Please, show me ... how does "piracy", the non-profit-oriented sharing of digital content between people, hurt sales?
Please show me how it doesn't. Sorry but the onus is on the people stealing shit, not the creators. Also you conveniently ignore that there are countries other than the US who have entire black markets built around selling other's commercial IP, games included.
"Piracy" is the only way for indie devs, without the big marketing budget a major publisher like EA can afford, to make their games more popular, to "spread the word".
Ok, you write all that up in an email to the creators of Braid, Peggle and so on. Let me know how they respond to charity pirate work. Word of mouth only goes so far and word of mouth does not directly induce sales. It can potentially lead to them but that's all. If you have proof otherwise then please feel free to share it with the class. Best case scenario argument is that indies can't afford advertising but that falls apart due to the wonders of the Internet and the hundreds of ways to expose your game to an audience now, many of them entirely free.
To suggest that piracy is the "only" for an indie dev to succeed is utter bollocks. It's yet another excuse. It just allows people to get enjoyment from the game without paying for it. Pirates will then come up with whatever excuse they feel fits for not buying it - "too short", "too expensive", "too many bugs", "not being supported", "not available from [such and such]", "not my sort of game", etc. Never mind that they've already played it, often 'til completion.
Ding ding ding. This man is wise. It's really easy to talk yourself out of something that costs money after the fact. I used to pirate shit all the time, I know how it works so don't pull the whole "oh my god we're doing them a favor" or "I never would've bought it anyways!!!" crap with me. Those arguments might work on a ten year old but they aren't fooling anyone here except maybe fellow pirates.
This comment was edited on Apr 29, 2009, 12:40.