Movies: I like to playback raw video files with a desktop video player. I settle for nothing less. I would gladly pay a few doubloons in exchange for a movie video file download but nobody offers this, (except for GOG that one time with a paltry selection of films).
Games: “Hey we released this new game buuuuut you’re going to need to purchase an entire separate computer system we call a ‘console’ because we refuse to compile the game binary for PC OSes, nor provide the source for you to do so yourself”
I interpret distributors and publishers treating me as a second (or third) class citizen as carte blanche to acquire your content and make the necessary changes to make it work on my environment of choice.
I feel similar about it. if I could buy straight MP4 or mkv files from somewhere, I would. even if you buy it on Apple, Google or whatever digital marketplace you don’t really own it if it’s still on their servers…
I just want to use my player of choice, and play a locally hosted file. I don’t want to deal with the visual compression artifacts or choppy sound that comes with streaming through a poorly coded player, I’d rather run a full bitrate file through VLC on my own rig that’s tied into my surround sound system in peace.
I just don’t really feel the need to justify my piracy.
I watch pirate movies and tv and I don’t feel a teeny tiny bit of remorse, nor interest in whether it’s ethical.
FYI, it’s entirely justifiable
That’s subjective.
My point is, I just don’t care.
The only time I actually care is if it’s an indie game. If I like it enough I’ll buy it because I’m all for paying indie devs.
You can get the files if you want, they’re just very expensive and to the tune of hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars. Also they’re typically encrypted and can only be played back on an approved projection system and you have to buy decryption keys every time you want to watch the movie. This is why theaters suck by the way, they have to pay for the movie, the ability to play the movie, the ability to take money in exchange for people seeing the movie, etc.
I don’t think OP is asking for DCPs, they just wish that you could purchase an mp4 file of a movie
I know, I’m kinda complaining by illustrating how difficult it is to get official movie files nowadays; especially if you want lossless, master-quality files.
Why would they give you lossless files? There is almost no market for that. Those files would be at least hundreds of gigabytes in size
Mhm, as a former projectionist I can confirm that those files average 200~300gb.
Why would they sell them? Cinemaphiles. Your average person won’t spend $200 on a 500gb drive containing The Room, but a hardcore cinemaphile might. My boss at the theater I was working at was the kinda person who would have bought that. Well, maybe not The Room, but he probably would have spent the money for something like The Godfather trilogy.
I fileshare because buying is renting nowadays, and I don’t want to own content that can be revoked because of an expiring agreement, service shutting down, etc.
I find your take hilarious - that compiling a console game for PC would be trivial (and to support that very different platform) and that devs/publishers simply „refuse“ to do it.
Now, open source is a different topic and I can’t really estimate the effect it would have if it was standard across the industry.
Current consoles use x86_64 and Vulkan/DirectX don’t they?
The Switch is ARM so not terribly exotic.
That’s still a far cry from the heterogeneous environment called „PC“.
If I went on a tangent about how game makers shackle themselves to vendor lock-in schemes like DirectX, then this little post wouldn’t have been quite as fun and digestible.
(except for GOG that one time with a paltry selection of films)
It’s really too bad more movie makers don’t use GOG’s platform.
I really enjoyed reading your take. Thanks for posting it. IP is theft.
I fileshare because I have been conditioned by private trackers to always keep my ratio at a 1:2 minimum to stay an active member.
I am much more worried about seeing some consequence for uploading than I am for downloading. They tend to go for distributors more than leechers.
I don’t fileshare, I use usenet, don’t wanna have to be constantly seeding isos. I like to rename and move my files onto my server not keep them on my cache drive.
You pirate because your country makes it difficult to get the content otherwise.
I pirate because i stopped giving a shit.
We are not the same.
I feel like “I’m making a personal choice to pirate because my deliberately-crafted use-case scenario is not being specifically catered to” is a worse argument than “I can’t afford it”.
distributors and publishers treating me as a second (or third) class citizen
This is like an F1 racer getting angry at 7-Eleven for not offering fuel that works for his supercar. You’re not being treated as a second-class citizen; you’ve created a situation in which you are above first-class citizens, because you’re using what is, these days, niche and specialized hardware that is far outside of the norm, but for some reason you’re still shopping at the gas station the rest of us peons go to.
You missed the point. We aren’t “shopping” at any gas station. As a consumer, I’m going to consume, whether you wish to sell (not rent) it to me or not. Don’t wish to sell? Fine. We will take it anyway.
