Software piracy - what is your stance?

[El Diego]

I have noticed that many people that use Evo-Web seem to download games.

I despise software pirates and think they should be gang-raped but that is just my opinion.

What is your stance on the whole ordeal?

 

[Chris Davies]

Put it like this, it costs companies a few pennies for CDs, and few more pennies for DVDs and dual-layer DVDs. Films cost tens of millions to make, games cost much less. Films costs £10, games cost £40/£50. Not on, in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a raging pirate - all bar one of the next-gen consoles I have are unmodified - but it's not right, and I refuse to be treated like a mug. There's even been a "don't buy a game day" set up, to try (hopelessly) to get companies to charge less for games.

Music CDs should be between £5-£8 (£10 if they have 20 songs on, like they used to have before artists realised they could just do eight songs and charge full price), films should be £10 and games should be £20, £30 absolute maximum. The fact that five full-price 360 games is £250, two hundred and fifty fucking quid (I've had a car worth that much), is absolutely sick.

When ClassicD was a prolific poster (oh how I wish you could swap certain members for the good old ones), he quoted a statement issued by various games companies that read "the reason for the rise in game prices is pirates", which as Classic said, is utter bollocks. For a start, you don't see chart albums selling for £20 do you, and I don't know a single person who actually buys music CDs any more. Plus, if there were more pirates then you would lower your prices to try and drive them away from copies and back to the proper game, which will last longer and comes with a manual and any other goodies.

That's my view anyway.

 

[ash]

I don't know a single person who actually buys music CDs any more.

Soooo true! I only know one actually, but the rest just download it off the net. They need to be like £1 or something, then people will buy it. I mean, most teenagers/young adults with not much money would rather download, even rich kids i know, they just download.

 

[kevano22]

Piracy FTW

 

[rockykabir]

The excuse back in the day was the cost of cartridges...which I'll call BS on. There is no way that the manufacturing costs will be more for Street Fighter 2 (RRP: £69.99) than another SNES game costing £40 less. However, things are different now and there are other considerable costs:

1) Development costs are a lot higher now. Forget the golden years when a game can be produced by a team of 10 or so - especially now that so much focus is paid on glorious 3D graphics and epic music backdrops.

2) Marketing costs. Microsoft paid some crazy money to market Gears of War. Whether we agree with it or not, some of the cost will not be paid directly on the game - this has been the case for movies for quite a while now.

3) Affecting us brits especially are the crazy tax charges imposed by the government on goods. We are being raped big time - yet, we continue to buy. UK's economy has been doing well recently and people here are buying more. Unfortunately, we will always get the short straw

[BTW, the 3rd option of this poll is quite ironic (or maybe El Diego meant it that way as the common denominator to the first two reasons mentioned above is due to "video gaming" moving away from geek culture to appeal to all those cool casual gaming dudes.]

Where there is demand, companies will continue to take advantage. People weren't willing to pay £49.99-£59.99 for the first batch of nextgen games, and now they have normalised.

I'm sorry, there is no reason for justifying piracy - it is as much stealing as nabbing it directly from HMV (but easier). I shamefully will say that I still do it - I'll not say it's ok though.

The "what is my piracy gonna do to a big company?!" argument is a bit naive. Mates are gonna follow suit like a domino effect - especially with piracy becoming easier with faster internet speeds. Sooner or later, rather than the 10% or so doing it currently, it'll become 90%.

The way that game companies can possibly solve this is to offer more benefits to gamers - like simultaneous multiregion releases or games in cheaper downloadable form. I actually got my PS2 and DS chipped so that I can play the funky japanese and american titles before it took a lifetime to reach here. Eventually, downloading titles just got too tempting

 

[PetrovLFC]

Companies also have to pay the huge labour force that works on the software. They also have to market and distribute globally.

I used to download games, but I've just realised that I've uninstalled every game I didn't take a fancy too, and actually went out and paid for the proper version of the games that I did.

 

[Shooto]

I've never downloaded a game, but I can remember when I was 14
heading up to the barras to buy pirate games for the speccy on tape. What a laugh trying to get them to work. We had to adjust the heads on the tape recorder just to get it working.

Hardest one to get to work was Brian BloodAxe. I can rememebr it having a "blow on the keyboard if you want it to work" prompt. Not sure if the pirates put that there or what.

Just bought Resident Evil 4 on ebay for £6.50, so if you wait a while you can get good games cheap.

PES, I have bought every version I can remember. PES6 I bought on both PC and PS2, so I dont feel guilty about paching it.

As for the cost of games, I would not be able to justify £50 to the wife for a game, so Im going to be sticking with the Ps2 for a while :-(

 

[200_pesos]

i was gonna answer the third one but i didnt know if it meant i get to shag el_diego

if it did i would have picked it

 

[ash]

ROFL to above!

Film piracy is very big as well! When me and my mates go to local town centra/shopping complexes etc. there is usually a Chinese guy selling DVDs. We play around with him for a bit, like try to get 10 DVDs for £1, obviously we are joking. While another mate calls the police. It's great But I feel a bit sad....

 

[El Diego]

i was gonna answer the third one but i didnt know if it meant i get to shag el_diego

if it did i would have picked it

I'm sure we can come to some arrangement big boy!

 

[gerd]

Don't know about the games industry, bit i'm sure as hell that piracy in the music industry was provoked by the record companies.
I'm old enough to have lived the pre-CD era...i had loads of albums (i'm a big music freak and i have worked for an alternative local radio station). Then came the age of the CD's and a CD was roughly twice the prize of an vynilla album...although the production costs of CD's were half those of the vynilla album...
If you see that in the Belgian I-Tunes shop, you pay 9,99 euro for an album and around 18 for the same album on CD...why would people buy CD's...
I have nothing against piracy in the music industry because the music industry have made exagerated profits in the CD-era..they only have to blame themselves...
Don't know about the games industry...

 

[JayM]

I buy all my ganes but I'll admit to downloading some software, it's not like they are losing a sale, I wouldn't have enough money to buy it anyway (I know this is a common excuse).

 

[gomito#10]

Don't know about the games industry, bit i'm sure as hell that piracy in the music industry was provoked by the record companies.
I'm old enough to have lived the pre-CD era...i had loads of albums (i'm a big music freak and i have worked for an alternative local radio station). Then came the age of the CD's and a CD was roughly twice the prize of an vynilla album...although the production costs of CD's were half those of the vynilla album...
If you see that in the Belgian I-Tunes shop, you pay 9,99 euro for an album and around 18 for the same album on CD...why would people buy CD's...
I have nothing against piracy in the music industry because the music industry have made exagerated profits in the CD-era..they only have to blame themselves...
Don't know about the games industry...

OUCH. Well gerd if it only effected the music industry then you have a point, but it effects hard working musicians, from making a living. Musicians dont make money anymore because of pirating, now rap/hip-hop artisits are different, tottally different demographic. But people like you and me will suffer the most, because artists arent going to be able to make money off of albums anymore, then there going to stop making them... Or at least you wont have a wide variety of them. Maybe you can see them live, but there is still something special about a great studio album. Pirating is wrong, immoral, and unethical. Just because the music industry makes tons of money, doesnt make it right for you to steal from them. If your local baker or shoe store makes a good living, is it ok to steal from them? I doubt it...

 

[djdoc]

^ I agree with csaunders 100% for once every word of it is spot on.

Dj

 

[Ad16]

If your local baker or shoe store makes a good living, is it ok to steal from them? I doubt it...

That's completely different and you know it csaunders.

When you download something off the net, it's free. It's not like you a robbing whatever company it is out of a sale - they were never going to have your business to begin with. Maybe companies should treat their customers with respect and reflect that in their prices. Then maybe they would keep any customers who realized they were getting ripped off and started downloading whatever content they desired.

It's not as if you are lining the pockets of a drug dealer/people smuggler, like people do with pirate DVD's. Something I have never done, and will never do.

 

[Chris Davies]

It's not as if you are lining the pockets of a drug dealer/people smuggler, like people do with pirate DVD's. Something I have never done, and will never do.

Can I just say, whether I'm right or wrong, I love that line.

I was coming home from work (when I used to work in an office in Liverpool) one day, and I saw two or three busses on the way home with the same advert on. There's a picture of a white CD with "Pirates Of The Carribean 2" scribbled on in pen, with a gun next to it, and the words "If you buy pirate CDs, you fund terrorist activity" or something very similar involving the word "terrorist". There were TONS of people where I used to work who would sell films to make a couple of quid, there were always lists of the films they had for sale circulated, and the most terrorising thing they did with the money was buy a pack of fags to pollute the atmosphere with or put it towards a ticket to see Everton (although that's self-inflicted terrorism).

The idea that every (or even the majority) of people who sell CDs fund terrorism is absolutely proposterous. There's a market by where I live with five or six stalls selling the things, and my family have known the guys' families for years. They know a bit about computers, they know where to get blank CDs and where to download films, they know they'll make a couple of quid from it when they get stuff Blockbuster won't have for months, and that's it. Exactly the same as the guys in Liverpool. What they're doing is illegal, I'm not condoning it one bit, but this idea of the government's to tell everyone that "if they're selling pirate CDs then they know Osama Bin Laden, he's the world's major stockist", is just the most ridiculous pile of shite and says everything about a government who will lie through their teeth to the British public for "the greater good" ("tell them we have evidence he's stocking WMDs, then we can loot the place", "tell them that if they buy pirate copies then their houses will be bombed, that will get 20th Century Fox off our backs").

 

[gomito#10]

That's completely different and you know it csaunders.

When you download something off the net, it's free. It's not like you a robbing whatever company it is out of a sale - they were never going to have your business to begin with. Maybe companies should treat their customers with respect and reflect that in their prices. Then maybe they would keep any customers who realized they were getting ripped off and started downloading whatever content they desired.

It's not as if you are lining the pockets of a drug dealer/people smuggler, like people do with pirate DVD's. Something I have never done, and will never do.

no not true at all. That argument is ridiculous. Why doesnt it work the other way, if i dont intend to pay for a shoe, and i steal it, isnt that the same thing your saying above?!?!?!?!
So if you couldnt download WEJL or WE from japan you wouldnt pay for it?
"It's not like you a robbing whatever company it is out of a sale"

your robbing whatever console maker that game is for, your robbing the development company, your robbing the company that markets the game, your robbing the company that distributes the game..

your stealing, just like walking into a store and stealing a game off the rack... there is no difference...



"Maybe companies should treat their customers with respect and reflect that in their prices."

one has nothing to do with the other... simple economics my friend, thats what pricing is based on. If people are willing to pay $50 for a game, and there is enough demand, then people are going to pay $50. If no one buys a game like PES6 xbox360 then in a couple of months, you will see it for alot cheaper. Less demand, lower the price, this hopefully will increase demand ... Isnt that what you blokes saw with PES6 xbox360?

You live in a capitalist society, free economies dictate prices... video games are slightly different then corn or milk etc... since it seems they are fixed prices, but if people didnt buy video games(demand) you would see a general decline in the fixed price(not sure how old you are but when i was a youngin, VHS tapes were $75 and video games were still around $50, which is probably the equal of $75 now) so video games have gotten cheaper, so have cd's and dvd's.... cd's used to be $20, now i think the avg is around $12 to $14, dvd's used to be around $30 now around $15 to $20...

 

[Chris Davies]

one has nothing to do with the other... simple economics my friend, thats what pricing is based on. If people are willing to pay $50 for a game, and there is enough demand, then people are going to pay $50. If no one buys a game like PES6 xbox360 then in a couple of months, you will see it for alot cheaper. Less demand, lower the price... Isnt that what you blokes saw with PES6 xbox360?

He's right, it's all about supply and demand, and unfortunately the country is too stupid/addicted to say enough is enough and stop buying games until they're made cheaper.

 

[Ad16]

your robbing whatever console maker that game is for, your robbing the development company, your robbing the company that markets the game, your robbing the company that distributes the game..

My original point was to do with what gerd said a few posts ago about music. Nothing to do with the games industry whatsoever. Maybe I should of made that clearer.

one has nothing to do with the other...

It does in my opinion. These days people know they are getting ripped off. The price of CD's and the stupid way things like iTunes seems to work means people are obviously going to look at downloading for free. If I remember correctly - I may be wrong - songs cost 78p to download on iTunes, other places £1. So once you have downloaded the album you've payed nearly as much as a CD. This is far to expensive and the companies know it. Individual songs should be 30/40p. Then there are things like media rights (or whatever it's called), meaning it's a bugger to copy and burn your songs etc. Compare that to downloading a song on a file sharing program. No wonder people do the latter. The industries are never going to stop piracy, fact. Whatever they have tried has failed and they know it. They either need to sort out the way they do business or expect this to continue.

Can I just say, whether I'm right or wrong, I love that line.

Glad you liked it. :mrgreen:

Seriously, I understand what you are saying mate. I think the old government propaganda took over there for a second. I know that's not the case all the time - as everyone can do it these days - but I believe there is some truth in it for sure.

 

[jord@n]

I am into piracy, music, tv/films and ive downloaded 2 games. Piracy in music is regular now and it aint gonna stop in all honesty, films is the same, i can even watch footie for free, if the dam prices werent so high i wouldnt do this ! (it might now be high 4 u but im just a teen), and games, well ..... way overpriced, and i dont like buying games any more(ofcourse i still do :mryellow just cause ill be broke 4 a month or so.

 

[gomito#10]

My original point was to do with what gerd said a few posts ago about music. Nothing to do with the games industry whatsoever. Maybe I should of made that clearer.
It does in my opinion. These days people know they are getting ripped off. The price of CD's and the stupid way things like iTunes seems to work means people are obviously going to look at downloading for free. If I remember correctly - I may be wrong - songs cost 78p to download on iTunes, other places £1. So once you have downloaded the album you've payed nearly as much as a CD. This is far to expensive and the companies know it. Individual songs should be 30/40p. Then there are things like media rights (or whatever it's called), meaning it's a bugger to copy and burn your songs etc. Compare that to downloading a song on a file sharing program. No wonder people do the latter. The industries are never going to stop piracy, fact. Whatever they have tried has failed and they know it. They either need to sort out the way they do business or expect this to continue.

Glad you liked it. :mrgreen:

Seriously, I understand what you are saying mate. I think the old government propaganda took over there for a second. I know that's not the case all the time - as everyone can do it these days - but I believe there is some truth in it for sure.

fine, the industry will just go away, then you wont have music to listen to anymore, just some amateur bands posting songs on youtube or some website. How do people know there getting ripped off? When you buy a $150 pair of boots for footie do you know your getting ripped off(cause you are)? do you just buy it anyways cause you want them?

Not so easy to steal those boots eh mate? No difference. If your idea of justice is too steal from music companies or gaming compaines in order for them to lower prices, then your wrong. This might be what is happening, but its wrong, and people who are downloading illegally are immoral and unethical and nothing but petty thieves. The music industry does not force a gun to your head to buy there music at the prices they set. If the prices are to expensive in your mind, THEN DONT BUY THEM!!!! It makes complete sense to me that they have to pass on the cost that pirates are taking from them and pass them on to the consumer. How can you argue against this, because they make alot of money.... that argument is weak, you could apply that to alot fo different industries, how about petroleum? Why dont you and you buddies go and rob some gas stations, cause you think the price of gasoline is too high? Why dont you show those gas companies!!!! You dont want to go to jail do you? and your probably not a bad person, so you wouldnt do this anyways. But you would of video games and cd's, movies? ZERO DIFFERENCE, my friend.

 

[gomito#10]

I am into piracy, music, tv/films and ive downloaded 2 games. Piracy in music is regular now and it aint gonna stop in all honesty, films is the same, i can even watch footie for free, if the dam prices werent so high i wouldnt do this ! (it might now be high 4 u but im just a teen), and games, well ..... way overpriced, and i dont like buying games any more(ofcourse i still do :mryellow just cause ill be broke 4 a month or so.

its still wrong and immoral, if the price of car wasnt so high, then i woudln't carjack... try that defense in a courtroom. You guys have a weak weak weak argument

 

[JayM]

I think this argument is stupid.

I buy what I like and what I can afford, I have a big collection of CDs but I still download music.

It might be wrong but I don't think it's immoral.

If everyone here is so law-abiding it should be noted that modding your console is illegal in most places and I'm sure some of the editing we do of PES is against a few laws.

 

[:: JJ ::]

There's enough loop-holes and grey areas in the laws as it is, I doubt the copyright bizzies would be knocking on our door for doing PES mods. :mrgreen:

Anyway the only bit of piracy I've ever done is when I've borrowed a game from a friend and done a copy (who hasn't?), but apart from that, I've bought my own games/CD's.

 

[jaygrim]

I just rob old people and buy my games with there money that way everyones a winner.

 

[Stan]

CSaunders, i agree with you that piracy is stealing from the artists...but i also think that record companies "steal" from the artists...Prince is right...more artists should do what he has done...
The Walkabouts are on of my favourite bands, if you ask you can make bootlegs from their concerts....

 

[Ad16]

its still wrong and immoral, if the price of car wasnt so high, then i woudln't carjack... try that defense in a courtroom. You guys have a weak weak weak argument

I don't find it immoral at all. If I'm watching a music channel on TV and hear a song I like, I can download it through file sharing without feeling anything whatsoever. For many people these days it's about getting the media you want, fast. If you record a movie on TV and give a copy to a friend, or if your friend lends you a CD and you rip the contents to your PC, is that really wrong? Everyday people have been doing that for years. Seriously, do you really care enough to say that it's immoral? It's NOT hurting anyone. You can't compare a digital mp3 file to something like a car or petrol. Completely different story whether you think so or not. Downloading a few music tracks doesn't band you in the same camp as thieves who steel physical things. It may sound like I'm trying to justify it by saying this, but that's what I truly believe.

 

[gomito#10]

I don't find it immoral at all. If I'm watching a music channel on TV and hear a song I like, I can download it through file sharing without feeling anything whatsoever. For many people these days it's about getting the media you want, fast. If you record a movie on TV and give a copy to a friend, or if your friend lends you a CD and you rip the contents to your PC, is that really wrong? Everyday people have been doing that for years. Seriously, do you really care enough to say that it's immoral? It's NOT hurting anyone. You can't compare a digital mp3 file to something like a car or petrol. Completely different story whether you think so or not. Downloading a few music tracks doesn't band you in the same camp as thieves who steel physical things. It may sound like I'm trying to justify it by saying this, but that's what I truly believe.

your just rationalizing it in your head. Tower records here in the states went bankrupt because cd sales went down the tubes because of pirating. So your telling me people who had spent 20 years at that company who lost there jobs, there retirement funds, there health insurance, there lively hood, that didnt hurt them? Bullshit. Dont you think tower employed, janitors, IT workeres, clerks, wharehouse workers, accountants, marketing, and financial employess, not to mention store management. THINK ABOUT IT. Your just too narrow minded to understand that your actions times hundreads of thousands, or millions, HURT people. Regular people like us, people with 9 to 5 jobs and home loans, not just rich music executives and rich rock stars, there a small % of the overall industry.
A digital file is a physical thing. Its a sector on a hard drive. that was created thru creativity and thought. So your telling me when a author writes a book, that the only thing of worth is the actuall paper the writer used to write on. And that his thoughts and feelings are worthless, cause if you steal those thoughts and
feelings it doesnt hurt anyone, cause you werent going to buy his book anyways, so you stole it instead... your argument sucks. It hurts lots of people. I does compare to oil, there is no difference. The only difference is in your head. To anyone who has a rational and objective viewpoint of the situation, there is no difference. Your stealing, plain and simple, for your own personal enjoyment. Which is sad really, cause you dont need that to live. Some people do need to steal to live, unfortunately. But you my friend dont need entertainment to live. I feel sorry the people you have stolen from.

 

[Ad16]

Tower records here in the states went bankrupt because cd sales went down the tubes because of pirating.

Are you trying to make me feel responsible for that because I download the odd song here and there? That's bollocks. From what I've read this was one of many reasons Tower went bankrupt. Piracy alone doesn't close CD stores, don't make out it does. All stores these days are losing revenue from CD sales. A lot of it due to the new iPod generation. The money is going elsewhere, lining others pockets. It's a sign of the times. Technology advances. They have to deal with it. I don't feel guilty if people lose their jobs, it's not my fault. This isn't to say I don't feel sorry for them, of course I do. Unfortunately this happens.

And for the record, I have never stolen from anyone. Any song I may have downloaded is a digital copy of one that someone else keeps. They retain the original. It's not the same as someone stealing a physical thing that the victim loses. So there is a difference.

Can you honestly say you are innocent in this? You have never downloaded a song etc? What about the examples I gave in my previous post? I can't believe someone can get on a high horse like this and feel completely absolved.

 

[200_pesos]

yo fook da institushin! haahahah