erm.. i can't help thinking that this is all pointless anyways.
a dev designs a game, tries to sell it but onnly sells a certain number of copies cos of <a> mass piracy or <b> ppl dling the game.
they don't make as much money and what happens? they take a cut in their pay? the publishers take a cut? somebody must make do with only £120k pa instead of £160k?
the game won't be less well built but publishers MAY force devs to rush a release date so less time for tweaking bugs etc.
but..
what if there were no pirates? no bit torrenting?
sales of games would be huge and some business exec somewhere would say... there's a lot of money in this but we COULD get more money out of it IF we cut this or that back, increased price of game..
it WILL MAKE ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER.
whether games sell massively w/o problem or whether there are pirates, whether it is thru lack of profit or because of a massive massive profit from sales of games. some guy in a business suit comes along and says, "we are here to make money"
and, sadly, games aren't really about that.
of course, the games devs, those geniuses, need to live, but when it comes down to purely profit only then i am really glad that the financier types get hacked off that they can't make more money out of the games market.
it is good that some ppl download games.
the console market is horrific for game play. hordes of awful bland bland games with little depth. ok, maybe a tiny %age have novelty but it is a rare thing. if pc games become treated like console games then god help us all!
games like Combat Mission1,2 and AK; Hearts of Iron1 and 2;Deus Ex [not 2.. it was ...er.. not good]; Thief1, 2 [poss 3]; B&W 1 and 2; Battlefield1942 MOD forgotten hope [not bf42 itself.. too arcadey];HL 1 [and just about 2];and many others.
keep games non profit , i say.
but i realise i'm in a minority.
das
<EDIT: sorry, i thought this was another thread but i screwed up.. gulp :¬{[>