Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing” (08 Dec 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net

The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

  • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    46·
    10 months ago

    You would be in the minority, piracy can increase sales because a lot of people see the value after the trial period and pay for it.

    Linky for source of one company.

    • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      10 months ago

      Did you even read your own article?

      "That’s really awesome for an indie dev; a few thousand bucks is nothing to shy away from and can get them going on their next project. I do believe it gave them a boost, but this is very much a PR headline rather than an exponential overnight success.”

      “While they successfully moved the needle and made a PR splash, this is not a sustainable approach,” Laborde said. “It reinforces a mentality that art ‘should be free’ and ultimately devalues their work over time. This works as a one-time attention grabber and audience-expander, but I can’t recommend it long term.”

      It did not increase sales. They couldn’t even attribute it to sales.

      Such a significant increase in sales certainly sounds impressive, but for Nicholas Laborde, founder and executive producer of Raconteur Games, the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

      • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        10 months ago

        I did

        In fact, encouraging piracy has been practiced for many years now, with a handful of devs embracing it as a valuable marketing tool. For Laborde, though, this is no longer a viable strategy.

        There’s hyperlinks in the article in that section with other sources. I can’t hold your hand here, the piece is also a little op-ed too, of course the writer is going to have a bias. Especially when they imply they’ve used it or know its benefits previously.

        The creater of Minecraft endorses piracy even, it’s in the one of the hyperlinks, only handholding I’ll give you here.

      • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
        22·
        10 months ago

        Why are you sensationalizing the quote?

        Actual text below

        “With only 10 reviews on Steam, saying a 400% sales increase is an eye-catcher for sure but not necessarily as huge a financial payoff in context as that percent shouts at us,” he explained. “Others can correct me if I’m wrong, but Steam reviews usually hover around roughly 2% to 5% of copies sold, so if we go off of 5% and it has 10 reviews, that’s around 200 copies sold. If a 400% increase occurred, then they’ve now sold close to 1,000 copies. That’s really awesome for an indie dev; a few thousand bucks is nothing to shy away from and can get them going on their next project. I do believe it gave them a boost, but this is very much a PR headline rather than an exponential overnight success.”

          • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            10 months ago

            So where did the one sale to four come from?

            Another Linky

            How many do you want that corroborate that it increases sales and not cannibalize them?

              • schmidtster@lemmy.worldEnglish
                11·
                10 months ago

                There was no need for a demonstration, the article went into detail explaining their numbers. There was no need to sensationalize the information. Thats bordering on fallacious arguments, well not bordering, it IS.

                It’s based off of somewhat available statistics, some games release sales data and you can extrapolate and get a decent sample size. So not a wild guess in the slightest. Steam also has all that information internally, you can go verify the claim yourself if you want. But there’s no need since plenty of people have done it multiple times and found the averages based off tiers of sales.

                And it’s moot, I can provide dozen more similar claims, there’s even been studies done.