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[ Vael Victus or anyone affiliated with him have never pirated anything in their lives, but my writing skill is so amazing that I can imagine what I would do in this situation. ] Piracy: You do, or you don't. But you probably do. You hear it all the time, "our profits are down so much because people steal our games/music/movies". I'm not going to pretend that piracy helps the market any, but I really doubt that it has as big an impact as people seem to think. This is why: 1. If you're going to pirate a game, you probably didn't have much wanting for it in the first place. FEAR, am I really going to pay 50 dollars for a game that lasts me 6 hours? Not that it wasn't amazing, and a good experience, but that's not cheap. 2. CD prices are ridiculous and the greedy CEOs of the record companies should feel ashamed that they overcharged people for music for 50+ years. 3. Movies. If a brand new movie just came out, and you're enough of a loser to, instead of going out with your friends to watch it, just watch it alone, taped by some nigra who's eating popcorn through the movie, then so be it. You get what you pay for, sorta. 4. Software like Adobe Photoshop and Flash are what made the internet what it is today. How many 16-year-olds do you think went out and bought the "Adobe 2007 CS 2.0 Mega Shithead Pack" for what is it now, like, 300 bucks? Not many. All the funny flashes you see were so likely to have been made with a pirated Flash, and that's what made the internet up. All the funny edited pics you see are so unlikely to be done with a bought photoshop. I'm now going to expand on those said things. 1. "Multiplayer". You cannot, unless you are a moron, play online with pirated games. That right there impedes your joy. I enjoyed myself some StarCraft so much, I went out and bought the multiplayer so I could be crushed by obsessed 10-year-olds. You also don't just install the game like you would normally; gotta torrent, go by the security, and that's that. But another thing, and this is for the game companies that aren't even going to read this: if they can crack BioShock, they can crack any protection you put out there. It seriously doesn't matter what you do, it's going to be cracked. Unless you require them to digitally purchase it, and they MUST be on the internet EVERY MOMENT, it simply will be cracked. Even then you can bet if it's a big release, that someone will nullify it. And what's worse is that you'll put tons of time into anti-piracy, and they just crack it anyway. For shame. 2. Ultimate pet peeve of piracy. Music is art. When I go to deviantART and look for new wallpaper for my desktop, I don't pay a penny. So why should I have to pay 99 cents a song for music? I can however on deviantART, go to the sidebar and say "I would like to buy this as a print." and I will get a nice physical copy of it, high quality, right at my door step. (though I do feel some artists over-charge... but that's them) My business model as a musician is to give all my stuff away for free. The only times I won't give it away for free are when: 1. My client does not want me to, or 2. it's a special track for buying the album itself. And that's my simple little business model. I don't make music for money, because if I did, I wouldn't use computers. I'd learn an instrument and work my way up like a real band would. And why? Because CDs are not the final say in how much a band makes. In fact, I'd go as far to say as they make very little from each CD, as opposed to going to their shows and you buying a shirt, or the CD directly through them. (not even factoring in what the club paid them in ticket sales) I saw Tub Ring, and I enjoy their 7 songs I listen to constantly, so I paid 10 dollars to get in, I believe 15 for a shirt, and was pleased. I saw them live, it was great. Shirts are very easy to print and don't cost much money at all. ( don't let CafePress lie to you; they are greedy bastardos) 3. "meh". That is my feeling to movies. Meh. Usually the setup you have around America is that the movie theater will charge you 10 dollars, and overcharge you for popcorn. Only highrollers eat popcorn there anyway. Then, about a month or so later, it'll go to the cheap theater for 2 dollars. This is unfortunately not an acceptable system for me. Now I'm not cheap, and I do love myself a good movie, but 10 dollars for a movie is ridiculous. You wanna make money? Own a movie theater. Buy the rights to the movie, hire some staff, and those are your expenses. I saw Sweeney Todd opening weekend, packed! They probably make $1,000 right in that crowd right there, it's absolutely incredible. So really - would it kill them to charge $7 and only make $700? Now that's a $300 difference, which I'll admit is quite the loss, but if you were charging that in the first place, you would see very little loss! :D As for personal piracy, I guess I really don't blame you. I saw Sweeney in the theater, then downloaded it to my computer. No problem. I watched it once, enjoyed it yet again, and I probably won't watch it for another year. But as a movie maker, I'd be happy with people who did that. Gave me the money, and then enjoyed it just *so* much, they wanted to see it again! I absolutely don't blame someone for not driving (possibly alone!) to the movie theater to pay $2 to see it again, and only once. 4. I'm actually of the opinion that Adobe does put the protection there just to mess with us. Seriously. Downloaded Flash, and couldn't move the toolbar without it crashing. Flash 9, leaves this little line every time I scroll up or down in zoomed mode. A favorite of mine (hate to go back to games here) was Black and White 2. Load it up all nice nice, get your civilization going, and then your people don't age. LOL. The best part was that people would go to the game's official support forums and be like, "MY PEOPLE DON'T AGE =(", and the support team is like "Bahaha!" and mysteriously the person deletes their account with no traces of response. Ahh. Internet. So anyway, seriously folks - don't bitch about pirating software. It really does make the world go 'round. A lot of purchases come from big companies who need to be legal, so they purchase the software. NewGrounds, you can bet your bottom dollar the workers (of NG) are all using official Flashes or PhotoShops to work with. So when bulk-buying for a new company's offices, they make quite a bit of money. Just don't feel too bad for them. And that about wraps it up! In conclusion, I am aware there are people out there who will say "Why buy [game I love] when I can just get it for free?!", and there are some poor people who simply can't afford it. As a game developer myself, I'd rather people in the end did enjoy my game regardless of if I was paid or not. (unless no one bought it) But that's because I love games. No, no, I love games. But my love for them is another article. Kudos to you if you download music off iTunes for crazy amounts, and kudos if you really do buy peoples' CDs when they're released. ( I'm almost always try-before-buy, except probably for Luca Turilli <3 ) I really would rather people go to see the bands live, or at least donate real moneys to the band's funds instead of buying CDs. If your music you like can't be played live, uh... ... get better music rofl gg. Eternal victim of irony, Vael Victus |