So morality of crime is defined by the success of the victim?

Close, the morality of a crime is defined by the impact that committing the crime has on the lives and rights of others. Killing someone is a vile crime. You’ve taken away someone’s inaliable right to life. Stealing from the poor is a vile crime. You have taken the means of survival from someone who struggles to survive. Stalking is a vile crime. You’ve interceded on someone’s inaliable right to privacy and safety.

How does downloading a cracked video game or a TV show impact others? Who is being victimized, and how are they being victimized? Say, for instance, that today I download a game for free. What tangible impact does this have on others?

So if our ‘victim’ is a multi billion dollar corporation that is one of the fastest growing game companies in the world and is quickly approaching income levels rivaling some small nations, the tangible impact that me downloading their game for free has is literally none. There is no impact. They will never even know that I did it, and I do not consider the “right to commerce” as a fundamental human right. I do not think that me taking potential profits from billionaire investors is in any way interceding on their human rights and also do not believe that the action causes any harm to them.

So if you become incredibly successful for what you created there becomes a point where it’s moral for you to lose all rights and control over your art?

Corporations are not people. The designers artists and programmers at Nintendo do not direcy profit from game sales. They are paid a salary by their company. Again, it’s relative. There is no such thing as a moral absolute, we have to consider the context in which actions happen and the effects those actions cause. Stealing from the poor is vile. Stealing from Walmart isn’t.

So then the moral of the lesson is that art is worthless and creating new things serves no useful purpose?

I do not consider the primary purpose of art to be profit for shareholders, if that’s what you consider “useful purpose”. Art is useful in that it communicates human emotions and experiences. It’s useful in that it delights us, it inspires us, and we take great enjoyment in it. Even if all art was free, this would still be true. Free games are fun. Free books are worth reading. Free music is worth listening to. Paintings don’t lose value because I can see them without paying. Your view of art and your view of capital are so intertwined that you are ignorant of the reality that art is not capital.

Almost like the game companies learned that same lesson from people like you and just started making shittier games to accomodate their shittier fans.

Every single corporation on Earth will cut as many corners as possible to generate the maximum possible revenue for the minimal possible cost. Shitty games still sell exceedingly well. They have a profit incentive to invest as little money into their games as possible. Games as products are less enjoyable than games as art. We love games whose creators felt passion in creating them. We love games whose designers believed in what they were making, and felt connected to their product. Faceless corporations lose this entirely. Games are how Nintendo makes money. Therefore, even if no one wants to make this game, it must be made. For Nintendo must turn profit. This is part of the reason some games are amazing experiences and others are clear, transparent cash grabs.