A potentially original take on piracy? Probably not, but interesting.

[Blaze the Dragon]

ITT OP trying to rationalize his anger towards people who make smarter choices than him in the gaming market.

OP you are like people we have in this country, who by expensive ocean side property. They feel that now they paid for the view, noone else should be able to enjoy it for free. So even though it's perfectly legal to walk along the cost everywhere, they try to hinder it.

Piracy isn't destroying video games. The industry is flourishing. Piracy is to be considdered a calculated cost, just as when you run a shop and expect 5% of your goods to be destroyed or stolen as long as the number is below that, it's not really considered a problem.

I have been burned so many times with pre-orders and releases, that I for one never buy a game I haven't tried before. Sham on all the gamers that support the lousy cash-cows. You are the ones destroying the industry if anyone is.

Oh god I love this statement, this is just rich. Okay, clearly this person knows what to do, lets all make the smart decision and stop supporting the lousy cash-cows and stop buying games and just pirate everything. Buying games is what's destroying the industry. This will save the game industry and improve everything as a whole. Clearly...

I know that's an exaggeration on what you really meant, but you do realize you just justified virtually every crime in the world through the Tragedy of the Commons, right? Even in your own example you provided a direct argument for shoplifting. "I doubt many other people do this and I don't want to pay to have this item, I'll just take it, I mean it's not like they'll notice just one missing." "Gee I don't like my neighbor, well the planet has almost 7 billion people already, who's gonna miss just one?"

The main problem with piracy is that it puts bad mentalities and poor self-justifications into people. Now here's a really complicated concept for everyone that pirates something. I know this might be hard to understand, but stay with me here, I'm about to go really philosophical all up in this joint. Okay are you ready? Okay, did you ever think, that if you can't afford something, you shouldn't be the owner of it? "WOAH WOAH WOAH, slow down!" I hear you say. " If I can't buy something I can't have it?" I know, I know this is a strange concept, but that's how money works. If you can't afford to buy games then you shouldn't be buying games.

Pirating a game you can't afford doesn't prevent them from losing a sale, because clearly there is still interest that you have in buying that product. Not pirating just delays how long it is until you buy it. Things like sales and decreased prices over time exist for a reason. Also, you should be able to save up money over time to eventually get it. And you can always return games you're done with to save some money. It just means that you get less games because you can't afford them.

I understand wanting to try a game before buying it to make sure that it's worth it, but you can use more conventional means than piracy. The statement someone made where they said something like "If I bought every game I thought I had intrest in, then I'd have a bunch of useless games laying around and I'd be fueling the industry to put out more of those poor games." Do you honestly think that is true? Do you even have the money to buy every game you tried out through piracy? You see there are conventional means of determining whether you should buy a game. Like reading reviews, seeing what you're friends think of it. If you're still not sure, try watching a youtube video and getting a general idea for the game. and there are real demos out there, although I do agree that more companies should release demos with their games to let people who can't afford to make a bad purchase try them out. Oh, and remember you can actually hold on to that receipt you get from the store instead of throwing it out immediately and actually use it to return the product.

And the last usual argument is "it's unavailable in my time / region." Well there are surprisingly many old games available legitimately through online stores like the Virtual Console, which has games going all the way back to the NES era. If you can't find the game through legitimate means, then try to get it out on legitimate means. Send an e-mail to Nintendo about why you think XYZ should be sold on the Virtual console, or in the UK or whatever. Rise awareness, ask your friends, post on Facebook, see how many other people actually want to see this game again available to them.

You won't be able to hide behind the fact that you're the minority much longer. The Tragedy of the Commons is going to start being apparent soon, and there are already some cases where it has been apparent. I think someone posted a topic with stats from a torrenting website and a couple games had some ridiculous numbers. Sure it's just a couple game now, but what happens when it becomes 10 games, or 100 games. People just need to realize that piracy is just a mental set of self-justifications for wanting things they can't have. Here's and idea, if you can't afford games, get a job or stop wasting time playing them. If you're worried about making a bad purchase, keep the receipt and research before buying. The only problem is that Piracy is easier and more "cost-effective" than not committing a crime, and that is the real tragedy.

 

[redisforever]

I have only ever pirated if i was curious about a game, but there was no demo (or the demo wasn't enough to show off the game).

Every game i have ever pirated, and liked, i bought.

If i had bought every game that i wasn't too sure about, then games like Duke Nukem would have been a commercial success - although i did bite the bullet and buy it on release day without pirating - big mistake, but reinforces my point.

My argument is, if there wasn't pirates the games industry would be flooded by crap games, because they would be making money off of it.

Another example - i pirated Skyrim, because i hated oblivion, so i thought i'd give skyrim a try. I LOVE it, and immediately went out and bought it brand new!

Having said all this, i rarely do pirate.

I do exactly the same, with one interesting story. I have pirated games that were unavailible at the time anywhere. I loved that game. Then, I discovered that it came out as a digital download, with a bunch of extras. What did I do? I deleted my pirated copy, and bought the legit one.

 

[Vegosiux]

Piracy causes DRM whether it helps against it or not and when faced with concerned investors publishers are going to have to reassure those investors somehow.
Why do you think the gaming industry is so obsessed with getting the maximum money out of initial sales that they will race for a christmas release or shoehorn in multiplayer.

Because they see gaming as a risky investment...I wonder why.

Well, I, as a consumer, see gaming as a risky investment too, because the times where I knew I wasn't buying a cat in a bag when I bought a new game are long, long gone. Ironically, from my personal experience I can say even more stuff got pirated, proportionally, back in those days, but that didn't stop the developers from making quality games.

And whoa, hold the phone for a moment, I hope you're not trying to imply that without piracy the industry would stop doing those silly things? Because I see those things as something that would happen either way with most gaming companies. Except when it's Valve. Those guys never rush a game. Their no-rush policy is quite infuriating on its own, isn't it.

DRM tho, is like shooting at a flock birds with a cannon. Sure you may get one or two, but the rest are getting away with just a scare (do it three times and they die if they're a Moorhuhn of course)

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Im not saying our corporations are inherently evil. They simply do what they are designed to do which is make money in any way possible. Sort of like the economic circle of life. You NEED corporations. But you also need something in place that keeps them from destroying everything they touch. The problem is that they have been left unchecked for far too long and have gotten to the point that they have become a swarm of locusts and when exactly has an oversized swarm of locusts ever been considered to be a good thing? And oddly enough the tables get turned and you realize that the corporations are the real parasites, and they are feasting on the people.

I agree with this to an extent. My exception would be not even so much as looking at their products at all, including to pirate them, would probably be a more effective statement to corporations, which do indeed do everything in their power to bleed people for as much as they can get away with. But as with everything else on this subject in the realm of speculation, it's impossible to tell if that would just encourage them to take more extreme measures.

I'm not saying they're evil either, but something happens when you deal with people on a large scale: you forget that they're people. They become where the money comes from, and nothing more. Their entertainment, their enjoyment, their satisfaction, isn't the goal in and of itself; it's the means in which you get paid. When that mindset overrides all else, when all that becomes important is the consumer giving you money, acts like SOPA are born, because you then become angry at the consumer when they don't serve their perceived purpose.

Thus, we, the consumers, are always the first person to get blamed when we're not giving as much money as the corporation thinks they deserve, because giving them money is all we're expected to do. You raised another good point in that it's the government's responsibility to protect the people from all threats, but when money is an issue, that responsibility always seems to be the first thing to go. When we don't pay up, the corporations never ask what they're doing wrong, and instead immediately look for ways to whip us back into shape, and when that doesn't work, they cry foul to the government.

What the government doesn't understand, and what we've been less than successful in proving to them, is that it's not our responsibility to cough up money; it's corporations' responsibility to provide us a product we feel compelled to buy. Piracy is not justification for their failure to do so, but it is a symptom of it. Instead we're vilified because corporations can cite things such as top torrent downloads and say "every single one of these is a lost sale" without being questioned, while we have no list to give them to say "every single one of these is a sale corporations failed to make to us".

Because we can't provide any such evidence, because we instead have to rely on being regarded as people, and not ATMs, the solution becomes to oppress us until we fulfill our perceived purpose. Any resistance to their attempts to "correct" us are not those of people objecting to having their rights to be treated with decency and fairness violated, but those of criminals, of malfunctioning machines. And because the alternative is working harder to earn our money, corporations ultimately couldn't care less that forfeiting our humanity, and that of the people within the corporations, has become their eventual goal; machines don't have to be convinced to do anything.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

This point of argument always pisses me off as it has something "monarchic" about it, as some people born into aristocracy or wealth seem to *deserve* everything, because they are the better persons or something and the unwashed masses do not.

What, you want education? Preposterous! You can't have it, these books cost moneys! Libraries, free knowledge? Why, what a silly concept, go back and dig so King Richard the VII and Mr. Mediamogul the III can have their gold-plated palace. It's all so damn medieval and past how a proper society should (and largely do) handle things.

Incidentally, that monarchic mindset is partly what births acts like SOPA; the belief that nothing should be "free", that everything should be mandated by the people with money, lest they get less than they feel they deserve.

 

[Something Amyss]

Summary: I think there's at least an off chance that piracy, as a whole, might be a critical form of wealth redistribution, and its elimination might have drastic and unforeseen consequences for the United States and the world.

Yes, there's an "off chance," but little else. Piracy isn't necessarily done by people at or below a certain point on the poverty line. Is it really wealth distribution if the people doing it aren't by and large poor?

I really can't buy the whole "can't afford the product" if those people have the hardware to play this games. If you can afford a TV + console or a PC strong enough to play the games than you can also afford the games.

Must be really nice to live in a black and white world.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

The main problem with piracy is that it puts bad mentalities and poor self-justifications into people. Now here's a really complicated concept for everyone that pirates something. I know this might be hard to understand, but stay with me here, I'm about to go really philosophical all up in this joint. Okay are you ready? Okay, did you ever think, that if you can't afford something, you shouldn't be the owner of it? "WOAH WOAH WOAH, slow down!" I hear you say. " If I can't buy something I can't have it?" I know, I know this is a strange concept, but that's how money works. If you can't afford to buy games then you shouldn't be buying games.

This point of argument always pisses me off as it has something "monarchic" about it, as some people born into aristocracy or wealth seem to *deserve* everything, because they are the better persons or something and the unwashed masses do not.

[...]

No, it has something "Capitalist" about it. Our societies work on the principle that money is supreme. The rich don't deserve anything, in fact, they're probably the least deserving of anything, but they can buy everything.

But your argument is silly anyway. Education materials etc. are not what is being pirated. Do you think pirated video games are stolen because some impoverished child wants to be educated? The people who do it, and I have first hand experience of this, want to increase the amount of entertainment they have, without incuring any additional costs... It's driven plain and simply by human desire for pleasure.

 

[Vegosiux]

But your argument is silly anyway. Education materials etc. are not what is being pirated.

Oh come on now. Xeroxing education materials isn't anything new and unheard of. And there are libraries too. And besides, pretty much all of it is digital nowadays as well, so...file transfer.

Seriously, you can't expect to run a profit with education material print.

 

[lacktheknack]

"But pirates don't steal!"

A. Technicalities can go screw themselves, you still acquired software ENTIRELY MEANT FOR PURCHASE without paying anyone.

Spoiler

Can I get some of that delicious precious pure RAGE of yours and the thread creator please? I won 10 free games from Steam last summer, some of them were Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Space Marine, Heroes VI, Serious Sam 3, they also gave me the Valve Complete Pack on another occasion and I got even more free games this Winter
Hell, there's people giving out free games to people they're supposed to pay for several times a day, EVERY DAY over here: http://www.steamgifts.com/
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGEEEEE

Those were purchased. Your argument is invalid.

I should word myself more carefully, though. I meant "The people selling it didn't see a cent from the acquisition". Better? Or are you going to inexplicably demand more RAAAAAAEG?

 

[Epona]

I can't fucking stand the pirates.

I don't think it's healthy, especially in this economy, for gamers to be hating on pirates because they care so much about the bottom line of some company that they don't receive a paycheck from. For example, do you hate Wal Mart shoplifters as much as you hate video game pirates? Why not?

As someone who actually pays for my games

You know, when I buy something at Wal Mart, I give no thought at all to shoplifters. Why do you care how others acquire games? Jealous that they are saving money?

I do. My mother was a manager for a Walmart, and I am fully aware of how much shoplifters affect the prices of what you buy. The difference here is that stealing from walmart doesn't affect the ability of those who make the product they stole to continue to produce.

The difference is that you are concerned about rising prices where Wal Mart is concerned (suppose the example was Best Buy, where your mother isn't a manager). With games, prices are standard and don't rise and lower based on piracy, they were raised this generation because of licensing (or so we were told).

Another difference is that you don't really care how much Wal Mart makes, you do care about how much a game company makes and that seems silly to me. It isn't healthy for a consumer to put a multi-million dollar corporation on such a high pedestal that you would hate another group of people.

I don't hate pirates, they have never done anything to me and I don't go around hating people because it's cool. I think the hate of pirates on this site (and others) is artificial. What consumer puts a mutli-million corporation's finances above their own?

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Oh come on now. Xeroxing education materials isn't anything new and unheard of. And there are libraries too. And besides, pretty much all of it is digital nowadays as well, so...file transfer.

Seriously, you can't expect to run a profit with education material print.

Don't understand what you're arguing for / against and why it involves me. The user I was responding to seemed to be suggesting piracy on the grounds that it is somehow involved with educational materials or some kind of societal leveller, which is preposterous.

I am well aware of the existence of libraries, scanners and printers and digital educational materials such as Wikipedia. Thank you?

 

[ChronoLogicalDream]

I stopped reading after 2 pages so if I repeat someone, I apologize.

So. To begin with, I don't see the point of the whole debate. Pirating is bad in certain ways and it is good in certain ways. There are many variables that apply to products that are pirated. It can boost the popularity (and sales) if the product is good (game/book/tv show/software..) but fairly unknown; It can hinder your sales if the product is good but expensive beyond comprehension (with some people getting the product even though they would have never bought it for that kind of $); It can allow people to try the product out before buying it; It gives people the opportunity to play your game.

There are many more pros/cons when it comes to pirating and many variables entering in play. As an example: If a game is already popular in a huge circle (COD, BF3, Skyrim, Ass Creed, etc.) and pirating is no longer helping by increasing awareness about the existence of the given game, does the game lose sales on pirating? Answer: of course since there will always be people who won't pay for a game if they don't have to (probably excluding fan/nostalgia related titles from time to time). However, its popularity already pays off the devs and techies and the et cetera so no need for the big companies to complain about lost sales to pirates (yarrr) when their revenue is ...well... retarded. Stupid greed.

However the opposite can happen - a really good game (indie game for example) can be pirated to kingdom come even if its price is low and consequentially, their developer falls apart. It sucks and it is unfair but from the people who pirated the game, some paid for it after playing it, some just played it for free and others tried it but didn't like it. But some liked it and passed it on to friends who might have bought it. Now the margins might be the question but ultimately, pirating didn't help in this case. *BUT if the game is good, it will give a good rep for the Dev's if they have not fallen apart ;-)*

There are many examples and all that just to say that pirating does cut some sales off while creating others and giving opportunities for obscure products to become better known. It's a love hate relationship. Yes, technically, if everyone would pirate and not buy it's only natural that a company would bankrupt. But that does not happen so no need to worry about that.

!!Another important part is the ratios in play. Were there more people who pirated and bought the game? or pirated and never bought? My lazy guess is that those numbers vary drastically depending on the game.



Side note: there are games that I have played that are worth 20-25$ when the actual cost is 39.99$ or more. ex: Darkspore - game experience: 15$. Price: 49.99$ back in the days). I pirated it, tried it, told myself I would buy it if its 15$ or max 20$. Saw the price, hid under bed covers.

And as another example, i pirated Skyrim because I didn't like oblivion. Loved it but I don't have the spare money to buy it right now. In a week I will but meanwhile I can play my game and port my saved character to the original copy once I get it...

I feel better when I buy a game (unless its bad ) and own a hard copy or through Steam than when I pirate it. Back when I was broke I was pirating games non stop. And honestly who the fuck would pay close to 200$ for Microsoft Office >_< I mean I'm sure people do. But i never will. Pirated or OpenOffice are my choices. Just checked - most expensive Microsoft Office : $669.00.... hellooo a solid new computer.

last last message: I think everyone completely disregarded the thread starter's message of revolution You'll need to practice before leading masses^_^

 

[Atmos Duality]

What about obscure asian movies that aren't available where I live?

This is a caveat where both economics and ethics can agree; you can't lose money or potential sales in a market that you don't participate in.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

I have only ever pirated if i was curious about a game, but there was no demo (or the demo wasn't enough to show off the game).

Every game i have ever pirated, and liked, i bought.

If i had bought every game that i wasn't too sure about, then games like Duke Nukem would have been a commercial success - although i did bite the bullet and buy it on release day without pirating - big mistake, but reinforces my point.

My argument is, if there wasn't pirates the games industry would be flooded by crap games, because they would be making money off of it.

Another example - i pirated Skyrim, because i hated oblivion, so i thought i'd give skyrim a try. I LOVE it, and immediately went out and bought it brand new!

Having said all this, i rarely do pirate.

Though I haven't had the pleasure to live through them, this reminds me of the NES days where the market was flooded with crap and you'd only learn it was crap through word of mouth since gaming magazines were mostly promoting all the games. Maybe piracy is part of a natural system of regulation!!!! More likely not but you make a good point.

 

[ph0b0s123]

The real question people should be asking is, is the enforcement required to completely stop 'morally wrong' piracy worth it?

What never seems to be covered in surveys is, the stuff people pirate, would they have purchased it if there was not a pirate copy available. I believe for the most part the answer is no. So even if piracy could be stamped out tomorrow, it would not raise much more revenue for content providers. In fact it may well work out that the cost of completely stopping piracy actually costs more than the extra revenue generated by people not having a piracy option.

I would actually love to see all piracy stop just to see how the content industry etc respond when they only see their revenues jump a small percent, in comparison to what they think they are losing via piracy.

 

[Epona]

The real question people should be asking is, is the enforcement required to completely stop 'morally wrong' piracy worth it?

What never seems to be covered in surveys is, the stuff people pirate, would they have purchased it if there was not a pirate copy available. I believe for the most part the answer is no. So even if piracy could be stamped out tomorrow, it would not raise much more revenue for content providers. In fact it may well work out that the cost of completely stopping piracy actually costs more than the extra revenue generated by people not having a piracy option.

I would actually love to see all piracy stop just to see how the content industry etc respond when they only see their revenues jump a small percent, in comparison to what they think they are losing via piracy.

If all piracy stopped, the industry would have to find a new scapegoat to justify intrusive DRM.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

I think the hate of pirates on this site (and others) is artificial. What consumer puts a mutli-million corporation's finances above their own?

You're missing the point somewhat. Piracy affects the artists, and I'm not just talking about multi-millionaires like Beyonce or Rihanna. I mean real people who toil day after day to produce creative works for you and me to enjoy and then have their work stolen... That's just indefensible I'm afraid. Indie games are heavily pirated. Last time I checked those guys and gals weren't "multi-million corporations"...

 

[Nikolaz72]

Was the game you purchased the one that was cracked and uploaded as a torrent? No? Then they didn't it steal from you.

This is the sort of analogy you're trying to make: You buy a pair of sunglasses. Right after you pay for your sunglasses, somebody shoplifts a pair. That person didn't steal the sunglasses from you, they stole it from the store. It would have made no difference if you had bought orange juice or a nice sweater instead of the sunglasses. They stole the sunglasses, and the sunglasses belonged to the store. End of story.

You buy a pair of sunglasses for 10 bucks. People constantly come shoplifting without any consequence, as a defense measurre the store installs guards increasing the cost of sunglasses to 20 bucks without improving the quality, and you also have to go through several scanners to get through, but somehow people can still shoplift without consequence. So the cost is increased to 30 bucks. You need a constant supply of sunglasses, and they increase in cost because of the shoplifters. You feel as if they stole that money from you.