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 Posted: Tue, 13th Jul 2004 23:44 Post subject: Software Piracy a self inflicted problem? |
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I have been pondering over the reasons to why people steal software. I admit that I have had a few applications and games on my drives over the years that I have not paid for.
I know it is a criminal act, yet I do it with little to no moral issues. When I started to think about why I found out that for me personaly it is about quality. You can download all the demos/trialware you want and you will still not get the real deal.
Game developers usually (personal observation) drop demo development the minute the game goes gold, leaving potential customers with nothing more then a half patched beta to try while the game might have moved on. Lots of applications have limited features and functionality in trial leaving you with no way of fully test the product and see if it does what you expect it to do. Finally, and this goes for both games and applications, prices are set at way to short profit margins.
I feel that the gaming industry is counterproductive in the way it is throwing new games at us consumers. After all 98% of all the games in store at any given time is just pure junk. That combined with an extremly short attentionspan from the developers when it comes to patches, extensions, modtools and what not makes buying a game today a somewhat problematic and risky endevour if you plan to enjoy the game for more then a few days. When the developers then get forced by the producers to publish a game before it is shelf-material with a price tag that makes you think your buying a spare part to your Ferrari then you get extremly picky as a customer.
I can honnestly say that I have bought every game that I have played for over 5 days. With a price tag of about $40-50 then you expect to get more then 1-5 days enjoyment before it turns into an expensive geek display piece. Unfortunatly those games are few and far between, and since your not allowed to try the real game in the store (like cloths, cars, CDs etc) I think being able to download the game and try it out before you actually buy the game is fair. I will not even mention game pre/review in computer magazines or webpages as a viable consumer guide option here, as we all know the story already.
I think it is time that the gaming industry took a good long look at their own behaveour in areas such as: Quality control, Usabillity, Customer relations, lifespan and product value, before they start to whine about their potential customers engageing in piracy. If the avrage game was well built, had good customer support, a price tag that matched their product value, and lifespan a bit longer then it takes to break open the plastic wrap around the box, THEN piracy would probably not be a problem. When expectation tangents with quality things work. Its that simple!
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Dunge
Posts: 1201
Location: Québec
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Jul 2004 00:12 Post subject: |
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I totally agree with you! The only problem is that the people who control this are shareholders (dunno if its a good translation).. you know the people who buy cie parts,. anyway it's the director of the mass publishing compagny like EA games, they don't give a fuck of the product they just push the developper to finish it faster so they can grab the money.
I think the way they should change their way of doing is simply put away the publishers.. they grab like 80% of profit and put some limitations. I mean, they were needed back then but now you don't really have to pay to get publicity in the gaming scene, the people want to pay to have news. Do you really think Half-Life 2 wouldn't get sold as much if Valve didn't sign up with Vivendi Universal for the distribution?? They are only arranging things to ship in all countries, but it souldn't be that hard.
Valve tried to find a way around with steam but they need to sell it in box anyway... and it's the only big compagny who sell games to download
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| Posted: Wed, 14th Jul 2004 00:57 Post subject: |
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(sad music starts playing) Ducken, I can sit here and bullshit all day about how you're right, it's the comapnies' fault, I'll buy it later, it's just a big demo, etc...
But (music screeches to a stop) we all know that 99% of those here have more than one game/app on their hard drive, and that those games/apps were not legally bought. We are for the most part using the scene to save some cash.
Which brings me to the real problem: prices.
I, for one, have about $3000's worth of pirate software on my PC (PS CS, MacroMedia studio mx 2k4, and winxp pro taking the lions' share). As a matter of fact, the only LEGAL soft I have on my PC is freeware. I am not alone. Many others like me earn too little (barely enough for bills + decent PC hardware) to plop down $1000 for a 1-cd image editing suite. Freeware? compared to PS the freeware out there is shit. Plus, many of the gamers out there are high school/college students that aren't rich, and who would not have a snowflake's chance in hell to get $50 for the latest game from their parents, which leaves them with the turd... err... value bin, or piracy.
On the other hand if you cut all the middlemen (stock holders, CEOs, distributors) out of the equation, the company can get paid the same and charge $50 for that Photoshop copy. Or $15-25 for that new game. This is stuff I'd buy. not the bullshit they charge now, that requires you to spend $100+ a month to get enough games to play.
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