Let me rephrase this...

I played a game of Super Tecmo Bowl the other night before going to bed. What am I looking at? 20, 30 years? Can I plead down to a lesser charge for 10 years? How about parole? Will I get a chance at parole?

Life

Be sure to stick a phone and charger in your bum before you go in so you can keep posting here.

I like how the OP is being low rated just because he said he pirates games. Stay classy, my friends. :sips beer:

(I wonder how many of those who low rated also pirate/pirated in the past[Games or something else like movies/tv shows/music/books/etc.]? :\)

(Edit: To clarify it WAS low rated, but it isn't currently.)

I didn't down rep him but one thing I don't get... how can you say down-repping on a forum is somehow worse than using software without compensating its creator?

Don't get me wrong, both are small potatoes. But still, in what world is meaningless down repping worse than not paying your fair share for a product?

Support the industry and I have no issue with you.

That includes week one full price payments for your favorite games.

Piracy is a fairly ambiguous term. Many things that entertainment companies would like the public to believe is piracy really isn't, but file sharing does hurt some companies' profits and it gives the consumer quite a lot of power, which, in this field, has traditionally been the position of the producer.

If you are a company and your product is available almost freely on the internet with almost no chance of prosecution then you had better come up with a damn good paid package and a minimal number of restrictions. That's the reality of life in the 21st century and the sooner entertainment companies and national governments accept that then the sooner we can move past this argument.

Edit: I think it's a useless argument to appeal to a persons sense of empathy and altruism over the internet. People have far less of a moral conscience when using anything with such a high degree of anonymity, especially when even the most prolific pirate has a minuscule chance of being prosecuted. A sizable group of internet users are simply without conscience and any pleas or threats to appeal to such a sense fall upon deaf ears.

My policy is remarkably simple:
Do I want it? yes/no
How much am I willing to pay for it?
If the answer to the second question is an amount lower than the current going rate for whatever 'it' may be..
I.. get this..
I don't get it! I actually fucking GO WITHOUT.

As a rule, I don't pirate. First because I find it wrong, fuck legality, it's just plain wrong.. but see that's what happens when you have friends and family who are all artists who have to rely on intellectual property rights. I won't go in to that further.

Second though, is pirated items send one very very simple message to publishers:
"People want this, but won't pay for it if they don't have to." Which they translate to "MOAR DRMZ!" Pirates and 2nd hand sales are 100% responsible for the DRMs we're dealing with.. and, without pirates, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on about 2nd hand sales :p
If people don't want to deal with the DRM, think the game is too expensive, don't like the companies business practices, etc. then the only way to really send that message is to neither buy nor pirate their game.

The only case I consider piracy "acceptable" is in a 'try before you buy" style- only when there is no demo available.. and not a "Well, I played it for 25 hours and beat it.. so.. I'll buy it when it goes on sale on Steam for $5 so I didn't really pirate it." (If a game you spent 25 hours on is only worth $5 to you, then you have a more skewed sense of game value than I do.)

But I am entitled to free entertainment 24/7! <stomps feet>

I never said(or meant to imply) it was worse......I just find it a tad hypocritical, seeing as many here most likely either pirated at some point in the past or pirate some other form of media till today(books/music/tv shows/comics/etc). I just get irked when I see stuff like this, is all.

(Also, an aside: OP stated that he has bought most games he has pirated/will pirate, so he was/is compensating someone for what he plays/consumes.)
---------------------------
(I'm speaking mostly in general here) It's funny you should mention paying one's fair share for a product......first off, what is fair? Is paying at least half the item's original sale price fair? If so, then wouldn't anyone paying less than that/little money at all(Such as those who buy in sales) also not be fairly compensating those who make/distribute said product?

I find it laughable when people complain about pirates not paying their fair share then they go and buy a game for 75%(or more) off, or a used game(most times used game sales also net the creator/publisher little to no income).

I purchase games that are worth my time.
If it's not worth my time, then there is no reason to buy or pirate it.

For me it's quite simple actually.

I don't pirate and am not a fan of the practice, although I've long since stopped condemning people for doing it. If you pirate, then so be it. None of my business, really. However, having said that, I've yet to see an excuse for pirating that, boiled down to its roots, amounts to more than 'I don't want to pay for games'. My opinion: if you play through the entire game and don't pay for it, then yeah, you're a bit of a 'monster pirate person'. I mean, if the game actually holds your attention enough to finish it, then you should pay for it. A few hours is plenty long enough to figure out whether or not you like a game.

If you don't like the direction the game is reported to be going, then wait to see what the real deal is. If you wait for a few weeks/months, then you'll have a pretty good idea from reviews whether or not it's going to be something you want. This is what I usually do. I buy very few games on release (there just aren't that many that I feel I have to have 'right now'). So I wait for reviews and info to see if it's something that's worth my time and money. And by then, the price has usually dropped as well. Win/win.

As far as Ubisoft goes, sure I'd like to play some of their games, but I don't want to deal with Uplay either. But I don't bother pirating them. I just ignore them and play something else. Too many other games out there to play to justify pirating something.

Bah, longer response than I intended. Anyway, kudos to you for your candor. Good gaming, P1na.

Buying used from a national chain store is worse imo because no money goes back to any of the companies that worked on or distributed the game. If people are borrowing or trading games among friends I doubt the companies really care. The rise of a certain Game store where you Stop to buy stuff pushing used copies on people every time they are looking for a game vastly accelerated the problem and lead to things like Project $10 and revenue through excessive DLC releases. The end result will be a huge push to get people to buy games digitally next generation and possible online activation for console games.

Fair is really not that confusing here. IMO, what is fair, generally speaking, is whatever is being asked for. The word "fair" meaning = I have the moral authority to deliver this product at X price. So when GOG offers something at 60% off, they have every right to do so as per the terms of their agreement with the owner. So in that case, yes, completely fair... even 99% off... completely fair.

"Fair" not meaning necessarily a "reasonable value." So MS Office might have a price of $75, that being the "fair" price but at the same time a bad value IMO. Just my 2 cents.

That's how I see it, feel free to go your own way...

We've also clashed about the word hypocrisy before and discovered that we slightly differ as to our conceptions on that.

A hypocrite is one who tells others to act or not act a certain way while persisting in the same behavior.* It doesn't matter whether one has done such a behavior in the past. For example, I used to take coins out of my mother's purse to buy baseball cards when I was a kid. I'm sure many have done the same. Still, if I ever have a kid and he does that, of course I'm going to tell him it is wrong. That is because I've grown up, I've matured, the kid hasn't done so yet...

* = with the exception of situations in which there are genuine differences between the people, e.g.: a surgeon is not a hypocrite for performing surgery while maintaining that non-surgeons should not perform surgery, etc.

IMO it's companies plans to re-release their games on new platforms as time goes by that is the REAL reason behind companies lobbying to get emulation(of owned games, I mean) banned/limited. I mean what makes more sense......dumping a ROM and playing it for free(minus the cost of buying the game originally, that is), or buying an "improved" console/etc version for 20-30 bucks?