The great pirate debate of 2011

 

I pirate games to see if my computer can run it well enough, and often times also just to try the game out. If I like it, I buy it; if I don't, I delete it.
If you're like me and you actually do this consistently, then there's really nothing to criticize.

Sometimes. Sometimes not.

 

Sometimes if I'm forced to go into a bookstore (say I'm with a family member who wants to shop there for an hour or so) I'll go to the comics section and read a Garfield book or a Calvin and Hobbes book. Sometimes I'll read the whole thing o: Does this make me a pirate?

You bring up a good point. That's the issue with charging money for information.

 

Sometimes if I'm forced to go into a bookstore (say I'm with a family member who wants to shop there for an hour or so) I'll go to the comics section and read a Garfield book or a Calvin and Hobbes book. Sometimes I'll read the whole thing o: Does this make me a pirate?

Well, the author, editor, publisher and everyone else involved with that book would have liked you to pay for it if you read it. Unfortunately, trying to legislate against this would be a ridiculous waste of time, for obvious reasons. When it comes to small matters like books in a bookstore, or videos on YouTube, it's up to you to do the right thing. Not that there is any negative consequence of not paying. The only thing keeping you in check is how society (for example, the people on the forums) views your decision (buy Cave Story+, you cheap bastard).

 

Yes, often, the only thing that keeps us morally bound is what other's think of us.

So uh, yeah, buy it cheapo.

 

Sometimes if I'm forced to go into a bookstore (say I'm with a family member who wants to shop there for an hour or so) I'll go to the comics section and read a Garfield book or a Calvin and Hobbes book. Sometimes I'll read the whole thing o: Does this make me a pirate?

I was taught that while you can flip through the book to get an idea of what you're getting, you should not start reading it unless you intended to buy it. While there are no laws against it to my knowledge I still consider it to be morally wrong because that was how I was raised.

 

Isn't that the point of demos? But to you defense, what if there isn't a demo? If that is the case, then I agree with you 100% due to the fact that you are deciding to support developers rather than taking the entire game for yourself.

Exactly the point, if the developer doesn't give a demo I make my own. Especially if I'd be purchasing the game on Steam where I can't return it or sell it, I'm not wasting my money on a game before I can see if it actually interests me.

I'd also like to point out that most of the time I'm talking about multiplayer games here, so if I like the game and want to keep playing I don't have much of a choice anyways, unless I wanted to keep playing on laggy, empty cracked servers.

 

So if a person refuses to pay for something, your respect for him is permanently destroyed?

 

So if a person refuses to pay for something, your respect for him is permanently destroyed?

Yes, we get it, everybody steals everything in Lithuania.

 

It's not that we steal anything, it's just that we...Actually the word doesn't translate to english. I'll try to explain it. We try to pay less whenever we can, we bargain whenever we can. We sometimes even avoid taxes if we can.

 

I believe the word you're looking for is "thrifty"
Or possibly "cheap"

 

I'm pretty sure tax evasion is illegal.
As is stealing.


So... Thrifty the point of breaking moral bounds? Do you take napkins from mcdonalds? (this is something really cheap people actually do ._. not illegal, but, really?)

 

Oh no, we aren't that pathetic. Even we have moral bounds. It's just that we believe taxes are too big. SO WHY PAY THEM!

 

I know how you feel about that, in my country newly released games comes at around $120 on shops (I'm not sure about the dollar's value right now but must be around that). So most of us import and don't pay those taxes because seriously more than double the original price is a real abusive tax.

 

You do realize that most of the money you pay in taxes eventually comes back to help you, right? The more taxes you evade, the less social services you have. I don't know which those are in your country, but in the good ol' USA it means more education and medicare cuts.

I like education, so I pay taxes.

 

Corruption, man... Here in Brazil even with abusive taxes education, health and basic things are still sh*tty... If at least they used the money gathered in benefit of the country I would gladly pay my games taxes, but we already have great taxes on everything else, at least on my games I try to avoid it.

 

I guess that's one thing you can say for the US. We do a reasonably okay job not being horribly corrupt.

 

Most of the time...

 

Happy the Day After the Day of Talk Like a Pirate Day, guys.

 

Hence "reasonably okay at not being horribly corrupt".
I think that covers pretty much all the bases. And if you actually look at other countries, eg Mexico, we're not corrupt in the goddamned least.


That was at shimmy, ftr.