A potentially original take on piracy? Probably not, but interesting.

[Epona]

While I can respect the use of emulators and the pirating of classic games, pirating recently video games is pretty much blatant thievery. Even if you go out and buy a game immediately after you decide that you like the pirated copy, it still doesn't excuse that you stole it in the first place. Can you imagine what that would like if you were to do that in a brick and mortar store?

And to the actual pirates I only have one thing to point out. You guys, the ones who pirate current IP's of any media, are responsible, however in directly, for the creation of SOPA and PIPA. Now let me clarify, SOPA and PIPA are basically broken laws that would have horrible ramifications if they were to pass. But their motivation? The purpose of SOPA regardless of its actual impact is to stop piracy, a thriving "industry" created by people on the Internet who feel that they are better then the rest of who are willing to work for the money that we spend on our hobbies, like gaming.

If you forgot to pay for your case of Pepsi on the way out of the grocery store and the police response was to shoot you in the head, that would be an overreaction and the blame would fall on the police, yes?

Same thing here, SOPA is an overreaction and only it's authors are to blame. I COULD say that the anti-piracy hatemongers helped encourage the authors of SOPA.

SOPA has nothing to do with traditional piracy. It is about corporate control, essentially stripping the right to due process.

DRM has nothing to do with piracy either but that's what they SAY it's about so that's what we discuss.

 

[Rude as HECK]

So, I asked for ethical foundations of intellectual property as a concept and got "Well, you guys should buy it" and "no, I won't consider any other opinions".

Ugh. Is it too much to ask that people at least go out, read about the history, and goals of IP as a concept and think about it? I'll even make it easy for you: There's a book called A Philosophy of Intellectual Property by Peter Drahos, a world wide respected author on the subject. It's easily availible, and not too long. Good read.

 

[VladG]

So, I asked for ethical foundations of intellectual property as a concept and got "Well, you guys should buy it" and "no, I won't consider any other opinions".

So, the OP asked "If the government could snap its fingers and eliminate all piracy tomorrow, what would happen? (considering many people would be left without a form of entertainment that pacified them) and he got "I asked for ethical foundations of intellectual property as a concept"

See where I'm going with this?

 

[Rude as HECK]

Sure, and many of the counter arguments have been based on moral rights to ones "intellectual property". Those claims are unsubstantiated as of yet.

 

[VladG]

Those aren't counter arguments. They are just pre-recorded rants that people feel the need to spout despite the fact it has nothing to do with the OP.

It's like a Pavlovian reaction, someone sees the word "piracy" and without even bothering to read the OP they just go "piracy is bad, pirates are assholes" or "piracy isn't that bad, I'm not an asshole"

 

[kurupt87]

No offense but what he means is made clear by the context of what he's saying, to compare it to giving someone a gift is pedantry on your part.

The "context" is nothing more than being holier than thou. A blanket statement is a blanket statement and no "context" can make it look like anything but a blanket statement. People should just think before they open their mouth (or begin typing), and start generalizing otherwise they come across as overzealous, silly and inconsiderate.

But hey, true. Not like they need me to shoot even more holes into their own misconceptions, that much I concede.

Because I'm still looking for all those shady pirate criminals who want to bring down the hard working men and women (and cheat you out of YOUR MONEY!), and I haven't met a single one yet. And I know a lot of people, some of which actually downloaded something at some time.

How is it a misconception that pirating is copying or taking something that doesn't belong to you. That's exactly what it is.

Again you are yourself using blanket statements, there is no one out there sitting in their volcano lair, steep-ling their fingers and laughing manically about all the games they pirated today. Normal people, like you mentioned, are pirating games and hurting the honest gamers who keep the industry afloat by actually paying for games.

Despite his wording the poster has every right to be 'holier than thou' if he pays for his games. It immediately makes him a better person from a moral standpoint than a pirate.

How is someone who has disposable income morally superior to one who does not?

 

[Pyro Paul]

the problem is that what you're saying isn't entirely true.

The way media presents presents piracy is grossly disproportional to the acctual effect it has on the entertainment industry.

the simple fact of the matter is that you have 'Loss'

Items that are stolen, misplaced, spoiled, or returned/disposed of.
From Food to DVD to SUVs.

Loss is something that occurs. Period.

the Entertainment industry has more or less accepted this fact, and truth be told, they're alright with it. After all, if Piracy did have such a rampent effect on the industry, wouldn't it of collapsed decades ago? Billions of Dollars of lost revenue... yet they're still turning such a massive profit that they can continue to expand and grow in this economy.

what DMCA/PIPA/SOPA represent isn't the prevention or impeeding of Piracy.

It is, Has been, and always will be about Control.

while this sounds very 'gloom' and 'doom'-y, that is the very point of these bills.

As humans, once we get our hands on something we manipulate it, specialize it, modify it, and make it our own. unique and personal, we do this with almost everything.

From Cars to guns to phones to games.

you will always find some gear head, some gun nut, some programmer, or some artist whom alters all of these things to go above and beyond their intended purpose to fit their own individual need and in turn share this with others. At Conventions, at Street Races, or on the Web.

And that... Our inovation, our tinkering, our human nature to change things... That they can not control.

but on such a new medium as electronics is...
they have a chance to reign it in.
the possibility to Acctually gain control over our human nature.
Rather then change... they want you to Consume.

If you think SOPA/PIPA was written to Stop piracy, i invite you to acctually read through the wording of the bill(s).

The intent... the given purpouse... the logic or reasoning behind it.
that means absolutely nothing. It is what is written on paper that matters.

Edit:
look at the 'Security Systems and Standards Certification Act'/'Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act' proposed at the turn of the century to expand and empower the effects of the DMCA...

it was actively called the 'Consume But Don't Try Programming Act' by its opponents.
SOPA/PIPA is just another incarnation of that act. and likely in the future we'll see another bill/act which tries this all again, just with diffrent technical jargon.

 

[sailor_960]

While I can respect the use of emulators and the pirating of classic games, pirating recently video games is pretty much blatant thievery. Even if you go out and buy a game immediately after you decide that you like the pirated copy, it still doesn't excuse that you stole it in the first place. Can you imagine what that would like if you were to do that in a brick and mortar store?

And to the actual pirates I only have one thing to point out. You guys, the ones who pirate current IP's of any media, are responsible, however in directly, for the creation of SOPA and PIPA. Now let me clarify, SOPA and PIPA are basically broken laws that would have horrible ramifications if they were to pass. But their motivation? The purpose of SOPA regardless of its actual impact is to stop piracy, a thriving "industry" created by people on the Internet who feel that they are better then the rest of who are willing to work for the money that we spend on our hobbies, like gaming.

If you forgot to pay for your case of Pepsi on the way out of the grocery store and the police response was to shoot you in the head, that would be an overreaction and the blame would fall on the police, yes?

Same thing here, SOPA is an overreaction and only it's authors are to blame. I COULD say that the anti-piracy hatemongers helped encourage the authors of SOPA.

I actually do agree with you on that. SOPA is a poorly written and potentially horrible bill that would lead to a vastly different (for the worse) internet. I am against SOPA as much as anybody else on the Internet.

That being said, anti-piracy hatemongers? Really? Piracy is illegal. Pointing that out is not being a hatemonger, its telling the truth. People who are pirating any digital IP are breaking the law. Do some of them have a good reason? Probably. Is that most of them? Almost certainly not. I don't dislike people who pirate things, I do however, dislike the act of piracy.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Someone who hasn't got disposable income isn't automatically required to ''steal'' the luxury items they can't afford. I would really like an ipad but I can't afford one. Doesn't mean I just walk into a shop and take it.

 

[Epona]

While I can respect the use of emulators and the pirating of classic games, pirating recently video games is pretty much blatant thievery. Even if you go out and buy a game immediately after you decide that you like the pirated copy, it still doesn't excuse that you stole it in the first place. Can you imagine what that would like if you were to do that in a brick and mortar store?

And to the actual pirates I only have one thing to point out. You guys, the ones who pirate current IP's of any media, are responsible, however in directly, for the creation of SOPA and PIPA. Now let me clarify, SOPA and PIPA are basically broken laws that would have horrible ramifications if they were to pass. But their motivation? The purpose of SOPA regardless of its actual impact is to stop piracy, a thriving "industry" created by people on the Internet who feel that they are better then the rest of who are willing to work for the money that we spend on our hobbies, like gaming.

If you forgot to pay for your case of Pepsi on the way out of the grocery store and the police response was to shoot you in the head, that would be an overreaction and the blame would fall on the police, yes?

Same thing here, SOPA is an overreaction and only it's authors are to blame. I COULD say that the anti-piracy hatemongers helped encourage the authors of SOPA.

I actually do agree with you on that. SOPA is a poorly written and potentially horrible bill that would lead to a vastly different (for the worse) internet. I am against SOPA as much as anybody else on the Internet.

That being said, anti-piracy hatemongers? Really? Piracy is illegal. Pointing that out is not being a hatemonger, its telling the truth. People who are pirating any digital IP are breaking the law. Do some of them have a good reason? Probably. Is that most of them? Almost certainly not. I don't dislike people who pirate things, I do however, dislike the act of piracy.

Yes, hatemongers. You can be against piracy and mention it in passing but we both know that on gaming websites, it is brought up way too often. Do people bring up car theft as much? Shoplifting? Terrorism?

Frankly, enough is enough and when you finally realize that most of the anti-piracy stats coming from industry insiders is made up to justify more DRM.... Don't encourage the industry to create worse DRM and worse legislation because they read about all the support they have on internet forums.

Legal or illegal, no one is going to argue the legality but the morality of it is really the issue. If it's ok to sell a product that cannot be demo'd and cannot be returned, then it's ok to download the full game to demo.

 

[brainslurper]

There is no justification for piracy. There is no arguing with the selfish assholes who pirate. If they have come this far without realizing that they are essentially leaching off a hard working industry because they feel that they "deserve" it, then telling them so isn't going to affect their view of things.

So, it's ok to sell customers a product they can't demo nor return but it's not ok to download an unofficial, full game demo to avoid buying blind?

If they want you to demo it, they will let you demo it. If you wan't to avoid buying a game blind then don't buy it at all.

 

[ACman]

Summary: I think there's at least an off chance that piracy, as a whole, might be a critical form of wealth redistribution, and its elimination might have drastic and unforeseen consequences for the United States and the world.

That's like saying eliminating drugs would have major consequences for the world. Or that eliminating war would. The DEA has been trying to eliminate drugs for decades and failed. What makes you think that piracy will be any different?

 

[Epona]

There is no justification for piracy. There is no arguing with the selfish assholes who pirate. If they have come this far without realizing that they are essentially leaching off a hard working industry because they feel that they "deserve" it, then telling them so isn't going to affect their view of things.

So, it's ok to sell customers a product they can't demo nor return but it's not ok to download an unofficial, full game demo to avoid buying blind?

If they want you to demo it, they will let you demo it. If you wan't to avoid buying a game blind then don't buy it at all.

People who pirate a game to demo it are more likely to buy than those who just refuse to buy it because it lacks a demo.

Also, I guess you don't care that you can't return it if it doesn't run well or if it sucks? Seems like your pretty biased towards the industry. Games need a lemon law because right now, game publishers are abusing the system.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I think of games like I think of most items: If you can't afford them then in our capitalist society you don't get them. For some things, food, shelter, water, etc. lacking them is a death sentence. Games are not one of those things, they are a luxury item and not necessary to survival. Therefore, if you can't afford them after buying food, shelter, water, etc. then they just aren't something you can afford and there are alternative sources of entertainment that are far cheaper if not free. Hell there are dollar showings of movies at my local theater, making seeing movies far more affordable then games. As a result I don't see any arguments about price being an excess working at all. If you can't affording something, then you can't have it. Capitalism works that way. The exception is things necessary for survival and although entertainment is one of those things, video games are only one form of entertainment. I can entertain other arguments for piracy but not any ones having to do with costs and prices.

As for wealth redistribution, no. Just... no. There is a reasons people in poverty will buy TVs and overpriced clothing when they can't afford rent. It's a flaw in the cultural logic of the mentality of poverty that places more value on entertainment and appearance then on moving out of poverty. Pirating games due to poverty is only contributing to that mindset, putting entertainment over practicality. In order to pirate and use a game you already need to have access to things you shouldn't have if you're dirt poor and can't afford the games in the first place. Looking like you have money does not actually make you any less poor. In fact we as a society need to squash the idea that cultural capital is more important then real capital i.e. learn to live within your means.

 

[sailor_960]

While I can respect the use of emulators and the pirating of classic games, pirating recently video games is pretty much blatant thievery. Even if you go out and buy a game immediately after you decide that you like the pirated copy, it still doesn't excuse that you stole it in the first place. Can you imagine what that would like if you were to do that in a brick and mortar store?

And to the actual pirates I only have one thing to point out. You guys, the ones who pirate current IP's of any media, are responsible, however in directly, for the creation of SOPA and PIPA. Now let me clarify, SOPA and PIPA are basically broken laws that would have horrible ramifications if they were to pass. But their motivation? The purpose of SOPA regardless of its actual impact is to stop piracy, a thriving "industry" created by people on the Internet who feel that they are better then the rest of who are willing to work for the money that we spend on our hobbies, like gaming.

If you forgot to pay for your case of Pepsi on the way out of the grocery store and the police response was to shoot you in the head, that would be an overreaction and the blame would fall on the police, yes?

Same thing here, SOPA is an overreaction and only it's authors are to blame. I COULD say that the anti-piracy hatemongers helped encourage the authors of SOPA.

I actually do agree with you on that. SOPA is a poorly written and potentially horrible bill that would lead to a vastly different (for the worse) internet. I am against SOPA as much as anybody else on the Internet.

That being said, anti-piracy hatemongers? Really? Piracy is illegal. Pointing that out is not being a hatemonger, its telling the truth. People who are pirating any digital IP are breaking the law. Do some of them have a good reason? Probably. Is that most of them? Almost certainly not. I don't dislike people who pirate things, I do however, dislike the act of piracy.

Yes, hatemongers. You can be against piracy and mention it in passing but we both know that on gaming websites, it is brought up way too often. Do people bring up car theft as much? Shoplifting? Terrorism?

Frankly, enough is enough and when you finally realize that most of the anti-piracy stats coming from industry insiders is made up to justify more DRM.... Don't encourage the industry to create worse DRM and worse legislation because they read about all the support they have on internet forums.

Legal or illegal, no one is going to argue the legality but the morality of it is really the issue. If it's ok to sell a product that cannot be demo'd and cannot be returned, then it's ok to download the full game to demo.

Unfortunately, this is where I am forced to agree to disagree with you. I actually don't play game demos anyway, mostly due to the fact that I rarely buy that many video games any more. But that's beside the point.

To put it bluntly, there are very, very few instances where I feel that piracy is justified. But I'm not going to argue morality of theft with someone on the internet, that's not how I do things. It's pretty obvious that my view on video game piracy is against the norm and I'm not going to win anyone over to my point of view tonight, or pretty much ever.

 

[Epona]

While I can respect the use of emulators and the pirating of classic games, pirating recently video games is pretty much blatant thievery. Even if you go out and buy a game immediately after you decide that you like the pirated copy, it still doesn't excuse that you stole it in the first place. Can you imagine what that would like if you were to do that in a brick and mortar store?

And to the actual pirates I only have one thing to point out. You guys, the ones who pirate current IP's of any media, are responsible, however in directly, for the creation of SOPA and PIPA. Now let me clarify, SOPA and PIPA are basically broken laws that would have horrible ramifications if they were to pass. But their motivation? The purpose of SOPA regardless of its actual impact is to stop piracy, a thriving "industry" created by people on the Internet who feel that they are better then the rest of who are willing to work for the money that we spend on our hobbies, like gaming.

If you forgot to pay for your case of Pepsi on the way out of the grocery store and the police response was to shoot you in the head, that would be an overreaction and the blame would fall on the police, yes?

Same thing here, SOPA is an overreaction and only it's authors are to blame. I COULD say that the anti-piracy hatemongers helped encourage the authors of SOPA.

I actually do agree with you on that. SOPA is a poorly written and potentially horrible bill that would lead to a vastly different (for the worse) internet. I am against SOPA as much as anybody else on the Internet.

That being said, anti-piracy hatemongers? Really? Piracy is illegal. Pointing that out is not being a hatemonger, its telling the truth. People who are pirating any digital IP are breaking the law. Do some of them have a good reason? Probably. Is that most of them? Almost certainly not. I don't dislike people who pirate things, I do however, dislike the act of piracy.

Yes, hatemongers. You can be against piracy and mention it in passing but we both know that on gaming websites, it is brought up way too often. Do people bring up car theft as much? Shoplifting? Terrorism?

Frankly, enough is enough and when you finally realize that most of the anti-piracy stats coming from industry insiders is made up to justify more DRM.... Don't encourage the industry to create worse DRM and worse legislation because they read about all the support they have on internet forums.

Legal or illegal, no one is going to argue the legality but the morality of it is really the issue. If it's ok to sell a product that cannot be demo'd and cannot be returned, then it's ok to download the full game to demo.

Unfortunately, this is where I am forced to agree to disagree with you. I actually don't play game demos anyway, mostly due to the fact that I rarely buy that many video games any more. But that's beside the point.

To put it bluntly, there are very, very few instances where I feel that piracy is justified. But I'm not going to argue morality of theft with someone on the internet, that's not how I do things. It's pretty obvious that my view on video game piracy is against the norm and I'm not going to win anyone over to my point of view tonight, or pretty much ever.

No, your view is the norm, at least on this site. My view is the one most people don't agree with and that's ok. As far as I am concerned the video game publishers are not treating consumers fairly when they offer no demo and have a no return policy for opened software. Piracy is the consumer response to that.

ETA: I am talking about PC games here, where there is no rental market. For console games you can rent them and for console, specs aren't an issue.

 

[spartan231490]

Was the game you purchased the one that was cracked and uploaded as a torrent? No? Then they didn't it steal from you.

This is the sort of analogy you're trying to make: You buy a pair of sunglasses. Right after you pay for your sunglasses, somebody shoplifts a pair. That person didn't steal the sunglasses from you, they stole it from the store. It would have made no difference if you had bought orange juice or a nice sweater instead of the sunglasses. They stole the sunglasses, and the sunglasses belonged to the store. End of story.

Actually, his analogy is surprisingly accurate. Paying customers are the ones who pay for pirated games, meaning that the people who suffer do to pirates are paying customers. Think of it like this. 6 million copies of game x are played, 3 million are payed for. Company still needs to cecoup x price, so the cost of the game needs to be twice as expensive with piracy as without, ergo the paying customers pay twice the amount, effectively meaning that half the cost of the game is stolen from them by pirates. It's not a perfect analogy, but it is accurate.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

snip

snip

It's not black and white. This is an over simplification of something far more complex then junior level economic lessons.

Once a project idea has been conceived, it's all expenses from this point on until release.
Costs of production:
*A producer, first of all, has to hire teams of people (Animators/writers/Artists/Designers/Programmers etc) to develop the game. These teams (can be more then one studio mind you) require up front investment in order to support themselves outside of work (living expenses), and to invest in resources necessary for the project (new staff, new tech etc.). This up front investment is purely an estimate.

*Advertisement, venues for demos, deals with retail outlets/online services etc. all require a team of professional business men who also have bills/expenses to be paid.

*Deadlines are made in order to minimize costs, though costs may surpass estimate prior to deadlines and sometimes deadlines need to be moved (which normally costs proportionally more then the initial estimate due to serious amounts of reshuffling required and PR control).

*Even after release, post-launch support will be a drain (DLC, Balancers etc.)

(TAKE NOTE: THAT PRICE TAG YOU SEE WHEN YOU BUY A GAME? THATS NOT IT'S TRUE VALUE, THAT INCLUDES THE COSTS ON RETAIL COMPANIES/SERVICES. I DON'T KNOW THE FIGURES BUT I'D SAY THE TRUE VALUE OF THE GAME WOULD BE BETWEEN 20-30 DOLLARS INDIVIDUALLY AND EVEN LESS ON MASS (10-15 Dollars per unit)

Income:
*Some people may not realise this, but the developers get paid by the Retail outlets before an official customer sale is ever made. The retailers, on mass, buy a certain number of units for initial release, particularly pre-order copies and enough copies to fill the shelves, with extras in the store rooms if possible.

*Based on the successes post release of the game, more bulk purchases are made (or not). Note: It's at this point where second hand sales start to weigh in. The more returns made means smaller quantities of the game are bought from the Producers (Though still enough to satisfy those who want new games). So the more people flog off their recently completed games (or maybe they didn't like it) the fewer new units purchased by retail (This is where Producers and Devs can lose out since the Retailers feel they don't need to spend as much, regardless of demand).

*DLC is the biggest boon for the devs. More often then not they are vastly cheaper to make, with smaller teams, smaller budgets and the favoured platform for DLC is digital download (retail don't earn much if anything out of this, as Retail DLC is getting rarer and rarer outside of Ultimate editions, which again, depend on success rates). The price of these items are so random too. For some DLC you almost feel like your playing a new game, for others it's just aesthetic changes or frivolous gimmicks and the price tag can be the same between the 2...

*Beyond Newer editions of the same game (compilations and such) there is little else after initial release and DLC to make more money on. If they haven't covered costs of production at this point the future will be tight and job losses are almost certain (but very low in the chain).

How Piracy affects this:

*There are 3 types of pirate: The truly less fortunate (who want what they legitimately can't have), the ignorant (who either aren't aware they are committing a crime or try to justify themselves/alleviate the guilt) and the goon (who seek to profit)

*They all have the same impact, so exploring the differences between each is irrelevant.

*For every copy pirated the chances of an extra sale being made drops. Saying that "I wasn't going to buy it anyway" is not a universal opinion for piracy, the number that holds true to could be a fraction of the overall quantity pirated or it could be the majority, yet there is no empirical way of measuring that and is a hollow point. A more reliable measure is probability... I'm no math whizz either so I can't give a decent example. But it's more reasonable to discuss chances, considering the initial cost of production is an estimated investment.

*Safe to say, Piracy does one thing, it negates both New sales and Second hand sales, which at this point only affects Retail outlets. However this forces retail outlets to invest less in new sales and rely more on their 2nd hand sales (where they earn the full whack on the price tag). Retail then drastically reduce the quantities of new units being brought into the store. What's more, even if they run out of new copies and some customer comes in looking for a new copy, they just find another store in the chain that has a new copy and ships it to the store that doesn't, reducing the need for a the Retail chain from buying more new units from the Producers.

The Producers lose out because of the Retails (understandable) desire to make their own profit by not investing in more new units.

In regards to Digital Sales, piracy has a similar affect, though because there is no exchange of physical copies, the potential amount lost is less significant. But Digital Distribution is not cheap on the Producers by any means. There continued presence on Services like steam likely requires frequent maintenance charges, let alone the amount deducted from the cost of the sale itself.

(DLC follows a similar course as shown above, but it's different in that it's also dependant on the sales that make it back to the producers)

What does this all mean?

When all is done and dusted, the things that you must note are thus:
*How much did the retail earn on New sales over costs of supply (based on number of units sold to customers)

*How much did retail earn on 2nd hand sales, over new sales AND cost of supply (since 2nd hand sales acts more like profiteering from recycling the costs involved in 2nd hand sales are significantly lower, even when deals are taken into account)

*How much did the producers earn OVER their costs (based on number of new units purchased by Retail outlets and through Digital distributors, over there costs of production)

*What is the estimated number of pirated copies are there in circulation. (based on a bevy of resources that are far from reliable sadly, usually favouring the anonymity of the Pirates). What is the probability of even a portion of those pirated copies were only done out of convenience rather then necessity (that term really shouldn't apply here, as Games are a Luxury, not a necessity). That number is the (more reliable, but still flimsy) number of lost sales.



Based on figures acquired from sales over losses (i.e total numbers of units purchased by Retailers/digital distributers... who may or may not have suffered under piracy, against number of units produced but never purchased [only applies to retailers] and over all costs of production), the Producers then have to make decisions.

*If it was successful, future projects may get a larger estimated budget with more wiggle room OR investment in other projects elsewhere on top of planned future projects. However they will look at the estimated copies pirated and see a loss and will make expenses in order to hopefully reduce it for the next project. This will, sadly, take priority over the devs budget, meaning Studios may have to make cut backs (which can affect the product) or even shrink in size (which both affects the product and team morale).

*If it did poorly ,heads roll, policies change, contracts break etc etc. But such drastic changes only happen in a commercial and critical flop, which would be hard to blame piracy for.

What you must see, in order to have a fair view on the subject at least, is that ultimately, good or bad, the commercial impact of a product affects those lower down in the chain (the labourers and grunts of the industry) more visibly then the higher up and through them the product excels or diminishes (depending on the perseverance of the teams). This affects the product you receive at home, and also your outlook on the industry as a result.

Everything in the chain of Production, distribution and to purchase (and I mean EVERYTHING) affects the other elements in the chain. Those furthest down will feel it much sooner then those up top, and we the gamers get the result.

Final Note:
There ARE consequences to piracy. But a reliable figure can't be attained by the obvious difficulty of tracking piracy, but it doesn't change the fact that piracy consumes but does not invest. Heck, even the illusion of something more imposing is enough to trigger the problems we face now. I'm definitely not going to say the Producers or the Retailers are innocent in this, but I can't accept it as a simple good choice/bad choice either. Piracy is wrong and has no benefits short of self gratification. But Greed and stubbornness on the part of wealthy Producers and Retailers are just as much to blame.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I have no noteworthy qualification in economics or game development or retail. This information is all piecemeal knowledge and I have no doubt I missed massive chunks of important information. But the point I tried to emphasise is simply that it's not straight forward. Those brief, tip of the tongue, analogies are misleading and very often completely unrelatable to topics of piracy at best. There is no good or evil, though morality and common sense play a part.

 

[AngleWyrm]

Summary: I think there's at least an off chance that piracy, as a whole, might be a critical form of wealth redistribution, and its elimination might have drastic and unforeseen consequences for the United States and the world.

This is an ethical question. It's even addressed in the Bible, where there's a verse about not persecuting the poor for picking some fruit from the edge of a rich man's orchard.

There are also advertising issues. Does having more people play the game create desire to buy the game? Does it count as free advertising?

There is also size issues. The most pirated movie ever, Avatar made over 2 billion dollars, and was pirated about 20 million times. Let's say $5 for a rental, that's 0.1 billion dollars max. That's a pretty small slice of the pie for all the hollering that gets done about it.

And there's also the punishments being given out. Stealing a movie is not grand theft, it is the same thing as stealing a 12-pack of beer. Is it reasonable to charge people a thousand dollars for running a stop sign? Surely there's lives at stake. But there are people today who have been ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines for the hineous act of illegally watching a movie. The punishment does not fit the crime.