penny arcade equates used games to piracy

[rembrandtqeinstein]

You're right, actually. Piracy is often a perfectly rational thing for one person to do. The reason it's illegal, obviously, is because pirates are not self-consistent. Copyright infringement in general is more or less the Prisoner's Dilemma on a large scale. As long as most people are buying the game, and you can avoid getting caught, piracy is great for the pirates. If enough people begin pirating in lieu of buying games such that the publishers and developers are not making enough money to motivate the creation of further games, however, then everyone loses.

But the "if everyone did it" standard is a poor guide for basing moral choices.

For example if everyone was homosexual or had abortions then the human race would die out. So based on the standard you are advocating those should absolutely be illegal because I dno't think there is a worse possible outcome than the extinction of the human race. And it should be illegal for anyone to have more or less than 2.3 children because if everyone didn't have 2.3 children again the human race would die out, but if everyone had more than the population would explode and everyone would starve.

And what about people who live in countries where downloading copyrighted material for personal use is legal (music in Canada, anything in Spain? i think)? That throws the whole "illegal" argument out the window. So you are left with the whole "it doesn't benefit publishers" argument.

But if that is the only reason not to pirate then you shouldn't buy used games or rent games either for the exact same reason. Because if you spread the return on investment to publishers over multiple used sales/rentals you get to a point where any individual return is so close to 0 it might as well be 0.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Now if ONLY you could guarantee EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE of that happening resulted the same, till then.

I've pirated two roms, the pokemon one and the ocarina of time. I own the latter for the Gamecube as well because I payed for it. I just wanted to play it on my laptop. Piracy of a game i already own but to have it on a different platform is another instance i believe is ok. Ive already payed for it once because i loved it thats as much money the developers expected to get form one person anyway. One sale.

However, as i explained as long as 11 out of 24 bottles are taken not a single cent is lost from the investment. My dad can literally dump HALF of his pop inventory into a river and STILL turn a profit as long as no one steals those 11. So how exactly is it any different? No one is losing anything but a 'potential sale'. Neither group has directly lost a dime.

Every bottle after the 11th doesn't have a monetary value though. It quite LITERALLY is worth $0.00 to my dad. The entire $1.75 goes to my dad in pure profit. Every single instance of pop sold past 11 is money directly in my dads pocket. Every bottle stolen past the 11th don't cost my dad a cent. You are literally stealing more from him by taking a penny he dropped on the counter then it would be then to steal that bottle of pop.

Here's where I get very very confused. Your saying the pop is worthless and not worth a cent to your dad. Then you say he sells it for PURE profit. Well that IS worth a cent isn't it? $1.75 exactly as you pointed out. You can't have it both ways. The pop is either worthless OR its worth 1.75 of profit. I also had no idea your dad ran the shop just to break even and not to make money. This example is a bit flaky but I see what your trying to say. Also your code argument was also a bit flaky.

The reason your dad doesn't dump the pop is because AS YOU SAID ITS LIQUID PROFIT. The pop IS worth something beyond a potential sale. Its worth profit. 1.75 as you said. You just admitted it has value to your dad as an item to be sold and TRANSFERRED. The code that makes the game online does not cost money. It is free. As it is a COPY. I can copy and paste this text for free. Am I a thief? Have i stolen this text by pressing cntrl C contrl V. No I'm coping it. No one is down anything. Your dad is down 1.75 profit when you take pop. You said its worth 1.75 to him. Then you said its worth nothing. Its either one or the other.

Eggs are free to make, that doesn't make them worthless. Your argument is pop is so cheap its worthless. This isn't true because AS YOU SAID its worth 1.75 to your dad just as the FREE EGG has a value to someone despite the fact it costs nothing to acquire.

Piracy is COPYING something.
Theft is TAKING something to deprive someone else.

You cannot argue this away, this is a fact. They are different even if its only on this basis.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

I have been beating this same drum for ages (and putting my money where my mouth is---I haven't bought a used game* since I was in high school buying used games on the SNES). As one of the devs said, "there are no used games on Steam".

It can be really, REALLY hard to understand that doing the right thing often means inconveniencing oneself---I could, if I so desired, just pirate everything that I could get my greedy little paws on. It's not challenging. I could buy used (well, not for the PC, but I have a DS on my nightstand). I could do a lot of things. But I do what's right for the developers of the games I love, for niche houses like Paradox Interactive and mainstream devs like Bethesda Game Studios alike.

You've all played Fallout 3? You know that whole bit about "sacrifice"? In the name of keeping my moral conscience clean and my platform from which to argue this point firm, sacrifices have to be made (it doesn't hurt that my budget for games is quite low because 95% or more of games that come out don't interest me, but that's beside the point.)

*I'm not counting out-of-print games that can only be acquired through channels other than retail/traditional money-to-developer. I'd gladly delete my Aerobiz Supersonic ROM if Koei made the game available through some other means, for example, and I deleted my Chrono Trigger ROM when the game came out for the DS and spent the money.

I agree with you 100% which is why I made this thread in the first place. Though I kept my Chrono Trigger ROM because I owned the original before it got lost in some move, well that and I hate the Dragon Ball Z art style of the remake.

 

[Trivun]

When you buy a game used, the developer doesn't see a dime from YOUR purchase. Sure, they get money from the first person who bought it, but if people didn't buy it used, then devs would see even more money from those purchases. This isn't rocket science. It's pretty simple addition, people.

They're already making tons of money from the original sales anyway. Think about it, please. An average new release costs £40 here in Blighty. Even if a game only sells a million copies, that's still £40-million being made, which of course is a hell of a lot, even taking out the considerations of development costs (which are unlikely to be more than the revenue made anyway) and the money the stores make. And many games sell much more than just a million copies overall.

Hating the used games market is just the developers and publishers being greedy. If I have a hard copy of something, that I paid for, that hard copy becomes my personal property. Basic legal fact. Which means that it is my right as a consumer to then sell that copy on if I so wish, and no-one can tell me that is wrong. Especially when there isn't a scrap of evidence or fact supporting the anti-used-games brigade anyway.

 

[Jandau]

By this logic, buying used cars is the same as stealing cars.

I usually like Penny Arcade and their commentary, but on this subject they are out of touch with reality...

 

[lapan]

Like mentioned many times before, used markets exist for many products. The reason why game developers made it an issue is probably because it's realatively easy to program a way to make reselling impossible.

I myself don't oppose used games. Someday a publisher will no longer be arround/the game will no longer be sold. As the industry invents more and more ways to ban used games the old classics will slowly become impossible to play. This is even more true with digital copies of games which are often tied to a specific server. Do you really want a game to "expire" after a specific time period? Because slowly, thats becoming the new reality.

 

[GothmogII]

Spoiler

I have been beating this same drum for ages (and putting my money where my mouth is---I haven't bought a used game* since I was in high school buying used games on the SNES). As one of the devs said, "there are no used games on Steam".

It can be really, REALLY hard to understand that doing the right thing often means inconveniencing oneself---I could, if I so desired, just pirate everything that I could get my greedy little paws on. It's not challenging. I could buy used (well, not for the PC, but I have a DS on my nightstand). I could do a lot of things. But I do what's right for the developers of the games I love, for niche houses like Paradox Interactive and mainstream devs like Bethesda Game Studios alike.

You've all played Fallout 3? You know that whole bit about "sacrifice"? In the name of keeping my moral conscience clean and my platform from which to argue this point firm, sacrifices have to be made (it doesn't hurt that my budget for games is quite low because 95% or more of games that come out don't interest me, but that's beside the point.)

*I'm not counting out-of-print games that can only be acquired through channels other than retail/traditional money-to-developer. I'd gladly delete my Aerobiz Supersonic ROM if Koei made the game available through some other means, for example, and I deleted my Chrono Trigger ROM when the game came out for the DS and spent the money.

Self-sacrifice is one thing, but don't you wonder if they'll thank you for it? If the ideal situation is that everyone purchases their games full price, and first-hand, then what exactly is supposed to be the publisher's reaction to this? Are they suddenly going to think to themselves, hey, our customers have been so good to us, still, they've been buying our games, and we've got too much money anyway, let's lower the price as a gift to our customers!

That reaches into: If you don't like it, don't buy territory. And frankly, that never really appealed to me. I'm happy to wait mind you, a few months, maybe a year or two to buy a game I want cheaper, but I'm still going to buy used whenever possible.

Here's a thought though, what do you think about retailers and sales? I suppose it's wrong too to have three for one deals or half-price specials on non-used games, because again, there goes money the publisher and developers are never going to see, right?

 

[CLime]

You're right, actually. Piracy is often a perfectly rational thing for one person to do. The reason it's illegal, obviously, is because pirates are not self-consistent. Copyright infringement in general is more or less the Prisoner's Dilemma on a large scale. As long as most people are buying the game, and you can avoid getting caught, piracy is great for the pirates. If enough people begin pirating in lieu of buying games such that the publishers and developers are not making enough money to motivate the creation of further games, however, then everyone loses.

But the "if everyone did it" standard is a poor guide for basing moral choices.

For example if everyone was homosexual or had abortions then the human race would die out. So based on the standard you are advocating those should absolutely be illegal because I dno't think there is a worse possible outcome than the extinction of the human race. And it should be illegal for anyone to have more or less than 2.3 children because if everyone didn't have 2.3 children again the human race would die out, but if everyone had more than the population would explode and everyone would starve.

And what about people who live in countries where downloading copyrighted material for personal use is legal (music in Canada, anything in Spain? i think)? That throws the whole "illegal" argument out the window. So you are left with the whole "it doesn't benefit publishers" argument.

But if that is the only reason not to pirate then you shouldn't buy used games or rent games either for the exact same reason. Because if you spread the return on investment to publishers over multiple used sales/rentals you get to a point where any individual return is so close to 0 it might as well be 0.

Geez, do I have to spell this out? When various states repealed their anti-sodomy laws, everyone didn't suddenly turn gay. Even the most bigoted homophobes don't cite the potential extinction of the human race as a legitimate reason to deprive gays of rights.

Unlike being gay, if piracy was legal everyone would do it. Yes, a small faction would probably continue paying full price so they could feel superior to everyone else, but not enough to keep the industry going. The incentive to produce games would evaporate.

With the secondary market, someone still has to buy the original game somewhere down the line. The industry still sells games at a profit, just fewer than they would if there were no avenue for resale. GameStop has been around for 25 years, and in that time the video game industry has still grown immensely.

 

[Eponet]

Its like review sites. Take a look at games reviews. The majority hyped games from huge name companies always get fantastic scores no matter how crappy the actual game is. SC2, FFXIII & Heavy Rain are all examples of this.

This argument really sounds hollow when you bring it up here, home of one of the most well known reviewers, who either refused to review, or hated each of those examples.

And who exactly would that be? Because from what I saw the Escapist gave all of them fantastic scores and did not even dare mention any of their flaws.

The one that's been on the home page for years now.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1569-Final-Fantasy-XIII

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1528-Heavy-Rain

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7938-Extra-Punctuation-On-RTS-Games

 

[BlackStar42]

Piracy is when one purchased game (if even that) is distributed between several different people.

Used games is when one purchased game is distributed to one other person.

How is used games worse than Pirating?

Frankly, this whole ordeal is stupid. Second hand market have existed ever since... well, since any kind of market existed. It's been around ever since gaming started. It's a logical way to dispose of a product you no longer want that has been universally accepted. There's nothing wrong with it. When you've bought something, that thing is yours. You don't own the idea, you don't own the right to clone or copy that thing, but you own that one object. You are free to sell it on or even give it away if you want to.

This is why I hate anti-used games arguments. It's basically saying "ONLY THE BIG BOYS ARE ALLOWED TO SELL STUFF". If you agree that selling used games is wrong, then you are saying that it's wrong for anyone to sell anything they own.

Need to get money by having a flee market? Nope, sorry, that's morally wrong. Have you grown out of your jeans and feel like selling them to a Second hand store? Sorry, that's morally wrong. Corporations being just as, if note more greedy than the people selling their stuff? THEY ARE UNDERDOGS WE NEED TO RESPECT!

In short, this. It's perfectly legal to sell something you own, and nothing morally wrong with it either, despite the games companies saying otherwise. Greedy bastards just want more money.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Yeah, that's great except for the fact that Yahtzee is not a reviewer or a critic. He is a entertainer. He gets paid to insult things no matter what he may really think of them so his shows do not matter in the slightest and absolutely no one with a IQ above room temperature ever takes him seriously.

Rofl, you got me. I guess I'm a drooling moron but I take Yahtzee's reviews seriously. If you get past the swear words and dick pictures he has some really insightful points. Unlike 90% of other reviewers he makes an effort to actually play games through to the end.

His Fallout 3 review encouraged me to get it because despite the criticisms the parts he said were good were the things that made me like a game. His review of Bioshock was dead on accurate.

And the reviews are funny but if they weren't animated and plain text he would still have interesting things to say. I've watched all of them and there are a couple where he is phoning it in but overall you get a sense of craftsmanship and perfectionism in his "art".

Also this totally off topic

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Geez, do I have to spell this out? When various states repealed their anti-sodomy laws, everyone didn't suddenly turn gay. Even the most bigoted homophobes don't cite the potential extinction of the human race as a legitimate reason to deprive gays of rights.

Unlike being gay, if piracy was legal everyone would do it. Yes, a small faction would probably continue paying full price so they could feel superior to everyone else, but not enough to keep the industry going. The incentive to produce games would evaporate.

With the secondary market, someone still has to buy the original game somewhere down the line. The industry still sells games at a profit, just fewer than they would if there were no avenue for resale. GameStop has been around for 25 years, and in that time the video game industry has still grown immensely.

Spell what out? You made an argument and I used that same argument in an analogous situation to prove that the original argument wasn't applicable.

Obviously everyone isn't going to turn gay but just as obvious to me everyone isn't going to pirate.

But in any case I can apply your same argument to used games or rentals. If everyone rented or bought used then not enough money would make it to publishers/developers to keep them making games. Obviously everyone can't rent or buy used because someone would have to buy the original but you have to concede that it is possible that in some situations used/rentals would make up the difference between breaking even and losing money.

The original point: Used games and rentals are no different than piracy from the publishers or developers perspective. The reasoning is that even though people consume the game the remuneration goes to someone other than the game creators and investors.

 

[McClaud]

Why do I need to have an internet connection to play an offline game. Why do I need to sign up an online account for some stupid ass game I will only ever play offline.

While I agree with the majority of your complaint (that DRM sucks ass), I do have to say this:

Everyone everywhere is eventually going to be required to have Internet access to play games, anti-piracy programs or not. If you are ranting against the game industry for making you connect to the Internet to play a game ... too bad. Video game companies don't target poorer people - they are targeting the people with disposable incomes first and foremost.

Much like cellphone companies. It's a "convert or GTFO" mindset that doesn't give a shit about the poorer populace.

 

[Meggiepants]

Tycho has been saying this for years. I don't buy it. It's easy for him to say those kinds of things, he's got money to spare. I'm tired of people who have all the money they could ever want telling us little peons how we should support the industry.

Also, the logical extension of his argument, is that Rental services are also pirates. In fact, Tycho cannot limit this argument to games. Anything that alters the "1 copy to 1 person paradigm" would be piracy under his parameters. Books, DVDs, CDs, all are being pirated every time you use a library card.

I agree, used games don't give money back to the publisher. But as I have said before, those stores that sell used games also work for the gaming companies. I'm fairly certain that if it weren't for places like Gamestop, pre-sales would not exist. Those people practically force pre-sales down your throat, as Tycho himself has referenced in his blog and his comic. You cannot walk into one of those stores, and not be asked about pre-sales. They make it worse when they can't garauntee you'll get a game on release day unless you pre-order.

Yes, the stores sell used games, but they also do pretty gonzo business on new items as well. If the game companies don't see the symbiotic relationship they have with these used retailers, then they are simply blind.

As for the rest of the issues regarding the long history of being able to re-sell your property, both these fine fellows have already said it well.

Snips

Snips

So we should never buy anything used, because someone, somewhere, isn't getting money from that transaction. How tragic.

Edited for excessive profanity once my head cooled...

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

So we should never buy anything used, because someone, somewhere, isn't getting money from that transaction. How tragic.

He isn't saying don't buy used. He is saying that, just like piracy, buying used (or renting) doesn't support the publisher.

And by extension if you want to support the publisher then the only option is to buy new, preferably in the first week of release.

And if you REALLY believe in the publisher you pre-order as soon as you are able. That shows a willingness to transfer the risk that the game is crap from the publisher to yourself.

What I'm saying, as I have for years, that used games are morally equivalent to piracy for this very reason. So it is hypocritical to decry piracy as is the party line on this website, yet not condemn used sales or rentals in the same breath.

 

[Talon_Skywarp]

I love going through this. It's like the end of the world.

I have no feelings about anyone in the gaming world who make them. To me they are just the same as the guy's who make alcohol, cars, clothes and anything I buy.

I couldn't care a less about you or your profits. I really don't. I don't know them, therefore I don't care. I like Enya, yet I brought her album at a market. No profit for you Enya. I brought a Fred Perry at a charity shop, No money for you fred.

I'm not a blind idiot acting like any of these companies care about me or my life. They just want my money. So to me, I'm gonna continue to buy second hand things whenever I can. I love me a bargin.

*Puts on his £1 copy of Jay Z - Blueprint 3, while waiting for his second hand game to install*

£11 pound well spent. Much better that £55.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

If other people want to be patrons of the game industry and buy things at full price on day one then buy all the DLC and re-issues for other platforms then that is their business. I hope that the warm glow they get from knowing that some arrogant businessmen will not have to sell their sports cars, or whatever, makes them happy. I'll carry on buying used and not buying on day one depending on what I think is good value for money. Even worse, I won't even play most games in any form, even if they hand them out for free.