To anyone who thinks piracy is ok

[TheComedown]

Yes it is

No, No it isn't you don't have to play games. It's not a right, it's a privileged.

since when do big companies care about us
if you saw a free game on the side of the road, you wouldnt take it?

I never said they cared about us, they care about our wallets yes, well actually valve do a pretty good job of caring for us, although in that caring is how they make it to our wallets....

Anyway pirating a game is not like finding it on the side of the road, nothing like finding it on the side of the road. Anyway if there was a game on the side of the road i probably wouldn't take it, firstly chances are its not on my platform(PC, not to mention cd keys already registered), secondly the disk is horribly scratched, if someone was careless enough to leave the disk on the side of the road chances are the game was shit anyway.

Your post doesn't really address any points I've raised, just because most companies just want your wallet doesn't change the fact that no-one has to play games, you have no right to play games, its a privilege.

wow. way to over think that

Wow. Way to add to a discussion. You raised a horribly thought through point with little to no relevance to the points I made. I wouldn't recommend posting here again unless you are willing to address any of the issues brought up in this thread as low content and posts that don't add to the discussion value of a thread are generally frowned upon here.

 

[soulsabr]

That is a crock. If a game doesn't spin profit on its first release, it is abandoned... just like the movie industry. A game has to show that people are interested and "sleepers" stand absolutely no chance of a sequel... unlike the movie industry. Plus it would only be cheaper if you use the same engine or something. If game companies would worry more about the quality of the product put out instead of shoveling games they KNOW will score an average review score of 6-7 then most game companies would probably see heavier returns on their investments.

Actually, I'll have to disagree with you there. There is quite a bit of chance taken in making games. The reason a franchise is not abandoned when it fails to earn back enough money to pay for itself is that the sales warrant it. Companies know this when they create a game and wager on the sequel to make their money on. Other companies, *cough*EA*cough*, just milk a game until it is ground into the dirt so far a team of archaeologists couldn't find it. It is a balancing act that goes both ways depending on the size and cash base of the company.

There is a valid point hidden in all that hyperbole. (And if you don't think that is hyperbole I bet you feel blessed to be charged 60 bucks for a game.) Figure all the games EA puts out in a year. Then look at how many are blockbusters. Then remember they make millions of dollars every year. Which would increase if they quit shoveling money into projects like G.I.Joe: The rise of Cobra video game which scored a 43 from metacritic. I know, I know about reviews and all that. But dude, 43. Forty... three.
Was it a throw away project? Sure, but really that means they threw money away to see what they could catch from some fanboys which wasn't much. Blizzard is a standing testament that the better your stock of games are, the more money you will make. See the counterpoint here is that it isn't the consumer's fault that EA throws money away on shit titles. But we are the one footing the bill. That is my hyperbolic statement in return.

Actually, for the most part, I do feel quite blessed that games have levelled off at $60. We used to complain when they were $50 and $40 etc.... Now, do I make excuses for companies to produce rotten games based on great franchises or, worse, as sequels to awesome games; not on your life. Do I wish these companies would die; yes. But that is a different discussion all together. Would I condone the piracy of these crappy games? No, not now and not ever. Game quality does not grant the right to pirate a game; it just doesn't. It is well within a company's right to produce whatever quality of game they wish and charge what they wish. It is also within their legal rights to protect that game from infringement. What can we do about it? Hit them where it hurts and make sure the store shelves remain stocked with unsold copies of their garbage.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Ok, but all those people who paid $0 ARE being called pirates. Seems like a trap to me. They made it easy to get for free and then they released the numbers of those who got it for free. So, who made the decision to call everyone who paid nothing pirates?

Did I miss a memo somewhere? I didn't see that! '

People are throwing up those indie games (atleast World of Goo) as being the most pirated. It seems that the reason WoG was most pirated is because the dev made it easy to pirate.

Oh. Yeah before that bundle came out it was relentless pirated. The Humble Indie Bundle was available for 2-3 weeks during which time you could pay whatever you wanted, then it went back to regular price I think. It was a temporary thing, that happened two years after the game was released.

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

has anyone seen that video thats says "would you steal a car?", "would you steal a handbag?". piracy is stealing

erm ive just bought this film legally so why are you telling me this?

in all seriousness if they charge £8 to watch a film and a further £6 for a snack and beverage and stop you from bringing your own then they are the criminals

I used to manage a cinema in the States. You must understand that the cinema itself doesn't keep those eight quid. The distributor takes anywhere from 40 to (in the case of first-run Disney movies) 80 percent of the ticket price right off the top. So 1.60 of that ticket is what the cinema has to use to pay its bills, wages, and taxes. You don't want to know what the electricity for those projectors costs. Concessions are the only source of profits a cinema has. Popcorn is pretty much air. Beverages are water and cheap syrup.

I tossed little punks like you out on their butts for bringing food and drinks into my theatre and kept their money on a daily basis.

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

Accidental Repost

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

That is a crock. If a game doesn't spin profit on its first release, it is abandoned... just like the movie industry. A game has to show that people are interested and "sleepers" stand absolutely no chance of a sequel... unlike the movie industry. Plus it would only be cheaper if you use the same engine or something. If game companies would worry more about the quality of the product put out instead of shoveling games they KNOW will score an average review score of 6-7 then most game companies would probably see heavier returns on their investments.

This is just flat out not true. Do you know which system is hands-down most profitable? The Nintendo Wii. Do you know which system has more shovelware and useless games that aren't worth half their price? The Nintendo Wii. The key to financial gain is knowing your market and playing off of that, with quality games as a back-up.

 

[lacktheknack]

After all is said and done the majority of games are overpriced shite. Bought titan quest on steam recently for £2.50. That's a fair price for what I'm getting. 40 quid for fallout new vegas? Who's going to pay that? That's mental. A fiver. That's a fair price.

And THIS is the problem.

You see, Titan Quest is approximately 300 hours of hack and slash dungeon crawling. That's worth more then four dollars. That's really worth forty dollars, or more. If you seriously think 300+ hours isn't worth five bucks, then you're a miser, plain and simple.

Think of it this way: Imagine you buy Fallout New Vegas and play it for 100 hours (quite possible). How much money do you make per hour of work? Go ahead, knock off all your non-entertainment expenses, including savings. Let's imagine you have 50 cents extra per hour (and I beg you to cut your expenses somehow if that's ALL you have). If you had 50 cents per hour left over to spend on yourself, then Fallout would be worth $50, a little bit less then what it is being sold for according to you.

Seriously, you come off as stingy and desperate. You're better then that.

It's only 300 hours worth of gameplay if you like it enough to play that long.

You could play the demo to see if it's your kind of game, and check a critical aggregate score to see if the general consensus is positive. Hasn't let me down yet.

 

[thedeathscythe]

If they started pricing right I wouldn't consider piracy. 60$ for medal of honor? 50$ for front mission evo? 40$ for dead rising 2? These games are not worth the price, and I've gotten ripped off way to many times. Oh and for anyone who says "you can wait for the prices to drop" take a look at CoD MW 2. Still 60$ after about 2 years, and it's only half as good as CoD 4. Price them reasonably and sure I'd buy it. The only time I wouldn't pirate ever would be for companies just starting.

Games have been those prices for years, we're talking Nintendo games were that price. Now, take into account inflation and how much more product you get with the game, let's take Cod4, a good game, compared with Super Mario Bros., another good game (to say the least, for both of them, I didn't choose any scrubby games). Would you feel ripped off buying Super Mario Bros. for $60? 20+ years down the line and they're still $60 after inflation and you get games with the quality like CoD4; I don't think they're too expensive at all.

Nintendo what? SNES? Certainly not. I remember buying games new for $20. Of course back then, games were actually priced based on quality. A game like Star Fox was $30, but some games, like the Chester the Cheetah game, you could get new for $5. Very fair pricing. Should work the same today. AAA titles, $60. Lesser quality games, $35-$50 new.

Pricing tends to scale that way for used games anyway. Retailers charge more for the highly-acclaimed ones.

Don't kid yourself, developers know when they've laid a rotten egg.

You're not too much older than me, so maybe you didn't check, but yes, games generally did cost $50-$60 dollars. I'm not calling you a liar since I wasn't around to buy Nintendo games first hand, but I doubt games cost $5 new, or at least, that it was common for them to be that cheap.

Games do have scaled pricing, but it's far less common now. I've seen games from $50-$70, but I've also seen Wii budget titles for $30, and even other budget titles on PS3 and 360. Downloadable games are arguably budget titles as it is, Braid seems to me to be very fairly priced and I wouldn't necessarily saw it isn't a full length game; I would go so far as to say it is a budget title.

I don't know what you mean by quality, but I would say that a game should be more expensive based on it's budget. A game that costs millions to make, maybe $60. A game that is maybe a sequel and not as much work was needed to produce it, let's say $40. If you mean quality as in "this game is good, this game is bad, this one should be expensive and this one should be cheap", well, that's just a matter of opinion and you can't be fair using opinion.

That's neither here, nor there, though. OT: I started reading the article. Man, is it long. Going to keep that one open and maybe crack away at it day by day. I've always been on the fence about piracy, it's probably my biggest moral dilemma (is that sad?).

 

[Zinjin44]

From reading this thread, its clear to me that the problem lies both with the publisher and the consumers.
YES the publishers are making half made games and using DLC as a method of milking cash for content and bug fixes that should have been originally included.The games are initailly overpriced. Antipiracy methods ARE ineffective and hurt the customers and actually ENCOURAGE piracy through their rediculous easily bypassed security checks
BUT gaming is a privlege. Who do you think you are that you can profit from the work of others that spent millions of dollars and 100s of hours developing? Who makes you the ultimate judge of whether you should pay or not based on the quality of a game?

What it comes down to is that publishers should be more responsible in supplying demos that accurateley reflect the gameplay and choosing more appropriate pricing for their games. This requires that pirates stop thinking their entitled to free games due to intitial hatred of these measures that obviously be changed and put their money where their mouth is, buy the games they like, live without the ones they don't, and use reviews and friends advice as information for deciding on a purchase, INSTEAD of pirating the whole damn thing. I am sick and tired of hearing arguments on both sides, senselessly supporting the oppressive measures against piracy and the pirates who have a rediculus sence of self entitlement and selfishness.

We as a community need a direct sit down with the publishers and work this out, use such organizations as the video game voters network to have our voices heard, and make an actual difference. thank you

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

has anyone seen that video thats says "would you steal a car?", "would you steal a handbag?". piracy is stealing

erm ive just bought this film legally so why are you telling me this?

in all seriousness if they charge £8 to watch a film and a further £6 for a snack and beverage and stop you from bringing your own then they are the criminals

I used to manage a cinema in the States. You must understand that the cinema itself doesn't keep those eight quid. The distributor takes anywhere from 40 to (in the case of first-run Disney movies) 80 percent of the ticket price right off the top. So 1.60 of that ticket is what the cinema has to use to pay its bills, wages, and taxes. You don't want to know what the electricity for those projectors costs. Concessions are the only source of profits a cinema has. Popcorn is pretty much air. Beverages are water and cheap syrup.

I tossed little punks like you out on their butts for bringing food and drinks into my theatre and kept their money on a daily basis.

The problem here seems to be that the studios are being greedy but you proudly throw people out, while keeping their admission, for not being willing to pay outrageous prices for concessions and bringing in their own food.

$5 for a large soda that costs you about 20 cents? How can you expect people to pay those prices in good conscience? Why do you lash out at your customers instead of the studios?

Before you try too hard to argue your position, this was ten years ago and the theatre in question is closed.

A manager of one location doesn't have the ability to "lash out" at studios. I did have the ability to control my customers. If they don't want to play by the rules, I don't owe them a movie. I posted the policy, I asked them to take their food out or eat it outside, and if they persisted, then yeah, I had no qualms about enforcing my company's policy. I also gave talkers and texters the boot.

I expected people to pay those prices because if they didn't, I didn't make payroll or pay my bills and then there'd be nowhere for people to watch movies.

Without policies like that I'm sure you wouldn't want to pay what movie tickets would really cost. Kind of like Americans don't want to pay what food really costs when a restaurant has to actually pay its servers instead of relying on tips. This is a similar system. There's an opt-in charge that lets a few people voluntarily pay a little of everyone's expenses. You don't want to eat or drink that's okay. It means I take a loss on you. You want to eat or drink, you buy what I have to sell. Bringing your own food is social parasitism as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Shru1kan]

I pirate games that have no demo so I can actually try them before I buy them. I'm not going to just chance that it works on my PC and that it deserves its metacritic score. If I don't like it I delete it (Why would I keep a game I don't like?) if I like it I buy it.

The devs don't want to let you try the game or see just how well it runs on your PC then I make my own trial, it's only fair since they have millions of dollars and I barely have money now a days.

And before you call me out on it and tell me that I don't buy my games and that I'm just pirating all games

Spoiler

I buy my games thank you

So in short, you're saying that if they offered a trial or a demo of some sort, you wouldn't pirate and if you enjoy the game you would buy it?

My only question is, how far do you go in the games you pirate? Do you stop at the first level and make a decision or do you go farther?

Why does it matter how far he goes into the game? If he likes it, he buys it? If the publisher wanted to determine the length of the demo, they should have released an official demo.

With PC gaming it is indeed important to ensure that the game will run on your PC because by the time you get to the point of finding out on your own, the product is non returnable.

Finding the specs required to run a game isn't as impossibly hard as you make it sound.

Okay, wow. I mean really? Heres a little story.

I BOUGHT Bioshock. Guess what? It had a graphics card error that made it crash and overheat my whole laptop every 15 minutes. Oh and the FABLED MINIMUM SPECS were met by a long shot. Oh but wait, there isn't just one video card like in consoles? Doesn't that mean that variance in cards will mean variance in performance and that they developers just have to guess? You sure bet it does, because ARMA 2, another game I bought, runs like SHIT on anything below medium settings, its like watching a fucking slideshow. Oh, and I did meet that specs. In spades, in fact. That game should have been breakfast, but its another 60 dollar brick that I can't return.

So don't go off talking about things you have no idea about. This isn't like your precious xbox, and if you really are a PC gamer, then you should know that anything short of a well-respected, cheap gaming PC line (which doesn't exist, building is always cheaper), no 2 are the same. So if I want to pirate for a 'demo' so I don't waste money on something that is GUARANTEED TO RUN BY THE BOX, you'll excuse me, mr. moneybags. That was 80 dollars of entertainment that was promised to run with your precious specs. Oh, that I cant return. Or have rented to see if it would have run.

 

[jakefongloo]

large corporations are evil, there only goal is to suck every last penny out of you. pirates are people who share media, sharing is a concept known as 'socialism' big capitalist corporations dont like socialism

Those big corporations started out small too. Socialism fucks talent and good ideas by forcing economic darwinism out the window. Your perfect socialist world would only work if everyone was already the same, they're not. There are winners and losers and winners shouldn't have to share with the losers. Also any corporation lets say microsoft costs hundreds of thousands of dollars just in utilities. Why do you hate the fact they're trying to get money out of us

 

[Shru1kan]

I pirate games that have no demo so I can actually try them before I buy them. I'm not going to just chance that it works on my PC and that it deserves its metacritic score. If I don't like it I delete it (Why would I keep a game I don't like?) if I like it I buy it.

The devs don't want to let you try the game or see just how well it runs on your PC then I make my own trial, it's only fair since they have millions of dollars and I barely have money now a days.

And before you call me out on it and tell me that I don't buy my games and that I'm just pirating all games

Spoiler

I buy my games thank you

So in short, you're saying that if they offered a trial or a demo of some sort, you wouldn't pirate and if you enjoy the game you would buy it?

My only question is, how far do you go in the games you pirate? Do you stop at the first level and make a decision or do you go farther?

Why does it matter how far he goes into the game? If he likes it, he buys it? If the publisher wanted to determine the length of the demo, they should have released an official demo.

With PC gaming it is indeed important to ensure that the game will run on your PC because by the time you get to the point of finding out on your own, the product is non returnable.

Finding the specs required to run a game isn't as impossibly hard as you make it sound.

Okay, wow. I mean really? Heres a little story.

I BOUGHT Bioshock. Guess what? It had a graphics card error that made it crash and overheat my whole laptop every 15 minutes. Oh and the FABLED MINIMUM SPECS were met by a long shot. Oh but wait, there isn't just one video card like in consoles? Doesn't that mean that variance in cards will mean variance in performance and that they developers just have to guess? You sure bet it does, because ARMA 2, another game I bought, runs like SHIT on anything below medium settings, its like watching a fucking slideshow. on, and I did meet that specs. In spades, in fact. That game should have been breakfast, but its another 60 dollar brick that I can't return.

So don't go off talking about things you have no idea about. This isn't like your precious xbox, and if you really are a PC gamer, then you should know that anything short of a well-respected, cheap gaming PC line (which doesn't exist, building is always cheaper), no 2 are the same. So if I want to pirate for a 'demo' so I don't waste money on something that is GUARANTEED TO RUN BY THE BOX, you'll excuse me, mr. moneybags. That was 80 dollars of entertainment that was promised to run with your precious specs. Oh, that I cant return. Or have rented to see if it would have run.

I had that problem with Oblivion. The specs were just wrong because when I left the sewers, there was no water, just a black area and the framerate took a dive. I met the specs though.

Exactly. It just gets to me when people assume that all games run on every PC. That we don't need a demo. Hell , a demo is so much different than a sneak peak like it is on consoles. For a lot of gamers, it's a necessity to see if their money will fund hours of fun or buyer's remorse. its not a black and white issue, that's for sure, but so many treat it like it is.