Pc Games Are So Expensive

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Strange how everyone has friends in the music industry. I have them too, guess what? They say that CD sales are kaput for them. Maybe if you're a major artist it'll hurt, but playing out at places is the way that a lot of the bands and musicians I know make any money. Diabolical Slaughter, a small MySpace band whos lead singer I play with, has amazing growls and gutturals. Guess what? They're not even getting music contracts, because of how inflated the market is.

[Boldeagle]

Its only stealing if you're wearing a black sock over your head.

 

I was just borrowing it, ahhhh holding it for someone else

[Great_Gig]

They say that CD sales are kaput for them.

 

But why is that? There are reasons why CD sales are falling, agreed they are kaput and the CD market may not be sustainable in it's current format for much longer, but it's kinda fudging away from the point that some are making about how they feel on the subject of piracy. From the number of flippant remarks it's clear it's something a lot don't really care about here, which is a shame. It is something that concerns me, as on the whole if you look at the bigger picture we all suffer as a result. If you also have friends in the industry, then surely it would be something they would also disapprove of, irrespective of whether they are recording artists - it's the principal and at the end of the day, it's also illegal.

 

Final word......

[Kamikaze_Badger]

Because unless you're selling a massive amount of CDs, there's simply no revenue from them. There are bands that put songs of theirs up for download to help promote material. And guess what? I've seen that work better than straight CD sales.

 

They sucked before, they suck even worse now.

[Compxpert]

Because unless you're selling a massive amount of CDs, there's simply no revenue from them. There are bands that put songs of theirs up for download to help promote material. And guess what? I've seen that work better than straight CD sales.

 

They sucked before, they suck even worse now.

CD's have really never sold that well. Bands actually make their most money off concerts and such. Though I can say that before the internet they probably did sell better.

Edited July 12, 2008 by Compxpert

[Great_Gig]

CD's have really never sold that well. Bands actually make their most money off concerts and such. Though I can say that before the internet they probably did sell better.

Have to have another Final Word...... As that's a point I really cannot agree with. It all depends on the current status of the band? If they are a recording and touring band, then yes these days there can be more to be made from live performances and merchandising. But it's a bit of a sweeping statement to say bands make most of their money from concerts - what if they don't tour anymore? As one example, bands like Pink Floyd stopping touring in 1994, but Dark Side of the Moon still sells by the bucket load (they even have a pressing plant in Germany that does nothing but produce CD's of that album). Reported income from that 1 album alone is in the region of $10,000,000 a year. How many CD's do the Beatles still sell? Until recently that was the only 'legal' way to get a Beatles album, as they were not available for download. And before the internet and modern PC's with copying facilities, CD's, Cassettes and Vinyl Records were the only way to get music and CD's sold extremely well before people started file sharing! Now bands have had to switch to other methods of making money, due to the fact that CD sales are falling, which is due partly to piracy.

 

K_B you are totally right, that unless a band sells albums in volume, they make little money from CD sales, especially as the markup is so low these days.

 

I think maybe you have misunderstood me and we have strayed a little from my original point. What I'm trying to relay is that if people didn't copy music, download it from illegal music sites or file share, then the bands would make more money, people would be limited to either buying a CD or legally downloading it and the crooks in the middle would not make money from other peoples hard work. Same goes for game software - developers work hard and get ripped off by illegal copying. If we all paid for what we used, then I have no doubt it would be cheaper, which is the nub of this thread and what I believe - it's also what others believe too.

 

Physical and digital piracy cost the U.S. music industry alone $5.3 billion, the report said, citing research by the Institute of Policy Innovation. Digital piracy accounted for 70 percent of that figure. The cabinet of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France approved a draft bill Wednesday to introduce new sanctions aimed at individuals who illegally download content from the Internet.

Source

 

If you think I'm talking crap, then that's your opinion which you are entitled too - and thank goodness we live in countries where we can voice such opinions and have such discussions. However, I don't believe it's crap and I bet bands and software developers don't think it's crap either?

[Silverfox]

"Physical and digital piracy cost the U.S. music industry alone $5.3 billion"

 

 

Contentious issue ... if those people who downloaded were asked "would you have ever purchased that album at all in your life?" you can bet that 99% would say "nope!". Thus I totally disagree that this is how much piracy costs. How can you say it is lost revenue, when it would never have been revenue in the first place?

 

(just playing devil's advocate)

[Great_Gig]

(just playing devil's advocate)

LOL, that's fine........ and figures can often be twisted and manipulated to suit ones argument

 

But we are all mostly talking around the main issue as I see it, in that piracy is wrong. Are folk trying to ease their consciences with counter argument's and looking for support from their peers, to justify their actions?

[Silverfox]

Not at all. It's just the industry would LOVE to sensationalise any matter that concerns even a modicum of 'lost' revenue.

 

We all know and agree that piracy is indeed wrong. However, I stand by my argument that 99% of people who have acquired something illegally would never have purchased that product in the first place - they will have downloaded 'because they can' for the sake of it.

 

There is nothing wrong with trying to prevent piracy, but the relentless manner in which the action groups pursue individuals is disgusting. Piracy has been around for hundreds of years in some form or another and has never been such a hot topic. Back in the 80's and 90's when people taped from the radio or dubbed cassettes ... did record companies have the same attitude? Not quite.

 

Yet now with the convenience of transferring music/films/games as bits and bytes, the organisations that seek to prevent piracy use the same convenient medium to track IP addresses and make a mockery of the most unlikely targets. You hear stories of it all the time ...

 

To try and pretend that billions of revenue has been lost is an absolute disgrace. More so when it is reported that many of these record and film labels are making huge profits with targeted growth on prior years. It smacks of greed. You only have to read a few articles from artists that are fed up with their labels for wasting money on lavish entertainment and whatnot and leave them for small indie labels instead. Most artists see very little of the money that is spent on a CD (about

[tkrow21]

To support your argument, I would like to point out the situation with Crytek/Crysis. Many people pirated Crysis because they knew they could not run it with decent looking graphics, so they pirated it to just try it out, for the sake of it. How many of these people actually completed the game?

[ClayMeow]

We all know and agree that piracy is indeed wrong. However, I stand by my argument that 99% of people who have acquired something illegally would never have purchased that product in the first place - they will have downloaded 'because they can' for the sake of it.

That used to always be my stance in college. I used to download movies, but that wouldn't affect my theater-going...it would be for stuff I wouldn't have paid to go see.

 

To support your argument, I would like to point out the situation with Crytek/Crysis. Many people pirated Crysis because they knew they could not run it with decent looking graphics, so they pirated it to just try it out, for the sake of it. How many of these people actually completed the game?

Yeah, I read an interview with Cevat Cerli (Crytek CEO) and he stated they made a huge mistake by including graphic options that even the top cards couldn't do. Initially they thought it was "future proofing" their game, but soon afterwards they realized that a lot of people got the wrong idea...and thinking they couldn't play the game, they'd go download a pirated version so they wouldn't throw $50 at something they couldn't play. He said they learned their lesson and in future games, they won't put those options in and instead just patch the game in the future as new cards and capabilities come out.

[Compxpert]

That used to always be my stance in college. I used to download movies, but that wouldn't affect my theater-going...it would be for stuff I wouldn't have paid to go see.

 

 

Yeah, I read an interview with Cevat Cerli (Crytek CEO) and he stated they made a huge mistake by including graphic options that even the top cards couldn't do. Initially they thought it was "future proofing" their game, but soon afterwards they realized that a lot of people got the wrong idea...and thinking they couldn't play the game, they'd go download a pirated version so they wouldn't throw $50 at something they couldn't play. He said they learned their lesson and in future games, they won't put those options in and instead just patch the game in the future as new cards and capabilities come out.

Yeah I read that article also. Valve seemed to get the right idea especially with steam as they can make updates for games and distribute them easy making it easy for them to update the HL2 engine.