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Xenonauts and piracy


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Phew, this discussion must be getting a little hot here. Take a chill pill people. I was going to bash both the pirate and the evil big nose companies to win the Most netutal dickhead award, but eh, let's avoid a flame war.

I'm just throwing in to say that neither sides are justified or right to bum-screw other people around. Piracy isn't theft, but it's morally questionable to take someone's hard work and don't pay him for it when he expected a fair trade. Don't think for once that your action of piracy won't affect a big company(even if it's a morally bankrupt game company like EA), if your way of thinking is similiar to thousands of others, then piracy is definitely a considerable issue here. He might as well go back to knitting sweaters if that's the case.

And the 'try before you buy' justification doesn't help. You can play someone's game and just point out a few flaws before deciding not to buy it, but you've played the full game, not a demo, or a trial. If its a movie or it is a game with less replay value, would you buy it? You can stack a ton of reasons not to buy a game that might be valid, but the thing is, it can get out of hand here.

Although the same goes for the digital industry with their poor quality releases and their money grubbing schemes and their DRMs. They do have a significant advantage in the debate of piracy if not for their greed. Companies that force you down with DRM just because someone else is being a jerk is the ludicrious thing to retaliate against the pirates. There is no sure-fire legal way to beat up pirates, so the next best possible solution is not try to win the side of honest paying customers, but give them a good hard spank, yeah!

But then again certain companies emerged to bring you DRM-free games with good customer service and product quality, such as GOG.com for instance. Their policy is that: "Hey people, I'm going you a hassle -free game that has all the extra goodies added in it. I trust that as a customer, you get rewarded for it". One of the things that you should be ashamed for piracy is to pirate their games.

So yeah, both sides are dicking around in this debate, they should be doing nice things like stop pirating and stop pasting DRM shit all over the place but no, we have to think that everyone on the other side is a bad guy so we can do bad things.

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If its a movie or it is a game with less replay value, would you buy it?

That is the key difference between douchebag pirates and the rest. For many, the answer to that question is actually yes. Just 3 quick examples from my steam library is dragon age origins, GTA: San Andreas and kotor. I played pirated version of all of them due to not being able to buy them at the time. As soon as I did though, I bought them on steam, and have never played them since.

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That is the key difference between douchebag pirates and the rest. For many, the answer to that question is actually yes. Just 3 quick examples from my steam library is dragon age origins, GTA: San Andreas and kotor. I played pirated version of all of them due to not being able to buy them at the time. As soon as I did though, I bought them on steam, and have never played them since.

Perhaps for you, you did do something right to buy it if you believe it's a game worthy of purchase. But as you've said, others might not have your way of thinking.

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Perhaps for you, you did do something right to buy it if you believe it's a game worthy of purchase. But as you've said, others might not have your way of thinking.

Hence why my stance on piracy being wrong is "depends on the individual doing it".

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To be honest, almost 90% of all modern AAA games are not even worth it being pirated, who wants to play that crap anyways?

There's no need for piracy anymore. If you want to buy cheap games -> use other countries to buy there if you need it cheap. Compare Steam prices for example in Germany, UK, USA, Russia, New Zealand and get your own opinion. There are websites available, you will find them.

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AH, you're one of those people who equates pirating to stealing. I'm just gonna stop talking then.

Its not equivalent to stealing. Its just very similar. My fundamental premise is that people have a right to dispose of their own creations in the manner they see fit. That makes piracy wrong regardless of whether the creators have sold their rights to a large company or, as steave suggested, whether the piracy doesn't actually deprive the person of an original object.

The copying theory, i.e. that it doesn't deprive someone of an object, would logically extend to situations that we could probably all agree are not moral. For instance, under that theory, it would not be wrong for someone to look into your window and take pictures of you while you're inside your house. Nothing of yours has been permanently taken from you, i.e. its not stealing, its just that the authority over that which is yours has not been respected.

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Its not equivalent to stealing. Its just very similar. My fundamental premise is that people have a right to dispose of their own creations in the manner they see fit. That makes piracy wrong regardless of whether the creators have sold their rights to a large company or, as steave suggested, whether the piracy doesn't actually deprive the person of an original object.

The copying theory, i.e. that it doesn't deprive someone of an object, would logically extend to situations that we could probably all agree are not moral. For instance, under that theory, it would not be wrong for someone to look into your window and take pictures of you while you're inside your house. Nothing of yours has been permanently taken from you, i.e. its not stealing, its just that the authority over that which is yours has not been respected.

Indeed, it's not stealing, but neither is assault or other violence related crimes, which are obviously not OK. Invasion of privacy is an another example. The difference is that all these examples have a victim, someone suffers from it. As long as you're not being a douchebag about it, piracy doesn't. I'm never gonna argue that it shouldn't be illegal, but as long as you weren't gonna buy it anyway it's a victimless crime.

The fact that it's not stealing does not automatically means it's OK, it just means that you can't classify it as stealing and thus automatically determine that it's wrong.

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As a creative person, I'd argue it's still an invasion of privacy / rights if you copy my property without asking. Nobody is claiming it is as bad as stealing my property or physically assaulting me, because it isn't - but it's still wrong to do so.

If you pirate my game, in most cases you are probably not actually depriving me of revenue but you are still violating my permission and my wishes by doing so. In a way, it's a (albeit minor) invasion of privacy and it can be irritating when people don't realise that and claim there's absolutely nothing wrong with piracy provided there is no financial loss involved.

At what point does it become a victimless crime to copy something I create? If I write a book and keep it locked in a drawer in my house, would you be entitled to make a copy of it simply because it'd cause me no financial loss if you did so? Most people would say not, as it's my own property and I can control access to it as I choose - and most people consider that to be morally acceptable in every way.

I don't quite understand why that logic no longer applies as soon as we name a price for the game. What if I let my friend read that book for £100? Can you then take a copy of it without asking? Why does the logic break down when the number of people is expanded out?

Ultimately it's a fairly minor invasion of privacy / permission but the developers are still the victims and it's still somewhat wrong. I'm mostly fine with piracy provided 1) people at least acknowledge that, and 2) people pirating the game would not otherwise have bought it if they were unable to pirate it. Ultimately piracy is a fact of life but I'd prefer it if people didn't view it as entirely morally justified.

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As long as you're not being a douchebag about it, piracy doesn't. I'm never gonna argue that it shouldn't be illegal, but as long as you weren't gonna buy it anyway it's a victimless crime.

Indeed it is hard to condemn piracy simply because no one could see the obvious damage it might or will do towards the other person. The digitalised method of isolating the action between the pirate and the person owning the software is very clouded, no one could see that the game they pirate have an impact, piracy is unlike a physical transaction, you could pirate the copy at a whim without even knowing which company made it.

As this mentality goes into the minds of people pirating, more and more people will think "Hmm, I'm just only getting a free copy, I'm just one person, surely no one's affected by it". Imagine with two decades of such culture developing among the increasing amount of digitalised users, and partially for the fact that Certain Companies nowadays have the moral capacity of a psychotic middle-aged tax accountant, people are dumping justifications to pirate by the tons.

One person pirating can't do much damage, but imagine the increased numbers. (I wonder what is that mentality thing you called it?) While piracy does bring publicity to the product, I doubt there would be a balance to this piracy, and considering that there are more dickheads than nice people on the internet.....

As a creative person, I'd argue it's still an invasion of privacy / rights if you copy my property without asking. Nobody is claiming it is as bad as stealing my property or physically assaulting me, because it isn't - but it's still wrong to do so.

Ultimately it's a fairly minor invasion of privacy / permission but the developers are still the victims and it's still somewhat wrong. I'm mostly fine with piracy provided 1) people at least acknowledge that, and 2) people pirating the game would not otherwise have bought it if they were unable to pirate it. Ultimately piracy is a fact of life but I'd prefer it if people didn't view it as entirely morally justified.

It's dickheadism on the internet I guess. You know you won't be punished for pirating online and for the fact that you can remain anonymous(I still support anonymity on the internet though) would mean little to the consequence if you do pirate. After all, you can just shut yourself from the owner of said product and nothing bad happens to you.

That's why companies like gog.com(Yes, I'm banging on about it, but it's on the moral high-ground so there) are trying the reverse tactic, treating their customers like kings, good communication with the community eventually have good returns of a morally sound society in there somewhere.

Look at the example of companies like EA. If you have the award for the most inhumane working conditions in your company, don't expect the community to like you very much(except for maybe mindless sheep that gets their backside spanked without any sense of self-awareness)

So yes, I'm happy that I've purchased the full amount of Xenonauts. Chris should deserve support for helping to nurture the community :P

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I'm only referring to a small section of the pirate community really - I've had a few people tell me that they're completely morally justified in pirating my game, that they're fully entitled to a free copy.

The entitlement is what winds me up there, not the fact they haven't paid for the game.

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As a creative person, I'd argue it's still an invasion of privacy / rights if you copy my property without asking. Nobody is claiming it is as bad as stealing my property or physically assaulting me, because it isn't - but it's still wrong to do so.

If you pirate my game, in most cases you are probably not actually depriving me of revenue but you are still violating my permission and my wishes by doing so. In a way, it's a (albeit minor) invasion of privacy and it can be irritating when people don't realise that and claim there's absolutely nothing wrong with piracy provided there is no financial loss involved.

At what point does it become a victimless crime to copy something I create? If I write a book and keep it locked in a drawer in my house, would you be entitled to make a copy of it simply because it'd cause me no financial loss if you did so? Most people would say not, as it's my own property and I can control access to it as I choose - and most people consider that to be morally acceptable in every way.

I don't quite understand why that logic no longer applies as soon as we name a price for the game. What if I let my friend read that book for £100? Can you then take a copy of it without asking? Why does the logic break down when the number of people is expanded out?

Ultimately it's a fairly minor invasion of privacy / permission but the developers are still the victims and it's still somewhat wrong. I'm mostly fine with piracy provided 1) people at least acknowledge that, and 2) people pirating the game would not otherwise have bought it if they were unable to pirate it. Ultimately piracy is a fact of life but I'd prefer it if people didn't view it as entirely morally justified.

If you write a book and lock it up in your drawer, you're doing so because you don't want anyone to read the content because it's private, so yes, making a copy (or reading it at all) would be an invasion of privacy. However, once you publish that book, the entire world can read it, so the content is no longer something private.

In the vast majority of cases, if someone pirates the game, you will never find out about it, and as you mentioned, not suffer financially from it either, so you don't suffer from it in any way.

Piracy becomes more akin to checking the book out of the library and copying it for later use.

I'm only referring to a small section of the pirate community really - I've had a few people tell me that they're completely morally justified in pirating my game, that they're fully entitled to a free copy.

The entitlement is what winds me up there, not the fact they haven't paid for the game.

That is NOT what I'm saying though. No one is entitled to a copy without paying - it's just that if you can get one without anyone suffering from it, then why not? If anyone could convince me that it actually hurts someone in any way, I'd stop.

LordJulian, piracy already has existed for decades, so that would be right now. Either way, I can only control myself - even if I were to stop, no one else would.

Yes, I am aware of "if everyone thinks that way..." arguments, but again, no one will stop thinking that way just because I do.

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If anyone could convince me that it actually hurts someone in any way...

The harm is not pragmatic. You can't feel it, touch it, or point to a lack of dollars because of it. The victim might not even know that the piracy has occurred. The harm is simply a violation of a creator's wishes for something, which the creator has the rightful authority to direct. That is the argument in a nutshell. If you don't accept that such a thing is harm, that would be the point where our views diverge.

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The harm is not pragmatic. You can't feel it, touch it, or point to a lack of dollars because of it. The victim might not even know that the piracy has occurred. The harm is simply a violation of a creator's wishes for something, which the creator has the rightful authority to direct. That is the argument in a nutshell. If you don't accept that such a thing is harm, that would be the point where our views diverge.

Indeed. Being able to feel it or at least see some effect of it is, in my opinion, the definition of harm. Something that doesn't affect you and that you most likely won't even find out about can't harm you.

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Yes, I am aware of "if everyone thinks that way..." arguments, but again, no one will stop thinking that way just because I do.

I'm really being a jerk to nitpick this but, you're displaying the everyman mentality again. That's what everyone would say to just give up before attempting to do something about it.

And not pirating isn't only the action you can do. Educate the masses, introduce them to DRM-Free game distributors like gog or inform them of better deals in the steam sale. Tell your friend that he sucks because he's a pirate. :P I'm going around with the "changes starts with you" cliche, but yeah, that's the point.

But cometothinkofit, I might be too harsh on my opinion about the pirates that do have more valid justifications, like if a game company has spyware/adware/stupid intrusive digital services like EA, or if a game is by a stretch hard to obtain by conventional means, or someone is trying to be a dick and charge $200 for a vintage game that's supposed to be digitalised, then I'd say take a shot.

Actually, I'd like a world where piracy has been frowned upon but companies aren't being greedy twats with restricting their products and making quality stuff. But alas, one could only dream.....

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I'm really being a jerk to nitpick this but, you're displaying the everyman mentality again. That's what everyone would say to just give up before attempting to do something about it.

What's your point? I don't have anything that I feel I need to change.

And not pirating isn't only the action you can do. Educate the masses, introduce them to DRM-Free game distributors like gog or inform them of better deals in the steam sale. Tell your friend that he sucks because he's a pirate. :P I'm going around with the "changes starts with you" cliche, but yeah, that's the point.

And again, that would require there to be an issue that I feel strongly about and want to change. That isn't the case.

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Watchdogs is being pirated like mad in Washington D.C. . Hopefully people are taking lessons in how to watch your own government...lol.

As for Xenonauts and piracy, even being poor, I can't justify pirating a small game from a even smaller indie Dev. It's 15-20 bucks going to a company making a game that's a reimagining of a beloved classic. It's not like you're ripping into EA and screwing them for killing industry standards, you're just hurting someone who's more or less just like you by not buying a indie game.

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As for Xenonauts and piracy, even being poor, I can't justify pirating a small game from a even smaller indie Dev. It's 15-20 bucks going to a company making a game that's a reimagining of a beloved classic. It's not like you're ripping into EA and screwing them for killing industry standards, you're just hurting someone who's more or less just like you by not buying a indie game.

I made that same exact comment, but got chewed on it for it. I would much rather support the small guy than line the pockets of the big brothers.

Some people seem to think we need to justify ourselves in order to be ok with piracy, some people seem to think piracy is akin to murder. I don't make excuses for why I pirate, but I pirate for specific reasons.

If you're against piracy, that's perfectly alright. But just like religious beliefs, don't try to force your anti-piracy beliefs on others. Is it illegal? Probably. But so is smoking pot in many places, but people still do it anyway and don't get into trouble for it.

Piracy, unless you're doing it, doesn't affect you in any way, so why have an issue with it?

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*anything*, unless you're doing it, doesn't affect you in any way, so why have an issue with it?

Because society is more than just a series of people acting completely individually - actions usually affect more than only the person doing it and the person on the receiving end.

It's like if someone was selling crystal meth outside my house it would affect me too, not just him and the people buying the meth...or why suicide affects more than just the person killing themselves etc.

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Well, if you're just someone else I do not know much, I have no right to interfere with your life. I don't believe the best solution to convince someone not to pirate is to force them not to.

But If you're my best friend, I'll get a bradwurst to wallop down on you and creep along, and give you a rhetorical question, while standing smug and inquisitive and say. "Do you feel like a hero yet?"

:)

Jokes aside, the thing is if we ourselves are apathetic towards our actions, then we should deserve apathy back. Piracy solves your problems, but adds to others. And I'd use my defense and say that there shouldn't be laws against piracy, but there should be a culture that nurtures discouragement of it and encourages community involvement between the companies and the customers.

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Well, if you're just someone else I do not know much, I have no right to interfere with your life. I don't believe the best solution to convince someone not to pirate is to force them not to.

I don't see the problem with force, generally speaking. When you won't respect other's rights, then it seems to be a legitimate role of government to restrain you. That being said, I don't know that anyone has earnestly set about enforcing piracy laws. The laws are regularly broken with impunity and little enforcement action seems to have been taken.

As to one of your other points, it would be ideal for us to institute policies which encourage rightful action absent any laws. The primary purpose of prohibitive laws, however, are to govern bad people rather than good ones.

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I honestly don't believe that force through government actions (and that is my most neutral expression of them) is necessary to deal with such situations that have such a minute impact caused from said offender(But looked upon to several thousands, this does indeed have an impact). But I assume that you mean the big-timer distributors. Even if the individual is a massive distributor, how are you going to judge on his actions and serve the ideal punishment for said individual? Based on number of downloads? Based on where it is released? And how would you know that this crime has an impact of hurting that said company, since this is the internet we're talking about? The digital world works very differently from traditional prohibition laws.

(off-topic about the phohibition law)

I'm just going to point out the 1930s Alcohol prohibition in the US. Not exactly successful. For you see, it is an item that people can responsibly use and irresponsibly use it for harm, prohibition won't change that. You're not going to ban alcohol for everyone and expect it to work just because there is about 100 drink driving deaths that occurred over the week You just slap the idiots for organizing that stupid drunk driving race culture that those morons thought about. Some good people like to drink and they do drink responsibly.

(On-topic)

Piracy is morally questionable but it doesn't justify a warrant to get such a punishment because of the impact of said crime.

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Even if the individual is a massive distributor, how are you going to judge on his actions and serve the ideal punishment for said individual? Based on number of downloads? Based on where it is released? And how would you know that this crime has an impact of hurting that said company, since this is the internet we're talking about?

It depends on what the purpose of the punishment is. Punishment, for purposes of retribution, is beyond our ability to judge rightly. We do not know what an individual deserves in an ultimate moral sense. However, punishment for purposes of deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation (aka compliance) is within our capacity to judge appropriately because it deals with practical outcomes and their effect on society. It is within that context that you could argue that there should be no punishment for breaking piracy laws because such a punishment was futile.

Edit: I'll just add that the punishment promoting deterrence, incapacitation or compliance can be arbitrary AND effective. For instance, you must pay the copyright owner twice the sale price of every copyrighted work that you distribute. If that were enforced against torrent users, that would be a severe method of deterrence.

But, again, without enforcement of piracy laws that is a moot point. I think anti-piracy laws have had some effect, at least, because they (1) increase in the populace the sense that such conduct is wrong and prick the conscious to voluntarily not engage in said conduct; and (2) the laws are practically enforceable against mass distributors, e.g. companies, and have prevented companies from flagrantly abusing piracy laws by selling things which aren't theirs. These effects channel at least some people into supporting media they think is worth buying.

Edited by victorix58
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