First of all, it isn't more than likely someone's committing a crime playing videogames in Brazil. It's just *likely*. That is exactly what the word means. Use a dictionary next time.

And you mention you pirate in Finland and... nobody cares one bit. Finland's full of high tech, plenty of content providers, game studios etcetera.

The culture isn't against piracy either, and plenty of people buy a lot of legal games. Even more pirate some games and buy others. But pirates selling their ill-earned goods is seen tantamount to sacrilege - pirate all you want for your own use, but if you try to turn a profit on the work of others, you've committed a crime against the society's morals.

Or, in short, how American of you. Be you American or not, you certainly think like one.

earning a profit from pirated games? eurghhh lazy free loading trash. what if you steal a pirated game from these guys? 'HOW DARE YOU STEAL I'LL CALL THE POLICE ON YOU!'

A fascinating read, and I get the notion that most of the eastern European countries have the same situation concerning gaming.

The same situation exist in a lot of countries, especially in Asia. The alarming thing is that the police rarely do anything to stop them, mostly public "cover-up" raids in some small shops to amke it appear as though they are fighting it. Just goes to show that in the right circumstances the piracy industry (if it's as blatant as being sold in malls, which i've seen quite often)is a tourist attracting and good revenue source for the country.

"The piracy epidemic only came about with the combination of exceptionally high taxes (EGM Brazil estimated in their March 2005 edition that at least 45 percent of the price of a PC game consisted of taxes), the low income of most Brazilians, the lack of an effective government anti-piracy program and, ironically, the very factor that helped make games more mass-market: the change of media from cartridges to CDs, making it much easier to copy games."

Very good account! And as a Brazilian, I abhor the moralist tone of rest of the text. You see, while certainly in a country where the people is not overtaxed, it makes sense to condemn piracy and all the harm it causes game publishers. Why should they pay for the problems of foreign countries? I don't think they should be the ones sustaining the burden of a corrupt foreign government. Neither should Brazilian gamers have to pay around 50-100 USD PLUS around 25%(yes, that much, still disconsidering the fact our currency is crap compared to USD) taxes for being able to play the latest title.

The pricing is completely out of context. No average young brazilian can pay that much.

I think there are two issues here that should be of concern: The game publishers should adjust the prices of their games to conform to the Brazilian economy, and the taxing here should be lowered.

If neither is done, it is expected that regular people, not regular criminals, resort to piracy if thats the only alternative.

Don't expect people to stop playing on moral grounds: That behavior is expected of idiotic Cristian faith heads living in their carefully constructed fake world of miracles and pseudo-righteousness, not to be expected of real people in the real Darwinian world of restricted resources and fierce competition - thats Brazil.

So what to do as a gamer?

IMAO, I think piracy is the most appropriate act of civil disobedience in the Brazilian gaming scenario. I would not advocate for people to buy games in the black market, but to download them in p2p networks like bittorrent. That way, drug dealers and criminals aren't financed (directly at least).

Further, it is still possible to download some games from Steam for its real price -- the Brazilian Government still ignores downloadable content. So there still is a way to reward the games you really like, and get all the advantages of buying the original games such as playing online multiplayer games, score ranking and so on.

For the low quality titles, they deserve to be pirated anyways. How's that for a righteous attitude?!

Cheers

The exact same situation happens here in Argentina. There are only a few shops which sell original games, and no one buys them, except for the odd Guild Wars (or other un-piratable game) purchase. 4 blocks from my house, a shop sells pirated PC games. You simply look at their list, say, for instance "I want this. GTA IV." And they'll make you a copy if they don't have one at hand. The price is 15 pesos (1 dollar equals about 3,50 pesos) for a DVD, 20 for a dual-layer/DVD-9, and 10 for a PS2 game.
2 blocks further away, a shop sells ONLY, and ONLY pirated games. It's a perfectly legal shop, all the paperwork is in order, but they sell exclusively 3rd party peripherals and pirated PS2, 360 and Wii games. Right around the corner from that shop is yet another PS2/360/Wii pirating shop which recently closed down.

"mercutio22, I recomend you read my article more carefully. It's not just foreign publishers and developers that lose out as a consequence of piracy (and 'corrupt foreign goverments'), but the whole of the Brazilian society. Maybe gamers, who enjoy the benefits of piracy, end up with a postive bargain in short run..."
I wholeheartedly agree. Thats why I think Brazilians should download from p2p networks when the title is overpriced. Totally pro-Brazilian community.

"No translations into portguese, which means that people who can't speak english, i.e., the poor brazilians, can't enjoy most games."

There's one good reason for them to learn. Most the english I learned came from the top quality pirated Lucas Arts games, which where for the most part not even published in Brazil in the 90s(e.g. Maniac Mansion, Sam and Max). I did buy from them when they published Grim Fandango =].

"...And it seems impossible not to buy at least some things through the 'grey market' and help organized crime."

Come on, you can't speak for everyone. I beg to differ.

"- Almost zero game development."
Sad but true. I would not be a game developer in Brazil under these circumstances.

"So you're saying that gamers, who probably have better incomes than most brazilians, should have the benefits of cheap games, whilest the rest of Brazil pays for the consequences?"

No, I am saying we should P2P and refrain from buying from places like Santa Ifigênia.

"I do agree with you that downloading from p2p sites helps avoid some of these issues, but I can't imagine why on earth you think that just because a person is from another country, that allows you to what to steal from them."

I don't think it allows stealing, I do think stealing is *necessary* in the context of the lack of reasonably priced games available in the brazilian market. I don't know how to emphasize this enough - People should buy, when the option is available: for instance, you can buy UT3 for USD 19.99 from steam while it would cost 89,90 reais in americanas.com. Thats is ABSURD! Its twice the true value. YES! I exhort all Brazilians: in the case of steal or be stolen: STEAL! MuHUHAHAHAHA!!!! (performing Mr. Evil's little finger impression)

"Nor do I expect people to stop pirating simply on moral grounds."
Then quit calling the civil disobedient "unscrupulous"as if it was demeaning to pirate in the given circumstances. Some of us do piracy while being principled. In fact, some piracy is definitely benign, specially in the case of proprietary software tools (as opposed to leisure software, gamez) . It furthers opensourceness. Is that even a word? =]

"As an economist, I reconize that the incetives to pirate are immense. Quite simple, the benefits of pirating consists of a large private gain, while the costs, which are larger than the benefits, are shared (and thus hidden to the pirate gamer) by brazilian society as whole.
I agree with you that it will take a concerted effort by both the goverment, by reducing taxes on games, and companies, by adopting other pricing policies, to help end piracy in Brazil. But don't expect that to happen anytime soon."

Me neither, so lets get practical. Teach your friends some bittorrent.

Cheers.

By the way, good essay. Otherwise excellent without the reckless admonishing.

Its kinda sad, people are wondering whats causing the economical problems when they are doing it, The olny time i pirate a game is when i cant buy it AT ALL. Like recently, i was trying to get my hands on a copy of summoner, no luck so i pirated it. But if i want a game like gta4 or hitman bloodmoney or what ever if they have it at gamestop, deal. Ebay, maybe depending on the pricing

Clemenstation:
Sounds like a rocking good time overseas.

Just out of curiosity, what percentage of titles are officially translated into Portuguese, d'yathink? Is there a big fansub community?

Not many titles are officially translated, but it wouldn't be fair to say only a few are. Usually those are huge AAA releases, take Halo 3 and Mirror's Edge, for example. Halo 3 was not only was translated, but also got a dubbed Portuguese version. Mirror's Edge, for example, like many other translations available in Brazil, provides Portuguese subtitles in-game and for the menus. Most of the games that see Brazilian releases usually have a Portuguese copy of the game manual included and a warning mentioning that the rest of the game is in its original language.

Winning Eleven, on the other hand, is an impressive collaborative-pirate example of how Konami's soccer game gets Portuguese narrations, local teams in faithful uniforms along with ads for Brazilian companies next to the field.

As a Brazilian gamer, I acknowledge the situation isn't good, but it definitely favors those who don't want to pay big bucks for games (which come at a very high price due to importation taxes). As a Brazilian game developer, I fight these urges and buy games the legal way. There's no better way to support the industry I am part of, though we all must admit the grass on the other side looks greener.

As a Brazilian, I agree with pretty much everything mercutio22 said.
And I, too, should say that your article sounds an awful lot like what a rich North American puritan would say... But that's just me.

And to The Escapist Webdesign Crew, a warning: the image on the article (the one that contains it's title) is rather offensive. You *know* that that photo isn't from Brazil, so using it just gives everyone else the *incorrect* idea that we live in extreme poverty (even though that is the case in some regions of my country, it is hardly the case of the major cities and metropolitan areas - where gamers, the focus of the article, live). IMHO, you could have done a little more research and done a more "accurate" job, to say the least.

Ehh.

Is it just me or is The Escapist grasping at straws here?

I know, I know, editorials benefit from having varying views but eh, rampant moralism just ain't my thing.

Vert:
insanelich: I notice you haven't replied to my argument, that my article is relating what some facts and trying to extend my experience here in Brazil to other countries, and, instead, you have commited the common falacy of simply disqualifying my whole line of reasoning, by calling it 'rampant moralism'.

I don't find you have any valid points to reply to, frankly. Finland's experience - as one of the most high-tech countries out there - with piracy has been uneventful at best. It's accepted as a fact of life and plenty of people do it - and plenty of people don't. Most mix somewhat. Convenience, amount of free time and cost compared to lifestyle expenses seem to have the biggest influence.

And your "facts" reek of, well, rampant moralism. You appear to assume everyone has to share your values, your projections are too laughable to counter and your callings of doom fall on ears that have long, long since learned to tune out doomsayers.

Piracy's been here longer than most of the companies fighting it, and them having enough money to fight it seems to convey it's own message.

Vert:
mercutio22: Well, rationalize it all you want, the bottom line is that you're stealing. And I disagree with you that is the correct thing to do. But, I agree that by using P2P, you are causing less harm to Brazilian society as a whole and, ultimatly, we agree to disagree, so no hard feelings.
Oh, and let me make something clear here: there is room, from an economics standpoint, to debate on whether poorer countries should be allowed to violate copyrights of certain products, the best example being pharmaceutical products, but I'm not convinced the case can be made for games.
By the way, I think you're demonstrating vivadly the sort of mentality I mention in my article. The fact that other countries lack this is one of the key points that has stopped piracy from expanding to even greater heights, in my opinion.

I never said stealing was right, I just said you have to take the context to measure right and wrong. You obviously have a problem with that. I agree that stealing is wrong in some circumstances, in others its unfortunate but necessary. Now when I say necessary, I don't mean it in the sense of a survival need, either you do it or you die, but necessary nonetheless. Either you do it or you don't get to play games or you get stolen by the lame game market system. So yeah, lets just disagree. I am tired of rephrasing the meme. You can't move an yota on this one.

The lack-of-piracy-mentality-in-other-countries statement is an empirical one and I challenge you to show your references. I suspect thats just preconception.

I'm from Mexico and the image of the pirate avenue is exactly what you see on a particular avenue in downtown Mexico City. Nothing different at all. Yes, there has been an incredible boom in legal gaming stores and sections in other stores (Blockbuster, for example) in Mexico, most of them in malls. Yes, 360's sell a lot, as do Wiis, and way behind the monstrously expensive PS3. Yet piracy is still running at max settings, even moreso now that the price of everyhting has gone up. What I've come to conclude, however, is that the problem is not just the people here.

Problem one: Price. Even for the most basic of software packages, not even games, the price tags are up in the stratosphere. They are not worth it. I know a lot of people who would rather buy legal software since pirated copies can fail to work, sometimes bring along a friendly virus or trojan, or in some cases the disc you bought isn't the program you thought you were buying. Your risk all of this with pirated software because of the price. You don't feel you're losing out on much if it turns out you got scammed. P2P piracy becomes the alternative for those that know how. I understand games have become terribly expensive to make, but other software tools are not, yet they hover around the same prices. So, when everything costs the same one never stops to think how much was spent to develop each piece of software. Guilt dilutes itself.

Problem two: Distribution is downright laughable, especially for PC. In Mexico, though there has been an increase in legal gaming stores they're exclusively for consoles. PC games and software must be purchased at Office Max, Office Depot or some similar outlet, where everything can fit rather nicely in three or four shelves, usually also besides some console games as well. The prices for PC games, in contrast, are a third or less of what you would pay for a console game, but they are mostly games no one wants to play, or games that are 2 to 3 years old (or more). For example, I wanted to play Tomb Raider Underworld. I wanted the PC version. I went to every single one of the places where I could buy a legal copy. No one had it. This is a high profile game almost a month after its release, not some obscure game from an indie developer. Despite a lot of billboard advertising, the PC version is nowhere to be seen. Aaaah, but who has it? Your local ilegal software distributor. So I'm forced to buy this copy if I ever want to play the game. That was 3 months ago. If I go to any of the stores I mentioned, the PC version of TRU is still not there. This is the publisher's fault for having lousy distribution. I talk of TRU because it was the most recent example of something that has happened to me several times. Many times I end up ordering the game from amazon IF (and there's a big IF) they are allowed to ship games to Mexico. So yeah, sometimes publishers make it impossible to buy legally even if you have the money and the disposition to send profit their way. That's when I pirate out of spite (usually through P2P to avoid dealing with organized crime).

Ok, I think a lot of you are missing the point here.
Yes, the authors opinion is that Piracy is bad for society.
Yes, he believes you shouldn't do it.
But quite frankly, ask him if he hasn't done it already?
You can bet your a** that he has, just as I have (and will still do, as a p2p enthusiast). BUT! he choose to acknowledge that this does bring severe and several cons to video games market/companies, in a local and a global picture.
I don't believe his essay is moralist! It's down right "easy-going" in my opinion. Being a former video games developer, I can say without a doubt that piracy takes it's toll from the gaming industry. I ended up without a job, for one.
There is simply a choice that each on of us has to be make.

mercutio22: I do beg to differ from you. Being a Brazilian as well, if I had to guess a number, I would say more than 80% of piracy is offline (in other words, on the street, helping organized crime). Think about the favelas (slums for non Portuguese speaking people)... think about all the people with PS2... the broad band network of brazil is still small if you consider the whole country (according to INFO Online 8 million as opposed to 190 million from IBGE)... And come on, take that 8 million and think about how many of these even knows what bit torrent is...
And I'm being generous here. Take a look at the number:
"Abragames estimated in 2004 that no less than 94 percent of the country's games market consisted of pirated merchandise. Similarly, Brazilian internet portal UOL reported in 2006 that the so called 'grey market' of illegally imported products made up 80 percent of Brazil's games market and 94 percent of its console market. "

Lets not be hypocrites here. If you do pirate, than you should know the consequences.
I do and I know.

EDIT: spell check!

Interesting article. I find it a good counterpoint to my own article or maybe half a year ago, where I argued that publishers need to compete with pirates if they want to see any profit or if they want to truly stamp out piracy.

The truth is that you cannot ignore the economic conditions of the market that you are trying to sell to. In one extreme case that someone pointed out, medicine is finally being sold to developing nations at lower prices than pharmaceutical companies would like. While certainly medicine is a much more serious topic, the underlying sentiment is the same: If you can't afford it, sucks to be you. The result with a lack of affordable medicines is death. The result of a lack of affordable games is boredom...or piracy. People don't like being bored. If you'd like to know more please read (not really a plug, but look at it as additional information):

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_158/5045-Piracy-and-the-Underground-Economy

Pedro, while you have good points and I don't think that you were being moralist, I think the weakness of your article is that you don't really offer a solution other than "man up and buy legal goods". I'm trying to do this myself, having been a game developer for a few years and fully realizing the impact that piracy has on developers. However I find it hard to lecture people who haven't come to the same conclusions I have simply because it makes no economic sense for them to do so.

interesting article.. Well written..

Games are like drugs, everybody needs their daily dose, i will do whatever to get a hold of it..

Unicamper:

mercutio22: I do beg to differ from you. Being a Brazilian as well, if I had to guess a number, I would say more than 80% of piracy is offline (in other words, on the street, helping organized crime). Think about the favelas (slums for non Portuguese speaking people)... think about all the people with PS2... the broad band network of brazil is still small if you consider the whole country (according to INFO Online 8 million as opposed to 190 million from IBGE)... And come on, take that 8 million and think about how many of these even knows what bit torrent is...
And I'm being generous here. Take a look at the number:
"Abragames estimated in 2004 that no less than 94 percent of the country's games market consisted of pirated merchandise. Similarly, Brazilian internet portal UOL reported in 2006 that the so called 'grey market' of illegally imported products made up 80 percent of Brazil's games market and 94 percent of its console market. "

As if I had said otherwise: the statistics are a counter-argument to none of my assertions.

Unicamper:

Lets not be hypocrites here. If you do pirate, than you should know the consequences.
I do and I know.

Acknowleged: see for instance post 17, paragraph 2.

Interesting read, thank you!

Reminds me of the stories my half Korean friend tells of Seoul. I still have his pirated copy of Half Life and Opposing Forces somewhere. The text is printed in Korean and has the CD keys printed onto the top of the disc. Worked perfectly for a long time!

Demand not able to be legitimately satisfied = counterfeit markets. It affects everything from electronics to AIDs medication. Its big business (to the point drugs gangs are turning away from dope to conterfeits coz the profits are better & very light punishments). & in many cases theres nothing the legitimate companies can do because the fakes are coming from the same factories/warehouses etc that make their products. Its a consequence of mass market globalisation & its here to stay.

I dont have much to add, just that you cannot compare Finland with Brazil. Specially with technology.

Most of what I could say was already said, specially that piracy does hurt the former market - and the moral bounds are in that when you spend money in illegal march you are not paying taxes and as a consequence you are not contributing to the government for investing on public education, public health, infrastructure and all those things taxes were meant for. The trouble is: our politicians are corrupt in the whole majority and is not of their interest to spend a penny on it.

PS.: Im not a 100% favour or against piracy. I think that it will always exist. And to be honest, I do make use of piracy - though downloading from internet and burning them my own.

EDIT:

I also did not like the photo used to illustrate. most of the store owners here in my city are white guys. most of the fatty kind.