Pirating as a 'demo'. Your opinions?

[VapidLinus]

So, I did as I often do with indie games. Even though there is a demo, I pirate it first, play it, and if I enjoyed it I buy it.
That's what I did with Factorio. I pirated the game, played it for 50+ hours and loved it. I bought the Mining Drill Operator pack thing for 35€, and I'm going to keep playing and enjoying it.

My point being, what is your opinion on this behaviour? Feel it's 'right' to pirate games, and buy them if you enjoy them? Even if there is a demo?

[Ric]

Of course its not right! Plus buying a higher package doesn't make up for it.

As you say there was already a demo which the devs went to the effort to make which most devs don't do anymore, yet you still pirate it....
I'm probably in the minority of thinking piracy is wrong these days.

Just my opinion though, you did ask.

[VapidLinus]

Of course its not right! Plus buying a higher package doesn't make up for it.

As you say there was already a demo which the devs went to the effort to make which most devs don't do anymore, yet you still pirate it....
I'm probably in the minority of thinking piracy is wrong these days.

Just my opinion though, you did ask.

Thanks for your opinion. And, I respect that.

However, in my opinion, it doesn't really matter.
From the developers point of view, does it matter?

I pirate the game -> Play it -> Buy it -> Developer gets 35€
I play the demo -> Buy it -> Play it -> Developers gets 35€

Plus buying a higher package doesn't make up for it.

If I would have bought it before pirating it, I would have gotten it for 10€. Instead, I pirated it, and I love it so much I felt the developer deserves more, so I bought it for 35€. Personally, speaking as a developer myself, I'd appreciate any extra revenue and the fact that someone loved it so much they felt I deserved the money. I wouldn't mind at all.

[OBAMA MCLAMA]

Notch, creator of minecraft once said that if money was an issue, play the game and pay when you can

Me though, i think there is a limit.
Your version of a demo was 50 hours, most people play a single player game for 7 hours and then stop playing it.
A demo is supposed to be a taste of the game, not the full game.

I personally dont think its bad as long as you pay for the game, before you play a extended period of time on it.

[Acet]

Since Factorio has a demo, the rational of "try before you buy" doesn't apply in the same way, which makes pirating the game beforehand a bit morally dubious.

Had there been no demo, then pirating it to check it would've been perfectly valid (in my eyes) since one never knows when a game is a overhyped piece of crap (let's just say that I've been burned before when buying overhyped games at full price)

[robhol]

Frankly, factorio's ACTUAL demo is a rather poor demo of what you can actually expect. Pirating and then buying isn't nearly as unethical as people make it out to be. Technically illegal, though.

[undeadnightorc]

Pirating is going to open up a whole can of worms. Bottom line is, it's bad. But I would be a hypocrite if I went around saying that. I mean, I'll admit to not being innocent when it comes to downloading songs, movies and the occasional games.

With Factorio it never crossed my mind to pirate it. First of all, the demo is available! Second, the alpha is incredibly cheap! I spend more on a weekend eating out and going to the movies. Third, after hearing the story of its development, how the developers almost had to go back to their jobs and abandon the game... well holy! I would feel guilty pirating the game. And I want to see it finished.

[DarkenDragon]

lets put it this way

I walk into your store, steal some food from your store, eat it all, then if I liked what I just ate, i'll come back and pay twice as much for it.

no matter what, you just stole the product, also your saying your only going to buy it if you like it. which is not how the world works.

no matter how you look at it, you just stole the product, theres no way to look at it in a good way.

[VapidLinus]

lets put it this way

I walk into your store, steal some food from your store, eat it all, then if I liked what I just ate, i'll come back and pay twice as much for it.

no matter what, you just stole the product, also your saying your only going to buy it if you like it. which is not how the world works.

no matter how you look at it, you just stole the product, theres no way to look at it in a good way.

But piracy isn't theft, and should not be compared to it.

If I were to go into a store, steal an apple, then never pay for it, that's directly damaging the store. That makes them lose money as they now can't sell that apple to another customer. Digital copies for games however, are unlimited. Someone 'stealing' a copy of a digital game isn't lost money for the developer. The developer isn't actually losing any money, but nor is he earning any, unless the pirate decides to later buy it.

I walk into your store, steal some food from your store, eat it all, then if I liked what I just ate, i'll come back and pay twice as much for it.

But that's not the same. If I were to steal an apple from a store, and never pay for it, the store directly loses money. If I were to pirate a copy of a game, the developer isn't losing any money. It's not in any way financially hurting the developer. Both a store and a developer would earn money from a sale, but only a store would actually lose money due to theft/piracy.

[xrw]

#1. Don't ever admit to pirating a game, on the developer's own forum. Jeezus you're stupid.

#2. Despite what the morals police say you did the right thing. Pay whatever you need to set your conscience right.

[FishSandwich]

From the developers point of view, does it matter?

The devs have actually said somewhere (I don't remember where, and I'm not going to search for it..) that they are aware the game is pirated and they don't care.

I always pirate games before I buy them, I don't think it's 'wrong'. I'm not going to buy a game, find I don't like it and then have it occupy a space on my shelf until I expire. There is another example of where I'll pirate games, which I might like but don't buy, because of things like always online DRM. Even though I like the game, I wouldn't support such a system by giving them my money.

[Khyron]

There are so many aspects to this...

Normally when you buy something you have some rights as a consumer thanks to your national consumer protection laws. This often looks something like a right to have a broken/defective product "repaired, replaced or refunded". Buying games over the web usually goes outside the boundaries of your national laws, so you lose all those rights. Sometimes the merchant/manufacturer will offer some rights, but it's at their discretion and they are the judge and jury on any matter - unless you're willing to spend the money perusing the matter in the courts of their country and enforcing whatever laws that country has on them.

Combine that with the fact we now live in an era of alphas and kickstarter games along with rapid game prototyping engines and things like Unity. It's increasingly easy to make something that resembles a game and get it on a website with a payment gateway and viola the cash starts rolling in. The kickstarter market in particular is very good at selling hopes and dreams. This is fine so long as you're aware that when you pledge money it's towards something that might never eventuate. Even assuming the developer has the best of intentions!

There are sooo many games these days and they're all very cheap, comparing one particular game to "cheaper than a meal out" is pointless, because you don't eat 100 meals per day It's also not comparable to stealing a meal and deciding later if you want to pay for it because the meal is not cooked yet. You can't know if they're going to burn it, for example. Most comparisons about piracy relate to traditional markets; goods and services etc. The situation we're talking about is more nuanced. The short story is it's impossible to be an informed consumer.

I have he misfortune of buying a certain game after it was released and found it to be enormously buggy and incomplete. It took me about 30 hours of gameplay to understand what was wrong with the game and I made detailed bug reports on the forum which received pages of responses from other people and the developer acknowledged and said he was working on those bugs. So I wasn't worried because the developer had a good history of releasing patches and had written on his forums about all the upcoming changes and had made written commitments like "I'll be working on <game> for years to come". Then he went on holidays with his wife for about a month, which was a well deserved break after the crunch period. When he came back there was almost no patches for two months, only a couple of very trivial things. Then he made an announcement that multiplayer (a core feature advertised on the kickstarter campaign) would not be included. Later still he announced that he had been working on a new version of the game in an entirely new game engine. This set of huge alarm bells in the community, and sure enough about a month later the developer announced that he was working full time on the sequel. One year later, this game is still in the trash heap, unplayable and unfinished.

So... moral of the story, despite the best of intentions there can be a big gap between hopes and dreams advertised on alpha games and your personal expectations and what might actually eventuate.

What does that mean in terms of the morality of pirating a game? If you have no intention of buying the game ever, obviously you should not pirate it. If there is a demo, you should first try that. Beyond that, I can't say.

[therapist]

lets put it this way

I walk into your store, steal some food from your store, eat it all, then if I liked what I just ate, i'll come back and pay twice as much for it.

no matter what, you just stole the product, also your saying your only going to buy it if you like it. which is not how the world works.

no matter how you look at it, you just stole the product, theres no way to look at it in a good way.

Um, what if I went into a store and magically made a copy of the food and ate the copy but left the original food in the store? Do you understand that theft means that there is a loss to the original owner? Thats why they call it piracy or copyright infringement, because theft (actually you described a robbery, assuming the store has attendants) is something completely different.

You are all lying to yourself if you actually think buying the game does not make up for the original piracy, of course it flipping does, even if you bought the lowest tier of the game. This guy bought the game, and played it, just not in that order. You might have a case for immorality if he had played the game and never bought it, but he did buy it, this completely justifies having played it. How does it not justify it? I think you all confuse the difference between supporting the devs and factorio and doing any little thing that they want or desire. Obedience =/= love, obedience =/= respect, obedience of the law =/= ethics or morals. Piracy actually made a sale just now you blind goofs! Go ahead and blatantly ignore the economics of that, but piracy just sold another copy of the game whether you like the ethics of it or not. No piracy in this instance might have meant no sale. And of course the demo is flipping horrible. Gnomoria's terrible demo with time limit restrictions stopped me from buying the game until almost a year later, I pirated it and put 10 hours into one of my settlements which pushed me over the edge into buying it. Sorry grampa, but "piracy" is the future of all digital content. (How in the flipping heck did piracy, the act of attacking a boat and stealing its goods with your own boat get associated with the unauthorized and illegal replication and distribution of digital intangibles?)

Piracy is even a driving force for sales because those poor people that will never be able to afford ANY video games at all can still play with friends and contribute to the popularity and buzz of those games, they can create secondary content like mods and youtube videos from pirated copies, they can even later choose to upgrade to a nonpirated copy in order to unlock additional content or gain access to faster updates. I don't think you understand how spoiled rotten you must be by the world that you have the money to buy video games with, who has that kind of cash to spend on playtime? Sorry if I went on a little rant, but I can't believe it's 2014 and you all want to ignore how digital content has always worked and will always work.

Accept the reality of how digital products are replicated at 0 costs to the author and the pirate, or i guess you could just bury your head in the sand and scream "robbery" at the top of your lungs until you accomplish absolutely nothing.

And yes, I also pirated factorio before playing it, I read about how the demo is crippleware and wanted to have an idea of how the ACTUAL game was to play and not just how the pathetic crippleware demo was. Glad I skipped the crap and actually decided to try the coat on before I bought it, like every single person in the world does before they buy a coat or shoes. I suppose trying your cloths on is cloths theft though right? Jiminy christmas.

[therapist]

#1. Don't ever admit to pirating a game, on the developer's own forum. Jeezus you're stupid.

This isn't 1998, grow up, accept how digital goods and digital distribution have always, and will always work, or prepare for the uphill battle of a flipping lifetime. If the devs want to damage their reputation or the reputation of factorio by trying to fight or silence people on an internet forum, go ahead and let them, I still have time to cancel the purchase on my visa card at my bank and just pirate the game anyway.

#2. Despite what the morals police say you did the right thing. Pay whatever you need to set your conscience right.

Oh get off it, he didn't buy it because he just felt so bad for being a pirate, he clearly said he pirates games to TRY them first. He liked the game enough from his piracy to buy the higher tier package. Guess what? This means that sometimes, he pirates games and *GASP* doesn't end up buying them at all, EVER. What a horrible person he must be to try things before he decides to buy them especially when it's illegal theft and causes all the little babies of video game developers to starve to death. What a monster! Bring back the guillotine! End the madness! In DRM we trust!

Edit:

Jeezus you're stupid.

[ssilk]

My opinion: even discussing this theme is not a good idea.

Why?

Whe had that already! Look this thread:
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... it=Malokin

So I think nearly every aspect of pirating Factorio can be found there. Well, if you found a new one: have fun.

[therapist]

My opinion: even discussing this theme is not a good idea.

Why?

I don't really believe any topic or "theme" is not a good idea to discuss. Lack of discussion on any topic, is by it's very definition, the willful spreading of ignorance.

Besides, You sound like some repressive Orwellian psychopath when you say things like this. Imagine a russian KGB accent or the head of the NSA when you say the phrase "Discussing this topis is not a good idea my comrade/patriotic friend". Either elaborate why you think it is a bad idea, or maybe let others discuss whatever they wish without your uneasy or afraid wish for restriction of discussion. I do appreciate the other thread though, although it might be fun to revisit this topic in the non-flamewar format.

[Darthlawsuit]

Already a topic on this and already been answered multiple times: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=5&t=1821

We have pretty much the same opinion with Kovarex regarding downloading the game from the torrents. If someone buys the game, well awesome. Don't really care whether he bought it straight away or tested it on the torrent first. If someone downloads it from the torrent, likes it / plays it, but never buys it - well not much we can do, at least he is having fun and maybe other people will learn about it this way (via him / her).

[therapist]

Already a topic on this and already been answered multiple times:

Again Ill say, come off of it. VapidLinus, the OP, wanted to know the answer to his question, and at least the angry morality police were staying on the topic and answering his question. Getting upset that the question is brought up, and pointing out over and over and over the flame war occurred in another thread about this topic WILL NOT stop this discussion.

We value the input of letting others read the nasty flame war thread, but it might be nice to have an actual discussion about this topic between human beings rather than just letting trolls duke it out. Maybe you could start your own thread where you complain about how many times this topic has come up and how you wish people wouldn't discuss it because it has been answered just so so so many times (the one flamewar thread).

What if I mirrored your disapproving sentiments and said I don't really feel this is the place to voice your opinion on the validity of this thread or this discussion, the topic of this thread is trying a game by pirating it first before buying. Accept this discussion will occur (YES, AGAIN) and either contribute, or choose not to contribute. We can start a thread just for bashing the discussion or raising awareness about how this question has already been answered if you want, but maybe expressing that sentiment for the third time is unnecessary?

The discomfort from the forum users surrounding this topic is so amazingly palpable it's unreal. It's as though some of you feel dirty or start to squirm at the mere mention of "piracy" about your beloved. She (factorio) is all our beloved, and we all love her differently. One way is not better than another, all roads to sales are a success for our proud beauty queen, even those you might find unsavory.

[ssilk]

@theRapist: I didn't forbid anything. Again: if you find new aspects of this theme, you're welcome to discuss it with us. but you'll find me very skeptical.

[therapist]

@theRapist: I didn't forbid anything. Again: if you find new aspects of this theme, you're welcome to discuss it with us. but you'll find me very skeptical.

It's not some merit on you that you didn't forbid the discussion, You simply CANT forbid the discussion even if you wanted to. But you do seem to disapprove of, and make efforts to discourage the discussion, which, as I said, is the willful dissemination of ignorance. In fact, to forbid a topic, to burn a book, to ban a book or a video game often INCREASES the popularity and discussion of that topic. People who want to detract from a discussion must be subtle in their subversion of information. In fact, I didn't ever accuse you of forbidding anything at all, but I did go to lengths to be critical of your disapproval and discouragement of simple discussion of ANY topic. You're putting words in my mouth I didn't speak, and then rolling your eyes at things I didn't say.

I do appreciate the links to the flamewar though, although some of it needs to be summarized or I probably won't end up making it through a single post without skimming.