Pirating Group to Stop Cracking Some Games to Evaluate Impact on Sales

@Dark_sageX: It's an economic lifecycle that's been repeating without end for as long as commerce has existed. An entity gets so big it no longer works for the customer but instead works for the investors/profit margin/greedy owner/whatever else at which point competition tends to step in and snap up all of their business and the behemoth falls and new companies spring up to feed on the rotting carcass's market share.

This process has recently been stopped from happening at its natural rate thanks to government bailouts, grants and funds doled out for reasons I'll leave to your imagination. Many game companies are simply indirect beneficiaries of this process as their investors should've bowed out but haven't, but some are more directly impacted and the final effects of this aren't readily apparent yet.

Additionally people are being instilled with amazingly powerful brand loyalty, very apparent in the form of fanboyism and nostalgia, that's resulting in them buying stuff even when they know they're going to hate it entirely because it has a name or character in it they once associated with quality or joy.

Essentially as soon as companies stop trying to please the consumers they should nosedive as competition beats them but that process is currently being stopped by outside forces and it's simply going to get worse before it gets better.

@zerofrust: I know. PC pirates are having a hard time after couple of years, I hope.

Steam didn't do a jack shit to piracy. There are so many sites for pc torrents, that it makes me cry.

@wexorian: wow, never seen a list with so many false points. congrats! keep justifying your piracy habits... i'm sure it makes you sleep better at night :D

@wexorian: Also add the fact that pc gaming is more carefree and unified in terms of compatability today and DRM is not ruining your pc the same way starforce and other idiotic root kits did back in the day, and refunds are now a think on pc. So less people are afraid of buying new and get a game that works that they can try out and get their money back if it is like Batman AK.

I pirated alot of games back in the day, especially if they were GFWL, the launchversion of Origin or Starforce. Either to first try out if they worked at all or if the port was okay, if it was I bought the game to support the devs and get the box and manuals etc, but still play the cracked version to not have the rootkits and other idiotic shit on my pc. Most often back then the pirated versions worked better than the original.

Later when steam came and became a good balance of non intrusive drm with a good service (relative) I went all steam, the lack of boxes and manuals bothered me initally though, collecting was a thing for consoles after steam, but it seems the same fate is waiting for consoles.

@wexorian: In India, people encourage the hell out of piracy simply because of the mindset that they can't afford to buy games despite some of them being rich even if the game is solid and I hate that damn mindset.

Sure, there are many that cut content and put ton of DLC in it but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't get paid for it. Think about the devs who actually do it the smart way and not the bad way of it.

"Pirates do not have cash or do not want to buy games, So there is no sale growth either from that point." So why pirate them?

@Adenosine: Pirated versions of games are a hassle, you need to manually update them, hope someone will provide the update and in case something goes wrong you will have to torrent everything all over again, buying games is a MUCH more convenient experience, I can't imagine people willingly CHOOSE piracy over a legit purchase when they can easily afford it especially when it means missing out on multiplayer and updates, taking measures to stop pirates will not increase sales either way, it just won't, honestly dev's basic understanding of marketing is akin to that of a 12 year old, pirates aren't going to start buying games simply because they can't pirate them, this is just pointless time wasted that could have been better used on optimizing the games...

@Adenosine: Actually, that's exactly what's happening. Many companies still to this day are bankrupt and its mostly because of pirates. The idea that Piracy causes the industry to grow is garbage if you ask me. For Something like the Wii U to have piracy is a bad thing because its already not selling well and to ruin the potential sales it could possibly have due to piracy is even worse.

The reason why companies like Nintendo seem to ignore piracy is because they can't afford to sue these groups because many of them can't afford to pay the asking price that Nintendo would demand.

I do agree however that fan-translation is understandable seeing as how those games will never see the light of day being in the west.

@tr4newreck: Back when I was a kid, I used to pirate every single game that I would play, because I obviously had no money. I promised myself that I would buy every single one of those pirated games once I started working, and nowadays I already purchased over 300 games, and since I could enjoy them back then, I'm also buying all their sequels and following their studios for more releases. Hadn't I pirated those games back then, I wouldn't even know the existence of a ton of titles and certainly wouldn't have overcompensated nowadays like I did and am doing.

I know it doesn't justify, and being a developer myself today, I can understand the cringe that it is to see so much hard work gone for free at least at first, developing games is hard, stressful work.

@tr4newreck: it's seem more of fallacy to believe that isn't sales lost because of it.

@hypnotika25: If I can't mod it in non harmful ways I see fit such as replacing the playable character as SCP-049, it makes it less tempting to buy a game on PC, especially since I can't resell these games when I get bored. Modding actually breaths some fresh air into games on PC.

@carlow: I see what you mean but I disagree on some points. First of all, just because it has some positive effects on the gaming industry doesn't mean it is justified. The ends do not justify the means.

Secondly, what gave that person the right to make a copy of my intellectual product? Remember it is my choice what I do with my intellectual property. And in this case, the game developers intention is to make money off a product which is rightly theirs. Otherwise they would give it for free. So whoever obtains their product for free without their explicit permission is doing something immoral because they never intended to give it for free in the first place. Now I know that pirated copies =/= sales lost. But the point still stands that those people who pirated my game never had the right to do so in the first place. Doesn't matter if it doesn't translate to sales, there are some people out there who are playing my game without my consent, that's the main concern.

You can call it stealing, not stealing, whatever you like. It's immoral and that's that.

@Xatsuna: I'm gonna bet you're a Donald Trump supporter?

@Xatsuna:"Chinese Crackers." Sounds like a racist term lol.

@Xatsuna: what this have to do with USA? oops im sorry, i fed the troll