Why I Think It Is GOOD To Pirate Commercial Games

[anariel]

Power to the people. When the law mainly protects the wealthy elitists and simultaneously harms
the common person, then what does that tell you about the law..? And even more importantly,
what does that tell you about your own moral duty..? Should a moral person keep obeying an
amoral law..? Or should a moral person defy an amoral law..?

While I don't like to go off topic, I'd like to say that I agree with this entirely... but again, there is a catch: ther is no absolute rulebook about what is moral and what is amoral, and nowadays (hell, since the dawn of time ¬¬U) a lot of children grown up without any moral compass. There are people so fucked up out there that even the "don't do unto others what you don't wanna be done" is not enough, because they don't even care about what happens to them.

And I think there is some perverse vein in all humans that makes us exploit any system we look at. Me, I do it a lot in single player videogames (and anybody could call it "customizing" the product to my tastes, but the little detail of that "breaking the code" making me less interested in the game suggests me otherwise), so I suppose I have it under control... which leads to a simple, quite common train of thought in every consciousness around: no one thinks of him/herself as a bad guy/villain. So again, the "moral way", while a definitive and true answer, proves that life is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy.

Sorry for the phylosophical rant, If it serves you as consolation, I've been wihtout buying any game since I started playing with Minecraft, heavily modded.

[Tessera]

there is no absolute rulebook about what is moral and what is amoral

Oh yes there is: your own. You decide. It is up to each of us to decide for ourselves
what is or is not "moral," and then act accordingly.

For example, some people think that sex and nudity are "immoral," where as I do not.

In my philosophy, greed at the expense of others is evil. Hence my stand on this issue.

The laws of the land are written by the people who have the most power... not necessarily
by the people who possess the best "moral compass" amongst us. Many (if not most) laws
are designed to keep the rich wealthy and the rest of us in our place. So then, is it moral to
consistently obey such laws... no matter what..? Even if it hurts us and makes others rich..?

[anariel]

there is no absolute rulebook about what is moral and what is amoral

Oh yes there is: your own. You decide. It is up to each of us to decide for ourselves
what is or is not "moral," and then act accordingly.

Sorry, I didn't specify as much as I needed to: there is no objective rulebook about morality, all are subjective ones, and very dependant on the society their "writers" (each person) have grown up.

For example, I was making a quick look over one of the news today, when my chin almost touched the floor. There was a (small) entry about a kuwaiti (I think Kuwait was the country...) "revolutionary" woman who said that the solution to stop their men to lie to their wives (as in "fucking other women than their wives") was to, in essence, conquer other lands and bring their women as sex slaves. Leaving aside this is a condensed and by no means complete view of that news, and that I don't really fully believe all that I read/watch in the news, I see with horror the inherent contradiction in that woman words: to avoid their men to fuck other women, they need more women to fuck. And to that end, it is a good idea to capture women all around and force them into slavery.
So there is a good example of something I can say, very loudly, wrong. Evil. Bad. Call it whatever you like.

Another example would be the sex & nudity you think is good, yet so many people publicly claim is wrong (another thing entirely would be them enjoying it following the now clichè "american double moral"). There is no rulebook nobody can refer to as an absolute, perfect and impossible to dissent to look at. The moral compass is not like maths, where 1+1=2, and that was my point.

[Tessera]

Anariel,

That's a fun little intellectual exercise. Truly.

But what the hell does it have to do with the main point of this thread..?

If you are opposed to being ripped off by the software industry, then fight back.
If you prefer not to fight back, then keep taking it up the ass and paying for it.

That's all that really matters within the context of this discussion. Fight back, or eat it.

[g2d1]

Honestly, I don't think most gaming companies care about their software being pirated.  The majority of the people who download games, don't have enough knowledge to properly download, unpack, replace DLLs or properly use the cracks that are included in the download.  A lot of the game-packers omit some of the instructions because they feel that if you can't figure it out, then you need not use it.

On the other hand, the Movie and Music industries have really been hurt by the torrent sites and let's not forget Youtube! 


Today's gaming companies are following the same trends the other entertainment industries are currently employing.  The lack of proper content is the direct result and byproduct of the general population's low expectations.  Most people have grown accustomed to low quality products and as a result, the various industries have come to recognize and exploit this behaviour.  People are dullards that are easily impressed with pretty graphics or special effects.

Consumers are the one's that dictate the content and it's quality.  Why else would a movie company produce 13 movies of the same guy doing the same thing every time?  Friday the 13th is a prime example.  But, people like the character and therefore they pay money to go and see it again.

The Majority of the movies today are pointless, but are full of eye catching effects for the attention starved customers.  In the old days, if you went to see a play or comedy, and it sucked, the audience would pelt the comic or artist with eggs or tomatoes or what ever they could hurl in their direction.  Just imagine if we could do the same to the gaming industries along side the movie industry.

Gone are the days where the creator or artist dictated the quality of their creations.  You guys remember the days of the LP Records?  I remember that when you bought an LP, you would get ....


1.  A nice outside cover
2.  A nice record sleeve
3.  Good inside art
4.  The song lyrics
5.  Even a poster
6.  And the most important, at least half the songs were of great quality!

Now days, you're lucky if you get more than one song that is good much less 2 in the entire CD! The record companies sold what they wanted and if you did not like it oh well!

So what I'm I trying to say?  The majority of the consumers are not gamers, and therefore are not capable of discerning good from bad so the gaming companies can get away with less quality products

Accountability is what is at stake here.  Companies feel that not enough people care to be made accountable.  So where do we draw the line?

Big Business Never Ever Loses!  You think you're sticking it to the Man, but in reality all you really are doing is sticking it to all the people who get laid off as a result of loss of revenue. Big Business claims their loses in the tax forms or if they are bigger players, they get bailed out by us!

A programmer will always be more critical of all the imperfections and bugs in a program, the same way a carpenter will find all the flaws in a house he did not build. 

The Hacks from Anonymous tried to stick it to SONY and they did, but also to the people who got their information stolen.  The Spineless asshole that sold out to Wikileaks tried to stick it to our government, and he did. But what about the people's lives that he may have endangered. 

If the software is bad, then don't buy it, this accomplishes the same result without stealing.  There are countless programmers that feel the same way all of us do, that is why Open Source Software and the GNU License exists today. They feel they can do better than the pay-for-use software and they give it away for free.

Yes I do use and download torrents for software I did not pay for.  But If I like it I do pay for it, yes I do sound hypocritical but my intentions are not to never pay for software.

[Tessera]

Honestly, I don't think most gaming companies care about their software being pirated. 

Then why do they go to such ridiculous lengths to prevent it..?

I disagree with your assessment.

[exx]

Meh.  The same problem exists in so many places.  Take pro sports for example.  People bitch and complain about how much pro athletes make even though their team never makes it to the playoffs, yet they still gladly shell out thousands of dollars for season tickets plus a few K more over the course of a season for overpriced beer and marginal food.  They also subscribe to the Total Sports package on DirectTV and purchase the licensed sports clothing.  Does this mean that these people should forge tickets and steal the food and souvenirs at the stadium in protest?  Not quite.  Want to send a great message to the purveyors of sub-par entertainment?  Don't buy in.  Imagine the message that would be sent if half a stadium of sports fans suddenly decided not to renew their season tickets...

The funniest part about your pirating argument is that you complain about all of the shortcomings of new games in one breath, and then mention how you go so far as to break the law and risk potential jail time to play said "crappy" games.  Does not compute.

[Tessera]

The funniest part about your pirating argument is that you complain about all of the shortcomings of new games in one breath, and then mention how you go so far as to break the law and risk potential jail time to play said "crappy" games.  Does not compute.

Fighting back in an ACTIVE way "does not compute..?" And people who -do- choose to
actively fight back seem funny to you..? Well isn't that interesting...

Seeing people who behave in a non-selfish and pro-active manner amuses you..?

You have just told me a lot about yourself. You don't mind if greedy corporations behave
like thieves... just so long as it does not happen to you. Is that it..? You seem to be saying
"Why fight back, when you can just passively sit on your ass and do nothing to help others."

Is that right..? Is that your simple philosophy regarding how to deal with corporate greed,
forced consumerism and the ongoing exploitation of the common man and woman..?

Sounds very sheeple-ish to me. Baaa.... baaaaa.

...you go so far as to break the law and risk potential jail time to play said "crappy" games.  Does not compute.

Go read the law. It is not a crime to download things from the internet. It -is- a crime to -offer- things for download on the internet, if you are in violation of someone else's copyright. Therefore, if the software industry seeks to prosecute, then they would have to track down and identify every single person who is seeding a particular file via torrents. Do you have any idea how much of a hassle that would be..? Torrents are files which originate in multiple locations around the world... all at the same time. No single person is uploading the entire file... there could be as many as HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of people involved, each of whom is only uploading a small chunk of the much larger total file. Thus it is impossible to prosecute any single seeder (uploader), without prosecuting ALL of them equally. And good luck with that, especially when you consider that a percentage of seeders live in countries where such laws do not even apply (Sweden being a prime example).

Again: it is not illegal to download files being offered by others on the internet. So just forget that entire line of reasoning, because it does not apply to this situation. Furthermore, this type of case falls within the sphere of a civil lawsuit... not a criminal prosecution. The plaintiff could seek damages, or seek to have a specific fine imposed upon the defendant. But actually putting someone in jail because of a software download is absolutely ludicrous.

I should also mention that theoretically speaking, every single person who has ever offered a gaming mod on the web is -technically- in violation of copyright law. But have you ever heard of a gaming publisher who sued a modder, due to copyright infringement..? Because I haven't... and I've been involved with modding for the better part of a decade.

One more bit of legalistic trivia: so-called "EULA agreements" are not legally enforceable upon the end user. They are only enforceable upon the publisher. EULA agreements mainly exist as a way for publishers to avoid any potential lawsuits being filed AGAINST them, by end users. By clicking on those "I Agree" buttons, you are actually agreeing not to sue the publisher, if the product turns out to be low quality, or unfit for the purpose intended. That's how they cover their own asses... and that's another reason to fight back against them in other ways, since they have already preempted any possibility of doing so through the legal system. There's a little-known fact for ya's to digest.  

[anariel]

Yep, I said it was off topic ^^U

Honestly, I don't think most gaming companies care about their software being pirated. 

Then why do they go to such ridiculous lengths to prevent it..?

Because it is a nice, concrete politic measure to take. The people making decisions report to a group of people who sometimes (ok, most of the times) know nothing about anything but how to make money (investors, if you want). To that people, illegal copies are like being robbed, so they want active solutions to that. So the people running the bussiness (people whose job is to run things the way the investors want, and to produce money) give them a placebo: "look, this game is harder to illegally copy than the previous one" is the only measure they can take to keep the investors half happy about a situation that has no solution at all (true, quality games would reduce piracy, but I doubt they will ever be a way to eliminate software piracy once and for all as long as the software is not free/creative commons).

All that talk about LP's made me remember some games in diskettes... That ones surely had big manuals! XD

[Tessera]

Sure... sure. 

Or maybe piracy simply cuts into their sales and hurts them. How about that for an answer..? Or does that answer not jibe with your "we are tiny and have no power" mentality..?

Why don't you guys stop pulling at straws and just accept the most obvious answer..? DRM... the push towards consoles... the invasiveness of Steam and other online validation schemes... all of that shit makes it very clear that the industry FEARS software piracy. And for good reason.

[g2d1]

What about from this angle.

What if the DRM is utilized as a mechanism to throttle their loses due to piracy.  They know that someone will eventually create a keygen or disable the DLL that governs the licensing.  I believe that they break even on their investment solely by the people who pay for the games outright.  Eventually they will eek out some mediocre profit, but not as fast as they would like to.  Piracy laws are only effective in countries where international law applies.  The real losses occur in countries like China or the Koreas.  In China, they actually mass produce the games and sell them on the street for cheap.  Even in countries like South America where the police don't care what you do as long as you give them a cut of the profits.  Games could be found at flea markets as well as movies.  So the laws really apply only to countries where laws are somewhat enforced or enough people can pay for the software.  Laws are made to keep honest people honest.  See if the this similar situation applies.

A city has laws for driving safe.  We pay for the rights to use the roads (this is done when you pay for your license plate) that they built with tax dollars and government subsidies.  For the most part people break those laws on a daily basis and also for the most part cops ignore them (too much paperwork involved)  But, if the city is low in cash flow or if the Budget margin is on the negative side, what do they do?  They send out the city cops with the task to go and generate capital by enforcing laws even if they are petty.  Where do you think they are going to issue out tickets?  Certainly not in low income neighborhoods where people already owe tickets and have warrants after them.  Noooooo, they go to the suburbs where people will actually pay for the tickets.   

Companies calculate loss by the potential of revenue loss not actually loss.  Unless a game totally bombs, most companies get a decent return on their initial capital investment and perhaps some marginal profits.  Everything else after that is potential profit or residual profits.  Yes you can hurt them a little bit, but if they are capable of slowing down the software crackers long enough for the customers to buy the game crap or not, they will have made enough money to stay in business. 

[Tessera]

Laws are made to keep honest people honest.

And where are the laws that keep big business honest..? We used to have such laws... but not anymore. I don't know about the rest of the world, but most Americans have had more than enough of this one-sided and elitist bullshit. Democracy does not exist when the only people who truly get to wield any influence are the ones with the most money. That's not fair... that's not equitable... that's not survival of the fittest... that's survival of the FATTEST, and it needs to be squashed.

So until that situation changes, I am 100% in favor of fighting back in whatever ways we can devise -- whether legal or otherwise --  in an effort to punish greed and dishonesty on the grandest of scales: the scale of the corporatist business world.

Everyone needs to stop feeling small, meek and powerless and start thinking about strength in numbers.

[anariel]

You know, any single piece of DLC can be download somewhere. I didn't paid a buck for Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2, now any "expansion" or DLC of any of those games. Yet I have all of them. Not even a week after the release, they were already in thepiratebay.com, so DLC is, from my point of view, the same as copy protection: another way to keep the investors from kicking Kotic & co.

Because, right now, there is no big bussiness out there that has any other objective aside making money. Which is good because of all the jobs it sustains, but in the end is like giving a robot a photo camera and let it loose to shoot anything that matches its criteria compared to Van Gogh, Picasso, Miguel Ángel or Da Vinci's paintings. Souless formulaic products aimed to make money.

[Tessera]

Because, right now, there is no big bussiness out there that has any other objective aside making money. Which is good because of all the jobs it sustains

Which jobs..? Where..? Do you live in India or China..? Because otherwise, big business isn't doing you a damned bit of good.

[Steeal]

Do you guys think there is a point where a developer makes a good enough game and to buy it to support the people who made the game regardless of what crap publishers decide to implement (DRM, DLC, etc)?

[Tessera]

Do you guys think there is a point where a developer makes a good enough game and to buy it to support the people who made the game regardless of what crap publishers decide to implement (DRM, DLC, etc)?

Sure... I believe in rewarding good work.

Do you know of any such games..?

I am not being a wise-ass, Steve. You used the words "good enough" in your question. Okay, so then what do -you- consider to be "good enough..?" Do you actually look for QUALITY in your life..? Or do you simple settle for "Well, this one didn't suck as bad as the one last year... so it must be okay...."

Different people have different levels of sophistication and different expectations of quality. What may be "good enough" to a 10-year-old would most likely be complete garbage by my standards. And since I resent being charged $50 or more for complete garbage... especially when I KNOW that the developers could have done a better job, but DELIBERATELY did not... then naturally I feel the need to punish them, by actively fighting back.

Simply not buying a game is not good enough for me. That's the passive, chicken-shit approach. And it does nothing to discourage the publishers from continuing to misrepresent their products, nor does it prevent them from deliberately exploiting a very young and largely unsophisticated target demographic. No, the only way to discourage this type of sleaze is to actively hit them in ways that directly hurt their sales.

In other words, not buying a bad product won't cut it anymore in this day and age... because they'll just find some other group of gullible and less sophisticated suckers to buy it instead. Which no doubt explains why most PC games these days have been mind-numbingly dumbed down in their overall presentation. If you want to sell big, then sell to the lowest common denominator. And the best way to do that is to keep everything nice and simple and... really, really stupid.

It's the same with movies these days. Add enough loud explosions and some tits and who cares if the rest of the movie is idiotic crap..? Stupid people will buy it anyway... and stupid people have lots of money to spend.

People have asked me why I take such a belligerent and active stand on these issues. I have done my best to answer those folks in my own words, but apparently I am speaking a foreign language to most of them. So, they tend to dismiss me as being some sort of Nimrod who needs to take a chill pill. So perhaps I can better explain my personal motivations in life if instead of using my own words... which many people do not respect... I quote another famous Nimrod instead:

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis,
maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence is betrayal."

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

No, I am not being pretentious. That quote more or less sums up my entire personality. I have never been a passive person. Never... never, ever, ever. And sure, I have pissed off a lot of people along the way. So be it. But whether right or wrong, I am the type of guy who believes that the best way to deal with things which are wrong in this world... whether they be little things, or big things... is to actively confront them head-on, instead of hiding under my bed and hoping that it will go away by itself.

Your own mileage may vary. But as for me, I don't enjoy eating my food out of a trough, alongside all of the other sheeple. I would much rather knock over the fucking trough... and then go after the pricks who are forcing us to eat from it.

I can't change the way I am, sorry.

[Steeal]

When I said "good enough" I mean totally on a personal basis, to each their own and all that stuff.

I was only wondering if DRM, DLC, etc. are always 100% deal breakers or if people would buy a game they enjoyed ie after playing a pirated version?

I am not being a wise-ass, Steve.

I know.   

[Tessera]

I was only wondering if DRM, DLC, etc. are always 100% deal breakers

For me it is, yes. I don't like being manipulated by greedy sleazebags.
If you want my money, then do it honestly. If you can't do it honestly,
then you deserve to be treated in kind... with lots and lots of piracy.

You see, I consider forced consumerism to be a form of theft. So if the
industry is going to set the precedent that theft is somehow acceptable,
then I consider piracy to be an appropriate form of retaliation.

Other people may have a different take on it. But that's mine.