Warez seen good for developers?

It took me a long time to finish HL, because i lost interest about halfway through and had to force myself to finish it. Way too many warehouses and waste disposal facilities for my taste.

The reason why publishers are charging as much as they are for games is because people are willing to pay. I'm not defending the prices, i think they are a little too high in most cases, but that doesn't mean it's okay for me to download it now and buy it later when the prices drop, or never buy it at all.

And regarding the length of current games, i have to agree, most of them are relatively short, but many of them also sport the high production values demanded by gamers. We want academy award winning music, we want photo realistic graphics, we want stories written by award winning authors, etc. Making a good game isn't enough anymore, you have to make a ground breaking, genre bending masterpiece, and that takes time and money. While some of us would like to blame the developers and publishers for the current situation, you have to ask yourself: Who puts money in their bank accounts?

if games cost less then it's fairly natural that more people would buy them, especially because a cheap game is easy to pick up on a whim. right now most people have to make a thorough decision before they buy something (which is good for us, because people read our reviews), but it'd be interesting to see what'd happen if the standard price was $30

I would have to disagree with you completely Lord. Firstly you believe that I personally condone stealing a game just because I do not agree with the pricing. It also assumes that that every title released is worthy of the price tag regardless of the quality or length of the game. I am sure you personally have never infringed copyright law by either downloaded a warez copy of a title or indeed borrowing it from a friend? You also seem to be under the impression that people who use warez do not also legitimatley buy retail copies of games which is ridiculous. I am sure that developers do not hold any influance over the pricing of games and the major share of profit rests with the publishers. With games developed by bigger teams of people it is ridiculous to assume that they make as much money out of the unit sales as the publisher who invests the funds to get the project started in the first place. Publishers apart from the inital investment do not creativley contribute to the development of a game they exist in purley a distributive, marketing and PR based role. I have no problem with the developers making money but something tells me that the publisher like record companies takes the lions share.

I wouldn't consider it as stealing...i preffer to it as testing...yeah....

Do you think they will bother testing half-life 2?

I doubt that any mags really gonna test it, they just put a high score on it and that's it...that's why it's our job, as dedicated gamers, to do the testing for our fellow gameites.

I am waiting to for the day when error reporting is included as part of a game

yeah, I always wanted something like that...don't list only the goodies that's only a handful, we want to know also about all the bugs and errors that fills up over 5 1/2 CDs

Originally posted by {White_Knight}@Oct 1 2004, 03:09 PM
Firstly you believe that I personally condone stealing a game just because I do not agree with the pricing. It also assumes that that every title released is worthy of the price tag regardless of the quality or length of the game.

Whether a game is worth what it's price tag demands or not is irrelevant. It is what the publisher is asking for, and if you disagree with that it still does not give you the right to steal it. Period.

I am sure you personally have never infringed copyright law by either downloaded a warez copy of a title or indeed borrowing it from a friend?

Oh, i was quite the pirate on the Amiga and Commodore64. Hell, i don't think i owned a single legit title on the Commodore......But back then it hardly mattered. Most "developers" numbered less than 10 people, and they would have kept making games whether people bought them or not. That is no longer the case, and several good companies like Looking Glass Studios have paid the price.

You also seem to be under the impression that people who use warez do not also legitimatley buy retail copies of games which is ridiculous.

Where in the nine hells do i imply that?? I said that some people may steal a game on release, then buy it later when the price drops, if they bother. If anything, i imply that at some point they may ACTUALLY buy the game. But i seriously doubt that the general practice of most pirates is to use warez as an extended demo.

I have no problem with the developers making money but something tells me that the publisher like record companies takes the lions share.

They're not taking anything they don't deserve. You might be interested to know/recall that the average price of most games hasn't changed that much since when developers released games on their own. Back in the late '80s-early '90s companies like Sierra and Origin were developers and publishers, and the price for a game wasn't dirt cheap, in fact it was usually around 40-50$ per game. I have an old Sierra catalog where the average price is between 49.95-59.95$, with "new" titles like King's Quest 5 going for 69.95$! Long live the "good" old days when the developers could set their own prices?

Yeh but think about it, some one who knows what they're doing and know where to get the files from, from a good server a game can take 2 hours max to download, i don't think he'd ever change his mind about spending 30 quid to buy a game when he can have it weeks before release and in a couple of hours. Thats what most people do and its scary when you see all these warez sites and hub programs and the ammount of people in them.