Reasons I don't buy original games all the time.

1. I was working in the UK for many years where new pc games cost about gbp 30-35 (RM 210 - 250) and I had no problem paying that much for a new game. At the same time i was also earning 3-4 times as much over there. Relative to income games were a lot cheaper.

2. I hate the packaging we get in Malaysia. Games tend to come in oversized boxes which just looks ugly to me. Games in the UK tended to come in normal sized dvd boxes.

3. I really don't feel a moral obligation to support a foreign owned company, especially one like Electronic Arts. I would be more inclined
to pay for games by indie producers (eg introversion: Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON).

4. Some games are so buggy on release that I refuse to pay to beta test a piece of software for a publisher/developer. And honestly, some games are so bad you'd be doing the developer a favour by pirating them.

5. I don't automatically equate software piracy with theft, which is the message some people are trying to get across.

I've probably spent more than most Malaysians on original software over the years, and I will pay for an original game if the product justifies the expense and i can afford it. But really, I can't justify paying full price for all the games. These are just my personal reasons for using warez.

Actually when i was buying games in the UK, console games usually came with a no questions asked returns policy. Never abused it and only returned games which were extremely crappy. This didn't apply to pc games though for obvious reasons. Come to think of it, I run all my original pc games using no-cd/dvd cracks because it just makes life easier (which is kinda funny in a way).

OK, I'm running a modern dual core pc with 2gb ram and a 8800gts. I like gaming. A lot. It cost me about RM 6k to build. For me that's more than a month's salary. When I was living and working in the UK, this would have cost me less than half of my month's salary. Similarly, original games as a proportion of my salary would have cost a lot less than they do here. Which would make it easier to justify my position.

Looking back over the last few years or so, I've probably spent about RM 30k on my xbox, pc, dreamcast, gamecube, saturn and GBA I have absolutely no regrets about it. At the same time, I could have also gotten the games for free off bittorrent but I still got original games due to it's affordability.

Now I'm in Malaysia, I had to take a huge paycut to come back to the country I love. I'm finding that while it costs the same in absolute terms, it costs a lot more in relative term. While respecting intellectual property laws are a virtue in itself, isn't it also the case that wastefulness can be considered a sin. Arguing that piracy is evil is in my opinion, not a black and white case.

We all know that the only reason the Malaysian government is cracking down on software piracy is to fulfill it's WTO obligations. It's hardly in the country's best interest to stop piracy as most of the revenue from original games goes overseas anyway. It's the same with countries effectively pirating AIDS medicines where people can't afford to pay for original drugs.

You're right that the value of a game is not the price of the delivery system. It is how much the the customer is willing to pay for it, that's how economics is supposed to work in a free market. If you're feeling flush and willing to pay more for a game then i'm happy that you feel you can afford it.

It's funny how people supporting original games don't mention original music, tv programs and movies as well when talking about respecting IP.

Anyway, I'll be buying original games when i feel it's worth it and downloading/buying ciplaks when i don't think it's worth it to buy the originals.

That's actually a pretty good rate of return. That's more than what iphone app developers make per game and about RM2 more than what i paid for defense grid during the steam sale. OF course your argument there is about as relevant to this topic as a bicycle riding fish.

If everyone here accepts that the transition from jack sparrow to original gamer is a long term educational process, everyone on this forum would be a lot less confrontational. I'm just happy if more and more people get turned onto gaming.

RM10 is of course an arbitrary figure but if you insist the calculation would be 10 programmers each earning USD40k per annum working on 1 title per year would result in USD400k development cost which comes out to roughly RM1.4 mill, which means 140,000 units sold. Worldwide, that number is easily achievable especially if you were just charging RM10 (lol) for the game - which you wouldn't - but there's either making RM0 from the game because there will always be people who will not pay full price for a game - or playing the volume game by selling at an impulse buy price.

Thinking about it, local distributors/publishers charging steam sale prices on a more regular basis would probably do more to turn the hearts and minds of pirateers.

COD:MW just passed the billion dollar mark - making more money than Avatar. Compared to the production of the movie, it was probably made by a smaller team over a shorter time than the movie. They had no problem charging me RM10 for the privelege of watching the movie. The problem is the gaming industry is not too bothered about marginal markets like malaysia so your RM120-200 is not likely to make too much of an impact on their balance sheet.

So did I, I would be a hypocrite if i said i've never pirated before. It's a slow educational process to get people who were like us once used to the idea of paying for original games. There's absolutely no need to respond with flames every time some pirate gives a pro piracy opinion. I'd like to think that today's pirates are tomorrow's customers.

The sooner publishers/distributors wake up to the fact and make getting legit copies easier (pricing/availability) than pirating then we'll get to tomorrow.

Ya i agree steam does a really good job on that. Which is a shame because it just demonstrates how hard they are (not) trying on a regional/local level to improve and increase the levels of ori gaming. Was doing some market research on this previously and there is too much price fixing going on at a local level. It's no surprise that retail is where its at in malaysia.

The financial services industry in malaysia is pretty immature at the moment. Was used to banking in the UK previously and some of the things that they are still doing like charging for current accounts and things like that are just silly.

you are right on that point - we are technically paying singapore prices (rather than Thai - sigh) due to the fact that while the income difference is vast it's difficult to differentiate geographically. Another thing, it's difficult for an independent to sell at a discounted price to the RRP if you're trying to maximise profits through volume because you will experience supply chain issues (unreliability, unwillingness to supply ordered quantity, refusal to trade etc).

Even if his English is not perfect, i don't think he's saying that OLD games are worthless - just worth less. Since the majority of you guys QQ whenever there's no multiplayer support in a game, a 1 year old game that does have multi player support just won't have multiple players to support that multi player support since that game will no longer be a game du jour. Because the multi player aspect will be more active in the early days, therefore you can assume that a game will be worth more in it's early days and therefore the higher day 1 prices are more or less justified. "a game in hand is worth two in the bush" or other some such nonsense.

OFC this statement in no way justifies day 1 piracy. I'm just for consumer advocacy and you too would be in seventh heaven if you saw how heavily discounted older games are at retail overseas. Unlike here where we have no consumer power and the elitist have the mindset that if you can't pay then don't play.

ps. Off hand, i can actually think of an old game that's worthless - hellgate:london! lol!

so did i

When someone pirates a piece of software, often he will get an exact copy of the original software (sometimes lacking features eg multiplayer or anti piracy "bugs"). For us gamers who buy original software, we get a feelgood feeling, software that (should) works and some additional value added features. But otherwise it's practically the same thing. A lot of people have a problem getting beyond that.

Sure it's technically illegal and morally wrong - that doesn't change the fact that the illegality is badly enforced and people don't have a moral problem in doing so (and by morality i mean the fact that a pirated videogame vendor does not illicit the same emotional and moral response as say a brothel.)

Does this forum have a responsibility as a community? Yeah, i would say it does but i don't think that should involve judging people who have not joined the ranks of the "ori" gaming community. As a forum mod, apart from enforcing the forum rules, you should encourage people to support the people that created these games - as you mention.

It's about education not persecution.

Putting the moral culpability entirely on the buyer is wrong because there are too many other factors that contribute to the rampant piracy in our country.

It's always good to have a mid-afternoon debate with the mods on this forum on a slow work day.

You are right that in the sense that the buyers are just as responsible for piracy as the organisations that print (the fake) dvds. But there are so many other factors to consider apart from the buyer + seller dynamic that i personally feel that it's wrong to criminalise the buyer. I still stand by my believe that the distribution chains in Malaysia are inherently flawed - investors need to feel a lot more confident in the protection they can get from the government before they start investing or else gaming will forever remain niche in this country.

Yeah there are quite a number people who should know better posting on this forum but (judging from a lot of posts that i see) i suspect that there are quite a lot of teens posting here who are supplied with illicit games by their parents.

You probably don't get this a lot but good job on this forum. (although i would say that you put up with a lot more crap compared to davidgary on who rules the apple sub-forums with an iron fist )

@Juzjoe your post made me do a rofl irl.

Yeah one of the problems is that there are no retail outlets for more casual users. Especially outside of metro areas. Apart from steam, which does not benefit the gaming industry locally, there are very few outlets for (mostly western) developers to reach consumers.

@ H@H@ comic book...