A lot more piracy discussion has come to my attention lately with the wave banning and the release of games like MW2 and Borderlands. so this is pretty much just a rant.
Now i've seen a lot of people bitching about getting their 360 banned, its not just here, its all over any big gaming related forums. What i dont get is, when you modify any console, you know full well the risks involved. of course this includes live bans. there are people acting as if flashing their 360 drive is a right, and its as if microsoft owes them something. now seriously, you pay for the console and expect to get free games?
christ, then there's the people who try to justify piracy. i've seen arguments like "these games a crap, why should i pay for them?" and then watch the person happily go and play the game for over 90 hours. then there's the others who say "prices for games are too expensive, maybe if they dropped to 10-20 i'd buy more games" - while i do partly agree with this. if games were that cheap i'd have a large library full but they're not. A huge problem here is, are pirates really a large enough percentage of gamers to warrant a large enough price drop? dropping prices for a larger market, wouldn't be too great of an idea, why? publishers would rather sell a game at $60 and rack up 250,000~ sales over selling games at $20 and having 500,000~ sales. heck anyone would.
What people seem to believe is that video game piracy is the biggest factor that is destroying the industry. most of that is untrue, i've found retailers dealing in used copies of games rake in money while the publisher/developer gets nothing from these 2nd hand sales (nothing that we've heard of anyway). I also see a few people who refuse to pay retail prices for a game, happily go and pay 10-20% less and get the used version and say its not piracy.
There's also the people who say "why pay for something you can get for free?" and then go around preaching that philosophy to everyone they know. Sure thing, its probably the most logical answer to piracy however, this relies on some people who are actually willing to support certain companies by paying for the game. now when this happens, no one buys the game, a catastrophe like Troika games happens. Now when that actually happened, i'm fairly sure i wasnt all that into gaming, i was still clicking happily away at diablo 2/counter strike and a couple other games to know about Vampire the masquerade bloodlines and troika's other games, Though i was lucky enough to have stumbled across Arcanum earlier. but after learning about what happened to them, this is probably one of the biggest thing pirates have caused. total sales of the game were drifting around 72,000 when troika shut down. Now troika games wasnt a company that warranted a shutdown, they've made excellent games like Arcanum and VTMB. all respectable and great games made by a company which was seemingly destroyed by piracy. everytime i see a discussion about one of troika's games, it always boils down to something along the lines of "Sorry i pirated your games, if you come back and make another game we'll buy 30 copies"
The demo argument, i agree with but i believe a 85% of people who say they try before they buy, try the game, finish it and don't bother buying it at all - though this is partly the publishers fault for not releasing a demo.
I'm not exactly a person who buys every game, i pirate a majority of my games and only games i believe are worth it. i strictly avoid some publishers. i know its wrong but its the people who believe they have a right to pirate their games who tick me off.
Now i've seen a lot of people bitching about getting their 360 banned, its not just here, its all over any big gaming related forums. What i dont get is, when you modify any console, you know full well the risks involved. of course this includes live bans. there are people acting as if flashing their 360 drive is a right, and its as if microsoft owes them something. now seriously, you pay for the console and expect to get free games?
christ, then there's the people who try to justify piracy. i've seen arguments like "these games a crap, why should i pay for them?" and then watch the person happily go and play the game for over 90 hours. then there's the others who say "prices for games are too expensive, maybe if they dropped to 10-20 i'd buy more games" - while i do partly agree with this. if games were that cheap i'd have a large library full but they're not. A huge problem here is, are pirates really a large enough percentage of gamers to warrant a large enough price drop? dropping prices for a larger market, wouldn't be too great of an idea, why? publishers would rather sell a game at $60 and rack up 250,000~ sales over selling games at $20 and having 500,000~ sales. heck anyone would.
What people seem to believe is that video game piracy is the biggest factor that is destroying the industry. most of that is untrue, i've found retailers dealing in used copies of games rake in money while the publisher/developer gets nothing from these 2nd hand sales (nothing that we've heard of anyway). I also see a few people who refuse to pay retail prices for a game, happily go and pay 10-20% less and get the used version and say its not piracy.
There's also the people who say "why pay for something you can get for free?" and then go around preaching that philosophy to everyone they know. Sure thing, its probably the most logical answer to piracy however, this relies on some people who are actually willing to support certain companies by paying for the game. now when this happens, no one buys the game, a catastrophe like Troika games happens. Now when that actually happened, i'm fairly sure i wasnt all that into gaming, i was still clicking happily away at diablo 2/counter strike and a couple other games to know about Vampire the masquerade bloodlines and troika's other games, Though i was lucky enough to have stumbled across Arcanum earlier. but after learning about what happened to them, this is probably one of the biggest thing pirates have caused. total sales of the game were drifting around 72,000 when troika shut down. Now troika games wasnt a company that warranted a shutdown, they've made excellent games like Arcanum and VTMB. all respectable and great games made by a company which was seemingly destroyed by piracy. everytime i see a discussion about one of troika's games, it always boils down to something along the lines of "Sorry i pirated your games, if you come back and make another game we'll buy 30 copies"
The demo argument, i agree with but i believe a 85% of people who say they try before they buy, try the game, finish it and don't bother buying it at all - though this is partly the publishers fault for not releasing a demo.
I'm not exactly a person who buys every game, i pirate a majority of my games and only games i believe are worth it. i strictly avoid some publishers. i know its wrong but its the people who believe they have a right to pirate their games who tick me off.
