Piracy Megathread: Do you object to piracy, and if so, why?

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Like I said I'm not going to get into the whole you said/I said/Llama said discussion. But as to why I think that most people who pirate, whether it's by a slim margin or not... It's pretty simple. People who pirate in the first place usually have two things in common.

1. They have no scruples about illegally obtaining the game in the first place. You've said as much so about both yourself and pirates in general. They already committed the crime by pirating the game, whether or not they later pay for it does make a difference as far as whether or not they are guilty of piracy. So why not just keep the game and save your money?
2. They all ready have a general disdain for the gaming industry. Even if they understand they are damaging the industry or hurting a particular company it’s easy to say “they had it coming”. Even if they pirate a game they like it’s easy to justify not paying as retaliation for all the bad games you’ve wasted money on in the past.
Anyways the whole idea that people will pay for something they already have for free just to support the industry is pretty stupid. If you don’t think so try this: Buy 10 copies of your favorite game and leave them in a box outside of a mall with a note that reads: “FREE TO TRY – IF YOU ENJOY SEND $50 TO (insert address here) ”. Then hold your breath and wait for the money to come. If it doesn’t I guess the game just sucked that bad.
 
I am disappointed to see the purpose of this thread so quickly derailed, but I guess it was inevitable.

As for the whole subprime thing.... It was caused by banks giving loans to people in risky financial situations (subprime loans) and those loans frequently being ARMs which are riskier still. When the interest rate rose, those people who had been approved for those loans saw that they had maybe a few hundred dollars paid down, and a house that was worth less than it was when they got the loan so they had no real equity at stake. So they foreclosed and moved out.

It had nothing to do with evil consumers who were seeking to bilk the system, nor did it have anything to do with noble consumers who found out that they had been bilked by being overcharged. The houses devalued because the market crashed, not because they were overpriced to begin with.
 
Pretty clear? If even 1 pirate is supporting the industry by buying even a couple games a year that he pirates, then if every pirate stopped playing games entirely, the industry would have the same number of people not purchase their game, PLUS that 1 pirate also wouldn't buy a couple games a year from pirating.
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I don't agree that the scenario of having the pirates not buy games is worse than having them possibly buy games. I think there is an assumption being made here that companies make their decisions solely based on sales. Yes, sales is an important part. However, a business responds to many many aspects of a product and market aside from sales.

For an example lets say that a game is put out on the market and sells extremely well. Lets say it's a single player PC game that outsells Halo 3 and has no copy protection. The game is just so damn good that everyone wants to play it and even pirates feel obligated to spend their $50 on it. So effectively 100% of the potential audience is playing the game and paying for it.

X% of people who bought the game tried it via piracy before buying it. When a research group reports these numbers to the executives at the company responsible for the game what do they see? That's right, they see X% of lost sales, whether or not that is real.

How do they respond? Do they simply not worry about that X% and enjoy the money that the 100%-X% is bringing in? Their job is dependent on improving revenue. It might even wound their sense of pride to think that X% of their potential revenue is, in their mind, being denied to them.


The housing market was a mess all around. You had people buying homes as investments. They invested under the assumption that the value would rise at some huge rate. It did not.

So you have people who essentially had stocks that they bought on borrowed money. Why keep paying for a stock that is failing and continues to fail?

Add in a good measure of banks packaging and reselling good loans with risky loans to mitigate risk, and you get a hiccup in the economy. Now let the government step in and prevent all the people and businesses who made bad decisions from suffering and we can all suffer together. Yaye for economic decline!
 
The point however, is that no matter how many times you say it or how much money you spend to prevent it, piracy will not be stopped. The trick is getting the content providers to look at it that way.

It is kind of like supermarkets. They expect and plan for a certain amount of shoplifting. It is in their budget and they understand that while it may be possible to prevent more of it, they would lose a lot of customers by going to the draconian measures necessary to do so. So they just accept that it happens and budget accordingly.

The software industry needs to take a similar philosophy. They need to understand that if they restrict everyone, they will lose more legitimate customers than they save in preventing lost sales. The only way we can make this clear to them is to not buy their product and ideally not pirate it either.

And that is exactly what is happening. More and more people are moving over to consoles because they don't have to futz with any nasty DRM (among many other reasons, but I have done this personally so it is at least some of the reason).

Piracy and DRM are what are causing the PC game slump. We can't stop and rarely succeed in slowing down piracy, but these companies do have control over DRM.
 
The point however, is that no matter how many times you say it or how much money you spend to prevent it, piracy will not be stopped. The trick is getting the content providers to look at it that way.
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While I dislike DRM very much it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop playing PC games. Basically aslong as it doesn't directly interfer with gameplay I can live with it. One thing I have noticed lately on this forum is that many of the people screaming the loudest about DRM are the same people who claim to at least sometimes pirate games. The phrase "I want buy or pirate this game" is one often heard from these people. So maybe DRM is having the effect developers had hoped for. If not by technically preventing piracy but by driving away those who would do it. Also keep in mind that if gamers are driven to consoles (which are DRM machines) that wouldn't necessarily hurt game producers. Ben Meyer actually hinted at this synical idea in last weeks Second Take that maybe that's what the gaming industry wants?
 


Thanks for taking the time radnor I definitely appreciate it. Joining a big discussion here towards the mid/end of the thread tends to make it hard to jump right in. I'd be interested to hear others opinions on the post I made however, especially Rob's. But I realize how people have their side discussions.

Thanks again.
 
Piracy is not all bad, it keeps companies in check also

like when books became popular, many people attempted to control and limit access to books, but pirates developed tools still used today (just more advance) to copy books and mas distrubute it, eventually we got to a point of where you can access just about any book with no problem


if it was not for piracy. only the select elite few would have access to books today


the only thing stopping companies from screwing people over is piracy. if it was not for piracy, you would have much worst DRM and you would have games that that only worked 1 time

but because they see that people can just pirate the content if the companies screw them over too much, they think about some of it before they act.

it you look at major companies, you will see that the government will not allow large companies to merge because that will cause a monopoly and the people will only have 1 source for that item or service so the government doesnt allow it because they know what will happen.

most chemicals that cost thousands for other companies to buy to make medicine with in reality will only cost a few cents to make. but they have a monopoly over that market so they rip people off.

if intel became the only processor maker, then you will suddenly be spending thousands for processors and millions for licenses to develop for that hardware platform, because the other companies will have no choice.

were the only processor maker, so you have a choice. pay us 500 million a year for rights to develop for our platform or go out of business


or if there was only 1 ceo controlling all food production in the country.

pay us $4000 for this item that used to cost 79 cents, or starve to death

thats why the government goes through great lengths to stop monopolies

competition stops companies from screwing people over if there was no piracy, then game makers would find ways to nickel and dime us to a much greater extent but due to other options available, developers will see it this way.

we could screw them over by doing this but that will just cause them to pirate the game and we wont make any money.


piracy improves business models because theres competition over the same content.

companies don't listen to the people but they do listen to their wallets.

a few years ago, there was a pizza shop near my school

they used to charge $1.25 for a beef patty

for no reason (gas prices did not change, or anything) they increased the price to $2 for the beef patty

while on the line i handed them $1.25 as i did not know the price changed

when they told me, $2, i told them out loud that that is a ripoff unless they made it 60% bigger, i will never buy it.

that causes 5 other people on the line to leave (i left also

about 2 weeks later, the price was back down to $1.25

if i had complained but still paid, the price would have never went down.

businesses listen with their wallets not their ears
 
Piracy is not all bad, it keeps companies in check also

like when books became popular, many people attempted to control and limit access to books, but pirates developed tools still used today (just more advance) to copy books and mas distrubute it, eventually we got to a point of where you can access just about any book with no problem


if it was not for piracy. only the select elite few would have access to books today
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You don't think the access of books of subsequentially knowledge had more to do with the invention of the printing press, Scientific Revolution, Enlightment and the spread of Democracy rather than piracy? Funny thing is that in the parts of the world where piracy is most rampent (i.e. China) the spread of knowledge is still the most prohibited. Do you really think that if it wasn't for piracy you would have a more difficult time buying video games?
the only thing stopping companies from screwing people over is piracy. if it was not for piracy, you would have much worst DRM and you would have games that that only worked 1 time
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You guys seem to forget that up until the last decade or even really last few years piracy was not an issue and the gaming industry did pretty well without it. Nintendo, Sega even PS1 never had any real concern for piracy and we weren't all getting royally screwed as you would predict. Even PC games durring that time we're relatively easy to copy but distribution was almost non existant compared to today. Even to copy a game then you usually still had to know somebody who had purchased it.
 
Razor... you are as always fond of your hyperbole. If there were no piracy, there would be no DRM. Before piracy was common, there was no DRM. Really, where the hell do you get these ideas.

And Purple Rat, could you tell me who these pirate DRM haters are? If you are lumping me with them then you are wrong. In fact, if I were pirating these days, I wouldn't care less about DRM. It would be a total nonissue.

The problem arises with a ethical dilemma. I want to support the video games I love so that more like that are made. On the other hand I don't want to support DRM that goes beyond what I would be willing to put up with.

Sure I could buy the game and then download a pirated copy so as not to worry about the DRM, but I don't believe I should have to do that. Also that would increase piracy statistics and make it easier for others to pirate by downloading from me while I download the rest of the game (bit torrent). I don't want to do that. Also I don't want to support the business decision to bundle the game I want to support with DRM that makes me want to pirate it.

The solution is to just not play it, which just makes me sad. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to spore, but if it ships with this garbage, I won't buy it and I won't play it.

Any occasional pirate that laments DRM does so not because it prevents them from pirating, but because it prevents them from supporting that game without pirating.

I don't even know where you would get the idea that a hardcore pirate would care about DRM. If YOU are happy with the idea of waiting on hold and begging with customer service for another activation when you go to reinstall a game, more power to you. I on the other hand will have none of it.
 


Huh? Control and limit access to books? Wha? There is no dispute that the advent of the printing press led directly to the implementation of copyright laws, but 'piracy' had little or nothing to do with getting books to the masses. And yes, we have reached a point where you can access just about any book with no problem - just plunk down a few bucks and buy the book legally.

Software "Pirates" are not heroes anywhere outside of their own minds - they in no way are helping anyone - it is a purely selfish enterprise.
 


You don't have to scour these forums too hard to find this type of sentiment. This one is from a few posts up. And no if you are not pirating I do not lump you in with them. There are legit reasons for legit game buyers not to like DRM. I'm just as surprised as you that so many pirates feel the same. But like I said maybe it's proof DRM actually works in some sort of war of attrition. Kill off the segment most likely to steal and you'll only be left with an honest, all paying yet smaller market or have everybody move to consoles. I definetly do not like it but that's the way it looks to me.
 
You know, if you want to move your market to consoles, there is a far easier way to do so.... publish only on consoles.

Seems a no brainer to me.

As for killing off the piratey segment... I don't really see that happening. Maybe a few of the more honest pirates (oxymoron I know) but most just don't care. And they are only succeeding in killing off their own market segment. They will be left with a smaller segment of willing masochists and the uneducated soon to be angry customers.
 
If YOU are happy with the idea of waiting on hold and begging with customer service for another activation when you go to reinstall a game, more power to you. I on the other hand will have none of it.
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And you think you don't have the same issue with consoles? Maybe it's not activation of a single game but if even the smallest thing goes wrong with your console (aka the DRM) you're in the same boat except that you can't play ANY of your games while you wait for it to be fixed.
 
You know, if you want to move your market to consoles, there is a far easier way to do so.... publish only on consoles.

Seems a no brainer to me.
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Not exactly. Like I said before as long as developers see a market for PC games they'll take advantage of it. If a they just flat out stopped making PC titles it's not like all PC gamers are going to run out and buy a console. Also since the industry isn't a monopoly other companies would fill the void left by those that stop making PC titles. Instead you'd have to find a mechanism to drive PC gamers to consoles while they still have a choice. That way when you pull the plug on PC titles there isn't such a void. Maybe DRM is that mechanism. To be completely honest though this is all just wild speculation on my part.
 
We have been overcharged for music and movie for ages, i don't feel for the music/movie industry one bit, they have been screwing us over long enough.
It doesn't cost them $20-25 to make a CD/DVD, they could still make a lot of money by making all new releases $10 or less, the industry doesn't want to do that, they want us to continue paying too much for their product.

Artist still make money from concerts and cd sells during it, the movie industry makes a lot of money at the box office so whats really stopping them from lowering the cost of music/movies, that right there would put a big dent in piracy, not this stupid DRM crap that only annoys people who buy it and not the pirate.

I don't object to piracy, when PC game developers don't release a good demo people only have one choice to test it out on their computer, unlike the consoles, PC users cannot go out and rent the game to play/test it to see if they want to buy it or not.

How come RIAA and the other mafia groups don't go after google,MSN,Yahoo like they did Piratebay, could the reason be they have the money and lawyers on hand to fight back?
 
I was going to actually respond to the above post, but if you can't see the difference between Piratebay and Google then you are truly as dumb as everything you posted above that would seem to imply.
 



The key difference here is that it is hardware that you own. If the hardware dies and it is under warrantee, then you can call them with righteous indignation that their hardware is flawed and they still have to provide you with a replacement or repair.

With the DRM they have no obligation to provide you with more activations and you can very easily end up screwed.

In addition to that, if your PC dies, you cannot use the software either, which is a better analogy for your console dying. And on top of that, once your PC is repaired, you need another activation.

No thanks, I'd rather deal with consoles.
 
In addition to that, if your PC dies, you cannot use the software either, which is a better analogy for your console dying. And on top of that, once your PC is repaired, you need another activation.
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Actually I was careful to say "the smallest thing". If your PC's ROM drive breaks it's a $20 fix. If your consoles ROM drive breaks your SOL even if you have a warranty. Also while your console may be fixed free of charge while under warranty it almost certainly won't once that's up. At least with software activation you can expect most companies to act in good faith and activate regardless of coverage (even MS is good about this with Windows). So it's kind of a wash.
 
1. Do you object to piracy? If so, why? Try to determine if your objections are morally based, financially/legally, etc. This is the core question I want to really focus on, so try to think of as many reasons as possible, situational objections, etc.

Do I object to piracy? Yes, but only as I define it. If I were to download a game, play it for a short while, dislike it, and delete it - I would not define that as piracy. If were to download it and enjoy it enough to continue playing it - that would meet my definition of piracy. You can test drive and return almost any types of merchandise, including books, sculpture, paintings, and other works of art. We cannot do this with music, movies, and software (at the consumer level). Why? Because these companies have all the leverage and individual consumers have zero. We have no choice but to agree to the EULA.

2. Have you pirated games in the past? If so, how often? How long ago? Did you ever purchase the games?

I have never pirated a game by anybody's definition. Despite being in the fortunate position of having the disposable income to buy as many as I please, I only buy 1-2 games/year I'm not willing to shell out $50 for the crap that many game companies are pushing these days. Do I overlook some really excellent titles as a result? I'm sure I do. I generally won't buy a game unless it has a demo; even then I usually appalled at how many bugs remain in a game after it goes gold. EA is especially poor in this regard. I'm also really tired of the lack of additional content for these games. How much effort would it take for them to take a few of the best user-generated maps, clean them up a bit, pay the developers a token sum, and release some new content once in a while?

While I've also never downloaded a movie or MP3s, I have occasionally ripped a CD borrowed from a friend or ripped a DVD I rented. Is this piracy? Absolutely - every bit as much as downloading it. I wonder if most of you who have never pirated a game can say the same thing for music and movies.

3. If you said yes to 1, do you consider piracy to be better, the same, or worse than stealing a game from the vendor? Also please focus on details and break down your argument into points as much as possible.

While piracy is clearly wrong, it also clearly different from physical theft. The incremental cost of producing another copy of software is nearly zero; therefore, the loss of that copy is also nearly zero. Also, physical theft hurts the local merchants, the places that support your local community and provide livelihoods for your friends and family. Piracy hurts some far off mega-company. It's very much the same as objecting to the local mill dumping chemicals in the river behind your house but not giving two sh!ts about the fact that the Chinese are poisoning their air and water at a truly alarming rate so you can purchase cartloads of cheap crap at Walmart. (Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek, but it does raise a valid point).

4. If you said no to 1, would you defend piracy? If so, what is your argument in support of piracy? Do you feel that your argument would apply for only a limited number of situations, or is it all encompassing?

I would not defend piracy, but I think I understand why it happens and why it will continue to happen. It seems to me you have two very distinct categories of pirates.

a) Those that just like to get something for nothing and can do so, in this case, with no fear of penalty. I'll call these the "incorrigibles". Not much to be done with these except invent the perfect DRM. I'd like to think this is the smallest category.

b) Those that can't afford or are unwilling to afford the price of a game that they're not sure they'll enjoy. I'll call these the "burn victims". I certainly think that Steam and EA Link could address this group by allowing a trial period for games. Four to eight hours of free game play would go a long way toward reassuring wary buyers. I believe this is by far the larger category.

Oh yeah, one other thing. Since I am licensing intellectual property when I buy a game, I ought to be able to get a new DVD sent to me when my 3 year old snaps mine in half. It ought to cost me about $0.25 plus shipping. No new serial number, just the physical media. I've tried to get this done on at least two occasions. You think I had any luck even after I volunteered to send them my broken media first? No f'n way. Try that with a music CD or a DVD, too. Good luck to ya.
 
the best way to improve the pc gaming industry will be to have all gaming companies get together, and pitch in on hosting fees to host 1 large website that will hose only their gamedemos and info about the game. and at most links to video reviews and other reviews on the game.

when crysis came out, it took me 2 hours to find a demo of the game and 20 minutes to download the demo

every site i tried either had poor download speeds with ads all over the place saying crap like for only $x,xxx,xxx,xxx a month, you can have a premium account and enjoy faster download speeds

i pay good money for a fast connection,no way am i waiting 13 hours to download a demo that should only take 20-30 minutes (not to mention you have to wait in line for 40+ minutes)

those delays are not due to server load, there to make the download more annoying


if developers what their games knows, then have every developer take partial ownership of 1 large site with good servers, then every developer will post their demos there, with no other clutter, just game demos.

if developers did that i would have purchased many more games than i have now. because right now, the only way for me to get some demos is to torrent them

other than that, you are stuck with sites that cap you to 3-4KB/s and others that you have to wait in line for almost a hour then they cap you to 20KB/s


but with torrents, the demos reach my connections full download speed with in 20-30 seconds and they finish in around 20 minutes


there certain games that i buy with no problem

http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax

$34 per game and you get at least 7 times the length of gameplay that you would get from other more expensive ones, and they don't stab you with insane DRM levels.

+ seasons are generally $8 per game, i make enough to buy the entire season in less than 2 hours on a a site that i use (they pay me like $1+ per survey which mainly require you to make a new e-mail account then do like 20-30 surveys and click no to everything and in no time i have enough to buy season 1 and 2 (thats also how i get my music many survey sites will also offer music downloads for half the price of itunes and still be drm free and if they don't have the song you want, then just request a amazon.com gift card as payout instead of mp3's ) )


since it takes around 2 hours of clicking on no for many surveys, i wont waste that money on just any game. if a game is too short or has crappy gameplay then i wont waste my money on it.

i get at most 1-2 games a year (mostly 1 game a year)

i buy games that are worth my money and have good replay value.

star wars jedi academy was a good buy

battlefield 2 was a good buy

GTA sa was a good buy

the orange box was a good buy. even though the game don't have much replay value, and i don't like TF2 the cheats and modable setting and things you can do makes the game just a lot of fun to play when you are bored.

disabling AI and spawning a lot of enemies and other random NPC's then enabling ai and have a crazy battle go on and other crap (if you have not noticed, i love having lots of cheats and modable aspects of the game, it makes messing around possible and lots of fun especially when you beat the game, you just load up a wide space map and mess around with the bots and spawn crap and have fun )


i generally don't buy many multiplayer only games except the battlefield games,

BF2 worked for me because because it is not a spamy game like the counter strike series where you cant stay alive for more than a few seconds and who ever can spam their gun first wins

in BF2, i was able to do very well in because counter strike style play wont get you anywhere in BF2 you need to have team work to win (a team of 5 newbies can get a better kill to death ratio against 2-3 pros at the game if they have better team work ) so you have fun gameplay that doesnt become frustration (unless your on a team where everyone is off doing their own thing and loosing like crazy because theres no team work)
 
when crysis came out, it took me 2 hours to find a demo of the game and 20 minutes to download the demo
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That's a pretty poor excuse/example. NVidia had the Crysis Demo with great speeds and no wait about 3 weeks before the game launched. In case you're not aware of their demo site it's a pretty good place for most new games with demos.
 
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