Additionally, manga is way cheaper in Japan compared to when it’s brought overseas. It’s hard to justify purchasing when I could buy some merchandise or something instead

I’m not entirely sure why places do this. It will cause distrust in your product and cause people to find the service elsewhere or for free.

My parents are finally getting rid of it. The one thing I’ve noticed, though, is that not having a subscription service means I’m very unlikely to get off my butt and watch tv/movies. Which isn’t a bad thing, I guess I just value other entertainment more?

I’ve wanted to watch the boy and the heron for a while. Maybe I’ll get to it eventually, lol.

Everyone else, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m a very casual downloader. I rarely download and it’s usually older content like movies or retro games. But my personal method has been do a ton of reading. Find chatrooms, forums, etc, where people discuss this topic and read up on the various sites and people’s experiences with them.

Have a separate device if possible. One you’re willing to wipe if something went wrong. I’ve also heard of people sandboxing downloads to try and keep things safer, but I’ve never personally tried it. My assumption is that the older and less complex a download is, the better, but that could be pure ignorance on my part.

For example, if I’m grabbing a GBA game, it’s one single file. There’s less to visually scan, and it’s easy to see if there’s something that looks off. This isn’t always the case, though. For example, one .exe file could ruin your entire machine.

Something newer like a more modern PC game release, I would pick it from a list of sources that people claim are safe, and then basically hope and pray that I didn’t just infect my machine lol. At that point, I try to also look for any suspicious behavior, or if i notice any kind of slowdown, issues with the machine, etc.

Generally speaking, anytime I’ve infected my machine (that I know of), whatever virus protection I’ve been running has caught it and prevented issues. But generally speaking, I would assume that unless you’re downloading simple stuff, you’re taking some risk.

One of the best gifts I got for someone else (and myself I guess because we enjoyed it together) was all the episodes of Reboot. To be honest, I’ve been at a loss as to what I would even sail the seven seas for right now. I have too much of a media backlog to warrant finding something new anyways.

I guess you’re right. I guess I was thinking better service would equate to more sales /less worry about piracy

Why not just provide better overseas support for anime and manga?

Oh damn. Thank you! I’ll have to do this at some point…eventually lol

I’ve been playing Mario Galaxy 2 for the first time. It’s pretty good, but I’m wondering what the hype was about. Perhaps it’s a product of its time in a way, but overall, it’s still a lot of fun. I keep dying at stupid parts, which is really funny. You can tell the developers really pushed their skills to the limits as all of the levels seem like they’re really well done.

I’ve been streaming a playthrough of Ghost of Tsushima, and I recently got to the DLC. I think the game does so many things right, but I have a few minor gripes. Overall, I really like the atmosphere and the world design. The environments are gorgeous.

I was thinking about this the other day when I heard Chick-fil-a wants to start their own streaming service. I feel like…it’s starting to feel like every big business is squeezing us like lemons. Not only do they artifically increase prices for their goods, but now they want us to pay for subscription services too.

It’s starting to feel extremely invasive. Surely, you would think there is a tipping point. But I also said that about the inflation of groceries and the general cost of living. But we haven’t seem to hit that point either, lol.

Oh shit that’s not good. I suppose it’s bound to happen, though. Money talks.

Could happen anywhere

Crunchyroll started as a pirate site didn’t it?

I was annoyed by this as well. Account went poof and I assume they would want me to pay again for Java? Shitty business practice

One thing that I recently saw being mentioned is that xbox 360 backups and downloads are hard to find and that the scene is pretty quiet. I have no idea how true this is as I haven’t personally checked, but I would be concerned about that.

I suppose the demand isn’t there yet? Maybe it’ll take a while before people start to get into it more. I just hope that in the future, we figure out ways to make newer consoles more accessible, especially as companies attempt to shift towards digital downloads, etc.

I don’t really see an issue either way. I think we all try to justify piracy in our own ways, and ultimately, people either take a black and white stance or some shade of grey.

In my personal opinion, I try not to pirate things from small creators. When I do pirate, I usually end up supporting them in some other way, shape, or form.

Educational material I think should be free or very cheap. Education should be available to everyone regardless of their social or economic status. Those textbooks that those publishing companies charge hundreds of dollars for are a prime example. The companies are leeches.

This kind of feels like every work day. Except I can’t use the pc for fun. Lol help me :')

+1 on roms and Doom. Maybe the sims. Tbh I’m not too familiar with that generation of PC gaming. There’s probably a lot I don’t know about

I don’t know where I would draw the line…I guess if the content creator is small I would prefer to support if I can.

Generally speaking I don’t pirate much. The main thing is probably anime/manga but that’s due to accessibility/quality issues. But I end up buying merch usually so I guess I’m supporting in other ways.

I think the only other thing I’ve pirated in recent years is the sims 4 because holy moly their pricing is insane. Oh I guess also 3ds/wiiu games now that the shop went down

This is what I’ve tried to remind myself of when I’m debating purchases. Usually I’ll wait to buy something on a steep sale or second hand. Or I’ll pirate it if I think the company is doing something shitty. But at the end of the day someone, somewhere down the line is getting screwed over. It all floats up to the top. There’s no trickle down