Now you're warping my words and trying to make me look like a dick so you can win an argument.
Ok, (this can go to dcfox too) say the guy on ebay has X game for $200.... I want X game... but I dont want to pay $200... So I decide not to buy the game... uh... what happens then? Gee, maybe someone else buys it. Now say I further decide to pirate a copy of the game... does the ebayer's copy magically combust and vanish from existance... hell no... he winds up selling it to someone else with a lot more disposable income than me... so... how did he get hurt by me pirating the copy? If it means that somewhere a long the line my extra copy means that 1 person wont be able to sell their copy for $200 I don't think the game must be all that rare... in which case it probably wouldn't sell for $200, nor would this argument have any point...
Now, there will probably always be a finite number of game X. It will probably sell for more and more as time goes on because copies will get destroyed, as this spiral continues the price will further climb out of the comfortable range of most gamers. Eventually only collectors will be buying them to look at, the game will never be played again as that would lower its value. Granted... now I'm projecting... but its feasible.
[quote name='dtcarson'][quote name='evilmax17'][quote name='dtcarson']Here's the key phrase, and what makes it into an issue of morality. BY saying this, you are saying it's preferred to make an illegal copy of a game so that you can benefit, because you're too cheap to pay whatever is being asked for it.
If it's worth pirating, it's worth trying to buy. Plus I've always found you get more enjoyment out of something you have to work for, rather than something that is easily-gotten or ill-gotten.[/quote]
Agreed, if it were still available in a retail store. I think of "buying" as buying it from a retail store (who had previously bought it from the company). In my mind, the only negative thing about videogame piracy is that it takes money away from the industry (thus hindering future game development), and that doesn't happen if you buy it from somebody on eBay.
Regardless of 'whom it hurts'. Some people have morals whether or not someone is harmed by them. No one is hurt by paying 200 bucks for Suikoden 2 either.
Please clarify:
" Who gets hurt if I play a burned copy of a rare game? The greedy eBay seller trying to make a huge profit (and you know what, that doesn't bother me at all). "
Do you mean it doesnt' bother you if the 'greedy Ebay seller' gets 'hurt'? or it doesn't bother you that he's trying to make a huge profit?
If the latter: Why is everyone so against making a profit? If you had an item you paid 20 bucks for, and you could sell it easily for 100, wouldn't you do it? How is he greedy? If wanting to maximize your profit *by charging what the market will bear*, since it takes a buyer and a seller to make a transaction, is greedy, then color me greedy.
I meant that I didn't care if it hurt the eBay seller. The seller isn't in the videogame industry, and the future of the industry isn't affected AT ALL by independent eBay sales. In terms of "hurting" this seller, you aren't even really doing that. As people have said "if you don't want to pay that much for it, then don't", so I'm not. If I downloaded a rom of Suikoden II (the example I like using in this situation), I'm not even hurting the eBay seller (because I wasn't going to pay that much for it anyway).
I'm not against making a profit either. If I found a sealed copy of Suikoden II in some Mom and Pop shop, you can damn well bet that it would be on eBay that night. But by the same token, I would know that the person buying my game would either be a collector or a "sucker". I wouldn't want people to pity me if I couldn't sell my game for rediculous profit, and I would rather not get paid and have more people experience the game than otherwise.[/quote]
But that seller on Ebay, that money he was going to get from selling his copy of the game, perhaps he would buy three more games with it, or put it in his kid's college account, or take his family out to dinner with. Now he can't because you pirated the game and no longer wanted to buy it. No one's hurt?
Oh, so if you found the game, you'd be the evil seller charging 4x retail?
Who ever mentioned pity? I don't pity an ebay seller for not making a sale, I'm saying if piracy is the reason he's not making a sale, the piracy is wrong [and not just because of him not making a sale, but because piracy is wrong.]
So basically you're okay with pirating stuff, if the price of the stuff is more than you're willing to pay. Got it.[/quote]