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[fredrancour]

This is from california and boston. forget piracy attitudes across borders, most americans still don't care about piracy. Nobody tries to justify it, they just don't give a damn.


I know more ds flashcart users than people who legitimately bought ds games- hell, my friends once openly teased me for actually buying one.

the one guy I know who hacked his wii pirated a couple virtual console games and that's it. One other guy is terrified of bricking his wii so he won't.

PSP piracy is just as accepted as the ds, but less popular because it takes more work and has fewer games that appeal to people I know.

The people I know who play pc games don't pirate-either because it's something like SC2 where they only care about it for the multiplayer or because the insane convenience of steam makes buying games so easy.

Piracy in things that aren't games:

I know historically among my circle of friends music piracy has been rampant but I think lately it's slowed down a bit, either because of some sentimental notion of wanting to own things, or out of the support-the-band mindset. I don't really know about this one, I should talk to them about this, might be interesting.

movies/tv shows- netflix, both discs and streaming, mean this isn't a problem. I know people have pirated these things before but netflix basically killed it for some of these people. Others, completely seperate from the above examples, use sites like megavideo for streaming without guilt.

anime and manga: unless the anime is on netflix, piracy is total here. although I've stopped watching anime for the most part, to the best of my knowledge it's been years since any of my friends spent a dime on manga or anime. one or two buy the occasional trinket-a gurren lagann banner to hang in his room, say- but they've gotta be pirating it somehow because they talk about things as they are released in japan.


American comics- the american comic fans I know do buy collected editions pretty regularly. most of them either don't read monthlies and just wait for word of mouth to tell them what story arcs to grab, or they pirate the monthlies but still decently reliably buy the trade. It's the "support the author" spiel that I hear from anime fans except the american comics fans actually live up to it.

 

[daegan]

same situation here in Uruguay

i was just looking at some big store catalogue today that came with the cable magazine that said like "UNLOCKED PS3!! COMES WITH 25 FREE GAMES blabla".

The reason why this is so easily highlighted in big magazines and stores like that is basically because publishers have literally no stake in retail here.

Nintendo tried, i remember the times when there was a nintendo.com.uy, and they showed the virtual boy in expos here and everything. They really did tried, but then they just gave up.

We have 3 million people in my country, its not really a good marketable place for them, at all, they just dont care and they show no support whatsoever.

We dont get games on release dates, they just pop up even months later out of the blue, we dont get any sort of official commercial on tv, magazines, websites, whatever. Its completely non-existent.

So basically if i go to a store here instead of importing and i buy a game for $120 bucks, im not even sure how much of that is going towards the publisher and the rest is just the store taking one big hell of a cut cause there's no competition or any sort of "rule" about that stuff here. I dont think sales here reflect at all to companies.

So i'll just say this: i think that people who pirate games in my country are doing absolutely no harm at all because buying games is outside of their possibilities, not because of money, but because you fucking cant buy a game here unless you do it digitally (one of the reasons why i own 500 titles on Steam and why its where i spent most of my time), you cant, and no one cares, so i dont even get (and i even get mad sometimes) when companies complain. You dont want small countries in south america to pirate big releases? then fucking release them like you should and show some support for these types of customers instead of letting your games sell for fucking 150 bucks or some crazy shit like that.

It sure is going to be something when the entertainment business is dragged kicking and screaming into a real worldwide commerce situation.

On a related note to many posts, it really bothers me when parents admit to pirating their kids' games. I wonder how many of their kids want to make games when they get older?

 

[FieryBalrog]

When I was in India everyone pirated movies/TV shows. Typically bootleg DVDs often of terrible quality, download of torrents wasn't as big yet because of bandwidth caps.

I don't know about the games because gaming isn't that popular there, but I imagine it's similar.

 

[darkwing]

heck, they offer 'download' services for consoles in the malls here

 

[Jin34]

movies/tv shows- netflix, both discs and streaming, mean this isn't a problem. I know people have pirated these things before but netflix basically killed it for some of these people. Others, completely seperate from the above examples, use sites like megavideo for streaming without guilt.

Now if only Netflix can drill this point into the heads of all the people that run the studios.

 

[phosphor112]

No offense to anyone in the EU, but the EU gives two shits about IP rights and would suck anyone's chode to protect their "rights."

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Why didn't he just ask his mom to buy him jeans?

I DON'T KNOW

 

[Dunan]

I DON'T KNOW

Because he wouldn't be able to play the games in his mother's presence then, remember? She would ask him where he got that game and he wouldn't have an answer.

(Edit: Wait a minute; how does he wear the jeans without his mother asking where he got the money to buy them?)

 

[Conrad Link]

Jeans are the tool of the devil.

 

[BruiserBear]

The thought of people just pirating everything irritates me. It just strikes me as ignorant to not realize that people put a lot of effort and money into making this stuff. You have no right to steal it at your leisure.

 

[phosphor112]

The thought of people just pirating everything irritates me. It just strikes me as ignorant to not realize that people put a lot of effort and money into making this stuff. You have no right to steal it at your leisure.

Seconded.

 

[Diablos]

I view piracy as a necessary evil when companies make STUPID decisions, such as networks forcing Hulu to make people wait extraordinarily long for shows they could see using over the air antennas.

Orrrr Nintendo refusing to bring Xenoblade to the US. It has already been localized and they have more than enough resources to stamp it onto some discs and sell it in North America. If they can manage to put out Jerry Rice Dog Football they can most certainly bring one of the best RPG's in a decade here. But they refuse to, despite massive amounts of hype and demand (meaning: THEY WILL BUY IT) from North America. Nintendo turns the other way, people get pissed off, and pirate it.

I also think it is 100% invalid to compare piracy to walking into a store or onto someone's property and physically stealing something. Apples and oranges.

The US isn't as bad as say, China or India, but I think in many cases piracy is justified. If not justified, still not something that one deserves to get sued over; there's no way you can prove that someone making a torrent prevented a company from bringing in the unrealistically high and inflated amount of money that people have been sued for.

 

[Kyzer]

I dont think any Nintendo handheld has ever not been hacked by the time Pokemon hit the system. From G/S onward. Sadly.

 

[Slavik81]

One of my mother's friend's sons came here from Bangladesh, couldn't have been more than ten. I volunteered to look after him in my apartment one day and he starts eying my game shelf and looking at the PSP boxes. I ask him if there's anything he wants to play and he kind of matter-of-factly says that he owns all the games worth playing, he just downloads them online.

Now that's not necessarily the crazy part.

What he did was download the game, but never let his mom know he was playing it, so she would keep getting every game he asked. At some point, he just trades in all those games without her knowing and she's never the wiser, because she still sees him playing those games all the time.

He apparently used this money to buy a pair of jeans.

So all things said and done, he's adds a few extra copies of the game to the used market (but pays for them completely) and gets a set of jeans.

Sounds less bad for the industry than most pirating. Though, admittedly, it does show a willingness to pay that is often absent, so from that perspective perhaps it is more damaging than most, as he could potentially be a full-priced customer.

 

[phosphor112]

I view piracy as a necessary evil when companies make STUPID decisions, such as networks forcing Hulu to make people wait extraordinarily long for shows they could see using over the air antennas.

Orrrr Nintendo refusing to bring Xenoblade to the US. It has already been localized and they have more than enough resources to stamp it onto some discs and sell it in North America. If they can manage to put out Jerry Rice Dog Football they can most certainly bring one of the best RPG's in a decade here. But they refuse to, despite massive amounts of hype and demand (meaning: THEY WILL BUY IT) from North America. Nintendo turns the other way, people get pissed off, and pirate it.

I also think it is 100% invalid to compare piracy to walking into a store or onto someone's property and physically stealing something. Apples and oranges.

Of course software piracy isn't theft. Often software copyright infringement holds higher punishments than theft.

Also, why does a company's stupid decisions justify one to commit illegal acts? I absolutely despise Activision and refuse to support such a company. You know how I get back at them? Vote with my wallet. Same goes for whatever other company I may dislike. What makes it so hard to do that? You get mad at a company for some business decision that they very well are allowed to do, but instead you go out of your way to download and crack their software that they probably put many hard working hours into?

Yeah ok.

 

[Jintor]

The US isn't as bad as say, China or India, but I think in many cases piracy is justified. If not justified, still not something that one deserves to get sued over; there's no way you can prove that someone making a torrent prevented a company from bringing in the unrealistically high and inflated amount of money that people have been sued for.

I kind of want to draw a distinction between 'piracy is justified' and 'piracy is understandable'. If you're obtaining something for free without the consent of the content-creator, I don't think you can say that's 'justified'. If it's your only method of obtaining the content due to administrative/business factors surrounding legitimate obtaining the content in question, without the consent of the content-creator, it's still not justified; it's merely understandable.

Justified means that there are reasons for it that are legitimate and acceptable, but I hold that without the consent of the content-creator or creators (though not neccessarily the publishers) there are no legitimate and acceptable reasons to obtain content without compensation. There is no default right to content, though there is obviously desire and want.

 

[wakajawaka]

Spaniard here. Piracy is very extended, specially between casual gamers. They usually buy the console and addons, and not more than 3/4 games for the system. Gamers are buying more games since they can find them cheap online at the popular websites ,and I have to say that I see more people buying at Steam and console stores every day.

but usually you just will get laughed at if you say that you buy games.

 

[jsnepo]

In the Philippines, video game piracy is still rampant especially with the PSP. There have been improvements though with the help of local online communities. Local gamers also realized the advantage of online gaming thus creating a preference of getting original games. This is also the reason retail outlets for games like Datablitz have succeeded. In almost all Cyberzone areas in SM malls, you'll see a Datablitz store.

 

[Conflict NZ]

I find it funny that parents, like the ones you speak teach kids that stealing is wrong but then they steal the games musics and movies without even realizing.

That's because it's not stealing.

 

[Tailzo]

I have 7 gamig friends (I know a few more that plays games, but those play rarely, or stick two a few online games each year). All of us are buying their games. Some of them tend to buy mostly used, even if the price difference between new and used is minimal. Most of my friends has a ps3, only I play handhelds and only me and another friend has a wii.

Two of my friends has a xbox 360.

I'm in Norway. It's hard to say if piracy is widespread here. Doesn't feel like it.

 

[subversus]

It's common in Russia but the situation improves a bit. Also prices are way lower than in other countries, it helps.

I personally try not to spend time with people who do it and see nothing wrong about it. I'm ok with people who have no money for such purchases, life is hard and entertainment makes it a bit better for them but 90% of people I know have sustainable income so no excuses. I try not to spend time with people who pirate like there's no tommorow not because they do it but because this means that they're egocentric and/or stupid. Unfortunately my best friends also do it but friends are friends. I also never mind piracy in case of older generation because they lived in different times and have different mentality. And well, I don't blame people if they download something rare which isn't available by other means.

From what I see the best solution to stop piracy is to go hard on it and so called consumers by legal means. When piracy will be punished as a real theft then we'll see the end of it.

 

[Horseticuffs]

Wow, I guess unfortunately I'm not terribly surprised. but it sure is depressing. I myself have never pirated a game instead of actually buying it, but reading stuff like this makes me feel like part of a small cadre of morons that apparently just doesn't get it.


I just don't get how, if the majority of the world pirates their entertainment, the gaming industry is still so damned profitable. I mean, with so many people out there not paying for jack shit, it's pretty hard to believe that all these companies could afford to carry on :/

 

[FieryBalrog]

Most of my friends bought their Xbox and Playstation games and pirated PC games with the exception of stuff like Blizzard/Valve games that were much better online with a CD-key (surprise, surprise, the two companies that really got the PC space...) I was one of those in high school/early college, though I still bought more games than most people I knew.

But once I got a regular income I (and most of my friends) started paying for all my stuff, just because it was cool to own it. I actually bought a lot of games that I didn't even play much in the end, which I like to think makes up for my earlier immaturity.

Sometimes I do feel a bit idiotic when one of my friends can play 30+ games on an R4 for free while I have to swap cartridges in and out and carry them all around with me, it's not even the price so much as the convenience. I'm paying hundreds of dollars more to get a less convenient experience.

 

[D_Star]

I think the Netherlands are no different than any other western country.

Basically I see two kinds of attitudes around me; there's one group who pirates games like there's no tomorrow, and there's a group of people who are actually willing to buy most games, but don't shy away of pirating a game or two because of the single player story.

I consider the first group to be mostly comprised of parents who have no respect for digital rights or return on investment for the struggling game industry whatsoever. They're only thinking of entertaining their kids. My girlfriend's aunt is one of those people. I tried talking to her, explaining to her that mass pirating games actually hurts the industry, and might result in less and less games becoming available in the long run. She just stood there and nodded, it was like I was talking to a brick wall.

The second group in my perception is equivalent to a sizable portion of the people around me who are actually active gamers. They will buy most games, especially since most of them require some form of online pass. However, whenever a popular game has a single player story arc that they just want to experience, they will download it. It's like music or movies to them, you'll only want to experience them once and then discard them.

Then again, in recent years I've experienced that piracy is declining over here. The police and some digital rights organizations have been cracking down hard on the spreading of pirated wares, which had it's effect I would suppose.

Me personally, I gave up piracy years ago. I'm a big PC gamer at heart, and I don't want to see my platform getting shafted because the developers think the platform is infested with pirates. I really couldn't care less about digital rights, but I do believe that developers have the moral right to receive money for what they created. I want them to believe that PC gaming is a viable platform.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Me personally, I gave up piracy years ago. I'm a big PC gamer at heart, and I don't want to see my platform getting shafted because the developers think the platform is infested with pirates. I really couldn't care less about digital rights, but I do believe that developers have the moral right to receive money for what they created. I want them to believe that PC gaming is a viable platform.

This was a major reason for me to buy all my PC games as well, and even buy games that I might normally pass over. Starting around 2005-2006 when the PC am d0med brigade was really starting up (and it did in fact look pretty bad, I was part of them).

 

[LuchaShaq]

Movies - Netflix has beaten it, movies off netflix streaming everyone here pirates.

When the movie studio's continue to add more to streaming and force netflix to jack up prices higher I will laugh when their piracy goes back up again.

Music - Everyone except the least computer savy or hardcore music people pirate like hell

Games - Everyone pirates except SC2 crowd and the 360-COD bro group Little kids with flash cards, every psp/wii/360/ds on craigslists mentions it comes with mods/pirated games etc. Honestly gamestop used trade ins is the only reason I know anyone but me would buy non multiplayer games.

Piracy would skyrocket if people got their wish and gamestop went down the tubes magically.

NE USA

 

[deim0s]

I've met a few who has and upgrades the shit out of their PC's, but telling me they couldn't afford a game or two and it's a waste of money that could've gone to their e-peen rigs.

It's just sad there are people like these, they have decent jobs and all, but their mindset is just plain fucked.

 

[StevePharma]

Here in Holland almost everyone I know or see on public transport uses pirated media in one form or another: games (mostly DS and some PSP) and music specifically. You can also buy flashcards from several stores here who openly advertise them. Not the piracy aspect of course but that's the main reason people buy them.

One thing that I noticed is that on GAF people don't seem to care about pirating TV-shows. I see plenty of people post here about shows that haven't aired yet in their country with no other proper way of acquiring them. Personally I don't really care because I buy the Blu-Ray boxes of things I like but still, seems a bit weird on a forum where talking about pirated games/music(?) can get you banned.

I modded my Wii this year because I obtained a spare HDD from a friend and found out you can back-up all your discs on it, thus sparing my DVD-drive in my Wii.

 

[witchedwiz]

here in italy most people tend not to buy games, especially parents for their childrens.

At least that's what i experienced across the years.

In my group of friends there are 12 avid gamers, and just 3 of us pay for our games.
All the others never do, torrent is the only way.

One of my best friend's boyfriend refuse to pay for anything that is not a mmorpg, and he buys a console just if he's totally sure that he can mod it and play pirated games on it.

italy here and similar situations..
those who buy legit buy say 3-4 games/year..
the avid gamers are pretty much pirates and they frown at me for spending "big money" on games

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Dp

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

When I used to live in Pakistan, I had 100s of pirated PSOne games in stacks with no case. PS2 piracy was harder/rarer but it existed. Current 360/PS3 era: there are no pirated games and games cost roughly the same as it does in US. Of course, pirated games for 360 exists for those with modded consoles but singleplayer game market is somewhat dead and everyone plays online or couch coop/comp.

PC game/software piracy still exists. A lot of people buy pirated copy cause that's all that exists even though the market will adjust to genuine copies if provided (as they did with PS3/360).

Piracy also exists in movies/music (Napster really helped in making piracy even more common) though I started ordering my CDs from Amazon/HMV once the online websites started booming and I realized how condensed the market is.

Companies need to (some do) sell cheaper copies to countries where piracy is considered normal and where people just can't afford genuine copies as it's far more expensive than their month's salary or their month's worth of food/bills. China comes to mind.

I've never touched pirated games ever since I came to Canada. My Pakistani friend in Canada refuses to pay for games though. I tried to explaining to him how devs need the support and he said "I never thought of it that way". Of course, the only genuine game he own is BF:BC2 and that was a birthday gift from me.

Few weeks ago, another friend of mine in Pakistan was proudly showing on Facebook how he is playing "Alice: Madness Returns" and I told him not to cause great devs like these need every support they can get or they don't stay in this business. He started laughing and said "I don't give a shit!"

I should start stealing his shitty anime artwork and draw dickfaces on them. If he says WTF, I'll laugh and say "So you give a fuck now?!"

 

[Ulthwe]

1) Espana-GAF, does everyone in Spain actually pirate every game they own?

Spaniard here. To put it bluntly, people look at you with a funny face when you tell them you don't intend to chip your console.

A friend told me the other day that he's bored of his Wii as he has so many (pirated) games. And someone's friend once told me "Why don't you put a chip on it? I've got all the games I want". I answered "You don't even have the time to play them all".

Regrding DS R4 carts, I was shocked the first time a friend's soccer mom kid had it, as I thought only "hardcore videogame nerds" knew about their existence. Oh boy, was I wrong.

 

[SLV]

A lot of people also have this twisted notion that it's OK to download games, as long as you don't upload any.

I think it actually goes like that in Switzerland As far as i read their laws, when i was thinking of moving there. Its ok to download for personal use, but its a big NO-NO to upload what you have downloaded or upload at all.

 

[Mista Koo]

Since the official releases of PS3 and 360 here in Saudi Arabia they've been cracking down a bit more on piracy (though some stores -mostly small ones- still openly sell pirated games/devices). They are still a mainstream option, PS3 quite changed the game. Also good luck finding non-pirated copies in a smaller city, my cousin lived in one of the well known ones that had only one shop that sells (pirated) games.
A big part of the problem is awareness, not everyone is aware of the concept of piracy. Hell, I've grown up playing on a Famicom with 99 versions of SMB games preinstalled on it (and I thought the NES that used cartridges was a totally different console for ages). I even remember pirating our Playstation 1 from the official Sony distributor here :lol.

Make it easier for people, and they wont pirate (well, they'll pirate less). I believe this is still true in some parts of Spain so yeah. Nintendo should just take better care of the market there. In the US i can go to some gamestop bin and get DS games for $20 bucks, that is completely out of the question mostly anywhere else.

Yeah this. Even budget releases (platinum/greatest hits) here in Saudi Arabia are overpriced and might be more expensive than regular copies elsewhere.
That's the main reason I'm trying to completely switch to Steam. I was hoping 3DS would have a total digital distribution option.
And that's ignoring the late release dates or games not even released here. Major publishers have official distributors here (who may as well not release the game on time) other games are imported by stores (and sold at variable prices depending on popularity). It costs about $15 to ship a game to here (which is not worth it unless you are doing it in bulks).

 

[Wichu]

Piracy is pretty normal here (UK), at least on handhelds. My brothers criticise me for 'wasting money' on DS games when I can download them. It paid off when my DS Lite broke and I replaced it with a 3DS; if I'd downloaded them to my flashcard, I'd be screwed. As it stands, I just lost access to some homebrew and a GBC emulator (time to dig out my copy of Pokémon TCG and the GBA SP).

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

Speaking of Saudi Arabia, my friend won a PS2 via Pepsi giveaway in Saudi Arabia, and even that was modded! :lol

 

[mocolostrocolos]

This summer a good friend of ours from Spain came to visit us in the States with her 8 year-old daughter. The daughter brought a DS with her, and over the course of their month with us she played it frequently.

Early on, I thought she was probably getting bored of the games she had, so I pulled out my trove of DS titles and offered them to her (she speaks as little English as I speak Spanish, so this was mostly a show-and-tell exercise). At this point her mother interrupted and told me she wouldn't need any more games, because she had more than she'd ever play stored on her DS.

I took at look at it and sure enough there was an R4-type cart hosting an SD card with an absurd number of games on it -- which, I learned, her mom and dad had downloaded and installed for her! Mom saw nothing wrong with this, saying "It's Spain, everyone copies everything. We'd never buy a video game." I learned over the visit that this attitude extended to every sort of digital media -- she was excited to buy a Kindle in the U.S. (much cheaper here), but only after she learned they could take PDFs...

This kind of blew my mind. The mom is a salt-of-the-earth technophobe schoolteacher, but genuinely believes that everyone in her culture pirates so therefore it's OK.

So:
1) Espana-GAF, does everyone in Spain actually pirate every game they own?
2) Any other western, high-GDP/capita countries where piracy is (perceived to be) the norm?

Actually in Spain DS piracy is very common, fathers buy DSTTs or R4 to their kids so they don't have to spend money on software.

I used to work on GAME and you can't imagine how many people came asking for this cards.

And not only DS, every console has a very high rating of piracy. And PC, even more.

 

[Kosma]

Spain is piss poor. They have over 20% unemployment. Yet the people feel entitled to steal games.

This seems to be common in many poor countries.

 

[dreamcastmaster]

Spain is piss poor. They have over 20% unemployment. Yet the people feel entitled to steal games.

This seems to be common in many poor countries.

Unemployed, got no money, what would you do all day?

 

[mclem]

That's because it's not stealing.

Is that a nuance that's relevant in teaching kids the basics of morality? To a young kid, "It's not stealing" is very easily confusable with "It's perfectly fine".

You're quite correct that it's not, but in terms of basic social education, it seems reasonable enough.

 

[Pachimari]

In the Philippines, video game piracy is still rampant especially with the PSP. There have been improvements though with the help of local online communities. Local gamers also realized the advantage of online gaming thus creating a preference of getting original games. This is also the reason retail outlets for games like Datablitz have succeeded. In almost all Cyberzone areas in SM malls, you'll see a Datablitz store.

That's correct.
But piracy is still very much present in the Philippines.
There's pirated games being sold in official malls like SM and Mall of Asia. Movies and music being sold everywhere, even a whole "mall" almost dedicated to selling copied phones. You can even buy music and they'll download them for you through torrents. Though, I don't mind it at all, it's people's own choice what they do, not something I wanna think about.

Edit: By the way, any filipino gamers who would like to add me to Facebook? Just send me a private message, I always wanted to hook up with GAFFERS there when I go visit there, it's my second country afterall.

 

[Feep]

It really is quite shocking, really, but it's difficult to feel too angry. As many posters in here have stated, countries outside U.S./Canada/Japan/Western Europe/Korea/MAYBE China are by and large completely ignored by publishers, and so obtaining games legally would be incredibly expensive and/or time-consuming.

However, as the world advances, and DD becomes bigger and better, there will be less and less of an excuse for publishers to ignore these areas, and harder and harder for consumers to circumvent the mild DRM something like Steam comes with.

Obviously 1 pirated copy doesn't equal 1 lost sale, but I wonder what the real ratio is? 1 pirated copy equals 0.3 lost sales? It's impossible to measure, of course, but I feel like it's somewhere around there, based on anecdotal evidence.

This figure goes WAY down in the countries not listed above, of course.

 

[akira28]

I remember when I was a kid with my parents too poor to adequately satisfy my gaming desires, the most I could afford where gaming magazines, and I would read them and study the ads and live vicariously through the reviews. I used to worship my asian friends who would go over to the Philippines and come back with amazing things, like game carts that held 100 games for the original gameboy and strange snack foods, etc. I was amazed. They would show me their magazine ads with the copies for sale, they could get any game they wanted for cheap, I was so mindblown. I didn't understand the concept of copyright or import/export international law of course.

 

[Loonz]

Spanish here, and I buy every single one of my games. Should I care whether other people buy their games or not?. I don't think so.

Spain is piss poor. They have over 20% unemployment. Yet the people feel entitled to steal games.

This seems to be common in many poor countries.

Hey wise-guy, here the situation is bad but by no means this country is poor. I have some relatives who work for NGOs in Africa and well, if you had listened to their stories about living there then you would know how is to live in a really poor country. Is not funny. Please don't be shallow with this.

 

[walking fiend]

Here, in Iran, you'll actually be looked down upon if you pay for a game, unless it is made here, which is like 5 games? So beside 5 games, it's encouraged that you pirate your games.

However, I don't blame people. Average salary here is like $4,000, buying $80 games is just too expensive (popular original games for PS3, before being hacked, were traded over $120)

 

[Castor Krieg]

Does it have to be Western? Because in Singapore there's also a culture of 'Why pay?' going on when it comes to games.

C'mon, you're making this easy. It's the same in Hong Kong, but that's because Chinese people are stingy as hell most of the time ^^

In Poland piracy is the norm. We don't have malls selling openly pirated content, in fact the official videogame business is great here (looking at the shelves in Saturn or MM), but everyone in large cities has access to broadband, so they just download everything.

 

[IPGlider]

Spain is piss poor. They have over 20% unemployment. Yet the people feel entitled to steal games.

This seems to be common in many poor countries.

LOL no. Spain is far from poor. Don't spread false info.

 

[lastendconductor]

Piracy is huge in Spain, but somehow we are a strong market for enternteinment too, specially videogames. I guess it evens out.

 

[neorej]

Unemployed, got no money, what would you do all day?

Sex?

 

[Phat Michael]

im a collector. i like boxes, manuals, i like discs that actually work and arent coasters.

i have such short free time that i dont like to waste time on a game that cuts out before the last boss because its a pirated copy.

I like PCBs.

There is no point in piracy for me - i own all the games i want to play, if i dont want to play it i wont buy it. Having copied games just sucks. Gaming should be fun, u shouldnt have to worry about being banned off xbl or anything just for using a pirated game.