Boycotting and Pirating: What's the Problem?

[Scrustle]

Before I start I want to first point out that I am neither boycotting any company nor have ever pirated any game. I also have no intent to do either of those things. I am against pirating except in very select circumstances.

Recently I've been pondering the ethics of boycotting and pirating. The general feeling seems to be that if you boycott a games company it is not then acceptable to pirate their game. I don't understand why that is. Surely the point of a boycott is to send a message to the company that you are not prepared to give them your money because of their business practices. Why should it matter if you then pirate the game? It makes no difference to the company themselves, they were never going to get your money anyway.

I understand it's dishonest and kind of "cheating" the boycott if you do pirate a game from a company that you are boycotting, but I don't see why it's any worse than pirating a game in any other circumstance, or rather why the boycott gives any more reason not to pirate than anything else would. So, what's it about the boycotting of a company that make it especially wrong to pirate their games?

 

[Aeshi]

Because Boycotting says "We don't want your games if this is what you're gonna do" whereas Pirating says "We want your games, but we don't want to have to pay for them"

The latter makes the supposedly 'unwanted' product seem desirable (and therefor worth protecting)

 

[GloatingSwine]

Pirating a game rather than buying it is the pussy version of a boycott. What it's saying is "I'm pathetically addicted to your product just the way it is, keep doing whatever you're doing that I'm supposedly boycotting you for".

 

[hermes]

Most pirating is merely an excuse not to pay for games. Boycotting a company but still pirating their games is just an excuse to play them.

 

[Andrewtheeviscerator]

Pirating a game is always wrong (unless you already own the game) and your not really boycotting if your still using their product you're telling them that I want your product but I'm not going to pay for it. It's a moral issue more than anything and if you are pirating games. You can't really act all high and mighty and say your boycotting someone cause of bad business practice, then go and steal the product they produce.

 

[darlarosa]

Because they are counter productive.

Boycotting tends to translate as the public not accepting a company policy or an aspect of the game. The public's boycott is a way of saying "Hey we dislike this, but we think you can change toward something we can support, and we (usually) will support if a change is made".

Pirating usually happens with the assumption that the consumer will not buy the product. However most people I know who pirate then go and buy the product if they can afford it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Long story short: piracy /does/ in fact send the same message, and if the message is about DRM, it probably sends it better than just refusing to buy the game. The real reason people say not to pirate games is twofold. The primary reason is that it's a case of moralizing and grandstanding: "piracy is evil" is today's "reefer madness." The secondary reason is that executives always take the wrong message out of basic economic data. if nobody buys your game, it's obviously because they were pirating it instead. It can't possibly have anything to do with people just not being interested in buying it, and the pirates can't possibly be motivated by anything but greed. It can't have anything to do with DRM. I mean, DRM prevents pirates from playing, right? It doesn't affect paying customers, right? Right?

So yeah. Business executives live in opposite land. It's the only possible explanation.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The major issue, as I see it, is that you aren't really sending the company much of a message at all if you still play the game in question. In fact, what it is telling them is that you like their product so much (despite your complaints) that you're willing to do something that most people consider anything from risky to downright illegal just to play it. You're just proving to them that you're another potential customer.

 

[Scrustle]

Because Boycotting says "We don't want your games if this is what you're gonna do" whereas Pirating says "We want your games, but we don't want to have to pay for them"

The latter makes the supposedly 'unwanted' product seem desirable (and therefor worth protecting)

But isn't the power of boycotting supposed to be in the statement of "I do want your games but I'm not going to buy it because of how you do business"?

Pirating just sends out one message: That you are a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay for things. If you dislike enough about a game that it is not worth your money then don't play it. Because if you pirate the game you are just giving them more reason (or need to be precise) to add DRM to the game. And this makes the ones suffer who are not cheap bastards.

I don't think game companies care whether you are cheap or not, they only want your money. But your point about DRM makes sense.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

]

Pirating just sends out one message: That you are a cheap bastard who doesn't want to pay for things. If you dislike enough about a game that it is not worth your money then don't play it. Because if you pirate the game you are just giving them more reason (or need to be precise) to add DRM to the game. And this makes the ones suffer who are not cheap bastards.

I don't think game companies care whether you are cheap or not, they only want your money. But your point about DRM makes sense.

It only makes sense if you think like an executive. Pirates are the only ones who /aren't/ inconvenienced by DRM these days. I don't understand why business execs are incapable of understanding that.

 

[burningdragoon]

Straight boycott
Message: I don't want your game for
Reaction: People don't want our game for some reason? How do we address this. (note: doesn't mean they will get it right)

Pirating "boycott"
Message: I do want your game, but I don't want to pay for it.
Reaction: People are stealing our game, how do we prevent people from doing that. (note: not the same as preventing people from wanting to do that.)

 

[Vegosiux]

Good, I got here before we got into the entire "legal definition of piracy" charlie-foxtrot.

My take on this is that in order boycott something you need to take offense to such a degree you wouldn't consider it worth pirating. Piracy is along the lines "don't want to buy your game for this reason or that", boycott is taking it further, "don't want to be caught dead having anything to do with your game, for this reason or that."

Discussions about piracy itself never go well, though. Not getting into that one, not for all the nickels in Jupiter.[footnote]If you get the reference, you can do the happy dance.[/footnote]

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

When you are boycotting something it generally means that you object to the products that a company is making. Going and pirating that game instead makes the boycott useless and it proves that you did in fact want the product that company was making but you are an asshole.

It only makes sense if you think like an executive. Pirates are the only ones who /aren't/ inconvenienced by DRM these days. I don't understand why business execs are incapable of understanding that.

Well probably because that is not really true. Pirates are inconvenienced by DRM.

For any game with an online portion the pirated version will pretty much always be worse as you are only getting half the game.

Other games like Diablo 3 dont have an actual working pirated version.

Just because a game does not have DRM does not mean it doesnt have bugs. Pirated versions dont exactly get official patches all the time.

They can often take a long time to get working properly. I believe AC2 didnt actually have a working pirated version for months after release. The same thing with SC2, sure you could pirate a version but you couldnt ever save your game.

AC2 was broken within a week, meanwhile paying customers have had weeks or even months of downtime. SC2 was likewise broken very quickly, and likewise has issues for paying customers. As for patches, pirates get those too. It's usually not necessary to pirate a patch because, well, patches are free. In the rare case that it is (centrally patched games, like games that uses Steamworks), the pirates are still able to get them. Rule of thumb on DRM: however brilliant the programmer that creates it for you is, there's an even more brilliant programmer working to tear down his work.

Edit: Bonus points for SC2 pirates: they get LAN games. Real, local LAN games. Paying customers have to play through a remote server, no matter what.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

AC2 was broken within a week, meanwhile paying customers have had weeks or even months of downtime. SC2 was likewise broken very quickly, and likewise has issues for paying customers. As for patches, pirates get those too. It's usually not necessary to pirate a patch because, well, patches are free. In the rare case that it is (centrally patched games, like games that uses Steamworks), the pirates are still able to get them. Rule of thumb on DRM: however brilliant the programmer that creates it for you is, there's an even more brilliant programmer working to tear down his work.

Edit: Bonus points for SC2 pirates: they get LAN games. Real, local LAN games. Paying customers have to play through a remote server, no matter what.

AC2 and SC2 were broken within a week in the same way that Diablo 3 was. Which is to say it was cracked but the cracked version didnt actually work. SC2 sure you could pirate it the minute it came out but you couldnt ever save your game or access basically anything other then the campaign. That is kind of a downside in a game as long it.

Yes they get patches but they get them later then everybody else and they have to wait for the game to be cracked again so they can play it. Often for games older then six months or a year it never will be cracked again so they never do get that patch.

It took a week to get a partial crack, and either two weeks or a month for a full one. Both SC2 and AC2 now have full functionality. And besides, those are the exception to the rule. Most DRM is much easier to crack than that, and most companies don't want to go even that far because of the performance issues that always online DRM causes. The variety used with Diablo 2 in particular was only viable for Blizzard /because/ they were Blizzard. Any company with a less rabid fanbase would have had a flop on their hands, and rightly so.