Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Korpon]

I personally don't care about any of the moralfag aspect of piracy or understand the weird debate. I pirate a game if I don't want to support the devs/publisher if they're fags or it's literally unobtainable for whatever reason on a store page, and I buy the game if I wish to support the devs (which is rare) or it's a multiplayer game, in which case I use a key reseller if I don't like the devs then. This isn't rocket science. My money is saved for far more important things: gabagool.

 

[PrettySneakyCis]

The concept of "stealth" in a video game is the stupidest, most artificial thing ever. Game devs always try to staple on about four or five mechanics to their system to give you the sensation of stealth, but you still have to suspend your disbelief to such an extent that it should cause a stroke to even just begin to pretend that what you are doing is fooling actual opponents while also being a fun, winnable experience. Doesn't matter if it's enemies forgetting you were even there 30 seconds after losing sight of you, not being able to see you if you're even slightly out of their direct line of sight, being totally incapable of hearing you (outside of one or two specific things they're programmed for, like footsteps or doors sounds), being oblivious to you having completely trashed a room as you look for key items, giving up the second you get to a hiding spot like it was a game of tag and you are on "base," and a million, billion other things. I don't even know what it is about stealth in particular that bothers me so much. I know all mechanics are extremely simplified or just plain fake in games: driving or flying, reloading, etc. - it's just stealth is the one thing that breaks my immersion and I kind of hate to see it whenever it pops up in an action or horror game.

 

[Slap47]

Steam achievements reduce piracy by 90%

 

[Another Random]

Why are people here going 'only niggers pirate and piracy is for niggers'? The industry people are the ones who don't make good demos and try to sell overpriced garbage at the same price as quality goods.

Piracy hurts sales? Yes, because it doesn't guarantee people will buy things. I got to beat a copy of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time that I didn't buy, and even though I like the game, I didn't get a copy of it because I felt satisfied with my playthrough as it was. At the same time, though? Piracy doesn't guarantee lost profits either. Otherwise we'd have seen so, so many great games fail to make a profit because people are pirating them, and we lack the evidence to prove that.

Is piracy still a crime? Sure, in the sense that you're getting access to a product you don't own for free. Is it worth prosecuting over CP, murder, or robbery? Fuck no. A guy who pirated a million dollars' worth in video games isn't nearly as bad a criminal as someone who stole an actual million dollars. If you're not police, being mad at him for that is stupid.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

To give my stance on some piracy-related arguments here as the resident ethicsfag

The bank account is not just data, it is access to scarce monetary resources via a verified identity within an institutional system
If someone copies that access and uses it, they are displacing you from a scarce good (your funds), which is what would make it theft
A game copy is not like that. Ontologically, it is just a pattern. It is a non-scarce form that is instantiated again elsewhere. The original remains undisturbed and no access is revoked. You are not being displaced from anything.
Stephan Kinsella puts this clearly: You can own a red car, but you cannot own the color red. You can own a disc, but not the game's design - just like you can own a red car, but not the color red. Copying that design is more like mimicking a dance or memorizing a poem rather than stealing a bike.

The ontological argument matters because property rights apply where there is conflict over control. That means, where there are scarce means that can't be used by more than one person at the same time. That's where ethics kicks in, to resolve such conflicts.
But games are data. You can copy them infinitely without preventing others from doing the same. There is no rivalrous issue to resolve, hence nothing to be "owned" in the strict sense
That's why intellectual property laws are artificial constructs
They don't reflect natural ownership but try to simulate scarcity where none exists, usually via state violence
They generate conflict rather than resolve it

Even if someone copies a game "just to play it", that does not make it unethical, because ethics does not demand ideal motives in non-conflict contexts
If no rights are violated, it's not unethical
Preservation is simply a bonus justification, often invoked when games are no longer commercially available
But whether it is "for preservation" or not, the key is that copying non-scarce data does not violate anyone's rights, and that is what makes it categorically different from theft

If you disagree with anything of what I said, then please give a true and honest answer to this question: Would you say that copying a dance move or memorizing a poem is "stealing" from the dancer or poet?
And if copying a dance move or memorizing a poem is not stealing, then why should the same act - copying a non-scarce pattern - be considered theft when it involves a video game?

 

[Another Random]

Because it involves a monetary transaction.

So the exact equivalent is if the dancer or poet teaches one how to perform correctly and instead of paying for it, I'm either watching a recording of the lessons to do so on my own or sneaking in to watch the lesson. They're not doing it for me, but they also didn't make it so private I couldn't experience it without.

Even so, given how I don't need the specific lesson from them to do it - I could indeed just do it by watching them perform and trying it out on my own without guidance - your point remains.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Because it involves a monetary transaction.

So the exact equivalent is if the dancer or poet teaches one how to perform correctly and instead of paying for it, I'm either watching a recording of the lessons to do so on my own or sneaking in to watch the lesson. They're not doing it for me, but they also didn't make it so private I couldn't experience it without.

Even so, given how I don't need the specific lesson from them to do it - I could indeed just do it by watching them perform and trying it out on my own without guidance - your point remains.

If I expect you to pay me for a poem I read out loud in a public square, and you memorize it, you have not stolen anything - even if I hoped to monetize it
Expectation does not generate ownership
The social and economic context around the act of producing or teaching does not result in ownership of a product or thought
The same goes for a digital game
The publisher may intend to sell it, but if the file(s) get(s) copied without depriving anyone of their copy or access, no rights were violated

So even if the copier sidesteps a business model, it's still not theft (because nothing scarce was taken and no contract was breached)
If there is no agreement and there is no dispossession, then there is no ethical transgression, just economic disappointment
If we go by the principle of what makes something ownable in the first place, then it has to come back to scarcity and conflict
Otherwise, we risk treating intentions and feelings as if they have the same normative weight as rights (which is dangerous for any ethics rooted in reality)

If you disagree with any of this clarification, then please answer the following:
What specific thing is being taken from the rights-holder when a digital file is copied, such that it creates a conflict over a scarce good?
And if no such thing exists, what makes the thing equivalent to theft?


(meta EDIT: while this is relevant to video games, meaningfully discussing theft of "video games" requires the general idea of whether a non-scarce good can be owned in the first place (because theft is, by definition, contingent on property - theft cannot logically exist unless property exists first). If a moderator or other interested party is not a fan of the fact that this discussion is taking place here in this thread, "debate the ethics of video game piracy" could be a valid relocation of some posts in this thread)

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Trial and error is the greatest game design. Wondering what happens next is the human experience, it's what makes the software a game for thinking humans. Twitch games are for kids and Koreans, and optimization problems are for computers.

You can wonder what happens next without it making you lose. Mario is good because it immediately teaches you the rules in the booklet and it's immediately grasped by playing it even without that, and then every challenge is based on those simple rules.

Mario wouldn't have been made any better by randomly killing you with trial & error...in fact, there is a bit of it at the end in the final castle with that puzzle that makes you go the correct way by guessing, and that's the worst part of the game, and you can lose just because you don't know what to do. Not fun.

 

[The Last Stand]

Would you say that copying a dance move or memorizing a poem is "stealing" from the dancer or poet?

Sure I can. If I, a Black man, dance and you, a White man copy it and make it famous, then you’re stealing my culture like your people have for 400 years.

 

[The Ugly One]

The ontological argument matters

No, it doesn't.

You pirate games because you don't feel like paying for them and like getting things for free. That's it. However, just stating that makes you feel kind of like a nigger, so you construct complex rationalizations to convince yourself and others that you aren't really like those ape men who just take what they can.

You aren't like that nigger who swipes a Red Bull and runs out of the convenience store because [blah blah blah blah]. Nor are you like that nigger who sneaks malt liqour into the movie theater because [words words words words]. You steal for enlightened white-man reasons. In fact, they're so enlightened that you're not really stealing, your complex rationalization serving to give you a platform from which to look down at those rubes and savages who think you're stealing, too dumb to understand that metaphysically, you're really just claiming what is your natural right.

You're not stealing; you're saving civilization from an unjust and repressive system! If only people appreciated your heroism!

And if copying a dance move or memorizing a poem is not stealing, then why should the same act - copying a non-scarce pattern - be considered theft when it involves a video game?

Because the dancer didn't invest $50 million into producing the dance move in the context of a legal system that provides him the right to license access that move out to consumers. And, to the point, whatever terms & conditions existed under which you were given the right to watch that dancer perform for you should be respected. It's unethical to, for example, go see a performance that explicitly says "no recording" and then surreptitiously record it. If they'd known you were going to record, they wouldn't have let you in.

If the publishing company had known you were going to copy & redistribute the software, they wouldn't have given you a license or access. You don't get to renegotiate contracts after the point of sale because the original contract wouldn't have been considered valid in the fictional country of Ancapistan. You can theorize about how the software you stole would have been produced, marketed, and sold in Ancapistan, but that's not where we live. The game didn't actually get produced in Ancapistan. And there's the neat trick...everyone in the actual world has to invest actual labor and capital to provide you with actual goods, and work and distribute them under the actual law of the real country of the United States, but at the point of consumption, magically, the laws governing the production and distribution are abolished; they change from the actual law into the hypothetical law of the fictional country of Ancapistan! And the fact that nobody who invested their own resources to bring you the good gets justly compensated...well, that's their problem for not living in Ancapistan!

Quietly switching to the laws of a fictional country whenever it benefits you and you won't get in trouble, and only after a long productive process has brought you capital-intensive goods isn't ethical. Nobody actually thinks you're a good person by posting "Welcome to Ancapistan" above your door and just ignoring whatever laws you can get away with inside it. It's a rationalization that exists solely for your own benefit. If you just admitted to yourself that you like taking without paying, you'd feel like a nigger, and that would feel bad. You just don't like paying for stuff you can just as easily grab off a torrent. That's all.

 

[The Last Stand]

You pirate games because you don't feel like paying for them and like getting things for free. That's it. However, just stating that makes you feel kind of like a nigger, so you construct complex rationalizations to convince yourself and others that you aren't really like those ape men who just take what they can.

For me, if there’s a new game out, even if I had the means to pirate, I’d still go through proper channels to legitimately obtain it for my conscience.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

For me, if there’s a new game out, even if I had the means to pirate, I’d still go through proper channels to legitimately obtain it for my conscience.

In every instance?

 

[Captain Syrup]

I’ve never really gotten the appeal of Zelda. Some of that’s because I’m old and no longer have the patience, but mostly, it’s because the series has always felt pretty one-note. There are maybe three classics in there, padded by decades of grass-cutting and Korok-collecting.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Appreciate you writing out your thoughts with passion. Let's set emotional projections aside and return to clear terms

No, it doesn't. [== The ontological argument does not matter.]

The ontological argument does matter because property is not a feeling, a cost, or a law.
It's a relation between a person and a scarce thing, grounded in reality.
And theft is conceptually impossible unless property exists.
So if you call something "theft", you are already assuming a valid property right. That's basic logic, not rationalization.

Let's define things cleanly.
Scarcity means that two people cannot use the same thing at the same time. This is the only location where ethics applies.
Ownership is a rightful claim to control a scarce good.
Theft is the unrightful taking of such a good, removing control from the rightful owner.

A digital game copy is not scarce. You can copy it infinitely without displacing anyone. That's not theft, that's pattern instantiation.
If you disagree, then you must explain what scarce good is being taken. Hand-waving at investment cost doesn't work, because cost alone does not create property. You don't own the ocean because you spent time looking at it.

Because the dancer didn't invest $50 million into producing the dance move [== But someone spent $50 million making it!]

Sure. Investment may create value, but it does not create ownership over patterns. Ownership applies to things that can be conflicted over. If you think spending money makes something yours even when it's non-scarce, then you have just invented a metaphysical right to monopoly by effort (which is indistinguishable from claiming ownership of ideas, colors, or facts).

a legal system that provides him the right to license access that move [== You're violating a license!]

Contracts only bind consenting parties. If someone copies a file without agreement, it's not a breach, it's simply an act outside of contract.
If I walk by a bakery and mimic the recipe from the smell, I have not signed an end-user license agreement (EULA). No fraud, no force, no theft.

And there's the neat trick...everyone in the actual world [== But that's not how the real world works]

Correct.
The real world is full of state-enforced legal privileges masquerading as rights. That's not a rebuttal to my argument. My argument challenges the very system.
Appealing to existing law is not an argument for ethics. Slavery, censorship, and conscription were legal too. If you think laws determine what is ethical, rather than ethics being the standard by which we judge laws, then what you're doing isn't discussing ethics, what you're doing is defending authority.

It's a rationalization that exists solely for your own benefit. [== You're just rationalizing theft because you want free stuff]

That's not an argument, that's motive projection. I could just as easily say you're rationalizing censorship because you want other people to obey. It proves nothing.


Allow me to posit the real test of consistency
If copying a game is theft, then what, specifically, is being taken?
Not "who is upset?" or "what did it cost?" or "what does the law say?"
What physical conflict arises from the act of copying a game?

If you can't answer that, then you have not identified a rights violation. All you've done is moralize your personal preferences.
And if calling something that isn't theft "theft" helps you feel better about siding with coercive monopolies, that is bonafide rationalization

 

[The Last Stand]

In every instance?

Um, let’s say yes.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Um, let’s say yes.

I can understand having a guilty conscience over pirating an indie game, or even a big game if it's good, but I can think of no reason not to pirate woke slop. You should have a guilty conscience supporting that, if anything.

 

[The Last Stand]

I can understand having a guilty conscience over pirating an indie game, or even a big game if it's good, but I can think of no reason not to pirate woke slop. You should have a guilty conscience supporting that, if anything.

Or just, not buy it if you don’t care to own or play it. I don’t wish to have shit I don’t wish to have. Second hand purchases don’t directly go to the developer/publisher. Maybe, there’ll be a case where somebody notices an uptick in purchases but that won’t do anything.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I’ve never really gotten the appeal of Zelda. Some of that’s because I’m old and no longer have the patience, but mostly, it’s because the series has always felt pretty one-note. There are maybe three classics in there, padded by decades of grass-cutting and Korok-collecting.

Which makes you wonder why Gaymur Gurls are so obsessed with it. Sure as shit can't be the original Zeldas cause they suck. BotW? Likely. It has a ton of tumblr-adjacent feminization of Link and big amazonian women and "totally gay" bird characters.

Then again, I don't even see triforce tattoos anymore; I see full-on "ZELDA TM" logos on the chest. I assume they just cling to whatever gets them attention.

 

[Djinni Djohn]

The principal remains the same, regardless of the damage done. If the argument was "Sure I'm stealing, but at least I'm not directly taking money out of someone's bank account", I wouldn't disagree at all. I would actually say that stealing from game devs is a good thing, as I hate them and they deserve to suffer.
But when I see people claiming that data theft doesn't qualify as theft unless the victim loses access to the data, I ask myself if they would be fine with their data being copied and distributed as well. If this logic only applies to video games and music, then they should specify that. They don't, because that would make their efforts to justify stealing for the sake of convenience transparent.

As someone trying to get into games development and so on, yes. Yes, I would be okay with people copying and distributing content I made, because that at least means to those people, it's at least worth the time and bandwith and attention required to acquire and consume whatever content I make.

Again,, the reason why moralfagging in defense of piracy exists is because of the demand for such arguments from anti-piracy moralfags, and anti-piracy moralfagging is generally far more annoying since it's based on ad-hoc arguments (Such as "Lost sales"), overly reliant on repeating rhetoric and platitudes(Insisting on it being "theft" or insisting on labeling video games as "luxuries"), and attempts to go "Gotcha!" and treat very short term smug cleverness as a substitute for intelligence and wisdom("Haha, you support piracy? Well what if someone copied your bank account info, guess you aren't pro-piracy anymore, nigger!"). Repeating the fact that piracy involves information and data copying rather than physical seizure of products can get annoying, but it's generally more airtight and less midwit than the aforementioned.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

In a private conversation, I have been asked about the example of "what if I own a game store and someone steals from me"
I felt my reply was worth sharing for the thread too:


If we're talking about a physical store, then yeah, someone walking out with a disc or cartridge they didn't pay for is theft. That's a scarce object, part of your inventory. You had it, now you don't. Clear case of displacement and ownership violation.

If we're talking about a digital storefront, like Steam or GOG, there is no inventory in that sense. You're not transferring ownership of a thing, you're offering a license. A kind of subscription agreement that says "you may access and download this content under these terms"

So when someone "pirates" a game, it's not that they "downloaded without paying", it's that they obtained and used that data without agreeing to the license that grants access. If they never entered into that agreement in the first place, they're not violating a contract, they're just outside of the licensing system entirely.

That's not theft, that's using a non-scarce pattern in a way the licensor did not approve of. You may call it unauthorized, but you can't call it theft unless something scarce was taken - and it wasn't.

So yeah, "a game was stolen" can only be true if what was taken was a scarce thing, like a boxed copy on a shelf. If all that happened was someone copied bits without permission, that's a terms of service issue, not a property violation.