Poll: Do People Pirate Because it's Free? Or is There Something More to it?
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Also of note are game rentals - the makers see no money from that, it's basically piracy masquerading behind a veneer of legality because you've spent some money. That is bullshit. It's still the same thing as getting the game ANY other way than buying it new at full price, so some people need to get off their high horses and get a sniff of reality.Craftybonds said:
Also, what's wrong about DLing TV? I have a TV license and Virgin TV, so it's not like I'm just a leech or anything. There's only 4 shows that I want to watch, and none of those seem to be shown in the UK, so fuck the programmers that I'm paying for my useless, commercial-ridden subscriptions, I'm going to download my TV and watch it when I want, how I want.
because it is EASY!
easy easy EASY!
instead of visiting the only gameshop in town, ask all my mates, trawl amazon, realise I cant order shit online anyways, downloading slightly older games is SO much easier. aaand if the game is crap you don't lose anything.
also, some things I refuse to pay for, like the Avatar (airbender) movie. I do not pay to look at poop.
easy easy EASY!
instead of visiting the only gameshop in town, ask all my mates, trawl amazon, realise I cant order shit online anyways, downloading slightly older games is SO much easier. aaand if the game is crap you don't lose anything.
also, some things I refuse to pay for, like the Avatar (airbender) movie. I do not pay to look at poop.
Pirating happens because people just want to try a game out. And don't trust what demos have to offer. I've met several pirates who buy games if the said game they pirated is good. E.G Bioshock and Unreal Tournament are example of games people pirated, and THEN bought. It's surprising really 
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All of the people decrying pirating, have you ever borrowed a CD from a friend or family member to put on your mp3 player? Because isn't that exactly the same thing? If my brother buys a CD and I really like it, I'm not going to go out and buy my own copy when I can borrow his. The company have still made money from the initial purchase, and there'd be no way I'm buying it myself, so what are they actually losing out on by me borrowing it?
Also, as someone has already said earlier on, how would a company make money from me watching TV shows on TV? A lot of series I got into when they were first aired on terrestrial (Freeview) TV, and they subsequently moved to sky. Since I can't afford to have sky TV, I watched these shows online. I didn't feel bad, because the only people missing out on money this way was sky, not the people who made the TV show
Also, as someone has already said earlier on, how would a company make money from me watching TV shows on TV? A lot of series I got into when they were first aired on terrestrial (Freeview) TV, and they subsequently moved to sky. Since I can't afford to have sky TV, I watched these shows online. I didn't feel bad, because the only people missing out on money this way was sky, not the people who made the TV show
Pirating to me is as simple as getting something I may not like for free. Then if I like it I buy it.
As a student who basically lives off the scraps of the economy although piracy is certainly wrong, I would be way less educated now than if I didn't endorse in such an activity. I study in media, observing what makes TV, DVDs and games tick (or not tick). Before you go out on your 'YOU'RE A THIEF!' rants please read on carefully.
Because my money is limited:
Simplest of reasons really, I don't have the money to buy both the modern media and classic media, and buying a game that is pure crap is not much of an investment. I have to place priorities on what I buy, and with the average game being somewhere between £30 - £40 that doesn't leave a lot of shuffle room.
I was skeptical of Yahtzee's almost too good to be true review of Saints Row 2, so I pirated it first. Going through my mind as it downloaded painfully slow were things such as 'GTA clone, probably about some bland gang and a pile of money'. A mere 3 days after playing, I bought the game on Steam, and listen to everything Yahtzee says.
What I'm trying to say with this is that piracy is a kind of like a testing ground; ensuring that I know what I would be paying for, and asking myself 'would I actually buy it?'. There's little to go by for games, with demos lessening in number and only a trailer to attempt to read between its lines. Is it morally wrong? I can say yes, but there were times where I'd have never paid for a game if I didn't see what it really was first.
Because they don't sell Touhou stuff here
I love ZUN's Touhou franchise, it is perhaps my biggest guilty pleasure. The brilliant bullet patterns and some rather excellent fighting games although with some arch-typical and a little blandish characters is something I really would pay for, so why am I not paying for it?
Because its so far away, importing costs a lot, and I really can't afford that right now, especially with the amount that I've bought off of Steam recently. This isn't even counting all of that fan content that I'd also feel like paying for, but again, costs a lot and its purely for guilty pleasure as a weaboo rather than to engage in deep analysis.
But I'm not a theif! Well, not entirely...
However, even with these reasons, I've made effort to buy games and media. I'm a victim of the Steam sales, Steam's digital distribution is so much easier than pirating (not having to worry about seeders, so much quicker d/l speed with my slow connection) and feels flawless. Theres the question of online multiplayer that I do want, and theres also my conscience telling that I'd want to contribute to the developer who made something that entertained me.
There are always going to be the people who will pirate purely because its free, probably the people who pay the most for internet connections and terabyte hard drives and less on the media industry, maximising the effective use of their money.
This is purely my perspective: slow internet, skepticism and foreign software. Theres also the fact that I definitely can't afford the software that I have to learn to use (Photoshop and Maya). It is morally wrong, these ARE excuses, and I'd love to be able to pay for everything but I have to prioritise my purchases in order to educate myself better about media. I hope this perspective has opened some minds and educated some on this sensitive topic. I also suggest you google Stephen Fry, who has opined his well educated thoughts on the subject of piracy.
Because my money is limited:
Simplest of reasons really, I don't have the money to buy both the modern media and classic media, and buying a game that is pure crap is not much of an investment. I have to place priorities on what I buy, and with the average game being somewhere between £30 - £40 that doesn't leave a lot of shuffle room.
I was skeptical of Yahtzee's almost too good to be true review of Saints Row 2, so I pirated it first. Going through my mind as it downloaded painfully slow were things such as 'GTA clone, probably about some bland gang and a pile of money'. A mere 3 days after playing, I bought the game on Steam, and listen to everything Yahtzee says.
What I'm trying to say with this is that piracy is a kind of like a testing ground; ensuring that I know what I would be paying for, and asking myself 'would I actually buy it?'. There's little to go by for games, with demos lessening in number and only a trailer to attempt to read between its lines. Is it morally wrong? I can say yes, but there were times where I'd have never paid for a game if I didn't see what it really was first.
Because they don't sell Touhou stuff here
I love ZUN's Touhou franchise, it is perhaps my biggest guilty pleasure. The brilliant bullet patterns and some rather excellent fighting games although with some arch-typical and a little blandish characters is something I really would pay for, so why am I not paying for it?
Because its so far away, importing costs a lot, and I really can't afford that right now, especially with the amount that I've bought off of Steam recently. This isn't even counting all of that fan content that I'd also feel like paying for, but again, costs a lot and its purely for guilty pleasure as a weaboo rather than to engage in deep analysis.
But I'm not a theif! Well, not entirely...
However, even with these reasons, I've made effort to buy games and media. I'm a victim of the Steam sales, Steam's digital distribution is so much easier than pirating (not having to worry about seeders, so much quicker d/l speed with my slow connection) and feels flawless. Theres the question of online multiplayer that I do want, and theres also my conscience telling that I'd want to contribute to the developer who made something that entertained me.
There are always going to be the people who will pirate purely because its free, probably the people who pay the most for internet connections and terabyte hard drives and less on the media industry, maximising the effective use of their money.
This is purely my perspective: slow internet, skepticism and foreign software. Theres also the fact that I definitely can't afford the software that I have to learn to use (Photoshop and Maya). It is morally wrong, these ARE excuses, and I'd love to be able to pay for everything but I have to prioritise my purchases in order to educate myself better about media. I hope this perspective has opened some minds and educated some on this sensitive topic. I also suggest you google Stephen Fry, who has opined his well educated thoughts on the subject of piracy.
I can't say pirating is free. You still gotta pay for internet and electricity. Given an enormous amount of people doing this, rich fat asses who get this electricity, gadget, maintenance, communications money most probably spend it in ways the original creator gets some bucks too.
Given a huge amount of people, there will be small percentages... which still are huge amounts of people.
So don't say it's free, ffs.
Given a huge amount of people, there will be small percentages... which still are huge amounts of people.
So don't say it's free, ffs.
/me looks around for any law enforcement members.
I go by the rules of Play before Pay. IGN, Gamespot and all those big companies that review are corrupt as Palpatine. It gives me no choice but to try the game before I buy it. This is especially true for games with a multiplayer feature.
I do not want to spend fourty dollars on a game that I will play for a day or two.
Bring on the hate, my dearies. But it's logic. Try it before you buy it.
(I'mma squeeze in my hate for demos here as well)
Demos are very often the game's best level. They don't show you the game as a whole, but instead of where the developers put their most time into.
Mount & Blade did a great job creating a demo. Literally the full game with a level cap.
I go by the rules of Play before Pay. IGN, Gamespot and all those big companies that review are corrupt as Palpatine. It gives me no choice but to try the game before I buy it. This is especially true for games with a multiplayer feature.
I do not want to spend fourty dollars on a game that I will play for a day or two.
Bring on the hate, my dearies. But it's logic. Try it before you buy it.
(I'mma squeeze in my hate for demos here as well)
Demos are very often the game's best level. They don't show you the game as a whole, but instead of where the developers put their most time into.
Mount & Blade did a great job creating a demo. Literally the full game with a level cap.
I have pirated games movies and tv series in the past and probably will do so again in the future.
I also happen to have over 400gigs of legit games installed and over 200 legit DVDs.
For me Piracy falls into two categories
1) Want to try before I buy, most recent game purchase for this would have been torchlight. Got a pirated version off a friend to try it out played it for a few days then bought the game. Another example was MW2 pirated it completed the single player campaign in 5 hours on hard and was very happy I didn't waste my money.
2) Hard to find movies, looked in all the local stores unable to find anything and I honestly hate ordering from overseas (I live in New Zealand) so I will download the movie to watch it and often end up buying it if I see it in a store. As far as TV series goes due to the delay in stuff being shown over here you can often download things months before they air on TV.
For a lot of the people I know who pirate they pirate just to download there is a whole subculture who download just to have the biggest collection they don't even watch/play 10% of the stuff they have they just want to be the guy with the 10 TB of movies/games at the lan.
The only person who pirates and actually pisses me off are the people who can afford to buy but they don't just because the can get away with pirating the media, they are also the people who would pirate a $5 game regardless of how good it is because they will never pay for something if they can get away with it.
I also happen to have over 400gigs of legit games installed and over 200 legit DVDs.
For me Piracy falls into two categories
1) Want to try before I buy, most recent game purchase for this would have been torchlight. Got a pirated version off a friend to try it out played it for a few days then bought the game. Another example was MW2 pirated it completed the single player campaign in 5 hours on hard and was very happy I didn't waste my money.
2) Hard to find movies, looked in all the local stores unable to find anything and I honestly hate ordering from overseas (I live in New Zealand) so I will download the movie to watch it and often end up buying it if I see it in a store. As far as TV series goes due to the delay in stuff being shown over here you can often download things months before they air on TV.
For a lot of the people I know who pirate they pirate just to download there is a whole subculture who download just to have the biggest collection they don't even watch/play 10% of the stuff they have they just want to be the guy with the 10 TB of movies/games at the lan.
The only person who pirates and actually pisses me off are the people who can afford to buy but they don't just because the can get away with pirating the media, they are also the people who would pirate a $5 game regardless of how good it is because they will never pay for something if they can get away with it.
We pirate because some of us cant afford the price tag or don't have the means of which to acquire it otherwise
Some pirates are cheap asses indeed, for the rest,the above is the truth.Firetaffer said:Pirating happens because people just want to try a game out. And don't trust what demos have to offer. I've met several pirates who buy games if the said game they pirated is good. E.G Bioshock and Unreal Tournament are example of games people pirated, and THEN bought. It's surprising really
Makes you wonder, why all this crap about piracy these days, and the attacks on the second hand market. Instead of the devs focusing on making decent games, the make expensive crap noone wants to buy and it's everyone's fault when the game doesn't sell, except their own.
There's also an element of apathy, I'm not condoning it, but when you think of a movie or song and can immediately download it. Leaving the house (and spending money) is that appealing.
Mainly because 99.9 percent of everything from music, films, tv, games whatever is total unimaginative samey crap. And spending money on the same rehashed idea over and over and over seems a tiny bit silly. If only there was a way of objectively rating games then perhaps it'll die down.
Or maybe not. The fact it's free is a massive draw and why should you pay for something when you simply don't have to? I suppose that's what it boils down to. Now, on the topic of all this silly ACTA buggery. Could go one of two ways. The first being that it doesn't work at all and it turns out they just can't track and punish THAT many people as the task is simply too huge. The second outcome being that it works perfectly and people start losing internet access rights. Something I simply wont allow to happen. Letting it to happen is as bad as banning them yourself.
Or maybe not. The fact it's free is a massive draw and why should you pay for something when you simply don't have to? I suppose that's what it boils down to. Now, on the topic of all this silly ACTA buggery. Could go one of two ways. The first being that it doesn't work at all and it turns out they just can't track and punish THAT many people as the task is simply too huge. The second outcome being that it works perfectly and people start losing internet access rights. Something I simply wont allow to happen. Letting it to happen is as bad as banning them yourself.