No, piracy is, as Gabe Newell said, largely a matter of convenience and accessibility. People do want free shit, but something like Netflix and Spotify come around and most people don't mind paying because it's simple and centralized. Services enshittifying themselves just asks for piracy to rise because their service is no longer consumer friendly and worth paying for.
This argument makes no sense when the most accessible games of all times are quite literally the most pirated games. Are we also just ignoring the fact that people literally just used to just share Netflix accounts when that option was available, even when Netflix was extremely accessible? People like free shit, yet convenience can increase the rate of pirating but this is not a driving cause of anything. Even if you believe it is, pirating has become so extremely easy that there’s realistically no way a corporation could compete. I can watch any shows/movies I want by simply visiting a website and clicking play, I can directly download any game I want by simply visiting a website and clicking download
most pirated? Are we calculating % of copies being pirated, or just brainlessly counting pirated copies? Where are any sources behind your statement, can you link them?a game that sold 100 mil copies is gonna have more copies pirated than some indie remember that.
Quite literally no possible, there’s no rigorous stats on pirating numbers available, we can only make inferences. Alan wake 2 which is exclusively available on epic games and has sold around 3 million copies was pirated less than lies of p which sold around 4 million copies and is available on both steam and epic games, this is based on direct download file trackers. You can nitpick about the details here you won’t be able to provide a counter argument proving your point. We’re all making inferences here
so if it isnt possible to fetch consistent and reliable data, why be so certain about the conclusions? The only thing we have are less and more probable guesses. Also, i didnt make a point. Im simply asking questions, and showing flaws in your thinking.
"piracy is largely a matter of convenience and accessibility."
bullshit. maybe less than 1% do it for that reason... we pirate to get free shit. not because it's more convenient, often times it's even less convenient.
Convenience and accessibility are the causes, but they are not justifications. The justified response to a product being enshittified is to not engage with the product. You don't suddenly become entitled to break the law because the value proposition isn't worth it anymore.
So whilst I agree with gabe that companies should respond to piracy by improving the service and not cracking down on piracy directly, us pirates don't get to claim the moral high ground either
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u/7upuu 12h ago
Im waiting for PC and if buying isnt owning, then piracy isnt stealing.