As I've brought up a couple times already - this forum has a weekly thread that always reaches at least a dozen pages just to discuss sales charts. So many people here grew up with (and continue to perpetuate, even subconsciously) "console wars". People pick favourite corporations and root for their hardware, ecosystems, and product successes. It's maybe unique to the medium - video games require an upfront investment into closed systems, so people feel the need to justify the purchase, and over time people's identities incorporate, in some small way, their corporate allegiance. Like you don't see book lovers fight over Penguin Random House and HarperCollins...well, AFAIK.
My concern is with the condemnation of those who pirate. It's not advocating for or rationalizing piracy, it's empathizing with those who do and understanding the inherent unfairness of how art is so much more accessible to certain parts of the population than others, the inherent unjust inequality of capitalism, and those corporations and our institutions' failure to make this part of the culture accessible to everyone the same way we have with literature, film, and music.
The common response to this sentiment is "too bad, doesn't justify piracy" - whatever, I'm not talking about the act itself. Regardless of how much of a sin those acts of piracy might be, I'd argue it's a greater sadness that vast swaths of this medium is closed off to millions of people who can't afford it, and that the history of it is further restricted and solely curated by the corporations - not the artists, remember! - who commissioned the work by hiring employees and not paying them a proportionate cut of the revenue generated by their art. That matters more to me than if Nintendo Co. Ltd's war chest increases from $4.6 billion to $4.61 billion. Socioeconomic conditions don't justify piracy? I'd argue that "protecting IP" doesn't justify corporate control over culture and the arts at the expense of the artists and the people.
And it's difficult to have this conversation without the accusation levied against me that I'm rationalizing the act. This is a very different example and I understand it's much more serious, but bear with me: I wouldn't advocate for someone to do hard drugs, but I would empathize with, understand, and discuss the situation that leads to these circumstances, and I would condemn society's enforcement of the rule of law instead of bettering the conditions that led to that choice. I should hope that we can talk about piracy and the circumstances surrounding it without advocating for it, but I feel like the unwillingness to allow that wiggle room is endemic of how deeply ingrained corporatism is in our culture - the inaccessibility of culture to people with less money is just universally accepted as something that might be unfortunate, but is just the way it is, so don't you dare consider the cultural benefits of piracy, if any - it's a crime that causes harm to the "creators", the corporations (not necessarily the artists!), and that's apparently what's most important.
This is gross and I hope I articulated why I feel that way in my post above. "So-called poor people", really?
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