No, his point, if I'm reading it right, is that if you're so poor off that you have to steal video games and justify it by claiming your too poor to ever afford them, then why don't you put the video game down and go out and do something to improve your lot in life.  Maybe you should waste less time playing video games and more working to improve your future.  (Generic "you" obviously). 

No matter how poor you are, theft is theft.  In the case of basic human needs you can make a legitimate argument that your theft is justified.  In the case of video games, regardless of your circumstance, you are stealing an item that YOU DON'T NEED and are stealing purely because you feel like it.  

And to go back to the original point that started this ludicrous discussion:

TorinReborn isn't saying he steals out of dire need. He's saying he steals when he decides he's not patient enough to wait until he can afford another game.  Not only is that wrong, but its a pathetic argument to try to defend.  He's admitting that he can at times afford games and then saying that sometimes he pirates them instead of waiting until he can afford another.  The whole "I'm from a part of the world too poor to afford video games" argument he's peddling goes right out the window from his own words.  Either you can save enough income to buy a game sometimes or you can't.  Based on his own words, he can.  That makes his argument for why he steals nonsense.  It's basically that he doesn't feel like waiting until he's saved enough to buy another game.  

There are luxury items everyone, from every society, would like to buy but has to delay because they can't afford it at the moment.  It's called saving.  But we live in an instant gratification world where what I want RIGHT NOW can be justified by any form of flexible morality system that I happen to hold in the moment.  It's crap.  It's thievery.  And it's wrong no matter kind of victom-ideology you dress it up in. 

Man, I don't get people some times.  It's actually making me feel conservative, like I am actually worried about the moral fiber of the world.  Oh God...I might start believing in God and watching Fox news soon...

I was thinking that you and I were in the same boat, Satrhan; we both self identified as entitled (you did say that you were born in the richer parts of the world), so no, none of that was directed at you as a person.  I do, however, come down on the opposite side of the issue from you regarding the issue of even one person helping themselves to intellectual property for which they didn't pay a fair market price to the creator of that IP.  Laws aren't necessarily there to be convenient, or even to provide justice on an individual basis, they're there to ensure that, overall, as a society, we deal more or less fairly with one another.  Individuals are always free (even in despotic states) to choose to ignore the laws and do as they please.  In Yemen, I'm sure that the price of transgressions are severe.  I drive faster than the speed limit sometimes.  It's against the law, but I do it primarily because it benefits me personally, I don't see the people I'm affecting adversely, and because the probability of getting caught is low, with little punishment.  The same is by and large true of software piracy.  If TorinReborn had a 50/50 chance of being caught, tracked, and prosecuted, it's possible he'd be making a different choice than he is.

The fact remains, though, that when I speed, I do increase the probablility of an accident according to actuarial tables, and I do ever so slightly affect traffic flow decisions around me.  And there is an effect on the creator with software piracy as well.

edit: I see the word "your" in my original post, so I can see your issue.  That probably would have been more clear if I had said "their crappy life".

Wow,

Some feel bad for Jennifer Hepler as they should, because nobody should have to endure that kind of abuse, and disrespect. In real life, or the internet. When i see crap like that i think maybe internet censorship is not such a bad thing after all. If anybody did what they did to her face, or over regular mail, or on the phone they would be locked up pronto.

Another group thinks she should in so many words just STFU, Get thick skin, and deal with it. That is all fine, and dandy until some lunatic that didn't get "his game his way" finds out where she lives, kicks in her door, and guns her (and possibly her entire family) down. You think something like that wont happen sooner, or later? It has happened to others in the past over far less, and more ridiculous reasons. Really?! Should she, or Bioware just STFU over this?!

Another group totally diverged, and this turned into an off topic PIRACY flame war.

A good majority of the reply's here prove the articles point.

Since I believe in the right of self defense, and think any woman with half a brain should be carrying a compact in their purse...

I'm still going with morons on the internet aren't a big deal.  Empowering them with silly talk about how scary and impactful they are is a self defeating act.  They're the class clowns, laugh at them and send them to timeout.

I agree with almost everything above,

A lot of the things I mentioned in my post happened decades or centuries ago. However, life is not about just life or death. It is indeed for the bottom 10% but not for the majority. Considering all of us may only have, on average, 50 or more years alive, I can't see its fair to condemn to the deepest pits of hell those that want to enjoy some of it despite where they were born.

Heck, many have risen up and said f#$k the pecking order,I am taking everything I can get from my neighbors, including their lives. These people have instigated invasions and massacres. A pirate is still a thief and I certainly am not sugar coating reality. But life isn't fair for almost anyone and I personally don't think people in these situations deserve metric tonnes of blame heaped upon them because of these choices.

 

The transfer of wealth is not the only metric of good in the
world. Do you think there is a good effect on society by creative digital media
(movies, books, games, music) and it disappears as soon as wealth is not
transferred? Or do you think the people who receive the good effect in this way
don't deserve it, so it doesn't count? I think the latter view is just short-
sighted. The proliferation of creative media, like the proliferation of all
communication that has occurred with the creation of the internet, only leads to a
more connected, educated, and progressive society.

The effect of the good matters. We don't praise crack dealers for being successful
at selling crack, because their product hurts their customers. On the other hand,
someone who writes a thoughtful book whose work enriches the minds of its readers,
you hope for their success to keep doing the good. If that person could have been
20 percent more successful over their already wild success if piracy were thwarted,
but 40 percent more read it (some wouldn't have bought it) because of piracy, you
can wonder if the 20 percent more people's minds enriched is worth more than that
individual being 20 percent richer. Do you disagree with that hypothetical case?

If you make the argument, like Seanw3 and Kantok apparently , that creative media has an at best
neutral effect on their customers (mere "enjoyment", where enjoyment in this sense is taken 
to be socially worthless), then what good is it anyway? Why care if those creators
make any profit at all? If I am not addicted to their socially worthless good, why
should I support its perpetuation?

If creative media has social value, then you must weight that social good in the equation. Then there is muddy waters, because the financial reward to creators to continue to create has diminishing returns, and the social value of the good does not diminish as it is transferred. There will be cases were copyright infringement was a good thing.

The Gamespot article only tell the story from one viewpoint, and that is in support of Hepler.

I see comments on Gamespot like: "I cannot actually believe they did an article on this. Does she really think that by signing up on twitter and saying things like "You guys are just jealous of my vagina and that I work in the gaming industry" is going to bring any less hate on her? If she didn't want internet hate to begin with why would you open up a public known twitter account in the first place. A mature adult is going to see these insults as the hollow threats they are, shrug them off, and move on with their life. Do you think people who get called racist terms, vulgar homosexual insults or any sort of thing like that over the internet get so offended they sign up for twitter to address these people? No. They laugh, and move on. I mean come on, the gaming industry is bad enough as it is. With ever growing focus on casual gaming with kinect, move, and just dumbed down game play to a wider audience. How do you think the idea that games should have the option to be an interactive movie is going to go over with the gaming community? The idea is just absurd. If you want to look at someone and learn from them how to act with the public, look at Gabe Newell. He probably gets these messages DAILY for years now, do you see him telling the world they are just jealous of him because of his dick and because he works in the gaming industry? No, you don't. You see him invite people into his office for a tour when they sit outside protesting the release of Episode 3."

So she's not innocent.

And saying that you should be able to skip the fights does not sit well with me.

I care about it since if that's possible on the harder difficulties and you can use it to get achievements you DO NOT deserve(!) then that is utterly broken.

It's also possible that this sets us down a slippery slope of n00bification which I'm wary of.

I'm just surprised there are Bioware fan boys after they were  bought by EA and EA renamed half their studios Bioware...

Seriously though.. the industry has to remember that although yes the demographics of Gamers has changed over the years.. a large chunk.. maybe even a majority of their customer base are that age where raging hormones and a sense of entitlement are quite common.

Many companies even go so far as to target this demographic, changing a series or generally designing a game that will attract the "new" players while hoping name recognition alone will entice the old players. If they then act surprised that their new customer base are whiny brats i'm not sure what to say to them.(although DUH might be fitting)

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone -- outside of industry trade groups -- who believes that copyright laws always result in desirable outcomes. Similarly, almost no one believes that creative media has no benefits. The problem is that these debates (1) involve different kinds of goods, which are not easily compared, and (2) the extent to which infringement affects these kinds of goods is poorly researched.

Sure, these institutions deserve some criticism, but what've they got to do with any of this?

Lol. I taught myself until college. I learned most of my lessons from comparative history. But education is really just another way of enforcing cultural norms. 

I wish it were better at enforcing the cultural norms related to grammar.