Piracy is not so bad

[Gnashvar]

Piracy is bad when you are not making money of a product because of it. People selling pirated things are the worst. Games are not that expensive in the US that people have to resort to piracy. But some of the facts about sales missed because of it are far from true. Take China as an example, it is one of the countries that has piracy running rampart. But the truth is what percent of the total Chinese population can actually afford these games? Now check the average wage for most countries... I doubt they can afford buying many games. So their piracy does not reflect games that would actually be sold. So even though piracy is big it doesn't make as big of a dent as they want us to think.

[Luke]

Theft is theft.

We're not talking about stealing bread to feed our families. Either way, if you pirate a lot of things and get caught, you'll pay the consequences and have no one to blame but yourself.

[RCBH928]

I just want to add that I pirate games because locally the prices are more than funny. I would have to say the average price of any current gen game is $80-90.
That is not when its new. That is forever, the price does NOT go down. Here is an example.

Last time I checked a local store couple weeks ago, I asked them a about the price of some mediocre Gamecube game(discontinued 2006, no idea how old the game itself). He told me they got an offer on this one, after 20% discount it still costs more than $60!!!!

That's amazing, man. So you don't even have the internet where you live? There are many old games for dirt cheap available on the internet and you would only need to worry about the shipping.

Keep in mind that is after 20% discount!

As for shipping, u only know half the story. Shipping is a bigger rip-off. I have to pay a minimum of $10 per shipment for each 0.5kg(1.1 pound) , then any extra half a pound will cost me like $7.8 each. So if my total package weight is 1.2 its still an extra and i have to pay $17 in shipping. Plus videogames do not get international shipping, sucks I know.

I bought a Dreamcast off some one here, I ended up paying $60 for the Dreamcast and $60 for its shipping. Total $120, when they were online going for $100 brand new.

[Gnashvar]

Theft is theft.

We're not talking about stealing bread to feed our families. Either way, if you pirate a lot of things and get caught, you'll pay the consequences and have no one to blame but yourself.

Not all countries consider copying a game a crime. Although selling them is. But where it is illegal yeah you pay for what you do.

[Breetai]

As for shipping, u only know half the story. Shipping is a bigger rip-off. I have to pay a minimum of $10 per shipment for each 0.5kg(1.1 pound) , then any extra half a pound will cost me like $7.8 each. So if my total package weight is 1.2 its still an extra and i have to pay $17 in shipping.

That's cheaper than in Japan.

Where are you?　中国? (I realize the second character might be different that where you live... but you should be able to read it still I think if my guess is right, as it's traditional)

[MrPopo]

I believe kingmohd is in Dubai.

[Inazuma]

Keep in mind that is after 20% discount!

As for shipping, u only know half the story. Shipping is a bigger rip-off. I have to pay a minimum of $10 per shipment for each 0.5kg(1.1 pound) , then any extra half a pound will cost me like $7.8 each. So if my total package weight is 1.2 its still an extra and i have to pay $17 in shipping. Plus videogames do not get international shipping, sucks I know.

I bought a Dreamcast off some one here, I ended up paying $60 for the Dreamcast and $60 for its shipping. Total $120, when they were online going for $100 brand new.

OK, so it's horribly expensive to buy games locally and internationally. Now I can understand why you would choose piracy and honestly, I don't blame you. That really sucks.

[Inazuma]

Theft is theft.

We're not talking about stealing bread to feed our families. Either way, if you pirate a lot of things and get caught, you'll pay the consequences and have no one to blame but yourself.

Sigh, I'm tired of making this correction but it's important to understand.

Luke, we are talking about piracy, not theft. Copyright infringement is not the same as theft because you aren't taking an object away from someone. You are making a copy.

No matter what your intention may be are, if you physically steal a game from a store, it harms the store because that game is now gone from the shelf. Theft is always bad.

On the other hand, if you illegally download a game because you would have never bought it normally, that isn't a bad thing. The stores aren't hurt since you didn't take anything from them. The game creators aren't hurt because they wouldn't have gotten your money anyway.

Now if someone who would have normally bought the game, chooses to pirate it simply because they can get it for free, that's also not the same as theft since once again it doesn't remove a copy of the game from store shelves. However, in this case it does in fact take money away from the game creators and retail stores. It's wrong but not the same as theft.

tl;dr
Copyright infringement is not Theft.
Theft is always bad because it takes away a physical object from someone.
Copyright infringement varies from being perfectly OK "morally" and not harming anyone, to being bad because it prevented game makers from getting paid. Please learn the difference.

[Luke]

Stealing/theft/copyright infringement, call it whatever you want to make yourself feel better, but taking something that doesn't belong to you is wrong in my eyes.

[Luke]

On the other hand, if you illegally download a game because you would have never bought it normally, that isn't a bad thing.

Yes it is. You learn the difference.