• magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org
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    9 days ago

    Unless “piracy” is your alternative to buying a brand new copy at launch, I don’t wanna hear it.

    If GameStop can make bank re-selling used games without giving back a cent to the developer, how is doing the same for free, without taking up competitive retail space any worse?

      • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org
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        9 days ago

        So was the install I made a copy of and gave to a friend. Either way the publisher makes the same amount.

        Sure there might be a limited number of used copies, but when you’re talking about a mass manufactured product with limited demand like a random used game, then yeah, might as well be unlimited. How many used copies of GTA V or Skyrim out there do you think there are? Answer: far more than there are people looking to buy them, and each one of those copies can be sold an infinite amount of times.

        The only games that are so rare that this matters are either so expensive or so hard to come by that everyone is okay with pirating them anyways because there’s no reasonable way to obtain them, and they’re all usually out of print any who.

        • Something Burger 🍔@jlai.lu
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          9 days ago

          it’s okay to pirate rare games because there are so few of them

          it’s okay to pirate common games because there are so many of them

          Look, I’m all for piracy and against copyright, but you can simply admit you like free stuff without finding twisted explanations to justify it.

          • redisdead@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Most people have a hard time swallowing the fact that they’re nothing but bottom tier leeches.

            • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org
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              9 days ago

              I say this as someone who buys their games because they don’t trust cracked executables.

              Granted I have a collection of complete romsets, but I also have three bookshelves of physical games from the Nintendo Switch all the way back to the 2600 (even have a coupla pong consoles.)

              Between all that, the hundreds/thousands I’ve spent on band camp, and the monthly donations to patron creators, free software projects, and the internet archive? Yeah I must be a freeloader lmao. There’s a million reasons piracy is ethically correct. Copyright needs to fucking die.

              You want bottom tier leeches? Go look to the capitalist owning class that tried to redefine sharing as piracy in the first place.

              • redisdead@lemmy.world
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                9 days ago

                I have an orchard full of mirabelle plum trees. I keep some of the production for personal consumption and to hand out to friends and family, and sell the rest.

                On average, I make back all the money invested in tools and other farming products halfway through the gathering season.

                According to you, it’s ok if someone comes and steal my fruit after that then?

                Imagine calling someone else a leech when you are literally promoting theft because you have decided that after an arbitrary amount of time (2 months, apparently), it’s all paid for.

                I buy games because it’s the right thing to do. Not because I am afraid.

                • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org
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                  9 days ago

                  This hypothetical is a false equivalence as fruit is a physical good. Digital media can be copied ad nauseum without the owner losing access to their copy.

                  When someone steals your fruit, its not just that they have fruit and you didn’t get money, its that you no longer have any of your fruit.

                  A better metaphor is if someone bought your fruit, buried the seeds, grew their own plum tree, and started giving away the fruit that they grew.

                  Also call it being afraid, but I don’t have shame in being security conscious. Not that I run games outside of a controlled VM, but anyone who would run a cracked exe that uses a closed source implementation is fucking asking for it. Only software crack I’ve ever trusted was massgrave for activating windows/office.

                  • redisdead@lemmy.world
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                    9 days ago

                    The fruits themselves are an accessory to my argument, the fact you chose to criticize this minute detail, and not the actual argument (you deciding that someone has made enough money and therefore it’s ok to enjoy the fruits of their labor for free) is quite telling.

          • magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org
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            9 days ago

            So long as everyone who wants to play a game can purchase it used, its functionally no different than piracy. Except someone who did no work makes money off of it.

            If a game can’t be easily legally obtained, if at all, its a pretty common belief that piracy is justified in the name of preservation.

            The only exceptions to this are new releases which haven’t reached critical mass, and smaller releases which will never reach any sort of mass following.

            The former is especially important when you realize that two months post-launch of a new piece of media, the company has made back the artist saleries, and everything after that is just bonus for the useless vultures upstairs.