September 21st 2009 : permalink : Comments
a pirate's journey
This isn’t an article about piracy in theory per se nor is it an argument for or against it. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s an article at all! I’m not even sure if I follow Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. What this is, is mostly a reflection on my own actions in the area of piracy and how I evolved over time. A recurring theme in this blog, from the looks of it.
Remark concerning PC vs. Console piracy: I will say that I am only concerned with PC piracy in this post. I have friends and know other people that own modded 360s (that is, Xbox 360s) and purchase pirated games for cheap. I choose to not do it and so my 360 remains unmodded, untouched by a stranger’s soldering hand.
On the day that it was released, I bought Hellgate: London developed by the now defunct Flagship Studios. It’s weird, but as badly as I was treated as a customer, I continue to buy video games.
Actually, not just video games. My age group (16-25) is notorious for downloading music illegally and yet an hour ago I bought two Big Bad Voodoo Daddy albums on Amazon MP3 (their new How Big Can You Get? and their earlier Live album).
I stopped being a pirate with Telltale Games’ first season of Sam & Max. Being a fan of Sam & Max Hit the Road and the animated series, I quickly snatched up the demo for the first episode when they released it. I enjoyed it so much that I immediately found a cracked version of it to download illegally.
But you know what? It just felt wrong. These were guys that broke away from Lucas Arts because Lucas Arts went completely batshit loco at the time. Something they have recently been cured of (talk about completely redeeming yourself!). Here was a group of creative geniuses with passion for their work and mastery of their trade and here I was: not buying a product they worked hard on securing the rights to and developing. Clearly something was wrong with this picture.
I deleted the folder when it finished downloading and asked my parents that S&M Season One be my birthday present. Since then, I have used my hard earned money to purchase S&M Season Two and Tales of Monkey Island. I am now a loyal customer and fan of TTG. God bless their hearts.
God, I bought like 40 games in the past year and a half from Steam. Well, the first time I used Steam was when I bought Half Life 2 but back then it wasn’t what it is now. It would take a while before Valve delivered what they envisioned and the public accepted it as the next step forward in PC gaming. When it first launched, the internet was exploding with criticism.
I think the first time I truly used Steam in the way it was intended (or at least in one of the major ways: as a distribution platform) was when I bought Portal. Since then I’ve even bought games that I used to play illegally! Let me tell you: launching Prince of Persia: Sands of Time feels a lot better when you’ve downloaded it from Steam (or Good Old Games) and not The Pirate Bay.
I have also become an avid user of Direct2Drive but it was Steam, with its weekend deals and easy process of acquiring games, that truly made an impact on my consumer side. I’d buy a game every half a year at most before Steam. Now it’s become a monthly or even bi-weekly ritual.
It would be a sin for me not to mention my Mass Effect debacle. Though if the story has a happy ending (at least on the surface), can it really be considered a debacle?
Either way, as hard as I try to be a good citizen and a legitimate consumer by buying products instead of downloading illegal copies of them (Hell, I even bought Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Standard last summer! That’s unheard of for an 18 year old!), I still get treated like a pirate.
If you’re not aware of this by now, then let me just break it to you: if you are an owner of Mass Effect like I am, you are limited to how many times you install it. Therefore if you go through formats and re-installs of Windows to have the most optimized PC you can have, at some point you’re actually going to have to contact EA and basically ask for permission to play a game you’ve already bought. That takes about two days. Add two more days if you want to play the Bring Down the Sky downloadable content.
The person who assisted me with this issue was very kind to help me activate the game and the DLC and I thank them very much for it but I shouldn’t have to do contact them in the first place.
I’m glad I purchased Batman: Arkham Asylum because it is a fantastic game. I’m glad I’m supporting Telltale Games by buying their seasons and merchandise, they deserve it. I’m glad Lucas Arts is getting their act together again and I hope the community responds kindly by not pirating their old games and upcoming Lucidity.
I’m excited to play BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins (pre-ordered Collector’s Edition from GameStop), Obsidian Entertainment’s Alpha Protocol (pre-ordered on Steam), Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed 2 (pre-ordered Master Assassin’s Edition from GameStop), and BioWare’s Mass Effect 2 (…which I won in Direct2Drive’s Weekly Twitter Trivia Contest but just so you know, I was going to pre-order it at some point).
I used to be a pirate but I’m not anymore and I’m proud of that.
Feel free to follow suit.
tags: piracyvideo gamesmusicsteam