Coyote poked a stick at the issue of piracy in his Coyote's Howlings: Piracy is B.S. column this week. Written with wry humor, the article sparked a huge discussion on the MMORPG.com forums with readers coming down on both sides of the issue.
Here are a few relevant quotes from Coyote's article:
Yes, piracy is a very real thing and it does indeed exist. However, the threat of piracy is vastly overblown and beginning to lose relevance. With almost every form of entertainment moving online, and validation servers and services like STEAM popping up like virtual daisies, the flow of plundered games and goods have shown signs of slowing to a trickle.
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Yes, Piracy hurts. But for the most part people are paying for their games, music, and sometimes – even for their movies. I understand the temptation of not paying for a service or a product and getting it for free, but I also understand that most people are entirely too stupid to do it.
In short, developers and gaming companies should worry less about the rare and mythical hacker stealing their game, and worry more about the very real and very common modder destroying it from the inside. I submit that these people should do their time in the public spotlight and the pirates should be pushed down the list into obscurity to the point of not even being thought about.
The discussion from there tugged back and forth between "PIRACY IS WRONG" to "PIRACY DOESN'T HURT ANYONE" and everything in between.
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Gel214th wrote:
The numbers game is BS. This entire thing about 'Piracy' has been the excuse used to implement draconiaon Copyright bills and to remove Privacy safeguards around the world.
In the meantime the Botnets, Rootkits, Trojans and Malware continue to operate to send Spam and steal Credit card numbers worldwide.
Bad Spock wrote:
We were talking about why users/customers had become SO adverse to spending even the smallest amount of money for their IT/computer/technical needs.
The answer?
Apps.
Yes, it's true.
Facebook and Apple have ruined the entire world.
Your "average" user has become so used to Free everything free apps free open source this and free games free services free office F2P games etc.
So you tell someone they need to pay 50$ for a software license and they scoff and go find a free 3rd-party app - which a lot of the time is total garbage or filled with bugs / incompatibilities and/or viruses/trojans/spyware because your average user does not know how to properly screen anything or make intelligent technical decisions.
We have become a society SO ingrained with this sense of entitlement that we just expect things to be free.
Free music, free games, free downloads...
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And so the discussion continued.
The point is that there is really no easy answer for the twin issues of hacking/cheating and piracy. Folks will always have to choose sides in the epic battle. It's a fascinating issue with no easy answers.
What do you think about piracy? Cheaters? Hackers? DRM? What about every other issue attacked to any of the aforementioned? Let us know in the comments!
As always, thanks to Coyote for a provocative article and to you, our readers, for continuing the discussion and making your own relevant points!
