05/02/00

CDRs:  Who's getting burned?

So you sit down and you are playing your favorite Playstation Game that you paid $39.95 for. Your buddy has a "burned" copy he got from a friend that he only paid $5 for. So who is getting screwed? You are! But not by the company who charged you forty dollars. Your own friend is burning you. Want to know how?

You work hard for your money right? Most of us have to save up money to by the things that we can enjoy. Like.... say... video games. This is the way the world works. The people who make these games work hard to. In fact probably harder than you think. Imagine sitting in front of a computer for hours on end entering thousands of lines of code. Now imagine your bosses putting pressure on you to go faster so the game will meet the appointed dead line so it is out by Christmas. My nephew (Dayne) who loves computers and loves to work on them said that he would never want such a boring job and he would never want to program an entire game. I my self have programmed a few games in my day for basic when I has in high school. (That was a while ago.) I even had some graphics. Let me tell you it is exciting the first time, but debugging it was a nightmare. My point is that programming sucks. But I digress.

Now lets say you are one of four or five programmers for the game. How much is it worth to you to make a game. Well let’s see.... you probably would like to pay for your computer courses at college that wasn't cheap. After that you would have to make some serious money to spend on the weekends so you don't go insane from the hours of frustrating work. Now if that was all that was needed to make and distribute a game that would make the game relatively cheep. As we all know though there is a lot more to it then that. There are people who have to package it, ship it, advertise it, and then there are the warehouses that need to do the same. Every one along the line needs to make some money to pay over head and them selves. Never mind the licenses that are required to make a game for a system. The costs to make these games are a lot more than any of us could afford.

Now imagine that 30% of your games were returned. Not because they weren't good, but because 30% people who own it actually own a burned copy. The next time the company makes a game they will now have cut about one-third the budget for the next game. Well the top programmers will find something else to do with their time than to work for less, or they will make two cheesy suck games in the same time frame as one good one and then who suffers? All of us!! How many times have you bought a game and been disappointed with it? How many times have you waited and waited for a game because it keeps getting pushed back. Have you ever thought that maybe if these companies had all of the money that was owed to them that maybe they could spend a little more in making the next ones? Last year the gaming industry made a little over 7 billion. That is huge!! But remember that is spread out over tens of thousands of workers. (Programmers, warehouse workers, the packaging department, and lets not forget yours truly here at game hits, and all the other thousands of people that are making there living off selling the games at video game stores.) Last year it is estimated that the gaming industry lost about 3 billion due to pirated games!! Three BILLION!! Do the math that would be a 43% increase if they got 3 billion more (42.857% but lets not nit pick) So now imagine if the industry got all of that money. Now they could hire the best programmers or at least reward the ones who did a better job. They would have more room for more jobs. And then maybe you too could work in this wonderful business. Then they could afford to pay the overtime necessary to make sure the game was out on time. And maybe...just maybe they wouldn't have to charge so much for the games. Or be like Working Designs and put in bonus music CD and beautiful packaging. Wouldn't that be nice :)

There are reasons for the penalty of six months in jail and large fines for each and every infraction. There was a man in Florida who got busted and got fined somewhere in the millions, and had 30 months in prison and 2 years probation for all the games that he had illegal copies of. Last I heard the laws have changed and the fine is no longer $10,000 per infraction, but now the companies gets a settlement for how much money the game is worth (and I mean total worth for the whole title not the one disc. I.e. FF8 is worth millions to Square so…) Sweet. I hope the companies make like pokemon and "Catch em all" (Sorry for the bad joke) So if you know some one that has or makes illegal burns, thank them for the high prices you have to pay. Also the Attorney generals office is in the phone book under the government section.

But what about people that need a back up in case there game gets scratched? Well I my self have a few back ups. But ONLY for the games that I own. That is still legal. But in today's world you can get scratches fixed. Game Hits can fix your scratched CDs most of the time. Dreamcast games don't usually work. (That is one thing I hate about the Dreamcast)

If a game is worth playing then the people involved in bringing that game to you have earned their money. If you don't think the game is worth paying money for then why the hell would you want a copy of it anyway? And that’s the FINAL WORD.

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