Why you should NOT pirate games:, A developer's story. Options

[_Pax._]

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/...ause-of-piracy/

A developer, just a start-up really, decided to take a risk .... and minutes after launching their first game, also put up a fully cracked version up as a torrent.

The trick is, the cracked version was slightly different: it smacked the player hard with, yes, softwarepiracy. Everyone who played the cracked version eventually went bankrupt; it was impossible to win.

More importantly, the "report anonymous usage data" feature of the game? Also reported which version of the software was running - legit, or cracked. After one day?

Only 6.4% of users - 214 of them - were playing legal, paid-for versions. The other 93.6% of users - all 3,104 of them - were playing the pirated version. And that, ladies and gentlemen, rather neatly puts whole buckets-full of nails into the coffin, for claims that piracy is "a minority" of game copies.

Oh, by the by? It's only an EIGHT DOLLAR game. For cryin' out loud, how stingy can you be, if you won't open your wallet for eight measley bucks? I've been homeless; I've spent months reliant on a soup kitchen for every bite of food to pass my lips; Ive slept under bridges. But never, not once, have I ever had even the most rudimentary computer, and felt that $8 was more than I could afford for a game that interested me. Not even when that computer was a mere Commodore 64, in the mid-1980s - and my weekly allowance was all of $3.

...

Okay, anyway, putting the soapbox aside. Really I just wanted to draw some more attention to that article, in a place I know is frequented by avid video gamers. I'm 90% sure there's few (if any) people here who don't already agree, but ... I'm sharing it anyway. so there!

Got a couple more places to share it at, too, so - off I go.

[DamHawke]

The link seems to be dead...?

[_Pax._]

Not dead, just very slow to load. I imagine they're getting a LOT of traffic today. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You may have to try a few times to get through, or just wait a day or two.

[DamHawke]

Just took a look in after refreshing a bunch.

Simulators aren't my kind of game but awesome way to dish out the punishing irony (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Though any games priced in USD can appear quite expensive to people living in countries that have lower currency rates. Where I am, the average pirate DVD (yes, those bootlegs still exist) would cost maybe 2 USD at very most? depending on the amount of discs anyway. Very bad for developers still, especially fledgeling ones.

But I find waiting for Steam sales to be just as rewarding if you want something real bad (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I don't think I've bought a bootleg since I got on the platform.

[Bigity]

This is just one data point, to be sure, but yea. Software piracy is lame.

OTOH, not having a demo is lame when you drop 60 bucks on something and it's a load of garbage.

For these reasons, I haven't bought a brand new game outside of WoW expansions and Borderlands 2 in years. I just wait and see what the new stuff is like and buy it later.

[ShadowDragon8685]

A developer, just a start-up really, decided to take a risk .... and minutes after launching their first game, also put up a fully cracked version up as a torrent.

The trick is, the cracked version was slightly different: it smacked the player hard with, yes, softwarepiracy. Everyone who played the cracked version eventually went bankrupt; it was impossible to win.

More importantly, the "report anonymous usage data" feature of the game? Also reported which version of the software was running - legit, or cracked. After one day?

Only 6.4% of users - 214 of them - were playing legal, paid-for versions. The other 93.6% of users - all 3,104 of them - were playing the pirated version. And that, ladies and gentlemen, rather neatly puts whole buckets-full of nails into the coffin, for claims that piracy is "a minority" of game copies.

Oh, by the by? It's only an EIGHT DOLLAR game. For cryin' out loud, how stingy can you be, if you won't open your wallet for eight measley bucks? I've been homeless; I've spent months reliant on a soup kitchen for every bite of food to pass my lips; Ive slept under bridges. But never, not once, have I ever had even the most rudimentary computer, and felt that $8 was more than I could afford for a game that interested me. Not even when that computer was a mere Commodore 64, in the mid-1980s - and my weekly allowance was all of $3.

So, in other words, the developers themselves put the cracked version up? I'm sorry, that skews your data all to hell, because that makes it legitimate to download the copy.

If someone steals a car and throws you the keys on their way out of town, you've recieved stolen goods. However, if the legitimate owner throws you the keys, you have not. Possession of the car, if not ownership, has come lawfully to you. By putting out a version on the torrent sites, they said to all and sundry "Wanna try our game? Here you go, the full thing, for free."

Only, worse, they didn't actually do that. They unleashed a gimped copy, a sabotaged copy, if you will. The analogy breaks down, now, but the fact remains that those who downloaded that torrent version of the game have done nothing wrong, because the legitimate owner made it available to them.

There is flawed methodology behind this experiment, the data gathered is invalid.


[e]Also, even the flawed data doesn't address the main issue - the presumption, and the false conclusion, that every single download is a full retail copy's worth of value being "stolen" from the developers. It is not. That's a terribly flawed presumption, and is one of the main problems I have with these statements.

[CanRay]

So they threw you the keys to a car that has a tenth of a tank of fuel and epoxied the gas cap shut.

[Critias]

So, in other words, the developers themselves put the cracked version up? I'm sorry, that skews your data all to hell, because that makes it legitimate to download the copy.

Only if folks knew it was the developers that put the copy up.

Rather than throw someone their car keys -- to continue your analogy -- they left some car keys lying on the sidewalk. To people that walk by and see the keys, see a car next to them, and then decide to either (a) get in the car and drive off, or (b) not...does it matter who left the keys there? Does it matter if they fell out of some nice lady's purse while she was getting out of her car, if she put them there purposefully, or if someone else snatched her purse and then left the keys lying there when they ran off?

To someone who doesn't know which of the above happened, someone who knows only "here is a free copy of a thing that I could buy, and that I will, instead, not buy," it doesn't matter who left that copy lying around. All that matters is that it was there, and they took it.

ETA: To clarify, I'm only taking issue with that particular line of argument. I've got mixed feelings on piracy to begin with (for somewhat obvious reasons, perhaps), but I don't subscribe entirely to a knee-jerk "all pirates are terrible monsters" thing, either. I understand some folks download something to check it out then buy it, I know some folks download something to get instant gratification while waiting on a hardcopy, etc. What's more, I have no issue (personally) with folks that download out of print stuff; if no one is going to make money off of it any more, why NOT grab a copy to complete a collection, or whatever? But by and large I'm not trying to comment on piracy as a whole in the above post, only the assertion that the creators putting up a "cracked" copy is somehow terrible and monstrous of them, or makes those downloads legitimate.

[_Pax._]

So, in other words, the developers themselves put the cracked version up? I'm sorry, that skews your data all to hell, because that makes it legitimate to download the copy.

And none of those people could ever be SUED in cout, you're right.

However, the people downloading the cracked torrent did not know it had been seeded by the developer. Their INTENT was to steal the game.

And the number of people who had that intent, versus the number of people who intended to acquire their copy by normally-legal channels, is the point of the article.

A point you have clearly missed entirely.

[...] the fact remains that those who downloaded that torrent version of the game have done nothing wrong, [...]

Incorrect.

They have done nothing unlawful.

But when they elected to download that torrent, they THOUGHT they were stealing. They intended to steal.

There is flawed methodology behind this experiment, the data gathered is invalid.

Bullshit.

Noone aside from the developer and the very few friends he asked for help, know that the initial seed was not being offered by an actual pirate.

Every single person who downloaded that torrent, and especially every one who re-seeded it, thought they were stealing the game, and/or facilitating it's theft by others. (And then had the gall to complain about the in-game piracy, on the official forums!!)

The data is 100% legitimate and valid, because the test was 100% blind - none of the "respondants" had the slightest clue they had been suckered.

[e]Also, even the flawed data doesn't address the main issue - the presumption, and the false conclusion, that every single download is a full retail copy's worth of value being "stolen" from the developers. It is not.

There's no presumption. There is only the data gathered, and presented.

After one day, the number of users who had actually purchased the game amounted to six point four percent of those whose game client was able to "phone home".

That's not presumption. That's fact. It's data.

...

To be honest, I'm quite convinced you didn't really even read the article, or look at the data presented. Did you?

OTOH, not having a demo is lame when you drop 60 bucks on something and it's a load of garbage.

I'll grant you - I am much more likely to buy something, if I can try out a brief demo first.

Or if I "know" the developer, and like their stuff in general (Valve, Spiderweb Software).

Or if I'm familiar with the franchise, the game in question is a sequel, and the last installment didn't suck (e.g. Borderlands 2, Far Cry 3, Fallout: New Vegas).

Or if I've spent a fair amount of time reading/watching reviews, so i have a reasonable idea where my expectations should be set (Dead Island: Riptide; Legend of Grimrock; Metro 2033).

But I've also pre-ordered things "sight unseen", because trailers get me sufficiently interested that I'm willing to risk the money (Skyrim, Tomb Raider 2013, Deus Ex HR, Dishonored, Dead Island, Fallout 3)) Sure, sometimes I lose out. But, "you pays your money and you takes your chances". And most of the time, I've come out on top, IMO.

[X-Kalibur]

You definitely lost out on Dead Island.

I will say there is one part where the test falls short - the seeded version being impossible to win. How many of those people would have purchased the game later had the seed been the real game, rather than a gimmick?

[Starmage21]

I feel like this argument, and the idea that the article attempts to imply is that for every pirated copy of the game, it amounts to a lost sale. That is simply not the case. I'm at work, and I wish I had something for you to back up the claim I'm about to make, but posting is quicker than true honest research, so lets just call this an anecdote where I at least attempt to be honest:

People will take things for free that they otherwise would not buy, no matter for how much.

That means an easily pirated game will be downloaded many times by people who would play the game for free, but never miss it if they had no option to pay for it. That means that the company whose game was pirated has not lost a sale, and any figures they attempt to publish that are based on moneys from lost sales are a blatant lie.

It is also not true that the company may not have lost money from the piracy, because like the forum posts some will actually try to get the company to support their pirated product which means lost productivity. There are other situations that count here too such as online games which pirated games cause undue stress on servers and such.

IF I recall correctly, the only time a pirated copy of a game amounts to a lost sale is from a small percentage who say the equivalent of "I can afford this game, I would buy it, but fuck you not if I can get it for free". Any such pirated copy of the game that amounts to "I otherwise would not have this game if I couldn't have gotten it for free" means that a sale has NOT been lost, the company has lost no money except for the edge cases above, and could not honestly claim otherwise.

[_Pax._]

You definitely lost out on Dead Island.

No, I didn't. Sure, it had it's flaws. But, I still enjoyed playing through it.

That's the miracle of differing tastes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

...

As for truly losing out? I have a whole category in Steam, labelled "Mistakes" - games I regretted buying, some of them more for the TIME I'd wasted on them, than the money. Among them:

• Afterfall Insanity Deluxe Edition
• All zombies Must Die
• Arx Fatalis
• The Bard's Tale
• Chrome
• Dead Horde
• Death Rally
• DEFCON
• Empire: Total War
• Freedom Force
• Hacker Evolution
• Krater
• Postal 3
• Red Orchestra 2: Heroes ofStalingrad
• Space Rangers
• Supreme Commander 2

I know people who think some of those are quite good - which is also the miracle of diverse opinions and tastes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Then, there's Sword of the Stars II ... a putrescent pile of utter shite that wasn't even worthy of being called "early beta client" four full months after it launched. A game I regret buying, even though it's predecessor was (and is) reasonably good.

So, yes - I win some, and I lose some. But what I call a loss, and what you call a loss, aren't necessarily one and the same thing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I will say there is one part where the test falls short - the seeded version being impossible to win. How many of those people would have purchased the game later had the seed been the real game, rather than a gimmick?

The test would have worked the same, for that one day, whether it was crippled or not.

[Tanegar]

You didn't like Freedom Force? Really? *boggles*

[_Pax._]

Really. It just struck a very flat note with me. *shrug*

[Ryu]

I´m willing to buy games on the notion that I might like them if they come without mandatory online registration or (much worse) online status. I have bought both kinds regardless, but the general principle holds. I´ve bought all non-steam Paradox games I encountered, including the strategy-porn game Pride of Nations.

[X-Kalibur]

No, I didn't. Sure, it had it's flaws. But, I still enjoyed playing through it.

That's the miracle of differing tastes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

...

As for truly losing out? I have a whole category in Steam, labelled "Mistakes" - games I regretted buying, some of them more for the TIME I'd wasted on them, than the money. Among them:

• Afterfall Insanity Deluxe Edition
• All zombies Must Die
• Arx Fatalis
• The Bard's Tale
• Chrome
• Dead Horde
• Death Rally
• DEFCON
• Empire: Total War
• Freedom Force
• Hacker Evolution
• Krater
• Postal 3
• Red Orchestra 2: Heroes ofStalingrad
• Space Rangers
• Supreme Commander 2

I know people who think some of those are quite good - which is also the miracle of diverse opinions and tastes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Then, there's Sword of the Stars II ... a putrescent pile of utter shite that wasn't even worthy of being called "early beta client" four full months after it launched. A game I regret buying, even though it's predecessor was (and is) reasonably good.

So, yes - I win some, and I lose some. But what I call a loss, and what you call a loss, aren't necessarily one and the same thing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


The test would have worked the same, for that one day, whether it was crippled or not.

Actually, I'd agree with you on most of those titles. Although I enjoyed Bard's Tale myself. Both the original and the newer one, although I readily admit it was mostly for the snark from Cary Elwes.

My roommate and I purchased Dead Island hoping for something far more than it was. One of the characters being essentially unplayable made it especially rough on us (the guy who throws his weapons, I can't count how many times we lost items due to that damn ability). But to be fair - we played through it once and enjoyed it okay. All in all in was still a better deal than a night at the pub.

[_Pax._]

That means an easily pirated game will be downloaded many times by people who would play the game for free, but never miss it if they had no option to pay for it. That means that the company whose game was pirated has not lost a sale, and any figures they attempt to publish that are based on moneys from lost sales are a blatant lie.

I completely disagree. It's like going to see a movie at the theater. You don't get to sit in the theater and watch the movie, unless you pay for a ticket - or cheat the system by sneaking in. You don't get to watch a movie, and not pay for it, just ebcause you didn't like it. Or, at a restaurant - you don't get to skate on the bill, just because you didn't happen to like the food.

...

Some people get this idea in their head, that because a computer game is "only 0's and 1s", it doesn't have any inherent or innate value. And that's absolutely wrong - because the value is in the service; the man-hours of programming, testing, and creating that were required to make the game in the first place.

And I do not at all agree with that point of view. Indeed, I find it abhorrent.

Look around you, on this very forum. Many of the folks here are freelance writers for Shadowrun. And yes, I'm sure that there are pirated PDFs of their work out there on the Internet.

The same logic that applies to video games, applies to those PDFs. If you want, say, a copy of Safe Houses ... the requirement is that you're supposed to buy it. And from every copy sold, one of our own - CanRay - gets a wee tiny bit of money in royalties. Every copy pirated, however, doesn't generate that small cashflow for CanRay.

...

Then there is the assertion that "many pirated copies become purchases, because people pay for the game once they know they like it".

BULLSHIT.

That's not how human nature works. Humans, by and large, are lazy creatures. They don't put out effort they don't NEED to. And once Joe Typical has a copy of Game X that works .... he has no incentive to get a second copy of the same game. Seriously, why the hell would he BOTHER? It'd cost him money, and time, for something he already has. So unless Joe is especially principled (and thus, notso Typical anymore) ... he's not going to get a paid-for copy of the game.

Pirated copies are not "demo copies". For the majority of people who get them, they are the first last and ONLY copy they will ever get .. even if they think the game is the most awesome invention since the discovery of fire.

As for people who "wouldn't have bought anyway" .... well, they don't fucking deserve to play it, if they don't buy it. Period. No exceptions.

If you only buy games that offer demos, and Game X doesn't offer a demo? You don't get to play Game X for free. No, not even "just to try it out".

You don't get to go into a restaurant, try a bite or two, say "yuck", and get out of paying just because you didn't like it.

You don't get to go to the theater, watch five minutes, say "yuck" and get out of paying just because you didn't like it.

Why should games be any different?

[Starmage21]

I completely disagree. It's like going to see a movie at the theater. You don't get to sit in the theater and watch the movie, unless you pay for a ticket - or cheat the system by sneaking in. You don't get to watch a movie, and not pay for it, just ebcause you didn't like it. Or, at a restaurant - you don't get to skate on the bill, just because you didn't happen to like the food.

...

Some people get this idea in their head, that because a computer game is "only 0's and 1s", it doesn't have any inherent or innate value. And that's absolutely wrong - because the value is in the service; the man-hours of programming, testing, and creating that were required to make the game in the first place.

And I do not at all agree with that point of view. Indeed, I find it abhorrent.

Look around you, on this very forum. Many of the folks here are freelance writers for Shadowrun. And yes, I'm sure that there are pirated PDFs of their work out there on the Internet.

The same logic that applies to video games, applies to those PDFs. If you want, say, a copy of Safe Houses ... the requirement is that you're supposed to buy it. And from every copy sold, one of our own - CanRay - gets a wee tiny bit of money in royalties. Every copy pirated, however, doesn't generate that small cashflow for CanRay.

...

Then there is the assertion that "many pirated copies become purchases, because people pay for the game once they know they like it".

BULLSHIT.

That's not how human nature works. Humans, by and large, are lazy creatures. They don't put out effort they don't NEED to. And once Joe Typical has a copy of Game X that works .... he has no incentive to get a second copy of the same game. Seriously, why the hell would he BOTHER? It'd cost him money, and time, for something he already has. So unless Joe is especially principled (and thus, notso Typical anymore) ... he's not going to get a paid-for copy of the game.

Pirated copies are not "demo copies". For the majority of people who get them, they are the first last and ONLY copy they will ever get .. even if they think the game is the most awesome invention since the discovery of fire.

As for people who "wouldn't have bought anyway" .... well, they don't fucking deserve to play it, if they don't buy it. Period. No exceptions.

If you only buy games that offer demos, and Game X doesn't offer a demo? You don't get to play Game X for free. No, not even "just to try it out".

You don't get to go into a restaurant, try a bite or two, say "yuck", and get out of paying just because you didn't like it.

You don't get to go to the theater, watch five minutes, say "yuck" and get out of paying just because you didn't like it.

Why should games be any different?

That is a bit askew from the point I was trying to make, which was: "you cant count it as a lost sale, if the sale was never going to be made to begin with.", taking more issue with how the problem of piracy is presented, rather than the problem of piracy itself. It is only fair to report an estimation of of what actual lost sales would be, rather than assuming that every pirated copy is a lost sale and then adding incidental costs associated with the act of piracy and then saying "look everyone, this is how much money we couldve made!"

[Critias]

One tiny correction there, Pax: we don't get royalties. I am on Neat, but (even with other fiction in the pipeline) that seems to be a one-time affair. Freelancers are, by and large, paid by the word (for some word) or flat rate (for other projects) -- no royalties. We write the stuff because we want to support the game, and we think folks will enjoy what we write. Pirated copies take money from Shadowrun as a setting, but not directly from us. When we pimp out our stuff and try to get folks to buy it, it's (a) because we hope folks will like it and have fun with it, but (b) because sales are tracked (to an extent) in-house, and they maybe bolster our chances of follow-up projects and that sort of thing. But it's largely theoretical, not strictly financial.

It sucks that the first two things I see when I google "Shadowrun Way of the Adept" is the pdf for free over from sup/tg and 4shared.com (and that free downloads are four of the first ten hits, in fact), yes. But it doesn't suck because it's directly taking money out of my pocket, only because someone feels like my work isn't worth paying money for, and that by doing so they hurt my odds of having direct creative control of future products, etc, etc.

[_Pax._]

That is a bit askew from the point I was trying to make, which was: "you cant count it as a lost sale, if the sale was never going to be made to begin with.",

And I still disagree.

The way it works, legally and morally: you have to buy the game to play it. ERGO, everyone who plays the game, bought it. So if you have 3,418 people playing the game, you b]should[/b] get the money for 3,418 sales.

Every one of those players who DIDN'T buy the game .... is a lost sale.

Not lost in the sense of, "in a perfect world with no piracy we would have sold that many units".

No; rather, "with that many copies in use, we should have $27,344 in gross receipts. However, only 214 copies were paid for, and we have only $1,712 in gross receipts. Where's the other $25,622 ...? Lost, that's where."

It is only fair to report an estimation of of what actual lost sales would be, rather than assuming that every pirated copy is a lost sale and then adding incidental costs associated with the act of piracy and then saying "look everyone, this is how much money we couldve made!"

Except that, since noone has a crystal ball able to perfectly show you every "what if" scenario imaginable ... the only way to estimate what you could, even should have sold? Is to look at how many copies of your game are actually being played. Yes, including the pirated copies.

[_Pax._]

One tiny correction there, Pax: we don't get royalties.

No? Huh, learn something every day. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I've known some of the folks working on Shadowrun, to one degree or another, pretty much from 1E days - Lou Prosperi was a member of the same university gaming club, for example. For another, I was in a group that faced off against a CyberZombie before they were officially published, too (I'm sure the GM, one of the authors, took great joy in my obvious panic after unloading a ripple salvo of five 12.7cm anti-vehicle rockets into it at effective point-blank range only slowed it down, hahaha!).

So anyway, I have a bit of a "defend the writers" impulse for Shadowrun - because I've known a couple of you folks on a fist-name basis, face to face. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tanegar]

And I still disagree.

The way it works, legally and morally: you have to buy the game to play it. ERGO, everyone who plays the game, bought it. So if you have 3,418 people playing the game, you b]should[/b] get the money for 3,418 sales.

Every one of those players who DIDN'T buy the game .... is a lost sale.

Not lost in the sense of, "in a perfect world with no piracy we would have sold that many units".

No; rather, "with that many copies in use, we should have $27,344 in gross receipts. However, only 214 copies were paid for, and we have only $1,712 in gross receipts. Where's the other $25,622 ...? Lost, that's where."



Except that, since noone has a crystal ball able to perfectly show you every "what if" scenario imaginable ... the only way to estimate what you could, even should have sold? Is to look at how many copies of your game are actually being played. Yes, including the pirated copies.

You can disagree all you like, it doesn't make you correct. There is no way to estimate what you could or should have sold, because there's no (reliable) way to get the data on what percentage of pirates would or would not have paid for the game if they couldn't pirate it. For the sake of argument, we'll call it a 50/50 split. 1602 pirates would have paid for the game, and 1602 would not. You cannot count the latter as lost sales, because you were never going to get money from them in the first place.

[Stahlseele]

i pirate some games on principle, because the pirated copy is simply better in terms of usability and much less intrusive in terms of DRM stuff.
and i have bought games i have no intent of playing simply because the makers actually came out and said:"fuck that noise, no DRM with us!"

[Wounded Ronin]

Page not available. ;;

[_Pax._]

[...] you were never going to get money from them in the first place.

The same could be said to be true about a car thief. Doesn't make what they do any less wrong.