Poll: What's wrong with piracy

[Magnicon]

There is another website I frequent. During a podcast they had this very same discussion. To paraphrase a paraphrased quote made by one of the members of the podcast; Piracy is like a hole in the fence of a popular amusement park. People can sneak in through that hole and ride free rides all day. However, this is terribly unfair to anyone not utilizing that hole in the fence. The park is kept running by the people buying tickets. The more people using that gap in the fence, the higher ticket prices are raised, and now these people who were doing the right thing all along are being punished for the disobedience of others.

Yes, games like MW3 and Skyrim are still making millions, but because there are contributing citizens paying for them. Those who pirate are stealing, not only from the industry, but from those citizens; their fellow gamers.

So, in short, it is unfair and insensitive. That is why it's wrong.

Yeah. Thats not how it works at all. The most successful games are the ones that tend to be the most expensive.

The overall cost of games has gone up because EVERYTHING has gone up in every single market. That is how the market system works.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

Since this is the fourth time I have been in a argument about piracy in two weeks, one time with a teacher, I just going to say this.

Piracy is not a black and white issues as people try to make it. It is a very grey subject because simply put, it is hard to nail facts for both sides.

Publishers don't seem to realize that one pirate copy does not equal in a lost sale. all it takes is for the pirate to buy the game to even it out. The problem with this also is a lot of Countries HAVE to pirate because it is sometimes the only way to get a hold of these games. Publisher have full rights to protect there IP's and I encourage it but DRM right now is not the answer. You are wasting time putting it in and your treat every customer like a thief when you do. DRM is built by man and it only takes one to destroy it.

On the other side, Pirates need to stop justifying themselves and acting like they are fighting the good fight. You are not fooling anyone, your a thief, own up. Yes I'm well aware that nothing is going missing but that isn't what your stealing. Video Games are an art of refining a experience that you interact with. The developers than sell this experience in hopes that they will make money on it. If you are experiencing it without paying for it, YOU ARE STEALING! end of discussion.

Just an opinion from gamer who has played like a thief.

 

[Peteron]

Piracy is stealing, stealing is bad. Not that hard to figure out.

Piracy is sharing, sharing is good, sharing leads to awareness, awareness increases fan base if the product is good, fan base leads to sales. Only slightly harder to figure out.

No. "Sharing" would be OK if it was at the company's consent, but its not. Thus, its stealing. You are not bothering to pay for the hard work a group put into making a game, so you resort to breaking the law. Sharing would be buying the game, and letting your friend borrow/play it. This allows you to give the company the credit it deserves. You have some flawed logic.

 

[b3nn3tt]

'People spent time and money creating something, and would like compensation from those who want to enjoy the finished product. But actually I think I'll just acquire it for free.'

Yes, piracy is morally wrong. A lot goes into making a game, what gives anyone the right to then play it for free?

As a side note; to those who say that piracy is more forgivable when the game has sold well, where is the cut-off point where piracy is acceptable? What if it sells a million units? What about 900,000? What about 100,000? Either piracy is acceptable no matter the number of sales, or it isn't acceptable at all. I say it's the latter.

EDIT: In my opinion, the only time it is acceptable to pirate is when you already own the game (but not if you've lost or damaged the disc) or if there is literally no legal way to obtain it in your country. Even in these cases, it remains a grey area.

 

[Magnicon]

Piracy is stealing, stealing is bad. Not that hard to figure out.

Piracy is sharing, sharing is good, sharing leads to awareness, awareness increases fan base if the product is good, fan base leads to sales. Only slightly harder to figure out.

No. "Sharing" would be OK if it was at the company's consent, but its not. Thus, its stealing. You are not bothering to pay for the hard work a group put into making a game, so you resort to breaking the law. Sharing would be buying the game, and letting your friend borrow/play it. This allows you to give the company the credit it deserves. You have some flawed logic.

Are you for real?

You're saying that if I buy a game, and let my friend borrow it, that that would be ok and support the company. That is 100% exactly what piracy is. Someone buys the game, then lets others play it. You made a self defeating point.

BTW: The gaming industry is AGAINST people letting friends share/borrow their games.

Flawed logic indeed.

 

[Ympulse]

Oh btw, if you just make every game need some system like Steam to be able to boot it, then piracy would not exist

Quoting for most unintentionally hilarious post of this thread.

 

[Romblen]

Yes, piracy is wrong. Game companies spend a lot of money making their games. Even if piracy only represents a lost sale, the missing revenue can keep them from making a profit.

I always love the arguments about sharing it with one friend is looked down upon. We all know that sharing it with one or two friends is not the issue, the issue is sharing it with thousands, if not millions of people.

To me, piracy is only acceptable if you already previously bought the game. What matters is that the developer received their payment for their product.

 

[DracoSuave]

Games aren't a service. They're a good. I can't be providing a service if I'm sitting on my backside doing nothing with no loss incurred. For example if I lent you the use of my garage for a day that would be a 'service' because I could otherwise be using it to sell lemonade from.

http://www.differencebetween.net/business/difference-between-goods-and-services/

Then by using a good without permission, you are depriving them of the rights to their goods.

You can't have it both ways; if it's a good, then you're using someone's property without permission, and if it's a service, you're using a service without compensation.

Fact is, I get people being upset about the erosion of property rights for consumers. Hell ya. Totally get that.

Which is why piracy is hypocritical. If you gave a shit about property rights, you'd respect them. Pirates don't. Bottom line.

 

[Peteron]

Piracy is stealing, stealing is bad. Not that hard to figure out.

Piracy is sharing, sharing is good, sharing leads to awareness, awareness increases fan base if the product is good, fan base leads to sales. Only slightly harder to figure out.

No. "Sharing" would be OK if it was at the company's consent, but its not. Thus, its stealing. You are not bothering to pay for the hard work a group put into making a game, so you resort to breaking the law. Sharing would be buying the game, and letting your friend borrow/play it. This allows you to give the company the credit it deserves. You have some flawed logic.

Are you for real?

You're saying that if I buy a game, and let my friend borrow it, that that would be ok and support the company. That is 100% exactly what piracy is. Someone buys the game, then lets others play it. You made a self defeating point.

BTW: The gaming industry is AGAINST people letting friends share/borrow their games.

Flawed logic indeed.

Nope. Borrowing and stealing are two different things, champ. Many people like to look and see whether the game is worth the money or not. So, you may find this flawed, and that's cool and all, but your wrong. What it gets down to, is that one is illegal, and ones not. Don't like it, deal with it. And no, borrowing doesn't follow the definition of piracy.

 

[Lhynn]

Assuming that every pirated game would have been a sale is a fucked up kind of logic.

Most people pirate because they cant afford or are not all that interested in the game. Game devs are fucked up in the sense that they are trying to stop piracy, when they should offer advantajes to those that dont pirate the game.

That way, people with the money can enjoy a good game and a good service. instead we get DRM and stupid protections that shorten our play time. When i buy a game i usually inmediatly crack it, because its faster, and i know the game cant fuck up my comp in any way, no origin or things like that.

 

[The Chaz]

Yeah. Thats not how it works at all. The most successful games are the ones that tend to be the most expensive.

The overall cost of games has gone up because EVERYTHING has gone up in every single market. That is how the market system works.

My theme park example was a metaphor, as was the bit about the rise of ticket prices. The rise in ticket prices represents penalty. In fact, your statement, "the cost of games has gone up because EVERYTHING has gone up in every single market" is false. I assume you're referring to inflation. Inflation occurs when the volume of money increases, thus decreasing the dollar value. Even though the price tags read a dollar or so higher, things are just as affordable. The game's price is not my strict concern.

If you go back and read my original statement, I said, "now these people who were doing the right thing all along are being punished for the disobedience of others." That is my concern. Valve Co-founder, Gabe Newell, has spoken multiple times on companies attempting to battle piracy by "inconveniencing" customers. That's that punishment thing I was talking about.

Furthermore, who regulates piracy? You know, that guy who says who can steal and who can't, what's his name? Dammit, it's right on the tip of my tongue! This is going to bother me all day!

Yes, if Activision makes $3,000,000.00 in sales, and lose $6,000,000.00 due to pirating -it is true- they have still earned $3,000,000.00 dollars. But, again, who says it will stop at $6,000,000.00? What happens when the revenue lost due to shrink surpasses what is considered "acceptable"? You can expect some of that inconveniencing to be coming your way.

So, again, my issue is not that video game prices have risen due to piracy, or even that they will raise. My issue is that it is unfair. Transactions on this level are simple. You give, you get. Pay money, get game. Give game, get money.

In closing, I would like to regurgitate myself again, "Those who pirate are stealing, not only from the industry, but from those citizens; their fellow gamers. So, in short, it is unfair and insensitive. That is why it's wrong."

 

[Vault101]

stealing or not..hurting the industry or not

Piracy is the reason DRM exists

 

[LBringer]

Text Wall Incoming:

With the example with the amusement park, (I'll bite) make the fence not chain link but 50 meter high meter thick cement walls so no one can see in and then advertised with a lot of flashy stuff that may or may not have anything to do with the park itself (but hey, it looks sexy).

I'm not saying piracy is 'right', but as companies are trying to drain everyone of their last cent because Cliffy needs another Ferrari to drive I think it's going a bit overboard. The problem is that everything's starting to hit way outside a median. Developers are getting screwed by their publishers because the publishers want more money to play with (hell, some publishing heads don't even LIKE games, but want some crap pushed out yearly for the money), publishers want to force more purchases to they implement DRM (even though piracy has been around since before Doom, and keep in mind they HIRE DRM companies to do this for them in a lot of cases, increasing prices). Do the developers deserve the support? Sure, but perhaps some of that should be from the publishing companies that are the ones that make money hand over fist.

Honestly, I look at piracy (while it is this LITTLE), as something that actually is necessary in this economy. In some cases, that's word of mouth that creates a sale, in some cases the pirate buys it, in others is stops sales because the game is crap or someone simply doesn't buy it. WHY they don't buy it can take many forms from outright a-holes that are simply self entitled to the people who are extremely long time fans but just can't afford it at the moment (this also leads heavily to used game sales or people waiting the month or two before the game drops in price by 25-50%).

If the publishers didn't try to scam people with cut out launch day DLC to $5/$10 people's wallets to death, the inflated value (single disc dual layer games with uncompressed textures for $60? really?), the massively inflated price of 'collector's editions' which are hacked up and want people to buy it 3x (from different stores) to get all of the 'collector edition' stuff (and even then charge $80-$150 per 'edition'), not even releasing DLC from consoles on PC (Saints Row 2); then perhaps people would buy the actual games more often. It also doesn't help that some of the 'elites that buy the games' like to ruin it for everyone else by spoiling stories or other things for the people that had to wait (Dumbledore dies btw).
When corporations fight dirty, fight dirty back (why take it in the tailpipe without even saying something).

tl;dr: Piracy in its current form is grey, it's both bad and good at the same time. Is it going to grow massively out of control? Not if the companies manage to shut the hell up about it and so the masses don't actually KNOW it's possible. Is it a POTENTIAL lost sale sure, but it for damn sure isn't even close to 1:1. Does it allow people that are huge fans to continue to enjoy and even potentially support the companies when they can? Sure. Is Piracy THEFT? No. Is it bad, yes. Is it the almighty SIN that people try to make it out to be? No.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

I keep hearing people pirating game just so they can try them out and then buy the actual game... WTF?!

1. You literary stole a copy of the full game.
2. Just because you can buy a copy doesn't mean the one you stole should of been on your computer in the first place.
3. What's going to stop you from just running off with that stolen copy anyway? It's the full game and you don't need to do anything else.
4. Um... don't do it?

 

[Singularly Datarific]

I see it as wrong if the product still has a viable alternative to piracy.
If it is a 15 year old game that nobody sells anymore, I say go on ahead.

EDIT: Piracy exists because it is a BETTER alternative to buying DRM-loaded $60 games. When you make it more annoying to the people that actually BUY the damn game, then it's only going to ruin it for them more. You're advertising piracy when you only punish the people that buy the real game. I mean- always-on DRM?!? How stupid are you?!? How do you think that that will combat piracy?!?

 

[MPerce]

...piracy is wrong because it's stealing. It's taking someone's work and not paying for it. That's not fair. The end.
Even if the game made a lot of money, it's still wrong. You didn't personally destroy the game studio, but that's still money that deserves to be in that developer's hands.

 

[Savagezion]

2. Just because you can buy a copy doesn't mean the one you stole should of been on your computer in the first place.

Just because you have a copy of the game on your PC you got for free doesn't mean you will not support the game.

3. What's going to stop you from just running off with that stolen copy anyway? It's the full game and you don't need to do anything else.

The fact that people aren't dumb asses and know that buying the game supports the game? The fact that you are asking this only shows you clearly aren't responsible enough to be handed a free copy of the game to check it out and see if it is worth 60 bucks. The temptation is greater for some then others. That why there are people out there that pirate to get free stuff and some that don't. Life is kinda crazy like that sometimes.

 

[Wintermoot]

pirating new games means devs don,t get the money.
pirating old games means the seller won,t get any money.
I don,t see anything wrong with pirating old games/out of print/not available in your region since the dev,s don,t get an money anyway IMHO.
also some people want to freely modify/reinstall there games and allot of DRM prohibits this.