Widescreen Gaming Forum

if Modern Warfare 2 is as good as the first one it's probably going to sell no matter what the price which is why I say goodluck to anyone trying to build a boycott to it...

If a legal boycott isn't going to be successful at convincing Activision their prices are too high, an illegal "boycott" would be even less so.

Still at some point I would like you to give me (preferably through PM, unless other people would like to know too, it seems it would be preferable to continue privately) the sources which say that it is more pirated than sold.

Estimating this is easy. You can get lists of leechers' unique IP addresses at any given moment directly from the trackers. You just have to keep watching them for a little while.

Epic didn't blame piracy for the failure of UT3.

Actually, IIRC, Cliffy B did spout some nonsense about how badly pirated UT3 was and that was why it sold badly, shortly after it was released.

Need to try finding the interview.

Still at some point I would like you to give me (preferably through PM, unless other people would like to know too, it seems it would be preferable to continue privately) the sources which say that it is more pirated than sold.

Estimating this is easy. You can get lists of leechers' unique IP addresses at any given moment directly from the trackers. You just have to keep watching them for a little while.

ha !
that's actually the origin of the problem! a list of leecher's means absolutely nothing except that they leech this or that file.
Comparing this with piracy is an approximate which is very far from the reality.
-1 a good % of those never complete a file
-2 a good % of the downloaders do not ever unpack/install/read the thing
-3 a small % of the downloaders will actually buy the stuff
-4 a good % of the downloaders are downloading said content multiple times on same or different networks with one or several different name
-5 a not so small % of the downloaders are either on internal networks thereby failing to represent "a unique download = unique IP"
or on dynamic IPs thereby increasing the unique IPs ...
-6 an average % of the downloaders will share thereby increasing piracy per unique IP
-7 a good % of the files contain wrong data
-8 some servers report unaccurate or wrong stuff on purpose or not.

End result if you're able to mathematically produce an accurate result of the reality of things from just a number of leechers then maybe you should work in that branch :roll:

Unlike you I take all those numbers with a grain of salt
you need way more than just a number of leechers to get the picture

And since I never saw any piracy figure come with complete statiscal data + math behind it. I'm taking all their figures with a grain of salt


It's more obvious when same companies do figures for other things like number of unemployed people which varies widly not only depending on the real number of unemployed people but also on whether or not they take this or that specific group in consideration ...
This is obviously fine since it's their right to do so but the problem is they just say : "X amount of unemployed people" never they say the background behind it ...
at least this is what happens in my country, can't say about others, rarely watch news of other countries.

Those things you list are statistically insignificant. If you have a big game, the vast majority of IP addresses are going to represent at least one individual who is downloading the game with the intention of playing it. If anything, this method underestimates piracy rates - common sense indicates a lot more pirates will acquire by means other than BT than there are BT users who will do things like download half the thing and then give up.

And even if you choose not to accept these estimates as being 100% accurate, this doesn't mean it's OK to outright reject the notion that pirates are screwing developers hard. A 50% piracy rate claim should be pretty alarming - those estimates don't come from nothing.

Those things you list are statistically insignificant. If you have a big game, the vast majority of IP addresses are going to represent at least one individual who is downloading the game with the intention of playing it. If anything, this method underestimates piracy rates - common sense indicates a lot more pirates will acquire by means other than BT than there are BT users who will do things like download half the thing and then give up.

And even if you choose not to accept these estimates as being 100% accurate, this doesn't mean it's OK to outright reject the notion that pirates are screwing developers hard. A 50% piracy rate claim should be pretty alarming - those estimates don't come from nothing.

who talked about only BT ?
I talked about several different networks
you can't disregard all the point I made they are not at all statistically insignificant
"common sense" isn't representative.
I wonder how you can say that, I guess that either you don't have much experience of the underground/pirates and their habits either it's really different where you live which could explain a lot.

where did I reject the notion that "developers are screwed" ?
I wasn't even talking about that...

a lot more research should be put into estimating piracy figures that is all I said.Current numbers are not backed up enough.

a good read on piracy : http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/303512/Piracy_PC_Gaming

who talked about only BT ?

I talked about only BT. I explained how to get a rough estimate of how many people are pirating any given game that examines BT solely. Other protocols don't keep a nice record of unique IP addresses.

I wonder how you can say that, I guess that either you don't have much experience of the underground/pirates and their habits either it's really different where you live which could explain a lot.

I'm not discussing underground pirates. I'm discussing the millions of people who leech PC games in broad daylight every single day.

where did I reject the notion that "developers are screwed" ?

I'm not saying you did. I'm just saying one shouldn't. There are many people who, when presented with statistics that support a conclusion they don't like, would accept the most minor quibble with the statistics as a form of confirmation bias, and then be satisfied to reject the conclusion entirely under the pretense that the statistics are flawed.

a lot more research should be put into estimating piracy figures that is all I said.Current numbers are not backed up enough.

Enough for what, though? Current numbers are enough to demonstrate, if nothing else, that making a singleplayer-oriented PC game is a very risky prospect.

is this even a discussion ? :shock:

Only if you want it to be.

is this even a discussion ? :shock:

Having a discussion with another certain individual here is called a debate.

[quote]is this even a discussion ? :shock:

Having a discussion with another certain individual here is called a debate.

And it's going in the direction I tried to avert this thread from going to in the first place. I should smack you guys...

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