piracy ethical question re:xbox360

[nickfil]

General social morals on the subject of pirating seems to run along the lines of 'companies owe it to me to spend their time and money producing games/films/entertainment that I have the right to enjoy for free'. I wholly dissagree with this outlook

it is a little disgusting.

[Niode]

This thought came into my mind recently. After playing several games on the 360 where I would've killed for some local multiplayer. Settlers of Catan comes to mind, why the hell is a computerised boardgame not local multiplayer? Another one was Pinball FX, why the fuck can't you take turns on that game? Why do I have to use Live to get my Pinball on with friends?

I'd love my 360 to be more of a hit at my house parties, but people just don't want to play it, pure and simple because there is hardly any local multiplayer on the system. Is Microsoft pushing these developers to omit it just so that customers are forced to buy Xbox live just to participate in multiplayer content? That strikes me as a little wrong on a few levels, I can look past the multiplayer achievements, and knowing that most of my games will never sit at 100% complete because of having to pay for live just to have the privilege of doing so. Does this mean that local multiplayer is going to be limited to fighting games and the Rock Band clones in the future?

My fiancée has recently taken to playing my 360 so much I told her she should get her own account on it, and she's even enjoying the free month of Xbox Live she gets with it. It annoys me that for a lot of the games, I simply can't play with her on the same system. So I thought of doing the same as the OP, my xbox is a launch model, It's never RRoD on me, it's worked perfectly from day one, never gets hot and very rarely throws a wobbler at me for feeding it a dusty disc by accident. It's probably well out of warrenty now and I've been pining for one of those shiny new elites (or whatever they're called now) with the HDMI lead which will free up a component input on my TV for my oxbox. So I've been tempted to get it modded and play copies on it, just so that I can play games I've bought, which should have had offline multiplayer in them, in the same house.

However, this is illegal, playing a game you've bought on one system at the same time as a copy you have made on another is 100% illegal, since when you buy a game (and most of you will have heard this plenty of times before) you are buying one licence to use the software. Now when you copy that disc and play it on another system at the same time as the original, you are in violation of the terms and agreements specified in the manual or any ToS you agree to when you play that game. In most countries you can make backups of discs for safekeeping, you have rights to do that, but making copies of discs for somebody else to play is completely illegal, if you give that disc to a friend for example, if you are caught you could even face charges of not only breaking copyright but distribution of copyright content as well.

I can't justify buying another game just to play with my fiancée, no matter how good the game is, it's just a waste of money. So if I did pursue this route, not only am I breaking the law just to play something in a way that should have been included in the first place, i'm breaking law by having my old system modded to play copies, and I'm breaking the law and risking my ISP throwing me off their service with a huge bill to boot because I'm downloading illegal copies of games I've already paid for. I don't think my, "I did it because I love my fiancée" defence would stand up in caught to be honest.

[nickfil]

blah blah blah

yeah. I see your point. I wasn't thinking in terms of license. My thought process was way more flawed, and when i recount it now that you've articulated your point so well it seems laughable.

I was running off the notion that having a backup of a game for your collection is legal if you already own the game. I was thinking that because of that i have the right to make one copy, i can use it with the other as long as... i guess... it doesn't leave my house? Yeah. Laughable.

regardless, i plan on doing it anyway. heh. Buying 2 copies of a game for coop is just stupid. especially if the game is just released. 50 bucks is pushing it for me. 100 for 2 copies of one game is outrageous.

I suppose i could just rent a second copy when i need one though. Still. Seems silly.

I assume that the xbla games that only play over live do it for a couple different reasons. Catan so no one can see your cards while you play. Though, it wouldn't drastically affect play, it will affect trades. I suppose you could just do a no trading rule though? i guess? But really- pinball. Come the fuck on. Thats just sad. If you are making voice chat available, you can make local co-op.

[crux]

I'm probably one of the more stringent anti-piracy folks on this site (possibly the most if we ignore the "I won't break any laws" wackos), and even I see this as morally justifiable. Multiplayer is multiplayer - adding another television to the setup shouldn't double the price of entry (well, aside from double the televisions and consoles).

As for the rest of the piracy talk in the topic, I'll just bite my... fingers.

[nickfil]

As for the rest of the piracy talk in the topic, I'll just bite my... fingers.

I'm curious. I think that as long as we don't dive into "i'm right, you're an asshole" territory we can have an honest talk about it. Like i said, i'm pretty curious what you think about the whole thing and why you think it.

A lot of folks are feel pretty entitled to content and downloads. I don't think they start out that way. I think they figure out the tech hoops they have to jump through for it and realize how easy it is. Then slowly they bend more and more rules or just care less and less. And at that point where they are pirating often, they probably start to feel entitled to it. You do this since the days of napster and the feeling can grow. I get that. However, i don't think everyone that pirates is like this. In fact, i think a good chunk are just unsatisfied or careful customers.

I'm personally trying to get better at not pirating. Or when i do, to buy the game if i like it. I plan on picking up the deadspace wii game when i go to the store to get dragon age even though i have it on my usb drive right now. I bought both professor layton games even though i have a m3ds real cart with them loaded on there.

Problem is my bar is high as far as games go. If i'm not in love with a game and i do pirate it, i'll never think about the thing ever again. I like to give pretty much any game a chance so i end up playing a lot of mediocre games that i probably would've eventually bought once they were 20 bucks. Probably would've been upset about it. I've been there. Flip side is that, a company like visceral makes deadspace and they've won me over on buying their games. Valve is the same way. Bioware is the same. I'm not above buying what i've pirated. Like I said, i'm trying to get better at it. You just gotta win me over.

Now that i'm typing it all out, I kinda realize that I don't have many friends who play a lot of games in real life. I think this is why i got lax with piracy. I don't have what i had as a kid. A house to go over to try out the new wolverine game before i buy. The result is that i pirate it for the wii to take it for a spin.

[Niode]

blah blah blah

yeah. I see your point. I wasn't thinking in terms of license. My thought process was way more flawed, and when i recount it now that you've articulated your point so well it seems laughable.

I was running off the notion that having a backup of a game for your collection is legal if you already own the game. I was thinking that because of that i have the right to make one copy, i can use it with the other as long as... i guess... it doesn't leave my house? Yeah. Laughable.

regardless, i plan on doing it anyway. heh. Buying 2 copies of a game for coop is just stupid. especially if the game is just released. 50 bucks is pushing it for me. 100 for 2 copies of one game is outrageous.

I suppose i could just rent a second copy when i need one though. Still. Seems silly.

I assume that the xbla games that only play over live do it for a couple different reasons. Catan so no one can see your cards while you play. Though, it wouldn't drastically affect play, it will affect trades. I suppose you could just do a no trading rule though? i guess? But really- pinball. Come the fuck on. Thats just sad. If you are making voice chat available, you can make local co-op.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I would never do it or that "piracy is wrong!!! zomg!" It just annoys me that not only are you having to buy another system (and TV) to get the most out of your games if you want to play them in the same room you've also got to buy another copy of the damn game just so you're not breaking the law. Not to mention the extra Xbox Live subscription for the non LAN games.

[nickfil]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I would never do it or that "piracy is wrong!!! zomg!" It just annoys me that not only are you having to buy another system (and TV) to get the most out of your games if you want to play them in the same room you've also got to buy another copy of the damn game just so you're not breaking the law. Not to mention the extra Xbox Live subscription for the non LAN games.

to the choir niode. Preaching to the choir. I think xbox got so caught up in focusing on live that everything else kinda fell by the wayside. Then ps3 got caught up trying to copy them. Lately i've seen a more resurgence of a demand for local co-op.

Some of it i see though. Trying to render the world from 2 different viewpoints at once on the same hardware has has to be a challenge. Especially if the game in question has a lot of moving shit on screen or is very very pretty. Hopefully better hardware in the coming generations will fix this.

[crux]

I've given my outlook on this site multiple times before, which is why I don't tend to like to get into it. I feel like I come off the wrong way about it sometimes.

I don't intrinsically have issues with the "try it before buying it" routine. While I do feel there's certain implications of such piracy, such as companies like GameTap and Blockbuster being removed from the equation (they don't acquire the games they rent out for free, after all), I feel like as long as the game is bought that no damage was done. However, I do feel there are stipulations that should be followed without treading into the morally dark areas. For instance, getting lax on piracy is an issue. If you enjoy a game, that game has value. Moreover, any game that doesn't meet your standards should be disposed of. Keeping it around implies that it has some amount of value, as otherwise it wouldn't be worth keeping. If it has value, it should be paid for.

Though the reason I was specifically "biting my fingers" wasn't over the idea of trying before buying, but this idea that only developers deserve to profit off of game sales. I won't get too into it unless I'm asked to justify myself (as it's the conversation I was trying to avoid), but I believe each game I buy has value even after I break the plastic wrap and take the cartridge/disc out. I don't agree with this idea that everything should lose all value as soon as the developer is paid. I don't see physical copies as simply a medium for collectors.

[RCBH928]

as long as you are playing them, I do not think they are selling you the CD.
When you buy a game/movie, you are buying the content to watch/play.

So if you bought a game/movie you paid for it for the content that it holds. SO basically its not illegal ,

[fastbilly1]

My view has always been that as long as you are doing it only for personal use, that while illegal, it is considered ok. And while this is more common and acceptable for pc titles (heck Stardock has said to do it with their games) I am also firmly behind the if you like it you should buy it properly.

I do have several stacks of backups, but my bootleg collection is fairly small - less than twenty. Of those bootlegs only a few I will not be turning into backups in the future. Of those Embodiment of a Scarlet Devil and Cosmic Smash are the two most easily obtainable, just for prices far out of what they are worth. Typically my bootleg count is less than five, but recently I haven’t had the time to go purchase the games I like (I try to support the brick and mortars I like). I also rarely bootleg modern console games (of those twentyish titles only one is a console game: – pc games are a different story though.

In the past I was the king of PC demos. I had a spindle of CDs of them, back when CDs were expensive – 97/98ish. I am also a tinker, so I try to get more highend games to run on lower end systems at playable levels. So for modern pc games to not give me the option of a demo, or only to offer the demo through Steam or Gametap, that kinda kills it for me. I am not going to pay $50 for something that for all intensive purposes will not work. I will however, download a copy, try to make it work, and if it does, I will buy a copy. I may keep the bootleg version around since it is already configured, but typically I will update the key. Thanks to pixel shader 3.0 not being in 3d analyzer, this is becoming more of a moot point since most modern games just have to have bloom…And yes I am one of those guys that tried to get Crysis to run on an EEE. I got BF2142 running at 12fps, but Crysis was a bit much.

So to get back on topic - I see no issue aslong as you are only playing on LAN.