Well yeah that is obvious, i've hated Steam ever since it came along, i knew which way this was gonna go, it was rather predictable, the fact is i can't do shit about it, so i may aswell do as i please and enjoy decent gaming while it lasts, and pirate anything they try to resell. :)


Like i said in my previous post too, thats the reason they went down hard on rom sites and such, this shit isn't about copyright, this is about them wanting to resell their old classics time and time again, doing a half assed job of making an emulator.

The fact is those that make the Emulators and get the Roms are actual fucking fans, that actually give a shit about the games so much so they want to preserve them so future generations can play them as the older generations did, because the game devs/publishers certainly ain't doing a very good job of it.
Reply to him then, not to me.

For sure. But CD will still make plenty of money from Steam, Microsoft and Sony. Shit, The Witcher 3 is still one the top sold games on Xbox.

There's plenty of obvious & great reasons for that, i.e:

- The OP is implying that DRM stops/reduces piracy. But actually, no, it doesn't. Rather, the opposite is true: DRM just creates more piracy by way of people who otherwise would have bought the game if it wasn't DRM-infested, but refuse to buy it when it is DRM-infested, so they pirate it instead.

- The OP is implying piracy equates to lost sales; but no, it does not. They can't 'lose' something they never had in the first place. If someone is going to choose to pirate a game, then they weren't going to buy it in the first place (with the exception of the previous point I just described, by which DRM in games converts many official consumers into unofficial pirates). Thus, their act of pirating the game is not actually a lost sale in any way whatsoever, because if if they didn't bother to pirate it, then they still weren't going to buy it anyway. In other words, their act of piracy makes zero difference whatsoever to the amount of profit that the devs/publisher would or wouldn't have taken in.

- The OP is implying that CDPR, and presumably all other devs too, should infest their games with DRM as a "countermeasure" in order to "stop piracy" (even though, as I pointed out, DRM does nothing to stop piracy, but it does plenty to create new pirates).

Hmm, I am going to get downvoted a lot...

I totally understand that pirating games does not mean 'stealing' necessarily, and I understand why someone would want to pirate games in a world where games are infested with potentially performance debilitating DRM measures. And I understand that pirates aren't potential customers most of the time, they just wouldn't have gotten the game if they couldn't have downloaded it.

I just don't really think I agree with the casual tone that people use to describe piracy in this thread. It's still 'bad' to pirate games, though I have heard philosophical arguments about how it may not be... Still, if we accept piracy this easily, publishers will inevitably find a way to truly create an extreme DRM measure that will end piracy once and for all at the expense of the consumer (aka streaming). After all, I doubt we'd be at this point in history if we had enough moral discipline to not 'copy that floppy' back in the day.

And so, people would say "You can't stop piracy" or "Publishers would create that extreme DRM even if piracy was barely existent because they want to squeeze every last potential penny out of their customers even though pirates won't turn into customers"... And that's all true I think, but still, being so casual about it all seems... Iffy. It encourages other people to do it by framing it as an acceptable method of acquiring games (and other media).

But I guess it's not even worth discussing anymore because it's too late. Streaming will (or has) happen, the mainstream will eat it up, and games will suffer in both availability and quality as a result, killing games as we know them in as little as five years probably.

But yeah, Cyberpunk 2077 is going to do juuuuuust fine despite piracy, that's for sure. Even the worst AAA trash sells a million copies, so piracy or not, no game really fails anymore. Not even Anthem, which I think did sell a million. GAMERS (the ones with the walls of console games at their back that cover news and do reviews) can't keep their money in their pockets!

This is of course nonsense because it's too black and white.

Does DRM increase piracy for people who hate DRM? Yes
Does (effective) DRM prevent piracy from people who otherwise would've pirated the game? Yes
Does piracy increase game sales due to possibility of demo'ing? Yes and No, depends on quality of the game.
Do games that get pirated automatically fail? No, it's just a percentage of income that's potentially lost/recovered.
Do we know if increased sale potential because of DRM outweighs negatives of adding DRM? No.

I mostly buy what's "drm free" on steam already which gog doesn't have or sells for too much money, and anything else I buy then if I need to I crack the drm later to have a drm-free backup.

And yeah the devs don't care about fans they mainly care about money...but we all already knew that. Even some of the "good" devs go bad when enough money changes hands and entices them, sadly.....with stuff like more and more microtransactions in their newer games, more DRM, virtue signaling to the newest group to do so to, etc.

=======
Aside: SV had a good point....there is more than black and white when it comes to pirating.

Not to support piracy, but one can find justification for ANYTHING. It means nothing to most in the grand scheme of things if one is set on doing something.

Also why do you worry so much if people pirate? Let them do what they will....we will continue to legally buy our games anyways.

Some mistakes in your reasoning:

1. It can stop SOME for a few days when a game first drops while drm is being cracked out.

2. Some will likely have the money to buy a game and will pirate just to be cheap so it does equate to a small amount of lost sales form those who have the means to buy the games but choose not to to save a buck.

3. Did he imply that? I am genuinely curious if he said that or not.

I will likely get flak for the following as well, but it rings true to me/others:


To be fair we have reached the point where digital good/etc can be copied ad nauseum and shared with all for next to nothing. The only reason most of us don't is due to our moralities/adherence to the tenets of capitalism/etc.

In a future society the worse off might be able to have all their digital entertainment needs met for next to nothing out of pocket LEGALLY. Should we then call them bad if they choose to taker advantage of such just because they get for free/cheap what others have to pay for or because such people don't contribute financially to dev's well being or dev's pockets/the capitalistic system?

At some point we need to grow out of this blind loyalty to such systems and the need to find fault in those that get something(even legally) for nothing or close to it when others do not.

Sharing is caring.

People pirating games has a wide impact on the industry, including paying customers. It's not something that doesn't effect me. I realize telling someone like Detour he's wrong won't change his behavior, but when he's basically getting on a soapbox about the "morality" of piracy you can't help but tell him he's being a jackass.

1. People will always steal/pirate, and even if all pirating stopped they'd likely keep on putting DRM/etc in games or doing other things that impact legal consumers. To think otherwise would be naive.

2. It literally doesn't. They don't force companies to put DRM in games/etc.

3. Everyone feels the need to justify themselves, though. Doing so doesn't automatically make one a jackass/douche/etc.

Some could word it better or treat others with other beliefs better, though.

... and some would (including me) say you suffer from a form of kindergarten-mentallity - a really flawed mentality (and also logically).

With that kind of thinking you're essentially creating a problem that doesn't exist and then creates an opportunity to blame/punish others/someone/everyone when it's only some who does the so-called illegal act.

First; one pirate copy does not equate one loss of revenue. Bad products/games is the biggest reason to why some are loosing revenue. It's also a well known fact that most "pirates" also are spending more than the average user.

Second; a pirate copy does not, and have NEVER harmed a paying costumer. That's a lie perpetuated by companies/devs in order to justify their continuation of enforcing DRM and other control mechanisms.

In fact; EU paid for a report that concluded piracy isn’t harmful and tried not only to hide the report, but also tried to sabotage its release.:
https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/09/21/eu-paid-report-concluded-piracy-isnt-harmful-tried-hide-findings/
https://juliareda.eu/2017/09/secret-copyright-infringement-study/

And third; by that very same logic we should make it illegal to sell/use a knife without a license because, again, some / a few in our society doesn't use it properly...

Oh look it's the same old arguments right off torrentfreak to justify crappy behavior. Shocker.

Sony used for PlayStation Classic an emulator made by fans. Ha, the irony. :P

You wouldn't steal a baby...