Boycotting and Pirating: What's the Problem?
- Thread starter Scrustle
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You know, you say it's that simple, but I don't get it. It has different causes, different effects, and it's treated as a completely different issue by the law itself. I get that there's lots of ethical issues and such that can be discussed regarding it, but the fact is piracy is not theft by any definition of the word.Ruzinus said:
OT: When you look at it practically, I doubt there's any real difference in terms of the effectiveness of the boycott whether you pirate it or not. The real issue is that piracy is usually considered to be morally wrong in the first place, and doing it in the context of a boycott doesn't really affect that.
Because boycotts are meant to send a message. When you pirate, the message you send is that you are a pussy punk *****.
Allow me to explain.
Boycotts, in general, occur when a customer has moral reasons to not buy a product that they would otherwise want to purchase. If you're not buying from a company because their product is shit, that's not a boycott. It has to be something you think would be worth getting at the price it's listed, BUT for moral reasons you cannot condone doing business with that company.
Now, people pirate for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's just because they can. Other times because it's the only way to get a certain game. If you don't pirate everything you get though, it probably means you have some sort of moral inclination against piracy. It doesn't mean that it's an unbreakable conviction, or that you never pirate, but you do at some level realize that it's wrong. You have a moral conviction against piracy.
You see where this is going?
To boycott a game, you need to place your moral values above obtaining said game. To pirate a game, you have to put obtaining the game over your moral values. This is incongruous.
Violating your moral principals is worth it to get the game.
Violating your moral principals plus sixty bucks is not worth it to get the game.
Do the math, and that means that sixty bucks is the difference between whether or not the game is worth it. Your piracy is reduced from moral crusade to price aversion
Congratulations. You're a common criminal.
Now think about how a company is supposed to react to this. If people aren't buying their products because they have strong moral convictions, the company might think about changing their offending practices in order to get their customers back. If however they see their customers pirating their product, they see people who would gladly tread all over their own morals to get a game, but would rather save sixty bucks. There's no reason for them to change anything. Clearly their customers don't give a fuck about morality, so why should they? Instead, they'll focus on forcing the customers to pay the sixty bucks, as morality clearly doesn't play a part in the scenario.
Allow me to explain.
Boycotts, in general, occur when a customer has moral reasons to not buy a product that they would otherwise want to purchase. If you're not buying from a company because their product is shit, that's not a boycott. It has to be something you think would be worth getting at the price it's listed, BUT for moral reasons you cannot condone doing business with that company.
Now, people pirate for a number of reasons. Sometimes it's just because they can. Other times because it's the only way to get a certain game. If you don't pirate everything you get though, it probably means you have some sort of moral inclination against piracy. It doesn't mean that it's an unbreakable conviction, or that you never pirate, but you do at some level realize that it's wrong. You have a moral conviction against piracy.
You see where this is going?
To boycott a game, you need to place your moral values above obtaining said game. To pirate a game, you have to put obtaining the game over your moral values. This is incongruous.
Violating your moral principals is worth it to get the game.
Violating your moral principals plus sixty bucks is not worth it to get the game.
Do the math, and that means that sixty bucks is the difference between whether or not the game is worth it. Your piracy is reduced from moral crusade to price aversion
Congratulations. You're a common criminal.
Now think about how a company is supposed to react to this. If people aren't buying their products because they have strong moral convictions, the company might think about changing their offending practices in order to get their customers back. If however they see their customers pirating their product, they see people who would gladly tread all over their own morals to get a game, but would rather save sixty bucks. There's no reason for them to change anything. Clearly their customers don't give a fuck about morality, so why should they? Instead, they'll focus on forcing the customers to pay the sixty bucks, as morality clearly doesn't play a part in the scenario.
personally I find it a stupid petty thing to do
even if you say "hurr hurr well if you actually MADE decent games" you know what? fuck you, if pirate it then you obviously want to play it
and if you want to play it then youve got no right to steal it...boycott or not...
exactlaly.....I think it makes you are an entitled little twatUnsilenced said:
even if you say "hurr hurr well if you actually MADE decent games" you know what? fuck you, if pirate it then you obviously want to play it
and if you want to play it then youve got no right to steal it...boycott or not...
I didn't read all the replies, so i don't know if it's been mentioned but
When you boycott the game, you aren't buying the product, you're not a statistic.
When you pirate a game, you have played the game, you had interest in it, you are a statistic, much like companies using facebook likes to show their market support. You are showing your support by playing the game, receiving money or not, that marketing information is valuable.
When you boycott the game, you aren't buying the product, you're not a statistic.
When you pirate a game, you have played the game, you had interest in it, you are a statistic, much like companies using facebook likes to show their market support. You are showing your support by playing the game, receiving money or not, that marketing information is valuable.
Oh, absolutely. You can't "boycott" a company and still pirate their stuff. The whole point of a boycott is to show them that their behavior overpowers the desire for their stuff. Naturally, pirating it after that doesn't send that message at all.TheKasp said:
My point was that you can't expect a boycott to make them change it, because they're going to rationalize it away anyway. I have no delusions that my ongoing boycott of EA, Ubisoft, and now ActiBlizz (anyone who uses always-on DRM) is going to have any effect on THEM or their behavior. I do it on the principle that, since it's a given that they're going to be that way, my money shouldn't go to supporting them. Honestly, it hasn't been that difficult -- there's a much bigger sense of loss by my policy of not buying games that come with Steam DRM in the retail box.
But I've been gaming for about 30 years, and I have a backlog of games larger than most peoples' collections, not to mention my backlog of other activities (do you have any idea how bloody long the Wheel of Time books are?!). If I have to miss out on Darksiders II and Borderlands 2, that sucks, but I can find some other way to spend the time I would have used on them, and I'm not giving money to assholes that treat legitimate customers as criminals while accomplishing nothing to deter the actual criminals.
I find it hard to come down too hard on piracy, though. Yeah, it's a violation of copyright law, but when one considers the outright abusive nature of those laws these days, I can't in good conscience blame anyone for taking Jefferson's words to heart.
Explain why games with DRM get pirated. It's not that hard.Buretsu said:
Because DRM doesn't work. It doesn't stop pirates, it just fucks with those of us stupid enough to actually buy the game instead of pirating it, to pay for the privilege of being fucked with and having a degraded experience.
Wrong. Humans are motivated by fine balancing acts in their heads.Buretsu said:
Often completely insane.
Where being dicks are concerned, if people can get away with something, they'll do it. Why won't they?
No repercussions (even social ones) for smashing a car? Awesome.
You know what prevents people from pirating?
Being called dicks.
You know what encourages people to pirate?
Companies with intrusive DRM being dicks.
Because at the end of the day, there are no legal repercussions for pirating.
It's a battle of goodwill, by the community, by the corporations, etc.
And you know what doesn't win a battle of goodwill? Treating your legitimate customers like shit.
Wow. That was profoundly spot on.Aeshi said:
Need more of you on the internet.
:/...I wish this place had a like button or something so I could just say "ditto" in that manner.
While I disagree that people will act "evil" if presented with no chance for danger I will note that its probably close enough on average to be a safe rule of thumb.Danceofmasks said:
I just recall in college there being plenty of studies that showed people to be far more positive and constructive on the whole than media would lead you to believe.
Otherwise...I'm kinda in love with this thread. Some real gems. This is some solid stuff too. I don't pirate but I certainly don't buy anything from companies that treat me like shit.
Been trying to get off movies because of those FBI warnings in the front. They piss me off.
Luckily the only films I've gotten lately have been gifts.
Sounds a bit like the chicken and the egg doesn't it? [Note that the ACTUAL chicken and the egg is not a paradox, but the idea is what I'm going for]Vault101 said:
How would someone KNOW they want to play something when they download it?
You aren't playing it when you add another seed to that torrent, so to say that someone obviously wants to play it is disingenuous.
Now if you start getting data for hours played and so forth then sure. Otherwise it looks like a lot of name calling for something that doesn't even make logical sense >_>. "Well you obviously wanted that hamburger when you ordered it so don't ***** about how it tastes." I admit is not the same but the idea that someone knows how they'll feel during the acquisition process is just...
weird?
Shyamalan like really.
I agree, while I don't think it causes any financial harm (since it is unlikely there would be revenue generated at least not enough to make a bump on spreadsheets) I do think that piracy creates a remarkably negative emotional impact on developers.Enizer said:
That negative emotional impact is the part I don't like. Especially since its usually the publishers more often than the developers that are creating all the negative atmosphere around the product.
Then they remember their product is a luxury and fade off into obscurity.Unsilenced said:
Unless they happen to be big enough to buy the competition that is actually making sales.
You can't "force" things onto people unless you work in the essential industries. In gaming if you go too far you will lose market share.
Look at EA's stocks >_>.
Or anyone short of Activision/Blizzard actually.
Note to all above comments: I don't pirate, its not even an issue of morality. I can just afford to make the mistake.
I'm an avid writer, if it comes to the point where I find out that a lot of people are pirating my books I'll still be happy. Basically this is a bit like sexuality for me, I don't get what the big deal is and the drama about "morality" doesn't really seem to cut it for me.
Crime is and always has been an answer to a market that is improperly handled.
Sometimes its not even the SAME market. Increased murder rates? Perhaps your mental health industry is failing.
But this case as with all cases, mammals and likely all animals are loss aversive, crime is just that nature expressing itself. It's not always pretty but there is always a nice and positive way to reduce it.
Always.
People could start hurling fireballs from their palms tomorrow because of some freak mutation and there still would be a nice way to solve the issue.
And has nothing to do with the greedy asshole developers who continue to FAIL HORRIBLY at fighting piracy? In 30 years, I've never seen any DRM that worked to stop piracy, but it's done wonders at everything from depriving the legitimate customers of the product they PAID for (you know, what the developers are supposed to WANT) to damaging their hardware (Midway had a copy protection scheme that did this in the C64 days), while doing nothing to stop piracy.Buretsu said:
There's something seriously wrong with your business decisions and practices if the ones ripping off your product get a BETTER experience than your legitimate customers.
It largely depends upon the motivation for the boycott, but the basic reasons would probably be:Scrustle said:
1) If you resort to piracy, you lose the moral high ground in the debate. (EA is evil so to retaliate, I'll partake in an activity that is generally seen as being wrong!)
2) Pirating a game sends a mixed message to those who made the game. If your motivation is to force some sort of change about the game, if you still choose to play it that message is easily lost.
3) The game/developer sucks (Developer X sucks but I'd still play the game if it was free)
4) Refusing to purchase is the only real dialog option a consumer has with those that make things. Given the most common reason I see for refusal to pay is because of a consumer hostile action on the side of the business, engaging in a hostile action in response will not achieve the desired response.
5) Boycotts on the basis of price have, as the core of the argument, the notion that the developer is being unfair. To then enjoy the product that cost the developer millions without paying a cent is likewise unfair.
There are certainly other reasons of course. Suffice it to say that if you intend to boycott a product on any basis other than "I don't want to pay" (with no rationalization as to why you shouldn't pay), to then steal the game tends to undermine your position.