Morality of Piracy - Yet another quality FuckedUp thread

[Gar For Archer]

Okay, how does that work?

I legit don't understand how that works, how did Adobe succeed through piracy?

Literally how a dealer gets you an “entry price” before jacking up the cost once you’re hooked.

Adobe/Autodesk are fairly specialized software that isn’t trivial to pick up, and its alternatives usually have different ways of doing things that would annoy someone who’s trying to switch to a new software. The idea is that you give them the product “for free” to learn on, and when they actually need to use it in industry they’ll keep using your product (except paying for it this time) because it’s easier to keep using what they’re familiar with than waste time re-learning a new workflow on a free or cheaper alternative.

For a company as big as Adobe, there’s literally no reason they’d make their software as easily crackable as literally swapping out a license file in an easily user accessible folder unless they wanted to. Hell, CC is technically a cloud service, if they really wanted to they could make you log into your Adobe account and check your local licenses with their server. The reason they don’t is that they can only gain from people learning THEIR products as the default option. You might think you’re pulling a fast one on Adobe by pirating their software, but really they’re pulling a fast one on YOU by getting you invested in their way of doing things.

I don’t really see how this analogy applies to video games, though. This is really only applicable when the people pirating (hobbyists/students who would never have the money to buy your software anyways) isn’t remotely the same as your actual target audience (organizations who pay for licenses for all their employees who learned on pirated copies of Photoshop).

 

[Gimmick Account]

Okay, how does that work?

I'm rusty on the preaching but think of it as a form of marketing. If you don't have millions of dollars to push them, games get popular through word-of-mouth and goodwill.
I buy one game for probably every ten I torrented (most of which I delete in under an hour) and when I do purchase it's probably for one of three reasons:

• It's something I've played before and feel like playing again, knowing I'll enjoy it. Often these are things I wanna introduce to somebody and play multiplayer with em.
• It's from a developer whose previous game I've enjoyed, which I only played in the first place because I pirated it. This happens a lot: I don't have unlimited money but when you're bored you find gems among all the shit.
• It's a game that has such strong market penetration and universal goodwill that I've been exposed to it enough to know it's something I'll dig.

With ordinary marketing you're happy to convert like half a percent of impressions into sales. Pirated games aren't really any different from an involuntary shareware model, and I forget what the figures were like but I believe it's way higher; multiple single-digit percent at least, probably better for many games on the long tail. And better yet unlike most things people will talk about your product if they've experienced and enjoyed it, recommending it online and to friends and improving your penetration exponentially.

For that last reason especially, if I release a game I'd rather have a hundred sales and a hundred thousand pirate downloads off the bat than a thousand sales, because I don't have the budget to get it in front of millions of people, so growth is much more important. Doom was installed on more PCs than Windows at one point and it was all thanks to sharing after releasing on a newsgroup or some shit.

I legit don't understand how that works, how did Adobe succeed through piracy?

Keep in mind this was Autodesk guys agreeing with me rather than hearing it from Adobe, but the idea is to become the dominant Coca Cola of creative software. They didn't care (their model has changed a bit since) if every single personal user pirated it because that meant every artist was attached to the software, which ensured they had corporate licenses locked down universally. The result was practically zero competition in the long run.

Edit:

I don’t really see how this analogy applies to video games, though.

Right, I just meant it as an example of how the circumstances vary by business model. Some games just aren't worth pirating, like anything server-based or Minecraft which was really smart about being a couple bucks early and slowly ramping up. Factorio is down the middle where there's plenty of incentive to upgrade later. It's conceivable to build the realities of the market into your design from the start because no amount of whining on Twitter will stop people cracking your shit.

But there is some similarity in that you're getting the product to people who wouldn't have touched it otherwise, while keeping the price and therefore the perceived value as high as you want.

 

[AMHOLIO]

Just look at the insanity on display here, you can't debate "some topics" without "violating certain groups", like WTF does that mean? I know it means 'never question & obey', but I want specifics. What debate violate which groups?

My guess: it might have been originally said for something that makes more sense. Like framing Jewish people as a question when they're just people. "What is the solution to the Jewish Problem?" is framing them as subhuman for not even addressing them as people but as a factor. Even then, engaging by saying "lol why do you sound like a tard" isn't harmful. I think its being delicate and saying stuff like "never debate on black people's reproduction rights if the original argument forces you to talk about them like cattle". But again, engaging on debates isn't wrong here: you look at the person and tell them they're being embarrassing then you move on to treating people as people even if your opponent believes they shouldn't. If debating with people like that makes your side look worse, you fucking failed already. Hardcore white and black should be allowed to speak and make arguments because they're funny ad fuck and most people don't fall for their retard logic, but sjws can't handle the one retard out of the audience saying "hmm, maybe he's right about shipping all black people to the moon." They think if one person thinks it = holocaust #2 is coming like dominos.

I'm guessing for troons its "discussing whether we deserve to exist or if we are real" is one of their "reeeee no discusssion" since they want one solid answer ("YES we exist YES we are NOT faking it") and thinking there's nuance in "hmm but what if some of you are AGP" is literally murder since words are violence and all troons are a monolith instead of a variety of mental illness cases. It feels like the classic black and white all or nothing thinking of autism and I'm certain that's exactly what it is. "If you even respond by humoring an argument you are literally hurting me right now because you're making it ok to talk about even if you're trying to show how stupid the other person is because this will cause people to STOP GIVING ME MY HORMONES and hold up my LIFE SAVING CARE because they want to TALK". Catastrophic thinking in a sense. They're acting like a junkie saying "if you even mention anything against me I could go to withdrawl/jail right now and it would be your fault for hurting me".

tl;dr: reeeeeeee

Sorry about the sperging but holy shit is it hard to figure out what complex bullshit fragile people mean even if I'm fucking used to it from being on the farms.

 

[Just Dont]

Okay, how does that work?

I legit don't understand how that works, how did Adobe succeed through piracy?

People explain shit to you and is like a brick wall, nothing gets in. I guess you really like factorio because it has trains, huh?

 

[Just Dont]

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

People explain shit to you and is like a brick wall, nothing gets in. I guess you really like factorio because it has trains, huh?

Literally how a dealer gets you an “entry price” before jacking up the cost once you’re hooked.

So it's like a demo then?

Adobe/Autodesk are fairly specialized software that isn’t trivial to pick up, and its alternatives usually have different ways of doing things that would annoy someone who’s trying to switch to a new software. The idea is that you give them the product “for free” to learn on, and when they actually need to use it in industry they’ll keep using your product (except paying for it this time) because it’s easier to keep using what they’re familiar with than waste time re-learning a new workflow on a free or cheaper alternative.

But if they already have it for free, why pay for it at enterprise level?

For a company as big as Adobe, there’s literally no reason they’d make their software as easily crackable as literally swapping out a license file in an easily user accessible folder unless they wanted to. Hell, CC is technically a cloud service, if they really wanted to they could make you log into your Adobe account and check your local licenses with their server. The reason they don’t is that they can only gain from people learning THEIR products as the default option. You might think you’re pulling a fast one on Adobe by pirating their software, but really they’re pulling a fast one on YOU by getting you invested in their way of doing things.

I guess that makes sense but why wouldn't I just use the free alt instead? Or is it just that the design of capitalist edition is just that much better?

I'm rusty on the preaching but think of it as a form of marketing. If you don't have millions of dollars to push them, games get popular through word-of-mouth and goodwill.
I buy one game for probably every ten I torrented (most of which I delete in under an hour) and when I do purchase it's probably for one of three reasons:

• It's something I've played before and feel like playing again, knowing I'll enjoy it. Often these are things I wanna introduce to somebody and play multiplayer with em.
• It's from a developer whose previous game I've enjoyed, which I only played in the first place because I pirated it. This happens a lot: I don't have unlimited money but when you're bored you find gems among all the shit.
• It's a game that has such strong market penetration and universal goodwill that I've been exposed to it enough to know it's something I'll dig.

So if a demo were available would that be a good enough introduction to a game you may or may not like?

For that last reason especially, if I release a game I'd rather have a hundred sales and a hundred thousand pirate downloads off the bat than a thousand sales, because I don't have the budget to get it in front of millions of people, so growth is much more important. Doom was installed on more PCs than Windows at one point and it was all thanks to sharing after releasing on a newsgroup or some shit.

Makes sense I suppose. I mean if you can somehow leverage profit from people swiping shit then whatever.

I know for a fact these troons telling the Factorio guy they stole his product were never going to buy it but tried using their play of the game as leverage to control him. "We're your players, you have to listen to us."

 

[Huldymian]

I pirated Factorio. I'll do it again. Jeff Bezos doesn't pay taxes and I don't pay for single player video games. Too fucking bad. If I can save money, I am going to.

Getting back on topic, the Reddit drama is predictable. I knew some stupid shit like "we can't give that rasist a platform!!!!" was gonna be tossed around. As if the game was in any way racist at all. What I personally found funny is that some of our medicine today was thanks to Nazis, the OG rasists. They frequently had campaigns against alcoholism and smoking, and were first to discover that Xrays were harmful for you. By extension, you could suggest that everytime you wear a lead jacket next to a CT/Xray machine, you are giving racists a platform. We owe the discovery of that technology to them.

Of course none of that is racist. Just as autistic train game code isn't autistic. But that's a little too complex for the average emo soy redditor.

 

[Silhouette]

But if they already have it for free, why pay for it at enterprise level

Once you want to start making money in the things you create, it's best to make sure you don't get into legal trouble by buying the licence

 

[The Marineer]

Once you want to start making money in the things you create, it's best to make sure you don't get into legal trouble by buying the licence

It's way easier to catch businesses pirating than single people and when you sue them, it's way more lucrative.

 

[Gimmick Account]

So it's like a demo then?

But if they already have it for free, why pay for it at enterprise level?

I guess that makes sense but why wouldn't I just use the free alt instead? Or is it just that the design of capitalist edition is just that much better?

It's not so much the individuals they're targeting as the industry. Photoshop was a couple hundred bucks (which gave it a level of prestige by itself). Every student pirated it so they get $0, right? Except most of those students then graduate and work for a company which won't pirate it; they're buying a corporate license seat or whatever for every single person so Adobe gets their money in the end.
While there are alternatives, people like what they're used to and creative suites are kinda involved to learn. You're not gonna employ someone then give them weeks or months to reach their original level of competency driving some alternative CAD software. The result is why I mentioned Coke: adobe gets to be their own Coca Cola and Pepsi and the third place is so far behind nobody even thinks about them.

Edit:

It's way easier to catch businesses pirating than single people and when you sue them, it's way more lucrative.

Yeah that too. By enabling piracy under a ridiculous (for the time) pricetag they both increased the perceived value and payoff to legal action, AND the intimidation factor for not paying for your corporate licenses.

So if a demo were available would that be a good enough introduction to a game you may or may not like?

Demos are such a mixed bag, they can kinda suck to spend your time on so people don't really like em categorically anymore because they don't necessarily represent the final product. Mutations on shareware is still viable for some designs though, but people have been burned by freemium and DLC shit so it's hard to sell or even give away a base game where the real content is paywalled.

But ultimately what's important is you don't have a choice. Give out a demo or something if you want, but people will still torrent it no matter what. It's a fundamental part of the marketplace so ignoring or hating it is a waste of energy at best and a wasted opportunity at worst.

Makes sense I suppose. I mean if you can somehow leverage profit from people swiping shit then whatever.

It's sort of built in even if you don't do anything, too. Like in that bullshit example I gave where I sell a hundred copies while a hundred thousand people download it? Apply a really conservative marketing conversion value of like 0.25% (which IIRC was the low end for in-game advertising back when I was involved in it) and those pirates will eventually convert to 1500 more sales than the other ideal world bullshit scenario I gave of 1000 sales while defeating piracy somehow. And they have friends and will draw hentai of your characters, too.
It's out of your hands, but you can piss those people off by being a fag or potentially improve the outcome by embracing it. I know a guy who gave the thumbs up and The Pirate Bay celebrated him and advertised his game prominently on their landing page for weeks.

 

[DumbDude42]

It's way easier to catch businesses pirating than single people and when you sue them, it's way more lucrative.

it is also is more clear cut legally

a private person pirating a piece of software (usually entertainment media) for personal recreational use simply isn't actionable in a lot of countries.
a business pirating software and using it for their business activities on the other hand? that's commercial use, profit oriented use, that's actionable in a million different ways because that is exactly what copyright law was originally created for.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

It's not so much the individuals they're targeting as the industry. Photoshop was a couple hundred bucks (which gave it a level of prestige by itself). Every student pirated it so they get $0, right? Except most of those students then graduate and work for a company which won't pirate it; they're buying a corporate license seat or whatever for every single person so Adobe gets their money in the end.
While there are alternatives, people like what they're used to and creative suites are kinda involved to learn. You're not gonna employ someone then give them weeks or months to reach their original level of competency driving some alternative CAD software. The result is why I mentioned Coke: adobe gets to be their own Coca Cola and Pepsi and the third place is so far behind nobody even thinks about them.

Talk about thinking ahead.

But I guess that just confirms my suspicions of honey potting.

I know a guy who gave the thumbs up and The Pirate Bay celebrated him and advertised his game on the landing page for weeks.

LMAO that's utterly strange. I'd figure Pirate Bay would be like "Did we fucking ask for your permission?"

 

[The Marineer]

I am reminded of WinRAR. The .zip opener. It has a 10 day free trial. When it expires it delivers a message to buy the program, but you can just close the message and continue using the software. The devs are well aware of this exploit. Thing is that some people do pay for it, even if they are aware of the exploit.

 

[Dyn]

Stealing is based you guys are just cowards.

 

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

There is nothing wrong with piracy, anyone who says otherwise is a parhelic wagecuck

 

[AMHOLIO]

I don't mind paying for my PC games for the most part. I buy everything on sale for about 1 to 10 dollars and look at reviews on games before I purchase them. The few pirated games I had in the past were shit tier games I played because I wanted to see how bad they were myself. My wallet comes first as a consumer.

Most new games aren't worth 60$ at release. Purchasing them for 25$ or less feels right depending on the game, or 5$ for microtransaction laden stuff (lol hardly buy those types of games anyway). Indie games I don't mind being more generous to if they don't have a publisher backing them or don't have microtransactions, but I'm cheap and there's nothing illegal about waiting for sales.

I pirate and emulate older games because they're a bitch to track down. Fuck off, I'm not paying 1 billion dollars for a PS2 game no one rereleased.

Pirating really is inevitable and it can lead to people treating it like a demo and then purchasing the full game later. I like devs who don't mind pirates, and I appreciate developers who don't use denuvo but fucked with pirates in programming like Earthbound and Spyro since its their software, they might as well make it challenging.

The few people I hate on the pirate side are hardcore socialist and communist who think all games will be free under gay space anarchowhatever, but I hate them for thinking video games can exist outside of capitalism. Pirates who whine about how games aren't being cracked fast enough when they themselves aren't helping crack anything, stop whining about stuff you gwt for free or open a fucking webpage on coding and get cracking yourself. Oh, and the hackers who make a grandstanding about how other people need to stop repackaging their downloads because lol what the fuck did you expect. The entire Fitgirl/EMPRESS squabble was embarrassing top to bottom.

 

[Just Dont]

LMAO that's utterly strange. I'd figure Pirate Bay would be like "Did we fucking ask for your permission?"

Is not strange for fuck sake! The guys who did Hotline Miami (I think it is Revolver Digital) purposely gave away the game in TPB because at the moment they were a very small company with no publisher and they needed to get the word out.

Nowadays Revolver Digital is probably the most important publisher of Indie games in the world.

Can you understand that Piracy doesn't hurt devs? Go play with trains dude.

 

[Dyn]

Go play with trains dude.

How come nobody robs trains anymore that was the best kind of stealing back in the olden days.

 

[Just Dont]

The entire Fitgirl/EMPRESS squabble was embarrassing top to bottom.

Not only cringe but it hurt the scene in ways that are objectively wrong. Fitgirl and Skidrow purposely fucked each other uploads with malware to track the people who downloaded them torrents. Is really scummy and it shows they have no respect for the scene.

 

[Truman the Jewman]

I am reminded of WinRAR

Every time I'm reminded of WinRAR I question why the hell anyone would use it when 7zip exists.

I'd say it's about a 5-1 ratio of games I've pirated vs. games I've bought. Many times I'll pirate a game now just because I can't even use my old discs anymore with Win10, those cocksuckers. When I feel a dev deserves the money, and I want a copy that will update without needing to repirate it every few weeks, I will buy their game. The older I get, the more games I buy, because I want to support good, quality game development.