yener90's Inno Project Source Codes

[RespectThis]

Originally Posted by Joe Forster/STA

True, but the reason for this is not piracy, rather game publishers ripping off both game developers and gamers. (Just like, in general, merchants ripping off producers and consumers, between which they managed to wedge themselves very firmly in the last few centuries.) Game developers get about 1-2% of the retail price, 5% is an extremely high percentage e.g. given to the internal game developer team at Sega.

(Off-topic but I couldn't resist.)

I don't want to keep an off-topic discussion going, but I don't see how what you're saying challenges what I originally said; Pirates, due to the nature of what makes them a pirate, typically don't give credit where credit is due. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, so forgive me if so, but it seems like circular reasoning to me.

It's hard to find accurate information on profit takes from pubs/devs, most of them won't/can't disclose such information. But as an example, it's rumored that Valve takes a 30% cut on games sold on Steam, and since there are no other parties involved (distribution, production, etc), that leaves 70% for the developer. Most of us are aware of the size and extent of the library available on Steam, so it just makes the whole statement even more of a moot point.

[Joe Forster/STA]

(Yes, this discussion should be moved into a thread of its own.)

With your second post, you're actually proving my point. You know, I can't stand this "piracy kills innovation" bullshit so I step in every time when I see it.

The very point of Steam - and other digital download services, including but not limited to iTunes, AppStore - is to cut "classic" publishers and retail shops out of the chain and drastically decrease additional (to the actual development) costs. With such changes in distribution, it became possible for a single programmer or a small team of programmers to release a game or application software that needs no commercial advertising, still earns them a great amount of money (in extreme cases, at the magnitude of a million US dollars).

The great problem with classic publishers and retail shops is that they are very selective about what they publish because they are afraid of making a bad decision and losing money, which otherwise would be completely normal in capitalism. They don't give a shit about the interest of either developers or gamers, only their own. A lot of (potentially) great games get cancelled because no publisher is interested in supporting the developers and - other than A) sequels, B) movie tie-ins - games, especially innovative ones, are rarely released. Of course, the same is true for movies and music as those publishers are exactly the same kind. There's no real competition either as publishers in the same industry form a cartel which, apparently, governments don't mind.

As for pirates, those are everyday people just like you and me. Whenever people have the chance to not pay taxes, not pay public transport fares, they don't. Whenever people have the chance to get discount prices or buy stuff for tenth of the usual price from China, they do. In some countries - unfortunately, including Hungary, but definitely not limited to it -, this became a "national virtue" instead of great shame. Software piracy is just one symptom of this "freebie prostitution" so there's no point in singling it out.

Which brings us back to the "original" topic: if you turn something into open source then, by definition, noone can "steal" it from "you" anymore as it is (more or less) donated to the public domain. This is much more effective than DRM which is part of a war between producers and thiefs, which neither side can win.

However, companies with the same attitude as classic publishers will also "steal" open source software (read: include it in their own without giving proper credit and releasing it under the same open source licence) as the Free Software Foundation's trials show. In a company, responsibility can be smeared over a number of employees and well-paid lawyers will "prove" that nothing against the law happened and you can wipe your ass with the GPL. Companies are definitely much worse than individual people so, if you want to protest against something, then you might want to change your focus into the right direction.