Comment by eviks
1 day ago
Why do you think this contradicts anything? Heavy users hit a budget limit and continue consuming more via pirating.
You really need something way better than some shoddy survey to counter the obvious fact that price matters
Yeah but if a pirate would have not paid the full price why care? It is by definition not a lost sale, the most likely outcome is just an increase by one the player count
Because the price isn't binary? Also, the total spend isn't fixed either, it depends on how easy it's to pirate. So it's by definition still lost revenue, even if later/at reduced price
Consider the two cases
A: I pirated a game 25 years ago and played it after school
B: I didn't
which cases do you think will make me more likely to buy more versions of that game later?
1 reply →
Not paying full price is not a "lost sale". People unwilling to pay full price wait for a discount or price reduction. Look at how popular the seasonal Steam sales are. Pirating the game very likely means they never purchase it at any price, which _is_ a lost sale.
It's only a lost sale if that person would otherwise have purchased it. At least in my personal experience that was _never_ the case.
There is more to this RE: perceived value of respective sides.
Edit: missed a word
It contradicts the post it was replying to, which was saying, effectively, that people don't want to spend any money on stuff.
I don't think it's required to be making some universal point when you clearly respond to the argument put forward in the post you reply to, do you?
No, you misunderstood the comment, it said that paying nothing is compelling, not that paying something was inconceivable or something; it was a response to a comment with a common misconception that pirating is only some "service problem"
I agree with your earlier comment (GGP) and feel like you're contradicting yourself here. "Too expensive" is either a service problem or at least directly adjacent to it. It's distinct from "well if I can get away with piracy then I'll do it". To say that free is a compelling price is to imply the latter as opposed to the former (at least imo).