Let’s Talk Piracy

Is there ever a point where it’s justified to pirate a game? I’ve been thinking this over the last few days for a few reasons. Capcom’s weird save file in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Nintendo’s plans of not releasing Pandora’s Tower, Xenoblade and The Last Story. What about having to buy a game a game you already bought just to play it on your Wii or your 3DS? Yes, piracy is illegal, and bad for game companies, but what about the gamer? I’m not talking about the cheap bastard out there who doesn’t want to shell out $60 for a game. But what if you’ve been dying to play Mother 3 and don’t want to learn Japanese?

Anyone who’s web savvy can download and patch a Mother 3 rom. Is that person wrong for wanting to play a game that’s never going to come out in the U.S? What about if Nintendo decides not to release the trio of JRPGS in the U.S? It’s not like you can just order them online and have them magically work on your Wii. Sure, you can just break the region lock with some good old fashioned homebrew, but that comes with risks Also, Nintendo obviously doesn’t want you to do that, as they make sure to get rid of the home brew channel with every single Wii update.

Your 3DS can be bricked too if you mess with it. Want to order a game from Japan to play on your shiny new $250 toy? You’re out of luck, kid. Region locked! All this madness to prevent gamers from playing the games they love. No wonder so many people turn to piracy. Even if you do manage to have a system that’ll play imported games, you’re going to pay out your ass to import them.

Many of you have been commenting on the whole Resident Evil fiasco that you’d rather pirate the game just so you can delete your saves. Yeah, I get you. It makes sense, and that would definitely send a massage to Capcom if it became the most pirated 3DS game for no other reason. It’s like the whole DRM fiasco with Spore that happened way back in 2008. EA punished the people who bought the game because they were so afraid of people pirating their software. What happened next? It became one of the most pirated PC games of all time. Most of the people who downloaded it just did it out of spite.

Let’s not forgot all the other cool and fun things you can do with roms. You can add high resolution textures to N64 games, which look pretty awesome. Hook up an xbox controller to your PC or Mac and you’re good to go. There’s also been rom hacks of New Super Mario Bros, which add new levels and other goodies to a game you’ve beaten ages ago. Of course, to get all this stuff you’ll have to download the rom, which isn’t legal, even if you already own the game. Now, between my N64 cartridges (grey and later found a gold one at Gamestop), the collectors edition disk, the Wind Waker pre-order bonus, and Ocarina of Time 3D, I’ve got lots of OoT. So is it wrong for me to retexture a rom of OoT with Wind Waker-eque textures? What do you all think?

Now I’m not defending the guys who’re too cheap to go out there and buy games. I know a few people that do, and it bugs me. Seriously, wait for a used copy to show up and then buy it, that’s more legit than sitting your fat ass down and waiting for games to come up whatever torrent site you abuse. But for those of you out there who want to play a game but have no other way to, or to teach a lesson to greedy or mentally confused developers, I think its alright, as long as you’re doing it as a last resort.

So, what do you all think? Have you downloaded a Rom of a game you’ve bought before? Would you download a game that didn’t come out in your country if you had no other way of playing said game? Are you anti-piracy? If you download music and say yes, you’re a hypocrite. Let me know your thoughts with some comments and please don’t ask or post anything leading to a rom site, use google if you must, but lets stay focused on the topic.