EA's new motto: please pirate our games... er, storefronts | Hacker News Reader

EA's new motto: please pirate our games... er, storefronts

arstechnica.com

30 pointsvaksel21 comments

Wouldn't it be easier to give the game away for free? Lots of MMORPGs have taken that approach successfully.

Wouldn't it be easier to give the game away for free?

Charging money for the game gives you access to the United State's most efficient content delivery system: a trailer full of CDs delivered to your local Best Buy. If you give away the game for free, then Best Buy will ditch your CD in favor of one they can actually make money on, and you get to watch huge swathes of your potential market fail to download its next-generation multi-gigabyte heft.

By comparison, most of the free to play MMORPGs come out of Asia, where broadband is rather more widespread and asset production budgets can fit in X0 ~ Y00 MB. That will just about cover the mandatory intro cinema in an American AAA game these days.

"Lot's" is not the plural of "lot". The apostrophe indicates possession. The plural of "lot" would be "lots". I'm not trying to be a dick, but this is a particularly obvious mistake and one that I see here and elsewhere many times every day. I'm sure I'll get modded down because no one likes a grammar nazi and this is completely off-topic, but I'm going to justify my complaint by pointing out that elementary grammar mistakes do not look good online, in professional correspondence or in VC applications.

I think it's time to rethink "lots". If lots of people are using "lot's" as a plural of "lot", then why shouldn't that be valid? Language, after all, is not static and if enough people use a new word or a new construction, the language changes.

We're veering off topic here, but it seems like a legitimate debate. I do believe language should not remain static, but I don't believe that rules should be changed just because enough people are breaking them through ignorance. Also, in this case doing so would introduce an inconsistency that would lead to even more confusion. True, we have many of them already in the English language, but the behavior of the apostrophe is mostly consistent. It indicates possession except when it conflicts with a contraction of the same form, in which case the possessive drops the apostrophe, i.e. "it's" and "its".

You could say that the current rule is already inconsistent and confusing, but imagine for a moment that an apostrophe could be used to construct an acceptable plural form and think about this example: "The lot's dimensions are..." Now, "lot's" is both plural and possessive. Is that one lot or multiple lots with the same dimensions? The current rule may not be perfect, but it is clearly less ambiguous than the alternative.

Wow, you got downvoted hard.

I disagree with you because in this case, it's a matter of semantic structuring. The language should be free to change, but only when it doesn't conflict with how the language functions. In this case, "lot's" would kill how parts of the language is interpreted, and changing it would offer no clear structuring for the two various "lots" usages.

There are some exceptions - I, for instance, don't mind people who use abbreviations like "u" since they make sense contextually, and while something like "lol" is overused I think you could make an argument saying "lol" has become a usable verb or even a noun in the English language ("lolled" is also very fun to say out loud).

In your case, however, I've got to disagree, though I don't know why people saw fit to downvote you that hard. Perhaps it's because you opened with a definitive-sounding statement before raising arguments in support, though that seems a bit kneejerk.

I'm tempted to say that HN is ruled by grammar nazis (or prescriptive linguists, if you prefer) who don't respond particularly well to the fact that language evolves which was what I was trying to say.

About the semantic structuring: Valid point, but people (who are ultimately responsible for language change) tend to ignore such things.

I actually knew that, but that's what happens with hasty comments :-( Thanks for the clarification.

I know what you mean. I think grammar can be contagious and I increasingly find myself having to stop and think about what I'm writing.

"Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.": http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I've read the guidelines before and I just read them again. I didn't think I was baiting anyone or inviting anything. Mere mention of modding is not an invitation.

I interpret "I'm sure I'll get modded down" as baiting.

Ok, fine. Your interpretation. Do you mind explaining yourself? It's not so clear to me how it could be interpreted that way. That was by no means an invitation. It was a way of saying that I felt what I was saying was likely to be unpopular.

The juxtaposition makes it like a dare. It's a passive-aggressive way of saying "go ahead and downmod me - I dare you."

I think even mentioning your perception of the popularity of what you're going to say is bad form. Say what you want to say; your perception of its popularity is irrelevant.

EA failed. All of the updates and add-ons (Sims 3 store additional content that costs $$ to buy) were uploaded to torrents as well. They think that pirates will still have to spend money on the game. They won't.

This doesn't mean they've failed. In fact, that happening is inevitable. The key is in the quote: "I think we've out-serviced the pirates." Finally, someone pays attention to what Steve Jobs has been saying for years.

It's all in your ways of thinking: The reality of the situation is that someone will aways be able to pirate what you're selling. Okay. Once we get over that hurdle, we can start thinking about how to move forward: you have to compete with free. See, If Company A sells something for $50, and Comapny B sells it for $5, it's pretty common wisdom that A had better have one hell of a good value proposition, as they're charging 10x the price. And if they do, they'll still have customers. Now, let's take those prices and chop off $5 on both sides: Comapny A sells for $45, and Company B sells for free. The same wisdom applies: Company A had better be adding lots of value, because they're charging infinitely more.

Even though EA's stuff _can_ be pirated, it doesn't mean that it will be. If it's easier and simpler to pull out my wallet than pull up the Pirate Bay, the company will get my business. iTMS is a great example of this. High quality audio, reasonable price, no fear of viruses, you can always find what you want without waiting for more seeders, etc. And that's the key. Yeah, it's not that hard to torrent things for us, but what about my grandparents? My parents? My non-technically minded siblings? At some point, your time is worth more than the cost of the product, and that's when you end up paying for things.

Totally agree... I know many people who pay for music but not movies.

Piracy + microtransactions could be a win for both game publishers and game players. That industry is wrestling with finding new revenue models because retail box sales become less viable by the day.

A service offering microtransaction billing and payment services which can be easily integrated as middleware into new games could make a killing.

I agree, in the end, I wish more games were offered free with extensions to it available for a fee. In the end those that really like it will more then outweigh the casual gamers who would pirate the game anyway. Similar to how the majority of Americans read less than a book a year while avid readers will read more than 5.

I think most avid readers read well over 5 books in a year. When I've been to the library, I sometimes read two books in one day.

cough DOOM cough shareware cough

Funny how we're coming back around to a pretty old model, only this time playing both fields between retail & piracy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com