But I still disagree with pirating games because of the price. I mean I feel kind of bad for you, but I still don't think that gives you an obligation to steal games. If you can't afford the game, then you shouldn't have it. Simple as that.
If the price is over enflated for no reason, then it's only fair people fight back and steal from the company for a change. When the prices are what they would cost with price conversion from the states + shipping it by your self, then I'd be happy. But it isn't.
Then there is the whole wait for releases. Excite Truck came out in Feburary for us. It was a launch tite in America. The only difference is region, that should be able to be done in two or so days, possibly less. Then printed at the same time and released when Americas is done.
Europe and Animal Crossing makes for terrible waits, even worse than here in Australia. Which is kind of reasonable, considering that several languages are needed. Then there are some countrys that still don't have the Wii available in shops, and when it is it will end up almost costing your soul.
Please, stop trying to tell us to suck it up. You probabbly have no idea how frustrating it is.
#44 Apr 25 2007, 7:11 pm (Edited by moderator on Apr 26 2007, 7:50 am)
Oh please, don't even try to use that twisted insight. A company produces a game and charges a fee for each game sold. When a game is sold those companies get a percent of the sales. Even if you can't afford the game, someone else can. When people steal a product, they steal profits from the company and game designers.
That is like saying, well I can't afford the porsche anyways, so there won't be any lost revenue if I steal it. It is a shame you have a problem prices, but that doesn't give you an excuse to steal stuff.
I honestly don't care how frustrating it is for you, go cry to someone who honestly gives a damn. You live where you live and you have to pay the prices you are given just like any other region. Just because a price is high doesn't mean you can ignore the fact what you are doing is illegal. You make it sound as if Nintendo itself is forcing these prices on Aussies and I simply refuse to believe that.
Fighting back is one thing, you want to fight back, fine, petition, refuse to buy games, but stealing them? Come on. That would be like saying. I don't like these people working here, so lets fight back by shooting them. You obviously enjoy the content the company produces (or this wouldn't even be an issue) but yet do not feel obligated to pay. Where do you get off? Boo-Hoo I can't afford it so I'll steal it. Shut up. Oh wait, you don't like the long wait time for releases? Import it. Everyone else does it, why should that be any excuse to pirate games from Nintendo? Because you don't like how they handle their company? Tough.
I'm not stealing - I'm pirating (Well, actually, not. But to continue...). The copy is still on the shelf. No profits are lost, because I wouldn't have bought it anyway. Pirating it does not reduce the potential pool of customers any (in this situation), and it does not reduce the supply to those customers.
Nintendo itself is forcing these prices on Aussies and I simply refuse to believe that.
Because, y'know, with the free market and all, any alternative supplier can undercut them?
Hah. No.
That would be like saying. I don't like these people working here, so lets fight back by shooting them.
I fail to see how that's the case. Pirating isn't at all a violent crime, and it's not a matter of 'not liking' the high prices - we're mathematically getting ripped off.
You obviously enjoy the content the company produces (or this wouldn't even be an issue) but yet do not feel obligated to pay.
It's a matter of how much it's worth. There are several Nintendo games I likely would have bought if their price was more in line with the prices in the US and Japan, but I did not buy, because I'm not willing to pay the $99.95 for a GC game or $69.95 for a GBA or DS game. That's rather a lot in AUD - about $75 USD and $52 USD, respectively. Not all of that is Nintendo gouging - goods and services taxes on games and related paraphernalia are higher here then in the US - but a significant quantity of it is gouging.
As I don't have the means to pirate these games, and don't really care enough to, I haven't bothered. Additionally, the morality of it does still trouble me a little - but it's not as black and white as you make it out to be.
Boo-Hoo I can't afford it so I'll steal it.
It's not theft. It's piracy. There's a big difference - I'm not necessarily taking anything from anybody. The Chrono Trigger ROM on my PC in no way reduced the profits Nintendo and Square made from the game, nor did it reduce the supply available for other people to buy it. In fact, the demand for a CT ROM overseas may well have actually increased their profits, because someone has to get an official copy of the game to make the ROM.
Oh wait, you don't like the long wait time for releases? Import it. Everyone else does it, why should that be any excuse to pirate games from Nintendo?
1 - It is, in fact, often quite difficult to import games.
2 - In several cases, the company itself tries to put roadblocks in the way of importing. The Wii is region-locked, for example. I could have imported the Wii as well, but that would have been difficult, and then would have /forced/ me to only ever buy US games or I wouldn't be able to play them. Plus, I would need an NTSC TV to play them, or some sort of converter.
3 - I do, in fact, intend to import the new Pokemon games. It will be $20 AUD cheaper then if I bought them here in three months time. This makes no sense.
Because you don't like how they handle their company? Tough.
Nintendo, of course, has no obligations to long-time customers of theirs. I've probably handed them several thousand dollars of my money over a long period of time - I would expect that they would treat me well after that.
Whatever you need to tell yourself to go to sleep at night JP. When you don't pay for something you usually should have or would have that is still lost revenue. If you can't see that you need to go to the doctor because you are blind. You take several more low life pirates like yourself and multiply it by a few hundred and the company has lost several hundreds of thousands dollars that would have otherwise been made selling that product.
1 - I have already explained how the only piracy I have been engaged in is entirely morally correct, and harms nobody. Once again: The only games I have pirated are either so obsolete and out of date that I cannot purchase them in Adelaide - certainly not in a way that would see the supplier accrue any revenue, were never sold in a format I could play, games that I already own and wanted a ROM of, or, finally, games that I was trying out, because $69.95 is a lot. Of that final one, I have bought one game that I pirated, because I liked it, and I have not bought one of the others, because I didn't. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
2 - You don't seem to understand my point:
If a person A cannot afford to buy game B, and pirates it instead, there is no loss to the potential customers of game B (Because person A was never in that set), and there is no loss of supply for game B (because it wasn't stolen - it was copied off the internet).
It doesn't cause any economic harm to anyone involved, unless person A starts distributing it to people who could potentially buy game B, in which case there is potential economic harm.
It causes loss in the sense that the more normal it becomes, the more accepted it becomes; the more accepted it becomes, the more people will start to get games the 'cheap' way even when they can afford things just fine.
However, I've never seen a study indicating that sales have gone down as a result of piracy; many have concluded the exact opposite (That sales rise due to piracy, because interest for a given product or service rises).
The arguments for both sides lack some form of conclusive evidence, because there are so many psychological factors to consider.
For example:
Would I eventually want a game enough to save up for it and buy it, despite it being too expensive?
The answer to that question varies from person to person, and whether they'll do it despite their answer might also vary. I think its fair to say that since we're dealing with an individual case here (Jp), its pretty conclusive how Jp feels about the issue at hand.
If the difference lies between the following:
1) I don't buy the game, and I don't pirate it
2) I don't buy the game, but I pirate it
Then the company does in fact not lose any money. If the difference lies between the following:
1) I don't buy the game, but I pirate it
2) I don't buy the game initially, but I eventually save up and get it
Then the company loses money. Given that you (Revenant Jesus) have no way of telling whether this is the first set of options or the second, one might want to assume that since the person is telling you which one it is; you'd probably have to go with that set of options in the discussion.
It causes loss in the sense that the more normal it becomes, the more accepted it becomes; the more accepted it becomes, the more people will start to get games the 'cheap' way even when they can afford things just fine.
That's a rather good point, Alathon. I didn't think of that.
Of course, I'm not arguing that piracy in the case that I indicated is morally correct - just that it's not black-and-white.
Something far closer to the 'white' end of the spectrum is me downloading a Chrono Trigger ROM, because while it may have this normalising effect, it does not cause any direct loss of revenue at all. And even the normalising effect is limited - it's an SNES game, after all, rather then something far more modern.
There's a black end, too - taking a copy of, say, Twilight Princess, making an iso image of it, and distributing it over the internet is definitely what I would put in the realms of the immoral.
The answer to that question varies from person to person, and whether they'll do it despite their answer might also vary. I think its fair to say that since we're dealing with an individual case here (Jp), its pretty conclusive how Jp feels about the issue at hand.
I've never actually pirated a game because I couldn't afford it - being a member of middle-class Australia, and having a casual job as I go through Uni, while living with parents, means that I do have a fair quantity of disposable income. Certainly enough to buy some number of games.
Probably the closest my piracy has gotten to the black end is the use of roms to 'try out' games that are currently being sold - I would argue that this is fine, as I probably wouldn't have bought any of these games without trying the rom (Because I wasn't sure if it was worth it), and I always buy the game in question if I find that I enjoy it. The ones that I don't enjoy are deleted, because I don't really want to play them.
That's been limited to GBA games, though. AFAIK, GC, Wii and DS emulators are either unavailable or limited (Although I'm not so sure about DS emulators).
Of course, Rev, it should be considered that the flash-carts and booting devices we're talking about do, in fact, have legitimate uses. Well, moral uses, I'm not sure how legal devices used to get the DS to run unsigned code are in the US. But I'm sure we can all agree that running homebrew programs on your DS is perfectly reasonable.
I just prefer:
Squirtle
Totadile
Mudkip
(If your stupid enough not to have have noticed, these are all Water type pokemon.)
And i still enjoy the unique storyline and gameplay of pokemon yellow.
Personally, if I do pirate something (which is really -really- rare, now days). I'll only ever pirate something that I absolutely need and can't find a free alternate of. For instance, Windows XP. Until I discovered I actually had a legal CD-Key affixed to the bottom of my laptop. Yes, I'm vigilant.
Games I never bother to pirate. If a game requires me to spend lots of money in order to get, I wont bother getting it. The funny thing about Australian prices (the prices most of you are whining about) is, after a while, they drop. For instance, the Xbox itself, was how much when it was released? $600? $700 maybe? Now I can find one at Chadstone for about 120.00 - If that. I don't care if everyone is on the 360 now, I'm happy to sit back and do things the easy and cheap way. Not that I would bother buying an Xbox. <.<
As for the subject of money vs piracy. I agree with R.J. here. If you can't afford it, you don't have it. Look at me for example. I have... $80.00 left in my bank account, that's $720.00 less then what I should have, considering rent is due in three days. That doesn't mean I'm going to pirate the game. It just means I'm going to wait until I can afford it. Patience is a virtue.
--
Also, I haven't played a Pokemon game passed crystal. I figured they were all pretty much the same and I shouldn't really bother. What's changed to spike this revolution of Pokemon glory?
Whatever you need to tell yourself to go to sleep at night JP. When you don't pay for something you usually should have or would have that is still lost revenue. If you can't see that you need to go to the doctor because you are blind.
And if you're okay with your blindness, then the doctor has lost revenue too, since you didn't go to him! Equally valid/invalid is the argument that if paying that amount of money was the only option available, the person wouldn't buy it at all. You can't go and theoretically determine that everyone who didn't buy something would have. Just like you can't say the opposite. The truth lies somewhere between the two.
I call bull poop on that one. You are correct, You can't go and theoretically determine that everyone who didn't buy something would have. But when someone goes out of their way to pirate something it usually gives you a good idea.
What's changed to spike this revolution of Pokemon glory?
DEfinitely alot; since the last one you played was Crystal, you'll be kinda used to the Day/Night system, only that its Morning, day, night now. Besides that, ALOT has changed..Check out Serebii.net
That makes perfect sense. What with me stealing sales and all.