Piracy Destroying the PSP

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Originally Posted by Larry

...and no company is going to spend alot of money to make a better game if it's just going to get pirated.
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I agreed with everything in that mini-essay except for this part. Pretty much every system except for the PS3 is seeing it's share of piracy. Even the DS, with its titanic sales numbers, has arguably the easiest piracy method of the current consoles - it's literally drag and drop.

While I don't contest that piracy is an issue with the PSP, I don't think it's the primary issue. If companies refused to make games just because they'll be pirated (which is almost an inevitability in this day and age), then we'd be pretty much limited to MMO games (and even those have private servers).

I don't think the PSP appeals to as broad of a spectrum of people as the DS does. The variety and number of games is fewer for the PSP, and the games that target the "non-gamer" demographic is low compared to the DS.

Also, I tend to see children / young adults with a DS more often than a PSP. These are the people who will generally buy games / have games bought for them. There needs to be more games accessible to that demographic.

I dunno, im calling BS on this one at the source. The article admits that the information is very very limited and selective, hence, not a valid study. It sounds like an anti-piracy propraganda peice at best, a shock/scare tactic at worst.

I'm not buying it, I will however buy any psp game worth it's weight in plastic, regardless of the fact that my psp is homebrew enabled.

I've only got one game without a matching umd, and only because said umd isn't licensed to be sold in my country. If it where suddenly to be so, i'd go out and buy it without a second thought.

Waiting on the GPS and Camera, and from what people are saying, I shouldn't have to wait long now...

if they advertise to much to much people are going to download it

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Originally Posted by jamotto

I don't think they can track used sales. mmm, maybe it is not piracy that leads to poor sales but gamers who are too picky about their games.

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:rofl::rofl::rofl:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
so you are saying that we should buy crappy games, just so Sony can turn a profit........do you work for sony or something, because thats the backward-logic i would expect from them

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Originally Posted by stanfy86

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
so you are saying that we should buy crappy games, just so Sony can turn a profit........do you work for sony or something, because thats the backward-logic i would expect from them

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? mm no. He's saying maybe people buy many used games.

But anyway, if many people were buying used games, there would be many people who bought these games sealed.

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Originally Posted by stanfy86

so you are saying that we should buy crappy games, just so Sony can turn a profit.

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Not in the least, if you don't like a game then by all means trade the thing back in.
I, however, believe that many people out there are far too willing to jump on the "all 500+ psp games suck" bandwagon just because. From my own experience I've tried about 50 psp games so far, out of that number only two I wouldn't touch with a ten and half foot pole the rest have been pretty good.

GTA LCS (unpatched) , and Ridge Racer were the only UMD
games I bought that felt like good value.

Fact is, most new games are the same high price regardless of quality,
and a bargain price kinda says "this game aint that good."

One of the attractions of making UMD backups is that it allows
multi-player without multi-purchase.

SNES games once cost $60+ Australian and a lot of them sucked, many of them would have cost a lot less to produce than a 3D PSP game.
The companies that only produced crap games went broke while the ones that made good games prospered.
With piracy so pervasive as it is on the PSP, people just download all games. The 'good' games get downloaded more than the 'bad' ones, so who are these ppl downloading only the games not worth their retail cost?

The fact you feel a game costs to much or is not worth playing is completely irrelevant to whether you pirate it or not.
If you want to try it out you hire it or play a friends copy.
If you feel it is too expensive but a great game then you save up, wait for the price to drop or don't buy it.
If you don't think the game is really worth playing then surely you would pirate a game you do like, not that one.

You pirate it only if you feel the game is worth playing but you choose to not compensate the creators because you are cheap.



I know there are surely a few honest ppl out there, but I would suggest that saying '99.9% of people downloading ISOs never buy the game' would be a generous estimate.
The majority say things like 'backups', 'too expensive' and 'not worth playing' as poor attempts at excuses.


I think what bothers me the most is people seem to compare paying for commercial games to the fact homebrew is free, and that's insulting to both groups of software.
Insulting to homebrew coders as what they do cannot really be directly compared to commercial games because no-one is paying them (and hence putting a roof over their head and food on the table) to write it. We should appreciate a homebrew app for doing a task more than a commercial one because it was both free, and written in someone's own time. You certainly can't criticize it for not doing everything you want, just how you like it, as you may a commercial product without being a complete ass.
And also insulting to commercial games, which often have crazy development budgets with a large staff eating up a huge number of paid man hours. If you want the PSP to keep having commercial releases requiring that sort of investment then someone has to buy them.

There may (I dearly hope there is) always be a very select few amazingly generous/talented people like Zx, Exophase, StrmnNrmn, Juraj-Styk and all the other respected names in the PSP scene who are kind enough to produce such great work and give it away for others to enjoy. Businesses fold as soon as they're not profitable though(unless there are investors who see potential future earnings to prop it up).

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Originally Posted by myuusmeow

If the PSN is so secure, why do I have a download of Beats I got for free? Why am I downloading Syphon Filter: Combat Ops for free right now?

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cos you are a thief???

Bah: yes, I agree that overpricing is no excuse for theft (except
maybe for essential life supporting commodities).

But it does help explain why UMD game sales are struggling.

Actually, I feel that the quality and range of other entertainment that's
totally legal and available for a PSP owner is hurting the licensed games
producers far more than piracy.

Recently, I chose to buy a Go!Cam rather than a 2nd hand copy of
Rachet & Clank..