Downloading games - right or wrong?

[Snouman88]

It is said that downloading games from internet causes grate losses to the game industry. Ofcourse this is partly true, but the matter can be analyzed also from the different perspective. When games are spred trough internet, the good games gain fame and the community of the game grows larger. This affects positively to the sales number. However downloading is and stays illegal.

Lately many people have been sued from downloading and sharing copirighted material in P2P network. Yet the chances to get caught from downloading is minimal. Therefore the question of downloading is a pure matter of selfconsous. Feeling guilty is a reason enough to not download.

My personal poinion is that downloading is wrong, but acceptable. The game prices are insane (new games can cost 50$) and it really doesn't harm the game developers that much (since downloading affects also positively). What do you think?

[goKi]

Downloading is wrong, but almost everyone has done it at some point, myself included.

The only games that are outrageous in price are MMO's such as WoW that charge you both full price, plus a monthly fee.

[gdorf]

Having met a student studying to design games, I think its totally wrong. People put a lot of work into designing video games.

If the price is too high for you there are plenty of free and cheap alternatives to $50 games. I find that games drop in price very quickly. If you don't mind waiting a year or so,you can usually get brand new games for $20.

BMW prices are pretty extravagent, but that doesn't make it "wrong, but acceptable" to steal one.

[ShadowTiger]

If the price is too high for you there are plenty of free and cheap alternatives to $50 games. I find that games drop in price very quickly. If you don't mind waiting a year or so,you can usually get brand new games for $20.Exactly. ;) Nail successfully hit on head. I remember when games like Deus Ex were $49.99 and up. Now it's just ... ... $9.99 and down. I've seen it for $4.99 unused. Considering that it was the Game of the Year at one point or other, ... well, ... you get the idea. :p

It never hurts to wait. If you're afraid that you're not going to be "cool" because you're a year or two late, just consider how much money you had saved, including the money you save accumulated over the years of waiting to buy games. That's a lot of money I'd rather have than not. o.o'

[Aegix Drakan]

I only download games thatI can't normally get. like old SNES games, or games that never got sold here. (bahamut lagoon anyone?). other than that, I buy them.

[AlexMax]

Wrong.

Pretty much any other response is a weak justification of illegal behavior.

[slothman]

BMW prices are pretty extravagent, but that doesn't make it "wrong, but acceptable" to steal one.


A better analogy would be to use a replicator and duplicate it.
You are only "stealing," though for cars "steeling" might also apply, the design.
The owner still has access to their original.

Note these apply to all programs, not just games.

In any case I am generally against it.
Several cases where it might be reasonable are:
1. Old games that the makes has had time enough to make money from.
2. Unaccessable games that can't be bought.
3. Games that you want to try out but don't have a demo.
Perhaps because you aren't sure if it will run on your computer.
4. You do have a copy but maybe it is broken, bad disk or whatnot, and can't run it.
5. You won't buy it anyways AND it won't be used to help a rival company, it might be not bad.

Remember you downloading it does not mean loss of revinue.
It does not mean loss of profits.
It means loss of POTENTIAL revinue.

An analogy I like is that of the candle:



The idea that property must be capable of alienation was reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson's famous analogy between ideas and candles.
Jefferson explained that, just as a man could light his taper from an existing candle without diminishing the original flame, so, too, could he acquire an idea without diminishing the original source.


I am of the idea that no one owns ideas.
The author only gets a temporary monopoly to allow him to make money so he can stay in business and make more rather than having to do another job and not have the time to make more.

It is my opinion thatthe ownership word has only come into use because various assc. like the RIAA, MPAA, BSA and such that want you to think they own it rather than just have an exclusion on it.

Just imagine what would happen if Shakespeare's stuff were still under copyright?
His decendents would be making billions from the various companies and shows and books and movies and plays and all that use them.

P.S. Remember, both "Happy Birthday" and the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, i.e. MLK,'s "I Have a Dream" speech are still under copyright.
I doubt MLK will make more or that he would want to make money off that to stay in business.
The Civil Rights business?
I just like using his whole name becase very few people have a 6-namer.

[*b*]

unless I can't get it anywhere else, I won't download games. however, I did find Golden Sun through that, as well as the MegaMan Zero series through downloading

I think it's wrong, so I keep it to a minimum, but, I think it depends on what games. like, the Star Fox II beta for SNES. they never made money off of it anyway, so what does it matter?

[Gerudo]

i dont think it's entirely wrong, but also not entirely right.

*hides his several gigs of roms*

like others, i download older stuff i normally cant get my hands on (n64 roms, and the like). mostly anymore due to my limited connection, i dont download anything. my main thing is video game music, which i am heavily into, so i am constantly downloading the associated formats for game music (not mp3).

[Glenn the Great]

I share Thomas Jefferson's philosophy on stealing, and the candle analogy is perfect.

I believe it is wrong to steal physical objects, but it is alright to make a copy of something.

Many people would have you believe that the reason stealing is wrong is because you gain something you didn't pay for. I believe that stealing is wrong because you make someone else lose something that they already had.

The "already had" part is essential. It kills the idea that "stealing" software is "wrong" because it "robs" the developer of money that they would have had if you paid.

If I copy software, I am not taking anything away. I am only preventing someone from gaining, which technically isn't stealing.

[Darth Marsden]

I tend to buy my games, although I have downloaded several - but I did buy them later when they came down in price. I don't tend to download modern games unless I intend to buy them when the price drops a bit. An example of when this was avoided was with Tomb Raider Legend - I was all set to d/l it when I saw it on Amazon.co.uk for £20, which is £10-£15 cheaper then pretty much everywhere else. So I bought it.

Games I do download are:
- ROMs which are no longer avaliable (thanks to the Revolution [I refuse to call it the 'Wii'] this will probably stop)
- Games which are so old I can't get them anywhere else (Abandonware by any other name)
- Freeware games

EDIT: Re-read the first post. I don't feel the least bit guilty when downloading games. I don't feel guilty when I copy Playstation 2 games I've rented. I don't feel guity when I record movies off TV onto DVDs. I don't feel guilty going to a library. I don't feel guilty about borrowing a pen and not returning it with the exact amount of ink I used up.

...went slightly off topic there. Or was I making a statement? Hmm..!

[SomaLlama]

they'll get over it.

[Master Ghaleon]

I have downloaded a few games here and there, it may not be the right thing but its there to be downloaded.

[gdorf]

When you buy a car you aren't paying just for the materials. I don't know how much an automobile would cost if one just payed for the raw material, but I am willing to bet its considerably less than ten grand.

The price tag of a car goes towards a lot of other things. You pay for the marketing that is necissary for a company to survive. You pay for the immigrant worker that assembles the car (lets be honest here..). You help pay the salary of the engineers who designed the car.

I stand by my analogy. When one pirates software he or she is stealing a valuable product from a company. I don't think much less of someone for doing it, but I think people should at least have the balls to admit what they're doing. Quoting Thomas Jefferson is cute, but I don't his words apply to this situation. We are talking about video games here, not a cure for cancer.


Wrong.

Pretty much any other response is a weak justification of illegal behavior.

QFT.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

I download GBA roms every now and then, but I usually only download the games I'm looking forward to buying anyway, and for the most part, all of the roms I have I also have bought or are interested in buying, when I have the money. Emulated roms are never as good as actually playing them on a GBA, so most of the time it's more like a demo of sorts. Mega Man Zero, for instance, is much more fun to play (not to mention easier on the fingers) on a GBA, instead of on a keyboard. Sound and framerate issues also make buying the retail version worthwhile.

Alex is still right though. Just because we don't want it to be illegal, doesn't mean it isn't.

[Cloral]

Of couse it's wrong. You're taking money out of my pocket.


...eh, I don't really care. I've got my share of SNES ROMs, who am I to judge?

[Beldaran]

Clearly downloading games you don't have permission from the publisher to download is illegal. It is illegal. But is it wrong?

It depends on the person. Everyone has their own slightly (or not so slightly) different idea of right and wrong. Were the southern slaves who rebelled against their masters wrong for breaking the law? I don't think so. Am I wrong for running a red light at 3am when there isn't a car in sight? I don't think so. I'm breaking the law, but to me it isn't wrong so I don't care. The other day I stole a plastic fork from Wal Mart because they only sold them in bags of 150 for like $3.00 and I just needed one, so I ripped a bag open, took a fork, and left. I stole from Wal Mart. I broke the law. I don't feel bad about it.

I don't feel bad about downloading older games that are no longer available for purchase, even if it is illegal to do so. I also don't mind downloading software that disables DRM in games I have legitimately paid for. To me, it's not immoral to assert ownership of something I bought.

I do, however, think it is wrong to download newer games, or games that the companies involved are still relying on for profit. Games are incredibly difficult and expensive to make, and I happily pay $50 for a new game out of respect for the effort and talent that goes into making them.

[War Lord]

The other day I stole a plastic fork from Wal Mart because they only sold them in bags of 150 for like $3.00 and I just needed one, so I ripped a bag open, took a fork, and left. I stole from Wal Mart. I broke the law. I don't feel bad about it.

You could have spent just as much or possibly less effort by walking to the deli in the store (assuming it was a super store, or the snack bar if not) and getting a fork there.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

If it was a wal-mart that sold groceries, a "super" wal-mart, if you will, did it not have a food court of some kind? Wal-marts around here have wrapped, single forks available for free. And heck, if you're going to to steal forks, you may as well go all the way and steal the metal ones.

[Nicholas Steel]

i download n64 roms and roms for older systems... i also download abandonware... pretty much everything else is brought.

[Yoshiman]

The only ROMs I really download are NES, SNES, and Genesis ones. Most of them are really hard to find nowadays (E.V.O.), or impossible to get ahold of without importing (Star Ocean). If you do happen to find them, the price is usually jacked up from what it was when the game was released. The companies aren't making any money from older games, so it doesn't really bother me at all.

I'll pay for newer games, since I like having a physical copy of it (why, I have no clue). Plus, I doubt my computer could run a ROM of Resident Evil 4, even if it existed. :p

[koopa]

Downloading roms is wrong, really, but ...
I used to play roms of snes, nes, gb, and n64 games quite a lot. I don't anymore. I do think it's wrong to steal games (and that's effectively what you're doing). There are still a few "buts":

- more than once I've played a rom of an old SNES game then liked it and gone and bought the DS/GBA version. (The SNES ones were at the time no longer for sale).

- There are games you just can't buy over here in Switzerland. Some you can't buy anymore, some you never could buy in Europe (Mario RPG). I don't think that's "right" either, and downloading such roms doesn't seem as bad to me. It's a globalized world, wake up to the fact you game producers (Nintendo has woken up, it seems. The revolution apparently will allow you to play all old SNES etc. games wherever you are)

That said, if you simply download games because you don't want to pay (and you could buy the game legally) then you're not acting correctly in my opinion.

[Nicholas Steel]

if i see dungeon keeper gold for free download im gonna get it... because it never was released here... this is more then likely the reason for bullfrogs death...

[Archibaldo]

I download games because I'm a rebel with out a cause. No I was lying, I don't download games, and I do have a cause.

[Monica]

I download Pokemon games on GBA because I can't see the GBA well enough to play it. I got a GBC for Christmas with Yellow, but I couldn't play it, hard as I tried. Luckily Pokemon Stadium had just come out and so I used 1 and 2 to play up to Crystal. After that, I had to go back to ROMs for Ruby and Sapphire. I'm still waiting for the Gameboy Advance XL, with a screen at least as large as the Game Gear (Game Gear was the only handheld I can see and I loved it lol) And I tried the magnifying glass for GB and it doesn't work for me at all, I couldn't see the difference. :(

I also download Genesis games just to play netplay with my best online friend who lives in Scotland, but that's the only time I play them (he likes Sonic and so do I)

And then I didn't get obsessed with RPGs until the SNES was almost dead, and I never got to buy any of the greats, so I do play them on computer, plus translations.

I do feel guilty, since it's breaking a commandment, but I hope God understands my situation and forgives me. I know I should use one of those pay emulations services or get the Wii ASAP and use theirs, or something.

[Darth Marsden]

I do feel guilty, since it's breaking a commandment, but I hope God understands my situation and forgives me. I know I should use one of those pay emulations services or get the Wii ASAP and use theirs, or something.
I'm sure God understands you downloading games that are totally out of date and otherwise virtually unobtainable, and even if not, I hardly think He/She/It will cast you down to the pits of hell for a few hours of entertainment. Unless you've commited even more heinous acts of sin, of course. Then you're going down. ;)

Personally, I think emulation is okay if you can download the games in under 50Mb files - up to the N64, and excluding the GBA, for which games are still fairly getable. Of course this will change when the Revolution comes out.

[Technowiz]

I think downloading is okay in a limited amount and I think it is definetly wrong to sell downloaded games to a friend even for a buck. By the way since I am stupid can someone e-mail me some websites for free full game downloads such as the other zelda games:confused: . Please. Thank you. :) my e-mail is [email protected]

[slothman]

...
The price tag of a car goes ... help pay the salary of the engineers who designed the car.
...
When one pirates software he or she is stealing a valuable product from a company
...
We are talking about video games here, not a cure for cancer.


I have the same opinion for games, video or not, as I do for books, movies, paintings, medicine, papers, etc.
Only for the data though, not the actual product.


First of all illegality is irrevalent. Or at least I am not talking about that. Yes it is illegal.
I use morality.
If it was made such that any downloading, et al., for all media forever would you still be for that law?
Or would you get it illegally since the law is bad, in your opinion?

Second, "borrowing" design is a good reason.
I let them try to make money for a while first.
In the case of the Civ's I bought or got as a gift it right away.
I don't think they should be able to design once and keep forever though.
If I want a game just as it is realesed I will buy it.
If I can wait a few years, 5 or even 10, I won't feel guilty, or at least not as much.
They had a chance to make money but it passed.

Plus it isn't even illegal if it is past the applicable date.
"Tom Sawyer" is out of copyright and so is not illegal.
Do any of these reasons apply to that?
I doubt Sam released it into the public, nor his relatives.

How many of these rules apply to patents which will be public in 17 years?

[Nicholas Steel]

asides from the internet where the hell do i buy "unreal tournament 2004 for windows" because here in australia, qld, brisbane no shops have it... i ask the store owners and they say that maybe a gold edition will come out because all the original's have been recalled... so if anyone knows and its not more then 50$ i may buy it depending on location in brisbane.

i am attemptin' to download it... only probs is it's size.... 3.64GB and im only on a 256/64 internet plan... and i on average get 12 kbps from those sharing it.

[MottZilla]

Anyone that thinks its ok for you to have NES/SNES/other old games system ROMs, you're fooling only yourself. You have no more right to a NES game than you do a gamecube or xbox game.

But it all comes back to common sense. If you download games to avoid paying the developer of the game, you're not doing anything good. However if you download games because for some reason you cannot buy them or the developer isn't going to profit off a sale anyway (i.e. used games of past generations) then people just don't care "as much". Ofcourse with the new Virtual Console by nintendo, you'll have a perfectly legit way to purchase those games.

I personally, don't care. Though as I want to eventually be working on developing games someday, I do agree that it's certainly not nice/right to download/copy currently for sale games. There are maybe 2 exceptions to this rule in my opinion. First off, you preordered the game or are going to be getting it but you want it NOW. Then I could understand and forgive. The other would be that you bought the game, and you store the original while you play a backup copy. I have no objections to playing real backups to protect your 60 or 50 dollar game disc.

But let no one fool themselves. If you don't own the original or own the copyrights to the product, what you're doing isn't right.

[Glenn the Great]

I prefer to ignore notions of right and wrong, and instead focus on what is realistically attainable, then go for it. I never feel guilty and I'm not concerned with who my actions burn. I guess I'm selfish that way.

[ShadowTiger]

I prefer to ignore notions of right and wrong, and instead focus on what is realistically attainable, then go for it. I never feel guilty and I'm not concerned with who my actions burn. I guess I'm selfish that way.

You'd think such an opinion would be based on the observable effects of your actions. If you stole candy from a baby, you'd see that baby cry. If you hacked a forum, you'd see people all depressed and stuff. If you stole a game, you'd never see the additional $50 or so go into the coffers of the company. Of course you don't see that anyway, ...

[punkonjunk1024]

Wrong.

Pretty much any other response is a weak justification of illegal behavior.

BUt the question is - Do YOU do it?

I do it, and I know it's totally wrong, and it would piss me off. I usually buy the games I like alot anyhow, and most of my emulation is GBA, NES, and SNES. *shrug*

I figure, if they hate it so damn much, then they should make it harder. I know it sucks, but hell... it happens. No matter what, it will happen.

[ZTC]

meh...I'm for downloading the older stuff for the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Atari, ect.
Hell, I even download some of the newer PC H-Games. Do I really care? not at all
But the fact of the matter is, once I play most of these games, I order/buy it either online or at the used game shop. (that and rip the music from em) :shrug:

[slothman]

If you stole a game, you'd never see the additional $50 or so go into the coffers of the company.


Do you mean stole a game out of a case thus depriving the store, and hence company, of a bunch of matter someone else could buy?
Or do you mean "stole" in which everyone else who was going to buy that still could?

I am not sure of your wording?
Are you saying that if I stole a game I wouldn't see that the company would never recieve $50 dollars?
Unlink seeing a baby cry right away.
Of course that assume I would buy it anyways.
Unlink physical products my obtaining of it doesn't affect others' ability to do so.




But let no one fool themselves.
If you don't own the original or own the copyrights to the product, what you're doing isn't right.

Yes, it is illegal.
I do not think it is always immoral.
I'm not sure which definition of "right" you are using, legal or moral, so I can't elaborate.

[AlexMax]

BUt the question is - Do YOU do it?

Yes.

I don't justify it. I know what I do is illegal and don't try to convince myself otherwise. Anyone who accuses themselves me of being a hypocrite, please reply if you have never, ever done something that you knew was wrong.

Game, set and match.


I prefer to ignore notions of right and wrong, and instead focus on what is realistically attainable, then go for it. I never feel guilty and I'm not concerned with who my actions burn. I guess I'm selfish that way.

"It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care if people think you are an idiot."
-John Defillipe

[Technowiz]

Hey I haven't downloaded any full games but that is because I don't know where to go.

[gdorf]

Slothman - If you had your way all software developers would work for free and we wouldn't have an IT industry. Or perhaps you pay for software development with happy thoughts and nice wishes? Every product on the market today has be to researched and engineered. The majority of what you spend on mosts products _is_paying_for_that_. Software is no different.

Perhaps you are just lazy/selfish and you don't want to admit it. With a screen name like "Slothman" you think you'd be happy to admit these shortcomings. :shrug:

I'll repeat: Its none of my business if you pirate software, but don't kid yourself and try to moralize it.

Piracy =/= the high road.

[Archibaldo]

Well, if its a really old game, say N64, then downloading one probably wouldn't make a difference. Because the store buys the games from the company to which they turn around and sell to the public. But if it were a N64 game, when the store sold out, they wouldn't order more N64 games. So since the store already paid for the games, you technically not stealing from the company, but from the store.

But then again. If you downloaded a popular game, then that's one more copy the store has to sell before they order more from the company. So that's indirectly stealing from the company.

But if download a game that you can't get, i.e. it hasn't been released, it's no longer on the shelves, etc. It adds a little bit of morality to it. Especially if the store is a hour and a half drive away from you. If the company didn't want you to download games they should have built a store closer to me, and then maybe I wouldn't have download their games. So in turn it's the company's fault.

But all excuses aside, stealing is wrong M'kay?

[Samson007]

I see absolutely nothing wrong in downloading a game that the company cant make $ with anymore.

Downloading new releases however, not right.

[Darth Marsden]

Okay, here's an interesting dilemma. (I think that's the word I'm looking for.)

I want to play Half-Life 2. But my gaming machine doesn't have an internet connection, which HL2 needs. Does that make me wrong in downloading a cracked version of HL2 on this machine, putting it on CDs and installing it on my stand-alone PC?

[Verman]

Well...In all honesty I don't download games because I don't play games.

But! I don't give a shit about stealing, I'd steal a BMW from the dealer if I thought I'd get away with it and not feel a twinge of guilt... :P

course I'd find it really hard to go into someones home and take something from it... who knows how hard those people worked to get that item? maybe not at all, or maybe its the only thing they have worth something...

But as for dling who cares? shit like that always happened in one way or another with PCs. I remember trading games for the C64 with a buddy so we could copy all the games hah...

fun stuff! :D

[SomaLlama]

Okay, here's an interesting dilemma. (I think that's the word I'm looking for.)

I want to play Half-Life 2. But my gaming machine doesn't have an internet connection, which HL2 needs. Does that make me wrong in downloading a cracked version of HL2 on this machine, putting it on CDs and installing it on my stand-alone PC?
its not stealing if you need it. and YOU need it.

[algam86]

I'm not too concerned about it myself. So far, the only games I get are the ones I can't find normally. (Star Ocean, Bahamut Lagoon...Terranigma, etc.) My computer's too crappy to play anything more than a 16-bit games without massive slowdown, so I only get the older games.

Nobody's really buying them anyway, and I don't see how I'm hurting anyone by downloading games nobody else's buying.

[Nicholas Steel]

algam86 - the thing is tho... the companies dont make money because no ones buying the old games... if you download it because no one buys the game anymore then your a moron as that excuse is incredibly lame.

based entirely on the post above this.

[algam86]

(got that post kinda explained in a PM)

I admit, I'm kind of a moron (accidentally mopped out the fridge once). But just because I download their older stuff doesn't mean I won't buy any of their other things. Like, Nintendo. I might download a Super Metroid ROM, but I'll go to the store and buy Metroid Prime 2 (which I'm trying to find...), or a DS...or the *cough* Wii.

:disgust: Oh, heck, Revolution forever!

Or maybe I'll pick up Square-Enix's original Final Fantasy 3 for the NES. Doesn't mean I won't go pick it up when it comes out for the DS...soon as I get one.

I generally don't download anything I can't easily find, don't already have (which, if you have the original game, getting a ROM isn't supposed to be illegal...or so I think. Haven't been to a site in a long time.) or doesn't have a jacked-up price for it. Does that help any? I still have to buy the majority of my games, because my computer's so weak, anyway. Plus, I think they're better on the consoles.

...:cry: Actually, I ran out of space, so I had to delete 'em, anyway.

[Nicholas Steel]

I generally don't download anything I can't easily find, don't already have (which, if you have the original game, getting a ROM isn't supposed to be illegal...or so I think. Haven't been to a site in a long time.) Plus, I think they're better on the consoles.

imo so far thats legal only in america... everywhere else your not legaly entitled to having a copy of a game no matter what. (copy not retail/original media)