The only thing debatable is to what extent piracy is harming the gaming industry and not if it's harming the gaming industry.

But the fact remains that they are still making those decisions based on perceptions that are a direct result of piracy.

I disagree.  I really don't think they could have anticipated what happened.  That kind of "gotcha" piracy protection has been in PC games for years (one of the most interesting was a combat simulator that would slowly degrade the accuracy of controls the longer you played an illegal copy), but for whatever reason, a couple of reviewers picked up on it in Titan Quest, and the rest is history.  I really don't think you can blame Iron Lore.

And that "bonus" is likely offset by the number of people who would have bought the game if they couldn't pirate it.

One thing- when the game improves, get the word out that the patches massively improve the game- that might turn pirates into customers.

The downside to this piracy is people might get a bad impression of the game a few months down the road, unless someone puts out a patched torrent (which is possible but most pirates don't bother with that)

Well, the game is out there but there are no patches yet and the system Stardock uses to implement patches is quite a smart one. There are big chances that updates won't appear on the warez scene, we shall see.

And off topic, I recently read interesting opinion about ppl who get pirated games. Someone said that such people wouldn't buy original game anyway, so it's not like they actually steal from developer, more like they copy games. I think there is some truth to that statement.

An utter shame this argument doesn't work. You cannot make a DRM system that will stop piracy without wasting tonnes of cash and royally pissing off all your users. You'd do more damage to yourself than you'd get in return by any magical pirates that decide to buy the game that requires an always on man servant watching you insert the disc into the drive.

Offset by how much? What proof do you have that more people would buy if they couldn't pirate than pirates who trial the game would buy it? You can't prove anything. Some of the most successful games have the highest percentages of piracy rates around. Did those games fail due to pirates? heck no. You want to combat piracy? MAKE A GOOD GAME and MARKET IT.

Just to add something, the DRM in TQ wasn't even the "gotcha" type...the crack for the game was just shitty and they missed a few checks.  They eventually fixed the crack, but the damage was done.  So here is a case where a shitty crack made people believe TQ had all sorts of crashing issues when it wasn't the game, it was the crack.  Direct harm done by piracy.

By the way, same Mtn_Man from the Hellgate forums?

Let's say I owned a taco stand and sold tacos for $1...if someone opened up a stand right across the street from my stand but just gave the tacos away for free, you don't think this would have a negative effect on my business? 

Pirates will be here no matter what anyone does...

In the end, if the game is THAT good, even the Pirates will buy it...

And every pirate who would have bought the game if they couldn't get a free copy instead is a lost sale. Nobody really knows which group is larger then the other, but people who really want to play a given game won't just go pirate something else instead.

The really dangerous thing is that bugs can cause negative word of mouth. Titan Quest was mentioned. Star Ruler is having a similar problem right now, the pirate version has a font bug in it. People hear "oh the game has a font bug" and don't realize that it's not a problem in the legit version, so they just move on. It hurts the overall impression of the game, and for small companies that can be fatal.

The unfortunate thing is that for every guy using a pirate copy as a demo to find out if it'll actually work on his system (due to the no refunds thing), there's 50 who simply want stuff without paying for it. People who work hard on something have the right to sell it, and the ultimate choice as users is to either pay for it and use it, or refuse to pay for it and don't use it.

(Star Ruler is actually a relevant example for me. I think I'd like that game, and want to try a demo to see if I should buy it. There isn't one. That leaves me with the option of simply buying it and hoping it turns out which I won't do because I've been burned too many times in the past, waiting for a demo and hoping that I'm still interested by then, or grabbing the pirate copy today and using that as a demo. None of those options is particularly good, but of the two I'll actually do only one leads to a potential sale today. That's why I have a hard time with this subject, because for some of us the pirate version can actually lead to sales that won't happen without it.)

Yes. The last time i had pirated software was when i was 16, on my C64. When i grew older and started to understood that it was nothing more then thievery i deleted my discs and threw them away. Since then it is buy or pass for me.

You are talking physical goods so that other person is making a loss that's business. Your comparison doesn't work.

They have pirated the 1.01 patch 

It absolutely works...it has nothing to do with the good being physical.

In both cases someone is trying to sell something, and along side it the exact same thing is freely available.  In either case it has an effect on the person who is actually trying to sell the goods, rather than just give it away.

Again, the problem with Iron Lore was their own fault for using DRM. If they had no DRM and people had just used a version which was not set to fail, then they wouldn't have such a word-of-mouth issue. They failed to recognise how much free advertisement is done by Piracy and they paid the price. It's their fault. Sorry.

The only thing debatable is to what extent piracy is harming the gaming industry and not if it's harming the gaming industry.

Nope. We're not just debating on whether piracy is harmful in the first place, but how much net benefit it provides as well.

But the fact remains that they are still making those decisions based on perceptions that are a direct result of piracy.

Then their business model will fail and others like Steam and Stardock will dominate. The PC gaming **industry** will remain, even if the previous dinosaurs go extinct when they could not adapt to a changing environment.

*Sigh* we seem to be having such a discussion every time a new Stardock game comes out. Aren't you people tired of whining about something you can't change? It's obvious the anti-piracy arguments don't convince those you condemning.

If I can make a living by giving something away for free, I don't see why I should feel sorry for you for still trying to use an obsolete business model. I wouldn't feel sorry for the expensive auditorium which was forced to close business by the competition from the free buskers outside of it either.

So a box in retail is not a physical good? Production cost of those is nil?

The time frame is about the same for me, just replace "C64" with" "Amstrad CPC 6128". For me, what changed, was a combination of the newly found availability of own money, the desire to get the thick manuals, neatly designed boxes and the gimmicks (all those things sadly perished, so I guess by today's standards that has to be replaced with DLC), and above all the realization that if I want more games like the ones that I really like, I have to make it lucrative to those who make these games. (I later became one of those people.)

I, however. never considered piracy theft. I still don't, because no object changes hands. It's a copyright violation and in most places legally just as wrong, but I still call an apple or an orange by their specific name, even though both are fruit.

Buying games is definitely something everyone should be doing, for their own sake. At least of the games that they are likely to enjoy or that are of a niche genre. I buy every fantasy TBS without waiting for reviews, but I'm sure there are people who'll find that unwise.

That doesn't make any sense at all dude.  Pirates aren't making a living giving away their own good...they are taking other people's goods and illegally distributing them to the masses.  Half the crackers do it for shits and giggles.  Your views don't even come close to matching up with reality lol.

But I am glad in a way you just admitted that scenario would have an affect on the taco stand trying to sell the tacos

What bothers me is when I get a new game on Steam and someone somewhere has decided that despite being on Steam which is itself a form of DRM I need some additional invasive garbage. Elemental is the first game I've purchased through Impulse, and I'm happy to purchase Stardock products because they don't apply that sort of thing to their own games. Now as for the other games they host, I won't be purchasing any that come with crazy DRM, I learned my lesson when I preordered GTA IV from Steam. I had to sign in to three different online services to play the game, it was ludicrous. Not to mention the game's performance, which was great for me and then Steam patched me up and broke the game for me, I can't play until I get a video card with more than 320 mb video memory because the game sees I turned the settings up to what it thinks is too high and stops displaying textures for buildings and other weird stuff. I haven't even tried to go back and mess with it after recent patches because I don't remember my GFWL password. Which brings me to my second point, I noticed that Impulse has an "ignore this update" option. While that's likely something some publishers would want disabled, the idea itself is brilliant and another point in Stardock's favor as far as I'm concerned.

Just my personal opinion here, but there are roughly three types of pirates:

1. Those who want to try before they play, but no demo is available.  Most of these either buy it, or stop playing it.
2. Those who want to buy the game, but can't afford it yet.  Most will buy it at some point, if it lives up to expectations.
3. Those who will never spend money on the game.

Plus I believe that a lot of people who crack DRM don't care about the game, just the challenge of cracking it.

That's because you  made a bad analogy. The real world have physical and scarce goods. It's expected that the anlogy will break down.

Repeat after me: "Ideas and Expressions are not property." The fact that state granted monopolies make them look this way does not legitimize the state-granted monopolies (i.e. copyrights).

...

lol I guess

Sure, it might have a negative effect to the taco stand with the obsolete business model but I'm sure the taco industry (with the business model of the scenario you posited) and the taco recipe will benefit from all those people getting to taste tacos.

The analogy absolutely works for reasons already explained, and you already admitted the effect it would have

Selling tacos isn't a obsolete business model either, hence the tens of thousands of taco stands around the world.  Neither is the video game industry, which is also doing fine.

The fact is having a group of jerks distributing their hard work for free does negatively affect their overall business, as you already admitted.

You read what you want to read I guess

Nope, you clearly admitted it would have a negative affect, you simply excused it away as an obsolete model.

See, luckily for the taco vendor anybody who made a business of just giving away tacos would quickly bankrupt themselves for obvious reasons.  However, in the gaming industry that doesn't exist.  Crackers/pirates can distribute other people's hard work for free for nothing.  The end effect is the same though, which is you have the same product available to people for absolutely nothing.  This without a doubt cuts into the sales of the people who are actually trying to sell said product (you know, the ones who worked hard to actually create it and deserve the compensation).

That's just one aspect to piracy too, there are other negative affects like having to support pirates (estimated at nearly 30% of support tickets, and is money right out of their pockets).  Negative word of mouth due to bad cracks, and all sorts of other stuff related to piracy.

Do I think pirates are evil people?  No, certainly not.  But the idea their actions when taken in bulk doesn't have a negative effect on this wonderful industry and all the amazing hard working people who make it possible is just idiotic.

Personally if someone said "yeah I pirate I didn't have the money and just wanted to play it", I would at least know I am speaking to a person with their head on straight.  The new mentality (yours), however, is just moral debauchery and quite simply dishonest.

It would have a negative effect on obsolete business models. Right. The industry as a whole would be just fine. It obviously doesn't work in the real world because the analogy breaks down.

Whatev dude. You're just ignoring everything I say because you've already made up your mind that I'm eeeevil. Go back to your little privileged life where affording a few 60$ games a month is standard and don't mind the pirates. They'll ignore you and all your middle-class outrage since you're obviously not interested in understanding them.

Pirates are going to pirate your software or not use it 99.9% of the time, according to some research I was reading about on Ars Technica. An extravagant DRM method was applied to some companies software and they broke it down and figured that for every 1000 people they could stop from pirating their product they might generate one sale. Unfortunately I can't find a link to the article readily (there's a lot of stuff on Ars about piracy). There's probably a reason for that, financially. I understand everyone's concerns when you read things like 90% piracy rate of Machinarium, or even higher IIRC for World of Goo. It's a shame, especially when the biggest selling titles are arguably not the games that push the industry forward. Genre blending and risky gameplay mechanics that pay off aren't what people tend to spend their money on. 

This entire taco debacle has gone too far. Clearly you're better off trying to compare the situation to the news, where the newspaper industry is foundering because of the fact that so many people turn to the internet because they get their news for free. But no analogy is going to convince anyone of anything, seriously people why bother to argue on the internet?