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Forums - Gaming - How much of a pirate are you/have you been?

 

Did you ever pirate games?

sure! 106 43.09%
 
no way! 39 15.85%
 
I even pirated Pirates! 27 10.98%
 
only roms for emulators (... 43 17.48%
 
I don't want to say it a... 16 6.50%
 
I am too rich to actually care 15 6.10%
 
Total:246

When I grew up pirating games was the norm.
I didn't even see games in stores until the ps1 came out. I had no clue where games came from before that, besides from friends, BBS downloads, copy parties, school... Sure my dad bought a few legitimate roms for MSX, yet also brought home pirated copies of pc games from work.

I never bothered with pirating games anymore since I had a job in software development. That kind of changes your perspective :)
Although I guess MAME is pirating too technically. And I do occasionally watch obscures movies on you tube that are impossible to get here.



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I bought about 3000 CDs/LPs, 1000 DVDs/BluRays, 1000 comic books and 1000 games in my life.

I recently stopped buying music, movies or games on physical data. With the exception of the occasional console or handheld game I've gone all digital now (Steam, GOG, Netflix, iTunes, Bandcamp, Beatport etc.). The only media I'll always buy in physical form are comics.

I never pirated anything, with 2 exceptions:
- I once downloaded the excellent OST to Disney's infamous (and pretty bad) scifi movie "The Black Hole" from 1979, as it was not available on CD for ages and as I didn't want to import the expensive Japanese LP version; when it finally became available on iTunes a few years later, I bought it.
- About 2 years ago I downloaded a Sierra-Online adventure game from 1989 - "Conquests of Camelot" - which I never had played before and was curious about; I still haven't played it because I never found out how to install and run the game on my computer.

A few years ago I watched 2 or 3 anime shows on Youtube (Great Teacher Onizuka was one of them), if that counts as pirating.



FragilE^ said:
HOWEVER, I'm still a firm believer that pirating increases sales.
What does OP think about that?

It has tripled my DVD collection, so it works for me.
Much of that was 2nd hand which is still criminal as far as the publishers are concerned, but at least 6 TV series & 3 films are new copies that I definitely wouldn't have bought had I not decided to stream them on a whim. (or in some cases due to IMDB ratings). One of those TV series I actually couldn't physically buy (or stream on Netflix or LoveFilm) when I first 'illegally' streamed it, despite airing in 2003 & a US DVD in 2005 it only just got released here in late 2013.

To answer the OP: I think I have a pirate copy of GTA2 somewhere, and in my youth I tried to download GTAIII through Kazaa. (Probably wasn't legit but I never completed the DL to find out). Can't think of any other games I have ever got illegally.

Films: I do occasionally stream, probably equivalent to 1 every two weeks over the past 3 years, although a few of them were repeat streams... (some of which I should definitely buy as I keep going back to them) and some of them I already owned but didn't want to go get the DVD.

Music: I did get a few (maybe 3-4 dozen tracks) back when I used Kazaa, then didn't really listen to music much till Spotify. I have also ripped a few from Youtube for the odd track not on Spotify (again probably 3-4 dozen)

TV shows: Quite a lot, I am actually keeping track... currently have a list of 79 shows, though many of those are not all the way through as the total available hours for all episodes is almost 3100h, but the hours I have actually watched is just under 2000. (for example I only got 6 episodes into Sanctuary before I quit, or 5 episodes into Fringe, or somehow I lasted 6 episodes into the batshit insane Lexx)
Also a few of those shows were streamed legally (iPlayer, 4oD etc) and as mentioned earlier some I have since bought DVDs, but it's still ~70 shows, ~50 of which I have, or plan to watch all episodes.



walsufnir said:
AlfredoTurkey said:


Oh, and emulators suck... period.


Care to elaborate why they suck? All of them in general or just a few?

They suck because they don't look, sound, function or FEEL like the original game. When I play NES, SNES or Genesis games, I want to play them in the way I played them as a kid and I want them to look, sound and run like the original game. Playing emulators is a different experience from both a technical and aesthetic standpoint. 



The only pirated game I have ever bought was a Mother 3 English Repro cart. That is entirely Nintendo's fault though, because if Mother 3 was localized I would have gladly bought it

Besides that I've played a few emulators in my days, just for consoles I don't have though



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I never paid for a PC game in my life, except VNs cause I want to support them.



walsufnir said:
Tachikoma said:
i download roms for rare games i own that i do not wish to damage with use, if that counts.

Well, depends on what the laws say where you live :)

Laws are there to be broken. 



I've got 100s of mame roms for old arcade games in a cabinet I set up. Don't make much use of them anymore though.



I've downloaded a few Game Boy, GBA, and N64 ROMs over the years. It wasn't always piracy, since I had the actual hardware and games in many cases, but in the case of a couple of games not released in North America, I resorted to piracy.

What was funny is that one of those games was eventually released via digital distribution, at which point I bought it as soon as possible out of some sense of obligation. I have not touched the game since, but felt that it was better to buy the game late than never.



I used to pirate every game that came out. It wasn't even about the games at that point, it was about collecting. I downloaded games, burned them, and then didn't even play them most the time. It wasn't easy either, most of them were donwloaded over a 56k modem. I still have a huge CD binder full of games and I doubt I've even played half of them. I eventually got over that and moved onto DVDs. I got the Netflix 4 at a time plan, got 4 DVD-ROMs in my tower, and I'd rip all 4 movies overnight and send them back the next day. I still have a hard drive full of perfectly ripped DVDs, and to this day I don't think I've watched a single one. I like collecting I guess.

These days I'd say I'm about 50/50 legal/illegal, but I only download what I want now.