Piracy: Common Myths

[nukeboy95]

i consider piracy (On some levels but not all) sharing and isn't sharing caring

 

[Rydian]

when you pirate games you [...] help welcome more trend-mongering parasites who spew more bland and shallow rubbish onto the market that is empty of originality, both in terms of gameplay and concept, perpetuating the marketing feedback and this all only makes things worse. It's a downward spiral.

Don't believe me? Just take a look! Support the developers who deserve to be supported, otherwise look outside and see them collecting your garbage to make a living. Make the distinction between publishers and developers, then open your eyes finally, with just a little maturity and intelligence, it should be clear as day.

This falls into the same "You list a cause and an effect, but not how it actually happens" category as claiming piracy causes monetary damage...

 

[VashTS]

if it was not shared digitally, it would be done with hardware. i would rent from somewhere and rip it.

 

[LDAsh]

This falls into the same "You list a cause and an effect, but not how it actually happens" category as claiming piracy causes monetary damage...

I mentioned how it happens, both cause and effect. Cause is just the mention of the word 'piracy' to the publishing heads, and effect is that smaller risk-taking developers get punished while publishers do such things as implement anti-piracy measures into their newest High School Musical title. Ask yourself, if you were a publisher, would you risk a bunch of cash and anger your investors by publishing something that, while may be innovative, pioneering and genre-carving, won't bring in the dollars, or would you play it safe with Justin Bieber on the cover?

 

[RodrigoDavy]

In South Korea, many video game consumers exploit illegal copies of video games, including for the Nintendo DS. In 2007, 500,000 copies of DS games were sold, while the sales of the DS hardware units was 800,000.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_ds#Hacking_and_homebrew

I don't think it is correct to say companies suffer monetary loss with piracy, what actually happens is that the potential market for legit games shrinks which can also be damaging for games companies. But as a matter of fact, the gaming business has become more lucrative with time, so it's debatable how much damage piracy really makes.

 

[Rydian]

I mentioned how it happens, both cause and effect. Cause is just the mention of the word 'piracy' to the publishing heads, and effect is that smaller risk-taking developers get punished while publishers do such things as implement anti-piracy measures into their newest High School Musical title. Ask yourself, if you were a publisher, would you risk a bunch of cash and anger your investors by publishing something that, while may be innovative, pioneering and genre-carving, won't bring in the dollars, or would you play it safe with Justin Bieber on the cover?

So if my mom smacked me every time somebody farted in public, the solution is to get everybody to stop farting in public because it's their fault, right?

 

[mechadylan]

It's kinda' funny, it was the MPAA (or an organization like them) I think that originally called it "piracy", because they wanted to give it a bad, dirty image.

There was a time when I remember people throwing around the term "pirates and bootleggers." Piracy, at one point, was synonymous with people that duplicated media and turned around and sold their bootlegs for profit; this is no longer the case. I think a common myth is that "piracy" has to involve some sort of "commercial gain" in order to qualify as such. Personal gain is just notable as commercial gain when being labeled a pirate.

 

[Rydian]

There was a time when I remember people throwing around the term "pirates and bootleggers." Piracy, at one point, was synonymous with people that duplicated media and turned around and sold their bootlegs for profit; this is no longer the case. I think a common myth is that "piracy" has to involve some sort of "commercial gain" in order to qualify as such. Personal gain is just notable as commercial gain when being labeled a pirate.

Yeah that used to be a really common thing, but I haven't seen it in ages so I don't know if it's nearly common enough to go here.

 

[LDAsh]

So if my mom smacked me every time somebody farted in public, the solution is to get everybody to stop farting in public because it's their fault, right?

This analogy doesn't really work, but let's say your more attractive and charming brother farts and your mom will smack you, the younger, less attractive sibling, simply because she doesn't want to harm your brother's perceived flawless image, for he is more likely to graduate, get a good job and bring her home her retirement bacon, while you, on the other hand, are more likely to drop out of high school and start smoking pot. Is it right? No. But not everyone can be blessed with a mentally stable mom who will dish out smacks where justified and onto the correct child, simply because of the dollars signs in the eyeballs.

If you want to know how cynical people think, you need to become mostly cynical yourself.

Will an instant end to piracy stop publishers from smacking the wrong child? No. But it will at least, over some time, level out the playfield and distribute the smacks more equally. Publishers are hypersensitive to this, and like I said, it's the little developers that suffer, the younger acne-ridden brother.

 

[The Milkman]

There was a time when I remember people throwing around the term "pirates and bootleggers." Piracy, at one point, was synonymous with people that duplicated media and turned around and sold their bootlegs for profit; this is no longer the case. I think a common myth is that "piracy" has to involve some sort of "commercial gain" in order to qualify as such. Personal gain is just notable as commercial gain when being labeled a pirate.

Yeah, I remeber that. If you went around downloading music it wasnt a big deal, companies would usually go after the guy whos downloading it and putting it on CDs, then selling them on the corner of the block or at your local walgreens. Now, it seems they dont even want you sharing media (I mean over a site like Youtube, not popping your friend like, all the download links) without consent.

 

[Snailface]

There was a time when I remember people throwing around the term "pirates and bootleggers." Piracy, at one point, was synonymous with people that duplicated media and turned around and sold their bootlegs for profit; this is no longer the case. I think a common myth is that "piracy" has to involve some sort of "commercial gain" in order to qualify as such. Personal gain is just notable as commercial gain when being labeled a pirate.

Avoiding expenditure is commercial gain.

If I'm a hot-shot lawyer making $500,000 who successfully evades taxes, I effectively double my income.
A lawyer who makes $1,000,000, and who pays taxes, makes the same income as the tax evading lawyer.

I'm not saying a bootlegger isn't morally inferior to a pirate, I'm just saying commercial gain can be more than just selling stuff.
edit: (upon a more careful reading, it seems you are trying to make the same point I am, doh -.-)

 

[ShadowSoldier]

tl;dr, Piracy is wrong. People shouldn't do it. Don't be a dick. Support the developers so we get more great games.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

tl;dr, Piracy is wrong. People shouldn't do it. Don't be a dick. Support the developers so we get more great games.

No!

 

[Rydian]

This analogy doesn't really work, but let's say your more attractive and charming brother farts and your mom will smack you, the younger, less attractive sibling, simply because she doesn't want to harm your brother's perceived flawless image, for he is more likely to graduate, get a good job and bring her home her retirement bacon, while you, on the other hand, are more likely to drop out of high school and start smoking pot. Is it right? No. But not everyone can be blessed with a mentally stable mom who will dish out smacks where justified and onto the correct child, simply because of the dollars signs in the eyeballs.

If you want to know how cynical people think, you need to become mostly cynical yourself.

Will an instant end to piracy stop publishers from smacking the wrong child? No. But it will at least, over some time, level out the playfield and distribute the smacks more equally. Publishers are hypersensitive to this, and like I said, it's the little developers that suffer, the younger acne-ridden brother.

I'm not going to choose ignorance over education. If publishers see piracy and choose to harm developers in reaction, then it's the publishers that harm developers, not piracy.

 

[LDAsh]

I'm not going to choose ignorance over education.

If publishers see piracy and choose to harm developers in reaction, then it's the publishers that harm developers, not piracy

Now here you are absolutely right! But try telling them that. Pirating more games certainly isn't going to send the message. Money is all that matters. Money is God, know this and know the inner mechanisms of global society. This is why I say it's a downward spiral and it's only going to get worse. Innocents get hurt unfairly and it's wrong, but that little sentiment isn't as important as cold hard cash, now is it. 3DS protection has maybe done some good for this, we're seeing more thoroughly developed 3DS titles instead of endless shovelware we saw on the DS, at least, but it hasn't really opened the doors to more innovation and originality that mostly, pehaps only, comes from smaller independent developers that haven't been brain-damaged by these mechanisms. Small developers do well when they contrive, aim small and do their own cute little marketing research themselves, essentially sucking the same sausages as their publisher and larger studio counterparts.

 

[hisagishi]

Did that 1m dollar pirate ever pay it off?

 

[ilman]

Good thing I live in Bulgaria. Everybody here pirates. Heck, I know 20 people with PSPs and almost none of them have ever bought a game, but all of them have 5 or more games on their memory sticks.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

amusingly, at one point one of my Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines CD's became broken so I phoned up Activision and asked would it be OK if I acquired a backup copy from the internet of that disc of the 3 disc set if I have a retail copy and proof of buying and they said yes you can, I was like could you email me that and they did xD

that kinda shocked me all the way back then when I did it (must be like 7 years ago now) lol, These days I re-bought the game on steam

 

[Wizerzak]

I agree with this 100%. One thing though, backing up your own media creates a 100% identical copy of what you could download from the internet, so what's the difference? Besides like actually being traced through a torrent or something, how can you prove or disprove if it's legal or not?

edit: I should say that I know it's the actual act of downloading that's wrong.

Actually, from waht I understand, it's not the downloading as such, but the fact that by downloading you are making a copy of the information on the internet. If you could have a service that lets you download something while also removing the file from the server, that wouldn't be illegal (ie for exchange digital data between friends).

 

[mr allen]

Now here you are absolutely right! But try telling them that. Pirating more games certainly isn't going to send the message. Money is all that matters. Money is God, know this and know the inner mechanisms of global society. This is why I say it's a downward spiral and it's only going to get worse. Innocents get hurt unfairly and it's wrong, but that little sentiment isn't as important as cold hard cash, now is it. 3DS protection has maybe done some good for this, we're seeing more thoroughly developed 3DS titles instead of endless shovelware we saw on the DS, at least, but it hasn't really opened the doors to more innovation and originality that mostly, pehaps only, comes from smaller independent developers that haven't been brain-damaged by these mechanisms. Small developers do well when they contrive, aim small and do their own cute little marketing research themselves, essentially sucking the same sausages as their publisher and larger studio counterparts.

I'm probably missing something but I don't see what piracy has to do with a publisher choosing a game that they know will make money instead of some game from some small time developer that may or may not make any money.