The cheak of some people

Of course he doesn't mean that, since it's not at all what he wrote.

 

And I'm going to give you a chance to re-read what I said. I said that it is a fact that you COULD play the whole game and return it. Not that you necessarily WILL.

There's nothing we can do about it. We can't go and strong-arm Walmart, or whoever into a more open return policy.

 

Yes, we do have a duty to the consumer... as does the retailer. It's a shared responsibility with a chain of authority, and the retailer is on your end of that chain, not the developer. Also remember that there's typically at least a publisher, possibly a distributor, and potentially other third parties also between you and the developer, and the problem could actually lie with anybody along that chain, and the developer doesn't have access to any of that chain except their producer. Ergo, going to your retailer is actually the best thing you could do in any case.

Also, check local legislation regarding consumer rights. It's not at all uncommon for stores to make claims in that regard that don't line up with your legal rights. IANAL, but your legal rights when buying a game are pretty similar to your legal rights when buying anything else when it comes to returns and so on. Again, not something the developer actually has any control over.

 

Ok fair enough. I thought you were accusing me

 

So it is just and right that someone not be allowed to return a computer game or not?

 

Have you seen what Origin's been doing lately? They let you return physical products within 14 days of purchase, or 24 hours for a digital one. https://help.ea.com/ca/article/returns-and-cancellations

Sounds great to me.

 

Did you read what I said?

 

Answer the question with a yes or no.

 

Yes I am aware of that and I am very happy to see it. Now I wish all the others would follow.

 

I see most of professional software development as consumer facing products and SaS. Website dev falls more under SaS now, and a lot of business software is going SaS (it's what my employer creates).

Unless there's a different crowd funding approach developed other than the finite funding deadline, there will always be missed sales. Also note, "all games" has been taken to mean "all games"...which includes AAA releases.

Additionally, consider the current reaction to requests for more funding...they usually don't go over too well. And what about being asked to port to another platform after the fact, more funding would be required. It would all require a dramatic shift in the gaming consumer community at large.

And we're already seeing a drop in crowd funding support, people are getting jaded. Especially for higher goals.

 

I'm not surprised at the decline in crowdfunding support. Everything good always booms to begin with when it's novel and competition is low, then wanes as competition rises and novelty wears off. I'm also not surprised at the community getting jaded since in the early adopter hype phase there's always some combination of cowboys getting through (since consumers don't yet know how to spot them) or honest mistakes being made (because the model is new and it's when mistakes are most likely to be made). And that's not even considering that game development is already a high risk business.

It's definitely true that most software that most people (including developers) see is either consumer oriented or SaS oriented, but I don't know if that software would account for the majority of developers since there's so much software around that doesn't fall under one of those categories that only the developer and the client business would ever be directly exposed to - custom business software, custom embedded device software, the backends to large websites, custom workflow systems, so on and so forth.

Anyway, to me "missed sales" from crowdfunding aren't a problem. My goal would just be to reach my funding goal, which should allow for comfortable project completion plus a little contingency. Anything else is a bonus. That already puts me in a position at least equivalent to that of my professional work while giving me the freedom, within reason, to choose my own projects. Anyone who can't be happy with that is hunting for a Holy Grail.

 

I have my Torrent/Pirate build ready to go for release. No functionality removed, just a mention that it is a pirated version and to consider sending me bug reports and, if enjoyed, spread the word. If you ain't payin', you'd best do some QA or marketing!

 

I thought pirate SW was only useful to root the machine of the person that downloaded and installed it.

 

I love this

Hippocoder was absolutely bang on, in the end people like free stuff and they should just admit that, a developer can create huge support and rapport by communicating with those who pirate and not alienate them. It's easier to steal something if you don't care about the owner. There are some very well known pirating communities that respond extremely positively to a communication with the owner(s) of the software and anyone who would gain something from the software would buy it, and if not buy it that time, then remember who made it. Theres no secret evil den of pirates, or 'pirate mentality unless you mean 'hoarders' who dont use anything anyways, theres just a lot of people who either just like free stuff or cannot afford things, and the latter has helped enormous companies like Autodesk and Adobe become ubiquitous in videogame production, for example, and while there are exceptions, the effort gone into learning a piece of software turns into money spent on another seat when you use that software professionally

I don't think piracy should ever be directly advocated but it has its place in this and other industries and while it hardly helps with games usually, as the distribution models change it's going to mean money going more towards games from smaller setups where it's easier/'felt more noble' to pay for the game and its further development (game dev ostensibly being more agile in smaller teams) and the really enormous sellers just go on anyways.

Interesting to note was the size of the latest call of duty game, i figure if you wish to fight game piracy, load it with vital but enormous rubbish to make it 50+ gig in size. Not so many people willing to download something that could break their monthly cap

 

If I was going t' release a loot version, I'd like enough go through 'n translate everythin' from "English" t' "Pirate". I wouldna wants t' make it unplayable, but t' remind 'em that they be playin' an unpaid game.

 

Make no attempt to implement copy protection, just have it turn everything into a pirate, or the game turns into assassins creed 4. A pirate won't be able to bear gaming when every game they have turns into a sprawling litterbox about piracy. I do enjoy amusing and realistic responses to piracy, I think letting someone playing a pirated game know that it 'knows' it's being pirated might bring some humour to the atmosphere and not have people removing 'friends' from facebook

I don't know anyone on my fb i'd not feel like a total ass for removing because they pirated something. I've been in this conversation on this forum before

 

Actually with what Unity, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Adobe, and the list goes on on with freebies, DreamSpark, BizSpark, OS upgrades less than $100, monthly subscriptions and all the decent games that are free to boot you have to ask yourself who is pirating anymore that isn't completely out of touch and is pirating to be 'cool' rather than actual 'perceived' need. I can understand being tempted because you want to make a game or learn programming or 3D modeling but the best tools in the business now are free and/or affordable. They're waiting to get their HW rooted is all.

 

I have no idea of how pirating could be 'cool', i guess i'm out of touch

And also as me being simply an extremely lucky err 'mitigated ability' person, saying anything about $100 being simply affordable makes me laugh a bit, to some people that's a fortune, nevermind a grand plus especially when you're too old for any of the bumps your govnt can tend to give you when you're under the umbrella of education. In some regards piracy is absolutely the only chance in hell someone will find out if they like something or if they'll be any good at it and when it comes to the big hitting software that becomes a nice completely-taken-for-granted freedom of the, not wanting to generalise, but the middle classes+ (although that's still a stupid generalisation). In fact there's an entire set of society outright excluded from all of this, regardless of potential or talent, and piracy quietly, grudgingly, allows these people to get jobs, and being in a position to earn to buy your autodesk products rather than steal them is a massive motivator to do something useful with your theft/copyright infraction

Also while I enjoy open source software and initiatives, exposure to professional software really does diminish it somewhat except in very particular circumstances, the next time someone tells me Blender is a decent replacement for the obvious costly software, for well.. real stuff.. is the next time I roll my eyes I suppose, the next time since i'd last rolled my eyes anyways. The point is it makes me roll my eyes