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[Zangi]

Trainwreck...  whooo....  Good Job citizen.  You do us no credit.

[pisskop]

[snort] we still would be if you wanted to debate instead of bash.  Perhaps rape was too emotional an example for some.  my apologies.  If this thread gets shut its because nothing productive came of the last few posts.

Replace rape with any underemforced law (like piracy, ) and my arguement is just as valid.  I felt the debate was making progress, most of it was somewhat logical, but...

[Sonlirain]

Rape is not in any way, shape, or form comparable to piracy here.  Don't emotion-jab me, it's not going to work.  First of all, rape is enforceable.  It's underenforced, for known reasons that don't have anything to do with inconvenience and ubiquity, but it is 100% possible to bring rapists to justice.  Furthermore the kind of harm caused by rape is a societal ill that goes beyond unavoidable loss of money.

I'll say straight up, I've pirated games with no intent to ever buy them in the future.  Games I would not have bought were it the only option.  The developers would never have received money from me in any situation.  The money I could (but didn't, and won't) spend on those games is sitting in my bank account.  It didn't disappear.  I can spend it on something else and stimulate the economy in that way.  There is no measurable loss here, for anyone.

Note that games are not food or water.
You DON'T NEED games to live.

Ok so you won't buy any games so anything you download is "loss free" for the developer because you wouldn't play the game anyway if you had to pay for it.
Ok i understand... but how long would you go without playing (and paying for) ANY game if we assume piracy is no longer possible?
You might not buy ME1-3 but finally crack and buy Dragon Age.
Sure you didn't let those greedy developers earn any cash on ME (the one you in theory could own for "free" anyway) but you bought DA instead.
Sure you play less AAA games than now but the income for the developers in general has increased because you bought DA instead of keeping yourself busy with Tali for "free".

[Girlinhat]

Or to summarize the post above mine: "You only refuse to pay because you are able to get it for free.  If pirating were suddenly 100% impossible, would you still refuse to buy, and instead never play another game again because you still don't intend to pay?"

[itisnotlogical]

Or to summarize the post above mine: "You only refuse to pay because you are able to get it for free.  If pirating were suddenly 100% impossible, would you still refuse to buy, and instead never play another game again because you still don't intend to pay?"

I only refuse to buy games that are unavailable. I pirate, but if these games were available legitimately I would buy them, because who wouldn't pay $5 to download Mother 3? I would certainly pay money for every game I have pirated if somebody were selling legitimate copies.

[Gamerboy4life]

Come on, stop the flaming guys, and let's keep this civil, or this thread will get locked.

In my opinion, Pirating can be wrong. If there is no way to acquire a game, or you are boycotting EA, go ahead, I don't really care. The only time I see pirating as REALLY wrong is when someone pirates an indie game, as I've said before.

If pirating games was going to kill the industry, it would have happened a long time ago.

[Girlinhat]

Do remind me, why EA?

[The Darkling Wolf]

Because it's cool to hate the big companies.

I'mma go on a shooting spree in Walmart, but it's cool because Walmart are a big company, it's not like I'm going and killing the people working in the Mom 'n Pop store down the road.

[Sirus]

[personal view]
Even if there is no physical copy of a lot of games out there, piracy is still theft in a way. Making that bit of code in the first place took time, effort, hardware (assuming they didn't have the proper hardware in the first place), and money. Making money off of that code is the only way for the programmers/artists/sound designers/whatever to recoup the money spent. By pirating, you deprive the creators of what could be thought of as their salary. This applies mostly to AAA titles, but some indie games are pirated as well, and they rely more on the profits their game makes.
[/personal view]

That said, I admit to pirating some things. Mostly abandonware that won't make their creators money anymore. Some older console games as well; those memory-saving batteries in those old cartridges won't last forever. In fact, I even have some cartridges that can no longer save thanks to a dead battery that no one can replace.

[itisnotlogical]

Do remind me, why EA?

EA has become the robber baron of the games industry. IIRC it had something to do with prohibitive DRM and buying out smaller companies to sit on their ideas. I personally dislike how heavily DLC factors into their business model, but that's probably just me because I don't like DLC anyway.

[Cthulhu]

Or to summarize the post above mine: "You only refuse to pay because you are able to get it for free.  If pirating were suddenly 100% impossible, would you still refuse to buy, and instead never play another game again because you still don't intend to pay?"

That's a good summary, and the answer is no, but since Sonlirain's post misunderstands me, it's not a refutation.  I don't refuse to pay for video games.  There are plenty of video games I bought and never would have even considered pirating.  Likewise, there are games I pirated that I never would have even considered buying.  If there were no option to pirate Sleeping Dogs, I would have gone without.

I think the key to "beating" piracy is multiplayer.  If a game has good multiplayer, I'll buy it, since multiplayer generally doesn't work with piracy.  I'll probably get NS2 if it goes on sale, and I haven't even considered pirating it, because there is no single player.  I preordered Dark Souls, never thought I might pirate it.  Again, because multiplayer is what makes it.  I think game companies are figuring this out, they're just not doing a great job of it yet.  All these preorder bonuses, purchase bonuses, online components, the intent is to provide features that you wouldn't be able to get (As easily, in some cases) by pirating.  It's just that right now a lot of them suck.

tl;dr:  If you want people to buy your game, instead of trying to force them to do so, give them something they can't get through piracy.

[itisnotlogical]

Or to summarize the post above mine: "You only refuse to pay because you are able to get it for free.  If pirating were suddenly 100% impossible, would you still refuse to buy, and instead never play another game again because you still don't intend to pay?"

That's a good summary, and the answer is no, but since Sonlirain's post misunderstands me, it's not a refutation.  I don't refuse to pay for video games.  There are plenty of video games I bought and never would have even considered pirating.  Likewise, there are games I pirated that I never would have even considered buying.  If there were no option to pirate Sleeping Dogs, I would have gone without.

I think the key to "beating" piracy is multiplayer.  If a game has good multiplayer, I'll buy it, since multiplayer generally doesn't work with piracy.  I'll probably get NS2 if it goes on sale, and I haven't even considered pirating it, because there is no single player.  I preordered Dark Souls, never thought I might pirate it.  Again, because multiplayer is what makes it.  I think game companies are figuring this out, they're just not doing a great job of it yet.  All these preorder bonuses, purchase bonuses, online components, the intent is to provide features that you wouldn't be able to get (As easily, in some cases) by pirating.  It's just that right now a lot of them suck.

tl;dr:  If you want people to buy your game, instead of trying to force them to do so, give them something they can't get through piracy.

I've seen this ideology at work in my school and I can vouch for it's effectiveness. Texting in class is a huge problem at my school. One of my teachers keeps a bowl of candy on his desk; turn in your phone for the period, get a piece of candy. I have never seen a kid texting in his class, while other teachers tear their hair out trying to get kids to pay attention at all, much less stop texting.

[Girlinhat]

Yahtzee (The Escapist, No Punctuation game reviews) summed up that nicely with The Sims 3.  "Why did they release a new game?  I thought the idea was to just release new DLC packs when the cocaine pile started running low!"

Also, for a discussion point:
Let's say that my Legend of Legaia disk weren't damage, but also that my PS3 was not backwards compatible.  My PS1 doesn't work (probably ever, but the power chord is gone right now so can't test).  I have the physical media in working condition but can't play it on a broken console.  If I pop it into my computer and convert it to ISO and play it on an emulator, is that wrong?  If I did that and my ISO didn't work and I grabbed an ISO online, is this still wrong?

Or from some indie game standpoints, if I've lost my original activation code and I find a code generator that majicks me up a new one for my already-installed game, is this wrong?  If I already own the game but attempt to access it through a different way, is this still wrong?

[Darkmere]

Do remind me, why EA?

The Origin service they are moving all their games to actively datamines your entire system. There's no opt out.

I whole-heartedly agree with Cthulhu. The current trends add invasive DRM that punishes legitimate users. The solution is to reward legitimate copies. It's kinda fun watching every single industry replay the Napster problem time and time again.

[pisskop]

I know pirates who can play Multiplayer.  Even when its still 'cool'.  and the older the game gets the easier it is to do.