Piracy is no Party

[Palamon]

Seeing that Mario Party anti piracy screen meme going around the internet, this got me wondering.

What is your opinion on video game piracy?

 

[Momoro]

I find it to be very dishonest, no matter what. Even if it's an old game like Firered which isn't sold anywhere except stores like GameStop and online retailers like eBay, it's still piracy, and you're breaking the law.

*not you, Palamon (I hope so..), but the general "you".

 

[pkmin3033]

I think that to some extent piracy is the product of a greedy and complacent industry that shows no respect for its consumers or its content, and in these cases it's not only acceptable, it's the only way gaming content should be experienced. It is more than OK to pirate old video games that are not easily available on systems from at least the last two console generations.

I mean, is it really acceptable for companies to sit on old titles and do absolutely nothing with them? Why should someone be forced to pay obscene prices for a product that could easily be made accessible to them with minimal effort? I recognise it may be due to licensing issues or localisation that hasn't aged well that some products may be held back, but that's red tape for them to worry about. I would argue that a company has a responsibility to make its legacy content easily accessible if it is to have any claim over our money and that in cases where it hasn't, piracy is perfectly acceptable. Looking at you, Nintendo. Sitting on your decades of legacy content and doing absolutely nothing, drip feeding us the same titles repeatedly over years with your eShop and online services when there is no need for it, withholding titles for absolutely no reason whatsoever (look at when they released Pokemon Snap on the Wii U!) and then having the audacity to take down ROM sites that do what you don't by making it all accessible.

Nobody but the private seller profits from the sale of an old Nintendo title that isn't available on any other console. So why would piracy not be acceptable in this case? Should people just go without because they weren't priveleged enough to be around or secure a copy at release, and aren't stupid or rich enough to pay five times or more the original retail value? Scalping might not be technically illegal, but I don't think it is any more immoral than piracy...in fact, I would argue that it's worse. If you want a visible, relevant example of scalping being a harmful thing, look at what is going on with supplies of the PS5 and Xbox Series X right now - that happens to old games not available anywhere else all the time, Nintendo products especially. Companies are all too quick to claim that piracy is bad, but they do nothing about scalpers taking advantage of scarcity that they themselves created, even though they in no way make any profit from such transactions. Hypocrisy at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. Once they get their money, that's all they care about.

I know the argument that free is more enticing than any monetary sum, but that's honestly irrelevant and excusatory because you will ALWAYS get people like that no matter what you do. Plenty of people will pay for legacy content rather than pirate it because it's more convenient to have it all in one place, they want to support the industry, and so on. Just because some people will always resort to piracy doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything at all. If you refuse to make your content available, you have absolutely no right to complain when people have to resort to piracy to experience it - companies have nobody to blame but themselves for this. If they want to take active steps to stop piracy by making their older games available - either through a Netflix-style approach like Game Pass/NSO or remaking/re-releasing them - then yes, I would advocate that piracy is a bad thing that harms the industry. But if it isn't available otherwise? Go for it.

Note that my post only applies to old video games, although considering the outrageous price Sony are charging for next generation titles for no justifiable reason, I am beginning to question whether or not it's acceptable to pirate newer games as well. Poor people deserve to have fun as well.

 

[Megan]

Piracy is a service problem.

If it's easier for people to get the games legally then they'll stop getting them illegally. However, that's not done by going after those offering pirated copies: cut off a Hydra's head...

 

[Momoro]

Eh..

1) Even if the companies started to sell older video games again, people would still be going after the pirated copies to save themselves a couple of dollars.

2) No matter what, even if a company or service isn't selling a video game anymore (e.g. it's an old game), you shouldn't pirate it. At all. Most likely the game is already being sold on a site like eBay.

Those are my thoughts.. 🙂

 

[Arcaneum]

Eh..

1) Even if the companies started to sell older video games again, people would still be going after the pirated copies to save themselves a couple of dollars.

2) No matter what, even if a company or service isn't selling a video game anymore (e.g. it's an old game), you shouldn't pirate it. At all. Most likely the game is already being sold on a site like eBay.

Those are my thoughts.. 🙂

1) Of course they will, piracy is so ingrained into the market nowadays you will inevitably get people that do it, but I feel numbers would drastically cut if these older titles were made more available.

2) The issue here is that yes, ultimately you shouldn't as it's illegal. However, I don't think it's fair to bar that service from people who couldn't have obtained them at the time either. Also in terms of finding one to sell, two things:

- Good luck finding a working copy in the first place.
- Good luck not having someone sell it for obscene amounts of money, because they know how rare it is.

Like, it sucks but I can totally see why people do it.

 

[Palamon]

I'm honestly, for the most part, against (video game) piracy. I will always buy video game legitamately. But, I know people are going to pirate games anyway, and I can't do anything to stop people, sadly...

 

[Starlight]

Game piracy is something that I don't do... except... I can't say I never have.

Would I pirate a recent gen game? Not gonna happen. Support the devs peeps. I do however "pirate" for convenience.

I'll use pokemon as an example. I have every pre switch pokemon game on my 3DS. The ones available to buy digitally, I bought. The ones not available to buy digitally, I didn't. I do however own all the cartridges.

Aside from the convenience factor, as others have said, there is a service problem. Music streaming virtually ended music piracy. The video games industry needs to dissect that, and see what it can learn. The more inaccessible they make content, the more likely it will be pirated.

 

[Roni]

Piracy is a service problem.

If it's easier for people to get the games legally then they'll stop getting them illegally. However, that's not done by going after those offering pirated copies: cut off a Hydra's head...

yeah. look at how movie piracy dropped a bit when netflix first came to the mainstream, ramping back up as soon as a flurry of new streaming services popped up and took a lot of shows from them to have as exclusives. for a good chunk of people, they pirate is just because they want their media easier.

another good chunk of people pirate literally just because they're poor, and can't access it otherwise. i personally am struggling while paying for just the internet bill with my salary. for others who aren't as lucky as me that gets to live in their parents' place for an extended period of time, they literally don't have spending power for anything other than the bare essentials (housing, food, etc.). not even by choice, but because of a sh*tty life environment. i don't want them to be barred from playing games/watching shows/using programs they want over something they can't control. their lives are already awful as is.

it's hard to even consider it stealing because... it's a software that can be downloaded an infinite amount of times. the company's not gonna "run out" of this piece of media because lots of people downloaded it without paying.

"anti-consumer" is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days. piracy is the complete opposite to that. "anti-corporate" is what i like to call it (i only pirate from large rich corporate brands/companies so that's why i feel comfortable with this term).

 

[Duck]

A thing brought up in this thread is "piracy is illegal, therefore you shouldn't do it" which is an iffy argument at best. For example, it's illegal in the state of Connecticut to hum a tune while cutting someone's hair, but I don't think anyone would seriously argue that's an unethical thing to do.

Things get (de)criminalized all the time, they don't become magically OK / bad to do after that.

Now, as for the ethics of piracy itself.

I do think that buying the game is ideal, specially if the game is made by small indie devs who need the support - those I'm really not in favor of pirating - but, specially in third world countries, that's not always possible.

As a quick example, a quick look at Nintendo's website shows that a Switch Lite sells for 200 dollars. In my country, a Switch Lite is selling for the equivalent price of 442 dollars. In a country with a lower standard of living.

Back when the 3DS was the latest console for Pokémon, I bought Pokémon X, Alpha Sapphire and Pokémon Sun. They were bought for about 46 2020-dollars, if we consider purchase-day-dollars that price would increase to 101 dollars for X (which I bought a launch day). I don't remember when I bought Alpha Sapphire and Sun per se but the price was probably around 69 dollars.

The point is, games can be ridiculously expensive and entertainment is a human need. I understand why people pirate, and I wish they could pay for the games but that isn't always the case.

And even then, pirating can end up as net win for the company - if I never pirated RSE, I never would have bought two Nintendo handhelds, three Pokémon games, and an assorted gaggle of other games for these handhelds.

Older games - the ones that can easily be emulated - are often entry points to the series for a lot of people in poorer situations, and can make lifelong fans. It can also lead people to lifelong hobbies - a lot of people in this very forum only started to do digital art, writing, or programming because of rom hacking, which is done primarily via piracy.

Finally, while it's not my case in particular, I have friends that use piracy as a way to test the game when there isn't a demo available - or they think the demo wasn't enough to see if they'd like the game or not. If they like the game enough, they pay for it later. So there's also that, piracy as a way to allow consumers to make informed decisions instead of falling for marketing.

 

[Quto]

.... Anyone who reads my topic list of obscure games knows I don't really talk about pirating games with a fistful of exceptions, though in retrospect; I support it... to certain extent's.

von Sternen above me brings up better points than I would ever write. Though for a fella here who enjoys looking for obscure titles, I'm happy we have it. Game's no longer supported by developers that can barely be obtainable becomes difficult for folks like me to track down to relive and talk about them. Fur Fighter's being one of them.

I know most folks may give me the odd look when I talk about Fur Fighters and mostly ignore me when they know it's a basic 3rd Person Shooter with each fighter having special abilities from climbing to gliding to teleporting; however, in the final months of 2020, I found a group on Discord referred to as 'Fur Fighters Village' who play this thing for fun and have been desperately attempting to get it's PC port back online to do multiplayer again. However, the game run's on it's own engine there is no documentation for, using older libraries most of us don't know how it interacts with the game, screen size problems if you run a Raedeon card to where it skewers the 3D models like Swiss Cheese and Playdoh, missing content and updates we could update ourselves from it's PS2 port which includes voice acting and texture updates and finally some TLC needed for some levels in this same port where newer machines cause issues.

I tried tracking down, and contacting Muffin-Games; the folks who worked on the I-phone port to see if we could get some insights or an idea of what we could do; and there has been no response. So; I've been at a loss how to help or contribute. Especially since they don't really have a digital copy for this title... Which, I found my own work-around how to create one, using my own physical PC copy of the game, a program t o rip and burn images and a 2GB USB. I know that doing the work-around would be technically a form of piracy, but if the developers are defunct and don't care, and newer machine manufactor's are abandoning physical mediums to EMBRACE THE PLATINUM DIAMOND AGE THAT IS DIGITAL FOR ALLZ, where they focus on making laptops and computers more internet focused to send data to make use of gaming as a 'service' and not as a product yourself can own on your own terms; someone at the other end of the market has to pick up the ball.

I also know there are companies who have benefited from Piracy, far more stories of how piracy benefited all of them than hurt them; though in an attempt to protect their property, they defend themselves to shut it all down.... Though I don't know how much I can say without fear of being banned or silenced, so I'm halting here.

 

[gimmepie]

I hold the same opinion as the majority here, piracy is a service issue. I don't particularly agree with pirating current releases, especially those of small indie games, although I certainly understand the temptation given how much a game can cost. However, it's just straight up impossible to get your hands on some games through legal channels without paying a ridiculously inflated price for a physical copy that may or may not still work. I'm not going to condemn people for choosing to pirate a 10-year-old game that is borderline impossible to get otherwise, especially when there's no way that product is actively making the creators money now anyway.

 

[Soaring Sid]

The point is, games can be ridiculously expensive and entertainment is a human need. I understand why people pirate, and I wish they could pay for the games but that isn't always the case.

And even then, pirating can end up as net win for the company - if I never pirated RSE, I never would have bought two Nintendo handhelds, three Pokémon games, and an assorted gaggle of other games for these handhelds.

Ah I was about to make this point. Where I'm at, Xenoblade Chronicles for the 3DS was as costly as the 3DS itself, so I couldn't buy it for a long time.

Upon that, my parents wouldn't ballow me to spend above a certain amount on video games, and 3DS games don't come in that price range...

I think people also pirate due to a lack of acceptance from close ones. Unless you're financially independent and others do not understand how much fun something you enjoy can be, piracy becomes one of the only options.

I and two other friends bought one Pokemon game for the 3DS, that is ine bought X, one bought OR, and I bought Sun. We weren't going to get the next game anytime soon, so we traded each other's games, reset their save files and played again.

Even software like Pokémon bank now requires actual money. If it wouldn't, I'd have stored my shiny there and reset the game but things didn't go that way.

I like the point you make about buying handhelds because you pirated RSE. I had a similar experience, and that's an interesting perspective indeed .

 

[Zeostar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ju_10NkGY

 

[Soaring Sid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ju_10NkGY

Loved it. Somehow I never heard of the show

 

[Flowerchild]

What Dawn said about old Nintendo titles. I've downloaded many a ROM in my time, although it's getting harder as they crack down this. I needed a FireRed ROM recently and I actually found it easier to install the decompiled code and run the build process to generate my own copy, rather than sift through the download sites that remain.

As for "modern" games, I think the only one I ever pirated was like... COD WW2 as a kid and it was already ancient by then. I don't really have a moral objection to people who do pirate AAA games though. I'd never support pirating an indie game, but I can't bring myself to care one bit about some massive publisher losing out on $60. Corporations aint your friends.

 

[Sydian]

i don't really see an issue with pirating old games, especially those that are expensive, hard to come by, or did not even come out in your country in the first place. and then there could be a case made for like. if you downloaded a game despite already owning it. that's where i try to stay in my lane. if i already own the game, but i want to stream it or record it and i don't have the means to do so and it's far easier to just download it and emulate it on a computer and go from there. i used to have stronger feelings on the matter, but nowadays i'm like. eh. however, i don't agree with pirating newer games or indie games. that's gross. but old games i'm like...whatever. bc some companies like nintendo don't make them readily available and then it becomes a game preservation problem.

fwiw i personally only download roms to games i already own, or to patch and play a hack.