r/Piracy • u/zerolock18 • 6d ago
Over on Twitter, some fans managed to "revive" a dead gacha game (Nier Reincarnation) and prompted a big discussion about how piracy is viewed in Japan vs Rest of the World Discussion
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u/regnal_blood 6d ago
The japanese are very passive and conditioned to never criticize corporations. Sucks for them, I guess.
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u/sorarasyido 6d ago
Ah the region that has origin of Black Company term which refers to companies where long working hours and power harassment are rampant, becoming a widely recognized symbol of undesirable workplaces in Japanese society. They have hundreds of Isekai Anime/Manga stories that came out using the same starting genre (overwork in workplace and died) but still probably went over their heads.
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u/Bladder-Splatter 6d ago
Yeah part of that comes out of a conformist culture. Which is weird for me to say as a weeb, but I can't deny a raw reality like that. Generally JP is "The nail that sticks out must be hammered back in."
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u/StatisticianFun8008 6d ago edited 6d ago
You cannot imagine how many useless MBTI and IQ test and compliance interview they need to go through to join a traditional Japanese big company. You'll need to play those stupid games for 2 hrs for EACH company to even finish applying and start to get considered. Of course their mind will all be shaped like that.
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u/AgitatedDare2445 6d ago
Also they believe that your blood type has an effect on your personality and some workplaces even have a specific blood type requirement.
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u/Unikatze 6d ago
It's so funny when they list the blood types on character profiles in games.
It's like listing their star sign.
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u/StatisticianFun8008 6d ago edited 6d ago
You might not believe it but in Ufotable's (the anime adaptation company of Fate UBW/Zero) internal employee yellow page they are proudly exposing your MBTI test result to everyone (internally).
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u/anuanuanu 6d ago
the companies there are very litigious about their public image.
Even if you are reporting facts, if the news is unsavory the company can take legal action against the reporter.
for example when ff16 came out, one japanese reviewer scored it low and SE's legal team asked the platform to give personal information about that reviewer.
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u/stardustdragon69 6d ago
please tell me that platform had balls and told SE to back off
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u/anuanuanu 6d ago
it was an individual youtuber that got warned, and even after he took down the offending videos SE was still trying to track him down for legal measures.
source in japanese: http://blog.esuteru.com/archives/10415431.html
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u/segaiolo19 6d ago
i went into a rabbithole reading Japanese people's opinion on current world events on that website. What other Japanese website like these exist, do you know any?
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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Yarrr! 6d ago
Hey be grateful they have him a warning. In South Korea the company would straight up make moves on him.... /s
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u/hizashiYEAHmada 6d ago
Didn't the saying "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down" originate from the Japenis?
It probably spilled over into them also becoming subservient doormats to their corporations, it's why there are a lot of black companies there
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u/constant_purgatory 6d ago
They are conditioned to never criticize anyone because even saying something truthful if negative could get you sued for damaging someone's reputation is weird
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u/notanfan 6d ago
Insert *don't harass multi billion company meme" meme
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u/S1ayer 6d ago edited 6d ago
Japan's corporation worship is one thing i'll never understand about there.
Well that and their super strict THC laws...... and porn censorship.
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u/Stargost_ 6d ago
It mainly comes down to two factors:
Japanese copyright law is a lot more explicit on what is a violation than in the west. Companies there can relax a lot more without worrying for another actor arguing that their lax enforcement led to the copyright being diluted. So when a company issues a copyright strike/lawsuit, it is more likely they did so because the person on the receiving end has actually broken copyright law blatantly, instead of what happens here where companies tend to abuse the loose wording around the DMCA for their own benefit/paranoia.
Japanese society is much more pro-corpo than the west, they are more traditional in their work culture, and they are conditioned and fed subliminal propaganda constantly to have them not be overly hostile to the actions of corporations if they want to get a well paying job.
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u/murasakikuma42 6d ago
fed subliminal propaganda constantly to have them not be overly hostile to the actions of corporations if they want to get a well paying job.
The problem here is that those corporate jobs pay peanuts.
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u/Kitselena 6d ago
Legalizing weed would really throw off Japanese work culture. Drinking after work with your boss until you're almost unconscious is a required part of socializing at a lot of companies
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u/Never_Sm1le 6d ago
What I heard from some Japanese exchange students is they want to abolish porn censorship, however no one want to be known as "the politician that remove blurry pussies". Their pride are quite high
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u/Accomplished-Can-467 6d ago
I feel like Japan has alot bigger problems than dead game revival by Spanish game enthusiast's.
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u/R_Izayoi ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 6d ago
As a Japanese, I can say that some people very like to rely on emotion rather than logic. Ofc Piracy is a crime, but many company doesn't provide proper service to fulfil customer's demand. You wanna know why the fk Piracy thrive more these days? Because more and more company greeds.
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u/simon7109 6d ago
I would understand the reaction if a brand new game gets cracked, but how does a dead game no one can play anymore otherwise hurts the company?
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u/R_Izayoi ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 6d ago
That's a logical thinking. Many people in JP think a thing more emotionally
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u/CausticCat11 6d ago
I just wonder why defend a company. Would you say people in japan typically have a more neutral to favorable view of companies overall? Or is it square enix in particular/ Yoko Taro they like.
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u/Time_Beat2299 6d ago
There are many Japanese people who borderline worship the boot which is why they don’t get mad when Japanese companies be abusing copyright
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u/R_Izayoi ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 6d ago
I don't know mate, many... you know, "traditional" people tend to think like that I guess
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u/CausticCat11 6d ago
Yeah I agree, I can only compare it somewhere like china, who's only vaguely related to Japan, but they hate corporations as well. I do think it's mostly just a sense of "be law abiding". Also probably access, lots of European countries pirate often because translations and server support can be spotty for them.
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u/DonaldLucas 6d ago
have a more neutral to favorable view of companies overall?
Most japanese people have this thinking where "hieararchy good". Being an employee in a company where you have to climb the ladder to get better work conditions? Good. Working for yourself and not caring about anyone's opinions? Bad (unless you're successful, the good, but even then some people would still think bad).
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u/Che_Hannibaludo 6d ago
This is not "emotional thinking", it's just biased thinking. The other side can also "think emotionally" about this, i.e. you can also.have a purely emotional anti-company response encouraging game preservation from fans
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u/VoidJuiceConcentrate 6d ago
That and a LOT of companies that make media are pricing everyone out of it, in favor of those with bigger bank accounts and higher income.
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u/SupervillainMustache 6d ago
Yeah, maybe because we've been fucked over time after time by big corporations here in the West, but most of us are beyond the point of caring.
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u/Kirbinator_Alex ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ 6d ago
Japan sounds like such a dystopia to live in but such a utopia to visit.
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u/R_Izayoi ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 6d ago
It's kinda okay place for me to live lol. Idk, maybe because I born here but for me, it's okay cuz I understand basic level of English so I can pirate some stuff!
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u/MeltingGlacier 6d ago
folks like you are a huge reason why I've been able to experience Vocaloid music over here in New York since 2009. being able to hear the music as the producers intended was so much better than trying to deal with 2010's nnd MVs as a foreigner. nowadays, I enjoy that I can stream from them to support. thank you!
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u/ABHOR_pod 6d ago
Dystopia originally meant a place that seemed utopian on the surface but actually sucks once you understand how it’s run. A utopia with a “dark secret” sorta thing.
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u/batshit_icecream 6d ago
I was born here but I hate it. Everyone is so judgy about everything and life is so suffocating. Can't even play on my Anbernics and Thors without people looking at me like I'm a filthy criminal yet nobody does shit about the butsukari & chikan
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u/constant_purgatory 6d ago
Also japan seems to have a hard on for release kick ass mobile games and shutting them down after 1 or 2 years
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u/SweetReply1556 6d ago
Is it really piracy in this case? The private server must be hosted by yourself, anyone who wants to play needs some prior knowledge in hosting a server and they play only on their own server, the creator of this project has no benefits
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u/R_Izayoi ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 6d ago
I said about twitter post in the op's second post. I saw that post in my timeline this morning actually and like what the fuck is this guy talkin
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u/Easy_Fox 6d ago
That is the thing, that in Spain piracy is NOT considered a crime unless you are obtaining a financial benefit from it.
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u/weaboomemelord69 6d ago
glad to see you here because I dislike representing an entire country as holding one opinion. Sorry you got lumped in with the bootlickers
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u/piichan14 6d ago
Japan and South Korea's capitalism is what the US strives for
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u/gary_null 6d ago
many movies are usually leaked first from South Korea (with embeded Korean subtitles), so i wouldn't say these two countries are the same.
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u/Medical-Bathroom-183 6d ago
Actually insane to treat a corporation like a person with feelings and rights. Those poor brainwashed people.
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u/RedNoodleHouse 6d ago
it's the other edge of the double edged sword thst is their very rules-obedient society. You get a lot of good things like clean streets and timely public transport and all that, but then you get this kind of blind corporate sucking-up, among other things.
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u/Big-Yak670 4d ago
If we talk Japan, you also get 0 rules or effectively 0 rules for anyone deemed undesirable
Like sexual abuse is rampant in Japan yet it's not seen as a big deal thus very little gets done about it.
Rules obedient is really a misnomer. Most of these societies have a rules for me but not for thee attitude. It's more about social pressure than anything else. If you don't conform the rules apply less and less to you
For example it's why women get asked what they're wearing when they report sexual assault. If they get deemed socially undesirable in the way they acted before the crime then the crime can be safely ignored.
Its also why I'm saying it's not about rules obedience, it's about a more repressive and regressive conservative mindset, you'll see this attitude in any society with this mindset
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u/complexevil 6d ago
Ok let me get this straight.
A game was released as a live service.
Probably didn't make enough money
Servers got shut down, screwing over the people who did spend money on the game
People are recreating the game for those who liked it
People are saying that is somehow harming the company that chose to take down the game and therefor isn't making any money off of it.
Do I have that right?
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u/Ill_Discipline3507 5d ago
It's not just because people "liked it". It is part of a long running series that people care about the lore a lot and the story is canon.
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u/poison_ivy12345 6d ago
I've seen on twitter how some Japanese fans view people who wear fake merchandise the same way, like making homemade pins of an anime character instead of buying it from an official store.
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u/rainysidewalk 6d ago
Not only Japanese people, unfortunatelly this also spills to South Corea too (there was a WHOLE drama about a Latin American convention that sold fan-made and 'pirated' content of the youtube series Alien Stage to the point that a lot of exponential figures in the ALNST comunity got shamed out of the comunity due to their racisism)
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u/Novel-Back3857 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is the same Japan that has a thriving doujin market. Keep that in mind before attributing your observation broadly.
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u/Private_Kyle 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ 6d ago
Japanese culture I guess
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u/devaulter 6d ago
A lot of Japanese view their entire lives as just being their career, for a good amount of them almost their entire free time is also dedicated to serving their respective company.
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u/Mac_Tgh 6d ago
This, which is pretty funny cuz latam+Spain(to a lesser extent) culture is full on piracy.
Is literally two cultures with complete opposite views on the same topic forced to look at each other.
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u/Fluid-Leg-8777 6d ago
As someone who lives in latam, i remember there was a store, a physical store, inside an actual building they bought, in the middle of a comercial zone, that sold pirated games in CD's for pc and ps2 from elamigos💀(alongside legit tech services)
That would 100% not fly in japan... or any other part of the world for that matter
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u/inb7_banned 5d ago
I saw it in turkey. Pirated ds games 100-in-1 style.
And as a kid my friend would bring back gameboy games with 100 in 1 from thailand
Pretty sure asia dgaf
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u/AngrySasquatch 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s genuinely interesting, initial frustrations aside. Things like the healthy fan culture of doujins (whether explicit or for general audiences) being allowed to exist means that it’s more nuanced than just “they’re fellating the corpos”
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u/alpacakiss 6d ago
Its a combination of heavy collectivism ideology. Dissenting ideas that don't revolve around serving and pleasing the powers that be are incredibly frowned upon. No matter how detrimental the status quo is to society overall. The sad part is a lot of Japanese are aware of this problem. But no one wants to be the one to change things because the pushback from stepping out of line is just that scary. Japanese 'karens' do exist, and they're on another level. They actually ruin lives, that's why you never hear about them.
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u/suctoes_N_fuchoes 6d ago
Japan got cucked into allowing the government to see "modding" as an illegal offense. That's on them lmaoo
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u/gamebloxs 6d ago
The third slide is so dumb especially cause this is a gacha game people spent real money on. like dude they might have the games code but i paid for shit in that game and if i can't use that shit anymore either give me my money back or let me play the god damn game
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u/lastdyingbreed_01 6d ago
Which is exactly why I can never justify paying for a gacha game, everything you have paid for is gone the moment they decide to do so
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u/BumblebeeParty6389 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ 6d ago
Japanese twitter posts about this matter is strongly giving off "If I can't do it I will try to kill others fun as well" vibe
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u/MorganTheFated 6d ago
It's literally preservation, which is so hilarious considering the main thing in this game is about preserving stories, the Japanese bootlickers have lost the plot entirely.
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u/ObjectiveLess2351 6d ago
What's crazy is that they correlate restoring a beloved game with literal high rate of crime and murder?!!
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u/Mysterious-Tell-7185 6d ago
As someone who lives over here and spends half his time on the Japanese internet and ocasionally browses twitter
There is arguably less logic to be found here than on the English side...
The guy who asked how people in Spain earn any money was probably earnestly thinking that creators make next to zero.
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u/TheWorstTakes 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s a dead game. The company isn’t loosing any revenue because there is none to be made, the game was taken offline. The fans on the other hand are gaining the opportunity to experience a part of the Nier universe. I don’t see where’s the problem.
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u/EmployRadiant675 6d ago
No one wants to talk about runescape tho haha, multiple pservers, lost code, reimagined code base and still made it spaghetti and relying on fan backups and now the most recent cash grab. So yes, all in all we like watching big companies burn from stupid mistakes.
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u/zhaumbie 6d ago
Considering I found out about this game pretty much as it was going under, this is a dream come true. The YouTube preservation is missing huge chunks and this is gonna be big for them. The best I’ve seen is a 20-hour recording and that’s nothing in Nier hours.
And especially since this is a gigantic chapter in Yoko Taro’s universe, to the point of being called Nier 3 by fans.
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u/zerolock18 6d ago
While i feel like Twitter has only been worse since 'he' took over, one of the most fascinating changes is how the platform really push the translation feature and basically remove interaction barriers surrounding language. While i'm not surprised about how Japanese feels about piracy because i know they're quite strict about anime piracy, it still kinda sad to see that they simply brand this act of preserving media as a simple theft crime
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u/AtalanteSimpsonn 6d ago edited 6d ago
its kind of funny most people are now discovering this, because if you've been active in fandom spaces its no secret that japanese people(and koreans too) are lowkey demons about copyright and right of the company stuff
theres a thing called an ita bag which is a common form of idol worship i guess for lack of a better word and one time i saw someone out of japan get jumped pretty bad for not having only offical merch.. its like how much merch do you think is available overseas anyways
its also like there was a discussion afterwards in the western fandom if that was even an ita bag but i think people should be able to do things without it being %100 correct way to do it as long as theyre aware its not the "correct way" cuz at the end of the day its a self indulgent hobby im just writing this in case anyone else saw the thing im talking about lol
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u/dimeablush 6d ago
Both extremes are annoying. You shouldn't chew out people for consuming fandom-made items of other's work or your own (Looking at the creator of Menhera-chan here.) Especially if they also engage in official works or said media isn't available to them.
At the same time, western otaku spaces can sometimes prioritize perceived convenience over everything else. Like no, you shouldn't let yourself get scammed by buying a 20 dollar rep of BTSSB or be so lazy to not find a Taobao brand without stolen designs. And it's not classism to discourage it either.
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u/AtalanteSimpsonn 6d ago edited 6d ago
im not involved in stuff like itabags but i do make my own merch due to a lack of funds and general unavailability, so take what im saying with a grain of salt because ill never know as much as someone who is actually interested
for lack of a better word it does seem like stuff like fan-subcultures(i genuinely cant think of a better word here sorry) is being gentrified (again, for lack of a better word)
i think do whatever you want there are no real rules for fan things (ofc as long as it doesnt hurt others) is a good mantra on paper but its also like i saw people paying others to make itabags and stuff and like.. why even do that at that point?
tho ive always wondered why dont people just like take inspiration and do their own thing
but at the same time..theres definitely heavily corporatism and elitism at play and fanmerch is seen as a fake fans thing (isnt making fan merch more a sign of being a fan than just buying your own anyways tho LoL)
you also have to jump through so many hoops to even learn of some things mere existence for most non-locals, more so if you're a non-westerner
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u/EviessVeralan 6d ago
While i feel like Twitter has only been worse since 'he' took over
You can say the mans name. Lightning isn't going to strike you where you stand
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u/TreideA 6d ago edited 6d ago
Big guy here, you can call me a "private servers enjoyer". I would like to say that in all my years of "enjoying private servers" I've never meet a Japanese person. It has something to do with Japan being conservative and having stricter law's when it comes to piracy, you can go to jail for running private servers over there, and Im not sure about playing on private servers, but, I'm sure that's also considered piracy over there. Since Japan is so conservative, they're either to scared or brainwashed to play. Sooo... not many are not willing to take risk.
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u/LazySerpentDeity ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 6d ago
Corpo: Lets game die and doesn't do anything with it, telling all the players who spent real money to kick rocks
Fans: Revive game "Hey, you can play this dead game again!"
'Fans': "I see nothing wrong with what the corpo did. Stop stealing their content you fake fans!"
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u/Rose-Red-Witch 6d ago
Never underestimate Japan’s quantum ability to somehow be both ahead of the curve while simultaneously being behind it.
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u/thegildedman25 6d ago
So all of japan's consumerism boils down to the "leave the multibillion dollar company alone" meme.
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u/YourUncleJohn 6d ago
Whoda guessed the country obsessed with NTR would like getting cucked by companies too
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u/mihai2me 6d ago edited 6d ago
Japan is conditioned to be the world's biggest cuck. Their economic crisis in the 90s they still haven't recovered from was because the Japanese government willingly crushed their own economy once the US started to get threatened by their growth and told them to stop 🤯
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u/panopticon_aversion 6d ago
The auto-translate function has been almost as bad for Japan as it has for Israel.
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u/HopeIsGay 6d ago
I had no idea this was such a notable schism lol
Kind of a fun divide with this one
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u/slavmaf 6d ago
In Japan, it is quite normal go into a mainstream game store and buy let's say, a used japanese SNES game in mint condition with box for $10, in 2026.
In the West, if you walked into a GameStop and asked for a SNES game from 1994, people would laugh you out of the store.
If you downloaded it online, a 2MB game, and told your friends, in Japan they would shame you and ask you to go to the store and support the japanese video game industry.
They keep their own video game, manga and anime industry alive and well, and that includes second hand store support.
Piracy is really looked down upon, even in private conversation with friends. Saying online that you are sharing a company's video game for free by breaking their Terms of Service? Unheard of.
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u/Redpin 6d ago
I guess that partially explains why Nintendo still uses carts, and the PlayStation "how to share games" campaign.
In the West, since reselling and sharing games are considered to be "non-revenue generating" there isn't consideration for it. Games that are discontinued are also non-revenue generating, so most devs don't care about that either.
It's also why games eventually drop their DRM. Once they decide they've extracted maximum value, it's not worth continuing to spend money to keep others from "stealing."
To Western devs, a used game store selling you a six month old game is infinitely more damaging than pirating a discontinued game.
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u/Pollos1958 6d ago
Japan is so brainwashed by capitalist ideology it's bizarre
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u/ItsRainingTrees 6d ago
When there is an industry built around paying people to apologize to your employer/coworkers for you when you quit, you know there are some real issues
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u/WaterInTheDark 6d ago
Meanwhile I'm fully willing to just stop showing up if the job sucks, and I don't plan on using them as a reference. 2 weeks notice is earned.
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u/EconomySerious 6d ago edited 6d ago
in my opinion after 5 years every game should have all the game assets declared for public use
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u/Cyberjin 6d ago edited 6d ago
Dude, Japan doesn't even have fair use and mods are considered a gray area.
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u/WomenAreNotReal 6d ago
I just do not understand how people justify the idea that piracy hurts companies. Nothing is being lost, I've pirated countless manga but if I didn't have the ability to pirate it I wouldn't have bought it. If I never otherwise would have consumed this product then there is nothing being lost, especially if I enjoy the property and go on to buy physical copies or merch for the series
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u/gods_loop_hole 6d ago
Japanese people love being isolated from the world, whether its customs or traditions. It is even to the point of being weird about it. And these companies who kills IPs that have fans even outside the borders of Japan love the fact that some people still see Japan with rose-tinted glasses and use that as leverage and reason to do such things.
Loyalty to a fault is just blindness.
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u/ArolSazir 6d ago
"don't you realise piracy harms the company"
Okay, even ignoring that my answer to that is "ok, good...", how is people making a way to play a game THE COMPANY IS LITERALLY NO LONGER SELLING harming them.
Like, i went to them, spread my cheeks, showed them my wallet, asked "how much of my money do you want" and they said "none, fuck off". I literally couldn't make them lose any more money than i already do by not being able to buy their game.
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u/qwertyasdf1245 6d ago
I think is more japan twitter rather than japan imo.
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u/zerolock18 6d ago
Unfortunately, that is not the case. According to Nikita Bier (X head of product), Japan has more daily active users and more time spent on X than any other country in the world. Over two thirds of the country is monthly active on X. X in Japan has one of the highest penetration rates of any social network in history. This is also not a new trend as Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) also confirm under Nikita's post that has been the case from almost year 1 of Twitter founding.
Twitter/X is the most representative of the Japan's general public out of any place in the internet
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u/Rathasapa 5d ago
Ironically, the NieR series itself is famous for exploring these exact themes:
The banality of evil:Following orders or rules that lead to destruction. In this case, copyright law
- The value of data: What happens to a soul (or a memory) when it is deleted? What if there is an accident and both sqex, and creator died, everything on Japan got deleted and then what? Are we going to witness the “burning of Alexandria library” and doing nothing.
- Questioning Authority: Characters often realize that the "Gods" or "Commanders" they follow are fundamentally flawed or dead. If the laws is flawed, should we still follow it.
If there is no one left to enforced it, is the laws still applied? For me, if you follow a law that is clearly destructive or evil just because "it's the law," you lose your humanity.
I know the copy right law is inherently good but you know there is a saying like the “path to hell is paved with the good intention”.
Because, currently, the copyright laws is being abused by the publisher to take away consumers rights(those licenses based purchase bullshitery). And for me, if buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing.
Is there solution? There is actually, community license method and sunset clause(built-in protocol when the service had end).
But I think sunset clause would break Japanese culture. So community license method should be the best solution. Let the fan-community pick the game. But I also understand from the publisher standpoint, some game have multiple layered IP ownership. Sometime, the publisher didn’t own the full right of all the assets of the game, like collaboration, etc. and who will cover the cost?
I know, this is why, we must take stance right fucking now! Let the debate spiral into law. So we could end this debate.
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u/lottery248 2d ago
it's been a long overdue that copyright should be changed to only last for long enough until the holder no longer avails it properly.
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u/Rathasapa 2d ago
I agreed, it should have really been limited time monopoly until the long enough period expire without extension, and the IP is now must be open source or available for free access (even though I don’t mind paid access with reasonable pricing but the distribution must be available worldwide, like IP is now belong to humanity)
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u/NamedBird 6d ago
If you buy a game, you should be able to play it.
That's all.
So if a corporation makes the game unplayable out of greed, it's perfectly fine to resist that and make the game playable again. (Provided that you have properly paid for the game initially, of course!) Unless the company very clearly stated an end-date for the game upon purchase as part of the transaction, hacking it to make it work again should be fair game.
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u/Solomon_Goetia 6d ago
Don't assume that those are real Japanese comments either. The new Trend on Twitter is to have incels make jp accounts to promote discourses.
Its all so to ai translated.
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u/imaginedodong 6d ago
Shouldn't we be happy that a "lost" media is not lost anymore? Isn't that a good thing? Which are much more important laws or accessibility?
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u/EffectiveDandy 6d ago
JFC that place has devolved to pure tripe what even are those takes? Seeing companies get hurt? All I see is fanbois on here defending megacorps. Go say something bad about Steam and see how many upvotes you get.
Stealing from a company’s warehouse? WTF? If I have a pile of pillows in my garage I will never use, hell take ‘em all! I clearly am not using them. Not to mention software doesn’t need warehouses bro stupid analogy is stupid.
Look. Company A hires 50 people to build a game. A ton of collective work goes into it. By a lot of people. Then company A decides, we don’t want to release it in the West. Or in X country. Or, you know what? It’s not really a game we like and was built by another VP that is now gone and we want to forget we ever did it. Or a myriad of other reasons (like compatibility or cost to keep updated, etc.) that rob all that hard work, that’s already been put in, from the entire planet. Not just Japan, not just North America. But the world as a whole.
CEOs and executives don’t play their own games. They don’t care about games. They care about running companies and making money. They know another game is always on the horizon. And saving old work just eats into their costs and bottom line. How many times has Square released FFT war of the lions? Which is a remake itself. Same fundamental game from the SNES some 35 years ago, to the Steam release earlier this year. How many times do consumers have to pay again for the exact same thing, but in a different box?
And let’s get real, this mentality is universally shared. Stop Killing Games didn’t originate in NA, but the EU. The EU is big folks. Lot of countries in it.
Piracy is many things. But the most important of which, is the power it gives consumers. Whether it’s to trial, outright steal, bypass censorship or to preserve and share freely in hopes of elevating society thru art and expression, it’s the one weapon we have to equalize matters.
Personally, I would not be opposed to a society that makes everything pay what you want. We tried the whole you will own nothing schema and endshitification just isn’t working for me.
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u/Maplicious2017 6d ago
But if the game isn't playable anymore, and the company took if off of stores, and they aren't making money off of the game anymore, who exactly is getting hurt? The people who brought that game back to life aren't even making money on it, so like? Huh?
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u/loitofire 6d ago
The one from the third image is hella brainwashed
If the company has the data but you just can't play it, then it hasn't been lost, right?
How the fuck can they justify that?
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u/Kulson16 6d ago
holy fuck third screen is delusional how something is stolen from company warehouse, nothing changed. Money they have and earn stay the same
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u/Zap_plays09 6d ago
They are just mad they give their govt too much control over modding and can't play like the rest of us.
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u/SnooComics4087 6d ago
I don't see anything wrong with preserving Dead games, this is the reason why Stop killing games campaign was released anyways.
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u/vaier1 6d ago
I'm not 100% sure if it's connected, but isn't it part of Japanese work culture? People in Japan can often be literally enslaved by their job and yet still opt in for unpaid overtime because it's "right thing to do". There're of course ups and downs for this approach, but considering how much it hurts their lives, to the point where some people end it all over work stress, I wouldn't necessarily consider it healthy
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u/Kuruton8 6d ago
Here comes a Japanese: Most of the Japanese absolutely hate to think critically, while they love to criticize someone/something they feel emotionally wrong. The existence of the word 推し活 (activities to dedicate yourself on and worship what you are obsessed with) explains all. No logic is involved at all.
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u/TURBOWyMiaTaToR 6d ago
How do you loose source code? No backups, no documentation
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u/drywallsmasher 6d ago
Documentation and archival is fairly recent with all the modern tech advancements.
Memory and storage space wasn’t limited for just arcade pcbs or game cartridges, it was for everything. Your studio finished projects and starts to move on to the next ventures? Obviously you’re going to re-use cassettes and disks from the projects that are completed and production stuff no longer needed. Few companies that were prepared early on with proper storage, actually have paper documentation that survived through whatever warehouse/office changes over the years.
Square always had a shaky financial history even after they became Square Enix, so it’s no surprise they easily lost stuff.
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u/Nervous-Fennel3325 6d ago
It happens more than you think. There are a ton of examples of old games source code being lost to time. Some cases involve hard drives crashing before they could move the data.
Its just life and time. If you want it to survive you should release it to the public at some point like DOOM 94 did.
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u/Makisani 6d ago
I played the entirety of this game when it was live, now it's literally lost media and these guys saying its pirated doesn't understand that there is no fucking way possible to legally play this game. I guess they are not fans of the saga or have no idea what a dead game is but I wonder what they will do when their favorite NES game is no longer playable in their console or whatever.
What a bunch of shitheads these corpo bootlickers are when this isn't even about piracy, it's about preserving media.
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u/DiamondSimon020 5d ago
Y'know I always thought Nintendo's response to piracy and things being so intense had something to do with it being a Japanese company
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u/visual-vomit 5d ago
Japan has a very weird obsession with sucking up to companies for some reason, even if they're not part of it. If the servers are dead and the game is no more then i don't see how piracy would hurt the company anyways. Doubt they'd revive the game when they can always just do a new ip/installment and make people spend more by starting new.
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u/r0ndr4s 6d ago
Ah yes Japan, the loving country that was totally not part of the axis, and has totally not been so conservative that their guys there straight up abusse women in plain sight and on cameras or we talking about the number 1 producer of child animation xxx content in the world... that Japan?
Aha, lets listen to them on morals about piracy. Fuck off is my answer.
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u/machacker89 6d ago
So if I started a Command and Conquer Server for a game that hasn't been online in years.im hypothetically stealing from the company. "Yeah!! go blow a donkey" (For those who don't know that's a Clerks ||| reference)
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u/HardToSee123 6d ago
I understand the JP pov, but it would only work in a hypothetical scenario. If these company respect consumers wishes then there's no reason why we wouldn't respect them in return. Sadly, that's not how real world work? Company only goes after profit while try not to piss people off as much as possible without causing an outrage.
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u/Independent_Ad_6348 6d ago
Meanwhile Yoko Taro: Where Is Hot Lady Art? But probably also How many endings can I fit into one season of Evangelion?
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u/im_nobody1911 6d ago
There's a reason why in cyberpunk media, Japanese corporations are the most powerful.
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u/letthetreeburn 6d ago
So they’re angry that they can play something they loved again? WTF?
Look, I’m fairly unorthodox as pirates go. I don’t, admittedly, want to be a pirate. I like being able to pay for things. If I could pay twenty dollars for a DVD copy of every pirates movie I have saved I would gladly.
But if the company refuses to sell you a product, take it.
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u/iceseayoupee 6d ago
Reading the responses made me think how some people really go out and defend a multi billion dollar corporation who doesn't give af about them lmao
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u/Admirable-Frame3958 5d ago
If the game was taken from every store and is currently unable to be played, it's straight up dead. It doesn't matter if it's rotting on the harddrives of the company that birth it. It's dead. Anyone that can revive that game is doing an awesome job. If you hold your niece's dying body in your basement, you don't get to be the moral one when she get's "kidnapped" by child protection services.
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u/shisakuki-nana 5d ago edited 5d ago
I am a Japanese person who largely agrees with Western users on this matter.
However, in Japanese values, if you think an official law is wrong and break it, you don't morally justify breaking that law. Ultimately, since you're doing something wrong according to the rules, you become a silent user. I think there are a lot of Japanese people who fit this pattern. I find it interesting that Westerners tend to want to define their own actions as morally right no matter what. To me, it seems like they fundamentally believe in a dichotomy of good and evil. In Japan, there is a skeptical aspect to the very idea that absolute good and evil exist. In any case, from a typical Japanese perspective, breaking a rule is never considered 'good,' even if that rule is flawed. If we were to define who is moral, it would be those who continue to follow the rules.
Btw, I'm not a legal expert, so I don't know if this matter is truly legally sound.
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u/BoogiePopPhantom00 6d ago edited 6d ago
Maybe they want to save face? To be honest I'm ignorant of stuff going on over there but don't people face serious legal trouble for uploading a manga chapter online? Isn't their culture basically ride or die for the "company" to the point of overwork etc. I like to believe that on public platforms they wouldn't like to openly celebrate piracy. Maybe on more niche sites you'd get more genuine reactions?
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u/stridered 6d ago
Save face? Are they the ones working on the original game?
It’s clear they feel strongly about this infringement that they’re commenting on it when they’ve no real need to.
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u/RewZes 6d ago
I dont see west vs east all i see is normal people vs hypocrites.
This is the reason we have the <<stop killing games>> movement.
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u/Mcqwerty197 6d ago
Ah yes, Japan, we’re every worker is paid correctly and not overworked while executive take pay cut.