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[daveo42]

I don't think there is any justification for piracy, but I also think that $40 is a ridiculous price point for this game, so I guess I feel bad for him, but I think he's also too greedy.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I don't think any game is worth $40. I generally (with some rare exceptions) don't pay more than $20 for a AAA game, $10 for an indie.

That's fine if you don't find any game to be worth the original asking price and I don't really care about the reasons behind that decision (strictly monetary or otherwise), but calling the man greedy, even in the slightest, seems to come from a place of ignorance as opposed to insight. I don't make games, but if you've followed almost any indie game from start to finish, game creation is hard, long, and difficult. This game in particular has been in development for five years and sure, he's made money off of Braid in that time, but his job for the past five years was to make this game.

Sure it was his decision to use his own money to make the game instead of getting funding from an outside source, but I think whatever Blow thinks is right in terms of asking price after five years of blood, sweat, tears and piss bottles is fine. There will be people who wait because they personally feel $40 is too much for the game, but the $40 price shouldn't mean he's greedy for wanting that much for a long, deep, and exhilarating (at least personally) experience.

 

[Seiru]

Same. It's infuriating.

I'm not seeing literally anybody defending piracy in this thread. At all.

 

[MisterR]

I'm always amazed by the amount of people defending pirating

It really is amazing. I wonder if there is a defense force for other types of theft?

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

That puts the onus on the consumer to ask for a refund, fill out a form.

It's like every "Free for X Days!" but will charge your credit card if you forget (which they trust you will).

Also you cannot repeatedly refund games, that would fall into the Abuse clause. Refunds are not to be used to demo game after game, but merely "reduce" the risk you take when purchasing a title.

well, im not even sure why you would pirate games with the excuse being that you want to "demo" it.

If what you want is to try out a game to see if it works with your rig or to see if it causes motion sickness, i can imagine that you can do that with the Witness on steam, right? And i also assume that youre not sitting around trying to do this with every game because it isn't as if every game has had reported issues with motion sickness, right?

so what's the big deal? It's not an abuse of the steam if you do this with the witness given its issues and it's an option for those who want to see if it works for them. Unless, of course, the supposed reason for downloading the witness through piracy is really just that and people are hiding behind this "demo" nonsense because they need to rationalize their bullshit

 

[Give War A Chance]

Value is subjective. It's amazing that people are still debating whether or not it's worth the price 8 pages in.

That being said, for me, it's a tough sell at $40 for a puzzle/mystery. I'm very close to buying it though. If it debuted at $29.99, I'd have already bought it. Still might buy it at full price, but will 100% buy it on the first sale.

With respect to the people that seem to be defending pirating, my goodness. Call it what you want, but you're taking a copy of someone's something without going through the proper channels and completing a proper transaction. A lot of those people weren't going to buy the game anyway, most likely, but that doesn't make it okay.

 

[TriniTrin]

People saying price doesnt matter should just look at the amount of people in this thread talking about how the price is too much for them. 40$ is expensive for this game in my and others opinion.

But value is subjective, the people who are pirating would most likely not have bought the game anyways and the people who arent paying 40$ are just waiting for a sale. I dont think a bunch of the pirates are waiting for a sale to buy it.

 

[TouchMyBox]

I wish we could have an alternate universe where The Witness used Denuvo DRM and see how different sales are.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

I'll buy it if it comes to Xbox.

Shame about the pirates.

 

[Lingitiz]

I'm not seeing literally anybody defending piracy in this thread. At all.

Same. I'm seeing more people say Blow should have delayed the game on PC or not released it at all, or gone with more restrictive DRM. All of which sounds like thinking from a decade ago.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

My takeaway is that you're just not allowed to bring up piracy as a systematic OR personal problem because people who aren't pirates are still way too goddamn defensive about piracy

ITT: apology championships 2016

I can only speak for myself, but when I attempt to try to argue that piracy isn't as big of a deal as some think, I do so not to try to be an unempathetic asshole. I mean, I get it. This is your livelihood. If all these pirates would actually pay for the game that they're enjoying, that'd be more money in your pocket. I'm not suggesting they don't deserve that money.

But the problem is how do you solve this? Even if you do make the game uncrackable, how many of those people are going to buy the game anyway? Because the concern many have is that when you start going down that path, the results can often lead to solutions that ultimately don't work anyway that are intrusive to paying customers. Or alternatively, it leads to people thinking "you know, we shouldn't release a PC version at all" which I think is an unfortunate disaster. You're ignoring sales you were definitely going to get (plenty of people ARE buying The Witness on Steam) in favor of gambling on the fact that those buyers plus the pirates MIGHT just buy the console version given no other option. This is extremely disappointing as a PC fan to be told "we don't want your money because other PC players are pirates."

 

[GlamFM]

He isn't losing money, people who are pirates wouldn't buy it anyway, they are just assholes playing without paying to support the dev.

The crappiest of arguments.

Always comes up in these threads.

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

I wish we could have an alternate universe where The Witness used Denuvo DRM and see how different sales are.

it wouldn't matter, Blow put out a DRM free version of the witness himself.

 

[Impulsor]

According to the release stream, The Witness budget is around 6 million dollars.

SteamSpy shows sales somewhere in the 23k+ range last time I checked. And who knows if all of these were bought from the Steam store.

Man, really scared about him and his team - this is shitty.

The Witness can't be bought on code sites because the only distribution platforms are humble bundle and steam I think, there are no codes to sell.

You can buy "steam gifts" but it costs almost as much as the game and is not a trustworthy way to get the game.

I bought the game and couldn't be happier. I hope Blow never stops making games because he is darn good at it.

Same. I'm seeing more people say Blow should have delayed the game on PC or not released it at all, or gone with more restrictive DRM. All of which sounds like thinking from a decade ago.

The game works perfectly fine on PC. I agree that piracy should not dictate a release date on a game.

 

[kuroshiki]

It really is amazing. I wonder if there is a defense force for other types of theft?

I don't know. Wasn't one of the mod support piracy by saying 'one pirate doesn't mean one lost sale'? Neogaf's stand is pirate doesn't affect sale AT ALL.

Not going to defend piracy, but I do believe in this case colleration is not causation.

Just because the Witness is being heavily pirated, does not mean its losing sales. It means that it has hasn't launched at a price point, time and without enough marketing to moblise its target market.

I bet sales on PS4 are pretty low too.

Here it is.

 

[Alucrid]

No. It's really more a factor of the amount of quality games that exist at low price points today. So much supply means that the price has to come down. Back in the 16-bit era, I was totally willing to shell out $70 for Street Fighter 2, but I wouldn't pay more than $5 for it today.

no, you're stingy.

 

[Lady Siara]

I imagine the game will have better sales after it's been out for a while. Braid only sold around 55k units when it launched. People had to work their way through it and convince others that the journey was worth it. His games take time to digest because that is how he makes them.

The interview comes across as lamenting about current sales more than anything else. Have some faith in your game, it's great! You'll make your money back in time.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Not going to defend piracy, but I do believe in this case colleration is not causation.

Just because the Witness is being heavily pirated, does not mean its losing sales. It means that it has hasn't launched at a price point, time and without enough marketing to moblise its target market.

I bet sales on PS4 are pretty low too.

As I said before. At $40 the Witness is not just in competition with other puzzle games, its in competition with every game on the store at that pricepoint.

If the value isnt there to people, they just wont buy. No point in trying to find other boogymen to explain that away.

 

[Maintenance]

Same. I'm seeing more people say Blow should have delayed the game on PC or not released it at all, or gone with more restrictive DRM. All of which sounds like thinking from a decade ago.

Yep, as I said before this thread feels like 2005.

 

[Pie and Beans]

8 years between games is not a workable situation for an indie unless they're being funded by one of the big three straight up.

Jenova Chen will probably fall foul of feature creep unrealistic market expectations next.

 

[LeBart]

No.

That part of the demand can be satisfied later by discounts.

This should really be the end of the discussion.
Just wait for the next Steam sale like a normal person.

There are a few situations where I can sort of sympathize with pirates, but this is not one of them.

 

[Herbs]

Not sure how this really affects his sales of at all.

 

[Bits N Pieces]

Bring your game to every platform available, Mr Blow.

I'm sure there is a large audience waiting for a game like this that don't have a PS4 or PC.

Probably wont get the opportunity to pirate it on other platforms either?

 

[hobblygobbly]

I like how some of the people in the thread are saying that he doesn't lose a sale because someone pirates the game because they had no intention of spending 40 dollars.

Are you really serious? He sure as hell loses a sale.

Wait until the game eventually goes on sale for 20 dollars or whatever and buy it. Support the developer for putting out a great game.

Yeah if someone has the money but is unwilling, it's definitely a lost sale. It does become a bit more murky when it's things like kids with no disposable income who don't even have the money in the first place, at that point they've been a potential sale.

Back when I was a kid piracy was a bit different, back in like 90s-2001 what my group of friends did was that we would work out who would get certain games and then we would share them in a rotation, we'd work out who bought what games with each of our limited allowance, etc because there was no way we could all afford to get the same games to play. Even though we had Internet back then, we didn't pirate, If I remember correctly it was all done through things like IRC and usenet which was a pain at the time. Amongst us were 5 or so lost sales, and only 1 sale for each game but we would never have been a sale because we simply didn't have the means

I don't think that's any different today with the exception of it being much more easier for kids now to gain games that they can't afford which makes piracy a bigger problem. Kids still don't have disposable income, but it's much easier to get access to things through piracy than it was back then, compounding the issue. Granted it's much easier for kids than it was for me because of games being cheaper with sales online. Also there's definitely a lot of pirates who can afford but are unwilling, I know some of those people in real life, if it's free they'll take it as free, they only buy online games. Those people are definitely lost sales and the main problem.

 

[Arthr2ShdsJcksn]

[Snip]
. There will be people who wait because they personally feel $40 is too much for the game, but the $40 price shouldn't mean he's greedy for wanting that much for a long, deep, and exhilarating (at least personally) experience.

I shouldn't have called him greedy, but I think that asking $40 for a game is unreasonable.

no, you're stingy.

If I'm stingy then Blow is greedy. Hint, the truth lies between the two.

 

[The God]

Can someone explain to me how delaying the PC version would help PC sales?

 

[Guess Who]

Bring your game to every platform available, Mr Blow.

I'm sure there is a wide a large and audience waiting for a game like this that don't have a PS4 or PC.

Probably wont get the opportunity to pirate it on other platforms either?

Isn't an iOS version in the works?

 

[flaxknuckles]

Honestly, if the game was $60 and then discounted to $40 on Greenmangaming then I probably would have bought it. I just can't purchase games at their full price anymore after playing on PC for so long. I know it sounds silly.

 

[Sylas]

well, im not even sure why you would pirate games with the excuse being that you want to "demo" it.

If what you want is to try out a game to see if it works with your rig or to see if it causes motion sickness, i can imagine that you can do that with the Witness on steam, right? And i also assume that youre not sitting around trying to do this with every game because it isn't as if every game has had reported issues with motion sickness, right?

so what's the big deal? It's not an abuse of the steam if you do this with the witness given its issues and it's an option for those who want to see if it works for them. Unless, of course, the supposed reason for downloading the witness through piracy is really just that and people are hiding behind this "demo" nonsense because they need to rationalize their bullshit

I have $100 in my budget for the week. I could spend that $100 on good food, or I could spend $40 on a game and $60 on mediocre food. In both cases, I will be fed.

In the first case, I will have food that I know is tasty and will make me happy! In the second case, I will have a new game to play and food that's filling but not my favorite.

If I spend $40 on the game and realize I don't like it--I'm going to be very disappointed that I couldn't try the game out beforehand, and thus am stuck eating mediocre food and having a game I don't really like. I can ask for a refund, but it takes 3-5 business days to get it put back into my account. By the time I get it all sorted, the next week will have rolled around and my budget resets.

Piracy isn't the solution, but a demo--especially for something like The Witness--has it's merits even with refunds.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Not sure how this really affects his sales of at all.

There are people in this thread that thinks the pirates copies are lost sales.

There's naive and then there's naive.

Oh, and some of them are getting angry. It's hilarious.

 

[GlamFM]

Not sure how this really affects his sales of at all.

I think it´s enough to know that it does.

 

[B33]

Piracy is untenable. It's not okay to steal stuff. Don't do it.

The rhetoric pirates employ is absurd.

If you don't want to spend the money on the content, you are not entitled to steal it. If the price point is too high, wait for it to decrease.

 

[NOLA_Gaffer]

I don't think there is any justification for piracy, but I also think that $40 is a ridiculous price point for this game, so I guess I feel bad for him, but I think he's also too greedy.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I don't think any game is worth $40. I generally (with some rare exceptions) don't pay more than $20 for a AAA game, $10 for an indie.

If you think $40 is too much for a game, just don't play it; it doesn't somehow give someone the right to steal it.

 

[Dice//]

Piracy is untenable. It's not okay to steal stuff. Don't do it.

The rhetoric pirates employ is absurd.

If you don't want to spend the money on the content, you are not entitled to steal it. If the price point is too high, wait for it to decrease.

Yeha I'm kind of confused at the responses here.

 

[Generalpsyduck]

He should not have charged so much for it.

Spoiler

he made millions of braid so I think he is fine

 

[Alucrid]

I shouldn't have called him greedy, but I think that asking $40 for a game is unreasonable.


If I'm stingy then Blow is greedy. Hint, the truth lies between the two.

no, not really, especially when the only qualifier for what makes a game unreasonably priced at $40 is your spending habits

 

[Briarios]

There is most certainly a correlation between piracy and lost sales. It's just not a 1:1 correlation ... Probably not even close, but it's just never ok to steal from someone.

 

[Corpekata]

Didn't he make similar comments about Braid? He seems to overstate things in a Yves PretendIspelledhislastnamefromUbisoft sort of manner.


Looking at Kickasstorrents and Pirate Bay, at least, the game isn't being pirated any more than the average game. Rise of the Tomb Raider, a game pirates can't even play because it has uncracked DRM so far, seems to dwarf the numbers I'm seeing for the Witness. Unless I'm just out of touch and there's more popular torrent sites out there these days.

 

[FinalStageBoss]

Yea pirates are assholes, and they're going to pirate whether it's 1 dollar or 100 tbh.

 

[SmartBase]

Price elasticity of demand, how does it work?

 

[John Caboose]

The European Comission looked into the effect of piracy on (digital) music sales. Assuming the numbers are similar for video games there have been some lost sales but in the grand scheme of things the effect seems negligible. I believe getting hung up on illegal downloading is a rather pointless exercise.

Perhaps surprisingly, our results present no evidence of digital music sales displacement. While we find important cross country differences in the effects of downloading on music purchases, our findings suggest a rather small complementarity between these two music consumption channels. It seems that the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in our sample would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them. The complementarity effect of online streaming is found to be somewhat larger, suggesting a stimulating effect of this activity on the sales of digital music.

Taken at face value, our findings indicate that digital music piracy does not displace legal music purchases in digital format. This means that although there is trespassing of private propertyrights (copyrights), there is unlikely to be much harm done on digital music revenues.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Imma need some sources on "99.9 percent of pirates wouldn't buy anyway". Obviously its not a 1:1 correlation to piracy and sales but on its face the claim that nobody would buy it if they couldn't pirate it seems ridiculous

I think a lot of them are lost sales. It's just a question of how much they would have bit at. With so many games (paid and free) sitting in everyone's gaming accounts, if someone doesn't bite early they may not bite until a game is $5 in a Steam/Humble sale. It's still $5 made, but it's also not $40.

Still, there are others who simply would have never bothered with the game at all, ever. There are games I've been interested in but skipped for one reason or another (Xrd most recently) and will likely never buy or play anymore. It was a brief opportunity the developers had and they missed with the price point. Too many games to be played to stress about any one game when your platform to play on is PC. There is no "dry season" of gaming on the PC where your gaming options feel limited due to release schedules or something. Wanna sell your PC game well? Price aggressively. ESPECIALLY in the month following the biggest fucking holiday season in the world. ESPECIALLY when making a game for a niche genre.

 

[george_us]

This game has no music, no actors, no explosions, no guns, no tits, no arse.

Should be $10 max.

I know you're joking but this seriously seems like the justification people are using to skip on The Witness. By all accounts the game has more content than 90% of most games released today. Not sure why people are so on the fence.

 

[KarmaCow]

Honestly, if the game was $60 and then discounted to $40 on Greenmangaming then I probably would have bought it. I just can't purchase games at their full price anymore for some reason.

Companies know this, which is why stores perpetually have X% off sales. JC Penny tried to get rid of the facade by just having lower priced goods and it failed horribly for them.

 

[Arthr2ShdsJcksn]

If you think $40 is too much for a game, just don't play it; it doesn't somehow give someone the right to steal it.

I'm not advocating that. I'm saying wait until it comes down to $5-10, which it inevitably will be in a few short months.

 

[nynt9]

the Witness has already made a million dollars on Steam before valve takes its cut and probably something around that ballpark on the PS4, too.

I mean the man might already have made 2 million on the witness in less than a week, i don't think piracy is really putting a hurting on him. Not to condone it, but I'm not buying it.

What the hell? How is this a real comment? Especially considering he worked on it for five years. The budget for the game was in the millions.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

I don't know. Wasn't one of the mod support piracy by saying 'one pirate doesn't mean one lost sale'? Neogaf's stand is pirate doesn't affect sale AT ALL.



Here it is.

How does rational thinking is supporting piracy?

Do you actually think that everyone who commit theft (not just in gaming) would buy the thing they"re stealing if stealing wasn't an option?

 

[PlatypusDude]

He should not have charged so much for it.

Spoiler

he made millions of braid so I think he is fine

Pretty sure he said he pretty much put most if not all of the profit he made from Braid, into The Witness.

 

[eksy]

Slightly off-topic, but I think this is one game that needs a demo. Just looking at the Metacritic score you would think it is a safe purchase, but I would not say so.

I played this on PS4 for about 3 hours and pretty much got the gist of what it is. The conclusion is that the game is just not for me. There is very little payoff when solving the puzzles (a few critical reviews have mentioned this) and I assume the remainder of the game would be more of the same.

Also, the turning speed on the PS4 is super slow (different from running speed, which is L2). I don't have the patience for this, and it reminds me of the walking sequences in games like MGSV and The Order 1886 that were so irritable. I saw PC version -- of course, had no such issues.

So yeah, $40 is a lot to commit to for a game that you might not get into. For PC, I believe there are Steam refunds, but not so much for consoles. Anyway, just wanted to say caveat emptor. Try before you buy.

 

[shortsFortallPeople]

I have $100 in my budget for the week. I could spend that $100 on good food, or I could spend $40 on a game and $60 on mediocre food. In both cases, I will be fed.

In the first case, I will have food that I know is tasty and will make me happy! In the second case, I will have a new game to play and food that's filling but not my favorite.

If I spend $40 on the game and realize I don't like it--I'm going to be very disappointed that I couldn't try the game out beforehand, and thus am stuck eating mediocre food and having a game I don't really like. I can ask for a refund, but it takes 3-5 business days to get it put back into my account. By the time I get it all sorted, the next week will have rolled around and my budget resets.

Piracy isn't the solution, but a demo--especially for something like The Witness--has it's merits even with refunds.

what's there to demo? there's a bunch of videos out there and, yeah, there are actual options available, like refunds.

Cant afford the 3-5 days for a refund? Then dont be dumb, wait till you can. If you can't afford the 3-5 refund process then you can't afford the game, period. It's no excuse for piracy

What the hell? How is this a real comment? Especially considering he worked on it for five years. The budget for the game was in the millions.

i meant im not buying Blow's concerns, not that im not buying the game.

 

[M3d10n]

He's not "losing" money because people are pirating, he's losing because people aren't buying his game. Piracy will happen regardless of price. If it was somehow impossible to pirate The Witness, pirates would just play something else.