Then maybe it’s not clear. What exactly does that statement tell me about pirates?
- “pirates are a group of people within the PC gamer group.”
- Okay, I can guess what this sentence is telling me. I agree.
- “They are not a distinct, nebulous entity of people.”
- …They aren’t a distinct, indistinct entity of people? I can’t say this sentence makes any sense to me, and based on the adjectives used, it could mean one thing or the complete opposite.
- “What was not known is what proportion were purely dickwad pirates.”
- Are you telling me we NOW know what proportion are purely dickwad pirates? Cos I’m pretty sure we haven’t figured that out yet…
- “It is also very clear what kind of investment is required to make their machines run the games they pirate because Steamworks tells us how PC gamers are equipped and because of the baseline requirements of the games being pirated.”
- Not sure what I’m supposed to get from this sentence either. Games on Steams need pretty damn good PCs to run these games. Are you saying that we can assume anyone who pirates certain games should at least have a PC of a certain strength?
If that last sentence is the important part, then sure, that’s a good point, and I hadn’t thought of it. Thanks for helping me understand.
But even then, it only proves half of the equation. Pirates spend a lot of money on their PCs. Great. We still don’t know what their spending habits on games are. Newell thinks that lots of pirates bought the games that they put on sale. I think lots of people who don’t pirate bought those games, and sure, some pirates for the games they couldn’t enjoy properly without buying them. It’s still not enough to debunk the theory of pirates all being dickwads.
I explicitely stated that people essentially equated the PC gaming market to piracy and that this has since been discredited, so we’re on the same page about this assumption about how the pc gamers were misrepresented. I addressed the issue about spending habits in the spending habits paragraph, stating that the habits weren’t known as there was no data until Valve started mining it and experimenting on Steam, in collaboration with other publishers. Prior to this, it was difficult to distinguish actual consumers from dickwad pirates. The point Newel makes is that there are consumers within what is believed to be this massive aggregate of pirates which publishers believe pc gamers to be.
Take a look at what I’ve bolded there. That’s quite a spell different from what you originally said, which kickstated this entire argument:
THAT is a very definitive statement about what ALL pirates do. What I’ve bolded up there is not quite as definitive, but something I could agree with. You have never said up to this point that “some pirates”, “a few pirates”, “many pirates” “a small/large percentage of pirates” do these things; you’ve said that “pirates” do these things. If you think I’m harping on your phrasing a bit heavily; maybe so. However, you’ve done the same to me this entire discussion, even way back when it was about 3D DGH, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold your choice of words to the same level of scrutiny.
You’re also really irritating me with your constant fall back on Rock Band and co. You’re completely missing the point of what I’m trying to say to the point where I’m wondering if you’re being intentionally obtuse. The sales phenomenon is not isolated to those games. Period.
I only brought up Rock Band because you tried to use the fact that I talked about L4D only as some sort of asinine proof that I didn’t read the article. I was content to keep talking about L4D, because that was the most prominent example in the article. I didn’t mean to upset you.
I still don’t see why it’s not relevant to bring up L4D or any other multiplayer game that was indicated in this discount though, because it’s still true that these games can’t be enjoyed to the fullest with piracy alone. If pirates buy it when the price drops, that doesn’t prove anything other than “Pirates would rather not have the game at all than pay full price for it.”
Ultimately , this entire irritating piracy discussion is a tangent of the original point. The only point I ever wanted to make was that Valve clearly showed that lower prices and a good service increased sales and that this was interesting as it worked outside of the normal sales cycle. It was symbolic of existing demand and how price points influenced consumer purchasing habits.
Actually, I was pretty sure this started because I didn’t understand a core element behind piracy. If THIS was all you wanted to say, I would agree. But this wasn’t about just that; this was about the fact that I didn’t understand piracy, and that’s what I was arguing about the whole time.