Piracy is "more popular than ever" suggests report

[Moonister]

As has already been mentioned in this thread, that argument is a load of rubbish - just because something isn’t available in trial form (or at all) isn’t any excuse to pirate it.

You can actually demo the vast majority of games that are released anyway - again has been mentioned already but both steam and origin allow full refunds of digital purchases provided you return within a few days of starting up th game and don’t play more than 2 hours. Like a demo, but better as you can check that Everything works Andy the drm doesn’t cause issues.

No offence but your argument is a lot of rubbish too which has been mentioned too.

No, you can't just demo vast majority of games! Where did you get this from!? List of demos on Steam is a (very short) joke. 2h isn't normally enough to assess the game, especially that quite often fiddling with graphic setting takes half of this time. And this wasn't designed to replace demos, rather to allow gamers to check if the game will run on your PC fine. I always buy games I like and always try them first (demo or pirated) - anything else is just too much risk which quite frankly shouldn't be on consumer's side.

[spacein_vader]

I don't think you understand my point. My argument is that there should be completely free content (demo) that would allow you to try the game before buying. Currently, there aren't enough demos available nor is 2h return policy on Steam sufficient. Add terrible state of games these days and you can understand why sensible consumer turns to pirated games. Some of us don't like to be screwed.

Reading a number of (very often) contradicting opinions (reviews are opinions too and vice versa btw) of people with different backgrounds, views and likes / dislikes will make your decision of parting with your money much easier!? :-) It's just a huge waste of your time, from a consumer standpoint makes no sense whatsoever. It's too subjective too biased too much money in the sector (and all anti consumer stuff that comes with it). Pick your poison. I've been there done that. I take playing / trying a game over reading someone's opinion anyday. With my gaming experience I can usually see a good game after playing for half an hour although devs are more and more sneaky with eye candy and padding ;-)

Of course all game reviews are subjective, they're in the eye of the beholder. They are still useful, you may find a particular subset of reviewers who you know have similar tastes to you for example. Or for buggy/broken games then the vast majority of the reviews will call that out.

Secondly if you're not looking at reviews/PR/marketing how do you decide which games from the dozens released each week you are going to "demo"?

Finally, if you claim to be able to tell a good game in half an hour why is the 2h Steam refund window insufficient for you?

[Moonister]

I don't think you understand my point. My argument is that there should be completely free content (demo) that would allow you to try the game before buying. Currently, there aren't enough demos available nor is 2h return policy on Steam sufficient. Add terrible state of games these days and you can understand why sensible consumer turns to pirated games. Some of us don't like to be screwed.

Reading a number of (very often) contradicting opinions (reviews are opinions too and vice versa btw) of people with different backgrounds, views and likes / dislikes will make your decision of parting with your money much easier!? :-) It's just a huge waste of your time, from a consumer standpoint makes no sense whatsoever. It's too subjective too biased too much money in the sector (and all anti consumer stuff that comes with it). Pick your poison. I've been there done that. I take playing / trying a game over reading someone's opinion anyday. With my gaming experience I can usually see a good game after playing for half an hour although devs are more and more sneaky with eye candy and padding ;-)

Of course all game reviews are subjective, they're in the eye of the beholder. They are still useful, you may find a particular subset of reviewers who you know have similar tastes to you for example. Or for buggy/broken games then the vast majority of the reviews will call that out.

Secondly if you're not looking at reviews/PR/marketing how do you decide which games from the dozens released each week you are going to "demo"?

Finally, if you claim to be able to tell a good game in half an hour why is the 2h Steam refund window insufficient for you?

I've never said I don't look at review, we're all guilty of spending too much time reading them / watching youtube etc. instead of playing games ;-) 2h is normally not enough to assess a game, especially after fiddling with seetings you left with half of it.

[Ttaskmaster]

I don't think you understand my point. My argument is that there should be completely free content (demo) that would allow you to try the game before buying.

Why?
So many games these days are just so same-same that you can quite readily tell if you'll like it or not from just the trailers and skipping through a couple of Let's Play type videos. Well I can, anyway.
I've never regretted not buying a game.

I take playing / trying a game over reading someone's opinion anyday.

I'm glad you have that much time and money to waste on trying all these games that you'll quite likely not enjoy. I'm glad that you think £70 for half an hour in a game you'll hate and never want to play again is a worthwhile confirmation of your views.
I'm limited to only 40 hours a week for gaming and even further limited by my meagre salary, so I use other methods to ascertain a game's value.

[Moonister]

I don't think you understand my point. My argument is that there should be completely free content (demo) that would allow you to try the game before buying.

Why?
So many games these days are just so same-same that you can quite readily tell if you'll like it or not from just the trailers and skipping through a couple of Let's Play type videos. Well I can, anyway.
I've never regretted not buying a game.

If it's same-same game I skip it. Not worth my time.

I take playing / trying a game over reading someone's opinion anyday.

I'm glad you have that much time and money to waste on trying all these games that you'll quite likely not enjoy. I'm glad that you think £70 for half an hour in a game you'll hate and never want to play again is a worthwhile confirmation of your views.
I'm limited to only 40 hours a week for gaming and even further limited by my meagre salary, so I use other methods to ascertain a game's value.[/QUOTE]

connect the dots...torrent and buy if you like / respect devs work. Simple. Get VPN to cover your back too just in case, it's cheap ;-) What is it with people on "meagre" pay handing out their hard earned money so easily?...look at wealthy people/corporations - they don't pay a penny in taxes :-) Yet we are arguying about our basic right to get a finished product that is as advertised or trying before we buy. seriously.

[Spud1]

No offence but your argument is a lot of rubbish too which has been mentioned too.

No, you can't just demo vast majority of games! Where did you get this from!? List of demos on Steam is a (very short) joke. 2h isn't normally enough to assess the game, especially that quite often fiddling with graphic setting takes half of this time. And this wasn't designed to replace demos, rather to allow gamers to check if the game will run on your PC fine. I always buy games I like and always try them first (demo or pirated) - anything else is just too much risk which quite frankly shouldn't be on consumer's side.

Sorry but thats a load of rubbish. Most game demos have much, much less than 2 hours of content anyway. Historically you'd get 30-40 minutes on average of content albeit you could replay that for hours if you wanted to, and usually it was from an unfinished game which very often didn't represent the full experience anyway.

Even if you put all that to one side and I agreed wtih you that the refund option isn't a substitute for a demo (which I don't, obviously ), that still doesn't justify you committing a crime. It's the same as when a publisher releases some content in one country but not in yours - tough, that doesn't mean you can just go and take it without paying.

I sit here completely perplexed why a number of people simply don't get that piracy is a crime, people do lose out from it, people do get hurt by it, and in our society it is 100% wrong. I hope you never end up working for a software or other creative outlet where this affects your personally and you see the real impact of piracy...but it might make you understand the real impact!

[Ttaskmaster]

If it's same-same game I skip it. Not worth my time.

So that's most games then, leaving you with very few titles, most of which you can probably decide on with just a few YouTube vids instead of playing yourself anyway and still save money by not buying those you obviously won't like... which exactly what I do.

connect the dots...torrent and buy if you like / respect devs work. Simple.

Easier and more straightforward to just buy the ones I'll likely enjoy and be done with it. The temptation with torrenting is to still not bother paying, even if you liked the game.

What is it with people on "meagre" pay handing out their hard earned money so easily?

We're not. That's the point.
I'd argue the case for pirating certain films, in that they're not worth paying for in the first place. The remake of Footloose, for example - I'd only ever watch that if I could get it for free! But again, I can tell in advance that I'd chew it up and spit it back in the film-makers' faces if I could, so just like with bad games I don't buy it, don't pirate it, don't even bother with it.

[spacein_vader]

connect the dots...torrent and buy if you like / respect devs work. Simple. Get VPN to cover your back too just in case, it's cheap ;-) What is it with people on "meagre" pay handing out their hard earned money so easily?...look at wealthy people/corporations - they don't pay a penny in taxes :-) Yet we are arguying about our basic right to get a finished product that is as advertised or trying before we buy. seriously.

1. "buy if you lie/respect devs work". If you want it you should buy it, I've bought lots of things from companies I don't respect. If that were a criteria Currys would go bust tomorrow!
2. You do not have a right to try before you buy.
3. You DO have a right to something that works as advertised. But a game that works and does as it says is not the same necessarily the same as one that is enjoyable. So you should return a game that crashes or doesn't have multiplayer when it said it would, but if the story is dull you'd have no recompense.

So if you "demo" a game that works perfectly but isn't to your tastes do you buy it anyway to recompense the devs?

[peterb]

You used two key words in your post, that's 'some'. There are hardly any demos these days and they're timed in the way so that it's not available when needed (around fullbgame release time). Back in the days (90s) a demo was a must...now for a (cost conscious and sensible) consumer demos have been replaced by pirated copy. Never buy something without trying / seeing it first. Simple rule but always works.

So you 'pirate' (ie steal) a game and like it - do you then buy it?

[MrRockliffe]

So you 'pirate' (ie steal) a game and like it - do you then buy it?

I have done, and the list of games includes:

Need For Speeds (as the more recent ones don't "feel" like the older Underground 1 & 2 for example - I simply do a bit of driving, see if the story isn't just recycled, and if decent buy it), Shadow of Mordor, Arkham Asylum, Skyrim (wanted to see how it compared to Fallout) & latest Assassin Creeds (after being burned by Unity).

I ended up buying all of them (except NFS - really don't like the driving mechanics). In fact, I've ended up buying Skyrim on PC & Xbox. The only times I've not pirated a game before buying is:

Arkham Origins - it still doesn't work for me. Save games become corrupted as soon as the game closes.
Unity - Didn't work for months, by which time it was significantly cheaper.
PUBG - ran like a dog (expected), and quite boring. Could have done with a demo.

On my Xbox, I only buy second hand games. Would one consider that stealing, as the money doesn't go to the developer at all?

[spacein_vader]

So you 'pirate' (ie steal) a game and like it - do you then buy it?

While I don't agree with piracy, can we please stop conflating it with theft. It isn't.