Pirating Games - Is it acceptable?

[Mr. Grimm]

Hey everyone! Day two of my epic adventure with you guys!

 

I'd like to get you guys' opinion on PIRATING. More specifically... VIDEO GAME PIRATING.

 

Is it wrong? Is it acceptable? Should there be a punishment for it?

 

My opinion (for what it's worth), is that it IS wrong and there should be a proper punishment.

 

A lot of people say to me "Well, everyone does it, so why does it matter if I do it?" and "The devs are making millions on the game anyway, I need the money more than they do." 

 

AND YES... Whilst these two statements are valid, IT'S EASIER TO PIRATE A GAME THAN TO DEV A GAME.

 

But what do you guys think? And be honest, have you ever pirated a game before, and if so, what game(s)?

 

HONEST OPINION, GUYS!!!!

 

~Mr. Grimm, The Grimm Train

[yellow flash]

My self as a programmer and in the future I'm going  to be mobile game developer so i don't agree on pirating game's never done it my self and i hope that i never will.

[Deathshead]

I'm gonna be as honest as to confess that i used to pirate games (quite some time ago), but i never "enjoyed" it. Besides the fact that it's wrong, it can eat up a lot of your time with all the patching and everything else it might require to actually play the games (shutting down your antivirus, changing your timezone, adding exceptions to the firewall etc.)  I actually remember i had to reinstall my OS 2 times due to a damn update i had to install for that certain game (can't really remember what it was). Anyway, i'm pretty sure that's not gonna happen ever again

[SunLight]

no, especially if it's a game you play a lot and you like a lot

 

if it's something you don't care about and uninstall after a short time, then you probably wouldn't have bought it if there was no piracy, so it's not really a loss of money for the developers - because you wouldn't have bought it if that was the only option

[SiD]

What is a "proper punishment", dude?

 

Years of jailtime for minor offenses? Kinda like that 15 year old kid from sweden who was lookin' at 2 years for 24 movies? Downloaded AT SCHOOL? (aka kid bein' a stupid kid)

 

How about insane fees? Like the woman fined 1.9m for downloading 24 songs?

 

Those sound proper enough for ya?

 

 

 

 

 

Pirating taught me a lot about PC. Everything I know about advanced PC use comes from a past of pirating.

 

While I have a steam account with nearly 1000 games, I still pirate a game from time to time.

 

First is for testing purposes. I want to make sure I'm not buyin' nor supporting shit products. If I like the game I buy it. If it's garbage, no thanks. I've had enough with being ripped off by shady or greedy devs. As a PC gamer I hardly have the ability to return shit pc games.

 

Second is a personal rule. If the game is a decade or better in age or I can't get it easily on steam, then I'm nabbin' it for play. I don't do the whole console thing anymore and I am not payin' thousands of dollars to collect games I used to like. Especially when some games are 'collectors' items now. LoZ Majora's mask....$200. Silent Hill 2.... $200. SWAT 4 Gold... $300-500...(thanks internet!)

 

My stance on this issue is endless and I feel no shame. Take that as you will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Grimm]

Honestly, those are proper punishments. Pirating is stealing, no matter if you're caught or not. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, it's just my opinion.

[SiD]

[SunLight]

Honestly, those are proper punishments. Pirating is stealing, no matter if you're caught or not. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, it's just my opinion.

well, stealing is when you have something and the other guy doesn't have it anymore

e.g. you steal a car, you have it and the poor guy goes on foot

 

if someone gets something for free, but he/she wouldn't buy it if it wasn't free (this could be for many reasons), is that stealing? and what are they stealing exactly?

 

but imho it's useless to talk about things like ethical vs legal, because what is legal is clear, what is ethical can be fuzzy sometimes.

That's why we have laws

[oOShockWaveOo]

I used to do it like all the time, I even had tpb on my bookmark lists , but I never enjoyed singleplayer games, and it's very unlikely to be able to play a cracked game online, so I mostly remove them after a day or two. I can't really say whether it's a good thing or not, those people do work hard to deliver games to those who can't afford/aren't able to buy games even if it's illegal