Dear Future Gamer

Well, you asked for it...

I'm a game developer, and have been [technically] a professional since 1988. I'm currently writing the FAQs for the computer games development newsgroups. (Yes, all six of them. I'm still kicking myself for thinking it was a great idea at the time).

The issue of piracy keeps cropping up in the computer games development industry, and the problem is a simple one: semantics. Pirates invariably use the "But I'm not actually taking anything tangible!" argument, especially when most developers insist on defining piracy as simple theft. Since the threads inevitably degenerate into "But stealing games ain't like stealing cars!"-type posts, this subject gets very tedious, very fast.

I've got a couple of articles on the subject sitting in my Usenet archive, since there's a piracy thread running right now. The latest trend is the demand, (by pirates, of course), that older software, of an arbitrary age, should be automatically deemed 'Public Domain'. Apparently, this would allow 'safe preservation' of old games, regardless of their actual worth. And regardless of packaging, advertising, original media and other contextual material. (In other words, they just want copyright-free game files for their emulators.) But that's another article entirely...

Piracy is equitable with counterfeiting, not theft. No material goods are being taken from the owner, but devaluation of the item is still taking place.

Yours,

Sean Timarco Baggaley

FG: Enough is enough folks. This piracy thing could run and run. The simple fact is, piracy is illegal and harms the market for all of us. Whether you agree with a software house making money or not, they produce games and you are legally bound to pay if you want to play them.