GamezRanker: Tis Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which supports what you were saying earlier.
(i.e. needs going beyond just the physical/physiological)

babark: Some obvious facts:
- A game being too expensive is not a valid excuse to pirate

rtcvb32: So you'd go on Ebay to buy the $800 copy of FF7 for PS1?

babark: What a weird ongoing discussion. My input:

Some obvious facts:
- A game being too expensive is not a valid excuse to pirate
- A game being crap is not a valid excuse to pirate
- The publisher/developer being super rich is not a valid excuse to pirate
- Fear of missing out on the cultural zeitgeist is not a valid excuse to pirate
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is outdated pop-sci

Some more nuance:
- I'd love to live in a society where art and entertainment is created for its own sake, and creators are supported in their living by the government, but we don't live in such a world now
- It might not be the exact same as stealing something physical, but you would still be depriving a creator of their due (feel free to couple this with "The publisher/developer being super rich is not a valid excuse to pirate" above)
- I pirated when I was a student and living in a country at a time when buying original games was not really possible (physical availability and then online payment methods)
- I kinda regret that now, because while I can buy those same games now to try to "make up for it", those companies have long collapsed or swallowed up by the likes of EA
- Still, if I hadn't done that, I probably would never had had a chance to experience those games.

paladin181: Government funded art means government approved art. How is that better than the system in place now?

babark: Options available:
- Don't buy the game (nobody HAS to play FFVII, or any other game they can't afford)
- Buy one of the many many many cheaper listings on ebay
- Buy it for $4.79 on Steam

babark: I didn't mention anything about Government requiring art to be approved, or the specific pieces of art at all being involved in the "Government supports creators" point.

rtcvb32: Even if you go cheaper listings, it's still going to cost an arm and a leg.

As for steam, if you can't sell it, you don't own it. They can revoke your game at any time, while physical disc they can't.

BreOl72: Yesterday, one of my long-cherished suspicions got finally confirmed.

I'm sure most of you have seen threads pop up, created by brand new "GOG users" with brand new GOG accounts, in which these "GOG users" ask for help with a GOG game.
One thing (most) of these newly created accounts have in common is: there are zero games attached to them.

I suspected for quite some time now, that these "GOG users" didn't legally purchase their games here on GOG - but downloaded them illegally instead, from one of the many piracy sites, that mimic GOG in name and appearance (usually by using "Galaxy" colors).

Naturally, I will not link to any of these sites..but trust me: for the uninitiated, they look comparable enough to GOG, to fool those that want to get fooled (a site that offers all the games for free...really, guys?)

If you ever wondered why so many non-GOG users (on the Steam forums, etc) think of GOG as just another piracy site, and of all GOG users as pirates...the reason for that are those actual "GOG-mimicking" piracy sites.

The most perfidious in all this, is of course, that these pirates then ONLY come here to ask for help when their botched pirated files don't work.
These people do not support GOG and the idea for which it stands: DRM-free access to games.

So, here's my request to all of you:
if you encounter such a "help needed for game X" - thread, created by a new and empty account (always check the "Registered" date and the account)...DON'T TRY AND HELP.

If you help them, you are (involuntarily) supporting piracy.

Instead tell the "user" in question to legally purchase their GOG games.

If that "user" should react aggressive and/or inconvincible to that proposal - report them to GOG support:
https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?product=gog&form=report

Make sure to add the links to both, user account and thread, and - if you feel inclined to do so, also a screenshot of the thread in question.

I hope, we are all on the same page, when it comes to software piracy - especially in regard to GOG games.
The DRM-free "movement" has enough obstacles to overcome already - we don't need these cheapskates' actions, to create more (and completely unnecessary ones).

So, once again: DON'T SUPPORT PIRACY!
(of games in general, and of GOG games in particular)

rtcvb32: Electric hobbies while very common are fairly new, we're only talking the last 40 something years since computers have entered the mainstream and all that goes with it. Doing things more with our hands is probably better for us, be it making pottery or woodworking and making our own wooden bowls, doing our own clothes, etc.

Like sex, you DO need it, it's just not something you need to keep your heart going as in food/water/air. But it is a need, often to challenge your mind and keep yourself from going to utter boredom.

rtcvb32: Not sure what guilt you're talking about. Bjorn Lynne and others on mp3.com encouraged you to download, and the more downloads affected bonuses for them as well as discounts for buying CD's online.

MarS666: But as, like in your case, the creator/rightsholder(?) encouraged people to download their work for free, I wouldn't call it piracy. If the creator was not the rightsholder at that time, I would call it "subversive fraud" against the rightsholder.

rtcvb32: This is like saying 'how many copies of movie at a theater did you not do because you bought the DVD and watched it with 12 family members at home'. Or 'How many seat tickets weren't sold because some kids could peek from the side of the bleachers at a football game?'.

If it's not a physical product it has different qualities to it. It's not like buying hotdogs where 'how many hot dogs weren't sold because everyone took a picture on their phone and ate that instead of buying one'. At the end of the day nothing is physically stolen or deprived. It's a lot harder to make a case you stole someone's work, especially like the eagles band with millions of dollars in their pockets annoyed someone might be listening to Hotel California without having bought their record for it.

And naturally i must be a so-called pirate (and i don't own a boat and nowhere near a river or ocean...) because i listen to songs on the radio without ever paying. Or listening to them from youtube, or pandora, or a plethora of other sources. God forbid a song plays on the overhead while i'm in a store shopping! Oh my!

In business there's the 80/20 rule, and the square root rule. The 80/20 says 80% of the work is being done by 20% of the code/people. And the square root rule, says half the money you make is coming from the square root key number of people. For youtube videos 1/10th of the people will put an up/down vote, and 1/100 will likely do a comment reply. For entertainment I'd say it's probably the square root; something like every 1 million people, you will have 1,000 that are willing to pay for it. No amount of whining is probably going to change that, you just gotta make good content.

Course you also have companies like cable companies and Hollywood that want you to pay out the nose (They want $100+/mo or more for hundreds of channels when you just want a couple specific channels) for their content rather than be like the food sector and squeak by at a few percent profit and let it run smoothly and happily.

I'll go back to what i said earlier. Either make copies abundant and cheap (definitely cheap) where it's easier to just go buy the CD/DVD whatever, Or you gotta increase everyone's disposable income by a great amount so they can feel like they can justify letting said money go. I don't really see other options working. Though on youtube just making the content free certainly works too; At least until they decide to change that and pull the rug from under you.

babark: - I'd love to live in a society where art and entertainment is created for its own sake, and creators are supported in their living by the government, but we don't live in such a world now

babark: - Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is outdated pop-sci

babark: - I pirated when I was a student and living in a country at a time when buying original games was not really possible (physical availability and then online payment methods)
- I kinda regret that now, because while I can buy those same games now to try to "make up for it", those companies have long collapsed or swallowed up by the likes of EA
- Still, if I hadn't done that, I probably would never had had a chance to experience those games.

babark: No it wouldn't. Without even looking very hard, I found listings as low as $20. Pretty sure I could find something cheaper if I looked harder.

Braggadar: I'm getting the same vibes of an addict telling me they need their next fix, arguing that "but I NEED it" is somehow the alpha and omega of logical reasoning.