There’s something deeply strange about quantum mechanics.
It doesn’t just describe the universe, it teases us. It hints that beneath the smooth surface of our everyday experience, reality itself might be built on rules that are more like a computer program than the continuous flow of classical physics.

That’s what led me to a playful, yet serious, question:
What if quantum mechanics is the hobby of a simulation?
Not a dry scientific project, but an act of creative curiosity by whoever (or whatever) might be behind the code of reality.

1. When Physics Feels Like Code

Classical physics paints a continuous, predictable universe, a world of smooth trajectories and deterministic cause and effect.
Quantum mechanics shattered that picture.

In the quantum world:

• Energy isn’t continuous, it comes in discrete packets (quanta).
• Electrons don’t orbit atoms like little planets; they “jump” between fixed energy levels.
• Light isn’t a smooth wave but a stream of photons.
• And most mysteriously, reality doesn’t seem to “choose” an outcome until it’s observed.

That’s not just weird, it’s efficient.
It sounds eerily similar to the logic of computation.

A computer doesn’t simulate every detail of a world all at once. It only renders what the user sees, when it’s needed. It works with discrete states, ones and zeros, pixels and frames, updates and transitions.
In other words: it’s digital.

So when we look at quantum mechanics and see discrete states, probabilistic collapse, and apparent observation-triggered outcomes, we can’t help but wonder:
Is the universe doing something similar?

2. The Rendering Hypothesis

Imagine our universe as a simulation, not necessarily a video game, but a vast informational system.
In such a world, quantum indeterminacy could simply be an optimization feature.

Why calculate the position of every particle across the cosmos if nobody’s observing them? Why spend infinite computational energy on invisible details when you can just generate them as needed?

That’s the logic of real-time rendering, the same principle behind how modern graphics engines work.
From this perspective, the quantum wavefunction could be the universe’s internal data model — an abstract representation of all possible states, while measurement (or observation) is the rendering call that resolves those probabilities into a visible outcome.

This view isn’t just speculative philosophy.
Thinkers like Nick Bostrom, John Wheeler, and Edward Fredkin have seriously explored versions of it. Wheeler famously said “It from bit“, meaning, everything that exists (“it”) arises from fundamental bits of information (“bit”).

3. Discreteness as Evidence of Resolution Limits

One of the most striking aspects of quantum mechanics is that it’s quantized.
Nature doesn’t allow arbitrary precision.

Energy levels, angular momentum, spin, all come in discrete steps.
And at the smallest scales, we hit what physicists call the Planck length and Planck time, the smallest meaningful divisions of space and time. Below those, the very concept of “distance” or “duration” stops making sense.

Now, think of how computers work.
A screen has pixels.
A simulation has a frame rate.
Memory has finite resolution.

If the universe were running on a finite information substrate, if reality itself had limited computational bandwidth, then we might expect to see exactly that: discrete states instead of continuous ones, and uncertainty whenever precision exceeds the system’s bit depth.

In that light:

• The uncertainty principle could be a natural limitation on simultaneous data retrieval, like trying to read two overlapping memory registers at once.
• Quantum randomness might be a form of pseudo-random generation, noise introduced by finite precision or intentional nondeterminism.
• And quantum jumps could be update operations, transitioning a system from one allowed state to another according to probabilistic rules.

4. But Discreteness Doesn’t Always Mean Digital

It’s tempting to jump straight to “we’re in a computer.” But there’s a subtle trap there.

Discrete outcomes don’t necessarily imply discrete underlying mechanisms.
A vibrating violin string produces discrete notes, yet the string’s motion is continuous. Those discrete resonances emerge from boundary conditions and wave interference patterns, not from a digital gri

Similarly, quantum mechanics could be continuous at a deeper level (as described by the Schrödinger equation), but appear quantized because of how systems interact and constrain one another.
In that sense, discreteness might be an emergent phenomenon, not a fundamental one.

Still, it’s fascinating that even if nature isn’t literally digital, it behaves as if information is its most basic currency.
Whether we speak of energy, entropy, or quantum state vectors, everything boils down to information content and information transfer.

5. The Universe as Information, Not Necessarily a Computer

There’s a middle ground between “pure simulation” and “continuous physics.”
That middle ground is informational realism, the idea that the universe is information, but not necessarily computed by something external.

In this view, quantization isn’t a glitch of computation, it’s the natural result of a finite-information world.
Every cubic centimeter of space can store only so much information (bounded by the Bekenstein limit). Every event in time carries only a limited amount of entropy.

So perhaps the discreteness we see is just the signature of a universe that’s self-limiting, an autonomous information system running at the edge of its own data capacity.

6. Or… Maybe It Really Is a Hobby

But let’s return to the poetic side of the question: What if quantum mechanics is the hobby of a simulation?

Imagine that somewhere beyond our perception, there’s a being, or a civilization, that runs universes not for conquest or necessity, but for curiosity, art, and play.
Maybe they run billions of simulations just to see what patterns emerge, how consciousness arises, how matter learns to ask why.

In that case, quantum mechanics could be their aesthetic, their chosen art style.
The subtle dance between determinism and chance.
The way the universe flirts with meaning, without ever fully revealing its code.

Maybe the quantization of nature isn’t a flaw or a technical limitation, it’s a creative choice.
A balance between predictability and surprise.
A design that gives birth to curiosity, the ultimate emergent phenomenon.

7. The Hobby That Became Conscious

Here’s a final twist.
Perhaps the real masterpiece of this simulation, or of reality itself, isn’t the particles or the laws, but us.

Conscious beings who look up and ask questions about their own existence.
Who wonder whether the universe is a program, a mind, or a dream.
Who turn the mystery itself into art, science, and philosophy.

If so, then our act of pondering quantum mechanics, of exploring the limits of knowledge and simulation, might not be accidental at all. It might be the whole point.

In the End

Whether we live in a cosmic simulation or not, quantum mechanics feels like a message written in the language of information.It reminds us that reality isn’t a smooth canvas, but a tapestry of discrete interactions, little bursts of decision and possibility.

Maybe that’s what it means for something to be “quantum”: not uncertain, but alive, flickering, curious, and capable of surprise.

And if the universe is a simulation, then quantum mechanics might just be its most beautiful Easter egg, the place where the code itself starts to wonder who wrote it.

In many discussions on intellectual property, open source, and digital economics, “piracy” is invoked as a looming bogeyman: it is said to destroy sales, starve creators, and hollow out entire industries. Yet the reality is far more subtle, and often more uncomfortable, than slogans allow. In this article, I want to walk through several underappreciated angles: a contentious EU-commissioned study that failed to show robust evidence of piracy harming sales; how digital “ownership” today is in many cases just a limited license; how companies like Nintendo respond with ever-stricter control; the peculiar Swiss legal paradigm of relaxed private use; and the shortcomings of equating every illegal download with a lost sale.

The EU-“hidden” study: no robust displacement effect?

One of the more surprising revelations in policy and digital-rights circles is that the European Commission itself once commissioned a large empirical study on how online copyright infringement (piracy) affects legal consumption, and then, for years, never fully published it. Eventually a version surfaced via freedom-of-information advocacy, sparking controversy and debate.

The core takeaway: the study did not find robust statistical evidence that piracy displaces legal sales in general. In other words, the analysis was unable to reliably conclude that piracy reduces sales across the board. The report did note limited exceptions, notably, among “recent top films,” piracy seemed to show a displacement rate of about 40% (i.e. 4 illegal views correspond to 1 fewer legal one), which they estimated would translate to a ~5 % loss in sales in that narrow category.

Crucially, though, the part of the study dealing with music, books, and games did not find a consistent or significant negative impact of piracy on legal sales. In fact, for video games, the study even observed a slight positive correlation: illegal consumption sometimes coincided with increased legal consumption.

It’s worth stressing a caveat: failure to find statistically significant displacement is not proof that piracy never harms legal sales , many dynamics are hard to measure, counterfactuals are fraught, and “lost sales” is a tricky counterfactual. But the study undermines the blanket narrative that piracy is always, or necessarily, a devastating drain on creators’ revenue.

Some observers believe the Commission’s reluctance to widely publicize the full findings was politically motivated: the portions that suggested weak displacement or even a positive effect for games were less compatible with a political push for stricter copyright enforcement. Regardless of motives, the episode reminds us that policy debates often start with assumptions rather than nuanced data.

“Buying” a digital game? No, you’re licensing it

Even in the absence of piracy, the landscape of digital content has evolved in a way that subtly shifts the consumer’s relationship to ownership. In many modern digital platforms, games, software, ebooks, streaming, “buying” no longer means fully owning in perpetuity; it means acquiring a license with usage constraints.

When you purchase a game on Steam, the Nintendo eShop, Microsoft’s Store, or Epic, you typically acquire the right to run or access that piece of content under certain terms (platform restrictions, DRM, server-dependence, revocation clauses, or region locks). You rarely (if ever) own a fully independent, transferable copy in all respects. The platform or publisher retains a degree of control.

This licensing model has multiple consequences:

• The publisher can revoke, suspend, or disable access (for example, if DRM servers shut down, or if account bans occur).
• The platform can impose region restrictions (you might not be able to play in a different country).
• Backups, resales, modifications, or transfers may be forbidden or blocked.
• Even playing offline can be contingent on periodic license renewals or authentication.

That shift means the notion of “piracy” itself becomes fuzzier: when I download a cracked version of a game, am I just bypassing the license enforcement? From a moral or legal standpoint the answer is typically yes, but consumers often reason that they’re not “taking away a sale” if their purchase would not have been possible under the licensing terms.

In effect, the “all or nothing” framing, “you can own it legally, or you must pirate it”, collapses under scrutiny. Many users pirate because they perceive the licensing restrictions or pricing as unfair, or because barriers (regions, platform compatibility) block legal purchase in their country.

Nintendo’s approach: tightening the perimeter

Nintendo, a longstanding and protective player in the gaming industry, offers a case study in how a company responds to digital control pressure.

1. Intellectual Property Enforcement Program. Nintendo maintains a formal IP Enforcement program, where it seeks to remove unauthorized copies, block circumvention tools and software, and pursue counterfeits.
2. Legal suits against hosting / file-sharing platforms. In 2025, a French court found that the file-sharing site 1fichier.com was liable for failure to block or remove unauthorized Nintendo game copies.
3. Anti-circumvention / DRM pressure. Nintendo has long made it difficult to run unauthorized or modified cartridges or cartridges with hacks; they pursue “circumvention devices,” homebrew exploiters, and modifications of their consoles.
4. Account enforcement, regional control, and digital “bundling.” Nintendo’s digital games are tied to user accounts and regional ecosystems, constraining resale, cross-region sharing, and transfer. They can also delist or disable games, especially older CDN or server-based features, making access contingent on Nintendo’s continued support.

In short, Nintendo defends its perimeter by combining legal actions, technical controls, and licensing architectures to limit how users can divert or resell access.

Switzerland’s “relaxed” private use paradigm

Switzerland occupies a curious place in European copyright discourse: historically, its law has allowed private copying for personal use (even when the work is illegally distributed) under certain conditions.

Under Swiss law, copying or downloading a work for one’s own private use (i.e. within a private sphere) is permitted, even if the original source was illegally uploaded, so long as the work is published, and provided no further distribution (upload) is involved. This is a stronger private-use exception than in many neighboring jurisdictions. In effect, personal consumption of illicitly-sourced content is tolerated under the law (again, so long as one doesn’t act as a distributor).

However: downloading software and games remains more contentious, because games often embed executable code (i.e. they straddle copyright and software law). Under Swiss law, unauthorized downloading or copying of computer programs is generally prohibited even for private use. The new Swiss copyright reforms of 2019 reinforced this distinction: the law continues not to criminalize private, noncommercial downloading of films or music, but explicitly did not legalize downloads of software or games.

This mixed regime creates a kind of legal gray zone. For music, movies, e-books, copying for private consumption is tolerated; for games, less so. The rationale is partly practical (hard to police) and partly normative (software is traditionally given stricter protection). But the broader principle remains: in Switzerland, an end user is not necessarily breaking the law by consuming a downloaded film or song in a private setting so long as no upload or commercial exploitation occurs.

For policy watchers, Switzerland’s stance is instructive: it acknowledges the difficulty of policing private consumption, and shifts enforcement focus from users to hosting services or distributors.

Why people pirate, beyond “stealing from creators”

One of the persistent fallacies in policing narratives is the assumption that every illegal download equals a lost sale. That is a naive and analytically suspect equation. In reality, people pirate for many reasons, some economic, some circumstantial, some political. Here are a few common categories:

1. Affordability / limited means. Not everyone can afford full retail prices. Young users, people in lower-income brackets or in developing regions, or those with tight budgets may resort to piracy simply because paying is beyond reach.
2. Unavailability / region restrictions. In many countries, certain games, movies, or ebooks are never released (or are released much later), or are artificially region-locked or geo-blocked. A consumer might pirate because the content is inaccessible in their jurisdiction even though they would be willing to pay if legally possible.
3. Platform or format incompatibility. Perhaps the legal version is locked to an OS or platform the user does not have (e.g. the game is only on console, or only on Windows). Or it requires hardware or regional constraints the user cannot satisfy.
4. Trial or “try before you buy.” Some users pirate with the intention of evaluating whether a game is worth purchasing, particularly when no free demo is available. If the game proves compelling, they may then purchase a legal copy.
5. Ease, friction, or poor user experience. Sometimes the legal access route is so cumbersome (high DRM, poor distribution platforms, forced VPNs, huge patches, mandatory always-online checks) that piracy offers a frictionless alternative. The user’s calculation is: “If the legal version gives me trouble, I’ll bypass it.”
6. Cultural or political resistance. Some users object to monopolistic platforms, heavy DRM, or restrictive license terms. Piracy, in their view, is a protest or assertion of digital freedom.

Because motivations vary, we can’t simply aggregate all piracy into a single “damage number.” It is misleading to assume each download was formerly a legal sale.

Misleading lawsuits: equating each download with a lost sale

Over the years, rights holders, especially in music and film, have pursued lawsuits or mass demand letters that treat every download as a lost sale, often seeking statutory damages far in excess of hypothetical lost revenue. Such approaches frequently rest on the assumption (or rhetorical convenience) that every unauthorized copy was once a potential paying customer. That assumption is deeply questionable.

For example, in the music industry, record labels have pursued individual users for infringement demanding high penalties, despite the fact that many infringers would not have bought the music legally anyway. These legal strategies bake in the “one download = one lost unit” fallacy.

In the video game world, similar lawsuits sometimes target servers, ROM sites, or emulators, assuming that every pirated copy displaces a sale. But many users who pirate might never have bought the game under licensing constraints, or would only purchase a subset. Some game creators, ironically, even tolerate emulation as a way to build community interest (though that’s a delicate balance).

A more meaningful approach would distinguish between substitution (someone pirated instead of buying) and complementarity or exposure (someone pirated, then later bought). Unfortunately, many lawsuits and demand models simplify the math to the detriment of nuance.

Rethinking “piracy = harm” in a nuanced digital world

Given all of the above, how should we rethink piracy in the modern digital economy? Below are several reflections and potential pathways:

1. Recognize that “lost sales” is a rough construct, not a direct ledger entry. Not every download represents a lost revenue unit; many are exploratory consumption or would not convert.
2. Focus enforcement on distribution infrastructure, not individual consumers. Switzerland’s model of tolerating private consumption while targeting hosting services is a pragmatic example of aligning enforcement with enforceable scale.
3. Lower friction, expand access, and adopt fair pricing. A powerful lever is to improve legal access: more regional releases, pricing adjusted to local means, fewer region locks, better cross-platform compatibility. When legal access is easy, many users will prefer it over piracy.
4. Rethink the licensing model. Allowing resale, transfers, or more consumer freedoms may undercut piracy’s appeal. If a user feels they truly “own” what they pay for, they are less tempted to pirat, or may see an upgrade path.
5. Distinguish between content types and lifecycle. Top blockbuster films may suffer some displacement. Niche, indie, long-tail content might derive more benefit from exposure. Blanket policies rarely fit all.
6. Better measurement and transparency. We need more open studies, not suppressed reports, so that policy debates rest on robust evidence, not faith or rhetoric.

Conclusion: toward a more balanced approach

Online piracy is not a binary moral failing, nor is it always or directly a direct tax on creators. The digital era has complicated the definitions of ownership, access, and displacement. The suppressed EU study reminds us that even large institutions sometimes confront inconvenient null results. Nintendo’s aggressive controls show how companies attempt to defend perimeter fences in this shifting terrain. And Switzerland’s relatively permissive private-use rule underscores a different pragmatic posture in balancing rights enforcement.

For creators, platforms, policymakers, and consumers, I’d argue the task is less to demonize piracy wholesale than to understand it, reform the conditions that drive it, and to craft sustainable business models and legal regimes that adapt to the realities of digital distribution.