Gaming Is piracy ruining the Wii?

[Commadore64]

Is there ever an incident that piracy helped a product?
*Basically a company realizes that giving a product away is better than selling it?


Peoples arguments are that the price is too high to justify to buy the game
and/or
the games sucks so bad it is not worth the price

Now the justification that it is OK to pirate the games is because the game sucks and too expensive.
*Does this hold water? It would be like stealing a Renault Alliance because the car is over priced with shoddy workmanship so its ok...the judge will understand. Or "I went to a restaurant and ordered 12 hot wings, basket of beer battered onion rings and a large coke. The bill was at $15 which is too high so I walked off and didnt pay. They police will understand"

Something else is that some people say "if the game is good enough I will buy it". This is a difficult concept to digest. Maybe 1/10 of 1% of pirates fall into this category. Maybe


I agree that most of the games on the Wii suck and really dont have a market. Case in point is Major Minors Majestic March. This is geared towards what crowd? Would piracy help create more games like this or less? Wii may be the least expensive of the 3 consoles but games like this explain that fact.
And to "Xbox/PS3 is geared towards hardcore gamers with vulgar themes, the Wii is safe"...well I cant speak for PS3 but 360 if you seach for games rated E (Everyone), there are 366 games that pop up. Not everything on 360 is bloody but at least "the 360 menu" has more variety than the Wii. This is just my opinion.

 

[Bladexdsl]

more variety if you like over 100 shooter, driving or sports games. yeah some variety.

 

[Commadore64]

True - 112 shooters on 360...I was looking at the Wii catalog and they dont have this in the list.
So, yes, variety

Now we can talk about playability

Using Metacritic

Using games that rank 75 point or higher (100 is max)

Playstation 2 - 536 games out of 1594 ....or 33% of the games
Playstation 3 - 136 games out of 300 ... 45% of the games
Xbox 360 - 223 out of 582 games .... 38% of the games
Xbox 1 - 339 out of 856 games ... 39% of the games
Wii - 71 out of 374 games ... 18% of the games


METASCORES range from 0-100, with higher scores indicating better overall reviews, and lower scores indicating less favorable reviews from critics. Various ranges of METASCORES are also identified by different colors, so you can tell at a glance how critics felt: generally, green scores [75-100] indicate favorable reviews, yellow scores [50-74] denote mixed reviews, and red scores [0-49] are used for unfavorable reviews.

What does this say? Well on any system except the Wii you have a 1 in 3 chance (or better - almost 1 out of 2 for PS3) of playing a game that is favorable (Fun), where as the Wii you have a 1 in 6 chance that you game will be fun.

but this thread is about piracy on Wii, statistics show another picture

 

[scousethief]

The price of games has never held up , or in other words what happens to the £40 titles that sell badly and are now on sale for £10 ? weres the other £30 gone ? On the monetary side all games are massively overpriced for what you get but thats just how it is , its also one of the reasons demos are in very short supply ie very nearly never get produced, if the company doesnt release a demo you dont get to see how crap it actually is and so you have to buy it to find out that is the real reason they hate piracy you get to see how shit their games are for virtually free ( minus the cost of the disks/internet usage/newsgroups or whatever your source/ and your nice shiney computer which cost a lot of money of course).

 

[EvanUnisil]

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. The people who enjoy playing Hardcore games have a certain level of intelligence and they're intelligent enough to figure out how to pirate games. We're not saying that the Wii doesn't sell a gazillion consoles... good work to all of you for pointing that out. But are those gazillion console owners hardcore gamers? Hell no! But that little fanbase of hardcore gamers know how to download games and so they do. And 90% of those pirates don't buy them. There's the odd Knight In Shining Armour who actually purchases the games but it's very rare.

Just look at Wii Fit's sales, it's the proof that only the casual gamers are buying the games and not the hardcore gamers.

I agree that the price of games is ridiculous though. If I couldn't pirate on the Wii I never would have bought one in the first place (the Wii console is damn expensive now too, f'ing ripoff). I can't afford to buy games so like I said if I didn't know I could get games for free I never would have gotten the console. I recently lost my job too thanks to this great economy so there's even less chance of buying the games.

If I had the money I'd absolutely buy the games. I just don't make as much money as these companies think I do. I was reading about how in Africa all these people are HIV positive and they couldn't afford the drugs to help suppress the virus. So Bill Clinton came along and spoke to the drug distributors and showed them that if they made the price at a level these people could afford they would sell so many drugs that they'd be making more money than they are selling a few drugs at exhorbent prices.

But whatever, they're making millions already anyway, why should they lower the price? Just think of how many shitty games you'd buy 'on a whim' when you'd see it for $10, like those movies you see on DVD for $10 that you wouldn't have bought if it was $30 but man, $10?! That's a bargain!

 

[Commadore64]

@EvanUnisil
Good response. Very illuminative.

I think there is a certain profit Nintendo needs to break even on a game.
DVD materials, DVD pressing, Packaging, Manuals, Shipping, Advertising, paying for development/developers...
Ever if it costs them $10 for material - and they ship out 100,000 Major Minor Majestic March ($1,000,000) already out the door- they might actually sell 2500.
*These figures are low but it is just a scenario
So at $40 they broke even. If they need to deplete their stock (like as in they cant get rid of it) they can reduce the price now as they broke even. But they wont do that - that would be an immediate indicator that the game sucks.....
Hmmm Mario Kart $50...Major Minor Majestic March $6

Even if the Wii does crash and burn, Nintendo still has the DS market as a buffer.

 

[ddp127]

piracy is a good thing in my opinion, because:
1. noone buys bad games, so there will only come good games (if there were more pirates)
2. the sales aren't lowered very much
3. i think that if you are a game developer, you prefer your game being pirated, than that your game isn't played at all...
4. and i dont have to pay that much

 

[SoLuckys]

i agree with points 2,3 and 4 of ddp127. Idont think that piracy its ruining the WII

 

[Commadore64]

1. No one will buy games period if there is a way to get them free
2. If 1 copy is sold and 100 people pirate it - then that is 100 lost sales
---impossible to prove what ratio is lost here
3. A game developer needs money for gas to drive to work, money to pay for rent and food...Piracy returns which of these back to the developer?
4. You dont pay at all....

 

[754boy]

Piracy isn't killing the Wii!! The endless stream of SHOVELWARE is what's doing the damage. Hell, half the shit on the Wii isnt even worth pirating, not to mention buying.

 

[EvanUnisil]

piracy is a good thing in my opinion, because:
1. noone buys bad games, so there will only come good games (if there were more pirates)
2. the sales aren't lowered very much
3. i think that if you are a game developer, you prefer your game being pirated, than that your game isn't played at all...
4. and i dont have to pay that much

Your third point doesn't make sense. How pissed off would a company be if they're game gets a million downloads but doesn't sell at all? Why aren't these people buying my game? They obviously like it enough to steal it, why aren't they paying for it? I'm now completely bankrupt and won't be able to make any more games "for the people that love my games so much they pirate them". I no longer have a job, I cannot feed my family. Thank God those guys got to play it though! I was worried NO ONE was going to even try my game. Well back to my cardboard box of a home...

Point number 1 is stupid too. People DO buy bad games. Mario Party sells really well with almost every release despite being the same game every time and having horrible, horrible controls. The point is that people who don't give a shit about games buy games, they don't know any better so they buy shitty games. People who do care about games don't buy shitty games, they download good ones.

And Commadore64, I know what you mean. I have no idea how much it really costs them to make these games, let alone the fact that they need to pay a lot of staff to make these games really good. I guess you could say videogame prices are the consumers fault - we are constantly demanding more from them (better graphics, longer games, online capabilities) so it's costing them more and more every year to produce games and they need to raise the prices so they can at least afford to have them released. I do however think that games should drop in price as they age, which a lot of them don't. Sure we sometimes get "platinum" or "Player's Choice" games (which I think falls into your "breaking even" argument) but I can't remember the last time I saw games drop in price. Does Wii even have Player's Choice?

QUOTE(754boy @ Apr 20 2009, 12:00 PM) Piracy isn't killing the Wii!! The endless stream of SHOVELWARE is what's doing the damage. Hell, half the shit on the Wii isnt even worth pirating, not to mention buying.

That's because no one is buying the good games to begin with. It's an endless loop - pirates demanding more good games but refusing to pay for them. Companies demanding people to buy good games but no one is buying them. Why should I spend money on making a game for you when you won't even pay me for my services? I'll just keep spending no money on games and getting a little more than my money back. It's better than spending a lot of money and getting almost none of it back.

Let's see how you "they're just happy we play the games" people survive going to work and only getting 10% of your wages. I'm sure you feel good just helping people, right? No need to pay me. I do it for the people.

 

[ddp127]

say, you are a game developer, but then one like bob, you know, from that one man game for the nds, and you have worked on it for 5 years, if noone plays your game, it is very dissapointing, but if there are only people pirating your game, than it is at least played, so pirating is better than not playing the game at all...

in both cases you cant feed your family, and need to live in a box, but with the piracy you at least made someone happy with your game

 

[EvanUnisil]

You're joking right? How many Bob's are out there? What's that? ONE? There's only ONE Bob? And how good was his game? What's that? IT SUCKED?! It took him FIVE YEARS and it STILL SUCKS? Well that's what happens when people pirate your games and don't pay for them. I hope Nintendo takes a page out of Bob's book and just makes one person make the Zelda games now. It'll be like ten years before we see a game like Zelda a Link to the Past, let alone Twilight Princess (20 years maybe?).

But hey, at least someone played it! I'm sure there's some satisfaction in that. Good for you Bob!

The future of videogames - nothing but Bob Games.

And it's like I said - tell your boss you only want 10% of your wage from now on. You just want to help people. What do you do for a living? Do you work in a grocery store? Do you drive trucks? Well from now on you drive trucks just to get items there. Not for the money. You pack shelves because you just like seeing those shelves full.

Your argument is fucking ridiculous. There, I said it.

 

[Commadore64]

Actually the real money would be from downloadable WiiWare stuff
Like Super Mario Brothers for 500 points (aka $5)....
The game is in their old time library - it's a classic - no current dev costs - no shipping/packaging

They could release their entire (compatible to Wii) old NES library with 500 points per game download and clean up. If piracy destroys the Wii and DS was not around as a buffer, they could make Wii a retro console fairly quickly and make a killing.

I read an article somewhere about how 80's games are making a comeback as they provide something current console games do not - high powered, high action, short life fun. They had/have Galaga Legions on 360 which is redone with 32 bit graphics and up-down-left-right controls instead of left-right. This will a lot more enemies...Really the game is not changed but it is fun at a different level than FPS's or driving games or even PopCap games on 360. I think I bought it for $5 and consider it a great buy.
This right here makes me ready to buy Namco Virtual Arcade which has a dozen or so of these games

I am not sure if you said this or someone else about Wii doesnt have demos because it would surely kill the sale (might be a different thread) but this makes sense.
You have to admit that most Wii games have this "feel" to them

If I have the ability to demo another game and got this:

then again and again and again....Well - I did get rid of my Wii because of this fact.
However, think about it - if my neighbors had this ability to demo/preview a game...I dont think they would be rushing out to get any Nintendo game

But if people want to pirate Nintendo - go for it.

 

[scousethief]

I bought my Wii because i was sick of same old button mashing games , unfortunately developers are so dim that they end up producing .......button mashing games , there are very few games that grab the Wii's control capabilities and use them to their full extent and some of those do it badly. Fortunately there are a few titles that are for me keeping the Wii alive at the minute , how long it will keep it i dont know , if they keep releaseing shit then it wont be for very long which will be a shame , there are a few that im am excited about but we will see if they live up to their expectations.
Luckily a lot of my games are pc based so i get to button mash on here but even so im getting sick of the copy protections that are implemented which ruin gameplay and stuid systems that dont allow me to make an image and mount them without screwing everything up ( my battlefield 2 disk is ancient and scratched ).
Lets hope that developers take a passing glance at this and understand we dont really want...
Dogz
Catz
Horsez
Hamsterz
Gerbilz etcetcetcetc

theres no point moaning and screaming piracy when you produce shite over and over and over and expect gamers/parents/kids to spend their money on the same old game just with a different animal /set of bratz.

Lastly please stop now with the shitty graphics the wii is capable of so much more RE4 to me looked very very good then out comes chop till you drop that looked like a commodore 64 game ffs 1 absolute quality title then back to any old shit will do .Also how about a good Final Fantasy game for gods sake 7,8,9 were good games (7 was supreme ) update them integrate the wiis controls and make a whole new universe for rpg gamers instead of "crystal chronicles" which isnt even a match for the earlier games.

Developers need to wake up instead of porting some free flash game from the web or using some Ds game and expecting to get paid for doing literally nothing.

P.s I am a White Knight i buy every game i like i think i have about 90 originals for the wii that one of us play.

 

[Omgwtfisthat]

FF remakes would be niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Anyway this topic has gotten pretty interesting. I hope what happened to the PSP doesn not happen to the Wii. Have you been checking what games have come out during the last year or so on PSP? GEEZ! There were only like 1 or 2 I actually bothered playing.