Pirates...and not the cool kind
Shacknews had an interesting news article today about Infinity Ward and piracy affecting Call of Duty 4. This led to a really long thread.
Contained within you'll find developers saying pirates should die, morons saying the publishers are just greedy and shouldn't worry about a "few" pirated copies, a few just saying they steal games outright for whatever reasons, then a few people just taking your standard online forum potshots.
I just find the topic infuriating.
It's stealing. That's pretty much my argument.
Apart from the clear bottom line hit of people stealing stuff and distributing it (and yes, there are arguments that those who pirate would have never bought it in the first place), it causes developers to do things like avoid the PC. Or add really frustrating restrictions, like what 2K did with Bioshock. This makes us look like chumps and the loyal customers become outraged.
It's all really sad. I downloaded a bit of music my freshman year in college. Nothing too crazy, and since then I've stopped completely. There are just so many games out there that are only $20 after they sit on the shelf for a while. Or you can get them from Gamefly to rent. Or at Gamestop used (even though that ultimately hurts publishers too...).
Buy the game, or get a different hobby. You're giving pirates a bad name.
(posted by grant at 1/15/2008)
