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

[Nerdygamer89]

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?

A good argument? Well, simply put, it isn't stealing. If I go out and steal a car, then I am taking a car away from someone else. If, however, I pirate a game/movie/song, the company that made it isn't losing anything, I'm just not giving them my money.

Sure, if you have the money to pay for the game, go ahead and pay for it and support the company that made it. But in a situation like mine, where your choices are either spend your food money on video games, don't buy any new games, or download a copy of it for free, then (I hate using this term) it's a victimless crime.

Once I have the time to get a full time job, and can afford more than the very basic necessities, I will go back to paying for my games in an effort to ensure those companies will keep making games, but until then I will pirate without regret because of the knowledge that I'm not hurting anyone or anything in doing so.

Well as i stated before it is stealing, you taking something you didn't pay for I know your not physically taking something from the company but the idea is the same, you think you deserve something you can't pay for and take it upon yourself to commit a theft and take the game you want. I don't have much money now, so I don't buy games ether, what I do is look for a job and wait until I have the money to buy what I want.

How is it still stealing if no loss is suffered on the part of the developer in the process? It would be like saying that taking a picture of the statue of liberty rather than taking the tour is stealing because it cost money to make the statue of liberty, right? So taking a picture, and thus getting to see the statue of liberty for free, rather than paying for a tour is obviously wrong. See the problem in logic there?

To clarify: you can't steal something that's infinitely copyable at no cost, when you didn't intend to pay for said copy in the first place. No loss is suffered by the developer under those circumstances.

 

[jasoncyrus]

there is a set of things that are right and wrong, stealing is wrong, killing is wrong, rape is wrong. You sir should have known this by know.

Moral relativism FTW. What if you killed someone who was highly likely to cause more death and overall human misery than you ever would just by killing him alone? At its core an action is just an action and 'good' an 'evil' are arbitrary tags tacked on by an observer from their skewed perspective or unique definition.

Indeed and we all know microsoft is inheritly evil thus anything made for it is evil thus there is no shame in stealing money from those evil-by-association people.

 

[Dahni]

I understand that but that's not what I was trying to say, I was saying that it was wrong to steal it, and they are no way entitled to free games.

can you not read?
THAT WAS NOT WHAT I TRIED TO SAY EITHER.

I said it was WRONG to steal it and I said gaming was not a right.

Why do you persist in arguing with me when I essentially said i agreed with you? -_-

 

[feather240]

Well, it's OK if the company is already treating you like a criminal like Ubisoft. The way I see it, with companies like these no matter what you do you are labeled a pirate. So better to be labeled a pirate and not spend money, then be labeled a pirate and give them your money. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Pirating it kinda validates their DRM, so yeah... I know assume you wouldn't pirate it if it was DRM free, but they don't know that.

I've only pirated games I have already bought or planned on buying. The only pirate pirating I've done is peer-to-peer, and I don't burn discs or anything.

 

[Threx]

Convenience and Price. Personally I don't pirate games I find it pointless for the economy but to be able to get a game from the comfort of your home, for free none the less I can see why people are "lured" to it.

 

[jasoncyrus]

I understand that but that's not what I was trying to say, I was saying that it was wrong to steal it, and they are no way entitled to free games.

can you not read?
THAT WAS NOT WHAT I TRIED TO SAY EITHER.

I said it was WRONG to steal it and I said gaming was not a right.

Why do you persist in arguing with me when I essentially said i agreed with you? -_-

Over charging for a inferior quality product and ripping off millions of children isnt a right either...but they still do it.

 

[lasherman]

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?

A good argument? Well, simply put, it isn't stealing. If I go out and steal a car, then I am taking a car away from someone else. If, however, I pirate a game/movie/song, the company that made it isn't losing anything, I'm just not giving them my money.

Sure, if you have the money to pay for the game, go ahead and pay for it and support the company that made it. But in a situation like mine, where your choices are either spend your food money on video games, don't buy any new games, or download a copy of it for free, then (I hate using this term) it's a victimless crime.

Once I have the time to get a full time job, and can afford more than the very basic necessities, I will go back to paying for my games in an effort to ensure those companies will keep making games, but until then I will pirate without regret because of the knowledge that I'm not hurting anyone or anything in doing so.

Well as i stated before it is stealing, you taking something you didn't pay for I know your not physically taking something from the company but the idea is the same, you think you deserve something you can't pay for and take it upon yourself to commit a theft and take the game you want. I don't have much money now, so I don't buy games ether, what I do is look for a job and wait until I have the money to buy what I want.

Yeah, but it isn't really "taking something you didn't pay for", it's taking a copy of something you didn't pay for. If you go out to a museum and snap a photo of the Mona Lisa, you now have a copy of the Mona Lisa which you didn't pay for, but would you consider that stealing?

Personally, I'm curious as to why you are so against pirating at all. Specifically in the situation I mentioned where someone is only pirating because they just can't afford to buy a copy.

I understand being opposed to pirating if you can easily afford to pay for it, or if you want to support a developer, but what is so wrong about taking a copy of something you wouldn't have paid money for in the first place? Even if you were to consider this stealing, surely you can admit that in this situation there is no actual negative impact on anyone?

Edit: Damn! Someone Ninja'd me on the 'take a photo of a piece of art' argument. Well, it sill stands.

 

[himemiya1650]

Well there are quite a few reasons I guess. When you pirate stuff you don't have to deal with Ubisoft school DRM which is a pain in the ass. Alot of games market themselves and may have quite good demo's but have a god awful game play itself, pirating minimizes the consumer risk of getting shitty game. As well as that alot of games like Gears of War, Command and Conquer and Star Craft come out as a series, and are packaged as a single collection at the end, so why should i buy when the game is out and once again when its a nice package. There's also a piracy expense or tax if i remember correctly so you're paying for the fact someone else pirated the game.

In short if I bought CoD6, I would be cursing at the fact that I wasted $60.00 on a not-so-great-game. Cause I tested it out and didn't like it, I lost nothing.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Convenience and Price. Personally I don't pirate games I find it pointless for the economy but to be able to get a game from the comfort of your home, for free none the less I can see why people are "lured" to it.

That would mean that video game sales are actually a high enough percentage of the economy to impact it if they went away. This unfortunately is wrong as people would simply attend other things like the movies, sorts events, etc instead and spend their money there.

 

[Nerdygamer89]

Moral relativism FTW. What if you killed someone who was highly likely to cause more death and overall human misery than you ever would just by killing him alone? At its core an action is just an action and 'good' an 'evil' are arbitrary tags tacked on by an observer from their skewed perspective or unique definition.

Somebody who knows their moral philosophy, quite refreshing =)

 

[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?

OH HERRO AGAIN! And I'm just gonna say this once more (okay I will say it many more times) but there's no such thing as good and evil, everything is opinion, so there ya go

Yes there is stealing something that is not yours is evil, killing in cold blood is evil, saying that there is nothing that is evil is just an excuse to make it so you sleep better at night.

Err, no it's not that simple. While yes, things like theft and murder are generally accepted and thought of as bad, it's because it inconviences/causes harm to people, and so we are brought up to see these things as wrong.

They are not good or evil in themselves, they are an action that someone has taken. Peoples opinions of the action though, that is what makes something good or bad, and the reasons behind those actions.

I know, I'm bringing up Hitler, but w/e. Killing Hitler before he came into power, that'd be an undeniably good thing to do, right? Imagine the untold millions of lives that would be saved.
Hang on, what about Hitler himself? He sure as shit wouldn't see this as a good thing to do. Neither would Germans of the time before the war, or alot of the world when looking at it morally. He had good policies and ideas when he came to power and was trying to drag Germany out of the shit it was in from after The Great War.

Stealing all the guns from the people that mean us harm is an undeniably good thing, right?
Again, think of the suffering that you'd stop.
From their perspective though it'd be bad, for whatever reason they would have to think that they are in the right, "they" have a reason for opposing the eponymous "us". It's a difference in society at some level, and what the societies hold dear, and it doesn't come down to what is "right", and never will. Such a thing doesn't exist. It comes down to whoever has the biggest stick, and is willing to use it.

I'll start with your killing Hitler argument, this is put in the area of good because you are saving lives by doing it, no he wouldn't like it but since he killed so many people your actions are justified to save the majority.

The problem is what he is saying isn't about saving lives it's about being to lazy to get another hobby or wait until the person has the money, they are doing it for self gratification and that's what makes it wrong.

 

[Soviet Steve]

I understand the not having money thing, I don't have a job so I know the temptation of wanting to take something that isn't mine because I feel it's not fair that I can't have it, well I don't because it's wrong and when I get the money I can buy it. As for turning to piracy because you don't like the DRM or the company making it I'm sorry you ether buy the game and support something you don't agree with and have fun, or you don't make sure the people don't get your money for something you don't think is worth it and just don't play the game, there is no option 3.

Oh? There isn't an option to be a pirate? Gosh what sillyness, for a minute there I thought we were discussing something that wasn't purely theoretical.

From a moral viewpoint where piracy = stealing, there is no alternative to buying

From a practical viewpoint there is, but piracy carries a tiny risk.

Low risk, high reward and to many it's a moral greyzone.

On that note I must leave since it's 4:11 in the morning and I have to go smell flowers in the morning.

 

[jasoncyrus]

snip

Ooo ethics debate.

Lets counter that "save the majority" argument with this old dillemma. 100 innocents trapped in a cave, a very fat man is unfortunately stuck in the only way out. It's not his fault, he slipped down a hill and got stuck there on his way home from serving soup at the homeless shelter and giving free computers to terminally ill children. But he is truely stuck.

Now the 100 can either wait it out and hope help comes, which is a it unlikely due to its sheltered location, or they can kill the fat guy, chop him up and escape.

Is the latter really the better solution?

 

[Mortons4ck]

[greedy ass companies and artists] don't need to make millions of dollars a year so they can buy the moon, or enough cocaine to give them a heart attack

But it would be nice if they could pay their programmers more than starvation wages so said programmers could send their kids to college.

 

[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?

A good argument? Well, simply put, it isn't stealing. If I go out and steal a car, then I am taking a car away from someone else. If, however, I pirate a game/movie/song, the company that made it isn't losing anything, I'm just not giving them my money.

Sure, if you have the money to pay for the game, go ahead and pay for it and support the company that made it. But in a situation like mine, where your choices are either spend your food money on video games, don't buy any new games, or download a copy of it for free, then (I hate using this term) it's a victimless crime.

Once I have the time to get a full time job, and can afford more than the very basic necessities, I will go back to paying for my games in an effort to ensure those companies will keep making games, but until then I will pirate without regret because of the knowledge that I'm not hurting anyone or anything in doing so.

Well as i stated before it is stealing, you taking something you didn't pay for I know your not physically taking something from the company but the idea is the same, you think you deserve something you can't pay for and take it upon yourself to commit a theft and take the game you want. I don't have much money now, so I don't buy games ether, what I do is look for a job and wait until I have the money to buy what I want.

Yeah, but it isn't really "taking something you didn't pay for", it's taking a copy of something you didn't pay for. If you go out to a museum and snap a photo of the Mona Lisa, you now have a copy of the Mona Lisa which you didn't pay for, but would you consider that stealing?

Personally, I'm curious as to why you are so against pirating at all. Specifically in the situation I mentioned where someone is only pirating because they just can't afford to buy a copy.

I understand being opposed to pirating if you can easily afford to pay for it, or if you want to support a developer, but what is so wrong about taking a copy of something you wouldn't have paid money for in the first place? Even if you were to consider this stealing, surely you can admit that in this situation there is no actual negative impact on anyone?

Yes it's a copy, it is also something you didn't pay for that you should have thus stealing.

For the Mona Lisa picture, it would be more accurate to say an exact replica, and they are very expensive, the picture analogy is sorta how Arcane Asylums DRM worked, you got the game but you are missing a few thing(like jumping).

I'm against pirating for the simple reason of it's wrong, it's illegal and it makes people think they are entitled for things they don't work for. I am probably one of a very small amount of people who think if something is wrong then you shouldn't do it, and it's as simple as that.

 

[Threx]

Convenience and Price. Personally I don't pirate games I find it pointless for the economy but to be able to get a game from the comfort of your home, for free none the less I can see why people are "lured" to it.

That would mean that video game sales are actually a high enough percentage of the economy to impact it if they went away. This unfortunately is wrong as people would simply attend other things like the movies, sorts events, etc instead and spend their money there.

No? What about the designers at Bungie who aren't making any money because everyone pirated Halo: Reach than they wouldn't continue to make games because there not making a profit so sorry but your point made no sense.

 

[jasoncyrus]

[greedy ass companies and artists] don't need to make millions of dollars a year so they can buy the moon, or enough cocaine to give them a heart attack

But it would be nice if they could pay their programmers more than starvation wages so said programmers could send their kids to college.

The average programmer makes around $30k a year. Yeah...real "starvation" wages there. I barely even make $15k a year.

 

[mxfox408]

Meh I just hate how the Gaming industry likes to blame PC gamers when I could ask a friend who can pirate any console games. in my opinion I could care less.