Poll: Does pirating a game to test it make it okay?

[crazyrabbits]

You didn't read the thread, that's not what the OP meant.

He was saying how his friend has a weak laptop which may/may not be able to run it.

The OP wanted to see if their friend could run the game on her laptop.

You're both late to the party. I've been discussing this since the second page with someone else, and I've said that compatibility questions are a non-issue when there are plenty of free utilities online that can diagnose your system specs. I'm just cutting to the heart of the matter.

Do try to keep up next time.

Why waste $20 on something that does not work when it can be avoided?
That 's just silly.

Also, it's not about piracy.
In fact, he's not even pirating the game.

You're just posting semantics. As I said before, you can diagnose your computer in minutes easily. Using "compatibility" as an excuse doesn't dismiss the fact that this person would be downloading an illegal copy, regardless of ethical intent.

Doesn't matter if it's on your system for 10 minutes or 10 hours - if you took the time to download gigabytes of information just to find out if you can run it or not, you're a fool.

 

[crazyrabbits]

In that case, pray tell, how are developers and publishers compensated when a used game is sold over and over again?

Law of first sale doctrine. Once a point-of-sale transaction is made, whatever happens to that copy/product after the fact (resell it for less, give it to a friend, etc.) is out of the creator's/publisher's hands, provided you aren't selling it for profit. It's been in U.S. law since the early 1900's, and is the basis for the entire used games/movies/book market.

You can't eliminate that from the second-hand gaming market without destroying the entire infrastructure of the used market. A publisher has no say if the work is being sold at less than fair market value.

This is why they've made a war on used games/sellers like Gamestop - they believe it's biting potential profit out of their bottom line, in spite of the fact that it's widely known that (a) customers who bought games for cheaper than retail do so because they don't have the income to buy it at full price, and (b) these gimmicks (online passes, day-one DLC, DRM) hurts paying customers just as much, if not moreso, than it does pirates.

This ties in with my previous post - Steam, GoG, Gamestop et al. and others have made cheap gaming the norm, either by adapting their business model or changing their strategy to tailor to consumers with lower income.

As I said before, $20 is a pittance to pay for a game. Either go online and check to see that your specs are good using utilities before you buy, or don't download it altogether. Unlike other arguments I've been in, there is no grey area.

CAPTCHA: field day. Yes, I am having one with your posts.

 

[distortedreality]

I'm inclined to say no because with a little bit of research there is absolutely no reason why you couldn't figure out whether or not the game will run on any given computer.

That simply isn't true. The best you can make with any certainty is an educated guess, and sometimes that can even be far off the mark. Not many people (if any) would have the exact same configuration as me, and there is potential for one of my random components to set something off that causes a game to not function on my rig.

Admittedly, it's very rare, but with some of the terrible ports around these days, I prefer not to take the risk, especially when it's so hard to get a refund (which I haven't had to do in a loooong time). I know a fair bit about computers, and how my rig stacks against others, and if i'm unsure, I can only imagine what people without a clue would feel like.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

You test drive a car before you drive it... did YOU even think for 30 seconds before writing that? I mean sheesh... you used an analogy that is universally accepted as TEST DRIVE IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT. I mean fuck that's where the term "test drive" ORIGINATES from! I mean... come on... I... gah!

Ummm....that's kinda the point I'm making

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

Back then when I was younger, no money and practically had no knowledge of how to make a game runs better or not on a computer, well I was pirating them out of the easiness, because hey, I had no moral.

But in the recent years with a good job I think I spent more money on games that I truly thinks I loved them by "pirating", even, there some games I would never had thought of touching if it was not about looking at let play and "pirate" test run the game

On the other side, I also feel that I lost money of several other occasion
WoW - Cataclysm: Played one character to max, then bored out
Deux Ex Human Revolution: Just didn't like it!
Diablo 3: can't say I haven't played a lot, but still feel not quite satisfied with the product
Champions Online, Guild Wars 2, Star War Old Republic and some other Mmo: lost my money a lot because of the hype and the shiny look of the new MMO

so am I really a bad person after that?
I spent and gave happily my money to those developer for game I thought was great (even some without pirating them)
but on the other end I should cope the loss of a 60$ of a game I disliked like garbage just after a few hours?

 

[funnydude6556]

I was trying to convince a friend to purchase Payday: The Heist through steam so that we can play co-op together. However, she has a pretty weak laptop (2 years or so old). She can run some older games, along some F2P games like NFS: World on Medium, or sometimes high, so I did a bit of research to see if she can at least run Payday on minimum settings. After a bit of researching, it seemed like too close of a call, so I suggested that maybe she can, for this once, pirate the game, just so that she can actually test if the game can run with a decent FPS on her computer. She would simply install the game, jump in a game, move around a bit If it was playable, and then uninstall and delete the crack. Then she would immediately buy the game. And from there on, we got into arguments about piracy, if it's okay or not, blah blah blah.

So I ask you this escapists, is pirating okay if you're planning to test a game and then later on, buy it? Is pirating ever okay, under any condition?

I think it's a good reason to pirate especially when the larger amount of games companies decide to release their games without demos as if we're suppose to trust that their games are good and long enough for the £40/$60 price their charging. So yeah if your pirating to test a game to see if it works on your PC or just to see if your going to like the game I don't see how I could have a problem with that.

The only problem is that you can't tell the difference between people pirating to test a game and the people who just want a free game.

 

[EtherealBeaver]

Legally no but morally I would say yes. There as so many games which either do not have demos available and of those who do, frightningly many of them are directly misleading comparing to what you can expect from the actual game.

You wouldnt buy a car, a shirt or a pair of shoes without trying it first - why would a game be any different?

 

[The Lunatic]

It's called "Evaluating".

It's perfectly fine in my book, if no other options exist.

If they haven't provided a benchmark or a demo for you to test the game upon before you buy, then you have every right to evaluate a product before you buy it.

I consider it similar to trying on a piece of clothing before you buy it.

And often times, demos and what-not, have convinced me to buy games, thus I'd have to assume that if I did pirate one for this purpose, it may have some effect on my decision to buy it.

 

[jklinders]

Seems to me that PC gaming can be a bit of a toss of the dice. It's the chief disadvantage of the platform.

I am anti-pirate. If the game is literally otherwise unavailable then fine, torrent away but if you need to know how stable a game is before you purchase it, may i suggest checking the forums and or reviews first. Yes even reviews. Contrary to the popular belief of the collective internet not all reviews are bought.

Reliable user reviews from community forums can be useful. Systems Requirements labs can let you know if your hardware can theoretically run it. Tech support forums can be useful in letting you know common issues but remember that the folks in there are likely a minority of users having very specific problems.

At heart, PC gaming is a crapshoot. Very odious return policies, non standard hardware leading to bugs and overly aggressive DRM. None if this justifies piracy. Switch to a console if you think tech issues are so bad you need to pirate before purchasing every game. I have literally hundreds of games, not one of which ended up being unplayable for any reason. There is a workaround of some kind for literally every issue I have encountered with literally every game I have purchased. Needing to pirate to test it simply does not wash as an excuse.

That is all.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

That would be like sneaking into a movie and only paying if you liked it. How is it morally grey? Then only way it comes close to morally grey is if you pirate it to test then buy it next time it discounted even if you couldn't run the game.

you can't be serious...

It is nothing like sneaking into a movie, at all.
Maybe if you have new, fancy replacement cybernetic eyes and you are not sure if your new eyes are compatible with the 3D glasses at you local cinema and you kindly ask the manager to check it out for a minute and if it works then you buy a ticket.

Even so, paying for a game (even if it is discounted) you know for a fact you cannot play is rather ridiculous.

How isn't it? Technically you aren't "stealing" anything. Nobody is "losing" anything. If I paid $10 to see a movie and it turns out to be shit, then I'd be pretty pissed. Just like if I go buy a game that I can't run on my PC (which has happened before). Pirating is still pirating, no matter what bullshit excuse you use for why you are doing it.

Oh please...
It's not piracy if it's only done to check if the goddamn game will run on a system.
He's not going to test play it, not going to use it as a demo, but only check to see if it will run at all on the PC in question.

Look at the example above (the one you quoted) again

Really? How isn't it? If I shoot you just to see if you will survive, is it still attempted murder? I had no intent to murder you, but I still shot you. So, if I go to Best Buy and steal a graphics card just to test to see if it will work in my computer, then if it will, I go buy it, that isn't stealing?

You just don't get it, I don't know if you are a pirate and/or just in extreme ignorant denial. Piracy:

the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.

Piracy is the act of the above, it has nothing to do with whatever reason you make up to justify it. You have to pirate the game in the first place to try it. Again, would it be ok with you if I shoot you just to see if you survive, or if one of my guns could shoot that far and still do damage, or whatever reason I make up to say that me shooting you is perfectly ok and legal?

 

[Assassin Xaero]

So, if I go to Best Buy and steal a graphics card just to test to see if it will work in my computer, then if it will, I go buy it, that isn't stealing?

You need better examples.

Really? comparing piracy to MURDER? And just an FYI, if you buy a graphics card from bestbuy and it doesnt work with your system you are able to return it, the not is true of games.

Again, you people are missing the point (I swear there is not a single person on the internet that comprehends what the concept of an example is, they all have to take it extremely literally). Let me spell it out for you so it may be easier for you to understand...

Piracy is an ACTION. It is wrong because you are taking (or copying since I know some people will go "it's not stealing it is making a copy") something that doesn't belong to you without permission. It ends there.

Pirating a game to "test it" is JUSTIFICATION for an action. It is the reason why you are trying to say that something wrong is not wrong.

As for the murder thing? But I'm not murdering him, I just want to see if my gun will shoot that and still be effective. I have no intent to actually murder him, or even shoot him, I just want to see what a 7.62x39 round will do at 50 feet, but to do so, I'd HAVE to shoot him. Without shooting him, how will I ever know if it would be effective or not? Obviously, the ACTION of shooting him is wrong regardless of why, so no reason I have for doing so could JUSTIFY said action. Get it now?

With Best Buy, again, you missed the point. I'm not talking about returns or anything. It is the concept of taking something just to see if it will work. I could, like any person should unless they know better, look at what I need to run said graphics card, look at what I have, and see if it will run, just like you can do with games. It is never right to steal, even if I plan on paying for it if it does work.

 

[maninahat]

People point to a lack of demos, and use that to explain why piracy is okay, if only to test. I can see a couple of immediate faults with this view:

1) How long do you take to demo a game? Are you only going to play ten minutes of a pirated game, or are you, having spent hours/days downloading a copy, going to play the whole damn thing and then maybe consider purchasing it? Because the latter isn't demoing. That's like "test driving" a car for six months. The purpose of a demo is to inform an opinion, not to provide a long term utility.

2) Even though we could do with more demos, in this dayand age, we hardly lack any other means of deciding whether or not to buy a game. There are reviews everywhere, there are let's play and gameplay vids, and there are forums. If you honestly can't form an opinion based on the wealth of information provided by the net, a demo probably shouldn't help you either.

For these reasons - no - piracy for testing is not at all justified. It's more often than not, a rationalisation used by people to excuse them playing out a game without having to pay for it. NB, you also can't justify it with "oh, I didn't like the game, so I wouldn't have bought it in the end anyway."

 

[The Lunatic]

Also, even for those comparing it to "Stealing", most places will let you try items before you buy them.

Even for computer hardware, most stores are pretty reasonable about lending you a display model and letting you see if it works.

I had a place lend me 3 Mechanical keyboards so I could decide which switches I preferred. (About $300 in value in total.) On the word I sent them back a week later.

Others will let you bring in your computer and test it there, generally you just have to ask, they do actually want your service at the end of the day and will do what they can to help you in spending money on them. Something a lot of game companies don't seem to be doing a terrible good job at right now.

Just an FYI.

 

[wabbbit]

I don't see an issue with pirating games if you intend to buy it.

I wanted to see if CIV 5 was any good compared to Rome. You can never tell from the videos so i pirated the feck out of it thanks to TPB and played through one 100 turn map. (so about a couple of hours worth of demo)
Turns out I loved it so happily paid for it but whilst I waited for it to arrive I played my pirate version then swapped my files over when I got the real one. Same with Walking Dead and multiple others.
About 80% of the time I end up buying the game anyway within a week. If i don't buy it then they failed to impress me. (Plus a lot of games don't have demos )

I also don't see a problem with pirating games I owned at some point in the past - for example I have the original AOE collectors set but can't for the life of me remember where the disc is, so naturally TPB was my first port of call. (GAME wanted like 4 quid for it!)

My argument against the popular flames I get:
- "Use canyourunit.com to see if you can run it"
That site is terrible for some games and depends on your personal setup. It can give you a rough indication but can't tell you what the experience will be like for your card/resolution/CPU.

- "Download a demo, noob"
Demo's these days aren't really any good IMO(If available at all!). I've often tried to play demo's for games I now own and love and had really bad experiences - I was surprised to find out that for one game I had (some shoddy FPS), they had used a beta build for the demo!
(I want to say Bulletstorm but I don't think it was)

- "watch a letsplay"
...and ruin the game/story? No thanks.

- but it' been reviewed by XXXX
I don't trust reviews for the most part and like to form my own opinions. Plus, sites like IGN etc give everything good reviews!

As a bad analogy, would you buy a shirt in a shop having only been allowed to try on the sleeve? The makers of it told you it looks amazing, and the reviews of it from random strangers say the same... you wouldn't buy it would you? You'd want to try it on, check it out properly before committing to a purchase. - plus you can't return open PC games at most retailers.

I think it comes down to honesty. If I like a game I've pirated then I will generally buy it.
The main issue for me comes down to not being able to send back opened PC games (or trade them in in most places!)

 

[Erttheking]

No it isn't. It views things through rose tinted glasses, automatically assuming that everyone will be super responsible and automatically delete it and go buy it instead of just keeping the pirated game. That just isn't going to happen.