IEMC

The hell?

__________________

Mousey

lmfao to be honest i agree, this guy's got the right idea
I earn £13.50 a week right, it can get me the occasional game in a bargain bin or a bargain of ebay or amazon but tbh it's not really enough to get any new releases.

Saving up's fine i spose but when you've got a game sat there in a shop and you're dying to play it but you know you have to wait 4/5 weeks to get the cash it kinda gets a bit frustrating, at which point you hit a torrent site or w/e.

And when i've only got this much cash coming in i have to decide, do i buy a gamecard for WoW, a bargain game, go to leeds/skipton, go get drunk with my mates or do i save?

Make games cheaper and piracy's gonna lower, and actual store sales will increase. it's the plain and obvious truth.. Eitheir that or make digital downloads cheap as chips like some games on steam

__________________

BlueMak

I remember how before the digital downloads arrive, how everyone on publishers/whatever were saying how this will make games cheaper because there is no printing of manuals, no boxes, not even CD/DVDs, not even shop front etc etc. Guess what, they lied.
Case in point, the otherwise very good Gamersgate, game Y in the USA $29.99, in the EU at least 29.99 euros...plus, no box not anything.
But why is there piracy? more DRM MORE MORE!!!
idiots.

__________________
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

YAYitsAndrew

Oh please, kids today! When I was little I was able to buy a game during my birthday when people gave me money. Other than that I started mowing lawns at 13 for money and then had a job at 15. I sometimes would save my allowances over a few weeks and even skimp on my lunches by not buying fries and other extras to collect the money for games.

That's just how it is as a kid. If you can't convince your folks to buy you a game or they can't afford it you have to take matters into your own hands. I remember to get Earthbound I had to take a loan from my grandma. I paid her back 10 dollars a week until I paid off my debt.

Never did it cross my mind to steal the games.

__________________
"It is because the resistance to paying for copyrighted material, although often characterized as arising from a supposed technical burden or principled concern for the public interest, arises rather from exactly the same segment of the brain that is dominant in shoplifters."
- Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism
In other words, it's never okay to steal even if you think you have a good reason!

www.yayitsandrew.com

SFOSOK

I buy mine at the store, rip the cd's and keys out and throw away the artwork and box. If its a steam game then I register through them but never buy it online or download anything illegally.

__________________
*Warning* - Explicit Content Preceeding



METAL!!

OmegaRED

The answer is clearly to earn more money or find a new hobby. Game prices are fine, compared to other forms of entertainment. I don't often buy games but when I do they usually provide hundreds of hours of worth of value (BF2, MoH series etc).

__________________

Zelig

I earn $1350 a week right, it can get me the occasional car from the used lot or a bargain of ebay but tbh it's not really enough to get any new nice sports cars.

Saving up's fine i spose but when you've got a sweet ride sat there in a shop and you're dying to drive it but you know you have to wait 4/5 years to get the cash it kinda gets a bit frustrating, at which point you hit a gang for a "hot" ride or w/e.

And when i've only got this much cash coming in i have to decide, do i buy a luxury credit card, a used Mustang, go to Cuba, go get drunk with some upscale escort service or do i save?

Make cars cheaper and piracy's gonna lower, and actual dealer sales will increase. it's the plain and obvious truth.. Eitheir that or make new cars cheap as chips like some cars on ebay

__________________
--

Zelig

Only in the US/UK.

I tip well, but I hate feeling obliged to give tips, so to give myself leniency, I tip bigger for good service, and less for poor service. What really bugs me are restauraunts where they automatically add a set percentage to your bill to count as a tip, whenever this happens, they never get any extra tips from me... just make the damn food more expensive.

Yeah, a little off topic.


I don't think it's so easy to separate people who download software/movies/music from those who buy illegit copies from the local market. The main difference between these two groups are technical ability, the average person has never used a torrent before, while on the other hand, any random person can purchase from a street vendor a movie that just came out in theatres for $5, to pop into their DVD player.

I think this is also part of the reason for the mass piracy of PC games. The audience for hardcore PC games are the exact same people who tend to have the knowledge to steal the games.

__________________
--

Cow_160483

Ok this is what I have to say on the topic at hand. We can sing about it "till the cows come home" haha just a little humor, but the fact is that we all have to search our conscience and try to do the right thing which is: buying the dam games.
I mean come on people we all know steeling is wrong so why do it? Think of all the people who take the time to make these games do we want them to stop? here in Botswana where not many people are hardcore gamers. its really hard to get good games for PC's we have to drive really long distances (800km) to go to South Africa and buy the games we want but we still do so, SUCK IT UP and stop bringing down the whole industry by pirating and get the OG (original) shit.

__________________

Decode!
Muhahahahah!

Mousey

Precisely

__________________

BWX

I am surprised this didn't get knocked into the FWZ.

__________________
One Big Ass Mistake America

BWX

Oh wait.. I AM as bad as this guy-

__________________
One Big Ass Mistake America

Mousey

that is fricken awesome

__________________

Callandor

This isn't true, especially the 800 km part.

botswana - Google Maps



In fact the citizens of this country are probably more proud than South Africans themselves, South Africa has an unemployment rate of, what, 40-50% and an oppressive corrupt government that only steals from its people and has been doing so for the past 15 years, I'm not from Botswana or anything but having lived here (in Gaborone) for quite a while I feel an obligation to defend it. I'm surprised you can say this after what this country has done for you.

RSOblivion

Wow aren't you the goody two shoes.

Not everyone has such a lovely work ethic as you, plus with you lovely moral highground I doubt you feel like you can be knocked off it. However there is two sides to every story.

Shall we start with the decline in the end product (point 3 I believe). It is obvious that over the last few years deadlines and budgets have rendered many a game without balls on release. This led to endless patching (because with the internet this was a lot cheaper than delaying 3 months of sales) and pretty pissed off consumers. This also happened around the time that pirating games became mainstream, partly as a counter to buying shit that wasn't finished (hell WoW still isn't finished ), partly to supply to those who couldn't afford it, and mostly just because it could be done.

Those who download, copy and the sell the copies I totally despise. They are the scum without honour. Those who download and use well, chances are they have enough knowledge to do so and wouldn't have bought the game in the first place (counter to the lost customer bullshit, which is totally invalid when you check the big companies profits...).

Does anyone actually read the EULA before clicking OK and using the product? Well if they did they would find (in the more obnoxious ones which are now most of them) that a) They have no legal right to use the product they paid for, b) The company who made it doesn't guarantee that it will work or that it won't melt your computer, c) That if you don't agree with their terms then you are at fault! Thats the funniest bit. You have to agree to terms you have no control over, then they assume its a contract. LOLOLOLOL, that is absolutely contradictory to contract law btw. SO if you really want to get on the legal bandwagon you could start with the profit raping of teenagers (main target audience but adults and younger kids are there too) through misleading advertising, making minors agree to contracts they have no understanding or knowledge of, etc....

Personally I couldn't give a rats arse about piracy, its gonna happen no matter what, but if you make a product that is quality and fairly priced, you'll find piracy of it is minimal. There will be t-shirts, cups and other merchandise too (all will be copied for a fraction of the price in China) which will compound the profits off the original game. Yet they complain that they didn't make as much as they could have because a bunch of people bought the fakes.

The thing I hate the most though is those who believe through their (allegedly) high moral levels they have the right to decide what is right and what is wrong (when the options are not black and white), then foist their opinion on others. That is far worse than any piracy and its committed on a far grander and more deadly scale than computer software. Just think imagine if the criminals ran the country what would it be like..........

OmegaRED

Omg Pirates...just stop already, the moment you drop even one excuse you lost the right to be taken seriously.

That means no "games are worse quality", "are released in a buggy state", "are too expensive" or "copy protection is too invasive" arguments.

It's as simple as some people who are short on cash will steal a game rather than buy it. Do this enough times and it becomes habitual, then pirates realize they can buy other stuff (like pc hardware) with the money they saved on games and it keeps going on and on.

__________________

RSOblivion

If you read that point properly, I stated the main reason pirating occured was just because they could do it. Not the other mitigating factors.

I would like to ask a simple question then. In the case of MMO's where you pay per month who is stealing from who? really it should be pay for time, rather than per month, then it would be close to being fairer, but still raping the public over and over for the same old shit, which btw they seem to be quite happy lapping it up from the silver platter. Personally I can't understand it any more. I did play WoW for a while for instance, I wish I hadn't wasted the time and the money now. The only good thing was when I played with my mates, and even then it ran thin.

Though using MMO's as an example shows the success of PC games over consoles in a region consoles could never even hope to go yet.

Its ironic and easy to forget the days of PS and PS2 game piracy, hacked consoles and such (which are just as prevalent with the current machines as the older ones) allowing the use of burnt media instead of original. Even more ironic when you consider the gaming base of the PC is over twice the size of the console base and they still complain even when there are profits in the hundreds of millions for a released game. The profit chasing has got to a point where it is simply absurd and that impacts on the consumers in a big way.

Over here a new release is likely to cost $100. In the UK its about 30-45 quid. The earning ratio is not the same though. The average wage is lower in dollars than pounds in the same period (a week for instance). Meaning that the cost is actually over double that of the UK. So why on Earth should we pay double for the same product? Mainly because if it was done on earning ratio, people in an affluent country with half a brain would order a copy from a not quite so affluent country. Then you have the all the problems of regions and region piracy, etc...

As you can see there is far more that underlies the issue than the mere want to steal. Or the whim of an impoverished guy who has a computer powerful enough for Crysis :s

Oh and by the way you are making a massive mistake thinking that any of the currencies actually have any real value. Seeing as all current major currencies are all debt instruments rather than credit instruments (ie it's an I owe U rather than a gold coin), its a little hard to use the concept of monetary theft as it is valueless and backed by nothing, hence the rather self destructive economies.

Of course this was all thought of before this discussion occured wasn't it

YAYitsAndrew

It took you that long? I lost faith in the rebuttal the second he said WoW isn't a finished game.

WoW is a platform for delivering multiplayer content. By adding new content, they can justify asking a monthly fee from people who play. They also, of course, have to maintain balance which is significantly more important in multiplayer games than in single player games. In a single player game, if you find an exploit, you only cheat yourself by using it and if you're cool with that then so be it; no one is going to be bothered. Online, however, your actions can effect the enjoyment (and willingness to pay Blizzard) of others.

Do you think Halo 3 isn't finished because they keep releasing new game modes and maps? I guess by this silly definition Starcraft is the only finished game in existence. Or did a patch come out last year?...

The rest of what you said just strengthens what I said earlier. People pirate games because they can and they won't get caught. Here it is again, I'll just highlight the parts where you repeat my point almost exactly.

The attacks against me personally I will ignore since this is a topic about game piracy and not YAYitsAndrew. Let's have a clean debate. Let me briefly adress my motives, though. I'm offering a voice of reason against piracy. Listen to what I say and decide for yourself if it makes sense or not. I know I can't change the world through some forum posts.

I'll never understand how people read a forum post and think anyone is "forcing" an opinion or anything else on anyone. It's your choice to read and agree or disagree with anything on the internet. I'm sorry if I'm presenting a point of view you don't believe in and that somehow offends you.

__________________
"It is because the resistance to paying for copyrighted material, although often characterized as arising from a supposed technical burden or principled concern for the public interest, arises rather from exactly the same segment of the brain that is dominant in shoplifters."
- Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism
In other words, it's never okay to steal even if you think you have a good reason!

www.yayitsandrew.com

Zelig

In case this wasn't a retorical question, the last patch for Starcraft was January 16, 2008. They finally removed the cd-check, so no pesky loaders are necessary for b.net anymore.

That's capitalism for you, public companies are legally obligated to maximize returns for their shareholders.

You're misunderstading economics, and misusing economic terms here. Any movement of resources or capital generates a debt for the borrower, and a credit for the lender.

Credit money refers to any claims that can be used for the future purchase of goods or services. This includes currency based on a gold/silver standard, fiat currency, as well as bonds and even personal I.O.U.'s.

Fiat currencies have as "real" a value as those exchangable for set physical commodities. The value of currency is determined by society, while with currencies based on a gold/silver/cow standard, the value of the commodity is set by society. Gold actually has little inherent value, while it does serve some uses in manufactering, its price would be a fraction of what it is if it wasn't used as a store of value.

__________________
--

RSOblivion

Sorry I forget that I haven't been on this forum that much so my posting style is easily misread. Having been on other forums where I know the people well and they know how I write makes things so much easier. Sorry if you didn't get the meanings I intended, will correct that now. Also apologies for the personal attacks (just didn't like the attitude that you were conveying with your posts).

My comment about WoW was just facetious. Mainly cos I dislike the game (the balance you claim is good is upset with a lot of the downloadable patches) and because the public are being ripped off by Blizzard for it.

They may be obligated to get maximum returns for their shareholders, but at the expense of their consumers I find it hard to find a rational position to defend the capitalist. Returns are all well and good until the economy becomes so destabilised that the bottom falls out of it (just look at the Sub-Prime mortgage crisis started in the USA).

As for the economics, its not that I don't understand it, I am coming from a different perspective. Having the knowledge of how the 'money' in the economy is created and how much value it has backing it (ie diddly squat, not even the commodities in the public market support its value). Every time a loan, Credit Card, mortgage, etc, the numbers are just put into the computer and then they give you the money. They don't get the money from another account, or anywhere else. It is created on the spot. This causes the debt to rise phenomenally quickly (hence the trillions of dollars of debt) when there is only a fraction of it in currency or stored in accounts. The reason there was a gold standard was because the value of Gold was pretty constant at the time (not anymore) and 1 dollar in Gold was always 1 dollar. Problem is now with the metal currency in circulation the face value is almost less that the metallic value (in Australia at least). Anyway seeing as all current fiat currency is a debt based currency it just compounds the problems rather than solving them.

Back to the main point - Piracy. Piracy happens everywhere and for so many reasons its not even funny. I am not defending Pirates, and I don't condone them, but I guess if it came down to YaYitsAndrews definition then you would classify me as one. I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices for games over here (in the UK with what I was earning it wasn't too bad). They are overpriced and considering food is more important that is where my money goes. Hell everything has gone up in price by almost double to triple in the last 5 years here and that has left the majority of people with pretty much no disposable income. Ah well at least this way I only buy the originals when they hit the bargain bin and are games that are worth it. The majority are utter crap. Also I don't install released demo's due to the inherrant problems with them. Downloading the full game as a demo means you have less chance of it screwing things on your comp cos its supposedly gone through a full QA session.

BlueMak

I don't know enough about the economy, but, even in the USA, if you were just "printing" money all the time as you suggest (sure, electronicaly), wouldn't that make the inflation go to the few thousands over the years?

__________________
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

YAYitsAndrew

I fail to see how pirate is a gray term. If you're not paying for games because you downloaded a copy from someone else, you're pirating a game. It doesn't matter where you're from, who you know, or why you do it. An apple is an apple, even if you rip of the stem, stew it, or make a pie.

How you feel about piracy, well that's up for discussion. But whether you are or you aren't? That's black and white.

edit: The fact that every pirate mentions in their posts their justification for stealing is a simple hardwired admission to the fact that deep down, they know it's wrong. This is human nature and it's okay if you can't admit this.

__________________
"It is because the resistance to paying for copyrighted material, although often characterized as arising from a supposed technical burden or principled concern for the public interest, arises rather from exactly the same segment of the brain that is dominant in shoplifters."
- Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism
In other words, it's never okay to steal even if you think you have a good reason!

www.yayitsandrew.com

Al_Vampyre

Aboslutely correct Andrew, the problem is that some people are arguing from a relative point of view and some people are arguing from an absolute point of view. The disparity is caused by the fact that in our more recent history, the law has not been able to keep up with the changes in technology, so the definition of 'theft' becomes more and more difficult.

Lets for a moment look at a really absurd example. Lets just say that I decide that I would like a nice picture for my living room wall and decide that I want a classic, maybe La Giaconda 'The Mona Lisa'. So what are my options?

1 - I could phone up the Louvre in Paris and ask them how much it would cost and then rule that out as too expensive even if they would sell it to me.

2 - I could phone up my local art forger and ask him how much he would charge me for making a copy of the iconic painting, cheaper but still more expensive than I would like.

3 - I can run down to my local poster shop and see if they have a poster or a print of Mona Lisa that I can buy and frame, cheaper again but still more than I can afford.

4 - I can borrow a large format art book from my friend, scan an image of Mona Lisa, print it out and frame it. There we go problem solved, I have my copy of Mona Lisa at a cost that I can afford.

Options 1 - 3 are all entirely legal, option 4 is not legal because I have scanned an image from a copyrighted book...BUT I have what I want and no-one has been harmed or lost any income as a result of my actions. The Louvre still has the original, the art forger has only lost the time it took to give me a quotation on the work. The guy that was selling the prints didn't lose my business because I wouldn't have bought it from him at that price anyway. My friend still has their copy of the Mona Lisa in their art book.

From an absolutist point of view, I have broken the law and therefore what I am doing is wrong and cannot be condoned. From a relative point of view I have still broken the law but there is no harm to anyone in what I have done.

Here in the UK, it is still technically illegal to rip a CD at all (there is no backup argument here - ripping the CD is illegal end of argument) so every single person that walks around with an MP3 player full of music is a pirate. Relatively speaking this isn't a problem, its an issue with the law itself. Absolutely speaking the law is still being broken...and these people are all thieves - lock them up and throw away the key I say!

__________________
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" - Brian O'Driscoll - Ireland Rugby Team 2009 Grand Slam winning Captain.

YAYitsAndrew

That's not necessarily true, what if you bought or rent your media from an online service? I'll stop nitpicking I agree that policing and enforcing what music got onto an mp3 player is impossible, just like other silly laws like no spitting on the sidewalk on Sunday and other relic rules of the past. I think there's a case for the UK to allow a single backup copy like in the states. This line of thought will never lead to justifying piracy. (Just in case anyone was taking the idea out for a drive to see what they could come up with.) It's simply a good example that some of our laws are outdated. Theft, however, will never be legal. Circumventing a purchase is a crime.

DRM is so popular because it removes the fuzziness we're talking about. The enforcement becomes much simpler. Yes, all DRM will be cracked, all activations will be hacked, but the very act of doing so violates the DMCA straight and true.

The one flaw, I think, in your Mona Lisa analogy is that your copy will be of the lowest quality of all 4 choices unless you have a photo printer and good quality colored ink. The reason this is a flaw is because the legal services for music, itunes in particular, are offering compressed music that is a lower quality than the stuff you can find illegally. So you can argue that unless you've got a well equipped print shop at your fingertips (I know I don't) then what the legal methods offer you in terms of Mona Lisa is higher quality and that's the service you pay for. Not the case with legal music methods. This only lends to the desire to pirate and is something the industry should address.

I think games do a good job of degrading their worth after piracy, many of them have online components that require activation and server authentication before you can play. This means that pirates only get the single player aspect of the game. Should game publishers release a cheaper single player only version of the game? That's an interesting discussion for another topic.

__________________
"It is because the resistance to paying for copyrighted material, although often characterized as arising from a supposed technical burden or principled concern for the public interest, arises rather from exactly the same segment of the brain that is dominant in shoplifters."
- Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism
In other words, it's never okay to steal even if you think you have a good reason!

www.yayitsandrew.com

BWX

People argue too much and most laws are pretty freaking stupid.
After all, look at the idiots who make the laws. When government try to micro-manage people's lives with more and more laws, people will just break them all.

__________________
One Big Ass Mistake America

RSOblivion

Thanks BWX thats what I was trying to get across not very eloquently when I was very tired!

Basically it comes back to the fundamentals of law. Where does selling end and exploitation start? Not just the gaming industry suffers from this, but ALL industries. In the current economic climate exploitation is the norm and fairness is pretty much absent. I could complain about how much the goverment steals in tax from everyone (yes its stealing when you don't inform the people you take the money from they have the option not to pay it unless they are directly employed by the state), or the banks steal from people when they create their bullshit credit, loans, etc...

Complaining however gets nothing done. So instead you just use their law (and subsequent fantasy bullshit) against them. Funnily you can achieve a lot more than you expect

@BlueMak - the inflation over the last 120 years is over 1000% for the USA. Similar in most other countries. The largest inflation has occured since the 70's. Its pretty logical seeing as the infrastructure keeps creating debt, then increasing interest rates, then that creates more debt etc...
The markets are going boom bust faster than ever (the 80's was just a precursor to whats happening now) with a view to their eventual self-destruction. Mainly due to the way interest has to be paid over and above the amounts available to pay with. This leads to inevitable collapse.

So to go back to piracy. You need to define who is the pirate, then you need to define theft (unless it harms another living being financially or physically going back to common law). In the case of software piracy you will more than likely find that they are bleating about a huge minority. I use that terminology because its been hyped up across ads and the news for a very small cross section of the games playing community. Put it this way, I see sales in the millions for games, I see torrents downloaded in the tens of thousands. That is less than 10% of the purchased games.
With huge launches they are normally understocked (to inflate prices) and then people who would by are driven to piracy for a short time until they get it or are so dismayed by the overhyped product they choose not to get it.

Absolutist arguments rarely achieve anything other than a lynching. Normally they lynch the wrong bloke too. A much broader view needs to be used now and until it is we will still go back to people who make laws to protect their crimes and profit rather than use common sense and intelligence to solve our own problems.

BWX

LOL man.. I have never been called that. Well, maybe once.

__________________
One Big Ass Mistake America

Al_Vampyre

Once again absolutely correct, there is a degradation in quality with that scenario, which is why the four examples are in the order that they are in. I believe that unless the music, games, and movie companies acknowledge that fact and deal with it through added value services and give aways then they are going to struggle.

Burned CD's/DVD's are nowhere near as robust as the pressed ones are, covers, extras, registered copy only incentives, manuals, etc are all things that convince me that buying is better. I know it makes the product more expensive to produce but isn't some profit better than no profit at all?

Take music CD's for example, I get really pissed off with music cd's that don't have cd-text on them as my car stereo displays cd text. That means that I need to rip the CD add CD text to the files and reburn if I want that functionality. How hard would it be to add this at mastering stage? How much would it lower the record labels profit margin rather than losing the sale altogether?

__________________
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad" - Brian O'Driscoll - Ireland Rugby Team 2009 Grand Slam winning Captain.

BWX

What about the horrible protection like Starforce that puts a rootkit on your PC..

What if I have a copy of a game that I bought, but do not install it because the version on the internet that you can download works better and runs smoother? What if I buy the stupid game, leave it in the drawer, and download the cracked one on the internet because the DRM is disabled and runs better?

Think about how totally stupid these game publishers are... the DRM sucks so bad, and is so useless, that the cracked and hacked version works better, and doesn't compromise your PC's stability. When it comes to situations like that, it is not black and white anymore, and the company deserves what it gets.

SF will never go on my machine, because I like my machine to continue to run. In fact I won a game here on DH quite a while ago but won't install it because it is a European version with StarForce on it. The American version is SF free apparently.

I didn't download the hack version either (if there is one, I didn't check)... but that's how ridiculous this all has become.

BTW, anyone want to buy an unopened "Call of Juarez" PC game?

__________________
One Big Ass Mistake America

YAYitsAndrew

Al, that's another good point. The music industry needs to recognize the smarter devices we're buying by supporting the little perks like cd text and album art. This is another place where the detail oriented pirates are edging a win. It's like if DVDs never came with menus and options, the movie industry just threw the video on there like with VHS.

Back to games and piracy. RSO I continue to have difficulty taking you seriously.

Your numbers are all fudged so it's hard to find a starting point, but let's just agree that piracy is a small percentage of the total number of players. Do you know what you could do with even 1% of the money made from a typicall AAA title? I guarantee you, at least, that you can fund one new game idea. Or you could do something nice for your vast sea of developers. Maybe pay for a 1 week vacation as a thank you for the 4 month crunch they went through. If you don't think game studios have quality of life on their mind at all times, then you don't have an accurate picture of the industry.

I'd like if you could answer this question. What do you think a game studio would do with the extra money they got if piracy didn't exist? (This is open enough to let you assume that not all piracy converts directly into sales.) What direction could the industry take with the additional revenue?

I don't feel like wading through the rest of the cynicism and hearsay.

__________________
"It is because the resistance to paying for copyrighted material, although often characterized as arising from a supposed technical burden or principled concern for the public interest, arises rather from exactly the same segment of the brain that is dominant in shoplifters."
- Mark Helprin, Digital Barbarism
In other words, it's never okay to steal even if you think you have a good reason!

www.yayitsandrew.com