How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

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How much would you pay for a new Sierra Adventure?

0-$10
4
6%
$10-$20
14
20%
$20-$30
13
19%
$30-$40
16
23%
$40-$50
22
32%
 
Total votes: 69

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#101 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:33 pm

I still think that despite your opinion of whether piracy is wrong or right, the pirates themselves don't deserve your ire.
Why not? Money isn't the only factor involved here. All pirates and freeloaders, regardless of their motivation, are the very types of people who collectively sap away at motivation until there's none left. I wouldn't go up and shake hands with a guy who broke my arm. So why should I be expected to do the same for someone who's causing mental anguish? Pirates really don't like to take individual responsibility, yet collectively they have a massive detrimental effect. When these people take advantage of goodwill rather than supporting us, it only makes us question why on earth we should continue showing goodwill to a cause if people are just going to take advantage of it.

The "rule of reciprocity" is a widely accepted ethic of mankind; when you do good things for others, you expect to receive a little bit of goodwill back in return. Considering that, what pirates do is tantamount to a slap in the face. And regardless of their reasons for pirating, I believe they DO need to know that it's not appreciated. Sometimes a voice from the other side is all that's needed to show "casual" pirates that there are two sides to the story. For example, already several people in this thread have mentioned that they might have considered pirating Al Emmo prior to reading the discussions here. And it seems the talk that's taking place here has made them reconsider doing something that they may not have given a second thought to before.

Half the battle is in educating people about how piracy really affects people both financially and mentally. Instead of thinking it as copying a meaningless bunch of 1's and 0's next time you download something; try thinking about exactly what you're stealing, who you're stealing it from, and what kind of effect it might have on the company as a whole if everyone did what you're doing.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#102 Post by Kaelon » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:07 pm

Anonymous Game Creator 2 wrote:
I still think that despite your opinion of whether piracy is wrong or right, the pirates themselves don't deserve your ire.
Why not? Money isn't the only factor involved here. All pirates and freeloaders, regardless of their motivation, are the very types of people who collectively sap away at motivation until there's none left. I wouldn't go up and shake hands with a guy who broke my arm. So why should I be expected to do the same for someone who's causing mental anguish? Pirates really don't like to take individual responsibility, yet collectively they have a massive detrimental effect. When these people take advantage of goodwill rather than supporting us, it only makes us question why on earth we should continue showing goodwill to a cause if people are just going to take advantage of it.

The "rule of reciprocity" is a widely accepted ethic of mankind; when you do good things for others, you expect to receive a little bit of goodwill back in return. Considering that, what pirates do is tantamount to a slap in the face. And regardless of their reasons for pirating, I believe they DO need to know that it's not appreciated. Sometimes a voice from the other side is all that's needed to show "casual" pirates that there are two sides to the story. For example, already several people in this thread have mentioned that they might have considered pirating Al Emmo prior to reading the discussions here. And it seems the talk that's taking place here has made them reconsider doing something that they may not have given a second thought to before.

Half the battle is in educating people about how piracy really affects people both financially and mentally. Instead of thinking it as copying a meaningless bunch of 1's and 0's next time you download something; try thinking about exactly what you're stealing, who you're stealing it from, and what kind of effect it might have on the company as a whole if everyone did what you're doing.
I have to agree entirely.

People who think that piracy is somehow a minor problem don't really understand the catastrophic effect it has on game designers. Small publishing houses, routinely, are forced out of business because their game sales are severely eroded by piracy. Take the example of IronLore, the designers of Titan Quest (a really good, high quality hack-and-slash game). They basically were shut down and put out of business because their game sales weren't as high as their publisher, THQ, wanted them to be. So they lost their contracts, and over 30 people were put out of a job. It was disasterous -- and I, personally, knew many of the figures affected by this catastrophe.

Michael Fitch, an exec at THQ, made it very clear on a vent/rant that Piracy was entirely to blame.. Saying that around 75-80% of all potential sales were, in fact, pirated distributions, Fitch brings up a good point: even if a small number of those pirates had bought the game, he has no doubt that they wouldn't have had to fire IronLore, and could have kept them in business and given them shots at making more great games. But, in turn, what happened was that these game developers went out of business -- and in the future, small game developers aren't going to find large publishers, like THQ, willing to take a chance on their products. Why should they? All any publisher wants is to sell a successful product, and that means catering to the largest possible audience. Let's hear Michael in his own words:
Michael Fitch wrote:Two, the numbers on piracy are really astonishing. The research I've seen pegs the piracy rate at between 70-85% on PC in the US, 90%+ in Europe, off the charts in Asia. I didn't believe it at first. It seemed way too high. Then I saw that Bioshock was selling 5 to 1 on console vs. PC. And Call of Duty 4 was selling 10 to 1. These are hardcore games, shooters, classic PC audience stuff. Given the difference in install base, I can't believe that there's that big of a difference in who played these games, but I guess there can be in who actually payed for them.

Let's dig a little deeper there. So, if 90% of your audience is stealing your game, even if you got a little bit more, say 10% of that audience to change their ways and pony up, what's the difference in income? Just about double. That's right, double. That's easily the difference between commercial failure and success. That's definitely the difference between doing okay and founding a lasting franchise. Even if you cut that down to 1% - 1 out of every hundred people who are pirating the game - who would actually buy the game, that's still a 10% increase in revenue. Again, that's big enough to make the difference between breaking even and making a profit.

Titan Quest did okay. We didn't lose money on it. But if even a tiny fraction of the people who pirated the game had actually spent some god-damn money for their 40+ hours of entertainment, things could have been very different today. You can bitch all you want about how piracy is your god-given right, and none of it matters anyway because you can't change how people behave... whatever. Some really good people made a seriously good game, and they might still be in business if piracy weren't so rampant on the PC. That's a fact.
Piracy kills niches, because it never lets them thrive. Is it any surprise that people don't make Adventure Games anymore? Not at all. Piracy is probably largely to blame for the decline of the adventure game PC market, and the prominence of hack-and-slash-ish console-based "adventure-action" games, like Final Fantasy. The next time you wonder why more developers aren't making massively multiplayer online games, and why everyone is churning out mediocre "World of Warcraft clones" to try and capitalize on profit, just think back to this single, cold, hard, fact:

Pirates gave them no choice.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#103 Post by techie775 » Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:37 pm

I was like 6 years old when I first played Hero's Quest (which I later found out was QFG) I managed to get a few out adventure games from Babbage's and Electronic Boutique. But this was before the internet and I only knew about a few games. By 1998 I found out there were all these classic adventure games like Laura Bow and Conquest of the Longbow. Were they in my local computer stores? Nope they were already gone for Doom 2 and other shoot em up games. I didn't have obsence amounts of money to buy a rare copy of it of the internet and I never saw them in Sierra's Interaction catalog. So who's fault is it if you want to buy a game and it's not available in stores? It felt like a where's waldo hunt sometimes. Yes Piracy might have been part of the problem but you can't help the adventure game genre if you can't get them from companies. It seemed like they quit making them cause action games were easier to make. Cause I doubt adventure games were just the only thing people pirated on their computer. That doesn't make piracy right but it makes it understandable sometimes if the game is unavailable.

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Re:

#104 Post by njspannaus » Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:33 am

techie775 wrote:Ads in games always pissed me off. It makes the the software companies seem like they'll do what ever they can for more money.
well, i guess that's when you have to decide whether to approach video games as ART or as PRODUCT.. i'm pretty sure 99% of video games fit more appropriately into the latter category.. with that in mind, the consumer needs to expect some kind of price tag..

if we (the consumer base) refuse to stop stealing the product, i think in-game advertising might be the only solution.. the only other alternative i can think of is the entire video game industry shifting to console-based gaming (where it is currently much much more difficult for the average consumer to pirate new software)

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#105 Post by techie775 » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:08 am

I just don't like paying money for games with commercials in them. It's sorta insulting to me. It's bad enough they seem to be doing that more on dvd movies too.If I'm paying good money for a product, I don't want it riddled with ads that waste my time like commercials on a tv. I understand they want to make a profit, but that's a good way to lose some computer gamers.I can understand it if they give you a free or discounted game but paying 50 bucks for a game that keeps telling me to buy Coca-Cola doesn't sound interesting or worth my money.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#106 Post by njspannaus » Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:17 am

techie775 wrote:I can understand it if they give you a free or discounted game but paying 50 bucks for a game that keeps telling me to buy Coca-Cola doesn't sound interesting or worth my money.
agreed

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#107 Post by gamecreator » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:22 pm

Now here's the fun part: once ads in games become popular enough, the crackers will step up to patch them out of games. Ever hear of Adblock for Firefox? There's a reason it's around.

And the circle of life continues.

As for pirating: it's not going away. Companies know this. That's why they have meetings about it and cost/benefit analysis of what is and isn't worth combating and what method(s) to use. Interestingly, it's been incorporated into the business model of every good company.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#108 Post by njspannaus » Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:50 pm

gamecreator wrote:Now here's the fun part: once ads in games become popular enough, the crackers will step up to patch them out of games. Ever hear of Adblock for Firefox? There's a reason it's around
most people use adblock just to disable spam and popups.. legit ads still make it through

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#109 Post by Gronagor » Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:19 pm

gamecreator wrote:Interestingly, it's been incorporated into the business model of every good company.
Every BIG company. No small company can include piracy in their 'business model' as you said, and expect to make money... unless they go with the ads.

That brings us to the next point: Piracy does support big companies. This way big companies are sure no company can get off the ground anymore. Only the big names/brands will be there for a very long time. In other words, 'Pirates' are screwing themselves... now they have to be happy with the big brands bringing out 100s of clones instead of quality new games from new people.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#110 Post by DrJones » Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:45 pm

njspannaus wrote:
gamecreator wrote:Now here's the fun part: once ads in games become popular enough, the crackers will step up to patch them out of games. Ever hear of Adblock for Firefox? There's a reason it's around
most people use adblock just to disable spam and popups.. legit ads still make it through
Not only that, but you can get some nasty malware just by the browser trying to render a fake ad, or ads exploiting vulnerabilities on browsers. Thanks to NoScript and Adblock, my computer is now a whole lot easier to maintain.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#111 Post by gamecreator » Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:47 pm

njspannaus wrote:
gamecreator wrote:Now here's the fun part: once ads in games become popular enough, the crackers will step up to patch them out of games. Ever hear of Adblock for Firefox? There's a reason it's around
most people use adblock just to disable spam and popups.. legit ads still make it through
Nope. Adblock blocks whatever you want it to; it's customizable. And by default, it has a list of sites it blocks ads from that most people would consider "legit."

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#112 Post by njspannaus » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:06 pm

gamecreator wrote:
njspannaus wrote:
gamecreator wrote:Now here's the fun part: once ads in games become popular enough, the crackers will step up to patch them out of games. Ever hear of Adblock for Firefox? There's a reason it's around
most people use adblock just to disable spam and popups.. legit ads still make it through
Nope. Adblock blocks whatever you want it to; it's customizable. And by default, it has a list of sites it blocks ads from that most people would consider "legit."
I'm running AdBlock right now, with default settings. It's great for eliminating pop-ups and the spammier ads--but unobtrusive in-site ads still make it through. And that's the extent of how far the average person goes to counteract internet ads. Hell, MOST people don't even go that far.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#113 Post by gamecreator » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:03 pm

njspannaus wrote:I'm running AdBlock right now, with default settings. It's great for eliminating pop-ups and the spammier ads--but unobtrusive in-site ads still make it through. And that's the extent of how far the average person goes to counteract internet ads. Hell, MOST people don't even go that far.
Just so you know, it's Firefox that blocks pop-ups, not Adblock. And maybe you have your Adblock disabled... ? I'd offer tips but I think we've derailed this thread... PM me if you want to chat about this more.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#114 Post by njspannaus » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:25 pm

i'm still waitin for someone to make a truly great adventure game for the Wii.. Zack and Wiki was really good--but it was more in the puzzle genre

and, yes, i'd be happy to pay full price for it

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#115 Post by MusicallyInspired » Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:28 pm

Well, there's always SBCG4AP for Wii-Ware.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#116 Post by R.A.B.I.D. » Sun Jul 13, 2008 12:06 am

The question of why people steal games instead of buying them, even from genres they're fans of and from developers who genuinely need all the support they can get, is a very difficult one to answer.

Two reasons spring immediately to mind: File sharing is an incredibly easy and readily available way to steal, there's very little risk of being caught (exponentially less than all other known forms of theft), and generally speaking, it's totally anonymous. A pirate's family and friends will probably never find out what he's doing unless he tells them.

In my personal opinion, there's another possible reason; this one stems from my observations as a citizen of the United States. Prices for everything here are on the rise, but minimum wage (or any wage, for that matter) isn't being increased to match it. Statistics say unskilled workers haven't been this bad off since the 1950s as far as wages go. Our bottom line in the lower class and even the middle class is getting tighter. Need a tree trimmed off your power line? $1,000. Need to visit the optometrist and don't have insurance coverage (as many people don't)? $200, then $300-400 for glasses and contacts. Gas is also going up, so are heating bills, and the price of vehicles and rent is also pretty ridiculous.

Most gamers, even intelligent and talented ones, are lower- to solidly middle-class. So people shuck their morals. They might like to pay to support a game, but they have to pinch pennies everywhere. And nowhere is it easier to pinch pennies illegally than through file sharing... motivation, opportunity and temptation, in other words.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#117 Post by xKiv » Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:00 am

Also, tradition.
Old habits die hard. If a person is [1] used to getting games off the net, from friends, etc ... and never bought any game properly, then that person (and other people introduced to games by people like this) will not be very likely to stop pirating.

[1] for whatever reason, be it shortage of money, shortage of legal sources of costly games (as it used to be the case ~20 years ago here), abundance of freely distributed games (made by fans), ...

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#118 Post by The Infamous Mecha Sonic » Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:46 am

All pirates and freeloaders, regardless of their motivation, are the very types of people who collectively sap away at motivation until there's none left.
I've pirated extensively from a certain monopolistic game publisher, and I don't think many people would consider me a freeloader for doing so. I have no qualms about buying from a company I respect; I've happily paid the likes of Valve and Blizzard for their products. But why should I give my money to a company that practices evil corporate policy? So they can become even more bloated on the success of their subsidiaries and continue buying out every small developer that shows an ounce of imagination? I won't defend the pirate who steals without scruple, but neither will I stand up for the industry giant who's out to squash the little guy. Furthermore, I'm not willing to lay the blame for PC gaming's miserable state entirely on pirates—not when I've watched so many promising new ideas be acquired (read: shut down) by one company's avarice.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#119 Post by Blackthorne519 » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:58 am

I love how moral the gaming community is. Bunch of puritans around here.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#120 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:57 am

Or you could think of it this way: Small, independent developer is struggling financially due to piracy. Big company comes along and offers them money with some strings attached. Small company agrees to be bought out because at least that way they'll still be able to continue doing what they enjoy (creating games) and their financial future becomes more stable. These independent companies don't have to agree to sell out; iD Software didn't when Ken Williams offered to buy them for $2 Million in the 90's. But the difference is that iD knew they were sitting on a gold mine. Many independent developers don't have the same luxury and people have to eat and pay the bills. If someone offered you a bunch of money which you knew would provide you with better job security than you've been getting, while simultaneously allowing you to continue what you're doing... are you seriously not going to consider taking up that offer (if the alternative means continuing to put up with average sales, average publicity, and high piracy rates)? I think not.

I don't think everything these big companies do is noble, but there are still everyday people working as employees for those companies who deserve to be paid for their work and to have their job security. The above post by Michael Fitch at THQ illustrates that point very clearly. It's all well and good to take the Robin Hood approach, but if you stole a murderer's Ferrari and took it for a joyride in real life, you'd still get charged with grand theft auto, because there's no direct correlation of 'justice' between your actions and the murderer's. Only vigilante justice, which I'm sure would not be looked upon favorably. The same is true for your logic behind stealing from an 'evil' corporation.

But in the end, I'll wager that your piracy of such a corporations' products is probably not going to affect the CEOs and company directors anyway. After all, they can simply go into damage control mode and shut down those development teams that are a 'liability' to their company (e.g. low sales due to piracy) and carry on as usual without them. At the end of the day, any company will always go forward while its subsidiaries get shut down first if financial problems arise - even if that's an action the CEO's genuinely do feel bad about and wish to avoid at all costs. That's just business. I really think it would only be the artists, programmers, musicians, and all the members of the smaller development team who would feel the pinch of your piracy. And those actions still tend to end up screwing over the people who were directly responsible for putting talent and time into making the game that you got to play for free.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#121 Post by Gronagor » Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:04 pm

Hey AGD2. Been thinking. They're right. A 'good' company would take action... I'd say go ahead and DON'T RELEASE QfG2! You are under no obligation to do so. They can wait for VU to release it on a compilation and then pirate it.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#122 Post by njspannaus » Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:35 pm

The Infamous Mecha Sonic wrote:
All pirates and freeloaders, regardless of their motivation, are the very types of people who collectively sap away at motivation until there's none left.
I've pirated extensively from a certain monopolistic game publisher, and I don't think many people would consider me a freeloader for doing so. I have no qualms about buying from a company I respect; I've happily paid the likes of Valve and Blizzard for their products. But why should I give my money to a company that practices evil corporate policy? So they can become even more bloated on the success of their subsidiaries and continue buying out every small developer that shows an ounce of imagination? I won't defend the pirate who steals without scruple, but neither will I stand up for the industry giant who's out to squash the little guy. Furthermore, I'm not willing to lay the blame for PC gaming's miserable state entirely on pirates—not when I've watched so many promising new ideas be acquired (read: shut down) by one company's avarice.

do you also approve of people stealing from McDonalds and Walmart?

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#123 Post by malekdarshin » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:03 am

Actually I could care less about people stealing from McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

One markets dried up dairy cow meat laced with beef fat (for flavor :x ) and the other sells cheap crap from countries with low wages and little to no product safety regulations. Both drive people into a low pay service job with a revolving door policy that allows both companies to undervalue their employees to save a buck.

While I wouldn't hold the door open for someone stealing a Big Mac or an RCA T.V. I certainly wouldn't sound the alarm either.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#124 Post by Sandsai » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:11 pm

The Infamous Mecha Sonic wrote:
All pirates and freeloaders, regardless of their motivation, are the very types of people who collectively sap away at motivation until there's none left.
I've pirated extensively from a certain monopolistic game publisher, and I don't think many people would consider me a freeloader for doing so. I have no qualms about buying from a company I respect; I've happily paid the likes of Valve and Blizzard for their products. But why should I give my money to a company that practices evil corporate policy? So they can become even more bloated on the success of their subsidiaries and continue buying out every small developer that shows an ounce of imagination? I won't defend the pirate who steals without scruple, but neither will I stand up for the industry giant who's out to squash the little guy. Furthermore, I'm not willing to lay the blame for PC gaming's miserable state entirely on pirates—not when I've watched so many promising new ideas be acquired (read: shut down) by one company's avarice.
A lot of folks have misconceptions about corporations, shunning them is akin to shooting your own foot, at least from a US citizen perspective. Most US workers have some sort of retirement plans that either supplement or entirely replace relying on Social Security. These plans are nothing more than investments in these 'evil corporations'. Let's also not forget that these 'evil corporations' also employ a healthy chuck of our population. Let us also not forget that these corporations constantly compete with one another and this results in a better and more cost-effective consumer product. Thus in the end, it is not that corporation that becomes bloated but the shareholders, the large majority of them are ultimately your average Americans. Therefore you really only hurt people like yourself in the end and not some 'evil corporation.'

Moreover, much of your statement regarding the 'evil corporations' buying everyone out is just false, they do not have that kind of capital. Besides if the little Mr. Imagination is doing so well he can start off another company with the proceeds of the 'evil' buyout, and so on. We do not see this a lot not because of 'evil' buyouts but because it is NOT profitable to go into this kind of area due to piracy. Why develop new things for absolutely no profit? Sure AGD is doing it, but look at how slow the project is moving along, and those are remakes and not original products. What is the point of developing an adventure game, like say a new SQ game, when the figures show absolutely no active sales? But wait there is a community.... Ya, the type of community that will buy one copy and 'share'. Companies must be given incentive to develop new products and that incentive, whether you like or not, is money. And this is why software piracy has such a large impact of certain types of games today.

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Re: How much would you pay for a Sierra Adventure Game Nowadays?

#125 Post by Klytos » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:34 am

Stealing from the big boys affects the bottom line in the same way as stealing from the indie companies. The cost of a product to the consumer = base cost + retail markup + expenses (staff costs, utilities etc) + theft. The more people steal from a place like Walmart the more that product costs because Walmart aren't going to absorb the cost of theft, they're going to make the same amount of money by passing on the stolen item's cost to the consumer in other products.

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