Since PC gaming is useless (for me), I don't have an opinion.
Everyone who knows anything about anything on computers pirates music, so what's different about software?
What do you think of software pirates?
" Since PC gaming is useless (for me), I don't have an opinion.No true. I don't pirate music. I still buy all my music on CDs. I will go to a bands website or myspace or youtube and check out their music before I buy it but I don't pirate it.Everyone who knows anything about anything on computers pirates music, so what's different about software?"
" @Stang said:No, I did not misinterpret anything. I get you are anti piracy. My point is that this particular forum will offer little to none opposing views to your position. If you really want to have a 2 sided debate about this subject, this is not the place. That is all I was trying to get across." @Diamond said:Did you misinterpret what I typed or something? I'm anti-piracy. What I really wanted to hear is why some people are tolerant to pirates, and if people can somehow tell me something about why piracy is 'OK'. I haven't ever seen a thread here on Giant Bomb even get locked for the topic creator admitting he was a software pirate himself, let alone banned. There was a HUGE piracy thread here a month back or so." I was thinking about my feelings towards them, and I realize I hate pirates. Especially when they pirate a game that really deserves good sales. I'm not saying DRM is at all good for consumers, or that all cases of piracy are completely unjust (downloading a very old, currently unavailable game that only a retailer / reseller would make money from?). With as many thousands of dollars I have spent on games and continue to spend, I feel like these people are personally ripping me off. Maybe if they didn't selfishly pirate games, I wouldn't be paying so much. It also seems that many gamers tolerate pirates too.What kind of response did you think you would get? If you were looking for opposing views, you picked the wrong venue. Threads that talk about custom firmware for the psp got shutdown really quick in the past....you think people would openly discuss/admit to piracy knowing they will be reprimanded by staff?
It's not a moral issue for me as much as it personally offends me. I'm not thinking about the developers, publishers, or even the industry as a whole. I'm thinking people are stealing things I pay money for. "
Personally, I don't care what people do. I am lucky to have a decent job and can afford a couple games a month.
I don't expect pirates to pop up in my thread defending themselves if only for the stance I took, but I'm pretty satisfied that at least some people feel the same anger I do.
You work for your games, how do you tolerate people that don't? I'd love to hear you answer that (not being confrontational, I'd simply like to take the stress of it bothering me off my mind). "
And like you, I choose to purchase games opposed to pirating. But, it does not bother me if the dude next door is downloading a game. Why should it?
Pirating anything (movies, television shows, music, print media, video games etc) is illegal. No one can dispute that. But on a moral level is it wrong? Just because it is illegal doesn't make it wrong or right, it just makes it illegal, outlawed, banned if you will. When a game is released in the Americas and Europe not every region and country within these two continents receives the same release date, or one at all in some cases, as the rest of the region does.If a person steals a loaf of bread to feed his family, that is morally good. If a person steals a Ferrari so his family can have more fun driving down the highway, that is not. Even though game piracy doesn't fit the traditional definition of theft (in that the seller doesn't lose a physical product) people are losing money, and people like me have less selection of goods and have to pay more so the pirates can enjoy themselves. Noone NEEDS games.
I don't think that's self righteous at all, but I agree we should all try to be civil to one another.
@Hamz said:
When a game is released in the Americas and Europe not every region and country within these two continents receives the same release date, or one at all in some cases, as the rest of the region does. Most European game release dates are for Western Europe only with much of Eastern Europe and Russia receiving delayed releases of up to 6 months or more and in some cases the game is never released there. And if it is the regional dialogue and language options just don't cover the Russian / Eastern European languages and the price of the games there is usually on a ridiculous level for the people living there.So when you live in a country or area where games are either released half a year to a full year after everywhere else, with no regional dialogue options for you to understand or in some cases the game is never released so you don't have the option of even buying it in your country, what do you do?Do you pay extortionate amounts to import it from overseas / borders and still be faced with the problem of not being able to fully understand the dialogue due to lack of language options? What if the game is region locked as well?Personally, yes I do pay to import games (mostly Japan but I've imported PC games from Europe as well). Why should it be any other way? Generally I don't circumvent region locking because it usually requires significant modding, and AFAIK platforms like 360 are completely incapable of bypassing region protection. I've imported tons of Game Boy Advance, DS, Dreamcast, and PS3 games over the years.
If you have the money to buy a gaming PC or console in Eastern Europe or Russia, surely you have the money to buy games for it too. One thing that makes me personally angry is the people who will buy an expensive HDTV and a high end PC yet steal all their games. Set aside some of that component money or buy a smaller HDTV so you can buy games!
If the question was about stealing Xbox 360 hardware in Russia because it costs too much there and people don't earn enough money to afford it, there'd be no question for most people what is right and wrong. The fact that people can download software with relative secrecy in the privacy of their own home is what makes the biggest percieved difference.
@Hamz said:
Personally I couldn't care if people pirate video games or not. I would rather the industry realise that you just cannot stop piracy, accept it and stop trying to deny it. If people want it bad enough without paying money for it then they will find a way. The music and movie industry has been through this exact same thing before many years ago and they've come to accept the fact you can't stop people from pirating a song or movie however much you try.The key is to simply cater to providing the best experience you can for the people who are willing to spend money on your product. This is half the reason a lot of the new forms of DRM fail so god damned hard because they don't do anything but hinder the honest consumer. If DRM worked then we wouldn't have pirated games, all DRM accomplishes is to piss off the player who spent money on a game legally. "I absolutely think every industry has to realize they can't stop piracy and to stop punishing legit customers at all. I even believe piracy is a fair measure when companies try to overstep their bounds by not letting us play games through DRM and after the hardware dies but you still have a 'license' to play the game (from buying it in the first place).
I don't think there is a realsitic way to provide a better experience for legit buyers without also adding some roadblock for everyone. A DLC code for 'free maps'.
It's true that DRM is implemented in an attempt to keep away extremely casual piracy and put off 'zero day' piracy, that doesn't always work, but it does have a purpose away from just hindering the legit user.
@Stang said:
No, I did not misinterpret anything. I get you are anti piracy. My point is that this particular forum will offer little to none opposing views to your position. If you really want to have a 2 sided debate about this subject, this is not the place. That is all I was trying to get across.And like you, I choose to purchase games opposed to pirating. But, it does not bother me if the dude next door is downloading a game. Why should it? "I don't know what kind of place you're suggesting I discuss piracy. Most of the mainstream gaming forums I know will ban a user for even saying they pirate games. If you're talking about some piracy forum, it would just be a lot of people trying to justify their actions without any rational or legitimate reasons. As far as all the forums I've spent time on, few seem to be as ambivalent about piracy as Giant Bomb.
I have told all of you my reasons (in this thread) for being bothered by other people pirating the games I paid for. Should I just give in and pirate games so I can maybe move to a nicer house or buy a nicer car or buy lots of high end PC components without feeling guilty about spending money I didn't really want to spend? After all, I'm making it up by stealing the games, and someone else is footing the bill for me, you are! Would that bother you? Are you so giving that you'd give money to other people who would call you self righteous and hung up on morals behind your back?
I'm actually more interested in what ideas gamers have to solve this issue. Defending any one issue is pretty pointless since its an opinion. Go wild.
I wonder sometimes if the industry has the willpower or desire to stop software piracy. I've heard that a lot of people in the industry aren't necessarily very anti piracy. Hardware manufacturers (like video card makers) would rather people spend money on more hardware. Lots of workers in the industry seem to have pirated games and tools when they were younger.
I can think of nasty 'solutions' similar to online activation and DRM, but they're equally bad. There's lots of wild yet invasive possibilities like hardware & software manufactuers not allowing people to burn ISOs. Internet communications solutions that would require vast worldwide cooperative efforts (stopping the distribution of pirated files).
Of course you could do something simple like including more physical pack ins with games like they used to (cloth maps, little toys).
One seemingly possible example of a non-intrusive and effective solution : How much research and development would it take for MS to lock out firmware modification of DVD drives for the 360? The rest of the system is still basically secure. That's just one platform, but eliminating piracy there is absolutely possible. Obviously you couldn't eliminate piracy on current 360 hardware, but you could curb it on future revisions. Does MS even care? Is piracy on 360 bad enough to warrant it?
Future innovations in storage mediums may open more doors. Surely not many people thought of pirating SNES and Genesis games back when they were the big sellers. Internet innovations could bring more security to the net as a whole. Speaking purely from a game consumer perspective, it's better if the pirates are completely unable to download games from the source of piracy than for me to be questioned when I put a game into a game system.
I just wonder if following an anti-piracy path is worthwhile to business. It'd be easier for everyone to think up solutions if we all had enough solid data on the business side of the industry, and I wonder if anyone has that kind of information. We gamers don't have enough REAL data on piracy rates or profit margins or sales data for games today to argue questions like if all developers should just develop for secure systems and refuse to develop for insecure ones. Would dropping the price of games across the board be worthwhile? Companies may be deceiving me so I think piracy is a worse problem than it is. Companies may be making more profit on games than I think. I certainly don't believe all the numbers they give out.
I'm really of two-minds on this.
As long as a certain portion of the population can get games for free by reasonable and illegal means, without seriously damaging their PC somehow, then they will. DRM so far has always been cracked, and I'm not convinced it will ever become uncrackable, simply because the guys who designt he DRM went to the same schools that the crackers went to. Thus, DRM in turn ends up punishing the people who bought the game legally, and frustrates them into becoming possible future pirates.
On the other hand, piracy more or less single-handedly caused Crytek, one of the last great stalwarts of PC-focused gaming, to decide to move into the realm of joint-development for PC and console release. In this,t hey're having to give up their initial goal of creating modular, growth-oriented engines and have to focus their efforts into allowing their games to run on the tech they're given. That kinds sucks, and they're not alone in having to make those hard decisions. For everyone who thinks that cracking is a victimless crime, just point them to this and ask them to respond.
But yeah, as others (and myself) already said, there's no real way to stop those people who refuse to pay for things. They like free stuff, no matter who they hurt.
" I don't care. I mean, it sucks, and we all know no one should do it, but what are we gonna do about it? They're always gonna get their games, and we're always gonna pay for it. But it's not like anything I say here or anywhere else will stop them. "Guess I will play devil's advocate.
Halo 3 sold roughly a quadrillion copies, despite piracy. Even if you despise the game, you are an idiot if you say it was not extremely successful. Based on your logic, the next iteration should cost a bit less, due to the previous entry's overwhelming success. Is that going to happen? Fuck no! Piracy is the new scape goat for anything that does not get met warmly by the public. Game X sucked ass and did not sell well? It is not because the game sucked, it was because of piracy, of course!
At some point you have to draw a line in the sand and face reality. Back in the day, I paid (mommy did rather) $50 for Final Fantasy VI. I am not sure how much $50 back then is worth now, but I know damn well it is at least what we pay for games today.
Topics move fast when I go to bed, guess that's what I geto for talking to Americans who are most active just as i'm falling asleep on the keyboard.
Anywho, whoever it was said Goo is only being used by Stardock, of course it is because it only launched in April, there was one game from a larger publisher that was supposed to use it, I dont know if it did or not because I dont buy PC games and forgot what it was (that doesn't imply I pirate them :P My PC isn't that great so I rarely buy any games for PC) but publishers are interested in it thats for sure, they are just waiting to see if it does any good. And like I said, if the game is cracked 1 day after release, in the publishers minds it has done it's job (just barely) so there is no way you can say it's a failure if the person who employed it to do a task, feels it has done that task. Regardless of what that actual outcome is, and besides, gaming cafes are supposed to buy a copy per machine anyway. Thats why they jumped all over steam, because people can buy their own copies and simply logon.
I totally forgot the eastern europe debate when I was on last night, it certainly was a large portion (apparently, if random commenters are to be believed) a large portion of World of Goos piracy figures.
Now, and heres where I can of double back on myself and some may find this hypocritical, but w/e. If a game doesn't come out in your territory (IE, is not coming out, not is coming out in 6 months) then i'm not going to get all in your face for stealing it. I'd rather you imported if you had the chance, but whatever. Anyhow, it was simply inexcusable with World of Goo, the main excuse seemed to be "It's not on my countries Steam", ok, buy it from the website then "I don't have a credit card"... Tough shit, games are as much a luxury as credit cards and I got used to needing one to pay for games long ago. If it's coming to your country, but not for a while then tough luck i'm afraid, you'll just have to wait like anybody else.
And yeah, i'd say the only situation I would be ok with is where you are pirating 5+ year old games you can no longer buy new to support the developer/publisher, (In any form, if it's available on XBLA but you wanted to play it on the Mega Drive, tough imo, it's still available new) then while still technicly illegal, there are some classics on the retro consoles I simply could not experience without the option because the price is now set by collectors, I say let the collectors quibble over the prestige of having the physical item (which I buy a lot of myself anyway) the game should be free for all to enjoy if the publisher does not intend to re-release into a format people can purchase today. Again, while illegal, I feel this is about the only situation where morally it is at least neutral. But I must stress again, if they are available new, you damned well buy them new I don't care if you don't like the boxart, or don't want to buy intanginble products from download services, you have to deal with that not steal the game because it's method of sale doesn't suit you. I don't like the way banks sell mortgages, does that mean have the right to steal money? No.
" @Kiemoe said:I don't really understand what you mean by that. I mean, don't games get more expensive due to piracy (The old Photoshop is a million dollars example)? So they would never get cheaper because you can't... un-pirate? I'm not really sure lol. Besides, supply and demand says that the more people want something, the more they have to pay for it, so if anything, wouldn't Halo 4 cost more? But I do agree with you that people can blame piracy for anything. I mean, it always happens, you can pirate anything, even complete shit if you really wanted to. I don't think piracy could be the main cause of any failure, but it definitely helps. I mean, Demigod got pirated to death, but I don't think it tanked. It still got decent sales without it. Also, you're a badass for having the old school FFVI. I only have it on PS1 that came with Chrono Trigger." I don't care. I mean, it sucks, and we all know no one should do it, but what are we gonna do about it? They're always gonna get their games, and we're always gonna pay for it. But it's not like anything I say here or anywhere else will stop them. "Guess I will play devil's advocate.Halo 3 sold roughly a quadrillion copies, despite piracy. Even if you despise the game, you are an idiot if you say it was not extremely successful. Based on your logic, the next iteration should cost a bit less, due to the previous entry's overwhelming success. Is that going to happen? Fuck no! Piracy is the new scape goat for anything that does not get met warmly by the public. Game X sucked ass and did not sell well? It is not because the game sucked, it was because of piracy, of course!At some point you have to draw a line in the sand and face reality. Back in the day, I paid (mommy did rather) $50 for Final Fantasy VI. I am not sure how much $50 back then is worth now, but I know damn well it is at least what we pay for games today. "
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