I know lemmy is gonna downvote for this because way too many people on here think piracy is justified. But I think if you pirate a new game, you're an asshole. It's one thing if you are downloading an old game for a system that's no longer supported, or maybe it's not even sold anymore. But if you try to justify stealing a new game because you have beef with it's publisher, you're shitty. That's like saying if you were a low level employee at Amazon or Wal-mart, that it would be fair game if people stole from you just because of your job. So many people work on video games, it's important not to see them as some faceless evil company. If you want new games to be made, they need to make money. And the people who work hard every day to create amazing games deserve your purchase.
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Sure, those who can afford to pay for games should support the artists that made them. Those who can't afford games should pirate them. We should all pirate in instances when paying would give our money to evil people, and we should all work towards a society where people can afford to make good art whether or not there's profit to be had from it.
The market has become saturated with trash. I can't trust a game to be worth $70 so I steal, especially "AAAA" games.
For folks who pirate games, how the hell are you confident malware isn’t being injected into the executable?
For one to pirate I would assume source code has to be available and recompiled without DRM, right? How can anyone be confident that nothing else is being added to fry or takeover folks systems?
There are relatively few people who "crack" the games and the community around it is very verbal. Some people go deep on inspecting things, and if something gets found they're added to a list of untrusted sources. From what I've seen it's hard to get that trust back.
So yeah it's definitely a risk, but not a super dangerous one. Especially if you use Linux and a VM
Pirates vet things with lists of clean sites/trackers/tools etc. As long as pirates stick to those, they generally don't have to worry about malware. Such a list is not difficult to find.
Sure, it's possible for someone to get caught out by one of these sites or users deciding to turn bad, but that's only going to work for like a day. It's like kicking a hornet's nest in the pirating world.
I trust the sources I acquire the game from.
I also don't do anything but play video games with my PC so even if it gets infected with something, it's just a minor inconvenience to reformat it.
In many cases, legit games have more malware (spyware, DRM, rootkits, etc.) and the cracked versions remove it. It’s annoying to pay for a game and it won’t work offline because the company wants to collect your data, but the cracked version does work offline.
99% of things on Steam can be pirated by switching one single dll with one that's been around ages and known to be fine.
This is the number one reason why I'm not doing that anymore.
Also (foilhat) number one reason why so many people are urging people to do it.
Just to be clear, pirates are gonna do their thing. We were all kids once. Money and the economy is very hard. I get it," wrote the designer. "It wasn't the piracy that bothered me. It was the people that flagrantly walked in here and wagged it in the faces of people who were waiting to play legitimately. That was the part that aggravated me. That and the Reddit responses that keep talking like i'm a millionaire. I'm very much [not]. I don't own a home. I rent.
Sounds like a valid response to me. I got into piracy partially because of lack of money and partially because back in the day, I understood how badly record companies were ripping artists off and then using that money to sue their fans. Video games have always been a different beast, just like movies. They often employ so many people at so many levels that it's not so easy to just say "If you want to make sure they get their cut just go buy it on Bandcamp Friday" in comparison to musicians. (back in the day we also bought merch and concert tickets to support artists, just less of that money makes it to them these days)
I often use piracy to be able to test out a game without risking spending money on something I end up hating, and giving myself enough time to decide that. I actually played Baldurs Gate 3 twice before I was able to afford buying it at full price shortly after release, but it was well worth it to buy an official copy even though I had already played it a bunch. I still played it even more after buying it. Well worth the full-price game.
If you're going into it with an attitude of that all game devs are rich and that they're somehow ripping off their fans and so you can feel justified in pirating and taunting them for it, fuck me, grow up.
It's similar with me. I have pirated games starting with my Amiga 500 in the early 90s, and still pirate today. But I am also one of the best costumers the game industry has (except in the categories MTX and cash-grab DLC, and I am very careful with early access titles). I own around 2500 games legit (not counting Systems other than PC), and nearly all of those games started as a pirated copy. Without pirating I would never be able to decide which games are worth my money and time.
If a game isn't well rated, I won't pirate it, and if it can't hold my attention, I delete it. If it's my cup of tea, I wait until the price point is where I perceive it as fair for the offering. That can be full price on day one too if is good! BG3, Nier Automata, Witchfire, Prey 2016 and a very long list of other games all got what they asked for.
If I see that a game is flawed, but the devs are actively working on making their game as good as it deserves to be (it helps if they have a good track record), I also tend to pay close to full price. If fixes come slowly or erratically, or they abandoned a game in an unfinished state before, I only buy after it is fixed, heavily discounted, or not at all.
I watched a youtube video which talked about a 2015 study into piracy.
The study was conducted by a collaboration of movie, music, television, and video game studios.
Movie and television showed that the piracy rarely affected legit purchases. It did not help, but it did not harm.
Music had a slight negative dip, where sales among piraters sometimes prevented sales.
But video games is what was really special. They found those who pirate at least 1 game a year are up to 100x MORE likely to not only buy the game, but buy it in multiple forms. So maybe you bought GTA:V on release day on PS3.
Then a few years later you bought it on PS4. Then later on PS5. I think it's also on PC so throw that in too.
Only a pirate would love a game that much. And is probably pirating because it keeps their physical copy unopened.
I pirated a game ~ 6 years ago, kept it in an external hard drive, never player it. Bought it on Steam and played it. I still have the pirated copy somewhere in the depths of my external. It really was the most space taking wishlist entry.
Even in 2015 it wasn't about keeping the copy unopened. Games came in CD but internet was barely getting fast enough to download large amounts of data fast and efficiently. However, CD has little collecting value or preservation qualities. They go bad fast, half of commercial CDs go bad in less than a decade. Organic layer CDs that were used for home burning are dice rolls. Only inorganic archival medium burned at very slow speeds theoretically can go for more than two decades, and it is still recommended to keep redundancies
On the contrary, I think it was, again, about convenience. CDs were part of DRM. A type of DRM that had to have the CD in the PC's CD tray in order to run the game, even if all the information was already locally installed. While later consoles acquired the capability to install the games to a hard drive for faster load times, this type of DRM was also adopted.
It was not rare for people to buy a game for PC, then immediately look for a crack online to play without CD. People were rigging hard drives to their consoles to install games there. Etc. So you could play your library without having to stand off the couch to change disks. Piracy offered the convenience at no cost.
A subset of users on the r/piracy subreddit responded harshly to the designer's expression of disappointment, with some claiming that he must be fabulously wealthy. "This is like a man in a solid gold suit spitting at a homeless person," decided one poster.
Lol, only /r/piracy would be dense enough to come up with that analogy.
Personally, I'm waiting for the full release before I pirate it.
After all, pirated games don't get updates, so I want it to have most of the bugs already worked out by the time I get my permanent copy.
Pirated copies get updates just like any other. They just don't get automatic updates, like most storefronts provide. That's a feature of the store though, not the game.
the game itself still gets updated. download pirated game -> update drops -> wait unil someone uploads it -> download latest version
If its too niche you might have the situation where nobody uploads the updated version and waiting will just get you the same version as if you didn't wait.
repacks will generally use patch updates but I find it's easier and less bug prone to just use a steam emu or patched steam and just replace the steamapps/common/game folder each update
Why? If you know you'll play it it's only $30 now, almost certainly higher at release. The Early Access is running great for me (on Linux no less) and the closest thing to a "bug" I've found so far (3 hrs in) is that some of the voiceover doesn't 100% match the written text.
Seriously, it looks and feels excellent already. My understanding is that only a few biomes are finished, and they'll release more over time. But even the story beginnings are already solidly in place.
it’s only $30
I'm quite poor, though. $30 is pretty significant for me.
Go on the Discord server, you'll probably find folks giving away free keys periodically. I don't know that for certain but it's common for popular Early Access games.
Eh, like I said before, I don't really want an unfinished, early access version, anyway.
I don't want my games to have updates. I'll wait until it's finished and stable and then I'll pirate it. Best experience all around.
Krafton won't be getting my money. I'm not rewarding them for their unethical behavior.
"Thanks for pirating a game that I've spent years working on," game design lead Anthony Gallegos replied to one such self-reported pirate. "I'm disappointed that you'd do that when it's kind of how we make our living. I hope you rethink your life choices."
Thanks for working for a studio that sold their soul to a foreign publisher for $500 million and a $250 million bonus.
(And no, I'm not pirating the game.)
You should read up on the situation a bit more. Buying the game actually helps the people he tried to fuck. There's a threshold where the bonus gets paid out and Krafton actually loses money per sale for the next several million sales.
Are you this harsh with food and hardware from companies?
It's okay to be selective, but you should be honest about it and not act holy.
Thanks for working for a studio that sold their soul to a foreign publisher for $500 million and a $250 million bonus.
I don't think that's fair. Not everyone get to choose where they work.
You can hate mega corporations, CEOs and board members but most of the lower lever employees are not there by choice.
I'm contested on this. The thing is, this logic applies everywhere even the extremely evil corpos like nvidia, palantir, etc. There will always be someone scraping the bottom earning for scraps in all different types of companies.
So where do we draw the line? How evil must the company be so it is fair to leave the lower level employees behind?
Ultimately, I dont think it is fair for the consumers. We are drawned in this choice where support for the lower class means feeding the executive class. It all trickles down, and thats the problem.
No, I am not saying we should buy anything from megacorpos just to support lower level workers. I am saying we shouldn't blame the lower level workers for the evil of corporation because they often don't have a choice.
You can hate mega corporations, CEOs and board members
I don't agree with their decision to move forward with Krafton. They obviously wouldn't retain sovereignty by letting a publisher buy them completely out for $500 million. What transpired after the acquisition was something anybody with business sense could've foreseen to some degree.
but most of the lower lever employees are not there by choice.
This is a design lead speaking as far as I know. All employees are there by choice - even if it's not their first choice, it's their choice...as much as it pains me to admit (as somebody who isn't a fan of the exploitation dynamics that run our society).
All employees are there by choice - even if it's not their first choice, it's their choice.
Well, in a sense yes, but for many people the choice is either work there or go unemployed, especially the lower you go on the corporate ladder.
Like I said, I don't think it's a fair choice.
Well, we agree.
As for myself? I chose to not be a slave and I'm sticking with that.
I also get to choose, but I am privileged to be able to choose.
With some exceptions, we all have a choice in the first-world. Chains can be external and internal. In your example, the chains are mostly internal even if there is some degree of external chains. If you're living in SF and are a game developer, chances are you aren't doing terribly.
As for exploited and poor third-world countries or those who lack citizenship in first-world countries (i.e. undocumented immigrants), I'm inclined to say that is modern slavery. It sometimes literally is slavery, even child slavery.
Here in the first-world, we presently benefit from child slavery and third-world exploitation in the products we consume. It's not uncommon either.
I believe people have to choose differently if they want different. Be the change you seek, that whole jazz.
I'm not buying it because the first one was buggy as shit, had a draw distance that's laughable even for a Unity game, had incredible music that's it's barely heard because it cuts off all the time, wall "suggestions", clipping, other graphical glitches, and has the gall to advertise "Hit F8 to report bugs" every moment it's showcasing its own bugs.
And don't get me started on the design flaws. The Insulting unrealistic O2 meter. There's not enough keyslots. Torpedos are useless. The Cyclops is useless, and yet, you have to spend all of these resources just to get some material for the final rocket. It dies to leeches in very short order, and moves around like a space cow.
Also, the whole game taunts a story and then delivers a milquetoast ending.
the insulting unrealistic O2 meter
Have you heard of this thing called fiction?
The Insulting unrealistic O2 meter.
You've got to be over 50. I have only ever heard dads and grandpas complain about mechanics that are clearly meant to introduce conflict and tension.
There's Disco Elysium, where the developers themselves tell you to pirate it because some parasitic corporate asshole stole it, and then there's this, where the poor sods who got shafted by their parasite have their brains so rotten and Stockholm syndromed by its abuse that they get offended when you don't give it money they won't be seeing a cent of.
This game is evidently not worth even pirating. Don't pirate it, don't buy it, don't play it, don't even mention it except as an example of the evils of corporatism and runaway capitalism.
If you're a developer (or anyone else whose work can be stolen by greedy parasites) take it as a cautionary tale and don't let parasites steal your work. Unionize. Form a cooperative. Starve the parasites instead of feeding them.
You should probably bother doing some more reading on the topic. Buying the game is GOOD for the people who an asshole tried to fire and fuck out of paying the bonus they deserve.
This game is evidently not worth even pirating
Is that so? I’ve primarily seen glowing reviews about how good it is already and even well optimized even given its EA status.