Tired of this abusive business model that big companies use on games.
- I see a game on Steam with some decent price
- I click on it
- Dozens of DLCs, “Gold”, “Deluxe” “Enhanced” version to enjoy the full game
- Then you decide to pay for this shit anyway
- But then the game is behind a launcher, that needs online connection and account even if it’s full single-player
- The game sometimes are just a port from an old console with almost full price, a game that you’ve paid for before
- The game needs a hell amount of updates do become playable
- And so much more…
Steam did an excellent job keeping me away from piracy, they provide too much good feature, discounts and etc… But not even Steam can make miracles against those abusive practices.
I must say RDR1 port was the last drop to me, It’s game I played back on PS3 on my teenager time, I wanted to have some good memories and play it again, guess what, a full AAA price on a port, it’s not even a remaster.
I’ve been avoiding EA and Ubisoft games for years, but still buying from big companies on Steam. Now I just give up, there’s no more hope for AAA games, only mercenary companies are left: EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, Activision, 2K, Bungie etc…
- EA: Games with a hell amount of DLCs, the same FIFA every single year at full price, launcher required, they don’t even try to hide anymore
- Ubisoft: Same thing as EA, lots of DLCs, missed some game content from an old Prince of Persia because they shut an old launcher integrated to the game.
- Rockstar: Launchers everywhere, charging a full price for the same game multiple times (GTA V).
- Activision: You pay a full price and it still comes with a hell amount of micro-transactions, killed COD.
- 2K: Out of nowhere decided to add a launcher to every old game they had (Bioshock and others I think) saying it was “QoL” update, now they decided to remove it, too late. The new Borderlands 4 terribly optimized, here we go with some dozens of updates again.
- Bungie: The live service model, removed a lot of old paid contents from Destiny, the game will eventually die.
I’ll still pay for small companies games, because I can, but those big ones, honestly, I don’t give a shit anymore, they could be erased from existence together with all their games, I really don’t care. Some smaller companies I’ve had a good experience and I think it’s worth paying for: Ghost Ship Games, No More Robots, Hello Games, Techland, Frictional Games, Annapurna Interactive.
Some companies are in a limbo to me, I’m not entirely sure about it: Capcom, Bethesda, Warner, Square Enix.
So, that’s it, I just downloaded Spider Man Remastered and RDR from FitGirl, it worked seamless, I didn’t have a single issue. I could even add as non-Steam game and use Steam input (thanks Steam), I’ll probably use some script to move to savegames data to the cloud, and let the packed games on an external HDD (finally, I’ll own my games).
Another thing that’s hard to ditch to me is achievement tracker, I know we have AchievementWatcher but it doesn’t work too well on pirated games. It’s something I’ll need to get used, not a big deal tbh.
I’ll probably use the money I’d spend on AAA games to explore some indie games. And AAA games are now always pirate.
Obs.: The companies I’ve mentioned here are from my own experience, this isn’t meant to be an Wikipedia of good/bad companies, I know there are more decent and bad companies out there.
That’s right, it’s exactly what I think, you are one way or another helping a game to be known. The same strategy people talked about why Microsoft don’t shut every Office cracker, they want normal people to use it and get used to it, so companies will use it too, eventually, and they can audit some IT companies, charge a hell amount of money if they use pirated software.
I agree with everything, but I’ll still pirate AAA games, just for the experience. I classify publishers/developers companies like this:
Let’s be honest, the games are good, probably made by some people who love what they were doing, but then it was put behind a shitty business model, because developers are just trying to make a living while executives trying to harvest all the money.
I think as the time goes, developers will start making their choices better, leave predatory companies, start or join indie companies, and I, at the same time, will migrate to a more indie focused gaming.
You follow your own moral compass. My feelings are, if I was short on money, I’ve got a backlog and a stream of games being thrown at me for free (legally) such that I’d never have to pirate and never be bored. I’m willing to pay more for a good product, and I so thoroughly enjoyed Borderlands 1-3 that I bought the deluxe edition of 4 that was a no-go for you; they’re one of the few AAA devs keeping LAN alive, and that is worth me throwing me money at them to tell them they’re doing it right, on top of just making a very fun game. The companies whose games you’re pirating are the ones that need the attention the least, but every game you could be instead funneling time and money into benefits so much more from each individual sale. Plus, the reason we’ve got so much anti-consumer bullshit in games now is because piracy was a boogeyman for the industry for a long time, so I’d rather not give them any additional data points to make things even worse when we’ve already got an entire era of video game history that disappears when their servers go offline. That’s how I see it anyway.
The times I don’t feel gross about pirating, personally, are when the pirated version is supposedly the better version of the game (like emulating an old console game instead of playing a compromised PC port) or when the game is delisted and no longer available through ordinary channels, like Battlefield 2. You do what feels right to you. Pirating Nintendo games is an option to me, but they bother me as a consumer in all sorts of ways, and I instead spend that time and money on games like The Thaumaturge rather than playing through Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo will be just fine without my sale. The team behind The Thaumaturge may or may not have made enough money to make a second game. If Nintendo was a less shitty company, I’d be buying and playing Metroid Prime 4. Maybe I’ll end up discovering and enjoying something else during that time that needs my dollar more instead.