Quote: Original post by phresnel
It's just that, there is something wrong with the existing principle in general. For every mechanical device I can buy, like a car, a cooker, a fridge, an iPod, even harddisks, Matchbox cars, or just let it be a cheap vibrissae trimmer (wtf did I really say that?), I have a short period where I can try it out, and upon non-satisfaction I can bring it back to where I pulled it from. But I can't do that with a video game (or sometimes even software in general, which can easily cost hundreds of Euros), never mind the way of distribution. Personally, I would make an exception for movies, because they, in general, can't be sanely tried out, but most games I know can, not to mention application or business software.

If everyone had the means to duplicate a purchased product at home, the return policy would change in a hurry as many people would buy a product, copy it and return it to the store for a refund.

Quote: Original post by phresnel
You forget about puttings things in relation. Assuming an evil person: What does that person feel when he/she/it clicks the "download this" button? I think, he/she/it doesn't feel much, often it's just one of many clicks. He/she/it does feel worse when actually stealing something. Copying or duplicating something is by definition not stealing, and downloading is nothing else then copying. And people already learn in school, often enough from elder teachers, that unauthorized copying is at maximum just a trivial offence (and nobody will tell, shhht); I remember having tens or even hundreds of copies of some book sections, sometimes even including phrases like "Copyright (C) 1992 Pico Paco, No copying permitted".

I have put it into relation. It's pirates who haven't. A game, book, song or movie takes as much work/investment or more than a physical product. People work to earn a living no matter what product they develop. They deserve to get paid for their work.

I don't see any moral difference in downloading a game versus walking into a store and putting the box under your coat and walking out. It's stealing either way.

As you mentioned, people don't feel much when they download. So, if you can convince yourself that it's ok to walk into a store and take what you want without paying, does that make it automatically ok? Nope. But attitudes will not change unless they are forced to.

Quote: Original post by phresnel
Surely, we can discuss the physical worth of non-physical "property" (if that can be "owned" at all), but in another thread; but for now, don't you think that putting those "black copying" people in jail is a bit exaggerated, or even ignorant?

I think the punishment should be equal to the punishment for walking into a store and stealing a physical product. So, if it's jail in your country, it's jail. If it's fines, then so be it.

Quote: Original post by phresnel
Another example is the cost of driving 85 km/h where 50 km/h is allowed (for a reason, admittedly there are also enough roads here where you could easily drive 120 km/h without endangering anyone, but where 50 km/h is allowed; often very obviously just to trap drivers into penalty sales). If they ever get you here in germany, you pay maybe some 100 EUR and get some penalty points on your drivers license ("Punkte in Flensburg"). But actually, it could be that you endangered a plethora of people many times before. What deserves more penalty, that, or black copying?

Well, here in Ontario they recently imposed a huge fine (up to $10,000), possible jail time and loss of your license/vehicle if you go 50km over the speed limit.

With this in place, I doubt there will be any repeat offenders.

John

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Quote: OT: Sidenote regarding main video game market piracy

In germany, most sellers of video games state that games are non-returnable, once buyed. So you have only a single legal choice to try what you buy (trying a game out in the store is, imho, insane, as you won't be able to decide whether you like the game or not within ten minutes), which is video game rental. The problem being: Not every village has a video rental shop (and even then, it might not have what you want). And not everyone is interested in being a member of some remote rental shop, and not everyone is interested in online rental (including me). Then, when I compare market sales of games vs. game-magazines, it seems that many people are not interested in buying game-tests; though I can't say how many people read game tests online. According to all this, you either have the choice of paying up to 60 EUR (roughly 80 USD) for something that is potentially shit (write-only move-semantics that money transfer has), or not buying it at all.

That was the legal way.

People being too lazy to read reviews, play demos, and use the internet to find out about a game's reception is not an excuse for piracy.

I can only imagine that many people, especially of the "casual" sort, are not even aware of game magazines. But okay, let's call them lazy (or something else) and forget about that argument.

So, the last time you bought a car (an object you only buy every few years, for a price that you can afford only every few years) or another expensive device, did you buy proper magazines or solely relied on reports in the internet, or did you drive that car / try out the device before finally deciding to keep it?

As I said, in the past I only bought games that either were rated at least 9/10, or that have average ratings (say between 6-9/10) but are of my favorized genres. I certainly would have tried out other genres of games or other games in general, but that was mostly not possible (back when I was a more "hardcore" gamer, I could not afford much money, even if I already earned some money after school), so, if there are many other people that are like me (buy only highrated games, or if not, only favorite genre games), then I conjecture that more companies, especially startups, could earn relevant money, if only "trying out" would be easier. Surely, several months of play-around time would be unsane for games, but a special guarantee deadline of 1 or 2 weeks for games could already be enough.

If I only think about how one wants to buy some distraction, but gets A) no guarantee for it and B) doesn't have the possibility at all to bring back on mis-saturation, then the current situation sounds a bit unlogical to me. Of course, it doesn't get easier with games that are distributed online (but also not too hard; a one time registration should work well); it's just that it already doesn't feel right on the "physical" market.

Quote: Original post by borngamer

Quote: Original post by phresnel
It's just that, there is something wrong with the existing principle in general. For every mechanical device I can buy, like a car, a cooker, a fridge, an iPod, even harddisks, Matchbox cars, or just let it be a cheap vibrissae trimmer (wtf did I really say that?), I have a short period where I can try it out, and upon non-satisfaction I can bring it back to where I pulled it from. But I can't do that with a video game (or sometimes even software in general, which can easily cost hundreds of Euros), never mind the way of distribution. Personally, I would make an exception for movies, because they, in general, can't be sanely tried out, but most games I know can, not to mention application or business software.

If everyone had the means to duplicate a purchased product at home, the return policy would change in a hurry as many people would buy a product, copy it and return it to the store for a refund.

Yes, that is why I mentioned proper "copy protection" sooner. Maybe it would work if you get a kind of temporary serial number that doesn't permit you to copy games, and after the refund-deadline, you can get a one-time-registration (maybe for a carved product), of which you can then make backup copies or which permits you to resell the game. That would be a compromise of temporary rights restriction I could personally live with.

Quote:
A game, book, song or movie takes as much work/investment or more than a physical product. People work to earn a living no matter what product they develop. They deserve to get paid for their work.

Acknowledge. I also agree that punishment should be the same. But I think that jail is too much for first time "intellectual property" infringement. Also, the fines in germany (and from newspapers, I think in the US you have even more crippling fines) are much too high and exaggerated. It should surely be painful, but it shouldn't be killing. Combine a higher-than-today probability of getting caught and ripping a single but significant amount of your monthly wage, and people will learn. If penalties are much too high, they won't see what they have done "wrong", and just frown upon the fines/arrest (imho).

Quote:
I don't see any moral difference in downloading a game versus walking into a store and putting the box under your coat and walking out. It's stealing either way.

Moral is mostly what you learn, not what is law. Downloading is copying is trivial offence; walking into the store and getting that box is grabbing something physically without paying is stealing.

Quote: As you mentioned, people don't feel much when they download. So, if you can convince yourself that it's ok to walk into a store and take what you want without paying, does that make it automatically ok?

No, I don't mean what I convince myself to, but what I have learned to date.

Btw, this is interesting: Kardinal Frings' Silvesterpredigt (google-translation).

Quote:
Well, here in Ontario they recently imposed a huge fine (up to $10,000), possible jail time and loss of your license/vehicle if you go 50km over the speed limit.

With this in place, I doubt there will be any repeat offenders.

John

Sounds fine with me, as people are in real physical danger if someone drives 50km/h over limit in a busy neighbourhood.

I agree that you can't expect people to read game magazines and research every game before they buy it. People just want something fun to play and shouldn't expect to work at researching a game.

However, games are like movies. You get some good ones and some crap ones. You can't take a movie back to a store because you don't like it, however you can exchange it if the DVD is bad.

I don't have a good answer for return policies however I don't believe it justifies pirating a copy to try it out.

John

this link on how game (or any software which is a product) companies are charity cases is particularly relevant to this thread.

i suppose the only answer is to focus on the positives and not the negatives. No point assuming everyone is evil and preempting them via methods which show no trust.

Instead focus on the people who *choose* to buy the software and make them feel special. Free posters, key chains, stickers,etc with each order? those are not expensive especially in bulk. sell super packages with tshirts, booklet whatever. make purchase and updates as hassle free as possible. build a community, listen to them.

if you support user generated content have people subscribe at cheap annual? rates to be able to put their stuff online? if you are up to the legality and hassle have it be saleable and share profits.

a less workable idea - tag executables. have your software connect to a database. study patterns aimed to help identify piracy rates, create a criteria or heuristic or something which to some cutoff point rewards software with low probability of having been pirated with free updates or content and stuff.

One easy, yet extremely time-consuming approach is to flood the standard piracy distribution channels with fake files, fake complaints, fake comments, etc.

If pirates realize they have to search needle-in-a-haystack for the real version, they may quickly give up.

But that doesn't mean they'll buy your game instead. They might only buy it after they've tried the real, pirated version first.

Or they might never buy it no matter what.

Quote: Original post by phresnel
So, the last time you bought a car (an object you only buy every few years, for a price that you can afford only every few years) or another expensive device, did you buy proper magazines or solely relied on reports in the internet, or did you drive that car / try out the device before finally deciding to keep it?

And lets say you wanted to buy a car, but the car you wanted didn't allow you to take test drives would you go into the show room, hot wire the car and drive out with it?

IMO having/obtaining software, or indeed ANY digital data, which you don't have a right to have SHOULD be treated the same as theft. The laws have been left behind and neeed to be updated to reflect the world we are in. You are still using a product which you have no right to be using, as to how you obtained that product shouldn't, imo, factor into how it is treated when it comes to being a criminal offense. I don't care if a copy still remains of the thing you are using, the simple fact is to use it you should have paid money for it, you didn't, you are a criminal. End of story.

Maybe then, and with some high profile reports/court cases resulting in something concrete, the 'ordinary' person won't see it as ok to do these things.

That's pretty much the only way to take care of it because it crimialises the criminals and not the honest owners (with most copy protection software working the otherway around, assuming you are a criminal and asking you to prove you aren't).

Quote: Original post by Nypyren
One easy, yet extremely time-consuming approach is to flood the standard piracy distribution channels with fake files, fake complaints, fake comments, etc.

If pirates realize they have to search needle-in-a-haystack for the real version, they may quickly give up.

But that doesn't mean they'll buy your game instead. They might only buy it after they've tried the real, pirated version first.

Or they might never buy it no matter what.

That is about as productive as sending spam to spammers,... Users won't seed a fake file, and it will take a lot of effort to keep people who wouldn't have paid for it in the first place from using your software, while offering nothing to users who WILL pay for your software.


No, the best way is to basically think of the software as a 'free' product, and offer services.

Services can include, but are not limited to:
1. Easy access to official patches/forums
2. Access to contest areas, even if your game is single player, you can offer online contests related to the game. Best user created content and the like. If you win, then you get a free copy of the next game the company releases, and your prize winning content gets put up on an easy to access website.
3. "User Pages" in the official community. Offer a solid web service and means for users to interact with each other, design your system to have some kind of link in with the official web page so users can share fun events in their single player game. (Think, Achievements. And interesting/meaningful ones, not "I've played the game and did the same boring thing over and over in it 500 times to get a shiny fake medal!" ones, but rather "I managed to pick up a grenade, threw it so it bounced off three walls, and killed a boss character")

Keep your game updated, release cool and interesting little things often. Keep your services high rate while charging as little as you can. Make money off the bulk sale to loyal fans and keep them happy! If you are a one man operation, find a few more people like you and form a co-op so as one of you finishes a big project, they can take up part of the updates for several games. Rotate out, and work together.

Quote: Original post by phantom

IMO having/obtaining software, or indeed ANY digital data, which you don't have a right to have SHOULD be treated the same as theft. The laws have been left behind and neeed to be updated to reflect the world we are in. You are still using a product which you have no right to be using, as to how you obtained that product shouldn't, imo, factor into how it is treated when it comes to being a criminal offense. I don't care if a copy still remains of the thing you are using, the simple fact is to use it you should have paid money for it, you didn't, you are a criminal. End of story.

I disagree. Victimless crimes are not crimes in my opinion. It should be no surprise that I disagree with the drug laws as well.

Laws exist not to prevent you from doing certain things, but to protect other people. Copying bits does not deprive the original owner of anything.

Quote: Original post by phantom

Quote: Original post by phresnel
So, the last time you bought a car (an object you only buy every few years, for a price that you can afford only every few years) or another expensive device, did you buy proper magazines or solely relied on reports in the internet, or did you drive that car / try out the device before finally deciding to keep it?

And lets say you wanted to buy a car, but the car you wanted didn't allow you to take test drives would you go into the show room, hot wire the car and drive out with it?

Of course not. This is the reason why I don't "pirate" software (as I said sooner in this thread). I simply won't buy it and forget it, until it becomes cheap enough, or if I can poo money (or in case of more affordable video games, when game tests say it's okay). And what you say (or my answer to it) is the exact reason why I think that the current system for video-games is ill-configured.

I understand that I can not bring back movies to the dealer, because trying out a video is more or less nonsense, but most video games that I know take 10-40 hrs to complete, so that a trying-out deadline of, say, a week, would be great.