Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Want a PC DVD version without Steam, or won't buy.

Good point. Decent Zeppelin song.

To be fair, piracy is a victimless crime. I am against it, but it's extremely silly to equate it to stealing, you don't remove anything from anywhere, you make a copy.

i personally have no moral problems with copyright infrigement - no one loses anything in the act so no problems. The concept is just too outdated and no longer applicable when making a copy costs nothing. There is no need to restrict copying to have profit, you just have to find other ways. Kickstater is one of them.
Having said that i forgot when i have pirated something last time partly because currently i'm much better paid now as before, but mainly because of steam, it made buying and maintaining your games so convinient, so that i won't even bother pirating now.

Fair point. I'll just say that I used the word stealing as a more general term.

Valve takes a significant cut from purchases, presumably similar to the price of making physical copies. It's not as if there aren't costs involved in what steam does. Bandwidth isn't free after all.

It's a story you hear quite frequently nowadays of people who in their youth pirated basically everything since they didn't have money to pay for it, but when they get a decent job and are able to afford things they start paying for games.
Example LC who mentioned he pirated in his youth, and now he's KS'd DOS for if I remember correctly quite a significant amount

I think I remember Microsoft doing something similar by providing free windows copies to small start up companies and the intent that as soon as they become larger/profitable they will purchase those licenses.

Bottom line is that there should be an interest among the gaming companies to "create" gamers from a young age. That way when they grow up and have more financial buying power they will actually pay for games.
Would be interesting if someone can come up with a way to do that better or make use of that fact.

Bandwidth cost is peanuts to the point where many hosting providers offer free unlimited bandwidth. And the ability of Steam (and GOG for that matter) to offer discounts of up to 80-90% during sales is another pointer - those prices are still profitable. Ditto with the pay-what-you-want HumbleBundle, IndieRoyale and other bundles.

Compared to physical DVDs where you have manufacturing, printing, assembling, storage, transport and inventory management (damaged returns, etc) costs, "fair price" for digital products shouldn't really exceed $5 per item.

A retail game at $60, is a profit of $7 for the publisher and the developer might not even see a single cent of that or at best $2 if they have some sort of deal.

Steam's standard deal is 30% cut to Valve. So let's assume a game costs $20 on steam, 30% of that is $6, which means that the publisher, or in a better case the developer earns $14.
One third of the price, yet it earns you DOUBLE the profit.
I have no idea how it is on GOG, but this should give you a good idea as to why digital is so big (and why I personally do not buy physical anymore, and instead make my own boxes)

Hate to reply to a thread which really should just be closed and result in a lengthy ban for the person who created it but, I can't believe some of the things some people are saying on here!

**RANT ALERT**

It is OK to pirate a game because you don't like Steam? How is that a justification!

Also, the thing about pirating a game to try it out for a few hours and then you'll buy it, why would you do that? Where is the desire to pay for it when you already have it for free? Can't see this happening.

Funny thing is, when Nintendo, for example, churn out their latest 'updated' version of Super Mario Kart for the next generation of console (exactly the same game as for the last generation but with slightly better graphics), people will happily spend ï½£40-60 on that or any of the latest console releases without too much complaint but they resent paying ï½£10-30 on Steam for some fantastic new Indie game!

I understand it is natural to knock Steam as one of the latest corporate monsters and that it is our duty to hate such organsations because we all like to think we are authority-resenting freedom fighters but I actually think Steam is great. I have also never had any bans or reason to complain about the service in many years of use. Steam is greatly responsible for the massive resurgence of Indie and 'bedroom coders' and as a Kid of the 80's this is wonderful to me! So how can Steam be seen as 'The Man' when they are helping so many small developers who would have no chance of getting published by one of the 'Big Boys' in the industry?

I also cannot see how any file sharing, copyright infringement or piracy can ever benefit the media or arts? Bottom line is, if you are not buying a piece of software/music or film where is the reward for those making such items financially to justify future projects?

'If you do not buy, the art will die!'
(Wow, that sounded impressive, only just thought of it

Anyway, rant over :P

You are a very silly person

Like it or not, Steamworks is DRM, Original Sin doesn't use the Steam DRM so it's fine, but for games that do, it's uncomfortable.



Not my fault you think that way, it's a fact, if someone enjoys a product they have a higher chance of buying it. Stupid consumers buy blindly, smart consumers need to know what they are buying, simple as that.




Look here, this is a FACT, this isn't someone saying they do it and expecting you to believe them. I myself used to pirate in order to demo, I am sorry, but games aren't movies. When the publisher does not supply a proper demo version, I will pirate their game before buying it, I am not an idiotic consumer, I do not make blind decisions.
Here are some articles on the topic, seeing as you've chosen to be blind and ignorant and still assume that your opinion is a valid one:
http://hometechproducts.com/study-finds-piracy-is-beneficial-for-small-films/
http://voices.yahoo.com/movie-piracy-seems-evil-actually-beneficial-8011986.html
http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/32235
http://rt.com/news/music-piracy-online-sales-572/
http://www.slashgear.com/london-school-of-economics-analysts-piracy-is-good-for-business-05300355/
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/12/22/video-game-piracy-is-good-for-business
http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/2/5263932/assault-android-cactus-piracy
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...able-internet-piracy-is-good-thing.shtml

Bottom line is this:
If you make a good product, piracy will drive sales up, if you make a bad product, you will NEVER lose sales due to piracy. Piracy is and always has been a win - win situation, the only reason you have the views that you do on the matter is because you've chosen to believe Hollywood executives who have absolutely no understanding of how the modern world works and their entire knowledge of business is still stuck in the 1980's.

Kriss, you make valid points.

However, I'm not remotely interested in Hollywood Executives, there are very few films coming out of Hollywood that i would ever want to watch, buy or pirate.
What I am talking about and perhaps should have explained more clearly is the harm that piracy does to the smaller compnaies and individuals. Thousands copying the latest blockbuster will do little harm to a massive compnay but thousands copying a game made by an Indie develper cannot possibly encourage them to make more games!

If you can genuinely say that you pirate something, watch/play it a few times and then buy it if you like when well done you! I bet there are many others who would just think, why bother buying it now when I've already got it for free?

As for the articles, there may well be some truth to their research but what next? Do we all just pirate everything because it's OK to do so? If you make the argument that piracy can be beneficial then it follows that more and more people will do it and this will hinder creativity.

Also, I understand the need to understand a game fully before you buy it but with Youtube, etc, you can get a very good idea of how a game plays nowadays without illegally copying it can't you?

You continue to assume that piracy has the capacity to hurt anyone.
Piracy is not last sales, if someone pirates your game and doesn't buy it, he probably wasn't going to buy it in the first place. If someone pirates your game and does buy it, that's a gained sale, which would not have happened if you don't have a good demo out.

Piracy

Only

Has

The capacity

To drive

Sales

UP

I don't know if I can make it any clearer.
Yes, there will always be people who pirate because they don't want to pay at all, but that doesn't harm anyone, it's not lost sales because it wouldn't have been a sale in the first place. This is well documented, I don't understand why you're making these 2003 era arguments against piracy.

Pirating to play and get for free with no intention of buying - bad.

Pirating to test and buy if a product is good - justified as long as there is no other way to get a proper demo.

And no, we shouldn't all just pirate, unless all of "us" want to test things, people make blind purchases, that's where buyer's remorse comes from and buyer's remorse can actually hurt future sales, unlike piracy which simply lacks the capacity to impact sales negatively.

Look at The Witcher 2, a game we can all agree is really good. It got pirated a lot, initially CDPR were pretty pissed for some reason and threatened to sue. But they changed tone once they saw that a lot of the people that pirated the game went and bought it and posted about how they did just that on forums, they learned. I forget who said it, but a developer recently said something along the lines of:
"It's wonderful to see our game is one of the most seeded games on the pirate bay currently"
You know why? Because that means that people ENJOY the game, and someone who enjoys a game, will likely purchase it given the opportunity.

I don't really care what way do I get the game, ie is it GOG, retail or that 'bedroom coder' putting it on their site/torrent and asking for contributions. I have already described the problem with steam's conditions of delivering a game to the player.


This. As I've read somewhere (and of course wholly agree) the concept of 'lost profit' in the context of piracy is wrong from the very foundation. This profit wouldn't occur anyway, as people who have the money to buy the game (of the pirates) tend to patronize game developers, whose products they enjoy, and thats the right way. If they couldn't pirate it they would've never bought the game OR would buy more blindly (provided the lack of demo, quite often nowadays) backing both good and bad developers (more) equally, which is more harmful to the overall quality of product in the industry than the former solution.

What I wrote above applies equally to the 'smaller compnaies and individuals' too. If it's good - buy it, if not - ignore it.

+ this very much. Well put, Kriss


Well, while it may sound silly, it's that the box has been designed officially, that many great fans of the game you bought have almost identical boxes, and in the case of self-publishing - it goes straight to you from the devs (at least it has that opportunity).
In other words: From Larian with love
The game I bought cost $65 and I probably could've paid yet some more to get the boxed version. While I do understand the profits from retails are (prolly) way smaller than from digitals, seeing how Larian cares for their fans I don't exclude the possibility, that in the future they will still offer some sort of pre-order-(or kickstarter- for that matter)-only boxed version for their most committed fans, and that would make me perfectly happy.

I fully understand the sentiment, but it's when the local publishers like Daedalic (a company which I respect nonetheless for continuing to support and develop adventure games) decides to plaster it's own logo and add several instances of it's logo on the front of the box, redesign the art (in this case add some pointless border to it), add ANOTHER age restriction marker, next to the existing one... you get the idea, it's not visually pleasing.
The Collector's edition of Original Sin is great, but I prefer buying it digital to support Larian with more of my money, and the CE's cover is the SJW edited one, which I disapprove of heavily.

Keep in mind, that there are other costs besides bandwidth. Servers have to be maintained, with multiple redundancies, for all the games currently for sale (or were ever for sale at one time) on Steam. Technicians have to be paid to maintain those servers. And all this on multiple networks across the globe, so as to have multiple download servers in case of outages or bad pings. I'm not implying Valve isn't making money, but there are a lot of costs involved in even digital distribution, and I haven't even covered all of them.

As people mentioned the costs of maintenance are very minimal, ensuring these "beloved" gaming companies earn multi-millions. Before the cost was at least justified, where they gave you a manual you could read away from the screen (I don't have a tablet, Kindle, or similarly stupid device) and learn how the game worked.

With digital distribution not only can most gaming companies control your gaming experience, but they also cash in stupid profit margins. People remain ignorant to the fact, and continue to buy games at grossly inflated prices.

I know there was a free-drm version on GOG, but there is no reason not to have a box and a manual in 2014. GOG also makes me suspicious now due to all this "Galaxy" business.

Long live "The Scene." It's there for a reason.

Piracy is piracy, that said I can empathize with the sentiment. When I was a student and had no income, piracy was the only option when the game didn't provide a demo

Well this has gotten ridiculous.

Accoring to this article, margins of 25-30% for the publisher and 50-60% for the retailer are typical (£30 retail gives £10 to publisher, £3 to developer) which ties in roughly with your figure, once costs are factored in.

The high retailer margin is (partially) justified by the expenses most stores incur (high street rents, staff, etc) but also explains why large mail order firms can offer major discounts, even on launch day.

So even if Steam hogged 30% (which is high given the far lower costs they incur compared to retail), normal "digital" prices need only be half that of physical retail to give publishers/developers the same profit.
Yes, servers and staff have a cost, but Steam uses a CDN which handles that aspect and their bandwidth cost is almost trivial ($0.10/GB means a cost of $1 for a "typical" 10GB download, and a major customer like Valve can probably negotiate better rates still).

Yes we need a demo for this game.
I would like to pay full price if pleased or reassured, not waiting for a big GOG sale or searching for a free torrent...