I originally pirated this...

[BoogieMan]

The problem with this black and white view is that a huge number of videogame publishers are integrating anti-consumer technology and practices into their software. From literally breaking your computer to upright not allowing you to play your legitimately purchased games if their servers go down. "I'll pay for my cruise as long as I don't get infected with norovirus and die."

Speaking of anti-consumer technology, I remember years back I had an official game CD that had Starforce(I think) copy protection on it. The disc got SLIGHTLY scratched and I could no longer play the game because the protection software thought it was a copy. I'm glad that sort of protection isn't so common these days because it was way too aggressive.

Makes me wonder what the state of retro gaming will be when I'm an old man with a case of nostalgia. Half or more of the old games from today probably won't even work with the online only craze going around.

[cultist]

I don't understand why the same old piracy argument is being led in the same old way now that digital distribution is the norm. I haven't taken it seriously in at least 10 years, because there's no solid ground for it to stand on any longer. Not that I pirate anymore, it was always a hassle. I only pirated because I didn't have money.

With digital distribution there is no inherent loss in a pirated copy, because you never spent any time, money or effort on creating the copy in the first place. A digital copy is worthless in itself because it can be multiplied a million times without requiring much in the way of resources.

"But if everybody did that...". But they don't, and they never have. Most adults will pay for a product if it is reasonably priced and simple to obtain. If you expect to also pocket the money of people who can't really afford the product to begin with, you're just being greedy, not to mention unrealistic.
I blame the music industry in particular for this paranoid delusion that piracy is strangling all of the infant technologies and products in their sleep.

[Perq]

"But if everybody did that...". But they don't, and they never have. Most adults will pay for a product if it is reasonably priced and simple to obtain. If you expect to also pocket the money of people who can't really afford the product to begin with, you're just being greedy, not to mention unrealistic.
I blame the music industry in particular for this paranoid delusion that piracy is strangling all of the infant technologies and products in their sleep.

And a good proof of that is rise of Steam. Steam almost completely killed piracy. How? Sales. Sales everywhere.
Why would you want to bother with pirated copies that are likely to not work, contain viruses and maybe even break your computer if you can pick up the game for few bucks? Not to mention you get people invested into looking those discounts up, meaning they get bound to your platform.
This is why we see some games being discounted quite quickly after release, in recent years. It is a good way to grab some more money from people who are unwilling to buy for the full price, but still remember that the game exists (wish lists, another great move from Steam).
This is why understanding your market as it is nets you bigger gains than trying to force your way into market.
You could argue that these companies lost money because they sold at discounted price, but in reality they wouldn't sell any more copies. Similar thing that is present with pirated copies.

That said, RimWorld is in somewhat different position, given it is still in Alpha (and discounting it would be silly). I fully expect the price to actually go up when it gains more features.

[RemingtonRyder]

As an new indie games studio, piracy hurts Ludeon a lot more. They don't have multiple games on the market bringing in more revenue to compensate.

Piracy is a problem because it's commonplace. People turn a blind eye to it because they don't want to confront someone who literally pirates everything.

If someone doesn't want to pay the listed price for a game, bypassing the price gate and playing it anyway (for however long) is basically giving the finger to everyone who's bought the game already. It is understandable why the payers take a dim view of non-payers who jump the fence and try to claim that they have changed.

[Ragnarok]

I didn't read all the posts on this topic though maybe I'll come back later and read them all, but for honesty's sake, I pirated RimWorld to get my first play experience. Not sure exactly which Alpha version it was, but it was very early and likely A1 or A2 and I played it for hours and hours in just that initial Alpha release. Well I pirated maybe 2-3 extra alpha's after that and loved the game so much I purchased it and have been a legit owner/player of the game since around A5.

Many people are against pirating and I can understand the reasoning due to losing money, but if you make an awsome product that people really enjoy then most people will actually buy a legit copy to support the creator. Being able to pirate gives people a taste. If it's a bad taste they won't want to play or pay, but if it's a great taste then they'll be willing to pay and continue to play. The people who are afraid of losing money likely know their product is of poor quality and they know if people get to play the game for free for a few hours they won't want to pay full price because they won't want to play more than the few free hours (or less) they already played.

Honestly there have been games like this I've looked at and absolutely did not want to buy or play (like Prison Architect, which I later purchased after pirating maybe 3-4 Alphas because I liked playing it, much like RimWorld), and the only reason I played was because of a pirated copy and because of that pirated copy I actually bought the game. So basically I would never had bought or played RimWorld if it weren't for the pirated copy I originally played. So curse pirates all you want but if it weren't for a pirated copy Tynan wouldn't have got my money or my respect as a developer or me constantly checking for new updates to get back into the game and play all over again.

[ReZpawner]

Let's all just agree that it's a double edged sword at best.
Potentially it can be a great way to discover a game, or test it out before buying - on the other hand, there are a lot of people who don't buy it, regardless of how much they like it.

[makapse]

Yes pirating is a bad thing. But let me tell you a tale. It is a tale quite familiar to me, as I too am a part of it. In countries like russia, poland, latvia, slovakia, czech republic and many more where monthly income is low, people just dont have the money to spend it on a 40 euro video game. True, there are enough people who can, but I too come from the pool of people who for a long time just could not afford such luxury and resorted to piracy. It quickly became a habit and one quickly forgets he is doing something illegal when there are no consequences. All the people I know and all my friends have been pirating games for as long as I can remember. The sole reason being they could use the money for something completely different and nobody is ever going after them. So why not? In a country where an average monthly wage is 400 dollars and from that you end up having around 30 for food after expenditures kinda sucks. But the point is even if these people had the money to spend on video games, they would still rather pirate it as it is a free option with no legal consequences. When I grew up a little, I still pirate most of the games I play, but I buy the ones where I feel I need to support the developer. It is very easy to moralize from the point of view of most US consumers, who never had to work for 1,50 dollars an hour. And yes, the very same game you buy for 39.99 costs the equivalent in other parts of world. I cant speak for the third world conuntries, just for the eastern european block. Im not saying pirating it is ok in any way. Just saying people got accustomed to it so much that they no longer consider pirating something to worry about. End of a tale.

Well coming from a third world country where the daily min. wage is 2.75$, It is really hard for anybody to expect most people to be able to afford any game. And once you pirate for more than a decade, it truely becomes a culture where it is hard to find any legal buyer. Of course I don't condone first world piracy but I can definitely understand them. Hell the only reason I can afford this game is that I earn more than my parents and even I had pirated it when I was still studying.

[Seriously Unserious]

Let's all just agree that it's a double edged sword at best.
Potentially it can be a great way to discover a game, or test it out before buying - on the other hand, there are a lot of people who don't buy it, regardless of how much they like it.

I think that's really the crux of the whole piracy issue here. While the reasons for doing it may vary, with a few common ones floating to the top, the bottom line is pirating something the owners expect you to pay for is unethical, and the sort of people willing to push the ethics boundaries already have problems staying ethical to begin with. So once they get a pirated game for free with no apparent consequences, it can become too easy to think "well, that was easy" and just stop buying games. People can come up with a litany of excuses for being unethical, and the more times a person is unethical and justifies it, the more likely that person will be of being unethical again in the future.

The problem is even when that person does not see any obvious consequences (such as getting a virus along with the pirated game and has to now spend hundreds to clean up his computer or gets caught and sued or jailed) he still will get subtle consequences, usually in the form of some obscure self-punishement as the person is basically good, but doing something on some level he knows is bad, but does it anyways, so on some level feels the need to punish himself. So he gets a virus ends up on his computer because he clicked a link in a spam email "by accident", he gets sick a lot, or has a lot of "bad luck" and so on.

[Ignoral]

The problem is even when that person does not see any obvious consequences (such as getting a virus along with the pirated game and has to now spend hundreds to clean up his computer or gets caught and sued or jailed) he still will get subtle consequences, usually in the form of some obscure self-punishement as the person is basically good, but doing something on some level he knows is bad, but does it anyways, so on some level feels the need to punish himself. So he gets a virus ends up on his computer because he clicked a link in a spam email "by accident", he gets sick a lot, or has a lot of "bad luck" and so on.

Wat?

Honestly, piracy is fairly safe as long as you don't go to unscrupulous sources and know what you're doing. Sure, there are those who do it for self-gain, but the majority of the hardcore cracking/piracy community does it simply to say "F**k you" to companies such as EA, Denuvo etc.

It's not as safe as buying the game though, that I'll admit.

[Harold3456]

I'm on the fence on the whole piracy issue. On one hand, I'm not going to justify piracy, I know when I do it that I'm taking a selfish route.

However, it seems like most people here use piracy as more of a testing tool. I can certainly see the hesitance to pay full price on an alpha game - I've had a couple bad experiences with that myself, and Rimworld is more expensive than a lot of the alpha games I've bought.

If there's one upside to piracy, it's that it seems to have given customers more of a voice in how much they should be charged. Making games more affordable is, for many people, a good compromise that keeps them from pirating.

I bought Rimworld when it came on Steam - something I'd been planning to do ever since a Steam release was mentioned - and for anyone reading this who is still pirating, access to the mods alone is worth the price.

[Perq]

As an new indie games studio, piracy hurts Ludeon a lot more. They don't have multiple games on the market bringing in more revenue to compensate.

Piracy is a problem because it's commonplace. People turn a blind eye to it because they don't want to confront someone who literally pirates everything.

If someone doesn't want to pay the listed price for a game, bypassing the price gate and playing it anyway (for however long) is basically giving the finger to everyone who's bought the game already. It is understandable why the payers take a dim view of non-payers who jump the fence and try to claim that they have changed.

Lack of publicity hurts the new anything the most. New studios, new bands, new movies. Many (new) bands release their full albums for free, or simply post them on YouTube. I'm not gonna explain it in detail how they make money, but the bottom line is that publicity and being noticed is worth far more than few bucks you can get for sales to the few people that actually know that you exist.
In the end, for the piracy to exist, there must be people who are interested in the game in the first place.

But lets point at it once again - story of Hotline Miami. A game that was known to some (because it is good and got good reviews), but the moment it went public that developer of the game was helping people on PirateBay to get their game working (pirated versions!) it vent absolutely viral. The good will of the guy (or smart PR move - no one knows) gave him a place in a spotlight.
Sales of the game followed as avalanche.

Now, this may be my personal opinion, but I think that if you are buying the game only to be able to take a dim view of non-payers, you bought it for the very wrong reasons. Why do you care if someone else paid for it? Isn't it enough for you that YOU supported the developer?
And if you really want to help the developer to get him the money he should get for the game, do you really think that taking a dim view of non-payers will help? Because I think all you will do is make people even more opposed to what you are trying to say, and in the end they are not going to buy anything. Good will and showing a good example (without being judgmental) usually results in people realizing their mistakes. Being judgmental causes people to oppose and defend themselves.
In other words: you reasons seem to me to be selfish. Sorry! (I mean no offense here, so I hope no offense is taken)

[Headshotkill]

This is why games devs need to offer a demo of their game so people can test out before buying.

[RemingtonRyder]

People who choose to play without paying, but then change their mind and pay for the game, do not deserve special treatment.

Not that there's a gold star club for people who bought the game based solely on recommendation or watching a YouTube video. However, it feels like we spend a lot of time on topics such as these, with people lamenting the price of games, arguing that most games are rubbish and that trying before buying is necessary, and so on.

I feel that giving it this much attention is sending the wrong message to people who might be lurking and thinking about buying the game. We should be shutting down the train of thought that leads to the dark side, not enabling it.

[Stormfox]

This is why games devs need to offer a demo of their game so people can test out before buying.

This. Of course the demo has to be stable and a valid representation of the game, too.

[cultist]

At this point, with so many sales, there's no reason not to have a Rimworld demo, limited to a single biome and maybe a static group of pawns/events, maybe even with a time limit so you can only play the first season or something. I see posts on the Steam forums daily about people who are on the fence about buying the game, because it's above the usual margin for indie titles (5-20 euro).

Btw why the f does my 6 months old EU keyboard have a £ and a $ key but no euro sign key? Madness.