Poll: Piracy Drive, the new Boycott?

[maddawg IAJI]

I'm basing this off the Jimquistion Boycott episode discussing boycotts.

Nobel as they are intended, boycotts tend not to work among gamers. No mater how asinine the affront, it seems like boycotts never get enough people behind them and even those that do join in tend to buy the game anyway. But what if you could play and still make your stance.

What if instead of telling everyone to not play the game,would be boycotters encouraged people to take the jolly roger approach instead? This idea has been swirling around my head for a while now, and I'm wondering what the Escapist thinks.

For one, its illegal.

Secondly,the point of a boycott is to tell someone 'no, I won't buy your product because I do not approve of your business methods.' what you're suggesting is that we change that to 'I do not approve of your business methods, so I'm just going to take your product illegally instead.'. That's just as bad as buying the game anyways, because worse comes to worse, you could actually lose people to it and those people in turn could buy DLC or the actual game. Heck, some of those few people who pirated might even buy the sequel to said game if it made enough money.

Third, A boycott is to try and change something. If you boycott a game because of DRM, there isn't much the developer can do and they may even get the message. If you pirate a game because of DRM, that's just gonna give them even more grounds to release more DRM.

 

[kebab4you]

Nope, boycott whatever you want but the moment you decided to pirate the game it´s obvious worth your time and as thus also your money.

 

[Nokiro]

"I protest your game by downloading and playing it anyways."

The whole point of a boycott is to GIVE UP something to screw over its makers. All you've communicated with this method is A. "I'm an entitled twat who deserves no respect", B. "I love your game anyways, as I insist on playing it", and C. that an unbreakable (read: ludicrous) DRM needs to be found as soon as possible.

Go ahead, screw yourselves over. I don't play many AAA games anyways.

This is full of Win.

The best way to boycott a game is simply not to buy it.

 

[Gigano]

Well, making your stance by breaking the law - and revealing that you liked the game enough to play it - isn't exactly any way to make a convincing argument from an ethical position. The arguments of criminals are easily dismissed.

If something is worth boycotting, then it's because its negative aspects outweigh the positive ones anyway. So any game worth boycotting isn't even one you should be wanting to play in the first place.

 

[MisterShine]

"I protest your game by downloading and playing it anyways."

The whole point of a boycott is to GIVE UP something to screw over its makers. All you've communicated with this method is A. "I'm an entitled twat who deserves no respect", B. "I love your game anyways, as I insist on playing it", and C. that an unbreakable (read: ludicrous) DRM needs to be found as soon as possible.

I was going to say something along this line and add my apologies that I hadn't read the entire thread, but it seems the first post pretty much nails the hammer to the head.

Pirating a game shows that you value the product, which gives the publisher more right to put more DRM on their game, since obviously people want their product.