I find the passionate hate many u.s games seem to hold against piracy quite perplexing. For one I think almost all of you have pirated one thing or another in your life whether it be music or even a photograph. But when it comes to vg piracy many of you get your panties in a bunch. We are talking multi million, in cases billion dollar coorporations here. If the game only makes 50 instead of 70 million in revenue is that really such an evil thing? Afterall I don't think the CEO's of these companies are begging for money on street corners and having a difficult time making ends meet. Is it really such a question of morale integrity when talking about a few extra bucks filthy rich multinationals maybe losing out on, or does everyone here happen to be a part of that upper 5% corporate elite?

Well, if they don't have anything to blame for their shoddy job as CEO...

Your arguments fail.

The rich CEO's etc. are not the only people involved in video game production. They aren't directly hurt by piracy, but some people are. The ones who make a fraction of a penny for each dollar a CEO makes DO get hurt.

If there are financial losses, a company will be more likely to cut the little guy than reduce the executives' salaries.

These companies depend on their income to produce future games. They need income to make good games. Not everyone is EA and has millions of dollars to lose.

Also, consider this: Pirates are generally more likely to pirate games that appeal to them. These are usually hardcore-type games that don't sell as well as casual games. By promoting piracy, you are, in fact, encouraging companies to make games you don't like, because it's more profitable.

CEO's aren't majorly affected... but regular developers... have their salaries notably affacted by piracy.

Ask twesterm. I remember him talking about that.

That would make sense with small scale gamesike Braid struggling to break even. But even with games such as Spore which are guaranteed to sell millions of copies despite piracy and make hundreds of millions of dollars in pure profit many gamers become "overly" offended at the notion that some people may pirate these games. These are games where we are talking a few hundred million PROFIT in a matter of months, so if piracy holds back, say, another 10-15 million is that really a deal breaker for a company already swimming in profits?

It doesn't matter.  People who pirate, pirate everything.  They don't just get games by EA or Activision.  When you know how to pirate and are in the habit of doing so, it becomes so much easier to just download something than to pay for it.  All piracy is bad, because it will affect the gaming industry as a whole.  Not just he big guys, but the small developers with big ideas get hurt too.  I can't support piracy of one company's products but not another's.  I can't support people getting in the habit of stealing games.

And, think about what 10 million dollars does for a company?  What do they do with that?  Does it all go to the CEO's and such? No, their salary is safe.  It goes to expand the company.  They can do more, they can take more risks, they can do good things for gaming.  They can publish niche games that may or may not sell well.  I support good games; I never pirate.

It's simple. More game piracy = less risk-taking in game development, more BS copy protection schemes, and oftentimes publishers abandoning a piracy-prone system altogether (see: PSP). If you love good games, you should not pirate good games.

I've pirated music before, but artists barely make a few cents off of an album sale anyway - and there will always be music, piracy or no. I've pirated TV shows, but most TV shows are available for free (legally) somewhere on the 'net in any case. Game piracy is an evil unto itself, and not comparable to anything else.

I think the issue is over rated. The percentage of pirating going on is in relation of product to tech savvy. Way back in the day before Windows it was all DOS with command.com/prompt. You didn't have casual users. Piracy was extremly rampant. To the point that there was little topic of piracy. It was a non issue. It wasn't until the push of easy access gaming, new gamers coming in at windows.... So the massive piracy back then was definetly higher. So if the companies are right gaming should have died in th early 90s. Regardless these companies even the small tiny ones prospered.

So how did rampant piracy, pathetic copy protection allowed or created a massive industry in elite enviroment. With now days companies bemoaning how piracy is detroying them? what happened.

Piracy can have a big affect on the video game industry. We pirate music because, like Garican Smith said, artists only get cents off every album sold. However, there is a lot more at steak in the VG industry. People will get laid off and small developers will go bankrupt. We do pirate games but only the relatively old ones. The new ones we buy and if we can't buy them, you could always borrow the game from a friend who has it or rent it from GameFly or BlockBuster. The reason why Spore was pirated was because of the DMR issues in the game.