Re: [RJ139133] Virgin protection magic (clothdmg, arousal dmg)
That's exactly the kind of attitude that annoys me, personally. "Other people will buy this game, so it's OK that people - probably including me - pirate it" - It's just not how things work in real life. Supposing that Searothonc sells 1k copies. That makes $13000 net, or about $6500 after DLSite take their cut. Given that the development time for Searothonc appears to be more than 1 year (given current rate of progress, when the game was announced etc), that would give Searothonc $6500 from Game dev per year, minus the costs he's incurred (e.g. about $500 from CGs - based on the advertisement that Searothonc put up for them - around $300 taxes, probably other things as well).
So, simply put: suppose you wanted to make a living out of doing this kind of stuff. Could you live on under $6000 a year? Especially in Japan, a fairly expensive place to live? What level of sales do you need to make a living out of this? What gives anyone the right to decide that someone has enough money and steal their work? If that sounds harsh, unfortunately it's the kind of thing that anyone pirating a game is deciding, and for small devs, the realities of not getting paid are harsh.
And this is why we can't have nice things. Honestly, I've got more sympathy for people who pirate games because they have actual difficulties in making the purchase (due to not having a credit card or difficulties in making a purchase from DLSite - although I still think that those people should try harder...) than people who put forward a "dev gets enough money anyway".
Sorry if I'm ranting a little here, but any argument or statement that is even close to "piracy is acceptable because devs get enough money anyway" really irritates me, especially when people are talking about small indie devs - which, let's not forget, is the majority of content that's discussed on this forum.
Well, there's already 2.2k+ copies sold. My take on the whole piracy thing is a bit different from yours, primarily due to the fact that I used to think similarly to that, then got burned supporting dropped projects and trash too many times. Personally, I'm sick of gambling. I try out a wide variety of games, and support the ones that I feel deserve support. The alternative would be me only supporting large projects from developers I trust, so frankly the indie community benefits from my method. Does everyone do this? Hell no, there's a lot of leeches out there, but denying them access won't make them actually buy it. They'll just look for a different source, or a different game.
Do dev's get enough money? Depends on the game. For anything good, I'd say no, but for the majority of the stuff out there isn't good. If you're an indie developer and spend a year making a pile of cr... trash, you don't deserve much for it. For me, quality is what matters, plain and simple.
As for this game, I don't know the developer, and dl site has no preview art or anything. To me, that means he's trying to hide the fact that it's junk. Based on what I've read here, that may be misleading, but there's no way in hell I'd risk buying it without checking it out first. Been burned too many times.
As for me, I won't be a bloody pirate this time, the demo was more than enough testing for me to know this deserves the money.
Demo's often aren't an accurate reflection of the full game. Could be here, but plenty of games where they aren't.
Claiming this is good and everyone should support him is nice, but get off your high horses and consider the real world for a second. Yes there are plenty of people with no intention of buying, who use various excuses to justify themselves, but they're not going to buy it even if you say it's good and deny them a link. On the other hand, I'm not the only person who trys then buys for h-games, so you may want to consider if this will ultimately boost or hurt his sales more, especially given his dl site listing. Do whatever you believe is the correct choice, but consider my point.
Note: Do NOT pm me with a link, reading this stuff has soured me to the game, and I probably wouldn't support it out of spite (not particularly mature I know, but at least I'm being realistic about it). Maybe I'll give it a shot in 6 mo to a year if it doesn't get lost. Kinda of a pity, since the extracted artwork in the demo seems solid, if a bit repetitive (dl'd the demo while writing this to try to be a bit more objective, but honestly the community has turned me off this one).
EDIT: Due to flaming I've received from people who pretty clearly didn't actually read what I posted, I'll go back to lurking. PM'ing people links and occasionally posting isn't worth dealing with certain members of the community (referring mainly to pm's, not habisain).
), but I'm definitely supporting this guy. From the little we've played it's a step above almost all RPGmaker games I've seen, to the point I'd support his patreon for a long time... although his dev time appears to be on akibur & Kyrieru's level.
