Indeed. And my comptempt for the sentiment of thread title (which is the entirety of the OP contribution aside from pasting the Kotaku piece) is orthogonal to my disagreement with the underlying logic, even when strictly applied not to the general category but to the people downloading a pirate copy of this specific software.

We're talking of a digital good, thus the pirates didn't "steal" a resource away from others. What they did is basically paying $0 instead of the minimum (not stated on the donation page, btw, let's assume it was $1).

So we're calling people stupid and scum because they did not donate at least $1 each. What about people who had all the economic resources to pay a fair price of say $5 to $15 and ended up paying only $1? That's $4-$14 each they are denying charity or the indie devs in an exactly equivalent way, and we don't know if their reasons to pay so little are any better than those of people who downloaded the pirated package but did not pay a single cent.

And still, the OP did not start a thread about the statistics of payments, lamenting the cheaper contributors and calling them scum.

What about those like me? I'm not in a terribly good economic state atm, but I can certainly afford to pay another $5-$10 for this specific charity initiative. I didn't - nor did I download the pirated games. Isn't my not donating as bad a behaviour as anyone else's in similar economic constraints, indipendently from receiving a digital copy of a digital good, though?

And again, the OP would probably never start a thread stating that anybody who did not contribute to charity initiative #4523 is scum and stupid.

The point being, once you are in a "pay as much as you want" honor system for a digital good, complaining about those who pay $0 - and don't even tax your download infrastructure - is a weird attitude. The real moral issue being how much people pay opposed to what they think is a fair price and are in the practical conditions to pay, the real economic bottomline being how much you manage to gather in total.

Well since my fricken reply won't work here it goes again

Whoa man. Never said gaming is a necessity. Never said anything about their value of money as compared to yours.

On the other had I rather have a poor man rob me who is trying than a rich man who isn't.

You are not the one to judge whether a person needs something or not and neither am I. Maybe it's because I grew up in the projects and I've witnessed real poverty when I was younger. Some of us used the system correctly to better ourselves and some of them just continued to rot in there. Pirating video games to me was my anti-drug/violence as most of my friends became bangers and drug dealers. It was an escape from reality just like reading books for free from the library. I pay for my stuff now and live well. I earned it and my family earned it.

I know that can be an extreme case but it is plausible. Yes 24.5% or whatever % of these people are despicable assholes who can live without playing a game. Hell I would be glade if every single person with a wad of cash or a fat bank account computers/consoles/TVs/MP3 players devices melted and fused into their skin for stealing/pirating (especially from a charity event). It won't happen though and every person who will pay the ultimate penalty will be the person who can't afford the good lawyer to defend their ass at the end of the day. But each and every one of us is very different and unique with or own stories and struggles.

What of the 75% who did pay. Are they greater for it. Did 100% of that number pay with hard working honest money. See what I did there? Cause everyone who assumes that 75% are better people cause they payed. What about stolen money, drug money and scammed money? What a dirty world we live in. Yet it is all so very beautiful for the fact that this world can be whatever we want it to be.

Maybe I read to much Robin Hood or listened to too much Sublime/Anti-Capitalist music. Or maybe I just played too many video games where you rob the rich and provide to the people/family/yourself. Maybe I witnessed the hardship of my fellow man too much. Maybe you believe no good can come of evil.

There is much gray area when it comes to piracy otherwise it would be illegal to the fullest extent (No downloading programs, torrents or files would float around the internet in mass numbers like they do if it was completely wrong). In this case it is more black cause it is a theft of charity and not of profit.

I can go on for days about this but I really don't want to. I already spent too much time as it is.

Hate to sound harsh but why did you go there when I assumed nothing. The only person who assumed was you. Plain and simple.

You're the one who brought up poor people.  While I didn't grow up in the projects, I grew up on a farm and worked pretty hard for everything I had.  Many of my days started at sun up and there were many days I had already put in a few hours work before going to school.

It's great that you ended up well and I'm always glad to hear about someone who stayed away from drugs, but why should I be proud of you for staying away from one crime by doing another crime?

The only difference from pirating a game is that instead of directly stealing money from someone in your neighborhood, you indirectly stole from a developer who poured blood sweat and tears into that game.  Don't get me wrong, it's great that you're paying for games now (I'll gladly forgive and highly respect people who don't pirate anymore^^), but you're just trying to justify your past actions.

Again, great you are where you are and perhaps pirating games played a part in that, but you still need to admit to yourself even though it helped keep you out of trouble, pirating those games was still wrong.

I also think that methinks I read too many comics lmfao.

Already tho many of you won't see my point. It is sad truth but a truth at that. Not every person who steals anything of any nature is bad. Only a fool and a dishonest man would think so.

I actually don't have a problem that download the game straight through the site for $0, everone can't and shouldn't give to every charity, I'm just astonished that people will actually torrent the games.  So not only are they at the very least denying the developer some advertising money or traffic, but they're also ignoring a charity.

It's just one of those you have to look at the person and just say really?

Reminds me of the quote by William Shakespeare ~ : " There is no good or evil, only thinking makes it so" . 

 

Actually it is fully illegal.

The issue is that the tools the pirate use to get their pirated copies can be used to exchange legal stuff too, ( like information for example), which is the reason those tools have not been banned but are used everywhere. The issue at hand is what useage you make of those tools...

It's illegal to run over a pedestrian with your car. But it's not illegal to drive a car. The question is what you do with it. Same thing with torrent...

The reasons so many do it is mainly the following :

- so many people do it, they feel the odds of them getting caught are small and some of them don't even realize it's not legal because so many are doing it...

Yet it's one case where what the many does isn't going to dictate the law, because if piracy became legal the whole  business of selling software to private customers would just disappear as would a whole chunk of the software industry...

It's illegal to drive over the speed limit too. Yet at one point or another we all have done it , either because we were not paying attention or we were in a hurry and we thought the odds to get caught on that specific road were pretty low to non existant...

You fail to see my point. Also half my comment got cutt off so read the rest please.

Also asumming is different. there are poor people and that is fact. If that doesn't work or compute with you then you have a faulty mind. Also I never said you should be proud of me. I wouldn't take an award or a million dollars from you if you offered it to me with a masters degree. You are an condenceding person who just thinks you are the shit. It is wrong to steal I understand the concept of good and eveil.

What you don't understand is the human race. Your like fricken Spock from Star Trek. No emotion. Only logical data makes sense to you.

broken thread anyone ?