Oddly, that fact has never been proven by means of empirical research.Kharn said:
Starforce, that Reputable Russian Company
- Thread starter Tannhauser
- Start date
Because it isn't interesting at all to research.
Kharn has just proven it logically, which should be good enough. This does not in any way hurt anyone besides the shop-owner, and chances are the shop-owner will order a new copy to re-supply his inventory, which would mean that the publisher would get even more money due to the stealing.
Kharn has just proven it logically, which should be good enough. This does not in any way hurt anyone besides the shop-owner, and chances are the shop-owner will order a new copy to re-supply his inventory, which would mean that the publisher would get even more money due to the stealing.
Ratty said:
No, Ratty, what never has been proven through empirical research is that the existence of piracy overall hurts the gaming industry, because "people who download and then buy" are a factor to be accounted for. If the downloading makes them buy is another factor.
Personally, I don't hold much faith in it, I don't think the majority buy everything they download or even most of what they download.
However, I specifically said someone that downloads and doesn't buy. There is no need for empirical research to prove that that is economically more harmful.
What about people who download because they have low or no income? They wouldn't buy one way or the other, so how exactly do they hurt the industry? After all, a person without money isn't a market and the industry can't lose profits they never had in the first place.Kharn said:
I'm asking because I'm one of those people, as is everyone I know (and I mean *everyone*, no exceptions).
That wasn't what Kharn's proposition was about, his proposition was that downloading and not buying is *worse than* stealing. This has nothing to do with the motivation.Ratty said:
Yes, and I'm too poor to avoid a mansion. That doesn't mean I go about procuring it in at least morally reprehensible ways.Ratty said:
Not having money doesn't suddenly give you the right to own everything for free, that only happens in a socialist state.
No, he said it was worse *from economic standpoint*. I'd like to know how.Sander said:
*bitchslap* Pay attention. Nobody mentioned "right" anywhere. We are talking about financial harm which, according to Kharn, is inflicted whenever someone downloads a game and doesn't buy it. I argue there is no evidence that such harm occurs.
Ratty said:
Then your logic skills are weak.
Someone able to buy a game that downloads it and then doesn't buy it is harming the gaming industry more than someone able to buy a game that steals it from a store, and equally someone not able to buy a game that downloads it and then doesn't buy it is harming the gaming industry more than someone not able to buy it that steals it from a store.
I explained why the above is true. Right doesn't factor into it, nor does the original ability to buy it. Downloading < stealing from a store, economically.
*You* then decided to drag in "but I wouldn't be able to buy it anyway". Then it's still better to steal it from the store, from an economic point of view.
Well, that depends. The store-owner gets hurt, everyone further back in the line may get more profit because the store-owner decides to get a new copy in the case of stealing. The problem Ratty gives is that stealing directly hurts the store-owner, but that downloading a game doesn't directly hurt anyone if you can't possibly buy the game anyway.Kharn said:
Although, as I said, in that case the publishers may be hurt indirectly by being deprived of the income they'd get had it been stolen...but that's doubtful
That's obvious, I don't dispute that.Kharn said:
This I don't get. How is downloading a game that you can't afford more harmful than stealing it from the store? The latter hurts the store and the store alone, but how does the former hurt anyone, exactly? How exactly does the game industry suffer financially when a penniless student or a destitute beneficiary downloads a $50 game? Explain to me the exact chain of events which leads from Xiao the Chinese high school graduate firing up eMule to Electronic Arts employees getting laid off and I solemnly swear I will pay for my next game.
Sander said:
I wasn't including that segment in the logic, on purpose. The question was of 1-on-1 relations between stealing and downloading, not 1-on-1-on-1 relations between stealing, downloading and never being able to buy it.
Regardless, that is irrelevant. "I'm not able to afford it" is never a relevant argument except when it concerns a necessity, which does not include any software.
Ratty's poverty is only relative. If he couldn't just download/pirate it all, he would work and save up and get his one precious game a month through legal means (making the whole thing more meaningfull too, how win-win). The ease with which he steals just makes him lazy, lazy makes it seem there are no other options, which is pure bs.
No, but you did mention that not being able to buy it and downloading is worse than stealing, as evidenced by the following:Kharn said:
Which is the only part of your post I was refuting.Kharn said:
Unless, of course, the "it" was still referring to the original issue of just downloading and not buying, in which case you should be clearer which of the two possibilities you meant.
And I wholeheartedly agree.Kharn said:
That's probably the most sensible argument against downloading. Publishers probably profit more when their products get swiped off the shelves then when they just sit there collecting dust.Sander said:
I'm not so sure. If it were impossible for me to download games, I'd probably drastically cut on the amount of games I play. I simply don't feel confident enough to pay $50 or more for a game that is likely to disappoint me. I'd probably be playing only online games (which I play - and thus pay for - anyway) and perhaps one or two new single-player titles a year if they are *really* spectacular. To put things in perspective, let me just state that nowdays half of the games I pirate I never even touch, and out of those I *do* touch, maybe a quarter manage to hold my attention longer than a day or two.
Wait, you claim you have no money at all to pay for games, yet you pay a monthly fee (I assume) for a game? Something's fishy. VeryRatty said:
fishy.
And I don't really get the 'If I could download games I'd play a lot fewer games.'
You can download now, yet you still play a lot of games. How would it be different if instead you'd be downloading legitimately?
Ratty said:
That would be only what we've been saying this last half page.
Jeeesh.
Ratty said:
That is not perspective. You pirate them, hence you should not be playing them at all. If they only hold your attention for a day or two, why pirate them at all.
As for ifs, the above applies to you specifically, perhaps, but I wouldn't be too sure of it, without a chrystal ball 'n all.
And your money arguing is inconsistent. Greatly so.
Ha! I said "most sensible", not "sensible"!Kharn said:
If a game gets stolen, the vendor is the only one who experiences *direct* damage. However, the profit lost that way has to be compensated somehow. How? Through the vendor's price, which is jacked up to include vendor's expenses... including the losses due to unfortunate yet inevitable events such as theft.
I pose this question to you - in a hypothetical world where every human being strictly adhered to God's 8th commandment and nobody shoplifted, wouldn't software prices be lower and thus sales higher as a result? In short, doesn't less conventional theft = higher sales = higher profits for the industry?
Now, I'm no expert, but this seems to me like a blatant fact. Economy 101.
On the other hand, economists, with all their knowledge of theory and sophisticated research methods, haven't yet been able to prove that software downloading affects sales in any way. After all these years of superfluous theoretizing and pointless bickering, our knowledge of correlation between piracy and software sales amounts to a big pile of nothing. And if suddenly every pirate croaked and every warez site and p2p service in the world gave up the ghost, we don't even know if that would have any effect at all upon game sales. Hell, as far as we know, the sales might even slump.
To see if they will hold my attention for more than a day or two. Duh.
Indeed, I may not be an archetypal pirate. I'm lazier and more spiteful than most people, for example.
I'm a very inconsistent man.
EDIT:
I'm a very fishy man.Sander said:
Seriously, I have no money *of my own*. I'm a lazy student and my Mommy and Daddy still provide for me (well, Mommy more than Daddy, but that's a different story). Let me illustrate what hitting my Mommy up for money looks like:
Scenario 1 - Ratty decides to turn a new leaf and start buying original games:
Ratty: Yo, Mum. I need $60.
Mum: WHAT?! $60? What for?
Ratty: For a really awesome game that just came out.
Mum: $60 for a *game*? No, that's too much. I still haven't paid off that $3000 laptop you broke. Why don't you download it or buy it from a pirate or something?
Ratty: ...
Scenario 2 - Ratty got someone to buy him an MMORPG:
Ratty: Mum, I need $15.
Mum: K.
Did I say that? I meant to say the opposite - i.e. if I couldn't download games, I'd play a lot fewer games.Sander said:
No. Quite simply because every shop everywhere has almost exactly the same prices for games, at most differing about a euro. These shops have a lot of income, and none of them solely from games. A lot of other things get stolen as well. However, the larger the concern, the easier these thefts are to compensate for, and the easier it is to keep prices at their original value. And all the smaller concern have to go along with that as well.Ratty said:
Hell, there's this really cool store around the corner here, the Bullit, that has cds for some 4 euros cheaper than other stores. And that has nothing to do with compensating for theft.
No, we don't. We don't at all. That wasn't the point at all, though, the point was that stealing is actually economically better, this has nothing to do with the correlation between pirating and game sales, because stealing has practically the same effect as pirating.Ratty said:
Reviews, demos, rentals.Ratty said:
It's not just thefts themselves, but also expensive theft prevention. Take everything into account and you can't tell me that game prices wouldn't be at least a euro or two lower if there was no crime (and thus no need to prevent it).Sander said:
Of course, but I'm trying to argue that detrimental effect of stealing upon industry profits exists and can be measured, while detrimental effect of piracy upon industry profits hasn't been proven to exist or measured.
Ignorant bribed asshole reviewers, perfidious developers showcasing the good half an hour of gameplay while the remainder sucks ass, none exist in Croatia (as far as I know, anyway).
Sander said:
I'm surprised by how far those "I download to try them out!"-people seem to ignore rentals.
Hell, if I want to "try out" a CD, I just go to the CD-part of our library and listen to them there. No charge. Or I take them home, though that requires a library pass that costs significantly less than my internet connection.
Of course, but this goes for everything, not just games, and it's a completely unpragmatic answer to a very pragmatic proposition.Ratty said:
It's been attempted about a dozen times, and most of those studies contradict eachother. It's not easily measured at all, mainly because it must rely solely on questionnaires that are almost always either loaded or answered unfaithfully by the people answering them.Ratty said:
Also, the detrimental effect of stealing isn't easily measured either, because you need a comparison to a model where there is no theft, which is non-existant. As I said, theft of games can actually make for a higher income for publishers, because the shop-owners will order new copies to replace the old ones.
Find a decent source for reviews and wait a month or two so you can have reviews from people you know and trust as well. Demos are to be taken at face value: as a showcase, but they are a good way to see in which parts the reviews are lying. Move out of Croatia.Ratty said:
Ratty said:
Stop diverging, Ratty, I mentioned specifically 3 times already that theft is logically worse than piracy without buying.
You keep mentioning piracy overall. Sure, we're not sure about that, though the reasoning behind it being a positive force is pretty far-fetched. If you want to move on to another subject fine, but stop trying to answer to an argument by dragging something in kicking and screaming that has nothing to do with it.