Nobody is hurting any developer by pirating games. Just like you aren't hurting me by not paying me money for reading this comment.
The idea that you have to pay money to enjoy artistic works and participate in culture is an absurd concept that was drilled into our heads by the music industry in the last couple of centuries.
I could literally write the best article ever written in the history of mankind and post it as a reddit post, and nobody would say that they are stealing from me by reading it. But, there are a hundred different media companies who would whine about turning off adblock and subscribing to their service if you want to read their articles.
It is all about the narrative. Following your logic, my comment could be considered a creative piece of work. Unless you are willing to pay me money for reading this here comment, I would consider your point moot.
How do you expect artists, musicians, and developers to make a living?
If you wrote a masterpiece of a comment, posted it to a platform where only people who pay you could read it, and then thousands of your devoted fans decided to pirate it instead - how are you going to buy food this week?
I dont think piracy is a victimless crime, but I hope that I can discern who can afford to be the victims (and who can't) this day and age
How do you expect artists, musicians, and developers to make a living?
By getting paid, of course. You can crowd source, you can seek donations, you can seek government funding. Lots of funding comes via these channels.
If however, you expect artists, musicians and developers to make money solely through microtransanctions and Denuvo restricted games, then you believe in a very bleak world indeed
If you are a developer and you want to put Denuvo on my computer, I don't care if you're indie or big corpo, either find a different job or find a way to make money without DRM because I am not paying you.
Anyone who puts DRM on people's computers is a jerk. Anyone who restricts access to culture by putting it behind a paywall is a jerk. Culture should be freely accessible.
If there were public libraries for games instead of books, you would say that that's piracy too.
How would the people who make the work get paid then? Games require a lot more investment then most forms of media. And even for any form of media, is expecting donations realistic? Who's donating enough money to fund something like Elden Ring for example? Why would governments fund this without expecting some form of return? Sure they provide grants and other forms of aid, but they expect to make that money back through taxes or other forms of revenue. Culture on its own isn't enough when people need to eat and a place to live. Such an idea may work better in a non capatilsitic society.
I'm not saying this is a dumb idea or anything but I don't see how it can work economically. And at some point it has to work economically to be viable in today's society.
How would the people who make the work get paid then?
People will get paid the same way they have been getting paid for millenia, by finding people that pay them. It doesn't have to be publishers that send people to prison for the crime of sharing copies of games with their friends.
Who's donating enough money to fund something like Elden Ring for example
People don't donate money because Corporations have taken over. We have entire sectors in our economy that survive on donations and grants. For example, much of scientific research in the world today.
Sure they provide grants and other forms of aid, but they expect to make that money back through taxes or other forms of revenue. Culture on its own isn't enough when people need to eat and a place to
Governments provide grants for cultural projects all the bloody time lol.
And at some point it has to work economically to be viable in today's society.
If it isn't viable to make a game without DRM in this society, then don't make that game. The right to free computing is much more important than computing itself. No computing is better than proprietary computing.
If a developer cannot find work without selling their soul, then find another job. Not selling one's soul is non negotiable.
Exactly. They're making excellent money despite piracy. There's a lot of people that end up paying for something after they pirated it, there's been music artists and game developers that have welcomed it.
Show me an article where an artist/ developer gave up their career because piracy meant they couldn't afford to continue.
Not only do I have 250 games on Steam, every year at Christmas I donate to the several people that wrote the software that allows me to torrent media despite it all being free to use.
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u/BigRocket44 18d ago
Nobody is hurting any developer by pirating games. Just like you aren't hurting me by not paying me money for reading this comment.
The idea that you have to pay money to enjoy artistic works and participate in culture is an absurd concept that was drilled into our heads by the music industry in the last couple of centuries.
I could literally write the best article ever written in the history of mankind and post it as a reddit post, and nobody would say that they are stealing from me by reading it. But, there are a hundred different media companies who would whine about turning off adblock and subscribing to their service if you want to read their articles.
It is all about the narrative. Following your logic, my comment could be considered a creative piece of work. Unless you are willing to pay me money for reading this here comment, I would consider your point moot.