Piracy in video games garners very contrasting responses in the video game community. Most people consider piracy to be a nuisance to the industry (Most of these most people come from the gaming industry themselves). Piracy allegedly eats from the pockets of game-devs and undermines the entire industry by cutting out the profit. On the other hand, others cite reasons such as bad-availability, broken games and other reasons to justify piracy (cough cough PC Master RACE cough cough). In fact I do not believe it is possible to write a neutral article about video game piracy; so its fortunate that I don’t have to.
My stand in this Piracy war is clear. I stand against it. I believe good or bad, video game makers should deserve every penny from the sales of their games, through torrents or otherwise. However, I cannot deny the fact that piracy has played a pivotal part in making me into a gamer. At every stage, if it wasn’t for pirated games, I might have been writing about Bikes or food, or computer code. And thank god that didn’t happen.
Piracy was my gateway drug, if it didn’t exist then video gaming would have remained the realms of the rich.
It wasn’t Always Like That….
Let me be very clear, back in the 90s, the concept of video game piracy was hazy at best. To a 15 year old, it mattered right next to none. What mattered to me was the fact that while Tech World sold a copy of World Of Warcraft for 1500 INR and came with a nice little cardboard box and all, it couldn’t stand up to the cheap white DVD that Giftland sold for 60 INR and had Age Of Empires on the same disk as a bonus. In fact the initial forays by distribution companies to hinder piracy were exactly that to me, a hindrance. I couldn’t understand why the game needed to run off a disc. Why it needed a verification code. And why I wasn’t able to make a copy of the game.
Remember at that time, I was still spending money. Granted it was a fraction of the original cost, but I was none the wiser to where the money was going, and less in video games meant more in food. Simple. I never thought I was doing anything wrong, because I didn’t know any better.
That all changed when I got into college. I now understood the concept of piracy, and I was against it. IN THEORY.
In practice however, money had a funny way of not staying in my pocket, and I had a funny way of completing games too fast. I basically ploughed through the entire Prince Of Persia series in 1 weekend, and that’s including that fucking difficult 8 bit original. I didn’t have the money, but I wanted the games.
And so I entered the world of torrents. Here were games, free to download (with acceptable risks of virus), already cracked and ready to play. This was even better than those 60 INR DVDs from Giftland. Countless hours were spent playing Counter Strike, WOW, AOE, NFS MW. Even more hours spent waiting for those games to download on that snail slow college bandwidth. If it wasn’t bad enough already, we had to compete with PORN. And trust me no-one can compete with PORN.
But then…
My 4 years of college flew by (75% of them flew by as I slept), and soon I was an earning and responsible citizen of India. If anyone told you 21, single and in college is the best time of your life, then he doesn’t know what he is talking about. 25, single and earning IS THE DOPE. I worked like an ass, and spent like an even bigger ass. Wanted to attend that big concert in the weekend, NO PROBLEM. Late night movie show, No permission needed. Want to spend 10,000 on video games alone this month, I thought you would never ask.
The real reason though, I had moved onto the Anti-Piracy boat was the same reason why the i-Phone was successful, I prized convenience over money.
The down-side though, was that I didn’t have enough time to make use of all the 10,000 INR that I spent. My attention span had already been reduced from TV Series, to Movies to Youtube videos (I am soon gonna migrate to GIFs), and I didn’t want my gaming to suffer for it. I didn’t have enough time to fine tune my PC for every new game that came out, so I bought a console. I didn’t have enough time to jailbreak my console, run pirated discs on it and risk bricking it, so I started buying retail copies. I didn’t have enough time to play video games, so I stopped sleeping. BEST DECISION EVER…
I ran myself into the ground, and my trophy count into the clouds as I lived off this ultra-digital lifestyle for the past 4 years. But just like in video-games, you can’t sprint forever. I moved to my home-town, got married and settled down into a more regular rhythm. I more educated today, I also understand a software life cycle thanks to my job as a web-developer. I understand inflation, and how video games have moved from garage room projects to life-sustaining professions. The real reason though, I had moved onto the Anti-Piracy boat was the same reason why the i-Phone was successful, I prized convenience over money.
My point is…
Piracy is not all that bad. If it wasn’t for Piracy, I wouldn’t have run into games like God Of War, God Hand, Here Comes The Pain or Silent Hill. I wouldn’t have played the classics; and I wouldn’t have experimented with genres. I played Diablo 2 for years from a pirated disc. But I also pre-ordered Diablo 3 on my Xbox 360 and then bought it again on my PS4 later. I currently own CS GO on Steam, even when I know I will never play it. It’s just sitting there, in my library because as an adolescent male I had made a promise to myself.
Piracy was my gateway drug, if it didn’t exist then video gaming would have remained the realms of the rich. And I would have ended up writing about Bikes, food and computer code; and none of us wanted that.