Pirating Vs. Buying Used

[Sampson]

Is it ethical to pirate when the only other option is buying used?

This question occurred to me while I was browsing ebay for Golden Sun, which is the equivalent of buying used.

If I downloaded the rom of the game and played it that way, the developers aren't getting any money. But if I buy it from someone on ebay, the developers still aren't profiting.

Technically, pirating the game would still be illegal. However, as Golden Sun isn't in print anymore (if it is, that's news to me), there's no way the developers will win.

If I buy it used, only the person or company selling the used copy to me is profiting, not the developers.

Also, consider that if I spend $40 dollars buying, say, the two Golden Sun games, I won't have money to buy the DS game when it is released. But if I pirate the games and pay for the DS one, the developers will profit. (Yes, I'll have money anyway to buy the DS game but that's not the point). In other words, is it worth not spending wasted money if it can be used to actually create a profit?

Feel free to put your own opinions on the issue of pirating in your replies, too.

"Golden Sun sucks don't buy it" is not an appropriate response.

[Maxine MagicFox]

To me, if it is not being printed, is not in print, and the developers have closed off all possible modes to profit from it - I'm gonna pirate it. It's NOT pirating - they obviously have made it clear that they aren't interested in making money from it.

<_< I'm not a good person to speak about pirating. The only thing that separates me from most pirates is that I do eventually buy, but, even then, it's still wrong and I fully acknowledge my evil ways. -_-;

[Maverynthia]

I know Sony thinks that all "buying used" is pirating and has seen fit to start making most of the games to try and be download only.

However there is a law called "First Sale", that basically allow you as a consumer to sell the item you have as YOU OWN THAT ITEM. This extends to games as well, despite what most game companies want to puppet people into thinking, and what laws they want changed. (Seriously, this was never a problem with books what it... books are basically the same thing, only it's a linear story.)

The buying us VS downloading because it is out of print to me is a non-issue. It's out of print... they aren't making any money on it. I don't really care if they plan to release it as a compilation or such as either they change the gameplay, add voices (that later get dubbed with crappy EN voices), or remake the graphics.
The only reason I will buy a used game anymore is if I get the case and the manual. If it doesn't have that, then it's basically no good to me really.

Comparing games with books, the only difference is that books don't need a system to play on while a CD,DVD, cartridge needs a system... and those system can go out of print too.

Then again I don't consider downloading games without paying as pirating as the company hasn't lost an actual product to sell. They lost some ethereal "maybe" money that a person probably wasn't going to give them anyways. Though if I like a game, I'll buy it (if I can, I get so backlogged that sometimes the game goes out of print by the time I have money... which then goes back into the realm of used VS download.)

Really the best solution is for these companies to have "donate" buttons for all of us that missed the chance to buy it. We can give them something for their efforts when after the fact we play the game and like it. Seriously, I now want to pay Atlus for Wizardry:Tale of the Forsaken Land, but cant' since the game is out of print.

Wow, such a rant.... I would just download the games and save the money for the new Golden Sun coming out. ^_^ That way you know you are supporting directly VS giving some other random person money that may or may not spend it on the Golden Sun.

[noodles]

If you're buying used, it would probably be best do do it at a game store/business than from some guy on the internet who is taking all the money for himself.

[Sampson]

Well, I only really used Golden Sun since it served as a good example.

[noodles]

I'm playing through it right now

[ZetaNekoQuasiboat]

[ZetaBladeX13]

[Wolfling]

I don't get what you guys are really arguing about but the way I see it, its like someone order a 20 gallons of ice cream and he receive a receipt of purchase,
But it happen the event it was for just got cancelled on the day it was supposedly delivered.

Now he got a problem how to get back those wasted money( I know there are many ways to do this but stick with me for awhile)

Lucky for him someone need it quick on that day but forgot to pre order. So the two exchange items, he gave the receipt to the other guy, and the other paid him full price.

See the other guy may not be the original buyer but it will be just accepted like his the "original" buyer and therefore the contributer.

Of course this doesn't include something like the guy bought it so he can sell it to others with interest, this guy will become retailer.

PS. The reason why I use icecream because you need to make sure its intact, unless the person you bought it from include that info before you buy it.

Hope this helps

[noodles]

What we were talking about was this:

It's supposedly bad to pirate video games because the developer isn't getting any money, right?

If you buy a game used from GameStop, the company that made the game isn't getting any of that money either. Only GameStop is. So the question is, is it bad to pirate games if you can't buy them new anymore?

The thing about ice cream is, if you eat it, you can't return it. But you can play a game all the way through and still give it back or sell it to someone else. That's the difference. If a guy can't get a copy and you sell him yours, two people got the full experience of the game, but the company only got money for one.

[Archaic Sage]

The fundamentally different thing about buying used compared to pirating is that someone has bought the copy first and therefore content creators have received payment for goods, whereas pirating may have had no purchase at all or at the smallest scale 1 purchase to ever X thousands of downloads.

[noodles]

right, but in this case, we're talking about content that is no longer available new. so you don't have the OPTION of having the creators receive payment for what you're buying

[Archaic Sage]

The original print run was X, that was all that there was ever going to be available. The reason the print was X was because that's how much they thought they would sell.

Pirating this at the point of sale, or now many years later introduces behaviours that would mean that the original print run of X, was X because people were not prepared to buy it - if they were, the print run would have been Y.

So generally, I disagree with pirating games as all it does is encourage more people to pirate, which in turn reduces the print run of games. Even rare ones.

The exception I tend to make to this rule is, if the game was never available in your country, or was never rereleased (such as Earthbound in Europe, until very recently we didn't have any of them) or if the game is so old pirating on the scale it is today was not possible (such as cartridge based games from the late 90s and before), as pirating was a much more challenging thing and there would have been less consideration for mass pirating, or the game has become so ludicrously expensive on the second hand market that it prohibits people from being able to buy it and it is not available in any other medium (again, Earthbound carts go for crazy money, but you could just download it for £5 on the Virtual Console).

[Archaic Sage]

Oh and as a side note, Golden Sun is an awesome series of games.

[PLA]

I miss Golden Sun.