Man Fined $1.5M for Leaked Mario Game Upload

[derstarke]

A lot of the arguments against piracy remind me a lot of some democratic's arguments concerning global warming. Piracy may indeed be wrong, but when you over exaggerate the facts, you are only losing ground. That said, people need to STOP suggesting that every pirated game loses the company money. Stop doing that, and you stop drawing attention to a hugely flawed argument for pirates and pirate proponents to target. The world is not painted in black and white. And everyone who says you can't overcharge for a product is mislead. You can, just maybe not for a video game. Though, even that's debatable. It's more of an ethical thing anyway, and comes down to what's fair to the target demographic. Plus, you can't simply SAY the prices are set properly. Can anyone from inside the industry who is a part of the pricing strategy claim that? Think about it, saying ALL games are equal is silly. It's a set price not based on the product, but the format. It's a new Xbox 360 game, it MUST be this price. That doesn't really make sense. There are exceptions, but it's still the general rule.

 

[azxcvbnm321]

I can absolutely say the prices are set properly. The publisher understands the pricing model, the lower he sets the price, the more people will buy but he gets less per sale. The higher the price, the fewer who will buy but he gets more per sale. He will look at past titles and come up with a price that maximizes revenue. At least that's the way they would do it if they had all the decision making power. The retailer also has say.

What is fair? You have no right to play a video game someone else created. Absolutely none, no philosophical or ethical system in existence establishes that right. Video games are not essential for living or your well-being, they are a luxury item, therefore not even the most far out socialist philosophy can establish any sort of right or entitlement for people to play video games.

Why is it fair? Because you have the choice to say no, I don't want to pay. That's what makes it fair. Is it fair to the publisher that he can't automatically decide to deduct your bank account or take money out of your pocket? What about him? What about all the people he had to pay, all the rent, all the resources and bills and headache? Is it fair that he only gets $59 at the most for a PC game? After all of his suffering and sleepless nights? After thousands of hours of work, $59? That's it?

Why are you entitled to his game for free but he's not entitled to your money? Don't you care that he has employees that need to be paid, family that depends on your money? Sounds unfair to me. I think we should look at the employees and the publisher to determine how much they need, how much their families need. Then that money is automatically taken from greedy gamers who have so much money, they can afford meaningless luxury items like games.

Give it up pirates, your arguments are ridiculous and can't be defended. All that shows is your greed, that you want something you have no right to without paying for it.

 

[azxcvbnm321]

The comments here just show that there's no hope that these greedy pirates will listen to reason. You can make a moral argument saying that it's wrong in every moral system. You can use reason saying that people should be paid for their work. You can go the practical way and say that the gaming industry will die if developers can't recoup their costs through sales. In the end, the pirate has no moral code or sense of justice and honor. It's the same reason why we have police, if all people were good, decent beings, there would be no need for police to protect us from mass murderers and rapists. Pirates are of the same mentality, there is no reasoning with people like that. I steal because I can is their motto. They will use whatever they can think of to justify their heinous conduct just like other criminals.

"If only that bitch didn't dress so provocatively, I wouldn't have to rape her. That damned slut. If only girls gave it up more, I wouldn't need to rape, it's their fault, not mine", thinks the rapist. So similar to the defense of pirates blaming the publishers for setting the price too high, though for them anything above a dollar or two is too high. "What was the harm? That ugly bitch wasn't going to get any play anyway. It's not like she lost anything, no one would have touched her with or without what I did". "If only girls didn't demand so much and expect so much just to qualify a guy a for sex, then I wouldn't have to rape. If all it would take is a compliment, and maybe, maybe lunch at McDonalds, there would be no need for me to rape. Look how unfair it is, I have to make such an effort to impress her and talk to her. What if I don't want to talk? All I want is to have sex and play video games, but I'm forced to make conversation, this is unfair".

The only remedy is punishment and enforcement. There's nothing else that can possibly work. Only the threat of million dollar fines will make the pirate think twice. It's the only thing his myopic mind understand having been warped beyond the reach of reason.

 

[razor512]

many legit customers also pirate due to DRM problems but the companies don't take into account that, they just assume that all of the people who run into DRM problems for a game they paid for will just buy another copy?

Games are too expensive, while it cost money to make them, it also cost money to make movies, it actually takes longer and cost more to make a movie than it does to make a game and yet, movies are much cheaper than games (and don't bring up gameplay length as that has never effected price)

the people releasing games have just gotten blinded by greed to a point where it is hurting sales.

the game disk and other crap thats in the box may only cost the company about 20 cents to make, they can easily sell the game for $15-20 and make a huge profit.

would you want 100 people to buy your game at $60, or have 1000 people buy your game at $20? there so blinded by greed that they cant comprehend this anymore.

gamign hardware is overpriced the amount of money it takes to get a nvidia gtx260 off of the assymbly line, is the same cost as it takes to get a gtx 280.

but if you spend a ton of money on a gaming pc and don't have enough money to spend just as much money on getting a few over priced games, many of which will probably suck, then you are more likely to pirate to experience the gameplay, then buy the full game to get access to more of the extras.

This is the reason why many stores go out of business when a better store moved into town, the new store will charge less and the other business owners will say stuff like I cant stay in business if I lower my prices more. thats because they are blinded by greed to a point where it limits customers.

I have worked in this field and most small stores easily make a 100-500% profit on just about everything sold, but with high prices, it also limits the customers so while there making huge profits for each item sold, the customers are so few that at the end of the day, you didn't make much money.

but then a larger/ better run store may move in near by and drive the other stores out of business because they see the business like this

charge less and get a lot more customers, you will make less profits per item sold but you will have so many people buying those items that at the end of the day you would have made more money. all because they were able to see that lower prices = more customers

and another + is when you get more customers which causes you to run through inventory much quicker, you get greater bulk discounts and thus items cost you less and you can keep this extra savings as additional profits.

in many cases this is what walmart does they charge less but only by a little bit, and that little bit is enough to make people drive 10 miles to save a few dollars a week.

the faster you sell, the larger shipments you need to keep things in stock, the larger shipments you make the more you can have bulk discounts and this process just keeps repeating it's self until you have pretty much a monopoly, then you find other ways to make people buy more from you or find another town to open a store in and start this process all over in their town

 

[LuckyRed]

I get the sense that people who are arguing in favor of piracy are trying to assuage the disdain a majority of people have for thieves. Piracy is stealing. The arguments that the damages to the offended party are inconsequential, that you wouldn't buy the product anyway, that you think the product is overpriced, that you're only trying the product out, and that you can't afford the product, are all immaterial to the fact that you are stealing. There are no degrees to theft. You either steal or you don't.

I especially take offense to the idea that if you can't afford a video game then you are somehow absolved of your crime. Video games are in no way necessary for your survival. You were well aware of how much video games cost when you bought your console. Therefore, there is no justifiable reason for your theft. Do like honest people do and wait for the price to drop or buy the game used.

I also find it laughable that you think people would actually believe you only pirate games to try them out. If you can't afford to buy every game on the shelves, then read some reviews. I've done that for decades and can honestly say I've only bought a couple of duds.

 

[razor512]

[citation][nom]LuckyRed[/nom]I get the sense that people who are arguing in favor of piracy are trying to assuage the disdain a majority of people have for thieves. Piracy is stealing. The arguments that the damages to the offended party are inconsequential, that you wouldn't buy the product anyway, that you think the product is overpriced, that you're only trying the product out, and that you can't afford the product, are all immaterial to the fact that you are stealing. There are no degrees to theft. You either steal or you don't.I especially take offense to the idea that if you can't afford a video game then you are somehow absolved of your crime. Video games are in no way necessary for your survival. You were well aware of how much video games cost when you bought your console. Therefore, there is no justifiable reason for your theft. Do like honest people do and wait for the price to drop or buy the game used.I also find it laughable that you think people would actually believe you only pirate games to try them out. If you can't afford to buy every game on the shelves, then read some reviews. I've done that for decades and can honestly say I've only bought a couple of duds.[/citation]

reviews don't mean much since everything in gaming just like with art is subjective which means if you ask a million people about something, you will get a million different answers.

just because one person likes a game, doesn't mean it is good or bad.

BTW listen to this song, it is the best song ever... I like the song but for some reason you don't like it that means theres something wrong with you...?

reviews on hardware or devices that can be quantified are valid but reviews on something subjective mean nothing.

no one is trying to support piracy but that doesn't mean that we cant point out flaws in the business model of these companies.

this happens a lot in history, prices for food get insanely high to a point where people cant afford it and this causes riots where people just take the food

when there is a major disaster, people begin to loot stores.

everyone knows it is wrong but it is understandable in those situations.

movies cost less, cost more to make and take longer to make but they still manage to make more money than game makers because their product it cheaper. theres less motivation to pirate because it cost less, if a movie sucks you lose less money than if a game sucks.

and it is hard to get used games because DRM has made used games a bigger risk than pirating an infected game.
when battlefield 2 came out, you wouldn't believe how many ebay accounts were banned and how many disputes were filed and how much cahos was caused over the DRM in that 1 game, DRM is designed to cause headaches like this so there will be little to no used game market. the game company makes no money from a used game
the companies hate piracy but they hate used games even more because a pirate means that the person probably would have not bought the game anyway but a used game means that the person was willing to pay for the game but instead of that persons money going to find your fleet of private jets, it instead went to some random person selling the game as used and if they can get rid of the used game market, that person who is willing to pay for the game may just buy a new version or wait for the price to go down a little then buy it new so either way, that money ends up in your pocket and brings you that much closer to buying over 9000!!!... jets , or satisfying desire to build a gun that shoots out space stations which in turn shoot out more guns which in turn shoots out more smaller space stations at a giant used game logo that you had built in another galaxy

 

[JonathanDeane]

[citation][nom]rhino13[/nom]You know I'd just like to see the quality of PC games go up. And I know that if pirates started purchasing games that would happen.[/citation]

There is no piracy at all on the PS3 (yet) and the quality of games for it has so far been lacking. Also attach rates have also been really low, no piracy at work to blame for poor sales. The system is selling well enough but people are only buying 1 or 2 games so far. I am a perfect example of this I have 2 PS3 games and a launch system. The games I want will eventually come out GT4, GoW3 and some others but right now there is nothing worth my hard earned cash.

Blizzard has some of the best selling PC games of all time.... whats Blizzards secret sauce? (Hint they worked there ass off and made games people wanted to buy, offered online and experiences that justified the money spent) I own multiple copies of Diablo, Diablo II LoD, SC and BW. These games I have gotten my monies worth 10X over and gladly paid full price and in some cases purchased again since my disk got damaged. (bad incident with a slot loading Compaq.... grrr)

I think the whole issue boils down to quality of the games and perceived value, if you make crap no one wants to pay 60$ for it and if you make a pretty but shallow game (tech demo....) no one wants to pay 60$ for it... Blizzard is not going broke any time soon, they seem to know something EA and the others do not. Respect your users or you will find they are a lot meaner then they look...Also don't wrap a turd in ribbons and glitter then try to tell me it smells like cinnamon toast.... (paid reviews gotta love shining reviews of something that is total crap.)

 

[LuckyRed]

[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]reviews don't mean much since everything in gaming just like with art is subjective which means if you ask a million people about something, you will get a million different answers.reviews on hardware or devices that can be quantified are valid but reviews on something subjective mean nothing.[/citation]
You're right that reviews are subjective and that everyone's taste is different. Fortunately, there's many different reviewers out there. Find which ones mirror you're tastes and base your decisions on their reviews. You don't have to steal video games.
[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]this happens a lot in history, prices for food get insanely high to a point where people cant afford it and this causes riots where people just take the foodwhen there is a major disaster, people begin to loot stores.everyone knows it is wrong but it is understandable in those situations.[/citation]
I agree stealing is justifiable if it's required for your survival, so long as you don't jeopardize your victims' survival. But on what planet are video games required for survival?

P.S. DRM is onerous. I hate it. I think it's absurd when software makers restricted customers to five installs. That's why I'm not their customer anymore, but neither am I stealing their merchandise.

 

[trevorvdw]

[citation][nom]LuckyRed[/nom]You're right that reviews are subjective and that everyone's taste is different. Fortunately, there's many different reviewers out there. Find which ones mirror you're tastes and base your decisions on their reviews. [/citation]

You can not even trust most reviews anymore. They give 10/10 to 5/10 quality games because the publisher bought a lot of advertising space from them. Wasn't it Gamespot that fired one of their guys for giving an accurate (low) review of Kane and Lynch because the publisher was giving them tons of advertising revenue and they didn't want to lose that money?

 

[stridervm]

But.... But...... Thieves usually steal the smallest and most valuable item on first glance...... So it can be a market inndicator of value!

Seriously though, both sides spout bs. Sorta. The developers usually count every download as potential lost sales. And most pirates claim that people will still not get it if theres no pirated version, which is again not totally correct. Stop kidding yourselves. People are greedy and will want anything for free if possible.

 

[Guest]

we are talking about the theft of ideas here.. and the power of copyright law which many would argue is far too much.

Sure I think the guy was an idiot for uploading a game just to prove he had it.. but you must remember he didn't steal the game (he bought it) and he didn't profit from the distribution of it (he wasn't selling copies of it) and he was not convicted (it was an out of court settlement)

this means that he wasn't a pirate only an idiot who got caught up in the vice like grip of the copyright cartels.

if you think the theft of ideas is a crime punishable by virtual enslavement (which is the position this guy is in now because he will have to work a lifetime to pay off the 1.5 mil) then your are vastly out of tune with history.

after all where would we be if the french hadn't stolen the idea of the croissant from muslims during the crusades.
or marco polo hadn't stolen the idea of spagetti from the chinese.

and where would we be now if the arabs hadn't stolen the idea of decimal numbers from the Indians and then had it stolen from them by the Europeans.

or what if bill gates hadn't stolen the idea of DOS from IBM..
or the American telcos hadn't stolen the idea of wifi from Australian scientists.

where would we be now ?

the fact is ideas have been stolen since the dawn of time. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a punishment for stealing ideas.. all im saying is that the punishment should fit the crime.

in my view this is an example of how companies abuse copyright law and use stand over tactics to make 1 man pay for the sins of many.

if this were any other crime it would be considered completely unacceptable..

just imagine a guy who gives a gun to another guy who then goes out and kills 50 people... should the guy who gave the gun be charged with 50 counts of murder while the murderers get off Scott free ?

thats just silly.

 

[Guest]

Microsoft claims it is selling on average 17 xbox games a year per console, see http://www.tomsguide.com/us/microsoft-xbox-360-military-army,news-5786.html. Does piracy really harm game developer business?

What would happen if all of sudden all piracy stopped? People who did not have motivation to buy movies/software will not start buying them - no need for hardware upgrades or if they start buy movies/soft they will have less money for hardware. Hardware manufacturers have less turnover and profit so they invest less into new tech, game developers have to think harder how to squeeze maximum out of existing crappy hardware making games more expensive to develop, so there will be less interesting titles to buy for those who have never pirated anything.

As a bonus of such global piracy stop event: If you don't use soft, watch movies, you have more free time to go outdoors, play soccer, ride bicycle, ski, etc instead of watching pirated movies, playing pirated games and chewing junk food to grow up fat asses.

 

[Vampyrbyte]

I will make an admission, most of you will have already inferred this from my previous comments but hey, I have pirated most things in my lifetime. I went through a stage when i was about 14 years old of simply pirating everything. I don't do this as much these days, i tend to support Free and Open Source software where i can, and since taking up world of warcraft i don't actually buy many games or software these days.
However this is an honest account of why and how I have pirated Music, Games, Software.

Lets take some music first off. Lets say i pirated an album from a band, found out I liked that band, bought the Album and their up and coming new ones, as well as a selection from their back catalog.#
Now I agree that the initial pirating of the music was fundamentally illegal in the laws of most countries in the world. However no-one lost out here, in fact the music company in question actually BENEFITED from my act of piracy.
Lets say i did not like the Music, fine. most likely i will delete the pirated album and no one loses a penny. I hear you saying you should have bought the album to decide whether you liked it! Radio is free, i could have decided i didn't like from hearing it on the Radio. No-one loses out.

Lets take another example, this time a Video Game.
I pirated the original Bioshock, I wasn't sure how it would run on my computer or whether it worth the £30 or so. Turned out to be an Epic game, i didn't buy the game straight away, it had no multiplayer component or any other reason for me to actually buy it since i had already completed it. Developer Loses.
However, what about, when my parents are considering buying my 13 Year old brother Bioshock to go with his new xbox360 (Bad parents, its an 18 rated game!), I tell them its a fantastic game and he will really enjoy it. So they buy the game. Developer Wins.
When my friend asks me if he knows any new games he should play i tell him (amongst others of course), that Bioshock was a truely epic play, one he cant miss out on. He goes out and buys Bioshock for his PS3. Developer Wins.
The makers of Bioshock release a sequel (Yeah, its awesome btw), I buy it for my PS3, My brother buys it for his Xbox, my mate buys it for his PS3. Developer Wins.

Now I'm sure none of us are naive enough to seriously think that all pirates act the same as I do. But there is a place for piracy in the economy. It promotes security and integrity for game developers. Thousands of people are paid full time to combat piracy, and thousands are employed full time to do the pirating.
Piracy is publicity, Piracy is Hype for developers, the deficit it causes is offset partially if not totally by its benefits.

 

[idlerp]

Everyone knows piracy is rampant and extremely easy on the Wii. The PS3 on the other hand has no piracy scene yet. Still, the Wii outsells the PS3 in both hardware and software. Piracy isn't hurting Nintendo's bottom line, and they know this. They also know that the average consumer doesn't know how easy it is to pirate, but if they didn't actively pursue people like this, that might change. This is simply Nintendo maintaining their copyright to keep piracy on the fringes where it belongs.

 

[WyomingKnott]

[citation][nom]rodney_ws[/nom]Sweet Jesus! This makes the Gestapo sound like a bunch of 4th grade hall monitors.[/citation]
And people actually gave +14 to this? The Gestapo kidnapped, tortured, and killed people at their whim. Nintendo brought charges against this guy in court. There is no comparison; anyone who thinks that this sentence made sense should go review the history of said organization.

 

[PhoneyVirus]

"sophisticated technological forensics" LOL

 

[JohnnyLucky]

HMMM....The article states Nintendo applied for a search warrant. is that a mistake? Don't police apply for search warrants? Is Australian criminal procedure different? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[djackson_dba]

I'm certain it was the police that actually petitioned the court for the warrant and executed the search. I'm also sure that Nintendo was providing the evidence to the police.

Course... that does nothing to suppress the mental image of some guy getting arrested by officers that look like Luigi.

 

[Vampyrbyte]

[citation][nom]djackson_dba[/nom]I'm certain it was the police that actually petitioned the court for the warrant and executed the search. I'm also sure that Nintendo was providing the evidence to the police.Course... that does nothing to suppress the mental image of some guy getting arrested by officers that look like Luigi.[/citation]


Thank you Mario!

But our pirate is in another castle!