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Spore - The actual game

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Ozymandias:

--- Quote from: Article ---Time and time again people claimed they were happy to buy good games, at sensible prices.
--- End quote ---

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. The vast vast majority of pirates are just entitled tits, who philosophize why they steal things but wouldn't change their ways until the industry just decides to give the games for free.

Surgoshan:

--- Quote ---I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. The vast vast majority of pirates are just entitled tits
--- End quote ---
Actually, it's about 5%.  Most people are actually exactly what he said.  He found that 5% are entitled tits.  Unfortunately, his full response isn't in that article. 

Here's the man himself talking about it.  You may find it enlightening.

His experience (a poll of self-selected responses) is echoed in earlier real-life economic tests.  Someone decided to start a business wherein baskets of muffins were left at business places with a sign asking people to leave money to pay for the muffins.  The result?  People paid for the muffins and the business was profitable.

When given the opportunity, people will pay for what they value.

It should come as no surprise that anonymity decreases the incidence of payment, of course*, but even so, the vast majority of people still pay.

Still.  The muffin business was self-supporting.

Most pirates are, in fact, people who can't afford it or who have a serious moral issue with something.  The incidence of simple dickery is actually a minority.

*  Employees at larger businesses were less willing to pay, which reflects many studies that show that people in larger groups feel a greater sense of alienation and are far ... meaner.  Employees at smaller businesses paid more, despite (often) lower pay.

KvP:
That seems a tad optimistic. I don't know anyone who pirates games solely because of some moral objection to DRM, myself included.  I pirate games because I don't have the money to spend on them and I don't want to take the risk of buying a game only to find I don't like it. But that's really not an excuse. If a publisher charges too much or institutes some cumbersome DRM scheme with a game, I would pirate it not because I'm entitled to it or even because I have some high-minded point to make, but because I'm a slave to my impulses. I admit to pilfering games because they make me happy and I can get away with it.

When I was a kid I wanted a weekly allowance but my dad insisted I work for the money. Being lazy, I didn't do the work, and instead I snuck into my dad's room at night and stole the money from his wallet, and told myself that it was fair because my dad was being "disrespectful" by asking me to work. That's akin to what this piracy is at its heart. Even though my dad futilely attempted to hide the money from me I was determined to get it. More than that, because my dad even attempted to keep the money from me justified that I take it, because really, who did he think he was? He had gone too far and I found myself fighting against a system that was designed to keep me at a disadvantage. But the fact that I kept stealing the money didn't mean that my dad wasn't completely justified in trying to keep it from me, nor did it mean I deserved the money or had any place having it. The internet is amusing to me because it takes that same childish entitlement I had and adds thick layers of polemical slop onto it to make it seem legitimate (in essence, it's a giant teenager).

If we wanted to be ethical we wouldn't buy, nor would we pirate offending games. But it's not about what's fair or right to the consumer or anyone else, it's about instant gratification.

Anyway, in contrast to devs who sympathize with pirates, here's a forum post made by a dev from Iron Lore, the studio that made the pretty good hack'n'slash Titan Quest, after the studio got shut down. It talks about piracy, amongst many other things. Honestly I can't blame Microsoft from canning so many PC developers, it has to be so, so much better to develop for consoles.

So anyway, does anybody want to swap usernames or something? Maybe I don't have something toggled, but I've only got Maxis creations so far. I'm seeing repetitions. That shouldn't happen.

Boro_Bandito:
My name on it is Philboro, though I'm not sure if it'll dl some of my previous stuff from the creature creator for you or not, seems to have some issues with that.

Scandanavian War Machine:
name's CaptainDino, i think.

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