Assassins Creed Origin DRM Hammers Gamers’ CPUs

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah this practice is really terrible and to go to such degree zo hammer performance? Like come on! 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Those are realized sales... What you called improperly potential sales only exist in peoples heads(once again an imaginary thing), there is no real proof that those are exist.

When a software company decides to make a product they need to make a return on investment, keeping it all very simple because this shouldn't need explaining there is a minimum number of units that need to be soled to recoup this cost. Software developers, Marketing, HR & Payroll and the required infrastructure is not free.

 

Every illegally obtained copy of the software is a direct threat to the ability to make that return on investment. The more widespread and easy it is to obtain pirated software the higher the risk of not being able to make that return on investment.

 

DRM free software and games still get protected by their IP owners and they still go after people for illegally obtaining their software and issue copyright infringements, we the consumers might like companies that go down the DRM free route more but it doesn't make them or anyone else more entitled to protect their IP.

 

Whether or not there is some market research to show that piracy is helping the industry overall doesn't change anything, one research paper doesn't conclusively prove it either. What may or may not be helping the industry now does not mean it will stay that way, you must take measures to protect your IP otherwise you could not only lose profit you could potentially forfeit your right to the IP.

 

So for the reasons above and others all illegally obtained copies of software is treated as lost sales, there is no other way to treat it which is how it is treated by law.

[jagdtigger]

18 minutes ago, leadeater said:

When a software company decides to make a product they need to make a return on investment, keeping it all very simple because this shouldn't need explaining there is a minimum number of units that need to be soled to recoup this cost. Software developers, Marketing, HR & Payroll and the required infrastructure is not free.

 

Every illegally obtained copy of the software is a direct threat to the ability to make that return on investment. The more widespread an easy it is to obtain pirated software the higher the risk of not being able to make that return on investment.

 

DRM free software and games still get protected by their IP owners and they still go after people or illegally obtaining their software and issue copyright infringements, we the consumers might like companies that go down the DRM free route more but it doesn't make them or anyone else more entitled to protect their IP.

 

Whether or not there is some market research to show that piracy is helping the industry overall doesn't change anything, one research paper doesn't conclusively prove it either. What may or may not be helping the industry now does not mean it will stay that way, you must take measures to protect your IP otherwise you could not only lose profit you could potentially forfeit your right to the IP.

 

So for the reasons above and others all illegally obtained copies of software is treated as lost sales, there is no other way to treat it which is how it is treated by law.

That is true, but the "other side" has the same dilemma. They dont have hard evidence that all pirated copies a lost sale(lets put aside what the law thinks for now). It is well proven that DRM isnt the solution to this problem in itself. Yet companies still pushing for harsher restrictions which only hurts paying customers, which in turn means less sales(i was planning on getting it when it will be on sale, but after this they can forget my money)... Or even worse a spike in downloads. Top it off with the current trend in games(brutal pricetag, insane amounts of DLC's, p2w systems, etc) and its not hard to see why piracy is so widespread. Basically the studios themselves pouring gasoline onto the fire...

[MyName13]

This topic went downhill fast, do we even know that this DRM affects the performance significantly?These "imaginary sales" should be only considered in targeted markets.If publishers target NA and some wealthier EU countries (by putting a 60$ price tag (60€ in Europe, 1$ != 1€)) then markets which consider 60$ too much simply can't be counted as a lost sale due to piracy, they are losing sales from them because of the price.Publishers (and  most people here who are against piracy) have obviously never heard of something called "living standard".

[Guest]

23 hours ago, Okjoek said:

Can't be as bad as Planetside 2

Did they add some DRM to it? (Its free to play, so all I can think of that you're referring too is some anti-cheat program.)

[MageTank]

49 minutes ago, leadeater said:

When a software company decides to make a product they need to make a return on investment, keeping it all very simple because this shouldn't need explaining there is a minimum number of units that need to be soled to recoup this cost. Software developers, Marketing, HR & Payroll and the required infrastructure is not free.

 

Every illegally obtained copy of the software is a direct threat to the ability to make that return on investment. The more widespread and easy it is to obtain pirated software the higher the risk of not being able to make that return on investment.

 

DRM free software and games still get protected by their IP owners and they still go after people for illegally obtaining their software and issue copyright infringements, we the consumers might like companies that go down the DRM free route more but it doesn't make them or anyone else more entitled to protect their IP.

 

Whether or not there is some market research to show that piracy is helping the industry overall doesn't change anything, one research paper doesn't conclusively prove it either. What may or may not be helping the industry now does not mean it will stay that way, you must take measures to protect your IP otherwise you could not only lose profit you could potentially forfeit your right to the IP.

 

So for the reasons above and others all illegally obtained copies of software is treated as lost sales, there is no other way to treat it which is how it is treated by law.

Thank you for once again being better at words than I am. You should write a "Leadeater Translates" app, so I can just copy everything I want to say, and you magically reword it to remove obfuscation and clarify my points for me.

5 hours ago, MyName13 said:

I'm pretty sure I said "educational materials" not "entertainment is educational materials".You obviously don't understand that there are people who have much more important things to pay, you can have free educational materials or entertainment, but you can't have free tuition, food, bills, rent...Of course, why would anyone need entertainment, just lock yourself in a room and maintain your mental health, right?It's incredible how people feel more sorry for big companies than for other people.Divide and conquer...nations, races, classes, brands...no wonder why we are in such horrible situation.

Where in my post did I say I feel sorry for companies? Where in any of my posts did I say I didn't care about poor people? Entertainment is not a human right that is protected by law. As for your points, there are FREE sources of entertainment available everywhere for those that already own a PC and have an internet connection (two of the requirements for them to be able to pirate in the first place). Steam has an entire catalog of free games, and you can find plenty of free indie titles to beta test as well. Plenty of free to play MMO's to sink hours/days/weeks/decades into (see my Silkroad Online post earlier). 

 

You keep saying I don't understand that people have other responsibilities to pay for, yet I've made that exact same point in almost every post I've made in this thread thus far. It's called being an adult. I pay for my bills before I buy games too. As does any other responsible adult. I would advise you spend less time overreacting to my words, and more time reading my posts. It would save me from having to repeat myself.

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

A) I think you need to look up the definition of loss, because that "loss" that you mentioned is not a loss due to the pirate, but rather a loss due to the investment of creation. That pirate does not increase the amount of money needed to make the title. That pirate does not increase the amount of time needed to make that title. That pirate does not increase the cost of support or distribution since they need neither of those things.

 

The only thing "lost" due to the pirate is potential which, as already discussed, doesn't exist in the first place unless the pirate would otherwise buy the product. And as numerous studies on the matters have shown now, this is rarely the case. I.e the people who would buy a product if they couldn't pirate it, usually buy the product even if they can pirate it. There is an insignificant loss in potential.

 

On the other hand, once you start talking potential you enter the realm of increases to the potential of sale, which word of mouth contributes to. This is similar to the idea of let's plays, which similarly fall into the category of technically being copyright infringement.

Leadeater explained it better than I did, so I'll refer you to his quoted post above (since what he said was basically the exact same thing I was trying to get across). 

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

C) You're right. We're not arguing that. Just like someone who's starving doesn't have the right to steal bread, or someone who's cold doesn't have the right to break into your garage to stay warm. But that doesn't change that people in these situations have a justification for doing it, regardless of your view of that justification, and it most certainly doesn't change the fact that people in those situations may not feel they have any other choice.

Once again, entertainment is NOT required for survival. Stealing food to stave off starvation is done for the sake of survival. Your life depends on food in that situation. You cannot make piracy akin to survival, because the reasons behind those actions are not the same. While both involve taking what doesn't belong to you, one involves keeping yourself alive, the other involves not having access to a form of entertainment. An easy way to compare the two, is the "scavengers" vs "looters" in any natural disaster. Take the recent hurricanes in the US. You had families technically stealing food from a store in order to survive, and you had other individuals that were looting electronic stores to steal TV's. While both can be considered theft, the intent behind the action is entirely different, as is the difference between wants and needs. In dire situations, survival comes first. Last I checked, lack of entertainment is not a dire situation prudent to ones survival. 

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

C) Yes, but you're not taking the property of another person with piracy. You're making a copy. You're violating their copyright in the process and infringing upon the license of their product but at no time do you take their property. Because 1) "Property" is, by definition, a physical belonging and 2) Even if the data was property, you never take the data but rather replicate it.

Intellectual property, while not physical, is still property. Taking what does not belong to you, is theft, is it not? Why are these two things mutually exclusive? I am not asking a rhetorical question either, I genuinely want to know. Are we arguing semantics, or is it impossible to steal intellectual property and consider it theft?

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

D) Have you read absolutely no studies on the sociology of piracy or on economic psychology? The *vast* majority of these individuals commiting acts of piracy would not otherwise purchase the product if they couldn't pirate it, and among individuals who pirate, they will often stop pirating when a service that appeals to them becomes available, even if it is equally, or in some cases even less, convenient than pirating.

 

You'd never reach that saturation of people "stealing" because compliance with the economic system is their natural resting state, and as goods come out that appeal to the consumers at prices reasonable enough to inspire purchase without piracy, the individuals will, in most cases revert from piracy to compliance with the economic system.

If you can find me a study that is even remotely accurate, I'll gladly take a look at it. I am not against learning, but every study I've seen on piracy thus far, seems to be missing a ton of critical information as far as statistics goes. Now, with this being a sociology/psychology study, I imagine statistics won't be as important, so I'll gladly read if you are willing to provide a source.

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

E) When did I ever say that they're not obliged to pay? I said they don't pay. I said that there's a reason for them not paying and that you should understand it. That there's deeper psychology to the matter than just them being "entitled" snobs, and that the opportunity that people have comes into play in things like this. I was saying that your dismissive attitude of the matter is as snobbish as the "entitled" individuals you speak of.

Then what is the reason? I keep getting roundabout answers here, and it doesn't really go anywhere. Some are saying they don't pay because they can't afford it, others say they don't pay because they don't want to spend money on a product they don't like. If you have a definitive answer as to why people pirate (and if it makes enough sense), i'll gladly accept it. Not being able to afford something doesn't make it okay, nor does the "i may not like it" argument. Some platforms offer refunds if you didn't spend many hours on the game, and other have free trials/demo's for products. It's also one of the biggest reason why reviews exist, though you will have a hard time finding a review that is accurate from a reliable source.

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Entertainment may not be a basic human right but it absolutely should be something we push for a social baseline in. The amount of stress and anxiety that individuals have in society today is exponentially higher than even 50 years ago, and it doesn't show any sign of slowing down. Setting a basic baseline quality of life for all people with regards to entertainment media would go a long way towards both reducing piracy and improving mental health.

Considering the many other problems plaguing humanity, I am sure you understand why this issue is sitting on the back burner. People in the poorest countries would rather have access to food and clean water first before entertainment becomes a focal point. That's not to say you don't already agree with that, but I am just saying that resources are better allocated elsewhere for now. Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing the baseline be comfortable for everyone on earth, but we have to solve problems one at a time before we spend resources trying to make this the new standard. Also, the "improve mental health" thing, that will only work for movies. Give people access to any multiplayer game ever, or the dark souls series, and you will find mental health at an all time low. 

5 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Because your experiences are unimportant? Anecdotal evidence is no evidence. I commented because you were acting like just because you can do something that anybody has that possibility, when the opportunity that large swathes of the population have are substantially less than your own (on the basis that you're here today and they're not).

My experiences are unimportant. I agree with that. Also, I do firmly believe that anyone has the possibility to change the hand they were dealt in life. Sure, you can try hard, and give it absolutely everything you have, and you might fail, but I can promise you that your chance of improving your life is far greater than your chances if you put in little to no effort. While I don't expect my experience to be a direct translation to others over the world, the basic principle remains the same. Work as hard as physically possible for the things you want in life, and do not give up until you get to where you need to be. From my experience, your chances of actually getting there seem to require great luck, but effort itself is still a requirement in order to respect the outcome. 

 

So, to reaffirm where we all stand on this, allow me to clarify my original points. 

1. Piracy cannot be justified just because you cannot afford it, or disagree with the asking price of a good/service.

2. Access to entertainment, while potentially good for ones sanity, is not yet a human right

3. Piracy is not on the same level of stealing food for survival

4. I am not a cop, despite having an officers mustache. If you feel like pirating something, I won't stop you or judge you (unless you try to ironically defend piracy, then I am going to judge you super hard)

 

Now we wait for the notification spam.

[Drak3]

21 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Are we arguing semantics

I hope not, that's my job.

 

58 minutes ago, tjcater said:

Did they add some DRM to it? (Its free to play, so all I can think of that you're referring too is some anti-cheat program.)

Can't find anything about DRM, so I'm going to assume no. It does have a premium subscription available that boosts things like experience, so they might be referencing that.

[Syntaxvgm]

9 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

You need a minor hurdle, otherwise you can easily end up with a situation where 1 copy because every copy. (This is what killed the CD market in Music.) However, it's gotten out of hand. That's why Steam works. But we now have to ask questionslike: Ubisoft games running really well on Ryzen 5 is due to more cores for DRM reasons?

 

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-10/assassins-creed-origins-benchmark/3/#diagramm-cpu-tests-in-assassins-creed-origins-auf-einer-gtx-1080-ti-strix-1920-1080

 

From the link, the 7600k with a 1080 Ti can't hold 60 FPS average in the game at 1080p. If that holds up in testing by others, then the only CPUs that work with the game are the 6700k, 7700, 7700k, Ryzen 5 & 7 and the 6c Coffeelake SKUs (maybe; is 6 cores enough? does it need 8 full threads?). Plus the HEDT platforms, but that's 2% market share or something. 

 

This is either a massive screw up, Ubisoft doesn't care or something else is going on.

 

9 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

You have the same opinion I do. Until companies give in to pirates and stop DRM or at least backoff in terms of lockdown then its just going to get worse every time its cracked. 

 

As for netflix DRM I think that has more to do with cost. Im sure most people that pirate has to do with the cost of the game, DLC, expansions, etc...and what netflix did well is pricing it at a reasonable cost. Seeing $9.99 a month is nothing compared to a few hours at $60-100 game. But also the DRM of just logging in on almost any device now makes it quick and easy to use netflix. 

The nice thing steam did was have some form of DRM but make downloading games easier than pirating them. I shit you not years ago sometimes I would buy games then pirate them. Once I got older, and steam got more popular, I had more money and now I buy more games than I play. 

Same goes for CDs. Now there's some things like spotify that are more like netflix, but stuff like iTunes at least made it almost as good as piracy for convience. I still hate music services. I've pirated music for years, and now that I've started to work on buying my collection, I'm just ordering CDs on amazon, getting a high quality rip if I don't have a good copy already. I find an artist I like, I can just download their discography and start listening. There's no way to beat that, the best they can do is match the experience. You try to start adding DRM, you become sony and add malware to peoples computers. 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

That is true, but the "other side" has the same dilemma. They dont have hard evidence that all pirated copies a lost sale(lets put aside what the law thinks for now). It is well proven that DRM isnt the solution to this problem in itself. Yet companies still pushing for harsher restrictions which only hurts paying customers, which in turn means less sales(i was planning on getting it when it will be on sale, but after this they can forget my money)... Or even worse a spike in downloads. Top it off with the current trend in games(brutal pricetag, insane amounts of DLC's, p2w systems, etc) and its not hard to see why piracy is so widespread. Basically the studios themselves pouring gasoline onto the fire...

DRM or no DRM is a slightly different conversation (a better conversation), personally I'm a no DRM supporter. The biggest issue is there will never be the hard evidence to say if a pirated copy of a game was a lost sale or not so in the context of a for profit business you must always treat it as such.

 

There has been some good discussion points raised in this thread but most of those are equally applicable to not buying a game/software than to pirate it, if you object to something that a company is doing it's more effective to not buy their product than to pirate it. You end up sending the wrong message and force them further down the DRM route. As you put it game developers may be pouring gasoline on to their products but it doesn't help to go running in to it with a lit match.

 

Personal wealth and well-being is a much harder conversation and one that won't be solved any time soon so ultimately it comes down to the Community Standards, supporting and promoting piracy isn't allowed.

[Misanthrope]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

When a software company decides to make a product they need to make a return on investment, keeping it all very simple because this shouldn't need explaining there is a minimum number of units that need to be soled to recoup this cost. Software developers, Marketing, HR & Payroll and the required infrastructure is not free.

 

Every illegally obtained copy of the software is a direct threat to the ability to make that return on investment. The more widespread and easy it is to obtain pirated software the higher the risk of not being able to make that return on investment.

 

DRM free software and games still get protected by their IP owners and they still go after people for illegally obtaining their software and issue copyright infringements, we the consumers might like companies that go down the DRM free route more but it doesn't make them or anyone else more entitled to protect their IP.

 

Whether or not there is some market research to show that piracy is helping the industry overall doesn't change anything, one research paper doesn't conclusively prove it either. What may or may not be helping the industry now does not mean it will stay that way, you must take measures to protect your IP otherwise you could not only lose profit you could potentially forfeit your right to the IP.

 

So for the reasons above and others all illegally obtained copies of software is treated as lost sales, there is no other way to treat it which is how it is treated by law.

So evidence, statistics, actual studies on the subject don't prove anything?

 

Not that you're not right though this isn't an indictment on you but on corporate thinking: "We don't care about reality we care about what we can best sell to our board of directors and the public to keep our stock afloat"

 

Truth is irrelevant if they get to keep making money with pure speculative fantasy.

[Tsuki]

8 hours ago, Medicate said:

Ofc pirating one copy of a game doesn't hurt the publisher. The same way as stealing 1 apple from the market doesn't hurt the vendor. 

 

But you still have to try and stop people from stealing. You can't just go and say "fuck it, if you want you can get our game for free we just spend tens of million in making it." That's not a sustainable way of making games. Unless all games end up being f2p and p2w games, even the single player ones.

 

I don't know thats my 2 cents. It's just understandable that companies want to protect their property.

that comparison doesnt actually work.

 

if i steal an apple from the market, it prevents the market from selling that apple.

if i pirate a game, it doesnt prevent anybody from buying a copy of the game i just pirated.

 

thats why its not "theft" its copywrite infringement. the fact that i took it, doesnt prevent them from still selling it.

 

also, if i was never going to buy an apple in the first place, i just prevented somebody who was going to, from doing so.

 

the argument against theft is the lost potential profit.  somebody COULD have bough that apple, but it was stolen, so its a loss.

i never had any intention of paying for the game in the first place, so they arent losing a customer. its a digital copy, so me downloading it does not prevent a legitimate customer from still purchasing it.  there is no lost potential because even if i couldnt pirate it, it would simply not get the game.  

 

What people dont realize, is that piracy can actually turn a person who never intended to buy it in the first place, into a paying customer.  There are multiple games that i had no intention of buying for whatever reason, but i figured i'd give it a shot and pirated it.  i enjoyed it so much, that i wanted to support the dev and ended up paying for it after the fact, even if i didnt play it after i purchased it.

 

 

developers make the most money on the game in the first couple months of its release.  the entire reason for drm, isnt to stop it, but to delay piracy beyond that point. 

[AresKrieger]

You know losing sales by selling a flawed product in order to prevent potential loss of sales is a moronic strategy

[Okjoek]

3 hours ago, tjcater said:

Did they add some DRM to it? (Its free to play, so all I can think of that you're referring too is some anti-cheat program.)

The game does have some anti-cheat thing called BattleEye, but in general the game is extremely CPU bound.

[Thaldor]

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

There has been some good discussion points raised in this thread but most of those are equally applicable to not buying a game/software than to pirate it, if you object to something that a company is doing it's more effect to not buy their product than to pirate it. You end up sending the wrong message and force them further down the DRM route. As you put it game developers may be pouring gasoline on to their products but it doesn't help to go running in to it with a lit match.

This. At least for me it's unnecessary and stupid to talk about wether piracy is ok or not, because it's always boring, too many times heard argumenting between pro- and anti-piracy opinions and the discussion never really takes off anywhere.

 

More interesting is how we are going to break the vicious circle between pirates and DRM?

 

Today stopping the pirates is like going against the windmills. No matter how strong DRM, law or monitoring anybody makes, there's always capable people on the other side to get around it. Even the all powerful Denuvo proved to be crackable and next cracker-race has started to crack the denuvo+VMProtect and it's only question of time when it will be cracked. After that some company comes up with "even stronger" DRM and once again it will be cracked. And there's always the audience who will download may the reason for them be whatever hell they like.

 

Groups like S***R**, R*****D, C**** and others are mainly in the scene just for the cracker-race and fame of cracking the "uncrackable" DRM. Something like C**** would probably quite soon loose their interest to share games if there wasn't the great cracker-race going. How boring it would be to just buy the game and upload it, when the biggest part of sharing it, cracking it's DRM, would be gone?

 

Cracker groups and repackers probably bring the most of the games to the sharing sites and if they loose their main reason doing it, probably the piracy will tune down a little bit. It would be a lot harder to pirate something if that something wasn't available for pirating or at least there wouldn't be huge seeders with almost limitless bandwidth to seed and downloading something would take a lot longer.

 

Of course first argument against would be that there would always be someone else to upload them. But for how long? There's no catch to upload, you buy the game, you donwload it and you share it. Someone would do it just for the fame of it, but throwing something like 5-60$/€ /week or even /day doesn't seem as appealing as throwing that same money and solving a DRM-puzzle every time and sometimes getting the jackpot of solving "the unsolvable" jackpot.

[Syntaxvgm]

22 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

This. At least for me it's unnecessary and stupid to talk about wether piracy is ok or not, because it's always boring, too many times heard argumenting between pro- and anti-piracy opinions and the discussion never really takes off anywhere.

 

More interesting is how we are going to break the vicious circle between pirates and DRM?

 

Today stopping the pirates is like going against the windmills. No matter how strong DRM, law or monitoring anybody makes, there's always capable people on the other side to get around it. Even the all powerful Denuvo proved to be crackable and next cracker-race has started to crack the denuvo+VMProtect and it's only question of time when it will be cracked. After that some company comes up with "even stronger" DRM and once again it will be cracked. And there's always the audience who will download may the reason for them be whatever hell they like.

 

Groups like S***R**, R*****D, C**** and others are mainly in the scene just for the cracker-race and fame of cracking the "uncrackable" DRM. Something like C**** would probably quite soon loose their interest to share games if there wasn't the great cracker-race going. How boring it would be to just buy the game and upload it, when the biggest part of sharing it, cracking it's DRM, would be gone?

 

Cracker groups and repackers probably bring the most of the games to the sharing sites and if they loose their main reason doing it, probably the piracy will tune down a little bit. It would be a lot harder to pirate something if that something wasn't available for pirating or at least there wouldn't be huge seeders with almost limitless bandwidth to seed and downloading something would take a lot longer.

 

Of course first argument against would be that there would always be someone else to upload them. But for how long? There's no catch to upload, you buy the game, you donwload it and you share it. Someone would do it just for the fame of it, but throwing something like 5-60$/€ /week or even /day doesn't seem as appealing as throwing that same money and solving a DRM-puzzle every time and sometimes getting the jackpot of solving "the unsolvable" jackpot.

you're absolutely right that the heavy drm cracking make's an us-vs them mentality, and makes the success of the crack feel like winning or fighting back. 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

So evidence, statistics, actual studies on the subject don't prove anything?

What I'm saying is one single study isn't enough to be conclusive, that is different to what you are saying. When you have multiple different independent studies come to the same conclusion that can then be considered conclusive. It's possible to come to the wrong conclusion and if people base their discussions and justifications on that incorrect conclusion then the premise is wrong from the outset.

 

Personally I haven't looked in to any of the studies I'm more just giving a point of thought around how studies are viewed and interpreted, if there has been multiple independent ones carried out and they all support the same conclusion that would be interesting however not all that surprising. And as you said it's not really going to change any business practices, some just seem hell bent on perpetuating negative customer experiences which damage their reputation but remain oblivious to it. 

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

What I'm saying is one single study isn't enough to be conclusive, that is different to what you are saying. When you have multiple different independent studies come to the same conclusion that can then be considered conclusive. It's possible to come to the wrong conclusion and if people base their discussions and justifications on that incorrect conclusion then the premise is wrong from the outset.

 

Personally I haven't looked in to any of the studies I'm more just giving a point of thought around how studies are viewed and interpreted, if there has been multiple independent ones carried out and they all support the same conclusion that would be interesting however not all that surprising. And as you said it's not really going to change any business practices, some just seem hell bent on perpetuating negative customer experiences which damage their reputation but remain oblivious to it. 

If there is no conclusive evidence, then the burden of proof is on the publishers to show beyond doubt, that piracy has a real and measurable effect on game sales. As long as there's contradicting studies then we cannot assume that what they say is actually true. We don't have to show proof they're just asserting it as truth without proper evidence to support their extraordinary claims.

 

 

[leadeater]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

If there is no conclusive evidence, then the burden of proof is on the publishers to show beyond doubt, that piracy has a real and measurable effect on game sales. As long as there's contradicting studies then we cannot assume that what they say is actually true. We don't have to show proof they're just asserting it as truth without proper evidence to support their extraordinary claims.

Well that is essentially a dead heat too though, because they can make the same demand on us to prove it is not damaging to them. The burden of proof should fall on us, the people who did not create and own the IP. Benefit of doubt goes to the owner.

[Misanthrope]

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well that is essentially a dead heat too though, because they can make the same demand on us to prove it is not damaging to them. The burden of proof should fall on us, the people who did not create and own the IP. Benefit of doubt goes to the owner.

No it is not: That's a burden of proof issue. The extraordinary claim that requires proof here it's "Piracy directly impacts game sales" and as such it requires conclusive evidence. If said evidence is refuted it requires further studies. Failing that they're basically asserting without evidence and henceforth is ok to dismiss without evidence.

 

This is basically the same non-argument religious people offer since they cannot offer conclusive evidence of the existence of any deity. Saying "you have no proof it doesn't exist" it's a meaningless statement: I also have no proof that pink elephants exist or that gravity can be negated of I scream "Abra Cadabra!" as I jump out of the window yet I do not believe random things just because someone says "you can conclusively say it's not possible".

 

So publishers have to show irrefutable evidence that there is a direct link between piracy and sales, which they can't.

[Guest lilbman]

On 10/30/2017 at 2:44 PM, jagdtigger said:

Well basically that is a false statement since nothing is stolen when you download something. And it was proven that 1 download != 1 lost sale. They just has to accept that and work on ethical methods to get people buy their game voluntarily. Until then they gonna waste their money on this big whack-a-mole game...

I'd argue that people that illegally download games do it because they lack the funds to buy it, so 1 download ≠ 1 lost sale.  If the means to illegally download it didn't exist, they wouldn't buy it anyway because they either don't want to or lack the funds.

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

No it is not: That's a burden of proof issue. The extraordinary claim that requires proof here it's "Piracy directly impacts game sales" and as such it requires conclusive evidence. If said evidence is refuted it requires further studies. Failing that they're basically asserting without evidence and henceforth is ok to dismiss without evidence.

 

This is basically the same non-argument religious people offer since they cannot offer conclusive evidence of the existence of any deity. Saying "you have no proof it doesn't exist" it's a meaningless statement: I also have no proof that pink elephants exist or that gravity can be negated of I scream "Abra Cadabra!" as I jump out of the window yet I do not believe random things just because someone says "you can conclusively say it's not possible".

 

So publishers have to show irrefutable evidence that there is a direct link between piracy and sales, which they can't.

No, they own and created it so it is their's to control. If you cannot prove it does not hurt their business they have the final say on it as the IP owners. There is no other time or situation where this does not apply, anything other than this is a dangerous precedent to be asking for. It is not a philosophical debate it is a legal debate

 

The owner always has the absolute right, it is never and should never be the other way around.

 

Also don't bring religion in to it, not applicable and not similar at all. If you think it is then I can see how you are not able to understand why the owner has the right to their property and why they have benefit of doubt.

 

If you do not think this is the case then you might as well say abolish all IP laws, utterly pointless to have them if the owner does not have right to control their own property.

[MageTank]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

No, they own and created it so it is their's to control. If you cannot prove it does not hurt their business they have the final say on it as the IP owners. There is no other time or situation where this does not apply, anything other than this is a dangerous precedent to be asking for. It is not a philosophical debate it is a legal debate

 

The owner always has the absolute right, it is never and should never be the other way around.

 

Also don't bring religion in to it, not applicable and not similar at all. If you think it is then I can see how you are not able to understand why the owner has the right to their property and why they have benefit of doubt.

 

If you do not think this is the case then you might as well say abolish all IP laws, utterly pointless to have them if the owner does not have right to control their own property.

I prefer the "over-simplification" route. If they can prove just one person pirated it without buying it, then it impacted their sales, lol. A person consumed their product without paying for it. Had they paid for it, they'd have X more money than what they do now. 

 

Again, you would also have to argue whether or not the pirate would have paid had they not just taken it illegally, but the fact remains, if they did not pirate it, and wanted to consume the product, they would have had to pay. 

 

This is always the part that is met with extreme resistance, and why I tend to wake up with several notifications from angry people that insinuate that I dislike people that are less fortunate than I am, lol. 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, MageTank said:

Again, you would also have to argue whether or not the pirate would have paid had they not just taken it illegally, but the fact remains, if they did not pirate it, and wanted to consume they product, they would have had to pay. 

Well if you took the time to pirate it then clearly you wanted it, right? People generally don't take things they don't want, it happens but much more rarely than the other situation.

[Misanthrope]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

No, they own and created it so it is their's to control. If you cannot prove it does not hurt their business they have the final say on it as the IP owners. There is no other time or situation where this does not apply, anything other than this is a dangerous precedent to be asking for. It is not a philosophical debate it is a legal debate

 

The owner always has the absolute right, it is never and should never be the other way around.

 

Also don't bring religion in to it, not applicable and not similar at all. If you think it is then I can see how you are not able to understand why the owner has the right to their property and why they have benefit of doubt.

 

If you do not think this is the case then you might as well say abolish all IP laws, utterly pointless to have them if the owner does not have right to control their own property.

You're asking to prove a negative: it has nothing to do with who owns what it has everything to do to prove something that it's just not possible to prove. Religion was only an example not a debate, what you are asking for has no basis in logic or argumentation: this is not a legal argument or whenever or not piracy should be illegal so bringing ownership rights into questions it's meaningless: it has no bearing on actually supporting the position of "Software/Game piracy directly impacts game sales"

 

The IP laws are 1) Not infallible and 2) Not necessarily based on any evidence based assertion. I won't give you any more examples since you'll probably mention again that politics aren't allowed to get out of a difficult conversation. 

 

So an analogy: I don't care if a company declares that a special kind of water cures cancer I have no reason to believe it does until conclusive evidence is shown. People still are free to buy the magic water if they want, it doesn't means it actually does anything beyond being a placebo. 

 

Offer evidence or admit that it's a made up claim.

[MageTank]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Well if you took the time to pirate it then clearly you wanted it, right? People generally don't take things they don't want, it happens but much more rarely than the other situation.

Yeah... Though, you have people that still claim that just because they want something, doesn't mean they have/were intending to pay for it. For some reason, it's okay to pirate because it's a "victimless crime" and "you are not really stealing, just copying". I think the issue stems from one side trying to justify a legal side to piracy, and another trying to justify the morality of it.  Meanwhile, I consider it both illegal and immoral to take what does not belong to you, whether or not a "victim" is involved. 

 

Luckily, my masochism makes having this point of view bearable, so I at least have that going for me