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| 6 AUG 2010 at 3:03am |
AndromusGuild Master
Posts : 5538
Joined: 6 NOV 2002
Status : Offline | Wow, that level of piracy is unbelievable and really sad to hear about. (Of course for all I know, maybe that's typical these days? I have no idea, I've never heard any other stats of that sort about piracy and individual titles.) At any rate, this is a truly great game and the people who worked on it deserve better.
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 3:51am |
karlaAdministrator
Posts : 2591
Joined: 27 JUL 2003
Location: US, Close to the Edge
Status : Offline | Yeah, it's a lousy thing to have happened. [smiley=angry.gif]
I'm not one of the pirates (and those who are should be ashamed of themselves), but just after I made that post I bought the game. Playing and enjoying it now.
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 3:54am |
Pygmy_MarmosetIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 18 JUL 2010
Status : Offline | I played Machinarium, and found it merely average.
The graphics are excellent, the controls - extremely awkward.
I will counter their "pirate amnesty" with an "awkward gameplay amnesty". They rerelease the game with better controls and in return I'll continue to be interested in them as a company, instead of just writing them off and ignoring them.
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 4:29am |
Jenny100Guild Master
Posts : 3510
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By karla (6 AUG 2010 3:50am)
I'm not one of the pirates (and those who are should be ashamed of themselves), but just after I made that post I bought the game.
Same here. I didn't know it was DRM free or I'd have bought it before. I'm leery of downloaded games with DRM.
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 5:01am |
Lady KestrelGuild Master
Posts : 4038
Joined: 27 SEP 2004
Location: US, NJ
Status : Offline | I really like the Amanita games, and had a wonderful time with Machinarium. I thought it was reasonable at the original price, and the controls didn't bother me a bit. I loved the puzzles, and I really have a soft spot for that funny little robot.
All this piracy (just a fancy term for stealing) really saddens me because it has the potential to put good little companies like Amanita out of business.
"Where is the fountain that throws up these flowers in a ceaseless outbreak of ecstasy?"
-Rabindranath Tagore
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 5:41am |
karlaAdministrator
Posts : 2591
Joined: 27 JUL 2003
Location: US, Close to the Edge
Status : Offline | I support indie developers whenever I can. I think there are a lot of talented people out there who deserve a chance.
Plus, a lot of big developers/publishers couldn't care less about their customers, whereas most indies care a lot and will help if there's a problem. The big guys have been known to flat-out ignore requests for help. This tends to make me furious, particularly if the problem involves DRM.
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 6:09am |
Pygmy_MarmosetIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 81
Joined: 18 JUL 2010
Status : Offline | It wasn't a bad game, it just had a few flaws.
But I find this pirate amnesty thing annoying, and it just seems like a ploy to squeeze the last bits of money out of it.
Before we start feeling too sorry for Machinarium and the people who made it, let's consider all the awards and favorable reviews its gotten, and the limited budget they made it with. I don't have concrete data, but this game had to have made them some amount of money.
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 7:43am |
TravellerGuild Master
Posts : 4040
Joined: 3 JUL 2010
Location: US
Status : Offline | Developers, especially indies, often live on the edge financially. We have a few of them amongst our membership here, who, I am sure, will be able to tell you that making games is more than often a labour of love rather than a money-making business, and piracy is certainly not helping.
What is sad is the culture that has evolved in the last few years where people think they're being very clever by taking music, games, and other intellectual property without paying for it, and don't see anything wrong with it, and even brag about it; -never thinking of the long-term consequences of their actions. I wonder if they would be ok with shoplifting too. ..or how about pickpocketing? :
Anyway, enough ranting about scumbaggery.
I personally enjoyed Samorost very much, and had been planning to get Machinarium, - it looks like now is the right time. 8-)
* * * Just call me Trav. * * *
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch
"They are not reciprocally sublated--the one does not sublate the other externally--but each sublates itself in itself and is in its own self the opposite of itself" (Hegel, from The Doctrine of Being)..."
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 6:06pm |
Jenny100Guild Master
Posts : 3510
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Our estimate from the feedback is that only 5-15% of Machinarium players actually paid for the game.
The way they've stated this implies that they lost 85% to 95% of their sales due to piracy. It assumes that the number of people who played it for free were all potential paying customers. In fact, if those people hadn't gotten it for free, most of them probably wouldn't have played it at all -- which means no sales for Amanita whether they played it or not.
Machinarium is a nice little game, but it's not a "must have" for most gamers ("most gamers" aren't strictly adventure gamers). The number of people who would have bought it if they hadn't been able to pirate it is probably very low for a game like this. It's a nice sale, but I suspect most of the buyers will be people on a budget who haven't played the game before, and not "pirates" who've already played it and moved onto the next game. Calling the sale a "Pirate Amnesty Sale" is more of a marketing ploy than anything else. "Pirate Amnesty Sale" is more eye-catching than "75% off sale."
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| 6 AUG 2010 at 8:00pm |
| Deleted User | Originally Posted By Jenny100 (6 AUG 2010 6:05pm)
... I suspect most of the buyers will be people on a budget who haven't played the game before, and not "pirates" who've already played it and moved onto the next game. Calling the sale a "Pirate Amnesty Sale" is more of a marketing ploy than anything else. "Pirate Amnesty Sale" is more eye-catching than "75% off sale."
Well in my case even more eye-catching is the phrase: "only $5" 8-)
Admittedly up to now, Machinarium had never been on my 'to buy' list but by virtually eliminating the risk that I’d be disappointed with the game the end result is another sale albeit a bit less, but still better than nothing.
But I find this pirate amnesty thing annoying, and it just seems like a ploy to squeeze the last bits of money out of it.
I suppose one could look at it with that frame of thought. Then again I ended up acquiring Diamonds in the Rough and The Seacliffe Tragedy under very similar circumstances which as far as I am concerned benefitted both parties. :-X
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| 7 AUG 2010 at 3:37am |
CarolineJA+ Overseer
Posts : 16540
Joined: 28 JAN 2007
Location: AU
Status : Offline | Machinarium was the first downloaded game I've ever bought - for $20 in January and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What a shame the pirates ruined the experience for them.
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| 23 AUG 2010 at 2:23am |
AkhillesPrivate Detective
Posts : 581
Joined: 21 JUL 2003
Location: US
Status : Offline | No offense to any adventure game player or maker, but I find it hard to believe that the industry with the least amount of attention has such a significant amount of piracy that they cut the cost by 3/4's to attract sales by said pirates...
What's more, it really hurts them by selling at that ridiculous price to adventure game players that were just waiting for whatever reason before buying the game in the first place.
This is just odd.
:-?
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.
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| 7 SEP 2010 at 5:53am |
CBSection31Intergalactic Janitor
Posts : 65
Joined: 10 MAY 2004
Status : Online | Hi all,
I don't often post here, but I wanted to chime in on this topic as an indie developer. From my own experience, what the developers of Machinarium have said is definitely possible. It is not uncommon for indies to lose up to 95% of sales due to piracy.
For instance, with my latest game, The Filmmaker, I have sold a few hundred copies so far. However, from estimates I gathered last week accumulating data from the various illegal download sites, there have been over 10,000 (yes, ten-thousand) illegal downloads of the game. Consider that for a moment: a few hundred sold copies and 10,000 copies illegally downloaded. If I combined the sales of all of my games to-date, I wouldn't even equal 10% of that number.
Now granted, I don't believe for a second that even a fraction of those illegal downloads were performed by adventure gamers; we tend to be a small, loyal group. The people who download adventure games illegally probably wouldn't buy them in the first place, so in that regard developers aren't losing sales...however, from the standpoint of how many people have access to the game, we certainly are.
As it stands, many indies like me barely make a profit on our games after expenses. I certainly could not live off of the meager amount of money I make from my game sales. Many of us don't make these games to make a profit; we make them because we want to make games and tell stories. So these numbers can be depressing, when we see our potential sales based on the number of illegal downloads versus our actual sales.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not writing this to complain. On the contrary, I take it as a badge of honor that my games are worthy of being pirated. I also maintain my dedication to keep my games free of copy protection and encourage other indies to do the same. I just wanted to confirm that these numbers are, indeed, accurate from my own experience so that people realize just how bad piracy has become!
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