Poll: What's wrong with piracy

[dfphetteplace]

The Swiss government recently conducted a study on how unauthorized downloading impacts society, and found that illegal downloading doesn?t necessarily hurt the copyright holders.

Entertainment industries have complained of losses stemming from illegal downloading, and the study was to determine whether the country should change its copyright laws.

The study found that about a third of Swiss citizens over the age of 15 illegally download music, movies, and games, but do not spend less money on entertainment as a result of the downloading. The money budgeted for entertainment doesn?t change, meaning that any illegal downloading activity is complementary.

A similar Dutch study also found that people who engage in illegal downloading attend concerts more frequently than those who don?t, and people who downloaded games actually bought more games than their counterparts who do not.

The Swiss government came to the conclusion that the copyright laws do not need to change because there is no proven negative impact from downloading.

 

[Woodsey]

If everyone pirated, we wouldn't get games (nothing from a studio with a budget of more than a bowl of cornflakes and some lube, at any rate). If someone makes an entertainment product in order to make a living, you pay for it, or you don't get it. And the whole "well I wasn't going to buy it anyway" excuse is irrelevant; you pirate it, you assign a value to it. Don't want to pay full price? Wait for the price to drop.

I think you'll find that many of the best games, books, movies, WERE made with little more than a bowl of cornflakes and a bottle of lube. Once the aim is to make a living out of what was once a passion, the quality goes downhill. In my experience.

Well then we should all steal to our heart's content.

 

[Vegosiux]

The problem with piracy is that both the supporters and those who oppose it are full of ridiculous arguments (not all of them, mind you, but it is very present on both sides), so there's no way a normal person can have a reasonable discussion about the subject because the moment you try to do that the thread gets hijacked by people on both sides who can't tell lemon from lime and steer it into a line of non sequiturs it never recovers from.

 

[Batou667]

We have a piracy thread about once a week.

What will this one possibly achieve that all the others didn't? :/

 

[Random Name 4]

We have a piracy thread about once a week.

What will this one possibly achieve that all the others didn't? :/

It will achieve the main goal I aimed for when creating the thread, killing time with meaningless discussion

 

[hannes2]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

 

[hannes2]

Sorry for the double post. It seems the "captcha error" wasn´t that much of a problem after all.

 

[Random Name 4]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Actually, simply put it isn't stealing, it's copying without permision from the publisher

 

[Xanthious]

While here on The Escapist it would seem when not gaming the bulk of users are chilling on wooden crosses for the sins of mankind I think that the vast majority of gamers pirate to some degree. Maybe it's a game or two a year. Maybe it's a game or two a week. The fact of the matter is piracy is everywhere and most everyone is guilty of it despite what you could be lead to believe based on these forums.

Piracy is of little actual danger to the gaming industry though despite what certain developers and publishers would have you believe. The fact of the matter is piracy has been around since the earliest days of gaming and today the gaming industry is thriving in an economy where most other industries are scraping to get by. The fact of the matter is if a game is good and a company treats the customers right it will sell as evidenced by many many examples. The bottom line is people have been screaming piracy is killing the gaming industry for three decades or more and it's nothing more than hyperbole.

Morally I think it's no worse than the bullshit you see publishers like EA pull every day. I can't see how downloading a game is any worse than taking someone's money for a game then taking that game away because you don't like something they said on an internet forum. If anything I think the latter example is far worse. When the smoke clears neither pirates nor publishers are in any position to take anything that resembles a moral high ground.

 

[BlackWidower]

Because Piracy has the capacity to Kill the Video Game Entertainment Industry.

When it comes down to it, the investors in the companies hold the purse strings. If they can't see a viable profit to be made in the venture of 'make video games' simply because a huge chunk of the profit is lost to Theft... then they will just take their large bags of money and go else where. Invest in something that has safer or more reliable returns.

No more money = You won't see games like Modern Warfare 3 or Skyrim.

Although it is very 'gloom and doom'-y.
But it is something that is entirely capable.

it is undoubtable that many major investors have stopped putting money into Design studios and publishing companies simply because they did not feel that a +30-40% loss of profit due to Theft was acceptable.

That's pragmatic, not moral.

 

[Risingblade]

So you find nothing wrong with stealing?

 

[CulixCupric]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Yeah, it's theft, and people who don't pirate end up paying for it, because the gaming industry punish EVERYONE for it. piracy caused online passes, the SOPA bill (mainly movie piracy for this one), Game CD Keys, Pay-to-play, The Fees on XBOX live, etc. Gaming companies are trying to make money any way they can, because pirates are making it hard for them to survive, therefore they're being tightwads because THEY HAVE TO in order to survive. if they don't we might not get any new games at all. I don't like this moneygrubbing, but I don't blame the game industry, i blame the pirates. they need to be caught, fined, and the money given to the game devs.

 

[Something Amyss]

Every other form of piracy is unacceptable. Piracy is a bad thing, which mainly effects the industry in a negative way.

According to an industry that can't produce any tangible damages from it.

 

[NightHawk21]

Because Piracy has the capacity to Kill the Video Game Entertainment Industry.

When it comes down to it, the investors in the companies hold the purse strings. If they can't see a viable profit to be made in the venture of 'make video games' simply because a huge chunk of the profit is lost to Theft... then they will just take their large bags of money and go else where. Invest in something that has safer or more reliable returns.

No more money = You won't see games like Modern Warfare 3 or Skyrim.

Although it is very 'gloom and doom'-y.
But it is something that is entirely capable.

it is undoubtable that many major investors have stopped putting money into Design studios and publishing companies simply because they did not feel that a +30-40% loss of profit due to Theft was acceptable.

I'm sorry but as soon as I read this all I could thing was how tapes were killing the music industry.

 

[deadxero]

It's not that complicated. Taking something that someone else owns without their permission, or on their terms, is wrong. Disagree, how about I walk into your house and take your shit. What you say, that's different? No it isn't. Stealing is stealing.

Note, not that i agree with the price gouging assholes that run the game industry. Disliking someone doesn't make it ok to wrong them.

 

[Random Name 4]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Yeah, it's theft, and people who don't pirate end up paying for it, because the gaming industry punish EVERYONE for it. piracy caused online passes, the SOPA bill (mainly movie piracy for this one), Game CD Keys, Pay-to-play, The Fees on XBOX live, etc. Gaming companies are trying to make money any way they can, because pirates are making it hard for them to survive, therefore they're being tightwads because THEY HAVE TO in order to survive. if they don't we might not get any new games at all. I don't like this moneygrubbing, but I don't blame the game industry, i blame the pirates. they need to be caught, fined, and the money given to the game devs.

The industry is trying to make money any way it can because they like money. Companies like Activision are making Billions of dollars, piracy is not to blame for any decline, higher costs of development and changing markets are to blame for a possible decline

 

[hannes2]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Actually, simply put it isn't stealing, it's copying without permision from the publisher

"In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent.[...]The act of theft is known by terms such as stealing, thieving, and filching." - Wikipedia
"Stealing" might be a bit of a problematic term in this context, because it seems to imply a "taking it away from someone else"-component, but at the end of the day, you´re using someone´s property without their permission, so I´m pretty sure it qualifies.

 

[Fishyash]

Every other form of piracy is unacceptable. Piracy is a bad thing, which mainly effects the industry in a negative way.

According to an industry that can't produce any tangible damages from it.

Nothing tangible, sure. As mentioned in my post, it is nowhere near as big an issue as developers and publishers are making it out to be.

It may be seemingly very little effect, but no matter how you look at it, it is someone getting something they should have paid for for free.
(I feel like I am contradicting myself here now...) There are no box office sales, there are no gigs and there are no t-shirts.

I do think that the games industry needs an equivalent of box office sales or gigs, just something to make developers stop screwing over honest paying customers.

 

[Something Amyss]

"In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent.[...]The act of theft is known by terms such as stealing, thieving, and filching." - Wikipedia

At the end of the day, property remains where it is. See, even that definition doesn't fit, and that's more a "layman's" definition. Sorry.

 

[Savagezion]

...Because it takes away potential money for the developers? I thought that was kind of obvious.

And absolutely nobody should pirate Skyrim, nobody. It is a sign telling developers that multiplayer, online passes, and on disc DLC are not necessary to creating a commercial hit. Did You know that The Witcher 2 was pirated nearly 4.5 million times? Those kind of losses make developers a whole lot less likely to take risks and encourages just "playing it safe" with new FPS's every year.

That doesn't mean 4.5 million people pirated Witcher 2. Far from it. First off, torrent tracks need to be restarted frequently and every time one is started it is recorded as 1 entire download. Second, pirates are not organized people when it comes to piracy. It is done in their spare time and they frequently lose files, delete it then decide they want to try it again. It is free so they don't exactly keep tabs on them because they can just download another copy if something happens to that copy.

That already skews the numbers by multiple downloads and by being generous, I will say that takes the number from 4.5 million people down to 3.5 million people. (Yes, that is a generous in-your-favor estimate.) Now as for it being "losses". There was buzz about it being banned in Australia so if you wanted to check the game out, you had to pirate it. I wouldn't doubt that being banned in other countries was on the table as well like Muslim countries. This means the game wasn't being sold there anyways. These are not lost sales, these are sales that were never going to happen.

Did some people download the game to get a free game? Most likely, yes. Did 4.5 million people do it just for a free game? Hell no. As Balky would say, "Don't be ridiculous." Of those 4.5 million downloads, probably around a million wanted a free game and might have bought. (That is also assuming none of the people downloading owned a copy.) The world has a lot of people in it and 4.5 million isn't a lot in and of itself. However, when 4.5 million people is a gross exaggeration of the actual amount of people involved and just how many sales that actually represents, this isn't some disaster.

Seriously, this is fear-mongering in part of publishers. It's like the recent swine flu "epidemic" in the states. It is making a disaster out of something small because people buy into it and there is something to gain for the people doing the fear-mongering. There were people duct taping their windows in to battle anthrax all in the name of television ratings. Seriously, this is the same thing. It will NOT kill the industry, the video game industry is an invincible industry at this point and that should be common sense. If every triple A studio went out of business tomorrow, there would be a handful of new ones by friday. There is a market demand for video games right now and any independent developer willing to make games would capitalize on that.

OT: Morality is not black and white in regards to piracy as it has to do with motivations on a personal level. I personally am against it from my circumstances. There are exceptions to the rule, even there, however mostly it is bad and I don't support it. However, to say if it is bad or wrong overall is pretty much impossible.