Piracy - is it a dirty word?

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Originally Posted by Fivel

Come on Stef, you are really over simplifying it.

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I disagree, like I said before--piracy is the con-artist's greatest foe. If a product is bad, it won't sell nor does it deserve to, however much "effort" or shiny packaging and snake-oil sales pitches are put into it. Bad business management and a lack of understanding your market are the reasons (if what he says is even true) his company retrenched 55 folk. He's also working heavily on the assumption that those "pirates" would even have bought his product.

Sorry, piracy isn't to blame.

Spotted this post earlier on MyBB:

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Originally Posted by Valerion

Last month I saw an article on Torrenfreak that stated that Japanese officials have stated that piracy boosts sales of Anime.

http://torrentfreak.com/internet-pir...cludes-110203/

Being on torrentfreak, I decided to ignore it as possibly one-sided. However, today I came across a video by Neil Gaiman, one of the more respected comic book authors. And, as an artist himself, he would have a vested interest in finding the truth.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/0...lending-books/

In areas where his books are pirated more heavily (like Russia), his books sell better. So he decided to do an experiment. He took a book that's still on the shelves, and gave it away for free for a full month. The month after that, his sales of the book tripled in volume.

His argument is that piracy is the new way of advertising. If you have a favourite author, did you discover this author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book by someone you didn't know, or by being lent a book by someone else, then later on go and purchase the book?

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I think it's worth adding to this discussion.

Lycanthrope posted a link to this thread, and I quickly skimmed it. My thoughts:

I would not buy a new game sight unseen, unless I trust the development house. I like RPG's, so I tend to buy BioWare games. Even so, it took a friend of mine months to convince me to even look at Mass Effect, because of all the DRM EA had put into it. I liked the game and played ME2 as well. It took a long time for me to buy DA:O for the first time, due to exactly the same reason. I only bought it 2 months ago, and only because EA had a huge special running on it.

I bought Sins of a Solar Empire a long time ago, based on a demo version of the game. Without that I would never have even looked at the game. Yes, there were reviews, but I purchase perhaps 1 game every 2 or 3 months, so stay with the development houses I know. I ended up loving the game, and buying all the add-ons. And I started buying a few more games via Impulse.

Speaking of SoaSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire) - Stardock has said that they won't put any DRM on it, and they didn't. You can copy the game freely for your friends in a LAN environment, but you need Impulse to download updates. As such, anyone can buy the game. Here in SA it was on the shelves at Look and Listen for less than a week "Because people don't buy such games". Now, for a game with no protection whatsoever, it sold over 500,000 copies, with 200,000 in the first week of release. So, does lack of DRM ensure that your games will be pirated and you won't make a profit on it?

Incidently, this is also the last time I tried to buy a game in a games shop, since I had to (at great expense) purchse it via Have2Have anyway. I use them to browse what's available, but I decided to never buy from one again, if I can possibly help it. I only buy online now, via Steam and Impulse most of the time, though I have bought from the EA store as well. And if the games distributor feels I don't deserve to get it via Steam or Impulse (quite a few games are region-limited), then they and the games developer don't deserve my money either. Yes, this has caused me to lose out on nice deals (e.g. DA2 Signature Edition), but that's my choice at the end of the day and I stand by it.

To add to the discussion, it seems that a pre-release version of Crysis 2 has been leaked, source here: http://www.tweakguides.com/

Ly, you misunderstand my response to Stef....mis management will contribute to any companies down fall, but it is not that simple. Take for example development of a game, it can take between 1 and 3 years to complete, market, launch, ship, support etc. Let's assume a company is a startup and does not have existing capital resources like an EA, Activision, Blizzard et al.

You will need to find funding somewhere, either via venture capital or loans etc which you then you use to cover your development etc cost. You revenue stream is currently zero and will remain so until your game hits the market. As part of your business plan, you need to have projected sales, which would include an assumption on the level of piracy. If your piracy level is far higher than anticipated, your business model will fail - very little to do with mismanagement IMHO. I am assuming a good game here etc.

Is piracy the only reason the company failed - no, but it sure would have had a direct impact on the revenue stream and therefore the ability of the company to settle debts/meet obligations. Yes, my assumption is that piracy is a lost sale in this case, which is pretty much my world view.

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Originally Posted by Valerion

Lycanthrope posted a link to this thread, and I quickly skimmed it. My thoughts:

I would not buy a new game sight unseen, unless I trust the development house. I like RPG's, so I tend to buy BioWare games. Even so, it took a friend of mine months to convince me to even look at Mass Effect, because of all the DRM EA had put into it. I liked the game and played ME2 as well. It took a long time for me to buy DA:O for the first time, due to exactly the same reason. I only bought it 2 months ago, and only because EA had a huge special running on it.

I bought Sins of a Solar Empire a long time ago, based on a demo version of the game. Without that I would never have even looked at the game. Yes, there were reviews, but I purchase perhaps 1 game every 2 or 3 months, so stay with the development houses I know. I ended up loving the game, and buying all the add-ons. And I started buying a few more games via Impulse.

Speaking of SoaSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire) - Stardock has said that they won't put any DRM on it, and they didn't. You can copy the game freely for your friends in a LAN environment, but you need Impulse to download updates. As such, anyone can buy the game. Here in SA it was on the shelves at Look and Listen for less than a week "Because people don't buy such games". Now, for a game with no protection whatsoever, it sold over 500,000 copies, with 200,000 in the first week of release. So, does lack of DRM ensure that your games will be pirated and you won't make a profit on it?

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Sins is actually one of my all-time favourite examples of the futility of DRM, as is Minecraft, World of Goo and <insert successful and easily pirated indie game here>. They're also prime examples of how people with the intention to buy, regardless of easily-accessible free versions, will buy.

It's all about your market. When World of Goo first was released, I really didn't see the appeal at all. I pirated it, I loved it, I bought it (full price on Steam, nonetheless). I also support those humble indie bundles although, admittedly, there was only one game worth getting and another with potential in the last bundle, whereas the rest were largely rubbish I wouldn't have given a cent to. However, they piggybacked off of the demand for a successful indie game and made money from it.

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Incidently, this is also the last time I tried to buy a game in a games shop, since I had to (at great expense) purchse it via Have2Have anyway. I use them to browse what's available, but I decided to never buy from one again, if I can possibly help it. I only buy online now, via Steam and Impulse most of the time, though I have bought from the EA store as well. And if the games distributor feels I don't deserve to get it via Steam or Impulse (quite a few games are region-limited), then they and the games developer don't deserve my money either. Yes, this has caused me to lose out on nice deals (e.g. DA2 Signature Edition), but that's my choice at the end of the day and I stand by it.

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I don't really understand this paragraph :wtf:

You buy digital because...?

Oh, and welcome to MyGaming :D

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Originally Posted by Fivel

To add to the discussion, it seems that a pre-release version of Crysis 2 has been leaked, source here: http://www.tweakguides.com/

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Want to take bets on its success? :D

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Ly, you misunderstand my response to Stef....mis management will contribute to any companies down fall, but it is not that simple. Take for example development of a game, it can take between 1 and 3 years to complete, market, launch, ship, support etc. Let's assume a company is a startup and does not have existing capital resources like an EA, Activision, Blizzard et al.

You will need to find funding somewhere, either via venture capital or loans etc which you then you use to cover your development etc cost. You revenue stream is currently zero and will remain so until your game hits the market. As part of your business plan, you need to have projected sales, which would include an assumption on the level of piracy. If your piracy level is far higher than anticipated, your business model will fail - very little to do with mismanagement IMHO. I am assuming a good game here etc.

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I can't agree with you. No amount of piracy assumption (or piracy in and of itself) would affect sales negatively if it is a good game. The only time, I feel, piracy would affect sales negatively is if a game is bad. The only time a bad game would get "good" sales is if you put people in isolation so that they can't communicate with each other, write reviews, pirate, lend, borrow or otherwise share the experience and instead leave everything up to the box art.

Let's assume there's a developer who came up with a game of some sort. The only time his game sales would fail is if his SALES were far LOWER than he anticipated. You can't blame piracy for that if you consider that piracy isn't a lost sale.

A lost sale, in my mind, is a sale that would not happen because of:
Bad quality
Customer victimisation (DRM)
Counterfeit goods

Quality and DRM are the responsibilities of the developer and publisher respectively. Counterfeit goods are a lost sale because people who buy counterfeit (intentionally or unintentionally) generally won't buy again.

Piracy doesn't constitute a lost sale because people who pirate without the intention of buying, would never have bought in the first place; they'd find out or play some other way irrespective of piracy. People who pirate with the intention of buying, will buy regardless.

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Is piracy the only reason the company failed - no, but it sure would have had a direct impact on the revenue stream and therefore the ability of the company to settle debts/meet obligations. Yes, my assumption is that piracy is a lost sale in this case, which is pretty much my world view.

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Piracy is an excuse, a scapegoat. It is only part of the reason the company failed if their product couldn't meet quality expectations. You seriously want to tell me that a company of 55 made a decent product (there are successful game developers who have 12 fixed staff) that failed to find its target market because of piracy? I can't buy that.

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Originally Posted by Fivel

To add to the discussion, it seems that a pre-release version of Crysis 2 has been leaked, source here: http://www.tweakguides.com/

Ly, you misunderstand my response to Stef....mis management will contribute to any companies down fall, but it is not that simple. Take for example development of a game, it can take between 1 and 3 years to complete, market, launch, ship, support etc. Let's assume a company is a startup and does not have existing capital resources like an EA, Activision, Blizzard et al.

You will need to find funding somewhere, either via venture capital or loans etc which you then you use to cover your development etc cost. You revenue stream is currently zero and will remain so until your game hits the market. As part of your business plan, you need to have projected sales, which would include an assumption on the level of piracy. If your piracy level is far higher than anticipated, your business model will fail - very little to do with mismanagement IMHO. I am assuming a good game here etc.

Is piracy the only reason the company failed - no, but it sure would have had a direct impact on the revenue stream and therefore the ability of the company to settle debts/meet obligations. Yes, my assumption is that piracy is a lost sale in this case, which is pretty much my world view.

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I would still put that down to bad management, bad forecasting. Piracy levels haven't had a sudden surge, in fact a lot of the reports I have read is that software piracy % wise is actual down. To me its like the clothing industry blaming counterfeits for poor financial performance. To me in these 2 industries piracy and counterfeiting are 2 of the major risks you need to take into consideration.

Not saying piracy isn't a problem, it is a major problem. But for me its never the reason why a company fails, bad management of the risks are usually much more of an issue.

Don't agree with piracy = a lost sale. Some of it sure but a lot of pirates are just freeloaders who never ever had the attention to buy the product, they were never a potential sale.

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Originally Posted by Stefan9

To me its like the clothing industry blaming counterfeits for poor financial performance. To me in these 2 industries piracy and counterfeiting are 2 of the major risks you need to take into consideration.

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Well, counterfeiting is a problem. It's not like some poor family stitching the Fifa 2010 logo and the flag of their favourite team on their own shirts, pants, whatever--it's a bunch of people making money off of someone else's label/work by selling it as the real thing for much less.

I can't abide by counterfeiting. I see piracy as a library and to use Valerion's quote:

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Originally Posted by Valerion

If you have a favourite author, did you discover this author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book by someone you didn't know, or by being lent a book by someone else, then later on go and purchase the book?

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I found my favourite authors in libraries, some of my favourite games on badly-labelled discs and others in torrents.

That is what piracy is to me. Counterfeiting crosses the border that separates what is acceptable to what is undeniably criminal and irrefutably damaging to developers, publishers, authors, musicians and artists.

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Originally Posted by Stefan9

Don't agree with piracy = a lost sale. Some of it sure but a lot of pirates are just freeloaders who never ever had the attention to buy the product, they were never a potential sale.

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Agreed :)

Both are problems and both are risks in their specific industries that you need to be aware of and take measures to counter when entering those industries...

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Originally Posted by Stefan9

Both are problems and both are risks in their specific industries that you need to be aware of and take measures to counter when entering those industries...

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If you say that piracy isn't a lost sale then it is neither a problem nor is it a risk to your industry. If your industry attempts to turn pirates into buyers then it's only natural that your industry will end up with the short end of the stick.

I will agree that an industry like gaming, specifically, needs to adapt to realise that it cannot both fend off pirates and please customers simultaneously. It also needs to adapt to realise that pirates aren't their market.

Whenever I think of DRM, I think of the last time I purchased a book at Exclusive Books. Eventually, while reading, I got to a page with a large security tag sticker stuck onto one of the pages, obviously to set off an alarm if someone tries to leave without paying for the book. Legitimate customer, legitimate purchase, yet for all intents and purposes I paid full-price for damaged goods.

DRM is an offensive-smelling snake-oil sold to publishers by spindoctoring DRM companies. They're like those mongrel games in the humble-bundle piggybacking off of the success of other titles. Everyone knows DRM doesn't work, every customer in the world is offended by it to one extent or another, yet it's still implemented.

Piracy, really, isn't the problem. It's the pre-concocted bullshittery of how piracy damages and ruins everything under the sun that is the problem. Pirates don't end up with the short end of the stick, we do. Pirates also don't buy games, we do.

And yet modest sales are blamed on piracy. 5,000,000 sales on a PC but 10,000,000 on a console is blamed on piracy and not the fact that consoles are more easily accessible and readily available. The failure and misgivings of a company gets blamed on piracy.

It is my firm belief that if you want to convert pirates into paying customers then approach them. Don't threaten them, don't harass them, don't throw your toys out of the cot at them and don't drag your customers down on your infantile path of self-righteousness. Do what the Minecraft developer did, embrace it, appeal to them as people and make a success out of it.

As far as I'm concerned, that's the only legitimate countermeasure to take regarding piracy.

I can't put piracy and counterfeiting on the same page: one caters to the individual's personal intent and the other financially exploits the individual at the expense of the developer by a criminal.

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Originally Posted by Lycanthrope

I don't really understand this paragraph :wtf:

You buy digital because...?

Oh, and welcome to MyGaming :D

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It's completely off-topic, so I won't say too much about it. CD's and DVD's tend to scratch, I found. Also, since the distributors are afraid of piracy, they put all sorts of protection on (like StarForce), that also breaks legitimate applications. But what really got to me was the enforcement of what is popular. I can find a full shelf of The Sims, but a Sci-Fi RTS stays on the shelf for less than a week. If I ask for a copy to be ordered I simply get a shrug, "No one is interested in importing it into SA. You're out of luck." Try to get a 3/4 year old game from them.

On Steam all the old games are there, I can buy them at my leisure, without leaving my study. I can compare prices between editions, I can re-download the data if I manage to wipe my PC. It's often cheaper, even if you don't count the Steam specials.

Other than being able to hold a box in my hands, what benefit do I get from the brick and mortar stores that I have to fall in with their plans?

And thanks for the welcome :)