I don’t follow this as a justification for piracy. Piracy isn’t stealing but, assuming if it was not possible to pirate you were going to pay for the game, you are still causing the person who owns the game to lose money they would have otherwise gained.
My justification is much simpler: capitalists suck, buying games supports capitalists so I’m keeping my money.
Personally, If its not possible to pirate something I just forget about it until it is
This is me tbh. I don’t value video games as part of my life to the extent that I will pay 70 dollars (or really almost any dollars) for 99% of them. I already don’t do that for games that have/had Denuvo that took years to crack. I just forgot about them and did something else. I’d probably just read more books if I couldn’t pirate games because I’m not spending that much of my income on them.
It’s also the same argument that record companies tried to use for the last few decades when a majority of the piracy stats were from countries you couldn’t even buy their albums or it was prohibitively expensive to do so. Avatar (the blue one) was the most pirated movie of all time at the same time as it was the highest grossing movie of all time. One download = one lost sale has never been true.
Sonic Frontiers my beloved.
assuming if it was not possible to pirate you were going to pay for the game
That’s not a reasonable assumption at all.
Sometimes people can’t afford the extortionate game prices and thus wouldn’t be bying them no matter what.
Other times, such as with the Denuvo DRM monstrosity or draconian anticheat systems on single player modes, pirated copies are better than bought ones.
And, as you say yourself, sometimes you just don’t want to support the capitalists ruining games in order to squeeze every possible cent of profit out of them regardless of what that means for the quality of games and treatment of gamers.
Sometimes people can’t afford the extortionate game prices and thus wouldn’t be bying them no matter what.
In that case piracy is fully justified. If you wouldn’t have bought it if piracy wasn’t an option then I have no issues.
Bottom two reasons: yeah fuck DRM and capitalism. I didn’t say I’m against pirating, I just need to find the logical justification :)
If you want to play a game - pay the owner.
If you can’t afford it - don’t pirate it. It’s not yours.
Upd: Wow, there are a lot of freeloaders in this thread.
If you can’t afford it then pirate it. There is no victim so I really see 0 reason not to.
“it’s not yours” is not valid. Who owns it then? Disney? Why does Disney deserve to own it any more than you? They didn’t put in any work to make it, the actors, directors, vfx artists, writers, producers, camera people, etc etc made the film. How come they don’t own any of it?
“it’s not yours” is not valid.
Huh? The legal system would politely disagree.
Who owns it then?
For the USA look it up in the USPTO database (USPTO = United States Patent and Trademark Office) or in game’s EULA.
You specifically chose one sentence from my argument and anilised that while ignoring all of the context around it.
Do you understand there is a difference between what is legal and what is ethical and sometimes the law can be unfair or unethical?
I still dont see any issues in a victimless crime.
You specifically chose one sentence from my argument and anilised that
Two sentences.
And I find copyright infringement still unethical. Because you are taking what’s not yours, and the thing you’re taking - is not some vital resource type you’re taking out of desperation. It’s a game.
Two sentences.
I stand corrected.
Because you are taking what’s not yours
But does the legal owner deserve to own it and profit off it? Again I ask you, do you understand the difference between what is ethical and what is legal.
It’s a game.
Piracy extends to all forms of media and software, not just games. I believe media is still incredibly important to a persons development. Media in all forms is a way to learn from other people and create a deeper understanding of how the world works. And taking that away from something because they don’t have the means to access it legally is not right. On top of this people deserve to have fun, and taking away peoples opportunity to have fun just because they don’t have the means to access it legally is also not right.
Paying the creator I understand, but what is this “pay the owner”?
Creators often sell rights to their game in exchange for money then and there. So creators are not anyways owners.
I don’t really care if it is stealing. Steal all you want. The random dude making the modern day equivalent of a flash game is certainly not counting on game sales to make ends meet, and the corporations can get fucked and die.
:)
Watching indie devs make 500k off of flash games 😅
I used to be philosophically anti-piracy in principle, and would often argue online against people who posted disingenuous or self-serving justifications for their actions. But these days the amount of piss-taking by the publishers has destroyed my resolve.
Yarrr.
I am just paying a different entity that provides the same “service” for cheaper at the cost of my sense of security.
fun fact, pirating the game means you actually own it I have repacked drm free pirated versions of games I own just in case i lose access to them or they get shut down
Anyway, Nintendo and Xbox have colossal fortunes; I don’t think pirating one of their games is going to bankrupt them.
I used to have a hard time sharing the things I bought with the piracy community
It just felt wrong to give things away to people who hadn’t paid a thing. I felt like I was hurting the creators who actually put in the work
But then I realized I was guarding something that wasn’t even mine, all I bought was a license that could be revoked at any time… it never truly belonged to me
I was just being selfish. Now every now and then I make sure to share the content I purchase
deleted by creator
It’s 2026 and it’s the first time you seen this meme?
They’re being sarky
nah I didn’t make the meme, and I find it hilarious when people try to nitpick memes as if they were some philosophical treatises
Oh I just fell for it.
