Are you a pirate?

[N36fSL3A]

This topic isn't promoting pirating, I'm just curious. Are you a pirate? I'm not FBI or anything. ;)

Personally I first pirate games so I know if my PC is on the requirements, and if it is, I buy it. If not, I don't.

[S G H]

I used to be pirating games while I was like 14, like CS:S or Half Life 2, Garry's Mod 10, or even Fallout 3.

Now look here:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/essgeeeich/games?tab=all
Got CS:GO, HL2 and Fallout: New Vegas, plus a lot of more games I gained winning giveaways and from public giveaways.
For instance, Defense Grid was a Logitech giveaway a couple of months ago.
Metro 2033 had a Facebook giveaway on the Metro's page.
Magicka's been gifted by a friend.
Multiwinia, Europa Universalis 3 and Alien Hallway come from a one-winner giveaway.
I've been even gifted an account of another user who doesn't use it anymore, which has CS:S, L4D2, HL2:DM (AMD promo has ended) and DoD:S.

But actually, the money I did really use for the games I own, have gone just to Garry's Mod, HL2, TF2, Fallout New Vegas and Ultratron.

[3qX21hU5]

Not me. Personally I despise pirating mainly because after programming for a few years I have come to greatly respect how much work goes into Games, Movies, Music, Applications or whatever. And I think they deserve to get profits from their work if they want to. And because if I released a application in the future I wouldn't want others to do that to me, so why should I do that to them.

I can maybe understand for people without enough cash but then again people have been getting along just fine for thousands of years without luxuries and lets face it usually the stuff that gets pirated isn't a necessity.

[twiggystardust]

I used to, but as Zereo said I now realize the work that goes into these things, I'm also a musician, and I've got one CD out there(nothing national, just local) but I myself put a lot of money and time into promoting the cd itself, promoting concerts, buying gear, and when you're trying to survive on money from the cd sales, it suuuuuucks. So I find every legal way I can to download music, or software, as for movies, just netflix and my local library.

[N36fSL3A]

I have the same feelings. I don't go around pirating without planning on buying the game. All games I pirate are for me to test out, to see if I can run it comfortably. Maybe AAA companies should make demos for users. All the games I own were usually pirated first.

[maeriden]

Yes. But I plan on stopping when I get a job that allows me to afford all the stuff I download. I love to physically collect games, films and comics (and hate that digital distribution crap).

[Dy7SLyTq]

technically i dont pirate them ;) my friends do.

[Thumper]

Zereo wrote:

Personally I despise pirating mainly because after programming for a few years I have come to greatly respect how much work goes into Games, Movies, Music, Applications or whatever. And I think they deserve to get profits from their work if they want to.

It's not often the programmers that profit from the game -- they're paid an hourly wage. It's the corporate guys that have enough capital to fund a staff of full-time programmers until the game is complete that make the profits. Piracy is an expected side effect of this kind of thing. I feel like if you're not making any money because of piracy, you're doing something wrong in the first place; namely, your game/program is priced far above what the market deems it worth. So I have no problem with the whole piracy thing. If you're a good company that's developed a good product you'll make your money regardless. Besides, piracy is free PR.

I used to pirate much more games when I was younger and didn't have the means to purchase things on the internet. And I still like to sample my games before I purchase them. And I don't see a problem with that.

[3qX21hU5]

It's not often the programmers that profit from the game -- they're paid an hourly wage. It's the corporate guys that have enough capital to fund a staff of full-time programmers until the game is complete that make the profits

Would them programmers get a hourly wage if their games were all pirated? In order for there to be jobs the company needs to make money or at least be able to make enough to cover costs.

I feel like if you're not making any money because of piracy, you're doing something wrong in the first place;

Maybe, though when I see people complain when everything is going to a free to play model in games with a in game store I kind of just laugh and cry at the same time. A lot of applications/games are moving towards subscription services also to combat piracy. Some of these changes I like and some I don't but you can't deny that piracy is a problem and its not because software developers or management is "Doing something wrong".

Namely, your game/program is priced far above what the market deems it worth.

People pirate $5 and less programs all the time. Take the recent game dev tycoon (Or something like that sorry forgot the name off the top of my head). The game costs somewhere around $7 and their piracy rate was enormous (I believe when they launched it was around 70+ percent, though it could have changed since then). Is that because the product was overpriced? I don't believe so. I think it has more to do with "Why pay anything when I can get it for free so easily".

So I have no problem with the whole piracy thing. If you're a good company that's developed a good product you'll make your money regardless. Besides, piracy is free PR.

Not always many good applications have gone broke and never seen the light of day because of piracy. The ones that are hit the hardest are the start up that can't afford better anti-piracy measures and actually need that money to make it as a company. It is hard to keep pay for development costs yet alone make a profit when half of your Game's/Application's sales are gone because of piracy.

Also that is some PR I hope I never have if I ever release anything.

The fact is piracy is a very big problem specially in the industry that we are in. And to be honest it baffles me that programmers really see no harm in piracy and believe it is ok, but who knows maybe that is just me (I hope not).

[cire]

So I have no problem with the whole piracy thing. If you're a good company that's developed a good product you'll make your money regardless. Besides, piracy is free PR.

After a recent inventory at the retail establishment where I work, it was determined we had 1.4 million dollars of shrink since the last inventory, the bulk of which was due to shoplifting. This is a single store and it was middle-of-the-road for shrinkage in stores in Illinois. This is absorbed in two ways. We pass it on to the customer in the form of increased prices and increasingly restrictive policies for returning targeted merchandise and we decrease bonuses for every employee in the store. We've upped the security budget which will undoubtedly also be passed on to consumers, as well as causing the collective employee bonus to be split among more people.

Clearly shoplifting is not perfectly analogous to software piracy, but if you think piracy doesn't affect the programmers that work on the product, you're mistaken.

[BHX]

No, I sold my pirate ship when I was 9 years old.

Piracy is NOT free PR.

@cire
I disagree, I think shoplifting is a perfect analogy for piracy. Stealing is stealing and the people and companies that made the product are losing money for every copy they don't sell because some one pirated it for free instead.

Let's look at it from an individual standpoint. Let's say one of us made a great detailed RPG or program. We pay $500 out of our own pocket to get a limited number of copies published. They sell them for $20 DVD and you get a percentage of the fee (lets be generous and say half, $10). You sell 10 copies so you get $100 of you $500 back, but end up with over 1000 copies pirated (you just lost $10,000 profit due to pirating it).

Pure and simple, pirating is bad no matter what you try to tell yourself.

[Cheraphy]

I plead the 5th.

No, but actually I pirate games for PC before I buy them. I give my self an hour to decide whether or not I want to buy the game. If not, I delete the crapware. If so, I purchase the game and delete the pirated version.

[LB]

What Cherapy describes is basically what you do when the game has no demo. It actually helps to support sales rather than hurt sales, unless the game is bad.

[Paoletti301]

Larger game companies really need to supply demos, the only thing worse than pirating is someone who pirates to test the game and then thinks it runs poorly because of a bad crack.

for me it really just depends.
ill do movies every so often if theyre old ( no more video rental stores )
music ill do on occasion.

i dont for games any more because i mostly play indies and steam can get so incredibly cheap why bother with the torrent

[Disch]

BHXSpecter wrote:

Pure and simple, pirating is bad no matter what you try to tell yourself.

What if you're a communist?

[Dy7SLyTq]

what if its an evil company and every employee is evil? well actually... i wouldnt download apple ware even then

[firedraco]

I pirate games for the NES/stuff...There were a couple of games for DS that I pirated but the ones I liked I went out and bought.

[devonrevenge]

I did pirate a bit in the past but I don't really need to these days, plus you cant play online easily when it counts.

I would never pirate an indie game, 'tis wrong.

[N36fSL3A]

Yea, pirating an indie game is going to far.

I would get steam if I was old enough. Once I hit 16 I'm going aboard the steam ship.

[maeriden]

i wouldnt download apple ware even then

Xcode is a great IDE though.