My issue is the license part. If I can’t own the installer files then it really doesn’t seem right anyways.
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If the game doesn’t a demo or a refund period, then I don’t see a problem with it.
I miss shareware demos
The good days where the rest of the game was the same quality as the demo.
Never tried myself, but steam has a pretty good return policy, right?
I guess it’s my turn: “If buying isn’t owning…”NM, missed it by an hour. 😏
Hmm, well I’d say no. Like what if the ip or production company is garbage? Definitely wrong to give them money.
It’s very difficult to imagine a situation in which pirating would be unethical.
Killing sailors and sinking the ship is quite unethical by the norms of my culture. But I suppose you’re talking about unsanctioned copying. Yes, copying is always ethical.
Ethics is kind of a personal viewpoint, there’s no “agreed upon table of ethics”. So of course be aware you are just getting opinions here.
Now my opinion, I do fall into the “if it’s worth the money pay for it”, if it’s not, don’t, and the Pirate now decide later is IMO a totally valid way to do that, and quite a few independent developers, etc… flat out encourage that method. Of course that doesn’t mean they all do. But to me my personal ethics say it’s more ethical… paying for a bad game, at the cost of not paying for a good game, is a travesty. My ethics say the best games should be the ones purchased… not the ones that had the best marketing and tricked the most people.
I spent a good 8000 hours playing Fallout 4 before I bought it. Might have been the 5th Anniversary sale?
Also, it’s one of the few games I’ve ever actually paid for.
What made you decide to pay for that one?
An incredible Steam summer sale for the GOTY edition with all the DLCs. When fallout 4 first came out, it was pretty buggy, so regular updates for both the main game and all the DLC‘s was pretty crucial in the early years. I got sick of having to deal without them.
There have been several games I ONLY bought because I pirated it first to play and then purchased. Some games don’t have demos available,
No, buying a license is never ethical.
GOG (and other DRM-Free stores) are definitely exceptions to this rule though. Even though you are technically buying a license, the games you buy are effectively owned.
Maybe slightly off-topic, I just want to remind that Denuvo used pirated (personal licence) VMProtect in their commercial product.
crime is only okay when the rich and powerful do it
The forum post you linked to says “has been accused” rather than “has used”. It also leads to a dead link, and the page is not in the internet archive.
Wikipedia doesn’t mention it, so there’s no source there either.
Is it ethical to order a meal, try it, and then refuse to pay for it if you don’t like it, but pay full price through the normal process if you do like it and choose to consume the whole thing?
What you are doing is roughly as ethical as that, even if (your local / the locally enforceable) laws make it a much more severely punished crime.
You do not order the food. You just eat cloned food.
Analogy is flawed.
The meal uses food that is gone after being eaten and thus can’t be resold.
A digital copy doesnt change the ability of a vendor to sell copies.
A better analogy to what OP has suggested is where a cart/restaurant offers a single bite “taster” for free to try to lure you to buy.
EDIT
“Food that is gone after being cooked” should be “Food that can’t be resold after being cooked even if not eaten”
Point being a costly physical thing has been used up. Unlike a digital copy.
Capitalism isn’t ethical so it’s okay, just send some love to the creators
Piracy does not consume the original product like your food comparison.
I’ve bought plenty of games that I’ve pirated. I’m just not willing to pay more than a dollar or two unless it’s DRM free.
yes, and there are also games that would be unethical to ever pay for
I did that with WinRAR, decided I didn’t need it after all
It’s always ethical to pirate.
