Videogames piracy - Why so much hate?

[Dystopia]

Piracy is still a very controversial topic, regarding both legality and ethics - Pirating videogames, in particular, seems to light up very violent and hateful reactions since videogames, unlike films (that make profit trough cinema sales) and music (artists make profit with concerts and live performances), need to hit a certain number to survive, when it comes to sales.

Personally, I like to buy my videogames, and it has to be a physical copy - I don't buy digital versions (call me old fashioned) - If there is a game without a physical copy available (this happens a lot with older PC games) I will pirate. I will also pirate any game to test it before buying. If a game is immensely expensive when it is released, I will pirate it if I really want to play it.

My question is - Why so much hate towards videogame pirates? I certainly don't feel superior, I don't even feel like I'm having the most appropriate ethical behaviour when I download a torrent - But I didn't expect to see comments in forums saying "Pirates should be hanged because they are the reason PC ports suck nowadays!". - Many people have different reasons to pirate videogames, it's true that some will openly admit they only pirate because they can do it and get away with it, but those are simply a minority. Many people pirate because they can't afford the game, because the game is banned on their country or because they can't find a copy anywhere, some people don't understand the necessity of being forced to create a steam account just to buy a game. I've been noticing this because I've been discussing PC gaming in some forums and most people seem to hate pirates, in some websites being a pirate or simply a suspicion that you are a pirate is enough to ban you - Luckily not all are like that.

Other than some older games, I usually buy most of my games and I've done that most of my life, because I can but I acknowledge not everyone has the same financial stability as me.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

What legal status do you think piracy should have regarding videogames specifically? Should it get you jailtime? A fine? Should downloading a torrent be legal but not uploading (like in my country - Downloading a torrent is not illegal per se)?

By the way, this is specifically directed towards PC gaming since it seems to suffer the most when it comes to piracy and it is far easier than pirating a console game - But of course consoles suffer too specially considering PS4/Xbox One games are more expensive than PC ones and tend to get progressively more expensive every generation of videogames. I remember PS2 games costed on average 60/70€, PS3 games costed 70€/80€ and I guess PS4 games probably cost more.

[paulpablo]

I personally think all piracy cases should be dealt with individually because of how varied the spectrum of severity is.

The last time I bought pirated games was when I was 14 and everyone was buying chipped playstations that could play copied games.

I don't feel guilty at all about it. Games went from being something I could only afford 2 or 3 of at my birthday if I spent all my money on games, which I did used to do (around £60 each) to something I could save up my school dinner money to buy (£5 each, sometimes £10 if I remember right) from a little corner shop.

[Aractus]

There are a number of reasons for piracy, but essentially in Australia the market is rorted by the anticompetitive nature of domestic targeting. Essentially, parallel importing while legal for most other goods is still not legal for video games or even home video in Australia. It is legal for books and CD's. Thus the price for a game here is about twice as expensive as in the USA or the UK. Australian customers don't like to be rorted, so they resort either to purchasing online through Amazon or Ebay or through pirating. If the industry wants less piracy they need to embrace open market competition.

[Dystopia]

I personally think all piracy cases should be dealt with individually because of how varied the spectrum of severity is.

Legally that's not a wise decision - Laws should be general and abstract, you can't threat every case individually. We would have to classify different types of piracy and attribute a penalty to each one of them. I personally think jail should be reserved for dangerous people and not for some guy who decided to download a pirated version of Half Life 2 because he was feeling nostalgic.

The last time I bought pirated games was when I was 14 and everyone was buying chipped playstations that could play copied games.

Curiously I have never chipped or hacked a console and I've never played a pirated game on console. It used to be rare and very difficult, not to mention my friends who used that method frequently got burned copies with graphical glitches, frame drops and lots of other problems.

I don't feel guilty at all about it. Games went from being something I could only afford 2 or 3 of at my birthday if I spent all my money on games, which I did used to do (around £60 each) to something I could save up my school dinner money to buy (£5 each, sometimes £10 if I remember right) from a little corner shop.

I don't feel guilty either. The case for PC gaming is not 5€ each, it's free... Except for the hardware you need to run the game, of course.

I don't think piracy is something to be proud of, but not everything we do is moral and perfect, I just don't understand why so much hate - I don't pirate a lot and even if I did stop pirating completely I wouldn't hate other people for pirating or consider them less fans of a specific videogame series because they have a pirated version.

I really laughed when someone said piracy is the reason for bad PC ports - It's not, the only reason is shitty developers who though having a game unable to boot running at 20FPS would be a great idea.

---

There are a number of reasons for piracy, but essentially in Australia the market is rorted by the anticompetitive nature of domestic targeting. Essentially, parallel importing while legal for most other goods is still not legal for video games or even home video in Australia. It is legal for books and CD's. Thus the price for a game here is about twice as expensive as in the USA or the UK. Australian customers don't like to be rorted, so they resort either to purchasing online through Amazon or Ebay or through pirating. If the industry wants less piracy they need to embrace open market competition.

And what would that price be Aractus? If possible, you could tell me how much it is worth compared to dollars/euros.

[Chas]

Stealing is stealing.

[Napoléon]

Stealing is stealing.

Except when nothing is lost.

[Chas]

Stealing is stealing.

Except when nothing is lost.

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

[bennyboy]

I've been on both sides of this. My first experience was when I bought a Playstation 2 in Korea and tried to play American-region Grant Turismo on it. FUCK! Hundreds of dollars spent, and the game didn't work because Sony wanted to impose limitations on my use of the product I'd paid good money for. I spent another $50 to get a chip to break the region code detection, bought a DVD-burner for my PC, downloaded the game, and proceeded to enjoy the game I payed for, totally guilt-free. After that, I downloaded "backups" for disks that I'd damaged and no longer functioned. Fuck it-- I payed for it, and I'm playing it.

I've downloaded games for many other reasons-- I wasn't sure if my hardware could run it, so I wanted a test run. The game was too old, and while it wasn't public domain, I couldn't buy it even if I wanted to. Sometimes, I was just being cheap, and I wanted game that I wouldn't otherwise pay for. Sometimes I got a Steam or other online version that sucked, and I downloaded the original non-fucked-up version just because.

I've also paid thousands of dollars for games. Ownership feels good. It's nice to hold a disk in my hand, read the little blurb inside the DVD case, etc. But now, with most games being exclusively downloaded, I'm basically choosing: do I click button "A" and pay $100 for my download, or click button "B" and get it for free (and almost for sure a lot faster). I often click "B." The seller is offering me nothing unique for my direct purchase except for my right to ride a moral high-horse. And I'm too imperfect to care about that.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Pirating a video game isn't ethically any different from walking into a video game outlet, slipping the disc in your pocket and walking out.

This strikes me as a particularly egregious sort of theft, because no one needs video games. If you're hungry and steal food, I'm ok with that. If you're ill and the only way to get the meds you need is to steal them, dandy.

Look at what seems to be the main justification for piracy just in this thread: games are too expensive. Well, so what? Being an 'I can't afford' doesn't give you the right to become an 'I will take'. Not having the wherewithal to be able to buy some else's intellectual property isn't a pass to take it, particularly because games are NOT a necessity. No one has ever died because of a lack of GTA.

Folk seem to think that digital media are somehow fair game for theft (call it what you want, but taking someone else's property is theft, full stop) because you aren't actually taking a physical object. That strikes me as a big, streaming hypocritical mound of horseshit. Films, music, games, and so on are called 'intellectual property' for a reason - they are owned by someone. Whether that someone is an individual or a corporate entity doesn't make a jot of difference. What matters is, it isn't YOURS.

Boru

[Aractus]

^That's not true, entertainment is a basic human need. I don't think it's right to pirate video games, except older ones, but I also don't think it's right to double-dip (i.e. two-tier selling); and that if someone owns a game on one platform in my view that gives them the right to "pirate" the same game on another platform.