Widescreen Gaming Forum

I'd like to have a healthy discussion* on this, as I started this in another topic, it would be more suited in its own topic.

Svardskampe wrote:

helifax wrote:cr@cked versions (which is something that me and WSGF is against)

Of course that is your opinion, and you have every right to have that opinion, and I respect that. However I want to say that I do not agree. Not paying is a form of protest as well, against devs not doing their jobs well enough (namely, supporting Eyefinity, so a fix is not necessary).

As what is the advantage of using Steam over piratery? That is updates. Pirated releases never - or rarely - get updated. This could be used in their advantage as well, so to say that multimonitor support is added in a patch, then how quick do you think a multi monitor user is going to get the official version?
In conclusio: In my opinion piracy is an incentive to keep supporting your game after release and apply patches, to even new content. Examples: Don't Starve, Minecraft, several android apps with lots of useful updates with new content.

*discussion: In a healthy discussion all opinions are respected, both for and against. A well funded opinion is backed by factual arguments. Arguments can be debunked in a respectful manner with counter arguments. If unsure, or pointed towards it, please read up on this wikipedia article on fallacies. This can also happen by accident as the poster is not aware. Don't start flaming at this person, but try to make clear on why his argument is a fallacy and do this in a relatively polite manner.
Also I must note that the general stance of WSGF as an entity is against piracy. As with all opinions, this must be respected, however one can respect that and not agree to it at the same time.

There is no discussion to have, piracy is illegal!

IMO stealing from companies who make games and publish them is not a good idea. 1) they price the game to try and re-coupe the cost of pirates 2) games end up with more DRM 3) games no longer get released on a platforms due to the amount of piracy (Madden NFL is an example)

Now when you look at games that don't come with a demo I don't believe in this, most if not all games should be demoable

I'm liking the look of Steams Family Share thing they announced officially yesterday

LuckyNoS7evin wrote:There is no discussion to have, piracy is illegal!

Lol, you pirated your user name

But i do agree that programmers & developers should be paid for their time and expertise. Unfortunately we live in a world where a dollar value can be put on everything, and profit must be made. Imagine telling your grandparents that we would be paying for water, maybe in another 50 years we will be paying for clean air....

LuckyNoS7evin wrote:There is no discussion to have, piracy is illegal!

This!

skipclarke wrote:Just to be clear, the WSGF does not condone nor does it support piracy. We do not allow links to pirated copies or Torrents on the site.

This!



IMHO DRM are just a PITA and nowaydas trough these awesome launchers (ubisoft, EA(origin), Steam ...) more used to get statistic of their users than DRM.
I normally just don't buy these games. Normally.... except i really want that game and want to support the developer, in case of Risen 2 (or Grid 2). The next game that i'm gonna buy for 100% sure is The Witcher 3! They will release it on GoG without any DRM! i had so much fun with The Witcher and Witcher 2, even if won't like the Witcher 3, releasing an AAA title without DRM is worth my praise(money)

Yeah, I don't support piracy. That's why I have a copy of Max Payne 3 that I can't play because it wanted me to set up an account... which I did... then it told me I didn't have an account...

...uh, yeah, good going.

I'm just glad I got it in a Steam sale, so at least I didn't waste a lot of money on it.

I know i went off topic before, but i wonder if programmers and developers do get their fair share of profits, or is it like this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/v/JthkWPYk4-Q[/youtube]

PS: Codemonkeys rule, wish they made more than 2 seasons....
EDIT: youtube link didn't work, here is the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JthkWPYk4-Q

I'm 32 years of age and when I was younger I'll admit I pirated games. But times have changed, and I've changed. There is no argument that someone can use to justify piracy and every pirate knows this. If you do it for a 'cause' there are far better and more legal ways to have your voice be heard. Today, we have social media which is such a powerful tool in this industry, and if you feel companies are taking advantage of you by charging too much, or not supporting the product after release - then you vote with your wallet (not pirate a product), you rally like minded people and let your voice be heard. Although in the past that approach hasn't been overly effective - today is different. The indie scene has helped that a lot, and as mentioned so has social media.

These kids that make the games for the hobby that I love, deserve the dollars coming to them. I can honestly say not only do I support ever dev I can, I am proud to do so. Is the industry perfect? No. But look how far we've come in relatively such a short amount time, and we have such a bright future - well a much more brighter future if every person pays to get on board. I really think its sad seeing any game get pirated now, especially ones that do something different and suffer commercially because of pirating - but it's terrible to pirate indie games when usually they cost nothing.

It's a good thing for gamers to constructively keep devs/publishers on their toes - and we can - I've seen the benefits of taking to the forums and telling the makers that they are doing something wrong. Does it work all the time? No. But if we all persevere we see the results.

Like the others have posted before me, there really is NO argument someone can make that justifies piracy. I'm glad the guys on this site that work hard to fix our games, don't support cracked releases - that's how it should be.

If you have financial issues then unfortunately the legal thing to do is not buy/pirate/steal the game. I'm sure if you were making a little indie game, you would want every dollar you can from sales, because you know the blood, sweat and tears that goes into development. It's about responsibility and respect, if you don't respect something (like most kids today - but not exclusive to kids) you won't care, and you wont support it - but the day you grow up and own something for yourself, and some arsehole damages/steals/whatever you possession, you'll care, you'll care a whole bunch and then you'll realise that you were wrong all those years.

I did it as a kid, because kids steal shit - I think that's a growing phase and you grow out of it because like I said you don't know the ramifications, but MOST grow out of it.

I'd like to raise the notion that (intrusive) DRM is not caused by piracy, it is caused by the short sightedness of the implementer (may it be the publisher or the dev).
DRM is not witholding a SINGLE pirated copy, and it annoys legitimite buyers. The method of combatting piracy is to offer a better alternative through the legal means than the alternative channel. How is that achieved?
- Play it to the strengths of the platform: Pirated copies hardly see any patches and updates. Keep supporting your game with bugfixes to new content to make the legal alternative more attractive by offering essentially a better gameplay experience, at least for the foreseeable future after an update rolled out. Games that did this and deterred pirates away: Don't Starve (content), Minecraft (content, patches), Deus Ex Human Revolution (patches).
- Service: usability is simplified. The sheer fact it's easy to pull games from a service like steam and get updates automatically is already a plus, but by adding features like Steam Workshop, or meaningful achievements (for let's say, finding hidden easter eggs) you are offering features a pirated copy can't use. Examples: Skyrim (workshop), Surgeon Simulator (achievements). Known platforms that use this mechanic as well are services like Google Music, Spotify, Netflix and Hulu.


And is it terrible to pirate indie games? I say it can benefit greatly;
Game Dev Tycoon was a simple game, offered through the developers website alone. No chance this game would see the broad public with a business model like this. Up until the pirates stepped in. The creative way Game Dev Tycoon handled pirates by actually making the ingame company go down under saw a lot of media attention. The widespread virality of the news gave the game more coverage than an AAA title with a bigger marketing budget than the development costs and this made the game known to people. Nowadays the game is greenlit on steam and available for purchase (and pulling the "meaningful achievements" card, see above). This would not have happened without the coverage it got thanks to piracy.


What would the difference be between not playing a game, and pirating it? - The coverage it gets. If people are massively leaving a game alone for what it is. Not paying nor pirating it, the conclusion would be that there is no demand for this game. When a game gets massively pirated, and numbers are available, and not bought, it shows there is a demand for that game, but there is something inherently flawed. What that might be is case specific.



_________________________________________
On a side note, I'd like to raise the fact that a discussion is backed up by arguments. A post like Wijkerts is not contributing to anything. Do not comment at all if that is your only contribution. Bland statements that there is no discussion to have are not welcome either, as there is clearly a discussion to have if there is a reason to raise the topic, this thread, and this phenomenon would simply not exist. I'm happy LuckyNoS7evin did give arguments as well. "There is no argument that someone can use to justify" is a statement in the same light of day as we are having a discussion here, which is by definion made up by arguments for and against. However, I do appreciate your further comment and thought on the subject and see it as valuable input.

I feel like I have a worthy opinion on this because I've gone from pirating.. well.. about everything to a Steam account with over 700 titles on it. Piracy, at its heart, is an economic problem. I must emphasize that it is NOT theft. Making a copy of something without having paid the associated fees for a license to that copy is NOT theft, it is copyright infringement. Now, economically speaking, developers wouldn't be able to develop without pay. That's obvious. Though, there are many consumers out there without the spending power to afford these titles. Each person has an assessed value for an informational item. Whether or not this assessed value is higher or lower than the actual value determines whether or not the person purchases the item, unless they see themselves as needing it to achieve some other end. Games, though, are primarily entertainment oriented. This leaves them on the rather low end of value, unfortunately. So, I argue that piracy happens more for pricier items. In regards to Steam sales, this has brought the price of many titles underneath this assessed value for a large population. It's difficult to argue pirating something when you can both afford the item and the item is being sold at a reasonable price. So, in that sense, Steam is doing an effective job of plugging the piracy hole. But in the case of high school or college students, and those without money, it seems difficult to consider what they're doing when they pirate as being "bad".

I say, shame on those people that 1. value what they play 2. can afford to play it and 3. pirate anyway. But if you can't achieve both 1 and 2, piracy is difficult to argue against. Personally, I have a plenty large enough Steam library that I don't see a good reason to pirate even new and expensive titles. But I can completely understand the mentality and recognize when it's a harmful practice and when it's not. I stand in the "contribute what you can" category. Now, time to go back to my 5 dollar copy of L.A. Noire.

To see what Game Dev Tycoon developers really think of piracy see here:

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/ ... of-piracy/

Quote: "As the developer, who spent over a year creating this game and hasn’t drawn a salary yet, I wanted to cry. Surely, for most of these players, the 8 dollars wouldn’t hurt them but it makes a huge difference to our future!"

Of course this matters even more when you are investing money as well as time in a title.

Anyone who has ever been involved in the development of a game would dismiss the immature attitude that because you don't want to pay for something you have the right to steal it. The only reason people steal games is because they can get away with it while hiding amongst others doing the same thing. The same is evidenced during a riot.

It's not only illegal, for good reason, it's just very sad reading such self-justifying junk. I hate having to have accounts, and be online to play, to have 0-level drivers like starforce and limited installs etc.

If however, that becomes the only reliable way to recompense developers who are talented and work hard creating worlds for us to immerse ourselves in then I will happily accept that.

Otherwise, as the above developers have said, it will all become casual, online-only, or half-baked efforts. All the story-driven complexity will be driven out. After all, would you work for years on a game only to see it cracked on day one? Would you invest in a game knowing that would happen?

If the wsgf does not condone piracy it should also not accept the trojan horse of discussing its 'merits'.

Wijkert wrote:

LuckyNoS7evin wrote:There is no discussion to have, piracy is illegal!

This!

In this US drugs are illegal, but there is plenty of discussion about them and their legality. Something being illegal doesn't preclude discussion.

skipclarke wrote:

Wijkert wrote:

LuckyNoS7evin wrote:There is no discussion to have, piracy is illegal!

This!

In this US drugs are illegal, but there is plenty of discussion about them and their legality. Something being illegal doesn't preclude discussion.

I agree. Its not that because pirating games is illegal that no discussion should be had. I simply won't condone the act itself, so would prefer that the "merits" of piracy aren't discussed on the forum I love.

Wijkert wrote:

skipclarke wrote:

Wijkert wrote:
This!

In this US drugs are illegal, but there is plenty of discussion about them and their legality. Something being illegal doesn't preclude discussion.

I agree. Its not that because pirating games is illegal that no discussion should be had. I simply won't condone the act itself, so would prefer that the "merits" of piracy aren't discussed on the forum I love.

Sorry, I know my first statement in this thread was "There is no discussion" and I didn't elaborate more but he's a little extra

After the first page and a bit I can see most are against the piracy thing and it's good to see that IMO. The fact we are discussing it does bring up some interesting things like, how developers & publishers do/will get round this, or may get round this in the future.

The problem I have is for example a game like Madden NFL, a game I love has not been available on PC since Madden 08, the reason EA gave was piracy...it's the reason we (as in all WSGFers) should be against it. The reason being these developers and publishers are spending more money on "piracy" than multi-monitor, widesrceen or ultra-wide games which is the reason we are here

Piracy is an intellectual property discussion for me. As in all intellectual property discussions, there's a fine line. Stealing someone's intellectual property, such as a digital game, movie, or song, does not rob them of some physical good these days. Nonetheless, it does rob them of the fruits of their labor.

If it benefits humanity, information should be free. If the gain is personal, information should be paid for. On a more practical level, I'm OK with sites archiving old ROMs whose rights-holders have long since ceased to exist or sites that host abandonwear that cannot be obtained in any other way. Other than that, it's pretty unacceptable in my book.

Cygnus wrote:To see what Game Dev Tycoon developers really think of piracy see here:

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/ ... of-piracy/

Quote: "As the developer, who spent over a year creating this game and hasn’t drawn a salary yet, I wanted to cry. Surely, for most of these players, the 8 dollars wouldn’t hurt them but it makes a huge difference to our future!"

What the dev thinks is different from what happened in the real world. If it weren't for piracy, and they would genuinely get $8 for everyone coming onto their developers website by accident and actually purchasing their game, they would have $24...Hypthetically speaking.

Cygnus wrote:It's not only illegal, for good reason, it's just very sad reading such self-justifying junk.

Please quote where you have read them, discuss them with proper arguments instead.

Cygnus wrote:I hate having to have accounts, and be online to play, to have 0-level drivers like starforce and limited installs etc.

DRM=ineffective. Read argument in previous post.

Svardskampe wrote:

Cygnus wrote:It's not only illegal, for good reason, it's just very sad reading such self-justifying junk.

Please quote where you have read them, discuss them with proper arguments instead.

Cygnus wrote:I hate having to have accounts, and be online to play, to have 0-level drivers like starforce and limited installs etc.

DRM=ineffective. Read argument in previous post.

In every forum where someone posts immature teenage 'arguments' that piracy is beneficial you read self-justifying junk.
Read your own posts. Self-justifying is arguing that something is right because YOU do it.

Piracy is wrong on principle. If you were never taught that stealing is wrong, or you have not managed to come to that conclusion yourself, then I can't help you.
It is impossible to request 'proper' arguments if you cannot accept the basic ethic that stealing is wrong and damaging in and of itself.
If a person does not accept that pirating games is stealing then I can't argue with that basic lack of understanding. It usually comes from people who live in a bubble where the real world does not touch them, hence teenage pirates grow out of it, or at least feel guilty about continuing it, as they recognize the value of things when they become adult.

Svardskampe wrote:DRM=ineffective. Read argument in previous post.

Arguments are not equations, unless they are logical.

The argument that DRM is ineffective has been made by pirates for years and yet DRM is on the increase because people do not want their creative products stolen. It works. Digital distribution is the future and some form of DRM is always going to be a part of that - with exceptions for low cost operations like GOG. Steam's millions of users show that DRM can and does work if done properly.

It's fine to argue against one form or another of DRM or copy-protection, but there is no logical argument for piracy, unless one feels that creative people should not be rewarded for their efforts.

That kind of thinking is an argument in the form of black=white. Illogical captain.

I believe one can answer the issue of piracy here at WSGF by answering this question: If something is illegal, does that make it wrong?

I'll leave the individuals to decide that for themselves.

Well if something is legal, does that make it right?
More to the point, because piracy does not actually deprive the owner of intellectual property from that said property, does that mean it is not stealing? (Technically yes and that is why it is defined as copyright infringement)

I'll leave the individuals to decide that for themselves.

Im sure serial killers feel justified in their actions, so does that mean there is justification for their actions?

For people who think piracy is justified, how many of you would release software as freeware which you have spent days, weeks or years developing? For instance, Keygetys SoftTH. (THIS GUY IS A LEDGEND )

I think peoples' concepts of intellectual philanthropy would differ if it was their hard work going up for grabs in cyber space... (Everyone is happy to share when it doesn't belong to them)