Killzone 3 Leaks to Torrent Sites

[Vrach]

suppose then, that they could.

I'd be up for defending your right to a sports car then if you couldn't afford one.

I understand your discrepancies, and I do feel sorry for her, but do not play the sympathy card here. It's just a cop-out argument, and a bad fallacy to base any argument off of.

Surely you already know the answer to your question, but I'll bite. The reason why it goes to Americans and other, more developed, countries is because these things are luxuries for us. Countries like, I dunno, Uzbekistan or Sri-Lanka or something, do not have the luxury of obtaining games, and in many cases games are not sold there at all. Westernized cultures take a ton of things for granted, going "Oh god, I have to...work for money to get a game I want!?" (not saying your friend does that, just saying) as if it's somehow unreasonable to work for something you want.

I'm not playing the sympathy card. I'm saying, if she's working her ass off, MORE so than others in the world who do the same amount of work and get paid 6 times as much for it (considering she's only a student and working a bar tending job), why doesn't she deserve the same luxury? It's a matter of logic, not sympathy.

And I don't think you understood the second part, or at least your answer seems to indicate as much. My point was that the "piracy is theft" always comes from people in US and countries that have a decent standard. Countries where you can get a job that doesn't require any education and still make as much as a job that takes 17+ years of education somewhere else. No offense, just saying, try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who's simply not able to make as much money.

If game price was scaled with standard, I'd agree with your definition of piracy=theft. But if I'm paying the same (actually higher, due to import etc.) price as someone who can make 3-5 times as much as me doing the same job, then as far as I'm concerned, that blows your argument straight out of the water. If we had places here that rented games at a price relevant to the region, I'd again agree.

If you think I'm pulling this out of my arse, compare some salaries here. I was sick lately so I got to talk to a few docs. Turns out a doctor with some serious working years behind them makes some 40k dinars a month here. That's 522$. Normal doctors make some 30-35k (391-457$). That's GPs and such btw. Wanna go to your local hospital and ask them what they make a month? Quick search on the interwebs says some 9500+$ a month at the minimum (more actually, but I'm rounding it down) around the US area. Wanna take your calculator and go to town on that bad boy? That's 18+ times as much. Think on that for a while.

if you spent 50 dollars on agame and found you didn't like it, boo fucking hoo, deal with it, don't try to use it was a weak justification to get things for free, people make poor investments and financial decisions all the time, its part of life, you don't see the richard bransons of the world whining whenever they go bankrupt, no they dust themselves off and rebuild themselves using the knowledge they learned from their previous mistakes

Shitty game is one thing. Game not working is another. Do me a favour. Go get a job with someone to design a program for them. Then give them a dysfunctional program with a pile of bugs, a load of things that crash the program and an actual memory leak. Then tell me you managed to not have to pay them back every fucking cent they paid you. Yeah. Ain't happening.

so? why should she get a free ride over others? especially the people who worked night and day to increasingly asinine and rediculous deadlines in order to make that game, which is a luxury item not a neccessity, don't they deserve to be compensated for their work with you showing your appreciation by just buying the damn game?

They do. And if one could afford a game, they should buy it. However, if they can't afford it, they're not a potential customer and as such, the developers lose nothing from a person pirating it.

There is always a cost. No matter how few people you think pirate and NEVER buy the game, Id like to bet that your number is far too low to be realistic. Those digital copies of the game DO take money away from people who worked hard to create that game. And the argument of saying "people pirate games in order to play more games in the industry and enjoy it more" is just dumb. Just really really dumb. They aren't supporting the industry, they are actively diminishing it with every theft they commit. If pirates really wanted the video game industry to grow and develop they would buy the games like the rest of us. As it stands we now are dealing with game developers who won't produce games for the PS3 now that it has been hacked. It isn't that people are going to see "gee, the PS3 can be hacked, guess we should treat all consoles evenly now shouldn't we?" it will be "gee, the PS3 got hacked. Let's make Xbox games from now on."

There is nothing lost by piracy other than potential customers. Unlike other media that would need to be deprived of a physical object that costs money to manufacture and that could be sold to someone else. Thus it is not theft but copyright infringement. As for the "let's make Xbox games from now on." yeah... welcome to the world of PCs. But it's a step forward. Xbox will get hacked too, then we can go on our merry fucking way of developers having no more excuses

And not to be vicious, but you sure are up on your moral high horse despite the fact that you are defending public thieves stealing from hard working people who just want to feed their families and keep the industry they love alive. This string of pirating WILL affect the gaming industry in the near future, and it will not be good. Pirates are ruining gaming slowly, bit by bit, whether its stealing from companies that might have been able to stay in business, keeping companies from taking risks with new IP due to the high pirate rate, or even so far as an entire console going under due to the competition being better by being less hackable. The pirates are not good people, and I really don't understand how anyone can sit there and tell us, the people against them, that they are inconsiderate bastards because we hate people who steal and ruin our fun.

Hard working people who want to feed their families and keep the industry they love alive still get paid. My argument is actually that piracy gets them paid more. I don't know many people who started gaming in their mid twenties, after they were out of education and earning money. And that's basically where you'd rather put anyone without a pair of rich parents as far as gaming is concerned. No, it's usually started before you're able to make money and if all you're given is free to play games, you might never get into it. I know I wouldn't.

Your "piracy is ruining the industry" is about as valid as "games cause violence". Just something to wave around cause it benefits someone and makes a bit of sense before you spend more than two seconds thinking about it. It's also something that's been proven time and again that it's complete bullshit. Even big names in the industry that don't just advertise their profit margin have pointed out as much. See Tim Schafer saying piracy made his Psychonauts more popular than sales ever could, something that has already earned him money (after people liked the game and bought it, as opposed to thinking "lol, small developer, not wasting money on this") and will earn him even more so when the second part comes around. And that's a small guy not making much money, the bigger guys just get paid more (even if they do "lose" more as well from piracy).

Ok look at it this way. Gaming is a hobby, just like say, working on cars. Now lets say that someone loves working on cars but can't afford to buy the parts they need. Does that mean they can just walk into the factory and take $2,000 part? Just because it's something you love and are passionate about doesn't mean it's your right to be able to do it, it just means it's something you love to do. For every sale that gaming companies don't get any money from we loose out.

What a lot of pirates don't realize is that games cost a shit load of money to produce. You have to pay for the latest and greatest software to make the thing, you have to pay the couple hundred people that work on it, you have to pay to print the disc, you have to pay to ship the game, you have to pay for advertisements, you have to pay for the cases the games go in, and finally you have to pay the company that publishes your game. The only way that a company can make any money to stay up and running is to sell as many copies of their game as they possibly can and when they can't they have to cut back, whether that be firing employees or having to continue using sub par hardware/software.People can keep thinking that that their money doesn't make that big a difference, but when say 3,000 people in the U.S. pirate a game which retails at the average sixty bucks, thats $180,000 which is a lot of money believe it or not. That would almost cover the cost for the 3D software that they put on all of the artist's computers.

Taking a 2000$ part from a factory is taking something that cost money to produce. I'm not talking about "hey, let's design this part" money to produce, I'm talking "let's get materials and put this shit together" money to produce. Piracy doesn't take anything away, it doubles it and gives it for free. No one loses anything but a potential customer in the process and when the potential customer is not a potential customer due to lack of funds, inability to find a game etc. then nothing at all is lost.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying "well if you want a game, I think piracy is ok". I'm saying "if you're unable to get a game otherwise, whether due to location, lack of funds or whatever, I think piracy is ok". I still think everyone should support the industry as much as they can afford to, I just don't think they should necessarily be limited to fewer games because they had less fortune of not having rich parents, high country standards etc.

And wow that's a lot of replies. Scuse the huge post, went to bed last night

 

[Andy Chalk]

It's not the pirates fault for taking advantage of something that is there, like it's not the cows fault for shitting in the water upstream from where you drink.

This is possibly the most hilarious thing I've read all week. Are you seriously suggesting that pirates - ie., human beings - cannot be expected to behave better and with greater morality than farm animals?

Wow, dude.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Should one prioritise gaming over a place to live? Or should she never be allowed to play a game to relax after all that work because she doesn't have a parent to just pour money her way, even though her enjoying that game would not hurt anyone's sales considering she otherwise couldn't afford it?

Are you being serious? Because yes, absolutely, that is entirely, 100 percent the case. You don't have some god-given right to be entertained. If you can't afford it, do something else. Or do without. You're not feeding your children here. You're indulging your over-inflated sense of entitlement.

The idea that being poor somehow entitles you to steal something you weren't going to buy anyone - no harm done! - is one of the most odious arguments in favour of piracy I've ever heard.

 

[Vrach]

Should one prioritise gaming over a place to live? Or should she never be allowed to play a game to relax after all that work because she doesn't have a parent to just pour money her way, even though her enjoying that game would not hurt anyone's sales considering she otherwise couldn't afford it?

Are you being serious? Because yes, absolutely, that is entirely, 100 percent the case. You don't have some god-given right to be entertained. If you can't afford it, do something else. Or do without. You're not feeding your children here. You're indulging your over-inflated sense of entitlement.

The idea that being poor somehow entitles you to steal something you weren't going to buy anyone - no harm done! - is one of the most odious arguments in favour of piracy I've ever heard.

1. If people don't have a God given right to be entertained, what would you say to Extra Credit's notion of people who can't otherwise get a game in their country to get it by piracy? Why are they excused, they don't have a God given right to be entertained either, surely?

2. Yes, I do think that if you're harming no one by enjoying something, you should enjoy it. As far as feeding your children goes, feeding the poor actually takes effort from someone. It takes making food, paying for it and giving it away, food that could've been otherwise sold to someone else, a product. We're not talking about stealing game CDs out of a game shop here, we're talking about piracy. Nothing is stolen in the process, a copyright is merely infringed upon

And as far as one's over-inflated sense of entitlement goes, wouldn't the over-inflated sense of entitlement being living in a developed country and thinking the entire world should work the exact same way as it, even when it's not able to? That the entire world should pay your profit margins, even when their own are on a ridiculously lower scale? Wouldn't an over-inflated sense of entitlement actually be defined by someone thinking they're entitled to more just because they're better off due to circumstances as opposed by personal effort? That's my opinion anyway, you may not agree with it, but I'd ask you to read my whole post again before disagreeing, researching some foreign standards and thinking a little bit why one should have a greater right to be entertained and a right to enjoy life more because of their birth location and circumstances and especially so when the other person having the same satisfaction doesn't actually touch upon anyone else in any shape or form.

 

[Kair]

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

can't tell if your being sarcastic... but in this case it should be limited, software is the only thing America has that they can still produce that can't be out sourced to china/Mexico.

You do not consider alternatives.

Before you ask me to explain, I would like you to read the part of Das Kapital which explains the commodity and the value of the commodity.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

It will save me a lot of time.

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

Your post + your avatar = lol

You know well that a Communist supports freedom of information. Any connotation suggesting otherwise is improper.

 

[zehydra]

suppose then, that they could.

I'd be up for defending your right to a sports car then if you couldn't afford one.

I suppose then, that we have entirely different philosophies on the matter. I take it you're a fan of collectivism?

 

[Vrach]

suppose then, that they could.

I'd be up for defending your right to a sports car then if you couldn't afford one.

I suppose then, that we have entirely different philosophies on the matter. I take it you're a fan of collectivism?

Nope, merely a fan of higher base standards within capitalism. I think capitalism is great, it promotes progress, I just think the curve is too steep when you have people living on the street and movie/pop stars being paid millions of dollars. I'm merely in support of evening the scales a little bit, still keeping the rich rich, just not obscenely so, while affording everyone a decent standard of living to start from. Imo, it would actually promote higher progress because people on the street stay on the street while people with some decent standard always strive for more.

But yeah, I'm very much in favour of everyone enjoying life as much as it's possible as long as it doesn't do harm to others. Maybe I'm just silly like that

 

[megs1120]

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

can't tell if your being sarcastic... but in this case it should be limited, software is the only thing America has that they can still produce that can't be out sourced to china/Mexico.

You do not consider alternatives.

Before you ask me to explain, I would like you to read the part of Das Kapital which explains the commodity and the value of the commodity.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

It will save me a lot of time.

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

Your post + your avatar = lol

You know well that a Communist supports freedom of information. Any connotation suggesting otherwise is improper.

Oh, sorry about that, I'd assumed you were one of those annoying ironic Stalinists who are so common on message boards.

 

[Kair]

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

can't tell if your being sarcastic... but in this case it should be limited, software is the only thing America has that they can still produce that can't be out sourced to china/Mexico.

You do not consider alternatives.

Before you ask me to explain, I would like you to read the part of Das Kapital which explains the commodity and the value of the commodity.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

It will save me a lot of time.

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

Your post + your avatar = lol

You know well that a Communist supports freedom of information. Any connotation suggesting otherwise is improper.

Oh, sorry about that, I'd assumed you were one of those annoying ironic Stalinists who are so common on message boards.

It is ok.

It is sad that Stalinism have been associated with Communism. Stalin was an opportunist, a tyrant and a nationalist. I have a difficult time with people as many do not know the definition of the word Communism, and therefore have no idea what they are arguing against.

 

[Andy Chalk]

That's my opinion anyway

The whole pedantic "it's not theft it's copyright infringement" wordplay is so tiresome. So is that "poor Third World gamers" nonsense. You're not some Indian peasant who dreams of one day getting in a couple rounds of Killzone before he dies. You're a European playing with semantics, and the only people you're convincing are those, like you, who want to be convinced.

It's a simple point: if you're not willing to pay for your electronic entertainment, find some other way to entertain yourself. But don't try to dress up your cheapness and/or entitlement complex as some kind of philosophical platform. It's not.

 

[Vrach]

That's my opinion anyway

The whole pedantic "it's not theft it's copyright infringement" wordplay is so tiresome. So is that "poor Third World gamers" nonsense. You're not some Indian peasant who dreams of one day getting in a couple rounds of Killzone before he dies. You're a European playing with semantics, and the only people you're convincing are those, like you, who want to be convinced.

It's a simple point: if you're not willing to pay for your electronic entertainment, find some other way to entertain yourself. But don't try to dress up your cheapness and/or entitlement complex as some kind of philosophical platform. It's not.

Theft and copyright infringement are two wholly different things. Hell, the Escapist itself recognizes it by the looks of several stories it ran, especially the sort that affects the music business. Hell, half of YouTube are music and other videos that are infringing on copyright, yet it's seen as one of the greatest things on the internet (for those things as well as it's normal sharing ability - come on, tell me you've never listened to a song on there unless it states copyright permission or is put up by Vevo or sth).

Fact is, capitalism is not a perfect system (do you honestly wanna state otherwise?) and I see piracy as just one of the things that's there as something to soften the blow it makes against those it shouldn't.

But anyway, if you wanna pull out an argument, I'll be happy to discuss it (I feel I've supplied more than enough to explain my opinion on the matter so far), but if you wanna just insult me for an opinion while advocating capitalistic elitism and pretending it's the greatest thing in the world that no argument can touch, I don't really have much to say mate

 

[Jumplion]

I'm not playing the sympathy card. I'm saying, if she's working her ass off, MORE so than others in the world who do the same amount of work and get paid 6 times as much for it (considering she's only a student and working a bar tending job), why doesn't she deserve the same luxury? It's a matter of logic, not sympathy.

See, no matter what I answer here, I am going to sound like an asshole. This is playing the sympathy card, this is pathos, not logos. If she is getting overworked and underpaid, I'd say she has better things to worry about than whether or not she'll have enough money to get the next, I dunno, Gears of War

Gaming is a pretty expensive hobby, but it's not like gaming is the only thing she can entertain herself with. There are plenty of things that can entertain someone with minimal cash spent. She has to decide whether she wants to "gang bang" her way through Bulletstorm or work off her debts/rents/whatever she has.

That's life.

And I don't think you understood the second part, or at least your answer seems to indicate as much. My point was that the "piracy is theft" always comes from people in US and countries that have a decent standard.

As it is in most developed countries.

Countries where you can get a job that doesn't require any education and still make as much as a job that takes 17+ years of education somewhere else. No offense, just saying, try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who's simply not able to make as much money.

Those countries have better things to worry about than games, which, again, is a pretty expensive hobby. If somebody cannot buy any game legitimately where they live, then (according to Extra Credits, anyway) it should be fine to pirate because they can't get the game anyway.

And you are totally putting down the sympathy card, "try to put yourself in the shoes of someone else," my batoochie. I barely take in a steady income myself, doesn't mean I should pirate a game because I can't afford it. I save up, I invest, I spend my cash wisely, and eventually I get enough to get a game that hopefully I will enjoy. Sometimes I have excess dough to spend on two, but because someone out there is getting more money then me I should be allowed to pirate? 'Cause that's what I'm getting here.

If game price was scaled with standard, I'd agree with your definition of piracy=theft.

Standard? I'm pretty sure games are priced based on the world economy and whatnot, weaker dollars and such.

But if I'm paying the same (actually higher, due to import etc.) price as someone who can make 3-5 times as much as me doing the same job, then as far as I'm concerned, that blows your argument straight out of the water. If we had places here that rented games at a price relevant to the region, I'd again agree.

So, because someone, somewhere, out there, is making more money than you, you should be allowed to play whatever game you want?

That's. Life.

And to be perfectly honest, and with no offense to you personally, I just think that's an immature way of thinking.

If you think I'm pulling this out of my arse, compare some salaries here. I was sick lately so I got to talk to a few docs. Turns out a doctor with some serious working years behind them makes some 40k dinars a month here. That's 522$. Normal doctors make some 30-35k (391-457$). That's GPs and such btw. Wanna go to your local hospital and ask them what they make a month? Quick search on the interwebs says some 9500+$ a month at the minimum (more actually, but I'm rounding it down) around the US area. Wanna take your calculator and go to town on that bad boy? That's 18+ times as much. Think on that for a while.

You are so playing the sympathy card. Fine, the doctors in your country (Serbia, according to your profile) get paid less than doctors in the US. What's your point? There's always going to be someone better off, or worse, than you. This doesn't entitle you to luxuries because "Oh, I work so hard for so little!" If you can't afford gaming as a hobby, find another one.

The problem here is that no matter what I will respond with, I will always fall into the "Cold, heartless bastard" pit, and I'm not trying to. I get it, you work hard but you don't get your due, I can sympathize with that. I'm not trying to be the "bad guy" here. But I don't see how you can justify piracy because some people just happen to work more for less. That's life. That's the way the world goes round.

 

[Vrach]

I'm not playing the sympathy card. I'm saying, if she's working her ass off, MORE so than others in the world who do the same amount of work and get paid 6 times as much for it (considering she's only a student and working a bar tending job), why doesn't she deserve the same luxury? It's a matter of logic, not sympathy.

See, no matter what I answer here, I am going to sound like an asshole. This is playing the sympathy card, this is pathos, not logos. If she is getting overworked and underpaid, I'd say she has better things to worry about than whether or not she'll have enough money to get the next, I dunno, Gears of War

I'm not advocating for her (she's not a gamer in the first place). I merely used her as an example as she's the only student I know that actually works a job next to studying, it's not about her at all, I just said, "if she wanted to play next to that, she couldn't". As far as overworked and underpaid goes, I was merely pointing out I'd punch anyone saying "it's normal for students to work" cause I hear that crap from random parents and such who don't realise how much stress that is and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The pathos part was aimed at a different discussion, or rather at the prevention of it

Gaming is a pretty expensive hobby, but it's not like gaming is the only thing she can entertain herself with. There are plenty of things that can entertain someone with minimal cash spent. She has to decide whether she wants to "gang bang" her way through Bulletstorm or work off her debts/rents/whatever she has.

That's life.

Of course, but why would one go for another hobby when going for gaming will not touch upon anyone else? More importantly, why shouldn't one get into gaming and support the industry when they get a chance to (in this case, once they're done with university and can get a proper job) when that will gain net profit for the industry that we're trying to get support for here in the first place? The whole argument of "pirating games is evil" is based on the game industry losing money and you'd rather people just forget gaming as a whole and do something else. So rather than pirating games for several years then spending the next 20-50 years supporting the gaming industry because you fell in love with the medium, you'd rather have someone go for another hobby and never support the industry at all.

And I don't think you understood the second part, or at least your answer seems to indicate as much. My point was that the "piracy is theft" always comes from people in US and countries that have a decent standard.

As it is in most developed countries.

Yeah that's my point exactly. That people from developed countries are somewhat out of place to talk on the subject. Not that I'm saying you shouldn't talk on it or are not allowed an opinion, just saying, think about when was the last time you saw your argument supported by someone living in a place that doesn't have a fantastic standard (I for one remember lots of people, one in particular from Croatia saying "I ain't gonna go and blow a third of my monthly salary for every game that I wanna play"). Think about how that ties in with the argument.

Countries where you can get a job that doesn't require any education and still make as much as a job that takes 17+ years of education somewhere else. No offense, just saying, try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who's simply not able to make as much money.

Those countries have better things to worry about than games, which, again, is a pretty expensive hobby. If somebody cannot buy any game legitimately where they live, then (according to Extra Credits, anyway) it should be fine to pirate because they can't get the game anyway.

I'm not sure what you imagine a life in a country like Serbia to be. We're not Afghanistan, carrying cinder blocks around all day to rebuild a country torn by war. It's a normal country just like your own, everything is same except that everything is more shit because it's poorer on the whole. No, the people don't have anything huge to occupy them or larger things to worry about. They're just living their life and just like you, they like to put their feet up once in a while.

And to be perfectly honest, and with no offense to you personally, I just think that's an immature way of thinking.

It very much is. I take no offense to it, I take pride in it. What's viewed as a mature view on politics these days (actually in most of history outside revolutionary periods) is what I see as pure cynicism. I don't see a reason to be ashamed of the fact I'm unwilling to accept the bitter reality of life (that's negative and completely changeable, imo) as something that should never be changed. The fact that most of the society do and merely accept is why I believe we're as fucked up as we are on a global scale.

My view on this is part of my greater view on life. I'm sorry, but you could've told to a black person unable to sit on the bus "that's life" too. You could've said to a person living under Stalin (or, what I had personal experience with, Milosevic) "don't talk shit about the state, that's life". You could've told people in medieval ages "don't question why the king is king by birthright and why we live under a shitty monarchy, that's life". No, I'm not comparing not being able to play a game to those things, I'm comparing the fundamental views on political/social cynicism and accepting the "reality" even when you know full well it's complete and utter bullshit.

As far as how piracy fits into that, it's simply something to do in the in between period. It's just something to get by with. I'm not glorifying it, I'm merely saying don't demonize it on the whole. If you honestly think someone's not making PC games cause of piracy, you oughtta delve a little deeper into how the gaming industry works. Tip, PS3s and Xbox's don't need an upgrade every year or so and are made just for gaming.

If you think I'm pulling this out of my arse, compare some salaries here. I was sick lately so I got to talk to a few docs. Turns out a doctor with some serious working years behind them makes some 40k dinars a month here. That's 522$. Normal doctors make some 30-35k (391-457$). That's GPs and such btw. Wanna go to your local hospital and ask them what they make a month? Quick search on the interwebs says some 9500+$ a month at the minimum (more actually, but I'm rounding it down) around the US area. Wanna take your calculator and go to town on that bad boy? That's 18+ times as much. Think on that for a while.

You are so playing the sympathy card. Fine, the doctors in your country (Serbia, according to your profile) get paid less than doctors in the US. What's your point? There's always going to be someone better off, or worse, than you. This doesn't entitle you to luxuries because "Oh, I work so hard for so little!" If you can't afford gaming as a hobby, find another one.

The problem here is that no matter what I will respond with, I will always fall into the "Cold, heartless bastard" pit, and I'm not trying to. I get it, you work hard but you don't get your due, I can sympathize with that. I'm not trying to be the "bad guy" here. But I don't see how you can justify piracy because some people just happen to work more for less. That's life. That's the way the world goes round.

First off, we're not talking about someone simply better off. What I stated above is a difference of 1800%. That's way beyond anything that should be even remotely considered to be normal and ok. 18 times the amount. And we're not talking small amounts here. We're also talking the exact same line of work. So I really don't get how someone can tell me same effort being awarded 18 times as much is ok and then call me someone with a heavy sense of self entitlement. Oh and it's not doctors, I gave you one example, things are similar across the board for just about any job.

But far more importantly, once again, it's not about the sympathy, that's not why I'm pointing it out. It's simple logic. Objectivity is achieved, or at least worked towards, by considering points of view outside your own. I'm not saying, look at this poor doctor, I'm saying, take into consideration all the factors. I don't see, and I doubt I ever will, why standard should be that dramatically different from country to country. Well I do see it of course and understand it, but what I'll never understand is someone cheering for the fact and/or ignoring it. Here, I'll say it:

Yes. I am of the opinion that the same line of work should be relatively similarly paid wherever you live in the world. If there is a discrepancy of 1800%, something is simply wrong and it's not something you can ignore and say "that's life". Or well, you can. But I'll never understand it or respect you for holding such a view (don't mean that as an offense, just a fact).

 

[FogHornG36]

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

can't tell if your being sarcastic... but in this case it should be limited, software is the only thing America has that they can still produce that can't be out sourced to china/Mexico.

You do not consider alternatives.

Before you ask me to explain, I would like you to read the part of Das Kapital which explains the commodity and the value of the commodity.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm

It will save me a lot of time.

Piracy is good, it leaks information, and information should not be limited.

Your post + your avatar = lol

You know well that a Communist supports freedom of information. Any connotation suggesting otherwise is improper.

Oh, sorry about that, I'd assumed you were one of those annoying ironic Stalinists who are so common on message boards.

It is ok.

It is sad that Stalinism have been associated with Communism. Stalin was an opportunist, a tyrant and a nationalist. I have a difficult time with people as many do not know the definition of the word Communism, and therefore have no idea what they are arguing against.

Oh thanks but im going to take the dumb American rout and not read the entire Economic manuscript from Karl Marx, and i really doubt that this changes the fact that Ideas are what we are trying to sell were countrys that have a less educated work force can't produce this, but has plenty of cheap laber, i may not understand Marxism or his value on commodity, but i do know how it works in real life.

 

[Jumplion]

(damn, after looking back, I typed a helluvahlot, didn't I?)

Of course, but why would one go for another hobby when going for gaming will not touch upon anyone else? More importantly, why shouldn't one get into gaming and support the industry when they get a chance to (in this case, once they're done with university and can get a proper job) when that will gain net profit for the industry that we're trying to get support for here in the first place? The whole argument of "pirating games is evil" is based on the game industry losing money and you'd rather people just forget gaming as a whole and do something else. So rather than pirating games for several years then spending the next 20-50 years supporting the gaming industry because you fell in love with the medium, you'd rather have someone go for another hobby and never support the industry at all.

Look, I absolutely love my games, but there are about a million things more worthy to spend money on than gaming. A book can last about as long as a movie and cost 10x less. They are luxuries and should be treated as such. If you can't support them, pirating games doesn't help them any more than not buying it no matter how you twist it, and it especially doesn't help the legitimate consumers.

Yeah that's my point exactly. That people from developed countries are somewhat out of place to talk on the subject. Not that I'm saying you shouldn't talk on it or are not allowed an opinion, just saying, think about when was the last time you saw your argument supported by someone living in a place that doesn't have a fantastic standard (I for one remember lots of people, one in particular from Croatia saying "I ain't gonna go and blow a third of my monthly salary for every game that I wanna play"). Think about how that ties in with the argument.

Then...don't blow a third of your salary on every game you want to play? Ever heard of restraint? Saving up? Investing? Choosing wisely/carefully? Gaming's an expensive hobby, either you've got the money or you don't. It's like complaining that you have to spend 2/3s of your salary on upkeep for your hot tub,

A lot of scenarios like this just end up becoming "Oh, these poor-poor people!" and a whole lot of gray areas. Is it sad that some people in some countries can't play the games they want? Of course, to an extent. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Whether knowingly or not, most arguments like this boil down to the sympathy card.

I'm not sure what you imagine a life in a country like Serbia to be. We're not Afghanistan, carrying cinder blocks around all day to rebuild a country torn by war. It's a normal country just like your own, everything is same except that everything is more shit because it's poorer on the whole. No, the people don't have anything huge to occupy them or larger things to worry about. They're just living their life and just like you, they like to put their feet up once in a while.

Now this is the "Common/Plain Folk" appeal here. I know you're not trying to, but you are using emotional, sympathetic appeals here. This is what the argument tends to boil down to, where the question "why can't a poor, hardworking, honest (wo)man not have the joys of escapism?" but again, a line has to be drawn.

There are just as many hardworking, daily living people in the US. It's just that they happen to get paid more due to the whole world economy or whateverthehell dictates what's valuable and what's not.

It very much is. I take no offense to it, I take pride in it. What's viewed as a mature view on politics these days (actually in most of history outside revolutionary periods) is what I see as pure cynicism. I don't see a reason to be ashamed of the fact I'm unwilling to accept the bitter reality of life (that's negative and completely changeable, imo) as something that should never be changed. The fact that most of the society do and merely accept is why I believe we're as fucked up as we are on a global scale.

While I agree with you, somewhat at least, on the cynicism part, I don't feel that this aspect of life really needs any focus on that change. Again, games are a luxury, an expensive one at that, why not advocate to everyone having a book/being literate as that is a much more reasonable expectation? That I can totally get behind, books require little resources to get into (compared to games, anyway), and it further promotes education and such. Games, not so much.

[My view on this is part of my greater view on life. I'm sorry, but you could've told to a black person unable to sit on the bus "that's life" too. You could've said to a person living under Stalin (or, what I had personal experience with, Milosevic) "don't talk shit about the state, that's life". You could've told people in medieval ages "don't question why the king is king by birthright and why we live under a shitty monarchy, that's life". No, I'm not comparing not being able to play a game to those things, I'm comparing the fundamental views on political/social cynicism and accepting the "reality" even when you know full well it's complete and utter bullshit.

Okay, really now, don't compare slightly unfair/higher prices in games to enormous, nation changing political movements that stem from the human condition. Oh, bleh, I didn't catch that bolded part, my mistake.

I don't think sitting wherever you want on a bus is a luxury, though hell if I know if it was at the time.

As far as how piracy fits into that, it's simply something to do in the in between period. It's just something to get by with. I'm not glorifying it, I'm merely saying don't demonize it on the whole. If you honestly think someone's not making PC games cause of piracy, you oughtta delve a little deeper into how the gaming industry works. Tip, PS3s and Xbox's don't need an upgrade every year or so and are made just for gaming.

Someone cannot make games "because of piracy", that's just a non sequitor. Correlation vs. Causation or something like that. Someone can pirate games and still make them, but they wouldn't make games because they pirated them.

I don't particularly demonize piracy, in all honesty. The main thing I dislike about it is that the legitimate consumers get screwed over because companies employ restrictive DRMs and hold parts of their games from us so that the pirates will have a slightly harder time cracking their game. That's what grinds my gears, not the cause of piracy, but the effect of it. It's not the hardworking, underpaid person I dislike, it's the entitled, westernized, already well-off pirates that tick me off.

Yes. I am of the opinion that the same line of work should be relatively similarly paid wherever you live in the world. If there is a discrepancy of 1800%, something is simply wrong and it's not something you can ignore and say "that's life". Or well, you can. But I'll never understand it or respect you for holding such a view (don't mean that as an offense, just a fact).

Well, at the end of it all, I think we won't come to an agreement anytime soon. I do understand your reasoning behind some of your beliefs, but I just happen to disagree with them. One has to wonder if our places in society was switched, would we retain our previous beliefs or accept the other person's policies regarding electronic media?

And that, is the cosmic perspective [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38PGB9dcr4c].

 

[Baresark]

It's not the pirates fault for taking advantage of something that is there, like it's not the cows fault for shitting in the water upstream from where you drink.

This is possibly the most hilarious thing I've read all week. Are you seriously suggesting that pirates - ie., human beings - cannot be expected to behave better and with greater morality than farm animals?

Wow, dude.

I am simply suggesting that people will take advantages of something they have access to. I don't do heroine, but people who do it can't help themselves when it's right in front of them. I am not excusing it, and I honestly don't appreciate your attitude about it. I am simply saying, as a whole of my post, that you can't stop them from taking it when it's available to them. You can only control your reaction to it. People getting all pissed off about piracy doesn't stop piracy. It only makes you more pissed off when you see it happen. Also, your not making any kind of rational argument against what I'm saying. Your simply taking a single part of my entire post out of context. Your applying a set of morals to other people and cows that shit in streams. Your moral basis is obviously not the same as either party, which is fine, but you have zero right to tell others how they can and cannot live. What they do is against the law, and if they get caught they will prosecuted any way possible, but your not contributing anything to either the arguments or the situation. This is obviously a big issue and you should be up to throwing in your two cents if you feel you really must.

 

[Vrach]

(damn, after looking back, I typed a helluvahlot, didn't I?)

Myah, we both did, dunno about you, I have a tendency to long posts, let me explain what I mean better

Of course, but why would one go for another hobby when going for gaming will not touch upon anyone else? More importantly, why shouldn't one get into gaming and support the industry when they get a chance to (in this case, once they're done with university and can get a proper job) when that will gain net profit for the industry that we're trying to get support for here in the first place? The whole argument of "pirating games is evil" is based on the game industry losing money and you'd rather people just forget gaming as a whole and do something else. So rather than pirating games for several years then spending the next 20-50 years supporting the gaming industry because you fell in love with the medium, you'd rather have someone go for another hobby and never support the industry at all.

Look, I absolutely love my games, but there are about a million things more worthy to spend money on than gaming. A book can last about as long as a movie and cost 10x less. They are luxuries and should be treated as such. If you can't support them, pirating games doesn't help them any more than not buying it no matter how you twist it, and it especially doesn't help the legitimate consumers.

You're missing my point I think mate. Lemme put what I mean as simple as possible:
If a person gets into gaming via piracy, they might support it later on. Thus, gaming industry earns money, sooner or later. (Not saying this is the case 100% of the time, but a lot of the time, I believe it is, from what I've seen everywhere, friends, internet etc.)
If a person chooses a different hobby, they never support gaming. Thus, gaming industry earns nothing from that person, ever.

Yeah that's my point exactly. That people from developed countries are somewhat out of place to talk on the subject. Not that I'm saying you shouldn't talk on it or are not allowed an opinion, just saying, think about when was the last time you saw your argument supported by someone living in a place that doesn't have a fantastic standard (I for one remember lots of people, one in particular from Croatia saying "I ain't gonna go and blow a third of my monthly salary for every game that I wanna play"). Think about how that ties in with the argument.

Then...don't blow a third of your salary on every game you want to play? Ever heard of restraint? Saving up? Investing? Choosing wisely/carefully? Gaming's an expensive hobby, either you've got the money or you don't. It's like complaining that you have to spend 2/3s of your salary on upkeep for your hot tub,

Once again, hot tubs are physical products. Stealing a hot tub would deprive the store that made it from a hot tub they could've sold to another person. Duplicating a game and pirating it doesn't deprive the developer of a physical product that could've been sold to someone else.

It's like the difference between stealing an apple and buying one apple, taking it's seeds and growing an apple tree of your own, letting anyone grab an apple from it in the future. Except piracy is a crime due to IP and copyright. But in the essence, it's the same thing cause you're not depriving the guy who sold the initial apple of anything other than potential consumers that could've gone and bought his apples instead of grabbing one off your tree. However, he can still sell his apples to someone else.

A lot of scenarios like this just end up becoming "Oh, these poor-poor people!" and a whole lot of gray areas. Is it sad that some people in some countries can't play the games they want? Of course, to an extent. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Whether knowingly or not, most arguments like this boil down to the sympathy card.

I'm not sure what you imagine a life in a country like Serbia to be. We're not Afghanistan, carrying cinder blocks around all day to rebuild a country torn by war. It's a normal country just like your own, everything is same except that everything is more shit because it's poorer on the whole. No, the people don't have anything huge to occupy them or larger things to worry about. They're just living their life and just like you, they like to put their feet up once in a while.

Now this is the "Common/Plain Folk" appeal here. I know you're not trying to, but you are using emotional, sympathetic appeals here. This is what the argument tends to boil down to, where the question "why can't a poor, hardworking, honest (wo)man not have the joys of escapism?" but again, a line has to be drawn.

No, no, no. A thousand times no on the sympathy argument, it's not my point. I was merely responding to your "a person in a country like that has bigger problems to worry about than gaming". My point was simply - we don't. It's the same shit over here and we have just as much time we could and want to kill with various hobbies such as gaming.

There are just as many hardworking, daily living people in the US. It's just that they happen to get paid more due to the whole world economy or whateverthehell dictates what's valuable and what's not.

It very much is. I take no offense to it, I take pride in it. What's viewed as a mature view on politics these days (actually in most of history outside revolutionary periods) is what I see as pure cynicism. I don't see a reason to be ashamed of the fact I'm unwilling to accept the bitter reality of life (that's negative and completely changeable, imo) as something that should never be changed. The fact that most of the society do and merely accept is why I believe we're as fucked up as we are on a global scale.

While I agree with you, somewhat at least, on the cynicism part, I don't feel that this aspect of life really needs any focus on that change. Again, games are a luxury, an expensive one at that, why not advocate to everyone having a book/being literate as that is a much more reasonable expectation? That I can totally get behind, books require little resources to get into (compared to games, anyway), and it further promotes education and such. Games, not so much.

Everyone can have a book. There's this thing called library, it's cheap as chips. If there was a place here renting games at local prices (which there really should be, but the sad reality is there isn't, the few places that we do have actually rent pirated games so you're not really doing anyone a favour by renting from them), I'd drop the argument

That does give me an idea though, should open one up here, might be good business

[My view on this is part of my greater view on life. I'm sorry, but you could've told to a black person unable to sit on the bus "that's life" too. You could've said to a person living under Stalin (or, what I had personal experience with, Milosevic) "don't talk shit about the state, that's life". You could've told people in medieval ages "don't question why the king is king by birthright and why we live under a shitty monarchy, that's life". No, I'm not comparing not being able to play a game to those things, I'm comparing the fundamental views on political/social cynicism and accepting the "reality" even when you know full well it's complete and utter bullshit.

Okay, really now, don't compare slightly unfair/higher prices in games to enormous, nation changing political movements that stem from the human condition. Oh, bleh, I didn't catch that bolded part, my mistake.

I don't think sitting wherever you want on a bus is a luxury, though hell if I know if it was at the time.

You don't? It was at the time I believe. But that wasn't my point, my point was, as I said, the fundamental similarity of accepting something you know is broken and saying "that's life". Imo, that's not life, that's what you accept life to be. And the fact that we don't do anything to change the fact leaves everything the way it is, which is often fucked. My point was that the system where the discrepancy between countries (and even people within a single country, but that's another story) was that huge is not something I'll accept someone telling me "that's life, deal with it and don't complain/do anything against it"

As far as how piracy fits into that, it's simply something to do in the in between period. It's just something to get by with. I'm not glorifying it, I'm merely saying don't demonize it on the whole. If you honestly think someone's not making PC games cause of piracy, you oughtta delve a little deeper into how the gaming industry works. Tip, PS3s and Xbox's don't need an upgrade every year or so and are made just for gaming.

Someone cannot make games "because of piracy", that's just a non sequitor. Correlation vs. Causation or something like that. Someone can pirate games and still make them, but they wouldn't make games because they pirated them.

Don't quite know what you understood here, so will just repeat, I was saying that PC gaming wasn't suffering from a low amount of titles due to piracy. It does so because of the comparative ease (in the sense of not having to constantly upgrade the hardware, which also leads to not having to make games that push the boundaries of said hardware, which is again, easier) and popularity of consoles and piracy are just something that's easy to blame to not look like a fucktard when your loyal fanbase of some 20+ years asks you why you stopped supporting it.

I don't particularly demonize piracy, in all honesty. The main thing I dislike about it is that the legitimate consumers get screwed over because companies employ restrictive DRMs and hold parts of their games from us so that the pirates will have a slightly harder time cracking their game. That's what grinds my gears, not the cause of piracy, but the effect of it. It's not the hardworking, underpaid person I dislike, it's the entitled, westernized, already well-off pirates that tick me off.

Now the last part I can totally agree with and that's exactly the point I've been making the whole time! I also think those who are well off shouldn't pirate games. Hell, I buy everything that I can afford, I save up, even with my shitty allowance, whenever I can support something, I do. I think someone who pirates a game just because they can is a fuckwit too.

However, on your first point of hating them due to DRM - don't hate pirates over this. That's like hating criminals for the police beating the shit out of an innocent person at demonstrations. The companies are the idiots there, not the pirates. And I'd get behind them too if the DRM at least staved off pirates for some 2-3 weeks and earned them higher sales from those who can't be arsed waiting for a crack, but it doesn't. It's a useless system and they know it, which constantly leads me to ponder why they insist on putting them in as all they're doing is being a pain in the ass to the legitimate customers, while the pirates actually go ahead and make a better product out of it and even the most complex DRM doesn't even phase them. In fact, it's gotten to the point where I sometimes see people cracking the original games they buy just so they get rid of the fucking DRM. If that doesn't tell you how shit the system is, I don't know what does.

Yes. I am of the opinion that the same line of work should be relatively similarly paid wherever you live in the world. If there is a discrepancy of 1800%, something is simply wrong and it's not something you can ignore and say "that's life". Or well, you can. But I'll never understand it or respect you for holding such a view (don't mean that as an offense, just a fact).

Well, at the end of it all, I think we won't come to an agreement anytime soon. I do understand your reasoning behind some of your beliefs, but I just happen to disagree with them. One has to wonder if our places in society was switched, would we retain our previous beliefs or accept the other person's policies regarding electronic media?

And that, is the cosmic perspective [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38PGB9dcr4c].

Well I hope we don't switch cause that'd be crap for you, but I do intend and am working on getting the hell out of here as soon as I can, so I'll be in a position to tell you I have the same view on the matter in a few years time ^^. I'm working to get into the gaming industry myself and since one doesn't exist here, I'll definitely be moving somewhere else - current plan is Canada, looks like the most awesome place to finish my studies and live/work atm.

 

[Jumplion]

Well I hope we don't switch cause that'd be crap for you, but I do intend and am working on getting the hell out of here as soon as I can, so I'll be in a position to tell you I have the same view on the matter in a few years time ^^. I'm working to get into the gaming industry myself and since one doesn't exist here, I'll definitely be moving somewhere else - current plan is Canada, looks like the most awesome place to finish my studies and live/work atm.

Good luck with that, I personally want to get into the Entertainment industry. Specifically into that, directing Films/Video Games. Specifically specifically into that, I want to be in the animation process behind said films/games.

I don't think we'll be agreeing with each other any time soon, and in all honesty I don't think I was debating at my prime as I am currently under the weather. Lost posts like these tend to be driven away from the original subject, and we end up arguing about something else entirely at the end.