while this is true, if sales are up, more games are relased as its seen as easy money so although you will have some quality games a lot will be nothing but utter rubbish because they want to cash in just take a look at PC games now id say about 70-80% of releases are horrible and are just spin-offs from films, books or whatever is in the now. I think publishers use the piracy argument to justify higher prices sometimes when it may or may not be an issue for them. for instance why are games on steam more expensive than in shops ???? theres no DRM as such in it cause steam takes care of that, no physical media, box, intructions, packaging, shipping etc. MW2 was £40-45 on steam on launch but only £25-30 in supermarkets !!! Piracy and copywrite law definiately need to be addressed but i think both sides are taking the piss neither willing to compromise and unfortunately its the big companies that have the influence not the little man on the street. the digital economy bill thing was past with no thought at all and i didint even get a say !. Perfect example of a bill that was thought up by the people who are to benefit from it not from both points of view as it should have done.
Hm, PM'ing, I think I might be able to glean some very useful insight here... On-topic, how many games do still have demos? Because, Nexxo, there's a situation in which I'd disagree about simply not buying games. Yes, I can live without games, but giving up games altogether would suck. I love everything about them except the price and the massively variable quality from one game to another. If games cease to have demos altogether (as seems likely to me given the increasingly MP-orientated, online-orientated, Piracy-phobic nature of developers) then it will literally be impossible to try before you buy at all, so your advice to me in that scenario would boil down to "stop playing games". Of course, I realise life is bigger than games, and it's not a huge deal. But in that situation, I think I would simply go back to trial-by-piracy. And the suggestion about reviews is a good one in most cases, but not flawless. I nearly bought MW2 on Joe's advice, because I've completely agreed with him on all matters of game taste before, and he raved about its SP campaign. When I tried it by piracy, I found it hugely underwhelming and mediocre, and it would've cost me £40 at the time. So...no, reviews are useful but they don't quite cut it.
There are other costs that you seem to be failing to identify though. Bandwidth is one, I would hate to think what Steam has to pay in order to allow hundreds of thousands of people to download games (frequently 2gb+) anytime they want, and at a reasonable DL rate. It honestly makes me shudder. Then there is the fact that buying from Steam has advantages over buying off the shelf, so they could be placing higher value on the items for this reason. Also, early adopters always end up paying a premium, not saying it's right but it's been that way as long as I have been a gamer.
true i guess the bandwidth can cost a lot. just doesnt feel good value if shops and e-tailers charge a lot less. i guess steam is expensive but also really cheap as their specials are second to none. steam also has disadvantages though as you may have to wait hours to play a game when you buy it unlike a shop and it gets worse if you have a rubbish connection and could be waiting days. i do enjoy the auto patches though
When you get past a certain amount, bandwidth is very very cheap. If you run your own datacentres (like Valve almost certainly do) it's even cheaper, but even on expensive commercial systems it's inexpensive to download large files. If you have download volumes of >150TB per month (ie Steam) the Amazon S3 Cloud has download charges of $0.08 per GB - meaning that a typical 8GB game would cost $0.64 to download. Even assuming that the average game might be downloaded twice per user, including patches etc (personally I never have, but whatever) you're still looking at a cost of $2 per game for the raw distribution and patches This is on Amazon's massive cloud, though. Amazon's not in it to help you distribute your games, it's in it to make money. So, we're going to say that it's actually $0.35 per game sale - it's a fairer amount based on what I know about dedicated servers and their prices (a server is extremely cheap, if you're using it the whole time to generate profit). This is not a lot - certainly much less than manufacturing the dvd, box, manual, distributing, employee wages at Gamestation etc - Steam has a massive advantage in this environment.
Even as a very avid gamer, I have to agree with Nexxo. Yes, the advice boils down to "stop playing games", and that's the correct answer. Gaming is really just a hobby. It has no special protection compared to any other hobby, if it no longer suits your wishes then stop. If stopping is too difficult for you then don't and learn to deal with the problems. Using reviews is also something no one should ever complain about. It's the sole way of determining a purchase for many hobbies. I have an interest in model trains and have had to bite the bullet and make purchases out of catalogs and magazines using only reviews and advertisements as a guide. Some of them can get frighteningly expensive and you just have to hope it's of a quality you enjoy. Maybe your $200 engine will be poorly painted, the wheels will be flimsy and make it rattle as it rolls, or won't be perfectly accurate. Tough cookies. It's things like that which keep me from being deeper into the hobby despite how much I would love it be. As much as I hate to say it, if gaming has such strong problems for you then, well, maybe gaming isn't your hobby anymore. Doesn't give a person special rights to illegally pirate things.
I think it's sad that a pirate could not even have the balls to admit he's a thief Once upon a time, a thief had to go out there, IRL, put on a mask or use stealth, and get his hands dirty. I'm sure there have been thieves so self righteous, that they would defend thier actions such as "but my family was starving, so I was doing the right thing" What they meant to say was "my family was starving because I'm a loser, and stealing was the easiest option"
In many cases, that's not the case - jobs were/are scarce and not all of us are lucky enough to be able to afford expensive pcs and plenty of games. Even in the UK, 13.5 million people (ie 1/5 of the population) live under the poverty line, surviving on less than £200 a week (for a couple with no dependent children) - if we assume that food would cost £7 a day per person, you're thinking of £102 for heating, electricity, council house, everything else - not much for anyone. The people at the bottom of the pile will earn considerably less - £50 is jobseeker's allowance, which is barely enough to pay for decent meals, let alone electricity, tv, water, internet, etc Just because your family is starving doesn't make you a loser - your generalization that they are implies to me that you yourself are the loser, not them.
DVD's, Bluray, Starcraft 2 and Iplayer all fail to work from the US,Hong Kong and Singapore, Last time I used Itunes it couldn't cope with 2 ipods both connected to two machines although that was years ago. I do pay for the product sometimes with no choice (BBC license fee) and from the BBC Trust the license fee provides the entitlement to watch live broadcast and BBC PSB not geographic location. As to region restricting DVD's etc I refer you to Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 section 22 & 27 personal import and backup copies are legal. We used to use different TV standards in the 80's as well but both beta and VHS weren't restricted and it did take months to get films from US release to UK but that has to do with master reels and the UK getting substandard secondhand product not difficulties converting the signals, The DRM on Starcraft 2 is broken the only people at fault for that are Blizzard it's their code, the region restrictions and broken lan multiplayer you don't find out about until you have installed the product all so far with just an automated reply from tech support, whilst I've singled out Blizzard there are plenty of other examples over the years. I accept that what I'm doing is illegal but certainly not immoral I've paid for the product so I'm not depriving the rights holder of any revenue even when I break the region lock on Iplayer,hulu etc I'm not depriving anyone of any income using from the wrong country I've already paid for the service and don't see why I should have to wait 12 weeks for episode 6 of a series just because I'm in london not orlando when I can just switch IP and watch it now. I'd like to say I've got a licensed copy of everything thats on the NAS's but i'm sure theres a few I've forgotten about but when I find them I'll buy a copy I like to have a physical copy and I like the fact there are still shrink wrapped now. Whenever something is locked someone will unlock it just to prove they can, DRM doesn't work has never worked and will never work. Its time the rights holders realised that a) some people will steal and always have/will b) All DRM does is annoy legitimate users, Some have realised this stardock spring to mind. I'm lucky I have the knowledge to use torrents without getting f****** over and the bandwidth to keep the NAS's sync'd I travel alot and lugging thousands of cd's about isn't practical this way I have access to the media I've paid for when I want to use it from music to software. If you want immoral, Region locks are used to keep prices artificially high in certain parts of the world, Selling a product you know doesn't work and making no comment in almost a month No other copyright expects the same restrictions as Film,Music,Software not even other IP and the reality is more and more people expect access to their media collection when and how they want (this was originally allowed under the "fair use provisions of the copyright act but has become more restrictive following pressure from the industry) and all the industry is doing is forcing them into the arms of the pirates who do provide what they want with all the extra risks for everyone from compromised machines. You can only reduce "demand" if there is a "legal" supply this has been shown over and over again just look at the effects of prohibition in the US
Yeah Unikey, the system is harsh, and it's so much easier to just steal, isn't it? Nope, if you're family is starving, then you are a loser, can't sugar coat that one. There is always work available, there is always money available. Some people just don't want to do the crappy jobs, and would rather steal.
Does that theory include the kids who are living below the poverty line because their parents are disabled, or somehow other unable to work? Suppose we should just make sure the kids work instead eh? Or what about the families where the parents do work, but still remain below the poverty line because of low earnings? Are they losers too? It isn't about starving here in the UK, but it is about poor diet, lower life expectancy, poverty related illnesses and other things those in higher income brackets don't have to worry about.
Some people make sure they are more than able to support any children they bring into the world, before they go and make a girl pregnant. But living below the poverty line, and not being able to feed your children, are quite far apart! At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the situation is, or how justified the case for stealing is, stealing is still stealing, and not being able to admit that is lying.
some people just dont want to work, even though they are perfectly capable of doing some sort of work. some of them even seem to have better stuff than those people that do work
For me to have stolen someone must be deprived of something which they clearly aren't. Regional price fixing is against the spirit if not the letter of several treaties and numerous countries trade laws let alone products that simply don't work with no response from the rights holder, The person who has my money and so far hasn't given me the advertised product or even bothered to reply in almost a month so exactly who is out of pocket here?
Well if they have taken your money, and not given you anything in return, then yes, they have stolen from you. Barstad theives
And I never said it justified it. I do think that there are people who become tempted to steal in acts of sheer desperation though. If we tried to pretend otherwise we would be lying too. People do depserate things in desperate times. Some consideration is needed when people get stuck between a rock and a hard place, and make the wrong choices. It still doesn't excuse their behaviour, but it does offer some mitigation. And not everyone lives a textbook life where they get a job, stay in that job for life, meet a woman, marry woman, have kids and eat cereal together every morning for the rest of their lives. Some people face crisis through no fault of their own (ie redundancy, bereavement etc), and end up not being able to manage. The more I read your post, the more I dislike it's tone. Get a grip on real life ffs!!
And in desperate times you have to steal your games of course.. being a priority equal to food, clothing and shelter. If I was on that situation, I probably wouldn't have much in the way of a gaming PC.. and if I did, I think my priorities may be a little wrong, don't you? I'm not saying Stuart is wrong... we could all be reduced to stealing food etc. This has just gone OT a bit in my opinion.
