@robbristow @musicallie44 @stev69 @Gbullet While I generally hate the notion of "lost opportunity" that people in any industry tout, I have to disagree that downloading a digital copy is not stealing. It's promotion only UPTO a point, and we even call it that because it's so damn difficult to latch a control on digital downloads, some people are trying to learn to live with it. It doesn't make it right.
It's someone's work. Like musicallie44 said, if someone created it, I oughta pay them to experience it. It ain't a "privilege" or birthright anyone is born with. It's like a concert. I pay to watch the artist perform. Just because it can be recorded and recreated easily, doesn't take away the ARTIST's right to charge for their performance or to protest if somebody simply redistributes the artist's work for free.
I don't know if pirates gain anything in particular through digital redistribution. Maybe ads, I don't know. I do know for a fact that pirating direct physical copies is a big-business in countries with poorer general bandwidth like India,- physical sales comprise the biggest chunk of pirated game or movie sales in these countries, and I cannot imagine the money from those sales goes to charities. Links to terrorist and drug outfits have in fact been recorded (why wouldn't they be? It's easy, steady money) - I just don't have a citable source on-hand to make that claim more confidently.
All the other arguments you make unfortunately are just from a point of comfort and disregard for difficulties developers may actually face. Maybe you genuinely believe in your arguments. But unfortunately a lot of thieves and cheapsters use the kind of arguments you (perhaps legitimately) make to defend their (definitely illegitimate) actions. I cannot abide that.
@tekas0 I agree and partially disagree. Many who pirate don't even realize it is wrong. If it is made more difficult, then at least some percent of them would THINK about what games they REALLY want and actually save up and buy them. Rather than just downloading everything they see willy-nilly.
@racerxgundam Most pirates don't use piracy as a benchmark for judging a game's quality or to check if it runs. That everybody does so is an absolutely naive assumption.
I know that because I've seen dozens of them in real-life. Most don't even realize what they do is wrong. They think that is THE normal way to get games and can't possibly think of an alternative. It's weird and disturbing.
Blaming the industry for what those people do is counterproductive. It's easy to hang behind a largely pointless attack as a weak defence.
Yes, they would have. That would have just reflected Kojima's legacy and his influence on a much wider cross section of gamers.
That said, even Kojima being on the list would have ONLY reflected the massive skew towards Internet/technology personalities an online poll would naturally have.
The sad truth is, gaming is not mass-market media just yet. It would be extremely hard to defend a no.2 position for a gaming icon of any repute, on a GLOBAL power list. Something closer to ninety or hundred would still be acceptable - it would be a meaningful recognition of the RISE of gaming as an influential medium. But there's no way we are near no.2 yet. Not even Kojima, nor Warren Spector, nor anyone from the Nintendo side of the world.
They really went all the way pushing the priority bar for "graphics" to 90% with Crysis. The gameplay was barely there. Good for them, at least they are consistent with their priorities.
Good luck selling any more games though.
The real problem with the statement is, that it was aimed as or was interpreted as a generalization. SOME games with great gameplay like BioShock or Half-Life 2, benefit from having great graphics (for their time). In their case, the visual is a really major part of the experience - it's a huge part of what you remember about it.
If you interpret Mr. Yerli's statement in the context of SUCH games, you could perhaps say "Sure, maybe".
However it's impossible to apply that yardstick to all games. Graphics play a supporting role to gameplay and story telling/exposition. A VERY important supporting role that cannot be wished away or denied. We are, after all, a visual species.
But a game with 100% perfect graphics is not a 60% great game. It cannot work that way. In a movie, the value attached to an action scene is directly proportional to the setup it received. Whether it's the situation or the characters, a good director spends time immersing the audience in the world, to get you CARE for it, before exploding the action in your face.
Spielberg knew that - that's why he was a genius. Michael Bay is not. That is why the first Matrix film was genius. The other two were duds. I can bore you to death with examples.
In games, as in movies or just about any other medium, the immersion comes NOT from the glossiness of the images, but from the believability of the story or concept, sometimes its immediacy and relatibility, and at other times its sheer madness and adorability. Creators who don't get that are doomed to fail. Miserably.
@weetbix23 @tennebrae 5k is enough to keep a steady stream flowing. However buying games is so embarassingly easy these days, I still do think you're right. People either buy what they want or they don't. There are still losers who think pirating is perfectly fine, without realizing they're helping kill creators of the content they like. But in reality they wouldn't be in line to purchase the game if pirating it somehow became impossible - there are enough (free or cheap) forms of entertainment in the world for these people to not bother. Losses from piracy are EXTREMELY exaggerated in an age of one-click purchase.
Is anyone thinking that the reported numbers are "low" and that the difference between European and US sales maybe on account of digital not being reported?......
Why does that happen? Are digital sales so low as to not being worth reporting? Are they easier to hide from the taxman? What the hell is up?
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