So I suppose that small developers like the makers of Bastion go out of business all the time because they're all terrible business people and have no idea how to operate in the capitalist world, not because they can't generate enough revenue to stay afloat because the people that would have bought their games pirated them instead?

If he's renting it, he's still paying for it, and the game was paid for by the rental company in the first place, so it's not the least bit like pirating, and if he borrowed it and played it to completion, then waited for a sale ON A DOWNLOADABLE GAME when there's a free demo of the game on Steam, then yeah, I'd still call him on this. I mean, come on, it's only $15 on Steam in the first place, AND THERE'S A FREE DEMO. There's no excuse to pirate it and play it to completion to "try it out".

No, they go out of business because they make shit games, or in most cases, the publishers just aren't interested unless the developers games have the words "Call", "Duty", "Final", "Fantasy", "Street", "Fighter" or "Halo" in the title, in which case, they'll pay stupid money. It sucks, but its true.


What if its one of those "Rent two, get one rental free" deals?


Wow, must be great to have so much disposable income. So if its "only" $15, why haven't you bought all the MAG DLC? Thats "only" £9.99, ain't it? For a game you played A LOT, whats "only" $9.99?

And a trial demo only gives a hint of what the game is like. I can't count the number of games I've bought on the first findings from a demo, only to find the rest of the game is dogshit... Trash Panic, for one. Demo was hella fun. Didn't show me level 2 though, where the difficulty spike materialises behind you, bends you over, forces itself right up your ringpiece, up through your torso, out the top of your skull, then fires you into the fucking sun...

Don't think this is ever gonna get settled, cos it sure is opinions up in this bitch.

Even though you and Sean are wrong.

Escalation is $4.99 and Interdiction is free for the US.

And why aren't the publishers interested? Because it sells poorly, and you can't tell me that at least some of the time piracy isn't to blame for that.



The point is moot, because the game is still paid for, because those deals only happen with subscriptions, so the rental company pays the developer/publisher, and you pay the rental company.



DLC is a whole different can of worms than a full game, so don't even act like the Escalation game mode is at all in the same arena as Bastion. Even if the two things were comparable, Escalation is bullshit. No way I'm paying for that.



That's the whole point of "trying it out". Yeah, the demo should give you a taste of the whole experience, but the fact remains that the demo IS there to be tried. Smiler didn't even do that, he just straight up went and pirated it right off the bat.

Also, trying to Smokey on some DLC is just funny.

He determined it wasn't worth the money.

He didn't buy it.

He didn't then go out and steal it.

Maybe he wanted to see if it was worth buying, only to find out it is, so he's gonna buy it.

He's only added a single step to the whole "thinking about buying it > buying it" trail, and even then, he's simply removed "play a demo" and replaced with "play the game".

Also, when you have games like COD, FF, SSFIV and Halo selling FUCKING MILLIONS, yet amazing games like Joe Danger and other such downloadable games sell FUCK ALL, you can't blame piracy, you blame the mongs that are quite willing to pay over the odds for Boring Pointless Rehash Rerelease 2: Almost The Final Edition Edition, but won't take a chance on Fucking Nugget Of Gold Right Here Game which costs not even a tenner... sorry son, no dice there.

EDIT: Also, Sean, kinda different here. Al thought it might be worth the money, tried it, decided it was, and then went and bought it. If you go to a restaurant (where you eat first, pay later), if the menu showed some delightful dish, and you chose it, and you got a plate full of shit, you have a few choices...

1. Send it back (or don't have it, don't pay for it)
2. Try it, and if you don't like it, send it back (or try a demo of it/borrow it/pirate it, don't like it, get rid of it, don't buy it)
3. Try it, decide you like it, eat it, happily pay for it (or do what Al did with Bastion)

I honestly can't see the reason. In the end, Al has a copy of a game he paid for in full. Whats the problem?

I liked Trash Panic. I got to the planet level....

Oh man, first level? So much awesome. Second level? Fuck that shit.

Only game I have precisely zero trophies in.

Sorry, Eye Of Judgement and GH:Van Halen too, but only because EOJ are all hidden, and GH:VH is shit and I've yet to play more than one song.

That's like saying that you want to get rid of AIDS, so you nuke Africa into oblivion, and hey, you're that much closer to eradicating AIDS! Basically, you're saying the ends justify the means, and they don't. Unless there is no legal avenue to obtain the game you want, there is no excuse for pirating a game.

Again, must be nice having unlimited disposable income.

Importing isn't illegal, but if you have two choices: pirate, or pay $400.00 for a foreign console, then $70.00 for a foreign game to play on said console due to region coding, then its a no-brainer.

inb4 "then do without". Yeah, cos developers like it when folk never get a chance to play their shit, thereby destroying any chance of future iterations going overseas. Final Fantasy, Persona, Phoenix Wright, Elite Beat Agents, and A STUPIDLY LARGE NUMBER OF OTHER GAMES all say "Hi".

I don't have unlimited disposable income. I'm a jobless college student. YOU have more disposable income than I do. Rather than pirate those games, you should pull a Project Rainfall and start gathering support for a game that you can play legally. Yeah, Project Rainfall didn't work, but consider the games they were lobbying for. If this was done for a Final Fantasy or Persona or a similarly established series, odds are there'd be more fans, and thus more chance that the developer would accede to your demands.

If you're not willing to pursue legal means to obtain a game, you don't really deserve that game, to be honest.

Now this right here makes me think JZ hacked into Smokey's account and then posted the first thing that came to mind.

Seriously, you're kidding, right?

Right?

Right?

Final Fantasy 3. Until the DS version, never released outside of Japan. I had to download a fan-made ROM just so I could play it, as I'd played every single other Western-released FF game. Was I undeserving of it? Given that I'd quite happily paid ANYTHING for it (and did so when it hit DS), but had to resort to illegal means, am I undeserving?

Words cannot express how dumbfounded I am here. I honestly just spent the last 90 seconds looking at your statement, trying to say something sensible, but I'm at a loss. Seriously. Well played, son. You just shut up the Blokester with one of the most idiotic statements ever made. I don't know whether to applaud you or set myself on fire and just have done with it, because if thats how people think, then I don't want to live in this world anymore.

Fuck me...

And I'm right in assuming that neither yourself or Sean have ever, or will ever, download a song/movie/ROM from the internet that you could easily have purchased from a local store, right?

Right?

Right?

Actually, Imma bowing out right here. I just can't do this anymore.

Al pirated something to see if it was worth the cash. Boo.
Al liked it so much he's going to buy it fo' realz. Yay.

All thats happened is that he managed to play it before parting with his cash.

Far as I'm concerned, he's supported the dev by buying new, and he's sticking it to the man by not buying it from a rip-off store in town. Job done, case closed, Imma never visiting this thread again, because my head hurts from people getting hung up on the wrong people for the wrong reason.

I think pirating roms is ok because nobody sells those games anymore so how are you going to buy those old games? You could ebay them but the seller is getting the money and you are not supporting developers at all.

That's the thing, though. Because of fans like you that clamored for a Western release, they released it here in the States and in Europe. You're only validating my argument.



Music =/= games. Games are VASTLY more expensive to make, and everyone knows that the vast majority of the cost for an album goes to the record label, and that the bands hardly ever see a dime on revenue from album sales anyway. I mean, shit, when David Draiman, the frontman of one of the most popular rock bands of this generation, says that he doesn't give a shit one way or the other about pirating music because of exactly what I just said, that kinda robs your argument of any credibility.

When you pirate music, you hurt the record labels, who deserve to die in a fire.

When you pirate games, you are seriously hurting developers a lot more than you're hurting publishers or retailers.

EDIT: Like I said, when you can't find games through legal means, for whatever reason, then there's no reason not to pirate the game, because if no one is selling it, you're not denying anyone revenue.