Does the hunt on piracy piss off anyone else here?

[deathclaw]

It can feel bad when a really niche, fun and original game is pirated becuase the developer receives no money for the game, but what about buying pre-owned? This can have much the same effect. For example, No More Heroes is one of my favourite Wii games but Grasshopper have received a grand total of £0 from me because I bought it pre-owned for £20. If I'd not been able to do that, it would have meant one more full price sale for the game. Another interesting question is, if I can pirate a DS game or buy it pre-owned for £10, what should I do? If I buy it preowned the developer won't get any money anyway...

Many people buy new games just to resell them later. If they were not allowed to do so, they would buy way less games. And the game is your property anyway, forbidding to resell it is like forbidding somebody to resell a car or something...Publishers are already fighting this with digital downloads.

[Niode]

It can feel bad when a really niche, fun and original game is pirated becuase the developer receives no money for the game, but what about buying pre-owned? This can have much the same effect. For example, No More Heroes is one of my favourite Wii games but Grasshopper have received a grand total of £0 from me because I bought it pre-owned for £20. If I'd not been able to do that, it would have meant one more full price sale for the game. Another interesting question is, if I can pirate a DS game or buy it pre-owned for £10, what should I do? If I buy it preowned the developer won't get any money anyway...

Many people buy new games just to resell them later. If they were not allowed to do so, they would buy way less games. And the game is your property anyway, forbidding to resell it is like forbidding somebody to resell a car or something...Publishers are already fighting this with digital downloads.

Technically you don't own the game. Just the licence to content on the disc. Read a EULA once in a while.

[Incognito D]

But there are people out there legally providing used games to you. Sure, they aren't the original developers, but used game sellers are providing a service. By downloading instead of buying used, you are denying these retailers sales and devaluing their products.

But why should I care about a chain store like Game or Gamestation or even buying second hand off Ebay or Amazon? I wouldn't lose sleep over knowing that I'd screwed them out of a sale or two.

For the record, I'd like to state that I do tend to buy my games, but it's fun to have this debate.

[Limewater]

But why should I care about a chain store like Game or Gamestation or even buying second hand off Ebay or Amazon? I wouldn't lose sleep over knowing that I'd screwed them out of a sale or two.

If morality and legality were both based solely on how an action made you feel, then you'd have a point.

[Erik_Twice]

If morality and legality were both based solely on how an action made you feel, then you'd have a point.

Agree.

[corn619]

It can feel bad when a really niche, fun and original game is pirated becuase the developer receives no money for the game, but what about buying pre-owned? This can have much the same effect. For example, No More Heroes is one of my favourite Wii games but Grasshopper have received a grand total of £0 from me because I bought it pre-owned for £20. If I'd not been able to do that, it would have meant one more full price sale for the game. Another interesting question is, if I can pirate a DS game or buy it pre-owned for £10, what should I do? If I buy it preowned the developer won't get any money anyway...

Many people buy new games just to resell them later. If they were not allowed to do so, they would buy way less games. And the game is your property anyway, forbidding to resell it is like forbidding somebody to resell a car or something...Publishers are already fighting this with digital downloads.

Technically you don't own the game. Just the licence to content on the disc. Read a EULA once in a while.

Though technically your right Niode, I think the point he was trying to make was, having a disc in hand feels much more like ownership than leasing a worthless download.

[J T]

But why should I care about a chain store like Game or Gamestation or even buying second hand off Ebay or Amazon? I wouldn't lose sleep over knowing that I'd screwed them out of a sale or two.

For the record, I'd like to state that I do tend to buy my games, but it's fun to have this debate.

Well, it's not so much that you need to care about any particular game store, but retail locations in general. The developers of a game make a lot of their money by selling out copies to the retailers. The amount of copies the retailers will pay for is contingent upon how many they think they can sell. With the impact of piracy, that prediction is smaller, so they buy less from the game companies and the game companies in turn don't make as much profit.

[Betamax001]

Hello My name is Beta and I pirate music. I burned a couple of DC games but that was about it. If I did not pirate music I would not have such a great collection. I like to listen to music, but If I came across an album that looks interesting but wasn't familiar with it I would probably not buy it. Now if I download an album and listen to it alot and really like the album, then I would buy it. Or maybe buy it on vinyl. I usually like Vinyl better than CDs, but I dont wanna waste 20 bucks on a new record only to pirate it anyway to listen to it on my iPod, or find out hey I just wasted 20 bucks on a crappy record.

Besides most of the CDs I buy anyway are used that I see at a secondhand shop. Same with vinyl.

And to the point of not wanting their creation stolen, I am a musician (amateur) but If I created a record I wouldn't care if they bought it or not. Sure it would be nice if they did, but music is a form of communication between the artist and the audience and if they listened to what I have to say, then I'm cool with it whether they like it or not. I wouldnt want them to waste 12 bucks or whatever on a CD that they didn't end up liking.

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

This has been a touchy subject for a long time. First off My name is Japhei and most people know me for being a pirate. Lets examine that for a minute. As a member of Echelon and Kalisto when I worked for Babbages , Software ETC and eventually Gamestop. I would take home games sometimes before release rip them and provide them to people to download on the internet. Probally around 1000 retail rips exist online because of me. I took this one step further by buying new Neo Geo MVS kits and using my Xeltek EPROM programmer to dump said Neo Geo MVS games which were then added to unofficial MAME, Nebula or Final Burn emulators. Once again showing the power of the hacking I released unreleased Neo Geo Prototype games as well. After finishing my rape of the Neo Geo I then moved on to CPS2 where I aquired every CPS2 game known to man and dumped everyone. Flash Forward to 2010. I have aquired a image of every Taito Type X 1 and 2 game and have images of every HDD. Now that Blazblue CS is out and about and companies are aware of it. I have the full catalogue of Type X games just waiting to hit the mass send button out to the waiting public.

My question is this. When the game breaks or the HDD drive fails or a game disc is too scratched to run anymore what do you?

Some people call it piracy I call it preservation. Thats why when a Image is released online PIRATES say it is for backup purposes only. The little loop hole that keeps us out of trouble.

See I can dump and image as many games as I want and when the FED's or whoever kicks in my door. I will pick up a original copy and claim that it was for use to backup a ORIGINAL title.

If anything people should be thankful there are others willing to spend money on their work. Shit I can tell you right now I would not be into Shmups nearly as much if it was not for MAME.

I think when people get to experience something on their own and can appreciate it enough. They are more willing to put the money out there on it knowing they are paying for a solid product. So in a way its a double edged sword.

This pretty much backed up my statement, where did Piracy came from? it came from the same person who actually bought physical copies of the actual product, and actually took there time to rip it and upload it to the world for all of us.

I am for one a physical person, I like to have things physically, I just the feeling of having something in my hands. l I only download music just to try something out, and if I like it, I'll buy it. For movies, I rent them at Netflix, rip it, and watch it when I have the chance, and if I really like the movie, I'll buy it. Emulation I see two things, I am both for it and at the same time against it, I am for it because it is the best way to try things out before buying or never get the chance to buy it because its WAY to expensive (arcade games for example), and the reason why I am against it is because you are cheating yourself out of the experience, to me the best way to play Super Metroid is to actually play it on a SNES, I tried first hand on an emulator and it is just not a game to play on a keyboard, playing it on a SNES is like night and day, it is a game that is best used with an official controller, plus it makes a far more enjoyable game to play.

[Niode]

I'm the exact same as betamax, even down to the being a musician part. I too would not care that people didn't buy my music. I'd just care that people listened to it and enjoyed it. That means so much more to me than having 'da benjamins' or whatever the lingo is these days.

If it weren't for my friends sending me tracks or me investigating albums of unknown to me artists I wouldn't have such a wide and varied music collection. It just wouldn't be possible. Before the internet was ubiquitous this was done by mixtape. The only difference is the medium has changed. Yes some people will download music compulsively, one person I know has so much music that I'd be surprised that he could listen to each individual track once in an entire year. That's obsessive. I don't think the RIAA or whatever they are should go all vigilante on Joe Public just because he's downloaded the odd album every now and then. I don't think using copy protection on their CDs is the right way either. What they need to do is focus on giving the listener a better product than what is available from the pirates. Either that or somebody needs to get their act together and bring out a worthwhile subscription service where you can download whatever you want legally as many times as you want per month. Yes the Zune service offers this, but the kicker is, you lose all your music when you stop subscribing. This isn't offering a better service than the pirates. Therefore nobody will support this kind of service, especially not the download/torrent savvy internet users. Surely it's better to get £10-15 (the price of a CD) a month off of users and let them download as much as they want and still keep it. Rather than for people to just download whatever they want and keep it and they see no money from it at all. The main reason why this won't happen, Greed. The same reason the record industry is going down the pan. I won't pay £10-15 for a CD that I will at most listen to 10 times (only very few albums I own get more playtime than this a year) not when I can get much more entertainment out of a video game for £20-30. CDs are hideously over priced. Therefore any albums I buy, I buy second hand, from second hand record shops, ebay, boot sales etc. So the record industry/artist still don't get any money from me. The artists I do care about I will give my money to by seeing them live, live is the only thing that cannot be downloaded. This is something the pirates simply cannot offer. For this experience I will gladly pay for tickets. I will only buy a CD directly from a band if the majority of the money goes straight to the band (IE a band who's on an indy label, or better still their own label).

Unfortunately the truth is, the vast majority of money from CD sales goes to the record label. Hardly anything will go to the band. And even then, only very very few bands will get rich from an album release, those are the lucky ones who get a fair cut from album sales. Most bands will be giving 100% of the profit back to the record label for their advance. For those who don't know, when a band gets signed to a record label, they get given a sum of money, which is used to pay for the recording of a record. That money isn't 'given' to the band gratis. It's a loan. Which they have to pay back. With interest. This is paid back by record sales. When a band pays back the loan, the record label tells the band they should make another album, as per their contract the number of albums they are signed to create. The whole cycle begins again. The vast majority of bands are flat broke. So CD sales don't really help them at all. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of bands care if they're CDs sell. They're signed to create albums, not to make money. That's the record industries problem. Bands make money on the road, through sponsorships or merchandise. This is where people should put money towards bands. Not to the corruption that is the record industry.