| 14 FEB 2003 at 3:03am |
AyaGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7277
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By JP (14 FEB 2003 2:54am)
It seems that most people on this board live in the USA or the UK, + I thought you mentioned prices in dollars in an earlier post!
Anyway if you are only 2 hours later then why arent you in bed?
because i always sleep in the morning... i am nocturnal!
i mentioned prices in $ in some posts so that more ppl will understand them and because $ and Eur are the same
You have gotten the attention of the mysterious lady. She turns to face you. Her face is devoid of any flesh. You are frozen with horror as she begins ripping your body into a bloody mess.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 3:07am |
JPSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 217
Joined: 24 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Aya Brea (14 FEB 2003 3:02am)
because i always sleep in the morning... i am nocturnal!
Not fair! - I wish I could sleep in the mornings. If I didnt open up at 9.30am then I'd lose a lot of money! :-X
Bow down before the one you serve&&You're going to get what you deserve !
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 3:24am |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4940
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Aya Brea (14 FEB 2003 2:14am)
ok maybe you didn't understand me
1 copy bought + 5 times resold = 1 copy bought
1 copy bought + 5 pirate copies made out of it = 1 copy bought
in both cases the company made money out of the 1st copy ONLY
No, I understand. And you're right as far as you've taken it- but you need to take the next step which is why piracy is so unfair and illegal. In the case of the used copy, the owner essentially transferred his right of ownership that he paid for to one other person and so on, whereas in the pirated case, the person who paid the company for only one copy has now sold 5 copies and profitted 5 times more than the company did. To add insult on injury to the company, there are now 5 illegal copies out there that the owners may try to sell again to others and on it goes.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 3:28am |
| Deleted User | Aya, one thing I think you should considerate in your utopic calculation... Average people do not buy 2 games at 10$ each instead of a single 20$ game. That's why companies try to get the $$$ in one shot instead of many.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 9:21am |
| Deleted User | People forget that alot of illegal copies are warez beta's that haven't gone gold - a lot of posts on the Unreal 2 forum had people playing the game 2 weeks before release, and having trouble with it.
Plus, who says pirates copy games after buying them? Stealing games does actually happen you know, plus money given to pirate dealers often ends up being used in the illegal arms and drugs trades, which I do not condone.
As for copying - copying is different to piracy in that as long as it's between friends, it's still illegal, but as long as there's no profit I don't see the harm in it.
And as for "legal" "illegal" labels, they aren't labels, they're written in international copyright law.
I'm an artist - as long as my copyright is held in my work that I sell as my own original, and reproductions are used and I get paid for that, I'm fine with that.
If they are used without my knowledge to the extent that someone else is making money, that's illegal.
If this person is actively publishing it as part of a magazine which they are not paying me for nor adknowledging my name, that's illegal.
HOWEVER...
If people are making money from it through a method of reselling my work as part of an old magazine I've been paid for, there's no problem with that. And I can't do anything about that, nor mind.
Do you see?
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 12:27pm |
Friday the 14thSchattenjger
Posts : 2908
Joined: 5 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Knock it off all of you, pirate is pirate and original is original, the 'used' market is too small to do any damage.
It's ones right to buy and sell games. If you really like a game/company/genre you should buy the game new though. But since I haven't enough cash for that I almost never do.
I would buy new games if they were cheaper, if the game developers would sell their games directly from their homepage without middle hands it'd be a lot cheaper.
Does anyone know how much the developers get for each sold game?
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 1:53pm |
AyaGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7277
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Friday the 14:th (14 FEB 2003 12:26pm)
I would buy new games if they were cheaper, if the game developers would sell their games directly from their homepage without middle hands it'd be a lot cheaper
exactly what this whole thread is about... randdom might have a point that an average person might not buy 2 games cheaper, but still only 1, but at least ppl will BUY 1 NEW if it's cheaper, instead of used or pirate copies
all the other stuff about legal-illegal, pirate copies/used copies etc won't be commented anymore, since i already said what i think (on 2 different threads) and there's no point going over this again
You have gotten the attention of the mysterious lady. She turns to face you. Her face is devoid of any flesh. You are frozen with horror as she begins ripping your body into a bloody mess.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 2:16pm |
SnowmanSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 309
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | WOW!! This is a great topic for The Hot spot.
I would agree with the piracy is wrong/used is OK group. Mainly for the fact that monkeybone stated, the majority of pirated games are stolen games in the first place (better profit margin for the crooks).
I mean if we say that buying used games is just as wrong as buying pirated games, because of the companies profits being the same as in Aya's example. Then, the only time you are morally correct in buying a game is when you pay full retail price. Which I think most of us would totally disagree with.
I mean, I NEVER pay full price for a game, I ALWAYS wait for the price to drop (which is why I don't own Syberia yet). Now, I KNOW that I am being morally honest and upstanding in doing this...yet, the game company is not making the same profit off of me as those who bought the game when it was released.
I don't think that I am cheating the game company at all, I'm just being a smart consumer. Yet, if you base your opinion of right and wrong on the game companies profit, I'm just as bad as someone buying a pirated copy!
Never do anything half-assed, always use your WHOLE ass!!
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 4:21pm |
| Deleted User | I think sirdave and monkeybone put it very well. I'd just like to add (partly in response to JP's question to me in the other thread) that I will always defend the rights of the copyright holder. If a publisher hasn't reprinted a game for say one or two years, does that mean they will never reprint it? Not at all. LucasArts is a good recent example. But it has become fashionable to think of copyright as the obligation to keep on printing. Many people feel that if publishers are not exercising their right to copy, they lose that right. But that's utter nonsense. If you hold a copyright, that means you have the right NOT to copy as well. (And yes, of course there are grey areas.)
Betje
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 4:29pm |
AyaGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7277
Joined: 16 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Snowman (14 FEB 2003 2:16pm)
I mean, I NEVER pay full price for a game, I ALWAYS wait for the price to drop (which is why I don't own Syberia yet). Now, I KNOW that I am being morally honest and upstanding in doing this...yet, the game company is not making the same profit off of me as those who bought the game when it was released.
I don't think that I am cheating the game company at all, I'm just being a smart consumer. Yet, if you base your opinion of right and wrong on the game companies profit, I'm just as bad as someone buying a pirated copy!
that's not true, because the price it set by the company itself, and your money goes to it and not to an individual... and the company still makes money, just not as much, which of course is another example of how unreasonably expensive games are
You have gotten the attention of the mysterious lady. She turns to face you. Her face is devoid of any flesh. You are frozen with horror as she begins ripping your body into a bloody mess.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 5:15pm |
| Deleted User | Just like to say "used" doesn't necessarily mean less expensive.
I'm after a copy of Amerzone on Ebay and the price keeps shooting up. No more bids for me! : Good luck with finding a cheap copy of Syberia, Snowman, all the 2nd hand copies I've seen just get more and more expensive with each passing month - and it's only been uot a year!
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 6:06pm |
| Deleted User | This is a very complicated issue. In many ways, copying a game illegally to a friend doesn't hurt anyone, nor reduces the profit of the company that made the game if your friend wouldn't have bought the game anyway. However, the industry has to protect the laws that makes this illegal. Otherwise, people could organize themselves into communities that spread all sorts of media, including games, between each other for free, and do it completely legally. Actually, people are even doing this today, even though it's illegal. If no one fought these things, the bottom would drop out of the media industry and it would result in disaster.
Actually, this idea about spreading media around is a very good idea. If there was an organized way of charging for transfers and technology that would get rid of piracy, it would revolutionize the media industry. I think this will actually happen in the future. The idea of selling a game in a cardboard box in a store is actually a bit silly. What you are really taking home from the store are two things: The packaging, manual and discs the game is stored on is now yours just as a car becomes yours when you buy it. The game however, is not yours. You are buying the rights to use a copy of the game according to a the terms of conditions stated by the publisher and the applicable laws. You may be allowed to copy the game for backup reasons as long as you own it, but if you resold the game used to another person, you'd have to sell it complete with any copies you've made of it, or alternatively destroy the copies before selling the original game. I'm not sure if you could keep the packaging and/or sell a copy and destroy the original discs though.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 7:12pm |
MichalNGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7058
Joined: 14 SEP 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Petter_Holmberg (14 FEB 2003 6:06pm)
If no one fought these things, the bottom would drop out of the media industry and it would result in disaster.
An innocent little question: why would that be a disaster?
I forgot my sig.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 8:48pm |
SnowmanSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 309
Joined: 10 OCT 2002
Status : Online | monkeybone, I'm not to concerned about Syberia just yet. It's still on the shelves in most of the stores here....It's just that they still want $30US for it and I won't buy it until it's $20US or less. I know someone will drop it sooner or later, it's just a matter of waiting them out. My wife thinks that I enjoy hunting for a game at a good price just as much as I enjoy playing the game....and she's probably right!
As for your search for Amerzone. Are you situated in the UK? Because around here (Texas), Amerzone is still on the shelves and most times for less than $20US. In fact I got mine, new in a box for $1.99!!!
Never do anything half-assed, always use your WHOLE ass!!
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 9:48pm |
| Deleted User | Snowman - any good e-tailers willing to sell a copy to a UK citizen, you reckon? (I don't know any!) :
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 10:06pm |
lakerzPrivate Detective
Posts : 654
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | I'm surprised no one has brought this up already, but why do you think spending $40 on a game is unreasonable? Buying a movie ticket now costs $8-10 at most theatres (not to mention overpricing on snacks), and this is for only 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours of entertainment. I would guess the average video game lasts for 15-20 hours. But for those who like to play online the amount of hours one can spend on a game is limitless!
I personally don't think the amount of copies sold relies so heavily on the price point as much as how good the game is! If a game is outstanding, has a lot of hype, gets good reviews and word of mouth, people will plunk down their $40-50 to buy it. If a game sucks, the price could be $50 or $5, probably not too many people will buy it. It's a tough industry, and probably only 20% of all games released are bound to make any kind of decent profit. The big publishing companies have done many studies on prices, so they are well aware of what they're doing.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 10:40pm |
mszvPrivate Detective
Posts : 751
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Originally Posted By monkeybone (14 FEB 2003 9:48pm)
Snowman - any good e-tailers willing to sell a copy to a UK citizen, you reckon? (I don't know any!) :
You don't have to bid on ebay to get Amerzone. Here is one source -
cdaccess - http://www.cdaccess.com . Will ship to the UK. I just checked and they have 87 copies of Amerzone in stock. It's a great company, other gamers have recommended them, including Randy, I believe.
I can probably find you more sources, but I'll need to look at a couple of sites. I'll do that later. Once you have your list of sources, you should be able to get any game you want that is still in "print". Shipping may not be cheap, but that's a different story.
More later.
Regards, mszv
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 10:43pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4940
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Lakerz:
Excellent point- I was thinking about that last nite and totally forgot about it. It is often crazy how we evaluate the value of items (and I'm including myself). As you said, we think nothing of going to a 2 hours movie, stuffing ourselves with soda and popcorn and spending at least $20-40 (for a couple), but we'll complain about $30-$40 for a game that will entertain us for, maybe, 2 weeks. We'll take the family to Disneyland for 1 day and easily blow $150-$200, but, again, paying $100 for a collectible shrinkwrapped game that may give years of pleasure is some sort of abomination!
Or maybe some absolute sucker will pay $2500 to sit courtside beside Jack Nicholson!!! No, noone I know of what do that!
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 11:03pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By MichalN (14 FEB 2003 7:12pm)
An innocent little question: why would that be a disaster?
It would be a disaster for the media industry. They would go bankrupt, considering their current forms of distribution. But that would backfire on customers too, as they'd stop producing music, movies, games etc.
Actually, I think the Internet and p2p technology is pushing for a change as we speak. The media industry won't go bankrupt in one day as they got the laws on their side. However, they will start looking into a change of distribution channels. Pushing for laws that restricts technology to get rid of the problem is traditionally a bad solution, so I don't think the media industry will "win" by locking out illegal channels of distribution.
I tend to believe in the prediction of the Chief Technical Engineer of Sun Microsystems, who I listened to at a seminar 2-3 years ago. He had a vision of the future where the major providers of information (mainly the telecom giants) would provide access to movies, music and games through a subscription-based system, much like cable channels work. You'd pay a fixed monthly fee (or possibly a useage-based one) and have free access to their vast library of media in your home. Of course, for this to work there must be some safety-mechanism that would make piracy impossible or very hard. The media companies would get their money in from the telecom businesses that would pay big sums of money for the rights to upload their stuff, and the telecom businesses would get their money from us consumers.
Think about it. If you, for a fixed, monthly fee could have free, unlimited access to thousands and thousands of movies, music, games and so on, wouldn't you be prepared to pay that fee even if you didn't always made use of it? I'd imagine that I would like to. You wouldn't need shelves of dusty DVD cases featuring a lot of stuff you never watched anymore. You could just go and pick out the stuff you wanted to watch from the database at any time.
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| 14 FEB 2003 at 11:42pm |
MichalNGrand Inquisitor
Posts : 7058
Joined: 14 SEP 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Petter_Holmberg (14 FEB 2003 11:03pm)
It would be a disaster for the media industry.
Well, so what? Is there some law saying that the media industry has God given right to exist in its current form forever? They obviously think so but that doesn't make it true
They would go bankrupt, considering their current forms of distribution. But that would backfire on customers too, as they'd stop producing music, movies, games etc.
Where there's demand there's supply. Econ 101. I suspect that you'd be amazed how quickly the industry giants would be replaced.
Of course, for this to work there must be some safety-mechanism that would make piracy impossible or very hard.
We all know that every chain is only as strong as the weakest link... and this link is exceedingly weak.
Probably the biggest threat are countries like China or Russia that have more, hmm, libertarian approach to copyright protection. From historical perspective this is noteworthy - guess which country was printing illegal copies of Charles Dickens' books in 19th century? Yep, the ol' US of A. Of course now that USA is net producer of intellectual property and not consumer, they scream bloody murder when someone does it to them
Think about it. If you, for a fixed, monthly fee could have free, unlimited access to thousands and thousands of movies, music, games and so on, wouldn't you be prepared to pay that fee even if you didn't always made use of it?
It's all a question of the right price.
I forgot my sig.
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| 15 FEB 2003 at 1:49am |
scoutPrivate Detective
Posts : 736
Joined: 2 NOV 2002
Status : Online | Petter_Holmberg,
If you, for a fixed, monthly fee could have free, unlimited access to thousands and thousands of movies, music, games and so on, wouldn't you be prepared to pay that fee even if you didn't always made use of it?
Reading that I think of the old saw, "300 channels and nothing to watch." If the mainstream media just continues to dish out the same old crap, no, I probably wouldn't take advantage of their service. I've already cancelled cable TV. There is quite simply not enough good programing to pay 50.00 per month. One hour of "Six Feet Under" a week isn't worth it. Of course I'm a minority in that regard. I have my movie library just down the street, the local video store, and there are real people behind the counter, happy to talk movies.
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| 15 FEB 2003 at 4:10am |
SirDaveGuild Master
Posts : 4940
Joined: 17 OCT 2002
Location: US
Status : Offline | Scout:
FYI: the quote above about 'free unlimited access to thousands...etc' was Petter_Holmberg's.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 15 FEB 2003 at 6:15am |
JoGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 3 NOV 2002
Location: AU, Qld.
Status : Offline | Pardon me for butting in here but Lakerz said
I'm surprised no one has brought this up already, but why do you think spending $40 on a game is unreasonable?
If you're referring to JP's original post regarding the actual cost of PC games, he or she didn't say they cost $40 but 40 English pounds (don't have the pound sign on my computer). That's a whole lot different from $40 American. In Australia new games generally start at around $80 or more Australian dollars which is pretty high for a lot of people, not sure what the exchange rate is between English pounds and American dollars but $80 Aussie dollars at the moment is I believe around $60 USA dollars. I think both in England and Australia we pay a heck of a lot more than you do in the USA.
It makes sense to buy second-hand if you can but we don't normally see second-hand games here. I've only once bought one that could have been used before and that was the GK Limited Edition from a shop that rents out games and sells some second-hand. As it happened that particular game (or games) had never been played and was just "discontinued" stock.
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| 15 FEB 2003 at 7:08am |
lakerzPrivate Detective
Posts : 654
Joined: 11 OCT 2002
Status : Online | True Narji, too true. I know I overgeneralized a little bit, but it still holds true no matter the currency. When you compare the "bang for the buck" of a game with that of other forms of entertainment, the $40US or 40 pounds or whatever currency you use seems a bit more reasonable. And these are prices for the very top end PC games, or console games. I can pay my $40US for Runaway (which I just prepaid for today by the way) and I know I'll be getting an enjoyable experience lasting me around 20 hours (I hope). Is this too much to spend? It certainly varies from person to person, and I won't say I've never bitched about prices because I have, but this is the price of 2 1/2 movies or 2 just released hard-back books from a best selling author.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...
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