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[New002]

It's a little spurious to say this significantly benefited them. It didn't seem to hurt sure but the game had amazing word of mouth about the game itself from people who bought it as well.



When has he have ever treaded lightly about something he believes?

Yeah I could totally be misinterpreting his words in the OP. Maybe it's just more passive aggressive or something.

 

[Movalpolos]

I'm not so sure anymore. According to this thread, the game took 8 years to make and Jonathon blew his life savings on the development, and if every pirate doesn't buy a copy before March then PC gaming will die and we'll never get that 3D Braid sequel set in World War 2.

Oh, please.
You are intentionally missing the point. The only people saying "PC gaming is dead" are the PC players being sarcastic in a way to offset the insecurity they feel when piracy is brought up in relation to it.

 

[Arnie7]

Yep this is why PC gaming will never overtake consoles. The publishers won't take risks.

 

[Icyflamez96]

I remember reading studies before on how pirates are much more likely to buy content than non pirates.

Actually, here. Don't know how reliable the sources are though

https://www.google.com/search?q=stu...57.7911j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

I'm tempted to think that The Witness is one of those games which will continue to sell for a longer than standard period, which i hope will prove helpful. I wonder how Braid is selling these days.

This is what I think. I'm not too worried for blow. I think word of mouth and awards will eventually get blow to make his money back and more.

 

[Nimajneb]

If the Witness is the number one game on a torrent site, it must be the most popular game right now. Blow should be ecstatic, it's quite an achievement for a indie game in a niche genre. The game will probably do very well during the Spring sale.

 

[MrFrankFontaine]

This might be a hint for companies to first release on consoles to ensure sales then eventually release it on the PC to get whatever is left over.

Anyways pirates suck.

As a primarily PC gamer, hate to admit it, but it's true. Pirates going to pirate. I can't blame dev(s) for wanting to limit the impact to their sales as much as possible.

Game is worth $40 in my limited game time. Word-of-mouth is strong enough to jump in for that price point.

 

[31GhostsIV]

Again, Steam offers full refunds. This isn't a valid reason for pirates.

PSN doesn't and I never said (deep breath) that pirating is valid, or that I endorse it, I said it's a reality that he should have planned for. Because no amount of self-righteous arguing against piracy on Gaf is going to stop it from happening.

 

[johntown]

No it's called being an idiot that believes that there is only this one relevant truth in life that has to be relevant to everyone else or if they deny it they deny reality. They don't live in reality. Rofl. That's some a grade teen bs right there.

Like how a pirated copy does not equal a lost sale. And how piracy can cause lost sales. But bot of these statements are so inconsequential to where his statements came from.

Cause his reality is the uncertainty of continuing making the games he wants to make after pouring a looooot during the past 7-8 years into this game(feels like a good assumption to make looking at how it turned out). And you can believe he's living that reality.

But whatever by now I should know that the internet makes everyone a sociopath.
Cold logic your way to the single truth of life on everything, like review scores and apparently feelings of someone stealing work from you that you've worked for years on. Jeesh....

Wow lol

 

[Moon_frogger]

the Witness has already made a million dollars on Steam before valve takes its cut and probably something around that ballpark on the PS4, too.

I mean the man might already have made 2 million on the witness in less than a week, i don't think piracy is really putting a hurting on him. Not to condone it, but I'm not buying it.

Hahaha.

Come on guys, when a game is the most torrented file pirate bay obviously that is affecting the developers bottom line. Why all the flimsy justification for piracy?

 

[MUnited83]

This is why mid-tier games died. Thanks PC gamers...

*looks at Cities: Skylines, Divinity Original Sin, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, Talos Principle*


dunno man, they seem pretty much alive

 

[SparkTR]

More relevant tweets:

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/692845777811435521



@90% Piracy rate:

https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/692848652675514368

Wondering where those consumers were for JC3, Mad Max, FIFA 16 and other Denuvo games. Seriously, is there any research around that? Those games have not been pirated yet or at the very least been inconsistently cracked months after launch, and haven't demonstrated dramatically increased sales compared to their predecessors or other similar (cracked) AAA games.

 

[Gbraga]

If people don't have expendable income for things like games, the answer is simple: Don't buy them. Not being able to afford a game is not an excuse to steal it.

While I completely agree with you, I'd be a hypocrite if I said that I'd even be here on GAF if I didn't pirate tons of games while growing up. I can definitely say that I'd never get into gaming if not for piracy. Nothing would convince me to buy an expensive gaming platform and expensive software when I started making my own money if I didn't already have many fond memories from playing pirate games as a kid. Piracy absolutely is the only way many kids, especially in third world countries, are introduced to gaming, and later, when they have disposable income, those kids can become legit consumers.

Actually, before the PS3, I can't remember a single store in my entire city that sold original games. There was only piracy. We didn't even have this sense of "buying/downloading illegal games", it was just "buying/downloading games", because it was either that or nothing.

So there is definitely some merit to trying to convert pirates into customers, even if it is absolutely true that many of them (probably the majority, tbh) just don't want to pay for games.

Personally, I don't think The Witness' price is unfair, it seems to be worth the price Blow's asking, but it just doesn't really interest me. But as someone who wouldn't buy the game anyway, that just means I don't care about the game, and I wouldn't even consider pirating it, why would I pirate a game I have no intention of playing? So there's also a lot of merit to people saying that it's not true that pirates would never have any intention of buying the game in the first place. I'm not convinced people would just find other hobbies they can pirate if all of a sudden it was no longer possible to pirate games.

I guess I didn't make a lot of sense, just a bunch of rambling, but I thought I should share my view on it. As it usually is with most divisive issues, people often choose an extreme when the truth is somewhere in the middle.

 

[Maintenance]

Oh, please.
You are intentionally missing the point. The only people saying "PC gaming is dead" are the PC players being sarcastic in a way to offset the insecurity they feel when piracy is brought up in relation to it.

Yep this is why PC gaming will never overtake consoles. The publishers won't take risks.

Right after your post, I laughed.

 

[DAREALGUMMY]

No Man's Sky is doomed. People were saying $60 is too much for it and the Witness being $40 has some people trying to justify pirating for "demo" sake?

 

[Coffee Dog]

Hahaha.

Come on guys, when a game is the most torrented file pirate bay obviously that is affecting the developers bottom line. Why all the flimsy justification for piracy?

When a game is that popular it means that blow is very likely making a lot of money.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

A game similar to The Witness (puzzle, $40, mid tier game), The Talos Principle, was sitting at 92k owners in April 2015, 4 months after launch. I think it's safe to say that all puzzle games, but especially the "more expensive" ones, will always be slow burners and prone to piracy as much as any other game.

Talos is now sitting at almost 500k sales, was a smashing success for Croteam (critically and commercially), and was even able to be ported to PS4 and Android. The Witness will probably eventually have a similar outcome.

 

[JaseC]

Well, it would remove the game from my frontpage as well. I think it would be bad.

Ah, fair enough.

You're right, hence me removing my post .

I don't understand much about this topic, so should of thought about things before posting in this thread.

Again, sorry about this everyone.

<3

 

[Jacksinthe]

All I'm getting from this is that piracy is ultimately irrelevant, considering that braid made money. And this game is $40 no less! Blow should be raking it in compared to braid!

We have a game that's free. Anyone can play it day or night. For free.

It's still pirated, for some odd reason.

Stop posting bullshit about cost, m'kay? The cost of a game is irrelevant once it hits a torrent site.

There is no discussion to be had about price. You're wrong. Flat out.

 

[yuraya]

At what fucking point will people like this fucking poster stop holding an indie dev's feet to the fire over pricing?

When is a game not a fucking game and simply a metric for pricing based on how the game was developed and by what team?

What does it matter who makes the game or where the funding came from? This whole "well its indie" excuse has got to go.

I've seen FAR more movement and progression from indie developers in content and enjoyment than I have from AAA developers who give you half-cooked pasta sprinkled with fucking Ragu and sell it to you for a premium 5-star price than I have indie developers tried to rake people for their money by overcharging.

It does matter tho. You can be upset all you want but there is a lot of competition on steam. There is nearly 8000 games. Look at the top 20 most played games on steam today. If you release a game that cost more than any of those 20 you better deliver in more ways than just content or word of mouth.

Who you are. What kind of game you make. When its released. How much its cost. All those things are very important for your success. Popularity on Steam goes far beyond getting a 10 from IGN. There are hundreds of other factors.

So your saying indie devs should never go above the $20 price point no matter how well polished and deep it is in comparison to AAA titles? Even if that title cost several million to produce? I'm glad you aren't the one setting price points for games. No one would be getting paid.

No. What I am saying is if you do charge more than 20$ and your game isn't selling well then don't cry about piracy. Piracy isn't the reason his game is doing bad. Its doing bad because people don't want to pay 40$ for it.

 

[digitalrelic]

PSN doesn't and I never said (deep breath) that pirating is valid, or that I endorse it, I said it's a reality that he should have planned for. Because no amount of self-righteous arguing against piracy on Gaf is going to stop it from happening.

No one is pirating the PSN version of the game. I feel like we're going in circles here.

How exactly should've Mr. Blow planned for it? You keep bringing up the retail version of the game so that people could return it, yet once again, Steam offers full refunds and no one is pirating the PSN version of the game.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here.

 

[RobNBanks]

the posts in this thread

NeoFAQs

 

[Dabanton]

Cheapskates will always be cheapskates and if their is a option to get something for 'free' many people will take that option unfortunately.

On another related point. The whole indie games have to be cheap thing has always baffled me I mean even going back to 'Braid' which was priced fairly imo and yet some people threw a shitfit.

 

[Sylas]

It does matter tho. You can be upset all you want but there is a lot of competition on steam. There is nearly 8000 games. Look at the top 20 most played games on steam today. If you release a game that cost more than any of those 20 you better deliver in more ways than just content or word of mouth.

Who you are. What kind of game you make. When its released. How much its cost. All those things are very important for your success. Popularity on Steam goes far beyond getting a 10 from IGN. There are hundreds of other factors.



No. What I am saying is if you do charge more than 20$ and your game isn't selling well then don't cry about piracy. Piracy isn't the reason his game is doing bad. Its doing bad because people don't want to pay 40$ for it.

I mean... from all accounts his game is doing fairly well. We don't have any numbers, nor did Blow insinuate any to begin with.

 

[Peltz]

Hahaha.

Come on guys, when a game is the most torrented file pirate bay obviously that is affecting the developers bottom line. Why all the flimsy justification for piracy?

Agreed. It's appalling.

 

[prudislav]

A game similar to The Witness (puzzle, $40, mid tier game), The Talos Principle, was sitting at 92k owners in April 2015, 4 months after launch. I think it's safe to say that all puzzle games, but especially the "more expensive" ones, will always be slow burners and prone to piracy as much as any other game.

Talos is now sitting at almost 500k sales, was a smashing success for Croteam (critically and commercially), and was even able to be ported to PS4 and Android. The Witness will probably eventually have a similar outcome.

and that one had even the funny DRM and was uncracked for quite a while

 

[Whompa02]

Is this a joke post?

Thanks for taking the time to contribute to the discussion we were having. Really profound input.

I definitely admire Blow for having a vision and making the game he wants to make.

But turning around and complaining about lack of sales/not recuperating losses is kind of antithetical to that. There's a reason for the "starving artist" cliche. You either make art or you make money, it's rare that you get both.

I agree with what you're saying.

I personally think reason we have the cliche, to me, is because there's just not enough protective measures on this sort of content, unfortunately.

He should not have to threaten the cliche of being a starving artist, considering what he's done.

 

[BennyBlanco]

No Man's Sky is doomed. People were saying $60 is too much for it and the Witness being $40 has some people trying to justify pirating for "demo" sake?

No Mans Sky has an online component. Will probably dissuade some from pirating.

 

[Icyflamez96]

No Man's Sky is doomed. People were saying $60 is too much for it and the Witness being $40 has some people trying to justify pirating for "demo" sake?

No Man's Sky is probably getting a physical release at launch which I think will help it in terms of the stigma.

I mean the GAF thread will still be bad, but it wont matter as much.

 

[Transistor]

No Mans Sky has an online component. Will probably dissuade some from pirating.

Will No Man's Sky even work offline, I wonder?

 

[daveo42]

I totally agree with you, and that's why I said it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just one of those things that isn't exactly common place in current game design. So I can easily understand why the vast majority of people would see that you're not being rewarded tangibly for solving a puzzle and take their money else where.

It's not to say what the game does is wrong it's just a contributing factor to its performance considering how more modern gamers are conditioned. I think it's wonderful that the game's reward is solving the puzzles, but that also furthers the image of a 40 dollar puzzle book, which I don't think a lot of modern gamers care to buy into you know?

So obviously to a large majority of people that 40 dollars is going to feel high, but to puzzle game fans that 40 dollars is a boon. However they're obviously the minority.

I agree and it is a hard sell for people who are either not puzzle game fans or look at the game in terms of it just being a puzzle book. It is definitely a collection of puzzles, don't get me wrong, but I don't think there really is any other way to portray this puzzles without the in-game context The Witness provides.

As for the bolded, I think it's a larger issue outside of just gaming but that's a completely different conversation and even something I struggle with on a daily basis.

 

[Kathian]

The question always is would they have paid and usually he answer is no.

 

[Azalean]

That sucks but that's what happens when you put your game on PC (Piracy Central).

 

[Oreoleo]

PSN doesn't and I never said (deep breath) that pirating is valid, or that I endorse it, I said it's a reality that he should have planned for. Because no amount of self-righteous arguing against piracy on Gaf is going to stop it from happening.

Agreed. And it's depressing how many people on here seem to equate this to "advocating piracy."

 

[Coffee Dog]

No Man's Sky is doomed. People were saying $60 is too much for it and the Witness being $40 has some people trying to justify pirating for "demo" sake?

No Man's Sky is the most open open world game in a market where everyone competes for that title. It will sell gangbusters. They could charge $80 for it if it had VR support and people would call it a bargain.

That sucks but that's what happens when you put your game on PC (Piracy Central).

:^)

 

[prudislav]

Wondering where those consumers were for JC3, Mad Max, FIFA 16 and other Denuvo games. Seriously, is there any research around that? Those games have not been pirated yet or at the very least been inconsistently cracked months after launch, and haven't demonstrated dramtically increased sales compared to their predecessors or other similar (cracked) AAA games.

its hard ro do a reasearch on one variable of a thing where hundreds of variables influences the result
You can look for example on the sales of Ground Zeroes(cracked day1) and Phantom Pain(denuvo) on Steam

 

[Kazuma Kiryu]

I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Isn't this an example of pricing yourself out of the market? I mean, piracy is completely wrong, but I doubt the vast majority of pirates would have paid $40 for the game in the first place.

Blow gets to price his game however he wants, what a shit excuse.

 

[GatticusFinch]

No one is pirating the PSN version of the game. I feel like we're going in circles here.

How exactly should've Mr. Blow planned for it? You keep bringing up the retail version of the game so that people could return it, yet once again, Steam offers full refunds and no one is pirating the PSN version of the game.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here.

I mean, he could have planned for this in any number of ways, not least of which is not selling a DRM free copy on Humble. I find it really hard to get all jazzed up for his piracy complaints when he took no action to prevent it.

 

[Reverend Funk]

This game is incredible and anyone pirating it for any "reason" is terrible.

 

[Sheroking]

Hahaha.

Come on guys, when a game is the most torrented file pirate bay obviously that is affecting the developers bottom line. Why all the flimsy justification for piracy?

The most torrented game is the most successful single game ever, FYI. Is GTA V losing on tens of millions in extra sales?

I'll say this again: There is an extreme correlation between high levels of success and high levels of piracy. If your movie, TV show, game, song, etc are among the most pirated, you are making many millions of dollars on it legitimately. It demonstrates mind share more than anything.

I don't think you need to defend piracy in order to suggest that it doesn't hurt publishers and developers nearly as much as they claim it does.

 

[Jacksinthe]

It does matter tho. You can be upset all you want but there is a lot of competition on steam. There is nearly 8000 games. Look at the top 20 most played games on steam today. If you release a game that cost more than any of those 20 you better deliver in more ways than just content or word of mouth.

Who you are. What kind of game you make. When its released. How much its cost. All those things are very important for your success. Popularity on Steam goes far beyond getting a 10 from IGN. There are hundreds of other factors.

For success through legal means - we aren't discussing the success via legality - we are discussing piracy. There are only 2 factors for piracy:

1) Popularity
2) Is it up on pirate sites yet.

Price doesn't factor in. Other games do not factor in. Competition doesn't matter. What matters is the individual game's popularity and whether or not its available for download as a torrent freely via piracy.

The more popular the game is pre-release, the faster the pirate sites will have it up for download. It doesn't matter if its launching up against Battlefield 5 or a Crossword Puzzle.

 

[EventHorizon]

Yes, this is a massive amount of puzzles and the only real thing to look forward to after completing a puzzle is another puzzle. The way though, in which you get that sense of accomplishment without the constant new item/level/macguffin is quite frankly, refreshing in terms of gameplay. Figuring out how something works and why and learning a system should be a reward in and of it self and expecting a tangible reward for doing something shouldn't be a common practice in any facet of your life. It just creates and cultivates a false sense of fun and entitlement that shouldn't and really isn't there to begin with.

It might be refreshing to you but it isn't to the general public. Speaking for myself, if the Witness really is just a set of puzzles that you can go through it would have been much better if it offered up a few puzzles for free as a demo. Then it could have been monetized as a free to play game that charged you for additional puzzles as you played or offered a flat fee to get them all.

You can't create a non-mainstream game and then complain when the mainstream audience doesn't want to buy it.

 

[VariableTerry]

If the Witness is the number one game on a torrent site, it must be the most popular game right now. Blow should be ecstatic, it's quite an achievement for a indie game in a niche genre. The game will probably do very well during the Spring sale.

Completely agree. Just by being that popular will translate in to additional word-of-mouth and can only help sales. The game is going to sell well for a while, and will get a large boost when a sale drops it to $20. Assuming, he didn't spend a ridiculous amount of money on making this game he'll be fine.

 

[silvermember]

Sucks, but pirates are going to pirate regardless. Instead, he should focus on maximizing sales (which I'm sure that's what he's doing anyway). Like others have said, something like a demo would be nice.



Fuck that noise. How would that change anything exactly? You think a bunch of pirates are going to go and buy consoles suddenly?

No, but it will maximize sales before it eventually gets pirated or heavily discounted by any of the many sales.

You don't have to agree with me. I don't really care, but take a chill pill. It will help you a lot.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

Completely agree. Just by being that popular will translate in to additional word-of-mouth and can only help sales. The game is going to sell well for a while, and will get a large boost when a sale drops it to $20. Assuming, he didn't spend a ridiculous amount of money on making this game he'll be fine.

Be careful, I've been called stupid for saying that.

 

[entremet]

Blow gets to price his game however he wants, what a shit excuse.

Blow just said that Braid was pirated just as much as this point in time of release and it was 15 bucks, so people bringing up the price argument have poor evidence to back it up.

 

[Coffee Dog]

We have a game that's free. Anyone can play it day or night. For free.

It's still pirated, for some odd reason.

Stop posting bullshit about cost, m'kay? The cost of a game is irrelevant once it hits a torrent site.

There is no discussion to be had about price. You're wrong. Flat out.

But if price has no impact on piracy, then isn't it negligible other than getting bent out of shape over "potential dollars" fantasy money?

 

[afternoon delight]

I feel for the dude, unfortunately though its the nature of the beast. Did he expect to release it on PC and avoid piracy?

Seriously. Every industry has theft in it- so whine some more I imagine.

Are there any jailbroken consoles or tablets out there playing bootleg games?

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I think part of the problem with the "price is too high" argument is that it's difficult to speculate what impact a lower price would have had in terms of increased sales. I mean, it assuredly will increase units sold, but at what cost?

Who knows, really? The bottom line is here that all people can offer is a reason for why THEY didn't buy the game at launch and won't be buying it until it's on sale. You know what I see? A lot of people saying the same goddamn thing, so clearly there's something there that needs to be considered further.

It's also entirely possible some of those people have pirated the game or will pirate it in the future resulting in a sale that could have happened at some later date that no longer will. Or maybe they'll forget about the game entirely forever, resulting in a missed opportunity for Blow to strike while the proverbial iron was hot. Who really knows. What I can say is that at this point in PC gaming, I need incentive to buy a game at full price and I suspect I'm not alone. Doubly so for a genre that I spend very little time in, whether the game is exceptional or not. Skyrim was exceptional too, but I played it no more than 45 minutes 2 weeks after launch and not ever again. It doesn't matter how good a game is to others; it's about how well it may or may not resonate with you. And let's be real: it's fair to say that (a) most gamers don't spend a lot of time playing puzzle games and (b) most games in this genre have a lower asking price. The combination begs for a lower asking price OR an initial discount offer to get impulse buyers in the door. Paying full price to get into a genre that isn't populated by a lot of core gamers is a non-starter for many. A demo may have helped here. But a better price or initial discount offer of some kind would have helped the more. How much more? It's all conjecture to speculate in at a macro level, really but Blow would have had my money. Now? He won't have it until the game is $10-$15 on sale.

 

[Venfayth]

You're really doing no favors to anyone by arguing that "Look how good this game is doing - it's on the top of the pirate charts! He should be happy!"

If a fraction of those downloads were purchases, he'd be doing better.