So what if I pirate games, why should you care?

[Twilight_guy]

Because I paid money for a game and that guy didn't. It may be a petty reason but you'd be surprised to see how much of the law revolves around stopping this kind of behavior. On top of that, I personally hope to work in the games industry some day so it burns my biscuits when people pirate things.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm of the Neil Gaiman opinion on this. That man is brilliant.

 

[spartan231490]

Because it's still wrong, and still hurts the developer so they have to cut production costs and produce fewer risky inovative games, which still hurts my gaming exp.

 

[zehydra]

And before anyone says that they lose money from pirating; they don't, so don't say "Because it directly harms the industry blah blah blah", because it doesn't. It just causes a loss of a sale that may not have even been a sale to begin with.

The fact is, it might have been a sale. If the person would have bought a game if they hadn't pirated it, it's a lost sale

But that's besides the point. Why should pirates have to pay for something that a team has put a lot of time and effort into creating? Regardless of whether or not they would have bought it, they did not buy it, and therefore are getting a product for free that should have cost them money

A think that a lot of the reason that people dislike pirates is the sense of entitlement. Why should anyone get something for free that others have had to pay for, and that a team has spent a lot of time and effort creating?

I dunno man, I pirate games because I want to see if they're worth buying. Mirror's Edge great example - pirated it, got about a quarter of the way through, and knew I would buy it (have since bought it again but on PS3 for my housemates). Contrastingly, I pirated MW2 and played a few levels, wasn't really impressed so deleted it and never got very far through. I think it's only fair to reward developers, but I don't see why I should have to risk such a large amount of money for something there's a pretty good chance I won't like. All that said, I really don't pirate games much, and where I do, I'm probably more choosy than most people buying their games (I really don't like the idea of buying a bad game, and the conversion rate of pirated-to-bought is over 50% - a figure that also doesn't reflect the sales that companies have garnered from releasing sequels to games I played, enjoyed, and bought, only because I pirated them in the first place.

I'm not sure about the figures but I wouldn't be surprised if new IPs did proportionately better on PCs than on consoles because of this lower barrier to trying them. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the other way round either, I'm not convinced that that many of those giving these IPs a chance would then go on to buy them.

You can always sell the game. It's not THAT big of a monetary risk.

Sell a PC game? Really?

I meant with console games.

 

[F-I-D-O]

Well...
Pirating games means not giving money to developers
When developers don't get money, they might play it safer instead of taking risks on new IPs.
Also, with less money they can't make any more games.
And with developers making fewer games, I have a smaller group of games to choose from and purchase.
And that means that pirates are hurting my gaming experience. That's why I care.

"wouldn't have bought it anyway" is an awful, awful excuse.

Like I said before, pirating is outright theft. You're using software owned by someone else, who is registered to sell it, without permission and without paying. So, the above excuse would in theory be applied to any other form of theft, right?

Somebody shoplifts and the freaking alarm goes off. Mall security or something surrounds you. "Oh it's okay, I wasn't going to buy this thing if I couldn't steal it anyway, so it's okay."

How do you honestly think that testimony would go down in a court of law?

The wouldn't have bought it anyway irks me too.
Oh, you wouldn't have bought it? THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU DOWNLOAD IT?
Granted, I have downloaded things from PS+ for free that I wouldn't have paid for (individually) anyway. For example, I'm not a big adventure game fan. But after getting Sam and Maz Devil's Playhouse (complete season) for free, I ain't complaining. That said, I legitimately PAY for this service, so Sony/developers still get some.

2.

It DOES hurt the industry. Just because they are making a lot of money already, doesn't mean that they deserve to lose potential profits. Those potential profits could fund a riskier less-main stream title, too.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind making some companies lose "potential profits."
For example, Call of Duty.

They earned their success, regardless of your personal opinion on the company or quality of the CoD series. We can't make exceptions just because you don't like the company policies.

This as well.
I don't like the developer/publisher.
Ok, don't get the game. Problem solved. You don't play a game from an "evil" dev/pub, and they don't get your money. Popular things are usually popular for a reason.

 

[josemlopes]

And before anyone says that they lose money from pirating; they don't, so don't say "Because it directly harms the industry blah blah blah", because it doesn't. It just causes a loss of a sale that may not have even been a sale to begin with.

The fact is, it might have been a sale. If the person would have bought a game if they hadn't pirated it, it's a lost sale

But that's besides the point. Why should pirates have to pay for something that a team has put a lot of time and effort into creating? Regardless of whether or not they would have bought it, they did not buy it, and therefore are getting a product for free that should have cost them money

A think that a lot of the reason that people dislike pirates is the sense of entitlement. Why should anyone get something for free that others have had to pay for, and that a team has spent a lot of time and effort creating?

I dunno man, I pirate games because I want to see if they're worth buying. Mirror's Edge great example - pirated it, got about a quarter of the way through, and knew I would buy it (have since bought it again but on PS3 for my housemates). Contrastingly, I pirated MW2 and played a few levels, wasn't really impressed so deleted it and never got very far through. I think it's only fair to reward developers, but I don't see why I should have to risk such a large amount of money for something there's a pretty good chance I won't like. All that said, I really don't pirate games much, and where I do, I'm probably more choosy than most people buying their games (I really don't like the idea of buying a bad game, and the conversion rate of pirated-to-bought is over 50% - a figure that also doesn't reflect the sales that companies have garnered from releasing sequels to games I played, enjoyed, and bought, only because I pirated them in the first place.

I'm not sure about the figures but I wouldn't be surprised if new IPs did proportionately better on PCs than on consoles because of this lower barrier to trying them. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the other way round either, I'm not convinced that that many of those giving these IPs a chance would then go on to buy them.

You can always sell the game. It's not THAT big of a monetary risk.

Sell a PC game? Really?

I meant with console games.

Where I live selling games is not worth at all, I dont even consider it. I prefer having the game collecting dust then just getting 5 lousy euros for it. One day I may get in the mood for it and give it another shot. So yeah, in here you buy you keep.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Why should I care? For practical purposes, I don't really.
It's out of my control whether such actions occur or not.

I do know the economic ramifications of piracy though, and to pretend that it doesn't effect what games get made is to be willingly ignorant to the point of stupid.

But again, since such actions are largely out of my power I have little to say on the matter.
Though it is fascinating how many people here love to use meaningless rhetoric to support piracy (though they obviously cannot say so directly for fear of the banhammer).

 

[Jewrean]

A great valid justification for piracy

I pirated Mortal Kombat because it is banned in my country by a bunch of old pussies. How else am I meant to play a game I like?

For the record: If it had of came out here, I would have bought it real. I made a pre-order.

 

[Kadoodle]

Three reasons:

1.

They can, will, and have tightened DRM belts before.

I can't even play most of my XBLA titles with my Xbox offline. The only ones I can play are the recently played ones, too. Thankfully, all of my PS3 titles are playable offline, even Trine. Which I got and last played the same week I bought it, 8 months ago. And the Wii? I can only play games on my memory stick, on the Wii I bought it on. And I see no way to transfer ownership rights to a new system.

2.

It DOES hurt the industry. Just because they are making a lot of money already, doesn't mean that they deserve to lose potential profits. Those potential profits could fund a riskier less-main stream title, too.

3.

Because hacking makes me update my shit pointlessly. PS3 isn't the only offender in anti-piracy updating. Just the biggest. >_>

This.

 

[mjc0961]

Also no matter how rampant piracy on a console, they cannot put any DRM that's comparable to the ones on the PC.

Okay, I had to stop there. You go try and tell that to everyone who has some Capcom PSN titles that they can't play because a connection to PSN is required to boot the game and PSN is down right now. Because I think they would disagree that consoles can't have the same level of intrusive DRM as PCs do, and they would be right.

They can, will, and have tightened DRM belts before.

I can't even play most of my XBLA titles with my Xbox offline. The only ones I can play are the recently played ones, too.

The only ones you can play are the recently played ones, or the recently purchased ones? Because this sounds an awful lot like you had to get a new 360 but didn't do a license transfer.

http://www.xbox.com/drm/

Just log in, click the link that says "Start the license transfer process now.", and then enter your password again (for extra security they say). Then it takes you to a screen that shows your various console IDs and how many licenses you have on each of them. If you have multiple consoles listed, bam, that is your problem and you should continue with the steps the page gives you.

If not, I guess more 360 arcade games had more fun DRM surprises than I was previously aware of.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

i don't care. i could be wrong but i see it as: Someone buys a game and then puts it online for free. if this is hurting the game industry then buying an apple and half to your friend is piracy! NO MORE SHARING!!

 

[mjc0961]

i don't care. i could be wrong but i see it as: Someone buys a game and then puts it online for free. if this is hurting the game industry then buying an apple and half to your friend is piracy! NO MORE SHARING!!

If you give your friend half your apple, you don't have all of your apple anymore. If you burn your friend a copy of your game, you still have your full copy of a game and your friend also has a full copy of a game.

That's the difference: sharing a game would be letting your friend borrow your copy, and while he has it you can't play it anymore. Making him a copy isn't "sharing" in the sense that the law is okay with.

 

[Levethian]

Somebody shoplifts and the freaking alarm goes off. Mall security surrounds you. "Oh it's okay, I wasn't going to buy this thing if I couldn't steal it anyway, so it's okay."

How do you honestly think that testimony would go down in a court of law?

I see no sensible practical comparison between stealing "for real" and making digital copies. For 'outright theft' to apply, something would have to go missing from someone else.

Piracy is clearly wrong, but we shouldn't be so black & white about it. Piracy is easily rationalised by pirates, which can't be said for stealing a handbag or whatever.

 

[b3nn3tt]

Somebody shoplifts and the freaking alarm goes off. Mall security surrounds you. "Oh it's okay, I wasn't going to buy this thing if I couldn't steal it anyway, so it's okay."

How do you honestly think that testimony would go down in a court of law?

I see no sensible practical comparison between stealing "for real" and making digital copies. For 'outright theft' to apply, something would have to go missing from someone else.

Piracy is clearly wrong, but we shouldn't be so black & white about it. Piracy is easily rationalised by pirates, which can't be said for stealing a handbag or whatever.

I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of people who rationalise theft because they 'can't afford it', which is a pretty common excuse for piracy. In neither case does it actually make it ok

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I guess pirating can be pretty douchey, but at the same time the moral-crusading that goes on is incredibly douchey.

I do buy my games, not based on any moral-allignment, I just do, without thinking...I see it, I want it, I whip out the debit card...but the wishes and fortunes of the developers don't factor into my decision in any way. I'm not nearly that nice, if I was I'd probably be giving my money to charity to help Haiti or Africa...impoverished people who have no idea what a Playstation is, rather than buying myself yet another frickin' homogenous militiary game.

Are you people really so offended that others aren't getting teary-eyed over big-business not making as much profit as is possible from what they've made? Honestly? Knowing full-well that the people making the games are probably better-off and have greater job-satisfaction than you ever will, and are similiarly self-involved and decadent in their own lives.

Your stunted and narrow ideas on morality are worthless. It's data for entertainment, that's all...

I know that people like to champion that "people suck" and are "stupid" and "selfish" and all that, around here. But please understand that that totally includes you people as well. You're not exempt from being a selfish-asshole, you just have the mis-fortune of not realising that you're a hypocrite on top of that.

 

[Radeonx]

No one should care in the slightest, but people love to be moral asshats and spew their opinions onto others.

And before anyone says that they lose money from pirating; they don't, so don't say "Because it directly harms the industry blah blah blah", because it doesn't.

Right because being able to get the game for free can't possibly hurt their ability to sell it.

It does hurt the industry whether you care to admit it or not.

I've said in multiple other posts that it does harm the industry, just not as much as people think.

 

[LitleWaffle]

And before anyone says that they lose money from pirating; they don't, so don't say "Because it directly harms the industry blah blah blah", because it doesn't. It just causes a loss of a sale that may not have even been a sale to begin with.

The fact is, it might have been a sale. If the person would have bought a game if they hadn't pirated it, it's a lost sale

But that's besides the point. Why should pirates have to pay for something that a team has put a lot of time and effort into creating? Regardless of whether or not they would have bought it, they did not buy it, and therefore are getting a product for free that should have cost them money

A think that a lot of the reason that people dislike pirates is the sense of entitlement. Why should anyone get something for free that others have had to pay for, and that a team has spent a lot of time and effort creating?

Playing the devil's advocate here, but they didn't have to pay for it. They could have pirated too.

It comes down to why some people pay and some don't. The people that pay do so because they want to reward the people who put their time and effort into creating something for entertainment. The people that don't pay do so simply because the don't want to pay. If everyone pirated, the games industry would die overnight. There is no way of justifying piracy, and that is why many many people don't do it

True, but your logic is also fairly similar to my prediction of people who pirate. "If so many people buy the game, it won't matter to the industry if I don't."

It is a cycle of morals. The good people buy the games because they love the industry and their products and don't want it to fall apart by so many people pirating. The bad people will pirate making unsubstantial excuses as to why it is okay for them to pirate, such as a lot of people buy games, so just one person to pirate wouldn't hurt the industry, or I don't have the money to buy it, or something else that is completely silly.

It is a moral debate that has already been won, but the final decision has yet to been inflicted upon the sore losers that want everything forever with no sacrifice of their own.

 

[Brawndo]

Edited, never mind. Ignore