Does pirating really affect sales?
>does people having the option of getting something for free affect sales of that thing?
Several studies show that it doesn't have a significant effect on sales, while other, not quite related studies have shown that the biggest consumers also often tend to deal in a lot of piracy.
>>320728245
Of course they do. Faggots here will tell you ''but they werent going to buy it anyway!'' but thats bullshit because you have an option to get it for free and its super easy to do so a lot of people will go for that. Without the option to pirate people will eventually have to buy it.
not much since niche games don't get ripped and uploaded and AAA games are full of crap and still sellls buttloads
its just an excuse from big corporations to blame low sales
It negatively impacts games that have invested a bunch of money into marketing.
It positively impacts games that spend little to no money into marketing.
pirating greatly increases sales as its free marketing
Just a remind that minecraft is one of the most pirated games ever and still made a shitload of money
>>320728245
Basic mathematics says not paying for something probably decreases the amount of money it makes but in bizzaro /v/ land math is fake and piracy is good because I said so
Has there even been a single unbiased study about sales and piracy?
>>320728245
The dev of FTL said piracy helped his sales because of word of mouth.
>>320728992
itd be pointless anyway, people have x amount of money they can spend on luxury and it wont increase if piracy isnt an option
It doesn't really matter. Regardless of the facts, a lot of companies are lobbying for increased copyright powers because the ones that exist are already strong enough to offer bizarre and terrible leverage over the consumer, and they'd like a lot more.
Everything is becoming electronic and starting to run on software, so everything is starting to get locked off by DRM, and DRM is presently a federal crime to crack. That means that one day, if your thermostat breaks, it'll be a felony to have anyone other than a bran-specific technician to come and look at it. They'll be able to leverage copyright to do a lot of shitty things to consumers, and gaming companies aren't the only ones that one that ability to broaden.
>>320728987
Yeah, and basic mathematics also says that it should be easy to model and manipulate the stock market.
But neither piracy/sales or the stock market are machines of math. They're machines of hype and human emotion. It's not as simple as 1+1 = 2. It's 1 + 1 and john feels guilty and mary wasn't going to buy it anyways and jack is a nice guy = 2
>>320729152
I was about to say that's ridiculous and nobody would ever agree to use products like that, but then I remembered there are plenty of people stupid enough to pay Home Owner's Association fees or buy property tied to HOAs.
It only hurts profit margins cause they spend so much on advertising that word of mouth no longer does anything because everyone's already heard of the thing.
>>320728987
The issue is more complicated than basic maths. Piracy isn't good, but it's not all bad either.
People who pirate games may not contribute to a sale directly, but if they like the game, they can tell others about it and thus contribute to someone else buying the game.
see
>>320728815
>>320729086
>>320729416
The trouble is first devs have to make a game worth recommending to others. The only devs that really get a stick up their ass about it are the ones that get eviscerated by user reviews.
Probably not. They weren't going to purchase it anyway.
I mean, if a friend lends me a game (or I pirate it) and I like it, I'll go buy my own copy. If it's garbage, I won't.
>>320728245
Did you have any intention (and disposable income) to buy the game if you couldn't have pirated it?
If yes, then it did affect sales.
If no then it didn't affect sales.
If you bought it because you enjoyed the pirated version so much, then it did affect sales, but in exactly the opposite direction.
Since the industry has no interest in giving accurate numbers for case 2 and 3 you will never know which one is true.
Pirating killed the PSP
>>320729416
its kinda like when jap copyright holders who make most of their money from selling physical stuff are really anal about youtube content and you just wonder why do they hate free advertising
>>320729494
Well, that's just another positive point for piracy, don't you think?
>>320729635
PSP literally got a new game this week
>>320729318
It's a matter of Darwinism, really. A coffee company installed DRM on their coffee machines and programmed it only to accept a special kind of filter made by their company. People who altered the coffee machine to take other brands of coffee were committing a felony. In that case, the consumer lucked out because sales plummeted 25% and the company had to print an apology.
But while a coffee machine is one thing, a tractor is another - that's an expensive piece of machinery you invest in, and you can't just up and buy another tractor if the one you got breaks down after a year and turns out to be restricted by DRM. Farmers spent ages lobbying to get tractor repairs exempted from the DMCA laws, because for a decade and a half now it's been illegal to let anyone but a certified brand technician look at them. They finally got that exemption, but farming has strong lobbies behind it.
Everything is getting to be electronic, though. A lot of things may not need to become electronic, but that's the direction life is going, and laws like the DMCA are going to fuck all our wallets something fierce.
Inevitably, companies that don't abuse the DMCA won't be competitive with companies that do, and when that day comes, copyright abuse will be a standard practice.
"Piracy is the result of poor service." - Gabe Newell
>>320729663
Speaking of Jap copyright holders, piracy of anime and manga is in large part responsible for its popularity in the West.
>>320729679
Yes. Piracy is good for the consumer because it allows them to know what they'll be spending their money on. The current state of the market is to convince consumers to gamble with their money in the hopes that they'll get the product they actually want in return.
>>320729635
Vita has a worse library than the PSP and has no piracy.
In fact, looking at handhelds (GBA, DS, 3DS, PSP, Vita) ease of piracy seems to correlate with better library.
>>320728245
maybe
>>320729829
Of course. The better library a system has, the more interest people have in cracking them.
It's case specific. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it helps sales because word of mouth.
If I made DRM for a game, I'd make it so that if you didn't have an account, all loading screens would display a crying anime girl. Any time the screen faded out, you'd see a crying anime girl. In the credits, if you have an account, the girl says she loves you, but if you don't, you see her hanging herself. Nobody would pirate the game.
>>320729635
PSP is a very underrated system. It's like a portable PS1+PS2 with its own unique games on top of that and with modding you get even more games.
>>320729726
What a scary future. Is there anything we can do?
>>320729726
>altered the coffee machine
All they did was tape a legit Keurig cup top to the sensor. Some DRM.
>>320728669
You know people can be interested in a game and still decide to not buy it for many reasons right?
>>320730029
Except pirated copies of games typically remove all traces of DRM where possible. If it's hard-coded into the game, the pirated copy would likely trick the game into thinking you are on a real account.
>>320730029
There's some lines you shouldn't cross, even in the name of defending your income source. You sir, have napalmed that line and then pissed on the ashes.
>>320728245
If I like the game I'll usually buy it.
So in my case, no, but the ease with which Fallout 4 can be pirated has definitely hit its Steam sales.
>>320730029
Unless you have a very expensive way of encrypting data, people would just patch the game and make the program think it's actually phoning home.
>>320730247
Yet it's still on the very top of the Top Sellers list, so I don't think they're hurting.
>>320728736
but they do if anything niche genres suffer more because their consumers are tech savy, sure the links die torrents die eventually but that is for the same reason, no one with a brain seeds.
>>320730134
I know that shit was easy to do, but man, the point is that it was a felony. If Keurig had been a bunch of real assholes they could have had people thrown in prison for that. If you remember the days that Disney used to sue orphanages, that is a goddamned terrifying amount of power.
>>320730110
I dunno. I'm not sure what wealthy interests are lobbying against copyright expansion. Google maybe...? There are special interests out there, but they're small fries.
>>320728245
What boku no pico is this?
>>320728669
with no piracy and no free demos
people would have to trusth on /v/ or friends advice, cus who the fuck belive what journalist says
so everyone will end playing and buying the same games
a very little bunch would adventure to buy something new
poiracy is kinda necesary , so you can tell wich games you want
cus imo, watchin a video on twitch is not enough
Probably a little.
I assume like 10% of sales are lost to pirates.
But ironically aggressive DRM costs more than those lost sales and harms the legit consumers.
>>320730478
Nobody knows.
>>320730029
It needs to be voiced to make it have a real impact. "P-please buy my game." Some people will find it annoying and others will be guilted.
>>320730478
Desu!
![[HorribleSubs] Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic - 01 [720p].mkv_snapshot_09.29_[2015.05.09_23.43.12].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/OoDtamx.jpg "[HorribleSubs] Hello!! Kiniro Mosaic - 01 [720p].mkv_snapshot_09.29_[2015.05.09_23.43.12].jpg")
>>320728245
In some cases - yes, in other cases - no.
Mind you, OP, affects of pirating can be both negative and positive.
>>320730478
Boku no mosaic
>>320730478
colourful tiles
>>320728806
can be true
>>320730478
Kiniro mosaic.
>This hasn't been posted yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI
>>320728806
If that were true, then demos wouldn't negatively impact sales.
>>320730367
>Disney used to sue orphanages
I don't care, I pirate because I can
>>320729923
Psp was pirated early on before it got that library
>>320731225
Demos only hurt sales when they prove the game is shit.
>>320730029
I would pirate that game desu senpaibut I probly wouldn't have bought it in the first place either
>>320731281
http://www.snopes.com/disney/wdco/daycare.asp
He might be talking about this incident.
>>320731225
Tell that to Undertale
Only shitty games get their sales negatively affected, because it shows the game for what it is and disregards all the hundreds of millions spent shilling the latest AAA overhyped garbage
>>320731225
today demos tend to lie a lot about how it is the game and are behind a paywall
>>320731281
You didn't hear about that? I can't remember the guy's name, but for a while Disney had a complete dick as one of their higher-ups and he made news when he sued an orphanage for painting Mickey Mouse on one of their walls without paying royalties to Disney.
The average company tries not to nail themselves with that kind of bad PR. Keurig probably didn't want people to associate their brand with being thrown in prison, but every now and then a corporation will be run by a real piece of work and that person might be willing to pull the trigger on orphans. These days, if you tell people how to circumvent DRM to make your stupid coffee machine accept other brands of coffee, you're rolling the dice and hoping that company's CEO isn't a sick fuck of some sort.
>>320731727
You americans have coffee machines that block the use of certain brands of coffee?
How does that jew shit even works?
>>320731727
You remembered the incident completely wrong. It wasn't an orphanage first off and secondly Disney had no choice but to pursue the case because it was a blatant trademark violation.
You have to make an active effort to protect your IP or you can lose the rights to it permanently. You don't have to protect copyrights but trademarks and patents will lapse if you just let everyone use them. The entire purpose of trademarks and patents is to prevent other people from utilizing your IP to create knockoff products. If you don't ever protect your IP then there's no reason for them to exist.
of course it does, but answer me this. Do you seriously believe that DRM or other anti-piracy measures have ever positively affected profit?
>>320732148
Well it didn't. It cost them a ton of sales and they had to stop doing it, but the coffee machine was designed to only take one brand of coffee filter, and if you're savvy on US copyright law it was a felony to trick the machine into taking other brands. Of course people broke the law anyway and Keurig didn't ask for any arrests, but this is what happens when you let companies write their own regulations.
I don't know where you're at, but if it's in Europe or any Asian country wrapped up in the TPP, I hope you realize these same laws are coming to your nation in the future.
>>320730180
So? They should buy it and resell it if they don't like it like everyone else.
>>320732163
Also Disney didn't actually have to sue anyone Universal Studios chipped in and offered to have their characters painted over the Disney characters. No one was harmed.
>>320731225
That is a good thing. If trying the game makes you not want to buy it then the game shouldn't make any money anyway.
>>320732464
Ah, well that's good.
Still, Disney had a reputation for being super litigious back then. They still kind of are, but you just hear about it less. They're one of the big reasons we expanded copyright just recently, because Mickey Mouse's copyright was due to expire soon.
Ask yourself this
If piracy was not never an option (ignore the impossibility of this) would you just go without playing/viewing/using ALL the shit you have pirated over your life time?
If you say "Yes", you're probably a fucking liar.
Personally I don't really care. I pirate all the games I can because I don't want to spend money on shit that I can get for free. There have been a few games that I have purchased simply because I could not find a good torrent or the online component was important enough that I was willing to spend money, so I believe that piracy most certainly plays a role in deciding whether someone will buy a game or not.
>>320728245
Nope. They're free advertising and the people who pirate games and never buy them only make up something like 1/10th of all vidya players.
DRM on the other hand, is pure cancer and actually hurts sales AND consumers.
This is fact.
>>320731727
>orphanage
they were daycare centers
>>320730497
Criminal please
Most people wouldn't know that a koala is pretty nasty, but you wouldn't pirate a koala just to find out, would you?
>>320731727
>>320732783
>sued
They didn't sue. It was a daycare center and they sent them a letter telling them to take the mural down. They did, and nothing happened after that.
It's impossible to prove anything unless we can observe an alternate universe where the same game is released with different DRM policies.
>>320728245
Who cares about sales for a company like EA or Ubisoft? If i'm bored i'll pirate one of their games, try it and inevitably hate it because i always do. If i end up liking it, i might buy it just because i can.
I am not going to pay them money when there is a very big chance the game will be ass.
I don't pirate indie games though, that feels wrong.
>>320732239
I actually think CD keys may have helped improve sales, at least for some games.
I've seen so many people buy (admittedly cheap) new copies of Blizzard games in the past because they lost or misplaced their CD key, before you could register them on your Battle.net account.
One friend of mine has bought at least 5 copies of Diablo 2+ LoD.
Matters what game is being pirated.
With Danganrona, thanks to the fan translation spike found out there was an western audience for Danganronpa. Thus they sold 400,000 copies with DR1&2.
This is a case where pirating caused the company to gain money.
>>320732664
The thing is Disney really doesn't need to protect Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, etc because those are all trademarked. The copyrights assigned to Disney are for the films, cartoons, merchandise, etc of those characters. The copyrights on most of those should have lapsed a long time ago. Disney is basically robbing the public domain of information and cultural items. I think the biggest "pirate" is probably Disney and they recently acquired Marvel comics and Star Wars too.
>>320728245
>Does pirating really affect sales?
Yes
On a direct scale?
Maybe 10-45% off total sales
On an indirect scale?
Close to 90% of the total unique pirating downloads
Neets and poorfags can't afford to buy expensive video games so they wouldn't buy it either way, problem here is that pirating lets them get their gaming fix absolutely free and thus eliminates the need for them to get a job and work for money. Making it a infinite cycle of neetdom and piracy that affects both the players and the game devs in the long run.
On rare occasions pirating manages to give free publicity and increases the effective sales of a game but they are so rare that its not a legit argument. Overall piracy is a huge loss for the industry on a macro level.
I told a undermeme fanboy that i pirated the game.
Later i got death treaths.LOL
>>320732845
You can bet your ass people would pirate food if it was possible. And in your case, people would sure as hell pirate various animals not only for food, but for a variety of reasons, keeping them as pets, maybe help repopulate an endangered species, etc.
>>320733320
many many many entertainment products nowadays are completely free and make their money from 1% of whales, not being able to pirate would not make neets suddenly get jobs
>>320732991
I got AC: Syndicate for free as part of a promotion, so I didn't have to pirate it to try it out, and I'm genuinely enjoying the game.
That being said, I haven't really played many AC games, so I guess I haven't experienced the franchise fatique that so many others have.
>>320733331
The fanbase is indeed shitty. That being said, Mega links were spread happily among the fans of the game here on /v/ the first few weeks before the shitstorm started.
>>320732239
That kinda seems like it would be very difficult to control for and measure statistically. I think any answer you get is going to be based more on the answerer's opinion of piracy than anything else.
>>320733331
lol
This game probably wouldn't have spread as far as it had without file sharing. /v/ barely ever talks about generic indie pixel games unless they're cave story
>>320733575
Doesn't matter, they should get jobs anyway. We have to build the best DRM possible, a wonderful DRM that doesn't affect performance but is unbreakable. It will be sad if certain good people can't try out a game first because they're really unsure, but piracy has been really bad and they're just gonna have to get a job.
>>320733575
>not being able to pirate would not make neets suddenly get jobs
put a pay wall on everything that isn't funded by ads and I bet it would
only thing that would stop them would be the local job market
>>320734008
>Cave Story
>Generic indie pixel game
>>320732682
Yes, faggot
I've pirated millions worth of stuff, and i'm not a multimillionaire that could afford it all
>>320734060
>It will be sad if certain good people can't try out a game first because they're really unsure
EA has a money back guarantee if you buy it on Origin so that shouldn't be an issue anymore.
>>320734093
well in the end digital products can be copied infinitely, copying will happen forever and will incentivize neethood
>>320734242
Nice reading comprehension, retard.
I wrote "ALL" in capital letters to emphasize that you do not need to choose between playing all the games or none of them. People who do not pirate simply purchase their games and end up playing fewer games than a pirate would.
>>320734620
How is that relevant, you buttblasted faggot?
>>320728245
>if I pirate it I'll buy it, I swear!!!
>>320734132
Yeah I went too far with the "generic" part, cave story is actually good and not generic at all. I just meant indie pixel games.
>>320734931
I think that literally only did that twice. And it was mostly because I wanted it on a system I couldn't pirate it on.
>>320728245
Yes. I've bought games like Mount and Blade after pirating them and realizing they were well worth it. Of course you're going to lose some sales, but you're also opening yourself to a market that would have never considered your product. In this age without demos and full of shitty reviewers, buying a game at full price has become riskier. Some people are just going to take it, of course, but it's delusional to think every one of them would have paid full price. They're only trying it because they don't have to invest as much.
>>320734931
sometimes I pirated games I owned coz of the drm and other issues
>>320735284
I do this all the time. Lots of older games are just fucked with that shit, I've got all the CDs and archaic CD drive installed and its telling me to call a hotline that doesn't exist anymore. I don't even bother now I go straight to pirating if I want a hassle free playtime.
>>320734931
Used to say this all the time until I got a job at a gamestore
>Would buy peoples used games for like $1-$10
>$20-$25 on brand new titles
>Sometimes just took them to GameStop for even more money
>Tell people a lower amount than actual buyback value
At least I'm not one of those filthy pirates though
>>320734931
a lot of the games I own since circa 2006 I pirated first, either that or I buy the base game and pirate the DLC like I did with the latest for CK2.
Same with music, I download an album, listen to it once, if I find myself enjoying it and listening to it often I go buy it.
I would have boughtfallout 4,
thank god it didnt use denuvo.
>>320734931
That's the only reason I bought tropico 3. I probably wouldn't have even played it otherwise.
I pirate games that i don't even want to play
I'm pure evil
>>320728669
>Faggots here will tell you ''but they werent going to buy it anyway!'' but thats bullshit
But I truly would not have bought it anyway. Sick of faggots here telling me what I would and wouldn't have purchased.
>>320734807
>I've pirated millions worth of stuff, and i'm not a multimillionaire that could afford it all
>>320734931
Literally the only game I did this with was STALKER CoP because the fan made English patch came out before the official translation. I intended to buy it from the start, so it doesn't really count.
I seriously doubt that any of the people who claim to do this actually do it on a regular basis. They probably just come up with some excuse to rationalize not purchasing games.
>>320734931
>>if I pirate it I'll buy it, I swear!!!
If I like it, sure. If it's on sale, even better.
>>320728669
>Without the option to pirate people will eventually have to buy it.
No, they just wouldn't ever buy it. Piracy is free advertising.
>>320728245
yes
http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/
>tl;dr, they made a game about game development
>released a torrent themselves where they make all users ingame lose money due to pirates
>everyone pirates it and complains that their ingame company always goes bankrupt due to piracy
it's fucking hilarious
>>320728669
>people will eventually have to buy it.
Then they buy it second hand and the people that made the game don't see a red cent from that sale.
>>320731727
>>320732163
>>320732783
>>320732930
Amazing stuff. But think about how many characters, artwork and all that stuff is just lifted straight up. I live in Malta and people plastering disney characters or using likenesses for their own ends is commonplace. Hell, there's plenty of local shows on TV that use movie soundtracks for action-y shows because they're suitably "epic" like the Pirates of the Caribbean. I've even seen shows that use music for MGS3 and FFX because people think "Action-y theme goes well with treasure hunt show / soft piano theme is good for fundraising for children show".
Copyrights are trampled willy-nilly and realistically you can break as many as you want as long as you're small-time enough to not attract bigname attention (and if you live in a foreign country or one without much of a footprint at all like mine, you can be the government and do it freely)
>>320734931
I have done that, though
I'm sure others have and will continue to do so
>>320737269
>all users ingame lose money due to pirates
I hope they know that isn't how it works.
>>320737269
If they hadnt uploaded it into a torrent site themselves they would have had absolutely 0 piracy. Not a single scene group was interested in cracking it because it's a shitty clone of Game Dev Story.
That whole "tricking the pirates" thing was made only so that they could write an article about it and how they're "victims of massive piracy" because nobody was villing to pay for their shitty flash game. And thanks to idiots like you they multiplied the number of copies sold.
>>320737269
I think they lost quite a few sales to piracy since they weren't on Steam or Origin as well.
Dealing with multiple separate accounts and launchers is annoying.
>>320728669
>have no money
>can't buy vidya
>can pirate vidya
How is that a lost sale faggot?
Yes, piracy has a positive effect on sales because I don't buy games I can't try beforehand.
>>320728245
>http://www.1up.com/news/nintendo-piracy-blame-50-percent
Yes it does, the Nintendo DS in Europe is the best example because while it was still selling 10s of millions of hardware every year the software sales halved in Europe.
If all these new buyers were just pirates the sales should have stayed constant. But easy piracy through the R4 card made people who were originally buying games just stop. Piracy turning previously paying customers into pirates. A lot of games that were just as good actually sold less than their GBA versions despite the fact the userbase was twice as big because of this.
>>320728245
Yes but not as negatively as people think
If your product is shit then it's not going to help, but if it's great that word will spread and more people will buy it out of respect
>>320738486
see >>320733320
>Neets and poorfags can't afford to buy expensive video games so they wouldn't buy it either way, problem here is that pirating lets them get their gaming fix absolutely free and thus eliminates the need for them to get a job and work for money. Making it a infinite cycle of neetdom and piracy that affects both the players and the game devs in the long run.
>>320728245
I pirate everything before I buy it.
If I dislike it, I wont complete it, if I've completed it or played at least half way in & enjoyed it, I'll purchase it.
I'd say that's positive right? As I'd never have bought any of the games I've played without first trying them, the only times this doesn't occur is if it's a multiplayer only title, then I just do my research.
>game dev simulator comes out
>devs release a pirated version of the game
>after the first week, 90% of the people that are playing a version of the game are playing the pirated copy
>>320738642
Thats wishful thinking anon.
If people were so easily swayed to think that they liked a game, they had to purchase it, it would be one thing.
But 75% of pirates will just go: "Well, I have it anyways, so why pay for it now?"
>>320738642
Unless its a niche genre in which case the more tech savvy audience its aimed at can destroy it through piracy regardless of how good it is.
FFIV DS was much better but sold a lot worse than FFIIIDS which released before the peak of R4 use. Piracy isn't going to hurt CoD, Pokemon, Mario Kart or indie games that would have sold 0 copies otherwise but it does hurt things inbetween
>>320738961
Because 3 has better gameplay
>>320729786
>"Piracy is the result of poor service."
more like
>Piracy is the solution for poor people
>>320739201
Now there's an opinion I've never seen
I actually liked 3, but people are overall not too fond of it
>>320739278
You either like job ff or not but yeah 3 destroys 4 in the game play department. There's nothing really special about 4
>>320739259
both are right
Steam doesn't compress games so rather than wasting by bandwidth and my time with a 50 GB download I wait two days fore a 10 GB repack.
Same way I don't want to instal Origin or Uplay bloatware so I pirate their games.
>>320738961
Jrpgs are not a fucking good example of this because to the rest of the world and not your week point of view no one give a fuck about them. They're a fucking dime a dozen and most of them feel exactly the same to people who aren't autistic.
>>320728245
It increases them by raising awareness of the product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI
>>320739470
It's the #1 genre on steam
>>320739470
> to the rest of the world and not your week point of view no one give a fuck about them.
That was my point, niche games get effected the most by piracy because they need all the sales they can get because the audience is narrow and word of mouth isn't as effective for them as a resut.
>>320739760
Days of Ruin sold better than Dual Strike.
Your example is awful.
>>320738958
If that's the thought process, then it want worth your money to begin with. It's only after people actually spend money on most games that they try to rationalize and justify the money spent because they can't get it back now anyway.
The reason why pirates are so jaded is because if you got every game for free you'd get to see every game for what it was actually worth. It's the same reason why movie critics blast everything that comes out these days.
>>320739660
>it's the number one genre on a drm where weebs are literally forced to justify their purchases
Wew lad you sure got me
>but muh refunds
Yeah this coming from faggots who regularly tell people "it gets good after 10 hours!"
I'd say yes
I was hype for Guilty Gear and I would've dropped the cash in an instant but why spend money when I can not.
And I'm not even poor
Same with everything else I don't need online for
On consoles I don't pirate because muh nostalgia
>>320739760
Days of ruin was fucking awful, anon.
How do you pirate android games
>>320740478
Steal credit cards, buy play store gift cards, purchase games with gift card money
>>320731225
I bet steam free weekend sure affects publishers salespositively
>>320728245
Yes, but not nearly as much as the industry wants you to think.
I'd guess (based on nothing of course) that around 40% of pirates would buy the copy of the game otherwise, but the rest wouldn't.
And there is the issue of those who pirate and actually buy the games they like, so the situation is very complex.
>>320740478
buy game
copy .apk
refund
or just google the .apk
Using a service that is intended to be paid for for free is wrong. Some poor dev out there is struggling to pay rent in his San Fransisco loft and you are depriving him of that. Go to jail, thief.
>>320740478
Dev options> install from non play store sources
Download apk off the internet, put in phone, run.
Keep in mind it doesnt work for some apps.
>/v/ defending business that doesn't care about them only their money spent on their terrible games
>>320741367
>Some poor dev out there is struggling to pay rent in his San Fransisco loft
DAMN YOU SCHAFEEEEEEEER!
Be righteous so you can go to heaven, anon
>>320741720
piracy is righteous prove me wrong
protip:you can't because it's an opinion and combatting such retardetry isn't worth the time anyway
>ZR pirate
HOLY SHIT MUH DIK
>>320741898
>prove me wrong
It's a property that is for sale and you're benefitting from it in a illegal way that's akin to theft
I don't think it's theft, but I also do not think it is moral, neither do you, even tough you may insist
Come on anon, a few shitty games shouldn't keep you away from the actual good games in heaven
>>320728669
>dine and dash
>I wasn't going to eat here anyway
They're delusional, don't even try. Piracy has made the PC audience so used to getting everything for free that they've got it in their head that it's okay to steal everything and decide if they want to pay later. The concept of just not fucking playing it doesn't cross their minds, they don't understand.
Vidya piracy has been around for as long as commercial vidya has been available, something like 30 odd years. If it hasn't killed it in that time, it doesn't look like it's going to any time soon.
Seriously, one negative to happen to the industry because of piracy. No, DRM doesn't count because that was an attempt to prevent a threat that wasn't there.
>>320742038
you literally cannot prove an opinion wrong though
>Anons pirate
>they go to hell
>the moment they are going to hell they get a glimpse of heaven
>a game is releasing, a pc game
>Dark Messiah 2
>>320742038
>you're benefitting from it in a illegal way that's akin to theft
Both the US legal system and the dictonary say otherwise.
>>320742328
You do know it in your heart
God tests hearts
>>320742219
>>320742291
You a man of the cloth? If not you're wasting your talents. You're a real firebrand.
>>320741574
Reminder that /v/ is the only board that does this, no other interest board on 4chan gives a flying fuck about piracy and "lost sales" killing their industy including /a/, /co/, /tv/, /mu/, /tg/, and so on.
/v/ does though because they're so unbelivably cucked by this fucking industry retards like >>320742058 and >>320733320 spout absolute nonsense to defend companies that couldn't give a fuck about them.
>>320742683
I can see that lust for Dark Messiah 2 already anon
>>320742793
I'll delete my torrents and say 50 hail Gabens. Maybe it's not too late for me.
>>320733320
>>320738729
>Overall piracy is a huge loss for the industry on a macro level.
>Close to 90% of the total unique pirating downloads
>Maybe 10-45% off total sales
>Without the option to pirate people will eventually have to buy it.
There is no loss when someone "steals" a game because it isn’t one less copy you can sell, it is potentially one less sale but that is irrelevant. Everyone in the world with an internet connection and a form of online payment is a potential buyer for your game but that doesn’t mean everyone in the world will buy your game.
Loss due to piracy is an implied loss because it is not a calculable loss. You cannot, with any accuracy, state that because your game was pirated 300 times you lost 300 sales. You cannot prove even one lost sale because there is no evidence to state that any one person who pirated your game would have bought your game if piracy did not exist. From an accounting perspective it’s speculative and a company cannot accurately determine loss or gain based on speculative accounting. You can’t rely on revenue due to speculation, you can’t build a company off of what will “probably” happen. Watch “The Smartest Guys in the Room” and see how that worked out for Enron.
>>320742058
>compare buying/pirating a product to eating at a resturant
>implying I don't pirate on consoles
The only one fucking delusional here is you.
"The concept of just not fucking playing it" that's really all this is about to you. You faggots love to claim pirates just want free shit while morally grandstanding and spouting hamhanded economics, but at the end of the day you just are pissed that others people get to play games for free.
piracy = buying used
except with piracy nobody is getting money instead of some guy
>>320741367
>Some poor dev out there is struggling to pay rent in his San Fransisco loft
Maybe they should move somewhere else that isn't as expensive. You can make a game anywhere.
>>320732148
huh, so that's where the image is from, nice.is it porn?
Piracy is the jaywalking of internet crimes. You're a fucknugget if you complain about muh lost sales or muh stealing
Answer me this shills, how come modern AAA devs don't do DEMOS anymore?
and also answer me why they waste 60% of money on marketing.
>>320728245
I only pirate after the game's been out for more than a year.
>>320744604
Because then we'd see how bad their games are
I honestly can't think of a single other reason for the overall loss of short demos
>>320735284
I pirate literally every game I own because it doesn't have draconian aids attached to it.
>50GB Steam release
>20GB Repack
>Starforce, Steam DRM, etc
>No DRM
Man what a hard ass choice.
>>320728669
I also suppose gun control will completely stop all forms of gun crime, right?
>>320728245
I know a lot of people that only buy games used and rent. Used sales and rentals as well as lending are just as bad as piracy. with used sales it also shows that they were willing to pay, the original company still gets nothing.
>>320745158
Also, not all game can do that.
somes game need work to make a demo out of them. most open world blahblah game would be hard to make a demo out of it.
you need a small level, that is fun and self contained. On some shit like alien isolation, dead space or max payne, with well defined chapter, it should be done. On RPG, a bit harder.
You don't want to show the begining of a game, when no stuff is unlocked, because this would make feel the game is empty.
But yea, jewness is a major obstacle. Most demo cost the content of a dlc, and dlc are not free.
>>320745158
It's not even just that. Prior to Steam refunds, once you bought a digital game you were stuck with it. They were hoping you'd buy the game on hype alone and if it sucked you'd be stuck with it. Or worse than it just sucking it might not work at all for some reason. They don't have to support it, and they already have your money.
I'd rather have demos to test how well a game runs rather than just to see if it's fun.
>>320744604
1. Demos take money to make
2. At one point in time they realized that people who tried the demo were more likely not to buy the game.
Titanfall has an aggresive demo campaign though since dwindling server population would kill the game since it has no single player to rely on for continued sales.
One huge factor in this that seems rarely considered is that all games on the market are competing with each other. I have met plenty of people that pirate mainstream games and buy smaller titles. Without piracy people focus even more on the big sellers at the expense of smaller titles.
>>320728245
Not negatively. At least not anymore. Most games are bad and people don't want to buy it or even pirate it. The games that are not so shit some people will pirate, but there are also people who will buy a game, even a game they already pirated, just to support the developer.
Eventually it also becomes a convenience thing. I've played through KOTOR 1/2 several times and I know I'll play it again some time so I bought it on sale so I don't have to deal with pirating it later.
All in all it's free marketing. If a buggy piece if trash no one wants to play like Lords of the Fallen is locked behind antipiracy then almost no one will play it and as a result no one will talk about it. In fact many will refuse to play it out of spite. I guarantee you if the game was easy to pirate it would have gotten SO many more sales just based on the sheer quantity of discussion because everyone was comparing it to dark souls.
It's a distribution problem. If asscreed and fallout, hell even siege, weren't on ubisoft's uKuck DRM platform and just regular steam games without additional bullshit on top, I'd probably buy a few.
most of the time people who would have pirated would have never bought the game in the first place, or would have had to bought used from gamestop which doesn't end up being a sale for publishers anyways
>>320746363
>they realized that people who tried the demo were more likely not to buy the game.
Gee i wonder why
>>320747803
Far cry *
>>320730478
A very shit one.
>>320730478
boku no british
>>320728245
I've seen this cute girl posted everywhere. Who is she? What anime?
>>320748031
Karen from Kiniro Mosaic. It's shit.
>>320747803
>It's a distribution problem.
Complete and utter bullshit.
There are plenty of games that are available on steam without "additional bullshit on top" as well as games that are available without any form of DRM at all and they still get pirated to hell and back.
When Gabe said that piracy was a "service problem" he was mainly talking about places like Russia, not the US. He knows a lot of people will always pirate if they can and that's all there is to it. That's why almost all their games are multiplayer games with microtransations these days, these not much point in pirating those and Valve knows it.
>>320743521
>You're just jealous of my theft!
When I was a teen I would shoplift trading cards. I thought it was so cool, but it's pretty pathetic. You're just the adult version of that. Pay or don't partake, you're a theif no matter how you slice it.
>>320728782
You're probably right
Example: The old FFs aren't advertised anymore, while FF14 is
SE doesn't lose much from people pirating the old FFs and stands to gain the price of one of those old FFs EVERY MONTH from people getting into FF14 due to playing those old games
>>320728782
There's also niche games (which means no/little marketing) with relatively high barriers to entry due to their high cost (i.e visual novels, where something like ef - a fairy tale of the two will cost $80+)
If I had to pay for every visual novel I read I wouldn't have gotten into them in the first place, since the first VN I read, Yosuga no Sora, costs $70 and can't be bought outside of Japan. However, when giving those games as a gift to someone else you're obviously going to pay for the game. In fact, I'm giving ef as a Christmas present to my younger sisters this year.
>>320733728
Well, it was also met with a good deal of "IT'S ONLY TEN DOLLARS YOU POORFAG" comments.
>>320737542
>Think of how many small time radio shows are lifting a one liner from TV as part of their gag real! Copyrights are easily trampled.
You're either delusional, talking about fair use stuff which is legal anyway (although some rights holders think there shouldn't be "fair use"), or your area works under totally different conditions than most of the professional world.
Even on Youtube where you'd get amateurs lifting audio for their videos get nailed by the Content ID system. Hell, the Content ID system will actually pirate stuff the other way, giving rights holders money to shit they don't own rights to simply because they have access to the system and their victims can't do anything about it.
>>320748853
Are you actually retarded or are you just pretending to be?
>>320733320
I can pull percentages out of my ass too.
100% chance that you're a little beta faggot
>>320750143
As a statistician I can vouch for these findings. They're legit, he really is a faggot.
>>320749968
No, I'm a thief pretending to be an innocent file sharer. That's what's hip nowadays.
At least call yourself a thief, have the balls to admit it's wrong.
>>320728669
I used to pirate video games a long time ago and I can tell you with 100% certainty that I would have never bought them if I had no option to pirate. I didn't have any money. At all.
I buy games these days, because now I have some money and it's easier than pirating thanks to steam.
>>320730497
>can't tell if a game is decent from videos
Standards.
>>320750683
>>320728245
>>320728669
>Implying we pirates would feel forced to buy if we can't pirate
Nani sore?
>>320748853
If you stole trading cards then you ran off with a physical good, and what you did had a definite hard impact on the people you stole from. That physical object cost the shop keeper money to stock.
But then again, you'll notice stores budget for what they call "shrink" - which is when items are lost due to theft or damage.
Pirating software is a different animal and it depends a lot on the software and company. Take a company notorious for producing false or misleading advertisements for them products, for example. EA, Activision, and Ubisoft have built up really negative reputations for their tactics and they're in a situation where their target audience actually wants them to die and get out of the market. Are those companies losing potential sales because people would rather pirate than support that company? If anybody is pirating because they specifically want a company to go under, those are the ones.
Then you've got companies that have decent goodwill from their fans, like Valve, or indie folks who people want to support so they can grow.
Regardless, it's all just theoretical numbers. Basic economics will teach you that a product sold for $100 sells to nobody, a product that sold for $50 sells to a million people, and a product sold for $0 sells to two million people. Obviously if you can only sell 1 million copies at your asking price, you can't then point to the million people who pirated and say, "Well we lost $50 million". It's a little scary that the court system would totally award you $50 million in statutory damages if they could, but it doesn't make an economic sense.
So yeah, you could say that pirating cost you 50% of your potential sales, but anyone who knows anything about sales knows you're full of shit and that you don't have numbers to know how many real sales you actually lost.
>>320750285
How about you have the balls to admit you just hate other people partaking in games for free. Instead of your moral self righteous bullshit and false equivalents to theft that have been disproven a thousand times over
>>320750683
You wouldn't trust /v/'s opinion of games they haven't played if they just watched videos, so expecting people to buy games off the same info is retarded.
