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Ah, waking up every Sunday morning at 9am, seeing the fresh air and going around the Car Boot Sales used to be the high point of my day, until recently.
I have stopped going to Car Boot Sales for 6 months now, for one reason, Piracy.
I used to be able to put up with it, with the odd Amiga floppy disc being flogged for a pretty penny, and that was just a few years ago, years after the Amgia liquified. There were a fair shair of con men out there as I should know, after buying Terminator 2 for 50p on the Amiga. When I went home and inserted the floppy into one of my 2 external disc drives, the game failed to load. At the time, I was only 7 and I boiled my eyes out, thinking that someone could be that mean to a 6 or 7 year old boy, but that's just the begginning.
Just by looking left or right at a Car Boot Sale, you would see pirated games for rediculously cheap prices. My friend brought home Worms World Party for an amazing £10, just a week after it was released full price.
Games are not the only thing. Many films are being brought in too. Once my friend went abroad and brought home Jarrassic Park and it hadn't even come out at the cinema yet. We put it into our video recorder and pressed play. To our surprise and misfortune, it was a video of someone who had taken a video camera into a cinema and zoomed in on the cinema screen. The quality was terrible and I only sat through about 10 minutes of it and waited for it to come out on video.
I have also been shown Silent Hill, months before it's release and Metal Gear Solid, 6 months before it's UK release. MGS is very different in America. When you face Psycho Mantis, you and Meryl have to pick off loads and loads of guards.
The films in boot sales have been imported from America or other contries and somehow been recorded onto either VHS, VCD or Mini Disc.
However, Mp3's are yet to be seen. Well, at least since I last went. My friend got a couple of albumns but I've never seen any pirated albumns. He found some Metallica, Nirvana and Led Zepplin albumns at a very cheap price.
I am disguested by this as it is just not the same as the original. The book, the case and the covers are all missing. Some people buy the cases and scan the covers but the covers are not of a glossy quality and the cases do not have the "Dreamcast" logo on the blue spine. Some people have ways of getting books as well but not many.
A lot of my friends have offered my pirated Dreamcast, PC and PS games but I have refused.
Nintendo have the best system with cartridges. The only way to pirate them is to use a contraption called the Z64. It makes a copy of the game onto the memory of the Z64 ( a few gig ) and then you can play the game from the Z64 memory, without having to own the original counterpart.
The Playstatition never thought of piracy at the time of PS's release. People made copies and then the problems began, until the release of Dino Crisis. This game had an error written into it so that if you tried to copy it, it would not copy. People downloaded cracks off of the internet and broke the protection. Dino Crisis is the only game to use this as it failed miserably.
Sega though that they had protection beaten when they released the Dreamcast. The games were recorded onto GD-Roms, a new type of CD, bigger than a standard 650MB 74 minute CD. It has a few more rings around the disc than a PS game. However, this was again cracked. People connected their Dreamcasts up to their PC's and uploaded the games to their computers and then used a programme called Winrar to make them into files of 19MB each, called ISO files. They then uploaded them to a server and people download them, Unrar them and burn them to a disc. It takes about 1 day to download a game.
PC gaming is almost the same, except, you download RIPS, instead of ISO's. RIPS are retail games with the intros and some FMV's removed, to save space when downloading files.
The creators of Bleem an emulator for the PC, that lets you play PS games on the PC, have the right idea. They have put a copy protection on the CD's that cannot be "cracked" or broken as of now. Why do music, cinema and games companies not use this? It cannot be too expensive as the creators of Bleem worked on a low budget.
How to identify a pirate.
All pirates are exactly the same to spot, turn the CD over and look at the back. If it has a black back, it is original, if it has a rainbow-like back, it is a pirate. It will have 2 rings, showing how much the CD has been taken up by the game. Beware though, don't think that a game is original by looking at the front and seeing the CD design because some people print them off and glue them to the front of the CD.
Piracy is a huge business and not just game companies, but the movie and music industry need to do something drastic, NOW.
I have stopped going to Car Boot Sales for 6 months now, for one reason, Piracy.
I used to be able to put up with it, with the odd Amiga floppy disc being flogged for a pretty penny, and that was just a few years ago, years after the Amgia liquified. There were a fair shair of con men out there as I should know, after buying Terminator 2 for 50p on the Amiga. When I went home and inserted the floppy into one of my 2 external disc drives, the game failed to load. At the time, I was only 7 and I boiled my eyes out, thinking that someone could be that mean to a 6 or 7 year old boy, but that's just the begginning.
Just by looking left or right at a Car Boot Sale, you would see pirated games for rediculously cheap prices. My friend brought home Worms World Party for an amazing £10, just a week after it was released full price.
Games are not the only thing. Many films are being brought in too. Once my friend went abroad and brought home Jarrassic Park and it hadn't even come out at the cinema yet. We put it into our video recorder and pressed play. To our surprise and misfortune, it was a video of someone who had taken a video camera into a cinema and zoomed in on the cinema screen. The quality was terrible and I only sat through about 10 minutes of it and waited for it to come out on video.
I have also been shown Silent Hill, months before it's release and Metal Gear Solid, 6 months before it's UK release. MGS is very different in America. When you face Psycho Mantis, you and Meryl have to pick off loads and loads of guards.
The films in boot sales have been imported from America or other contries and somehow been recorded onto either VHS, VCD or Mini Disc.
However, Mp3's are yet to be seen. Well, at least since I last went. My friend got a couple of albumns but I've never seen any pirated albumns. He found some Metallica, Nirvana and Led Zepplin albumns at a very cheap price.
I am disguested by this as it is just not the same as the original. The book, the case and the covers are all missing. Some people buy the cases and scan the covers but the covers are not of a glossy quality and the cases do not have the "Dreamcast" logo on the blue spine. Some people have ways of getting books as well but not many.
A lot of my friends have offered my pirated Dreamcast, PC and PS games but I have refused.
Nintendo have the best system with cartridges. The only way to pirate them is to use a contraption called the Z64. It makes a copy of the game onto the memory of the Z64 ( a few gig ) and then you can play the game from the Z64 memory, without having to own the original counterpart.
The Playstatition never thought of piracy at the time of PS's release. People made copies and then the problems began, until the release of Dino Crisis. This game had an error written into it so that if you tried to copy it, it would not copy. People downloaded cracks off of the internet and broke the protection. Dino Crisis is the only game to use this as it failed miserably.
Sega though that they had protection beaten when they released the Dreamcast. The games were recorded onto GD-Roms, a new type of CD, bigger than a standard 650MB 74 minute CD. It has a few more rings around the disc than a PS game. However, this was again cracked. People connected their Dreamcasts up to their PC's and uploaded the games to their computers and then used a programme called Winrar to make them into files of 19MB each, called ISO files. They then uploaded them to a server and people download them, Unrar them and burn them to a disc. It takes about 1 day to download a game.
PC gaming is almost the same, except, you download RIPS, instead of ISO's. RIPS are retail games with the intros and some FMV's removed, to save space when downloading files.
The creators of Bleem an emulator for the PC, that lets you play PS games on the PC, have the right idea. They have put a copy protection on the CD's that cannot be "cracked" or broken as of now. Why do music, cinema and games companies not use this? It cannot be too expensive as the creators of Bleem worked on a low budget.
How to identify a pirate.
All pirates are exactly the same to spot, turn the CD over and look at the back. If it has a black back, it is original, if it has a rainbow-like back, it is a pirate. It will have 2 rings, showing how much the CD has been taken up by the game. Beware though, don't think that a game is original by looking at the front and seeing the CD design because some people print them off and glue them to the front of the CD.
Piracy is a huge business and not just game companies, but the movie and music industry need to do something drastic, NOW.
Page:
I agree that in some cases people whi ilegaly copy and sell software can also be dealing drugs and using drugs but these people are criminals and they would find another way to do drugs if piracy wasn't an option. It all comes down to morals and its obvious that the people who are involved with piracy don't seem to have any.
I looked at the bit about punishment for piracy. I think its a disgrace that these people get of so lightly, thats why its such a popular crime to get invoved with. The profits are huge and the risk is small. Until the problem is addressed properly ie companys get together and do something big then it will continue. We need stricter laws for offenders.
I looked at the bit about punishment for piracy. I think its a disgrace that these people get of so lightly, thats why its such a popular crime to get invoved with. The profits are huge and the risk is small. Until the problem is addressed properly ie companys get together and do something big then it will continue. We need stricter laws for offenders.
Sorry, didn't see that "Annual Report". Bah, once again my skimming has humiliated myself.
FM, I thought you took a degree in Gaming, not in Law.
Logan wrote:
Could you please explain how games pirating leads to
drugs?
From ISDA 1999/2000 Annual Report:
"Evidence of the link between piracy and organised crime became appearent in the late 1990s as the CD format offered crime syndicates a simple, cheap and highly lucrative entry into a mass-scale illegal trade. In 1999 and early 2000 a number of cases were uncovered showing the convergence between CD piracy and other forms of serious and organised crime.
They include arrests by London police of members of a Russian crime ring charged with being involved in large-scale credit card fraud, as well as in the traffic of pirate CDs; arrests by anti-mafia police in Italy and reports from the General Attorney of Naples that 100 Camorra gangs are involved in piracy as well as in drugs, firearms and extortion; and the crackdown by Dutch police against a US$50 Dollar CD pirate ring in raids which seized firearms and large amounts of cash.
Other seizures in the year showed the growing scale, sophistication and audacity of the international pirate traders - exemplified by the seizure in Frankfurt in Januray of half a million CDs manufactured in Ukraine and bound for Uruguay. The flood of international pirate traffic from South East Asia into Latin America, which began in 1998, continued in 1999. Illicit plants have been uncovered in Latin America, Asia and Europe."
From ZDNet article:
"A three-month investigation by Sm@rt Reseller shows that portions of the Chinese Mafia are smuggling illegal aliens into the US and forcing them to pay their debt by pirating software.
Experts say software developers, distributors and resellers lost $11 billion in sales to piracy last year. And that's just the beginning. Investigators have traced a hefty portion of the problem back to Asian organized crime.
The latest example: The U.S. Customs Service has busted front man Hung Lin Wu, who allegedly ran two Los Angeles businesses that were part of a major software piracy operation.
Adds Samir Bodas, director of worldwide antipiracy at Microsoft, "Over the years, we have found Asian organized crime [operations] moving into counterfeit software in increasing numbers."
And as the world of counterfeit software rapidly evolves beyond small-time hackers and unscrupulous resellers, it's also becoming far more dangerous.
Consider the case of another front man, Ming Ching Jin. When cops raided Jin's Rowland Heights, California home and a related warehouse, they uncovered more than $2 million worth of counterfeit Microsoft software that appeared legitimate to the untrained eye.
But that wasn't all they found. Jin's living room contained couches that had loaded guns under every cushion. Also hidden in the house were 2 pounds of dynamite and 5 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives, according to court documents. Nobody was injured during the raid, but Jin's explosives arsenal was enough to level a typical office building.
Clearly, the rise of organized crime is troubling news that should hit home with every reseller: The U.S. economy loses 130,000 jobs annually to piracy, according to the Business Software Alliance and the Software & Information Industry Association."
From EIDOS.com: "The anti-piracy campaign
What is piracy?
Every year thousands of pounds worth of illegal software is sold in the UK at car boot sales, markets, mail order and other outlets by unscrupulous traders. The software sold by these traders has been illegally copied without the approval of the game developers, manufacturers and distributors, and comes with no money back guarantee, instruction manuals or packaging. The only attraction is that it is cheap, often only at a fraction of the cost of the genuine item.
Why is it wrong?
The success of the computer games industry has made it a prime target for criminals. It is estimated that more than £3 billion is lost every year by the UK industry to software pirates, which results in lost jobs and lost development opportunities, both locally and nationally.
Consumers have no recourse under law for faulty pirated goods. Pirated goods are often mixed with obscene material. There are proven links between many pirate organisations and dealers in drugs and pornography. Sales of pirate software are often used by terrorist organisations to fund terrorist activities.
Pirates sometimes try to justify their activities by claiming that paying the full price for a genuine game is a rip-off and lines the pockets of the fat-cats with your money. This is simply not true.
There are several issues here:
It costs several million pounds to make a game in the first-place. This includes rewarding the programmers and artists whose creativity contributes so much to the games we all enjoy.
A pirate simply pays a few pence for a gold disc, places it into a CD-writer, clicks a record button, and makes over £4.00 profit PER SALE for his troubles. This is often more profit than the Publishers and Developers make from the sale of an original title.
The people who really suffer from game piracy are the artists, programmers and other committed game development staff. Piracy directly affects people, and their families. Loss of revenue to the games industry through piracy means many are losing their jobs due to cut-backs that have to be made to ensure developers and publishers survive.
Some of the most highly regarded, hard-working and creative people in the UK are losing their jobs while the pirates line their own pockets with your money. Where's the justice in that?
It's not just copying software that is against the law, owning copied software also constitutes a criminal offence; so anyone buying from these people is also at risk of arrest and prosecution.
This is in addition to the risk that the pirate product will be of inferior quality and often contains mechanisms that degrade the performance of the game.
ELSPA
The ELSPA Crime Unit was established in 1994 to safeguard the intellectual property rights of members' products.
The ELSPA Crime Unit:
1. Responds to information about illegal software received from members, consumers, the retail trade and other enforcement agencies.
2. Conducts investigations against alleged offenders.
3. Routinely makes test purchases from alleged offenders.
4. Regularly visits car boot sales and markets to monitor product being sold.
5. Executes warrants at offenders' premises.
6. Seizes infringing product.
7. Assists enforcement agencies such as Trading Standards Officers and Police.
8. Authorities in investigating software piracy.
9. Maintains close liaison with Customs and Excise over the importation of illegal software.
10. Takes Legal action against those found copying and selling illegal software.
11. Attends trade shows and conferences to speak to consumers and traders.
12. Operates a 24-hour confidential hotline for anyone wishing to give information about software pirates.
Penalties
Piracy leads always to arrests, community service, hefty fines and prison sentences. For example, in a recent court case, a two-and-a-half year sentence was handed down to a Birmingham man found guilty of manufacturing counterfeit CDs. And in a separate case, a Sheffield man was given a five-month prison sentence for computer games piracy. Legislation is provided to prosecute pirates and counterfeiters under the following acts:
The Copyrights Designs and Patents Act of 1988,
The Trade Marks Act of 1994,
The Trade Descriptions Act of 1968,
The Computer Misuse Act of 1990,
The Forgery Act of 1981, and
The Theft Act of 1968.
Confidential hotline
If you require information on Software Piracy, call The Crime Unit Hotline On 0870 5133405 All Information Treated in Strictest Confidence 24 Hour Answering Service Available
www.elspa.com"
______________________________
I used a standard search engine, searched for "video game piracy drugs", and got a listing of 1620 webpages discussing the two and how they are connected. These were the first 3 articles.
I suggest you read a few more of them.
Could you please explain how games pirating leads to
drugs?
From ISDA 1999/2000 Annual Report:
"Evidence of the link between piracy and organised crime became appearent in the late 1990s as the CD format offered crime syndicates a simple, cheap and highly lucrative entry into a mass-scale illegal trade. In 1999 and early 2000 a number of cases were uncovered showing the convergence between CD piracy and other forms of serious and organised crime.
They include arrests by London police of members of a Russian crime ring charged with being involved in large-scale credit card fraud, as well as in the traffic of pirate CDs; arrests by anti-mafia police in Italy and reports from the General Attorney of Naples that 100 Camorra gangs are involved in piracy as well as in drugs, firearms and extortion; and the crackdown by Dutch police against a US$50 Dollar CD pirate ring in raids which seized firearms and large amounts of cash.
Other seizures in the year showed the growing scale, sophistication and audacity of the international pirate traders - exemplified by the seizure in Frankfurt in Januray of half a million CDs manufactured in Ukraine and bound for Uruguay. The flood of international pirate traffic from South East Asia into Latin America, which began in 1998, continued in 1999. Illicit plants have been uncovered in Latin America, Asia and Europe."
From ZDNet article:
"A three-month investigation by Sm@rt Reseller shows that portions of the Chinese Mafia are smuggling illegal aliens into the US and forcing them to pay their debt by pirating software.
Experts say software developers, distributors and resellers lost $11 billion in sales to piracy last year. And that's just the beginning. Investigators have traced a hefty portion of the problem back to Asian organized crime.
The latest example: The U.S. Customs Service has busted front man Hung Lin Wu, who allegedly ran two Los Angeles businesses that were part of a major software piracy operation.
Adds Samir Bodas, director of worldwide antipiracy at Microsoft, "Over the years, we have found Asian organized crime [operations] moving into counterfeit software in increasing numbers."
And as the world of counterfeit software rapidly evolves beyond small-time hackers and unscrupulous resellers, it's also becoming far more dangerous.
Consider the case of another front man, Ming Ching Jin. When cops raided Jin's Rowland Heights, California home and a related warehouse, they uncovered more than $2 million worth of counterfeit Microsoft software that appeared legitimate to the untrained eye.
But that wasn't all they found. Jin's living room contained couches that had loaded guns under every cushion. Also hidden in the house were 2 pounds of dynamite and 5 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives, according to court documents. Nobody was injured during the raid, but Jin's explosives arsenal was enough to level a typical office building.
Clearly, the rise of organized crime is troubling news that should hit home with every reseller: The U.S. economy loses 130,000 jobs annually to piracy, according to the Business Software Alliance and the Software & Information Industry Association."
From EIDOS.com: "The anti-piracy campaign
What is piracy?
Every year thousands of pounds worth of illegal software is sold in the UK at car boot sales, markets, mail order and other outlets by unscrupulous traders. The software sold by these traders has been illegally copied without the approval of the game developers, manufacturers and distributors, and comes with no money back guarantee, instruction manuals or packaging. The only attraction is that it is cheap, often only at a fraction of the cost of the genuine item.
Why is it wrong?
The success of the computer games industry has made it a prime target for criminals. It is estimated that more than £3 billion is lost every year by the UK industry to software pirates, which results in lost jobs and lost development opportunities, both locally and nationally.
Consumers have no recourse under law for faulty pirated goods. Pirated goods are often mixed with obscene material. There are proven links between many pirate organisations and dealers in drugs and pornography. Sales of pirate software are often used by terrorist organisations to fund terrorist activities.
Pirates sometimes try to justify their activities by claiming that paying the full price for a genuine game is a rip-off and lines the pockets of the fat-cats with your money. This is simply not true.
There are several issues here:
It costs several million pounds to make a game in the first-place. This includes rewarding the programmers and artists whose creativity contributes so much to the games we all enjoy.
A pirate simply pays a few pence for a gold disc, places it into a CD-writer, clicks a record button, and makes over £4.00 profit PER SALE for his troubles. This is often more profit than the Publishers and Developers make from the sale of an original title.
The people who really suffer from game piracy are the artists, programmers and other committed game development staff. Piracy directly affects people, and their families. Loss of revenue to the games industry through piracy means many are losing their jobs due to cut-backs that have to be made to ensure developers and publishers survive.
Some of the most highly regarded, hard-working and creative people in the UK are losing their jobs while the pirates line their own pockets with your money. Where's the justice in that?
It's not just copying software that is against the law, owning copied software also constitutes a criminal offence; so anyone buying from these people is also at risk of arrest and prosecution.
This is in addition to the risk that the pirate product will be of inferior quality and often contains mechanisms that degrade the performance of the game.
ELSPA
The ELSPA Crime Unit was established in 1994 to safeguard the intellectual property rights of members' products.
The ELSPA Crime Unit:
1. Responds to information about illegal software received from members, consumers, the retail trade and other enforcement agencies.
2. Conducts investigations against alleged offenders.
3. Routinely makes test purchases from alleged offenders.
4. Regularly visits car boot sales and markets to monitor product being sold.
5. Executes warrants at offenders' premises.
6. Seizes infringing product.
7. Assists enforcement agencies such as Trading Standards Officers and Police.
8. Authorities in investigating software piracy.
9. Maintains close liaison with Customs and Excise over the importation of illegal software.
10. Takes Legal action against those found copying and selling illegal software.
11. Attends trade shows and conferences to speak to consumers and traders.
12. Operates a 24-hour confidential hotline for anyone wishing to give information about software pirates.
Penalties
Piracy leads always to arrests, community service, hefty fines and prison sentences. For example, in a recent court case, a two-and-a-half year sentence was handed down to a Birmingham man found guilty of manufacturing counterfeit CDs. And in a separate case, a Sheffield man was given a five-month prison sentence for computer games piracy. Legislation is provided to prosecute pirates and counterfeiters under the following acts:
The Copyrights Designs and Patents Act of 1988,
The Trade Marks Act of 1994,
The Trade Descriptions Act of 1968,
The Computer Misuse Act of 1990,
The Forgery Act of 1981, and
The Theft Act of 1968.
Confidential hotline
If you require information on Software Piracy, call The Crime Unit Hotline On 0870 5133405 All Information Treated in Strictest Confidence 24 Hour Answering Service Available
www.elspa.com"
______________________________
I used a standard search engine, searched for "video game piracy drugs", and got a listing of 1620 webpages discussing the two and how they are connected. These were the first 3 articles.
I suggest you read a few more of them.
Fair point, sorry about that!
I hang my head in shame!
Bye
I hang my head in shame!
Bye
Ricky... the DC was dropped for financial failure. Why... it didn't sell enough games! (consoles were sold at a loss, and game sales were still low). So what do Sega do- support a console with 10 million users, or sell games to 100 million users.
You have on fact said exactly the saem thing as me...
FM... in reply.
I think the idea of game pirating leading to drugs is rubbush. No offence- I respect your views- but you're way OTT.
My friends piarte CDs. He sticks them in a writter, copies them, and sells them for £5. Where is the reprecussion (other than the industry losing out).
Could you please explain how games pirating leads to drugs?
You have on fact said exactly the saem thing as me...
FM... in reply.
I think the idea of game pirating leading to drugs is rubbush. No offence- I respect your views- but you're way OTT.
My friends piarte CDs. He sticks them in a writter, copies them, and sells them for £5. Where is the reprecussion (other than the industry losing out).
Could you please explain how games pirating leads to drugs?
Sorry for the double post!
Logan wrote:
> Rickyfire wrote:
> The main problem with piracy is that it
> causes problems for the
> developers, as they don't get as much
> money for the gasmes they
> make. Some people would say that a
> few pounds here and there make
> little difference for the
> developers, but it does. Take sega, they
> could have done with
> a few more sales.
Not really... Sega realised that if you aim all
> your games at the DC market then you will only have 10 million
> potential customers. If you make games for all the consoles you have
> 100 million potential customers!
I think you've missed my point. The reason Sega are making games for other formats is because the DC failed financially (I know I didn't spell that right, but I've had a hard day!), if they had made more sales initially, they would not have had to resort to multi-format development.
> Rickyfire wrote:
> The main problem with piracy is that it
> causes problems for the
> developers, as they don't get as much
> money for the gasmes they
> make. Some people would say that a
> few pounds here and there make
> little difference for the
> developers, but it does. Take sega, they
> could have done with
> a few more sales.
Not really... Sega realised that if you aim all
> your games at the DC market then you will only have 10 million
> potential customers. If you make games for all the consoles you have
> 100 million potential customers!
I think you've missed my point. The reason Sega are making games for other formats is because the DC failed financially (I know I didn't spell that right, but I've had a hard day!), if they had made more sales initially, they would not have had to resort to multi-format development.
Logan wrote:
> Rickyfire wrote:
> The main problem with piracy is that it
> causes problems for the
> developers, as they don't get as much
> money for the gasmes they
> make. Some people would say that a
> few pounds here and there make
> little difference for the
> developers, but it does. Take sega, they
> could have done with
> a few more sales.
Not really... Sega realised that if you aim all
> your games at the DC market then you will only have 10 million
> potential customers. If you make games for all the consoles you have
> 100 million potential customers!
I think you've missed my point. The reason Sega are making games for other formats is because the DC failed financially (I know I didn't spell that right, but I've had a hard day!), if they had made more sales initially, they would not have had to resort to multi-format development.
> Rickyfire wrote:
> The main problem with piracy is that it
> causes problems for the
> developers, as they don't get as much
> money for the gasmes they
> make. Some people would say that a
> few pounds here and there make
> little difference for the
> developers, but it does. Take sega, they
> could have done with
> a few more sales.
Not really... Sega realised that if you aim all
> your games at the DC market then you will only have 10 million
> potential customers. If you make games for all the consoles you have
> 100 million potential customers!
I think you've missed my point. The reason Sega are making games for other formats is because the DC failed financially (I know I didn't spell that right, but I've had a hard day!), if they had made more sales initially, they would not have had to resort to multi-format development.
The thing about video games is that they are non-essential 'luxury goods', a bit like Nike trainers, Tommy Hilfiger caps, Rolex watches and fur coats. Everyone desires these things, and fakes are easily available because pirates have identified this market. Video games are no exception, there is a huge demand for them, so pirates raise their ugly heads and provide the black market accessibility.
There is no way that you can seriously blame the games industry for games piracy in the same way that you cannot blame Nike for making some streets unsafe to walk down wearing Nike trainers, and in the same way that you cannot blame Tommy Hilfiger for a thriving third world economy in producing copies.
It's human nature, pure and simple, and too many people are giving in to greed and getting video games on the cheap. They either don't care about the gaming industry (and to be honest, the average joe public probably doesn't even THINK about the gaming industry when buying a copy, they just focus on the game itself), or they genuinely don't care about the harm that buying pirate goods does.
Personally I believe that educating people from an early age about consequences of buying pirate goods, how it funds other activities like crime, drugs, terrorism, extortion etc, how it costs people jobs etc, is the way forward. Because greed is such a powerful human emotion it's hard to kerb, but maybe education is the way forward.
Otherwise, the cyclical routine of developers beating the pirates who then beat the developers who then try to defeat the pirates again will spiral upwards in cost, driving the industry more and more towards the far end of the luxury goods scale and making demand even more prevalent.
There is no way that you can seriously blame the games industry for games piracy in the same way that you cannot blame Nike for making some streets unsafe to walk down wearing Nike trainers, and in the same way that you cannot blame Tommy Hilfiger for a thriving third world economy in producing copies.
It's human nature, pure and simple, and too many people are giving in to greed and getting video games on the cheap. They either don't care about the gaming industry (and to be honest, the average joe public probably doesn't even THINK about the gaming industry when buying a copy, they just focus on the game itself), or they genuinely don't care about the harm that buying pirate goods does.
Personally I believe that educating people from an early age about consequences of buying pirate goods, how it funds other activities like crime, drugs, terrorism, extortion etc, how it costs people jobs etc, is the way forward. Because greed is such a powerful human emotion it's hard to kerb, but maybe education is the way forward.
Otherwise, the cyclical routine of developers beating the pirates who then beat the developers who then try to defeat the pirates again will spiral upwards in cost, driving the industry more and more towards the far end of the luxury goods scale and making demand even more prevalent.
Page: