Weekend Open Forum: Where do you get your entertainment?

As it stands I pirate about 80% of content for the simple reason it's easier. Even if I like something and go out and buy it then I will download the ripped version so I don't have to stuff around with DVDs etc. Blu-Ray is a classic example, it's a PAIN to play them but double click on the MKV file and away it goes. I am happy to pay for what I watch but give it to me in a way that isnt hard to deal with.

That last point is moot anyway, 80% of the stuff I pirate is typically because it doesn't come out here for 3-12 months (or never) until after US. A lot of those streaming services etc just dont work here so I think piracy really is the only available method.

I've never 'pirated' games, movies or music that I really like just asked my sister do download some songs that I think are cool(but not great, usually reminding me of something in a movie or a game) from something called limewire.

I get my movies from online stores like Amazon and Play.com mostly, same with games and music mostly from iTunes but much prefer CD than digital download.

But in future, and I really hope Ubisoft somehow reads this - if they keep going with their absolute garbage anti-piracy thing(need to be connected to the internet to play flippin single player) then I WILL be Jack Sparrowing their PC games from now on =P

In my opinion that is the only bad thing about Splinter Cell Conviction on PC.

I stream Netflix movies on my PS3. Games- Well I pretty much only play World of Warcraft at the moment, other than that I go to Gamestop and buy used PS3 titles. As far as music is concerned, I used to download via limewire, yet recently discovered the kick *** awesomeness of Zune Pass on my zune hd.

Hmm... looks like you can't quote as a guest, so I just have to do it manually.

Quote Burty117:
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I own many games on PC, Xbox 360 and ps2. I am 17 years old (about to hit 18 in 27 days!) and my family is not what i would call "Rich" instead, the day i decided I wanted to build a computer and I went and got a paperround, after that I now have a full career in IT and have done since i was 16!

Anyone who blames it on being poor have nothing to say except they are lazy sh*ts that cannot be bothered to get a job and actually make something of themselves.

I can go from being poor in a small house with my parents and owning practically nothing, to finally buying the games and content I want, why can't you?

I Live in High Wycombe (Just outside London) and here i know plenty of people who Pirate, and I have warned them that laws are coming in to stop them, yet they take no notice, Even though its my best friend, i cannot wait for him to get caught!
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*clap clap clap*

I hope you are really proud of yourself, your great career achievements and the unfathomable amount of wisdom that you have collected in the 17... correction... almost 18 years that you have been kind enough to grace us all with. Your friend is truly a blessed person to have someone like you waiting for him to be caught. That is the epitome of great friendship and patience.

Anyway...

This is the omniscient answer that I have been waiting for. I thank thee from the bottom of my heart. I have been wrong all along it would appear. I have autism, recurrent depression and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). There are days where I physically cannot even go shopping although the shops are less than 10 minutes from where I live. I have been forced to give up something as simple as casually raiding once a week in World of Warcraft because of the cognitive impairment that comes along with the ME. I could go on for ages about the limitations that I face every second as a result of these conditions, but it matters not. As you so eloquently put it, I am nothing but a poor lazy sh*t that cannot be bothered to get a job and actually make something of myself. Again, thank you for the enlightenment. I shall now go find a job. I am not picky, so surely there must be someone willing to hire someone as capable as me.

Thank you...

Thank you...

Sarcasm aside, I am glad that I live in a country where being disabled still means having enough to maintain a roof over my head, buy decent clothing, eat healthy food and still leave me with enough for a few luxury items. However, as witnessed above, I do get mildly upset when uneducated people come barging in claiming to be all knowing and that people who are poor are just too lazy to get a job and use that as an excuse for pirating. If -only- things were -that- simple... but at least I got some entertainment out of posting a response

As much as I would love to, a job is out of the question. I tried and failed. That was before the ME entered the picture, which turned a difficult situation into pure Hell on Earth. So I'm stuck with what I have and must accept that. The end result of that is that I have too many hours to kill and not a whole lot of money to kill them with. That makes pirating almost impossible to avoid. I try to keep it at a minimum though, because it just isn't the way to go however you twist, spin and turn it, nor is it much of a valid excuse. I know what I'm doing is wrong. It's just that there are times where I find that I have little choice.

Thankfully, MMOs are great time wasters at $15 per month and it's often possible to get some really good special offers on Steam if you're patient. There are also plenty of net based radio stations and free music made by hobby musicians. YouTube is always good for a laugh and a you can easily find a truckload of websites with fun or interesting stuff to surf through. Movies and TV series I don't care much for to begin with. As a result, I've found very little need to pirate and I'm estimating that I've spend somewhere between $500 to $1000 so far this year on things that I could have easily pirated. Not bad for a poor lazy old slob

Of course... all that money came from working taxpayers... so who is really paying in the end? Ah... crap eh?

-F

If you think that piracy is why games cost $60 then you are crazy. Its all greed on the side of gaming companies. I look back to windows 98 days when UT, Quake and many others offered countless hours of play, no 3 gig patches, connected to servers 90% of time (when most of us had 1mb dsl)!
Diablo, Starcraft, Command and conquer all worked out of the box and did not need huge patches...oh and guess what else all these games were under $50! I am a huge gamer and can count on my hand how many people know how to pirate pc games. Most gamers buy the games. Every since EA and other huge companies took over games have sucked and got more expensive. Do not blame it on piracy

.

Mate, i wasn't offending you, So you CAN'T get a job? really? and if you don't have the money don't Pirate. Simple as that, no one in their right mind HAVE the urge to Pirate, its not Crack for Christ sake! delete bit torrent or Vuze or what ever you use. take away any means of pirating if need be and see if your still breathing in the morning...(24 hours later) YOU are breathing! well now you wern't as addicted to Piracy as i first thought.

Anyway as you said last "who is paying for it last". Tax payers like me, Now don't get me wrong, i don't mind my tax going to people with disabilitys or education or anything like that, but its people like you I hate it going to, someone who, yes unfortunately, has a disability yet you completely backstab people like myself and millions of others out their (my Girlfriends ex's mum had a mental issue stopping her from working but she never spent her disability allowance pirating and playing games) and you even seem happy about it?! Its people like you that give everyone else a bad name.

Now i'm not coming in pretending i know all, but i haven't exactly started off great in life either, as you can see i'm crap at spelling, hell your better than me at spelling! Anyway i'm (nearly) 18 yet i can already see Pirating is wrong and what its doing to our games industry (I will always remember getting red alert 2 and it installed and just worked! unlike most of todays games). Why not stop the Pirating, stop getting all upset by 17 year olds and just save up for games, music etc...

Although your right about things like WoW offering basically unlimited playability for a cheap price every month and Steam once offered the orange box for £5!!!! thats just an insane amount of game(s) for such a low price!

And I am a good friend, I warned him that the law will catch up with him sooner or later and he has done nothing to Heed my Warning! best of luck to him is all i can say

It obviously not responsible for all $60 of the price. But to think that that piracy does not add to the cost of goods and services is plain false. and to believe it does not is preposterous.

Geezus, your serious ey? okay, gee I'm not sure but that might have been due to the entire games being a total of 300 megabytes,much less detailed,realistic,and sophisticated.
and BTW what games are there exactly that have required 3 gigabyte patches?

really!? you personally know 2-5 people who know how to crack the code and steal them? How do you know that they know how to pirate games?....thanks for making my point.

Geez, you make this too easy. It wasn't my assertion that "most steal" them. But guess what!? that 'less than 50%" who don't......cost people like me who actually pay for them.

Whats great about this is that in a free country they get to ask whatever price they want, and if you don't like the product, or don't think its worth the 'asking' price....you have the option of not buying it!

oh i believe I will, because its true.

hello ...

WOW, it's always wonderful to see how we react to such 'hot' topic

we need to face it:

- $60 for a game isn't expensive when you consider the work done, millions of originals are still sold & we are not afraid to buy something we like, whether it be of great quality or not. Go check the sales figures!

- I used to have illegal copies at a time where there were no internet & could only buy from the few shops who themselves were selling pirated contents. Since the government of my country changed the laws, we now have more & more legal stores & the pirates are being sued & jailed. I buy from the net for better price & choice, i can say that in my part of the world piracy is mostly due to the lack of supply versus a great demand & at some point even a lack of legislation mix with some ignorance.

- to those using piracy with pretexts, like i'm poor, no job, with disabilities, i'm a student, etc ... if you look harder you will find that some games are really cheap. OK i understand you want the newest games ASAP, believe me with some efforts you may get what you want easily, try do some online jobs like data entry or text redaction, i've seen so much that i'm sure everyone can make it. There's even some gaming sites that sell 1 game @ a real low price / week & gives some cash back voucher on sales or on referral links. I know someone who's blind & who works on the net, so i'm sorry for those who have some limitations, but not only to fight piracy but for everything else, go that extra mile (au figuré bien sur!) ...

I'm so happy i can call myself an Ex-pirate, still maybe i never was for like said previously, i never finished a game before, now it's more than a necessity. I rarely listen to music, except on radio, now on streaming site & do buy a few albums locally or online, i watch TV & go to theaters, buy original blu-rays & play mostly on PS3. On PC it's for the wify, but i get most of her games off myplaycity which is legit & some are cheap enough off steam, GoG, etc ...

piracy can be eliminated, with willpower it can be done. I thank SONY for considering developers & releasing a reliable & secured system, Steam & alike (D2D/GoG) for providing a really great platform for PC gamers & so often at the best price around, myplaycity for the freewares & certainly you people, for you are aware of what you are doing & most are willing to stay on the right side.

cheers!

If piracy effects the retail price then why are ps3 games not cheaper?

Music: Used to download quite a bit during the Napster/ Kazaa days, I don't anymore. I've never been huge into music, but I'll buy the occasional CD and rip it onto my computer.

Gaming/Software: Before I had a full time job I used to trade software with my friends quite a bit. One of us would buy the game and the rest would make a copy. My C64 game library was mostly copies and cracked games. Now that I do work full time I buy what I want. Steam is an awesome service for pc gaming and for consoles, if I wait long enough I can get just about any game for $15-$30.

Movies/Tv: I don't have cable anymore and I don't miss it. I download the shows I want to watch and if I really enjoy the series I'll buy it on dvd. I'd use netflix but that isn't available in canada.

For movies I used to pay and download them off xbox live but since they changed it to the zune marketplace there is very little content now (at least in canada). Now I'll download some latest releases that look like they might be ok but I don't want to waste money on. I do live down the street from both a movie theater and a movie store so I do frequent them when ever there is something good playing. I won't download a handy cam version as the quality is too poor to bother with (I'm a bit of an a/v snob as I used to work for a high end a/v store). If I enjoy the movie I'll usually buy it when it come out on dvd.

Cheaper than what?
My assertion (which I know of first hand ) is that corporations account for ,and calculate a cost of X% in to the price of the product for theft loss. I'm surmising that from your post that PS3 games are incapable of being hacked and pirated? if that indeed is true. than the question would be 'how much extra would they be if they were being pirated?' if you think that they are just to expensive, that's your opinion, but it may be that CODMW2 @ $48.54 is simply the cost of production X x% profit margin, or that the cost of theft/piracy is amortized across all versions of the game: X-box,PS3,PC etc. I think the second is more likely

I definitely do pirating, but I also buy used movie and video game. I still go to the movie theater. Music wise I get them online thru share server site or torrent with fast cable internet. It all depends on the content itself, if it worth owning it. I don't know anyone who don't do pirating.

Sadly guest....I believe you.
I have a question though. do you think that makes it okay? or do you just not care?

Usually, I get my entertainment at a bar.

Music = Torrents, or direct from artist when it's available (e.g. Nine Inch Nails)
Movies, TV Shows = Lovefilm (DVD mail rental service)
Games = Torrents, or Steam if it the price is heavily reduced

i usually download all my music, via torrents.. or off of rapidshare

if i find out that i enjoy a certain album, i will buy it

they opened this topic to see how badly piracy is now.
keep confessing all your sins.

If piracy stops, I will stop watching movies, tv shows, playing games, and just be stuck with my pirated music collection. which i download anything i see online but never actually listen to.

i don't do limewire anymore.. lets leave it at that..

and as for dvd's red box + DVD ripper =