Poll: Is Piracy Really That Bad?

[T-004]

As far as I'm concerned the only dev to approach the issue of piracy in the most logical way is Rocksteady.

When they released Arkham Asylum with a bug that would only kick in if you were playing an illegitimate copy, but still let you try out a portion of the game (Even though demos were released for it, not sure if one was released for the PC though)it was a very intelligent move as it avoided the main issue with DRM (annoying the legitimate customer)and made sure that if people wanted to play the game then they had to buy it.

As far as I am concerned anyone who jumps on the "Piracy takes money away from the Developers and loses people jobs" is pretty much full of crap. The Developers are paid for the game before release by the publishers, who through the massive push toward digital distribution (I'm looking at you Valve, EA) are pretty much trying to force Brick and mortar stores out of business. I've lost count of the amount of small games stores who have closed down due to a massive loss of business since the advent of modern Digital Distribution and it isn't smooth sailing for the larger outfits either (Blockbuster being a good case in point), as these high street stores are having to rely more and more on the used games market, which is a bloody cutthroat trade and in some cases (Blockbuster)standing on the very edge of bankruptcy.

Don't even get me started on the utter farce that is EULA's.

My point is made thusly, in some cases piracy is truly the only avenue by which someone who is in a low paid job/unemployed or lives in a country in which the game/film/book they want is unavailable is able to access it. And saying that "If they can't afford it then they don't deserve it" is downright bloody offensive and elitist! In addition has anyone noticed the increasing trend in which games don't actually drop in price even after 1.5 - 2 years after release.

The simple fact is that if piracy is ever going to be reduced it is going to be through the reduction in day one price. Not through the application of ass backwards DRM or the proliferation of Online passes.

Think of the children!!!

 

[Qitz]

-Snipped

Here's the thing with every point you brought up. You can find all this information out yourself. Don't know if a game will play on your computer? You can look up the specs, compare them and find out. Don't know that much? Use the "Can You Run It" thing for a general bench mark or ask someone computer savy. Want to know what the next Fable game is about? You've got a myriad of websites you can browse whose sole purpose is to inform people about a game. Use them. Don't want to be burned by BF4 and it's claim of having a "Super Awesome" single player campaign? Do some research then.

Pirating a game with the excuse that "If I like it I'll just buy it later" is a weak excuse and just used to help reinforce your (not you personally, but pirates) decision

It's not exactly that black-and-white.

No, it really is. You use a torrent website to download a game? You stole it. Unless it's a torrent put up there by the developers themselves it is pirated.

I wont sit here and act as though I've never pirated anything. I have, but I didn't lie to myself about it with some poor excuse of "Well if I like this one I'll buy the next!" I knew full well that there was the same chance of me pirating the next one as the current.

Does it suck that games don't offer demos? Sure, I often want to try a game and when I see it doesn't have a demo I am disappointed but that doesn't justify stealing it. Sure you can argue that once you've tried it you'll quit out, go to a legit source (Steam, GamersGate) but A, that doesn't change the fact that you still stole it in the first place and B, your probably in the 1% in that case.

All that said, make no mistakes, I have no disillusion that anyone's going to stop pirating or that piracy itself is just going to up and go, nor do I really mind it. Pirating things has been active in the software industries since its conception (Remember Blank VHS's? Or VHS Recorders?) but don't try to sugar coat your actions with some excuse like "I'm just demoing it" because that doesn't hold water for me.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Not as bad as the anti-piracy PSAs about it.

 

[The Cheshire]

Oh God, this video is so over-the-top sentimentalist bullshit it makes me want never to buy anything legally. Ever. Again. And I'll have lots of children and I will teach them how to download illegal films just because this video insulted my intelligence.

 

[C95J]

I also hate it when pirates use the excuse "It's just a copy" to try and justify stealing. There is no two ways around it, it is stealing plain and simple. just because you have the means, and access to steal something, doesn't mean you should. It takes away profit from the game company, how would you feel if you spent years working on something, then thousands of people stole it, just because it is easier than say, walking into a shop and robbing the cash register, or stealing a game. And again, the whole "It's just a copy" argument is pure bullshit.

 

[Grant Hobba]

I really don't care about the whole piracy thing. Doesn't really bother me.

will it bother you when there are no more games, music or movies ?

 

[C95J]

There ARE people who do it because they would never be able to afford gaming in the first place

I fail to see how this justifies stealing the game.

Piracy =/= Stealing

People such as that do not equal lost sales. It could even be argued that they help a game, I.E publicity, word of mouth, and the fact that if they were to secure a stable income, there would be a chance that they would actually purchase games.

Well, if publishers stop with these idiotic anti-pirating measures, and instead try focusing on giving pirates better incentives to buy new, that is.

So basically what you are saying is, if I can't afford something, you should be entitled to steal it. Right?

 

[Bruenin]

I really don't care about the whole piracy thing. Doesn't really bother me.

will it bother you when there are no more games, music or movies ?

Well if it ever got that far I'll take a stand against it, send me a message when the apocalypse starts up. =P... i like my emote better

 

[Grant Hobba]

I really don't care about the whole piracy thing. Doesn't really bother me.

will it bother you when there are no more games, music or movies ?

Well if it ever got that far I'll take a stand against it, send me a message when the apocalypse starts up. =P... i like my emote better

well it's at the point where "musicians" don't make much money any more I'd say its getting closer and closer

 

[Bruenin]

I really don't care about the whole piracy thing. Doesn't really bother me.

will it bother you when there are no more games, music or movies ?

Well if it ever got that far I'll take a stand against it, send me a message when the apocalypse starts up. =P... i like my emote better

well it's at the point where "musicians" don't make much money any more I'd say its getting closer and closer

The armoury is open, whats your specialization? Want some skyforge steel or some dwarven blades?

 

[johnd03]

I still think that if people are to pirate, then they are only further reducing the possible motivation for the game devs to produce more of the content that they enjoy. therefore

-1 to the piraters

 

[La Barata]

This thread is fundamentally flawed because anyone who actually admits to pirating something gets in trouble (See several delivered warnings so far).

OT: Pirating CAN be a good thing, as some people have said, if you're unable to get a game through any other means, what's the harm?

 

[Grant Hobba]

I really don't care about the whole piracy thing. Doesn't really bother me.

will it bother you when there are no more games, music or movies ?

Well if it ever got that far I'll take a stand against it, send me a message when the apocalypse starts up. =P... i like my emote better

well it's at the point where "musicians" don't make much money any more I'd say its getting closer and closer

The armoury is open, whats your specialization? Want some skyforge steel or some dwarven blades?

hmmm are wet fish an option? xD

 

[briankoontz]

Debates about piracy invariably avoid the big picture.

The world economy and ecology are in permanent decline, and global austerity continues to diminish the global middle class. Furthermore, the powers that be desire a depoliticized populace.

So what we have is a population becoming increasingly poor, and a system which encourages them to stay home and entertain themselves. This is an obvious recipe for vast amounts of media piracy.

The best ways to get rid of piracy is to reduce the wealth disparity between people, and combine that with supporting democracy so people have something to do besides consuming media, which they can't afford to pay for so they pirate.

The common anti-piracy creed of "do the right thing and buy the game" is simply nonsense by way of ignoring the real-world reality.

 

[DementedSheep]

Piracy as a demo? If you actually using it as a demo, as in you only play the first level or 2 and then either buy or delete it I still don't like it but fine. Tho you don?t need to do that, just research it, watch some gamplay videos, read some reviews and use your brain. Problem is people just use that as an excuse and play the whole thing and then don?t pay for it anyway.
I wouldn?t have bought it anyway/ the games not worth that much/ I can?t afford it/ I don?t agree with something the company is doing(like DRM) are BS excuses. If for whatever reason you don?t want to spend money on it then don?t fucking play it. Same gose if you don't want to stick to the terms of playing the game. Games are a luxury item. You?re not going to die if you don?t play Skyrim or the latest COD. You are not entitled to it, why should you get to play the fruits of some else's labor, time and money without giving them anything for it? Stop trying to justify the fact that you?re a thief.

 

[Crazy]

For:
1) Allows a larger group of people to play the game, thus offering them a true sampling of what the developer is offering. (Especially for games without demos)
2) A person who resorts to stealing the game wasn't like to purchase it anyway. Unfair to the people who bought it yes, but not truly taking revenue away from the maker.
3) No DRM
4) Ability to acquire a game in a region you'd otherwise be unable to get said game from.
5) Capability to download your game in another location without need to physically carry game with you.

1) Assuming they won't get it if piracy wasn't an option.
2) That depends on the person, and not always true.
3) Not in my jurisdiction.
4) That could be a valid reason.
5) Someone's carrying something anyway, but really that's just being lazy.

 

[I Max95]

....yes
pirating is that bad
at least to me

the developer made the game for YOU, but it's not like you need it, its not like the price you have to pay for a game is depriving you of anything nessesary or violating your rights. its THEIR property, and pirating is outright theft.

if a game is bad, dont get it at all. but if a game is good support the people who made it so they can make more like and even make it better.

and if you pirate and then buy the whole game, then good for you i see that basically as borrowing something then paying for it, but if you pirate and then dont get the full game, they you are cheating the people who made it

 

[DoubleTime]

Oh God, this video is so over-the-top sentimentalist bullshit it makes me want never to buy anything legally. Ever. Again. And I'll have lots of children and I will teach them how to download illegal films just because this video insulted my intelligence.

Sorry to hear you're so easily offended.

Still, being offended isn't an excuse to steal. It's like saying "He called my mom a whore, so I shot him because I was offended." People who say they steal to "get back" at someone/something/a corporation/etc. are just being petty.

 

[Aeonknight]

There ARE people who do it because they would never be able to afford gaming in the first place

I fail to see how this justifies stealing the game.

Piracy =/= Stealing

People such as that do not equal lost sales. It could even be argued that they help a game, I.E publicity, word of mouth, and the fact that if they were to secure a stable income, there would be a chance that they would actually purchase games.

Well, if publishers stop with these idiotic anti-pirating measures, and instead try focusing on giving pirates better incentives to buy new, that is.

So basically what you are saying is, if I can't afford something, you should be entitled to steal it. Right?

.... What? No. I did not say that. Piracy and theft are not the same thing. With theft, something physical is taken away. With piracy, it is merely copied. On an individual basis, it is in the morally grey area. You aren't necessarily hurting anyone/anything, but it's still against the law.

I never said that you should do this, or that you're entitled to do this. I merely said that it is not so black and white.

If anything Piracy is a sub-category or tangent of Theft. Whether they're one and the same is just an age old semantics arguement.

Even just copying the data of a game is depriving the developers of a sale. I'd say the only difference in piracy and theft is who the victim is. Theft, you're victimizing the person you take it from. However the developer has already been paid for that particular copy, so they're not victimized.

piracy, you're creating a copy that the developer wasn't compensated for. The person who holds the original data doesn't care, he still has it. But that means X amount of people are playing the game, when the developer only got compensation from 1 of those people.

The only difference is who loses money on the whole ordeal, but the end result is the same: You have something that costs money that you didn't pay for.

 

[Killermud]

Reading some of the replies makes me rage. Some people saying that piracy is pure evil and that pirating is stealing.

For those of you who say this, please look up the definition of stealing. Pirating is not stealing, its copying. Stealing suggests that you take something away from someone without permission. This is not the case in pirating as when you pirate a game or album, you are not taking anything away from the developer/publisher, you are just cloning the product.

Anyway rant over, I don't actually condone piracy as you are still getting something for nothing, unless you buy it afterwards which a lot of people do. I see piracy as another step in the industry and we should just live with it, as there is no solution to it. The more we fight it, the worse it will get.