Video Game Piracy Is NOT Good, Actually

[@mfz65]

Your arguments in this video, especially in the back half, makes this a must watch for anyone on the fence concerning this issue

[@thatguybis1997]

Yeaaah why do I always get into my stride later in the video? Lol.

[@BristolMatt]

That's exactly how I would imagine a paid corporation comment would look like on a youtube channel supporting their grift.

[@tonygunk1886]

@@BristolMattbingo was his name-o Dude is a flat out paid actor

[@DogeickBateman]

Found the Sony fan

[@12ealDealOfficial]

Piracy is necessary for preservation. It is a requirement to retain digital titles for which publishers might "revoke access." It is a requirement when the publisher has not made any means of legally purchasing said titles, and it is a duty when older titles are re-released but censored or changed. The market necessitated piracy because it not only changed what ownership means, but it outright refuses to preserve and make available its backlog of titles. And when older titles are re released, it is almost a given the re-released will be made worse in every way, including "changes for a modern audience" and inferior technical performance.

[@GrandMarshalEsgaroth]

Wow, just wow. Something like this was always on the back of my mind, but you put my thoughts into words. Thank you kind stranger.

[@sp8cescience433]

This is exactly how I feel about pirating old games. I wish I could give more than one like lol.

[@GabrielVilanova-n3p]

want piracy to go away? give us a legal way to play it, money isnt the issue, but the lack of preservation is

[@DrMFoster7]

No I don't believe that companies will reward employees for their work, nor do I believe they'd do things like remove Denuvo if people vote with their wallet. I agree that if you can't buy it, you just shouldn't play it, and personally I don't pirate games, but to use things like "Maybe technology will get better so the anti-tamper isn't awful" and "Maybe if you just don't buy the game they'll change" as excuses are not good enough. You know that not enough people will change their minds about a purchase over Denuvo, you know that games shouldn't be legally locked away for 90+ years in Nintendo's copyright vault, you know that voting with your wallet only pertains to withholding money from big companies and they don't care one bit if you buy something indie instead. We're both well aware you're not going to change your stance on it because you do think it's stealing and this boils down to "Stealing is wrong, do not steal." we don't have to make up these "Think about the employees" rhetorics or try to play devil's advocate for triple A developers. The boardroom doesn't care if I can't afford a game, and we shouldn't care about these theoretical millions and millions of work hours people already got paid for to make the games. If they accommodated the consumer at all with affordable prices, convenient distribution, and trusted them enough to not put essentially spyware on their products, there might be a case, but too many people are mindless zombie consumers for any of that to ever actually matter. Gaming would benefit greatly from a crash.

[@thatguybis1997]

Yeah, like I said in another comment, the DRM issue is a hard one to tackle. And you’re right, I really wanted to drive the point home that piracy IS stealing at the end of the day. If enough people cared to refuse to support big corporations, I do think it would make a difference. In a perfect world piracy wouldn’t exist, and everyone who pirated would vote with their wallet, and maybe devs could see that, well, they’re not even PLAYING our game, something must be up, and some actual changes would happen. But it’s not a perfect world. People are still going to pirate, companies will still have DRM, and this issue will continue. Either way, even talking about this is a step in the right direction.

[@skaruts]

You're wrong, though. Companies will definitely reward their employees. Working for wealthy companies comes with higher wages. Many employees working in Sillicon Valley have 6-figure salaries. This is always the case: the wealthier the company, the higher the salaries, because that company will be competing for workers against other wealthy companies. And if people voted with their wallets against DRM, then they would definitely remove DRMs. The reason they don't remove them is because consumers have been voting in favor of DRMs with their wallets all along. I don't buy games with DRM, but I'm alone in this hill. But that doesn't change anything about the fundamental notion that consumers (and competition) are the ones driving the market, not the companies. And it is definitely theft. Every time you take something that isn't yours without permission (or through deceit) and/or without giving it's requested value in return, you're stealing. In some cases it may be justified, but it's still theft.

[@flamingmanure]

@@skaruts silicon valley is not the games industry, sure the markets are related ofcourse, but working in one is not comparable with the other. there are plenty of articles and information you can find about the low wages, terrible working conditions and layoffs in the industry my dude.

[@skaruts]

@@flamingmanure the point was that wealthy companies pay better salaries...

[@aldavedario4818]

@@skaruts which don't reward employees. just the ones on top

[@difalaudza]

any thing from EA and Ubisoft are worth pirated

[@nikkal5642]

I would say Microsoft too but damn, i don't know what they own today.

[@Fdaikk]

​@@nikkal5642 aoe series is pretty ok to buy.

[@nikkal5642]

@@Fdaikk yeah, but i will buy them on sale cause of Microsoft :P

[@GabrielVilanova-n3p]

their shit isnt even worthy pirating, its a waste of time

[@DH-xw6jp]

My rebuttal. If buying it does not mean I own it, then pirating it does not mean I stole it. If you can buy a digital copy of a game only for a company/platform/whatever to decide "you know what, we don't want you to have that" and then pull it from your library (for whatever reason) without reimbursement, _why should anyone be expected to buy it?_

[@thatguybis1997]

I think this is why emulation and game preservation is important. It helps re-establish that if you own a copy of a game, whether it be digital or physical, then that is your game to play however you see fit, no matter what platform you’re on. If you do not buy the media and resort to piracy, you never owned it to begin with. You DID steal it. Yes, bad business practices exist but it doesn’t justify piracy.

[@DH-xw6jp]

@@thatguybis1997 even if you pay 70 bucks for a game in your digital library, you still don't own it. You are merely renting the license to play, and they can revoke it at any time they please. That doesn't sound like ownership to me. Why should people be accused of theft and piracy if they are simply trying to reclaim what they have already paid for?

[@sirgreedy88]

@@DH-xw6jp Because you agreed to that, it's in all the platforms TOS. Breaking that is theft.

[@ahmadfatihramadhani2441]

​@@DH-xw6jpOk i dont want to offend, i just want to know yorur response. So you release a great wallpaper, a must have drawing of glowing cats. You sold it for 50 dollar to copy and use it because its that good, i see it, i like it, and i download it without paying. Because i think if i pay i just buying permission to use it. So you think thats ok? So everyone can just download your drawing because buying doesnt mean owning your drawing? Or you have other opinion?

[@Ptr-ck7if]

@@DH-xw6jp good point, a commenter (@ryderwilson7955) on the video he is responding to said: "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 shiitty move they did."

[@lordlopes2424]

I had debated with a lot of people that makes any excuse to pirate games. I found some stuff. People that say that piracy is ok because most don't have money to buy games is lying,because they waste more money than a whole console with games just to do piracy. And I found how much toxic the piracy community is,2 emulators got shut down because the community harassed the devs behind those emulators,and they're ok with doxing people,like what happen with the recent Pokémon teraleak where workers got their information leaked online. A tip for people who find someone bootlicking piracy,there's no excuse for what they do,remember they do because they want to,and it's all to take advantage of everyone.

[@Ptr-ck7if]

welp this video was made for friendly debate so why not get debating, so: piracy probably doesnt really help the industry, but helps the consumer and isnt really morally wrong the whole denuvo thing is pretty obvious, its terribly optimized but one thing you did miss is it in fact does stop piracy for a lot of different games. only the most popular denuvo games are probably going to get cracked while the ones not as popular will probably not get cracked for a long while. viruses, you make a point that viruses are a big bad lurking on piracy websites, but all you need to do is find one that you know is safe and popular and use that site, still worried about viruses? VM (Virtual Machine) it. a virtual machine is basically running windows inside of windows, making it so most viruses cant escape. or, dont give it any permissions. most games wont need permission to edit your machine in the first place nor access to the internet even. even if you did get a virus all you'd need to do is re-install windows from a clean slate, i already do that about yearly anyway to remove clutter and bloatware. for the bit about if 10% of pirates purchased the game it wouldve doubled the revenue, his point that hes trying to make is that despite people pirating the game the studio was wildly successful with soaring profits. the part you also conveniently left out is saying if those numbers are accurate, and the entire thing beforehand about how data sets are inaccurate. we don't know if they're telling the truth or not about that. i guess you kind of say something at the end but that feels like a mere fraction of the time taking their reports at face value, and then later ignore it. drawing the line where piracy is immoral is pretty easy in fact, you probably shouldnt pirate indie devs because when you buy their piece of art, they get 100% of the profits. all of the profits goes to a small team of devs who put their work into their game. i say shouldnt because not everyone is fortunate to be in scenarios where they can spend money on games. some are in other countries, as you've said, but some people are just poor, everyone i know who pirates games does it out of a necessity and its hard to judge someone who does that. on top of that theres plenty of people who pirate games as to try them before they buy them. when you think pirate you shouldnt think of someone who doesnt have to worry about buying a game, because they will buy the game, no reason not to. for the thing about AAA game studios, yes, it is true that developers of AAA studios should be paid for all of their hard work, something you left out of this video is the part where he said even if you pay a company a ton of your money that doesnt mean the employees will be treated well or get paid well. i shouldnt call it one of my favorite animes but i dont watch that much anime, so, one of my favorite animes jujutsu kaisen has this issue. the people who work for the studio, MAPPA, are often commissioned for work at a rate where they're sometimes being paid pennies on the hour, with strict deadlines to boot. ironic you mention nintendo developers because Japanese work culture is actually horrific. if im paying to view a piece of art, but all of the artists have already been paid, and at the same time were also treated badly, why shouldnt i pirate it? seriously, the situation at MAPPA is genuinely horrific. some of the animators have said "im seriously deflated, nothing is fun anymore, i cant stand it" and other alarming messages that would need a trigger warning, i recommend looking into it if you have the time. you also didnt mention the part where Bobby Kotick left Activision Blizzard with a 400 million dollar severance, however you were very close to it. if i were to buy a game instead of pirating it whos to say my money would end up in the hands of someone who deserves it and not making a rich guy richer, or how about the higher ups at blizzard who turned out to be really bad people. thats like paying a charity that gives the founder 99% of profits but 1% goes to a kid in need, its not worth it. a company that makes more money doesnt mean that the developers will get paid well or will get better conditions. the part where the data about piracy is inconclusive and correlation doesnt equal causation, i dont think you got what he meant. he meant because theres lots of variables in an industry like this its hard to pinpoint which variable is causing what data set to change and it can cause a variety of conclusions. piracy as a protest, imo, is moral. you make a point about just "not buying the game and voting with your wallet". well, if im never going to purchase the game, and the developers who make the games are most likely never going to see my money, and the publishing company is just evil, then it shouldnt hurt anyone for me to pirate it. im not ganna buy it anyway so why should they care? thats basically it, all of my points still stand for illegal emulation and theres no reason for me to disagree with legal emulation, and ive already made my stance known about people in other countries who arent as lucky as you or me. right now in poland where my friend lives, everything is double the cost and the minimum wage is half. essentially shes paying 4x money when she shouldnt be. a nice little 5$ game meant to deliver on the 5$ pricetag (being short, sweet, but well made) is now 20$ to her, a 20$ indie game is now 80$ to her, and a AAA game is something that she simply cannot purchase no matter what. i try not to judge with piracy, because, you never know what situation someone is in or what their moral compass is when talking about something like this.

[@skaruts]

*_"piracy probably doesnt really help the industry, but helps the consumer and isnt really morally wrong"_* No, it doesn't help the consumer. Consumers never have it better when companies don't get their due value in return. The less they get, the less they can invest on quality or variety, and the more they have to invest in trying to prevent piracy or other less savory ways of making money. And the less they can pay their workers too. Yes, DRM does hurt the legitimate users indeed (anti-piracy always did), but that still doesn't mean piracy makes consumers better off. It may benefit consumers in the short run, but it won't in the long run. You may get a better experience without DRM, but the economy isn't improved when you steal. Much the opposite. If you buy the game and then play a pirated version for an improved experience, then in that case you're not hurting anyone. *_"still worried about viruses? VM (Virtual Machine) it."_* Most people don't have computers beefy enough to run AAA games in a VM. *_"his point that hes trying to make is that despite people pirating the game the studio was wildly successful with soaring profits."_* It just boils down to the notion that it's ok to steal from the rich. Which it's abysmally wrong. The rich are the ones that pay better salaries to the poor and the ones that have the bigger ability to invest in innovation and quality. To the extent that we steal from them, we're forcing those salaries down and hindering innovation and quality. Everybody always loses from theft. *_"drawing the line where piracy is immoral is pretty easy in fact, you probably shouldnt pirate indie devs because when you buy their piece of art, they get 100% of the profits."_* You're basically making the same argument as above. It's not ok to steal from the rich. Everybody loses either way. I don't like to argue about morality because the meaning is usually subjective, but if we agree that _"immoral"_ means _"harmful",_ then you're drawing the line in an objectively wrong place. It's always harmful to steal. It can be justified in some circumstances, but it still doesn't make it a good thing. It's never a good thing to push the economy down, even if slightly. It's only ever a good thing to not do that. If you really need to pirate a videogame or app, then do it. But you should always prefer to buy it if you can, or when you can, because that's the right (moral) thing to do. *_"something you left out of this video is the part where he said even if you pay a company a ton of your money that doesnt mean the employees will be treated well or get paid well."_* Workers aren't paid according to what you pay for the products. They're paid the market price for their service, or what the companies can afford to pay them. Wealthier companies always pay higher salaries. Just look at sillicon valley if you need evidence of that: developers have 6-figure salaries there. I don't think you understand how these things work. You sell your service at a price dictated by the market. Companies only have control over those prices to a small extent. If they underpay workers, they lose workers to their competition. If they overpay workers, they'll have less money to invest in quality, expansion, innovation, among other things. They have to play along with the market forces that dictate the threshold for prices, which are also dictated by supply and demand. *_"If im paying to view a piece of art, but all of the artists have already been paid, and at the same time were also treated badly, why shouldnt i pirate it?"_* Simply because it's not yours to take. If you take something that isn't yours without permission (or through deceit) and/or without giving in return its requested value, then you're stealing. Just because you think some workers were mistreated, doesn't give you the right to steal. And it still doesn't make stealing a good thing, either. And if you're not giving that company the value they're requesting for the product, then you're not helping their workers either. You're only contributing to pushing the company's finances down, exacerbating the problem. *_"he meant because theres lots of variables in an industry like this its hard to pinpoint which variable is causing what data set to change and it can cause a variety of conclusions."_* Dude that's exactly what _"correlation doesnt equal causation"_ means. The guy in this video did get the point. You didn't get his. *_"piracy as a protest, imo, is moral. you make a point about just "not buying the game and voting with your wallet"." No. Boycotting is moral, theft is still not. You vote with your wallet by not-buying-it, not by stealing it. Those are two completely different things. You can certainly still pirate the game and play it. But that's a completely separate thing you can do, and it's completely irrelevant to your protest. But then maybe a case could be made that it makes you a bit of a hypocrite. *_"if im never going to purchase the game, and the developers who make the games are most likely never going to see my money, and the publishing company is just evil, then it shouldnt hurt anyone for me to pirate it. im not ganna buy it anyway so why should they care?"_* Do you realize that the revenue from sales is what keeps their workers employed? Just because the company can withstand piracy, doesn't mean their workers can. Doesn't mean there won't be layoffs or lower salaries or less bonuses, etc, etc, as a result of reduced revenue. Theft always hurts people. Always. That's why it's never a good thing. It's never "moral". That the company is evil doesn't mean you should be evil yourself. And that the company is evil, is just your opinion. Most people crying about "corporate greed" don't understand what really is going on in these companies and what the actual problems are.

[@Ptr-ck7if]

@@skaruts poor people exist. they physically cant buy a lot of new games that come out. since steam made the change so other countries have to pay american prices some people literally cannot purchase like any games. what do you think of a thief? do you think of the immoral hiding in the shadows pickpocketing from good hard working people? because, from a thief, i dont see someone immoral who needs to be punished by society, but rather, a person who needs to steal out of necessity. therein it helps the consumer. it helps consumers that wouldve never gotten the chance to play the game have a fun time. you'd probably be hard pressed to find a rich man who pirates things. why pirate something when you could just buy it? a person doesnt just wake up one day and go "man, i sure am feeling a bit immoral today, maybe ill start stealing from people!", stealing implies a need to steal, remove the need to steal and there wont be any more thieves. you also mix up what companies goal's are. you see a company as a being that provides goods at a price and continues to offer better goods to the people to keep them coming back. however, a company's true intent is to make money. i see it as a amorphous being of which its sole intent is making as much money as possible, through moral and immoral ways, it doesnt care, as long as profits are up. "Wealthier companies always pay higher salaries" jujutsu kaisen is one of the most popular animes of our time, guiness book of world records names it the most popular anime, ahead of one piece. epicstream says jujutsu kaisen 0 (the movie prequel) is the 7th highest earning anime movie, and it hasnt stopped making them money. making so a far a whopping $185,824,427 USD and epicstream has said it might challenge the #1 most earning anime movie eventually.. that is already more money than you and me will ever see in our life times combined. despite this, like stated beforehand, artists for jujutsu kaisen sometimes make PENNIES ON THE HOUR while being forced to crunch to make deadlines. so, no, wealthier companies dont always pay well. and, even if they did, if i pay for jujutsu kaisen theres a better chance that my money is going to end up making the rich richer and not making the artists working on the show richer. "Most people don't have computers beefy enough to run AAA games in a VM" my other points still stand though, just stick to one trustworthy site and then if you do somehow get a virus, reinstall windows and youll start from a clean slate, no viruses at all. "No. Boycotting is moral, theft is still not. You vote with your wallet by not-buying-it, not by stealing it. Those are two completely different things." while, yes, it is separate from the protest if i pirate because of the protest then its moral. lets say toby fox, the creator of undertale, did some horrendous immoral things (he didnt, luckily) and i really hated him for it so i decide to boycott his games. at this point i have 2 options, i dont buy the game, and i miss out on the opportunity of playing a really good game, or, i pirate it. im already not giving him any money, so theres no physical loss of revenue, but i still get to experience the joy of playing an incredible game, and the person or company who would've gotten my money doesnt. theres no net loss of revenue (its not like im stealing a physical copy, its all code), im not giving a company i hate and oppose my money, yet at the same time i still get to be happy and play my game. win, win, win. "And that the company is evil, is just your opinion." ah yes, the stuff blizzard has done to women, some definitely unanswered and some of the employees who were compliant or participated in it still being there, all that stuff being evil is just my opinion. free to play game's entire monetization method being hooking wales (usually through gambling) to spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars and getting them addicted to it (mostly the gambling part) being evil is simply my opinion. ubisoft going down the rabit hole of making AAA SINGLE PLAYER games P2W is not evil or anti consumer. its as shrimple as that. while yes, a lot of it is up to discrepancy, some companies just do evil things with no signs of stopping, and im not giving them my money. also im horrendously sick while writing this, if i missed a point or read something wrong or im generally just stupid, please be patient, ill be better in a day or 2

[@skaruts]

@@Ptr-ck7if > *_"i dont see someone immoral who needs to be punished by society, but rather, a person who needs to steal out of necessity."_* Necessity can lead some people to steal food or a blanket, not videogames. And whether a punishment should be given is another issue entirely. Poverty isn't the cause of theft. Culture is. You can always ask someone to give you food in exchange for a service. My dad was born in abject poverty, and what he and his friends did was get jobs, not steal. My dad and many others had jobs at 10 years old, because their parents alone couldn't afford to put food on their table, and the alternative to get jobs was to starve, not to steal. That said, I did mention that piracy can be justified. I've done it myself. But that doesn't change anything. It's still theft, and it's still not a good thing. Even stealing when you're starving is still theft and still not a good thing. It's still something you should never do unless you really can't avoid it. > *_" person doesnt just wake up one day and go "maybe ill start stealing from people!","_* No, that does actually happen. I've seen it with my own eyes, and I can tell you that most theft in the world is actually from youngsters whose parents can afford to put food on their table, but who grew up in gang cultures that celebrate theft and other forms of crime. > *_"you see a company as a being that provides goods at a price and continues to offer better goods to the people to keep them coming back. however, a company's true intent is to make money."_* There's no contradiction in those ideas. They're the same thing. If you want to make money, you have to keep customers coming back by providing them with better prices or quality than your competitors do. > *_"i see it as a amorphous being of which its sole intent is making as much money as possible, through moral and immoral ways, it doesnt care, as long as profits are up."_* You confuse companies with people. A company isn't a monolithic being. It's an entity comprised of a whole bunch of people with different ideas. People are the ones that may do things that shouldn't be done. If a company enacts fraudulent practices, it's because the current people making decisions are inclined to enact fraudulent practices. And you're speaking as if all companies were the same, which is not true at all. *_"artists for jujutsu kaisen sometimes make PENNIES ON THE HOUR while being forced to crunch to make deadlines."_* I very much doubt they're being unfairly paid, and I'm not gonna take your word for it. I don't consume anime, and I have no idea about any of it, but I do know some economics, and nothing you're saying about that rings true. I would have to ask you many questions to clarify it in order to be able to say anything about it. However, even if it's true, it makes no difference. You're only cherry picking an exception, and exceptions don't make the rule. Wealthier companies still tend to pay higher salaries and there's bajillions of examples all around you. Fancy restaurants pay better wages, fancy hotels pay better wages, fancy tech companies pay better wages, etc, etc. This is a tendency that you can observe over time. Even if you can find a wealthy company that isn't paying wages as high as other wealthy companies, that doesn't mean they're not going to, eventually. Markets are constantly evolving. Things never stay as they are. *_"while, yes, it is separate from the protest if i pirate because of the protest then its moral."_* No, stealing is never "moral". You protest by not-buying. That's all that _"voting with your wallet"_ is about: buying or not buying. Everything else you do is unrelated to your protest. Just because they're evil doesn't mean you're entitled to something that isn't yours. The product still belongs to them and not you. It's still not yours to take. Stealing is still not good. If you really have to do it, then do it, but don't ever try to twist it into a "moral" thing, because it's still not. And again, if you're boycotting the game and then you still play it, it makes you a bit of a hypocrite. *_"ah yes, the stuff blizzard has done to women"_* I was talking in general, and those allegations have nothing to do with what we're talking about. People throw around notions of "corporate greed" as if it explains anything, but it doesn't. You have to look deeper to see why companies are doing what they're doing. And I'm not saying what they're doing is good. Please try to not interpret my words through preconceived notions. There's a huge disconnect between executives, developers and consumers in bigger corporations, because they simply are too big and manage communication terribly and their visions don't align. That's just one realistic example of why companies end up doing the things they do. *_"while yes, a lot of it is up to discrepancy, some companies just do evil things with no signs of stopping, and im not giving them my money."_* And that's exactly how you vote with your wallet, and it's exactly what I do too. I haven't bought a AAA game in over a decade, and I also haven't pirated any in about the same time. And I have yet to find the AAA game that makes me feel like I'm missing out.

[@Ptr-ck7if]

​@@skaruts ok so youtube apparently deletes my comment because i put links that back up my claims, so ill just make this short. by necessity to pirate video games i mean games are so expensive there is no other way for anyone to experience any video games without spending an insane amount of money, so they need to pirate to "Even stealing when you're starving is still theft and still not a good thing" im pretty sure the people who pirate need the money more than the company, as ive said they usually do it out of necessity. "but who grew up in gang cultures that celebrate theft and other forms of crime." last time i linked like 2 studies here. just look up "connection between crime and poverty" most agree theres a link between crime and poverty, lack of education, unemployment, and income inequality. just, look up link between poverty and crime. "If you want to make money, you have to keep customers coming back by providing them with better prices or quality than your competitors do." while, yes, that is *a* way game companies can make money, the other way is by psychologically manipulating people to get them addicted to the game by sunk cost fallacy, gambling, or other means. look up the video "Someone Made Pay 2 Win: The Game And Its Hilarious" and a website called darkpatterngames. they shed some light on the issue "I very much doubt they're being unfairly paid, and I'm not gonna take your word for it." this part is pretty dumb, like, just look it up. i provided like 5 examples but i probably shouldnt needed to. im obviously not impervious to bias so simply look all of this up yourself and form your own opinions based on what i said. just look up "MAPPA jujutsu kaisen animator interview" and "MAPPA situation" on youtube, youll most likely find videos by yiman for the interviews and other people for the more generalized version if you look up "MAPPA situation". "You're only cherry picking an exception, and exceptions don't make the rule" brother, this is the worst stance you could have taken when it comes to work culture in japan, *ESPECIALLY* anime work culture. just look up "bad animator work culture japan", youll find article after article some going as far back as 5 years ago and some made today about the horrendous conditions people in japan work under. most are underpaid and overworked, unpaid overtime is expected and death of overworking is a big issue in the country. ive heard that *one* source says the overall working conditions for some of the bigger companies has gotten slightly better, and the culture has been changing (albeit very slowly) around work in general, clearly not every big company is a saint that will treat their workers fair. again. MAPPA, or, any Japanese animation studio for that matter. one of the videos i found said animators should be asking for 10x the pay they get, on top of that theres the incredibly short deadlines that need to be met. this is the Japanese industry standard. MAPPA itself was made to combat said working conditions. oh how the moral have fallen. and so we've reached a standstill. ill just paste this section from a youtube comment on this very video because this sums it up very nicely (by DrMFoster7) "We're both well aware you're not going to change your stance on it because you do think it's stealing and this boils down to "Stealing is wrong, do not steal." we don't have to make up these "Think about the employees" rhetorics or try to play devil's advocate for triple A developers. The boardroom doesn't care if I can't afford a game, and we shouldn't care about these theoretical millions and millions of work hours people already got paid for to make the games." guess that wasnt short, but whatever.

[@skaruts]

@@Ptr-ck7if well there's cultural work problems in japan that go beyond just animators, so it doesn't seem like the problem is about greed. *_"last time i linked like 2 studies here. just look up "connection between crime and poverty" most agree theres a link between crime and poverty,"_* I've seen that before, and it's just correlations. They don't explain all the places in the world that were/are very poor and people in general were/are still not stealing from each other, as well as all the theft crime going on in the 1st world where thieves are not abjectly poor by any means. Keep in mind conmen, scammers and fraudsters are also thieves. Keep in mind that in our discussions you're effectively arguing that companies are enacting thieving practices (getting wealthier through deceit is a form of theft). Keep in mind government corruption involves many forms of thievery. In other words, tons of rich people steal too, which isn't accounted for in those correlations. *_" ill just paste this section from a youtube comment on this very video because this sums it up very nicely (by DrMFoster7)"_* Whatever his argument is supposed to mean... There's no circumstance where stealing is the right thing to do. There's only circumstances where stealing is the only thing you can do.

[@VictorGBarbosa]

There are some arguments that I would like to counter, but first I want to make my base clear: 1. From a milk carton to games, the products belong to their manufacturers. Piracy is illegal. There is no juggling that makes piracy legal. 2. Games are cultural products. In addition to entertaining, they educate the body (reflexes, logical reasoning, etc.) and socialize young people in groups. Games may be the first community that many of us have had in our lives. 3. Culture needs to enter the account as a right, as well as food and shelter. Now, my points about the video: 1. I don't bother to pay for products, as long as they deliver what they promise. Today, games are sold incomplete or broken, they receive patch updates with a very high interval and you end up paying for a product eternally in repair. When we bought physical media, at the beginning of the century, either your game was good or it was bad. I didn't have the easy way to say that it is being optimized. 2. Companies have started a new business model that includes launching a digital game without the physical media or that requires an internet connection to play. This happened to make piracy more difficult. Physical media was easier to pirate. This means that we no longer have the games. We bought licenses of use. And this type of model generates insecurity for the consumer who may lose access to something they paid dearly to get. Because nothing is really ours nowadays. It's all rented. 3. Not buying a product doesn't work. Voting with your money doesn't work. Companies are in a model in which a good product sustains its bad products. See the business model of EA Games or Riot Games! Very good franchises are being destroyed because there is no way to affect companies via money. Only consumer protection laws can force companies to deliver the products they promise. 4. About capitalism making it possible for games to exist, because its basis is the competition that generates innovation, I would like to point out that: capitalism requires capital concentration, which requires large companies to continue to grow infinitely. The concentration of small game companies in the hands of large companies today is absurd. Small game companies are crushed. So capitalism, in fact, can also suffocate competition. Because a company needs to grow so as not to die. And to grow she needs to play the market game. And who dictates the game of the market are the big companies. What can kill individuality and innovation. In conclusion: congratulations on the video. I disagree with some points and, in fact, I would prefer to go back to the era of buying physical games, even having to wait for the promotion. This ensured that bad products were murdered and companies were actually punished for their bad decisions (Oi, Sim City 2013!). Today, companies go unpunished by delivering broken products to anxious consumers.

[@giserson2]

The main good of piracy is preservation, something that IMO shouldn't even be a necessity in the first place, abandonware should be classified as such and distribution of unlicensed copies should be made legal. Also why the hell can't companies just sell roms/isos of their old games on their website? Like you could be making money off of people wanting to play your old games, but you make them turn to piracy instead? Anyway I don't think there's anything wrong with pirating a game if you can't buy a new copy, since buying a used copy is effectively the same thing as far as money going to the developer/publisher. Another case where I will turn to piracy is when I own a game already but can't access it on my platform of choice. More specifically I own a lot of games on steam that are best played on Windows XP, I have a PC set up specifically for this purpose, but I can't play my steam games on it because steam doesn't support Windows XP, so I have to resort to piracy to be able to play those games on that PC. I own the game, I have paid for it and if I have to pirate it to play it the way I want to then there's nothing wrong with that, but once again it's stupid that I have to. There is also one benefit of piracy to the developer/publisher, however it's only really relevant for middleware or indie games, and that's that it can act as a free demo for people who aren't willing to put down the money up front (of course refunds being a thing on steam nowadays does deminish that need), the people pirating the game can then spread the word about how good the game is leading to an increase in legitimate sales. That aside I generally agree that it's better to just not buy a game that implements terrible DRM or something else, or if you really like the game but want the better version of it, buy it and then pirate it and play the pirate copy. You've paid for the game so there shouldn't be a problem with playing a different copy of it, right? As for people being priced out I don't think it's good (morally) to resort to piracy, but I also don't think it's that bad, since the developer/publisher never would've gotten a sale out of them anyway, it's no money lost to them. I'd say it gets more questionable the more possible it is for someone to buy the game at some point, like if you live in a western country but you're really poor because you have a shit job and rent is high or you're a student or something. At that point just wait for a steep discount and save up some money for it, given enough time most games will be available for $5 after a few years unless they're call of duty or something so popular it retains its value for really long like The Witcher 3 or GTA V.

[@SLRModShop]

Look into the Carrigton event, you'll quickly realise that the current global state of game preservation is extremely close to 0% Everyone is saying that it helps preservation, it makes everyone feel better, literally no one bothered to check if it was true. One nasty coronal blast our way would literally wipe every hard drive on Earth in seconds. Most Microchips would be irremediably damaged. tbh, it's all a moot point because the day this happens again, we're going back 200 years in terms of technology and we'll have bigger fish to fry. But in the meantime, I'm not going to let people say fake sh!t like we're preserving games, no we're not lol we're just bypassing Ebay's ludicrous prices.

[@giserson2]

​@@SLRModShop While yes, at this point in time legal copies of most games are technically available in some form through second hand selling sites, it is also true that some games are not available at all, such as games that were made dependent on servers that are no longer online or games that were only released digitally, but have since been delisted. Then there's the slightly grayer area of games that are dependent on DRM that doesn't function on modern machines and cannot be reasonably emulated in any legal way, such as any game protected by early versions of StarForce DRM. Basically, if you want to play something like Trackmania United (not United Forever) and you don't have a PC running Windows XP you're shit out of luck. In this case in particular you're also completely dependent on being able to find a functioning old computer that has a valid Windows XP license key, as those are no longer being sold, meaning there's no way for you to legally install Windows XP on a machine you already own whether it's in a virtual machine or on bare metal. Copyright law makes it way more difficult, and given enough time impossible, to continue to play older games in a legal manner, carts, tapes and discs degrade over time, servers are shut down, DRM incompatibilities arise, at some point if everyone followed the law no one, or very nearly no one, would be able to play old games.

[@PvblivsAelivs]

The main goal of piracy is not preservation. The main goal of piracy is wanting something for free. I don't buy the argument that you are "preserving" a game that came out last week. I could accept an argument that copyright should be forfeited once something "goes back in the vault" or is abandoned (with an exception carved out for waiting until a small developer is forced to "abandon" a project.) But, for the most part, "preservation" is used as a distraction.

[@drmcnasty4300]

I don’t really get the point about voting with your wallet. You voted with your wallet the minute you refunded that game, whether or not you pirate it after that doesn’t matter. Either way, you’re electing not to pay them, why does it matter at that point if you play the game for free or not

[@SolarArkon]

Many of the points you make in this video don't quite work for various reasons: Denuvo: The main problem with Denuvo as you said is significant reduction in performance as a punishment for paying the price for the game while a cracked copy does not have this issue. It's completely justified for consumers to state the obvious issues with this system and decide that they don't way to pay for a worse product, this is especially true because Denuvo games typically get cracked in a month or so, for the majority of consumers waiting a month to receive a better product at a minimal price tag is the better option. The main points you made against denvo being the risk of pirating a game and the pirates not paying for the product are flawed due to reasons I will state within the other points Crytek: Contrary to your belief piracy has been shown to increase the revenue for multiple different types of media, this is because the majority of people who pirate a product had zero intention to purchase that product and after completing the game may purchase that product in order to compensate the developers. Saying that piracy directly affects sales relies on a false equivalency that people who pirate the game are people who would have otherwise purchased the game, however due to various reasons (accessibility, performance on lower powered machines (Denuvo), lack of excess funds or unwillingness to spend excess funds) the majority of people who pirate a product do so as they either cannot or do not want to pay for the product. This also does not include people who pirated a product and then purchased it at a later date, this is a surprisingly common thing for people to do as they do not want to purchase a game due to various legitimate reasons. This is most common for Indie games but I've seen this happen with AAA games as-well. As a personal example I at first pirated Doom Eternal as at the time I didn't have enough money to be comfortable dropping that much on an experience I may not have liked, in the end I bought Doom Eternal as the game warranted it's price-tag to me. I changed from a customer unwilling to purchase the game who would not have perhaps ever, into a customer that purchased it for full price due to piracy. The issue of Crytek's failure was likely less due to piracy but more due to a detail you skimmed over and that was 'a few failed projects'. In the game industry one failed project can topple an entire studio, the amount of funds (often from investors who seek compensation), time and resources that go into a project just to fail even in the early stages is astronomical. The fact Crytek even got multiple failed projects alone is impressive, many companies even of larger scale don't get that far. This is especially true for the time-frame of Crytek's collapse, with the push for new technologies and breaking new bounds each project a studio undertakes risks the business itself failing if that idea doesn't come to fruition. For example if a game like Baldurs Gate 3 failed, Larian studios would have been dead almost immediately. I think the lack of correlation between piracy and loss of sales, along with the major financial risk of video game development leading to multiple failed products leads to the conclusion of piracy being a main driving factor for the collapse of the company a weak argument in my opinion. In short if you flip your idea on it's head and instead of treating pirates as people who were going to purchase the product but instead into the more reasonable conclusion of them not going to purchase the product, the people who do pirate and then later decide to purchase the game are revenue the game otherwise would have made. This is why games that often have DRM inside often perform worse than games without (although that comparison is a difficult one to make due to the amount of factors, the crytek example illustrates this to some degree). Both of these ideas aren't fully accurate but I hope you can see that treating pirates as I have is more reasonable and market performance seems to agree. For the correlation argument, I personally sit in the middle here though against your side due to a few reasons. Mainly while piracy and sales are connected to some degree as these last paragraphs should hopefully show this isn't necessarily the case, along with this piracy and sales have so many different factors going into them especially within the music realm that saying they is a causation relationship is a big stretch and likely less causal than you may expect. Though obviously there is some amount of causation here the effect of which is impossibly hard to determine though. Capitalism: I'm not going to get into the major political arguments about capitalism, nor does this video really attempt to do that. I'm just going to bluntly say that assuming the purchased of a game (of which the money doesn't go to the development team but rather the company and/or shareholders and investors) leads to increased salaries and stability for the development team is not true and is the reason 'trickle down economics' isn't a viable economic strategy. As you showed companies making record profits only seek to make more profits and that leads to the layoffs of staff despite the company easily having the funds to keep that staff around. Companies are legally required under capitalism to persue infinite growth, nothing in that goal pertains to paying employees more or giving them more job security no matter if the company is wildly successful (Epic Games) or failing (Crytek). Finally no matter how well a game does, the developers of that game do not see an extra penny of that success, perhaps through some bonuses they may but because developers are salary workers they are legally required to get the amount they worked for no matter what. Piracy at the worst isn't stealing from developers but the company itself, it's CEO's and it's investors which isn't exactly a good thing but is different than 'stealing' from the people who worked on the game. Crash 4 / Vote with your money: I absolutely agree, 90% of this section you hit the nail on the head for me but I don't quite get how you manage to see this as a negative for piracy. You say yourself 'vote with your wallet' and in your crash 4 example you did. But what is wrong with piracy here? You decided to refund the game due to a bad decision I see no reason why you cannot pirate the game to play it if you wish and then if the developers resolve the issue or your internet gets fixed you can purchase the game again. To my knowledge Crash 4 is still an always online game on the PC platform and myself I purchased crash 4 and loved it and had no issues. But if you were to say do something alike what I did for Doom Eternal I see absolutely no issue and don't see a reason it could be an issue. Sure while you can't assume everyone who pirates will pay for the game at a later date they don't have to, and as I stated previously it's also wrong to assume that people who pirate the game were paying customers in the first place. Emulation: This will be a short section because I agree, emulation is great. The only main thing is the ToTK argument which is less a problem with emulation and more a problem with the fact the got leaked early. While perhaps Yuzu should have not allowed the game to be played early and I do agree with that, they have paid the price for their mistake. Regional Pricing: I think your point here might be the one I disagree with the most. I think the fact that come companies are priced out of a game entirely is absolutely horrid and is not worth the slight benefit steam gets from making this change. To combat the issues of people buying keys for cheaper prices steam should have combated the issue more directly, it wouldn't have been easy or easy to stop entirely but it doesn't mean many countries and people don't have the inability to even play the most basic of games and are forced into piracy, nobody should be forced into piracy. Time and time again it's shown that regional pricing is a great way to reduce piracy and often make far more back than any losses from people who want to get a game slightly cheaper due to the sheer amount of people who are now capable of buying your product, for instance an indie developer who reduced the price of their game in Brazil now has that region make up 60% of their revenue. People trying to make a quick buck selling cheaper keys don't make as much of an impact and the solution to these people should be on steams hands, and absolutely not be forced on the customers in other countries. To conclude I want to say I'm not a prolific pirate, the reason I used the Doom Eternal example so much is because there isn't really another example of me pirating a game in recent memory. I am fortunately blessed to be in a decent financial situation and my interests more align with indie titles more than AAA games. The only time I would personally pirate is for a AAA game I am unsure I want to spend $100 on, or a game that as you said I want to 'vote with my money' as regardless of my financial situation, I don't feel comfortable spending upwards of $130 on a game I don't even know I want to experience or don't want to pay for due to their shady business practices. Wherever that line is depends on the person and their situation, and I believe that piracy is a good thing when it comes to that regard. I believe the idea of voting with your money is one of the best things you can do, and perhaps don't see the argument that pirating a game differs from that ideal much. Good video, but I hope this wall of text somehow manages to bring some more discussion on the issue and see the idea in a different light perhaps. If you manage to read this, thank you and have a good day :D

[@skaruts]

*_"Finally no matter how well a game does, the developers of that game do not see an extra penny of that success, perhaps through some bonuses they may but because developers are salary workers they are legally required to get the amount they worked for no matter what. Piracy at the worst isn't stealing from developers but the company itself, it's CEO's and it's investors which isn't exactly a good thing but is different than 'stealing' from the people who worked on the game."_* Sorry, but that's just completely wrong. You're neglecting to realize that developers don't stop being paid their salary when the game is published. The company keeps them employed for as long as it can afford to keep them employed. When you purchase their product, you're contributing to the longevity of their contracts. If the company's finances take a hit, then so do the developers. Piracy is stealing from the people who worked on the game, because you're stealing from those who pay their salaries. And the better the game does, the better the company's finances will do, and the higher the likelihood that they are able to hire more workers and/or pay higher salaries. If you don't think wealthier companies pay higher salaries, then look at the 6-figure salaries in Sillicon Valley for proof. Or look at the salaries from waiters in fancy restaurants. Wealthier companies pay better salaries because they're competing for workers against other wealthy companies. It's not ok to steal from the rich. The rich are the ones paying better salaries, and the ones more able to invest in quality and innovation. Everyone always loses from theft, regardless of who you're stealing from. *_"To combat the issues of people buying keys for cheaper prices steam should have combated the issue more directly, it wouldn't have been easy or easy to stop entirely but it doesn't mean many countries and people don't have the inability to even play the most basic of games and are forced into piracy"_* That would very likely end up pushing Steam fees up, because their efforts have costs and they were losing money from those scams on top of that. Things of that nature are always a never ending cat & mouse chase. They want to keep their fees at 30%, and they don't want to fight unwinnable battles, so they have to make compromises. They're already fighting an unwinnable battle against cheaters... Also, no person ever is "forced into piracy." That's not a thing. You don't die or get lower living standards for not playing a AAA videogame. You can always play f2p games or cheap indie games. And you don't even get lower quality games when doing that.

[@SolarArkon]

​@@skaruts Firstly, I appreciate the reply. It's a good thing to defend your arguments from criticism and appreciate your willingness to critique my arguments. However your first point hinges on a false equivalency, while sure wealthier companies do pay higher wages, this does not mean that a company doing well means that employees with get raises. This has never been the case, especially because the employees who get higher salaries at these companies aren't getting that much pay because of the company they work for, but because their skills and experience are valuable enough that a company has to compete for them. If what you are saying is the case and more successful companies pay higher wages, then employees at successful companies such as Amazon wouldn't pay their basic employees minimum wage, or companies such as google who have rigorous job interviews to only hire very capable candidates wouldn't pay decent or just above average pay to their lower grade workers. The 'rich' only pay as much as they need to, additional profits only go to investors or their bottom line and dips in profits cannot legally take away wages from the contracts of workers, or from the longevity of their contract. The only exception to this is being fired, which you are correct in saying happens due to a studios financial failure and in a select few cases piracy may have been a minor contributing factor. However, my arguments before about piracy and profits along with current trends in the industry point to piracy not being the problem but poor economic management and capitalistic greed. For instance, it's become scarily common recently for companies to fire large sections of their employees however the connection to piracy from these is nonexistent at worse and very tenuous at best. The companies who are firing large amounts of their staff (Epic Games, Bungie etc) run live service, free to play games. As the majority of their income and yet the fire employees working on those projects. Not to mention that this trend of firing has been shared by many other companies that don't have nearly as many issues with piracy (such as WoTC who actively support piracy of their MTG products as long as they are not sold or used in official events). Looking at the companies who are failing in the modern and previous gaming industry landscape, it becomes clear that piracy is often not a major factor in their decline, but issues with management, poor development, poor management from larger studios, failed projects prove to be more consistent in failing studios regardless if they have had issues with piracy. I never argued that Piracy has zero effect on a company, or that it wasn't stealing, or that taking money from the rich is inherently a good thing but I find the argument that piracy is a major reason studios fail, and hence affects the workers at these companies negatively to be a very hard argument to defend because all the evidence points to other, more damning failures. Secondly, I will concede that my point here was more to do with the morally correct thing to do than pure profit greed. The key issue should in no way affect the people in poorer countries forcing them to pay exorbitant prices for games because a few people wanted something $5 cheaper. However you are right that it's a losing battle and steam clearly is willing to put on poorer countries rather than fight itself despite steams ludicrous income. My arguments here more served to prove that regional pricing is a beneficial thing and a major way to decrease piracy, in countries that often have a major piracy problem. Steam would realistically not need to increase their take in order to combat this issue and even if a minor increase in price is required, I still think that is the correct thing to do from a moral and piracy perspective as the prices in poorer countries would still be significantly lower, hence piracy would be significantly lower, increasing revenue for developers. Steam would lose a minor amount of their profits and even a few cents increase in a western market to combat this would cause outrage so steam likely will never do this. As for the 'forced into piracy' I wasn't implying that people are forced to play AAA products, but that if they want to play AAA products which many people want to do over indie titles (hence why the AAA industry is a thing) they would have no choice but to pirate the game as their economic situation would leave no other option. This is what I meant by 'forced into piracy'. When the only three options present to you are: Don't play this game you really want to, or pirate this game, or purchase the game despite the major economic issues it would put on your life the choice to pirate is less of an issue of economics than it is an issue of your willingness to play a title.

[@skaruts]

@@SolarArkon I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Things of course don't change overnight. I never said the employees would get a raise just because the company sold a game. I said it raises the likelihood that it happens, as the company's finances improve. You're contradicting yourself when you say *_"while sure wealthier companies do pay higher wages, this does not mean that a company doing well means that employees with get raises."_* Over time, as their finances improve, so do their workers' wages. If that wasn't true there would be no wealthy companies paying better wages. In general, if government or wars aren't getting in the way, wages tend to go up over time due to competition and worker choices. And if that wasn't true there would be no wages above minimum wage. At the same time, you have to keep in mind that all of this is dictated by supply and demand. If there are too many people offering to work for certain Amazon jobs, then naturally the price of their labor is going to drop. This is not something the company has any control over. And this doesn't change anything about the tendency for wages to go up over time. *_"The 'rich' only pay as much as they need to"_* That's true of everyone, not just the rich. It's called being economic about it. You don't want to waste resources. It's not about greed, it's about not being stupid. Your survival is on the line. And no one else has anything to gain from someone wasting resources. Being generous to someone is one thing, but wasting money is a completely different thing. Most of what you're arguing about is irrelevant to my points. My point was about the fact that piracy does hurt the workers. If the company isn't getting the revenue that it ought to be getting, then the workers can only be worse off. They can earn less, they can get laid off, planned wage raises may get canceled, etc, etc. The company can choose to do a lot of things to offset the losses, and some of them affect the workers. Mass layoffs are irrelevant here. That's not what I'm talking about. If 10 or 20 layoffs are enough to offset the losses, you won't see that on the news, but it still happened, and it's still workers getting hurt by losses. And if you pirated their game, then you contributed to that. My point is that you cannot possibly be neutral to the workers when you're pirating a game. You can only possibly be contributing to get them worse off. There's no such thing as hurting the company but not the workers. *_"The key issue should in no way affect the people in poorer countries forcing them to pay exorbitant prices for games because a few people wanted something $5 cheaper. (...) However you are right that it's a losing battle and steam clearly is willing to put on poorer countries rather than fight itself despite steams ludicrous income."_* You clearly don't understand why things are the way they are, and you don't seem interested. You've already made up your mind. Clearly steam was interested in getting more customers, but couldn't find a viable way. But in your mind you always have to try to twist it into some evil greedy decision. You know what happens when a company can't withstand the costs? It goes bankrupt, and consumers lose the availability of their product. The reason Steam isn't solving that problem is because there's no viable way. Companies cannot be suicidal about solving problems. No one has anything to gain from that. You don't seem to realize how expensive investments like these can get, when you're talking like they could easily just throw money at the problem. They already tried that. There's a reason they stopped, and it's not greed.

[@PvblivsAelivs]

"the majority of people who pirate a product had zero intention to purchase that product and after completing the game may purchase that product in order to compensate the developers." Yeah, that doesn't pass the smell test. They had no intention of paying. They were going to get what they wanted without paying. They got what they wanted without paying. They are not going to pay. You can tell me shoplifting increases store profits until the cows come home and you are blue in the face. I don't believe it. And, if you don't provide a plausible mechanism for it to work, I can't believe it. "Saying that piracy directly affects sales relies on a false equivalency that people who pirate the game are people who would have otherwise purchased the game" Some people who pirate a game would otherwise have done without. Others would have bought it. While we don't know how many fall into each group, piracy can only negatively affect sales. "The 'rich' only pay as much as they need to" This is pretty much true of everyone. The "need" can be based on many things, including salving one's conscience. This is why you see so many arguments for piracy center around the idea that the companies don't "deserve" the money.

[@itshunni8346]

@@skaruts You have a fundamental misunderstanding of why salaries are set where they are and why large companies pay higher salaries (hint, they mostly don't). Salaries are set by something called "Labour Market Forces" that put pressure in different places. A company doing better does not mean in increase in salaries nor does it mean a raise for its technical staff (in this case developers). A company losing revenue also does not mean less raises or lower salaries because the market forces that determine that do not come from a singular company. Corporations have a process for cutting costs, which depends on what they're spending on. Labour could be first or last, in most game companies it is lower labour that gets cut fast in lean periods. Here is an example of why silicon valley technical workers and high level developers at major companies get high pay and bonuses in the form of a question: If every other company will pay you 120,000 dollars for your 15 years of experience, history of good projects, and skill in many different systems, would you accept 110,000 from your current employer? the answer for most is fuck no, they'll leave. this is because there are less highly skilled developers than there is job opening for them, so they can pick and choose. The supply is low, and the demand is high creating a labour market where high salaries are needed to keep your scarce professionals from leaving. this is not the case in lower level development where these major companies DO NOT pay higher salaries than anyone else regardless of financial performance because there is NO reason to. Why should they? To decrease their own profits? That's not how being a company works. These lower level professionals are in greater supply then there is demand, creating an labour market where there is downward pressure on wages and labour will compete for lower salaries due to job scarcity. When a worker can be easily replaced with an equally skilled worker who costs less, there is not real reason to give them a raise or high salary. An individual company should it have market dominance can effectively raise wages, but there are no companies large enough to do so in the gaming market. TL:DR Supply and Demand drive salaries, not financial performance. a silicon valley tech guy will make 6 figure salary regardless of how much their company profits because that's what is needed to keep that employee.

[@Sus_Bak]

Let me tell you why Piracy is good in my perspective: In our country, especially in rural areas people are very unaware of the concept of Games and Gaming, they see it as a total waste of time and not something even worth speaking about therefore they won't spend a even $5 for something they don't find valuable for their kids... Thus most people commit to piracy once in their life so they can enjoy their content...

[@PvblivsAelivs]

"I don't find it valuable. But I want it so much I am willing to take it without paying." No, you do find it valuable. You just want to deny payment to the company that made it.

[@Sus_Bak]

@@PvblivsAelivs I am talking about the Parents dumbass, because if I had the money why wouldn't I pay for the game. In our country not every child gets Pocket Money so we are totally dependent upon our Parents ways...

[@ProjectionProjects2.7182]

Why dose this video have over 200+ dislikes? This is literally one of the best takes on this topic I have ever heard. Especially the part were you talk about emulation. I agree with you on the idea that in the case of older games being made more accessible piracy is unfortunately a necessary evil and emulation is a good thing when it comes to preserving the functionality of the hardware thats being emulated..

[@mageguest]

And then you remember that: 1-Denuvo makes a worst performance, people that can pay for games dont care about performance because they already got the money for a good PC, but people who pirate games dont. 2-Am not paying 50$ for a game, am not wasting a whole salary for just 12 hours of fun, am not causing any loss to the developers if am not gonna buy it anyway. 3-Piracy in my country is like a culture, even 5 year old kids in here know how to do it.

[@lastround2357]

if that 10% of pirates bought the game, yeah well not all pirates gonna magically change their minds and buy a game when they're not being cracked. just look at the sales of recent games that are not being cracked yet. they may have good sales but not as big as you would think if ppl couldn't pirate it. PS pirating nowadays takes place on consoles more than PC.

[@thatguybis1997]

Sure but that’s why if even 1% changed their mind it would be an insane amount of revenue. Not all of them need to change their mind for there to be a difference. I don’t know if that last part is true, I’d have to fact check you tbh.

[@lastround2357]

@@thatguybis1997 i would say in 90% of the cases, once a pirate, always a pirate. bc imo no one's gonna give devs the one month worth of their savings! maybe it's just me but the idea of first world countries pirating a game is bizarre to me. unless they want to try the game to see if they'll like it which also fine from how i see it. about console pirates, go fact check it, until then, i bet you 50 bucks that it's true ok? lol. denuvo is completely useless today bc first, it only "protects" PC ports and second, unless the game is an PC exclusive like warhammer 3 then it's not really doing a whole lot mate. accounts are being hacked and being sold on unofficial sites and being played offline and nobody's got a freaking clue! Lol

[@J.Crime123]

​@@thatguybis1997 so that the multi million/billion company has more to show to their shareholders. The Developer sees nothing of it. And that doesn't even save their jobs as we saw when Blizzard had a record profit year but fired 800 employees ontop of that a couple of years ago. So i will never feel bad that the bobby koticks of this world don't have more money in their Account.

[@PvblivsAelivs]

"well not all pirates gonna magically change their minds and buy a game when they're not being cracked." That 10 percent is a guess as to how many pirates buy the game when the only other option is doing without.

[@JKSmith-qs2ii]

I think a lot of the points raised in your video can be argued against by saying that a pirate was never going to buy the game. Aka if you say IF pirates bought Crysis 1 then they would have doubled their revenue then that argument seems moot if you consider they were never ever going to buy it anyway, meaning that IF situation was never going to happen. Which would mean they never “lost” any money. I know I have never bought a game I ended up pirating. And there’s plenty of games I refuse to buy but if they are cracked I’m willing to try, but then paying afterwards seems useless. Just my own anecdote of course. Lastly I think anyone that sees games as more than just a time waster but more of something like an art form should have a stance on cracking games as a net positive because I do not trust companies at all with doing it themselves. Good vid!

[@Slade0]

Most people who pirate video games do because they can't afford the games, this is why piracy is way more popular outside the US, Gamers can't pay or they don't find it reasonable paying 70$ or 60$ for a game that might not be in a stable state or that will have DLC that will add 10$ or 20$ to the price, Considering most people who play video games are teens with no salary they will pirate the game. It also could be due to the convenience of it or because they don't want to pay for video games or they don't want to support the companys or because they can't buy them. I have 3T worth of games if i were to buy all of them I will be a broke bi*ch

[@thatguybis1997]

Here's the thing though. Do you really need all those games on your drive? I really doubt you actually play most of them, maybe one or two at the most. Why not just spend the $70 or $60 on those two games you actually play and enjoy?

[@Slade0]

@@thatguybis1997 If I'm honest it's because I don't want to pay, I know I am not entitled to the developers hard work, I know piracy is not Justified, I you know its thievery, I just don't really care. And I switch between three games a week, randomly I should add. The points in your video are spot on though.

[@mackos007]

@@thatguybis1997 With that comment you showed us how removed from reality you are. 70 euro for a game that's 12h long, and the buy another and another. Americancentrism at it's best

[@daviddegea3373]

​@@thatguybis1997come back to the 2020s. Have you even played the games that's getting released in the current Era?

[@mageguest]

@@thatguybis1997 70$ Is like a whole salary on here, am not eating for oen month for only a game

[@MAJ0R_TOM]

1. In terms of pure self-interest as the user, it would be foolish to ever spend money on something that you literally don't need to in order to obtain it. This is the first and only reason anyone should ever need to pirate software online and on one needs a rationale any deeper than this. 2. But to be comprehensive, I don't respect IP copyright, nor should anyone who's interested in creative works of any medium. It's an arbitrary restriction to creativity and purchases serve as a barrier to the spread of both art and information, which I say is unethical in any civilization which claims to value either. 3. You might say producers are entitled to revenue for their work. I would point to the numerous examples in gaming alone where developers rewarded their success with good faith acts by empowering the users to create their own content, such as John Carmack releasing the source codes for both Doom II and Quake onto the internet and Looking Glass Studios releasing their own level editor for the Thief series in Thief Gold and Thief II, which is still included with purchases of both games even today. Users have taken these to fulfill unrealized potential with these games, contributing decades-worth of content almost entirely for free themselves in the process. Someone sympathetic to the hacker ethic, like John Carmack, would argue that real progress is only made when people are allowed to build on each other's work, which nowadays will largely occur through the sharing of open-source projects through the internet. It's here where again it becomes unethical to restrict this progress in a civilized society.

[@MA-go7ee]

99.99% of pirates just want free games and are not building on anything. As for not respecting copyright, we'll, that's what's Denuvo is for I guess. Companies won't just stand by and let Internet blowhards steal their products they probably spent hundreds of millions to make.

[@PvblivsAelivs]

" I don't respect IP copyright, nor should anyone who's interested in creative works of any medium" Tell me you don't want to do anything creative without telling me you don't want to do anything creative.

[@jamesbevan4479]

15:47 its the only kind of piracy i partake in. Current or last gen i legit buy my games, but the old stuff like 8bit-32bit and arcade era... 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️ Good video, valid points 👍

[@thatguybis1997]

Yeah, emulation and game preservation is certainly important, not to mention completely legal. It’s how I play most of my games.

[@ZeroFPV]

Fun fact! The ad you show on the start pirated it's music. 4:38 Not much of an argument. Sony delivered their Music CD's with Rootkits back in the day. So you never know... 22:05 Piracy of new games when you don't like spending the money is not OK but when you don't like to pay high prices for used games, piracy is OK? You're contradicting yourself.

[@thatguybis1997]

There’s a difference between buying games at triple the retail price who’s money isn’t even going to the devs, And pirating modern games that are priced at retail who’s money would be in support of the devs. Piracy isn’t black and white. If I weren’t able to come at it from both angles, this would have been a terrible video.

[@ZeroFPV]

@@thatguybis1997 Well... that's how capitalism works. The more scarce a product is the higher the price. You also won't steal an expensive vintage car because the factory workers won't get something out of it. They got paid for it. Someone kept and maintained it for a very long time. Why doesn't that someone earn a compensation for it?

[@roiledred]

Games are more often requiring internet access or even being online-only games recently to circumvent piracy. From my understanding, cracked copies of games basically can't access official servers. My friend who pirates knows more details on that. It's the most widely effective anti-piracy measure outside of a few niche things I've seen. Good service and good performance (non-Denuvo) incentivize purchases from otherwise would-be piraters though, like my friend and I who support even AAA games on principle despite having free reign on trusted, safe piracy websites. No really, they're a tight-knit community out there. Piracy is just another kind of wallet voting IMO. If piracy exists, how do offline games make any money? They do because good games get bought and supported, even by pirates and sometimes even in excess with brand loyalty.

[@ilijaantic272]

Where I come from, piracy is illegal but not engorced at all. So 99% of people IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY just pirate games and programs. I learned how to crack games when I was 11. It's all because it's a third world country and it's relatively poor and paying for games is frowned upon because 'why would you pay for somthing you can get for free??'. And people just don't care about buying games, $30 is too much 'for some game on the internet' and people don't wand and most of the time don't have that money for a game. I buy my games when I want to support the developers. If I know they are a multimillionaire AAA company that won't benefit from my $30 and it will just go to their bank and sit there. Why would I give it to them. If it's an independant developer that works on the game I like that works alone or in a small team, I will support so they can make more of it.

[@KingPingviini]

Multimillionaire AAA company do not mean the workers there are multimillionaires.

[@ambientNexus]

​@@KingPingviini Workers aren't paid commission for how many sales a game makes. They're paid salaries.

[@Modenut]

The crux of this problem is that innocuous word "potential". Crysis lost "potential" revenue. I have no issue with pirates, I've done my fair share god knows, and I certainly have no beef with developers and publishers moaning about it. But it seems hard to me to get past the fact that they are arguing on what *might* have happened. You know? Yeah, they *might* have sold but then again - they might not. And taking archaic stances and implementing shit like Denuvo will also cost sales. Mine if nothing else. I have totally given up on PC gaming for all the fucking DRM and I refuse to buy games that rely on online services to function when the main part of it is single player. How much "potential" revenue is lost to that when you add it up? Also - what's the difference between piracy and voting with your wallet? Anyway, great video man. Rant over. :D

[@thatguybis1997]

Yeah, the DRM is shitty. That was a hard one to debate. I guess the difference between piracy and voting with your wallet is that one of them, to me, is morally right and one of them is morally wrong. I feel like by voting with your wallet, you show you’re not even willing to play their game, even if it were free. I think it forces devs to really look into how to improve if they want to get us truly invested in their product, which so many modern games fail to do these days. Thanks for the comment, was an interesting viewpoint!

[@Modenut]

@@thatguybis1997 Fair enough - morals is another fairly nebulous concept lol. I know what you mean, though. :)

[@skaruts]

*_"what's the difference between piracy and voting with your wallet?"_* Voting with your wallet is just buying or not buying a product. Piracy is stealing the product. You can vote with your wallet without stealing. And you can also protest by boycotting (which is basically not-buying and being loud about it). You can certainly pirate it so you can play it, but that's a completely separate thing to do, and it's completely irrelevant to your vote or protest. And I think a case could be made that it makes you a bit of a hypocrite. (I've been guilty of that a few times.) In case you're having doubts about whether piracy is really theft, think about this: any time you take something that isn't yours without permission (or through deceit), and/or without giving in return the requested value, you're stealing. That's what theft is. That's what piracy is. That's not to say it can't be justified in some circumstances. But it's still always theft, and it's still never a good thing.

[@RareScrap]

Didn't watch it. Was too busy seeding my torrents 😎

[@thatguybis1997]

Lol this was funny ngl. You’re free to do whatever you want, these are just my thoughts on the subject.

[@neoderidder7734]

I do find your video well made but your arguments feel bourgeois, and its obviously a very pro company POV. "If you cant afford it just dont buy it peasant, you should only survive, entertainment is for the rich", thats how this video feels. Pirating games isn't people being too greedy or lazy to pay for it, it's a necessity due the price of the games. I mean you have sony charging more in the UK and Europe than even the US, and those are games that are already heavily overvalued at 70-80Usd. You mentioned voting with my wallet, which i do by torrenting it. I cant afford the game due to them pricing it to greedy amounts, so i torrent them. Thats why i do pay for indie games and many others do, they're good games that are fairly priced on a level that I can pay for the art. And you mention the whole steam pricing change which i heavily was against. Of course there were bad actors but that was less than the actual consumers of the country who couldn't afford it, and steam just screwed themselves and companies over by making the only option torrenting. The only reason i torrent is because greedy companies that do not pay their devs fairly (not because they can't, it's because they don't want to pay more than is necessary) charge unrealistic prices for products that the average person in a foreign country would not be able to afford, and which is for me unaffordable. Again, its not the problem of torrenting, its the problem of the festering greed that is way more prevalent in the triple A industry than before. And companies thinking that torrenting is a sign of intentional malice instead of people who cant afford their 1mil dollar game, which they intentionally overprice because every other cashgrab is also overpiced. And taking a ceo as an example of paying people fairly is wild because i know for sure that hes collecting his paychecks while most of his employees havent had a raise in ages.

[@thatguybis1997]

It definitely is very pro company I have to agree. But I wanted to take such a drastic stance, because I think WAY too many people are "anti-company". Here's the thing. You make it sound like gaming is a necessity. It's not. It never has been, and it never will be. And I'm absolutely saying if you can't afford it, don't buy it. Because it's not necessary for you to. There are so many other games out there that are affordably priced that are just as good as the newest release out there. But people just want to consume consume consume the newest media and utilize piracy as a way to do that for free. I don't think that's right. If it's overpriced, then don't buy it. This is how things change and how you vote with your wallet.

[@neoderidder7734]

@@thatguybis1997 People aren’t anti company, they’re just anti triple A. I’ll gladly pay for indie games because they’re actually worth the money. But nowadays, games like Pokémon and COD have just gone down in quality while prices keep going up. I literally got softlocked in Arceus because of a glitch that was the last Pokémon game I bought legitimately. Sure, gaming isn’t essential for survival, I agree, but that logic applies to so much of what we value, like books, music, and anything that’s not just basic survival. Culture and knowledge shouldn’t be available only to those who can afford it, that’s why libraries are so valuable for everyone, even if they’re not “necessary” to live. It’s like you think survival is all that matters, but people need joy and entertainment to really live. I torrent games because I want to stay connected to current culture and media, and honestly, the games don’t lose anything from it. I wouldn’t have paid for them anyway, even if torrents didn’t exist. Companies act like torrents are lost sales, but they’re really not, most people torrenting just aren’t willing or able to pay for these games. I totally get the argument to ‘vote with your wallet,’ and I do that with games that deserve my money. But if Triple A studios keep hiking prices and delivering low quality games, they’re ignoring that a lot of people will simply seek other ways to access what they can’t afford or don’t feel is worth it.

[@wilalwunn]

I've never pirated any games on PC only on Android I've been pirating almost for 4 years straight and I got no virus for pirating relic games that has been forgotten or abandoned because of 2016 32-bit shut down and plus the other malfunctioning games for modern devices and Plus for example GTA SA Android 1 star reviewers is probably the iPhone users paying for the game while that one Indian kid is hiding at the corner laughing completely with a modern device in a hacked APK that fixes the problem while using Cleo mods and plus I've been using numerous and numerous mods and numerous apks of hidden gems and I didn't get any virus by pirating telltale hidden gems. Including Guardians of the Galaxy and Game of Thrones telltale version and got no virus so I've never seen PC piracy but I can definitely tell you that Android piracy is actually pretty underrated and relic like and misunderstood

[@aDudebro]

Came from the Dark Souls video, while the title here was something I was immediately weary of, I tried to go into this with an open mind. Unfortunately, I don't think a single argument here really landed for me. I don't really care if piracy is or isn't classified as "theft" as what the law says on the matter seems irrelevant on if it's good/bad, companies "losing" potential sales because of it doesn't really bother me as such purchases were never guaranteed anyways (and even if they were, there is a guarantee the workers who made the game wouldn't get a penny of it), the capitalism bit just kinda made me laugh about the logic on display here and made me more so question your motive, and the whole spiel about "voting with your dollar" just had me roll my eyes, as if pirating and doing that are at all mutually exclusive. I think this video has had the opposite effect in fact, I feel like my beliefs regarding piracy have only been reaffirmed. Regardless, thank you for the food for thought.

[@Sagadali523]

If you think piracy isn't as good as in your opinion, how do you think you can buy game pass when the price itself increases very much? 😂

[@thatguybis1997]

Because Microsoft works out a deal with the companies that allow their games to be on game pass. All completely legal stuff and honestly, makes it so that there’s really no excuse for piracy at this point. Game Pass is extremely affordable.

[@Sagadali523]

@@thatguybis1997 "affordable"? Yeah fun fact, my family doesn't have much money for us to buy a game pass, so I'm guessing piracy is my way through. Its some games going way much expensive so that's why

[@WorlWyrm]

@@thatguybis1997 The fact that there is pirating in that regard just means that the service provided just isn't enough to change the majority's mind.

[@tomobata]

While this is not a counter argument, piracy is necessary for preservation. Simply put, the only way to enjoy games like Warframe, or other terminally online games, is for hackers to hack the game to make it playable offline/single-player. This is piracy, but it is also the only way to play the game when the servers eventually go down. That's all.

[@thatguybis1997]

I’m all for preservation and I think what you’re saying is true.

[@alec7568]

I've always hated game piracy, until I tried to play the old assassin's creed games, bought the first 8 legitimately from steam, only to realise I'd been sold a horrid mess. Every single game needed hours of work just to get running somewhat properly. I had to mod Ubisoft's launcher on to the second game because the steam version that I paid for was bundled with an outdated launcher. After a while I got fed up, refunded the games I had yet to play and pirated them instead. Guess what? The games worked perfectly. You can tell me I'm bad for pirating a game that the creator has terrible support for, and I'm free to disagree.

[@mohammedmahfuri1078]

Oh man this feels like a child throwing a tantrum blown over to it's absolute limit without popping up a vessel. The pro capitalism rant, the big companies bootlicking & the absurd delusions of pro consumer copy-prevention software, i half-way expected you to go off on a rant about how cool crypto is and how badass ayn rand is.

[@thatguybis1997]

This feels like someone who wants to hear that their piracy is justified. If you wanna pirate, do it. But don't turn around and make excuses when you do.

[@mohammedmahfuri1078]

@@thatguybis1997 If i want to pirate i don't need to justify it. All the "if buying isn't owning...." BS is meaningless. And harping about the developers is just as meaningless, they're more overworked than japanese animators and almost as poorly paid. And in 2023 alone around 16000 game developer were laid off, so they're not exactly reaping the financial benefits of the games they're developing. I'm not sure which one of us is desperately trying to justify his worldview and push it onto others. I'm not the one who made a 10 min video defending a fucking 200 billion dollar industry as if it's a helpless orphan in a war-torn country.

[@KenTWOu]

@@mohammedmahfuri1078 > they're not exactly reaping the financial benefits of the games they're developing. What financial benefits? The market is in decline, people are buying less games, investors and publishers became more picky, hence the layoffs. There are tons of reasons why this is happening, why there are so many laid off people and closed dev studios, but piracy certainly doesn't help.

[@Adilix]

5:10 piracy has a big community and maybe much larger than legal one, so official trusted sources exist and if it wasn't safe i m sure someone would have said it already

[@Jamazed]

You're getting gutted for your arguments, but that's just because no one likes being told they're doing something unethical. To me it's not a big deal if people pirate their games because that's just the cost of doing business - like how storefronts just accept that they'll lose part of their profits to theft each year. I just find it incredibly hypocritical how some people will not only pirate games but also argue that they're being helpful and that piracy should be encouraged. Because it definitely hurts the people they pirate from - hence why most people will at least abstain from pirating from indie developers because it'd be like taking from someone already struggling. I don't judge the people who can't afford the games when they pirate them, but it's the people who are proud of it and never bother paying even when they eventually have the means to that come off as selfish and conceited.

[@IsraelSmithD]

Piracy is a net positive. You've overblown the negative effects, and totally ignored all the positives. This is just spreading ignorance.

[@thatguybis1997]

How? Piracy has its benefits, there’s a section in the video dedicated to that. I’ve “overblown” the negative effects? It just sounds like you’d rather not hear about them to me.

[@MA-go7ee]

Silly comments like these should come with the commentes ages, lol

[@TheJadeFist]

There is another problem with "voting with your dollar" see, corporate can be stupid sometimes. If the game doesn't sell as well as they hoped, they'll blame the game franchise, and not their own bullshit DRM they shoved into it that makes the game unplayable.

[@jd-wn1po]

it’s good there is someone brave enough to talk about this. so many people use “piracy is good “ as an excuse to make them feel better. great video!

[@thatguybis1997]

Preciate you JD from Scrubs

[@sandwich9509]

Sadly i don't get paid in dolllars or euros,so its a kind of necesity

[@thatguybis1997]

Necessity and gaming don’t belong in the same sentence as harsh as that sounds. But I understand where you’re coming from.

[@Pan_Z]

Denuvo is only a negative. In addition to costing the developers money and sapping performance, people willing to pirate a game will rarely buy it because it hasn't been cracked yet. They'll just pirate something else. Everything CD Projekt made released on GOG day one without any copy production. The Witcher 3 has sold over 10 million copies on PC, despite being easy to pirate (in fact, every pirated version is just the GOG installer for the game). Founder & Chairman of CD Projekt, Marcin Iwiński, has talked about how combating piracy is more effective with a carrot rather than stick method. Digital storefronts offer a lot of conveniences, such as easy updates, library functionality, cloud saving, ect... that make piracy a less desirable option.

[@OzzyVamp]

We agree that piracy is not a good thing; however, when I was young, I didn't have any money to buy the games. So, when I pirated a game, the studio didn't lose any money because they weren't going to receive any money from me in the first place. Since I can pay for my games, I do not play pirated games anymore.

[@thatguybis1997]

Sure, I can understand that.

[@danielegalizzi8562]

Pirating a game does not mean less money going to the publisher, assuming that someone would buy the game if no option of pirating it was possible isn't the correct way to look at it. With this I mean anyone at all, stuff like "even if X% bought the game" has no base.

[@TraderNick]

I love this channel!

[@thatguybis1997]

I love u my man

[@Non-Player]

I feel like you're ignoring the fact that most people who pirate games are kids that don't have money.

[@diddy_dante]

I feel like this is entire video is only valid if you somehow have so much money that buying a game isn't a big deal. Most of us don't have the privilege to vote with our wallets, and I think it's perfectly fine to only vote with your wallet after having decided that you want to support the devs hundreds of hours into playing the game.

[@nikkal5642]

I bet half of the Crysis pirate copies were for test bench alone and nothing else.

[@aldavedario4818]

Lmao the good old saying "can it run crysis?"

[@fr3ddyfr3sh]

Main point about Denuvo. It’s only there because people were pirating like crazy. If all people were nice, no publisher/developer would need to use Denuvo.

[@thatguybis1997]

In a perfect world...but unfortunately, we're not in it.

[@Nitrodino7875]

Preserving games tho. 🤷‍♂️ not to mention plenty of games you can’t play and what kid is going to pay 200 dollars out of pocket to play a game that they really want to play. ESP someone who isn’t well off

[@Nitrodino7875]

I understand if you want game companies to make more games by buying it from the source.

[@Nitrodino7875]

But why are we here playing police force to try to convince people to not pirate? Why are we defending companies? Who cares if they don’t make more money what are we shareholders???

[@thatguybis1997]

The point I’m trying to make here is that you can’t have it both ways. By supporting the shareholders, you’re also supporting the little guys. How do you think the little guys at these big corporations make money?

[@Nitrodino7875]

@@thatguybis1997 it seems like to me that big corporations are the issue and it’s not the developers at all. If our whole system was not profit based we could have amazing games. So much so people would pay for them. Because they won’t be doing battle passes or locking content behind a paywall. Or any other scummy ways to milk money out of a game or game series. I know how the little guy makes money. He deserves every dollar and more.

[@liamace1107]

You never acknowledge the fact that you DO NOT OWN any game you pay for these days. You're simply owning a license to play a copy of the game which is entirely subject to being revoked or changed without warning. The practice of paying for digital goods is designed to be anti-consumer, it's an unethical business practice. I can agree that piracy is not an ethical thing to do, but in the grand scheme its a smaller instance of bad ethics compared to engaging in a blatantly corrupt system which is actively looking to fuck you over.

[@callumdock1884]

fully agree man

[@matildatheoboldt2261]

You shouldve pirated Crash Bandicoot. How does EAs balls taste btw?

[@thatguybis1997]

No I shouldn’t have. Grow up.

[@roostermaind6413]

YOu're working under the wrong presumption that piracy affects sales. It doesn't. Yeah, sure companies could have doubled revenue on products if everyone who pirated bought. GUess what? If there wasn't a pirate option people would've gone without. Maybe if you stopped ALL piracy of ALL games throughout time, some people would end up paying just to try a game out. But I wouldn't get my hopes up. I grew up surrounded by piracy. My first console was a bootleg with those 999 games in 1 cartridges. When I got a PC, we only got games from floppy disks copied by someone. I didn't even realize you could buy them in stores until WoW came out when I was around 10. I thought they didn't have those where I'm from. If I wouldn't have been exposed to all of that, I would've been like the 50% of friends I know that don't play games and have no interest in them because they have 0 game literacy. Instead, I wound up with a steam library probably more valuable than my bank savings because Steam is convenient, not much hassle and (mostly) fair as well as a PS4 with pretty much every platform exclusive purchased legitimately. I also buy and gift games to people during sales and when I find a cool gem. I still play cracked games because AAA companies don't even have the decency to put out demos before asking for an up-front 70 bucks and about 200 worth of up-sells. Who the hell would ever pay that much when they don't even know what they're getting into. THere are NO lost sales in piracy. If people aren't gonna pay for the game now, they sure as hell won't when they can't even try a free version to see if it's worth the asking price. Crytek is the worst example of this. Their games on PC are famous for frying GPUs and motherboards and most popular in Europe. There was no chance they'd have doubled their sales. This is a bad premise from the start. Piracy isn't stealing. It's the equivalent of photo-copying a book and distributing it freely. Still a crime, still in violation of a company's intellectual rights in more ways than one. But it's morally gray. It's an issue with no solution that ends up making the companies more money. Aside from it literally being easier to get a government mass surveillance system strong enough to monitor and punish ALL of your activity as soon as it happens than it being to develop un-crackable DRM that doesn't mess up performance, there's also the issue of losing exposure, losing pirate-to-purchase conversions and added technical and financial costs during the developement process. Whatever solution you could come up with as a company it would just be untenable in the attention economy. If Piracy wasn't an option, people would only experience games through KZbin and twitch. Bloodborne is the perfect example of this. If you follow souls creators, you'll find no end to those in the community who have kept begging for 10 years now to get a PC release. They still don't have a PS4. Even when both the console and the game are at discount prices. As soon as PS4 emulation becomes stable and manageable on older systems, that games gonna blow up again.

[@hollowgaming1524]

u are disconnected from reality. u think every one can offerd to buy 70 broken games and what is funny its usally is not full game for that u need to drope onther 20 or 30 ,

[@thatguybis1997]

I’m not sure which of us is disconnected, you or me.

[@Nodnarb59]

​@@thatguybis1997 you

[@lloytron9105]

@@thatguybis1997 yeah its you bro

[@hollowgaming1524]

@@thatguybis1997 u need to get out of your little bubble bruh.

[@mackos007]

@@thatguybis1997 It's you

[@MA-go7ee]

Gamers want free shit and they don't want to feel guilty about it. Just look at the knots people twist themselves into to justify it.

[@thatguybis1997]

Just look at the other comments here and most of them are doing exactly that.

[@zennymajora5041]

Piracy is NOT stealing, actually. Nobody loses if I copy a game that was already purchased so somebody who can't afford it right now (or may never have access to it) can experience it. It should never be about profits. It NEEDS to be about preservation.

[@alec7568]

You miss a lot of the main points here. You point out how people pirate from Ubisoft and Nintendo because: "it's okay to pirate from these people" no one actually thinks that. People pirate from Ubisoft and Nintendo because they occasionally make their games near unplayable with DRM, go buy the old AC games from steam, I dare you. Nintendo are alsobone of the biggest problems with not allowing customers to continue to enjoy their older games. If Nintendo don't want to sell me a copy of an old Pokemon game, I will pirate it because that's literally the only way to play it.

[@FlymanMS]

Weak arguments and you've missed the point. I think everyone understand what is meant when someone says that "piracy" can be justified in some cases. Voting with the wallet doesn't work when other people en masse buy any trash micro transactions because they don't know better. Nintendo doesn't care about your enjoyment of their games or its cultural importance, they care about profit and their bottom line. Very naive.

[@thatguybis1997]

Nintendo clearly DOES care about your enjoyment of their games AND its cultural importance. They wouldn't be so successful if they didn't. You're playing their games and enjoying them, aren't you? Just because there are parts of Nintendo that are bad, doesn't mean you get to write them off as a whole and pirate their stuff. The devs that make these games clearly put their passion and love into them, and they're a part of Nintendo just as much as the people in suits are that are probably more of the issue.

[@FlymanMS]

@@thatguybis1997 what is this, "bad apples" argument for corporations? People in the suits rule over the money, so you're better off directly supporting the developers if you care so much.

[@thatguybis1997]

How do you go about "directly supporting the devs" then outside of purchasing their game? I'm not talking just for indie games. Nintendo, Ubisoft, big companies included. If there's a way to do that, I'd love to know.

[@FlymanMS]

@@thatguybis1997 some might have patreon but they are paid anyways. Idek what you're arguing for anymore, you seem to lose the thread. Don't worry about "poor devs being paid low" because a person who can't afford an overpriced game that might be a piece of crap anyways didn't buy its deluxe edition. You presented no good arguments why "piracy" is "bad" and I don't think you ever will. And I should prob stop commenting, your vid got recommended and I've found your takes naive so tata.

[@CaptainRx-ss3rt]

Simple, piracy is bad because it’s not about « voting with your wallet », or « sending a message », it’s just that people want free shit. I don’t know why pirate have this high esteem of themselves, you just don’t wanna pay. Wether it’s a small indie game (which by the way are the most pirated in %), or a big triple A game. At least don’t be a hypocrite about it. Voting with your wallet would be to simply not buy the game, pirating it has NOTHING to do with voting with your wallet, that’s just a convenient excuse to get free shit.

[@FunkelMcStump]

“Stop criticizing the million dollar company” 😤

[@thatguybis1997]

Grow up.

[@FunkelMcStump]

@@thatguybis1997 *glup*

[@brokencirkle]

Loved watching this video, I tend to agree with most of the logic behind your points, with the exception of the voting with your wallet one which is partial but strong disagreement. I absolutely agree that you should support game companies that treat their consumers well and buy their content. But I also think that buying the games from the "good" companies, in addition to pirating games from the "bad" companies is the best way to fight bad business practices, as it's similar to tipping a single cent at a restaurant, it very clearly states that you did not forget to tip, but that the employee that served you did an awful job. Additionally, I have recently heard of a concept called whales (I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the subject, so if I am wrong about whales, by all means, feel free to correct me) and they are people who generate the company a ton of revenue, and provides a large percentage of their income. So a company wouldn't necessarily feel a huge impact on sales from most individuals simply because a lot of people buy games just to try them out without reading reviews and they also have their loyal whales propping companies up, and large scale boycotts can be difficult to achieve. Idk if you know about the Pokemon drama from all of their recent titles that they've released, and also all of the details on Palworld, but pretty much every game they have released in the past (insert whenever you feel Pokémon declined here, I'm not trying to get that into it, just trying to describe a concept) years and many hardcore Pokemon fans are repeatedly outraged because of how they feel its declined, and it's large and popular enough, that even with all of the outraged fans it still sells really well. Then Palworld comes along and makes a better Pokemon game than the actual Pokémon people, it's originally viewed as a cheap knockoff but gained popularity immediately once it demonstrated how good it was, and it sold more than almost all main series Pokémon releases other than the originals like red/blue and I think they even overtook the newest release at some point, showing that people are starved for actually good Pokémon games. That is a strong instance of people saying they want more from Pokémon type games and voting with their wallet, at minimum its great for Palworld, but I am really hoping Pokemon decides to put in extra effort and make drastic improvements with its next release, I think this is the very best opportunity for your point to be proven that you can get, and I hope that you are 100% correct because I would love to see Pokemon realize how people feel and make a full recovery.

[@paulnewhouse5126]

So i guess when Nintendo comes out with the next Zelda game and it needs to connect to play online, guess I'll have to miss out on that and vote with my wallet😅

[@MonkeyDLuffy-vt2qm]

is it okay if the creator is a horrible person?

[@thatguybis1997]

Ha my answer to this will always be to not even play their creation. I tend to like to separate the creation from the person, but if I don’t like the person, then why even experience their creation?

[@damiencrossley7497]

Well when they over pice games and we "no longer own them"then Piracy is justified! Game devopers dont play ball nither shoould we! They reap what they sow!

[@cedric1138]

Anyone who says it's ok is clearly wrong and talking shite, it's someone's IP and they should be rewarded for it, its a moral choice, you either care or you don't but you KNOW it's not right - however, I have always used roms for older games that aren't available anymore but I also used to hack all my old systems, PS1/2, PSP, all the Nintendo handhelds, Xbox 360 and download the roms, burn them and play them and even tho I knew it was wrong I really didn't care, but now I'm older and can afford whatever I want (gaming wise) I own what I play on the newer systems.

[@mackos007]

But all those pirated games i downloaded i wouldnt buy them. I cant afford that. So what money did they lost? None

[@ZedEdge]

Good to see someone taking a measured stance against piracy - addressing each point with a balanced point of view. The argument that "buying isn't owning so pirating isn't stealing" assumes that we ever owned a game. I was certainly under that assumption but from what I understand now, game cartridges, discs and digital keys are all just permissions for access - like a ticket for a movie. Owning it is obviously preferable, but we don't get to jump the queue just because we disagree. You really sum it up at 8:53.

[@thatguybis1997]

This is exactly it. 100% agree.

[@amishnathawat3132]

If buying isnt owning then piracy isnt stealing

[@thatguybis1997]

Pretty sure I address this exact sentiment in the video.

[@lysolan269]

Honestly, I feel like you brush off important information and misunderstand or just misrepresent ideas presented in the original video

[@thatguybis1997]

I don’t think I do that at all if you’ve watched his video, but i can’t change your mind I guess lol

[@skaruts]

He twisted stuff. Definitions of theft disagree with him. He argued what makes theft is when someone loses out on what you take from them, but that's outright wrong. What makes theft is the act of taking something that isn't yours without permission (or through deceit) and/or without giving it's requested value in return. (The last part is probably not in any definition, but it should be.) Moreover, everyone loses out on something with theft. Every pirated copy is potentially one less copy sold. So even by his logic piracy would still be theft. Sometimes theft CAN be justified, and in a few circumstances piracy certainly CAN. But that doesn't change anything about it being theft. "Fair use" is an example of when you can take something that isn't yours, but only because permission has already been established as given, and it doesn't interfere with your sales. When you publish your work, you do so understanding that other people can take excerpts under fair use. But then, it's worth noting that "fair use" doesn't encompass taking an entire work without paying.

[@KorinIta]

Ima still pirate.

[@Neverharam]

PREACH BROTHER PREAAACHH

[@aliyousefzadeh3932]

I live in a country that a 60 $ game is 40 days worth my salary... So im sorry but i cant be that honorable with a billion dollar company

[@ramsaybolton9151]

" no studio has ever shut down because of piracy" yeah because it's like 1% of people that pirate....if it became a norm it would absolutely destroy studios.

[@adamunown]

I already disagreed with most of your points since you weren't really bringing anything new to the discussion, but the pro capitalism rant halfway through really stole the show with how badly thought out it was. "Without capitalism, thing people liked wouldn't exist" arguement doesn't hold much weight when you can literally substitute capitalism with any major horrible thing in history, because even the most seemingly unrelated thing can impact how decisions are made. Also you say people switching their accounts' countries is "gaming the system" as if it's not just the digital equivalent of importing a physical game for a cheaper price. I agree with you that piracy isn't a black and white issue, but I'm not even sure if you agree with that. You're arguements are mostly anti piracy, except for a few examples that you try to downplay the benefits of anyway.

[@thatguybis1997]

I’m not sure there’s much point in responding to this when you’re not going to change my mind and I’m not going to change yours but I’ll bite anyway. 1) “you can literally substitute capitalism with any major horrible thing in history” Okaaaay. This is just a weird point. YOU clearly don’t like capitalism. That’s fine, but that doesn’t make my argument any less valid. That was such a small part of my video too, so I don’t know why you got so hung up on it. 2) That’s 100% not the digital equivalent of “importing a cheaper copy”. That’s gaming the system. Steam had its prices set in a way that was fair to people that lived in those respective countries. Circumventing that just to get a cheaper price, while I can’t blame them, definitely ruined a good thing for everyone. Id agree with you if you didn’t have to change your VPN just so you were able to accomplish the “import”, as it clearly wasn’t an intentional feature of steam. Piracy isn’t black and white. Yes, overall, I like to take a harder stance on it because I feel like so many people do it and somehow do mental gymnastics to justify it in their heads. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to watch and leave a comment, I appreciate it.

[@NiRo90]

I still have to watch the video. But I don’t really have the feeling, that piracy is a thing today. In Steam, some games are extremely cheap when they are on discount. Also in the PS store. Nintendo are the only games that stay most of the time very expensive. They are now many free to play games …

[@thatguybis1997]

Personally, I think piracy is pretty rampant nowadays, but that's just me.

[@TheJadeFist]

I think for older games, there's no problem. For current games, it is theft, unless it's for the purpose of modding the game or other playing in unintentional ways, IE pokemon randomizers, those are completely fine and the people doing it probably already bought a legal copy. I guess I would consider the intent of the piracy, if it's to avoid buying a game vs you want play it with features added or removed, or in the case of retro games, it might not even for sale anywhere with the exception of 2nd hand expensive physical copies aftermarket.

[@maggus999]

Do you feel the same about film/tv? I pay for cable, netflix, disney, apple, prime, and probably a couple more. The number of titles available to me is forever shrinking, and the prices only go up. I pirate unavailable titles with zero remorse. I don't pirate games, though, steam sales have left me with about a hundred titles I'll never get to.

[@thatguybis1997]

When you say unavailable titles, I assume you mean things that aren't found easily or have been lost due to time. I don't see that as an issue, probably falls into a similar category as game preservation.

[@skaruts]

If you can't buy it anywhere, then you can't be taking it from anyone without paying. You're not stealing, in that case.

[@maggus999]

@@thatguybis1997 No, I'm talking about titles that are floating around between services contract by contract, which I'm some times able to view it and some times not. I'm paying at least £150 per month for the various subscriptions and TV, and anything that is not available there I immediately get through piracy instead.

[@liamace1107]

Honestly this is really saddening, I rediscovered your channel just now and was excited to watch through your stuff but this one thing is so utterly painful, along with how you reply to critiques of your opinions without actually addressing what they're saying. You kinda just side track in a way that shows you aren't taking what these people are saying on board properly. Mother's Basement did the same crap which just put a bad taste in my mouth, it's really obnoxious and annoying to see

[@Marinanor]

I agree. Any kind of Piracy is bad. Why do I have to explain this? lol. I agree that even though all Piracy is bad, it is very sad that it's so popular right now, and not just from bad people but from people who are just very frustrated with the state of the entertainment industries, including video gaming.

[@thatguybis1997]

I understand the frustration and where it's coming from. I felt compelled to make a video when I saw Lextorias' video though. It's an interesting topic to debate, at the very least.

[@SLRModShop]

"it is very sad that it's so popular right now" Is it though? Back in the 80's literally everyone had a X-copied copy of X-copy, everyone. Wouldn't surprise me to learn that piracy is actually going down, in terms of percentages.

[@Marinanor]

@@SLRModShop I didn't know

[@glitcher208]

u have no points at all, poor video honestly ... dont worry the game devs will "remaster" everything for you.

[@ennayanne]

Nah I'm gonna pirate

[@OfficiallyRattled-lm2dg]

Broke boy

[@ennayanne]

@@OfficiallyRattled-lm2dg kek

[@BristolMatt]

Unsubbed. Shilling for Game corporations in 2024 is odd. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, and have never done it, but most game companies are unhinged these days and abusing their fan base non-stop. Sticking up for them at this time shows who you are being paid by.

[@thatguybis1997]

I haven’t received a dime from any big corp. Not a single sponsorship on this channel, nothing. And I’m the shill? I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again. Bad business practices don’t justify piracy. Vote with your wallet. If anything, piracy just gives these companies reason to fire back with DRM and to play the blame game.

[@Electricgains243]

To me, piracy isn't inherently wrong since all the pirated stuff you can watch/play and download on websites have already been paid for. Its like someone buying a movie ticket and giving it to you. I understand both sides and why corporations are against this kind of activity but if you want to have people buy your product, sell it in a physical copy since all digital software can be easily copied and pasted onto peoples' computers.

[@5chneemensch138]

Crytek didn't lose over half their revenue. You'd have to first prove that a pirated copy is a lost sale. And funnily enough the opposite is true according to the EU.

[@BeeTreeOil]

I believe in piracy for anything mainstream Most rich companies already underpay their staff and factor Stealing and Piracy into their sales. Also these prices are outrageous. I’m a gamer, not a millionaire.

[@Saymon902]

Because of the piracy we dont get gta 6 at pc at launch.

[@lysolan269]

Nothing to do with piracy, you can pirate on console They get more money by making deals with platforms for exclusivity and preferential treatment on a given platform. Also PC competition is harder and Rockstar has this problem with bugs in yr1 games that they can’t fix due to their own lack of effort in quality assurance

[@Saymon902]

@@lysolan269 Sure, here's the corrected text: Do you seriously try to say that Sony pays them money to not launch the game for PC? Well, they have to be wealthier than they admit, because the money Rockstar would make on PC is a lot. Elden Ring sold around 8 million copies on PC since launch, earning them around 400 million dollars. Thats like 2 big exclusives from sony inhouse studios. And it's easy to assume that the most awaited game of all time would sell even more. But they are interested in selling as much copies as they can; they want to be the best-selling game of all time, and they're not going to do it if 25% of potential buyers are going to pirate the game. And seriously, don't compare piracy on PC vs console. On PC, you just download from Pirate Bay. On console, you have to reprogram your hardware.

[@slavdog3180]

I’m tired of people who are like “just pirate the game 🤓”

[@thatguybis1997]

The glasses emoji ties this together perfectly.

[@ALTF4_FR]

I only pirate aaa games that i dont like the company and always buy indie games

[@lloydirving6209]

0:49 - 0:53 "I'm somewhat of a dumbass" well said. basically sums up the video

[@thatguybis1997]

That’s a low blow buddy. Lloyd Irving would be ashamed! Lol.

[@bilalbwork367]

Defending capitalism is crazy

[@doctordice2doctordice210]

Capitalism is why you have a goddamn phone to type this, why you have a house who’s mistrials are the sum of 8 different countries’s silk, copper, etc Still the op video is bad lmao

[@spaidakula]

the new star wars still waiting

[@salt20xX]

how much did EA, Ubisoft and Activision paid you for this video?

[@thatguybis1997]

$0.

[@BenersantheBread]

I like how you mention all the bullshit practices of the video games industry and still say piracy is bad because "it's wrong". Allow me to blow your mind real quick. While you waited for Crash 4 to release in a way you preferred you could've played it pirated. You were already voting with your wallet and thus the company wasn't getting your money so it wouldn't have made any difference to them. With this you could've played the game while protesting the game being online only. Hell, you could've then bought it when it released on steam to support the devs. Like, tell me what difference it makes to the company. You're not going to buy the game either way. The only real way to protest something with your wallet is to pirate it, otherwise the only one you're punishing is yourself. It must take effort to do this much bootlicking. Also when you buy a triple A game the money isn't going to developers, they only get their salaries and OCCASIONALLY a bonus for good sales. The money goes to the investors, you're not supporting the enthusiastic people actually making games; you're supporting the suits who keep telling them "Fortnite is successful, make Fortnite" And for the record, this is coming from someone with over 1000 games on steam. In short, piracy is never a serious problem for companies as people who pirate are pretty much always people who wouldn't have bought the games anyway. Your Crytek example is a complete failure of a business which would've happened regardless. Other than some niche cases, piracy is nothing but a small dent in profits.

[@thatguybis1997]

You have no idea they would’ve failed regardless of piracy. That’s simply not true. “The money goes to the investors.” I can’t argue that a good portion of the money probably does go to other people than the developers. But by pirating, they’re not seeing ANY money. I don’t understand this line of argument. Just because you’re not giving money to “the suits” doesn’t make piracy ANY better. If you want to pirate, do it. But I don’t care for the excuses as to why it’s this great thing.

[@BenersantheBread]

@@thatguybis1997 You're just going to ignore the part where I pointed out how "voting with your wallet" and pirating have no difference for the company? Either way they don't get your money, with one of them you get to play the game. Also you can't tell me that I don't know whether Crytek would've failed regardless and then say with certainty that it wouldn't have. Sure, there is a slight chance it might not have failed but piracy simply isn't enough of a problem to cause a company to fail on its own. As I said, the vast majority of people who pirate are those who couldn't or wouldn't have bought the games anyway. The overwhelming majority of people prefer the convenience of services like Steam to the effort of pirating. Hence the Gabe Newell quote. Hell, key resellers are a MUCH larger problem than piracy considering they also give the convenience of purchasing legitimately. If you want to reward the triple A gaming industry which is known for its abuse of the developers making the games with your money do it, don't try to turn it into this moral highground bullshit. It's people like you who are the greatest allies to the industry for its awful practices.

[@egavasenoynot1]

you are talking shit bro real shit stop justfying this games are going forever they are being deleted affter all we bought the games

[@isaiahjolin7178]

Hello The Guy Bis. My name is Isaiah and I have something important to say to you. God loves you and like any father he wants to help you and keep you safe especially from the devil. But I am not just speaking to you about this I am also talking to your fans about this. You see the news do you not? You see how the wourld is getting dark do you not? I tell you. There is hope for as the wourld gets darker. The Lord bringd his light to all his children. But it is up to all of thee if you want the light at the end of this soon to be dark tunnel. But the choice is ultimately yours have a nice day Shalom Shalom.