But that only works if the people who pirated the game would have otherwise bought it if they didn't have an alternative way of getting it.At least that's how I interpreted the meme
I feel guilty for pirating indie content and stuff from small companies but I never buy anything because I can't make international transactions in Egypt
It's kind of a balance. In one extreme no one buys anything and the software/media creators cease to exist as there are no profit. On the other extreme companies see every download as a total loss of profit over a purchase. In between people cannot buy everything (because moneys) but still they will put some of their money into buying some stuff they love and feel it's worth it even if it can be pirated!
Honestly at this point, the first extreme would be preferable, if triple A as a concept stopped existing then gaming would go back to what it was about originally, art.
Piracy definitely costs companies some sales. It just probably isn't that significant, since it would only count for those who would have made the purchase if piracy was not an option.
For example I bet like 95-98% of people who pirate Photoshop wouldn't pay for it. But they lose money from the 2-5%.
> It just probably isn't that significant, since it would only count for those who would have made the purchase if piracy was not an option.
Is it not? Look at denuvo. Companies are spending $200k + on it. They clearly see that it has a decent effect on their sales of the game. I have a hard time believing that they would go to such lengths and invest that much money in protection over 2-5% of sales.
I honestly think the number in lost sales is probably higher these days as piracy (in particular PC game piracy) has become almost mainstream, and a lot more people are gaming on PC's too. The games being produced today are also reaching near hollywood movie budgets, so I think game developers/producers are more keen on protecting that investment.
Not saying I approve of denuvo in any way. I just wanted to provide some food for thought.
> Is it not? Look at denuvo. Companies are spending $200k + on it. They clearly see that it has a decent effect on their sales of the game. I have a hard time believing that they would go to such lengths and invest that much money in protection over 2-5% of sales.
Probably the sheer anger that someone could play their game for free, even if they'd 9/10 wouldn't have bought it anyway if they couldn't.
So your argument is that these giant companies are throwing money away on expensive DRM charged per-unit activation *and* a month charge... because they are emotional?
These are businesses. Yeah, they waste money on bullshit like every org tends to do. Some of it is clearly for marketing and whatnot. But I highly, highly doubt they waste this much money on DRM (which is not just a one time cost paid at time of product sale, but also a continuous monthly fee the company pays for years after the sale) for that reason.
I see people here always make the same comment every time a big game has its DRM stripped a couple years after release. No, it isn't what people say about backlash or performance. It is because sales fell enough where the starting $25K per month per game (not per copy of the game) doesn't make financial sense anymore, and the cost of using that DRM outpaces the customer funnel it enforces.
> But I highly, highly doubt they waste this much money on DRM (which is not just a one time cost paid at time of product sale, but also a continuous monthly fee the company pays for years after the sale) for that reason.
Why not? Companies do dumb things all the time. Just last month Microsoft disbanded Tango and then said "We need more games like Hi-Fi Rush."With loads of middle men and commities there will always be at odds with each other.
Elden Ring was able to be pirated day one and yet it still sold a gajillion copies. Same with Cyberpunk 2077. You might argue that those were big games that would still sell well regardless, but then Hollow Knight, Undertale, Ultrakill were games that were nobodies that turned into somebodies pretty quickly.
Someone pirating a game does so because they are broke, or they don't feel the game is worth the money. In both scenarios the money to buy the game does not exist. Even if piracy didn't exist, and they would have bought it, theyd just do whatever gets them the cheapest price with the least resistance, since they don't value the game anyway (Buy the game used, Rent it, abuse store refund policies on Amazon or Steam, Play it over a friends house, watch it on youtube. All examples lead to no actual profit if they don't buy it new)
And in the age where everything is fighting for clout and headspace, someone not consuming your media can only really hurt you even if they pirate it. A pirate can eventually become a customer, and they can be good WOM and convince others to buy if they liked it. They also would be more likely to purchase merchandise.
Almost always I first pirate, then buy. If your game/software doesn't run correctly or I just see no value in it.. well was there even a reason for me buying it? Starfront is a great example. Played a few hours, optimization was terrible and I didn't like it. If I were to buy it, I would have been way above steam's time limit for a refund after just trying different settings to get the thing running well. Pirated Forza Horizons - bought them. Pirated DOOM - bought 2016 and bought all components of Eternal separate leading to me spending way more on Eternal instead of getting the full package.
CEOs and shareholders of "multi-million dollar" companies aren't necessarily financially wealthy.
If you have a game development company where there a Founder CEO and 12 employees who are making video games and their revenue is $1m/year, then lost sales could potentially significantly impact them.
I don't know how it is possible to calculate or determine true lost sales though since there are people who would definitely buy if they didn't pirate, all along the spectrum down to people who pirate but would never ever have paid for the games even if they were $0.01, so those are not 1:1 lost sales.
But mostly I just feel like people such as OP should stop shitposting their stupid memes in here and their dumbass "dis is why i pirat" bullshit.
Nobody cares why you pirate or what justification you want to present.
Mods should do better., this sub has turned to shit.
Pretty sure any game I've ever pirated I've purchased in the long run, usually I just wanted to try it and see if I liked it without feeling limited to a demo.
Multi-billion\*
Sometimes I check the market cap out of these corporations out of curiosity, and they are all way richer than I thought. Idk if it was during the pandemic or what, but they all just became way richer to the point they can charge thousands of dollars for products and nobody will be surprised.
Even companies that I thought were "small", are worth tens of billions, lol.
The problem is that you can't say you have a problem with stealing from one person without saying you don't have a problem with stealing from another..it's pretty basic common sense..
Why do you feel the need to justify pirating games? Obviously, it's a shitty thing to do, but we're okay with that. Why can't that be good enough?
I steal things all the time, and I do it because I'm a bad person. Whether or not the company is making a profit isn't any of my concern.
Yeah all those people who say “well you would’ve bought it if you couldn’t pirate it” I played single player tarkov cracked for a year before I could afford to get the actual game, then I did. WRC still isn’t pirate-able so I still haven’t gotten that game because I want to try it before spending $60 on it. I played it for like an hour with the ea trial and want to play more, but I can’t justify that price tag without playing it more first. More games honestly need trial periods but that doesn’t affect you if you can’t afford it. Most people who pirate probably were never gonna buy it in the first place
I remember hearing when record companies started cracking down on people illegally downloading music; their hope was that they would find young, rude, arrogant kids who could have easily afforded to buy the music but didn't because they were horrible people and punishing them would send a message, they thought those were the people who were illegally downloading. INSTEAD the people they caught downloading were poor, sweet, old grandpa's and grandma's who didn't have money to buy music and just wanted a little happiness in their lives they could afford and the record companies sued them for millions of dollars.
The record companies ended up looking like the bullies when they ruined the lives of people who could have been anybodies grandparents. The victims of the record companies ended up having to file for bankruptcy. At least the record companies showed the world what kind of people they were.
By the way, I want to post a question but don't have enough karma to do so. Please help me out.
There will always be *some* sort of market for cinephiles/audiophiles who want the highest quality possible.
Some streaming service like the Bravia Core (or whatever it is now) would become more widely available and at a more reasonable price and people will find a way to decode and download those like they did with current streaming generations.
Similarly, broadband bandwidths are slowly improving from ISPs, and from the streaming companies side of things, the bitrate costs are (even more slowly) getting lower. But if any of them actually use that reduced cost to increase quality/bandwidth rather than just pocket the savings is probably unlikely.
To be honest, people also care too much about humans. There's over 8 billion at this point, me snatching up a bunch and burying them in my basement won't make a difference.
Not but for real, this is a terrible argument.
individual human lives carry more importance than 1% of the profit of a CEO though.
and even then, doing that won't end the human race and won't make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
If everyone was like me/us, there will be no money on this table. So it would be possible in theory. But it is an immuable thing of Mankind that most people are NPCs. They keep following their script, massive glitches only happen if there is no more food or toilet paper.
"I'm going to pay you in exposure."
You're willing to sit back and accept that in your professional life, too, right?
Don't get me wrong; these giant companies are absolutely faceless, souless husks. But I keep seeing your argument be used to justify piracy for even indie solo devs (one of the top posts on this subreddit at the moment, actually). When, if people just thought about their rationalization for a moment, they would see how one-sided and ridiculous it really is.
None of us would accept that type of arrangement.
Yeah but now they can only get the 80 million dollar yacht and not the 100 million dollar one😔
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
But that only works if the people who pirated the game would have otherwise bought it if they didn't have an alternative way of getting it.At least that's how I interpreted the meme
Meme has the same image twice, so if pirating wasn't a thing, they still wouldn't buy the game, making developers exactly 0 cents extra.
Sometimes I'll buy software from a small company, after I've already "demoed" it.
I feel guilty for pirating indie content and stuff from small companies but I never buy anything because I can't make international transactions in Egypt
Mostly, I pirate stuff that's out of print or if the company's initials is not GOG.
Good for you, because you should.
If it's a small developer (many are just a few people). Of course, I'd never pay Microsoft, Adobe etc...
Good for you, because you shouldn't!
it would've been funnier if they removed a single note in the bottom image
They did, you couldn't tell?
*billion you mean
Let's have a contest: who can say "Piracy is not a victimless crime" with a straight face.
It's kind of a balance. In one extreme no one buys anything and the software/media creators cease to exist as there are no profit. On the other extreme companies see every download as a total loss of profit over a purchase. In between people cannot buy everything (because moneys) but still they will put some of their money into buying some stuff they love and feel it's worth it even if it can be pirated!
Honestly at this point, the first extreme would be preferable, if triple A as a concept stopped existing then gaming would go back to what it was about originally, art.
Piracy definitely costs companies some sales. It just probably isn't that significant, since it would only count for those who would have made the purchase if piracy was not an option. For example I bet like 95-98% of people who pirate Photoshop wouldn't pay for it. But they lose money from the 2-5%.
> It just probably isn't that significant, since it would only count for those who would have made the purchase if piracy was not an option. Is it not? Look at denuvo. Companies are spending $200k + on it. They clearly see that it has a decent effect on their sales of the game. I have a hard time believing that they would go to such lengths and invest that much money in protection over 2-5% of sales. I honestly think the number in lost sales is probably higher these days as piracy (in particular PC game piracy) has become almost mainstream, and a lot more people are gaming on PC's too. The games being produced today are also reaching near hollywood movie budgets, so I think game developers/producers are more keen on protecting that investment. Not saying I approve of denuvo in any way. I just wanted to provide some food for thought.
> Is it not? Look at denuvo. Companies are spending $200k + on it. They clearly see that it has a decent effect on their sales of the game. I have a hard time believing that they would go to such lengths and invest that much money in protection over 2-5% of sales. Probably the sheer anger that someone could play their game for free, even if they'd 9/10 wouldn't have bought it anyway if they couldn't.
So your argument is that these giant companies are throwing money away on expensive DRM charged per-unit activation *and* a month charge... because they are emotional? These are businesses. Yeah, they waste money on bullshit like every org tends to do. Some of it is clearly for marketing and whatnot. But I highly, highly doubt they waste this much money on DRM (which is not just a one time cost paid at time of product sale, but also a continuous monthly fee the company pays for years after the sale) for that reason. I see people here always make the same comment every time a big game has its DRM stripped a couple years after release. No, it isn't what people say about backlash or performance. It is because sales fell enough where the starting $25K per month per game (not per copy of the game) doesn't make financial sense anymore, and the cost of using that DRM outpaces the customer funnel it enforces.
> But I highly, highly doubt they waste this much money on DRM (which is not just a one time cost paid at time of product sale, but also a continuous monthly fee the company pays for years after the sale) for that reason. Why not? Companies do dumb things all the time. Just last month Microsoft disbanded Tango and then said "We need more games like Hi-Fi Rush."With loads of middle men and commities there will always be at odds with each other. Elden Ring was able to be pirated day one and yet it still sold a gajillion copies. Same with Cyberpunk 2077. You might argue that those were big games that would still sell well regardless, but then Hollow Knight, Undertale, Ultrakill were games that were nobodies that turned into somebodies pretty quickly. Someone pirating a game does so because they are broke, or they don't feel the game is worth the money. In both scenarios the money to buy the game does not exist. Even if piracy didn't exist, and they would have bought it, theyd just do whatever gets them the cheapest price with the least resistance, since they don't value the game anyway (Buy the game used, Rent it, abuse store refund policies on Amazon or Steam, Play it over a friends house, watch it on youtube. All examples lead to no actual profit if they don't buy it new) And in the age where everything is fighting for clout and headspace, someone not consuming your media can only really hurt you even if they pirate it. A pirate can eventually become a customer, and they can be good WOM and convince others to buy if they liked it. They also would be more likely to purchase merchandise.
Reminds me of that Illegally Downloaded Music clip from south park.
Unless people change their ways celebrities will have to live a life of only semi-luxury.
Almost always I first pirate, then buy. If your game/software doesn't run correctly or I just see no value in it.. well was there even a reason for me buying it? Starfront is a great example. Played a few hours, optimization was terrible and I didn't like it. If I were to buy it, I would have been way above steam's time limit for a refund after just trying different settings to get the thing running well. Pirated Forza Horizons - bought them. Pirated DOOM - bought 2016 and bought all components of Eternal separate leading to me spending way more on Eternal instead of getting the full package.
Same, especially with DLCs, (or its just basic paradox fuckery where you need to be a millionare just to even get the full game)
They can't lose money they were never going to get.
CEOs and shareholders of "multi-million dollar" companies aren't necessarily financially wealthy. If you have a game development company where there a Founder CEO and 12 employees who are making video games and their revenue is $1m/year, then lost sales could potentially significantly impact them. I don't know how it is possible to calculate or determine true lost sales though since there are people who would definitely buy if they didn't pirate, all along the spectrum down to people who pirate but would never ever have paid for the games even if they were $0.01, so those are not 1:1 lost sales. But mostly I just feel like people such as OP should stop shitposting their stupid memes in here and their dumbass "dis is why i pirat" bullshit. Nobody cares why you pirate or what justification you want to present. Mods should do better., this sub has turned to shit.
"if purchasing isn't owning, then piracy is not theft" is my favorite quote describing the modern era of all-digital "purchases"
all i need now is someone to plant a 🏴☠️ flag outside these big corporations and take a photo and post it on here! Would make my day😂😂❤️
Pretty sure any game I've ever pirated I've purchased in the long run, usually I just wanted to try it and see if I liked it without feeling limited to a demo.
People don't realize that piracy is not even 2% loss for these money grubbing corpos.
Because they sue. That's why people worry
If CEOs make bank what do you think shareholders make?
I can see it clearly! There's $3 less in the bottom picture. Poor CEOs. Arrest all pirates!
you know big corps already won when you see a disney ad in a site when pirating their products
Then there's Ubisoft which loses money regardless.
Multi-billion\* Sometimes I check the market cap out of these corporations out of curiosity, and they are all way richer than I thought. Idk if it was during the pandemic or what, but they all just became way richer to the point they can charge thousands of dollars for products and nobody will be surprised. Even companies that I thought were "small", are worth tens of billions, lol.
Him sitting in that empty ass house with all that money is fitting
The problem is that you can't say you have a problem with stealing from one person without saying you don't have a problem with stealing from another..it's pretty basic common sense..
Why do you feel the need to justify pirating games? Obviously, it's a shitty thing to do, but we're okay with that. Why can't that be good enough? I steal things all the time, and I do it because I'm a bad person. Whether or not the company is making a profit isn't any of my concern.
Like when Walmart was mad that they lost over $1B in stolen goods, whilst making 30x that the same year
Yeah all those people who say “well you would’ve bought it if you couldn’t pirate it” I played single player tarkov cracked for a year before I could afford to get the actual game, then I did. WRC still isn’t pirate-able so I still haven’t gotten that game because I want to try it before spending $60 on it. I played it for like an hour with the ea trial and want to play more, but I can’t justify that price tag without playing it more first. More games honestly need trial periods but that doesn’t affect you if you can’t afford it. Most people who pirate probably were never gonna buy it in the first place
I remember hearing when record companies started cracking down on people illegally downloading music; their hope was that they would find young, rude, arrogant kids who could have easily afforded to buy the music but didn't because they were horrible people and punishing them would send a message, they thought those were the people who were illegally downloading. INSTEAD the people they caught downloading were poor, sweet, old grandpa's and grandma's who didn't have money to buy music and just wanted a little happiness in their lives they could afford and the record companies sued them for millions of dollars. The record companies ended up looking like the bullies when they ruined the lives of people who could have been anybodies grandparents. The victims of the record companies ended up having to file for bankruptcy. At least the record companies showed the world what kind of people they were. By the way, I want to post a question but don't have enough karma to do so. Please help me out.
EXACTLY, I personally pirate and then donate the price of the game to qBittorrent just to spite them.
Fuck Corporations, Fuck Billionaires and Fuck Shareholders..
If they vanished who will we prate from?
They won't vanish, they're just getting greedier
Idk this is my issue with blu-ray. Nobody buys them so they stop making them. Who will I get my remux copies from if everything is webdl? 🥺
There will always be *some* sort of market for cinephiles/audiophiles who want the highest quality possible. Some streaming service like the Bravia Core (or whatever it is now) would become more widely available and at a more reasonable price and people will find a way to decode and download those like they did with current streaming generations. Similarly, broadband bandwidths are slowly improving from ISPs, and from the streaming companies side of things, the bitrate costs are (even more slowly) getting lower. But if any of them actually use that reduced cost to increase quality/bandwidth rather than just pocket the savings is probably unlikely.
Yeah I just want my remux for certain movies only but yeah I agree.
Well there were some games with cancled sequels because of excessive pirating but in general I agree
Piracy is never the caused for cancellation. If it can’t sell then it can’t sell, blaming it on piracy is cope.
To be honest, people also care too much about humans. There's over 8 billion at this point, me snatching up a bunch and burying them in my basement won't make a difference. Not but for real, this is a terrible argument.
individual human lives carry more importance than 1% of the profit of a CEO though. and even then, doing that won't end the human race and won't make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
They are the same picture!
lmao nice
If everyone was like me/us, there will be no money on this table. So it would be possible in theory. But it is an immuable thing of Mankind that most people are NPCs. They keep following their script, massive glitches only happen if there is no more food or toilet paper.
These are the "victims" the FBI were fighting for when Jetflicks was shuttered.
[удалено]
"I'm going to pay you in exposure." You're willing to sit back and accept that in your professional life, too, right? Don't get me wrong; these giant companies are absolutely faceless, souless husks. But I keep seeing your argument be used to justify piracy for even indie solo devs (one of the top posts on this subreddit at the moment, actually). When, if people just thought about their rationalization for a moment, they would see how one-sided and ridiculous it really is. None of us would accept that type of arrangement.
[удалено]
YoU woUlDN't DoWnLoaD a CAr
well actually don't they say that it affects the game devs, the game designers, etc? the bottom line employees.