Jump to content

Piracy Discussion


nuget102

Recommended Posts

I realized after I accidently started a piracy discussion in a thread that there may be people who wish to discuss this.... So I figured why not try starting a thread where people may talk about their opinions of piracy? I just ask one thing: You do not bash anyone for their beliefs.

 

If you believe you should watch a LP of a game and think that should give you a good enough idea if you will like it or not then you are more than welcome to say that, but if your view opposes someone else's that let's say, for the sake of the example, that someone believes a LP does not give an accurate representation of the game and you should pirate it to get the most accurate representation then you simply say you disagree and say why. You do not say something like "You're a total moron for thinking that" or other hateful things.

 

However, I do know that arguments do get heated and you may say something you may regret, and if this is the case then please apologize. This is a topic is very heavily discussed both in the real world and the world of the internet.... And no matter what kind of arguments may or may not arise in this topic, please do not allow them to affect your view on the person. 

 

Now that that's out of the way, who wishes to start the discussion? ^^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 154
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I guess I'll throw a fire starter to this conversation. I used to pirate like a little shit head when I was younger but after awhile I started realising that was a really lame thing to do and there on after I began purchasing everything I use. That's to say I didn't stop completely however. I still pirate BUT if its for a product that has no trial or demo version.

 

It is a bitch to get a refund for digital goods (at least in my experience) and in this day and age you should really just have a trial version of your shit. Like come on. Do I really have to gamble my money on something that I might not even like? No thanks. Everything I pirate I end up either buying or deleting. I have no pirated stuff on my computer for more than a week.

 

Thats at least my reason for pirating, I don't think you should be a cheap asshat and pirate everything though. I can maybe understand if you're strapped for cash and are needing/wanting it super duper badly and plan on buying it later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used to pirate a lot - now I don't pirate anything. My main motivation was that I wanted something and didn't want to pay for it. I realise that is generally wrong and should support people's creations (regardless of how popular or rich the creator is). And you know, I'll be damned if I don't enjoy the games more, simply for the fact I buy one at a time and want to invest and explore the game properly.

 

Exceptions include where there is a lack of demo or trial - I have a low spec computer so need to know whether it will work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used too.

It sucked though because you had to do so much to prevent it from "calling home." and worry about anti-piracy listening in on torrents, unreliable installs, high potential of infection; hell most crackers were identified as viruses...

 

to be honest though, I was more into the modifying the files then stealing.  Ever use Artmoney on Unreal Tournament 2000? So much fun with the rocket launcher ;)

 

Eventually I found linux though and it pretty much fulfilled everything I ever needed.  Everything is a lot more fluid when I want to change... pretty much anything.

 

If I want something, I create it instead of buying it (or pirate)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a bit hypocritical but I have sometimes pirated games because it's just sometimes easier than actually buiyng the game, but on the other hand I think it's very wrong. (I actually ran a hub on DC++ when it was hot and exciting... Which is just plain stupid in retrospect :sad: ) You are depriving market share with that kind of behaviour. Some argue that well they wouldn't buy the product anyway, but I don't think that gives anyone the privilidge to just take and use something that someone else has created.

 

This is all discussed a thousand times over and over. There just isn't a way to justify piracy, but because it's so damn easy why not do it? The problem is that you're not seeing the damage you do. It just slowly happens and it changes the industry. But because it's slow and the implications aren't necessarily seen directly, it doesn't invoke guilt.

 

What I've seen is nowadays you have people who think that because you see something you should just be able to take it. This is unfair for those who do the work and it spirals out of control and is probably one of the reasons a new game today costs 60 F**CKEN EUROS!?! I used to be able to save money for a game I wanted as a kid quite easily, but it just seems impossible nowadays. Of course there are other factors etc. but it isn't always the evil corporate greed that gets the prices up, but the greed of everyone who wants everything for free.

 

[/rant]

 

I am tired now. I shall rest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only reason I've pirated is because I couldn't afford something at the time. If I enjoyed it, it'd go in the "buy one day" pile.

Sufficed to say, I own many companies money.

It's  a simple choice:: Enjoy/use/learn from it now or delay.

Though, I won't pretend this is some great justification that removes moral component.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I pirated Minecraft, then I bought it.

I PIRATED PROJECT ZOMBOID WHEN I FIRST FOUND IT, YET I BOUGHT IT. (Yes once I was a PZ-pirate but I can assure you I bought the game.)

 

The list goes on, but basicly I see pirating as a advanced demo you get to test if the game is good, and if so I WILL BUY THE GAME.

 

I swear this on my cats and family. :-|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like to see that just about all of you (if not all of you) pirate games to simply test them. I do the same thing. C: I also pirated PZ, I had to save up for a week to buy it. (I'm 17, no job (Don't even say "Just go get one" because I have no way to get back and forth to and from work. I only ever get money on my birthday...), best money i have ever spent. Whenever I get a job (Or if I somehow manage to get big enough on youtube to buy things) I would love to buy the $50 version of the game if it's still available then. xD I tend to be very cautious with my money, and I actually have a few games I really want to buy right now but can't afford. But yea i'm not saying it's morally wrong (It actually guilts the shit out of me) but for the purpose of testing games it's acceptable....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only pirate games that im not sure if i can run yet, or games than i intend to buy but don't have the money yet

 

For example borderlands 2 i bought it on xbox also wanted it on pc, wasnt sure if i could run it and i could afford it at the time, a week later i bought it.

 

Don't starve i knew i could run it but couldnt afford it (Never had the money in my card) but knew i was going to pay for it anyway,

 

i also pirate stuff that i have bought but either lost/damaged, i lost my fallout 3 install disc since my first computer couldnt run it so i put it away, i then pirated it on my new computer and then eventually found the disc and the serial key

 

 

IMHO

Pirating helps with sales to an extent, but i hate people who pirate games from big companys cause they don't like them (for example EA) and refuse to pay money but go on to complete the game, but if you are going to pay for it or there is no demo as others have said then i think piracy is okay to an extent

 

(The only thing i really torrent still is music, but the music industry makes out pirating to be a bigger issue than it is. (Example i recently torrented Kendrick lamars album but he also recently just went platnium), i do pay for my music after a while, just when it comes out i torrent  it)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... I ended up pirating a few games I bought CDs from fair and square from EB. Why? Steam. I just love to hate it. I don't have the connection to keep updating, nor do I want to download 15GB just to play Left4Dead2. Therefore I learn't the hard way, bought the ultimately useless CDs and ended up downloading a separate version anyway. 

 

Admittedly I originated pirating PZ, then bought it, but now I think about it, I've done that with a lot of indie games (Defcon, Terraria, Minecraft etc). I've bought every one of them afterwards, so I'm proud of that. The whole try-before-you buy thing is dangerous, though, since it obviously relies on said person's honesty to actually buy it afterwards. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/empathy-cracked-games-and-piracy-how-game-dev-tycoon-forced-pirates-to-look

and

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

 

I'll just summarize it up here:

 

 

Game Dev Tycoon has a demo, has no DRM, is only $8, and the creators uploaded their own cracked version of the game. The result was a 93.6 percent piracy rate.

 

 

 

Genuine version: 214 users

Cracked version: at least 3104 users

 

 

 

 

So, basically - A lot of people who claim that they pirated games only as a "demo" with the full intention of buying it later are full of it.

Even for those of you who are going to loudly insist that you do buy the games afterward - As I mentioned in the other thread, you're helping to perpetuate the notion that making an unfair deal that the developers on the other side never agreed to is okay. It's "fair" as long as you make up for it later down the road - at a date and a time set to your own convenience, with the option of course of never doing it at all if circumstances warrant. You'd cry about such bullying behavior if a government or a corporation forced you into such a lopsided agreement (and rightly so), but when you're the one doing the deed it suddenly becomes okay?

Instead of just walking away from a deal that you don't like (A game that has no demo, for instance), you convince yourself that it's okay to force developers to do a deal in which the rules are already skewed in your favor. As the above experiment showed, it's a deal in which the developers are hardly ever going to be treated like anything even remotely approaching "fairly".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is this where we get into a discussion of what's worth paying for? After trying Game Developer Tycoon (the intentionally bugged "pirate release" -- I wanted to see what they did; it sounded nifty), I came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth my time or money.

Surely there's a better example out there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem with trying to justify piracy by judging whether it is "worth" a person's time and money is that there is little to no way to objectively apply such judgement, no matter how polished the game looks. For instance, I love traditional RTS games, loved C&C 3 and thought it was a step in the right direction. Then came the departure from the traditional RTS mechanics that was C&C 4, and for me personally - that was a lousy game that I would never pay for. But there were people out there who liked the faster pace of Four and the mechanics that it functioned on.

Or take Project Zomboid itself. It's still full of bugs (I just lost my entire vegetable garden to the teleporting crop bug) and a lot of other portions of the game are still rough and unpolished - But that's fine, because that's the game I signed up for when I decided to put my money into buying the game. Someone else might get annoyed at this alpha state of the game and decide that putting money into it now is a waste of cash. Different factors contribute to different perceptions of whether a game is worth a player's money.

A gamer these days can find out about the type of game you'll be buying from the myriad of gaming review websites, Let's Play Videos, or in this case the game's demo itself. In fact, as an additional benefit you'd be helping this burgeoning tertiary sector of the gaming industry by supporting such review websites and tertiary content developers. There's really no cause to claim that you had to pirate a game because you didn't have any other way to get solid information on it.

 

Put simply, if you find out that the game is not for you, not worth your time and money through the reviews, demos, and videos you've seen, just walk away. Pirating the game, deriving some entertainment benefit from it, and then only saying that you got no value from it - and refusing to pay - gifts you the best of it while leaving a developer holding an empty bag. It's a fundamentally dishonest deal even if you honestly think the game is not worth it in the end. To build further on my own analogy, it'd be like the government forcibly took away a piece of unused land belonging to you, built their infrastructure on it, and then only came to you and said "Well, our project didn't give us the benefits we foresaw, so we're not paying you".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see no reason discussing/debating pirating.

 

People who were pirating will continue to pirate, unless they change and start buying games legitimately. For some there is a justification to pirate, for some there aren't. Some people think it's bad to pirate, some people think it is acceptable under certain terms.

It's pointless, as it is a giant waste of time really discussing it over.

 

All I can say is - Project Zomboid costs like 8 bucks. My mom gave me more pocket money for "ice cream" at the age of 8. Don't be douches and buy Project Zomboid. Not to mention that you'd have to search for an updated hacked version of it everytime legitimate one comes out. You are making it worse on yourself if you pirate this game.

 

For an ending note, I'll say this - past this comment, people will continue debating pirating and whether if it's bad or not. It won't change much, and I doubt it will change many people's minds about it. /point?

 

aoz200A_460sa.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A perfect analogy at the end there Sev Dreamweaver. I couldn't agree with it more.

 

I've not pirated a game before, I don't intend to start. I mean naturally I'm cautious about buying games I don't think I will like. In fact often I will only say yes or no to a game if I enjoyed it's short demo. If it doesn't have a demo chances are even higher that i wont purchase the game (for that matter I wouldn't even bother pirating it). If I can't justify spending money on it then it's not going to be worth my time. If I don't have enough money, well the games not going anywhere and it'll be years before it disappears from the market, I can wait to purchase it.

 

And leo, your facts are pelvic thrusting :D. But in answer to your question I discuss things coz it's the internet, and things needs things to discuss. Least that's the way I see it. If it wasn't discussed, no one would learn, no one learns no one know that it hurts indie devs to pirate games. Then we end up with FTP games with their PTW policies.

 

Piracy doesn't anger me, what Angers me is free to play games and their money sucking markets! Grrrr perfect world entertainment! Why you make player spend thousands of dollars on a game?!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, basically - A lot of people who claim that they pirated games only as a "demo" with the full intention of buying it later are full of it.

The game is not worth the $8 and is a rip-off of a Japanese game with almost the same name.

How is this a good example?

People pirated it as a demo, does not mean they HAVE TO buy it. Playing a demo does not force you to spend money on a game..

Your logic is flawed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

So, basically - A lot of people who claim that they pirated games only as a "demo" with the full intention of buying it later are full of it.

The game is not worth the $8 and is a rip-off of a Japanese game with almost the same name.

How is this a good example?

People pirated it as a demo, does not mean they HAVE TO buy it. Playing a demo does not force you to spend money on a game..

Your logic is flawed.

 

 

 

1) "Not worth it" - Already answered.

 

2) "Pirated copy = Demo" - Yes, if you were actually playing a demo - and not a pirated full copy of the game. Just because you're justifying your actions by calling it a demo doesn't make it an actual developer - sanctioned demo. You could refer back to what was previously said on fair trade - If one of the parties doesn't approve of the terms, it is not "fair". Not fair, in this context, being you essentially telling the developer "Hey, I'll copy a full version of the game, try it out in its entirety first, and then if I find it okay I'll maybe give you the money for it much later" and going ahead and doing it without the developer's consent. Often even with the developer's protests.

 

3) "Demo doesn't mean I have to buy it" - Yes, but earlier in the thread we had posters justifying pirating by stating that they would buy the game "if" they found it worth it. A claim which is also answered in point 1. Put simply, anyone would be able to pirate a game, derive the full amount of entertainment (Pirated full copy) from it - whatever it's worth to them, then just pass over the payment stage by claiming that they "didn't find it worth paying for". Once again, being able to distinguish between a developer - approved demo and a full copy pirated against the developer's wishes is key. One obviously does not equal the other.

 

 

In short, you may want to read the thread first. Calling out someone on "flawed logic" without actually reading and understanding the arguments presented in context may be the norm on internet forums, but it's still poor argumentative technique.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) "Not worth it" - Already answered.

 

2) "Pirated copy = Demo" - Yes, if you were actually playing a demo - and not a pirated full copy of the game. Just because you're justifying your actions by calling it a demo doesn't make it an actual developer - sanctioned demo. You could refer back to what was previously said on fair trade - If one of the parties doesn't approve of the terms, it is not "fair". Not fair, in this context, being you essentially telling the developer "Hey, I'll copy a full version of the game, try it out in its entirety first, and then if I find it okay I'll maybe give you the money for it much later" and going ahead and doing it without the developer's consent. Often even with the developer's protests.

 

3) "Demo doesn't mean I have to buy it" - Yes, but earlier in the thread we had posters justifying pirating by stating that they would buy the game "if" they found it worth it. A claim which is also answered in point 1. Put simply, anyone would be able to pirate a game, derive the full amount of entertainment (Pirated full copy) from it - whatever it's worth to them, then just pass over the payment stage by claiming that they "didn't find it worth paying for". Once again, being able to distinguish between a developer - approved demo and a full copy pirated against the developer's wishes is key. One obviously does not equal the other.

If you're gonna skip what I write, no point in discussing with you. Enjoy.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

So, basically - A lot of people who claim that they pirated games only as a "demo" with the full intention of buying it later are full of it.

The game is not worth the $8 and is a rip-off of a Japanese game with almost the same name.

How is this a good example?

People pirated it as a demo, does not mean they HAVE TO buy it. Playing a demo does not force you to spend money on a game..

Your logic is flawed.

 

This post is so flawed, that it has surpassed all known forms of logic available to mankind.

 

I'm not sure I even need to go through it point by point to demonstrate this fact (word by word, even).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...