Wake up and smell the coffee
Adam
to believe you never copied cassette tapes, music cds or vhs movies. Youre
all probably hypocritical kaaza morpheus edonkey assholes. If someone
wasnt going to buy a game in the first place then nobody is losing any
money. Most people who pirate shit cant afford the stuff anyways. Of
course this is only an opinion. I personally have never done anything
illegal in my entire life. =P Well, I did 33 in a 30mph zone once.
Chris Fowler
I'm not anti-pirate. I'm pro-choice when it comes to copying. I've
done my share of piracy. Back in college we had a resident pirate. He
left and I took his place. As I've gorwn older I've taken a different
pov on the subject. I've tried to keep my purchasing habits down. I own
30 Xbox games and 20 GBA games. Mostly I've bought used and on ebay.
Sometimes I buy new. It depends on the quality.
I agree about your purchasing statment. I used to have a PS1 and I
pirated many games. Games I would have never bought. I did
pirate a few that I would have bought. IMO, I want to support the
game industry so I pay for may games. Sometimes it bugs me that
some ppl don't sometimes it does not. I not really one to
go bashing ppl on the subject.
Some games I feel suck so bad they deserve piracy since the
asking price is too much. It seems that lately on the Xbox some
games have started low to represent the actual value they bring.
anyway, I would love to play old NEX games and would like to
know if I could purchase a loaded cart with the old ones on it.
I do not want to flash it. I just want to buy it. I used
to have an old NES and loved playing it.
Thnx,
Chris
ent
"Adam" <nob...@important.com> wrote in message
news:Xns93F1D495B2980n...@167.206.3.3...
Also note that taping a program on TV is technically illegal. Key word
"technically". It is not enforced, and not even a law in some countries.
eldryne
> (at least in my case) if I like something I buy it. And if I don't I
> don't.
I have read your many re-iterations of this point on this group as of late,
and I agree with your point. If you like something, you buy it - which is
great, that's the way the world should work. However, with the majority of
"things" that you can purchase, you're given a preview, a test run before
you lay your money out for the item. When you walk into a furniture store,
you can sit on the couches, open the drawers of the dresser, and sit at the
dining table. At a car dealership, you can test drive different types of
vehicles. Before you go to see a movie, you can watch a preview. In a
variety of music stores, you can listen to a disc before you purchase it.
You can rent movies from BlockBuster to see if they're worth owning. When
you want to buy art, you're allowed to look at it before you buy it to hang
on your wall. If you want to buy a DVD player or television, you can examine
demo models in store to see if they're what you're looking for. Etc, etc
etc. However, when it comes to video games, specifically GC and GBA games
(in this case), there is a serious lack of 'try before you buy' going on.
Yes there are review sites, and fan sites, and screenshots - but no actually
way to play the GC/GBA games you're thinking of buying. Unless of course,
you're thinking of buying one of the two games Nintendo has decided to put
out to demo kiosks for a given month, or you've gone into your local EB and
found the GBA demo unit still contains Super Mario Advance.
You can argue that point to death if you like, but the fact is, if as
consumers, we are given the $50+ price tags for a given game, we should have
an avenue to sample said games to see if we want to spend our money on them.
This is possible for most current platforms - on the PC you can even
download demos for free, let alone getting them in magazines, etc. Would you
honestly walk into a car dealership and buy a car without ever driving it
first? Buy a piece of art without ever seeing it? Perhaps you'll buy a bed
without ever lying down on it to see how comfortable it is to you. $50 is a
lot of money to spend on a game, and to think that you support a system
where we have to pay, find out it's awful, and are not entitled to our full
purchase price back is ridiculous. Because if you do take it back, you are
no longer entitled to what you paid because it's been opened. There are some
games that you may be able to judge on name alone - like "Zelda" for
example. You might think, "Hey, a Zelda game, great, where do I pay?".
However, what about 'Karnajj Rally'? Fantastic top-down racer, but would the
majority of people have picked it up off the shelf and bought it without
being able to give it a go? The magic 8-ball says "Definitely No."
Whether you like to believe so or not, some people do download GBA roms for
this 'try before you buy' feature. The company does not officially offer
such a system, but if they expect people to purchase their material (which
they must), the ROM system seems to work just fine. You can demo it out on
your computer, or a flash device, and see if you like it. If you do, great,
cha-ching! for the company. If not, great, your hard earned money can go
towards a different title. While developers deserve money for their hard
work, people get to determine what shows up in their shelves with their
gaming dollar. If no one buys "Mary Kate and Ashley" GBA titles, because
they were able to try it before they bought it, perhaps the developers would
not produce them anymore, because they aren't making any money from them.
Just a random example, nothing against the "Mary Kate and Ashley" GBA
titles.
You, as a human being with an opinion, are allowed to disagree with this
practice. However, for the people that really do demo and buy, that is not
piracy. It is a way for them to find out where they want to place their
gaming dollar. Piracy is people who download, store, hoard, and play through
games without ever buying them. Piracy is downloading games tagged with
RAZOR, FAIRLIGHT, DEVIANCE, EURASIA, etc. and never opening your wallet once
you've discovered you will enjoy the experience. Piracy is stealing
something that doesn't belong to you. Downloading a GBA ROM, playing a
level, finding out you love it, buying the game and deleting the ROM, is not
piracy. That's someone trying to make an educated decision about whether or
not to buy a game, when there are no other viable alternatives available. If
there were demo ROMs, I'm sure many people would be pleased as punch.
However, there aren't, and this is what happens. As I mentioned before, with
practically any major purchase you make, you get to try, look, feel,
scratch, sniff, open, close and otherwise examine them before you buy them.
A fridge manufacturer wouldn't expect you to buy their fridge sight unseen,
to find out when you got it home that it didn't fit in your house. They'd
laugh at you for not doing your research and examining demo models to begin
with. It's no different for a game - if there were no way of demoing GBA
games, you can bet your ass that less of them will be sold. Is it any
surprise that the GBA and the PS1, the two biggest selling console systems
of current times are the biggest selling systems? They both have piratable
media, allowing for demoing. Sure, there are pirates, but there are a lot of
people that aren't. If gamers had to buy every game they wanted to buy
without any idea of how it played - video game stores would have a tough
time selling their product, don't you think?
> Which brings me to the main problem I have with piracy. If you claim that
> you pirate because the prices are too high, then I would argue the prices
> are too high because you pirate. Reason being that as long as there is
> rampant piracy, the software makers, music execs, etc. can claim that the
> demand is there and thus the price shouldn't be lowered. So you, in
> effect, are enabling them to keep prices high for those of us who actually
> buy the product. In essence, the only way to truly lower prices (if that
> is indeed your intent and reason for being a pirate) is to not pirate AND
> boycott those products you don't want. This is what I don't understand
> about the pirate argument. Just because you want something, doesn't mean
> you HAVE to have it. It's okay not to consume something. It's okay to walk
> away. Go ride a bike, go for a walk, read a book or something. You don't
> HAVE to consume every ounce of electronic media that you want. It's okay
> to set a cutoff point, purchase what you can, walk away from what you
> can't and eventually the market would take over and they'd have to lower
> their prices. As it is, you just feed their argument with this insatiable
> and irrational hunger for something you claim to be unable to afford, but
> unable to live without.
Some people do claim to pirate because the prices are too high. Those are
people that shouldn't be playing their stolen games, and using their volume
license edition of Windows XP Professional. If you can't afford to buy
something that you want, then you must go without. That is the way of the
world. However, to say prices are high because people pirate is totally
ridiculous. Look at the Nintendo GameCube. Two years down the line from it's
US release, and still, no piracy. We're not talking about STARCUBE, or the
other group that claims to have dumped a few ISO's of discs. Whooopee for
them. There's no way to burn them or play them without development kit
hardware, which isn't available to the mass public anyway. For the thousands
of dollars it would cost you, you may as well buy your original titles.
However, GameCube titles are (here in Canada) $59.99, $69.99 and higher.
Why? There's no piracy. Doesn't seem right to me. I'm not one of those
mindless idiots who thinks that because a disc costs pennies on the dollar
to press, that games shouldn't cost anything more than five bucks. Not at
all. However, there's no justification for prices equal to that of the
Playstation 2 and the Xbox - where piracy is rampant. The 'industy' releases
million dollar figures all the time of the money they assume they're losing
to piracy. They don't even know themselves! Many people that pirate games
would not have walked into a store and bought them if that was the only
alternative, so many pirates argue that the company would not have lost any
money anyway. Whether you like it, I like it, or either of us agrees with
it, that is a fact. If I play a downloaded copy of "Grand Theft Auto" on my
home PC, but I never would have bought it, Rockstar Games is not out fifty
bucks - because I never would have bought it anyway. Do you see? It doesn't
justify the action, and it doesn't make it right. But we can't argue that
there is a lot of truth in that argument.
I don't argue with the rest of your comments. I agree. Games aren't a
necessity, and if you can't buy, then you can't have. To summarize what I'm
saying, number one - prices are not inflated due to piracy, as evidenced by
a system where piracy is not an issue, and yet the price point remains the
same. Number two - people that use GBA ROMs for demoing games they want to
buy are not pirates - they are consumers attempting to make an educated
choice, so that they really can vote with their dollar. If they had to buy
every title they wanted to play without trying them, there would be a lot of
developers encouraged to make more crappy titles, because the existing ones
were being purchased. Be sure to define the line between piracy and consumer
education. Sure people don't need games, but if there are people that enjoy
them, they need a system for examining which ones they would like, just like
the manufacturers of other products have had to do.
That said, I want to point out that I haven't said that I'm a pirate, that I
own a flash linker, or even a GBA for that matter. I'm just a normal
everyday guy who believes that if consumers are given choices as to which
products they want to buy, they must be able to sample those products before
they spend money on them. That's all.
eldryne
You're right - if someone wasn't going to buy something, nobody is really
losing any money. However, that doesn't entitle them to have access to the
item, or use it. Don't forget that. While I don't fully agree with "Preston
Crawford", I do agree that if you cannot afford to buy something, you are
not entitled to have access to it anyway. If you enjoy gaming, and can only
afford to spend money on a few games, then you should be given access to
some sort of try before you buy system. Much like Apogee in the earlier days
of PC gaming - the first episode of their game was downloadable to play, and
if you enjoyed it, you could purchase the rest.
There should be a distinction made between pirates, and those that are
trying to sample a product before they buy it.
eldryne
> > "technically". It is not enforced, and not even a law in some countries.
>
> eventually determined that recording a TV show to watch later was fair
> use.
Indeed! Not to mention that if you have television service, chances are
you've already had to pay to get that in your home - and if you record a
show to watch later, who's to say you can't do that? If you've paid for your
TV service, no one can tell you when you can watch something that interests
you on that service. :)
Reactor
Actually I have never copied a cassette tape/CD/movie. I don't pirate
because I've worked in both the music business and now work in the video
game industry.
Use whatever reasons you want to justify what you do.. in the end all you
are is a dirty thief. I'm happy with the way I live my life, and am happy
that I have a sense of morals. I'm glad that I don't have to justify
pirating to anyone, much less a bunch of strangers in a newsgroup.
Neil Hopkins
wrote:
>> Hasn't *everyone* copied something at some point. Point is that usually
>> (at least in my case) if I like something I buy it. And if I don't I
>> don't.
>
>However, when it comes to video games, specifically GC and GBA games
>(in this case), there is a serious lack of 'try before you buy' going on.
>Yes there are review sites, and fan sites, and screenshots - but no actually
>way to play the GC/GBA games you're thinking of buying. Unless of course,
>you're thinking of buying one of the two games Nintendo has decided to put
>out to demo kiosks for a given month, or you've gone into your local EB and
>found the GBA demo unit still contains Super Mario Advance.
I disagree. If you go into any decent games shop (in other words,
anywhere other than Toys 'r' Us) where you are a regular customer they
will be happy to let you look at the games before you buy them. If
they don't have a copy of the game you want open, then go somewhere
else or say that you'll think about it. They'll soon get the message.
<snip>
>Whether you like to believe so or not, some people do download GBA roms for
>this 'try before you buy' feature. The company does not officially offer
>such a system, but if they expect people to purchase their material (which
>they must), the ROM system seems to work just fine. You can demo it out on
>your computer, or a flash device, and see if you like it. If you do, great,
>cha-ching! for the company. If not, great, your hard earned money can go
>towards a different title. While developers deserve money for their hard
>work, people get to determine what shows up in their shelves with their
>gaming dollar. If no one buys "Mary Kate and Ashley" GBA titles, because
>they were able to try it before they bought it, perhaps the developers would
>not produce them anymore, because they aren't making any money from them.
>Just a random example, nothing against the "Mary Kate and Ashley" GBA
>titles.
The problem with downloading it to a flash cart is that there is no
incentive for the tight fisted gamer to pay for the game after they
have played most of it. Some might buy it, but some will not which
equates to lost sales for the developers.
<snip again>
> If I play a downloaded copy of "Grand Theft Auto" on my
>home PC, but I never would have bought it, Rockstar Games is not out fifty
>bucks - because I never would have bought it anyway. Do you see? It doesn't
>justify the action, and it doesn't make it right. But we can't argue that
>there is a lot of truth in that argument.
If somebody wants a game enough to hunt it out on the warez sites and
then spend hours downloading it, farting around putting it on a cd and
playing it then they are demonstrating that they clearly *do* want the
game and probably would pay for it if they couldn't get it by pirating
it.
>That said, I want to point out that I haven't said that I'm a pirate, that I
>own a flash linker, or even a GBA for that matter. I'm just a normal
>everyday guy who believes that if consumers are given choices as to which
>products they want to buy, they must be able to sample those products before
>they spend money on them. That's all.
Oh I agree, but the absence of a legal way to do it does not excuse
piracy. For example, there are readily available demos for most pc and
console games and you can rent them from Blockbuster, but they are
still being pirated. Why do people do that if all they want to do is
sample the game which they can do quite legally?
--
neil h.
Jess the dog : http://www.planethopkins.com/pets.htm
Neil Hopkins
wrote:
Fair use is recording it for your own personal use. Passing it on to
someone else, or selling it is breaking the copyright.
Holden
read: I feel guilty.
:)
Ruffin Bailey
> consumers, we are given the $50+ price tags for a given game, we should have
> an avenue to sample said games to see if we want to spend our money on them.
> This is possible for most current platforms - on the PC you can even
> download demos for free, let alone getting them in magazines, etc.
My local Blockbuster rents Game Boy Advance games. Don't rewrite the
laws on your own to read like you wish they would.
Ruffin Bailey
http://www.curmudgeongamer.com
eldryne
> My local Blockbuster rents Game Boy Advance games. Don't rewrite the
> laws on your own to read like you wish they would.
>
> Ruffin Bailey
You can take your rude, condescending and snide attitude, and stick it. It
isn't welcome, nor necessary. That being said, that's great for your local
BlockBuster. I live in Canada, and have lived in almost half the provinces
now; and never once have I found a BlockBuster that rents GBA games. The
point I was trying to make was that there should be an avenue to be able to
find out whether or not you want to drop the full $$ on the game. I will
take note that apparently some BB's rent GBA games, that's great. However, I
don't own a GBA. I was simply arguing the ridiculous premises of some of the
other posters comments.
If you have more helpful information to add to the discussion, you could do
it without the snide remarks next time. Last time I checked, nobody else in
this discussion resorted to such.
Ruffin Bailey
> You can take your rude, condescending and snide attitude, and stick it. It
> isn't welcome, nor necessary. That being said, that's great for your local
> BlockBuster. I live in Canada, and have lived in almost half the provinces
> now; and never once have I found a BlockBuster that rents GBA games. The
> point I was trying to make was that there should be an avenue to be able to
> find out whether or not you want to drop the full $$ on the game. I will
> take note that apparently some BB's rent GBA games, that's great. However, I
> don't own a GBA. I was simply arguing the ridiculous premises of some of the
> other posters comments.
>
> If you have more helpful information to add to the discussion, you could do
> it without the snide remarks next time. Last time I checked, nobody else in
> this discussion resorted to such.
Your argument was, at best, specious, and, at worst, self-serving and
willfully oblivious to reality. I felt some quick ice water was the
best response. I do feel relatively strongly about people
self-justifying pirating. It's against the law. That's the bottom
line.
You've basically got two choices:
1.) Campaign to change the laws. Now I don't think you'll get very
far changing copyrights to allow you to pirate and try out recently
released games -- nor should you be able to, but there are places I
think we'd agree the laws aren't proper. Let's take, for instance, 25
year-old Atari 2600 games. There's no reason for copyrights on those
suckers to last so danged long. Now that's not an excuse for me to
start downloading them left and right, but is a pretty good point to
bring up to respective legislatures. Though I do think there is quite
a bit of gaming piracy for platforms like the 2600 where nobody's
really being hurt – and think the law should reflect that – I'm pretty
confident you're not arguing that at all.
2.) Be more conscious in your call for civil disobedience. If you
truly feel, "if consumers are given choices as to which products they
want to buy, they must be able to sample those products before they
spend money on them," and that this belief, in your estimation,
warrants doing something illegal, say so.
Unfortunately what you're arguing for is a very simple reduction of
peoples' rights to copyright. You're removing value from products.
There is a certain value for gaming houses to release games you'll
risk full-price on to try without testing first so that you can have
the game NOW. Have gaming companies ever cashed in on sequels,
banking people will buy substandard games? Absolutely. Made shiny
packaging and slapped a popular license on top of a game so that you'd
think it's the best since sliced bread, but put very little into the
game inside? Of course. People do reward such chicanery with their
dollars, and companies in all sorts of fields exploit this. It's
their right, I'm afraid.
Don't like the price of a game? Not sure if the game is good enough
for you to snap it up? Don't have a local store that rents games?
You've still got alternatives other than breaking the law. Try
trading time for dollars. Wait and eBay the game later for what
you'll willing to risk -- and recoup your losses if it sucks selling
to the next schmoe. Nobody says you have to buy now. Your "try
before you buy so that you can predetermine your price" takes an end
run around capitalism which, for better and quite often worse, is the
prevailing –ism around these here parts.
And as you don't even have a dog in the fight (not owning a GBA), I
find it strange that you'd urge people to do something illegal with
theirs.
Anyhow, your post, though possibly well-intentioned, does read, "Break
the law if you see fit." I'm not being snide when I say, "Don't
rewrite the law to match your own beliefs [without understanding the
consequences]." If we could all do as we personally saw fit b/c we're
able to justify our own actions *to ourselves*, well, there wouldn't
be much to society worth bragging about, would there? It's no wonder
even Kant believed that you had to have at least a "God-like" presence
held by the population at large for laws to work -- even if you
weren't caught breaking the law and "betraying soceity", you'd get
what's coming to you in the afterlife. Instead, in a godless society,
the ease with which we can break a relatively honest and fair law and
not get caught has started to equal a real moral dilemma where we're
not even sure we're doing something wrong.
As a quick aside, it's a shame there isn't a more robust GPL'd game
market where games can't help but be "Free". This would provide both
competition to commercial gaming and a legitimate outlet for people
who are dying to game but don't have the money or other resource
required to enter the commerical market. Sorta a furthurnet.com
(legal p2p music sharing service) for games.
That better? ;^)
Ruffin Bailey
Neil Hopkins
<snip>
>You've basically got two choices:
>1.) Campaign to change the laws. Now I don't think you'll get very
>far changing copyrights to allow you to pirate and try out recently
>released games -- nor should you be able to, but there are places I
>think we'd agree the laws aren't proper. Let's take, for instance, 25
>year-old Atari 2600 games. There's no reason for copyrights on those
>suckers to last so danged long. Now that's not an excuse for me to
>start downloading them left and right, but is a pretty good point to
>bring up to respective legislatures. Though I do think there is quite
>a bit of gaming piracy for platforms like the 2600 where nobody's
>really being hurt – and think the law should reflect that – I'm pretty
>confident you're not arguing that at all.
Some games companies are prepared to release code into the public
domain for old games, or make them available as shareware. This can be
done with minimimal cost via the internet. Id in particular has built
a successful business model out of this, and received a lot of kudos
from the gaming community for it. If we support such ventures
Hopefully more companies will see this as the way to go.
>
>2.) Be more conscious in your call for civil disobedience. If you
>truly feel, "if consumers are given choices as to which products they
>want to buy, they must be able to sample those products before they
>spend money on them," and that this belief, in your estimation,
>warrants doing something illegal, say so.
Civil disobedience is a basic right. People always have the option to
break unjust laws, but as you say they must be prepared to face the
consequences. Calling for civil disobedience because a game is a bit
expensive is not in the same league as starving people protesting at
the price of bread though!
<snip>
>Don't like the price of a game? Not sure if the game is good enough
>for you to snap it up? Don't have a local store that rents games?
>You've still got alternatives other than breaking the law. Try
>trading time for dollars. Wait and eBay the game later for what
>you'll willing to risk -- and recoup your losses if it sucks selling
>to the next schmoe. Nobody says you have to buy now. Your "try
>before you buy so that you can predetermine your price" takes an end
>run around capitalism which, for better and quite often worse, is the
>prevailing –ism around these here parts.
If I'm not sure if a game is worth my money at full price, I will wait
and buy it on budget in six months or a years time. If it doesn't come
out on budget, then I'll not bother with it at all - there are plenty
of other games out there to try.
>
>And as you don't even have a dog in the fight (not owning a GBA), I
>find it strange that you'd urge people to do something illegal with
>theirs.
>
>Anyhow, your post, though possibly well-intentioned, does read, "Break
>the law if you see fit." I'm not being snide when I say, "Don't
>rewrite the law to match your own beliefs [without understanding the
>consequences]." If we could all do as we personally saw fit b/c we're
>able to justify our own actions *to ourselves*, well, there wouldn't
>be much to society worth bragging about, would there? It's no wonder
>even Kant believed that you had to have at least a "God-like" presence
>held by the population at large for laws to work -- even if you
>weren't caught breaking the law and "betraying soceity", you'd get
>what's coming to you in the afterlife. Instead, in a godless society,
>the ease with which we can break a relatively honest and fair law and
>not get caught has started to equal a real moral dilemma where we're
>not even sure we're doing something wrong.
There was a piece in one of the papers here in the UK that found that
"petty" crime of this sort (stealing from your employer, fiddling your
taxes, falsifying an insurance claim etc.) was more prevalent amongst
the middle classes and that the vast majority had committed some crime
of this sort, largely because they can get away with it and it is seen
as victimless. Pirating games and mp3s is in the same sort of league -
you need to be reasonably intelligent, and affluent enough to afford a
computer with an internet connection to commit crimes of this sort.
>
>As a quick aside, it's a shame there isn't a more robust GPL'd game
>market where games can't help but be "Free". This would provide both
>competition to commercial gaming and a legitimate outlet for people
>who are dying to game but don't have the money or other resource
>required to enter the commerical market. Sorta a furthurnet.com
>(legal p2p music sharing service) for games.
Exactly. The success of things like I-tunes shows that there is a
market for people legally buying music over the internet if it is easy
and relatively cheap. Who wants to waste time trying to track down a
free mp3 when you can get it legally for a minimal fee? Far and away
the most popular game online is Counterstrike which is freely
available, assuming that you have bought a copy of Half Life which my
local supermarket is selling for £5.00. Business models are struggling
to catch up with the technology but the ones that get there will be
successful.
>That better? ;^)
That's one of the most cogently argued posts I've read in a long
while. What's the betting that one of the pirates follows it up with a
"HAR HAR I HAV TEH 1000 GBA R0MZ F0R FR33!!!!" post? ;-)
--
neil h.
Anya : "I provide much needed sarcasm"
Xbox live : neil hopkins