MSNBC.com has a video report about Demigod, and the effects of piracy with comments from Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell.
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30392391#30392391
I'm just using it as an example of what's possible. I didn't say I expected them to succeed.
Do you think that this will be the last attempt at such a thing?
Even if they fail, the idea is out. There are other ways to do this.
It is up to us to decide what path we want to take now. And how much piracy there is will help pave the way towards one path or another.
Do you think that just because you can rationailze all this in your own way, that you can somehow determine the course of the future?
You don't determine the course of the future of gaming by taking the high ground in an argument.
The future of gaming will be determined by the publishers.
You swear at me while complaining about decency?
If you are to use the word "f**king" with me, I'm not even sure I want you to try to answer my questions.
Are we still getting the bug where the next page doesn't appear until there are two posts on it?
Oh, but i DO agree that there is a somehow controversial definition of Copyright infringement.
Virtual theft still gets a virtual object for free by stealing it, though.
However, since i can also purchase a CD with virtual objects on it, i consider both stolen when someone takes it off my Hard-Drive and re-installs the product itself (not the CD, not the Virtual object as it was once legally bought).
What has just been stolen is my right to use a legal copy from ME, not from the corporation who sold it to me.
Copy/Paste, rinse & repeat. Result=Piracy.
No, it's only cuz almost simultaneous posters have hit the "Post Reply" button and the site is still updating the thread/reply numerical order.
UNLESS your browser refreshes the FlashPlayer driven cache fast enough to show you the new page.
Sometimes CTRL-F5 helps but not if your reply is a multiple of 25+1.
quoting this for the laughs, seriously... this is how you make arguements? Present yourself as above the fray to deflect anything you don't wish to acknowledge or respond to.
At least some of the people with your position make good points, you however make none.
Ctrl+F5? Wow, that actually does do a complete refresh of the page. Along with Ctrl+R or holding down Shift while pressing the reload button. Gotta love Firefox, lol .
I'm just copying you. Learn from the master, right?
tommyth3cat; But i do however like to discuss the balance that could be reached in PC piracy because i can admitt it is wrong and something needs to be done.
MINE;To the right 100,000 copies of Demigod trying to log on a site to play a game they didn't pay for.To the left 14,000 legally registered and PURCHASED valid copies.That's from two weeks ago, only. It's tilting, as we speak. Guess to which side.In three months... in theory... 500,000 to the right & 20,000 left.Who's losing money? Com'on, dare say it. (Smartass response such as "Nobody's" excluded)What should be done to balance the next financially feasible (Mecher3k's;Easy, don't make a sucky game) title for predictable sales?
I never thought i would have to repeat an earlier solution.
Still waiting for YOUR suggestion, though. Even if the next financially feasible title offers you a demo (YouTube has plenty of that sort of teasing videos, in fact) to test before you decide to buy the real...
fully-functional_server-ready_accounted-for_registrable_valid_unstolen... version.
And since tommyth3cat dosn't think I make points, here is one that I made earlier (heavily edited because apparently he tends to read between the lines rather than actually read the lines):
HERE IS A POINT
\/ \/ \/ \/
In OnLive, the game is 100% server side so there is nothing on your computer to copy.
Your computer sends the server the actions, and the server sends back video.
Something like this could be the future of gaming.
/\ /\ /\ /\
THAT WAS A POINT
Do I need to do this every time I make a point so that he can actually read it?
Just to make it crystal clear zyxpsilon Pirated copys do not equate to sales with that said... What companys need to do is take the same approach blizzard is doing with Starcraft 2 show off a match between 2 competant players in high rez. not some garbage youtube video. Since they are taking a proactive approach to showing off what the game is rather than vague hints and speculation. As far as i understand it from the stories i read on Demigod, it had very little in ways of gameplay footage before its street date was broke.
So either you take a company on faith that you will get something worth your money or as many people do now who don't like to throw away their hard earned money, they demo a game, if it doesn't have one then it depends on the game. at least in my prospective. I don't really play single player games on PC thats what an Xbox is for but some people will happily download mass effect and play the pirated version. that is what it really boils down to personal decisions... even though you like to call me a thief and a criminal you're painting with a broad brush. After i pirated sins I enjoyed it so much i bought it... simple as that. I don't wake up in the morning saying to myself, "How can I ruin a game developers day?"
The problem is and will always be money and not willing to shell out your cash for something that hasn't proven to you it is worth the investment. again Starcraft 2 has already done that for me and im buying it the day it comes out because of the 20min matches they recorded showing all aspects of the product that in going to throw my money at.
On a side note I never liked Dota so I didn't care about Demigod. I'm speaking in broader terms not specifically to this release.
OnLive is vaporware have fun with a unproven concept as the basis of your arguement.
Then it becomes a simple matter of needs or preference by consumers; market studies & trends are there to HINT about sales potential and yet, developpers must decide what to make or distribute while expecting reasonable returns on that process. The risk is there.
Even Blizzard had to budget manhours and infrastructures to complete StarCraft2 *demo & final game* and most probably are gambling it will payoff if only by previous success.
The money i spent on CivII or Tide of Darkness progressively lost its value with time.
The titles i WILL spend money on already has some value. Unless i decide it doesn't. Anyone has an opinion and a favorite gameplay. There's sooooooo much pubs and pre-release informations available online for any games IN development (now) that i doubt people can't have a fair enough idea before the fact -- aside, from staring at a Boxset in a store. I bought X-Com:UFO-Defense in such a manner, never to regret it. I gambled and won. I can read, a cool Snakeman alien, spaceship in Orbit... ya know.
I prefer predictable quality to cost & probable value or whomever can provide all three by proof or not.
I don't invest in games, i play.
PC games will stop being produced if publishers go bankrupt for more reasons than i can yell against.
I'll go bowling, but i hate the sport.
22Y means '77 to me, btw... MsPacman required arcade quarters to be played in '82 while i was coding X-Basic functions & variable declarations to move sprites on a TI99/4A. For Honeybees! & Chexx, in fact.
So that tells you, how things have changed since.
EQ and WoW are server games... They can mod the files if I give them permission. You can check what they send you before playing.
If you're talking citrix then that's comething different.
Doesn't mean I didn't make a point.
From what I have heard crackers are having a hard time with whatever new copy protection Atari has used for the latest Riddick game. From what I have been reading it has been about a month now and still no crack for the game. People have been saying that it usually only takes a week at the MOST for cracks to be made,( Most are ready at release even) Atari or whoever it is that writes the protection code may actually be on to something.....
Now I know it doesn't keep pirates from downloading it, But what good does it do if they can't play it?
Ok, I read it again after a night of sleep. It still says the same thing I put there yesterday.
Am I supposed to be shocked at how rude I am or what? You're being a douche bag, call it what it is. If copyright infringement doesn't feel wrong, then you obviously agree with the pirate viewpoint. Persisting in calling it theft just says you doubt the veracity of your claim.
Grow a pair and just admit that you feel cheated because you paid for something that someone else got for free. It's ok, I wont tell anyone I laughed.
True, but it's equally irrelevant whether they are justified in obtaining by illegal means that which they are not going to purchase. Unless someone would purchase a game and instead obtains a copy illegally, they haven't done shit to the company. Every time some dork starts pissing and moaning about how those meany pirates shouldn't be taking stuff just because they can't or wont buy it in the first place, they need to be offered cheese to go with it.
Sinking to the same level of inaccuracy and subjectivism founding your opponents position does not win the argument, all it does is scream hypocrisy. The target can then dismiss you without leaving an after taste.
Edit: The PC version of Assualt on Dark Athena is in the 4000's for sales ranking. The PS3 version on the other hand is ranked around 400, with the Xbox 360 version being even better. Context is everything, it took a long time to get cracked(I checked, it has) because no one is playing the PC version. A game that only sells a few thousand copies in the first month should be honored someone bothered to crack it at all.
Was the DRM on that anything special, or unusually difficult to crack?
Just asking, because I read that and my first impression was "why the hell didn't psychoak use this as a demonstration of the positive power of try-before-you-buy piracy?" Because obviously the only reason people didn't buy the PC version is they couldn't try it first, right? [/sarcasm]
In the developed world (I'll conditionally grant that the third world is a separate case), the vast majority of people who "can't afford" to buy games are instead *choosing* not to buy games and spending the money elsewhere on other non-necessities. Buying a game might mean eating out a few times less each month, but that does not put it in the "can't afford" category. A significant number of those people would indeed buy games if free alternatives were not available. Even if that is 10% of the pirates we're discussing, that is a pretty big sum of money the maker is out. To use the numbers being thrown around for Demigod, that would be about $600k that Stardock didn't see (10% of 120k pirated copies at $50 each). And that was just the opening week.
Piracy advocates will (again & possibly) forever claim. that what they don't pay isn't a lost sales.
I like playing with words, too... so let's introduce a new concept of interpretation of commercial figures.
Warning speculative amounts only follows;
GPG invested 150,000$ (Two coders & a PC, maybe) to design, compile & fabricate Demigod, StarDock decided to share the risk by dumping in another 200,000$ into distribution and server(s) support.
They recuperate (15,000x50=750,000) in sales within a week -- no pirated copies there. Net profit equals 400,000$, you say? Get an accounting degree in financial business statements and regulations first, then we'll speak. Substract administrative expenses, locations, offices, staffs, taxes, products, packaging, shipping... then evaluate all you like.
But, that's not my point.
What comes next IF both do not recuperate above the net cost from *MORE OR MINIMAL* sales?
Nothing.
What comes next IF both recuperate enough to cover the net cost and within any supplemental proportions of sales? Including if pirated by ANY percentages.
Probably, plans for another game with potential or not.
What comes next IF both recuperate ABOVE the net cost from additional Sales (than the second theory) and thus, LESS pirated by a lower percentage?
Risk free, plans for a BETTER game with potential or not.
Piracy is not THEFT unless it is magically transformed by the good will but impossible to determine amount of prospective Sales to unknown & unidentified consumers.
Piracy is still THEFT if it never translates into Sales.
Criminal minds, fool around with the truth (or opinions & interpretations of the Law, btw) to get illegally rich at the expense of their victims.
Bah, I'm not interested in this type of so-called "argument" anymore. Seems people here are more interested in bashing other people rather than pursuing lines of logic around here. I'm gone from the conversation. Bye.
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