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[MonorailCat]

This thread feels like "2005 called, they want their piracy discussion back".
This whole thing was discussed and argumented to death years ago.

 

[Fuu]

Not sure how he's tracking piracy numbers, but it sucks that the bottom line is being affected nonetheless.

Anyway, count me in as another one of those who wishlisted it and will be waiting for a price drop. It's R$73 on the Brazilian Steam store and I'd actually would have taken the plunge if it was R$40 (which is my usual ceiling with gaming these days).

It's not that I don't think the game is worth that much (I don't even know a lot about it), but I just have too many games I already own that I can be playing instead. There's absolutely no reason to buy it at the current price when I know I'll be able to get it cheaper down the road.

 

[Moral Panic]

That's just 1 seed of mine. I have about 30 more variants I will flood the torrent sites with because I'm "that dev".

If you (as the legal copyright holder) put the game out on torrent sites is it still piracy?

 

[TheYanger]

You just simply do not respect or appreciate anything that isn't tangible then. The argument isn't whether or not there is some quantifiable cost associated with a physical object. It is an argument about something more than simply associating the value of an object with the physical nature of it.

Do you think a piece of plastic, because it has literal mass, is more valuable than 5 years of someones life? As a nurse it pisses me off more than anything that if someone had their pinky finger cut off they would freak the fuck out but I could tell the same person they have a blood sugar average of 300 but they dont "see" it so they don't give a fuck and will die within a year. The rationale you proposed is fucked up beyond belief. Value and importance being reduced to something tangible or physical, especially in this case, is incredibly rudimentary and incredibly neanderthal.

Excuse me? Don't tell me that I don't respect something because I'm pointing out the truth that you don't like: There is no COST associated with someone pirating a game. Stealing anything from a store actively is taking money away from the owner of the store. They are not remotely the same thing. That doesn't mean pirating is good, but it means your analogy was bad.

 

[Zero315]

I was kidding.

I thought you might've been, but you can never be too sure. I mean, one guy did say that pirating was like printing tomatoes...

 

[DarkFlame]

A stolen car isn't a lost sales.

If a lot of people are pirating the game, than there is a lot of sales being lost.

Snow is getting a lot of marketing out of this, but more importantly, every developer and publisher are also hearing about this. Everybody must be checking their DRM options now.

Well if i pirate his game right now,he ain't losing any sale of me coz I would never be getting it in the first place.

Guys,i'm not defending piracy but check the statistics of sales from every Denuvo game out there,you'll realise the PC sales are actually what they would have been as if the game was pirated.

 

[Audioboxer]

I thought you might've been, but you can never be too sure. I mean, one guy did say that pirating was like printing tomatoes...

Printing tomatoes? I don't even.... wut?

 

[Jacksinthe]

If you (as the legal copyright holder) put the game out on torrent sites is it still piracy?

Its "a" game, not "the" game. Its a honeypot.

 

[Chandler X Bing]

It seems to me like people just want to pay less for a game with no combat. If you've got even a little combat, you can charge full price but if you don't have combat your game had better be 20 dollars, my gosh.

 

[TheWaxyPaxy]

Excuse me? Don't tell me that I don't respect something because I'm pointing out the truth that you don't like: There is no COST associated with someone pirating a game. Stealing anything from a store actively is taking money away from the owner of the store. They are not remotely the same thing. That doesn't mean pirating is good, but it means your analogy was bad.

Wrong. It is actually worse. By pirating a game you are directly consuming a product you are not entitled to but have proven you have enough interest in to invest your time in. Youre assuming the item that is being shoplifted will in fact either A. be sold or B. be sold at a profit to the person it is being shoplifted from.

By actively pirating a game one assumes there is demand or else the person pirating would not invest time in playing it or express the desire of eperienceing it, that is something that is hard to quantify but one doesnt pirate something they do not have demand for. The same s true for shoplifting. I agree, the difference in our points is you are trying to justify one, when I am arguing they are both shitty.

You are simply dumbing down the debate to say "the shop owner paid X for an object and now they cannot sell it for a profit above what they spent to acquire it" when you have not even laid out the scenario or object which in fact may be a loss leader to get people in the store, what store? what object? This tells me you are just using a very rudimentary rationale to justify stealing a digital product versus something tangible. Its obvious that this type of logic is at teh heart of people trying to argue on behalf of people who pirate in any way shape or form. It is lazy and it is juvenile. A digital product that someone devotes time to is objectively something they value, regardless of the degree in which they value it. If they do not value it as much as the cost they should not experience it. PERIOD.

 

[Fat4all]

It seems to me like people just want to pay less for a game with no combat. If you've got even a little combat, you can charge full price but if you don't have combat your game had better be 20 dollars, my gosh.

He should patch in a turret sequence.

 

[DiscoJer]

I think it has more to do with the perception that indie games should be cheap. Since most of them are because they are fairly short and have not so great graphics..

The Witness might be a great value at $40, but it's probably not seen as such by most people.

 

[MADGAME]

$40 is too steep, and lots of people use piracy as demos anyway

It's really not. People are just cheap

Value is subjective, not absolute so you're both right and wrong. Deal with it.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

This costs 40 dollars?!

How long is it?

 

[Jacksinthe]

Well if i pirate his game right now,he ain't losing any sale of me coz I would never be getting it in the first place.

Guys,i'm not defending piracy but check the statistics of sales from every Denuvo game out there,you'll realise the PC sales are actually what they would have been as if the game was pirated.

So what you're saying is, technology exists that allows us to gather metrics on sales in purely hypothetical scenarios?

I'd love to buy this software. Link, please? Myself and other developers would LOVE that kind of insight!

Add feature, click "scan", yup! People will love this!

Add feature, click "scan", DAMMIT! We will lose sales if we keep this in!

I mean, the possibilities are endless!
/s

Dude, there will NEVER be a way to know this. Spare everyone, please.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

There should have been a demo released. It might have prompted people to try before they buy instead of pirate to try and not buy. The price is also too steep. It should have been $30.

Yeah and the many, many other AAA games that are launched at $60 MSRP with only half the amount of content and even less length should be $10.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

n/m

 

[jellies_two]

Well if i pirate his game right now,he ain't losing any sale of me coz I would never be getting it in the first place.

Guys,i'm not defending piracy but check the statistics of sales from every Denuvo game out there,you'll realise the PC sales are actually what they would have been as if the game was pirated.

You're not defending piracy but you're saying it is harmless, not once, but twice.
And in both cases, what you're saying has clear and obvious flaws.

It should be really obvious that if the PS4 ecosystem had piracy, platform sales would be lower than they are. Many people WILL spend less on games overall if they have no chance of getting busted obtaining perfect copies of them.
A free game can take a week or more of spare time to complete, during which you are contributing zero dollars to people who make games for you. With enough piracy you can go for months while putting all pocket money towards that graphics card you want.

 

[Fat4all]

This costs 40 dollars?!

How long is it?

To beat the game 30-40+ hours, to 100% the game 100+ hours.

 

[Rhaknar]

Value is subjective, not absolute so you're both right and wrong. Deal with it.

This. The lengths at which people go to say what someone else thinks is or is not worth a certain value is baffling.

You think its worth $40 and that is completely fine. Its also completely fine if someone thinks it should be cheaper or its not worth $40.

 

[Zafir]

The Witness is a AAA game, it just has a small team. What it lacks in assets and systems it makes up for in the depth and breadth of the puzzles (albeit based on a similar theme). Although for the Witness describing it as a puzzle game is a disservice to the overall experience.

I have done 90%+ of all the puzzles in the game, I'm just mopping up the remaining few, so I have a good understanding of what the Witness is.

You are paying for the quality of the game experience and the ability needed to create it, as opposed to a team of hundreds that created 500 different real world objects and sounds. That's not to say that the Witness fails in it's in-game assets or sounds because given the small team what they have created is nothing short of astonishing. Furthermore, the attention of detail in the asset production and placement in the world in creating some of the puzzles is on an entirely different level to any game seen before it. The ingenuity of the puzzles has a value. There isn't a AAA publisher that has created puzzles like this. Puzzles in AAA games are like tick tack toe to The Witness' chess. People are usually willing to pay more for something that is better than other things in the medium. You are paying £30 for an experience that I believe any AAA publisher is incapable of re-producing.

Reading this thread is depressing. So many will gladly pay huge multi-national conglomerates a good margin more for a game that is created to siphon even more out of the customer through DLC and in-game transactions. The Witness is a standalone game that nobody else would be able to make, or at least has not made yet.

£30 is not a lot for a one time experience that will make you learn things in a multitude of different systems, that opens your mind to new thought processes and teaches you the patience of learning things for a first time; when compared to games where you move the cursor to a polygonal based human body and click a button, despite their productions values.

The film Monsters was made on a budget of $500,000. When going to the movie theater you had to pay the same price as if you were going to see Battlefield Earth which had a budget of $73,000,000. Only in games is there a vocal number of man-children that complain about an asking price for something without taking in to account it's quality.

The thought process that indie developed games are worth less than big publisher games is archaic. If an indie developer can do more with less then they certainly deserve to have that ability rewarded.

Are the people opposed to £30 price point un-willing to pay for talent? It seems that they just do as much mental gymnastics as possible to ascertain that quality can not equal price point.

There's a reason why people buy Rolex watches when a £5 watch does the exact same thing.

I already explained that reasoning though.

I was explaining how for most people it may be a hard sell here because if you've got a limited game budget you may be more inclined to buy a more well known triple AAA game. Partly because you probably already know what they play like so you aren't making a leap of faith, and partly because The Witness can't exatly show what makes it great on a Steam page like triple AAA games can.

That's fantastic you had such an experience from the game. However, that's not something people would instantly know looking at the page.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

To beat the game 30-40+ hours, to 100% the game 100+ hours.

Seems worth it.

 

[Azalean]

You think its worth $40 and that is completely fine. Its also completely fine if someone thinks it should be cheaper or its not worth $40.

That doesn't make it right to pirate it if someone doesn't think it's worth the 40 bucks.

 

[DarkFlame]

So what you're saying is, technology exists that allows us to gather metrics on sales in purely hypothetical scenarios?

I'd love to buy this software. Link, please? Myself and other developers would LOVE that kind of insight!

Add feature, click "scan", yup! People will love this!

Add feature, click "scan", DAMMIT! We will lose sales if we keep this in!

I mean, the possibilities are endless!
/s

Dude, there will NEVER be a way to know this. Spare everyone, please.

There is a very reliable way to gather metrics on affected piracy sales called logic.Every human with basic education can do it really.

Ok let me give you a hint in case you haven't finished elementary school

You compare the ratio of PC sales to console sales on pirated games with the ratio of Denuvo game sales.They are pretty much the same. If you still defy plain simple thinking,your case can't be helped bro

You're not defending piracy but you're saying it is harmless, not once, but twice.
And in both cases, what you're saying has clear and obvious flaws.

It should be really obvious that if the PS4 ecosystem had piracy, platform sales would be lower than they are. Many people WILL spend less on games overall if they have no chance of getting busted obtaining perfect copies of them.
A free game can take a week or more of spare time to complete, during which you are contributing zero dollars to people who make games for you. With enough piracy you can go for months while putting all pocket money towards that graphics card you want.

im talking about PC piracy and as described above,it affects sales to non-existant level.I'm just analysing facts here,if you wanna have your way,have your way man.I don't have any intention of persuading random people in the internet over facts

 

[Rhaknar]

That doesn't make it right to pirate it if someone doesn't think it's worth the 40 bucks.

Oh of course not, I wasnt talking about the piracy angle, just the worth, or perception of value.

 

[Fat4all]

Seems worth it.

It's a really good puzzle game, but it can be balls hard.

Luckily, you can wander on the island, so if you get stuck on a puzzle you can go do different puzzles and do the harder ones later.

Sometimes doing that will help you understand the harder ones better as well.

 

[TumblingHippo]

I wish there was a browser plugin that took "but it's so expensive" posts and shoved them into lockers.

 

[Alvarez]

This costs 40 dollars?!

How long is it?

As long as it is deep--and I assure you, it is so deep. It is SOOOOOOOO deep. The deepest game. I am drowning in the deepness. Twice as deep as Braid.

So deep.

Spoiler

I can't believe people play Blow's games, much less pirate them. In this case it's valid to judge a book by its cover, as Blow is just as pretentious as his games. His urine-clad viral marketing seems unnecessary considering the I play Blow's games because I am intelligent and refined! zeal of his fans.

The game is overpriced for the typical consumer, but Blow isn't targeting typical consumers. He's targeting his fans, who will not hesitate to drop significant cash on insignificant experiences.

 

[Quote]

As long as it is deep--and I assure you, it is so deep. It is SOOOOOOOO deep. The deepest game. I am drowning in the deepness. Twice as deep as Braid.

So deep.

Spoiler

I can't believe people play Blow's games, much less pirate them. In this case it's valid to judge a book by its cover, as Blow is just as pretentious as his games. His urine-clad viral marketing seems unnecessary considering the I play Blow's games because I am intelligent and refined! zeal of his fans.

The game is overpriced for the typical consumer, but Blow isn't targeting typical consumers. He's targeting his fans, who will not hesitate to drop significant cash on insignificant experiences.

Are you done?

 

[Fat4all]

As long as it is deep--and I assure you, it is so deep. It is SOOOOOOOO deep. The deepest game. I am drowning in the deepness. Twice as deep as Braid.

So deep.

Spoiler

I can't believe people play Blow's games, much less pirate them. In this case it's valid to judge a book by its cover, as Blow is just as pretentious as his games. His urine-clad viral marketing seems unnecessary considering the I play Blow's games because I am intelligent and refined! zeal of his fans.

The game is overpriced for the typical consumer, but Blow isn't targeting typical consumers. He's targeting his fans, who will not hesitate to drop significant cash on insignificant experiences.

Jesus Christ, you're more pretentious than any fan I've seen of his games.

 

[clip]

Poors gonna poor.

 

[Jacksinthe]

There is a very reliable way to gather metrics on affected piracy sales called logic.Every human with basic education can do it really.

Ok let me give you a hint in case you haven't finished elementary school

You compare the ratio of PC sales to console sales on pirated games with the ratio of Denuvo game sales.They are pretty much the same. If you still defy plain simple thinking,your case can't be helped bro



im talking about PC piracy and as described above,it affects sales to non-existant level.I'm just analysing facts here,if you wanna have your way,have your way man.I don't have any intention of persuading random people in the internet over facts

Ahahahaah oh lord.

You don't know how any of this works, do you?

You can't compare game A to game B. You can't compare platform A to platform B as I've already gone over in this thread there can be such wild swings the best effort to gain any sort of metric would be to flip a coin. Plenty to Google for actual statistics and breakdowns.

Also, "logic", isn't a measurable metric. It can't give me statistics on sales like hard data can. If your claim to fame is citing information using logic, when you obviously haven't even bothered researching then I hate to tell you, bud, but your personal jabs at my "education" won't do you any good when I have and still actively research splits on plarforms and games with/without DRM. Actively.

Take your personal jabs elsewhere, guy.

 

[Cindi Mayweather]

It's a really good puzzle game, but it can be balls hard.

Luckily, you can wander on the island, so if you get stuck on a puzzle you can go do different puzzles and do the harder ones later.

Sometimes doing that will help you understand the harder ones better as well.

I just watched the IGN review, and consider it a (eventual) buy.

Review here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URjb3RBIe7c

One of my main complaints of open-world games is that they have no sense of place and things are there for seemingly no reason. This review made it sound like an honestly new approach to open-world.

 

[TheWaxyPaxy]

Oh of course not, I wasnt talking about the piracy angle, just the worth, or perception of value.

But that has nothing to do with the real problem. If someone values the thing enough to download it to their hard drive and spend even just 10 minutes playing it, there is inherent value in both the space and time. This is subjective but it is more than nothing. Unless you want to argue that people should say "my hard drive space and time that I play your game is enough compensation for this product" at which point I am done with humanity.

 

[Occam]

I'm waiting for the physical PS4 version.

 

[Chris Murphy]

I already explained that reasoning though.

I'm just writing my thoughts on the thread, I haven't seen your post. I'd like to read it though, where was it?

 

[GinoFelino]

To beat the game 30-40+ hours, to 100% the game 100+ hours.

To 1000% the game 1000+ hours??

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

He should have charged $60 for it instead of $40.

 

[Fat4all]

One of my main complaints of open-world games is that they have no sense of place and things are there for seemingly no reason. This review made it sound like an honestly new approach to open-world.

Yeah, that can be a problem with open-world games, but with this they keep certain kinds of puzzles clustered together in each biome you come across, so while every area is distinct and different, each on is actually there to teach you new ways of considering the puzzles. It' quite well done for not being so strictly structured.

He should have charged $60 for it instead of $40.

That meltdown is reserved for NMS.

To 1000% the game 1000+ hours??

Only if you bring the gnome to the rocket at the end.

 

[Rhaknar]

But that has nothing to do with the real problem. If someone values the thing enough to download it to their hard drive and spend even just 10 minutes playing it, there is inherent value in both the space and time. This is subjective but it is more than nothing. Unless you want to argue that people should say "my hard drive space and time that I play your game is enough compensation for this product" at which point I am done with humanity.

You seem to think I was in any way defending piracy for some reason, when I was just comenting on people shitting on others for thinking the game is too expensive or isnt worth $40. I guess it wasnt the best thread to make that comment I guess given the subject of the OP (which a lot of people have drifted away from hence my comment)

 

[Quote]

To 1000% the game 1000+ hours??

I've done that math and that seems correct.

 

[Audioboxer]

As long as it is deep--and I assure you, it is so deep. It is SOOOOOOOO deep. The deepest game. I am drowning in the deepness. Twice as deep as Braid.

So deep.

Spoiler

I can't believe people play Blow's games, much less pirate them. In this case it's valid to judge a book by its cover, as Blow is just as pretentious as his games. His urine-clad viral marketing seems unnecessary considering the I play Blow's games because I am intelligent and refined! zeal of his fans.

The game is overpriced for the typical consumer, but Blow isn't targeting typical consumers. He's targeting his fans, who will not hesitate to drop significant cash on insignificant experiences.

Dude you logged into GAF instead of YouTube.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

A stolen car isn't a lost sales.

A stolen car may not be a lost sale, but it is certainly lost inventory, which cost money to manufacture, acquire, and store.

Not a very good comparison to a completely digital item.

 

[jellies_two]

im talking about PC piracy and as described above,it affects sales to non-existant level.I'm just analysing facts here,if you wanna have your way,have your way man.I don't have any intention of persuading random people in the internet over facts

"it affects sales to a non-existent level"

I've absolutely no clue how PC piracy can be considered a zero-sum game except as a convenient and invented excuse.

Piracy is platform agnostic. You can't magic box the PC industry and say everyone is like you claim to be: apparently never pirating a game you would otherwise buy, and only buying games you would never pirate.

People like games and want to play them, if they can't get them without paying, they pay, and if they CAN get them without paying, a healthy, but unknown, proportion will do so. People in that proportion should feel shitty about doing what they are doing.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

Pirates going to pirate? Worry about things you can control and not about things you can't. They were never going to buy the game regardless. They weren't potential customers. They could have been possibly with better marketing/messaging, but even then, probably not.

The game will be fine.

Personally, the price is too high and there are a bunch of games he is competing with right now and around the corner. =x

I feel there is so much wrong on this post.

Yes, you should worry about things that you can't control, so that one point maybe you can figure out a way to get control over the situation.
They were never going to buy the game anyways? What? By what barometer are you using to make such a statement. Guy wants to play a game. Guy realizes he can play game for free instead of paying 40 dollars. Guy chooses to pirate.
They weren't potential customers? See above.
You don't make excuses for piracy by blaming the publishers and developers most importantly in regards to "marketing."

Oh, they didn't market their game right so that's why people are pirating it. C'mon really?

I think highly anticipated games in their first month always pop up on torrent sites, piracy is a known quantity and hopefully it's manageable all said and done. I just think J.Blow decided to bring the topic up whereas most developers just seemingly ignore because their bottom line was recovered already on PS4/Stream/X1 and aren't too concerned with the loss of revenue. But to a person who probably partially self-financed a game in a very esoteric genre in which the possibility of not breaking even is very possible, I can certainly see why this is an issue for him.

 

[Rhaknar]

As long as it is deep--and I assure you, it is so deep. It is SOOOOOOOO deep. The deepest game. I am drowning in the deepness. Twice as deep as Braid.

So deep.

Spoiler

I can't believe people play Blow's games, much less pirate them. In this case it's valid to judge a book by its cover, as Blow is just as pretentious as his games. His urine-clad viral marketing seems unnecessary considering the I play Blow's games because I am intelligent and refined! zeal of his fans.

The game is overpriced for the typical consumer, but Blow isn't targeting typical consumers. He's targeting his fans, who will not hesitate to drop significant cash on insignificant experiences.

Just because you dont like something doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it dude :/

 

[endlessflood]

Some of the thoughts on piracy in here were certainly eye opening.

Not in a good way.

 

[TheWaxyPaxy]

You seem to think I was in any way defending piracy for some reason, when I was just comenting on people shitting on others for thinking the game is too expensive or isnt worth $40. I guess it wasnt the best thread to make that comment I guess given the subject of the OP (which a lot of people have drifted away from hence my comment)

That is true. Sorry, I guess I haven't been keeping up as much as I thought.

 

[Alvarez]

Are you done?

No. I'd also like to suggest that those of you in search of puzzle games whose world building and narratives are strong enough to stand on their own instead of being obfuscated by deepness to create the illusion of novelty should try the Myst series, or Antichamber. You may also want to try The Room, if only to witness the kind of brevity that Blow's one-trick-pony-until-the-pony-dies-of-old-age-forty-hours-later games are sorely lacking.

Oh, and don't pirate games. I may have an unnecessarily intense hatred of Blow's games, but I will defend to the death his expectation that his games be sold instead of stolen.

 

[WarpathDC]

I don't condone or participate in piracy at all but I think that it is telling that this game isn't at the price point many PC gamers are willing to pay for a puzzler. I will definitely get it when it's on sale but I watched a few trailers and was like looks cool, but not close to 40 bucks cool. Many of my friends preordered it and are not disappointed, however