5 ms·

Is it me or does the author of this article, and the abusers of the exploits he writes about, land on the wrong side of both the law and common morality? Surel

• minimaxir 14y ago
  I don't approve of abusing the exploit, and I did not abuse the exploit. I put that paragraph in because I thought it was interesting that some people were indeed using that argument as justification for using the promo multiple times.
• dkokelley 14y ago
  Yes this rubs me the wrong way. I think it's analogous to a retail store (say, an Apple store) leaving their front door unlocked overnight. It's possible to go in and take merchandise. After all, it's not your fault they left their front door open. You could even argue that Apple's business practices are morally questionable, so they deserve to be taken advantage of . (I'm not trying to make any statement about Apple. It's for the analogy.) You could argue that the situation is different with virtual goods, since they have an incredibly low marginal cost, but I think that the situations are morally analogous. The games aren't supposed to be free.
  • glesica 14y ago
    Not really. It's more like Apple issuing you a coupon for a free iPod Nano, but when you go to checkout with the iPod Nano and a Macbook in your cart, the cashier tells you they're both free. It may still be unethical, my point is just that there are shades of gray here.
    • sespindola 14y ago
      Except that, in that case, Apple will loose a lot of money from the free hardware. In this case, the only real loss for EA is the bandwidth. Since it would be safe to asume that the downloaders wouldn't have bought a lot of games at the current prices.
      • dkokelley 14y ago
        Sure, but I don't think that's relevant to the discussion. It's hard to quantify, but there is some set of those downloaders who at some point in the future would probably have bought one of the EA titles they received, so there is some actual lost revenue. I suppose that's their lesson for pushing bad code into production. But it shouldn't matter. Real loss isn't necessary for it to be a unethical (or worse, a crime).
        • milfot 14y ago
          Is it actually true that real loss isn't necessary to be unethical? You couldn't possibly provide an example? I am having trouble imagining such a situation. (I would argue in terms of importance, ethics > crime)
          • stonemetal 14y ago
            Is it actually true that real loss isn't necessary to be unethical? Plagiarize a paper in college, you have caused no real loss but still been unethical. Say you knew the topic very well and could have done the work yourself, you just plagiarized because you were lazy to get around the whole you harmed yourself argument.
          • dkokelley 14y ago
            stonemetal's point about plagiarization is excellent. I had in mind something along the lines of media piracy, except in EA's case there is an actual cost (since their bandwidth provided the content, and their servers will have to support it when they go online). I think the majority of people accept the fact that piracy is ethically wrong, even if there is no cost to the producer. When you pirate, you are enjoying content that someone else produced with their finances, time, and talents. The social contract is that in return for that enjoyment, you support the content producer by purchasing a licensed copy so they can be rewarded for their efforts. When you pirate, you deprive the producer of that reward. The same deprivation occurs here. EA's reward for publishing these games is reduced or removed because people acquired them when the "door was unlocked". I do not know enough about formal ethics to express my point here, but I would look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative under Perfect Duty to show how the concept of piracy doesn't hold up under the Categorical Imperative.
  • eumenides1 14y ago
    I think the analogy is wrong. EA didn't lose any physical copies. I think a better analogy would be Chapters/Barnes & Noble (A Book Store) had accidentally put in free to use high quality photocopiers inside their store. The photocopiers were intended to be free to use, but not intended to be used on the books in the store. Your argument isn't morally analogous because theft implies EA were deprived of something (EA still can sell and play their games), when the issue at hand is the EA botched up controlling access to their product. In your argument, Apple can't sell the stolen merchandise any more. The more important part for EA would not to be to "punish" or claw back copies. That genie is out of the jar. They should just chalk it up to marketing and move on (fix the technical issue).
    • chrisbennet 14y ago
      "Your argument isn't morally analogous because theft implies EA were deprived of something (EA still can sell and play their games), when the issue at hand is the EA botched up controlling access to their product. In your argument, Apple can't sell the stolen merchandise any more." This whole "if you still have the physical object, you weren't robbed" is a rationilization. If your school decides not to give you a diploma you still have whatever you learned - but now the value of your education in the marketplace has been reduced. Repeat after me: "Taking something that isn't yours without permission is stealing."
      • ConceptJunkie 14y ago
        But... the fact that the servers honored the code being used multiple times _is_ permission. You can't assume that this wasn't EA's intent, (although it's almost certain it wasn't). Ultimately, the onus is on EA to make their system work right. I'm not arguing that people who abused the code weren't doing something wrong, but it is not cut-and-dried. However, I definitely disagree with the idea that they were "stealing". I think a better analogy is when a business accidentally advertises a product at the wrong price. They are required by law to honor the advertisement even if it was a mistake. This is much closer to the situation with EA than the idea that they "left their front door unlocked", etc. Regardless of other circumstances, the transaction was legal, and I think the law might well require EA to honor it... but I don't know the details. Another analogy would be issuing a coupon and forgetting to include "limit 1 per customer", or even having a salesperson giving out free product, who misunderstands and doesn't limit the product to one per customer. Would customers in those cases be considered "stealing" if they took advantaqe of these situations? I don't see how that can be argued. Could they be accused of being greedy? Definitely, but as much as people might wish otherwise, being greedy isn't against the law. FWIW, I didn't use this code, and wouldn't have exploited it even if I had. I have too much great stuff already from GOG, Steam and Humble Bundle, etc... that I don't have time to play it all. I have no need nor interest in exploiting anyone in this way.
• milfot 14y ago
  I think it is a little more nuanced than simply being 'not okay'. Whether it is 'okay' or 'not okay' is a personal moral decision, which though I might agree with you (for myself), I would not push that morality onto someone else. I would however give a reasoned argument as to why I think it is or is not okay. Ethics are not clear-cut, and ethics do not equal the law. As dkokelly points out, this cannot be thought of as lost revenue. The vast majority of games taken here would never have been bought otherwise, and it is unlikely that any of these games will be devalued by having a wider audience. So it is spurious to describe this as simply stealing. EA has a history of disrespecting their customers' privacy, security, payments, and computers, as well as (as the op mentions) questionable ethics. They don't seem to value their customers except as a cash cow to be milked to death. This is a message, an imperfect, impure, but pretty bloody strong retributive message. To draw a long bow, think LA riots. But still, does that make it okay? I just think each person needs to assess that for themselves. It certainly has a ring of just desserts about it. Speaking for myself, it would depend on my motives. I would put that if the gamers are more interested in getting a positive response from EA than they are in free games, I would suggest they protest by dumping their EA games in an online equivalent of a big bonfire.. 4chan maybe :| But I would agree that a more ethically clear-cut channel could be actually more effective - but just not because it is more ethically clear-cut. if they really want a positive response from EA, rather than just to protest (or steal), they need to publicly and loudly stop buying EA games.