Dragona Akehi said:
I'm not saying that piracy is inevitable with homebrew and hacking, but if there's a pirate will there will always be a pirate way.
It would be more beneficial for companies to encourage casual pirates to purchase games rather than attempt to treat every other legitimate paying customer as a criminal. I wish I could find my post where I talk about the three types of pirates and how to best to combat them. Bahhhh. Google failed me but I won out in the end:
@yourbigassquote: i can't like this enough. this is the way i've kind of seen things, and i even noticed it in action when i noticed which times i actually bought PC games, which specific cases i bought special/limited/ultimate versions of PS3 games, and when i decided to either wait for price drops, or in case of PC games- just find some links and get a cracked copy.
it all came down to convenience overcoming the attractiveness of the offer. if the edge goes to the retail product i almost always buy it. if it's just not worth the price, i usually download or wait for a price drop. and if it's HEAVILY in favor of the retail product (ie: ultimate edition of GOW3 i just got) then im even willing to dish out upwards of $100 for A FUCKING VIDEOGAME. (i'd also like to note that steam games that i can download as many times as i want, and are usually cheaper than retail, are about 95% of PC games i purchase for those very reasons)
so with this linux thing, we have hackers/pirates that are trying to do the leg work and get the PS3 to where it's more "convenient" for "casual pirates" to obtain a PS3 game illegally than for them to buy it retail or off PSN. what is sony to do about this? strip features and "punish" all users? lower prices? (i don't think that's the ultimate answer) or as you said, make it more attractive to the consumer to BUY the game than the "convenient" option.
although i do think prices need to lower
on PSN specifically, i don't think that will ever be the ultimate answer because if they just keep lowering prices each time piracy surges then pirates will figure out that they control prices. you can't pirate a figurine, you can't download a (official) strategy guide, you can't rip/upload sticker booklets and other goodies. with the cuts that devs/publishers/etc. make off each game sold, i don't see how it would be so hard to throw in tiny extras like that with a $60 game. (HD tax my ass- PC games have been made with huge resolutions for years and years and didn't charge us extra)
/oopsrant