Piracy isn't theft, right? It's copyright infringement, yes? These statements aren't wrong, but they're not always correct. Not when we talk about a certain type of piracy that is most certainly theft, and deserves all the indignity that such a term implies.
The just and fair Jim Sterling shall share the wisdom of his judgement.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
3:30 PM on 02.06.2012 | 
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- Shame on you publishers. You ruin my weekends lately.
I signed up for Gamefly's Beta PC Client. I bought Dragon Age 1 and during my install, it demanded I sign up for Bioware forum. Then, it demanded I install EA's Origin!!!!!!
WTF! Please cover this! If not, I still love you!
Also, since the 2012 NDAA was signed I can't bring myself to vote for an incumbent president who took away the civil liberties I have under the Bill of Rights, and Mitt Romney is a fuck bag. Jim Sterling 2012. I live in New York, so fuck it. My vote doesn't matter anyway. Might as well do a write in for shits and gigs.
Anyway, great episode.
The HIB actually loses money if you pay 1 cent for it. Isn't it, then, better to pirate it? (By the way, I consistently pay above the average for the HIB.)
I just can't get over how shitty the whole "oh noes teh poor indie developers" argument is. The HIB consistently makes a ton of money. World of Goo also sold very well, even before it was in the HIB.
Indie developers who make games that are worth the money will do well. Indie game development is a business, not a charity. Piracy is a fact of life, and no amount of bitching on the internet will change that. If I were poor, I would probably pirate all of my games, and that includes indie games. I pay for games because I'm a bourgeois motherfucker.
You know what's stealing? People selling bootleg copies of games are stealing.
Oh politics where you don't so much willingly vote for a candidate as much as you are voting against the other guy ~.~
For these same people, it might just be that it is just so much easier to pirate the game. Perhaps if the games were available in another way that was just as easy or easier as pirating it, they may do it that way and give some cash at the same time. Maybe.
I know that piracy is wrong, and I haven't pirated anything since. I guess since I started gaming mostly on my PC and using Steam, it just makes piracy less of a viable alternative and it doesn't have the service that Steam does. People should just buy their games! Seriously, doods, it's not too bad to spend some money every once in a while to support the developers out there. Don't put a bad name on PC gamers...
Yes the HIB makes a lot of money but you have to realize some of that is going to charity and most are under paying it's true value. So even if you see they made $5 million dollars from the whole thing, if you did the math of the true value and number of sales, you'd see it should be more along the lines of $18 million dollars, again pretty much half going to charity most likely. I use those numbers as an example of course.
Of course no amount of justice or bitching will change this at all, sadly. That is what is upsetting. I don't even know of publishers and all that look at Jim's videos or developers and if they even care or realize that he speaks the truth, especially about his previous 2 videos. Just some people refuse to see how true something is because they just aren't too smart or blinded by greed.
It feels the only way all this might get some change is if developers all went on strike against publishers and some of us as gamers support them until some kind of change happens. Even then things might not end up for the better. Seriously I mean games should be $40 at most and the creator should have right to his creation, not the publisher.
As for the indie developers, it is sad to have so many people pirate a game, games that are darn cheap like $10 or less. I mean really, can't spend that much yet so willing to spend $60 on a publisher game? All we can do is bitch and rant but nothing will ever change. Man I swear people are just such slime and as Jim said, Pedophile Burglars. With just about everything, not just gaming and piracy. Such a messed up corrupt world that none of us can change unless we had magic super powers or something which of course that too obviously won't ever happen.
I wonder if that is why I haven't felt like gaming much as I use to. The more truth I see about how messed up the game industry has become, the less I feel like playing games, on a subconcious level. I wish I felt like playing games more often like I use to when I was younger. These days it is this whole, I have to feel like playing the game and even then I am hesitant to start it up. How I should know by now that I should just start playing and I will likely feel like it after playing it for awhile. I know rather off topic but eh...
YOU LOOK LIKE A DOUGHNUT BONO FOR FUCKS SAKE
I would also like your views on why the these big publishers are bleeding right now. Most people who defend piracy make it out like the publishers are laughing all the way to bank. But one look at the business section of any newspaper will tell you different. Its not just THQ. Everyone is losing money right now. I don't support DRM and online passes, but for whatever reason the industry is not as healthy as it would appear. Personally I think the cost of games is too high along with development cycles that are too long. Not to mention games probably are too cheap at $60 with the cost of development.
I understand why people pirate, and I'm not judging. Its personally not for me. If I can't afford a game, or I can't wait a few months for it to drop in price, than I just do without. But I don't think the publishers are being entirely dishonest when they say piracy, and used games are hurting them. I'd be interested in hearing what your solution would be.
But BalloonFighter makes a valid point.
1. rejected all your principles
2. become a lobbyist cocksucker
3. have a stillborn baby and pretend it's alive by having it sleep with your children (if you dont have your own already, the government can import some really cheap ones for the sake of your campaign).
Seriously though, fuck anybody who can't buy an inexpensive Wiiware game like WoG.
With us moving towards a future where games are a "service" that is streamed and we as consumers no longer actually have ownership over anything, these cunts have certainly earned part of the blame.
The games suck. And mind you, I don't pirate games at all. It's too technical to do and I sure as shit am not skilled enough to do it for the PC or any other platform. That being said even if I could I wouldn't bother to pirate most indie games because it's all a bunch of pretentious garbage anyways.
To frame it in another context, look at Notch. Someone says he wants to play Minecraft but can't afford it at this time. Notch tells him to just pirate it and then buy it when he's able to later. You know why Notch can say this?
***BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY MADE A GAME THAT PEOPLE WERE WILLING TO BUY!!!!***
If anything Notch illustrates how tough it is to be successful at making videogames, how much time and commitment it takes to make videogames, and that in order to be successful you need to make games. that. sell. Mainstream success, or at least striving to do so is what it takes to be successful in this industry, the end.
The real damning indictment of indie games, and I suspect another reason people pirate them, is a lot of them are download only games. No physical copy. No way to trade in or return it if you didn't like it. So at the end of the day, most indie games are just as guilty of the same crap a lot of the big publishers do, and even worse is that they should know better. But as I said, actually being successful in making games is harder than people think. A lot of these indie developers have no business being in this business, especially if they have the call to cry about not getting sales when they never intended to make their games palletable to the mass market to the begin with.
So in summary, no, I can't say I feel bad if people pirate "indie" games because at the end of the day they tend to be guilty of the same shit that the big publishers are. So if your intent was to guilt trip people on behalf of the poor little old pretentious indie game scene, sorry but the gaming market (and especially the mass market) is a cruel mistress, something that both the big publishers and upstarts are going to learn the hard way, especially in the middle of economic stagnation.
I can't stress this enough, if you want to be a successful game developer, then make. games. that. sell.