Help the Pirates

With all the news around the MPAA, FCC, and other copyright enforcing organizations becoming quite busy lately, i cant help but wonder if we are going about removing Game pirates the wrong way.

I've talked to many game pirates and asked them why they pirate games, and what would it take to make them stop, and what games they own legitimately if any. many said that they wouldent stop, but my curiosity is more in the mindset of a game pirate. i observed that a game that was almost unanimously purchased was Halflife 2.

it is possible to get a cracked copy of Halflife 2, and many other Halflife games. a few gamers even had a few cracked copies at some of the Lan parties i have gone to. but what made this game the game to buy rather than steal? when you steal a game, you cannot play it online, and Halflife 2 was a game that you play online nearly all the time.

let me cut to the crap now, most of the gamers who i talked to have tons of free time, in such that they would rather spend a few hours to get a free game than get that game instantly by spending some cash. the gamers that owned alot of games, had little free time and would value free time and give it a $$$ value. in such they would buy games as it is simply easier and simpler to do. but even they would pirate games. because the current method of distribution is still quite a hassle.

Steam on the other hand was flourishing at nearly all of the LAN parties, there were multiple purchases, all games which could be gotten easily off any bittorrent website. i use steam myself and have used it for quite some time, and i can see why game pirates, especially those who value their time, use steam to buy games.

1: Its fast, you can buy a game in less than 5 minnutes. and have it downloaded quickly (i have personally gotten games to download on steam at over 1MBps on a cable line, which is faster than my supposed limit of 6Mbps I have with comcast (not sure on how thats possible, but ill move on) either way, you can get the game you bought that same day in a little longer than it would have taken to go to the store. but its still much faster than downloading a game via Bit-Torrent which downloads at an average of 100kbps.

2: No CD's are required, so you dont have to hunt down the no-CD crack so you can buy your legitimately (or illigeally) gotten game without a disc, it also means that there are no discs to lose, it also means that you don't have to expose your computer to websites that hide malicious code embedded in them to give you a virus or spyware. it also means that there is less hastle when you want to play your games as you are not required to pop in a disc just to play a game thats installed to your harddrive.

3: Its automatically patched, you never have to worry that you are playing the game in an outdated version as patches are found, and installed before the game is run. with this easy to patch system, game developers are also able to release patches much quicker and much smaller patches to the public for single bug issues, while knowing that everyone who owns the game will get the patch instantly. patches are also downloaded quite quickly as well since they are hosted on the same servers that the game files are located on.

4: Its Cheap, i can go and buy a $20 game, while its about the value i could find it at a store, the reason i say its cheaper is because you can usually find discounts for buying games in bundles, not to mention saves you some gas from going to the store. it also gives you games that you might not find at a store near you or are not available at a store at all, there are mods for $10 like garry's mod which is a really high quality mod that lets you play around with the physics engine in the source engine. another example is the newly released Painkiller Gold for $20, which gives you the main game and the expansion pack.

5: Its permanent, if you buy that $20 game, you will beable to play it as much as you want, any time you want as long as you keep your account in good standing (ala, no hacking/cheating in games) so if i buy Call of Duty 2 on Steam, in 20 years i will be able to download Call of Duty 2 on my future computer and play it (and have any patches already installed) and over time as they collect more and more games, they will have a presistant collection of games that they can play on a whim.

the gamer with no money in his pocket and plenty of time, will always try to download games simply because he has no other method of getting games. but by simply making playing games the main focus, rather than trying to protect yourself from pirates, you will in the end save money (those copy protection programs aren't cheap) and get more customers who will buy your product simply because its incredibly easy to do.

its not a surefire plan, like i said the poor gamer will still pirate, and there are still those who had allot of money who still pirated games because it was just what they do. but a majority of the pirates would buy a game if it was a good quality, a good price, and freaking easy to do. im not one who believes in jailing or fining the people who download games, realistically they don't have any money anyway and probably don't have anything to cough up. i am completely fine with tracking down and arresting/fining those who are cracking games or uploading them.

Now i realize that my thinking on this issue may be off and many of you have different oppinions, so I am curious about your thoughts on the issue, please post your comments.

(the author of this article has spent too much money in steam games.. and is fine with it)