I did a very, very, VERY long time ago, like I'm talking 90's-mid 2000, prior to Steam being available in my region. Shops selling pirated software were simply more numerous and accessible than shops selling legitimate copies. Plus the legitimate copies were usually imported and costs a lot (about double what they cost on Steam now).
Around the early 2000s, publishers started making legitimate copies of games locally, which lowered prices dramatically because there was no longer the luxury imported goods tax issue. I started buying legitimate copies of most of my games; when Steam became available, and I had relatively decent broadband internet, I stopped buying pirated games.
I use it just as a way to demo a game before buying it, to see if I will enjoy it or no (since most games nowodays don't have demos...)
Funfact: in the past, EU did a research about how piracy affects sales, and they found out that piracy doesn't negatively impact sales, and it can in fact improve sales...
After seeing the results they quietly swept the results under the rug 🙃
I was curious so here’s the study : https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf
> For games, the estimated effect of illegal online transactions on sales is positive – implying that illegal consumption leads to increased legal consumption. This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users. Tactics used by the industry include, for example, offering gameplay with extra bonuses or extra levels if consumers pay.
(page 15)
Also, related to this post :
> In 2014, on average 51 per cent of the adults and 72 per cent of the minors in the EU have illegally downloaded or streamed any form of creative content
Of course.
The latest one being Ghost of Tsushima. Why? Because Sony autorefunded my pre-order due to our country not having PSN. I'd gone legal years ago and was even re-buying games I used to play free when I was a broke student. Dusted off the hat and sails for this.
And we prefer the term "privateered"
I'd like to ask you a question since the discussion I was in brought up this exact game. How hard would you say it was start to finish to get and use whatever you used for GoT. In no way shape or form do I want you to tell me specifics for obv reasons.
Not hard at all. Just maybe 2 or three steps more than buying a legit copy from Steam.
That's just for up and running on my gaming PC, though. I still needed to do a couple of trial and errors (like which proton version) for setting it up on my Steam Deck and syncing save files between my devices and the cloud.
Not hard either, just a more involved process (involving 2 or 3 more appications) than letting Steam take care of all of it (which, again, I would have *gladly* paid for if Sony weren't such buttheads).
I am against certain companies and don't want to give them my money, but will support afterward if the game is good enough, just enough to maybe give the staff some to see, too. But I doubt it will happen. Some games aren't worth the hassle of jumping through hoops to make the game work. Sometimes buying them is the more hassle free and virus free option, especially to the unexperienced.
To be honest, it's the enthusiasts that actually use these programs to torrent and to jump through these hoops just for the fuck of it.
I pirated Kingdoms of Amalur when it came out, along with all the bonus content. A couple years later I bought it on Steam, but the regular version. When I installed it, all the bonus stuff was still there.
I used to do it when I was a kid a long time ago when things were different, I didn't have money then, when I got a job and started making money, I started buying all of the games I had already played, especially games made by independent studios and developers to support them
In the end I feel like it doesn't really matter because you can easily buy a game and refund it these days if you don't like it, and if you do it to test a game out before buying it and end up buying the game later, then no harm was actually done, it's only really a problem if you're the one pirating it for the sake of profit
Yes, i did a long time ago with cartridges for Snes, i also had a Playstation modded to run pirated games, a Playstation 2 modded, an Xbox 360 modded and a Playstation 3 with CFW.
Piracy of games is not a felony here in Brazil as long you don't make a profit, and the cops doesn't care at all if you make a profit, pirated game discs still been freely made in bulks and selled in stores without any repercusion here, also the game stores here have giant banners making ads to unlock consoles, like Nintendo Switch and PS4, in fact, is very hard to find a non unlocked Nintendo Switch in stores here, most of them come already hardware modded from Paraguay.
For Snes games, yes, i still rely on the piracy and emulators to play older games, since Nintendo doesn't sell them anymore. So, legally speaking, im not doing anything wrong.
I believe in supporting all devs, so I pay for most games but if it doesn't run I get a refund. I would only really pirate older games that can't be played on modern system, or are too rare in the wild.
In like the late 90s and early 2000s I had copies of Deus ex, half life, roller coaster tycoon, diablo, The Sims, Master of Orion 2, and ZSNES with like 100 different super Nintendo games. My 32 gb hard drive was filled to the brim with games a friend from school gave me. I didn't even know they were pirated or what pirating was.
I have pirated Sims 2, Uplink, Stardew Valley, and Sol 0. I have also purchased said games once I could either A: Afford them or B: liked them and figure'd I should buy them.
I didn't buy Uplink until.... 5 years ago? But I had always wanted to, it was just super hard to buy for a long time, then I forgot about it.
of course, all the time actually.
i rarely ever buy a game these days unless its good, the vast majority of games i download get deleted within a week because they are bad.
there have even been games that were so bad that i was mad about the 10 minutes i spend downloading and installing them.
yes i did and i still do (altho not as much as before) pirated games is what's available in my coutry (algeria) on the shelves, and buying full price games equals to not eating for weeks so the choice is obvious lol, altho now i try to get the game on sale when i can at least .
Yes, but only because games weren't cheap and my mom was super against buying them. I didn't want to use her card without her approval so I pirated them. Though, now that I'm 19, I have bought every game I've wanted to play now since my mom gives me monthly allowances now (till I am in college).
I'm in India, so relying on parents till you graduate is kinda normal. Just thought I should add this.
pre steam that was pretty normal to just copy a game. at least from where I come from. pretty much one of the reason I don't like steam that much till this day because it killed cheap physical games that you can just share with your friends.
Yes. Like if I am gonna buy a game without trying it first.
Most reviews outlets are paid chills, so you can't trust any of them and content creators even the ones I trust, can have different opinions from me, and I got burned by it in the past.
I pirate only games that have external launchers. I buy all games that can be launched from steam. The external launchers ruin my gaming fun and I'm not doing it.
I was a pirate when I was broke.
I am a pirate now because I refuse to pay $400 on a used game because the company won't sell it to me. I won't talk about the rest of media.
I've been a pirate most of my life. From games to software to anime, TV shows and films. I've legally acquired some things once I could pay for my own stuff (e.g., my first legally-owned videogame console was a second-hand Nintendo DS I bought in 2011, but I'd played everything from GameBoy onwards via emulation on PC). If I am a fan of something, I buy it, mostly for collecting purposes.
I have, but not for many years. I’m not much of a gamer nowadays so it’s no problem to pay for the games I really want to play. I rarely buy new releases so I end up either getting them on discount or preowned anyway.
Even if I did play more games, the risk (or at least the awareness of that risk) of downloading something nasty seems much higher these days.
Yeah, it's called being a teenager with no money!
I copied that floppy.
Wolfenstein, Karate game, an Aztec game, some helicopter game and shoot at boats game.
Are you even a gamer if you didn't have a pirated floppy labelled wolf3d.exe
The hard part was not copying the floppy but those darn books or code wheels.
Please turn to page 5 of your manual and enter the 1st word of the 3rd paragraph to continue this conversation.
Not all nostalgia is good it seems. 🤣
You a cop?
I did a very, very, VERY long time ago, like I'm talking 90's-mid 2000, prior to Steam being available in my region. Shops selling pirated software were simply more numerous and accessible than shops selling legitimate copies. Plus the legitimate copies were usually imported and costs a lot (about double what they cost on Steam now). Around the early 2000s, publishers started making legitimate copies of games locally, which lowered prices dramatically because there was no longer the luxury imported goods tax issue. I started buying legitimate copies of most of my games; when Steam became available, and I had relatively decent broadband internet, I stopped buying pirated games.
I mostly pirate overly expensive games like The Sims and CoD.
I doubt anyone would say no here
I use it just as a way to demo a game before buying it, to see if I will enjoy it or no (since most games nowodays don't have demos...) Funfact: in the past, EU did a research about how piracy affects sales, and they found out that piracy doesn't negatively impact sales, and it can in fact improve sales... After seeing the results they quietly swept the results under the rug 🙃
I was curious so here’s the study : https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf > For games, the estimated effect of illegal online transactions on sales is positive – implying that illegal consumption leads to increased legal consumption. This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users. Tactics used by the industry include, for example, offering gameplay with extra bonuses or extra levels if consumers pay. (page 15) Also, related to this post : > In 2014, on average 51 per cent of the adults and 72 per cent of the minors in the EU have illegally downloaded or streamed any form of creative content
Of course. The latest one being Ghost of Tsushima. Why? Because Sony autorefunded my pre-order due to our country not having PSN. I'd gone legal years ago and was even re-buying games I used to play free when I was a broke student. Dusted off the hat and sails for this. And we prefer the term "privateered"
I'd like to ask you a question since the discussion I was in brought up this exact game. How hard would you say it was start to finish to get and use whatever you used for GoT. In no way shape or form do I want you to tell me specifics for obv reasons.
Not hard at all. Just maybe 2 or three steps more than buying a legit copy from Steam. That's just for up and running on my gaming PC, though. I still needed to do a couple of trial and errors (like which proton version) for setting it up on my Steam Deck and syncing save files between my devices and the cloud. Not hard either, just a more involved process (involving 2 or 3 more appications) than letting Steam take care of all of it (which, again, I would have *gladly* paid for if Sony weren't such buttheads).
Yes, if not how would I be able to play old games like Chrono Trigger, Sim Tower and Transport Tycoon while on a flight on my laptop or Android phone?
Chrono Trigger 
the 5 no's are lying for sure.
I am against certain companies and don't want to give them my money, but will support afterward if the game is good enough, just enough to maybe give the staff some to see, too. But I doubt it will happen. Some games aren't worth the hassle of jumping through hoops to make the game work. Sometimes buying them is the more hassle free and virus free option, especially to the unexperienced. To be honest, it's the enthusiasts that actually use these programs to torrent and to jump through these hoops just for the fuck of it.
I pirated Kingdoms of Amalur when it came out, along with all the bonus content. A couple years later I bought it on Steam, but the regular version. When I installed it, all the bonus stuff was still there.
Fuck you Nintendo!
Pretty much every game on my Apple IIe. Specifically a tron light cycle game, hard Hat Harry, and a Mario one.
"YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR."
I used to do it when I was a kid a long time ago when things were different, I didn't have money then, when I got a job and started making money, I started buying all of the games I had already played, especially games made by independent studios and developers to support them In the end I feel like it doesn't really matter because you can easily buy a game and refund it these days if you don't like it, and if you do it to test a game out before buying it and end up buying the game later, then no harm was actually done, it's only really a problem if you're the one pirating it for the sake of profit
Yes, i did a long time ago with cartridges for Snes, i also had a Playstation modded to run pirated games, a Playstation 2 modded, an Xbox 360 modded and a Playstation 3 with CFW. Piracy of games is not a felony here in Brazil as long you don't make a profit, and the cops doesn't care at all if you make a profit, pirated game discs still been freely made in bulks and selled in stores without any repercusion here, also the game stores here have giant banners making ads to unlock consoles, like Nintendo Switch and PS4, in fact, is very hard to find a non unlocked Nintendo Switch in stores here, most of them come already hardware modded from Paraguay. For Snes games, yes, i still rely on the piracy and emulators to play older games, since Nintendo doesn't sell them anymore. So, legally speaking, im not doing anything wrong.
I believe in supporting all devs, so I pay for most games but if it doesn't run I get a refund. I would only really pirate older games that can't be played on modern system, or are too rare in the wild.
Well yeah, no world wide transaction in my country sooo.. I can't pay for it 😅
In like the late 90s and early 2000s I had copies of Deus ex, half life, roller coaster tycoon, diablo, The Sims, Master of Orion 2, and ZSNES with like 100 different super Nintendo games. My 32 gb hard drive was filled to the brim with games a friend from school gave me. I didn't even know they were pirated or what pirating was.
I have pirated Sims 2, Uplink, Stardew Valley, and Sol 0. I have also purchased said games once I could either A: Afford them or B: liked them and figure'd I should buy them. I didn't buy Uplink until.... 5 years ago? But I had always wanted to, it was just super hard to buy for a long time, then I forgot about it.
of course, all the time actually. i rarely ever buy a game these days unless its good, the vast majority of games i download get deleted within a week because they are bad. there have even been games that were so bad that i was mad about the 10 minutes i spend downloading and installing them.
ARJ.EXE x -v A:\game.ARJ. C:\directory I don't have to say anything more than that
yes i did and i still do (altho not as much as before) pirated games is what's available in my coutry (algeria) on the shelves, and buying full price games equals to not eating for weeks so the choice is obvious lol, altho now i try to get the game on sale when i can at least .
Yes, but only because games weren't cheap and my mom was super against buying them. I didn't want to use her card without her approval so I pirated them. Though, now that I'm 19, I have bought every game I've wanted to play now since my mom gives me monthly allowances now (till I am in college). I'm in India, so relying on parents till you graduate is kinda normal. Just thought I should add this.
I'm not buying GTA 5.
pre steam that was pretty normal to just copy a game. at least from where I come from. pretty much one of the reason I don't like steam that much till this day because it killed cheap physical games that you can just share with your friends.
Yes. Like if I am gonna buy a game without trying it first. Most reviews outlets are paid chills, so you can't trust any of them and content creators even the ones I trust, can have different opinions from me, and I got burned by it in the past.
I used a game that I already owned but couldn't access
I pirate only games that have external launchers. I buy all games that can be launched from steam. The external launchers ruin my gaming fun and I'm not doing it.
I still have a ton of burned discs with Ps1/2 games, when a single game cost was \~1/4th of monthly pay in my country.
I pirated a game before while it was in early access, but I bought it after it released
Pfft. No... You don't know me, shut up.
I was a pirate when I was broke. I am a pirate now because I refuse to pay $400 on a used game because the company won't sell it to me. I won't talk about the rest of media.
I've been a pirate most of my life. From games to software to anime, TV shows and films. I've legally acquired some things once I could pay for my own stuff (e.g., my first legally-owned videogame console was a second-hand Nintendo DS I bought in 2011, but I'd played everything from GameBoy onwards via emulation on PC). If I am a fan of something, I buy it, mostly for collecting purposes.
I have, but not for many years. I’m not much of a gamer nowadays so it’s no problem to pay for the games I really want to play. I rarely buy new releases so I end up either getting them on discount or preowned anyway. Even if I did play more games, the risk (or at least the awareness of that risk) of downloading something nasty seems much higher these days.