Piracy, yay or nay?

me my self agree to a certain extent on copyed games, if u can get it b4 its out or a get a beta copy or a gamethats nuff hard to get! but pirating say pal games in uk is a bit hard up an bad! anyways whats ur veiws? an not just games please

 

Piracy is bad anyway you look at it. It takes money away from the developers and corrupts the market. If the developers don't get any returns on their hard work because everyone had copied their games then they don't release anymore games or go that extra mile.

Buying a copy just because you can get it a week or two before it's general release is weak in my opinion and a slap in the face to honest gamers who want to support their favourite companies.

I'm no angel. I let my mate copy my Panzer Dragoon Saga on my Saturn but after seeing SNK die I've gained a new look on things. Nay.

 

Simply put, nay.

I burn Saturn games that I just can't get hold of, but games with a vital market (well, somewhat anyhow) out there, piracy is not only a crime..

...It's a slap in the face of gaming as we know it.

 

I never had a copy gamed game on any system, I always get the originals.

 

I hate ppl who has the cash but simply gets the pirated ones. Someone mentioned abt getting a pirated one coz it releases 1 week earlier than the original> i totally disagree wif them n if any pirate does retaliate by giving reasons such as that, i'll just say ('F off) The gaming industries went the extra mile to provide solid games such as VF4 on PS, FinalFantasy series on Super nintendos, PS and PS2 oso (PC versions). If ppl just get the pirated copies, they'll close shop (juz as someone said abt SNK).
Bottom line is: if the reason for getting a pirated copy is due to cash constraints or equivalent, its forgiveable. As for other reasonings, just Fuck off.

 

Nay if i got the money to buy the games i want
Yay if time are tough and i cant afford buying games
or anything else.Guess it depends on my financial situation.

 

I don't buy this crap about not affording games. You don't go stealing a car if you can't afford one, nor do you steal, say, a magazine.

Piracy is stealing.
There is no difference between slipping a pack of bubblegum in your pocket and downloading a game from the net.

Well, to some, there IS a difference, but let me tell you; that is all in your head!

The point is, YOU DO NOT PAY FOR THE THINGS YOU GET - result: those who make profits on selling those things, be it the store or the developers, do not get your money.

Sure, piracy is all around, video, DVD, music, games etc etc, but several wrongs do not make a right. And don't even start with the "oooh, they have soo much money anyway... and.. and.. IT'S ALL THEIR fault for not lowering the PRICES!.. Yeaah!"
It just makes me sick. =}

Now, this VF4 buisness. I know that many of us copied this game upon its japanese release, only to later buy the US version. This is something I can understand and approve of, as it is like reading the magazine in the store and buying it the next day... Only.. this is a couple of days =}

 

Piracy is not exactly stealing. If you steal someone's car then you have the car and they don't. If you play a pirated game the maker is usually none the wiser. How many of those games on MAME would you or I actually buy right now? Right or wrong, piracy is something other than theft. I believe that piracy is bad and immoral (when other people do it).

 

Of course the developers are none the wiser. By pirating you've avoided legitimate channels and the transaction can not be recorded. whether the developer knows it or you admit it, they have lost revenue to a sleazy individual.

People's lively hoods rely on the income that they generate when they design great games. Pirating by it's very definition is taking something that was not earned. If you cannot see the action of tarnishing someone else's creative rights to reap the rewards of their labour then you're ignorant as well as a menace.

 

Oh boy. This subject is one that affords many opputunities for high horse mounting. I had a professor in college who taught telecommunications and he had a shitload of pirated games. He was not "ignorant," nor "sleazy," nor a "menace." You can castigate pirates all you want, meanwhile I'll be playing my illegal copy of Custer's Revenge on my G3, living it up.

 

Nay.

 

Sensitive subject.
To me, the game developers should revise their pricing policies. A game costs about S$50 here, frankly speaking, that is way too expensive for some and encourages piracy.

 

Don't you get it? It's a bitter circle. Prices are high to cover costs of pirating. If no one pirated games then the Developers wouldn't need or demand so much of a return. Ultimately pirate's are the negative factor, if everyone bought games through legitimate channels then the prices would fall.

Yet, some people think it's ok to screw other people over and therefore damage the market in the process. The more they copy, the higher prices. The higher the prices, more pirates are born and so forth...

 

It is not the developers but also the distributors. The damn New Era Entertainment who distributes here changed the packaging to DVD jewel cases. I would expect the PC games to be cheaper due to less material usage and easier warehousing. Those big boxes are bulky wasting material and space for a mere CD and some manual. Mostly empty air.

Stupid New Era priced them the same as the regular boxed items. The distributors are just plain greedy. Consumer protection in SG is zilch! If you have not heard, the distributors now control the prices. No more "discounts" from Ah Lim Shop anymore. Tecdrome in SLS is going into console games to stay in business. Good for him, the PC game will be lost to piracy in SG.

 

Yah I know about the bitter circle theory. But there is a lot more to it.

Just like Genie mentioned in his post, the distributors can take up to 30-40% or more of the total cost of a game (including the packaging and advertising fees). Look at some of the self-published games, they can cost as little as S$20. Some original Chinese games are sold at S$20 as well.
The price hike should be monitored and controlled.

Any way,as far as I am concerned, some S$50 games really don't deserve to be placed on the shelf, they either seemed rushed or are extremely buggy or they are just some modified clones. Besides making money out of unsuspecting consumers, I don't know what those games are for.

 

Downloading a game from the net is cheaper no matter what price the game makers set.

You can't beat the price of zero.

To adress what Pimpdad Lau said earlier;

"Piracy is not exactly stealing." - in your head..

"If you steal someone's car then you have the car and they don't"

If you download a game from the net and burn it, you've got the game, but the game makers don't have your money. The actual costs of burning the game on a CD, printing the manual and the box, is worth nothing to them. Really, it's as cheap as buying some popcorn and a soda. Do you think they care about the box or the CD? The instruction manual? They don't. They care about profits, and pirates rip them off.

"Right or wrong, piracy is something other than theft." - in your head...

 

I see your point, some people just want to get the game without paying a single cent.

I was referring to the other portion of people who think that spending US$35 or so for a mass produced CD-ROM and a colour printed manual is not worth the price.

 

Boy, I should never look at these threads..

I see a lot of people talking about manufacturing costs, as if those mean shit.
Game designers get more than minimum wage guys, and that's where the bulk of the cost comes from (or should come from).

For a good game, fifty dollars is nothing. A good RPG is expected to last 50 to 80 hours. For entertainment, you can't be 50c to 1.00 an hour. I've spent 50 dollars in a day of VF, not counting gas money or restaurant food etc. Fifty's reasonable for anything with replay value.

Which comes to probably the only point I'll be making in this thread...

Some games just aren't worth buying.
Playing for free, yes.
Renting... maybe, but usually you can find something better. And who wants to rent and worry about returning something, even if you beat it in a day?
So if I'm
A: never ever gonna invest fifty dollars in a game
B: never ever gonna rent it, since I never rent anyway

Then why not burn the thing? The designers aren't losing anything since I would never have put fifty bucks into it anyway, and to use the car analogy, they aren't missing a car just because I got their new car for free.

Still you might argue, just because it's not worth fifty bucks to you doesn't mean it's ok to steal it. Okay, fine. I sure don't wanna steal the games I like, and I don't... I pay for those. But I can't be seriously expected to pay for a japanese PS2 and VF4 just to circumvent comical lockout schemes designed to make money on licensing fees (a sleazy 'stick it to the consumer' concept).

So what's unfair about burning a japanese VF4 and then buying it when it finally arrives in the US, months later?

 

People's lively hoods rely on the income that they generate when they design great games

lol! Sorry, I had to write something.. because you're looking for 'livelihoods' (I think that's the spelling) and "people's lively hoods" makes me think of thugs dressed in black with ski masks spazzing around like they're on amphetimines /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

 

"So what's unfair about burning a japanese VF4 and then buying it when it finally arrives in the US, months later?"

Just to remind a few people on this before they reply. Remember that it is NOT illegal to have a the original game and make cdr backups.

For whatever it's worth.