This is why games are pirated so heavily.

[Io.Draco]

Is the law the only thing that determines if an action is morally right or wrong though? "Frowns." I would hope not.

[cerwillis]

Is the law the only thing that determines if an action is morally right or wrong though? "Frowns." I would hope not.

I don't think that you will get very far arguing that downloading media without paying for it is "morally right".

[Vanifae]

Is the law the only thing that determines if an action is morally right or wrong though? "Frowns." I would hope not.

I would say no but many laws are created to reinforce those things we, as a society given your home society, consider right and often morally just.

Like murder. Most places consider murder both a legally unacceptable crime and also a morally unacceptable crime.

In a perfect world you would not need a body of laws to govern what most people consider to be morally right. But sadly that world has yet to materialize.

I use we in reference to society at large.

[Dorvan]

Is the law the only thing that determines if an action is morally right or wrong though? "Frowns." I would hope not.

Of course not, but you haven't been trying to make the case that this stuff is morally good, just that it's legal. If you want to try and make a case that copyright infringement is morally good, be my guest.

[Vanifae]

Is the law the only thing that determines if an action is morally right or wrong though? "Frowns." I would hope not.

Of course not, but you haven't been trying to make the case that this stuff is morally good, just that it's legal. If you want to try and make a case that copyright infringement is morally good, be my guest.

I would really like to see this.

[Tenaka]

Is the law the only thing that determines if an action is morally right or wrong though? "Frowns." I would hope not.

Without the law, or some form of universally accepted general consensus to say what is moral or not, how do you know what is moral or not?

Of course not, but you haven't been trying to make the case that this stuff is morally good, just that it's legal. If you want to try and make a case that copyright infringement is morally good, be my guest.

The problem is if Io.Draco wants to consider something morally acceptable, then in his mind who are we to say it is not, if we don't have a law or that general consensus to back ourselves up.

Thankfully the general consensus appears to be that pirating is theft (and various laws do back this up but in many different ways and levels), no matter what Io.Draco thinks. But still, in his mind, we won't prove him wrong......

[Chicken]

But still, in his mind, we won't prove him wrong......

[Fivelives]

An interesting point was raised earlier in this thread - how do we set a value on games?

Is it based on length, replayability, social playability, or something else? What makes one game worth the $60 price tag that they set on it, and others not - assume the same production quality in each, e.g. no comparing a Bioware RPG to a piece of movie tie-in shovelware.

[Io.Draco]

Thankfully the general consensus appears to be that pirating is theft

On this forum? True. In the USA? Maybe ( I don't know )

For the rest of the world? Perhaps, or perhaps not, I won't generalize ( and neither should you ). What I do know is that from my own personal experience with quite a few Europeans in WoW, is that pirating isn't considered morally wrong or theft here. That is not to say that those I spoke with about the subject did pirate games, a majority where more then happy to buy every game they played, but rather only a small portion ( higher among those from countries like mine ) engaged in it.

[Tenaka]

Thankfully the general consensus appears to be that pirating is theft

On this forum? True. In the USA? Maybe ( I don't know )

For the rest of the world? Perhaps, or perhaps not, I won't generalize ( and neither should you ). What I do know is that from my own personal experience with quite a few Europeans in WoW, is that pirating isn't considered morally wrong or theft here. That is not to say that those I spoke with about the subject did pirate games, a majority where more then happy to buy every game they played, but rather only a small portion ( higher among those from countries like mine ) engaged in it.

I feel it might be worth pointing out that as a resident of the UK I *am* one of those Europeans you refer to, and that pirating *is* considered morally wrong/theft here, regardless of whether people actually do it or not.

[Io.Draco]

I feel it might be worth pointing out that as a resident of the UK I *am* one of those Europeans you refer to, and that pirating *is* considered morally wrong/theft here, regardless of whether people actually do it or not.

And as a Romanian I can say that Piracy is considered a perfectly moral thing to do in our country by most people, and only a minority have a problem with it.

Regardless, using only ones country as the basis of an argument is perhaps a flawed argument, I only said based on my experience in WoW with people from many various countries and even using that as a generalizing is wrong.

An interesting point was raised earlier in this thread - how do we set a value on games?

For me it comes down to a few factors: Replayability - If I am going to spend my money on a game then I should at least be able to play it a few times before getting bored, Lack of Bugs - Minor ones I can deal with, if the game is just great but when you can't play the game because of them and/or the company that made it doesn't care to support it then I do not feel it deserves the money.

[Tenaka]

And as a Romanian I can say that Piracy is considered a perfectly moral thing to do in our country by most people, and only a minority have a problem with it.

I doubt this very much as in this day and age it seems a very flippant stand point. This is my personal opinion of course. But if what you say is true it would explain why you disagree on the moral standpoint that piracy is theft. It would seem you have been brought up to believe it is not, in much the same way that those who disagree with you are likely to have been brought up to the contrary.

Regardless, using only ones country as the basis of an argument is perhaps a flawed argument, I only said based on my experience in WoW with people from many various countries and even using that as a generalizing is wrong.

On this I agree. You surely must also agree that unless any of us commit to a proper and unbiased study, the experiences will be biased given the people we/you encounter and query about this subject are more likely to be of the same mindset to begin with. e.g. I'm pretty sure that no member of a bike club is going to claim they don't like bikes.

[Io.Draco]

It would seem you have been brought up to believe it is not, in much the same way that those who disagree with you are likely to have been brought up to the contrary.

It's a bit more complicated then that.

Before 1990 the Market for Computers was non-existent in Romania, but after the Revolution then it began to develop.

Computers where affordable, somewhat expensive for the average person but affordable. Software however was expensive as all hell. When a copy of Windows costs about a third of your salary ( and that's today ), then you don't consider it a moral issue to pirate it ( and to this day the vast majority of people have a pirated copy of Windows save for Companies )

It isn't surprising that many people pirated, especially since the law as it is today was only drafted in 1998, and modified quite heavily in 2004. ( When we joined NATO ), however prices still remained very high and only a few games where available. The reason why Blizzard games are so popular in my country is that they could played on LAN even without an official copy and that were the ones that could found the most here.

Then Romania joined the European Union in 2007 and everything changed for the Computer Industry. PCs got cheaper, games got more available and cheaper. In short in the 3 years since we joined the EU my country has seen a development of about six times higher then the one done in almost 17 years.

Piracy rates started to drop then, steadily until the shit hit the fan, they started to increase again.

[mew]

An interesting point was raised earlier in this thread - how do we set a value on games?

Is it based on length, replayability, social playability, or something else? What makes one game worth the $60 price tag that they set on it, and others not - assume the same production quality in each, e.g. no comparing a Bioware RPG to a piece of movie tie-in shovelware.

I think it's a balance of play time and quality of play (including quality of replay). So of course quality of play is where there is a ton of personal preference variability.

So, for example, putting some random numbers to it, I play fucktons of Puzzle Quest. This is a horribly designed game that I tend to play while I am trying to sleep or in a waiting room, so I would put it at like $1 an hour (or less) of value. But I have put way more than the game's value of hours in to it.
I would put WoW at like $2.5 an hour of entertainment, another game that I definitely get my money's worth :V
But then a game like a Bioware RPG where you are completely submerged in to it and not mostly bored while playing, I would gauge closer to $4.5 an hour.
So then I get things like Bayonetta. I would put it around $3 an hour of entertainment, visually striking but I didn't like the awkward jumble of cut scene + gameplay. My biggest issue with the game was that Easy was incredibly boring but Normal was frustratingly difficult (this is the part that really drops my entertainment value dollar/hour approximation). I did not get my $70 worth of this

Sorry, I totally made that longer than I needed to just for my personal entertainment. But you get the point, I think everyone has a different system of gauging overall enjoyment of games, then by putting that with a time spent playing the game you can gauge whether or not it was worth it.

[Argali]

There a crack out yet? DERP!