Titan Quest producer rants on PC market.

[Naked Ninja]

@ DU : You are assuming that the 2.3% is the number of sales before the DRM fixes. You sure that isn't the total figure up to this point, inclusive of updates? And that there wasn't a torrent version of the game available which isn't included in the download conversion rates? I don't know what reflexives normal conversion rate is admittedly, but from what I understand the average for a decent indie title is 1%. 2.3% more than double that, sooo.....*shrug*

Could always email the fellow if you don't believe the 70% increase thing. Maybe he looked at his bank balance and mistook 3% more money for 70% more money, thats pretty likely.

@ Section : If you look closely at the graph will notice almost all the other title releases resulted in sharp spikes which quickly drop off after release, which fits with the basic sales model of all game titles, indie and mainstream. They are generally frontloaded spikes with trailing tails of minor sales.

The key points for sustained levels of growth are the Lost World release which had an editor, Recharged (whatever the hell that was) and the DRM. Judging by the other games (the darker blue) sales should have dipped back down shortly after each releases' initial spike. But it didn't after DRM update 1. It goes up and stays up, like perma-viagra. Focus on the plateau levels, of which there are 3, not the noise/spikes.

 

[Dhruin]

I think you're underestimating console piracy, actually. Have a look at the torrent sites and you'll find there's tons of xbox360 games available with hundreds of seeders. You just need to flash your box to use them. And it doesn't really matter if they ban online access( which they wont ), since everyone have computers they can use for the actual downloading anyway. Besides, piracy on a console is probably even more tempting, considering the price of console-games.

No, I'm not. Yeah, lots of people are torrenting them but relative to the PC, it's pretty small. It's a much bigger barrier to mod (hard or soft) your X360 and people love their Xbox Live and won't risk losing the access.

I know everyone here thinks publishers and console producers have some sort of anti-PC conspiracy going but the reality is, most publishers are platform agnostic - they just follow the sales. There's a reason they all complain about PC piracy but don't complain so much about console piracy - they just aren't comparative.

I'd love to find hard data on video card sales - best I can do in a short timerframe is a claim that nvidia sold 15M 8800 series (look, not official and I accept that)...nVidia sure turned over $1.2B last quarter selling something. Obviously, game players are a small subset of PC owners but I think most 8800 purchasers are gamers. Consider the number of gaming cards out there compared to X360s (or PS3s for a bigger laugh!) and then compare sales numbers. COD4 (traditional PC FPS online territory) sells 5:1 console to PC? Yeah, piracy had nothing to do with that.

 

[Naked Ninja]

The other option, looking at that graph, is the 70% sales is not 70% overall, simply 70% increase from that point onwards.

In fact I think that's the most probable, makes sense if you look at the graph, from the DRM plateau onwards it's a bit less than double the previous plateau. BUT that's 2 thirds of the way into the lifespan of the product, and that's only what the graph shows. So not 70% of total sales, sure. Still, who knows what it would have been if implemented from the start?

That graph is pretty clear, there is a noticeable and sustained increase which isn't consistent with the game release spikes alone.

 

[lefthandblack]

Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1. These are hardcore games, shooters, classic PC audience stuff. Given the difference in install base, I can't believe that there's that big of a difference in who played these games, but I guess there can be in who actually payed for them.

Why the FUCK would I shell out 50 bucks for a game that is the same as every shooter released in the last five years excluding the fact that it will be 70% shorter than the ones
from five years ago, when I can wait a year and pick it up for 20 bucks?

I bought Titan Quest and Immortal Throne for 20$ each and I still got ripped off.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that I played through TQ right until
the end and then had my ass handed to me by the end-boss. After reading their forums and discovering that my character build was not inflicting enough DPS and the remedy was to replay the old areas until I leveled enough, It suddenly occurred to me that I would rather masturbate with sandpaper than do that.

As a result, it got uninstalled and I've never even tried Immortal Throne.

So yeah, fuck 'em.

 

[mjorkerina]

COD4 (traditional PC FPS online territory) sells 5:1 console to PC? Yeah, piracy had nothing to do with that.

COD4 is one of the best FPS that could happen on a console while on PC it's just yet another railroaded shit with a crappy multiplayer.

You know what ? there is more people playing Quake 3 online *NOW* than there even was for Quake 4 at its *launch*. Why ? Because Q4 didn't add anything of interest. It was mainly a stupid solo game with its multiplayer being a nearly 1:1 copy of Quake 3 with slightly better graphics. Big fucking deal because anyone who cares about multiplayer FPS will tweak the graphics lower to the point where you can see everything smoothly without caring for the details in the background.

 

[Dhruin]

So, since COD4 is such a mediocre experience on the PC, noone would bother pirating it for the PC, right? They're all off playing better stuff, right?

 

[Section8]

@ Section : If you look closely at the graph will notice almost all the other title releases resulted in sharp spikes which quickly drop off after release, which fits with the basic sales model of all game titles, indie and mainstream. They are generally frontloaded spikes with trailing tails of minor sales.

Oh of course, but it's clear that the most significant effect on revenue is the release of new titles, especially if they're sequels or spinoffs, which shows just how important it is to have recognised brands.

The key points for sustained levels of growth are the Lost World release which had an editor, Recharged (whatever the hell that was)

Recharged, as far as I can gather, is a re-release of Ricochet: Lost World, presumably with some extras like a typical "Game of the Year" edition. Interestingly, I've always thought the "Game of the Year" edition is a pretty good way to exploit pirates and the word-of-mouth your initial release generates.

Also, don't forget that Lost Worlds was a sequel, as that's a crucial factor in it's success. The editor bit is interesting too. Imagine if there was a way to put that editor in the hands of 900% more people than just those who bought the game. That would surely result in a much larger amount of user content and therefore even more incentive to buy the game.

and the DRM. Judging by the other games (the darker blue) sales should have dipped back down shortly after each releases' initial spike. But it didn't after DRM update 1. It goes up and stays up, like perma-viagra. Focus on the plateau levels, of which there are 3, not the noise/spikes.

I didn't miss the fact that there was no dip with the new DRM. Would it be safe to say that the effects of the DRM are more in line with "helping to maintain the level of sales generated by new titles" than "increasing sales by 70%"? If there was little demand for Big Kahuna Words, the DRM update would have merely served to maintain the much lower revenue level set by Big Kahuna Reef.

But is that conclusive? Here's something to note: The release of Lost Worlds, Wik and Big Kahuna Reef within a 9 month interval, generated and maintained a significant revenue increase. The release of Big Kahuna Words, Mosaic and Big Kahuna Reef 2 over a 6 month period did likewise.

A year without a game release resulted in a plateau with a slow decline. In order to determine if the DRM had a significant effect in maintaining higher revenue levels, you'd have to compare a similar 12 month idle period after the release of Big Kahuna Reef 2, which isn't part of the graph.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Oh of course, but it's clear that the most significant effect on revenue is the release of new titles, especially if they're sequels or spinoffs, which shows just how important it is to have recognised brands.

Actually if you look at the dark blue which I'm assuming are game releses, they aren't the most meaningful. Lost worlds with it's editor, Recharged which seems to be a GOTY shiny and the DRM are the only things which caused sustained significant levels of growth.

Imagine if there was a way to put that editor in the hands of 900% more people than just those who bought the game. That would surely result in a much larger amount of user content and therefore even more incentive to buy the game.

True, large amounts of user generated content are a positive. Enough of a positive to compensate for the viral nature of piracy? I dunno, but I doubt it.

Would it be safe to say that the effects of the DRM are more in line with "helping to maintain the level of sales generated by new titles" than "increasing sales by 70%"?

Yep. In fact, this is highly significant. I was thinking about this last night, all other games have short term spikes, yet the game shortly before DRM doesn't, it climbs and sticks. What does this tell us? Well, it's pure conjecture, but could that spike represent the time it takes for piracy to reach critical mass? Think about it, downloadable games aren't like retail titles, pirates can't crak them before release. So there will be a period after release where sales climb before the crack becomes easy for potential customers to locate, after which they simply pirate their copy instead of activating, resulting in sales falling back down. Not totally, there are still some legit sales, but notice all the spikes have significant falloff unless a new factor enters play.

Which it does with DRM. There isn't a spike, sales increase and stay increased. This is really, really significant. Think of the possibilities....look at the spike connected to lost worlds! Imagine if it didn't drop back down, if everything from that point was shifted up by the initial growth rate like after the DRM! That looks to be about another 70% sales increase right there.

Certainly something to think about.

If there was little demand for Big Kahuna Words, the DRM update would have merely served to maintain the much lower revenue level set by Big Kahuna Reef.

Yep. So DRM protects your game sales, logical.

But is that conclusive? Here's something to note: The release of Lost Worlds, Wik and Big Kahuna Reef within a 9 month interval, generated and maintained a significant revenue increase. The release of Big Kahuna Words, Mosaic and Big Kahuna Reef 2 over a 6 month period did likewise.

Something else to note : Much easier and cost efficient to fix holes in DRM than develop new games, especaially within a short period of time like that. If DRM can milk more per release (such as Lost Worlds) it's much more cost efficient.

 

[ricolikesrice]

....

So, since COD4 is such a mediocre experience on the PC, noone would bother pirating it for the PC, right? They're all off playing better stuff, right?

CoD4 on PS3/xbox 360:

the best multiplayer shooter there is. everyone i know who owns either console also owns a copy of CoD4 and raves about it as the 2nd comming of the masterch.... err christ.

CoD4 on PC:

1 out of 100s of multiplayer shooters, some of them beeing played my 10times as many people as CoD4. and while there s no denying that out of the new shooters CoD4 is the most popular..... you can still add up all these not-so-popular shooters like UT3, QW:ET, Crysis + all the old games and see how CoD4 is only one out of many many more.

is it really suprising that no matter how good or shit CoD4 is at multiplayer ( i personally have no opinion on that, but i heard often enough from "pro FPS gamers" that CoD4 is "noob drivel" .... ) that the competition for it on PC is MUCH, much larger then on consoles ?

did these clowns ever heard of "market oversaturation" ?


and why are they whining anyhow ? CoD4 sold 2 million if not 3 million+ units on PC alone.

compared to how cheap that game must have been to produce as an uninspired sequel that merely uses a different setting and slightly better graphics i guess someone is raking in masses of profit unless they went gun-ho on advertising/bribing.

they are even getting awards left and right for doing the same stuff that EA gets cruzified for.

if i see how stalker/witcher/motb/crysis and co. seem to be more than happy with sales far below CoD4 ...... i could give a flying fuck whether these greedy shitheads give up making pc games (ports...) or not.

 

[Dhruin]

You can characterise it as whining - maybe it is - but business will follow the dollars. I'm not at all convinced by this competition argument because everyhere I go, COD4 is being played heavily (including a lot of people who have moved over to consoles from the PC). I just bought a new laptop and pretty much every question on a few laptop forums I checked out went something like "need a laptop for college and some occasional gaming, mostly COD4 and WoW". Metacritic shows a user score of 8.7/10, which sounds pretty good to me. My guess is everyone else is loving it while (surprise!) a handful of people here complain. And again, if it's so shit - why pirate it?

Yeah, I know, all anecdotal.

Witcher? Awesome game. Yeah, they're happy with the progress towards their goal of 1M sales. But not so happy that they aren't hiring console developers in readiness for the console port. I don't think CD Projekt is leaving the PC any time soon but we'll see how this develops.

MotB? Good stuff. I don't expect another NWN2 expansion so that one is already done and gone. Any of Obsidian's other games PC-only? Or are they all multi-platform releases? Would you prefer PC only? Atari is so excited about the potential of Mysteries of Westgate they can't even be bothered listing it on NWN2.com or announcing an actual release date.

Again - bottom line - if console players are the ones that actually buy, that's the only place publishers will play. If they think console players are the only ones that actually buy (regardless of what percentage of pirates would actually buy or whatever else NN and DU are arguing), that's where they'll put their dollars.

Looking past your list of Witcher/MotB/STALKER/Crysis, does the next year look as good to you? Was the last year as good? If you see nothing but gaming goodness stretching out before you, maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Section8]

Actually if you look at the dark blue which I'm assuming are game releses, they aren't the most meaningful. Lost worlds with it's editor, Recharged which seems to be a GOTY shiny and the DRM are the only things which caused sustained significant levels of growth.

The editor is largely irrelevant. It's a definite plus with any game (except for perhaps a Diablo clone where randomisation trumps user control) - but all the Reflexive games seem to have them. As for the DRM and the reissue triggering growth, I'm not seeing it. There's a dip after the resissue release, and a flattening of a much steeper increase with the DRM.

If you take a look at the combined effect of Wik's release and it's subsequent award, it spikes just a little bit higher than the BKW + DRM spike. It's also interesting to note that while the first "Big Kahuna" title seemed to have little effect, the next two titles both had significant initial sales. There's definitely an indication of brand awareness there.

True, large amounts of user generated content are a positive. Enough of a positive to compensate for the viral nature of piracy? I dunno, but I doubt it.

That's the problem we face with this whole issue, is that there's precious little actual data to confirm or deny what we're discussing, but I think it's important to consider these issues. Imagine if hypothetically Gooseman and Cliffe developed Counterstrike on pirated copies of Half-Life. :shock:

I was thinking about this last night, all other games have short term spikes, yet the game shortly before DRM doesn't, it climbs and sticks. What does this tell us? Well, it's pure conjecture, but could that spike represent the time it takes for piracy to reach critical mass?

That's definitely a sound line of thinking, and makes quite a bit of sense. But I can counter argue with my own conjecture:

Which it does with DRM. There isn't a spike, sales increase and stay increased. This is really, really significant. Think of the possibilities....look at the spike connected to lost worlds! Imagine if it didn't drop back down, if everything from that point was shifted up by the initial growth rate like after the DRM! That looks to be about another 70% sales increase right there.

I could argue that BKW seemed certain to spike as high as Lost Worlds, until the introduction of the DRM killed a staggering 33% of downloads (something seemingly correlated by the graph) so while there was no post release dip, there was also no mad month where revenue more than doubled the previous high. I could also argue that the "post release dip syndrome" seems proportional to the lack of other games - in other words, a player who enjoyed and purchased BKW can now be considered a Reflexive customer, with 3 other games to choose from. A player who enjoyed and bought Lost Worlds didn't then have associated Reflexive products to buy in addition.

I'm sure you could see similar trends across most forms of entertainment. I know when I read a book, listen to CD, watch a movie or play a game, I'll make a conscious effort to find other works from the same author/artist/developer/etc. If those works don't exist, I have no choice but to wait until their sophomore effort. If they do exist, then the associated purchases I'm likely to make would go a long way toward countering those post-release dips.

It's difficult to tell in this case, since I have no idea what Reflexive Arcade was like as a portal back in those days.

Something else to note : Much easier and cost efficient to fix holes in DRM than develop new games, especaially within a short period of time like that. If DRM can milk more per release (such as Lost Worlds) it's much more cost efficient.

Yes, but that's when the data detailing the consequent DRM updates comes into play, where it had little to no effect. It would be interesting to be able to test some of these elements in more controlled circumstances, as impossible as that may be.

But at least we've reached a point where we're actually musing on the relative merits of potential trends and indicators rather than just arguing in circles.

[edit] Oh and one last thing: You have to agree that even without that first DRM update, they're obviously going from strength to strength, proving that they already have a very effective and profitable business model, regardless of piracy.

 

[mjorkerina]

Looking past your list of Witcher/MotB/STALKER/Crysis, does the next year look as good to you? Was the last year as good? If you see nothing but gaming goodness stretching out before you, maybe I'm wrong.

What is the meaning of good here ? there may be more games coming out next year for consoles but most of them suck so much I wouldn't try them even for one hour if you gave me a boxed collector set of original, genuine CDs for free. I'd just put all the shit in the trash can.

Quantity only matters if you like being knee deep in shit.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

@ DU : You are assuming that the 2.3% is the number of sales before the DRM fixes. You sure that isn't the total figure up to this point, inclusive of updates?

Given he based his initial "92% of all people playing the full version are pirates" statistic on those numbers, yes, I do assume that's pre-DRM. Otherwise his entire set of data is meaningless. Feel free to have a stab at working out the numbers though, I'd certainly be interested in seeing that.

And that there wasn't a torrent version of the game available which isn't included in the download conversion rates?

Yeah uhh... Trying to say he's left shit out of his statistics goes both ways. I could just easily say "are you sure they're not?" and then "sure he included everything?" to justify my point if it lacked data too... However, once again, given the fact he puts more emphasis on the "1,000 pirates only equates to 1 extra sale" kind of destroys your point. I mean seriously, if sales had gone up 70% overall after reducing piracy, don't you think that'd be a huge thing to focus on? "Zomg, we made better DRM and overall sales went up 70%! Let's focus on that". Ignoring the fact the remaining 3 times they altered the DRM, they never got anywhere near those results, including twice where sales remained flat. You're not really trying to tell me that that single fix in '05 fixed all their piracy problems, are you?

I don't know what reflexives normal conversion rate is admittedly, but from what I understand the average for a decent indie title is 1%. 2.3% more than double that, sooo.....*shrug*

He mentions that in his article, specifically referring to them as the "non-pirates": "The encouraging piece of all the numbers, I suppose, is that of the non-pirates, the percentage who bought the game was a pretty high conversion ratio."

@ Section : If you look closely at the graph will notice almost all the other title releases resulted in sharp spikes which quickly drop off after release, which fits with the basic sales model of all game titles, indie and mainstream. They are generally frontloaded spikes with trailing tails of minor sales.

The key points for sustained levels of growth are the Lost World release which had an editor, Recharged (whatever the hell that was) and the DRM. Judging by the other games (the darker blue) sales should have dipped back down shortly after each releases' initial spike. But it didn't after DRM update 1. It goes up and stays up, like perma-viagra. Focus on the plateau levels, of which there are 3, not the noise/spikes.

Look at the time-frames around your "quickly drop off after release". Mosaic barely made an impact. BKR2 had a major spike and then a rather sharp drop. I also find it interesting that the trend from the beginning of the graph to the implementation of the New DRM, continues on perfectly from New DRM to the end of the graph. There's no reason in that for the "sustained growth" beyond the fact they have a number of titles in the market from which they're receiving continued sales.



But hey, you're the numbers man.

 

[kris]

I am going to put this thread on a torrent.

Anyway, more seriously.

I believe that at least for Sweden the number of lost sold products is clearly a bit higher than the 1/1000 figure I saw in this thread. This is because there are many who just download every single game they play (apart from MMORPGs). Of course out of the games they do download I would say no more than 1/10 is ones they would actually buy. (all figures incredibly unreliable of course) I know from a safe source that even the police in Sweden download games and movies. with no downloaded games it would be less advertising for them, but overall I do feel they make a clear loss overall.

For me personally I can't think of many a game I would have bought instead of downloaded. worse for me would be that I would have to sit and catch the TV series at the right time they are showed.

 

[Maia]

You can characterise it as whining - maybe it is - but business will follow the dollars.

And I am sure that it is comforting for the game industry to blame the pirates, rather than look at the massive shortcomings and fraud perpetuated in PC game developement and retail. Making foreign enemies responsible for everything bad is hardly a new tactics after all.

Say what you want, but console games have one huge advantage - by and large they work. Which is more that can be said about the PC games, where it is a throw of dice whever you have wasted your (non-refundable) money when you bought a new release or whever you'd be actually able to enjoy it.

The thing is that PC user base has changed significantly. The bulk of PC users are no longer tech wizzes who are willing to jump through hoops to make their game work or who are glad to upgrade their hardware at the drop of a hat.

Despite that, convenience of a paying consumer seems to be the last thing on the mind of PC developers. Yes, stability is always going to be a concern on PC. But they go out of their way to exacerbate the problem, by concentrating on cutting-edge graphics and DRMs that further impact stability and performance.
And then they compound it by lying about system requirements on the box and either by not providing a demo or by providing a non-representative one. For Pete's sake, if your DRM doesn't play nice with certain programs (which is an outrage in itself, BTW), just say so upfront! Don't send the poor user on a paper chase, they have payed you for the privilege of experiencing your product, after all!

Oh, and specifically re: Europe, don't forget the very special kind of rip-off via horrenduous localizations. It is not so much of a concern now that there usually is an English version on a DVD, but in CD days it was a major downer. It could have been easily alleviated by developers providing an English language patch for download, but of course they couldn't be bothered.

So, all in all, IMHO it is developers and publishers own fault that PC gaming is declining. Potential user base on the PC is much greater than the console one, but they are doing little to reach it and to provide it with satisfactory products. It is no wonder that something like Bejeweled became so popular. You may claim that it's success is due to it's audience not being savvy, but the flipside is that they don't _need_ to be savvy to make a payed for product work. And that's what PC developers who want to succeed ought to aspire to. That and providing an experience that can't be had on consoles, with their limited input interfaces.

Oh, and speaking of Titan Quest, their DRM was a particularly moronic one, because German gamers are condidtioned to use No-CD cracks. My completely legal copies of Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 wouldn't even work without them, for instance and performance of every other game I used them with was significantly improved. So, yes, techless customers would have automatically applied the cracks and seeing all the crashes would have concluded that without the cracks the game must be total shit. Now, of course you can call them dumb. But they aren't half as dumb as whoever came up with this protection scheme.

 

[ricolikesrice]

You can characterise it as whining - maybe it is - but business will follow the dollars. I'm not at all convinced by this competition argument because everyhere I go, COD4 is being played heavily (including a lot of people who have moved over to consoles from the PC). I just bought a new laptop and pretty much every question on a few laptop forums I checked out went something like "need a laptop for college and some occasional gaming, mostly COD4 and WoW". Metacritic shows a user score of 8.7/10, which sounds pretty good to me. My guess is everyone else is loving it while (surprise!) a handful of people here complain. And again, if it's so shit - why pirate it?

why not ? most pirates download every major new game, no matter whether they like it or not. and yeah, of course its only a handful of codex posters not agreeing on CoD4 s general awesomeness. in the real world the game doesnt have any competition as you can clearly see: http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

....

Again - bottom line - if console players are the ones that actually buy, that's the only place publishers will play. If they think console players are the only ones that actually buy (regardless of what percentage of pirates would actually buy or whatever else NN and DU are arguing), that's where they'll put their dollars.

what are you talking about ? on average most PC games are creating profit - the thing companies care about. and while its true that console games are creating *more* profit..... why would that harm pc gaming ? if you had a store in city XY making 20% profit and a store in city XY making 60% profit....... would you close the store in city XY ?

the only thing those sales mean is that we ll see far less pc exclusives in the future from major devs and publishers. but they d be pretty retarded to make genres that work well on PC console-exclusive rather then multiplatform.

Looking past your list of Witcher/MotB/STALKER/Crysis, does the next year look as good to you? Was the last year as good? If you see nothing but gaming goodness stretching out before you, maybe I'm wrong.

my "looks interesting" list is about 10 games announced for a 2008 release of which 4 are pc exclusives and the rest beeing multiplatform. no. a . single . console . exclusive.
that makes 10 interesting pc games versus 6 interesting console games.

and mind you those are just "real" games. for 2008 i m also looking forward to many maps, mods and TCs for my favourite games. the spearhead beeing planescape:purgatorio (which looks more promising then any other RPG scheduled for 2008 ) and mechwarrior:living legends among many others which often enough look more inspired/creative then your average "real" game. all of them pc exclusive.
all of them for FREE.

i dont know about your tastes in gaming but unless you re into faggy anime stuff,sports & party games, or 50+ mediocre 08/15 corridor shooters with 1 small innovation vs 10 dumbed down gameplay elements....i really dont see what the PC is missing in 2008.... compared to consoles at least.

obviously either platform is sadly enough missing *deep* strategy games , good simulations and true roleplaying games.... so no, i m not really seeing gaming goodness in general but feel a bit sad indeed..... that however has nothing to do with consoles vs PC.

 

[Naked Ninja]

First off, thank you DU. Sincerely. That graph you found is going to make things so much easier. Good work guy.

Feel free to have a stab at working out the numbers though, I'd certainly be interested in seeing that.

Unnecessary. You've kindly given me a way to show you via pictures. Like I said, thanks.

You're not really trying to tell me that that single fix in '05 fixed all their piracy problems, are you?

Like I said, you gain more from putting a lock on a previously unlocked door than adding more locks. There was some arguments that it isn't the same, but they were silly and I ignored them. Of course the initial DRM fix was the most meaningful. Hey, you should be happy. It means it's not worth going overboard about, a little goes a long way.


Anyway, on to pictures, yay!

First off, you should be aware of what your average sales graph for an indie title looks like. The long tail graph :

http://forums.indiegamer.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=482&d=1172523939

(Most mainstream games look similar, but the tail is a much smaller percentage, this is why bargain bin sales aren't something publishers feel rob them, nor is lending your friend the game a month later.)

Right, so : Sales lead to initial large spike, setting to a base level. Did reflexive see this? Yes. In all but one case. (Note, in some cases they released a game every 2 months, which is going to push back the usual drop towards the long tail and cause spikes to overlap. But only partially. Also, who can keep that kind of effort up?)

Now DU, that line of yours is cool and all but it is too general. The only trend it shows is Reflexives trend towards increasing sales over time. Doesn't show why, doesn't say anything about the factors or how those factors effected sales in the long term. It isn't very useful as an analysis tool.

Examine it at a greater granularity and you see there are 3 main sales levels. Yes, there are spikes and noise in the data, but you average it out and you see 3 plataeus of stability :

You see the sustained 70% sales increase there? Pretty clear.

As for the DRM and the reissue triggering growth, I'm not seeing it. There's a dip after the resissue release, and a flattening of a much steeper increase with the DRM.

A short term spike isn't really that amazing unless it is astronomical. Sustained growth trumps.

You also believe the DRM arrests the growth after BKW? Are you sure it hadn't just reached the highest level it was going to, that it would have begun heading back down if DRM hadn't came along and prevented pirates from destroying all interest in purchasing? Note that gentler sloped growth is consistent with "pirates convert at a lower rate". Pirates + legit customers = gentler growth but still sustained growth.

But lets examine. Lets take the two scenarios.

A) What if the spike would have climbed further,

and

B) What if that was as far as it would have gone, if DRM hadn't come in then that would have been the turning point and it would have dropped.

Lets see what difference A & B make :

The green line is the prediction for the big spike (like section said), the red line is the prediction if it was about to turn. Blue shaded area is the amount gained from DRM in the first case, blue + red shaded area is the amount in the second.

Either way, the spike isn't particularly exciting. A spike over 1 month isn't as exciting as half that spike sustained for 8 months, equals 4 times the benefit of the sales spike.

How do my numbers look DU?

 

[Araanor]

Let's make a few things clear.

1. Piracy is not going away. New laws and measures will only increase the drive to encryption, decentralisation and more private indexes. The only real way to stop piracy would be an orwellian control of all information. The question becomes one of how to prosper in the new reality, not of how to "fight" piracy.

2. There are no clear links between reduced sales and piracy. *No* independent study has found a link between piracy and lower sales in general. In fact, what they've found is that people who tend to be large pirates also tend to be large consumers of entertainment products and services. People have a limited amount of money to spend. Money doesn't disappear due to piracy, it is just channeled more to those who know to earn it.

3. Copyright is a time-limited monopoly given to encourage creation and proliferation of works. That's the spirit of the american tradition, at least. Take notes. It's not about ensuring the profit or some kind of moral right for someone. The point is the good of society as a whole. There is no evidence that piracy is harmful to society as a whole. Au contraire, today anyone can have access to all the culture and information in the world. Can you really call that a negative?

 

[Naked Ninja]

The point is the good of society as a whole. There is no evidence that piracy is harmful to society as a whole.

Two contradicting statements so close together, not a good sign for your mental health my friend.

- Copyrights are for the good of society as a whole! They encourage creation!
- Actions which break copyrights aren't damaging to society as a whole! They can't be proven to discourage creation!
- LOGIC ERROR : ABORT/RETRY/IGNORE?

Good job making things clear.

 

[obediah]

Au contraire, today anyone can have access to all the culture and information in the world. Can you really call that a negative?

No, but if I was a game developer shoveling out shitware desperately trying to avoid taking a critical look at my business I might.

 

[obediah]

The point is the good of society as a whole. There is no evidence that piracy is harmful to society as a whole.

Two contradicting statements so close together, not a good sign for your mental health my friend.

- Copyrights are for the good of society as a whole! They encourage creation!
- Actions which break copyrights aren't damaging to society as a whole! They can't be proven to discourage creation!

What contradiction?

From wiki on Copyright:

That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Because both statements can't be true at the same time. Hence contradiction.

Either copyrights are beneficial for society OR piracy is not detrimental to society. If copyrights are beneficial to society then breaking them is...what? Thats right, detrimental. Which negates the second sentence, about piracy not being detrimental.

 

[Araanor]

No contradiction. The first statement talks about the *point* of copyright law. I didn't say current copyright is fulfilling its purpose.

 

[Naked Ninja]

You've obviously never dealt with with any copyrights except games. It works fine. Sure, not perfect. But a number of industries are heavily dependent on it, if removed it would be a clusterfuck of note. The business I work for, for instance, has a number of full time copyright lawyers, protecting our products and ideas from being ripped off.

The issue with games/media is simply that the enforcement is difficult. The fact that piracy has a negative impact is not in question in society at large. Jackasses on internet forums protesting their right to pirate are irrelevant.

 

[obediah]

Because both statements can't be true at the same time. Hence contradiction.

Either copyrights are beneficial for society OR piracy is not detrimental to society. If copyrights are beneficial to society then breaking them is...what? Thats right, detrimental. Which negates the second sentence, about piracy not being detrimental.

Life must be simply in your little one dimensional world.

Copyrights are good because they encourage the creation of works that are distributed through society.

Sharing/Piracy is good because it allows more of society to experience those works.

The two aren't orthoganal, but neither are they mutually exclusive.