The Pirate's code....

Jesus forgives us for our piracy sins

A week ago I had a conversation with some relatives who wanted to have the homebrew channel installed in their Wii  in order to download games illegally.  When asked about my stance on that, I basically told them that I support Nintendo and that I would only add the homebrew channel to my Wii after the lifecycle of the console was over. Naturally the reaction to this is pretty much scoffing and eye rolling on their part, and the question of how many games do I actually own for the Wii came up. "Disc based games maybe about eight or nine. (Thirteen after christmas) VC and Wiiware games included about thirty". I come back by stating that considering the fact that most of those downloadable games range from five dollars to about twelve dollars theres no excuse that Wii games are too cheap to buy. "Besides with disc based games I get the ones I want and ignore the rest, and the downloadable games are safer to take risks on, anyway".

 Usually as conversations normally go, we agreed to disagree, and quickly moved onto other topics. However I wonder about how others deal with the situation.


Piracy has always been a double edged sword to me; On one hand, I can totally understand how modding the Xbox has completely tripled it's entertainment value. I have gotten more playtime out of it than I ever had before it was modded. And I have purchased about fifty games for the system. However, my stance has always been that adding little perks on consoles makes sense to be done post mortem, to avoid banning or losing the ability to use something that I might actually want to participate in. This is what kept me from modding my 360 when I had it, despite only using live for the introductory trial period and being irritated that silver members don't even get to play online with friends, a feature that should at least be default considering, but I digress.

yeah that's why I bought this game... don't eff with Nintendo.

Oh, and for those zealots who would love to point out how wrong I am for installing MAME or any other emu on my Xbox, Allow me to point out something. First of all emulators are used in every major game console out right now. PSN, XBLA and VC and VC Arcade are Emulators.  Second of all. The arcade games I enjoy I have purchased to get legal copies of, but I doubt that will even begin to support the original developers of those games considering the parent company is the ones profiting from those compliation discs. A lot of those guys have long moved on, yet great arcade companies like SNK, Taito and the like will get my money regardless. I can't even begin to explain what happens to the games that aren't popular enough to make it onto those " _________ Arcade classics " discs. I doubt that Spinal Breakers or Daraku Tenshi or any other obscure game will have their day, but if they do I'll be there to purchase it.



There is another side to the whole piracy on dead consoles stance as well. Have you noticed that currently everyone attributes piracy as to why the Game industry isn't doing so hot, lately? Of course the logical answer to the problems of the industry are that they're not making games for the fans, they're indulging in their own vanity, but if I contribute to Piracy on current generation systems, I'm only giving these clowns a scapegoat as to why they're failing so hard.  So I would rather not do that and let them fall on their own swords (like they're already doing.)

So is it wrong for me to hold this belief? Especially if I would even go so far as to purchase the physical copies as I find them? This seems to be the most logically sound of principals and it gives me the chance to actually play and discover new games to not only discuss here in this, my little sanctuary, but to be able to look for these games while I'm out and about. Not to mention the detriment it has been to recommend games people may have passed over. I'm always up for discussion, so don't hold back, gamers.

Game On.