World of Goo

[ThunderPeel2001]

  castorp said:

You might be right in saying only two percent would have bought it anyway, but that is because there is piracy and thus the possibility to play games without buying them in the first place.

This makes no sense. "Only 2% would have bought the game because there is piracy (and thus) the possibility of playing games for free." What?

  castorp said:

It only is true because one has to rightfully assume that pirates wouldn't buy most of the games they couldn't pirate. If it’s not pirateable they just play something else that is.

Yup, that makes sense to me.

  castorp said:

I think the number of lost sales is not the ominous number of people who would have bought it if they had to, but more rightfully the number of people who pirated, played and enjoyed it (and then not bought it).

Huh? Sorry, no. "The number of lost sales in the number of people who, not only would have bought the game, but also those who would NOT have bought the game." (That's what you just said.) That doesn't make any sense, either.

Emotionally you might irritated and angry about it, and it's pretty damn disgusting for such a cheap/excellent game as WoG, but emotion doesn't equal lost revenue.

As an aside:

Piracy has been "killing the industry" for nearly two decades, but the industry is still here. I remember reading an interview with someone at EA about the price of Amiga games. He said the reason they were so expensive (and let's make no bones about it, big games are OVERPRICED*) was solely because of piracy. This was their official statement as supported by the "big whigs" in the industry.

The Amiga would die because of this piracy, we were told.

When CD games start appearing on the Amiga/CD32, he promised, prices would come down because it was impossible to pirate CDs (which it was, back then) and the manufacturing costs were the same as floppy disk.

Brilliant!

Except, oddly enough, when CD games appeared, they were MORE expensive than their floppy counterparts, even though they were exactly the same

It's worth mentioning, although I don't know to what end, that:

1/ I think 99% of hardcore pirates are kids who can't afford £50/$60 a game.

2/ Oblivion on PC has ZERO anti-piracy protection. (Pretty interesting for this day and age - what were the sales like, anyone know?)

3/ According to Microsoft, the games industry is bigger than movies and music (and so is actually rather healthy, right now).

* Games are overpriced: Even the most expensive games cost no more than a Hollywood movie -- but I can see a movie at the cinema AND buy the Blu-Ray TWICE over for the cost of a new 360 game

** WoG, however, is NOT overpriced

(PS - For the record, I do not pirate games -- but I sure as hell used to when I was a kid!)

Edited November 17, 2008 by ThunderPeel2001

[Scrobbs]

Sorry Castorp (and your clumsy sarcasm) but what I meant was that I felt that the more interesting point to take away from the blog post was that DRM actually had no (or very little) effect on the piracy level. Very few devs talk about this.

Of course piracy is bad (mmkay), and hurts the small devs - substantially more than the big ones I presume as they can't absorb as much punishment - but the discussion of DRM is woefully poor (beyond the normal line peddled.

On that subject, if I may go OT for a little bit longer, CVD software have tried a different tack:

  Quote

...downloaded or purchased copies of the full game can be shared with friends and family, with these shared copies acting as full-featured demos for the duration of one calendar day. During the demo period the game is completely unlocked for single-player and LAN multiplayer modes. After the demo install expires the consumer has the option of purchasing the full game online, or simply uninstalling it. This, for example, allows consumers who purchased the full game in stores or via digital distribution channels, to share their game with friends, with those subsequent installs acting as time-limited “try before you buy” versions that allow gamers to enjoy almost all features found in the full game.

It remains to be seen whether this will take off and lead to more 'sales' of course. The cahnces are it will lead to folks just grabbed the cracked .exe from somewhere of course, but at least they're trying.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Also, I'm extremely tired today. Sorry if my post seemed overly confrontational.

[Scrobbs]

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

Also, I'm extremely tired today. Sorry if my post seemed overly confrontational.

You're dead to me.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Norfolk said:

You're dead to me.

I take it all back!

Fuck you all!!!

(That better?)

[castorp]

I'll try to keep it short.

The first post was just venting - the 90-number took me by surprise (on the one hand: me being uninformed, not knowing what is normal – on the other hand: not so surprised by the number itself, but by the fact that the lovely and indie World of Goo suffers the same fate as every other game). I did read the 2DBoy-statement I used as source but, as said, didn't want to talk about their indeed interesting reaction - I applaud 2DBoy for their commitment to DRMless-ness - but rage a little (our measurements of 'rage' seem to be rather different, Norfolk). In my eyes by all means appropriate and legitimate, independent of what others, even the concerning parties, say. So, while you where confused by my selective reaction, I was by yours.

The second post. What I wanted to say there wasn't guided by emotion, but thought. My points might be lost in confusing words, but I have to admit, I don't quite get your interpretations and your re-formulations as well, Thunderpeel (and I find your way of handling my words quite belittling). I think the common way to 'count' lost sales and the preceding assumptions about consumer (or pirate) behaviour are highly biased in favour of diminishing the range and thus consequences of piracy. The logic of I-don't-buy-what-I-can't-get-for-free is in itself a product of piracy and has become a characteristic of the system. And this makes the common argumentation kind of circular.

[The possibility of piracy changed consumer behaviour so that] Only 2% of the pirates would have bought the game if there wasn't a possibility to pirate it, so piracy isn't that much of a problem.

And the third one…

  Norfolk said:

your clumsy sarcasm

Yeah?

And you fight like a cow.

[Scrobbs]

  castorp said:

And the third one…Yeah?

And you fight like a cow.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  castorp said:

The second post. What I wanted to say there wasn't guided by emotion, but thought. My points might be lost in confusing words, but I have to admit, I don't quite get your interpretations and your re-formulations as well, Thunderpeel (and I find your way of handling my words quite belittling). I think the common way to 'count' lost sales and the preceding assumptions about consumer (or pirate) behaviour are highly biased in favour of diminishing the range and thus consequences of piracy. The logic of I-don't-buy-what-I-can't-get-for-free is in itself a product of piracy and has become a characteristic of the system. And this makes the common argumentation kind of circular.

Errr... I think it's fair to say that the people who are losing out on lost revenue count as many potential purchases as possible. In fact, it's the big myth that nobody talks about, isn't it? For instance, just how does Nintendo claim they've lost $975 million unless they're saying that every copy pirated was one less copy sold.

It's Bruce Everiss vs Stuart Campbell, I guess.

While Everiss's writing makes terrifying reading, I simply don't buy it (pun intended), and many of the comments make excellent counter-arguments.

For example:

  Quote

Okay, I challenge the core argument:

–Quote–

The profile of pirating different platforms is always different because of the technology, the demographics of the users, the state of the market at a given time, relative costs and a number of other factors. What is for sure is that when piracy takes hold on a platform many hundreds of thousands (sometimes million) of copies of a game are made. The huge scale of this theft deprives the publisher of vast amounts of legitimate income and quite obviously harms the game development industry. To think otherwise is to be in self denial.

–/Quote–

I agree with everything but the last two sentences. That you called it “theft” has already been brought to attention, so I’ll only make an aside that the quickest way to lose an argument is to make assertions that are neither factual nor shared by your adversary. “Massive copyright infringement,” and “flagrant and illegal violation of our rights” are already pretty good, and more in line with the situation.

“deprives the publisher of vast amounts of legitimate income”. We’re now getting into the realm of counterfactual speculation. It’s like saying “cancer deprives the UK of 200 billion pounds a year income”. Either you’re stating a practical impossibility (a world without cancer) — in which case the argument is banal (sure, and if we discovered a practically free, renewable and environmentally-sustainable energy source tomorrow, the world would be a better place) –, or you’re suggesting that the practically impossible is quite possible, in which case you need to show us how you’ll cure cancer.

So then “harming the game industry” can be taken in two ways: either you mean “it’s a negative force the game industry tries to deal with”, with which most, but not all, people would agree, or “it’s something we can and should stop,” in which case I invite you to outline how you would stop it.

At most what you’ve shown is that piracy, like hardware limitations, is a platform-specific force that game companies need to understand and to work around in order to be successful. If you implement a hardware workaround offers increased performance at the cost of dramatically decreased stability, resulting in a game that crashes all the time, you wouldn’t blame poor sales on the hardware.

Likewise, if you use this argument for your DRM scheme:

–Quote–

Often this technology had nuisance value as it actually impeded the use of the computer. But the pirates did bring it upon themselves.

–/Quote–

And the game bombs while pirate copies soar, do not go blaming piracy. Your paying customers do not “bring it upon themselves,” but it is they who are being punished. You’ve just made your product _less valuable_ to a paying customer than a pirate copy.

So am I deceiving myself?

[Nachimir]

I doubt we'll ever know what the impact of piracy is on sales. Cases like World of Goo are much better anti-piracy fodder than, say, Spore or Bioshock, since downloading the work of a couple of guys working from coffee shops is a more emotive image than outraged executives. I'd probably be pissing mad if I were 2D Boy, but they seem to be handling it very graciously.

I also think words like "theft" and "steal" are just confusing when applied to this; Bruce Everiss is clever, but a zealot when it comes to piracy. One thing he's correct on is that consoles act as an anti-piracy dongle, people I know who are more than capable of chipping are happy to pay cash for PSN games but pirate the fuck out of PC stuff.

People tend to take the shortest rational egocentric route to what they want. The shortest rational route would be to get things by paying for them at a reasonable price (Not just money, but things like "not having a rootkit on your PC"). But "free" = egocentric route

(In a bigger comment, I once asked Bruce if he was licensing the images of scantily clad women he often heads posts with, or was "stealing" them. Funnily enough that paragraph didn't make it through the moderation queue )

[Scrobbs]

Just as an aside, and it could be an interesting development if true, I don't think the PS3 has been cracked properly yet (to test this theory I had a quick search for ROMS and tips). As soon as folk seem to be getting closer, Sony bring out an update. You don't hear anyone blaming poor sales on piracy on that platform... Although Market share must play a part there.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yup. Has Mirrors Edge sold significantly more on the PS3 versus the 360? It would be interesting to know.

Edited May 24, 2009 by ThunderPeel2001

[Wurtsi]

Just thought this was worth posting. Found via the Indiegames blog. It's a really dark claymation clip about well, World of Goo, and it's totally sweet. Check it out!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/494395

[Wrestlevania]

2D Boy have tightened up their internal game prototyping framework and released it to the mother-fucking public.

"Go make some games, you bunch of thieving bastards!" the developer's didn't say.

[vimes]

I love this game; I completed it in three runs and it feels like I could keep on going for hours. What I admire most is that, contrary to what it seems, it's not 1 gameplay idea used to its most, but 20 or 30 awesome gameplay ideas explored just the right amount of depth. I can't find anything that would improve the experience without changing it radically, so it turned out to be one of those games that just succeed perfectly at what they want to do.

Go 2DBoy, go!

[Wrestlevania]

*bump*

Another game I collected as part of the Humble Indie Bundle. And I think I really need to get over my deep-seated aversion to puzzle games, because World of Goo is a thing of wonderment.

I played and completed the first chapter in one sitting last night; unheard of for me, particularly with puzzle games. And - bar the slightly obscure hints for completing the last level - I was completely mesmerised throughout.

Went to bed dreaming of goo blobs, and can not wait to play more of it tonight.

[Nappi]

Although I had bought this game way earlier, I just finished it today. This is definitely one of my favorite puzzle games. I was quite surprised how strong the atmosphere in the game was thanks to strong soundtrack and visuals.

[miffy495]

Dude, Wrestle, wait until you get to the end. The game just gets more and more awesome. Every level is something different and sweet.

[Grippage]

Is this a thread about WoG or about piracy?

I found the digital levels quite unbearable, and it was annoying how they introduced new Goos that you could only use for a couple of levels.

The bridge building was my favourite part of the game or the really puzzle-ish levels.

[Psych]

I totally agree about the digital levels. Goos you can't build with just aren't that fun.

That being said the rest of the game is an absolute joy.

[syntheticgerbil]

What are these digital levels? Are they only available on certain versions?

I ask because I think I may finally get around to buying this game.

[Patters]

  syntheticgerbil said:

What are these digital levels? Are they only available on certain versions?

I ask because I think I may finally get around to buying this game.

They are in the last chapter of the game.

[Kolzig]

Now available for phone people.

This was released yesterday for Android and iOS.

Tried the demo just for fun, I have this for Wiiware and PC. Don't really need it for phones, but for casual masses this will be cool. Price only 2,50€.

[Scrobbs]

Could have sworn that I've had this on my ipad for about a year...

[thorn]

It's been on iOS for a while. New to Android, huzzah!

EDIT: And only $3AU! Hadn't planned to buy it again, but that's a bargain and I'm happy to support 2dBoy.

[Scrobbs]

Good note on freakonomics.com about the piracy figures:

http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/

  Quote

These numbers seem truly dire: a $250 billion per year loss would be almost $800 for every man, woman, and child in America. And 750,000 jobs – that’s twice the number of those employed in the entire motion picture industry in 2010.

The good news is that the numbers are wrong — as this post by the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez explains.*In 2010, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that these figures “cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology,” which is polite government-speak for “these figures were made up out of thin air.”*