NKD wrote on Sep 5, 2010, 04:37:

Esoteric wrote on Sep 5, 2010, 04:07:
I tend to agree with elefunk. It seems most of the people on BluesNews comments are automatically negative, irrationally so. It's like a mild version of RPG Codex. And if you're not familiar with RPG Codex already, thank your lucky stars.

The unhappiest gamers alive are at Blue's News. While I've seen sites with a lot more bile and spite in terms of quantity, no site beats the consistency of posts here at Blue's. I can predict with almost 100% certainty what a given user will say about a given news post.

I really wonder, with the posts I see here, why these people bother with gaming at all if it is so bad. I have to assume they are mostly pirates and aren't investing any cash into the hobby. After all, to complain that much and still give developers money they'd have to be the biggest suckers alive.

QFT
I really like Bluesnews, but the forums here are populated with a bunch of immature self-serving software pirates that try to rationalize stealing.

Ironically, most of these same people have used Stardock as thier shining example as to why piracy has no effect on the industry. Now they sit back and pile on the vitrol when stardock flounders, yet at the same time complain when they dont have the capital for an extensive QA process, a huge support team, or when a single game can make break the company.

Most of these people tend to rationalize their actions and take no personal responsibility for anything. It's always the "greedy corporations" or "idiot developers" or some other mysterious force that has caused the decline of PC gaming.

I am sad to hear of people who's family depend on income to lose their jobs regardless of who is at fault. I think it is sick to take such personal satisfaction from it.

However, I am kind of surprised to see some of the biggest pro-pirating posters (i.e. space_captain, jerykk, creston) on these boards be so happy that stardock is in trouble. After all, who will they point to now to try to prove piracy is irrelevant.

Well no one said they ever made much sense...

PC gamers are not exactly easy to please. Not if you also want to actually have any incentive for people to buy the games.
I'm not that hard to please. Make a good game. Let me buy it online for a sane price. Don't make me wait for the game to be released in my region. Allow me to download it as often as I like. Don't limit number of installations (within reason, max 10 a day is fine). Don't require computer to ever connect again to keep playing once installed. Offer support (especially forums); preferably to customers only. Actually support the game post-release. If you sell on Steam, don't let them use their 1:1 USD to Euro conversion ratio, it's an insult.

so, basically you want near infinite support in terms of people and resources and pay next to nothing for it.

yeah.

thats the problem with all the pirates on this board, they only ever consider one side of the coin, not the fact that these things actually cost MONEY. Ummm, its not all about you, there are employees, shareholders, infrastruture and many other costs to consider. A transaction is a two way street, both sides must clearly benefit for it to be worthwhile, not just YOU!

i know, shocker right?

for all you boneheads that feel that they are being ripped off and that all the game companies are flush with your hard-earned cash, do me a favor:

1. take a course on corparate finance
2. check the 5y stock performance on any large game company
i.e
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ERTS#symbol=ERTS;range=5y
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=UBI.PA#symbol=UBI.PA;range=5y
3. get a f....ing clue.

If you feel that they are not using your money wisely, just dont buy the game, BUT THAT DOES NOT GIVE YOU ANY MORAL HIGH GROUND TO JUSTIFY STEALING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THERE IS NO CREDIBLE ARGUMENT THAT SUPPORTS YOUR STEALING OF A GAME, NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why arent there many innovative games from smaller publishers (PC only) BECAUSE THE BUSINESS MODEL CAN'T SUPPORT IT ANYMORE! There is no viable margin with the current PC piracy rates. EVERY FRAKING CEO/CIO has pretty much said the same thing, but apparently the pirates on this board like yourself, jerykk and NiN are all smarter than they are.

BTW.

Don't limit number of installations (within reason, max 10 a day is fine).

WTF? I have a network at home with 3 PCs and 2 laptops. I have only hit the install limit on any game maybe 3 times. I just called their support line and they quickly reset the limit for me.

10 a day? can you spell P-I-R-A-T-E ?

Grrrr

Excellent article.

@Jeryyk - The fact that you dont see that the very basic premise that if you are willing to expend time and energy to obtain something that it must have some intrinsic value is the prime example as why all you arguments are without merit. This is not something that can be intelligently debated. It is a simple fact of life. I would not walk across the street to get something that does not have any value to me, I would not reach out my hand and take a flyer from someone that was handing them out if I knew it had no value. All your arguments stem from challenging things that are known facts. You spend all your time constructing logical-sounding, but intellectully void arguments to support your vice. I even think you actually believe half the crap you spew. sad...

BTW, your pen argument is laughable. It seems that you are saying pens have no value. That has to be your weakest attempt so far. I would submit that if you had nothing to write with and needed to sign a reciept for a game purchase, you might put some value on a pen, ( but the thought of you actually buying a game is fictional, heh)

I could easily refute every one of your very lame attempts to discredit this article, but since they are fairly weak to begin with, I think that most people will see through your very thinly veiled attempt to justify your actions.

Is this an assumption?

Furthermore the benefits of console development have been known for at least ten years now, why would there be a sudden mass exodus of major PC game developers to consoles within the past year or two? Why for example would Crytek develop a PC exclusive like Crysis in 2007, and then on the basis of faltering sales, announce a sudden switch to console development in 2008, then expend a great deal of time and money backporting their existing CryEngine 2 to console? If they're lying and just using poor sales as an excuse to cover up their true motives, wouldn't it make sense for them to have already developed CryEngine 2 with consoles in mind to begin with, or released Crysis as a multiplatform game, if their real motives were always to move to console development?

Why incur that cost?

I've saved an excellent example for last. As an indication that not only is the scale of piracy generally high across all types of games, but more importantly, that it seems to have little to do with DRM, big greedy game companies, or the high price of games, let's take a look at a game called World of Goo, recently released by a small independent developer called 2D Boy consisting of a team of 3 people. It's available as a digital download, selling for less than $20 on Steam, it has no intrusive DRM, and it's received nothing but praise, reflected in a Metacritic Score of 90%/95%. This should be precisely the recipe for preventing piracy according to some, but unfortunately the truth is less convenient: the developer of the game has stated that World of Goo has an approximate piracy rate of 90%. Regardless of the precise level of piracy, the key point to consider is that World of Goo addresses every single item on the checklist of excuses which people usually present for pirating games - yet it is still being pirated quite heavily."

nuff said.

What is the motive of the author of this article to lie?

10,000 people marching on the field and you are the only one in step.

ROFL, there's Jerykk, the software pirate, who continues to rationalize his vice with fictional arguments and facts backed up with known fallacies. He spouts the same flawed logic every thread promoting piracy. Then when someone points out his flawed logic, he resorts to calling them idiots or some other name.

The funny thing is, he must be quite young because, if he lived through playing computer games through the 80's and 90's, he would see that most of his agruments are foolish because computer games held the lions share of the market and had a lot on innovation.

The very basic fact is : THERE IS NOT A SUFFICIENT PROFIT MARGIN IN MAKING COMPUTER ONLY GAMES ANYMORE!! Just about every development house has gone on record as to this fact and they have all cited piracy as a significant factor in this.

Why would they all lie? Occam's razor anyone?

The very simple fact that you seem to consistantly miss is that not every game made will be a blockbuster. There are costs associated with making the bad games too. You hope that the revenue from the good games will make up for the lost revenue from the bad ones. IT IS A BUSINESS. The fact that computer piracy is so rampant on the PC "caps" the upside revenue of the really good games, so overall your margins are very low, especially compared to console games, where piracy does not signifcantly impact the sales of the great games. Take a look at the sales figures for Great PC games compared to great Console games. Even more striking, take a look at the sales figures for "medicore" games. You will see that the deficit is huge!!! Even bad games make some revenue for companies on the consoles. Mediocre PC games are always in the extreme RED! In the past, before the rampant piracy on the Internet, that was not the case. In the 90's, a mediocre PC game would often make enough money to fund the next project (hopefully a blockbuster). Today that is not the case, so the risk to make a PC game is very, very high. You may say, "well, dont make bad game." But that is the problem with EVERY one of your arguments, they are not based in the REAL world. They are based in the world you would LIKE it to be. Sorry bud.

There are a lot of reasons why piracy is not a signifcant factor on consoles compared to PCs, I know you don't accept this very basic fact and that is why most of your arguments are so flawed. There are things we all know, but you just refuse to accept them and then make your own reality. Sorry, it just not true bud, no matter how much you think you are right, it is not so.

Based on the REAL world, and people like you who rationalize your actions with flawed logic, PCs will continue to decline as a viable gaming platform. Once consoles, get the ability to (really) handle MMOs, the PC platfrom will completely fade as a viable gaming platform. I know there is a DLC revenue stream for PCs atm, but as there becomes less and less of a reason for people to buy gaming PC's, even this will dwindle. Hardware sells sofware and software sells hardware, that is the cycle of life for the PC gaming market. Piracy is strangling the software side of this ecosystem and it will evenually die. IMHO MMOs are the only thing keeping it alive atm. (not to say there are not other good games, but not enough to sustain the platform long term. When you see ATI and/or Nvidia pull out of the high-end gaming card market, that will be the canary in the cage for PC gaming.


BTW, please don't use Stardock as proof of your arguments, I can produce a list as long as my arm of houses that have either failed completely or more telling, pulled out of the PC market completely. You and your ilk have used many companies in the past as examples as to why piracy doesn't hurt the industry until one-by-one they have all fallen with only stardock remaining. [opinion] I do not think stardock will become a huge player. IMHO they are riding the wave of aging computer gamers and will need to focus on more "casual" games to remain viable long term. There may always be a niche market for some more complex strategy games on the PC. We will see, but I don't feel it will ever be mainstream. [/opinion]

You are correct about one thing, companies ARE greedy, but your conclusion is flawed, because in a capital market, if there is potential to make money, someone will find it. There is just not much potential in the PC market especially compared to the console market.


I know i sound like the harbinger of doom, and many will say, "PC piracy has been around for years and the PC gaming market has survived"

That's true, but there are some differences

-Consoles used to be very inferior to PCs, that is not true anymore and the gap continues to close.

- younger gamers view consoles as the premier gaming platform, not PCs

- The Internet has made PC piracy much more accessable that it used to be.

As the gaming community continues to age, developers continue to move away from the PC as a supported platform, I think you will see PC decline for gaming.


I hate to admit it, but I have been gaming since 1982. I have seen the ups and downs of the industry. I know the industry very well, and short of some new cool, PC-only, hardware invention (3D displays, viable head-tracking devices, etc). I don't see PC gaming surviving much longer, short of the "casual" and indie spaces.

If you continue to believe that piracy did not play a significant role in it's demise, then that;s fine, just go play your console with your head in the sand. I know that there is no way to convince you because I have read most of your arguments and you have suffciently twisted the facts to conform to your ideals, while ignoring or tearing down those that do not support your hypothesis. I would remind you that you are supposed to form a conclusion based on ALL the facts, not cherry-pick the facts that support your conclusion, while ignore those that do not.

I hope that I am wrong, I hope that in 15 years, I get to call myself an idiot and say to myself " that jerryk was right, PC gaming is still awesome!"

As you are a pirate, and you will continue to promote software piracy, no matter what anyone says. I can only hope that if I'm right, you will wake up and reflect on your actions and maybe be somewhat sad that you helped kill an industry. :-(

I suspect though, you will rationalize it's failure based on people being too greedy, DRM, bad games, etc. and take no responsiblity. You will call all the industry experts "liars" who conspire to take money from people like you, as if it's a "us" vs "them" sort of battle, not real people trying to make a real living by creating something fun to play. oh well.

have no access to the PC below the age of 10. At least. Consoles are okay as long as its the Super Mario type games.

I totally disagree with you here. Computers can be extremely educational tools. The Internet is like an encyclopedia on steroids. Like most tools, you don't blame the tool, but how it is used. With adult supervision, I think computers can be a big boon to children. In today's increasingly data-intensive culture, I think children need to be comfortable with computers to be competetive as they grow older. I think the secret sauce is the parenting. We need to interact with our kids, get them to know right from wrong and make good decisions. Computers and games are not the problems, lack of attention and parenting is.

Oh and playing Wow with your underage kids is hardly quality time.

Why not? how does it differ from playing baseball in the yard or watching TV with them? If you are interacting with them, both parties are having fun, and you are monitoring content, why is this such a bad thing. It's not about the activity as much as it is about the quality of interaction. I think you are way too focused on the activity. My son (8) and I have played WoW together before. We started a duo and ran some quests. It was fun, we worked as a team and he had a blast. There has been some positive research in how MMOs can help teach teaming skills useful in later life http://www.seriosity.com/leadership.html. I cannot see any "baddness" in our activity. Of course, we also spent a lot of time discussing that it was a make-believe world and no one gets hurt. We also discussed that this type of behavoir(swinging swords, arrows, etc.) would not be appropriate for the real world. It spawned a conversation about how movies, books, and games are places where our imagination rules, but it the real-world we have to understand how our actions affect others. Overall a good time, good parenting session, and quality interaction.

This comment was edited on Nov 3, 2008, 13:08.

@ Ray Marden

i[First off, the game's system requirements did not help anything. Also, though I think it's still an extremely good game, they really botched the pacing, including another horrendous ending set of levels.]

No worse than Halo 3, but check the sales numbers.

@BK and other pirates

I have also been playing since the days of pong and I completely 100% DISAGREE with you.

Do you really think every single developer for the PC is lazy, creates bad stories, and boring gameplay? Where have they all gone then? There used to be lots of PC-only dev studios that made good games. Many of them startups, where are they now? Why don't we see many? Why are they all going to consoles? I can only name 1 established PC-only studio now (Stardock). Last year at this time there were around 6. The year before that there were more, etc. Ask yourself why this number has been decreasing? In a healthy market, the number of startups should be about equal to the number of failures. NO ONE is starting a PC-only dev studio anymore. Why? THERE IS NO MONEY IN IT!!! You can't blame lazy devs for that, most devs would rather develop for the PC, because it is a much richer platform with fewer constraints. Plus they don't have to pay royalties back to the hardware vendor for each unit sold. Console game developers have to pay Sony, MS, or Nintendo a percentage of profit from each unit sold, sometimes as high as 40%. Even with that it's still FAR MORE profitable to develop on consoles. You could blame the steep hardware requirements for reducing the number of potential customers, but if you have been around as long as you say, you know this has always been the case. There must be another factor then, what could it be?

Do you really believe that BS pirates use to rationalize themselves "I wouldn’t have bought the game anyways!" This is utter BS. Console sales prove this false beyond a doubt. Why take the time and download the game and play it then? Every game you have "tested" in this manner has been horrible? If anyone who says they have always bought ever goodgame they "tested", I call BS. Even if this were true, do you think everyone else that does this is such an honorable soul? Such extreme rationalization crap!

Here are some FACTS that are not in dispute. Sales figures for console game are much higher than their PC counterparts even when adjusted for target populations (this holds true for good games and crap games BTW). PC-only developers are going out of business due to poor PROFITS. On-line sales are not inlcuded in many sales stats, but (if you look at the numbers, they are account for less than 1% of all game sales. Even popular non-MMO , PC games (like Crysis) don't even come close to selling to the number of units per target as a mediocre console game. BTW, for the target estimates, PCs with high-end video cards are used to calculate the size of the target market, not every PC. I think it’s a safe assumption that if you have a PC with a high-end graphics card, you are a potential game customer. So market penetration for PCs per target are extremely low when compared to consoles. This even is true for games with moderate hardware requirements. Why is this? Are console games that much better?

You can explain all that away with weak arguments like low quality games, high cost of hardware and incompatible hardware. These explanations have some weight, but many of these same issues also plague the console space, yet they don’t have any problem turning a profit. Hmmm. Occam's Razor anyone? Maybe Priacy is having a bigger impact than you might be acknowledging and that would explain why there are not many good PC only games out. Maybe that’s why we are only getting console-like games. Maybe that's why MMO's are the only money making gaming genre for the PC. Maybe that’s why all the PC-only dev house are closing thier doors or are moving into console’s first.

When all that is left is crappy console ports and MMO's (and stardock) left on the PC, maybe you will wake the **** up and take some responsibility.

Thats's it for me b/c all these forums turn into as a bunch of pirates trying to prove that stealing software :
- does not hurt anyone.
- would not have bought the game anyways.
- everyne else's fault.

blah blah

Makes me want to puke. Let the pirates bury their head in the sand and flame away.

I have offered lots of proof on this topic on an earlier thread {was discussing STALKER). However, I came to realize, even with mountains of proof, pirates will never change their mind, they just claim everyone and everything is covering up some big "conspiracy" b/c of greed. Even with the obvious decline of PC gaming, they refuse to even consider that piracy has played a role.

I am not going to dredge up all the proof. If you really wanted it, all you would have to do is google for it, it is very easy to find mounds of studies and anecdotal evidence to support the claims that piracy has hurt the industry.

That being said: yes, stealing is bad, and you need another reason not to pirate? mmmmkay, that speaks volumes about you.

F-ing kiddies that try to rationalize piracy and claim it doesn't hurt the industry make me want to puke. Every single argument supporting piracy is crap! It is stealing. plain and simple. I've been a gamer for 25 years and I know that piracy has just about all but killed the PC as a viable gaming platform. Grow up, get a job, and see how you like someone stealing your work. We will see who the crybaby is then.

It is obvious to me that no amount of proof or logic will convince you that stealing games is bad for everyone, so I hope you enjoy your shallow console games.

From http://archive.gamespy.com/legacy/articles/spr2_a.shtm

"When it comes time to justify piracy, the chief arguments are "it doesn't really hurt anyone" and "it doesn't affect industry very much," because, after all, software companies are perceived to enjoy a considerably large profit margin. Yet, the actual reality is different.
Claudio Bergonzi, of Microsoft Italia Anti-Piracy Marketing department, tells us about the situation in Italy.
"At the moment, the estimated piracy rate in Italy is 45%; worrisome as this data may be, it is probably an underestimate, since it only takes into account software installed on new PCs.
In 1998 a Price Waterhouse survey for BSA revealed more important data, which calculated the direct loss of job places due to software piracy--in short, calculating that if Italy's piracy rate in 1997 had fallen from the estimated 43% to the USA level of 27%, some 37,000 new jobs could have been created in the sector. Given the heavy social problems faced by EU countries because of unemployment, the "doesn't really hurt anyone" argument starts to show inconsistency.

Claudio Bergonzi continues, "The IT sector is an exclusively R&D-based industry. Penalizing it with a 45% piracy rate (almost one half) means cutting in half its investments in R&D."

Bare in mind Microsoft is a 25-year old industry and a world leader in software production. How many smaller companies could afford these types of undercuts?
---------------------------------------------------
from http://www.gameproducer.net/2007/02/19/3-reasons-for-software-piracy/

The “don’t make crap games” statement
Some people argue that “because developers make such a crappy games there’s piracy”. I agree that developers should focus on improving their games and improve the player’s experience about the game, but I still disagree that this should be the reason for copying games illegally. Developers - especially indies - need all the money they can to make better games, and if software piracy harms their sales they might be out of business before they get chance to finish those better games. It’s a tough business, even when it might not look like it for all players.
---------------------------------------------------------
from http://www.gameproducer.net/2007/02/19/3-reasons-for-software-piracy/

This guy is a real Q/A developer...

For the last five weeks, support requests for the pirated version of the game outnumbered support requests from legitimate purchasers. Last week, the pirates outnumbered the true customers by almost five to one. It takes time and resources to track down solutions to people's problems. I spent seven hours searching for answers to one guy's problem just to find out that when I asked him a question regarding a setting, he was checking on his friend's machine for the "right" answer and then on his machine and if the two didn't match, he was reporting the "right" answer so I wouldn't know he had a pirated version.

The copies of "SiN Episodes: Emergence" that you buy pay my salary. Retail copies of Windows are more expensive partly because Microsoft has to factor support costs into those sales. More and more companies are moving to console games, not only because they make more money (they do because there's less piracy in the console space), but because they save major bank on support costs.

There are companies that love the PC and will stick with it for richer or poorer, but until we can find a way to better reduce piracy in the PC space, I'm afraid that it's only going to be for poorer.
--------------------------------------------------------
Here's a forum thread from 2000 that debates the very thing we are here, it is interesting to see how the reasons for pirating software have remained the same in the last 6 years
http://www.sharkygames.com/forum_frag/13a/2.shtml

some interesting excerpts:

- My Suggestion to you is always buy (games) from EB world or Waldensoftware. they accept games back, no quesitons asked. And they usually have prices comparable to Best Buy.

Some people can't really afford to buy new games, which I personally think are too expensive.
And with constant development of computer hardware, consoles may be ahead for a short while, but computers will always catch and beat them.

I also hate the fact that stores won't take back games due to piracy. If a game doesn't work, you shouldn't be forced to keep it! What about those games that cost like $60 and $80? If I spend $80 on a game, it better work!!!!
------------------------------------------------------

from http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/01/26/piracy/

Tamte feels that piracy has already had significant consequences for PC and Mac gaming alike, as major publishers have shifted development budgets to video game consoles. Some PC game developers have closed or refocused their efforts on consoles as well. "The PC games market is down 12 percent in sales, and the console market is up 25 percent in sales," he said.

While Tamte admits that a variety of factors are contributing to this decline in PC game revenue, he blames the bulk of it on piracy. "The console market has only a small fraction of the piracy issues they have on the PC," he said.

Tamte's own recent experience provoked him to speak out. Over the holidays, MacSoft saw rampant piracy of their latest release, the long-awaited Mac version of Halo. Through extrapolation of the activity on file-sharing services like BitTorrent, Tamte said that MacSoft has witnessed more people stealing Halo than have purchased it.

"We've only been able to track a small percentage of the total people we think are stealing Halo," said Tamte, "but from what we've been able to extrapolate, the lost sales are already in the millions."

--------------------------------------------------------

I guess this is all a conspiracy of the game companies to make us think piracy is a real problem and just another way to screw us consumers. Evil game developers !!


Oh yes, remember that "niche" game Wing Commander? The one they made a movie about (not a very good one though). Um and those games I mentioned are not all stategy games, (Civ is a 4x game, Gunship is a sim, and Populous was a god game, Wing Commander a space sim.) BTW Civilization is on every list for top PC games of all time I have ever seen, so is X-COM (Microprose), System Shock 2(Looking glass, Pirates(Microprose). Not sure how you define "niche", but if a game is listed as one of the top games of all time, I would not call it a "niche" game.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/772/772285p1.html


It appears that no matter what anyone (and everyone) says, you will disagree that piracy has had a significant negative affect on the industry. Fair enough, but don't call me the imbecile.

Don't bother posting back, I will not be back to this thread.

Cheers

Thanks everyone, I now see the error of my ways...

The computer game industry is alive and vibrant, with new innovative games coming out every month.

Game companies are staffed by greedy a-holes who have nothing better to do then think up new and inventive ways to screw the consumer. Much more evil than other companies.

Developers are clamoring to create new games for the PC.

Stealing games is ok and in fact, we should steal more, because apparently stealing does not hurt anyone.

Keep up the good work!!!

PS.
- I never mentioned "renting" games, WTF???
- Console games did NOT sell more than PC games in the 90's, not even close.
- Civilization, Gunship, populous, etc were about as niche as God of War or Gears of War are today. (my guess is that you were too young to remember or didn't own a computer)

Sure there have, but that is NOT the issue here. Those companies did NOT go out of business due solely or primarily to unauthorized use of their products.

Not the only reason, but a significant contributing factor. I could go into details about the P&L for these companies vs. some of the console publishers today. It is difficult to do a true apples-to-apples comparison because so much has changed, like the number of consoles today vs. computers in those days, etc.

A few points though:
1. All the companies I a refering to (Micorprose, BullFrog, Looking Glass, Atomic, etc.) had muliple smash PC hits.
2. Their profits never even came close to what a publisher makes on even a medicore console game today. (in adjusted $$$)
3. Their margins were much larger than on games of today.
4. As far as I can tell, most of these companies did not make any significant financial blunders.
5. The popular games from these companies were heavily pirated. There have been lots of numbers thrown around, but some estimates are in the $100's of million range of lost revenue. There is no way to be exact, but even the most conservative estimates were larger than most of these companies entire net worth!!!

I know none of this is 100% conclusive, but if you read between the lines, you should have a hard time not at least considering that piracy had a significant effect on these company's profitability. We can just agree to disagree here, because I doubt that anything anyone can say would convince you.

Most of the big game publishers such as EA, Activision, THQ, etc. are all doing very well at least by historical comparisons. Even Take-Two's stock price is healthy and significantly above its 52-week low despite all of its scandals and missteps.

As I stated, non of these companies are PC-only publishers. If fact, most of their revenue comes from the console titles. If you are truely an investor, you should know that.

LOL! Wow you really have your blinders on or simply have drunk all of the koolaid.

perhaps, but why, what do I have to gain? if your pirating truely does not affect the market, then why should I care?

LOL! Judging from your claim that "piracy" is the root of all of the game industry's ill, it is you who knows nothing of economics and investing. By the way I have made good money in video game company stocks over the years so I definitely know how to pick companies that know how to make a profit despite all of the cries of gloom and doom from "piracy."

Actually, I am being specific to the PC games segement, and I never said it was the root of all the ills, in fact, what I said was:

Piracy is not a solution to any of the PC gaming industry's problems.

That means, at the very least, it can't help and there is sufficient evidence that it does hurt.

Microprose was purchased by Hasbro because it was a successful company. As for the others, the reason they were not profitable was not unauthorized use. They simply had poor financial management, had poor sales and marketing practices, or their games had narrow market appeal.

Flat wrong. Most of the games from these companies had mass appeal to most PC gamers. Agreed, that PC gamers are a narrow market, but at the time most of the games were wildly popular.
Civilization, Gunship, Pirates, MOO II, Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Close Combat, System Shock, on and on. These were not niche games for the time, they were blockbusters.

Nuff said, We can agree to disagree. I am done here.

That is simply because those who blame their ills on "piracy" don't want to admit that the real blame belongs with themselves. Every developer's and publisher's games are all potentially subject to the same level of unnauthorized use, and yet not all developers and publishers are failing. In fact some have enjoyed and continue to enjoy tremendous profits. Clearly there is still money to be made in the PC games market, and those developers and publishers who can't imitate their successful brethern should get out of the market.

So you don't think that there have been any publishers of excellent games that have gone out of business? You haven't been following the gaming industry very long then. Today, for a game company to make any money it takes one of the following:

1: Successfull MMO
2: Mediocore console game
3: An knock-it-out-of-park PC game.

unfortunatly to make a game it takes money. Often VC money. Now if you are going to invest in a company, knowing that the probabilties are much higher that you will have a okay game over a spectacualar game, would you invest in a company that make console games or computer games? If you know anything about how funding works, you will answer -> console game. That's because you can be assured that you will probalaby sell enough units to make some money or at least break even. Not so with computer games and piracy.

Here's the catch, not every game can be a smash success. Without the chance of at least breaking even on the mediocore games, companies will not even fund any risky development (i.e. innovation) on the PC platform. And without at least a critical mass of games in development you will not even get very many good or innovative games at all.

Can you name one company that is doing really well making non-MMO, PC only titles? 10 Years ago I could name many, and 5 years before that, there were hundreds. Only one force has caused this shift, it is not lack of quality, nor hype, nor any of the other things you claim, just piracy.

You need a good lesson in economics and investing. You apparently don't remember companies like Microprose, Atomic Games, and Looking Glass that made excellent games, yet were forced out of business because they could not make a profit. You are soooo wrong about your first comment that it hurts. I'll bet everyone that was around in PC gaming in the 90's can name at least 3 companies that made excellent games that are no longer in business

This comment was edited on Mar 21, 14:55.

This is exactly the kind of inane arguments I was refering too. I promised I would not reply to this thread because it should be about STALKER and not piracy in general, but I could not resist after reading this post.

1. Once a game is opened, you CANNOT return it. That alone forced me to continue piracy. If i get a game that cannot play on my system, why should I keep it? You can return a sofa, a TV, rent a DVD, even return a full retail DVD. Why not video games?

You do realize that many years ago that you COULD return computer games? Guess why that stopped, um , that's right, piracy. People abused the system by loading games, playing them, and then returning them for a full refund.
So you are saying:
1. I steal games because I can't return them
2. I can't return games because people abused the system and stole them
3. Circular logic.

I quote you "That alone forced me to continue piracy".
not good enough bud

Your points 2-5 are not even close to justifing why you should be allowed to steal games. The short answer is to read the reviews of games to see if you want to buy it. The same goes for just about any product in the marketplace today(hype, no demo, different offerings), including movies, cars, food, etc. It's wrong to steal these other products and as you so eloquently stated:

"Why not video games?"

You know what, I think that the next time you go to the movies you should propose to not pay until AFTER you see the movie. Then, if you like it and you feel you got your moneys worth, then you go buy the ticket. As a matter of fact, that should be the model everyone uses. I am sure that this will incent Hollywood to make better movies and more companies to invest in making movies, right? If you think this is how it works, then you are living in a dream world.

Time to think outside YOUR own situation. There is a big world out there, people that make games should be compensated for them. I don't know if you even have a job, but I don't think you would like it if you didn't get paid for the work that you do.

PIRACY IS NOT A VALID SOLUTION TO ANY OF THE CURRENT PROBLEMS WITH THE COMPUTER GAME INDUSTRY.

I don't know which is worse: if you actually believe this crap you are posting or if you are just using it as a reason to justify your theft.

If you want to find out if you like a game, you should read reviews, not steal it.

i am sure that you will continue to steal games, I just hope that one day you will grow up and see the damage it has caused and feel bad.

This comment was edited on Mar 21, 14:26.

Let me respond in Caveman then

OOHH GAME DEVS TIRED BEING RIPPED OFF OHHOHHH
OHHH MAKE GAMES FOR CRAPPY CONSOLE INSTEAD UHHH UGGGG
OOO PC GAMES GOOOO AWAY OH OHHH
COPY GAME.... DOES CHANGE THINGS!!!!

If you have been playing games for more than 10 years (or are more than 10 years old) you will realize this is already happening. If you think that piracy is not a big reason for this, you have deluded yourself. You can rationalize what you do all you want, but don't start claiming that it doesn't have an effect on the industry because it ABSOLUTELY does. People make games to make $$$. If there is no (or less) money they will go elsewhere and the number and quality of pc games will decrease.

This HAS happened to PC games!!!
Two major reasons:
1. non-standard hardware for PCs (makes support difficult)
2. Piracy

Currently, most of the $$$ in PC gaming is now in MMOs. Think about which one of the 2 bullets above MMOs reduce the most.

Both issues have had a SIGNIFICANT impact to the future of PC gaming. Ask ANYONE in the gaming industry what the number one reason for the decline of the PC game and you will get the same answer EVERY time. PIRACY!

Please don't respond with something like (
1. Game companies make enough money already, my piracy won't matter)
2. if the game is good, ill buy it anyways.
3. Some other equally stupid statement that, with a small amount of logic and thought are obviously just as hollow and absurd.)

Get your $%$#%$#% head out of the sand. It DOES matter. I know you will keep on stealing games, but please don't rationalize it will inane arguments. Just face what you do is wrong and when there are only crappy PC games and MMOs to play on the PC, you can blame yourself (or go play your PS2).

This comment was edited on Mar 21, 08:27.

No one does this b/c of th copy protection schemes. They do it for the free games. They are also the reason for copy protection schemes in the first place. They are also the reason for the demise of creativity in the PC gaming space. There is NO reason to justify pirating software. If you want to hack, fine, just buy the game first.