Why video game piracy needs to be stopped and the future of PC GAMING (WIP)

[Mr Jive]

Can I claim that your analogy is insane too?
Especially seeing how people do legitimately complain (especially on the forums and elsewhere) about how bad the game is.

Now your analogy (which was very difficult to understand, seeing as it was very bad) consists of;

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Not satisfied with the cake because of the price and the quality.
Not satisfied with the game because of the price and quality.

Being furious/annoyed/whatever about said cake
Being furious/annoyed/whatever about said game

"Unlike being a normal person and picking up an object in order to do criminal damage"
"Unlike being a normal person and picking up some non-existing item to do non-existing damage to the company"

"After doing damage to the shop, you ate that cake, as expected it was terrible"
"After doing non-existent vandalism and downloading data that is the exact same copy as the disc, you played the game, as expected it was terrible"

You then go to the store and complained
You decided to go to the forums, and complained (Then get your posts deleted / cut out / Edited lolBioware)

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I believe that your analogy is like a simple train ride going along smoothly then suddenly turned into an epic wreck.

Especially seeing the fact that you're downloading information that someone copied from the disc that they purchased from the store, which technically means that you didn't do any fraudulent action seeing as the information is exactly the same.


Your analogy would make (a lot more) sense if it went like this:
You purchased that $200 cake, even though you know how extremely terrible it was.
Found out some weird fucked up technique that allowed you to create that exact cake and you made a recipe list to recreate that cake.
Go to the store and complain how bad it is (Then run home and made that cake you copied even better than before (Less restrictive, but let's say more tastier)
You sold that cake to everyone else for a much lower price.




Now seeing as doing any form of vandalism (and violence) is quite different than getting files and uploading it so everyone gets the game free.

The game quality is as clear as day for developers to see the issue and actually confront it and explain how they can do better, funnily enough you don't get much developers actually listening to the fans and deciding to ignore them completely.

Pirating games serves as a "leverage" to make developers listen or that they will not profit as much.

Oh yes, by the way it is considered robbery (Scam), if you make up lies about "How good that game is" when in return it's the opposite of what you are asking for.
It's obvious that everyone who owns a business would like to make money, but not to the point where you have to be dishonest in order to profit.
If you like people who are dishonest, who restrict and control your gaming experience so much, be my guest, I won't persuade you otherwise. But it's not wise to claim one being insane whilst thinking it's perfectly fine to be dishonest to people.

For starters the analogy was purposefully insane, I was comparing one "insane" argument with another "insane" example and you clearly understood what the message of the analogy was (sort of).

To go on you are suggesting that as long as you don't physically own someones product then it is ok to take the data representing it? If we start to think like this in the world then all manner of shit will hit the fan. For example imagine someone made some child porn, I got the child porn and replicated the data, then uploaded it to the internet. As long as I didn't make it or participate in making it would it make it ok for me to upload it simply because it wasn't physical data? Of course not it would be sick and I would get arrested for it - the same rules have to apply for stealing/using data of any kind even if it is not a physical product.

Going down your analogy is entirely different, you are suggesting that if someone bought a game and didn't like it and then made their own version (perhaps a similar gameplay system or genre) that it would be ok. Well of course that would be ok but that is not what I was talking about, I am saying that if you were to steal the data, it is my mistake about what the analogy suggested but in reality someone might buy the game and upload its information to pirate bay. If someone were to download this instead of buying their own copy because they though the game was bad (which is what the analogy was getting at) then that would be wrong (and kinda stupid).

Moving on you say that by pirating games people will be more likely to make them better, well this argument is still invalid. You are suggesting that only bad games get pirated but you said your self that Skyrim was a good game and that has been pirated loads. If a game was beyond perfect it would still be pirated because people pirate because they don't want to spend their money! That is the main reason - theifs steal because they don't want to pay.

If you are going to steal something I would be happier that you understand that you are actually stealing a product and that what you are doing is "morally wrong" instead of trying to make up some bull shit argument that stealing is ok. Stealing could be ok if you are stealing to pay for, lets say, some medicine for a dying child. But stealing to play a video game is never, ever going to be morally right. I don't care if you are going to steal, but at least have the decency to admit you are a thief and not some elusive hero who is sticking it to the big business companies.

And yes scamming and lying to sell something is wrong but simply saying in your opinion this is a good game is not exactly lying and it isn't forcing you to buy a game. If you were to say that this game is an fps with amazing graphics and you played it and it was a side scroller with 8-bit graphics then yes that would be lying.

[Journeyman H. [UK]]

To not own a product physically means we don't have the right to have the data that allows a game to run?
I guess online stores are illegal now then.

But I know what you mean; If you did not legitimately paid for a copy of that game, etc. Once again, all I'm saying is that your analogy was so poor it makes me wonder if it's worth replying to you. Seeing as it looks like it was an intent to cause confusion, rather than getting to the point of the argument.

"...Going down your analogy is entirely different, you are suggesting that if someone bought a game and didn't like it and then made their own version..."
No. There's a massive difference between stealing a game and recreating an exact game. Once you have the data on your computer from a physical copy, that means you own that exact copy. Therefore uploading it is not stealing as you're recreating that data. Because that was piracy is literally doing. The person who legitimately owned a copy of a game, shared it online by uploading it to a site, no acts of stealing was done, if someone downloaded it, no one stolen anything, because it was uploaded by a user who recreated the data.
I am not going to go indepth, because I know that it would simply be pointless to attempt to explain as you apparently demand honest purchasing of goods that were dishonestly made, avertised and sold, the argument of yours would return in a "NO U" response, and you seemed to have no read what I have said in my analogy before, so it shows you lack of interest in making a compelling argument and have a moral standpoint despite that you look at the conclusion rather than taking a step by step look into the problem.
Before that you argue on my doubts of above, would be pointless, because your post has proven my point.

Panda, I've never seen you made-- or not even found the most slightest piece of evidence. You invalidate my arguments yet you provide me none yourself? Do you really expect me to take your word for it?

But obviously, poor old Activision and other well known developers are obviously poorer than a child who lives off $1 a day, they can't stand a handful of people pirating games. Oh my, oh my.

Panda, before you use secondary school style scan-reading, please read this in depth, it's not worth making a response to find out that I just start firing away back at you with a response that (is now) derailing the entire topic, you seem to be so surprised why I make these so-called "immoral" and "insane" arguments.

I did not endorse in "Stealing" any goods, but I don't blame them, because I sure as hell don't remember saying that I think piracy is the right thing, especially if it goes down to being too tight to afford it, and especially if he knew the game was bad that he wasted his energy in downloading it and playing it.

What you're forgetting is that piracy creates potential customers as well, Notch said so himself, especially to try out games. He supports piracy as well.
http://www.destructoid.com/notch-can-t-afford-minecraft-pirate-now-buy-later-219553.phtml

News flash on-topic real important

Just to make a compelling argument, not only does the PC have games pirated, so do other games. It also lists the most popular pirated games too, if you really think that piracy is going to "OHNOESEPICDESTRUKSHUNTOPCGAYMING" think again, oh the links I present are important. I can't wait for 2012 statistics as well.

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/the-witcher-2-has-been-pirated-4-5-million-times-20111130/ - A compelling argument for both sides.
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/gog-celebrates-6-million-games-sold-offers-broken-sword-for-free-20110929/ (Part of the link above, but this provides an excellent counter argument to DRM)

http://www.crossplatformgamers.com/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-most-pirated-game-pc-of-2012/ - Potential.

[Mr Jive]

To not own a product physically means we don't have the right to have the data that allows a game to run?
I guess online stores are illegal now then.

But I know what you mean; If you did not legitimately paid for a copy of that game, etc. Once again, all I'm saying is that your analogy was so poor it makes me wonder if it's worth replying to you. Seeing as it looks like it was an intent to cause confusion, rather than getting to the point of the argument.

"...Going down your analogy is entirely different, you are suggesting that if someone bought a game and didn't like it and then made their own version..."
No. There's a massive difference between stealing a game and recreating an exact game. Once you have the data on your computer from a physical copy, that means you own that exact copy. Therefore uploading it is not stealing as you're recreating that data. Because that was piracy is literally doing. The person who legitimately owned a copy of a game, shared it online by uploading it to a site, no acts of stealing was done, if someone downloaded it, no one stolen anything, because it was uploaded by a user who recreated the data.
I am not going to go indepth, because I know that it would simply be pointless to attempt to explain as you apparently demand honest purchasing of goods that were dishonestly made, avertised and sold, the argument of yours would return in a "NO U" response, and you seemed to have no read what I have said in my analogy before, so it shows you lack of interest in making a compelling argument and have a moral standpoint despite that you look at the conclusion rather than taking a step by step look into the problem.
Before that you argue on my doubts of above, would be pointless, because your post has proven my point.

Panda, I've never seen you made-- or not even found the most slightest piece of evidence. You invalidate my arguments yet you provide me none yourself? Do you really expect me to take your word for it?

But obviously, poor old Activision and other well known developers are obviously poorer than a child who lives off $1 a day, they can't stand a handful of people pirating games. Oh my, oh my.

Panda, before you use secondary school style scan-reading, please read this in depth, it's not worth making a response to find out that I just start firing away back at you with a response that (is now) derailing the entire topic, you seem to be so surprised why I make these so-called "immoral" and "insane" arguments.

I did not endorse in "Stealing" any goods, but I don't blame them, because I sure as hell don't remember saying that I think piracy is the right thing, especially if it goes down to being too tight to afford it, and especially if he knew the game was bad that he wasted his energy in downloading it and playing it.

What you're forgetting is that piracy creates potential customers as well, Notch said so himself, especially to try out games. He supports piracy as well.
http://www.destructoid.com/notch-can-t-afford-minecraft-pirate-now-buy-later-219553.phtml

News flash on-topic real important

Just to make a compelling argument, not only does the PC have games pirated, so do other games. It also lists the most popular pirated games too, if you really think that piracy is going to "OHNOESEPICDESTRUKSHUNTOPCGAYMING" think again, oh the links I present are important. I can't wait for 2012 statistics as well.

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/

http://www.geek.com/articles/games/the-witcher-2-has-been-pirated-4-5-million-times-20111130/ - A compelling argument for both sides.
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/gog-celebrates-6-million-games-sold-offers-broken-sword-for-free-20110929/ (Part of the link above, but this provides an excellent counter argument to DRM)

http://www.crossplatformgamers.com/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-most-pirated-game-pc-of-2012/ - Potential.

Again like I said before, if we say that as soon as information is passed on to someone else then it automatically becomes their property and then they are allowed to do as they wish with it the system becomes very unfair. We have copy right laws so that people ideas and creations can remain their own, it is unfair on the person who created it if that product can be bought once and then distributed freely. Of course it won't have a major effect on activison but on small indie companies it can cause negative effects. Not to mention you would assume partly that games become more expensive if the developers know that a certain percentage will be downloaded, so in theory if they were never pirated prices would become lower? Possibly, it is also possible that the game companies would not bother because they like getting lots of money.

Yes, I suppose you are right that in a sense it is not stealing to upload but freely distributing someone elses product which was intended to be sold for a price to the user is unfair on the creator of the product, I mean that makes sense, surely? And my point about your analogy being different was the fact that you said at first "exact cake and you made a recipe list to recreate that cake." so that meant that you were uploading the game for others to download. But then you wrote on and said "Then run home and made that cake you copied even better than before (Less restrictive, but let's say more tastier", this made it seem as if you were suggesting the person who wasn't satisfied made their own, similar project. I had good reason to point this out as it was different from mine and contradicted your point.

Moving down once more the bit when I invalidated your argument was because you said yourself that games will not get pirated as much if they are better, but earlier in the post we found out that a game like skyrim was pirated loads. You said yourself that this was a good game and it is more in depth and so how could it have been pirated? I was pointing out how your argument was not logical and therefore was not valid - I am sorry if I didn't go through the trouble of copy and pasting a few statistics to make this point stronger.

The insane argument was simply the fact that some people thought that it a valid reason to pirate a game if the game was bad, that didn't make sense but we have been over this already, I don't think the rest of your arguments are insane and I am sorry if you thought that was what I was implying. The whole point was I was simply trying to point out that if you are going to pirate a game I don't see how you can say that what you are doing is the "Right thing to do".

Also I wouldn't say this is off topic, we are discussing views on piracy which is exactly what the topic was about, I don't see the difference between making your own opinion once to the have a more in-depth discussion with someone about both of your opinions is still a discussion. If you are so determined not to "derail" this post any further then by all means be the bigger man and not point out some mistake I may have made.

[Journeyman H. [UK]]

Like I said, I won't go indepth in that argument of the whole uploading info and downloading it is not stealing, etc. it will result in a non-stop argument.

Moving on, the thing is, when you have the game data, you can copy it's data (data being the recipe), and upload that data to everyone for everyone for free (You made that exact cake and you charged people for the exact amount of cash required for the ingredients, seeing as your reality-virtual analogy was bad)

I don't understand how you could misinterpret it in that way, and even if you thought that my analogy was not about pirating a game and much rather "Recreating the game from scratch" then good news, because you dug yourself a deeper hole.

Even if you recreated that game, you can still have the copyright laws jumping to the publisher's rescue and they can make a lawsuit against you, or forcefully stop / censor you doing said project.
Whilst there is none that has occurred, due to either being in countries where copyright laws are not the same *CoughTF2Ripofffinalcombatinchinacough*
Moving on, you can sue or stop someone for doing any similar project.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/05/minecraft-studio-being-sued-by-bethesda-over-scrolls-title/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/apple-sues-phone-maker-htc-over-patents/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4aILXjBWuZw

You can even have your videos muted because 1/10 of the video contained music that is "Copyrighted".

Panda, you seem to be claiming you have "proof" of Skyrim "PIRATED LOADS", however even if you had proof I didn't say that Skyrim is good and it won't be pirated, I'd like to see your proof in your argument please, because I placed some effort in finding any evidence backing your claim.
The lack of showing that you're looking and using evidence backing your claim just means it's a random opinion, therefore attempting to invalidate my argument on such topics without evidence does kind of make your argument pointless.

You could potentially argue on moral standpoints of piracy, but to understand that game developers are still fruitful and prospering even if the so called "Chilling piracy statistics" are there, they are not bankrupt, or failing, or anything. Just that they are increasing piracy using unrealistic measures to solve the problem, and re-releasing the same crap and being dishonest to people, which will result in increased piracy. If they are so desperate in getting those extra pennies, then they should take the initiative to listen to their consumers in what they want to see, if they don't, then companies should not be surprised to see any unpredictable consequences.


Ding, ding, and another goddamn ding.
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/05/believe-it-or-not-a-study-has-found-piracy-boosts-music-sales/
Yeah, it's music. But it proves the point that piracy increases customers.

[Mr Jive]

Hmm, well I am sorry that I don't spend 5 minutes looking up something relative to my case and lol copy paste the link and then claiming that I have a solid argument because I can copy and paste

Which is what you have done a few times, you have simply copy pasted an article from a journalist which is still simply opinion and then claim that your opinion is solid because you have the ability to copy and paste. Bravo, you have the ability to copy other peoples opinions and claim them as fact. For some odd reason copying an opinion does not make that opinion fact Oh but if you need me to "justify" this I will.

http://www.positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html - opinion
http://www.moddb.com/polls/why-do-you-pirate-games - opinions
http://dbzer0.com/blog/why-do-people-pirate-games - M0ar opinions
http://www.destructoid.com/notch-can-t-afford-minecraft-pirate-now-buy-later-219553.phtml - Opinion
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/the-witcher-2-has-been-pirated-4-5-million-times-20111130/ - partly opinion
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/gog-celebrates-6-million-games-sold-offers-broken-sword-for-free-20110929/ - some fact some opinion
http://www.crossplatformgamers.com/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-most-pirated-game-pc-of-2012/ - mostly opinionated with 5 small figures

That was almost all of the links that you gave me and even the ones I didn't include still have opinions in them but they have a slight amount of fact to back them up. There look I gave you evidence, I'm sure you will still bitch about it though

Anyway this "debate" is becoming tedious as you are simply ignoring most of the stuff that I say because I didn't use copy paste, I was trying to debate using logic and my own opinions because I find arguing ideas much more entertaining than "arguing" (or who can copy paste the most) figures that someone else produced. Still, each to their own I suppose.

There is that and I also feel as if you are simply arguing for the sake of arguing (like you have done many other times) and I find it hard to even understand what point you are trying to argue any more, not to mention I doubt you would be able to come to any agreement with me

To keep things on topic I will hopefully leave you with my final thoughts on the matter: I believe that Piracy is still a form of stealing and is unfair on those who have tried to create something. Perhaps for some piracy won't be such a big deal (Activison lets say) and for others they support their game being pirated by some (Notch), although I doubt they would be all too happy if no one bought the game and people only pirated the game. I think that if I, you or anyone else was to make their own game and then they found out that a vast majority of those copies had been pirated I would be displeased.

p.s. If you want I could copy and paste this page into my argument so that it is valid. Because you seem to have made it clear that by copy and pasting something it becomes fact right?

[Journeyman H. [UK]]

The argument you placed against me was an ethics argument about piracy. Ethics is based on opinion, however you attempted to claim that it was fact even though the opinions come from people from many backgrounds.

You do realise that your your argument was based on an opinion against me, who was in fact arguing with Soviet who seems to not notice that there are much more (and quite a handful legitimate) reasons to pirate games, and I was backing up my claims based on the guys who claim to be journalists and people who do/did pirate games, stated the reasons why, even there was a poll in a link somewhere to ask why people pirate games.

Piracy is all about opinion, of course, everyone has different opinions why they pirate games.
Soviet's argument was about how PC gaming is facing an armageddon, and claiming that the people who pirate games are clearly cheapskates.
I argued with Soviet's claim, which then you joined in you jumped in making an analogy which lead to ethics, however your opinion is arguable seeing as I found people who said they interviewed with people who pirate(d) games, I decided to hand in links which contradicts your argument, even though you claim mine is invalid, which highly suggests that what you are saying is not an opinion but rather a fact.

Just an FYI, if Mojang had no problem, if GOG had no problem (they publish, but distribute none the less), if CD Projekt RED has no problem (which looks like a small company, 102 employees according to their financial report) with piracy, why on earth should companies be that worried. Ok, sure they add measures to prevent their games being pirated, but it still happens none the less. But the thing is, if people like Notch allowed a game for creativity and then said people to pirate a game for whatever reason then do so, unless you are a cheapskate then all he says is "You should feel bad for yourself"

Your belief on similar projects being fine, even though you see companies abuse their copyright laws to prevent similar projects being made, or if there is a happens-to-have scenario.

To be honest, if I made a game based on how I like scrap that, my idea is an MMO, people don't pirate much MMO games unless they found a free hosted server
Let's say a game in my image is an FPS, but greatly expands on creativity (Half Life 2 and adding SDK for the users), if people pirated games, I'd rather come clean and make a poll on why they pirate, see how I can improve, and if it still persists, then it won't bother me, seeing as it is; inefficient - based on financial and potential customers and also a waste of my time devising unrealistic methods of trying to restrict players for the sake of piracy. Providing I make a profit (You always will. I've never heard of a company losing money because too many pirate games).
But potentially you might say "You have not developed a game so you don't know what it's like for people to steal your game".

You end the argument claiming I copy and paste, would you like to show me where I copy and pasted and ignored, I am not sure where you got that from, but ok. Unless you count copy and pasting links as me lolpasting things, then that does indeed suggest that you're ignoring what I am saying and want to pass off what I said is pasting.
Again would you like to point out where I pasted? Unless you claim that my pasting is the link url then I have no words to say, well apart from "Are you trolling?", because I find it rather difficult to find your argument serious at any level.

I still see that you have not answered any points, but rather pretend you read it and sum it up (I.e. copy and pasting LMFAOLOLOLO.).

[Mr Jive]

Well anyway like I said you have your opinion I have mine and once again to avoid us simply going around in circles we shall leave it at that.

Oh and yes I was referring to the link - If you had of read my point I was annoyed at the fact that you claimed that my arguments were not valid simply because I didn't "lol copy paste". Still w/e fun "debating" with you again, see you on the next thread :3

[Journeyman H. [UK]]

I am sorry for being annoying by copying and pasting links and saying that you are pretending to read regardless whether you accept or deny that fact. I hope I didn't made you sore, but I'm sure those emotes will boost your confidence for the next argument.



Moving on, PC gaming will not die, game developers are making it seem so, in order to scaremonger people into buying console games instead, when you use consoles you are given hefty restrictions on what you can do, whereas the PC allows maximum creativity based on community contribution, but the saddening fact is that the developers are restricting creativity and are now attempting to restrict players from making their own servers, basically you need a license to host a server, I smell dishonesty.

The statistics from Bittorrent clearly indicates that consoles are just as likely to get pirated, and even if consoles do conjure up some non-existent 'security' to 'stop' piracy, it will still happen.
If all above fails, you will have people who will develop games themselves. You seen MMO's being made for free, completely.