So, seeing as Toasty's attempt at irony went sailing over the head of most respondents and the thread got closed, lets try one with a less contraversial title.

So, DS Pirates – why do you do it? Do you see it as a victimless crime? Do you see it as a crime at all? Given that the piracy genie is well and truly out of the bottle, what would make you pay for games?

This isn't an attempt at finger pointing – while I know what *I* think about it, I would like to know what others think.

What's a 'DS Pirate'? Dandy Sailor?

Why are Pirates called Pirates…

…Becaue they AARGGGGHHHH (better with a Cornish accent).

My daughter has a card for her ds but it is used for mp3 and watching films in the car.

Although it is redundant since Santa delivered a new nano.

Piracy has seriously effected the pc market. Developers tend to release games for the pc months after they appear on console. They are then pirated seriously quickly upon release. A lot of the games never make it onto pc for this exact reason.

All the recent PC titles I've worked on are pretty much exactly the same as the console versions – there's no point in adding extra features, or taking advantage of high end graphics cards because the game won't sell enough to make it worthwhile.

There is extra work to do on a PC version though – not a huge amount (compatability etc), but even that is enough to make most publishers question whether they want to bother, the market is so poor.

There's no option to try before you buy with DS [AFAIK] so people just use an R4 card or whatever & download them – how often they keep playing the games after they've 'tried' them – I have no idea

I suppose the games companies only lose if the downloader would have bought the game in the first place, if they had no intention of buying it in the first place, it's hard to see who lost out
You could also argue that pirated software drives legit sales
Microsoft did very little to stop pirated versions of Office because they knew fine well that once it became universal, most companies would have to use it because that's what all the prospective employees were used to.
It's a ploy that worked IMO

HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC

My brother in law part-owns a games writing company in Canada (Slant Six) and the amount of time, money and effort that goes into games writing is eye-watering. They need to sell a lot of units to break even, let alone make profit.

As was said on the other threads, games piracy will hit the smaller developers to the point where they won't be viable.

Mention bike theft on here and you can almost feel the collective blood boil. Other forms of theft seem almost acceptable.

I think the balancing act for the games industry is market tends to adopt the platform that lends itself most readily for piracy, so people buy the hardware but their piracy risks extinguishing the content.

HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC

Indeed
Why only yesterday I saw Madonna begging for the price of a cup of tea outside McDonalds

Piracy has seriously effected the pc market. Developers tend to release games for the pc months after they appear on console. They are then pirated seriously quickly upon release. A lot of the games never make it onto pc for this exact reason.

PC gamers often get shafted in favour of console gamers, be it shoddy/delayed ports or missing features. COD:MW2 being a prime example where the PC mulitplayer was neutered (no dedicated servers). Response to this? Mass pirating/boycotting of a game that would have sold by the bucket load if it had the same treatment as the console versions.

Good points uplink, although with software like Word it has a much longer lifespan and the value there is in the standard.

Also agree on the try before you buy thing – it's why most publishers will insist on a demo version for PSN / XBox Live / Steam.

Piracy is something that can't be stopped, and it's arguable that attempts to do so (draconian DRM measures etc) do more harm than good.

The thing is, the market for DS and PC development is terrible, which would suggest that piracy is having a strong negative impact.

I don't like the way it's ok with some people to steal software. It's the same with music downloads. What makes that ok but stealing from your local bike shop not?

What makes that ok but stealing from your local bike shop not?

What if someone made a copy of a bike in a shop & kept it for their own use?
Is that the same as stealing the bike?

I don't like the way it's ok with some people to steal software. It's the same with music downloads. What makes that ok but stealing from your local bike shop not?

because people place a value 'things' but not ideas, time or other people

What if someone made a copy of a bike in a shop & kept it for their own use?
Is that the same as stealing the bike?

in effect, yes

edit: and it happens

What if someone made a copy of a bike in a shop & kept it for their own use?
Is that the same as stealing the bike?

I think intellectual theft would apply due to infringing patents.

That's way I'm against it, as someone who is paid to come up with ideas.

i dont play any computer games let alone know how to pirate a ds games so probably shouldnt cooment but i will.

i assume people download the game illegally, so is there wide spread legal downloads of the game at reduced prices from buying from the shop?

or is it all **** up like music industry where a music download can be drm crippled and cost more than a physical cd?

I think intellectual theft would apply due to infringing patents.

I would have thought that would only apply if you tried to market/sell it

I'm not sure the bike copy analogy really works. The massive bulk of value in music or games is the creative content; the packaging or delivery medium adds very little. With a bike the physical materials are intrinsic to the objects purpose. It would be fairer to compare using a bike companies materials and facilites to create a copy. And yes, that would be stealing.

I think this debate is very interesting. Most people would have copied CD's or software, I guess it's hard for individuals to accept that they have stolen something. I've got a few copies, and yet my company runs a record label. I think the most worrying are the people who have never paid for anything. If that gets more prevalent, as al2000 says game development or music production can become financially difficult.

piracy pretty much did help kill off the amiga many years ago ( though commodores bungled management probably didn't help much either )

i did play pirated games when i was a kid but i found that i never put as much time into playing games compared to ones i bought so i stopped doing it.

I guess I'll have to reveal I'm a oldie here….. I got my first cassette recorder in 1971 & I remeber then there was a big scaremongering lobby going on about how it would ruin the music industry – nearly 40 years on, it doesn't look too shabby

I don't really have any experience with gaming so maybe I shouldn't comment on it but I bet they're still going long after I'm not
They may not turn over as much profit as they would like [what company does?] but I reckon they'll still have a healthy balance sheet long into the future

Tried steam recently, very impressed. Cheap prices, so I could quickly, cheaply and easily have a copy of a game I wanted to play (half life 2). It's a lot easier than getting a pirate copy, "just works" and got a good fast download speed. And it was cheap enough that I was happy to pay the price for the ease.

IMO that's why itunes worked – they made it cheap enough, and easy enough to get legal copies that there's almost no point pirating. Some still will, but make it cheap and easy for enough people and it'll work.

PC gaming dying off is more to do with compatibility issues and the widely differing hardware etc. making it hard to create a consistent game experience.

There's also the streaming/spotify model if you like. Best example here is quake live. The game's free to play, but they control the content and the experience. So at some point when it's out the beta there'll be ads in game etc. I can see this style being more popular.

You could also argue that pirated software drives legit sales
Microsoft did very little to stop pirated versions of Office because they knew fine well that once it became universal, most companies would have to use it because that's what all the prospective employees were used to.
It's a ploy that worked IMO

Which is completely different to pirating games – unless you're suggesting that big companies are likely to purchase bulk licenses for GTA4?

The home taping thing isn't really in the same league as downloading though. A quick google gives me figures of around a 30% decline in music industry revenues over the last 10 years. Not healthy at all. The internet has really opened up everything. What do you do for a living Uplink? Surely you can see why it grates to see things you may have worked hard on offered up for free, as if worthless?

Which is completely different to pirating games – unless you're suggesting that big companies are likely to purchase bulk licenses for GTA4?

I guess people with unlicensed copies could drive up demand by posting good reviews etc. in a viral marketing sort of way?
Who knows? it was just an observation of how this sort of thing could be tolerated by the copyright owners for a while

What do you do for a living Uplink?

Satellite broadcaster
we lose a good bit of stuff to people that don't pay for it – but they were never likely to either, so we don't lose sleep

i am more than happy to pay for games/music e.t.c. but what boils my p**S is why we are forced to pay a lot more for it than other places. i remember reading about sony and the ps3 (and them saying that they could charge 50% or above in the uk for games/console whilst also having less features on the console compared to japan/america e.t.c.)also look at the special editions of games released over here compared to japan/america.they have lovely extras that we just do not get.also it costs less!i don't condone piracy,but i can understand why it happens.

I agree that piracy is wrong (and don't actually have any pirate software on my computer.)

I've also hacked DRM schemes for games in the dim and distant past – not because I wanted to pirate them, just because it was a pain having to have the physical disk when I wanted to play it. That was years back when I had the time to disassemble machine code in my spare time.

I've also written the damn things (DRM things), although complete waste of time that was (and the company wasted loads of support time when people managed to break their licences or someone important needed the software on their other computer straight away or whatever).

I don't think the PC market for games is screwed because of piracy though, it is because gaming PCs are so ludicrously expensive nowadays, at least the kind of configuration that will get you a better than console games experience is. Even if you buy the games on the console, you'd have to play a lot of games to make up for the extra cost of a PC (and the cost of upgrading it every 6 months to play the latest game).

In terms of the DS, I think Nintendo really lucked out that it isn't so easy / widespread to pirate games. I know loads of people with a DS, and only 1 person with a dodgy card (who doesn't buy any games at all – that 'try before you buy' argument is just rubbish in most cases).

Piracy is an odd one though – I imagine maybe at some point it'll stop being a problem for games companies as most games devices will have online connections, so we'll play most games on servers, where the money we pay is for the server account. That would be a right pain (no more 2nd hand games), but I wouldn't be surprised by it at some point.

Joe

think the industries need to move on, times have changed and a lot of people download as its easier than going into town

make it worth peoples while to download off you instead of the torrents sites and you've cracked it

I would love to download movies games music direct from source at full speed and perfect quality for a membership fee or the price of the component with no packaging delivery all the extra costs

I mean does anyone know the profit margin on a dvd or cd for the distributor out of interest? I imagine a few quid but don't know

Isn't there less piracy of Nintendo titles than PCs or other consoles because the owners are typically less "hardcore" gamers?

Anyway, piracy has been widespread in the games industry since the games came on cassettes.

I'm not saying it's OK or anything, and I don't do it myself anymore, but surely it's a factor that the industry must plan for? Is it really worse now than on the Amiga for example, when it was amazingly easy to copy games?

I mean does anyone know the profit margin on a dvd or cd for the distributor out of interest

No but I was talking to a mate [classical singer] a while back about what he earns from downloads – Apparently he gets 11%, The same as if one of his CDs sells

The distribution company still takes the lions share for doing [pretty much] nothing

Piracy of software in general is big business, and not done by greasy hackers in their bedrooms anymore. This is a business more profitable than selling drugs, and funds organised crime.

As their only costs are whats in the box, it isn't hard to see why they do it.

I just wish the general public would use a little common sense when making a purchase. If it seems to be too good to be true, IT IS! If you buy it, you're helping the unsavouries become richer and able to do more, and their methods are no less cruel than you see in any of Guy Richies movies.

It isn't cool or clever to buy a pirate copy.

It isn't cool or clever to buy a pirate copy

People [on the whole] aren't buying them – they're downloading them, for free

you'd be suprised

Just to point something out, piracy isn't the same as theft, it's copy write infringement. Doesn't make it right, but it is an important distinction.

On the flip side though how many times have you been blimming annoyed at paying £20+ for a game only for it to be rubbish/glitchy etc etc? The try before you buy useage of these cards is priceless. There are so many weak games out there on the ds and wii that command these prices.

But the 'try before buy' could apply to anything; books, bike parts, lunch from Tesco, but it's only used to justify software/music piracy.