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Old 05-30-2009, 07:29 AM   #16
Lee in Limbo
It's Hard To Be Humble
 
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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It seems this whole argument started because two people refuse to let go of these phantom numbers they're being fed by dubious developers trying to justify sales slump to their backers and the internet press who have jumped on this stuff as a distraction from more news reports about the failing economy. The 90% number isn't substantiated by any hard data, but everyone's looking for a straw man here, so why not blame Pirate Bay. It's working for the MPAA, like blaming Napster gave the RIAA something to blame for their failing sales.

Personally, I blame marketing and lazy game development logic that dictates more of the same for less at a higher price. Anyone downloading games these days is simply eliminating the cost of consumer regret. But I still think that 90% is seriously inflated. The number Lucien quoted sound far more reasonable (and is supported by much more rigourous fact-finding), while still making it clear that a considerable problem exists in the software industry.

Now, personally, I've spent a fair bit of money over the years on some pretty pricey games, sometimes more than one copy (my Mom likes Adventure games too). But I've read numerous game reviews that I still had to take with a grain of salt and investigate myself (even the really good ones here at AG), because my tastes don't necessarily jibe with a number of reviewers out there (including ones whom I occasionally agree with). If demos are available, I have to try them, even if they're reputedly buggy or incomplete. But demos are not a certainty, and may even be seen as a reason for profit loss (presumably, given the virtual disappearance of gaming demos, either demos drive away more sales than they make, or running servers for modern demo DLing isn't making its money back in sales, but I have no numbers to support this).

Now, I don't know how it is in Asia or wherever else software piracy is apparently running rampant, but I'm pretty sure that most folks around here want to own fully-functioning, legitimate (hassle-free, easy-to-install) copies of most if not all of their computer software (I suspect many experienced PC owners have a natural distrust of Microsoft, which may lead to some rampant OS piracy justifications, but again, no hard numbers) copies of any software they depend on for doing more than updating their Facebook status report (and for that we have Firefox or Google Chrome for free).

However, I've been thinking that the piracy hysteria we've been seeing in the press of late has been a smokescreen for a lot of poor returns on products that simply didn't excite consumer confidence. After the hype wears off, a lot of these products just don't make people want to go out and buy, or for those indulging in piracy, aren't inspiring their confidence enough to want to throw down their hard-earned pesos without 'demoing' the software beforehand.

So yeah, I take umbrage at the notion that PC owners are responsible for 90% of the purported piracy issues. I think console gamers are living in a dream world if they think they won't be the next target. I've read all of this stuff about the measures PS3 is taking to ensure they can't be cracked, but frankly, it's like any other rat race; soon there will be faster rats. I'm quite sure it's much harder than burning an iso to a disc. That said, I think we're missing the bigger picture here, and that's that people with not a lot of money may settle for less, but they certainly won't keep buying stuff that they're almost certain is going to be crap, unless they make sure for themselves. That's the real reason behind most piracy, I'm sure.

Okay, gotta go uninstall my floppy drive. Good luck fighting the fight.
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