3DS Piracy Targeted by Two-Prong Firmware Attack

[UltimatheChosen]

This guy has the right idea. Data piracy and theft are two completely different things. The immoral part of theft comes not from the thief having something he didn't have, but from the victim not having it anymore. If someone breaks into your house and steals your TV, that's theft, but if someone sits in their own house and uses some kind of machine to make an exact copy of your TV in their living room, there's no harm in it. Maybe Sony loses a few bucks to the guy because he didn't pay them for the TV, but if that kind of technology exists that can replicate things perfectly over large distances like that, I think Sony should expect people to do things like that. Because they will. At this point, buying TVs from Sony becomes less about having a TV and more about keeping business going to the guys that can give you more and better TVs. If not, they go bankrupt and die, and even though you got your TV for free, you'll never get a better one.

Except that you're still depriving the seller of revenue from a sale. They spent time and, in most cases, a lot of money working on these games.

You can see the correlation between this fantasy and what's really happening with piracy. Thieves and pirates are not the same thing. The motive of the thief is usually desperation or selfishness; you have something they need/want and they'll take it from you. But in a world where it's so easy to copy things, like the internet, pirates are actually being given these things. They don't have to steal, it's not thievery. It's just sharing. Therefore, the motive is completely different.

I'll grant that there are differences, but that's still not a justification for piracy.

It's obvious that artists and developers need money if they want to keep developing. If a pirate likes the way a game was developed, they're going to look forward to more. Anyone with half a braincell can put two and two together and realize that if the developer isn't paid, that's a bad thing for the pirate who's a fan. It's just logic, and most pirates are intelligent enough to have it. If you like a dev, you support them, because otherwise you won't hear from them again. That's not a thought process you see with thieves.

So, pirates have every incentive to pay. The vast majority of pirates have enough forethought to realize that paying helps create more games from that developer. It's a pity, in my mind, that more people don't seem capable of such forethought.

And that would be great, if it were actually true. Did you read the link I posted?

If you had, you would see that out of the scores submitted for that game, 71.2% were from pirated copies.

They then analyzed the numbers to see how many of those pirates later bought the game and submitted scores from legitimately purchased copies of the game.

None of them ever did. Not one.

Another instructive example is this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100576-Who-Would-Pirate-the-One-Cent-Humble-Indie-Bundle]. These guys were selling a bundle of six games for one cent, and still had a 25% piracy rate. I can understand wanting to try a game before buying it, although I still find piracy reprehensible. But at the point where you're unwilling to pay $.01 for six games... that's just being an asshole. To make matters worse, some of these pirates actually downloaded the game from the developers instead of from other download sites, meaning that the people who made the game had to pay for the bandwidth of the people illegally downloading their game.

It's also worth noting that the 25% figure does not include BitTorrent or other such sources... just downloads via forum links, so the actual piracy rate was almost definitely higher... perhaps much higher.

*snip*

I have every right to play the game without paying the developer. It's called rental. I'm just bypassing the rental store. I expect now you'll whine at me about how I'm stealing money from Blockbuster Video, then.

Try reading what I write. I didn't say you have to pay the developer, I said you have to pay. Although, to be fair, I do think the gaming industry has a legitimate beef with used game sales, though I'm not sure what a good solution is there.

You made a huge logical jump from "I don't have to pay the publisher" to "I don't have to pay at all".

*snip*

Reviews and demos are as misleading as adverts and hype, surely any gamer understands that. To get a good enough feel for a game, it has to be actually played.

Personally, I have never had much trouble learning if a game is good by reading enough reviews. I look at Escapist reviews, Game Informer, and so on, and I try to learn which reviewers share my tastes.

If you do your research intelligently, it's possible to make a decision without, y'know, breaking the law.

 

[DarthFennec]

Except that you're still depriving the seller of revenue from a sale. They spent time and, in most cases, a lot of money working on these games.

I'm pretty sure I addressed that. As I said, the revenue a developer would get in this case becomes less about getting a copy of a game, and more about supporting the developer in order to get more and better games out of that dev in the future.

I'll grant that there are differences, but that's still not a justification for piracy.

I never said it was. The point of that paragraph was simply to illustrate that piracy and thievery are completely different things.

And that would be great, if it were actually true. Did you read the link I posted?

If you had, you would see that out of the scores submitted for that game, 71.2% were from pirated copies.

They then analyzed the numbers to see how many of those pirates later bought the game and submitted scores from legitimately purchased copies of the game.

None of them ever did. Not one.

Maybe none of them deemed it to be worth money. The fact that it has the complexity of a flash game (most of which are free in the first place) wouldn't help with that. I write flash games in my free time, and I devote a lot of time and love, trying to craft them into something pretty amazing, but I would be absolutely affronted by the idea of charging money for something like that. It seems like a ripoff.

Another instructive example is this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100576-Who-Would-Pirate-the-One-Cent-Humble-Indie-Bundle]. These guys were selling a bundle of six games for one cent, and still had a 25% piracy rate. I can understand wanting to try a game before buying it, even if I find the idea reprehensible. But at the point where you're unwilling to pay $.01 for six games... that's just being an asshole. To make matters worse, some of these pirates actually downloaded the game from the developers instead of torrents, meaning that the people who made the game had to pay for the bandwidth of the people illegally downloading their game.

I'd be very confused by an offer like that. I'd buy it if the price were higher, but one cent doesn't seem substantial enough to me, especially for six games. It doesn't seem likely that any developer who was planning on making any money from a game would sell for so little. That obviously is no excuse to pirate it, and I agree with you, the fact that the piracy rate was 25% is just sad. Although, I don't think I'd personally go through the trouble of typing in my card number, just to spend one cent. That's pretty ridiculous.

As a side note, I own one of the games in that bundle, Penumbra Overture, and I spent $20 on it. It's one of the best indie games I've ever played, and I recommend it to anyone who cares (but I recommend its sequel, Penumbra: Black Plague, even more).
/obligatory advertisement

You made a huge logical jump from "I don't have to pay the publisher" to "I don't have to pay at all".

Not really. The developers are the people who did the work, they're the artists, and any support that the game deserves is support for the developers. Isn't that what your whole argument is about, that developers aren't getting enough support from pirates? If I'm not paying them, then who should I pay, the next random joe that walks out of Walmart? He doesn't deserve my money. Blockbuster Video only deserves my money if I'm using their service, which I'm not either way. If I'm not paying the devs, I might as well be not paying at all, because nobody else did anything for me that deserves payment.

Personally, I have never had much trouble learning if a game is good by reading enough reviews. I look at Escapist reviews, Game Informer, and so on, and I try to learn which reviewers share my tastes.

If you do your research intelligently, it's possible to make a decision without, y'know, breaking the law.

I do lots of research on games that I want. I've been in situations where I've followed a game obsessively, sometimes for months, and I've learned every little thing about it, short of watching a Let's Play. I finally buy the game, pop it in, play it, and realize that it's actually a piece of shit. Every single time, this happens. All of the games I actually enjoy have been ones that my friends lend me, games that I've played firsthand before I buy. I guess I don't really know why reviews work for you and not for me.

Also, since piracy is free, it would expand my potential to buy more games. Instead of going and buying four games that I'm really interested in, and missing out on some really good ones that I kind of glanced at but decided they're not worth the money, a pirate could go play thirty games for free, and enjoy and buy nine of them. If there's a game that's worth the money, but I don't realize that it's worth it because of bad reviews and not too much hype, then I never end up playing it and the devs don't get my support. If I were to pirate it, I could tell that it was worth it before I buy, and then I could support the devs.