Indie Developer Conducts Piracy Poll

[RGE]

... but their discription of the show was so vivid and lifelike that there was no real need for these other people to go and see the show for themselves.

Well, excuse me for wanting to use an analogy with some basis in real life, instead of going with some kind of fancy make-believe stuff that makes it completely pointless to use an analogy in the first place. Let's wait for the singularity before we go around and beam our memories straight into people's brains, eh?

 

[Jeff Graw]

There is no sneaking, or peeking in from trees / windows needed to make a proper reflection on piracy. The more appropriate analogy would be that a 100 people went and saw the show, and after the show they went on to the streets to mingle with a 100 people each about the show they saw, but their description of the show was so vivid and lifelike that there was no real need for these other people to go and see the show for themselves. Even so a percentage went and saw it anyway, and this percentage will always be X, in no way reflecting either positive or negative influence.

FAIL.

 

[St. Toxic]

Well, you can't bloody well expect to have 200 million people sitting in trees watching shows all around the globe, now can you? How real is that life?

Besides, it's an important aspect of the whole piracy thing that the product released on torrent sites is a copy of an initially released and likely purchased product; it's not like we're leeching stuff straight from the developers, is it? I think my pseudo-futuristic analogy did a better job of incorporating that distinction.

FAIL.

You are the personification of FAIL.

 

[Kraszu]

Well, you can't bloody well expect to have 200 million people sitting in trees watching shows all around the globe, now can you? How real is that life.

What if the people would be very small, and tree very big?

 

[Jeff Graw]

FAIL.

You are the personification of FAIL.

Ok, you got me

 

[Xi]

Besides, it's an important aspect of the whole piracy thing that the product released on torrent sites is a copy of an initially released and likely purchased product; it's not like we're leeching stuff straight from the developers, is it? I think my pseudo-futuristic analogy did a better job of incorporating that distinction.

So you must also believe that copying books is ok too then? You're failing to see the distinction between the two when it is the same. If you own the product, as in you've already purchased it, I see no reason not to be able to make backup copies, but to allow people to just outright copy and distribute a book would be wrong no?

It's the same for piracy because a video game is the exact same format as a book. It is a sequence of binary code that when assembled/read in the exact way the developers created it equates to a playable game. You're saying that it is ok to copy this exact sequence and redistribute it freely.

The problem is that your method does not protect the original creator of said product. I'm not familiar with India law, but wouldn't such a lax sort of free distribution system harm the industries who follow the economical creation and distribution of such things?

Hell even a song, or music is a sequence of code that when assembled and played to the right toon creates a specific sound. Shouldn't the original creator of such material be protected from people who want to plagiarize and use such materials as their own? This is why I believe these laws need to exist, otherwise people can attempt to make money selling a copied version of the product you created.

Obviously these different industries operate, distribute, and invest/advertise differently, but they all must be protected in some fashion or you risk losing the economical position in which they gain strength to continue creating new IP in the first place. This is why I believe the concept of piracy fails, it does not protect the original creator of the products being copied(stolen in my mind).

Piracy does not create a revolution that forces developers to try new things or make better products, it forces them out the door, or to different platforms like consoles.(though consoles deal with piracy but on a smaller level) Yet, I'm not saying piracy is the only factor in terms of the demise of PC gaming, but it is one piece of the problem.

Also, I do not believe the PC industry will ever be without piracy, much like theft will never go away, but there are ways to minimize the effects of piracy. There is talk about moving motherboard manufacturing to Physical DRM like on consoles. This won't completely remove piracy, as modders will just mod there PCs for piracy ability, but it will stagnate the amount of casual piracy as most people will not opt for soldering a chip to the motherboard. The industry will continue to move in a direction to protect itself from theft, which piracy is theft in my mind anyway, and eventually we will see less of it.

Currently the end user has too much power of products created by developers, and this is the balance that needs to be restored. 50/50 Altering the fashion in which reviews are conducted would be a better battle than following piracy!

Edit:

It seems like you would prefer zero investment, money wise, into game development and instead move to an indie platform where gamers make games, much simpler games at that, and distribute them freely over P2P. I like the concept of high budget games, much like high budget movies, though there are always a few low budget films/games that are brilliant and ahead of their time, to the lower budget mod quality variety. Again, the Piracy model does not support the investment of large budget, high end games.

Personally I think changing this industry, and making it better, is a battle that would be better fought by just not purchasing games, or playing them, if reviews(word of mouth), etc was more reliable as to stop naively purchasing without researching. The consumer does not get to be a half-wit dolt in this case, like every other aspect of life, they must look before they leap. Hype, bad marketing, etc are not excuses to continue pirating either, they are merely road blocks and things we must fight to work around.

Piracy, and all the arguments for it, are just an excuse to get something for free. Who doesn't want free things, after all?

 

[JarlFrank]

And this reminds me of a song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AawQvD8L_h4

 

[St. Toxic]

Piracy

So you must also believe that copying books is ok too then? You're failing to see the distinction between the two when it is the same. If you own the product, as in you've already purchased it, I see no reason not to be able to make backup copies, but to allow people to just outright copy and distribute a book would be wrong no?

No, it's not wrong. Considering that a big bit of the money I payed for the book covers the publishing expense, another big slice of the pie goes to the company in charge of the publishing, and a nominal slice of the pie goes to the store for providing space for that book and selling it, I can hardly be asked to feel guilty for doing all that work myself for free. What the writer gets is usually a fraction of the total profit (we're talking 1-5%) or an initial static payment that negates any rights to profit from the actual sales (this is not an uncommon contract).

If we're talking situation 1, the spread that I provide for this book will generate a higher average revenue, via spread and reputation, than if I had simply read my purchased copy and shelved it, sometimes casually recommending my friends to pick up a copy and read it for themselves or giving it away, or anything, whathaveyou, legal and 'moraly decent'. Notoriety does have this way of attracting sponsors and supporters, who gladly contribute to your finances out of personal interest or idealistic reasoning.

In situation 2, the author has made all he'll ever make on the book, and whatever I do with the book can only be a bonus to his reputation and finances; never a setback.

It's the same for piracy because a video game is the exact same format as a book. It is a sequence of binary code that when assembled/read in the exact way the developers created it equates to a playable game. You're saying that it is ok to copy this exact sequence and redistribute it freely.

That is correct, I do.

The problem is that your method does not protect the original creator of said product. I'm not familiar with India law, but wouldn't such a lax sort of free distribution system harm the industries who follow the economical creation and distribution of such things?

Piracy harms distribution and manufacturing giants, if that is what you mean't. It will eventually kill the distribution industry as it is today, and force it to adapt to a world where piracy is the norm. But, you have to remember that the 'original creator' is not always the distributor.

In many cases (or even most cases, as it is today), the distributors hinder the development team from perfecting their product or incorporating any potential ideas they have, because it is the primary interest of the distribution companies that the game sells a certain ammount of copies, to cover their initial expense, publishing expenses asf. The result of this is the countless rehash games we've all grown accustomed to over the years, that play it safe and are generic replicas of each other.

As it is currently, most development teams are in the employ of publishing giants, and the games produced are not made with the consumers in mind, but marketting strategies first and foremost. Piracy and free distribution removes the publishing companies to a great extent, making a direct connection between development teams and consumers, showing that the service they provide is obsolete. As we are in the early stages of an acceptance of piracy as the primary means of distribution, the kinks of the system haven't been worked out, as such an endevour takes time (about 150 years for the printing press, if I remember correctly) but unmistakingly we are heading in the right direction in eliminating the current publishing system.

Hell even a song, or music is a sequence of code that when assembled and played to the right toon creates a specific sound. Shouldn't the original creator of such material be protected from people who want to plagiarize and use such materials as their own?

The creator should be protected from publishing companies, who take away the creator's rights to his own material via publishing contracts, and then use his/her intellectual property as if it was their own.

Some bands have already moved on to direct distribution; some even further, distributing their music without directly charging people for it. While it has been said that these attempts have been failures, as 1/3 of the consumers have not donated or payed anything for the product they recieved, the remaining 2/3 of the consumers who have payed are in fact an astonishing success. Considering the miniscule ammount of profits that seep down to the artist in question, via sales of CD's (often less than a $ p. disc) in comparison to donations and direct digital purchases, minus the costs of distribution or the alternative sale of their intellectual property, these releases have been the most successful releases in history. Add also the wider spread of reputation, and you have an increase in revenue at upcoming live performances.

This is why I believe these laws need to exist, otherwise people can attempt to make money selling a copied version of the product you created.

They can! You simply sign a contract saying that you'll get rich if you let the suits do their gig, and WHAM. Distribution of pirated goods for payment, which is quite popular in the East and other places, gets hit equally hard by free distribution, as does the legal but fascist distribution method.

Obviously these different industries operate, distribute, and invest/advertise differently, but they all must be protected in some fashion or you risk losing the economical position in which they gain strength to continue creating new IP in the first place. This is why I believe the concept of piracy fails, it does not protect the original creator of the products being copied(stolen in my mind).

For some reason you keep protecting the leeches that are attached to these creative people, who are only in it to make enormous ammounts of money and care nothing for the finished product except that it sells well enough to meet their demands. The current copyright laws do little to protect these original creators, because they are very small people in a very big market; they are just the workforce. The laws we have now are there to protect the big corporations from small people who want a cut of their profits, and while I consider the old-skool pirated sales to be an illegal and immoral activity, I cannot sympathize with big corporations who are losing profits because of their own inability to adapt to a new market standard. Development teams will always have a place in my heart, but if they are satisfied with being a wheel in the big machine, then, I'm sorry to say, they will have to go down with it when the market evolves.

Piracy does not create a revolution that forces developers to try new things or make better products, it forces them out the door, or to different platforms like consoles.(though consoles deal with piracy but on a smaller level) Yet, I'm not saying piracy is the only factor in terms of the demise of PC gaming, but it is one piece of the problem.

I guess you're talking about a specific developer? Because, looking at the bigger picture, if conservative development houses and big publishing corporations are forced out of the PC market, then logically they create a big gap for new developers to fill (because there will always be profits in the PC market as long as the PC exists) and thus we will eventually be left with developers who aren't hostile to changes in the market climate, who are willing to adapt and try new things, if only to stay afloat.

The demise of PC gaming is not something to be attributed to piracy, even to a percentage. It is to be attributed to the corporate reaction to piracy, which is the natural reaction to a new distribution form which cannot be controlled as easily, and it is, obviously, a temporary state, where companies unable or unwilling to adapt do all they can to ignore the change untill such time that they move on to another market or fall. The idea that absolutely everyone will flee the computer platform, as if it was a sinking ship, never to return to sea again and without ever being replaced, is completely illogical and unfounded, and it shouldn't take a sharp mind to realize that.

Also, I do not believe the PC industry will ever be without piracy, much like theft will never go away, but there are ways to minimize the effects of piracy.

It is, like I have said earlier, a desparate attempt at keeping the market from changing. In the end it will actually serve the pirate cause better than non-action ever could.

It seems like you would prefer zero investment, money wise, into game development and instead move to an indie platform where gamers make games, much simpler games at that, and distribute them freely over P2P.

You are right about the distribution, but there is no rule that says that these games must be simpler, or worse, than the high budget counterpart of today. In fact, I believe these games have the ability to be more complex and of a higher quality than those we have at this time.

I like the concept of high budget games, much like high budget movies, though there are always a few low budget films/games that are brilliant and ahead of their time, to the lower budget mod quality variety. Again, the Piracy model does not support the investment of large budget, high end games.

In fact, there is no clear mode of payment in the piracy model of today. It is up to the user himself to decide. But to say that the current non-existant model does not allow for A, B or C is like pointing out that there were no gunfights during the stone-age; it argues that guns cannot exist because they didn't exist then.

Piracy in itself does not eliminate high budget games or high budget movies, it simply changes the supplier of said budget from publishers to consumers, eliminating the useless middle-man. In its' current state, a developed pirate community could finance a development cycle for a complex game with relative ease, if a team was for hire and the potential product seemed attractive enough. The finished product would then determine wether another product from the same developer was worthy of more or less consideration and support, much like it is done in the corporate world only not counting sales but quality. This model, lacking specifications and clear guidelines, still seems more logical and morally sound than the corporate model.

Personally I think changing this industry, and making it better, is a battle that would be better fought by just not purchasing games, or playing them, if reviews(word of mouth), etc was more reliable as to stop naively purchasing without researching. The consumer does not get to be a half-wit dolt in this case, like every other aspect of life, they must look before they leap. Hype, bad marketing, etc are not excuses to continue pirating either, they are merely road blocks and things we must fight to work around.

This is simply where we differ in opinion (as if our opinions weren't different enough). In not purchasing, one may root out what is bad, and that is about it. Going by reviews, you will simply strengthen the purchasing power of that specific reviewer and his ilk, not necessarily your own. The store purchase of an item has a strong statistical value, and a low commercial benefit for the original developers. Finally, games which you are doubtful to, that may in fact reveal a promising talent in a small fraction of a company of developers, will not be played and supported by as many people.

Piracy, and all the arguments for it, are just an excuse to get something for free. Who doesn't want free things, after all?

That which is given has no value. Nothing is free in this world, even pirated games come at a price. The money simply goes from one particular pocket, to another, and as money talks you let the money talk for you. But, naturally, relatively few people probe the depths of social evolution when downloading some mp3's or a game for nothing but the cost of bandwidth; their statement is made subconsciously, and is no worse than any you and I knowingly make.

 

[Elwro]

Is it morally wrong to think that morals are relative?

It depends :D



Anyway, my motivation for not pirating is that I just want the developers to get money for their work. If they want to get paid, why should I say that they shouldn't? They made the game, it's their decision. It's also their decision whether to release a demo or not.
But my problem with the whole thing is that because of this belief I have never bought a used copy of a game. And I wonder why all those companies suing people who share games on the internet do not prosecute people who sell games on eBay? I'm pretty sure it's against the user license.

 

[Xi]

...

I will keep this simple. I agree with many of your points, but you've still failed to show how piracy will allow for a distribution model that can recoup the development costs for someone who devotes time and energy into a project. Piracy removes the incentive to create things in an economical society. Economics aside, and if it was all just a passion of love, then yes piracy would be great(but it wouldn't be piracy anymore)! This is not how things work though, and you seem to be more idealistic than many of my moral preachings on the subject.

Also, the piracy distribution model gives 100% power to the consumer. The issue with this is that it takes all investment incentive away from the creator. Even if something is good it does not mean it can recoup it's development costs, especially in a distribution system that puts 100% of the control in the hands of the consumer. You seem to think that enough people will keep buying video games, music, and movies if these people get to decide after fully using the product. This is naive and is a slippery slope of a fallacy. You'd just get everyone saying, "Someone else will purchase and support this developer, so I don't have to." Just because a handful of people actually have some type of ethical approach to piracy doesn't mean that the majority would. I would not expect the minority to be able to recoup development costs in this case. Again, your piracy model fails at this, and there is no sign that the industry is moving away from DRM any time soon.

Also like I said before, with large investment projects, where the quality of the project has more potential to be good, the incentive is absolutely gone. The more you invest the higher the risk. This is back assward in terms of how the concept of investment works. I will admit that the current system is failing, hell I haven't bought a new game in ages, but there are still a few gems being produced every now and again. You seem to think that a bunch of modders or open source developers will be able to take the complexity of game design and create titles at the current quality level. Not saying these games are the best, but they do offer a certain quality and of course can only get better. How does indie development make them better than what they are now, and especially when indie developers already struggle to recoup costs?

Anyway, your argument for a revolution in distribution is ridiculous because it does not protect the original creator, at all.

This is the concept of the piracy model in a nutshell:

Invest X amount of dollars to create something. Then set the created product on the side of the road with a for sale sign but absolutely no employees to keep an eye on things. Use a tub to collect money, but let the customers decide if they want to pay for the product or take it for free. Then add zero consequence for the people who take the product for free.

Pretty naive to think this will work. In fact, it's not idealistic it's a romantic idea because it will never work.

 

[Trash]

Society made me do this.

I will keep this simple.

Perhaps, but short? Oh no, you sure as hell didn't.

 

[Xi]

Re: Society made me do this.

I will keep this simple.

Perhaps, but short? Oh no, you sure as hell didn't.

Haha, I was going to, but got carried away.

He just seems to think that if we could walk into a store, and eat anything we wanted and then decide to support the specific cooks we liked with a sale(or not), that sales and quality would increase. This is a ridiculous notion to begin with and I don't think it has ever been implemented successfully or even tried before. The flaws are too obvious and the concept is extremely romantic at best.

Does he know what the concept of a free loader is? lol

Romanticism:

Our modern sense of a romantic character is sometimes based on Byronic or Romantic ideals. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval, in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar and distant in modes more authentic than chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.

I agree that the system needs to change, but I completely disagree that the romantic notion of piracy is going to be remotely effective at all.

 

[Xi]

The actual difference is the break-in, not the data stolen. Breaking into private database servers is much what it sounds like and common law is applicable to such endevours. Numerous pieces of computer identification leave a trace of themselves in communication packets with target servers, allowing authorities to trace them back to the hacker with relative ease, if he has been sloppy.

I had to respond to this too! But hackers aren't physically there so they aren't actually breaking in right? Kind of sounds like your lame piracy hypocrisy! In fact, it's almost exactly the same idea.

"Hacking should be legal because it will revolutionize the security industry! Viva la Hackers!" yay Yay yay yay, this is the same piracy analogy applied to something else almost perfectly. Love it or hate it, it's what you sound like!

 

[Kraszu]

Xi against all odds it is working now, piracy is not some dreamed idea, but common access to piracy is a reality. Crysis sold 1.5mln copies, to run that game you need good gaming PC, most "hardcore" people knows about piracy, they brought it despite of it.

DRM does not work so it is irrelevant. Only exception are online games, you can control your servers, you can't control what people do on they PC. If people pay billions to charity why they could not support people that create video games? I think that it is mostly a matter of awareness and what peaple are used to, lets look at indie games, how many people that buy them is not aware of piracy? Setting price for is in practice is just doing it the way that people are used to it, that is the only difference between it, and just putting torrent and possibility to donate. (I think that it is probably best for indie developers to do it that way, but only becouse of what people are used to, and law fetish of some - that is matter of culture, as well donating creators could be part of the culture)

It is hard to judge on how much better online games are doing. We have Flagship that go busto recently. Guild wars series is doing good:
http://www.guildwars.com/events/press/r ... -02-26.php
Published by NCsoft and developed by ArenaNet, the Guild Wars franchise consists of the original Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions®, Guild Wars Nightfall®, and the recently released expansion, Guild Wars: Eye of the NorthTM. The Guild Wars games have been commercial and critical successes since the release of the original campaign in April of 2005

5mln since 2005 for those 4, 3 are stand alone expansions, that is not really ground shaking compared to how SP rpg are selling.

 

[Xi]

Guild Wars sells more copies because you cannot pirate it. Go figure? Huh? Guildwars outsold Oblivion(PC and console combined) it is ground breaking. You act like removing piracy can't bring about good change too.

Do you think wow would have less user accounts if you could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee? Fuck yes it would, stop being naive.

Edit:

Fuck I just realized the show stopper of the Pirate argument. If piracy was going to revolutionize the "Industry" it would have already happened because nothing is stopping the piracy model from working as things are currently. So why aren't we seeing any spectacular games with a support pay based method? Yes maybe there are a very small few, but basically gaming would just be dead! We're in the piracy model now, and nothing is getting better. In fact, we've been in the piracy model for over 10 years and we've yet to see anything great come out of it. What gives?

The piracy model can work alongside the traditional publisher model because nothing is stopping people from creating great games and giving them out for free but allowing them to give donations if wanted. Pathetic!

 

[Kraszu]

Guild Wars sells more copies because you cannot pirate it. Go figure? Huh? Guildwars outsold Oblivion(PC and console combined) it is ground breaking.

5mln of those 4 titles, not one. 5mln of the hole franchise sold since 2005.

You act like removing piracy can't bring about good change too.

I act foremost like it can't be removed, at least whithout moving to more totalitarian system.

Do you think wow would have less user accounts if you could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee? Fuck yes it would, stop being naive.

I didn't said that it would not have less on other hand removing distribution cost would profit allot of most games, those that I care about actually I am not interested in mmorpg. Mmorpg are a phenomena of they own (WoW in itself), just like the sims, if the sims would be online you would write about them in every post so I wary in using examples that can;t be compared. Most mmorpg are not more popular then SP rpg.

 

[Kraszu]

Fuck I just realized the show stopper of the Pirate argument. If piracy was going to revolutionize the "Industry" it would have already happened because nothing is stopping the piracy model from working as things are currently. So why aren't we seeing any spectacular games with a support pay based method? Yes maybe there are a very small few, but basically gaming would just be dead! We're in the piracy model now, and nothing is getting better. In fact, we've been in the piracy model for over 10 years and we've yet to see anything great come out of it. What gives?

No, now we have mishmash that isn't good. Gaming would not be dead as there would be place made for new model, when developers would no longer work for publishers. They would not have problem whit coverage in press then also. Mentality also takes time to adopt, 10 years is not much time at all. Indie games are just beginning to be made now.

 

[Xi]

No, now we have mishmash that isn't good. Gaming would not be dead as there would be place made for new model, when developers would no longer work for publishers. They would not have problem whit coverage in press then also. Mentality also takes time to adopt, 10 years is not much time at all. Indie games are just beginning to be made now.

Well I'm glad you're fighting for gamers in the next Century, that makes total sense. You'll be dead and gone, bu they will reap the benefits. Good thinking. If piracy was going to make things better it would have already started to do so, nothing is stopping it, and it hasn't. End of discussion.

 

[Kraszu]

Hah I am not fighting for anything. My actions now are buying the games from developers that I care about. Now indie games are starting to be made so we have to wait and if that will get as anywhere.

 

[St. Toxic]

I will keep this simple. I agree with many of your points, but you've still failed to show how piracy will allow for a distribution model that can recoup the development costs for someone who devotes time and energy into a project.

It is not something I have attempted, because presenting a concrete idea now, with how things are at this very moment, anything I would say would be unrealistic. There are brighter minds out there than I, and if they managed to use the television to make money, despite the criticism it got in the beginning, and managed to use the vcr to make money, again despite initial criticism, and managed to use the computer platform to make money, despite the criticism it recieved for unrestricted copying of data, someone will certainly figure out a way of using bittorent and pirated releases in a way that will allow for economical growth and market stability.

Piracy removes the incentive to create things in an economical society. Economics aside, and if it was all just a passion of love, then yes piracy would be great(but it wouldn't be piracy anymore)! This is not how things work though, and you seem to be more idealistic than many of my moral preachings on the subject.

I probably sound idealistic because I'm saying that there is more to it than just swagging free stuff from a website; there are several layers to piracy, and these are never regularly presented in an argument, and some of them do not apply to what we currently have -- an old system struggling with a new system. To say that there will eventually be stability is not only an obvious statement to make, but it is at the same time an idealistic statement, simply because, while it has always been like this for as long as we have recorded our history, good conquering evil cannot be reasonably guaranteed. I'm not going to try dodging bullets through the whole post, I'll eventually present some sort of example of an economic model as I invision it. Just go along with me for now.

Also, the piracy distribution model gives 100% power to the consumer. The issue with this is that it takes all investment incentive away from the creator.

Not really. It is only in the old system that there is an actual boundry between consumer and creator, investor and profiteer; the system that pirates are pushing for fuses all these concepts into one, and as such there is no distinction. A creator can invest a sum into his creation, alongside of consumers and pure investors in an open market not constricted by corporate rule. The only uncertainty, but this has always been the case, is getting back the exact ammount or more of what you have invested into the project.

Even if something is good it does not mean it can recoup it's development costs, especially in a distribution system that puts 100% of the control in the hands of the consumer.

Considering that we've seen some extremely talented development houses fall like dominoes over the years, under the current corporate rule, it's far too apparent that our current distribution system can make no such promises either. We've often surmised, their fall came due to bad advices made by the marketting departement, and quick 'cash-cow' projects to reclaim lost profits from such lackluster projects and then we see the pattern forming; a downward spiral. This, at least, would be impossible in a system where financing was in the hands of the consumers, because consumers would never request a lackluster game to make up for lost investments; they would simply stop investing if they considered that the company had nothing more to offer.

You seem to think that enough people will keep buying video games, music, and movies if these people get to decide after fully using the product. This is naive and is a slippery slope of a fallacy.

I believe that if there was a possibility to back Troika in making that post apoc game they raved about before falling apart, a big enough number of people would put money in towards the project, to attract the attention of bigger investors and put the game in to development. If the end result was decently priced, and distributed over a free system, meaning that it would cost Troika nothing to distribute it, not forcing it into any unreasonable deadline (this could be agreed upon at the start of budget gathering) they could stand to make millions in cash with only 1-2$ down p. distributed copy.

We might be talking about 7 million downloads as a low estimate, with 1/3 paying on the spot, 1/3 paying after playing and 1/3 paying simply by sharing (bandwidth costs too y'know). So, an enforced sharing system like that of eMule on the torrent client, for those who do not wish to pay a nickle for their game, would in fact pay for the games distribution, and saying that half of these 'no-longer-freeloaders' liked the game, means they might make a generous/not so genorous donation at the end 50/50. 10-15$ million would be a low, I'm talking watermark low, estimate. Now remove a good 50-60% if there were bulk investors (which isn't necessarily the case), and we have a decent sum left for the developers.

Obviously, I'm basing these estimates on actual pirate downloads of current popular games, so I might be off to either side, but as an average I'd say this would work. I'm also rounding numbers off to a very low, low end, so in fact the figures might be alot more positive than what is shown here.

You'd just get everyone saying, "Someone else will purchase and support this developer, so I don't have to."

That is the current trend in piracy, simply because all major titles come from major corporations who have big vaults that won't be depleted for a long while (at least, that would be the general assumption; god only knows there have been surprises before). If you were the one backing the company from the get-go, you would have a personal stake in it's success, and everyone around you would be affected as well.

To enjoy a game, knowing that your support can actually mean life & death of the company that made it, and either the continuation or end of similar products, will have an impact on a greater majority of people than you or I would be able to estimate at this time, simply because that has never been the case; it has never been our personal decision to leave a company in the dry or water it with the substance of life, and this is not something we can estimate within reason.

The idea that development houses have 'fallen' because no one bought their games is slightly twisted, as it is in fact publishers and investors that have pulled in a debt from the company when the cash return failed to reach the estimate, and in so doing bankrupted the company. On a private market investments have little to no insurance on return, and while it is a risk it is a risk that can pay off, which is why people take it. So, in the revised game market under this new distribution policy, all investments would be final just like in the private market, and the return would be in the percentage of total revenue; so a hands down investment of 300 000 in a budget of 600 000 would yield no more than 50 percent, even if the revenue was a meagre 500 000. It would certainly make it a bit harder for investors to trust that specific company, but that's just the way things are, and the developers would get to keep 50 % of the initial budget, which is hardly standard procedure for big game projects.

Just because a handful of people actually have some type of ethical approach to piracy doesn't mean that the majority would. I would not expect the minority to be able to recoup development costs in this case. Again, your piracy model fails at this, and there is no sign that the industry is moving away from DRM any time soon.

Saying that it is a handful of people is slightly misrepresenting, but as we have no actual figures I can do nothing but allow it. Even so, you have to remember that any "ethical" approach to piracy, would, in our current situation mean, cooperation with the system which these/we "ethical" people find obsolete, as no other system has so far been as firmly established. It does nothing but misrepresent our intentions to support it, and it costs us more money than it should to do so, and as such it would be no surprise to me if the figure of "ethical" pirates was a minority at 1/3 or even 1/5 in a worst case scenario. This is of course at this time, with no rewards for being a honest and legal consumer.

As for DRM, there's not much for me to say about it. Apparently it does near to nothing, and so bringing it up is something of a mystery. Something that simply costs money and has no actual use or purpoise can't logically stay around for too long a time. When the profits of distribution companies start to decrease, and cuts become necessary to maintain the facade, it will be thrown out together with other useless artifacts of the past.

Also like I said before, with large investment projects, where the quality of the project has more potential to be good, the incentive is absolutely gone. The more you invest the higher the risk.

But if you think about it it's actually a self-regulating system. The higher the public investment = the higher the public interest in the project = the higher potential bulk investment made = the bigger ammount of consumers = the greater potential revenue.

No system today can provide more than "potential" or "estimated" revenue, and the failsafe for the investors is to pull money out of the company, which is not particularly fair, so to argue that a system based around free distribution wouldn't work because there are no guarantees for investors, that the risks are too high and profit margins too low, and that high budget games wouldn't work because there would be no player interest, is pretty much going against basic math; in fact, it's almost like saying that the current system can't work, or even that marketting has no place outside of fiction.

This is back assward in terms of how the concept of investment works. I will admit that the current system is failing, hell I haven't bought a new game in ages, but there are still a few gems being produced every now and again.

The current investment system is "back assward" enough apparently, because you're (and not alone, some marketting geniouses haven't figured this one out yet) expecting it to deliver a proportional cut on increased investment, and guarantees that there will be no drawbacks, which is completely unrealistic. Smart companies generally know this, and they in fact count on it; I'm thinking you're just a bit confused not to pick up on it.

There is a top to the investment / return curve, and it is below the budget of the current "blockbuster" movies, simply because pumping an extra 200 million dollars into a movie does not mean more people will see it or that the revenues will somehow go up or that you can up the price to guarantee a return on your investment.

Now, the way they figure out what the top investment for a specific movie is, is they call up a number of graph companies (those faggots who bother you on the net or call you up in the middle of the night and ask strange questions or gather stats from tv-ratings) to get the feel for what the market in general wants out of entertainment (getting your hands on this 'free statistical information' actually costs a shitload of money compared to the value of the information), and then they make a prediction of how this graph will look 2 years from now and then they have the roughest of estimates of how many people will go and see Die Hard 5 in the year 2011.

These stats are always off, simply because they always point upwards due to a loophole wherein the entertainment industry forces growth upon itself by relying on statistics generated mostly by the entertainment industry in the first placed, and by the time they actually get to the statistical pit of dismay, which is what we're really heading for, the entertainment industry as we know it will have collapsed upon itself by making the most expensive turd in the history of man without even the most remote ability to cover it's expenses.

Now, maybe someone figured this one out, because some recent successful movies have had a tighter budget, but even so it's painfully stupid to rely on misrepresenting stats for investments, which always goes above the mark for what is needed to maximize profits, when this particular market could in fact rely on direct investments from consumers which would then give a perfect representation of the interest and allow for optimal investment opportunities.

You seem to think that a bunch of modders or open source developers will be able to take the complexity of game design and create titles at the current quality level. Not saying these games are the best, but they do offer a certain quality and of course can only get better. How does indie development make them better than what they are now, and especially when indie developers already struggle to recoup costs?

Again, what we have is a failed attempt from you to bridge a potential future system for distribution and marketting to a current, canonized system which is becoming obsolete. Obviously having both systems in place won't work. Does that answer your question?

Anyway, your argument for a revolution in distribution is ridiculous because it does not protect the original creator, at all.

Compared to having a big company owning the rights to something one of their more prominent developers did, and then buttfucking the intellectual property to grab some more greens? I don't know, I mean, having a big group of investors that aren't actually in it for the money, but care about the product because it is financed with their money and made for them as consumers, may actually protect the original creators from interfearing hands better than the corporate model.

I haven't adressed issues such as plagiarism, simply because I have this nagging suspicion that I don't have to, and that it'll solve itself. If two or more companies want to gather investors for a project that involves the exact, same intellectual property, it would hardly benefit anyone in the end. Either one group of developers get's the broadest support in the matter and the others simply fuck off, which is something they would have seen coming miles away, or the developers realize pool their resources and work together, thus allowing the project to have a bigger scope. Also, before you ask, I think it is fair that ideas become a shared commodity, above or beyond the law of man; people who "dream up" the "best game of all times" and have no actual ability of materializing their ideas, beyond flaunting them in public, have no business monopolizing such concepts -- that would be unfair.

Maybe you believe that having legislated ownership over an idea or concept (such as a 50's retro future post apoc setting, for instance) is the way it should be, the only way it would work. I personally think it's impossible to own an idea, apart from personal interpretation of a concept which is something you may never be able to get across to another person however hard you try; but a basic premise is not something anyone can own. As soon as it is made public, in any way or form, it belongs to everyone.

This is the concept of the piracy model in a nutshell:

Invest X amount of dollars to create something. Then set the created product on the side of the road with a for sale sign but absolutely no employees to keep an eye on things. Use a tub to collect money, but let the customers decide if they want to pay for the product or take it for free. Then add zero consequence for the people who take the product for free.

Pretty naive to think this will work. In fact, it's not idealistic it's a romantic idea because it will never work.

A potential product is presented, and initial investments are made by parties interested in the product. Investors with interest in making money (bulk investors) do their math of return potential, and invest in the product appropriately. A completed product is released publically through a free system of distribution. The initial investors, who are in effect consumers responsible for the product, support their decision and the developers they have hired by putting down a small payment upon download; any consumers interested in doing so on download are naturally also allowed to do so.

"Freeloaders" are allowed to partake of the product, by a system of forced seeding that makes up for their lack of paying, and generally moves their role from pure consumers to distributors. Upon reviewing the product in question, a percentage of these "freeloaders" donate a fee they themselves deem reasonable for the quality of the product recieved.

The bulk investors remove the percentage that applies to the initial investment made by them, the rest of the money belongs to the developers. A quality product = a higher consumer interest = a higher end revenue = a higher probability of interest in upcoming projects = theoretically a higher quality product.

It is possible that such a system would work as is, but I am, as I initially said, not the brightest mind or the sharpest tool; there may be far better alternatives resonating from the same initial ideas, created by people with a better grasp of the inner workings of a marketting system than those I have. It is also possible that all this system needs is a more fleshed out core, or the incorporation of some specific laws, but, again, there is no certainty of this since it has not been applicable so far.

Out of honesty, I emplore that you neither jump to the conclusion that a free distribution system is an invalid theorem, or that it is applicable as is, on the basis of having read my contribution to the subject. I've simply thrown it out there as a testament to my conviction that a system based on the premise is not only possible, but an advancement over the current system, and an upcoming reality. Remember: it is, in fact, by far easier to pick away at established doctrines, than invent your own ones.

I had to respond to this too! But hackers aren't physically there so they aren't actually breaking in right?

I imagined that someone would pick up on that, and almost thought of including an explanation to why I wrote that right next to the statement itself. As I have already compared piracy to physically copying a book / recieving copies from someone who does so, without having any moral qualms, due to the fact that the "victims" in this particular case aren't actually victims but businesses that become obsolete through the act of copying, the comparison to intrusion is completely removed.

In fact, I have always steered even the various analogies that you (not you personally) have come up with in this thread, away from intrusion or break-in's, simply because there is no such attribute to piracy. Some 2-5% of game releases in the pirate community is leaked data of unfinished games, but it is not acquired by breaking in to servers; in most cases it is attributed to the sloppyness of developers with their promotional copies.

I think the comparison to hacking and "lack of physical bodies" asf, is more easily attributed to the other defendants of piracy, who simply rely on saying that piracy is not theft, because it is digital. This has never been a major part of my arguments, and thus no such comparison can be drawn.

Do you think wow would have less user accounts if you could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee? Fuck yes it would, stop being naive.

You always could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee, basically since the release. One could perhaps entertain the notion that fans of the Warcraft universe who were uncertain wether they would enjoy it as an mmo, first started on an emulated server to experience the prolonged effects of the gameplay mechanics, before venturing into the addiction of official blizzard servers, and that this is an attribute to WoW's popularity, much like private servers were an attribute to UO's popularity. As we have no figures to prove nor deny such a feat, it is again an open debate.

Fuck I just realized the show stopper of the Pirate argument. If piracy was going to revolutionize the "Industry" it would have already happened because nothing is stopping the piracy model from working as things are currently.

That is to say that both systems in place, in a constant competition with each other, is the system that pirates were aiming to achieve, and that this is the final stop for piracy and the end of the line. Somehow I believe it is a gradual process of constant change, rather than definitive stagnation, simply because there is no end to refinement in a universe that makes any bit of sense.

The piracy model can work alongside the traditional publisher model because nothing is stopping people from creating great games and giving them out for free but allowing them to give donations if wanted. Pathetic!

Except that if you one day found out that the secret to living another extra 20 years above average, was not wearing any pants in public, you'd wait for it to become common practice before doing so. Normality is established by a fall-in behavour where the majority decides what, in fact, is normal. To make changes to an established model, and to try something new, you'd either be working against the norm, and failing 9 times out of 10, or waiting for the current to switch in your direction.

As I have previously said, music has taken the leap to free releases and pay-what-you-will funding, and has been reported as a failure by mainstream media, while the bands themselves reported quite the opposite. It remains to be seen which opinion becomes the norm and prevails, but so far I think the media is pulling at the longer straw.

 

[Mefi]

Fuck epic posts on the morality of the capitalist consumer model and how the internet is going to promote a more socialistic and liberal approach to the sharing of intellectual property.

Intellectual property copyright laws are bullshit. To claim the right over an abstraction of thought is capitalism to the most ludicrous degree. What's next claiming IP on the human genome? Oh shit.. they've done some genes already haven't they?

Piracy as a concept in IP law is double bullshit. One cannot steal information unless one physically removes an object which contains that information. Information is free. It's what makes human interaction possible.

And developers claiming that they are losing money due to piracy are talking triple bullshit. Not one sale has been lost due to piracy. Not one. Because people who pirate either can't or don't want to spend the money to buy the game in the first place - so it really isn't a lost sale. If a developer or producer is noticing that their particular product is being pirated to a large extent it means there is something fundamentally flawed with their product - whether in pricing or whether in content/reliability.

If people who work with information do not understand these concepts, or hate the idea, then really they are in the wrong line of work. Perhaps that's why games are so generally uninteresting now? People do it not as an artistic expression but as a way to grind out the dollar? Thank goodness IP hadn't been thought up by Turing or we'd all be fucked.

 

[Xi]

I think I will just say touche to everyone on the piracy bandwagon. I'm tired of going over every little detail about why these things are important. I've tried from many different angles and I think it's best to just say we all agree to disagree.

My final thought on this is that Piracy will do nothing to positively affect the industry, it will instead cause the industry to dwindle even more than it already has. That's my belief on the matter based on the information I have come to understand. There are many holes in every analogy, and on both sides of the fence, but the one with the least amount of holes will prevail. I just don't see that being a piracy distribution model. It's too easily corruptible, and it follows the statement that power tends to corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Piracy is absolute power in this case. This is where I believe the piracy model begins and ends, and it is also why the current system struggles. All that is needed is refinement, not free distribution of products. Refinement of the current system is much more likely than a system that functions on donations.

A donation system is partially a paradox anyway, because there is no money to create the games in the first place, just an idea that consumer investors must decide whether they will fund or not.(Without playing the game to begin with) Also, it relies on small donations by lots of people which is again even more unlikely. So the games must appear out of thin air for the consumer to be able to judge them worthy of a donation, otherwise it's just blindly investing in something that could become vapor ware or that you may not like in the first place. Where does the investment come from, and why shouldn't a publisher who invests money into a development studio, paying them to do their bidding, not own the final product? It's ridiculous to me, even if I dislike the current publisher model because publishers are funding everything, they are the ones taking the risks. It's easy for us to tout the piracy claim in the faces of organizations at risk of losing millions.

Anyway, feel free to respond, but I will leave it here unless something more interesting comes up.

 

[Kraszu]

You can donate beta game that already as substance like Dwarf Fortress, or game like mount & blade. I would not donate money to something that is supposed to happen. You can donate money to somebody that already had made game, and prove that he can do it. Personally I don't see much of a practical difference between set price and donation system, so I don't care on what will be used.

 

[aron searle]

I will keep this simple. I agree with many of your points, but you've still failed to show how piracy will allow for a distribution model that can recoup the development costs for someone who devotes time and energy into a project.

It is not something I have attempted, because presenting a concrete idea now, with how things are at this very moment, anything I would say would be unrealistic. There are brighter minds out there than I, and if they managed to use the television to make money, despite the criticism it got in the beginning, and managed to use the vcr to make money, again despite initial criticism, and managed to use the computer platform to make money, despite the criticism it recieved for unrestricted copying of data, someone will certainly figure out a way of using bittorent and pirated releases in a way that will allow for economical growth and market stability.

Piracy removes the incentive to create things in an economical society. Economics aside, and if it was all just a passion of love, then yes piracy would be great(but it wouldn't be piracy anymore)! This is not how things work though, and you seem to be more idealistic than many of my moral preachings on the subject.

I probably sound idealistic because I'm saying that there is more to it than just swagging free stuff from a website; there are several layers to piracy, and these are never regularly presented in an argument, and some of them do not apply to what we currently have -- an old system struggling with a new system. To say that there will eventually be stability is not only an obvious statement to make, but it is at the same time an idealistic statement, simply because, while it has always been like this for as long as we have recorded our history, good conquering evil cannot be reasonably guaranteed. I'm not going to try dodging bullets through the whole post, I'll eventually present some sort of example of an economic model as I invision it. Just go along with me for now.

Also, the piracy distribution model gives 100% power to the consumer. The issue with this is that it takes all investment incentive away from the creator.

Not really. It is only in the old system that there is an actual boundry between consumer and creator, investor and profiteer; the system that pirates are pushing for fuses all these concepts into one, and as such there is no distinction. A creator can invest a sum into his creation, alongside of consumers and pure investors in an open market not constricted by corporate rule. The only uncertainty, but this has always been the case, is getting back the exact ammount or more of what you have invested into the project.

Even if something is good it does not mean it can recoup it's development costs, especially in a distribution system that puts 100% of the control in the hands of the consumer.

Considering that we've seen some extremely talented development houses fall like dominoes over the years, under the current corporate rule, it's far too apparent that our current distribution system can make no such promises either. We've often surmised, their fall came due to bad advices made by the marketting departement, and quick 'cash-cow' projects to reclaim lost profits from such lackluster projects and then we see the pattern forming; a downward spiral. This, at least, would be impossible in a system where financing was in the hands of the consumers, because consumers would never request a lackluster game to make up for lost investments; they would simply stop investing if they considered that the company had nothing more to offer.

You seem to think that enough people will keep buying video games, music, and movies if these people get to decide after fully using the product. This is naive and is a slippery slope of a fallacy.

I believe that if there was a possibility to back Troika in making that post apoc game they raved about before falling apart, a big enough number of people would put money in towards the project, to attract the attention of bigger investors and put the game in to development. If the end result was decently priced, and distributed over a free system, meaning that it would cost Troika nothing to distribute it, not forcing it into any unreasonable deadline (this could be agreed upon at the start of budget gathering) they could stand to make millions in cash with only 1-2$ down p. distributed copy.

We might be talking about 7 million downloads as a low estimate, with 1/3 paying on the spot, 1/3 paying after playing and 1/3 paying simply by sharing (bandwidth costs too y'know). So, an enforced sharing system like that of eMule on the torrent client, for those who do not wish to pay a nickle for their game, would in fact pay for the games distribution, and saying that half of these 'no-longer-freeloaders' liked the game, means they might make a generous/not so genorous donation at the end 50/50. 10-15$ million would be a low, I'm talking watermark low, estimate. Now remove a good 50-60% if there were bulk investors (which isn't necessarily the case), and we have a decent sum left for the developers.

Obviously, I'm basing these estimates on actual pirate downloads of current popular games, so I might be off to either side, but as an average I'd say this would work. I'm also rounding numbers off to a very low, low end, so in fact the figures might be alot more positive than what is shown here.

You'd just get everyone saying, "Someone else will purchase and support this developer, so I don't have to."

That is the current trend in piracy, simply because all major titles come from major corporations who have big vaults that won't be depleted for a long while (at least, that would be the general assumption; god only knows there have been surprises before). If you were the one backing the company from the get-go, you would have a personal stake in it's success, and everyone around you would be affected as well.

To enjoy a game, knowing that your support can actually mean life & death of the company that made it, and either the continuation or end of similar products, will have an impact on a greater majority of people than you or I would be able to estimate at this time, simply because that has never been the case; it has never been our personal decision to leave a company in the dry or water it with the substance of life, and this is not something we can estimate within reason.

The idea that development houses have 'fallen' because no one bought their games is slightly twisted, as it is in fact publishers and investors that have pulled in a debt from the company when the cash return failed to reach the estimate, and in so doing bankrupted the company. On a private market investments have little to no insurance on return, and while it is a risk it is a risk that can pay off, which is why people take it. So, in the revised game market under this new distribution policy, all investments would be final just like in the private market, and the return would be in the percentage of total revenue; so a hands down investment of 300 000 in a budget of 600 000 would yield no more than 50 percent, even if the revenue was a meagre 500 000. It would certainly make it a bit harder for investors to trust that specific company, but that's just the way things are, and the developers would get to keep 50 % of the initial budget, which is hardly standard procedure for big game projects.

Just because a handful of people actually have some type of ethical approach to piracy doesn't mean that the majority would. I would not expect the minority to be able to recoup development costs in this case. Again, your piracy model fails at this, and there is no sign that the industry is moving away from DRM any time soon.

Saying that it is a handful of people is slightly misrepresenting, but as we have no actual figures I can do nothing but allow it. Even so, you have to remember that any "ethical" approach to piracy, would, in our current situation mean, cooperation with the system which these/we "ethical" people find obsolete, as no other system has so far been as firmly established. It does nothing but misrepresent our intentions to support it, and it costs us more money than it should to do so, and as such it would be no surprise to me if the figure of "ethical" pirates was a minority at 1/3 or even 1/5 in a worst case scenario. This is of course at this time, with no rewards for being a honest and legal consumer.

As for DRM, there's not much for me to say about it. Apparently it does near to nothing, and so bringing it up is something of a mystery. Something that simply costs money and has no actual use or purpoise can't logically stay around for too long a time. When the profits of distribution companies start to decrease, and cuts become necessary to maintain the facade, it will be thrown out together with other useless artifacts of the past.

Also like I said before, with large investment projects, where the quality of the project has more potential to be good, the incentive is absolutely gone. The more you invest the higher the risk.

But if you think about it it's actually a self-regulating system. The higher the public investment = the higher the public interest in the project = the higher potential bulk investment made = the bigger ammount of consumers = the greater potential revenue.

No system today can provide more than "potential" or "estimated" revenue, and the failsafe for the investors is to pull money out of the company, which is not particularly fair, so to argue that a system based around free distribution wouldn't work because there are no guarantees for investors, that the risks are too high and profit margins too low, and that high budget games wouldn't work because there would be no player interest, is pretty much going against basic math; in fact, it's almost like saying that the current system can't work, or even that marketting has no place outside of fiction.

This is back assward in terms of how the concept of investment works. I will admit that the current system is failing, hell I haven't bought a new game in ages, but there are still a few gems being produced every now and again.

The current investment system is "back assward" enough apparently, because you're (and not alone, some marketting geniouses haven't figured this one out yet) expecting it to deliver a proportional cut on increased investment, and guarantees that there will be no drawbacks, which is completely unrealistic. Smart companies generally know this, and they in fact count on it; I'm thinking you're just a bit confused not to pick up on it.

There is a top to the investment / return curve, and it is below the budget of the current "blockbuster" movies, simply because pumping an extra 200 million dollars into a movie does not mean more people will see it or that the revenues will somehow go up or that you can up the price to guarantee a return on your investment.

Now, the way they figure out what the top investment for a specific movie is, is they call up a number of graph companies (those faggots who bother you on the net or call you up in the middle of the night and ask strange questions or gather stats from tv-ratings) to get the feel for what the market in general wants out of entertainment (getting your hands on this 'free statistical information' actually costs a shitload of money compared to the value of the information), and then they make a prediction of how this graph will look 2 years from now and then they have the roughest of estimates of how many people will go and see Die Hard 5 in the year 2011.

These stats are always off, simply because they always point upwards due to a loophole wherein the entertainment industry forces growth upon itself by relying on statistics generated mostly by the entertainment industry in the first placed, and by the time they actually get to the statistical pit of dismay, which is what we're really heading for, the entertainment industry as we know it will have collapsed upon itself by making the most expensive turd in the history of man without even the most remote ability to cover it's expenses.

Now, maybe someone figured this one out, because some recent successful movies have had a tighter budget, but even so it's painfully stupid to rely on misrepresenting stats for investments, which always goes above the mark for what is needed to maximize profits, when this particular market could in fact rely on direct investments from consumers which would then give a perfect representation of the interest and allow for optimal investment opportunities.

You seem to think that a bunch of modders or open source developers will be able to take the complexity of game design and create titles at the current quality level. Not saying these games are the best, but they do offer a certain quality and of course can only get better. How does indie development make them better than what they are now, and especially when indie developers already struggle to recoup costs?

Again, what we have is a failed attempt from you to bridge a potential future system for distribution and marketting to a current, canonized system which is becoming obsolete. Obviously having both systems in place won't work. Does that answer your question?

Anyway, your argument for a revolution in distribution is ridiculous because it does not protect the original creator, at all.

Compared to having a big company owning the rights to something one of their more prominent developers did, and then buttfucking the intellectual property to grab some more greens? I don't know, I mean, having a big group of investors that aren't actually in it for the money, but care about the product because it is financed with their money and made for them as consumers, may actually protect the original creators from interfearing hands better than the corporate model.

I haven't adressed issues such as plagiarism, simply because I have this nagging suspicion that I don't have to, and that it'll solve itself. If two or more companies want to gather investors for a project that involves the exact, same intellectual property, it would hardly benefit anyone in the end. Either one group of developers get's the broadest support in the matter and the others simply fuck off, which is something they would have seen coming miles away, or the developers realize pool their resources and work together, thus allowing the project to have a bigger scope. Also, before you ask, I think it is fair that ideas become a shared commodity, above or beyond the law of man; people who "dream up" the "best game of all times" and have no actual ability of materializing their ideas, beyond flaunting them in public, have no business monopolizing such concepts -- that would be unfair.

Maybe you believe that having legislated ownership over an idea or concept (such as a 50's retro future post apoc setting, for instance) is the way it should be, the only way it would work. I personally think it's impossible to own an idea, apart from personal interpretation of a concept which is something you may never be able to get across to another person however hard you try; but a basic premise is not something anyone can own. As soon as it is made public, in any way or form, it belongs to everyone.

This is the concept of the piracy model in a nutshell:

Invest X amount of dollars to create something. Then set the created product on the side of the road with a for sale sign but absolutely no employees to keep an eye on things. Use a tub to collect money, but let the customers decide if they want to pay for the product or take it for free. Then add zero consequence for the people who take the product for free.

Pretty naive to think this will work. In fact, it's not idealistic it's a romantic idea because it will never work.

A potential product is presented, and initial investments are made by parties interested in the product. Investors with interest in making money (bulk investors) do their math of return potential, and invest in the product appropriately. A completed product is released publically through a free system of distribution. The initial investors, who are in effect consumers responsible for the product, support their decision and the developers they have hired by putting down a small payment upon download; any consumers interested in doing so on download are naturally also allowed to do so.

"Freeloaders" are allowed to partake of the product, by a system of forced seeding that makes up for their lack of paying, and generally moves their role from pure consumers to distributors. Upon reviewing the product in question, a percentage of these "freeloaders" donate a fee they themselves deem reasonable for the quality of the product recieved.

The bulk investors remove the percentage that applies to the initial investment made by them, the rest of the money belongs to the developers. A quality product = a higher consumer interest = a higher end revenue = a higher probability of interest in upcoming projects = theoretically a higher quality product.

It is possible that such a system would work as is, but I am, as I initially said, not the brightest mind or the sharpest tool; there may be far better alternatives resonating from the same initial ideas, created by people with a better grasp of the inner workings of a marketting system than those I have. It is also possible that all this system needs is a more fleshed out core, or the incorporation of some specific laws, but, again, there is no certainty of this since it has not been applicable so far.

Out of honesty, I emplore that you neither jump to the conclusion that a free distribution system is an invalid theorem, or that it is applicable as is, on the basis of having read my contribution to the subject. I've simply thrown it out there as a testament to my conviction that a system based on the premise is not only possible, but an advancement over the current system, and an upcoming reality. Remember: it is, in fact, by far easier to pick away at established doctrines, than invent your own ones.

I had to respond to this too! But hackers aren't physically there so they aren't actually breaking in right?

I imagined that someone would pick up on that, and almost thought of including an explanation to why I wrote that right next to the statement itself. As I have already compared piracy to physically copying a book / recieving copies from someone who does so, without having any moral qualms, due to the fact that the "victims" in this particular case aren't actually victims but businesses that become obsolete through the act of copying, the comparison to intrusion is completely removed.

In fact, I have always steered even the various analogies that you (not you personally) have come up with in this thread, away from intrusion or break-in's, simply because there is no such attribute to piracy. Some 2-5% of game releases in the pirate community is leaked data of unfinished games, but it is not acquired by breaking in to servers; in most cases it is attributed to the sloppyness of developers with their promotional copies.

I think the comparison to hacking and "lack of physical bodies" asf, is more easily attributed to the other defendants of piracy, who simply rely on saying that piracy is not theft, because it is digital. This has never been a major part of my arguments, and thus no such comparison can be drawn.

Do you think wow would have less user accounts if you could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee? Fuck yes it would, stop being naive.

You always could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee, basically since the release. One could perhaps entertain the notion that fans of the Warcraft universe who were uncertain wether they would enjoy it as an mmo, first started on an emulated server to experience the prolonged effects of the gameplay mechanics, before venturing into the addiction of official blizzard servers, and that this is an attribute to WoW's popularity, much like private servers were an attribute to UO's popularity. As we have no figures to prove nor deny such a feat, it is again an open debate.

Fuck I just realized the show stopper of the Pirate argument. If piracy was going to revolutionize the "Industry" it would have already happened because nothing is stopping the piracy model from working as things are currently.

That is to say that both systems in place, in a constant competition with each other, is the system that pirates were aiming to achieve, and that this is the final stop for piracy and the end of the line. Somehow I believe it is a gradual process of constant change, rather than definitive stagnation, simply because there is no end to refinement in a universe that makes any bit of sense.

The piracy model can work alongside the traditional publisher model because nothing is stopping people from creating great games and giving them out for free but allowing them to give donations if wanted. Pathetic!

Except that if you one day found out that the secret to living another extra 20 years above average, was not wearing any pants in public, you'd wait for it to become common practice before doing so. Normality is established by a fall-in behavour where the majority decides what, in fact, is normal. To make changes to an established model, and to try something new, you'd either be working against the norm, and failing 9 times out of 10, or waiting for the current to switch in your direction.

As I have previously said, music has taken the leap to free releases and pay-what-you-will funding, and has been reported as a failure by mainstream media, while the bands themselves reported quite the opposite. It remains to be seen which opinion becomes the norm and prevails, but so far I think the media is pulling at the longer straw."]

I will keep this simple. I agree with many of your points, but you've still failed to show how piracy will allow for a distribution model that can recoup the development costs for someone who devotes time and energy into a project.

It is not something I have attempted, because presenting a concrete idea now, with how things are at this very moment, anything I would say would be unrealistic. There are brighter minds out there than I, and if they managed to use the television to make money, despite the criticism it got in the beginning, and managed to use the vcr to make money, again despite initial criticism, and managed to use the computer platform to make money, despite the criticism it recieved for unrestricted copying of data, someone will certainly figure out a way of using bittorent and pirated releases in a way that will allow for economical growth and market stability.

Piracy removes the incentive to create things in an economical society. Economics aside, and if it was all just a passion of love, then yes piracy would be great(but it wouldn't be piracy anymore)! This is not how things work though, and you seem to be more idealistic than many of my moral preachings on the subject.

I probably sound idealistic because I'm saying that there is more to it than just swagging free stuff from a website; there are several layers to piracy, and these are never regularly presented in an argument, and some of them do not apply to what we currently have -- an old system struggling with a new system. To say that there will eventually be stability is not only an obvious statement to make, but it is at the same time an idealistic statement, simply because, while it has always been like this for as long as we have recorded our history, good conquering evil cannot be reasonably guaranteed. I'm not going to try dodging bullets through the whole post, I'll eventually present some sort of example of an economic model as I invision it. Just go along with me for now.

Also, the piracy distribution model gives 100% power to the consumer. The issue with this is that it takes all investment incentive away from the creator.

Not really. It is only in the old system that there is an actual boundry between consumer and creator, investor and profiteer; the system that pirates are pushing for fuses all these concepts into one, and as such there is no distinction. A creator can invest a sum into his creation, alongside of consumers and pure investors in an open market not constricted by corporate rule. The only uncertainty, but this has always been the case, is getting back the exact ammount or more of what you have invested into the project.

Even if something is good it does not mean it can recoup it's development costs, especially in a distribution system that puts 100% of the control in the hands of the consumer.

Considering that we've seen some extremely talented development houses fall like dominoes over the years, under the current corporate rule, it's far too apparent that our current distribution system can make no such promises either. We've often surmised, their fall came due to bad advices made by the marketting departement, and quick 'cash-cow' projects to reclaim lost profits from such lackluster projects and then we see the pattern forming; a downward spiral. This, at least, would be impossible in a system where financing was in the hands of the consumers, because consumers would never request a lackluster game to make up for lost investments; they would simply stop investing if they considered that the company had nothing more to offer.

You seem to think that enough people will keep buying video games, music, and movies if these people get to decide after fully using the product. This is naive and is a slippery slope of a fallacy.

I believe that if there was a possibility to back Troika in making that post apoc game they raved about before falling apart, a big enough number of people would put money in towards the project, to attract the attention of bigger investors and put the game in to development. If the end result was decently priced, and distributed over a free system, meaning that it would cost Troika nothing to distribute it, not forcing it into any unreasonable deadline (this could be agreed upon at the start of budget gathering) they could stand to make millions in cash with only 1-2$ down p. distributed copy.

We might be talking about 7 million downloads as a low estimate, with 1/3 paying on the spot, 1/3 paying after playing and 1/3 paying simply by sharing (bandwidth costs too y'know). So, an enforced sharing system like that of eMule on the torrent client, for those who do not wish to pay a nickle for their game, would in fact pay for the games distribution, and saying that half of these 'no-longer-freeloaders' liked the game, means they might make a generous/not so genorous donation at the end 50/50. 10-15$ million would be a low, I'm talking watermark low, estimate. Now remove a good 50-60% if there were bulk investors (which isn't necessarily the case), and we have a decent sum left for the developers.

Obviously, I'm basing these estimates on actual pirate downloads of current popular games, so I might be off to either side, but as an average I'd say this would work. I'm also rounding numbers off to a very low, low end, so in fact the figures might be alot more positive than what is shown here.

You'd just get everyone saying, "Someone else will purchase and support this developer, so I don't have to."

That is the current trend in piracy, simply because all major titles come from major corporations who have big vaults that won't be depleted for a long while (at least, that would be the general assumption; god only knows there have been surprises before). If you were the one backing the company from the get-go, you would have a personal stake in it's success, and everyone around you would be affected as well.

To enjoy a game, knowing that your support can actually mean life & death of the company that made it, and either the continuation or end of similar products, will have an impact on a greater majority of people than you or I would be able to estimate at this time, simply because that has never been the case; it has never been our personal decision to leave a company in the dry or water it with the substance of life, and this is not something we can estimate within reason.

The idea that development houses have 'fallen' because no one bought their games is slightly twisted, as it is in fact publishers and investors that have pulled in a debt from the company when the cash return failed to reach the estimate, and in so doing bankrupted the company. On a private market investments have little to no insurance on return, and while it is a risk it is a risk that can pay off, which is why people take it. So, in the revised game market under this new distribution policy, all investments would be final just like in the private market, and the return would be in the percentage of total revenue; so a hands down investment of 300 000 in a budget of 600 000 would yield no more than 50 percent, even if the revenue was a meagre 500 000. It would certainly make it a bit harder for investors to trust that specific company, but that's just the way things are, and the developers would get to keep 50 % of the initial budget, which is hardly standard procedure for big game projects.

Just because a handful of people actually have some type of ethical approach to piracy doesn't mean that the majority would. I would not expect the minority to be able to recoup development costs in this case. Again, your piracy model fails at this, and there is no sign that the industry is moving away from DRM any time soon.

Saying that it is a handful of people is slightly misrepresenting, but as we have no actual figures I can do nothing but allow it. Even so, you have to remember that any "ethical" approach to piracy, would, in our current situation mean, cooperation with the system which these/we "ethical" people find obsolete, as no other system has so far been as firmly established. It does nothing but misrepresent our intentions to support it, and it costs us more money than it should to do so, and as such it would be no surprise to me if the figure of "ethical" pirates was a minority at 1/3 or even 1/5 in a worst case scenario. This is of course at this time, with no rewards for being a honest and legal consumer.

As for DRM, there's not much for me to say about it. Apparently it does near to nothing, and so bringing it up is something of a mystery. Something that simply costs money and has no actual use or purpoise can't logically stay around for too long a time. When the profits of distribution companies start to decrease, and cuts become necessary to maintain the facade, it will be thrown out together with other useless artifacts of the past.

Also like I said before, with large investment projects, where the quality of the project has more potential to be good, the incentive is absolutely gone. The more you invest the higher the risk.

But if you think about it it's actually a self-regulating system. The higher the public investment = the higher the public interest in the project = the higher potential bulk investment made = the bigger ammount of consumers = the greater potential revenue.

No system today can provide more than "potential" or "estimated" revenue, and the failsafe for the investors is to pull money out of the company, which is not particularly fair, so to argue that a system based around free distribution wouldn't work because there are no guarantees for investors, that the risks are too high and profit margins too low, and that high budget games wouldn't work because there would be no player interest, is pretty much going against basic math; in fact, it's almost like saying that the current system can't work, or even that marketting has no place outside of fiction.

This is back assward in terms of how the concept of investment works. I will admit that the current system is failing, hell I haven't bought a new game in ages, but there are still a few gems being produced every now and again.

The current investment system is "back assward" enough apparently, because you're (and not alone, some marketting geniouses haven't figured this one out yet) expecting it to deliver a proportional cut on increased investment, and guarantees that there will be no drawbacks, which is completely unrealistic. Smart companies generally know this, and they in fact count on it; I'm thinking you're just a bit confused not to pick up on it.

There is a top to the investment / return curve, and it is below the budget of the current "blockbuster" movies, simply because pumping an extra 200 million dollars into a movie does not mean more people will see it or that the revenues will somehow go up or that you can up the price to guarantee a return on your investment.

Now, the way they figure out what the top investment for a specific movie is, is they call up a number of graph companies (those faggots who bother you on the net or call you up in the middle of the night and ask strange questions or gather stats from tv-ratings) to get the feel for what the market in general wants out of entertainment (getting your hands on this 'free statistical information' actually costs a shitload of money compared to the value of the information), and then they make a prediction of how this graph will look 2 years from now and then they have the roughest of estimates of how many people will go and see Die Hard 5 in the year 2011.

These stats are always off, simply because they always point upwards due to a loophole wherein the entertainment industry forces growth upon itself by relying on statistics generated mostly by the entertainment industry in the first placed, and by the time they actually get to the statistical pit of dismay, which is what we're really heading for, the entertainment industry as we know it will have collapsed upon itself by making the most expensive turd in the history of man without even the most remote ability to cover it's expenses.

Now, maybe someone figured this one out, because some recent successful movies have had a tighter budget, but even so it's painfully stupid to rely on misrepresenting stats for investments, which always goes above the mark for what is needed to maximize profits, when this particular market could in fact rely on direct investments from consumers which would then give a perfect representation of the interest and allow for optimal investment opportunities.

You seem to think that a bunch of modders or open source developers will be able to take the complexity of game design and create titles at the current quality level. Not saying these games are the best, but they do offer a certain quality and of course can only get better. How does indie development make them better than what they are now, and especially when indie developers already struggle to recoup costs?

Again, what we have is a failed attempt from you to bridge a potential future system for distribution and marketting to a current, canonized system which is becoming obsolete. Obviously having both systems in place won't work. Does that answer your question?

Anyway, your argument for a revolution in distribution is ridiculous because it does not protect the original creator, at all.

Compared to having a big company owning the rights to something one of their more prominent developers did, and then buttfucking the intellectual property to grab some more greens? I don't know, I mean, having a big group of investors that aren't actually in it for the money, but care about the product because it is financed with their money and made for them as consumers, may actually protect the original creators from interfearing hands better than the corporate model.

I haven't adressed issues such as plagiarism, simply because I have this nagging suspicion that I don't have to, and that it'll solve itself. If two or more companies want to gather investors for a project that involves the exact, same intellectual property, it would hardly benefit anyone in the end. Either one group of developers get's the broadest support in the matter and the others simply fuck off, which is something they would have seen coming miles away, or the developers realize pool their resources and work together, thus allowing the project to have a bigger scope. Also, before you ask, I think it is fair that ideas become a shared commodity, above or beyond the law of man; people who "dream up" the "best game of all times" and have no actual ability of materializing their ideas, beyond flaunting them in public, have no business monopolizing such concepts -- that would be unfair.

Maybe you believe that having legislated ownership over an idea or concept (such as a 50's retro future post apoc setting, for instance) is the way it should be, the only way it would work. I personally think it's impossible to own an idea, apart from personal interpretation of a concept which is something you may never be able to get across to another person however hard you try; but a basic premise is not something anyone can own. As soon as it is made public, in any way or form, it belongs to everyone.

This is the concept of the piracy model in a nutshell:

Invest X amount of dollars to create something. Then set the created product on the side of the road with a for sale sign but absolutely no employees to keep an eye on things. Use a tub to collect money, but let the customers decide if they want to pay for the product or take it for free. Then add zero consequence for the people who take the product for free.

Pretty naive to think this will work. In fact, it's not idealistic it's a romantic idea because it will never work.

A potential product is presented, and initial investments are made by parties interested in the product. Investors with interest in making money (bulk investors) do their math of return potential, and invest in the product appropriately. A completed product is released publically through a free system of distribution. The initial investors, who are in effect consumers responsible for the product, support their decision and the developers they have hired by putting down a small payment upon download; any consumers interested in doing so on download are naturally also allowed to do so.

"Freeloaders" are allowed to partake of the product, by a system of forced seeding that makes up for their lack of paying, and generally moves their role from pure consumers to distributors. Upon reviewing the product in question, a percentage of these "freeloaders" donate a fee they themselves deem reasonable for the quality of the product recieved.

The bulk investors remove the percentage that applies to the initial investment made by them, the rest of the money belongs to the developers. A quality product = a higher consumer interest = a higher end revenue = a higher probability of interest in upcoming projects = theoretically a higher quality product.

It is possible that such a system would work as is, but I am, as I initially said, not the brightest mind or the sharpest tool; there may be far better alternatives resonating from the same initial ideas, created by people with a better grasp of the inner workings of a marketting system than those I have. It is also possible that all this system needs is a more fleshed out core, or the incorporation of some specific laws, but, again, there is no certainty of this since it has not been applicable so far.

Out of honesty, I emplore that you neither jump to the conclusion that a free distribution system is an invalid theorem, or that it is applicable as is, on the basis of having read my contribution to the subject. I've simply thrown it out there as a testament to my conviction that a system based on the premise is not only possible, but an advancement over the current system, and an upcoming reality. Remember: it is, in fact, by far easier to pick away at established doctrines, than invent your own ones.

I had to respond to this too! But hackers aren't physically there so they aren't actually breaking in right?

I imagined that someone would pick up on that, and almost thought of including an explanation to why I wrote that right next to the statement itself. As I have already compared piracy to physically copying a book / recieving copies from someone who does so, without having any moral qualms, due to the fact that the "victims" in this particular case aren't actually victims but businesses that become obsolete through the act of copying, the comparison to intrusion is completely removed.

In fact, I have always steered even the various analogies that you (not you personally) have come up with in this thread, away from intrusion or break-in's, simply because there is no such attribute to piracy. Some 2-5% of game releases in the pirate community is leaked data of unfinished games, but it is not acquired by breaking in to servers; in most cases it is attributed to the sloppyness of developers with their promotional copies.

I think the comparison to hacking and "lack of physical bodies" asf, is more easily attributed to the other defendants of piracy, who simply rely on saying that piracy is not theft, because it is digital. This has never been a major part of my arguments, and thus no such comparison can be drawn.

Do you think wow would have less user accounts if you could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee? Fuck yes it would, stop being naive.

You always could pirate it and not pay the monthly fee, basically since the release. One could perhaps entertain the notion that fans of the Warcraft universe who were uncertain wether they would enjoy it as an mmo, first started on an emulated server to experience the prolonged effects of the gameplay mechanics, before venturing into the addiction of official blizzard servers, and that this is an attribute to WoW's popularity, much like private servers were an attribute to UO's popularity. As we have no figures to prove nor deny such a feat, it is again an open debate.

Fuck I just realized the show stopper of the Pirate argument. If piracy was going to revolutionize the "Industry" it would have already happened because nothing is stopping the piracy model from working as things are currently.

That is to say that both systems in place, in a constant competition with each other, is the system that pirates were aiming to achieve, and that this is the final stop for piracy and the end of the line. Somehow I believe it is a gradual process of constant change, rather than definitive stagnation, simply because there is no end to refinement in a universe that makes any bit of sense.

The piracy model can work alongside the traditional publisher model because nothing is stopping people from creating great games and giving them out for free but allowing them to give donations if wanted. Pathetic!

Except that if you one day found out that the secret to living another extra 20 years above average, was not wearing any pants in public, you'd wait for it to become common practice before doing so. Normality is established by a fall-in behavour where the majority decides what, in fact, is normal. To make changes to an established model, and to try something new, you'd either be working against the norm, and failing 9 times out of 10, or waiting for the current to switch in your direction.

As I have previously said, music has taken the leap to free releases and pay-what-you-will funding, and has been reported as a failure by mainstream media, while the bands themselves reported quite the opposite. It remains to be seen which opinion becomes the norm and prevails, but so far I think the media is pulling at the longer straw."]

I will keep this simple. I agree with many of your points, but you've still failed to show how piracy will allow for a distribution model that can recoup the development costs for someone who devotes time and energy into a project.

It is not something I have attempted, because presenting a concrete idea now, with how things are at this very moment, anything I would say would be unrealistic. There are brighter minds out there than I, and if they managed to use the television to make money, despite the criticism it got in the beginning, and managed to use the vcr to make money, again despite initial criticism, and managed to use the computer platform to make money, despite the criticism it recieved for unrestricted copying of data, someone will certainly figure out a way of using bittorent and pirated releases in a way that will allow for economical growth and market stability.

Piracy removes the incentive to create things in an economical society. Economics aside, and if it was all just a passion of love, then yes piracy would be great(but it wouldn't be piracy anymore)! This is not how things work though, and you seem to be more idealistic than many of my moral preachings on the subject.

I probably sound idealistic because I'm saying that there is more to it than just swagging free stuff from a website; there are several layers to piracy, and these are never regularly presented in an argument, and some of them do not apply to what we currently have -- an old system struggling with a new system. To say that there will eventually be stability is not only an obvious statement to make, but it is at the same time an idealistic statement, simply because, while it has always been like this for as long as we have recorded our history, good conquering evil cannot be reasonably guaranteed. I'm not going to try dodging bullets through the whole post, I'll eventually present some sort of example of an economic model as I invision it. Just go along with me for now.

Also, the piracy distribution model gives 100% power to the consumer. The issue with this is that it takes all investment incentive away from the creator.

Not really. It is only in the old system that there is an actual boundry between consumer and creator, investor and profiteer; the system that pirates are pushing for fuses all these concepts into one, and as such there is no distinction. A creator can invest a sum into his creation, alongside of consumers and pure investors in an open market not constricted by corporate rule. The only uncertainty, but this has always been the case, is getting back the exact ammount or more of what you have invested into the project.

Even if something is good it does not mean it can recoup it's development costs, especially in a distribution system that puts 100% of the control in the hands of the consumer.

Considering that we've seen some extremely talented development houses fall like dominoes over the years, under the current corporate rule, it's far too apparent that our current distribution system can make no such promises either. We've often surmised, their fall came due to bad advices made by the marketting departement, and quick 'cash-cow' projects to reclaim lost profits from such lackluster projects and then we see the pattern forming; a downward spiral. This, at least, would be impossible in a system where financing was in the hands of the consumers, because consumers would never request a lackluster game to make up for lost investments; they would simply stop investing if they considered that the company had nothing more to offer.

You seem to think that enough people will keep buying video games, music, and movies if these people get to decide after fully using the product. This is naive and is a slippery slope of a fallacy.

I believe that if there was a possibility to back Troika in making that post apoc game they raved about before falling apart, a big enough number of people would put money in towards the project, to attract the attention of bigger investors and put the game in to development. If the end result was decently priced, and distributed over a free system, meaning that it would cost Troika nothing to distribute it, not forcing it into any unreasonable deadline (this could be agreed upon at the start of budget gathering) they could stand to make millions in cash with only 1-2$ down p. distributed copy.

We might be talking about 7 million downloads as a low estimate, with 1/3 paying on the spot, 1/3 paying after playing and 1/3 paying simply by sharing (bandwidth costs too y'know). So, an enforced sharing system like that of eMule on the torrent client, for those who do not wish to pay a nickle for their game, would in fact pay for the games distribution, and saying that half of these 'no-longer-freeloaders' liked the game, means they might make a generous/not so genorous donation at the end 50/50. 10-15$ million would be a low, I'm talking watermark low, estimate. Now remove a good 50-60% if there were bulk investors (which isn't necessarily the case), and we have a decent sum left for the developers.

Obviously, I'm basing these estimates on actual pirate downloads of current popular games, so I might be off to either side, but as an average I'd say this would work. I'm also rounding numbers off to a very low, low end, so in fact the figures might be alot more positive than what is shown here.

You'd just get everyone saying, "Someone else will purchase and support this developer, so I don't have to."

That is the current trend in piracy, simply because all major titles come from major corporations who have big vaults that won't be depleted for a long while (at least, that would be the general assumption; god only knows there have been surprises before). If you were the one backing the company from the get-go, you would have a personal stake in it's success, and everyone around you would be affected as well.

To enjoy a game, knowing that your support can actually mean life & death of the company that made it, and either the continuation or end of similar products, will have an impact on a greater majority of people than you or I would be able to estimate at this time, simply because that has never been the case; it has never been our personal decision to leave a company in the dry or water it with the substance of life, and this is not something we can estimate within reason.

The idea that development houses have 'fallen' because no one bought their games is slightly twisted, as it is in fact publishers and investors that have pulled in a debt from the company when the cash return failed to reach the estimate, and in so doing bankrupted the company. On a private market investments have little to no insurance on return, and while it is a risk it is a risk that can pay off, which is why people take it. So, in the revised game market under this new distribution policy, all investments would be final just like in the private market, and the return would be in the percentage of total revenue; so a hands down investment of 300 000 in a budget of 600 000 would yield no more than 50 percent, even if the revenue was a meagre 500 000. It would certainly make it a bit harder for investors to trust that specific company, but that's just the way things are, and the developers would get to keep 50 % of the initial budget, which is hardly standard procedure for big game projects.

Just because a handful of people actually have some type of ethical approach to piracy doesn't mean that the majority would. I would not expect the minority to be able to recoup development costs in this case. Again, your piracy model fails at this, and there is no sign that the industry is moving away from DRM any time soon.

Saying that it is a handful of people is slightly misrepresenting, but as we have no actual figures I can do nothing but allow it. Even so, you have to remember that any "ethical" approach to piracy, would, in our current situation mean, cooperation with the system which these/we "ethical" people find obsolete, as no other system has so far been as firmly established. It does nothing but misrepresent our intentions to support it, and it costs us more money than it should to do so, and as such it would be no surprise to me if the figure of "ethical" pirates was a minority at 1/3 or even 1/5 in a worst case scenario. This is of course at this time, with no rewards for being a honest and legal consumer.

As for DRM, there's not much for me to say about it. Apparently it does near to nothing, and so bringing it up is something of a mystery. Something that simply costs money and has no actual use or purpoise can't logically stay around for too long a time. When the profits of distribution companies start to decrease, and cuts become necessary to maintain the facade, it will be thrown out together with other useless artifacts of the past.

Also like I said before, with large investment projects, where the quality of the project has more potential to be good, the incentive is absolutely gone. The more you invest the higher the risk.

But if you think about it it's actually a self-regulating system. The higher the public investment = the higher the public interest in the project = the higher potential bulk investment made = the bigger ammount of consumers = the greater potential revenue.

No system today can provide more than "potential" or "estimated" revenue, and the failsafe for the investors is to pull money out of the company, which is not particularly fair, so to argue that a system based around free distribution wouldn't work because there are no guarantees for investors, that the risks are too high and profit margins too low, and that high budget games wouldn't work because there would be no player interest, is pretty much going against basic math; in fact, it's almost like saying that the current system can't work, or even that marketting has no place outside of fiction.

This is back assward in terms of how the concept of investment works. I will admit that the current system is failing, hell I haven't bought a new game in ages, but there are still a few gems being produced every now and again.

The current investment system is "back assward" enough apparently, because you're (and not alone, some marketting geniouses haven't figured this one out yet) expecting it to deliver a proportional cut on increased investment, and guarantees that there will be no drawbacks, which is completely unrealistic. Smart companies generally know this, and they in fact count on it; I'm thinking you're just a bit confused not to pick up on it.

There is a top to the investment / return curve, and it is below the budget of the current "blockbuster" movies, simply because pumping an extra 200 million dollars into a movie does not mean more people will see it or that the revenues will somehow go up or that you can up the price to guarantee a return on your investment.

Now, the way they figure out what the top investment for a specific movie is, is they call up a number of graph companies (those faggots who bother you on the net or call you up in the middle of the night and ask strange questions or gather stats from tv-ratings) to get the feel for what the market in general wants out of entertainment (getting your hands on this 'free statistical information' actually costs a shitload of money compared to the value of the information), and then they make a prediction of how this graph will look 2 years from now and then they have the roughest of estimates of how many people will go and see Die Hard 5 in the year 2011.

These stats are always off, simply because they always point upwards due to a loophole wherein the entertainment industry forces growth upon itself by relying on statistics generated mostly by the entertainment industry in the first placed, and by the time they actually get to the statistical pit of dismay, which is what we're really heading for, the entertainment industry as we know it will have collapsed upon itself by making the most expensive turd in the history of man without even the most remote ability to cover it's expenses.

Now, maybe someone figured this one out, because some recent successful movies have had a tighter budget, but even so it's painfully stupid to rely on misrepresenting stats for investments, which always goes above the mark for what is needed to maximize profits, when this particular market could in fact rely on direct investments from consumers which would then give a perfect representation of the interest and allow for optimal investment opportunities.

You seem to think that a bunch of modders or open source developers will be able to take the complexity of game design and create titles at the current quality level. Not saying these games are the best, but they do offer a certain quality and of course can only get better. How does indie development make them better than what they are now, and especially when indie developers already struggle to recoup costs?

Again, what we have is a failed attempt from you to bridge a potential future system for distribution and marketting to a current, canonized system which is becoming obsolete. Obviously having both systems in place won't work. Does that answer your question?

Anyway, your argument for a revolution in distribution is ridiculous because it does not protect the original creator, at all.

Compared to having a big company owning the rights to something one of their more prominent developers did, and then buttfucking the intellectual property to grab some more greens? I don't know, I mean, having a big group of investors that aren't actually in it for the money, but care about the product because it is financed with their money and made for them as consumers, may actually protect the original creators from interfearing hands better than the corporate model.

I haven't adressed issues such as plagiarism, simply because I have this nagging suspicion that I don't have to, and that it'll solve itself. If two or more companies want to gather investors for a project that involves the exact, same intellectual property, it would hardly benefit anyone in the end. Either one group of developers get's the broadest support in the matter and the others simply fuck off, which is something they would have seen coming miles away, or the developers realize pool their resources and work together, thus allowing the project to have a bigger scope. Also, before you ask, I think it is fair that ideas become a shared commodity, above or beyond the law of man; people who "dream up" the "best game of all times" and have no actual ability of materializing their ideas, beyond flaunting them in public, have no business monopolizing such concepts -- that would be unfair.

Maybe you believe that having legislated ownership over an idea or concept (such as a 50's retro future post apoc setting, for instance) is the way it should be, the only way it would work. I personally think it's impossible to own an idea, apart from personal interpretation of a concept which is something you may never be able to get across to another person however hard you try; but a basic premise is not something anyone can own. As soon as it is made public, in any way or form, it belongs to everyone.

This is the concept of the piracy model in a nutshell:

Invest X amount of dollars to create something. Then set the created product on the side of the road with a for sale sign but absolutely no employees to keep an eye on things. Use a tub to collect money, but let the customers decide if they want to pay for the product or take it for free. Then add zero consequence for the people who take the product for free.

Pretty naive to think this will work. In fact, it's not idealistic it's a romantic idea because it will never work.

A potential product is presented, and initial investments are made by parties interested in the product. Investors with interest in making money (bulk investors) do their math of return potential, and invest in the product appropriately. A completed product is released publically through a free system of distribution. The initial investors, who are in effect consumers responsible for the product, support their decision and the developers they have hired by putting down a small payment upon download; any consumers interested in doing so on download are naturally also allowed to do so.

"Freeloaders" are allowed to partake of the product, by a system of forced seeding that makes up for their lack of paying, and generally moves their role from pure consumers to distributors. Upon reviewing the product in question, a percentage of these "freeloaders" donate a fee they themselves deem reasonable for the quality of the product recieved.

The bulk investors remove the percentage that applies to the initial investment made by them, the rest of the money belongs to the developers. A quality product = a higher consumer interest = a higher end revenue = a higher probability of interest in upcoming projects = theoretically a higher quality product.

It is possible that such a system would work as is, but I am, as I initially said, not the brightest mind or the sharpest tool; there may be far better alternatives resonating from the same initial ideas, created by people with a better grasp of the inner workings of a marketting system than those I have. It is also possible that all this system needs is a more fleshed out core, or the incorporation of some specific laws, but, again, there is no certainty of this since it has not been applicable so far.

Out of honesty, I emplore that you neither jump to the conclusion that a free distribution system is an invalid theorem, or that it is applicable as is, on the basis of having read my contribution to the subject. I've simply thrown it out there as a testament to my conviction that a system based on the premise is not only possible, but an advancement over the current system, and an upcoming reality. Remember: it is, in fact, by far easier to pick away at established doctrines, than invent your own ones.

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[Mefi]

A billion dollar industry which continues to expand? That's the impact of piracy for sure.