Do you pirate? And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?

Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 358 points –

Well, my friend, he's kinda poor he can't afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don't understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.

He usually doesn't like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it's the right move to pirate

Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn't pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.

He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let's all hope that day is soon.

What are your piracy habits?

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The last games I purchased are Dave the Diver and BG3. Those games have something in common:

  1. No DLCs.
  2. No DRM.
  3. No external launchers.
  4. Internet connection is not required to play.
  5. Those games are polished, not broken and activelly supported/maintained/updated.

All other titles I simply pirate. Here are my reasons:

  1. Runs like trash on day 1.
  2. 60-80€ price for a buggy mess.
  3. Companies usually under-deliver of what's promised.
  4. Has DRM (hurts performance) or requires active internet connection (hello steam deck while I am on a plane) or has additional launcher bullshit.
  5. Ubisoft usually copy/paste games (assassins creed, far cry series). I don't want to pay 80€ for a game with a new map and new skins, while everything else is literally the same mess.
  6. Not sure if I'd like the game (for 60-80eur). Companies no longer release trials.

Regarding this:

  1. Not sure if I'd like the game (for 60-80eur). Companies no longer release trials.

Once upon a time, I pirated Subnautica. Played for 10 minutes and realized "fuck it" and I bought both games. Realised that this is going to be a loooong game for me. No regrets supporting the company - those became one of my favorite games of all time.

For me, paying 20-60 eur (depending on a game) is fine and using Steam is more convenient, but in most cases - piracy is usually more convenient to me. :)

BG3 has an external launcher. At least in the GOG version. You don't need to sign in though and I believe it still works DRM-free.

You can add a launch param to go straight into the game though.

Really? I changed my shortcut to go directly to an exe rather than through GOG, I still get the Larian launcher come up. Maybe I need to choose a different exe?

No, it is just a launch parameter on the .exe file

It works in steam for certain, maybe it will work as a launch parameter on the .exe. Just add it at the end of Target in the shortcut properties, so it should look like this:

"game_location\bin\bg3.exe" --skip-launcher

Maybe that might work with the GOG launcher shortcut, depends if GOG use the same syntax.

I just checked though and I was running LariLauncher.exe, which is what GOG normally directs to. I guess I just didn't check, I think there was a shortcut already in the install folder and I copied that and replaced the GOG shortcut. In the bin folder there's bg3.exe and bg3_dx11.exe, those are the real game files.

I'll add that the DX11 version is reportedly offering more stable performance, unless you really want to use Vulkan, it should be preferred.

Dave the Diver is published by Nexon so you should absolutely pirate it.