Well ig it can differ, but personally never saw a non regionally devalued AAA game. But most Indies I saw weren't. Although maybe we also thinking different regions. I was talking middle of the road places, where people are poorer and wouldn't be able to afford anything in US, but still are well of in comparison to what are considered third world countries.
As a dev on the tech art team, its publisher and studio specific.
A lot of the time it depends on cash flow. Sometimes you cant afford to sell a game for less than what youre selling it for. Other times you have a team of like, one or three people and the aspects of selling / legal / marketing are foreign to them so they go with the simplest option.
Some studios I worked at did regional and places like Brazil fucking LOVED us for it. Other studios just felt like they couldnt afford to sell a game for the equivalent of avout $2.70 after fees. There are also issues where if you offer it for a relative price in different regions, its pseudo expected to have a localization feature set built in which is EXPENSIVE.
Personally, I love the steam pricing options. It just makes you more visable. The cost can be worth it if the games a hit, but otherwise it could damn well sink the studio or a current projects financing.
Except for team cherry, I live in Philippines as well was prepared to get it for 1k pesos but imagine my surprise it was only around 600! God I love them so much.
I did smth like that once, but only because Bethesda actually published a separate crappier version of Fallout New Vegas in my region. The price was actually the same.
Once again we go back to the statistically proven fact that pirating or doing something like this does not really affect sales, as ppl who do it are not the expected target audience as they would either not buy it or can't afford it or they don't think the game is worth the price, so moral not moral they were never in the calculation.
Weirdly a big issue in the UK too, the UK is consistently one of the 5 most expensive places to buy a game on steam, especially with more high profile games
For example a 60USD game would usually, for some reason, be priced at 60GBP
I don't know who I need to tell this, but USD and GBP is NOT 1:1, not even close...
Even with regional pricing, denizens of poorer countries simply have less money to spend or have more critical priorities, money-wise.
Culture is also a major factor.
I used to pirate everything when I was a teen. There's no such thing as an "allowance" in my country. It's cultural. Teens and kids don't get to have money to spend on what they want.
It was even worse when I was kid. Online piracy wasn't common. The only games my parents bought me were pirated physical copies.
Now I'm an adult, and I work. I buy my games on Steam on a monthly basis. I could pirate, but I choose not to. I share this reality with most of my countrymen.
I had someone tell me I'm cheating for playing with lower graphics in a PvE game even tho it's to ensure good FPS performance, and tell me "well you should get a better performing PC so you can play as intended"
People like this weren't gonna buy the game anyways because the economy is so fucked, might as well pirate it and have fun, culture shouldn't be only allowed for people that have money
There's plenty of culture out there that costs zero money to experience.
I have no problem with piracy, but saying "oh so poor people don't deserve to have fun?" because you need to pay money to play minecraft is a little trite. No you don't "deserve" to play a specific game unless you buy it lol
This is when I just tell him to go 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ it. He has no money, so what the fuck is he even gonna do, rob a bank? At that point might as well just take the plunge and play it anyway.
This post is about how entiteled people feel about poor peope. He most likely will never afford it either way. I grew up very poor and having a PC was a mircale, there was no way I could afford any of the games. I pirated them and played them. Eventually I moved up in life and could afford to buy them. If I haven't pirated them as a kid, I would never buy it later.
If you don't have the means to buy something then it's a wash, you weren't going to buy it anyway so you pirating it doesn't take away from the devs. If anything you become a source of advertisement if you like the game and talk about it online.
Id argue the same goes for things without official channels to purchase through like older games or region exclusive products. If you're not actively selling something in a market then it doesn't matter if that region pirates it.
Now, if you have the means to purchase it, it's sold in your region, and it's a reasonable price then it would be immoral to pirate it.
This is literally the philosophy some game devs have and will actually ENCOURAGE people to pirate their games if they aren’t able to experience them otherwise.
dudes broke and deals with hardships the likes of which my American ass will likely never know, hell i bet the devs would send him a copy; if it didnt mean getting spammed with liars for free copies lol.
edit actually its lookin pretty rough over here lol i dont want to say never
30$ is a significant amount for less developed countries. It's not pocket change for us. In my country we could buy a meal at around 2$. Telling a kid to just pay up like that after he clearly mentioned having financial issues feels a bit stupid. What's he supposed to? Sell an organ?
He might as well pirate because he sure as hell isn't buying.
some people earn 6000php per month so 1600 is a large chunk of that. The time I was more comfortable spending on games was when I was earning at least 30k a month and that's probably considered above average salary for most.
Not even in as much as a underdeveloped country, but here in brazil, if the deve dont do local pricing, thw game costs an equivalent of paying 160$ for a game.
Also, any $ you have in a 3rd world country can be the difference between eating meat or eating spam, sometimes not even eating at all when you're poor.
Neutral. If you can buy it and have tried and enjoyed the game and buy it after to support it its nice to do.
As creator of Minecraft said "Just, pirate it. If you still like it when you can afford it in the future, buy it then. Also don't forget to feel bad. ;)"
"Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it"
Hakita, the creator of ultrakill said this to someone bragging about pirating his game. If you can't afford it the next best thing is to spread it via word of mouth.
I think the “Culture should not be locked behind a paywall” sounds incredibly noble right up until you remember somebody had to spend 3yrs making the culture. Still, pirate if you must is certainly a memorable philosophy.
Studies show that is more likely for someone that pirates a piece media to eventually buy it. If he hadn't pirated it he would have just not played it and that's it. This way he was able to experience the game, which makes it more likely for him to buy it once he is in a better economic situation
I'll pirate a game to give it a try. If I like it I end up buying it. If I think a friend will like it too and we can play together I'll even buy 2 copies
Listen, as an indie game developer, people need to chill tf out about piracy. I'm too lazy to find and link it but market research found that piracy has a net Zero effect on sales of most media, except videogames, which it actually has a positive effect on sales. This is for a number of reasons, such as many people pirating would not have been able to purchase the game anyway, for economic, geographic or legal reasons, and some are at a low enough economic bracket that they can buy a game only once in a while, so they will try a game via piracy and then purchase it once they're able to because people by and large do like supporting the devs of media they enjoy. And then once someone starts playing a game, whether they paid for it or not, if they are enjoying it they tend to talk about it with their friends and family and increase word of mouth about the game, and even if those friends or family can't buy the game and try it through piracy as well, the cycle continues and it perpetuates word of mouth advertising. Piracy is a small net positive and ultimately it's worth it as a dev to know that people who otherwise couldn't enjoy your game, still will, while providing free advertising and giving people who wouldn't have supported the game a chance to later
Not really stealing cause this kid was never going to buy the game since it’s outside of his budget, so him pirating isn’t really costing anyone anything. Additionally, this kid is more happier as a result of the piracy.
There’s basically no losers in this scenario, the devs don’t lose anything and the kid is happier more than he would’ve been otherwise.
Bonus upside: if he plays the game and likes it, he may recommend it to his friends or other people, and they might buy or recommend further. One piracy can end up giving multiple sales and maybe even creating dedicated fans.
By the point of OP's last response there he should have accepted they other person wasn't going to be able to afford it and offer to buy the game for them.
Victimless crime, idk why people are so quick to get up in arms about piracy. Yes it certainly does damage the industry but at the end of the day he can’t afford it. They didn’t lose a customer. But they may have gained a fan of the franchise and created a future customer
The thing with this is if a game doesn't set region specific prices, it might appear extremely expensive to the people of economically struggling countries. If you live in somewhere like the US and have a gaming setup some people couldn't even dream of, then you can easily buy games. That kid is obviously a victim of this and it's better to just pirate than spending all that on a game. Also I wouldn't call 30 dollars a cheap price, it's like double the amount of the price I would say anyone can pay if they really want.
Yes. That is true. I am from the third world and I won't lie, I sail the high seas BUT indie games on steam? Never pirate. Always buy because the regionally price them most of the time. Why pay 60 usd for mindless triple A slop when I can pay 8-12 USD for hollow knight or hades 2?
So I understand this kid. I was this kid a decade ago. Now I have a bit of disposable income to afford gaming and consoles so I buy.
I'm from Philippines and some people I know can survive using P1624 in two weeks. This amount matters a lot in this country. I don't consume games but I do consume anime/manga and such, so yes I pirate.
My rule is simple here, it is to one day get back to these people, once I do generate my own money.
Assuming they’re being truthful the choices here are not between piracy or supporting the dev but between piracy and not playing the game. Software piracy does not deprive the developer of anything except theoretical revenue, so if buying a license was never a realistic alternative, there is pretty objectively no harm.
I would encourage people who pirate games and enjoy them to buy a license later down the line, when they’re able.
What has been seen with low income countries is that they don’t really pirate more than anyone else if you set up regional pricing properly according to relative purchasing power. if the pricing is sufficiently out of reach they will just pirate it.
"Culture shouldn't exist only for those that can afford it" of course your support is a huge help but if you're unable to then why not cut the kid some slack?
I am 40. When I was 14, I was also pirating games. I haven't pirated a game in about the same time, since I now have a job and can afford it (and want to see it in my library because it looks cooler). So I completely get where this kid is coming from because that kid was me once.
I see most of these arguments around "oh its only 30€" or "they are going through hardships and therefore its allowed"
Genuinly i believe, that there is no pressure for you, that you have to play that game, so there is no reason to pirate it. Same with how if a game is too expensive i simply dont play it. But that is a concept that a lot of people do not understand.
If your not going to buy the game, the devs are not making any money anyways, you pirating it is free publicity. You pirating the game and talking about it in school is more valuable to the devs than you not buying it, not playing it, not talking about it.
in the words of Hakita, the creator of Ultrakill, in response to a post talking about pirating Ultrakill:
"As creator of said game: You should support indies if you can, but culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it. ULTRAKILL wouldn't exist if I hadn't had easy access to movies, music and games growing up. If you don't have money, you can support via word of mouth.
Even the more business-minded people around can recognise that if you pirate a game, then enjoy it, spread word about it and get someone else to buy it, that's at worst an equal trade, at best an additional sale that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't pirated it."
Not much else can be said on the subject, I don't think it should be that hard to understand that not everybody can't afford to splurge on a 60-80$ game or a new 600$ console.
One reason for this is that they can put enough time into the game to know if they would want to buy it.
Buying games you haven't played is risky because you might not like the game, and it might take more than 2 hours of gameplay to realize that. And once you've played it for 2 hours you're no longer eligible for a refund.
Or can be pro piracy, if the series or game would be available on a good device, but isnt.
Or of the service its on, is a money crabbing shit fest (netflix)
orrrr if the product is not even available to purchase anymore (like nintendo games)
You can't say "I'm pro piracy" and then proceed to say the creators deserve to get paid to a 14 year old kid from a 3rd world country, that's backwards. Kid's right to pirate if he can't afford it
Piracy is only acceptable if you're from a first world country and can afford the game without piracy. Otherwise, get fucked, should've been born in a country that can afford videogames.
What bothers me about those peoples reactions is that they don't even have that original thought..they just copy pasting what someone said with literally not another seconds thought.
I've heard an indie developer once say something like "I understand if you can't afford the game and want to pirate it. If you can in the future, please support the game", or something like that (not verbatim).
This is why I love indie devs. They make great games cheap and even then they understand some can't afford their games, because they too were in their position once.
Meanwhile, the AAA devs sitting on their ivory throne give us many time the generic stuff and flip the monocle if we say we can't afford their game (Borderlands 4 and the CEO of Gearsoft).
Just pirate the game. He doesn't have the money, there's nothing he could do. When he gets the money, and still wants to contribute, then he can pay for a copy of the game.
"I have two ideas in my head that are entirely incongruent" 😅
Honestly the best reason to not pirate in a first world country is that it can actually ruin your life. Nobody gives a shit in China or Thailand but you can actually get caught here and some ISPs love handing over what you did.
I agree with Hakita (ULTRAKILL creator's) on this: If you can't or don't wanna buy the game, pirate it and talk about the game to others if you liked it (which I am doing despite having bought ULTRAKILL, which I've namedroped twice already).
Pirate now, buy later (when (if) you got enough to afford it as a luxury wjthout thinking much about the money it cost you.)
I think people from the developed world are too quick to judge and have opinions while not understanding what it means living in the Global South.
Especially when you consider that if you’re randomly born somewhere, the Philippines isn’t the best but also not the worst, on a global population level it’s probably in the middle of the pack.
So morality? There’s already a value judgement in the post in the first place. It’s easy to judge if you’re born in a country with legacy wealth and working systems.
Piracy is always moral. I can afford to buy games and books and pay for movies and TV shows. But I don't, because why waste money when you can get these stuff for free?
immoral. he was never even a customer, "devs" in question mean either people who work for large companies, get paid salaries and do not care whether a game gets pirated or not because they do not do it out of kindness of their hearts and it is not their money to lose or indie devs who happen to be so indie and passion driven they make millions off the game. meanwhile that poor kid? you literally want him to spend precious money his parents overworked for that they can instead spend on raising the kid in question and their potential siblings.
My take is that AAA companies have enough and rarely deserve it, and most indie devs make games to make games, not to farm profit. If you have to pirate an indie cuz you can't afford it, you can support the devs in other ways by telling people how good the game was and encouraging people who CAN afford it to support it.
It’s not a good thing, but I can’t really place judgement on a poor 13 year old for pirating. I sure as hell did it when I was 13 and poor.
They aren’t doing it in place of buying it to be fair. For them it’s either pirate it, or don’t experience it at all. Nothing is really being harmed or lost by their pirating in this scenario. I’d say it’s probably about morally neutral.
But just because it is immoral doesn't mean they shouldn't do it.
Like, this person has no money, if there is no regional pricing that is even worse.
It is a kid wanting to play a game. They should ask their parents regardless. If parents say they can't afford it, they should go ahead and pirate it if they really want to play.
This is not a customer the developers missed due to piracy. It is someone who was never gonna be able to buy the game anyways.
Moral. Some people just don't or won't have the resources to access something. And piracy is mostly done on already popular games which have gotten huge profits too so it doesn't affect the creators that much.
As from someone in the Philippines, 1.6k is a significant amount. You can't just ask your parents for that money nor can you just spend it on frivolities. 1.6k is two weeks worth of groceries, or one month worth of electric bill, or four months worth of water bill, then again, I live alone.
If they truly would be unable to buy the game then there is no harm done, they would not have been able to spend that money so the devs don’t lose money. And perhaps later they will buy the game when they can afford it (if they really like the game).
I don't develop games, but I do write books; if someone can't afford it for whatever reason I gift them the ebook or straight up send them the PDF or EPUB if they reach out to me.
Idk how is this even a question, let the man play the game however he can.
moral, its the fault of gaming companies to assume that everyone is from a 1st world country and just has throw away cash laying around, if you are not gonna adjust pricing as per PPP of course you are gonna loose audience to pirating and even then the majority of people who pirate if they like the game they do buy it when they are financially able to support their hobbies and therefore the developer
It’s a game, people, I understand it’s not the best thing to avoid paying for a game, but different prices affect different places, not to mention people of all economic status.
As a wise man once said “culture shouldn’t exist only for those who can afford it.”
As someone who's from neighboring country. I know how it's feel. I know pirate isn't the most moral thing to do, but I think that's one of way to support their work. As long you like it.
I remembered Hakita saying along the lines about its okay to pirate as long you support the dev and the game something like that and I kinda agree. I myself pirated a port of ultrakill on mobile and had fun. I was able to share things about ultrakill making it free advertisement.
Ik some ppl will disagree w/ me and say I should buy the game but I gotta do whatever I can so I can play the game, especially when video games and devices are expensive in my country.
I think if you can afford it, then you should def buy the original thing to support the dev, esp smaller devs. But if you can’t afford it then I don’t blame you for pirating it
Simple. Is the kid capable of making the purchase? If yes, they are stealing a sale from the creator. If no, there was never going to be a sale and thus nothing is being denied from the creator.
If there is no harm to another then there is no way for the action to be immoral. In this case, the sale is what is being stolen as pirating software does not deny the software from its original owner as theft normally would. And since the kid is unable to purchase the game, there was never a sale to withhold.
Yeah they don't know much about how it is trying to game in a third world country. The pc you guys will spend 5k we will spend 30k at bare minimum. The 30 dolar game is 90 for us. There is no way to compete.
Here’s how I view it- pirating makes them a fan that will possibly spend money to support it in the future. Not pirating means they’ll never be a fan and never support the creators
Obviously, there’s a lot more nuance to this. But this is my overly simplified view
They do deserve to get paid and all, but why are people such assholes??? Guy just said that they couldn't afford the game since it's multiple hundreds and doesn't wanna bother their parents by asking for 1,600+ Php and got hated on for being reasonable???
Privileged people that can't fathom others not being able to afford things they can. 30 dollars for an underage kid in a poor country is a good amount of money.
I have a buddy that lives in the Philippines (he grew up here in the US and then went there because his money is worth a lot more there) and that mf lives like a king and he only makes like $3,000 a month. It’s like a non stop vacation for that man. lol
I think piracy is morally acceptable when someone genuinely doesn’t have the means to access the media otherwise.
Ideally, people should support the creators when they can. Creators deserve to be compensated for their work.
But if I made something, I’d rather someone who couldn’t afford it still be able to enjoy it than have them completely excluded from experiencing it because they don’t have the money.
Completely agree with 14 yo here, the guy writing usd prices has no clue how much poorer people are in other countries. Plus at 14 you have no income. Unless his parents are top 5-10% income in the Philippines buying videogames is a huge luxury. Btw average monthly income in Philippines is 380 usd. For a full time worker. A back end developer earns like a 1000 usd there. That is already top 10% income.
And copying a game is not stealing, no one will have less games because it’s a copy nor less income because he couldn’t pay anyways.
If he can’t otherwise buy it but wants to play it then the world is better when he pirates it. Of course if everyone could easily pirate everything nothing would get made due to the lack of incentive but it seems like the game is effectively expensive for him due to exchange rates and all.
It's immoral to beat down a poor kid for not being able to afford a game. If a poor kid steals food, do you take it away? Yeah food is a necessity and game is a luxury but its still immoral to criticise a kid for their lack of money. You either look away or you buy it for the kid.
Not buying? Am I evil for not buying the scammy shit some marketing agent's trying to sell me and hence not contributing to economy? No, then how am I evil for willingly deciding not to buy something
Assuming that "poor" don't exist? Ignorance isn't a crime, nor is it evil. Giving advice despite it is arbitrary, but there's no ill intent or any evil done.
Piracy?
Everyone knows it isn't stealing, it's an alternative means of distribution.
We could argue about indie, indie stuff doesn't usually cost much and the creators really make living from your patronage.
As for corporations, fuck them, they can all go bankrupt for all I care.
When you buy the new FIFA, you aren't contributing to the creators of the game, you're paying EA that has a history of treating it's employees like shit.
We could argue that pirating SOME AAA games is morally positive.
That entire conversation is weird, but I don't think there's anything immoral about it.
I just looked up the minimum wage in the Phillipines and it ranges from P386 to P695 daily depending on the location, meaning this game would cost anywhere from 2.34 to 4.21 days worth of labor. That would be equivalent to hundreds of dollars in the United States (and anywhere else with a decently high minimum wage), so it absolutely makes sense that OOP would pirate this game.
Personally if I can't afford something, I don't steal it. I don't know why are we acting like paying for products or services is optional, it's not a tip.
I remember when I was a kid, there was a Barbie doll that I really wanted (the hair colour was changing under different temperature) but we couldn't afford it and I understood that I can't have everything I want. That's life.
Neither me or my mom have thought of stealing it from the store. We didn't feel entitled to it cause we were poor and I deserved to have a nice doll. Toys, games, etc. are luxury not necessity. We weren't starving to make moral excuse here, it was just a doll a kid wanted because it was fancy.
Now I'm earning good money and I spend it on the hobbies just fine. Still didn't occur to me I should've stolen the doll. For some reason people think that if something is digital then it's not stealing, but how is that different? Other than the chance of being caught is smaller which makes people more brave.
And as for OP, there's so many free games to play. It's not like they don't have other options.
Stealing is wrong, the degree to which that's the case is based on how much harm you cause. Pirating is just about the least amount of harm that stealing can do, since all that's lost is the potential sale.
Pirating from indie devs is the most harmful form of piracy because they rely on the sales more than larger companies. It's unlikely that this person would have been a sale though, because of the pricing issue and their income.
People just need to shut up about what they take instead of bragging on the internet, especially if they're going to play the victim when pressed.
Very mildly negative; less bad than never putting a penny in the Take a Penny, Leave a Penny Tray despite taking from it, but on god keep your piracy to yourself like the rest of us.
Always support devs, and games are a luxury… but being a broke 14 year old who’s reliant on your parents to buy you games sucks, and I can only imagine it’s a lot worse outside the US where prices are skewed.
I’m sure the kid would happily pay if they were able to.
I live in south east asia, and most game price are insane here. For example, our minimum wage is about $90 per month, and a game costing $30 or more is already 10 days worth of work. I do pay if the price is fair, but if not? I'd rather not pay it. So i kinda understand those Philippines guys opinion
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u/TheMrViper 1d ago
Not sure on the game here but assuming steam?
So im going to work with the assumption the values on this are true.
That means the developer has ignored steam regional pricing which is designed to ensure a "fair price" in other regions (not all, I know).
If that was the case then the game should be less than 1000php, it costs 60% more than it should according to steams regional pricing.