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General discussion (archive)Machinarium "Pirate Amnesty" Sale(92 posts)(92 posts)
(92 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 08, 2010
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: I'm pretty sure you can play the piracy card if 90% of the versions out there are pirated. Looking at a 90% piracy rate is pretty depressing as a developer, especially since if you even mention it, people pull out the "priced too much", "they wouldn't have bought it anyway", and all of the other idiotic statements.

We have a different opinion therefore we are idiots? You sir are a cock! There, now we're even.
Posted August 08, 2010
Good grief, ladies...I think some of you actively seek to be offended by something. It's a promotion...that's it. I agree with Ovoon, I think it's creative (and I LOVE the logo!).
Posted August 08, 2010
I think calling a sale "Piracy Amnesty" in order to call attention to a substantial problem for indie developers is fair game (pun not quite intended). While previous pricing strategies may well have contributed to more people choosing to pirate the game, I'm really worried about the "suit yourself, developer" mentality represented by some posters on this thread. There's a fine line indeed between that kind of spiteful, begrudging comments and actively legitimizing piracy.
Irrespective of pricing (and we all know about the "race to the bottom" in terms of iPhone games and what *that* means for indie developer sustainability), you'd be hard-pressed to find an indie developer who would agree with the idea that a game such as Machinarium which took a considerably amount of time to create can be initially sold at anything less than $20 and still make financial sense for the developer in question or the industry as a whole. Good, well-produced indie games must be able to cost more than $5-10 without provoking a "they deserve all the pirates they can get" response from the PC gaming audience. Otherwise PC gaming truly deserves to be dead.
Posted August 08, 2010
It is just fun and great price at the same time.
Finally bought it after playing Samorost 1 and 2 (bought also when low priced on Steam).
And regarding the piracy, lots of games I played when I was at grammar school I pirated. Nowadays I am buying these old games to play them again from sites such as GOG, Blizzard store (Diablo, Starcraft), etc.
So no offense taken.
Posted August 08, 2010
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jungletoad: I'm with ovoon on this one. I thought the ad was clever. They are calling out the pirates to finally pay for the game now that it is cheap. If you didn't pirate the game, you're not being called out. If you did pirate the game, then you shouldn't get all butt hurt that they called you out as a pirate. Besides, it's a great buy for everybody.

THIS.
I don't understand the butthurt of many over this.
Posted August 08, 2010
Instant buy. Never pirated it, but 5$, I don't care being called a "pirate". ^_^
Posted August 08, 2010
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jungletoad: I'm with ovoon on this one. I thought the ad was clever. They are calling out the pirates to finally pay for the game now that it is cheap. If you didn't pirate the game, you're not being called out. If you did pirate the game, then you shouldn't get all butt hurt that they called you out as a pirate. Besides, it's a great buy for everybody.

Agree agree agree...
And it's a free world..opinions/values differ..not everyone has to price their games at $5 or $10 just cause other people do. :P There's a million factors.
Post edited August 08, 2010 by chautemoc
Posted August 08, 2010
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PoSSeSSeDCoW: I'm pretty sure you can play the piracy card if 90% of the versions out there are pirated. Looking at a 90% piracy rate is pretty depressing as a developer, especially since if you even mention it, people pull out the "priced too much", "they wouldn't have bought it anyway", and all of the other idiotic statements.

Too true. I wish people would just try to think a little. 85-90% seems to be the piracy rate I hear every time someone actually tries to measure it. And it is just completely moronic to think that 100% of those pirates would not buy it if they couldn't pirate it. And with a piracy rate of 90%, just think how much larger the sales numbers would be if even 5% of the pirates actually bought it instead of ste.. downloading it illegally.
Posted August 08, 2010
Guys, they've already corrected their mistake.
Update:
we just want to assure you, we don’t think you have pirated the game first if are going to buy it now:)
This sale isn’t only for pitaes, it’s for all. Thanks to everybody who paid for the game!
Posted August 08, 2010
Yarr!
Posted August 08, 2010
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Tsunami: Guys, they've already corrected their mistake.
Update:
we just want to assure you, we don’t think you have pirated the game first if are going to buy it now:)
This sale isn’t only for pitaes, it’s for all. Thanks to everybody who paid for the game!

See, ;) commenting on things providing feedback are ways for consumers to voice their opinion. Getting comments back from the company, ensures our thoughts are at least taken into account. I'll wait for the sale to be over :) Since they don't have a donate button.
Posted August 08, 2010
I would have preferred buying the boxed copy, with it's beautiful artwork, but sadly the only store around here that carries it charges ridiculous amounts for it (something like €35), so I'm glad I heard about this sale, and bought the game - even though I had not pirated it before I bought it.
Posted August 08, 2010
Well, I wanted this game since I first saw it's incredible gfx. And I waited and waited - and finally I was able to buy it today on Pirates Promotion for 30% retail price in Poland. Happy now - put it on a "shelf" with other games waiting and waitng till my children grow and I'll have spare time to play it :-)
BTW. I don't like this VAT-thing.
Post edited August 08, 2010 by tburger
Posted August 08, 2010
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KEgstedt: I think calling a sale "Piracy Amnesty" in order to call attention to a substantial problem for indie developers is fair game (pun not quite intended). While previous pricing strategies may well have contributed to more people choosing to pirate the game, I'm really worried about the "suit yourself, developer" mentality represented by some posters on this thread. There's a fine line indeed between that kind of spiteful, begrudging comments and actively legitimizing piracy.
Irrespective of pricing (and we all know about the "race to the bottom" in terms of iPhone games and what *that* means for indie developer sustainability), you'd be hard-pressed to find an indie developer who would agree with the idea that a game such as Machinarium which took a considerably amount of time to create can be initially sold at anything less than $20 and still make financial sense for the developer in question or the industry as a whole. Good, well-produced indie games must be able to cost more than $5-10 without provoking a "they deserve all the pirates they can get" response from the PC gaming audience. Otherwise PC gaming truly deserves to be dead.

I see why you're saying what you are, really I do. You love gaming and want gaming to thrive (not just big game publishers).
However, it's just not reality to think gaming is somehow immune to the laws of economics. Price influences demand. Whether devs think developing a game is "worth it" or not at a certain price point is, frankly, immaterial. Economics doesn't care.
Also, reflecting on piracy rate or unit price solely is somewhat naive. Neither tell the full story, 99% piracy doesn't mean a game failure if you still profited millions off the 1% for which you were paid. A 1 dollar unit price is more valuable with 1000 sales than a 100 dollar unit price with 5 sales.
Don't let a single statistic "lie" to you, because something like "90% piracy rate" doesn't mean anything but "for every person who obtained a copy by paying for this item, 9 obtained a copy by not paying". It certainly says nothing on its own about profitability.
Posted August 08, 2010
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tburger: Well, I wanted this game since I first saw it's incredible gfx. And I waited and waited - and finally I was able to buy it today on Pirates Promotion for 30% retail price in Poland. Happy now - put it on a "shelf" with other games waiting and waitng till my children grow and I'll have spare time to play it :-)
BTW. I don't like this VAT-thing.

Hehe, my thoughts were "Nice, 15zl :)... oh, 20zl - damn you tax!". But still much cheaper than retail version in Poland.
/me goes back to playing
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General discussion (archive)Machinarium "Pirate Amnesty" Sale(92 posts)(92 posts)
(92 posts)