How long is one obligated to support the devs? (Not TM)

[Trackmaniack]

Don't get your knickers in a knot, I'll happily support Nadeo for as long as possible My question pertains to games in general. Everyone complains about piracy on the PC killing sales, and how pirates are spinning their own propaganda--anyway, I won't get into all that--but what I want to know, is how long before a developer can stop saying that "sales are being lost" to piracy, or whatever? Because, admittedly, I've "procured" a few games for free in my time--but then, when the games are good, I'll go buy them. It's like a demo for me. But for a lot of games that I get, they're old. Like, really old. Like Homeworld 1. Or the first SupCom, or even older, Total Annihilation. So if I -do- find them as a first-rate copy, they're going to be downgraded in price, or more likely, I'll only be able to find it on Amazon or something...

[janculits]

What kind of answer you want to hear? That pirating becomes legal after time?

[Trackmaniack]

No, most certainly not. Sorry, my first post was a little convoluted. I'm honestly not sure what I want to hear. But I'm always hearing about developers trying to cut sales losses and destroy the second-sale economy, especially on PC, with all this DRM and one-key-one-use stuff, and I find it a bit ridiculous, to be honest. So I was wondering, after what point does a developer consider a game "old," especially newer games such as Assassin's Creed and things like that. Because I've acquired copies of them, and then gone on to buy the retail game. It's new, but it's been out long enough that the price is reduced (such as $19.99 for the 2 pack of AC I and II.) Because I have a PC that's behind the times, I can't always afford or run the latest games--so I wait until my hardware catches up with their software--and that often means they're 2 or 3 games ahead of me by that point. So, I guess my true question is, would that count me as a sale, still, since I'm buying a "new" game, not a re-used one, or do they just not care after a point?

[kano69]

piracy on the PC killing sales




oh really? i love how every game and i mean EVERY game on poxbox and pos3 is Copied / uploaded and available weeks b4 you even see the PC VERSION (if the tard developers port the said game)

if the developer is LAZY and doesnt release a DEMO or beta ect i will download the "other" version of game to test... there have been SO many flops this year and im not one to waste my money.. so i like to "test" b4 buying.. Nadeo done great >> BETA allowing ppl to play it... STOPS ppl wanting to "crack/play for free" ...

[janculits]

Still a bit confusing Probably if you bought the game on Steam or something they would get their % share, but if bought boxed from some shop irl, they might not care ...

[MatheusKS]

Here in Brazil the original game is rare. In my city, one for each original game store, there are 10 vendors with pirated games.
Many friends of mine had detonated computers because of viruses from pirated games.
The Nadeo here has a bit of luck. I saw no TrackMania pirate yet. But also never seen an original.

[Xzalander]

I think I get what youre saying here trackmaniack.

Basically; Developers (well more likely publishers) look at "Initial Sales"; I think what Tmaniack is asking is how long is this "initial sale" period?

You can have some developers say its the first month and if their "expected sales quota" doesn't match to the actual sales then they could yell (albeit stupidly) its all piracies fault and others will use a 12 month time frame.


How does this relate to supporting developers? Well read on:

Usually once developers have 'finished' with their Initial Sales period; they'll authorise shops to sell more cheaply (ie they lower the RRP) and much more further down the line what was once a "vital sale" becomes a ... "Byproduct" sale?

As in theyve stopped tracking the sales of said product and the royalty is probably lower.(The % is the same but 10% of £10 is less than 10% of £40); for example Elder Scrolls Oblivion; It can now be picked up as a GOTY edition for a measly £10. So the big question here is; How much will bethesda really miss their 10% royalty, because eventually the sale price of an item gets so low that they eventually see nothing of it.

And all of that is assuming their sales are royalty based. I know in many cases Publishers work on Stock basis and its down to the retailers to shift it. Stock basis is where they flat fee the retailer for their product slightly under market value, once the product is sold to the retailer that is it, any financial ties are over with. The Publisher has their couple million for however many produce.

Personally; I go by the logic of "When a GOTY is released; And/Or That GOTY is over 1 Year Old. If GOTY does not occur then when you can find it in a bargain bin (<£5)".

Because tbh when a product reaches Bargain Bin status the publisher or developer is going to see what? 10p of the product and by then piracy is pretty moot.

[Trackmaniack]

Somebody answered my question! Yay Yeah, this is exactly what I'm saying and thank you for the response--I was trying to figure out how certain companies could bleat about piracy killing sales, but then turn right around and not even give legitimate gamers a chance...draconian DRM that was/is glitchy, no real PC support, better/more optimized game on the console, no extra content for PC gamers...the list goes on.

[Xzalander]

To be frank, even if Piracy didn't exist publishers would find some other excuse (heck theyre already starting to) for poor sales.

It primarily stems from their financial depts getting these grandiose statistics in their heads coupled with publishers thinking lots of money thrown at it = Great Game!

A good example is ID with RAGE.

At first ID's Carmack tried to blame piracy for poor week one sales. This was soon debunked with the thousands of complaint emails and threads on steam, D2D and ID forums about the amount of launch errors and graphical artifacting.

They then went on to blame AMD/Nvidia for poor driver compatibility; despite AMD/Nvidia driver ware being open source for games developers...

It wasn't soon after that he then tried blaming reviewers not giving RAGE a fair chance, then turning on his own very fans essentially saying "STFU RAGE IS A GREAT GAME, YOURE JUST STUPID."

All because his week one sales figures didn't match up with his finance departments projections.

So basically; Youre obligated to support the developers (from an anti-piracy view) for as long as they want until it becomes financially negligible. (In other words the moment the Publishers stop getting £10 per copy cuts).

I like you would be totally on the side of game developers more if they stopped blaming piracy and looking for other excuses.

If I hear one more time that a games company has spent £4million developing a game another 1million on its DRM and a whopping £30million on marketing (Cough* Call of Doody*), I would be so, so tempted to point them at Popcap, Tarn Adams or any other highly successful indie dev and say

look; They did it on a monthly stipend from two jobs bringing in £200 a week. No DRM, No nickel & diming, no cost marketing, no microtransactions, no day 1 DLC, no cut content, no over inflated price points. Sure their player base isnt as "massive" as some purchases made on the Big Boy table, but the difference is you only buy a Big Boy toy once, that little Lego Brick Set gets bought, and bought and bought....

Prime example? Over the last 5 years I've "Paid/Donated" to Tarn Adams (Dwarf Fortress) £1,200, £75 to Notch for numerous copies of minecraft. Ive even bought Plants Vs Zombies 18 times. (Myself, 10 friends on steam, 2 DS copies, 1 CD Copy, 1 GOTY Copy and 3 GOTY for my local Hospital)

If such small inconspicuous developers can make people buy not just once, but multiple times and not need to resort to DRM and accusations of Piracy; then the problem is with their product; not the people.

Edit: Wow that turned into a wall. Anyone fancy some wallriding?

[Trackmaniack]

*skids out* That sums up anything anyone could ever say on the argument