DefJam101 said:
Can someone give me an answer please?: I want to know why exactly someone pirating and playing a game instead of not buying it is worse than not buying it and never playing it at all.
You know...I can sort of answer this, but not too well. See, I'm not much of a deontological man myself, but I'm sure people who subscribe to that type of thinking would declare your sample action morally impermissible because of the intentions and circumstances around it and completely ignore the consequential aspects here. A consequential thinker wouldn't see any problem with this.
Anywho, I really should stay out of this thread, but maybe I can try a little gambit to stop all this back and forth bull, eh? Or maybe I'm getting a little carried away here.
First off, get rid of the morals here. Morals are such a weak argument in anything business. All that matters is the bottom line, efficiency, and surviving/thriving in the free market. Let's also make the leap that I'm sure a lot of people are making in their minds now that piracy is virtually unstoppable with the current business model that game developers have. Now there's a few things to go through.
First up, let's look at why DRM is just plain silly. You know those people who say it only harms legitimate users? They're partially right. Why's this? Because it doesn't hurt pirates much at all. If someone was dead set or even pretty sure on torrenting a game, no DRM is going to stop them from doing so. Why? Because DRM will be cracked, and the cracked code will be all over the internet in a very short period of time. How long was it for Mass Effect? Two days? And now everybody and their brother with an internet connection can pirate it. So that leaves the burden of DRM solely now on the people who bought it. Now these people who bought, I mean bought the right to play, Mass Effect face a little bit of a problem. They don't own the game they paid for. They can't do what they want with it. Now, this becomes quite the fishy scenario when you compare it tothe console version of Mass Effect. Similarly priced, similarly featured, except the console owner can do what he/she wants with their game. They want to lend it to 10 friends? It's their choice. They want to play through it and then use it as a gift for a friend? It's in the clear. They want to resell it? Booyah. The PC owner on the other hand can't do this because they don't own a copy of the game, only the right to use it.
If the previous doesn't send up a "What the hell" flag or two in your mind, you haven't been paying attention or you are a little too accepting of corporate bull. See, does it make sense to have a business try to operate on a product model, sell their stuff at a "product-price" (see console games and PC games comparison), but in the end not give the consumer an actual product that they own? That's kind of strange, no?
Now this leads into the idea that piracy isn't some heinous moral outrage that must be defeated with lawyers, legislation, and moral arguments with stupid false equivocation (hello "It's theft" arguments), but just a technological "Pandora's Box" that's opened up and dumped a new global effect onto the market for games. Fact is, companies now have to compete with a faceless entity that can, within a very short time, use today's technology and take a game, replicate and distribute it at least 10 times as efficiently as the company could, all the while asking for no price paid. Simply put, a force most game developers can not fight. The only way the developers can survive is by offering something the pirated version can't, but to do that, they can't utilize anything in the product model of business, because whatever they add, piracy can easily replicate. The developers have to adapt, they have to change their business model.
They have a few different options:
1. Go console. Consoles don't have a piracy problem due to limitations built within them, allowing the "blockbuster" model of high cost, high revenue to still function. Plus they are infinitely better suited to the product model of business in games.
2. Go smaller and go off a patronage model. You make the game, and sell it to people with the idea that if people like your work, they'll buy it so you can make more and fulfill their gaming needs. However, this will have to be generally smaller budget operations, as consumers will generally feel pretty apathetic about system like this with a faceless corporation. Probably the right size is one where you could easily chat with a developer via a message board or e-mail. Take a look at Vogel, VD, Wolf Mittag, and Naked Ninja. Those are pretty much what this business model would/should look like. It has consumers like us paying for games because we like the games/ideas developers have and want more of their work. It's like an investment in our "fun future"
3. Go service based. Look at Blizzard. All PC games, all the time, and they don't complain about piracy one lick or have it hurt them. Why? Because they changed their business model to a service based one. You pay a fee to use their online space whether it be a monthly fee in World of Warcraft, or a once-per-different-game fee for a Battle.net access code like with Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo (read: the CD-Key).
4. Go ad-based. Tons of "free-mmos" do this, and so will EA's Battlefield Heroes. A good, free online game is sure to have a lot of players, and with such a high playerbase, companies will likely pay decent money for ad spots.
See, there are alternatives. Companies just can't make "blockbuster" single-player focused PC games anymore. So what. Stop whining and start adapting you freaking panda bears. Instead of fighting an unwinnable battle with stupid moral fallacies that no one deep down gives a shit about, get your shit together, get off your Luddite asses, and go out and
compete in the free market.
