Video Game Piracy Is Good, Actually

[@DianaBell_MG]

You told me to pirate something immediately and I couldn't think of anything, so I downloaded your video...

[@Lextorias]

based

[@marsupialmestre9088]

lmao

[@MilesJ.]

Straight up boss moment.

[@benwilkins2781]

@@Lextorias quickly give him consent before he gets arrested

[@pablon4585]

actually that works as media preservation :D

[@DatBoiOrly]

my favorite saying is "if buying isn't owning piracy isn't stealing"

[@NightmareRex6]

and imagine how better world would be if could magicaly copy anything? copyright crap law says if made copys of food and dropped it in poor countrys it would be ILLEGAL! jesus would be throwin in jail not for the god claism but for taking profits from the fish and bread and wine industry.......

[@DatBoiOrly]

@@NightmareRex6 in our world there are necessary evil's that we human's must commit since it's in our nature. A companies job is to make money but in order to make money they need a good reputation, in order to have a good rep you need to submit partially to those evil's of man in order to stay in the peoples good graces. a great example of this was when AC/DC went after napster the year after that there sales did poorly compared to there averages since in there persuit of "protecting their IP" they put there fans in the crossfire & because of that those fans got pissed at them & stopped supporting them.

[@stickerzz]

@@NightmareRex6this comment reminds me of when the guy in butterfly effect is writing absolute delusions at the beginning, then you realize it all makes sense

[@joep2999]

​@NightmareRex6 Not really, you'd be free to distribute your own copied food but you wouldn't be allowed to copy what someone else made without their permission. I think that'd be pretty fair even if you could copy physical objects.

[@ZPixel17]

@@joep2999I'd be honoured to have my copyrighted pizza illegally copied and given to children in Africa

[@sebbychou]

- Clicks "Piracy is good, actually" - Startup up ad is the Ubisoft pirate game When an algorythm match is simultaneously the worst and the best...

[@marshallc6215]

It's always good for a laugh when Michelle Rodriguez shows up unexpectedly (also damn she looks old in that ad and that makes me kind of sad)

[@Gadottinho]

ubisoft games aren't even worth pirating tbh

[@marshallc6215]

@@christopherraezter1211 maybe not for you. I got that ad at the start and as a midroll

[@chaoslord8918]

@@Gadottinho Agreed. Ubisoft gave me AssCreed III and IV for free, and I still feel ripped off. AC never appealed to me. After climbing the first tower and clearing the first area, I was like "Oh, is that all this game is? Ok, I guess I'm done then". They also gave me Beyond Good and Evil for PC, which doesn't even work, though I'm sure the -Dolphin- GameCube version works just fine.

[@TheRogBG]

The fact that people actually watch ads on youtube is insane. Also no i dont watch the ads on my phone and no i dont have youtube premium.

[@Abraham_the_pierra]

"As creator of said game, you should support indies if you can, but culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it, Ultrakill wouldn't exist if I hadn't had easy access to movies, music and games growing up" -Hakita, creator of hit indie game Ultrakill

[@BlueOutline]

thy end this now

[@epicjoa04]

@BlueOutline CRUSH

[@Thetortillaman01]

Exactly the reason behind my promotion of piracy.

[@ekki1993]

As an argentinian, I am certain that the Steam price spike will be inevitably followed by a piracy spike. A lot of us still have a fresh memory of most people exclusively buying pirated software before Steam was an option and it will be an easy step to go back into that.

[@Juanguar]

Same here in Jordan and Iraq Most devs don’t even bother with regional pricing and just sell their games for 70$

[@godfrey4461]

@@Juanguar Pirate those games for sure. The fact they don't account for the obvious economy change is nothing but greed.

[@bionicleapple1254]

Same here in Turkey. Literally everyone I know has migrated to Epic Games for gaming and we all know how shitty that platform is, and when they inevitably start upping prices too, the only option is turning to piracy if you don't want to fork out 1/8 of your paycheck to a single game.

[@gabrote42]

Literally bought my first games while eating pizza from La Mezzetta in the middle of CABA in response to those news. Telecentro is not a good isp for playing DBD XD.

[@moonasha]

@@bionicleapple1254 have you looked at GOG? one would assume they'd do good regional pricing. I really prefer GOG to steam these days from a user standpoint, it's way more friendly and offers offline installers for everything

[@liammcnicholas918]

“When I grow up I wanna be a pirate” You want to be a pirate because you want to be Jack Sparrow, I want to be a pirate so I can play Buck Bumble.

[@requiem165]

that game is goated

[@WhiteOut_RBLX]

What about now it's time to rock with the bickedy buck bumble.

[@LordBluBlood]

I'm more of a Monkey D. Luffy kinda pirate :D

[@robinchesterfield42]

I, personally, have always wanted to be a MIGHTY pirate! Incidentally, I'm selling these fine leather jackets...

[@Ratswithnointentions]

Right about now it's time to rock with the bigitty Buck Bumble

[@regisicarii]

Your line about adblockers followed immediately by sponsor skip skipping your ad was hilarious to me

[@witebatman]

I legit thought I had buffer issues because of the sponsorskip timing 🤣

[@capybara_fan]

thanks to this comment for letting me know that sponorskip was even a thing, i didn't know it even existed lol.

[@SUCHMISH]

You have it too?? Cool!!

[@Cyberbrickmaster1986]

I have Sponsorblock too, because I'm tired of people shoving Raid: Shadow Legends down our throats, even though everyone already knows how bad that mobile piece of crap really is!

[@witebatman]

@@capybara_fan Remember to mark sponsor spots for other users!

[@Kirabetas]

For many game companies, piracy isn't even about money anymore. It's about control. Game companies don't actually want players to play their game. They want you to purchase it, the DLC, and all of the in game items they stuff the game full of. Some have stated that used games shouldn't exist, or have stated players shouldn't want to play old games because new ones are out. They want us to purchase games the same way we purchase food: buy the game, consume their product, then purchase more. They turn games into live services so they can just shut the servers down when they thinks they've milked the product dry, as if they assume the moment the servers go down, we'll immediately go out and buy their new live service. So they make the game unavailable to buy to finalize that process. When a game is pirated, the control is taken from them. They can't tell you to stop playing, so they try to get rid of website hosting it, they shut down servers, etc. When all of that fails, they blame the pirates to try and make them be the issue. There's a quote from the anime industry that always comes to mind. When questioned about piracy for a show that either had no legal way to purchase or steam it new, or titles that were not licensed or brought over to the country the consumer lives in, the answer given gave it all away. They stated if you can't purchase a product new or stream it, then you have no right to. If the company doesn't want to sell it, you have no right to watch it. This was said as if it would endear people to stop watching older shows rather than just convince anyone listening to never purchase through them again.

[@TheRyulord]

No, it's about money. CEOs aren't sadists, they're just sociopaths.

[@minionslayer]

@@TheRyulordOr both

[@sivasankar2784]

Japanese boomers have severe brain damage

[@suaby3866]

I love how on the internet so many people are treating piracy like this big ethical dilemma, but where I grew up nobody even knew you were supposed to pay for Windows

[@Amsel_616]

My PS2 has NEVER played an original disc

[@gangsterHOTLINE]

Yeah Windows XP was just a memorex CD I found on the ground at my high school. I thought thats how Microsoft was angling to reach higher install counts.

[@suaby3866]

@@gangsterHOTLINE I used to have a CD like that too, funnily enough

[@mayoraeryn]

I still don't pay for Windows, honestly. I just leave it unactivated since I only really use it for whatever doesn't work on Linux lmao

[@suaby3866]

@@mayoraeryn Barely anyone actually pays for windows if they aren't buying a prebuilt, however, you can get a license very cheaply from resellers if you do ever decide to buy one

[@Zetiva]

The Ubisoft CEO recently said, "be prepared to no longer own your games" and so all I'm doing is preparing for that :)

[@froderickalabaster]

so ironic considering nobody wants to own a shitty ubisoft gamw anyways lol

[@Archius9]

If purchase isn’t ownership then piracy isn’t theft

[@exosproudmamabear558]

The thing is you can own pirated games so why would I buy something I cant own when I can own something without buying. They shouldnt complain

[@Messypapa]

bruh im so tired or people that only read the headline and misquote this shit constatnly. he SAID that in order for digital sales to really take off, people need to be comfortable not owning physical copies of their games

[@Zetiva]

@@Messypapa how's that boot taste

[@luk4aaaa]

6:13 as a child I thought this anti-piracy ad was just a really hype trailer for some internet crime movie lmaoooooo

[@flatterkatz]

someone should make that movie. About a criminal that downloaded a car. FBI comes, he's on the run, cops hot in pursuit. He manages to hide away in a mcdonalds parking lot and uses the free wifi to download a helicopter. Frantically waiting for seeders while the cops search the neighborhood, finally download finishes and he escapes, for now

[@Drekromancer]

@@flatterkatz Holy shit. I can only get so hyped. You've struck gold. Make it happen!

[@ConfusioNIntrusioN]

@@flatterkatz 🤣

[@ovoid_ovvie]

@@flatterkatz i'll do the music

[@MWSfan18]

​@@flatterkatzAnd whoever makes it needs to adhere to a copyright be damned mentality, meaning more than one person can make this movie and you can't have an issue with people "pirating" it!

[@LC_Redcube]

It's crazy how copyright was born to defend small artist's works against big companies, and nowadays it's being used by those same companies, sometimes to hurt those small artists

[@rmsgrey]

Nope. Copyright has always been about big companies enforcing a monopoly as the cost of them being willing to make art available to the masses. There was a debate in the House of Commons in the 1840s over whether to extend copyright from author's life or 28 years (whichever is longer), which I came across a transcript of online 15-20 years ago, where one of the speakers raised the point that, prior to the Statute of Anne, the printers guild had an exclusive monopoly on all printing, and what amounted to an eternal copyright, yet Milton's grand-niece, then sole surviving heir, and presumably sole beneficiary of Milton's royalties in his works, would have starved to death if not for repeated public donations for her support. It's never been about supporting artists; it's always been about the companies defending their investment in selecting, editing, and publishing the works so they can continue making money from them as long as possible while the artists and their families can remain just this side of starvation so long as they continue to provide the companies with means of enrichment. The immediate effect of the Statute of Anne (which changed copyright from a monopoly on printing to a right of the author) is that the printing companies changed their standard contract from buying the manuscript from the author to buying the manuscript and copyright from the author (for the same price). So, in practice, granting authors rights in their own creations did precisely nothing to benefit them.

[@ekki1993]

It's structurally designed to benefit corporations hoarding IPs. There's literally no reasonable argument to hold IP rights 70 years, even after the artist's passing, other than to benefit business. It's not incidental that they get to use it to screw us over for profits. It's the entire point of how the law was designed.

[@LC_Redcube]

@@ekki1993 70 years? the law states that it's only valid for 50 years since the conception of something, when it's more than likely that the original artist has passed away. The law was designed to protect that, but as we say in my country "Made the law, found the deception"

[@ekki1993]

@@LC_Redcube It obviously depends on the country, but the commonly cited number (lobbied by Disney to keep Mickey) is 70 years AFTER THE ARTIST'S PASSING. I thought I was misremembering that part. Even counting it for life makes no sense. It gives no incentive to the artist, only to corporations that actually get to hoard IPs.

[@rmsgrey]

@@LC_Redcube According to the Berne Convention (the international agreement on copyright law, last amended 1979, to which 90% of countries are signatory), copyright protection shall last for a minimum of creator's life plus fifty years, except for photographs and movies - the former are protected at least 25 years after creation; the latter 50 years after first screening, unless it's not shown within 50 years after creation (in which case minimum protection expires then). The US and EU use "life plus 70".

[@mal9369]

The real pirates in the game industry are the ceos paying themselves hundreds of millions of dollars while their employees are forced to work 70 hour weeks for 2 years, and then let go anyway

[@Lextorias]

they’re like the evil british navy, if we’re going full analogy

[@mjc0961]

Forced to work 70 hour weeks without getting overtime pay, too

[@Natediggetydog]

@@gingerdannyYou aren’t, they’ve already been payed for their work, whether or not the game sells one more copy won’t change how underplayed they are. Like was said in the video; unions are the solution, not anti-piracy measures.

[@gekigami1791]

​@@Lextoriasdon't you just mean the British Navy?

[@AdmiralBison]

...While simultaneously ripping off consumes six ways to Sunday with all manner of monetization. However, the BIGGEST threat will soon come in the form over the issue of *ownership* Ubisoft's CEO pretty much spilled the beans "Gamers have to get comfortable with not owning their games" "You will own NOTHING and like it" marketing that's going on as they are pushing the industry into a Games as a service model. Or put more succinctly - Why let gamers/consumes buy their things once and to personally own it, when they can be charged indefinitely only to access it? Then we have lots of gaming media defending and excusing this, which I suspect because many are paid op eds and are in golden handcuffs.

[@riverlynnxo]

*slowly puts down the beef jerky and backs away from my brother*

[@BigZ971]

What are you doing step jerky

[@coolcommcollect]

The depressing thing about piracy is that its sometimes better. Like, why pay for the same product in a worse package. Because its legal? 90% of the companies have already violated 30 workplace laws

[@simplysmiley4670]

Literally. Why should I shill out cash for someone who's already swimming in money and cares a lot less about those who work for them and the customers.

[@darkpixel1128]

This is why I hate DRM. They are trivially broken and yet I have to put up with worse product because I want to support the creator? Ridiculous, DRM is practically useless as well.

[@simplysmiley4670]

@@darkpixel1128 DRM'd games tend to get cracked within a *day* from launch, if the DRM in that game even lasts till launch, piracy has it's ways among the high seas. Only thing it does is mess with a normal consumer's experience and *encourage* piracy by inconveniencing normal people.

[@newturtle3]

Its only illegal if you get caught 😂

[@calvinjluther]

I mean, the real alternative is that you don't play the game at all.

[@JasonSpielberg]

Corporations: "Piracy is harming the economy!" Also corporations: "HUR HUR HUR THIRD PARTY LAUNCHER GO BRRRRRR. MODS ARE FORBIDDEN. BUY THE DLC FOR ALL THE CONTENT WE PROMISED DURING EARLY ACCESS! PLEASE ACCEPT COOKIES BEFORE LAUNCHING GAME. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN REVOCATION OF ACCESS. DURP."

[@aquaintsound]

Talk to any library scientists (the graduate degree for librarians) about how DRM not only makes our job harder but also limits how we can lend anything digital. Libraries have operated by the "first sale doctrine" for a long time, but it doesn't legally apply to digital materials. We dont get to buy one ebook and own it, we have to license it out for significantly more money. And the ebooks we have to pay so much for are often lacking in quality - not marked with page numbers, full of spelling errors, ect. And dont get me started on the tyrant of audible and how they try to make some books "exclusive" to their site, which is a massive disability rights and accessibility issue. A librarian cant officially support piracy (government bullshit) but many of us unofficially do. We literally arent allowed to preserve video games.

[@Lextorias]

I had a whole segment on first sale doctrine I was gonna do! You’re absolutely right that license agreements have made things 10x worse. We somehow decided that you can’t legally share anything digital anymore, even though physical items have been able to be shared and resold for the last 100 years! I try to argue that piracy isn’t theft, period. But I really do agree with everybody’s favorite slogan “if buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

[@Josh_Quillan]

@@LextoriasOnly problem is the "If" part. Piracy isn't stealing whether or not Sony want to revoke your ownership of things you have paid them to own.

[@TheSpeep]

Genuinly, you could put every other reason aside, piracy is a net good for media for the simple fact that publishers continue to fight tooth and nail to stop you from accessing their media, even after they get rid of any legal ways to access said media otherwise. If you want me to pay for your, idk, 40 year old product, the least you could do is actually sell it to me.

[@jonathanwessner3456]

however, if you have the physical DVD's of movies or audiobooks, you ARE allowed to make a copy to loan, then archive your original.

[@xr.spedtech]

They are entitled to keep up five copies of the IP for preservation purposes. Library of Congress especially if they IP is created in America. Say no, they send you to the booty gulag.

[@ryderwilson7955]

I “owned” R6S, AC3 and Black Flag, Ubisoft deleted my account due to inactivity. I will never buy a ubisoft game ever again and forever will be pirating their games for the shitty move they did.

[@Extusy]

Thank you lol

[@mehmeh1234]

Good

[@ScripulousFingore6133]

really? what platform? I didn't know that could happen

[@ryderwilson7955]

@@ScripulousFingore6133 PC from the Uplay account, technically the AC3 and Black Flag were free while the r6s I bought in 2015 when it was released and haven’t played in like 5-6 years but still, that account was mine, I paid for that game, it’s stupid that they just went out with a termination campaign for non active accounts.

[@MrSomeGamerdude]

@@ScripulousFingore6133 to add on to ScripulousFingore6133. The only way to keep your account "active" is to buy a ubisoft game or randomly play a ubisoft game attach to your Uplay account (even for a few seconds). Otherwise, even if you buoght it legally. And decide to go on an nostigia trip more than 6 years (4 years if you didn't buy ANY ubisoft game, just login to play free weekend or f2p games). too bad. Ubisoft really want you "to be comfortable not 'owning' games.".

[@Th3Raz96]

When I was pirating the most, I was in highschool with no job, no income, and only really got new games for Christmas/Birthdays. So nobody was getting any money from me anyways. Now as an adult with expendable income, I rarely pirate anything at all, and when I do it's mostly only a way to test a game or movie out, and if I like it enough to keep it I'll buy it. I always pay up front for indie titles though.

[@bone-a-lisa]

This is my exact experience. Back in middle / highschool, pirating was the only way to try games out with no income. Now that I have expendable income, and Steam having a consumer friendly return policy, and a hyper convenient storefront. I haven't pirated a game that I could buy instead in years because most times its just easier to buy the game there.

[@simplysmiley4670]

Same on the "pirating to test things out before I buy" thing. Income wise I'm still stuck in the hellhole of retail work right now barely earning enough for a living because of all the expenses piling up to no end.

[@Th3Raz96]

@@simplysmiley4670 It only gets worse 😁 I feel your pain though, I got into trade work to get myself out of that hole, I'm still not rich by any means but I pay my bills and have a little leftover for myself so it's as much as I can ask for right now

[@PauLtus_B]

I totally agree! I want to try something out before I spend money on it.

[@kasparslaizans7774]

Same here. I occasionally buy old games (thanks GOG!) that I used to play as a kid whenever I bump into one. Or I still pirate a game I just bought just to get rid of DRM or get community/scene bug fixes.

[@coreythebludragon1986]

Piracy is illegal, but it's not illegal for companies to go into my house and take my game away and not compensate me.

[@Ganjover661]

If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.

[@Shrewdilus]

@@Ganjover661Even if buying is owning, piracy still isn’t stealing

[@DropIet]

nothing boils my blood more than knowing hundreds of people's work for multiple years can legally be just deleted of the face of the earth overnight because some rich person said "hmmm nahhhh" but then it's illegal to continue to enjoy something you've already paid for in case of games as a service

[@aserta]

Prey 2 (the real Prey 2, not the hot garbage Prey 2 they released out of assend nowhere) currently sits in a desk drawer. The game was never released after Shitesda canceled the game to inflate another of their IPs. We have gameplay footage, we have written testimony of some of the devs (who dared talk - nda), we have the most balls to the wall trailer for a game (at that time, that inspired some people in Iron Man's movie team for the shoulder rockets) and we will never see that game, because it was sealed by three fucktarts at Bethesda cause it was eating their precious money which they had set on that other hot garbage game that got released in the same timeline. Some have speculated that had Prey 2 been released, a cyberpunk before CyberPunk (the game), it would've been a Mass Effect killer, which at the time was huge. Again, the game exists, it's nearly complete. Never got released. I'm still hoping someone, somewhere farts a copy on the open internet one day.

[@MYR_112]

NIntendo hovering behind a concept for a zelda mod.

[@janosd4nuke]

​@@asertaNah, NeuroShock was pretty awesome. Back when Arkane made good stuff. Granted, wholly different target audience to Prey and should've never taken that name.

[@ANDELE3025]

Games as a service is not real, stop letting corpos gaslight you, digital goods are still goods thus cant be a service and any lease or licensing contract without a fixed duration for renewal is a sale, especially when their actual attempt to word salad people into thinking they agreed to a contract is void from the start by being outright illegal.

[@MYR_112]

@@ANDELE3025But think if the company shuts down your games are pretty much gone.

[@cmrs521]

Piracy tends to be an accessibility and pricing issue more than anything else

[@EnigmaticLucas]

I think software copyright should have a “use it or lose it” policy. Basically, in order for a piece of software to remain copyrighted, it would have to still be available firsthand. When a piece of software becomes abandonware, it would enter the public domain.

[@Avetho]

@@EnigmaticLucas No, see, that would be logical and a result of common sense, lunacy seems to be the natural state of society these days.

[@adisca2k]

@@EnigmaticLucas While abondonware is tehnically copyrighted few companies bother enforcing it. For most of them the studios that own the copyright don't even exist anymore.

[@kozynthetaquito5506]

@@Avetho lmfao. Although this exact problem has always existed. Stop thinking. Don't use common sense. People in power make absurd decisions with seemingly no sense.

[@saxor96]

​@@adisca2kExcept Nintendo who would haunt the most abandoned piece of software regardless of if it's even available officially or not.

[@TheSpookiestSkeleton]

I am not a videogame pirate I am a videogame PRIVATEER, I am a contractor under the crown and all my actions are sanctioned so long as I only attack enemy games

[@phaztheaussiebastard]

and give the crown a small portion of your plunder

[@Mr._Fictitious]

Would that make videogame pirates who preserve games videogane _archeologists_ instead of piratee?

[@calebharris292]

​@@Mr._Fictitious for all extents and purposes, yes

[@lueezationlueezaming2928]

Wait aren't privateers just pirates with a license

[@vitaliitomas8121]

@@lueezationlueezaming2928 yes.That's the joke. As long as you don't touch the boats of the crown that gave you permission to pirate, you will be fine and maybe even protected.

[@dracco2956]

meanwhile larian with Baldurs Gate 3 with no DRM on launch day made estimated 700 mio. revenue. (corret me if i am wrong) piracy is a service problem.

[@the4GIVEN]

i think how much a game is pirated also has to do with how well liked the company is. fromsoft and larian are very well liked and most people will buy their games, because they know theyll get a quality product. ill never buy a ubisoft game again after my acc with the old assassins creed games got deleted due to "inactivity" like its my fault they havent made a good game in years.

[@coccyxjaw2958]

how well-liked it is, the asking price, where i can get it, and if I know whether or not i'll like it (sometimes you need a "demo"). And who made it. A big AAA singleplayer with mixed reviews? probably not going to be something I want to cough up $60+ dollars on. Or play at all, but for the sake of examples, yknow. but I've heard raving reviews about bg3, and i've seen it go on sale often, and I know I like CRPGs like planescape torment, arcanum, fallout... so I'm willing to bide my time and buy it when the price drops a little. It's a game that, to me, looks and sounds like it would be worth my money. I found a title I never heard of before on a shady site, tried it out, really liked it and got annoyed at save issues I was having (due to it being... um...... yknow, anyway files weren't reading properly because of it) and I bought the game for $15 or $20 or whatever it was. I played a VN back when it was free and it slowly got raised in price from $5 to $15 -- I bought it because I knew I liked the game, and the experience, and it was worth my money. Even if I was a little irked I had to pay now, I didn't go sailing the high seas for it. I feel like my experience is pretty common, I hear stuff like this often. My point being, I guess: if piracy is actually cutting into your sales as a game dev, and I mean SERIOUSLY cutting into it, not just hypothetically, but actively hurting sales... that sounds like a you issue. You need to reevaluate something; if your product isn't being picked up by interested consumers it isn't the consumer's fault your shit sucks. And if you crack down on emulation for years-old games that you don't even sell anymore, or sell for high markup, you're just an asshole. This is about recent vimm's lair events.

[@coccyxjaw2958]

I typed all that only for the little tim cain clip at ~15 min to completely sum up my thoughts. I forgot about that part of the video (rewatching)

[@mooromix]

Yuup. Pirated it on release, then when I had the money I bought it as a means of appreciation. I love Larian.

[@merisav4171]

I bought in on release day, never felt cheated out of my money, even though I finished it once and won't replay anymore

[@brettlivingston595]

When the pirates are the heroes, you know the industry didn't just dropped the ball, it went through the floor.

[@GeomancerHT]

I stopped pirating games when I got a job, at 18 years old, haven't pirated a game since. They might be the pirates of the lazy basement people that's close to 40 and cannot afford a game... maybe if you cannot afford it, you shouldn't be playing.

[@mihairomulus2488]

@@GeomancerHT thing is pirates tend to become the best customers if the game is good, it's been proven time and time again

[@mihairomulus2488]

@@GeomancerHT also you might want to play a game and not support a company that doens't please you, also cracked versions tend to have *better* performance sometimes (see the dogshit denuvo)

[@mihairomulus2488]

@@GeomancerHT I can easily buy and have bought plenty of games, I just choose to not throw my money at everything, as Gaben said, piracy shows there's a problem with the service not the price (altough in recent years, prices tend to be dogshit as well), I can afford stuff but that doesn't mean I want to rip myself off

[@sayandeep5089]

@@GeomancerHT Do the games cost you half of your monthly salary? If it did, would you still buy them?

[@flyingfree333]

The creator of the film The Man From Earth said his movie didn't become popular until it was pirated, he said he would pirate his next movie himself, the next day a bunch of lawyers said he didn't really mean what he said.

[@DanielGT_93]

Man, i love this movie. Didn't wached the sequel.

[@JasonStorey]

@@DanielGT_93 The sequel is a trash fire. Stay far far away.

[@Member_zero]

I would guess it depends on a case by case basis. So that experience may well be true. Piracy has advertisement function for sure. And when it regards movies - a lot of people who are anti-piracy forget one crucial point - a lot of movies aren't accessible to people. Hence piracy is the only way to watch them. Those are not lost sales. And I would go further than just plain banned or country restricted films or old films which are not in the interest of the companies to redistribute. IMO Whenever a studio makes a decision to make a movie or a show exclusive on one platform (Netflix, HBO). They can't put a finger on a pirating for their lost sales. It's disingenuous. Because they decided to bar the access to their show to people. They didn't allow people - paying customers - to watch it. In other words, if a Netflix subscriber pirates Game of Thrones - it's their creators fault for lost sales because of barring those people access to their show and make it HBO exclusive. They didn't WANT those sales. So pirating is justified IMO.

[@BierBart12]

Notch was completely fine with people pirating Minecraft too, and encouraged it And that was way before he sold it off to Microsoft

[@pommeslord1824]

@@BierBart12He wasn't really "fine" with it. He was actively shutting down Pirate Minecraft hosting websites, especially when the game released.

[@SoullessAIMusic]

I once knew a guy, Who only pirated games. Then one day he enjoyed a game so much he decided to go and purchase a copy. After installing the game onto his PC, the legitimate copy refused to run properly and continue to crash. So he uninstalled and played his pirated copy instead.

[@janpersson9818]

I have had that exact thing happen to me, latest it was Civilization 4 which I decided to buy after playing it for years. The legal copy had issues that made it unplayable for me. I'm still playing the illegal version now and then.

[@Kompoteek]

Same, have a couple games I enjoy, but play the pirated version for it being less buggy (but still I have licensed versions phrchased to support the dev)

[@RaphyLive]

GTA5 legal copy takes forever to launch so I just pirated it .

[@Anil_Matholiya]

That's because of dunevo installed with legal copy which impact performance, while pirated version comes without dunevo.

[@sanketvaria9734]

I did the same with a movie actually. I had 4K support and 4K subscription and movie even supported 4K yet amazon prime did not provide me 4K on my Meta quest 3. So I had to pirate it in 4K.

[@neoroger510]

The Pirate Code of Honor: - If you pirate games because you're broke and you'd never be able to pay for them -> no moral dilemma, they wouldn't get your money either way - if you pirate games coz DRM makes it slower -> not your problem! - if you pirate games from greedy publisher corporations -> you're doing the lord's work - if you pirate games not available in your region, or no longer available anywhere -> no moral dilemma - if you're loaded and you pirate indie developers coz you can -> no dilemma: you're a dick

[@RRSteelGamer22]

Not only does DRM bog down game performances, poisoning the gaming experience for the consumer, it also blatantly attacks consumers' rights to purchased products.

[@dudep504]

Indies seems to be the one gamedev group that the pirate community almost unanimously respect. Most pirates i know would refuse to pirate an indie game, and those that do only does so because they have no money.

[@gp37521]

This is perfect

[@snakehead404]

The clip from Gabe really summarizes the whole thing. Look at platforms like Uplay, Epic, EA etc.. and their lack of success being pointed to steam being a monopoly and clearly glazing over the fact that steam is a service that offers much more to consumers as a fully complete, rock solid platform with a company that is privately owned and is not beholden to growing year on year profits even when it's unrealistic or impossible to do.

[@TheRockNatural]

Gaben is a God

[@lasarousi]

Gaben is still talking from a place of sheltered blue collar privilege. Taking about 2k computers owners pirating to victimize his corporation, when the vast majority of pirates are kids and people with no economic power to purchase his products in a computer build from hand me down parts. Gsben is just a rich asshole that covers his greed very well.

[@zombl337og]

which is why ill ONLY buy games on STEAM unless something habbens to our lord and saviour.....GABE-N

[@vain.a]

if only they would fix the VAC system

[@zombl337og]

yea VAC can be kinda funky sometimes @@vain.a

[@mandrac2]

some dude once said "theft is substraction where as piracy is multiplication. Different math." Also 23:58 Gaben analysis of the piracy situation is the best analysis anyone ever made and this is why steam remain to this day the most user friendly platform on the market.

[@lazarmarinkovic8486]

to add to that, theres also a former blizzard dev that left it and is making his own games now, his channels called Pirate Software, and he explained how he dealt with Piracy for his game in Brazil, he jsut made it affordable for people there to by it, in the sense that he took in to account the local economic situation of the people that live there, set a price then permanently made the game on sale in brazil and now, as he said, brazil is about 25 to 30% of the games revenue from there. I am jsut paraphrasing but that was the general gist of it, which makes sense and gels with what gab said!

[@Shinkajo]

I dread the day when Gaben kicks the bucket. If Valve goes public it's game over. Pun intended.

[@mandrac2]

@@lazarmarinkovic8486 I have a friend in brazil and he explained to me that games and game systems are very heavily taxed to a point that a playstation might cost you like 6 month of average salary or something like that.

[@masterpills]

@@Shinkajo At this point he needs to really focus on getting a new leader after he is gone. He should focus mainly on making sure his successor is someone with his mindset and wants everyone to be happy not fill their own pockets.

[@GamerGateVeteran]

@@masterpills At this point, he needs to focus on perfecting cloning or immortality so none of us have to face the risk of someone being groomed to fill his shoes who just plays the part and says all the right things until God Emperor Gabe is in the ground, then flips the script with no (personal) consequences. Only ACTUAL solution I can think of is for his will to be clear that the person and any who come after Gabe is gone are never actual owners of the company, only "caretakers" of it, with the legal ownership being formulated in such a way where the legal owner knows they are the owner but have no authority to do anything to it, and the "caretaker" has authority but only within a sort of "Constitution" in Gabes will that lists out rules and boundaries that must be kept, and maybe allow for "amendments" to these terms only by popular vote by the Steam Community that is hosted by Valve but organized and managed by an outside 3rd party...and all of this being kept in check and balance by a team of lawyers whose job it is are to ensure that anytime either party (Valve leadership "caretakers" or the legal owners) overstep their limits or authority or prerogative, they hold the power to remove that person and replace them with someone else (with restrictions on who can be in either position, such as no one who is a current or former lawyer or related by blood or marriage to anyone involved in the company or legal team...always has to be a sort of sensible person for the position, but must be an outsider who can easily be kept in check and wont be easily drawn one way or another from the start do to nasty connections). But that is stupidly complex, would be easy to find loop-holes and work-arounds, and likely would end up being either ignored or struck down by a higher court. All it could maybe do is buy us a few more precious moments of enjoyment before crap hits the fan. I just hope that by the time Valve does commit itself to forever-sleep self harm in the name of money, another company pops up to take over at the rightful heirs of God Emperor Gabe and his legacy. Would be even better if they somehow found a way to honor Steam past purchases on their platform so we could merge our library into theirs, but if I was in La-La Land with cloning and immortality, that idea right there is officially insane. Lets just enjoy it while it lasts...the God Emperor is rich af, but has never been in the best health. I say we might have a solid 10 years, maybe 20...and then maybe ~5 years after hes gone before the Golden Age finally ends.

[@buzzsburner.8286]

"anything said in this video is a form of satire" and then Immediately after: "PIRACY IS AMAZING"

[@ynraider]

"Parody" is laughing WITH "the absurd situation" and victims. "Satire" is laughing AT the absurd situation and especially the "absurd victims".

[@tinyman1144]

@@ynraider Then what is Parody and Satire at the same time?

[@johnshortstien]

Don't forget the "I'm not joking"

[@LeonidasArg2021]

It's just a legal shield he is using "just in case" you know.... Nintendo and its legal war

[@1mariomaniac]

Fun fact about the Galoob Toys v. Nintendo case: The case was about Galoob's "Game Genie Video Game Enhancer" peripheral for the NES which allowed the user to apply "Game Genie codes" to slightly alter the game data. This could do anything from give the player infinite lives, a super high jump, change the color palette, make the player invincible, etc. It would do this by intercepting the flow of data between the cartridge and console, and injecting its own code. Nintendo argued that this alteration of the code was copyright infringement and effectively made derivative works of their games, but the court favored on the side of Galoob, who argued that the alterations are temporary in nature, therefore not infringing copyright law against derivative works.

[@akriegguardsman]

Isn't that basically an early game trainer?

[@1mariomaniac]

@@akriegguardsman I had to look up what that was, but yeah basically.

[@DantesGrill]

Something funny about copy protection is that in Sweden, even though companies fight to prevent it, you're allowed by law to make private copies of movies and games etc. It's included in our taxes. Yet when booting up a DVD or something it still shows text saying that making a copy is strictly prohibited by law no matter what and copy protection is still included, even though we have all the rights in the world to make backups or whatever.

[@ErdeZ]

You have the right, by law, for making backups, sure, but the companies are not obligated, by law, to make it easy (or even possible), which is why we used to have copy protections on discs that made it difficult to make copies of said discs. LaserLock is a good example from the olden days. How is the tax implemented in Sweden? In Finland, the tax is charged in the price of mass media, such as writable discs and I think other types of mass media themselves instead of being part of something like VAT other broader tax covering other stuff.

[@DantesGrill]

@@ErdeZ I think my stronger point is that the companies are straight up lying to your face that you're not allowed to make copies. It just adds to the gaslighting. I think it's implemented similarly to Finland. Covers CDs, HDD, USB etc. It also covers MP3 players which makes me question if it's implemented on smartphones too.

[@mamertens99]

It seems to be a EU wide thing, that this is included in the sales tax.

[@Luna_889]

we have somting similar, and i think its a eu regulation that you are aloud to copy for home juse, but sadly its illegal to brake the copy-protection

[@brnddi]

@@ErdeZ Erde!WOp8MiNHQ sure is a name I haven't heard in a long time.

[@GentlyUsedFrog]

The problem with video games nowadays is that you have Denuvo hurting performance, even without Denuvo most recent games have been absolutely catastrophic at release performance wise. And even after buying games, you don't own them. Your right to play could get revoked at any time.

[@LecherousLizard]

Because with the advent of upscaling, developers forgone optimization. For example a turd like Starfail requires upscaling to run above 60FPS on low settings. There's literally nothing in that game that looks remotely good and yet it behaves like Crisis on max details.

[@delta9990]

piracy isnt stealing if buing isnt owning

[@manboy4720]

@@delta9990 aye aye, captain!

[@manboy4720]

@@LecherousLizard well, you see, the game is using a very large amount of your computer's RAM to load and run all the complexity and mind-boggling, revolutionary game technology of... nothing. there's nothing. it's just shit optimisation.

[@xXSprMgaAwsmFxyHtXx]

i bought knockout city twice and the game didn't even last 3 years

[@soyjoyy]

Imagine eating a sandwich, which you payed for, and the owner of the store yanks it from your mouth, saying it's no longer available and you are not allowed to eat it anymore. That's what it feels like, when a company revokes your right to play a game you payed for. Fucking abysmal.

[@awesome_by_default]

Like "The Crew" Recently. Fuckin Ubisoft.

[@dirtyfilthystinky]

literally

[@thurumansmith3101]

*paid, not payed

[@weirdochristoffel5285]

ehem ubisoft

[@anthonygamer-jg3wn]

Good piracy for indie games are: "you have the money to buy a sandwich but you dont want to purchase it because you dont know if its tasty so you get an free sample of the game and then buy it"

[@janedrinesteban5687]

Piracy is actually somewhat a free advertising, and a lot of executives don't see that. I've been pirating games for more that half of my life and when I started to earn my own money, I bought the games I once pirated either to replay or for nostalgia. Now, I use game piracy as a mean to test few minutes of the game before committing to it. That what made me in love with Cyberpunk 2077.

[@AnasSaahirHuq-or9bv]

But, what if everybody started pirating? Why should other people have to buy the game when they see someone who got it for free? If a significant chunk of potential customers decided to pirate a game, the developers would lose out on any profit they could have made from their hard work. If you start allowing and advocating for piracy and everybody else or if not most followed along, the industry would go under.

[@ProjectionProjects2.7182]

​@@AnasSaahirHuq-or9bv I get what you are saying on some level but honestly I don't think every person would pirate even if they could. Plus a lot of the people who did pirate were not going to buy the game anyway so the devs were not getting that money anyway.

[@cooltwittertag]

You have *allegedly* been pirating games half your life

[@Ofxzh]

My brother pirated a game called “West of Loathing” for me. I played the game, and I liked it. I then had a realization; West of loathing is an indie game that was perfectly available on sights like steam. It wasn’t made by some large company like Nintendo, and indie devs could really use the money. So I bought the game.

[@VrIndieGames]

W mans

[@brotrongamingyt1994]

Very good. That is all.

[@R-T_VA]

honor and respect towards indie game devs and small game companies or companies that produce genuinely good games. they deserve every bit of money they can get even if I pirated their games earlier.

[@jeremymontel6010]

Yep, piracy is a free trial for games without a demo.

[@bradley4465]

The game’s 15 bucks on steam, and it goes on heavy discount.

[@CJ-lz9jg]

Funny story the first Manhunt game has Hidden Anti-Piracy Measures coded in the game files to make it a nightmare if you want to play a pirated copy. but for some reason rockstar pirated their own game to drop it on steam with the Anti-Piracy Measures still in the game so you can't actually play it without installing third party patches even after buying it.

[@yesseru]

Lol, so playing a cracked version is actually preferable.

[@cin2110]

@@yesseru Yep since pirate people already disabled those anti piracy bs lol.

[@JennyTheNerdBat]

Funniest thing is that people who pirated the game even back in the 2000s largely didn't know about these measures because they were cracked too quickly.

[@busterbunny005]

The reason they pirated it is so it could run without a disk, since, you know, digital games don't have disks

[@notebooks6461]

That’s to ironic to be true, how tf XD

[@malegria9641]

Musician here: pirate my shit. Pirate my shit. Pirate my shit. If you like it, consider buying a cd or a vinyl. If not, well, I really don’t care. Literally anything is better than being paid literal cents per stream.

[@phrogtesem9410]

As far as I know and see it, streaming on music platforms is only advertisement to you and not a reliable source of income. Most of it comes from ticket sales and merchandise, correct?

[@malegria9641]

@@phrogtesem9410 yep. theres a reason why musicians are constantly touring.

[@l.3626]

I have 15.000 songs on Spotify, but I never payed a cent to Spotify in over 10years. Sure listened to ads, but I tried to skip. It's insane to me that one can not buy music anymore really, atleast not for insane price. Somebody demanding 1$ for 1 song is insane, like I'm all for freedom, so I'd be even okay with people doing that. But imo people should be able to buy songs on Spotify and then download them. I'd probably pay 10ct for a song. If you get 1.000.000 downloads thats 100K, Spotify is truly cancer, the software is great, but it's service is shit. Not being able to buy music and only stream it is insane. Music is great, but it's really not that valuable. Shit is all going down towards you will own nothing and will be happy. My guess is the next music platform will be cloud based, basically the same software like Spotify, but you can upload your own MP3 files and the play it from the cloud of any device. That way people pay per cloud space and not per streamed time and then get an annoying and on things I will never buy anyway.

[@DISSOLVED-lol]

Yea most companies are just real assholes that will do anything to get as much money from both parties and be sitting on their throne of assholeness

[@xt3100]

@@malegria9641 that is really why i buy music. cause i also copy that copy of the songs and albums in case if the music is removed from streaming services.

[@shoOoterlegend]

"Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it" -Arsi "Hakita" Patala, developer of ULTRAKILL

[@asuchanowo]

Can you link me a magnet link for the game i dont wanna buy it

[@andrewsad1]

Important to note the part before that: you should buy indie games if you can. Piracy should always be an option, but independent developers deserve to eat too

[@ProbablyNotAChicken]

One of my biggest erks of modern society is the tendency of giga corporations to equate loss of potential earnings with loss of *actual* earnings. That's standard thinking within big business; As an individual, that's indistinguishable from a gambling addiction. Piracy is NOT theft, and these massive corporations are so ludicrously greed driven that it has become a moral obligation.

[@robertenbre8188]

but i don't get it. if a stranger doesn't give me their money, they do rob me from the potential of a big hit on the slot machine .... and i'm the main character ....

[@Fractured_Unity]

Holy fuck! Way to sum up why I dropped out of business school so succinctly!

[@newturtle3]

Sadly When gaming became big business everyone tried dipped their spoons into the gumbo. Its how PC gaming went about famously epic games said gaming wasn't for PC. Then steam came along and streamlined it and they're trying underhanded scummy ways to try to weasle into the market with the EGS.

[@saycap]

The first mistake was caring about the corpos. They’re just a bunch of greedy conduits to exploit employees and make money for shareholders that shouldn’t have rights. Do the opposite of whatever the person with the profit incentive tells you

[@RobotronSage]

@@newturtle3 I'm pretty sure Epic games never said that Considering all of their games are PC games Their engines built specifically for PC The whole user aspect approach of integrating MAYA with Unreal Tournament 2004 so PC players could easily mod the game and make custom maps with Unreal Engine (2.0 back then) And the fact that Unreal Tournament 3 completely flopped on console (nearly ended up bankrupting the company that's how hard it flopped) So i'm calling you out cause there's no way epic games said ''gaming isn't for PC'' and i don't understand why you'd lie about that. Sadly there is a lot of lying going on these days with the botted comments etc.

[@chefrowlet]

Especially with older games, like you mentioned. The only people losing money in emulating past-generation games are eBay scalpers and they can kick rocks

[@tatsuya2112]

Honestly the fact we don't have laws about media and technology preservation is disgusting, you'd think after stuff like beowulf or hell, roman concrete people would realize the importance of preservation at least on a cultural level.

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

​@@tatsuya2112They just dont understand us gamers.😞

[@mjc0961]

That's what I'll never understand about people who are adamant that piracy is always wrong, go find a used copy and buy it. If I pirate an old Nintendo game, Nintendo makes no money If I buy an old Nintendo game on eBay for well more than it's worth, Nintendo makes no money The only difference between piracy and eBay is how screwed over I get by a scalper. It makes no difference to Nintendo. Nintendo can change it by offering their old games for sale digitally. Emphasis on "for sale", I'm not paying a subscription to rent them

[@DeeReeseBeats]

​@@mjc0961 Seriously Them allowing ROMs to be hosted on other site does not affect them financially whatsoever Most other game companies don't even care and they're still up and running People can't even say the reason for Nintendo taking down ROM sites is "Money" if they don't give a way to obtain these games in the first place

[@nightadmin283]

You can call pirate for old video games only when it still has legitimate seller which mean that exact publisher or games developer. But as you know most if not all been died long ago some even before you were born and there is no way to buy it anymore so how that heck become pirating when there is no way to buy in the first place.

[@Peekofwar]

There was a developer who made a video I watched recently where he said he would prefer people pirate his games rather than purchasing them from sites that sell game keys that were pretty much all creator keys (given for free) that were resold without permission.

[@enzomercier2789]

I've seen the video as well, but it's only his situation, a single indie developer who gave creator keys left and right without properly verifying who were the people asking for it. I don't think that's actually where most of the keys comes from.

[@Sonicfan1661]

Piratesoftware I presume?

[@Peekofwar]

-@rcier2789 Some keys will probably be stolen from Steam Accounts (if that's even possible).-

[@enzomercier2789]

​@@Peekofwar It's not? Lmao Most likely it's credit card fraud or simply buying at a discount in some countries where it's cheap

[@greefin1098]

keys purchased with stolen credit cards, when they inevitably get charged back by the owner, the vendor (typically Steam obviously) passes the credit card fees on to the developer (typically only a few dollars but it adds up) meaning that the developer a) made no money from the sale and b) is now out of pocket a few bucks. That's generally the main reason devs prefer piracy to sites like g2a though that being said, there are people selling legit keys too on those sites, I have myself for games I had keys for but didn't want, just generally not the norm. Buying at discounts doesn't work anymore, Steam has long since removed that ability, if the difference is ~10% or greater you can't send gifts between regions. @@enzomercier2789

[@yeeyeeyeeye]

I just realized that since piracy is usually done by people who generally can't afford to buy things for fun like video games or streaming services, it is starting to feel like the people who are pro-piracy are actually saying that they believe people who are poor and don't have disposable income don't "deserve" to enjoy things like video games and watching TV but are hiding it behind concerns over protecting copyright. It's particularly obvious if you have grown up in poverty and you had to deal with people saying that you're not actually poor if you have a TV or a smartphone even though you have no food and you can barely make your rent.

[@farfrompure531]

Realistically most people pirate games they don’t think are worth the price they’re being sold for or cause the game literally isn’t available by conventional means

[@allykat5931]

Or because they cant afford to spend money on games so they wouldnt buy the games either way, so this is the only way they play these games anyway, they dont lose out on sth that wouldnt happen either way

[@nfrcomputers]

yeah dude I'm not spending $60 on a game im gonna play for 2 weeks. or $30 on a game that came out 5 years ago

[@keesvdb]

If it's easier to pirate stuff then get it legitimately then they will pirate it. Due to current streaming services all having their own payments while each having exclusive shows a lot of people pirated them

[@der-Dritte]

​@nfrcomputers3421 it's the sake logic behind buying a paint brush. Why would I want to buy a brush for 5 bucks If I am only using it for 2 days. Better pirate it. If you don't like the price then don't buy it

[@DPedroBoh]

Here in brazil we woudnt have videogames without piracy. Since games got affordable in the late 2000s my motto is: pirate when i cant afford it, then buy it later when i can. Im also kind of a software hippie, and i buy on GOG when available so i have the game and not just a licence.

[@F41nt13]

fantastic video, and let me quote the Just Shapes and Beats' developers anti piracy message (the message that shows up if you pirate the game): "I just want to say it's ok, I'm not mad I've played my share of pirated games when I was a kid I guess this is karma right? I remember when I was a kid, I didn't have any money to support my favorite developers So I just want to say If you cannot support the game developers with money, you can support them with words You can: Talk about them Share their games with everyone Leave a positive review, a good rating Send them a tweet, an email. whatever. Let other people know. That helps a LOT"

[@akeem2983]

I didn't seen this message despite pirating it. But this game was so good that I eventually bought it on Steam, how fitting

[@gp37521]

That's awesome

[@timothy6706]

Pirating Adobe and Ubisoft is always morally correct

[@Ptr-ck7if]

dont forget EA

[@B27-b3k]

Amen

[@nasgor22]

Amen

[@tobiaspramono378]

ACTIVISION TOO

[@weareoutbreak89]

Rockstar anyone?

[@GigaDonk99]

Idk how any normal, rational person can look at how streaming services increase their prices every month and think piracy is the wrong thing to do

[@the4GIVEN]

couple of years ago you needed 1 10$ subscription and had everything you wanted without ads. now you need like 5 30$ subscriptions and get adds

[@ekki1993]

@@the4GIVEN That's the corporate hype model. Companies hype up their product to get investments, then the investors expect 10x returns (or some other comically large multiplier on their investment) and even good intentioned developers get pushed into predatory practices (though most of the time the people in control are just as greedy as the investors).

[@ekki1993]

The Red Scare brainrot has turned any criticism of corporate failures into "socialism, thus bad" since at least the Reagan era. People unwilling to change their ingrained assumptions end up repeating corporate propaganda and learn to be bootlickers. It sucks.

[@hextaped]

The last thing I downloaded like this was Rimworld. I wasn't going to buy it, or anything it because it didn't look interesting. I didn't want to spend the 30 for a full game. Then the dev said on some post they made on social media or their website saying. "Pirate my game, if you like it. Then buy it when you can afford it." So I tried it. Realized how much I loved the game and got it on steam. Now I have it and all the expansions. A few people I know did the same too. That dev increased his sales through a bunch of the people I know because of that. I never would have even looked at the game twice if he hadn't said that. Meanwhile "Piracy is bad. Btw we don't pay our employees."

[@Skyverb]

When I was younger and couldn't buy games I did this. I ended up buying them all later(first hand so studios got paid); and all expansions etc. Because I liked them. When I was a kid we had game demos to try the games. Not every game does that nowadays. Or modern games have trial times where all u get to try is the 2 hour walking simulator tutorial lol.

[@gabriel7037]

@@Skyverb I try to do the same nowadays! I haven't kept great track of what I pirated at like, 14yo or something but I do it when I can. I love the devs behind Darkwood, Acid Wizard Studio. When the game released, they uploaded their own game on TPB to be pirated by people who couldn't afford it. I recall them posting a little bit of backstory that led to that decision on some steam news thing, talking about how they themselves didn't have much access to videogames when they were younger or something. I bought it myself just this month when I remembered I hadn't done so yet and I beat it like, the week it released I think. Here in brazil we couldn't even buy games online easily until around 2016 I think. My dad would say it was something to do with the credit card not working for those types of purchases from outside the country or w/e. Our only option for PC and the playstations we had (which were either hand-me-downs or belonged to my brothers who saved like hell for them) was, funnily enough, games that were clearly just torrented, burnt to a CD, and packaged with a shitty JPG of the games' actual cover art (or sometimes fan art, whatever the store owner thought looked cooler I guess) in a plastic bag, which my dad stopped paying for when he found out he could just buy the blank CDs himself and get whatever game he wanted. Movies were the same deal. It was kind of magical.

[@kada0420]

For sure. I pirated sleeping dogs, liked it and bought it.

[@redslate]

This is exactly how Shareware used to work.

[@fxarts9755]

the thing is it doesnt always work that way. that dev profited through the publicity that story got. most ppl dont care if they get it for free and will never even think about buying it. same as ppl who pirate movies or music did never buy it afterward. You doing this is the exception. this game that made money through this publicity stunt is an exception. I'm an artist who also sells online products like brushes and small art classes online. for a long time,e i had my stuff for free with just saying if u liked it think about donating a dollar. I had lots of ppl commenting they wanted to buy and pay for my stuff before i released it. got like 700 downloads on my brushpack with great reviews and an amazing 10$. 7$ of that i got from ppl i already knew personally. that isn't even enough to take it off the platform. no one cares about u making money. and especially if u are a smaller creator.

[@Josh-eq9oq]

When I was 15 I stole a boat (dinghy) with a friend and we engaged in boarding an anchored boat we did not own, am I a pirate??

[@bilditup1]

oh captain my captain

[@kagemushashien8394]

A Trespasser, but the only thing that's pirated is the Dinghy.

[@0uttaS1TE]

Yes. But the cool kind

[@mandurrudnam7632]

commandeer! you dont steal a boat, you commandeer!

[@Josh-eq9oq]

@@mandurrudnam7632 My apologies captain, it won't happen again captain! 🫡

[@DemonBlanka]

I feel I must point out that "You wouldn't steal a car" ad you played at 5:50 isnt the original ad but a parody that was used in The IT Crowd. The original ad doesnt have the bobby with the gun and the parody continues with the rozzer shooting the girl in the back of the head.

[@BierBart12]

It really says something when the parody isn't any more insane than some of the real PSAs of the time

[@nacorlantigua]

As a fellow The IT Crowd enjoyer, I'm glad someone else noticed it.

[@michimatsch5862]

I thought that was the joke?!

[@mage1439]

@@BierBart12 Kind of like the pot PSA where the kid shoots his friend. Or himself, it's been a while.

[@CathrineMacNiel]

You wouldn't shoot a Policeman, and then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet. You wouldn't send it to the Policeman's grieving widow... and then steal it again!

[@e-lubb]

A little surprised Disco Elysium wasn’t mentioned, considering the devs themselves encourage people to pirate it rather than download it.

[@Thesakuraharona]

Did not know that. I bought a legit copy when it was on massive sale. I need to get around to playing that...

[@MrMoogle]

The thing I remember the most about that anti-piracy ad was wishing my internet was fast enough to download movies as fast as they do in the ad.

[@Thenewbagman]

As you said, the funniest thing about anti piracy advert and prevention its that the ones who have to suffer it are the usually the people who pay for the product. Thats some delicious irony.

[@takemeseriouslyplx2124]

And the funny part is that if the game is insanely popular and sells millions of copies, there would be approx 20k people who pirate the game! From those 20k, not even half would have bought the game if it wasn't possible to pirate anyway! Looking at Marvels Spider-Man, has sold 50M copies and has only been pirated 23k times. Like "pirates" are not a problem for the companies that force in denuvo into their already broken and unfinished games!

[@KasumiRINA]

@@takemeseriouslyplx2124 eh, you didn't count China or russia, which will have like 99% of everything pirated. One of reasons Interplay and Troika went out of business the games they published were insanely popular in places where nobody buys anything, and if they do, it was pirated CDs, so they got no profits - this doesn't justify AAA publishers ripping people off, just sayin' that for every cartridge of some old game, there's multiple people downloading a rom pack, I don't think it's wrong, just that it's far more widespread than people pretend. I buy stuff if I WANT to support devs OR need convenience, there are also collectors etc., let people choose how they get games.

[@artemlarionov7084]

​@@KasumiRINAEven with zero piracy no one would just buy games in Russia in early 00s because average salary was about 100 dollars a month. Only with appearance of regional pricing and Steam russian game market grown and was one of the biggest europe market until 2022.

[@dansmith16]

There are an infinite number of ways the average person can be harmed by events, the millionaire/billionaire can only be affected by jail time or game over.

[@dansmith16]

The European markets outside Russia are collapsing and Germany is imploding. Russia is winning.@@artemlarionov7084

[@agustinpugliese1715]

Argentinian here. What Steam did here was unbearable. I used to buy games fairly often but since it changed to US pricing. Buying one game for the regular employee could cost literally half of the employee's monthly salary. Ie: right now Taken 8 Ultimate is at 105000$ARS (87$US) whereas the average monthly salary here lies around 250000$ARS (208$US). Imagine games costing half of your monthly salary.

[@irmiwolf]

You mean Tekken 8 Ultimate edition that cost 119$US in the first place?

[@liveforever141]

00s Lithuania was like that. Now our wages got much better, but before it was like that. I remember walking in store and seeing 60-80 litas games (around 20-30 dollars), while average wage was from 200-400 litas (80-160 dollar) range. It was impossible to buy a game, so everyone pirated it.

[@elmertsai1312]

Blame your own country for the economy issue don't blame steam. Steam is only converting the price faithfully

[@mantosh56]

​@@elmertsai1312world doesn't revolve around murica mate....not that America itself is any better financially these days lol

[@MrVlad12340]

@@elmertsai1312 thats not how economy works. For example price of a kilo of meat or barrel of oil is different in each country cause it accounts for inflation and etc, etc. The fact Steam just takes dollar prices and then applies those to all countries is nuts. Also they shouldnt expect record sales then, nor slowdown of piracy if they keep doing that.

[@LexFalk]

28:57 It says Piracy Kills your Heroes... Well if I cant get those heroes from their publishing entity anymore where the hell am I supposed to go if not into the pirate bay?

[@piiiiko]

A lot of games would get more sales if they had a demo, I genuinely believe so. I as an example download cracked games for the sake of seeing if the game I'm looking at is worth buying. not being able to test a product before either paying a mass sum or buying many of them can affect the product because the consumer doesn't know what it is.

[@McHorsesCreations]

You can’t really test live service games, there needs to be server, and hosting a server just for the demo version sounds like a waste of money. Beside that, considering how broken some new AAA games on launch, I don’t think that’s gonna help to sell the game. But yeah, for true singleplayer games it sounds good.

[@TheSpeep]

Thats ignoring games that just straight up arent being sold anymore. Or are exclusive to consoles that arent being sold anymore. Or that are tied to servers that died years ago. If they insist on us paying for their product, they should at least try actually selling it first.

[@peffiSC2source]

Nowadays you can just watch a gameplay video. Usually people who are media literate can figure out from there whether it's something they enjoy.

[@Watburnt]

Tekken 8 has this and it got me into the game because of it

[@PauLtus_B]

A game having a demo makes it much more likely for me to buy it. I like to try out a game before buying it and if I'm not getting a demo I might as well try to pirate it first. Then if I like it, I buy it. Being able to pirate games have made it more likely that I actually buy them.

[@nilfux]

I try games from Fit-Girl, if I don't like it, I delete it. If I like it and know I'll finish it, I'll buy it and figure out where to move the savegame. I always buy it if I intend to complete it. This is a review system that works for me and the publisher/developer gets paid.

[@joshuabradford8206]

I do the exact same thing. If I like the game I buy it if not I delete it. If you're going to try the game for a day or two and then get a refund on steam because it doesn't click with you and what's the difference of just downloading it off of a repack website and then just deleting it from your computer. If I play a PC version of a game and I enjoy it I buy it.

[@joshuabradford8206]

Plus not to mention steam opening itself whenever you want to play a specific game hogging resources in the background. Between that and the denuvo protection makes it way harder too enjoy the game if you play it the "intended" way. Even when I buy the game I more often than not still play the crack of it because it just runs better.

[@evanwhitford6257]

Similar for me, bigger deal is games with insane amounts of dlcs, I buy the game, not the dlcs

[@lzysoul]

I do this but to check the system requirements, my pc is extremely weird in running games, some high end games run fine but mid range does not even work on low, so I try then buy if It works (can't abuse the steam refund policy)

[@nilfux]

I forgot to mention once a year I send $100 of crypto to fit-girl as well. Time is money and the time saved by what the group does is clearly worth it.

[@mostafar8514]

as an iranian living in a sanctioned country we cant really buy games, the downside is we cant pay most online games like squad. otherwise ive never paid for a game in my life and i played most games. there are times when i genuinely want to support a good indie game developer but i cant bc our banking doesnt work with dollar. otherwise we have websites that only allow iranian ip addresses but let you download virtually any games cracked latest cracked version

[@DiminishingAugmentation]

Based Blackbeard pfp

[@henrystickman871]

People in iran wouldn't be able to play anything if it wasn't for piracy. also yes banking system sucks in iran.

[@Tiner-was-Real]

Oh yes, downlodha my favorite website 🥰

[@henrystickman871]

@@Tiner-was-Real downloadha forever. and soft98

[@generalr2d2thethird5]

Even if we put sanctions aside, Iran's economy won't let many people buy games either. Average games cost 60 dollar now days, that like 10 percent of average monthly income of more than half the population.

[@BrickCreator663]

"Any reference to illegal actions are entirely hypothetical." 1 second later "Piracy is amazing, and you should do it in real life!"

[@blindneophyte8318]

A wise man once said: "I don't pirate indie games because they need the money. I don't pirate AAA games because they suck."

[@DiscoMouse]

Yep, I only really pirate mainstream but smaller budget games and then buy them if they’re good. Except for Bethesda,Ubisoft or CDPR, they never get my money.

[@ultimate1769]

@@DiscoMouse If you eventually pay them it should be fine, although if you're going in already knowing you're not going to pay them maybe just don't play the game at that point. That would be outright stealing.

[@LecherousLizard]

@@ultimate1769 You just watched a 40 minute long video which clearly states piracy is not legally stealing. Plus ain't nobody gonna shoplift Starfield from Gamestop, bro.

[@UnicornStorm]

@@LecherousLizard okay, it's not stealing legally, it's still not good or moral. You take something for yourself that you have no right to. Call it what you want, it's still wrong. Of course there's some nuance to this, but as a pirate, you're never "in the right".

[@mr2meows]

@@ultimate1769 buying isnt owning so piracy isnt stealing

[@Wotvr]

Can't believe you paid money for that new couch when you could have just pirated it.

[@Lextorias]

You wouldn’t download a couch

[@cericat]

@@Lextoriasthere's always Digital Ikea...

[@Fractured_Unity]

Could this maybe just be solved by giving digital licenses much shorter copyrights? Maybe 5-10 years? We need to find a compromise with the corpo-brained people and get good optics.

[@ballinn0430]

You can't steal a couch. You get them dirt cheap at Goodwill.

[@LifeInFrame]

Yeah 3D print a better one next time!

[@Ragmon1]

If Piracy is hurting the industry, then CEOs wouldn't be making $100+ million a year... Like Bobky Kotick...

[@sola4393]

These greedy companies only see how much $$$ they might be missing yet they don't see without piracy, these people will not buy the game one way or another. There is no lost on company's end but more of a gain on publicity and fame, it allows more people to get to know their game. Though if people do have money to purchase, don't be stingy to support the game they love.

[@liesandy291]

yep all the CEO is failing upwards which is strange.

[@SecoOrlov]

the thing is, if the pirates actually had money, they wouldn't pirate in the first place, it's not even gonna harm the game lol

[@herrdehringe]

the video game industry is pretty much the biggest entertainment one nowadays. law or not, video game piracy cannot be accused of hurting their numbers dramatically. it's just a question of protecting trademarks and making even more money. and a moral question for yourself.

[@cowboyslime3615]

It only hurts indie developers, pirating a AAA is a drop in a bucket

[@VladimierTheVagabond]

29:14 “Piracy Kills your Heroes” Says the company that killed Bloodbourne and Sackboy on their own.

[@Stay_away_from_my_swamp_water]

Imagine that you're a sailor on a giant container ship, and 3 frigates emerge from beyond the horizon. As every minute they get closer and closer, you already know our fate. before you could reconcile with what happens, whey board the ship, swinging their swords and firing their flintlock pistols, they open one of the containers and stuff their pockets with plastic boxes containing digital access keys before sailing off into the sunset. Your captain walks up to you, and asks you "wtf did just happen?"

[@BananaArm]

damn

[@cobalt2672]

Piracy/cracking is rapidly becoming (or has already become, depending on your point of view) just preemptive archiving, with how willing publishers are to just sit on IPs / "lost" media forever...to say nothing of yanking products from sale with little or no warning.

[@drpepperman2765]

This is the main reason I'm trying to have physical copies of everything I own digitally. They've already proven they're more than willing to prevent us from enjoying their content if it's digital

[@berkeguzel5979]

28:04, Turkish citizen here. AAA games (ones sold without local pricing, at $60) are 1/10th of minimum wage. Most people barely see the end of month so gaming legally is something we often can't afford. But at the same time there are games being sold for way less, albeit mostly indie titles. I hope that in the future, more developers will take into account whether or not people will be able to afford their game.

[@NuchiAsaki]

If they reduce the price, they won't be able to afford to make the game. AAA and AAAA game studios and publishers are horribly inefficient with their funding and no one will be happy with the solution to that problem.

[@marzgamingmaster]

That would be nice to see, wouldn't it, them considering whether or not people will even be able to afford their games? Sadly, the verdict is already in on that. They are going to scream and cry and point fingers at people being cheap and *insert genre of game here* being dead and nobody wanting to play them anymore. When in reality they're asking for $70 as a basic shell price, not including the subscription, battle pass, and recurrent microtransactions.

[@ssjcrafter8842]

1/10th of minimum wage for how long? a year? asking because I genuinely am not sure.

[@LolSho0orTs]

They won't cuz SEOs want more money

[@ruski77]

​@@ssjcrafter8842 monthly. turkish minimum wage is ~17,000 turkish lira and a $70 game is 2,161 lira. for comparison the minimum us monthly is about $1,250, ALBEIT no state actually has the federal wage, so its probably higher. so a $70 game would be about double the price in turkey respective to the wage.

[@IAmSp33d]

Video titled : Video game piracy is good, actually. Gamer Supps : Yep thats a perfect video to attach ourselves to.

[@SonsOfAstigmatism]

I’m choosing to believe this video was not posted by the original poster. It was just pirated.

[@KaiserAfini]

Gaben's point is valid for economies in general. High trust societies generally conduct better business, because in low trust societies you need to waste a ton of time, money and resources to make sure you aren't being swindled at every point of the transaction. Should you provide more convenience and flexibility to customers, your sales will likely increase. Mistreatment of your customers with an ever escalating DRM arms race will only cause your company to be disrespected in kind.

[@middleagebrotips3454]

Streaming killed BitTorrent for that reason

[@theodorcalotescu1876]

You argument is correct, since piracy isn't getting people to jail. If US for instance enforced the laws that already exist, that wouldn't have been a problem.

[@malditamente6713]

@@theodorcalotescu1876 my brother in christ, your country passed the copyright laws and then imposed them on the whole world, you mfs enabled people to get into senate and pass those laws, fuck the US

[@SelfProclaimedHermit]

damn, even his couch was arrested...

[@alatar4188]

it was an accessory to piracy

[@skippy2987]

He was wearing black, I'm surprised all those shots missed...

[@alwayschill4522]

love the video, also love the use of that one persona 2 song 'cause of how quiet the background was i was suspicious of what i was hearing, but it turns out you have very good taste!!

[@BlargetyX3]

One thing missing from the video is the advent of key reselling websites becoming popular. Many indie developers suffer from key resellers, and have publically said they would rather people pirate their games (which makes them no money) than to buy off a key website. This being the fact that credit card scams will buy keys from the game, sell them on reselling websites, and the owner of the scammed credit card will charge-back the keys, costing the developer money.

[@LuisSoto-fw3if]

I'm not doubting you, but how does it cost the dev money? If I understand correctly, the reseller gets the cc, buys it legally, then resells it cheaply right? If the victim asks for its money back, wouldn't the dev be at cost 0 since he just have to give the money back?

[@Atlessa]

@@LuisSoto-fw3ifCC companies charge you for the "service" of getting the money back from you. It's only a dollar or so per transaction, but you can see how that may add up when there's millions of keys being sold all over the internet

[@fltfathin]

​​@@LuisSoto-fw3ifthe reseller's supplier used carding/ stealing people's cc, the chargeback is charged because the bank see the dev is scamming the original card holder.

[@Hirohitorunguard]

The problem with pirating is that in many cases games are tied to an online service, which gets very hard to use from a pirated copy sometimes, so people swallow the pill and buy the most likely stolen key.

[@philipus.]

​@@LuisSoto-fw3ifexcept the great majority of these places don't do that. Some of the keys they get are like that, but the majority of the keys are from other places, like the steam clan thing, or email spamming as a false youtuber. The whole "buy somewhere else cheaper and resell here for more" doesn't work in Steam because Steam has region locks for keys so people don't do this

[@Nobard0]

On DRM bricking CD drives: It happened to me. My friends and I used to love buying games out of the Best Buy bargin bin, trying to find a gem to play at LAN parties. I made the mistake of buying the game SpellForce 2, which StarForce. The game installed but wouldn't play. My CD drive simply stopped working. Wouldn't open, wouldn't read the SpellForce 2 CD, but was still seen by the PC. I tried rebooting, reseating the drive, manually prying the disc tray open, everything. Nothing worked, my CD drive was just dead. I bought a legal copy of a game with DRM and it killed my hardware. Now that's a way to quickly radicalize someone against DRM.

[@weirdrabbitgirl]

Can someone smarter than me explain how this even works? How tf do they brick something like a CD drive without it being easily reversible?? 😱

[@mathewmantas]

@@weirdrabbitgirlI think the drm had messed with cd's software that communicates with the pc and it straight up bricked it. Just like if you want to flash a new version of BIOS on your motherboard and you turn it off before it's done, code gets corrupted and now you just have a piece of junk. I guess you could try to get a new chip and resolder it but I have no idea. I am not an expert in this. Just thought I would put my two cents here.

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

I think you could sue for that.

[@littlesisterlover9105]

@@weirdrabbitgirl I've looked a bit into how StarForce worked, and it's honestly not surprising it went wrong. To give you the Cliff Notes, computers communicate with their peripherals, including CD-drives, with device drivers, software used to facilitate instruction translation between the two systems. StarForce had its own drivers installed alongside the software it was meant to protect. There were several issues with the way this was implemented, it was unknown to the user and not even so much as mentioned in the license agreement of the associated games, but the largest problem by far was that these drivers were installed with kernel-level access, allowing it to make changes to the operating system itself. This was by design and almost every implementation of StarForce was different, but there are reports that some versions used this access to alter how the computer communicated with the CD-drive, changing things such as memory access and even slowing drives down at times. This is likely where the issues with CD-drives spawned from, and why it was so inconsistently reported. It's important to note that this was necessary to StarForce's function, physical parts of the CD were the key to the encrypted files on the disc, and so it needed to be able to verify certain aspects of the CD. My suspicion in this particular case is that StarForce altered something in the way the operating system and CD-drive were communicating, leading to them being unable to do so outside the operating system recognizing that it was present. StarForce's changes were notoriously difficult to undo, with several special utilities being developed for doing so over the course of its usage. It's possible that one of these utilities, provided it fully removed StarForce's drivers, would have allowed the CD-drive to function again. I can't really say without more info, but this is at least the conclusion I'd reach based on what I could find. The key problems with StarForce was its unrestricted system access along with its volatility, so you just never knew what to expect from it.

[@Roman8707]

@@littlesisterlover9105 If that were the case then wouldn't a simple reformat and OS reinstall fix the issue for the CD drive? If it only had kernel level access it *shouldn't* mess with the actual firmware of the CD drive itself, right? Either way it's pretty shitty that it did that. Hell maybe even just removing and reinstalling the CD-ROM drive driver, and/or the communication bus drivers should fix the issue.

[@Lama-dr4om]

The Crytek thing about how piracy caused them to not sell is cap. In 2015 The Witcher 3 came out and it had no DRM. And it wasnt a secret or something, CDProjekt literally bragged and flexed how they didnt implement any piracy protection. As you might have guessed it was pirated a lot. But it didnt stop it from becoming one of the best selling games of all time. It was just this good. I know many people who bought multiple copies of it, sometimes on the same platform just to honor the developers since it was not only good but also cheap. Many of these people pirated the game before buying it.

[@Demopans5990]

I'd say piracy is the best form of advertisement around. It costs you basically nothing, and it spreads through the most effective means that is word of mouth. If your game is good, all that uber ad "spend" will translate into more sales through sheer volume. If your game is bad, you weren't going to sell much anyways

[@nightadmin283]

Not going to lie. I too know Crysis from pirate. When it was no easy way to buy and no money to buy a good PC just to play it. I was able to get a decent PC 4-5 years after the game launched.

[@hotaq0attnet]

Actually piracy is also another way of advertisement so in a way though there is a disadvantage piracy has advantages for the company being pirated.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

One dev actually commented on kissass torrent page that it's ok to pirate but do consider buying the game if you had fun. It was a turning point in their reputation. People often don't know this.

[@mytruepower2]

@@Demopans5990 The only other form of advertising I think even compares is the free playable demo, and how many games have one of those anymore? I've seen, I think, 1 playable demo in the last year, and that was for an indie game. Most games these days just do early access instead, which isn't the same, since you still have to pay for it, and before the game is even finished.

[@JDNboy12]

the convenience factor at 23:55 is huge. the fact that streaming managed to thrive while music and video piracy was at an all time high goes to show that people aren't paying for the product, but convenient access to it.

[@diamondhamster4320]

Sadly majority of electronic entertaiment products buyers have never read EULA 101 or any legal document for that matter. The end point consumers are not buying anything on any Digital-only store - they are buying a LICENSE to access and use supported by said LICENSE service/product until the LICENSE expires. So in essence, you are were never BUYING anything at all. And that is the sad reallity that leads to piracy being even more relevant in year 2024.

[@diamondhamster4320]

PS: Also I have strong support for piracy cause where I lived (2nd world country Latveria) video games used to be regionally priced from 5 to 10 USD (+/- around that price range) and now all games physical are worth 60-70 EUR and online games are also priced on all digital stores around the same. Logically, I say F it and pirate games from time to time.

[@rgal]

@@diamondhamster4320 I can't believe Doctor Doom would do that, smh :(

[@diamondhamster4320]

@@rgal Well, I mean he is just a figure head here, we have a normal parliament and democratic elections of PM and the deputies and sh@t. How do you think Latveria was never fully invaded/liberated/destroyed by super heroes???

[@dungeonsanddobbers2683]

@@rgal Are Doombots just pirate copies of Victor von Doom?

[@TioRata]

Well that's true at least in the United States, the only thing you own is the plastic (if you a bought physical copy), it doesn't matter if the content of the disc doesn't work, there aren't any ownership rights for the copy of the data itself.

[@lobbyboya]

Here in Brazil the only time we started NOT pirating was in the PS3 era, so the prices have gone so high that a lot of people started pirating all over again. Not only videogames, but mostly video streaming services have gone crazy. Its the piracy RENAISSANCE

[@DanielGT_93]

Brasil here, and only now i can play PS3 games. I would not pay 1/3 of a salary to buy an used ps3 and then games. Emulator and played all kratos games.

[@luisfvperes]

I have never seen an original PS2 CD in my entire life and most 2000's kids in Brazil haven't either

[@croay]

As a brazilian I 100% agree with this, with the Netflix sub price going up, other streaming services are also going up, I used to have Netflix and Amazon Prime, I've since then cancelled both and began my s t r e m i o way of life.

[@lobbyboya]

@@croay stremio bros!

[@OmarAAAA4444]

The world has unquestionably entered the great pirate era!

[@uruburus5203]

I remember seeing somewhere on reddit the creator of swords and sandals Whiskey barrel studio reply to a fan who admited to playing his game on pirated version as a kid because he couldn't afford it and the mad lad himself said he understands that because he used to do the exact same thing back in the day i mean its kind of the point that piracy should be an option to those who really can't spend much on games esspecialy when said games nowdays cost around 80 bucks if not more

[@premiumfruits3528]

Now apply your logic to any other industry or product.

[@s8err1]

@@premiumfruits3528 easy and done before

[@BigFatCone]

Now watch the video and realise your point is moot.@@premiumfruits3528

[@alexthewrecker4666]

​@@premiumfruits3528if those industries or products have infinite supply I see no issues. You see other industries use physical materials and resources. Me downloading a game does absolutely nothing to the company

[@KaptainKerl]

@@premiumfruits3528 devs should just work for free because some greasy teenager feels entitled to have everything for free just because he has no money.

[@strongerthanever2039]

This is a pretty good essey, you've definitely argumented your thesis well and the summary is so comprehensive, def a nice addition to collect all the thoughts at the end.

[@chargoal_games]

As a game dev, I support piracy. I still think you should buy games and support the devs, but sometimes... you just can't. Sometimes you're just a child, sometimes you're poor, sometimes you're in a bad place - piracy gives access to what some people cannot reach. I grew up in a country where there were so few nintendo consoles and it was so unpopular that I only got to know them because of the internet AND when I grew up - whole childhood without them. Even then, I can't play most of them EVEN if I was in a well developed country, because they just don't sell anymore and I can only experience some great games through emulation, through piracy.

[@newturtle3]

Nintendo has its own emulator but it is pretty bad. Like laughably bad. Then they throw a tantrum when other people do it better and want a fraction of what they demand for 1 game for several they emulate. I get its copyright but if your product is worse and someone makes a better version there should be some law to split profits. Like imagine (no it probably 90% does happen in some form) if you made cars for a living and it is broken in some parts or areas. Some guy fixes his and does so for others asking for a small sum for his labor. Then you tell him to stop or legal action for fixing your mistakes. He does. The cars will still be broken and nothing would have changed but people will now be angry with you or cautious and probably avoid you like the plague. But its their products i guess if they want their toys to be broken so be it.

[@ActionScripter]

As a dev, the part that bugs me about piracy isn't that people aren't paying (though of course I wish they would, I'm an indie and it's my only income). It's people playing an outdated version of the game and then either getting a bad experience or posting clips/bug reports implying the existence of already solved problems. The Steam players are more or less all using auto-updates, so I can be assured that if I put out a bug fix, they'll all benefit from it immediately and the video/screenshot/word-of-mouth impressions of the game will quickly adjust to the change. Meanwhile, the pirates can be stuck on a half-broken build indefinitely, because game reuploaders are slow and pirates often forget to go look for new versions.

[@hotaq0attnet]

Even in the bible after harvest you are advised by God to leave crumbs for the poor. Piracy as long as it is not stealing but trying to imitate or provide an alternative for the less fortunate should be tolerated because it is actually just helping the poor. But you know mega corporations are too greedy, the real issue really is just they are too very so much greedy.

[@InFiNiTeO7]

Hell, back then here in the Philippines, we barely had a video game market. All game stores you see here are basically pirated games or bootlegs. Your only choices back then are: Gameboy Nintendo DS Yeah, not much of a selection in the early 2000's as a Filipino gamer.

[@amasirat]

I live in Iran which is a country that is sanctioned which means there is no legal way of buying videogames in the international market. In fact there is no paypal, mastercard, visa, or whatever payment methods all English speaking stores accept. So piracy is pretty much the only reasonable way to experience these games, movies, TV or any digital media honestly. There is litearally no market for it otherwise.

[@hiagustres]

Just imagine the amount of content that would be lost forever if people just didn't shared it online. For example no company will go out of their way to re-release some niche title or licensed game that didn't sell well in 2003, but now it suddenly has a dedicated fanbase 20 years later. Without the piracy people wouldn't even know this said title existed on the first place, no fanbase would emerge, nothing.

[@HateBear-real]

Evil greedy corpos love a desert of a world and an enslaved populace as long as they have their ivory tower and profits.

[@shiinondogewalker2809]

just have the crackers make niche games instead of cracking games, I'm sure it would balance out :p

[@NoxLebeau]

If a game is 15+ years old and is not easily accessible on current hardware and the company has no plans to redistribute or remake in the next 5 years the game should be allowed to be pirated

[@KaptainKerl]

it's tolerated. or you want the presidents nod before downloading?

[@Vanity0666]

That's typically called Abandonware and you won't have any trouble getting it because in the games industry the vast majority of produced games have multiple rightsholders and no one actually knows who owns what. For example, the Silent Hill 2 PC port is freely available for download and has modern patches made by a community to restore all of the PS2 functionality and effects while also running on modern resolutions and systems.

[@OzixiThrill]

I disagree. Even if the current IP holder wants to remake it, the original should still become available if it's no longer accessible.

[@NoxLebeau]

@@OzixiThrill I was phrasing my conditions on what would mostly pass in the courts

[@OzixiThrill]

@@NoxLebeau I don't think capitulating the most valuable thing piracy does to the world of creative pursuits is the best thing to sacrifice in an attempt to make it "palatable" to greedy scum.

[@xyketh0n]

But… piracy is a great scapegoat for suits when the line doesn’t hit a certain peak within a certain timeframe.

[@HobokerDev]

Companies: "They have long since forgotten how we screwed them. They'll buy the next one too" Pirates: "My name is Jon Silver and I've got a long fucking memory"

[@TheBecke1983]

The clip of Gabe talking about better services is so true and foreshadowing with Spotify, Steam and Netflix. Funny thing is now with all the Netflix/Disney/HBO etc. It is that it is now inconvenient again, and piracy is easier. Because all shows do not stream in all counties, hell some streaming services are not available at all. Also, the quality is terrible, streaming in 720p with low bitrate, even tho you pay for 1080p or even worse 4k

[@illpunchyouintheface9094]

Babe and steam are apart of the problem too tho

[@benni1015]

It's not only worse quality. If you decide to buy movies on those platforms they can be taken away at any time by the rights holder. This happened just recently on Sonies psn store I think. They lost the license to a show and everyone who bought it lost their legitimately purchased product.

[@drpepperman2765]

​@@illpunchyouintheface9094 Steam has a far more sustainable business structure than streaming services, all Valve does is take a cut from any transactions on their platform in exchange for the inherent publicity a game receives from being on steam (much easier to find games when they're all in one place). Streaming services give you thousands of hours of content, which are themselves the sum total of millions of collective hours of hard work, all for $15 a month. Steam gets $5 for every $60 spent, Disney gets $15 every month no matter how much you use their service. Massive, massive difference dude

[@OMGYavani]

I cant buy subscription to anything at all in Russia right now so if i want to watch something i have to go to shady sites with shitty casino ads. I had Netflix and PS Plus before and was paying monthly, but oh well, i guess now you getting nothing from me, but pirates get profits and casinos and sport beting people get exposure for the entire country and every second coworker at my job loses money on bets. Jesus fucking Christ

[@rattle_me_bones]

@@illpunchyouintheface9094 I don't know, Steam is still pretty alright right now, but it has been something I've always worried about - Steam becoming anti-consumer. It's not a matter of if, it's when.

[@echo9708]

Во время обработки вашего запроса произошла ошибка: Данный товар недоступен в вашем регионе They think they forced me not to play, in fact they forced me not to pay. wise decision

[@vizir1917]

Оо, товарищ по пиратству

[@mr.dedede1324]

NYOHOHOHOHO!

[@40Ccents]

@@mr.dedede1324 this translates as exciting

[@joerionis5902]

​@@40CcentsSomehow lol

[@RandoomDude]

2:55 It's actually really interesting that you wouuld bring up adblock, because it hits at the heart of why large corporations hate both and see them as the same, piracy and adblock prevent companies from possible earning and use that prediction of monetary loss because of such events in court, though of course the argument that any action COULD effect your possible earnings in the future just becomes impossible to enforce

[@lssjgaming1599]

Pirating Nintendo games is pretty epic, although i tend to not like pirating indie games as i like to support the little guy

[@starseer8296]

Totally agree

[@devanneuenschwander6004]

I’ve directly reached out to Nintendo telling them that I WANT TO GIVE THEM MONEY for Pokémon Emerald and Platinum, and they said, “We’ve got no plans to do anything with these titles.” WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO, THEN, NINTENDO??? BUYING $150 CARTRIDGES ON FACEBOOK DOESN’T MAKE YOU ANY MONEY!

[@BubbleTea033]

*Old* Nintendo games. Even if you don't stand for Nintendo's exclusivity practices, don't own a Switch, etc. Buy the physical game, and then emulate it. Nintendo makes arguably the best games in the industry; complete on release, free of microtransactions. Just because their software is an easy target for piracy doesn't make it right. Emulation of retro games is fine if it's not available.

[@Timsturbs]

giving nintendo money is a crime

[@DonKeeddick]

I appreciate that most indie games are reasonably priced, not loaded with crippling DRM, and actually work on launch.

[@DomyTheMad420]

31:30 i genuinely love how you end of the "skit" of "and then the police raided some youtuber's house with SWAT, a chopper, shots fired against an unarmed man and wait hold on"

[@lamine991]

I live in Algeria, a third world country in Africa where we didn't have the means to buy anything. We didn't have any official stores or even the payment methods to do so online. When I was a kid, games helped me in ways I can't even explain. Not only mentally but even allowed me to learn English and to be involved in more communities that were relevant to my interests. Now that I am an adult I can afford whatever game I want and I have the methods to pay for my entertainment. We always talk shit about piracy but all those piracy teams deserve their flowers genuinely. They literally changed people's lives for the better and there's no way for them to be famous in a positive manner during our lifetime which is kinda sad.

[@imadudewithissues]

same i remember a video that valve had a deal with chinese officials to use their game on their networks basically pirating them and almost every computershops having their games back in the day plus call of duty but they ended up spreading a crapton of it to other countries losing valve alot of money but in a twist of fate it made them even more famous and the reason why valve has a gigantic asian cult following i was one of the asian folks that had the opportunity to play counterstrike,portal,halflife,left4dead for basically free(my relative owns a computershop and my parents leave me there when they needed someone to supervise me

[@Gaming1Doge]

The first anti-piracy ad that I'd ever seen in my life was that ironically copywrited one, and my first reaction was "Wait, you can download movies? for FREE??"

[@abm128]

ngl this video relates to me as I live in a third world country and our economy is completely fcked I can only afford games that are 2 dollars at sale and its always hard to buy them so i just have been pirating for a long time I wish I could support the devs but this is the kinda situation I and many people are in Thanks lextorias

[@jinmakarov8187]

yeah , its kind a normal here too ,pirated pc games usually just take 30days after release & pirated console games usually sold for bundle , just $50 or less is enough to fill your 1Tb of hard drive

[@user-is7xs1mr9y]

In my third world country even the government uses pirated software lol.

[@jsc315]

You can't pirate something if you can't even buy them legally.

[@newturtle3]

I semi am mad at steam for doing the regional pricing fix. $70 for inflated price for a digital game is b.s. Then they banned game trading so you can't buy cheaper from overseas but you also can't gift a game to overseas. This is a mixed bag / can of worms with no real solution aside from region locking and adjusting prices for games. But that would require a division soley dedicated to fluctuating currency and i can't ever see any sane company doing that

[@spaghettiisyummy.3623]

​@@user-is7xs1mr9yBrazil?

[@fabrysotgiu3400]

Oh boy, I can't wait for someone on twitter to read the title, post it as a screenshot saying something like "these entitled youtubers" and call it a day without even watching the disclaimer at 00:00

[@wfjhDUI]

Rabid fanboys think they're EA's lawyers. 😂

[@theothertonydutch]

People shouldn't e on twitter in the first place. It was always a shit-site, and it got only worse after elon's musk took over. How do I know this? Everyone that I know that uses twitter is absolutely miserable.

[@sam7559]

Well yeah part of piracy is entitlement, the pirate thinks their entitled to the fruits of someone else's labor

[@newturtle3]

@@wfjhDUI they're also like 90% of the reason companies are releasing worse and worse game titles. They really don't care. The average casual gamer will buy a game hop on for 1-2 games to destress then go about their day. People also tend to have goldfish memory. Maybe not for games but look at anything in your house you once bought thinking it was cool or nice. Then try remembering the last time you used it. I got about 20 items like this lol. Could be clothes furniture food knick knacks etc.

[@mr.nobody9516]

Not that I disagree with much of it, but acting like the video is completely protected from criticism from that short disclaimer is just ridiculous.

[@FG-418]

Should also shout out GoG for their work on tracking down old games license owners and convincing them to do DRM-free re-releases

[@DoctorOnkelap]

yes, support gog and fuck steam

[@slendydie1267]

@@DoctorOnkelap I choose both

[@Ozzianman]

​​​​​​​@@DoctorOnkelapNo. Support both. Steam for how feature rich it is for both developers and users. GOG for being mostly on par with Steam in the most important aspects while being DRM free. Edit: Going off on a bit of a tangent Epic Launcher will never be able to get the market share Steam has due to how shit the launcher is. Most of the people I know only associate the epic Launcher with free games and have not spent a penny. That is a problem for Epic, they have not found a niche like GOG has. They don't have the features that Steam has. They are trying to compete through bribing people with free games.

[@DoctorOnkelap]

@@slendydie1267 good luck playing any steam games you 'bought' after they go bankrupt.

[@fenexus404]

@@DoctorOnkelap between csgo crates, the fact that almost all games on pc are also on steam and the 30% cut valve takes on each purchase, i dont think bankruptcy is in the cards for them right now

[@rogeliovilchez1]

8:05 copy mild inconvenience… that is amazing all this is absolutely mind blowing and things that I’ve seen around, but never really had an explanation for and you’ve done a great job thank you

[@MattBooth]

With the prevalence of gaming subscriptions and digital purchases and reduction of physical disc-based releases, where buying isn't owning anything, piracy is becoming more defensible. I'm glad you've made the distinction around copyright infringement and theft. It always grinds my gears when people say it's theft (same for adblock) when it's just not (and, as you said, adblocking isn't illegal at all and not equatable to theft in any way).

[@pointillism252]

Isn't piracy theft though?

[@MattBooth]

@@pointillism252 ...No? Not by any legal definition. It's copyright infringement. Scenario 1: I am at your house and I take a DVD home with me and never give it back - theft. You no longer have your DVD Scenario 2: I'm at your house and rip your DVD to my laptop while I'm there. No theft - You still have your DVD.

[@pointillism252]

​@@MattBooth So legally, no. I'd still argue it somewhat is for price of admission.

[@MattBooth]

@@pointillism252 It's still not "theft". Watch the video. There's some good points put across. A pirated game doesn't equate to a lost sale.

[@pointillism252]

@@MattBooth I know it doesn't, but it still has an impact in some form or another.

[@matthewdavis3421]

One of my favorite things that ever happened in the approval of piracy/ anti-DRM sphere was when Sseth reviewed Star Sector. In his review, he noted that the game has no copy protection in it at all, then he included his actual CD key, and he provided a download link where you could get the whole game, which happened to be the developer's own distribution site where you buy and download it properly. We crashed the website. Not from too many downloads at once, but we crashed it from too many people trying to buy the game at once. If piracy can be considered theft, then the invitation to piracy by a company generates so much respect that the theft becomes negligible. Helps if you make a great game too, obviously, and it is. Go get Star Sector. Go "try" it for free, if nothing else.

[@Brocknoth]

You left out the best part. The devs of Star Sector were so chill about what happened that they approached Ssseth and asked him "hey man can we use your video as free advertising?" he agreed and to this day I think it's still linked from their homepage. The even better part? His CD key is still in the video and it still works.

[@SoullessAIMusic]

A friend of mine was in the piracy scene some years back. He told me that the hype for cyberpunk 2077 was so real that the Pirates were advocating people to buy an official copy. Of course that was before a poor launch.

[@Brocknoth]

@@SoullessAIMusic And people say there's no honor among "thieves" jokes on them I guess.

[@Ptr-ck7if]

i found starsector because of his video, i now have it and am happy with it

[@momom6197]

StarSector is a great game! You can try it using my key if you want: 07ADA-RN3A5-JX78A-6EL64 And if, like me, you enjoy playing it, consider paying the devs the 15$ they ask for their game, it's worth it.

[@IAmCymepka]

Most of my games on Steam are the ones that I once pirated, said "holy shit this is so good" and bought them when I had the chance. Starclan bless Terraria for being on GOG.

[@deadboyo2773]

I love this example because terraria is already a really cheap game

[@mintbeach4754]

STARCLAN???

[@PotatoTheProgrammer]

@@deadboyo2773some people, for reasons other than the amount of money they have, can buy things for $0 but not anything $0.01 or more i am part of that group btw

[@Autumn9]

WARRIOR CATS SPOTTED??

[@IAmValefree]

Oh hi Warriors

[@km7dev]

"Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate!" oh did i mention i was redownloading mario kart