Poll: Your feelings of game pirating.

[oppp7]

I only believe in pirating life.
...Sadly, I doubt anyone knows what that is or anything about patents on crops.

 

[Lullabye]

Only old games and games that have sold millions of copies(and as a result never go down in price, meaning you won't be able to afford it.)

 

[Hobo Joe]

No, never. You're stealing money from people with actual creativity. If people pirate pop music that's another story.

 

[McKillaboy]

I usually buy second hand games, or I pirate a new game and later when it drops in price I'll buy it anyways.

 

[Alphavillain]

It's illegal, so you shouldn't do it. All those poor publishers who aren't getting their money because of piracy.

Remember, kids: just say no.

 

[szaleniec1000]

If it's unavailable legally for whatever reason, I'll download it. Otherwise not.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

Only pirate the game if its old and you can't find it anywhere.

 

[Buleet]

I do it sometimes for those old gameboy games you cant find anywhere anymore.Though i generlly just buy the games if i can find them.

 

[Flare Phoenix]

If it's unavailable legally for whatever reason, I'll download it. Otherwise not.

I agree with you. I've had it happen a few times, I'll be buying an anime series on DVD only to have the company stop releasing them due to lack of sales. If the company itself isn't releasing legal copies I can easily get access to, I don't think there is anything wrong with downloading the episodes. The same amount of money is going to the company

As for games, generally I don't download them, but that's mostly because I don't play a lot of them. If it's an old game you can only buy on eBay I will though (regardless of whether or not the company is still running). However, should a remake/rerelease of the game should be made available, I'll get it.

Simply put, if a legal copy is not available, I'll go for an illegal one. I do, sometimes, download the first few episodes of a series just to see what it is like. If I like them, I'll go out and find the series. If not, I'll move on. No different from watching the show on T.V. in my opinion, or playing a free demo of the game.

 

[Tharwen]

I don't like it, but I like to think I only do it to games I would never have bought anyway (and I often buy a pirated game afterwards if I lieks it)

 

[Ajunoo]

Well is it right to trick people into buying an unfinished and bugged product? It's lawful yes but no less piracy when you think about it. I have bought games and later thought : "oh you have GOT to be kidding me. Thats all?". Kotor 2 was like that a little. It had "unfinished" just written all over it. Or when you legally buy a game and the Copy protection screws up your whole system, while the ppl who cracked it laugh at you. I'm sure almost everyone has experienced such a bugfest that a company called a game.

Do you believe for one second that a big corporation thinks about what is right? If you do...well I had to say VERY naive of you (sugarcoating does not seem appropriate anymore for this sentence). If they think they can get away with it - they do it. Morals are just for the small people. Just watch the politicians and you will soon enough realize that. So no, I don't have a problem with piracy. But I have bought many games I liked later.

 

[tgcPheonix]

Old games, or if a free Demo isn't available which is coming more common these days :/

 

[Who Dares Wins]

No money to buy the original, PIRATES ARE HERE ARGHHH!!! Seriously, original games are fucking expensive. (and not available in my country, do NOT tell me STEAM, I prefer to have a material copy of something I bought)

 

[Xaryn Mar]

Now I have been a gamer for a while. Pirating has been around almost as long as file sharing on the internet has been widely available. Whether it was napster and downloading music or now we have torrents and pretty much any digital media available to download whenever we want.

Just a nitpick. Pirating has been around much much longer than filesharing on the internet. Copying the old C64 tapes og Amiga 500 disk was THE way to get new games at the time (unless you where rich and lived in a large city where you might be lucky enough to actually find the games in stores). Copyparties where big events.

 

[JEBWrench]

I do go the abandonware route, I'm sorry to say. But usually I stick to liberated games on that front.

 

[JEBWrench]

Just a nitpick. Pirating has been around much much longer than filesharing on the internet. Copying the old C64 tapes og Amiga 500 disk was THE way to get new games at the time (unless you where rich and lived in a large city where you might be lucky enough to actually find the games in stores). Copyparties where big events.

Don't forget hand-copying the SimCity code sheet because you couldn't Xero.... Photostat it.

 

[ninjapenguin981]

No, I don't agree with pirating anything.

 

[S_K]

Pirating is one option to try out the game before buying a real copy (especially since Game Fly doesn't do PC games). I think game developers should quit spending money on anti-piracy measures. It's enough that pirated games can't access online servers, so multiplayer isn't an option. That removes enough functionality that, if someone loves the game that much, they'll probably buy the real thing.

What he said, the only times I would even consider piracy is if either the game is rare, overpriced, old and hard to find or I've had to chip my console to play some game that will never come out over here (I'm looking at you proper version of street fighter anniversary collection on ps2 -_- them not releasing the full version anywhere other then the USA is just pure lazyness and hell I still imported that one I didn't pirate it =P)

 

[MercurySteam]

I have pirated some games though I have my anti-guilt mechanism, my Xbox 360. Seriously, I spend so much money on games and stuff for it I have no reason to feel guilty for anything.

 

[neurohazzard]

Home taping is killing the music industry!....err, wait....

(sorry, just had to say it, surprised no one else did)

I use to pirate a lot back when I was young and broke as hell, it's not like I was taking potential money away from the industry cause I didn't have any damn money.
These days I generally only do it if the game comes with hostile DRM that I don't want on my computer, which is kind of sad in of itself, pirating use to net you an inferior product, but as DRM grows more hostile pirate copies actually become preferable
Also, I use steam a lot now, since I can get indy games for under $5 (and oh man, some of the sales ^_^). People ***** about the online aspect of steam, but you can't really have digital distribution without being online, and if you're offline you can play your single player games in "offline mode" anyways.

As a final aside, one of my goals in life is to become an indy game designer, and I'ma say this for the record now: If you can't afford a few bucks for an indy game, feel free to pirate games I make, because chances are you're worse off then I am. Frankly anyone who would launch a million dollar lawsuit against a poor single mother for pirating something needs to be dragged out into the street and beaten.