I'm a straight pirate -- no way in hell I'm going to invest my hard earned $49.99 ~ $59.99 on a game that potentially sucks. I'm gonna grab the torrent, and play through until I'm content that it's worth buying my own copy.
Is what I'm doing wrong? Most would say yes, but I've saved countless hundreds (thousands?) of dollars with this approach; if the game sucks, delete it and move on.
However, if there is a demo available, I'll usually grab that first. If I feel the demo is not complete enough, I'll find a full copy. When I'm satisfied, I fork over the money to get a box set.
I'm a firm believer that software developers should be suported *if* they have a worthy product. Asking consumers to pay fifty bucks for software on a leap of faith is simply wrong.
Honestly, how many of us have went and bought a game that we played for ten minutes before we were so pissed off? No way to get a refund since we opened the game, so we just got shafted.
evelopers should be suported *if* they have a worthy product. Asking consumers to pay fifty bucks for software on a leap of faith is simply wrong.
The problem is that what is considered 'worthy' of 59.95 when you have to pay it to play is completely different than what is considered 'worthy' of 59.95 when you can play whatever you want for free as long as you want.
Imagine if you could eat all you wanted at a restaurant and only pay them if you decided the food was 'good enough'. Well, we both know you're going to eat every day regardless...so obviously the typical person would be looking for any excuse they could possibly find to avoid giving up any cash.
Have you BEEN on any video game forums? Every game, no matter how popular, how well-reviewed, or how high quality, has forums full of people saying how much it sucks. Without exception, all the time. If the standard of 'when do you get paid' is 'when a gamer plays your game and doesn't find any excuse to complain afterwards', then no game company would make a cent.
The blow it moment was insinuating that folks in general were too stupid to pirate anything.
It's a very bad argument that assumes class.
It also misses another point.
This may be about the fact that people may be willing to support something like a script game rather than "counterfit" if they feel part of something.
The "tithe" was an early tax for the community but an inovation came with the offering plate allowing the poor to tax themselves much like lottery tickets except with no payout in THIS life...
Oops... not railing... just pointing out that communities have to find ways to grow and fund themselves.
Having a (insert your fav game here) roof fund or whatnot isn't such a stupid analogy point by point.
I mean there's the la la land and then there's the real-world monies and procedures to enable the la la land.
evelopers should be suported *if* they have a worthy product. Asking consumers to pay fifty bucks for software on a leap of faith is simply wrong.
The problem is that what is considered 'worthy' of 59.95 when you have to pay it to play is completely different than what is considered 'worthy' of 59.95 when you can play whatever you want for free as long as you want.
Imagine if you could eat all you wanted at a restaurant and only pay them if you decided the food was 'good enough'. Well, we both know you're going to eat every day regardless...so obviously the typical person would be
You are confused, when you pirate a product to make sure it isnt garbage because theres realistically no way to tell if you want to play a game until you've actually tryed it, you are not stealing any product from anyone. In your analogy you are eating the restraunts food which costs the restaurant money and uses their resources, downloading a digital copy of a game using someone elses bandwidth (obviously not the developers) costs them NOTHING, what you explained would only be true if you were actually stealing a boxed product. The company releasing a demo costs them more money than someone pirating a game because youre actually using their download servers.
The majority of people who pirate games would have not bought the product in the first place, making it not a loss of a sale, but possibly a gain of a sale if they feel like the game is good enough or if they need to buy it to access multiplayer.
The problem is not the pirate, but the publishers. While downloading game simply is wrong (by law. We could discuss if it really is morally wrong, especially if you would have payed for the product anyway)
Maybe in your country it is but here it's perfectly legal to download anything but child porn but that's pretty obvious.
As for the post; i gotta agree to the point that hackers/modders or w/e you wanna call them are probably much much much worse.
Something that i miss in your article though is that piracy has never been about the money (for the "scene" groups). It has always been about things like cracking security deemed worthless or unneccesary among others.
A lot of groups i know off also encourage people to actually BUY the game if people like it, hell half the time even they themselves buy the games before they crack them.
I can even say that when i download games like this i mostly end up buying them because i was allowed more freedom to see what the game was about.
To me "piracy" is more a form of providing a demo in the form of a whole game and helps me make the choice to buy it or not. Which is another point since demo's seem to have stopped coming out all together or they are very very very unpolished.
I actually brought up this discusson at mu thursday night pub night and a friend of mine brought up the same analaogy with the idea that the "copy" is imperfect and not essentially sellable.
Essentially one is taking a poor image of something and using it for private use.
I imagine that the closer to perfect such images could be made the more they would start infringing on he creator's rights. Especially if one could take that near perfect image that the creator made and put it on the web for anyone to take.
This was essentially our discussion.
Let us assume that the picture you took is of lower quality than the original. In many ways so are the pirated version of the games you download. They ususally do not have multi-player, there is no support, they may not run as good as the original, you can not buy DLC, a lot of times the game is not coming to you patched, and there is always the chance you will download a virus or the game just won't work at all. So essentially you are getting an inferior copy of the game.
I guess what I should have said in my post was..
That I take a picture of a picture at walmart and then I take it home, photoshop the hell out of it so it is basically of the same quality as the original, I then put it up on the internet so people can download it for free. If we take the quality out of the discussion does it change anything? The basic act is the same. I took the picture, modified it and then put it on the internet for people to download for free. Would walmart security run after me as I left? Would the cops be called? Would it be considered stealing to them?
You don't how hard is to live in Brazil. We have so many taxes on games that it costs three times the original price and in many cases you can only buy games from the publishers with an international credit car, what is also expensive to get and maintain, so you have to be rich to play an original game, so, the only option the most part of the gaming comunity has is to use pirated games, or else no one would be playing any games, I chalenge you to be a gamer in Brazil and then you will see how great is to use pirated games.
I actually brought up this discusson at mu thursday night pub night and a friend of mine brought up the same analaogy with the idea that the "copy" is imperfect and not essentially sellable.
Essentially one is taking a poor image of something and using it for private use.
I imagine that the closer to perfect such images could be made the more they would start infringing on he creator's rights. Especially if one could take that near perfect image that the creator made and put it on the web for anyone to take.
This was essentially our discussion.
Let us assume that the picture you took is of lower quality than the original. In many ways so are the pirated version of the games you download. They ususally do not have multi-player, there is no support, they may not run as good as the original, you can not buy DLC, a lot of times the game is not coming to you patched, and there is always the chance you will download a virus or the game just won't work at all. So essentially you are getting an inferior copy of the game.
I guess what I should have said in my post was..
That I take a picture of a picture at walmart and then I take it home, photoshop the hell out of it so it is basically of the same quality as the original, I then put it up on the internet so people can download it for free. If we take the quality out of the discussion does it change anything? The basic act is the same. I took the picture, modified it and then put it on the internet for people to download for free. Would walmart security run after me as I left? Would the cops be called? Would it be considered stealing to them?
Almost all of them have multiplayer if it's part of the game, just not always on the official servers, and get all the patches the legit version do too.
Battlefield 3 Retail just hit the pirate sites, has been cracked and multiplayer already being worked on. Seriously, 99% of the time the only people who are hurt by DRM are those that buy the game.
Hi, I’m a pirate. I’ve read every comment in this thread and have a lot of feedback, so here I go…
First and foremost, let me say that I abhor hackers/cheaters that affect other gamers negatively, *within* the games. Someone should not ruin another’s enjoyment simply because they have the know-how or because they lack respect. Modders, in the truer definition, are simply people who are using what tools are offered them by the developers (i.e., the tools released in virtually every Bethesda game, to modify and improve upon the base world. Ex: Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout, etc) and utilizing their own inner designer flair for the game. They are not criminals. At least not the ones that simply add on, not alter altogether. Pirates, on the other hand, are a different animal, and not easily dissected.
Let me make one thing abundantly clear: Piracy is NOT stealing. I repeat, NOT stealing. It is NOT akin to stealing someone’s purse, someone’s car, someone’s home, or any other ludicrous example users have posted on this thread. Theft does not equate to piracy primarily because piracy is the spread of information. Piracy is the copying, COPYING, of data and sharing it with other people. You did not personally go into your favorite video retailer and steal the MANUFACTURED copy off the shelf. You are partaking of a copy of a legitimate copy someone ELSE purchased. The grey area here SHOULD be concentrated upon, because you cannot lump your own predispositions and childhood morals into a discussion that is, at its core, all about the ethics of business regarding entertainment distribution, in an age where the freedom of information is becoming more and more common.
The individual users’ motivations for piracy are just as important as the loss of profit that can sometimes fall upon a company. (Publishers and shareholders can kiss my ass, however. I support the developers, not their god damned market portfolio-loving mother companies. Just getting that out there.) Greed needn’t always be the factor that pushes someone to pirate. Necessity can be a very powerful tool. I personally pirate because I cannot afford the luxury of these games I so desire. I love a great story. I’m in college, full time, and the money I earn I scrape by with. I pay rent, bills, and have to manage my finances to afford groceries, gas, and other amenities to my home. Gaming takes a backseat to responsibility. …However, if I am intelligent enough to acquire the means to play games for free, and I cannot afford it, why should I not test run these games that are out there?
The things I have pirated I have not done so out of malice or greed or laziness; I have done so out of lack of funding. And only insofar that I truly needed too. For instance, I have recently bought several games I’ve wanted to play for a long time, instead of modding my consoles and downloading illegally. But PC ports of games offer a different experience, and present a different method for acquisition… Free. My computer is good enough to run most games at exceptional levels (bought it years ago, haven’t upgraded since then, but it’s a powerhouse), so why shouldn’t I see what the hoop-la is all about for game X when it releases? If I enjoy it, hell I’ll go support the dev. I think I speak for most pirates when I say the “Try before Buy” method of piracy is a very attractive practice. For instance, devs that deserve my money will get it. Bioware, Bethesda, Blizzard, etc… Games that are subpar and aren’t worth the 60 dollars? Count me out. The piracy for those games is well-deserved; and if the sales suck… It’s not pirates fault. It’s the developers for releasing a shoddy product to begin with. This harkens back to a comment I read earlier about someone saying how virus-ridden and dangerous it was to pirate games… Let me correct that. Scene releases are traditionally very safe. Skidrow and other big name groups are not out to attack the pirate; they’re out to spread the joy of the game to others, and as someone else mentioned, in every .nfo file that comes with their releases, they encourage you to go buy the product if you enjoy it. The Try-Then-Buy system at its finest. The evils of piracy lay in the evils of the individual person, not the community as a whole.
Few examples I can cite here for games that DEFINITELY deserved the Try-Before-Buying methodology… Oblivion in 2006? Buggy as hell, even bought brand new wouldn’t run worth a damn. Fable 3 last year? A terrible port that was very damaging to the PC playerbase support of the series. Rage, released only weeks ago? Buggy across multiple platforms, and requiring several patches and updates to make it even *playable*, much less enjoyable, of which it was arguably not worth the 60 bucks for it due to its short story, linear gameplay, and simplistic combat. Someone above mentioned how it was an id tech demo… That’s exactly what I thought while playing it.
I also believe the huge uptrend in piracy is due mostly in part due to the taboo nature of it all. The aspect of “Free free free” is that much more appealing when it’s also the “bad thing to do”. If game companies released more than a twenty minute demo of their game for the public to play, people would be turned off by the lure of it. A full disclosure of their product before purchase would encourage truly realistic sales. People, like you and I, would benefit. Corporate enterprises will be fine without your purchase, because for one person who’s economically in troubling times, there are ten others who are not. Support for good games would be the industry standard, and perhaps, just maybe, we would quit being spoonfed drivel and complete garbage from over half of the developers out there today. AAA games like Skyrim, Batman, MW3 and BF3… These should all be judged fairly by a jury of their peers, a la, you and everyone you know. Gamers should dictate the monetary intake of these businesses, not the other way around. The economy is in dire straits, and the business depends on consumer consumption… So what do you think will happen if prices stay exorbitantly high for these products when the cost of living continues to rise? Not rocket science. Again, just my opinion.
The rise of digital distribution truly does away with the old world mentality of PR, PR, PR. Games can be mass produced and sold without ANY huge media push like big name games have nowadays, as we see with a game like Minecraft, which is arguably revolutionizing the industry standards. It exemplifies what and how a game can be marketed and sold in the 21st century… And it’s not even retail yet. It’s in freaking beta. And It’s sold over 11 million copies I believe. Pretty effin amazing considering it’s from an indie developer and how easily pirateable it is… That just happened. Boom city.
Sorry for how long this post was… But I believe everything is ultimately leading to a free distribution model; it’s only how soon and how much suffering we the consumers must endure by these greedy, power-hungry entities that run the show, until it happens. Thanks for your time.
Hi, I’m a pirate. I’ve read every comment in this thread and have a lot of feedback, so here I go…
First and foremost, let me say that I abhor hackers/cheaters that affect other gamers negatively, *within* the games. Someone should not ruin another’s enjoyment simply because they have the know-how or because they lack respect. Modders, in the truer definition, are simply people who are using what tools are offered them by the developers (i.e., the tools released in virtually every Bethesda game, to modify and improve upon the base world. Ex: Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout, etc) and utilizing their own inner designer flair for the game. They are not criminals. At least not the ones that simply add on, not alter altogether. Pirates, on the other hand, are a different animal, and not easily dissected.
Let me make one thing abundantly clear: Piracy is NOT stealing. I repeat, NOT stealing. It is NOT akin to stealing someone’s purse, someone’s car, someone’s home, or any other ludicrous example users have posted on this thread. Theft does not equate to piracy primarily because piracy is the spread of information. Piracy is the copying, COPYING, of data and sharing it with other people. You did not personally go into your favorite video retailer and steal the MANUFACTURED copy off the shelf. You are partaking of a copy of a legitimate copy someone ELSE purchased. The grey area here SHOULD be concentrated upon, because you cannot lump your own predispositions and childhood morals into a discussion that is, at its core, all about the ethics of business regarding entertainment distribution, in an age where the freedom of information is becoming more and more common.
The individual users’ motivations for piracy are just as important as the loss of profit that can sometimes fall upon a company. (Publishers and shareholders can kiss my ass, however. I support the developers, not their god damned market portfolio-loving mother companies. Just getting that out there.) Greed needn’t always be the factor that pushes someone to pirate. Necessity can be a very powerful tool. I personally pirate because I cannot afford the luxury of these games I so desire. I love a great story. I’m in college, full time, and the money I earn I scrape by with. I pay rent, bills, and have to manage my finances to afford groceries, gas, and other amenities to my home. Gaming takes a backseat to responsibility. …However, if I am intelligent enough to acquire the means to play games for free, and I cannot afford it, why should I not test run these games that are out there?
The things I have pirated I have not done so out of malice or greed or laziness; I have done so out of lack of funding. And only insofar that I truly needed too. For instance, I have recently bought several games I’ve wanted to play for a long time, instead of modding my consoles and downloading illegally. But PC ports of games offer a different experience, and present a different method for acquisition… Free. My computer is good enough to run most games at exceptional levels (bought it years ago, haven’t upgraded since then, but it’s a powerhouse), so why shouldn’t I see what the hoop-la is all about for game X when it releases? If I enjoy it, hell I’ll go support the dev. I think I speak for most pirates when I say the “Try before Buy” method of piracy is a very attractive practice. For instance, devs that deserve my money will get it. Bioware, Bethesda, Blizzard, etc… Games that are subpar and aren’t worth the 60 dollars? Count me out. The piracy for those games is well-deserved; and if the sales suck… It’s not pirates fault. It’s the developers for releasing a shoddy product to begin with. This harkens back to a comment I read earlier about someone saying how virus-ridden and dangerous it was to pirate games… Let me correct that. Scene releases are traditionally very safe. Skidrow and other big name groups are not out to attack the pirate; they’re out to spread the joy of the game to others, and as someone else mentioned, in every .nfo file that comes with their releases, they encourage you to go buy the product if you enjoy it. The Try-Then-Buy system at its finest. The evils of piracy lay in the evils of the individual person, not the community as a whole.
Few examples I can cite here for games that DEFINITELY deserved the Try-Before-Buying methodology… Oblivion in 2006? Buggy as hell, even bought brand new wouldn’t run worth a damn. Fable 3 last year? A terrible port that was very damaging to the PC playerbase support of the series. Rage, released only weeks ago? Buggy across multiple platforms, and requiring several patches and updates to make it even *playable*, much less enjoyable, of which it was arguably not worth the 60 bucks for it due to its short story, linear gameplay, and simplistic combat. Someone above mentioned how it was an id tech demo… That’s exactly what I thought while playing it.
I also believe the huge uptrend in piracy is due mostly in part due to the taboo nature of it all. The aspect of “Free free free” is that much more appealing when it’s also the “bad thing to do”. If game companies released more than a twenty minute demo of their game for the public to play, people would be turned off by the lure of it. A full disclosure of their product before purchase would encourage truly realistic sales. People, like you and I, would benefit. Corporate enterprises will be fine without your purchase, because for one person who’s economically in troubling times, there are ten others who are not. Support for good games would be the industry standard, and perhaps, just maybe, we would quit being spoonfed drivel and complete garbage from over half of the developers out there today. AAA games like Skyrim, Batman, MW3 and BF3… These should all be judged fairly by a jury of their peers, a la, you and everyone you know. Gamers should dictate the monetary intake of these businesses, not the other way around. The economy is in dire straits, and the business depends on consumer consumption… So what do you think will happen if prices stay exorbitantly high for these products when the cost of living continues to rise? Not rocket science. Again, just my opinion.
The rise of digital distribution truly does away with the old world mentality of PR, PR, PR. Games can be mass produced and sold without ANY huge media push like big name games have nowadays, as we see with a game like Minecraft, which is arguably revolutionizing the industry standards. It exemplifies what and how a game can be marketed and sold in the 21st century… And it’s not even retail yet. It’s in freaking beta. And It’s sold over 11 million copies I believe. Pretty effin amazing considering it’s from an indie developer and how easily pirateable it is… That just happened. Boom city.
Sorry for how long this post was… But I believe everything is ultimately leading to a free distribution model; it’s only how soon and how much suffering we the consumers must endure by these greedy, power-hungry entities that run the show, until it happens. Thanks for your time.
Every point you attempted to make here is utterly wrong on every level .
Originally posted by XaeroDegreaz Developers should be suported *if* they have a worthy product. Asking consumers to pay fifty bucks for software on a leap of faith is simply wrong.
Imagine if you could eat all you wanted at a restaurant and only pay them if you decided the food was 'good enough'.
Um, you can. If you go to a restaurant, and the food is terrible, or prepared incorrectly, and you say something about it, you almost always don't have to pay. In fact, with almost anything, if you buy something, and the adverts were misleading, or it is made badly, or it doesn't do what it is intended to do, you get your money back.
The only things this isn't the case for are digital things like games, music, and movies. You can't get your money back. That is why, I feel, marketing for games is so deliberately misleading. Once you've bought the game because the trailer looked cool, you're out the money. If it is a terrible game, or you don't enjoy it, it doesn't matter. You've bought it, and you've spent the money.
I have found games that provide demos are almost always better than games that do not. That is because the developers and publishers are confident that, after playing the game for a bit, most people will still want to drop some cash on it.
Other products get guarantees. "This product will work, or we will give you back your money." It promotes effort and makes people make (most of the time) halfway decent products. Games don't have this. They stick their tongues out at us when we don't like they game. They make terrible products, try to trick us into buying them, and then when we don't like it, tough luck.
I am not advocating piracy, but there are two sides to this issue. It might be wrong to take something without paying, obviously. But it is also wrong to not let someone try a product before they buy it and then not give a refund when the product is no good. That is a big reason people do pirate, to try a game before they buy it, because if they don't, they have no guarantees.
Edit: Boreil, I am not sure how much I agree with Drugonis, but I do resent more than a little your flippant and arrogant dismissal of in-depth well-articulated points. If you disagree, explain why. Just saying "You're wrong." Makes you look stupid and doesn't further your point of view in the slightest.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Sorry for how long this post was… But I believe everything is ultimately leading to a free distribution model; it’s only how soon and how much suffering we the consumers must endure by these greedy, power-hungry entities that run the show, until it happens. Thanks for your time.
ah you are 24. Wait until you are older and have actually worked a bit and realize that you have to save for retirement before you start poo-pooing "money grubbing" companies and publicly traded companies.
Your saviings is going to rely heavily on that, hate to tell you. Unless you can get a job that pays gobs of money that you can put under your matteress.
As far as "stealing' you are just trying to justify your acquiring something that wasn't made for you in the first place. These companies aren't making games for you to acquire without paying them or distribute them to others without paying for them.
As far as you supporting the developers; no you don't.
The developers rely upon their companies making money so they can keep their jobs. If a company is not making their numbers then people are oftentimes laid off.
Regardless of whether you feel these publishers or parent companies are making the right business decisions, they still employe people. I'd love to see more employees benefit from their company's earnings, and many actually do, but employees require companies to hire them. I'm sure if you don't have a job perhaps you hope to get one some day? You might be lucky to get a job with a small company that doesn't have to worry about investment dollars but I think a few years in the work force might open your eyes a bit as to what is out there and how you might have to make your living.
Now, having said that "sure" not every company is an angel, many companies are trying to part you with your dollar in any way they can and consumers should be careful with how they spend their money.
But what I see here is someone who just wants to get something for nothing and continue doing it.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
ROFL! How come that you say that PIRACY is not stealing? Wake up dude... Piracy is unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc. So it means that when you pirated something like a book or a recording.. You are stealing income from the company who really owns it.. Quit prattling..
tbh I don't see what the problem with piracy except for those who truly keep illegal copies of media rather than A. Removing them once done with them or B. Actually buying them after they've kept the media they pirated for so long because they actually like it. I alway say to people if you like it enough, go buy it! This is pretty much what I'd do as to me a pirated copy of a game is no more than a full trial version and if you truly want to support that awesome game you just played then you should pay for the company to develop more of it. Its the same for movies, if someone enjoyed the movie they watch they should contribute towards it. Its a real shame that we can't actually gain a product first and pay for it later or simply return it after a few days if we really didn't like it and get a 100% refund. Ever tried returing a game ya didn't like? I did once and OMG do the shop keepers kick up a stink about it, I really hate that they don't actually care whether you were enjoying it, they just want ya god damn money. And before you all say "But there are demos out there noob" these so called demos aren't usually long enough nore do they give you the true experiance of the game and thus very hard to judge whether that game was even worth buying or not. Heck, even Lionhead Studies once had the balls to claim that pirating hurts the companies less than second hand reselling, and I totally agree when the fact that companies who do this are just making money for themselves, not for the company who created the game to start with where as whoever pirates these games normally had to have a supply of an original copy and is NOT trying to sell it to you, at least not normally anyway, thus not making any money out of it what so ever, thats considered fair trade in my country!
Anybody who thinks that eventually a freemodel getting games comes along are delusional. Look at the free two play mmo's these days there actually not free you get for most limited content and if you want full package you gonne open your wallet and then you pay more then subscription model.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
Your idea of owning a virtual item being ridiculous doesn't hold up because you dont' "own that virtual item. You are granted access to those virtual items. Of course if you want to talk about virtual items not really existing well "they do". Just like our paper money is a representation of buying power the items, characters and world of a virtual game is representative of "something". If people are paying money to access video games (that "something") then those things have value. The game companies have put time, money and effort into creating those things. They aren't figments of our imagination. And just as I said earlier, acquiring a video game is not stealing but it is acquiring access to something that a person has no right to access without his/her paying what the game companies have asked. What is essentially happening here is that some players feel they are entitled to access these things just because they can. They make the argument that because it's out there and isn't somethign you can hold in their hand then it's their right to do so. I do believe the laws say otherwise. The game companies are certainly selling you access to these things and stipulate how you can access them and use them.
So why doesn't it work for you as a player as well if it work for those companies? The thing is you are just looking at thing one way, you should look both ways, from the companies point of view as well as the customer point of view.
Didn't you (the player) put your time into possessing those virtual goods and characters? Just like the company took its time to make their games? What in their right mind make them think you cannot possess what your effort is giving you the right to possess? And further, if you pay for the box, why shouldn't you possess the game as well? If you go buy some bread in a shop, how the fuck the baker can force you to eat the bread only with honey and forbid you to put butter on it? Does it make any sense? Not that much from that perspective, is it?
The thing is, just like pointed the op, there is something about interest here, how ever you turn this aspect, you will come to interest problems. This is what courts are made to, since they were first made in our civilizations they deal with interest problems.
Because in fact you do possess those virtual items and characters somehow in practice, at least from what i know. Because every time the ownership of a character was to be dealt with in front of a court, every time the court gave the right to the player, and not the gaming companies. I have no time now to find you links, and this would need quiet some time to do because those cases are rare, but that's what i recall from all the cases i knew of concerning this aspect. Maybe i'm wrong but i don't believe so. So we are back in square one. Companies can own their virtual world and everything it doesn't matter. They cannot own their players time and effort as well.
OK, here goes - a post to support OP. The big games I actually paid for in reecent years are: Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Dragon Age: Origins, Rage (yes, I actually enjoyed it), X3: Reunion, StarCraft II, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I've pirated every single one of them before buying, so there was no revenue lost. But I can honestly say that if pirating wasn't an option I wouldn't even bother with them - I'm not going to pay €50-60 for a product that sucks arse. Most of my friends are like that too - they'll pirate a game first then pay if it is worth the asking price. "But you could just play a demo" you say? I call BS on that, can I? Out of all the recently hyped games only HOMM6 has a demo and that blows so hard I stopped playing after 20 minutes. I'm actually glad they had a demo which saved me time and money.
And don't even start spewing that "piracy is stealing" crap. The issue is not all that black and white. EA has been selling crap for years now - the latest FIFA game (take the previous FIFA game change the skins and relable) is worth almost €50 over here!! WTF!! €50 for horse aarmour? Really? What is that if not stealing? It's worse, it's daylight robbery. Fine, not the brightesr exsample, I wouldn't even play it if they paid me, but you get the point. Why should anyone get away with selling an inferior product for a full price? I'd be pissed if Yamaha sold me my R1 with no breaks for a full €10,000. At least you can test it on the spot an then come back if there's something wrong with it. In case of digital media, you get screwed out of your money and that's it. I think it's only fair to be able NOT to pay for crap.
Just because you don't approve of / support a product doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it.
That's like going to the supermarket and being like,
"Hey, I don't like Cocoa Puffs. I should but allowed to put a few boxes of Cocoa Puffs in my shopping cart and walk out the door without paying for them."
But why would you even take the Cocoa Puffs in the first place?
"So I can trade them for free to people who like Cocoa Puffs."
Shouldn't that person who likes Cocoa Puffs just go buy their own box of Cocoa Puffs at the store?
"Why pay for something when you can get it for free?"
Because it's illegal?
"So? I don't like Cocoa Puffs why should I support them?"
and on and on and on...
circular logic and false justifications hold NO weight.
Just because you don't approve of / support a product doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it.
That's like going to the supermarket and being like,
"Hey, I don't like Cocoa Puffs. I should but allowed to put a few boxes of Cocoa Puffs in my shopping cart and walk out the door without paying for them."
But why would you even take the Cocoa Puffs in the first place?
"So I can trade them for free to people who like Cocoa Puffs."
Shouldn't that person who likes Cocoa Puffs just go buy their own box of Cocoa Puffs at the store?
"Why pay for something when you can get it for free?"
Because it's illegal?
"So? I don't like Cocoa Puffs why should I support them?"
and on and on and on...
circular logic and false justifications hold NO weight.
I think you were actually missing the point some of us were making. We were stating its a try before you buy thing for some of us not a take it for free because we didn't like it in the first place, thats just really stupid. Like I said in my post if you keep it cus you like it you should buy it, not continue to own it without paying, thats just being pure greedy, especially if one truely did not like it they shouldn't keep it imo. Your view point is pretty dumb tbh, anyone who does that are pretty stupid and obviously wouldn't get what they wanted and anyone who knew they had got it for free even though they don't like them would flame them for their stupidity even if they did manage to because getting something you don't like for free is idiotic and a waste.
I think you were actually missing the point some of us were making. We were stating its a try before you buy thing for some of us not a take it for free because we didn't like it in the first place, thats just really stupid.
Try before you buy is great... if it is an option that the product/service is offering.
If the product/service is not offering a try before you buy option...
Then you are still doing something illegal and stealing it.
So, once again, false justifications and circular logic don't do anything.
Many games do offer free trials and demo's.
So once again it is a matter of PLAYER greed trying to get something for free because they can't/won't wait until a trial or demo is available.
Just because you don't approve of / support a product doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it.
That's like going to the supermarket and being like,
"Hey, I don't like Cocoa Puffs. I should but allowed to put a few boxes of Cocoa Puffs in my shopping cart and walk out the door without paying for them."
But why would you even take the Cocoa Puffs in the first place?
"So I can trade them for free to people who like Cocoa Puffs."
Shouldn't that person who likes Cocoa Puffs just go buy their own box of Cocoa Puffs at the store?
"Why pay for something when you can get it for free?"
Because it's illegal?
"So? I don't like Cocoa Puffs why should I support them?"
and on and on and on...
circular logic and false justifications hold NO weight.
Right, because supermarkets don't sell you a license to Cocoa Puffs for an obscene amount, and able to reproduce the SAME box at no cost to them. Because, THAT would be stealing, namely depriving the owner of the benefit of OWNERSHIP and further resale.
Oh, and if I get stomach cancer by eating those (because someone put out a half-arsed excuse of a product on the shelf) I can at the very least return the product and demand a refund (unless they put a warning on the box - then I'm fucked). When was the last time anyone saw a "warning: may cause accute diarrhea and depression" on a game box? When was the last time anyone returned anything on Steam? I'd love to return Mass Effect 2 (ME1 epicness got the besst of me) since I hated it and quit after 40 minutes into the game. Please tell me how.
Right, because supermarkets don't sell you a license to Cocoa Puffs for an obscene amount, and able to reproduce the SAME box at no cost to them. Because, THAT would be stealing, namely depriving the owner of the benefit of OWNERSHIP and further resale.
Oh, and if I get stomach cancer by eating those (because someone put out a half-arsed excuse of a product on the shelf) I can at the very least return the product and demand a refund (unless they put a warning on the box - then I'm fucked). When was the last time anyone saw a "warning: may cause accute diarrhea and depression" on a game box? When was the last time anyone returned anything on Steam? I'd love to return Mass Effect 2 (ME1 epicness got the besst of me) since I hated it and quit after 40 minutes into the game. Please tell me how.
Settle down...
Buyer beware.
Only person to blame if YOU make a purchase and then regret it is you.
This doesn't just apply to gaming, but well everything in life.
Complaining that water is wet is not going to make it not so - you have to buy an umbrella or stay indoors...
Good luck reselling a half eaten box of Cocoa Puffs btw.
The choice as to whether or not a product or service is worth the asking price is a choice only the consumer can make. People buy iPhones for twice the price of Android phones and get half the features.
I may think it's stupid but some consumers simply like the brand and/or feel like the cost is justified.
MMO players are spoiled, as are gamers in general.
Like I said in my original argument in this thread, people in general have gotten used to the idea of free everything and low-cost everything - we are a society that has become so entitled and self absorbed we no longer accept the realities of capitalism.
Right, because supermarkets don't sell you a license to Cocoa Puffs for an obscene amount, and able to reproduce the SAME box at no cost to them. Because, THAT would be stealing, namely depriving the owner of the benefit of OWNERSHIP and further resale.
Oh, and if I get stomach cancer by eating those (because someone put out a half-arsed excuse of a product on the shelf) I can at the very least return the product and demand a refund (unless they put a warning on the box - then I'm fucked). When was the last time anyone saw a "warning: may cause accute diarrhea and depression" on a game box? When was the last time anyone returned anything on Steam? I'd love to return Mass Effect 2 (ME1 epicness got the besst of me) since I hated it and quit after 40 minutes into the game. Please tell me how.
Settle down...
Buyer beware.
Only person to blame if YOU make a purchase and then regret it is you.
This doesn't just apply to gaming, but well everything in life.
Complaining that water is wet is not going to make it not so - you have to buy an umbrella or stay indoors...
Good luck reselling a half eaten box of Cocoa Puffs btw.
The choice as to whether or not a product or service is worth the asking price is a choice only the consumer can make. People buy iPhones for twice the price of Android phones and get half the features.
I may think it's stupid but some consumers simply like the brand and/or feel like the cost is justified.
MMO players are spoiled, as are gamers in general.
Like I said in my original argument in this thread, people in general have gotten used to the idea of free everything and low-cost everything - we are a society that has become so entitled and self absorbed we no longer accept the realities of capitalism.
Indeed they have. And I fully understand where you are coming from. On the other hand a sales person needs to convince a potential customer to buy the product (other reality of capitalism). Do so by providing a demo before bitching about your game being pirated. Having a demo cuts pirating by a good amount. I didn't bother with Dungeon Siege 3 and Heroes 6 because I hated the demos.
I can only blame myself for a purchase I later regret if the product was matching the ad. In any other case it's false advertising and you have the right to complain/return, at least in Europe.
Of course there is a different class of pirate - people who wouldn't pay for a game/movie/music no matter what. Again no lost sales there - they wouldn't have bought it anyway, wether it's the price, personal antipathy towards a company or just plain greed.
The Pirasy is BS argument is kind of true because the companies themselves partially perpetuate the current state of things.
Indeed they have. And I fully understand where you are coming from. On the other hand a sales person needs to convince a potential customer to buy the product (other reality of capitalism). Do so by providing a demo before bitching about your game being pirated. Having a demo cuts pirating by a good amount. I didn't bother with Dungeon Siege 3 and Heroes 6 because I hated the demos.
I can only blame myself for a purchase I later regret if the product was matching the ad. In any other case it's false advertising and you have the right to complain/return, at least in Europe
Of course there is a different class of pirate - people who wouldn't pay for a game/movie/music no matter what. Again no lost sales there - they wouldn't have bought it anyway, wether it's the price, personal antipathy towards a company or just plain greed.
The Pirasy is BS argument is kind of true because the companies themselves partially perpetuate the current state of things.
That is a good post. +1 sir
Piracy is inevitable in the end.
But should companies try to curb it or allow it to flurish?
Comments
I'm a straight pirate -- no way in hell I'm going to invest my hard earned $49.99 ~ $59.99 on a game that potentially sucks. I'm gonna grab the torrent, and play through until I'm content that it's worth buying my own copy.
Is what I'm doing wrong? Most would say yes, but I've saved countless hundreds (thousands?) of dollars with this approach; if the game sucks, delete it and move on.
However, if there is a demo available, I'll usually grab that first. If I feel the demo is not complete enough, I'll find a full copy. When I'm satisfied, I fork over the money to get a box set.
I'm a firm believer that software developers should be suported *if* they have a worthy product. Asking consumers to pay fifty bucks for software on a leap of faith is simply wrong.
Honestly, how many of us have went and bought a game that we played for ten minutes before we were so pissed off? No way to get a refund since we opened the game, so we just got shafted.
No more.
The problem is that what is considered 'worthy' of 59.95 when you have to pay it to play is completely different than what is considered 'worthy' of 59.95 when you can play whatever you want for free as long as you want.
Imagine if you could eat all you wanted at a restaurant and only pay them if you decided the food was 'good enough'. Well, we both know you're going to eat every day regardless...so obviously the typical person would be looking for any excuse they could possibly find to avoid giving up any cash.
Have you BEEN on any video game forums? Every game, no matter how popular, how well-reviewed, or how high quality, has forums full of people saying how much it sucks. Without exception, all the time. If the standard of 'when do you get paid' is 'when a gamer plays your game and doesn't find any excuse to complain afterwards', then no game company would make a cent.
The blow it moment was insinuating that folks in general were too stupid to pirate anything.
It's a very bad argument that assumes class.
It also misses another point.
This may be about the fact that people may be willing to support something like a script game rather than "counterfit" if they feel part of something.
The "tithe" was an early tax for the community but an inovation came with the offering plate allowing the poor to tax themselves much like lottery tickets except with no payout in THIS life...
Oops... not railing... just pointing out that communities have to find ways to grow and fund themselves.
Having a (insert your fav game here) roof fund or whatnot isn't such a stupid analogy point by point.
I mean there's the la la land and then there's the real-world monies and procedures to enable the la la land.
The mechanics are VERY similar.
Just sayin...
Black
Maybe in your country it is but here it's perfectly legal to download anything but child porn but that's pretty obvious.
As for the post; i gotta agree to the point that hackers/modders or w/e you wanna call them are probably much much much worse.
Something that i miss in your article though is that piracy has never been about the money (for the "scene" groups). It has always been about things like cracking security deemed worthless or unneccesary among others.
A lot of groups i know off also encourage people to actually BUY the game if people like it, hell half the time even they themselves buy the games before they crack them.
I can even say that when i download games like this i mostly end up buying them because i was allowed more freedom to see what the game was about.
To me "piracy" is more a form of providing a demo in the form of a whole game and helps me make the choice to buy it or not. Which is another point since demo's seem to have stopped coming out all together or they are very very very unpolished.
Let us assume that the picture you took is of lower quality than the original. In many ways so are the pirated version of the games you download. They ususally do not have multi-player, there is no support, they may not run as good as the original, you can not buy DLC, a lot of times the game is not coming to you patched, and there is always the chance you will download a virus or the game just won't work at all. So essentially you are getting an inferior copy of the game.
I guess what I should have said in my post was..
That I take a picture of a picture at walmart and then I take it home, photoshop the hell out of it so it is basically of the same quality as the original, I then put it up on the internet so people can download it for free. If we take the quality out of the discussion does it change anything? The basic act is the same. I took the picture, modified it and then put it on the internet for people to download for free. Would walmart security run after me as I left? Would the cops be called? Would it be considered stealing to them?
You don't how hard is to live in Brazil. We have so many taxes on games that it costs three times the original price and in many cases you can only buy games from the publishers with an international credit car, what is also expensive to get and maintain, so you have to be rich to play an original game, so, the only option the most part of the gaming comunity has is to use pirated games, or else no one would be playing any games, I chalenge you to be a gamer in Brazil and then you will see how great is to use pirated games.
Loved this article.
Almost all of them have multiplayer if it's part of the game, just not always on the official servers, and get all the patches the legit version do too.
Battlefield 3 Retail just hit the pirate sites, has been cracked and multiplayer already being worked on. Seriously, 99% of the time the only people who are hurt by DRM are those that buy the game.
Hi, I’m a pirate. I’ve read every comment in this thread and have a lot of feedback, so here I go…
First and foremost, let me say that I abhor hackers/cheaters that affect other gamers negatively, *within* the games. Someone should not ruin another’s enjoyment simply because they have the know-how or because they lack respect. Modders, in the truer definition, are simply people who are using what tools are offered them by the developers (i.e., the tools released in virtually every Bethesda game, to modify and improve upon the base world. Ex: Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout, etc) and utilizing their own inner designer flair for the game. They are not criminals. At least not the ones that simply add on, not alter altogether. Pirates, on the other hand, are a different animal, and not easily dissected.
Let me make one thing abundantly clear: Piracy is NOT stealing. I repeat, NOT stealing. It is NOT akin to stealing someone’s purse, someone’s car, someone’s home, or any other ludicrous example users have posted on this thread. Theft does not equate to piracy primarily because piracy is the spread of information. Piracy is the copying, COPYING, of data and sharing it with other people. You did not personally go into your favorite video retailer and steal the MANUFACTURED copy off the shelf. You are partaking of a copy of a legitimate copy someone ELSE purchased. The grey area here SHOULD be concentrated upon, because you cannot lump your own predispositions and childhood morals into a discussion that is, at its core, all about the ethics of business regarding entertainment distribution, in an age where the freedom of information is becoming more and more common.
The individual users’ motivations for piracy are just as important as the loss of profit that can sometimes fall upon a company. (Publishers and shareholders can kiss my ass, however. I support the developers, not their god damned market portfolio-loving mother companies. Just getting that out there.) Greed needn’t always be the factor that pushes someone to pirate. Necessity can be a very powerful tool. I personally pirate because I cannot afford the luxury of these games I so desire. I love a great story. I’m in college, full time, and the money I earn I scrape by with. I pay rent, bills, and have to manage my finances to afford groceries, gas, and other amenities to my home. Gaming takes a backseat to responsibility. …However, if I am intelligent enough to acquire the means to play games for free, and I cannot afford it, why should I not test run these games that are out there?
The things I have pirated I have not done so out of malice or greed or laziness; I have done so out of lack of funding. And only insofar that I truly needed too. For instance, I have recently bought several games I’ve wanted to play for a long time, instead of modding my consoles and downloading illegally. But PC ports of games offer a different experience, and present a different method for acquisition… Free. My computer is good enough to run most games at exceptional levels (bought it years ago, haven’t upgraded since then, but it’s a powerhouse), so why shouldn’t I see what the hoop-la is all about for game X when it releases? If I enjoy it, hell I’ll go support the dev. I think I speak for most pirates when I say the “Try before Buy” method of piracy is a very attractive practice. For instance, devs that deserve my money will get it. Bioware, Bethesda, Blizzard, etc… Games that are subpar and aren’t worth the 60 dollars? Count me out. The piracy for those games is well-deserved; and if the sales suck… It’s not pirates fault. It’s the developers for releasing a shoddy product to begin with. This harkens back to a comment I read earlier about someone saying how virus-ridden and dangerous it was to pirate games… Let me correct that. Scene releases are traditionally very safe. Skidrow and other big name groups are not out to attack the pirate; they’re out to spread the joy of the game to others, and as someone else mentioned, in every .nfo file that comes with their releases, they encourage you to go buy the product if you enjoy it. The Try-Then-Buy system at its finest. The evils of piracy lay in the evils of the individual person, not the community as a whole.
Few examples I can cite here for games that DEFINITELY deserved the Try-Before-Buying methodology… Oblivion in 2006? Buggy as hell, even bought brand new wouldn’t run worth a damn. Fable 3 last year? A terrible port that was very damaging to the PC playerbase support of the series. Rage, released only weeks ago? Buggy across multiple platforms, and requiring several patches and updates to make it even *playable*, much less enjoyable, of which it was arguably not worth the 60 bucks for it due to its short story, linear gameplay, and simplistic combat. Someone above mentioned how it was an id tech demo… That’s exactly what I thought while playing it.
I also believe the huge uptrend in piracy is due mostly in part due to the taboo nature of it all. The aspect of “Free free free” is that much more appealing when it’s also the “bad thing to do”. If game companies released more than a twenty minute demo of their game for the public to play, people would be turned off by the lure of it. A full disclosure of their product before purchase would encourage truly realistic sales. People, like you and I, would benefit. Corporate enterprises will be fine without your purchase, because for one person who’s economically in troubling times, there are ten others who are not. Support for good games would be the industry standard, and perhaps, just maybe, we would quit being spoonfed drivel and complete garbage from over half of the developers out there today. AAA games like Skyrim, Batman, MW3 and BF3… These should all be judged fairly by a jury of their peers, a la, you and everyone you know. Gamers should dictate the monetary intake of these businesses, not the other way around. The economy is in dire straits, and the business depends on consumer consumption… So what do you think will happen if prices stay exorbitantly high for these products when the cost of living continues to rise? Not rocket science. Again, just my opinion.
The rise of digital distribution truly does away with the old world mentality of PR, PR, PR. Games can be mass produced and sold without ANY huge media push like big name games have nowadays, as we see with a game like Minecraft, which is arguably revolutionizing the industry standards. It exemplifies what and how a game can be marketed and sold in the 21st century… And it’s not even retail yet. It’s in freaking beta. And It’s sold over 11 million copies I believe. Pretty effin amazing considering it’s from an indie developer and how easily pirateable it is… That just happened. Boom city.
Sorry for how long this post was… But I believe everything is ultimately leading to a free distribution model; it’s only how soon and how much suffering we the consumers must endure by these greedy, power-hungry entities that run the show, until it happens. Thanks for your time.
Every point you attempted to make here is utterly wrong on every level .
Um, you can. If you go to a restaurant, and the food is terrible, or prepared incorrectly, and you say something about it, you almost always don't have to pay. In fact, with almost anything, if you buy something, and the adverts were misleading, or it is made badly, or it doesn't do what it is intended to do, you get your money back.
The only things this isn't the case for are digital things like games, music, and movies. You can't get your money back. That is why, I feel, marketing for games is so deliberately misleading. Once you've bought the game because the trailer looked cool, you're out the money. If it is a terrible game, or you don't enjoy it, it doesn't matter. You've bought it, and you've spent the money.
I have found games that provide demos are almost always better than games that do not. That is because the developers and publishers are confident that, after playing the game for a bit, most people will still want to drop some cash on it.
Other products get guarantees. "This product will work, or we will give you back your money." It promotes effort and makes people make (most of the time) halfway decent products. Games don't have this. They stick their tongues out at us when we don't like they game. They make terrible products, try to trick us into buying them, and then when we don't like it, tough luck.
I am not advocating piracy, but there are two sides to this issue. It might be wrong to take something without paying, obviously. But it is also wrong to not let someone try a product before they buy it and then not give a refund when the product is no good. That is a big reason people do pirate, to try a game before they buy it, because if they don't, they have no guarantees.
Edit: Boreil, I am not sure how much I agree with Drugonis, but I do resent more than a little your flippant and arrogant dismissal of in-depth well-articulated points. If you disagree, explain why. Just saying "You're wrong." Makes you look stupid and doesn't further your point of view in the slightest.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
ah you are 24. Wait until you are older and have actually worked a bit and realize that you have to save for retirement before you start poo-pooing "money grubbing" companies and publicly traded companies.
Your saviings is going to rely heavily on that, hate to tell you. Unless you can get a job that pays gobs of money that you can put under your matteress.
As far as "stealing' you are just trying to justify your acquiring something that wasn't made for you in the first place. These companies aren't making games for you to acquire without paying them or distribute them to others without paying for them.
As far as you supporting the developers; no you don't.
The developers rely upon their companies making money so they can keep their jobs. If a company is not making their numbers then people are oftentimes laid off.
Regardless of whether you feel these publishers or parent companies are making the right business decisions, they still employe people. I'd love to see more employees benefit from their company's earnings, and many actually do, but employees require companies to hire them. I'm sure if you don't have a job perhaps you hope to get one some day? You might be lucky to get a job with a small company that doesn't have to worry about investment dollars but I think a few years in the work force might open your eyes a bit as to what is out there and how you might have to make your living.
Now, having said that "sure" not every company is an angel, many companies are trying to part you with your dollar in any way they can and consumers should be careful with how they spend their money.
But what I see here is someone who just wants to get something for nothing and continue doing it.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
ROFL! How come that you say that PIRACY is not stealing? Wake up dude... Piracy is unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc. So it means that when you pirated something like a book or a recording.. You are stealing income from the company who really owns it.. Quit prattling..
tbh I don't see what the problem with piracy except for those who truly keep illegal copies of media rather than A. Removing them once done with them or B. Actually buying them after they've kept the media they pirated for so long because they actually like it. I alway say to people if you like it enough, go buy it! This is pretty much what I'd do as to me a pirated copy of a game is no more than a full trial version and if you truly want to support that awesome game you just played then you should pay for the company to develop more of it. Its the same for movies, if someone enjoyed the movie they watch they should contribute towards it. Its a real shame that we can't actually gain a product first and pay for it later or simply return it after a few days if we really didn't like it and get a 100% refund. Ever tried returing a game ya didn't like? I did once and OMG do the shop keepers kick up a stink about it, I really hate that they don't actually care whether you were enjoying it, they just want ya god damn money. And before you all say "But there are demos out there noob" these so called demos aren't usually long enough nore do they give you the true experiance of the game and thus very hard to judge whether that game was even worth buying or not. Heck, even Lionhead Studies once had the balls to claim that pirating hurts the companies less than second hand reselling, and I totally agree when the fact that companies who do this are just making money for themselves, not for the company who created the game to start with where as whoever pirates these games normally had to have a supply of an original copy and is NOT trying to sell it to you, at least not normally anyway, thus not making any money out of it what so ever, thats considered fair trade in my country!
Anybody who thinks that eventually a freemodel getting games comes along are delusional. Look at the free two play mmo's these days there actually not free you get for most limited content and if you want full package you gonne open your wallet and then you pay more then subscription model.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
So why doesn't it work for you as a player as well if it work for those companies? The thing is you are just looking at thing one way, you should look both ways, from the companies point of view as well as the customer point of view.
Didn't you (the player) put your time into possessing those virtual goods and characters? Just like the company took its time to make their games? What in their right mind make them think you cannot possess what your effort is giving you the right to possess? And further, if you pay for the box, why shouldn't you possess the game as well? If you go buy some bread in a shop, how the fuck the baker can force you to eat the bread only with honey and forbid you to put butter on it? Does it make any sense? Not that much from that perspective, is it?
The thing is, just like pointed the op, there is something about interest here, how ever you turn this aspect, you will come to interest problems. This is what courts are made to, since they were first made in our civilizations they deal with interest problems.
Because in fact you do possess those virtual items and characters somehow in practice, at least from what i know. Because every time the ownership of a character was to be dealt with in front of a court, every time the court gave the right to the player, and not the gaming companies. I have no time now to find you links, and this would need quiet some time to do because those cases are rare, but that's what i recall from all the cases i knew of concerning this aspect. Maybe i'm wrong but i don't believe so.
So we are back in square one. Companies can own their virtual world and everything it doesn't matter. They cannot own their players time and effort as well.
OK, here goes - a post to support OP. The big games I actually paid for in reecent years are: Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Dragon Age: Origins, Rage (yes, I actually enjoyed it), X3: Reunion, StarCraft II, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I've pirated every single one of them before buying, so there was no revenue lost. But I can honestly say that if pirating wasn't an option I wouldn't even bother with them - I'm not going to pay €50-60 for a product that sucks arse. Most of my friends are like that too - they'll pirate a game first then pay if it is worth the asking price. "But you could just play a demo" you say? I call BS on that, can I? Out of all the recently hyped games only HOMM6 has a demo and that blows so hard I stopped playing after 20 minutes. I'm actually glad they had a demo which saved me time and money.
And don't even start spewing that "piracy is stealing" crap. The issue is not all that black and white. EA has been selling crap for years now - the latest FIFA game (take the previous FIFA game change the skins and relable) is worth almost €50 over here!! WTF!! €50 for horse aarmour? Really? What is that if not stealing? It's worse, it's daylight robbery. Fine, not the brightesr exsample, I wouldn't even play it if they paid me, but you get the point. Why should anyone get away with selling an inferior product for a full price? I'd be pissed if Yamaha sold me my R1 with no breaks for a full €10,000. At least you can test it on the spot an then come back if there's something wrong with it. In case of digital media, you get screwed out of your money and that's it. I think it's only fair to be able NOT to pay for crap.
Just because you don't approve of / support a product doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it.
That's like going to the supermarket and being like,
"Hey, I don't like Cocoa Puffs. I should but allowed to put a few boxes of Cocoa Puffs in my shopping cart and walk out the door without paying for them."
But why would you even take the Cocoa Puffs in the first place?
"So I can trade them for free to people who like Cocoa Puffs."
Shouldn't that person who likes Cocoa Puffs just go buy their own box of Cocoa Puffs at the store?
"Why pay for something when you can get it for free?"
Because it's illegal?
"So? I don't like Cocoa Puffs why should I support them?"
and on and on and on...
circular logic and false justifications hold NO weight.
I think you were actually missing the point some of us were making. We were stating its a try before you buy thing for some of us not a take it for free because we didn't like it in the first place, thats just really stupid. Like I said in my post if you keep it cus you like it you should buy it, not continue to own it without paying, thats just being pure greedy, especially if one truely did not like it they shouldn't keep it imo. Your view point is pretty dumb tbh, anyone who does that are pretty stupid and obviously wouldn't get what they wanted and anyone who knew they had got it for free even though they don't like them would flame them for their stupidity even if they did manage to because getting something you don't like for free is idiotic and a waste.
Try before you buy is great... if it is an option that the product/service is offering.
If the product/service is not offering a try before you buy option...
Then you are still doing something illegal and stealing it.
So, once again, false justifications and circular logic don't do anything.
Many games do offer free trials and demo's.
So once again it is a matter of PLAYER greed trying to get something for free because they can't/won't wait until a trial or demo is available.
Right, because supermarkets don't sell you a license to Cocoa Puffs for an obscene amount, and able to reproduce the SAME box at no cost to them. Because, THAT would be stealing, namely depriving the owner of the benefit of OWNERSHIP and further resale.
Oh, and if I get stomach cancer by eating those (because someone put out a half-arsed excuse of a product on the shelf) I can at the very least return the product and demand a refund (unless they put a warning on the box - then I'm fucked). When was the last time anyone saw a "warning: may cause accute diarrhea and depression" on a game box? When was the last time anyone returned anything on Steam? I'd love to return Mass Effect 2 (ME1 epicness got the besst of me) since I hated it and quit after 40 minutes into the game. Please tell me how.
Settle down...
Buyer beware.
Only person to blame if YOU make a purchase and then regret it is you.
This doesn't just apply to gaming, but well everything in life.
Complaining that water is wet is not going to make it not so - you have to buy an umbrella or stay indoors...
Good luck reselling a half eaten box of Cocoa Puffs btw.
The choice as to whether or not a product or service is worth the asking price is a choice only the consumer can make. People buy iPhones for twice the price of Android phones and get half the features.
I may think it's stupid but some consumers simply like the brand and/or feel like the cost is justified.
MMO players are spoiled, as are gamers in general.
Like I said in my original argument in this thread, people in general have gotten used to the idea of free everything and low-cost everything - we are a society that has become so entitled and self absorbed we no longer accept the realities of capitalism.
Indeed they have. And I fully understand where you are coming from. On the other hand a sales person needs to convince a potential customer to buy the product (other reality of capitalism). Do so by providing a demo before bitching about your game being pirated. Having a demo cuts pirating by a good amount. I didn't bother with Dungeon Siege 3 and Heroes 6 because I hated the demos.
I can only blame myself for a purchase I later regret if the product was matching the ad. In any other case it's false advertising and you have the right to complain/return, at least in Europe.
Of course there is a different class of pirate - people who wouldn't pay for a game/movie/music no matter what. Again no lost sales there - they wouldn't have bought it anyway, wether it's the price, personal antipathy towards a company or just plain greed.
The Pirasy is BS argument is kind of true because the companies themselves partially perpetuate the current state of things.
That is a good post. +1 sir
Piracy is inevitable in the end.
But should companies try to curb it or allow it to flurish?
I think the choice is obvious.