To anyone who thinks piracy is ok

[thebighead01]

pirating games compared to music or movies is very different because of how it affects the people in the industry. The way I see it its ok to pirate films and music for one simple reason; if you're going to pay your stars or musicians ridiculous amounts of money only to complain that the people behind them don't make that much in the first place (i.e. the film crew, make-up artists, etc) and thus robbing THEM of their livelihoods then it seems to me that you need to address that imbalance in your salary structure before you guilt trip me into not downloading films or music.

On the other hand people in the game industry don't make a hugh amount of money and there isn't one star or musician who rakes in all the cash. Its just a group of people who are using their talents to make a product that all of us love. So I never illegally download a game; if I want a game I make sure I have the money to buy it. Simple. That also makes me a much more selective gamer and hopefully as a result a more discerning and savvy one too.

However I can understand why publishers and even some developers want to protect their product but sometimes their methods seem a bit heavy handed (Assassins Creed 2 anyone???) which doesn't make me feel good being an honest customer to the gaming industry and sometimes makes me think what's the point of being honest if I'm going to be treated like a thief anyway. However I just wished that others shared my philosophy towards gaming, then there wouldn't be such a need to protect their games the way they do.

 

[Littlee300]

Considering pirating only raises the price of the game this argument makes you look stupid. And considering here you are measuring the price of the game solely by entertainment value instead of how much money the company had to spend on time and effort from the developers not to mention resources- well it makes you look even more stupid.

Neither piracy or the cost of producing a game determine it's price. It's what the market will bear. If the market isn't willing to pay $60, the price will drop regardless of piracy, cost of production, price of gas, price of pizza, etc...

People can use steam, so the price of production is really cheap considering it is just server maintenance (hell blizzard doesn't pay a cent for their way of sending out patches) so your logic is flawed and if all piraters used steam then companies could make games cheap no problem.

How exactly is my logic flawed because people can use Steam? Steam just backs up my point.

A game will have the same price on Steam that it has in the stores (unless it is on sale). Considering that the Steam version doesn't have a disc, manual, case, etc... it should be cheaper if the price were based on cost of production. Price isn't based on the cost of production, it is based on what the market will bear (ie, what people are willing to pay).

Just don't buy it if it is too expensive. What is that? You want it too much to not get it? Well that is good for the devs, and obviously show that it is worth paying. Oh wait you are gonna get it but pirate I hear? Well you sir are a dick

r the cost of production affect the price of games.

that wasn't what I was talking about, I guessing I won.

 

[nYuknYuknYuk]

Pirating sucks. It's stealing, just because you aren't getting caught doesn't mean it's alright.

 

[anian]

- this article is pretty biased and not really that full of new info

- I'm pretty sure that actual cost of making a game (when talking about high budget projects) is not barely covered by the store price of the game, so games should be cheaper, also it would stimulate the actual selling figures, plus the price is the same in most places but that actually isn't the amount of money that's relative to wages in the entire world, somewhere 60 bucks means like food for a week - don't use that argument "don't buy it if you don't have the money" cause you bet you're arse you wouldn't be saying that if it was you

- games are pretty big today, I have a good internet connection, but I'll give you 2 examples of games I thought about pirating but didn't - Total war Napoleon and WoW - this was cause of 2 things - it almost felt too much trouble to download it cause they're really big and also cause of multiplayer options

- new DRM strategies are just contraproductive (basically renting, limitng amount of installs, being connected to the net for single play etc.) - this is a market proven fact and all it does is it ends up annoying paying customers

- bad sales alone shouldn't indicate, if the game is good or not - statistics should include how big of a budget did the game have, playtesting to bugs and bad gameplay issuses ratio, how much has the game been downloaded/how popular it is on torrents etc.

- to some extent general criticism should be taken to improve products or to make similar games - though you know that influence works the other way as well - developing and making something new and you can stir the public in that direction, not only make what you think the public wants and at the same time offer something other people don't have - so the argument of publishers and studios "playing it safe" cause of piracy is at least silly and biased

- when did this obssesion with putting more and more money into games become the rule of thumb, you can make the models look super realistic, but if the story is crap and the gameplay is crap - then you have 1/3 of a good product, which is a bad product

- and what's with selling stuff that has 4-5 hours in the gameplay but has a "great" multiplayer part?! I call bull on that, that is just purely made so they see how little content you'll take for the same money, because otherwise it would just be a multiplayer game and they don't want to admit that

I'm pretty sure there's some middle ground where games a cheaper to make, cost less, but still offer content which is enjoyable.

p.s. The carjacking analogy is crap:
would you buy a car that has a great paintjob but the seats are gone and it only takes right turns? would you buy a car and wait a year so they fix the brakes on it? would you buy a car but make it always connected to a cable to your house?

 

[Wicky_42]

p.s. The carjacking analogy is crap:
would you buy a car that has a great paintjob but the seats are gone and it only takes right turns? would you buy a car and wait a year so they fix the brakes on it? would you buy a car but make it always connected to a cable to your house?

I like that. I will remember it and use it next time 'downloading software is stealing!!!eleven1' comes up. Because it is, in many ways, true, and goes to emphasise the differences in standards and morals between providers of software and hardware.

 

[hightide]

With out piracy there would be no Steam...

All Hail Valve!

 

[fletch_talon]

snip

-The entertainment industry is only as large as consumers allow it to become. It also has to be large because it caters to everyone and there are so many different preferences and tastes which differ from person to person.

-It may not "progress society" at least not in the way you want to. But it certainly serves a purpose, and it definitely has a place in society.

-Being unecessary is a bad excuse for why entertainment should be free. I personally think it'd make a hell of a lot more sense for essential aspects of life to be free (or paid for by the government) whilst luxury items like games being non-essential cost money.

-I think if something is not an essential aspect of life then it should cost whatever the consumers are willing to pay.

-You should stop using people who lived centuries ago (or 55 years in Einstein's case) as a comparison to a modern industry. I'm sure modern scientists/mathematicians/researchers don't earn as much as the entertainment industries either, but I'd bet they earn enough to live off.

-You're also comparing industries with individuals. Of course sure pharmocologist bob won't earn as much as the head of a major game design studio. Why don't we compare game programmer harry with the head of the pharmaceutical company that bob works for while we're at it?

Sure, people wouldn't have as much of an incentive to work in the game industry, but if they truly love their work, they'd find an extra job to support their income as most researchers and hobbyists do.

And as I said, the quality and quantity of entertainment would drop considerably. There would be less people, with less time and less resources to work on games. Those who did decide to make games/music/movies/books would be completely untrained, because I sincerely doubt they'd pay a shitload of money for university courses for the sole purpose of improving a non-profit hobby.
Face it, if your world view cam into play it would either result in the situation as written above, or it would have to involve government funded/controlled entertainment industry. The creators recieve money from the government to cover development and living expenses in return for developing entertainment which is made available free to the public.

The world would be a very different (I'm tempted to say awful) place without the vast quantity and quality of entertainment we have today. It would also be a horrid place without the contribution of scientific research. Your problem is that you can't see that the 2 can coexist. If the entertainment industry was gone, people still wouldn't be handing over their money to science and workers devoted to creating entertainment wouldn't suddenly get a job researching new mathematical formulas and medicines.
One does not affect the other.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

snip

I'm for boycotting for the right reason but being a business isn't a valid reason. If a company acts unethically, protest but not being your buddy and working for small or no profits isn't unethical.

Like charging $5 for $0.50 worth of popcorn maybe? Is that the right reason? How about showing me tv ads even though I paid to get into the theater and you know I am about as captive an audience as I can be. I can't mute it, if I get up I might lose my seat and if I leave the theater then I will not see the movie I intended to see.

Holy shit are you really so self-entitled that you'd boycott a movie theater for making a profit off ads and popcorn?

So now a boycott is self entitlement? Oh my, do you want consumers to have any power at all?

Let me just ask, do you think that concession prices are too high?

Boycotting is not self entitlement. The reason you listed is.

I think that concession prices are high but there is a difference between saying that and saying that they are too high. Like someone who manages a movie theater pointed out earlier in this thread, the concessions are the primary income for many movie theaters that need that income to pay the bills for electricity, pay their staff, keep the theaters clean, etc. If I go to a movie and I really don't want to pay that much for popcorn and a drink, I'll eat a snack before hand. There are always other options available, the theaters don't NEED to make prices as low as possible for the benefit of you.

 

[thedeathscythe]

Addendum: Borrowing the game from a friend is akin to piracy. I don't know why you would suggest such action.

This is a naive response. You do know what piracy is right? You duplicate the software to make multiple copies of it, while borrowing something does not make multiple copies of it; there is still only one copy. Borrowing your friends lawnmower isn't stealing from John Deer, making a cloning machine to do so is however (if, say, cloning machines existed).

Also, there are demos you can download to get a taste for the game if you cannot afford them. There is also the option of renting if demos are not available. Even if you pirate a game to "test" it, you're still making an illegal copy of the game - regardless of if you buy it later or delete the copy because you didn't enjoy it. Picture taking the John Deer lawnmower again (I get a stiffy from saying "John Deer"), you steal it off their lot. You test it for a week, and then say "I don't like this" so you return it without them knowing. You still stole. Or how about if you returned it and then bought it, because you liked it, you still initially stole from them.

The rules on piracy are vague still; the internet is hard to make laws for.

 

[Lucifron]

ITT: People who think that piracy is actually justifiable and people who think that they are better by virtue of their not engaging in piracy.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

snip

I'm for boycotting for the right reason but being a business isn't a valid reason. If a company acts unethically, protest but not being your buddy and working for small or no profits isn't unethical.

Like charging $5 for $0.50 worth of popcorn maybe? Is that the right reason? How about showing me tv ads even though I paid to get into the theater and you know I am about as captive an audience as I can be. I can't mute it, if I get up I might lose my seat and if I leave the theater then I will not see the movie I intended to see.

Holy shit are you really so self-entitled that you'd boycott a movie theater for making a profit off ads and popcorn?

So now a boycott is self entitlement? Oh my, do you want consumers to have any power at all?

Let me just ask, do you think that concession prices are too high?

Boycotting is not self entitlement. The reason you listed is.

I think that concession prices are high but there is a difference between saying that and saying that they are too high. Like someone who manages a movie theater pointed out earlier in this thread, the concessions are the primary income for many movie theaters that need that income to pay the bills for electricity, pay their staff, keep the theaters clean, etc. If I go to a movie and I really don't want to pay that much for popcorn and a drink, I'll eat a snack before hand. There are always other options available, the theaters don't NEED to make prices as low as possible for the benefit of you.

So in your opinion, as long as there is a good reason, people should not boycott high prices?


Ok, tell me, what would make it ok to boycott theaters in your mind?

See there's a difference between actively boycotting something, and not buying it. If prices are high you don't have to buy it. So if there is a good reason people shouldn't boycott high prices on luxuries. Obviously if a hospital is charging patients 5x what other hospitals charge there is something wrong there, but this is entertainment we're talking about.

There are also plenty of legitimate reasons to boycott a movie theater. Maybe it treats its employees like shit. Maybe it plays the films on old projectors that have very low quality. Maybe they keep their theaters filthy. All of these are perfectly legitimate reasons. But this thread is not about boycotting games, it's about stealing them. Boycotting a game because you disagree with the company's policy, or because you think the game is buggy and unplayable is the right thing to do. Arguing that a high price is legitimate reason to steal a game is bullshit.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

snip

I'm for boycotting for the right reason but being a business isn't a valid reason. If a company acts unethically, protest but not being your buddy and working for small or no profits isn't unethical.

Like charging $5 for $0.50 worth of popcorn maybe? Is that the right reason? How about showing me tv ads even though I paid to get into the theater and you know I am about as captive an audience as I can be. I can't mute it, if I get up I might lose my seat and if I leave the theater then I will not see the movie I intended to see.

Holy shit are you really so self-entitled that you'd boycott a movie theater for making a profit off ads and popcorn?

So now a boycott is self entitlement? Oh my, do you want consumers to have any power at all?

Let me just ask, do you think that concession prices are too high?

Boycotting is not self entitlement. The reason you listed is.

I think that concession prices are high but there is a difference between saying that and saying that they are too high. Like someone who manages a movie theater pointed out earlier in this thread, the concessions are the primary income for many movie theaters that need that income to pay the bills for electricity, pay their staff, keep the theaters clean, etc. If I go to a movie and I really don't want to pay that much for popcorn and a drink, I'll eat a snack before hand. There are always other options available, the theaters don't NEED to make prices as low as possible for the benefit of you.

So in your opinion, as long as there is a good reason, people should not boycott high prices?


Ok, tell me, what would make it ok to boycott theaters in your mind?

See there's a difference between actively boycotting something, and not buying it. If prices are high you don't have to buy it. So if there is a good reason people shouldn't boycott high prices on luxuries. Obviously if a hospital is charging patients 5x what other hospitals charge there is something wrong there, but this is entertainment we're talking about.

There are also plenty of legitimate reasons to boycott a movie theater. Maybe it treats its employees like shit. Maybe it plays the films on old projectors that have very low quality. Maybe they keep their theaters filthy. All of these are perfectly legitimate reasons. But this thread is not about boycotting games, it's about stealing them. Boycotting a game because you disagree with the company's policy, or because you think the game is buggy and unplayable is the right thing to do. Arguing that a high price is legitimate reason to steal a game is bullshit.

Refusing to go to the theater and boycotting the theater IS THE SAME THING. So what is it that you don't approve of? That I am doing it because the concession prices are ridiculous? Why isn't that reason as good as any other to choose not to got the theater?

The two things you said are the same thing. I'm talking about deciding not to go to the theater a particular night, and actively choosing to abstain from movie-going in general. The difference is that choosing not to go to the theater is because you don't really feel like it, or don't want to spend money in that way. Boycotting is refusing to go to the theater based on an objection you have to the way they run their business. Your objection is unwarranted because 1. You don't have to buy concessions, they're an optional addition that are hardly necessary to enjoying a good movie. 2. The movie theater NEEDS high concession prices to stay in business. 3. If you really need to eat you can have a snack before the movie. And 4. If you absolutely positively MUST go to a movie and have popcorn, go with a group of friends and split the cost. There's no reason to deny the theater your patronage because of something like concession prices. But again, this thread is not about movie-going, it's about illegally downloading video games.

 

[Dys]

If we think about this logically, firstly it is impossible to believe that even if MS and Sony decided to undermine PC gaming, that they could remotely afford to pay every single major games developer large sums of money each and every year to lock in exclusivity for each and every major game title to be released. By definition they would have to pay more to the games developers than the developers would expect to make if they released the game as a PC exclusive. If the potential sales of the PC market were as high as armchair experts and piracy advocates claim, then this would run into the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars for each and every gaming title!

There is no reason for them to pay developers or publishers that they own anything to develop for a specific console, which is no doubt why games with the 'games for windows' branding are often released on xbox well before windows (it doesn't take years to port a game between two systems that are so inherently similar).
There are also other reasons outside of cash bribes for developers to be encouraged to develop for consoles, such as microsoft/sony shouldering the cost of distributing future updates, integration with the online markets, greater market penetration (especially relevant since consoles have become to more popular platform for gaming) and especially not having to compete in a market where valve, through steam, dominate the PC distribution[footnote]interestingly, last time I saw a round up for units sold on consoles vs units sold on PC, online sales were neglected from the statistics. Obviously, stats were significant data is left out are completely worthless[/footnote] (I can't imagine it's easy to sell battlefield for $90 when team fortress 2 is displayed next to it for $20). Even if you ignored profit from sales completely, it is still generally cheaper to develop AAA games for consoles, and I suspect that has considerably more with why developers do it than something as immeasurable and largely irrelevant as piracy.

Also, obviously not a be all and end all point, but one that the article seems to overlook, is that a significant portion of pirates on the PC are legitimate owners of the game. I have downloaded 'Crysis' on 4 seperate occasions from the piratebay, which adds 4 'pirated' copies to the tracker stats[footnote]A different version of the crack is required for each updated version of the game[/footnote]. However, I paid $110au for it on release day, I'd just rather play a cracked version than have to lug a bag of CDs around with my laptop...Of course, I've deliberately chosen that example because it's excessive, but my point is that myself and a great many of my friends have invested far more effort into pirating games we've already paid for, and while that is still illegal the pure economic loss is 0 and it's hardly going to deter developers from making games on the platform.

 

[TurtleBay]

It is interesting how many pirates came in here to say exactly the justifications that were blown to bits in the article.

"The industry needs to change business models" boils down to expecting the industry to go towards casual flash-based ad supported games like bejeweled or persistent online games like WoW.

"I wouldn't have bought it anyways / I only try games" is refuted by the fact that a lost sale isn't the same as economic loss, even if you wouldn't have paid full retail, you must put some non-zero value of the game if you went through the trouble of downloading it. Also the free rider problem - costs aren't spread among the people who enjoy games but instead spread among people who pay for them. Fewer people paying for games makes them more expensive or gives them less of a budget. People who do pay for PC games feel like the sucker when 500,000 of them pay $50 for something that 4,000,000 people get for free.

"Games aren't high enough quality to justify prices." You don't get to decide this, but games tend to average the same score across platforms. Game budgets are also at an all time high. When games were new back in the 1990s, they still cost $60 per title (without even considering inflation).

"Were only taking money from the rich publishers." Game developers have a tough job because so few games make money. Of course, after the fact we can name the franchises that become platinum hits, but most games never break even. The money from the hits needs to offset the loss from the failures. EA has not had a profitable year since 2007.

 

[Bruce Edwards]

Also, obviously not a be all and end all point, but one that the article seems to overlook, is that a significant portion of pirates on the PC are legitimate owners of the game. I have downloaded 'Crysis' on 4 seperate occasions from the piratebay, which adds 4 'pirated' copies to the tracker stats. However, I paid $110au for it on release day, I'd just rather play a cracked version than have to lug a bag of CDs around with my laptop...Of course, I've deliberately chosen that example because it's excessive, but my point is that myself and a great many of my friends have invested far more effort into pirating games we've already paid for, and while that is still illegal the pure economic loss is 0 and it's hardly going to deter developers from making games on the platform.

I had to quote you, as I've done the same thing myself. My new DVD drives hates some DRM-ed games, especially older ones, so I've resorted to TPB to get playable versions of them.

That said, that's only about two games I've had to pirate for this reason. From my collection of 60 odd PC games.

The author of the article mentioned by the OP does seem to take a devils advocate approach to DRM and STEAM however - writing off those who dislike install limits as a tiny percentage, and all-but declaring that those who like Steam are Valve fanbois.

I have never played TF2. I don't have either of the HL2 episodes. I've never played Portal. But I like STEAM because if my computer dies, or I lose my discs, or DVD drives become obsolete, I still have my games.

Plus, STEAM helps stop your friends acting all hurt when you tell them they cannot pirate your games. How many people here have friends immediately ask 'Can I get a copy?' when you have purchased a new PC game?