Piracy

I was reading up on the forums and came across this thread, which asks gDNA members what they think of software piracy.  Piracy is an issue that always riles me up, because of the inherent stupidity of most of the "for" arguments.

My stance on this issue is affected by the fact that I'm married to a game designer, and I see the BS&T that he puts into making games good - I used to be pro-piracy until I realised the scope of the work that goes into making a game, and how many people's livelihoods are affected by whether this industry does well or not.  It's pretty easy for most people to say that it doesn't cost the game companies any money because there are no physical copies being 'stolen' (the argument here being that 'stealing' has to involve a physical object being taken, since such an object can only be in one place at once, whereas a digital copy can be distributed millions of times over without being 'stolen').  Well, think about this.

1. A studio puts shitloads of time, effort, and money into developing a game.

2. They are required to hire people and pay them wages for a long period of time BEFORE the game is released, i.e. whilst it's still in planning and development.  That's money coming straight out of their own pockets and/or whatever measly capital they managed to scrounge up beforehand, and these days it's not so easy unless you get a stupid investor who takes risks all the time, OR you're a huge company with a bunch of successes already under your belt.

3. The game is finished, probably after several delays (as seems typical nowadays) and goes gold.  All this time the studio has been forking out money to pay the people who're actually making the game (employees, contractors, etc.) AND the people who're trying to make sure the game is noticed by the public before it's released (advertising agencies, marketers, etc.) AND whatever costs are incurred on the publisher's side of things, to actually distribute the game.  Not to mention any unforeseen setbacks that may have occurred during development.  So now they have to see if the game is 'successful' to recoup those costs.

4. Two options here.  People buy the game, or they pirate it.  If people buy the game, the development costs can be recovered to an extent; but the game has to really take off if the studio wants to make a reasonable profit (and they need to do that to continue working, as a 'not-financially-successful' developer will likely not be able to secure contracts for future games).  If people pirate the game, however, there's absolutely no money coming in to the developer.

At this point, yes, technically nothing has been 'stolen'.  However, without being able to recoup development costs, and/or make a substantial profit, most developers (no matter how creative or talented) are forced to shut down.  Take Iron Lore, for example, the developers of the highly acclaimed casual RPG, Titan Quest (and its add-on, The Immortal Throne).  That game was fucking awesome, and a sequel was in the pipeline, but they had to abandon it - and they also lost the rights to the TQ IP - because not enough people bought the game.  And it wasn't for lack of popularity.  Why then?

If you read this GameBanshee interview, Paul Chieffo (one of Iron Lore's founders) says this (emphasis mine):

"... piracy in general is a huge problem for the PC market. Despite the huge profits made by hit games, in general it's a tough business in which to make money both for publishers and developers. There just isn't much margin for losing revenue ... There are huge areas of the world where there would be viable markets except for the fact that piracy makes them untenable. For example, Titan Quest was one of the top selling games in Russia last year, but no significant revenue was generated from that.  Why?  Because the game has to be sold for a pittance due to rampant piracy."

And later...

"... the current DRM solutions are very frustrating for the customers, and not very effective. That's why we removed copy protection from Titan Quest in a patch, and shipped Immortal Throne without it. Unfortunately we paid a price for that as well, as Immortal Throne was leaked a week before it hit the shelves and that sure didn't help our sales."

There are a lot of arguments that people use to justify piracy.

There are some who say, "I try games by downloading them before I buy them.  If I didn't download them, I wouldn't know what they were like.  I buy most/all of the games I download anyway."  To those people, I say: Firstly, the vast majority of games released today have downloadable demos.  They're there for a reason; use them.  Secondly, there are game rental services.  Thirdly, you can buy a game, and if you don't like it, you can sell it to someone else.  You may not make a profit, or even get back however much you paid for it originally, but where does it say, in any constitution or any national statement, that you have the 'right' to 'try before you buy'?  In how many other industries do you have that right, to the same extent as downloading a pirated game?  I would venture to say, hardly any.  And the industries that do offer you those sorts of trials always attach terms and conditions to them, that govern how your trial is conducted, so as to minimise losses to the company involved.  When you pirate a game, there are no such T&C to govern your actions.  You might buy the game eventually - but then again, you might not.  Some people do.  A lot of people don't.

Then there are those that insist that they ALWAYS buy the games they download - but why the bleeding heck would you download it in the first place if you're just going to buy it anyway?  You don't even have the excuse of "I'm trying it out" - you know you're going to buy it, so why steal it first?  "It's not stealing."  No?  If you were caught with pirated material on your computer, before you'd 'gotten around' to buying the real thing, you'd still be busted for committing a crime, correct?

Finally, I have no sympathy for people that say, "If I didn't pirate games, I wouldn't be able to play XX% of the games I now have."  Frankly, at what point in humankind's miserable, mistake-ridden history did it become acceptable, let alone RIGHT, to take something you don't have any right to take, just because you can't afford it?  If I wanted a whole series of books that I couldn't afford, and just walked into a store and took them without paying, I could claim the same argument - yet I'd still be convicted of a crime if I was caught, and I'd still be guilty of a crime even if I WASN'T caught.  There is a term for that sort of action: stealing.  As to the argument I referred to earlier, in which people say, "It's not stealing, because there's no physical objects involved", pause a moment to consider this.

Scenario 1: You walk into a store, pick up a game, tuck it under your jacket, and walk out again.

Scenario 2: You go onto a BitTorrent site, select a game, and download it without having paid for it.

My husband posed those two scenarios to a friend of his who was advocating piracy.  After he gave his friend the scenarios, he said, "Why would you do 2, but not 1?"  His friend said, "Well, with 2, I'm far less likely to get caught."  And then he stopped, and thought about what he'd said.  There was already an implicit admission that what he was doing was wrong, and yet he still scrambled to justify his actions.  As do so many of the pro-piracy protesters.  It is still stealing, and they know it - harping on semantics doesn't make it right, no matter how much they might want that to be the case.

To those gamers who say that they have a right to things they can't afford - do I have the right to a private jet?  Do I have the right to billions of electronic dollars?  Do I have the right to a personal island?  Do I have the right to own Microsoft?  No, I don't.  Those things don't belong to me, for the very good reason that they belong to someone else, that they were paid for and are maintained by someone else.  I DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE WHAT IS NOT MINE.  When did we cease to know, understand, appreciate and practice patience?  When did we become a society driven by "I want it, therefore I will have it" rather than "I earned it, and paid for it, therefore I own it"?

DRM is useless and inconvenient and annoying, I agree.  But so are a lot of other laws that govern the way we live.  Those other laws can be and are protested against in legal ways - with petitions, with appeals to government, with actual protests - not by committing the crime in question over and over because "the law is stupid".  DRM is no exception to the rule.  So what gives gamers the right to pirate games?  Laziness?  An unwillingness to have, and support, ethics unless they're convenient?  Sheer stubbornness and immaturity?  Or all of the above?

I rest my case.