The dangers of entitled gamers

Quoting Burress,

Not too hard pressed, because that was what was argued by several in this very thread. Black and white, no gray.

It's possible to hold the position that 'copyright infringement is always theft' and 'copyright infringement is always immoral' and still acknowledge that there compelling arguments for both sides. I suspect that many of the people that you believe to have black and white views would backtrack or quickly develop more nuanced views if they responded to the example you posed.

Quoting Burress,

reply 85

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/02/romania_microsoft_piracy/ Some state leaders even find it compelling. With places like Africa and Asia using a lot of pirated software, they can make similar cases. Money isn't changing hands, but how much money can you expect to extract from these places anyway?

Microsoft is an interesting example. They support stronger copyright regimes, but they are realistic about the economics of piracy. Raikes famously described Microsoft's position as 'If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else'. It's also worth noting that the kind of piracy that affects business software is different than the kind of software that affects entertainment software. The primary source of business software piracy is underlicensing (i.e. companies purchasing a legitimate copy of the software and then violating the license agreement). (I'm not trying to argue with you here, this is just a collection of random thoughts about the article you posted.)

All of those things. Sinperium, are rare and gone once used. Note that I still consider piracy theft and that its not fair for the user to take for free what he hasn't earned. However, its not fair to expect someone who has been born in poor conditions and works a hard life deserves as much blame as someone who can't afford to eat cavier or drive DB9's as someone said a couple pages back. Not black and white.

I think this thread should be renamed "The dangers of entitled poor people" lol

Well, with the Internet the way it is today, media has become a product that is infinite. Under normal terms of supply and demand, an infinite product has no value. Therefore in order to attribute value we have to rely on BS.

The Piracy discussion is, among other things, an argument of how important the BS is to the moral (and economic) fabric of society.

(Jumps on a soap box, and imitates Commander Shepard)

"HEY!! This Thread Discriminates Against The POOR!!" The storekeeper gives a discount. "Ok, but you still hurt my feelings".

Bottom line. We live in a society that doesn't condone in public, but encourages, and revels in this kind of behavior (Piracy, Theft, and Abuse with no consequence). I don't need to explain myself. Look at TV (NOT Fox news). Listen to the radio. Just go outside, and take a good look around you. If you think the world around you is "Cool", the "Shizzle", Dope, "Bomb", or whatever the new way to ruin the English language of the week is. If you think all of this is "OK" then you are part of the problem.

I agree. Its a systemic problem down to the core.

As someone said earlier, its the best basis for a system we have, but oh boy does it need some changes.

The person who wrote that doesn't know what he's talking about. People are upset about the declining quality of Bioware's writing, the increasing hubris of their administration, and their poor treatment of customers. Hepler just gets the trouble from it because she's an appealing target and convenient scapegoat. She's fat, ugly, Jewish, and more importantly she's an abysmal writer who quite clearly was given a job by her husband, and then has the gall to accuse her detractors of disliking her solely due to jealousy and misogyny.

Gamer Entitlement has nothing to do with it. Gamers do hold high standards at times, but devs like Stardock and smaller indy groups are able to please their fanbase by putting out a good product and having respect for their customers. There are exceptions even there (as we when, after WoM, people continued to pour vitriol onto these forums despite being guaranteed expansions), but the gaming community as a whole is not as bad as alarmist media likes to make it seem.

UPDATE: BioWare CEO and cofounder Dr. Ray Muzyka responded to the attacks on Hepler overnight, donating US$1000 to Bullying Canada in her name.[/quote]From a company the size of Bioware, that's a fucking insult. For perspective, they spent $200,000,000 on their MMO. Now, that was spent over quite a while and was a big investment for them, so let's say that's an expenditure equivalent to a normal joe spending 200,000 on a house. That seems a bit generous to me, but for the sake of easy math that's what I'm going with. That's three powers of ten. That's the equivalent of a normal guy giving one dollar.[quote who="Alstein" reply="7" id="3088126"]If only Bioware was private, then they could ban the folks responsible for this garbage. There is way too much misogyny is gaming. Any amount is too much obviously, but it's crazy how woman-hating many gamers are.

Bioware can and has banned people for criticizing TOR on their forums. Incidentally, these are Origin bans which end access to any and all games purchased on Origin.

As for piracy, well, it's certainly illegal and people should support the games they enjoy. But it does arguably have merit in cases where adequate demos are not available, and people also employ it in order to evade obtrusive DRM such as SecuROM or Origin. Have some links.

Pirates buy more games: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110727/16233815292/another-day-another-study-that-says-pirates-are-best-customers-this-time-hadopi.shtml

Ending piracy reduces sales 90%: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/07/opinion-ubisoft-piracy-and-the-death-of-reason/

Quoting seanw3,

reply 78

There is homeschooling where your mom teaches you from home and there is homeschooling where your mom buys you a bunch of high school level books and says, "you have a test in six months." It's not illegal because I passed the test every year. I taught myself from 4th to 8th grade and surpassed the state's expectations. I don't know what kind of social reinforcement I missed. Anyone care to enlighten me? It seems like everyone else here learned that less fortunate countries get a free pass on stealing.

About your last sentence. It goes back to politics. Less fortunate (what a great word by the way, meant to imply that luck has something to do with it all LOL; well it kind of does for individuals who cannot choose where and when they are born) countries do get a free pass (well individuals do) because more fortunate (again this funny word that would now imply country like USA got lucky to be wealthy) countries got their fortune by slaving, stealing and murdering on mass scale. Change yourself before telling us other what to do. You sound like the French at the eve of the revolution telling people to eat cake... but on a global scale.

Quoting Kantok,

reply 96

Quoting rowanlad, reply 94I think I made it pretty clear that stealing is still stealing. No matter the justification or personal ethics of the thief, its still theft. I also agreed this is not life and death stuff we are talking about. There is no lethal game withdrawal if a poor person stops playing and so technically he doesn't need it. They certainly don't deserve 'a free pass', although their societies almost hand it to them on a silver platter.

However, games and other social media do have a positive effect and, for some people, break the monotony on a rather bleak existence. Yes, stealing it makes them a thief but its no simple black and white 'you are evil because you stole some money from a corporation in my wonderful country so stop doing it and go back to your cold rice and simply accept you were born to be poor and have less enjoyment than me'.

Its not like these people don't do as much work as the people who can afford 10 games a week. Usually they do more work and contribute more to their society (and yours possibly too) than you do. So, by all means brand them with that smoking hot iron of thief, but to do it with such self-righteousness and arrogance is, in itself, unjustified.

I'm not sure if you're referencing one person in particular or not. I think it's worth pointing out, 4 pages later, that the posts that started the piracy/thief discussion were in regards to a particular poster that specifically said he paid for games when he had the money and downloaded them when he didn't.

So the discussion didn't start over the morality of poor third worlders trying to escape their bleak existence. They started over the idea of stealing games for convenience when you indeed could pay for them with a little foresight and savings. For what it's worth.

Lol? Why are you lying?

Where did I say I could save up and afford the games I downloaded?

Maybe you missed the part where I said my life standard is 2-3 times less then USA while most prices are more?!

I support my wife and kid and each month we are left with 0 in the bank or less. We live without any big comforts. I don't drink, don't smoke, don't own a car. I go out once per month to see one movie in the cinema. I work 8+ h per day as QA in software company and this is how I can live with it. And I am actually a lucky person in my country. Honest people here get less money or are unemployed. And compared to most of Asia or Africa or Middle East I am happy to live here.

And you can stuff your morals and high ground position where the sun does not shine....

So a person in your country much poorer than you can justifiably steal your movie money then to buy food right?

A person who just "wants" something and takes it for that reason alone is simply stealing. A person stealing to avoid starvation--different situation.

I've twice almost purchased a game for a couple of people on the forums but before I could get to them they were able to purchase a copy. I'd love to gift my old copy of Sins to someone who can't afford the game when it comes out--but no one has a right to steal it from me.

Fortunately, no-one is stealing it, and certainly not from YOU.

It's just the absurdity of, "I want to play it so I stole it." We teach our four and five year old children not to do this.

The problem is that digital media is post-scarcity.

therefore things get complicated ... and you have this big gray area of everything, not just copyright issues.

Quoting TorinReborn,

reply 109

Lol? Why are you lying?

Where did I say I could save up and afford the games I downloaded?

Apparently I misunderstood you're post. And when I quoted it the first time you never corrected my misunderstanding. For the record, I'll quote your relevant words:

Quoting TorinReborn,

reply 19

I buy games when I can afford one, and download when I cannot.

To me, that reads like you buy games when you have the money and steal them when you don't. Apparently I misread it. If so, I'm sorry for calling you a thief and wish you'd explained it better 4 pages ago when those of us who saw what you said brought it up.

However, if I didn't misread it you're a thief and my original point applies. You can't justify stealing an entertainment item in any way.

At this point what I think your behavior is irrelevant to the discussion. Only you know the truth. However I stand by my belief that downloading software that one has no right to without an equal exchange of value to the creator of that software is thievery. Either way, maybe it's time to just move on from the discussion rather than going around in circles, for me at least.

I am weary of it too. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree that there isn't a grey area in this issue.

This post has gotten majorly off topic. Anyway, back to it. I 100% agree with the idea of being able to skip combat. You have no idea how many times during Bioshock (and others), I wanted to skip the shallow, repetitive (fire plasmid, machine gun, fire plasmid, machine gun, oh Big Daddy, fire plasmid, electric gel, fire plasmid machine gun ...), and down right boring combat systems of games to get to their good stories. I'm surprised gamers feel so strongly about combat. As far as homosexuality in Mass Effect goes - if you don't like it don't marry the same sex, kind of like in real life. I feel sorry for Jennifer and was unaware games elicited such strong feelings from their fanatics ... err, i mean fans.

@DireUltra--allowing a "skip/fast" button for combat with a log/report function might actually help developers come up with better games.

Quoting DireUltra,

reply 116

I'm surprised gamers feel so strongly about combat.

Games like Mass Effect, Fallout, and Bioshock bank on their combat systems to become widely appealing...sure, the storyline and RPG elements are important but think about your biggest market here....there's a reason why Modern Warfare is such a huge franchise, and it has no RPG elements...

Only makes sense to combine the two genres, and for better or worse, combat/shoot 'em up games are the dominating market there...having an option to "skip combat" simply is going to seem nonsensical for a large portion of the people playing such games...that doesn't mean the option shouldn't be implemented, and it doesn't mean people should be asses to game developers...but, it shouldn't be surprising that skipping RPG elements came first, and skipping combat is a more recent development...

As for the whole moral quandary of "stealing" video games...what fascinates me most is that people who would never steal a game off a store shelf are completely open to "stealing" digital copies...why does this occur? Well, one could argue that you are very likely to get caught stealing out of a store, but not for downloading a pirated copy...but to be honest, I really don't think the possible repercussions are the only explanation for this behavior...

It's sort of like killing someone with your bare hands vs. killing someone with the push of a button....sure, there may be no morally relevant difference, but there is a difference...logical or not, using your bare hands feels worse than pushing a button, and I feel that something similar is occurring here with "acquired" digital copies...

The people who pirate digital copies certainly are doing something wrong...that being said though, he who steals from the store and he who steals from the internet are not the same thief...the actions may be equally wrong, but the people are entirely different...

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 118

As for the whole moral quandary of "stealing" video games...what fascinates me most is that people who would never steal a game off a store shelf are completely open to "stealing" digital copies...why does this occur?

When a game is on a store shelf, you can buy it very easily... digital version can be a other story... in place of a long post trying to explain it, just look at http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Good one Thoumsin...I'm so glad I don't involve myself with digital downloads other than games (and games have enough problems!)...

Funny Thoumsin--and kudos to YouTube for convincing the industry there might be ways to making it work. I hope all the content providers will eventually realize withholding and blocking access to programs they otherwise show for practically free is essentially what we call around here, "stupid".

Let me provide this that I got from another forum about this topic:

"TB's video on Gamer entitlement http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0sYp-eggD1Q#t=649s (starts at 10:45)"

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

Very interesting article