pirate group self-suspends to measure impact on sales for one year

[f22luke]

7 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Its not theft as theft implies a loss of tangible property. Its piracy.

I would say theft implies illegal acquisition of something of value whether that be intellectual property or physical objects is besides the point.

 

8 hours ago, Exty said:

piracy is cracking software and sharing it with everyone, downloading that software is not piracy

I would agree with this statement if it were not for the fact that downloading illegally distributed content makes you implicit in the crime.  Just like paying someone to murder is just as bad as actually doing the dirty deed.  You can not separate the two because they are linked.  The only argument one could make is that they were unaware that the content was cracked and hence then they would not be implicit in the crime but an innocent by stander.

 

[Master Disaster]

37 minutes ago, f22luke said:

I would say theft implies illegal acquisition of something of value whether that be intellectual property or physical objects is besides the point.

Nope, theft is defined in law as the following...

Quote

Theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.

As you can see, piracy is a separate crime as your not removing an object from someone's possession and your not depriving them of it either. That's why people stealing digital money are called fraudsters and people who steal digital goods are called pirates.

[Belgarionbg]

11 hours ago, zMeul said:

The China-based cracking group that recently bemoaned Denuvo's anti-piracy system as all but unbreakable has delivered a second surprise announcement. 3DM says it will stop working on single-player games cracks for at least a year so it can assess whether genuine sales will be affected.

Damn it.

 

[suicidalfranco]

[MrDynamicMan]

10 hours ago, Prysin said:

 

let me ask you something good man.

If you made, say sculptures/statues, for a living. Painstakingly crafted this shit by hand. Then i come around, buy ONE, uses a 3D Scanner and a 3D Printer to make 5 million copies, which i redistribute on my site either through a paywall, or uses google ad revenue, then would you, who made ONE sculpure/statue. Who spent several hours of YOUR LIFE making this thing, be OK if i just freely made money on something YOU made ???

 

Console exclusives are there because if they werent, consoles would be dead in the PS2/Xbox era.

 

Fun fact:

Sony's own ToC and EULA states that Anyone who owns a Playstation product is free to use the software, hardware or firmware in any way you desire. But you are NOT allowed to redistribute it.

In essence, Playstation Emulators ARE legal, if you own a device yourself. Atleast this was the case with the original PS2 and PS3 EULA/ToC

 

As for testing games:

GoG/Steam offers refunds if you have played a game less then X amount of hours. If you wa innt to test something out, buy it, try it and if you don't like it. Request a refund.

The benefit of using said refund system is that IF enough people use it, Valve will see in its statistic that said game was sort of "meh" and didnt do very well.

A lot of people buy shit and just goes "oh well, whatever". However said action doesnt give any "feedback".

Saying "WTF i want my money back, this is atrocious". That makes people react. THAT, is how you really make companies react.

+10000 on that analogy, I need to put it in my sig, if that's OK.

 

I honestly agree with most of your points. My last argument about testing games is a bit of a straw-man, Ill admit that.

 

(P.s. I often play devil's advocate for points I don't really believe in, so that wasn't my personal opinion. Just FYI.)

[Flashport]

19 hours ago, KuJoe said:

I couldn't care less if people pirate things. I completely understand that some people cannot afford or don't have the means to purchase things and that's fine with me, but trying to pretend piracy isn't theft is just ignorant and just hurts your case more. Saying you steal things because you don't have a the ability to try it before you buy it is a joke, just admit the real reason you steal stuff is because you either can't or don't want to pay for it and move on. If you tell the truth nobody will argue with you (and if they do, it's not worth either of your time to argue with them about it). No use being both a thief and a liar on a forum like this, it's not worth anybody's time to judge you for your spending habits. Now if you want to lie about stuff though, it doesn't help the discussion at all for either side.

"unauthorized use" = piracy.

"unauthorized use" = theft.

 

is unauthorized use always piracy?

is unauthorized use always theft?

 

language is fun

[Albatross]

Piracy has worked in favor for Game of Thrones. It is still the number one pirated TV show and it is beyond popular and makes a shit ton of money. I do not believe that piracy effects publishers negatively.

[Alfa404]

your privacy laws mean nothing in China. Everything can be copied for free without consequences.  All my friends there use: cracked Windows, cracked games, cracked tv shows and movies. In their minds they think it is ridiculous that ppl need to pay for something that can be "downloaded online". So, beat that concept, and you will have the world's biggest market.

[thecreativename]

21 hours ago, Mister Snow said:

It's not that black and white. For the ones that would have bought it, it's theft but for the ones that wouldn't have bought it, it's not.
For instance, I really wanted to play Diablo 3 when it came out but I didn't have money and the game can't be cracked so to this day I haven't played it and to be honest, I never will as I'm no longer interested in it. 

 

So, did they gain anything from me? No.  Would they have lost a sale on me if I could pirate it? No.

The only thing they lost is me going around and recommending people to play it, or not, depending on the quality.

 

And your rant about demos is simply wrong as many games come out broken or official system requirements don't give you smooth experience. Can you test drive a car before you buy it, can you go visit a house before you buy it, can you test a pair of speakers before you buy it and etc?

It's very black and white.

 

Why did you pirate the game? Because you were interested in it.

 

If you were interested in it = potential sale

 

You were interested in the game, and you didn't pay for it, and illegally downloaded it, therefore it's a loss of potential sale.

[Master Disaster]

Just now, thecreativename said:

It's very black and white.

 

Why did you pirate the game? Because you were interested in it.

 

If you were interested in it = potential sale

 

You were interested in the game, and you didn't pay for it, and illegally downloaded it, therefore it's a loss of potential sale.

That's just not true at all.

 

I'm very interested in owning a Ferrari, would I ever buy one? No chance.

 

There's always people who are interested in the product but have zero intent on purchasing it and people who had zero interest in the product until they pirated it and after they played it went out and bought it.

[Mister Snow]

2 hours ago, thecreativename said:

It's very black and white.

 

Why did you pirate the game? Because you were interested in it.

 

If you were interested in it = potential sale

 

You were interested in the game, and you didn't pay for it, and illegally downloaded it, therefore it's a loss of potential sale.

How is it a potential sale if someone can't buy it? And we are not talking about: "Oh, I don't have some spare cash this month, bummer". We are talking about: "Oh, I don't have some spare cash, I didn't have spare cash and who knows if and when I will have it".

So no, it is not black and white like you would like to believe.

[s3ns3]

On 06.02.2016 at 1:27 PM, KuJoe said:

And you lost all credibility because that's the exact definition of piracy, you're only lying to yourself if you think your excuses are valid.

pi·ra·cy

ˈpīrəsē/

noun

1. • a practice similar to piracy but in other contexts, especially hijacking.
   • the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work.

i think you mean copyright infringement. and no that is not theft . theft is walking in the store and stealing a game.you deprive the store of a physical good. then if you go home and make a bunch of copies of the game and share with others its called copyright infringement. extremely different from theft

[NeatSquidYT]

On 06/02/2016 at 11:27 AM, KuJoe said:

And you lost all credibility because that's the exact definition of piracy, you're only lying to yourself if you think your excuses are valid.

pi·ra·cy

ˈpīrəsē/

noun

1. • a practice similar to piracy but in other contexts, especially hijacking.
   • the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work.

Under law, it is not theft, however it is copyright infringement 

[spartaman64]

On 2/6/2016 at 5:39 AM, zMeul said:

there hasn't been a single company in the software, music or game industry to provide actual data that piracy affects sales - ever 

 

the companies that vanished through the years did so because of shitty business decisions - adhering to fantasy release dates and other shit like that

do you recall Troika Games and their Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines game? I pre-ordered that sucker; did me purchasing it prevented Troika to go under? no it did not

why? because the game was released in a sub-par state

Does the number of pirated copies direct translate to lost sales? No. but are there some of them that translated to lost sales? very likely. I also view it as a moral problem as devs or artists pour their time and money into games and music so why should you be able to enjoy them without giving anything back? 

[Elapo]

On 06/02/2016 at 0:04 PM, zMeul said:

do I believe "software piracy" is theft? no, it's not!

why? because if you copy the game 1 million times and delete it doesn't mean the publisher lost 1 million copies

The publisher lost the money for 1 million copies.

You (indirectly) stole money from the publisher, which is theft.

 

You can call it what you want, obviously, but it still boils down to depriving people of money, even if you were not planning on buying the product in the first place. Piracy is "indirect stealing", whether you like it or not.

 

That said, I do agree with your reasoning, and it's the sole reason I still pirate every now and then. At least I'm being honest about what I'm doing and I don't try to sugarcoat it.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

On 2/6/2016 at 1:07 PM, KuJoe said:

Saying you steal things because you don't have a the ability to try it before you buy it is a joke, just admit the real reason you steal stuff is because you either can't or don't want to pay for it and move on.

Roughly 2000 songs, close to 100 movies and more than a dozen TV shows on my PC beg to differ.  The vast majority of those I wouldn't have bought if I hadn't downloaded them first.  That's thousands in GAINED revenue due to piracy. 

[thecreativename]

14 hours ago, Mister Snow said:

How is it a potential sale if someone can't buy it? And we are not talking about: "Oh, I don't have some spare cash this month, bummer". We are talking about: "Oh, I don't have some spare cash, I didn't have spare cash and who knows if and when I will have it".

So no, it is not black and white like you would like to believe.

If you want it it's a potential sale.

[zMeul]

3 hours ago, Elapo said:

The publisher lost the money for 1 million copies.

You (indirectly) stole money from the publisher, which is theft.

 

You can call it what you want, obviously, but it still boils down to depriving people of money, even if you were not planning on buying the product in the first place. Piracy is "indirect stealing", whether you like it or not.

they are copies of copies, they lose nothing - those copies don't even exist physically

sometimes they don't even host it on their own servers, but on STEAM or other similar on-line services

 

it's like taking a picture of a flower and printing the photo for your own enjoyment, but afterwards "god" smites you because you stole his flower

 

---

 

where it gets wrong, when the ones that copy said game re-distribute them explicitly for profit 

[XTankSlayerX]

I'm surprised half of this thread is still up... Or maybe i shouldn't be, idk lol

 

It would be interesting to see where this goes. Especially if sales go down... 

[JoshB2084]

What if "we" torrent games to testing almost like demos... If "we" like that games then buying it, or if don't like, then deleting it.

[azurezeed]

Interesting, maybe they're just making time, waiting for good games to come out or something...

[RZeroX]

What is one group to stop cracking games going to do, there are plenty of other cracking groups out there this won't change anything.

[BobbyG2]

Without studies like these,  it will be impossible to determine how piracy impacts game sales. 

 

Some pirates can't obtain the game due to being poor, or in a country the game is not sold in,  and were never a potential sale,  so can't be counted as a lost sale. 

 

Some pirates downloaded to try the game,  and decided to buy the game, and possibly wouldn't have bought the game if they couldn't of tried it first, and were actually a gained sale. 

 

Some people only play pirated or free games, and aren't a potential sale to anyone. 

 

Some people pirate when they can,  and only buy games they can't pirate. 

 

Some people decide after trying the pirated version they don't want to buy it. 

 

Only the last two groups are lost sales, the second of which might just be because they decided they didn't like the product,  and could be argued they shouldn't have to pay for a product they don't enjoy. 

 

Edit:

 

I haven't pirated a game in quite a long time,  but don't remember a single game I enjoyed that I didn't buy afterwards.

[Elapo]

So downloading a single copy for personal gain ($60 you saved) is okay, but it's not okay when it's for personal gain (x$ per game sold)? I think I get it.

 

Your example is pretty shitty too. Taking pictures of a game is fine, go ahead.

 

They still lose a sale. To say they lose nothing is bullshit.

5 hours ago, zMeul said:

they are copies of copies, they lose nothing - those copies don't even exist physically

sometimes they don't even host it on their own servers, but on STEAM or other similar on-line services

 

it's like taking a picture of a flower and printing the photo for your own enjoyment, but afterwards "god" smites you because you stole his flower

 

---

 

where it gets wrong, when the ones that copy said game re-distribute them explicitly for profit 

[zMeul]

47 minutes ago, Elapo said:

They still lose a sale. To say they lose nothing is bullshit.

so .. what are they losing?! can you tell me? you can't!

I would not have bought the game in the 1st place

 

and you know what's funny about you getting on the high horse ... you have no validity to your claims, none whatsoever

I said this before and I will say it again - no one in this industry has ever published verifiable numbers that piracy hurts sale - ever!

 

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Neil Gaiman