Jump to content
JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

Recommended Posts

Pretty much in agreement with lot of what syntheticgerbil is saying, but just wanted to comment on that bit about 'piracy to demo' bit.

 

Yes some people do contend that and I despise that argument cause I think it's total horseshit.  When legit demos have contribution ratio to roughly 3 ~ 5% of total sales (basically, demo don't really affect our purchases) and pirated copies can make up to 96% of total played copies for smaller games with no DRM, it kills the whole "we pirate cause we want a demo" for me as having a notable aspect when dealing with having any noticeable impact.  So yeah people will sometimes contend that but why do we even want to set that as any sort of a baseline for what things ought to be on a market scale?  People contend nonsense all the time, doesn't mean we should follow them to setup a new middle line.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Another big complaint I have about copyright laws is that the original intent behind them was to prevent selling copies of a whole work: This whole idea of using it to keep you from using components of a work in yours is a result of massive century-long scope creep on the part of copyright laws, first to account for slightly changed knockoffs (e.g. no Barry Porter and the Chamber of Secrets) but expanded to include the use of any character, and often thematic elements and incidental art, largely in the interests of corporate entities like Disney. These changes are not in the interests of the broader creative or economic landscape, just in the interests of the biggest corporations that hold the most IP. Most arguments about how this approach is justified fail to describe any level of harm caused by this 'thieving' use, falling back on ownership culture rhetoric and the word of the law as self-justifying rather than questioning why we accept this as status quo.

 

In other words, I think that the bar for 'transformative' work has been set way too high, notched up progressively over time mostly by, well, probably Disney.

 

Also, may I just say, it's pretty gross to me that you didn't take my claim to have issues with copyright that I didn't want to get into because we've been dragging this thread off-topic for like 5 pages at face value, and interpreted that as me having nothing of substance to say. If we're talking about disrespect...

 

pirated copies can make up to 96% of total played copies for smaller games with no DRM, it kills the whole "we pirate cause we want a demo" for me as having a notable aspect when dealing with having any noticeable impact.

Is there a source for those numbers?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is there a source for those numbers?

 

That one number was pulled out of Volgarr The Viking and Dev Tycoon.

 

http://www.destructoid.com/only-4-of-volgarr-the-viking-players-bought-the-game-264070.phtml

 

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

 

Topic of piracy always tik me off cause while I don't have the delusion to claim that all pirated copies are lost copies, the opposite view seems rampant (that piracy has no effect) and having witness one gaming market (Korean one) fundamentally change from rampant piracy, it's like aagggggggg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The missing number there is what percentage of that 4% who purchased the game pirated it first (not to mention how many purchased due to word of mouth from pirates).

 

I think it's so unlikely to amount to anything.  No I don't have numbers to back that up, but it would take one to convince me otherwise because the other explanation (people play pirate games just to play them) makes so much more sense to me.

 

Like you have official demos not mounting to more than 3 ~ 5% on average (read it from two sources I think... one was article by dev on Droid Assaault and another from Assault Android Cactus dev? think both were bit taken back but then their peers kinda gave back same numbers).  So at BEST, I'm willing to entertain 5% and even that is pretty freaking generous.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hm. I'd be curious to see a regional breakdown. One of those articles presumes that $8 wouldn't be a hardship to most of the people pirating, which is a viewpoint hugely centered on a few wealthy western countries where that's not a not of money -- tbh, it's a not insignificant amount of money to myself at the moment.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also, may I just say, it's pretty gross to me that you didn't take my claim to have issues with copyright that I didn't want to get into because we've been dragging this thread off-topic for like 5 pages at face value, and interpreted that as me having nothing of substance to say. If we're talking about disrespect...

No disrespect intended, it's just saving you time if your purpose is to convince me personally of something rather than just talking out loud as a whole. I do not and will not agree with you that transformative work is strict enough and you presented it as a "the fact that every human work ever is built to some degree on the work of others" debate. There's nothing you can say or do to concerning the semantics of an originality debate that will change my mind at this point, I've thought long about it even though you wanted to construe I'm so willfilly naive because I'm an artist.

 

I'm personally not worried about derailing one of the forums vague catch all threads though I just want to type less because this takes a lot of time to respond over and over. If it's important to say, talk away I think.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

No disrespect intended, it's just saving you time if your purpose is to convince me personally of something rather than just talking out loud as a whole. I do not and will not agree with you that transformative work is strict enough and you presented it as a "the fact that every human work ever is built to some degree on the work of others" debate. There's nothing you can say or do to concerning the semantics of an originality debate that will change my mind at this point, I've thought long about it even though you wanted to construe I'm so willfilly naive because I'm an artist.

 

I'm personally not worried about derailing one of the forums vague catch all threads though I just want to type less because this takes a lot of time to respond over and over. If it's important to say, talk away I think.

 

I kind of stopped paying attention, but I'll chime in a minor contribution here: there are plenty of interesting arguments over what is sufficiently transformative, but there is no good argument completely against a transformative standard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can't parse this post at all. What?

He said "I didn't mean to imply you have nothing of substance to say, I was simply warning you not to start a new thread with the expectation of changing my mind on the matter; I have already heard and considered all the arguments against my position, and not changed my position. Also I don't think going a little off-topic is a problem in such a broad thread as the Feminism one."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay I think there was some other stuff in there but that makes sense. I kind of disagree with a couple of those points but can't imagine anything good coming of trying to argue against a third-party translation of someone's position...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

When legit demos have contribution ratio to roughly 3 ~ 5% of total sales (basically, demo don't really affect our purchases) and pirated copies can make up to 96% of total played copies for smaller games with no DRM, it kills the whole "we pirate cause we want a demo" for me

 

But the argument isn't that demos and therefore also pirated copies are effective at convincing people to buy something for real, it's that they're convenient for people who want to check out a game even though they have no legit interest in it (although a lot of people are going to deny that kind of interest even if they have it, that's how you get those Steam reviews from people with 100+ hours in something saying it's boring).

 

Not to be a stickler about this, but the article you quote also doesn't give an actual source for the numbers beyond "the developers said so". Like, is that based on the total number of downloads from file sharing platforms or something like that (apparently it is, but no word on how they estimated based on that. Also, interesting context)? Cause I am unconvinced that every single person who gets the game is then also going to even install it (something a lot of people don't even do with games they own legally because of sales and bundles), or that there aren't people who download it multiple times for whatever reason, or who can't get things to run, or whatever else.

 

It's ultimately not terribly surprising to me that the ratio of free to not free is weighted heavily in the direction of free, and that looks bad sure, but that doesn't tell us much about the who, what, why and where, as Problem Machine brings up. Plus, the more outraged you are about this issue, the more convincing my original point should have actually been to you. Why would people be "pirating" games by watching videos of them when they can pirate them for real? The bigger an issue you think the latter is, the weirder it is to assume that the former makes any meaningful difference.

 

I figure it's a step up for honest discussion of this issue that we finally included piracy though, because a lot of the anti-Youtuber sentiment I see seems to be born from 1) people seeing developers they like not doing well financially (whether market forces, or piracy, or just capitalism being shitty is to blame for this, hard to say) 2) people seeing Youtubers doing well financially (even though this is based mostly on being disproportionately more likely to notice the big successful Youtubers than the thousands of little guys that are as much in dire straits as the devs), so they create arguments for what they feel is right in this situation: Youtubers giving money over to devs. But just because one group is in trouble doesn't necessarily mean the other group has to make up for that.

 

 

Also I think some sort of slant is being taken that I'm somehow pro big business in all of this and nothing could be further from the truth

 

I think Google is doing a good job even if some stuff falls through the cracks.

 

I mean, aren't they kind of a big company though? Either way, their copyright claim system is something that affects both big and little players, but in the current environment (to say nothing of the "all power to devs" thing you suggested) only the big players have the means and voice to effectively protest misuse of the system when it affects them (of course they complain the loudest, as you say, they got the biggest megaphones). So if you really think that networks and big companies pushing out individuals is the real issue here, I don't understand why you argue in support of policies that directly favor them. You may not be pro big business, but your argument is.

 

 

I've thought long about it even though you wanted to construe I'm so willfilly naive because I'm an artist.

 

It honestly doesn't surprise me to hear that, so much of what you write feels like it's coming from a place of feeling personally threatened by something. And that's not exactly helping you.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That part in particular confused me -- I mean, I'm also an artist? And, though I did bring up the arts thing it was in relation to how often people denigrate certain kinds of work as being worth less because they're 'easy and fun', something that's often used to screw artists over and devalue their work.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, a lot of Thumbs work in arts and media, myself included.

 

That's another point I was trying to make before, that this is a conversation I see a lot of artists going into in order to defend their right to be paid for their work, but in trying to argue that it's really their place to make this demand opposite other creators, they actually rely on arguments that devalue art as a whole. People feel comfortable throwing this one medium under the bus to try and make things better for themselves, but it relies on a lot of worrisome stuff, and I don't think it's a constructive approach.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

But the argument isn't that demos and therefore also pirated copies are effective at convincing people to buy something for real, it's that they're convenient for people who want to check out a game even though they have no legit interest in it (although a lot of people are going to deny that kind of interest even if they have it, that's how you get those Steam reviews from people with 100+ hours in something saying it's boring).

 

Not to be a stickler about this, but the article you quote also doesn't give an actual source for the numbers beyond "the developers said so". Like, is that based on the total number of downloads from file sharing platforms or something like that (apparently it is, but no word on how they estimated based on that. Also, interesting context)? Cause I am unconvinced that every single person who gets the game is then also going to even install it (something a lot of people don't even do with games they own legally because of sales and bundles), or that there aren't people who download it multiple times for whatever reason, or who can't get things to run, or whatever else.

 

It's ultimately not terribly surprising to me that the ratio of free to not free is weighted heavily in the direction of free, and that looks bad sure, but that doesn't tell us much about the who, what, why and where, as Problem Machine brings up. Plus, the more outraged you are about this issue, the more convincing my original point should have actually been to you. Why would people be "pirating" games by watching videos of them when they can pirate them for real? The bigger an issue you think the latter is, the weirder it is to assume that the former makes any meaningful difference.

 

I figure it's a step up for honest discussion of this issue that we finally included piracy though, because a lot of the anti-Youtuber sentiment I see seems to be born from 1) people seeing developers they like not doing well financially (whether market forces, or piracy, or just capitalism being shitty is to blame for this, hard to say) 2) people seeing Youtubers doing well financially (even though this is based mostly on being disproportionately more likely to notice the big successful Youtubers than the thousands of little guys that are as much in dire straits as the devs), so they create arguments for what they feel is right in this situation: Youtubers giving money over to devs. But just because one group is in trouble doesn't necessarily mean the other group has to make up for that.

 

Yeah I think I misread your original argument about piracy.  First sorry for going off there, I think I jumped the gun based on wrong reading of your post.  You are right that it 'serves' those who would have only passing interest and any bit of monetary barrier would otherwise deter them, in a way that demoes and perhaps even videos can.

 

And yes, the numbers are 'vague' and could have lot of factors swaying in, but that's why the whole 94% bit is interesting because you can take lot of very favorable interpretations but it's still a huge number to cut down from so you would have to take LOT of favorable interpretation to say "no harm done" but then again, that's not what you were saying (unless you were?) so kind of a moot point I guess?

 

As for this bit

 

Why would people be "pirating" games by watching videos of them when they can pirate them for real?

is not what I am saying.  Probably because I misread your original point that my posts could be read as such, but no I don't think people are 'pirating' games by watching videos, with again possible exception to extremely story heavy games where videos actually do serve rough equivalent.

 

About the latter, yeah I'm kind of invested in trying to figure out what's 'fair' since two works are so tied to each other and this entire conversation is well, theoretical at best because I assume none of us here have some sort of large market control.  But no it's not some sort of blind "people with more money give to people with less money" (this is quite ironic given that we had something similar going except from opposite angle when it came to government support of art).  So I would appreciate it if you would stick to the points about where it makes sense to 'draw the line' when it comes to licensing and stuff for games and LP/streaming, instead of trying to talk about me and synth's motives because this

 

It honestly doesn't surprise me to hear that, so much of what you write feels like it's coming from a place of feeling personally threatened by something. And that's not exactly helping you.

 

Is really condescending.  You are practically doing 'you mad bro?' at this point man, let's dial that back because I'm genuinely interested in discussing where the good cutoff point is.  Me and synth thinks it should trickle down to LPers and streamers.  You and others don't.  There were interesting ideas about that, so my apologies for going bit tangent on piracy bit (guess I did go off first (bit of hot button cause again, seen one market just disappear due to it)), let's stick back to that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For what it's worth I bought Ark Survival Evolved purely off the strength of Twitch streams and that game would never have raised my interested (Rust but with Dinosaurs?) or possibly been on my radar if it weren't for streamers and that platform.

 

I go on gaming sites a lot less these days (I also try and fail to spend less time just reading the internet instead of doing active things) so randomly going on twitch, seeing a new game, or a point in an old game that I typically don't sink in the time to experience is a lot more valuable to me than reading a written review or impression piece from a traditionally trained games media person.

 

In addition to that I get to see the more mundane parts of the game experience that typically isn't discussed as much as the highs and lows. As much as Sunless Sea had a lot of character to it; if I'd known that the majority of my experience would be pressing 'W' and 'S' to make sure my engine didn't blow I'd have given it a miss and played Fallen London instead (which I went on to do and was easily the most fun I had after learning that these games and this setting existed).

 

Personally when it comes to the money I think the Devs should get some but no more than half. I think that typically with streams, even in linear story driven games, the main attraction of the stream is the caster and the community that they encourage. I even enjoy seeing a stream of a linear story game I've just played so I can enjoy other people's reactions to it. Last night I watched a bit of Teens React to The Walking Dead Episode 1 which I felt was pretty nice, but what I'd really like to see is how they feel once they get to the highs and lows of either season's main beats. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ah yeah, with TWD: Season 1 I played through it, then watched my friend play through it, then we both watched NovaWar play through it on youtube. It's a surprisingly great streaming game, especially if you've already played it... though there's a kind of sadistic element to watching someone get their spirits crushed, haha.

 

It's actually kind of a natural extension of the stats screen at the end of each episode.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah like one of my favourite gaming memories is convincing my partner to play Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. He was a fan of Dark Descent and I've always been too chicken to get into those games but I managed to convince myself to play the second one while I was out of my mind late one night.

Anyway we'd both seen gameplay and were freaked out by it. But one night at his parent's house I managed to get his mum and sister to join me in peer pressuring him to play it. Then we all sat together as he played through the opening two areas and had a lot of fun. This is a pretty lame retelling but after joking with him for almost a year about getting him to play it and then finally being able to while also having a good time with his fam was really, really rewarding. 

Let's Plays obviously don't come quite as close as entertainingly scaring your loved ones but they still scratch versions of that itch.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You are practically doing 'you mad bro?' at this point man

 

Well, that's not what I intended to get across, but I was on the edge about including it for how rude it might sound. Sorry about that.

 

The thing is that a lot of comments made here about the triviality of streaming and the like, even if targetted at somebody like TB, who I loathe, are still by extension condescending towards the work that I and a lot of others do. Like, so much of this discussion is beat by beat repeating garbage "Screw those guys, they get to play video games for a living" attitudes that people have towards reviewing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well I certainly don't want to leave doubt on that so rest assured, I don't think that.  Nor do I think LPers/streamers are 'leeching' or anything of that sort.  Just that I wish public opinion wasn't so hostile about devs negotiating on potential licensing fee (which I want to emphasize, I don't think should be a lot, I'm talking about 5 ~ 15% IF any at all).  Like practically I'm actually pretty content with past few years model where devs had the 'legal' nuke option as copyright holders, but would never in right mind exercise it consciously (the whole DMCA with youtube bit, I thought, was more of automation gone awry (hence the comical Ubisoft DMCA against Ubisoft UK, etc.)).  But given the probable change in revenue landscape for LPers (I think streamers are relatively safer with subscription model of twitch), I think I'm seeing more LPers pushing in to be paid to play games.  Essentially functioning as advertising platform, which is again, legit profession and fine but along with it there seem to be some sort of push to off devs copyright (yes I agree copyrights are pretty broken but it's what we are working with)... like we already have so little real power when it comes to governing LPing market, so to lose any legal ground make me worry that it could easily spill over since copyright and laws in general tend to reference each other like that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Should devs also get money if someone writes a story about playing their game?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Should devs also get money if someone writes a story about playing their game?

 

No.  At that point medium separation is too far IMO.  Unless the book is completely filled with art asset of the game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

On the twitch side of things, for those who take the position devs should ask for a cut of the streamer's ad revenue, should they also get a cut of the streamer's tips?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Donation is so weird, I would stay out of it?  What do you think of it?

 

Maybe percentile cut is too weird cause of these issues.  Perhaps smaller flat fee (again, most likely never to be implemented due to practical reasons) is lot simpler.  I mean most games technically have broadcasting rights built into the base cost, and I'm kinda happy with that because the permission protects the right.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If anything I support the licensing fee idea, though I don't think in general going after streamers' revenue is worth the time. Aside from the legality of the matter, there isn't really a reward there and other personalities are less likely to cover your game if it means they make less on it. Yeah it probably sucks for someone who sees very few sales and tons of play throughs on YouTube, but the developer has to take responsibility for this. When you sell any kind of art the onus is on you to understand the environment you are selling into, and either find a way to make the most of that or simply make peace with that reality.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×