You think it’s sad to ask “Who is it hurting”?  Shouldn’t that be the litmus test for deciding if something is or isn’t hurting someone?  It’s kind of sad when people think whether something is hurting someone or not is irrelevant.

Let me speak to two things here. First, this is not theft, it’s copyright infringement. Second, until half a century ago copyright only lasted for 30 years. Meaning that if it wasn’t for Disney, we would all have copies of Super Mario Bros on our computers because that game would now be in the public domain! What…

“Companies who have expired licenses on games that shouldn’t be distributed anymore.”

It is 100% legal to backup software that you own. Therefore the real question of legality here would be if it’s okay for somebody else to back up your software for you and for you to use that. That is a question that has never been tried in court, and as such nobody should be attempting to definitively say one way or…

““who is it hurting?”.... It’s sad that anyone even begins to think about asking this question, let alone asking it”

The people who hid and sent away prints of Murnau’s “Nosferatu” also were

On one hand, I appreciate that. Content creators should be compensated when possible. The various “classic” consoles prove we’ll happily open our wallets when a convenient, well-executed means is available. Even when we choose to pirate, the various RetroPie rigs prove we have no issue spending money to have our…

Unless someone starts hosting all games created legally, that theft is needed to keep gaming history alive.

I know, I acknowledged the legal side of it. Literally the first first 4 words of my response. I asked about the moral side of it.

Good. The term “preservation” is just a polite way of saying you are stealing and redistributing intellectual property illegally. You can hide behind that word all you like, you are still a damned thief. And no, the delusion that if you own it then it is legal is entirely false.

Exceptfor here are the legal ramifications. First your opinion doesn't matter when ut comes to free speech, all speech is free in the United States. Second they are not a publisher and therefore by law as a platform and self proclaimed platform in public as well,  have to allow all speech,  period end of discussion. …

All hail our corporate overlords. 

I wish you would have asked him how his blog post squares with Microsoft’s recently published explainer on how to be shitty online and not get punished for it.

Hot take: it’s a problem on consoles too. What you're saying is it's not an issue because it's already an issue. That's not how logic works.

Having less choice is a disadvantage for the consumer, so is having to use an inferior client. Console gamers are used to hardware exclusivity, I guess. I’d imagine they wouldn’t be too pleased if they had to download multiple launchers to their console requiring multiple accounts just to play certain games though.

Essentially admitting that exclusivity deals are due to some pissing match between them and Valve rather than being anywhere near an attempt at being pro-consumer.

Just because people are interested doesn’t mean its a story.

Which is the problem, that was never proven. The article is dramatizing the fact that the author could not verify their identity, so much so that you are stating the person lied, when that’s not a proven fact by the article.

The fact that Kotaku guy couldn’t verify anonymous internet person’s identity isn’t a story.

And yet he felt comfortable publicly tweeting that he received said death threats. Then, when questioned about his EA employment, he shuts up and runs and hides. I just can’t get behind his credibility.