Digital vs Physical + Piracy vs Preservation discussion

[Aegis]

I pirate anything that isn't sold anymore.. and some other games if I'm just too broke to buy them

 

[TheLastDeadman]

the more something costs the happier i am pirating it. most game developers actively hate gamers these days anyway so why even bother giving any money to them. unless of course the game is something that's actually good and has a vision and soul. and the developers and marketing keep their mouth shut and don't scream about their views on how they think their target audience is human garbage.

I think the problem is less to do with Devs then it is to do with Publishers. Most Devs want to do good but lack the funds to do it, enter the Publisher which is how alot of it has worked. Now days though Devs basically become slaves to the Publisher or the License holder to do what they want and how they want it and by some chance you're Indie and Good nothing to stop a big Corpo from snatching up your company and doing whatever they want with it.
My point is not to excuse it but to explain it and even then I think this is a very broad over exaggeration. By all means feel free to pirate if you want to, I don't care if you do or not, but not everyone is as vile as you really think. The Vile ones are the CEOs and Higher Ups who don't care about what is made as long as it gets them alot of money.

I pirate anything that isn't sold anymore.. and some other games if I'm just too broke to buy them

I feel this. Back in the day when I was 16-18 I used to Pirate CDs to listen to them and then if I really liked it I'd go buy the CD when I got paid. Now days CDs not really a thing since most Music is digital anyways.

 

[ATenderLad]

Y'all some Pinkertons just parked outside, the neighbors been leaking Magic cards online. Everybody be cool and ix-nay on the iracy-pay.

I'll do the talking, my dad almost passed state trooper academy.

 

[Nevendmisy]

hold off your horses, Luffy... not that kind of pirating

View attachment 3566
i mean about software / games / movies / music /others piracy
where do you draw the line ?

do you paid that winrar that you used for 10+ years?
are you cruising the high seas of torrents ?
do you only support indie devs?
do you purchase everything legally and pirates nothing?
what do you do with items not available in your area? or no longer supported (e.g. retro games)

feel free to ramble below but please respect others' opinion

The creator of ultrakill really had an interesting take about it I really vibe with, here is it btw:

 

[KeiNova]

Some games are absolutely not available in any other way, so they'd simply be forgotten otherwise.

 

[Teone]

This video is a public service:

The title and the thumb are trash but he showed very well the issue. They go all digital, then close the eshop and fuck the access to all that library. So if you decided to do the impossible task of buying all those games to preserve it somewhere, what would you need? Well, A LOT, and not only money.

 

[pressyturny]

I'd say:

Morally correct if you are unable to access that work without it jeopardizing your economic survival, it doesn't matter where or who that work comes from.

Bad* if you are using it to generate profit at the expense of other people's work (*depending on your socialeconomic conditions and the one from the "damaged" part, since most big companies make their profit from the exploitation of underpaid employees).

Crunchyroll just announced they're locking certain arcs behind higher tier subscriptions. Hopefully the backlash convinced them that it's a bad idea. Either way poopy company.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Digital or Physical buying preferences debate is absolutely not the same as piracy vs preservation???

 

[Teone]

Digital or Physical buying preferences debate is absolutely not the same as piracy vs preservation???

"Absolutely" not the same subject is a bit hard.... a lot of people prefere to buy physical because they fear that their digital access to a game can be blocked somewhere in time. On the other hand, some people prefere the digital because they think the physical can deteriorate and be lost.

The point is that these subjects talk to each other and most of the messages on both threads (the one on piracy, and the one on digital vs physical) were running on the same field. Plus, the "piracy" thread is placed in the general discussion section, which is intended to anything but gaming. xD

Now we have a stronger single thread, pinned to the "general gaming" section.

 

[Ikagura]

Crunchyroll just announced they're locking certain arcs behind higher tier subscriptions. Hopefully the backlash convinced them that it's a bad idea. Either way poopy company.

This is ridiculous...

Also even if theoretically buying a physical product is still just buying a licence I'd privilege that over digital only.

 

[dropsmegamega]

"Absolutely" not the same subject is a bit hard.... a lot of people prefere to buy physical because they fear that their digital access to a game can be blocked somewhere in time. On the other hand, some people prefere the digital because they think the physical can deteriorate and be lost.

The point is that these subjects talk to each other and most of the messages on both threads (the one on piracy, and the one on digital vs physical) were running on the same field. Plus, the "piracy" thread is placed in the general discussion section, which is intended to anything but gaming. xD

Now we have a stronger single thread, pinned to the "general gaming" section.

I get what you are saying but 90% of the moved comments including mine don't even mention physical vs digital because the problem of piracy and preservation exists independently of whether a product was released physically or digitally

 

[Teone]

I get what you are saying but 90% of the moved comments including mine don't even mention physical vs digital because the problem of piracy and preservation exists independently of whether a product was released physically or digitally

I totally agree, but we needed to organize all this a bit, and we already had a thread etc etc...

Is it okay if we continue with this general discussion concentrated under one umbrella? I don't think that just because our messages on piracy/preservation were moved here, it implies that we are assuming somehow that piracy/preservation are dependent on or resulting from the way a game is released.

To move this discussion foward I want to share this video here too:

It's definitely not the best on this subject but It's the only one I find in english. It shows at least a bit how piracy was fundamental to not only build up the whole gaming culture here in Brazil, but also to sustain it to this day.

I remember, when I was a kid, how expansive it was to buy a Game Boy, GB Color and GBA around here. PS1 and PS2 original games? 0000000000,1% of our population have even seen one of these in person. We grew and have our money now, and we go after new official releases from Sony's and N's franchises today only because of this past.

 

[Another Iori]

Personally, i only like ps2 collecting bc it bring me memories (Or the FMVs on OPL are laggy).
However, sometimes i enjoy to customize loose copies too.
View attachment 2884

The first USB port Sony installed on a PS2 was of type 1.1 (1.5 MB/s) [which was also found on some computers running Windows 98].

This creates a bottleneck when trying to launch a game that was originally on a DVD and this is why the game becomes slowed down (for CD-based games instead there are never any issues).

If you want maximum speed, you should use a modified memory card with a micro SD slot, which will then push everything possible into the PlayStation's RAM (alternatively you could also use a compatible internal hard drive).

 

[Bart]

i like physical if the box is cool looking or something i feel not many will get, digital for anything that could be shut down and made entirely unplayable even if you had a disc or im fairly certain will stay available. Think we need some kinda law that makes specific games enter public domain if companies dont make them available digitally after x amount of years or something. Some kind of workshopping of that line of thinking so that no games are just lost to time outside of piracy

 

[Parasite_Steve]

When it comes to a current release I go by what's cheaper. With current consoles the difference between physical and digital releases has become negligible. I have a relatively well-stacked used media store in my city that I frequent so it's been a while since I've bought a game on release for full price.

With piracy I have a few rules for myself. I don't pirate stuff from developers I wish to support, that goes doubly so for indies, and I don't pirate when paying for a game is cheap and much less of a hassle than downloading it.
Anything out of print and easy to emulate is fair game, especially if it's from Nintendo. I do plan on selling a lot of my physical media that falls under this umbrella in the near future unless it's something I have some emotional attachment to like the Crash Bandicoot games that I bought with my pocket money 25 years ago.

Talking about media preservation in general, pirates do a much better job saving our cultural memory than any of the media empires that own the world. If you think it's bad now imagine what's going to happen to movies and tv shows once the streaming services eventually start collapsing under their own weight.

 

[Zemus]

To me, physical media is sacred, but piracy is essential.

 

[ObscureJigglypuff]

Considering the lately behavior from Nintendo i agree to pirate even Miyamoto's underwear if it's necessary.

 

[||REDACTED||]

Physical media nowadays are worthless paper weights, a glorified key. Only Nintendo games are worth purchasing on physical form but even then I live in a small apartment I can't hoard boxes of games/media anymore.

not even
if you update your switch software, and reinstall some cartridge, say in version 1.0 for exemple, the game will certainly not launch because the game KEY on your console kernel dont match anymore the one on cartridge, due to updates made to the game in the meantime

 

[Ikagura]

not even
if you update your switch software, and reinstall some cartridge, say in version 1.0 for example, the game will certainly not launch because the game KEY on your console kernel doesn't match anymore the one on cartridge, due to updates made to the game in the meantime

Really? Wait, what about unreleased games?

 

[||REDACTED||]

What do you mean by unreleased?
For clarification, i lately found myself without internet, a switch with firmware 18.something and all my games in physical for it..
When i tried to play, around HALF of my games wouldnt launch, the console asking me to download updates for them and refusing to launch them "as is"
That means the day the shop/servers shut down, most of the cartridges wont run without some console modifications.

Post automatically merged: Dec 19, 2024

If by "unreleased games" you mean the ones to come, they will likely work, until the next firmware update broke them in their "vanilla" version

 

[Yoru Momo]

Encrypted games are glorified NFTs.
Broken cars at least can be sold by parts.

 

[RebelofDaNeonGod]

If the companies won't sell it to me, I will pirate without care or feeling. If a game is cool and looks right up my alley, I will wait for a sale and buy it. I rarely buy games at full price. With retro games and such, I just emulate or mod the console the game is for to play them. I have been sitting back in my chair and enjoying the library of the PS2, not having to pay 100 bucks to play some games.

 

[Bobmeboi]

I pirate anything that isn't sold anymore.. and some other games if I'm just too broke to buy them

That literally me

 

[Happppppp]

 

[newageretrohippie]

They'll rot anyway. And they mean i'll need a modded hardware and.... if i have one....... .. . it's better go digital.

We should be able to have some sort of....... code, key, some shit like that, that you could prove you had bought that game once and than you gain access to it forever. The need to buy a new full-priced file of the same game you had in other consoles it's so offensive.

Yes this is very important to people who live in criminal filled cesspools like california, i have spent thousands upon thousands on physical media and 93% of it has been stolen