Just comes back to what I said, you want it but don't want to pay the asking price for it. Who lost out is irrelevant. I'm not too bothered about the moral ethics of stealing without loss, just bored of the excuses. Stand up proud for your crime! Say it with me. "I stole because I want it and didn't want to pay for it."
Just comes back to what I said, you want it but don't want to pay the asking price for it. Who lost out is irrelevant. I'm not too bothered about the moral ethics of stealing without loss, just bored of the excuses. Stand up proud for your crime! Say it with me. "I stole because I want it and didn't want to pay for it."
I'm a criminal and proud of it!
"Why buy the cake when you can have a slice for free?" - Joan Collins
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
Just reading a person saying "i pirate games because I dont want to pay for them" is pretty damn boring and kind of obvious. I want to know why they don't want to pay for them. There is a big difference between excuses and reasons even if we end up at the same place in the end.
If a buzz about a games good I'll buy it or wait a bit for price drop then buy,I' won't bother with a game at all when the gamer buzz talk in its negative. The only time I'll bit torrent an ISO for game is if I've lost or broke my DVD,but still have the case and the key. The last one I did was The Witcher 2 as I had a faulty disk 1 and couldn't be assed to wait for it to replaced so just bit torrented the ISO for disk one, so not all downloading is for illegal means.
The whole "I only pirate because I couldn't afford/wouldnt have bought" line is B.S too. Do you go steal cars and mug old ladys for the same reasons? Sure game prices can be a rip off, doesn't make the above reasons anymore legit though.
this is total BS. if you want to steal i car you will have to know more stuff than if you pirate a game. the punishment if caught are also that much bigger.
i used to buy games all the time, until the gaming industry became big business and started to shoot out crappy games all the time. if you get disappointed soooo many times people will start to pirate instead.
uh no. whether or not you are allowed to 'test' or trial something is at the sole discretion of the seller/manufacturer, not as some sort of delusion of civil righteousness.
And you really have no problem with this? You only take what morsels those companies feed you, and buy their game without a "test drive" to test for yourself if the game holds everything the company promises? Because those companies are so trustworthy, everything their marketing departments throw at you must be true. I mean, if they lie to you, they are accountable, right?
(They are not).
And that is why I reserve the right to check out what I spend my money on before I spend it. The companies show us what they want us to see. And don't think for a second that those review sites and magazines are unbiased. I used to work for one.
Now, don't get me wrong. I want to pay for games that are worth their money. I may even purchase two copies (or a CE) if I really like a game.
Long story short: I don't pirate. I make use of a "loan" by a stranger to see if the games makes good on its promises (a few years ago, I would borrow a game, and get my own copy - that's often no longer possible thanks to DRM, though). If it does, I will purchase it. If it doesn't, I won't.
Which means that the only "piracing" going on on my part is the imagined money a company would have gotten from me if they had succeeded in deceiving a customer (me, that is).
uh no. whether or not you are allowed to 'test' or trial something is at the sole discretion of the seller/manufacturer, not as some sort of delusion of civil righteousness.
And you really have no problem with this? You only take what morsels those companies feed you, and buy their game without a "test drive" to test for yourself if the game holds everything the company promises? Because those companies are so trustworthy, everything their marketing departments throw at you must be true. I mean, if they lie to you, they are accountable, right?
(They are not).
And that is why I reserve the right to check out what I spend my money on before I spend it. The companies show us what they want us to see. And don't think for a second that those review sites and magazines are unbiased. I used to work for one.
Now, don't get me wrong. I want to pay for games that are worth their money. I may even purchase two copies (or a CE) if I really like a game.
Long story short: I don't pirate. I make use of a "loan" by a stranger to see if the games makes good on its promises (a few years ago, I would borrow a game, and get my own copy - that's often no longer possible thanks to DRM, though). If it does, I will purchase it. If it doesn't, I won't.
Which means that the only "piracing" going on on my part is the imagined money a company would have gotten from me if they had succeeded in deceiving a customer (me, that is).
I completely agree with this, my thoughts and views exactly.
I pirate games because it's too expensive. I earn not enough to pay $50 for two hours of mediocre entertainment. I also don't see any reason to not pirate games.
I don't harm anyone, because if I haven't pirated a game I would not buy it anyway, so nobody lost any money because I've pirated a game. Why wouldn't I buy them? Because I can't afford them. Same goes for movies and music, by the way. I've pirated 4 or 5 games in the last month. None of them kept my interest for more than an hour before being uninstalled. I've downloaded one movie last month and deleted it half way through it. I knew that that's what likely would happen; I wouldn't have bought those games anyway.
What are the downsides of pirating games? There are none. Companies will not make the games anymore? Yeah, good riddance, I don't care. I'm losing the interest to play even pirated games.
There are some games I liked, but I still haven't bought them, because why buy, when I can play for free? And if those weren't available for free, I wouldn't bought them anyway, because I would likely have not discovered that they were good, and wouldn't spend money. Like recent Heroes of MM6. So I've downloaded it, played it for, like, 2 hours, unistalled it. Buy it? Yeah, suuure. I don't want it for free, why buy it? Or Tropico 4. Now that's a good one. I've enjoyed it, for couple of weeks. But I will not pay $40 for it, because I've already played it through, so why waste money? And if I hadn't pirated it, I would still not buy it, because how would I know that it's good? So I wouldn't buy it.
So, what is the reason for me not to pirate games, but buy them? There is none. None whatsoever. I don't feel like I harm anyone, so "guilt trip" will not work on me. I feel no need to support the industry, because I have no interest in industry's survival. I receive nothing I consider of value in exchange for money that I can't get for free.
I've actually bought some games lately, because they were sold for, like, $2 per game and they were fun - Total War series, through Steam. I've put money into some online games like TF2 and WoT, because I really enjoy them and the money spent increased my enjoyment, so I considered it worth it.
Punishments for piracy? It may lower the amount of games downloaded, it will rise the amount of games bought, but never even close to the numbers of downloads.
. I feel no need to support the industry, because I have no interest in industry's survival.
Then dont take part in the industry full stop ... you dont support the industry so dont use its output.
Why? What's the reason for me to not use the industry other than the cries of outrage of people I don't give two ...s about?
Anyway, I've played, may be, 10 hours total in the last month, of pirated games. Does it look like I use its output? That's the point: I don't use it, and neither does the majority of other pirates. They download the game, install it, say "boring cr...p" and uninstall. This is exactly the reason I don't support the industry: because I don't use it.
P.S. By the way, even if I "use the industry", like in the case with Tropico, what's the reason for me not to us it? "Guilt trip"? Sorry, don't feel anything like that. Please, find another.
I think property owners have a right to protect their property how they see fit. However that wont stop me from stealing their stuff if I feel their price is too high, and the risk is low. There really isnt an argument here. Stealing is wrong. Im a criminal.
Indeed. When you get something of value without paying anything to those who produced this value, it's a crime. It's theft. That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.
It's very simple. Every time you enjoy the value without paying the producer of that value, you steal. Game re-selleres, toys resellers, users car resalers... You are all criminals, the whole bunch of you. There is no way around it.
Sure, tradition allows us to actually steal things that way without suffering the stigma of being dirty thief that you are... But the principle doesn't change. You enjoy some value without paying the producer for that value.
just another FYI, the whole comment on "validation service" i.e. Steam is so easy to bypass that it's not even funny. Also anyone who can copy-paste files into folders with a little googling can d/l install, and bypass validaiton services.
See what bothers me in articles on this website, is that so often the people who write them are simply uninformed.
Just my 2 cents.
------- Check out my side project http://lfger.com/ - a mobile lfg tool for any game, any time. -------
We were talking about why users/customers had become SO adverse to spending even the smallest amount of money for their IT/computer/technical needs."
Software costs alot more today and concerning games I feel despite improvements in graphics and gameplay the value has dropped. In the 1980's I could get a game for something like £2 and it would last me a month or more, sure the graphics sucked by todays standards along with the gameplay but by the standards of the time it was decent. Today to purchase a similar game it would cost me £20 - £30 and the game would last me for a day to a week at most before I bin it.
So in 25 years I've seen a price increase of 1000 - 1500% with a significant increase in the visual and playability value to match the price hike but lifespan has dramaticly dropped off. They make computer games with the same philosophy as they make washing machines or other home appliances. They construct it to last past the warranty but no longer, after the warranty is up they want it to fail so that you'll be forced to purchase a new one.
Then you get some suit telling you that the reason a AAA title costs £50 is that they have to make money back for all the piracy and it hurts the consumer. What a heap of BS, how many McDonalds or Pizza Huts got robbed last year? I wonder what the response would be if they increased the price of a Big Mac by 1500% on the cost 25 years ago and blamed armed armed robbers and company employees stealing? Well they'd sell no burgers unless all the other burger chains agreed to hike their prices too ... but that'd make me a crazy conspiracy nut wouldn't it?
Well until things change I'm not paying £50 for 1 day of shitty entertainment that I could've got for nothing that's what prostitutes are for!
Although I think it's more like £30-£40+ now, (with £130 for collectors edition!!!) then you have to add all the down-load-content, drm so there's a good chance what you buy may not even work and if it does you'll likely have valve spying on what you are doing.
Having said that piracy can be a big problem for small studios even to the risk that they may go bust.
FYI online drm make no differance to piracy before anyone says it's why you have to put up with it.
I've always felt that piracy is bogus, honestly. Steam and Origin have now made PC games even more popular than ever. Indie games are now rising and gathering more and more followers and sometimes it feels like companies would rather point fingers at the pirates for shoddy work rather than take the blame for themselves, and yet you see people like Team Meat producing a game I've put 50 hours into (Binding of Isaac) for $5 (And let's not forget Orcs Must Die! Which is absolutely incredible - Or Terraria!). I think the problem isn't piracy. It's the industry.
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
I said it in the other thread but I will say it again. The figures of real game piracy in most of the world are far FAR lower than what the studios & publishers constantly cite and it would not surprise me of this went for other types of mediums as well including music, movies & TV shows.
In the gaming world Piracy was an excuse for a lot of publishers to ditch the PC format for consoles, they didnt happen to also mention that your average console game can be sold for $15-$35 more per copy & console games will just buy it. The most telling part that game piracy was always a bullshit excuse is the fact that this particular issue has been abandoned by publisher. Face it, nowdays the publishers are too busy demonizing the secondhand console games market (online play pass anyone ?) and trying to destroy it to worry about PC.
Infact many publishers are hailing PC & digital distribution as the second coming and I think sites like GoG.com (purveyors of new and old games that are completely DRM free) could not exist and make a profit if the gaming piracy figures for PC were even one two tenths of what publishers have long claimed they were.
More & more publishers are beinding to the will off the PC gamer when it comes to draconian DRM solutions & removing them or not implementing them in the first place. If Piracy truly were such a massive issue they would not budge on DRM.
The various pirate groups usually break DRM within a week or so anyway, often is seems the newest games are online and playable as cracked copies before official launch date while legit customers who bought on steam/origin/GFWL are still waiting for the game they paid for to unlock.
If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.
If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.
not likely. i never play demos because i can just download it. if companies in general started to make good games again im sure piracy would drop. but what we see is quantity over quality just like the rest of the worlds industries.
If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.
not likely. i never play demos because i can just download it. if companies in general started to make good games again im sure piracy would drop. but what we see is quantity over quality just like the rest of the worlds industries.
awesome aint it?
just because you don't play demo's doesn't mean someone else won't. I know plenty of people that bought games after they played their demo's.
I agree on the other part though; games are turning into breakfast cereal for developers and some are running out of idea's or imagination.
If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.
If the demos were "true" demonstrations of the games, this might be the case. But mostly they are not.
I mentioned earlier that I use full versions of games in order to convince myself if it's worth a buy. Well, this wasn't always so. I used to use demos as a way of getting to know a game. Promblem was: Too many companies cobbled together a more-or-less awesome demo that emphasized the good parts of a game and hid the bad parts (think Dragon Age II, for a recent example). Sure, that's marketing. I also think it unfair to the customer.
If (IF - sad to say, that will never be the case) more people were mature enough and willing to spend money to support good games, I honestly think that "piracy" (i.e. the downloading of a full game w/o having to pay for it beforehand) could be a boon to the industry. If I hadn't had the opportunity to test drive, I would have bought none of those games. As it stands, i buy roughly 2/3rds of the games I "pirate".
But most people (especially on the internet) are not mature. They get something for free at little to no risk, and that -for them- is that. There's black sheep on both sides of the fences. And on both sides, they're motivated by greed.
I have never pirated a game, but I find services like steam make me want to buy more games. If I can watch a movie on netflix, then I'll watch it on netflix and not even think of trying to get fully free elsewhere. That's the kind of distribution the entertainment industry needs to focus on in order to survive and thrive, and I think it's pretty reasonable.
I don't feel bad that they need to change. I think it's the universe's reply for the movie and music industry increasing prices by like 50% when they switched to cd's and dvd's...which were cheaper to mass produce than tapes.
Not to mention the hundreds and thousands of mainstream albums with only 3 good songs.
Indeed. When you get something of value without paying anything to those who produced this value, it's a crime. It's theft. That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.
It's very simple. Every time you enjoy the value without paying the producer of that value, you steal. Game re-selleres, toys resellers, users car resalers... You are all criminals, the whole bunch of you. There is no way around it.
Sure, tradition allows us to actually steal things that way without suffering the stigma of being dirty thief that you are... But the principle doesn't change. You enjoy some value without paying the producer for that value.
Its Monday morning here and I needed a good laugh - thanks, I am still chuckling away here ...!
That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. There is a used market for almost any product. If a company can't stay in business for it, step aside, another one will come in and take their place. Also, go spend some time looking up what the definition of a criminal is... you missed the mark by a long shot.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Piracy on the PC is rampant as far as games are concerned. As a knock on effect from this you also find it's the platform with the most 'issues'. People with low moral standards tend to operate in the PC gaming world. Here you find the majority of cheating. Play a shooter on the PC and it won't be long before you easily identify somebody using an aimbot or some other type of glitch/hack. Piracy is rife, cheating is rife.
MMO's are not that much different, although not cheating in the true sense of the word (though it does happen). Things like key bindings, macro's all go to making things easy in the PC world for those that have technical savvy. Often gaming skill doesn't come into the equation. Which just leads to an imbalance and uneven playing field.
Overall I think it's up to the developer to protect their own games, but at the same time I think if you like a game you should buy it. I question these days whether there are any true gamers left on PC or just people looking for something for nothing. Be that either pirated games or a paid advantage in legitimate game.
Comments
I'm a criminal and proud of it!
"Why buy the cake when you can have a slice for free?" - Joan Collins
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Just reading a person saying "i pirate games because I dont want to pay for them" is pretty damn boring and kind of obvious. I want to know why they don't want to pay for them. There is a big difference between excuses and reasons even if we end up at the same place in the end.
If a buzz about a games good I'll buy it or wait a bit for price drop then buy,I' won't bother with a game at all when the gamer buzz talk in its negative. The only time I'll bit torrent an ISO for game is if I've lost or broke my DVD,but still have the case and the key. The last one I did was The Witcher 2 as I had a faulty disk 1 and couldn't be assed to wait for it to replaced so just bit torrented the ISO for disk one, so not all downloading is for illegal means.
this is total BS. if you want to steal i car you will have to know more stuff than if you pirate a game. the punishment if caught are also that much bigger.
i used to buy games all the time, until the gaming industry became big business and started to shoot out crappy games all the time. if you get disappointed soooo many times people will start to pirate instead.
And you really have no problem with this? You only take what morsels those companies feed you, and buy their game without a "test drive" to test for yourself if the game holds everything the company promises? Because those companies are so trustworthy, everything their marketing departments throw at you must be true. I mean, if they lie to you, they are accountable, right?
(They are not).
And that is why I reserve the right to check out what I spend my money on before I spend it. The companies show us what they want us to see. And don't think for a second that those review sites and magazines are unbiased. I used to work for one.
Now, don't get me wrong. I want to pay for games that are worth their money. I may even purchase two copies (or a CE) if I really like a game.
Long story short: I don't pirate. I make use of a "loan" by a stranger to see if the games makes good on its promises (a few years ago, I would borrow a game, and get my own copy - that's often no longer possible thanks to DRM, though). If it does, I will purchase it. If it doesn't, I won't.
Which means that the only "piracing" going on on my part is the imagined money a company would have gotten from me if they had succeeded in deceiving a customer (me, that is).
I completely agree with this, my thoughts and views exactly.
I pirate games because it's too expensive. I earn not enough to pay $50 for two hours of mediocre entertainment. I also don't see any reason to not pirate games.
I don't harm anyone, because if I haven't pirated a game I would not buy it anyway, so nobody lost any money because I've pirated a game. Why wouldn't I buy them? Because I can't afford them. Same goes for movies and music, by the way. I've pirated 4 or 5 games in the last month. None of them kept my interest for more than an hour before being uninstalled. I've downloaded one movie last month and deleted it half way through it. I knew that that's what likely would happen; I wouldn't have bought those games anyway.
What are the downsides of pirating games? There are none. Companies will not make the games anymore? Yeah, good riddance, I don't care. I'm losing the interest to play even pirated games.
There are some games I liked, but I still haven't bought them, because why buy, when I can play for free? And if those weren't available for free, I wouldn't bought them anyway, because I would likely have not discovered that they were good, and wouldn't spend money. Like recent Heroes of MM6. So I've downloaded it, played it for, like, 2 hours, unistalled it. Buy it? Yeah, suuure. I don't want it for free, why buy it? Or Tropico 4. Now that's a good one. I've enjoyed it, for couple of weeks. But I will not pay $40 for it, because I've already played it through, so why waste money? And if I hadn't pirated it, I would still not buy it, because how would I know that it's good? So I wouldn't buy it.
So, what is the reason for me not to pirate games, but buy them? There is none. None whatsoever. I don't feel like I harm anyone, so "guilt trip" will not work on me. I feel no need to support the industry, because I have no interest in industry's survival. I receive nothing I consider of value in exchange for money that I can't get for free.
I've actually bought some games lately, because they were sold for, like, $2 per game and they were fun - Total War series, through Steam. I've put money into some online games like TF2 and WoT, because I really enjoy them and the money spent increased my enjoyment, so I considered it worth it.
Punishments for piracy? It may lower the amount of games downloaded, it will rise the amount of games bought, but never even close to the numbers of downloads.
Then dont take part in the industry full stop ... you dont support the industry so dont use its output.
Why? What's the reason for me to not use the industry other than the cries of outrage of people I don't give two ...s about?
Anyway, I've played, may be, 10 hours total in the last month, of pirated games. Does it look like I use its output? That's the point: I don't use it, and neither does the majority of other pirates. They download the game, install it, say "boring cr...p" and uninstall. This is exactly the reason I don't support the industry: because I don't use it.
P.S. By the way, even if I "use the industry", like in the case with Tropico, what's the reason for me not to us it? "Guilt trip"? Sorry, don't feel anything like that. Please, find another.
I think property owners have a right to protect their property how they see fit. However that wont stop me from stealing their stuff if I feel their price is too high, and the risk is low. There really isnt an argument here. Stealing is wrong. Im a criminal.
Indeed. When you get something of value without paying anything to those who produced this value, it's a crime. It's theft. That's why when you buy a used Lego toy from eBay instead of buying a brand new from Lego store, you get the toy, but the producer of the toy gets nothing! You are a criminal. There is no way around it.
It's very simple. Every time you enjoy the value without paying the producer of that value, you steal. Game re-selleres, toys resellers, users car resalers... You are all criminals, the whole bunch of you. There is no way around it.
Sure, tradition allows us to actually steal things that way without suffering the stigma of being dirty thief that you are... But the principle doesn't change. You enjoy some value without paying the producer for that value.
just another FYI, the whole comment on "validation service" i.e. Steam is so easy to bypass that it's not even funny. Also anyone who can copy-paste files into folders with a little googling can d/l install, and bypass validaiton services.
See what bothers me in articles on this website, is that so often the people who write them are simply uninformed.
Just my 2 cents.
-------
Check out my side project http://lfger.com/ - a mobile lfg tool for any game, any time.
-------
Although I think it's more like £30-£40+ now, (with £130 for collectors edition!!!) then you have to add all the down-load-content, drm so there's a good chance what you buy may not even work and if it does you'll likely have valve spying on what you are doing.
Having said that piracy can be a big problem for small studios even to the risk that they may go bust.
FYI online drm make no differance to piracy before anyone says it's why you have to put up with it.
I've always felt that piracy is bogus, honestly. Steam and Origin have now made PC games even more popular than ever. Indie games are now rising and gathering more and more followers and sometimes it feels like companies would rather point fingers at the pirates for shoddy work rather than take the blame for themselves, and yet you see people like Team Meat producing a game I've put 50 hours into (Binding of Isaac) for $5 (And let's not forget Orcs Must Die! Which is absolutely incredible - Or Terraria!). I think the problem isn't piracy. It's the industry.
Come Join us at www.globalequestria.com - Meet other fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!
I said it in the other thread but I will say it again. The figures of real game piracy in most of the world are far FAR lower than what the studios & publishers constantly cite and it would not surprise me of this went for other types of mediums as well including music, movies & TV shows.
In the gaming world Piracy was an excuse for a lot of publishers to ditch the PC format for consoles, they didnt happen to also mention that your average console game can be sold for $15-$35 more per copy & console games will just buy it. The most telling part that game piracy was always a bullshit excuse is the fact that this particular issue has been abandoned by publisher. Face it, nowdays the publishers are too busy demonizing the secondhand console games market (online play pass anyone ?) and trying to destroy it to worry about PC.
Infact many publishers are hailing PC & digital distribution as the second coming and I think sites like GoG.com (purveyors of new and old games that are completely DRM free) could not exist and make a profit if the gaming piracy figures for PC were even one two tenths of what publishers have long claimed they were.
More & more publishers are beinding to the will off the PC gamer when it comes to draconian DRM solutions & removing them or not implementing them in the first place. If Piracy truly were such a massive issue they would not budge on DRM.
The various pirate groups usually break DRM within a week or so anyway, often is seems the newest games are online and playable as cracked copies before official launch date while legit customers who bought on steam/origin/GFWL are still waiting for the game they paid for to unlock.
If companies released more demos then I'm sure piracy would go down. I can literally list games which I've bought based on demo experiences. I think thats a great thing.
not likely. i never play demos because i can just download it. if companies in general started to make good games again im sure piracy would drop. but what we see is quantity over quality just like the rest of the worlds industries.
awesome aint it?
just because you don't play demo's doesn't mean someone else won't. I know plenty of people that bought games after they played their demo's.
I agree on the other part though; games are turning into breakfast cereal for developers and some are running out of idea's or imagination.
If the demos were "true" demonstrations of the games, this might be the case. But mostly they are not.
I mentioned earlier that I use full versions of games in order to convince myself if it's worth a buy. Well, this wasn't always so. I used to use demos as a way of getting to know a game. Promblem was: Too many companies cobbled together a more-or-less awesome demo that emphasized the good parts of a game and hid the bad parts (think Dragon Age II, for a recent example). Sure, that's marketing. I also think it unfair to the customer.
If (IF - sad to say, that will never be the case) more people were mature enough and willing to spend money to support good games, I honestly think that "piracy" (i.e. the downloading of a full game w/o having to pay for it beforehand) could be a boon to the industry. If I hadn't had the opportunity to test drive, I would have bought none of those games. As it stands, i buy roughly 2/3rds of the games I "pirate".
But most people (especially on the internet) are not mature. They get something for free at little to no risk, and that -for them- is that. There's black sheep on both sides of the fences. And on both sides, they're motivated by greed.
I have never pirated a game, but I find services like steam make me want to buy more games. If I can watch a movie on netflix, then I'll watch it on netflix and not even think of trying to get fully free elsewhere. That's the kind of distribution the entertainment industry needs to focus on in order to survive and thrive, and I think it's pretty reasonable.
I don't feel bad that they need to change. I think it's the universe's reply for the movie and music industry increasing prices by like 50% when they switched to cd's and dvd's...which were cheaper to mass produce than tapes.
Not to mention the hundreds and thousands of mainstream albums with only 3 good songs.
And the crappy sequels.
And re-issues.
Its Monday morning here and I needed a good laugh - thanks, I am still chuckling away here ...!
This has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. There is a used market for almost any product. If a company can't stay in business for it, step aside, another one will come in and take their place. Also, go spend some time looking up what the definition of a criminal is... you missed the mark by a long shot.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Piracy on the PC is rampant as far as games are concerned. As a knock on effect from this you also find it's the platform with the most 'issues'. People with low moral standards tend to operate in the PC gaming world. Here you find the majority of cheating. Play a shooter on the PC and it won't be long before you easily identify somebody using an aimbot or some other type of glitch/hack. Piracy is rife, cheating is rife.
MMO's are not that much different, although not cheating in the true sense of the word (though it does happen). Things like key bindings, macro's all go to making things easy in the PC world for those that have technical savvy. Often gaming skill doesn't come into the equation. Which just leads to an imbalance and uneven playing field.
Overall I think it's up to the developer to protect their own games, but at the same time I think if you like a game you should buy it. I question these days whether there are any true gamers left on PC or just people looking for something for nothing. Be that either pirated games or a paid advantage in legitimate game.