Gamers and Thieves

[ender_wiggin]

Well, I sincerely apologize for all the offense I've caused, but you'll just have to crucify me for being honest about it.

I will not argue with you on the morals of this issue. Of course its wrong. Yeah I'm hurting people. But then again, I don't feel particularly ashamed about it. I look around me and see everyone doing things a lot worse. You were right. I am very young; I'm to go undergraduate college next year. And if you see the act of piracy as a base, morally wrong act, it'll probably get a lot worse in college. Universities have massive virtual databanks, several terabytes or more. That database is the conglomeration of everyone's hard drive, filled with pirated software and documents they didn't pay for, all operating on platforms they didn't buy. I know some of you haven't been in college for years, and I don't mean any offense, but this is the age I find myself in. Information is being traded around for free. I occasionally buy things, but for the most part, any electronic data you want you can get free of charge.

But these crimes that I commit, I believe, are trifle compared with what happens daily around me. I don't *feel* like a criminal. I don't have a stealing ring. Neither me nor my friends make any sort of monetary profit with our little boot disks. We don't do it to feel good. We don't do it because we think it gives us power. We just wanna be able to play our games without shelling out our life savings.

Yes, you can buy Win XP if you want. But I choose not to. It won't make Bill Gates any poorer. I can pay a fortune to have these pdfs on my computer. But I choose not to, and I don't feel bad about this decision because if it were the other way around, I would expect the author to rip my work off if he were given the opportunity. Having a minimum wage job isn't really an excuse.

So I've pirated software. So I download songs off Kazaa. I just don't see it as the felony-class crime that some of you guys seem to. I don't know of anyone who is starving because people are pirating his work. If you are starving because your work isn't making money; its because your writing is bad, not because people are pirating. And if your work gets to the point where it is circulating between small groups of friends who live in the middle of nowhere, then you have probably made a good deal of money off of it already. More than I will make for the next ten years.

Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't have posted this; it will just be disected and destroyed and whatnot. I originally posted to apologize, but realized that it was empty without some sort of awkward explanation. Anyway, due to the sensitive nature of some of this, this thread has a possibility of being closed, so I just wanted to at least make an effort to get my message across before that happens.....I just hope I have an account after this chirade.

 

[Stone Angel]

Well EW I am sure that you are going to open a whole can of worms and I am sure that you will be punished on here. I recently graduated college in 2002. I also had many media files that I had recieved for free through various file sharing networks. Trust me there just might be somebodies table that you took bread and milk off of. Myself included. Do you really think large artists such as Metallica and Aerosmith JayZ Linkin Park are horribly affected by this nope. It's the small ones just starting out. It's the independant music stores and head shops.


I can't really judge too harshly I thought of it as a way to "stick it to the man" when I was filesharing. Untill I did a little research of my own. See I also write and perform my own songs. People at college loved it, I would play at bars, frats, parkinglots. where ever. After a while people started to ask for my CD's so I sat down at my computer made a five song disc. I gave them away and after a while sold them for five bucks a piece. I think the final amount sold was about 300. Not to bad not to bad. Then a friend of mine decided to put them on Bearshare. I was like WTF these aren't patented nor copyrighted. So I had to contact Bearshare, and have them contact every user that had downloaded it and get it off the "market" so to speak. Now this didn't put me out but imagine how I would feel if another artist "stole" those songs and went on to become big stars.

So my friend I think that the biggest problem you have is not your "stealing" but your attitude that it's wrong affects no one and you don't care. Apathists; the worst.


Now back to point has anyone ever seen anyone steal anything from a Con. At Gen Con I overheard two guys talking about stealing some DBZ trading cards off a booth. The worst part is that they worked for another RPG company. Though I will with hold their names, I seen them again this previous summer, I completely ignored them.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[francisca]

Well, I sincerely apologize for all the offense I've caused, but you'll just have to crucify me for being honest about it.

Naw. Adding you to my ignore list will be just fine.

 

[WayneLigon]

I was all prepared to knock Point #1, then I called a good friend of mine who has been the manager of a major chain bookstore for over 20 years.

The top thefts from this major chain are, in order:

1. Bibles (how ironic)
2. Childrens books, esp the smaller ones or the thin ones like the Bearenstien Bears
3. African-American section
4. RPG books and games (not the novels)

I was pretty surprised.

In the late 80s, my DM used to switch price tags on his RPG Books, he would peel off $10 stickers and put them on $20 books. He figured that if he was caught, they wouldn't be able to prove he swithed the stickers. He also wouldn't go more than half off, figuring that he still wanted the price tag to be somewhat believable, and not actually cause the store to lose money, just not make a profit.

I got ripped off like that once while I was working the register, which was really embarassing since I knew how much the game cost.

As for the profit, dropping $10.00 off that price probably cost the store $7.00-9.00, in general. Most chain stores, especially bookstores, operate on some surprisingly thin margins. That might have changed in the 15 years or so since I worked at one, but I doubt it's changed much.

Also, if he was doing this consistantly to one store, then I'm willing to bet he also cost them some raises or bonuses because of unfavorable Loss Prevention reports. Depends on the chain but if a store consistantly shows lossage (and nowadays they can tell during the next quarterly inventory if not sooner, depending on how computerized they are) they usually look to the employees first.

 

[Darkness]

Ugh, do we have to have the piracy discussion again?

Right, we will not. Stop that, everybody.

If anyone has comments or questions, e-mail me.

 

[Jesus_marley]

It's that simple. If I had the people resources that some of you guys had, I would definately be ripping pdf versions of books off. I'll be honest - if I had enough money to buy a decent scanner I would do it myself.

Why don't you just go and steal one?

 

[Anabstercorian]

And thus we see the Chaotic Neutral alignment personified!

 

[reanjr]

There is somthing interesting I have noticed in my time as a gamer:

There is a segment of the gamer population that are thieves.

Point 1: Almost universally, the section of most Barnes and Nobles and Borders that has the highest percentage of book theft are Role Playing Games.

Point 2: There are numerous places that have "This section is being watched by video camera" on their gaming shelves.

Point 3: Many stores (chains and FLGS) have reconfigured so that someone can watch the gaming section all the time.

Point 4: Antecdotally my friends and I were, right before we could drive, ripping off numerous stores for gaming supplies. Additionally I did my best to gather the stuff back up and return it, but still we did it.

Point 5: Also antecdotally I have had numerous gaming materials stolen from me when I was a teen, and most of my friends were gamers.

Now, I am the first to admit I didn't and don't run with the best of crowds. (the current ones are getting better with age) But I have found that there seems to be this pandemic desire to steal among much of the gamer population.

Do you find a similar trend in your experiences?

Aaron.

Crack addicts are thieves, too. Note the implication.

 

[reanjr]

1. Bibles (how ironic)
2. Childrens books, esp the smaller ones or the thin ones like the Bearenstien Bears
3. African-American section
4. RPG books and games (not the novels)

I was pretty surprised.

I'd be very interested in knowing the readership levels among those genres. I would imagine the target audience for RPG books is way smaller than the other genres, and so per capita, RPGs see a lot more theft than the categories above it. Conversely, that's probably also why Bibles are the number one item stolen. That actually jives with what I assumed.

 

[Samothdm]

Why don't you just go and steal one?

That was priceless...