Illegal copies and youtube

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Koub
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Koub »

Lo Wang wrote:I think a vast majority of pirates buy games they feel deserve their money.
This is untrue. It's the case for some of them, maybe, but not all. When I was more or less young (before actually I started working), I did pirate quite a number of games, for reasons I retrospectively know were bad. Since then, when I see a game on Steam I remember I vave played without buying it, I buy it. But at that moment, I didn't make plans on that. I just happened to feel bad years after. What also helps is the fact that these games sell now for nothing, while they seemed to cost an arm and a leg back then (AAA games). Since I discovered indie games (my first was Minecraft during its alpha), I have never played a game I haven't bought. However, I consider most games are overrated pricewise, so I buy them during Steam sales (except the rare ones I think are worth their value at full price, which is rare).

TL;DR : People pirate games for various reasons. I disapprove, but don't judge. I think only the people who have worked to make the game possible have a moral right to judge.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by SpiritofTheWolfx »

HanziQ wrote:
SpiritofTheWolfx wrote:
Krayt wrote:Klonan, can you manage to do something about websites offering cracked / pirated Factorio version, too?
Yeah they can. If they want to that is. Depends too. A lot of the trust worthy 'crackers' (They ones that pirate and crack the game without any virus' or anything harmful.) Are from Russia. If I understand correctly. Their 'pirating' laws are different then North America and the such where you can be arrested and sent to jail or pay a massive fine. Plus most of the trust worthy ones will take their upload down of the Dev's ask them to nicely. But on the other hand dev's can only do so much to 'stop it'. Its really not worth the effort. People will still upload the game/whatever if they want to. The people that want to buy the game will buy the game. The people who want to pirate the game will pirate the game. They aren't 'losing sales' because people are pirating the game. Those are the people who wouldn't even buy it if they couldn't pirate it. Also. The Dev's have every right to remove the torrents and such for the game. There is absolutely no arguing with that.
The easiest thing is probably DMCA on Google Search and Youtube.
Also we might be losing sales, not everyone, who pirates, wouldn't buy the game, it's very difficult to prove or disprove lost sales.
I have no problem saying that I pirated the game to begin with. I now have it purchased. Anyways with that out. The reason I say you guys aren't losing sales is because a huge group of people that pirate a game would never have bought it to begin with. Obviously you need to get rid of those people that think that they can put your hard work up for free. And that is true that not everyone who pirates the game would never buy it, but those are the people, like myself, who flat out can't afford the game when they want to play it because we are impatient as hell. And the ones who are just waiting for a sale. I just wish I knew you had a Demo version on your website because I would have played that until I could buy it.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by zytukin »

DMCA wont do anything to prevent piracy. If it did, then piracy wouldn't exist. lol. Even if used as a reason to get downloads removed, there are hundreds/thousands of sites and chat rooms to look through. Then you have the whole torrent network, private sites, public sites, and it's even possible to have torrents with no sites at all. Besides looking at every site, the dev's would also have to trust the owners of these sites to continuously monitor their sites or look at them themselves on a weekly/monthly basis. Overall it would be a non-stop astronomical task to perform and require hundreds/thousands of employees to track down every download source on the internet and monitor it. Then if things don't go smoothly, countless hours and dollars spent on the legal process for each case.

A lot of stats are just speculation too.
1. Not all people who pirate a game would have bought it if they couldn't pirate it. (i wont buy most games without playing them first)
2. Some people who pirate games do later buy them.
3. Some people (with or without buying) will pirate a game to avoid annoying (and sometimes intrusive) DRM, especially if it limits install locations or the number of allowed installs.
4. In the days before digital delivery, some people bought a game on disc and then pirated it if the disc broke.
5. In the days before digital delivery, some people bought a game on disc but left the disc unopened in a closet and pirated a copy for use.
6. Some people will pirate games and never buy them due to the mentality of "why should I pay for it if I can get it for free?"
7. Some poeple will pirate a game if the developer isn't too reputable when it comes to making quality games. (ie, buggy, poorly made, never fixes)

We can debate the numbers for these points until the end of time. It is just speculation though. Even how many downloads something has is somewhat speculated. It's impossible to tally the downloads from *every* source and the number of downloads can be (and is occasionally) artificially inflated to make a download appear more popular.

There are many companies that don't even worry about piracy and don't have DRM. If a company is known for making good games and maintaining them, people will pay for them, possibly without even considering pirating them first. Bethesda is a key example. Always had DRM free games and they are often top sellers.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Hexicube »

zytukin wrote:1. Not all people who pirate a game would have bought it if they couldn't pirate it. (i wont buy most games without playing them first)
2. Some people who pirate games do later buy them.
3. Some people (with or without buying) will pirate a game to avoid annoying (and sometimes intrusive) DRM, especially if it limits install locations or the number of allowed installs.
4. In the days before digital delivery, some people bought a game on disc and then pirated it if the disc broke.
5. In the days before digital delivery, some people bought a game on disc but left the disc unopened in a closet and pirated a copy for use.
6. Some people will pirate games and never buy them due to the mentality of "why should I pay for it if I can get it for free?"
7. Some poeple will pirate a game if the developer isn't too reputable when it comes to making quality games. (ie, buggy, poorly made, never fixes)
I've done 1 through 4 on that list, I'll just ignore games that come from a dev I know isn't reputable and I always do my research before pirating (that said, I have enough disposable income to not bother pirating now).

I'll also add two additional reasons to pirate a game:
8. A recent patch completely breaks the game (or fucks with balance in a way you don't like) and support for the game ended, and a pirated versions doesn't suffer from those issues. (similar to 3)
9. A pirated version offers different online servers.

For 9, there's THIS version of the original C&C series (as an example) that uses a separate matchmaking system, and generally cleans up the games for use on modern systems. Those games were released for free at one point, too. I played a lot of Tiberian Sun a few years back, Westwood made some good games.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by ssilk »

Every year the same discussions. Some things never change... :roll:

I say: Stop discussing, buy the game and shut up. :)
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Kenzory »

Well, In the past i've bought games that were shit, thats why i Pirated Factorio 2 days ago, for try it, and hell yeah, its amazing, ill buy it as soon i can ^^

Not all piracy is bad, all those years have "displayed" that if one thing is good, the people will buy it, and fuck, Factorio still in Alpha and im enjoying it a lot in Vainilla, with Mods would be more amazing omg
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by nobodx »

I follow this rule when it comes to pirated games (or music or movies...)

When I earn money for my work, I have to pay for stuff I want.

Edit:
Some developers came up with some interesting "copy" protections
Serious Sam 3 introduced an invincible enemy. And some ... let's call them experts ... asked how to beat it .... on official forums.
One of the crisis-games caused to overheat your computer (by replacing bullets with fully animated chicken, running around)
But the strangest one was for a japanese game ( cross days) which installed malware with the pirated copy. The trojan copied all private files on a public website.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Gnarflord »

Well, I like what the devs of "Game Dev Tycoon" have done. They made a modified copy of the game and uploaded it on a popular torrent site. The "modification" was that after some time your ingame game would be pirated ingame. People started complaining about how they get no money because of piracy. What irony! That was also an occasion for the devs to gather some data about the "dark side" of the gaming culture and the results were alarming:
Genuine version: 214 users

Cracked version: at least 3104 users

Over 93.6% of players stole the game.
Now imagine how much money they have lost this way, that's horrific for every indie game developer.
Link: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/ ... of-piracy/
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by seronis »

Using a pirated copy is NOT a lost sale. When you make an unintelligent premise you get bad conclusions. Garbage in <-> garbage out

I pirated factorio a long time ago. Didnt care for it. I pirated it again a few months ago. Played through a game and felt it had evolved to a point that it was worth buying so they got a sale. I've given about a dozen friends and my kids the pirated copy of 0.12.24. 3 bought it the others decided it wasnt for them. Stepson didnt care for it. Daughter is considering buying a copy.

So piracy in just my small circle has resulted in 4 sales, a 5th potential sale, and a few people who have no grudges against the game because they didnt waste their money (thus no bad reviews).

People who pirate either dont have the money (not a lost sale), or wouldnt have paid anyways (not a lost sale). They still tend to increase the pool of potential sales for any game that DESERVES sales and isnt total crap.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by zytukin »

Gnarflord wrote:Well, I like what the devs of "Game Dev Tycoon" have done. They made a modified copy of the game and uploaded it on a popular torrent site. The "modification" was that after some time your ingame game would be pirated ingame. People started complaining about how they get no money because of piracy. What irony! That was also an occasion for the devs to gather some data about the "dark side" of the gaming culture and the results were alarming:
Genuine version: 214 users

Cracked version: at least 3104 users

Over 93.6% of players stole the game.
Now imagine how much money they have lost this way, that's horrific for every indie game developer.
Link: http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/ ... of-piracy/
People are probably more likely to pirate a brand new game from a brand new company then from a well known company with a reputation of making good games and those numbers were only from the first day. An unknown number of those 3k could have bought the game in the following days, an unknown number could have disliked the game (not due to the piracy coding) and deleted it, an unknown number might not have bought the game anyway even if they couldn't pirate it. So it doesn't equate to exactly 3104 lost sales.

I'd be interested in seeing what current statistics are.
But, it's impossible to know how many people pirate a game due to how widespread piracy networks are.

Pretty sure I said it in an earlier post. There are very few games that I will buy without trying first. No demo? I pirate it. Can't pirate it? I completely ignore the game and move on to one of the other millions of games available. If it turns out to be a game that I like (meaning, I wont get bored of it in a few days), then I will buy it. Very few games last more then a few days though. Many I get bored with in less then a day.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Supercheese »

I must admit that I myself first tried Factorio from a torrent, but the game was so good and engrossing that I promptly bought a copy, and even later upgraded to the top supporter tier, so some of you might end up with "Train Stop Supercheese" or whatnot in your game. ;)
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by zytukin »

Supercheese wrote:some of you might end up with "Train Stop Supercheese" or whatnot in your game. ;)
Is that where the default train station names come from?
I was wondering due to some of the odd names.

Didn't know there was different levels.
Honestly, I didn't even know of this site until after buying the game on steam.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Supercheese »

zytukin wrote:Is that where the default train station names come from?
I was wondering due to some of the odd names.

Didn't know there was different levels.
Honestly, I didn't even know of this site until after buying the game on steam.
Yes indeed, but the opportunity to pay more for a higher tier of support has passed, those were phased out when the game released on Steam.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Tepalus »

Good damn, where are we here?!

All the people here talking about "pirating" and then buy the game. Guys, first of all, if you pirate a game, just look at its webside. If you would've do so, you would have discoveret the demo of the game...so no reasson to pirate in first place.

Then there are people here talking about "testing" the game but had not seen it on YT? Why?? If you want to know a game, just go on Youtube and watch videos about the game!

And thirdly, all these "Hackprevent" things can be disarmed...and if they have a too cool modification on the game, more people will pirate the game!


Just think about it and give me answer (also for my english)
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by zytukin »

Most games don't offer demos, so it's not something one often looks for, especially if your an older gamer.
I've played maybe 5 games over the past 16 years that offered demos.

Playing a game gives you far more information on it then watching cheesy youtube videos (no offense meant to anybody here that makes them, I'm just not a fan of them as most are made by teens and geared towards other teens). Mainly since everybody has their own play styles, likes, and dislikes. This is also why you shouldn't take reviews as factual information.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Tepalus »

You are correct with the amout of game-demos but i just cannot believe that people don't just go to google and don't see the main factorio-page!

Even if i'm searching for "Factorio Free Download", "Factorio Free Download Mac" or "Factorio download full version free" the first page is the factoriohomepage with the word "Free Demo"... is it just me who cannot imagine people are this 'stupid'? (no offense to those)


And for youtube i have to say give it a try. It is true, there are many kids who are playing games but the majority of videos you will find by just writte down "factorio" are enough to give you a nice overview of the game.


Sorry for the harsh words^^
PS: Well...i was once also a pirate. I pirated "Age of Empires 2 HD/Forgotten Empire" for my MacBook because the game was so extremely expensive.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by FallenAdvent »

Tepalus wrote:You are correct with the amout of game-demos but i just cannot believe that people don't just go to google and don't see the main factorio-page!

Even if i'm searching for "Factorio Free Download", "Factorio Free Download Mac" or "Factorio download full version free" the first page is the factoriohomepage with the word "Free Demo"... is it just me who cannot imagine people are this 'stupid'? (no offense to those)


And for youtube i have to say give it a try. It is true, there are many kids who are playing games but the majority of videos you will find by just writte down "factorio" are enough to give you a nice overview of the game.


Sorry for the harsh words^^
PS: Well...i was once also a pirate. I pirated "Age of Empires 2 HD/Forgotten Empire" for my MacBook because the game was so extremely expensive.
Personally I don't even bother looking for demo's anymore. After dealing with about 5-6 years of demoless or extremelly restricted demo's on titles I just simply refused to deal with them. I will pirate a game. And if I enjoy it. Buy it.

I personally pirated Factorio the first time I played it. Same with 2 of my friends. In the end after about a days worth of playing multiplayer with eachother, We all bought it.

As far as the google thing. Going to google looking for a torrent is like going to candy store looking for bread. Ultimately your more likely to find something that will make you sick than the thing your actually looking for. Google's ranking system will almost never pick up actual torrent sites and your more likely to just end up with some crap download full of malware.

And to be honest. That's the reason I would have never known there was a demo download to begin with. I don't bother looking. I have a torrent provider that I trust that had a published copy of the game. So I simply went with that. Instead of a possible malware crammed file from a google result.

As far as youtube is concerned. While there are thousands of let's plays out there that I could go pull up. None of those will ever give you the chance to experience the game on my own terms.

So ya. That's my 2 cents. I was a factorio pirate. And ultimately a purchaser of 4 copies for friends and family. It's a game I fully recommend to those who I feel would enjoy it. But piracy is a normal thing in the game industry. It's something we have to grow to deal with. Because it will -never- go away. So instead of being shy about it. Saying it's stealing or something of the sort. Game developers, and players alike, Need to focus on making a quality game. And converting pirates to paying consumers.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Tepalus »

I keep it short.

You have some points i don't agree with, you have points i totally agree with.

BUT my english isn't that good to argue more with you, even if it was very interessting! And i also think, we shouldn't make to long posts...in the end, nothing changes and just a handful of players will read our posts, woun't they?
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by zytukin »

Tepalus wrote:You are correct with the amout of game-demos but i just cannot believe that people don't just go to google and don't see the main factorio-page!

Even if i'm searching for "Factorio Free Download", "Factorio Free Download Mac" or "Factorio download full version free" the first page is the factoriohomepage with the word "Free Demo"... is it just me who cannot imagine people are this 'stupid'? (no offense to those)


And for youtube i have to say give it a try. It is true, there are many kids who are playing games but the majority of videos you will find by just writte down "factorio" are enough to give you a nice overview of the game.


Sorry for the harsh words^^
PS: Well...i was once also a pirate. I pirated "Age of Empires 2 HD/Forgotten Empire" for my MacBook because the game was so extremely expensive.
I think your English is good.
Much better then some people who only speak English.

If your using google to download things and if Age of Empires 2 is the only thing you have downloaded, I hardly think you classify as a pirate.

Google might be the very first place somebody looks at when first starting pirating.
But it only takes a short time for most people to move away from google to the special sites and utilities to find and start downloading working things in less then 30 seconds without worry of getting a virus.
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Re: Illegal copies and youtube

Post by Tepalus »

zytukin wrote: I think your English is good.
Much better then some people who only speak English.

If your using google to download things and if Age of Empires 2 is the only thing you have downloaded, I hardly think you classify as a pirate.

Google might be the very first place somebody looks at when first starting pirating.
But it only takes a short time for most people to move away from google to the special sites and utilities to find and start downloading working things in less then 30 seconds without worry of getting a virus.
First of all, thank you very much! Good to hear :)

Seccondly...ok then, i'm now a pirate...harhar

But now, i've to fly away because i don't actually have anything to say more about this topic.
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