[Image Description]: A meme in the style of anti-piracy ads stating the following:
You wouldn't pirate a game you already paid for to be able to play it again since the company stopped supporting it and no longer sells it
this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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asdfasfasfasfasAnd companies fail to acknowledge that not every download is a lost sale. The people who have downloaded thousands of games for their emulators would not have purchased those thousands of games if emulation wasn't available.
Case in point. Just because they're downloading it "because it's free" doesn't mean they were going to purchase "everything available" but find it all for free instead. They are likely not even consuming most of it anyway, and just collecting.
It is absurd that Nintendo will spend money to shut down a webpage hosting "Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link" when that's not something they will ever sell again. Someone pirating Baldur's Gate 3 because they don't want to pay for it doesn't change the absurdity of keeping a stranglehold on a 37 year old game.
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asdfasfasfasfasNot everything is a debate, you're allowed to just discuss.
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asdfasfasfasfasLittle bit of column A, little bit of column B.
I do not disagree that there are people who download things for free because they don't want to pay for it. However that doesn't mean every download represents a lost sale. I would argue the majority of downloads never would have been sales in the first place.
Personally I frequently pirate things to try them. If I bounce off of it then I'm glad I didn't pay for it, if I like it I buy it. I have many games on Steam with under an hour of playtime and most achievements unlocked because I finished the game on a pirated copy, then purchased it and loaded my save.
All that said my main point is that all of this is irrelevant to the actual topic at hand: if I have purchased a game legally and it is no longer being supported there should be no issue with me acquiring the files through another method in order to play it.
Saying "well some people use piracy to get things for free" is as relevant as coming into a discussion about roads needing to be maintained with "well some people use roads to speed, which is breaking the law."
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asdfasfasfasfasMost people download things because they want it for free
Which is the original point of IP such as copyright in the first place, to create a robust public domain. We have Mr. Disney to thank for repurposing our IP laws to lock up content so that we plebs can never enjoy anything without paying for it.
Most artists are more interested in their work getting experienced than getting paid each time, but its the industrialists and the ownership class who profits the most (by far) by locking things down, and even they are glad to circumvent licensing for convenience. It appears we all know it's a top-side racket.
Download that bear!
I guess I mostly agree, though, I disagree that it isn't acknowledged. From what I see, piracy oftentimes is explicitly precisely just because people want something for free (myself included tee-hee).
The preservation argument has gotten a lot more prevalent, and I agree that there are a lot of people who use that as a justification for pirating while not actually working to preserve the media they pirate, but I at least see far more people who don't justify it at all. Not that they have to, IMHO.
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