Pirate or Purchase?

[asiepshtain]

Copy a game, or buy it?
Lets start this thing off with a little thought.
I live in Israel, Israel has the highest software piracy rate in western world. Now, when I was a kid, I had literally no legal games. Hell I didn't even know you can buy the damn things. I thought copying them from each other was how they were supposed to go. And even when I did get a little bit smarter, I still stole them. I can't actually keep count, but I must have had at least a few hundred stolen games by the time I was a teenager.

Ironically, I started moving away from this with the beginning of file sharing ( early BBS). Somehow, copying or switching games with my friends seemed fine, while downloading a game from some site I don't know started seeming wrong somehow. Today I don't pirate games anymore, even my OS is legal. I am a deviation however, Israel still has the highest piracy rate.

Now let me tell you about the cost. Israel has zero game companies. That's right, zero. To make sure you understand how odd this is you have to realize our highest export is high-tech. Intel, Microsoft, Google, all have development offices in Israel doing some of the most cutting edge work, And thats just for start. We are literally a Software based economy. So why no games?

Here's my opinion (based on my working in this field): Years of piracy has made it so that in the minds of the Israeli buissnes man, games don't make money, they are stolen. And for foreign companies, would you send your buissness to a country known for stealing your products. And so, small gaming firms who want to recruit money can't get a loan, there are no scholastic programs on game design, and making computer games ( a multi-billion dollar buisness) is considered a childish hobby and not a real job.

And so we come at last, to the real reason to purchase a game instead of pirating it. We buy games so that people would make them. Whenever you pirate a game, you make it so that less people will make games. And if you ever want a real world example just look at Israel.

 

[Jamanticus]

Ooh- better put some text in there before this gets locked- not that it won't with text, since it has been done before, but still..............

I say purchase.

 

[Graustein]

Whenever possible, Purchase.
Also, I believe The Escapist has a strict policy on not advocating piracy anyway. I could be entirely wrong, of course.

 

[asiepshtain]

Fixed.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Very interesting stuff you bring up though, I just learned stuff about Israel.

I advocate purchasing legally, whenever possible. If your having trouble finding what you want with brick and mortars, there are sources now- GameTap, Steam, and Good Old Games are all good ones. Digital distribution might be a nice work around if it's hard for you to find legal games in Israel

 

[742]

depends on the company. i have a strict "i dont give EA money under any conditions ever" policy, and if they EVERY make anything that really intrests me and gets awesome reviews ill be pirating it. but i usually try to buy if its not a company i loathe. the problem is spending money on crap. like most of you, i hate crap. i even spent money on WoW, everyone said it was good... and i got burned, bad. why not one first, then the other if you are torn between the two? even buying it AFTER you beat it if you think its good. because theres NOONE you can trust to tell you if a game is good or not, viral marketing and overhyping things is antihappy.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

When the conditions are extreme, pirate. When it isn't and you found a better price online or at retail, buy it. The money will get put to good use after all, right?

 

[trlkly]

Whenever possible, Purchase.
Also, I believe The Escapist has a strict policy on not advocating piracy anyway. I could be entirely wrong, of course.

If so, it would make it very odd that this article is featured on the main page.

----

My own answer to OP's question is quite complicated, so I'm not going to go into it entirely. Basically, my rule is: if I would never buy the game anyway, I'm not costing anyone any money by downloading it for free. And if I'm not costing them any money, it's hard to argue that I am stealing.

A problem with this philosophy, is, of course, how do I know I wouldn't have bought the game if I could?

One thing I will admit flat-out is that I will use NOCD hacks (and likely their console equivalents). What was the point of inventing the harddrive, if we are going to make people go back to the days of the Apple II, and keep track of a bunch of disks?

 

[Graustein]

Whenever possible, Purchase.
Also, I believe The Escapist has a strict policy on not advocating piracy anyway. I could be entirely wrong, of course.

If so, it would make it very odd that this article is featured on the main page.

That's just because of the way this site works. It's at the front because it's an active topic that's been commented on recently, not because the mods had a look and thought "hey, lets put this on the front page!"

 

[PurpleRain]

I never buy pirated material. Just wouldn't feel right.

 

[djeeten]

I buy my games but I rarely pay full price for them.

 

[Zrahni]

I pirate games if there is no demo to see if i like it then i go buy it. Not getting screwed by bad game when minimal wage here is 250 eu.

Brothers in Arms hells highway played 30min and thought god that just fails.

Crysis Warhead 30min and i was running to the store.

 

[sirdanrhodes]

I never buy pirated material. Just wouldn't feel right.

Today, I am going to teach you how to pirate FOR FREE(!)
>First, you get a ship
>Secondly, you dress like a pirate from the sea
>Thirdly, fire your cannons on the shop, raid the place and find a way to make a boat drive on concrete.

 

[Dommyboy]

I never buy pirated material. Just wouldn't feel right.

Today, I am going to teach you how to pirate FOR FREE(!)
>First, you get a ship
>Secondly, you dress like a pirate from the sea
>Thirdly, fire your cannons on the shop, raid the place and find a way to make a boat drive on concrete.

I am afraid there is a problem there. A well made ship will set you back a fair bit, the costume will also cost a pretty penny and cannon balls are not cheap either. Though you could always be crazy enough as to steal the gear. Worst of all, The Escapist mods aren't 100% happy with piracy so that whole scenario won't go down well at all.

I choose to buy games actually worth a purchase so naturally I don't buy many games.

 

[asiepshtain]

Seems like we all agree that buying a game is way to support the people making the game.
Somehow I don't think the "Try before I buy" Thing is 100% honest. I mean, how good does the game need to be before you buy it? good? great? best game ever? Seems a bit unfair to me.

Considering the statements here I think gaming companies should release demos much more frequently and with more content, let people have a bite first. After all, between illegally downloading a pirated copy or getting a demo with the first two stages from the companies website, the second seems much more appealing.

Additionally I think that gaming companies should make buying the game much more attractive by including many addtional features. Like an extra CD with the music tracks and most important a bueatiful manaul. Games used to have those and slowly devolved into plastic CD cases, what happened?

 

[Altorin]

the mods on this forum don't care to host debates about the legality/morality of piracy. they have a fairly strong one sided approach that says - Piracy is bad, please try not to promote the idea that it isn't.

The reasoning for this is simple. While it is a gaming website, and Piracy IS a part of gaming, they also get almost all of their revenue from video game ads, and video game publishers don't like piracy one bit.

The answer is purchase. I only ever pirate really old games. I know it's wrong, but I'm poor, and like retro gaming. If you want to try a game before you buy it, both XBL and PSN have Demos on them now for most games that are coming out, so there's very little reason to pirate for that reason, and PC games have ALL had demos, since the dawn of time. (well, not quite, but almost)