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?
I feel like you’re searching in the wrong places, because I can find literally any PC game I want as long as its not using Denuvo.
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.
There’s hardly any reason to pirate something on PC other than to avoid paying for it.
This is literally the most common reason for any type of piracy.
To quote the mighty GabeN: “Piracy is a service issue, not a price issue”
what looks cheap to you in the USA certainly isnt at all in the rest of the planet
Yeah, but the difference is on the PC it’s easy and comfortable to buy games if you have the money for it, so piracy is a choice. On consoles it’s often a hassle and the services are shit.
Heres my take…
PC are being priced out for people who just want to game. GPU prices have skyrocketed since the pandemic and the quality of prebuilts, in terms of value and build quality, has plummeted.
This makes consoles a much more reliable and better value for the money option. Also handheld gaming has grown exponentially with the steam deck and switch being so good. Which in turn creates more demand for console piracy.
That makes a lot of sense. I thought it was really odd that there were 50+ pages for Switch games but only like 3 for PC games. Reason would say that if you’re buying a $2000 PC, you’re less likely to have a desire to not pay for games. Even I’ve moved away from PCs and switched to Android emulation because of price.
I’d definitely be more likely to buy a Switch or PS4 than a new PC right now. And I’d probably be pirating on them
And cryptocurrency mining. That drove a lot of GPU prices through the roof before the pandemic.
Also, most young kids play games on phones and tablets, because parents don’t need to buy an expensive console or PC.
Check this out this short by a game developer if you want to feel old…
All our PCs run linux which is the most unloved, unsupported platform for commercial software and media distribution companies. Can’t watch most streaming video better than 720p so the streaming services can get fucked raising their prices and delivering a shit service. Gabe gave us Steam and Steam sales and made shit just work and he can take my money. There are overpriced games on Steam and there are games that are not available there but that still leaves a lot of good stuff so I can understand why more people are willing to pay than pirate reducing torrent availability and seeders. Also PC hardware can be very expensive and if you can afford a high end GPU you can probably afford to support game development.
As I was reading the OP, I was wondering if there would be other comments along the lines of this. I love all the work Valve has done getting stuff to work on Linux and pretty much don’t pirate games bc I want to support them with my wallet whenever I can afford to.
Partly, this is me not wanting to deal with malware. But honestly, I’m well versed enough with security containers and virtual machinesthat I feel like if I put in a little effort, I could probably even run a game that I know has malware in a sandbox without much risk. So I think the fact that they put in an effort to support my platform is the much bigger factor. That said, I also really love GOG’s lack of DRM and downloadable offline installers. So if it’s something I’m confident will work outside of steam, I will buy there instead. But everything else, I get on steam.
tbh, i never really used galaxy so i guess i have no idea what i’m missing. if it’s just an online install client kinda like steam but for gog content, that wouldn’t really interest me too much but if it lets me download offline installers as a batch job, that alone would be totally worth it (i have no idea if it does that already or not)
https://rentry.co/megathread-games
If you’re confused try dodi or fitgirl repacks. They are very trusted and straightforward to use. Just be sure you’re on the real site (Listed in megathread)
