THIS is how you combat piracy!

[universal remonster]

I had never heard of the Humble Bundle before today, but a friend sent me the link and I felt it was so cool that I needed to share with others! The particular bundle available now includes Metro 2033, Company of Heroes and 2 of the expansions, Titans Quest, and Darksiders. The crazy part is that YOU CHOOSE how much you want to pay for the bundle ($1 minimum). If you pay over the average price which was 5.62 as of today, you also get Saints Row the 3rd and Red Faction included in the bundle. All games are activated and played through your Steam account.

I know some are probably saying that they still wouldn't even give THQ the 1 dollar minimum price for all those and that they would rather pirate them... Well, the other cool part is that during the checkout process, YOU CHOOSE exactly how much of your payment is allocated to THQ, or to charity, or to the Humble Bundle company that supplies the infrastructure to offer and sell the bundles.

I was seriously amazed at this concept and wanted to tell more about it. It looks like Humble Bundle is also going to be offering an Indie Game bundle coming up pretty soon.

There are 4 days left on the current bundle. CHECK IT OUT!!

http://www.humblebundle.com/

 

[jay_nar2012]

It doesn't exactly prevent piracy, you require a credit card to use this technique, a minority of people don't have credit or debit cards so they resort to piracy as a lazy and free way of getting a game, especially if it is a newly released game like AC3 or Halo 4.

 

[MajinCry]

Piracy is pretty much a debate about value. The general consensus is that games cost too much; £50 for a game? Nah, pirate.

£10 per game is much more...Well, better. THQ Is on the right path here. Hope that other companies follow suit.

 

[Brett928S2]

Piracy is pretty much a debate about value. The general consensus is that games cost too much; £50 for a game? Nah, pirate.

£10 per game is much more...Well, better. THQ Is on the right path here. Hope that other companies follow suit.

Hi

Sorry but I must disagree.... Piracy is NOT about price its about morals...

Its morally WRONG....

We should PAY for our games... even a £50 game (that's less than one hour of my wages) as an example....

If I pay one hour of my wages for a single player game that gives me say, 15 hours of pleasure that good value....

I STILL play Half Life 1 multiplayer after 14 years.... that cost me pence per hour as I have played thousands of hours...

All the best Brett

 

[tinyE]

Hi

Sorry but I must disagree.... Piracy is NOT about price its about morals...

Its morally WRONG....

We should PAY for our games... even a £50 game (that's less than one hour of my wages) as an example....

If I pay one hour of my wages for a single player game that gives me say, 15 hours of pleasure that good value....

I STILL play Half Life 1 multiplayer after 14 years.... that cost me pence per hour as I have played thousands of hours...

All the best Brett

What about the "Heinz Dilemma"? Any psycology buffs out there? Granted this is just gaming and not life/death, but still. At some point doesn't the seller become immoral by asking too much of the consumer?

Oh, and I still play Half-Life 1...Great Game!

 

[Brett928S2]

What about the "Heinz Dilemma"? Any psycology buffs out there? Granted this is just gaming and not life/death, but still. At some point doesn't the seller become immoral by asking too much of the consumer?

Oh, and I still play Half-Life 1...Great Game!

Hi

Out of interest whats the HEINZ DILEMMA ?

But the buyer has a CHOICE to buy at whatever the price, assuming he considers it worthwhile... take Porsche's as an example...lol

All the best Brett

 

[tinyE]

Hi

Out of interest whats the HEINZ DILEMMA ?

But the buyer has a CHOICE to buy at whatever the price, assuming he considers it worthwhile... take Porsche's as an example...lol

All the best Brett

The "Heinz Dilemma" has several names, this is how I learned it:

A guy's wife gets sick. She is going to die unless she gets the proper medicine.
The pharmacist in town has that medicine and he is selling it for $1000.
The guy only has $500 and offers it to the pharmacist who promptly refuses the offer.
Alas, the guy waits till the pharmacy closes, breaks in, steals the medicine, and saves his wife's life.

Is he immoral for stealing?
Is the pharmacist immoral putting money ahead of someone's life?

I want to stress that while I am really enjoying this discussion, I am not so deluded as to equate mortality with software bootlegging.

 

[bc5]

I thought Heinz meanz beanz? Thanks for the explanation anyway I think May Payne 3 is a good way to combat piracy. 30GB installation!

 

[bystander]

What about the "Heinz Dilemma"? Any psycology buffs out there? Granted this is just gaming and not life/death, but still. At some point doesn't the seller become immoral by asking too much of the consumer?

Oh, and I still play Half-Life 1...Great Game!

Entertainment does not fit. You don't need to pay entertainment to survive. There are also plenty of free forms of entertainment. There are also many different levels of video games. Look on Steam for example, there are a lot of games that are less than $10 for example. Many of the games that are $50 today will be $10 in a couple years. If $50 is too much for you, you probably don't have a high end system either, and will get plenty of value from older games that are cheap.

People pirate because they can, and don't seem to care about their moral obligation to pay. It hurts us all. If even half those people who pirated paid for the game, these companies could charge half price and make more money than they do now.

 

[tinyE]

Entertainment does not fit. You don't need to pay entertainment to survive. There are also plenty of free forms of entertainment. There are also many different levels of video games. Look on Steam for example, there are a lot of games that are less than $10 for example. Many of the games that are $50 today will be $10 in a couple years. If $50 is too much for you, you probably don't have a high end system either, and will get plenty of value from older games that are cheap.

People pirate because they can, and don't seem to care about their moral obligation to pay. It hurts us all. If even half those people who pirated paid for the game, these companies could charge half price and make more money than they do now.

I couldn't agree more. While I do have fun with my Genesis and NES Roms, I completely abhore piracy. I just threw it out there to open up a dialogue. In the process I fear I may have gone WAAAAAYYYY off topic and threatened my further allowence in this forum. I'll try to refrain from that in the future and keep it to game tech/questions/advice.

 

[jaguarskx]

Piracy is about the ability to get away with something that is either going to be extremely inexpensive or free. Price can be a factor of sorts, but for individuals the ability to simply pirate something is generally enough of a temptation.

For example, I know of a VP who generally likes to talk about downloading free music, videos and games in casual conversations with fellow co-workers. In my industry VPs generally earn about $110,000 to $165,000 excluding up to a 30% bonus for individual performance. This person has been a VP for sometime so it is likely he is earning closer to the top end of the salary range rather than the bottom end.

You would think he can spare $20 to buy the CD or or $1 per song, or $20 - $30 for the Blu-Ray movie, or $50 - $60 for that occasional game (when not on sale). But he simply does not do it. He likes downloading because he know all he has to do is be patient enough for the download to complete so that he can enjoy his booty.

 

[HEXiT]

hey if you can afford to pay 1000 for a pc to play games on you can afford the 50 bux for the game.

 

[AnUnusedUsername]

Piracy is about the ability to get away with something that is either going to be extremely inexpensive or free. Price can be a factor of sorts, but for individuals the ability to simply pirate something is generally enough of a temptation.
-Snip-

It's not always about getting away with something. It's fairly common that the rationale behind piracy is that it isn't costing the company anything to make a copy anyway, so it's no big deal. Technically, that is correct, but on a large enough scale it isn't correct anymore. Plus, if you make that much, you are going to think less of a $5 purchase than someone who makes $5 an hour.

-Snip-
People pirate because they can, and don't seem to care about their moral obligation to pay. It hurts us all. If even half those people who pirated paid for the game, these companies could charge half price and make more money than they do now.

The thing is, people aren't EVER going to care about their moral obligation to pay. That's not how people work. We can keep trying to fight piracy, but it just isn't going to work if it continues to cost nothing to make copies of media. Copying is always going to cost zero, so there really needs to be something done about the digital distribution model as we know it. Selling copies we can produce ourselves for nothing just doesn't work.

The idea of a global tax on ISPs to fund devs/musicians/artists/etc has been thrown around, but it's almost certainly never going to happen. Nobody likes taxes and we can't even enforce human rights globally, let alone something as trivial as a tax to fund artists.

 

[universal remonster]

Thank you for all your thoughts and discusion! When I originally made this post, I chose the word 'combat' specifically for the reasons some have mentioned. I don't think anything will stop piracy, but if you offer something of value (this bundle does have some great games!) at a reasonable price, I think it can sway some people to buy instead. Also, a side benefit to me, is that offers like these give a sense of a publisher connecting with the consumer in a very positive way and could possibly lead to future business with them. As opposed to the CEO of Activision that has publicly stated (when Tony Hawk - Ride came out) that if he had it his way, all games would cost $120.00. Who wants to do business with a company that WANTS to get over on consumers just because they can?

In the grand scheme of things, this is a small deal. But over 750, 000 people were able to buy a geat bundle at a price that they chose, while THQ pulled in over 4.4 mil on games that probably dont generate too much money for them anymore. I think it's a win-win and would love to see other publishers jump onboard and offer similar deals.