Poll: How Far do you Agree with Piracy?

[deciusbrutus]

The moral question is, quite simply, "Do you think that you should get something without any compensation to the people who made it?"

The fact that there is no marginal cost to them for your benefit is relevant. The fact that nobody is made poorer by the act of making you richer is important.

With that said, I think that it is clear what the morality is. For me, it is perfectly moral for me to get anything I can, provided that I don't harm anybody. That's why the current development model for producing information is flawed. We need a system where the production of information is paid, out of public (but not government) funds, and said information is then publicly owned. HL2 cost $40m to develop. GTA4, the highest cost game, took $100m source [http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Video_game_development_costs] there are roughly 200M adults in the US. If we figure an average "Entertainment" burden of $20 per month, (Which is roughly one movie or CD per month, OR one new-release game per quarter), then we have a total budget of $4000m/month, or four billion dollars per month. If we assume that non-blockbuster titles, even though they cost less individually, are more numerous, and so take up 90% of the total budget, and allow for a 100% profit margin, then we easily afford to make a megablockbuster movie every other month, and two megablockbuster games on the alternate months. We could then GIVE them away to everyone, bring movie-theater popcorn and soda to reasonable prices, and everyone involved would make MORE money.

 

[neuromasser]

*sigh*

Also, Youtube embedding fail.

I'm aware of that.

Also, embedding is okay.

 

[Xan Krieger]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.94974
I never did download it because the legality thing scares me. I believe that games which the publishers no longer make money from (due to them being old or impossible to find) should be free. Nobody can lose from that, only gain. The publishers gain the trust of the gaming community and the gamers get old or rare free games. Then said gamers may buy more games from the publishers increasing profit.

 

[antipunt]

This thread is great for a particular reason: it has proven something that I've been suspecting for a long time.

Anti-piracy in many cases is a chance to 'burn the witch' or ride a moral-high-horse. I'm looking at the poll results, and I see only 4% of people saying pirate is -never- an option.

If you include B, that's still only 15% (which is a lot less than the morally self-righteous billion% that I see in threads). And even so, I'd like to see those people argue why B is ok, if you believe the other choices are invalid. It doesn't matter that you bought it before. It's still the 'law' isn't it?

 

[Xmasbeer]

Depends on what it is.

If it is music, then I will download it, because music is art and culture, I believe that the owner of culture is society, not the creator. Besides, If I didn't download a discography of a group I liked, I wouldn't be paying 100 pounds for their concert ticket this autumn, now would I?

As for games I download to try them out, you get only half a game anyway since multiplayer is out of question without legit cd-key. Also, Steam made me less of a pirate then I used to be. Without knowing it I was actually downloading not because of the money, but because it was simpler. Steam makes purchases so fast and simple that it actually beats the illegal methods.

But then again, we never get our refund if the game sucks. Anyone tried Dungeon Lords? That game was sold when it was worse then a beta usually is, Also Saints Row on PC is a so badly done port, that it lags on almost all computers no matter how good. How are we supposed to trust the developers and buy a game without testing it first? I don't trust them, so I download illegally first.

Thanks for reading my rant.

 

[neuromasser]

Nope, it just doesn't actually work on here.

Spoiler: Actually it works, you have some problem, I can play it just fine.

 

[photog212]

Digital piracy-ok
Somalian piracy-bad

If you truly enjoy something that somebody made, you should support them so they can continue to make what you like.

 

[Pendragon9]

I'll pirate Earthbound all I want. Up yours, Nintendo. You want me to buy it? Put it on VC.

They're not even making money on it anymore, so why is it wrong?

I don't download games beyond that, though. I don't have a good enough computer for it. Just an SNES emu. XD

 

[HE3ED]

I chose B because I have about ten games that i cant play from the disks because either the CD key has been lost or the installation limit has been met. It isn't good business sense to make your customers turn to the people whom the precautions were originally ment for. Besides the piracy protection is pointless, as soon as one person breaks it the game is open to anyone.

 

[T-Blade]

I don't think piracy is stealing... I think of it as merely Copying.

 

[Branches]

My problem is that people who pirate who Have the money, and could go out and get what they want do it because it's 'in'.

whereas to counterpoint that argument, I have no money, crappy part-time job, becoming evicted, and frankly am extremely pissed off that games went from being 50 bucks for ps2 and lasted for 2-3 weeks to becoming 70 dollar games you finish in 5-6 hours.

However this doesn't justify me running out and modding my console so I can play the most awesome 5 minute game. The only games I've ever torrented are games I was interested in for the PC that you can only find in your now nonexistent local mom&pop-shop bargain bin. And even then, they don't sit on my PC. I get a feel for em' if I like em' I'll go out of my way, not eat for a week, and then find them on ebay or Amazon.

As much as pirates say "there needs to be a change in media policy", we have seen change in different media. I don't think that places like Hulu or Fancast would exist without some of the early TV show pirating. And even now, companies are wising up to the idea of advertisements before you download a game. Revenue is revenue in the end and what drives this war machine.

Onlive has the right idea, but the next step is pushing that idea further and instead of buying games, you load a game, and while loading it, you watch maybe...2-3 60 second commercials. Change the channel, let them run, boom, practically free games.

 

[-Seraph-]

I will pirate really old games (ie: NES-PS1) but beyond that I stick to buying. No one really makes money off those old games anymore so I will emulate them as I please. I stay away from current day piracy, and I'll stick to supporting current gen since that is whats having an impact on the industry right now. Rarely do I pirate PC games (my main platform), but the instances where I have I ended up buying the game anyways because I enjoyed the game. Only time I'll resort to pirating a PC game is if I can't find it anywhere at all. The last extent of my piracy goes to none regional games. If said game has no plans to be released where I live chances are I will pirate it since I am not an intended demographic for that company. Now if that game eventually does make it over I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

 

[meece]

The only times I've ever pirated has been when I don't think I'll like it and.....and when I'm invariably proven right I can thus happily remove it knowing I've saved myself £10+ and WOULDN'T HAVE LIKED IT.....

Come to think of it I've only ever torrented ~7games and none of them survived a day before being removed from my hardrive as the overpriced much advertized crap they were....

 

[HobbesMkii]

You know, I'm not really "for" piracy. But I will say this:

The whole approach to "fighting" piracy is the exact wrong way to do it. You can see examples all throughout The Escapist, and this thread in particular. Andy "Malygris" Chalk's articles and blurbs related to piracy are also pretty damn good at giving examples of the exact wrong way to combat" this kinda issue.

And that wrong way is to chastise and punish the wrong people. The end user, not the guy who actually stole the game and uploaded it.

Look, the fact is, the internet provides people with a free copy of something. You can't blame people for taking it. Calling them greedy is a joke, because the Western World is a Capitalist world that encourages greed for the purposes of competition. We're taught to find the best possible price for a product because it drives down the price for competitors and results in a lowering of prices across the board. And, let's face it, for pricing, you can't beat free. So I think it's stupid to tell people "hey! you're STEALING from game companies" when somebody has used a torrent. No, no they didn't. They downloaded a stolen product. If we were to put this in the context of the real world, it would be like buying a television from the back of your cousin's friend Bobby's truck. You know the distributor is shady, but you've looked the other way.

Instead, we should probably combat this issue the way they fight another useless war: the War on Drugs. There is less incentive for drug cops to bust junkies (and let's face it, that's what "pirates" are) because that's a losing game. There will always be someone to buy a dealer's drugs. Likewise, there will always be someone with an internet connection who doesn't mind the super-duper-discount that The Pirate Bay gives them. Yes, both groups are away they are engaging in a crime. So those idiot commercials where they inform you that piracy is a crime and that there are consequences are kinda stupid, because they're telling the people what they already know.

The place to go is at the distributor. In our analogy, this is the drug dealer. The approach at the Escapist is to attack the moral character of the end user, and to possibly shame them into recanting. I encourage you to find the next drug user/smoker/alcoholic you meet and attempt to shame them into stopping. It doesn't work. Moreover, not only does it not work, but they Don't Respond Well. At all.

The Mainstream Media has already caught on to this, perhaps because they're so used to covering other forms of crime. When Wolverine leaked, the attention was not on the people using Pirate Bay to download it. I'm sure more than one news organization took advantage of it, otherwise how would they know some of the effects were missing? Anything less is just poor journalism. Instead of caring how many people had downloaded it, they instead went: "Hey? Who leaked the thing?" and our news coverage focused instead on FOX and the other companies associated with the movie engage in some finger pointing and screaming matches.

I'm sure it's entirely within law enforcement's ability to track torrents to their source. And it's smarter too. Right now, we are attempting to punish the junkie in order to make the dealer stop selling. This is ridiculous. You can't do it. Junkies outnumber the dealers. Likewise, the initial uploader, the guy who cracks the game, is vastly outnumbered by the rank and file "pirate." I certainly have no idea how you'd even begin to do it. I would suggest copying the files on the CD, but they figured out how to block that security hole closed in the mid-90s.

In closing, if you read this whole block of text, thank you. If you agree, thank you a bit more.

 

[airsoftmanic]

pirating is a way of getting to something that is either unavailable or you have mixed feelings on. downloading a 11 year old movie from TPB for example is not the same as DLing a brand new movie as youd probably wont find that 11 year old movie in the shop in the first place.
i find it that i just remember films from ages ago and cant think of the storyline so i got get it, watch it, then delete it because it takes up precious space on my hard drive.
games on the other hand, i never DL console games due to it being overly complicated and i dont want my 360 chipped as it would void the warantee and would get me into trouble if i ever sent it off for repairs plus i dont trust chipped equipment. PC games i rarely download and even then its stuff from ages ago. i see pirating as another source for obtaining stuff that you just remember from the old days without having to waste money on becuase you'll probably wont play it after the first week.
i have to agree with one of the other posters though, Steam has been a massive influence on my gaming life as i dont have to walk/drive all the way into town just to buy a game that i want. has also prevented me from pirating stuff quite a few times (like killing floor just recently).

on the ways that are being used to stop it, its ridiculous to think that they will shut down the pirate network on the web as its impossible. as soon as a file is sharing between people, if its a popular torrent, more than 10,000 people can have it within 6 hours or so, increasing exponentially with every hour. you cant stop a network that travels that fast. even if you lock away the original piraters (the guys that crack the games and obtain the master film prints) then someone else will just fill thier place. direct action wont work. only way to reduce it is to reduce prices which as we all know, particular greedy companies wont do that *cough*microsoft*cough*.

 

[Therumancer]

Abandonware is an entirely differant thing from piracy.

I have mixed opinions, but largely because of the industry (why on god's green earth does this keep recurring, because of the Pirate's Bay?).

As far as the term and morality goes, remember guys like Sir Francis Drake were pirates. >

The risks can be substantial (mostly due to viruses and such), so I don't recommend it, but honestly I think the game industry as a whole deserves it.

Look at it this way, someone did an article here explaining that monster profits can be made by people selling games for like $5 a pop in Brazil. Truthfully I have more of an issue with that because of the fact that the people doing the pirating are selling the stuff and making a profit off of it (as opposed to free distribution) but that's another arguement. The point here is that the gaming industry is demanding $60 a pop and just did some price fixing to raise the price of games by $10 universally.

If Brazilian pirates can make substantial profits at $5 a pop, including their own packaging and distribution (in this case the packaging is lacking, but I doubt many people care about that as long as it works), what does this say about the game industry?

Now in theory I agree with the idea of people being able to charge whatever they want for their own intellectual properties. But by the same token I oppose the idea of cartels and price fixing, when that same principle was intended to exist in a market where producers would compete with each other and constantly be competing to undercut the other guy. You do not see this however in the gaming industry, and as such it's like a monopoly/cartel and an inherantly corrupt/criminal enterprise itself.

So really, from where I'm sitting I so far do not consider piracy worth the risks... yet. Though honestly the crippleware being installed on my computer is coming close. I paid to DL "Dawn Of War II" and honestly I feel what it did to my system to get it to run was almost as bad as a virus. By reports (I haven't tried) the pirated versions with all of that junk removed actually run better.

Mostly I just sit on the sidelines, making comments, while I watch the equivilent of Francis Drake messing with the Spanish and their trading empire on behalf of the King. >

I mean honestly, how the heck am I supposed to feel sympathy for the gaming industry? If you want to get technical both sides are morally wrong, and criminal. Sadly I just want to play games, so I can't pretty much ignore the issue, but really it's increasingly hard to defend either side in good faith.

An unpopular point of view here on the Escapist I'd imagine (since I guess this site represents the industry as much as anything), but it's mine.