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.
(# 0) on 08/05/2008 18:22
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.
(# 1) on 08/05/2008 18:26
(# 2) on 08/05/2008 18:37
(# 3) on 08/05/2008 18:38
Who gives a fuck.. so you can't go back and pirate an expansion to a game you already pirated. GTFO
(# 4) on 08/05/2008 18:42
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!
(# 5) on 08/05/2008 19:02
Also, buying a game does not make it a better experience. What crack do you smoke? The product is identical whether it's pirated or bought. You do not get a more complete game from the store than you do off of torrents. You do not extract more "fun" from some magic well you threw money into. That, Superhobo, is a psychotic issue I suggest you seek help on.
These responses so far do nothing but show how completely illogical and stuck up this kind of thinking makes people. You are not better than someone, just because your waste money. If that kind of thinking were true, Bush would be some form of being beyond any deity .
(# 6) on 08/05/2008 19:19
Wow, what color is the sky in your world?
(# 7) on 08/05/2008 19:34
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.
(# 8) on 08/05/2008 19:34
(# 9) on 08/05/2008 19:52
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.
(# 10) on 08/05/2008 19:55
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.
(# 11) on 08/05/2008 20:02
(# 12) on 08/05/2008 20:34
If piracy is bad, then how do you explain Valve, Blizzard, Nintendo, Capcom, Bethesda, Konami, and dozens of other companies, who are holding respectable chunks of my change? If it weren't for piracy, I'd have never bought most of their games that I did. I'd have just been a typical oblivious consumer, buying whatever had good reviews or pretty box art, which is so much more misleading than piracy is. Just because the irony is strong, doesn't make piracy a bad thing for the industry. I know I'm not alone. I'm not some special case. Most pirates are just like me; willing to buy what's good.
And hobo, I wasn't even talking to you in the last post. Should have been obvious. And yes, I'm familiar with two of those authors, and they are also quite overrated.
(# 13) on 08/05/2008 21:46