Succubus Academia

That is a rationalization, after pirating:
1) indy dev lose essential income
2) it demoralizes them
3) lost income prevents re-investing into future creative works
4) investigating pirating rates has led more than a few dev into anti-gaijin sentiment, that means no translations, or worse, games like ROBF that punish those who can’t read japanese
5) most folks have some disposable income, after pirating folks then rationalize not spending said income on the game

First, it’s fun to have good conversations in places seemingly not for them!

Second, while ostensibly futile, your point is contradicted at least in part, by the popularity of my first post, and the supporting responses of folks who bought the game.

Perhaps, pirates are not without morals; just those who knee-jerk reaction comes from greed first? Perhaps it’d me more apt to label the others burglars? The denotation is more accurate than the colloquial use and doesn’t romanticize the behavior. Pirating was more an apt term for those taking it from “the man” in the past as it was thieving from the greedy and super-rich music industry producers and artists, like Metallica. So burglars? 😀

I’m surprised people still believe to this day that piracy is the equivalent of physical theft rather than what it actually is (ie: making a copy).

Piracy does not take money nor resources away from the developer. At all. There is no “lost income”. Piracy is duplicating a digital file that can exist infinitely, and if you believe they’re as stingy with their money as you do, you’re nuts if you think any of them would buy the game if piracy wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t.

On the other hand, when pirates share these games on websites like this, at least a few of them no doubt do end up buying the game of their own accord even if their peers didn’t- all because another pirate introduced the game to them.

Would you really be “demoralized” from the community having enough interest in your game to pirate it in different languages?

Piracy is not strictly 1:1 theft, but it’s certainly not ‘victimless’ either. If you download a game, you obviously find some value in it, or why would you bother? You may not be willing to buy a game at a certain pricepoint… but a sale very well could convince you later. It’s difficult to know how much is actually lost in development resources to piracy, but one thing is very clear- it’s a huge amount. Even conservative estimates put piracy at a rate of 20%-25%, in the region with the lowest rate of it world-wide(North America).

The idea that profit losses to piracy can be made up for by the ‘word of mouth’ of pirating sites just doesn’t add up. Your friend pirated a game is somehow going to convince you to pay money for it? It does happen- but those people are easily the minority, and I’m sure you can see why.

There’s nothing ‘greedy’ about wanting people to pay for your time and money investment. Even DRM rippers call people who don’t pay for pirated games they enjoyed ‘leachers’.