[cykod]

The fallacy with this argument is that if everyone behaved if you did there would be no games. If this stuff is "free" it's the tragedy of the commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons - except in this case it's developer resources that are "common" and will be depleted as there wouldn't be money to pay for them.

I think at this point everyone understands that there's piracy out there and it's not going away. The thing that irks me is the moral argument like yours (provided it's not a troll, I can't be sure) - I just wish people would admit that they're taking something for free that they shouldn't - no one is saying "trust me - you'll like it," don't give me that "after I evaluate" stuff - you can read dozens of reviews and watch full play-through movies on Youtube. I wish people would just admit that they are scumbags.

Extremely tiny scumbags in the grand scheme of things - less than folks taking a candybar from a corner store as digital goods, as you noted, are freely copyable without cost, but scumbags nonetheless as you are the leeches that make things worse for folks willing to pay for stuff. If you're a student and have no cash but want to play every game that comes out, you're probably going to pirate, but don't create this entire moral structure of justification to compensate for your being a freeloader. Just accept a the tiniest twinge of moral responsibility as you play your free game and become a better person down the road.

As someone who enjoys playing large-scale single player games on PC - Skyrim and the like - I'm upset because more and more developer resources are going to switch to F2P and "always online" games because those are the only ones that "beat" piracy and there are going to be less titles out for the PC and more that just are on console the next generation of locked-down consoles.

[makomk]

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to kill the game industry - so long as enough people pay after they pirate, developers will still get paid.

Now, what would kill the game industry is if everyone followed eropple's suggestion and solved the problem of not being able to evaluate games before buying them by just not playing any games in the first place. If everyone both stopped pirating and buying them, there is zero chance they'd decide to pay up after playing for a while, zero chance their friends would recommend the game, zero sales, and shortly thereafer zero games. Unlike piracy, that's genuinely unsustainable.

[vy8vWJlco]

"The fallacy with this argument is that if everyone behaved if you did there would be no games."

> In the past artists (and scientists) had patrons but today we have kickstarter. It is possible to fund the creation of large projects (movies, TV shows, games, hardware, research, etc) without as much risk to the people carrying it out.

There would most certainly be games, IMHO. I am also not trolling. I have been trying to rationalize copyright for over a decade. I just can't justify it anymore (and don't think that should mean I should have to ignore what my peers are talking about, and what tools are current, either).

[nawitus]

>The fallacy with this argument is that if everyone behaved if you did there would be no games.

The parent comment stated that he supports artists (probably financially).

For further reading, I recommend a book called Against Intellectual Property. You can download that legally for free. It's also for sale.