After reading today EA’s takes on AI and strategies about boosting user monetization promoting and exploitation of user’s gambling addiction, I asked myself “How can someone defend those company agains boycotting and piracy?”.

So here I am: is there somewhere a curated list of VG companies to absolutely avoid giving money too? If not, do you thing we should do it? It would be nice to have a list with arguments and sources in order to make more publicly relevant the ethical and strateical reasons behind piracy.

p.s.I think it’s ok if you pirate things even without a moral stand behind, especially if you can’t afford games and other media at all, but the arguments still apply

    • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      9 months ago

      Do you not know about Sony’s sordid past?

      Google ‘Geohot ps3’. Then google ‘Sony rootkit CDs’.

      George Hotz was the first person who jail broke a ps3. and taught others how to do it, until Sony sued him. Then anonymous fucked Sony, hard. like really hard.

      https://youtu.be/66A4zcJaPLk

      • quirzle@fedia.io
        22·
        9 months ago

        Then google ‘Sony rootkit CDs’.

        I get so excited anytime someone else remembers this shit. Thank you.

        • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          9 months ago

          Never forget, Sony CEO response was basically “The people who had a rootkit installed on their machine don’t even know what a rootkit is; why should I care.”

          Well, fuck around and find out.

      • JoeKrogan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        I’m not a fan of any corporation, so they can get fucked too I won’t buy sony hardware but if they port a game to steam I want I’ll get in on sale.

        I support valve with purchases on steam as it supports linux. There was also the fact that sony took the linux install option away from the ps2 (or was it ps3) .

        • monstoor@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          291·
          9 months ago

          From a Linux user’s point of view, Epic refuses to support Linux. They also refuse to support their own games using EAC on Linux (via Proton) despite EAC being Linux-compatible.

          EDIT: Grammar.

          • Vahtos@programming.devEnglish
            251·
            9 months ago

            Additionally, instead of actually trying to compete and gain users but making a platform that isn’t trash, they insist on instead trying to trick users with temporary free game offers. And if that doesn’t work, they try to strong arm users into going to their platform by buying exclusive sales rights to games, bringing exclusives to the PC gaming space.

            Their CEO is a loud clown who is always spouting nonsense on Twitter. They buy games studios and rip their games off of the platform where users bought them (see Rocket League), and discontinue mac/Linux versions that were fully functional.

            Their flagship game preys on children via micro transactions. They lack so many features on their platform that (I believe) they have endorsed using Steams community features for games bought on Epic.

            I could probably go on, but I think that’s probably sufficient.

            • KaityEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              Fair but you also can’t really judge someone for not using epic and disliking them when they can’t use epic because they won’t support their OS. Also the percentage is growing, steam is supporting and improving, and Epic is going to be far behind when they realize they should have supported linux too.

        • Vespair@lemm.eeEnglish
          71·
          9 months ago

          Not allowing reviews on the storefront seems minor, but is in fact an aggressively anti-consumer move given the standards of the industry. They’ve got other issues too, but that one gets ignored way too often for me to not mention