To Pirate or not to Pirate

[Dohc-WP]

Lol simple answer, If you pirate, you're a criminal making all us who buy the originals suffer, this is with games, movies, cd's etc. And you're likely to make us a little peeved.
I can understand young people who can't afford games etc to do it (I did) but it's still wrong and there's no excuse

Why are we suffering ?

The reason why Games cost more is not because of piracy at all but because of development costs. In the early nineties games were alot cheaper to make because less people were busy working on a single game and the development costs of games were alot less back then, compared with if u look at the amount of people involved in developing a single title these days. I remember when shenmue came out on the dreamcast it was considered to be the most expensive game that was ever developed. To develop games these days cost more because most developers use famous actors for voice acting, go to real locations to shoot photographs, promoting the games etc. Look at gears of war, the 1st one ended up being over 10 million dollars, and the only way to get back those development costs is to sell the game at a premium price. To be Honest People that pirate the game wouldnt have bought in the 1st place so the company didnt lose a customer at all.

And yes all My Xbox games are original (i'v even spent over R1000 replacing 2 discs which cracked)

[mikade]

What about reaaaaallly old games, though. Doubt I could find a place to buy something like StarCon 2, now. Though fans have completely REMADE the game, free, if I'm not mistaken.

[robdutchmonkey]

Why are we suffering ?

The reason why Games cost more is not because of piracy at all but because of development costs. In the early nineties games were alot cheaper to make because less people were busy working on a single game and the development costs of games were alot less back then, compared with if u look at the amount of people involved in developing a single title these days. I remember when shenmue came out on the dreamcast it was considered to be the most expensive game that was ever developed. To develop games these days cost more because most developers use famous actors for voice acting, go to real locations to shoot photographs, promoting the games etc. Look at gears of war, the 1st one ended up being over 10 million dollars, and the only way to get back those development costs is to sell the game at a premium price. To be Honest People that pirate the game wouldnt have bought in the 1st place so the company didnt lose a customer at all.

And yes all My Xbox games are original (i'v even spent over R1000 replacing 2 discs which cracked)

The reason I say we suffer is not because it necessarily drives costs up, but because we pay plenty of money to do the right thing and to support the developers for making the few games we love.
You can't tell me games take about R500 to develop etc, otherwise, why are places like shopto selling brand new games for 20 GBP?
The problem we face in our country is the fact that certain places monopolise the distribution of our gaming and hardware forcing many people into piracy, but still, there's no excuse for commiting a crime is there? It just makes you as bad as the ones sitting in prison.
You can't blame a person for having a few pirated things, we're all human, but the ones who do it quite a bit and/or sell it for money are really bad.

When it comes to old games like ps1 games etc, I don't see a problem as you can't find them firstly, and secondly the developers don't care about it anymore profit-wise.

[Dohc-WP]

When it comes to old games like ps1 games etc, I don't see a problem as you can't find them firstly, and secondly the developers don't care about it anymore profit-wise.

Well Firstly the developers do care about old games if they didnt then Sony wouldnt have released the ps1 emulator for the psp or they wouldnt have even bothered to make the ps3 bc with ps1 games. Ask urself why nintendo have the virtual console, why did capcom remake Street fighter II in Hd or why ms have xbox classics on XBL. If they didnt care then why are they going through all the trouble to still support it.

Secondly the reason why games cost so little in britain is 1. they are a first world country and 2. most of the big development houses are in britain and europe, thus they make most of the games in europe (codemasters, Ubisoft, vivendi, eurocom etc.)thus they dont need to ship it halfway around the world. to get it to stores (less transport costs can lead to cheaper price).

I never said a game cost R500 to make ! I said the cost of games are alot more than they used to be back in the day due to the increase in development costs. Ask urself why AAA titles usually cost more instore than unknown releases. The reason is simple AAA titles usually cost more to make hence the higher price.

[N3cTr0]

I used to download alot of games etc, but eventually most of the games I downloaded I didnt enjoy. So now I normally first check out reviews etc and I actually buy the games. With the way the global markets are now, I can see alot of game companies shutting down due to piracy and not being able to recover costs. So to be a legit person, I decided to start buying the originals.

[robdutchmonkey]

Well Firstly the developers do care about old games if they didnt then Sony wouldnt have released the ps1 emulator for the psp or they wouldnt have even bothered to make the ps3 bc with ps1 games. Ask urself why nintendo have the virtual console, why did capcom remake Street fighter II in Hd or why ms have xbox classics on XBL. If they didnt care then why are they going through all the trouble to still support it.

Secondly the reason why games cost so little in britain is 1. they are a first world country and 2. most of the big development houses are in britain and europe, thus they make most of the games in europe (codemasters, Ubisoft, vivendi, eurocom etc.)thus they dont need to ship it halfway around the world. to get it to stores (less transport costs can lead to cheaper price).

I never said a game cost R500 to make ! I said the cost of games are alot more than they used to be back in the day due to the increase in development costs. Ask urself why AAA titles usually cost more instore than unknown releases. The reason is simple AAA titles usually cost more to make hence the higher price.

You misunderstand me, the reason I say they don't care much, is because it's impossible to buy, there's a reason they made the ps3 backwards compatible with the ps3, to mnake more money as they sell them as downloads off psn. I said it's still a crime, but I can understand people downloading them (which is piracy if you don't have an original copy), but that doesn't stop it from being illegal

[Warlynx]

In my teens and early 20's I pirated all the titles I played. Sucks being a sorry arse student with no cash.

But, I am happy to say that I buy all the titles I play now, yes, some of them were horrid like UFO Aftershock and Turning Point, but that was only my own mistake because I didn't bother to visit gaming forums to read up on them.

Face it boys, it's worth while paying that R350 or R400 for a PC title that keeps you busy for 5 hours without giving you a hangover or some dodgy STD

[Voicy]

Agreed, Warlynx

Look, the long and the short of it is this: We knew we were wrong by copying games. We told ourselves that since we didn't physically steal anything it was ok.

See it as you will, personally it just makes me feel better and proud to be able to buy games now and not have to worry with copying them - seeing as I now have no excuse i.e. finance/availability NOT to purchase legal copies.

[SharkBait]

Wish I was you, mate.

[Jase]

I walk into a pc store, look at the prices and walk out again. I went for online games instead (as my sig so blatantly states). The R172 / month give me all the enjoyment I need (and yes I am boring because I only play one game bla bla).

I will be buying D3 when it comes out though (Whether it is rubbish or not!)