My advice: worry less about what others choose to do.
Do You Know Someone Who Pirates Games?
@MikkaQ said:
@Sooty: I find it really crazy that you claim used games hurt the industry as much as piracy. How is that even remotely true when used games sales are keeping most games stores afloat? If they only sold new games at retail there would be significantly fewer places to buy games from, which would harm the industry a lot.
significantly fewer? I mean a town is more likely to have a walmart than a gamestop so...
@RazielCuts said:
@Animasta said:
@Colourful_Hippie said:
@Animasta: Wouldn't system requirements be enough for that?
that's not what I meant, though system requirements aren't exactly the most... correct information (some games can run under the minimum, some games can barely run at the minimum) but more that a game which just happens to have had a bug that meant it wouldn't run on your machine for whatever reason.
So you're 'fighting the good fight' by pirating games because in the past some have had bugs? Grow up. Usually any 'game breaking' bugs get ironed out in patches these days, poor excuse.
I'm so glad I bought Ghost Recon Future Soldier at full price. Been out a couple months now, the multiplayer is still unplayable because of broken matchmaking and netcode.
I'll acknowledge piracy as a terrible thing the day selling used games is.
@Sinusoidal said:
I live in Korea. The biggest electronics market in the world is in Seoul. There's an underground alleyway about a hundred yards long of nothing but videogame stores. You can stop at any one of them and get pirated material. Chipped systems, Wiis with attached hard drives full of games, they'll burn just about any game from the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube generation for you. R4 and DSTT cards for your DS, fully loaded with games if you want. Legit video game places are by far in the minority. Every once in a while they make a token crack down, but it never stops anything.
If movies/music are more your taste, there are numerous sites that you can pay a small membership fee to to download just about anything.
I admit, I've got a stack of burned PS2 games, a Wii with a chip in it and a hard drive full of games and a DS with a DSTT cart. Nintendo in particular is absolutely terrible about porting games to Korea, and this was really the only way I could get most of those games short of paying exorbitant importing fees. The DS was very popular here, but Nintendo actually sold more systems than games. It's really only with the most recent generation of games - mainly Xbox360 and PS3 - that support multiple languages and are actually available for purchase at a reasonable price. I now have a stack of paid-for PS3 games. It feels good.
It didn't help that Korea had a ban on Japanese imports that was only lifted a few short years ago because of animosity between the two countries.
As for Steam in Korea, HA! I don't have a North American credit card, so am basically out of luck, which is fine for me since my PC can't run anything not-indie post 2006 anyway.
Yeah, the only time I've pirated stuff has been when it's been pretty much impossible for me to get it legally.
Yeah that's the shittiest excuse for not paying for other people's hard work ever. Try pouring your blood, sweat and tears into a product for years and then watch people refuse to pay for it, I bet I can predict your reaction.@smcn said:
"I can't feed my children because someone pirated my [video game|movie|album]" - no one ever
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
@Animasta said:
@MikkaQ said:
@Sooty: I find it really crazy that you claim used games hurt the industry as much as piracy. How is that even remotely true when used games sales are keeping most games stores afloat? If they only sold new games at retail there would be significantly fewer places to buy games from, which would harm the industry a lot.
significantly fewer? I mean a town is more likely to have a walmart than a gamestop so...
And walmarts are pretty terrible game stores. I'd rather have the dedicated store with a superior selection and if that means they need to sell used games, so be it. It doesn't detract as much from the industry as piracy.
Pirating things isn't a right. I'm dumb founded by the excuses people come up with in this thread and otherwise. No matter the quality of the product it's absolutely not a good reason at all to justify what I will call stealing content. Don't give me a BS reason that it's only copying etc. If you're not gonna pay for that particular game, you don't deserve to experience them. It's not essential in you're life, and if you can't afford it you don't have any right to get it. If you say you wouldn't pay for it anyway so it's fair to download you're just trying to justify it for yourself. Don't want to pay full price?, read reviews, watch videos and buy it on an eventual sale. I've bought a lot more pc games than I would've because of awesome deals on steam, and different indie game sites(humble bundle, indiegala, indie royale and so on).
I've pirated games before. Honestly, I've pirated a lot of stuff -- music, games, movies (mostly anime though) and software (graphic design stuff costs way too much for someone getting into it).
I'm not really going to justify it at all. Sometimes I just wanted to really play a game when I didn't have the cash to buy it. Sometimes I was pirating an older game that had been out for a while.
The most I've pirated for games is DS games. I had an R4 cart so I had around 20-30 pirated DS games on it. Honestly was the only reason I liked that system, well, that and the homebrew stuff was neat.
I haven't really pirated a game in a long while though. I've got way too many games to play right now anyways. (especially with Dota 2 taking up a ton of my time, and the HoTS beta).
Also with the whole "does it hurt the industry thing" it's tough to say. Of course it does hurt them, the question is how much does it hurt them. Obviously you can't consider 1 pirated game = 1 lost sale, but what percentage of those people who pirated it would have just broke down and purchased the game instead? Personally none of the games I've pirated I would have really bought, but that isn't true for everyone. (And that doesn't make it alright for me to do).
@MikkaQ said:
@Animasta said:
@MikkaQ said:
@Sooty: I find it really crazy that you claim used games hurt the industry as much as piracy. How is that even remotely true when used games sales are keeping most games stores afloat? If they only sold new games at retail there would be significantly fewer places to buy games from, which would harm the industry a lot.
significantly fewer? I mean a town is more likely to have a walmart than a gamestop so...
And walmarts are pretty terrible game stores. I'd rather have the dedicated store with a superior selection and if that means they need to sell used games, so be it. It doesn't detract as much from the industry as piracy.
To me GameStop selling used games are just as big of hit to the industry as piracy.
- Used Game Sale = $0 to coders and companies that made the game. Money for local business.
- Pirated Game on the street = $0 to coders and companies that made the game. Money for local guy selling it.
I am not for piracy and pro local businesses since my wife owns one, but to be honest used game stores are just as bad as the pirate on the street. If we aren't allowed to download games, why are stores allowed to sell used games that technically no one other than the company who made it owns? They have said many times before that we do not own the content on the disc and we just have a license to use it (on disc DLC debate). GameStop is a billion dollar a year company and most of it is used games that continue to be bought and traded back in just to be bought again. I am sorry, but there is definitely something wrong there.
@ahaisthisourchance said:
Used to do it a lot when I was a student, but now I find it more convinient to just buy games on steam.
All that mounting images and trying cracks is not worth my time.
So this. Easier just to wait for "x" game to go on sale during the summer and fall than to torrent, open the files, figure out what the fuck I'm doing, mounting an image, it not working, then having my buddy figure it out.
I also don't get people who say they would rather emulate a game than play it in the actual way you are supposed to. Watch a co worker play a emulation of Ocarina of Time was brutal. I'm also against Virtual console type shit. Bought SMB on the 3DS and it just isn't the same as playing on my NES, which I did last week and it just felt like bread and butter to me, even though I still suck ass at it.
If I wasn't married I would have dug into a deep hole with the steam sale a few weeks ago and wanting to buy old consoles and games to play them they way they are supposed to be played....maybe some day.
Yes, most people I know. And even those that buy games still pirate some. I seem to be the only one that hasn't pirated a game since 2008. I live in romania though, and piracy is rampant in eastern europe. Valve games seem to be less pirated here, since everyone seems to have portal 1/2, half life games and counter strike.
I used to but I haven't pirated games for 10 years after I began to earn my own money.
I still know a few people who still pirate games but as far as I know it's not much and they primaryly buy their games.
@smcn said:
"I can't feed my children because someone pirated my [video game|movie|album]" - no one ever
"I pirated this [game|movie|album] because I desperately needed it and couldn't afford it" - no one ever
I used to pirate a ton of games when I was young simply because I didn't have the money to play all of them. As I got older and got a job etc I just bought everything because it was easier, quicker and I could count on support if something was messed up with it. It's no excuse, but in the days when I was a wee teen a lot of PC games were straight up busted and would often require hours of fiddling with your system to get them to work properly, stop crashing, or doing other messed up things. I remember growing ever so frustrated when I bought Morrowind from a Comp USA so excited to play it and it crashed constantly. These days I make up for my past behavior by buying and supporting games I like, even when some of them turn out to be kind of a disappointment at full price.
@Colourful_Hippie said:
@JJWeatherman: Not worried, just bothered and yeah I know I should get over it.
I get that; it bothers me a bit as well. A lot of things do. You'll drive yourself crazy, though, man.
Me and basically everyone I know used to. I've quit more or less completely, depending on the availability of the game. But most friends still do it.
I don't mind that much, I believe in following your own sense of morals in this case, I won't jump on anyone who thinks differently from me.
@Dark said:
Before I leave for work, people who use the 'but I need to know if I can run it' crap with the PC should really learn to use google.
That was easy
Darksiders II. My PC is far more than sufficient to run it maxed out at 60 FPS, but the game was releases as a buggy mess that didn't even had working VSync. And when the first DLC launched, it couldn't even be played. At all. But it's somehow my fault for paying €60 a developer for a shitty port that took months to be fixed.
What's written on paper doesn't always correlate 1:1 to the actual performance of the game when you try to run it. If developers took the time to actually test their games before releasing them on PC, and they had the guts to put out demos that reflected the actual quality of the game (I'm looking at you, Kingdoms of Amalur), then I can assure you that a shitload of people would not have to resort to piracy to try them before buying.
I used to do it when I was unemployed and I can't say I'm proud of it. I did however buy almost all of those games when I found myself a job. Nowadays I never do it.
Most of the people I know buy their games too. I know two guys who did the same thing as I did; they pirated some games, then bought them when they could afford them.
Pirating is the new form of renting in my circle of mates. If they happen to like the game and there's enough re-playability and achievements to keep them coming back for more, then they will in all likelihood buy it...from a Russian CD Key website lmao
Bet you thought there was gonna be a happy resolution at the end of that.
I used to pirate games all the time some years ago. Now I only download games to see how well they run on my laptop. If the game runs fine and I like it, then I'll buy it. If not, then I'll just remove it.
Every single person I have met with a gaming PC had pirated games on them, this goes back to copying floppy disks of Jazz Jackrabbit.
I'm just happy that people are playing games. I haven't pirated in over a decade, at least pirated a game that I don't already own a copy of(roms). As long as there are still artists and programmers making a descent paycheck, I don't give a fuck if someone pirates their games. I still buy them and there are plenty of people like me.
There doesn't seem to be any more studio closings than their usually are, and all the recent ones that I can think of were because of terrible business decisions not piracy so why give a fuck about it?
Some of the arguments for piracy in this thread are moronic. Regardless of reasons, you're still a thief. You can explain that but you can't excuse it. If you have come to terms with that then fine, I don't especially care, but anyone who has convinced themselves that piracy isn't damaging to both the entire industry and the artists who work within it is fucking delusional.
I do not, but most of the other people I know that play video games do (with the exception of games that have really rough DRM; pirates I know only bother if it is easy).
Its really off-putting to see when somebody pirates a game, and you know their income probably grossly exceeds what everyone on the game's development team would have been. There just is not the valuation placed on these titles, and despite protestations online my personal experience has brought me around to accepting why obnoxious DRM exists (even if overtly severe stuff makes some items not worth playing).
@bushpusherr said:
@smcn said:
"I can't feed my children because someone pirated my [video game|movie|album]" - no one ever
"I pirated this [game|movie|album] because I desperately needed it and couldn't afford it" - no one ever
Oh snap!
I don't steal games (or anything) if there is a way to legally buy them. I make a point to buy any game that I've previously played without purchasing due to unavailability as soon as it is made available. Still have my fingers crossed I can one day legitimately buy Mother 3 but that may never happen.
I commonly pirate games that I bought on console that was released at a later date on PC, not going to buy a game twice; next on my list to cross off is red dead redemption.
I found that regular Steam sales really took away any justification I tried to make in my head to defend piracy. I won't lie & claim I haven't pirated anything in the past couple of years, although in the instance that comes to mind the product isn't actually on Steam. Which isn't a justification. But EA would benefit themselves if their games were on Steam, at least from my perspective. But piracy is cheap, it's damaging to an industry I am quite keen on, so I have just about managed to break out of the habit. In all honesty I just play less games than I used to so feel the need to download the latest game is a lot smaller. And so as I'm wanting less games I tend to be able to afford everything I want to play. And with most things I play them plenty to get my moneys worth out of them (although 2 EA Sports purchases this year, Madden & FIFA, definitely don't fit into that category. But at least I haven't bought a Madden game since '09 & a FIFA game since the PS1), especially strategy games. So much replayability, probably why I like the genre so much.
That said, I'd never have spent as much money as I did on games by Paradox if I hadn't downloaded a pirate copy of Hearts of Iron 2 7 years ago. I'd bought a budget copy of Europa Universalis 2 years before that but just couldn't really get my mind around what it was. But HoI 2 was the perfect introduction for me to the Paradox "system" which essentially lead me to buy it, Crusader Kings & Victoria & Europa Universalis 3 (which I'd put in my top 10 favourite games list), not mention umpteen expansions for those games, think there was 4 for EU3 at the last count, with Divine Wind released in 2011. And then I got even more of their stuff from a Steam sale in January (the Paradox megapack, even it if included duplicates of stuff I'd already bought, was well worth it for games like Sengoku & Vicky 2, though HOI3 is just a bit too much for me), & Crusader Kings 2. Which is of course wonderful & perhaps Paradox's closest thing to main stream recognition.
This reminds me of a story they taught us when learning about surveys.
They said that once they wanted to find how much illegal moonshine was being made in Sweden. So they made a survey asking "Do you make illegal moonshine?" and got a number that was way too low to be true.
Then they made another survey asking "does your neighbour make illegal moonshine?" and got a realistic number.
I have not pirated a single game or movie since i got my job. I don't miss it.
That said, i do not have any hate towards those who do pirate. There are plenty of valid arguments to be made FOR pirating. You could even argue that pirating has created the modern web design communities as well as several others. I won't go deep into my beliefs on this subject due to this forums rules and regulations.
@TyCobb said:
To me GameStop selling used games are just as big of hit to the industry as piracy.
- Used Game Sale = $0 to coders and companies that made the game. Money for local business.
- Pirated Game on the street = $0 to coders and companies that made the game. Money for local guy selling it.
I am not for piracy and pro local businesses since my wife owns one, but to be honest used game stores are just as bad as the pirate on the street. If we aren't allowed to download games, why are stores allowed to sell used games that technically no one other than the company who made it owns? They have said many times before that we do not own the content on the disc and we just have a license to use it (on disc DLC debate). GameStop is a billion dollar a year company and most of it is used games that continue to be bought and traded back in just to be bought again. I am sorry, but there is definitely something wrong there.
True, but how many people are getting their pirated games from some guy on the street? Most are downloading them off of some torrent site. I will agree that used game sales hurt the industry but I don't think it is as harmful as piracy.
I do know people who pirate games, music, ebooks, and movies but I just can't see the justification for it in most cases anymore. A few years ago, I did not have too big an issue with it when there weren't legal methods to obtain these things conveniently online or at a fair price. Now, between Steam, Amazon, Gamersgate, Green Man Gaming and a number of other websites, as well as Gamefly games are easily accessible and can be purchased or rented for a reasonable, or sometimes absurdly low, price. Same thing applies to music with itunes and Amazon MP3 plus services like Pandora, Slacker and Spotify. For movies/video, itunes and Amazon are there again along with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Crackle and many other services.
[I'm about to go on a rant about ebooks so if that doesn't interest you, stop reading.] The one digital product that baffles me is the ebook. I'm a Kindle owner and it never ceases to amaze me that the Kindle price is in many instances higher than the price for a physical copy of a book. This only started a year or so ago when Amazon lost the battle with publishers which led to the disappearance of the $9.99 price point for best sellers. It always bothered me when the physical and digital versions were equally priced since it costs virtually nothing to distribute a digital version (a few cents for bandwidth) whereas printing a book has the obvious costs of paper, printing, binding, shipping, and securing shelf space along with other fees that probably exist but about which I don't know since I'm not in the industry. Now that I often see paperbacks for $7.99 and the Kindle version $9.99 or higher in some cases, I can see the temptation to pirate out of spite because of something that just seems so illogical. I don't, but I also will almost never buy the Kindle version in these cases and will instead try to get it through the Prime lender's library feature or through the public library's ebook collection. [End rant.]
@Trainer_Red said:
I pirate games and what? I can't always afford brand new games and i'm sure as hell am not going to spend $65 for a game, only to have to pay another $45 for DLC that should have been in the game in the first place. If those greedy motherfuckers won't so greedy, maybe I would care more and try harder to purchase their products at full price. Until then, I will continue to pirate games and not give a single fuck. If I enjoy a series or respect the creators of a game or series enough I always pay full price. It's rare, but it happens. SEE!?@Sooty said:
@SlashDance said:
@Sooty said:
I bet a lot of the people here complaining about piracy also buy used games or trade games in, supporting the used game market.
Funny.
Except buying used games is not illegal yet.
Whether it's legal or not doesn't matter, used games hurt the industry probably more so than piracy does. (and download figures of a game doesn't mean they were all lost sales as a lot of people wouldn't have bought it anyway)
and buying used is easier than piracy, unless you just buy pirated 360 games from someone in which case never mind.
I buy used games and what? I can't always afford brand new games and i'm sure as hell am not going to spend $65 for a game, only to have to pay another $45 for DLC that should have been in the game in the first place. If those greedy motherfuckers won't so greedy, maybe I would care more and try harder to purchase their products at full price. Until then, I will continue to buy used games and not give a single fuck. If I enjoy a series or respect the creators of a game or series enough I always pay full price. It's rare, but it happens.
@bchampnd said:
[I'm about to go on a rant about ebooks so if that doesn't interest you, stop reading.] The one digital product that baffles me is the ebook. I'm a Kindle owner and it never ceases to amaze me that the Kindle price is in many instances higher than the price for a physical copy of a book. This only started a year or so ago when Amazon lost the battle with publishers which led to the disappearance of the $9.99 price point for best sellers. It always bothered me when the physical and digital versions were equally priced since it costs virtually nothing to distribute a digital version (a few cents for bandwidth) whereas printing a book has the obvious costs of paper, printing, binding, shipping, and securing shelf space along with other fees that probably exist but about which I don't know since I'm not in the industry. Now that I often see paperbacks for $7.99 and the Kindle version $9.99 or higher in some cases, I can see the temptation to pirate out of spite because of something that just seems so illogical. I don't, but I also will almost never buy the Kindle version in these cases and will instead try to get it through the Prime lender's library feature or through the public library's ebook collection. [End rant.]
This right here, it is the worst!
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