Gaming

We're getting really lengthy here, and while that was fun while it lasted, we're clearly both set in our ways, so I'll answer to only a few topics that don't simply revolve our beliefs. I know we're just going to back and forth, ultimately saying "I'm right, you're wrong" anyway.

I mean at that point why play it though? I figured you’d just see the gameplay videos and move on. Maybe you want to go in entirely blank? Honestly, and controversially I feel the same about a recent purchase I made, Red Dead Redemption 2. I played 26 hours and feels like I barely played 2 hours worth of enjoyable content for myself. That said, my friend’s dog did the mo-cap for the dogs in the game and it’s nice to see.

You've proven my point by saying that despite having spent 26 hours playing the game, barely 2 of them were worth it, and no Steam refund is going to listen to your definition of the amount of hours that count for an actual refund. You had no demo to try, and no amount of gameplay videos is going to answer the questions like "How would I play the game?" and "How would I enjoy that?"; to a certain extent, demos don't either, because they're not a complete experience and complete experiences count, but they'll definitely give you a much better feeling of whether you should spend your money on the game.

That's one reason to pirate a AAA game: you know you might like it, but you don't want to become a metric on another chart for the sharks to pat each other on the back and say "See? We did it! We were right! They bought the game!", even if for a 0.001% of the original price.

Kudos for casting your dog there, though. Good boy/girl.

I’ve seen it with a few streamers, it’s uncommon but it happens. Now we are also seeing the rise of paid pirating platforms which are clearly making money off of others’ work as well.

Now, we all generally denounce people making money off any sort of pirated content, be it cinema, books, games, or anything else. It's about a lot of things, really, but none of them is profit - certainly not these days.

Yeah, that’s absurd but the point is that clearly there is a line there and it’s not yours to draw. It’s the copyright holders. Some people offer Steam family sharing, being there physically or sharing a Steam account requires 1 copy of the game and can only be played by one device at a given time. That’s the line developers draw and it’s on us to determine how we want to share our artwork. I think that’s pretty fair. If I make something, I can determine how I share it, it’s not up to anyone else to take my creation from me, even if that means I don’t lose the original copy.

I buy a book you wrote. Would you insist that I don't share that book with anyone else and instead tell them to go get their own copy? You'll most likely say 'no' once again, that's something we both agree on, and a game is no different. Nobody is taking your book away from you, it still is yours in every regard, but you don't get to control whether people can lend it. It's sharing, i.e. caring, and sharing often leads to increased sales and exposure through various channels.

You even said it yourself that "there is a line there and it's not yours to draw", yet in the same paragraph you say "If I make something, I can determine how I share it, it’s not up to anyone else to take my creation from me, even if that means I don’t lose the original copy."

Make what you will of it, but you stumbling like that over there clearly shows how neither approach is universally correct and simple, especially given the amount of people and their individual circumstances involved in each case of sharing, piracy, or buying a single copy exclusively.