SgtJoo

It's fake.

Forever alone

I'm 12 and what is this?

Ohai guys Panthers fan in here. Football existed before the 90s?

mFAknZU_9ws

That's not perpetuating stereotypes in thinly veiled anti-semitism. My parents work their asses off to maintain a middle class living and barely earn enough to pay for my college tuition. Thanks for playing.

Borrowing =/= Stealing I'm addressing the lost profit argument. It's not lost profit if the profit was never there to begin with. Video game CD keys being an infinite thing (unlike cars which are physical things that cannot be digitally copied) doesn't take away from a company's profit.

Is it even a question? Obv. Regionals.

Listen to me carefully. Someone who does not have the economic means to purchase a video game is never going to buy the game legitimately regardless of whether the game is available for free on a pirate website. This "lost profit" argument is bullshit in and of itself. If someone is unable to buy a game because they don't have money for it and thus turn to pirating it is not lost profits. You must have A) A willing and B) ABLE consumers to purchase your video game. You want a personal anecdote? I'm a broke college student who just torrented Mafia II. Regardless of its lack of replay value (ensuring I wouldn't buy it legitimately) I do not have the economic means (67 cents in my checking account) to purchase Mafia II. Was I ever going to buy the game? No. It's not lost profit if I was never going to purchase it to begin with.

That's called capitalism, welcome to the world. If your game doesn't have a big enough draw to warrant a sizable profit margin from "legitimate" consumers then you don't have a successful game to base a business model on.

Life isn't fair. You're proposing a hyperbolic scenario which is likely to never exist. The amount of pirates will never exceed the amount of people who 'legitimately' purchase a video game. The video game industry/pirate relationship can be seen as commensalism. In biology this is a "relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits but the other is neutral (there is no harm or benefit)."

Also, if you've ever pirated anything in your life you really can't use the scale argument against those who pirate video games. If you've pirated music, tv shows, movies or anything you don't have the moral high ground when it comes to arguing about video game piracy. Unless you're telling me all the music you have is purchased via cd (irl) or iTunes (digitally), the TV you watch is only on your television set or via DVD/Blu-Ray disc and the same for your movies, you really can't argue against video game piracy. Fucking moral relativism, how does it work?

"GAAP net revenue for the fourth quarter was $979 million, up $119 million as compared with $860 million in the prior year. During the quarter, EA had a net benefit of $129 million related to the recognition of deferred net revenue for certain online-enabled packaged goods games and digital content. Non-GAAP net revenue was $850 million, up $241 million as compared with $609 million for the prior year. Sales were driven by Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2, Mass Effect™ 2, Dante’s Inferno™ and digital businesses." Yeah EA is really taking it up the ass in sales because of pirates... oh wait. http://www.ea.com/news/fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-year-2010-results

And how much is that hurting them? Seriously, post some numbers. I'm intrigued. Last I check EA is still pumping out games like there's no tomorrow.

More like borrowing. A video game company leases you a cd key to access their content, which they can revoke at any point. Pirating is merely circumventing the middleman in accessing the content without cost. Besides, it clearly doesn't hurt the video game industry. Until you can provide a chart/graph/hard data of any kind supporting the fact that piracy is bankrupting the industry and they're still not making a profit I'll stand by my point. Taking a pack of chewing gum from Wal-Mart doesn't hurt the gum company or Wal-Mart terribly.

Well what's wrong with pirating?

A rational response I see.

Nothing wrong with pirating.

Like Elf said, I have it.

9Q5Hl6mc8iM

And the oft mentioned "phantom facemask"?

Go Packers!

And you expected more?

You're clearly getting the super special hebrew... I've said too much.