Poll: A Question on Piracy !

[HotHandedGamer]

Has anyone thought about if price of the game comes into the subject of piracy ? Not the difference between £5 and £45 , I mean games like Metal Wolf Chaos which has been priced at $243 (£156.35) on Amazon. Does this make it more acceptable to pirate than more mainstream titles ? Or does price not mean anything to you if you pirate ? Also your thoughts on pirating 'Indie' games and smaller games , Is it better or worse than pirating expensive games or mainstream titles because of the price differences ?

Love to hear all your thoughts on the matter !
HotHandedGamer

 

[hazabaza1]

If you've already bought the game or it's practically abandonware.

 

[Esotera]

Price isn't an excuse for piracy - if you don't like something then you don't have to buy and play it. That said, I think games with very high prices are probably more prone to piracy than something that costs £10.

Also the Amazon seller is probably a bot without a sanity check. One bot will generally sell something at 10p higher than its competitor, which will then go 10p higher, to infinity. That's why you can buy certain books for millions of dollars.

 

[Esotera]

I really think it's ok.

I mean, if I want to play Contra 3 or Earthbound I would have to pay about 2x more than a normal retail release at least. Paying £80-100+ for a decade old used game isn't right and I won't pay it.

I can see the reasoning behind the argument but it doesn't really hold up for me. There are plenty of free games out there and even more cheap ones. £80-100 is a ridiculous price for any game, but no-one is forcing you to play this one - I'd pick a cheaper game and play that instead.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

I can see the reasoning behind the argument but it doesn't really hold up for me. There are plenty of free games out there and even more cheap ones. £80-100 is a ridiculous price for any game, but no-one is forcing you to play this one - I'd pick a cheaper game and play that instead.

Nintendo doesn't earn money from those sales anyway, though, so what's the point in the first place?

OT: It's okay to download a ROM if it's basically impossible to get in a way that would return money to the publisher/developer, in my opinion, which I don't really view as piracy in the first place. Other than that, however, I don't "support" it.

 

[Esotera]

Yeah but when Earthbound is one of the best SNES games ever, are you saying no one should be allowed to play it unless they pony up insane prices for it? Nintendo don't even make money of it and don't sell it on the eshop, I think it is ok. I mean, people would pay if it was available through the eshop.

It's like Game of Thrones, it's the most pirated show of all time because the only way to watch it is to sign up for a very costly cable service just to watch one show. People aren't going to pay though the nose for it so they just download it for free and to me that is understandable.

If it's not available on any current platform, then it wouldn't particularly bother me, especially if it's abandonware. I sort of assumed that both those games were available on newer platforms, don't know that much about them.

My point was more about people who pirate stuff when there's an opportunity to actually buy it, like minecraft or assassin's creed.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Advocating piracy will get you banned. So will saying you think it's ok under certain circumstances, such as price.

Mind you, risking a ban by saying pirating big name stuff is ok, but pirating small indie stuff seems worse, struggling artists and all that.

On the other hand, it seems a lot of piracy is determined by how hard is it to get the thing legally, and indie stuff might no be distributed that well, so I dunno.

 

[lRookiel]

If you can't get it, or if you already owned it, so basically what hazabaza said.

I don't believe piracy is right, but I do believe in some cases it's acceptable.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Price isn't an excuse for piracy - if you don't like something then you don't have to buy and play it.

If we're talking about games, then yes, this is somewhat plausible argument. Games aren't things you have to buy and play. But if we're taking applications, books (especially those hard to get, expensive titles required by some teachers) or similar products, then this argument loses its weight.

On the other hand, gaming industry is populated by greedy thieves. I don't care how wonderful the game is. Around here salary between 300-500 $ is considered "good". With such income, more than 100 $ is unacceptable by my book.

 

[Dragonclaw]

I would love to see the game companies get proactive and offer up more of their older titles in their download marketplaces...it's free money for them and they are leaving it on the table. Don't put them out at the same prices they were when they were top dollar and they should do well...Definately don't pull the GameRoom garbage...here's an old Atari game, you can get 80 on a disk for less than 20 bucks...but for YOU $3 each

 

[Bertylicious]

I would never dream of condoning piracy, particularly on this forum. I would say that piracy, like most crime, is indicative of other problems.

Most people pirate stuff out of convenience for instance. I've even heard some people look upon piracy as a sort of "try before you buy" option.

 

[felbot]

i only pirated once because my copy that i bought for 500 crowns was not working, at all, no matter what i did the game would not install.

so i pirated it and lo and behold it worked without flaw, the game in question was called medal of honor airborne, and only served to further my hate for ea.

 

[shintakie10]

I would never dream of condoning piracy, particularly on this forum. I would say that piracy, like most crime, is indicative of other problems.

Most people pirate stuff out of convenience for instance. I've even heard some people look upon piracy as a sort of "try before you buy" option.

So you'd even go so far as to say that someone who downloads say a ROM of an old Atari game that would either be impossible to find now, or if you did find it would cost literally over a hundred dollars and you'd need the system to play it and none of the original devs would even know you bought it, is in the wrong?

There is a point where piracy actually is perfectly acceptable. If you have gone through every reasonable channel in order to acquire a game and can not find it for a reasonable price, pirate away. Note, reasonable does not mean a game that you don't personally think should be 50 dollars a year after release.

 

[Something Amyss]

Price isn't an excuse for piracy - if you don't like something then you don't have to buy and play it. That said, I think games with very high prices are probably more prone to piracy than something that costs £10.

Agreed on both points. Price isn't really an excuse, but price tends to be a factor.

I also don't really think it's worth pursuing pirates in the long run (It's like trying to drain the ocean with a drinking straw), but I don't particularly think piracy is justified, either.

 

[DEAD34345]

Personally, I think piracy in and of itself is always acceptable. It's an action that gives someone something without taking anything away from anyone else. I'd think more highly of people who at least try to pay for their games when they can though, since you are benefiting from others' work when you do it.

 

[Bertylicious]

I would never dream of condoning piracy, particularly on this forum. I would say that piracy, like most crime, is indicative of other problems.

Most people pirate stuff out of convenience for instance. I've even heard some people look upon piracy as a sort of "try before you buy" option.

So you'd even go so far as to say that someone who downloads say a ROM of an old Atari game that would either be impossible to find now, or if you did find it would cost literally over a hundred dollars and you'd need the system to play it and none of the original devs would even know you bought it, is in the wrong?

There is a point where piracy actually is perfectly acceptable. If you have gone through every reasonable channel in order to acquire a game and can not find it for a reasonable price, pirate away. Note, reasonable does not mean a game that you don't personally think should be 50 dollars a year after release.

Seductive as that argument is, it is akin to saying; "I am starving and the cost of a loaf of bread is too much, therefore I shall steal from the bakery."

Now whilst that isn't unreasonable in and of itself, it does not address the root cause of the problem; namely that the cost of the loaf is too high. It is conceivable that stealing the loaf will cause the price of bread to continue to rise (ha ha) and that theft is merely a temporary, and therfore unsatisfactory, solution.

I believe there may also be an issue regarding intellectual property rights which rather muddies the water on all this, but I am not an expert.

As I said earlier, I would never dream of condoning piracy and it is also worth noting in the analogy I cited a neccesity rather than a luxury item. Stealing a luxury item is therefore indefensible. Prosecuting someone in the OTT manner certain media companies have chosen is, however, equally indefensible as it fails to address the underlying problem.

 

[soultrain117]

I voted other because there is a difference between expensive and hard to get games. Like it is pretty difficult to get nes games those are ok to pirate. New games that are expensive are not ok to pirate. Also if you already own the game, but technically that's not piracy. Basically if the game is hard to get, because it is so old that it isn't being made anymore, it is ok to pirate.