Why Pirate?

by Frank Provo

Software piracy has been an issue for as long as bits and bytes have been in existence. A majority of the population looks down upon piracy, at least in some form or another, and there are even people who's job it is to fight this "epidemic." The SPA tries, Microsoft tries, and even Nintendo and their cohorts try their hand at quelling piracy each year, but to no avail.

NES, SNES, and Genesis games can be found for the simple cost of disk space. The old Commodore 64 was a veritable bastion to pirates with its floppy disk system. More recently, Saturn and Playstation games have crept into the CD Rom burners' hands and out into the mainstream. For about $10-15, and a little patience, one can buy a bootleg console CD game. True, you don't get the original box art, and you usually don't get a manual, but having a game for 1/4th the retail cost is quite entrancing.

You have to give Sega and Sony credit though, they did try. Sega's security track system was thought to be foolproof, for all of 3 months. Sony's attempt to have the console check for originals was a good idea as well, until it was thwarted by a simple piece of tape. You have to wonder how effective Nintendo 64 security features will be as well. Sure, the games are going to be big for cartridge games, but is an N64 copier that far off? Probably not.

This of course brings one to the age old question: Why Pirate? One camp would have you believe that they only pirate software because they want to try it out first, or they want to back up their investment. This is usually the same camp that says they only pirate games they wouldn't otherwise purchase, and that they will purchase a game if it's good enough. Interesting way of justifying it, but probably not the truth for a great majority of people.

The second camp is more honest. They make it known that they bootleg because games cost too much, and they can't afford to keep paying through the nose for. You have to give them points for honesty. Ironically, it is these same people who tend to be the ones with the 166Mhz Pentium, a Matrox Millenium, 6X CD Rom, 17 inch monitor, etc.

What it all boils down to is that the majority of pirates can indeed afford the software they're swiping. Very few pirates are actually too poor to buy a game, and by the same token very few are outwardly brazen in their actions. I'm not trying to judge whether piracy is good or bad, or point out a group of people who pirate. There are good things about piracy, but like anything however, it also has its bad points.

Indeed, there are both pros and cons to purchasing or creating bootleg software. The Pros: Cheap software. It's easier to build a huge software library. A person can make a reasonable profit selling bootlegs. Many people feel good when they're doing something illicit. Piracy makes people feel important, "bigger" than they normally are. And of course, it allows one to take a stand against increasing game prices.

Now the Cons: Piracy cuts into developers budgets, and small developers can be obliterated by it. Piracy can result in higher game prices due to shrinking profit margins or increasing security budgets. Retailers make less money, which in turn causes them to stop stocking as many games, which again in turn decreases the possible selection available to pirates and non-pirates alike. You can't easily trade bootleg games with people, especially since if you have a lot of them you don't need any of the titles they're offering anyway. Finally, another con is that people do indeed lose their jobs over it. You can't exactly afford to keep a lot of programmers around unless you previous game sold well.

I doubt anyone would argue with the pros and cons outlined above, even if they are brutal. People pirate for many reasons, just as those who don't pirate do so for their own reasons. Rich people pirate. Poor people pirate. Old people, young people, all types of people pirate. Does this make them bad? Maybe, maybe not. Is what they're doing right? Maybe, maybe not.

The bottom line is that we all have to take responsibility for our actions. If you choose not to pirate games then you must live with the cost involved. If you choose to get bootlegs then you had better be prepared to live with the fact that you're probably causing someone to lose their job someplace, or at least their next meal. History has shown that piracy cannot be stopped, only hindered, and like it or not it's a fact of life.