I got out of video game piracy for a while, but I’m coming back. One thing I have been absolutely SHOCKED by is how finding PC game torrents is actually kind of difficult from my normal sources. Now it’d be one thing if I just wasn’t seeing games, but for some reason Playstation and Switch have far more uploaders and seeders on the sites. This is something that would have been unthinkable when I was into piracy. But from a quick glance, it looks like the Switch has a bigger piracy scene than PCs do right now. This was so extreme I couldn’t find a torrent for Minecraft past 1.12. I found a download, but not a torrent. Or I couldn’t find any of the old versions of Five Nights At Freddy’s on PC, but could find them on other platforms. Things I’d consider true PC staples of the past decade with absolutely nothing popping up in my normal sources.

I’m not asking where to find PC torrents (although I certainly wouldn’t mind). Are consoles actually becoming more popular to pirate for?

  • Phen@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    On PCs (specially steam):

    • Games are often discounted, so you can buy them at lower prices
    • Games remain available in your account “forever” (as long as the service exist). You can upgrade to new PCs as many times as you want and the games will remain available.
    • You can play online for free, you can make cloud backups automatically, you get achievements, tradeable cards and items, extra visuals and fake points for karma.

    On Consoles (specially nintendo):

    • Games pretty much never get any discount, even after a sequel is released.
    • Once you replace it with a new console, you likely won’t have access to games you bought on previous iterations (up until recently you would lose games even by buying the same console).
    • You need to pay extra to play online, or to backup your saves, and there’s no extra useless goodies.

    So in short: There’s hardly any reason to pirate something on PC other than to avoid paying for it. There’s several benefits to getting the game legitimately. On consoles, getting games from the high seas is actually more convenient. Sometimes people will even buy the game but still play a pirate copy instead.