Interesting Links for 11-10-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Scientists put a face to the biggest bug to ever crawl the Earth

(tags:insects aieeee! )

2. Biggest Supreme Court Cases To Watch

(tags:law usa satire )

3. Inspired by Spider-Man, a Lab Recreates Web-Slinging Technology

(tags:materials spiderman Technology )

4. The true cost of game piracy: 20 percent of revenue

(tags:games piracy copyright Technology economics )

5. Would you like a card game based around horrible horrible therapy?

(tags:therapy games )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

5. Looks kind fun. But, as an aside, I'm pretty sure I don't have intrusive thoughts - at least not like described! And I don't just mean because I'm pretty much aphantasic. I don't have horrible thoughts of any type that just appear uninvited... Is it common? Like not part of problem solving or reasoning, just intruding?

[channelpenguin]

Ah, actually, I do. Of course. Music. I get random music in my head all the time. Some existing stuff, some all my own..

[andrewducker]

Music, absolutely. But the only time I get thoughts is for silly things like when I'm standing next to a big drop and think "What would it be like if I jumped off?" (And I'm not even slightly suicidal, so that's not happening, before anyone worries)

[channelpenguin]

Oh no. I never get anything like that! That sounds really weird to me.

[ninetydegrees]

As someone with anxiety/depression, yes. Some therapeutic methods teach you how to recognize them as such and reduce them. If you don't have any mental health issue associated with intrusive thoughts, I guess not?

[lilysea]

I'm always surprised by people pirating games

because,
(putting to one side issues like wanting to support games developers)

unlike TV shows,

games are .exe files

and therefore surely much higher risk for being a virus?

[simont]

My guess: the fact that Windows has virus checkers lulls everybody into a false sense of security, and makes them imagine that it's OK because surely the virus checker will catch anything really dangerous.

(I mean, not literally everybody. But enough of them.)

[ninetydegrees]

Not really. Trustworthy sites have regular trustworthy sources that you get to know quickly, a verification system in place and comments that let you know if something is wrong.

[magedragonfire]

Not all of them, though. The ones in this particular study mostly would be, since the data's all off Steam, but anything that runs on a console is usually under some other format, and not generally directly executable on a PC.

(Not that that means that viruses can't be slipped into them and wreck stuff, but there's a little more of an ease-of-use barrier.)

[ninetydegrees]

4) Still doesn't answer the more important issue mentioned at the beginning of the article. It's not 20% less revenue if you pirate a game you had no intention of buying legally 2) you pirated the game but didn't play it (and wouldn't have bought it) and doesn't tell us whether pirates also spend money on other games legally (like we know people who pirated music 10+ years ago also spent lots of money legally). Also the article doesn't report on players who chose not to buy DRM games or who buys DRM-free versions when they exist. I would really like to know if this is inconsequential (it definitely is for games like FIFA but what about less popular ones?).

[andrewducker]

The second graph seems pretty clear - when the game is cracked sales drop by about 20%. That should cover both of those things.

[ninetydegrees]

Ok so can we assume all people who pirated games would have bought it anyway?

[andrewducker]

*All*? I don't see anything that would imply that!

[ninetydegrees]

Yep. But that's what would have more interesting to know, imo. I don't know what to really make of the "20% less revenue".

[andrewducker]

It seems likely to me that some people have enough spare cash, and are interested enough in the game, to purchase a copy, and others either aren't that interested or don't have enough cash to do so if they can't get a cracked version. We know all the different variants exist, the question is how many people are there who would buy the game but don't, if they can get it for free. That's the cost of not using DRM - and the big question is whether that was above zero, or above the cost of buying the DRM. If it was 1% then almost certainly not. At 20% then probably it is? Maybe?

[ninetydegrees]

Now I get it, thanks.

[ninetydegrees]

This may have crossed your radar already but here's a interview from Denuvo PR over at RPS. Many comments question the study in ways I couldn't articulate (like the feeling that there was something wrong with its parameters and the conclusions it made).

[andrewducker]

Thank you!