@Valknut,

Uh...depends? I'm cheap when it comes to a few things...I wait for good deals.   There are far worse things than being called "cheap."  I mean...you're fucking paying $0 for a game, that's cheap, that's all there is to it.

Do you really feel right in paying absolutely nothing for videogames and other entertainment though?

I mean, it costs them money to make that stuff, even if you think they don't deserve all that money, you're just going to pay NOTHING for it?

If you can sleep well at night with that, whatever. Perhaps I just think if I'm on a limited budget (which I am, paying off student loans, a car, college tuition, just bought books), maybe my priorities shouldn't be on videogames currently.  If I'm that strapped for cash I'll just keep saving up and buy games less often.  I don't feel that gives me the right to pay $0 for games when others pay $50.  That doesn't make any sense.

Maybe getting a job that pays more than minimum wage is a start. If you're too broke that you can't drop $50 every other week (a busy gaming schedule I would say), then I'd say you need a better paying job...

School eh. Well school is about 7000$ in expenses every year, my 3 kids are around about 3000$ every month. food bills house car gas, my job isnt minimum wage, that was more of an example. I live in the Northwest territories, and my job pays around 28$ an hour and I work 80 hours a week. You do the math. Yes i think its fair i pay 0$ for a game for my kids, a game up here costs roughly 100- 120$, everythig must be air lifted in, and Fedex doesnt exsist here. The internet however does.

My kids live 4.2 miles from anyother family out here, they have a 4 hour drive to school every week where everyone stays until thursday, when they come home they do homework chores then they can do w/e they feel like. kids need fun, fun didnt cost 120$ when I was young, but it does now. Its not that i wouldnt pay 40$ like the average guy, but I know what games cost, how long they last, whats good and whats bad. No game thats ever been made is worth 120$ or more in my eyes.

If they want to give me an option for free or paying, they shouldnt trust the morals of man. Pretty sure even the bible mentions something about that, I guess I agree with it on something.

You will never understand the truth unless you put yourself into others people's shoes... Do you come from a country where engineers make 150 dollars a month (for 50 hours a week)??
It's so easy to use your set of morals to judge people that live in a different reality: BURN the bastard who stole a loaf of bread to feed his children!! why is he so cheap that he couldn't just PAY for it!??

Don't be a damned crybaby, Valknut. Sure I pay half as much as you do for a video game, and have far less expenses, but then again I don't make even a third of what you do right now. I buy more video games than I have the time to play (a quirk of mine) and I buy most of them new (another quirk), so unless you buy a lot more games than you're implying, it's not a matter of can't but won't.

By the way, what precisely did you mean by "if they want to give me an option for free or paying"? I'm fairly sure that none of us are talking about shareware here.

I have a PC, two laptops, PSP, etc. and I can tell you with hand on heart I have nothing, zero, nada, that is pirated - no music, no video, nothing...

I just don't like the idea of not paying for something (strange I know) that others have worked on and rely on sales of to earn their wages.  I'm not really thinking the big earners (would Michael George or Madonna miss the money?) so much as the fact that lots of average joes are involved in CD production, etc.

I will admit I can pretty much afford any games, video, etc. I want so that may be a factor - not sure I'd be so pure if my funds were limited enough to prevent me buying what I want when I want it.

Agree on the movie comment by the way - Movies are insulated by other means but their cost (a big action title) is way beyond games currently - for example I understand Quantum of Solace has a budget of around $200 M which is more than most big games (guess Bond is going to be blowing up a lot of shit this time around).

^Yes, but then again; you're Reasonable!
Money is a factor here for sure, and many people just can't afford to purchase media all the time and certainly not whenever and whatever they want.
I think I've bought 3-400 games in my life, several hundred CD's and a few hundred DVD's so I feel I have contributed to the industry as well.
The primary pirated thing for me is probably TV shows from overseas, the simple reason being; here in Norway we don't get them in HD and we get them roughly a year later, which sucks!

I think everyone in the thread could agree that we don't want the gaming industry to go bankrupt (as if, anyways) and that we do not condone piracy, but I think it is high time we stopped using the senseless analogies (the bread and shit and the car I mentioned) and stopped acting as if we don't leave muddy tracks ourselves (i.e; get other pirated media).
If we go by the "piracy is stealing" that some of the most eager users in here claim holds true then you are all criminals simply for having pirated music, movies, TV shows etc and really have no reason or right to complain about other people's gaming piracy.
A man who steals just a little, is after all, just as guilty of theft as one who steals a lot. So if you want to truly make a difference, set an example and fight the general attitude towards piracy, start with yours and get rid of all pirated things you own, and then I'll consider taking your arguments to heart.

PS: Good for you Reasonable, if you have the dough and stick with buying your media, hats off to you sir!

Mummelmann said: ^Yes, but then again; you're Reasonable! Money is a factor here for sure, and many people just can't afford to purchase media all the time and certainly not whenever and whatever they want. I think I've bought 3-400 games in my life, several hundred CD's and a few hundred DVD's so I feel I have contributed to the industry as well. The primary pirated thing for me is probably TV shows from overseas, the simple reason being; here in Norway we don't get them in HD and we get them roughly a year later, which sucks! I think everyone in the thread could agree that we don't want the gaming industry to go bankrupt (as if, anyways) and that we do not condone piracy, but I think it is high time we stopped using the senseless analogies (the bread and shit and the car I mentioned) and stopped acting as if we don't leave muddy tracks ourselves (i.e; get other pirated media). If we go by the "piracy is stealing" that some of the most eager users in here claim holds true then you are all criminals simply for having pirated music, movies, TV shows etc and really have no reason or right to complain about other people's gaming piracy. A man who steals just a little, is after all, just as guilty of theft as one who steals a lot. So if you want to truly make a difference, set an example and fight the general attitude towards piracy, start with yours and get rid of all pirated things you own, and then I'll consider taking your arguments to heart. PS: Good for you Reasonable, if you have the dough and stick with buying your media, hats off to you sir!

Thank you sir!  Funnily enough if something did tempt me to piracy it would be a) DRM and b) not having the content made available to me in the first place.

My reasoning:

a) I want the right to use my content (which I will of course pay for) anywhere I want.  I refuse to buy from Apple because the damn music only plays on iPods - well, I have one of those, but I also have my PC, 2 laptops, PSP and PS3 where I want to play the same music (not to mention my CD player!).  While I will pay for content I'm not going to pay for it more than once just to play it on another device - to me that would be like having to buy a CD for my car CD, another for the one in my living room and another for the one in my kitchen.  So for music I only buy CDs, rip them, then put the content where I want.  I also rip some movies to put on my PSP and PC.  The industries lack of understanding here (or greed to try and sell us the same thing in multiple packages) does sometimes tempt me to take the easy route and save myself the hassle of converting stuff myself.  I was thinking of getting PlayTV for example, until I learnt that I can't put the content on my PSP (remote play is no good when you're in a place at 37,000 feet!).

b) this is simple, and I can understand you grabbing TV shows, etc.  If you want to sell something you need to make it available.  D'uh.  If you don't and people do want to buy it then you've just created the perfect vacumn to justify piracy.  I've been patiently waiting for Star Tek on BR in HD and if they don't give it to me soon then again thoughts of just grabbing the damn thing of the internet will surface in my mind.

I don't pirate, but they do make it hard not to sometimes...

Some of these analogies are whack.

All I gotta say is
1. Most consumers are too inconvenienced by pirating. Yes they don't have to pay. Though the counter argument is that they have to apply software or take apart machines. For the average person this is a pain in the rear. The fact that companies still make money in the face of easy pirating is due to personal ethics, lazy, tech savvy. If any of these are questioned then they buy it. The number of piraters in a stable economy is very small compared to the buyers. Again that's why PC development is going strong.

2. I will agree with many. Number of copies != sales.

Your ignoring my posts in the thread.  If you created an important document or program. The correct way to get paid from it would be via advertising of via selling it to a company willing to pay you large amount of money for it.

The problem with making laws based on potential sales is just that.  It's judy potential.

You can't prove potential really prove poetnetial.

Furthermore plenty of things cause lost sales.

Renting the product, borrowing it from a friend, getting it for free from someone, buying something completely different.

Not everything morally wrong should be illegal.  Piracy laws are random.

Piracy is wrong... but the laws against it are mostly laws made to support a buisness model that just isn't going to be able to exist as computer connectivity gets larger.  If piracy is such a big problem anwyay.

Not saying it's right... but that it's going to happen period.

Intellectual propery right laws in general are mostly bs.  One look at the screwed up patent system can show you that.

I think the differnce between counterfitting and nonprofit counterfitting is that money are basically government documents.