Don't Cry for Gaming Companies: They Brought the Piracy on Themselves

by Josh Frappier

While there are many who oppose game piracy under any and all circumstances, I honestly believe that piracy is sometimes a warranted reaction to unfair treatment of customers from console developers and game publishers. As such, I will not in good conscious support the war against piracy until the following becomes true.

First of all, I have never paid for a new Nintendo product in my life. When I was young, this stemmed from the fact that I simply did not have the money and chose a Sega Genesis when I finally had the opportunity to acquire my first console. Now, however, anything Nintendo that I buy is used, to ensure that Nintendo does not earn a single penny from me. To many people, this seems extreme. I, however, have a damn good reason. Nintendo is the father of one of my most hated innovations: Territorial lock-out, which prevented consumers from running games intended to be sold in other regions on their NES. Territorial lock-outs have since been emulated by other gaming companies and – with the advent of the DVD – by Hollywood. Territorial lock-out ensures that millions of gamers will be unable to play games not released in their region without resorting to acquiring them through questionable means, escape the oppressive censorship policies of their respective jurisdictions, or get around the exorbitant prices that gamers from many parts of the world – particularly Europe and Taiwan – are forced to pay relative to North American and Japanese gamers. What it boils down to is that there is no justification for stopping Europeans from playing such games as Chrono Trigger or Suikoden III simply because there is too little demand. If that is the case, the game companies should shut their holes and let people import games. Furthermore, Nintendo deserve to be put out of business simply for going after European businesses selling imported North American releases. So tell me Nintendo, when did Europeans get their promised Animal Crossing release again? And how high did you fix European GBA prices again?

In additions to unfair policies that stem from the segmentation of the global market, gamers are frequently screwed out of games that they were promised. Sega was particularly deceitful to its North American and European consumers towards the twilight of its presence in the hardware market. Anybody who even remotely gives a rat’s ass about either Shining Force 3 or Shenmue 2 (which Europeans, mercifully, were actually not screwed out of for once.) will know exactly what I’m talking about. Equally offensive is Microsoft’s about-face on Xbox territorial lockout. Microsoft promised that there would be no territorial lock-out on its Xbox console, but at the 11th hour (hmmm...I guess they bought more than just the rights to the North American release of Shenmue 2 from Sega) decided that gamers will be forced to put up with the shackles of territorial lock-out for yet another generation. But hey, what do you expect from the company that delayed the Quebec French release of Windows 98 for 6 months to stop it from working on computers in France, and then charging French citizens three times more than Quebeckers.

Finally, comes censorship. In order to appeal to two groups of people – which I will refer to as fundies (right-wing American pro-censorship idiots who don’t play games anyways) and Liebermanites (left-wing American pro-censorship idiots who don’t play games anyways) – Nintendo decided to heavily censor just about anything released in North America (even by other publishers publishing games on Nintendo platforms) between 1985 and 1993 (competition from Sega ensured that Mortal Kombat II would escape Nintendo’s censors unscathed). Consequently, we were stuck with anything even remotely offensive being removed from Nintendo’s North American and European offerings. Final Fantasy 4 – released as FF2 in North America – featured heavily censored dialogue, references to Cecil and Rosa engaging in sexual relations removed, a scythe dangling over Rosa’s head in the Tower of Zot changed to a big iron ball, and a frame of animation in which Cecil and Rosa kiss (I’m not making this up folks) removed. Similarly, even the vaguest of Christianity references were removed from Castlevania games released in North America for Nintendo platforms. (One of the many – and most minor – reasons why I refer to the American religious right as the "religious reich".) Fortunately, this began to die down with the release of Mortal Kombat II (although not enough to shed Nintendo of its rightfully-earned kiddie image, as pubs were still being renamed cafes in FF3us), and Nintendo was finally able to shed its kiddie with the 2001 release of Conker’s Bad Fur Day and the 2002 release of BMX XXX. Ironically, censorship again reared its ugly head from a very unexpected source – the historically libertarian Sony. Of the three major players in the gaming industry, Sony (or more specifically, as there was no censorship in Europe and Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment of America) was the only one to censor the breasts in BMX XXX (a more appropriate name – even in the uncensored versions – would have been BMX R, but since the game sucks anyways, that wouldn’t sell).

To conclude, while there are also illegitimate reasons to pirate games, I shed no tear for gaming companies who fall victim to them. Until they stop abusing gamers, I see no reason why we should protect gaming companies from abuse.