Why is there no discount?

[Cola500]

The game was hacked 7 days ago, why is there still no 50% discount?

What is the point of losing sales if the game has already been downloaded a thousand times from torrents?

Kojima Productions Sales, are you here? Wake up, your annual bonus is about to flush down the toilet.

[Don Lobo]

Discounting the game because it's been cracked is nonsensical. Most of those people pirating the game will simply never buy it, almost regardless of any potential discount. Most of them never had any intention to buy the game and money limitations were never the reason they decided not to buy it and wait for a cracked copy to begin with.

[Blank]

Imagine devs celebrating with discounts that the game got cracked.

[SimpleMinded]

Death Stranding 50% off on a well known gaming site, steam is not the only site that sells games

[Flybye]

I don’t remember Microsoft ever dropping prices.

[ImHelping]

I got this during a sale, so they DO happen.

But "LOL someone hacked it so make it half off!" is.. uh... wow. Even for games I hate that is just, why?

[St_Minorto]

"Most of those people pirating the game will simply never buy it"
Yeah. pirated it. like it. found discount on internet bought.

[Don Lobo]

Originally posted by St_Minorto:

"Most of those people pirating the game will simply never buy it"
Yeah. pirated it. like it. found discount on internet bought.

What part of "most" do you not understand? Are you a hive-mind creature made out of the majority of people in the world?

[Cola500]

Originally posted by Don Lobo:

Discounting the game because it's been cracked is nonsensical. Most of those people pirating the game will simply never buy it, almost regardless of any potential discount. Most of them never had any intention to buy the game and money limitations were never the reason they decided not to buy it and wait for a cracked copy to begin with.

These are just your speculations, they have nothing to do with the real state of affairs :)
The Witcher 3 was released immediately without DRM protection.

Torrents are inundated with this game. They have always been and will be, but this does not prevent it from being successfully sold for five years already.

Piracy allows you to get to know the controversial projects better and understand how it suits you.


A friend of my brother downloaded the game right after it was hacked and now it can't be torn off and he constantly teases me :)

In my region, the game is very expensive, I'm not ready to pay 60 bucks for a single-player game :(

Originally posted by Blank:

Imagine devs celebrating with discounts that the game got cracked.

I don't understand your logic. The game is great, but it was hacked, which means that the publisher literally loses the lost profit.

Make a discount on the game and thereby entice those who doubted or waited for the game to be hacked.

[Son_of_Dawn]

Originally posted by Cola500:

The game was hacked 7 days ago, why is there still no 50% discount?

I'm also having trouble understanding your logic. If someone develops a game which was subsequently hacked, how does it then make sense for them to slash all of their future revenues in half? As Flybye suggested, if Microsoft was to be hacked again, could you ever imagine them slashing their revenues by 50% in response? Of course not, because successful software companies aren't in the habit of making foolish business decisions. That's why they're successful.

Originally posted by Cola500:

The game is great, but it was hacked, which means that the publisher literally loses the lost profit.

It doesn't mean that at all. In fact, Hideo Kojima announced 5 months ago that the game had already earned enough profit to allow them to begin working on their next game.

Originally posted by Cola500:

In my region, the game is very expensive, I'm not ready to pay 60 bucks for a single-player game :(

Then don't pay it. I'm not trying to be snide but when I can't afford something, I just won't buy it. I don't decide that I somehow deserve a discount and then expect the executives at Kojima Productions to agree with me.

Note - If you seriously think you deserve a 50% discount, have you considered writing the development studio directly and expressing your concerns? If you make an intelligent and well-considered argument (and let them know you have a 13 year relationship with Steam), they might just give you a $30 rebate or something. I've done that with other products and it has occasionally worked.

[Don Lobo]

Originally posted by Cola500:

Historically speaking, DRM's only ever prevent sales lost through piracy significantly during the first few weeks after the game's launch. Very few games have had their sales significantly affected by piracy and very few people who have pirated games have ever express any intent in acquiring those games. A good majority of people who wait for cracked copies of games do so to remove DRM's or ensure the game works even if the DRM disappears and most of these buy the games before they are cracked anyways. Very few people (like I have) pirate games to test their hardware or because they’re unsure the game’s worth the price. The largest majority of people who pirate a game never had the intention of buying it to begin with and will at most, develop the interest after playing enough to want to support it or for the sake of convenience as some features are completely unavailable on pirated copies.

All in all, the overall point is that there's no reason for the publishers to assume that the game being pirated will take much (if any) consumers away. The large majority of people who wants ANY game gets it at or near launch (this is not speculation at all), as such a DRM being cracked 3 months down the road means that enough discounts have happened (which they have, the game has been an entire 1/3 off the price down before it was cracked), that it's a certain fact that most of the people who wanted the game have already acquired it by now.

As someone who has pirated quite a few games and only ever finished and properly bought a couple of them I can also attest to the fact that piracy is a matter of convenience and not so much money (I'm a dirt poor ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in a third world country and I have to save extensively for any game I buy, we also get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over by regional pricing quite a bit). And even the instances of games being at absurdly high prices in places with lower levels of income than those of the US are becoming more and more uncommon, as publishers try to use regional pricing to actively prevent people from using grey market resellers offering games at reasonable prices per region (not always the case and Death Stranding was pretty badly priced in several countries), but these grey market resellers have also had the game in much higher discounts than that 33% down. So, even when regional pricing isn't doing what's intended of it (or being used wrong) the options for much higher discounts is a reality regardless of the game being cracked. In other words, if people with low income wanted to they could've already bought the game for a fraction of the historically lowest discounted price.

So you’re right I am speculating. Based on 20 years of experience with piracy and the gaming industry, dozens of articles of market practices and trends and several discussions with people who work on the industry about the real life effects of piracy in game development and distribution. In other words, I’m making a fairly educated speculation. And if I can get that far with virtually nothing, I’m pretty sure a marketing specialist will do so as well (much better and with actual numbers) and simply brush off the notion that they should discount their game over a cracked version that at this point is virtually inconsequential to their sales. Enough excuses are in the horizon to discount the game for legitimate reasons, and at points where people have more money, to add something as ridiculous as panic over piracy to the mix.

[Danyutz]

Originally posted by St_Minorto:

"Most of those people pirating the game will simply never buy it"
Yeah. pirated it. like it. found discount on internet bought.

What about the saved games? Could you transfer or started over?

[Cola500]

Originally posted by Son_of_Dawn:

Originally posted by Cola500:

The game was hacked 7 days ago, why is there still no 50% discount?

I'm also having trouble understanding your logic. If someone develops a game which was subsequently hacked, how does it then make sense for them to slash all of their future revenues in half? As Flybye suggested, if Microsoft was to be hacked again, could you ever imagine them slashing their revenues by 50% in response? Of course not, because successful software companies aren't in the habit of making foolish business decisions. That's why they're successful.

Between the choice of losing 100% of potential revenue, I personally choose to make a promotion and get 50% of the potential profit.

And the guys from EGS are well aware of this, and have already made a 30% discount on the game - they know how to work with risks and get additional potential profit.

Originally posted by Son_of_Dawn:

It doesn't mean that at all. In fact, Hideo Kojima announced 5 months ago that the game had already earned enough profit to allow them to begin working on their next game.

And?

Does this mean that you can forget about "the rest of the money"? DRM protection ensured that the game would be bought whether the publisher wanted it or not.

Now that the game is hacked, there is a great chance that the game is not being bought. And to reduce this likelihood, you can arrange a sale and make a significant discount. Thus, reducing risks.

Originally posted by Son_of_Dawn:

Then don't pay it. I'm not trying to be snide but when I can't afford something, I just won't buy it. I don't decide that I somehow deserve a discount and then expect the executives at Kojima Productions to agree with me.

So I don't buy, as I wrote above :)

The situation with a discount is beneficial not only for those who have not yet bought the game, but also for the publisher — a new loyal audience.

And I wrote the post for reasons that since the publisher is not a huge evil Corporation like EA or Ubisoft, they are closer to the audience and can explain their position on hacking and discounts.

Originally posted by Don Lobo:

@Don Lobo

From the entire canvas of the text, I agree with only one thing, that the publisher may really be now there is no point in "panicking" because of hacking, since the main sales boom has already passed. The game paid off and the publisher is preparing a new project.

Everything else is speculation.

I can buy the game on the gray market, maybe not with a 50% discount, but with more than the same EGS gives. But I don't want to sponsor pirates, I want to give them to a publisher.

And the essence of my message was to preemptively respond with a discount on hacking, thereby trying to attract a "cold audience", people who are still thinking and doubting.

This is aggressive performance marketing, which aims to achieve KPIs by any means available.

Hacking the game — a hype theme, on crackwatch weighs a huge banner with a discount on the gray market. These guys, like EGS, understand what is happening and try to make the most profit.

Give me the same thing, but in the ecosystem I'm used to — steam. I will be happy to buy the game for myself and my friends. But with a discount :P

[Lieutenant Dan]

Originally posted by Cola500:

The game was hacked 7 days ago, why is there still no 50% discount?

What is the point of losing sales if the game has already been downloaded a thousand times from torrents?

Kojima Productions Sales, are you here? Wake up, your annual bonus is about to flush down the toilet.

A person that pirates isn't a lost customer, they were never going to pay for it.
it's only been on PC a few months, you want a 50% discount already?

[CyberReLoad]

enjoy your pirated version with trojans, mallware and bitcoin miners...

[Nacrolepsy]

Death stranding is on sale in epic cuz halloween sale so hope to be at on sale also in steam at steam halloween sale