Which is moraly (not legaly) worse? Secondhand _ Pirating _ Renting_Lending

[ZenfoldorVGI]

vlad321 said:

ZenfoldorVGI said:

aher052 said:
I mean if the person was never gonna pay 80 bucks for a game and they pirate it, the dev doesnt actually lose anything because if they were not able to pirate it then they would have never bought the game....so in a way to those people who pirate it is better for the dev that they do pirate that game because if they get into it they will tell their friends etc and can even buy DLC or buy the next installment so the dev makes money....better that than nothing

If you're not going to buy it, you shouldn't get to own it for free. How's that for obvious morality? Maybe if they couldn't pirate those games they might have to buy them once in a while. Saying "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" isn't a valid argument, because we don't live in a world where piracy doesn't exist. If it didn't, who knows what you would have bought? Your game library would be much smaller, and you might be more open to game purchases. Again, without money changing hands, you are a leech to the industry. You don't stimulate its economy. You are a gamer, but contribute nothing to gaming. Without people to contribute, there would be no gaming. Pirates take for free what they haven't paid for. Used gamers always pay for their games, and that stimulates the gaming economy and benefits the developers indirectly.

If you guys are still arguing over this, I suggest you read my first post.

The only indirect benefit is because it gives money to middlemen. Any industry is better off without a middlemen, in fact if I can help the middle man go bankrupt I gladly will and anything that helps out the middleman isn't a god thing. As I siad, Valve is a shining example of an independent developer not in need of middlemen, hence with their games the second hand market is as useless as the pircy market. At least for their games.

That's a flawed argument. Your opinion of what you consider "middlemen" has nothing to do with this conversation, and claiming they have no use, is ignorance Vlad.

Without middlemen, we would have no small business. Everyone would buy everything from the manufacturer. Truth is, without middlemen, nobody would ever buy anything from anyone. The developer isn't equipped to distrubute their games. By your logic, Amazon and Walmart should shut their doors, because they are middlemen. It's ignorant, and if we did do away with the middlemen, we would have no jobs, no games, and no economy. Period. It shows a basic misunderstanding of how the economy needs to work. "Middlemen" benefit everyone, even the developer and especially the customer. It's such a fallacy to demonize them.

Anyway, again, your opinion doesn't matter. Those retailers are part of the industry, and wheather you think they deserve to profit from the industry they are a part of, or not, they certainly do profit from used games, but they don't from piracy.

Thus, the flaw.

I show you the obvious difference between piracy and used games sales, being used games sales are sanctioned and benefitting to the video game industry, and you tell me "that part of the industry is stupid."

WTF do you think Steam is? You think they just sell Valve games? It's a middleman in a different form.

Just give it up bro. There is no getting around the fact that with used games, or rentals, money changes hands, and with piracy it doesn't. With used games, you always pay for your game, and that money goes into the economy. With piracy, you pay nothing, and there is no money.

That's it. There is no need to just keep beating a dead horse when you can never get around that fact. It's real, and it's true. You don't want it to mean as much as it does, but really, it means everything.