Comment on #StopPayingGames
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world 15 hours agoNot lots sadly. There are certainly some that have a big enough public profile to demand a share, but those are few and far between, and are often doing pretty well for themselves already. To 99% of the people in the industry the response to “I want to get a cut of the game’s profits” is “you can find another place to work then.”
I don’t entirely disagree with your bigger point. At some point you have to just step away from companies that are set on abusing you. But I don’t agree that it’s immature or skinflinty. That seems to be a rather uncharitable take perhaps lacking in understanding and perspective of why people pirate. There are pirates that take for the sake of it, but that’s not mostly the case. Piracy is trackable to a certain degree, and so it is feedback that people want to give you money, but are protesting your decisions. As has been said, piracy is a service problem. People tend to have no problem parting with their money in a fair exchange, and so they often don’t, even if they could.
Wanting to be treated fairly and not taking abuse is the opposite of immature in my opinion, how much it costs doesn’t even factor into it. Some fights you fight on principle. Too many people accept being taken advantage of in this world, making it worse for everyone else. And without those people piracy would also have been unneeded, because these companies often opt to not fix their issues and instead enshittify harder to squeeze more out of the people that keep paying.
There’s also a huge psychological aspect to it. Pirates often still bond with friends over games and those friends can end up buying, and pirates often still contribute to fan communities. Both of these are hard to let go of. They also happen to still help the original game stay relevant despite pirating, so yes, quitting entirely is more effective of a boycott. But also not being able to sell the experience to someone that has already experienced it is also more permanent, and allows that person to remain in their respective communities. Piracy just hits the sweet spot between quitting and no longer directly supporting, which is why people often end up there. And for creators that have to live under the thumb of executives that sabotage their success with hostile business practices, they would much rather you be there than somewhere else, while they try to improve the situation from the inside.
grinning_serpent@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Sadly, the answer is probably that those creatives need to deprive the corporations of their products. Starve the beast. Hard to do that if you can’t afford rent, though…
I don’t mind people pirating ROMs or movies or music they’ve purchased previously and are no longer available in a reasonable manner. I do that myself from time to time. I don’t really “agree” with the concept of only buying a license instead of a copy, so I just see that behavior as addressing the obvious and IMO immoral imbalance.
I don’t have any sympathy for people who steal shit because they’re simultaneously unwilling to pay for it and unwilling to have the strength of character to walk away. I understand your points about social connections via game communities but I think that’s part of the cost of standing on principles. You can still stay in touch with friends from games without playing those games. I walked away from WoW and Blizzard in general for example due to their chain of bad decisions (like liquidating their QA and GM/CM staff in favor of chatbots that do a terrible job) but still occasionally touch base with people in those communities to see how they’re doing.
ClamDrinker@lemmy.world 43 minutes ago
That’s fair. I just think like your second part, most people have their reasons like that. But you’re correct the culture does also simultaneously allow people that pirate just for free stuff to have it easy. But If the companies don’t like it, they can fix that. Currently to them it’s just the cost of doing business their way. People drove to Netflix and Steam in hordes when they made a service that was easier and better than pirating. Netflix regressed since then, but Steam still shows it’s possible. It just takes an industry as a whole willing to avoid the dark patterns that lead people to piracy.