Study Links Game Piracy To Critics' Review Scores 199
An anonymous reader writes "A new study (abstract) published at the annual ACM Foundations of Digital Games conference by researchers from Copenhagen Business School and the University of Waterloo explores the magnitude of game piracy on public BitTorrent trackers. The researchers tracked 173 new game releases over a three-month period and found that these were downloaded by 12.7 million unique peers. They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers. Overall the current paper gives a seemingly robust overview of the state of game piracy on BitTorrent. Although the results may not be all that surprising, it's certainly refreshing to see a decent report on BitTorrent statistics every now and then."
Wait... what? (Score:2)
Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Funny)
Bring back the ppirates (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Because someone will, or already has, misinterpreted the correlation to mean that more torrent downloads leads to higher game reviews. So as you can see, piracy is really good for the game industry!
Tomorrow, mainstream news websites will report that game reviewers boost downloads.
Next week, talkshows will discuss the financial consequences for the gaming industry of allowing websites to review games.
Next month, politicians will consider banning game reviewers.
Re:Wait... what? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a tautology. It's just incredibly obvious that better-reviewed games would be downloaded more on BitTorrent.
[To be clear a tautology is something that is by definition true, like "a blue horse is blue" or "if a and b are rational numbers, then ab is rational". Usually the former example--which is essentially an error of redundancy--is the type "tautology" refers to in common speech, while the latter is used in formal logic.]
Re: (Score:2)
The second example is true, but it is not a tautology. The statement "a is a rational number or a is not a rational number" would be a tautology. The difference is that when you translate the statement into a formal logic a tautology is always true because of the syntax e.g "A v !A" where-as the example that you give depends on the behaviour of the predicate is-rational. So although "R(a) ^ R(b) -> R(ab)" is true for some predicates R, it is not true over all possible predicates R.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn. I thought I was the most pedantic person on this thread. Yes, it does depend on the law of the excluded middle. Or not. Sometimes.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a tautology. It's just incredibly obvious that better-reviewed games would be downloaded more on BitTorrent.
[To be clear a tautology is something that is by definition true, like ... "if a and b are rational numbers, then ab is rational".
That's not a tautology. That's a mathematical consequence. Tautology is a repetition of meaning. "a and b are rational" has a different meaning than "ab is rational", even though one can be shown to always imply the second. Otherwise you could say that the entirety of provable mathematics is tautologous.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not a tautology. It's just incredibly obvious that better-reviewed games would be downloaded more on BitTorrent.
[To be clear a tautology is something that is by definition true, like ... "if a and b are rational numbers, then ab is rational".
That's not a tautology. That's a mathematical consequence. Tautology is a repetition of meaning. "a and b are rational" has a different meaning than "ab is rational", even though one can be shown to always imply the second. Otherwise you could say that the entirety of provable mathematics is tautologous.
No. GP has it right, and you do not. Tautology [wiktionary.org] is not about meaning, it is about truth. [wikipedia.org] Bertrand Russell's quote from the Wiktionary entry is particularly apt, here. The proposition "if a and b are rational numbers, then ab is rational" *is* tautological, because in the deductive modality, the conclusion is always implicit in the premise; there is no way to "deduce" a new truth via the deductive modality. One can only restate a truth that was already present in the premise, and that is what makes the deductive modality tautological. Think GIGO, replacing "garbage" with "truth". So, as you implied, the entirety of provable mathematics is definitely not tautologous. There indeed exists another modality that is not tautological. The other modality is inductive logic, which *can* produce new truths, rendering it non-tautological.
If a and b are rational numbers, then is ab rational? That depends on the closure of rational numbers, which I would argue is not part of the premise at all. You are extrapolating from assumed properties of the word "rational" which are not given in the statement.
Consider this: "if a and b are imaginary numbers, then ab is imaginary". The same syntax, but not even true. What if we define "rational numbers" to be imaginary? Then the original example isn't true either.
A variation of the original example that
Re: (Score:2)
Your second example adds additional meaning and information (because it is a mathematical extrapolation) and therefore is not a tautology. A tautological statement adds no new meaning, value, or understanding.
Re: (Score:2)
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
The more higher rated a game is, the more people download it on BT?
Is that it? What an unexpected result.
Higher rated -> More people want to play it -> More people buy it OR More people download it
Simple.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because Mass Effect 2's wide release didn't make the cut.
The survey was the 3 month period between late 2010 and early 2011. Mass Effect 2 was released January 2010. The only reason it's in the study is because Mass Effect 2 was released for PS3 in January 2011, a year lat
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That sample is a bit small for a good correlation but the game listed at the top is an add on for a game with very light DRM. Well, light in comparison to most games. To add myself to your data: It is something I would never download. The game was very good and DRM was light.
This sounds like something that would be a good /. poll.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, mandatory worse-than-WGA activation is now "very light" "unintrusive" DRM? If that's not a slippery slope, I don't know what is.
I'm not ever going to install an uncracked game with a rootkit anywhere near a computer I care about. Steam might do less damage than SecuROM, but it still sits there with administrative rights to do things beyond your back.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not ever going to install an uncracked game with a rootkit anywhere near a computer I care about.
The parent post is wrong, Fallout New Vegas is not an add-on for Fallout 3. It is a different game on mostly the same engine. New Vegas does not have any sort of rootkit. It requires Steam, even if you buy it in the store, like Half-Life.
Steam might do less damage than SecuROM, but it still sits there with administrative rights to do things beyond your back.
That's nothing. I was going to install a sta
Re: (Score:2)
Or the fact your computer has to be on the internet. (Which is, at this point, a silly complaint.)
Only to install. And for the first time you run it. Then you can stay without, there's no need to remain connected - there's an offline mode.
Re: (Score:2)
That's nothing. I was going to install a stand-alone game once, and the installer wanted admin rights! It could have done anything behind my back!
Jesus Christ, get a grip on yourself.
Any game actually sold has 'admin rights', at least during the install, and can do things behind your back. I've never seen a windows game willing to install in a user's home directory before.
I hope you're joking. Have you, uhm, tried installing a Windows program some day? A good majority is distributed as .msi -- which, unless specifically marked as requiring admin rights, can be installed as non-root just fine. On Win7 for example, it goes to C:\Users\Bill Gates\AppData\Local\. Every well-behaved program does this or an equivalent. And that DRM-infested games are not well behaved is an argument against them.
I love how some people have to try to justify some reason to hate Steam. Steam is pretty much the least bad DRM we're ever going to see.
"But Tommy will butt rape you with a CONDOM while Bubba does this with a spiked di
Re: (Score:2)
Your right. Fallout had mandatory online activation. For some reason I was thinking of the Oblivion install. My bad.
Re: (Score:2)
I kinda think there would be not much of a correlation. At least not 'til you also take sales into account.
Don't forget that there are also a lot of crappy games with severe DRM that ain't even worth the time needed to download them, let alone crack their DRM. Considering that there are about as many good as crappy games, I'd guess that just looking at DRM and copying will result in a gauss bell. Because DRM has little if any influence in copying.
I'd like to take a closer look at the factors review score, D
Re: (Score:2)
What it shows me is that if the game is free, people will trust the review implicitly and get the game purely on the reviewers opinion. If the game costs money, people are more likely to wait and see the reaction from the gaming community before buying.
Again, nothing we didn't already know.
Re: (Score:2)
It's actually much more interesting that the correlation only explained 10% of the variance! So in a certain sense, it's very unexpected- and misrepresented by the researchers.
What if the story was more accurately called "Study shows Piracy mostly unrelated to Critic Scores?"
Conclusion (Score:2, Insightful)
The best way to fight piracy is to make shitty games
Already been tried (Score:4, Insightful)
The music and movie industries have already tried that tack, and it doesn't seem to be working.
Re: (Score:2)
EA is already doing the best they can on that mission.
NEWS: Review Scores Positively Influence Demand (Score:4, Informative)
I guess companies should continue to buy or otherwise influence reviews.
I just skimmed the actual study [openarchive.cbs.dk] and it doesn't really provide much more info. It does make the claim that their methods are closer to the true number of pirated copies and refreshingly that these are not necessarily correlated with lost sales. However it's conclusions aren't all that interesting. My guess? This was more about their measurement techniques and the outcome was tacked on so it could get published (or have a chance of getting published)
Re: (Score:2)
Strange conclusion looking at their own stats (Score:5, Interesting)
Fallout: New Vegas - Downloads: 962,793 Avg. rating: 83.7
TRON Evolution - Downloads: 496,349 Avg. rating: 59.5
Starcraft 2 - Downloads: 420,138 Avg. rating: 89.5
"Metacritic Scores explain 10% of the variance in the unique peers per game on BitTorrent,”. I guess the remaining 90% is just noise then...?
Re:Strange conclusion looking at their own stats (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, they ignored the fact, that Starcraft 2 pirated version is just campaing mode, while the most important one for this game - multiplayer - is only for legal copies.
Fallout doesn't have multiplayer part, so if you pirate, then you get 100% of the game.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, they ignored the fact, that Starcraft 2 pirated version is just campaing mode, while the most important one for this game - multiplayer - is only for legal copies.
That's a matter of opinion not fact. I have never had a desire to fire up a multiplayer game of Starcraft 2. The campaign was just fine. It's not like it's a MMORPG or anything
Were they really surprised? (Score:2)
Question about method... (Score:2)
How do you count downloads on bittorrent? At best, you can get a sketchy number of peers and seeds but how does that translate to actual downloads?
Also, how do those download numbers stack up against actual sales? Is there a method to determine what portion of these downloads represent actual loss for the companies (copies that were only pirated) versus what is essentially pre-sale test drives?
Re: (Score:2)
Also, how do those download numbers stack up against actual sales? Is there a method to determine what portion of these downloads represent actual loss for the companies (copies that were only pirated) versus what is essentially pre-sale test drives?
Or people who just can't play the game because of DRM crap and use a pirated version to play their paid for game.
Re: (Score:2)
As I mentioned in another reply, Tweakguides did some research on this, and crunched the numbers. The article (which is long, but worth reading), is here: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html [tweakguides.com]
To answer your question, they found that the DRM only had a negative impact on piracy, and that was when it was successful. Lack of DRM (or light DRM) showed absolutely no impact on piracy rates whatsoever. So, either the people who are pirating to get away from DRM are an insignificant minority, or it's just an
Re: (Score:2)
They probably explain in their paper, yes?
The easiest way is probably to hack a BitTorrent client to act like it's downloading the game but never actually download data -- acquire peers through all the normal means, contact them, ask for their piece bitmap, and then choke off the connection. You can even recontact the peer multiple times to watch their piece bitmap fill in, though it's probably a reasonable assumption that every non-seed person in the swarm will eventually finish the download.
Re: (Score:2)
Tweakguides did some research on this, and crunched the numbers. The article (which is very long, but very worth reading), is here: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html [tweakguides.com]
As far as methodology goes, I think that's covered here: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html [tweakguides.com]
But, in brief, for the console market, the numbers for a popular game (they used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) in the console market was 1 pirated copy for every six copies sold. For the PC game market over the same period, it was 10 to 12
Re: (Score:2)
you can draw some general conclusions about lost sales
Not really. They're two different games and two different scenarios. All you can do is make assumptions.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the difference can be a source of uncertainty, but there are trends based on general similarities that can be calculated. For example (pulling numbers out of my hindquarters), if the average sales for an RTS by company X is 400,000, and they've not only produced several RTS games, but they've got a consistent ability to hold off piracy for two weeks, then they do have a reasonable expectation that if they release an RTS with the same level of quality and they can hold off piracy for two weeks, they w
Re: (Score:2)
but they've got a consistent ability to hold off piracy for two weeks
Unless "crackers" don't care about said games at all, I wonder how they would do that.
then they do have a reasonable expectation
Except that "reasonable" is subjective.
with the same level of quality
"Quality" is also subjective.
Again, two different scenarios. When it comes to how "good" or "reasonable" something is, people will have different opinions. It's simply an unknown scenario. Some people might find a correlation that they deem as "good enough," but not everyone will share that opinion.
Bad summary (Score:3)
They further show that the number of downloads on BitTorrent can be predicted by the scores of game reviewers.
Since the link is blocked at work, it would be nice if the summary actually included what the link was. I assume higher reviews correlate to higher piracy. Which is another way of saying popular games are pirated more than unpopular games, which is another way of saying popular games are popular, which ultimately says fuck all.
What about sales? (Score:2)
This would be more interesting if it was also correlated with sales... Some things that aren't answered by the numbers in the article could indicate that a well reviewed game has higher sales, too. For instance, what if pirated downloads of those were a smaller percentage of sales than with less well reviewed games?
Just showing the review scores and the number of downloads is too far from a complete picture...
Re: (Score:2)
Tweakguides did that: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_4.html [tweakguides.com]
Also, the entire article is worth noting: http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html [tweakguides.com]
Basically, when they crunched the numbers, they found that the determining factor for whether a game sees large-scale piracy was popularity. For the popular games, the piracy rate came out at around 1 pirate copy for every six copies sold for the consoles, and 10-12 pirate copies for every legitimate copy sold for the PC.
The obvious solution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What we need to do is use all of our resources to go after people who potentially cause a loss of potential profit. This is clearly a good use of our resources and money, so we should get as many FBI agents and policeman involved as possible (as well as politicians who rush through new laws because of how important these potential losses are).
Re: (Score:2)
--
Failing to give me all of your money and property deprives me of potential future gain, and therefore makes you a thief!
This isn't at all a surprising argument
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't at all a surprising argument strategy for a pirate to use.
It was just a joke. And how did you come to the conclusion that I myself am I pirate? Just because of the arguments that I use?
Afterall, when the facts are so much against them
What facts? Don't you mean opinions on morality? It's interesting that you speak as if you know all about my opinions and how I think (unless I am misunderstanding you) when I haven't really said anything revealing in this article yet.
there's really no other strategy than trying to exaggerate reality and play mind games so that they can justify their self-serving actions.
Why would someone need to justify anything that they do when morals are subjective to begin with?
Re: (Score:2)
That isn't what I said at all. I said that justification isn't absolutely necessary for your opinion to be "valid" because morals are subjective to begin with. If you don't care about trying to "persuade" other people, then it's probably a waste of your time. Meaning that just because someone believes that piracy is "immoral," and you can't convince them otherwise, that does not necessarily mean that you are "wrong."
explain why their actions are the right thing to do
What is "the right thing to do"? Who defines what is "right"?
Re: (Score:2)
To me, an opinion can be more or less valid depending on how much careful, logical thought went into developing that opinion, and how much relevant education and experience the person has.
Yes, but we are talking about morality. Morality essentially boils down to liking or disliking certain behavior. When speaking of those types of opinions, I don't believe that anything more than liking or disliking something is necessary to have a "valid" opinion (since it's all just based on feelings anyway).
Of course, you don't have to agree with them, but isn't your statement that morals are subjective actually a subjective opinion in and of itself?
Yes, it is. Since there is no evidence either way, that is just my opinion. I recommend not stating either views as facts (as I did).
In other news... (Score:2)
In other news, shitwater brand bottled water will be changing their names...The CEO attributed the decision to a recent study showing that people care about the quality of products.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's this stealing thing you're talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
You think that's bad? In German, it's called a "Raubkopie" (robbed copy). Know what a Raubkopie really is? If I go into a store and hold a clerk at gunpoint to create a copy of a CD, then take the copied CD without paying.
In other words, there's no problem with "Raubkopien". I've never heard of anything like this happening, ever.
Re: (Score:2)
If the piracy is directly linked to review scores, it means that people just want the games for free and aren't that much interested in trying them out before actually buying them.
How did you come to this conclusion? Perhaps they want to try out these games because they've seen the reviews for them. It's quite difficult to accurately guess peoples' feelings and thoughts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"If the piracy is directly linked to review scores, it means that people just want the games for free and aren't that much interested in trying them out before actually buying them."
The opposite is true, so many games are rehashes of old tropes or are half-baked on release, therefore people check the game out to see if anything has changed. You can use numbers to lie about anything but for many of us with all the DRM, half-baked releases, etc, we now live in an era of a "true" free market. We get to decid
Re: (Score:3)
we now live in an era of a "true" free market. We get to decide whether dev/pub screwing us gets paid.
Not really a free market; since you don't have to pay for the product. You can just help yourself. And many do.
Its more of a charity.
Re: (Score:2)
"Not really a free market; since you don't have to pay for the product."
Given the whole theft of the public domain we can say piracy is a counterbalance to this overwhelming corporate theft of the public domain. So IMHO piracy is par for the course. Companies get to redefine the law and set cultural boundaries buy buying government influence to create laws in their favor so customers have no right to own (theft of rights). These industries are even more shifty then any pirate. For instance software is
Re: (Score:3)
Funny, I thought the pirate mantra was that "theft" involved physically depriving someone of something. All of a sudden, the pirate thinks the "public domain" can be stolen. How does that work again? I can't think of any game company that has deprived someone else of using the public domain. It's not like World Of Warcraft has a patent on MMOs, roleplaying,
Re: (Score:2)
" It's not like World Of Warcraft has a patent on MMOs."
You're missing the whole point, games before the net were sold as finished products (stuff you owned) it's only through publics lack of intelligence and ignorance that stuff like software licensing for certain kinds of software got off the ground and so we have a blanket model in favor of corporations, and if you don't think that corporations have stolen the public domain then you clearly are one of the ignorant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_T [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.o [opcoder.com]
Re: (Score:2)
"I doubt game companies were involved in the copyright term extension act."
No but they are now on the same side with the rise of online DRM and all sorts of bullshit like DLC. The fact remains though that copyright / licensing is being abused by corporations. The fact that you just accept it as "just the way things are" is proof of your lack of critical thinking. You want to have no rights then you're one of the ignorant.
The whole point of me pointing out chrono trigger is that many games fall into defun
Re: (Score:2)
"You can't paint all corporations with the same brush, and steal from one group because of actions of another group."
Yes you can because it's the entire culture of criminal underhandedness that profiteering brings. What happens to really old games or abandonware I've purchased? I can't as an owner of mech2 or Fantasy General (abandonware) go grab the source from say a library and fix it/update it for modern systems even though *I invested in* and *paid for* the product, its development, etc buy buying it.
Re: (Score:2)
What happens to really old games or abandonware I've purchased?
I'd be more worried about the new ones. Those are the ones that are going to be broken beyond repair in 20 years thanks to their hooks to online systems.
The old ones are being resurrected by sites like GoG.com.
go grab the source from say a library and fix it/update it for modern systems even though *I invested in* and *paid for* the product, its development, etc buy buying it.
You can't have the architect's drawings for a random building you like
Re: (Score:2)
"Rewriting a game to work on modern platforms is no different than translating a book to a foreign language. And yes, the copyright holder has the eclusive right to do that. If he doesn't bother, abandons the book, lets it go out of print... tough. You still can't translate it to Japanese and distribute it."
And this here is where we part ways, you don't believe in public domain at all. The whole point of copyright/licensing is to DENY anything from ever entering public domain through abusing language and t
Re: (Score:2)
No, it just involves depriving someone of something that is theirs; it doesn't have to be physical. Unlike pirates, who simply increase the number of copies of an intellectual product, corporations have rigged the patent and copyright systems of the United States in their favor, which takes intellectual products out of the public domain.
That said, I don't think piracy of video games has anything to do wit
Re: (Score:2)
"If the piracy is directly linked to review scores, it means that people just want the games for free and aren't that much interested in trying them out before actually buying them. "
Maybe they're legitimate customers who can't get past the DRM.
/sarcasm
Re: (Score:2)
So the answer to piracy looks pretty simple, judging by the results of this research. All the game companies have to do is make their games lousy, so that they get really bad reviews. Then their piracy rate will be very low.
Non sequitur (Score:2)
How the hell did you make this leap?
If the piracy is directly linked to review scores, it means that people just want the games for free and aren't that much interested in trying them out before actually buying them.
How many of us has bought a popularly reviewed game, then found out it sucked? Maybe (as is common today) reviewers are basically being paid to give glowing reviews of crap. Maybe in spite of a game having mass popular appeal, it's just not my type of game?
Maybe you're just making a wild assumption with nothing to back it up, and assuming that everyone will accept it as a valid premise?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe World of Goo [arstechnica.com] is a good example. A great indie game that got great reviews. Still 90% of people pirated it while it didn't even cost that much. Later they even offered pay-what-you-want model, but still the piracy rate is the same. Another indie game [slashdot.org] also had 90% piracy. It's just the norm, it has nothing to do with how good the game is. People just rather pirate than buy, if they can. I'm not surprised companies are looking for DRM methods,
Re:Piracy and indie games (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you serious? A few weeks? You're as deluded as the software publishers who punish their paying customers with DRM.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
However, what is even better for game companies is to make the game only playable online, or integrate so much gameplay online (co-op etc) that it makes no sense to pirate. That is s where it's been heavily went recently and those slashdot users and everyone who rather have single-player experience should support the companies who still make good single player games. Otherwise everything will
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Do you honestly believe that DRM helps sales? I do buy games but I will never buy one that I cannot play. I buy certain games and I am happy to buy them but I do not buy one that has DRM until a good crack comes out. What is the good of a game that is crippled? and why would I pay for something that is deliberately made into crap? I do not believe that I am the only one that thinks like me but I am sure that there are far more that do not bother to buy the game in the first place. I buy the game for t
Re: (Score:2)
I have 30 games in my account on gog.com, and I signed up less than a year ago. I have a CD wallet full of game disks that I've bought. I still occasionally play some games that I bought 10+ years ago, in DOSBox or WINE. The ones without copy protection work fine. The ones with, typically, don't. I therefore will not spend any money on a game that comes with any form of DRM. No compromises, no 'but Steam DRM isn't really that bad,' if you won't sell me your game then I'll spend my money on someone els
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
90% is probably the piracy rate of everything. However, what you need to ask is out of those 90%, how many would have bought the game is the pirated version was not available. My guess is vast majority of them would just pirate some other game if WoG was not available. I know because I do this (though I did not pirate WoG, nor did I buy it). I usually go something like this:
1. Oh, a new (previously unknown to me) game that I might like, let's see it it can be played on PC as I do not have a console.
2. Good,
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Copyright is an exclusive right to reproduce and distribute something. Any reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work by someone who is not the rights holder is an infringement of the copyright.
So yes, downloading World of Goo from Pirate Bay, is in fact piracy even if the developer no longer charges for the game.
You are right that most people ignore copyright, but there's a difference between "everyone does it" and "it's not illegal", see: speeding, drugs, prohibition, skipping school, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Skipping school is illegal? Talk about a criminalised society.
Re: (Score:2)
Disclaimer: This is all from personal experience (I was a good kid, but knew others that weren't), so as always YMMV.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Piracy and indie games (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, DRM is literally the worst thing for consumer freedom since company stores.
Re: (Score:2)
Changing the question a little: in the case of such a heavily DRMed e-book, you probably wouldn't be paying for the right to possess a copy of the data to do with as you please, but only a license to read it, perhaps even just a few times, like the DVD and VHS rentals of yesteryear. What do you feel is a fair pricing model for different levels of access (where the lowest is "no access" and the highest is "a complete licence to edit and exhibit the content") to an e-book/movie/album, and at what point would
Re: (Score:2)
Not the person you're asking, but personally, if the terms are rental terms because of DRM, I expect rental pricing, or pricing less than the cost of buying the thing, reading/playing/watching it, and then selling it used.
So typically I buy PSN titles, but only if they're $5 or less. One recent exception was Assassin's Creed II for $9.99, because that was cheaper than buying it, playing it, and selling it on used.
Re: (Score:2)
You appear to be a member of the "Give me all your money" club, with a stunning inability to comprehend other viewpoints, factor in societal and economic considerations or accept that the effort/cost to create something is under many circumstances completely fucking irrelevant and something many people just don't give a shit about.
If you don't like that, don't put the effort in, and don't try and make money off it. We wont mind.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
There is no honor among thieves.
Too bad the article is about copyright infringement.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, right. I temporarily forgot that copying was the exact same thing as taking away someone's physical property without their permission.
Re: (Score:2)
Last I checked, stealing was taking something that was not yours to take. The definition depends on the thing being taken not being yours.
So, yes, software piracy counts.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, stealing is taking something that is not yours, by which "take" is universally regarded to mean "remove from someone else's possession."
So, no, software piracy doesn't count.
Rob
Re: (Score:2)
Technically you don't own a copy of the copyrighted material - the publisher owns all of the copyrighted material. You own the physical media it is published on and (usually) a perpetual license to use it, so by that definition you are stealing because you are taking a license and you didn't pay for it
In the US you technically can't even show that licensed media to anyone without having them also pay for a license, which is why DVD and Blu-ray movies often say something about "for home use only" (fair use a
Re: (Score:2)
But, you didn't actually take anything; you copied it. Nothing was removed from the original owner's possession so that they do not have access to it any longer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
morally it's the exact same thing.
According to whose morals? Keep in mind that morality is probably subjective.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Has no one managed to publish a crack to allow LAN play?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm right with you there, that's kind of what I was interested in as well. I could definitely imaging a pirate feeling more justified in downloading a game they expected to be crappy.
But it really is a shame, they have the piracy data (or at least their estimation of it), and the sales data is reasonably freely available, all they need to do is see if sales or piracy has a tighter correlation to reviews, and it could be fascinating.
Re: (Score:2)