Do you think it is piracy to use Cheat Engine on a F2P game to get otherwise paid content?

[Cryselle]

You fail to see how the same result can be achieved without buying the official DLC?

Let me give another example. Final Fantasy XIII was a bad PC port so someone wrote a mod to allow for higher resolutions. Now say that Square Enix decided to release paid DLC that included higher resolutions. Would that unofficial free mod now be considered piracy?

Don't like this example, there are a million more just like the Horse Armor Oblivion example. Why pay Bethesda for horse armor when there is a free mod that does the same thing?

Okay, here's some things on your examples. For the FF XIII port, the unofficial mod to include higher resolutions is actually already on questionable legal grounds. Depends really on how the mod writers went about things, but on a very very technical level they're probably breaking the law. Squenix /could/ go after them, they just haven't so far and probably won't. As it stands now, there's no case for financial damages to be awarded, and even if Squenix released a paid upgrade tomorrow, courts won't backdate that kind of thing. All Squenix could really get from a court is an injunction to stop distribution of the mod. However, all of this legal stuff is on the people who wrote the mod. The end user is pretty protected on this one, downloading and installing the mod may break the EULA, but that's a civil issue, not a legal one. Worst that can happen to you is that your game can get broken.

As far as the Horse Armor Oblivion example, Bethesda gave the modding tools and permission to use them to the community. If you design your own Horse Armor as a mod, you have not broken any rules whatsoever. The only way Bethesda could go after you is if they could prove that you /didn't/ design your own, but actually used theirs. Bethesda sells things like the horse armor based off the idea that their offerings are better (or at least different) than what the modding community delivers, and the promise that their stuff won't suddenly stop working in any future patches. (Which is a laugh, given Bethesda, their stuff is probably more likely to break than most mods, but that's another topic entirely) Still as long as you don't steal their work, you're good to go, even if your stuff fills a similar niche to the end user.

Using Cheat Engine to give yourself purchased premium content of any sort for free would, most likely, be seen as theft by a court if there was ever a large enough scale use of it to ever make it to a judge (Which is, admittedly, hard to imagine happening). The DMCA specifically prohibits decompiling software in order to circumvent a system that controls access to copyrighted content, and the law usually doesn't care about things like "But it was /really/ easy to do!" or "It's my computer so I can do what I want."

 

[Danny Dowling]

i'm really against piracy in gaming, but if I could get a crap load of gems for my Clash of Clans for free then I'd do it.

Fuck those guys, make me wait 2 days to upgrade my town hall, any chance?

 

[lechat]

not piracy but definitely some form of theft.

I think a basic comparison would be thinking back to the old doom days (sorry young kids) back in those days game demos were often the entire game with large portions of it locked out until you paid for it. You could have (and more than likely did) change a few values on the game demo and get the full game for free,
by some people's logic this wouldn't be theft because you already own the code and are just changing a few values....

 

[jklinders]

Here's what I want to know. Why does it matter how easy it is to circumvent the way the software is designed when you are breaking the ToS to give yourself free premium currency? It's no less illegal to shoplift in a store with poor security than it is in a store with the solid security that catches you. The differences are, you get caught in one of those scenarios. I'm not sure that the term piracy applies as that implies violation of copy protection and/or illegal distribution more than breaking the game code but there is something going off there.

If I make a dinky little web game and post it for free then I am not expecting to get much out of it save maybe a trickle of ad revenue (yes and using those pesky unmentionable browser ad ons is technically cheating the system too) but if I introduce a system to monetize it regardless of how ineptly I do so and it is exploited in this way, definitely immoral and likely illegal depending on the ToS and your local laws regarding such.

 

[one squirrel]

How is that even a question, of course it is piracy. You are consuming content that is supposed to be only accessible if you pay for it. Doesn't matter if you are using your own code to unlock this content. Just because you are using your own tools to crack a safe, it does not mean that you have the right to take the things that were locked in. Furthermore, the fact that the content is part of the files that are on your disc or on your computer does not mean that you have the right to access every last bit of it, only the part you paid for.

 

[Random Fella]

I wouldn't say it's piracy, I'd say it's cheating.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

It may not be piracy in a technical sense. Hell there might not be a real term for it at all, however it smacks of theft. Why? Because you're using means to gain something that otherwise would have required one to pay a fee to acquire. Gaining something without paying for it when there is demonstrable value is theft. Period.
Its an exploit though, even if its not using the exact code, you're tricking the game into thinking it got instructions that are supposed to come from the payment server. You're circumventing the payment portion and its wrong and possibly illegal. There's a legal gray area, and its because digital goods are still an unknown.
Don't like the pay model? Then don't play the game. Its the same concept as "I don't think x-game is worth y-price so I'm going to download a cracked copy instead". Which is wrong in any sense. There's no justification for it. I'm not saying its piracy, I'm saying that its just as wrong as piracy and there's no moral justification for it at all. None.
Sorry.

 

[wickedmonkey]

It's not piracy but it is theft - you've got a Free-to-play game you've been able to download from the developer at no cost to yourself to play and enjoy for as long as you like.

You're now using a third-party program to modify that game in a way not intended by the developers to gain access to a convenience that you should only normally be able to get either through the developers own discretion or by paying for it.

This convenience is the developers only source of income from this game and by using the third-party program you are taking this convenience without paying for it and denying the developers this income, this is theft.

The difference between this and say, cheating in extra lives on Super Mario is that in Super Mario you've already purchased the product - the developers aren't charging you for extra lives and so cheating in extra lives does not deny them any income from the product.

 

[GloatingSwine]

If I can pay real money for Gems to speed up a game function, is it piracy to give myself Gems with Cheat Engine or a trainer? I am talking about single player games only.

This seems to imply that you are talking about a "pay or wait" model free to play game.

In which case why would you be playing that game in the first place, let alone goingto the effort of finding a cheat engine for it?

 

[Nathan Josephs]

i did this in dragonfable wayyyyy back. i also made it so i did NaN damage. fun times.

 

[Sherokain]

....that IS an interesting question.

I would argue that yes it is. Though the way to the content is different, the end result is the same; you're receiving something that you should be paying for without having to pay for it.

So technically, no, it's not. But by the spirit of the law...or.....the spirit of against the law?, it is piracy. At the end of the day, the developer is not getting money for something that they should be getting money for, therefore piracy.

Why SHOULD you be paying for what is just a cheat code? Think about it this way, why should I pay for a McDonalds cheeseburger if I can make my own that is just as good.

The sake of convenience simply put. In F2P games you can usually get the content free of charge, but you pay to bypass the waiting period while your stamina recharges or to give your self more in game currency, in a similar fashion you would go to McDonalds simply because it is easier than making your own food.

 

[Something Amyss]

Piracy is the use or reproduction of another's work without applicable permission.

This seems to fit that definition to a T.

I would call it piracy.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Piracy is the use or reproduction of another's work without applicable permission.

This seems to fit that definition to a T.

I would call it piracy.

Applying a cheat code with hardware/software not made by the developer is not using the developers work at all. Just like giving yourself infinite invincibility (sparkles) in Super Mario World isn't piracy.

 

[loa]

No. Fuck them.
That shit don't belong in my singleplayer game.
If I cheat to get a zillion materials in dead space 3 because I want to build all of the guns, I'll not waste a nanosecond being compassionate to the assholes who thought putting microtransactions into the game was a good idea.
As far as I am concerned, you're fixing a broken by design game.

The same goes if I did that in a free 2 wait game like clash of clans and they can ban me for it which is fine (and also the only thing that would keep me from doing it) but cheating to change a freaking value is not theft and since there is no precedent for this, companies realize this and won't be stupid enough to sue for it.

If it is in the vanilla game and it won't affect anyone else (online), I can fuck with it as I goddamn well please.
Your shitty business model is not my problem.

 

[mxc2012]

Not for singleplayer, you having or not having the content doesn't affect anyone else. Multiplayer is a different story.

 

[WeepingAngels]

No. Fuck them.
That shit don't belong in my singleplayer game.
If I cheat to get a zillion materials in dead space 3 because I want to build all of the guns, I'll not waste a nanosecond being compassionate to the assholes who thought putting microtransactions into the game was a good idea.
As far as I am concerned, you're fixing a broken by design game.

The same goes if I did that in a free 2 wait game like clash of clans and they can ban me for it which is fine (and also the only thing that would keep me from doing it) but cheating to change a freaking value is not theft and since there is no precedent for this, companies realize this and won't be stupid enough to sue for it.

If it is in the vanilla game and it won't affect anyone else (online), I can fuck with it as I goddamn well please.
Your shitty business model is not my problem.

There is precedent for cheating devices and they were ruled to be just fine.

The district court rejected Nintendo's argument, finding that a consumer utilizing the Game Genie for noncommercial, private enjoyment "neither generates a fixed transferable copy of the work, nor exhibits or performs the work for commercial gain."[3]

http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Galoob_v._Nintendo

 

[loa]

There is precedent for cheating devices and they were ruled to be just fine.

The district court rejected Nintendo's argument, finding that a consumer utilizing the Game Genie for noncommercial, private enjoyment "neither generates a fixed transferable copy of the work, nor exhibits or performs the work for commercial gain."[3]

http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Galoob_v._Nintendo

Well that's from the NES era where something such as paying real money for in-game currency was a concept that didn't exist yet so I'm not sure if that would apply here.

 

[WeepingAngels]

There is precedent for cheating devices and they were ruled to be just fine.

The district court rejected Nintendo's argument, finding that a consumer utilizing the Game Genie for noncommercial, private enjoyment "neither generates a fixed transferable copy of the work, nor exhibits or performs the work for commercial gain."[3]

http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Galoob_v._Nintendo

Well that's from the NES era where something such as paying real money for in-game currency was a concept that didn't eyist yet so I'm not sure that would apply here.

You are using the same method to alter values in RAM. Of course it would apply here. Just because a dev is charging for something that can be achieved by using a cheat code doesn't mean you have to buy it. You just can't illegally download the devs code.

 

[Something Amyss]

Applying a cheat code with hardware/software not made by the developer is not using the developers work at all. Just like giving yourself infinite invincibility (sparkles) in Super Mario World isn't piracy.

You're not using it at all? How do you access the stuff to benefit from it, then?