Widescreen Gaming Forum

I feel like I have a worthy opinion on this because I've gone from pirating.. well.. about everything to a Steam account with over 700 titles on it. Piracy, at its heart, is an economic problem. I must emphasize that it is NOT theft. Making a copy of something without having paid the associated fees for a license to that copy is NOT theft, it is copyright infringement. Now, economically speaking, developers wouldn't be able to develop without pay. That's obvious. Though, there are many consumers out there without the spending power to afford these titles. Each person has an assessed value for an informational item. Whether or not this assessed value is higher or lower than the actual value determines whether or not the person purchases the item, unless they see themselves as needing it to achieve some other end. Games, though, are primarily entertainment oriented. This leaves them on the rather low end of value, unfortunately. So, I argue that piracy happens more for pricier items. In regards to Steam sales, this has brought the price of many titles underneath this assessed value for a large population. It's difficult to argue pirating something when you can both afford the item and the item is being sold at a reasonable price. So, in that sense, Steam is doing an effective job of plugging the piracy hole. But in the case of high school or college students, and those without money, it seems difficult to consider what they're doing when they pirate as being "bad".

I say, shame on those people that 1. value what they play 2. can afford to play it and 3. pirate anyway. But if you can't achieve both 1 and 2, piracy is difficult to argue against. Personally, I have a plenty large enough Steam library that I don't see a good reason to pirate even new and expensive titles. But I can completely understand the mentality and recognize when it's a harmful practice and when it's not. I stand in the "contribute what you can" category. Now, time to go back to my 5 dollar copy of L.A. Noire.

_________________
(imagination not allowed in signature)

To see what Game Dev Tycoon developers really think of piracy see here:

http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/ ... of-piracy/

Quote: "As the developer, who spent over a year creating this game and hasn’t drawn a salary yet, I wanted to cry. Surely, for most of these players, the 8 dollars wouldn’t hurt them but it makes a huge difference to our future!"

Of course this matters even more when you are investing money as well as time in a title.

Anyone who has ever been involved in the development of a game would dismiss the immature attitude that because you don't want to pay for something you have the right to steal it. The only reason people steal games is because they can get away with it while hiding amongst others doing the same thing. The same is evidenced during a riot.

It's not only illegal, for good reason, it's just very sad reading such self-justifying junk. I hate having to have accounts, and be online to play, to have 0-level drivers like starforce and limited installs etc.

If however, that becomes the only reliable way to recompense developers who are talented and work hard creating worlds for us to immerse ourselves in then I will happily accept that.

Otherwise, as the above developers have said, it will all become casual, online-only, or half-baked efforts. All the story-driven complexity will be driven out. After all, would you work for years on a game only to see it cracked on day one? Would you invest in a game knowing that would happen?

If the wsgf does not condone piracy it should also not accept the trojan horse of discussing its 'merits'.

In this US drugs are illegal, but there is plenty of discussion about them and their legality. Something being illegal doesn't preclude discussion.

I agree. Its not that because pirating games is illegal that no discussion should be had. I simply won't condone the act itself, so would prefer that the "merits" of piracy aren't discussed on the forum I love.

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)

Sorry, I know my first statement in this thread was "There is no discussion" and I didn't elaborate more but he's a little extra

After the first page and a bit I can see most are against the piracy thing and it's good to see that IMO. The fact we are discussing it does bring up some interesting things like, how developers & publishers do/will get round this, or may get round this in the future.

The problem I have is for example a game like Madden NFL, a game I love has not been available on PC since Madden 08, the reason EA gave was piracy...it's the reason we (as in all WSGFers) should be against it. The reason being these developers and publishers are spending more money on "piracy" than multi-monitor, widesrceen or ultra-wide games which is the reason we are here

_________________
i7 3770K (Ivy bridge) | Corsair Dominator 32GB | Asus P8Z77-V LE Plus Intel Z77 | Corsair H100i | 2 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 in crossfire | NXZT Phantom case | OCZ 1000W Powersupply | Samsung 840 PRO 256GB | 2x OCZ agility 3 60GB SSDs | 2x 1TB HDDs |

Piracy is an intellectual property discussion for me. As in all intellectual property discussions, there's a fine line. Stealing someone's intellectual property, such as a digital game, movie, or song, does not rob them of some physical good these days. Nonetheless, it does rob them of the fruits of their labor.

If it benefits humanity, information should be free. If the gain is personal, information should be paid for. On a more practical level, I'm OK with sites archiving old ROMs whose rights-holders have long since ceased to exist or sites that host abandonwear that cannot be obtained in any other way. Other than that, it's pretty unacceptable in my book.

What the dev thinks is different from what happened in the real world. If it weren't for piracy, and they would genuinely get $8 for everyone coming onto their developers website by accident and actually purchasing their game, they would have $24...Hypthetically speaking.


Please quote where you have read them, discuss them with proper arguments instead.



DRM=ineffective. Read argument in previous post.

In every forum where someone posts immature teenage 'arguments' that piracy is beneficial you read self-justifying junk.
Read your own posts. Self-justifying is arguing that something is right because YOU do it.

Piracy is wrong on principle. If you were never taught that stealing is wrong, or you have not managed to come to that conclusion yourself, then I can't help you.
It is impossible to request 'proper' arguments if you cannot accept the basic ethic that stealing is wrong and damaging in and of itself.
If a person does not accept that pirating games is stealing then I can't argue with that basic lack of understanding. It usually comes from people who live in a bubble where the real world does not touch them, hence teenage pirates grow out of it, or at least feel guilty about continuing it, as they recognize the value of things when they become adult.



Arguments are not equations, unless they are logical.

The argument that DRM is ineffective has been made by pirates for years and yet DRM is on the increase because people do not want their creative products stolen. It works. Digital distribution is the future and some form of DRM is always going to be a part of that - with exceptions for low cost operations like GOG. Steam's millions of users show that DRM can and does work if done properly.

It's fine to argue against one form or another of DRM or copy-protection, but there is no logical argument for piracy, unless one feels that creative people should not be rewarded for their efforts.

That kind of thinking is an argument in the form of black=white. Illogical captain.

I believe one can answer the issue of piracy here at WSGF by answering this question: If something is illegal, does that make it wrong?

I'll leave the individuals to decide that for themselves.

Well if something is legal, does that make it right?
More to the point, because piracy does not actually deprive the owner of intellectual property from that said property, does that mean it is not stealing? (Technically yes and that is why it is defined as copyright infringement)



Im sure serial killers feel justified in their actions, so does that mean there is justification for their actions?

For people who think piracy is justified, how many of you would release software as freeware which you have spent days, weeks or years developing? For instance, Keygetys SoftTH. (THIS GUY IS A LEDGEND )

I think peoples' concepts of intellectual philanthropy would differ if it was their hard work going up for grabs in cyber space... (Everyone is happy to share when it doesn't belong to them)