HOT TAKE! Piracy

[Aidy]

I have 100 ways to try and justify my theft

I know, all thieves do.

[Aidy]

Yoshi Just from reading your posts, you come across as well off financially, so, dropping big bucks on retro cabinets or retroware, what-have-you, seems to effect you little-to-none. Congrats on being able to afford your hobby. Most people, however, do not have that commodity, so, "piracy" is the only means they have to play the games they wanna play. Don't even get me started on your "you're not entitled to play every games you want to" comment. Just makes you sound like a pretentious child.

I love fast cars but I can only afford a Ford Fiesta so I steal Ferraris instead. After all if I can't afford it legitimately then what other option do I have? I mean I have a right to have anything I want to have, don't I? Now please focus on the word "steal" if your interpretation of it and ignore the actual point of the argument

HOT TAKE! Piracy

a.k.a. "Entitlement: The Tread"

[L3F20XX]

Oh no bro, just like you I pay for every porn video I watch and I personally avoid youtube videos not uploaded by the copyright holder. I also make sure not to take notes from a friend's course book since that's theft.
You got it all wrong bro, I don't even listen to internet radios since all music I listen to is streamed from official sources, heck I even cover my ears when I'm passing by a house with loud music because I don't want to steal from them.
I wouldn't dare download a car.

[Yoshi]

Your first paragraph is ironic, because understanding that you're not entitled to everything you want is one of the hurdles to reach adulthood. It's literally the opposite of being a child. When I was a child and could not afford games I wanted to play, I would rent them. I fully understand the basic business models have changed, but with services like Xbox Game Pass out there, people still have legal access to a wide assortment of games at a very low cost.

[AnarchyInBlack]

Yoshi Just from reading your posts, you come across as well off financially, so, dropping big bucks on retro cabinets or retroware, what-have-you, seems to effect you little-to-none. Congrats on being able to afford your hobby. Most people, however, do not have that commodity, so, "piracy" is the only means they have to play the games they wanna play. Don't even get me started on your "you're not entitled to play every games you want to" comment. Just makes you sound like a pretentious child.

Anyway

As above stated, sometimes, piracy is the only avenue gamers have to play old games. A great Youtuber, Raycevick, has commented on the subject in many of his reviews of older titles. My personal belief is if Devs/Publishers give me a way to buy it, I will, otherwise, I'll obtain it by other means. I also believe if we move back to the time of demos (which I am seeing more floating around Steam), we will see a decrease in piracy (given the individual had an experience in which they decided to buy the game, of course). We all suffer from the plague of DRM, however.

[Murray]

The ownership of said franchise is dubious at the moment, just like No One Lives Forever, it's unclear who is allowed to release the game, so even if some companies can make re-releases, in the instance of games like Carnevil, that game would essentially be at death's door if it wasn't for piracy.

[Yoshi]

Those "nebulous concepts" pay people's bills, so if it was about caring about people, you wouldn't undermine their livelihood. What it's really about is selfishness and entitlement.

[Yoshi]

No, they deserve to not have their games purchased. In no way do you deserve to play them without paying for them.

[Yoshi]

I think Accursed Farms makes an excellent point about piracy, as he is playing Carnevil on Mame. Basically, he's asking the question of when should piracy no longer be illegal? Just because a game is no longer being sold by the original company, doesn't mean the game should be unavailable. Getting a massive arcade cabinet for a game like Carnevil from ebay for ludicrous amounts of dosh is just unreasonable when you can just get the ROM and play on Mame. It's no longer supported by the devs, Midway Games is defunct, no one from the original dev team makes any money from it. What's the point of enforcing piracy laws at that point?

There are decades old arcade games that are just being ported now, allowing the rights holder, which is potentially the original developer, to earn additional income from it. Night Slashers on Switch is a perfect example.

You are not entitled to play any game you want. It's ironic that you specifically mentioned Carnevil, because I'm in discussions to buy that cabinet right now, so I don't think it's all that unreasonable.

[Aidy]

I want things but I don't want to pay for them.

Cool story bro.

[Murray]

I think Accursed Farms makes an excellent point about piracy, as he is playing Carnevil on Mame. Basically, he's asking the question of when should piracy no longer be illegal? Just because a game is no longer being sold by the original company, doesn't mean the game should be unavailable. Getting a massive arcade cabinet for a game like Carnevil from ebay for ludicrous amounts of dosh is just unreasonable when you can just get the ROM and play on Mame. It's no longer supported by the devs, Midway Games is defunct, no one from the original dev team makes any money from it. What's the point of enforcing piracy laws at that point?

[L3F20XX]

I support piracy. Most people who pirate were not going to buy it in the first place and if the product's really good they may become fans and purchase the original in the future. They may also show support online and encourage other people to buy the game.

There's also the case of Windows for example, they don't really care about the millions of home users who pirated their OS because it keeps them away from the competition. If MS enforced anti piracy with an iron fist those users would not buy MS but look for for the next free thing like Linux and MS wouldn't be able to boast about 90% market share.

There's many other reasons I support piracy like better subs, undubs, patch fixes (like FFTactics on PSP which had massive slowdowns) etc.

Finally piracy is not theft because it doesn't affect the original.

[vippy]

Here's a way better take, OP. Piracy is not wrong and has never been wrong from a moral standpoint. Because finding solutions to make our lives easier and spreading the word to other people is in our human nature. We crack and share software because we are an incredibly social and cooperative species. We care about other people, not nebulous concepts like brands and corporations or their profits.

[Phabe Jewell]

If I like it and think it's worth the money I will throw my hard earned cash at it, but I do not much that looks like it has value these days and only interested in a few games.
Considering how most of the big AAA companies are treating their consumers with DRM, political bs, and inexcusable laziness they deserve their games to be pirated until they get their shit together and start pouring out high-quality games!

[SnowyJess]

I think the main problem is the view that piracy must be stopped altogether, like that would ever happen. Piracy will never go away as long as companies continue to sell games. I think a better solution is to treat it as a competitor, for instance the Pink Panther cartoon collection DVD, they forced it into widescreen by chopping off the top and bottom of the picture and it has the canned laughter that was added in the TV broadcasts (Which kills a lot of the humor in my opinion), and considering amazon seems to mix reviews on similar products so it can become difficult to determine if other releases have these problems or not, and that re-releases are sometimes based on a previous re-release and can inherit any problems that release had, if I found a free version that doesn't have these problems then which version do you think I would choose?

Of course if a release has some actual effort put into it then I'll buy it, just don't be lazy and I'll buy your stuff (And do not fuck with the aspect ratio, not everything has to be widescreen). I ended up buying Yellow Submarine twice for that reason.

I know I've used DVDs as an example here but I'm tired it's the only thing I can think of at the moment.