Why do people think it's ok to pirate games?

[Cody211282]

I have been thinking about this for a while now and can't seem to come up with a good reason why someone would pirate a game. My line of thinking is since you didn't pay for it your stealing, and well stealing is wrong and a criminal action thus don't pirate game. But there has to be a reason so many people pirate games, maybe I just don't get it or haven't heard the right reason, "Because I can" "I don't have the money to spend on games/don't want to spend money on games" are the ones I hear most and they are not even that good of reasons to do it.
So I was wondering if anyone else had an incite or have heard a good argument for it?

 

[Aura Guardian]

Because they have no money. So that's why they think it's ok to steal them

 

[Radeonx]

Well, the main reasons I would pirate a game would be:
1. I don't feel like paying for it.
2. I don't feel like going to a store to buy it.
Of course, it's not justifiable, but if I were to be a pirate, I wouldn't care about your opinion of me.
3. It's also very easy to pirate tons of things without getting caught, depending on how careful the pirate is.

 

[gigastrike]

Why buy the cow when you can have someone secretly clone the cow and then give you the clone for free?

 

[nick n stuff]

just don't do it. what's the point. you just end up feeling dirty

 

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I'd say it's because it's nearly impossible to be caught.

 

[Irridium]

I agree those reasons are pretty crap. If you don't want to/can't spend money on it, then you shouldn't be able to play it until you want to/can.

Pirating it just to save a buck is stupid and childish. If you can't get it then go without.

But some reasons I don't have much of a problem with is if you can get the game no other way, if the game has insanely bad and stupid DRM, and if your original game breaks somehow.

If you can buy it somehow, and it doesn't have intrusive DRM, then buy it to play it, or don't.

Pirating "just to prove a point" is also stupid as hell. The only point you'd be proving is why Publishers need the DRM.

 

[Terramax]

The same reason why I can't find a good argument for game companies charging me £45 for a game that's too short (yet, oddly, the gameplay has been doubled through pointless grinding, minigames or sidequests), buggy, has DRM, is merely an expansion pack to a previous title, or simply plays bad. Especially ones that DON'T EVEN PROVIDE US A DEMO!

I'm looking at you EA and Activision. Why no demos of your latest FPS?

just don't do it. what's the point. you just end up feeling dirty

I like feeling dirty >

 

[Galad]

Here's some insight on the question in the topic.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.177814-From-Russia-with-Love-On-piracy

 

[ottenni]

The only time a support the illegal downloading of games is when the game is not available by any other means. And those games do exist. But the chances that said game is not for sale somewhere on the net are slim.

 

[Veleste]

I'm fairly certain Game pirating of new releases is done by a very small minority. It is usually only done if a game comes out in one country before another or for really old games. Hell, even I have emulators on my computer and am guilty of sneaking a peak at games I want to buy that aren't out in Europe yet.

Movie pirating is much more common for obvious reasons, I myself often download tv shows that have a delay or are not aired in Europe so I can keep up to date. I do love me some Craig Ferguson but alas, no American tv channels in Ireland

Kotaku published a survey of gamers recently and one part dealt with pirating.

http://kotaku.com/5500495/kotaku-census-2010-the-results-in-full

 

[cartzo]

it rather depends on the game i think, if it's an old game that the company no longer makes money out of then i think it is ok, i know it can never be legally for lots of boring reasons, but i don't see a problem with downloading pre-existing data that the owner is now longer using, it's like scrounging from somebodies skip.

 

[Floppertje]

it's not just: I don't have enough money
It's more that if I pirate a game, I think I might like it, but I wouldn't buy it if I couldn't pirate it. I just wouldn't play it at all.
apart from that, if you know there's a 'shop' where they give you anything you want for free and nobody is going to arrest you or even make you pay a fine, even though you know it's illegal, you'd probably go there.
anyway, I don't really pirate that much games cause i'm a console gamer.

 

[Cody211282]

I'd say it's because it's nearly impossible to be caught.

It's also rather easy to steal old cars and sell them to chop shops but there isn't an epidemic of that. The sad thing is that is that means most people have almost no morals.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I'd say not having enough money is a pretty good reason. But other than that I'm mostly against pirating as well. I wouldn't pirate any recent games because you usually need a legitimate copy to participate in multi-player but as for emulated games, I tend to download a lot of ROMs. But then, it's legal to download if you own the hard copy, although that doesn't exactly make it illegal pirating...

I'll come back when I stop contradicting myself.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Because the goddamn disc is broken for the PS1, and I want to play Legend of Mana again damn it.

Nah.
I'd gladly pay for legal PS1 ROMs if I could.

[HEADING=2]EVEN IF YOU OWN THE GAME, DOWNLOADING A ROM OF IT IS STILL ILLEGAL![/HEADING]

 

[LordZ]

Copying is not stealing. Did you steal from your parents as you mimicked them to learn how to communicate? You learn by copying others. It's our primary way of gaining knowledge. It's easy to dismiss the concern of the legality of a fundamental function of life.

It's stealing if you go into a store and take a game off the shelf and leave with it, without paying. There is no doubt about that because the store suffered a loss without any form of compensation. There is no loss involved in copying.

However, businesses do require profits to continue to function. If people only copy and never contribute to the business, it will fail. It is for this reason and this reason only that it is important to buy a game rather than copy it. This sense of entitlement brought on by the copyright and patent systems is ruining the primary purpose of those very systems. They were created to reward creativity and innovation. They were not created to make people feel they are entitled to compensation for having an idea.

If you're the type to blindly follow something because it is the law then I have no interest in even having a discussion with you because you will never understand. Law does not equate to right or wrong.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Some people have a very different ideology about intellectual property than the mainsteam.

"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."

- John Lennon

This is very similar to how I view music, speaking from the perspective of a somewhat less famous (completely unknown) musician.

This ideology can also be applied to games.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

i download pirated games when there is no demo available ... if i like the game, then i buy it, just to support the developers