, image mounters, virtual drives, drive maskers, sub-channel data and the like are. I dare you. The average PC user can't find the fucking MP3s I send them because they don't know what a "My Documents" is.
Console piracy on the other hand generally involves nothing more than installing the mod or exploit in the console for the average joe, and showing him what the "Copy Disc" button looks like in Nero. That's all there is to it. From that point on, he's got the hang of it. I'm not trying to promote console piracy, but honestly guys, it's not hard, and its not some super secret cult-like society. They're called soldering irons, and a lot of fucktards wield them.
I'm just angry because I also recently saw Capcom blame piracy for bad sales of the PC version of DMC4 as well. Ya know what might have helped sales, Capcom? If your legal demo actually booted on my machine. Instead it gives some complicated Direct X error and dies. Capcom didn't care, and ignored the issue many of us had, and guess what? A piracy group fixed their game for them. Lo and behold, after installing the cracked exe, TADAH! It runs. Hilarious. So no, you lost my sale. Tough luck. The pirated copy works better for me.
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The actual post doesn't say the expansion won't be released for PC, just that it won't be anytime soon. And if he has his way, it'll be free for existing owners of the PC game. Truly he is history's greatest monster.
Also, quit making excuses for stealing. It's not like I don't pirate myself occasionally, but I'm not trying to rationalize it into a positive thing. It's still stealing.
You are benefiting from someone else's work without compensating them. You aren't entitled to do that just because you can download a bit torrent client. You can argue that "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" or "If I like it I'll buy it" all day long, what you're doing is still wrong and hurts the industry far more than it benefits it. If piracy wasn't such a problem, we wouldn't have to deal with asinine publisher-forced DRM and copy protection schemes because they wouldn't be necessary. Also, your argument that console piracy is as easy or easier than PC piracy is ludicrous. Sorry, spending 10 minutes figuring out Nero or virtual disc programs is far easier than potentially fucking up a $400 piece of hardware with a soldering iron.
BAWWWWWWWWWWWW... pirate crybaby.
Who gives a fuck.. so you can't go back and pirate an expansion to a game you already pirated. GTFO
You are 80% wrong here, why? Because 80% of the people I know who pirate NEVER buy PC games. Also the argument that Puzzle Quest bored you after 5 hours is bullshit: You can fuckin finish Bioshock in that ammount of time, and that's damn well worth every euro I payed for it! I've pirated in my time, heck, I challenge you to find a PC gamer on here who hasn't and you know what I've found out? You DO get bored of these games more quickly. Why? Because you have no significant investment in them, you have no reason to push forward throught the boring parts. Take Blue Dragon, I would never have finished that game unless I had paid for it, it just dragged way too much in the first disc. Afterwards, however I was glad, it was well worth both the experience and the money.
The fact is that piracy DOES equal a huge loss of profit for PC developers, especially smaller independant ones, whether you feel like making excuses for yourself or not. People give out that there's a dearth of good games on the platform, and then when a good one comes out (i.e. Crysis) they pirate the fuck out of it and it only sells a couple of thousand copies!
It's illogical that I think products should be paid for if I use them? I'm stuck up because I think that copying and using something without permission of the rights holder who invested time and money into its creation is wrong?
Wow, what color is the sky in your world?
"Sorry kids, but Crysis, Bioshock, and Puzzle Quest were all extremely overrated games, and were not worth the cost at all"
Ah, I get it now, you're a bit special. Well, just like when the "special" kid next door walks in to the shop, grabs a bar of candy and walks out, I say: Let the kid steal, he doesn't know what he's doing.
Yeah I was raised "by the books": Palahniuk, Hunter Thompson and Irvine Welsh. If you don't know who those are, you don't have any right to talk about an anarchistic consumer point of view. I am an anarchist (actively so), but every single anarchist philosopher will tell you the importance of respect for another mans work. I respect the work that goes into every game I play, and though it may be a "victimless crime" to steal a piece of software (and I would argue that point), it still shows intense ignorance and lack of respect for the makers of these games.
I have no problem with things like emulation of older consoles etc, don't really care about that shit anymore, and re-releases only make money for the publishers. I just think that if I spend 2 years developing a game, I'm entitled to be paid if you decide to fucking play it.
No, you didn't explain why it's true. Making a digital copy of something without paying for it is still thievery, that argument has always been ridiculous. It doesn't matter if the original still exists, you're taking something you're not entitled to.
Morality is relevant to every aspect of your life, not just the people you interact with every day. The concept some people have that it's okay to rip off a big corporation is sickening. Companies are made up of people, who need to earn money to live just the same as you. Benefiting from their work without compensating them potentially hurts their lives and careers. Your copy might not make a difference alone, but when you factor in everyone else that shares your skewed mindset, it can ultimately cost people their livelihood.
There's obviously no getting through to you, you have your worldview and I have mine. You can continue to convince yourself that you're doing no wrong through piracy, and I'll know that the money I "waste" on games is going to help keep the industry going.
I'd like to see the PC sales numbers just for Steam. I really would. This isn't counting retail and other DD services, like GamersGate. Just Steam.