this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Yeah, I've heard this argument but the numbers don't match up. Word of mouth from pirates just really doesn't seem to amount to that much. It seems in general that pirates pirate popular games that already have that word of mouth and they don't play unpopular games. If you search for a random 10-year-old less than 100 reviews game on Pirate Bay, it won't pop up.
Pirate Bay is not representative of the pirating scene, it only has the "tip of the iceberg" most popular stuff, and even then missing a lot of it. For a better view, check BTDigg... but even that is missing data from all the private trackers where more dedicated people are keeping the more obscure stuff, not to mention the not-torrent networks, which is where most of the scene is. Then you have private datahoarders who keep their stash off-line, but can make a copy available if you ask nicely.
You could probably find any game ever published, even multiple version releases, if you contacted the right people.
We are talking about the average pirate though. Which would use Pirate Bay.
What is "the average pirate"? Someone who goes to places like this, with tons of file sharing resources listed on the sidebar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing
TPB is only a tiny slice of what's listed for everyone to find.
I did not mention that the games were unpopular. In fact, I stated that they hurt any level of game developer.
No, I am saying word of mouth from pirates isn't effective because, on the whole, pirates typically pirate popular games. A square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square.
People do give away their games for a limited amount of time to boost word-of-mouth effectiveness but they aren't free all the time and typically have a request to buy a game. Overall the argument that piracy helps indies is silly because if those indies thought it helped, they would do a free weekend or a giveaway. Piracy in itself is removing a tool and options from the creator of the game. I have a standing policy that if people email me a reason they can't pay for my games then they can get a Steam key.
None of the things you've said are backed by fact. I only have my actual industry experience to go on, countless studies, articles, and posts from game developers stating piracy hurts them. Giveaways aren't less useful, they spread more word of mouth and you can cite psychology all day but the fact is that in practice, it doesn't work like that. I have 10 years in the industry as an indie game developer. Pirates hurt my business more than help, I have tangible numbers on multiple titles that back that up. Steam Free Weekends brought in millions of dollars for a few titles I've worked on. Piracy hasn't tangibly brought anything in and we've seen revenue increases when DRM is enacted. Thus, the only real conclusion you can come to is piracy hurts developers. To twist it in your mind that it could possibly, maybe help is you excusing the behavior.
Lastly, these are the silly arguments I have been talking about. This entire conversation just proves my point and wears me out. Because I've never met anyone at GDC or any convention that would say that piracy helped their business. Your perspective is clearly that of someone who pirates and thinks it helps. It doesn't and it hurts game developers on all levels. It's a worthless argument to even have because if it helped, game developers would encourage it. Realistically, there are only a few game developers that do and they typically don't do so for their next title. Meaning they found it didn't work.