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Two phases of piracy - the business changes, but the problems don't go away.
I'd like to talk about the way games piracy used to be in the days of the Amiga, and how things are today. When I was younger I had an Amiga, and yes, I was Pirate Scum. In the good old Amiga days there would be hundreds of game releases each month, hundreds of games that fit on a convenient floppy disk. At first I played the games that came with my sparkling new Amiga, but I soon grew bored. I could never afford to buy games, and it was very easy to ask friends to copy some of their games for me.
I got seriously into pirating games when I found a guy living down my street who had a massive collection, and he was willing to copy them. Two or three times a week I would go to his house, and leave half an hour later clutching a handful of freshly-copied disks. He would only give me copies of games if I had some new ones for him too, so I would try to get my hands on copied games from friends at school, just so I would have something to trade with him.
It took me a while to realise that I simply wasn't having any FUN.
Why was this not making me happy? Was it because I was hurting the industry? Yes and no. I suppose I was contributing to games developers not getting paid, but I honestly didn't care so much back then.
The reason why Amiga piracy was a bad thing was this: I didn't appreciate the games. I had a box full of disks, hundreds and hundreds of games and I hardly ever played a single one of them. Each time I came home with a handful of new games, I would pop them in the Amiga one by one, set all the cheats with the hacked cheat screen, play the first level to see if the graphics were good, then do the same thing with all the other games. Then they would go in my shoe-box, never to be played again.
Games I had paid for, on the other hand, got played to death. Games I paid for had VALUE. I played them to get my money's-worth. If I'd paid for some of the games gathering dust in my shoe-box, I would have definitely played them hard.
How have things changed now?
Today piracy is a business. It isn't school kids copying games at each others houses. It is dodgy people on market stalls selling PlayStation games for £5 each, in colour-photocopied fake boxes. I think piracy is worse when the pirates are making money from their venture. In the Amiga days it was still wrong, but it was just friends sharing and swapping.
Today the videogames industry is a much bigger business. Games aren't made by a team of five programmers in a small room anymore. Games aren't small enough to churn out hundreds each month and always keep ahead of piracy profit losses. Games are becoming similar to movies now, with development budgets of millions of dollars and hundreds of people working on the projects. Those hundreds of people need to be paid for their hard work.
If you've had your console chipped, and you have about fifty games sat there on your shelf, all with photocopied inlay cards, all on cheap re-writable shiny CD's - are you playing them as hard as you should? Are you getting £30 worth of entertainment from them? Or are you getting £5 worth?
Unfortunately most games made today do not get played hard by anyone. To make sure a game will make a profit, developers have to make CASUAL easy genre games, to make sure that even though 2 million people will buy pirate copies, another 2 million will buy the real thing. Whether you pay £5 or £50, you might not play the game very much because it is too casual and similar to all the other games on your shelf. This increases the chance of a gamer saying, "Well, if I'm only going to get a couple of quids-worth of enjoyment from it, I may as well only pay a couple of quid".
If developers felt secure that they would not lose 50% of their profits due to piracy, they might feel secure enough to make games that are WORTH £50.
Thanks for reading.
Firebalt.
I'd like to talk about the way games piracy used to be in the days of the Amiga, and how things are today. When I was younger I had an Amiga, and yes, I was Pirate Scum. In the good old Amiga days there would be hundreds of game releases each month, hundreds of games that fit on a convenient floppy disk. At first I played the games that came with my sparkling new Amiga, but I soon grew bored. I could never afford to buy games, and it was very easy to ask friends to copy some of their games for me.
I got seriously into pirating games when I found a guy living down my street who had a massive collection, and he was willing to copy them. Two or three times a week I would go to his house, and leave half an hour later clutching a handful of freshly-copied disks. He would only give me copies of games if I had some new ones for him too, so I would try to get my hands on copied games from friends at school, just so I would have something to trade with him.
It took me a while to realise that I simply wasn't having any FUN.
Why was this not making me happy? Was it because I was hurting the industry? Yes and no. I suppose I was contributing to games developers not getting paid, but I honestly didn't care so much back then.
The reason why Amiga piracy was a bad thing was this: I didn't appreciate the games. I had a box full of disks, hundreds and hundreds of games and I hardly ever played a single one of them. Each time I came home with a handful of new games, I would pop them in the Amiga one by one, set all the cheats with the hacked cheat screen, play the first level to see if the graphics were good, then do the same thing with all the other games. Then they would go in my shoe-box, never to be played again.
Games I had paid for, on the other hand, got played to death. Games I paid for had VALUE. I played them to get my money's-worth. If I'd paid for some of the games gathering dust in my shoe-box, I would have definitely played them hard.
How have things changed now?
Today piracy is a business. It isn't school kids copying games at each others houses. It is dodgy people on market stalls selling PlayStation games for £5 each, in colour-photocopied fake boxes. I think piracy is worse when the pirates are making money from their venture. In the Amiga days it was still wrong, but it was just friends sharing and swapping.
Today the videogames industry is a much bigger business. Games aren't made by a team of five programmers in a small room anymore. Games aren't small enough to churn out hundreds each month and always keep ahead of piracy profit losses. Games are becoming similar to movies now, with development budgets of millions of dollars and hundreds of people working on the projects. Those hundreds of people need to be paid for their hard work.
If you've had your console chipped, and you have about fifty games sat there on your shelf, all with photocopied inlay cards, all on cheap re-writable shiny CD's - are you playing them as hard as you should? Are you getting £30 worth of entertainment from them? Or are you getting £5 worth?
Unfortunately most games made today do not get played hard by anyone. To make sure a game will make a profit, developers have to make CASUAL easy genre games, to make sure that even though 2 million people will buy pirate copies, another 2 million will buy the real thing. Whether you pay £5 or £50, you might not play the game very much because it is too casual and similar to all the other games on your shelf. This increases the chance of a gamer saying, "Well, if I'm only going to get a couple of quids-worth of enjoyment from it, I may as well only pay a couple of quid".
If developers felt secure that they would not lose 50% of their profits due to piracy, they might feel secure enough to make games that are WORTH £50.
Thanks for reading.
Firebalt.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Two phases of piracy - the business changes, but the problems don't go away.
I'd like to talk about the way games piracy used to be in the days of the Amiga, and how things are today. When I was younger I had an Amiga, and yes, I was Pirate Scum. In the good old Amiga days there would be hundreds of game releases each month, hundreds of games that fit on a convenient floppy disk. At first I played the games that came with my sparkling new Amiga, but I soon grew bored. I could never afford to buy games, and it was very easy to ask friends to copy some of their games for me.
I got seriously into pirating games when I found a guy living down my street who had a massive collection, and he was willing to copy them. Two or three times a week I would go to his house, and leave half an hour later clutching a handful of freshly-copied disks. He would only give me copies of games if I had some new ones for him too, so I would try to get my hands on copied games from friends at school, just so I would have something to trade with him.
It took me a while to realise that I simply wasn't having any FUN.
Why was this not making me happy? Was it because I was hurting the industry? Yes and no. I suppose I was contributing to games developers not getting paid, but I honestly didn't care so much back then.
The reason why Amiga piracy was a bad thing was this: I didn't appreciate the games. I had a box full of disks, hundreds and hundreds of games and I hardly ever played a single one of them. Each time I came home with a handful of new games, I would pop them in the Amiga one by one, set all the cheats with the hacked cheat screen, play the first level to see if the graphics were good, then do the same thing with all the other games. Then they would go in my shoe-box, never to be played again.
Games I had paid for, on the other hand, got played to death. Games I paid for had VALUE. I played them to get my money's-worth. If I'd paid for some of the games gathering dust in my shoe-box, I would have definitely played them hard.
How have things changed now?
Today piracy is a business. It isn't school kids copying games at each others houses. It is dodgy people on market stalls selling PlayStation games for £5 each, in colour-photocopied fake boxes. I think piracy is worse when the pirates are making money from their venture. In the Amiga days it was still wrong, but it was just friends sharing and swapping.
Today the videogames industry is a much bigger business. Games aren't made by a team of five programmers in a small room anymore. Games aren't small enough to churn out hundreds each month and always keep ahead of piracy profit losses. Games are becoming similar to movies now, with development budgets of millions of dollars and hundreds of people working on the projects. Those hundreds of people need to be paid for their hard work.
If you've had your console chipped, and you have about fifty games sat there on your shelf, all with photocopied inlay cards, all on cheap re-writable shiny CD's - are you playing them as hard as you should? Are you getting £30 worth of entertainment from them? Or are you getting £5 worth?
Unfortunately most games made today do not get played hard by anyone. To make sure a game will make a profit, developers have to make CASUAL easy genre games, to make sure that even though 2 million people will buy pirate copies, another 2 million will buy the real thing. Whether you pay £5 or £50, you might not play the game very much because it is too casual and similar to all the other games on your shelf. This increases the chance of a gamer saying, "Well, if I'm only going to get a couple of quids-worth of enjoyment from it, I may as well only pay a couple of quid".
If developers felt secure that they would not lose 50% of their profits due to piracy, they might feel secure enough to make games that are WORTH £50.
Thanks for reading.
Firebalt.
I'd like to talk about the way games piracy used to be in the days of the Amiga, and how things are today. When I was younger I had an Amiga, and yes, I was Pirate Scum. In the good old Amiga days there would be hundreds of game releases each month, hundreds of games that fit on a convenient floppy disk. At first I played the games that came with my sparkling new Amiga, but I soon grew bored. I could never afford to buy games, and it was very easy to ask friends to copy some of their games for me.
I got seriously into pirating games when I found a guy living down my street who had a massive collection, and he was willing to copy them. Two or three times a week I would go to his house, and leave half an hour later clutching a handful of freshly-copied disks. He would only give me copies of games if I had some new ones for him too, so I would try to get my hands on copied games from friends at school, just so I would have something to trade with him.
It took me a while to realise that I simply wasn't having any FUN.
Why was this not making me happy? Was it because I was hurting the industry? Yes and no. I suppose I was contributing to games developers not getting paid, but I honestly didn't care so much back then.
The reason why Amiga piracy was a bad thing was this: I didn't appreciate the games. I had a box full of disks, hundreds and hundreds of games and I hardly ever played a single one of them. Each time I came home with a handful of new games, I would pop them in the Amiga one by one, set all the cheats with the hacked cheat screen, play the first level to see if the graphics were good, then do the same thing with all the other games. Then they would go in my shoe-box, never to be played again.
Games I had paid for, on the other hand, got played to death. Games I paid for had VALUE. I played them to get my money's-worth. If I'd paid for some of the games gathering dust in my shoe-box, I would have definitely played them hard.
How have things changed now?
Today piracy is a business. It isn't school kids copying games at each others houses. It is dodgy people on market stalls selling PlayStation games for £5 each, in colour-photocopied fake boxes. I think piracy is worse when the pirates are making money from their venture. In the Amiga days it was still wrong, but it was just friends sharing and swapping.
Today the videogames industry is a much bigger business. Games aren't made by a team of five programmers in a small room anymore. Games aren't small enough to churn out hundreds each month and always keep ahead of piracy profit losses. Games are becoming similar to movies now, with development budgets of millions of dollars and hundreds of people working on the projects. Those hundreds of people need to be paid for their hard work.
If you've had your console chipped, and you have about fifty games sat there on your shelf, all with photocopied inlay cards, all on cheap re-writable shiny CD's - are you playing them as hard as you should? Are you getting £30 worth of entertainment from them? Or are you getting £5 worth?
Unfortunately most games made today do not get played hard by anyone. To make sure a game will make a profit, developers have to make CASUAL easy genre games, to make sure that even though 2 million people will buy pirate copies, another 2 million will buy the real thing. Whether you pay £5 or £50, you might not play the game very much because it is too casual and similar to all the other games on your shelf. This increases the chance of a gamer saying, "Well, if I'm only going to get a couple of quids-worth of enjoyment from it, I may as well only pay a couple of quid".
If developers felt secure that they would not lose 50% of their profits due to piracy, they might feel secure enough to make games that are WORTH £50.
Thanks for reading.
Firebalt.