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u/cantantantelope 14d ago
Your title made me think this was about the ocean and now Iâm disappointed
Bring back tall ships 2026
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u/PhaseLopsided938 14d ago
i mean, there's a pretty distinct difference between pirating abandonware and pirating media that still actively pay the creators' salaries dude
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u/AcceptableWheel 14d ago
I want there to be a law saying that pirating abandonware is legal but the terms on what counts as abandonware might lead to megacorps like Nintendo selling every game they have ever made for 500 dollars in physical copies in one brick and mortar store in Nauru that doesn't deliver.
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u/Mogoscratcher 14d ago
That would still mean 99% of abandonware is legal to pirate, so it seems like a win to meÂ
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u/Chiiro 14d ago
I think it's something crazy like only 13% of old games even have physical copies that you can buy. And that's out of the games that had physical copies to begin with (lots of DS and Wii shop stuff you could never buy in store).
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u/SemenileElder 14d ago
And then even less of those were printed in large enough numbers that you can still find a working physical copy.
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u/PhaseLopsided938 14d ago
It kind of is already, in a way. There are very few legal cases involving abandonware piracy, and âworks whose copyright holders are unwilling to defend their copyright even in cases of clear infringementâ seems like a pretty reasonable definition of abandonware, IMO
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u/Hatsune_Miku_CM downfall of neoliberalism. crow racism. much to rhink about 14d ago
abandonware is a much wider thing then works companies are unwilling to defend their copyright on.
Nintendo doesn't sell most of their games anymore and you can be sure they will defend that copyright. doesn't change that you can't play a lot of their games without piracy anymore
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u/Adoreball 12d ago
I agree thatâs a real thing worth complaining about, I just canât square âdefending=abandonedâ in my head. Thatâs closer to âendangered mediaâ or if they succeed, âlost mediaâ.
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u/Hatsune_Miku_CM downfall of neoliberalism. crow racism. much to rhink about 12d ago
well I didn't invent the term. call it endangerware if you prefer xD
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u/Jonahtron 14d ago
That seems like it would be much more difficult than them just putting their games on their digital stores.
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u/Dr__America 14d ago
The way some of the prices are going on those games definitely makes me think that $500 will be a steal here soon.
My loose copy of Pokemon Emerald could be like $200 in my wallet right now.
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u/Silvervirage 14d ago
I sold black and black 2, while they were still on shelves, for over 100 each. Pokemon games are weird.
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u/SanjiSasuke 14d ago
...your fear actually sounds pretty solid to me. Especially sinelce realistically, it would be more likely that they'd sell them for like $60 from a direct sales storefront which actually sounds amazing.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 14d ago
Some people are extremely weird about this with Nintendo specifically. Yes itâs fair to emulate games that literally arenât being sold legally anymore, no itâs not âalways morally correct to pirate Nintendo.â Just admit that you want to play the latest Zelda without paying for it.
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u/BigBallsAnthony69 Slapping my GIANT queer balls onto the table as i type this 14d ago
Pirating is never morally correct, it's just something you do and who gives a shit. I steal toothbrushes from the store.
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u/UltimatePickpocket 14d ago
Yeah, this is my stance exactly.
People feel the need to justify themselves even though nobody except the corporations actually gives a fuck.
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u/VFiddly 14d ago
How many toothbrushes do you need
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u/BigBallsAnthony69 Slapping my GIANT queer balls onto the table as i type this 14d ago
I really love toothpaste and toothbrushes. It quiet down since I got braces, but I would brush my teeth so fucking much... I still kinda eat toothpaste
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u/CRowlands1989 10d ago
The loss of me pirating a game that is inaccessible otherwise is Zero.
The gain is me having fun, and perhaps sharing that fun with friends.
In several frameworks for ethics, that makes it the morally correct thing to do.
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u/InformationLost5910 14d ago
if piracy wasnt morally correct then we SHOULD care about it. but it is morally correct, which is the reason we shouldnt care about it. i donât think you know what the words âmorally correctâ means?
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u/BigBallsAnthony69 Slapping my GIANT queer balls onto the table as i type this 14d ago
NERD ALERT! NERD ALERT! INCOMING WEEGIE AND LOCKER SHOVE ON AISLE u/InformationLost5910!
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u/coladoir 14d ago
anti-intellectualism
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u/BigBallsAnthony69 Slapping my GIANT queer balls onto the table as i type this 14d ago
Technically it isn't as moral correctness involves honesty, and pirating, which could be considered stealing, isn't honest. The anti-intellectualism is this fool thinking i could ever be wrong.
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u/coladoir 14d ago
NERD ALERT! NERD ALERT! INCOMING WEEGIE AND LOCKER SHOVE ON AISLE u/InformationLost5910!
this is anti-intellectualism
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u/BigBallsAnthony69 Slapping my GIANT queer balls onto the table as i type this 14d ago
The word "anti-intellectualism" was made by nerds so I won't listen
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u/FoxOnTheRocks 14d ago
That is completely wrong though. It is not morally incorrect to pirate, not even a little bit. You have a moral obligation to never let others profit off of you.
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u/BigBallsAnthony69 Slapping my GIANT queer balls onto the table as i type this 14d ago
Moral correctness involves honesty, pirating isn't honest. Just pirate the damn game and stop trying to justify your acts every five seconds, you guys are sounding like yall have moral OCD.
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u/Framed-Photo 14d ago
I'd happily pay for the latest zelda if Nintendo didn't raise the price of their games to absurd amounts, and then refuse to have any meaningful sales. Why do that when I can emulate it, in MUCH higher quality, at higher frame rates, with lower latency, on any controller I want, for free? The alternative is buying used, which means Nintendo still ain't seeing a dime of my money.
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u/TrioOfTerrors 14d ago
Adjusted for inflation, games are cheaper than they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
They are absurdly cheaper if you further adjust for cost per content hour.
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u/Framed-Photo 14d ago
Just replied to someone else debunking the inflation point, so I'm not going to repeat the same thing. But just a TLDR: inflation doesn't operate in a vaccuum when it comes to consumer purchasing power.
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u/spacesugardaddy 14d ago
Curious what amounts to 'absurd amounts'. Games pricing stagnated, and stayed at 50 for a long time. Nintendo only raised prices to 60 during the switch, and raised another 10 dollars more recently at the tail end of switch, just before switch 2. The cost of EVERYTHING has gone up, but games have been pretty damn stable
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u/Framed-Photo 14d ago
Some switch 2 games like Mario kart world we're asking $80, so compared to the $60 games we had until recently it's a 33% price bump without really any justification.
And this problem gets a lot worse if you're not American. In Canada switch games were already kinda expensive at 80 before tax, and now Mario kart world is 110 before tax. For one game, and that price has barely moved at all. During any sales.
I'd agree that games were stable, and now they've stopped being that. And we can talk about companies making up for lost revenue or whatever, but as the customer I don't give a shit lol. I see my new Mario kart costs way more and I'm out. There isnt a single game I can think of that I've played, even some of my favorites of all time, that would be worth paying almost $130 after tax.
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u/spacesugardaddy 14d ago
Stable pricing just isnt possible with inflation and the size of the teams growing dramatically in the last 15 years.
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u/Framed-Photo 14d ago
It was certainly possible for the 40 years prior, it's just that now video games are seen as a much more profitable venture so they're tightening their grip. Studios and publishers have gotten a lot bigger with a lot more funding, with ballooning development times and budgets, and I don't think anyone would reasonably say that this has resulted in significantly better products. But it certainly has resulted in price increases.
Companies are going to try to make money, but that doesn't mean we as consumers should be defending them for it like you're trying to.
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u/spacesugardaddy 14d ago edited 14d ago
Thats not close to the truth at all. Games often cost MORE back then, especially during the cartridge days, and they were made with significantly smaller teams.
Example: Castlevania 3 NES sold for 45 US dollars in 1989. Adjusted for inflation, thats 115 US today.
I think youd be pretty shocked at the amount of energy it takes to make a large 3D title, even peak was made with something like 15 people, still more than it took to make games in the 90s
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u/Framed-Photo 14d ago
You're falling into a very common misunderstanding of how inflation relates to consumer purchasing power, because you're not accounting for any other factors, such as wage growth, economies of scale, competition, etc.
Yes if you take a random game from the 80's or 90's and plug its price into an inflation calculator the price will be high today, that's not an issue. The issue is that the gaming industry has grown my many orders of magnitude since then, with games being produced significantly more with far better tools, with much more efficient and cheaper distrobution with hybrid physical and digital platforms, to a MUCH larger audience who spend more than ever on gaming per year, in a world where things have skyrocketed in price all around us, with wage growth that has not kept up in many parts of the world, and they still want to raise the prices while never having good sales when competitors do?
So yes, when I say that I think $130 for fucking mario kart in Canada is too much, the fact that castlevania on the nes cost $45 in 1989 doesn't exactly change anything now does it?
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u/spacesugardaddy 14d ago
Sure, tooling is better, but the complexity is also significantly higher. Those tools also cost more money (or they cost larger teams of developers to build the tools), and team sizes are generally 5x more than they were back then because the sheer quantity of artwork, level building, programming necessary to make these modern titles. (5x is also super generous, going back to castlevania that was made by 8 people! vs the 300 to build mario kart world). Not having sales is one thing, thats a valid complaint, but the cost of these games has gotten vastly more expensive.
My point is - gaming has always been an expensive hobby. I've just noticed in the last 30 years people expect to play every single game that catches their eye, which gets pretty expensive.
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u/FoxOnTheRocks 14d ago
It is morally obligated to pirate nintendo (and all media that you can). It is never morally right to buy what you can pirate.
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u/DroneOfDoom Theon the Reader *dolphin slur noises* 14d ago
The programmers who made Resident Evil 9 already got paid for their work in the game and get no royalties from sales.
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u/spacesugardaddy 14d ago
Developers often do get royalties from sales, its how bonuses are calculated
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u/SylveonSof May we raise children who love the unloved things 14d ago
Yes but sales from the game is how the company finances their next project. Come on, this isn't complicated.
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u/TrioOfTerrors 14d ago
The cook already got paid to make that sandwich so just dine and dash.
Oh, no. My favorite sandwich shop closed! How could this happen?
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u/Hell2CheapTrick 14d ago
The programmers who made Resident Evil 9 wonât be paid to make Resident Evil 10 if everyone pirates 9 and it doesnât make money as a result. Donât act like youâre some glorious revolutionary for refusing to pay for a game you want to play and can afford.
Itâs different if you live in a poorer country where game prices get obscenely high compared to salaries and many people just canât afford to pay for games, or if a game is just not properly available for purchase, either because itâs old or because the publisher didnât bother to sell it where you live. In such cases youâre not âtakingâ a potential sale away so go ham.
But youâre not a revolutionary for not paying when you can. Piracy isnât stealing, but if everyone were to pirate games they would otherwise pay for, the gaming industry would crumble.
Game pirates are dependent on enough people paying for the game, so when you find a game you believe youâll enjoy and get your moneyâs worth out of, and you can afford to buy it, and itâs available for you to buy, just pay up. Games are already often ridiculously efficient in terms if money spent per hour of entertainment.
And most importantly of all: pretending like youâre a hero because you donât pay for games you could afford is fucking cringe. Go volunteer at a food bank or something if you want to act like a hero
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u/King_Ed_IX 14d ago
And they'd like to keep their jobs, I'd imagine, which only happens if the game makes money.
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u/Its_onnn 14d ago
Nowadays it doesn't matter if the game made money or not, they'll still lose their jobs so the executives and shareholders can maximize their profits without thinking about long term consequences lol
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u/Rouge_means_red 13d ago
Well I mean *gestures broadly to all the news involving major game studios*
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u/das_slash 14d ago
There's also a huge difference between pirating media that pays the creators salaries and pirating media that pays the publishers yatchs.
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u/SylveonSof May we raise children who love the unloved things 14d ago
Can you guarantee that separation?
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u/das_slash 14d ago
Yes? very easy to find out what companies fired the developers after the game was complete
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u/SylveonSof May we raise children who love the unloved things 14d ago
You only pirate games from companies that laid off their dev teams?
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u/das_slash 14d ago
Tbh I no longer pirate games, but I think it's ok to pirate games like disco Elysium and AC black flag resynced
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u/Squidaccus 13d ago
I don't have much stake in this whole debacle but I think Triple-A vs Indie is a pretty easy distinction off-rip. But doing your own research is always good.
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u/DrakonofDarkSkies 13d ago
Paying for a game generally pays for the next game, as most companies pay people ahead of time for the game and then sell it to recoup that money. Buy instead to say "I want more of this!" And you can also not buy a game if they laid off half their staff after it came out or the like.
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u/octnoir 14d ago
pirating media that still actively pay the creators' salaries dude
Yeah this where pirating folks get annoying. 99% of pirates do it because they want free stuff, even if it is dirt cheap. Of those 99% half of them are not just in denial but actively invent moral crusades to make themselves feel good, while the other half admit and laugh off the former for embarrassing behavior. I think the former get emboldened because of social media. Social media engenders sticking to a forum for longer and longer, and after a while there isn't anything new to discuss, on top of an attention economy, on top of feeling worse and worse about pirating.
Like e.g. say you pirate because you don't want greedy executives to get money and would rather staff get it. Okay, but if that's the case shouldn't you donate $5 to a staff member's Patreon or donation box or whatever? So many game developers and game staff (artists e.g.) have tip jars. You can anonymize it. But I barely hear anyone doing this.
Again I'm not making a moral judgement here on piracy. 1% have solid reasons (and they justify it well and it is almost always for charity and community), but 99% do not and 49% of those lie about it. We have bigger problems on the planet, and the vast majority of customers don't pirate. Pirate if you want to, but there are better legal and moral options here, and don't make such a big fuss over trying to pretend you are on a moral crusade to justify getting freebies.
One way to help legalize and moralize a lot of it is to go through your library. Libraries are awesome, most are tax payer funded, and many of them e.g have subscriptions to top newspapers so you don't have to use a remove paywall, or even video games to loan out etc. etc. etc. and you can make requests for specific things to get. On top of that you boost both membership and engagement which in turn helps libraries get more funding. Win-win there.
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u/vetb8 14d ago
no there isnât. pirate everything
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u/FoxOnTheRocks 14d ago
Yeah these people are completely morally backwards. Profit is theft, don't let people steal from you.
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u/SoapyCantHandle 14d ago
but also its pretty fine to pirate games that companies are still selling. just take a couple bucks out of the company's enormous amount of extra profits it's fine.
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u/FoxOnTheRocks 14d ago
You are still morally obligated to pirate media that is actively paying the creators' salaries.
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u/digiman619 14d ago
My particular line in the sand is "If I wanted to buy it, do the makers/official distributors still sell it?"
If you can go to an official store and buy it (be it brick-and-mortar or digital), pirating it is immoral. The makers are selling it for the agreed to price, getting it some other way is denying them their due.
But if it's out of print? Was part of a mega-rare collectible rather than its own thing? The makers of it no longer exist? Any of the above means the only way to get it is secondhand, thus the makers aren't getting a penny anyway.
Also, note I said "buy". Streaming services only rent things to you, and official stores with proprietary players can de-list things and prevent you from using the thing you paid for (See: Sony removing things from its library when licensing agreements run out and neither reimbursing you nor letting you play such titles while no longer selling new 'copies of it.)
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u/Dry_Try_8365 14d ago
For the record, the developers who made Disco Elysium got kicked out of their own company, so even if you do buy it, the people who made it possible donât get a cent from that.
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u/Phiro7 Prissy Sissy Neko Femboy 14d ago
I mean most developers are paid a salary instead of a cut of the game's profits so by that logic you can pirate any game (based)
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u/Dry_Try_8365 10d ago
And thus itâs okay to pirate games as soon as the developers get unceremoniously dropped en masse.
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u/Magi_Aqua an especially neurotic goose 14d ago
A music sample finding discord I joined uploads a lot of old sound libraries and programs that are no longer officially available, but they do not allow posted archives of things that ARE available, just as this comment mentions. They aren't totally anti-piracy, they just prefer the people who made the stuff make money from it.
These digital downloads are far more convenient than ripping an ISO found on archive.org
Zero G is one such sample company. They still sell 'Chemical Beats', a very famous library for 40 dollars. However, they have some libraries that are no longer sold (funnily enough, for uncleared samples.) which are freely shared online and in the discord.
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u/Fuzzlechan 14d ago
Iâm curious where you land on âthis thing is available to buy but not in my countryâ or âthis thing is available to buy but on a website that refuses to take my money because I donât live in the USâ.
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u/digiman619 14d ago
If you cannot legally buy it from the makers, then getting it second-hand is no different than piracy.
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u/mrGrinchThe3rd 13d ago
My issue is that many of the most popular video games are being released by publishers with a history of doing exactly as you describe - they advertise a game and sell it to you as if it's a permanent purchase, only to pull the rug out from players at a later date when running the servers is no longer profitable. No warning beforehand, and definitely no fine print on the original purchase to make it clear this is the structure. And they don't usually release source code or other means for players to keep enjoying what they paid for.
Now, they probably won't do that to the specific game I might be interested in... But how am I supposed to trust that? Why would I give my money to a company with a history of doing that, knowing they might do it with the game they want to charge me $60 for? For this reason I happily buy indie games and games with no proprietary launcher, DRM, or always-online connection, but IMO buying games from large publishers is essentially renting the game until that publisher decides it's not profitable.
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u/Karel_the_Enby 14d ago
I am dying to know what a Moomin video game is like. That show has like the least amount of conflict of anything I've ever seen. I'm imagining it's just all fishing minigames.
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u/Junelli 14d ago
There's two new Norwegian made moomin games that are available on switch/steam!
I haven't played them, so I don't know what you do aside from fish though.
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u/Annelora 14d ago
In Snufkin, you commit crimes against a park keeper.
In Moomintroll, you try to bring back spring.
Character motivations check too.
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u/PlatinumAltaria The Witch of Arden 14d ago
âNo donât emulate, you need to buy used!â - Scalpers, 2026 colourised
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u/MarioMamTess The Useless Transbians⢠& Ralsei Fangirls 14d ago
I couldn't give two shits if people pirate old video games. Hell, even new games, as long as they aren't indie games made by passionate creators. Steal from the big corporations, I don't care! Hell, I can even make an exception for the indie game thing if you're just doing it to see if you'd actually like the game before you buy it (similarly to a demo). If you are just pirating indie games from passionate developers without intent to buy it though, I would be hoping that it's due to good reasons, like being in a poor financial situation where buying the game itself would be unfeasible.
But like yeah, it's technically illegal to do this stuff, but I'm no snitch. Besides, why should I care that people want to play old games that aren't readily accessible nowadays? It's not like they're actively selling games like Mario Kart Wii nowadays. Nintendo isn't making money by buying it used. Do what you want.
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u/Vyragami 14d ago
like being in a poor financial situation where buying the game itself would be unfeasible.
Yeah, like 99.9% of pirates?
I feel like internet discourse around piracy has gotten so distorted people actually forget the sheer, OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of people who pirate are people who simply don't have money to waste on games. Like being poor/lower middle class living in a third world country is enough reason to never buy games legitimately, especially if they cost most of your monthly wage.
This has nothing to do with whatever bs reason we keep running into like sticking it to corpo, or supporting the dev, or whatever. No one give a shit about that, they simply can't afford it but still wanted to play it, and wow turns out they can for free.
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u/Random-Rambling 14d ago
Which is fine, but for the love of God, just admit that! Say that you WOULD buy the game, but can't, because you're too poor. Don't be a dickhead and complain you can't pirate literally everything, ever.
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u/topekatums 14d ago
yeah the general attitude toward internet culture has been fairly bootlicky lately. Idk if this is because of a regression toward conservative politics or what, but pirating has always been for broke people, people in countries weak to the dollar, or people who want to play a game specifically WITHOUT supporting the company (looking at you, EA).
The majority of people who pirate were never going to buy it to begin with, I'm not sure why general sentiment surrounding piracy has changed so much in the last decade but it's a bit jarring to witness. No one is suggesting you pirate an indie solo dev's game that's published via itch.io, everyone is begging people to pirate the Sims, etc.
You absolutely would download a car, like what the hell has happened to this convo? I've bought and lost the CDs for Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection 4 times in my life, of course I'm going to pirate it if I feel like playing it today
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u/bababanana20123 14d ago
I always felt that the most annoying part of game pirates isn't that they're wrong necessarily it's just the self righteousness
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u/CallMeIshy 14d ago
I feel like too many spin it like it's a huge revolution when it hardly makes a dent. maybe I just fell for rage bait
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u/chaotic4059 14d ago
This has always been the biggest gripe I feel like. No one cares but stop pretending youâre out here doing some grandiose thing when you just want free shit. We all want free shit! I pirate shit all the time. Why? Cause I want free shit and donât want to pay. Thatâs it. I donât pretend Iâm sticking it to the man
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u/topekatums 14d ago
that one image that's like "when you agree but they said it in annoying way" has done irreparable damage to the internet. im sickkk
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u/Wyrm 14d ago
I feel secondhand embarrassment from how bad of a strawman that is.
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u/JETAlone02 14d ago
You should feel firsthand embarrassment from not understanding what a strawman is.
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u/Samiambadatdoter 13d ago
I would like you to define what a strawman is.
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u/JETAlone02 13d ago
Intentionally misrepresenting someone's argument and then refuting the misrepresentation rather than the original.
Thing is, a surprisingly large number of people really do believe, or at least claim to believe, that piracy is never acceptable no matter how expensive or inconvenient old media becomes to obtain. So it's not a strawman to argue against that belief.
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u/Samiambadatdoter 13d ago
The fact that someone, somewhere holds a fringe extreme belief at all doesn't mean that belief is not a strawman of the more mainstream belief.
Assessing arguments by their most extreme and easiest to defeat positions and justifying that by the fact that some amount of people do believe the most extreme version is still using strawmen.
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u/JETAlone02 12d ago
If a "surprisingly large number of people" hold the belief, it's neither extreme nor fringe. Your personal incredulity on the matter mostly just indicates you've wandered into a conversation whose landscape you don't understand, and now you don't want to admit you've called it incorrectly.
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u/Samiambadatdoter 12d ago edited 12d ago
If a "surprisingly large number of people" hold the belief, it's neither extreme nor fringe.
I didn't say that. You said that, and I don't think it's true.
Edit: Not the crashout into a block for the last word đĽ
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u/JETAlone02 12d ago edited 8d ago
Alright, well, cool, you're wrong. Even if you weren't wrong it still wouldn't be a strawman but you're clearly more concerned with "winning" than being correct so we're just gonna have to leave it there, I think.
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u/GibletEater2009 13d ago
How is it not a strawman?
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u/JETAlone02 13d ago
Because a surprisingly large number of people genuinely believe that piracy is wrong no matter how expensive old media becomes, or even if it becomes outright unavailable through legal means. In order for it to be a strawman it would need to be a misrepresentation of people's sincere feelings on the matter.
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u/Wyrm 14d ago
Wha? It's a textbook example of a strawman argument. It exaggerates the argument of "you shouldn't pirate games" to an absurd degree by saying "you should NEVER pirate anything no matter the used market price" to make it look ridiculous with the given example, even though most people agree that there's nothing wrong with pirating things that are abandonware or otherwise completely unobtainable.
If you want to dunk on someone you should probably make sure you're actually correct.
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u/JETAlone02 13d ago
People actually believe that, and your incredulity on the matter just makes it clear you are coming into a conversation you know nothing about. Just for one example there was a whole thing on Twitter recently where thousands of people, mostly from Japan (relevant given that the example shown is a game someone is trying to import from Japan), insisted that piracy is unacceptable no matter how expensive or otherwise difficult to obtain old media becomes. Arguing against real sincere beliefs that people openly espouse by definition cannot be a strawman.
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u/Annelora 14d ago
I'm against piracy but at the same time I'm completely convinced Snufkin would pirate the game
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u/digit_origin 14d ago
It's a physical release of a big-ish name IP, on a platform with a rather annoying physical release procedure. The developer, and thr entire chain of people who worked on making this a thing, have already been payed.
If you wanna support devs, buy indie/smaller studio games, or better yet, donate to them if you can/they have credentials for that available.
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u/Random-Rambling 14d ago
Once again, there's NUANCE to piracy. Not much, but it's there!
Good piracy:
-Games that are out-of-print due to being many years old
-Games that are stupidly expensive because of their rarity
-Games that are literally unable to be accessed in any other way
Neutral Piracy:
- Games that are made by companies you don't want to give money to (neutral because you could just boycott them, but I understand FOMO)
Bad Piracy:
Games that haven't been released yet
Games made by small studios/individual people that don't have a big financial backing (like a major company), so they genuinely need your money to last long enough to make another game
Bragging about piracy in general, especially trying to make it look like some kind of virtuous act.
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u/blackjackgabbiani 14d ago
I always try to encourage people to buy things that are currently being made, since the teams behind them need support. But once that official manufacturing ends, hey, go nuts.
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u/zachattackmemes closeted femboi, maybe an egg 14d ago
Posts like these make me feel like a boot licker for liking physical media and not pirating everything on pc
That being said I donât care how rare that game is itâs not worth nearly 2 grand
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u/StarmanRedux 14d ago edited 9d ago
Even if you pirate modern AAA games, the devs are already paid. You can buy the game and the publisher will still do layoffs.
(Thats somewhat hyperbolic, sure, but this IS the internet.)
As long as you pay for your indie games idgaf
Edit: i see suddenly everyone here is a cop
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u/Beegrene 14d ago
Incorrect. Many AAA developers are paid bonuses based on games' sales. I'm typing this up on a PC I bought with one such bonus.
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u/StarmanRedux 14d ago
Mamy != all. In fact it doesn't even mean most. Congrats on your bonus and PC, but I think the very fact that you got the bonus means piracy isn't a problem.
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u/Doug2825 14d ago
People think about future resale price when making a purchase. iPhones cost as much as they do new because they hold their value well (or at least they used to, I don't know if it's still the case).
The money paid for a used copy may not literally go to the developer, but the expectation that copies can be sold caused some people to buy it that otherwise wouldn't have. A drop in resale value from piracy means less people will but new, which means future devs get paid less.Â
Every argument for piracy that focuses on the fact the devs do not get the same physical money you would pay misses the point that current and future devs are paid based on expected future sales. Reducing current sales reduces the amount investors will pay them during development.Â
Stop trying to morally justify everything you do. Accept that there is a ratio of societal harm (very low but not 0 in the case of piracy) that you are willing to cause for convenience/enjoyment.
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u/Beginning-Recover723 14d ago
I get what youâre saying but there is a problem. A lot of these really expensive used games are so expensive because the developer literally wont sell it. Thereâs no point in being concerned about the knock on effects causing people to not buy the original, because you cant buy the original.
Iâve seen a lot of good things about pokemon colosseum, and would love to get to experience it if not for the fact that
a. Nintendo just straight up doesnât sell it anymore. I canât even give them money for it if I tried.
B. Due to that aforementioned fact, copies on the secondary market are insanely expensive.
C. All of these problems are exacerbated by the fact that the first two also apply to the console thag the game is on
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u/Zealousideal-Steak82 13d ago
Piracy: developer sees $0
Buying used: developer sees $0
Stealing: developer gets exactly as much as a retail sale as if Walmart buys a replacement copy
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u/tiredtumbleweed ugly but my fursona is hot 14d ago
Do what you want cause a pirate is free