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[collige]

If the Witness ends up bombing it will be because of issues totally unrelated to piracy.

Worrying about pirated copies is like worrying whether the sun is gonna come up tomorrow.

 

[ViciousDS]

Yeah, people are assholes.

Try to focus on the sales you are getting instead of the ones you aren't. Chances are most of those people wouldn't have paid for your game in any context.



There's nothing wrong with the price point.

Yup.....thats why I bought it..............

Spoiler

/s

Nope, definitely waiting till it drops in price. I am not spending $40 on the game.

 

[Coffee Dog]

More likely the pirate will tell their friends (if they like it), "hey this game is great, you can get it for free by going to...."

People who pirate aren't going to tell their friends where to buy it when they just got it for free, lol...

tell that to the hotline miami devs, who encouraged pirates to tell their friends about the game and pay for it later.

blanket statements don't really work. It's not something that simple.

 

[Venfayth]

Blow raises a really good point, though: Even if only 10% of pirates would buy the game if piracy wasn't there, that's still A LOT of money. It's not a matter of 1 pirated game = 1 lost sale as much as it is "if 1 pirated game = 0.1 lost sale, that's already a lot".

This is my point.

1 pirated download is not 1 lost sale.
1 pirated download is also not 0 lost sales.

The ratio lies somewhere between.

If you think literally every single person who pirated the game would not have purchased it, you are wrong.

If you think literally every single person who pirated the game would have purchased it, you are wrong.

I concede there is value in the accessibility of the game being out there to try for everyone. That leads to positive growth no matter what. If you're arguing that that benefit of the game being pirated - the aforementioned accessibility - is greater than the loss of sales due to piracy, I want to ask you: What makes you so sure?

 

[Dictator93]

Pirates are lame. But I am really not sure that these people would buy the game to be honest in the first place.

 

[ThatOneGrunt]

Is it rude or wrong to hope that this means he'll bring it to the Xbox One sooner than later?

Maybe that's a ridiculous statement because it would still take time to code it for the system.

I would be more than happy to pay money to play it. I just don't game on my PC or want to buy a PS4.

 

[Portugeezer]

Hey Mr. Blow.

1 pirated != 1 sale lost.

But it could be, which is bad enough if you are the developer of the game.

 

[Roberto Larcos]

.

Fantastic post.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

Piracy doesn't equal lost sales. Those who pirate the game do so because they either lack the money to buy it, or are curious about the game, but due to the lack of a demo or other trial mechanism, need to vet the game.

All of which are not valid reasons to be a thief.

Nobody "needs" to steal a game, for any reason. Very poor people may need to steal food or medicine. But nobody needs to steal a fucking videogame.

The first step in solving the problem is to stop making excuses for people who can afford a gaming PC and all that that entails, and are stealing games. If you can afford a gaming PC, you can afford games. If you can't afford a game right NOW, then be a real, civilized person and WAIT until you can afford it, rather than stealing it. There's never a valid reason to steal a game. You are simply a thieving prick. If the dev doesn't put out a demo, but you are "curious" about a game, then satisfy your curiosity with one of the thousands of reviews, let's play videos and other shit out there, word of mouth from your friends or the thousands of players in the online community.

With the internet, forums, youTube and Twitch, never in human history has it been easier to satisfy ones curiosity about a game without playing it...or stealing it.

"Piracy doesn't equal lost sales" is easy for you to say. But let's be honest. It equals lost sales a helluva lot more often than it equals SALES, which what a developer who literally spent his entire personal fortune and literally years of his life's labor, should expect.

 

[geordiemp]

Lol, I got news for you



These drive by shit post sure are great!

Unfortunately if the piracy rate is 90 % (I dont know, just some posts mentioned it more than once), then there is a real problem to be addressed and the posts are correct.

Maybe steam should be responsible for the copy protection like on console.

 

[entremet]

Is it rude or wrong to hope that this means he'll bring it to the Xbox One sooner than later.

Maybe that's a ridiculous statement because it would still take time to code it for the system.

He did register via ESRB just in case he decides to. In hindsight, it was very silly to ignore that install base.

 

[moggio]

All of which are not valid reasons to be a thief.

Nobody "needs" to steal a game, for any reason. Very poor people may need to steal food or medicine. But nobody needs to steal a fucking videogame.

Heaven forbid a poor person has access to entertainment to pass some time in their miserable life.

 

[Roberto Larcos]

Is it rude or wrong to hope that this means he'll bring it to the Xbox One sooner than later?

Maybe that's a ridiculous statement because it would still take time to code it for the system.

I assume an Xbox One port is dependent on whether the game is a financial success, or failing that, whether Microsoft are willing to part-fund or help out with development. If anything, this hurts the chance of an Xbox port for this game, but may make him think harder about delivering a port for the next one, in 8 years.

 

[Coffee Dog]

All of which are not valid reasons to be a thief.

Nobody "needs" to steal a game, for any reason. Very poor people may need to steal food or medicine. But nobody needs to steal a fucking videogame.

The first step in solving the problem is to stop making excuses for people who can afford a gaming PC and all that that entails, and are stealing games. If you can afford a gaming PC, you can afford games. If you can't afford a game right NOW, then be a real, civilized person and WAIT until you can afford it, rather than stealing it. There's never a valid reason to steal a game. You are simply a thieving prick. If the dev doesn't put out a demo, but you are "curious" about a game, then satisfy your curiosity with one of the thousands of reviews, let's play videos and other shit out there, word of mouth from your friends or the thousands of players in the online community. With the internet, forums, youTube and Twitch, never in human history has it been easier to satisfy ones curiosity about a game without playing it...or stealing it.

"Piracy doesn't equal lost sales" is easy for you to say. But let's be honest. It equals lost sales a helluva lot more often than it equals SALES, which what a developer who literally spent his entire personal fortune and literally years of his life's labor, should expect.

Let's plays lose potential sales. Why would you advocate for them?

 

[Gbraga]

but it isn't 1 pirated game = 0.1 lost sale. We can't ever actually know.

If Blow needs that fractional revenue so badly, why doesn't he work to convert pirates to paying customers? Valve does it and they claim it works great for them.

It's not a good point. If everyone gave me a dollar I would have a million dollars. All he is saying there. Convincing people to buy things is a serious issue in business and it doesn't come down to wishful thinking.

Ok, let's use a number no one would disagree on, then:

Of all the thousands that pirated the game, if you couldn't pirate The Witness, one of them would have bought the game. Just one.

For Blow, that might be worth it. And I can respect that.

This is my point.

1 pirated download is not 1 lost sale.
1 pirated download is also not 0 lost sales.

The ratio lies somewhere between.

If you think literally every single person who pirated the game would not have purchased it, you are wrong.

If you think literally every single person who pirated the game would have purchased it, you are wrong.

I concede there is value in the accessibility of the game being out there to try for everyone. That leads to positive growth no matter what. If you're arguing that that benefit of the game being pirated - the aforementioned accessibility - is greater than the loss of sales due to piracy, I want to ask you: What makes you so sure?

Yeah, precisely, you elaborated on it better than I could.

Heaven forbid a poor person has access to entertainment to pass some time in their miserable life.

They should be sneaking into movie theaters or plays, then. This poor, miserable person won't be able to afford a gaming PC to run The Witness. Or the internet to download it.

As I said before from personal experience, there is some merit in arguing piracy can create future paying customers, but let's not go too deep into hyperbole territory. It's 100% true that I wouldn't be a paying customer today if not for piracy. But it's also 100% true that if I was this poor, I wouldn't be able to afford the consoles I used for piracy in the first place.

 

[ThatOneGrunt]

He did register via ESRB just in case he decides to. In hindsight, it was very silly to ignore that install base.

From what I understand he had his reasons. He couldn't get an XB1 dev kit and Sony was more accommodating? Is that a myth or did that actually happen?

 

[digitalrelic]

With Denuvo he would have had 0 piracy and the same shitty sales.

Piracy is not the problem, the problem is he hasn't been able to sell his game.

Sources?

 

[fantomena]

This thread is full of @NeoGafShitPost.

 

[KHlover]

If the Witness ends up bombing it will be because of issues totally unrelated to piracy.

Worrying about pirated copies is like worrying whether the sun is gonna come up tomorrow.

Honestly this. Piracy is a pretty constant noise signal and not much more. It may be A reason but it won't ever be THE reason a game doesn't sell. Arguing that is just vastly oversimplifying the issue of why a game does or does not sell.

 

[Ansatz]

That goes to show that the game isn't well marketed because I had no idea it was like that. FYI, to me that setup sound incredibly frustrating and makes me even less likely to ever buy the game. No I'm not pirating it either. I just will probably never play it.

Did you play Braid?

 

[EventHorizon]

This thread is sad. I didn't realize pirating was a defensible option now. Piracy is a sad reality you have to accept as a developer (believe me, I now know), but there's no justification for it.

I really think there are two issues being discussed here. One is piracy. The other is the expected value of an indie niche game. I've only be discussing the value of the game. I think even out of most of the people talking about piracy a good portion of them are just explaining, not justifying, but I could be wrong about that.

 

[patapuf]

But it could be, which is bad enough if you are the developer of the game.

No it could not. It means that it would be downloaded more if it was free. Which is obvious.

Blaming piracy for bad sales has been silly when AAA pubs did it back in 2006 and it's silly now.

How many puzzle games sold huge amounts with a 40 $ price tag - no matter the quality ?

There's only one that comes to mind: Portal 2.

 

[SparkTR]

Unfortunately if the piracy rate is 90 % (I dont know, just some posts mentioned it more than once), then there is a real problem to be addressed and the posts are correct.

Maybe steam should be responsible for the copy protection like on console.

No numbers have ever suggested that be the case in real world sales. And he is responsible for copy protection like every developer. There's an uncrackable, practical solution available called Denuvo that he could have used.

 

[wildfire]

Heaven forbid a poor person has access to entertainment to pass some time in their miserable life.

There are plenty of games, shows, movies and music given out for free through proper channels.

Stop making excuses.


I'm barely above poverty.

I paid for this game and braid.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Ok, let's use a number no one would disagree on, then:

Of all the thousands that pirated the game, if you couldn't pirate The Witness, one of them would have bought the game. Just one.

For Blow, that might be worth it. And I can respect that.

But of all the thousands that pirate the game, 5 of them tell their friends how great the game is, who go on to buy 5 $40 full priced copies. This has made Blow more money and given his game more attention than your example.

What makes your scenario any more plausible than mine? Do you even have a reason?

 

[Massa]

Justifying piracy by saying that The Witness' price is "too high" is just reprehensible.

I don't think that's what people are doing here on NeoGAF. Every game gets pirated, but not every game has the same pirate downloads/sales ratio.

If The Witness has a very high number of pirated downloads it means that the game generated a lot of interest and a lot of people want to play it. And then you look at the sales numbers: do they also show that? Why not?

The price discussion is an interesting one with this game for several reasons. It doesn't justify piracy or explain it, the game was going to get pirated anyway.

 

[moggio]

Did you play Braid?

I played Braid and it put me off buying this.

I'll be watching someone Let's Play it instead of buying it.

Less frustration and more entertainment for me.

 

[Sniffynose]

With Denuvo he would have had 0 piracy and the same shitty sales.

Piracy is not the problem, the problem is he hasn't been able to sell his game.

Yup, but that wouldn't make headlines. Plus there are millions of console sales out there that have software that CAN'T be pirated yet his sales must still be lacking.

Hasn't he typically been a mouthpiece in the past as well?

 

[Movalpolos]

tell that to the hotline miami devs, who encouraged pirates to tell their friends about the game and pay for it later.

blanket statements don't really work. It's not something that simple.

Okay. So every dev should pander to pirates to get on their "good side"?

 

[entremet]

Heaven forbid a poor person has access to entertainment to pass some time in their miserable life.

Holy crap.

 

[Coffee Dog]

I played Braid and it put me off buying this.

I'll be watching someone Let's Play it instead of buying it.

Less frustration and more entertainment for me.

but the potential revenue! In a world without lets plays blow would have forty more dollars, and that might just be enough!

 

[SparkTR]

Sources?

The only point of reference we have are sales of Denuvo enabled games that are uncrackable, versus sales of similar contemporary cracked games or their predecessors. So far I've seen no noticible increase of sales for the Denuvo enabled games. If someone wants to look at the data I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

 

[Abounder]

With Denuvo he would have had 0 piracy and the same shitty sales.

Piracy is not the problem, the problem is he hasn't been able to sell his game.

Piracy is not THE problem but it is a problem - all it takes is a small fraction to buy the game instead to make Denuvo/etc worthwhile.

 

[KarmaCow]

I played Braid and it put me off buying this.

I'll be watching someone Let's Play it instead of buying it.

Less frustration and more entertainment for me.

Watching other people play puzzle games sounds way more frustrating.

 

[Mivey]

Maybe if Denuvo continues to be so successful, they might introduce offers for AA developers who are very sensitive about piracy. Would of course mean that you couldn't release it DRM-free, would completely defeat the purpose.

 

[Mass Effect]

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.

You have no way of knowing that. A PC version simultaneously with a console version doesn't mean piracy (on the PC version) hurts sales on consoles.

And please, I'm not getting angry at your silly misinformed opinions, that's just how I talk (strong language =/= riled emotions). Enough with your condescending nonsense.

 

[daveo42]

I'm not seeing your point. Aren't you admitting in the bolded part that the game isn't worth the price and nobody would buy The Witness if it had a demo because people would find that out?

No. Demos have historically hurt sales of games. Not sure of the official reasons, but some games don't demo well. It's hard to tell if The Witness would or wouldn't have demo'd well or even how to get across what it does in a simple demo.

I'm also pointing out the issue with your logic on "mainstream audiences" not being interested in the game because (if the numbers are to be believed) a large number of people have pirated the game to play it because these people feel that either $40 is too much for a game about puzzles and/or just pirate everything because that's what they find acceptable.

In my own opinion, the game is not just about puzzles and is worth more than the initial asking price and I've only played it for about 12 hours. This whole "piracy" deal might be in a different place if maybe it was better explained to people, but it's not the easiest game to explain without experiencing or straight up spoiling the experience. Is that a fault of Blow himself? Maybe, but there's always hope that word of mouth and legitimate reviews of the game help sell people on it. I know the reviews earlier in the week were what pushed me from not buying to picking it up day 1.

 

[Lanrutcon]

I played Braid and it put me off buying this.

I'll be watching someone Let's Play it instead of buying it.

Less frustration and more entertainment for me.

Quick: how many views does that video have? Someone needs to blow the whistle on this.

 

[ViciousDS]

Yup, but that wouldn't make headlines. Plus there are millions of console sales out there that have software that CAN'T be pirated yet his sales must still be lacking.

Hasn't he typically been a mouthpiece in the past as well?

Despite the budget busting price of 1200 Microsoft Points, Braid seems to be selling at a "surprisingly good" rate, according to the game's official blog. As of today, sales estimate are just shy of 30,000 copies sold to Xbox Live Arcade's more affluent user, a figure the Braid blog writes "seems to be in the right neighborhood."

Does that mean that the segment of the population who has parked their Learjets long enough to complete the download have made the game a profit? Not quite.

Jonathan Blow, the game's creator, says Braid needs to reach sales of exactly "a lot more than it has gotten so far" to get out of the red. Let's hope the rest of the Xbox Live community, the type who don't sport platinum cards and massive trust funds, will be able to dig deep and snatch up what Blow says is "the highest-rated XBLA game ever." See? He says it right down there.

just a little



http://braid-game.com/news/2008/08/braid-is-the-highest-rated-xbla-game-ever-also-sales-data/


just read the entire thing.....its amazing

 

[Despera]

I'll be watching someone Let's Play it instead of buying it.

Less frustration and more entertainment for me.

My mind froze for a second there trying to process the fact someone wants to watch a let's play of a puzzle game.

 

[Comfort Jones]

Heaven forbid a poor person has access to entertainment to pass some time in their miserable life.

Wow this might be the most legitimate example of advocating piracy I've seen in this thread.

 

[DrunkShogun]

People who pirate were never going to buy his game so unfortunately he's simply wasting his breath.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Okay. So every dev should pander to pirates to get on their "good side"?

it's not about "pandering", it's about not denying that piracy can lead to converting potential customers to paying.

 

[Ansatz]

I played Braid and it put me off buying this.

I'll be watching someone Let's Play it instead of buying it.

Less frustration and more entertainment for me.

Eh, there is no "game" in The Witness. For you as a casual observer it's basically like watching a painting.

 

[SparkTR]

Piracy is not THE problem but it is a problem - all it takes is a small fraction to buy the game instead to make Denuvo/etc worthwhile.

Where is that fraction though? They're not showing up in the data that we have.

 

[Dr.Acula]

This strikes me as Blow just F5'ing the torrent sites and freaking out. I don't think The Witness is some crazy outlier in terms of being especially affected by piracy (especially among DRM-free games), so what this says to me is Blow didn't care about piracy at all until it happened to "his game."

I can't seriously believe he was blindsided by the fact his game ended up on torrent sites. The only way he could have been blindsided so is if he was willfully ignorant of the realities of the landscape.

You release a DRM-free game, you gamble on the good-will sales gains offsetting the loss through piracy. If you can't handle that then you put on anti-piracy measures. CDPR did okay with The Witcher 3, Rockstar did okay with GTAV.

 

[Abounder]

The only point of reference we have are sales of Denuvo enabled games that are uncrackable, versus sales of similar contemporary cracked games. So far I've seen no noticible increase of sales for the Denuvo enabled games. If someone wants to look at the data I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Without DRM those titles may never be ported to the PC in the first place

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Justifying piracy by saying that The Witness' price is "too high" is just reprehensible.

First of all, now that I'm ~10 hours into The Witness with a massive amount of stuff left to do, no, it's not "too expensive". It completely justifies its own price.

Maybe it's too expensive for you. That doesn't mean it's not worth its price. Stop pretending like you're so fucking entitled to have every developer personally meet your own budget.


Second of all, it misses the wider point that assholes would pirate the game anyway, regardless of price.

Historically it was "we're pirating because of DRM!!!" Oops. There's a DRM-free version of The Witness.

Then it was "we're pirating because big companies don't care about us!!" Oops. This is a tiny indie team that worked their asses off for 8 years to bring you one of the most brilliant puzzle games ever.

Then it was "we're pirating because the PC version was shit and we want to send a message!!" Oops. Seems like the PC version of The Witness is fine.

Then it was "we're pirating because I have no idea if it'll work on my PC!!!" Oops. Steam offers no-questions-asked refunds for less than two hours of gameplay.



Stop making fucking excuses and start condemning it without qualification. Otherwise you're part of the problem.

I was going so say something but this post puts it all out there and then some already. Thank you.

I'm wondering if I should to expect DRM releases for future projects from Jonathan Blow. My cynical side of gaming would have argued for DRM at times. Rreally hope this non-DRM release subsequent pirating doesn't discourage him to make another game; especially with such a once a generation type of release track record of games.

 

[Already Torn]

Wow this might be the most legitimate example of advocating piracy I've seen in this thread.

He's saying heaven should forbid that. That's the opposite of advocating it.

 

[NullPointer]

Historically it was "we're pirating because of DRM!!!" Oops. There's a DRM-free version of The Witness.

Then it was "we're pirating because big companies don't care about us!!" Oops. This is a tiny indie team that worked their asses off for 8 years to bring you one of the most brilliant puzzle games ever.

Then it was "we're pirating because the PC version was shit and we want to send a message!!" Oops. Seems like the PC version of The Witness is fine.

Then it was "we're pirating because I have no idea if it'll work on my PC!!!" Oops. Steam offers no-questions-asked refunds for less than two hours of gameplay.

Stop making fucking excuses and start condemning it without qualification. Otherwise you're part of the problem.

Damn well put.