Piracy, Romz0rz and Warez

[NFG]

This is something I posted over on the InsertCredit forums, brought here for your convenience (and discussion, if applicable).

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It seems to me that there is no easy way out of a discussion like this. Speaking as an ex gamestore owner and online game peddler (ebay wh0re) I take my games and warez very seriously.

I was astounded by the parents who'd come into my store asking for playstation chips so they could play copies, but I had one in my own system. We're probably all guilty of this - we've all got roms or backups or <gasp!> evaluation copies of software. The difference is when people you don't know, and can't trust to 'do the right thing' are doing it. I think we're all agreed that if downloading was used solely as a means to sample a game before a purchase (or not) we'd have no problem with it. Buying games shouldn't be a lottery, especially when the odds are about as long...

As Don Marco tried to get to but didn't quite, hoarding warez or roms is a surefire way to make a game worth less in your own eyes. People with binders full of roms or ISOs generally don't play any of them for more than about 20 minutes each - and who can blame them? Most games don't suit every player, and many aren't worth playing by anyone for more than 20 minutes. He's a collector of things he doesn't value - perhaps his most grievous crime was not throwing out the CDs he didn't like.

This second point isn't solely limited to collectors of illicit copies - as I mentioned above I owned a game store. Nothing explodes your game collection like being able to keep the rentals or tradeins at basically no cost. With several thousand games in my house, and at least three hundred very near and dear to me I'm playing games less often than I ever did. Between the demands of IRC and the world outside the house the single biggest thing keeping me from playing them is indecision. What to play? What console to hook up? Most of the time it takes longer to find all the bits of a specific console than I have time to play. After a forty-five minute hunt for that fucking dreamcast RGB cable I'm too pissed off to try this game I bought four months ago and never played.

I'm a collector too, and I never play games - but these are legitimate games!!

Everyone I know - and by that I mean everyone, not just most - buys the games they like when they can afford to do so. Some of them aren't so scrupulous with their application software (Photoshop must be the king of unpaid installed software!) but when it comes to games those who care about them will pay. Those who don't wouldn't be giving money to the cause if they couldn't pirate, they'd be sitting in their pile of Doritos crumbs playing NHL 95 on the Genesis they inherited from their richer little brother.

People pirate, and I'd stop them if I could, but I can't. I try not to lose any sleep over it while eking out a profit on whatever rare flavour of the week I can flog to those who are ready to buy.

I think about the only thing I ever got out of my mother's religious beliefs was a plaque on our wall that read something like "God grant me the power to change the things I can, the tolerance to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Lawrence.

[Vertigo]

I have a few back-up units and of course play games via emulation.
When I find a game that I really like I will usually, money-permitting (which it honestly doesn't at this particular moment in time), look for it and buy an original where possible. I see this as giving something back to the people who made it, even if they won't actually receive a penny/cent of the money I pay to buy the game in used condition. I see it more as appreciation for the game that it should be good enough to buy and have on my shelf, instead of just as data on a compact disc.
Where a game is something like Earthbound, a regular fetcher of over $100 on eBay, I will happily buy the Japanese version (Mother 2) and still play the English version on back-up unit. I think this is a fair policy for items that have grossly overinflated prices.
I'm also not lame enough to count copied games as part of my collection, original games only there thanks.
I understand what you say about the try-before-you-buy attitude, and agree with it wholeheartedly. It's just a shame that this opinion seems to be in the vast minority.

[Larry from Three's Company]

Its funny- I like to get games free but I also really want companies to stop me.

The only thing that really irks me about pirates is their tendency to complain when they DO actually have to shell out cash for a game. Case in point- my friend was outraged that he needed a GBA to play Crystal Chronicles, yet he�s played through at least a dozen GBA ROMs in the past couple of months.

Luckily people are held back by some weird voice that tells them they have to buy their favorite games, even if they download thousands of others.  Sort of like supporting the band, only the band is a bunch of Japanese businessmen and computer programmers.

[brianleb]

I'm finally on my way out of piracy, but it's changed me. It used to be we never got a console (starting with the psx and till we got the ps2) that we wouldn't get one if we couldn't pirate for it because we couldn't/didn't want to pay for games.  So between the psone, DC, and ps2 I've got like 600 games. Tons of classics. but I never really played a damn one of them save a few. and it just got worse. PSOne games I'd play because that was all we had and I knew what I liked. DC games I played what tickled my fancy and was fun. PS2 I have quite a few games I know are good and want to play (FFX-2 being the latest) but I don't play them. So this christmas I got a gamecube. Sure I could pirate gamecube games, but that's a pain in the ass. And that's not why I got the gamecube. I got it because I wanted to stop pirating games. I wanted to start buying games (now that I have a job it's not a problem) and playing them and beating them. And that's what I do. I've got three resident evils (beaten one), pikmin (beaten), the zelda collector's disc (beat zelda 1), mario kart double dash (beaten), and freestyle metal x (beaten). when I was explaining my shortage of games to play to my friend, he quipped "Well I play games to enjoy them, not to beat them" and damn he was right. I'm not really enjoying these games much. Sure I like them, but it's not like the old days (SNES was my golden age) where I could play games all day and love every single minute. and I'd replay them too. but with my piracy I'd just beat a game and put it away unless it was something easy to get into like a fighting game. After my friend pointed out my shortcoming, I became a bit upset at my old piracy habits. Sure I've already vowed never to pay more than $40 for a gamecube game and to never buy a game I haven't played,  but that... I just lost my train of thought. I don't know if I could say piracy ruined the gaming experience for me, but I want to. Because then I atleast have something to blame. I'll just wrap this up: Piracy Bad!

P.S. I have no qualms with pirating software however. Three Adobe programs, $2250 in value, all absolutely useless to me.  Stupid software.

[NFG]

Sell me your adobe software for cheap.  Real cheap.  I'll trade gamecube games for it.