I found this rather amusing. A small game company released a game and then released a hacked version of it on a torrent site
It is a game where you run a company that makes games and if you do well, after a little while, if you have the hacked version off of the torrent, you stop making any money because it says your games are being pirated.
Of course the players then went online to complain about how the game wasn't seeming to let them progress and asking what they need to do to fix the problem of too many people pirating their game so they can't make any money. Of course this only happened if you pirated the game.
Along with that they also state that of the users the game has, sales only account for 10% of those users. So even at $8 the game is still being pirated 90% of the time.
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Steampunk Farseer thanks to The Randomizer
What a good way to lose customers forever. Also, pirated games have higher sales than those which try to stop pirates.
How are they losing customers when only thieves that arent buying the game get the busted copy?
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"Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum"
Translation: "Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama
Traab is yelling everything that I'm thinking already.
"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room."
Many people who pirate stuff generally buy it later anyway if they like it. For the multiplayer, for the sake of owning a game, for the sake of patches/support, to support a developer, whatever.
The ones who don't either: didn't like the game (in which case they'd just feel very ripped off if they bought it given that demos are barely produced anymore) or don't have the disposable income at the moment to buy anyway (i.e. 15 year old kids with no allowance). They might in the future, i.e. when they get a job, but alienating them now is a very dumb move.
That may be so (though it sounds really odd to me). But still, this is brilliant. A pirate complaining about something he stole, being stolen by pirates. And the irony doesn't face him.
If something this delicious doesn't at least tickle your lip a smidgen upwards, we work on different wavelengths.
Besides, as the article states, the attention he's gaining now will probably further his sales for the game, as well as future sales. It's not like he's the head of a big company like Blizzard that will get stamped as 'the evil empire' or anything.
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Spoiler
"Players may blunder through dialog with shocking ineptitude, forget the name of the country they are in, or get confused about which side they are on, but once it comes time to roll for initiative they all turn into Sun Tzu." -Shamus Young
More than a dumb move. By law, corporations must maximize their profits. Following policies that reduce their sales is illegal as well as dumb.
What are you talknig about? SInce when making bad bussiness decisions is illegal? Really, I never heard about that, and if that was true most bussinessmen should be in prison, as they are human and made mistakes, failing to maximize profits. While accountable to their investors, while they don't do fraud, they can be as dumb as they want.
About this, well at least it has a sense of humour and it has a message. It is one of the funnier ways I've seen to combat piracy.
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Because we all make mistakes: The Mistakes of Life 5-0-1
Many people who pirate stuff generally buy it later anyway if they like it. For the multiplayer, for the sake of owning a game, for the sake of patches/support, to support a developer, whatever.
I see this claimed all the time. Is there anything to back it up? Because it seems a little dodgy to me.
A different set of laws apply to non-profit corporations.
You stated that all corporations are required by law to maximise their profits, which I've demonstrated not to be true as non-profit corporations don't.
Regardless Greenheart Games are not required to maximise their profits as they're a proprietary limited company and hence aren't open to the public.
A different set of laws apply to non-profit corporations.
Utter cobblers. There is no legal requirement whatsoever that a corporation or company has to make any profit at all, whether they're officially a not-for-profit or not. The thing that drives them to make profits is their shareholders (if they're a publically traded company) or their owners (if they're private).
More than a dumb move. By law, corporations must maximize their profits. Following policies that reduce their sales is illegal as well as dumb.
BY all means, post one of these laws you are refering to. Burden of proof is upon the one making the claim.
But if what you say is true, EA would be facing massive fines. How many of their games had to fail before their recent CEO stepped down? Is he going to be facing fines for the failure that was Sim City? Doubtful.
On topic:
I find this game clever and ironic.
The problem of piracy can not be solved by heavy handed tactics nor can it be solved by just letting it run rampant either. As said on Jimquisition, many pirates do so because of convenience issues. The minute there is a more convenient method of getting what they want, they'll most likely do that.
A great example, though I don't recall the article in which I read this.
iTunes VS Napster, Limewire, Etc.
In it's first year, iTunes had more downloads (paying ones) than a handful of the illegal services put together. Why? Probably because it was just as convenient and it worked better than the illegal services. Do that with other forms of media, and it works out pretty well, Steam being an excellent example. Not perfect mind you, but at least it isn't Origin.
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~~Courage is not the lack of fear~~
Quote:
Originally Posted by gooddragon1
If the party wizard can't survive a supersonic dragon made of iron at epic levels it's his own fault really.
Provide a better product, cut the hassle to acquire the product.
That's the usual mantra I believe, especially when DRM gets brought up.
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"Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good." - September 1, 1939. W.H. Auden
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keld Denar
+3 Girlfriend is totally unoptimized. You are better off with a +1 Keen Witty girlfriend and then appling Greater Magic Make-up to increase her enhancement bonus.
When I clicked on this thread, I was kind of hoping it involved actual pirates getting attacked by trolls.
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"Justice is a blade that draws blood from the innocent and wicked alike. And raised high, it can lead a charge that changes the world forever."
This avatar of Anders from Dragon Age 2 was provided by Dorian Soth. I didn't do it.
When I clicked on this thread, I was kind of hoping it involved actual pirates getting attacked by trolls.
I have to admit, I've yet to encounter that. Hmm. Sounds like a potential encounter for that naval campaign I was tinkering with.
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"Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good." - September 1, 1939. W.H. Auden
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keld Denar
+3 Girlfriend is totally unoptimized. You are better off with a +1 Keen Witty girlfriend and then appling Greater Magic Make-up to increase her enhancement bonus.
What a good way to lose customers forever. Also, pirated games have higher sales than those which try to stop pirates.
Just have to ask: Are you the kind of person who pirates stuff? Because you are really coming off as someone who does. I mean, it's not like they had a draconian DRM that people wanted to bypass. All the company did was simply test how many would pirate a game, by releasing a flawed version of the game on torrent sites. Then thought it was hilarious when the people who did pirate the game started complaining. What right does anyone have to complain about SOMETHING THEY STOLE? That's like me going to rob a bank, the teller slipping a paint packet that explodes shortly after I leave it, and then me going back and whining "Why did you put the paint packet in the money I stole from you?! Now I can't use it!"
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Awesome Avatar by Eleanor_Rigby! OOTS Style Zelgadis.
Assuming you mean copyright enforcement, there doesn't seem to be much. Releasing a screwy version of the game for pirates does nothing to hurt the people who bought the game.
Though, you'd think the devs would avoid this after what happened to THQ's "Titan Quest".
BY all means, post one of these laws you are refering to. Burden of proof is upon the one making the claim.
But if what you say is true, EA would be facing massive fines. How many of their games had to fail before their recent CEO stepped down? Is he going to be facing fines for the failure that was Sim City? Doubtful.
the law isn't "must make profit" it's "can't deliberately damage profit". tanked sales can be made on good faith.
anarion might know the particulars off the top of his head.
wiki "Directors' duties"
the basic idea is to prevent certain business maneuvers that would allow someone to take a corporation and ride it into the ground by lining their own pockets.
like everything else, people have twisted it into a means by which to justify morally reprehensible acts.
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a tiny space dedicated to a beloved grandpa now passed. may every lunch be peanut butter-banana sandwiches.
i has 2/4 an internets.
old avatars
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"Nothing you can't spell will ever work." - Will Rogers
"What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system. Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken." - Morpheus, The Matrix
Quote:
Originally Posted by Krellen
Remember, Evil isn't "selfish". It's Evil. "Look out for number one" is a Neutral attitude. Evil looks out for number one while crushing number two.
In my opinion, eventually releasing your own work onto torrent sites will be the equivalent of letting critics view it pre-release. Not mandatory, but failing to do so constitutes a vote of no confidence in your own work.
I released my own novel onto Pirate Bay and a few other torrent sites last month, and had my best sales in months right after. This doesn't work as well for everyone, obviously - I'm self-published and need exposure more than anything else. But I wouldn't be surprised if this allegedly fringe activity becomes the established and accepted mainstream within a decade or two.
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You may think of me as:
Struggling amateur author #3284728
Book one is on the Kindle now. It's a mix of hard science fiction and fantasy. How's that work? Surprisingly well.
You might want to stop linking that study. It's based on a telephone survey and chock full of bad math. Particularly once you get into the age demographic breakdowns. I'm not saying they're wrong because I don't know, other than personal observations, which hold even less weight. But that study is filled with confirmation bias.
Anyway, piracy. You are of course free to release your book/music/game/movie/whatever on to torrent sites and to share it freely. I support that. But if you do not CHOOSE to do that, everyone with an internet connection is not somehow entitled to have it. I believe in creator control. Maybe you could have made more sales by giving everything away, but it should still be your choice as to what happens to your stuff.
Pre-releasing on torrent sites also can come across that you feel your work has no value. And if you don't think it does, how will anyone else?
The confounding factors in their experiment should be examined:
Being an indie outfit, I'm going to guess that they didn't have much to invest in advertising.
Being an indie startup, I'm also going to guess that they didn't have much of a reputation, and therefore the game had no hype preceding it.
They released it in a private store rather than releasing it on a well-known platform like Steam or Desura, but they released the "hacked" version on PirateBay, arguably the most popular piracy site. The disparity of attention that each site receives is going to skew those results.
It costs nothing to pirate, and asking someone to fork over cash before they've even seen the product is asking a lot.
They gave the experiment only a day to run. That's hardly representative of any game's total sales.
RSS Feeds: 
pirates get trolled
