Just like it's not a god-given rights that all participants in an industry remain healthy and profitable. If developers learned how to please the right gamers this wouldn't be an issue. Sell better software or sell it at a better price. As long as game developers chose to spend tons of money on games that only interest niche crowds they deserve what they get. Shitty business models cause tons of failures in tons of industries i don't see why this is any different.

Very good point.  Somewhere along the way a lot of people began to think they somehow had a right to have their wants satisfied.  I'm a big believer in meeting human needs for everyone, such as helping developing/poor nations learn better farming techniques, providing access to power/water-treatment tech, teaching the teachers, etc.  But I stop at trying to insure that everyone has two cars, a townhouse, and TV in every room.  I'm not even sure having more "stuff" here in the USA is always such a good thing... it just seems to make us want more.

And I certainly don't believe that stealing things we "want" is acceptable.  I can understand a kid who's hungry stealing an apple to eat, but stealing games?  That's not right.

*getting off my soapbox*

You are correct that businesses which don't cater to their customers will suffer the natural consequences brought about by market economics, but that doesn't give people a right to steal from companies.  Two different issues here.

Hollier than thou attitude...

Woah, getting off topic aren't we?

In some countries, you cannot success or afford what america has readily available regardless of how hard to try.

There's a reason people immigrate to a "better" country so they can actually achieve a "better" life.

Not off topic and my question remains unanswered.

Furthermore since much of the software sold in developing countries is pirated i can't see how moving to America, Europe etc and paying full price for your games equates to a "better life", if playing games is in fact considered part of this 'better' life. 

If i was ok with piracy China would be a far better place to satisfy my game playing appetites than pretty much any place in the world i can think of.  I could have bought the entire Wii collection here for about.....220 US dollars, which equates to about 1 months salary here.  So don't kid yourself that piracy levels the playing field for the poor developing world.

Now, i'll get off my soapbox;)

Blatant hypocrysy in this thread, I have no doubt if any of the piracy apologetics on this thread (OP included) had anything stolen, the first thing they'd do would be saying nice things about the thief's mothers and next hitting the closest police station.

But hey, since this time its us doing the stealing, stealing is good! Bonus points for the traditional bullshit of using the CEO's wages as justification ignoring that the guys hit the most are the ones on the lowest levels of the wage scale.

Well, here's my answer: Nobody actually physically loses anything when the developing world gets to have their fun with it. If I told you aliens from space have been pirating all our (humans') media the entire time, should we be upset? The fact is, they weren't even potential customers, so why cry over it?

I've pirated my share and I'm not about to try and justify it, but I think there are situations where it isn't so bad. All the arguments surrounding this is based on the premise that our current economic system is fair, when I don't think it is. It's okay keeping hard working people from enjoying certain entertainment just because they were born in a third world country? Hell, I myself have probably been enjoying life a bit too much considering my contribution to society. There are people who are lucky enough to inherit tons of money from their family, is that fair?

Now, I don't think piracy is a good thing, but until there is a way for developing countries to get stuff reasonably affordable, there will be a legitimate argument for it. When you say China would be a better place to satisfy your gaming needs, you're missing the point. We aren't talking about people with western/developed salaries here - we're talking about Chinese people and the money they are able to spend. If there are wealthy people in China, they have no excuse for pirating stuff.

The industry and many people alike have made it a habit to blame P2P, bootleg copies of games, and console hackability for low sales. This is a false dichotomy. They're acting as if this is the only possible factor without even considering any of the others.

The music industry tried the same thing years ago when their sales started to falter, but the real reason was that their product sucked and their business model sucked. People got sick of being force fed band du jour and paying $20/CD for two or three good songs. It also didn't help when they started demonizing their core fan base(that is, people to whom their product would appeal and who might one day buy it) as thieves and pirates. It also didn't help when they started threatening children and the elderly with legal action. If what the music industry was saying was true, then Itunes should have keeled over a long time ago.

It's no different in the gaming industry. Hardcore fans of the Dreamcast always want to blame its demise on hackability, but they conveniently fail to take into account the fact that Sega didn't have the money to sustain it, it was severely lacking in third party support, it never was that popular to begin with especially since it was launched at the height of the PS2's popularity, and that the mere announcement of the PS2 drew away enough attention to kill it overnight, especially in Japan.

The PSP's low software sales can be accounted for using other factors as well, such as the software drought early in its lifespan, the fact that Sony marketed it as a PMP first and a handheld gaming system second, the lack of games that would fit a handheld and instead giving it a bunch of PS2 ports(which took the name PlayStation Portable entirely too far), and the price of the games to begin with($40 for a handheld game has put off a lot of people in the same way that $70+ for N64 games scared a lot of people away from that console).

People also fail to take into account that when to comes to P2P, most people who use it are teenagers and poor college students who don't really have the money to buy it anyway, and when it comes to bootleg copies sold on street corners, this usually happens in third world/poor countries where people definitely don't have the money. They also forget that a large number of digital media on P2P networks has long ago been out of print/discontinued and hence not available for purchase to begin with. Instead, they just count every download as a lost sale.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with people downloading digital media for their own personal use, and I think that there are far more important things affecting the world than some otaku fanboy's hard drive filled with Inuyasha episodes or a techno geeks stash of bootleg PC games or some l33t raver's 40GB trance collection. Are wars being fought because of P2P? Are their food shortages because of bootleg CD's? Are their people dying because of bootleg PC games being sold in a market in some third world country?

Didn't think so.

Hehe, well, I guess you are right.  The day I become a CEO I will stop worrying about piracy I guess.  Thanks for opening my eyes.  They are the ones we need to worry about of course, not the thousands of people that make up the company beneath them, or even the dozens in smaller studios.  You are so right.  I feel better now

ChichiriMuyo and c0rd both made the points I wanted to make.

1. The people who pirate, especially in 3rd world countries were never going to buy the product in the first place.

2. Digital theft is not the same as physical because the original owner is not losing anything from the digital copying of the product.

If companies cared about pirating in 3rd world countries then they should bring the prices of their products down to a reasonable level for their consumers. When a new game costs the same as the fathers weekly salary then you can bet pirating is going to occur.

I frankly don't care if a 8 year old kid is having fun playing a pirated copy of spore in an internet cafe somewhere in Bagdhad, it doesn't effect anyone. The creators of the game would never have seen a penny from this kid because he cant afford the game at full retail price. As long as he's not physicaly hurting the owners then why not let him have his fun.

Some of you need to stop looking at things in black and white and realise there are shades of gray.