Re: The "other game thread"

[Saevir]

To a big degree game piracy is a protest against unrealistic pricing. Had more games been at a €20 price stamp instead of a €50 price stamp I'm quite sure more people would buy more games than they now download. A lot of games aren't worth that much money. (A game with bad Multiplayer and only say, 8 hours of single player game time isn't worth anything near €50)

Taking something that you want, but unwilling to pay the seller's price for, is not a protest, just simple piracy. Given the nature of software piracy, I still can't imagine anyone ever feeling much guilt about it, but they ought to at least own up to what their actions are; piracy, instead of kidding themselves that it is anything as noble as a protest.

If they really wanted to protest, they should just not get the game.

[Kristeas Sunbinder]

€50 for say 8 hours of singleplayer and a multiplayer.

vs.

*googles average cost of a night out*

Hmm.

[Muzjhath]

Saevir, I haven't downloaded a game (Well, that isn't atleast 8 years old) for over five years to play it. Not have I bought that many games. I don't even approve of it.
I'm just saying, Piracy would go down quite a bit from cheaper games. Looking at music downloads Spotify and other services like it has put some input into that buissness so that it happens less.

[Saevir]

Saevir, I haven't downloaded a game (Well, that isn't atleast 8 years old) for over five years to play it. Not have I bought that many games. I don't even approve of it.
I'm just saying, Piracy would go down quite a bit from cheaper games. Looking at music downloads Spotify and other services like it has put some input into that buissness so that it happens less.

No accusation intended. I just take issue with use of the word "protest", since it seemed to imply that the act of piracy could somehow be more than a minor sin at best.

[Nayan]

I'm with Sae, here. Sure, "some" pirates are idealists. But that percentage is hardly high enough to justify dubbing the act to those motives. No, we're just lazy and junkfood/easylove-addicted for the most part. Sure, it might alleviate some guilt to claim we're Che Guevarra's reincarnations (not that he was much of what has been idolized post-mortem for the sake of support for political reasons, but using the icon here). But it's not that. Doesn't render game companies any more "innocent", mind you.

But.. that's a long topic that most likely should be in its own thread.

[Shaelyssa]

To a big degree game piracy is a protest against unrealistic pricing. Had more games been at a €20 price stamp instead of a €50 price stamp I'm quite sure more people would buy more games than they now download. A lot of games aren't worth that much money. (A game with bad Multiplayer and only say, 8 hours of single player game time isn't worth anything near €50)

Isn't the pricing subjective though? And either way, it's still illegal! It's no excuse at all!!!

Although, it's perfectly legal where I live. Well not really, but nobody cares about the anti-piracy laws. I've seen policemen buy pirated DVD copies in their uniforms. I hate myself for saying this, but I used to buy pirated DVDs all the time! :P I can call the guy, and he drives up to my house with any season of any show I want or any movie. You can buy like 20 movies for 2 euros or something.

Nowadays though, the only thing I download that's pirated is probably music and maybe movies sometimes cause some of them are banned where I live. I would totally buy music off of iTunes (it's so much easier than hunting the albums on isohunt uff) but stupid Apple hasn't opened up the service here bleh.

[Antistia]

I believe Dutch law states that downloading X or Y is not illegal if it is for personal use. Spreading it is illegal. Or that only applies to music. I don't know, I only download when I guess the chance of finding the game is small and seeing as I was at the Media Markt 2 days ago and didn't notice... Yeah. I couldn't get it to work though

[Jeanpierre]

The pricing is high but I think some people underestimate the cost of software. The only reason you can even afford software is simply because they sell it in such high quantity.

I'll have one or two loud mouthed protests against this statement but I'm willing to bet you can divide the people in two groups and be 95% accurate: those with a full time career and don't mind -that- much, and those without such income who think it's a damn insult.

[Morinth]

*raises hand* Guilty of piracy!

Ahem. Aside from that, my mother did used to buy pirated dvd's. Hell, I grew up knowing that my family made a living by selling pirated CD's, etc, at big markets. Never quite seemed to be able to catch my mother though...

Fortunately, I don't share their traits. I buy all my music from i-Tunes, and I get only ever DL games which I've purchased. Like on Steam, or something like WoW which is downloaded. I wouldn't bite some ones head off for DL'ing a movie either though. Some genius gave us the means to to do, so I guess it's easy to think "Hey, I can watch this free or pay a fuckton at the cinema, surrounded by smelly people who's faces I'd rather punch in than sit beside."

[Jeanpierre]

I'm certainly not promoting a crusade against piracy... I've comited that crime too often myself. But I'm starting to crawl back that... I'm even buying some CD's I downloaded a long time ago. After seeing a song hit that 600-played times mark I do feel the artist deserves to be paid for the damn song.

Piracy is often about the frustration on the pricing of something... mixed with a good dose of greed. All you need is a fucking football for countless hours of fun for a whole group. But suddenly they just got to have that game... they just got to have this CD.. and that movie.. and more. You won't die from having a game or movie less.

There's a bunch of stuff I simply don't consider worth the price. I'll wait 3-4 years to go out and buy it for a few bucks. If it ain't worth 50 bucks, it won't hurt waiting.

[Nayan]

*sneaks a parenthesis* By far the most blatant fail in this whole ordeal, is naming it "piracy". Name one person of the 21st century that perceives piracy the same way a 16-17th century merchant ship's captain did. No one. What they think, upon hearing "pirate" is instead this: COOOOOOOL! (note: in some rare cases, subjects differentiate by thinking "AWESOOOOOOME! "). So yeah. Amazing job in namescalling there. xD

[Grufftoof]

I could name the people who work for oil companies in Nigeria/Somalia?!

They love the piracy they do.

[Chase - Esou]

I'm torrenting a lot of games illegally but I don't try to sugar coat it, I know it's illegal etc. If you find a game too expensive, the only thing you can really do is to not buy it.

[Ehrfürchtige Bennedict]

Meh... I just download cause I wouldn't get the game otherwise.

Then again, I don't downlaod that much

Just download movies and such in general

[Shaelyssa]

I just finished the SC2 campaign. I felt it was kinda short compared to WC3, but still, I loved it!!! Usually, I hate anything even remotely sci-fi, but SC2 was great. And the ending uh ... it was beautiful. Although, her hair is so weird. It was cool when she was some weird, mutant, alien cyborg or whatever, but otherwise, eurgghhh.

[Ralegh]

I just finished the SC2 campaign. I felt it was kinda short compared to WC3, but still, I loved it!!! Usually, I hate anything even remotely sci-fi, but SC2 was great. And the ending uh ... it was beautiful. Although, her hair is so weird. It was cool when she was some weird, mutant, alien cyborg or whatever, but otherwise, eurgghhh.

I had a friend, who is not at all a fan of tactic games, then i made him sit down and play some SC2, a day or two later, he comes into my room and goes like "Man... when did you say the next part was getting released?"

[Gahalla]

*sneaks a parenthesis* By far the most blatant fail in this whole ordeal, is naming it "piracy". Name one person of the 21st century that perceives piracy the same way a 16-17th century merchant ship's captain did. No one.

Actually, the name is etymiologically very well chosen. Software piracy is actually closer to what actual piracy was: profit poaching. Pirates did rob individual ships, yes. But those ships was only carrying a fraction of the profit of the companies back in London/Seville/Paris/Amsterdam. While ships, crew and the cargo did represent a much greater part of the profit than a individual/handful of disc(s) worth of games/music/movies, most companies afforded, and even expected to, lose some of them anyways. It was only when piracy became rampant that the countries of the old world even bothered to send armed ships to hunt them down. Before that sending standing fleets would have costed more than what the companies lost in the first place.
Same thing here really, you're taking a piece of the projected profit. Not so much for yourself as when (if) you spread it. That's why piracy is an apt word. You're not stealing an item, that's theft. You're stealing parts of their projected profit and that's piracy.

Of course as you say, it does have a positive baggage since the times of Robert Louis Stevenson and Treasure Island. But they didn't pick the name piracy from a hat. They picked one that was already well defined legally and fitted the crime the best.

[Nayan]

* Didn't mean etymologically, though. I did point out I was referring to modern semantics. And, in present day, the term is far from its etymology - at least on a reception level.

* As you said, it's projected profit. That basically includes a very important attribute: it's imaginary. It's an estimation. It's air. A claim. Not a tangible and existing good. We could be discussing for centuries about it, because it's not defined and bilaterally acknowledged. You may say my downloading of Fable 3 (I don't even have it, just making up an example here) "costs" the company 50 euros, but if there was no such thing as downloading, I wouldn't pay those 50 euros for the game, so I'd say it "costs" the company 0 euros. Naturally, copying it and selling it in the black market is a defined theft - for an amount of what I sold it for, to be more exact. If I sell it for 5 euros, that's 5 euros the company should be getting. But if I don't sell it, as stated before, there is no telling if the company "lost" something - because they simply didn't have it to begin with.

* "You're not stealing an item, that's theft." - I'll agree there. However, do notice how companies' PR attempts to present it as theft (which it is not).

[Amaryl]

you're committing copy-right infringement not theft.

there is clearly a crime. but people should call it by the correct name.

you are clearly taking advantage of someones or groups hard work and leaving them with nothing.

there is a clear difference, between not using a product. and using a product but not paying for the effort it took to produce it.

[Flo]

On the subject of copyright infringement;



Oh China. Why copy two games when you can just throw them together?! (Battlefield Heroes/Team fortress)

In other news, DA DLC 2 to be announced at Comicon next month - along with some ME3 footage - prolly the E3 stuff.


EDIT: Also, Arkham city's one and only



'course they had to make him a pre-order bonus from select stores t.t

[Geneviève]

[Flo]

TF2 is now free to play, huzzah.

[Mikasa]

Best 'Meet the X' so far XD

[Grufftoof]

When was TF2 pay for play? What did I miss? I haven't played it in ages though... since the Demo patch maybe. Or since before the "hat" stuff...

[Kristeas Sunbinder]

Maybe the free part is that you don't have to pay anything to install it?

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