Pirated games can be one or several of the following:
- a means of participating in a chosen culture when players can’t afford/justify the price tag (one Nintendo game now costs the same as a week’s worth of groceries for two people where I live)
- a form of archive because game publishers are notorious for killing games
- a form of backup because things happen to disks/cartridges
- a form of backup because servers go down
- a form of backup because not everyone’s internet is reliable
- a means making the game more accessible by adding features (eg. the option of infinite lives/health for someone with muscular dystrophy)
- a form of protest over ever-increasing prices at the same time as ever-increasing layoffs, and ever-decreasing quality.
More directly relevant to you: the money you give Nintendo goes to their legal teams, to continue to find loopholes around the protections you have. They’re the ones fighting the “Stop Killing Games” movement. Nintendo recently won a lawsuit against 1fichier in France for hosting emulated games. It has been marked as a “significant” win against any level of piracy in the EU. Nintendo is continually working to make sure that despite living in the EU, you won’t be fine regardless. Your purchase directly funds that.
Maybe you have no intention of playing pirated games, but I hope you can appreciate that this is larger than just some teenager feeling powerful because they stole something?
victorz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Definitely a balance between funding their legal team and just wanting to play the games they put out, indeed. Currently I just want to play. We’ll see if I take the high road later. Having too much fun with my kids at the moment though.