Talking about piracy and region locking

[robometal cowboy]

Talking about piracy and region locking
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[LegendofSantiago]

People pirate even if there is region locking, pirates just don't want to pay anything. Region locking is no excuse for hacking and piracy. (I have not seen the video)

[YoshiRider123]

People pirate even if there is region locking, pirates just don't want to pay anything. Region locking is no excuse for hacking and piracy. (I have not seen the video)

...You should.

[gtt]

piracy will eventually happen. it's like gravity.

but, it can generally be curtailed, because wide spread piracy is usually a service issue. Look at what valve has done in russia for example.

[VinceFox]

region locking = lack of choice
region locking in a way can lead to piracy because region locking is a technical middle finger to the consumer
If Nintendo is smart... i wish in their next Wii U and 3DS update they switch off the region lock so this way gamers will have more games to play on both the 3DS and the Wii U instead waiting on their behinds for any further announcements from the Big N or beg developers to do a game for the Wii U or localize a certain game for either system

To prevent piracy
Instead of torturing us with region locks why not do undercover work
Like say go on eBay and investigate whether or not they are selling pirated goods of either 3rd party or their own
or better yet go to Hong Kong and go after the pirates (i mean Hong Kong is capitol of game piracy)

It would be sweet if the Big N welcomes homebrewers with open arms instead of vilifying them like Atari did to Activision many decades ago but sadly it's wishful thinking

[LegendofSantiago]

@VinceFox piracy happens regardless of region locking. I don't see it as a service thing, people just want free games. There are some games that are really hard to pirate but people still do it anyways because it's free.

[VinceFox]

@VinceFox piracy happens regardless of region locking. I don't see it as a service thing, people just want free games. There are some games that are really hard to pirate but people still do it anyways because it's free.

watch this

[TheWon]

region locking = lack of choice
region locking in a way can lead to piracy because region locking is a technical middle finger to the consumer
If Nintendo is smart... i wish in their next Wii U and 3DS update they switch off the region lock so this way gamers will have more games to play on both the 3DS and the Wii U instead waiting on their behinds for any further announcements from the Big N or beg developers to do a game for the Wii U or localize a certain game for either system

To prevent piracy
Instead of torturing us with region locks why not do undercover work
Like say go on eBay and investigate whether or not they are selling pirated goods of either 3rd party or their own
or better yet go to Hong Kong and go after the pirates (i mean Hong Kong is capitol of game piracy)

It would be sweet if the Big N welcomes homebrewers with open arms instead of vilifying them like Atari did to Activision many decades ago but sadly it's wishful thinking

PSP and DS were region free, but were hit hard by piracy.
Region Locking is not talking away your rights as a consumer. As long as you know it going in before you make a purchase. People knew the 3DS was going to be region lock. At the time you had a choice to buy the console in the region you desired. This is not like when Sony remove Linux from the PS3 after people already paid for the feature. You choice to buy a region locked console, and now want to it too change. Try using that same logic with any other of life purchases. Your going to end up having to sell what you have or buy a completely new item.

[Atariadam]

region locking = lack of choice
region locking in a way can lead to piracy because region locking is a technical middle finger to the consumer

I guess, but only to those who care to spend the effort in importing games. I assure you, you stand in a minority. The effects are more devastating to those who want games but dont get them cause a developer gets scared of losing sales. Why did they get scared? cause self entitled humans feel that they deserve to steal. Despite what has been said, numbers dont lie.

If seeing the game you spent time and money on developing being downloaded a thousand times over the sales number, knowing that cause your title isnt selling you will probably not work on another game (ie, could possibly loose your job) dont you think that would scare them a little? Would you want to work your ass off on a game (remember a lot of these guys have bills to pay, its not just the talking heads who make games.) only to have some person claim they should download it for free for whatever arbitrary reason they spit up? Thats a hard sell.

No matter how you feel about the industry, this is a problem. I understand there is issues with the industry and I understand a lot of shovel games are made now-a-days, but that still doesnt excuse theft.

[VinceFox]

again, watch this

[LegendofSantiago]

@VinceFox no (I'm on my phone, a podcast doesn't make what we say wrong either)

[Jirachi]

It's like jim said on the jimquistion you cannot stop piracy,but YOU can slow it down by providing a better service. Region locking is not a better service.

[LegendofSantiago]

@Jirachi the psp's region freeness didn't help with the piracy.

[VinceFox]

It's like jim said on the jimquistion you cannot stop piracy,but YOU can slow it down by providing a better service. Region locking is not a better service.

that's exactly my point

[aaroNiGHTS]

My first bit of content posted on GoNintendo, thanks Grand Admiral Daan!

[Jet Pilot]

@Jirachi

As long as companies are charging money for games you're going to have crooks pirating those games.

Piracy has nothing to do with service or any of the other myriad excuses people use. It has to do with people having a complete and total lack of respect for the work of others coupled with a sense of entitlement that tells them that they should be able to take whatever they want for free.

[DeAngelo Guillory]

@Jirachi the psp's region freeness didn't help with the piracy.

Watch the video, because you're really starting to sound like a cardboard cutout right now.

[Jirachi]

I never said you could stop piracy by not region freeness. All i said was anti consumer policies is not how you stop it.

Ever since the advent of itunes music piracy has gone down. Honestly it's not hard to see why,i tunes is providing a better service then the pirates.
In example pirates can play super nintendo games with multiplayer online,while nintendo cannot even offer it for a wii u game.
one save state in vc games as oppesed to infinite,no silly paying twice to play the same game on two platforms, getting burned and never being able to play earthbound.

I love nintendo but there practices are outright barbaric at best and down right anticonsumer at worst.

[LegendofSantiago]

@DeAngelo Guillory I saw it, not sure how that makes my argument less valid. (unless you are talking about the podcast video)
All he said is that he is against hacking but he is also against region locking. The comment you replied to had me saying that the PSP although region free was still pirated to hell. Am i wrong? Yeah, a better service could lead to less piracy, but most pirated pirate because it's free, not because they can get a better service. I know plenty of pirates that go through a lot of work to just save a couple of bucks. The PSP was hacked, and the PSV is also being hacked. The PS3 was hacked as well. Yet none of them where region locked.

[kdognumba1]

Region locking is an absolutely horrible concept. People who are willing to spend money on a product and support the designers should have every right to spend their money how they want.

Dictating who we can and can't support based on "trends" and having a businessman who's only interested in fattening their pockets that may or may not play games decide what games are "good enough" for our region based on their ever so bad opinions really grinds my gears.

When it comes to music and movies, I can buy and watch what I want, how I want, when I want but when it comes to games, it's a dictatorship. I'm not cool with that.

[DeAngelo Guillory]

@DeAngelo Guillory I saw it, not sure how that makes my argument less valid. (unless you are talking about the podcast video)
All he said is that he is against hacking but he is also against region locking. The comment you replied to had me saying that the PSP although region free was still pirated to hell. Am i wrong? Yeah, a better service could lead to less piracy, but most pirated pirate because it's free, not because they can get a better service. I know plenty of pirates that go through a lot of work to just save a couple of bucks. The PSP was hacked, and the PSV is also being hacked. The PS3 was hacked as well. Yet none of them where region locked.

If you want to get technical, Game Boy, NES, SNES and N64 weren't really region locked either. The latter of the 3 required a 3rd party device or backdoor modifications. Did they suffer piracy? Sure. They still lead very fulfilling sales records though.

What the video was suggesting is that the abundance of shovelware may have more of a hand in this.

[scikoolaid]

Giving legitimate customers a reason to need to hack to play certain games is a PROBLEM. Simple enough.

The fact that Sony and Microsoft have been moving towards more region-free at least for the home consoles, while Nintendo has actually turned their handheld consoles from region-free to region-locked is just crazy.

[gojiguy]

Nintendo is -asking- for this with their region lock.

If they removed it, piracy wouldn't be gone but the number of people who would look into it and use custom firmware would decrease.

I don't want to hack my system. I want a valid warranty. I dont want to fear firmware updates that might brick me. I just want to be able to play games from any region (I'm canadian with a canadian 3DS but I live in Czech Republic and often travel to asia). Is that too much to ask?

I REALLY hope Nintendo comments on this issue.

[applejack1085]

Region locking is NOT a major factor for piracy...at least for non-portable systems. It is a major problem for portables, because portables are meant to be played on the go.

[Red]

Causally speaking, "End Region Locking? Cause Piracy!" seems like pretty unfortunate wording indicating precisely the opposite argument the video actually outlines. Nice to see a friendly reminder of an incredibly obvious, but nevertheless regularly ignored fact: The idiocy of region locking on portable consoles, undermining their very purpose and benefits over home consoles.

The mere implication that developers are suggesting me to run around with 2-3 systems to play all of my games and that this is somehow a good idea is hilarious. Nintendo doesn't even want me to buy a American 3DS. They want me to buy a European 3DS to buy their European Mario and Zelda games so that they can enjoy their regional sales data. Which is precisely why region locking is in effect and what leads us to the amusing logical fallacy in the whole idea: The second I import hardware from another region I'm free from the region control anyway and might as well import even more than before - since now I'm sitting on that additional, expensive piece of tech that I might as well feed with software to make my purchase feel worthwhile, ultimately leading to even more "market disruption". Tough luck if software I'm interested in as a customer isn't localized, because in this reality of thinking Nintendo would not want my money and even suggest not to pay their third parties, if I want to buy from them.

Ultimately, this topic should hardly be rocket science and it feels like a lot of people are asking the wrong questions or parroting the wrong non-arguments. Anyone -repeatedly- arguing "Region-free systems were overrun with piracy as well, so what." should realize him/herself already, that the "So what." part is kinda indicative of their own empty statement.
The real question and/or mind-game should be wether a lot of titles we can gladly consider a success these days would have been hit even harder or wouldn't have been successful to begin with with region locking in place. How big would Phoenix Wright be today (remember that the Japanese DS games featured English texts), how much adds its European fandom to Atlus' success with their DS library? What about the Operation Rainfall games, one of which the US got, another that apparently barely made the cut and another that -probably literally- got lost in the torrent(s)? Arguably the real potential of all those games got a little disturbed by their ordeal.
Do I have any numbers to back any of this up? Of course I don't. Neither has any of the other side though, so I'd at least try to play devil's advocate for this tiresome "Region locking doesn't even matter / is just an excuse for..." argument, that barely scratches the other side of sales.