Arrre matey. Avast ye scabby downloading dogs.
Yes this is about piracy, in particular game piracy but it applies partially to movies (Movies can be rented though it is less convenient and has less a selection), though not so much to music.
Just to get it out of the way with first. So where do I stand on it? I'm on both sides so technically neutral.
As a little bit of a prologue; I have in the past been a prolific downloader of free entertainment. I know I'm a horrible person. My reasons where cheapness and tempting freebies. I was a PC gamer I am now a console gamer, and I'm going to poke the bear right now.
I don't know a PC gamer who doesn't pirate at least some of the games they play.
As long as there has been pc games there has been pirating of them. When the internet lit up warez sites came on the scene.
It's progressed through there into various p2p services. Which has resulted in a competing (and successful) market of digital games. Which some ex pirates have said has curbed their piracy. Many indie games do quite well and are small enough to fly below the radar of downloaders. Plus they release their games at fair prices, which obviously nets them more sales.
See I think the piracy doesn't stem from an urge to steal, or a need for free games. No I think it's a need for cheap games, there has never been a PC (or handheld console) equivalent of game rentals. Many games have no re-playability at all, but still ask the same sixty or so dollars as other better games do. This is a market where the quality of the product has nothing to do with the price.
Most of the games I downloaded I didn't play for more then a few hours. I just wanted to try them and see if they were any good. I remember buying a number of games, diablo and warcraft battle chests, strategy and star wars game packs, red alert 2, nox, kotor, oblivion, and more. There were some good times there that I spent money on. Most of them I got cheaply in the packs or after they'd been out a while. I think the only new pc game I ever purchased was oblivion.
Switching from pc to console gaming is largely what curbed my downloading.
When I first got a console again after many years I was able to go to a video store and rent games to play until I purchased some.
This was limiting however so after a time I began purchasing and trading in games. Which is almost the same as piracy, except the whole situation is changed. We're not the pirates now, gamestop or whatever store your trading at is the pirate. While we are just consumers of stolen goods. Accessories to thievery, plane and simple.
The way it is set up currently, purchasing a used game at a store is the same as downloading it off a torrent site. Except you pay 85 or 90 percent of full price.
What bothers developers and publishers is that when someone downloads their game (or movie, or music, or book for that matter) that person gets it and they get nothing in return. They created something which is meant to be duplicated and sold but at some point someone is duplicating it and releasing free copies in DIRECT COMPETITION with the original copies.The only difference with used games is that instead of free copies in direct competition it's cheaper copies. Only this time instead of no money being exchanged a third party that is essentially a pawn shop gets all of the profits. Sometimes multiple times on the same disk.
So to summarise pc gamers steal as a form of deformed game renting. Indie games, and digital content providers are good. Used games are bad, and console gamers steal less yet purchase more stolen goods.
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Things you have to think about, though:
1. How long has the used game market been out there without any complaints?
2. Why did the used game market begin getting complained about to begin with?
3. How many people have benefited from it in one way or another without second thought?
The answers to those, for me, are simple:
1. For a LONG time, since the Super NES/Genesis days. No one said or did anything about it because we weren't such money-starved people back then. Even with rising dev costs of today, we weren't so bitchy about it, which means that many of the complaints about it being as bad as piracy is unwarranted. So where does this stem from? That leads to the second answer.
2. The rise of Gamestop as an evil. It's not the used game market in general, but this particular chain of stores. Gamers think Gamestop is the bain of the gaming industry, and because of that, publishers that want to nickel and dime us see that as us complaining about the used game market in general, find ways to take advantage of our issues with the chain, and come up with online passes and stuff. Then they find ways for us to support THEIR ideology instead of what we originally had a problem with, which is subjective anyway.
3. You, I, and everyone have benefited from the used game market. Whoever doesn't think that it has done any good is an idiot and should look again to how long it's been going on, and how many games we would not have taken a look at if it wasn't for the market. Regardless of what you think about it, bottom line is that we have had good come out of it in some form.
i download pretty much every pc game that i can before i buy them. im just not gonna spend 50$ on something that i dont know if im gonna like. i play it for a few hours and if i like it i buy it.
i think its pretty fair, if they make something i like i pay them for it, if they make something that i dont like i dont buy it.
how can i vote with my dollar if i dont know what im voting for? if i like a game and would like developers to keep making games like it, i pay for it.
I'm not going to condone the behavior, but honestly it is expensive to be a gamer. This is not an excuse, it is just true. Also, chances are, if you become a fan of the movie, game, tv show, music, whatever, you will eventually plunk down a lot of cash for sequels, merchandise, concerts, whatever.
Game demos are still a great way to figure out if you want a game, but they have been difficult to access until lately. With things like Walmart's partnership with cloud gaming though, there really is no excuse to not buy.
Often gamers just download things they weren't going buy anyway, but given the freedom, it has and does get out of control.
pirating movies and music is so common place because its easy, you download and play...games are more complicating, this is why it isnt as "mainstream" lets say as movies/music since there is the additional step of figuring out how to make the game play, and if its a console game, there is the extra step of modding/hacking your console that you have to go through
My stand on buying pirated media is do it if you want but don't come online or anywhere trying to justify what you are doing. Spin it around and around until its dizzy but it's still wrong. It becoming mainstream doesn't automatically excuse you. If having arenas for killing criminals became mainstream would that make it less wrong? Its human nature to believe that because everyone is doing something it gives you an excuse to do it under the guise of 'They are doing it too'.You don't HAVE to watch a certain movie or play a certain game. Not being able to afford it isn't an excuse either. Just do without it.