Topic: Spore 2m copies, has 1.7m pirated. So almost half...

[Null]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7772962.stm

Will Wright's evolutionary epic video game - Spore - has been named the most pirated PC game of 2008, according to the TorrentFreak weblog.

The site used data provided by the peer-to-peer sharing protocol, BitTorrent, to compile a list of the 10 most downloaded PC games in 2008.

The site reported 1.7m illegal downloads of Spore since the game was released in September 2008.

Electronic Arts (EA) said it sold nearly 2m copies of the game.

Will Wright's other big-selling title - The Sims 2 - came second on the list with 1,150,000 copies downloaded.

Well...

...

...

That's almost half. That is say, almost half of the people who have played spore have not payed for spore. I don't care if you think the game is worth it, or if any anti-piracy measures by a company is worth downloading the game. This is sick.

We will either see much more anti-piracy stuff in the future, or game developers will stop making PC games because they are becoming unprofitable. I'm pissed right now. Not for Maxis. Or EA. I am pissed because I am worried my favorite gaming platform will continue its decline because of greedy bastards on BOTH sides.


(Hey! For those of you here who may have missed the sig, I am...was... Fledgeling. I had a screen name change)

[Summoner]

Really??? that many!!! I would fill ashame if i did that!! If you buy it you dont have to try to keep redownloading if it messes up!!

[vonboy]

spore's got nothing on world of goo though. 90% of the people who played that game downloaded it from a torrent.

i though agree that it still sucks a lot for maxis. any one have an idea how much dough was spent on the development of it? i'm guessing in the 10's of millions at least (i'm scared to think about a game that cost 100 million bucks to make.)

[Lippy]

i though agree that it still sucks a lot for maxis. any one have an idea how much dough was spent on the development of it? i'm guessing in the 10's of millions at least (i'm scared to think about a game that cost 100 million bucks to make.)

In January Will said the budget was around $38 million I believe. 

FTA: "EA subsequently released a "DRM-lite" version that allowed an unlimited number of installations, but the public relations damage was considerable. "

Did they do that?

Also, does it doesn't say whether the 1.7m is individual downloaders or could there be a bunch of people who have downloaded more than once?
How do they know that people weren't downloading it just to get the DRM free version having already bought it?
How do they know people didn't download it, play it, and then buy it to get online?

Still, 1.7 million is a whole lot.   

[DarkDragon]

You're forgetting one thing though, many of those people were angry fans who wanted to prove a point about SecuROM, I myself downloaded Spore AFTER I bought Spore and then deleted the download just to add to the count. 

[martyk]

Same here, but I think this entire boycott is stupid.  If you're going to boycott something then at least go through with it and don't take part in the product.  It's like boycotting a wal-mart and then ordering from their online store instead.  The big problem with what the anti-piracy boycotters are doing is they're making it apparent just what a big problem piracy is, which will only escalate the problem.

[Snork]

Notice how games that do use copyright protections such as DRM, seem to be pirated more than games that don't.
In fact, that is the only real reason it's pirated. I mean, look as steam, sure, games there ARE pirated, but most of the time, pirated steam games are unable to work probably, and there is no multiplayer. What if said game has a severe bug, that stops it from working? Steam constantly provides it with a patch, if available, but pirated games can't have this.

[Klinn]

...game developers will stop making PC games because they are becoming unprofitable.

Already happening. In the auto sim racing genre, which is a much smaller and more vulnerable niche, one developer went down the tubes a few months ago (10tacle) and another is now developing primarily for consoles instead of the PC (Simbin). People are ripping content and spreading it around for free and the developers can't survive that way.

The pirates respond with their traditional list of excuses, but the end result speaks for itself.

[Uroboros]

the pirates

You make it sound like an organised group.

I'll say this much, yet again : I download things. I pirate them. Why? I'm sick of forking out money for games that I play once or twice then put back in their box and leave alone. At at minimum of £25 and an average of £30-35 a game, its a gamble I really couldn't afford, and stopped gambling on. Now, I try before I buy. Granted, I buy few games in the first place, but I get to be selective and not waste cash this way (only bandwidth). Spore was an exception for me, because regardless of how it would have turned out, I wanted to buy it outright simply because EA and Maxis took a chance on Spore. It was a new idea, and most companies wouldn't have given it the time of day, because of the money it stood to lose. I wanted to fork out for it simply to show support for the creativity and new ideas. The DRM didn't deter me at all. Whereas other things, such as FPS games, I ALWAYS download before I buy. This way, I avoided buying trash like Prey, saving money, and allows you to gained interest in games you only have a fleeting interest in, like FEAR.

The best way I can summerise it all, is a quote from a games developer in some video interview I remember seeing : "$50 isn't a lot of money for a videogame; $50 is a lot of money for a BAD videogame." With the direction customer support tends to go in the videogame industry, and how crap the prices are at trade-in shops, buying videogames really is a bit of a gamble. Demos aren't always accurate portrayals of the final product either. Though I haven't played it myself, I hear Mirrors Edge was an example of this. Is it still illegal to download if you intend to delete it if it is crap, and buy if it good? Yes, it is. Is it wrong? I don't think so. Legality and morality can sometimes not be as synchronous as you think.

[Yannick]

In Belgium people don't care. Because of our right of privacy, ISPs can't check your downloads, so you can't get caught.

But I agree. I have bought crappy games, and with my limited allowance, I am severily restricted. So I pirate, if it's crap, it either rots away on my computer, or gets an instant trip to the garbage can (*cough*B&W 2)

If it is good, I consider buying it, if it has multi player I definitely buy it.

[smjjames]

Yea, demos are often just the basics and are missing alot of features or like downloadable games, limited in time, usually an hour. An hour is often times not enough to get a full idea of the game.

Sometimes a demo will give you a good idea of what the game is like, but they aren't common. These days, it seems like there are fewer demos around (with the exception of most downloadable games), possibly because programs are getting bigger and making a demo version would end up with a big demo.

@Yannick: I've bought crappy games myself, for example Restraunt Tycoon. Sure some micro-management fanatics might like it, but it was too much of it for me. Theres also Zoo Empire (which is a rip off of Zoo Tycoon) which I got off of Gametap and I found the AI to be so stupid that the keepers couldn't even feed the animals properly. Sure it had a couple cool stuff that could have been used in Zoo Tycoon, but if the AI is a faliure and the AI is essential to the management of it, then that makes the whole thing moot.

[Uroboros]

I made the mistake of buying The Movies. The single worst purchase I made that I recall.
I would normally just go for the demo, given that the download is smaller, but they tend to be deliberately engineered to hook your interest. Rather than giving you a tiny slice of the cake to sample, they tend to essentially give you the cherry, hoping you think the entire thing will be just as sweet. Its the next kind of doctored screenshot/false pre-rendered 'ingame footage'. Even if a game is technically quite good, it might just not be to your tastes. I never liked Doom3, for example, and I heard of people thinking Prey was pretty good.

[Null]

I'll say this much, yet again : I download things. I pirate them. Why? I'm sick of forking out money for games that I play once or twice then put back in their box and leave alone.

Thats your problem. No one can predict what you will or will not play again, and the "I dont have much money" excuse does not compute. The only morality in your argument I see is that you don't want to have to spend money for bad games. Not even bad games, games you may not like. But someone made those games and bad or not you utilize them, for who knows how long. If you are pressed for cash and are not going to touch other games again, you can sell them at a used place. You will loose some money, but thats what happens when you make a bad purchase of a poor quality anything. The only difference with electronic stuff is you can take everything for a free spin without having to get past security cameras to do it.

I am sorry if that came off as argumentative, but I cannot see any morality in the justifications you gave other than that you don't want to spend more money. I don't see that as a moral basis for anything. For every other thing, if you can't afford to get it you don't. It's just gratification. Certainly you know by now that buying ANYTHING is a gamble to one degree or another.

I'm... I'm not even ticked that you pirate games. I am just flabbergasted that you are claiming the moral high ground for doing so. The morality of your own wallet does not extend beyond yourself.

[Mr. Consideration]

I take the same approach as I do to music. If the band is reasonably obscure, and really doing something different, and most members are still alive (The Decemberists come to mind), I'll go out and buy their album. I'll be proud. I have paid for Colin Meloy's breakfast. I'll treasure it. I'll read the sleeve notes. I'll lend it to new girlfriends.  If the band is huge, dead, or is idiotic enough to make their albums have special content in another country, I shall steal that album.

If it's immoral to not throw the pittance I earn into the bejeweled hands of millionaires, I am content to be immoral. As far as I'm concerned, game developers and companies make obscene amounts of money anyway, and games are horribly overpriced. Null's arguments seems to be 'Well, don't game then!' I can't afford food, so 'Don't eat!'. Be thankful I exercise any kind of scant morality at all, I could just pirate everything.

I bought Spore because it was a historic game, and I admire then workings behind it, and I am more than happy to have it within my game collection. The same went for Medieval Total War or Civilization or Pirates! They are admirable, interesting games where I get value for my money due to their insane re playability; games like Mirror's Edge which last ten minutes, or Halo, where no imagination has been put into it's creation, I'm more than happy to steal. As far as I'm concerned, these games are worth less due to having less 'Fun' within them, and I'd rather not feed the insatiable cash-lust of boring developers.

[Doctor Z]

Yeah, what he said.

>_>

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