To be clear I'm all for emulators, if you own the game. I have a bunch of Zelda games in a drawer somewhere for this reason. I am also for abandonware, especially for games with licensing issues that literally can never be sold again. I have a folder with Blade Runner and some other stuff in it for this reason. Like I said way above, it's not a black and white issue.

However if you're going to start preaching about "evil corporations" and "DLC" and piracy being a response to these issues, I'm going to call B.S. Especially in DRM's case, since you could buy AND crack, if you wanted to. The problem with a grey area is some people start finding more and more reasons not to spend their money, when the piracy option is easy and right there. If you don't put strict rules on yourself, you'll end up a jerk who contributes to something selling poorly and little people in a company getting fired over it or a sequel not being developed for fans. Think of all the people pirating TV shows who then complain their favorite show gets canceled... don't be that guy.

Oh look, another american who thinks he takes the moral high-ground by looking down on others and calling his opponents names like "jackass", among other. In other parts of the world that would be considered "crappy behavior", but in america... common.

Massive shocker! :P

Are you one those that actually believe everything companies/news tells you? And then tries to ridicule others if they have another view?

Another massive shocker! :P

Nice assumption, and it's way off the mark.
The only reason a TV show fails is because it sucks, or it's not earned enough profit for those in charge.

You realize my post was in response to you saying I have a "kindergarten mentality" right? And that Detour was very aggressive from the start too? You guys act tough and arrogant, but when you meet someone who gives it back to you then you start pulling the "oh you're so rude" card. Tiresome.

I have very little patience for people who support piracy. I think it's a plague on the industry and hurts paying customers way more than people realize, as well as the little guys who make indie games or work for the big guys at companies. The pressure to act like it's no big deal so you're one of the cool kids bounces off my skin, screw that noise. If you pirate anything you could purchase then you're an entitled brat I can't stand. The grey areas are solely in situations where something is completely unavailable or priced outside the realm of reason in your region. It's not "I don't like EA so I pirate their games lulz" which is what started this.

Lmao, wtf is this bullshit? Are you just making shit up to suit your own moral highground?

You accuse me of pirating freely without ever buying said games and then you accuse me of "You guys act tough and arrogant, but when you meet someone who gives it back to you then you start pulling the "oh you're so rude" card"

You're full of shit.


Yes i can be openly aggressive on certain subjects but if you're gonna be a bitch about it, get the fuck off the net, as there are far far worse people than me about, and if i'm bad, you need to go back into that perfect little bubble and don't come back out of it.

Nothing on the internet phases me, i will report discrimination towards anyone other than myself, me? i don't give a damn what people say as it makes no difference whatsoever, so you won't find me pulling that bull you accuse me of.

1. I have bought ON SALE to save monehy then cracked, and people(some) have tried to tell me that's just as bad as not buying at all(sadly).

2. They will fire people regardless of someone pirating or a bunch doing so, tbh....same with tv shows being cancelled that don't meet VIEWER(not sales) ratings number quotas.

There's no such thing - every DRM is only capable of delaying the unavoidable.

Only 100% DRM is online connected, ie multiplayer integration that requires being online.

And yes, delay is the best you get besides that, but delay can already be well worth it. Denuvo has had varying success from years of delay to more recently months of delay, but since most games sell best during the first few months those are really the most important months anyway. And no, not every pirate waits months to play, so while it doesn't prevent piracy, the investment may well pay itself back already even if it's only active near release.

That's ignoring the long term 'benefits' of Denuvo games not generally getting regular cracked updates/DLC anywhere near as often/reliably as non-Denuvo games. Sometimes the one cracked version will be the only one out for ages. That means it's inferior to the legit copy which can lead to more sales.

Perhaps...

1. I wait for a sale on tons of stuff, that's not what I'm talking about at all and those people are stupid. This is unrelated.

2. Companies don't just want to scrape by with a profit, they want to maximize profit from investment. That's their job. People who say X or Y shouldn't have been canceled or seen as a failure usually think breaking even or making a tiny amount is good enough, but it's really not. Why spend millions to make a 5% profit when you could spend millions to make a 40% profit? It makes no sense.

Honestly I think "rampant piracy hurts sales, which effects workers and what comes to market" is such a common sense statement it baffles me it's even debated.

Joke's on you, there is no effective DRM for singleplayer games which run on the system of the customer. There is a semi-effective one, which is a new kid on the block, but that too only lasts for a few months. Last was Denuvo. Today, you could just lose Denuvo because it's a solved problem.
And proof that a single player game without DRM just sells as well as one with it is Witcher 3, which I bought day 1.
Basically, DRM is made for assholes of society (of which there are many, students without no money which would not buy a game anyways excluded) as a crutch and works as well as a crutch. Barely.
So the answer of the initial question is: Yes, but it would as well if it had DRM.
To avoid that completely, companies have to make streaming service. Which is possible in about... let me see.. broadband for 50% of world would occur in about... well... 500 years?
Nuff said.

It will be instantly pirated, most likely.
But the difference will be a gain in customers, such as myself, who would normally blow off near any AAA game released because of the anti-consumer measures which are implemented.

1. They could cut marketing costs by using e-celebes(even though some dislike them they are effective at such) and other means. They could also cut costs in other ways as well the don't include cutting staff or making gameplay worse, and make more profit as a result.

Also imo capitalism is great and all, but companies losing a million or so when they make many millions does't bother me as much.

2. Because it usually doesn't harm sales(That's usually more spin by the dev pr doctors, akin to the claims that all pirated copies are loaded with viruses and backdoors, and other nonsense). Some who pirate to demo even BUY afterwards, and some who pirate don't have the means to buy full price/at or near day 1 so it's not really a lost sale(as they couldn't afford it at full price regardless).

In the end, you wanna know what TRULY affects workers? Execs laying them off to save a buck(even if a game series does well) or to virtue signal(if an employee isn't the right sex/race or said something some dislike)

And you wanna know what affects what comes to market? The gullible kids/teens buying lootbox/mobile games and the F2P stuff we have now. THEY are influencing the market more than any pirate ever could.

I guess I'll assume you didn't read the posts before you made this one because you're not telling me anything new, unless you mean that Denuvo is a 'solved problem', as in it's already cracked day 1, because that's certainly not a guarantee at the moment. Total War Three Kingdoms still took 48 days. Ok? Good games sell, bad games don't. Is anyone arguing this? Or did you fall for the fallacy that a game that gets cracked instantly can't also sell well? Don't need Witcher as an example for that, there's been hundreds in the past year that were cracked almost day one that still sold well. Anyone who's arguing that can't be the case shouldn't be listened to. With piracy you're talking about a percentage of lost revenue, and for a company the only thing they'll care about is whether the cost of the DRM is less than the percentage of revenue lost from piracy (all plus and minus factors included).

Or they could just focus on stuff more people pay for? Sometimes the simplest way between two points IS a straight line.

I find the concept that pirates would never actually buy anything, even if piracy was made impossible somehow, to be utterly ludicrous. They're not potential customers because they can get everything for free and don't care, this is true, but the goal of DRM and online services and other such things is to try and make them customers. And it works when you do it right. How many times have we heard of Steam turning pirates into buyers? How many times have we heard about Netflix and Hulu getting subscriptions from people who used to just pirate everything? All the time.

You guys are very anti-corporation so your basic view is "screw 'em," I get that. However in a capitalist nation we vote with our dollars, so I'm just telling you the "I don't support microtransactions!" thing goes for other stuff as well. The more XYZ gets pirated and sells less as a result, the less a company is interested in making more XYZ. Thus piracy effects me, even if I don't participate or make games. This is common sense stuff.