piracy

[Frogacuda]

Wrong.  If it wasn't for piracy, I would have never heard of this game, I would have never created this account, and I would have never purchased this game.

Then you're an idiot. No offense.

I could understand this argument in the case of some other games, but we're talking about a product where you can literally go try the game out in your browser without downloading anything. If you really wanted to you could have tried it out legally.

I'm glad you bought the game, but it's just a flimsy rationale. Most people who pirate stuff don't pay for it. And yes, most of them wouldn't have bought it anyway, but some of them definitely would have. The math does not work out in their favor.

The only real exception to this is piracy of older stuff. I think that letting people play emultators and abandonware and such will strengthen a company's brand, and games that went overlooked in their initial release (Earthbound for example) become viable IPs for their owners if they want to make a new sequel.

[liroy]

Wrong.  If it wasn't for piracy, I would have never heard of this game, I would have never created this account, and I would have never purchased this game.

Then you're an idiot. No offense.

I could understand this argument in the case of some other games, but we're talking about a product where you can literally go try the game out in your browser without downloading anything. If you really wanted to you could have tried it out legally.

I'm glad you bought the game, but it's just a flimsy rationale. Most people who pirate stuff don't pay for it. And yes, most of them wouldn't have bought it anyway, but some of them definitely would have. The math does not work out in their favor.

The only real exception to this is piracy of older stuff. I think that letting people play emultators and abandonware and such will strengthen a company's brand, and games that went overlooked in their initial release (Earthbound for example) become viable IPs for their owners if they want to make a new sequel.

No offense taken, but you completely missed the point.  Piracy marketed this product to me, which in turn led me to this site, and eventually to the store.  Can you grasp that logic?  I mean, if an idiot like me can, I'm sure you can as well.

Most people that pirated the game, who you say don't pay for it, would not have bought the game (sans piracy) in the first place.  The majority of software pirates are kids or students with not a lot of money to begin with (at least this is my observation).  As people get older and gain more disposable income, they will pay for things to avoid the bs you have to deal with (viruses, no support, no patches, cd keys, online play). Others will buy the game because they stumble upon a gem (thanks to piracy) and want to give back to the community. 

Like the poster earlier said, it costs $40 to put a game on the shelf these days.  Why?  These companies have so much overhead for pointless shit, like overpriced commercials, ad spots, paying off reviewers to give them nice ratings, overpriced programmers, ads in stores, priority shelving, and they are pumping out garbage to try and make a quick buck (ex: EA sports NHL series for PC).  To blame the loss of sales solely on piracy is absurd.  Same applies for Hollywood.

I like this "pay the developer and cut out the middleman" type of business.  (I also like brackets)

[tblrsa]

Im not willing to talk much about the Scene or Warez itself, but let me tell you that Piracy does have a certain advertising effect. liroys point is correct from my standpoint.

[Frogacuda]

No offense taken, but you completely missed the point.  Piracy marketed this product to me, which in turn led me to this site, and eventually to the store.  Can you grasp that logic?  I mean, if an idiot like me can, I'm sure you can as well.

But even if piracy made you aware of it (I don't know how you found it via piracy anyway, but let's just accept that you did) you could have just chosen to google it and then been playing the demo in a matter of seconds, rather than waiting to pirate the game, playing it later, and then buying it and saying you bought it because of the piracy.

The argument just doesn't work in this case. It's a lie you're using to rationalize piracy. It's not a good argument anyway, but it's completely misplaced here.

Most people that pirated the game, who you say don't pay for it, would not have bought the game (sans piracy) in the first place.

It's fabulous how you repeat back things I said and then claim I didn't understand you.

Like the poster earlier said, it costs $40 to put a game on the shelf these days.  Why?  These companies have so much overhead for pointless shit, like overpriced commercials, ad spots, paying off reviewers to give them nice ratings, overpriced programmers, ads in stores, priority shelving, and they are pumping out garbage to try and make a quick buck (ex: EA sports NHL series for PC).  To blame the loss of sales solely on piracy is absurd.

That earlier poster was me. Let me go down the list.

1) "Overpriced commercials" are a necessary part of marketing a game and if you don't do it, you won't make money, generally speaking. So you can't shrug this off as excess. It's a legit cost.

2) Companies don't pay off journalists to give good reviews, at least not in America or Europe. I've been working as a game journalist for years and I know a lot more about this than you. We're not just scumbag whores who take payola for reviews. Companies might wine and dine you and act like they're your friends in the hopes of influencing you, but no journalist worth shit is going to hold back what they really think let alone accept a payment.

3) You're leaving off things like manufacturing costs and (in the case of console games) licensing fees which alone can be $10-$15. Add distribution on top of that, and then development costs, etc.

Im not willing to talk much about the Scene or Warez itself, but let me tell you that Piracy does have a certain advertising effect. liroys point is correct from my standpoint.

It heightens awareness of a product, this is absolutely true, but it doesn't inspire more sales. It just doesn't. Some people might choose to buy the pirated games they really like, most will not. They will pirate everything and buy nothing that they have pirated.

People who do buy stuff will pay for maybe 5% of what they pirate and then say "Well, that's the 5% that deserves my money," while completely ignoring the hours of entertainment they got from average games that they've convinced themselves don't deserve it when they do. If only 5% of games get bought, the industry stops existing. It doesn't work that way. You need to accept that we need to have room for imperfect products too.

I'm not trying to lecture anyone, and it's not like I've never pirated a game in my life, but I have a problem with people acting like they're entitled to do it or like they're helping somehow. Just admit you're doing a bad thing and live with it.

[ABoretz]

Anyone notice this on Amanita Design's blog?

JD has posted MD5 checksums for all of the files!  Furthermore, he wrote: "For those who doesn't know what it means: it may be useful if you want to check that your download was correct and also for people who are downloading our files from 'different unofficial' sources that the files are unmodified."

Obviously JD is not only fully aware of the piracy issue but he's taking the high road by providing pirates with the means to assure that they've downloaded a "clean" copy free of any malware.

[izoong]

Obviously JD is not only fully aware of the piracy issue but he's taking the high road by providing pirates with the means to assure that they've downloaded a "clean" copy free of any malware.

This is a VERY BIG karma for JD. Seeing the world as it is and thinking positively to every one, even the thieves.

[leanne]

Yeah it's a pirated copy. Not sure why you posted this, there's tonnes of links to pirated versions all over the net. That just means there's lots of interest in the game, which is a good thing. I think people who are really interested in supporting the dev and the ideology/spirit behind the game will buy it.

Pirates Don't buy games - they just steal it cos it's there for free for them - getting it free does not mean they will pay for it , EVER.

Wrong.  If it wasn't for piracy, I would have never heard of this game, I would have never created this account, and I would have never purchased this game.  I paid for this to show my appreciation for an amazing game, artistically, musically, and overall gameplay wise.  I also appreciate the benefit of the doubt by releasing it DRM free. 

There is always a message in pirated software... "If you like it, buy it, support the developers."

Piracy just got Amanita Design an extra customer.

i agree in fact, i got samorost2 from a friend and then i bought it, because i started to feel bad. and it is now second time that i have downloaded/bought a game at all.

i download a lot of music that you can't get really from anywhere exept from other people's hard disk storages, so i have a lot of different folk music from around the world, but all the best things i have always searched also originals (lots of basque folk cd's) exept when there really aren't any available.

[Frogacuda]

Yeah it's a pirated copy. Not sure why you posted this, there's tonnes of links to pirated versions all over the net. That just means there's lots of interest in the game, which is a good thing. I think people who are really interested in supporting the dev and the ideology/spirit behind the game will buy it.

Pirates Don't buy games - they just steal it cos it's there for free for them - getting it free does not mean they will pay for it , EVER.

Wrong.  If it wasn't for piracy, I would have never heard of this game, I would have never created this account, and I would have never purchased this game.  I paid for this to show my appreciation for an amazing game, artistically, musically, and overall gameplay wise.  I also appreciate the benefit of the doubt by releasing it DRM free. 

There is always a message in pirated software... "If you like it, buy it, support the developers."

Piracy just got Amanita Design an extra customer.

i agree in fact, i got samorost2 from a friend and then i bought it, because i started to feel bad. and it is now second time that i have downloaded/bought a game at all.

i download a lot of music that you can't get really from anywhere exept from other people's hard disk storages, so i have a lot of different folk music from around the world, but all the best things i have always searched also originals (lots of basque folk cd's) exept when there really aren't any available.

The honor system doesn't work. Here's some actual data. Recently, World of Goo had a promotion where they invited people to pay whatever they thought it was worth. The majority chose to give only 1 penny, showing that most users just want something for nothing and don't have a shred of conscience or honor in their bodies.

Not only that, but when asked how much they gave in a survey after the purchase, they lied. Despite the 95% of people taking the survey, the figures don't even remotely match.
http://2dboy.com/2009/10/19/birthday-sale-results/

So yeah, you can justify it however you want to yourself, but you're delusional if you think piracy actually helps developers make money instead of costing them massive amounts of business.

[Kiva]

Not only that, but when asked how much they gave in a survey after the purchase, they lied. Despite the 95% of people taking the survey, the figures don't even remotely match.
http://2dboy.com/2009/10/19/birthday-sale-results/

In that blog post, where does it state or indicate that 95% of customers participated in the survey? The payment histogram shows roughly 57000 customers, whereas for the first survey question (How much did you choose to pay for the game?), only 7930 people answered. That equates to roughly 14% (not 95%) of customers answering that question. Your conclusion of customers having "lied" about how much they payed has no solid basis.

Comparing the histogram and survey to draw such a conclusion is misleading as it is possible that customers who were willing to pay, on average, a higher amount were the ones more likely to participate in the survey. Whereas, those willing to pay, on average, a lesser amount, may have been less likely to participate in the survey. Thus, customer participation in the survey may have been influenced by behavioural factors and the results of the survey are not representative of the total population (customers). No accurate conclusion can be derived from the data given by 2D Boy.

[Frogacuda]

In that blog post, where does it state or indicate that 95% of customers participated in the survey? The payment histogram shows roughly 57000 customers, whereas for the first survey question (How much did you choose to pay for the game?), only 7930 people answered. That equates to roughly 14% (not 95%) of customers answering that question. Your conclusion of customers having "lied" about how much they payed has no solid basis.

Well they only ran the survey on the last day, but it says that 8,700 answered and only 83 skipped it.

[Kiva]

Ah yes, it appears as though the survey is still open as the number of participants are still rising. I doubt much will change though.

[ABoretz]

Repost from the Amanita Design Blog:

Denis says: "I have finished warez version of Machinarium and realized that it was the best game i played in last years. So i bought it now from this site because i wanted that my money goes right to developer (im working in game industry 7 years as producer and i know the percentages I really would like to thank Jakub and all the developers team because this game touched my soul. This is really piece of art among tons of crap released these years.
The artwork, music, the idea of the game, story - everything is excellent and looks like it was done special for me to please my soul. The only thing i would like to recommend is to sell this excellent pack in higher price, because $10 is almost free.

Thank you again and please dont stop working! (Dont go to publishers,let Machinarium 2 be independent game, YOUR game)"

[ABoretz]

"I was pretty disappointed to see that somebody was torrenting a game called Machinarium.... some lamer Robin Hood wanna-be is 'sharing' this game to save people from having to pay a shitty $10. That's just woeful, and all the sweety pie talk of the torrent clowns looks really cheap when you see a small company get kicked in the face like that."

[bucket]

Hello, don't have much to add to the piracy discussion. Just wanted to give a shout out for creating a great game! I just finished a pirated version of machinarium, it was great and I love your style. Buying the game right away because this is the kind of stuff I really want to support!

keep up the good work and have a great holiday,
cheers!

[codebeard]

But even if piracy made you aware of it (I don't know how you found it via piracy anyway, but let's just accept that you did) you could have just chosen to google it and then been playing the demo in a matter of seconds, rather than waiting to pirate the game, playing it later, and then buying it and saying you bought it because of the piracy.

I'm not going to argue that piracy is a good thing, but I am another person who played a copy of the game before deciding that I should buy it (and even bought a second copy for a friend).

Now, your argument seems to hinge on the fact that I could have played the demo first instead of a copy of the game. Well, I did play the whole demo first, but to be honest I didn't really enjoy it enough to purchase it. There was nothing particularly intellectually stimulating in those first few levels. It was really just linear hot spot clicking, compared to some of the more difficult puzzles later in the game which I found really stimulating and enjoyable. It was after playing through some of these more creative and interesting puzzles that I wanted to pay for the game.

There's obviously a bit of a difficulty in making a demo like this because the first few levels need to be easy enough for people to get accustomed to the controls and ideas in the game, but if they are too easy then people may not find it challenging enough. Perhaps one of the harder puzzles from later in the game could be included in the demo as a kind of "bonus challenge"; something that doesn't give away any of the story line but can showcase one of the more challenging puzzles?