Piracy is evil. I just wonder what they have to make people who are not certain whether the game will run on their computer. If you have a choice:

1) Do not buy the game
2) Try the game with a torrent. And after making sure that the game will start to buy it.
Is piracy in this case is evil too? I do not see the loss to the devs here.

I have the original game itself. I'm against piracy. I am just curious what is your opinion.

Number 2 is not evil, at least not as evil as I am. I'm currently playing the Dues Ex leak, and have every intention of buying it when it comes out. I want to support good game developers.

But this isn't something I do regularly because viruses are most evil of all.

About piracy: eye patches are badass.

As for online stealing of content... who cares what other people do? There's no effective means of stopping it, and persecuting those who engage in it only galvanizes the entire "free" movement. Besides, many downloaders are online kleptomaniacs who would never have bought the game in the first place, despite companies' insane insistence that every download is a lost 50 dollar bill.

The best thing anyone can do is make content so compelling that pirates end up with an emotional attachment that leads to them paying for it.

And maybe companies can stop beating us with the DRM-stick. A little less incentive to be bad wouldn't hurt.

Maybe if the majority of game companies quit shoveling garbage disguised in pretty boxes at consumers, people would feel more compelled to pay. It's not a matter of, "Hey, I beat the game so now I feel the need to purchase it." It's more like, "This game connected with me/was pathetic and derivative, and I want/don't want to support this."

Seriously, some people bought Dragon Age 2. Those people will be pirates for the rest of their lives because of it. Not all piracy can be explained by the majority of released games being awful, but I can guarantee you it's a significant factor.

And again, DRM-stick. When the stolen version plays better than the legitimate version, your business model is a joke.

According to the gaming industry (or at least for the most part of it) piracy is evil and must be fought. But according to them trying to sell a used game is even more evil and should be fought harder. You have done this before in your life? Then you're the enemy. And evil.

Because that's what the industry currently does: Fighting second hand buyers. It basically means figthing your own customers and potential customers, but hey.

I just bring this up because...it's funny. Let's me think twice how bad piracy really is. And this time it weren't the so called "criminals" who influenced my thoughts, but the industry itself. More and more I come to the conclusion that THEY are the criminals. They're just getting away with it...

Are you kidding? It's like I couldn't sell a used car?

You can. But according to EA, Ubisoft and Co. you cannot sell your used games. No wait you can. But the one who buys them is missing the complete multiplayer and maybe even some singleplayer stuff. He then has to buy a "pass" for that from the publisher for another 10 bucks or more.

So, coming back to your car analogy: When you buy a used car it is missing some optional stuff (radio, head rest, electric window lift --> still works without those), but even some important stuff, like one of it's fours wheels, or one door. :D

What makes a person turn to piracy? Many-a-men and women have asked this question, and have similarly been asked the same question themselves, over the years. While it is probably true that many download pirated copies of games because they simply want them for free, and don't stop to consider the effects this may have on the market, I actually believe that this is not the case when it comes to the majority of the gaming pirates (and pirates in general, in fact). The reasons for downloading a so-called illegal copy of a game can be many and varied in nature; some do it as a sort of activist movement to boycott specific publishers for doing something evil - such as including intrusive and frustrating DRM- and/or SecuROM coding in the game. In the same vein, most DRM methods actually make the game run worse, and for some people, not even run at all. Knowing that DRM might cause this, some pirates simply go for the pirated, DRM-free version instead (it is a long-going argument that DRM only harms those who purchase and play the games legally, while the pirates find a workaround within a day of the game's release anyway).

Another reason - and this is where my personal reasons for pirating games come into play - is convenience. We live in a digital age of fast-speed internet, and I always furrow my brows when I am not given an option to legally purchase and download a game that I want, digitally. To make it even worse, when game publishers actually do offer a digital version, they somehow almost always manage to make it cost either the same as, or sometimes even more than the boxed copy. ActivisionBlizzard routinely do this for their recent expansions for World of Warcraft; if I want to quickly get a hold of the new content, I can do so via their website and purchase it digitally, but it costs almost twice as much as if I were to order a physical copy (or pick one up at a nearby store). This makes absolutely no sense - even if there are financial, market reasons behind it all - since the whole point with offering something digitally should be that you can get it quicker and at a reduced price, since the physical aspect of the game no longer comes into play (printing boxes and manuals, shipping, the DVD press and what not - nothing is necessary for a digital version).

So once more, it becomes a sort of activist, political statement for me to refuse to give these dastardly companies my money. Publishers of all kinds of media could get rid of most piracy, if they only got with the times, and started offering their products in a way that is at least equally convenient to how it is to simply download a torrent from a torrent search engine, and start offering these digital copies at a fair price, that reflects the cost they save by not having to do any of the physical work that is involved in the boxed copies. Coming up with more and more intrusive DRM methods (that are always cracked within hours anyway), and harsher punishments and fines for piracy activity, is completely counter-active to their goals - it will only drive even more people to resort to piracy, even if they don't want to make a statement by doing so.

The one exception I have when it comes to piracy, is if I feel that the game is truly worth my money, or if it is published and developed by good, mostly honest people who are preferably not tied to one of those soul-sucking giant corporations that most companies these days seem to be in bed with. I don't care what Bioware representatives are told to say in public, ever since they were bought by EA, their attitude has completely changed, and I don't believe them for a second when they claim that EA always lets them do whatever they want.

CDPR and The Witcher-series is a shining example of gaming development and publishing done right. I know that the people behind these products are good people, who have a real passion for their work, and a sincere respect for the players. They also offer the games digitally, via GOG, at fair prices, just like it should be. Truly independent game projects aside, how many other gaming studios can you think of that do this? Double-Fine, maybe?

/signed

It isn't activism unless you're actively protesting a practice. Contacting a company to say that you refuse to purchase their products as long as they continue their anti-consumer behavior is active. Starting petitions with other gamers and organizing a boycott is active. Even blogging or posting about a company's poor customer relations is active. Downloading a torrent is just getting something for nothing. You don't accomplish much beyond reinforcing the company's confidence in how much consumers want their product, thus giving them no incentive to reform and every desire to prosecute.

i agree, but i also say that there is NO and i mean no legitimate reason to download a torrent and pirate a game. to demo it? still not good enough not for me i will still look down on you for it.

I will never download a game from Steam or some shit like that, until they offer me the option of getting my money back, or exchanging it for a game that isn't a pile of shit.

Good post, nice read. Thank you.


But for me there exists another important reason:

More and more you're forced by DRM to activate a game, registering it to an account which in turn forbids re-selling the game at all (Steam, EA Origin) or at the very least with disabled parts of the game (non-functional multiplayer). And at the same time many of these games offer NO possibility to test them prior to the purchase - demos have become a dying feature. And if those two annoyances weren't enough already, prices are also raised on a regular basis by some companies, often to simply test out how much the customer is willing to pay. There seems to be no limit upwards unfortunately.

Let's sum it up:

- register to an account during installation
- are not allowed to sell it (with all it's features)
- raising prices and microtransactions (DLCs)

So people are also pirating games in order to test them. And from experience of my own circle of friends and acquaintances I know that at the very same time those games - if not really bad - are then often purchased. The companies, on the other side, repeatadly used the argument of "one download equals one lost customer" for years and years...

Those years are behind us, now the second-hand buyer is the prime target of their DRMs. At least they're being honest for the first time, not hiding behind the "it's a copy protection" lie anymore.

/signed, too