12 Feb
What motivates people to pirate videogames?
denkbert asked:
I’d like to hear your thoughts about why people pirate videogames, be it because of money problems, bad game quality, superiority of pirated versions etc
James
I’d like to hear your thoughts about why people pirate videogames, be it because of money problems, bad game quality, superiority of pirated versions etc
James
Lois
Everyone’s got a bit of a different answer, I think.
My personal reason for pirating games is because I have no money. I justify it this way: Since I have no money, I won’t be buying it anyway, I’m not stealing a physical copy, and I’m not preventing someone else from buying the game. The company is technically losing no money from me.
I will also pirate games if I own an original copy but am unable to install it or play it for some reason or another. This may mean getting a no-CD crack or downloading the game in its entirety. I think it’s exceptionally poor customer service to treat paying customers as though they were pirates–such as having to pay for a replacement CD-key when your only crime was losing the case or booklet.
As far as other people? Some people pirate because they’re lazy, cheapskates, or rebellious. When it comes to game quality, I’d like to believe that if given an option, people STILL wouldn’t play a bad game even if they did get it for free. The hardcore pirates will always and forever pirate games no matter what. The casual pirates do so because for some reason or another, they cannot play the game any other way.
More and more games are coming with punitive copy protection that is a problem for everyone except the people for whom the copy protection was intended to foil–the pirates. Things like SecuROM, which worms its way into your registry without your knowledge or permission and will actually disable your CD-DVD burner, punishes the consumer for legitimately purchasing the product. Who would even want to go through that when you can download the same game, except CLEAN that won’t screw up your computer, for free?
While money will always be an issue with pirating, I think we’re going to see a bigger rise of people pirating games simply because game companies are treating people who actually shell out money for their crap like criminals. This trend will continue to rise until the industry moves back to the way it was, where you could install the game multiple times on multiple machines, didn’t require CD-keys, and didn’t flood your computer with invasive and disgusting malware.
February 15th, 2010 at 2:28 am