A moral dillema?

edited March 2010 in General Chat
Well not really. But here's the thing. I pre-ordered Bad Company 2 and i'm really looking forward to it. But i've heard (meaning I checked because i'm curious) that it's leaked on to the tubes. Tempted as I am i'm not gonna download it.

What I wanna know is, do you think it's morally right for me to download it seeing as i've forked over my money even if it is breaking release date?

Personally I can't see the harm in it myself if i've already payed and even already played the game (beta and all that) unless there's some factor i'm missing on how it would be harmful to the devs/publisher (outside of flat-out piracy of course)

What say you people?

Edit: Oh great I spent dilemma wrong, now I feel super smart

Comments

  • edited February 2010
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  • edited February 2010
    This topic has been reported to the F.B.I. Your IP address has been logged and will be monitored in the future.

    I'm out of their juristiction, i'm golden baby!
  • edited February 2010
    Well… it’s free to wait, so why don’t you just wait ? ^^
    That’s how I see things. The leak is not legal. So downloading it is illegal. Time does not cost much, and except if you have an empty life with no passion and no patience, there is no point to do that.
    Then, what can be bad about it ? You’re never sure if you have the real final version. You can experience huge bugs. It can be a virus. If it’s an online game, you can be banned. You can also cause problems in their servers. A lot of people don’t care. But it’s not worth it in my opinion.
    Last thing, if you’re downloading from bittorrent, you’re normally meant to share at least a ratio by 1 of what you’ve downloaded. Only two results possible :
    1- Your name is disrespect, and you won’t share a bit.
    2- You’re man enough to respect the deal. You’re distributing illegal copy.
  • edited February 2010
    Yohmi wrote: »
    Well… it’s free to wait, so why don’t you just wait ? ^^
    That’s how I see things. The leak is not legal. So downloading it is illegal. Time does not cost much, and except if you have an empty life with no passion and no patience, there is no point to do that.
    Then, what can be bad about it ? You’re never sure if you have the real final version. You can experience huge bugs. It can be a virus. If it’s an online game, you can be banned. You can also cause problems in their servers. A lot of people don’t care. But it’s not worth it in my opinion.
    Last thing, if you’re downloading from bittorrent, you’re normally meant to share at least a ratio by 1 of what you’ve downloaded. Only two results possible :
    1- Your name is disrespect, and you won’t share a bit.
    2- You’re man enough to respect the deal. You’re distributing illegal copy.

    Pretty much all the reasons i'm not gonna download it, and if I did (which I won't) I certainly wouldn't take it online. But for Joe Consumer who's already payed these are kind of minor things is what i'm trying to get across I guess. I could say "well i've payed i'm doing no harm" and bull on happy as larry.

    Deep down I know it's not right though otherwise i'd have fired that mother up about an hour ago
  • edited February 2010
    JedExodus wrote: »
    Edit: Oh great I spent dilemma wrong, now I feel super smart

    Hihihihi.

    Hum. Anyways, I personally think you can own a digital copy of something you've bought, morally it doesn't seem wrong, however if you torrent it you need to realise that while you're downloading it, you'll be allowing other people to download it, too, who might not have bought it. So unless you have a feature that makes you download it without being anyone's peer and that you don't seed afterwards, you're still hurting the game.
  • edited February 2010
    Avistew wrote: »
    Hum. Anyways, I personally think you can own a digital copy of something you've bought, morally it doesn't seem wrong, however if you torrent it you need to realise that while you're downloading it, you'll be allowing other people to download it, too, who might not have bought it. So unless you have a feature that makes you download it without being anyone's peer and that you don't seed afterwards, you're still hurting the game.
    That analysis isn't quite complete. By downloading you are also using up capacity that could've been used to serve someone else. If your share ratio is below 1, you are effectively reducing the illicit availability of the game. And this is generally trivial to do.
    So under these circumstances, I can't see a moral problem with it.
  • edited February 2010
    JedExodus wrote: »
    Well not really. But here's the thing. I pre-ordered Bad Company 2 and i'm really looking forward to it. But i've heard (meaning I checked because i'm curious) that it's leaked on to the tubes. Tempted as I am i'm not gonna download it.

    What I wanna know is, do you think it's morally right for me to download it seeing as i've forked over my money even if it is breaking release date?

    Personally I can't see the harm in it myself if i've already payed and even already played the game (beta and all that) unless there's some factor i'm missing on how it would be harmful to the devs/publisher (outside of flat-out piracy of course)

    What say you people?

    Edit: Oh great I spent dilemma wrong, now I feel super smart

    So what if you have paid, you personally haven't got the right to break release date, neither did the person who leaked the file. If a merchant breaks street date, then that is on them, and they can be fined for it. It may not be directly harmful to Dice or EA, but you are inflating the demand for an illegitimately obtained copy. By purchasing a game, you are buying the right to play your copy, not someone else's.

    The real question here is: can you really not wait till Friday for the release date?
  • edited February 2010
    patters wrote: »
    By purchasing a game, you are buying the right to play your copy, not someone else's.

    Don't quote me on my legalese, but I was under the impression that you didn't buy a copy of the game, but a licence to play the game
  • edited February 2010
    JedExodus wrote: »
    Don't quote me on my legalese, but I was under the impression that you didn't buy a copy of the game, but a licence to play the game

    Are different words with the same interpretation.
  • edited February 2010
    It doesn't really matter. My MI1 and 2 Disc is really scratched, and my copy of MI3 stalls during the opening cinematic. I already paid for em once (and in fact I bought a second copy of MI3, but it freezes heaps even though it's not scratched) so I felt allright downloading the ROM's, it meant I could play MI2 on my DS.

    But I think breaking a release date is more of an issue. It's illegal, and although it doesn't affect sales whether you download it or not (no-matter what, pirates will pirate the game, the release date affects nothing), the risk of being caught with an unreleased game is pretty high. Often those torrents are monitored and notices will be sent to your ISP, and if you play online your steam account or IP will be banned from all the servers. Same goes for consoles, they'll have it set up so that your game will brick when you connect.

    It's a victimless crime if you already own the game, but it'll be a waste of downloads and it's a big risk for a few days. I'd personally just wait.

    That being said, I am getting pretty damn impatient about FFXIII. I can see where you're coming from.
  • edited March 2010
    patters wrote: »
    So what if you have paid, you personally haven't got the right to break release date

    So it arrived today and it's not out untill tomorrow. Does playing it today make me scum? :p
  • edited March 2010
    JedExodus wrote: »
    So it arrived today and it's not out untill tomorrow. Does playing it today make me scum? :p

    Of course not. It's not your fault you got it early, that fault is with the postal service and the distributor.
  • edited March 2010
    JedExodus wrote: »
    What I wanna know is, do you think it's morally right for me to download it seeing as i've forked over my money even if it is breaking release date?

    Personally I can't see the harm in it myself if i've already payed [...]
    What say you people?

    Yes. If you download a torrent though, just turn your upload rate all the way down if that makes you feel better about it. You bought it. You own it. Who cares? Just don't distribute it. In this way it would be the same as if you bought a copy and a friend bought a copy, then your CD scratched and so you borrowed his to make an ISO for yourself.

    Harald B wrote: »
    If your share ratio is below 1, you are effectively reducing the illicit availability of the game. And this is generally trivial to do. So under these circumstances, I can't see a moral problem with it.

    Agreed.


    ...You know, I wonder what the number is of people who rant about how wrong this idea is, that might be: a) software pirates but don't want to admit it; b) nooby enough not to know how to accomplish the task involved anyway; c) console gamers (and therefore unaffected by the prospect) or; d) people who always drive exactly the speed limit or less (which annoys me when enough of them drive next to each other which creates a bottleneck in traffic.)
  • edited March 2010
    JedExodus wrote: »
    Don't quote me on my legalese, but I was under the impression that you didn't buy a copy of the game, but a licence to play the game

    that is correct, if you can prove you own a legal copy (say the case to the disks as evidence) it is not illegal. This is why I don't feel guilty about Cracking my copy of Guitar Hero 3 for Mac

    but if you download the leak, I'm pretty sure it is as the game isnt out yet.
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