Piracy? or Try before you buy? - General

[QUOTE=Antdawg;37963790]Why is it unfair to pirate indie games, yet to you is probably acceptable to pirate say the next EA game?[/QUOTE] Indie games get generally less sales than majorly published games and therefore can not aford to have as many pirates is probably what he means

[QUOTE=MadPro119;37963988]Indie games get generally less sales than majorly published games and therefore can not aford to have as many pirates is probably what he means[/QUOTE] But large triple-A games have risked much more money on the project and have more people relying on its success.

Piracy is absolutely disgusting. If you enjoy the game than you can fork out money to support the company who provide the games for you. I personally don't pirate cause it makes me feel like i'm jewing the company who makes great games

[QUOTE=Tinky-Winky;37969187]Piracy is absolutely disgusting. If you enjoy the game than you can fork out money to support the company who provide the games for you. I personally don't pirate cause it makes me feel like i'm jewing the company who makes great games[/QUOTE] antisemitism is fine but piracy is ''disgusting''. well done.

I pirated Minecraft before I bought it. Keep in mind, this was a year before that demo feature you see on the minecraft website came out. And [B][U]please[/U][/B] don't let this become a Minecraft vs [I][enter game name here][/I] topic. We don't need that.

I pirate games that I'm somewhat interested in but know the company has bad support for PC.

Normally I'm a software pirate unless a legit copy is required to access something. That's why every non-mod Steam game I have is legal, and everything else is pirated (some other software included). I will admit though, piracy just shits up my hard drive and gives me less space for other things. I'm very indecisive on what to delete and what to keep.

I pirate games and if I really like them, I go out and buy them. When Killing Floor was released, I downloaded the first retail version and played a little bit of the single-player; I was so impressed that the next day I hopped down to Best Buy and bought the retail disc. I'm neutral on the piracy vs. try before you buy topic. On one hand, most games these days do not have playable demos that you can download. I mean, think back to the days where you could load up a game like Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, go to the Extras, and play the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 demo. There's nothing like that anymore. Companies would rather just release the game and hope people play it than spend money and energy on creating demos.

I pirate games sparingly and for a number of reasons. There are few games I'll pay full price for. A lot of games, I simply wait for them to go on sale and purchase them then. One reason I'd pirate a game is if it's a game I'd never buy or enjoy playing myself, but my friend wants to LAN it with me. I'm not going to spend money on a game I'll never play again, and so instead of saying "Sorry man, I like playing with you but that game's not worth it", I'll pirate it, play it a few times with him, then inform him I didn't have fun and never touch it again. Another reason is when I have moral objections towards a game company or its treatment of a game. Case in point, EA has been mentioned. I do not like them, I do not like how they do things, and in the small chance they come out with a game I'd like to play or try, I'll pirate it. Is it stealing? Yes. Do I care, or will I ever care that a dickbag publisher loses a drop into it's bathtub? Hah, no. Another case is when a game is made and I hear it has a horrible PC port, I'll generally pirate it to try it, and if it's as bad as everyone says, I drop it like it's hot. If I find people have been exaggerating and the game is fun, I'll buy it. Any complaints of the lost sale in the first scenario, I call it not allowing yourself to get suckered by lazy developers. Input=Output These are my opinions, and like them or not, they won't likely be changing any time soon.

I only pirate games in two occasions which i cannot find in stores anymore, It seems logical, The stores dont seem to think they can make a profit on them, Most of the time the company has stopped making copies, I see it as Abandonware and thus free to download. And when the game has a bad PC port, Ill pirate it as well. The devs don't deserve money for a bad job and i shouldn't be expected to buy it if its simply a port from console. I really get pissy when they don't even change control settings around and the menu still tells you in most cases, The Xbox 360 controls for the game, Thats fucking bullshit.

I generally pirate games when I'm short on cash and don't want to lose money for buying a potentially shit game. Being on a very fixed income, it would suck to lose an entire month's worth of games on a shitty 60 dollar port. If it turns out to be a good game, I get it next time I have the money or eventually I will buy it. The way I see it, the money I have to spend is important to me. Why should I have to shell out money every time I want to try something new? These guys aren't losing any sales. They are going to lose potential sales if it's crap, but that's it. I'd still buy it anyways. I support the developers/publishers when they bloody well deserve it, not for making another CoD 27: World at War Again. Take Mark of the Ninja. I pirated it to try out the game, and found it to be exceptional. I'm buying it next month.

personally i always try before you buy, and yes i buy a shit-ton of games. my most recent TBYB was "to-the-moon" i beat it and cried like a 12 year old girl and then purchased on the spot. "to the moon" [video=youtube;sqkJuSV-23U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqkJuSV-23U[/video] 10/10 "cant watch the trailer without crying the game"

I like to own most of the stuff I use, in general if it's a song I don't mind pirating it as the way I see it if someone else already uploaded the song on youtube about 10 times then it may as well be free.

This isn't an issue. Youtube is Piracy. When you load a video on Youtube. That song or video is directly in your temporary internet folder. You can copy that file into your desktop. Free videos and music from Youtube.

I only pirate games if I already own them on console or if the game is worth my money, unless there is a demo.

[QUOTE=backfoggen;37923234]Buy two copies then sell one if you don't like it. That's how I do it and this is how you Can do it as well.[/QUOTE] That is horribly inefficient, you're assuming 1. that you have twice the amount of money to waste on a game, and 2. that someone will give you full price.

I hardly ever pirate games anymore. I usually pirate games just to see what the graphics look like and shit and then never play it again. I buy most of my games through steam now.. Can't remember the last game I pirated and played actively. As for software.. High end software is extremely expensive, especially audio software when you have to pay a few hundred for the DAW, a few hundred for VST plugins, a few hundred for sample packs.. It adds up quick. I don't have that much pirated software, but the few things I do have is expensive stuff I would never be able to afford. And movies, I usually pirate stuff I have seen in theaters, so technically I paid for it already :v:

I acknowledge that i am a pirate. But, as some sort of the code of law and hono(u)r, i only pirate games after... say, 6 months to a year after the release of the pirated game. Inb4, pirating doesn't affect revenue in any way, because pirates ( including me ) won't buy the game as-is, and only a small amount of them, if they see a high quality of the game, will buy if if they don't have another chance. Economically-wise, the developer/publisher have unlimited resources( information ), that's why pirating isn't a threat.

Here is a scenario. Every one of my students, without fail, owns minecraft and plants vs zombies (laptops are a requirement at school). Recently, Limbo is becoming popular. Not a single one has paid for it. They freely admit this to me. They don't intend to pay for it. This is at least 400 people. And this is just in my small circle. The potential loss of revenue is staggering. I say potential, because it is unlikely many of them would buy it. But if they had to buy it to play it, then it is potential revenue. Surely somewhere there is some affect on the economy? 400 people might not make a difference, but 400,000? 4 million?

[QUOTE=hawk18727;38110605]I acknowledge that i am a pirate. But, as some sort of the code of law and hono(u)r, i only pirate games after... say, 6 months to a year after the release of the pirated game. Inb4, pirating doesn't affect revenue in any way, because pirates ( including me ) won't buy the game as-is, and only a small amount of them, if they see a high quality of the game, will buy if if they don't have another chance. Economically-wise, the developer/publisher have unlimited resources( information ), that's why pirating isn't a threat.[/QUOTE] Justifying stealing a game by saying they wouldn't otherwise play it does not make it okay, it makes it an excuse. Adding arbitrary rules to your theft does not make it okay, either. Piracy is stealing. I've seen the image that explains how it "only copies the game", but doesn't that mean you're still stealing a copy?

No. The company isn't losing any money and if you never intended to buy it, well, they're not losing any money.

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[QUOTE=Agoat;38114551]Justifying stealing a game by saying they wouldn't otherwise play it does not make it okay, it makes it an excuse. Adding arbitrary rules to your theft does not make it okay, either. Piracy is stealing. I've seen the image that explains how it "only copies the game", but doesn't that mean you're still stealing a copy?[/QUOTE] You are exaggerating. As i've said, stealing a bit from the endless amount isn't stealing in its pure way. Stealing actually means that someone will lose something. It's not the case here. And i wholy agree with the philosophy that copying differs from stealing.

[QUOTE]Indie games get generally less sales than majorly published games and therefore can not aford to have as many pirates is probably what he means[/QUOTE] I will gladly endorse the piracy of indie games if it means that I will no longer see ten thousand shitty, generic retro-style platformers plaguing the front page of steam nowadays.

I work at a grocery store. At night, our hot food department closes down and proceeds to throw away all of the left over chicken, sausage rolls, etc. I usually ask if I can take some for free before they throw it away. I eat this stuff at night when I get it for free, but I would never even consider buying it during the day on my breaks because it tastes pretty shitty for the high prices. During the day, I buy other things for my breaks that are worth the money. So the company is not losing any money because I wouldn't purchase the hot food anyway even if I couldn't get it for free. The same applies with piracy. I pirate stuff for free that I wouldn't otherwise buy because it is too expensive for the quality of content. The company isn't losing a customer because even if I wasn't able to pirate it, I wouldn't buy it. If I pirate something I like and I think is worth the money, I will definitely buy it. Otherwise, if its low quality (especially for games where they are all $60 regardless of quality), I wouldn't even buy it if I couldn't pirate it. So I do believe that my piracy does not affect companies because I wouldn't have purchased the content anyway.

[QUOTE=Electroholic;38119135]I work at a grocery store. At night, our hot food department closes down and proceeds to throw away all of the left over chicken, sausage rolls, etc. I usually ask if I can take some for free before they throw it away. I eat this stuff at night when I get it for free, but I would never even consider buying it during the day on my breaks because it tastes pretty shitty for the high prices. During the day, I buy other things for my breaks that are worth the money. So the company is not losing any money because I wouldn't purchase the hot food anyway even if I couldn't get it for free. The same applies with piracy. I pirate stuff for free that I wouldn't otherwise buy because it is too expensive for the quality of content. The company isn't losing a customer because even if I wasn't able to pirate it, I wouldn't buy it. If I pirate something I like and I think is worth the money, I will definitely buy it. Otherwise, if its low quality (especially for games where they are all $60 regardless of quality), I wouldn't even buy it if I couldn't pirate it. So I do believe that my piracy does not affect companies because I wouldn't have purchased the content anyway.[/QUOTE] What you do is your own choice but it doesn't stop it from being wrong. You're not justified in taking what you don't deserve because you believe that it has no negative impact on companies. People tell themselves that they weren't going to pay for it anyway but would this attitude exist before piracy became so widespread? Any answer is speculation but I think this broader aspect needs to be considered.

[QUOTE=Canuhearme?;36723485]That can be done just as easily by checking out the pertinent thread in Games General, or looking on Youtube for reviews or perhaps the early parts of a Let's Play, or reading a customer review... There's seriously many different ways (quicker then pirating too) to see if a game is any good then simply pirating the entire game and "promising" you'll stop playing once you determine if the game is good or not. Pirating is pirating, no matter how many excuses you give to say otherwise.[/QUOTE] While I can see where you're coming from, I must disagree. Sometimes, reading a review, watching a let's play, etc, cannot properly convey the game. A game may look cool in pictures or in a video, but maybe once you buy it and actually play for yourself, you hate it.

With games as stupidly expensive as they are in Australia it gets really tempting to see a short singleplayer game on TPB I have used them for demo purposes though. Lately I have been going to GreenManGaming and using a 20% off code to get my games at a normal human being price. Its not like I pirate all day long and have hundreds of cracks and patches for free games, steam says I have 100+ games on my account

[QUOTE=Nemisis116;38140167]With games as stupidly expensive as they are in Australia it gets really tempting to see a short singleplayer game on TPB I have used them for demo purposes though. Lately I have been going to GreenManGaming and using a 20% off code to get my games at a normal human being price. Its not like I pirate all day long and have hundreds of cracks and patches for free games, steam says I have 100+ games on my account[/QUOTE] Games aren't so "expensive" in Australia. Yes, we pay $80AU usually for new releases, compared to $60US for new releases in the US and the AUD and US are roughly on par in value. Yet our national minimum wage is actually more than double of theirs. You are actually getting a better deal on games compared to people living in the US, and if you import your games at foreign prices you are getting a very good deal. Stop bitching about local retail prices, if you really don't like them then go import your games and don't consider retail at all. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States[/url] - [b]$7.25 per hour in the US[/b] [url]http://www.fairwork.gov.au/media-centre/latest-news/2012/06/Pages/20120601-2012-minimum-wage-decision-released.aspx[/url] - [b]$15.96 per hour in Australia[/b] [url]http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=AUD&To=USD[/url] - [b]$1AUD is worth $1.03US (23/10/2012)[/b]

I consider loaning a game to a friend to see if he wants to buy it and pirating the same thing, I don't give a fuck what companies think, if you don't release a demo for a game I'll borrow or pirate it before I decide if I want to buy it. The difference between pirating and borrowing from someone else is just the amount of people borrowing from one person. Factors in my buying decision include price, replayibility and some small personal preferences(a like a good challenge), most triple AAA titles entitle themselves to a $60 price tag, largely just covering marketing costs. Tacking on a shitty generic multiplayer doesn't add replayibility nor justify the price for me, which is why I often find myself only purchasing smaller titles. Titles that were just made and not a product for a target market, that was playtested by casual babbies who completely ruin the game. For example, Dishonored, I was really excited for this shit, I haven't purchased a $60 game in 2 years, I had high expectations and I love stealth games, but the people who play tested it a month before release were a bunch of morons who couldn't play for shit, and of course Bethesda urged Arkane to make it appeal more to the general audience. If I just would have tried it before I bought it, it would have completely changed my decision. And if the publishers see that as piracy, then maybe they should take the hint as to why I didn't buy it. If you want to make quality games, then you shouldn't need to rely on not releasing a demo and expecting everyone to just buy it because you hyped it up to look good.