My issue is the license part. If I can’t own the installer files then it really doesn’t seem right anyways.
Honestly with the quality a lot of games are released with, and the state they often are in, considering also the ludicrous costs of purchase (and you don’t actually own >90% of these purchases), for me it’s completely ethical. In that quite a lot of these people have lost the plot, we are in arguably late stage capitalism, and it’s almost a necessity anymore to test things before purchase. Don’t part with your hard earned money before you know for a fact what you are purchasing.
My two cents.
If you knew the game was bad you wouldn’t buy it. That equals no sale for the publisher.
If you pirate it, don’t like the game and delete it. It’s the same result.
If you pirate it, like it. Then buy it, then everybody’s happy.
See, they don’t care if you like the game or not, so why should you care if it’s ethical to try a game? Especially if you buy it in case you like it.
i think it depends. i think it’s always ethical to pirate a game by a big company, but probably not from an indie developer. i’m not gonna stop you though
Buying licenses is never ethical. Buying the actual stuff, yeah, it is.
I did this with Baldur’s gate 3. I liked it so much I went and bought it on steam. And still liked it so much I got the deluxe just cause it was the only time gaming I felt like I really wanted them to get more money
Who cares?
Ethics are a construct
Yes.
i mean that was literally the entire point of shareware.
Whenever I’m in situations like this, I think back to my days in high school when I had a CD collection that was worth several thousand dollars. Each of those CDs cost 10 or $15, and for each one that I purchased, the original artist got a few cents.
It was all a giant f****** scam to get the record companies rich. The record companies owe me for that, but they’re never going to pay up, and ethically, I don’t feel like I owe them another cent, nor will I for the rest of my life.
Of course the gaming industry is not quite the same, but in some ways it is quite similar.
I seen my friends do that (if the game does not have a demo) so yes
No, buying a license is never ethical.
GOG (and other DRM-Free stores) are definitely exceptions to this rule though. Even though you are technically buying a license, the games you buy are effectively owned.
If it’s unethical to pirate, you can assuage your guilt by buying the thing after the fact, or deciding you were never gonna buy it anyway. If you don’t think it’s unethical to pirate, then it’s not an issue.
As to what I believe… if buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.
Based.
Copyright should be illegal also, everything should be copyleft.
That’s the opinion of the instance I’m on, so I can’t well disagree with you here. However, my wife is an artist, so I might have some bias in saying I think some things are worth paying for. I pay for Apple Music. I also have offline copies of everything I listen to. I mean, I’m paying for it. I’m paying a lot for it. But I stand by what I said, if paying for it doesn’t mean you get to keep it, not paying for it and having it isn’t theft. Except I do both. I pay for it and I have it.
In general, big pirates are also big spenders in an industry.
I’m an artist too, I’m music producer 😅
Idk if this helps, but here’s my general ethical approach:
If it’s a small indie developer/studio. I always pay for the game, or at least, if I pirate the game, I buy the rough equivalent of their merch or make a donation if that’s an option.
If it’s a large studio/corpo game, I pirate it and don’t shed a single tear. Same is true for all my music and visual media.
I support people and small groups that need the help and are creating great products and art. I think it is actually unethical to support giant corporations monetarily, so I do my best to minimize the amount of money they get from me, which for many years now has been pretty close to zero.
There have been several games I ONLY bought because I pirated it first to play and then purchased. Some games don’t have demos available,
