Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Buying something directly from the creators is, sure. Buying, say, a CD, does the creators no good. If you want to show support buy directly from the creators not the middle man.

As long as the product is comparable to the alternatives of course supporting your favourite creators, being financially able, is the way to go.

For example my favourite band lets me buy their albums directly from their own website and they email me a link to download a zip file with the songs in MP3 format. No DRM, no bull, no hassle. This is what it means to compete. And this from Warner Bros. Music, not exactly a mom and pop shop.

If you want to argue morality though, could care less what anyone thinks is moral or not. Everyone can assign their own definition of morality and even judge others based on it.

Others can also not give a frak what their morals are or whether or not they like what they are doing.

Did you even read that harvard essay before you reference it? Because what they said wasn't the same as your conclusion.




tl;Dr: havard research generally agrees piracy hurs creative industry, in most cases at least.

As for the other article:

It did say they can't find evidence to support game being hurt by piracy. But keep in mind that it is research in current EU, the gaming piracy scene may be entirely different from 1990 non EU regions.

It is possible that most people who pirate in EU are doing so because of anti-piracy measures, so most of them aren't pirating to save money, they are doing it to play. This was entirely different reasons from piracy outside of EU regions in 1990.



A lot of Korean and Chinese single player game companies were shut down in 1995-2000, those who survived spent the next 15 years making MMO and mobile games only as single player game industry was completely dead there. It wasn't until 2015 when Steam made piracy less of a problem that you start seeing more single player games from those countries.

If it isn't because of piracy in Asia why would those developers focused on MMO and mobile for 15+ years? you tell me.

yeah to be clear i'm no saint, do a lot of dumb stuff others would frown at. with stuff i'm passionate about like a hobby and given the choice to buy or pirate, i just want to show some appreciation, i wasn't always financially able to do so.

If you want to do that is great. Piracy doesn't do that though. It literally gives creators no money at all.

Not all the creators have time and money to setup a website or payment system though. Setting up those cost money too. That's why some creators choose to let middle man take some cut because sometimes they gain more without having to pay for hosting fee and such.

Real pirates steal a ship. It can happen anytime. Look at Houthi rebels. lol

Is that a direct result of piracy or a direct result of creating poor games that no one wanted to buy.

Where is the evidence that piracy directly resulted in studios closing down.

I do remember games in the 90s from the likes of Ubisoft. Buggy pieces of manure that no one in their right mind would buy day 1. So yes, everyone pirated, waited for the eventual patches 6 months to a year later and then decided to buy or not. Too late by then, new games to play etc.

Eventually the studios wised up and stopped releasing buggy pieces of manure. Ubisoft did not die as a result of piracy, they got better.

Of course the studies are going to say "protect creators". And yes there is some minimal impact when talking about movie releases and cinema attendance compared to sales of similar movies around the same time, assuming everyone that went to cinemas before will continue to do so which is not the case as cinema going is decreasing as a whole.

The evidence is that those "incompetent" Korean and Chinese developers have absolutely zero problem making good money from MMO and mobile because people can't pirate those.

Do you think Chinese and Koreans suddenly made better games after they switched to MMO industry? No. They just make games that no one can pirate anymore. The market for games always existed in Asia, but a big portion of profit was taken away by piracy so game dev gave up on single player games.


Or maybe...just maybe.... Europeans didn't pirate games as much as Chinese in 1990 so Ubisoft survived. Or maybe Ubisoft is big enough so they can survive.

Didn't apply to other smaller developers outside of NA/EU/JP.


You referenced the study yourself and now you don't believe it? I think I am done. I think you already have a stance from personal belief so I don't think any research can convince you otherwise.

I still don't believe your narrative though. I would rather believe Harvard research paper.

So no evidence that piracy did anything to Chinese or Korean game studios. Got it.

If you actually read the EU sponsored study yourself, here is its conclusion:


Which is what I said.

This wasn't what you said, you said piracy hurts sales was a propaganda(jump into a conclusion), then referenced a research paper literally said the sales decrease was larger than sales gain. Proving that the propaganda talk was incorrect.



There are evidence of music industry sales declined from 1997-2003 by more than 60%. Besides piracy what was causing the decline? It is the time that piracy did the most damage to the music industry. And unlike games, music can't simply become MMO to avoid piracy.

Why didn't the decline happen before internet or post streaming services? Can you answer any of these questions if you claim the propaganda is fake?

(Or will you also argue that sales declined so much because musicians suddenly sucked in 2003 so no one buy their music at that time? That argument would be hilarious tbh.)

I think you just refuse to look into the actual reason of sales decline because you personally believe big companies made too much money that they don't deserve. So any evidence of sales decline, it would be propaganda to you.

Citation? One that does not come from the music industry.

I'd also ask you to cite any research paper that shows significant decline in sales as a direct result of piracy to the tune of what you are suggesting, 60% or w/e. Also from independent studies.

Harvard study was

"The first study cited above finds that piracy that appears before a movie’s theatrical premiere decreases box office revenue by 11%, even though piracy that appears after a movie’s premiere can generate word-of-mouth gains that increase a movie’s box office revenues by 3%."

What, a 8% decrease, accounting for the subsequent increase from word of mouth sales? Significant? Arguable.

It is propaganda that "piracy is killing music" or that "piracy is killing movies", or games for that matter. None of which have happened.

Don't worry, he's paying them in exposure, and maybe if he likes the game enough he'll give them money. Probably not though, after all most of that money is going to middlemen anyway so it's not worth it.

Lol, ok. Have fun with this discussion.

It hurts nobody. OK it hurts but it's only 8%, that's not enough to kill the industry so it's not harmful!



IDK, maybe the people paying for the product are paying a higher price because that's what the studios have to charge after considering the fact that they're losing 8% of their sales to thieves? Do you really think companies are just choosing to take less of a profit because of stolen sales? Like they just take it out of their giant bonuses and call it a loss?

Do you mind if I drop your salary by 8%? It's arguable whether that's even significant, TBH.

IDK about Life, but it's stuck in my head now.

Yeah, ignore the study that says no impact cause that's EU and those guys are weird.

No impact.

Maybe you're just reading the highly biased article and not the actual report? I searched his "quote" that "no robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online piracy" but it doesn't appear in the study. I guess the opinion of the parliamentarian who "read" the study is important but perhaps not a totally clear view of the actual results.

Reading through the report, I can't find a single thing that says that game sales are going up because of pirates. They do say that people prefer digital vs physical now and that sales are generally going up, but I'm not seeing the part where piracy has any causal effect on that. I also don't see anything that says they found no negative impact in the games industry by piracy, could you point that out?

THESE EU, THEY ARE SO WE ERD

Im sorry man but simping for corporations that made more money on easter sunday then you will make all year is quite the move. You do you.

Who even said that? EU had a much lower piracy rate than China back in early 2000. If one country has 10% piracy rate for example this will not kill the industry. If piracy rate is 99% then it probably will. Hence you can't directly compare the negative effect from 2 different countries from 2 different times like that. The actual damage of piracy changes based on regions and time.

You kept using a yes/no approach when it comes to discussing the effect of piracy in the industry. When in fact it is percentage of people using it matters.

And crawling in my skin

Grocery stores make more money than me too, I guess I should steal my food. My doctor makes more than me, I should stiff them on the medical bill they send me.

The level of profit a company makes doesn't have any bearing on whether or not it's moral to take advantage of them and not pay them for their services.

For me anyway. I guess for some people, once a company has made "enough" money, it doesn't deserve your money anymore, and you can take anything you want from them because they don't need any more. That's not where my moral compass is, but if that's yours then go for it, but don't pretend you're doing them a favor by telling your friend their game is good after you didn't pay for it. You're a modern Robin Hood and you should be really proud of yourself for sticking it to the man.

Someone has to pay the tax for my welfare and health insurance though. I am happy that corporations are paying the tax for them, or hiring more employees so their salaries are paying them.

What's wrong with wanting more economic growth lol. Who the hell cares if companies are getting the biggest pie? I am happy with my small piece and it is better than no pie at all.

I dont think SE is going bankrupt because someone downloaded Final_Fantasy_6.rom in 2024 instead of biying the pixel remasters

Especially they bought the FF3 cartridge back in the early 90s, and a second copy on DS in the late 2000s.

Standard of morality: as long as the company doesn't go bankrupt. OK, LOADS of stuff is OK then. You could go down any Main Street and steal from every business on the block, none of them will go bankrupt, so you're morally in the clear!

Didnt Nintendo close down their digital DS shop?

So if you wanted to buy FF6 for your DS, your only option is from a highly inflated third party reseller, which means the purchase wouldnt affect nintendo or SEs bottom dollar.


If im wrong, which e-store did nintendo close?

I bought neither. Did get a copy from buying snes mini. yarrrr

1-theyre insured
2-breaking and entering, theft

OK so it's morally acceptable to steal from anyone so long as it's insured? Really not sure what the standards are here, lots of gray area.

What if their insurance premiums increase after filing the claim for theft, then did you do them harm and it's bad, or it's still OK because they can cover the cost of the increased insurance with their MEGA PROFITS?

Vyre, have ye moved yet?

Again