It’s clearly a service issue, when streaming services kicked off piracy took a huge dive, Netflix was so cheap and convenient, now I need 6 subscriptions just to watch the tv shows people are talking about, some subs just for one tv show and nothing more, I’m opting out
8tb and growing. 🏴☠️
bigorangemachine
We also talking about an era of the death of the demo.
You couldn’t try anything for free.
You had to go to the shop and get the game… and say something comes up and you don’t get to sit down for 8hrs to get a sense for the game within 2 weeks or 30 days… you couldn’t get a refund. Especially if had some hardware issue it just was too late.
Even some cases games were full on busted
lardgsus
100% A service problem. If games went the other way toward a $40 AAA launch price, I think they would see sales double. At $70 or $80, sales are going to fall, piracy will increase. I’m already at the point where I play switch games on emulation because 1 the console isn’t powerful enough and 2. the $60 price just because it mention’s Zelda or Mario is insane.
MentalBomb
There is a limit to how much people are going to spend on a single game aswell, despite having a beast of a machine and fiber internet. Just out of principle and to give the middle finger to greedy gollums.
I’m never going to buy a game priced at 80 bucks/euro.
Especially after that Randy Pitchford debacle. “Real fans will find a way to cough up 80 bucks” – paraphrasing, but that’s what he said.
Then he groveled back to say: “Look guys, we’re the good ones, BL4 will be 70 bucks”.
Yeah shove that game up your ass Randy, I won’t even touch the game out of sheer principle, not even if it’s -90% sale or if Empress miraculously comes back and cracks it.
deadlyrepost
Hey hey it’s Junglist!
Appropriate_Army_780
I don’t like Gaben, but this is very well said. I am a pirate at times, but mostly use them as demos.
And while Steam is a great service, I still try to buy all games on GOG.
flappers87
This was back in a time when “live services” were not that common, and when you bought a game, you generally owned it.
That’s not really the case today, where the vast majority of “AAA” titles are a license to access it for the same cost as when you could previously own it.
If buying is not ownership, then piracy is not stealing.
fafatzy
I live in South America. 100% a service problem. Before steam you had to pirate to get games, there just wasn’t a store selling the new titles. There wasn’t a way to get them if not for an import (and that was pretty expensive).
I had to ask someone who went to the USA to buy me a copy of wow in 2004. Young people won’t understand why but games in boxes were a thing.
In 2004 also steam launched for hl2, bought it there, first time buying digital.
Evil_Eukaryote
His perspective is very reflective of my own experiences. When I was a teenager, streaming services didn’t exist. So I downloaded all the music I could. Then, streaming services started to come around and I stopped altogether. Then, over the last few years, things have gotten complicated. There’s tons of streaming services for music/video. They all keep getting more expensive. Their apps don’t always work properly (looking at you, Paramount and HBO). The ads are getting worse.
So, I’m back to pirating. Fios+VPN+Plex. I pay for internet, I pay for VPN. I’d be willing to put my money towards legally aquiring the product if the ones distributing it weren’t so anti-consumer.
habbo420
Gaben 100% I support gane companiea that put in a lot of effort in their products and listened to their consumer market. But some companies beginning with an E and ending with and A for example just ruins their consumer trust with dozens of micro transactions instead of giving a fun working game.
std10k
totally correct. oftentimes there’s just no way to buy something even if you’re willing to spend money. Or you have to both spend your money and get shittly quality, e.g. i once bought a textbook for somewhere around 200$ and what i got for it was and absolutely terrible DRM app that was crashign all the time, had godaweful interface and couldn’t even copy any text from it, i had to take screenshots and do OCR. Could have gotten that for free with much, much better quiality more importantly. Or Blueray disks… FFS just sell me the content, i will pay, just let me fucking download it, i don’t need the plastic garbage it comes on, i don’t have space for it in my house. But noooo.
Russia by the way almost entirely eliminated piracy in PC games towards the end of 2000s. In the beginning of 2000s it was almost entirely pirated, and towards the end it just didn’t make much sense anymore. They simply priced it right, 5-20$ US for most titles, even new ones, no fucking paper booklets that noone needs anyway and fat DVD cases, absolutely minimalist shittiest plastic case and a disk in it, with a thin 1-side paper insert, that’s all most of the time. All you needed was the license key anyway and it had it, full stop. e. There was simly no point in pirating games as it would just ruin the experience. And Steam played an important role in it, too. But when a title costs two week’s worth of rent, good luck selling that.
Localisation was indeed a big deal in 90s and earlies 2000s, official translations usually were waaaay too late and king of sucked. Movie dub still do a big time, just terrible.
Th3Stryd3r
Saw a video title (believe it was Lewis) that summed it all up for me.
If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.
I use to pirate ALL of my music without fail. Now? I have a simple $10 a month charge and can have any music I want at any point, on any device. Sure free is still better than $10 a month. But for the convenience? Can’t be beat.
13 Comments
https://i.redd.it/o8w86jrxe9af1.gif
Common Gaben W
It’s clearly a service issue, when streaming services kicked off piracy took a huge dive, Netflix was so cheap and convenient, now I need 6 subscriptions just to watch the tv shows people are talking about, some subs just for one tv show and nothing more, I’m opting out
8tb and growing. 🏴☠️
We also talking about an era of the death of the demo.
You couldn’t try anything for free.
You had to go to the shop and get the game… and say something comes up and you don’t get to sit down for 8hrs to get a sense for the game within 2 weeks or 30 days… you couldn’t get a refund. Especially if had some hardware issue it just was too late.
Even some cases games were full on busted
100% A service problem. If games went the other way toward a $40 AAA launch price, I think they would see sales double. At $70 or $80, sales are going to fall, piracy will increase. I’m already at the point where I play switch games on emulation because 1 the console isn’t powerful enough and 2. the $60 price just because it mention’s Zelda or Mario is insane.
There is a limit to how much people are going to spend on a single game aswell, despite having a beast of a machine and fiber internet. Just out of principle and to give the middle finger to greedy gollums.
I’m never going to buy a game priced at 80 bucks/euro.
Especially after that Randy Pitchford debacle. “Real fans will find a way to cough up 80 bucks” – paraphrasing, but that’s what he said.
Then he groveled back to say: “Look guys, we’re the good ones, BL4 will be 70 bucks”.
Yeah shove that game up your ass Randy, I won’t even touch the game out of sheer principle, not even if it’s -90% sale or if Empress miraculously comes back and cracks it.
Hey hey it’s Junglist!
I don’t like Gaben, but this is very well said. I am a pirate at times, but mostly use them as demos.
And while Steam is a great service, I still try to buy all games on GOG.
This was back in a time when “live services” were not that common, and when you bought a game, you generally owned it.
That’s not really the case today, where the vast majority of “AAA” titles are a license to access it for the same cost as when you could previously own it.
If buying is not ownership, then piracy is not stealing.
I live in South America. 100% a service problem. Before steam you had to pirate to get games, there just wasn’t a store selling the new titles. There wasn’t a way to get them if not for an import (and that was pretty expensive).
I had to ask someone who went to the USA to buy me a copy of wow in 2004. Young people won’t understand why but games in boxes were a thing.
In 2004 also steam launched for hl2, bought it there, first time buying digital.
His perspective is very reflective of my own experiences. When I was a teenager, streaming services didn’t exist. So I downloaded all the music I could. Then, streaming services started to come around and I stopped altogether. Then, over the last few years, things have gotten complicated. There’s tons of streaming services for music/video. They all keep getting more expensive. Their apps don’t always work properly (looking at you, Paramount and HBO). The ads are getting worse.
So, I’m back to pirating. Fios+VPN+Plex. I pay for internet, I pay for VPN. I’d be willing to put my money towards legally aquiring the product if the ones distributing it weren’t so anti-consumer.
Gaben 100% I support gane companiea that put in a lot of effort in their products and listened to their consumer market. But some companies beginning with an E and ending with and A for example just ruins their consumer trust with dozens of micro transactions instead of giving a fun working game.
totally correct. oftentimes there’s just no way to buy something even if you’re willing to spend money. Or you have to both spend your money and get shittly quality, e.g. i once bought a textbook for somewhere around 200$ and what i got for it was and absolutely terrible DRM app that was crashign all the time, had godaweful interface and couldn’t even copy any text from it, i had to take screenshots and do OCR. Could have gotten that for free with much, much better quiality more importantly. Or Blueray disks… FFS just sell me the content, i will pay, just let me fucking download it, i don’t need the plastic garbage it comes on, i don’t have space for it in my house. But noooo.
Russia by the way almost entirely eliminated piracy in PC games towards the end of 2000s. In the beginning of 2000s it was almost entirely pirated, and towards the end it just didn’t make much sense anymore. They simply priced it right, 5-20$ US for most titles, even new ones, no fucking paper booklets that noone needs anyway and fat DVD cases, absolutely minimalist shittiest plastic case and a disk in it, with a thin 1-side paper insert, that’s all most of the time. All you needed was the license key anyway and it had it, full stop. e. There was simly no point in pirating games as it would just ruin the experience. And Steam played an important role in it, too. But when a title costs two week’s worth of rent, good luck selling that.
Localisation was indeed a big deal in 90s and earlies 2000s, official translations usually were waaaay too late and king of sucked. Movie dub still do a big time, just terrible.
Saw a video title (believe it was Lewis) that summed it all up for me.
If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.
I use to pirate ALL of my music without fail. Now? I have a simple $10 a month charge and can have any music I want at any point, on any device. Sure free is still better than $10 a month. But for the convenience? Can’t be beat.