Please provide a demo in the future.

[Thorgrey]

It was someone else who learned about it on a torrent site, there was a pretty decent thread every month or so a while back on the vidya. And to people taking morals into this, are you joking? I don't feel I have done anything wrong, it's no different than trying the game at a friends house, and in fact my friend is coming over to try it later today, are you implying this is somehow different? In fact my friend is coming over to play the game later today, obviously he doesn't own it but he's still going to play it, and if he likes it he'll also buy it, and I hope he does. Again, I'm not a person who pirates a game with the intent of playing it while not paying for it, it's with the intent of being sure it's something I want to play, if it is, I buy it, if it isn't I don't. I think it's actually better for the video game industry as a whole if people are more careful about what they buy.

[Thorgrey]

The trailer should have been more than enough to convince you. Morally what you did was wrong even if it all worked out dandy in the end. The deep, deep question is, does that make what you did still bad? I would say yes.

If you shoplifted a product, even if it cost nothing to make and stock, and then went back to the store and paid for it, rather than be happy there's a good chance of them turning you in to the police. The fact that on your internet your actions appear to have no consequences and you won't get caught doesn't make what you did right.

Let's put out a different question: If you could cheat on your spouse with no consequences and no chance of being caught, would your actions still be morally wrong? By participating in a capitalist economy you have signed an unwritten contract to honor the value of money and goods and services, you expect your hard work at your job to be honored with a certain amount of money and you expect that money to be worth whatever it is worth. Intellectual property has a worth, and to not pay for it is a pretty clear-cut breaking of that contract.

No, you're not going to get arrested or punished, but you have still done something wrong and you should acknowledge that. This is what society, and the future online society must be built on.

That's a very nice straw man you made, but it's irrelevant. And as I mentioned earlier, no crime was committed, maybe in your country it's illegal but that still gives you no right to force those justifications on others. You're acting as if I stole something.

[Halk]

A great deal of this thread seems to be posing, and sadly it keeps going away from the point you raised at the very start - a demo would be good - and keeps coming back to personal attacks and bizarre definitions of theft.

A demo would increase sales.

[FlashSoul]

Hello. I stumbled on this topic while searching for a demo. The game seems interesting but I don't think my computer will be able to handle it, as it doesn't meet the minimal specifications. If there was a demo I would be able to test it and decide if it is or not playable. Therefor, developers would have a chance to get my money. There is no demo : I don't buy the game.

On the subject of piracy : if I pirated the game to test it, the probability of developers receiving money from me would increase from 0% to ProbabilityItWorksOnMyComputer%. I won't pirate it, even to try it out, but saying that those who do for this reason hurt the developers is just wrong.

I hope you will provide a demo in the future.

Sincerely,
FlashSoul

[seebs]

So one merely needs to rationalize one's self interest to justify piracy?

I have been burned enough by buying games that looked good that I generally simply don't buy games if I can't try them first. Since I mostly won't do warez (last time I did was in 1989 or so, when I ripped off a copy of Starflight 1 because I was mad at EA for shipping Populos with copy protection that prevented it from working on my computer; I figured I'd bought a game and was entitled to a game...), this mostly just means not buying things I can't try out.

As a writer, though, I've gradually changed my view. My view now is that I do not care how many people get something without paying me, I just care how many people pay me. If a course of action results in more people paying me, I am better off. Turns out that trials and free demos make more people pay me. So. I'm totally aware that at least one book I've written has been warzed as a PDF. I also suspect that this is why it is still selling.

I do agree that a demo would be pretty awesome.

[Minax]

I think there's no good reason not to make a demo available if developers are confident in their product. People can give it a try and developers might get some more money from people who bought it because they liked the demo! Win-win!
I don't know how much providing a working demo actually costs though, and if that cost may be a big hindering factor for indie studios. I just rarely see demos for indie games.

That said, it's ultimately up to the developer if they want to offer a demo for their product, and not doing so does not justify pirating it.

[MASKOAA]

If I'm playing Xbox and I beat a game I bought then let my friend borrow it is that piracy or if I let him borrow a movie.......after all he didn't pay for it. OP did nothing wrong he tried the game liked it and bought it,if he didn't like it he wouldn't of even played past the first level so in a way he only pirated the first level aka a demo.

[Kthanid]

I think there's no good reason not to make a demo available if developers are confident in their product.

Well, one good reason is the additional cost in development and other tasks that come along with releasing a demo. If the developer does not feel the cost/benefit is there to make the demo (or they either simply do not have the time to do so or feel there is a better cost/benefit to spending that limited time working on features and bug fixes), that's a decision they need to make.

I just rarely see demos for indie games.

This is in many cases because Indie developers are much more constrained by time and resources than larger studios. Decisions must be made that determine whether or not certain features should be left on the drawing board to allow for time that would be spent planning for and deploying a functional demo.

That said, it's ultimately up to the developer if they want to offer a demo for their product, and not doing so does not justify pirating it.

I couldn't agree more.

[Kthanid]

If I'm playing Xbox and I beat a game I bought then let my friend borrow it is that piracy or if I let him borrow a movie.......after all he didn't pay for it. OP did nothing wrong he tried the game liked it and bought it,if he didn't like it he wouldn't of even played past the first level so in a way he only pirated the first level aka a demo.

You're asking this in the wrong place. Pose your question to the MPAA and see what their stance is on it (my guess is that they'd say lending your friend a movie is tantamount to piracy, but they are of course completely insane). The only logical philosophical distinction between the two would be that when you lend your friend the game or movie you are no longer able to use that content yourself (you have transferred your single licensed version of the content to someone else, but there is still only one copy) whereas pirating the game creates a duplicate copy transferring a non-licensed copy of the work to another individual while you still retain your own ownership of it.

To be clear, I'm not saying that piracy should or shouldn't be illegal (or is or is not "wrong" in whatever sense you want to define that). I'm stating that there is a real world difference between physically transferring your copy of something to someone else without retaining a copy for yourself versus duplicating your purchased content and distributing it without losing your access to it.

[MASKOAA]

End result is the same though both people got to watch the movie and play the full game.