sega4life -

The one issue with the 'it's the developers faults for bad copy protection' is the fact that copy protection gets broken so often, that they have to go for new and less tested products in order to secure their product. If piracy wasn't an issue, then there'd be no need for cutting-edge protections.

The appropriate retort to the old argument that "I don't pay for crappy products. I only pay for good games." would be, "Stop playing with crap."

It is a bit of a mystery, given the huge amount of good games out there, as well as the amount of piracy that occurs even with good games worthy of your hard earned dollars.

But I think for many pirates, it's a habit they have so grown accustomed to that they don't even consider buying games to be a cost associated with gaming at all, regardless of whether it's the Best Game in the World that's so good everyone should buy TWO copies, or it's a lackluster effort that barely even rates a 15 minute demo play.

I have friends who are pirates, and they always complain at me when I buy games. They are always like "why pay when you can get for free?"

They don't understand that they are ruining the game industry, but they will when games cease to exist. I don't see how people can deal with themselves. These developers put hard earned time and effort into these games, and then you just steal a game from them.

Pirates are pathetic, I'm sorry.

There is one point for the other side of the argument that I want to bring up. I've been thinking of an answer if it ever came up. "How is buying used games better than pirating?" If this ever came up I would have responded with something like " you have the justification of knowing you earned the game rather than taking it", but then I realized that pirates don't have those type of morals. They don't seem to care how they get the game, but rather what is the easiest(not always true, because pirating can get hard), and / or cheapest way to get it. Now I'm feeling blank with an answer. In both you are not supporting the developer. One just is free, or cheaper while the other isn't. One is also illegal, while the other isn't, but in terms of game piracy there isn't much law enforcement in place with the exception of the people who are dumb enough to sell modded consoles and games.

Beyond loosely enforced copyright laws, there really isn't much one can do to change individual perception.

If you really choose to make it an issue, then my only recommendation would be simply buy the games from the developers and publishers whose work you do appreciate, and buy it new, even if it means waiting for a retailer sale.

Two responses I can think of are:

1) Buying a pre-owned copy means theres one less in the store, so the next customer who comes in looking for the game may buy a first hand copy.

2) Buying a pre-owned copy still supports the retail industry's profits, and the better their figures look the more money they'll invest in buying games from publishers. If they can't shift their pre-owned games they wouldn't dare buy the games in the first place.

 The Pre-Owned market is the only reason why retailers buy games from publishers at the relatively high price they do - if for whatever reason they couldn't resell games then they simply wouldn't be paying as much for new games as they do. Kind of Ironic, heh.

I don't know what fraction of sold games end up in the "used section" at stores, but for those that do, buying used kind of supports the full price paid for a new copy, since it gives more value to the original copy.

That's the only good answer I see to that point, but it's hard to quantify really how much buying a used copy contributes to developers.

On the other hand, someone who buys a used copy is much more likely to buy the new game than someone who pirates... which leads me to believe that used game sales harm the industry more than pirating does.

I always find it odd when there are those who say well I wouldn't have bought it anyway. Well if you were not able to get it for free what would you do?
You might not play the game
You might rent the game the store you rent it from had to buy a copy and if more people rent it they need to buy more
You might buy it used someone had to have bought the game once but if it wasn't good enough for them to keep or good enough to make the used ones sell really quick then you are still at least contributing to the system
You might borrow it from a friend your friend would have bought the game so at least you are supporting it in that regard.
Making a copy add a copy of the game into circulation without the developer getting any money for it.

this is what the industry cares more about right now. used games sales hurt dev way more due to the fact that willing paying customers are not supporting the devlopers, opposed to the pirate that if they didnt have the pirating option wouln't buy the game but rent the game.

renting to a much lesser extent hurts devlopers as well but can be countered with great multiplayer and replay value.