Here's my two thoughts on the topic.
1) No matter how good you are in justifying your actions, you just can't blame them for your behaviour. You're talking nonsense. No one enforces you to play newest games or watch newest TV series. And if you want to do so, then pay for it - isn't that fair? What right do you have to take it for free? There's no justification.
2) Don't you think that when companies see their product pirated heavily, they will conclude that it has a good quality? The only way to have them deliver better products on better terms is to stop buying and _stop pirating_ them.

It's not just regional restrictions. In some parts of the world, the only copies you can find are pirated. Downloading materials in that context is less ethically problematic than paying for TV rips and such.

If they owners are going to gripe about piracy, then they need to provide the product at a price people can afford and in all regions. They aren't going to sell fewer copies like that, and if it's really that hard of a sell, they should just not create many copies for sale.

Not, that I would do such a thing.

At least GOG sells worldwide.

And don't forget censorship. You were forced to pirate games earlier if you wanted to play something like "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", simply because the "legit" German version is unwinnable by design (or rather by censorship).

Although you might now discuss if it is piracy at all to apply language patches, uncensor stuff etc.


(And it's one of the games I have yet to play, so maybe GOG can add it ;-) )

So the main criticism is that there aren't enough places to buy the content people are interested in?

But what would happen if there were enough such places? Would people start complaining about the price or some DRM?

It is a long read but well worth the effort.

The guy looks at pirating in an insightful and productive way rather than blatantly attacking companies or artists (except for Chris Brown but that guy sucks anyway). The sad thing is I doubt companies will listen to him but it would only benefit them if they did. In the fallout of the SOPA/ACTA drama new methods are needed to connect with producers and consumers. The author says the best method is more freedom for consumers and less intrusion by producers. We already have that freedom with pirated material so producers are going to have to offer us that exact same thing or concede the lost revenue.

And let me agree with most of the people here about the regional restrictions. What the hell is that? If assholes in the US can watch/play/listen to material a week before the rest of the world you can bet that assholes like me in the UK and elsewhere are going to download it for free. Maybe we'll forget to purchase, maybe we won't, but it's anachronistic and punishing international consumers. And nothing pisses me off more than buying an American product on-line or from one of my American friends and finding I can't play European bought content or can't be played on European devices. Instances like that just fuel the pirating fire and makes international consumers feel like the American producers don't give a damn about them.

The way to stop many pirates (not all, 'cause there will always be the people who just want it for free) is not to slap on ever-more restrictive DRM, or special clients, or to bribe senators to censor the internet for you, it's to treat your customers with care and respect. If you do that, your customers will be willing to do just about anything for you.

And how do propose people pay for something when the publisher goes out of their way to make it impossible for you to do so?

If they refuse to sell it in your region, do their best to shut down traditional import routes and then block access to the content even if you do manage to pay for it (while in another region, etc.), why should people just say, "aww shucks. I'll just have to do without because they don't want money from my region"? It's not those people's fault that they cannot legally obtain something they are all too happy to pay for.

IMHO a portion of the pirating community would be a result of gamers moving in direction 'x' whilst the publisher's feel that they are in control of this bad boy industry and insist on driving it in direction 'y'.

The publishers fail to understand that without us they have no business - how can a teacher be a teacher without a student, for example? Think about it. Where do the publishers get their money from?

How often do we have publishers who actually reach out to the community and ask, "Hey guys! How do YOU think this business would run better? What would suit YOU GUYS?! Why are you pirating x, y & z?? What with the existing business model is not suiting you guys? Any suggestions???"

Sad truth is, most of the people who seem to make the decision don't seem interested in hearing what gamers have to say anyway. They seem to only want to try boost profits where the profits already are and minimize losses where they are occurring (ie, to some extent, piracy - though there's no real knowing of how many of the people who pirate only use it as a try before you buy and go on to purchase the title anyway).. You can't blame them for it though. After all, it's their job!

An interesting experiment would be for developers to release their products online and allow consumers to pay what THEY think the game is worth. Piracy WOULD NO LONGER EXIST as everything is available straight from the source, the developers will be rewarded fairly for the QUALITY they produce based on the reception of the community and their individual ability to pay the developers in proportion to the enjoyment they receive (some people are poorer than others and $50 can mean a lot. Though some people are wealthy and will happily pay much more than that as recent indie funding projects have shown.).

The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Time for the industry to evolve.

I can't use the darn thing because their website won't let me register. Stupid poorly written java script is getting in my way. And judging by the amount of complaining I read on facebook yesterday, when several of my friends tried to play ME3, I'm not alone.

Answer to that is basically: Nope. I have red trough the most of that and he pretty much hides behind common excuses burried in fancy words. The open letter should have been called "Why I don't play your games," because that's what you do if you don't like something about a product: You don't use it. It's that simple.

Isn't your logic a bit like: "I'd gladly pay for Ferrari Testarossa 1984. But wait... no one is selling it! Oh well, then I need to steal one..."

I am not saying: "Don't pirate!" Hell, do what you want! But don't justify it. You can't. You don't have any right to anything that was created by someone else. They don't want to sell it to you, they don't want to give it to you - that's their choice. They produced it and if they don't want to share, then what right do you have to take it by force or any other means they wouldn't like?

I would say it depends on how bad the possibility to buy stuff really is.

If just some things are missing people should be reminded that they have no right that a company sells them stuff. It just means you can't have it (legally). Life will probably be almost as good as before.

If the majority of things is missing and for no good reason, then you can start thinking that you actually do not hurt anyone by stealing since they don't want to sell to you anyway.

However for this to be valid one would need to check carefully that there really isn't a way to buy it, even for a higher price. And one would need to have experienced this repeatedly.
Somehow I doubt that many pirates are doing this, but maybe they are... Who knows.

The way out is anyway very easy. The companies just start selling everywhere, letting all people register and offer games to all but not for free. If piracy is reduced fine. If not, use your other methods. :)

Well, there isn't a "unitfied piracy". Some people pirate because they just can't stand Steam or Origin (that you could call a "lost sale") some people pirate because they can't afford all the games they like (no lost sale).

The important point is that a DRM has never caused more sales. Well, Steam did, but not because of its DRM but of its features. I would guess, that if Steam removed the DRM part in a way that it would be comparable to GOG (no need to be online to install a game and no client neede to play it) they would hardly suffer any losses. Or rather, the losses would be offset by bringing new people on board.

No, because funnily enough, the car industry doesn't go out of it's way to prevent people from buying it's products. In fact, they actively do what they can to ensure that people *can* legally buy cars fit for regions that they don't official sell to directly.

In fact, how many times have you heard of someone buying a car in, say, the US, shipping it to another and then finding that it refuses to start in that new country?

Or in other words, yet again the car analogy is flawed.

Now as for content more pertinent to this topic, if the publishers, et al, are going to continue lamenting about piracy effecting their bottom line, people are going to continue explaining why they feel forced into not paying for the content.