Game Dev Tycoon developers tried to hold up a mirror to the gamers that pirated their game, but a deeper level of promotion was actually on their mind.
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Video games development simulator Game Dev Tycoon now has an ultra difficult "Pirate Mode" where your software gets pirated.
Emulating the real world problem of piracy, this advanced option will see reduced sales on all of your games. "Bankruptcy is likely", you are told.
Where you put DRM into your games, don't stop piracy at all, piss off the paying customers, and then get hit with credit card charbacks from keys bought with stolen credit cards and sold on the grey market and what's what actualy damages your income?
Because that' what happens irl. The pirate who doens't buy the game was never going to buy the game, and the pirate who does isn't a lost sale.
It might not be a lost sale, but it's theft.
I don't know about you but if I spent hours making something and someone just stole it. I would be upset.
while that's true, piracy doesn't have the effect that people keep preaching and is a nice excuse for low sales. Pirates will download any hyped game just to see whats it like, or even sometimes just in case they want to later. Even bad games will get pirated a ton just so pirates can laugh at them.
@Kevnb
So you're saying out of the hundreds of thousands of people that pirate, compared to the millions that would buy games, that none of those pirates would end up buying a game if they couldn't pirate it? If piracy were in some way actually eradicated, you believe that sales of games wouldn't actually go up? Would all those pirates just stop gaming if they couldn't get it for free? That seems unlikely.
Piracy probably doesn't hit the bottom line as much as publishers claim, but it certainly does take away from the bottom line, because it's rediculous to assume that everyone that pirates is just a thief, and not a potential customer.
One can try to rationalize it any way they want, but piracy is theft, and it should be fought. Never should anyone just say, "well, no harm no foul, they wouldn't have brought it anyways". That's just giving power to the pirate, and doing nothing to stand up for the publisher or developer.
But it has no impact on sales. So it literally is not doing harm. The people who want to pay for it, will. The people who don't, won't. You don't suddenly convert pirates if piracy is impossible, they just don't play your stuff. Which can actually be a net negative, in the case that they'd decided they liked the pirated game and end up buying the rest of the games in the series instead of ignoring them.
Saying "it's theft" isn't an argument.
The same people who decry piracy will often go do stuff like buy keys on G2A, which are quite often bought with stolen credit cards, and because the developers get hit with charge backs on those sales that does *actual* damage. Not pretend, maybe maybe not damage, real damage.
except in the real world piracy doesn't have the effect that everyone keep preaching.
xD lmao that they thing think that piracy = lost sales too retarded, if i don't have the money or don't find it worth it i won't buy it. piracy makes it just possible to have it without paying.
not to mention pirates tend to download everything they have any slight interest in which makes the numbers look inflated, the truth is most people couldn't be bothered to pirate games.
Yeah, but not all pirates are like you. It's reasonable to assume that pirates would indeed buy games if they couldn't pirate them. Maybe not all, or maybe not the ones that they pirate, but they would buy software or quit gaming, or stick to F2P. Those are their only choices if they couldn't pirate a game.
Pirates are diverse in their reasons for pirating. But I see why too much pride from some pirates who boast about it as if they are somehow justified for theft.
While not everyone who pirates would buy the game if they didn't pirate, it's absolutely stupid to assume that everyone who pirates would not buy games if they couldn't pirate. That means that it does affect the bottom line. It may not be as much as the publishers say, but it is something.
Why are so many people willing to justify theft? If you don't have the money, don't play. If you don't find it worth it, don't pay. Don't just download it because you still want to consume the media....which you apparently don't find worthwhile enough to pay for, but find enough there to waste your time on it.
There are a number of flaws in your reasoning.
You assume that because someone pirates *some* games they pirate *all* games rather than pay for them. This is demonstrably false. Pirates (especially in wealthier nations) buy several times more games than the average consumer. This also unravels your second argument. Because Pirates tend to buy more games than anyone else, it's safe to assume if they couldn't pirate things they'd just ignore them, they *already* spend a lot of money on games and have no actual need to pirate.
See above. There have been studies. I'm not aware of any credible ones that suggest an actual profit loss of greater than 0.3% (without accounting for the pirates who become fans of the series and/or tell their friends about it and convince other people to buy the game btw.)
Something that isn't worth your money =/= something that isn't worth your time. I woulnd't pay for hollow knight because I'm pretty sure I won't like it, but I'd definitely try it for free if given the chance to see if I wanted to buy it.
There are flaws to all arguments on both sides of this issue because so many people tend to act like one anecdotal instance, tends to be indicative of the entire make up of people who pirate.
But when it comes to people who pirate, any of the reasons given exist within the spectrum. Common sense would suggest that a person who has played a game, particularly in full, is unlikely to buy it later. I know I fell into this category when I was a pirate. I used to be pretty active in the piracy scene, running forums where many gamers traded games constantly. I've seen all the excuses, and I knew enough of them well enough to know they were either full of sh*t, or they were more willing to buy games. I still brought a lot of games, but when I really got into it, I brought much less than I did before.
Yes, there are people who use piracy for demo purposes, or to get around annoying DRM, but from what I've seen, most just do it because they don't want to pay for games. That's why I think that the studies are not accurate. I don't think profit loss is anywhere close to what some of the devs or publishers claim, but I do think that they'd make more if people didn't have a choice except to buy, or not play. Again, that is just common sense.
In your hollow knight example, would you play the whole game and buy it if you liked it? If you would, I feel you fall into a minority of pirates
Anyhow, long comment made short, people have to stop looking at singular instances to make their arguments. Piracy has to be looked at from a whole and a wide spectrum. I don't condone piracy, but I'm find with people who buy a game, and then use the pirated version to get around DRM that causes it not to work. Or those who legitimately want to demo a game with intent to buy should they like it.
I cited studies, I'm not relying on anecdotes. So no, there isn't a flaw in my argument.
https://archive.is/X1n3O
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
https://torrentfreak.com/fi...
https://torrentfreak.com/fi...
https://www.techdirt.com/ar...
http://piracy.americanassem...
Common sense is a logical fallicy. It means "I think it's obviously true and there for it must be true and I don't have to prove it." and isn't a valid argument. You can't discredit the findings of studies with "common sense," properly measured stastics don't care about your feelings or vague ideas on what pirates do or don't do. They don't care about mine either. If you want to disagree with them, read them and point out where the flaws are in how the study was designed.
Because here's the thing, studies *by govenrmnet bodies with a vested interest in keeping the megacorperations who compalin about piracy so much* still can't find a credible link between piracy and lost sales. It's just not a thing. The people who pirate any given product tend to fall into 2 camps. Those who were never going to buy it anyways, and those who will buy it if they decide they like it. Yeah, there is a small subset that will simply never pay for anything that they can get for free, but that's not most of them.
Also, there is no actual difference between a pirated copy of a game and one sold second hand, as far as the publishers/developers ability to make money. Limited supply (at least in wealthy countries) for the second hand copies of the physical product is simply a non-issue so that rebuttal doesn't work, and that's really the *only* rebuttal. Sure you can create a hypothetical scenario in which someone is trying to sell a 30 million dollar album and there are only 3 in exsistance but a copy gets leaked online so nobody wants to buy the album anymore, but that doesn't not reflect reality with either physical or digital goods, these companies create millions of disks and they're regularly traded in, so much so that gamestop throws away big piles of them on a regular basis rather than waste storage space on them.
Studies based on respondants who already pirate, and will say that they would be willing to buy a game even though they pirate it.
Sorry, my own experience with most pirates is that they don't buy games they pirate. I've run BBS's and ran hubs where hundreds, if not thousands of pirates made their way through them each month. Most of them went there because they wanted free stuff. I knew some of them to be gamers, and they would buy games, but it was rare to find one that would buy a game after they play it.
That is enough of an anecdote to support my argument, because I know hands down that there are those that substitute buying games in favor of pirating. I always get a kick out of people that pirate and act like pirates are all of the highest moral caliber, or that people who are gamers wouldn't buy games if they couldn't pirate.
That is just illogical by any stretch of the imagination, regardless of what the studies show.
I don't dispute that publishers over-exaggerate the loss in sales, but I also dispute the pirates who act like there is a negligible loss to software sales because of piracy.
Anecdotes are irrelivant.
Even EU the EU government has done studies that can't find the link, and considering the EU government has laws against piracy and stand to risk losing lobying money from the corperations if hey change those laws they have an incentive to cheat and say it *does* hurt sales, and even they can't find a credible link.
I never said *all* pirates will end up buying the game. I'm saying the overwhelming majority (as in 95% or higher) who do pirate the game, either end up buying it or would never have bought it in the first place.
That piracy has a negligable impact on sales isn't an excuse, it's just a fact. Your anecdotes don't matter, and neither do mine. Your experience is irrelivant. The facts don't care about it. Your anecdote is not a substitute for a stastical analasis where all the data points are kept track of and so protected from your biases.
It's fine. I accept that many of them wouldn't buy the game regardless, because that lines up with my experience. I absolutely do not agree that many pirates end up buying the game. My experience in the pirating community just doesn't sync up with that. The vast majority just want free stuff that they aren't entitled to, and act like they only do it for demo.purposes. I have more respect for the pirate who is at least honest about being too cheap to pay for a game, because at least they're not muddying the waters
The overwhelmimg majority of pirates who just want free stuff *woulnd't have bought the game anyways.* They didn't care enough to pay for it, so they don't pay for it. Still no impact on sales.
There has been 0 link shown between decreased piracy and increased sales. None. Not in music, not in movies, not in TV, not in games.
Yes, but at some point, if the free software isn't available, that would mean that those pirates would have to buy games if they wanted to play. I may not make a difference for an individual title, but overall it certainly would. On top of that, the temptation is just too much for people who game, so they're going to buy something.
That's why the argument that pirates wouldn't buy anything isn't all black and white. I can't see millions of pirates suddenly just stop playing games. They would likely start buying them, and play less than they can through piracy.
They'd simply not buy it. Again, there have been studies. There is 0 link between decreased piracy and sales. They'll buy and play the games they were already going to buy and play. (Pirates by 7x as many games as non-pirates on average.)
You're operating on the assumption that if someone pirates the simply don't buy games. this is provably false. Most pirates by way more games than anyone else and have no actual need to pirate to play games. They pirate things they wanted to try out, or were never going to spend money on.
How can the studies show a correlation when there isn't any decreased piracy? The only way to study it is by using respondent data, and that requires people to be honest, which those same anecdotal people obviously not.
No.amount of reasoning can say that people simply would stop playing games if there was no piracy. It defies all logic.
As far as the rest, I'm operating on the assumption that the vast majority of pirates don't buy their games. I'm extending that to say that some, if not many, would end up buying some games if they couldn't get them for free. They wouldn't buy every game they'd pirate, but they would likely buy some, and with millions of pirates that adds up to an increase in sales overall, but maybe not any significantly measurable increase for an individual title
Consider that if even 5% would end up buying the game, for a game that has 100k copies pirates, that's 5k copies sold. Assuming the $60 price tag, that would end up being $30k. I dunno about you, but that's significant.
In celebration of Game Dev Tycoon's iOS release, developer Greenheart Games released update v1.6 filled with brand new content. The last major update to the game, until now, was in 2014.
I'm going to wager a guess that the same thing happens to Game Developers that happens to musicians.
Singer "A" Records Record "B". Record "B" Sells less then expected. Record lable takes their full expected share from the sales of Record "B". Then gives a small bit to singer "A" citing that Piracy has swalled all of the "Profits". Singer "A" then goes on a rant about how Piracy is ruining the business, while the Record Company throws more wood into the fire.
I'll wager the same happens between game developers and their publishers.
"While this experiment may have shown a high “piracy” rate for one day, it does not give the Greenheart devs A RIGHT to act AS THOUGH they are OWED for their WORK."
WHAT!?
A few problems with this article.
"I saw no plans by the devs to post the game on Gamestop Impulse, Indie City, The Humble Store, Beamdog, GamersGate, or any other service that deals with indie titles. This game was not being advertised well, despite all the venues out there for distribution."
That's a pretty big assumption right there. For all you know, they could have approached every single one of those sites and simply been turned down. There are thousands upon thousands of new indie games out there. These sites don't just simply launch every single new game that comes out. I've personally pitched one of my company's finished indie game to 4 or those sites you mentioned for distribution and only ever heard back from one, Desura. The answer was no.
It's irrelevant that they leaked the "cracked" version of their game. If they hadn't, someone else would have and the end result would have been the same, with the exception that the pirates would be playing the full version and not the "cracked" version they put out.
You're just splitting hairs here. What does it matter that the idea has been done before? You think this is the first game that has borrowed from another? And they simply blogged about their experience on their web site. 99% of indie blogs out there are completely ignored. There was no way they could have known that this experiment would catch the media's attention. I blogged about the 95% piracy rate my studio's last game was experiencing on Android, and it didn't attract any attention. They just went about it cleverly, but there was no guarantee that experiment would pay off for them.
What does it matter how they advertised, how they distributed distributed the game, or similarities to some other game? At the end of the day, two developers made a game that thousands were enjoying and only a handful had paid for. That's the cold, hard fact of the matter, and a fact that every single indie developer out there has to struggle with on a daily basis. You seem to have completely and utterly missed the point of this whole exercise. You're like the guy who says the rape victim was asking for it because she dressed provocatively.
If you don't think developers deserve compensation for their hard work when people enjoy their product, you have no business writing about video games.
It was pretty obviously a publicity thing. The article turned up on their own site days after release. Nobody in their right mind considered this a win against piracy. They uploaded the cracked version themselves to get their work mentioned on as many gaming sites as possible with only a little effort.
There's nothing wrong with that. It was a funny move. But I imagine there was a "proper" crack within hours.