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The Witness is being heavily pirated. J. Blow says piracy could impact his future.
- Thread starter Raylan
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lastflowers
Banned
damn shame. I'm looking forward to buying/playing it once I get a bit more free time, so look for my 40$ JBlow!
You don't need a source to understand that not everyone who pirates a game is capable of buying the game.
Not defending it, just saying it's common sense to understand there's not a 1:1 correlation between number of downloads on a torrent site and number of lost sales.
If there's research out there clarifying the statistic, and that maybe can estimate an actual ratio, it'd be super helpful, but I think you might be asking for something that doesn't exist.
I think logic can at least assert that the ratio of pirates to lost sales is <1
Steam refunds acting as a demo are complete and total bullshit. I do not want to spend $40, even if I can get it back in a week, to see if I like something. I'm a little confused as to where there isn't a demo for The Witness. It seems like the sort of game where you could pretty easily slice off a few areas and call it a demo.
Already Torn
Banned
Ether One was free on PS Plus for a while and is now $19.99
DidntKnowJack
Member
I hear what you're saying, if people think the game is too expensive, that's fine. But at that point they go without. People who steal and rationalize it like that are effing aholes.
UncleSporky
Member
Not everything is victim-blaming. There are always a myriad of factors that go into any situation. People can be partly responsible for the situation they find themselves in, even when the way others react is shitty.
I mean, what price is too high to the point where this statement becomes acceptable? What if the game cost $80? $200? $1000? When is it ok to say "yeah he probably priced himself out of the market?"
You must fucking hate PC gaming in general, then.
When the price is out of line for what other games offer for the same price point.
It's not.
I remember people argued for years that constant Steam sales and indies racing to the bottom on pricing weren't in any way devaluing games, and here we are where people are arguing that a fifty hour long, cleverly designed, beautifully produced game that took seven years to make isn't worth $40.
CircleOfFire
Member
But fundamentally it doesn't mean "1 pirated == 0 sales lost" either, no doubt it's somewhere in between those two numbers. Where it lies is most definitely a point of contention and is probably virtually impossible to actually divine however.
Why do you say that? Is there anything to back this up that I can read up on? It seems like a lot of assumptions are being made in this thread...
I'm too lazy to pirate games to try out nowadays but I used to do it back in the day every once in a while. Most of the time I tried out games that I'd never had considered buying in the first place, but after I had some fun with it I'd put it down and wait until I could buy it.
Anyway, The Witness has a really high entry fee for a digital only game, if this was released as a physical media I would've bought it already.
Anyway, The Witness has a really high entry fee for a digital only game, if this was released as a physical media I would've bought it already.
Garrett Hawke
Member
No, most games like this are $60. It has hours upon hours worth of gameplay and stunning graphics.
Sure, a game's worth may be subjective based on tastes and content. If you really aren't a big puzzle fan then it might not be worth $40 out of the gate, but the idea of pirating the game because of its price point isn't a valid argument either.
I will as an aside, I've never seen a puzzle game do the things The Witness has done in terms of line puzzles, let alone any other types of puzzles in games. And I was insanely skeptical when the price was announced. For me, at least, it has been well worth the cost and more rewarding thus far than a good deal of full priced games.
Refunding a game because you don't like it is listed as a valid reason though:
"You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steamfor any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it."
Going off How Long To Beat that game is considerably smaller than The Witness. I'm at 20 hours and still have a ton of things to do.
TimeEffect
Member
That's really unfortunate. Im hoping he can find a good publisher if his next game is too hard to do with his own small team. I really want him to be able to achieve whatever he wants next because I really like his games.
And while PC users may be pirating, I'd hope the PS4 version sells well enough and that he can capitalize on things like eventually putting the game on PS+ and releasing on X1.
And while PC users may be pirating, I'd hope the PS4 version sells well enough and that he can capitalize on things like eventually putting the game on PS+ and releasing on X1.
Ether One is a much smaller game, and not nearly as good or polished. It is not comparable.
Comparing the two games is kind of baffling, as one is an extremely long puzzle game and one of the longer non-RPGs that I will play this year.
geordiemp
Member
I am just saying what I would of done in his shoes, everybody has different ideas on best way to sell a product.
Nobody thought this about Portal 2. Expectations are just automatically set lower when they come from an indie dev. Its a problem that will just have to be suffered through until studios start to establish themselves as mid-tier studios positioned between indie and AAA level development.
Youre comparing a small team to Blizzard. Thats ridiculous.
entremet
Member
According to How Long to Beat, Ether One is 11 hours if you do everything.
The Witness is apparently 70 Hours if you do everything, 7x as long as Ether One.
I haven't even touched on production values.
The Jackdog
Member
it doesnt, and its unrealistic to do so.
if my budget is $20 dollars for a game, and the game is $40 bucks, i cant get it. It in no way justifies piracy, but if I was never gonna buy the game at 40 bucks and i pirate it, they didnt lose a sale.
FloorEssence
Neo Member
Yeah one of the biggest PC franchises of all time with years and years of hype behind it, initially exclusive to PC etc. Also given free for WoW players who bought a certain type of subscription
Primethius
Banned
He didn't price himself out of the market. $40 is perfectly fine for a game like this.
This is a simple case of pirates being criminal pieces of shits more then anything else.
Kenzodielocke
Banned
This game has no music, no actors, no explosions, no guns, no tits, no arse.
Should be $10 max.
What? That's not even what he means. He simply means that having it priced at $40 will result in much, much more pirated copies than having it priced at $10 for example. Regardless of whether or not $40 is good pricing, that's another discussion.
To some people, yes. I wouldn't pay $60 for the next Anno or Civ game.
Pai Pai Master
Banned
Valve is an indie dev though
And portal 2 has a gun!
I dunno it doesn't make any sense to me.
EvilAlPacino
Banned
The price I would pay for The Witness would be in the range of $15-20. That's just me though.
Would have been better if it was released on XB1 and PS4 first, then PC later. Ah, but what do I know.
Would have been better if it was released on XB1 and PS4 first, then PC later. Ah, but what do I know.
shortsFortallPeople
Banned
it's also not comparable insofar as quality is concerned. Lets find games that are both similar in gameplay and genre that were well received instead:
Portal 2 launched at $60
Talos Principle launched at $40
The Witness launched at $40
Seems fair, really
Already Torn
Banned
But they look similar. That's it! The Witness looks like a cheap digital-only game.
John Kowalski
Banned
I'm tempted to think that The Witness is one of those games which will continue to sell for a longer than standard period, which i hope will prove helpful. I wonder how Braid is selling these days.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
This game is like Gone Home or Everybody's Gone to the Rapture if they had eighty to a hundred more hours of content in them. Those games are 20 dollars.
Are you calling Valve indie just because theyre privately owned?
YianGaruga
Banned
To a LARGE number of the audience? Absolutely.
That's what I read of the statement too - hoping that his concerns on the sales are misplaced and that the game's selling really well.
Visualante2
Member
Game cost $8 million to make. They get $28 per unit. So they have to sell 285,000 units at full price to break even. It's probably quite daunting. I think Jon is thinking out loud here, it's not really a big news story to me, if anything developers talking about piracy is just easy free press. I'll wait to see the sales numbers before giving it much thought.
Many PC games make the majority of their money at the 50% off price point. Sony will obviously want it for a PS+ title next year and then you have the iOS factor, Apple will get behind this game in a huge way and feature it straight to the bank.
I don't think he needed to spend $8 million on this game, he wanted to. So if he breaks even that's great.
Many PC games make the majority of their money at the 50% off price point. Sony will obviously want it for a PS+ title next year and then you have the iOS factor, Apple will get behind this game in a huge way and feature it straight to the bank.
I don't think he needed to spend $8 million on this game, he wanted to. So if he breaks even that's great.
It's a little unfair to compare the two. Portal 2 had a massive amount of marketing behind it and came from a company with an established IP or three behind it. As much as I like and respect Blow's games, he doesn't have much of a pedigree unless you're already invested in what he's selling you.
I mean, it could be that puzzle-only games, especially ones that place an emphasis on not being accessible in the modern sense of game design are simply a harder sell. Content doesn't matter if it's not content people would pay $40 for to begin with.
Pai Pai Master
Banned
I'm just being difficult. The entire idea of claiming games are worth less because theyre from an "indie" dev makes no sense to me. Separating out "Indies" at all is silly, as if theyre lesser games in any way just because.
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