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What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 03:00
by snoopdogg
What do you think about pirated games :wink:

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 03:12
by Fadeproof
I dont really care.... it doesnt effect me.


I have about 70 - 80 games and none are burnt because i dont have the chip (for the consoles)

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 03:26
by Pabl0z
Good.
I buy games only if they're worth the money.
And usually they aren't.
Most of my games that are not pirated i've bought if i got them cheap or i really liked it when i first downloaded it or tried the demo.

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 03:32
by bashderq
*whistles*
stop thinking what your thinking coz its probably wrong

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 04:06
by Pabl0z
The prices of games should be dropped like 40-50%.
Then i wouldn't download them anymore :P.
I've actually been wondering of starting to play WoW but i don't wan't to pay like 40€ for the game because playing it costs money too.
When i can get it for at least 25€ i will buy it.
Same thing goes for music-cd's prices.
They should be dropped 50% because making them doesn't even cost much.

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 04:19
by vellu
Doesn't really effect me much. I'm financially stable enough to buy the very few games yearly that interest me.

I don't really care what people do for personal use, but professional piracy for profit I do not accept.

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 04:32
by snoopdogg
I know people in my country who does piracy for sell, this and a lot more of people do this in a park

Posted: 09 Nov 2005, 19:09
by master m
Well, offcourse Pirated Games are bad for the developers.
I've never downloaded any Full-games. I always buy them if I think they're worth it :P

Posted: 10 Nov 2005, 17:07
by sushy
Most developers work very hard on their games so I think you shouldn't get any pirated games.

Posted: 11 Nov 2005, 19:13
by ^Sparco^
It's bad because the companies lose money ---> Then they stop making games or just reduce costs = crappier games ---> Then the "buyers" complain.

:roll: @ pirates

Posted: 12 Nov 2005, 00:30
by krist
I admit it i download pirated games, but only to try them out...if i like the game i buy if not, i uninstall thats it...i dont have pirated games that i like

Posted: 12 Nov 2005, 05:44
by 2furio
Oh...I'm going to get pawned for this...I feel "Good".
I have fast Internet and I put it to good use. If the game is worth it, I buy it (e.g. NFS 3, Command & Conquer series up to Yuri's Revenge). I don't know what other original games I got around...

Posted: 12 Nov 2005, 13:36
by Sir Ibi
The developers of the game, the ones that put 18 months+ effort into the game get very little royalty from the sales. In fact the publishers get the big cut, and also the distributers and retailers (I think, can't quite remember how it works) This is because the publishers have invested large amounts of money in the developers and they have taken a far great risk. If the game fails the publishers looses money and the developer gets a bad game.

Unfortunatly for us gamers, publishers no shiznit about game. They are business people who are only interested in making money, they are investors after all. The will only see a game as a bussiness oppertunity and are unlikely to take risk (unless its a well known and repected developer). That is why games nowadays are all pretty much the same, as they have been saturated and the gamers are getting bored of paying another £35 for FIFA 06, which is exactly like FIFA 05 but with better graphics.

In short Piracy is bad, and to say that this is a result of having bad games on the shelf is debatable. Even if the games market was full new and innovative games that people love, doesn't mean that piracy will stop.

Publishers are even considering to jack the price up even higher so they recoup the money which they would have lost through piracy, which is a load of shiznit. If games drop in prices, then we may see a drop in piracy, but that is of course circumstantial. How many times have people gone into a game shop and completly ingonerd the game that was considerably cheaper than the chart toppers, thinking it might not be as good.

Piracy is easy and cheap - two of the most loved words of the human race :lol:

So in conclusion, if the attraction of piracy is easy and cheap, therfore legitamate games must also be easy and cheap.

Pump down the price as much as the publishers can squeeze through their rather tight behind. And perhaps allow people to download them from lagitamate websites. Expand on the Steam idea, perhaps improving the speed and convinience of it.

Posted: 12 Nov 2005, 21:25
by RavenGT
I know it's bad, blah blah blah. But let's be honest, who would really want to pay $49.99 for every game that they want to get?

Personally, I torrent alot. And I mean ALOT. For example, who would want to pay for Alcohol 120 and stuff? Not me. I only buy games that I am anticipated about and I am a fan of. Half-Life, NFS, Unreal Tournament...

I also torrent alot of PS2 games simply because they're intentionally $10 more expensive, and that's bullcrap in my opinion.

Posted: 13 Nov 2005, 01:21
by boganbusman
Wow . . . I'm suprised that this hasn't been locked yet.

Personally I don't download any games except for SNES and N64 ROMS.

I'll usually either buy games second hand, or from eBay, or just buy the cheapo $10 games that were released lke 7 years ago (eg. Rainbow Six).

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 25 Mar 2013, 12:35
by Bernard
I download games (music, movies, sometimes books and soft, etc.) because:
1. Most of my CDs are don't run, destroyed or lost.
2. I can find interesting mods/repacks/special or rare versions/etc.
3. In fact, it's not a piracy/theft, it's a copying/sharing. Some dude put an .exe and game files on the Internet, I downloaded them, developers and publishers didn't lose anything. For example, Sims 3 has been downloaded zillion times. Did EA go bankrupt?

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 25 Mar 2013, 17:45
by Hydro_PT
Bernard wrote:Some dude put an .exe and game files on the Internet, I downloaded them, developers and publishers didn't lose anything.
Of course they did lose something. For each copy that is pirated and never sold, they lose potential profit. ;)

For big companies like EA, that isn't much of a problem, because usually the sales are enough for a game to be profitable, and piracy is not that harmful. But for small companies that spend a lot on a given game and have to sell it, piracy can mean the death of the studio.

Imagine yourself in their position. Imagine you developed a game for iPhone, for instance, and you spent 1000€ creating that game. You will now sell the game for 1€ each copy. Each time someone pirates your game, you lose 1 potential €. If you sell, let's say, 800 copies, you make 800€, which is not enough to cover the expenses of the game. If 500 more people have downloaded the game instead of buying it... well, do the maths. ;) Those 500 copies would be more than enough for you to break even and get some profit, but because they were pirated and not bought, you won't see that money and you will end up losing money.

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 26 Mar 2013, 09:06
by Bernard
Most developers don't publish and sell games. Publishers do.

People downloading and sharing games and it means these games are popular. Therefore, video game companies earning less money, but their games are even more popular (because of downloading and sharing). Unfortunately, some developers don't want to patch/update their games and some publishers don't want to reduce prices and/or change marketing strategies. And the games popularity is falling.

For example, I stopped buying and even stopped downloading new Need for Speed, Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Mafia, Battlefield, James Bond and Arma games. Just because they are getting worse.

If I were a developer (independent and individual, of course), I would make a free games. Yes, free games = less money (just a small optional donations), but more popularity, because my games would be completely free and would not have a DRM, bugs and glitches. I'm not obsessed with money. I just want to hear a happy "Whoa! That's a nice free game!" much more than angry "Go to hell you greedy n00b!" or frustrated "Oh, I can't afford this game.".

Also, I don't like Apple and their overpriced products.

http://torrentfreak.com/music-piracy-is ... se-120630/ — interesting article, but it's about music downloading.

If you have spotted any mistakes in my posts — join the Grammar Police patrol and correct me :-)

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 26 Mar 2013, 14:31
by junior6at
Guess I'll take the opportunity of you reviving this thread to vent a little. I normally don't like to discuss about this subject, because no matter what I say everyone has their way of justifying pirating games.

I used to pirate a little in early 2000, but after a few years I stopped and decided to concentrate on collecting original copies for several reasons:

1. Original copies have value, someone's BS rom or torrent doesn't.
2. I've noticed when playing through emulators for years that there always seems to be something off, be it the the graphics, sounds, or the controls. And yes, I'm that kind of person to notice the little differences from the originals. I prefer to avoid all of that and play the games the way I remembered them or the way they were intended.
3. My growing appreciation for games as an art form as opposed to just something that is meant to be played for entertainment purposes. This is something I'd like to support with my money.
4. I'm a collector; have been since '93 with my Sega Genesis and have kept 90% of everything I bought since then. I enjoy the box art, the manuals, even the physical copy itself.
5. Pride for actually owning the game. Sounds silly, but that's me. I'm a nerd.

There is however an exception for me and that's MAME. Other than that I buy every game now. If I can't afford it, I don't play it.

And just to add, I do have a rational hatred for people who pirate, and that's only because over the years I've been annoyed by people messaging me on my YouTube channel, asking me where they can download such and such game. If you don't have the means to buy the friggin' game, at least have the decency to find it on your own. Just because I put up game vids does not make me obligated to provide you with a link to the game. Now kindly eff off. :twisted:

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 26 Mar 2013, 17:54
by Hydro_PT
Bernard wrote:Most developers don't publish and sell games. Publishers do.
But developers have to be paid for the work they did, and publishers have to be paid too, first because they bought the rights to sell the game, and they have to pay their employees too. This is a business, first and foremost. You have to think about all the employees who had to receive their monthly wage for 1, 2, 3, even more years. And someone has to pay that, and whoever does it expects the game to be profitable so all that money is not lost. When a game is a flop, that means a lot of money goes down the drain. You pay the employees, you pay for technology (game engines, for example), you pay for a building to have people there working, you pay for marketing, etc. All of this requires a lot of money even before the game is sold.
Bernard wrote:People downloading and sharing games and it means these games are popular. Therefore, video game companies earning less money, but their games are even more popular (because of downloading and sharing).
As I said previously, this is a business. Money is more important than fame. It's selling copies that gives money, not popularity. Piracy can be helpful for small companies to spread their game, but it is not helpful for companies which already spent a lot on marketing. They need money, not popularity.
Bernard wrote:If I were a developer (independent and individual, of course), I would make a free games. Yes, free games = less money (just a small optional donations), but more popularity, because my games would be completely free and would not have a DRM, bugs and glitches. I'm not obsessed with money. I just want to hear a happy "Whoa! That's a nice free game!" much more than angry "Go to hell you greedy n00b!" or frustrated "Oh, I can't afford this game.".
And would you make a living by doing free games? :) Would you rely on donations only? Or just live happily because you made a free game and people are enjoying it, even though you don't have enough money to live? That's a nice thinking, but it doesn't work in real life, I'm afraid. Also, free games doesn't mean bug-free or glitches-free games. All games will always have bugs and glitches, that's the nature of all software, be it paid or free.

Put yourself in their place, or try to. Imagine developing a product, any product, and having people stealing it from you. I'm sure you would change your opinion.

@junior6at: I used to pirate a lot, mostly because I didn't have money to buy the games, but still wanted to play them. There's no excuse for that, and I'm not trying to find one either. When I started to get more money, I decided I would like to buy games I enjoyed a lot. And so it began, I started buying the games that really mattered to me. And my collection has been growing steadily. In 2007 I had like 2 original PC games, now I have over 55. It's such a pride to look at them, all the boxes perfectly stored, the printed DVD, the manuals, etc. I still try to buy the games I enjoy the most, even though I still pirate a lot of them. Mostly to try them out, because few are worth the price IMO.

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 27 Mar 2013, 20:25
by Bernard
http://content.foto.mail.ru/mail/bernar ... o/i-93.jpg — my drawing.

Sharing and stealing are not the same thing. Sharing gives creator/developer/manufacturer a popularity, stealing don't gives anything but harm. In Soviet Union people copied and shared music, books and movies a lot, artists and authors were popular and didn't live in poverty. Only banned content was illegal to sharing/copying. Even my grandfather copied a rock'n'roll and jazz music, because it was banned then.

If some publishers prefer money over anything, then it's their own problem. I won't feel sorry for them. Also, I don't think that popularity is nothing.
If developers and publishers want money AND popularity, they should check their products before release, they should change prices, marketing, commercial and distribution strategies, everything...

For sure, developing free games is difficult for money making, it's more like a hobby, so I should combine a work and my hobby. But anyway, making free games for any gaming system (even for Apple iOS) gives more pleasure and fun, than making $74 PS3-exclusive games with installation limit and a three DLCs for $60 each.
And games without bugs and glitches? Nothing is impossible :)

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 27 Mar 2013, 23:03
by Hydro_PT
No, they are the same thing. That's just an excuse for people to feel better. It's the same as entering in a shop and coming out without paying. Exactly the same thing. But because on the internet you are pretty much anonymous, you don't feel guilty about it, you don't have to face the consequences. ;) But if you enter in a shop and try to come out without paying, you will face the consequences. That's why you don't do it.

"If some publishers prefer money over anything, then it's their own problem."

It's their job. I don't get what is so difficult to understand. Their way of making a living is developing and selling video games. Just like you will have a job in the future and expect a monthly wage. Would you work for free? No. Why would they?

Oh well... I just wish you could see the other side of the coin. You and many others. Maybe one day when you do something for someone and you don't get paid you will understand.

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 28 Mar 2013, 17:57
by YaelDjiel
Hydro_PT wrote:you do something for someone and you don't get paid
It's called volunteer work, it happens all the time, everywhere.
Though, granted, not much in the game industry.


People talking about boxes, manuals and what not.. sorry, but you aren't living in 2013.
What modern game still has this? It's all Steam/Origin and such.
That's hardly owning a game. You paid for it and you can download it from their servers, that's about it.
If these services were ever to go byebye, you're left with nothing.
Sometimes you can buy the game in a store, but then it still requires Steam to install or at the very least run, so that's hardly different.

I dispise these services for this very reason, and similarly games with always-on DRM.
What if I want to play game X in say, 15 years and they've already taken down these servers/services? yea.. tough luck huh?! I'm not pro-piracy per se, but I would say that in such cases having a pirated copy sure is great.
I still boot up games from mid 90s and early 2000 and they work fine because they don't have any of this crap.


Also, publishers should start realising that lower price and more care for the product can lower piracy for said product far more than awful DRM. In fact, specific DRM types often stop people from buying the game all together.
People want to play games but many can't keep dishing out 40-70 of currency X for everything that they want to play. And of course people want to play good games and not rehashed, rushed glitchy garbage with tons of on-disc DLC. There have been plenty examples of lower priced games that have sold extremely well. Also listening to fan feedback (and of course putting it to use) has proved positive for many games' sales.
They should think less as businesses and more like gamers/consumers. In the long run this should be more benificial to the business.

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 28 Mar 2013, 21:12
by Bernard
No, they aren't. My friend bought a game and shared it with me. What did the video game company lose? My friend gave them money, because he bought their game and he also found a possible customer (me). He and I gave them popularity and our love, because we tried their game and we loved it. They should thank us for supporting their product, which we will continue to buy if we really love it.
If I stole a CD from the shop, then the shop owner would really lost that CD and he didn't earn anything instead.

Have you ever worked for free? I worked. And I enjoyed. I cleaned a class rooms after lessons, I cleaned a yard near my high-rise building, I bought and delivered a food to my concierge, because she was ill, and I earned respect and love. Good reputation and popularity are more valuable than money at all times, because you CAN'T buy a respect. You can only earn it. Respect is more important than money.
Of course, game developers/publishers should earn money for making video games, but they should stimulate people to purchase and support their products, not prosecute people who just copying or sharing them. As I said before, quality control, and a correct business strategy is everything. Also, feedback and old products supporting are a great things too. New cars, races, tracks, songs, videos, patches, updates and official multiplayer support for the NFS 5? Even in 2013? Why not?

For example, imagine yourself as a musician. You have a girlfriend and parents, and they love you and your music. But your girlfriend/parents uploaded your song on Youtube or on their social network pages, or shared your song with other people without asking you. What did they steal from you? What did you lose? Do you really want to suing them for so-called "copyright infringement"? Suing people who love and support you and your music? Same thing with your fans who also love and support you and your music, just like your girlfriend and parents.

I mostly agree with YaelDjiel. I don't want to buy a game with an installation limit and Internet connection requirement for singleplayer mode, and which I can't mod or improve, copy, share and even sell. I bought a game, so I own it and I can do with it whatever I want (except for claiming myself as a developer/creator).

Re: What do you think about pirated games?

Posted: 28 Mar 2013, 22:26
by Hydro_PT
As I said, I agree companies should release games with fewer bugs, they should support the costumers, lower the prices, all that. But that doesn't mean I agree people should pirate/share/steal (whatever you want to call it) their games. That's the thing here, in my opinion. I do it, don't get me wrong. I download games too. But I know it is wrong and I shouldn't do it, nor should other people.
Bernard wrote:Have you ever worked for free? I worked. And I enjoyed.
Yes, I've done volunteer work and I know what that is, and I hope I will do more in the future. ;) Just don't mix "volunteer work", which you do because you want to without expecting anything in return (that includes respect, love, whatever), with "work", where you are supposed to do something and receive money for it. Otherwise, how are you going to live?

Yeah money doesn't buy respect, money doesn't buy love, money doesn't buy happiness, but unfortunately you can't live without it in this world because it is the only way to buy pretty much everything else. :)