Well for one, pirates support the artists, not the greedy ****ing industry. I guarantee that 95% of the people that pirate music will say that the music industry can **** themself. Did you ask those dozen people if they went to concerts and bought merchandise? I assume you heard of the recent case of Alan Ellis, the founder of Oink.cd? He was found innocent of 'defrauding' the industry by a jury of 14-0.
I am starting to get the feeling that as much as everyone is hurt by piracy, when it comes to take some actions against it, nobody will really do anything. The attitude that "I don't have to do anything against piracy, because it's my birthright to be unaffected by it.:", it's wrong. Why do some of you say that WhatIsPiracy.com will have no effect? You base this study on what? It is proven that awareness campaigns always have an effect. It won't solve the problem, but if nobody is willing to take a step and do something to contribute to solve it, then we are definately not heading in the right direction. It's very comfortable to complain on the forums, but don't do anything because we don't have to. Perhaps it's time to admit that we are also part of this problem. We are not perfect people who are being ripped off. Perhaps there are things that we can do and improve ourselves, thus having more cosumers pay for our products. --- People working in agriculture are affected by floods. Is that ok? Offcourse not. But do they simply go onto forums and complain? No. They ACT to prevent and minimize damage. --- Every industry has it's piracy or flood. Why do we believe that it's our birthright to work in a business with zero losses? Who the hell are we to think this? Are we some arrogant folks thinking that we have the right to live in a perfect world? Then perhaps we deserve to have some of our software copies pirated.
Mmmmm....G.T.A Chinatown Wars...Only been out 1 day and on 1 site it has had nearly 20,000 in illegal FREE downloads... Now not saying that all 20,000 would of bought G.T.A but i'm suspecting that most of them wont be deleting it.... Now this is only from 1 site and not from all the sites that offer it illegally for nothing... Also that's a lot of missed revenue for Rock* and Apple,regardless of actually how many would of paid for it.... 20,000 x $10 = $200,000 ....And that's just 1 site,add the rest up and estimate % of lost sales and that's a whole lot of money
Maybe without piracy all that people wouldn't play it because of the price (I am not stating that the game is expensive). I agree with ACTING instead of complaining.
Piracy; Left-field, Right-field & Somewhere in between........ in the Left-Field: Piracy = freedom. I can access information, media, software and content without limitations either financial (price-tag) or platform specific (proprietary, DRM, codec, compatibility whatever) I am in control of my own entertainment. I share because others share for me. I give back what I take thru my bandwidth which I pay for with my hard earned money. I replicate and distribute. I personalize and remix. I hack, I mod and I tinker. This is my way of rejecting the established corporate empires. I am a pirate and I am a rebel......efff the status quo! in the Right-Field: I just get issh for free......isnt that cool? hahahaha I am sooo cooooool Somewhere in between: I only pirate old stuff like old movies, old albums, and old games. You know the stuff that I have already bought and paid for multiple times anyways but have long since been lost, broken or stolen. I don't pirate a lot of new stuff tho well every now and then but I understand that these guys are just trying to make a living off of doing what they love. I disagree with the way the corporate media empires have treated not only the artists but the consumers as well; when possible I try to support the artists and devs directly if I can. Anti Piracy; Left-field, Right-field and somewhere in between...... in the Left-Field: Piracy is an insult to all the hard work and dedication that goes into making wonderful works of art. These talented individuals pour their heart and souls into their trade and how are they repaid? they are not; in fact their work is stolen without any consideration or respect. Piracy is destroying the music, movie, and game industries and its all because some scumbag pirates want and now expect everything for free likes its their privilege or a right. They are like babies in a candy store without any conscious or moral standing they take and take and take without any second thoughts. how do they sleep at night...effin pirates all they do is steal issssh In the Right-Field: Piracy = stealing; its as simple as that! Somewhere in between: I think piracy is bad, we all know its bad. I wish these pirates would just come out and admit that they are stealing. I have rights, and I disagree with the way these corporate empires have encroached on my rights as a consumer, but piracy is not the answer. you cant just take something without paying for it. if i put in all that effort i would be very upset if someone just took it without compensating me for it. period end of discussion. I just got bored and typed this up; i doubt i captured the views of both sides accurately but hey i tried
Update from same illegal site offering games for FREE.This is from 1 site and figures will be a lot higher if all sites included. Illegal downloads of pirated games figures: Asphalt 5 : 245573 Fifa 10 : 133715 The Settlers : 124922 C.O.D Zombies : 125342 Need For Speed Shift : 124558 Driver : 119538 N.O.V.A : 79002 Avatar : 93008 And in 1 day G.T.A Chinatown Wars : 32001 All these games are $5-$10 each and whilst not everyone would of bought the game anyways,they are still huge numbers.
This just reinforce's Frand's point about visibility on the top 100 lists and day 1 piracy. If GTA had an additional 32,000 downloads behind it, it would be uncontested for the #1 top selling app on the App Store. Instead it's currently at #32.
My contribution to anti-piracy was to give you advices based on my studies about visual communication and communication in general. Take those advices as an offense if you want, I just can't do anything else in the scope of this thread. Starting 127892 new sites about how piracy is hurting us is not a good idea. One of us started a move (you), so it would be better to make it a common contribution than a personal achievement. I'm a bit disappointed that you take those humble advices this way, but whatever, you're the owner of this initiative, so I'll let you go your way. This is not being unactive, this is respecting your decision.
True. Also, Now nobody can claim that those 245573 people wouldn't have bought the game if they didn't have the pirated version available. This is unthinkable. And please, I'm not saying that everybody would have bought it, but still, I mean come on ....
@c0re: I didn't mean to insult anyone. Merely I was trying to "shake" everyone a bit to start "acting." Your feedback was excellent. I pretty much did the site based on those ideas. Clean, anonymous and with a simple and easy to understand message. ---- I would like to change the topic a bit, and here some feedback on this idea: I am considering to introduce a piracy protection code in our next game, but with a time bomb. Let everyone pirate it in the first week or days, and get a lot of "traffic" and exposure from the torrent sites. Then have the code kick in, and nicely ask everyone to buy it, or quit the app. I know there is a technical solution to detect if a game has been cracked. I have to do some research on this. If anyone is willing to share some code, I would be more than happy to return a favour for it.
Thanks Btw ... I saw that you are working on a nice project. If you need any kind of assistance, just let me know. I am doing indie games for the past 8 years, so there is always something I can share or help with
Back on subject, I just made a little test with Google with keywords about iphone games. Suggestion numbers are ... interesting : Typed : "iphone app download" (you don't "download" apps when you buy it) -> typed 156 million times "iphone app torrent" -> typed 56 million "iphone game torrent" -> 31 million "iphone game crack" -> 28 million "iphone app crack" -> 16 million times etc .... And to emphasis with Toad in the Hole's post, I just typed : "Asphalt 5". There is barely 20% suggestions that don't concern a relation with piracy. total suggestions about piracy : 2.168.600 I know one suggestion doesn't relate to one pirated copy, and that one person can enter many suggestions, but still, I'd like to know how many legal downloads the game had.
@c0re Keep in mind that those figures are a bit biased. Not everyone (or at least a high enough number) of legitimate customers wanting to buy an iPhone game, search for it on Google. Those that don't want to buy it, will search on Google.
True in some way But if a legitimate customer doesn't want to buy it, it simply means he's not interested in playing it, and therefore it means he wouldn't be interested in searching for how to download it.
The numbers are pretty much correct if you are trying to determine that potential number of people using pirated software.
Actually, "potential" is an interesting word. This just reminds me that given the hiding nature of pirates, I'm afraid we will never be able to have precise numbers. Which is why I can't understand some people that systematically contest the simple fact of using those estimates in debates like this. People have to understand that as long as devs are concerned by piracy, they have to measure it in order to know how much they are affected, and how much they are right or wrong in their actions. And we can't keep waiting forever, for official righteous magic numbers, because beyond that, our games are stolen. So action must be taken, may it be right or wrong, but trying to reach the truth by searching such numbers is the least we can do in the right direction.
Oh well, at least this thread has taken a more constructive way now, instead of the angry lynch mob we´ve seen earlier. exosyphen actually makes a good point with his manifest. The money they earn with ads a month is not everything they do, some of those offer limited access to a private member area/a private server area for a monthly fee. Those really need to be taken down, but this is being done already. Vovin might remember the FTP Welt case in Germany.
I think without piracy they would buy it, because it is friggin GTA they wanna play. You're uncool in school if you don't have and play it.
