(21/03/2012 06:22 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  

(21/03/2012 05:20 PM)SkyDX Wrote:  Then again the PSP might just have been a odd one regarding that, I mean look at the DS, flashcards are 100% easier to handle than any PSP firmware and yet the DS and the 3DS live on strong^^

It's because piracy "problem" is pretty much irrelevant.  People who believe it are just lapping up the bullchocolate that lobby groups / big media companies put out.  Congrats to them, they've managed to blow a pretty irrelevant issue out of proportion, helping to increase the millions that the CEOs make.

Yeah I agree with you, I too think it's pretty irrelevant. Not so much in a theoretical model that companies might use but in a real world videogame market it is. Since I'm bored and can't really sleep I might aswell explain it in detail for others how I think (I had business classes in school and study it partially so yeah...)

This is purely restricted to the videogame market (of course I have to a few things up because I lack a data but this should only show why piracy doesn't hurt sales all that much or rather why this "every download is a lost sale is stupid"):

Assuming there is NO piracy things would probably roughly look like this:

-» Since videogames are a luxury good there's no immediate need to buy them unlike food etc.
-» Every person will only spend a limited amount on videogames, for this models sake lets say this amount is 100 units per month
-» Now Game A, B and C are all released around the same timeframe and all cost 50 units, wee are interested in all three games
-» Since wee can only afford two of them wee will pick the ones that wee are interested in the most, lets say A and B, C won't get a buy
-» What happens now is that wee might wait a month and pick up Game C or, since wee weren't all that interested in it wee might forget about it or buy it discounted or used
-» In either case the publisher can't be sure if he ever gets a sale from us for Game C, let alone for the full price
-»Since wee might or might not buy it later this can't be seen as a sure possible sale or a lost sale

Now wee add piracy to the mix:

-» The situation is pretty much the same only that wee have the option to "get" A, B and C either way
-» There is the possibility that all three are now pirated but people who flat out pirate anything they can get are very unlikely to buy anything either way since they most likely simply cannot really afford buying games
-» Having no piracy would simple increase the likeliness of them to buy things, not actually surely make them buy games
-» Piracy comes with it's own problems, sometimes complicated, warranty, bricking the device, loss of online functionality etc.
-» Assuming now wee still buy A, B and pirate C
-» If wee like C, wee might still buy it out of support/for online, or wee become uninterested in it after a while, so a sale is still uncertain

So if companies say that each download = a lost sale they are pretty much talking poo poo^^ All piracy does is making the "uncertainty factor" of a sale fluctuate in either a positive or negative way that nobody is able to foresee.

And before anyone says something like "but what about the guys in school that bought a PSP solely because they could pirate/pirate everything?!" Think about it, how likely is it that these people actually CAN or would buy much games without piracy?

Something that also plays a role is that both digital and retail sales affect things both on their own:

Digital:

-» As convenient as piracy
-» Gives people their money
-» If the game has no online it lacks any indistinguishable thing from the pirated version
-» Might vanish with company

Physical:

-» Not as convenient
-» Gives people their money
-» Adds value in form of manuals, boxes, collectors editions etc
-» Will mostly work in many years if taken good care of

I'm not saying piracy is right, it's just not much of a huge issue for video games as companies make it seem to be^^ And now after writing all that, good night xD

To sum it up: "Having no piracy wouldn't make it MUCH more likely for people that create games to get (more) money. That still doesn't makes piracy right."

(21/03/2012 07:08 PM)Assassinator Wrote:  

(21/03/2012 05:20 PM)SkyDX Wrote:  

(21/03/2012 04:31 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  

PB seems to have some unjustified hate campaign against every hack - just leave him alone to his own beliefs

I think he just fears that the same hollow death happens to the Vita that the PSP suffered from which is kinda justified I have to admit... So I'm also a bit torn between the ISO loading part of this, I have nothing against Kernel Access but having ISOs only maybe 2-3 years down the road would be better^^' (Just to clarify I still have my UMDs of Metal Gear Ac!d 1 and 2 that I would love to play on a Vita)



Then again the PSP might just have been a odd one regarding that, I mean look at the DS, flashcards are 100% easier to handle than any PSP firmware and yet the DS and the 3DS live on strong^^

I'm pretty sure PB mentioned somewhere that after he learned how to write his own code, he gained an appreciation for the amount of time and effort programmers need to put in to output any reasonable software, which is what led to his stance against software piracy.

well im already give my psp to my brother since im already have a 3DS but yeah this thing will be nice, KH birth by sleep don't have a psn release yeah?

(22/03/2012 12:44 AM)krystabegnalie Wrote:  well im already give my psp to my brother since im already have a 3DS but yeah this thing will be nice, KH birth by sleep don't have a psn release yeah?

Unfortunately no, Crisis Core isn't on there either. =(

Also I never heard of the UMD Passport thing and wondered why it doesn't exist here.

If it were to come to the US Wrote:UMD Passports = $10 each title
Gamers wouldn't pay for it

Hmm if only there was some sort of "free" method.

Some kind of hack that will let us load these games via overpriced memory stick.

Something that won't require another console(PSP) to let me play these games even though the Vita is already fully capable of playing them.

Ohh one can dream can they?

^
yeah why buy again the one you have bought, hehehe

and yeah only way to play the unreleased psn games in Vita is through a hack (or buy a cheaper psp)

My so-called hatred is not unjustified. Over the past couple of weeks wee have had some developing studios visit my university for the purpose of a games expo. Of course, I got chance to have little conversations with them. Some had developed for PSP, DS/DSi/3DS, PS3, Xbox, the whole spectrum.
I quizzed a developer I think it might have been from Guerrilla Games or some other studio as to why there were so little games in the West for the PSP. He explicitly told me, the developer: "Because the PSP is so riddled with piracy one man will buy the game, upload it online and everybody and the mother will use the 'backup' (he made little quotes with his hands) to play the game instead.
I used to be in that position, like everyone else I didn't want to spend the money on games because they are a luxury. NOT a necessity. Because of how easy it was to circumvent security on the PSP people never even seemed to think about actually buying the game. People seem to think they're owed games at a lower price, and that they still should play games even if they can't afford them. Which doesn't apply to any other markets than multimedia. You wouldn't say that you can't afford a new fridge-freezer, and go out and 'borrow' one.
The PSP showed a lot of promise, but because of the hideous levels of piracy there was virtually no money to be made from it over here. The only companies that seemed to thrive on developing for PSP have been Japanese ones, because the PSP is in a whole other league of popularity over there, people still pirate, that's unavoidable, but on the whole the japanese consumer is more obsessed with 'collecting' than the average.
Because of the ill-fate of the PSP's piracy, people seem to expect the Vita to be hacked in the same way, as if it is a given or that they deserve the hack, doing everything to thwart the earning of the games studios that actually keep the console they play games on alive. Every copy lost to piracy is an extra $10 or so that wee could use making our next game that bit better, but no, people want that immediate satisfcation, blindly not thinking about the impact that could have on the developers who spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours making that game for their enjoyment, or the fate of the studio, the company that made the console, anything.
People can oppose piracy all they want, but there is no way anybody i ever knew with a PSP that pirated that bought the game when they had enough cash after completing it on a pirated version, not even myself. Who would buy what they already finished? They'd be basically buying the game for the privilege of it gathering dust.
The thought of 'I can't afford, I won't get' seems to be lost on any software, multimedia platform today. It's now a case of ''I can't afford, I'll pirate it and act as if I was never going to buy it in the first place" when in actual fact, if there was no such thing, people would have the patience to save up for a little bit and get what they earned."

Long-winded, and yes, I used to pirate games for PSP, hands-up, you caught me. But as assassinator said, the whole becoming a developer thing gives me a whole new sense of appreciation for the tireless work that devs put into games, let alone the OS and the hardware you actually buy and have a license to use.
Just to be ruined by people that think it's OK to do everything your license to the software does not state you can do. With the watery and quite frankly, completely bullchocolate excuse of 'backups' to cover it up. I don't know what the hell people even do with their games, to lose them so much they warrant taking 'backups' of them. I don't believe the word 'backup' for a millisecond, I'm not retarded. You wouldn't go into a game retailer and 'borrow' the game off the shelf, so why do it online?

Not once have I ever known anyone to buy a game after pirating it. I've known people get new games for PSP online without a single thought of ever buying it, no matter how much they wanted it. There are some people with a conscience, but seriously, they are in the devastating minority.

What happened to the days when people were people were happy with what a device did as standard? People seem to expect every single device to be an all-singing-all-dancing supermachine that does everything ever. Or more irritatingly, that they are owed that super device and complain to "Sony" when their device doesn't let them (for some reason, I wonder what it could be) do that.

Companies, developers, studios are not your friends. They don't owe you anything. You shouldn't expect them to bend over and do everything you ask. They are businesses, they aren't here to please you. They're here to earn as much money as they can. And that is it.

None of you will listen anyway. People always want what they can't or shouldn't have. And as a prospective PS Vita developer, (I'm developing for it next year), if i could i'd personally go around and punch every single arsehole who took my work for free, that I slaved on, worked to the bone for, to provide a fun way of earning money, where it hurt.

The tone of all of these articles is all geared toward the coming closer to running 'backups' you know my feelings on that poo poo. All everyone is waiting for is that green light to piracy. I know a few people who won't even get a Vita until it can pirate.

And just to let you know, I couldn't care less about what any of you have to say against me.

(22/03/2012 07:17 AM)ProperBritish Wrote:  The tone of all of these articles is all geared toward the coming closer to running 'backups' you know my feelings on that poo poo. All everyone is waiting for is that green light to piracy. I know a few people who won't even get a Vita until it can pirate.

And just to let you know, I couldn't care less about what any of you have to say against me.

So how does that count as them losing money... I mean if the pirate won't even get a Vita till it can pirate and has no intention in buying the game ever.  If you are a real pirate you pirate everything on the internet you shouldn't be counted as a customer as your not even gonna think about buying the game.

So my point here is real pirates are not customers so developers shouldn't say just because this game was pirated 10,000 times, that they have lost this amount ($$$$$$$$) of money, as if all of the  10,000 people who downloaded the game are their customers and would have bought the game.