Is pirating really that bad ?!?

[Michaelm]

I started this topic because I've read some things in the rajirugi thread.

OK, so when I was younger and I owned a C64 and later an Amiga I pirated allmost all my software. Mainly due to not having cash as a youngster.
The little cash you had back then were spent on other things, hardware for instance.
I can completely understand why pirating keeps existing just because the public for games tends to be too young to have loads of cash.

Now I can remember I had loads of pirate EA software back in those days.
I also can remember that even then people were saying pirating is bad.
But EA has, despite all the piracy, turned out to be quite a big company these days. Now where did the pirating hurt EA ?

Some might say that there are companies dead because of the pirating but I'm not sure if this is really true. Maybe they are dead because their quality wasn't good enough. Or maybe they are dead because the management fucked up or whatever.

These days you hear all the music industry whining about piracy.
But the ones that whine the hardest are the same ones that made the most cash before. Let's make it clear that this is the record label that earns this, not the actual musicians. They earn a lot less then those big companies.
However, smaller bands seem to profit from the change in this industry
If you think about this last paragraph it seems more to me that those big companies just don't want to share and therefor whine this hard.
They will lose their monopoly position and therefor are forced to do something to attract customers. Ofcourse they rather earn lots of money without doing anything.

This is just something I had to get off my chest.
I'm buying allmost every shooter I can get these days.
I can afford it now.

[mice]

I think by piracy they ment those who duplicated and sold games for much less then the retail price, back in the 80s.
I don't think they ment those who got a copy-for-free-from-a-friend.
Not in the debate about it anyway.

[FatCobra]

I think by piracy they ment those who duplicated and sold games for much less then the retail price, back in the 80s.
I don't think they ment those who got a copy-for-free-from-a-friend.
Not in the debate about it anyway.

My dad used to pirate and copy games for the Apple IIGS all the time. Actually, he only did because he thinks backups are a good idea.

As for music sharing, does it really harm the music industry? No, I think it helps actually. There will always be some smuck who downloads and burns whole albums, but usually, after hearing a certain band's music, doesn't it make you want to go out and buy the CD? (Or avoid it too, I hate it when I buy a CD and there's one or two good tracks that I like on them. Plus, why buy a $15 45min CD when you burn a 70min CD for less?)

Emulation helps gamers discover old games they never got a chance to play. Unless the company is whoring out their old classics (*cough*Nintendo*cough*), there's no harm in some college kid downloading a few roms to his computer. Hell, we're on a forum where MAME is discussed often. Sure, it's better to own the real thing, but life sometimes gets in way and makes you broke. So you settle for the cheap imitation. In truth, I'd rather have a perfectly emulated ROM than some cheap cash-in port (*cough*FF4Advance*cough*).

[Michaelm]

I think by piracy they ment those who duplicated and sold games for much less then the retail price, back in the 80s.
I don't think they ment those who got a copy-for-free-from-a-friend.
Not in the debate about it anyway.

Ok, good point!
I'm addressing the personal copy, not the profitmakers, they ARE bad, no doubt about it.

[Dave_K.]

But EA has, despite all the piracy, turned out to be quite a big company these days. Now where did the pirating hurt EA ?

And you think the raise in prices for games hasn't helped companies like EA? Its a vicious cycle.

[Michaelm]

And you think the raise in prices for games hasn't helped companies like EA? Its a vicious cycle.

Nope, it's a fact that companies have losses like that calculated in their retail price. Shops do it too if they experience a lot of shoplifting.

It doesn't change the fact though that EA has gotten bigger and bigger despite all the piracy.

Something else that might be worthwhile mentioning is that in some countries, where pirating was really bad, they have cut down the prices immensely in order to boost sales. It works the other way around too it seems.

[FRO]

Take Diablo II for example. If you want to play on Battle.net you have to have a unique keycode, which you can only realistically get by purchasing the game. Sure, you can get a keygen (highly illegal, btw), but some poor sap who paid for the game is suffering. In nearly 4 years of online play, I've never been banned or stopped from connecting with the legitimate keycodes I have (my wife & I both play online simultaneously ).

Those who choose to pirate the game generally play on other networks, & these are the places that are rampant with player-killers & other such dreck. You always take your chances with stuff like that.

I know that back in the day, I had several pirate copies of older games that I received through friends and what-not, but other than 1 or 2 of those games, I really didn't play many of them. Either it was an older PC game that didn't appeal to me much after the first few plays, or it was a case of just being too busy or consumed with other games at the time. By the time I finally did boot up some of those games, they were out of production, didn't run right (because of either copy protection or the fact that it's an older game on newer hardware), or I just didn't care anymore. Either way, it would have been (in most cases) like downloading the shareware episodes or versions, realizing my interest in the games was minimal at best, & deleting it from my system later on to save space. In other words, I think a lot of piracy turns out like that - curiousity that morphs into indifference. I seriously doubt that the games that are pirated in large quantities are people who are going to be spending a lot of time with the game - they're more likely people who fiddle with it for a bit & decide it wasn't hardly worth their time to locate a pirated copy for, let alone plunk down between $10-$60 for a new copy.

All in all, while piracy is illegal & not a good thing overall, the impact on the industry (in my opinion) is not that significant.

[Triple Lei]

Back in high school some guy I knew hooked me up with all sorts of wonderful pirated games. I got an exciting look at Final Fantasy VIII before it came out, I saw just how bad Rockman Battle & Chase was, and I got to play a cool Kamen Rider game I thought I would only be able to read about in Gamer's Republic.

Even though I already had the American (and non-pirated) Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 games, through pirating I got to experience Rockman 8 and Rockman X4.

I played Rival Schools with my friends and through pirating I saw the better, more complete Shiritsu: Justice Gakuen.

And I satisfied my curiosity with Pocket Fighter and this one shooter from Squaresoft that wasn't Einhänder. It was music based...

And of course, I still play my pirated Bust A Move and Bust A Move 2 games today. None of this edited "Bust A Groove" nonsense for me!... though I did buy Bust A Groove a year later out of curiosity because it was cheap enough. (Bust A Groove 2 is surprisingly expensive on eBay and even more was cut out in the release!)


Good times... but I wouldn't pirate any of my beloved shmups. And since shmups are pretty much the only games I play now, pirating isn't really an issue anymore.

[raiden]

In other words, I think a lot of piracy turns out like that - curiousity that morphs into indifference. I seriously doubt that the games that are pirated in large quantities are people who are going to be spending a lot of time with the game - they're more likely people who fiddle with it for a bit & decide it wasn't hardly worth their time to locate a pirated copy for, let alone plunk down between $10-$60 for a new copy.

but that´s exactly the reason why the industry cries out about piracy: they want to sell their games to all those people who are just mildly curious (probably due to the hype created by the industry) as well, not their problem if you only play the shit for half an hour, you know?
It´s all related to quality, really. I´ve never met a pirate who never bought an original game. But they only do in the rare case they actually care about the game.

My dad used to pirate and copy games for the Apple IIGS all the time. Actually, he only did because he thinks backups are a good idea.

yeah, I´ve come to think so, too. It´s good to buy original games you care for, to support developers, but it´s also a good thing piracy exists, because otherwise too many games would drop out of existence. It´s this whole DRM scenario building up that made aware of this: following hardliner DRM advocates, at some point in time you will have no independently working copy of a game at home anymore, instead you need constant server connection to play anything. But in this scenario, once a content provider goes bankrupt, the games just disappear. DRM also allows for total regional lockout. I don´t want to be confined to play only games being released where I live, and I think this whole concept is a bad idea from the beginning.
The business side of games deserves respect, but the cultural side is more important, I´ve come to realize. Pirates don´t harm software development as long as piracy doesn´t spread out to a degree no one buys originals anymore. But it´s actually in the developers/publishers´ hands to keep that from happening: deliver quality games people don´t feel ripped off by in attractive packaging, and people will continue to buy just because they want to, you don´t even need copy protection. But try to rip people off by rehashing boring old concepts over and over, and piracy is the reaction you´ll get.

[Blade]

I would say that some roms are much better when put on a PC than they would be in a tiny little screen, such is the case with Gameboy Advance games.

Also, many import games can only be accessed via piracy, the Super Robot Wars series, for example. As to be frank, there are too many legal issues for that game to even make it over to the states due to all the red tape.

[Ghegs]

Also, many import games can only be accessed via piracy, the Super Robot Wars series, for example. As to be frank, there are too many legal issues for that game to even make it over to the states due to all the red tape.

Curiously, the first official english release of a Super Robot game is just around the corner.

[Alpolio]

Yes, piracy is bad. That's why to this day, I refuse to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. I still can't believe that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom would endorse such activities.

[PaCrappa]

I would say that some roms are much better when put on a PC than they would be in a tiny little screen, such is the case with Gameboy Advance games.

Also, many import games can only be accessed via piracy, the Super Robot Wars series, for example. As to be frank, there are too many legal issues for that game to even make it over to the states due to all the red tape.

I don't think piracy is bad but what in the hell are you talking about?

There is a perfectly legit piece of hardware for putting GBA games on as big a screen as you like. It's called a Gameboy Player and is like fifty bucks at any videogame store in the USA.

Imports are readily available in plentiful quantities from about a million different places online and in shops in all of the major cities (and some of the minor ones) in the USA.

I can't even believe that you just said that stuff. Use the grape! Think!

Pa

[Shatterhand]

Now, what you do when you live in Brazil? (Or in other 3rd world countries, I know people from other countries like Turkey and Mexico probably have the same problems as I do)

Home gaming here has, for most of the time, only happened because of pirating.

I had an Atari 2600... while the system was oficially produced here (By the same guys who later brought the MSX to Brazil, AND are currently Nintendo's representative here), most of its game were never released here. So people pirated the games like there was no tomorrow, basically EVERYONE had only pirated games. I own like 5 original games, and 30 pirated games. There was also non-oficial clones of the Atari 2600.

The MSX was released, and it was produced here in Brazil by Gradiente (Who also produced the Atari 2600) and Sharp. But NO ONE were releasing oficial software, we only had the hardware.... but you had dozens of people pirating the games, because it was the only way to get the games.

When the NES was released, it had no support here in Brazil. Lots of companies (Including Gradiente) released clones of the NES, and other many companies were releasing bootleg cartrdiges.

And all this I am saying was sold like if everything was legal, you would see adverts on magazines for this stuff... Back at that time, I was a children, and for me, that was not "pirating". For me that was the ONLY way to own games. I couldn't even guess that all this was actually illegal.

When Tec Toy became Sega's representative here in Brazil, and Brasoft begun releasing original PC games (And later Amiga games), things begun to change.

I owned a Mega-Drive, and I had lots of original games for it. Lots of friends of mine did the same. I nowadays own a Master System and I have 14 original games for the system (All made by Tec-Toy), and I do own a Saturn and original software for it too.

Later Gradiente became oficial Nintendo representative here, and we begun to get original Nintendo stuff.


But nowadays, we have no Sega console, so Tec Toy just keeping whoring the Mega-Drive and the Master System.

Sony and Microsoft has NO interest in our market. So, we are back to the past: while people do import the hardware, there's basically NO WAY to get the games if not by pirating. There are some people who actually sell imported copies of PS2 original games, but they are extremely expensive (Stormwatch once showed in a thread here a rubbish game being sold for something like US$ 400 in a brazilian store).

Gradiente do sell Gamecube and GBA software, but their prices are completely out of range, if compared to Sony and Microsoft stuff that are pirated, so MANY people do not buy a Gamecube or a GBA because their games are "much expensive" (I.E. originals).

PC software is still sold, but the whole pirating culture hurt us so much, that even PC software is seeing less and less releases. In the past, when Tec-Toy and Gradiente were releasing games by an affordable price, PC games also were released more commonly, with proper localization, and we even had some budget re-releases. All this still exist, but aren't as common as it used to be.

If we could get original PS2 and X-Box games with a fair price here, maybe things would be different, but I can't even see this happening - and pirating have just become part of our culture to such a point that I think it will be hard to get back to normal....

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I've a bunch of roms for SNES, GBA, GENESIS, and NES and don't feel the least bad about it. I play those games, and if they're good enough for me to play a second time, I buy the carts.

Now, movies and anime are totally different. I don't even have an original.

[visuatrox]

When it comes to music, there is not actually that much out there that I truly like. So I can afford buying everything I listen to. I don't think file sharing music makes any significant impact to the music industry, it just sorts out the crap. If something is good enough, people will buy it, fans will support the artists. I also download music to sample some tracks, just to hear if it is worth buying, if I like it I buy the CD, if not I delete it. Some CD's may be incredibly difficult to find too, I have sometimes ended up hunting down some Yahoo Japan auctions and paying ridiculous "middleman" fees.

But when it comes to the industry that factory makes bootlegs, and sells them to unsuspecting people, then that is just bad. They make money on something they did nothing more than copied. Although I realise that in some parts of the world, the people could not afford to buy the real thing anyway, so maybe that is not always so bad either.

[superhitachi4]

First I'll start by saying that I buy plenty of games. I spend probably too much money on games / systems actually. (MVS stuff breaks me hehe) Let's be honest though...without playing the occasional bootleg, many of us would never experience games like (quick example) Radiant Silvergun. Personally, I have no problem with that. My Radiant Silvergun says Maxell on it, but you know what? It'll work until I buy an original. Even when I have an original, I'll probably play a copy anyway... I do that with most of my disc based games. Who the hell wants to scratch up a 200 dollar disc? Insane prices really take the fun out of this hobby sometimes.

[Brian]

Game prices have not risen, that is simply a myth. When I was buying Intellivision carts I was paying (actually, my parents) anywhere from $30 to $45 per cart. That is roughly the same price as today, and if you include inflation, it is actually cheaper today in terms of real dollars.

Secondly, the only thing I never got about companies claiming they lost money to pirates is that they always assume if you pirated it you would have bought it. I can tell you, over the years, I have had many games and applications copied for me that I never would have bought in a million years. How can these companies claim lost revenues on revenues they never would have seen in the first place? If I had no intention of buying product X, but I wind up with a copy of product X, that does not declare my intent to ever buy the product. In addition, that does not automatically mean the company lost money on it. Again, I had no intention of buying it in the first place.

[ST Dragon]

And, don't forget people... I repeat the same and lazy sentence. You should only download games, movies, music & programs which you already own because if you download anything else...
Your Souls will be burn in the fiery pits of Hell and be tormented for all of eternity!!!






No wait! There is Tile Coasters, Aprons and even Tote Bags!
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store.aspx? ... rstore.460

[Leeram]

I have a very strong opinion about this that usually would take up a full page, however, to keep it short.

Piracy is not bad for the industry because:

- Most people only pirate games that they wouldn't buy. What I mean is that most people have an amount of money to spend and they spend it anyway, so even if they pirate 100 games, they will still spend the bit of cash they have on an original. Most kids get games for birthday's and Christmas. It doesn't matter how many games they pirate they will still buy a game at Christmas and birthday time, there is no loss to the industry. Same for adults.

What is bad for the industry is:

- The very retailers that condone piracy selling second hand games. Many people will walk into a shop and see a secnnd hand version of a game for a fiver or so cheaper, in almost new condition, and buy it. Thus giving the retailer shit loads of profit and the developers and distributers nothing. By selling that second hand game they have taken away the bit of cash that little George was spending on his birthday, and no doubt he'll be back at Christmas because it was such a bargain. So the retailers don't want you to pirate games because they want you to buy their second hand games, it's worse for the industry but far better for them!.

In the UK it is just as illegal to sell a second hand game as it is to pirate one (in most cases, it depends on what the licence says, but most say not for re-sale) so why don't Game, Chips and Gamestation get their arses sued? All we ever hear about is people getting stuff confiscated at car boots.

Cheers

Leeram

[Alpolio]

I would love to see what happens to copyright laws when Star Trek like replicators become a reality.

[superhitachi4]

Game prices have not risen, that is simply a myth.

Tell that to people looking for a Border Down Limited Edition, Radiant Silvergun, Metal Slug 1 AES (non-conversion), Blazing Star AES (again, non-conversion), Famicom Recca Summer Carnival '92...this list could be very long. Compare the average going price now (if you can even find *insert game*) to the original retail price. As always: Certain games will go up in value, and become out of reach to many people without resorting to piracy. Many games of course, have gone down in value obviously.

[Ganelon]

Yeah, like 99% of games go down in price. Of course, that number drops significantly regarding factory sealed games.

[Brian]

Game prices have not risen, that is simply a myth.

Tell that to people looking for a Border Down Limited Edition, Radiant Silvergun, Metal Slug 1 AES (non-conversion), Blazing Star AES (again, non-conversion), Famicom Recca Summer Carnival '92...this list could be very long. Compare the average going price now (if you can even find *insert game*) to the original retail price. As always: Certain games will go up in value, and become out of reach to many people without resorting to piracy. Many games of course, have gone down in value obviously.

Yea, except you know very well I was talking about your generic run-in-the-mill bought it at EB game from EA or Take 2. I, of course, am not talking about a game with a Japanese production run of negative 1.

[superhitachi4]

Game prices have not risen, that is simply a myth.

Tell that to people looking for a Border Down Limited Edition, Radiant Silvergun, Metal Slug 1 AES (non-conversion), Blazing Star AES (again, non-conversion), Famicom Recca Summer Carnival '92...this list could be very long. Compare the average going price now (if you can even find *insert game*) to the original retail price. As always: Certain games will go up in value, and become out of reach to many people without resorting to piracy. Many games of course, have gone down in value obviously.

Yea, except you know very well I was talking about your generic run-in-the-mill bought it at EB game from EA or Take 2. I, of course, am not talking about a game with a Japanese production run of negative 1.

Yeah, but in my original post I mentioned some of the more rare stuff. Looked like a direct reply to me.

[Brian]

Tell that to people looking for a Border Down Limited Edition, Radiant Silvergun, Metal Slug 1 AES (non-conversion), Blazing Star AES (again, non-conversion), Famicom Recca Summer Carnival '92...this list could be very long. Compare the average going price now (if you can even find *insert game*) to the original retail price. As always: Certain games will go up in value, and become out of reach to many people without resorting to piracy. Many games of course, have gone down in value obviously.

Yea, except you know very well I was talking about your generic run-in-the-mill bought it at EB game from EA or Take 2. I, of course, am not talking about a game with a Japanese production run of negative 1.

Yeah, but in my original post I mentioned some of the more rare stuff. Looked like a direct reply to me.

Yea, my fault. I read a lot of threads half ass so as to not cramp my lifelong dream of half assing everything.

[superhitachi4]

My fault man. You're definitely right about certain games dropping in value. Hey, if that weren't the case, I wouldn't have found a lot of my NES / SNES / Genesis games at a decent price.

[system11]

Game prices have not risen, that is simply a myth. When I was buying Intellivision carts I was paying (actually, my parents) anywhere from $30 to $45 per cart. That is roughly the same price as today, and if you include inflation, it is actually cheaper today in terms of real dollars.

Sure, if you only look at a certain console. On the other hand, I remember full price C64 and Spectrum games costing £7.99. A full price game for me now is £49.99 (unless you shop around).

As for my views on piracy - I'm a hardliner. If something isn't good enough to pay for, it's not worth playing. If it's worth playing, it's worth buying. If you can't afford games - well that's just tough luck my friend, go and get a job, you have no god given right to play them for free. I think pirates releasing shmups before they're even on sale is pretty much the lowest form of scummery. If I had proof of someone doing it, I'd report them to the game company in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, games ARE expensive - and I can totally see why people want to take the 'try before you buy' approach. This isn't legal, but I can understand it. Nobody wants to pay a lot of money for something that turns out to be total rubbish. With mainstream games this is easy, buy from a store that offers any reason refunds. For imports, this isn't happening. Trouble is, while some people are honest about their pirate->test->buy/delete ways, the vast majority are basically full of shit.

[mannerbot]

essentially agree with bloodflowers on all points

[Michaelm]

Interesting reads guys. Keep it up!

As for my views on piracy - I'm a hardliner. If something isn't good enough to pay for, it's not worth playing. If it's worth playing, it's worth buying. If you can't afford games - well that's just tough luck my friend, go and get a job, you have no god given right to play them for free.

Ok, in essence this is true but it simply doesn't work this way just because there are not enough jobs for the youngsters.
When I was like 14 I could get a job bringing around adpapers.
I had to walk around for over 4 hours 1 day, sometimes 2 days a week.
If I did that I would get like 15 Dutch Guilders for the whole month.
That's like $7.50.
Sure some people would get decent paid jobs but even if I took that job back then it wouldn't give me enough cash to pay for my games.
I'm talking strictly youngsters here, under the age of 18.

Now for older people who are in the position to get a decent paid job I'm with you.