Piracy

[tzimize]

The 8-bit consoles were difficult to pirate but compare the contemporary Commodore 64. Piracy on computers has always been rampant.

I think we can agree that there are a lot more talented people in the world than are currently working in the games industry. Also consider that more money in the industry would imply more people moving in from other creative industries.

More developers intrinsically means more titles that are not sequels. More money means developers can take bigger risks. Obviously, the majority will still make clones but you will still have more unique titles to choose between.

Piracy on PCs has always been rampant, but still it has evolved and flourished. I dont think piracy is such a bad thing as people make it out to be. It just makes it more difficult to sell mediocre games. Which is NOT a bad thing.

Pirates is not a group of 100% similar individuals. Some pirates pirate everything, which obviously is not good for anyone. Some pirates pirate the bad, and buy the good. Some pirates pirate as a way of trying out a product before buying, not to get something free at all. It is a more diverse group than most people think, and not all of it is negative.

Take the two last groups I mentioned. A lot of those pirate stuff, then buy it afterwards for different reasons. These people dont cost the industry anything, rather they earn the industry more money. By being able to try the product before they buy, they often end up buying a product they would not have chanced to buy if they couldnt have tried it. This is A DOUBLE win for the industry because:
1: They get paid for the product they develop.
2: The person buying it will likely show it off to his friends, maybe write a blogpost about it, discuss it in internet forums or something similar, thus giving FREE PUBLICITY to the developer. This is publicity the developer would not have had if the person had not pirated it in the first place.

Developers are very busy trying to define how much money piracy is costing them, and it annoys me to no end that none of them can acknowledge the amount of money it is EARNING them.

Personally I DONT think there are a lot of talented people in the world, and I DONT think we would get more quality titles. But I'm just a pessimist that way I guess

There are demos of games to try them out instead of pirating them, so in my opinion that is a poor argument for beneficial piracy (from the developers' perspective). The publicity stemming from word of pirate mouth is difficult to measure but consider that most of the people hearing about a game from a pirate is going to pirate the game themselves. Since pirated copies are estimated to be around 90% of all copies, every pirate would have to convince another ten people that the game is great just to make up for not paying him/herself. Thus, my opinion is that this free publicity is worth far less to the developer than pirates like to think. Besides, there are plenty of legitimate reviewers to find out if games are good or not. The publicity argument is pirates rationalising poorly.

As far as talent goes, you are of course entitled to your opinion. I would just like to ask you to consider what would happen to the gaming industry if you added some of the best authors, directors and actors to games development. What if Neil Gaiman wrote for games? What if David Fincher directed games? Then consider what would happen if the next generation of brilliant writers and directors focused on games instead of films or books.

This is turning into an excellent argument

Demos are a bit like trailers for movies. A scam. They show the best bits. There are VERY few demos that give a decent look on how the entire game will play out. So they are pretty worthless imo. Also they are often not finished until a year or so later...

Reviews fail for other reasons. Reviews are simply the opinion of someone you dont know. A high grade simply say something about the general opinion about a game. I LOVE Fpses, but I cant stand Halo. I'd be pissed as hell if I shelled out 50-60 bucks for something like that. The problem about games are that they are so expensive that its just not acceptable to buy a bad one, and maybe not even a mediocre one. If I buy a game for 5$ I dont mind it being shitty, its so cheap anyway. If I buy something for 60$ it better be worth it...

Why will most people that hear about a game from a pirate, pirate it? This is just something you say that has absolutely NO basis in anything. Pirates dont go around saying (some might ofc...): "So I pirated this awesome game, you should totally pirate it too".

They might however also say "So I played this awesome game, I really recommend you to buy it. Its worth every penny". I dont know if 90% of games are pirated, that sounds like a lot. You say that a pirate would have to convince 10 people to "make up for it", but you ignored the fact I brought up that some/a lot of pirates pirate the game first, then BUY it afterwards. These people WOULD pay for their own game, and generate EXTRA revenue afterwards for the developer.

What your opinion on how much this is worth is, doesnt really matter. Money talks. I dont have any numbers to throw your way, so I am not claiming to be more correct than you in this matter. I am simply asking you (and others) to acknowledge the fact that piracy is NOT purely negative.

Directing a game and directing a movie is not the same. Writing a game and writing a comic book is not the same. Both have different strengths and weaknesses. While you paint a pretty fantastic picture, I am sober enough to realize that even if some are talented in a certain medium that doesnt make them talented in another. They CAN be of course, but they certainly dont have to be.

I think a lot of these people will make what they want no matter where the money is to be found. If they enjoy comics, they will make comics. Not all of course, but a lot. After all, these are people that got into their job mostly because of a passion (often for the medium itself). Such people are hard to convince with money.

 

[Sixcess]

Piracy has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of games. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

Pirating a small time developer game is pathetic, but what you say is wrong - it is partly to do with price AND availability.

I never said anything about availability, however I almost concede your point on availability. Almost...

Take for example, a game such as Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. You can't find that game for rocking horse shit, so the simple solution is to download a pirate copy. The company aren't losing money, the game isn't sold in retailers any more. So, therefore, since the company isn't losing a penny, it's okay to download.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/oddworld_abes_oddysee

On the other hand if you'd said System Shock 2 (the game that tops GOG's most wanted list) I'd have agreed with you.

I have a cousin who gets paid £170 a week. Thats nothing. He spends nearly every penny he owns on bills, giving him about £5 a week for luxuries. I bought him a PC so he could play games online and not go insane. He downloads games illegally, then when he has enough money he goes out and buys them if the game was good. It's a fair balance and it means that developers don't miss out.

I've been in similar circumstances in the past myself, so can understand that.

I'm not enough of a hypocrite to regard piracy as some great evil. There are far worse things on the net. What I do find tiresome is the attempts by some people to paint piracy as being a benefit to the gaming industry, or justify it on economic grounds, or act like they have some inherent right to play new releases without paying new release prices, or really any of their attempts to claim the moral high ground. They're not fooling anyone except themselves.

 

[Sixcess]

Weird. I made a post and yet the thread stayed on page 3 of the forum...

 

[The Rockerfly]

My friend at University says she pays £90 or so a month, and that's split between 5 people I believe. They all get their own rooms and bathrooms, but have to share a kitchen.
When I get everything sorted out with my house, all three of us will be paying £103 each. Hooray for Hull and it's cheapest houses in England.

True, really stupid of me I forgot I am already living at uni with several people for £77 a week plus £10 extra for bills pre paid. I am an idiot

Nottingham living is good

 

[Red Scharlach]

This is turning into an excellent argument

Demos are a bit like trailers for movies. A scam. They show the best bits. There are VERY few demos that give a decent look on how the entire game will play out. So they are pretty worthless imo. Also they are often not finished until a year or so later...

Reviews fail for other reasons. Reviews are simply the opinion of someone you dont know. A high grade simply say something about the general opinion about a game. I LOVE Fpses, but I cant stand Halo. I'd be pissed as hell if I shelled out 50-60 bucks for something like that. The problem about games are that they are so expensive that its just not acceptable to buy a bad one, and maybe not even a mediocre one. If I buy a game for 5$ I dont mind it being shitty, its so cheap anyway. If I buy something for 60$ it better be worth it...

Why will most people that hear about a game from a pirate, pirate it? This is just something you say that has absolutely NO basis in anything. Pirates dont go around saying (some might ofc...): "So I pirated this awesome game, you should totally pirate it too".

They might however also say "So I played this awesome game, I really recommend you to buy it. Its worth every penny". I dont know if 90% of games are pirated, that sounds like a lot. You say that a pirate would have to convince 10 people to "make up for it", but you ignored the fact I brought up that some/a lot of pirates pirate the game first, then BUY it afterwards. These people WOULD pay for their own game, and generate EXTRA revenue afterwards for the developer.

What your opinion on how much this is worth is, doesnt really matter. Money talks. I dont have any numbers to throw your way, so I am not claiming to be more correct than you in this matter. I am simply asking you (and others) to acknowledge the fact that piracy is NOT purely negative.

Directing a game and directing a movie is not the same. Writing a game and writing a comic book is not the same. Both have different strengths and weaknesses. While you paint a pretty fantastic picture, I am sober enough to realize that even if some are talented in a certain medium that doesnt make them talented in another. They CAN be of course, but they certainly dont have to be.

I think a lot of these people will make what they want no matter where the money is to be found. If they enjoy comics, they will make comics. Not all of course, but a lot. After all, these are people that got into their job mostly because of a passion (often for the medium itself). Such people are hard to convince with money.

Part of the problem here is that we both have to rely on anecdotal evidence to such an extent. One thing that is fairly certain and which has been shown statistically is that roughly 90% of all games are pirated. This number still takes into account that some pirates buy the game if they like it and it only includes installed games. However, it does not take into account that a lot of pirates will try the game for a few minutes, decide it wasn't for them and uninstall it. It also doesn't take into account that a lot of pirates would never have bought the game even if they liked it. Therefore, it is not the same as saying that the developer could have sold ten times as many games, and the truth is no one knows how many more they could have sold. I would like to make a note here that even though this is the case, none of the above in any way justifies piracy.

When it comes to "spreading the word", I basically only have friends, family and forums/blogs to go on, as I imagine most people do. My experience is that most pirates, even if they don't immediately say where they got it (which they sometimes do), will freely admit where they got it when asked. Most people I know always put this question as a matter of finding out where they can/should get it themselves. Does knowing that everyone else has pirated the game change your inclination to pay for it yourself? Obviously, this depends on the person and we can only guess what the overall effect might be.

The free publicity is something positive about piracy, there's no question about that. What I question is that this positive is anywhere close to outweighing the bad. As we can see, even with all that free publicity, 90% of all copies are still pirated, thus it still stands to reason that every pirate has to convince 10 people to try the game to make up for one lost sale. Secondly, the publicity itself seems hollow when, as a point in fact, it amounts to: "This game is awesome, but not so good that I will buy it". I find it hard to believe that a pirate would claim it was worth the price when they didn't pay it themselves. The popularity of a product is still much more accurately measured by looking at actual sales.

Demos of games are, by their nature flawed. Also, they are a sales pitch and so not entirely trustworthy. You are perfectly right in saying that a pirated copy will represent the game in truer form than a demo; after all, it IS the game. You probably can't expect every game acquired to be worth the money you paid when you base your decisions purely on legit sources. This is another positive for piracy. But you (as in we) can't expect to be able to pay for an experience after we have had it, simply because it gives too much power to the consumer and opens the door on fraud. I agree that in a perfect market (which incidentally presupposes perfect information) we would be able to pay after we know the worth and that piracy actually enables us to do so. But it doesn't work in practice. Everything else we buy, we pay for in advance. There is a reason for that which hardly needs to be stated.

This is turning into a very long reply and I'm afraid you'll simply say TLDR, so I'll skip the part about talent with just one short note. You brought up comics writers, presumably because I mentioned Gaiman. You are aware that he is also one of the world's best selling authors in more traditional literature, that most of his books have been/will be turned into films and that he is learning how to direct himself?

 

[tzimize]

This is turning into an excellent argument

-snip-

Part of the problem here is that we both have to rely on anecdotal evidence to such an extent. One thing that is fairly certain and which has been shown statistically is that roughly 90% of all games are pirated. This number still takes into account that some pirates buy the game if they like it and it only includes installed games. However, it does not take into account that a lot of pirates will try the game for a few minutes, decide it wasn't for them and uninstall it. It also doesn't take into account that a lot of pirates would never have bought the game even if they liked it. Therefore, it is not the same as saying that the developer could have sold ten times as many games, and the truth is no one knows how many more they could have sold. I would like to make a note here that even though this is the case, none of the above in any way justifies piracy.

When it comes to "spreading the word", I basically only have friends, family and forums/blogs to go on, as I imagine most people do. My experience is that most pirates, even if they don't immediately say where they got it (which they sometimes do), will freely admit where they got it when asked. Most people I know always put this question as a matter of finding out where they can/should get it themselves. Does knowing that everyone else has pirated the game change your inclination to pay for it yourself? Obviously, this depends on the person and we can only guess what the overall effect might be.

The free publicity is something positive about piracy, there's no question about that. What I question is that this positive is anywhere close to outweighing the bad. As we can see, even with all that free publicity, 90% of all copies are still pirated, thus it still stands to reason that every pirate has to convince 10 people to try the game to make up for one lost sale. Secondly, the publicity itself seems hollow when, as a point in fact, it amounts to: "This game is awesome, but not so good that I will buy it". I find it hard to believe that a pirate would claim it was worth the price when they didn't pay it themselves. The popularity of a product is still much more accurately measured by looking at actual sales.

Demos of games are, by their nature flawed. Also, they are a sales pitch and so not entirely trustworthy. You are perfectly right in saying that a pirated copy will represent the game in truer form than a demo; after all, it IS the game. You probably can't expect every game acquired to be worth the money you paid when you base your decisions purely on legit sources. This is another positive for piracy. But you (as in we) can't expect to be able to pay for an experience after we have had it, simply because it gives too much power to the consumer and opens the door on fraud. I agree that in a perfect market (which incidentally presupposes perfect information) we would be able to pay after we know the worth and that piracy actually enables us to do so. But it doesn't work in practice. Everything else we buy, we pay for in advance. There is a reason for that which hardly needs to be stated.

This is turning into a very long reply and I'm afraid you'll simply say TLDR, so I'll skip the part about talent with just one short note. You brought up comics writers, presumably because I mentioned Gaiman. You are aware that he is also one of the world's best selling authors in more traditional literature, that most of his books have been/will be turned into films and that he is learning how to direct himself?

I dont think I've TLDRed in my life

You say we cant be expected to pay for a service after we had it, I say why not? 99% of my DVD/Blu-ray Collection is paid for after I had the experience, not necessarily because I downloaded it, but for example because I saw the movie at a friends house, or went to the cinema and liked it so well I decided I wanted to own it as well, thus paying for it twice... This is in principle the same as pirating (at least watching it at a friends house). I experience it without paying, then buy it afterwards. And I am SURE I am not alone in this.

If we buy a couch that was nothing as advertised, we can return it (at least thats how it is in my country ). Same goes for almost all products (even food in some cases...). But not for games. While I of course realize that people are too cheap for a system such as piracy to actually work flawlessly, (after all, a fair amount of people do it simply because they dont want to pay) I like it better than the alternative. You have to admit, it is in NO way fair to pay 50-60$ for a product, be unsatisfied and still be expected to suck it up and be a faithful customer of the medium.

I am also glad that you realize that no one (in particular the lawyers of developers/record companies... -.- ) can say how much money companies ACTUALLY lose. 1 pirated copy does not equal 1 lost sale... There isnt enough money in the world for that

I like the thought of me being able to decide what products to support. I've long since stopped pre-ordering products I havent tried. I HAVE however bought vast amounts of entertainment (DVDs, Blu-rays, GAMES) after trying it for free in some way. I actually feel good when I buy it, because I KNOW my money goes to someone that deserves it.

Personally I will never again buy a full-price game without trying it first. And I have NO bad conscience for playing a game without paying for it (for example by borrowing it from a friend, which really is no better than piracy I guess, after all you are trying a product without paying for it) and decide its not worth my attention and not buy it myself. My money goes to those that deserve it, no matter the medium. Comics, books, movies, games, music...I buy what I like, and toss what I dont. Seems fair to me. Anything else would be the equivalent of fraud the other way around.

About Gaiman, yeah I know he does more than Sandman. Good Omens is one of my favorite books (yes I bought it after reading it, borrowed it from a friend). But just because Gaiman can play more than one string that doesnt mean everyone can

Edit: Ah, yeah. There is one other positive thing I can say about piracy. Future customers. As has been said, some pirate because they simply cannot afford it. While this is no excuse, in the end the industry will probably make money even off these poor souls.

When I was younger, too young to earn any real kind of money I pirated quite a bit (I hope I dont get banned for talking about this on the forum, it is all in the spirit of a good discussion after all :| ). The industry did not lose any money on me, because I simply could not afford all the games I played anyway. Now, when I am older (and have money) I take pleasure in buying products. I am deeply hooked on gaming and it is without a doubt the biggest dent in my entertainment budget. Now, if I hadnt been a pirate when I was young, I might not have been hooked on gaming. Now, when I DO have money, I can afford to support my habit, and the industry ends up earning quite a bit of dough on me anyway.

I think it might have been Bill Gates who said, when confronted with windows piracy in China; if they ARE pirating something, I prefer it to be OUR product (or something along those lines). He knew, that at some point, China would start paying for their software, and when the entire Chinese infrastructure was dependent on Microsoft products, that would mean a pretty penny indeed.

Of course I know that not all developers have the luxury of being able to wait for that income, I am simply arguing for positive effects of piracy

 

[Red Scharlach]

I dont think I've TLDRed in my life

You say we cant be expected to pay for a service after we had it, I say why not? 99% of my DVD/Blu-ray Collection is paid for after I had the experience, not necessarily because I downloaded it, but for example because I saw the movie at a friends house, or went to the cinema and liked it so well I decided I wanted to own it as well, thus paying for it twice... This is in principle the same as pirating (at least watching it at a friends house). I experience it without paying, then buy it afterwards. And I am SURE I am not alone in this.

If we buy a couch that was nothing as advertised, we can return it (at least thats how it is in my country ). Same goes for almost all products (even food in some cases...).

*snip*

I am also glad that you realize that no one (in particular the lawyers of developers/record companies... -.- ) can say how much money companies ACTUALLY lose. 1 pirated copy does not equal 1 lost sale... There isnt enough money in the world for that

I like the thought of me being able to decide what products to support. I've long since stopped pre-ordering products I havent tried. I HAVE however bought vast amounts of entertainment (DVDs, Blu-rays, GAMES) after trying it for free in some way. I actually feel good when I buy it, because I KNOW my money goes to someone that deserves it.

*snip*

About Gaiman, yeah I know he does more than Sandman. Good Omens is one of my favorite books (yes I bought it after reading it, borrowed it from a friend). But just because Gaiman can play more than one string that doesnt mean everyone can

Edit: Ah, yeah. There is one other positive thing I can say about piracy. Future customers. As has been said, some pirate because they simply cannot afford it. While this is no excuse, in the end the industry will probably make money even off these poor souls.

*snip*

I took the liberty of abbreviating your post in my reply.

Watching a film at a theatre, you have paid for the experience in advance. Watching it at a friend's place, he/she has paid for it in advance. I agree with you that the line is getting blurred when it comes to borrowing intellectual property licenses, and that technically you don't have to pay yourself for the experience. However, someone has paid for the license and the way it works is that it is fine as long as no one makes an additional copy except for archival purposes. This makes it very different from pirating. Compare it to the recent feature added to the Kindle, where you can lend ebooks to friends for a few weeks at a time but where you cannot access it yourself at the same time.

As you say, you can return products that were not as advertised (I think this applies worldwide). The key factor here is that they do not function according to specification and that you have to show that this is the case before returning (a lot of sellers wish to avoid hassling customers and thus have a "no questions asked" return policy though) a product. With IP, it is virtually impossible to return the product unless it doesn't work because the fact that the customer didn't enjoy it as much as he/she thought is not a satisfactory reason. With games, you are not even allowed to return it when it is buggy as hell but at least that part is fairly easy to avoid with reviews and demos, or to get rid of through support. Is it fair? Not entirely. But then, the same thing does happen with a lot of other purchases. I have a friend who bought a new laptop and it turned out that it made a lot of noise which we both thought was the fan, so my friend tried to return it. It turned out that it wasn't the fan, it happened to be a very noisy drive which the returns policy does not cover. Consider battery problems with other portable products, or even new cars having unexpected flaws. Customers are forced to bear the cost of unsatisfactory purchases in all industries. It still isn't fair, but it is an unfortunate flaw that we still can not get around in a good way.

Since I am not affiliated with any sort of publisher or developer, I don't wear their strangely tinted glasses. It has always annoyed me when they claim loss of sales of up to fantazillions of dollars because it hardly sets the ground for a constructive debate. It is a shame that there are no proper studies (that I know of at least) about how much business is lost to pirates. The closest we get is the changes in sales curves following the widespread use of the Internet. There are still a lot of factors to keep in mind that could be responsible for sales being less than expected but I think it is realistic to suppose that piracy has/is taking a lot of money.

Personally, I am in an easy position to condemn piracy. I don't have a lot of time to play these days so I can easily afford everything I want (which is no more than around five or six games a year) and so I can also cherry pick the very best of these and it is extremely rare that I dislike a game. I'd like to say, however, that it is only a few times that I have condemned a pirate, because as you have said, there are always different reasons for pirating. Piracy is always wrong but so are a lot of other things where we have a lot of understanding for the people doing them.

The pirate-turned-legitimate-customer is perfectly true as great positives for Windows Office and Photoshop. I think Adobe said as much as well, that young pirates who had no way of affording Photoshop were uncomfortable buying competing programs when they required an editor professionally, at a later stage in their lives. But. This only really refers to advanced utility programs (yes, I'm actually calling Word and Excel advanced) in a professional environment. There are some who buy a port of an old game they pirated for nostalgia but this is in no way comparable. Programs for professional use are sold with a different margin on a different scale.

Sure, Gaiman is pretty unique, but not THAT unique. If we take talented authors as an example, consider the Booker Prize. Winners of the Booker Prize include authors such as Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan, and every year a perfectly brilliant book gets the award. You then look at the shortlist and realise another ten equally (virtually) good books were published that year, only you haven't even heard of half the authors. Then you realise there is a longlist as well. Every year. We're not talking either poorly written bestsellers or navel gazing postmodernists. We're talking master writers who create fantastic and interesting stories. If I say that it is the same thing in every artistic field, adding that these are only the people who were allowed to express their talents, not including all the talent that for some reason never got the opportunity (and that is not necessarily because they aren't good), we get an enormous amount of talented people in the world, almost always with skills that are applicable in the games industry.

You may not be convinced still and that is fine. In that case, though, I'd say you have incredibly exacting standards, and that's coming from someone who only has the time to enjoy the very best as it is.

 

[tzimize]

Watching it [a movie] at a friend's place, he/she has paid for it in advance. I agree with you that the line is getting blurred when it comes to borrowing intellectual property licenses, and that technically you don't have to pay yourself for the experience. However, someone has paid for the license and the way it works is that it is fine as long as no one makes an additional copy except for archival purposes. This makes it very different from pirating.

How exactly is it different? Someone has often paid for the pirated game too, he just shares it with a million instead of one person. The principle is the same. You dont pay for the experience. If I borrow a movie from a friend, and watch it, the developers havent made a cent from me. The fact that my friend cant watch the movie while I borrow it is irrelevant. I will have enjoyed a product for free.

You may not be convinced still and that is fine. In that case, though, I'd say you have incredibly exacting standards, and that's coming from someone who only has the time to enjoy the very best as it is.

Snipped almost everything :>

No, I am still not convinced. The shades of gray are so plentiful in the piracy debate that it will take a whole lot to even come close to swaying my opinion. In addition to this I am not a supporter of the law on the basis that it is a law, I am a supporter of the law if it makes sense, so my moral compass might be a bit...skewed? In dnd terms I am Chaotic Good at best I guess

Also, just because there exist a certain legal or moral standard doesnt mean that it is the "correct" one or that we should accept it automatically. So, your friend bought that laptop. Wouldnt it be awesome if he could try it out first without anyone actually losing money from it? He finds out it is shit and doesnt buy it. The developer might go bankrupt, but they made a shit product anyway so who cares? Your friend could then try another laptop that he was satisfied with and buy that one, giving his hard earned cash to someone that makes a GOOD product. This is what piracy is to me, and you will NEVER convince me that this isnt fair.

And yes, I DO have incredibly exacting standards. My time is the most valuable thing in the world (to me personally of course), and I will give my money only to those that entertain me properly. To me this is a good way of supporting products I want more of. And not supporting what I judge to be garbage/simply not good enough.

 

[Red Scharlach]

How exactly is it different? Someone has often paid for the pirated game too, he just shares it with a million instead of one person. The principle is the same. You dont pay for the experience. If I borrow a movie from a friend, and watch it, the developers havent made a cent from me. The fact that my friend cant watch the movie while I borrow it is irrelevant. I will have enjoyed a product for free.

No, I am still not convinced. The shades of gray are so plentiful in the piracy debate that it will take a whole lot to even come close to swaying my opinion. In addition to this I am not a supporter of the law on the basis that it is a law, I am a supporter of the law if it makes sense, so my moral compass might be a bit...skewed? In dnd terms I am Chaotic Good at best I guess

Also, just because there exist a certain legal or moral standard doesnt mean that it is the "correct" one or that we should accept it automatically. So, your friend bought that laptop. Wouldnt it be awesome if he could try it out first without anyone actually losing money from it? He finds out it is shit and doesnt buy it. The developer might go bankrupt, but they made a shit product anyway so who cares? Your friend could then try another laptop that he was satisfied with and buy that one, giving his hard earned cash to someone that makes a GOOD product. This is what piracy is to me, and you will NEVER convince me that this isnt fair.

And yes, I DO have incredibly exacting standards. My time is the most valuable thing in the world (to me personally of course), and I will give my money only to those that entertain me properly. To me this is a good way of supporting products I want more of. And not supporting what I judge to be garbage/simply not good enough.

It is different because of the scale, even though the principle is similar. Buying the license for a film specifically allows you to show it to small groups of people or to lend it out but you are the same time not allowed to show it in a public place or to large groups. The fact that you are not allowed to make copies means only one person can access the material at any time, which effectively limits how many people has access to one license. This is dramatically different from allowing millions of people to copy the material and use it at the same time. Sure, exactly where the line is drawn is not altogether clear but that does not mean there is no difference between lending a cd to a friend and making it available on tpb.

I can sympathise with not obeying the law for its own sake or blindly following the current moral in fashion. Most people have the same outlook. When it comes to piracy, what I think we are both saying is that it is morally permissible (i.e. fair) to try a pirated game to decide whether to buy it or not. Unfortunately, for practical reasons it still has to be illegal and thus even if you are behaving morally correct you can be deemed a criminal. A lot of pirates speak about the unfairness here whereas a lot of non-pirates accept the small nuisance of using legitimate means to decide whether to buy or not. I call it a small nuisance because I think it is fairly easy to determine what games are interesting using only reviews or by knowing who made the game. Perhaps other people have different experiences.

So, while I can sympathise with people who restrict their piracy for 'good' purposes, I also think that they only have themselves to blame if they are punished for it. This is because everyone knows what rules apply and there are reasonable alternatives to piracy. That piracy needs to be illegal is fairly evident and regardless of whether piracy in fact did any harm to the IP industries, they have a right to market their property on conditions of their own choosing.

I know you don't think that the alternatives to piracy (in terms of judging whether games are good or not) are very reasonable. By definition, piracy certainly allows you to make a better judgement and it would be great if we could have that perfect information. It is also clear that piracy is to some (unknown) extent detrimental to the industry. I think it is easy to forsake that perfect information in support of the industry on which I rely for entertainment. To me, it is after all a very small sacrifice.

My friend doubtlessly agrees with you regarding the laptop. It would have been fair. We could have stolen the laptop, tried it out and then returned to pay for it. That still would have been fair, but it would also have been illegal and we would have been arrested for it. Yet I can not feel any indignation that the market treats potential customers unfairly. It has to be that way because we have nothing better.

Having high standards is of course not a bad thing. I already confessed to cherry picking myself, because I have the same view about my free time. I suppose the difference is that I can still enjoy, say, a not equally good book or film without feeling bitter about wasting my time when I could have had an even better experience. What was lacking in one work makes me appreciate the better one that much more. Maybe I am the one losing out this way but it works for me just as seeking out only the absolutely finest works for you.