Demigod: So much for piracy

By Frogboy on April 29, 2009 12:15:08 PM from

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+1469

If I wrote a post saying that Demigod sales were far below what we had hoped for and I said that the reason was due to piracy and that the answer was that we should have put some nasty copy protection on those DVDs to have prevented early piracy what do you think people would say?

I know what my answer to that would be. I would say that Stardock couldn’t blame poor sales on piracy but rather the fact that the game’s built-in multiplayer match-making was totally broken for the first day of release due to its underestimation of network resources that a mainstream game would take and even when that got addressed, the multiplayer match-making for two weeks and counting has been incredibly flakey which affected reviews and word of mouth. That’s what I would say.

And yet…

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23381\

Demigod debuts at #3 for top selling PC games at retail – bearing in mind that that was a partial week and that the majority of units sold were digital sales which weren’t counted.

But…but…what about those hundreds of thousands of pirates? Yep. Demigod is heavily pirated. And make no mistake, piracy pisses me off. If you’re playing a pirated copy right now, if you’re one of those people on Hamachi or GameRanger playing a pirated copy and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you’re a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way.

The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games and people who don’t buy games. The focus of a business is to increase its sales. My job, as CEO of Stardock, is not to fight worldwide piracy no matter how much it aggravates me personally. My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary – our customers.

As Ars Technica quoted over a year ago:

"The reason why we don't put copy protection on our games isn't because we're nice guys. We do it because the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it. Our customers make the rules, not the pirates. Pirates don't count," Wardell argues. "When Sins popped up as the #1 best selling game at retail a couple weeks ago, a game that has no copy protect whatsoever, that should tell you that piracy is not the primary issue."

Even Demigod, a game that shipped with no copy protection on the DVD, was massively pirated, and has had, to put it mildly severe launch issues with its multiplayer match-making which has had a negative impact on its Metacritic score has still managed to debut at the top of retail sales charts (not counting our digital sales).

Why is that? At that point I can only speculate but the first reason is pretty straight forward: Demigod is an awesome game. Second, while the multiplayer matchmaking that comes with the game currently sucks, our customers know it will get fixed. Part of that is the demographic of Stardock customers. They’re more experienced, they know that some of the issues with the MP matchmaking aren’t due to rushing the game out or negligence but rather the fact that complicated systems sometimes don’t scale well and there is no substitute for time when it comes to fix them.

I think there are many lessons to be learned from Demigod. For example, if I had to do it over again, I would be inclined to require a valid user account to play LAN even if it only has to be validated one time. That way, we could also make it a lot easier for a legal user to have a LAN party with a single license. Anyone who has played Demigod on Game Ranger probably knows what and why I'm bringing that up.

When the focus of energy is put on customers rather than fighting pirates, you end up with more sales. It seems common sense to me but then again, I’m just an engineer.

As a user of stardock games I find it very refreshing knowing that I can use all stardock games without having to go though all the ****** anti priacy ****.

From what I hear with games like spore etc the pirate copy is better as it does not have all that rubbish on it.

Thank you for being a good publisher/developer and looking after your paying customers first!

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Quoting db0,

reply 4

and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you’re a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way.

I file-share games regularly, however I have bought all my Stardock games just because of (whatt I thought was) your stance on Piracy.

Now you made me wish I hadn't...

So tell me exactly, since Piracy doesn't result in any lost sales, since piracy actually may have a net positive effect on your sales, where exactly do you get off calling people thieves when you haven't lost anything to them?

Oh did he insult the little pirate...you poor, poor inocent little soul.

Just be an honest thief I hate it when pirates assume outrage, he said anyone who had pirated it and continued to play it for more than a few days was a thief, you can't claim your just using it as a demo if you keep playing.

What have you stolen, well the time and effort of everyone working on the at GPG & Stardock of course. Rather you expecting the development cost to be paid for by legitamate customers. So really it's us people who buy the game you are stealing from in a sense, we are funding your gaming.

When I was a teenager and didn't have much money I used to copy games from my friends at the time I didn't think much of it, but I never effected an outraged sense of entitlement or pretended to myself that the developers did not really deserve to be paid for their work. Now I'm grown up I never pirate games any more than I would steal a copy of a book, because the author and/or developer in both cases deserves to be paid for their work and if I don't Pay I'm stealthing their time and effort.

Now the fact many pirates would never pay for a game anyway doesn't mean their is nothing morally wrong with what they do, or that it isn't theft. Does the fact that most shoplifters wouldn't buy the goods that they steal mean it's not theft?

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Your all missing the point. Where in my post did I mention morale? Where in my point did I say it was the right thing to do? Where in my post did I say it wasn´t wrong?

I said it doesnt matter as much as the companies CLAIM. Meaning that the pirating doesnt have as big impact on their earning as they say.

My post has nothing to do with morale. Neither does most people understand the word morale. Morale isnt an universal law. Morale is what YOU believe is wrong or right. Ethic (cant´t remember the spelling) is how you follow those beliefs.

In my book stealing,pirating or any action that hurts another being wrong.(Thats MY morale) In some peoples book it isn´t. What I said was that pirating (re-stating my opinion) doesnt have as big impact on copyrights owners as it is claimed in the "news". NOTHING ELSE.

Yes its wrong(IMO), but does it make a difference? NO.-------- IMO = In my opinion.

200K downloaded pirated copies doesnt mean 200K times the price in earning loss. If being a positive person at most 50K copies lost. Most of them wouldnt even look at the product. Then you have to withdraw the persons who downloads the pirated version as a demo. In the end it pretty much equals up. At least when it comes to MP gaming.

But god I guess noone still gets the point because of the wonderful narrowminded people in the world.

I´ve learned a good rule in life. Pick your battles. If you can´t win turn the loss into your advantage and win the war.

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Quoting Tridus,

reply 24

Quoting Vespucci, reply 18

Uh, I doubt you realize that you just equated pirates with super villains like the Joker? They commit crimes for the purpose of getting away with it? I like to think that's not what you meant. Yeah, dude, I don't speed to get places faster, I do it because it's illegal. Maybe teenagers of alcoholic mothers are like that.

WTF? You're reaching pretty far now.

People download games because they're cheap. They want free games. There's no real punishment for it, so there's no reason for them not to.

You speed becuase you want to get places faster (you said so yourself). If you had a 100% chance of getting caught and ticketed every time you did it, you wouldn't speed as often (or you'd pay a whole lot in fines, which if you're rich is probably doable).

It's got nothing to do with super villans, I really don't know how you managed to come up with that. Pirates do what they do because they're cheapskates at heart and there's no consequences for it. People who try to justify it are just deluding themselves.

Ok, that's what I was hoping you were trying to say. Thanks for the clarification.

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People who thinks tickets are fine are deluding themselves. Because a ticket means I can fuck it if I can afford it.

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Quoting db0,

reply 25

@Vespucci

First: You're picking and choosing dictionary definitions that fit your arguments.

Second: You can easily fall into an equivocation fallacy through perfectly accurate dictionary definitions.

If you want to use dictionary definitions then first state which meaning of stealing you use and then we can discuss if it's harmful or not.

Are you using the definition of "to appropriate ideas without right or acknowledgment."? This is also called plagiarism and the harm it creates is debatable.

I cited which dictionary and which definition. Whatever, I picked the definitions which were germain. How could using steal to mean "conduct in a clandestine manner" have /any/ relevance to you cheating people out of their hard earned money. C'mon. Maybe you're Blaster and I'm Mel Gibson and some midget is running around yelling "Who run bartertown?!?!" but I was hoping you were Tina Turner in that scenario. Guess I was wrong.

This morosophistry you have going on is reeking of emotionally disturbed teen, btw. May want to wash that off. Axe doesn't cover it up. But I digress . . . just because plagiarism is another word for "stealing ideas, credit, etc" doesn't mean it still isn't stealing. This isn't the place for an essay on language, so I will try again to communicate the concept here.

Frogboy generates 1,000 completely new ideas a year. He charges people $10 to hear one of his ideas. In any given year 1,000 people, out of 1M people in the world for this example, are exposed to Frogboy in such a fashion that they pay him $10 to hear each of his ideas. Nobody buys only some of his ideas (to keep the math simple). However, Frogboy's ideas are only good for one year because eventually anybody could come up with the same idea, and eventually Frogboy's new ideas are commonplace. Frogboy has a steady income stream of $10M a year, every year.

PattyPirate has heard some of Frogboy's ideas from previous years and thinks he's the bomb, and decides one year to buy Frogboy's ideas and share them with everybody, so she sends all of the ideas as spam. But, only 200k of the people in the world read these spam and no longer need to buy Frogboy's ideas. Statistically, 200 of Frogboy's future customers were in that group of spam readers. They don't need to pay for Frogboy's idea, Frogboy loses $2M of income from them. Moreover, Frogboy's ideas have suddenly spread more rapidly (200x faster to be exact) and will become commonplace 200x faster. Ideas which were good for a year, suddenly are only good over a weekend. So, Frogboy's $10M a year income stream is now a $40k a year income stream.

I don't think you can argue reasonably that nothing happened. Yeah, so what happened . . . clearly Patty short circuited the path in which Frogboy collects income from paying customers, I think that part is obvious. And there's a lot of yeah-yeah cost of doing business, would pirates pay anyway, etc, but that's a 20% pay hit in this example, and I doubt any real world person would ignore a 20% pay cut. I think the esoteric part is the accelerated devaluation of Frogboy's ideas, which is huge and extremely difficult to accurately measure. Where did Frogboy's ideas go? They went the exact same places they always go. That didn't change at all. Where did Frogboy's money go? It stayed in everyone's pockets, because there was no reason, besides charity, to give Frogboy the money. Who facilitated the change? Pattypirate. Where can you find a court which disagrees? No, really, where because I doubt there are any. Patty gave away that which was not hers to give.

i will sacrifice a goat if this makes more sense.

And I'm sure any other passersby ultimately see where this leads.

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Quoting Frenzyone,

reply 5

People who thinks tickets are fine are deluding themselves. Because a ticket means I can fuck it if I can afford it.

Money does have it's perks, you commie!

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I agree with much of what Frogyboy says, except perhaps he oversimplifies when he says: "there are people who buy games and people who don’t buy games". I think it is safe to say the vast majority of people do both, to one degree or another.

According to the Business Software Alliance, in the US 40% of businesses with fewer than 100 employees are using illegal software in one form or another. Given those numbers it seems quite possible Stardock and/or Stardock staff have pirated software themselves. Should we condemn them for this? I'm not going to but some of you have left yourselves no option but to do so or admit you are hypocrits.

Even people just running shareware (winzip?) for months on end having never paid - that seems just as "wrong" as you're clearly enjoying the utility of that software and aren't willing to pay for it. The difference is the author is recognizing the reality of that fact and is accepting it in their licensing.

My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary – our customers.

You should also be doing it by lowering the barrier to convert pirated copies to sales. I don't think you help that cause by alienating those who pirated their copies by blaming piracy for your network problems, or saying things like "piracy aggravates me personally", or trying to limit LAN play of your game.

People with pirated copies are people aware of your product, showing interest in your product. That is half your job done for you already. I can see why that must aggravate you.

As I said here already; It doesn't take a lot of added value to convince people with pirated copies to buy if there is any potential at all for a sale. Hassle free updates, access to robust online community, additional content releases, price reductions, etc are all quite compelling - sweetening that pot is the way to go - Not villainizing, insulting or alienating them.

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I think a big problem is that most game corps have is that they put more money into game-copy protection than on finding bugs. See those new titles released... Which of them was really tested and didn't feel at least a little rushed? Also game magazines don't really care about that. They just review the game as it is, but not the whole installation routines, endless registration marathons. I don't think thats correct either. They should rate a product as a whole and not plain gameplay or whatever. Also Copy protection itself is often not bug-free. That creates only more trouble for the end-user. ... And all that "crap" just for people who wouldn't buy the game anyway.

It's just plain stupid if you ask me, but usually game publishers only react on sales difficulties and then - and only then they change their "mind".

Most corporations don't have a conscience and don't care if a copy protection is creating harm on an end-user PC - for as long as the sales aren't dropping.

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Quoting db0,

reply 22

To prove that it's stolen income, you need to prove that every downloaded copy is one lost sale. A claim that has been thoroughly debunked so good luck with that.

Ah yes, the exact letter of the law.
It's not wrong because the law doesn't identify digital material as physical objects because the laws pertaining to the theft of such things were written in a time when the term digital didn't exist. If the law doesn't identify it as such, it's not wrong - how can taking the hard work of another person without their permission for free be wrong? Oh wait, hard work isn't defined as the creation of digital properties. How can someone make money on selling purely digital items, and thus how can obtaining these without paying for it be free. It's not like distributing games in purely digital form will ever be profitable and so taking purely digital forms without paying for them and without permission can never be theft.

http://www.impulsedriven.com/

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Also may i point out that my brother and his entire house (5 people i think) are currently running a pirated version of the game, yet they are all going to buy it when it comes out in Australia because it is awsome, but its not out in stores for another month. Probably worth pointing out that Demigod is only out in stores in america! and your wondering why its so heavily pirated, the ceo of valve made a fantastic comment regarding piracy a little while back and its particullary true here, he said that pirates, in general, are an underserved customer base, and that valve has reletively little piracy because all there games are released everywhere at the same time.

Probably worth releasing everywhere at the same time next time guys.

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Synchronous global release is not an easy feat to pull off. Companies with the resources of Blizzard, EA, or Valve can do it, Stardock doesn't have the personnel to manage everything that goes into multi-national/lingual releases in a timely manner. All you'd get from a global release in this case would be a late release for everyone.

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I know at least 5 people that are buying it, only because they got a chance to play the pirated version. Everyone has their own opinion but I perceive pirating as acceptable in certain situations. Many people I know work on the rule that if you play the games enough then you should buy it - some people use pirated copies just to play with their friends if they can't afford it, but most of them end up buying it.

Let's face it takes time and money for developers to put out a demo, so there may be some advantages to pirating - of course it only benefits games that are actually good as opposed to crap games that rip off their customers and offer sub par support and patches - in my book, these developers are worse than pirates.

Let's face it, Spore got exactly what it deserved.

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I rarely ever post on forums, but I figured I'd weigh in here.

To start, I love Stardock's stance, it shows a lot of enlightenment that many of the "big boys" lack. No matter how much DRM you throw on a game, people will break it. It's really a wasted effort. Even before one could efficiently download games people were illegally copying games. It won't go away any time soon.

Secondly, I pirated this game. I pirate games to try them. Money is tight as a college student and I hate wasting money. Given the declining quality of most games, I really hate throwing way 60$ on a pile of crap. Most games I pirate don't last a day on my hard drive before I declare them not worth my money and they are then purged from my drive with expediency. Now Stardock has proven an exception to this, pretty much everything they've put out I love and if I haven't bought it, I'm planning on it. I've been following this game for a while and was very excited, but the state of the industry has made me skeptical, so I pirated it. I was so impressed with the game that I immediately ordered the collector's edition. I rarely ever spend the extra money for a few goodies, but I love the Rook and the quality of this game deserved my extra money and then some. I would easily have paid more than they were charging for this. Now, when I pirated this I also convinced 3 friends who had NEVER heard of Demigod to pirate it. Every single one of them were so impressed they immediately bought the game. I'm convinced this is a common process these days. To be honest, I likely would have bought this game without pirating it, but I definitely wouldn't have got the collectors. In addition 3 people who wouldn't have otherwise even heard of the game bought it due to pirating the game to test it out. Some may say I could have just showed it to them, but due to our complicated schedules our interaction is almost completely limited to over the internet.

Finally, I offer my praise again. Thank you for making such high quality games and really caring about your players. Thank you for having an enlightened attitude towards our digital age and its perils. Thanks for Demigod and the many hours it has stolen away from my life.

P.S. Is there any hope of seeing a map editor? Even if the backgrounds are pitch black, or if the battlefield is floating over a static background, map creation keeps games fresh. And map creation is also one of my favorite things to do. Pretty please release a map editor.

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I'd congratulate you on your perspicacity, Mr. Wardell, but I'm an engineer who shares your view of DRM; as such, it would seem just a bit too collegial. So instead I'll congratulate you on helping to birth an awesome game!

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Quoting Nesrie,

reply 10

Quoting Nesrie, reply
A little rich hearing a pirate talk about buying the game after network issues are improved, as in network issues that were partially caused by pirating. I say partially because there was obviously a design flaw at works, but still.

Actually, to pick nits, the network issue WAS NOT *CAUSED* by piracy. It was CAUSED by a large number of players connecting to the network. I understand that a large number of players were using pirated copies.But place the blame on the code and not the piracy. It would not have mattered if the copies used to connect were legit or pirated, the problem would have still surfaced.

So, I disagree even with your "partially" statement as the problem would just have taken longer to surface (i.e. once enough legit copies had been sold).

This begs the question: Was there a beta stress test of the servers performed? I've been part of several beta tests. Some did stress testing while some did not.

As far as some form of limiting pirated copies from connecting to the software company's servers, I think that is well within their rights and it can be done in such a way as to not put copy protection in place and still not cause the end user a pain in the butt.

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Let me ask this. Lets say that no Demo is available and friends tell me that the game rocks and the reviews say the same. I buy it and play it a day or so and find out that IMHO, the game sucks and I just wasted money on it.

Return it you say? GOOD LUCK! Some places will not let you do that. You can swap it for another copy (in case yours was damaged) but you can't swap it for another game. Now, you are shackled to paying for a game you hate.

Also, what if there is a demo and you play it and it seems worth buying. You buy it to find it is just like movie trailers. The best is included in the demo and/or now you are facing dealing with bugs in the full version. Maybe it is something that is a deal breaker for you. Again, you are out the money on a game you could care less to own and will never play.

Been there done that!

Unless I have played the game on a friends computer or (as was the case with team fortress 2), I was able to play the FULL game with a weekend pass, I will try the demo. If I am still interested and thinking of buying it, before I will plunk down the $50-$60 for the game, you are darned right I am going to download it and try it more (the majority are also not tying up the companies servers or resources)

If it holds my interest after a few days, the game is purchased.

On games i've bought, I will still grab a nocd patch as I have kids and do not like the idea of my media being damaged either by the kids or some other accident. How many companies replace media for a nominal fee of say $5.00 - most want to charge significantly more. I could understand that if you needed manuals but unless you lost everything in a fire (and that is what insurance is for), you have the cd key and manuals and only need a cd/dvd shipped to you. Shipping and cost of media is nominal (including the time taken to put it in the envelope and drop it in the outbox)

When I bought UT3, I was pleasantly surprised to see no copy protection on it and once installed, I never had to put the original cd in the drive or anything! I clicked the icon and was playing!

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As a paying customer, I have to say that Brad is absolutely right.

I hate DRM, not because I want to pirate a game, but because I hate the pain I have to go through to be able to enjoy what I purchased.

I purchased Sins of a Solar Empire last year, and my experience was one of the major factors for me in buying Demigod. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect with the genre bending, but my previous experience with Stardock gave me enough confidence to move forward here. I'm excited to say that Demigod is a great game, and a very fun game too. I have run into some issues, but I have confidence that those issues will be fixed.

Publishers who rush a game out the door and then drop support right away drive me up the wall, and as a customer drive me away from future purchases. There are games now that I get excited about in concept, but then almost shrug off depending on the publisher due to perceived bad support. It seems to me that the best supported games are the ones that stay on the shelves long after they initially release, largely because people are still willing to purchase them.

Stick to your principles and I'll stick with you as a satisfied paying customer.

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I often pirate games, applications, movies and music. Yet I have five full purchases ready to play on Impulse, Windows XP on this machine is legit, I go to the movies to see quality movies and (oh wait) yeah I don't buy music anymore. Still, 3 out of 4 isn't bad.

The thing is, I can't stand to hand over money where money isn't due. The issue with a lot of entertainment is that you don't know whats worth it, until you have tried it. Do you buy a car without trying it? That's the analogy that is thrown around so much in terms of stealing a car and piracy. I know when I bought my new car from the dealer, I test drove it twice (second time for a very lengthy drive) and test drove several other similar cars before settling on the one I finally picked.

I feel Frogboys stance over piracy is conducive to that way of thinking. He, unlike so many in the industry realise that a lot of people dont want to randomly hand over money for the next thing on the release charts without giving it a go first. But lets be honest, it's been over a week. If you still enjoy playing it now, buy the game.

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This begs the question: Was there a beta stress test of the servers performed? I've been part of several beta tests. Some did stress testing while some did not.

Stardock did some internal 'synthetic stress tests' (don't know what that means) that failed to reveal the issue.

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The effect of high volume traffic isn't linear. You can test this with torrent software rather easily. The more connections you open up, the slower your connection performs. You can go from functioning well to utterly fucked and can't get web pages to open even though the download speeds have crapped out, and it doesn't take much of an increase to do it.

In part, they oopsed and misjudged how much of an effect they were going to get hit with. The rest of it was the extra pirate connections and the asshats at GS releasing early. Easter weekend wasn't a good time to get surprised.

It is possible to test this out, rather simple since they have a massive network to bombard their own systems with, but it's not something that can be easily predicted. The factors are numerous, and some of them are unknowns, like just how good the connections and hardware you're paying for actually are. Something as simple as inadequate air conditioning at one site can turn a perfectly functioning server into a piece of crap that restarts every few minutes near full load, skewing the entire system and overloading the remaining servers.

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Quoting db0,

reply 22

However Frogboy wants to define a "thief" it still does not make it accurate. I can say that people who don't give me a 1000$ are thieves. Does that make it so? Of couse not. But you're accepting a similar arbitrary definition and then arguing against stealing, which is wholly different than file-sharing.

To prove that it's stolen income, you need to prove that every downloaded copy is one lost sale. A claim that has been thoroughly debunked so good luck with that.

Actually, if you read the original post by Brad (rather than immediately jumping you rationalise your piracy) he specifically refers to people who play the game for more than a few days without paying for it as "thieves". I'm not a fan of the particular venacular there, but I digress. You say "you aren't losing anything by those people downloading it". Well, that's actually not true. Those people (specifically, the ones that play it for more than a few days) are clearly enjoying the product, and therefore should pay for it. Don't even think of rationalising it, because you'd have to be complete blithering moron to try.

Now, someone who pirates it, plays it once, and then deletes it saying they didn't like it... well, they've technically broken the law ... but what's the point pursuing them? They didn't like your product, and in the strictest terms they're the type of consumer that wouldn't (and shouldn't) pay for it in the first place. You'll note that Brad refers to these people as "not customers", not "filthy pirates". They aren't your target market. Unlike Sony, Stardock appears to take the "ignore them" approach to these.

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I must commend the CEO for his philosophy. To be one of the few to still value the customer above and beyond and accept responsibility for the flaws in a game is rare. A perfect contrasting example would be Empire Total War with it's disastrous release. All users get met with is Smoke-and-mirrors about the actual issue and no one wants to own the problem.

I bought Demigod not because I like the game, matter of fact, in single player I think it lacks something, but, I bought the game out of pure support to Stardock. I believe their head is on straight and they still value the consumer. I wish there was a way for me to help more, but I understand that all I can do is spread the word about Stardock and the games it produces.

Thank you for posting that Frogboy. Stardock as a company is a champ in my book.

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Quoting econundrum1,

reply 2

Quoting db0, reply 4
and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you’re a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way.

I file-share games regularly, however I have bought all my Stardock games just because of (whatt I thought was) your stance on Piracy.

Now you made me wish I hadn't...

So tell me exactly, since Piracy doesn't result in any lost sales, since piracy actually may have a net positive effect on your sales, where exactly do you get off calling people thieves when you haven't lost anything to them?

Oh did he insult the little pirate...you poor, poor inocent little soul.

Just be an honest thief I hate it when pirates assume outrage, he said anyone who had pirated it and continued to play it for more than a few days was a thief, you can't claim your just using it as a demo if you keep playing.

What have you stolen, well the time and effort of everyone working on the at GPG & Stardock of course. Rather you expecting the development cost to be paid for by legitamate customers. So really it's us people who buy the game you are stealing from in a sense, we are funding your gaming.

When I was a teenager and didn't have much money I used to copy games from my friends at the time I didn't think much of it, but I never effected an outraged sense of entitlement or pretended to myself that the developers did not really deserve to be paid for their work. Now I'm grown up I never pirate games any more than I would steal a copy of a book, because the author and/or developer in both cases deserves to be paid for their work and if I don't Pay I'm stealthing their time and effort.

Now the fact many pirates would never pay for a game anyway doesn't mean their is nothing morally wrong with what they do, or that it isn't theft. Does the fact that most shoplifters wouldn't buy the goods that they steal mean it's not theft?

To equate piracy with thievery is a logical fallacy. One is not the other. If there was previous intent to purchase and then the would-be purchaser decided to pirate the game in order to avoid purchasing it our discussion would be on a different rung of the ladder. Piracy is what it is.

I believe you miss the entire point when you try to make an analogy between shoplifting and piracy.

Quoting Vespucci,

reply 6

Quoting db0, reply 25@Vespucci

First: You're picking and choosing dictionary definitions that fit your arguments.

Second: You can easily fall into an equivocation fallacy through perfectly accurate dictionary definitions.

If you want to use dictionary definitions then first state which meaning of stealing you use and then we can discuss if it's harmful or not.

Are you using the definition of "to appropriate ideas without right or acknowledgment."? This is also called plagiarism and the harm it creates is debatable.
I cited which dictionary and which definition. Whatever, I picked the definitions which were germain. How could using steal to mean "conduct in a clandestine manner" have /any/ relevance to you cheating people out of their hard earned money. C'mon. Maybe you're Blaster and I'm Mel Gibson and some midget is running around yelling "Who run bartertown?!?!" but I was hoping you were Tina Turner in that scenario. Guess I was wrong.

This morosophistry you have going on is reeking of emotionally disturbed teen, btw. May want to wash that off. Axe doesn't cover it up. But I digress . . . just because plagiarism is another word for "stealing ideas, credit, etc" doesn't mean it still isn't stealing. This isn't the place for an essay on language, so I will try again to communicate the concept here.

Frogboy generates 1,000 completely new ideas a year. He charges people $10 to hear one of his ideas. In any given year 1,000 people, out of 1M people in the world for this example, are exposed to Frogboy in such a fashion that they pay him $10 to hear each of his ideas. Nobody buys only some of his ideas (to keep the math simple). However, Frogboy's ideas are only good for one year because eventually anybody could come up with the same idea, and eventually Frogboy's new ideas are commonplace. Frogboy has a steady income stream of $10M a year, every year.

PattyPirate has heard some of Frogboy's ideas from previous years and thinks he's the bomb, and decides one year to buy Frogboy's ideas and share them with everybody, so she sends all of the ideas as spam. But, only 200k of the people in the world read these spam and no longer need to buy Frogboy's ideas. Statistically, 200 of Frogboy's future customers were in that group of spam readers. They don't need to pay for Frogboy's idea, Frogboy loses $2M of income from them. Moreover, Frogboy's ideas have suddenly spread more rapidly (200x faster to be exact) and will become commonplace 200x faster. Ideas which were good for a year, suddenly are only good over a weekend. So, Frogboy's $10M a year income stream is now a $40k a year income stream.

I don't think you can argue reasonably that nothing happened. Yeah, so what happened . . . clearly Patty short circuited the path in which Frogboy collects income from paying customers, I think that part is obvious. And there's a lot of yeah-yeah cost of doing business, would pirates pay anyway, etc, but that's a 20% pay hit in this example, and I doubt any real world person would ignore a 20% pay cut. I think the esoteric part is the accelerated devaluation of Frogboy's ideas, which is huge and extremely difficult to accurately measure. Where did Frogboy's ideas go? They went the exact same places they always go. That didn't change at all. Where did Frogboy's money go? It stayed in everyone's pockets, because there was no reason, besides charity, to give Frogboy the money. Who facilitated the change? Pattypirate. Where can you find a court which disagrees? No, really, where because I doubt there are any. Patty gave away that which was not hers to give.

i will sacrifice a goat if this makes more sense.

And I'm sure any other passersby ultimately see where this leads.

The constructed situation you have shown is an appropriate one with several exceptions. First is the notion that the ideas are being spread, by the sender, to the receiving party without consent. No one forces somebody to pirate a game. Second is the idea that all of those who chose to pirate the game will then turn around and spread the obtained product to others.

Quoting ZehDon,

reply 10

Quoting db0, reply 22
To prove that it's stolen income, you need to prove that every downloaded copy is one lost sale. A claim that has been thoroughly debunked so good luck with that.
Ah yes, the exact letter of the law.

You are forgetting the ideological differences. Many people who pirate would not otherwise purchase the title. This applies to music as well. Everybody and their mother has some form of music track downloaded onto some form of storage without paying for it. Some are justified in doing so due to availability issues but most just do it because it is free. Then of course you have others who have some form of vendetta towards media corporations, those who do not believe music should have a price tag, and etcetera.

Quoting angryandroid,

reply 19

He, unlike so many in the industry realise that a lot of people dont want to randomly hand over money for the next thing on the release charts without giving it a go first. But lets be honest, it's been over a week. If you still enjoy playing it now, buy the game.

I agree.

I have yet to try the game myself but if it turns out I enjoy it I may purchase it. Of course all of that assumes a demo gets out reasonably soon...

And to those I have commented on: I doubt I'll be returning. So don't expect a response.

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Quoting Vespucci,

reply 6

You're getting very disconnected. Take your meds.

Shall I repeat what I said above? You are using particular definitions that fit your purpose. If I were to use another definition of stealing, you argument would collapse. You are furthermore using this particular definition so you can claim "See Stealing" which most people will understand as physical theft. Therefore you're bartering on equivocation to make an emotional argument for the audience. This is intellectually dishonest.

just because plagiarism is another word for "stealing ideas, credit, etc" doesn't mean it still isn't stealing. .

*sigh*. No Plagiarism is not the same as stealing. It's weird that I had to point that out...

Frogboy generates 1,000 completely new ideas a year. He charges people $10 to hear one of his ideas.

Stop right there. The problem in the first place is that Frogboy has a bad business plan (IN this example, as I know that this is actually not his business plan). He has a business plan which does not take into account the reality (Ie piracy exists, ideas are not scarce etc) and is also based on an obsolete law (ie copyrights) designed to work in a scarce society. Furthermore, just because it can work via this old law, it doesn't make it so that people deserve to profit, especially since that law was not about helping people monetize their idea, but rather about promoting creativity. And as you mentioned yourself, through piract creativity has been promoted, and much faster than through copyrights.

I don't think you can argue reasonably that nothing happened. Yeah, so what happened . . .[...]

Of course what happened is what would happen if an obsolete law didn't violate its own spirit (ie promoting creativity). As for our imaginary Frogboy, there is no objective moral law that says he should be profiting from selling his ideas. Certainly he deaserves to be rewarded for his mental work but he should be using the correct business plan instead of forcing everyone to conform to one that is based on obsolete laws that do more harm than good.

i will sacrifice a goat if this makes more sense.

Remember: Meds!

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Demigod: So much for piracy

Frogboy