this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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One might wonder about the ratio of Nintendo's legal budget to actual piracy losses.

Having been a college student back in the days of Napster (and ignoring the complete dearth at the time in physical stores of the sorts of music I was getting into), $20 CDs with one good track were not a value proposition. So when I downloaded a track, there was zero actual financial hit to whatever label or the RIAA ... it's a sale that never would have happened. You didn't lose money; you gained exposure.

My last console was an SNES, so I have no horse in this race. But being actively hostile to your customers generally ends poorly.

As a grown-ass adult, I've spent more than $2,000 on music on Beatport, mostly $1.29 at a time replacing the stuff I pirated for better-quality versions.

When you have to take away rights that used to be guaranteed by the first-sale doctrine, it's likely a sign there's something wrong with your business model moreso than users causing so much chaos (and profit loss) that you have no choice.

This isn't some fly-by-night AI toaster company that'll shut down services in a year and leave you fucked. It's Nintendo. They're going to survive just fine.

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[โ€“] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

My comment is not personally directed at you, it's just more about how everyone and their mom is talking about Nintendo's recent decisions on piracy. Literally every tech/gaming community on Lemmy (and social media in general) is talking about it, and I'm tired of seeing it every day. I don't mean to belittle you about your last console being the SNES, it's just frustrating rhetoric that others have repeated because they truly seem to think Switch 2 is the only console doing this.

I understand what you mean about how someone who pirates probably would've never bought the game anyway, just like people (including me) who watch playthroughs of games that they never would've bought, hence tbe company was never gonna make money anyway. But even if companies know that fact, they're not gonna just ignore people who break their ToS to pirate because they don't want to lose money.

As you stated, you buy music of the stuff you originally pirated, and some game pirates might do that. But music has replay value compared to a lot of games. Once I finish a long RPG, there's a very unlikely chance I'm picking it back up again, unless it's many years later or it's a hand-me-down to someone. If I pirated and played that type of game, I'm unlikely to buy it because why bother, other than to show support to the devs?

Companies don't want to lose those who pirated and potentially would've bought the game. The whole point of piracy is that it has to be more convenient than buying the game, and since they know homebrewing can get to a very comfortable point, they don't want to lose people to that.

[โ€“] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 2 points 5 hours ago

My taste in games is somewhat different. I don't look for storylines; I look for games with tremendous replay value like Factorio (which has the added benefit of endlessly being able add mods and start a totally new experience). I got it early enough -- coincidentally because of an Ars review -- that it was still just $20.

Some 800 hours later, that makes it 2.5 cents per hour for entertainment. And I'll likely get the update pack when I have sufficient hardware, but I get that many popular games are more like books. I don't tend to reread one as soon as I'm done, but in a few years, I might get a wild hair.