Illegal Downloading

I don't necessarily agree or disagree with 'illegal downloading', because there are two points that basically cancel out any opinion I otherwise might have.

Sure, it's stealing, and stealing is rarely justifiable.
However, the amount of money that entertainment producers and artists make is ridiculous.
To hear people with millions rolling in gripe instead of being flattered that people like them enough to do something illegal to enjoy their works is obscene to me.
 
People have some kind of misconception about illegal downloading. They seem to think people that do it just don't want to pay for it and therfor just download it without a thought...

I used to do it, too, but when I did, if I really liked the album and whatnot, I would buy it later to support the artist. It's like the question of a friend burning a CD for another friend, they might buy a hard copy later for the vanity of having a hard copy. I'm somewhat of a collector, having every album of my favorite bands.

Granted, there are people that are like the stereotype, I will grant that.

In terms of games, many developers have said on record (can't find a source, so I'm questioning it now...) that they would rather their games get pirated than bought in a used game store. So basically, any older gen games, they don't really care about, so I see that as ok, since so do the developers. They make money off DLC and new games anyway.
 
Captain Squee said:
In terms of games, many developers have said on record (can't find a source, so I'm questioning it now...) that they would rather their games get pirated than bought in a used game store. So basically, any older gen games, they don't really care about, so I see that as ok, since so do the developers. They make money off DLC and new games anyway.
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Nintendo in particular doesn't give a damn about pirating. They take one for the team.
 
Sometimes, there are some damn good reasons to purchase a game rather than swipe it. Because let's face it; developers have found ways to get back at internet pirates.


Support the developers, folks. Especially the independent ones.
 
How exactly does one support a billion dollar franchise by buying instead of pirating?
It's like I implied, there is a difference between supporting a business and supporting greed. There is no reason a game should cost an upwards of 70 dollars.

In my opinion, pirating is simply their own karma. While the rest of us work by the sweat of our brow, they are living in ample abundance. Them going after pirating is nothing to respect or uphold.
It just shows that they care more about their greed then their fans, not everybody has money to dish out on entertainment.
 
Ultimaja said:
How exactly does one support a billion dollar franchise by buying instead of pirating?
It's like I implied, there is a difference between supporting a business and supporting greed. There is no reason a game should cost an upwards of 70 dollars.

In my opinion, pirating is simply their own karma. While the rest of us work by the sweat of our brow, they are living in ample abundance. Them going after pirating is nothing to respect or uphold.
It just shows that they care more about their greed then their fans, not everybody has money to dish out on entertainment.
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I pretty much agree with all you said. I know plenty of people that just don't have the money to purchase the materials that they want even though they have a job, but after bills, and with the pricing, it's just... Undo-able for a lot of people.

I'm a firm believe that if you give your items an interesting price, a lot more people will buy it, which will profit you greatly. I still don't understand why people don't do it. Sure you make more money if your item is ridiculously overpriced if one person buys it, but I don't think it stands up to making things cheaper, and having more people buy it.
 
Six said:
I pretty much agree with all you said. I know plenty of people that just don't have the money to purchase the materials that they want even though they have a job, but after bills, and with the pricing, it's just... Undo-able for a lot of people.

I'm a firm believe that if you give your items an interesting price, a lot more people will buy it, which will profit you greatly. I still don't understand why people don't do it. Sure you make more money if your item is ridiculously overpriced if one person buys it, but I don't think it stands up to making things cheaper, and having more people buy it.
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It's the principle that gets me, really.

It's like, you make a ton of profit- a ridiculous amount.
You have the cake, and yet have the audacity to go after the crumbs.

Call of Duty, for example, rakes in a literal billion+ per game. It's just insult to injury, really.
It can so easily be said that going after pirating is more unethical then pirating itself.

With that said, don't even get me started on Bill Gates. The man could literally end hunger in 3rd world countries.. and yet pent up about pirating :D
 
Agreed. Especially the part with Call of Duty, even with Uncharted as well, I realize that these people make so much money and they can make more and better games, but they don't even "TRY" the other alternative. I think they forget people have to buy 1: a system, 2: have an internet connection/payment going in the house, 3: pay the electric bill, and THEN they gotta buy the game. I'm almost positive they'd have more games selling if they weren't skyrocketing the prices...

That goes for all the good selling games, but these are definitely good examples. I agree that it's karma people look after illegal downloading. I absolutely hate pirating things, and would feel super guilty, but I am also not a millionaire.
 
Aye this is the thing. So many people buy games regardless of the price. Look at some collector's edition games where the price goes up to maybe £150...and they still sell out. It's crazy, but companies are gonna keep their prices high if they can still sell.

It makes perfect sense for the prices to be high imo. Even if consumers don't want it.

Is pirating a good alternative for people who can't afford high prices? No. It's theft whether it's easily available or not. Whether it's because of anything a company have done for greed or not. At least, that's my view on it.
 
It makes perfect sense for the prices to be high imo. Even if consumers don't want it.
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How? I can't see the sense in it at all. Why would you make the prices higher, and basically cheat people out of a gaming experience, while you could lower your prices, give more people a chance to enjoy themselves, and make as much, or more money? Where's the sense in that?
 
Six said:
How? I can't see the sense in it at all. Why would you make the prices higher, and basically cheat people out of a gaming experience, while you could lower your prices, give more people a chance to enjoy themselves, and make as much, or more money? Where's the sense in that?
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Because they're still selling as many with the prices high. These businesses are greedy b**tards. It's how they got to where they are today :lew:.
 
You don't know if they're selling just as many with the high prices. They're losing out on a lot due to those who cannot afford it resort to illegal downloading. There would be a lot less illegal downloading if there was a price people could agree to. They haven't given lowering prices a fair shot to make that comparison, so you can't claim they'd make just as much money...
 
Well high prices are likely to be worth that risk of a bit of pirating to the company, I'd say. The stores still sell out completely for most blockbuster games; that's the only stats I'm going by, to be honest. They then decrease in price slightly once the stores are being re-stocked. If you can't afford a game at first, wait a few weeks and chances are it'll be a bit cheaper anyways.

I think we also have to understand that games generally cost more to make now than they used to. The prices will generally increase to cover that cost. Again, I'm only really looking at blockbusters. Tomb Raider, GTAV, Beyond, Heavy Rain. These all cost absolute fortunes to make. So much so that even when they sold such high amounts, they were at a borderline loss. Maybe these are the games that should reasonably be sold at a high price, while cheaper to make games should be cheaper to buy in the first place?
 
Yeah, and if you look at Steam? Their incredible sales and amazing reputation for it?

Just because they make "money" by setting a "high price" to make "expensive games", they might a) be losing out on making even MORE money by lowering the price. We're not talking about a ridiculous 10 bucks for a game that takes hundreds to make, and b) they are already losing out on money which is proven by the statistics of pirate sites due to people thinking the asking price is ridiculous and not paying it. So would you rather have 500 more people buy your games for a lower price, or lose out on 1000s of copies you could've sold but have gone to pirate sites?

Pirating will never be solved, because there will always be that handful of people who flat out refuse to pay for their items, and that I think is bullshit, because it costs money to make, but... As far as the statement you made about "Because they sell as many with the high prices" just isn't true. They make TONS more with sales like that going on, and that's only temporary, imagine what lowering prices would do:

1. Damn, I can't afford that this month.
2. OH HELL YES, ONLY XX amount of dollars?! Hell, I'll buy another game!


Yeaaaaaaaaah.
 
I'm not gonna be popular here with this viewpoint, but I'll chuck it up for discussion anyway:

I personally believe that if you pirate, you are in the mindframe that theft is completely fine if you can justify it in your own mind. "That price is too high, I'll just nab it off the shelf" kinda mentality.

...But is that really the mentality of most people who pirate? Would they really pay if the game was say half the price or would they still prefer to grab the item for free? People will naturally say they would pay, just to show themselves in a positive light, but who knows what they'd really do.

I agree that Steam has got it down to a t. I'm not actually sure how they can afford to sell them so cheap? Do they sell them at the regular price for a bit and then decrease after a few months (not actually sure).

The part I said about them selling at a high price and still selling as many is true though, if you just take into account how stores sell out even before the games hit the shelves. That's solely what I'm basing it on here.

If we just look at CoD too, they make cheaper versions of their games; you just have to play them on the Wii instead. 'course the problem is that the buyer has to actually own a Wii but...if you don't have a huge amount of excess monies then you would generally go for the cheaper console in the first place, wouldn't you?

lmao I feel like I've gone completely off-track somewhere along the lines. If you can pick any sort of sense out of that lot, I'll give you some gil :lew:.
 
Stealing is ambiguous. Are we stealing from them, or are they stealing from us?
Because what really is a profit, if not stealing from others?

One is, after all, gaining more money from something higher then it's value. It's a sort 'inverse stealing' so to speak.
Which ultimately means that stealing is simply the way of the world.

*Yes, there is actually a philosophy tagged to this lol*
 
There is another issue that ought to be brought up here, IMO: developer budgeting. As time has gone on and games have become a more and more viable money-making machine, production costs have likewise skyrocketed. Early on the high costs were justified, as that's what it took for a game studio to get access to half-decent voice actors, a studio to record them in, streaming audio (as opposed to MIDI) performed with real instruments or high-quality virtual ones, motion-captured animation, or any number of special technologies on the textures, geometry, and shaders side of things. The pipeline wasn't the same back then as it is now. Practically everything had to be built uniquely and from scratch. If you had any part in creating a game whatsoever, you were X position + programmer, no exceptions. But these days everything is much more streamlined and accessible. Heck, anyone with a PC made in the last five years can download UDK or Unity and start chomping away at creating their very own game all by themselves with just the help of a few tutorials around the internet. Doesn't mean you'll end up with a AAA experience, but it shows how far we've come.

To the point: current game development budgets are out of date. The costs haven't progressed anywhere while the technology has. Just take a look at some of the best indie titles of the last few years--Trine, Runner2, Dust, and the like. These games cost a third of the baseline point of entry for any new Call of Duty game and still offer a top-notch experience and just as many hours of play. What's more, people are further inclined to purchase instead of pirate because they perceive the creators with a sense of goodwill. Customers see the developers as artists, and that's something they're willing to support.

So what am I suggesting, that every corporate game developer 'go indie' to curb piracy? No, I highly doubt that's the answer. The indie market suffers from the opposite problem of by and large having all too small of budgets to properly realize the games they set out to make. There's definitely something to be said for professional game creation. But there's also not just one way to create games professionally. I am quite confident that if the big budget companies out there tried to work with significantly lower budgets--large enough to get the job done right, but lower--they could. And the end result would be games could have, say, a $30 standard instead of $60. No, it wouldn't stop piracy altogether--I doubt anything would--but it would help, at least. If people didn't see price as an obstacle, they wouldn't try to get around it. If they saw the creators for their creativity instead of their multi-billion dollar publishing company, they'd be more inclined to lend their support.
 
I will expound more 2mrw *edit this post*, but for now, all I can is that game prices have been the same for a long time. Hell, I can remember when Turok came out on the N64 for no less then 115.00 dollars.
And other games were coming out at the same prices we have today, even though it was back in the 90's. The only price difference is in that of the systems- they have doubled, literally and accurately, since then.

Edit: lol, nothing to edit, nail on head :D
 
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Sometimes I buy, sometimes I download (illegally). It depends on the song and the artist. If I'm a fan of the artist then I'll always buy, if I'm a fan of the song then I'll almost always buy (unless I dislike that particular artist and don't want to give them any of my money). If it's a song I feel kinda meh about and don't really care one way or another for the artist either, then I'll download. Also, if I like a few songs from an artist but don't know if I'll like their whole album or not, then I download their album, and if I like it enough I go and buy it instead.

Books, games, I always buy them. No exceptions so far. Sometimes I'll buy games second hand though.
 
Well, another issue regarding the prices is the rate of inflation over the years. $20 today is not the same as $20 ten years ago.

Of course, there is also what really goes into making video games. Not only do you have labor costs of the employees (once it comes crunch time at EA Games, their employees pull mandatory 12 hour shifts), but you also have royalties to musicians that make the music, the programs that are used to create the models and scenery, the fees for voice actors if there is vocal dialogue, general building maintenance (utility bills, property tax, all that jazz), advertising campaigns (not including production costs, one television commercial can cost anywhere from $10k to $200k), manufacturing costs, and so on and so forth.

Video game companies as a whole spend money in order to make money. Not every game - which can take years to develop, as we all know - will turn into a blockbuster hit. So of course as the prices of all of these elements go up, we're going to see the prices of games themselves go up as well. In the end, it's still a business.

Personally, I do wind up going to Steam for the sake of purchasing games in this day and age. DLC does not cost as much as manufacturing a physical disk, thus the digital copies of the games are, indeed, cheaper to obtain. So hey, there is always the cheaper alternative rather than resorting to stealing.
 
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