Update: Video Game Piracy
Added 2024-01-23 01:13:48 +0000 UTCHey everyone!
Video game piracy easily won the poll for the next video I'll be making (I swear Patreon used to let me end polls, but it appears I've lost that ability) So I want to run you through my ideas for the video, and get your feedback on it.
Every YouTuber and their dog has already made a video on piracy. Mostly just talking about their opinions on it, but a few actually going deeper and making video essays/history videos about it. So looking at this topic, there's a lot that's already been covered. But also some stuff that maybe hasn't been talked about as much?
The main focus of the video for me is just tackling all the arguments around piracy as levelheaded as I can. I am pretty pro-piracy IRL, but I think just laying out why I'm for it is boring. What I have written so far has me going through a specific definition of piracy (spoiler alert: it's just copyright) and then tackling the logistics of it and some notable legal cases and questions of morality/ethics around it. And I'm just gonna tie all that together with some fun history that I found, and as many jokes as I can fit.
As for feedback, let me know what your thoughts on piracy are. Specifically if you have any major legal/moral/ethical dilemmas you think a video like this should answer. And if you have any fun bits of history or facts relating to piracy, send them my way!
I'm gonna try my hardest to make this video a bit shorter, so stay tuned.
Comments
i am pro piracy outright, but i'm also pretty against current copyright laws as they stand, too. specifically disney's blatant manipulation of public domain laws. i'm an artist myself (i do visual art / mostly fan art but i want to go into teaching) and the industry is fuuuucked up from the artist's end. only really big corporations end up making good money off of media properties, with the exception of indie projects that happen to hit it big like undertale. and obviously there's tons of problems with corporations owning so much of the rights to big projects like this. there's tons of cases of say, gamedevs themselves wanting people to be able to use the music from their games in whatever videos they want, but the company who owns the games issues tons of copyright notices about it, completely against the artist's wishes. there's also lots of intricacies across international borders, too. for example, in japan, it's in pretty bad taste to so much as use an official manga picture as a pfp on twitter. that's considered copyright infringement. but obviously the anime and manga industry owes a ton to piracy, for better or worse, as i'm sure you're aware. anyway, it's a very complicated topic. i'm excited to hear what you end up talking about :)
Zero Hutchinson
2024-01-28 20:40:40 +0000 UTCI am pro piracy, but i feel like piracy is probably a reason for why companies have become so protective over their ip's and why streaming services have become as much of a thing as they are, where companies feel like the best way to fight piracy is to give an easy way to access it online (even though you need like 15+ streaming services now if you want to watch everything like wtf)
Anonymous Jerry
2024-01-25 18:47:49 +0000 UTCI'm definitely for piracy especially of older games for the sake of preservation and for personal enjoyment. When big game companies like nindendo make their games inaccessible what other choice do we have besides shelling out $150 for a copy on ebay that may or may not even be authentic. Not to mention their decision to shut down the eshop for the DS/3DS, they're not even making money off of their sells anymore cause there's no other way to buy digital copies legit. Also quickly, I think piracy can also a great learning tool for future devs to be able to look into how the code works and get into modding or making rom hacks and homebrews. Rom hack games has lead people into creating their own games or eventually getting hired at a gaming company. Translation projects for Japanese exclusives are very important for cultivating a fanbase to get actual localized games like in the case of Shin Megami Tensei. It also contributes to speed running as well. We wouldn't have a vast Mario 64 speedrun community if copies weren't accessible. Piracy has done a lot for the gaming community and I can't wait to see your thoughts on it!
Skellybub
2024-01-23 19:32:26 +0000 UTCI love the fire emblem series. I wanted to play the old titles after I played all the latest games. But guess what? Path of Radiance for GameCube isn’t available on any digital store front and isn’t available to buy unless you look second hand and the second hand rate is bare minimum $150 USD. This is a problem not unique to Nintendo. There’s a humongous list of fantastic video games that just aren’t available anywhere (I don’t count second hand inflated rates as availability). Piracy and emulation is the only realistic way for the public to preserve and enjoy these classic games. Let’s continue with the fire emblem example. I went all the way back to the first game and worked my way up to present day. I was able to enjoy every single fire emblem game including those that didn’t have English translations due to them having fan translations. Piracy and emulation not only allowed me to experience classic games I could not afford to buy second hand, but also allowed me to experience games that will never be officially translated to English. This wouldn’t be possible “legitimately” unless I was somehow able to buy the game legally second hand AND physically mod either the game console or game I’d need to play it on. That’s assuming said console is moddable in the way it would need to be to install a fan translation patch. And that’s assuming my willingness to tamper with my classic system or the very expensive game I just bought.
Graham Naquin
2024-01-23 16:53:24 +0000 UTCFor the global south, most games wouldn't have reached the popularity they have if they hadnt been pirated (i literally never had original copies of games until i became an adult with Steam) I remember all my friends had a PS1/2 with piles and piles of pirated cds.
Matias
2024-01-23 13:24:51 +0000 UTCIf there is no legal way to obtain a copy of older games directly from their source, I think it is perfectly justified to use emulators and pirate ROMs.
Wowdude87
2024-01-23 06:06:34 +0000 UTCSince your channel had a lot of success covering anime content I think it would be nice to see how the failure of funimation and Crunchyroll to go mainstream (smart tv apps, better dubs(?), etc.) resulted in anime still being rather niche and I believe one of the most pirated content to date. Because apart from a few Netflix animes, most animes I watched were pirated due to how surprisingly solid the piracy community around it is.
Vogl.
2024-01-23 05:10:10 +0000 UTCI pirate a lot of anime mostly out of convenience, since I often watch it with people in different countries, making it hard to both find it legitimately if we wanted to. Honestly I tend not to pirate games that are available for purchase from the devs/publishers/storefronts, but older games and such I will download with no issue. Other things I just tend not to want to buy unless it's cheap in a bundle or something, so I'll find it somewhere if it's not a huge effort. I generally wouldn't judge someone for pirating anything unless it's clearly from a small artist/writer/developer who needs the money. Anything not indie-produced now is generally just giving money to some huge publisher rather than the actual makers, so I couldn't care less. I guess the dilemma there is: where does one draw the line on who is "indie" enough to "need the money"? I doubt we could make an objective definition but it's something for each person to consider.
TheJadedMieu
2024-01-23 04:24:31 +0000 UTCI mean, artists and media companies have to make money somehow. People worked on it, and they deserve to be compensated. Practically speaking, this is where I draw the line: If piracy isn't your only option, and you can afford to pay without it being a financial hardship, you should pay. The only piracy I've engaged in is for anime/manga where it was impossible (early 2000s anime) or unreasonable (I swear manga is so expensive if you purchase it all legitimately) to pay for it. But I don't pirate games and the like, because I think it would be immoral of me to freeload when I can afford to support everything getting developed in the first place. And that goes equally for small and giant studios. But for those who genuinely can't afford it otherwise, I'm not going to judge. It'a better for those people to engage in the community, than not to be able to at all.
Joshua Carr
2024-01-23 03:20:23 +0000 UTCAs a principle i dont pirate new games or indie games. I also prefer to play games legally as much as possible but when it comes to classic games it can just be too unreasonable to expect that. It personally seems crazy to me that companies will abandon a platform and then when the fans try to keep it alive the companies actively try and stop the people who support them the most.
Brian Boddicker
2024-01-23 03:17:12 +0000 UTCI'm sure you're aware of the working conditions for video game developers. Every game pirated is money out of their pocket. (Or out of the CEO's pocket. Discuss.) Yes, it sucks that game purchases don't last forever: hardware is replaced, services shut down, multiplayer communities move on. But if a game is available for a reasonable price from the rights holder, you should purchase it.
Max Goldstein
2024-01-23 03:06:31 +0000 UTCI've thought about bringing up the broad strokes of DRM and the people who crack it, but the video will be pretty short, so I don't know how much I'll get into it
Lextorias
2024-01-23 02:53:54 +0000 UTCYou probably already know about these but just in case: - Arkham Asylum would make Batman a doofus and not let you glide if it detects a pirated copy and would basically softlock you - Game Dev Tycoon would make it impossible to succeed because too many people would pirate your game and you'd go bankrupt - Alan Wake would wear an eyepatch for the entire game in a pirated copy
GiantPurplePen15
2024-01-23 02:26:30 +0000 UTCI'm very pro-piracy, especially in light of Ubisofts recent comments. Additionally, the content as a service model is awful. If you buy something on a streaming platform, that platform can remove your access to it at any time basically.
Tyler Moore
2024-01-23 02:26:10 +0000 UTCI'm digging it! In my honest opinion, I think there's right and wrong ways to pirate. A lot of game companies aren't triple A monsters, and supporting them I believe is important, and piracy hurts them. As for those big companies, I think that piracy is a clear message that what they're putting out sucks, and they're huge companies so honestly they are the ones who can suck it up. The most prominent example of piracy being justified is definately emulation. Many game consoles are poopy shit stains that sometimes don't even run their games very well. Games can be unavailable as well, either by the fault of the company (Nintendo) or simply because of scarcity. TL;DR, piracy is an effective way of speaking to companies and playing now unavailable titles, but it can also hurt the smaller devs too.
Kleitor
2024-01-23 02:10:59 +0000 UTCI think it is obscene that companies can "own" important pieces of our culture. For example, imagine if disney decided they own shakespeare or whatever. It would be preposterous, but a lot of "disney cultural artifacts" are just as important to the modern world. So by that metric, things such as emulation and preserving lost media so newer generations can experience them is an obvious public good. Emulate away. Those who preserve media are cultural heroes. Regarding pirating newer games, like the latest ubisoft thing, I have mixed feelings. I have no sympathy for companies like that, so to be honest, I really don't care. However, I do think that devs need to be able to make money. I don't want to _only_ play small indie labors of love. So yeah, some period of copyright protection makes sense. That period, however, should be kept very small. Five years seems sufficient in the rapidly changing digital age.
Starlight Veronica
2024-01-23 02:05:23 +0000 UTCLooking forward to it! Do you plan to also talk about DRM and other forms of anti-piracy, and how it evolved over time? I think it would be interesting too, but I'd understand if you focus mainly on the piracy topic. As for my thoughts, honestly I do not condone or condemn it, it's something I've absolutely made use of in the past but I don't have reasoning other than because I can. Nowadays I find it kind of inconvenient for games so I purchase them if I can. Everything else is another story though. As for a fun fact, the pirate bay had a section of their website reserved to displaying letters received from the lawyers of various companies. I think they wrote mocking responses to them as well.
Zhantes
2024-01-23 01:50:10 +0000 UTCSounds interesting! There's some really fun history to dig into there. A friend was talking about being locked out of a game back in the 90s because her codex wheel was misprinted. I have a bit of a strange thing with Piracy. I've been sailing the high seas since I was a teenager for all sorts of media, but for whatever reason I draw the line at games. Maybe because you spend so many hours in a game compared to nabbing a tv episode or movie? Who knows. Looking forward to seeing what you put together!
Beth Rose
2024-01-23 01:38:58 +0000 UTC
