About piracy

[Lavene]

Here is something rare... an interesting discussion at slashdot: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/08/1357246&from=rss

Not really trying to start a piracy discussion here, just thought I would point those interested in the topic to the discussion over there. :)

Tina

[AndreL]

Interesting indeed. But that is not a new phenomenon. I remember way back in the days of the "King's Quest" series, Sierra noted that they sold more "Hints Books" than games. They still made tons of money with their games.

Game industry are now tacking the same route as the music industry blaming piracy for the decline in sales while both industries have been rather stagnant for those past years. Yes, they have better engines, better sound, better graphics but it is always the same old pattern presented with a new "sauce".

Think of Elvis, The Beatles, Bowie, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, King's Quest, Civilisation, Command & Conquer, Castle of Wolfenstein... (and some I forget). They totally changed the face of their respective industries.

Great stuff always sells well in spite of piracy.

Those who pirate would probably not buy anyway but those who would buy don't buy as much. That is the thing.

What is hurting those industries is not piracy but the lack of creativity.

Just my two scents... :)

[danieldk]

Ian McKaye, band member of Fugazi and The Evens has a good take on it (as far as music is concerned) that I like:


But this is my position: you can sell CDs, you can sell records and tapes, and you can sell mini-discs if you're foolhardy, and you can sell mp3s and digital downloads, you can sell all of these things, but you can't sell music because music is free. I'm serious about that. I really believe that. Music is like air, you can't sell it. I know that people have, not to fall back to my oft-used metaphors and analogies, but this is the way I process things, but I see music as a river, and the water in a river is there for everyone and anyone that wants to have a sip can have a sip and have some water. Now somewhere along the line someone came up with the idea of putting the river water in bottles and selling the bottles of water. That's the record industry. Music is a river, music is water, and the bottling company is the industry, and it's not inherently evil, because it's frankly, convenient to have water in a bottle, so if you're driving in your car and you're thirsty you don't have to drive to the nearest river and take a sip, you can just reach down and take a sip out of your bottle. The same way if I'm driving in my car and I want to hear a song, I don't have to drive over to the people's house and ask them to play it for me, I can put the CD in and listen to it, or turn on the radio. Where it gets ugly is that when the bottling company, since their aim is to make money-- at some point they may have thought like, "Let's bottle this water and that way we can share the healthful qualities of water with all the people." At some point it becomes, "This is our industry, we need to make money, and how can we increase profits?" Well, the way to increase profits is to try to discourage people from going to the river, and having to buy the bottled water. And they'll start with that but eventually what they're going to get into is they're going to start blocking the river or they're going to poison the river. But water is always moving, and it's very difficult to poison a river, very hard indeed. And that's the good news about music, it can't be stopped, it will always happen, people will always make music, and regardless of whether or not there's money to be made form it or not, it's still going to happen, it can't be stopped. So in my mind with the sales of records, the industry has done their best to claim ownership of music but they don't-- they only own the things that they sell, so when people who are songwriters say, "That's my property and if you give it away for free then I lose my incentive," then, well, good riddance.

Source: http://www.downhillbattle.org/interviews/ian_mackaye.php

This is a nice one too:
http://negativland.com/albini.html

(Especially the figures at the bottom.)

[hacked1o0o]

Interesting indeed. But that is not a new phenomenon. I remember way back in the days of the "King's Quest" series, Sierra noted that they sold more "Hints Books" than games. They still made tons of money with their games.

Game industry are now tacking the same route as the music industry blaming piracy for the decline in sales while both industries have been rather stagnant for those past years. Yes, they have better engines, better sound, better graphics but it is always the same old pattern presented with a new "sauce".

Think of Elvis, The Beatles, Bowie, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, King's Quest, Civilisation, Command & Conquer, Castle of Wolfenstein... (and some I forget). They totally changed the face of their respective industries.

Great stuff always sells well in spite of piracy.

Those who pirate would probably not buy anyway but those who would buy don't buy as much. That is the thing.

What is hurting those industries is not piracy but the lack of creativity.

Just my two scents... :)



sierra's half-life 2 was great.

now..sierra has made somme good games. but when they want money out of a game they will do everyting to suck the money out of it, even if it means selling hint books, when their done taking the money out of half-life 2, they will make another game, and start selling more hint-books