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

[bannockburn]

I think, it's only lent, so don't panic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Starmage21]

I'm not the one that started up the car analogy, I was running with someone else's ball.

OH SHIT PIRATED BALL SORRY GUYS.

I wanted to make the same point, but I abandoned it because I'm not sure its so different. You still make that initial investment in the development, but the difference is that once the product is finished, additional costs of production are relatively fixed and massively lesser than other goods. We might be talking about literal pennies per copy versus the cost-to-produce/Selling Price ratio that goods must contend with.

[cryptoknight]

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.

Actually in both cases you do.

You can return the dish to the kitchen if it's terrible. Most times you won't get charged. If you eat the whole plate of it, you don't get your money back though.

As for the second, most theatres in my area at least have a "if you leave in the first 20 minutes of the movie you get a refund" policy.

Doesn't mean I agree with Piracy, but these points aren't necessarily valid either.

[nezumi]

Ever hear of "MinMax Games LTD." ...? Neither had I, until I bought "Space Pirates and Zombies".

Ever hear of "Amplitude Studios" ...? Neither had I, until I bought "Endless Space".

How about "SuperGiant Games" ...? Nope, not me either, until I bought their first-ever game, "Bastion" (and am now eagerly awaiting their NEXT game, "Transistor").

Hell. Had you ever heard of "Mojang", before Markus Persson had already sold a quarter of a million copies of then-Alpha Minecraft? I know I hadn't - and I know for a fact that you hadn't either, because at the time, not even "Mojang" existed. It was still JUST Markus. One guy, with his hobby-that-turns-a-nice-profit.

Sure, but did you buy them opening day? No? Why not? Because you'd never heard of them.

Not having heard of a company, in no way justifies pirating their software.

I'm not saying it does justify.

Imagine 100 people heard of this game through the website, and 50 of them bought it. 900 people heard of this game through a file-sharing site, and 450 of them downloaded it.

In both cases what we're seeing is that half of all people who saw the game, got it.

HOWEVER, only 10% of the people heard about the game via a method which provides a quick way to pay for it. The other 90% heard of it through a site where you cannot pay for it; you have to download, or abort and circle around to the other method. Also established is that people who are on file-sharing sites are normally there with the intention of downloading files without paying for them.

The guy who wrote the blog post is taking these numbers and saying "OMG, 90% of people are pirates!!!" But that conclusion is false. He did bad math, and came to a bad conclusion. What he CAN say is "much more people see our game via PirateBay than see it via GreenHeartGames.com!!!" and he should draw conclusions based on that.

If you want to know what percentage of people will pirate, you need the majority of your sample audience to know, before they log in, where they can pirate the game and where they can buy it legally. He didn't meet this bare requirement.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/file...=game+developer

You were saying? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=...Game+Dev+Tycoon

You were saying?

[_Pax._]

Actually in both cases you do.

You can return the dish to the kitchen if it's terrible. Most times you won't get charged. If you eat the whole plate of it, you don't get your money back though.

You can return the dish, and not get charged, IF (and this is a huge if) one of the following is true:

• It is not what you actually ordered;
• It was not prepared correctly;
• It was not served in a reasonably edible condition (getting a steak twenty minutes late and barely room-temperature, for example);
• There was a health code violation.

If you decide "Hmm, I've never had a flatiron steak; I'll give it a try tonight" .... and it turns out you just don't happen to like it?

It's what you ordered, it was prepared correctly, it was served in perfectly-edible condition, and there were no health code violations (like, half a roach on the plate, or whatever) ...?

You owe the restaurant the full bill. Trying to just skate on that bill, will get you arrested.

Maybe you could negotiate with your server and the manager for a reduced bill, even to $0. But you aren't the one with final say on that.

...

That's not random example, by the by. The weekend before last, at Longhorn Steakhouse ... I decided to try the Flatiron steak, with parmesagn crust. I didn't especially care for it - it was edible, and not BAD, but that's really the best I can say about it. (I do like several of their other cuts.)

As for the second, most theatres in my area at least have a "if you leave in the first 20 minutes of the movie you get a refund" policy.

Not where I live, not that I've ever learned about. Most of them have a clearly posted "NO REFUNDS" policy. *shrug*

[_Pax._]

Sure, but did you buy them opening day? No? Why not? Because you'd never heard of them.

Actually, yes. Yes, I did.

I bought SPAZ, Bastion, And Endless Space the very day they launched.

Why?

Because they looked interesting, I had some money to spare, and being Indie titles, they were quite inexpensively priced.

Even now, SPAZ is $10, Bastion is $15, and Endless Space is $30 (I think it was 20% off for the day of launch, though).

Another one I haven't mentioned before, is "StarDrive", by the very one-man outfit "Zero Sum Games" (currently $30 on steam, but also 10% off at the time of this post). I actually bought that one BEFORE it launched, by the way. Never heard of the company, but the game intrigued me - and buying it during the Beta put it at 40% or 50% off.

Notice how games up to $20 or $25, I'm not worried about "what have I seen this company do before" ...? I'm willing to give the small guys, the NEW guys, a chance if their games are priced in the "impulse buy" range, or even a bit higher.

Imagine 100 people heard of this game through the website, and 50 of them bought it. 900 people heard of this game through a file-sharing site, and 450 of them downloaded it.

Then 450 of them did somethign morally reprehensible. They should have googled for the name of the game and company, found the legal place to buy it, and done so. Or if they preferred free demos, gone to the company's forum, and said "hey if you put out a free demo I can try, and it's good, I'll buy your game."

They should not have gone to a file-sharing site to download a game, in the first place.

In both cases what we're seeing is that half of all people who saw the game, got it.

HOWEVER, only 10% of the people heard about the game via a method which provides a quick way to pay for it.

Again, assumes facts not in evidence.

How do you know who heard of the game where?

How do you know that none of those who got the game via torrent, didn't first find the sales outlet?

And flipside, how do you know that none of those who bought the game, didn't see it in their P2P client, and say "oh, lemme check that out .... yeah, eight bucks is cool", and then bought it?

...

No; you want the developer to be at fault, you want to excuse the people who downloaded a pirated copy. And so you are trying to shape the data to fit your conclusions.

When you should instead be doing it completely the other way around.

The guy who wrote the blog post is taking these numbers and saying "OMG, 90% of people are pirates!!!"

No, no he's not. He's saying "OMG, for every bought copy, there are fifteen "pirate" copies! And then these freeloading bastards come to my forums and complain about the very action they themselves are immediately guilty of ...!"

It's the hypocrisy that's the point. These people pirated a game - and the ones who went to the forum, cannot NOT know that they were supposed to pay for it - and are complaining that in the game itself, [i]people are pirating games, and thus, noone is BUYING those games, and their little make-believe company goes out of business.

If you want to know what percentage of people will pirate, you need the majority of your sample audience to know, before they log in, where they can pirate the game and where they can buy it legally. He didn't meet this bare requirement.

Truly, p[lainly, you didn't read the actual blog and are just talking out your backside right now.

The description file posted for the torrent was this:

FULL VERSION OF GAME DEV TYCOON for WINDOWS - CRACKED AND WORKING

NAME: GAME DEV TYCOON

VERSION: 1.3.0

PLATFORMS: Windows

RELEASE DATE: APRIL 2013

DESCRIPTION:

Start your own game development company and replay the history of gaming in this business similation game. Start your business in a garage in the 80s. Research new technologies and create best selling games. Hire and train staff. Move into bigger offices and unlock secret labs. Become the leader of the market and gain worldwide fans.

DEVELOPER WEBSITE:

http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/

INSTRUCTIONS:

Just run installer.

VIRUS FREE, TROJAN FREE, NO SPYWARE. SIMPLY WORKS!

//madcom

Pay especial attention to that bit, "developer website". Everyone who found the torrent, also knew exactly where to go, to get a legal and paid-for copy. Yet several thousand of them chose not to.

You were saying?

Duh, they don't HAVE a game released yet. But, just because your search-fu was weak, doesn't mean they aren't ON steam, at all.

Besides, if you'd been one of those checkign for it via Torrent?

Right there. In the description.

[nezumi]

Dude, you need to back down. For the most part, I *agree* with you. But I don't have the time to engage with someone who is going to dig into petty insults from a high horse.

[_Pax._]

If pointing out the blindingly obvious is "a petty insult" ... well, damn. I don't have any idea what to say, in that case.

[bannockburn]

It's a matter of tone and you've been called out on it by different people often enough that one might think it 'blindingly obvious' that it might warrant a bit of inward reflection.

Edit: The internet is a place where facial expression and gesture are sorely lacking and you have a habit of making up for it by using italics and bold face. It might be one of the reasons that you come across as a bit rude.

[BishopMcQ]

Let's all chill out. Tempers are running high so take a deep breath, read a different thread for a little bit, and come back in an hour when you have a clear head. One line sniping at each other is not going to help, and starts looking a lot like Personal Attacks. Thanks!

[Adam]

Let's also bear in mind that the whole thing is largely a marketing exercise for Greenheart; trying to convert pirates to buying a copy, trying to stir up support and good wishes from people who oppose piracy, but mostly just trying to get people to notice, share, and talk about it.

People pirate stuff. That's never going to change. The special sauce is how publishers and creators react to piracy and the people who do it. People pirate for a variety of reasons, and you can't just lump them all into one bucket.

[Wounded Ronin]

Hey, I played the free demo on my craptop last night and had a lot of fun!

I have this little crappy floor model craptop that I paid like a hundred and fifty bucks for before heading to Micronesia that can barely run anything. The screen is so small that even when I fiddle with the resolution, there's a small amount of graphic/menu cutoff that occurs when I play the demo.

But this game is really ideal for me because it doesn't require a nice computer or fast internet.

I think later this week when I have the chance I'm going to buy the full version.

By the way, in terms of similar games, has anyone played Gamebiz 2? That was also a good game, similar to this one.

My only critique of this game is that it seems like it's a little bit easy. In the 5 year demo game my character ended up banking like 2 million dollars coding out of his garage. It doesn't seem very realistic.

[Tanegar]

Maybe your character is based on Notch?

[CanRay]

I played a few games of it (it distracted me, less and less is doing that right now.). For every 2M company I made, ten went down the bankruptcy hole. So, yeah, it depends on a lot of things.

[X-Kalibur]

Let's also bear in mind that the whole thing is largely a marketing exercise for Greenheart; trying to convert pirates to buying a copy, trying to stir up support and good wishes from people who oppose piracy, but mostly just trying to get people to notice, share, and talk about it.

People pirate stuff. That's never going to change. The special sauce is how publishers and creators react to piracy and the people who do it. People pirate for a variety of reasons, and you can't just lump them all into one bucket.

Thank you Adam, for the voice of reason.

[Wounded Ronin]

Oh god, this is too funny: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/01/...ame-dev-tycoon/

[Adam]

Thank you Adam, for the voice of reason.

Most people get too het up with emotions regarding piracy. It's just business, and not a part of business that's worth taking personally.

[CanRay]

Most people get too het up with emotions regarding piracy. It's just business, and not a part of business that's worth taking personally.

*Looks up at the pirates hanging by their necks until dead* "Nothin' personal. Only bizness."

...

Wrong kind of pirates?

[Wounded Ronin]

OK, the full game is more challenging for sure. My biggest problem is that after a while in spite of inputs my game starts getting mediocre reviews. I suspect it might be that unless you update graphics AND sound with new engines, your games start to suck no matter what.

LOL in retrospect on using mono sound from the 80s way into the Playstation era.

[Wounded Ronin]

LOL, I went bankrupt because if your staff don't get vacations they contribute literally nothing to the project and your end product sucks.

[Tanegar]

Oh god, this is too funny: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/01/...ame-dev-tycoon/

I would find that funnier if I weren't already convinced that that is exactly what happens in the boardrooms of game publishers.

[X-Kalibur]

I would find that funnier if I weren't already convinced that that is exactly what happens in the boardrooms of EA

Fixed that for you.

[Wounded Ronin]

EA used to be so cool, too. Their games Strike Fleet and SEAL Team are some of the most awesome military simulations of the era.

[Wounded Ronin]

So, I was looking at the wiki, and apparently the game penalizes you significantly if you publish repetitious genres of games.

I'm kind of "meh" on that one, as far as realism goes. That's like saying Final Fantasy could never have been a successful franchise due to repetition of genre.

[X-Kalibur]

So, I was looking at the wiki, and apparently the game penalizes you significantly if you publish repetitious genres of games.

I'm kind of "meh" on that one, as far as realism goes. That's like saying Final Fantasy could never have been a successful franchise due to repetition of genre.

But Square didn't JUST make Final Fantasy all those years to stay afloat. SNES Era had 3 FF games (4, 5, 6) as well as Super Mario RPG, Seiken Densetsu 2 and 3, Live a Live, Chrono Trigger, Bahamut Lagoon, Breath Of Fire, Front Mission, Romancing SaGa 1, 2, 3, Treasure of the Rudras, and Radical Dreamers (I may be missing a few titles, I didn't include Secret of Evermore because I believe it was an NA only title). While those are all RPGs I wouldn't call them repetitious.