GamerNode: News - "Why are you pirating from me?" asks developer

See guys, pirating is good.

Free > paying.

Ok, for the sake of argument, let's just say that you've been working on saving up for the [enter item here] of your dreams. You saved, scrimped, worked as hard as you could for it. One day, a robber breaks in to your house and tells you as he leaves with your hard earned prized possession that you hold dear and says, "Free is less than paying..." and takes off.

I'm not saying that no one pirates in this day and age. It's just that this guy, a lone developer, feels the pain more than the monster publishing companies who can take the hit.

i wonder what torrent site he uses :P

Right Quasar, but then why is it that the monster publishing companies flip out when they are the ones being targeted by pirates.

@ Quasar: It's more like what if the robber took 1/1000th of your product, said "free is less than paying" then told all his friends about how awesome your product is and 3/4of them buy it, the rest of them use the part that the robber took.

Then possibly even came back to buy the product later.

"Don't pirate me dude!"

that 3/4 is getting smaller and smaller but pirating is wrong and the last time i checked it was illegal
for all you who believe it is right just remember
thou shall not steal

Don't steal me bro!! lol!

Now lets face it... there are going to be people who are either unable, or otherwise unwilling to afford all of the games they want to play. In fact, at $50 a pop, I don't think anyone can really afford to get all of the games they want to play.

What I look for in purchasing a game is value for money.
Does the game have a lengthy, replayable, or otherwise just high quality story?
Does the game have multiplayer? How often will I play the MP?
Is the game going to crash on me every other minute? Will it run smoothly?
Do I get a free poster, or some other perk in the package?
Is it available on Steam? Going to the store is a pain.
Is there a demo? I don't want to drop $50 on a game if I'm not even sure that I'll like it.

I used to like renting games, but that's obviously not an option on the PC... and I hear that developers/publishers don't see a dime from game rentals, so from their point of view it's just like piracy.

So basically, if the devs/publishers can make me feel like I'm getting a good value for money, I'll do it. Why should I pay $50 for ten hours of gameplay when I could get the same entertainment value from renting five movies for $5 a pop?

The MPAA ensures that Hollywood gets a cut out of movie rentals.

I try to keep my pirating to a low amount but there sure is some... specially now, seriously when game companies release so many good games in one month, i simply pay for the best of the games, as many as i possibly can... and when i pirate i try to keep it to take from the big companies :p

would never pirate a game like darwinia or multiwinia

If I payed for all the games i downloaded I could buy the best desktop computer at this moment (ok not the best but a pretty good one). So that's my reason. But the games I will always buy is Half-Life games. Sometimes I buy games just so I could play them on multiplayer or when they are really cheap.

I impulse pirate, I see a game that I know I don't want but it looks interesting, there is no demo so I download it, usually i play a few levels and dump it, I knew I didn't want it remember. If it turns out its fun I usually end up buying it if it has alot of replay value. Hmmm come to think of it what all of the other pirates said is correct. No demo = Pirate. No replay value = pirate
Hear that developers, make good games with lots of replay value and meaningful demos not here is the tutorial crap.

Games cost so damn much these days...

I don't pirate..... :) ........but if I did, I would only pirate the games I already feel I own. If say I own super mario all stars and don't want to pay for it again on nintendos virtual console (aka money press), well, pirate. Why pay to play something you own on an old machine with a crappy second hand controller. Or arcade games that I would have dropped major cash in as a kid, I would consider.......pirate. If you ever tried an arcade port on the ps1, that would make you pirate a true arcade version for sure. So I guess, yeah, don't give people a reason.

Note: By "old machine with a crappy second hand controller" I did not mean the WII. I meant an old SNES off Ebay.

I pirate games and I pirate music. I guess I'm going to hell.

PC gaming aint dead after all.

Maybe, just maybe because the games cost a lot of money, especially in this weak economy?

Don't you see Carlos, that's just gonna make them raise the price higher, if people stop buying the games, they've gotta do something to increase revenue.

When it comes to pirating things, think of it this way. Let's say you are walking along a BMW dealership and you say "hey, I'd like to take to have that car," would you steal it? No, you probably wouldn't would you. But why don't you just use the same reasoning that most people do when they pirate games and music? "The company is a rich company, they won't mind if I download one game/song illegally. It's not like it's destroying their bank account." Couldn't you reason the same with that BMW? BMW makes a lot of money and losing one car wouldn't hurt their bank account.

If you can't afford the game, you don't really need to have it, now do you?

Well, pirating a game may make the price go up, but actually buying it won't make the price go down. Sure, I pirate some games and music, but if I like the game I do end up buying it. The fact that a lot less games are being sold is because they are not worth buying for 60 bucks.

Wrong. In the market of supply and demand, if there is enough supply, and not enough demand, the price will go down. Not saying pirating will bring the price down, but not buying will. For instance, the economy is weak, people are pinching pennies, and not driving when we don't need to. So, gas went down, theres alot of it, but not as many buying. Price goes down two-three dollars, and we start buying again. Its a dealer-consumer incentive.

Of course, there is also the factor of age to consider. I'm nearly dead at 32 - I have a family and a very full time job, so I plain don't have time to listen to music/play games as much as I used to. Because I'm not listening to as wide a range of music and not playing as many games (Half-Life series notwithstanding) I can now afford to buy the stuff I do want. In other words, I don't pirate any more.

I do think that the likes of spore slapping poorly thought through DRM on their games doesn't help the issue. When people are having less trouble playing a cracked copy than the "legitimate" copy they shelled out £40 for there's something seriously wrong. When people get locked out of their software because they've "installed it too many times" (WTF?!?!?!) there's something wrong.

If the big companies took the time to understand the problem, rather than trying to police the symptoms there'd be a helluva lot less piracy happening.

Case in point: a mate bought an audio CD that had DRM on it (back in the day). He didn't realise that until he tried to make a copy of it (for his car, which whilst probably technically illegal, is usually overlooked in enforcement terms). He wasn't wanting to pirate the music, merely ensure that the pristine CD didn't get trashed in the heat/vibration of the car. When he found that he couldn't rip it (because of the DRM) he went online, found software that would enable him to rip it, and then seeded the resultant rip on bittorrent in a fit of pique. As a fairly decently waged & 'responsible' adult I can't afford to just blow £40 on a game - I've got too many other demands on my paypacket! I'd be hacked off if, having spent $50/£40 on a new game I then couldn't play the sodding thing because of badly implemented DRM.
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Of course, there is also the factor of age to consider. I'm nearly dead at 32 - I have a family and a very full time job, so I plain don't have time to listen to music/play games as much as I used to. Because I'm not listening to as wide a range of music and not playing as many games (Half-Life series notwithstanding) I can now afford to buy the stuff I do want. In other words, I don't pirate any more.

I do think that the likes of spore slapping poorly thought through DRM on their games doesn't help the issue. When people are having less trouble playing a cracked copy than the "legitimate" copy they shelled out £40 for there's something seriously wrong. When people get locked out of their software because they've "installed it too many times" (WTF?!?!?!) there's something wrong.

If the big companies took the time to understand the problem, rather than trying to police the symptoms there'd be a helluva lot less piracy happening.

Case in point: a mate bought an audio CD that had DRM on it (back in the day). He didn't realise that until he tried to make a copy of it (for his car, which whilst probably technically illegal, is usually overlooked in enforcement terms). He wasn't wanting to pirate the music, merely ensure that the pristine CD didn't get trashed in the heat/vibration of the car. When he found that he couldn't rip it (because of the DRM) he went online, found software that would enable him to rip it, and then seeded the resultant rip on bittorrent in a fit of pique. As a fairly decently waged & 'responsible' adult I can't afford to just blow £40 on a game - I've got too many other demands on my paypacket! I'd be hacked off if, having spent $50/£40 on a new game I then couldn't play the sodding thing because of badly implemented DRM.
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"Now lets face it... there are going to be people who are either unable, or otherwise unwilling to afford all of the games they want to play. In fact, at $50 a pop, I don't think anyone can really afford to get all of the games they want to play."

So, the fact that you WANT to play the game yet not having the money to buy it justifies your breaking the law to acquire the game anyway?

why the fark didn't you post the source links in your article? this is retarded!

The only case in which I tolerate piracy is someone pirating a title they already own on another system... i.e. if I buy a title for Xbox 360, im not then paying for the game again for the PC. I don't see the developer loosing money in this instance and I hardly find it illegal in the morality sense of things.

No money, no game. Deal with it and strive for earning some cash and stop downloading pirated games and using up your parentals bandwidth.