Poll: Would this be ethical...

[drmigit2]

I would wonder why more people did not pirate it to get from the bullshit online only crap. If blizzard wants me to pay for my game then I dont want a giant goddamned handicap on my game. Simple

 

[MrFalconfly]

I find it very hard to apply ethics to economy.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Ethical, yes you bought the game so what does it matter?

 

[TehCookie]

I don't have the strongest of ethics so I'd say yes, but it is illegal and a lot of people think breaking the law is unethical.

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

If you knew anything about the game, then you knew it was 'always online'.

If this bothered you, then you shouldn't have bought the game.

I really don't get this argument. It's like saying "If you knew anything about ME3, then you knew it had 'tacked on multiplayer'. If you don't like that then you shouldn't of bought the game. I think buying the game should give you the right to play it, so doing something like this is fine. Also, what if the person wasn't bothered by the DRM, but his internet becomes shitty one day and now he can't play the game. He has every right to be pissed off/play a pirated version.

What?

You don't need to play ME3's multiplayer to play the single player game, so I don't understand the comparison.

You agree to the terms of service when you boot up the game for the first time. Don't like those terms, don't play the game.

I don't agree with their methods, but if people are going to throw money at them, despite draconian DRM, then they're gonna keep doing it.

What if you've payed for the game. You've got an amazing internet connection, one that never goes down. You play say act 1, then BAM something happens that turns off your internet. No game for you, you've wasted your 50 pounds. They didn't know that was going to happen, but due to the crappy DRM they can't play singleplayer without internet. Yeah sure, you can counter this by saying "Well, you buy a car even though the next day you might crash/it get eaten by truckosaurus". But Diablo 3 is very different because it's a game, and it's the companies fault that you can't play SP when your internet's down.

Well that's an issue with your ISP, not the game devs.

Much like saying it's Ford's fault that I can't run my car because my local petrol station has ran out of fuel.

You shouldn't have bought a car if you knew you would possibly run out of fuel and be pissed about it. And you have no right to be pissed, because you knew it could happen.

Kind of stretching it a bit there

What I mean, is if that something bothers you so much that you're willing to break the law for a video game, then something needs to change.

Throwing money at Blizzard doesn't tell them that their DRM sucks.

The whole point is that the law is so stupid because what he's doing isn't unethical in any sense.

 

[Mad World]

Yes - I would say that it's ethical.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

If you knew anything about the game, then you knew it was 'always online'.

If this bothered you, then you shouldn't have bought the game.

I really don't get this argument. It's like saying "If you knew anything about ME3, then you knew it had 'tacked on multiplayer'. If you don't like that then you shouldn't of bought the game. I think buying the game should give you the right to play it, so doing something like this is fine. Also, what if the person wasn't bothered by the DRM, but his internet becomes shitty one day and now he can't play the game. He has every right to be pissed off/play a pirated version.

What?

You don't need to play ME3's multiplayer to play the single player game, so I don't understand the comparison.

You agree to the terms of service when you boot up the game for the first time. Don't like those terms, don't play the game.

I don't agree with their methods, but if people are going to throw money at them, despite draconian DRM, then they're gonna keep doing it.

What if you've payed for the game. You've got an amazing internet connection, one that never goes down. You play say act 1, then BAM something happens that turns off your internet. No game for you, you've wasted your 50 pounds. They didn't know that was going to happen, but due to the crappy DRM they can't play singleplayer without internet. Yeah sure, you can counter this by saying "Well, you buy a car even though the next day you might crash/it get eaten by truckosaurus". But Diablo 3 is very different because it's a game, and it's the companies fault that you can't play SP when your internet's down.

Well that's an issue with your ISP, not the game devs.

Much like saying it's Ford's fault that I can't run my car because my local petrol station has ran out of fuel.

You shouldn't have bought a car if you knew you would possibly run out of fuel and be pissed about it. And you have no right to be pissed, because you knew it could happen.

Kind of stretching it a bit there

What I mean, is if that something bothers you so much that you're willing to break the law for a video game, then something needs to change.

Throwing money at Blizzard doesn't tell them that their DRM sucks.

The whole point is that the law is so stupid because what he's doing isn't unethical in any sense.

It's unethical in that it doesn't combat the problem.

Granted, on an individual basis, it matters very little, but how many sales would Blizzard have lost if all the people who hated the DRM decided not buy the game?

 

[Evil Smurf]

this is very similar to jailbreaking iOS stuff. You payed for it, you (think) you can do whatever you want to it. You may be correct or not, are you better however then the people at the corporation you are rebelling at? They will make all sorts excuses to grab your money: DLC, online passes, ect. Can you really oppose people who will act out side the law, if you have done it yourself? Maybe you torrented music.

Piracy will always exist because often legitimate actions can be awkward. Is it ethical? It all depends in what you think is right and wrong. Illegal? Very

 

[ItsAChiaotzu]

If you knew anything about the game, then you knew it was 'always online'.

If this bothered you, then you shouldn't have bought the game.

I really don't get this argument. It's like saying "If you knew anything about ME3, then you knew it had 'tacked on multiplayer'. If you don't like that then you shouldn't of bought the game. I think buying the game should give you the right to play it, so doing something like this is fine. Also, what if the person wasn't bothered by the DRM, but his internet becomes shitty one day and now he can't play the game. He has every right to be pissed off/play a pirated version.

What?

You don't need to play ME3's multiplayer to play the single player game, so I don't understand the comparison.

You agree to the terms of service when you boot up the game for the first time. Don't like those terms, don't play the game.

I don't agree with their methods, but if people are going to throw money at them, despite draconian DRM, then they're gonna keep doing it.

What if you've payed for the game. You've got an amazing internet connection, one that never goes down. You play say act 1, then BAM something happens that turns off your internet. No game for you, you've wasted your 50 pounds. They didn't know that was going to happen, but due to the crappy DRM they can't play singleplayer without internet. Yeah sure, you can counter this by saying "Well, you buy a car even though the next day you might crash/it get eaten by truckosaurus". But Diablo 3 is very different because it's a game, and it's the companies fault that you can't play SP when your internet's down.

Well that's an issue with your ISP, not the game devs.

Much like saying it's Ford's fault that I can't run my car because my local petrol station has ran out of fuel.

You shouldn't have bought a car if you knew you would possibly run out of fuel and be pissed about it. And you have no right to be pissed, because you knew it could happen.

Kind of stretching it a bit there

What I mean, is if that something bothers you so much that you're willing to break the law for a video game, then something needs to change.

Throwing money at Blizzard doesn't tell them that their DRM sucks.

The whole point is that the law is so stupid because what he's doing isn't unethical in any sense.

It's unethical in that it doesn't combat the problem.

Granted, on an individual basis, it matters very little, but how many sales would Blizzard have lost if all the people who hated the DRM decided not buy the game?

You could argue that but you and I both know that he wasn't asking the question "Was I unethical in buying this game?" He was asking if it was unethical for him to play the game that he paid full price for because of the stupid measures implemented by Blizzard.

 

[BrionJames]

You paid for their product, who cares how many copies you have? the pirated version probably runs like ass anyway. To hell with Blizzard for doing this stupid always-online bullshit anyway.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I actually have this conundrum as well.
I was thinking of purchasing some EA games and using cracks to avoid Origin.

 

[FoolKiller]

Piracy is Piracy, regardless of motive.

That's actually weak logic. You assume that piracy is unethical regardless of motive. That's like saying killing someone in self defense is the same as premeditated murder.

Personally, I think if you've given money to the company and want to play single-player, then go for it. It doesn't hurt anyone.

Also, in Canada, you are allowed to have an archival copy for your own use.

 

[Kotaro]

I would do it in a heartbeat.

 

[Agayek]

The same can be said for most/all MMOs and I don't see bloodthirsty mobs forming to review bomb & scream about how they can't play whenever that happens (and I've seen MMOs that have far less MMO in them than Diablo III does.)

You say that like MMOs should be let off the hook for it too.

If you require your customers to connect to a service you provide, in order to play the game they paid for, you should be held responsible when the user's can't play the game because your service is down. It doesn't matter the genre or game.

Scheduled maintenance I can let go, because they generally alert people before hand and it's usually done in the middle of the night.

Being too cheap to rent some extra servers for the first month on the other hand, not so much. Especially for a company with as much experience dealing with connection floods and whatnot as Blizzard has.

 

[mrdude2010]

Yes. It might even be legal, considering your definition of "personal digital backup copy." You bought the game legally, playing it despite their poor server decisions/ ridiculous DRM is totally ethical. You bought the goddamm game, it's yours to do almost whatever you want ethically.

 

[samaugsch]

Imagine this situation:

You have just purchased Diablo 3 and you're happily playing the game when inexplicably you lose your internet connection. Two hours later, despite your best efforts, the connection is still down and there is no reason to think it will be back up any time soon.

Of course you can no longer play your game even though you really, really want to. Now you have a friend whom you know has downloaded a pirated copy of the game. You could ask this friend to give you a copy to install and play - just so that you can get your Diablo fix until the internet connection comes back.

My question is: Would it be ethical to install and play the pirated copy of the game?

Now remember, I am not asking whether it would be legal to do this, just whether it would be ethical. Also remember that laws are not always ethical.

I wouldn't have even bothered posting a topic about it. I would've gotten the pirated copy without a second thought.

 

[Reaper195]

Legally, there are a few problems. Ethically? It depends on the person. Personally, I don't see a problem. You paid for the game, you can;t play the game normally, so you might as well play the game any way you can. My flatmate spent four hours creating accounts, DLing Origin and spending ages fucking about trying to get ME3 working. Then Origin kept crashing, which usually crashed ME3. So in the end, he pirated the game and never had a problem (And never played multiplayer, since fuck multiplayer).

In the end, if you feel comfortable doing so, fuck what anyone else thinks. If you don't feel comfortable, don't play the game for a while until you can play it smoothly.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

Yep, you bought the game. Your money is theirs. That's where they stop caring about what you do with the game.

 

[Gypsybob]

Is it ethical? No.

The real question is whether or not you care.

 

[Signa]

What I mean, is if that something bothers you so much that you're willing to break the law for a video game, then something needs to change.

Agreed. Both laws and the way the game is designed are in desperate need of change.

OT: As said before, "go nuts." It's no different than the time I opened a crappy game controller I bought and fixed it because it was broken of the box. I knew it was a cheap Chinese-made piece of shit, but I paid for it, so I was going to do what was in my power to fix it so I could use it.