Videogames piracy - Why so much hate?

[Napoléon]

The funny thing is, I've pirated numerous games before buying them, Minecraft being the most obvious one. If I'd have never pirated Minecraft I'd have never been interested in the game period, because I always just assumed it was for geeky 12 year old kids (it still kinda is I guess). So that's a sale they've got as a direct result of piracy. This is why I don't get why it's always equated with stealing. These companies aren't losing a damn thing when their game gets pirated. Not a thing. Nobody can comment on 'lost sales', just because someone pirates a game doesn't mean they would or wouldn't buy it otherwise. I'm sure I read an article not too long ago that predicted the amount of money lost from pirated content equalled more cash than was even in circulation. Obviously this is impossible, and obviously anybody predicting that these companies are 'losing sales' are talking out of their ass. Hence, it's not fucking stealing. At least not in the traditional sense of something being 'taken'. It's not the same as going into a store and stealing a physical copy. Not in my opinion.

[FifthElement]

There's numerous studies that show piracy has very little impact on actual sales and even a few that show it can be positive. The assumption that people like you seem to have is that everyone who pirates would necessarily otherwise buy the game.

No matter how you spin it, piracy is against the LAW.

I'm not talking about impact on sales here...

It is about taking something which does not belong to you, if you cannot afford it, than, too bad, you are not entitled to it regardless of your "need" to have it, sorry, we agree to disagree here

[Tonus]

But I didn't expect to see comments in forums saying "Pirates should be hanged because they are the reason PC ports suck nowadays!".

That's just hyperbole. Or if it isn't, it's a ridiculously extremist view.

I think that software piracy is theft, in that you are getting the use of something that its producer expected to be paid for. I think that most arguments in favor come down to justifications for why it's okay to take it without paying, but you're still getting to enjoy/use something that was intended for sale.

Piracy can have the beneficial effect of forcing an industry to change some behaviors and make things better for consumers. Shareware and trial versions of software allow us to try the software before we spend any money, for example. User-based services like Steam allow you to take your games library from one computer to the next, which is far superior to the old "lock it to a specific computer" system that it has replaced.

The software industry has, IMO, more tools for effectively dealing with piracy than the music/movie industries do. The ability to tie usage/ownership to online accounts --especially "always on" requirements-- will continue to expand and make piracy practically useless for the average person. I think we may already be long past the time when you could just copy discs and write down a serial number or unlocking code (or for us old-timers, just copy the disc).

Platforms that allow large numbers of users quick and inexpensive access to small games (such as mobile apps, or social-media apps) may also become the future of gaming. Linked through user accounts and cloud-based or always-on connections, its easy to make sure that nearly all of your customers are paying customers, or at least enough of them to make it worth the effort of developing a popular game. And then there are the free-to-play games, which seem to be growing in number. Most appear to be supported via micro-transactions, which has me thinking that we may soon see a bubble that will grow for a few years and then burst, taking a lot of developers with it.

I think that like the music and movie industries, video games are able to combat piracy just enough so that it remains a very profitable industry as long as you have a good product and a solid business model. The likelihood that piracy will make or break anyone's chances seems very remote to me.

[Napoléon]

No matter how you spin it, piracy is against the LAW.

No shit.

I'm not talking about impact on sales here...

Interesting...

It is about taking something which does not belong to you, if you cannot afford it, than, too bad, you are not entitled to it regardless of your "need" to have it, sorry, we agree to disagree here

Y'see, this is where you misunderstand completely my position. My position has nothing to do with whether or not someone can afford to buy something. It has nothing to do with people needing it either. It has to do with the fact that in reality, piracy is relatively harmless to the mega corporations that so desperately want to shut it down, and if anything beneficial to smaller companies trying to compete with them. True, piracy is theft, but not in the traditional understanding of the word. Only in law terms. In fact I think calling piracy 'theft' is a bit of a misnomer, when you consider that in the digital world theft doesn't work quite like in the physical world.

What we're really talking about is intellectual property, or more appropriately to this industry, digital rights management (which I'm currently writing about for my dissertation). An increasing amount of digital distributors are abandoning the notion of DRM. Why? Because it's fucking pointless. You can't control what people make copies of on the internet, and moreover, do you have the right to? Some of the fastest growing game distribution services are ones that allow users to distribute their purchased product as many times as they please. They aren't complaining about people 'stealing' anything. That actually, has quite a bit to do with sales. So you say you're not taking that into account, but it's pretty much the only reason that companies are interested in implementing DRM. It's the only reason intellectual property matters. Because if someone can take your 'product' without paying for it, that's stealing isn't it? That's something the company has lost? That's a sale lost? Wrong. It isn't. Again, you can't talk about whether or not someone would otherwise buy a product. That's pure conjecture. What is important is that one person has bought a product, the real debate should be about whether people are entitled to IP on games that they make and whether they have any right to enforce that on people who have purchased the original copy.

[Chas]

You don't believe in intellectual property. Great. Go read a book.

You believe you can own an idea? Great. Better keep that idea secret if you want it to stay that way.

It's called intellectual property law. You need to read a fucking book.

[Napoléon]

It's called intellectual property law. You need to read a fucking book.

Maybe you should read one on better put downs, that's twice you've used that line bro, and it wasn't exactly great the first time.

[Aractus]

Personally, from my perspective as a person who's in a rock band, at this stage I'd love it if lots of people did pirate our music. I'd be very proud that so many people wanted it.

While I agree with you completely, I don't think that's applicable to video games. Traditionally developers have given away demo episodes of games, and made it easy for people to try the game before they buy - of course this is not always true with console games (but it often is), but you often have the ability to play a friend's or an earlier game in the same series, etc.

[John V]

Seems like people feel a little guilty about stealing - as they should - so they start these threads in hope that others will tell them it's OK. It's not OK. That's why it's done anonymously. If you really think it's OK, put links to your pirated stuff up on FB using your real name.

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I also do not necessarily believe that video games are priced fairly... if I believe some fucker's trying to rip me off to the tune of 50 dollars for a six hour experience: damn right I'm going to take the avenue what isn't ridiculously overpriced.

1. Read reviews before you buy.

2. If all the people who pirated started paying, maybe they wouldn't need to charge $50 per game.

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Personally, from my perspective as a person who's in a rock band, at this stage I'd love it if lots of people did pirate our music. I'd be very proud that so many people wanted it.
Filesharing and youtube broadcasting and all these other things which have a negative effect on the profits of bands who are already wealthy, have a positive effect on working class creative peoples work by show casing what they have to the world for free.

It's not piracy if it's being offered for free.

[Napoléon]

If all the people who pirated started paying, maybe they wouldn't need to charge $50 per game.

How many times does it need to be said that piracy has absolutely NO fucking bearing on lost sales. The pricing of videogames has fuck all to do with piracy. Quit spouting bollocks.

[Dystopia]

1. Read reviews before you buy.

There are so many biased game reviewers and so many reviews are inaccurate that I don't trust them anymore - Mainly when it comes to technical issues. I've read reviews for terrible ports that gave the game a 8 or a 9 (from 1 to 10) when the technical issues should give the game at most a score of 5. If I am unable to boot my game or play above 20 FPS even if my PC has all the recommended requirements then the review shouldn't tell me that game is great. In fact there's many games I hated or disliked over the last couple of years that got great reviews.

To give you an example, I'm a fan of Splinter Cell and the recent entry called "Blacklist" got great reviews, but when I played it I thought it was the worse Splinter Cell game ever created. The subjectivity gamers have when playing something makes reviews worthless. I need to play the demo or some random level before buying. Exceptions are made for series that I love and trust the developers - For example I'd buy a Metal Gear Solid game before buying the demo because I trust Konami, some youtube gameplay videos would suffice.


By the way, if piracy is the cause of higher prices then how can you explain that console games cost usually much more that PC games (I'm not even counting Steam!) and are less pirated? Back in my day pirating PS2 games was something no one did and everyone bought games because it was seen as unacceptable by all other gamers, and PC games were still less expensive.