US: “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Starts Monday

[DwarvenFood]

I had to "pirate" an old TV show episode today because my DVD copy, despite looking pristine as fuck, was not playing that episode properly.

Come and get me Verizon, I stand waiting for your judgment.

Consider yourself licky for being to buy a legal verion in the first place. Not everything is equally available.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I pirate games purely out of spite. I downloaded Mass Effect 3 five times and didn't even install it. That's right, you heard me.

But in seriousness, this is one of those issues where both sides are kind of full of shit. Draconian DRM measures do not stop anyone but the most ignorant from pirating (and have personally forced me to pirate a game before, fucking TAGES), and I'm pretty sure 99.99% of people who pirate just do it because it's possible and easy, not for some silly moral crusade.

I think that piracy is pretty irrelevant. "Why purchase?"/"Why not purchase?" are relevant questions.

 

[FeelTheRads]

You are not entitled to freebies from developers of various content. They can give you freebies and demos in order to boost their marketing appeal but it's their choice to do so, not yours.

Oh, really, so it's perfectly OK that if you get something and you don't like it then fuck you loser, thx for the money? It's perfectly OK that you can't actually return this kind of products unless they are sealed, which means that you have no chance of trying them? Ah, and why are they so special? Why can I get a box of cereal, taste it, and return it because it tastes like shit but I can't start playing a game, decide it's popamole and return it?
I assume it's also perfectly fine that, again because they're so fucking special, they try to destroy second hand sales. Somehow pretty much everything can be resold, but no, games, music and movies are special. You have to pay for them, but not actually own them because fuck you, just give us your money, loser.

I never considered myself entitled to pirating, but the bullshit of the like of you which somehow put these industries above everything and beyond any sin is fucking retarded.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

From out of the mouth of the industry, Jesse Schell at the DICE Summit: "...about Xbox 360 sales. So here's these four lines of four different types of games. What are these lines? Let's look at the bottom one. The bottom one is games with no demo or trailer. They have the lowest cumulative sales. After that, games with a demo have more sales. Makes sense. Games with a demo have more sales than games with no demo. Totally makes sense. Well, what's the next line? This is games with a demo and a trailer. Sure, makes sense. I get it. A demo and a trailer is going to move more units. ...What the hell is that top line? That's games with just a trailer. Wait, you mean we spent all this money making a demo and getting it out there, and it cut our sales in half? Yes, that's exactly what happened to you, because when you put the demo out...people have seen the trailer and they're like 'That's cool!' and they made a plan: 'I've got to try that game!' And then when they played the demo, 'All right, I've tried that game. That was okay. All right, I'm done.' But the things with no demo, you've got to buy it if you want to try it."

I see this guy's comment on demos quoted a lot and am happy that you started where the problem with it is."...about Xbox 360 sales..."yhea fuck that and all the xbawks tards.I don't need demo or trailer to know if I'm going to buy a game or will it be good or not.99% of the time just need to know what genre is ,who is making it,screen with the UI and what buzzwords are used.

 

[DraQ]

I'm pretty sure 99.99% of people who pirate just do it because it's possible and easy, not for some silly moral crusade.

But most of them wouldn't buy 99% of the games they pirate if they couldn't pirate them.

Because even if it was just as easy, it wouldn't be just as free.
There is world of difference between "lol, let's see what this game is about *torrent*" and "omg, must have this game *buy*".

And some of those who give a fuck may go from #1 to #2 if the game is any good.
Not many, I guess, but it's a small percentage of a huge number of people - it's bound to generate some sales.

Not to mention, that it's pretty much the only way for a company to return to graces once it burned someone.

 

[Aeschylus]

Yes, the "Free" part was sort of implied.
Getting into a discussion about what people may or may not do in a theoretical world where pirating media is impossible, or how much piracy contributes to eventual sales or detracts from potential sales is frankly mostly a futile exercise, as there's no way to obtain any sort of reliable data on how many people who pirate games go on to purchase them or on how many might purchase if piracy were impossible. Hence my contention that both sides are basically talking out of their asses. So, given the complete lack of data, the only stance I'll take/agree with regarding piracy is that DRM is fucking terrible and should die in a fire.

Not to mention, that it's pretty much the only way for a company to return to graces once it burned someone.

This at least is true.

 

[DraQ]

Yes, the "Free" part was sort of implied.
Getting into a discussion about what people may or may not do in a theoretical world where pirating media is impossible, or how much piracy contributes to eventual sales or detracts from potential sales is frankly mostly a futile exercise, as there's no way to obtain any sort of reliable data on how many people who pirate games go on to purchase them or on how many might purchase if piracy were impossible. Hence my contention that both sides are basically talking out of their asses.

That's bullshit.

At the very least you have price vs demand relationship. Anyone with at least passing understanding of basics of economy will tell you that much more people will buy the same good cheap than expensively.
Free is rather cheap.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I know what happened to my music buying/listening habits after I have self-exiled myself from music piracy :D .

It appears that my piracy has increased sales of companies that don't offer free music and decreased sales of companies that offer free music.