You're not using quotes right, makes it hard to respond
I do in fact, have evidence - in the form of EA's consumer voted title of worst company in america 2 years running by online poll. Note; I don't like EA at. All. But, they are not the worst company in america; simply by the magnitude and scope of their effect on consumers as a whole. Comcast, aggressively pushing Net Neutrality, or Bank of America, are MUCH larger detriments to the economy and consumer's rights than EA. BUT - because of the commonality of *blaming* EA by gamers (and you can't honestly say you haven't seen this extremely widespread trend of bashing EA online.) and demonizing them, - they were elected online - as 'the worst company in america'.
I disagree with a lot of this, but it's not relevant to your claim (see below), so I'm not going to argue it.
Having established this, as a recognizable demographic online (being gamers, because what do gardeners or non gaming anime enthusiasts have against them) blaming EA, we can easily link the two, since I don't know who besides gamers, pirates games.
That isn't logically valid.
You're saying that the people who dislike EA are pirates because pirates are gamers and the people who dislike EA are gamers. But gamers are a diverse group of people, not a single, like-minded herd of cows. Nothing you've said so far supports your claim that these two groups, gamers who dislike EA and gamers who pirate games, have a lot (or any) of the same people in them.
In other words, there are gamers who pirate games and there are gamers who dislike EA. But why do you think that those two groups are the same people?
There are also gamers who
like EA, but that doesn't necessarily mean they pirate games. There are also people who don't pirate games and who still dislike EA.
I may not understand your phrasing very well, but I don't know under what circumstance, acquiring a game other people invested their own time and finances in creating doesn't warrant your paying for it, when they ask for compensation for their efforts in creating the game. Are you trying to say game developers just shouldn't get payed for their work, unless it's a CoD knockoff title, that people who actually pay for games purchase legitimately? Then I'll tell ya what, you're asking devs to make more CoD clones. It's not wether or not pirates 'would otherwise be paying customers" - it's the fact that they aren't. My evidence is simply that the pirates acquire the game in the first place. If they get the product OF THESE GAMES, why are they not paying for it, and supporting the people who created the game for them? It's an awfully entitled, selfish action. That's where the disconnect happens. They should be paying for getting something. And by refusing to do they, the deny support to things they verbally support, without backing.
I thought what I said was pretty clear, but you misunderstood it, so I'll restate it.
Why do you think that pirates would pay for games if piracy was not available?
To expand, there are many reasons why people might pirate a game. They might want to just try it to see if they are interested, they may not have the money to buy new games every month, they may not be in a country where they are able to legally purchase games (China, maybe?), or they may just want to share the software with others but not play it themselves (for instance, to boost stats on a torrent website that tracks how much you share with others). There are probably other reasons I can't think of, too (I usually go to bed about half an hour ago and I'm tired).
I do indeed. For a quick laugh, and accurate example of this, take game developer "Greenheart Games" piracy easter egg, which appears in a cracked version of the game, Greenheart themselves released for free to torrent.
https://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/...use-of-piracy/
Basically, they released a pirated version of their own game - which ironically, is a game about being a game developer. Buuuut, in the cracked / pirated version, you have to deal with the added factor of pirates. SO - while you at first met with success as a small time developer, developing from your garage, the more and more success you gain, the more people pirate your game. So while it first you invested a small amount of resources, for a fair market increase, and a fair profit, once you became so big as a company, you could invest lets say 12 million dollars in a game's creation and development. It would sell x million copies, and profit only 10 million, because of x million getting pirated. The more and more you invested, the more hype the game got, and better reviews, the more it was pirated due to popularity. The pirates would eventually siphon your companies resources lower and lower, because you could spend big bucks to make a triple A title, that would get rated very well - but fail to turn profit, due to Piracy.
Deliciously ironic when pirates of the game failed to recognize it as a clever joke, and posted questions about "How to beat pirates" on Greenhearts forums xD Their most common response? "Oh, sorry you - you can't beat pirates. You may not have had to deal with them under different circumstances though. Good luck and thanks for playing!"
That just shows that people
did pirate the game. That doesn't show that a lot of them did, or that if they weren't able to pirate the game, they would significantly boost sales. As far as I know, that game did just fine sales-wise.
[/quote]Oh of course they're not, no group is like that.[/quote]
That's what I meant by #1 to begin with. You said that the people who dislike EA and CoD and such are also ripping games and such. But why do you think those are all the same people? There are a LOT of PC gamers, millions at least. There are many people who dislike EA and CoD who have never pirated a game in their life, and there are many people who pirate games all the time and like EA and CoD (and probably pirate EA games and CoD when they can).
But you would be sorely mistaken if you were under the impression piracy was even 10% as prevalent in Console markets as it was in PC.
I never said anything about consoles.
I believe multiple developers and heads of studios have stated it, from Torchlight's creators to Valve's own Gaben. "You can't beat pirates. You can't and you won't." Which I agree with. There won't be a completely failsafe way to stop pirates, I can see anywhere within the near future. The only way piracy would stop, is if the people committing it, decided to stop. But I have a sad suspicion; that will not happen. And what you say about college students being a huge demographic, but also a very underfunded one is true. But y'know what? Maybe, and hear me out on this - because I know it sounds crazy, but maybe... If you can't afford it... just don't get it? Maybe... you don't NEED it enough to pirate it? Or hey even crazier, haaha. Find a way to pick up some extra work and make some extra money. You're a liar and a sloth if you honestly claim that you never have a single week go by where you don't have a few hours free time. And you know what 60 dollars is? Mowing like... 3 or 4 people's lawns. And if you really can't work, for some medical or phsychological reason, (god bless you) maybe playing the newest video games out shouldn't be your highest priority in life aye?
What I was getting at here was that there are other reasons why people might pirate a game than just getting a product for free that they would have had to pay for otherwise. College students was an example, and I'm not one (I graduated with my BoS in computer science in December 2012). If you want to preach to someone, you'll have to preach to them. The fact is, though, the stuff is available and they're on a budget; it's pretty obvious what most of them are going to do. All I'm saying is that if piracy didn't exist, they'd probably just not get it like you said. It wouldn't necessarily mean the game would get a lot more sales.
