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did you pirate skyrim?


  • Total voters
    237

mellojoe

Member
I think more games will end up going to in-game transactions in order to support development costs. WoW has proven that the subscription model works. Maplestory and Zynga's facebook games have proven that the micro-transaction model works. And I think that Diablo 3's auction house will prove that direct consumer to consumer transactions can generate fee income as well.

The initial purchase cost of the game will eventually be less and less relevant for developers who discover additional ways to make money. This will be the best solution to pirated games. Who cares if you can download the game for free? If you contribute to the in-game ecosystem, you contribute to the bottom line for profits for that company.

It ends up being a win-win for everyone involved.
 

Static

Member
The author's claim that people who pirate games would never have bought them in the first place is pure speculation and not grounded in reality or facts. Contrast that to the significant decline of retail CD sales for the music industry when music went digital and piracy ran rampant with digital music file swapping and sharing and you get a very different take based in reality and facts that supports the contention that people who pirate products will actually buy them if they cannot pirate them.

The decline of the CD is not due to illegal downloading. The creation of legal online digital media stores has had a massive effect, but the main issue the music industry has faced is the economic crisis. Consumers aren't stupid, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that in a time when redundancy is a very common turn of events spending £12 on a CD is ridiculous, especially when the same CD can be downloading legally for around £8 or illegally for free. Piracy is simply a competitor to overpricing and the general bloated nature of industry today, and the way to deal with competitors is not to attempt to prosecute your own fan-base for acquiring your product by another means. As such, the music industry is now reliant on live acts - which have generally received increased turnouts through the economic crisis, mainly because of the 'feel-good-factor' that live acts provide, and not to mention the pathetic celebrity culture that's rammed down our throats every day.

People who pirate digital products are criminals in the same way people who smoke cannabis are, or people who have underage sex are: they're only criminals because they've been branded as such by an illogical society (or rather, the upper 10% of an illogical society). They aren't doing anything tangibly wrong, and in all the cases the system has had to make what they're doing wrong (in the first two, these changes in legal practise to make piracy and cannabis use illegal were done solely to benefit the producer. But then hey, that's capitalism for you: the bourgeois exploit the proletariat, and then when the proletariat attempt to enjoy themselves in a way that doesn't benefit the bourgeois, the latter clamps down on them with the false-concept of illegality and social justice.)
 

Skullrattla

Button Pusher
Thanks, Static.

changes in legal practise to make piracy and cannabis use illegal were done solely to benefit the producer.

In the case of cannabis i believe the original intent was different, but that is another story.
 

Opium_Bunny

Member
Pirating Skyrim was what made me realize that Skyrim would NOT have performed well on my PC. I would have been out of 60 bucks for a game that did not work as intended.
 

Azriel

Member
i pirate stuff....like movies because every movie has pretty much been made before and songs because they cant get mad at you if t hey are criminals too.......
 

HrlQuinn

I don't think it's safe here...
Well, I don't know how to feel about the whole thread, really, the two sides have really good points.

I downloaded Skyrim cause, just as Opium_Bunny said, my priorities are different: get my cats to the vet, buying kitchen supplies, buying undies, etc.

Still I am buying the game once I get the chance since it is a real good game (actually I want to get the CE but $200 is quite expensive =/), the last time I recall being so addicted to a game before Skyrim was with Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

I strongly believe that people should support the developers but again, I'm not willing to wait until I have the money to play an awesome game such as this one (yeah, call me selfish I guess), of course I will buy it when I have the money but until that happens I will be happy playing Skyrim every night. :)
 

Neriad13

Premium Member
You make a product. You sell that product to the public. If someone takes your product without paying for it, that is stealing, an ancient and well-known crime. There are no shades of gray in this matter. Theft is what it is, no matter how convenient it is to do.
 

Static

Member
There are a plethora of shades of grey. To start with, piracy doesn't take anything, it simply creates a copy of it. You haven't removed anything tangible, and you haven't denied a sale - as there is no guarantee that you would have bought it if piracy hadn't been an option. In such a sense, digital media can only really be considered to be intellectual property, and theft of IP is only theft if it is used to benefit other people, not just the stealer. For instance, if my band and I play another artist's song at our next jamming session then that's legal, if we play it at the next gig we play and don't give credit to the original artist then it's theft of intellectual property. By your definition of theft, you playing a CD in your car loud enough for other people to hear is theft, as is you allowing another person to use your copy of Skyrim. Watching a music video on YouTube is equal to downloading that music, as is watching a clip from a film on YouTube. Lending someone a book is technically theft, allowing someone to borrow your jumper is. If all it takes in your system for something to be theft is its use by someone who hasn't purchased it then a thousand and one different things would suddenly become illegal, the only difference is that the majority of these social actions were not formed in a society that is so bent on aiding companies rather than the consumers. The law does not, and cannot, apply to digital media as it cannot apply to intangible objects without beginning to form loopholes and completely illogical and absurd new rules.

In the case of cannabis i believe the original intent was different, but that is another story.

Cannabis was originally made illegal to prevent hemp from overtaking wood as the main material used in making paper and similar materials, in order to benefit wealthy plantation owners, but the legalisation of cannabis argument is neither here nor there. :p
 

Opium_Bunny

Member
I'm reading it now...however i love this part: "Thus while content owners used the term Piracy to equate copyright infringers with thieves, the infringers themselves like to consider the more romantic, freedom-loving image of Piracy when they use the same term for themselves."

Well i do consider myself quite the romantic!! =P
 

mellojoe

Member
Piracy is stealing. Let's not make any mistake about that. You are stealing money out of someone's pocket, whether it is a retailer, a developer, or a designer. It is most definitely stealing.

If you download a game without paying for it, you have essentially stolen it.

Like I have stated before, though. I have done it, and I am fine with others doing it. I most definitely do it as a test, though, not as a permanent solution. If I want to play a game to finish, I buy it. If a game is good enough for me to play it, I want those developers to be able to continue to produce such works. If a game is crap, I'm not going to play it nor am I going to pay it.

I paid for my copy of Skyrim. I paid full retail $59.99 + tax at Target. But, only after I had played through the first several minutes on a pirated copy, up through the first killing of the first dragon. After that, I realized I liked the game and I picked it up the next time I was in Target.
 

Skullrattla

Button Pusher
Update: As of November 2010 The Pirate Bay's original owners have again been found guilty after appeal, and now must pay an even larger fine.

UPDATE As of February 2012 The Pirate Bay continues to serve millions! (just mind the viruses)

I agree with that article in that PC gaming may go the way of iOS gaming , with cheap, mass produced, shallow and disposable games that just aren’t worth playing for any length of time.

IMO, however, that has to do more with corporate greed than piracy!

For example Ubisoft has claimed that the pre-release pirated version of Assassin's Creed not only resulted in many directly lost sales, it also adversely affected the general sales potential for the game because the leaked version has a deliberate bug which crashes the game halfway through, and this resulted in some misleading negative early reviews of the game. Similarly, Titan Quest was leaked early and as noted in this post by the game's developer, the badly cracked pirated copy would crash at certain points in the game because of a deliberate security feature. The misunderstanding over this feature resulted in the game incorrectly being blamed as being a buggy by many people when in reality it was the poor quality cracking of it that was the real culprit, and this adversely affected its reputation and possibly reduced potential sales.

This is so much BS, Ubisoft, LOL.....

The bugs are introduced either by the devs themselves (DUH) or by grievers. Decent sites like Demonoid are community supported and all malware is caught and removed fairly quick.


But really, what shines light on the level of social/political/economical awareness of the author is the following:

The Free Rider Problem


If for some reason you don't accept that there is some economic loss associated with piracy, there's an equally important economic concept worth considering: the Free Rider Problem. This is a general problem facing a range of goods and services, not necessarily related to piracy, and essentially it states that those who actually pay for a good or service are bearing all the costs of production while those who get the good or service for free are not contributing at all. The classic example is for Government services such as roads, hospitals, welfare and defence. Every citizen can access and hence directly or indirectly benefit from these services, but if left solely up to voluntary contributions, most individuals would likely not pay much if anything for them, citing a range of excuses. Therefore the Government enforces involuntary contributions from all applicable citizens in the form of taxes. If it didn't, many of these essential services could not be adequately provided as the costs of provision would outweigh the voluntary contributions.

And then they lived happily ever after...

Greed is responded to in kind!
 

D0MIN0

Member
Yes, I pirated the game. I bought a copy of the pc version because my computer meets the minimum specs; however for some reason it only runs at a whopping .5 or so fps... So I got an xbox360 version from an unspecified website. I don't think this is wrong though because I did in fact spend $60 on a copy that I couldn't play, and since it was open I couldn't return it.
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
The decline of the CD is not due to illegal downloading. The creation of legal online digital media stores has had a massive effect.
You have your history all backwards. The decline predates legal online digital media stores. The creation of those stores was the belated remedial effort of the RIAA and its consitituents after they realized the futility of trying to prevent digital downloads.
but the main issue the music industry has faced is the economic crisis.
Those figures also predate the economic crisis. They actually cover the period at which the economy was at an all time high and not beyond it. The fact remains that it's prima facie evidence that if goods are not available by low risk illegal downloading consumers will buy the product instead, contrary to the claim that the author of that article made, and notwithstanding your incorrect timeline of events.
 

Dagmar

Defender of the Bunnies of Skyrim
There are a plethora of shades of grey. To start with, piracy doesn't take anything.......In such a sense, digital media can only really be considered to be intellectual property, and theft of IP is only theft if it is used to benefit other people, not just the stealer.
It takes the code. Saying it makes a copy is what is referred to in the legal world as a difference without a distinction, and you're simply flat out wrong concerning your understanding of intellectual property law.
and you haven't denied a sale - as there is no guarantee that you would have bought it if piracy hadn't been an option.
There is no evidence to support this and plenty of evidence to the contrary.
For instance, if my band and I play another artist's song at our next jamming session then that's legal, if we play it at the next gig we play and don't give credit to the original artist then it's theft of intellectual property.
"Giving credit" doesn't insulate you from claims of copyright infringement if you play another band's original work to the general public at a live music venue. Live music venues have to purchase a license from the RIAA in order for bands to be allowed to legally perform covers at public events. That's why some venues will only allow original music. That doesn't mean that some unlicensed venues don't do it, but they're completely exposed to copyright infringement claims, as are you since you don't have the protection of being a sublicensee. The RIAA sends out field agents as a regular course of business to check out live music venues in cities to see if they are compliant so it's always best to protect yourself by asking the venue owner if they are licensed and to see a copy of it if they claim to be.

In general your post displays a profound amount of ignorance about intellectual property law. It would be better if you applied your statements to what the underlying moral principles regarding intellectual property law should be, in which case your arguments might make more sense, and stop trying to characterize them as actual intellectualy property law as it exists in reality.
 

shwick2

Member
I'm reading it now...however i love this part: "Thus while content owners used the term Piracy to equate copyright infringers with thieves, the infringers themselves like to consider the more romantic, freedom-loving image of Piracy when they use the same term for themselves."

Well i do consider myself quite the romantic!! =P

haha :D
 

Gore gro-Gijakudob

Active Member
There are a plethora of shades of grey. To start with, piracy doesn't take anything, it simply creates a copy of it.

Yes it does, it steals intellectual property. Just because it's not a physical object does not make it any less than theft. If you come up with an amazing idea for an invention, one that could earn you millions, and I overhear this and copyright it first, I have stolen your idea, your potential income and indeed your reputation for coming up with that idea in the first place. But hey, that's okay right because, i'm not 'stealing' your idea, I'm just 'copying' it right? Please stop trying to justify theft, you obviously are a pirate and therefor a thief. You seem to have no problem with that, ok, just stop trying to justify it. You aren't stealing to live, you are stealing to play a computer game. I think that's pretty sad.
 

Static

Member
Yes it does, it steals intellectual property. Just because it's not a physical object does not make it any less than theft. If you come up with an amazing idea for an invention, one that could earn you millions, and I overhear this and copyright it first, I have stolen your idea, your potential income and indeed your reputation for coming up with that idea in the first place. But hey, that's okay right because, i'm not 'stealing' your idea, I'm just 'copying' it right? Please stop trying to justify theft, you obviously are a pirate and therefor a thief. You seem to have no problem with that, ok, just stop trying to justify it. You aren't stealing to live, you are stealing to play a computer game. I think that's pretty sad.

I bought the game, my point is simply that the act of pirating something does not immediately make some a criminal.

This argument is rather pointless, it's just going to devolve to ad hominem (see the quoted post) and isn't going to change anyone's opinion. I'll leave this to sum up my opinion:

(Stephen Fry on copyright law)
 

Gore gro-Gijakudob

Active Member
I bought the game, my point is simply that the act of pirating something does not immediately make some a criminal.

This argument is rather pointless, it's just going to devolve to ad hominem (see the quoted post) and isn't going to change anyone's opinion. I'll leave this to sum up my opinion:

(Stephen Fry on copyright law)

Damn you, I could never go against Mr Fry. You win :)
 

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