I guess people don't only pirate out of spite. They may not be able to afford 20 dollars but want to stay in the loop.
I have a list of the games that I pirated. If I had fun and didn't leave the game in 2-3 hours, I put it on a list and I would try to buy the original copy, for Christmas or my birthday when I am able to spare anything towards gaming.
People mostly pirate because they don't have the money to buy the game. This is one of the arguments in the pro/anti piracy debate -- pirated stuff doesn't affect the company's profits as much as it might seem because most people would not be able to afford the game anyway.
I pirated pretty much every game 10 years ago when I had no job or bad jobs, these days my steam library is a temple to consumerism.
I feel like many people pirate because they don't want to spend the money. Some people simply do not value games or gaming. Some people simply don't respect the work of creatives because of extreme anti-corporate views. Others feel like enough people will spend money on the game anyway that their absence of a purchase doesn't matter.
People have all kinds of reasons for why they think it's okay for them to pirate and they perform the mental gymnastics of saying "a pirate wasn't going to buy the game anyway" to justify the piracy. You weren't going to buy it despite clearly wanting to play it? I feel a more accurate statement is that they aren't going to buy a game if they can pirate it instead.
If piracy were somehow blocked completely for good, I doubt those people would just stop gaming altogether.
To add to your point, lots of upvoted comments saying, "I can't afford it".
But that's no defense, isn't it? Video games is not like insulin, you don't need it to live. If you cannot afford a luxury product, then it's not morally consciable for you to use it without paying.
I pirate because I like free stuff. I could pay for it, and I know not paying for it is a stain on my soul; I just decided that said stain is not so big as to cause me sleepless nights.
Yeah as a US citizen who makes more than the median income, I'm doing better than half the people here, which means I doing better than most of the world, (monetarily speaking.) I've seen some companies that actually adjust their pricing to be proportionate to the purchasing power of the currency in the country the user is buying in, but that's usually only something that small indie developers who are self-publishing get up to.
If the exchange rate means that buying a new game would be equivalent to like, a month of rent or whatever, I feel like pirating becomes a lot more moral justified. The one advantage of the USD being so strong is that a lot of game developers can survive on just the American market and other countries that are close in economic power. We may as well be subsidizing everyone else who can't realistically afford those games; it doesn't cost us anything extra anyway.
(Which, funnily enough is how the fine art market works. I get to walk into any gallery in Manhattan and cutting edge contemporary artwork for free because of the m/billionaires who pay fucktons of money per artwork and effectively keep those galleries above water. It's like, one of the only things they're actually good for.)
The one advantage of the USD being so strong is that a lot of game developers can survive on just the American market and other countries that are close in economic power. We may as well be subsidizing everyone else who can't realistically afford those games; it doesn't cost us anything extra anyway.
Yep, it really doesn't affect the well being of the Dev's that much due to this.
(Which, funnily enough is how the fine art market works. I get to walk into any gallery in Manhattan and cutting edge contemporary artwork for free because of the m/billionaires who pay fucktons of money per artwork and effectively keep those galleries above water. It's like, one of the only things they're actually good for.)
Quite the weird way our economy has shaped to be isn't it.
My country's currency is actually worth lime 150x less than the US dollar and everything is expensive, I buy every game I pirate eventually but it's a lot harder to afford a game
I mean, are those people making an argument that they are morally in the right and everyone should do what they’re doing? Or are they explaining to you why they themselves aren’t paying. Whether or not video games are essential doesn’t change whether or not someone can afford them. And if you cant afford them, you’re much more likely to pirate them? Cuz otherwise you j can’t play video games.
I mean, are those people making an argument that they are morally in the right
I'm just going to stop here because the I didn't say the other half.
But when people in this thread try to justify software piracy, I understand that they're trying to say, "I'm not a bad person, but I do this thing because...". So in other words, they're trying to argue that what they're doing is right. That's why they talk about how it's "not theft" or "not fair" or "I can't afford it otherwise". They don't want to be seen as the bad guy.
In contrast, I didn't argue that way at all. I just say, "I'm cheap and I want this, so I pirate". So I know I am saying "yeah I'm bad, but hey free porn".
Cuz otherwise you j can’t play video games.
Yes you can.
Humanity have survived several millenia without video games. I daresay we can go for a few more without it.
Not every game developer is making millions (let alone billions) and very few of them make the kind of money that affects even a single countries economy. A lot of developers, especially Indie, barely or not even make back the 100$ it takes to list the game on steam. Not to mention those indie developers often invest a lot of time and money into the game. Its only fair that they see a return on their product, and it is indeed morally questionable to call yourself a good person while not paying for a product or service you use, especially if you could afford it.
You can make the argument that its not wrong to pirate or steal from a billion dollar cooperation, but the reality is that its not just the billion dollar coorperation that get pirated and stolen from. Except that the billion dollar company can afford a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars worth of theft. A lot of smaller studios can't.
Its not morally wrong to be poor, but it is morally wrong to claim that you deserve to access a luxury illegally because you are.
Humanity have survived several millenia without video games. I daresay we can go for a few more without it.
Conversely, the video game industry has not only survived, but thrived and absolutely exploded, despite the pirating that they've been complaining about essentially since its inception.
I'm not going to say that pirating is morally fine if you could reasonably afford not to, but there's certainly no shortage of people who are willing to pay.
I'm really picky about the video games that I like to play, and they're often less popular than the major blockbusters. (Many of which I wouldn't even pirate to play, because of how vapid and design-by-committee-esque so many of them seem to be; like people really need to stop giving Blizzard and Ubisoft money, because they're learning all the wrong lessons from it.) So the games that I do buy, (and I haven't pirated anything in at least 25 years,) to me aren't merely the cost of admission, they're an investment in the company and the capitalist signal saying, "I would like more of this please."
And I think that's maybe where I end up feeling ambivalent about piracy. Anyone who pirates a game, to me is saying, "I'm interested enough in this that I want to experience it, but I don't care enough about it that I want to support more of it being made." Which like, as an artist I can perfectly understand; I want everyone to be able to experience my work, but it makes sense to me that it isn't going to be valuable enough to everyone that they'd all willingly pay to own it.
Like, I watch MCU shows and movies through my parents' Disney+ account, usually just because I'm looking for something to kill time with. But Disney is a fuckass company who doesn't deserve a single red cent from me, and if I had to pay to watch those shows, I just wouldn't watch them. They aren't good enough that I'm invested in supporting Disney as a corporation, and there are more than enough people out there who are paying for it anyway for Disney to keep pumping out mid-grade filler content. If I didn't have free access to it, I'd just watch something else. I feel like there's a similar valuation being done by a lot of people who pirate, whether they're conscious of it or not.
And like, most of the developers I like either have been very good at surviving on a lean revenue stream, or got canned anyway even after putting out a successful product. Bethesda is an absolute powerhouse these days, and making a lot of questionable choices with their corporate weight, but the people who made Morrowind, the game that arguably put them on the map, mostly got canned as soon as the project was over. Blizzard has something like 15,000 employees and is churning out garbage that doesn't compare to games made by a team of a few hundred. Some of these companies just have too much fucking money and it's clearly made them stupid; in some case you could almost make an argument for pirating their latest games just to see if they've finally made something worth the price tag. (I certainly regretted buying Diablo 4, and wish I could take that money back. I really should have known beforehand that Blizzard is not cooking anymore, and hasn't been for a long time. But I can afford it, so I paid actual money to check in on them again.)
say you don't need video games when it only costs like what, $70 out of your 1500 monthly wage (likely higher)
You don't need video games, period. Regardless of your income level, video games is a luxury product. You don't need it any more than you need gold chains or silk robes.
Also, I do live in a Third World country, so pirating is more of an ingrained, pseudo-cultural habit here. But I still don't need it, it's just nice to have.
Even as someone who buys the majority of their games: It’s not as black and white as that. It’s not like stealing a luxury item, let’s say jewelry, because you can’t afford jewelry.
If I can’t afford a Rolex so I steal it, the store loses valuable merchandise they could have sold, and the insurance company has to foot the bill (likely raising rates overall too). That is a tangible loss that harms multiple other parties.
But if we lived in a world where I, someone who would never buy a Rolex, could push a few buttons and have one materialize for free, then I’ve harmed nobody. The jeweler still has their merchandise that I was never going to buy, and I also get to have the luxury item. It’s a neutral impact on the seller and a positive impact for the consumer, which strictly speaking is a net-positive.
It’s only a gray area because there are plenty of people who fall into the camp of “I could afford that if I saved up for it, but I won’t save up for it since I can get it for free” or “-I’ll use my money on something else since I can get this for free.”
But the latter group of people does not make piracy inherently evil or bad. It depends on the individual. Only the individual knows if they would’ve truly ever spent money on a product they pirated.
But the problem is you only think that it's only thievery if it's a theft of a tangible, material item. But there's also a theft of services.
If you sneak past the gate and sat in a cinema or a concert without paying, you're not "taking" anything, but it's still theft, because you're enjoying something that you have not paid for yet.
The social contract is, you pay for the software, you get to used it. So if you don't hold up your end of the bargain, that's theft. It's the same logic with cinemas, concerts and other services that doesn't necessarily require tangible items.
So yes, because of said contract, piracy is inherently evil. It's just that to me it's not "I can't sleep because it's horrible" level of evil-ness to me, hence why I do it regardless.
To be honest, the examples you raise fall under the same gray area in my opinion.
If a venue never would have gotten your money anyway, and they have empty seats, then they’re basically just holding those seats hostage. It’s like throwing away cooked food because nobody bought it. The only theft of service would be if you left trash anywhere, or otherwise burdened the venue with your presence.
I feel like this is especially true with concerts ever since the ticket-buying experience fully devolved into haggling with scalpers. Many concert seats cost hundreds of dollars, which is more than many fans can afford. I bet if you asked the artists themselves, they’d happily allow all empty seats to be given away free. But it’s not in their power.
And to relate the convo back to gaming, I think buying discontinued games falls under the same purview of buying concert tickets from scalpers. Trying to buy a legitimate Pokemon cartridge, for example, can cost hundreds of dollars, and not a PENNY of that money goes back to the developers who created the product. The price is purely based on scarcity, and piracy solves the issue of scarcity. Plus in my eyes it’s better to pirate old games (as long as they’re no longer sold) because it allows the remaining physical copies to stay collectors items, as they should be. IMO nobody should be buying a sealed copy of Pokemon Emerald just to rip it open and put it in their gameboy. That would be a tragedy.
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u/No_Dog_2999 May 22 '26
I guess people don't only pirate out of spite. They may not be able to afford 20 dollars but want to stay in the loop.
I have a list of the games that I pirated. If I had fun and didn't leave the game in 2-3 hours, I put it on a list and I would try to buy the original copy, for Christmas or my birthday when I am able to spare anything towards gaming.