Lawyer Destroys Arguments for Game Piracy

[Weaver]

snip

Gaming, totally a right for everyone. Not even slightly regarded as a luxury. No sir. Everyone is entitled to game.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy

This video: 5:26 in. Go nuts.

That's awesome for people now-a-days, play games on a $0 budget in 1999.
My family PC could run unreal at like 20FPS but it was all I had. You need to understand how poor my family was; Prior to high school I once passed out at school because I hadn't eaten enough food because we didn't have any in the house. Why did we have a PC? My dad liked computers, there's no other reason or we wouldn't have had one.

James can sit on his fucking high horse all he wants, but back then this was my escape and a way for me to make friends via a shared hobby and I don't regret it at all.

 

[Grant Hobba]

Yep, piracy is just killing the industry

With revenues climbing every year!

But Hollywood is hurting too, right? That's why they had their highest grossing year in the history of Hollywood in 2009 I assume. Admittedly 2011 box office sales dropped 4.5% this year, but movies kind of sucked this year...

The games industry has grown their revenue by billions of dollars every single year since 1993.

Yeah, I've always hated the "piracy is killing the industry" argument. You can kind of argue damage as it's a grey area, but it's clearly not killing anything.

Is piracy good? No. But that doesn't mean it's "killing the industry."


But people are still hung up on trying to pretend it's theft, so I'm not sure how much this will matter to anyone. Still, gotta remember that graph.

be definition... pirating is theft.

yes sales go up... but so does the population.

saying it isn't is like saying stealing furniture isn't in any way hurting that store....

 

[Grant Hobba]

how is that not a financial loss for the developer.

game sales = money

games downloaded = sales lost to gaming distributors

no gaming distributors = no gaming developers

= no more games.

you guys can kid yourself all you like; but not actually buying the game hurts the game shops, if they see a down turn in sales they no longer buy in larger quantities if that keeps happening eventually it will lead to loss of money for the devs and in turn means lack of games... or no games.

If only there was some other way people could sell games. Something that is easily accessible...

Oh, wait, there is. It's called the Internet.

downloading for free isn't buying a game.


you kids make long time actual purchasers of games look ridiculous with you unbelievable flawed "logic"

"pirating games isnt theft and has no negative consequences for the stores online of shopfront what so ever"

yup.

 

[ResonanceSD]

snip

Gaming, totally a right for everyone. Not even slightly regarded as a luxury. No sir. Everyone is entitled to game.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy

This video: 5:26 in. Go nuts.

That's awesome for people now-a-days, play games on a $0 budget in 1999.
My family PC could run unreal at like 20FPS but it was all I had. You need to understand how poor my family was; Prior to high school I once passed out at school because I hadn't eaten enough food because we didn't have any in the house. Why did we have a PC? My dad liked computers, there's no other reason or we wouldn't have had one.

James can sit on his fucking high horse all he wants, but back then this was my escape and a way for me to make friends via a shared hobby and I don't regret it at all.

Nice to see you could somehow manage to tie up a phone line long enough to download games in 1999.

You might not regret it, that doesn't change the fact that it was then and is now illegal.

 

[Weaver]

snip

Gaming, totally a right for everyone. Not even slightly regarded as a luxury. No sir. Everyone is entitled to game.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy

This video: 5:26 in. Go nuts.

That's awesome for people now-a-days, play games on a $0 budget in 1999.
My family PC could run unreal at like 20FPS but it was all I had. You need to understand how poor my family was; Prior to high school I once passed out at school because I hadn't eaten enough food because we didn't have any in the house. Why did we have a PC? My dad liked computers, there's no other reason or we wouldn't have had one.

James can sit on his fucking high horse all he wants, but back then this was my escape and a way for me to make friends via a shared hobby and I don't regret it at all.

Nice to see you could somehow manage to tie up a phone line long enough to download games in 1999.

When did I ever say I downloaded them?

edit: You're right it was illegal. I've tried to make amends; I own 323 games on steam and I have a closet full of boxed games. I spend thousands now each year on gaming, despite having seemingly less and less time. But had I not become so enamoured with games I would not be a heavy consumer now. I'm grateful to the industry that let me leech from it and, as hilariously cheesy as it may seem, actually helped me survive a difficult time.

What I was hoping to at least demonstrate is, via a human perspective, that not all piracy is fueled my sheer malace or greed and not every pirated copy can accurately equate as a lost sale.

 

[ResonanceSD]

snip

Gaming, totally a right for everyone. Not even slightly regarded as a luxury. No sir. Everyone is entitled to game.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy

This video: 5:26 in. Go nuts.

That's awesome for people now-a-days, play games on a $0 budget in 1999.
My family PC could run unreal at like 20FPS but it was all I had. You need to understand how poor my family was; Prior to high school I once passed out at school because I hadn't eaten enough food because we didn't have any in the house. Why did we have a PC? My dad liked computers, there's no other reason or we wouldn't have had one.

James can sit on his fucking high horse all he wants, but back then this was my escape and a way for me to make friends via a shared hobby and I don't regret it at all.

Nice to see you could somehow manage to tie up a phone line long enough to download games in 1999.

When did I ever say I downloaded them?

Oh right, how silly of me. Anyway, still illegal, etc.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Ha. As if developers need big publishers and distributors to stay in business. The industry is so clogged with identical big-budget titles, an obsession with graphics engines that need ungodly amounts of man-hours to program, and huge studios frothing with an absence of creative control, that it needs some cleaning out. Piracy is a refusal to pay for a game that's not worth the money. I'm sure there are people who only pirate their games, but they are in a minority, and are in no position to influence the market. Pirates are people who want to have their cake and eat it too; it's a bit greedy to pirate games you normally wouldn't buy, but it's also essentially a form of boycott against overpriced games. I would see it as beneficial if it ruined the current market.

1) Actually, what it is is copyright infringement.

2) Markets operate on legal practices. Illegal means of manipulating entire industries are somewhat frowned upon by everyone in said industry, otherwise you end up with the mob running the show.

And are you seriously suggesting that because you don't feel that there's enough innovation and variation in the marketplace, piracy is a logical solution to a problem you have with the industry?

 

[ResonanceSD]

I agree with all of that. And this is where the lawyer's comments come into play. The simple facts are that we can be reasonably certain that those who are downloading the pirated software have not bothered disguising their IP addresses.

And provided they can prove that the individual pirated within the bounds of the law (that is, they don't break down the guy's door and take his computer, but instead follow legal channels), then by all means charge 'em and take them to court. But they better have solid enough evidence to convict if they're gonna pour money into that.

Due to the high risk/involvement level of said exercise, any entity willing to sue for that much is pretty much guaranteed to have all the relevant information required. No one goes into a prosecution like that hoping for "good luck"

 

[Korten12]

While I don't support things like SOPA or DRM, I see why Piracy can be considered a loss.

Lets say to develop the game and get it out costs 6 million dollars. To effectivly make a profit, the game would need to sell 100,000 (Just using this number, whether or not it's alot depends but it doesn't matter for the sake of the arguement.)

The game goes on sale for $60 and sells around 70,000 copies, meaning the company made no profit in making and selling the game. But the game was pirated, 40,000 times and only a couple of them actually bought the game.

So yes, PIRACY does make it so the developer is losing money because if the game doesn't sell to break even, they're losing money. Which means they can't pay their employes.

(Note: Quality doens't matter, because it has been shown the quality of the game has no impact on amount of times pirated.)

(2nd Note: Neither do I believe either that the gaming industry is being killed by piracy.)

 

[Smackerlacker]

Theft is when you pay $60 for a game, only to find out that it won't run properly on your computer because the publisher shoved it out the door six months early. It's well and good for people to cry foul and say that gamers are stealing from publishers, but publishers steal from gamers all the time and no one is trying to prosecute them.
Equality is the basis of a legal system. If it's illegal for me to steal, it has to be illegal for everyone. Until it is, I'll do what I like, and show my middle finger to anyone who wants to ***** about it.

 

[Sud0_x]

Personally I just buy all my games on Steam. Seriously, I rarely pay more then 10 bucks for a game and I'm happy with that. I also avoid most triple A titles. If a game has annoying DRM, I don't buy it.

Basically the only games I used to pirate was Chronotrigger and Secret of Mana, but as I have the first one on DS now, and hopefully the second will get a similar release.

Heck even some of my favorite sega games can be bought on steam for a 1-2 dollars us, and I own them for all time now.

I'm cool with that, I wouldn't mind another type of Steam service. In fact a company is more likely to allist a purchase for me if I can redownload a digital copy of said product on a new machine at a later date. Kind of like Blizzard's Battle.net system. (I refuse to use Origin because of all the spyware and other crazy shit that is in that)

Ancient Chinese Proverb - "All things come to the man who waits for the steam holiday sales"

Just spit coffee everywhere. Thanks a lot, pal!

 

[ResonanceSD]

While I don't support things like SOPA or DRM, I see why Piracy can be considered a loss.

Lets say to develop the game and get it out costs 6 million dollars. To effectivly make a profit, the game would need to sell 100,000 (Just using this number, whether or not it's alot depends but it doesn't matter for the sake of the arguement.)

The game goes on sale for $60 and sells around 70,000 copies, meaning the company made no profit in making and selling the game. But the game was pirated, 40,000 times and only a couple of them actually bought the game.

So yes, PIRACY does make it so the developer is losing money because if the game doesn't sell to break even, they're losing money. Which means they can't pay their employes.

(Note: Quality doens't matter, because it has been shown the quality of the game has no impact on amount of times pirated.)

(2nd Note: Neither do I believe either that the gaming industry is being killed by piracy.)

I think you're the first person in 10 pages to mention that the industry not getting money that it's entitled to is a loss. Well done, sir.

Until it is, I'll do what I like, and show my middle finger to anyone who wants to ***** about it.

I hear there's this awesome new thing called reading system requirements and doing some research.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

"I only pirate games because of DRM hurr durr derp"

You do know you can still buy the game and CRACK it, right? Thus supporting the developer and not having to deal with the drm?

 

[Korten12]

I think you're the first person in 10 pages to mention that the industry not getting money that it's entitled to is a loss. Well done, sir.

Wait are you being sarcastic, sorry, when it comes to the Escapist, they're a bit touchy on this subject matter.