MasterOfMagic

@phenylketonurics: You've obviously never been a college student. In college, I had a PS2, and the reason I had a PS2 was due to the fact that it was a console and a DVD player. DVD players were expensive. I understand that they're not now.

However, where a DVD player in a console really shines is when you go over to a friend's place. You take the console, a couple of games, a DVD or two, some beer or booze, and have a good evening, only having to hook one thing up, and being able to take a break when you get burned out on games. It's much easier to have this sort of functionality with a combined console/DVD player than to have to bring a separate DVD player, especially since the previous generation of consoles and the current generation of consoles (minus Nintendo) showed that it could be done easily.

Perfect for those nights on campus where you go into an unused classroom and use their projector for gaming and movies. It's the only way to play Rock Band/Guitar Hero. Nothing says fun like rocking out with the Campus Police on "I Fought The Law" on a 10 foot high screen followed by Dr. Strangelove.

@chispito: "I wish piracy weren't a problem, but using faulty logic and emotional arguments is disengenuous (like the RIAA and MPAA--as if downloading a movie is going to somehow put the Key Grip's kids out on the street)."

No, but it might deter them from making another game.

Piracy is theft. I'm sorry that you can't accept that. It's not theft at gunpoint, like holding up a liquor store. It's more like taking a pack of gum from the supermarket theft. You are receiving the benefit (though being entertained) of someone's work without paying for it when the people that put in the work explicitly asked to be paid for it as a condition of enjoying their work.

If they felt as you did, that a few lost sales here or there weren't a big deal, then you think they would have mentioned this in their blog, in a press release for the game, or in an interview somewhere. If they wanted people to have the benefit of their work without paying for it, they would have released the game for free and set up a donation system where you could reward them for what you think the value of their efforts was.

"You can hem and haw about it all you want, but legally and logically you're 100% incorrect."

Legally: You are depriving a company of their legal right to control who makes copies of their game, for what price they will be sold for, and how many copies will be made. Doesn't sound as sexy as theft, but what if I put it this way: I make a copy of your vital financial information (name, address, social, mom's maiden name, your ATM PIN, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, the magstripe on your credit card, and so forth). It's just data, and you still have access to it, so nobody is deprived of anything in my copying of it. I then set up a bunch of accounts in your name and charge up expensive and possibly embarrassing items. You get stuck with the bill. You've lost the right to control who gets to use your credit, what your credit has been used for, and how to allocate your money as you're on the hook for these purchases by default. Would that be theft?

Logically: You are receiving something that costs money without paying for it and without authorization of the owner. That is the definition of theft.

If you're going to argue that piracy is not theft, the least you could do is make your argument consistent and thoughtful.

"It's really the case of something that sucks at $60, but free, you can actually enjoy it knowing you didn't waste so much money on it."

If that's the case, if something doesn't suck, wouldn't it not suck even more if it were free?

How would you feel if you made a game for almost five years, put your heart and soul into it, sunk money into it to pay the salaries and benefits of the other people playing it, are now in debt because you've done so, and tried to sell the game for $60 knowing that's what it takes for you to break even and make some profit and some snotty-nosed "I'm too cool to spend my parents money on this" brat tells you that "he wouldn't have bought it anyway GIMMIE!"? I'll bet you wouldn't be so happy about it.

Don't give me that line of BS about "I just want people to play my game". If that were the case, you would have released the game for free and set up a PayPal donation link. You wouldn't have people's ability to play it conditioned on paying for it, and in that case, you're right, the developer would have no right (morally or legally) to complain that people were playing his game for free.

However, when a company puts out a software product at a price-point, you have five legal options:
1) Purchase the software at this price point. This indicates acceptance of the price point and an implicit endorsement of this price point as representing an equal or lesser value compared to the game.
2) Wait to purchase the software used from somebody. This is only legal if they are no longer in possession of a copy (as would be the case 80%-90% of the time with console video games). You generally get this for a lower price point. The company that put out the game has already made their money. You are rejecting their price point, denying them an additional sale, and sending the message that you think their current price point represents a greater value than the value of the game.

3) Rent the game. Blockbuster gets the money, you pay less, but you still have to pay, and you send the same signal as in 2 while also depriving the video game company a sale.

4) Wait for the price to come down. This sends an implicit message to the company that their price point is too high.

5) Play a friend's copy. Again, only legal if they don't have a copy of the game while you're playing. You are denying the company a sale and getting the value of the game, but the copy you are playing has already been paid for.

Notice that in 5, you don't pay for the game and you get the value of it. This is the route to go if you "weren't going to buy something anyway". Find a friend with similar tastes in video games, buy a game that you want, and then when you're done beating it, let him borrow the game you beat while you borrow the game that you want. That way, everybody wins and you don't look like a self-centered jerk.

In the above, denying the company a sale is not bad because it doesn't infringe on their exclusive right to make copies. It is a necessary part in any market system, and if it occurs enough, causes corrective action by the company putting out the software. As long as they're making money at their current price point and they don't feel that they can make more money or make the same amount of money at a lower price point, they will keep their price point the same. If enough people don't buy, they will see that a lower price point would improve their sales and change it.

Denying a sale to the company by infringing on their copyright, however, is wrong ethically and legally. We can argue that copyright is bad or that copyright needs to be changed, and I would agree with some of that, but as the law stands right now, it is illegal to infringe on it, both civilly and, in some cases if it's done on a large scale, criminally. I've heard the argument that this is "civil disobedience", and I have to say that it's laughable at best. If you were breaking the Church of England's copyright on the Bible or Saudi Arabia's copyright on the Koran or Diebold's copyright and trade secret status on internal memos on election rigging, then I would tend to agree with you, but we're talking about a video game here.

"If a parent is dumb enough to be conned by their child to buy them a M rated game (or 18+ or whatever the European rating is) then they are just plain bad parents."

When I was a teenager and had a job, I would regularly give money to my parents to buy M rated games because local game shops required ID for M rated games. They did this because I had good grades, I was never involved in a fight at school, I had a relatively normal social life, and I understood the difference between fantasy and reality. Their only objection to gaming was spending their money on it.

I'm now an employed, mid-twenties computer programmer that's setting up an indie game developing studio. I still game a reasonable number of hours a day (0-1 on the weeknights, 1-2 on the weekends) and am about to start my PhD in Computer Science. In other words, video game violence, naughty language, and sexuality didn't warp my fragile little mind.

The reason that the ESRB and PEGI exist is to act as a guideline for parents. I'm not against M rated games being sold like R rated movies so long as it's done in the same fashion as the movie industry (voluntarily).

Word of warning to WiiKey owners - SSBB does not work on your console due to dual layer DVD-9 original handling.

The ripped version, however, does work but requires some maneuvering if you try the import. Not sure about the US release version though.

The record companies love vinyl. What other format destroys itself, is read-only, and has insanely fanatical devotees willing to back it?