Pirates pirate a game and get their game pirated in the pirated game and complain

[AdamK47]

Awesome!

 

[Martimus]

It's a pretty clever marketing.

I would agree with that. I definitely would not have bought the game if not for this post. As it is, it was a pretty fun game. It is just your average business simulator type game, and I played through it until I beat it which is better than most of the games I have.

 

[Martimus]

Here are some combos I found to work:
I made a Fallout clone (I called it Fall-in) and made $26M off it near the beginning of the game. Just think of the game blockbusters that were around the last 30 years, and using those almost always gets great reviews and sales. Monkey Island works, Diablo works, (the sierra games don't seem to work though), Shadow Run works (I made over $100M on that title), Grand Turismo works, Flight Simulator works, DDR was a big seller for me. Any combo that doesn't follow a known block-buster seems to do poorly however.

 

[zokudu]

Here are some combos I found to work:
I made a Fallout clone (I called it Fall-in) and made $26M off it near the beginning of the game. Just think of the game blockbusters that were around the last 30 years, and using those almost always gets great reviews and sales. Monkey Island works, Diablo works, (the sierra games don't seem to work though), Shadow Run works (I made over $100M on that title), Grand Turismo works, Flight Simulator works, DDR was a big seller for me. Any combo that doesn't follow a known block-buster seems to do poorly however.

Exactly. That's kind of my issue. If you know what they're going to review as good you can do well (to a point if you're managing properly) but anything outside the box of gaming history just flops.

 

[pw38]

If it's anything like porn, there are plenty of hoarders or people who play like 5 minutes and then forget about the game. For goodness's sake look at Steam, which is legit: how many people buy games on Steam sales "because it's cheap" and then don't even play the games much if at all? The forums are overflowing with people with massive backlogs of such games. It stands to reason that there are a lot of pirates who download things because it's "free" and then hardly even touch most of it.

Well sure but really, why does that matter? They still pirated the game. I know you're not really arguing that they didn't pirate the game but your post is a common rationale of people I know as to why they pirate. It's an excuse and a ridiculous one at that. "but sir, I didn't really intend to jerk off to all that kiddie porn, I just archive it".

 

[AdamK47]

This thread has over 1,700 views.

I'm willing to bet that 1,500 of those views are from slimy filthy smelly pirates.

They're reading this post right now. Yeah, I'm talking about you Mr. Scumbag Pirate. You!

 

[TidusZ]

Game is tough. I can't make any money on anything after the gameboy. It gets worse when you get a massive hit and upgrade your shop. I couldn't get anything good churned out.

There is no good feedback in game to learn what parts of the game are important for different game types. Some stuff is intuitive but some isn't. I found I had to look up the wiki for the game in order to maximize review scores
http://gamedevtycoon.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Combinations

once I did that the game got a lot easier

Also focus on publisher games when you get to 2nd stage until you have 100k+ fans (you get fans fast with published games). Don't publish your own medium size games until that point.

 

[paperfist]

Anyone try the demo? For some reason Norton keeps erasing it saying it's a virus after download

 

[mikeymikec]

I wish more real data on piracy were released. Developers tend to me mum on it. And then the detractors are all like "it doesn't affect developers at all so piracy is fine!!.." Sigh.

Though that's kind of like "I wish I knew how many crimes were actually committed wherever in one day", there really is no way to know.

Obviously piracy* has an effect and it has sent some companies to an early grave. For other companies it isn't negatively affecting them in any significant way. It's kind of like a pest problem, in some scenarios its effects might be dire and in others the effort spent in getting rid of the problem is hardly worthwhile (cost versus benefit).

A lot of companies and organisations make the mistake that piracy* equals theft because if that person didn't pirate it, they definitely would have paid for it, which simply isn't true. Such organisations also make the mistake that piracy* is only detrimental for business. I don't know about you lot, but a significant percentage of my legitimately-purchased DVD collection is a direct result from me watching the film pirated first. Would I have bothered with half of these films if I couldn't download them first? Probably not.

The music/film industries also actively resisted making their products available digitally, to their own detriment. Instead they spent about a decade whining how it'll be the end of days if their business model has to change with the times. They forgot a prime rule of sales: Make the product easily available for customers to acquire.

Such organisations also seem to be believe that they can rid themselves of the problem entirely. Black markets have always existed. You'll have as much luck trying to rid the world of prostitution.

* - The word piracy is misused in this context. Look up what piracy used to mean and still does in some parts of the world, and perhaps call this 'soft piracy' or something that significantly distances it from actual piracy.

 

[TidusZ]

Though that's kind of like "I wish I knew how many crimes were actually committed wherever in one day", there really is no way to know.

Some cities have a law enforcement program that uses google maps to show all crimes in the city and the category of the crime (stolen vehicle, drunk and disorderly, etc etc). It cost money though apparently and for that reason my city doesn't do it

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

*puts hand up*

I have a question.

Why would anyone want to play such a game?

 

[greenhawk]

Kinda reminds me of the days of Titan Quest where cracked versions would hit a certain point in the game and just hard lock. Many people complained on the forums, the devs knew those people were running pirated copies. Problem blew up on them though because they didn't push that out quickly enough and the game got a bad reputation for crashing (although the crashes were directly due to the crack not the legit copies).

I remember playing DarkStar which had a similar dection/issue. it would randomly make the video card behave as if it was over heating. Generally on each space mission (space jump / base exit). It might have also fiddled with the AI in places or the money earnt in others, but the graphics one was the most noticable.

Lots of issues reporting it, but in the end the developers said nothing and would not help those people. While my game was legit, I had the issue as well. It turned out, after a lot of self testing, that it did not like any virtual cd/dvd drives or even having two optical drives in the system the game was being run on. By this time I had finished the game and just told everyone else to avoid it.

 

[mikeymikec]

I remember playing DarkStar which had a similar dection/issue. it would randomly make the video card behave as if it was over heating. Generally on each space mission (space jump / base exit). It might have also fiddled with the AI in places or the money earnt in others, but the graphics one was the most noticable.

Lots of issues reporting it, but in the end the developers said nothing and would not help those people. While my game was legit, I had the issue as well. It turned out, after a lot of self testing, that it did not like any virtual cd/dvd drives or even having two optical drives in the system the game was being run on. By this time I had finished the game and just told everyone else to avoid it.

Over-zealous copy protection at work. It reminds me of when I wanted to play a demo of Tomb Raider: Underworld, and it refused to run because I have Process Explorer running on the systray at all times.

Of course it doesn't tell you that, so it took a while to figure out, then I didn't bother to play the demo because if the demo is like that, then I can logically expect more crappiness from the full version.

Some cities have a law enforcement program that uses google maps to show all crimes in the city and the category of the crime (stolen vehicle, drunk and disorderly, etc etc). It cost money though apparently and for that reason my city doesn't do it

Not sure what your point is in relation to mine. Actual crimes != reported crimes.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Of course it doesn't tell you that, so it took a while to figure out, then I didn't bother to play the demo because if the demo is like that, then I can logically expect more crappiness from the full version.

Unfortunately what the publishers learned from that was not to make demos available.

 

[mikeymikec]

Unfortunately what the publishers learned from that was not to make demos available.

Perhaps it's time to write an essay on the similarities between the customer service skills of business bank managers and RIAA/MPAA/gaming executives.

 

[paperfist]

*puts hand up*

I have a question.

Why would anyone want to play such a game?

To pretend you can run a game company better than EA...

 

[Kalmah]

When is it a good time to start hiring employees on the second stage? Any time that I have more than 1 additional employee I end up going bankrupt. I tried waiting it out with just one extra for a while but it's impossible to create a good medium game with only one it seems. Always bad scores.

 

[JujuFish]

Side note: I hate it when single player games want internet access. Screw phoning home.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

Game kicks ass, I love it

 

[aigomorla]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA i cant stop laughing...

Its like releasing a skyrim where somewhere in the middle your main guy takes an arrow to the knee, then cant do anything more but just roam arround.

Imagine the rage on something like that.




But yeah these dev's are epically evil. They deserve a epic catigory in epic troll on the pirates!

 

[blastingcap]

Well sure but really, why does that matter? They still pirated the game. I know you're not really arguing that they didn't pirate the game but your post is a common rationale of people I know as to why they pirate. It's an excuse and a ridiculous one at that. "but sir, I didn't really intend to jerk off to all that kiddie porn, I just archive it".

Do the back of the envelope numbers and it's clear that many people download-and-forget and whatnot. These aren't lost sales. I'm not saying piracy is not a problem at all, but you can't just look at number of downloads and think you know the total amount of lost sales both in number and in revenue. And stockpiling is just one thing; there are all the others I mentioned (below).

Your analogy to CP is inapt; that is under criminal law whereas the justification for antipiracy laws is economic and under civil law.

I'm going to refer you to my quote in the DRM thread:

For the record, I don't pirate PC games, but your analogy is so bad that I have to comment. A stolen motorcycle means you can't sell it--it's gone. With digital, the original copy remains and can be sold. In reality, piracy is exaggerated as a problem if you look only at downloads, because as articles over the years have pointed out (as well as Stardock's CEO), not every download is a lost sale at full price. There are some people who download a lot of stuff but never actually play it (whether games, films, or whatever... we all know a hoarder who doesn't have enough years in his/her life to actually watch all the films he pirates). There are some who would not have purchased the game AT ALL so they aren't exactly a lost sale either, though if they do something brazen like call customer support and thus cost the company something, they are a net drag. There are some who buy games but also download the cracked version because they don't like the DRM (convenience, compatibility, etc.). There are some who wouldn't have bought the game at full price but at a reduced price, so the cost of that piracy is less than you might think.

 

[pw38]

We're not really disagreeing on much but I will say I don't quite agree that my analogy was inept. It's not the idea that I'm comparing kiddie porn to pirating games but rather the rationale. The rest of it was more for sarcastic value. Still I think it's silly the ends people go through to justify piracy and frankly I don't necessarily agree with your DRM post either. Just my opinion though.

 

[TidusZ]

We're not really disagreeing on much but I will say I don't quite agree that my analogy was inept. It's not the idea that I'm comparing kiddie porn to pirating games but rather the rationale. The rest of it was more for sarcastic value. Still I think it's silly the ends people go through to justify piracy and frankly I don't necessarily agree with your DRM post either. Just my opinion though.

I don't think all piracy is equal. Pirating the avengers which grossed 600 million dollars in theaters alone, with the main actor getting paid $50 million for 3 months of work, I just don't feel bad about pirating that. I'm not a fan of the wealth distribution in most of the world and people making 50 mill for 3 months of not very difficult work is bullshit. 1% of the world's population owns 85% of the wealth according to wikipedia, while the bottom 50% own 1% of the wealth. I don't pirate many pc games, hardly any at all, and I do buy a lot of games (probably spent about $500 so far this year). when I was a broke kid I did pirate a lot though.

I realize its the way the world is set up right now, but I don't really get why there are so many defenders seeing as it's fairly fucked up. I think most people don't have a good understanding of just how rich the rich people of the world actually are and how fucked up it actually is. One thing's for sure though, it is in the best interest of politicians to keep things gravy for the richest people since they end up getting most of their money from them in return for subsidies/kickbacks/bailouts/law reforms/etc, so it wont change anytime soon. Until then I wont be losing any sleep about people pirating media that is feeding the pockets of the top 1%.

 

[AdamK47]

Believing your opinion is justified still doesn't make it right. There are plenty of non-1%ers who based part of their livelihood around the movie you pirated.

 

[Pacemaker]

I don't think all piracy is equal. Pirating the avengers which grossed 600 million dollars in theaters alone, with the main actor getting paid $50 million for 3 months of work, I just don't feel bad about pirating that. I'm not a fan of the wealth distribution in most of the world and people making 50 mill for 3 months of not very difficult work is bullshit. 1% of the world's population owns 85% of the wealth according to wikipedia, while the bottom 50% own 1% of the wealth. I don't pirate many pc games, hardly any at all, and I do buy a lot of games (probably spent about $500 so far this year). when I was a broke kid I did pirate a lot though.

I realize its the way the world is set up right now, but I don't really get why there are so many defenders seeing as it's fairly fucked up. I think most people don't have a good understanding of just how rich the rich people of the world actually are and how fucked up it actually is. One thing's for sure though, it is in the best interest of politicians to keep things gravy for the richest people since they end up getting most of their money from them in return for subsidies/kickbacks/bailouts/law reforms/etc, so it wont change anytime soon. Until then I wont be losing any sleep about people pirating media that is feeding the pockets of the top 1%.

This reminds me of this video.

http://johnnyoldschool.com/?p=908