Games and piracy in Russia

danielgosling

Wow,

I'm studying Russian in TCD and I just spent a year in Moscow from last September to just 1 week ago. I just want to describe and explain the situation over there when it comes to buying pc games. Well first of all if you have a problem with piracy then read no further as of the 15 plus games I bought there over the year not one was ligitimate but I bought them anyway as they are 250 roubles per copy. thats just 6 euro! I was a bit tentative at first as we are constantly warned about the lack and inconsistancy of quality with pirated goods yet I never found this to be true during my time there.
The most famous place to go in Moscow is definately the massive Garbooshka market which was near my university. When I made my way there for the first time I was prepared for a dodgy corner street full of temporary stalls. However the market is a massive, multi leveled warehouse..squeaky clean and extremially professional. It isn't just games that are sold there....washing machines,tvs,basically everything you could thing of needing! Super professional pc stores stood metres away from stalls full of rows of ripped off dvds,games and music. But they do such a good job of it! Nice colour photocopied covers and even the game dvds have the original graphic neatly printed on...so its only when you open the intall app up that you'll remark on the copy of Daemontools and folder named CRACK which gives it away that your dealing with some pirates with taste..haha.

Besides all of this its even more remarkable that they are openly getting away with all of this! Vendors openly admitted to me that they were low on supplies because they had a bunch of dvds in storage as they were tipped off on a police raid due the next week. And the general public you may ask? Come off it! They dont care and soon... I didnt either to tell you the truth. You do the maths....just think real games only in Russian for 700 (20 euro) or pirate games in English for 250 (6 approx). Yeah I though you'd agree.

Nothing is being done about this situation and nothing will ever BE done. The Russian public have zero quams about whats going on and absolutely no western company would ever have the balls to tell them otherwise. You see Russians aren't really afraid of an awful lot...especially any threat from foreigners. They have just been through too much to care about anything except doing exactly what they want...and they dont want to pay more than 6 euro for a pcgame. I mean even the actual real games are only 20! When I tell them that games here are 1800 they laugh heartedly and ask me where the pirate markets are. When I tell them we dont have that luxury they give me a bemused look..like they are thinking "the west is not the future" or some such and maybe they re right?

If you have any q's Ill be happy to answer them.

Retr0gamer

Piracy is rampant in Russia as well as other parts of East Europe and Asia. The police really can't do anything to stop it except the odd raid to make it look like they are making a difference. I know DVDs in areas that are rife with piracy are sold at around 8 euro with reduced special features so that they can actually compete with the pirated versions which are usually just as good quality. Games publishers should be doing the same thing. There's no point getting a game at full price since, 1. most people in these areas are quite poor and can't afford full price, 2. the DVDs and games are available at a fraction of the cost in their priated form and have the same quality, and 3. there is zero risk with buying pirated software/DVDs since it is so rife that it is basically 'tolerated' by the authorities.

L31mr0d

danielgosling wrote:

Wow,

I'm studying Russian in TCD and I just spent a year in Moscow from last September to just 1 week ago. I just want to describe and explain the situation over there when it comes to buying pc games. Well first of all if you have a problem with piracy then read no further as of the 15 plus games I bought there over the year not one was ligitimate but I bought them anyway as they are 250 roubles per copy.....

congratulations you are now part of the problem, its funny the amount of people who inadvertantly give their money to organised crime. It must make you feel good to think that the money you gave to these people might some day go to paying for someone to get their knees capped by the russian mafia, pay for drugs/arms to be smuggled to 3rd world countries. When you see terrorists bombing embassys and schools you can feel good in yourself that your money paid for the parts that made up that bomb. To be so naive as to think that all you are doing is buying a cheap game is sickening. What you are advocating is a hell of a lot more serious then somebody downloading warez for free where nobody profits, but to give your money over in support is pure ignorance.

Kazu

dont you have to be smart to go to TCD ?? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:


yes why pay six euro for a game to fund russian mafia who traffic women and god knows what else


btw (hint) cabbages

amp

While technically the op is providing the location of warez, I think the distance to travel might be an issue. Also it is interesting to see the world from different places.

Shut your hinting mouth Kazu.

Kristok

To move on from the whiter than white argument that your indirectly "paying for someone to get their knees capped by the russian mafia" rubbish.

Yes your right the west is not the future its the past trying to hold onto its outdated model. Why pay for a big fancy box when all you want is the game inside that could have been printed and sold for 10 euro with a healty profit for everyone it just makes no sense. Piracy is forcing music, movie and in some respects the games industry to change its models and try to deliver something people want and not what they are being told they must have. Why pay for music in a shop when you can get it cheaper online, an option that is only available because piracy forced it upon the record industry. If it wasnt for piracy we would still be waiting months for most movies to be released here after they are finished showing in the states now they try to rush the releases to stop pirates selling them. The next gen consoles are gonig to at some point allow us to download games removing the cost the middle man from the products, something that only benefits companies like gamestop and costs us a fortune.

Eastern europe and asia dont understand why they should pay for these things at an inflated price its only our culture that allows corporations to get away with convincing us thats we have no choice but to do what they say. Eventually piracy will force a change that will save us all from spending hard earned money on padding we just dont need or want. The only person who gets hurt is the big corporate ceo's who wont have as much money to spend on private jets and million doller bonus'

L31mr0d

Listen, this is not a matter of being anti-capitalist, and I don't need to quote the plethora of articles about how video game piracy is linked to organised crime all over the planet. You are talking about "eastern europe and asia" like its the countries and governments who are selling these warez cheaper. Who do you think has the money to be mass reproducing games/dvds/CD and selling them on the open market. Like I said, there is a big difference between downloading warez for free, which will have the same impact as your earlier comment and paying for it illegally.

These organizations that sell games are the same ones that sell drugs and arms all over the planet, end of story. If you think what they are doing is a just cause and is done to benefit the rest of us rich westerners so we can all get cheaper games, then you are sadly mistaken.

KTRIC

One word for all those of you that grew up in the 80's - ATARI . The ledgendry games company was crippeled under the strain of piracy.

Trode

Kristok, I'm impressed. It's like you've collated all the traditional flaws in the pro-piracy argument into one masterful rant. Purely for the convenience of it, I salute you.

Kristok wrote:

Yes your right the west is not the future its the past trying to hold onto its outdated model. Why pay for a big fancy box when all you want is the game inside that could have been printed and sold for 10 euro with a healty profit for everyone it just makes no sense.

Flaw #1: "The physical materials involved (CDs, DVDs,boxes,paper for manuals) is cheap to produce, so the end product should be cheaper"
This only holds true if you believe the information contained has no value, so logically a blank CD in a plain black DVD case should costas much as a full game. Yet if this information holds no value, why download it all? True, it could be printed and sold for 10 euro, but not produced for sales of that amount. Or at least, not profitably. The company who made it have to cover the cost of, you know, actually making it as well as the cost of eeproduction/marketing/packaging etc.

Kristok wrote:

Piracy is forcing music, movie and in some respects the games industry to change its models and try to deliver something people want and not what they are being told they must have. Why pay for music in a shop when you can get it cheaper online, an option that is only available because piracy forced it upon the record industry. If it wasnt for piracy we would still be waiting months for most movies to be released here after they are finished showing in the states now they try to rush the releases to stop pirates selling them.

Flaw #2: "Piracy is great because it forces the industries involved to make changes I like"
Technically true, but not a defence. It's like saying "Joyriding is great because it leads to the improvement of car alarms". The changes you are talking about would have come about anyway, if there was a market demand for them. Corporations, big & evil or not, are in the business of making money. If they can do something new to make more money, they will.
Not all the adaptations to piracy are good. Just ask anyone who wants to put their Cd collection onto their MP3 player legally, or a song from iTunes onto a CD for their car. Now the technology employed to prevent this is undoubtedly mean, pernicious, unethical and utterly deplorable, but it's hard to argue it's a response to piracy.

Kristok wrote:

The next gen consoles are gonig to at some point allow us to download games removing the cost the middle man from the products, something that only benefits companies like gamestop and costs us a fortune.

Flaw #3: "Selling things in shops only benefits the retailer/middle man".
Erm, no. It also benefits the consumer, as they gain a commodity they desired for a price they deemed fair at the time. If they didn't deem it fair, they wouldn't/shouldn't have paid that price. There is nothing unfair about the exchange, as it is not a necessity that you own the item. You want it, but you don't want to pay the price. Why do you think you're entitled to own it, that the shop is denying you this right,or charging over the odds for it? You really think they'd continue to sell things at that price if noone bought it?

Kristok wrote:

Eastern europe and asia dont understand why they should pay for these things at an inflated price its only our culture that allows corporations to get away with convincing us thats we have no choice but to do what they say.

Yes, I've lost count of the amount of times a corporate suit held a gun to my head and demanded I purchase the latest release at full price. Funny that bargain bins, budget releases and compilations should exist then, given that we all buy every game the minute it comes out, because the big mean corporations told us to.

Kristok wrote:

Eventually piracy will force a change that will save us all from spending hard earned money on padding we just dont need or want. The only person who gets hurt is the big corporate ceo's who wont have as much money to spend on private jets and million doller bonus'

Flaw#4:"Piracy only hurts the billionaire CEOs"
In fairness, you can't argue with that. That said, if the man is talented enough to design, program,script,score,test,promote,package,produce and sell a game all by himself, he probably deserves to be rich. I mean, it's not as if there are hundreds of people below him who do the actual work of producing the game for not a lot of money, is it? Good thing there are no programmers,artists, writers, salesmen and factory workers slaving over creating a game, because if there were, they'd be the ones really getting shafted when their game doesn't sell due to piracy. While this theoretical CEO swans around in his jet, writes it off as another unprofitable venture and fires the guys involved.

Trode

K-TRIC wrote:

One word for all those of you that grew up in the 80's - ATARI . The ledgendry games company was crippeled under the strain of piracy.

Uh, Atari was crippled under the strain of producing acres of crap that nobody wanted to buy. They flooded the market with dire games, making people a lot more wary of buying any games. Market shrinks, Atari continue producing more and more stuff noone wants, market crash. It's why ET is the game famously buried in the desert and, not coincidentally, considered one of the worst games of all time.

KTRIC

Trode wrote:

Uh, Atari was crippled under the strain of producing acres of crap that nobody wanted to buy. They flooded the market with dire games, making people a lot more wary of buying any games. Market shrinks, Atari continue producing more and more stuff noone wants, market crash. It's why ET is the game famously buried in the desert and, not coincidentally, considered one of the worst games of all time.

*note to self*

Buy bread, milk and biscuits in Lidl on the way home
Put washing on
Don't argue with gamer nerds

Trode

K-TRIC wrote:

*note to self*

Buy bread, milk and biscuits in Lidl on the way home
Put washing on
Don't argue with gamer nerds

Haven't you heard? We're all sociopathic trained killers. Now stand still while I jump on your head for extra points.:D

jaggeh

jump on his head.....?

do it with a bit of flare, put a charge on his toilet seat so when he sits down it explodes.

Trode

jaggeh wrote:

jump on his head.....?

do it with a bit of flare, put a charge on his toilet seat so when he sits down it explodes.

...........
You've thought about this.

Fenian

These organizations that sell games are the same ones that sell drugs and arms all over the planet, end of story. If you think what they are doing is a just cause and is done to benefit the rest of us rich westerners so we can all get cheaper games, then you are sadly mistaken.

So it's ok for companies to manufacture arms and sell them to whom ever they wish, but it's not ok for the mafia to sell bootleg games?
Companies like Sig Sauer, Heckler & Koch and Colt do far more damage world wide than the mafia could ever wish to do.
It is not the mafia that supplies the world with arms, it's the western state owned arms manufacturing industries that are.

Back to the OP, I know what you're talking about danielgosling, when I was in Hong Kong it was much the same setup, massive shopping centres with every kind of software or hardware that you wanted. I bought a load of GBA games for 7 euro each, this is going back about 2 or 3 years.

Dont be at yourself

So it's ok for companies to manufacture arms and sell them to whom ever they wish, but it's not ok for the mafia to sell bootleg games?
Companies like Sig Sauer, Heckler & Koch and Colt do far more damage world wide than the mafia could ever wish to do.

I dont think anyone mentioned anything about arms manufacturers, really. The fact of the matter is is that when you buy a pirated game from these kind of places, your money is more than likely going into the pockets of organised crime, and irrespective of the fact that there may be bigger, badder organisations out there, that is A Bad Thing.

Zillah

Fenian wrote:

So it's ok for companies to manufacture arms and sell them to whom ever they wish, but it's not ok for the mafia to sell bootleg games?
Companies like Sig Sauer, Heckler & Koch and Colt do far more damage world wide than the mafia could ever wish to do.
It is not the mafia that supplies the world with arms, it's the western state owned arms manufacturing industries that are.

They're making them, its not like they're using them. I'm not defending arms producers, but you're painting it almost as if the Mafia are poor impressionable foreigners that went crazy and violent when the evil western corporations flooded their nations with guns.

danielgosling

Im quite impressed with all the replies to my post. I can see lodgic in all your views and please correct me if I'm wrong but Im the only person who has been in Russia and it's really important for you to understand just how people operate there. There's a reason why the spread of wealth there is so uneven. The vast majority of the people there are not ambitious in any way and are very willing to buy and let items pass through their hands that they know are illegal or connected with organised crime. For them the fact that they are getting it cheaper, whether it is a pcgame, a washing machine or a phonecard, and that they are economising more and making their hard lives a little easier is the over riding factor that removes all remorse or regret that one might have otherwise having just bought/handled illegal goods.They live hard and i mean it. Arriving there I soon had to get used to the fact that nearly all the beggars on the streets were old women.Just imagine your granny's pension is 30 dollars a month and that just to survive she has to resort to crime..albeit tolerated crime ranging from selling stolen flowers to illegal metro tickets. its shocking and thats just Moscow the centre of all wealth and power in Russia and the supposed bright light of Russia. I can tell you that life is much more liveable in the far east. I was in Siberia in may and in Ulan Ude, not far from Mongolia, and life seemed much more balanced and reasonable over there believe it or not.
So forget the ****ing corporations and organised crime people don't care in Russia. I was living there for a year and I sure as hell was not going to buy a full price game if i could get one cheaper regardless as to whether the big suits give a **** or not.And as to the Russia Mafia remark and women smuggling etc please if you're going to get that emotional back up your tears with facts or else you're just a lowly neo-con like Rumsfeld preaching that the soviets have non accustic submarines! Yes the mafia exist in Russia and to distribute 1000's of dvds does take some serious infrastructure but honestly, like every Russian you'd meet in the street, I honestly never thought about it until right now. Please respond but remember tears+facts L31mr0d.

Dont be at yourself

An old woman selling forged metro tickets so she can make a wage is one thing, but a Trinity student picking up some games on his year abroad cant really be compared, or excused, can it?

jaggeh

being a trinity student is bad enough.......

Trode

danielgosling wrote:

Im quite impressed with all the replies to my post. I can see lodgic in all your views and please correct me if I'm wrong but Im the only person who has been in Russia and it's really important for you to understand just how people operate there. There's a reason why the spread of wealth there is so uneven. The vast majority of the people there are not ambitious in any way and are very willing to buy and let items pass through their hands that they know are illegal or connected with organised crime. For them the fact that they are getting it cheaper, whether it is a pcgame, a washing machine or a phonecard, and that they are economising more and making their hard lives a little easier is the over riding factor that removes all remorse or regret that one might have otherwise having just bought/handled illegal goods.

You know, I'd bet a good deal of this inequality and poverty is down to the
rich criminals you're so fond of. In fact, arguing, essentially, that they're poor because they're lazy and criminal is classic neo-conservatism. Certainly more so than some nonsense about submarines you accuse another poster of imitating.

So forget the ****ing corporations and organised crime people don't care in Russia. I was living there for a year and I sure as hell was not going to buy a full price game if i could get one cheaper regardless as to whether the big suits give a **** or not.And as to the Russia Mafia remark and women smuggling etc please if you're going to get that emotional back up your tears with facts or else you're just a lowly neo-con like Rumsfeld preaching that the soviets have non accustic submarines! Yes the mafia exist in Russia and to distribute 1000's of dvds does take some serious infrastructure but honestly, like every Russian you'd meet in the street, I honestly never thought about it until right now. Please respond but remember tears+facts L31mr0d.

I have no idea what the submarine thing is about, and despite the fact that it strains credulity that you could not know or believe that the Russian mob is involved in people trafficing or counterfeiting, here are your facts:
http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Russia.php
http://www.allianceagainstiptheft.co.uk/news/archivearticle.html?id=34
although I suspect your rebuttal will still be "I didn't and don't want to think about it".

As for the "Screw the corporate suits!" stuff, I reiterate:

trode wrote:

It's not as if there are hundreds of people below him who do the actual work of producing the game for not a lot of money, is it? Good thing there are no programmers,artists, writers, salesmen and factory workers slaving over creating a game, because if there were, they'd be the ones really getting shafted when their game doesn't sell due to piracy. While this theoretical CEO swans around in his jet, writes it off as another unprofitable venture and fires the guys involved.

For every "corporate suit" mildly irked by the self-righteous thievery of you and others like you, dozens of average wage-slaves like you and...well, like me get serious hassle or lose their jobs. Still, enjoy your cheap PC games, safe in the knowledge that not one cent of it is going to people who need or deserve it, but to people who would do much worse thing to your dear old grandmother than put her on the street begging.

jesus_thats_gre

Was in Russia a few times with the first time being about 12 years ago.. Very strange place indeed with the markets being the stangest of all. You can buy any copyrighted item for next to nothing and I mean anything.

I will never forget the non-refrigerated meet counters in 30 degree sunshine though.

L31mr0d

danielgosling wrote:

Please respond but remember tears+facts L31mr0d.

Hi, Daniel Gosling is it?

Are you serious? I thought you had to have some kind of brains to get into Trinity? Do I really need to baby feed you the "facts" about piracy and organised crime. If I said "the sun will rise tomorrow", would you like me to get astronomical data about stars and planatary orbits to prove it to you?

Just do a search (do you know how to do that? try google.com) for piracy russia games mafia... whatever. I'm simply stating a FACT, I don't need to back it up with any because that is what it is?

Your ignorence is scary, HOW THE HELL COULD YOU NOT THINK ABOUT IT??? The people in Russia have grown up with organised crime. You haven't, and you certainly aren't so poor that you NEEDED to buy these games. PLUS, you can get them for free, which is bad in itself but at least you're not giving over you money to support them.

Tell me, if you knew a bunch of racists, pedophiles and rapists got together and opened up a warehouse selling cheap games, would you be first in line?

Kristok

L31mr0d wrote:

Tell me, if you knew a bunch of racists, pedophiles and rapists got together and opened up a warehouse selling cheap games, would you be first in line?

Wow your really worked up about this whole thing you should really chill out he bought a game his contribution at most was a few euro not enough to buy a bottle of vodka for the mafia, thats if the person he bought it from was even connected to them which there is no reason to believe they where.

zAbbo

I'd only pirate EA games, in the hope it may cripple them.

Piracy rules, unless you need an working key

L31mr0d

Kristok wrote:

Wow your really worked up about this whole thing you should really chill out he bought a game his contribution at most was a few euro not enough to buy a bottle of vodka for the mafia, thats if the person he bought it from was even connected to them which there is no reason to believe they where.

Just to be clear, I have NO problem with piracy where nobody profits. If he had said he had found a website where you could download games for nothing i'd of had no problem. But we are bandying around the term "mafia" like they are some innocent organsization, you should be just as shocked to support the mafia as any of the other kind of people I mentioned. It doesn't matter how much money he gave, whether it be a euro or 100. By giving them his money, he was saying "I agree with what you are doing, and I support you to continue doing this and spend my money however you feel fit".

Its your dismissal and ignorence of the implications that is worrying, so he only spent a couple of euro? Say a few thousand students from abroad travel to russia and spend a couple of euros in this warehouse, say there are 50 or 60 of these warehouses with the same traffic? You do the math. If you are going to be so blasé about a single persons choice and impact then there is no point discussing this with you anymore, you clearly can't see the bigger picture.

Kristok

L31mr0d wrote:

By giving them his money, he was saying "I agree with what you are doing, and I support you to continue doing this and spend my money however you feel fit".

No he is saying the game is cheaper and in russia its not going to get him in trouble buying it.

L31mr0d wrote:

Its your dismissal and ignorence of the implications that is worrying, so he only spent a couple of euro? Say a few thousand students from abroad travel to russia and spend a couple of euros in this warehouse, say there are 50 or 60 of these warehouses with the same traffic? You do the math. If you are going to be so blasé about a single persons choice and impact then there is no point discussing this with you anymore, you clearly can't see the bigger picture.

A few thousand students is only a drop in the water of the millions of Russians who do it anyway and any moral qualms you might have are not even a consideration to them.

Anyway your assuming everyone selling games (or music/movies) is doing it through the mob. All anyone needs is a computer and they can manufacture saleable products.

danielgosling

Hi again.

Cheers for the Trinity remark. Like I care. Judging a person by which county he comes from or where he studies just seems a tad closed minded. There are plenty of stupid people in Trinity haha.

Wow I guess my frankness must of rattled you L31mr0d. You really love the idea that the Russian Mafia an organisation which is very over hyped has its fingers in every pie... I mean very few of them are even from Russia! They're all Armenian or Georgian immigrants and I find it hard to believe that the games I bought in the Garbooshka market had anything to do with them. As I said before if you are enterprising in Russia you become rich...its that simple. People there are quite lazy in this regard and theres massive amounts of market potential if you just get up off your arse. Thing is that the fastest way to get round the horrible Russian beaurocracy is to go black market...and the great thing is that its barely policed. I believe that the people behind the games piracy in Moscow are not the Mafia. The fact is that anyone might think of breaking the law if they think they'll get away with it and in Russias case that means alot of the population.

You must really believe that the stall I bought my games from out of all the hundreds of games stalls in the market was supplied by the Mafia. My conscience is clear. Please rant again. I find your posts good reading. Oh and as we're intimate let me recommend you to play Dreamfall which is one of said bought games.kisses.

ArphaRima

but Im the only person who has been in Russia

Are you eh?! Thats a hell of a bold claim.

I've been in plenty of poor countries. They simply cannot afford to buy microsoft ANYTHING. They cannot afford to buy Music, DVD's, games, or any other item at the prices the retailers offer. In fact where I live I have never seen a legitimate DVD or music vendor.

And the mafia have NOTHING to do with the sale of said DVD's. Only the police's willingness to allow it to continue. And they have to. It is not in the country's interest to have a population unable to use MS Windows. In fact it is not in Microsofts interest either. That is the reason MS update hasnt been used to shut down every counterfeit copy worldwide. Microsoft would much prefer to have people use counterfeit software than their competitors software. Market share is enough -whether profitable or not.

I use and purchase counterfeit goods regularly. I do understand economics. I know I must pay a reasonable price for goods. But I feel Europe gets hard done by on that front. In China OFFICIAL new release DVD's are sold for 3-6 dollars in HIGHER quality packaging than an Irish copy selling for 35 euro. The reason: piracy. This means it is economically viable to sell at that price. Now tell me why it costs 35 euro in Ireland. Even PC games sell for cheaper. they sell for 25 dollars in Singapore (a rich country, but again in asia). As opposed to 60 euro at home. Explain it. Piracy is forcing competitiveness on an industry used to relative monopoly and price fixing.

monument

L31mr0d wrote:

Just do a search (do you know how to do that? try google.com) for piracy russia games mafia... whatever. I'm simply stating a FACT, I don't need to back it up with any because that is what it is?

You saying that something is a "FACT" does not make it such. If you dont back something up it's just your opnion, just as good as any other poster's opnion.


And while I’m at it, here’s a generally comment for everyone – keep it civil.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

it seems that most sites on the internet from which illegal information can be obtained (warez etc.) come from the .ru domain
Not that i'd know of course