By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
cleveland124 on 02 October 2008
Edit Thread
Picko said:

One thing piracy does do is lower prices, via creating competition. I'm not saying whether it is ethical or not but economically thats an effect of piracy.

Piracy doesn't lower prices.  It is not competition.  You cannot compete with free.  There was a gamer in this thread that thought you should pay $5 for a brand new retail version of MGS4.  LOL.  That's what happens is what price competes with free?  In the end none do.  People pirate because they don't want to pay the money.  What piracy does lead to is increased prices because the consumer pool shrinks and evasive DRM to prevent people from pirating software. 

 

I don't pirate games or anything else, but that various industry lobby groups have, through their long running PR campaigns, convinced a sizable portion of the public that piracy is stealing pisses me off. Piracy is not stealing. Stealing/theft involves taking property from its rightful owner. Piracy is copyright infringement. Copyright infringement involves not paying royalties due for utilizing a protected IP.

In all but the smallest cases theft is a criminal matter that carries the threat of jail time. In all but the largest cases copyright infringement is a civil matter.

You say tomatoe I say tomatoe.  It doesn't really matter whether you think it's stealing or not.  The current verbage is that it is stealing due to the companies loss of the ability to use their IPs in the way they deem fit and the loss of future profits.  Your last sentence is a moot point.  Within 5 years people will be serving time for piracy. 

The bolded parts are flat-out lies. The Wii was hacked right around launch and modchips are widely available. DS games are very easy to pirate. The cards themselves can be used by basically anyone, and depending on where you live, you can buy them locally. Even if not there are multiple reliable websites in canada I could buy from and have a card by next week.

It took a few years for there to be a no-swap modchip for the ps2 (to play copied dvd and cd games) and it was an insanely hard install. Compare this to the first modchip available for the wii which was available shortly after launch had about 6 solder points and was absurdly easy to install. The newer Wii's are somewhat harder but still easy as pie compared to the 20+ wire installs needed for self-booting copied games in the midst of the ps2's life

Thanks for proving my point.  PS2 wasn't easy to mod for three years.  Xbox (easily piratable) and gamecube were dead in the water by then.  I.E.  Piracy does not lead to market domination. 

And honestly, even if they sold Wii mod chips at best buy 99% of the people with a Wii would not open up their Wii and solder this chip to the system.  I.E.  Wii was easy for you to MOD, not easy for the 30 M of the Wii's customer base.  Not the reason the Wii is leading. 

However, despite people stealing many companies manage to make a profit.  Pirates will steal no matter what. 

No they won't.  What you'll see is ever increasing invasive DRM until it is impossible to pirate.  Then they'll purchase games like most other people.  I've skipped meals before to save up for games.  Pirates would find a way to play games.  Just not as much as they otherwise would have played.

Piracy would not be an issue if greedy corporations did not over charge consumers. People who tend to pirate software are those who can not afford to pay ridiculously high prices.

70% of software loses money at current prices.  Electronic Arts lost $95 M in the second quarter on sales revenue that doubled from the prior year.  You think it's a rediculuos price but nobody is making any money. 

For all you people that do say pirating = used games.

1.  Their is a very big difference.  Regardless if you think they are the same, the law is black and white, buying used games = legal, pirating games = illegal. 

2.  Used games overcome all issues brought up during piracy. 

a.  You can try out a game for a short period of time for a fee.  Thus you don't have to be stuck with a high price dud.

b.  You can pay less for a game than the retail price if you believe the retail price is the market price of that game.

However, people will still not use these things because piracy is free.  Again we see piracy is not competition.

3.  Used games make publishers a ton of money.  Piracy does not.  Blockbuster has over 8,000 stores.  If they buy 3+ copies of a game those sales are huge.  Plus as someone mentioned they pay more than $50 a title and have to buy a special licence to rent.  Obviously their are a ton of other rental places too.  For big releases, it would be easy to grab over 100,000 in sales just to rental places.  Plus it gives your customers a legal way to try the game leading to a full price purchase.  Their is no reason for a pirater to pay full price for a game because they receive all benefits immediately.