The lights are on
This morning’s story on the developers over at Greenheart Games and their unusual approach to punishing pirates got us thinking about the practice of pirating games and its prevalence, as well as the changing attitudes towards the practice. We're curious about the experiences of the Game Informer community, and their attitudes towards the practice.
Growing up in the 1980s, I can recall that many friends at the time considered it common and acceptable practice to pass around floppy disks that contained the latest Apple and PC games without a second thought. As a result, many higher-end computer games of the time had aggressive and unusual methods to maintain copy protection, such as looking up lines of text in the instruction manual, or using strange code wheels to answer a question as the game booted up. Looking back, it seems awful that such rampant piracy was so accepted among rank and file gamers. Today, the game piracy questions has remained a major issue – though floppy disks have been replaced by torrent sites and other online sharing tools.
Have you ever engaged in game piracy to get a game without paying for it? Presuming you no longer do it, what made you stop? If you still pirate games, why do you still do it? Do you feel like it’s wrong, or is it not a big deal? While we’re at it, do you include game emulation of older games in the same category as pirating modern-day games, and do you ever use emulators?
Share your thoughts in the comments below, and remember that we’re all here for a discussion, not recriminations about how different people feel or act on this issue.
Email the author Matt Miller, or follow on Twitter, and Game Informer.
I pirate some games to test them out before purchasing because hardly anyone releases demos anymore. I'm not going to shell out 60 dollars for something if I don't know I'll enjoy it.
I haven't done that for about 15 years, and never when I could actually afford to pay for a game. The older I get, the more concerned I am with making sure that those who make good things get paid for them.
I pirate a lot. I support some developers (especially the indie ones) but I feel bad for buying Diablo 3 (guess DRM works..) as I dislike Activision as a company. I intend on buying some Kickstarter games though once they have released. Pirating isn't just about games though but about all media. Same for books, I buy -some- books after trying out an epub (ebook file). The temptation is just too much.
I have only ever pirated a game once. if downloading a 17 year old game (Earthbound) Rom can be considered piracy. The reason for that is that it is one of the very few retro games not avaible anywhere else, unless you feel like spending 200.00 for the cart. I am not a PC gamer. I cant play games on my computer so I didnt play it for very long. However I will be purchasing it on the virtual console.
I have a snes and n64 emulator with various games but that's all. Ive never pirated anything from this era of gaming.
I only use ROMs, and even then it's the older games. However, I buy newer games and releases. I can't wait to get VC Earthbound, haven't played the ROM yet and I was waiting for something like a VC release for that game.
Truthfully, most of my ROMs are older Pokemon games like Red and Silver. Other than that, my game library consists of actually purchased games.
Nope, if you do you are a thief, no fence post sitting on this one.
If you can't afford something then its probably something you don't need.
Two words, Hell No!!! If its pirated, bootlegged or anything along those lines I don't want it. Here's why, for one its wrong. Its stealing and my family always taught me never to steal. Second my mom is in law enforcement and while she'd never arrest her own kid it is pretty important that she have a straight laced family for her jobs sake. No use in losing a job she's had for 25 years just cause her kid wants to steal games right. So in other words we better look like the f****** Huxtables when her 5 year report comes in! And last but not least, my conscience just wont allow it. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I took something that wasn't mines. I stole once in kindergarten and it took me a good 3 or more years to get over it and all I took was a glittery crayon and some stickers. Suffice it to say, I'm a goody two shoes and I like it that way, why cause I'll never get arrested and when Microsoft or whoever implements these antipiracy measures you cant blame it on me. =P
I did it when I was younger (I'm almost 40 now, so I'm talking about the web when Altavista or Webcrawler ruled before Google), and I was a student then, no money, too many games to ignore out there :)
now I don't do that anymore, I mostly play console games and the guys at the GameStop closest to home know me better than my parents do these days.
Unless you count emulators as pirating, then never. If there's a game I'm iffy about, I'll rent it (Gamefly/Redbox) and buy it if I truly want it.
As for emulators, I only play the older games that I never got to as a kid (poor family), are much harder to find nowadays (from NES - N64), or that cost like $300+ online to buy.
God no. I always have money to buy games for developers. If there's any game I'm really excited for that's been announced right at the time it's in development, I Pre-order those games I'm excited for.
If any kid pirating any game thinks he's cool (COD fanboys), and doesn't have any regrets, he's gotta go to jail for the rest of his/her life, until that person now knows that pirating is wrong, and selfish.
Considering that the entire world is my friend and that the world likes to share their games with their friends then yes, I download pretty much anything with no effort.
I was educated to be a responsible consumer and to not let anyone to take my time and money for granted.
That said I always try something in it's entirely before advancing into a purchase.
Places like The Pirate Bay and countless others do a great public service and everyone should learn from them.
Me and my brother had a moded playstation and had piles of burned games good times
I've pirated maybe 5 games, just because there was no way to get them any other way, like Halos 1 and 2. They aren't on steam, and they aren't being printed anymore so you're damn lucky if you can find a physical copy and even luckier if you can find it at a decent price.
i never and i'm pretty proud about it
I've pirated some things but its always older games. I feel like they get a pass because of how expensive they are, take Earthbound or Panzer Dragoon Saga as examples. I usually use emulation as a sort of "rental" system, if I enjoy the game I go out and buy it so I can get the original experience. While I don't do that with all of my retro purchases I make sure I do it with purchases that cost more than $50. I also try not to spend more than what the game's price at retail was but some games like Megaman Legends 2 are practically impossible to get at that price so I have made exceptions. The last game I "pirated" was probably Morrowind, I enjoyed my time with it enough to go out and buy a copy. Another thing I've used emulation/pirating for is fan translations of foreign games that never made it to America or any other English speaking country. Honestly, I use pirating more for movies, it allows me to watch movies I other wise wouldn't watch. Just like with games I will buy a physical copy if I like the movie which happens more often than not. Pirating has saved me a lot of buyers remorse, like the 3d Silent Hill movie, it was absolutely terrible and I would have hated to waste my money on it. It has also given me the opportunity to watch movie I didn't initially have an interest for like Silver Linings Playbook which was a lot better than expected and completely worth its price.