[INTERESTING ARTICLE; See Page 8] Discussion: Thoughts on Piracy

[Kreekakon]

Concerning reviews, for games and movies i find user reviews generally helpful (though i also rely on Youtube footage for games). For desktop applications that aren't games, it normally does not require much research before purchase, since most applications provide demos anyway. If the demo, which is normally the full program without a saving feature or with a watermark or some other minor restriction, and reviews are not enough to convince you whether or not you should purchase the product, then i would argue the "pirate for testing purposes" argument is a lie and would consider placing you within the majority of "pirates."

Ok, I agree that demos usually should be more than enough to convince you to buy a game/product if they exist.

Here's something else somewhat different that this post brought to my mind though: What if the said software has great learning value to it, but is too expensive? I'm mainly talking about the Adobe suite products. Many of them will play fundamental roles in future in jobs of people who wish to pursue such careers. The price tag however for each of the products is absurd, and definitely not aimed at your average consumer.

Here's what one of my friends, who is a very talented animator/artist in areas of Flash had to say on the matter:

Programs on the other hand are often hard to actually pay for, simply because they are aimed at companies and are way too expensive for a regular person that's just curious to learn. Though, I think the makers of the programs realize this though, and secretly encourages piracy in that aspect. The persons that have the software learns the products, making the companies with the money pay for the licences further down the road.

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that there was no demo. Let's also go as far as to say there are no reviews. Would you say demanding for a demo is counter productive for a company and the consumer? So you pirate the software in order to provide yourself with a "demo." Behold, you have just relieved said company of risk. After all, what does a demo imply against a company? A demo implies risk. This means if they don't do a good job on the demo and therefore the finished product, they'll lose out on sales. A company without any risks is a company that doesn't care about their consumers.

Even if a company doesn't care for its consumers, and has the silliest policies, it doesn't mean that their games fall into the same class of not deserving your approval. It might not even have been the developer's call. Let's make another assumption: Say Visceral Games developed a new Dead Space game, it's very good, and they have perfect confidence in a demo. EA however is scared that releasing demo might scare off potential consumers after they try the demo, and discover they don't like it, so they shut down the option, even though a demo would've worked fine. Now the only way for consumers to first-handedly know if the game is good is to pirate it. If that hadn't existed either, then the only people who would buy the game confidently knowing that it's a good purchase would've have been people who were already familiar with the game developer's quality, and their friends. Newcomers would be far less because of the lack of being able to try.

Now I know that one may argue that that was the company's fault for losing sales for not having included a demo. But think about this: This fault would've meant many people would've missed out on what they had not yet discovered to be a good product. This shame could easily be averted with piracy in moderate levels, and would raise the general awareness of the existence, and quality of such a product.

In a more personal case, I know a few friends who would not have bought Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, despite it's great reviews, had they not pirated it in the first place. It didn't have a demo, does that mean Skyrim is not worth your time? I wouldn't say so.