So then, explain to me how 180000 pirates for a game that sold 18000 copies at launch is 1) not a problem or 2) incorrect.

Actually it says 120,000, but also the 2 weeks before that Sins was the top seller with no anti piracy on it as well.  Makes me think the makers of DRM put up some bots to continuously download and try to connect to sell their software after Sins dominated sales without it.   It  makes me very suspicious especially since Demigod was an online game where pirates would know beforehand that they wouldn't be able to connect so wouldn't bother with it.

yeah man, its a conspiracy.

To be honest Raist, if the powers at be thought a small amount of money could be spent (such as setting up a buch of bots) to influence the perception of certain ideas with the long term net effect of realizing a larger profit margin on their investment. they would do it in a heart beat.

In political and News circles it is called spin and doctoring evidence. And it happens in the corparate world all the time.

Now I am saying it happened here. but discounting the possibility out of hand to support ones stance is at best poor reasoning and at worst blind slavishness to the pogram.

 

Again the simple fact is that numbers stated in news articles are stated in such a way as to drive the point of whatever the author/interveiewee is trying to get across. And as such (and with the lack of credibility in the news now) unfortunately have to be taken with a grain of salt.

So let me get this straight. You’re accusing stardock (or GPG) of creating bots to add to the infamous server woes that demigod experienced at launch? Because, you know, giving paying customers awful MP connectivity to make a point is a fantastic business decision, right?

Accusing, not in the least.

Stating that it is a possibilty and that for the reasons I stated would be a possibility. Yes

Do I think this is the case from what I have seen of this company, Hell No.

 

But then again would you think that of all people it would be preists to molest children, No. It is always the quiet ones.

See thats the beutiful part of critical thinking. Is you don't discount an argument because it goes against your preconceived notions. You dissect it and if the logic seems sound to you you give it some credence. You may not agree, but you do not attack. you make yours, they make theirs and if neither capitulates you agree to disagree.

You on the other hand have done nothing but insult, ridicule, and attack everything that has been forwarded as a counterpoint to your stance. and while I have tried to give your stance the respect of a well thought out aurgument, you have not given you detractors even the glimmer of the same.

 It is people like you who hurt your case more than help it by making it a confrantation instead of a rational exchange of oppinion an ideas.

ROFL, if I had a dollar for every time a conspiracy theorist deemed themselves a “critical thinker” I’d be making my own damn games. A “critical thinker” doesn’t invent nonsense to be critiqued, he follows the EVIDENCE. You have none, so STFU with your childish notions.

I think Zehdon and I had a great, respectful and informative chat. Because he wasn’t an idiot.

Wow Arrrgg I would love to continue this because you are obviously an asshat, but i have a child that needs to be fed. So for another time.

After the child is fed you might as well get them to argue for you.

I was saying the owners of the DRM software did it not stardock.  So they could sell more of the drm software to developers.  I'm not saying it was definitely true but not out of the realm of possibility especially with the numbers that were put up and the timing of it happening right after a game without drm was a bestseller make it conspicuous.

So you’re saying that DRM companies downloaded more than 100,000 copies of demigod to use them to log onto the servers at launch? Haha.

*sigh* I was trying so hard to not let an emotional response take over. Obviously with my last post I failed.

So you are right. In the future I will let my 1 year old make the aurgument with you because obviously that is the emotional level I am dealing with here.

And another point mabey it is my age showing but it seems to me a respectful argument didn't include the statements you made like

"What Fantasy land are you living in"

and

"you got it backwards, but you are always late to the party" (Paraphrased)

But then again I was raised before the internet allowed people to make statements like these and call themselves respectful and not get puched in the face for our obtuseness and hypocrisy.

I am not sure why you are so combative on your stance and at this point I really couldn't give a sh**.

But you are obviously used to winning arguments by being louder, longer and more obnoxoius than your disenters and well if that is the measure you have won this one. Score one for the internet generation. And God I hope you are of that generation otherwise you probably won't even begin to realize the shame you should be feeling.

But in one last parting shot, You really don't win by the former means. You just cause people to stop talking to you, listening to you, or thinking you opinions have any merit. Which is a shame because you did forward some good points that have gotten me thinking. But Cest' Le Vie.

Feel free to get the last word in as I know to your type that is important. and I will bid you good day sir.

I just want to point out again that I'm not saying piracy isn't an issue.  Crime is always an issue, and there is no logical argument against that.  I'm a firm believer in 'An honests days pay for an honests days work' and I find the acts of pirates disgusting, and I personally take great delight in crushing their piss poor excuses for piracy into the dirt.  There is no justification for piracy.  Period.

Today, however, companies - usually big companies - are hiding behind piracy as an all purpose excuse for their secondary motives and are throwing big numbers around to convince everyone that they're the real victims in the industry, while they post record profits and release the same games year after year after year while restricting the use of those games beyond what the law recognises as legal through forced user agreements and then nickle and dime their paying customers through over-priced content extensions.

Piracy is an issue, I agree with that 100%.  I'm not saying it's a small problem.  It's a burden on the industry.  However the issue isn't as big as we're told it is, and there are numerous reasons why that is the case.  I've covered many so far, such as the market shift towards console gaming masking some of the profit reduction on PC titles.  Before I continue with my walls of text, I'd just like to say I'm happy that, for the most part, we've managed to remain civil.  Many of these discussions can blow up into name calling and wild accusations regarding people's sexual orientation.  Can we please keep things nice?

I believe the numbers Brad posted in his Journal (which I can't seem to find) were 10,000 registered users and 100,000 pirate users on the first day, however the ratio is still the same as your numbers: 10 pirates for every 1 legit user.  At face value, this looks like a massive problem - Gas Powered Games just lost 1000% of their profits!  Holy buckled swashes Batman,  how the hell can they still be in business!  Let's take a look.

Firstly, and I hate to admit this, the pirates themselves have made one logical point; the 100,000 pirated copies are not technically lost profits.  It sounds like double speak, but they're merely profits that weren't made rather than profits that were lost.  Gas Powered Games profits would've remained the same if 100,000 copies weren't pirated and 10,000 were still sold.  This is not justification, however, for piracy because the people at Gas Powered Games worked very hard on Demigod and they deserved to be paid for their work by the people who want to play their game. 
The reason I mention this is because companies like EA Games (and Epic) treat a pirated copy as money that they've lost; profits they made that were then taken from them.  This is not the case.  Now, I know that my reasoning seems like backwards thinking, however it's quite logical - and it's also the reason why companies can still make a profit on PC releases.  Profits are not A - B = C, where A is copies sold, B is copies pirated and C is profits.  A*D = C (where D is the price of A) regardless of the value of B is more acurate.  This may seem like I might be actually arguing for the pirates, however this argument is one I've countered numerous times.  A*D = C - (B*D) where C is actually potential profits.  Now we can see the real financial impact of piracy.

So, if Demigod costs AU$100.00, then the potential profits lost are are around AU$9,000,000.00 on the first day alone, compared to a profit of around AU$1,000,000.00.  That still looks like a massive loss of potential, however we also know that Demigod has sold quite well (over 150,000 copies at least) for a first time franchise that wasn't heavily marketed.  We also know the budget for Demigod was around the $7,000,000.00 dollar mark, meaning Demigod has posted at least $2,000,000.00 pure profit, most likely more.  Now, if we add back in the potential sales, the profits sit around $11,000,000.00.  Wow, that's a big difference!  Is it?
This would mean Demigod would've sold over 250,000 copies at least, making it an incredibly popullar title in a market where only the biggest, heavily backed and pushed franchises break 1,000,000 sales total - even on consoles.  1/4 the sales of the biggest names in the industry for a multiplayer only, first time, little known PC exclusive title from an independant Developer that wasn't heavily marketed and suffered from a broken multiplayer component for the first month of its self-life?  Not to be rude, but I don't think so.  Gamers, especially PC gamers - especially multiplayer PC gamers - are not forgiving.  So, after all that, my second point: a pirated copy doesn't equate to a lost potential sale.  The lost profits for Demigod are not AU$9,000,000.00 on the first day because only a portion of the 100,000 who pirated the game would've bought the game if they couldn't have pirated it.  The figures are skewed.  By what, and how?  Read on.

In an ideal world, the 100,000 people who pirated Demigod should've purchased it.  In that world Demigod would've also gone on to be a massive success because it worked at launch, received lots of additional content, the game would've hit eSport worthy and exploded into the gaming culture, the war in the middle east would've ended and the mystery behind JFK's murder would've been solved.  However, we don't live in an ideal world filled with honest people.  Its a sad fact.
In the real world, particuarly a world that revolves around money - like the games industry - most companies are out to make as much profit as is legally possibly while customers are out to get as much as they can for as little money as possible.  This is the world we live in.  Bargain hunters, second hand sales, coupons and discounts; these things exist because people love to get something for as little as possible.
When you make something free in this world, strange patterns emerge in the people who take up the offer.  Portal was released free on Steam not to long ago.  How many people who wouldn't have otherwised noticed, such as Mac users (see what they did there?) or people who weren't interested in Portal sat up and thought 'Well, it is free' and downloaded Steam and then Portal?  I'd wager it could be measued in metric a 'fucking shitload'.
Apply the same thinking to every game ever made.  Suddenly people who wouldn't pay for it are grabbing it because it's free.  Using this logic, we can see why pirated numbers are so high.  The numbers are not made up entirely of people who are skipping out on the bill, so to speak, but also people who simply thought 'why not?'.  I can't speculate as to portions or percentages, I can only use my own, personal experiences and extrapolate from there.  I downloaded Portal for free during Valve's offer.  I also own Portal on the Xbox 360.  Why do I have the same game twice, considering I paid for it already?  Because it was free.

I'm not saying the 100,000 people who pirated Demigod are justified in their theft - they're not. Ever - I'm saying that if Demigod wasn't able to be pirated at all for whatever reasons, Demigod's sales wouldn't have increased by the same amount.  Would it have increased?  Sure, I think we can all agree on that.  The portion of that 100,000 who would've purchased the game are the problem.  It's not 10 users out of 11 that are the issue as Epic would claim, because you could never convince all of these people to purchase your game.  Ever.  I'd wager the issue is around 2.5 users in 10 (based on the Cracked.com's article that was linked).  This equates to around $2,250,000.00 in actual lost potential profits for Demigod.  Adjust that for the pirates who purchased the game after pirating it and liking it (there were a few forum posts of this kind of behaviour after Demigod's launch) and the figure drops again, albeit probably not by much.  Then adjust it for the pirates who purchased the game after seeing how Stardock operated (there were a few forum posts about this kind of behaviour after Demigod's launch).  Whatever that figure is, let's say $2,200,000.00 to be fair, it is a significant difference from the $9,000,000.00 that the figures provided at face value.  That's my point.  Piracy is an issue.  It's not as big an issue as people think it is.

Please let Zehdon know that you’re getting offended on his behalf. I don’t feel I was being combative with Zehdon at all, especially when you consider just how much text we shared back and forth. I do feel combative though when people substitute their imagination for evidence and claim to be a critical thinker by doing so.

Like I said, critical thinkers follow the evidence, they don’t just make shit up because its (supposedly) in the realm of possibility. So, this critical thinker is more than happy to consider your argument when you have something other than your personal conspiracy theory to bring to the table. I’m sorry if you’re offended, but if we’re being fair, your unsubstantiated nonsense offended me first

In other news, the government planned 9/11.

I'd love to know how 'critical thinking' is made from making illogical 'possibilities' based on bullshit ideas of conspiracies...

You sound like a 9/11 conspiracist.  So let me get this straight:

Companies that are already in trouble during this economy (No matter how much you kids say 'they make mad money', they do lose money and do go out of business, we've had several major studios go out of business this year):

1. Would download and upload using their OWN money.

2. Cause a perception that piracy is rampant so that:

3.  They can spend more of their own money on DRM?!

What the hell kind of critical thinking is this?!  First companies are there to make money, now they are losing money just to stop fake pirates?!

This bullcrap you came up with is to 'critical thinking' as Jim Jones and koolaid is to survival.

 

Let me ask you an honest question:  Do you get all of your information on companies from The Simpsons?  Do you think companies sit around say to themselves, "We are losing money to create and stop a fake issue that doesn't even exist! Good... Good..."?!

And btw, any company can easily see if you are using a pirated copy of a game from you IP.  That would also mean that these companies are also buying up thousands of IPs just to make a fake piracy epidemic so that they can spend more on DRM.

No the company selling the drm software wouldve done it not the maker of the game......

To Raistlin... Hey man you asked for an explanation of the numbers so I gave you a story to do it.  Don't hate on the story man.  That being said the story I gave wouldn't be completely out of this world....  wink wink

So drm makers are spending all of their money buying up ip addresses and pcs from around the globe just to create a perception to companies (Who I guess don't even check to see who is doing this) just to make companies spend money on drm?

Which of course the drm makers would spend MORE on the ips, internet service, and computers then any company would EVER spend on drm...

If you try and say that they are all sending the downloads from one location (Their company), then I hate to break it to you but companies would easily notice that one ip is sending out hundreds of thousands of software, and quickly find that it is the drm makers.

So the only way this would work once again, is that the drm makers hire people from around the world, buy pcs, internet acces, spending trillions of dollars, just to get a few million on drm software and go out of business?

Would you care to make sense yet mr 9/11 conspiracy theorist?

since when do you have to buy an ip address anyway.  Plus you can change your ip address on your machine whenever you feel like. Its not like you have to buy a domain for each ip address. Plus like I said I was just whipping up any ol' explanation for the numbers. 

ps. when did i say I was a critical thinker?

Wow, what happened to this thread? This discussion almost turned into a flamewar.

Oh crap.  Sorry, that was the other guy.

Alright then, aliens created piracy, so did terrorists, and planet x!  Got you beat now in craziness!

 Seriously, if I hear one more developer tell us the future of PC gaming is Facebook......

 

NOOOOO  I'm supposed to be the ASS.  Whoops gotta get back on Facebook and water my plants!!!!!!