AITAH for pirating games before buying them?
Nowadays, the absolute vast majority of games that I play are shit tbh.
This is why I pirate games first to try them out. I wanna be very clear that if I think a game is good I buy it, no questions asked.
However, since most games don't have demos or trials, I don't want to feel like I've wasted money so I look to piracy so that I can try them out before making a purchase.
AITAH?
No. Intellectual property is not real, so nothing is being stolen by you.
If it's a small developer, and you like the game, make sure to support them if you can. If it's a mega studio, don't feel bad about not paying anything.
That's my personal policy at least.
Intellectual property is not real?
So unless I make something physical I am not making anything real? So all my work up to the point of a plant being actually built is not real?
Doing anything on a PC or smartphone is not real.
Inventing a train of thought that cures every known desease and mental illness is simply not real - because you can't touch it. This is the equivalent of dark ages church logic.
The results of your ideas are real, the outcomes and impacts are real. The mental labor you do is valuable, but none of it is "property."
If your thoughts and ideas and concepts are property that can be stolen, then please explain how you can be deprived of them.
Thinking hard about something is labor, but it's not property, it can't possibly be property, because it lacks all of the aspects typically required to define property.
I used to think this way, then I realized physical property is not real either. Both are defined by the state, recorded on paper somewhere, and protected by force.
Just because you can actually physically go to my property does not change the fact that it is only my property because I have a deed.
I'm still not sure how to feel about IP but I'm less dismissive of it for now.
Let's word it differently then. Physical property is literally real, like, you can go to it. IPs are not a resource. The game devs do not run out of copies of a game because OP pirated them. They remain at an infinite supply. If someone breaks into your house and makes off with your microwave, you are now short a microwave; If you pirate software, the developer is not short in any stock of software
Your ethics are on point.
People should be rewarded for their mental labor, but that's not the same as saying they have created intellectual property.
A thought or concept is not an object that can be stolen. An idea cannot be a scarce resource that is used up.
If concepts or ideas can be "stolen" then that means somebody is being deprived of them. But unless you somehow erased the idea from all parts of that person's brain and transfered it into yours, nobody has been deprived of anything, and thus nothing has been stolen.
If intellectual property is not real, then why do you support the idea of paying small developers instead of large developers? Their intellectual property is just as fake as large studios, right?
I really wish pirates were more honest with themselves. Just admit that you're taking something that doesn't belong to you and own it. I pirate content all the time, but I don't do the mental gymnastics to justify it. Just admit that you stole something and that you don't care, it's not that hard. I have an old PC in my closet that has about 200 movies and a bunch of cracked games on it that I've pirated over the years, and I don't care that I stole them. The Robin Hood complex some pirates have is just weird, imo. You're not sticking it to The Man; The Man is still bankrolling more per week than the team who made the content you stole is making in a year, regardless of your seed ratio.
By the way, large studios also have developers who rely on their jobs to put food on the table, just like the small studios. If you think anybody at EA aside from the C-Suite execs are significantly richer than the average indie dev, you'd be mistaken. Next time you're playing a pirated AAA game, look at your character; the guy who spent several weeks of his life sculpting and rigging that model is probably just as concerned about paying his rent on time as you are.
By the way, this isn't entirely directed at you, specifically. Just my thoughts on the general attitude I see in a lot of piracy communities lately.
Just admit that you stole something and that you don't care, it's not that hard.
You are not wrong, but maybe just a bit of perspective:
In my city, you can go to the public library, borrow a DVD, take it home, watch it. 100% legal. 100% free. No library membership fees. And they have multiple copies of most DVDs, so it's not like it's some lottery to use the service.
It feels a lot like downloading a movie without paying anyone to watch it. The only difference is you gotta go outside. Oh, and no guilt tripping.
Anyway, what's my point? Well piracy is only illegal because some people (not everyone) decided that everyone is going to pay an equal, but not necessarily an equitable, share to fund the development of said IP (unless you have a library in your area to counter this, partially). Worse, that everyone will keep paying a very small group of people money we'll after the development of said IP has been paid off. Even worse, that small group of people will use their profits to corrupt the legal system to ensure that that protectionism continues to serve their benefit, not others... Point being, you can pirate, and care... care a lot.
Victims are created when piracy affects small production houses struggling to make ends meet. Victims are created of everyone else when the law is abused beyond it's original purpose to squeeze consumers.
So you too should be honest and not call it theft. Piracy is piracy, good or bad. To compare it to the crime of theft is to perpetuate the marketing of those to stand from a black and white view on the matter.
It's not mental gymnastics. Why is it so hard to believe that people genuinely don't believe in intellectual property? It has nothing to do with "sticking it to the man." I just do not believe in IP, full stop.
And piracy is not stealing, it is making a copy. When you steal a physical item the original owner is deprived of that item. When you copy something the original "owner" still has access to it.
Not everyone thinks the same way you do. In fact you sound like a terrible person if you genuinely believe that what you're doing is wrong but you're doing it anyway.
It's the same with FOSS. IP is just as fake as physical private property, but that doesn't mean we can't pay people for their labour.
If I find a really useful open-source licensed app developed by one or two people as a hobby, and they have a donation link in their repo, I might send them something.
If it's a really useful open-source licensed app developed by some corporation, there's no way I'm giving them money. The company has invested in developing the app as open source; they chose to (or were forced to by virtue of open source dependencies) make it public. The devs were already paid by the company. Whether the company takes in enough revenue by other means to pay for this open source project isn't my problem.
For the people discussing here: remember that the morality of an act depends on the act itself, the context where it happens, and the moral premises. It does not depend on how you phrase or label the act.
With that in mind: since I define arseholery as "actions or behaviour that cause more harm to someone else than they benefit the agent", and there's practically no harm being caused by OP's actions, I do not think that OP is being an arsehole.
It's a victimless "crime". Especially since OP is saying they will go on to buy games they like.
Good point!
No. Demos are rare and games are expensive.
I tend to find I can make a pretty darn informed decision off of Let's Plays, quick looks, etc. in a world without demos.
I dunno about that. Another person can describe a game however they see fit, and they may even be thorough, but what someone might define as clunky controls might feel fine to me. I can't know how a game feels to play unless I play it for myself. Most of the games I regret buying were games I bought based on what youtubers and reviewers were saying
If that works for you, great! I'm going to keep pirating games without demos though.
Nope. What you’ve highlighted is the need for more game devs to create free demos so people can try the games before they buy them.
If you download a game, find you really like it, and then buy it, you’re not harming anyone nor are you withholding funds from artists.
Does anyone else remember bringing home free trials on floppy disks? Like you get the first level of Wolfenstein or Commander Keen and you just play that over and over because you don't have any money.
No, not at all. Games used to have demos and trial versions, like basically all games, but game studios used to have to actually finish making a game before they shipped it. Trying before you bought was the business model of the whole industry. Now so many games are shipped in such bad condition they wouldn't dare let you try it first. Trying before you buy is just prudent, as long as you actually buy the ones you like enough to play through.
There were plenty of demos of amazing first levels and absolute trash as the rest of the game.
Blatantly lying as marketing is as old as videogames themselves.
Used to do that for decades. Nowadays with steam i just return the game.
I don't trust the refund policy. If they have a so called refund policy why not force every published to add a 1-2 hour free trial instead? We should be able to try games and evaluate before the money leaves our pockets.
Try it, steam makes it so easy to refund stuff assuming you played less than couple hours and bought it fairly recently. And forcing companies to make trials isn't as easy as you think. Some indie games still have trial versions but those are pretty much impossible to find in AAA titles as they obviously want people to just buy them and play past the return window.
Edit: Also on your post, who cares? Lot of companies certainly don't have morals and do whatever they can to milk their users. If you don't wanna pay for it then don't, its better than not playing anyway. Buy something if you can afford to and wanna support the studio, especially indie studios who rely on that income to produce more games and the money actually go to the people who deserve it. I personally just grab a bunch of stuff on sale and play one when I feel like it, although a lot of them remains untouched to this date.
Tldr: don't overthink it, do whatever works for you
Because the "default path" is different, a free trial would have way less conversion than the current system.
With a free trial you have to take an action to buy it. With a refund you have to take an action to be refunded.
Or they could do it like SaaS, where you're automatically charged at the end of the trial unless you decide to cancel before... But that's a bit convoluted and it wouldn't bring much compared to the current system.
Personally unless it's a dirt cheap game I do enough research before buying and I rarely have to refund. But I definitely refund if the game is not at the level of quality that I expected.
Don’t trust the software company to do what they have made legally sound claims to doing, and that hundreds of thousands of people have said they’ve done.
But do trust the script kiddies writing crackers not to install invisible keyloggers and ad trackers.
I pirated more in the past than I do now. Big difference is that I can now afford it to pay for games.
Currently I'm more a retro games pirate. Older games are pretty much harmless to pirate.
You pirate with the intention to buy. IMO you're one of the best possible pirates. A lot of people might never purchase a game unless it's really necessary for online play or something.
I love supporting good games and awesome studios. What I don't like it getting screwed because screenshots and trailers look cool and they game turn out to be shit and still cost me $50.
You've got to use reviews and video content. Get really acquainted with a few reviewers and what games they really like, what they don't, and their general mindset. Even if a reviewer doesn't like a game, if you understand their taste and preferences you can even tell when you might like it. Cross reference with general public opinion, or perhaps the development history of the studio and if you've played and enjoyed their previous games.
But basing anything off ONLY screenshots and trailers is a horrible trap and piracy isn't the exclusive way to find that out.
Retro games are also widely unavailable, and often times when they are available, it's only on a subscription service for a machine that I don't want to play them on. Imagine instead if these companies steered into what their customers actually want. That would sure be nice.
Nope. Ive been burned on several games (back 4 blood anyone?) And tired of losing. Maybe the game isn't for me, maybe it won't run on my system. I have several games I bought after trying them from torrents: rimworld, farcey series, fallout 4 (love/own 3 and NV, needed to test 4). Several games that I really like I've bought a second copy for a shared account so my kid can play them also.
Nothing wrong with trying before you buy in my opinion. My library is full of games I r never installed. :(
Me too. Latest one is battlebit. Game looked fun. Plays very well. Balance is shit.
Spot on!
Nah that's essentially the same as buying and refunding. If you can't afford a purchase it's perfectly fine.
Nope
I'm the firm believer of piracy is a service issue. Lot of time that piracy is rampant, it's almost always due to accessibility issue, mainly cost in country with weaker currency. A $60 game will cost me about 15 days of food, that's inaccessible for a lot of people in my country and frankly hard to justify, and if there's not even an option for localisation of the price, whether people pirate or not, they basically leaving money on the table.
Steam used to be cool because everyone follow the sane pricing suggestion, but nowadays publisher decided to earn less money by charging more for their mediocre game, and then blame piracy for the lackluster earning.
I don't pirate myself, i have very less time to game nowadays, but i don't think piracy is an ass move, especially when cracked version run better than paid version due to stupid drm.
They’re often forced to equalize global prices because of sites like G2A. Even if they want to sell a game for the price of a Zimbabwean loaf of bread, G2A picks up a thousand copies of that and resells them in America, driving the global revenue down.
So, now no one in Zimbabwe gets cheap local prices because there’s no such thing as a “local” price. And the defenders of G2A use their own mental gymnastics to justify it.
Some good points! Thanks for sharing!
Genuine question, is enaulating older systems, with ROMs/ISOs you get off the Internet, considered piracy? No current systems, only older ones. Newest one is PS3. Is this piracy?
Edit: ok, thank you, everyone. I emulate very old games because it's a nostalgia thing. Games I played when I was very young and I wanted to play them again. I don't emulate anything new as I have a huge collection of physical copies of games I played on newer systems like the PS4.
It is supposed to be, technically. IIRC, you're supposed to copy your own stuff - such as BIOS and ISOs - rather than download others, which is why things like PCSX2 doesn't natively come with a BIOS.
Technically yes. But if the games are no longer even being sold I'd argue that it's perfectly fine to do it anyway.
Yes it's piracy. And it's likely illegal depending on your country. But I don't think it's unethical.
I personally don't think so. You're free to do what ever you want with any system that is obsolete and not supported.
If there is no demo that's on the devs. Also you could just refund on Steam, that's what I do, can't be arsed to download the game twice really. If it's good it stays, if not down it goes.
A lot of people talk about the steam refund policy however I just don't trust that I will get my money back even though it's a "non questions asked" kinda deal. If I've given them $80 for a game, they can easily decide to just keep it...
Is it a small studio or a place that encourages unionization and pays creators for their creation? Then not really, cuz you still paid for it in the end.
Is it a shit studio with shit ethics? Then yes. Stop giving monsters financial approval.
Or just stop playing games from shit studios with shit ethics in the first place. If they're that bad, you shouldn't be playing their games at all, pirated or not.
Sometimes the neighborhood bully has the best toys. Why can't you play with their Tickle-me-Elmo and piss in their sandbox?
I used to love getting floppy disks on the front of magazines 💾
Not at all
You can achieve the same with refunds on steam
Totally solid option for some people, but not everyone. Depends on the game (some can’t be judged in two hours), your available time (can’t refund a game you bought a year ago that you only just now played), etc., and limits you to buying only from Steam. What if you’d rather buy from GOG or Humble Bundle?
Yes you are an "asshole" for stealing but also fuck these companies are so shit you shouldn't care.
In a pure ethical debate its wrong but on a practical level I think its fine. Steam has a 2hr no questions asked refund policy which I feel is reasonable and so I don't pirate unless I want to play a game and not compensate the people who made it.
If you refund too often they will consider it "abuse" and stop letting you do it.
I don't try new games that often do it suits me.
I appreciate the input!
You're an asshole for paying industry execs to be vampires after you see they've managed to narrowly evade the enshittification of their studio.
You might want to remember that there are also working grunts in that food chain. They already got paid to make the game, yes, but that was in the expectation of profit. If the game crashes, those execs will look for scapegoats.
Buying games feeds the vampires, but also the devs (even if only in scraps). In our current world, there's not a whole lot of options outside of "only buy indie games" to both support developers and avoid filling the pockets of execs and investors.
A few people pirating games instead of paying for them isn't a big deal, but it eventually turns into a "tragedy of the commons" issue like other forms of theft. Either the suppliers won't be able to stay in business or they'll work out ever more comprehensive (and invasive) prevention mechanisms. Remember when games were just the program on the disk and you didn't need keys and an online connection to activate your copy?
but also the devs (even if only in scraps)
If you're buying games that are more than 3 months old, they do not. Bonuses are given for metacritic scores and launch quarter sales. They're never given royalties.
there’s not a whole lot of options outside of “only buy indie games” to both support developers and avoid filling the pockets of execs and investors.
What's wrong with telling people to buy indie games and pirate anything made at the directive of blood-sucking vampires?
Remember when games were just the program on the disk and you didn’t need keys and an online connection to activate your copy?
Remember when games were just some free software on Usenet that someone made because they thought it'd be cool, and shared because they were proud of it?
