That seems like a silly line drawn in the sand in order to justify something. Without the expected revenue the games would never be made, and without sales of A there would be no development of B. Also every purchase is a vote, more sales of Mirror's Edge would have meant a Mirror's Edge 2. It's supporting the dev, the publisher and the idea... when you don't buy, you don't support.

I mean I get your point, it just seems like a nit-pick on my language more than a real debate factor.

But when grammar is used to gain some "moral high ground" that simply isn't there, then it is an important aspect of the debate. The industry made it possible, through the engineering of the debate, to turn a simple civil claim into a crime. That is a serious sociological, political and legal problem. Far worse than "OMG always online DRM!!!1111!!.

From what I have seen, I would say that grammar discussion is usually started to prove that piracy is not wrong. I personally think that piracy is wrong and as long as you don't try to justify it you can call it "flower picking" or whatever you want.

In my opinion pirates are scums, for others they are thieves, but pirates shouldn't care about it - those are just opinions of strangers. As long as pirates feel good with their behavior they should ignore such opinions. I have console and I did read more than dozen times that console gamers are "retarded kids and not real gamers", but I never cared about what people say. Why should I? I don't feel like retarded kid when I play on console. ;) Arguing about how piracy should be called is like arguing in YT comment section that you are not "homosexual gay fag" when someone call you like that.

I agree it's an attempt to frame the debate, I just think that applies to both sides. The theft people reference is theft of profit, which is a real thing being taken away in a sense. It's not truly accurate because not every pirated copy is a lost sale, but the root of the word being used makes sense from a colloquial point of view. On the other side spending half a piracy thread talking about how it's not theft is an attempt to belittle the act and make it sound like no big deal.

Every side tries to persuade.

He spent a lot of time blaming payment options. He only accepts Paypal, which is a problem for me as well, but a serious problem for a lot of the world that is able to run his game.

Second of all, the kind of "piracy" we're talking about here is non-commercial and actually isn't or shouldn't be a crime. It amounts to a non-criminal offense in the US (or did, I'm sure they've tacked some bullshit on by now). So, let's agree to not call this kind "criminal", which actually does have a pretty specific legal meaning. We can split hairs over other terms, like theft, but criminal is a bit out of line for this.

He didn't know he would profit from it when he took the actions he did. One might guess, with the benefit of hindsight, that that was his plan all along, but some creators actually just want their games played. They want to eat, too, but they also have this driving force to create something for their fellow man. He just as well might have said to himself, "Fuck it, if I cannot make money this way I'll make sure people can play my game anyway." as what you're proposing. Most of these guys are not some business mastermind, they're just people, the same kind of people that can't find shit at the store or cut you off in traffic because they were on their cell phone.

I think everyone here is looking at the end result and assuming a whole fuck of a lot about this guy's "master plan".

As for copyright and piracy, the social contract is broken, if I don't pirate it's merely because it's less convenient than paying for me, I legitimately don't care if someone does, though.
I agree, as I said before, grammar is used to illustrate morality, essentially drawing a moral line in the sand with one party clearly on the wrong side. You can't actually have a reasonable debate with people drawing said line nor with those that accept it.

Could we have a reasonable debate about DRM if we all insisted on calling it "kiddie rape"? We have a hard enough time discussing DRM as it is without labels intended to do what the "theft" label does.

FWIW, SV, you're technically correct, the terminology doesn't really have much to do with the morality or immorality of copyright infringement for non-commercial and personal purposes, HOWEVER it does make dialog and discussion impossible.

HIgh School / College level people's are your biggest marketers in the world of entertainment and pop culture - Most don't have jobs because they're hard at studies.

However you do have one point that I strongly agree with - It is respect: or as you said "Against the creator's wish"

People could say that the creator is being a tight ass but even so he or she should be honored.

There are certain prejudices and biases that I have that people feel I should over come but I don't like being forced to over come them by having relevant instances rubbed in my face against my wishes.

You will find, however, that most, if not every, warez sight is heavily monitored by officials, if not, then it is actually being ran by officials and if developers have whole heartedly expressed that they don't want their items on the net for easy grabs - You will be very hard pressed to find them.

GOG forums stance on developers:

if(developer.supportsPiracy) developer.respect += 5;
else developer.respect = 0;

They don't bother reading the arguments or looking at the numbers.

How do you figure?

In hopes of contributing to the discussion, here are my views on all of this:

1. Piracy

What is so bad about piracy? Seriously, there are a number of reasons for piracy, but in the end, it really isn't hurting anyone. I hear the main developer of Dwarf Fortress is still living off of donations made for the game. That game is 100% free.

That alone should prove that if people like your game, they will pay for it. End of story.

But then on top of that, people put obnoxious DRMs to prevent piracy. Sometimes, it's not so bad. It's just a requirement to create an account to access online features, or maybe just some sort of serial code activation, or something like Steam that drowns you in so many features that you don't notice.

But then there are DRMs that are legitimately stupid. And then it becomes all about convenience. And personally, if you're going to make it difficult for people to play your game, I really don't blame those that pirate it.

In the end though, Sos makes a good point. People are enjoying his game enough to pirate it, and in the end, isn't that all most people really want? For people to enjoy their game/music/movie?

2. DRM

DRMs are stupid. If they're something like serial code activation or online accounts, then it's a bit like "okay, I understand that you'd like to make sure that people legitimately own the game, or you want to provide extra services that would be difficult without an extra layer of security like accounts."

But most of them are just stupid. Why do we really need Steam? SecuROM? Starforce? Tages?

Steam in specific irks me. It's a DRM that people are convinced that they need.

You know, Raptr can launch your games too. And they can all be launched from the same place! And DRM-free! That means if Steam ever goes under, you can still play those games!

But no, people insist that Steam is only a good thing. What happens when it goes under? People always think that about other DRMs, but not Steam.

I'm happy to use it for now, but if they go under, and they don't provide a way to continue playing our games, you can be sure I'll be suing, or "arbitrating", them for all they've got.

3. Developers and supporting piracy

Here's the deal. I personally see it like this:

If you really don't support piracy at all, and you're an indie, I get it. It's your hard work, your blood, sweat and tears that went into it, and people can't even respect that work enough to pay the measly $5-10 you asked for it.

If you don't so much support piracy, but accept it and embrace it like Sos, then you get it. You get that it doesn't have to be horrible, and I respect that.

If you support and encourage piracy, you have absolutely no business sense.

What about some of the arguments that have been made here? What if a developer wants to charge a specific amount for his work? why should you neglect that? what if you can donate or pay but you just dont give a fuck if you can "get it for free"? Is that not wrong? DRM has nothing to do with this, piracy was there BEFORE DRM. (personally I think the best bussiness model is the no DRM, "pay what you want" + "collectors edtions/whatever" which do have a set price and are meant to fans who actually want something special/physical box).

I think there's a difference between "I made this and I'm offering it to you and you can pay what you think it's worth" and "I made this and it has a set price and if you want it you should pay what I'm asking."

Taking the first one for, say, a dollar instead of twenty or thirty, is not the same as somehow gaining access to the second without paying a cent.

If you decide people can have your game for nothing if they want it, that's not piracy.

Getting a game for free that should be paid for is. I'm not really sure where he's trying to go with the point he's trying to make.

Well, here's my opinion on that.

Indies generally price their games fairly. No more than $15 for the grand majority of them, and a lot of indies actually vastly underprice their work.

AAA games are fucking overpriced to high hell though. I don't care how much money it took to make. Your 6 hour game is not worth fucking $60.

In the end, the DRM part had no real part in my grand point, it was just saying that DRMs contribute to piracy in the sense that it's more convenient to get the pirated version without DRM than it is to pay hard-earned cash for the "gimped" DRM-infested version.

My point was - if people like it, and they have the ability to pay for it, they will. Sometimes piracy contributes to people paying for it.

A lot of the disgruntled comments on the morality and ethics of pirated games.

Oh, if you mean how do I figure that GOG wouldn't be around? I'm pretty sure the data found for the first series of games released here was made possible by people ripping that data from retail CD's back in the nineties.

A lot of game data made available to us today was result of it being extracted and preserved in the past after game companies went out of business and auctioned or trashed the original copies.

A lot of old Coin-Op arcade titles still around today are because collectors ripped the data from the machines' boards.

- it's ironic that a lot of folk who complain about rape never come to realizing that we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for rape.
- how do you figure?
- I'm pretty sure a lot of people alive today wouldn't be here if people hadn't raped during the middle ages. Genetic data is made available to us today as a result of these forced fertilizations of ova that would have otherwise gone off as atresic follicles during the trashing of menstrual cycling.